8/15/2019
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Tue, 4/16 · 4:11 PM
36:58
KEYWORDS
people
jewish
soup
born
thought
judah
lived
esther
Rebecca Hartwig
years
place
tunisia
sleeping
gave
day
moved
job
called
america
orphanage
quaker
... Show more
8/15/2019
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Tue, 4/16 · 4:11 PM
36:58
KEYWORDS
people
jewish
soup
born
thought
judah
lived
esther
Rebecca Hartwig
years
place
tunisia
sleeping
gave
day
moved
job
called
america
orphanage
quaker
0:00
Thank you for joining us here for this oral history project. My name is Rebecca
Hartwig, I'm a lecturer in the nursing department at Augsburg University. And I
just need to confirm that you consent to be interviewed, and to have the
recorded interview stored at Augsburg, which will be made available to the
public. Could you please introduce yourself for the recording, your name and
title?
CJ
Chef Judah
0:22
Sure, my name is Chef Judah. short and simple. My real name is Jean-Claude
Patrice Nataf, but my professional name is Chef Judah.
Rebecca Hartwig
0:30
Thank you. So just to begin, can you tell us a little bit about where you grew
up?
CJ
Chef Judah
0:35
Okay, I was born in a small country in North Africa called Tunisia. I was born
in the city of Tunis. I come from a mixed heritage of Sephardi Jewish and
Arab. I believe my Sephardi Jewish family lived in Africa since probably
around the seven hundreds. But then most notably, they were asked to leave
around 1492. And they ended up in Morocco. And after a few centuries, made
their way to Tunisia. And so that's where I come up on the scene.
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Rebecca Hartwig
1:10
Okay, thank you. So what was your life, like when you were growing up?
CJ
Chef Judah
1:16
Sure, um, my life was challenging. I was... I just tell people simply I was a
barefoot child beggar, kind of to encapsulate and give you the idea. And I just
sometimes, I just ask people to remember maybe movies or documentaries,
the I'm at a scene where tourists are in countries, poor countries, and the
children are all mobbing, mobbing them for money and all that. And that's
kind of like, that was kind of my life. And I had my own little group of our
gang, if you will. And that's what we did. We, we were hungry. And so we
would, we would bother the British tourists, especially because they were
really rich. And we would beg for money, of course, and, and sometimes,
unfortunately, we stole from them. I'm not proud of that. But that's what we
did, you know. So my life was kind of like that my family for reasons I didn't
know then just wasn't very active and taking care of me. I only figured out
later in life, all the dynamics and reasons why that was.
CJ
Chef Judah
2:21
So the first eight years of my life was spent in and Tunisia. Again, kind of a
challenge in existence, and just a lot of stuff happening. I spent some time in a
Catholic orphanage in the north of the country. It was run by the Sisters of St.
Vincent de Paul. And again, my family was so dysfunctional that I didn't
realize it was an orphanage until I was an adult. I thought it was a boarding
school. But I ran away from this orphanage quite a lot because there was stuff
going on and there wasn't pleasant. So until one fateful day in 1967, when I
actually ran to the orphanage, and I didn't come out until it was adopted and
left the country in 1968.
Rebecca Hartwig
3:04
Tell us about that day.
CJ
Chef Judah
3:07
June 5, 1967.
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Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Chef Judah
3:27
Unbeknownst to me, a war had started in the Middle East. I didn't have any
ideas about it. And I didn't even have any ideas of what I was. I was so I won't
say stupid, but I was ignorant. I didn't know Jewish I didn't know Muslim or
Arab at all, but on that day, when I went to work in the streets and meet my
little gang, it was just a different situation and angry mob, for some reason
that I didn't realize then started to chase me and stone me and stuff, which I
bear all the scars on my face. But it was a scary time for me. I was little I was
just had turned seven. And so then, at that point, I made my way to the
orphanage. And like I said, I stayed there. I did not leave the gates of the
other walls of the orphanage until 1968, I believe it was August. Tunisia was
the only country in Africa to be occupied by the Nazis. And some of the Nazis
came down and occupied Tunisia. My family did different things but my one
anut was in the French Resistance. So she did all this stuff. So when the US
Army and British armies liberated Tunisia, she kind of attached herself to the
US Army as an interpreter, because she was multilingual. And that's where she
kind of glommed onto a GI. And that was her ticket to America,. You have to
understand that that time frame in that place, a lot of people wanted to get
out of this, go somewhere else anywhere, but and of course, America was the
great beacon. So she came to Toledo, Ohio, and 46 times, and then a few
husbands later, she ends up with her new husband, a Danish man born in a
small island in the Baltic. And they were on their honeymoon, and they were
going to go to Paris, but it was the Paris guard? strike that year. Their plane
was diverted, and they ended up in Tunisia. And they came to see me at the
orphanage because they had heard about me, and then they wanted to
adopt me. So that's the.. I remember the day that Mother Superior came to
me with these presents. And it was two presents that I'll always remember
keeping in mind that didn't have anything. It was a Mickey Mouse watch, and
a pair of Fruit of the Loom underwear. As a kid, I saw those things and like, I'm
like, I want more of this. And so I was very eager to leave that place to leave.
So Mother Superior told them that I would be a blessing to them. So my aunt
being very superstitious because Tunisia is a very superstitious place in my I
know my family, which was a mishmash, my grandfather was Sephardic
Jewish, my grandmother was Italian Catholic, there were 25 years apart. They
fell in love and lived in a in an environment that was hostile to both of them. It
was a Muslim environment that didn't like either group, but they loved each
other and seven children, but superstition all mixed in Italian, Catholic, Islamic
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Jewish, all kinds of the Evil Eye was everywhere. You had to do all these signs
to ward it off and wear amulets. So my aunt was superstitious and so not
superstitious, but when Mother Superior said "he'll be a blessing to you", like
oh, yeah, let's, let's get this. Let's take this guy out of here. And so just notably,
I had my first pair of shoes for the airplane. Right. So yeah.
Rebecca Hartwig
6:24
And that's how you came to the US then, whey you were about eight?
CJ
00:00
1x
Chef Judah
6:26
36:58
Eight years old, yes. So it was kind of going from one universe to another. I
5
5
remember, well, first of all the plane trip, everything. In those days, you could
go in the cockpit and the captain would give you this little wings and it was
very exciting. But I always remember I write stories about Americanization, or
at least me when I stepped off the plane and was in the airport. And when
those big glass doors opened. And I saw America, I saw 1000 cars there. And
my adoptive father Ben Larson worked for Ford Motor Company. So he had
this huge straddle cruiser I don't know what make I think was Continental this
huge car. And so for me, a little brown skinned guy who just came from
beggin' in this vehicle and my face is pressed to the window of the car - we
were going through the rolling hills of of the suburbs of Detroit, we're going to
Bloomfield Hills, which was a very well off suburb to a condominium called
Fox Hills. I remember seeing this undulating hills of green and I didn't know
really what that was. I come from a place where every little scrap of land that
you could grow food on or was used for that. So I asked my aunt I didn't know
English them. So , qu'est-ce que c'est ca?, you know, and she goes, Oh, that's
grass. She explains it to me. And when she tells me that it wasn't food, that it
wasn't flowers, for the perfume industry. It wasn't anything. It was just there
for looks. I thought that this is like the promised land. This is what I heard of
heard little things as a child you hear about America and how it's awesome.
And that was like, Oh, yeah, this is this is it. So and then I show up to my new
home condominium and I had my own bedroom and there was a TV in every
room. And so that was a very, it was an initial very shocking for me. And I
slept with my shoes for a whole month because I was afraid somebody was
going to steal them. And then they convinced me nobody was going to steal
your shoes. It's okay. And so that was my introduction to America.
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Rebecca Hartwig
8:35
So you finished high school...in...
CJ
Chef Judah
8:39
Oh, well, I, I was eight years old. And really up to that time, I had had no
formal schooling. There was something at the orphanage - we learned we
learned French, Arabic, Script. But when I came to America, I was sorely
behind the American system of education. I'm not sure what grade I would
have been put in, but I was behind I had to learn English first. And so I had
learned English really quickly.
CJ
Chef Judah
9:04
But in learning my English so quickly, I had actually pushed aside my French
language. It was still here, but I wanted to be American so much that and my
parents did not encourage and the bilingualism really for me.
CJ
Chef Judah
9:20
So a year and a half later, though, I just learned English then we moved to
Japan.
CJ
Chef Judah
9:26
And so then there was another kind of another cultural shock. For me exciting
as a kid and being an executive brat. In the moment, it was exciting, but it's
only in retrospect that I realized that what I really, really, really, really wanted
was just to stay put in one place and and just you know, and in the time that I
was with my adoptive parents this eight years I was with them, we moved six
times. Six schools, six places six. So I was always the new kid. Always. And
that wasn't really what I...
Rebecca Hartwig
10:00
In Japan for...
CJ
Chef Judah
10:02
We were there for three years. And even in Japan, we moved twice.
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CJ
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Chef Judah
10:08
And it wasn't until 1976 when they wanted to go to Japan again and I I did not
want to go again. I just so just the way things happened. My mom had
learned about this some my adoptive mom had learned about a Quaker
school, boarding school in the Appalachians and that's where I went
Rebecca Hartwig
10:29
to finish high school...
CJ
Chef Judah
10:30
yes, my junior senior year, which was really wonderful.
CJ
Chef Judah
10:36
I love the Quakers.
Rebecca Hartwig
10:39
And then and then how did you end up here in Minneapolis?
CJ
Chef Judah
10:42
Sure, I finished, '78 I graduated and then I and then I was lucky as an
executive brat. My present was a trip around the world literally I went to Asia
and European and came back to America and a new car. Which I returned
because I was in this phase of rebelliousness and I didn't want this. This you
know, of course now I'm thinking gosh I was stupid. It was a nice sky- blue
Mustang retro, oh my god. But um, I was just in rebellion stage and I said I'll
take your filthy car back. So I went to Earlham College for one year in
Richmond, Indiana. It was Quaker based, so there was connections and, and
my year at Earlham, my one and only year at Earlham was the best funnest
year of my life, but wasn't a good student at all. And I figured out I just wasn't
wired for academics. At that point. I was just too antsy and I just wanted to go
to California because that was what we were doing then. You went to
California, whatever your questions were they would be answered in
California. So I packed up all my stuff and started hitchhiking from Richmond,
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Indiana, to make my way to California. On that route. I ended up in Madison,
Wisconsin, where a good friend of mine from Quaker school. Abe Rybeck said
you know what? You should stop the Minneapolis, St. Paul, it's really cool. And
so that was 1979 and I never made it to California.
Rebecca Hartwig
12:07
Oh, wow. You've been here ever since...
CJ
Chef Judah
12:09
With trips. I've lived in the panhandle, Florida. I've lived in Arizona and I went
to Hiroshima University. But Minneapolis, St. Paul became my nest my my
central place to go back to always.
Rebecca Hartwig
12:24
So what did you do in Minneapolis?
CJ
Chef Judah
12:26
Boy, when I first rolled into town, I remember my first night I spend at
McAllister College. I had one friend there and they were having a housing
shortage, so there was kids sleeping in the hallway. So I blended in. And then
the next day, there was a board that had housing and jobs. And I was able to
find the room for rent and I was able to find a job in the cafeteria of
McAllister. And so I did that for a while. And this job entailed me go into two
different addresses every day to help elderly people and stuff like that and
taking the bus system. And one day, I took the wrong bus or the right bus,
whatever you might call it, but I ended up on the West Bank of Minneapolis.
See, all my jobs were in St. Paul. So when I got off that bus in the West Bank
of Minneapolis in 1979, I looked around and I thought this is really where I
need to be. Just to quote Bob Dylan, "There was music in the cafes at night
and revolution in the air." It was still palatable than. It's been transformed
since then. It was just a real cool place and....
CJ
Chef Judah
13:29
so I was a gypsy I moved around a lot. I'm not sure if it was the influence of
my childhood where we moved so much but I found it hard to be sedentary.
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And so it's just various jobs, you know, here and there and I took a few courses
here school trying to get more academics but um, I wasn't a very good
student at all, you know,
Rebecca Hartwig
13:51
a lot of ways of learning.
CJ
Chef Judah
13:53
Right. I guess I learned a lot. Other ways. Certainly. I just wasn't that good
academic. I wasn't wired for it.
Rebecca Hartwig
14:00
So here we are at Soup For You already, and I'm not quite sure when that... I
don't really know the history of Soup For You.
CJ
Chef Judah
14:07
Oh, sure. Well, a lot of things happened in my life. I moved around a lot Japan
a few times Pensacola, Florida Panhandle. I love my America experience is
really great, because it's such a huge country. And I feel blessed that I was
able to, you know, get the feel of different parts of it the Midwest, the South,
scary, the Southwest. So odd jobs, of course, I had a little apartment in
Stephen Square and I had a job where I had to get on the bus and the bus
would go over the Franklin bridge to take me to MiniMatic ?and it was an
okay job. But I got a paycheck every week. And I was able to have a place
and food on the table. And I would be on this bus going this way in that way
back and forth. And each time we went over the bridge, I would look down
and back then at least I would see things down there like tents and things and
people and I wondered naively, I thought those were people just camping or
fishing for fun. I never thought once that I might be one of those people down
there. So one day when I went to work and got my paycheck, I was told
because I was like the new, the new people got laid off. And so, paycheck
away...
CJ
Chef Judah
15:20
I lost my place eventually, because obviously I couldn't.. I didn't have any
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money. I didn't have a support structure. I didn't have family, my family was
thousands of miles away. I had no really friends that were able to help me.
And so I - I spent quite a few weeks just sleeping on the buses, like the 21A. But
then I would start to go to the free eating places. And that's where I hooked
up with people that said, Well, you know, you could live, you know, and so I
ran into two people. One was a Vietnam vet. And one I don't know what he
did, he was a railroad guy. But we had a structure, they had a structure
became part of this little three man group of living under the bridge.
Rebecca Hartwig
16:04
What years were there was under the bridge years?
CJ
Chef Judah
16:07
it was the late 80s. Sometimes it's a fog. But that land belonged to the
railroad. But if you as a person, as a homeless person wanted to live down
there, you actually had to pay some rent to this group called the Freight Train
Riders of America. FTRA, a notorious group that rides the rails, just a lot of
psychos and Vietnam vets with a lot of problems. But you have to pay them
something, you could pay them in different ways. And so I liked it. And for
that, they gave you a lot. They provided security. And they provided justice.
And I give the example of one time we were able to go to Mary Jo
Copeland's, and were able to get these nice galoshes for all three of us, and
that was important, you know your feet, the slush, and all the crap. And so we
had them in our encampment, and we weren't using them then. But one day,
we came back and they were gone. And so long story short, the FTRA or the
"goon squad", they found out who stole our our galoshes,
Rebecca Hartwig
17:14
wow....
CJ
Chef Judah
17:16
and they chopped their thumb off...
CJ
Chef Judah
17:20
so that was an introduction to this is kind of this is real here. This is for real.
This is a real subculture And it's very serious And there's a structure and
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This is a real subculture. And it s very serious. And there s a structure and
there's rules and stuff and you don't break the rules. If you do you end up
without a thumb. And so that was kind of an awakening for me that this was
you know, serious stuff. Just saying, because not having shoes can cost you
your toes your feet, so you don't steal those things from anybody and
anyway...
CJ
Chef Judah
17:53
Homelessness - finally I was able to make it out. I got a voucher to live at a
place called the Tourist Hotel on 9th and Hennepin. Long time ago. Now I
think it's called a New Amsterdam something. It's above this bar, this disco
bar. I lived there a couple years ended up coming to the West Bank - I lived
on the West Bank eight years. In those eight years, I would walk from my
apartment to the co-op the old North Country Co-Op. And I would always
walk by this place called St. Martin's Table until one day I went to the club
and there used to be a big kiosk, with all these things on it and it said
"dishwasher wanted". I had things going on then. But I ok, I could use more
money. So I went in to apply for the dishwasher job. So I'm happily doing the
dishes. And then one day during a rush, one of the women of the cooks threw
me a recipe card and said, "Judah, could you please help?" So I looked, okay,
the cheese spread. I did it and I thought oh, you know, like, you know, this is
okay. And so then I slowly segued into making soups.
CJ
Chef Judah
18:56
And St. Martin's Table is important because that's where I met my future wife
to be for 10 years. And of course, my I wouldn't have had my child Esther, had
that not happened. But then of course, there's a side story because I know if
you know my wife, my ex wife, Karen had a traumatic brain injury. This was 18
- 19 years ago and I married her after her accident and I had to identify her at
the hospital, it's kind of, but that's when I became Esther's papa. And that was
one of the biggest joys of my life.
CJ
Chef Judah
19:27
So 15 years later, St. Martin's Table closes. And so um, and so I thought, what
should I do? Well, while I was at St. Martin's Table I had started a little thing
called Soup for You. And it was a small catering thing, just a one man
operation for doing soup suppers for churches and nonprofits usually So I had
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operation for doing soup suppers for churches and nonprofits usually. So I had
that going on. So when St. Martin's closed, I wondered what was I going to do
with myself, I didn't want to sit by the phone, waiting for people to call me.
And then one day I was just walking in my neighborhood and there was a
CSA truck dropping off stuff. And I thought to myself,
CJ
Chef Judah
20:01
Hmm.... soup CSA, soup CSA. I wonder if that could work. You know, people
pay me money up front, they get 30 soups for 30 weeks. That was my slogan.
And then I thought okay, so I started the groundwork for that all summer. And
then I needed the space. And just by happenstance, Mary Laurel True was
friends with Pastor Justin. So that was six years ago. And Pastor Justin said,
Yeah, sure. So allowing me to use the the kitchen for my thing. So but I knew
something was up because when they gave me the contract to sign, I noticed
that they gave me a 96% discount on the rent.
Rebecca Hartwig
20:42
of the kitchen...
CJ
Chef Judah
20:43
right. And I thought, wow, you know, some What's going on here? Because
this was two years before Soup for You Cafe, I had no really, that wasn't in the
plans yet. I was just going to try to make an honest living. And actually, that
coincided with my marriage breaking up. So it was really important that I had
something going on. So pastor Justin, and even with Pastor Justin I started
the conversation about you know, can we have a free meal in the space, you
know, like once a mont?. And so he agreed, and then he talked to the
congregation they agreed, but then he left to go to Augsburg.
CJ
Chef Judah
21:21
Then we had an interim pastor, and there's been five pastors. So cut to the
chase, Pastor Mike Madsen was the one.
CJ
Chef Judah
21:30
When I told him my idea, he was very gung ho and understand he was young
and very eager And so he talked to the congregation they said okay and of
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and very eager. And so he talked to the congregation they said, okay, and of
course it mophed from one meal a month to every day of the week.
CJ
Chef Judah
21:44
Yeah, five days a week. Yes. And now they started, where in the last two
months we had one Sunday that to join the the five days a week, Soup For
You community with the Bethany Sunday community, which sometimes never
met. So we start in a Sunday meal once in a while to get those two groups
together to say hi.
Rebecca Hartwig
22:04
So it started out as a for profit for you.
CJ
Chef Judah
22:08
Well, my little sole proprietorship. Yeah, for the first two years. It was about 70
people would come on a Friday or Saturday the pickup one quart jar or two
quart jars of soups. So yeah, but now since the cafe part, my little thing is kind
of come to the backburner pun intended. It's not altruistic. It makes me feel
good. I get a lot out of it, I really do.
Rebecca Hartwig
22:34
So you have to come in every day, pretty early to get soup started?
CJ
Chef Judah
22:37
Well, I get up between 530 and 630 every day. I try to make it out the door by
seven ish. But really my whole time, at St. Martin's Table was really training
for... I was younger then... I would come into St. Martin's at 6:30 a.m. I would
bake 12 loaves of bread, I would do a couple of desserts, I would do the soups
I would do spreads, salad dressings. I was able to do a lot. So I'm able to do a
lot and just I'd say three hours.
Rebecca Hartwig
23:04
Do you know what foods you're going to have to use?
CJ
Chef Judah
23:06
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Interesting question. It's a lot of times it's like splendid table, because we're
allowed to cull from the co-op my cull team, John and Sarah. I don't know
what they're bringing, or in the morning, when I come in, I really don't know
what's going to be there. So the first thing I look and see, what do we have.
But then you know, we have Chili Friday. So it's always going to be on you
know, chili on Friday, Get Curried Away Thursday, curry soup.
CJ
Chef Judah
23:33
So those days, but just the challenge to just make something out of what you
have. And that's really kind of purposeful in that it's a reflection of most of the
world. They get up in the morning, they might not have a lot of choices about
what they're going to eat or Yeah, once you've experienced hunger, you you
never forget it at all. And that's the fear and back of your mind all the time.
And sometimes I find myself hoarding things, it's like, "chill, Judah, chill" it's,
"you're going to have" ..."it's, okay". But it's just that mindset that you you
never lose.
CJ
Chef Judah
24:06
And then on top of that I have I really care about people eating. You know,
one question I ask people when they're leaving, like, oh, did you get enough?
I'm like, one quarter Jewish grandmother.
Rebecca Hartwig
24:20
Right... Oh, well, the reason I as a nursing instructor enjoy bringing my
community health students here is because I like them to see what's
happening in the community as far as health, and how Soup For You brings
health to people who come in off the streets. Not all homeless... But tell me
just a bit about the people who do come in to Soup For You..
CJ
Chef Judah
24:43
Right. Well, that's I called and I used to use that word a lot radical soup
kitchen, because we invite everyone, whether you own a bank, or whether you
come in with a plastic bag with all your belongings in it. But as you know, also
walking through the doors, a lot of men health issues, a lot of substance
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abuse issues. And a lot of other ghosts that we don't know.
CJ
Chef Judah
25:07
Have people shot up in our bathrooms? Yes. Have people shot up next to the
church? Yes. Have people drank? Have people lost their minds here. Yeah.So
to be a volunteer at Soup For You. It's not like being at Denny's. I need my
volunteers to be discernful, to try to understand that we do get many broken
people walking in, and we're broken ourselves, but, you know...
CJ
Chef Judah
25:51
I can give you two examples that come to mind. And one is last year this
woman came in and she started to be a regular but would give her her soup.
And she would pour her bowl of soup into her plate and eat it that way. So we
don't judge we just noticed it's different than so after a few months, I decided
you know what? So I looked around, and I found an oval bowl. And so when
she came in one day, I serve her with the bowl of soup in that oval bowl, and I
brought it to her and I remember she cried. And she wasn't crying because
she was sad, but she was crying cuz it's like, wow, you noticed what I was
doing and you didn't judge one way or another. You just gave me a way to do
it better. So I'll always remember that. And she will tell people that story a lot
about how that happened that one day.
CJ
Chef Judah
26:34
Oh, there are so many stories more recently, a few months back. We're
working in the hubbub. And then I noticed one gentleman, a youngster blond
hair, blue eyes, just standing there. just staring straight. And so I go to this
gentleman I started you know how you doing welcome and, and he couldn't
speak very well at all. He was struggling. So we just guided him to a chair, sat
him down. And then we just brought him food. But it he's someone that was
just break your heart because he had motor skills problems. He couldn't speak
very well. And he would come in on top of his all his issues he would come in
with garbage he had picked up in the street. And last week, he came in with a
dead baby bird in his hand. So there's a lot of dynamics going on. And then I
remember one day, he was going to leave and he was just standing there.
And I said, Do you want to hug? And he indicated Yeah. So I gave him a hug.
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And so I started to do that. But I noticed when I hugged him, I felt really
drained. So I don't do it so much now. But that's just an example.
CJ
Chef Judah
27:50
This isn't like a place that you're going to find anywhere else. There's so much
going on here. And we try to you know, if somebody comes in with sandals in
December that we rush around trying to find shoes for them, things like that,
you know, it's not just about a lot, it takes a lot. for that moment, when you
get your plate and your bowl of soup. It takes a lot to get to that point. But it's
not just about that. It's very all encompassing, holistic, very holistic. And we
get to know people's ways and idiosyncrasies and quirkinesses and we and
there are a lot of needy people out there, I'm needy myself, but we recognize
this a lot of needy people. And to some it might seem like it's annoying, but
you just have to understand that's really they just want attention and love and
just acknowledgement or authentication, that you're a human being, you
know, that's why I have my peoples cooler. It's kind of like a little food shelf.
But we don't ask people to fill out forms. Shelf ID I've always wondered about
that. Why do we even have to prove to a food shelf that "what you're a
human being and you're hungry?" Why? Why do we need to dehumanize
people further? You know...
Rebecca Hartwig
29:03
Would you say that? A lot of your guests are our regulars that come? And feel
this is kind of a home?
CJ
Chef Judah
29:09
Oh, most definitely. (During) the polar vortex? People came, our numbers
stayed up high.
CJ
Chef Judah
29:16
Also just this morning as an example, we opened the door and in 15 minutes,
we had 20 people. So people do look forward. And that means a lot to me,
because we are literally the farthest outpost of a free meal. So the fact that
people do come in... I get a lot of joy out of, of course, people eating good
healthy food, but I get a joy out of hearing the snippets of 12 conversations. I
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want people to converse. You know, at St. Martin's Table, it was books, food
conversation. Here it's food and conversation. But just the idea that people
are interacting in that way and making friendships that they wouldn't have
made - relationships. That means a lot to me.
Rebecca Hartwig
29:57
I've never been here without having a good conversation with somebody, and
leaving feeling like I've really gained something, myself.
CJ
Chef Judah
30:05
Well, as I say, you know, the old show was there's 1000 stories in the Naked
City. We've got a lot of them down there. And just over the four years, there's
been so many stories and a lot of, you know, just like joys, you know... We're
trying to get into a house, or a place. You know, but then also we have lost
like..., he started to come like maybe three and a half years ago, he would
come. And he always sat by himself at first because he was sober. And that's
the price you pay for being sober, you have to stay away from people. So he
came and got to know each other joke and very polite. Then he didn't come
for a while then he showed back up but he was with a group of people, and
he wasn't sober. But fine. We feed people as long as you're not disruptive or
hurting anybody. Then there came a time though, I had to ask him to leave.
And as I usually do, I never banish people forever. I will say one month, two
months. I gave him a little slip of paper, and had a date on it, which was two
months from now. And I said, you know, "I love you, come back for two
months". Because I live three blocks away and I have a huge window and just
been in my neighborhoods, I would see him sleeping on bus benches or, or
drunk or one day I saw him with two black eyes. You know, it killed me inside.
But it's it was unavoidable. So it was the Sunday before the Monday that he
was he could come back and he was by the highway with the sign. And he
saw me and he goes, you know, "Chef Judah tomorrow, right? tomorrow!". Of
course. I was like, wow, you know, I said "yes, tomorrow", you know. So then
that Monday morning, I come into work early, it was a rainy stormy morning.
And I always look at the sides of the building first to see if anybody's... you
know. But then I noticed on the one of the awnings there where people do
sleep, there was (name edited out).
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Chef Judah
31:51
And so, to me, not only did he keep that little slip of paper, but, he wanted so
much to come back here that he was hugging our building in the midst of a
rainstorm. We spent that night there. So you know, I mean, that struck me
inside. it's ... how can it not affect you? So he came back. And.... he knew we
would welcome him back. He came and he always had a good friend named
Dan. And they were like this. They were combat Marines in the Vietnam War.
And they've been together since. They came together. And then one day a
rumor started that somebody had OD'd. And it was somebody from Soup For
You. Didn't know, for a week or so. And then finally, one day Dan did come.
And Dan said, You know, I woke up one morning and I thought that he had
gone off whatever. It wasn't until a couple days later that Dan gets wakened
up by sirens and ambulances and... he was just in the bushes a few feet away.
CJ
Chef Judah
32:56
So he was born on the Rosebud Reservation, he was adopted. And he had a
hard life but...
CJ
Chef Judah
33:05
so we lose some. And the danger really of all this is getting to know people. I
don't mean that as a bad thing, but once you get to know people, you invest
your heart in them. And you worry about them and look for them. Is he still
alive?
CJ
Chef Judah
33:22
So he hit all of us hard, you know...
CJ
Chef Judah
33:28
So that's just one little story... of what happens.
Rebecca Hartwig
33:32
Hmm... thank you for sharing that.
CJ
Chef Judah
33:33
But then there's a lot of moments where it's like "Judah you can help
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But then there s a lot of moments where it s like Judah, you can help
everybody".
Rebecca Hartwig
33:40
So what would you think, would you like to see with the future, because this
has come a long ways and four years?
CJ
Chef Judah
33:47
Yes, yeah. Yeah, the first year we did 10,000 bowls, and now we're at 71,000
bowls. So we've exponent... not exponentially, but we're growth, growth
growth.
CJ
Chef Judah
33:58
I just want it to continue, I want to expand our services in a way. In some
ways, I mean, food is still the main... food and providing a safe space. You
know, we have that guest book. And I think I might have shown you I mean,
there's all kinds of love in that guestbook but, the one little statement that
really struck me was, it just said, "I feel safe here". Savannah, I remember this
very frail gal who has moved on. But I thought that's really that's what we
want.
CJ
Chef Judah
34:30
I use the term 'all the rainbow' and that's purposely 'all the rainbow' should
be. We not just welcome but we invite people to come in and you know, not
just that we wait for you to come in. And welcome you will do that, but just
wanted to be a safe place. And it's kind of an experiment. can it happen? Can
it really? Can you have all these different people cohabitate in the space for
just even two and a half hours, but so far, it seems to be working okay.
CJ
Chef Judah
34:58
Yeah, there was a shame, though, for all those years that that room just
stayed quiet and dark and cold, not used. And that was really what was
getting to me was, because I walk around my neighborhood, I see, just in my
neighborhood, just people could benefit. Yeah, the need is there. And not just
that I recognize people from the old days, "wow, you're still alive?". But, you
k
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know... The people down there that have problems and issues... they don't
want to be like that. You know, they don't. And so there's always that
sympathy or empathy or compassion. That you know, they don't want to be
like that. Of course not. But you feel so much that...
Rebecca Hartwig
35:43
I noticed nothing but respect, compassion... it's top shelf-shelf soup, I'll tell
you that!
CJ
Chef Judah
35:51
Well, keep coming, you'll find some losers, 'cuz last week, I didn't have hardly
anything to work with. You know, one of the biggest compliments my
daughter ever gave me was you know, she goes, "Papa! You're able to make
something out of nothing".
CJ
Chef Judah
36:06
I thought Yeah, that's a good thing, Esther.
Rebecca Hartwig
36:11
Well, thank you so much for your time and...
CJ
Chef Judah
36:22
This is my daughter, Esther (shows me her picture on his phone).
Rebecca Hartwig
36:22
Oh, oh, she's beautiful!. Oh, my goodness! How old is she now?
CJ
Chef Judah
36:22
Oh, 21, plus, yeah. She's Chinese, of course. My wife, my ex-wife adapted her
before we were married, but I adopted Esther legally.
Rebecca Hartwig
36:30
She's beautiful.
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CJ
Interview with Chef Judah - edited.mp3
Chef Judah
36:30
Yeah, she's my... it's kind of an irony of all things. You know, she's born and...
we we're born 10,000 miles apart - I was born in North Africa - she's in
China. And then we, our worlds intersect here. And how unlikely is that? Yeah,
but she gives me something that I never had. And that's unconditional love.
That's what we all want.
Rebecca Hartwig
36:53
Beautiful... Thank you, Chef Judah.
CJ
Chef Judah
36:53
Yeah, you're welcome.
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