LA: Well, one immediate thing that I do have jotted down, which is, I mean, it seems like it worked out okay, but Mumtaz I think you sliced off part of your finger.
MM: Yes. I think it sounded a bit traumatic. I did.
LA: It sounds horrendous.
MM: I know it does. It does.
LK: That was the same trip as the dog.
LA: Oh my God.
MM: That was the same trip, by the way.
LA: Of course, it was the same trip.
MM: It was the last shoot. It was the last of the shoot, so we were like, no matter what, we just keep going. We keep going. We were grilling outside. Laura was setting up the light. It was a race against time. She knows the shot needed to happen, and so while I’m grilling, there’s raw meat and then there’s a little bit of blood dripping from my hand. Nobody, it was just at that given two minutes, it was tough. Then we went to, she took me to the doctor and the ER, and then we ended up spending a few hours there.
LK: But it was when you had, you had to wrap that finger to try to keep it dry. You were trying to put, because there was a bandage on there, and then you’re trying to deal with food, so didn’t you feel like-
MM: And I lost a sliver of piece.
LK: Like a glove?
MM: Yeah, I put a glove.
LK: You put a glove over it.
MM: It kept filling up. It kept filling up. It kept filling up.
LA: Oh my God. Wait, so you lost a sliver of the finger. Did you find the sliver or was that unidentified?
MM: It was unidentified, which is why that particular dish, we didn’t really serve to anybody.
LA: Good to know. Oh, no.
MM: But it was a sliver that grew back. It was one of those-
LK: We did still photograph it though, right?
LA: Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure. It looked great. Just had a bit of finger in it.
MM: We did. It just, oh, God.
LA: Well, it sounds like, I mean, literally blood, sweat, and tears went into this book.
LK: I’d say by the end of that one, we were both so burned out and we definitely were struggling at that point.
LA: After the break, Laura and Mumtaz are interested in introducing people to foods from other cultures rather than appropriating them.
MM: We first said, okay, let’s narrow it down, try and represent a little something from each part of the world. Of course, it’s not easy to do that. Then come up with how many savory, how many sweet recipes. Then come up with what recipes? It begins with the Pan-Asian table. There’s a khow suey table, there’s a Pakistani street food table, Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Chai from a French English high tea because that’s a big part of my world. Spanish tapas, Portuguese, Moroccan, Ethiopian, Mexican Tropical, South American, New York City brunch, because that was one of our favorite things to do when we were in the same city.
