Your Mama's Kitchen Episode 40: Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Imagine all your nurturers: Your aunts, your grandmothers in one kitchen. and all the kids is there. This is how we grew up. So everybody, like, everything feels like family with you. That's all I know. That's how we were raised. And so my grandmother would take us and rehearse us and, in that house, probably in that kitchen and teach us songs And she had us all singing, and she was like, okay, Jason, Julia, you go sit down. Now Jennifer, you come here, you keep singing.

Michele Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris. Today, we are blessed to welcome a Dreamgirl, an American Idol, and an EGOT winner to the show—we’re talking to Miss Jennifer Hudson. And by the way EGOT means she has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony over the course of her career!! You can easily recognize the unmistakable range of her mezzo-soprano, whether belting out tunes to become a finalist for American Idol or making us all do a double-take when she portrayed Aretha Franklin in the movie RESPECT. After racking up movie roles, an Academy Award, and ascending the Billboard charts, she’s taken on a more reflective role these days, hosting her own daytime program, The Jennifer Hudson Show. In today’s conversation, she allows me to reflect with her, reaching back to her early years in the windy city. Jennifer tells me about the transformative years she spent in her childhood kitchen on Chicago’s South Side. It’s a place where she was surrounded by love and generosity. You’ll hear how her siblings created a culture based on sharing instead of rivalry. That kitchen was also a place where she was surrounded by SONG. She spent her early years with her grandmother who ruled the kitchen while all the time singing and shouting gospel songs. And really, I do mean ALL THE TIME. And Jennifer’s grandmother was a soloist in the choir—she spotted and shaped little Jenny’s singing talents early on.

That kitchen was clearly a special place where a young and very shy Jennifer Hudson loved to feast on her mom’s pound cake and peanut butter cookies or climb into her grandma’s lap to watch late night TV and share a bag of ginger snaps. She had me at that one. Oh! I just LOVE ginger snaps. And I love the way Jennifer tells us that she is trying hard to create the same kind of kitchen sanctuary for her son, David. This is the kind of episode that makes you feel all warm inside. And speaking of… make sure to warm the oven up, too—because Jennifer shares her family’s special pound cake recipe. All that and more, coming up.

Michele Jennifer Hudson, thank you for being with us.

Jennifer Thank you for having me.

Michele I'm so glad that you're here. We've been chasing you for a while, so I'm glad we got you in the studio.

Jennifer I'm here. I'm here.

Michele Are you a kitchen person?

Jennifer I think we all are kitchen people, don't you think? Everything, even in my home now, mostly takes place in the kitchen. You know, I always first. But, I mean, like, guys, all these rooms around here, and we still end up in the kitchen.

Michele Isn't that funny how that happens? You can treat the rest of your house, and everybody always winds up in the kitchen. So tell me about. You're from Chicago. Southwest side, South side. Because, you know, there's the.

Jennifer Oh, I know if you from Chicago, you know that.

Michele So South side of Chicago, I'm tempted to tell you which Harold's chicken you live close to. You're from the south side of Chicago and kitchens in the South side of Chicago are interesting because they're kind of where city folk and country folk go, because so many people from Chicago came from some.

Jennifer That is.

Michele True. And they bought those traditions with. So they were living in an urban city, but they did like country cooking, country talk. You know, people didn't leave the country even though they went to the city. I don't know if that was true in your family. Tell me a little bit about the kitchens that you grew up in. And is there one kitchen in particular that stands out as like the kitchen of your youth?

Jennifer Well, any kitchen my grandmother was in, that's for sure. Even the church kitchen. Like going to school, going to church for Sunday school, stuff like that. With all of them in there from my grandmother, my mother, great aunts to my, you know, cousins, aunts and stuff like that that comes to mind.

Michele They were they all cooked in the church kitchen in the church. Yes, ma'am.

Jennifer And yes, ma'am, in the church basement. Where will you get the Sunday dinners In between services. And they'll have scarves on their heads because they took off their good church clothes to cook the food and put the aprons on and that was what we--

Michele Put their deer foam slippers on.

Jennifer Exactly, exactly. And then, I remember, you know, my grandmother being in the kitchen, on 60th and Union. And it was, it was a small kitchen, but it was Grandmama's kitchen. And she had She used to be in a singing her hymns every Sunday, every day. Forget every Sunday, every day. And we was in church every day. Let me say that. But she brought the church home to her kitchen.

Michele Paint a picture for me, what’d it look like?

Jennifer It was like, I remember like she had wooden floors and it was all the heat vents in throughout the house and the kitchen. And then there’s a round table. It had like the wooden cabinetry around the kitchen sink, I want to say, where the stove would be. But then she had another little old school stove where she toasted everything. It was separate and it was at the top. I remember having, like, butter on the bread and how toasting it I always burned my fingers because I was a klutz with everything, so I wasn't too allowed in the kitchen. And then I just remember her being in there. My mom cook, but only, like, a lot when it was time when they needed more than one cook in the kitchen, so she would help out, and grandma would be making those greens. The only thing I got to do was the chitlins. Clean the chitlins.

Michele Oh, wait. Whoa, whoa. oh. Okay. Come on now. I had this conversation. We talked to Lena Waithe, who was also from Chicago and the South side of Chicago. And we had a conversation about chitlins and, you know, and I told her, and I guess I'll tell you too, that you could snatch my soul sister license cuz I don’t think I can cut chitlins.

Jennifer Well, I did, so I got your license for you. Okay. Oh my goodness. We didn't know what we were doing. at least not now. I'm older. I'm like, oh my God, what was that? But I used to be good by the time grandma got done with ‘em. And, you know, that's when you could be her assistant cook and that would teach us. And I used to just fix the table for the most part. Wow. Grandma did the cooking in the sink in in the kitchen. It was like a service. Almost.

Michele Really? She sang that much?

Jennifer Yeah, because—

Michele She sing with the radio, or?

Jennifer No, no. Oh, my God, no. It was always church songs, you know, she lit up a hundred songs. She was a church soloist in the church choir. And that's where I say I get my voice from. And so that's what it was in a kitchen. She would be cooking and singing, singing and cooking.

Michele Was she kind of humming under her breath or was this...

Jennifer Until—

Michele Or was this full-throttle church singing?

Jennifer Until they got to her spirit and she got to shoutin’ and everybody gets it. It started out as a hmhm, but it ended up and we were like, oh, grandma got happy. And I hope she didn't burn the food. Okay. That's the kind of kitchen I grew up in, at least starting out when I was really little, because we used to live in my grandparents’ house, and we will live on the second floor. And then my grandmother and my grandfather was on the first floor. So that's the home I was born into.

Michele Did the kitchen seem like a magical space to you? Was a young Jennifer kind of peeking around the corner trying to figure out how did all that delicious stuff come out of that little teeny room?

Jennifer Definitely, it’s just the place you wanted to be? It felt like it was so warm. And of course, that's where all the nurturing came from. And I think for kids, it's like just to hear the pots and pans coming from the kitchen. It's like the soundtrack of the kitchen. And you knew something special was going to come out of it, you know, and you knew you were being taken care of, or you was going to be nurtured and fed and everything was okay, because that's like the rhythm of the home, the beat of it. When you are a kid, you know. And to this day, I love to smell food cooking, but I ain't a good cook, so I like to get candles that smell like cooking. Okay. So. And when it is, that makes me feel at home. When you smell the food cooking, when, you know, mommas in the kitchen or grandma's in the kitchen. And so that's what it was to me growing up.

Michele And you're the youngest of three kids, right?

Jennifer Yep.

Michele So is that where you worked out your sibling rivalries also.

Jennifer Oh, that's what we shared. Everything. My mama used to say, I don't know where y'all get the sharing from. Y'all share everything down to the last crumb. My brother would get in the kitchen. And he would issue out everything, to us. Julia this yours, Jennifer, you get this.

Michele Your brother Jason.

Jennifer My brother Jason. I love that you know his name. And he would he would issue out everything. And we would share down to the last crumb if it was one piece of bread left, Julia this is your portion. Jennifer, this is your portion and this is my portion. And he became the biggest cook out of all three of us. And then he started taking over the cooking and then, so yes, like that's where we would— I mean, we were always really, really close. And we did everything together. So not only did we play around the house, but yes, we sat around the table, we ate together and we shared every single piece of it together.

Michele What a beautiful soul. That he was if there was one piece of bread. It's almost like that—you know, I am thinking of Aretha because of course, she played Aretha. And a film that I love, and I'm thinking of that song. You know, if there was just one glass to drink, I would do less than you think. You know, some people are just like that.

Jennifer Yeah yeah yeah. That was Jason and even, you know, my grandmother used to make sure everyone was fed too out of her kitchen. She was a giver, like talk about a heart. And my brother had the same heart because he became the cook of the neighborhood. And he would barbecue all the time. And he made sure the whole block ate. So we learned a lot from out our mothers and grandmothers kitchen and sharing. You know, my mother and my uncle were, it was just the two of them. So they didn't have to share as much. So when she had us she’s like, I don't know where y'all get their share from. And she used to have pumpkin seeds use the little pumpkin seeds. And we went, mama, can we have some of your pumpkin seeds. And she said, and she counted out. She spell it out s o m e.

Michele Haha you got four pieces!

Jennifer And that's all we got. It's all we got. So she would see us in that very kitchen or in the back seat of the car going to church on Sunday, sharing everything she like, I don't know where y'all get that serious stuff from because it ain't for me. That's how, you know, we grew up. The three of us, like, sharing everything.

ACT 2

Michele So you grew up listening to your grandmother sing her songs while she was standing at the stove. Standing at the sink. At what point did you develop your own voice as a singer? Because from what I understand, you were a very shy kid.

Jennifer Yeah. I was. I mean, I come from a family of singers, but it was it was watching my grandmamma in the house. If it were, if she was in a kitchen, cooking, singing or in her class and looking for them clothes that I still don't know if she ever found. Like, what was grandmamma looking for? Okay. But one thing that was consistent was she was going to serve her God, and grandma was going to get to shoutin’. And it was in that very house where she called me, Jason and Julia, come on, line us up. And she would rehearse us and teach us the songs. And we spent, when I say every day of the week in church, which is why the kitchen comes to mind, too, which is very special and specific to my upbringing. Because, like I said, my grandmother laid over 100 solos in the church choir. My mother was the secretary of the church. So we would be there Saturday during the church bulletin. And then you got to be there Sunday morning for Sunday school. And we couldn't wait to get to that breakfast. Oh my God, because Aunt Vida, she was all over the food in the kitchen. And my grandma--

Michele your aunt was?

Jennifer Aunt Vida. Aunt Vida. Vida May. And nothing like her eggs and ham grits. And I used to have it like all across the table in the church and all the… imagine all your nurturers. Your aunts, your grandmothers in one kitchen and all the kids is there. This is how we grew up. So everybody, like everything feels like family with you. That's all I know. That's how we were raised. And so my grandmother would take us and rehearse us and, in that house, probably in that kitchen and teach us songs And she had us all singing, and she was like, okay, Jason, Julia, you go sit down. Now Jennifer, you come here, you keep singing.

Michele So she spotted your talent.

Jennifer Yes, ma'am. Yes, she did. And she would rehearse me and teach me songs to sing in church.

Michele Did you have that big voice when you were a little girl?

Jennifer I did, people would be like, she sound like a grown woman and how old is she? 7 or 11? You know, because I had my first solo when I was seven in church, and I was I always want to sing a song, but when it was time to, oh my God, I would, I would get too nervous. And, my first solo was Must Jesus Better Cross Alone, which my grandmother taught me at home in that kitchen. And I got up there and forgot the words and the congregation had to help me out. You know how they say, that’s all right. That's all right. It's all right, baby. Yes, yes. Take your time, take your time, and they all started singing it with me. And that helped me out. And, that was the very first time. And I was seven years old. And then I—

Michele Wait, wait, wait, before we move on: Go back to seven-year-old Jenny, when they started singing along, and the words started to come back to you... Is that a feeling that still lives inside you?

Jennifer Mhmm. It is. It is. Like, I didn't start singing with my eyes open until I was 19 because my grandmother would say, you… In our church you don't praise God with a handclap. And so we wasn't allowed to perform or as they say, juke. No type of juking, which would be dancing. So it comes from an internal place. So when I think of myself as seven, singing my solo, I'm being afraid. That's what caused me not to sing. With my eyes opened until I was 19. Because it's like I had a stage fright of it, of like, okay, I will beg for that solo at church. And then when it was time to do it… Oh, Lord, I can't do this. Which was the fearful part when I did sing, but to know that they were there, to support me and lift me up in that, You know, that gave me encouragement, but I’m still in a shell. I want to say, because, you know, you sing when in church, you sing from a different place. And for a different purpose it’s not to perform. It’s, you know, to glorify God. At which I watch my grandmother do, in the choir stand, at home… I don't think it was one day she didn't shout through the house. You know, and I see that little house gown as she would have on, honey them house shoes. And so you know whether it was breakfast, lunch, dinner, baby, she was singing themselves. Yeah.

Michele Even though your eyes were closed. For 12 years while you were singing. Were you growing, though, as a performer? Were you performing differently? Voice louder. More confident. Sending your voice to the back of the room over all the pews, so it hit that stained glass in the back wall? Were you able to feel that confidence growing in you, even with your eyes closed, even though you were still inside a shell?

Jennifer Yeah, I think it helped me, you know, tap in internally and, you know, to know they supported me and didn't give up on me on that. And I want to say the second time, opportunity, because my great grandmother, which is my father's mother, Mama Lane, I got to sing for her 90th birthday celebration and that, at that point, I was 11 and this is this was in Mississippi. And, that meant all the family was coming from the ones that was already in Mississippi and then the ones from Chicago and everywhere else. That's when we all came together. For Mama Lee and I got to sing for that. And at that point, I still had those eyes closed, and I got up to sing the song, and I remember somebody say, oh, Jenny can’t sing. and I closed my eyes and I sang the song, and by the time I opened my eyes, everyone was standing up clapping. That helped give me the confidence to and I was like, wow, wow. So it still kind of shocked me when I open my eyes. To this day, after I'm done singing like I always have, like this little jump, but it's like, oh, because of those experiences, you know? Singing growing up.

Michele You know, it's interesting hearing you tell this story because a lot of people first got to know you. Watching you sing in competition on television.

Jennifer That is true.

Michele And I remember you would sing with your eyes closed. And I'm wondering if because you get coached a lot to do something like that and you are singing in competition. The goal was to win, right. So were they coaching you at that point to do something different than what felt natural to you?

Jennifer Oh, God.

Michele To juke you know, to dance a little bit because you were told not to dance. You have to, you know, perform a song. You have to make people feel your emotions. And you're singing secular music.

Jennifer Yes. You know what's funny about that? All my family said, you know, we ain't never seen you singing secular music. And I was like. Oh my God, they're right. And then when I got to the show, they were like, perform and, I’m like perform what they mean perform? because my grandma would say, stay flatfoot and sing. That's what you do. I'm 19 years old… no, at this one on American Idol. I'm 22, actually, and I’m like… perform? What is that? That was so foreign to me because I grew up in that church every day of the week. Singing. From a spirit under my grandmother's wing, in a choir stand, or in, at home and at the kitchen.

Michele So you were singing. I mean, let me get this straight. So you weren't even doing, like, the choir sway, you know, which is sometimes even in a, in a church just allowed a little bit of that two step.

Jennifer Not at all too much. No that's, that would be juking okay. And you don't, don't you, don't, you don't praise God with no hand clap. That's what they would tell us. Oh no ma'am. yeah. And even in our home, like we weren't allowed to play, Monopoly, because it had dice or cards. Like, people be like, you want to play cards? I'm like to this the day, I don't know how to do that. that's, you just didn't do that because, you know, my grandmother. And nah, they weren't having any of that.

Michele So how did you get to the point where you were… because you did perform on American Idol.

Jennifer Mhmmm.

Michele You conveyed emotion.

Jennifer Well, one, when my grandfather was a different person. Thank you family, He's the one with all the personality. And he would. He danced, granddaddy danced. We used to be like Hannah, how did grandmama and granddaddy get together because they are so different. And also my neighbors because, when as we grew older and, we lived in my mom's house, she had tenants and they, you know, they listened to everything. And so I will get to hear the music thru them and stuff like that and be introduced to that. And then I'm a music lover as well.

Michele Did you sneak off to go listen to records of somebody else house or cassettes or, but based on your age, at that point, they were probably, you know, you listen to the radio. Listen, I said records, you're too young for records. So, excuse me, were you sneaking off to listen to music that you weren't allowed to hear at home?

Jennifer Yeah, we get to the neighbor's house, you know, the tenants that live downstairs. And they would play all type of music. You know, you get outside, you could hear different things. But that's part of what introduced me. And then in high school, I got into hearing other styles of music, being in the choir, things like that, and being around other kids and like, we can listen to the radio like other, you know, styles of music. But we didn’t sing any of that? And again, every day, every day was spent in church. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. If we had a day off, it may have been a Friday. Maybe.

Michele So did you have to negotiate your way into singing secular music? Did you have to like, drive a hard bargain with the folks at home so that they would eventually accept and even applaud what you were doing.

Jennifer That is a good question. Yes. And. Yeah. I mean, just to be able to venture out, you know, because again, everything is very sheltered. And it's just the upbringing, the way we were taught and what you do and how it goes. And it's like, well, it's like that, my mama want me to sing, you know. And the beauty is my mother was, you know, whatever makes you all happy, you know, mama supported. So she was always extremely supportive in that way. And. you know when it was time to venture out like, oh i don’t know, about this. And it's like, I think I'll be okay, you know? And then people will call for me to come and perform for different things, even in high school. And then they saw, like, how other’s took a special interest in my talent. And so they my family has always been supportive in that way. So they, you know, supported it, although it may have been something very different, but it's something we all Look back but together, you know, like the family is there.

Michele You made the family proud.

Jennifer Thank you. Yeah. So they've always been a part of it. Although it's new, you know, and different like. Oh, Jenny. But what I love most about it is it always would bring everybody together.

ACT 3 + Midroll

Michele You mentioned something I saw, in doing a little bit of research about you to prepare for this interview, that your father had a big personality. And you went with your siblings and went and found him at some point and found that you had a lot more siblings?

Jennifer Yes, a lot of us. Apparently he had 27 children.

Michele That's a lot of children.

Jennifer That's a lot of children. I've never met all of them, but that's the thing. I'm a family person, and so when I turned 16, I'm like, I want to go find, Sam is what we call him, and I want to meet all my siblings, because it was my dream to have all of us at this grand Thanksgiving or Christmas table, and we all sit and eat together. That was my goal at 16.

Michele Did you know he had 27 children or you knew you had some siblings?

Jennifer Well, that's what we were always told. We found quite a few of us. 11 girls and I think 17 boys. I think something like that. Yeah. And so obviously me, Jason and Julia that’s us three and then we met about… maybe six others. Six, seven of us. But yeah. And I'm the youngest of all of them.

Michele Of all of them?

Jennifer Yes.

Michele Wow, baby of the family.

Jennifer Of the family. And it was my father who told, when my grandmother on his side passed, my siblings over there. Like, y'all got a sister that can really sing. You should meet her. And eventually we all came together. Now Sam wasn’t no cook that I recall, but Jason was. And the men in the family did all the barbecuing that I miss. I was just fussing the other day like, I want a grill, I want a cookout. And then I get there, and they just brought the food, and I'm like, this is not a cookout. I need to smell the food cooking. And that's how important it is. The smell of the food cooking in the house gives a feeling like no other. And I'm like, if you just bring the food, I can’t smell the food cooking, the cook, the food, the smell of the cooking is a huge part of it. That's the part to me that just marinates in your soul, you know? So it sounds simple, but that's a that's a key piece right there.

Michele So if someone brings some food to your house, they better have something in a spray can. They can spray something around that smells like poundcake or fried fish or peach cobbler.

Jennifer Exactly, exactly. And speaking of that poundcake, that was my mom's tradition. Oh, when she used to make up peanut butter cookies for us. Just that smell. Oh, my God, it's like a scent can take you back to a place, right? So to smell that poundcake cooking or the peanut butter cookies. And that's about all I can do. I do like, even for like my son and all the boys. I cut the package cookies open and put it in the oven, but it's just for the smell to make it feel like home to me. Sometimes places feel hollow, where’s the sound of the kitchen or the smell coming from the kitchen that were so … And that we're so used to where we don't. It's like underrated sometimes to me. Like, that's what makes a home feel like a home.

Michele So you take it for granted when you miss it.

Jennifer Yeah.

Michele When it’s suddenly snatched from you and you really hankering for something. And you really miss the smell or the sound of oil in a skillet. The smell of something cooking in the stove. I totally get that. You know, you take it for granted, then you really yearn for it. And it's not there for you. What are you doing to give David, your son and your family now, the kind of memories that you so cherish from your own childhood?

Jennifer That's all I know is that childhood and so I love to try to make sure he has the closest thing to him. That's a broad answer. Let me see. Where do I start? One, just making sure he has his cousins circle and that base and foundation. That's part of why I had moved back to Chicago, because I wanted him to have the surroundings of his family around him growing up, and he was born in Florida. But you can't tell that baby he is not from Chicago. He gets real upset. “No. I’m from Chicago.” You know.

Michele People from Chicago are like that. You know, once you're from Chicago, you're always from Chicago.

Jennifer I guess. So, because—

Michele Lot of pride in being from Chicago.

Jennifer It really is. But like, okay, so like, now we're here in L.A. and so we make a point to like, have our Sunday dinners. That's one thing that's very important. And luckily, my best friend Walter, who I grew up with, he's a mighty cook. Honey, baby, he smack two little pies together. He got a whole ten-course meal. I'd be like, friend, how you do it that quick? Like, what's happening? You just hear two pies. Just smack it and it's done. And he get in the kitchen like, last—what was the last holiday? Was it the week the Sunday after Mother's Day? And we go to Walter’s house? And he is literally, because Walter is a whole grandmama, I promise you, he is sitting at the stove with his gumbo pot. I videoed this too, he just stirring and he play his church music and he's singing along and to break it up, like, okay, let's go to Walter’s house this Sunday. He going to cook, David's on the couch doing his homework or playing with his iPad or watching the game or something. That's how we grew up, you know, and you hear the church music in the background. That's what Grandmama did, as my grandmama did. So it doesn't leave you. It's still within you. And he loves it. Little David.

Michele You're able to find that for him even though you don't cook as much.

Jennifer Right? Right. And then I get in there like, now I done made all this food for everybody. Now she know she didn’t cook nothing. And made all this food for everybody. But little David is an amazing cook himself. And so I tell him he was just down here cooking the other day, and I was like, I love the smell of your cooking. You know, so it’s him too. But the men in our family cook a lot, too, and he gets it from my brother, and I be like, he sho didn’t get it from me. But it shows you just how close, how deep your family genes are in you. And I tell them all the time, like, oh, my God, that is so my mother what you just did or that is so your Uncle Jason, what you just did or how you did that or where you get that from, you know, to me, like I can identify those things.

Michele Love that you stayed so close to your family, even though you're on the other side of the country. That's just beautiful.

Jennifer And then he has cousins that come in and out. One of them is here right now. And so to keep that family burning and I tell them all the time I'm like, when we were kids, we did everything together. All of us, all of the all of the kids in the family. We go to the movies together. My mom used to say, if you go to anybody says it's going to be your family's and they going to come to your house. To this day, my kid does not believe in going to nobody else house, he like mmm if they wanna see me they going to my house. that's how we grew up, you know. Or if you do something, it is with your family. So he has that same upbringing or, you know, going to see the loved ones I talked to. Aunt Hattie the phone, you know, Uncle Buster want to speak to Uncle Charles right here. Uncle Charles to this day still sends out Easter baskets to all the kids. The day before Easter basket is on the way. And we have a huge family. People like the fact that y'all are this close and your family is this big. Like, all of us are still very connected.

ACT 4

Michele Now listen. On this podcast, we always leave our listeners with a recipe, and I understand that you are willing to share your family's recipe for pound cake.

Jennifer Yes, my mama's traditional pound cake is my favorite, so that is the one that is going through all the traditions that go with my mother's pound cake.

Michele Can you tell me a little bit about it? Does she use lemon? Does she put any kind of glaze on it? What's so special about this pound cake?

Jennifer Lemon. Abstract. I think it is. Definitely lemon in it. Of course, you got to have your butter because it's a pound cake, a pound. But as she used to say, put my butter out and sit.

Michele Oh, yeah, you got to let it get soft.

Jennifer You got to let it get soft. And you better not open that oven while that pound cake is in there because it's going what is it. It's gonna turn over. Not it's gonna fall.

Michele And you can't play in the house the day that they're making the cake.

Jennifer You better not go running around at house when their pound cake is in the oven. Oh my God. And now my son makes the same pound cake, so it's gone through the family. Like it's his thing to make now. Okay, now I have to ask him for the recipe because I'm not the cook. But it definitely had that pound of butter in it if I remember her. I need the vanilla extract, get the vanilla extract, and you need her eggs for it. You don't want to taste my pound cake, but Danelle’s pound cake. And she used to make it for the church. She used to make it for all the special occasions. And that's the one that touches my heart the most is my momma’s pound cake.

Michele Does she make it in a tube pan or a bundt pan?

Jennifer You know what, ma'am? I don't even know the names of the pan. It's that round one where has a little the little indentations in it and—

Michele Bundt pan. Hole in the center.

Jennifer Yes, with the thing in the center. That's it. If you don't come that way, I don't want no part of it. Okay. But, yes. The traditional pancakes shouldn't add any extra glazing of flavor. Still, it is just that traditional pancake. Now my son makes it different flavors now. So he's taken that tradition and modernized it. He makes all different types of flavors, you know, taking my mother's traditional pancake and making it his own now.

Michele So we road test all the recipes, and we let our listeners enjoy the recipes on our website. So you have to get your son David to give up the recipe, we can share it with our listeners. And if he wants, he can add tips on how to customize it so we can add different flavors to it. We can start with the basic pound cake, and then if we want to lift it up a little bit and change the flavor, maybe he can give us a give us his tips on that too.

Jennifer He would definitely love to do that. And it is like the greatest gift ever. So he makes it for me as well… But what better gift is that to have?

Michele There's no better gift than a pound cake.

Jennifer Yeah pound cake that a mother used to make. And now your son makes it for you for all your special occasions.

Michele That is good living.

Jennifer It's so beautiful.

Michele Jennifer Hudson, I have loved talking to you. I raise a little gingersnap to you.

Jennifer Oh. Thank you. And we have to send your thumb now. Thank you so much for having me.

Michele I love this conversation. All the best to you.

Jennifer You too. Be blessed.

Michele Told ya. This episode makes you feel all warm inside—just like butter that goes soft on the kitchen counter before getting whipped up into a pound cake.

It’s beautiful that throughout so many stages of life—from the shy child, to international star of stage and screen, to the working mom trying to find balance in life—the kitchen and all the lessons she learned there have played a central role in Jennifer Hudson’s life. It literally all started in the kitchen. The singing. The work ethic. The confidence to use her voice and chase her dreams.

When we started this show, 40 episodes ago, that was the theory of the case. Kitchens are not just places where we prepare our food and eat with our loved ones. It’s where we get the preparation for the rest of our lives in the things we see and hear and absorb. The debates and the arguments. The laughter and the way our families chew on the news events that surface in our conversations. All those lessons about generosity and justice. Compassion and courage. All of that lives inside us forever. And the conversations we compiled in the course of this season, those will all live inside me too.

Now … about that pound cake … it’s made with butter AND cream cheese. Whew Lord! That sounds rich and delicious. Jennifer Hudson’s family recipe for pound cake will be on my Instagram page at Michele underscore underscore Norris, that’s two underscores AND also at our website, yourmamaskitchen.com. At the website you can find all the recipes from all the previous episodes.

If you have not heard all the episodes, we hope you will take the time to scroll through and take a listen. Let us know what you think. Let us know who you’d like to hear from and we will keep that in mind.

After 40 episodes, we are closing out season one and going on a little hiatus. So thanks to all you loyal listeners. From everyone here at Your Mama’s Kitchen, we hope to see you back to serve up something special season two. Until then, stay bountiful. And make sure to stay in touch.

CREDITS

Michele: This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original. Produced by Higher Ground Studios.

Senior producer - Natalie Rinn

Producer - Sonia Htoon

and associate producer- Angel Carreras

Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Ryo Baum

Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thur de Koos.

Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and me, Michele Norris.

Executive producers for Audible are Nick D’Angelo and Ann Heppermann.

The show’s closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels.

Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media.

Talent booker - Angela Peluso

Thanks to Jennifer Hudson for setting up a recording studio in her home for this interview and thanks as always to the good folks at Clean Cuts in Washington, DC.

Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza

Head of creative development at Audible Kate Navin

And that’s it—goodbye everybody.