Paragini Amin grew up in Jersey City in a Gujarati household where dinner, cooked daily by her mother, was always Indian food, and everything else was negotiable. Today, her husband does all the cooking, and he's exceptional at it: French technique one night, Caribbean-Southeast Asian the next, with an instinct for sniffing out the best restaurant on any highway.
In this episode, Paragini takes us through the experiences that shaped her, including the early racism she experienced in school, and the radically intentional desegregation high school where she learned what happens when kids from different backgrounds are just given room to be. She tells us what a psychic once said about getting into the kitchen, and why she still hasn't done it. We get into Things & Things, the conversation game she designed — cards paired with physical objects — that helped her quiet, heady eight-year-old finally open up at the dinner table. And we talk perimenopause and HRT, because we're all in our forties and we have things to say. Paragini is co-founder and creative director of Design for Progress, a brand strategy firm serving social justice nonprofits focused on criminal justice reform and mass incarceration.
In this episode:
Growing up Gujarati in Jersey City, and her parents' approach to two cultures at the dinner table
The racism Paragini faced as a young Indian-American girl, and how she made sense of it
The quietly radical desegregation high school in Jersey City that just worked
The husband who does all the cooking, and his nose for the best restaurant on any highway
What a psychic once told Paragini about getting into the kitchen, and why she still hasn't done it
Things & Things: a conversation game with cards and objects that opened up her quiet eight-year-old at the dinner table
Perimenopause, HRT, and the conversations we should all be having in our 40s
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