The Kitchen Sisters Present

Producer Zoe Kurland's father, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, talks about designing the iconic push up bra for actress Julia Roberts for the film Erin Brockovich. Zoe follows the story interviewing the real Erin Brockovich and examining her own relationship to body image, confidence and identity. This story was written and produced by Zoe Kurland for Signal Hill, and edited by Liza Yeager and Jackson Roach. Sound design and additional production by Liza Yeager. Additional editorial support from Omar Etman, Annie Rosenthal, and the Issue Two cohort. Signal Hill is an independent, listener-funded, nonprofit publication.Zoe is a writer and audio documentarian based in Texas. She has produced three award-winning podcasts, most recently reporting, producing and hosting A Whole Other Country (named one of the 20 best podcasts of 2025 by The Atlantic and featured in the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival). She started her career in audio working for The Kitchen Sisters, and later joined LAist as a producer. Her work has appeared in outlets such as New York Magazine, Signal Hill, Articles of Interest, and on APM’s Marketplace. She holds a national Edward R. Murrow Award for innovation in audio, twelve regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, and three Signal Awards.The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We're part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of independent producers.Find out more at kitchensisters.org, radiotopia.fm, signalhill.fm

The worlds of a young Canadian immigrant, an Italian pasta-making family, and a 70-year-old survivor of the Armenian Genocide converge in this story of the San Francisco Treat.A Canadian woman, Lois DeDomenico, marries an Italian immigrant, Tom DeDomenico, whose family founded Golden Grain Macaroni in San Francisco. Just after WWII, the newlyweds rent a room from an elderly Armenian woman, Pailadzo Captanian, who teaches the young, pregnant, 18-year-old Lois how to cook — including how to make yogurt, baklava, and pilaf.During those hours in the kitchen, the old Armenian woman tells Lois the story of her life — her forced trek from Turkey to Syria, leaving her two young sons with a Greek family, her husband’s murder, the birth of her baby along the way (his name means “child of pain”), the story of the genocide. Mrs. Captanian shows Lois a book she wrote shortly after her experiences — one of the only eyewitness accounts written at the time. Most survivor accounts were published 30–40 years later. Hers was published in 1919 for the Paris Peace Talks, in hopes that it would help provide context for the establishment of an Armenian state.Years after the DeDomenicos move away from Mrs. Captanian’s home, Tom’s brother is having dinner at the young couple’s house. He looks down at the pilaf Lois made and says, “This would be good in a box.” They name it Rice-A-Roni.

Muriel "Aggie" Murch and her husband, Academy Award winning film editor and sound designer Walter Murch, have lived on Blackberry Farm in Bolinas for some five decades, along with their children, chickens, and horses. The two just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.They both have newly published books, and are out on the circuit telling their stories that stand at the intersection of the organic farming movement and the independent filmmaking movement of the 1970’s.Director Francis Coppola, Walter’s longtime collaborator, describes his new book, Suddenly Something Clicked, as "a vast encyclopedia of cinema and everything that can be touched by it."Director Phillip Kaufman said this about Harvesting History While Farming the Flats: "Blackberry Farm is Aggie Murch's Walden Pond. She made existence sustainable, rebuilt life over and over, helped spirits enter the world and gently helped them leave. She’s got the gift."We have known and admired the Murches for some four decades and asked if we might do a story to celebrate this moment of love and publishing and graciously they said yes.Produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, in collaboration with Nathan Dalton, Brandi Howell and Hannah Kaye. Mixed by Jim McKee. Special Thanks to City Lights Bookstore and Peter Maravelis.Funding for our stories comes from listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions, The Robert Sillins Family Foundation, The Every Page Foundation, The Susie Tompkins Buell Foundation, The Buenas Obras Fund, The TRA Fund, Barbara & Howard Wollner, Michael Pollan & Judith Belzer, Bonnie Raitt, and you.Our deep thanks to our community for your spirit and for supporting the stories.The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent podcasts that widen your world.Thank you for subscribing and thanks for listening.