A Storyteller's Food Story - Roy S. Johnson
Food is friendship.\nInterestingly enough, our next interviewee has been the only person to share this sentiment with us. It is a sentiment that we echo wholeheartedly and in fact, could go so far as to call it our \u201cmantra\u201d. In food we find a common place and Lord knows, we need a common place right now.\nRoy Johnson is a storyteller who fashions words into vivid, \u201cas if you were there\u201d experiences. Experiences that neither you nor I will likely ever be a part of. An accomplished journalist whose credits include Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Men\u2019s Fitness and any number of TV appearances, most recently as part of the docu-series, The Last Dance that chronicled the rise of Michael Jordan, Roy has defied tradition.\nAfter 30+ years in New York, Roy now lives and writes in Birmingham, Alabama. Our interview, as a consequence, was done via computer with us in the kitchen studio and Roy in his home kitchen (one of his favorite spots). He loves to cook and views it as another creative outlet for himself and likes to see that in others. When in a restaurant, he is comfortable asking the chef to simply create something for him. He has also ended up with things on his plate that he wasn\u2019t quite sure that he ordered.\nRoy Johnson has been my friend for 50 years. Yes, I said it, 50, count \u2018em years. Until I did the math, it certainly didn\u2019t seem like it could possibly be that long but there it is.\nRoy and I went to school together. It was the end of the 60\u2019s when we met and he was and still is one of the bravest people I know. An African-American in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he chose to attend a basically all-white school albeit a fairly progressive one (but not as progressive as I thought). At that time, Holland Hall was known as the \u201cpink\u201d school in the hills as in \u201cpink-o\u201d and if you\u2019re too young to know that reference\u2026its meaning today is: a person who holds advanced liberal or moderately radical political or economic views; back in the 60\u2019s and early 70\u2019s, it simply meant, communistic. I think if my mother had known that (maybe she did but I doubt it), she would have yanked me out of there so fast it would make your head explode. I include this as a way of saying, yes, at school, we tried our best to be progressive with open hearts, minds and opportunities but we were still immersed in the white privilege that exists today.\nSo I\u2019m quite certain only those very close to Roy understood the challenges he faced at that time. I know I didn\u2019t understand and he was my friend. But he never allowed the long hours and the hidden and not so hidden prejudice and racism to get in his way or hold him back. As soon as he graduated, he headed to Stanford University and never looked back.\nRoy took the road less traveled by, and yes, that has made all the difference.\nHere are some of the highlights from our interview not to be missed:\n07:05 - Grilling with the best of them\n10:24 - I was a fat, little kid\n12:12 - It was not easy to be the editor of Men\u2019s Fitness magazine\n14:06 - His guilty pleasure\n17:20 - The long drive\n21:15 - Tell Me A Food Story (and it\u2019s an extraordinary one)\n27:35 - Is there anything you won\u2019t eat?