Life Stories, with Jenni Baden Howard

About Life Stories, with Jenni Baden Howard

Notes on family, faith and all it means to be home. jennibadenhoward.substack.com (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Jen Baden Howard

Category

religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Jan 2022

Latest episode

11 May 2024

Latest episodes

4 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 May 2024

   Scent with love

   Hi, friends! Happy weekend, and happy May! How are you? I hope everyone’s well, and has had a good start to the month. I’m doing something a bit different today, in recording an audio version of an essay posted at my other, beauty and lifestyle Substack, The Midlife Life Beauty Edit. I’m super-aware that subscribers to one Substack won’t necessarily find the other relevant or of interest, which is why I keep the two separate. But, sometimes, there will be an obvious crossover, and this feels like one of those times. SO much more to say, but for now, I hope you’ll enjoy this “crossover experiment”. Lastly, if you enjoy listening to and reading Life Stories, by hitting the ❤️ Like button below this post, Substack is more likely to spread the word through its Explore and Search functions. Thank you so much! Sending much love, and especially thinking of friends Stateside for Mother’s Day on Sunday. Jen XX Thank you for reading Life Stories, with Jenni Baden Howard. This post is public so feel free to share it. Thanks for reading Life Stories, with Jenni Baden Howard! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennibadenhoward.substack.com (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   4 Sept 2023

   Tiramisu at Midnight.

   This week’s header comes with apologies to food writer , whose wonderful Tortellini at Midnight is on our kitchen bookshelf. (And more about Emiko, and reading cookbooks like memoirs, in a moment). But back to tiramisu. “The name says it all. Tirami-su means “pick me up”. It means that if you’re feeling down, listless … this dessert will lighten your spirits.” —Sophia Loren, Recipes and Memories. And so it was that, on Friday night, I found myself standing in front of our open fridge, eating tiramisu at midnight. Straight from the box. As I explained in my last post (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com/p/my-mothers-greatest-gift), we’ve had a sad, hard few weeks here — and thank you for all your kind thoughts, prayers and messages, we’ve felt them all! But, in true “both/and” tradition, there have been some beautifully timed joys, too - our eldest returning home after years away at university, and a milestone-y wedding anniversary for Will and I. So, shop-bought tiramisu and New York cheesecake were the order of the weekend, when no one had the energy to bake but the urge to celebrate and be thankful for the good things, too. Sophia Loren dedicates Recipes and Memories (https://amzn.to/45y4B2b) (long out of print, but you can still track down copies) to her Nonna Luisa, “not only for the many things I’ve learned from her, but for her ability to transform even the most ordinary food into something delectable.” Her take on tiramisu, though, came via Sophia’s Italian-American secretary. Nevertheless, a tray of factory-made tiramisu, with its perfectly uniform peaks, will always remind me of one of the first summers we took our youngest to visit my birth papa and the family in Italy. One evening, papa, with full Tour Guide Mode activated (it always was), insisted on taking us to a friend’s restaurant a few miles along the Ligurian coast from our small town. On our arrival, the centre seemed pretty quiet (maybe it was a Sunday or public holiday - I don’t remember). Crossing the cobbled street, it was clear that the restaurant, its shutters pulled down, was closed. Not to be deterred (he never was), papa buzzed the intercom, announced our arrival and got his friend, the owner, to open just for us. All I remember about the meal was the joy and pride on papa’s face as he watched the granddaughter he adored power through her first tiramusu, which she picked out from the dessert selection in the restaurant’s tall freezer. The original pick-me-up pudding remains her favourite, and she makes a mean one herself. I can’t get enough of the kind of cookbooks that read like memoirs, illustrated by family stories and photos that transport you to the location that inspired them. Homes with billowing curtains and kitchens with porcelain sinks and bottles of washing up liquid jostling for position next to the extra virgin olive oil. So I couldn’t be more excited that two of my favourite writers, Tessa Kiros (https://www.instagram.com/tessakiros/) and Emiko Davies (https://www.instagram.com/emikodavies/) have new books coming out this month (links go to their instagrams, because, well, also obsessed). More about Tessa’s Now and Then: A Collection of Recipes for Always (https://amzn.to/3Pqrv5C) and Emiko’s Gohan: Everyday Japanese Cooking: Memories and stories from my family's kitchen (https://amzn.to/3L9PlQy) — soon. Thinking of all things Italy, have you seen the new Blue Zones series on Netflix? I’ve been following writer and researcher Dan Buettner (https://www.instagram.com/danbuettner/) on Insta for some time now, so was all in to watch his deep-dive into the habits, diets and notably longer lives of those living in the so-called Blue Zones around the world. What’s striking is how much seems to come down to community, face-to-face connection and faith. I’m just one episode in — we watched the one about Sardinia and also Okinawa, Japan, at the weekend — and I’m hooked. (There’s a cheat sheet here (https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/live-to-100-secrets-of-the-blue-zones-documentary)). If you’re a fan of all things Med-living and Blue Zones, I think you might love on Substack, by Alki Gerassimou - just reading about her gorgeously photographed travels, feels like a mini-break. Go, soak up some end-of-summer sun! Finally, all of that talk of tiramisu reminded me of something I posted to Insta (https://www.instagram.com/p/CPp-GO1AyAL/)a couple of summers back, of Bar Italia in Soho — a London landmark where I spent a disproportionate amount of time in my twenties — when my daughter and I got TIRAMISU IN A COFFEE CUP. Sending much love as you sink a spoon into the new week, Jen XOXO All pics taken in my family’s hometown in Liguria, northern Italy. Thank you for reading Life Stories. This post is public so please do share it (like a good tiramisu). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennibadenhoward.substack.com (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   6 May 2022

   Rocks, tides and time.

   This week, I’m summarising a few posts I wrote on Instagram. While life has been busy over here (almost certainly with you, too?), I’ve been writing in the gaps there. I’ve recorded them, too, to make this an audio newsletter/pod. Many friends, I know, like to have this option (so do I, and I wish more of my favourite newsletter writers would do it because I’d LOVE to hear them read them!). Also, I’m having a BIG audiobook thing right now—I especially love listening to memoir on Audible. More about that soon. The photo above was taken a few years ago on holiday in France, when Will humoured me by setting out to find the same stretch of beach in Brittany which I visited as a child. Please marvel at the plastic beach Pétanque set—those pastels!I remember that waffle fabric swimsuit feeling heavy when it got wet with seawater, and how the scooped back sometimes left my shoulders sore after an afternoon spent rock-pooling with my brother—despite the suncream dispensed by my mother from a sandy-nozzled tube of Ambre Solaire (I can still smell it).Decades later, clambering over the mossy rocks with my own children, I found myself yelling out “Watch your step!' and 'Not so fast! Slow down!", as I'm sure my mother did.Do you remember returning to a magical spot, maybe decades later, in the hopes that, in making a new memory, you might relive the old one again, just a little? To somehow find the past in the present, and wonder at it all?Rocks, tides and time. Carrying each other This month I will … continue to wonder at all the ways we that we get to carry each other, and how we take it in turns to do so. Never more so than during those times which are hard in a way Will describes as “shifting our tectonic plates” a little, on a deep, deep level. The ones that leave us feeling aftershocks for a while.In recent months-maybe you, too?-I’ve been so grateful for the way others have carried us (including this gorgeous, now grown-up girl in the pink mac).Also? I’m rubbish at giving piggybacks, so never ask me. I’ll drop you in approximately 3.5 seconds and you’ll need a soft landing. And finally, for Mother’s Day in the US this weekend. My beautiful mothers. Both have loved me bravely and fiercely, through the hardest of circumstances: the first, heartbreak and loss, the second through longing and waiting and loving me just as if I’d been born of her body. Now, as her memory fragments, she forgets that I wasn’t. All she knows is that I am her daughter, and she is my mother.It has come to that, and that is everything. And I’ve never loved them both more, with the deepest, fiercest daughter love. Much love for your weekend, Jen XXX Thanks for reading and listening to The Story So Far! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and pods. ; This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennibadenhoward.substack.com (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   30 Jan 2022

   When it "matters not".

   This post and podcast was first published and recorded a year ago, in January 2022. As I do some spring housekeeping on the newsletter, I’m adding it to the AoT podcast section as it pertains to the essays I’ve written on caring for elderly parents and loved ones suffering from dementia (if you or anyone you know might find these helpful, they now have their own, dedicated section here). Thank you so much for all your kind words and for continuing to share your stories with me and us all here. It means so much. “Happy New Year!” (Can we still say that, so long as we’re still in January? I know, I’m pushing it.) How are you, after a Christmas and holiday season which, again, looked different for so many? I’ve loved seeing all those posts on Instagram of postponed family gatherings, Christmas trees left up a little longer, crackers pulled and paper crowns (inevitably) slipping, long after the New Year’s corks had popped. Late entries, of sorts. Yet all the more precious for it. I’d love to hear how these first few weeks of the year have been for you, and if your holiday get togethers spilled into this month. If they couldn’t happen at all—or things have been unbelievably hard—I’m so sorry. When it matters not When I wrote, in my last newsletter (https://jennilisahoward.substack.com/p/angels-on-regent-street-81c), that I just wanted to finish last year “with love”, I could never have envisaged how that would look. My mother ended up in hospital after a fall on Christmas Day, needing surgery and we couldn’t be with her (or my dad), as we all went down with Covid. Thank you so much to those who've left lovely and kind messages, here, by email and on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jennilisawrites/). She is healing well, for which we’re so grateful, it’s been super- hard and my heart goes out to all those who have experienced similar trials and continue to. I want to share one comment on a post I wrote, the first time I made it to the hospital to visit my mum. I’d tapped it on my phone, while waiting in a corridor. Sunday best. As in, truly the best and only place I would want to be in this moment, visiting my dear mum in hospital for the first time since she fell on Christmas Day. Everyone here, from the healthcare assistants and nurses to the kindest lady on reception, have been wonderful. And I’ve never been happier to be wearing such a last minute, throw-it-on-and-run outfit combo - even if I slightly feel like I should be doing someone’s foil highlights. In replying, writer Crystal Hammon (https://www.instagram.com/cjhammon/) made the following observation: “You know you’re in important space when what you have on your body matters not.” Oof. I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Flimsy plastic apron and blue gloves aside, I was just so happy to be at bed 8, overlooking the harbour, and seeing her eyes light up (literally). I have a ridiculous selfie of us on my phone of that moment that I will treasure always. Other links from this episode Pilates instructor Nicole Field (https://www.instagram.com/nicolelareefield/) focuses on the mind/body connection in her work and the role of movement in recovering from trauma. Some links and loves As much as possible, I’m embedding pics and pasting captions from social media when I mention them, so you don’t need to click onto social if you don’t want to, don’t use it or are taking a break. More about this soon, but on that note, I 100% recommend listening to this episode of A Drink With A Friend (https://drink.substack.com/p/102), and following the ongoing conversation between co-hosts Seth Haines (https://sethhaines.substack.com) (of ) and (of ). I’ve also been enjoying the new season of 's podcast Speaking With Joy (https://joyclarkson.com/podcast)—especially the launch episode, in which she makes a defence, of sorts, for being “Aggressively Happy”, the title of her upcoming book (https://amzn.to/3KUJ2Ph). Coincidentally, I’m reading Joy’s sister, Sarah Clarkson’s book This beautiful truth (https://amzn.to/3Hfxhk6), on the recommendation of a friend who said I’d love it. She was right. In a similar vein to Joy’s defence of “aggressive” happiness, Kelly Corrigan’s latest pod interview (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-2022-regroup-the-power-of-fun/id1532951390?i=1000548919860) with science journalist Catherine Price, about The Power of Fun, left me wanting to take singing classes. I’ve linked here before to Florence-based tour guide Denya Pandolfi’s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/grazieateblog/) page, which I love for the way she captures the city, its light, colours and everyday buzz. On Thursday this week, she posted these (https://www.instagram.com/p/CZPVXzzs1ej/) beautiful photos from Venice to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. Finally, these words, by St Gianna Beretta Molla, helped me to take a deep breath at the end of a long week of wanting to honour and care for family and it’s difficult. I’m sharing them, in case they might speak to you, too “As to the past, let us entrust it to God’s mercy, the future to divine providence. Our task is to live holy the present moment.’ —St. Gianna Beretta Molla Much love, and more soon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennibadenhoward.substack.com (https://jennibadenhoward.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Contact Life Stories, with Jenni Baden Howard

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.