Ep. 21: Jabber Al-Bihani - “Activist” Engineer and Dinner Host on Healing Divisions, Refugee Stories, and Doing You

Hidden Apron Radio

Our guest is Jabber Al-Bihani who started his journey as an engineer and during a trip to Barcelona, took part in a commonplace but nevertheless transformational experience of breaking bread with complete strangers. He’s sought to recreate that experience since then through Komeeda (based on the Spanish word for “Food"), where he gathers people of varying backgrounds to share stories and food at pop-up dinners at local restaurants. The particular dinner where I met Jabber was part of a series called “Displaced Kitchens” which featured newly settled refugees who cooked recipes of their homeland while sharing the struggles they’ve faced. With immigration being a very relevant topic, these dinners - Jabber’s form of “activism” as he calls it - have served to humanize the refugee and connect Americans to people they would normally only hear about on TV.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode and many of these topics are definitely hard to discuss without getting too political. Jabber talks:

- Starting Komeeda and how food has helped heal our deeply divided society,
*Listen in particular to his story of the time a Black Lives Matter Activist sat down to share a meal with a Trump Supporter.
- Giving back and helping when things seem overwhelming; how to channel your energy and create change if marching in the streets isn’t your cup of tea,
- His experiences balancing between a conservative upbringing and a rapidly changing world,
- And the importance of questioning your own beliefs.

Most importantly we talk about just being and doing “you”, which is all we can really strive to do. Listen up and we hope you enjoy this episode!

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