Salt & Spine

This week, we're excited to welcome Hawa Hassan to Salt + Spine, the podcast on stories behind cookbooks.Hawa is the founder and CEO of Basbaas Sauce, a selection of condiments that are inspired by Somalia, the country where she was born. Hawa left Somalia with her family in the midst of the country’s civil war: first to a refugee camp and then to the U.S. She built a life in America, including a modeling career, and 15 years later, she reunited with her family for the first time. Through it all was food — the family foods she remembers from her childhood, the 7/11 snacks she’d pick up in Seattle, the dinner parties she’d host in New York City.And now, her first cookbook. Hawa joined us to talk about her first cookbook, In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean. Co-authored with Salt + Spine friend Julia Turshen, the book introduces us to bibis (grandmother in Swahili) up and down the East African