[piano intro] - [Heather] From bold flavors to bold futures, come along as we meet a chef who's finding home in North Carolina through her food.

- We choose to think about what divides us, but food, more often than not, brings us together.

So... - [Heather] Then we visit Hope Innovations, where women are building new careers one project at a time.

- There are women who love to get their hands dirty.

They want to build things.

Representation matters.

If you don't see yourself reflected in something, it's hard to really imagine that there's a place for you in it.

I wanna encourage other women and be a part of the movement.

- [Heather] It's all on "My Home," coming up next.

[bright music] - [Announcer] All across the state, we're uncovering the unique stories that make North Carolina my home.

♪ Come home ♪ ♪ Come home ♪ - My story of cooking is more the memory of cooking than it is somebody actually teaching me how to cook.

[pan sizzling] I learned, absorbed from my aunts, from my older sister.

I was so interested in cooking, I took classes from a neighborhood auntie.

She didn't even have a stove like we know of.

Everything was on the floor.

We sat on the floor, we chopped on the floor.

You know, we did all of that at ground level, really.

And, gosh, when I think about some of those recipes, it makes me laugh.

I still have the book in which I hand wrote recipes from that class.

Cheeni Durham came out of the blue for me.

It's not something that I was looking for.

It was a scary leap to go from a smaller space into a prominent space in Downtown Durham.

And now here I get to play.

I get to run a full service restaurant where I've never even worked in one of those before.

I didn't know how this worked, and I figured it out.

So mine's not your typical story.

My name is Preeti Waas, and home is North Carolina.

My chosen home, and also where my heart is.

[upbeat music] I grew up in Madras, India.

It's now known as Chennai.

But my family is Punjabi, which is Northwest Indian.

India is such a vast region, and especially back then, you would think you're in different countries.

North, south, east, west, they're that different.

But we live like Punjabis at home.

Our everyday food was very Punjabi, our rituals, traditions, all of that, but still very integrated in with South India, which was our home.

Punjabi is definitely represented on the menu in our raja platter, in our rani platters.

And even on the Raja platter, we have called Amritsari fish.

And Amritsar is a city in Punjab.

And it has a very distinctive marinade.

Can you tell I'm salivating as I'm talking about the fish?

I really love it.

[Preeti laughs] Indian ingredients and vegetables are so specific, and I'm so thankful we have a wealth of options here in Durham, Raleigh, and in Morrisville.

[gentle bright music] - [Heather] Where are we?

- We are at Bombay Central Market.

This is where I do all my Indian grocery shopping.

[gentle bright music continues] - [Heather] So what an asset is this for you as an Indian chef in this area?

- I mean, without this, how could I cook Indian food?

[both laughing] - [Heather] 'Cause everything's right here.

- 'Cause everything's right here.

Okay, wait.

I have to have you smell curry leaves.

Okay.

- Oh my goodness.

- Right?

- Wow, that's amazing.

- Isn't it?

- Oh, yes.

- Have you cooked with banana flour before?

- No, but that is beautiful.

- Isn't it beautiful?

- It's so unique.

Baby brinjals.

Of course it says Indian eggplant here.

But in India, we call them brinjals.

Okay, look how cute the pears are.

- Oh, they are cute.

You're like a kid in the candy store.

- How could you tell?

[Heather laughs] I do get excited.

I actually do.

- You are.

- Of course we have bitter gourd.

This is a baby one.

- Bitter gourd.

So how would you use bitter gourd?

- So bitter gourd is very, very bitter.

So, we remove the seeds and we make little circles, little disks out of this, and we make a chaat out of it, which is unusual.

We use it in that way in acini.

- I love that.

You use okra a lot.

- Okra is very important in Indian cuisine.

Every region of India has a dish that uses okra.

- You know, okra has a lot of Southern North Carolina traits as well.

- Exactly.

What you have to look at is zoom out and look at the geography of it.

Like, that band, that southern band below the equator, it's so similar.

The climate is similar, the soil is similar.

Because we can choose to think about what divides us, but food, more often than not, you know, brings us together.

So... [gentle bright music] - Hi, Preeti.

- Hello, hello, hello.

- [Padya] Hello.

- So good to see you.

- Great to see you.

- [Purvi] Please come in.

- [Preeti] What do you have?

- [Heather] Oh.

- Some spices happening here.

- Check it out.

- Well, Preeti said this was life changing.

The spices are life changing.

- Aw.

Thank you.

- That's so sweet of you.

- I appreciate it.

- I mean, truly.

Like, even living in India, I don't think I had access to spices quite as fresh and aromatic as these.

- Oh, wow.

- Mm-hmm.

- What made you all start your company?

- You know, I grew up in India, and I just, I'm used to a certain fragrance of spices, which when I came here, I felt like food just tasted different.

Turns out, fresh spices were like an unmet need in this area.

- And that's when we realized, "Okay, we have a great opportunity to do something about it and make a difference."

We make it a point to source our spices from the regions where they grow the best.

For example, cloves and cinnamon and black pepper and cardamom grow the best in Southern India because the climate is better suited over there.

Versus coriander seeds or cumin, it grows better in the western part of the country.

- And is it really important for each chef, depending on where they grew up, what spices they really gravitate to?

- India's such an enormous country and we have all these different regions.

The cuisine really can change every 100 kilometers or so.

So, for me, I use all of these spices because we have menu items from various regions of India.

- My family's from the western part of India, right?

And for us, there is a blend specific that goes in, like, everything Indian that I make.

And I would come home from school and my mom would be cooking something and I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I know exactly what she's making because of the smell."

- Right.

So, yeah.

And that'll stay with me forever.

And I made sure I wrote everything down from her.

I was like, "I don't wanna forget it when I grow up."

- When I first came to the United States in 1996, it was to visit my sister and help her with her children.

The water heater broke and she was very upset.

And she was crying at work about the water heater broke unexpectedly, and so this nice coworker of hers said that he would come replace it for her.

So when I heard about that, I thought, "Well, that's very nice of him."

So the least I can do is cook.

I cooked.

He came to replace the water heater, and it was really cute.

I think we talked until three or four in the morning out in the backyard.

And we dated for two weeks and eloped.

I was a stay-at-home mom until both girls were in school full-time, and then I opened a cafe in Tulsa, Oklahoma called Lulu's Sweet Shop.

The menu was all-American.

Everything was red, so it was very reminiscent of like a '50s diner, but fresh.

And cakes, cookies, pies.

- I remember just dancing around on the checkered black and white floor, just like we have in here, pouring over the sweets case, the lollipops, the chocolate chip cookies that she was slowly becoming more and more known for.

I also have a picture of my sister, my mom and I sitting at a table in one of the Lulu's locations, and I had a chocolate cookie right here half eaten, and the chocolate chip was bigger than my tooth.

[Ellie laughs] And it makes me feel like that exact kid again every single time I eat them.

- When they helped me at Lulu's, Amy was eight, Ellie was five.

Amy was a very shy child.

Really shy.

But she put together very quickly that helping people meant that she got a praise and also tips.

- The idea of being a waitress seemed really appealing once I realized that bringing a sandwich to a table and smiling would result in a quarter or a dollar.

And this was so convenient because two storefronts down was a shop that sold my favorite stuffed animals.

- The first time she ever worked the floor at the restaurant, Amy was eight years old and she earned $34 of tips that day.

Next thing you know, apron comes off, takes her little sister by her hand, goes three doors down to the gift shop and she bought Beanie Babies.

So we had quite a collection of Beanie Babies all from the tip earnings.

When we moved to North Carolina, I thought, "I'm done with the food business.

I'm not doing that again."

But the YMCA on Fayetteville Street in Downtown Raleigh, they had their little coffee kiosk available and they asked if I was interested in perhaps taking that over and selling coffee there.

Something rose up within me and I was like, "You know what?

What I miss a lot is the ubiquitous corner shops in India where you could get a cup of chai, you could get a veg puff and, but what if I did that?"

Cheeni Chai + Coffee + Tiffin in Downtown Raleigh surprised me as to how well it did.

I was very validated by how well it did.

So Chini Indian Food Emporium was the next iteration after Cheeni Chai + Coffee + Tiffin, and that was the combination of the cooking school, the bazaar, and the little cafe.

I thought, "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to take a big leap and I'm going to fail spectacularly or it might do okay."

What happened was completely unexpected.

- Wild is how Preeti Waas describes being nominated for the James Beard Best Chef in the Southeast Award.

She describes herself as a home cook who just loves serving people food.

- I'm not a trained chef, so James Beard and Preeti Waas will never gonna be in the same sentence for me.

- Did you find out from like WRAL or something?

Like... - The reporter from Triangle Business Journal called.

- So it was a reporter who called.

- Oh, yes, she called to ask for a statement and I said, "For what?"

I did not expect two James Beard nominations for Best Chef.

I did not expect Eater Carolinas Restaurant of the Year.

I did not expect the community that we gained.

I did not expect that what was so pushed down inside of me for over two decades was the thing that was going to bring me the belonging that I sought in America.

[pan sizzling] [crowd chattering] - How are you?

Good, what can I do for y'all?

- What I hope for when people walk in the door is that it feels familiar.

It feels like home.

It feels like a space that they don't have to be fussy in.

The food is not fussy.

They don't have to be, quote-unquote, "on their best behavior."

It's not fine dining, but it's refined dining according to me.

- When people come to Chini, I hope they feel as if there has been intention and thought and love and care and hard work above and beyond everything else that has brought that experience to life.

- Yes.

Thank you.

Oh my god.

Yes!

[Ellie laughs] Welcome in, y'all.

How are you today?

It was one night, it was really rainy, and we just finished our little gym practice, and I remember being so excited because I was cold and all I wanted was the chicken pot pie that I knew was waiting for me back at [indistinct].

And I'll always remember that for sure.

Just the comfort and the excitement of knowing my mom has made one of my favorite foods for us, and I don't have to worry about anything.

I can just go enjoy it.

So, maybe that just comes with being a kid, but I still feel that way about my mom's food no matter what she's cooking, really.

Thanksgiving meal, Indian food, anything, she just does it well.

[gentle serene music] - Representation matters.

If you don't see yourself reflected in something, it's hard to really imagine that there's a place for you in it.

- I have stories from being a girl and being encouraged not to consider a path like this.

I meet so many women who have the exact same story.

For generations, we haven't seen it.

So why would we ever think that this is something that we can do?

- There are women who love to get their hands dirty.

They want to build things.

They want to maintain homes and build roads and do all of the things that help make our lives comfortable and worth living.

A program like Hope is important because it provides the skills for that, the support for that.

You actually get to see people who look like you doing this work, and it makes it believable, it makes it seem like I can do those.

Hope Renovations is a nonprofit that empowers women and gender expansive folks into careers in the construction industry where they can make living wages and support their families.

And we do that through a combination of training here in our workshop and on the job learning, which is out in the community with our crews doing aging in place repairs for seniors.

[drill whirring] - Beautiful.

- It started when I started picking up tools and learning how to do my own thing.

Over time, it kind of snowballed.

I started taking on more renovations, helping friends and family.

It got bigger and bigger.

I had a lot of friends who would talk to me about what I knew how to do, and they would say, "Oh, I'm so jealous.

I wish I knew how to do that.

I could never do that."

And that just, frankly, made me mad.

Like, of course you can do it.

If I can learn how to do it from YouTube, trust me, you know, you can learn how to do it too.

And just over time, it kind of dawned on me, maybe my place in this world is helping other women do this.

Towards the end of my time in graduate school, I learned about this concept of aging in place.

Basically, it's this idea that all the outcomes are better if you can stay in your home as you grow older.

And it really struck a chord with me because my husband's brother had MS.

In his final years of life, we couldn't afford to keep him in the home that he and my husband grew up in, so we ended up having to move him to an assisted living.

And just watching him go downhill in an assisted living when he really wanted to be home was really hard on both of us.

So I learned about this concept and I thought, "If I have a training program, women are gonna need an opportunity to get their hands dirty.

To get hands on skills, to get out there, to use tools.

And this is a population that really needs this help.

Why don't we bring the two of those together?"

Seems like it makes a lot of sense.

[birds chirping] - So, take my knife.

I'll load it onto the edge.

I'm starting like this.

And then as I go on, I'm turning my...

I'm bringing my hand closer to the wall to unload the mud that was on my knife, right?

- We have a dual mission, and that means we basically have two programs that run side by side.

Our training program, it's nine weeks long.

The first five weeks is spent in our workshop, in our classroom, kind of learning core, basic stuff, overview of the industry, getting a little bit accustomed to carpentry and plumbing and electrical and what's the difference.

After that initial five weeks, they go out and they spend four weeks with our construction crew doing hands-on learning.

So that's the other side of what we do.

We go out in our community and we work for folks who are 55 plus or disabled, and we do accessibility modifications, we do urgent repairs, all the things that seniors need to be able to live more comfortably, to be able to live more safely in their homes.

Our program is free.

We also offer a stipend for the first five weeks just be able to afford transportation, childcare, whatever the case may be.

And then for the four weeks they come out on the job site with us, we actually hire them as employees on our team and they're making living wages working for us.

So, you know, it's an opportunity to gain skills and earn a wage.

- I say let's back off of this for a minute.

- [Trainee] Okay.

- Let's put some railings up and then we'll- - [Trainee] Can I just take this out though?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- My first engagement with Hope Renovations was in 2020.

I got into the very first cohort, and then I went on and started my own little business doing decks and porches.

After a little bit of time doing that, I decided I wanted to come back to Hope.

So I've been back at Hope as a construction site supervisor for a year now.

Then that's what we need to take off the board from.

I spent most of my life not thinking construction was for me.

So when I came here and saw that there was a construction crew of women already and they were training more women to join the industry, it was just like, I wanna be a part of that.

You know?

I want to learn more, I wanna encourage other women and be a part of the movement.

I got in class.

I was excited about being here every day, and it really confirmed for me that, yes, this is where I want to be.

Four years later, I'm still in love with my work.

Very close.

Working with the trainees probably is the most rewarding part of the job.

Four years ago, I was in this classroom feeling a little bit like a fish out of water.

I was in marketing for 20 years and hadn't touched tools since I was a little kid.

So a lot of the trainees who come through here are in the same boat.

In week one, they're a little nervous, they're a little shaky.

They're like, "I don't know if I can do this."

But by week four, they're just, like, cutting everything, they're screwing everything in, and they're like, "I'm shocked that I've grown this much in four weeks."

And I'm like, "I'm not shocked.

You know, you've worked really hard."

It's very gratifying to see that they're building confidence, building real tangible skills that they can turn into gainful employment.

[crowd chattering] - All right, good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the graduation of the fall 2023 Hope Renovations cohort.

[crowd cheering and applauding] - In 2022, women made up only about 11% of the workforce in construction and there were no statistics available on LGBTQ or non-binary participation in the industry, which, as a side note, is a growth opportunity for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[crowd laughing] [crowd applauding] - Yes.

- So those numbers alone make a strong argument for why Hope Renovations is absolutely necessary.

Simply put, to train women and non-binary individuals to enter a workforce where they will prove themselves to be just as strong, just as tough, just as smart, and just as capable as their male counterparts.

But there is something magical mixed in with the sawdust that's sprinkled around the Hope Renovations workshop.

Something that goes beyond being just as good as the status quo.

We are not capable of being just as good, we're capable of being better.

[crowd cheering and applauding] - My favorite quote is by Nelson Henderson, and it's, "The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not intend to sit."

And that's what we're doing at Hope Renovations.

We are creating a future that not just the people who graduate from our program or the seniors that we're helping can be a part of, but their kids are seeing it, their neighbors are seeing it, their communities are seeing it, and it's getting bigger and bigger.

That future that one day, I'm not gonna be around to see, but I know it's gonna be there.

Knowing that we're building that, that's the most rewarding part.

- [Heather] Join us as we celebrate 10 years of "My Home" as we look back at some of our most iconic stories and where they are now.

[gentle lively music] [gentle serene music] In September, 2020, we found ourselves in Asheville in the backyard of Chef Meherwan Irani.

And he was cooking up a beautiful dish for us as we talked about how food brings us all together in so many unique and different ways.

- And it was really a perfect moment for that to happen 'cause I think we were all feeling pretty low and shellshocked from COVID and the pandemic and worried about the future.

And that was one of those bright moments where doing that feature really kind of reminded me that there's folks out there that care about food, care about cities, care about communities, and were wishing a success.

- And Meherwan is such a great person to talk about community.

In fact, after the devastation of Hurricane Helene, he and the Chai Pani crew at his restaurant spring into action and cooked and prepared over 30,000 meals and they distributed them throughout the Asheville and Western North Carolina area.

- The day after the hurricane, I think we were shellshocked with complete lack of communication.

Luckily, World Central Kitchen mobilized very quickly.

And within three or four days, we had all mobilized into little cooking camps where we each were making 2,000 to 3,000 meals a day and sending it out by helicopter, by bicycle, on foot, to wherever we could get food out to where it was needed.

'Cause that's kind of what the essence of being in the service industry is about.

It's not just about serving food to people that walk in through the front door, it's about taking care of wherever people need.

And what we do is food.

- I think for "My Home," Meherwan's story really rings true because not only are you getting to know the food and the culture of what Meherwan is bringing, but you're also getting to see Meherwan's great big old heart and the kindness that he generates throughout the community.

- What I'm excited about in the future is taking what we think is our brand of service and hospitality and spreading it throughout the country, sort of one community at a time.

So we're opening a number of restaurants, and we're excited to see Indian street food and Indian food and the cuisine of my culture becoming more and more approachable, mainstream, and accepted by the country.

[bright music] [lively music] [lively music continues] [lively music continues] [lively music continues] [lively music continues]