F&W Pro

Communal Table Podcast: Sam Fore (Part 2)

The Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites chef talks mental health, taking care of others, and what it means to have your food on the cover of a magazine.

By

Kat Kinsman

Published on April 2, 2021

Chefs and restaurant workers take great care of everyone else, but often they need a little help themselves. Each week, Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman talks with hospitality pros about they manage their business, brain, and body for the long haul. Is there a topic you'd like to know more about or a guest you'd love to hear from? Tell us at fwpro@foodandwine.com or tweet to Kat @kittenwithawhip, and subscribe to the weekly Food & Wine Pro newsletter so you never miss an episode. Catch up on previous episodes here.

Episode 98 (Part 2): Sam Fore

When chef Sam Fore sees something she can fix, she jumps in to help. As the restaurant industry was devastated by COVID-19, she joined The LEE Initiative to help make sure that workers were being fed—and help create a system where the whole community could benefit in the long term. That's just who she is as a person, but it wasn't until recently that she offered that kind of care to herself, in the form of starting therapy. In part two of this two-part conversation (listen to part one here), Fore talks about the nitty-gritty of building sustainable relationships between restaurants and farms, how stigma gets in the way of mental healthcare (especially in the South Asian community), and what it means to have your food on the cover of a magazine.