loading . . . How Emma’s Torch is Building Community, One Kitchen at a Time Recorded on location at Emma's Torch — a restaurant and culinary training center for refugees in Brooklyn, NY with locations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area — Suzanne sits down with staff members Kira O'Brien and Alexander Harris and alumnus Giorgi Tabukashvili to explore what home, belonging, and hospitality mean when displacement is part of the story. Now in its tenth year, Emma's Torch runs an 11-week, fully paid culinary training program for refugees, asylees, and other newcomers. Giorgi shares how the program helped him find community when he was new to the U.S after fleeing his home country of Georgia, and how it propelled him in his career as a restaurant manager. Kira, a lifelong New Yorker, shares how living in New York City on 9/11 inspired her to advocate for refugee communities, and “Chef Alex,” a self-described “Jersey Boy” who leads the Emma’s Torch culinary training program in New York, offers a window into how the organization prepares its students to thrive in the restaurant business. At the end of the episode, Kira gives all of us the same “extra credit assignment” she gives her graduate students: to dine at a local restaurant owned by a family whose ethnic background is different from our own. Because, as this entire conversation illustrates, sharing a meal is how strangers become friends.
Topics Discussed:
• What home means when it is no longer a place — across languages and experiences of displacement
• Emma's Torch's mission: refugee empowerment through culinary education
• The 11-week program model: classroom training, the EEE framework, and live cafe operations
• Culinary skills as a pathway to long-term employment including recipe literacy, language acquisition, and consistency under pressure
• Job retention and wage growth as program success metrics, not just placement
• Giorgi's journey: leaving Georgia, crossing through Mexico, arriving with no English or network
• How Emma's Torch graduates become mentors and trainers for the next cohort
• The hospitality industry as a vehicle for welcoming new Americans
• "We are strangers even to ourselves" — on self-discovery and belonging
Episode Resources:
• Emma’s Torch website (https://emmastorch.org/)
• Cobble Hill | Daily Provisions (https://www.dailyprovisions.co/location/daily-provisions-cobble-hill/)
• Artha Rini Indonesian Restaurant (https://artharini.com/about) in Kensington, MD
Resources:
• Podcast show notes (https://www.unrefugees.org/not-really-strangers-podcast/)
• Donate now (https://give.unrefugees.org/180117core_mainpg_p_3000/?_gl=1*1lyvyty*_gcl_au*MjA5MTQ4OTk4LjE3NTM3MjA5NTk.*_ga*MTczOTE5NTI3MS4xNzUzNzIwOTU5*_ga_P9YZZV758Y*czE3NTc1OTg2ODMkbzgkZzEkdDE3NTc1OTg2OTUkajQ4JGwwJGgw*_rup_ga*MTczOTE5NTI3MS4xNzUzNzIwOTU5*_rup_ga_EVDQTJ4LMY*czE3NTc1OTg2ODQkbzgkZzEkdDE3NTc1OTg2OTUkajQ5JGwwJGgw&amt=30)
• Follow USA for UNHCR on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/usaforunhcr/)
• Connect with Suzanne on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-ehlers/) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hja7khzmy4M
