Becky Hadid

Imagine yourself standing in an English garden, peeking through a small window into a cozy kitchen.

Once you're close enough, you may even catch the faint strains of Ben Crosby on the radio.

A small blonde boy and his sister sit at the table.

It's a blue table on a blue floor, which is a surprising color choice, but one that will later make sense when you learn you're looking into the kitchen of an artist.

The little boy and his sister are engrossed in their projects, while their Nan takes a loaf out of the oven and puts another in.

Only then do you notice three loaves of bread already cooling on the counter.

The old woman turns and says something to the little boy, and his face lights up as he proudly holds out his modeling clay project to his Nan.

This little boy was Sam Harris, who grew up to mirror his nan in some of the best ways.

She owned a business.

He's a serial entrepreneur and working now on one of my favorite podcasts, but more about that later.

She was an artist.

He is a musician.

And she had a gift for making Sam and his cousins, and probably a lot of other people, feel seen, special, and supported.

And speaking from a personal standpoint, I'm in a community where I get to see and have benefited from that same gift in Sam today.

Such a thoughtful, humble way of encouraging others.

In today's episode, we explore all of this through a simple pineapple cake, Sam's cake, as his family called it.

The cake was his nan's attempt to heal his troubles with food and to instill her old-fashioned values through nurture rather than control.

Most of all, this episode offered for me a new take, an inversion, if you will, on the old adage, it's better to give than to receive.

Sam's pineapple cake tells the story of a family, their matriarch, the values she passed on, and the ways she ultimately received the gift of those values in return.

But then you couldn't break her heart, right?