Rabia Chaudry - "Fatty Fatty Boom Boom" - Brie Loskota

Rabia Chaudry will discuss her new book Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: a Memoir of Food, Fat & Family. She will be joined in conversation with Brie Loskota. 

Presented in partnership with the Martin Marty Center

This is an in-person event and will be held at the Rubenstein Forum, Friedman Hall. Advance Registration is Required.

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About the book: "My entire life I have been less fat and more fat, but never not fat." According to family lore, when Rabia Chaudry’s family returned to Pakistan for their first visit since moving to the United States, two-year-old Rabia was more than just a pudgy toddler. Dada Abu, her fit and sprightly grandfather, attempted to pick her up but had to put her straight back down, demanding of Chaudry’s mother: “What have you done to her?” The answer was two full bottles of half-and-half per day, frozen butter sticks to gnaw on, and lots and lots of American processed foods. And yet, despite her parents plying her with all the wrong foods as they discovered Burger King and Dairy Queen, they were highly concerned for the future for their large-sized daughter. How would she ever find a suitable husband? There was merciless teasing by uncles, cousins, and kids at school, but Chaudry always loved food too much to hold a grudge against it. Soon she would leave behind fast food and come to love the Pakistani foods of her heritage, learning to cook them with wholesome ingredients and eat them in moderation. At once a love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, shorba, parathay and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but that refuses to meet the expectations of others.

About the author: Rabia Chaudry is an attorney, advocate, and author of the New York Times bestselling book Adnan’s Story and Executive Producer of a four-part HBO documentary series The Case Against Adnan Syed. Rabia is also co-producer and co-host of the podcasts The 45th, The Hidden Djinn, Nighty Night, and Undisclosed. She received her Juris Doctorate from the George Mason School of Law and practiced immigration and civil rights law for over a decade, with a focus on asylum and family immigration and civil rights defense of Muslim immigrants against federal law enforcement agencies. Her work in the policy sphere touches on many related issues, including unfair sentencing, peace and conflict, and countering violent extremism. Rabia is a frequent public speaker and writer on criminal justice, civil rights, and media advocacy.

About the interlocutor: Brie Loskota is the Executive Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at The University of Chicago Divinity School. In 2017, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and in 2019 was elected to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Council.