Her Excellency Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Everyone needs to take care of their mental health even running back Bijan Robinson When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure I usually just take a deep breath When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me everything just slows down It just makes me feel great before I run the play Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org Love your mind Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council.

0:34The Museum of Islamic Art was meant to open in 2006. There was a situation that needed to be addressed. He said, you have so much energy, go and deal with this problem. I was 23, I think, and I wanted to be a foreign diplomat, but I immediately realized the similarity in working in arts and culture to foreign policy. My grandmother is an amazing chef. Some people say she's over 100, but she says she's 94. She's lying about her age. I always say if she had a restaurant, she'd get three Michelin stars. Because we always say when you cook with your heart, the meal comes out differently.

1:11Ask a contemporary architect or an artist who has most influenced the culture and global identity of the Middle East, and the answer will be the woman sitting next to me. Her Excellency, Sheikha Mayasa Bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Ask Mia Sheff what she has also influenced and I will answer it as how she has mentored and acknowledged the food of her country. Over 20 years as head of Qatar Museums, she has transformed the nation's artistic landscape, mentoring local creatives, building contemporary museums and investing in bold public art projects that push the boundaries with deep conviction.

1:56I am Pei's Museum of Islamic Art, Jean Nouvel's National Museum of Qatar in the form of Desert Rose, Richard Serra's East-West, West-East and more. Tell me about growing up. I was born in Geneva. In Geneva. Yes, many people don't know that. I didn't know that. But I grew up in Doha, in Qatar. I did all my schooling there actually. And do you remember early days of food, what you ate? Always, because, you know, food, it still remains pretty much part of our culture today. We eat as a family. You know, all of our meals we eat together, which is really nice. So food is the thing that brings everybody together.

2:33And it's always the case in a Qatari household. There's food for everyone because people can turn up at any time with their family, friends, and join, you know, join the meal. Whether it's lunch, whether it's afternoon tea, whether it's dinner, whether it's a late night meal. So, you know, we had a very simple life growing up because Qatar was a very different country to what it is today. You know, there's a lot more development that's happened since we were children. Who cooked? We had chefs. My mother didn't love to cook, but sometimes we cooked as a family. Like in the desert, for example, we would camp.

3:10My father loved to camp in the desert. And in the winter season, we would stay for months in the desert, living in tents and caravans. Did not go to school. We would go to school, but we'd have to leave at 5 in the morning because school starts at 7 in Qatar, so we'd leave at 5 in the morning, sometimes even going to a camel race before going to school. So it's very much something that was ingrained. We'd ride camels. Is that because of the heat? What is it that it starts so, so early in the morning? The schools, I think, it's more to do with the family time. My children come home and have lunch with us every day.

3:42In Italy, it's very much like that. When Richard was working with Renzo Piano, they came home for lunch every day. Yeah. Part of the culture that you had lunch at home. Well, in Paris, they gave you the option to take your children home for lunch. But if you didn't leave close enough to the school, it would not make logistic sense to do so. Yeah. In Qatar, it's very much ingrained that you have meals together as a family, which I think is very important. It is, yeah. What would breakfast be like? So usually the traditional Qatari dishes for breakfast are balalit, which is like sweet rice with omelette or egg on top.

4:21Or you have egg and shakshuka, which is egg and tomatoes. Sometimes, you know, you can add vegetables or meat if you wanted. There's also beans, a lot of beans and bread. Haris is another very typical. My children love haris. They will eat it at any opportunity, which is a wheat grain that they leave to simmer overnight so that it gets very, very soft and with meat. And then you mash the meat and the grain with a big wooden stick until it becomes almost like a porridge, but it has more texture and it's delicious. And we're still on breakfast. So this meal you can have, it's a very traditional meal during Ramadan where we're fasting.

5:01And it's one of the first things people will eat, the hadis. You know, dates is actually typically how you break your fast, dates and water or dates and leban. It depends. Or Arabic coffee. It's always date and something. And then hadis would be, you know, one of the staple dishes. And children have it for breakfast. So mealtimes are important. Very much so. And everybody was there. Yes. How many in your family were there? I'm one of seven. I have five brothers and a sister. And so we ate together. But our family means also the extension of the family. So there's cousins, there's aunts, there's uncles, there's relatives, there's friends, there's colleagues.

5:41My father would always come home with his colleagues to have lunch or dinner at the house. But when we lived in the desert, we also did a lot of outdoor cooking. You know, there's cultural traditions of cooking within the sand. So you dig a hole, you'd cook the, let's say, the goat or the sheep in the sand. You know, you do different forms of barbecue. and we used a lot of spices and we'd use you know the fire outdoor fire like a real fire and you'd have the big pots the tin pots and you'd cook traditional dishes like much boost what's that which is a it's a rice dish a rice meal mainly it's rice with turmeric and lots of spices such a cardamom or bay leaves um saffron lots of saffron and turmeric and then you're getting I'm not getting starving.

6:30You have to come and eat. It's the kind of food we like. It smells so good when you cook it. And then you can add meat or chicken or fish. Some people now also use seafood. So did you grow up really being that interested in food, particularly? Me, I love food. I mean, I love trying restaurants. And every time I travel, I really try to try new restaurants or new chefs, let's say. But also in my profession, we look at food as a form of culture. I mean, form of art, I should say. I remember when we opened, we were planning to open the National Museum. I got all of these brand restaurants that wanted to open their brand and the restaurant.

7:09And I said, we don't want to do that because people have to experience the pleasure of food. You know, food gathers people. It creates a lot of emotion. It brings and invites a lot of interesting conversations. So for the National Museum and the Islamic Art Museum, we collaborated with Alain Dukas to create our own menu for the two museums and our own brand of a restaurant. And I think we actually really inspired Alain because in some of his restaurants in Paris, you'll see dishes that we created together in his menu. So like the restaurant at the Museum of Islamic Art is our first gastronomy restaurant in Qatar.

7:47we received a michelin star last year and it's basically a reflection of our collections it's it's it's cuisine of the islamic civilizations expanding from spain to china and every time we have a culture year program we try to include dishes from that country if relevant so two years ago we celebrated indonesia and it was for me you know a discovery their food is amazing because i had never i haven't been to indonesia and we we brought in chefs from indonesia and we did chefs in residency with them and the food was amazing what was it like it was you know it's very much asiatic food but the the combination the presentation you know they've indonesia i think is one of the only countries that has a minister for the creative economy so they've invested a lot in developing you know their talent and the different disciplines that fall under the creative economy food being one of them so i i mean i can't even describe it it's a whole experience When I think about the food we ate during the dinners that we hosted with the chefs from Indonesia, it gives me a lot of satisfaction.

8:55Whenever we travel, and with my father especially, the first thing he does in the morning is take us to the market. He'll take us to the fish market, he'll take us to the vegetable market, and he loves to take his grandchildren to teach them about where does food come from and to learn about the different produce in the different countries that they're visiting. And I think you can't really understand a country and a culture if you don't understand the culture. Tell me about your father. My father, to me, he's a visionary man. He basically is known as the modern founder of Qatar. He established something called the Qatar National Vision 2030, which basically was the framework of all the reforms that we developed in Qatar.

9:39so you know I was placed in my position because he had a plan for culture and he felt that I could help him develop that plan and now my brother who's the emir of Qatar has continued to implement the vision of Qatar which we call the national vision 2030 which I hope you'll come see and experience for yourselves yeah we will we will

10:13Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like B. John, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ad Council. Almost 30 years together, four kids, and some of reality TV's most unforgettable moments, we know a thing or two about living life out loud.

10:50We're taking you behind the scenes in our new podcast, Between Us, with me, Heather Dubrow. And me, Terry Dubrow. Between Us isn't about perfect lighting or curated Instagram grids. It's the unfiltered, behind-closed-doors conversations you wish you could eavesdrop on. Equal parts smart, funny, and a little bit scandalous. Every week, Heather will bring you an unapologetic take on the headlines, the trends, and the cultural moments everyone's texting about. And Terry will deliver insider beauty, health, and wellness insights you won't find on TikTok. Together, we'll tell the stories, spill the secrets, and share the hacks that keep life, marriage, and everything in between feeling fresh and fun.

11:29We may live in a gated community, but there's zero gatekeeping here. And plenty of, did they just say that moments? Listen to Between Us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So growing up in Qatar, you went to Duke, to university in the United States. Yes, don't ask me how I ended up in the South. You know, I didn't think I would end up in the U.S. I was the first child of my mother's children to go, and probably my father, too, to go to the U.S. to study. And so I just applied randomly, really, but with the counselor from school, we went through a list and I applied.

12:05Like I remember he told me apply to Tufts and I didn't like the name Tufts. So I said, no way, I'm not going to apply there. But that's, in hindsight, I would have probably been very happy. What was that like going from this incredibly enveloping culture of food and being at home to being at a university? Duke had actually a very good system. All freshmen had to live on East Campus. They had a big food hall. And the big food hall, they had all sorts of cuisine. You had food from the South. You had it international. You had Mediterranean. and there's a lot of restaurants around. You know, I remember there was an Afghani restaurant, you know, five minute walk from my dorm.

12:44So me and my friends would go there a lot and we would eat there. There was also an Indian restaurant. So there was a lot of, you know, cuisine that I was very familiar with. And I was also familiar with American cuisine. So it was, you know, the food from the South, they did a lot of barbecues. And also the people in North Carolina are very, very generous. So you're constantly invited for meals and even Thanksgiving. So it was different from, you know, Qatari food. But we had traveled a lot around the world, so I was familiar with a lot of the food that was there. So it was actually a very good experience, I would say, and also a difficult one.

13:19But you have to go through difficult experiences to appreciate what you had. Were there difficulties being homesick? You know, it was interesting. It wasn't about being homesick because I was, you know, used to... I was quite independent, very young. But it was more, I came from a very international environment. And when I arrived at Duke, I found it very segregated in a very strange way. So it took time to adjust. But then it was very, and then 9-11 happened within two weeks of arrival. But actually, I have to say, the people on the campus were very, very generous and kind to myself and all the Muslims and Arabs.

13:59And there was quite a large community from the Arab world. A lot of people from the Arab world were actually part of my freshman class. So it was very international. Duke was very international. And so it was very easy to make friends. Some of my closest friends today are from Duke University. Then you went to New York. So after North Carolina, I actually did a junior year in Paris. It was the best thing I could have done. Quite different. So you've got food in Qatar, food in North Carolina, and then food in Paris. It was really the greatest experience because the systems in the French education were very different to the American one.

14:37The food, for sure, was very different. And it's much, much richer. My favorite thing in Paris is the Saturday and Sunday markets and different arrondissements. You know, I lived in the 7th recently, and I would go to the one in Boulevard Gaspé. And I loved just going there. It's a great market. And I take my kids and we, you know, pick up the rest of the ingredients. There's something special about going to the market, you know, and learning from the people who are selling the produce. Yeah, as you say, it tells you about the culture. But I always think that actually what you should do is not go to the market with a recipe in your head.

15:13You should go to the market and see what's there and then go home and cook. Well, you're a real chef. No, but I think anybody could do that because I think that the worst thing is when you sort of drive around London looking for an ingredient, you know, or search all over Paris trying to find anywhere. And then if you go and you see what's there, then you can come back. I think it's probably a better way to approach it. I would agree to that. Did you, when you were in Paris, so at Sciences Po, would you also eat out a lot? Would you go to all the different restaurants? You said that the food was heavy.

15:48Yeah, so in Paris I ate most of my meals, I would say, out. And in Paris it's very easy. some food was very rich, but you could go to the brasserie, any brasserie on the street, and you have a very, you know, fresh salad or dish. So I, if I remember correctly, I think I ate most of the time trying different restaurants at different cafes. I barely had time to cook because I was trying to, you know, visit all the museums and see, you know, it was a completely different experience to Durham. What year was that? That was 2003 to 2004, my junior year. I graduated from duke in 2005 so was it hard to go back to impossible after paris impossible to go back i don't know how i went back yeah but you did but i did to finish and i finished and and then i got engaged during that year my husband said we'll go back to paris one day and and we spent two years in paris and those were great years and then new york as well yes we so after i got married and had my first child, I went to Columbia to do my master's.

16:52So I spent two years in New York with my husband, who also did his master's at Columbia. I love New York. I think that this is, to me, this is the city that makes you the most productive, because the energy there is unbelievable. Like, you never want to stop. But you don't get up at five in the morning. Oh yeah, in New York I get up at five. Everybody gets up at five in New York. I'm not the only one. I feel I'm in good company. everybody wakes up at five you go to the gym yeah it's the culture is very dynamic and to live there when you're young i think it teaches you a lot of for you know discipline resilience because it's also a very competitive city yeah but when i was at colombia i have bloomberg was was the mayor and i i'm i worked with his culture commissioner at that time and they were working on the expansion of the lincoln center and i was already you know i was already chairing the museum so i basically applied all my work and internship and classes around the museums and i learned a lot it was like a crash course in in culture and i worked a lot actually with i.m pay and richard sarah on the museum park and how we're going to expand the urban park of the museum to incorporate you know experiences like culinary experiences which is quite central to our museum You know, it was the way to bring people into the museum by offering them amazing food experiences.

18:13So when you come to the museum, you can have an afternoon tea with scones and jam. And, you know, and it's like it's you don't just go to the museum to look at art. You go to the museum to experience a culture that includes food, art, parks, playgrounds. And then you went back to Qatar to develop. How did that happen? My father was, to me, a very inspiring person. You know, when he shared his vision of what he was going to do, we all wanted to be part of that. We all wanted to participate. So when I finished Duke University, I immediately started working with my father. And then I was in his office, and there was a situation at the Museum of Islamic Art that needed to be addressed.

18:53So immediately he said, you have so much energy. Go and deal with this problem. The Museum of Islamic Art was meant to open in 2006 for the Asian Games. It was part of the plan. And he wanted me to take over this project. And I wanted to be a foreign diplomat and I wanted to be the first woman minister of foreign affairs of my country. But I immediately realized the similarity in working in arts and culture to foreign policy. So after a few months, I went to my father and said, this is such an important portfolio. you i really need to dedicate all of my time to this museum and to plan the future museums that you want realized and you were how old i was it was in 2005 so i was 23 i think um and it was you know to me i feel like i've spent half of my life in this in this you know department of developing culture but it's been the greatest journey and i feel very privileged and really grateful um to to to my father and my brother for believing in in the empowerment of you know of human beings through arts and culture create spaces for dialogue and discussions on all sorts of things that i think other other areas may make more difficult well always over a table and a good meal i like the idea of getting you know of a museum not being a temple of art but being a living breathing place where you can take your kids or you can have a meal where you can look at one painting and then leave.

20:30I know that with the Pompidou that Renzo and Richard wanted people to come into a place and sort of have fun and see noise and have a coffee and then ride an escalator. They used to say they wanted people just to ride the, if you could get somebody to ride an escalator and just look at the views of Paris they might just then wander into a museum or into the library that you first that the idea you know it's interesting you say because when i was a student in paris one of my favorite museums were musée d 'orsay on the left bank and centre pompidou on the right you know and i i i loved the escalator and the colors and i would say to myself whoever created this building was a genius because it's still relevant today and at that time was quite controversial but every Sunday there yeah it's you know it's it's it's a beautiful project and I spend a lot of time at the cafe upstairs yeah the George by cost yeah the food there's always good now it's important food and culture and culture and food what is the what is what are the challenges now in Qatar you know looking at your history until recently we ate all our meals at home and so like when I go out in a restaurant even whether I'm in London or Paris wherever I am if there's food left I always ask them to pack it we don't in our in Islam you have to respect food in fact this is one of the things we teach all of our children you know we eat with gratitude when you before you start any meal you say bismillah which is in the name of God then after you finish you say alhamdulillah which is thank you God for this meal because what we always remind ourselves one day you have something one day you don't but my father was a child he had no food.

22:10He would say they all shared one meal and they were all never satisfied because the country was poor. So just because today our country is rich and we have the abundance of food doesn't mean we don't, you know, respect it. So we have to respect food and we try to reduce food waste. So for Qatar, every household cooks local, their local dishes. And, you know, from one woman to another, the dishes may vary in terms of the spices they like or, or the protein they use. I I mean, they may use chicken instead of fish or eat a vegetarian version of that meal. And it's very much rooted. You know, there's no, I don't think there's a loss.

22:46I mean, my kids, even though they lived in Europe and the U.S., we always made a point of cooking Qatari dishes. And I would cook for them most of the time because I like to do that. But also most chefs that you find abroad don't know your Qatari recipes. so it's people are aware of their food and we've made it very much central in our national museum to have uh you know the qatarie dishes there so the john the the john nouvelle desert rose museum has a restaurant called jiwan which is a done by alan dukas but it's qatar dishes and it's family sharing because in qatar you don't have a plate with the plate at first and second and third meal you have dishes in the center of the table that you all share and very we still very much eat with our right hand you know we teach our kids to eat with their hands and it has to be only with their right hand they can't eat with both hands and if you have a lot of people and there's a you know small table there is also a hierarchy you have to respect the elders eat first and when they're finished the next you know age group goes until the youngest eats which is a i think it's it It teaches them respect.

23:54It teaches them patience and discipline. So that's very much still rooted. You know, when we go to the desert or we're camping, we eat on the floor and we all sit and we share a dish. And it's not so many dishes. Sometimes it's just three or four dishes, but they're all delicious and everything is gone. And so I think that is really important tradition of ours when it comes to the food is to respect what we eat, but also not to waste food. But it's a blessing that you have food and others may not have a meal. I'm getting so hungry. I don't want to eat in the River Cafe. Can we go find a guitar restaurant?

24:45Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. Welcome to Dirty Rush, the truth about sorority life, the good, the bad, and the sisterhood.

25:20With your hosts, me, Gia Giudice, Daisy Kent, and Jennifer Kessler. Rush, the recruitment, the ritual, the reality of Greek life has been a mystery for those outside the sorority circles until now. Is it really a supportive sisterhood that's simply misunderstood? Or is there something more scandalous happening on campuses across the country? In this podcast, we pledge to peel back the layers and spell the truth one Greek letter at a time. Pledges and actives, rush chairs and ritual keepers. Some call it the best time of their life, while others say it's a nightmare. From a perfect rush to recruitment scandals, what is really going on behind the doors of those sorority houses from Alpha to Omega?

26:01We're taking you inside sorority row, including the chapter room, as we explore the fellowship and the frenemies. Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So if I did want to have the food of Qatar in London, I'm asking you this as a rhetorical question, because I think you are going to do a Qatari cafe, is that right? Yeah, so we just opened the Chancery with Rosewood, and actually we are planning to open a version of the Desert Rose Cafe, which is by a Qatari chef. Her name is Nof al-Mari. She's an amazing chef. You know, when we opened the National Museum, as I mentioned, we had all these offers from people who wanted to open their restaurants, and I didn't want to open a franchise.

26:48I didn't think people would come to the museum to eat at a restaurant that existed elsewhere. We wanted to create our own cafe concept of ours that we own that's proud of our Qatari cuisine and also informs and educates people of it. So the restaurant is very much typical Qatari food. So you can go there for breakfast, for lunch, an afternoon. And then for dinner, you could go to the restaurant upstairs, which is a gastronomy restaurant. But it's very family sharing. So you go to share your meal with your friends or your family. And is that what you'll do at the Rosewood? So at the Rosewood, we're going to take a similar to the cafe, Desert Rose Cafe.

27:24And it will have all the local dishes that you would find in Qatar. Yes, exactly. And you know, Chef Nof created a very interesting street food called rgag. Rgag is our, it's a thin bread, very typical. We use it in many of our dishes. And it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, and she puts, she puts like inside different recipes and it's the most delicious grab and go sandwiches. So we're thinking also to have a food cart just outside, you know, the terrace of the Rosewood where you can grab that sandwich and go. And you know, there's more and more Qataris choosing to become a chef as a profession.

28:03Whereas in the past, to become a chef was not... And you couldn't do anything else. I think that's international. Yeah, but it's really interesting because it's true. You know, Qatar, I would say it's like the most important commodity we have as a Qatar because we're only like 400 ,000 people. And we want them to do everything. So to be a chef is like, you know, I have so many other options. Why be a chef? you have to be really passionate you want to be a chef and to work the hours that you need to so now we have more and more qataris becoming chefs and really doing the research of their you know local cuisine and we're actually planning to open a school a culinary school to teach qatar food i don't want to bring a culinary school to teach european i want to teach because many people who come from different parts of the world are living in qatar or visiting they want to learn how to make a dish yeah and if if I think the best way is to go to the place like a school where you can learn with other people and it's fun and it's next to the National Museum so then you can learn and then experience it or experience a meal and then come and learn the dish yourself so it creates a whole you know a wholesome experience of what culture does to your mood you know we always say it improves the quality of your life it improves the economy of your culture and and that's what we have been doing.

29:18Well food and culture, food and architecture, food and family, food and friendships, it's all it's it's tied in together. But food is also comfort. And so what we usually do at the end of this one essay, wonderful conversation with you. Thank you. Thank you. I've been very happy to finally make it. We finally did it. Is that when you want food for comfort, for your own comfort yes is there food that you remember or that means something to you that you would go to my darling you know i i love i love a cardamom in food so there's a dish that my grandma my grandmother is an amazing chef she's 94 i think some people say she's over 100 but she says she's lying about her age you know but she's i always say if she had a restaurant she'd get three michelin stars because you know we always say when you cook with your heart the meal comes out differently and she i spent many hours in the kitchen with her helping her observing her learning from her and she's an amazing chef and she makes a dish that i love it's you can have it for breakfast you can have it as a dessert it's called khan farouche and it's it's like a little pancake but it's not a pancake it's thicker than a pancake and it has saffron and cardamom and for me this is the best cardamom this is the best comfort food yeah because there's something you You know, I don't know, there's something for me healing when I have anything with kadim and saffron as well.

30:46So that's, my kids love that dish. And my children love it so much. And she lives part of the year in Paris. So whenever we'd go to her, she would fill a tin bowl with khanfaroush and give it to us. And it lasts for days. I would say that and maybe soup. I love soups. And I love cooking soups. Okay, we have to do episode two. I think this is part one because there's so much more to talk about. No, thank you so much. Thank you. It was great. Thank you. Thank you.