Hoda Read online

  8. Bake in preheated 325°F oven for 1 hour or until golden brown. (After baking, you may decide to put the pan under the broiler with the oven door opened for a few minutes for a more golden color on top. But watch out! It burns easily.)

  9. Add cooled syrup and complete the diamond shape cutting all the way through. Remove from pan immediately. Serve and enjoy!

  Reminder: Keep the phyllo dough covered with foil while working with it—it prevents the dough from drying out.

  My Hair

  Bad hair in 1987 . . .

  Bad hair in 1996 . . .

  Bad hair with BB King!

  Okay, why is my hair in the family section? Because, really . . . my hair is like a family member.

  It’s the misbehaving brown-headed stepchild that everyone is always taking about, worrying about, catering to, and threatening to “cut off” if she doesn’t start behaving. My hair even has its own room, otherwise known as my bathroom cabinet. It’s decorated with aluminum spray cans, plastic squirt bottles, and posters that scream, “No-Worries Hair!” and “Miracle Mend!” It smells like kiwi, aerosol, and mud. Honestly, if you studied a pie chart of my spending and looked for all the dollars I’ve dropped on “product,” there would be no slices, just full-on pie.

  But really, can you put a price on hope? Straightening, relaxing, smoothing, conditioning, cleansing, highlighting, lowlighting and . . . the all-important (angels sing) “blowout.” I farm out for the blowout. Thirty or forty dollars per? Priceless. Worth every cent.

  I don’t know what you do when relatives come to visit. Go out to lunch? Sit and chat? Thumb through photos of all the special things you’ve recently done? Not the Kotb women. Oh, no, no. We immediately go and get a blowout. This is the equivalent of Xanax for us. When our hair is right, all is right in the world.

  I can tell immediately if a salon is emotionally and physically equipped for the job. If the stylist looks at my hair, gasps under her breath, and grabs for a flat paddle brush, I’m gone. Only the truly skilled know you don’t bring down a jungle cat with a dart gun. You use a round brush.

  And if you date me, you’d better get on board with the lid. I always know a guy “gets” me when he’s as panicked as I am at the first sniff of humidity or splat of a raindrop.

  “I see it, I see it! I’ve got it!” he scrambles. “I’ve got the umbrella!”

  For my thirty-seventh birthday, a sweet guy from work asked me out on a date. I bought a new outfit and, of course, got my hair blown out.

  He said, “I’ve got something very special planned . . .”

  How wonderful!

  “And I think you’ll love it,” he added. “It’s an Off-Broadway show.”

  I love Off-Broadway!

  He didn’t get me.

  When we arrived, the room was like a mosh pit. Everyone was standing up and there was no orchestra. A guy on stage started spraying water everywhere! By now, you can guess that for me this is what hell looks like. I became the Wicked Witch of the West, cowering from the deadly water.

  What fun for everyone! Except for me and a black girl who ran with me behind the stairs. We looked at each other in horror.

  “Who would bring me here?” I gasped. “And on my birthday!”

  “It’s your birthday?” she gasped back. “How cruel!”

  Water balloons were dropping like bombs. I was in a war zone, not on a date.

  Now, I’m hardly high maintenance or vain, but when it comes to this mop—you can’t stop it but you have got to contain it. Hala, my hair hero, has a detailed list of all the “Kotb-Approved Salons” in cities around the world, as well as their Sunday hours and the day they’re closed. She hooks me up.

  From the time I was little, my hair was a “thing.” Kids used to make fun of my giant frizz and tease (no pun intended) me. “Can I touch it? Can I feel it?” I so badly wanted “normal” hair that would swing Farrah-fully when I shook my head. One year, my mom bought me a tan-colored winter cap made of macramé, sort of like the one J.J. always wore in Good Times. I wore that thing out. I wore it all the time; in and out of class. It was the perfect cover. At that point, I don’t know which was weirder, the J.J. hat or my real hair.

  Flash forward to me at Dateline NBC and a producer telling me they’re sending me to Uganda.

  “We’re flying you to Uganda . . . to the bush.”

  I flinched and got a facial tick.

  “Uganda? The bush?” What?!

  “Yes. Uganda . . . to the bush . . . for a week.”

  My eyes glazed over. All I could think about was my hair—the bush growing huge in the bush—for a week. I immediately went shopping for those battery cartridge things you shove into flat irons and blow-dryers. I knew we wouldn’t have power.

  They told me, “Oh, no, no—you can’t take those—they’re combustible on board . . .”

  Well, I had bigger issues than that plane going down, so I packed all my hair gear.

  Uganda was all wrong for me!

  I knew that the story was the point and not my hair. Obviously, I get it. But I had to plug in my hot rollers somehow! When we arrived in Uganda-be-kidding-me, the only place with power was a nearby hospital. The photographers had already used the only two available outlets to charge their camera batteries. You know I eventually found my way into those plugs. But the photogs clearly did not get me.

  Neither did the Today show producers who created a segment around me doing a triathlon.

  “There’s swimming, right?” I confirmed in shock. Honestly, I’d rather do “Root Canal Week.” I wore three bathing caps into that ocean water. My brain was squeeeezed to the max, and when I finally finished the swim and pried off the rubber caps one by one—trouble! Of course there was trouble. You normal-haired people have no idea.

  Okay, I do realize this one thing, though. I’ve now hit the hair jackpot with my current job. I’m totally spoiled. Every morning at the Today show, I get my hair blown out by the best. I can work out at the gym without worrying about sweating. I laugh at a misty morning. And I worry. I worry that someday this job will go away. And by that I mean Laura will go away. It’s losing Laura the hair genius that scares me. Laura is my hair angel. She gets me.

  Bless you, Laura. (Call me . . .)

  PART TWO

  Going Live

  3

  THE TREK

  My heart beats to the tick-tock of a deadline. Procrastinating to me is simply a way to create a time crunch. Like this: After I phone in a takeout food order, I’ll stay at work as long as possible, then race home to my apartment to meet up with the delivery guy.

  Yes! Made it!

  That’s why television news is the perfect career for me. I need to know that my work day has a start and a fight to the finish. I’m competitive, persistent, and not afraid to risk being the hero or the goat when airtime hits.

  I always knew I wanted to be in the news business. I used to imagine myself working as a foreign correspondent. The groundwork was set early. My family talked current events at home, my dad was always listening to news radio, and we watched 60 Minutes every Sunday. When I read the morning newspaper, the stories felt like old news. I loved the idea of live, in-the-moment reporting. Television news.

  That’s where I work now. If you know me from watching television, you know me at the mountaintop of my career. You see me in nice dresses and high heels; but actually I’ve spent most of my work life in hiking boots—climbing, climbing, climbing the mountain. Like a lot of career paths, there are a half-dozen base camps to survive before you actually summit. In my industry, those base camps are small and medium television markets, including at least one random city you’ve probably never heard of. I’ve lived in my share and have loved them all. Many of my best friends and favorite adventures would not exist without all the packing and unpacking of gear again and again and again.

  Finally, after twelve years of trekking, I’ve made it to the network, where the air is thin. That’s where most of us TV folks wan
t to plant the flag.

  • • •

  I graduated from Virginia Tech in 1986 with a bachelor of arts degree in communications. I felt very good. And very not yet ready to work. Instead, I made it my job to explore Egypt and sample a slice of the great big world. I flew to Cairo and moved in with my dad’s brother Mokhles, his wife Iman, and their two kids. It was fun, but after a few weeks, I needed more space, more freedom. I knew there was a building in the city that housed the CBS, NBC, and ABC news bureaus. So I walked in and told anyone who’d listen that I’d just graduated from college with a communications degree. Did they need any help? At first, everyone said no. But after a few days, a call from my uncle’s friend, and more begging from me, the CBS bureau chief, Penny Rogg, agreed to let me watch and learn. I began my “job” ripping wire, getting coffee, and getting yelled at. I had to figure out a lot of things on my own. Once in a while, I’d get to head out with a crew. Egypt’s president might attend a parade or a foreign dignitary might come through town—that’s when I got to ask a list of questions or serve as extra help if something newsy happened.

  Several months into my bureau experience, the arms-for-hostages story came to a head. The United States was apparently facilitating the sale of arms to Iran to secure the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon. A source had told CBS News in New York that some of those arms were being transported through the Suez Canal aboard a ship owned by Maersk, a Danish company.

  Ring, ring!

  I was basically by myself in the bureau when a panicked CBS producer called from the States. Our bureau chief, Penny, was back in the United States on business, so I was “on duty” along with a couple of male photographers sitting around reading magazines.

  “You need to get a helicopter right now,” the producer urged, “and shoot this Danish ship we think is carrying arms through the Suez Canal.”

  Can I get you some coffee instead?

  I said okay, hung up, and began to flail my arms and twirl my hands like a whirlybird, nodding at the two men. My Arabic stunk as badly as their English did. They thought I was nuts. Eventually, I got the point across that we needed to secure a helicopter ASAP. The two just laughed. “Not going to happen,” they said in broken English. “Is Friday.”

  Friday in Egypt is like Sunday in America. Everybody is off. Gulp. I called CBS in New York and broke the news about the “weekend” dilemma.

  “Well, you’d better get out there first thing in the morning,” instructed the producer, “and get us some video of that ship.”

  And so we did. Early the next morning, two photographers and I found ourselves lying on the ground as close as we could get to the water. In Egypt, it’s illegal to videotape the canal for security reasons, so we were very nervous. I was flipping through a book, making sure I could identify the Danish flag that would be flying on the ship.

  “Okay. Red flag . . . big white cross.”

  We identified the correct Maersk ship and shot for about forty-five seconds. The photographer immediately ejected the tape and handed it to me. “Run to the car right now,” he told me, “and throw this under the seat.” I ran, I threw, I came back. The photographer was already shooting more tape—until there came a tap on his shoulder. Two Egyptian police officers patrolling the canal demanded that we leave. But first, they demanded the tape from the photographer. Apologetic and cooperative, he handed them the tape, which they proceeded to yank out by the yard. It was all I could do not to smile like the Cheshire cat. We had already secured what we needed! I’ll never forget what a rush it was that night, watching our video air on the CBS Evening News. Sure, it was a mere five seconds, a tiny piece of the puzzle, but to me it felt like the start of something good.

  After about a year in Egypt, it was time to get serious about finding a job. My stint at CBS fueled the fire, and I had a plan. My Master Plan, hot off the press, was this: one single job interview at one television station in Richmond, Virginia. That was it. Signed, sealed, delivered. To prepare for my big interview, I got a fresh blowout. I also bought a brand-new green business suit. I looked ready. Except for one thing. My résumé. Chances are, when you go on an interview, you take along a crisp, paper résumé. Not so with news reporters. In television, our résumé is a videotape. In 1987, it was a bulky, black 3/4-inch cassette tape, about the size of a Bible. And Oh, Lord, mine was awful. Twenty minutes of god-awful snippets of fake reporting. Picture me—giant hair—babbling about nothing, trying to look like a foreign correspondent. I shot 98 percent of my résumé tape in Egypt. No cohesive news stories. Just disjointed crap, floating in the ether, connected to nothing:

  • me chatting in front of a pyramid

  • me yackity-yacking in front of the Sphinx

  • me walking and talking along the Nile

  • me shouting a question to the visiting former president Jimmy Carter, and he, completely oblivious

  Still, as sad and tragic as this sounds, I was totally proud of that twenty-minute debacle. So, with my crappy résumé tape tucked in my purse, I borrowed my mom’s car and drove the hour and a half from my house in Alexandria, Virginia, to the sure-thing TV station in Richmond. When I walked into the WTRV newsroom, I thought, Oh, yes. My future lies here. I will sit—overrr therrre . . . and I will date—him.

  My life in Richmond was taking shape.

  The news director took my résumé tape as we stood together in the edit bay. He popped it into the videocassette machine and watched it for a couple of minutes. He then popped it out and said: “Hoda, you’re not ready for Richmond.”

  Um . . . what?

  That reaction had never dawned on me. Not for a second. I was ready to work! I asked him what I could do to improve, and he said that I was just too green, too inexperienced. He thanked me for coming. Buh-bye.

  As I was leaving in shock, the news director said, “Hoda, wait a minute. I have a buddy who’s hiring in Roanoke, Virginia. He’s leaving on a trip tomorrow, but if you catch him tonight, I’ll bet he’ll see you.” I said, “Tell him I’m coming!”

  I called my mom and explained that, number one, I did not want Richmond, I wanted Roanoke. And, number two, I would need the car for a few more hours. So, off to Roanoke, a three-and-a-half-hour drive.

  When I walked in, I looked around the newsroom and thought, Ohhhhkaayyy—not half bad. I will sit there, and I will date—him. Everything will work out fine. The news director popped my tape into the machine, played it for a few minutes, and said, “Hoda, you are just not ready for Roanoke.”

  Who in the hell is not ready for Roanoke? (Apparently, me.)

  The news director said I was not experienced enough, but with some work, he might want to hire me in a few years. Oh, and—buh-bye.

  As I was leaving, he said, “Hoda, wait a minute. I have a buddy who’s hiring in Memphis. He’s going to be at the conference I’m going to, but I’ll bet if you catch him tomorrow morning, he’ll hire you.” So I said, “Tell him I’m coming.”

  Tennessee is a long, skinny state and Memphis is at the other end. So, I called my mom about the car and started the twelve-hour drive to Memphis. All night long I drove, humming country music and imagining my new life in Tennessee. When I finally rolled into the parking lot of WREG, my hair exploding north in the southern humidity, my green suit looked, well, lived in.

  Again, I met the news director. He popped my tape in the machine, watched it, and said (everybody together now), “Hoda, you are just not ready for Memphis. But, best of luck to you.” Buh-bye. As I was leaving, he said, “Hoda, before you go, I have a buddy who I think will hire you.”

  I was in that car driving for ten days. I drove the entire southeastern United States, slept in the car at truck stops, and was turned down three times in Birmingham, Alabama, at all three network affiliates.

  Eject tape. Reject me. Rinse. Repeat. (Was it my hair?!)

  Dothan, Alabama, turned me down. Does anyone know where Dothan is? I didn’t think so. I got rejected in the Florida panhandle
a few times, too. All total, twenty-seven news directors told me no. Twenty-seven.

  It was clear I had made a mistake and chosen the wrong profession. Maybe that professor in college who told me he didn’t think I was one of the few who’d make it in broadcast journalism was right. It was time to give up. Plus, my mom needed her car back. The green suit was tired.

  I don’t know about you, but when I’m depressed, I listen to sad music. So, I put James Taylor in the tape deck and began driving north aimlessly. I figured I’d drive for a while then look for signs pointing east. Eventually, I’d wind up in Virginia.

  Well, a funny thing happened. I got lost. Somewhere in Mississippi. You know how they say God sends us signs? Well, this was a sign—literally. As I was driving, I spotted a billboard that read something like “WXVT: Our Eye is on Your Greenville” (with the CBS eye logo). I thought, Let me go get rejected there, and then I’ll get a map so I can go home and start my career in PR.

  Then I met the man who would change my life.

  Stan Sandroni, who just that day had been promoted from sports director to news director, agreed to see me. Stan popped my tape in the machine, and a funny thing happened—he watched it. He watched the whole horrible twenty-seven minutes. My heart pounded. I watched him watch me, and when the tape ended, he hit the stop button. He looked me in the eye and said the words I will never forget: “Hoda, I like what I see.”

  You do?!

  I burst into tears, then burst into the world of journalism.

  My first TV job

  P.S.

  Stan Sandroni was a prince to me when I worked as a reporter at WXVT in Greenville, Mississippi. One day, I was at the station when a panicked Stan came racing into the newsroom.

  “Who’s got a blazer?!” he asked, short of breath.

  “I do,” I answered, pointing to a peg on the wall. I figured someone forgot theirs and needed to shoot a stand-up.