Alison Roman (food writer & chef)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] Experts on expert.

[2] I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[3] Hi there.

[4] Hi.

[5] We have a fun guest today.

[6] There was a couple of Easter eggs dropped along the way, right?

[7] Yes.

[8] As I recall?

[9] Yes.

[10] So, probably people guessed it.

[11] I've had a few people come up and say, I'm really excited for.

[12] Uh -huh.

[13] And they guess.

[14] Yes.

[15] Oh, okay, right, right.

[16] Alison Roman.

[17] What a delight.

[18] Oh, she's a dream.

[19] Alison Roman, she's a cook and a best -selling author.

[20] She's written the books, nothing fancy, dining in, and she has a new beautiful dessert book for people who dream of desserts, who like desserts, and who don't do desserts.

[21] It's called Sweet Enough.

[22] It's good.

[23] And you've already made some of the...

[24] I have made a few of the recipes.

[25] They're so good.

[26] She does not miss. She's got 100 % batting.

[27] Everything I've made.

[28] She has a famous.

[29] cookie recipe it's called it they like call it like the cookies the internet cookies they're a chocolate chip short bread they are so good i do make them all the time i've had christin loves them i love them i've had them numerous times they're delish they're so good and i yeah sometimes i gift them out yes they're your kind of yeah they're your go -to yeah the cookie the cookie so check out sweet enough also enjoy alison roman armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[30] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[31] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[32] He's an armchair expert.

[33] I feel like I have met you before.

[34] It's so weird.

[35] I know.

[36] I want to definitely talk about that.

[37] We have a lot to talk about it in that realm of my friends coming who I've never met.

[38] It's so weird.

[39] My friend, we were, like, creating voicemones, and she was like, my hands are shaking for you.

[40] She's, like, for one part, like, she and I haven't met with her for a long time.

[41] And, like, five years ago, she's like, you have to go on that.

[42] Not my five years ago, but a long time ago.

[43] And so I've had to tell her, and she's like, I'm shaking for you.

[44] I'm like, well, I'm not, I'm like, should I am shaking?

[45] Like, uh -oh.

[46] Yeah.

[47] And she's like, almost her crying.

[48] Oh.

[49] She just loves you so much.

[50] That's really sweet.

[51] Yeah, it was really wonderful.

[52] But yeah, there's definitely a parisocial thing happening here.

[53] Yes.

[54] That's a new word.

[55] For me, I didn't know it until we had Anna Kendrick on and she was using it like a butt.

[56] Oh, thank you.

[57] You were like, what is that?

[58] She was like that thing that we all are doing all the time.

[59] Where does your dad, we'll cut this, but you're from here.

[60] Does your dad still in here, right?

[61] Don't even cut this.

[62] Well, I don't want to say her dad's address.

[63] Who's to say he doesn't want visitors?

[64] Like, when I go to hotels, they say, do you want to have your, yeah, let's see who calls.

[65] Yeah, why not?

[66] Yeah, you know what's mine.

[67] We'll tell everyone that comes in that I'm here, see what happened.

[68] You're right.

[69] I can't believe I'm sitting in the seat.

[70] Shania Twain was sitting in near days ago.

[71] That's right.

[72] How about Shania Twain?

[73] Did you listen to that?

[74] I didn't.

[75] No, I'm not cut up on anything.

[76] Do they come out yesterday?

[77] It did.

[78] It did.

[79] It did.

[80] You brought it up.

[81] I wouldn't have assumed you listen, but you happened to say Shania.

[82] Give me like a 48 -hour window.

[83] Yeah, they're long as hell too.

[84] Let me tell you something.

[85] She was spectacular.

[86] Yeah.

[87] I mean, fucking dynamite.

[88] Brought it up to me, unrelated.

[89] Oh, really?

[90] Yeah, they were like, wow, her story's wild.

[91] Yeah, I don't think it was broadly known.

[92] I mean, she has a doc.

[93] But also, I think we got a very fun version of her that I haven't heard.

[94] Her outfit alone was really said volumes, I feel like.

[95] I was blown away.

[96] She blew her nose.

[97] It's in the interview, you'll hear it.

[98] Every time she blew her nose, it was like watching a Disney character blow her nose.

[99] He would get really obsessed with that.

[100] She's so pretty.

[101] She is.

[102] Like a glass doll or something.

[103] Yes, that's what you said.

[104] She's put together in a way that is.

[105] weirdly empowering.

[106] I don't know how I'm delineating which one's which, but I will say she's extremely put together, but I think for herself.

[107] That doesn't impress me much, et cetera.

[108] It's all part of the brand.

[109] Yeah, let's go, girls.

[110] Yeah, she's through and through.

[111] God, I loved her.

[112] I know.

[113] She was fantastic.

[114] She's a tough motherfucker too.

[115] I think anyone to be around for that long of a period of time, you kind of have to be.

[116] There was like divorce messiness, right, with the guy.

[117] Let's start with she started performing at eight years old, in bars in Northern Canada.

[118] That's not good for any Starting at midnight when they stopped serving booze, but you could order as much as you wanted at midnight for your table, and then Stadel, too.

[119] So still, apex of drunkenness, but the laws were such that that's when she could enter.

[120] So she would come in at eight years old, too.

[121] The gnarlyest scene you've ever could imagine.

[122] Managing a lot.

[123] They don't make them like they used to.

[124] They're not going to come out, cut that tough anymore, because we can't allow that for our children.

[125] Yeah.

[126] You're from L .A. I am from L .A. I'm from the Valley.

[127] I grew up in Tarzana and Sherman Oaks.

[128] I lived in Chatsworth for a while.

[129] My parents were divorced, and my dad lived in North Hollywood, then bought a house in Tarzanah, then my mom was in Sherman Oaks, then got a house in Chatsworth, and then moved back to Sherman Oaks.

[130] Got it.

[131] I already have a question.

[132] Of course.

[133] Is Chatsworth good?

[134] No, the answer is no. Nobody needs to go to Chatsworth.

[135] A lot of pornography was made in Chatsworth.

[136] Oh, sure.

[137] That was kind of...

[138] It's called the Porn Capital of the Valley.

[139] Wow.

[140] Yeah.

[141] Which means of the world.

[142] Exactly.

[143] And like to be the capital of the valley, like there's a hierarchy.

[144] That's a side note.

[145] Let's earmark that.

[146] Just, yes, it's worth earmarking.

[147] Oh, yeah, all of it's worthier market.

[148] You on your home movies.

[149] Thank you.

[150] Tell people what that is.

[151] If you don't, you don't listen to this show because this is all I talk about.

[152] I think like 80 % of my traffic comes from this show.

[153] From Monica.

[154] She talks about you every single fact check.

[155] I know you watch her videos and stuff, but I don't know it's called home movies.

[156] Exactly.

[157] So I have been referring to you as my chef since I found your videos.

[158] What year was that, Monica?

[159] I think it was potentially just.

[160] January, 2021.

[161] Oh, yeah, that checks out.

[162] Oh, because I didn't do home movies until 2021.

[163] Exactly.

[164] And it was so sim because I found you on YouTube and I was watching your New York Times videos.

[165] And then I watched them all in like an evening.

[166] How many were there?

[167] A lot.

[168] At least 20.

[169] We're going to get it.

[170] 20, okay.

[171] What's the length of the videos?

[172] 10 to 20.

[173] Yeah, they normally fall in like the 13 to 17 minute range.

[174] There are some hour -long special.

[175] The longer the better.

[176] Yeah, more.

[177] We can't get enough.

[178] Can't stop filming.

[179] Do you cook multiple things?

[180] It's like if they're longer, it's because I'm doing a party or an event, there's a Thanksgiving.

[181] There's a ham party, a hot dog party, which sounds like I'm 12, but I promise it's very highbrow.

[182] Uh -huh.

[183] Elevated.

[184] You know, Liz went to a party over Christmas, and you were there, and she said you brought your ham.

[185] A friend of mine had his holiday party and weighed the ham and was like texting me before, like, where do I get the ham?

[186] Is the bone in okay?

[187] where do I get the bone lettuce, this pie's not.

[188] What's the place?

[189] What's the deal?

[190] He lives in my neighborhood, so I was like, here's where you go.

[191] Here's what you do.

[192] It's going to be fine.

[193] And I show up, and it's chaos.

[194] And there are so many people there, and not only that, but the ham is just sitting there.

[195] He's taken the ham out of the oven.

[196] No one is touching it because nobody wants to be the first person to carve a hand.

[197] Oh, sure.

[198] Sort of like a social contract.

[199] Also a pain in the ass.

[200] Right.

[201] And I look at the ham, and my boyfriend's like, you're going to start carving the ham, aren't you?

[202] He's like, don't carve the ham.

[203] As a courtesy, but also, I know you.

[204] and if you start carving the ham, you're going to be carving the ham all night.

[205] Oh, I see.

[206] And that is what happened.

[207] Okay.

[208] But I was happy to do it because otherwise the hamels are getting carved.

[209] Also, you now have an excuse to talk as much as you want to people.

[210] Yeah, or not talk.

[211] That's what I'm saying.

[212] Oh, yeah.

[213] Like you can be like, oh, I'm so busy.

[214] The right person saddles up next to you.

[215] Then you got time all of a sudden.

[216] So you immediately already hit upon the reason why I started cooking in the first place.

[217] I think that it is like a really specific way that I didn't even realize until much later and I started articulating it more.

[218] but I do this because I want to be social without being social.

[219] Like me hosting a party or me cooking for people, me doing things.

[220] I'm allowed to invite you into the space and you can be around me. But I'm distracted.

[221] But I have to go immediately.

[222] We can't do small talk for a second longer, sadly.

[223] Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?

[224] I forget which one I am, but I'm either an introverted extrovert or an extrovert or an extrovert or an introvert.

[225] Okay.

[226] So maybe an ambivor.

[227] Because my wife, similarly, she loves having people over and she loves cooking a lot for people.

[228] And then she loves to go up and start reading a book while everyone's over and just disappear.

[229] I don't do that level, but I respect that so intensely.

[230] That is so balsy and I love it, frankly.

[231] I've had that experience and come to like it as well.

[232] I only make one dish that people request, which is my spaghetti, and I'm out for an hour and a half.

[233] But I'm around, and same thing, I'm like, well, this is kind of a hack, because I'm social, but I don't have to talk to anybody.

[234] No, it's beautiful.

[235] Monica, have you had the pasta?

[236] It's so good.

[237] What is it?

[238] It's a spaghetti.

[239] I don't like telling people.

[240] But give me like a broad stroke's three ingredient descriptor.

[241] It's a combination of my grandmother's recipe and my mom's recipe.

[242] So my grandmother used to make this spaghetti that I have written out from the grandma that gave it to her.

[243] Here are the weird things.

[244] Carrots, rosemary, onion.

[245] You start with, you know, four quarts of water.

[246] It's three hours long.

[247] And you make meatballs.

[248] From the carrots?

[249] No, not in the case.

[250] They're cooking inside this giant fucking four -court pan.

[251] Yeah.

[252] My mother made Prego, but she spiced it up, and I loved it.

[253] So mine's a combo of those two things, but I do use equal parts, carrot, and onion.

[254] So it's a tremendous amount of onion and carrot.

[255] So I paint an olive oil, and then I put the rosemary in and some tarragon.

[256] I don't even think I knew about that.

[257] And then I add a bunch of prego.

[258] This is a part that no one's going to like.

[259] I do use Prego.

[260] Yeah.

[261] Plot twist.

[262] My grandma's is the paste.

[263] the whole tomatoes, the whole nine yards.

[264] It fucking turns out to be Prego.

[265] You know what?

[266] If it's Prego, it's Prego.

[267] Who are we to deny?

[268] It's Prego for a reason.

[269] Some things you put in your mouth and it's just like, it's so good.

[270] Yeah.

[271] And you don't even need to.

[272] Yeah.

[273] So I would just say the weird things are the rosemary, the carrot, and the Tarragon.

[274] We're aligned on that.

[275] I agree that that's weird.

[276] And then I'm putting a ton of garlic salt in as I want and I'm tasting it.

[277] And then if I tip it, which I sometimes do, then it's a few tablespoons of sugar in there as well as it all percolates.

[278] The key for me is really fatty, good butcher -grown beef.

[279] And I don't drain the fat, motherfuckers.

[280] No, don't do it.

[281] Stir it back in, emulsify it.

[282] Yes.

[283] It becomes creamy.

[284] The best is, if I have the ultimate preparation, I will cook it either five hours before people are getting eaten it.

[285] And then I get it in the fridge.

[286] And then I reheat it.

[287] And then it's like, ah.

[288] Yeah, any sort of long -cooked meat thing, the additional 12 to 24 after cooking is really where things happen.

[289] Yes.

[290] That fat somehow disappears into everything else.

[291] and it's just getting up.

[292] It's just better.

[293] Yes.

[294] Now, this is bringing up something interesting.

[295] Do you feel...

[296] I hope it's about ground beef.

[297] Yeah, well, ish.

[298] Do you feel uncomfortable when people tell you their recipes and you know, like, that's not good?

[299] But you kind of have to make people feel good about it.

[300] I think that it depends if it's something that I do really well.

[301] What you just described, I have no idea what that could possibly even taste like.

[302] Yeah.

[303] So I can't knock it.

[304] Yeah.

[305] But if you're like, here's how I roast my chicken, and you said some crazy shit, I would be like, oh, uh -huh, definitely, and have a tough time with that.

[306] But also, you have good taste.

[307] She's vouching for you, and so you say it's actually really good.

[308] It is.

[309] Here's what I can say about it.

[310] It's requested nonstop, and when I make it, everyone we're friends with comes over, and then when I make it on one of our pod trips, it's fucking gone in a day.

[311] I'm just basing it on that.

[312] You're the Allison Roman of your friend group, is what you're saying.

[313] I'm not even.

[314] No, I'm trying to be.

[315] I'm trying to be.

[316] Well, you are becoming her.

[317] I am.

[318] Listen, this is perfect.

[319] This is one of the principal differences between you and I. You follow directions great, and you're an A student.

[320] That's right.

[321] And I'm like a renegade punk rock.

[322] I didn't read anything.

[323] I'm just throwing shit.

[324] And then when either of us have a victory, it seems to threaten the whole theology.

[325] It throws everything off balance.

[326] It's not what you agreed to.

[327] It's not the moral contract.

[328] Yeah, I hear that.

[329] One of our longest debates was interviewing someone who was learning to work with Wood and they were watching YouTube tutorials.

[330] And I said, stop doing that.

[331] The point is to be creative.

[332] To feel it out.

[333] No, but no. Make some bad shit.

[334] And then makes a little bit better shit.

[335] And then your hand gets sawed off.

[336] What did you do if you watch the video and you make a perfect birdhouse because you followed every single, what did we do?

[337] Solace burthouse.

[338] Yes.

[339] That birdhouse is not full of love.

[340] It's not.

[341] You see what I'm saying.

[342] But I do.

[343] That said, I feel like the potential for physical harm with cooking is so much smaller than when we're talking band saws.

[344] So ceramics, go ahead, live your life.

[345] Throw the ball.

[346] Make the wheel.

[347] Take the wheel.

[348] Yeah, but woodworking, you might want to watch a video.

[349] Well, even chopping an onion, there's a way.

[350] Let's talk about that.

[351] There is a way.

[352] And that upsets me when I see people doing that wrong.

[353] Okay, great.

[354] So I have a method.

[355] I don't know what the right way is.

[356] You do it right.

[357] I do it right.

[358] I cut a grid.

[359] Yeah.

[360] But by the way, I just figured that out.

[361] You're a natural.

[362] You're blessed from the inside.

[363] No, I just think I'm a good mechanic.

[364] You're using logic, which I think specifically was working with vegetables and things like that.

[365] They tell you how they want to be cut.

[366] But if you take an onion and I tell you to chop it, the worst thing you could do is just take the whole thing unpeeled and like slice off a piece of it and then start doing stuff with it.

[367] It's like, no, no, no, no. Nothing about this spherical thing with a root and a stem indicates that that's how it wants to be treated.

[368] It's precarious.

[369] There's only one way it works.

[370] Yeah, you make a flat side.

[371] It goes to fucking hell in a handbasket the second you make the wrong cut.

[372] Most people don't know that, I would say.

[373] I mean, I learned it from your video.

[374] I didn't know.

[375] You could have learned it watching me cook the thing again.

[376] I could have.

[377] We could make like a four -hour super cut of all the footage we have of me cutting onions.

[378] Oh my God, I love it.

[379] It's like a fireplace channel of just me doing onion cutting.

[380] Oh my God, that'd be so soothing for me. We should do that.

[381] Do you feel the pressure when you're defining yourself as a chef to cut those things really fast?

[382] Because to me that seems like when you watch movies and shit, it's just all about the speed.

[383] And I can imagine feeling this crazy pressure that I gotta be like, no, not to gender it, but I feel like that men do that.

[384] Men are like, I'm a chef.

[385] I don't even call myself a chef anymore because it's, too nebulous, all the things that I do in my work and in the way that I try to present myself, I'm decidedly not a chef and I'm decidedly not like that, where I'm like, take your time, do it right.

[386] You know, and I say like it upsets me when people cut an onion wrong.

[387] It's more just I turn into a nona.

[388] I'm like, I'm worried for your fingers.

[389] I feel like you're going to hurt somebody.

[390] It's hacking the onion.

[391] I don't want food waste.

[392] You know, it's not because like you're doing it wrong.

[393] But I don't feel pressure to either do things well or fast, to be honest.

[394] This would be my analogy to that, which is my mother -in -law was over.

[395] We were watching some show that had reenactments.

[396] And Kristen and I were audibly laughing at some of the choices some of the actors were making.

[397] And she said, you guys are so mean and critical.

[398] And I said, well, yeah, that's one way to look at it.

[399] Another way to look at it, be like, you're a nurse.

[400] If you watch someone try to draw blood by sticking a carrot in someone's arm, what would you do?

[401] You would laugh because, you know, that's not how one draws blood.

[402] Like, you're not being critical.

[403] You know what should be done.

[404] You're like, that carrot belongs in the sauce.

[405] We happen to know what you do when you get shot.

[406] it's not that.

[407] And I think that that's it too.

[408] I feel very protective of my line of work because I've been doing it forever and it's like all I've really done professionally.

[409] And I take it really for as not serious as I present and I'm like anyone can cook and everybody take it easy and have fun.

[410] But I personally internalize it as like this is a thing that I do and I feel protective.

[411] It's your identity.

[412] Everyone defends their identity.

[413] Yeah.

[414] And you're really smart.

[415] And I think if I were you maybe, I would feel like, no, this actually requires some skill and some brains that I have whereas I think most people could look at cooking and be like, oh, anyone can do that or that's easy.

[416] And if I were you, I'd be like, no, I'm smart and I chose to do something that requires that.

[417] Yeah, that's how I approached it.

[418] And I think that that's where my admittedly shitty attitude comes towards people that I feel like don't take it seriously like on social media.

[419] Like TikTok.

[420] Yeah, and I'm like, that's my craft.

[421] I could lighten up about that.

[422] But I feel like every person now has that.

[423] I know photographers that feel the same way.

[424] And they're like, oh, you have an Instagram?

[425] Like, I've dedicated my life to this.

[426] Every industry.

[427] Actors are all of a sudden, like, who are influencers?

[428] What are YouTube stars?

[429] Oh, why are people acting on TikTok?

[430] It makes me feel very old to be like, get off my lawn.

[431] You know, it's like, well.

[432] Yeah.

[433] I know it's true.

[434] We're all in the lawn now, baby.

[435] Now here's a really curious situation.

[436] You hold Allison in this very high esteem.

[437] Highest.

[438] But what's really funny is you've never tried anything she's made.

[439] So what do you mean?

[440] Like personally.

[441] You've never eaten some she prepared.

[442] Oh, I was like, I made everything.

[443] You could be succumbing to great production value.

[444] Oh, my God.

[445] No, it's not because I've made the recipes.

[446] So they're amazing.

[447] And you've had success on your own with her guidance.

[448] Well, I think that is the ultimate pariscial relationship in that you have actually no idea if I'm good personally.

[449] That's what I'm saying.

[450] Right.

[451] But I think by virtue of the fact that you have success and other people have success, there's like a network of trust.

[452] Yes.

[453] And I think that if.

[454] my first book came out and people made recipes and they didn't work or they didn't taste very good or they're like, it doesn't look like the photo, no one would tell anyone to buy it.

[455] Like, no one's that charming.

[456] I mean, well, that's not true.

[457] But I'm not that charming.

[458] You know what I mean?

[459] Like, I'm not carrying this trust on bubbly personality.

[460] Like, it really is in the work, I think.

[461] But the fact that you don't know if I personally can do it kind of is irrelevant because I'm teaching you to do it.

[462] Exactly.

[463] And that's worth a lot more.

[464] Although I am dying to try it.

[465] Yeah.

[466] Try something paid by your own.

[467] I will say the word around the campfire, Monica's been hosting all these women's only events at her house of which my wife attends and other friends of mine and they're always gossiping about how sensational Monica is becoming as a chef.

[468] So, or a cook or whatever the fuck you guys want to call.

[469] Soon you won't need me at all, Monica.

[470] That is not true.

[471] So that's my issue.

[472] I am not fucking around on the birdhouse.

[473] Like I am following these recipes.

[474] I'm watching, and we'll get into this.

[475] I had sort of a realization this weekend because I was sick.

[476] I watched 12 hours of, I can't even say.

[477] I'm so embarrassed.

[478] I'm so actually embarrassed.

[479] She's been nervous all week to admit this to you.

[480] Just over and over.

[481] Oh, my God.

[482] I've never consumed myself that way.

[483] I feel like you could give me some notes.

[484] Well, hold on, hold on.

[485] Before we get into notes, so there was some fear about how that'd be received.

[486] I had an opinion of it.

[487] You can really be honest.

[488] Yeah, yeah.

[489] You weren't like, I had plans, I canceled them all.

[490] Have you noticed that people consume these videos in a self -soothing way?

[491] Absolutely.

[492] Okay.

[493] Well, first, let's back up even further.

[494] We both read this article that was saying that people with high anxiety often watch the same movie over and over again.

[495] And we were like, oh, my God, that's Monica.

[496] Like, she watched contagion during the pandemic, like 13 times.

[497] Oh, I watched that.

[498] I watched Outbreak.

[499] I watched, what's the other one?

[500] Gwen Peltro is also in it.

[501] Oh.

[502] Not Contagian, though.

[503] No. Or maybe it was that I was watching that, and then I watched.

[504] I watched Talented Miss Ripley where she's also in the Jude Law or Matt Damon.

[505] Yeah, yeah.

[506] It was like the triangulation of wheneth, Matt, Dane, whatever.

[507] But I watched every sort of pandemic -related film.

[508] Yes.

[509] Because you needed an end.

[510] I was like, what's the worst that can happen?

[511] Let's watch it.

[512] Yeah, yeah.

[513] That's bad.

[514] Well, yeah, the explanation was people with anxiety like knowing how something's going to turn out.

[515] It's soothing to and turn into something chaotic that you know how it's going to turn out.

[516] We were saying it's the ultimate metaphor cooking.

[517] You start with chaos.

[518] All these different ingredients.

[519] They are different shapes.

[520] They seemingly have nothing in common.

[521] And then at some point, they fuse into a singular product, cohesive, controlled, and tasty.

[522] That's beautiful.

[523] Yeah.

[524] So I can see the appeal if you have anxiety.

[525] Yeah.

[526] And I've actually never heard it articulated that way, but I struggle very much with not knowing.

[527] In general.

[528] I'm like, where are we going?

[529] Just tell me where we're going.

[530] And what's going to happen when we get there?

[531] Right.

[532] Like nothing I can do to change, but I need to know.

[533] And if I don't, that I can't handle.

[534] And so the fact that I do what I do is very interesting because I don't follow recipes.

[535] I start from nothing.

[536] I start from blank canvas ingredients and I just kind of go and like it finds itself somehow.

[537] It seems like if you wanted to be kind of scientific about it and you had some ideas, maybe Rudebaga and sour cream taste good together.

[538] I don't know, whatever the thing is.

[539] Rutapega, wild card.

[540] Yeah, that really came out of no way.

[541] Well, I wanted to be a plausible curiosity.

[542] Would you ever start four identical things and then add differently so that there's some kind of relative to one another you could taste?

[543] Or is it just, let's try this, it'll be what it'll be, and then I'll decide if it's good.

[544] Or do you ever have like three going at the same time?

[545] That feels way too calculated and way too A -B for me. I almost always work from a place of these words sound good together.

[546] Or here's what I'm presented with, i .e., if I'm at the grocery store at a farmer's market or bodega, whatever, wherever it is that I'm shopping for food and they have things available.

[547] If I'm coming up with something new for that purpose, if I'm not just like cooking because I really want bolognais, if I'm like, I am going to develop something specific for an assignment or a book or a newsletter.

[548] Or sometimes I'm just like, wow, those words sound good together.

[549] Like, dilly beans stew.

[550] Like, when I thought of that, I just thought of words.

[551] Oh, so good.

[552] And then I made a version that was kind of shitty that had actual green beans.

[553] I was like, why the fuck would I put green beans in a stew?

[554] Never did it before.

[555] And there's a reason I've never done it before.

[556] But never saw the light of day.

[557] It wasn't very good.

[558] And then I pivoted and did some other stuff with it.

[559] But I was like, oh, that's what this wants to be.

[560] And I just made it once and that was it.

[561] Okay, great.

[562] Percentage -wise, what do you think you bat?

[563] Edison had, I don't know, 20 ,000 inventions.

[564] Five of them were good.

[565] Patented.

[566] I'd say my ads are better than that.

[567] But I'm also not trying to do electricity.

[568] But I feel like nowadays, I'm not including desserts or baking, because that always involves a bit more trial and error because you can't change it along the way.

[569] I would say, like a 98%.

[570] I'm pretty dialed in at this point.

[571] And you said you have a boyfriend.

[572] I do, yeah.

[573] So is he generally the recipient of these?

[574] Does he enjoy this?

[575] Or is he like, oh my God, I got to try another new thing?

[576] He loves it.

[577] He loves every second.

[578] Oh, that's great.

[579] Yeah.

[580] I have all willing participants in my life.

[581] He could love you and be like you or me, which is like, I don't love the unknown.

[582] So I ain't trying to sit down each night to try something unknown.

[583] Oh, yeah.

[584] And it's definitely not like that.

[585] I'm a creature of habit.

[586] Honestly, these days I haven't been doing the unknown that much.

[587] I've been in a place of I want this.

[588] And along the way, something might come out of that where I'm like, I want chicken soup.

[589] And along the way I might decide to do some stuff to it that results in something new.

[590] but at its core, it's chicken soup.

[591] I'm not like whimsy in the kitchen, tooling around and being like, what about this late creation with Rudebagan's sour cream?

[592] But it's more like I'm playing my own hits, not things that I've already done, but what I need in the moment.

[593] Yeah.

[594] Do you do this?

[595] I'm sorry.

[596] No, it's okay.

[597] Okay, I just, I'm more interested than I even expected.

[598] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[599] Yeah, I'm kind of energized.

[600] After the birdhouse, it was all down home.

[601] It's your personality.

[602] Thank you.

[603] This is like we had Lane Nortonod, by the way, who's Dax's dream boy.

[604] My deity.

[605] He's a musely.

[606] He's a scientist.

[607] Scientist.

[608] He's also a world champion heavy power lifter.

[609] With a stunning physique.

[610] All natural.

[611] Yeah.

[612] And he's really sweet and really nice and very spark.

[613] And he's a genius, too.

[614] But he came, when I saw his name on what we were going to do today, I was like, do I even need to go today.

[615] But then as soon as he started, I was like, oh, I'm in.

[616] And I was like, I think this is going to be that in reverse.

[617] Get the four of us in a room together.

[618] We know what's going to happen.

[619] Wait, but real quick, can you pit a pin in your thought?

[620] Boyfriend.

[621] So this is what's weird with these paris.

[622] social relationships.

[623] And I feel this from the world as well.

[624] You're doing cooking videos.

[625] Yes.

[626] But then you'll say something small about your boyfriend or you got broken up with or something.

[627] And everyone watching is now immediately invested in way more than the cooking video, but your whole life and who are you dating?

[628] And that must feel crazy.

[629] You're like, I'm doing a cooking video.

[630] And in your comments, people are asking, Tells about the boyfriend.

[631] That must feel...

[632] Will you experience that, I'm sure?

[633] Yeah, and it feels weird.

[634] Although here...

[635] So we have different reactions to that.

[636] Going back now, she said, well, I don't want to tell her that.

[637] And I said, why wouldn't she love that?

[638] You're like a smart, creative, successful person who has great interest.

[639] Like, so flattering.

[640] She said, no, it's like, I don't want if someone knows everything about me from the show.

[641] And I said, well, let's get into that.

[642] Why?

[643] They've already passed the litmus test.

[644] You are yourself.

[645] You are your true self.

[646] And they're still attracted to you.

[647] We're starting on third base.

[648] But for her, I hit her with this theory when it came out was her whole life has been outsider looking in, learning to assimilate, learning other people, adapting to other people.

[649] So it's just uncomfortable because there's no practice with people coming at her trying to adapt to her.

[650] I think what she's really feeling is just the newness of this and no practice in responding to that or being able to take that.

[651] There's nothing intrinsically weird about someone being interested.

[652] No, but there's a large swath of information shared.

[653] I think when you're a regular person, i .e. a person who just does cooking or is like on a podcast and all of a sudden you find yourself in that position, you're like, well, of course I've just been myself, but it went from two people listening or two people watching to quadrupled that to double that, to, you know, whatever.

[654] So then all of a sudden you're like, wait, I've been the same and I've been the same person and revealed the same amount of information except no one was listening and now everyone's listening.

[655] You're dealing with that all of a sudden.

[656] And people say all the time, they're like, oh, I saw you and so, oh, is that creepy?

[657] I'm like, no, I put it on Instagram.

[658] I know where this information's going.

[659] Yeah.

[660] In the same way that shooting a YouTube video or whatever or being on a podcast, you're like, I am just being myself and there's a certain level of awareness of the information that you're passing through.

[661] And there's a lot of stuff that I don't share for that reason.

[662] That was something I had to learn.

[663] I became a lot more protective of my private life, the more intense it got.

[664] Yeah.

[665] Because it feels weird.

[666] But can I also compare it to this?

[667] I think a lot of us have experiences.

[668] I know Monica and I both have.

[669] We've already talked about it a bunch.

[670] You like somebody.

[671] You're in love with them.

[672] Somehow they end up showing interest in you back and this weird switch flips.

[673] Just like, oh, well, if they like me, I must have misdiagnosed how appealing they were.

[674] Your self -esteem is so low that if this person you were in love with loves you back, your first thought isn't I'm worthy of it.

[675] It's that I misassessed how status and good they are.

[676] Yeah, their taste is now bad.

[677] Yes.

[678] And now I'm less interested.

[679] Oh, I guess they weren't that hot shit because they like me. I think that's at play in this.

[680] It is.

[681] I think you're right.

[682] Wait, you're obsessed with me and think my life is cool, then you must be really weird.

[683] You know.

[684] And I devalue you now.

[685] Yes.

[686] And I think it all comes from a lack of feeling worthy of the attention or the interest or the anything.

[687] Yeah, but when you're the pursuer, you're the one with the crush, you're the one with the fan, you're the one with the whatever.

[688] You're like, I admire you.

[689] And when it flips, you're like, oh, they're seeing something that's not real.

[690] And if we ever meet in person, it's going to be huge fucking disappointment.

[691] Yes, that I brought up too.

[692] That's huge.

[693] And that, I think if you've ever done online dating or whatever, that's a huge element there where you're like, oh, well, you're only interested in me before you meet me. Because once you meet me, it's all going to fall apart.

[694] You can't win either way.

[695] Then if they're super into you, you're like, oh, they must be terrible because they like me. But I have that anxiety meeting you, Monica, my friend who I was talking about earlier, and she's like, well, you already know Monica's such a fan and did it.

[696] And I was like, I know, but what if she meets me?

[697] And it's like, oh, womop.

[698] Yeah, I felt the same way.

[699] But that's why when I cook for people who know who I am, it's terrifying.

[700] Because I'm still just a regular person.

[701] I burn shit all the time.

[702] My stuff is probably too salty.

[703] But I'm afraid that people are like, oh, I put her on such a pedestal as like being this person that in real life, she's like a fallible human who airs and I don't like her voice.

[704] But you know what my voice sounded like.

[705] I like your voice sounded like, but I enjoy it.

[706] I like it.

[707] Do you get that?

[708] Because you said that in one of your videos that her voice is weird.

[709] Oh, I get everything.

[710] I don't keep tabs on it anymore.

[711] That was more of just like a joke because in that spirit of being like, you put yourself out there for anything.

[712] You're like, I want to make a thing.

[713] And I'm going to self -publish.

[714] I'm going to self -publish a podcast or a book or a newsletter or a YouTube channel.

[715] And I'm making this thing.

[716] And the people that want to be there will be there.

[717] They'll listen, they'll subscribe.

[718] But you still get so many people who don't want to be there that feel the need to weigh in.

[719] And you're like, why are you here?

[720] Yeah, you don't like me. So why are you?

[721] They're like, and not talking, lady.

[722] Get to the rest.

[723] I'm like, there are thousands of cooking videos on the internet.

[724] I am but one woman.

[725] And if you don't care for me, then keep it moving.

[726] Yeah.

[727] This is kind of a well -documented phenomenon, though, that occurred both with Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.

[728] So both those radio personalities had significant percentage of their regular audience that hated their guts.

[729] Now, I was one of them on Rush Limbaugh.

[730] My old job in college is I drove cars back and forth from Detroit to L .A. And so I'm driving forever.

[731] And if I was tired, I'd find Rush Limbaugh, and he'd make me so angry.

[732] And I'd be arguing in the car with him and just...

[733] And it was a source of fuel, right?

[734] And so I know Stern published all this stuff where like they'd interview people who hate him but listen to him.

[735] And then they interview people who love them.

[736] And the common denominator was, why do you listen to him?

[737] Because I want to hear what he's going to say next.

[738] It's like the same thing.

[739] One's fuel for anchor.

[740] So, yeah, a phenomenon of people maybe hate watching you.

[741] On some part, you got to go, well, look, man, it's a business.

[742] It's very easy to see that in not just the radio analogy, but like reality TV shows.

[743] Oh, sure.

[744] Where it's like, oh, these people are the worst.

[745] I cannot stop watching.

[746] You're simultaneously acting above the thing and then consuming it like a vampire.

[747] Yeah, right.

[748] And fortunately, I think most people that watch the stuff that I do, not to sound nerdy, but they're like, they're there to learn.

[749] They're there to have a good time or they're there to learn.

[750] And I think that they do.

[751] I don't know if this ever happens to you, but people think they're sending like an Instagram story to a friend, but they're responding to you.

[752] And they'll be like, she's so annoying, but she has great taste.

[753] Or like, I can't stand her personality, but her recipes do fuck.

[754] And I'm like, thank you so much.

[755] Yeah, and I'm like, you know what I'll take it?

[756] Yeah.

[757] The rest of these do fuck.

[758] Yeah, they do fuck.

[759] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[760] We've all been there.

[761] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[762] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[763] But for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms, can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[764] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[765] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[766] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[767] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[768] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[769] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[770] What's up, guys?

[771] This is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[772] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[773] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[774] And I don't mean just friends.

[775] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[776] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[777] this is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[778] That reminds me I one time got in trouble it's too complicated but I had something in a movie about a real person and they didn't like how that was perceived but ultimately what I was saying and I said in the movie is and I'd fuck her and I was saying you know that's my own self -centered perspective which is you literally Alison could say anything about me like post this interview you're talking to friends and you're like he was arrogant he smelled terrible and I totally want to fuck them, everything's good.

[779] No matter what was said before.

[780] Because that's where you place.

[781] Exactly.

[782] Exactly.

[783] And I place value on my work.

[784] Not to be like my work is unimpeachable because there's errors and typos and I make mistakes constantly, but at the end of the day, my personality is my personality.

[785] And I can't change it and you have to sort of evolve past the self -loathing of it all when you're like...

[786] You're like, you know what?

[787] But the work is good.

[788] Yeah.

[789] And like, take me out of it if you want.

[790] I don't need you.

[791] to love me as a person, but like the work is undeniable.

[792] You know, like, I'm saying not always, but that would be my preference.

[793] Better than the reverse.

[794] Exactly.

[795] For they're there for your personality.

[796] And they're like, oh, but her recipes don't work.

[797] That would break my heart.

[798] We don't have that cover fire.

[799] We're the product.

[800] That's why it's a little different from when you're talking about your boyfriend and you're just sort of slipping it in and then people are dying for those real moments.

[801] Ours is not like that because we are being ourselves.

[802] We're talking about our lives.

[803] Do you feel I'm doing this serious thing and now you're so dismaying.

[804] distracted by this trivial thing, like it's somehow undermining the work you're doing, which I would hope doesn't because it shouldn't.

[805] Yeah.

[806] It's just we're all human monkeys and it's like, oh, this person I like has a partner.

[807] What's he like?

[808] Yeah, exactly.

[809] Like, it's just totally innocuous.

[810] At this point, I know it's no disrespect to ask me what my lipstick color is.

[811] I know that that doesn't mean you're devaluing the work.

[812] If I was that serious about my work, I wouldn't ever put anything else out there.

[813] And part of why I have loved this podcast for so long is that I think that what you get at with people of all industries is the underlying desire to be seen by somebody.

[814] Yes, there's this give and take of putting yourself out there publicly.

[815] But part of why we are ourselves, quote unquote, on such a large scale is because we're like, we want to be seen.

[816] That's our ultimate desire.

[817] Exactly.

[818] And there's other underlying currents there.

[819] But if I was super secure and didn't quote need to be seen by anybody, I would just put out recipes and give you nothing.

[820] Yes.

[821] Well, that's why it would be very easy for anyone that's critical of it.

[822] any of us to go, like, y 'all are exhibitionists, which is 100 % true.

[823] So whatever comments people have, that's what you want.

[824] You're doing.

[825] Totally.

[826] You asked for this.

[827] Yeah.

[828] It's foundationally true.

[829] You're like, I didn't ask for this, but I, you know, and like when it's good, it's good.

[830] And when it's bad, you're like, but that's bad.

[831] And now it's all part of the same fucking soup.

[832] But by the way, it would be a boring game to play if it wasn't negative at times.

[833] If there was no, if there was no, if like, you would be.

[834] You're playing a game.

[835] Yes.

[836] And if there's no pitfall, there's no alligator that bites the player.

[837] why are you playing it?

[838] Yeah.

[839] I think also it makes people not that interesting.

[840] You know those people, especially in like your early 20s where you're like, oh, nothing bad has ever happened to you.

[841] No one has ever said no to you.

[842] No one has ever not loved you.

[843] No one has ever happened and you're only now in your early 20s or whatever because that tends to be the time in your life where things start to happen where you're like, oh, you're reacting so poorly to this or you're unable to deal with this in a way or it's melting your personality because it's been so smooth.

[844] You have no tools.

[845] Yeah, yeah.

[846] Speaking of that, sort of.

[847] You said you don't like not knowing.

[848] First of all, first -born Virgo's.

[849] I mean, hello.

[850] Hello.

[851] Yeah, it is in our blood.

[852] It is.

[853] It's in the stars.

[854] It's literally in the stars.

[855] Dex is a second -born Capricorn.

[856] Oh, wow.

[857] Middle -child Capricorn, actually.

[858] Wow.

[859] A Cap -ornevergo.

[860] Hosting.

[861] Oh, we know it means something.

[862] What does it mean?

[863] We don't know.

[864] I'm so skeptical of it, but she does follow this site, and every time she sends it to one.

[865] Which one?

[866] bonkers co -star oh yeah and you know they do like the why are you like this i was gonna give you the highlight one we were in england and then we went to paris for like two days and i was in a real spell and i had had enough of the whole thing and two little kids and all this stuff really broke down i was having a moment and i took to just wearing my noise canceling headphones and listening to music when it was getting too stressful for me it was like i was literally it was that or was going to go find drugs it was like check please that's where we were at i couldn't go to a meeting whatever.

[867] And so we get home and like three days later, this thing is on there that says what they'd bring on a vacation.

[868] And it said, Capricorn, noise canceling headphones.

[869] I couldn't.

[870] I was like, they're listening to us.

[871] They are?

[872] No. And they do know.

[873] And they do.

[874] Yeah.

[875] That one got me. Okay, but being fearful of what's coming up, do you think that has to do with your parents and divorce.

[876] Doesn't it always all have to do with our parents?

[877] I know.

[878] Yeah, for sure.

[879] How old were you when they got divorced?

[880] Two.

[881] A lot of moving I heard as well.

[882] Yeah, my schedule also changed a lot when I was a kid.

[883] I would be with my dad every other weekend, and then it was every other week.

[884] And then it was every one day, Wednesday, Thursday.

[885] So it wasn't like I had a sense of where I am or like a house necessarily.

[886] So I think that that probably has something to do with that.

[887] I had a few step -dads.

[888] And I have a step -mom who my dad married when I was four.

[889] They had two kids together.

[890] They're still married.

[891] They're still together.

[892] But my mom is a different story.

[893] Yeah, same.

[894] Three step -dads?

[895] and a dad?

[896] Two step -dads and a few step -boyfriends.

[897] LTR's, long -term relationship.

[898] Oh, okay, great.

[899] And did they run the gamut of likability?

[900] They did.

[901] There was one that I really loved.

[902] We're not, like, so much in touch these days, but I know that if I needed to be, I could.

[903] But I think that has more to do with the fact that I, at that point, was not super interested in forming a real relationship with any of them.

[904] Yeah.

[905] Because I just wasn't sure if they were going to be around.

[906] It was like this pressure from my mom to be nice and, like, do this.

[907] And I was just like, I don't want to be attached because it's probably not going to stick around.

[908] Yeah.

[909] Not to say he won't stick around, but the relationship won't stick around.

[910] What did she do for a living?

[911] She's a court reporter.

[912] So she had on business, yeah.

[913] Wow.

[914] Oh, wow.

[915] Did she have carpal tunnel?

[916] No, she doesn't.

[917] No, repetitive stress disorders?

[918] No. Wow.

[919] She would sometimes wear wrist braces in the time of working.

[920] I think there was some stress involved, but not like long -term effects.

[921] Would she occasionally collect insane stories from the courtroom?

[922] They must have occurred in L .A. Definitely.

[923] She did mostly deposition.

[924] She would sometimes go to court, and she did some, like, high -profile cases, like, depositions.

[925] I forget which one she did.

[926] Not okay, I wish.

[927] Like, imagine.

[928] But stuff in, like, the early mid -90s and definitely had some stories to tell.

[929] What did your dad do?

[930] He did a lot of different things.

[931] He now works for a company.

[932] He brokers the relationship between chemists and botanist and cosmetic companies, basically.

[933] So, like, finding symbiotic relationships.

[934] for the products that are being extracted or developed and finding them homes within, like, the cosmetic industry.

[935] Nobody knows what their dad does.

[936] Mine was easy.

[937] It doesn't define him.

[938] Sold cars.

[939] Yeah.

[940] My dad sold cars, too.

[941] Oh, he did?

[942] Yeah, for a large period of my life.

[943] Charming guy then?

[944] Yeah, he sold clothes before I was born, like downtown L .A. Garminth District.

[945] And then did cars.

[946] Sold Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, their car right after they sold Goodwill hunting.

[947] No, here we go.

[948] Can you believe it?

[949] Can you believe it?

[950] What did they buy?

[951] They bought a Jeep.

[952] He worked at a Jeep dealership.

[953] They collectively bought one or they bought two jeeps?

[954] They came in together.

[955] And bought one Jeep.

[956] I think they may have bought one Jeep.

[957] I need a fact check on this.

[958] But I remember my dad telling me at the time.

[959] And it was like, a lot of formative things came out of that.

[960] Like that, I remember being like a weird celebrity experience at a young age, being like, I'm registering that this is cool, but I don't really know why yet.

[961] Yes.

[962] Somebody turned a car into the dealership that had been stolen.

[963] And when it was returned to the lot, they had left a bind.

[964] of CDs, and my dad gave it to me. Oh, wonderful.

[965] And in this binder of CDs was like Weezer and like blues traveler and Cheryl Crow.

[966] And sort of like began my music collection.

[967] Ecclactic mix.

[968] You can't steal a car without blues traveler.

[969] Right.

[970] That's what I've been told.

[971] This is a fun.

[972] Ben and Matt, I can't believe it.

[973] I know.

[974] They're the loves of my life.

[975] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[976] Penetrated.

[977] Oh.

[978] I hope so.

[979] I win.

[980] I mean, I win.

[981] They did.

[982] In a perfect world.

[983] Exactly.

[984] TBD.

[985] They're still tied.

[986] I know.

[987] That's true.

[988] I one time asked Monica if ideally it would be a three -way, and she said absolutely.

[989] I was like that's very advanced, yeah.

[990] That is advanced.

[991] I feel like I would need a one -on -one.

[992] Well, I'd like all of it, you know, I'd like one -on -one, two -on -one.

[993] You know, my instinct, I don't know either of them, I would think that if it were a threesome, they would make it more about each other in like a one -upmanship and you wouldn't get the pure experience.

[994] Okay, but you'd need to do it.

[995] Matt is very generous.

[996] By the way, you have to take a peek in the bathroom.

[997] later.

[998] There's a big stand of me and Matt Damon.

[999] Wow.

[1000] Embracing.

[1001] The best moment of my life.

[1002] We'll have to get a picture of you with that as like a meta moment.

[1003] Growing up in L .A., you're in the valleys.

[1004] You're in the shadow of Hollywood.

[1005] Wow, dramatic.

[1006] I never thought of it that way, but yeah.

[1007] E .I .R. It's like you're very close and yet you're not close.

[1008] There's like such a chasm between Chatsworth and Hollywood, albeit a 12 -mile crowfly, right?

[1009] It's very close.

[1010] I'm from Detroit.

[1011] Monica's from Atlanta.

[1012] Our obsession with this place, in Hollywood and stars.

[1013] I wonder when you're occasionally seeing people, does it up your interest in it or does it disillusion it?

[1014] What happens?

[1015] I mean, I left at 18.

[1016] I left as soon as I could.

[1017] I had no interest in sticking around.

[1018] But because I grew up in an age without phones and social media, there was nothing to draw me to it.

[1019] The culture was so far away.

[1020] And as I got older, my dad and I would, like, go to Langers.

[1021] We'd go to Tito's tacos.

[1022] We would go into L .A. and do stuff.

[1023] But I never even thought about it being a different place.

[1024] and only became that way when I left LA moved to other places and I met people that were like oh where'd you go to school?

[1025] I went to Beverly High I went to Crossroads and I was like oh I went to Shamanad in West Hills we did not grow up in the same place it's like if you grew up in Manhattan or in like Hoboken you did not grow up in New York if you grew up in Hoboken but you're like you're driving by studios and so for me the first time I saw a studio was like oh my god that's where they make movies you know it's like like Disneyland but because it's everywhere it didn't occur to me I wasn't preternaturally attracted to it because I grew up here.

[1026] I never thought about being on TV or being in a movie or being in film or entertainment industry at all.

[1027] Would you see celebrities though semi -regularly or never?

[1028] I'm sure I did.

[1029] We would go to Balboa Park and play in the park or whatever and my dad was flying a kite with me and like this guy started flying a kite with his daughter and was Tom Petty.

[1030] And my dad loves to tell that story.

[1031] More like that type of celebrity interaction where it was just like they live among us.

[1032] You know and you don't really think of it as interesting or different when you're a kid especially.

[1033] But as an adult I'm like, you know, my dad flew a kite with Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1034] Well, it's kind of my hunch.

[1035] It's just like, yeah, it is what it is.

[1036] Well, like for your kids, that's a much different situation, I guess.

[1037] But still, it just becomes...

[1038] Oh, it's completely normal.

[1039] Ultimately, I think it's great because there's nothing magical about it.

[1040] This is a normal fucking people that are kind of boring in real life.

[1041] I can't imagine she's like, oh, I want to be a start.

[1042] I know.

[1043] There's like the Nepo baby conversation where it's like, well, yeah, if you're around it, it's going to seem like a thing that you might want.

[1044] It's available.

[1045] And you're like, oh, I like this.

[1046] This is appealing.

[1047] I like the lifestyle.

[1048] I like the energy.

[1049] I'm already accustomed to the grind of it all.

[1050] Yeah.

[1051] They speak the language.

[1052] Yeah, so it's like, oh, I can do that.

[1053] I want to do that.

[1054] Well, what I hope is that they go, my parents and their friends have really fun jobs.

[1055] They get to hang out all the time together and be creative together.

[1056] And then what I would hope they don't have is like a fantasy of being famous.

[1057] It seems it's going in that direction, but what do I know?

[1058] Time will tell.

[1059] We've got to get them into birdhouses asap.

[1060] They will be mechanical.

[1061] With no instructions.

[1062] They'd probably be good at it.

[1063] Okay, so you leave L .A., as you just mentioned, and you go to Sanford, When you're 18 or 19?

[1064] I left to go to Santa Cruz to go to college.

[1065] I dropped out of college to move back to L .A. Why didn't work out in Santa Cruz?

[1066] I was too young and too poor.

[1067] I was a nanny for, like, Google execs.

[1068] And I was taking classes at the community college up there.

[1069] I didn't really show any interest in going to college until my senior year.

[1070] And then my parents were like, well, you only want to go to college because your friends want to go to college.

[1071] And I was like, well, so.

[1072] And I was like, I so want to go.

[1073] Take any reasoning.

[1074] And then they were like, well, we're not going to pay for you to go to just any school.

[1075] because you also don't know what you want to do, and you can go to community college somewhere and then transfer two years later.

[1076] And I was like, okay, I'll do that.

[1077] And then I just ended up dropping out and not doing that.

[1078] Did you do shrooms in the Redwoods up there?

[1079] I absolutely did.

[1080] For the first time.

[1081] I did it in the petrified forest in Petaluma, which was considerably north, like Northern California.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] I was 18 or 19.

[1084] Yeah.

[1085] And it was...

[1086] Life changing?

[1087] Kind of, yeah.

[1088] I like wept in the bathroom for 18 hours.

[1089] It was really wild.

[1090] I don't think I've ever been as high on mushrooms since.

[1091] Okay.

[1092] Which is common.

[1093] I think most people really fucking do it.

[1094] And then they're like, now I do it a little differently.

[1095] It was like a formative experience for sure.

[1096] Yeah.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] Santa Cruz is really indelibly linked with shrooms, I feel like.

[1099] Yeah.

[1100] And it was also just indelibly linked with the start of my independence because I moved when I was 18, or I guess I was 19, because I had gone to Santa Monica City College for a year.

[1101] Oh, my God.

[1102] At 18 and then transferred.

[1103] And then a year into Santa Cruz, I decided to come back to L .A. and work in restaurants.

[1104] So I was going to go to culinary school, but I never ended up going to that.

[1105] either.

[1106] But I worked in L .A. for a year and a half.

[1107] And then right before I turned 21, moved to San Francisco, and I never came back.

[1108] And you worked at a fancy place there.

[1109] I did.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] It's called Sona, which anyone who's been in L .A. for 30 years would know.

[1112] But it was a very small, specific, bogey, fine dining restaurant with, like, very young person energy.

[1113] That's not the place that Simeen worked, is it?

[1114] No. Okay.

[1115] What was that place?

[1116] That's more like Oakland or Berkeley.

[1117] She were.

[1118] Yeah.

[1119] Okay.

[1120] So it was not that.

[1121] No, no. This was called Sonas in West Hollywood.

[1122] It's now the nice guy or whatever.

[1123] It's like a club on Las Anagon Mollos.

[1124] Oh, and then you go to New York.

[1125] Then I go to New York.

[1126] What age is New York?

[1127] 24.

[1128] Okay, have you learned enough as a cook?

[1129] I don't know what word do we want to use.

[1130] What pronoun?

[1131] You're not a chef.

[1132] I would say cook.

[1133] As a food jockey.

[1134] Did you jockey the food well enough that when you got there?

[1135] Did you go straight to Momofuco?

[1136] I did.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] I knew someone that I worked with at Quince in San Francisco.

[1139] I was a pastry chef there.

[1140] I was like the pastry shoe chef.

[1141] and they knew someone who had worked with Christina Tosi at Mama Fuku and was like, oh, my friend just opened this bakery for Dave Chang who at the time, like, wasn't...

[1142] No one did that yet, yeah.

[1143] But I was like, okay, I vaguely know what that is.

[1144] It was also like pre -instagrant.

[1145] It's just so weird that we get so much of our information about pop culture now through our phones.

[1146] And so before I'm like, what did I do?

[1147] Like, I got jobs on Craigslist.

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] But I was like, oh, that would be cool.

[1150] So I wrote an email and was like, I'm going to move to New York if you're looking for bakers because I had worked in these really intense fine dining experience.

[1151] restaurants and working 14 hours a day, just burning myself out that the idea of going to a bakery felt really soothing to me. I was like, you know what that I can do.

[1152] And it will allow me the free time to like really figure out what I'm going to do with my life because I knew that it wasn't working in restaurants anymore.

[1153] Okay, now is the salacious part of this interview.

[1154] So my girlfriend of nine years worked at many restaurants.

[1155] And it was my experience via her and also from Reading Kitchen Confidential that I'd have to say that the food industry, if it's not the leader in sex and drugs and alcoholism.

[1156] I don't know which one would top it.

[1157] Maybe, maybe like high finance or something.

[1158] I would say like rock and roll.

[1159] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1160] Like in 72.

[1161] Yeah, maybe.

[1162] Did it live up to that stereotype when you were in it?

[1163] Not for me personally, but I think I was too young and earnest to like be a part of that.

[1164] I was also kind of sheltered.

[1165] I was almost always the only woman.

[1166] I was always the youngest person.

[1167] People didn't necessarily include me in their sex drug and rock and roll escapades.

[1168] I think that they treated me like little sister energy and And I was drinking underage at that first restaurant because I was 1920 when I worked there.

[1169] And then when I moved to San Francisco at 21, I was drinking so fucking much every night.

[1170] I was like puking every day before work.

[1171] But I was also just turned 21.

[1172] And I was living in a new city and I had new coworkers and got roofied at a bar.

[1173] And like it was like, you know, a time.

[1174] But I think that most people at that age are doing that.

[1175] In college.

[1176] Right.

[1177] So I'm like, was it the industry or was it my age?

[1178] It was definitely that vibe of you finish service.

[1179] You go out all night.

[1180] sleep until nude and you go to work and you do it again.

[1181] Because there's no intermittent responsibility, it allows you to do that.

[1182] You're almost like sketch performers as well.

[1183] Like your job starts at 4 p .m. Absolutely.

[1184] Was there a discernible difference in the New York culture versus the San Francisco culture?

[1185] I think it was specific to the restaurants because when I worked at Momofuku, it was all women who worked there pretty much.

[1186] There was like maybe one or two men who would filter through.

[1187] We worked with the restaurants adjacent.

[1188] Like we worked with sambar and co and all that and like they were almost always all men.

[1189] And so it was like this real diaconial.

[1190] Oh, this is like the girls' school and the boys' school.

[1191] It kind of did feel like that.

[1192] And, you know, they were a restaurant.

[1193] We were a bakery.

[1194] And I think classically, in my experience at restaurants, if you're a line cook, you kind of look down on a pastry cook because they don't work as hard as you.

[1195] They're not as talented as you.

[1196] They're not doing real cooking.

[1197] I didn't know this, but tell me, because not as many items are ordered, the pace is slower.

[1198] The pace is a little slower.

[1199] I mean, it can be.

[1200] It wasn't for me. It's just a different way of cooking.

[1201] It's a different way of working with food.

[1202] And it's gendered a little bit.

[1203] It's so gendered.

[1204] I always worked with men.

[1205] in the pastry department.

[1206] And there were always women in the kitchen, but by and large, it was 75, 25, or 80, 20, rather than 50 -50.

[1207] Women bake and men cook.

[1208] Yes, absolutely.

[1209] As it should be.

[1210] And that's what I've been saying.

[1211] And that's my new book is about.

[1212] Never the tween chill meat.

[1213] Yeah.

[1214] And so it did feel like I was constantly trying to prove myself.

[1215] I was constantly trying to be like, I'm as tough as you and I'm as talented as you, and I work as hard as you, and I will fucking show up earlier than you, and I will still learn what your job is and do my job.

[1216] The chips on my shoulders just kept piling up.

[1217] And I think that anyone that works in a restaurant feels that way, whether you're a pastry or savory or you're young or old or new or had been there five years.

[1218] The element of you always have something to prove and everyone is a threat and everyone's trying to fuck you and you have to be the best.

[1219] It breeds this cesspool of sort of insecurity and frankly passive aggressive communication style.

[1220] And not every kitchen is like this.

[1221] And I think they've gotten a lot better.

[1222] Yeah.

[1223] There's some industries.

[1224] So films one of them as well, which is.

[1225] it's a dictatorship.

[1226] There's not a lot of them left.

[1227] The director is the fucking boss of everybody.

[1228] Every mini department within that, it's like the DP is the boss of all the camera people.

[1229] There's been this accepted way that DPs talk to people, which is crazy.

[1230] It has changed in my time in the business.

[1231] But originally it was like, you shout at motherfuckers.

[1232] And so it makes me think of our Sarah Lawrence doc.

[1233] Did you see it?

[1234] Of course I did.

[1235] Oh, holy shit.

[1236] The one element that fascinated me the most is how parallel that, little experience in the apartment was to communist China, communist Russia, communist anywhere, where you have a cadre, then you have everyone underneath who's all ratting each other out.

[1237] It becomes this like really predictable human pattern.

[1238] So I would imagine that in a kitchen where it is a dictatorship, that same force ends up being applied.

[1239] Well, everyone's just jockeying for power.

[1240] Everyone's jockeying for respect, for authority.

[1241] And at the end of the day, it's kind of meaningless.

[1242] Like no one who's eating the food knows who the fuck is in charge.

[1243] And it doesn't matter.

[1244] It becomes so insular though.

[1245] you can't see outside of it.

[1246] I was just like, I hate this environment, and I left.

[1247] It might be fun, though, just to imagine that there's a conservative listening.

[1248] And they go...

[1249] That's imagine.

[1250] Yeah.

[1251] Well, there are.

[1252] We have a few.

[1253] Oh, I'm sure.

[1254] Which is great.

[1255] We welcome you.

[1256] I could say...

[1257] I might be inclined to go like, yeah, it sucks.

[1258] That's life.

[1259] Totally.

[1260] A, the movies are great.

[1261] The food's fucking great.

[1262] Yeah.

[1263] The thing works.

[1264] If you're not up for that, then go fucking get a different job.

[1265] So I think that's relevant to say as well.

[1266] I agree.

[1267] And I do not think that that's how people should be treating each other.

[1268] I do not think it's good for anybody's mental health.

[1269] I think that the structure needs to be completely demolished and rebuilt from scratch in order to be a sustainable business model for people who want to open restaurants and run them and sustain employees.

[1270] And people were like, oh, was it horrible?

[1271] Was it horrible?

[1272] And I was like, I don't know because it was all I knew.

[1273] Like it was hard.

[1274] Yeah, it sucked.

[1275] I didn't know anything.

[1276] I made $7 .25 an hour.

[1277] That was the only money I had.

[1278] I worked 12 hours a day.

[1279] people were not that nice to me but I also sucked at my fucking job I was ruining things daily I was burning I was spilling I was dropping I was getting in people's way and I was still able to show up every day and just be like okay well now I'm gonna do better I'm gonna do better I'm gonna learn I'm gonna do better I'm gonna learn had I not experienced some trauma as a kid or had the complicated relationships with my parents I would have been like this is unacceptable but I think there was an element of me being like oh this is life it's hard and people are not that nice to you this is water you know what I mean it was insane no but then there's the whole yes chef element.

[1280] Yeah, well, that's silly.

[1281] It's like, grow up.

[1282] I just watched Burnt.

[1283] Oh, yeah.

[1284] And I was having this sort of crazy feeling.

[1285] Have you seen it?

[1286] Yes.

[1287] Years ago, though.

[1288] It's such an asshole, you know.

[1289] Yeah, they really play it up.

[1290] They can be that way.

[1291] I have seen it.

[1292] And now those people will never admit to it.

[1293] Those people that were like that in the past would never today really reveal the extent of how bad it was.

[1294] I've seen some crazy shit.

[1295] And I never experienced it.

[1296] Like, I never experienced sexual harassment so intensely to the point that it was traumatizing for me. It was, like, generic bullshit that you get on the street as a woman.

[1297] It wasn't anything that intense, which isn't to say that it's acceptable.

[1298] I was going to say often, too, because I've been in those work situations where everyone's harassing each other.

[1299] It's like what you're doing to cope with the whatever of the job.

[1300] Like, there's some sexual thing happening that's kind of giving everyone a little dopamine hit enough to get them through what is like a military slog otherwise.

[1301] Like Brie and her co -workers, they're all grabbing each other's asses.

[1302] Like, it's a pervy fucking environment.

[1303] Totally, but I never wanted to fuck anybody that I worked with until my very last restaurant job in San Francisco and I slept with somebody that was new and then I left and that was it.

[1304] It wasn't messy.

[1305] Yeah, I was like, you know what?

[1306] I know how this ends and it's not good.

[1307] But when it comes from the top, it's tricky because you're literally saying, yes, chef.

[1308] They are a buddy.

[1309] Fully a sexual domination.

[1310] I'm more talking about server to server.

[1311] I'm pro -server to server flirting and fucking with each other.

[1312] Creates a magical dining room.

[1313] Yeah.

[1314] Okay, but now you did witness the rabid abuses of power.

[1315] Well, it's just like people throwing shit.

[1316] But again, when you have that experience as a kid or growing up, you're like, oh, yeah, people sucks.

[1317] Or like, this is what they do.

[1318] Yes.

[1319] And it was never that jarring.

[1320] And that's probably why I was there for seven years.

[1321] And why when everybody started speaking out against it, I was like, yeah, I'm not shocked, I'm not surprised.

[1322] I'm not horrified.

[1323] Nothing about it was shocking and people don't know the half of it.

[1324] Yeah.

[1325] But it was also behind closed doors.

[1326] was like everything else before social media, I put that in quotes, I don't know why I'm a thousand years old, but in the moving industry, every executive that ever threw anything at any assistant or whatever continue to happen until people were like, oh, we have an outlet to show you this is happening.

[1327] Yeah.

[1328] And people are listening?

[1329] Because before that, what were you going to do?

[1330] Yeah.

[1331] How are you going to get this information out?

[1332] Someone from the local news was going to interview a local line cook about...

[1333] And then you get fired.

[1334] Yeah, like, who cares?

[1335] Yeah.

[1336] Yeah, it didn't matter.

[1337] And the more power people amassed, the less people are interested in hearing your sob story because you're like that's the way the cookie crumbles you want to work in hollywood that's what happens you want to work in a restaurant that's what happens and now people i think across all industries are like that's not how it happens well you almost have to demystify the conceit of it all i know a couple directors in particular that are they're as bad as they get one calling the entire crew together on the side of this riverbank and going department to department saying their names you you're trying to fuck my movie just dressing down every and this is on a That was nominated that year.

[1338] He's a brilliant director.

[1339] This is like in the last five years?

[1340] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1341] There was this belief.

[1342] There's a paradigm that you can't make friends and make a great movie.

[1343] You've got to fucking drive.

[1344] And it takes people doing it the other way and having success before it breaks the paradigm.

[1345] I'm hoping and I'm guessing that like David Chang, who I know and love, is one of these people.

[1346] There's different people now that are having success and also being lovely.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] David Chang's not one of them.

[1349] and he told us he was tough.

[1350] Oh, he did.

[1351] Yeah, I don't remember that.

[1352] I mean, he was clear about that.

[1353] My hope is people evolve and change.

[1354] I think people can.

[1355] I think that we have to assume that people do.

[1356] And I think that that's a part of any person who's been in the public eye for any length of time that we're going to cover a large swath of their personality, their career, their personal life, everything.

[1357] And if you're comparing somebody to who they were 10 years ago, we have to give the grace to be like, I'm going to assume that they have grown in change as I have grown and changed.

[1358] Yes.

[1359] If you believe in that as a. concept, you can't pick and choose who you give that benefit to.

[1360] Agreed.

[1361] I think even as important as that is being honest about the context in which the behavior happened.

[1362] I say this all the time.

[1363] It's like, you have people getting canceled over being in blackface in 1985, yet in 1986, Paramount puts out Soul Man. In 3 ,000 theaters, Thomas E. Hall painting his face black.

[1364] So take it with some context that it was a popular movie and everyone signed on.

[1365] So if someone did at a party.

[1366] It is a much different thing than if they did it today.

[1367] There's no one's in blackface in fucking movies anymore.

[1368] Right.

[1369] Just culturally the way things shift, gay marriage was legalized like two days ago.

[1370] Exactly.

[1371] You know?

[1372] And we're acting like we are this society that has existed today the way we've always existed.

[1373] It's like, we are, exactly.

[1374] And it's like, things change on a dime here.

[1375] And the sort of moral uprising of what becomes acceptable versus not is rapidly changing.

[1376] And I think the restaurant industry, the movie industry, is actually a great example of that.

[1377] Where you're like, well, that's just, like, not how we do things anymore.

[1378] It feels like we're trying to immediately erase and change and pivot and be like, this is who we are now and this is what we believe in as a people.

[1379] It takes a sec. Yeah.

[1380] I think of this in defense of a lot of comedians.

[1381] It's like, yeah, if you take anyone's shit from 15 years ago, it's a bummer.

[1382] It's not right.

[1383] If I were those people that was getting blasted for that, I would go, just so you know, my job was to go up to the line and stand on it.

[1384] And I was standing on the line in 1993.

[1385] I'll give you that.

[1386] I was right on the fucking line of what you could do.

[1387] And now the line moved.

[1388] And guess what?

[1389] Now I'm standing on the line again right here.

[1390] But I'm going to be wherever the fucking line is.

[1391] And yeah, guess what?

[1392] If you rewind, the line was in a different place and I was standing on it.

[1393] Yeah.

[1394] People in the public eye are going to ebb and flow.

[1395] And if they're good at their job, they're going to push the limit.

[1396] They're going to be like, this is who I am.

[1397] This is what I say.

[1398] And then sometimes things push back.

[1399] I can't believe you just brought up Soul Man. I'm like, now I'm like, now I'm like, who was in Soulman?

[1400] Thomasie Howell.

[1401] Who is that?

[1402] Oh, my God.

[1403] Thomas C. Howell was the number one babe in the world.

[1404] He was the lead of outsiders.

[1405] Stay Golden Pony Boy.

[1406] Thomas C. Howell was Zach Ephron.

[1407] He was Zach.

[1408] Would you guys know Zach Efron?

[1409] Okay.

[1410] I think that's a little after our time.

[1411] But yeah.

[1412] Was he the Zach Efron of your time?

[1413] You know, J .T. Thomas?

[1414] He was better than the J .T .T. He had a like huge.

[1415] No. You said you had no brushes.

[1416] Well, that was my one brush.

[1417] That's a good brush.

[1418] He was older than me. Even better.

[1419] of that.

[1420] I was thinking of you, obviously, before this interview.

[1421] And I was like, this is so tricky because you're so smart, as I said, and thoughtful and interesting.

[1422] And I wonder if you feel cut off at the knees because of your experiences.

[1423] Yeah, I do.

[1424] Do you feel like I can't say anything?

[1425] I don't really subscribe to that like, whoa is me. I can't say anything.

[1426] But I do sort of feel like no one can say anything in a way that you can accept that and just say whatever you want, right?

[1427] As long as you accept that, like, anything can be taken any which way.

[1428] You know what I think about often is the woman who tweeted that thing that was like, I'm enjoying coffee with my husband in the garden before work every morning.

[1429] We love each other so much.

[1430] And that was the tweet.

[1431] I'm paraphrasing.

[1432] And everyone was like, how dare you?

[1433] What a privilege position to take that you can just enjoy your life in the morning.

[1434] Like, you don't have to be anywhere.

[1435] Like, I wake up at 6 o 'clock to take my kids to school.

[1436] And it was taken to, I mean, it was like a 36 hour Twitter cycle.

[1437] But it was so funny to me. I was like, this lady was literally just like, I love to have coffee with my husband.

[1438] Having a moment of gratitude.

[1439] We love each other.

[1440] And everyone was like, you dumb bitch.

[1441] Yeah.

[1442] And I was like, wow, you know what?

[1443] No one can say anything.

[1444] My business is on that was like, this would happen during quarantine.

[1445] I was enjoying much of quarantine.

[1446] I was with my kids nonstop, which I don't get to be.

[1447] Don't say it out, out love.

[1448] Right.

[1449] Even like we'd be on the podcast and Monica in hopes of protecting me, be like, you know, be careful how much you're saying you're enjoying it because so many people aren't.

[1450] And I'm like, yes.

[1451] a lot of people aren't in my position and that sucks, but I'm not willing to lie about my life experience to appease someone else.

[1452] I can't account for triggering someone that I'm having a good day.

[1453] If we're evaluating principles, I'm going to have to put being honest above all those other ones.

[1454] Yeah, I think for me, it becomes a value check and thoughtfulness check where you're like, what I'm about to say, could this be interpreted in a way?

[1455] Sometimes you're like, yes, but I can't control that or I can't apologize for that because as everyone knows, like intention sort of being nothing, especially when something's taken out of context or a poll quote or whatever, a headline.

[1456] But moving forward in my life, is there a potential for this to be damaging, hurtful?

[1457] And I don't do that every time I have a thought that pops into my head.

[1458] But I think when you're like, oh, I had a great time during quarantine.

[1459] I'm like, that's incensed.

[1460] And you're like, well, I did.

[1461] Or any number of things that people can sort of say.

[1462] Look at the flip side.

[1463] Look at the people who don't have what you.

[1464] And you're like, okay, that could be for any person for anything.

[1465] Like, I'm enjoying this really delicious, beautiful, bougie coffee that you got me. Oh, we get a lot of shit because McDonald's is one of our sponsors.

[1466] And I'll sometimes write back to these people.

[1467] Like, I can't believe you are endorsing.

[1468] And I'll write, would you prefer I lie and act like I don't eat Big Macs six, seven times a year?

[1469] I fucking do and I love them.

[1470] You are loving it.

[1471] Authentically.

[1472] So, okay, so you don't want me lie.

[1473] Then you want me to tell other people to live in a way that I'm not even living?

[1474] Like, what do you want?

[1475] There's too many people that get a say in our lives as individuals who choose the.

[1476] life.

[1477] And by choose this life, I mean, who have the option for people to email, write in, contact, comment their thoughts about us.

[1478] In my circle of people that I know and love, no, none of those people are commenters.

[1479] They're not reply guys.

[1480] They're not.

[1481] Someone last night at dinner called them a respond lady.

[1482] And I was like, I don't think that's the name of, like, respond lady is not what we call them, but she's very offline.

[1483] I don't know anyone who's writing in to like express their vitro.

[1484] Grievances.

[1485] Yeah.

[1486] And so I'm like, okay, who are we living for and we cannot live for every person with a fucking opinion because that's the entire human race exactly i think it's twofold so i think there's something on our side too which is most of us don't like the idea of being disliked we're a social primary it's very off putting to us i think what people really have to do is be true to themselves and also accept that some percentage of the world will hate you for that and you need to get over that on one hand i'll say i think culture is asymmetrically driven by very few people.

[1487] That's what scares me, right?

[1488] I don't think it's consensus.

[1489] It looks bad on us and we're really defensive about it.

[1490] Like what I just said about the McDonald's thing, that's a failing of mine.

[1491] I should not even give a fuck that someone cares I am.

[1492] I love and support your McDonald's habit and sponsorship for the right.

[1493] Thank you.

[1494] Now here's what I'll acknowledge my great privilege, which is so I don't write for a magazine.

[1495] I don't have an employer.

[1496] So I have enormous freedom that I don't feel very scared to live out loud how I actually.

[1497] But in your situation, you were working at Bon Appetit for a while, and then you were working for the New York Times.

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] And so when you got criticism, that was potentially threatening for your life.

[1500] You lost your job over.

[1501] Fully lost my job.

[1502] And so that's when I started her movies.

[1503] Yeah.

[1504] Because I didn't have an employer.

[1505] I didn't have any financial fallback plan.

[1506] I wasn't saving money.

[1507] And I hate this, but I do need to tell people it was.

[1508] I just learned of this today.

[1509] You were in an interview.

[1510] Well, that makes me happy.

[1511] That's also the name.

[1512] I had no idea.

[1513] She kept telling me something.

[1514] vaguely and I didn't know and then I read so you were in an interview and you were launching some partnership some capsule product with materials oh I love material great it's a great and in that you made so here's where I'll be critical of you yeah you shouldn't talk shit about anyone ever that is the biggest like this is my moral judgment of you is like kidding me don't talk shit about people do your thing that was like far in a way the biggest takeaway and obviously came from such like a place of insecurity and like me being protective of my.

[1515] Oh my God, so much jealousy.

[1516] You're kidding me?

[1517] I had this like little parcel of I'm the cook lady and I do the cooking and then there's like other people doing it that are like beautiful and famous.

[1518] And I'm like, how dare they?

[1519] Who gives a shit?

[1520] And why did I have to make a comment on that to increase my own value?

[1521] Right.

[1522] So that's the only thing to me. And I read that I'm like, that's a bummer.

[1523] I think we'd all aspire to be bigger than that.

[1524] Totally.

[1525] Okay.

[1526] Now because the two people you criticize, because they were both Asians, that was painted as a racist point of view.

[1527] Now, an allegation of racism, it kind of requires New York Times or whoever to act.

[1528] But again, what percentage of the world thought you were racist when they saw that?

[1529] I have a hard time believing it was above 0 .4%.

[1530] I mean, my perception was it was 100%.

[1531] Sure, of course.

[1532] And that the whole world knew probably, right?

[1533] Oh, yeah, 100%.

[1534] Yeah.

[1535] That's an example of being like, oh, you said something super fucking stupid, really born from a place of jealousy, childishness, insecurity, all this other stuff that's obviously not coming from a well person.

[1536] And you're like, oh, that was dumb.

[1537] But now you're saying it's also this other thing.

[1538] So it's not as easy as being like, oh, God, that was such a gaff.

[1539] It then becomes like a scarlet letter on your personhood for the rest of your life.

[1540] I can see why that was interpreted that way.

[1541] And I would never discount somebody saying that that's how they felt.

[1542] For that instance, because it was like, well, you only named two people.

[1543] And they happen to both be Asian and you're like okay, yes, I see that looks really fucking bad.

[1544] Yeah, yeah.

[1545] And I'm like I promise you I'm just jealous, petty and stupid.

[1546] I'm not racist or whatever you know, and like...

[1547] You should throw a Caucasian in there.

[1548] I know, but you know what I was...

[1549] You're just talking.

[1550] You're just talking.

[1551] I was right there on a platter.

[1552] Well, because Marie Condo was on the cover of Forbes magazine that was on my kitchen table and I just read this article about her.

[1553] Literally like the night before and I literally was cleaning out my pantry when I was giving this interview.

[1554] Don't ever do that.

[1555] And just like looked over and I was like this person and like this person.

[1556] I was I mean, like, the two most famous people I can imagine in that space, I didn't give it a fucking second thought, which was such like a frankly ignorant move on my part.

[1557] And rookie mistake.

[1558] Such a rookie mistake, what I interpreted in the moment as, oh, that was shitty, then almost ruin my life.

[1559] You know, because of the rapid fire sort of spreading of social media.

[1560] And this is also at a time where pandemic had just happened.

[1561] I was very popular at the time because people were cooking a lot.

[1562] And so it was like a perfect storm of I was top of mind.

[1563] I was not really a celebrity.

[1564] And so I was this regular person that this thing was happening to that I think encouraged more people to talk about it.

[1565] It's kind of like when Julia Fox became famous.

[1566] So like I know her.

[1567] I see her Lucian.

[1568] Now she's dating Kanye.

[1569] Like people want to talk about it.

[1570] I was like in this quote unquote feud.

[1571] Did you have defenders at that period?

[1572] I'm sure, but it was too dark for me to even look to see.

[1573] Anyone I had worked with anyone of my friends.

[1574] Like no one publicly wanted to stick their neck out because it was such an intense climate for anyone at that time.

[1575] I don't begrudge anybody for it.

[1576] It's like McCarthyism.

[1577] It's like, oh, it's going to, I don't know if he was at that meeting.

[1578] Yeah, exactly.

[1579] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1580] I do want to say two things, though.

[1581] One is some of the cancelings I love.

[1582] I get nervous that this very, very small percentage of people that are very loud and mobilized can end the lives of people.

[1583] So that I hate.

[1584] I also think there's a little bit of moral panic about canceling.

[1585] Because the truth is you and I are sitting here talking.

[1586] Like, you weren't canceled.

[1587] You had a redirection, and it's fucking sucked.

[1588] Yeah.

[1589] But you kept working.

[1590] Yeah.

[1591] That's the key.

[1592] I think some people just get defeated by this.

[1593] I think it's another one of these things that you can play a part in your canceling to some degree.

[1594] I think some people can surrender.

[1595] I think that's hard.

[1596] Yeah.

[1597] And I think that when people say, like, oh, you weren't canceled.

[1598] I sort of am like, well, I was.

[1599] Unless you literally die.

[1600] How else do we define cancellation?

[1601] Right.

[1602] Because I was canceled in so far as much.

[1603] is that nobody would hire me for anything.

[1604] I made my own work.

[1605] Phone did not ring.

[1606] The email box was at zero.

[1607] It was dark.

[1608] It was bleak.

[1609] And I was like, oh, nobody's going to ever want to work with me. No one's going to hire me. So I have to then create my own ecosystem.

[1610] Okay, so that's kind of what I want to add is like for creators who are supposedly canceled, I think some percentage of them are.

[1611] If you're a film actor, you need them to make a movie and put you in it.

[1612] But the upside of all this craziness in the internet, that's what's fueling the whole thing.

[1613] The upside is YouTube doesn't block.

[1614] anybody.

[1615] You want to make your shit and do your thing.

[1616] You can tell yourself you're canceled or you can make your shit, do your thing, put it up.

[1617] And a lot of people aren't going to agree that you're canceled.

[1618] And that may also be the truth.

[1619] But it was also tricky is you're a cook.

[1620] You were cooking.

[1621] And so now you have to pivot into something kind of completely different, which is now you're a personality who cooks and does their own production.

[1622] And that wasn't what you signed up for.

[1623] Yeah.

[1624] But.

[1625] I mean, you do a great job.

[1626] Thank you.

[1627] We add a huge weight to it because it's that you remember the name of the principal.

[1628] Because there was a nefarious act behind the canceling.

[1629] A betrayal bias.

[1630] So if you actually are an alien and you're looking at you and I. So I spent two and a half years making a movie.

[1631] It comes out.

[1632] It doesn't make any money.

[1633] My ride as a director writer in Hollywood has ended, at least in my mind.

[1634] So I then go start this podcast.

[1635] It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. You stop doing the thing you were going to do.

[1636] trajectory you were on, the identity you had, being a writer in that capacity.

[1637] That ended for different reasons, but it ended.

[1638] And then you deviated.

[1639] And now you have another thing that's fantastic and you're here and we're talking about it.

[1640] So it's like the cause of it, we could end up putting so much weight in.

[1641] But the practical thing is two people lost their identity.

[1642] They lost the opportunity they thought they were pursuing.

[1643] And then they pivoted and they did something else.

[1644] Everything happens for a reason, but also like a tale of resilience, a tale of making the most out of the situation, but also just like not having a choice.

[1645] You're a creative person.

[1646] You have something to say.

[1647] You have something to contribute.

[1648] And you thought that that avenue is going to be filmmaking.

[1649] And perhaps now it's this.

[1650] And the way that you do it is on such a deeper level and is probably a better and more perhaps fulfilling way to express that.

[1651] And I feel similarly that I wouldn't have been able to do beforehand.

[1652] But also with everything that didn't happen for me or every job that I left on purpose, I accepted the fact that I would probably have fewer eyeballs, fewer financial resources, less popularity, but I was going to be able to do it more on my own terms.

[1653] I was going to be able to do it in a way that was, for better, for worse, this is my work.

[1654] Whereas, like, a movie you make, you're like, well, they didn't market it.

[1655] I didn't have the budget.

[1656] It was like out of your control.

[1657] And this podcast, you are the most direct pipeline to the people now.

[1658] So if they don't like it, you're like, you don't like the thing that I'm making and I accept that.

[1659] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[1660] Yes.

[1661] My global thought is there's some percentage of people that were canceled.

[1662] And what they really haven't been able to do is accept that the previous avenue they were on is road blocked.

[1663] But I think some people can get defeatist in that.

[1664] And then that's the end of the story.

[1665] It's like until that road is cleared, I'm dead.

[1666] And I just will say a lot of people deviate from that.

[1667] And then they also find their way out of it.

[1668] And as this is a weird new phenomenon of the last 15 years, I think there needs to be examples of what is the post cancel landscape.

[1669] And there's going to be advisable paths and ones that like, yeah, if you're just sitting around going on, when's the such and such paper going to be?

[1670] going to hire me again.

[1671] It's like, yeah, you're, then you are canceled.

[1672] For me, I was like, well, I have to continue to do the work, make this about the work, because I really believe in that, but also I hope to have a very long and storied career.

[1673] Yeah.

[1674] And that's going to be a shitty part of it.

[1675] That's going to be like a divot.

[1676] I can't just have a meteoric rise and ascend forever and ever because I'm a human person.

[1677] Yeah.

[1678] And I'm going to learn stuff along the way.

[1679] There was no team.

[1680] It was me in a kitchen.

[1681] Yeah.

[1682] And when you are thrust into a new sort of level of public eye or whatever you want to call that, there is such a steep learning curve and that was a crash and a fucking burn, but I was like, okay, well, I still do this thing.

[1683] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1684] But I was like, I don't know if this is going to work.

[1685] I had no idea.

[1686] Yes, people need to remember no one stole your ability to make food and be created.

[1687] That can't be taken from you.

[1688] Yeah, but I also was like, I know who I am and I can't let this define me. There was no secret found out.

[1689] I was just being myself and that fucked me. No one found out that I was like, secretly doing something.

[1690] Uncover tapes.

[1691] And that would have been embarrassing and harder to recover from.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] But the fact that I was just doing the thing that I thought was fine of being anti -capitalist in my own fucked up weird way.

[1694] Yeah.

[1695] And that was so bad and so embarrassing, but I'm going to dust it off because it doesn't define me. There's also some weird, I'd love your opinion on this.

[1696] And I'll anger Monica a little bit.

[1697] I'm always critical of my own side of the aisle the most.

[1698] Because I'm not speaking to the right.

[1699] They're not listening to me. This is my job to clean up the place I live.

[1700] There's a unique appetite on our side to devour one another.

[1701] And I think there's a very interesting chain of events where anyone who was feeding on it then got devoured by it.

[1702] I think that's really mind -blowing.

[1703] As far as like Bon Appetit gets taken out by Reply All and then Reply All gets taken out for the same thing they were taking out Bon Appetito.

[1704] And then who knows who takes out the people who took out Reply All.

[1705] All these things vanish.

[1706] And it's like, I don't know who's on top of the mountain now.

[1707] like victorious.

[1708] We have some weird proclivity.

[1709] It's like when you said, oh, did anybody stick up for you?

[1710] Well, no, because everyone realized how vulnerable they were.

[1711] Yeah.

[1712] And the way people acted and stood up straight all of a sudden, it was like, couldn't be me. I'd never done anything bad in my whole, I've never said anything bad.

[1713] It's like, okay.

[1714] And everyone was just super pious and earnest and quiet.

[1715] It was happening all around us.

[1716] And if it didn't happen to me first, I would have been terrified.

[1717] I wouldn't probably have given any interviews because you're like, it could happen to me. And it did happen to me. Then it happened to all of them.

[1718] Looking on the outside of all these stories, you almost have to laugh at it.

[1719] It's just this big shame machine devouring and stuff.

[1720] I like to hope we're a little inoculated by it because I'm not in the shame game.

[1721] I'm never calling anyone out for anything.

[1722] So minimally when I fuck up, I won't be a hypocrite.

[1723] I was like, that fucking guy, what was his name, Roy, whatever?

[1724] He wrote up on a horse in the election down in Louisiana or something.

[1725] And it came out, he had fucking married a 14 -year -old.

[1726] I mean, there's just no denying that this guy was like a pedophile.

[1727] And the whole right stood by his side.

[1728] You had people like in power.

[1729] I'm still for Roy.

[1730] It's like, wow, man. Oh, because Republicans are just like, oh, I'm with them.

[1731] I don't care what they did.

[1732] They run in to help.

[1733] They run in to stick up for the person.

[1734] The person could be on fire, raping a baby.

[1735] And they're like, he's a good man. I know.

[1736] Well, that was the worst part for me personally because I consider myself a pretty liberal person.

[1737] Most people getting canceled are liberals.

[1738] Yeah.

[1739] And you're like, I do the right thing.

[1740] I'm on the right side of history.

[1741] I believe in X, These are my morals, right?

[1742] And so then people on the other side being like, she didn't do anything.

[1743] And I'm like, no, no, don't claim me. Like, I don't want to be on that side.

[1744] And it became like this whole thing of the people that would stand up for me were not on my side.

[1745] And I was like, fuck.

[1746] That's so strange.

[1747] It was so awful.

[1748] Like, I don't want to be associated with this.

[1749] What if Roy ever rode up on his horse?

[1750] Roy, you and your horse staff?

[1751] She's not racist.

[1752] I had sex with her when she was 12 and she's a good person.

[1753] Exactly.

[1754] Do you guys remember what I'm talking about?

[1755] No, I have no idea here.

[1756] Sorry.

[1757] Roy Moore.

[1758] Who could forget?

[1759] At the height of this, like the whole country knew, he was sleeping with teenage guys.

[1760] That it was like, pick your favorite.

[1761] I don't know.

[1762] But like this motherfucker rode into town on a horse at the height of everyone knowing he'd been with teenage girls.

[1763] People drank that shit up.

[1764] I know.

[1765] They're like, he's a real American.

[1766] He rides a horse.

[1767] But even the reply -all stuff, I just found out about this, which I don't even know if we're allowed to talk about it.

[1768] I'm sure we are.

[1769] But technically, I think Spotify owns reply all.

[1770] Right.

[1771] And I was talking to, someone at Spotify about this, a fan of yours.

[1772] And I was like, we're going to have Allison on.

[1773] And he was like, oh, my God, how exciting.

[1774] And then he was like, man, she really got dragged into multiple things.

[1775] And he was talking about the Reply All thing, which if you don't know, Reply All did a four -part story on Bon Appetit, which you were at for like not that long.

[1776] I was three years.

[1777] But it was so far before.

[1778] Okay.

[1779] I hadn't been there for five years.

[1780] When it happened.

[1781] Yeah.

[1782] You loved him 15.

[1783] In 16.

[1784] Okay.

[1785] Wikipedia says 15.

[1786] Really?

[1787] We're going to have to trust Wikipedia over your own.

[1788] I'm sorry, you don't know.

[1789] But yeah, so they did a story and it was about diversity and it was sort of an expose on Bon Appetit.

[1790] And in the first episode, they asked these women, who I assume were your friends also.

[1791] Correct.

[1792] Friends of yours who worked with you at the time who were minorities.

[1793] and Adam Rappapora had these darlings and gave them opportunity and oh, who, who, Allison, Allison, Allison.

[1794] And I was like, oh, no, now she's been dragged into this story somehow and literally just because you're there working hard and getting opportunities.

[1795] Which, by the way, Adam didn't speak to me for like the first two and a half years I worked there.

[1796] But no one wants to hear that.

[1797] It doesn't matter.

[1798] It doesn't matter.

[1799] No, exactly.

[1800] So that's cut out.

[1801] And then they don't end up airing all the.

[1802] episodes of this show because the reply, all people get canceled themselves.

[1803] So you hear, you hear.

[1804] You're only one bad episode and it's about me. When that happened, I was like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Basically, I was aware of that podcast.

[1805] I had participated in it.

[1806] And then they decided to cut everything that I interviewed with.

[1807] Didn't help the overarching narrative.

[1808] Yes, they didn't want to include any person that wasn't sort of speaking on behalf of the mission.

[1809] You would have accidentally been likable.

[1810] and people to question.

[1811] No, it's like that's against the narrative they're telling.

[1812] Yes, it was against the narrative, which is that I also didn't get any opportunities.

[1813] And they also had it not great.

[1814] But I can't speak to it.

[1815] I didn't work there when they worked there, what that podcast was exposing.

[1816] It was a team of people that I had worked with some of them in the past, but it wasn't my experience because I hadn't been there for five years.

[1817] That said, I was like, well, as the podcast goes on, they're going to bring all these other characters into the fold that's going to exonerate me because it's going to show the power structure, the top down.

[1818] I actually had no power.

[1819] I was making as much money as you.

[1820] I had the same job as you.

[1821] It was these people, and then they cut it off.

[1822] We never got there.

[1823] And we never got there.

[1824] And I was like, but this was the time where people were going to see.

[1825] And I was like, you know what?

[1826] It fucking doesn't matter.

[1827] Because also at this point, that podcast, I think, aired in January or February of 2021.

[1828] And everybody had already kind of made up their mind about me. Yeah.

[1829] All of the shit had happened.

[1830] I had picked up the pieces, tried to get on with my life, do the work.

[1831] my own physical literal work.

[1832] People are going to like it or they're not.

[1833] They won't stick around or they will.

[1834] And it was so delusional of me to think that people were going to listen to a podcast and be like, oh, wow, she's not so bad or like she really earned this or she works really hard.

[1835] Like no one gives a shit.

[1836] When structural racism is at play in a workplace, no one cares who works hard or not because that's not the point.

[1837] You're identifying the fact that people of color, women of color specifically have to work harder to prove themselves in any environment, especially when it's a top -down white male -led environment.

[1838] And that was the story.

[1839] And that's still the story.

[1840] In a lot of places, it's like, okay.

[1841] Me and my little fucking ego, it doesn't matter.

[1842] Well, the bigger, broader thing, again, is like, 90 % of the time I hear someone's canceled, I'm like, what?

[1843] I don't know.

[1844] That's beautiful.

[1845] I love to hear that.

[1846] But I definitely assume that everybody did know.

[1847] But also, I lived in Brooklyn.

[1848] And everyone, I felt like, did know in that microcosm because it was extremely online people.

[1849] I think L .A. and Brooklyn, New York are unique.

[1850] And it was a blessing and a curfeworthy.

[1851] that we were in the middle of a pandemic, the curse being that I was deeply alone in my walk -up, tiny -ass one -bedroom apartment.

[1852] Were you thinking, like, I'm too famous and popular to be living like this?

[1853] No. That's what I would have.

[1854] I'm like, if this many people are writing about me, I should have a much nicer apartment.

[1855] I was like, guys, I'm a regular -ass person.

[1856] How am I in this conversation?

[1857] I know, but that would have felt I'm just.

[1858] When I was on punked, I was making $2 ,000 an episode, and it took four weeks to film an episode.

[1859] In the whole first season, I made $16 ,000 over the course of a year and a half.

[1860] And they're like, you're rich and famous.

[1861] And you're like, I don't have any money.

[1862] But I got really famous.

[1863] Maybe the most I've ever been.

[1864] It was on fucking MTV four times a week, 9 million viewers.

[1865] I'm going to bars and people are losing their mind.

[1866] I can't buy a drink.

[1867] I take a girl to my one -bedroom apartment.

[1868] They'd be like, what the fuck is.

[1869] Oh, my God, he's so humble.

[1870] He's living his humble life.

[1871] I think everyone's confused.

[1872] Like, wait, you're famous.

[1873] Shouldn't you have money?

[1874] I'm like, no, I am flat broke.

[1875] Oh, yeah.

[1876] I mean, that was literally my thing.

[1877] I was like, how is this happening to me?

[1878] That's the weird microcosm of celebrity that we build is it can happen to anyone.

[1879] And it doesn't necessarily correlate to being actually rich or famous or having the support system of an actually rich and famous person.

[1880] A good percentage of people probably learned your name the first time when hearing you were ensnared in some kind of debacle.

[1881] I think what would be really helpful to people, because people experience much smaller versions of this, but very relatable where it's like, oh my God, my life's over.

[1882] My friendship circle hates me. Whatever that core community they have, they lose.

[1883] People do that.

[1884] Can you think of some turning points where there was breakthroughs?

[1885] You must have just wallowed in it for a while.

[1886] It was so dark.

[1887] I lost a few friends in the process that the friendships were probably a little precarious to begin with.

[1888] They were mostly white women, you know?

[1889] So, you're like, okay.

[1890] But one really important person to me was like, in her wedding.

[1891] I made her wedding dessert.

[1892] Like I was like, we were very close.

[1893] And that was really painful.

[1894] But everybody else in my life was like, I know you, I love you.

[1895] I stick by you.

[1896] You'll get through this.

[1897] Had I not had that, I would have been a nightmare.

[1898] I mean, it still was a nightmare, but it took a really really long time to be able to leave the house with confidence.

[1899] And I was really fortunate that we were wearing masks at the time because I felt like it was the only thing that protected me from this deep pit of shame every time I left the house.

[1900] Because I would make eye contact with someone on the street and I'd be like, they know who I am and they fucking hate me. And they think I'm a racist.

[1901] Well, I was just going to say, it's not just that you were called a racist on its own.

[1902] You're called a racist at the beginning of the BLM movement.

[1903] I mean, the timing.

[1904] Like there's literally going to be marches.

[1905] down the street where it's like high alert for races.

[1906] I know.

[1907] Really bad timing across the board.

[1908] I know.

[1909] I wasn't like, that's not who I am.

[1910] My attitude was like, I'm bad.

[1911] Like, I'm sad and bad.

[1912] Like, I went really inward.

[1913] I made myself very small.

[1914] I had zero confidence.

[1915] I was so shrouded in shame.

[1916] I feel like I'm going to burst into tears right now, but actually.

[1917] Please do it.

[1918] It's really good for the show.

[1919] Let it real.

[1920] Monica, honestly, when people first started telling me that you were into my recipes, I was like, does she know what I did?

[1921] Oh.

[1922] Because, like, you're not a white lady.

[1923] You know, I'm like, oh, she's a, smart, informed person, she must not know.

[1924] Because if she did...

[1925] Of course I knew.

[1926] You're like, I am very online.

[1927] Anytime I received any sort of praise or, like, feedback from somebody that wasn't a white person, I was like, oh, my God, I'm not the fucking worst.

[1928] Oh, my God.

[1929] I knew I was going to cry.

[1930] Oh, Monica, I'm so proud of you.

[1931] No, but seriously.

[1932] I'm so happy for you, and now I'm well -ed -up.

[1933] I know.

[1934] We're all crying.

[1935] Should we take our clothes?

[1936] That's tough.

[1937] Everyone's vulnerable.

[1938] Where's Ben Affleck?

[1939] This would be really connective.

[1940] Oh, that makes me. Yeah.

[1941] But that's so true, and I assumed that anybody who wasn't white that was like, I love your work or I'm such a fan.

[1942] I'm like, you don't know.

[1943] Wait till you find out.

[1944] Yeah, and then if it will all fall apart and you're going to be horrified or hate me or burn my books.

[1945] But like, what if I didn't know until this interview was like, oh, my God, fuck you.

[1946] I got to go.

[1947] I know.

[1948] Can you imagine?

[1949] Get out of this attic.

[1950] No. Because people are people.

[1951] I've made a gazillion mistakes.

[1952] and continue to do so and will continue to do so.

[1953] And if you judge everyone on like, you just can't.

[1954] That's the thing is like you were saying everybody has gone through this on some level where you're like, everyone's mad at me or I did something stupid at work or I sent an email.

[1955] You get hammered and you act like a fucking idiot and you've got a lot of apologies to me. Yeah.

[1956] And you're like, oh, how do I do that?

[1957] But on the most epic scale of my fucking life.

[1958] I was single at the time and I remember being on dating apps and people wanting to go out with me because they were curious about it.

[1959] And that felt really shitty too It felt like I was like an animal at the zoo Because I wasn't really famous I wasn't so untouchable That this thing happened to this person That you're never gonna meet or talk to You could see me at the coffee shop You could see me at a dinner party Your friend knows who I am I was so close to the people that gave a shit About this thing That it was like I was like an alien creature That people were like Oh did you hear, did you hear?

[1960] It was like so fascinating for people When I decided to do the newsletter I was like I have to keep writing The first thing you decided to put back out there?

[1961] Yeah, I was like, I have to do it.

[1962] And if I don't do it now, I can't ever do it.

[1963] Yeah.

[1964] And so you put out the first one, and do you have any sense of how many people read it?

[1965] Is that trackable?

[1966] Oh, yeah.

[1967] Did you know immediately, like, oh, wow, a lot of people are reading.

[1968] Some people are falling.

[1969] Yeah.

[1970] This goes to the thing I was saying earlier is, like, you can really give a very small percentage of people, you can fill it the rest of the world in based on this thing.

[1971] And then if you push forward, you might find out, well, God, I don't know what the number was before this thing, but I can't imagine it was much less.

[1972] Totally.

[1973] you'd lose metrics and followers and this down the other but for me it was I lost all my external work before everybody wanted to work with me and now nobody wanted to work with me some people would be like I think you're a wonderful but they give me the look of like you know but we can't we're reading between the lines it even appeared from what I read about the New York Times thing was like they were gonna try to wait it out their statement wasn't like we're firing her it was like we're putting something on pause the company line was that we parted ways oh I thought there was some duration between there was they were going to bring me back all right and then ultimately they They decided that they were not going to, but because I was a freelancer, they couldn't technically fire me. So I sort of had to recuse myself from the column, which in retrospect, I'm like, wouldn't it be funny if I just never left?

[1974] If I was like, I'm still a columnist, they haven't published me in three years, but I'm still a columnist.

[1975] What was the first thing you put out?

[1976] I think like a tuna salad recipe.

[1977] And was it just short and sweet?

[1978] Yeah, and I don't want to ignore what happened.

[1979] I don't ever want to be one of those people that's like, this didn't happen and I don't talk about it.

[1980] I also can't have it to find me or be the most interesting thing about me. And I realized that the only way that will ever happen is if I keep working and if I keep making things.

[1981] If I keep writing books, if I keep putting out content evolving what it is that I do in my work, then that becomes the thing people talk about, hopefully.

[1982] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1983] I think that in three years, that won't be the topic.

[1984] But I was really nervous to come back out and start doing press and interviews and things like that because I haven't done it in so long.

[1985] Since that, I really went dark and I was just, because that's all people wanted to talk about, even when they said that they didn't.

[1986] And it wasn't done in like an honest, vulnerable, compassion.

[1987] interesting, curious way.

[1988] It was done in like a needily way.

[1989] Yeah.

[1990] What's your rebuttal?

[1991] Yeah.

[1992] Or like wanted to somehow see me dig myself deeper into this hole.

[1993] But I'm just like, there's no thing there.

[1994] I'm not going to give you a thing that's going to paint me to be this person you insist that I am.

[1995] Yeah.

[1996] I can't give you a second gear to this story.

[1997] One doesn't really exist.

[1998] Well, my favorite part is that you just are owning.

[1999] Yeah, I was jealous and I was rude and stupid.

[2000] It was so obvious to me as soon as it happened.

[2001] I was like, oh, you jealous.

[2002] It's also interesting when you just said about everyone else you were in meetings with or whatever and they're like, well, we want to, but you know, I can't.

[2003] Yeah.

[2004] Is literally the exact phrasing of my dairy queen.

[2005] Which is what?

[2006] Okay.

[2007] So I had this really pivotal moment in sixth grade where I was at a pool.

[2008] She got canceled.

[2009] Oh, but dairy queen?

[2010] Well, sort of.

[2011] My best friend had a boyfriend and his best friend was supposed to be my boyfriend, obviously.

[2012] And he was so cute And I liked him, we were at the pool My best friend ran up to him and said Hey, why don't you ask Monica to be your girlfriend?

[2013] And he said, this exact thing I want to do it, I can't Because her parents work at Dairy Queen They don't But it was a stereotype in Georgia Because Indians like worked at the Dairy Queen On the Dairy Queen Franchised Yeah And there was something so paralyzing About oh they actually can't Like me Not they don't don't or they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't want to.

[2014] Maybe the next one.

[2015] Maybe the next one.

[2016] It's like, oh no, this is a can't.

[2017] Yeah, they're not allowed.

[2018] Forever.

[2019] It fucked me. You then internalizing what racism means.

[2020] Yes.

[2021] Your identity wrapped up into how people perceive you without.

[2022] What they see and I have no control over it.

[2023] She wouldn't even need a dairy queen until I started bringing her back.

[2024] I reintroduced her to Dairy Queen in the joys of the Blizzard.

[2025] Yeah.

[2026] So I got them back.

[2027] Dairy Queen was just another victim in the holes.

[2028] I'm glad I didn't bring up Dairy Queen earlier.

[2029] No, but I know you're not going to make the connection there.

[2030] Right.

[2031] But there is something deeply painful about someone saying they can't love you, take you on, whatever, because you paint that with a very wide brush.

[2032] You're like, oh, I'm actually...

[2033] Unlovable.

[2034] Pisona non grotto.

[2035] You're reduced to this one fact, whether it's true or not, whether it's relevant or not.

[2036] You can't change people's mind.

[2037] You have no control.

[2038] No, zero control.

[2039] Yes.

[2040] But I think that that's the other thing.

[2041] I've acquired some sort of piece with.

[2042] is that I can't control what other people think of me and I can only live as myself and live my life and be myself and be authentic and be consistent.

[2043] Yeah.

[2044] And people are going to sort of decide one way or the other.

[2045] But most people that don't like me, A, have never met me or B, have made up their mind a long time ago because of what I represent or how I appear or what it means for them based on that incident or something that happened before or whatever.

[2046] It's not about me. And I think that I have a tendency to make everything about me. I'll do.

[2047] And that isn't about me. So you start with a newsletter.

[2048] And then that goes well.

[2049] Are you shocked?

[2050] Yeah.

[2051] I was crying daily.

[2052] Everything was a fucking slog.

[2053] Writing was honestly the only thing that I had by my own volition.

[2054] By the way, it's the greatest expression of control ever.

[2055] Oh, yeah.

[2056] Writing's the ultimate.

[2057] And I felt no one's going to read this if they don't want to.

[2058] No one's being forced fed me. And I think that that was a lot of my trauma around what happened is that people were like, oh, enough with this lady.

[2059] She's everywhere.

[2060] Oh, she gets a column.

[2061] She gets a this.

[2062] She's in the this.

[2063] of that because people were putting me places.

[2064] Yeah, you had a TV show that was in pre -production.

[2065] Yeah, I felt like people were being forced -fed me, and they were like, we don't like her.

[2066] And now I'm sort of like, well, you can drink from the trough or not.

[2067] Yeah, yeah.

[2068] It's here if you want it, but I don't feel guilty for producing this because I know if you don't want to be here, you don't have to be.

[2069] Yeah, it's not that you subscribe to the New York Times and then you were forced to leaf past my column.

[2070] Exactly, which you're like, oh, this lady again.

[2071] You're there specifically to consume you.

[2072] Which a lot of people love the column, but I'm saying if you didn't like me, that was going to be irritating for you.

[2073] So I was like, okay, this feels like low stakes.

[2074] It was tough.

[2075] It kind of was like a diary.

[2076] And I was like working through a lot of stuff in real time and kind of experimenting with more personal writing that was related to food, which I have more interested now than ever.

[2077] And I wasn't able to do for these bigger publications and really exploring how vulnerable I could be.

[2078] And again, while acknowledging things but not dwelling on them and being self -deprecating in the way that I've always been and just showing myself to be a human person.

[2079] And I think that before that, I wasn't a human person.

[2080] I was, I don't know, like the cookie lady.

[2081] Celebrity chef.

[2082] I was not a regular human person.

[2083] Well, my guess is that you were looking at the marketplace and the things that had come before you that had worked and you're on some level emulating what you believe works.

[2084] Well, I think that I had always prized authenticity.

[2085] Yeah.

[2086] And I pushed that as far as I could within the confines of working for other people.

[2087] But I sort of always looked at what other people were doing and was like, I don't want to do that.

[2088] But that's also how I had that conversation.

[2089] That got me in trouble where I was like, oh, here are all the things that exist and here's what I don't want to do.

[2090] Why would I have to say any of that?

[2091] Why don't I just do the thing that I want and let it speak for itself?

[2092] Yeah.

[2093] So I'm imagining the newsletter grows and you continue to kind of write yourself out of all of this.

[2094] And then is there something before your current cookbook that comes up?

[2095] This is our third cookbook.

[2096] But not post.

[2097] No, I deferred a year.

[2098] So I had a cookbook that came out in 2019.

[2099] And so this is the first book post that experience that was supposed to come out last year, but because of a multitude of reasons.

[2100] One, depression, two, production, three, pandemic.

[2101] It came out a year after.

[2102] So it's coming out now.

[2103] But it feels like a different style of writing.

[2104] But I don't know.

[2105] I was like, is anyone going to read this?

[2106] Is anyone going to want it?

[2107] Is anyone, there's still that.

[2108] Monica's going to read it a couple hundred times.

[2109] Yeah, I'm going to read it more and more.

[2110] But I got it.

[2111] I was so excited when it came in the mail.

[2112] Great.

[2113] So instead of me explaining it.

[2114] Sweet enough.

[2115] yeah sweet enough a baking book such tantalizing recipes salted lemon pie raspberry and sour cream there's so many things i want to make toasted rice pudding caramelized maple tart i know monica there's also some savory walk me through the book how does it work on the cover what's a picture of is it a sour cream and raspberry yeah that's what it is it's like the most basic thing it's like barely a recipe it's not sour cream and rue to bake it no it's no it's doing that no as we've established in the permanent This is this is for people who do not have the time or the skill to pull off dessert.

[2116] It's kind of like if you don't have it in you either emotionally or literally, if you're like, you know what, I'm more of a jazz musician rather than a classical musician.

[2117] I'm gesticulating towards Dax and Monica when I say that respectively.

[2118] But I feel like people who are more of the carrot meatball pasta sauce spirit are going to be like, oh, I don't bake because it requires too much focus, measuring specific.

[2119] I don't like it.

[2120] Things got a rise.

[2121] Right.

[2122] Nothing's rising in that book, I'll tell you that.

[2123] But I sort of made a book for people like you because I am you.

[2124] Okay, wonderful.

[2125] I am more you than I am Monica in that space and that like I hate instructions.

[2126] I hate measuring.

[2127] I hate precision.

[2128] I hate being told what to do in that way.

[2129] And so I feel like I wanted to see a dessert -focused book in the world that represented those people because I don't think that means that you shouldn't have access to it if you want it.

[2130] And if somebody one day is going to ask you to make a case.

[2131] for something or some occasion, you're going to be so fucked without this book.

[2132] Yes.

[2133] Because you yourself will look at these other books that are like, you're like, this isn't for me. And I feel like this book could be for you.

[2134] But it runs the gamut.

[2135] There's the sour cream and raspberry thing, which is simple.

[2136] And then there's ones that feel the harder.

[2137] The caramelized maple tart.

[2138] That is harder, yeah.

[2139] You got a caramelized maple syrup, which is annoying.

[2140] That's exciting.

[2141] You just boil it down, basically.

[2142] You boil down the maple syrup.

[2143] Until it's darker.

[2144] Okay.

[2145] Yeah.

[2146] So it's not so crazy.

[2147] There's a pound cake.

[2148] I'm really.

[2149] excited to make.

[2150] The chocolate one?

[2151] Yes.

[2152] Yeah, I'd say it tastes like a Costco muffin.

[2153] Oh, I stand by that.

[2154] So excited.

[2155] I made the pancakes.

[2156] Oh, how were they?

[2157] So good.

[2158] I was just telling.

[2159] She was raving about them on the last fact chat.

[2160] They are.

[2161] She said crispy on the edges and fluffy on the inside.

[2162] Does that mean a lot of oil?

[2163] Is that the trick?

[2164] The ratio of egg and buttermilk in the batter.

[2165] It's like a looser batter than usual.

[2166] It's how hot your pan is.

[2167] It's the amount of oil you use.

[2168] You know how sometimes pancakes are like smooth and flat and one texture?

[2169] That's a That's not for me. No, thanks.

[2170] This is like a ring of poofed edge that's like crispy and crunchy.

[2171] Almost caramelized edge.

[2172] Almost.

[2173] Yeah.

[2174] I love that word.

[2175] Yeah, it's a good one.

[2176] It's really good.

[2177] And they're easy.

[2178] They're pretty foolproof.

[2179] That recipe has been around a minute.

[2180] And some recipes I have published before in my career, but for the most part, they're new.

[2181] But the pancakes is one that I was just like, well, it's not quite a dessert, but it's dessert adjacent.

[2182] And it's never going to appear in another book.

[2183] Like, it's never going to appear in, like, a dinner book.

[2184] Yeah.

[2185] My favorite dessert I've ever had is the hunk -hawk -a -burn -love over at Fred 62.

[2186] They don't even serve it anymore.

[2187] What is it?

[2188] What is it?

[2189] It's a pancake I'm holding up like the size of a medium pizza.

[2190] Pancake, it's big globs of peanut butter, banana, chocolate chips, this vanilla sauce and a caramel sauce.

[2191] In a fucking yummy pancake.

[2192] And Kristen and I used to, three nights a week we've been in bed like, we should go get a hunk -a -hunker -burn in love.

[2193] No, we can't do it.

[2194] And then once a week, we would buckle and go down.

[2195] They're just devourable.

[2196] That's like a good limit to set for yourself.

[2197] Yeah.

[2198] No, I can't eat anything.

[2199] He's got everything I can't eat it.

[2200] I know.

[2201] He doesn't eat gluten anymore.

[2202] Oh, really?

[2203] Would you say, yeah.

[2204] I have psoriotic arthritis, so I really had to take out everything great.

[2205] The inflammatory sort of things.

[2206] I only eat protein currently.

[2207] You are looking swole.

[2208] You see this?

[2209] Good culture.

[2210] I ate that before I came over.

[2211] Isn't it?

[2212] It's a small one.

[2213] It's magic.

[2214] Yeah, that was what I had right before I came over.

[2215] This motherfucker's got 56 grams of protein in it.

[2216] I love that cottage shit.

[2217] There is a really wonderful cottage cheesecake in the book.

[2218] Oh.

[2219] And if you make it with Good Culture, not sponsored, but Good Culture is a perfect cottage cheese.

[2220] It will be very good.

[2221] You can make it with gluten free.

[2222] It's a cottage cheesecake.

[2223] Yeah.

[2224] So it's not a cheesecake.

[2225] It's like a cake made with cottage cheese.

[2226] So it has like a custodry interior, but it's stable.

[2227] And the lumps kind of get caramelized at the bottom of the pan.

[2228] It's pretty good.

[2229] And you can make it with like any fruit.

[2230] I'll make that for you.

[2231] You make it with gluten -free flour.

[2232] Yeah.

[2233] It's very good.

[2234] Will you make that for me?

[2235] Yeah.

[2236] Okay.

[2237] Now you espouse the virtues of the frozen fruit.

[2238] These tell us the virtues of the frozen fruit.

[2239] I approach dessert making with idealistically the same sort of accessibility as I do my savory food.

[2240] I believe in canned ingredients.

[2241] I believe in basic pantry staples.

[2242] Same thing with baking.

[2243] Use the shitty butter.

[2244] Use the frozen raspberries.

[2245] If the recipe is good, it will turn out well.

[2246] And I think that people in this culture of being, quote, into food as a personality type, they're like, well, I only shop here and I only get these ingredients.

[2247] And it's like very exclusive.

[2248] Yeah, frozen is like almost like GMO.

[2249] Yeah, and I don't believe that fruit should be in season and ripe and fresh 365.

[2250] So if you're going to have raspberries, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have the ones that are picked when they're ripe, when they're in season, and then frozen.

[2251] That's great.

[2252] I feel that way about peas.

[2253] And I don't think there's anything wrong with the frozen fruit market because the idea is that you're taking something in its season and you're basically preserving it through the method of freezing to extend its life.

[2254] And if we don't accept that into our hearts, then we're going to be farming these shitty.

[2255] raspberries in the middle of February.

[2256] You know, paying an upteen amount of dollars to ship.

[2257] Oh, I also made the matzabal soup this weekend.

[2258] Oh, you did?

[2259] I made it last week.

[2260] It was so good.

[2261] Oh, it's so good.

[2262] I know, but you know the problem?

[2263] I couldn't find chicken fat.

[2264] I used it.

[2265] I used butter.

[2266] I already ordered 20 -piece McNuggets for McDonald.

[2267] Yeah, he wants me to try the stock with McNuggets.

[2268] I said, you could make chicken stock with McNuggets.

[2269] That might be an issue for several reasons.

[2270] We can workshop it.

[2271] Yeah.

[2272] So I have to get my hands on chicken fat for the night.

[2273] But it was still great with butter.

[2274] I've made them with butter repeatedly.

[2275] And it's...

[2276] It was really good.

[2277] Yeah.

[2278] They're rich.

[2279] It's like a dumpling at that point.

[2280] It was nice.

[2281] Yeah.

[2282] I grew up going to this place called Sollies.

[2283] They closed.

[2284] But it was on, I want to say like Van Nuys Boulevard and Ventura.

[2285] But no canters for you.

[2286] I love canters.

[2287] Okay.

[2288] I was just at the Kibitz room.

[2289] Oh.

[2290] You mentioned Langers.

[2291] Yeah.

[2292] Beautiful corn beef.

[2293] Beautiful pastrami.

[2294] It's the gold standard.

[2295] Across the country.

[2296] I'm sure there's some young gun doing pastrami in a way that is fucking sick.

[2297] Yeah.

[2298] But I got to say, the Langer's pastrami.

[2299] Granted, I was a Langer's baby.

[2300] I was raised on Langer's.

[2301] My father would disown me if he heard me talking about any other Pistrami.

[2302] But it just is.

[2303] And the environment?

[2304] No, I got to go.

[2305] Yeah.

[2306] It's tremendous.

[2307] Directly across the street from MacArthur Park.

[2308] So you got filled up on Pistrami, go grab a bag of tar, and that's your weekend.

[2309] Go get some fresh fruit.

[2310] Sit in the grass?

[2311] You know, MacArthur Park is famous for its heroin sales.

[2312] Yeah, sure.

[2313] Oh, I was like, tar, totally.

[2314] I was like, I don't know what he's saying.

[2315] I'm going with it.

[2316] I'm going with it.

[2317] I'm going to save fresh fruit.

[2318] We're going to keep going.

[2319] It's almost always a drug record.

[2320] Full of soundbite.

[2321] I'm loving it.

[2322] No, Langer's so fucking good.

[2323] Do you like the other fun one downtown, which is for French Dips?

[2324] Oh, Filippes.

[2325] I'm not a French Dhip person.

[2326] Again, my father would disown me if you heard me say that, but I am pro - iconic old school establishment in any city.

[2327] It will be my favorite restaurant.

[2328] I was at Dantanas last night.

[2329] I judge a place not necessarily based on the food, although the food should be good if it's going to stay.

[2330] the test of time, but the soul of it and the environment of it.

[2331] The overall.

[2332] Yeah, the overall.

[2333] It's so hard to duplicate.

[2334] It's like when you're in a relationship and you're like, is love enough?

[2335] And guess what, it's not?

[2336] And like, is good food enough?

[2337] It's not.

[2338] You need to have the soul, the energy, the vibe.

[2339] It's got to have a feeling.

[2340] Yes, you feel like you've teleported when you go to somewhere like Dananas or Mousso and Franks or Philippe.

[2341] I just want to make one argument for Philippe.

[2342] And it's a reframing.

[2343] Don't think of it as a French dip restaurant.

[2344] Think of it as a vehicle.

[2345] for the hot mustard that's on the table.

[2346] Wow, say no more.

[2347] Because they're hot mustard.

[2348] Boy, do I love mustard.

[2349] Oh, and it's in a squirtie.

[2350] Okay.

[2351] Yeah, I mean, they're encouraging you to go wild.

[2352] That hot mustard is so hot.

[2353] That's enough to sell me, honestly.

[2354] I'm such a mustard fan.

[2355] Oh, God.

[2356] You know, like Houston's, right?

[2357] I love Houston.

[2358] Oh, so.

[2359] The spinach artichoke dip on parallel.

[2360] The artichokes, forget it.

[2361] That's an example of going to a restaurant where, like, I'm never going to make that.

[2362] I cook at home, and I love cooking at home, and I love cooking for people.

[2363] It's not a restaurant.

[2364] Yeah.

[2365] It's never going to compete.

[2366] with the vibe, the energy, everything.

[2367] The bustle.

[2368] Yeah, so if you can't go to a restaurant for that, like, I'm like, what am I here for?

[2369] Yeah, true.

[2370] No waitstaff fucking each other in the parking lot.

[2371] Yeah.

[2372] No, the sexual tension and filling the air.

[2373] The casual meth use that's being.

[2374] Yeah.

[2375] It's in the air.

[2376] Well, Allison, this has been a party.

[2377] Thanks for coming.

[2378] Great analogy.

[2379] It was very Lane Norton for me. Good.

[2380] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2381] I had a feeling.

[2382] I'm so glad.

[2383] Yeah, we're even.

[2384] I'll try to find another weird muscle -bound guy.

[2385] All right.

[2386] All right.

[2387] There can only be one.

[2388] Exactly.

[2389] Let's keep trying, though, to shock each other and surprise each other.

[2390] The cookbook is called Sweet Enough a Baking Book, and it is out March 28th.

[2391] I was reading it on the toilet.

[2392] Oh, great.

[2393] It couldn't pull it away.

[2394] You're like, I have to take it with me. There's a lot of your writing in it, too.

[2395] Yeah, more writing than usual.

[2396] I love it.

[2397] Thank you.

[2398] So what kind of writing is it, Monica?

[2399] Like, in between recipes, there'll be stories and also just a lot of Allison embedded in it.

[2400] I try to take some recipes and storyify them and that this is more of an idea about something you're making rather than the droll of a recipe, which can be tough to read.

[2401] But it's always my hope and I feel like I've gotten closer with this book because I realize there's limitations, people that don't like dessert.

[2402] I really want it to be for everyone.

[2403] And even if you don't bake, the photos are gorgeous and, like, hopefully you can read it like a book.

[2404] I have a friend who's never cooked a thing of mine ever in his whole life.

[2405] He's read every book, you know?

[2406] I believe that because a Simeen Show, I watch Fat Sassas, Sazis.

[2407] Salt Bad Asse.

[2408] Say it one more time Salt fat acid heat Salt fat acid heat What I need to do is S -F -A -H I can remember that acronym It's like to get all four words In there We'll get what you mean Yeah I mean that's really What's important But anyways Or I watched Jose Andrei show The other day Because we interviewed him And so yeah I'm not a cook I'm not gonna start Being a cook Anytime soon And there's something Bizarrely aspirational About it What it represents is More than what it is On the surface I think There is someone actively choosing to put way more time and energy and resources and money towards something that you don't need to.

[2409] So it's almost like an artistic expression, even if you're just consuming it.

[2410] There's something about it that I go, oh, this is one of the cool things about the monkeys.

[2411] They just need calories.

[2412] That's all they need.

[2413] It could be so easy and done in two seconds.

[2414] But no, these people are going to dedicate five hours to this experience.

[2415] And then I think it was him who explained as well, the amount of resources and time put into pleasing your ears is almost infinite we buy music we listen to music hours a day we are committed to enjoying that sense and we are committed to enjoying all kinds of our senses with our eyes we watch everything the art we consume visually and when i see people putting that same effort into their fifth sense their taste their gustatory oh gustatory i'm like uh oh this is cool I'm not doing that And this seems wonderful and artistic And what you should be doing While you're on planet Earth So there's something I find to be inspirational about I think that's cool I appreciate that I think it's like why we watch sports I'm never going to do that But I love watching you do it Yeah When I was making the matzabal soup I realized it was like oh my god Hours have gone by And I have not been thinking about What I'm normally thinking about Which is probably myself Or what's going wrong Or what you know I'm not ruminating You're not scrolling on the land of the abyss.

[2416] Yes.

[2417] You can focus.

[2418] It's a really nice relief.

[2419] Yeah, it's a really good way to sort of leave your body for a second.

[2420] Yeah, we just interviewed these two wonderful ladies, Ivy and Susan, who have a book called Your Brain on Art, your aesthetic.

[2421] So anything of your five senses that comes into your body.

[2422] And the kind of cathartic process of creating art, which food is that?

[2423] Like it's everything they were describing in your brain that happens when you're making pottery.

[2424] Full sensor.

[2425] You got to use both hands, which is weird because you have to use.

[2426] both sides of your brain.

[2427] And very few activities are artistic.

[2428] You use both sides of your brain because you're using both hands.

[2429] So yeah, that's one of those things where the whole body's doing it.

[2430] It's like proven to be good for your mental health.

[2431] And I was putting those pieces together.

[2432] I was like, oh yeah, this really was a nice respite.

[2433] It's good for you.

[2434] Yeah.

[2435] Well, I think that's why when you were asking earlier about the sort of stereotype of a person who works in a kitchen to be this type of personality, I think a lot of people find it to be a really great coping mechanism.

[2436] And I think especially if you lack the tools to say, like, here are my mental health issues or here's where I struggle, it's like a very direct yet indirect way of coping with anxiety or stress or control or any of that stuff.

[2437] Yeah.

[2438] And it's like a place to put your energy.

[2439] Definitely.

[2440] Yeah.

[2441] What fun.

[2442] Thank you so much.

[2443] This is like, honestly, the only interview I ever cared about.

[2444] Oh.

[2445] I was very touched by that moment you guys had.

[2446] I was like, don't cry.

[2447] Don't cry.

[2448] You cracked.

[2449] I know.

[2450] I know.

[2451] Alison Roman, everyone gets sweet enough a baking book, both for the activity of making the stuff and then the splendor of tasting it.

[2452] And if you don't have nothing fancy or dining in, pick those up too.

[2453] Yeah, make it a set.

[2454] Collect all three.

[2455] I have all three.

[2456] What else you got for saying?

[2457] Anything on Craigslist?

[2458] Home movie.

[2459] Like and subscribe.

[2460] I can subscribe.

[2461] All right.

[2462] Well, thank you so much for coming.

[2463] It was such a blast.

[2464] I'm glad I got to meet you.

[2465] All right.

[2466] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my.

[2467] Soulmate Monica Padman.

[2468] Are you getting nervous about getting to your premiere on time now?

[2469] It'll be fine.

[2470] Okay.

[2471] It's Lincoln's birthday.

[2472] It is.

[2473] Ten years old.

[2474] Ten years old.

[2475] Crazy.

[2476] Yeah, my little subway sandwich.

[2477] Yeah.

[2478] It was delivered 10 years ago.

[2479] How do you feel?

[2480] Oh, I was thinking this morning as I journaled.

[2481] Anything about your kids' birthdays, it's their birthday, but it's also your birthday.

[2482] Yeah.

[2483] Big day for both of you.

[2484] Maybe more for me because I'm going back to that first, her being put in my hands when she was one second old.

[2485] Yeah.

[2486] And she was scared.

[2487] And I looked at her in the eyes and I said, oh, it's okay.

[2488] Welcome to planet Earth, Lincoln.

[2489] We've been waiting for you.

[2490] It's so fun to say that to your little sandwich.

[2491] And then I just did everything with her.

[2492] for two years straight.

[2493] I see these videos of myself, and I think, oh, it was such a better dad back then.

[2494] I was constantly tossing her around, dancing with her, teaching her throw a rock on a river, whatever it is.

[2495] Yeah.

[2496] I was just, I was playing with her.

[2497] Yeah.

[2498] A new toy.

[2499] Yeah, yeah, a new toy.

[2500] A new baby dog.

[2501] Oh.

[2502] Yeah, I do feel like on kids' birthdays, mom should get gifts because they really did a lot.

[2503] lot of work yeah they did that's a lot they baked that that loaf of bread they did you see the little loaves of bread come on that subway sandwich oven you know when you go to subway yeah artisanal yeah they're artisanal oven they're making a hundred of them in there but it's artisanal yeah they come out of that oven piping hot they've been cooked that's what the mom did yeah it's really nice push that sandwich out are you in your premier outfit no oh i'm not i have a jumpsuit i'm gonna wear And jacket coat, jacket coat.

[2504] Ever worn it before or first time out?

[2505] First time.

[2506] Oh, wow.

[2507] First time out.

[2508] But you've already tried it on and you feel great in it?

[2509] I've tried it on, yeah.

[2510] Yeah.

[2511] And you feel great in it?

[2512] Yeah.

[2513] Okay, great.

[2514] Because I always, in situations like these, I always repeat.

[2515] Like a high -stakes situation like premiere where Ben Amad are at.

[2516] I want to be in something I know I've felt confident in the past.

[2517] Interesting.

[2518] And for you, it's time to explore.

[2519] Yes.

[2520] It's an opportunity for a new outfit.

[2521] I'm excited.

[2522] I was going to wear this outfit to the premiere I went to on Friday, Anthony's premiere and Rachel's.

[2523] But when this premiere came into the picture, I had to pivot.

[2524] It threw everything upside down.

[2525] It did.

[2526] But I really liked my outfit I wore on Friday as well.

[2527] Wonderful.

[2528] So I've all worked out.

[2529] How does this all?

[2530] outfit playing to anything.

[2531] Nothing.

[2532] It's just my outfit for today.

[2533] It's outstanding, though.

[2534] You should take a business meeting in that next time you have some business.

[2535] Very coordinated.

[2536] Yeah.

[2537] The shoes kind of tie it all together.

[2538] They hurt my feet.

[2539] Oh.

[2540] They look good now.

[2541] Thank you.

[2542] I'm wearing new shoes too.

[2543] I wondered if they were new.

[2544] I hadn't seen those before.

[2545] Very cool.

[2546] I love them.

[2547] How was your weekend?

[2548] Well, we watched Cocaine Bear.

[2549] Okay.

[2550] So everyone already heard my review of it.

[2551] Yes.

[2552] Hit us with your review.

[2553] You know, anytime you and you and I watch movies in the same room, I'm always delighted that we have virtually the exact same sense of humor.

[2554] We laugh at the same jokes.

[2555] Yes, and hardest at the same stuff.

[2556] You seem to be letting it rip every time I was letting it rip.

[2557] Oh, good.

[2558] Yeah, yeah.

[2559] You guys hosted a screening for our pod, and it was really funny.

[2560] It was so ridiculous.

[2561] It was so absurd and hilarious.

[2562] But there's a couple set pieces in it that are just for the record books.

[2563] Out of this world.

[2564] Yeah.

[2565] The whole ambulance scene is just tremendous.

[2566] Really, really funny.

[2567] I recommend and know what you're getting yourself into.

[2568] It's absurd.

[2569] Proposterous.

[2570] Yes.

[2571] But really funny.

[2572] But the kids with the fucking two grams of cocaine on the switch blade.

[2573] I know.

[2574] It makes you laugh so hard because there's this little beautiful children.

[2575] You're like, no. Doing this really nefarious thing, but they don't know.

[2576] Very innocent and cute the way they're doing it.

[2577] It's adorable.

[2578] Yeah, so I recommend.

[2579] That was a fun viewing.

[2580] Very fun.

[2581] And I also did Cirque de Soleil.

[2582] So sad.

[2583] I was invited last minute by Lincoln.

[2584] Okay.

[2585] But I couldn't make it because I had an appointment.

[2586] I was so sad because I love Cirque de Soleil.

[2587] What appointment was better than Sirc de Soleil.

[2588] It was a witch?

[2589] Yes.

[2590] And I had already pushed that like a month.

[2591] Right.

[2592] And you had a premiere to attend on Monday.

[2593] That really wasn't why.

[2594] It was more...

[2595] Respect for the witch?

[2596] No, like I haven't been in here for a month.

[2597] can see it.

[2598] Okay.

[2599] And I can't handle that.

[2600] I wish she would come to my house and do my face.

[2601] Yeah.

[2602] She's got a lot of equipment though, right?

[2603] Yeah.

[2604] She's...

[2605] She's steam your face?

[2606] Like, I don't know those steamy things?

[2607] She doesn't.

[2608] She does not.

[2609] That's not for her.

[2610] She has lots of acids.

[2611] Okay.

[2612] That's her main tool.

[2613] Is...

[2614] Acids.

[2615] Yeah.

[2616] I thought you said she has a lot of assets.

[2617] Like, she's got a lot of equipment.

[2618] No, acid.

[2619] Okay.

[2620] She really...

[2621] Throwing acids.

[2622] Willing nelly with the acid.

[2623] Oh, yeah, but it works.

[2624] Oh, wow.

[2625] Do your skin peel off afterwards?

[2626] Sometimes.

[2627] Sometimes.

[2628] Depends.

[2629] Okay.

[2630] How deep she does.

[2631] Sometimes it melts.

[2632] How much acid she's got?

[2633] Yeah.

[2634] Okay.

[2635] Sometimes you look like the characters at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Never seen it.

[2636] Oh, my God.

[2637] You haven't?

[2638] Indiana Jones.

[2639] I know.

[2640] I've only seen one of the Indiana Joneses.

[2641] And that was in Cannes.

[2642] It was one of the premieres.

[2643] But it was like one of the later ones.

[2644] It would have been in 2008.

[2645] No. You got to watch The Eridge.

[2646] It's incredible.

[2647] It's a ding, ding, ding.

[2648] Because Matt Damon was there.

[2649] At the premiere.

[2650] Yes.

[2651] And so obviously that's all I could think about the whole time.

[2652] So I was not watching the movie.

[2653] I was just kind of looking to see if I could get a glimpse of the hair.

[2654] Did you have eyes on him?

[2655] Do you know where he's sitting?

[2656] Yeah.

[2657] So I could see like a little bit of his hair.

[2658] You were behind him or in front of him?

[2659] behind and way up high.

[2660] Okay, you could have also been, they also put people like front row.

[2661] You could have been turning around the whole time.

[2662] The person directly behind you, you're making me so uncomfortable staring at me. I'm not looking at you.

[2663] I'm looking at Matt Dana.

[2664] It's not you.

[2665] You're not important.

[2666] Shut up.

[2667] Yeah.

[2668] So I don't remember any of the movies.

[2669] I don't think any of the subsequent ones were very good.

[2670] The first two are great.

[2671] The first one is insanely good.

[2672] Old classic.

[2673] Very trusted.

[2674] Okay, so Sorf de Soleil.

[2675] Cirque de Soleil, I wish I could tell you the name of the actual one.

[2676] They all have different names.

[2677] Right.

[2678] I guess it was one of the earlier ones, like one of the original ones.

[2679] Oh, really?

[2680] There's something about a clown.

[2681] It's another name for a...

[2682] Corteo...

[2683] There you go.

[2684] You got it.

[2685] Calvin went yesterday with his grandma.

[2686] Oh, yeah.

[2687] What did he think?

[2688] Was he blown away?

[2689] He loved it, yeah.

[2690] You can't not love it.

[2691] It's so good.

[2692] Cortez?

[2693] Corto.

[2694] Corto.

[2695] Yeah.

[2696] With the big balloon he was excited about that floated over.

[2697] The person's in this harness and there's big inflated balloons and she floats throughout the whole auditorium.

[2698] And people have to put their hands up and she floats down and puts her foot on it and then springs herself forward and goes to different areas of the audience.

[2699] Does she ever land on anyone's head?

[2700] No, I only saw hands.

[2701] Oh.

[2702] But it could happen.

[2703] But my first thought, you know, what do you think my first thought was?

[2704] How do I do that?

[2705] Yeah.

[2706] I'm going to get this in my backyard.

[2707] And when people come over for like barbecues, we'll hook them up.

[2708] We'll tether them so they can't fly away But there's no reason I can't have this It's not like any of the tech is that complicated Wouldn't you love to come to my house And go flying around the backyard?

[2709] I don't know I think I'd be worried I would suffocate You're not of what You're dangling Oh your feet are out Like the movie up Oh I thought she was in the balloon No that would think she'd die of Suffocation Flaming lips do that for their like live show And they're not dead No they have like ventilation things Okay.

[2710] I mean, there are ways, but that's what I thought.

[2711] Okay.

[2712] She was outside of the balloons.

[2713] Oh.

[2714] And clearly we could just add more balloons.

[2715] No, but then there's always risk of floating away.

[2716] But no, what you do and what they did, because we got to go backstage and check out how all the sausage was made.

[2717] They weigh her several times throughout the day because they got to get it perfect.

[2718] Uh -huh.

[2719] Because ideally she's weightless so that she can bounce or maybe even probably they have her weighing a half pound.

[2720] I don't know what it is, so she'll fall back down.

[2721] Right.

[2722] But they have little bags of sand that they attach to the cords if she's under or overweight.

[2723] You know, well, only underweight.

[2724] But so it would be basically set up for my weight or Charlie's or error.

[2725] Whoever's the heaviest person in the group is.

[2726] And then sandbags would be added when you got on.

[2727] That doesn't appeal to you to float around the backyard?

[2728] I mean, it sounds cool.

[2729] I just don't know if it sounds cool enough for the risk.

[2730] The investment?

[2731] Oh, the risk.

[2732] Just wear a parachute and have like a knife with you.

[2733] This has a lot going on.

[2734] And that's what I mean.

[2735] Is it worth like, am I going to have to cut myself free and then collapse to the grass?

[2736] I don't know.

[2737] No, I'll have a long cable.

[2738] I've got to figure that into the weight.

[2739] That's going to be complicated because as it goes higher, it'll be more weight.

[2740] Or maybe it would just be fish in line or something.

[2741] Okay.

[2742] Two hundred pound tests or something on there.

[2743] Okay.

[2744] So that no one floats away.

[2745] All right.

[2746] Well, you are good at fast math.

[2747] Yeah.

[2748] So you'll have the zip line that you can use.

[2749] Right.

[2750] For rescue operations.

[2751] Or, no, but what if you get caught in the zip line?

[2752] And it pops and then you drop to the ground.

[2753] Something we got to think about.

[2754] You can do it only over the pool that way.

[2755] Oh, no. Why?

[2756] That's for me way worse.

[2757] Drowning.

[2758] Oh.

[2759] I can't.

[2760] I'd rather crash into the ground than water.

[2761] You're not going to drown.

[2762] You're a great swimmer and a great bicyclist.

[2763] And that pools like, what, seven feet at most?

[2764] I'm only five feet, right?

[2765] It's five feet.

[2766] Well, someone will jump in and get you I've got a weighting pool Although the balloons might then Exactly, it'll be weighted down Because all the balloons are on top of me Now the balloons are heavy They're helium Whatever, there's a harness attack You know, I'm stuck I'm stuck All right, you can watch You'll just have to watch I think I'll watch and I'll be happy You can take pictures Yeah Especially when Ryan's up Because he'll be in charge of pitchers Until he's incapaceted Yeah So okay Well that's fun And Cirque de Soleil always makes me feel like magical.

[2767] Well, I was so sick.

[2768] I've been so sick for a few days, like really sick.

[2769] Or I'm like kind of miserable while I'm awake.

[2770] And so I did not want to go, but it was for Lincoln's birthday.

[2771] Yeah.

[2772] So I really had to rally.

[2773] Yeah.

[2774] And then that's the power of the show.

[2775] It was within two minutes I was like elated with childlike wonder.

[2776] Yes.

[2777] The things they do.

[2778] And what I actually dig about.

[2779] it's a pretty lo -fi version of Cirque de Soleil if you've been because most of the shows if you go in Vegas they've built the entire stage around it so the stage is really complicated really cool things happen visually very stimulating and wonderful but in the absence of that you just have the death -defying stunts yeah and what I was kept I couldn't get off this point it was probably annoying everyone around me there's no job no one has a job that they do repetitively 10 ,000 times and don't fuck up even if you're putting paper clips on paper or you're stapling things or any any job cannot be done over and over and over again without you dropping something yes and the margin of air there is no margin of air especially the dudes the one that's really crazy is they're on a seesaw have you seen this it's a seesaw it doesn't have handles and so one guy jumps and it propels the other guy and he's got to land perfectly on the seesaw and now the other guy flies up in the air now He's 20 feet near.

[2780] He's doing fucking flips.

[2781] Oh, my God.

[2782] And he's got to land perfectly on this little prank and propel the next.

[2783] He fucks the next guy if he doesn't land perfectly and uses his legs correctly immediately upon landing.

[2784] And I'm just watching this going and they do, I don't know, in that sequence, they do 40, 50 big jumps.

[2785] Like, how do they not mess up?

[2786] I know.

[2787] I agree.

[2788] Do you think there's some precaution, like there's like magnets or something?

[2789] No. Has any?

[2790] There's not even, there's no safety net.

[2791] There's no one's wearing wires.

[2792] There's a couple of the stunts where they wear wires.

[2793] But in general, there's another thing that this person did.

[2794] Guy comes out with a ladder.

[2795] The ladder's probably eight feet tall.

[2796] It's just a ladder.

[2797] Yeah.

[2798] You can't climb a ladder if it's not leaning against something.

[2799] Well, he can.

[2800] No. He can climb a ladder.

[2801] that's not that's just there and then he can get on top and do a fucking handstand on top of the yes on the It's not leaning against anything.

[2802] It's just his body weight.

[2803] But maybe it's in, see, that's the...

[2804] No. Because he's walking, a lot of the times to get his balance, he does have to move.

[2805] He does.

[2806] He walks with the ladder.

[2807] Like the ladder walks until he gets that perfect balance going.

[2808] Oh my God.

[2809] And then gets on the very top.

[2810] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2811] It's incredible.

[2812] It really is.

[2813] I think people should comment if they've ever been to a Cirque de Soleil where something went wrong.

[2814] Ooh.

[2815] Maybe that'll be a prompt for the next time.

[2816] But I don't think there's enough.

[2817] I really, I doubt that there's enough because I've never heard of anything going wrong.

[2818] You'd get injured is the thing.

[2819] It's not like someone dropping a prop in a play.

[2820] Right.

[2821] I don't think they die, but like someone, people would break things.

[2822] You might die if you were on a handstand on a ladder.

[2823] There's a way you could, yeah.

[2824] Someone died.

[2825] Oh.

[2826] Last year, 2022.

[2827] a 90 footfall Oh that sounds like a cable malfunction Las Vegas That has to be a equipment error Because at 90 feet they would have been wearing a cable Or there'd be a net Unforced trauma Oh Jesus Rob Okay I'm trying to keep this positive To Circusole She was wearing a safety harness Attached to a cable And the cable broke Yeah I would imagine Oh yoy All right Right.

[2828] Well, I love it.

[2829] I'm glad you went.

[2830] It's my favorite thing.

[2831] You know this about me. I've seen Misteur in Vegas probably nine times.

[2832] Yes.

[2833] And I've been to love a few times.

[2834] And I just...

[2835] The Oshow is one of the best things I've ever seen ever.

[2836] I know.

[2837] When I was sitting in the audience, it's by far my favorite live thing you can watch.

[2838] Yeah.

[2839] To me, it blows away any play or musical or anything.

[2840] Do you know what?

[2841] It's not as good as.

[2842] what cooking videos well okay um there's a lot there's some high risk oh this is Allison Roman yeah okay there's some high risk because of um canceasing and canceling yes yes there's a career risk around every and ovens turn yeah fire I um had another uh knife incident brush with death near death experience I can't find it anymore I must spend a bad if you can't find such a sharp knife.

[2843] It was bad.

[2844] Those are the worst cuts though and they don't bleed and then they start bleeding.

[2845] No, it bled a lot but I healed fast.

[2846] I cut one of my fingernails too short this weekend and it drove nuts for three days because someone stole.

[2847] This is why I had a fucking safe for my nail clippers.

[2848] I got so made fun of I no longer had a safe and then when I went to cut my nails the right one's not there and I had to use a toe one that's flat, dead flat.

[2849] There's no curve to it.

[2850] Oh sure.

[2851] Yeah.

[2852] And then cut my index finger way too short and then just stung for three days yeah okay Allison Roman Allison really liked her I've never seen a single cooking video of hers I know and yet I liked her a ton yes she's very likable very real like when you meet her to me I feel like you totally get how that happened because she's just open and honest and talking uh huh Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2853] She's not thinking, yeah, she's not thinking, like, how will I get in trouble right now?

[2854] She's unself -conscious, which is what's appealing about her.

[2855] Exactly.

[2856] Oh, my God, another ding, ding, ding.

[2857] Really the only fact.

[2858] Well, there's two facts, but really the only fact was she said her dad sold a card to Ben and Matt.

[2859] Oh, correct.

[2860] And I asked her to confirm.

[2861] Was it a Jeep or a Mustang?

[2862] She said like a Jeep or something.

[2863] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2864] And I asked her to confirm.

[2865] Okay, great.

[2866] her dad.

[2867] Okay.

[2868] She said, okay, it was a lease.

[2869] It was just Ben.

[2870] Okay.

[2871] All right.

[2872] Okay.

[2873] So listen to this exchange.

[2874] This is a text from his, her dad.

[2875] Said, Dad, did you sell Matt Damon and Ben Affle like a Jeep?

[2876] Or am I making this up?

[2877] And was it both of them or just one of them?

[2878] And what year was it, if true?

[2879] He said, yes, it was Ben and his friend with him.

[2880] So he did bring a friend, but it wasn't Matt.

[2881] He leased a black grand Cherokee LTD Oh wow limited Oh okay limited Yeah I didn't I didn't read 4 leader V6 Oh my Yeah I didn't recognize him But he told me at the time My kids might And he told me he and his friend were writing a movie Which turned out to be Goodwill hunting I'm going to say it was perhaps 1995 I had the commission slip With his name on it for a while Isn't that kind of fun and funny.

[2882] Your kids might.

[2883] The Voyage of the Mimi.

[2884] That's probably why.

[2885] The show I watched in fifth, sixth grade.

[2886] Oh, really?

[2887] About Wales.

[2888] They showed it in like schools and like, like, it's like kind of PBS.

[2889] I know that story.

[2890] It would have been that.

[2891] Because Matt was also in some kind of weird science -y docu thing.

[2892] His mom, he had, didn't Damon move to Peru or something?

[2893] His mom was a crazy childhood where he was out of the country.

[2894] country a big chunk of it.

[2895] Yeah.

[2896] Aren't I remembering this correctly?

[2897] I don't remember that.

[2898] Oh, I'll have to look up early life on Wikipedia.

[2899] I mean, I'll be so embarrassed, not knowing that.

[2900] No, in the interview we talked about it.

[2901] Yeah, he spent a lot of time in a different country.

[2902] Oh.

[2903] Am I totally making this up?

[2904] Are you thinking that?

[2905] Are you on Wikipedia?

[2906] I'll go there too.

[2907] What do you mean?

[2908] Where else would you be?

[2909] IMDB.

[2910] That's not going to say that I'm IMDB.

[2911] God, damn, I don't know better than that.

[2912] Early life.

[2913] Not really.

[2914] I really think I won't know it.

[2915] I'm going to have to re -listen to the interview.

[2916] Yeah, he definitely went with his mom.

[2917] Don't say he definitely.

[2918] Don't say that.

[2919] I'm pretty certain.

[2920] I wish I had my computer because I could just look at my notes from that interview, but whatever.

[2921] That's neither here nor there.

[2922] Okay.

[2923] But Ben, okay, was in the gilee, the legend of lily, what was it?

[2924] Voyage of the Mimi.

[2925] Voyage of the Mimi.

[2926] Okay, so that's why his kids would know.

[2927] Yes, it was a...

[2928] So I was thinking he had only dazed and confused at that point.

[2929] Yeah, they had done very little.

[2930] At least Matt had been in school ties.

[2931] They were both in school ties.

[2932] Was Ben?

[2933] Yeah.

[2934] He was?

[2935] Matt was one of the leads, almost.

[2936] Oh, I mean, he wasn't.

[2937] Maybe a lead, he was in it.

[2938] Oh, Ben's in it too.

[2939] Listed third.

[2940] Ben is?

[2941] Well, I mean, it might also be.

[2942] Retroactive.

[2943] Brendan Frazier is listed first.

[2944] Well, he was the lead.

[2945] But I'd say Matt Dehman was second.

[2946] Yeah, that's a listed, Brendan, Matt, Ben.

[2947] Oh, okay.

[2948] Oh, great.

[2949] Cole Housers in it, too.

[2950] Oh, yeah.

[2951] That was one of Cole.

[2952] Maybe that's how they met.

[2953] Probably.

[2954] Yeah.

[2955] Yeah.

[2956] Okay, so you got a Cherokee Limited.

[2957] A black Jeep Cherokee.

[2958] A black Jeep Cherokee.

[2959] Oh.

[2960] Uh -oh.

[2961] Oh, I guess it was.

[2962] would have been before well okay my best friend gina who her and i together were obsessed with goodwill hunting it was our thing she drove a white jupe jerky oh my god the gold with the gold accents gold badging and gold rims i doubt no it was she yeah they came with it they came like that yeah no hers look not like that but um shh that's a ding ding ding ding because her and i were obsessed and he had one oh my god she didn't even know it we didn't even know until now bless you i think the like the limiteds as ben bought he swang for the fences yeah they had gold yeah maybe hers wasn't limited LTD that's possible i guess you could just have a standard white one but that's a sim um for her for me and her him um him uh Okay, one other fact.

[2963] Yeah.

[2964] Does YouTube block anyone?

[2965] Oh.

[2966] Yes, they have and do, but it seems really rare.

[2967] But they did.

[2968] Hate speech?

[2969] Right.

[2970] They banned this influencer, Andrew Tate, hate speech, yeah.

[2971] Oh, that's what it was, hate speech.

[2972] For him, for Andrew Tate.

[2973] Yeah, he was that guy that I think got caught with, like, the pizza boxes, right?

[2974] Oh, is that the guy?

[2975] I think that's interesting.

[2976] In Romania?

[2977] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2978] In Romania or something?

[2979] Yeah, for the human trafficking thing and then got arrested.

[2980] Right.

[2981] Well, he's described fighting women saying, grip her up by the neck.

[2982] TikTok banned him awesome.

[2983] Okay.

[2984] Okay, I want to clarify something.

[2985] Okay.

[2986] Or I want to make it public.

[2987] Okay.

[2988] I'm pregnant.

[2989] No, I'm not.

[2990] I'm not.

[2991] I'm pregnant.

[2992] The moment with Allison, which was so sweet.

[2993] Yeah.

[2994] You were really proud of me. Yeah.

[2995] You said so.

[2996] Yeah.

[2997] Which was lovely.

[2998] But I just want to make it clear that the reason that I have a outlook on life that is forgiving is definitely because of you.

[2999] I don't know about that.

[3000] It is.

[3001] No, it is.

[3002] You're sure about that?

[3003] Yes.

[3004] Because before I met you, I had a lot of strong conviction.

[3005] That's a baddie.

[3006] About goodies and baddies and right and wrong and black and white.

[3007] And you changed my opinion on that.

[3008] Oh, thank you.

[3009] And I don't believe in that anymore.

[3010] No. No, not at all.

[3011] Because you see the gray and you make a point.

[3012] point to always.

[3013] And it has really changed the way I see the world.

[3014] Thank you.

[3015] Thank you.

[3016] But I've said it already, but favorite moment.

[3017] I like that moment more than you meeting Matt Damon for sure for me. To see her just genuinely crying.

[3018] Yeah, it was sweet.

[3019] I felt so.

[3020] Not worthy of that?

[3021] Kind of, but because.

[3022] Like, I didn't do it.

[3023] Like, for me, I didn't do anything.

[3024] All I did was, and I didn't, but all I did was not condemn a person.

[3025] Well, and you openly commended her and acknowledged you love her and make all of her recipes.

[3026] And you were a supporter of her.

[3027] Yeah, I am.

[3028] That was clear, yeah.

[3029] Yeah.

[3030] Yeah.

[3031] I really liked that.

[3032] I do.

[3033] Yeah, I do.

[3034] It takes a lot more courage in those situations.

[3035] to stand by people infinitely more than just either staying quiet like that to me is what I would most expect of you to just like never say anything perpetuating that canceling but also just like why get into it I don't need to say it right but then actively just like no I'm going to say it and you obviously have some fear of them there's blowback against you for it yeah you know what it is I think we're framing it wrong we're evaluating like what you did or didn't do.

[3036] What is clear and obvious and palpable is for her.

[3037] She needed that.

[3038] And that's all that really matters.

[3039] My friend was the lifeline to a stranger at some point and helped her keep trotting forward.

[3040] Yeah.

[3041] It's an immensely prideful thing for me to think of for you.

[3042] That's nice.

[3043] Yeah.

[3044] But I'm just passing that along.

[3045] You're sending it.

[3046] I am.

[3047] Okay, well, thank you.

[3048] You're welcome.

[3049] I accept.

[3050] Good.

[3051] And that's it.

[3052] That was everything.

[3053] Yeah.

[3054] Any update on your guys' budding friendship?

[3055] I was supposed to do a moderate a thing for her about the book, but I won't be back from Hawaii in time.

[3056] And I looked to change my flight, but they have skyrocketed in price.

[3057] Yeah.

[3058] So some light communication about the potentially hosting the Q &A.

[3059] Yeah.

[3060] And then, you know, I asked her about her.

[3061] Dad.

[3062] Okay, great.

[3063] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3064] And then you'll be in New York.

[3065] Do you know the next time you'll be in New York?

[3066] I don't.

[3067] Nothing's on the books.

[3068] Nothing's on the books.

[3069] You'll reach out to her, though, and say you want to get an Emily Burger?

[3070] Yeah, and I also think when she's in town, I am going to try to see her for dinner here.

[3071] Okay, perfect.

[3072] Oh, this is very exciting.

[3073] Yeah, I think it is exciting.

[3074] Yeah, a couple spunky broads out on the town.

[3075] What could go wrong?

[3076] What could go?

[3077] Oh, my God.

[3078] Oh, my God.

[3079] All right, well, I love you.

[3080] She was a delight.

[3081] I really, really felt for it.

[3082] And it wasn't, you know, just too, like, cooking -y.

[3083] Ethelic for my taste.

[3084] Yeah.

[3085] No, I, well, I expected, half expected that as well.

[3086] Lane Norton's itch.

[3087] But I was immediately interested in her right when she walked in.

[3088] Yeah.

[3089] She's got a vibe.

[3090] Yeah.

[3091] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3092] Cool vibe.

[3093] All right.

[3094] Love you.

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