EXPERTS ON EXPERT: Samin Nosrat

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

[1] I'm Dak Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Emmy -nominated miniature Maximus Mouse.

[3] Boy, do we have someone we love in real life here today?

[4] It's one of those moments where you pinch yourself.

[5] You did a little pinch.

[6] Yeah.

[7] A little pinchy poo.

[8] Samin Nasra.

[9] She has the most amazing documentary on Netflix that we talk about often.

[10] It's called salt, fat, acid, heat.

[11] The reason Monica said it is, I. I always change the order, and that's not what it is.

[12] Say it one more time.

[13] Salt, fat, acid, heat.

[14] But it's a documentary series, four episodes, compartmentalized salt, fat, acid heat.

[15] But first episode is fat, not salt.

[16] Yes.

[17] Maybe that's why you flip it.

[18] Oh, that's a good, yeah.

[19] I kind of gave myself that same excuse when I was trying to memorize it.

[20] Yeah.

[21] Anywho, boy, did she deliver in real life.

[22] Guys, she's the cutest human being that's on planet Earth.

[23] She really is.

[24] She's the most joyful.

[25] Beautiful energy.

[26] Oh, we just loved her.

[27] We really want to hang out with her and cook.

[28] Yeah, I want that.

[29] She's tremendous.

[30] She's written an incredibly popular cookbook with the same title.

[31] She is accomplished in many ways that you'll hear about.

[32] And I really encourage people to watch that documentary.

[33] I don't like food cooking shows.

[34] I'm just going to tell you right now, I don't care about them whatsoever.

[35] Tried, well, like, oh, let's give this five minutes.

[36] Watch three hours straight.

[37] Yep.

[38] Incredible.

[39] All right.

[40] So enjoy Samin.

[41] Also, we have new merchandise on our website.

[42] We just had a photo shoot.

[43] It was very awkward, but we found a way to have fun with it, didn't we, Monica?

[44] Sure did.

[45] So we have a lot of fun new shirts that Wobby Wob put together.

[46] He's so creative and talented.

[47] I'm so grateful for you Wabiwob.

[48] Good job.

[49] Yeah.

[50] Some of your favorite expressions like Brick Shithouse have made it onto a t -shirt.

[51] That's right.

[52] And you can go to armchairexpertpod .com and order those.

[53] And while you're there, if you want to come see us live in the Midwest this summer, you can get tickets for Cleveland, Detroit, or Chicago.

[54] There are still some seats left.

[55] And please enjoy Simeen.

[56] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

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

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

[59] He's an odd chance for To mean, we were not going to start recording, but now we're going to, because you brought with you this beautiful little jar of apricot jam that you made, and then you started telling me about it.

[60] And I thought, you're already on fire.

[61] I want to know.

[62] Okay, so.

[63] Yeah, because you're like, oh, tell me the simple steps.

[64] And I was like, well, first.

[65] First, you were going to the only farmer in the world that is maybe a psychopath, but in a great way.

[66] His name is Andy Mariani.

[67] And he only sells these apricots.

[68] First of all, I'm grateful you say apricot.

[69] Oh, because some people say apricot.

[70] Apricot, to me, that triggers like a snobby thing.

[71] I don't know what I'm basing that on.

[72] Maybe people think apricot is snobby, but to me, like, apricot sounds a little snobby.

[73] I think we should invent a new thing where it's, maybe we could write a song, like instead of you say tomato.

[74] Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

[75] Absolutely, we should get Bob Murvack on that.

[76] Okay, so you were just saying a couple neat things you were saying is that an apricot when you have them and they have a little, a colored to them, like be it pink or red.

[77] And you were saying, I don't want to act like I knew because I don't.

[78] No, it's amazing because it's like a blush on the cheek of an apricot, you know?

[79] And so it is really like blush.

[80] It's where sun shone through the tree's leaves and landed on the skin of the apricot.

[81] And it's like a sun tan of a fruit.

[82] Which is so beautiful.

[83] Like I never understood that, you know.

[84] I've had a lot of jam in my life.

[85] Sorry misophonia people, but I'm kind of finger feeding myself some of this jam and there's so much happening.

[86] I was expecting to just have like some sweet in my mouth, but there's some depth to this.

[87] I don't have the right food.

[88] Oh, there is that you can't reveal.

[89] No, I'm going to tell you.

[90] Oh, okay.

[91] Well, secret generally means we're not going to find out.

[92] Just like it's just not obvious.

[93] You're like the magician who immediately shows you magic.

[94] Oh, yeah, totally.

[95] Which I like.

[96] I have no game.

[97] I have no game.

[98] I like you.

[99] I think we should go out more times.

[100] Yeah.

[101] And in fact, let's go all the way.

[102] Yeah, yeah, totally.

[103] That's a hundred percent.

[104] Okay, so what's the secret ingredient?

[105] It's called noayo.

[106] So apricots and almonds and peaches and nectarines and plums, they're all in the same family, like the same botanical family called droops, which is such a good name.

[107] And you said the lay person name is stone fruit.

[108] Or stone fruits, you know, like anything that has a pit in it, right?

[109] But not an avocado.

[110] I was wrong about it.

[111] Correct.

[112] And if you take an apricot pit and you crack it open with a hammer, there's a little nut inside that looks like an almond.

[113] Wait.

[114] Oh, there's a, you.

[115] You know, there's an even further nut within it.

[116] Because I think of that pit as being a nut, but it's not.

[117] No, because if you have ever seen almonds on the tree or almonds in the shell, it looks almost like an apricot pit.

[118] Oh.

[119] You know, so that's just the outer shell.

[120] So if you crack it open with a hammer, there's a tiny little, it kind of is like a shriveled almond look.

[121] Okay.

[122] You're not really supposed to eat them raw because they have a tiny bit of cyanide.

[123] Sure, sure.

[124] But if you toast them a little bit, it has the most heavenly taste of almond and magic and baby's hair.

[125] Yeah.

[126] Like, to be honest, it tastes to me like you've grown up just a bit of like a Jack Daniel's cask.

[127] Like it's got a burnt woody.

[128] Like there's something happening.

[129] And so then I steep those in a cheesecloth in the jam.

[130] It just like fills it with man. How are we getting rid of the cyanide?

[131] Just the heat kills it.

[132] It's a very fragile poison.

[133] I need to remember that when I poison my wife.

[134] Just feed her raw abrogate kernels.

[135] Okay, great.

[136] This should not be hard to do.

[137] I shall eat anything that.

[138] very bitter, though, so nobody really wants to eat them.

[139] I could mask it, I think.

[140] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[141] Enough of something will probably, in fact, you could probably advise me on how to do that.

[142] Okay, cool.

[143] Now, on an average day, how many hours a day are dedicated to either procuring or preparing or doing something cooking related?

[144] I haven't had an average day in a few years now.

[145] Right.

[146] That makes sense.

[147] But before that, all day would be thinking about what I'm going to do, dreaming and planning and going shopping for it.

[148] Yeah.

[149] And I mean, going shopping is one of my.

[150] my favorite parts of it.

[151] It is.

[152] Yeah.

[153] Yeah.

[154] Now, I have a theory, and it will probably bump some people the wrong way, but I'm going to float it by you anyways.

[155] So for most of the time on planet Earth, humans were hunting and gathering societies.

[156] And the little women gathered, we know this.

[157] The misnomer is, of course, like, we historically thought, like, oh, the man goes out and hunts.

[158] But then we have archaeological evidence that that was about 4 % of what people were eating.

[159] Totally insignificant.

[160] Women were feeding everyone.

[161] Yes.

[162] But I do think that evolutionarily, Generally, women like to, my wife, she gets into the grocery store and she is on fire.

[163] It's like she just did a line of cocaine.

[164] I get there, I'm immediately exhausted.

[165] I'm like, too many options, too many colors, too many words, too many aisles.

[166] Everything is overwhelming to me. It's not a fun activity for me. But she is just, something kicks in, something like biological kicks in when she enters a grocery store.

[167] Maximum Mouse just entered.

[168] Emmy nominated Maximum Mouse.

[169] Hey.

[170] Let me just give you a really quick.

[171] Miniature.

[172] Oh, you're wearing your sweatshirt.

[173] Oh.

[174] Oh my God.

[175] I just want you to know because I want you to be able to file them in the right category.

[176] When I entered, they were both peeing at the same time in the bathroom and giggling and there was water on.

[177] I was waiting to hear like a splash fight.

[178] I mean, the bathroom is an experience.

[179] I've heard about the bathroom.

[180] Well, in your world, they call it an exhibition style kitchen, right?

[181] Where you prepare in front of the gas.

[182] Yeah.

[183] So I just think of it like, this should be artsy, really.

[184] Just put the right adjective in front of it.

[185] It works.

[186] But Samin was just saying, I said, if you retired tomorrow, what percentage of your day would be occupied with either procuring the food, preparing the food, eating the food?

[187] And she said probably the whole day virtually.

[188] Really?

[189] Well, also a big part of what I like to do is make the guest list.

[190] Oh, okay.

[191] Yeah.

[192] Because that's your kind of overarching theme, which we'll get into, right, is that you see eating, cooking, this whole thing is really just a conduit to community, yeah?

[193] Totally.

[194] And that's interesting.

[195] Do you have theories on when that dissolved?

[196] On a good day, I'll be like, it never dissolved.

[197] Right.

[198] And I think there are a lot of forces in our lives.

[199] And I haven't done a ton of like historical research on this.

[200] Right.

[201] I can only speak from my gut rather than from fact.

[202] Sure.

[203] But I will just say.

[204] You could get elected quite easily.

[205] But I will even just say like, I mean, I started cooking almost 20 years ago and even just what's happened in our world in 20 years.

[206] Yeah.

[207] You know, when I first started cooking, there was barely an internet and the amount of time that that takes and the amount of brain space that that takes.

[208] I mean, it's so wonderful in so many ways it brings us closer together.

[209] Yeah.

[210] But also in a lot of ways, I feel like it puts sort of these like almost clear plastic barriers between us.

[211] You know, actually, maybe not even almost like the screens.

[212] Uh -huh.

[213] Right.

[214] So you feel close or you feel connected to someone.

[215] You feel like you know what's up with them, but you're not actually with them.

[216] Right.

[217] And we had a great doctor in here explaining like what actually happens to your physiology by being close to each other?

[218] Like, it can't be replicated.

[219] Yeah, yeah.

[220] You get release, just from looking in each other's eyes, you get dopamine dumps.

[221] All these things happen that you think intellectually are happening with this connection over the phone, but it's just physiologically impossible.

[222] Yeah.

[223] Yeah.

[224] It's not the same.

[225] But I think we could easily guess, though, that as both sexes started working, obviously there's less time to be out preparing, you know, gathering the food, preparing the food, all that.

[226] I have to imagine that there's a clear correlation between the amount of process, easily to heat up, food explosion.

[227] It has to parallel.

[228] There is a lot of homework like about women's lib and how that affected sort of home cooking.

[229] Michael Pollan, who's one of my mentors and has helped, he actually wrote like a lot about this in his book cooked.

[230] Okay.

[231] And he got like kind of a lot of flack about it too.

[232] Oh, he did?

[233] Yeah.

[234] Because I think some people took it like he was blaming on sort of the downfall of home cooking.

[235] Sure.

[236] Sure.

[237] And I don't, I don't know.

[238] It's a complicated thing because to me, I'm like, everyone should cook.

[239] It should have nothing to do with gender.

[240] I actually was just reading the other day and I'm like asked this person to send me a bunch of research.

[241] But there has been some research done that says on multiple socioeconomic levels in the last period of time.

[242] I don't know, let's say one or two decades.

[243] More men have started cooking for various reasons.

[244] And even at the lowest levels where, because to me, if I think of men cooking, I'm like, oh, it's guys who like on a barbecue, you know, or like, or doing or got really super into molecular gastronomy and buying the, like, gadgets or whatever.

[245] That's probably what I'm seeing more of.

[246] Perfect and Charlie.

[247] Any new cooking method, he's immediately obsessed with it.

[248] Totally.

[249] Suvi, I must have this thing.

[250] But what this person was telling me in the research, which I have not myself read, said that even at the lower socioeconomic levels, more men are cooking just because they have to.

[251] Sure.

[252] Yeah.

[253] It's an interesting, you know, and then I just live in a world where I'm always going down, paths of like, what will happen if?

[254] And, you know, I live in the Bay Area and there's soylent, you know, and that's where all the food delivery services started.

[255] And that's where, like, the meal kit, you know, meal kit, actually Blue Apron is from New York, but a lot of that kind of stuff is being invented and disrupted in the Bay Area.

[256] So I see a lot of it and how people are choosing it.

[257] There was a restaurant.

[258] It went out of business, but it was the innovation, and I use quotation marks here, was that you would order your quinoa bowl, but like your entire experience of being in this restaurant was humanless.

[259] Okay.

[260] There was like a pad where you ordered it and then like a locker popped open and you got your quinoa bowl.

[261] Uh -huh.

[262] And it went out of business.

[263] No, just quickly, do you think, I mean, I'm asking you to guess what their intentions were, but do you think they thought, oh, this, like that there's something high tech about this?

[264] I wish I were a little bit more like articulate and prepared for this discussion.

[265] So my brother is in the tech world.

[266] He's an engineer.

[267] And my little brother, his name is Bahadur.

[268] And when the three of us, I have two brothers.

[269] When we were little, our mom was very fair, was always obsessed with fairness and not choosing favorite and not treating anyone differently.

[270] So like in the car, you know, we always rotated whose day it was to sit in the front.

[271] And at dinner time, we always rotated who said what their favorite dish was that mom was going to make.

[272] So like I was always like, make this, you know, like a thing with 9 ,000 ingredients.

[273] or make this complicated thing.

[274] And Bahador, in Persian food, the dishes are usually like, like, fava bean rice is barolipolo or lentil rice is Adas polo.

[275] So it's always like something polo, right?

[276] But, like, usually it's whatever's mixed into the rice.

[277] So Bahadur would always ask for like, Barolipolo without Bengali.

[278] Or like, he just want to eat the plain rice.

[279] And now he's on a ketogenic diet, like, which he loves and has been really good for him.

[280] And he has a blood disorder.

[281] It's been, like, really healthy for him.

[282] But I always look at him, I'm like, that's so joyless.

[283] I could never do it.

[284] I wish I could.

[285] I'd probably be a lot healthier.

[286] Right.

[287] But so Bahador, this is all to like set a stage for him as a tech person.

[288] Like last week he went on a vacation to Japan.

[289] And he sends me this text from Japan.

[290] And he's like, okay, I'm not a coffee snob.

[291] But like, do you know anything about coffee?

[292] Because like I'm seeing a system here that I can improve with tech.

[293] And I'm just like, you've never had a cup of coffee in your life.

[294] And you think, you know, that's sort of like that tech thinking is like solve a problem.

[295] Yes.

[296] Right.

[297] Yeah, he knows nothing about coffee.

[298] Right.

[299] He knows nothing about, like, food distribution.

[300] Uh -huh.

[301] You know, and he's just, like, so ready to solve a problem, but he doesn't know anything about this industry.

[302] And I'm just like, there's, like, all these companies who are, like, merging with Ted and have, like, funding and people have been solving these problems for hundreds of years and decades.

[303] And, like, you, you had one cup of coffee in Japan, and you think.

[304] That sounds like he and I will get along famously.

[305] And that's not having problems where maybe there aren't any.

[306] Totally.

[307] Yeah.

[308] And so there's a little bit, to me, I see that.

[309] As a person, like, I've spent, besides cooking, I've spent a lot of time immersing myself in, like, understanding how food systems work and how food gets to our table in this country.

[310] And when you say systems, you mean from it being grown or harvested?

[311] Agriculture, the distribution of it, how community gets or doesn't get a grocery store, you know, and how those decisions are made by the grocery stores, stuff like that.

[312] I'm like you.

[313] I'm a dweeb who, like, likes to immerse myself and stuff and just understand all of the little minutia.

[314] Right.

[315] And not to say I'm like some big expert on all this stuff, but I know more than my brother.

[316] And I know more than a lot of those tough guys.

[317] Do you think maybe in his mind?

[318] Because I can see, this is what this is a lie I would tell myself.

[319] I would go, oh, it's actually an asset that I don't know anything about it.

[320] Because you can get so immersed in something.

[321] You can be inside of the forest that somebody on the outside that knows nothing about it can just go, that on the surface is seems illogic that this is how it's working.

[322] Things can be like through tradition and all this passed down and everyone that was, you know, inside of it just can't even see it.

[323] So on some level, I'd imagine he probably could do that.

[324] I want to be an angel investor into his coffee distribution.

[325] Okay, cool.

[326] I'll let him know.

[327] But like, I totally get that, of course, we need people thinking in different ways than the way how everyone has been thinking since the beginning of time.

[328] Because, like, these problems aren't getting solved.

[329] Right.

[330] But also, let's say, moderating your ego to understand that you do need to understand some basic things, especially the food system in this country is so complicated.

[331] and getting food distributed, grown, you know, cooked in people's mouths, in people's homes is so, so, so complicated.

[332] So to, like, think that you can, you know, and I literally texted my brother back.

[333] I was like, are you literally texting me from Japan about coffee right now?

[334] And he wrote back, yes.

[335] I was like, let's talk about this when you get back.

[336] By the time he was back, he was over.

[337] He had seen something else that wasn't working perfectly on his way home and got another idea.

[338] Now, when you say that it's complicated, I have to imagine there's a lot of, lot of factors that make it complicated.

[339] I would have to imagine at least one of them is it's it's a herculean feat to feed 300 million people like in the way our agriculture has evolved into like big agra business and this and that and how like even how they farm here in california is so different from where I grew up in michigan how we farmed there and there's also been you know like the wheat revolution that took a big tech breakthrough to actually feed two billion people so I would imagine that's one element of it.

[340] And then I have to imagine the business incentive is a big component of it.

[341] And government subsidies.

[342] Right.

[343] The fact that everything we eat is made from corn virtually, right?

[344] Because we...

[345] Corn soy and wheat, yeah.

[346] Because that's what we subsidize.

[347] And I think the logic behind it, right, is corn keeps really well.

[348] It's not completely insane, right, that they doubled down on corn.

[349] Because I've often thought, why don't they double down on spinach?

[350] That's much more healthy for us.

[351] They can figure out all these products from spinach.

[352] But spinach does not keep all that well.

[353] You can dump corn in a huge silo, right?

[354] And it stays.

[355] Yeah, I guess that's part of it.

[356] I think also, like, a lot of it had to do with post -war.

[357] They were like, we need to make sure we bolster American economy.

[358] All of this energy and stuff that was going into creating weapons.

[359] They basically, those companies pivoted and started creating pesticides and herbicides.

[360] Right.

[361] Like, it's just such a complicated thing that traces back.

[362] Sometimes when I find out where something started, my mind is like, what?

[363] That's the reason, you know, that we're still doing this.

[364] But I do want to say before we even go down these roads that you have a show, fat, acid, salt heat.

[365] Salt fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, you know.

[366] Acid heat.

[367] I love you so much, minchamast.

[368] Oh, you start about me. Yeah, salt, fat, acid heat.

[369] I just want to start by saying this.

[370] I don't like cooking shows.

[371] I'm not very interested.

[372] Monica and Kristen and I started watching your show.

[373] And we thought, oh, we'll watch five minutes of this to see.

[374] Yeah.

[375] And then we watched three hours.

[376] We watched the first three in a row.

[377] And then I went home and watched the last episode.

[378] You stayed up to like one in the morning.

[379] I was so good.

[380] Riveted with your show.

[381] First of all, it's just so elegantly shot.

[382] I've never been more hungry in my entire life.

[383] I was honestly saying to Monica, I'm like, we're booking plane tickets right now for Italy.

[384] I can't go another week without tasting what she just showed us.

[385] Okay, so number one, it looks beautiful.

[386] Number two, it has some magic architecture to it that's not.

[387] like any cooking show I've ever seen.

[388] It's not like you starts an episode by going like, I'm going to show you how to make veal parmesan today.

[389] It's not like that.

[390] It's this weird exploration of culture, of food, just the passion that some people have.

[391] And then you are so, you're 95 % of the magic ingredient because you're so lovely to watch.

[392] There's something so infectious about watching someone do the thing they love the most.

[393] There are moments, y 'all, if you've not seeing the show.

[394] It's so fun to watch.

[395] You cry several times.

[396] I cried in every episode.

[397] They didn't show them off.

[398] Oh, it's so special.

[399] Samin will take a bite of something.

[400] We were both like, as much as we wanted it, we were also like, we wanted to feel the way you, your capacity to feel.

[401] Samin is, she takes a bite of something and just starts crying.

[402] And you're like, it already looked amazing.

[403] Now that I'm seeing it's brought her to tears, this thing must be transcendent.

[404] Maybe every 15 minutes, one of us would say, I like her.

[405] Yes, yes.

[406] We like could not get over just the feeling we were getting from watching it.

[407] You're one of the most likable people I've ever seen on screen.

[408] You're so likable.

[409] So we became obsessed with you, became obsessed with your show.

[410] People have to watch your show.

[411] It's so, so good.

[412] It's one of the best documentary series I've ever seen.

[413] It's just so beautiful in every way.

[414] It's such a wake -up call.

[415] To me, I'm like, oh, no, short ride on planet Earth.

[416] Let's, like, eat the greatest things that I can have.

[417] And let's be thoughtful about it.

[418] And not in any kind of lofty, elitist way.

[419] You're going to make a decision three times a day to eat.

[420] We must all do this.

[421] And you could have a crazy great experience any one of those three times or all three of those times.

[422] And it's just, it's more than just eating it.

[423] A lifestyle.

[424] A lifestyle.

[425] Yes.

[426] So that's who you are.

[427] And then you have a really interesting story that kind of gets revealed pretty late in the documentary.

[428] But we're going to blow all that right here.

[429] But you have an interesting origin in that your parents came from Iran to San Diego in 1976.

[430] Yes.

[431] And can I just quickly ask, what did mom and dad do in Iran before they left?

[432] They were both English teachers at the Air Force Academy.

[433] Oh, okay.

[434] That's where they met.

[435] And there was the Shaw Revolution.

[436] Is that what?

[437] So my dad's side of the family is a religion called Baha 'i.

[438] Okay.

[439] And my mom's side of the family is Muslim.

[440] And so Baha 'is were facing religious persecution, or they knew that they would once the religious revolution occurred.

[441] Right.

[442] So basically Baha 'i is like all fled.

[443] So my dad's side of the family is dispersed all over the world.

[444] We have a huge Persian community here in like Beverly Hills and stuff.

[445] Do you think they were largely Baha 'i?

[446] No, they're largely Jewish for the same reason, religious persecution.

[447] And so, I mean, and also there are a lot of Iranians who are just secular.

[448] Well, even currently, it's one of the higher.

[449] rates of secularism within the Middle East.

[450] Totally.

[451] And so it's, it's, it's like an awkward thing because it's a religious republic.

[452] Yes.

[453] A lot of people aren't really religious.

[454] And so, yeah.

[455] So my dad's side of the family all left, just fearing that persecution.

[456] There's also, I, I don't know, in my personal family story, there's a lot of lies and deception.

[457] Okay.

[458] And like gaps.

[459] There's so much I don't know that has never been told to me. Right.

[460] So I can only sort of guess certain things, but what I've sort of pieced together is that people could tell for years that this was coming, the tone of the place was changing.

[461] Yeah.

[462] So they all left well in advance.

[463] So there was not really fleeing.

[464] Oh, that's good.

[465] So there was like a planned departure.

[466] Although technically I think my dad and his side of the family were technically sought religious asylum here.

[467] Right.

[468] But it wasn't the kind of like really, really intense, like refugee that you see sort of on the news today.

[469] It wasn't like that.

[470] Right.

[471] And so their skill of teaching English probably highly valuable in Iran.

[472] What then do they do in San Diego?

[473] So I had an older sister when my parents came.

[474] She passed away as a child when I was one.

[475] And so my mom was raising first my sister, then my sister and me, and then later me and my brothers.

[476] And my dad, he had always wanted to be a photographer.

[477] And so, but his dad, like, wasn't cool with that because it was a little too dreamy and not practical enough.

[478] Yeah.

[479] I mean, it's immigrant.

[480] It's like a classic immigrant stuff, you know?

[481] So my dad worked at, do you know, like, I don't know if they still exist, but there was National University, you know, it's kind of like a four -profit, you know, like, oh, like a Phoenix.

[482] Like a Phoenix, yeah, yeah, he was the dean of foreign students.

[483] Like, he helped foreign students get their paperwork done because he had just gone through it, right?

[484] He had just gotten visas and stuff.

[485] Yeah.

[486] And you guys lived in La Jolla, which is a really nice.

[487] We lived not in La Jolla.

[488] I went to La Jolla High.

[489] Okay.

[490] But we lived in another suburb nearby.

[491] But things were good.

[492] They were comfortable.

[493] And it was comfortable ish.

[494] It was interesting like when my mom like did all the like typical amazing sort of like, you know, any mom would totally do this.

[495] But my mom figured out the rules to get me to get into the La Jolla schools because they were like better ranked.

[496] Sure, sure.

[497] And the only way I could get to go to them was to take Latin, which I'm really grateful for now.

[498] But at the time I was really pissed about.

[499] Sure.

[500] Why are you grateful?

[501] Because there's so much in cooking nuts.

[502] Just like I get, it would made it really easy for me to learn Italian.

[503] It made me. I understand, like, the base of so many languages.

[504] Yeah.

[505] Yeah, I'm really glad now that I took it.

[506] But at the time was, like, all the cool kids took Spanish.

[507] Sure.

[508] And so when my mom, like, got for me, like, the ability to go to this school in the fancier suburb, she, like, sat me down.

[509] She was like, I just want you to know, like, you're going to go to this school.

[510] You're going to see other kids and they're going to have stuff.

[511] They're going to have cars.

[512] They're going to have cell phones.

[513] They're going to have fancy clothes.

[514] Yeah.

[515] And you're never going to get that.

[516] Like, she was like, let me be clear.

[517] She was like, and when you come and ask me for that, I'm going to tell you no. Uh -huh.

[518] So it was real talk.

[519] Yeah, real talk to me. You're not getting shit.

[520] Like clockwork.

[521] You know, the next year I was like, mom, like all the kids have swayed hush puppies.

[522] She was like, remember what I said?

[523] And so most of the Iranians at the school and in like who were around me were of a different socioeconomic class than it was.

[524] And I didn't really fit in with them in that way.

[525] So it was this weird thing where I wasn't sure where I belonged.

[526] Of course, miniature mouse, we've explored her story a lot on here.

[527] And I was wondering how much you felt on the outside of all that.

[528] Oh, I have always felt on the outside.

[529] And I think that that's like the defining thing of my life.

[530] Well, it can become an asset, right?

[531] Yeah.

[532] Yeah.

[533] And then it ends up paying off.

[534] Yeah, totally.

[535] And I feel to me, I'm so just like acutely aware of what it feels like to not belong.

[536] or to feel like you don't belong that I feel like everything that I make now and do now, I don't want it to make anyone feel that way.

[537] And of course things do.

[538] Of course there is always that.

[539] Yeah, people seem to see, I don't know why, but good food or organic food or sustainably harvest or anything, you know, pestified free, it triggers in people this elitism, which is a bummer.

[540] I'm really upset it's been branded that way because it's preposterous to think that anyone should be eating, you know, more or less healthy food based on what socioeconomic bracket.

[541] Well, it's so interesting this.

[542] I mean, I'm no stranger to this because Alice Waters, who founded the restaurant where I learned how to cook.

[543] And in a lot of ways, is my ideological sort of like four runner in cooking.

[544] She's always accused of.

[545] She started a Chey Ponnese.

[546] Yeah.

[547] And so, and she started the edible schoolyard.

[548] And like, she is like 25 ,000 times a day accused of elitism.

[549] And it's, I work in this office with all these amazing.

[550] writers and one of my friends Twilight Greenaway, she has this thing that she always talks about that's so smart where she's like, you know, the whole thing got turned upside down because the labels that we put on food, we say organic and regular, right?

[551] We say organic and regular.

[552] But if you think 10 ,000 years ago, 5 ,000 years ago, 200 years ago, organic was regular, you know, not using pesticide, not using, until there became like money and business and like labels and all this kind of stuff, Yeah.

[553] Then somehow organic became the thing that's for yuppies and for fancy people.

[554] I mean, originally it was for hippies.

[555] Like, it was actually not fancy at all.

[556] Right.

[557] But as business opportunities sort of availed themselves in this realm, it's been pushed higher and higher sort of up the socioeconomic scale or is perceived to be.

[558] Well, it is, we can acknowledge that in general, it is more expensive.

[559] Mm -hmm.

[560] Like, at least when I go to my grocery store, the organic produce is more expensive than the non -organic.

[561] So that's a reality.

[562] which is unfortunate but that's also because there's like an entire certification process that you have to go through right like it's it's just this business that's been built up around it and i'm also really sympathetic to people who feel this way because when i met christin christian would regularly be going uh you know this stuff in Costco and the aisles you shop in that's not food i'm like what the fuck are you talking about like you're so fancy that's not food what are you talking about she's like no all those other aisles where they need to refrigerate it that's food.

[563] Anything that would sit in a box for 14 years and taste exactly the same as it would 14 years before, that's just the shape that has perfume on it.

[564] Like, that's what you're eating.

[565] And I was like, you're, you're fucking too highfalutin for me. What are you talking?

[566] No, a box of macaron cheese is delicious and blah, blah, blah.

[567] I mean, it is delicious.

[568] Well, first of all, I argue that.

[569] Yeah, there's a few things better than a box of craft macaroni and cheese.

[570] I like to add two packets personally.

[571] But at any rate, you know, I'm 12 years into this.

[572] I bet six years into being with her, I finally started accepting, oh, yeah, those aisles aren't food.

[573] I mean, in the way you'd want food to be food.

[574] Yeah.

[575] And I now, it happened to me, like, where I walk by all that stuff, I'm like, oh, that shit will be good for the next 40 years.

[576] That's not food.

[577] But again, no one was pushing it on me. I was triggered by that whole thing.

[578] And now I get it.

[579] It's so complicated, and I think about that a lot.

[580] Because the thing about food and is, it's, you know, apart from sex, I guess.

[581] It's like the most personal and intimate thing in our lives, right?

[582] We put it in our body multiple times a day.

[583] It becomes part of us.

[584] You know, our childhood, our nostalgia, our memories, what we were taught by our families, our good times, our bad times.

[585] It's all wrapped up in that.

[586] Yeah.

[587] So trying to teach somebody, and I'm using here quotes here, or trying to change somebody or telling them that their way is wrong or bad is so much more than like, you should be eating broccoli.

[588] No, you're right.

[589] It triggers their identity.

[590] Yeah.

[591] Yeah.

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

[593] We've all been there.

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

[595] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[596] 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.

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

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

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

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

[601] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[602] What's up, guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[603] And let me tell you, it's too good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[610] Still all my favorite when my mom visits.

[611] I just make her make one red meat dish after another, ground beef dish after another.

[612] She makes a lot of good beef dishes.

[613] Well, like, what, can you tell me a few?

[614] Yeah, so she makes tremendous spaghetti.

[615] She makes incredible meatballs.

[616] The meatballs are, it's so lowbrow.

[617] It's like you make your, because I make them as well.

[618] You got some onion in there, some onion powder.

[619] You got some breadcrumbs.

[620] You make some balls.

[621] You throw it in the big electric fry pan.

[622] Uh -huh.

[623] And then you put in.

[624] Oh, I love an electric fry pan.

[625] Oh, me too.

[626] You can cook anything in that.

[627] Then you pop in.

[628] one jar of the Heinz 57 chili sauce.

[629] Uh -huh, uh -huh.

[630] And then you pop in some raspberry jelly.

[631] No. Yes.

[632] And then a bunch of A -1.

[633] And you just let that shit stew for like three hours.

[634] And it's so salty and so sweet at the same time.

[635] You can't stop eating them.

[636] Do you feel self -conscious explain this?

[637] Absolutely.

[638] Absolutely.

[639] No. I'm telling you.

[640] Where did she invent the raspberry jelly edition from?

[641] I don't know where she got that one.

[642] But we both use the same spaghetti recipe, which is we incorporate carrot and rosemary.

[643] And that came from my grandma's friend.

[644] And then we got our hands on that recipe.

[645] And it lives in its original handwriting in like a little book I have.

[646] I love that.

[647] She also made, oh, here's one and a little, I mean, this couldn't be more lowbrow.

[648] I made this for Monica not too long ago.

[649] Ground beef and a pan.

[650] A lot of ground beef.

[651] Diced onion.

[652] A little garlic salt, whatever.

[653] then a can of Campbell's cheddar cheese soup.

[654] Oh, right.

[655] Mix that up.

[656] Then you make your bizquick pad and you lay out, you roll out a bizquick pad and then you cut little slats in it.

[657] Then you shovel all that, half of the meat into this casserole.

[658] So then you put big hunks of sharp cheddar cheese on top.

[659] Then you criss -cross all the bizquick and you knot it up and then you pop that in the oven.

[660] Now you still have half of your concoction in the oven.

[661] in the fry pan, you add another can of Camels cheese soup.

[662] That becomes the gravy.

[663] We're not done.

[664] You pull it out.

[665] You dump gravy on it.

[666] But then you need ice cold applesauce to pop on there with it.

[667] Yeah.

[668] Every bite should contain half of the bisquick thing concoction.

[669] But you called it something.

[670] Now I forget what it was called.

[671] You're not thinking about shit on a shingle.

[672] No. Okay.

[673] Oh, what's that?

[674] It's a casserole.

[675] I've heard of that.

[676] So we make this, this is in my family for, for general.

[677] generations as well.

[678] It's only prepared during Christmas.

[679] It's a very special.

[680] It's a very, yes, it's a religious dish.

[681] We're going, we're going one pound ground beef, one pound hot Jimmy Dean sausage.

[682] Mix that up, whole block of Velveeta.

[683] Mix that up.

[684] Pop that on little rye toast crackers, then dump garlic salt all over that.

[685] Pop that bitch in the oven, pull it out.

[686] I'm saying, so good.

[687] I think I've had that before.

[688] Greater than the sum of its parts.

[689] It's incredible.

[690] We have a cooking.

[691] an expert on here, and I just took 10 minutes talking about my white trash.

[692] Oh, I love this stuff.

[693] He spent like two months every Wednesday, Dax would make one of his recipes, which was a lot of this stuff.

[694] All white trash stuff.

[695] Yeah.

[696] But it was all so good.

[697] And it was so fun.

[698] It was like every Wednesday we knew we were going to do this thing.

[699] And it was community, like I said.

[700] Yeah.

[701] And the anticipation and these chicken sandwiches.

[702] I really want to come to one.

[703] I would love to have you.

[704] If Samin took a bite of our chicken sandwich and cried, I don't know what I would do.

[705] That would be the ultimate.

[706] I would for sure cry.

[707] Okay.

[708] Back to La Jolla.

[709] You graduate from La Jolla.

[710] You go to UC Berkeley.

[711] That's a hard school to get into.

[712] I think 20 years ago things were a little different.

[713] No, because I went to UCLA one year after you went to Berkeley.

[714] And at that time, UCLA was like starting grade point average was 4 .09 and Berkeley was harder.

[715] hard school to get into and you must have done brilliantly in school right like I was the oldest kid in an immigrant kid family told the message I got constantly was basically I mean subliminally not sure not like uh yeah was like you are only as good as your grace right you are only as like worthy as what you accomplish absolutely and so and to me at my school I was in the classes with basically all the immigrant kids which were like the super duper advanced AP stuff, which was very funny because I have this, this is like how desperate I was to be viewed as a smart kid.

[716] Because I wasn't sure that I had anything else that was worth anything about myself.

[717] When I was in ninth grade, I was put not in the like independent study super duper.

[718] I was just put in regular advanced, which was still like, you know what I mean?

[719] It was still higher up than something.

[720] But all I wanted was like that to be on the like top tier.

[721] Yeah.

[722] So I came up with this crazy plan.

[723] I mean, it was so insane.

[724] And I went to the high school counselor and I told the high school counselor that the teacher said I could be in the class.

[725] And then I went to the teacher and told the teacher that the counselor's going to tell you something.

[726] You'd be a great film producer because that's what they do.

[727] They go lie to the director that Brad Pitt wants to do it.

[728] And then they go to Brad Pitt and say Scorsese wants to do it.

[729] And neither of them wanted to do it.

[730] And they end up in a movie.

[731] It's genius.

[732] Yeah.

[733] So, and then they let me into the class and I was like, I've made it.

[734] But then.

[735] Something tells me you didn't get that accompanied.

[736] feeling you thought you were going to get it.

[737] No, it was like totally empty and horrible.

[738] And actually, after 10th grade, I had dropped it back down.

[739] I was like, I don't like this.

[740] It doesn't feel good.

[741] And that was in 11th grade, I had this English teacher who's really changed everything for me. And he told me I could write and he really encouraged me to write.

[742] And so because of him, I went into college knowing I wanted to be an English major.

[743] Right.

[744] So you go to UC Berkeley, you're an English major.

[745] And your goal is to be a novelist because you're not a poet.

[746] You're a poet.

[747] Very employable skill.

[748] Yeah, totally.

[749] Yeah.

[750] Most poets are swing.

[751] Women in Money and Retirement Funds.

[752] My parents were so proud.

[753] Did you have favorite poets that you emulated?

[754] I really loved humor in poetry.

[755] Okay.

[756] And so Thomas Lux was a great, very, very humorous poet.

[757] Billy Collins was sort of just coming around.

[758] And eventually he became poet laureate.

[759] He's really funny and really sort of very grounded and down to earth in his writing, which I really liked.

[760] I also loved, like, Emily Dickinson, who's, I think, like, death day is today, like 200 years or something.

[761] Oh, really?

[762] You can fact check you later.

[763] I sure will.

[764] People often ask us, like, who we'd want to interview dead or alive.

[765] And she'd make my top 10 list.

[766] That's so fascinating.

[767] Yeah.

[768] Do you know a lot about her?

[769] Not a ton.

[770] No, but just the fact that, like, she was worthless until she was dead.

[771] That's a good one.

[772] And she sat in her room virtually her whole life, right?

[773] And she was in, she had an imaginary love affair with the gardener.

[774] She was, like, obsessed with the gardener because she would watch him out her window and stuff.

[775] It's crazy what can emanate out of your imagination because it's not like she was experiencing much of anything.

[776] No. Yeah, yeah, it's somehow, it's so resonant.

[777] But yeah, was it hard to tell your parents you were going to do poetry or did they not care?

[778] Nobody was very proud.

[779] I mean, everyone was in denial.

[780] They were like always like, oh, but when are you going to change your major to something?

[781] You know, and when they realized it wasn't?

[782] Then it became like, well, when are you going to go to grad school for something like actually useful?

[783] Of course.

[784] And still, I think like some of my aunts and uncles, every once in a while will bring up grad school.

[785] Yeah, well, don't rule it out.

[786] Don't rule it out.

[787] Yeah, yeah.

[788] That could be your, that could be your next.

[789] Netflix series that you go to grad school.

[790] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[791] I could teach it a grad school.

[792] Yeah, yeah.

[793] They should have cooking at school.

[794] Well, they have, there was a fascinating 60 minutes a few weeks ago.

[795] Did you see it about the competitive wine tasting rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge?

[796] No. These motherfuckers, they can identify.

[797] They, I think they have to taste 1 ,500 wines in the competition, and they can tell you what country it's from, what region, what year, what grape.

[798] Like, it's crazy.

[799] And it's a club?

[800] It's like a student club.

[801] It is a student.

[802] in their athletes.

[803] That's amazing.

[804] It might have been on HBO Real Sports.

[805] I might have just advised the Semoyoy last night a wrong network, which scares me. Um, because I asked him if he had seen it and he hadn't.

[806] Yeah.

[807] Yeah, I'll find out.

[808] That sounds great.

[809] So up till that point, you didn't cook as a kid.

[810] And then how do you discover that you love cooking?

[811] It was a bit of a journey.

[812] So my freshman year during the orientation at school, they're like, oh, there's these things to do in Berkeley.

[813] And somebody said, oh, there's a famous restaurant called Chez Panisse.

[814] And I was like, what's a famous restaurant?

[815] I mean, I just want to explain, like San Diego, 1997, immigrant family.

[816] Like, my mom's an extraordinary cook.

[817] I grew up eating her food.

[818] And then we had tacos.

[819] Shakeys pizza occasionally.

[820] Yeah, yeah.

[821] I don't know if I've ever gone to shakies, but I really wanted to because they had the combo of chicken and pizza.

[822] Yeah, yeah.

[823] They also generally have a salad bar, which I never turned down a salad bar.

[824] Oh, I love a salad bar.

[825] I've been, I've had food poisoning more than anyone you'd ever meet because I'm such a proponent of the salad bar.

[826] Oh my God.

[827] Whole Food Salad Bar is like my second favorite restaurant.

[828] Can I just tell you really quick?

[829] This is one of the most embarrassing stories ever.

[830] So I did a U .S .O. tour and there was a, in Afghanistan.

[831] And on the way back, we had a layover in Kuwait.

[832] And there was like a first class lounge.

[833] And I had been eating like, you know, army rations for nine days.

[834] So we get into this first class lounge and there's this beautiful buffet laid out.

[835] And I'm like, oh, yes.

[836] And I start going at this buffet.

[837] And I'm with three friends.

[838] And they're all going, you might, you back off this buffet.

[839] You know, you don't really know what's going.

[840] This is beautiful food.

[841] It's beautiful.

[842] Girls, the plane had not left the terminal before it occurred to me. Things are going south in a hurry.

[843] I had a 12 -hour flight to Germany, then an eight -hour flight to New York, and then a five -hour flight to L .A. Without question, the worst 30 hours of my entire existence on planet Earth.

[844] Literally considered, I'm going to have to break my sobriety and drink alcohol.

[845] Like, I need something.

[846] Something has to help with the situation The last time I had food poisoning I didn't know what else to do So I went to emergency acupuncture And that totally helped It did?

[847] Yeah, yeah, yeah And she gave me some crazy Chinese urs Because I was in such pain I mean the pain And you just feel like you're gonna You're like I think dying would be easier Exactly You went to Chez Panisse You didn't even know such a restaurant exists Oh yeah And so I was like Why would I go there And they're like Oh your parents can take you When they come to visit I was like maybe white people's parents stick my mom's coming up with a rice cooker.

[848] Yeah.

[849] And so then, you know, I kind of just knew that it was there.

[850] Is it outrageously expensive?

[851] I mean, I think for what it is, I wouldn't call it that.

[852] But as a student, you know, it's two restaurants in one.

[853] So downstairs it's a formal dining room with like a fixed menu.

[854] Preset.

[855] Okay.

[856] And then upstairs it's all a cart.

[857] And so free for all.

[858] Free for all.

[859] And so downstairs, I think the Mondays were $35.

[860] And then the price goes up and by Saturday it was 65 or 70.

[861] So for a student, it was definitely more than I would ever spend.

[862] And so I just was like, why would I go there?

[863] And then my sophomore year, I fell in love.

[864] And my boyfriend was from the Bay Area and how he, he like showed me, you know, his favorite pizza and his favorite burrito, his favorite ice cream.

[865] And he'd always wanted to go there.

[866] So we saved our money for nine months, maybe seven, I can't remember, some months.

[867] Yes.

[868] Seven months, let's say.

[869] We saved $200, and we went there.

[870] I love this story so much.

[871] I love it, too.

[872] There's so many elements I like.

[873] I like that you can feel like an outcast in high school, and then you go somewhere special like Berkeley, and then you find somebody, and then you save your money and go to a romantic restaurant.

[874] I want a time traveling.

[875] And no wonder, I mean, so some of your first experiences are love tied to food.

[876] Totally, totally.

[877] So it's kind of no wonder you.

[878] And like we, you know, by then, I think because we were saving up for this thing.

[879] I started learning about it.

[880] Oh, okay.

[881] And so then I knew, I knew a little bit maybe who Alice Waters was.

[882] I knew and I found out that we had friends who were busing tables there and um, I still didn't really know very much.

[883] And we went in.

[884] I was where I remember I wore denim skirt and a black tank top and we would go sit down and now like now that I know every inch of that restaurant, every detail.

[885] And I know like the time of year we went.

[886] It was May. It was around this time of year and it was graduation time so the room was filled with like you know people and like graduates and their families and like yeah regulars who'd been coming there but it's a fixed menu so like in theory everyone every table should have the same thing but some tables had other things and i was like oh what are those like what are those people with the other things sure and so food came and it was really delicious but again like i'd grown up eating really delicious food so that wasn't exactly what sort of knocked me off my rocker.

[887] What really got me was...

[888] Knocked your tank top off?

[889] Yeah, knocked my tank.

[890] What really got me was just I had never been to a restaurant that felt like going to someone's really nice home.

[891] Oh, wow.

[892] And that's what it feels like.

[893] Again, at the time, I mean, I was 19.

[894] I definitely was not aware of or couldn't have articulated all the individual things that I was seeing and feeling.

[895] But now that I understand, for example, like you walk in and there's these amazing flower displays.

[896] And at the time, and until very recently, Chez Panisse was the only restaurant in the country that had an in -house, like, on -staff florist.

[897] Now it's, like, everywhere you go.

[898] And on Instagram, there's these sort of wild -style floral displays that look like a garden brought inside.

[899] And, you know, the woman who started that, like, 40 -something years ago at Sheepanese is, like, the mother of that style.

[900] Like, had I ever even paid attention to a flower besides, like, the dozen roses of my mom bought once in a while?

[901] no, but like these things sort of like implants on some subconscious level.

[902] Like on every, Alice is obsessed with copper and the way that light bounces off of copper.

[903] And the way that that makes people look in a dining room, it's really flattering light.

[904] And it's really warm light.

[905] And so there was all there's all these copper light fixtures.

[906] And on every table there was a copper lantern.

[907] Later I learned that the man who was who was on staff who built all of that stuff and that handiwork was from Afghanistan.

[908] And there were a couple of Afghan families who Alice had sponsored.

[909] and brought over and sponsored their visas and they became like part of this amazing almost 50 year institution and you know this guy Khalil he was an engineer in Afghanistan and here at Shepanese like he was the guy who could build anything and could fix anything and so he built these beautiful copper land so it's just like every single thing had been thought through to make you feel a certain way and I couldn't have ever put words to why I felt that way I just felt that way right and that was the first time in my life that I had ever had that other than like maybe in my mom's arms you know yeah yeah and so the dessert was this chocolate suflay and i had never had suflay before and so i want that i want that totally me too i'm let's go on and so they brought it and the server said you know obviously we were sticking out like sort of thumbs like two kids right yeah and so the server was like oh have you ever had suflay before obviously not and so she said would you like me to show you how to eat it And so already I applaud you because I would be triggered by that.

[910] I would feel stupid and low rent and I would have said yes.

[911] And then I would have destroyed it.

[912] I mean, I play.

[913] Yes, of course I've had many, many soufflays.

[914] I had one before we got here.

[915] So she said, oh, you poke a hole in it with your spoon and there was like this raspberry sauce and you pour the sauce in.

[916] And that way every bite of sauce.

[917] So I took a bite and she said, how is it?

[918] And I was like, oh, it's really good.

[919] But what would make it even better is a glass of cold milk.

[920] Because, like, I was too dumb to know many things.

[921] I was too dumb to know, like, how rude it is to tell the person in the restaurant what would make your thing better.

[922] Right, right.

[923] You know, you'd have a hit on your hands if you've served this with milk.

[924] Yeah, totally.

[925] And also, to me, I was like, you know, your whole life, you're like, warm brownies, cold milk.

[926] Yeah.

[927] We're talking about cookie cold milk.

[928] So I was like, this is missing milk.

[929] And she was like, you won't.

[930] milk and I was like yeah so she went and she brought me a glass of milk and then she brought us each like a glass of dessert wine to teach us like the refined okay because only years later like when I lived in Italy did I understand that like in fine dining and European dining like milk is considered for babies and so if you you know if you're in Italy or France and you order a cappuccino or a cafe latte after 10 am they're like oh you're American like yeah Italians only drink like you know dark like anything with milk is baby food right yeah interesting so so i was like if already i had not given away my own toothness by asking for milk i really had done it yeah and so i mean i still maintain like warm chocolate well yeah i guess my my follow -up question is um it did make it better didn't it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a great burger place in santa monica called father's office oh i love father's office but they don't fuck with ketchup right yeah yeah and they don't mess with diet Coke either.

[931] Totally.

[932] So when I lived on that side of town, I used to go with a backpack and I'd sneak ketchup in and I'd sneak a diet Coke in.

[933] And I was like, I'm sorry, guys.

[934] This is already perfect, but it just got more perfect.

[935] Oh, no. It's so good with that poor cheese.

[936] And so then, so then I was very moved by this meal and I always had a job throughout college, like to help pay for my stuff.

[937] I was like, well, maybe I can work here.

[938] So I wrote a letter.

[939] I mean, I had no idea who to write the letter to.

[940] So I had dressed in Dallas Waters.

[941] And I said, oh, I had this magical dinner.

[942] Here's my resume.

[943] I've never worked in a restaurant.

[944] Can I please have a job?

[945] And I brought it in, and they were like, oh, you have to bring that to the floor manager.

[946] So they, like, led me to the floor manager's office.

[947] And when she opened the door, it was the souffle lady.

[948] And so even though by now, like, it had been several months, like, I went abroad and I came back.

[949] And then it had been several months, but we remembered each other.

[950] And so then she was like, oh, yeah, you.

[951] Yeah, milk lady.

[952] With the milk.

[953] And then she was like, can you start tomorrow?

[954] Which meant nothing other than she was desperate, you know?

[955] But then I started the next day.

[956] I started busing tables and so, you know, and my, like I said, I'm like this immigrant kid who was taught that my self -worth was based on working really hard.

[957] And so I'd always been searching for like people who were as crazy perfectionist hard workers as I am.

[958] And that environment in that place was the first time that I was like, I found my people.

[959] You know, like my first day at Cheapenis was the 28th birthday of the restaurant.

[960] I had been there for 28 years already.

[961] There was a system for Everything.

[962] And so like when I was being taught to take out the trash, they're like, oh, you tie the bag in this way with this string.

[963] And then when you take it out, you put it in the trash can in this way.

[964] Alice doesn't like it another way.

[965] Right.

[966] You know, to me, I was like, what?

[967] Like everything's been thought of.

[968] This crazy insanity is like my language.

[969] Yeah.

[970] And so I just was like challenge accepted.

[971] Yeah.

[972] Well, it's like a complex machine.

[973] It's like hogs, right?

[974] Like it's so easy for one thing to go wrong.

[975] And then the whole thing collapses.

[976] Exactly.

[977] And if you don't want to be the weak link and a whole system, you know, and for me at that point, I had no interest in, I wasn't really there for the cooking.

[978] I was there just for the staff meal.

[979] I was like, I want to get there at 4 p .m. eat the first staff meal, work my shift and eat again in midday.

[980] Yeah, yeah.

[981] I was like, two needles.

[982] And it just, everything tasted so good.

[983] But you see, you know, all the time you're walking through the kitchen and vacuuming for the dining room and sort of seeing how this place runs and the fact that like it's all about the cooks.

[984] The cooks are sort of the most revered people there.

[985] that really, at that time that generation of cooks there, many of them had been there, like, almost the whole life of the restaurant.

[986] Oh, wow.

[987] Was it mixed ethnicity with the cooks, or did like some group seem to, no. They were white dudes?

[988] I mean, no, a lot of women.

[989] Oh, okay, okay.

[990] Mostly white.

[991] I'm trying to think.

[992] I mean, there were definitely, there was a whole generation a little bit after me being there.

[993] They called themselves the Shaysian invasion.

[994] Uh -huh.

[995] Asian, Shay.

[996] A lot of Koreans and Taiwanese and, like, Filipino.

[997] and stuff, but primarily white for sure.

[998] And in fact, I, I only now, as I start to understand like systemic racism and stuff, do I have words for certain things that I could not have put my finger on in that time, that one of the reasons I felt so different was because I wasn't white.

[999] But like, I didn't, like, I just was never even thinking about it.

[1000] Sure.

[1001] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[1002] Everything's just normal.

[1003] It's the one life you've had.

[1004] And that's how life is.

[1005] So it's like, not even worth questioning.

[1006] Like, oh, this is how it is.

[1007] Now, how long before you worked your way up to cooking there?

[1008] So I bused tables for about a year, but within a month of being there, I have a journal from that time.

[1009] And so in a month, I was asking them to volunteer in the kitchen.

[1010] And so once a week, I would come in and volunteer, like, all day before my busing shift.

[1011] And then...

[1012] Like, chopped vegetables or something.

[1013] Oh, God.

[1014] It was even, like, lower than...

[1015] Like, I was maybe allowed to peel onions, you know?

[1016] Or, like, pop fava beans all day or something.

[1017] Uh -huh.

[1018] And then I was like, can I get a job here?

[1019] Like, can I...

[1020] What do I need to do to even get an unpaid internship?

[1021] Yeah.

[1022] That would then maybe possibly...

[1023] lead to a job, you know, at the time the restaurant was getting, like, every year, best restaurant in America, burning magazine and stuff.

[1024] And so, you know, they had their pick of whoever they ever wanted.

[1025] Like, and so there was a lot of competition and there was really no reason to choose me. And eventually one chef sort of, he sort of like took a liking to me and he was like, listen, I cannot give you an internship.

[1026] You don't know anything.

[1027] But here is this huge stack of books, go read them, go cook from them, learn them.

[1028] They're what inspires our cooking.

[1029] here pay attention every day when you come to work pay attention when we're tasting and talking about stuff right and come back to me in six months and so i did that he figured out a way to like help get me an unpaid internship so so i started doing that and then eventually after like much um after you murdered one of the chefs after i murdered someone like opened a space yeah yeah it took a lot of i was very resilient like when people didn't necessarily want to give me an opportunity i just sort of didn't disappear, you know?

[1030] Right.

[1031] And the thing about a restaurant is, and that's what I tell anyone, like, who wants to be a cook, just keep showing up because there's going to be a day where, like, there's an accident, or someone gets sick, or someone doesn't show up.

[1032] And, like, that day, you're a warm body, and they'll put you in.

[1033] Like, yeah.

[1034] There's also, again, I don't, I don't know if it's the same at Sheepenis, but I've worked at a few restaurants.

[1035] And there is, and also, I'm sure you read Kitchen Confidential, and I love that book.

[1036] It's a life in the Fast Lane, if you work at it.

[1037] I mean, people are fucking more.

[1038] They're drinking more.

[1039] They're doing drugs more.

[1040] I have to imagine the opposite of your childhood home.

[1041] Oh, for sure.

[1042] For sure.

[1043] I mean, Chez panis, by the time I got there, it had definitely, I think there were the Coke years and the 80s.

[1044] Oh, sure, sure.

[1045] I mean, there's probably still drugs and stuff while I was there.

[1046] But I don't, I'm so naive.

[1047] Like, I'm like, wait, people have sex.

[1048] Like I'm just, you know, I'm like, wait, people do bad stuff.

[1049] Uh -huh.

[1050] Uh -huh.

[1051] So I didn't, there was so much.

[1052] Yeah.

[1053] You probably just I was reading.

[1054] I think I just wasn't even like operating on that wavelength.

[1055] I was like, am I cutting this right?

[1056] You know, like, so there's still stuff where I'm like, people do bad stuff.

[1057] Right.

[1058] But, but a bit of a culture shock, just that world.

[1059] Totally.

[1060] And the drink, I mean, the drinking.

[1061] The servers, they go out drinking afterwards.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] Yeah.

[1064] It's like a late night lifestyle.

[1065] It's a totally different life.

[1066] Even in, let's say, less like, just the enjoyment of food is almost like sport, right?

[1067] Well, I have friends that are waiters around L .A. at nice restaurants.

[1068] And their budget of what they spend on food blows my mind.

[1069] You know, like, it's just because that's their world, like they're virtually working to eat at all these other restaurants.

[1070] It seems common.

[1071] Yeah.

[1072] And I fully, I fully did that in the beginning.

[1073] That was my thing was because I wanted to immerse myself in this world and learn about it.

[1074] And I remember everyone was talking about some place called the French laundry.

[1075] And I was like, why are we talking about a laundry place?

[1076] Like, I had no idea, you know?

[1077] And then, and then the, Like one year it won number one, you know, and it pushed Chez Panisse to number two.

[1078] And we were all like, oh, we got to go there.

[1079] You know, like, what is this thing?

[1080] Yeah.

[1081] And now I've not eaten at Chez Panisse, but I've eaten at French Laundry one time with Kristen.

[1082] And I'm not a foodie.

[1083] I would not describe myself as a foodie.

[1084] The reason I can say that place is special for me is that food I categorically I hate.

[1085] I loved there.

[1086] Oh, you did?

[1087] I don't like caviar.

[1088] I don't like oysters.

[1089] Uh -huh.

[1090] Their most popular thing is diamonds and pearls, right?

[1091] It's caviar and oysters, I believe.

[1092] Uh -huh.

[1093] I had a bite and I was like I'll need five more of these like there's no way that amount is going to do me after now tasting it and just all the pageantry the little egg coming out that had been sawed off at the top and then the mother of pearl spoon you know it was so crazy it was so unlike anything I've ever experienced and I said to Kristen I'm like this is adult Disneyland like this is it is the most like erotic experience I've had outside of the house and it just doesn't end we started eating at 930 we didn't finish till 12th 1230.

[1094] When they pull it, they go, oh, do you want the white truffle with this?

[1095] I'm like, yeah, I want whatever you're selling.

[1096] They brought that box out with the truffles.

[1097] A guy put on white gloves to open it.

[1098] And I said to Kristen, if they murder someone for our amusement, I won't be shocked.

[1099] That's how heightened this experience is?

[1100] Like, it's so crazy.

[1101] What was your takeaway from that?

[1102] I only have been there one time.

[1103] Really quick.

[1104] Did you go at all with a little chip on your shoulder that you were a Chez Panisse gang?

[1105] And they had just curious.

[1106] You didn't go there to go like, how the fuck did they become number one?

[1107] No, no, not at all.

[1108] I was also so much beyond when I was part of that thing.

[1109] I was so curious because by then I'd heard about it forever.

[1110] I'd look through the book.

[1111] Yeah.

[1112] I think for me, what I felt was that it was, and I say this in the most positive, like, version of the word, which is not so different than what you were saying, it felt like a spectacle.

[1113] Yes.

[1114] Like, to me, it was all about this very heightened experience.

[1115] Yes.

[1116] Where, I mean, and I was just from a service point of view so impressed, every person at the table, had a personal server so the food was like all put down like in a symphony and so everyone got their plate at the same moment I was there with some other food people so we got like these weird extra level special treatment things whereas like the table next to us everyone would get the same soup at our table everybody got a different soup so then there was this whole thing where everyone decided we should all taste all this like five and like it was just a lot well the whole time I was eating there was like this is something you would never do even more than once a year no Like, like, you couldn't eat at this restaurant once a week.

[1117] Once a year.

[1118] Once a life.

[1119] Yeah, yeah.

[1120] You're just like, you're aware of that.

[1121] It's like a cruise to Alaska or something.

[1122] You're like, well, I won't do this again.

[1123] This, I spend a lot of time thinking about language.

[1124] And I spend a lot of time thinking about like just the word restaurant and what the word restaurant means.

[1125] And because there are all these lists like best restaurant.

[1126] And so people think of restaurants as a place that you go to and you sit down and you order food, food comes and you eat it.

[1127] But to me, What a chef like Thomas Keller or any of these other really great chefs in America and around the world who have taken sort of dining to that level are doing, it's a mistake to put it in the same category as all of the other things that we go to for many other reasons.

[1128] Yeah, Denny's.

[1129] And so Denny's which you go to when you're hungry and you're driving somewhere or you're hammered and it's three in the morning.

[1130] Or like, or you can't afford to eat out and that's where you take your family from.

[1131] Or in my case, your six -year -old saw a sign in the window that said pancakes for $3, and then we had to take her.

[1132] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1133] You know, for me, just as a writer and as a person who thinks a lot about this stuff, I'm like, man, I wish we had like a more nuanced language for this.

[1134] So that people don't, when they think of chef, there are a lot more versions of what that could look like and be like.

[1135] It's kind of like they say the Inuit or Eskimos, you know, that they have like 63 names for the snow.

[1136] Yeah, exactly.

[1137] And we have a singular one.

[1138] Yeah.

[1139] Like if it has that importance in your life, it then deserves all these other.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] So to me, the comparing, sure, within a category or like a, you know, like one sort of stratus, I get, I get.

[1142] But to compare things that cost different and have like completely different sort of labor involved and purpose, honestly purpose for the customers.

[1143] Yeah.

[1144] is a mistake and it's interesting because i get a feeling as qualitative if that's the way to say it when i go to lafayette coney island in detroit or i've been going since i was six years old and they memorize 40 people's orders at once they had the bill up in their head the food comes out in 39 seconds it's every time it's perfect everyone in there is having the same experience like that is on par with french laundry it's just entirely different it just satisfies a different thing in your life.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] So you start cooking, you become a chef there.

[1147] And then you leave and you go to Italy.

[1148] Was that a hard decision?

[1149] Because you had accomplished this thing.

[1150] You had obviously been working at three years.

[1151] So I was never a chef, which are the people in charge.

[1152] I was just to cook.

[1153] Oh, okay.

[1154] I don't even know the difference.

[1155] Okay.

[1156] So just to not take credit where I don't deserve it.

[1157] And so I really had always wanted to go to Italy.

[1158] I just became obsessed with it.

[1159] Had you broken up with that nice boy that took you?

[1160] He dumped me. But did that overlap with your decision to go to Italy?

[1161] It was over by then.

[1162] Okay, okay.

[1163] Quite often these radical changes for us that then change our life in a positive way.

[1164] Totally.

[1165] Are born out of, like, being heartbroken.

[1166] Oh, I was heartbroken for years over that.

[1167] Okay, okay.

[1168] So maybe still.

[1169] Mike, come in.

[1170] I'd like that one, Joe.

[1171] We found him.

[1172] He's here.

[1173] He's regretful.

[1174] I think he'll go hide in the back.

[1175] He saw a salt fast.

[1176] You wouldn't be able to hide very well in the matth much, fortunately.

[1177] I'll stick my head in the corner.

[1178] So I really wanted to go to Italy, but more than that, I think, the chef who gave me the opportunity, he, this was also before Kitchen Confidential came out.

[1179] And it was even before Malcolm Gladwell's 10 ,000 hours had come out, and they were always telling me, you won't know anything about cooking until you've been cooking for 10 years.

[1180] And even before he gave me the opportunity to be an intern, he said, I see you in you, like, you're so smart, you're this great student.

[1181] Go do that.

[1182] Don't be a cook.

[1183] And he was like, if you're going to be a cook, you have to realize there's nothing glamorous about it.

[1184] This isn't going to lead to, like, riches and a television show.

[1185] Like it's...

[1186] He's eating crow now, but, yeah.

[1187] And, um, and...

[1188] Bill, come on out!

[1189] It's like an episode of Fantasy Island.

[1190] I know you can tell Mike you don't want to be with him.

[1191] You tell Bill he was wrong.

[1192] And so he was, I mean, he.

[1193] No, that's very sage advice.

[1194] And he was like, when you decide you want to do this, it has to be the thing you want to do more than anything else in the world.

[1195] Because there's no other motivation that's going to keep you going.

[1196] And here I was like so earnest.

[1197] I went home and like meditated for weeks like, do I want this more than anything?

[1198] But I really wanted to write.

[1199] And so I went back and I was like, listen, I want it almost more than anything.

[1200] but I also want to write.

[1201] And he was like, okay, you can come.

[1202] Okay.

[1203] And so I still always was like, how can I write?

[1204] How can I be a writer?

[1205] How can I figure this out?

[1206] And so I did apply for graduate school because that was the only thing I knew to do after, like, what do you do when you want to be a poet?

[1207] You go to poetry graduate school.

[1208] Yeah.

[1209] So I applied and I got in and I was in New York visiting the campus.

[1210] And that same week, Chris, that chef, was on his family vacation in Italy.

[1211] And I had asked him if he saw that.

[1212] this woman Benedetta who had come into our restaurant for her book tour, could he ask her if she'd ever let me come intern in her restaurant?

[1213] And so while I was visiting the poetry program, he wrote to me and said, she said yes.

[1214] Oh my God.

[1215] So then I had this decision and I was like, do I like go 90 ,000 in debt for poetry or do I go to Italy?

[1216] And so I was like, okay, I'll defer so I don't have to make it.

[1217] So I deferred and I went to Italy.

[1218] And so because I had such limited sort of thinking, again, I understood things through an academic perspective, through like an achievement perspective.

[1219] And I had heard of this thing called a Fulbright grant.

[1220] And I knew that it was prestigious.

[1221] Yeah.

[1222] But I didn't know.

[1223] I've heard of it and I don't really know what it means.

[1224] Yeah.

[1225] And I was like, I don't even know why a person would get that.

[1226] But like I want that.

[1227] You know, just being away where you're like, ah.

[1228] So I did the homework to figure out what it was.

[1229] And it's a grant that like students, often people in graduate school are going into graduate school would get.

[1230] And I was really interested by then in all of the stuff about food tradition and food history.

[1231] and all of the stuff.

[1232] And in the late 90s, there were all these laws that were passed in Europe that sort of threatened to sanitize food traditions and create basic sort of regulations like health and safety regulations that would crush and eradicate like thousands -year -old tradition.

[1233] My brother's father -in -law, their Chaldean, his cousins, there's a cheese that they make in there in the carcass of a goat.

[1234] Oh, yeah, that's the original cheese.

[1235] Right.

[1236] Yeah, because the enzymes in the belly are what thicken the, they react.

[1237] You know, that's like where it comes from and turns cheese from a liquid into a solid.

[1238] Yeah.

[1239] All these Chaldeans wanted this cheese.

[1240] The FDA is not allowing you to make cheese in a carcass.

[1241] Oh, okay.

[1242] And so these guys started doing it and it became like a, you know, everyone wanted this cheese.

[1243] And they were making it in the carcass, yeah, a goat or a lamb or something.

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] Exactly.

[1246] And in Italy, there was a cured meat called Lardo di Colonata.

[1247] And Colonnata's near Carrara where all the marbles from.

[1248] Oh, uh -huh.

[1249] And so in Colanata historically, literally since ancient Rome, so 3 ,000 years, they make this lardo, which is a cured, sort of back fat, in these marble boxes that are kept in these caves.

[1250] So it's very cool in there.

[1251] And marble, I fact check, please, but I believe has like some antiseptic qualities.

[1252] Okay.

[1253] And so people for 3 ,000 years, have been eating and making this, right, and fine.

[1254] And then when these regulations were passed in the EU, Lardo di Colonnaughta was threatened to be stamped out of existence.

[1255] And so because it was not like in a stainless steel kitchen in a refrigerated room.

[1256] And generally good guidelines.

[1257] Yeah, totally.

[1258] And Italians were like, no, this marble is the flavor of our food.

[1259] It's our terroir.

[1260] It's our history.

[1261] It's who we are.

[1262] And so the people of Colonato like revolted.

[1263] Uh -huh.

[1264] You know, and they were like, we're not going to follow this law.

[1265] And there was a period in the 90s were actually pull oven pizza.

[1266] was outlawed because anything you know carcinogenic maybe and then again still like Italians they were like fuck this we're going to break the law right but so I was super interested in all those things and there was a little bean Have you seen a Ferrari it makes a no sense we make it anyways this car has no purpose for anybody but a man trying to get the attention of a woman totally did you like him on again no okay she like turned her body away I can't I can do it They're white.

[1267] I'm allowed to do it.

[1268] It's one of the five things I can do.

[1269] I know, I just can't look at you when you're doing it.

[1270] Oh, Monica, what's the problem?

[1271] That's better.

[1272] Now I'm holding my hat in front of my face so you can handle it.

[1273] Oh, boy.

[1274] It's a lot of this.

[1275] It's a lot of this.

[1276] A ducari.

[1277] Nobody needs a ducari.

[1278] But to ride a ducari is to feel passion between one's legs.

[1279] Oh, God.

[1280] Okay.

[1281] Rob's like, oh, God.

[1282] A fiatta.

[1283] Enough.

[1284] Enough.

[1285] Okay.

[1286] Okay.

[1287] Okay.

[1288] I was like, I was like, stop this.

[1289] Yeah, exactly.

[1290] Okay, go on.

[1291] And so, yeah, but I was very moved by all that.

[1292] So I was like, I'm going to apply for a Fulbright grant to study and catalog these food traditions.

[1293] Because I was like, this is a dorky academically parent -approved way of doing this cooking and going to Italy, right?

[1294] And also, like, having cooking and be involved.

[1295] So in order to apply for a Fulbright, you have to be able to prove proficiency in the language, which I didn't have.

[1296] So this is a thing like only a 20 -year -old or 22 -year -old can do.

[1297] Well, I was saving up to go to Italy.

[1298] So I had, and at the time I got paid $10 an hour.

[1299] So I needed to.

[1300] But you get tipped out pretty nicely there, right?

[1301] Not as a cook.

[1302] Oh.

[1303] So everyone's making more money than you virtually.

[1304] Oh, yeah.

[1305] The cooks make the least money, yeah.

[1306] Oh, which is pretty true in most restaurants, yeah.

[1307] Oh.

[1308] Yeah.

[1309] Well, the guy who owns Shake Check, that was kind of his.

[1310] Oh, Danny Meyer, yeah, he has a whole thing where he splits.

[1311] But if it's built into the restaurant from day one, it's different.

[1312] And California has certain laws.

[1313] Yes.

[1314] that are a little bit trickier.

[1315] It's even tricky for him.

[1316] There's been a lot of, yeah.

[1317] Yeah, but he is really great and certainly in that respect.

[1318] So then I was saving up.

[1319] So I gave up my apartment.

[1320] The chefs helped me find like a series of house sitting gigs so that I didn't have to pay a rent.

[1321] Can I say one thing I'm already seeing a pattern in your life that is so useful to acknowledge?

[1322] You ask for help.

[1323] Yes, I do.

[1324] And I'll write the letter.

[1325] Yeah.

[1326] I'll ask for the thing.

[1327] I'll be like, how can I do this?

[1328] You know, today.

[1329] It's a brilliant.

[1330] How do we solve this problem?

[1331] It's a wonderful way to go through life.

[1332] I have such a hard time asking for help.

[1333] I think personally I have a really hard time.

[1334] Professionally, I have a really easy time asking for help.

[1335] Right.

[1336] And but by the way, I have been asked for help or guidance professionally.

[1337] And I always enjoy so much being a, quote, mentor to people.

[1338] Like, I get a lot out of it.

[1339] I never assume the people I would want help from would also get something out of it.

[1340] But anyways, it's just a great.

[1341] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[1342] Yes.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] Yeah.

[1345] Yeah.

[1346] Yeah.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] Yeah.

[1349] Yeah.

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] So, self -aware.

[1352] The whole one needs it.

[1353] I love you so much.

[1354] I just wanted to hear the rest of the story.

[1355] I know, but I missed you.

[1356] I've been gone for four days.

[1357] I'm happy to see you and I was trying to spin the knife in your tummy a little bit.

[1358] You did it.

[1359] Okay.

[1360] You sure did it.

[1361] We're back where we left off.

[1362] So the house sitting place was an hour away from Shepenis and my job started at six.

[1363] So I'd wake up at like four.

[1364] Drive to work.

[1365] Work from six to two.

[1366] Take a nap on like a friend's couch, drive to San Francisco from across the bay, take a four -hour Italian intensive class, and then drive an hour back.

[1367] Like, it was just insane, you know, and then I, like, bamboozled the teacher into, like, marking that I was proficient when I really wasn't.

[1368] Sure.

[1369] And then I went to Italy.

[1370] Then I went there, and I worked, and I learned, and I did all the homework, and I, like, continue.

[1371] And you got a whole break?

[1372] No, I can, I continue.

[1373] It took me, I was still doing, like, all the research to fill out the four, like, because it's a lot of, you have to do a whole grant proposal.

[1374] And so I was sort of meeting people and proving that I had the connections because I wasn't going to go through university.

[1375] Did I know people in the food world who would help me?

[1376] And I did that while I worked for Benedetta.

[1377] And I applied and I became a finalist, which I was so excited about.

[1378] And then in order to not disqualify myself, I had to leave Italy.

[1379] So I came back to wait for the results.

[1380] And then I found out I was the first alternate.

[1381] And I was like, this is a terrible heartbreak.

[1382] And I didn't know.

[1383] I was just like, that was my plan.

[1384] Like, what do I do now, and Benedetta just said, just come back.

[1385] Like, you don't need that.

[1386] Just come back.

[1387] So I went back, and I worked another year and a half with her.

[1388] She also, the thing that was so wonderful was, Chez Panisse is an extraordinary restaurant with a kitchen that is so unique because it's built to teach cooks.

[1389] It's a teaching kitchen.

[1390] And the menu changes every day.

[1391] So over the course of a calendar year, or if you're there for longer, like, you get to do everything new every day, and you learn all of these ingredients and you get so intimately acquainted with them.

[1392] And there's such depth of experience in the restaurant that like everyone else can teach you something.

[1393] It's amazing.

[1394] And I felt so lucky there, but also it's a huge place relatively.

[1395] And I went to Italy and there were like three people in the kitchen.

[1396] And all of a sudden I was given so much more responsibility and doing things if I had stayed at Chapinese, like it would take me 10 years before they'd let me touch a fire in that way or whatever.

[1397] And I got this direct mentorship from these two incredible women.

[1398] And so that was really, really powerful and really special.

[1399] And it gave me so much confidence.

[1400] And so when I came back from that, Chris, the chef who'd opened the door for me at Chapanese, had left, and he opened a restaurant in Berkeley an Italian restaurant.

[1401] So I went to go work for him because I was like so, you know, immersed in everything Italy.

[1402] Yeah.

[1403] Is she in the documentary?

[1404] She's the one that I make pasta.

[1405] Right.

[1406] Okay.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] There seemed to be a sweet history there.

[1409] Yeah.

[1410] Italy was my favorite of the fact.

[1411] The epil I mean, it's, every time I say a different thing.

[1412] It is, it was interesting to see where we all fell because Because Kristen's favorite was acid Mexico.

[1413] Like that, she was the most hungry watching that.

[1414] I was definitely Italy.

[1415] I'm like, I'm going to go there and I'm going to kill myself eating.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] It was hard for me to decide between Italy and Japan.

[1418] Oh, the salt thing really got.

[1419] Yeah, it was just so, yeah.

[1420] I was weeping like a crazy person in the slice sauce factory.

[1421] The guy and the generations and the bacteria and he's the steward and the thing tastes so good.

[1422] And they were like, I was like, why didn't you use any of the crying footage?

[1423] and she was like, you actually looked insane.

[1424] Because the guy didn't speak English.

[1425] He didn't know why you were crying.

[1426] Like, he just looked confused and you look crazy.

[1427] Yeah.

[1428] So, like, we couldn't use it.

[1429] But there's something really mystical about that episode, I think, which I really like.

[1430] But the food, yeah, the Italy one for me. I mean, just like my, like, just textually, I wanted to.

[1431] Oh, the pasta looked so.

[1432] I wanted that tagliatelli, bolognais.

[1433] I was like, I bet that is the best bite of pasta you could ever have.

[1434] I want that.

[1435] So bad.

[1436] So you go to work at the Italian restaurant in Berkeley.

[1437] How do you end up deciding to make your cookbook?

[1438] So I wasn't probably clear at the beginning, but your show, salt acid heat, is also the title of your cookbook.

[1439] So because the menu at Chez Panisse changes every day and because they had given me this stack of books to read in my mind by the time I entered the kitchen, I was like, okay, cool.

[1440] like everyone here is just memorized 40 ,000 recipes.

[1441] Like that's how you guys know how to do everything every day, no matter what, without a cookbook.

[1442] Right.

[1443] Like literally, no, they're like not measuring anything, nothing.

[1444] They're just like, oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of this.

[1445] I'm like, what is happening?

[1446] I started to see that this pattern of these four elements was like no matter what we were making, no matter where in the world it came from, it was this universal thing.

[1447] Well, that's what I was going to ask you.

[1448] Was this, the way you've categorized it into four elements, was that proprietary?

[1449] to you or was that a known thing in like if people go to culinary school are you the first to have this take on it i think the articulation of it is mine but the like theory i think well so after like probably two years in the kitchen i went to chris and i was like i see this pattern salt fat acid heat and he said yeah duh we all know that and i was like but nobody told me it yeah and he said yeah but we all that's just how we all cook and so every cook or every chef i know nobody's come to me and been like, you're wrong.

[1450] Yeah.

[1451] I just don't think anyone used those words and, like, organized it in that way.

[1452] Yeah.

[1453] I don't think I invented anything.

[1454] I think I invented a way of talking about something.

[1455] Right.

[1456] Even as a young person, like in that kitchen early on, I was like, one day I'll write a book about this because this is this thing that these people understand after all these years of experience.

[1457] And yet it was not in any of these books and no one ever explained it to me. And if they didn't explain to me, they're not explaining it to any home people.

[1458] Yes.

[1459] We watch it.

[1460] And I was like, oh, she.

[1461] just explained how I make one thing that I didn't know why I did, but I would into it.

[1462] And so the one, it was the acid episode, because I'll have to make Kristen this angel hair, olive oil, angel hair, uh, garlic salt, uh, one egg, a lot of parmesan and then cut up, uh, Roma tomatoes.

[1463] And half of them I cook in there and then half I add later.

[1464] And what I didn't realize I was doing is I would make it, I'd take a bite and I'm like, it's a little bland.

[1465] And then I would add more fresh tomato and then now a sudden you could taste the parmesan cheese and all that.

[1466] I didn't know what was happening.

[1467] But that's what you were doing.

[1468] On accident, I was doing something.

[1469] And I was like, oh, now this all makes sense.

[1470] I was like trying to find that balance between the acid and the fat.

[1471] Yeah, the example.

[1472] I always use is anybody eats Mexican food.

[1473] Like you're like, or like I always get bean and cheese burrito.

[1474] So I get my bean and cheese burrito and I'm like, what do I do to this?

[1475] Like, or if you especially get like bean and rice and cheese, it's very starchy.

[1476] So you're like, oh, I have to put sour cream on it.

[1477] I have to put guacamole.

[1478] I have to put salsa.

[1479] And you do it until it tastes right.

[1480] But what you're doing is sour cream is acid and fat.

[1481] Salsa is acid.

[1482] You know, guacamole is halting acid and fat.

[1483] So, like, you're doing those things.

[1484] You just don't have the words for it.

[1485] I just help create language so you understand how to talk about it, which helps you understand why.

[1486] So that next time when you're making a new thing and you taste it, you're like, oh, yeah, this doesn't have that thing that when I get my right bite of pizza or my right bite of Mexican.

[1487] Right.

[1488] And a lot of times for me, it's just, it tastes murky.

[1489] Like, I can't isolate anything.

[1490] Yeah.

[1491] That's like when I've fucked up.

[1492] I'm like, I don't know, it's mush.

[1493] I don't know.

[1494] I wouldn't know whether it needs more sold or the more this or whatever.

[1495] When you mix all the paint colors together, you're like, oh, we have black.

[1496] That happens like in things like chicken sauce.

[1497] Anything that has like a million ingredients, a lot of times that happens for me. Right.

[1498] And I have to take a break and come back later and taste it again.

[1499] Yeah.

[1500] And you're a big proponent of tasting a lot while you eat.

[1501] Yeah.

[1502] You got to taste the whole way.

[1503] It's not just going to magically taste good at the end.

[1504] Yeah.

[1505] Right.

[1506] And so I knew the whole time I was cooking, I knew that this.

[1507] This was my system, my philosophy.

[1508] Uh -huh.

[1509] And then I always, you know, as a cook in a restaurant, like five minutes after you start, somebody comes in even, like, less experience than you.

[1510] So you have to then teach them how to do the thing.

[1511] Right.

[1512] So over time, I developed my own vocabulary for it.

[1513] And I was suddenly teaching younger cooks.

[1514] Like, this is how you make a vinaigrette.

[1515] You have to balance this, this and this.

[1516] So then in 2006, the writer Michael Pollan, who I really admired, who wrote the omnivores dilemma and the botany of desire, he, He had a reservation at a restaurant, and I saw his name in the book.

[1517] So I wrote a car, here I am, I wrote a card, and I said, I admire you so much.

[1518] I'd love to come audit your class at the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley.

[1519] And he wrote me back, and he said, okay, come, talk to me. Initially, he didn't want to let me in their class just because it was really little class.

[1520] And then I persisted again.

[1521] And so he backed down.

[1522] And then that was a really important thing for me, not only to get to work with Michael, but because this class of young journalists, really became the foundation of my writing community and my like journal there are documentarians and radio producers in there who now are amazing you know that was 13 years ago and so still like my community that I have really leaned heavily on especially because I didn't go to graduate school and I didn't know what a pitch was or like what a 500 word story is or like there's all these weird words like nut graph I was like what's a nut graph you know like my editor would write me back nut graph and I'd be like run over to malia's office I was like Malia what's a nut graph?

[1523] It's like the who, what, where, when, why, like in a nutshell, you know?

[1524] Oh, I got you.

[1525] Yeah, the graph is paragraph.

[1526] So, like, all these, like, things, you know, that are the word, the lingo of the thing.

[1527] Yeah.

[1528] And Michael was just like, you're waiting for some, like, thing to happen, like, some award or some grant or something, but just start writing.

[1529] Right.

[1530] So I just started writing for, like, local newspaper and then, like, slightly bigger magazine, then bigger magazine.

[1531] And then he hired me to teach him how to cook for a book that he was writing called Cooked.

[1532] Uh -huh.

[1533] And as we were working together, he was like, you're really into these four things, like, you know.

[1534] And I was like, oh, yeah, that's my system.

[1535] I always thought I'd write a book about that.

[1536] And he was like, oh, that sounds really hard.

[1537] He gave me really good advice.

[1538] And he said, listen, like, you live in a delusional universe where everyone who you know who's written a book is already famous in some way.

[1539] Yes.

[1540] And so you have this idea of what a book is or what sells a book.

[1541] Yeah.

[1542] But you're wrong.

[1543] because what really sells a book is a unique and powerful idea, and this is a unique and powerful idea that I've never seen anywhere else.

[1544] So stop trying to do the cool thing and do this thing.

[1545] And I was like, I don't even know how to start.

[1546] And he said, go teach the classes.

[1547] Teach the classes over and over again.

[1548] Make yourself a curriculum.

[1549] And that curriculum will become your book proposal.

[1550] So I did that.

[1551] I taught the classes for like three years to anywhere, like senior citizen center, children's area, you know, cooking school or whatever, on a farm.

[1552] And as I taught, I sort of saw how to talk to people.

[1553] I started drawing myself like little diagrams to explain stuff.

[1554] So Michael, who I really was trying to emulate as a writer and a thinker, he does this amazing experiential kind of journalism where he starts as a newbie and goes on the journey and takes the reader with them.

[1555] So he can talk about very complicated stuff like the food system and corn subsidies, but without talking down to you because he's learning to.

[1556] He starts on your level.

[1557] Yeah.

[1558] And so I was like, Oh, I want to do that.

[1559] So I tried to sort of do that, both in person and on the page, and I realized I couldn't, because my job was to have authority, because I am your teacher, and you are coming there for that reason.

[1560] But I realized that in the classes, what I was so good at was empathizing with the students and realizing, like, when they were frustrated or scared about something or messing something up, I was like, I remember that because it wasn't that long ago.

[1561] And I was the person who was messing up every, I've messed up everything you could mess up.

[1562] Right.

[1563] And I remember how it feels.

[1564] And I also now can show you exactly how to fix it.

[1565] So I would tell all these stories of like every terrible and like dramatic mess up that I've ever done.

[1566] Yeah.

[1567] And that would then like we had a relationship.

[1568] So I was like, oh, this is how I can be on your level is through these stories of everything I've ruined.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] Yeah.

[1571] Yeah.

[1572] And to me like it wasn't it wasn't a dent on my authority.

[1573] It just was a sort of a like a path of empathy and sort of we now have a relationship.

[1574] Yeah.

[1575] Again, I think a lot of this comes from, like, being an outsider and a kid who felt like I didn't fit in and that messing up was going to make me feel like I didn't belong or I didn't, I hadn't earned my spot there.

[1576] So to me, I'm like, no, no, messing up is the way there.

[1577] You know, and if I can help you see that, like, also because I love that we have all of these ways to experience cooking that we didn't 20 or 30 years ago.

[1578] I love that there's beautiful food shows and food Instagram and all that stuff.

[1579] But also what a lot of that stuff does is it sets this crazy bar for what you think you should be able to do at home.

[1580] Your thing should look as perfect as that thing.

[1581] You know, why is my egg omelet not so perfect?

[1582] Why is my sauce not so perfect?

[1583] And it's like, well, do you actually know like how many stylists it took to make that picture or how many years of training it took that chef to do that?

[1584] That part of the story is not told in those images.

[1585] That's still the element that I'm a Philistine about.

[1586] I don't understand the presentation.

[1587] It doesn't, like, the visual doesn't...

[1588] Just sprinkle some herbs on top.

[1589] It doesn't do anything for me. It did something for you then, like the whole to -do of it.

[1590] Yeah, but like when they bring out the plate in front of me and they've drizzled something around the edge in some way, I'm like, I don't, give me a lot of the sauce.

[1591] That's what I want.

[1592] I want a lot of the sauce that I can dip it in.

[1593] I don't want it spread out like a Jackson Pollock.

[1594] Like, I just, that's the only element of it that I can like, I can totally relate to like the value of texture, the value of the taste, the value of all this stuff.

[1595] The presentation to me, put it all, shake it up in a fucking magic ball, throw it on my plate.

[1596] I'm fine.

[1597] Well, that's why I think like one way that I do like to think about the difference between like a very high end restaurant and say like home cooking or or even just like really great restaurant cooking.

[1598] That's much more sort of a reflection of like home traditions, you know, is.

[1599] I think of the stuff that happens on those really high levels as art. And I think of the stuff that happens at home or in homestyle restaurants as craft.

[1600] And so to me, one's not better or worse.

[1601] Right.

[1602] They're just different.

[1603] And they're different.

[1604] And they have both a lot of work and time and effort that's put into them.

[1605] Yeah.

[1606] But they exist for different reasons.

[1607] And so, you know, you don't go to, we just keep saying French Laundry and I'm not hard, but like, you don't go to French Laundrie to like get full.

[1608] you know although you will get full but that's you know you're not like oh i just need to satisfy this hunger let me go to the friend christ and i had a very sincere conversation where we were like if we're going to continue at this rate for another hour we're going to have to go throw up like the romans did and we looked at the bathroom and it was it's virtually in the middle of the dining room you know we're like well that's not an option we can't be in there throwing up we're just going to have to figure out how to put more food down oh my god did you get up and like jump to like quit no no Is that a technique we should have implored?

[1609] No, no, no, no, no, I was basically.

[1610] What if we were, like, running in place for 10 minutes, trying to burn some calories?

[1611] Well, listen, Samin, I adore you.

[1612] You have a new book that's coming out shortly.

[1613] Oh, 150 years.

[1614] Oh, 150 years.

[1615] Oh, it was just announced, I guess.

[1616] Yeah, yeah, we just sold it.

[1617] Don't tell anyone.

[1618] Okay.

[1619] It's going to be called What to Cook.

[1620] What to Cook.

[1621] Yeah.

[1622] I guess, importantly, you'll be working again with Wendy.

[1623] Wendy Mac.

[1624] Oh, yeah, beautiful Wendy McNotton, who ill. illustrated the first book is also going to illustrate the second book.

[1625] And she's so talented and amazing and smart.

[1626] Her brain is amazing.

[1627] You would be fascinating.

[1628] She has so many different experiences in her life that lead to who she is and how she works.

[1629] So she uses all of this different stuff to be able to tell stories.

[1630] So for example, she knows she in the beginning knew nothing about cooking.

[1631] She was my guinea pig in a lot of ways.

[1632] And so if I knew, for example, like Let's talk about pastas.

[1633] So, like, I love pasta.

[1634] I've spent a lot of years making it.

[1635] And yet in my book, I knew I wouldn't have a lot of room to, like, I wouldn't have room to, like, give a thousand pasta recipes like I wanted to.

[1636] So I had to figure out how can I give the minimum information that has, like, the maximum punch that gives you, if you can read this and cook these, you can realize you can cook anything.

[1637] So I was like, okay, I have to learn how to organize pasta into some system.

[1638] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1639] So I, for like weeks, I would just write down every pasta I could think of, every pasta dish with different sauces, the shapes, the whole thing, until I started to see a pattern.

[1640] And I was like, it took me a long time to figure out the pattern.

[1641] And I realized that there's sort of five families of pasta sauces.

[1642] There's like tomatoe, cheesy, like seafoody, meaty, and vegetabley.

[1643] And if, and sometimes they overlap.

[1644] And so I was like, oh, how can we explain this?

[1645] Is it a Venn diagram?

[1646] Is it a flow chart?

[1647] Right.

[1648] know, what is the visual way to tell this story?

[1649] Yeah.

[1650] So that I can give you five recipes and then you can start to see how they could all in overlap and interact.

[1651] And if you know one, you can slide the lever between here and there.

[1652] And so Wendy had worked on another chart years before called literary circles of influence.

[1653] And it was this kind of very charming and funny, but also true, sort of visualization of writers and philosophers and thinkers over like the last thousand years and how different people have like, in ways that maybe you know in ways that you don't know, affected and influenced other people.

[1654] So like Shakespeare and Lemony Snicket or something like that, you know, like Plato and I don't know, Dr. Seuss.

[1655] And so, and so I was like, oh, maybe we could make a pasta circles of influence.

[1656] Like, and there's a way where like this one relates to this one and you might not know how, but if I can show you, then you know.

[1657] So then at that point I like, I drew kind of like a very rough one and I hand it to her and she goes and makes it into this beautiful thing.

[1658] And she also puts her own very funny spin on it.

[1659] And so when I had called, kept calling them like pasta families, she titled it, Pasta Nostra.

[1660] The intermarriage of five great families and made this mob just, and so it's just like, there's a lot of like very fun, that kind of stuff between us where, and a lot of them were just visual puzzles where maybe my brain doesn't work in that way, but I knew that there was some way to connect things.

[1661] I just didn't know how.

[1662] And so especially for the next book, which is all about decision -making.

[1663] This all started because I was trying to think of, like, what cooking show to do next.

[1664] And Netflix had suggested that I should think of an idea that I could do in a studio.

[1665] Oh, uh -huh.

[1666] And so, but I was like, my heart will shrivel and die if I have to do, like, a regular cooking show because that's not what I care about.

[1667] Right.

[1668] And the, like, concept of those is you show up and you're like, today we're going to make this, this and this, like, contrived sort of like fake dinner party or fake story or whatever.

[1669] Yes.

[1670] And I was like, well, what if it wasn't about a fake story?

[1671] What if it was a real story?

[1672] And what if it was the real story of like my actual day?

[1673] And that way I could actually teach you how I got to what I'm going to make and why I'm making those things.

[1674] And also, you know, like even in a magazine, if you like see a spread of recipes and they've created a menu, that menu may have nothing to do with your reality, right?

[1675] Like you may be at your house, you don't have that much counter space or you don't have that kind of time or that grocery store is not near you or whatever.

[1676] So if I could actually in the same way that I broke down, I guess, how to cook, I could break down the decision making.

[1677] like what's the right thing to cook based on maybe if your kids are screaming their heads off and you have to have dinner ready in 20 minutes or if like it's Thanksgiving, at Thanksgiving people are always like, I can never get everything cooked because everything is in the oven and I know I'm the oven space.

[1678] So how do you think through that?

[1679] Or how do you think through like, you know, you went to the farmer's marketing about way too much stuff?

[1680] Like, how do I use all this up?

[1681] Or on the flip side, you just got home from vacation and there's nothing in your fridge.

[1682] What do you make?

[1683] And so my idea for the show was like every episode could explore a different scenario because there's endless of these scenarios.

[1684] Yes.

[1685] And then Netflix was like, actually, we want another travel show.

[1686] So that one's on the shelf for now.

[1687] But then I was and then my agent was like, you know, that's a book.

[1688] And I was like, oh, okay, I guess I have to write another book.

[1689] And then I was like, please don't tell me that terrible truth.

[1690] And then we immediately realized that that kind of like flow chart, decision making thinking is meant to.

[1691] to be illustrated by Wendy.

[1692] Like, that's what she's so good.

[1693] It's me teaching you like, look at this, if this, then this.

[1694] Look at that.

[1695] If that, then that.

[1696] Don't make something that has to be stewed if you need to have dinner ready in 30 minutes.

[1697] Right.

[1698] Guys, if you only have 15 minutes, the bizquick, brown beef casserole can be, oh, tops.

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] I could bang one of those out in the next 20 minutes for sure.

[1701] Well, Samin, you're so adorable.

[1702] We like you so much.

[1703] I love you.

[1704] I'm a really hope you, I mean, I want you to not overwork yourself, but I also want you to have a new cooking show like yesterday.

[1705] Yeah, because.

[1706] Yeah, we need more of that.

[1707] We're working on it.

[1708] We need more of that.

[1709] My working title, which I'm sure will get overruled by the powers that be, is carbs of the world.

[1710] Carbs of the world.

[1711] I thought you were going to say measletoff.

[1712] That's a joke from a few episodes ago.

[1713] Well, such a delight.

[1714] I really hope you come back when you do finish another show.

[1715] or another book, yes.

[1716] Well, only if next time we can record the episode in the kitchen where maybe you make me something and I make you something.

[1717] It's such a deal.

[1718] And my wife will be blowing her brains out in the kitchen because this is a right she believes she would have earned.

[1719] So if she's got to sit there and watch me cook with you, it'll be great torture for her.

[1720] That's true.

[1721] It'll work on a lot of levels.

[1722] Okay, cool.

[1723] Okay, cool.

[1724] I love you and good luck.

[1725] I love you.

[1726] Thank you.

[1727] Thank you.

[1728] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1729] Ready to party?

[1730] Yeah.

[1731] I'm ready.

[1732] Do you're ready.

[1733] You all ready for facts.

[1734] Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

[1735] Great song you do because there's no lyrics.

[1736] That's true.

[1737] Instead of all ready for this.

[1738] And it gets people pumped up.

[1739] Is everyone pumped up?

[1740] Win, win.

[1741] For Sameen?

[1742] She was so beautiful and lovely.

[1743] and wonderful and special.

[1744] You know, we already were in love with her, as fair to say.

[1745] And then you had that physical in -person interplay of whatever shit travels between us that we're not aware of.

[1746] Uh -huh.

[1747] And we went to attend, didn't we?

[1748] Yeah, she's wonderful.

[1749] I don't say this lightly.

[1750] We want to hang out with her desperately.

[1751] At home, watching TV, making food, we want her in our life.

[1752] She has a great energy.

[1753] One of the best I've ever seen in my life.

[1754] And I've seen a lot of energies.

[1755] Yeah.

[1756] What if people of fucking misophonia didn't like to hear shit unwrapped?

[1757] I'm growing more and more resentful towards it.

[1758] We started out with a very pro -misophonia, and now I'm getting resentful.

[1759] But it's not just misophonia.

[1760] It's just extraneous noise.

[1761] It is very distracting when you're listening to something.

[1762] Don't you love it, though, on like a well -produced podcast, like Stereo Lab where there's all that folly and sound effects?

[1763] You hear people's feet and the grass and stuff.

[1764] I love that.

[1765] Yeah, that's not what's happening when there's just like random.

[1766] weird bad noise in the background.

[1767] Oh, okay.

[1768] Well, I was unwrapping, just so the listener will know, a new package of nicotine toothpicks, which I've transitioned off of chewing tobacco.

[1769] I'm now on day 13.

[1770] And I'm banging back, I don't know, 35 now nicotine toothpicks a day.

[1771] So I got to unwrap them a lot.

[1772] And it's going to just so happen that sometimes I unwrap them on the program.

[1773] And I apologize to people with rapsophonia.

[1774] What flavor are they?

[1775] This one's cinnamon.

[1776] I thought it would pair well with the soda I'm drinking.

[1777] I actually think about that, right?

[1778] Because I have wintergreen and I have cinnamon.

[1779] Winter green does not go with coffee in the morning.

[1780] It's a bad pairing.

[1781] Semoye would throw up.

[1782] Well.

[1783] Pukup is lunch.

[1784] Okay.

[1785] Or her lunch.

[1786] But cinnamon and coffee.

[1787] Well, that's a well -worn path.

[1788] Everyone likes like cinnamon coffee -made flavored creamers.

[1789] Really?

[1790] I don't know.

[1791] I don't think so.

[1792] But how about a cinnamon stick and hot beverages?

[1793] Like cider.

[1794] Yeah.

[1795] Yeah.

[1796] Yeah, not really related to coffee.

[1797] Anyways, you can't get through a wintergreen one with the coffee, but the cinnamon one does work nicely.

[1798] So if anyone's thinking about transitioning off of chewable tobacco to nicotine toothpicks, get cinnamon for your coffee.

[1799] But are you drinking coffee?

[1800] No, no, no. But because I had a great experience with my coffee, I thought it might pair well nicely with my DC.

[1801] Okay.

[1802] Does that make sense?

[1803] Sure, sure.

[1804] We just went down a road of coffee and then you weren't even drinking.

[1805] coffee.

[1806] No, and the visual I thought of was actually cider that you put cinnamon in.

[1807] Yeah.

[1808] Yeah.

[1809] Yeah.

[1810] Well, that's okay.

[1811] Yeah.

[1812] You know, it's in the spirit of Samin who's always mixing and maxing, you know, testing trial and error with new flavors and combining unconventional ingredients and coming up with new breakthrough foods.

[1813] And that's what I'm doing with my toothpicks.

[1814] Good job.

[1815] Good job.

[1816] Great job.

[1817] Buddy boy.

[1818] Anyway, so you guys were talking about grocery shopping and hunting and gatherers and how you, so you think women have sort of a natural predisposition to liking grocery shopping.

[1819] Yeah.

[1820] And, yeah, just, I think shopping in general, any kind of gathering.

[1821] Yeah.

[1822] I mean, I obviously love shopping, but I hate grocery shopping.

[1823] Oh, you do?

[1824] I hate it.

[1825] Why do you hate it?

[1826] Do you feel like you don't know what you're supposed to be getting?

[1827] Probably for the same reasons you hate it.

[1828] All the reasons you said, it's overwhelming.

[1829] There's too many aisles.

[1830] You never can find what you're looking for.

[1831] Yeah.

[1832] Yeah, it's too much.

[1833] It feels like such a big.

[1834] chunk of time out of the day.

[1835] It does.

[1836] Now, I wonder if you used my strategy if it would help for you, because it has improved my shopping experience, which is like, I go there knowing exactly what six things I'm going to get, and I know where they're at in the store, and I just walk in a straight line to all six things, get them and get out of there.

[1837] Sometimes you don't know where they are.

[1838] Well, I've been going to the same grocery store for 13 years.

[1839] You're only two years in this grocery store.

[1840] Yeah, but I still won't know.

[1841] Like, if I'm I'm looking up a recipe and I have like 15 things I have to get.

[1842] If it's something I'm not getting regularly, I don't really know where it is.

[1843] I mean, I can like look and read the signs, but all this takes energy.

[1844] Yeah, no, I know where every single thing at Gelson's is at this point.

[1845] They're 13 years into going there.

[1846] I know exactly where everything is.

[1847] You do?

[1848] Yeah.

[1849] Yeah.

[1850] Yeah.

[1851] Yeah.

[1852] Okay.

[1853] So where's the champagne vinegar?

[1854] The champagne vinegar is likely in the very first row across from the poultry and seafood on the condomin aisle.

[1855] They have a bunch of different vinegarets and basalmic and cider vinegar.

[1856] All the vinegars, yeah, dressings are on the very first row at Gelson's if you're in the aisle on the starboard side.

[1857] Okay.

[1858] Yeah.

[1859] I don't know if that's right.

[1860] So I can't, this is not a very good.

[1861] Well, you know what we could do is we could make a wager.

[1862] You could go like, I don't think he's right.

[1863] And it's worth to me, I think I'm 51 % positive.

[1864] He's wrong.

[1865] I don't bet $40.

[1866] Okay.

[1867] Well, I don't, you could be right.

[1868] So I don't know if I want to put any money on this.

[1869] Yeah.

[1870] You should only put money on things.

[1871] You have a pretty good sense of which way it's going to.

[1872] Yeah.

[1873] I think it's, I do though, kind of think.

[1874] it might not be there though.

[1875] I think it might be where the spices are.

[1876] Well, okay, great.

[1877] That's what I did say it could be in that aisle.

[1878] And my other, I agree with you, the other aisle it would be in is the spices and I know exactly where that aisle is.

[1879] That's very, that's mid grocery store on the port side if you're walking towards the back of the store.

[1880] But do you know the aisle number?

[1881] No, I don't know the numbers.

[1882] Right.

[1883] So you still have to like look up and you have to kind of see like, okay, this is.

[1884] Well, I don't have to do that.

[1885] I know in my mind.

[1886] what aisle it is.

[1887] You know what I'm saying?

[1888] Even though I don't, I've never looked up to see if that's 5A or B or whatever.

[1889] Okay.

[1890] Yeah.

[1891] Yeah.

[1892] Okay.

[1893] All right.

[1894] Great.

[1895] I don't know.

[1896] The one to me that always is the biggest challenge is the garlic bread.

[1897] What aisle of the frozen aisle?

[1898] Because where would garlic bread be?

[1899] You know, it's, there's no real logical place for it to be.

[1900] But luckily, Gelson's is it's all the booze beer and everything on the one aisle.

[1901] And then on the back side of that is all of the frozen stuff.

[1902] So it is in the back half of the store on the starboard side case.

[1903] Great.

[1904] This is my point about the grocery.

[1905] I'm just thinking a point that things aren't as simple as going there and laser beam your way through.

[1906] Yeah.

[1907] But so I don't like going there.

[1908] Yeah.

[1909] The point is the point.

[1910] So I don't think it's a female male thing.

[1911] But you did say you love shopping.

[1912] You like going.

[1913] Yeah, but just not groceries.

[1914] And I don't like shopping for the gathering element.

[1915] I want specific stuff and I want it to make me feel good.

[1916] It has nothing to do with like nesting.

[1917] Here would be my other bit of data that I would say to support my argument.

[1918] Very time -worn tradition is that men go to the hardware store on the weekend and they're there for like four hours.

[1919] Women hate it.

[1920] Sure.

[1921] Their husbands go to the hardware store for almost a full day.

[1922] And I'd argue it's because they're not good at gathering.

[1923] They get in that hardware store and they're just aimlessly walking in circles.

[1924] They don't even can't, now they're overwhelmed.

[1925] They can't even remember what fucking they came in there for a penny nail or some fasteners or some duct tape.

[1926] Okay.

[1927] But it is a very well -worn cliche that men are in that, you know, they go to that hardware store for half the day on Saturday.

[1928] Are you sure they're just not escaping their families for a half day and using that is a pretty good excuse.

[1929] That would also be a good argument because their other hobbies are like that, golfing for six hours and something.

[1930] These are conventional male hobbies.

[1931] Conventional, yeah.

[1932] But I think I used to watch my dad at ACO Hardware and Waldlake and it drove me bonkers to go with him.

[1933] And I can tell you he was not trying to escape.

[1934] He was intoxicated in a, and not a useful way.

[1935] Got it.

[1936] He's just easily distracted by all the stuff.

[1937] Yeah, he would have a look on his store at ACO Hardware that I'd never seen on his face anywhere.

[1938] else, which is just kind of like bewilderment and confusion.

[1939] He was usually a very assertive knew exactly what he wanted type of guy, but at Ako, I was like watching a six -year -old version of him.

[1940] Wow.

[1941] Just a little boy lost.

[1942] That's sweet.

[1943] And then I also think there's like some kind of weird cultural dynamic going as a man. You're in there and you feel like you should have all that stuff.

[1944] You know?

[1945] Like there's this, I wonder if that happens to women at certain stores.

[1946] So as a man, you're like, I think a man is supposed to have a. a T -square ruler in a 90 -degree angle.

[1947] And shouldn't I have a sludge hammer?

[1948] And you're like, what on earth will I use this for?

[1949] But you're just like, this feels like prerequisite tools for a functioning man. Oh, yeah.

[1950] Like you've never thought to yourself like, fuck, I don't have a chainsaw.

[1951] Right.

[1952] Like you've never had like a moment where you're like, oh, shit.

[1953] Well, that just happened to me. Right.

[1954] We're up here in the back of the property.

[1955] And I noticed one of the trees was dead leaning on another tree.

[1956] And I was like, fuck.

[1957] How could I not have a chainsaw?

[1958] Oh, wow.

[1959] And did you get one?

[1960] Yeah, I got one in coming.

[1961] My buddy Greg ordered me when he sells tools.

[1962] Right.

[1963] Yeah, it's in the works.

[1964] Great.

[1965] Yeah.

[1966] I'm glad you're getting it.

[1967] But it was a blow to my self -esteem.

[1968] It was like a failing of my gender.

[1969] You know what I'm saying?

[1970] That's so wrong.

[1971] I'm not telling other people they should feel that way.

[1972] I'm just being honest about how I felt.

[1973] I was like, oh, a man should have a chainsaw to clean up his property when it's one tree's damaging another tree.

[1974] Like, what a shortcoming of mine.

[1975] I think that's a failing on us as a society.

[1976] Sure, sure, sure.

[1977] That you personally feel like a failure if you don't have a chainsaw.

[1978] Yeah, I did.

[1979] Women have that.

[1980] They have that all the, yeah, with everything, really.

[1981] Well, and Kristen has it on a lot of domestic things.

[1982] Like, I'll mention something.

[1983] And I don't realize in the past I've failed to recognize that a lot of her esteem is tied to her ability to manage a home.

[1984] And I wouldn't think there's things that she would take personal that she has.

[1985] And then I've had to really remember, remind myself when I'm irritated with something at the house, like how things are organized or something, that it's not just two people having a non -passionate conversation about where things are placed.

[1986] It's much bigger than that for her.

[1987] It's part of her identity that she manages a good home.

[1988] You'd like it to not be that way, right?

[1989] I think those things are placed on us.

[1990] So it's good to note that and know like these are outside elements that are coming in.

[1991] Well, speaking of, so this is a good transition.

[1992] We talk a little bit how women's lib affected home cooking.

[1993] And Michael Pollan, I guess, wrote about this.

[1994] People got a little upset about it.

[1995] But he, I don't know why people got upset because he said, well, first of foremost, people love to get upset is why they got upset.

[1996] That's true.

[1997] That is exactly true.

[1998] He said, big food has convinced most of us.

[1999] No one has to cook.

[2000] We've got it covered.

[2001] This began 100 years ago, but it picked up steam in the 70s when big food made it seem progressive, even feminist not to cook.

[2002] KFC's ad campaign, which sold a bucket of fried chicken with the slogan, women's liberation.

[2003] Ah, uh -huh.

[2004] And he said, but if we're going to rebuild a culture of cooking, it can't mean returning women to the kitchen.

[2005] We all need to go back to the kitchen.

[2006] Right.

[2007] So he's saying that.

[2008] He's not saying, like, this is a woman's job.

[2009] There's one, I'm mad at myself that I, I got so swept up in, Samin's just, aura that I lost my navigation skills sometimes.

[2010] Okay.

[2011] One of the things I had hoped to bring up that I didn't was a single component of Marxism, I really agree with, is that he just evaluated the amount of time dedicated to activities in a community.

[2012] and one of the most inefficient wastes of time is for everyone to be cooking because it takes everyone an hour to cook, but it would only take one person in a community, two or three hours to cook for 25 people.

[2013] So that's kind of one of the cornerstones of communism.

[2014] That makes tons of sense.

[2015] So in communist countries, they would eat communally and people would be designated to the cooks.

[2016] It's just way more efficient.

[2017] And so, I don't know.

[2018] I wanted to get her opinion on that.

[2019] Because just time management -wise, that's a great point that Carl Marks observed.

[2020] Right.

[2021] This is something that could benefit hugely from being done communally.

[2022] Sure.

[2023] But not necessarily a woman or a man. No, I could care less who's cooking.

[2024] Yeah, I got no horse and a who should cook race.

[2025] I also feel like it's completely outdated at this point anyways, don't you?

[2026] Like, I could see this being a real hot button topic in 1985.

[2027] Right.

[2028] But I think at this point, both genders work almost, you know, with very similar percentages.

[2029] So we're all in this boat together that no one has time to cook.

[2030] Right.

[2031] It seems like a moot thing to even be mad about.

[2032] She said that.

[2033] She said more men have started cooking in the last one or two decades.

[2034] Cooking has increased overall from 2003 to 2016.

[2035] Hmm.

[2036] That's encouraging.

[2037] Yeah.

[2038] The percent of college educated men cooking increased from 37 .9 percent in 2003 to 51.

[2039] 1 .9 % in 2016.

[2040] Mm -hmm.

[2041] College -educated women who cook increased from 64 .7 % in 2003 to 68 .7 % in 2016.

[2042] Well, women with less high school education had no change.

[2043] Oh, okay.

[2044] Yeah, you know, it's funny is we're still trapped in a paradigm of, is it male or female?

[2045] Mm -hmm.

[2046] Which isn't even relevant, in my opinion.

[2047] What is relevant is socioeconomic.

[2048] Totally.

[2049] If you're poor, you don't have time to cook, nor can you have, forward to go out to a restaurant.

[2050] Yeah.

[2051] So you're kind of double -fucked.

[2052] Yeah, I know.

[2053] Yeah.

[2054] It's really, that's the issue.

[2055] Like, I think that the college -educated aspect of that statistic is so relevant.

[2056] Women with less education spent more time cooking per day than high -educated women.

[2057] But the reverse was true for men.

[2058] Home cooking in the United States is increasing, especially among men.

[2059] The women still cook much more than men.

[2060] Further research is needed to understand whether the heterogene genie, Genity in home cooking by educational attainment and race ethnicity observed here contributes to diet -related disparities in the United States.

[2061] I mean, cooking your own food is always so much better than for you, for you, than eating out.

[2062] Even though I love eating out.

[2063] I do too.

[2064] It's my favorite thing.

[2065] And there's a lot of exceptions to that.

[2066] If you eat ramen every day at home, you might as well eat it.

[2067] That's true.

[2068] But that's not cooking.

[2069] Like cooking your own food is so much healthier because you know exactly what you're putting in.

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] And assuming you're not cooking like Paula Dean or something.

[2072] That's true.

[2073] But it's harder to do that.

[2074] Like if you're the one putting the stick of butter in, it's, yeah.

[2075] It really is hard to do.

[2076] Absolutely.

[2077] And you have the ability to make a change on it.

[2078] Well, we have a favorite restaurant with that will remain nameless.

[2079] And they pack their ribs in fat overnight.

[2080] Yeah.

[2081] And they're the best ribs in the planet.

[2082] Now, I can go there and eat them guilt -free, but I couldn't be packing fat around ribs the night before.

[2083] I just, I couldn't do it, ethically.

[2084] I know.

[2085] Although some of these nice, fancy ramen restaurants, they're probably healthy, huh?

[2086] A little bit?

[2087] No. No, okay.

[2088] I mean, because they're putting, I mean, sure, some of these places are healthier than other places, but we just don't know what they're putting in.

[2089] Even the other day, I went to a restaurant that was so good, and I got, like, a healthy omelet.

[2090] And it was great.

[2091] And after I was like, I made a healthy choice.

[2092] But then I was like, how do I know if I made a healthy choice?

[2093] They could have put a ton of butter that I don't know.

[2094] Could have packed the eggs in fat the night before.

[2095] They probably did.

[2096] That's why I tasted so good.

[2097] Yeah.

[2098] Yeah.

[2099] Well, what you assume is that they just cook better than you, but that's horseshit.

[2100] They're just using way more mayonnaise and butter and all the yummy stuff.

[2101] I mean, they also cook better than you.

[2102] Yeah, they do.

[2103] But the most significant thing is how much, you know, me, healthy fats are in there.

[2104] Oh, wow.

[2105] Lots of healthy fats.

[2106] So many.

[2107] Okay.

[2108] So you mentioned the wheat revolution.

[2109] We've talked a little bit about this before.

[2110] But that is also called the Green Revolution or Third Agriculture Revolution.

[2111] A set of research technology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly at the late 1960s.

[2112] The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including high -yielding varieties of cereals, especially dwarf wheats and rices, in association with chemical fertilizers and agrochemicals and with controlled water supply and new methods of cultivation, including mechanization.

[2113] All of these together were seen as a package of practices to supersede traditional technology and to be adopted as a whole.

[2114] And then, you know, Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, credited for saving over a billion people from starvation.

[2115] And his whole thing was wheat, right?

[2116] Yeah, that's what this whole thing is, yeah.

[2117] Because I think we love to vilify.

[2118] It's so easy and fun and natural.

[2119] But the big agriculture is just more complicated than there's evil Monso, which, of course, maybe they have some evil practices.

[2120] That's probably true.

[2121] but 7 billion people feeding them it might be impossible to do in an ideal way so you like I've in the past been a little frustrated when people when there's an oil spill and there's this crazy outrage to the company right again I hate oil spills as much as any other person does but it feels a tiny bit hypocritical that we're all using petroleum someone's going out and getting it I wish we weren't yeah but we are every single.

[2122] single person that complained drove their car that day they used plastic in their home they're using it they're using a ton of it so you can only be so outraged if you're buying the product and there's some company that has to extract it from the earth and then refine it it's not a perfect process it sucks that that's going to happen but it's going to happen until we stop consuming it so i just i feel like some of it to me treads a little into hypocrisy yes i see what you're saying but also no because if you're outraged by the oil spill and you also feel like we are way too tied to oil in this country, but yes, I'm going to drive my car because I have no other option.

[2123] But you can't, I don't think you can make a villain of the person supplying the thing you want.

[2124] I don't want that.

[2125] I want every car to be electric, and to be a widespread situation where that's easy.

[2126] But that's not the scenario of the country.

[2127] So.

[2128] Yeah, but then I guess why not be mad at battery technology?

[2129] you why not be mad at the many roadblocks of making great electric cars available for $20 ,000.

[2130] You know, be mad at those things.

[2131] The fact that someone's supplying a need in the market, I just, I don't understand.

[2132] But they're also, they're part of the reason that there's a need.

[2133] Well, what I think you can be really mad about, justifiably, is them lobbying to roadblock green technology.

[2134] That's what I mean.

[2135] That's worth being really mad about.

[2136] Right.

[2137] But finding out that an oil tanker crashed at some point, oil tankers are going to crash.

[2138] If you ship billions and billions and billions of barrels of oil around the world, you're going to have spillage.

[2139] There's no version where you don't have that.

[2140] I guess I just don't think you maintain the right to be that critical of it while using it is my issue.

[2141] Now, you can be critical of them roadblocking new technology.

[2142] I think that's, I think you're on solid footing for that argument.

[2143] I just don't think you can be like, guzzling your can a beer and also criticizing Budweiser.

[2144] You know, it just seems a little hypocritical to me. A civilian can't make that decision every day.

[2145] It's up to the government and bigger in legislation and all of these things to actually make change about it.

[2146] So I think people can be upset because they're sort of the small guy.

[2147] Why at Exxon or Standard or BP?

[2148] Because they're doing everything they can to prevent change.

[2149] What if they weren't lobbying?

[2150] Let's say that we made that illegal for them to lobby.

[2151] And all they were doing was providing oil.

[2152] Yeah, I mean.

[2153] How can you be mad at someone that's providing a need the consumers demanded?

[2154] Well, they're demanding it because there's the need.

[2155] But what if they were all just like, okay, you're right, we're evil.

[2156] We stop.

[2157] The world would collapse.

[2158] It really would at this point.

[2159] The world would collapse.

[2160] Well, not if it was a slow process of moving towards different greener, cleaner technologies.

[2161] If they put all their personnel and all their resources into...

[2162] But that's not what business they're in.

[2163] You can't ask them to be in a business they're not in.

[2164] They're in the business of getting oil out of the ground, which is hard to do.

[2165] And they've perfected over the last 150 years that system.

[2166] They're not Elon Musk.

[2167] They're not at the forefront of electrical motors and in...

[2168] battery technology.

[2169] So it's just, I don't know why we think we could expect them to be a company they're not.

[2170] But do you think that about coal?

[2171] 100%.

[2172] I'm not mad at coal miners.

[2173] I'm not mad at coal producers.

[2174] I am mad that we still consume coal.

[2175] That's when I'm mad at.

[2176] I'm mad at us.

[2177] That's the exact thing I'm saying.

[2178] No. Everyone in America likes to have it both ways.

[2179] They want to hate the oil company and then use oil.

[2180] And I'm saying, I'm mad that we use coal.

[2181] I'm mad that we use oil.

[2182] I'm not mad at the people supplying the thing we need.

[2183] Well, I'm not mad at the people working there.

[2184] No, but the company as a whole, their whole point of them, I don't like, and I cannot like that and drive my car and wish that I was driving a different car, that all the cars on the road were we were able to.

[2185] Yes.

[2186] So the point that, yes, you can wish you weren't driving an oil.

[2187] a car.

[2188] I drive a hybrid, but yeah.

[2189] Yeah.

[2190] That often runs on gas.

[2191] Yeah, half the time or however much, yeah.

[2192] Also, the, the electricity that's driving the car is being produced by coal fire plants most often.

[2193] Yeah.

[2194] I know.

[2195] It all needs to change.

[2196] I love it if all of it changed.

[2197] I do too.

[2198] Yeah.

[2199] I'm not asking you to not.

[2200] I'm not asking anyone to not love that, want that, and wish they weren't doing it.

[2201] Yeah.

[2202] I don't understand why you're mad at the people supplying the thing you are, using it's like being mad at the drug producers and not the drug addicts yeah but it would be helpful if those people weren't doing that see i know i never agree with that i never agree that you're going to attack the drug problem in the world by getting rid of the growers it doesn't work you can hopefully get rid of the demand you won't get rid of the supply yeah it's less less self -responsible to ask, you know what, I can't stop taking drugs.

[2203] So I want everyone on the planet to agree they're not going to grow anymore.

[2204] That's a total lack of self -responsibility, in my opinion.

[2205] But it's, well, first of all, this is not an exact analogy because you can live without drugs.

[2206] You can live, we can't live right now without oil.

[2207] You could.

[2208] People are doing it.

[2209] It's not how I want to live.

[2210] I mean, you can't live and be thriving without it.

[2211] I don't think currently.

[2212] Maybe depending on where you live.

[2213] All that to say, even if I concede to you that you have to have it, it's not the fault of the people producing the thing.

[2214] You could be mad at your government for not incentivizing.

[2215] Okay, great.

[2216] Be mad at your government.

[2217] Yeah.

[2218] They are in charge of protecting this country.

[2219] There's some social responsibility that's okay for us to expect from humans and companies.

[2220] There's a responsibility that's not by law.

[2221] or maybe it's not black and white clear, but we should be hopefully doing what we can to move forward in a better way, all of us all the time.

[2222] So, yes, the person providing the drugs, sure, it's not their fault that there are drug addicts, but are they helping the problem or hurting the problem?

[2223] They're hurting it.

[2224] What I'm saying is, do you think the drug addict has a right to be mad and hate the drug cartel that's producing the cocaine?

[2225] I think that's hugely hypocritical, personally.

[2226] Yeah, I mean, I think there's personal responsibility and I think there's social responsibility.

[2227] I think both things should be happening at the same time.

[2228] What is it?

[2229] Should they stop getting it out?

[2230] I mean, I'm asking a sincere, not a leading question.

[2231] I'm not trying to trap you.

[2232] What would their responsible ethical thing to do as an oil company?

[2233] I think it's like coal.

[2234] I think there needs to be some realization on both of those levels that this is something we need to move away from.

[2235] And stop acting like this is a technology that's still important and we're holding on to it.

[2236] So what would they do with that info?

[2237] So let's say they say, yes, we agree.

[2238] So don't you think the only thing for them to do in this scenario you've set up is they go, okay, well, you're right.

[2239] We'll stop drilling for oil.

[2240] I think there should maybe be a plan in place of over the next 50 years or whatever.

[2241] Yeah, we're going to slowly get to a point where oil production.

[2242] in this country stops.

[2243] Yeah, I just want to be clear, though, but that, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, a company should act in a policy that puts them out of business.

[2244] Well, that says, we're going to slowly go out of business because it's the ethical thing to do, which that's a fine opinion.

[2245] I think tied with the government, there should be some plans in place for moving to away from these archaic ways that we.

[2246] I think that's the government's job.

[2247] Well, I do too.

[2248] I do too.

[2249] But I think the reason, part of the reason the government doesn't make those actions is because they're also tied to these companies.

[2250] Yeah, they're taking money from them.

[2251] Yeah.

[2252] That part I despise.

[2253] So, right.

[2254] So they're not like not do.

[2255] But you're saying it's fine because they're just trying to keep their business going.

[2256] Yeah, they're a business that takes oil out of the ground and sells it to people.

[2257] That's what they are.

[2258] They're not a government.

[2259] They're not a club.

[2260] They're nothing other than a business designed solely with the intent of pulling oil out of the ground and giving it to the consumer.

[2261] So I don't think they're the people we should be looking towards to get rid of pulling oil from the ground.

[2262] I just think it's very naive and simplistic and not going to result in anything.

[2263] Like I don't think people out front of BP with signs, you know, down with BP, I don't think that is going to work.

[2264] is getting us anywhere, no. Yeah, I don't think so either.

[2265] But unfortunately, what also is not, they are and that doesn't work either.

[2266] So I think people just don't know how to handle this.

[2267] And they're frustrated.

[2268] They're frustrated because they are driving cars and wish they weren't and it's a problem, you know.

[2269] I mean, yeah, sure.

[2270] They're just meeting a need.

[2271] That's true, too.

[2272] But companies need to take on some level of social responsibility.

[2273] Well, we really got bogged down and I liked it.

[2274] Did you like it?

[2275] Yeah.

[2276] You like arguing with me less and less.

[2277] talked about that the other day.

[2278] No, I like arguing with you still.

[2279] I just, it feels different than it used to feel.

[2280] That's all.

[2281] Oh, really?

[2282] A little bit.

[2283] Yeah, a little bit.

[2284] Do you think I've painted you into a, like a symbol of the far left or something?

[2285] Is that what you think I've done?

[2286] Maybe.

[2287] Yeah, I, I don't know.

[2288] I feel like when we used to argue, it was just for stimulation.

[2289] And now it doesn't feel like that anymore.

[2290] It feels like the points maybe, yeah, yeah, it maybe feels like there's some character assessment happening based on these, which I don't feel like used to be the case.

[2291] But so we, so last night we debated a bunch and then even right before we got here, we debated a bunch about an amazing documentary.

[2292] We just got to see Aaron Lee Carr's new documentary.

[2293] It's not out yet, but it's about Michelle Carter, Carter, the woman who was texting the young boy.

[2294] To kill himself.

[2295] To kill himself.

[2296] My assessment of of last nights and just before we got here was awesome in the old kind of arguing.

[2297] Would you agree?

[2298] Uh -huh.

[2299] I would.

[2300] Yeah.

[2301] And I think what's different about that and what we just talked about is there isn't a political element to that documentary, really.

[2302] So, yeah, you're, yeah, political, I guess, right, but still very ethical and moral conversation.

[2303] Yes, but we're just kind of assessing, like, who's responsible, who do we think is responsible?

[2304] What should someone be responsible for all that?

[2305] Yeah.

[2306] If to me feels apolitical.

[2307] Sure.

[2308] That's true.

[2309] Yeah.

[2310] And so I'm sensing that maybe first and foremost, we didn't have a ton of political.

[2311] Somehow having this many conversations on the podcast, inevitably many politically charged topics have come up.

[2312] Sure.

[2313] But this one isn't really.

[2314] It is.

[2315] To me, I think I'm basically calling people who drive and say they hate.

[2316] B .P. Hypocrats.

[2317] But that's, that's clearly a leftist thing.

[2318] Like, there's no one on the far right.

[2319] There's no one in the Tea Party calling BP the devil.

[2320] So it's implicitly a little bit political, you know?

[2321] Yeah.

[2322] And then I think you and I are circling something where we're discovering you're more left than I'm left, which is totally fine.

[2323] And so maybe when it's that that we're not sharing an identity anymore, it's a little more threatened.

[2324] I mean, I'm just trying to figure out really what it is, because I agree with you.

[2325] Sometimes the debates are more personal than they should be, I guess.

[2326] And I'm arguing maybe because our uranize identities are somehow involved in these conversations on some level where they're not with the Michelle Carter thing.

[2327] Yeah, I think a main thing is we're just closer.

[2328] So everything's more personal.

[2329] I think we did great with Michelle Carter.

[2330] We had like really different opinions at different times.

[2331] By the way, what was really fun is our opinions were changing a lot during watching the documentary.

[2332] I think also ultimately we have the same opinion about that.

[2333] Michelle?

[2334] Yeah.

[2335] So maybe that's also what it is.

[2336] Like we're happy to debate all the things.

[2337] But we used to, I think, have pretty much the same opinion on everything.

[2338] Yeah.

[2339] Or but even starting with Adon, which we didn't have the same.

[2340] opinion.

[2341] That's true.

[2342] We weirdly, yes, but it wasn't, again, that too was, in my opinion, very apolitical.

[2343] Probably.

[2344] Yeah, maybe it's just the political element, but I don't like that because the whole, you know, something that we say on here and what I want to be true and is true, I think, is you can have different opinions and that's okay.

[2345] Yeah.

[2346] So I want that to be the case when we have different opinions.

[2347] I do too.

[2348] So.

[2349] And I think it would be, but I do think it would be, but I do think it would be helpful for us to have as a red flag for ourselves internally when we're getting upset just questioning oh is this somehow maybe tied to my identity and do I feel like if we have different identities we can't be sympathico and best friends and love each other yeah when it's an identity thing we can have different opinions on stuff that is unrelated to identity like I don't consider myself I'm dach shepherd I'm a macaroni and cheese lover that's just not what so if you You do or don't like macaroni and cheese, it's not going to affect me because I don't actually define myself as, you know, Dach Shepherd, that macaroni and cheese lover.

[2350] Right.

[2351] Right.

[2352] You do love macaroni and cheese.

[2353] Oh, I love it.

[2354] Well, we both do, though.

[2355] Yeah, we can agree on that.

[2356] Yeah.

[2357] Well, speaking of that, this doctor's diet.

[2358] So the food, the food when we used to eat every Wednesday together when you would make different meals, that was called this doctor's diet.

[2359] Dr .'s first worst superfood cleanse.

[2360] Yes.

[2361] Because, but right before that, you did an actual cleanse.

[2362] You ate nothing but broccoli and spinach for a few days.

[2363] Yeah.

[2364] And that was called this doctor's first superfood cleanse.

[2365] Yes.

[2366] And you were inventing it and you were this doctor.

[2367] Yeah.

[2368] We worked on the title quite a bit.

[2369] Yeah.

[2370] But then you dropped that.

[2371] I sure did.

[2372] And then we decided to bring in some old meals of yours.

[2373] and that was called this doctor's first worst super food plant.

[2374] And it was so tasty.

[2375] Let's try to make it an annual event.

[2376] Oh, I love that.

[2377] Yeah, let's pick a month.

[2378] Maybe summer feels fun because we could eat on the patio.

[2379] Yeah.

[2380] Hmm.

[2381] Yeah, you make some good tasty treats.

[2382] Maybe you'd want to do three offerings, too.

[2383] I would like that.

[2384] Sure.

[2385] I can do that.

[2386] Yeah, that would be fun.

[2387] They're not going to be as fun because I'll just be like looking up recipe.

[2388] Like, I don't have.

[2389] You don't have go -to stand -bys?

[2390] No, I don't have go -to.

[2391] two standbys and they're definitely not worse soup or foods.

[2392] But I could find some.

[2393] But you did make a soup the other day you loved.

[2394] Like I'd like to try that soup.

[2395] Oh, sure.

[2396] Yeah.

[2397] I can, I can do some stuff too.

[2398] Make some things happen.

[2399] I will.

[2400] Anyway.

[2401] Oh, okay.

[2402] So you said UCLA had a grade point average of 4 .09 when you went there.

[2403] Problem is I asked you when you graduated after I looked this up and I didn't have time to go back and change it.

[2404] So I looked up for 1999.

[2405] And you went in 1998.

[2406] Yeah, yeah.

[2407] So it might not be right.

[2408] But the average GPA for the class for the high school class going in was a 4 .23.

[2409] Oh, my God.

[2410] Even worse.

[2411] Yeah, weighted, but weighted.

[2412] And 3 .77 unweighted.

[2413] And weighted is when they take into account your AP and things like that where they have points and stuff.

[2414] Right, right, right, right.

[2415] Because you can have above a 4 .0 because of that.

[2416] that's why it's 4 .2.

[2417] Right.

[2418] But like your average person took a bunch of AP classes and got A's in them is crazy.

[2419] Well, not really because just someone who did those classes, you get 10 points added to your grade.

[2420] So you could get an 80.

[2421] Oh, really?

[2422] Oh.

[2423] Which, yeah.

[2424] Okay.

[2425] Well, but you'd have to get it a hundred to go above four.

[2426] Yeah.

[2427] Yeah.

[2428] Yeah, that's kind of.

[2429] what I mean.

[2430] Like you, you probably got A's in those AP classes.

[2431] And they got extra.

[2432] Yeah, probably did.

[2433] Yes.

[2434] And then 3 .77 unweighted, which is still, that's on a regular 4 .0 scale.

[2435] Right.

[2436] And probably AP classes, to your point, that you've got to be in.

[2437] No, I don't think that takes into account classes that you have extra points.

[2438] That's like, that counts as the 80.

[2439] Okay.

[2440] Okay.

[2441] The average weighted GPA of admitted applicants this past 2018, was 4 .31.

[2442] Oh, Jesus, it's gotten worse.

[2443] And average unweighted GBA was 3 .9.

[2444] Oh, you can't even do that.

[2445] Average ACT score was 31, and average LASAT score was 1370.

[2446] Jeez, Louise.

[2447] But is 1370 on the new SAT?

[2448] Oh, I don't know.

[2449] It's like out of 20.

[2450] It's out of 1 ,600, isn't it?

[2451] That's the old, and maybe they could, maybe that's back.

[2452] Yeah, I never knew it changed.

[2453] It changed to like a, they added a ride.

[2454] section.

[2455] So then it was out of, I think, 2 ,200 or 2 ,100 or something.

[2456] I would have liked that.

[2457] That's what I said.

[2458] I used to say that.

[2459] That would have helped me, but I don't know.

[2460] I think so.

[2461] You're a great writer.

[2462] Thank you.

[2463] You are too.

[2464] And I'm a good writer.

[2465] You're a great writer.

[2466] You're a good great writer.

[2467] Okay.

[2468] She said she thought the day we recorded this was Emily Dickinson's Death Day, which was, we recorded it Wednesday, which was the 15th.

[2469] And it was May 15th.

[2470] She was right.

[2471] She was right, but she said 200 years, and it was 133 years ago.

[2472] Oh, same thing.

[2473] Similar.

[2474] She's off by 67 years.

[2475] Similar.

[2476] I couldn't find any information about her having an imaginary love affair with the gardener.

[2477] You couldn't?

[2478] No, but she was a recluse.

[2479] Yeah, I learned that in a lit class.

[2480] I didn't see anything like that, but they don't really know.

[2481] That's the problem because they didn't, she wasn't famous back then.

[2482] So they didn't know.

[2483] They're only making conjecture about things off of her part.

[2484] poems and stuff like who okay she used to wear only white dresses after a certain point and then she would just stay in her broom and what year oh 137 years she's been dead 33 well 133 years ago she died oh 133 years ago she died so 14 okay so she died then in 1886 okay so let's say how old was she when she died that I don't know let's say she was 50 just for shits and giggies oh god no I bet she was like older no i think she was young oh okay all right so let's say she was 30 had a lot of ailments okay so let's just say she was born then in 1856 for fun okay um why was i trying to figure out when she i don't know oh i know exactly why i was wondering because that much isolation and seclusion i was wondering if she was addicted to any drugs oh because they pair isolation and drugs pair so nicely.

[2485] Maybe.

[2486] There was a, there was a very significant part of the population that was addicted to opium.

[2487] Right.

[2488] Because it was in all the cure -alls that they sold town to town.

[2489] Sure.

[2490] She was born in 1830.

[2491] Oh my God.

[2492] You were right.

[2493] Your instinct was right.

[2494] Wow.

[2495] I thought she died really young because she had all this.

[2496] Tragic.

[2497] Yeah.

[2498] And she had all these like problems.

[2499] I think she had a lot of sicknesses.

[2500] And she feels young.

[2501] too she's living in her bedroom at her parents house you don't think of a 56 year old doing yeah she had some arrested development for sure do you mention the uh competition the wine competition between oxford and cambridge that is on hbo real sports crap i got a call i almost feel like i should call that restaurant in new york and tell that semi yeah probably um does marble have antiseptic properties the truth about marble is that it has anti -microbial and antibacterial properties that other countertop materials do not have.

[2502] Nice.

[2503] And I don't think it's like that strong.

[2504] Like I think it just has like some property.

[2505] I can't build a marble box and keep all our frozen goods in there.

[2506] Well, you could try it.

[2507] She was saying in Italy that whole thing.

[2508] It sounds like the back fat or something.

[2509] Yeah.

[2510] I want that.

[2511] I don't know.

[2512] Where did we just, we learned this together.

[2513] Didn't we high on the hog?

[2514] That expression high on the hog.

[2515] I've been saying it for 44 years.

[2516] I didn't know where it came from, and I learned it a few weeks ago.

[2517] And it's that the meat higher on the hog was the more expensive meat.

[2518] I'm on fat.

[2519] It's on her documentary.

[2520] Oh, okay, okay.

[2521] It's in the fat episode, Italy episode.

[2522] Oh, right.

[2523] So I felt like it was tied to her high on the hog.

[2524] And then it was.

[2525] Watch that documentary series.

[2526] It's so good.

[2527] It is.

[2528] I'm going to watch it again.

[2529] I know.

[2530] Me too.

[2531] You know what I would really like to do is plan a trip to Italy.

[2532] sure and then watch it just before we love oh and then get really amped up I'd love that yeah in the meantime we can um watch it while you make your pasta or your spaghetti you have a couple pasta spaghetti dishes maybe I'll make um I'll make grandma yolis's the whole five hour deal oh wow it won't be as good as the one I make but it'll be unique and worth it okay yeah thanks she didn't look like your grandma but she had double master's degree I'm really proud of her yeah you should be yeah um I love you love you.

[2533] And I'm committed to figuring out how we can talk peacefully about our different opinions.

[2534] Well, we do a good job.

[2535] Yeah, but I'm committed to being better at it.

[2536] Okay, me too.

[2537] Okay.

[2538] I love you.

[2539] Bye.

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