Episode 414 - Alex Guarnaschelli
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuck aristas all right how are you i am mark maron this is wtf thank you for joining me on the show thank you today is an exciting show for me because i'm talking to a chef and i like chefs and i like cooking and i like this chef
Marc:I really like her because, as you know, I watch Chopped a lot.
Marc:I enjoy the show.
Marc:It moves me emotionally.
Marc:It makes me excited about the process of cooking.
Marc:And I learn things, I think.
Marc:But Alex Guarnicelli...
Marc:She's the Iron Chef and she's the new American Iron Chef and she's a regular on Chopped.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, initially I didn't like her so much because I thought she was snotty and a little difficult.
Marc:But then I got to watch her cook and there's a vulnerability to that that just made me love her and I've grown to love her.
Marc:I love Alex, and she's going to talk to me today.
Marc:And she came over to my house, and because I watched so much shop, she walked in, and it was like an old friend.
Marc:It was bizarre.
Marc:And I never really felt that with a guest before.
Marc:I was just like, oh, there's Alex.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Sure, we know each other.
Marc:It must have felt the way people feel about me sometimes.
Marc:After listening to my show so much, but she is so sharp and she grew up in New York City.
Marc:She's got that edge to her.
Marc:She's funny.
Marc:I dug it.
Marc:How much smoke do I got to blow here?
Marc:I had a great time at this interview and you're going to listen to it in a minute.
Marc:I want to tell you some stuff.
Marc:Some big things happened last week.
Marc:A big thing happened last week and I'm going to talk about it, but I do want to give you a heads up to something else here.
Marc:I kind of want to make this a regular thing.
Marc:Here's the deal.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But here's the deal.
Marc:If you upgrade to the premium app, you can access every single episode of WTF.
Marc:That's all 400 plus episodes.
Marc:You can get the app at WTFPod.com and click on the WTF app link and go to your preferred app store and get the WTF app.
Marc:I just want to give people a heads up to this because it's really the most efficient way to get the show.
Marc:And it's also the easiest way to get all the shows if you want to listen to every one of them with the upgrade.
Marc:And also, occasionally, I put some premium member-only content on there, and we might be doing more of that in the future.
Marc:So that's a perk.
Marc:I just want to get people used to maybe doing the app as the primary source of getting the show.
Marc:Okay, enough said.
Marc:Now, what else?
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:Justcoffee.coop.
Marc:Haven't done that in a while.
Marc:Don't have to do it.
Marc:Do it because I want to.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:What have I got coming up?
Marc:I'll tell you what I've got coming up.
Marc:I am going to be at Wise Guys in Salt Lake City, West Valley City, actually, Utah, Saturday, August 17th for one night.
Marc:OK, and I'm going to be in Denver at the Comedy Works Friday, August 23rd and Saturday, August 24th for four shows.
Marc:I'm going to be up at Bumper Shoot.
Marc:Sorry, Cleveland had to cancel hilarities because I need the weekdays to work on my new show.
Marc:I will reschedule.
Marc:I can only do two days away right now.
Marc:September 21st, I'm going to be at the Rochester Fringe Festival with the hilarious Nate Bargetze.
Marc:All right.
Marc:OK, that's it.
Marc:Onward into other things.
Marc:Here's the deal, people, and I love you all.
Marc:I had 14 years sober on Friday, August 9th, last Friday, 14 years sober and clean, 14 years of not wondering, hey, where the fuck am I?
Marc:Who's that?
Marc:What happened in here?
Marc:What the hell?
Marc:Why is there stuff all over the floor?
Marc:None of that.
Marc:No waking up and piecing together events of the evening.
Marc:Maybe some of them.
Marc:No sort of flashing back to making people upset.
Marc:No hangovers.
Marc:No hating myself more than I hate myself usually.
Marc:No more staying up for three days on end.
Marc:No more talking to people for 15 hours that I wouldn't talk to for five minutes because they had blow.
Marc:No more hurting people and not knowing that I hurt people.
Marc:No more driving under the influence.
Marc:I mean, there's a big list of shit.
Marc:I don't want to preach.
Marc:I got no, I'm not proselytizing.
Marc:I don't, you know, I don't recommend sobriety for everyone.
Marc:Those of you who know you need to get sober, know who you are.
Marc:You can fight it all you want.
Marc:I can only say my experience.
Marc:The first few years were fucking horrendous.
Marc:I was out of my mind.
Marc:People ask me how I did it.
Marc:And I will say openly, even though I may not be, I may not, I'm not supposed to say it necessarily, but I went to AA.
Marc:I went to meetings and I listened and I got the shit beaten out of my brain with that stuff.
Marc:And I made it my own and integrated the thoughts of that program into my own brain.
Marc:I don't speak for the program at all.
Marc:But at the beginning, I went to two or three meetings every fucking day for a year until because that was all I had to do is all I wanted to do is I had to get sober and I got sober.
Marc:And I stayed sober somehow.
Marc:Look, I know that this podcast helps people with this stuff, and I can't say that my life is better because of sobriety.
Marc:Only you can decide whether you're fucked up.
Marc:And here's how you know if you're fucked up, is if you wake up every day and you go, God damn it, I'm fucked up again.
Marc:Today I'm going to not get fucked up.
Marc:And then you end up getting fucked up.
Marc:Then you're fucked up.
Marc:Unmanageability.
Marc:That's the core of the issue.
Marc:There's a lot of people that are functional alcoholics out there.
Marc:God bless you.
Marc:A lot of people who love the booze, love the drugs.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Have a great time.
Marc:Got no judgment.
Marc:I miss them myself.
Marc:But if you want to stop and you can't stop, then you're fucked up.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's the whole that is the crux of it.
Marc:If you wonder whether or not you have a drug or alcohol problem is if you're fucked up and you want to not be fucked up and you can't stop getting fucked up.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Do whatever you got to do.
Marc:There's other ways to get sober.
Marc:You can white knuckle it.
Marc:There's some other sober programs out there.
Marc:Whatever you got to do.
Marc:All I'm telling you is it's fucking hard.
Marc:For about a year to five years.
Marc:And then you finally get your shit together enough to get the hang of being sober.
Marc:And then you just sort of live with the aggravation of it.
Marc:And I know some of you are out there thinking like, but dude, you drink a lot of coffee.
Marc:You're not in a lot of nicotine lozenges.
Marc:Well, here's my answer to that.
Marc:I am a compulsive, addictive person.
Marc:I also have a fucking tremendous eating disorder and complete body dysmorphia and I eat compulsively.
Marc:What else do I do?
Marc:I probably masturbate more than I need to.
Marc:Yeah, I got a lot of compulsive problems, but I'll tell you what, I'm not going to masturbate myself into a brick wall or into a tree or into a gunfight.
Marc:I'm not going to do nicotine lozenges and black out for six hours.
Marc:I'm not going to do nicotine lozenges and get into a fight with somebody.
Marc:It's relative.
Marc:Yeah, I have an addictive personality, no doubt.
Marc:Do I self-medicate?
Marc:Fuck yes, I do.
Marc:Am I fucked up on booze and drugs?
Marc:No.
Marc:Are the things that I'm doing relatively safer than booze and drugs and not that mind-altering?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You draw your own lines, people.
Marc:You know who you are.
Marc:If you're fucked up and you want to stop being fucked up and you can't stop being fucked up, you got a problem.
Marc:All I can say is what worked for me.
Marc:I know a lot of people, they go to the things and they're like, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:There's a lot of God.
Marc:All right, well then scratch God.
Marc:Lose God.
Marc:Take what you need.
Marc:Figure it out.
Marc:It's possible.
Marc:Am I happier?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Am I more productive?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Am I more happy?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Did it take a long fucking time?
Marc:Here's the deal.
Marc:When you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, obviously you have a tremendous amount of discomfort with you.
Marc:Yes, that's you.
Marc:Sitting with you.
Marc:Very difficult.
Marc:Frightening stuff.
Marc:Accepting you.
Marc:Horrendous.
Marc:Who would want to accept this guy?
Marc:Who would want to accept me?
Marc:I certainly don't.
Marc:Fuck me.
Marc:Fuck that.
Marc:I'm going to fucking drink onto that.
Marc:Yeah, hell yeah.
Marc:Now I can accept me because now I'm cool.
Marc:I'm loose.
Marc:I'm good.
Marc:Look at me making people cry and hurting myself.
Marc:It's no minor feat, 14 years sober or one day sober.
Marc:And if you got a problem, there's help out there for you.
Marc:That's what I'm going to tell you.
Marc:I've kind of given you a hint at what it is.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:But I got 14 fucking years sober last week.
Marc:Hallelujah.
Marc:Not going to say it's a miracle, but it kind of is.
Marc:Not a real miracle guy.
Marc:There's a lot of hard work and a lot of self-acceptance.
Marc:And I'll be honest with you, after a few years...
Marc:The obsession goes away.
Marc:You don't get that hunger, but you never know when it can come back.
Marc:Do I miss the drugs?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do I miss smoking weed every day?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Do I miss the cocaine?
Marc:Not so much.
Marc:Do I miss a cold beer?
Marc:Yes, sometimes.
Marc:Do I crave it with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul to where I know in my heart and mind and soul it is the only thing that is gonna make me feel whole and feel better and feel connected to the world and to others?
Marc:No, I do not feel that.
Marc:Am I grateful that I do not feel that anymore?
Marc:Oh, fuck yes.
Marc:It got ugly at the end.
Marc:It got ugly.
Marc:Doesn't need to.
Marc:That's all I'm telling you.
Marc:There's help out there.
Marc:I will tell you this.
Marc:I was supposed to do Celebrity Chop, but because the production of my second season of Marin got underway, I had to cancel it.
Marc:I was going to do it.
Marc:I was mentally preparing for it.
Marc:I was mentally preparing to lose in the first round.
Marc:I was going to do it.
Marc:I was excited about it, nervous about it, and then I had to cancel it.
Marc:So I was close.
Marc:It might happen in the future.
Marc:All right, enough.
Marc:Let's talk food.
Marc:Let's talk cooking.
Marc:Let's talk about being a chef and other things with Alex Guarnicelli now.
Marc:Someone painted that.
Marc:And then there was wood burnings.
Marc:And then there's...
Guest:It seems like people have, there's a ritual designed around the gifts, you know, as if they have to give a little DNA or a chunk of flesh or a toenail in order to say how devoted they are to you.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm very flattered by it, and it's pretty amazing to me.
Marc:Like, I drew a picture of John Lennon once when I was in high school, and it took a lot of time, but I was into it.
Marc:For them to do that with me, it's overwhelmingly, I don't know, it's humbling somehow.
Yeah.
Guest:I made a wreath of herbs.
Guest:I spent three days when I lived in Burgundy.
Guest:I made a wreath of herbs from the garden we weren't allowed to pick, and I scaled the wall in the middle of the night, and I made this wreath of bay leaves and rosemary and thyme and mint and all this stuff, and I wove it for three days, having never done anything like this in my life, and then took the train to Paris with it and walked up to Joël Robuchon's Restaurant Chamin on the Rue de Longchamp,
Guest:And knocked on the door before dinner service.
Guest:And the maitre d' answered the door and just said, hello.
Guest:And I said, this is for Monsieur Robuchon because I think he's amazing.
Guest:And the guy said, I hope this isn't a bomb.
Guest:And I said, no, made of Badeleaf's Harley.
Guest:But I think there was something really like to make a wreath and get on the train.
Guest:I mean, that was...
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This feels like that.
Marc:It has that same devoted energy to it.
Marc:It's a ritual and a respectful thing.
Guest:I like it.
Marc:And something comes from your heart.
Guest:I mean, I'm going to be mailing you, I don't know, a leg hair or a bang, a piece of my bangs.
Guest:Can you do it?
Guest:How about a cake?
Guest:A chunk of cake.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Something that will travel, like one of those weird Italian holiday cakes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:What's that called?
Marc:There's so many.
Guest:There's a torta di ricotta, which we often have at Christmas.
Marc:That won't travel, though, right?
Guest:Not even remotely.
Guest:Barely travels from the plate to the mouth.
Marc:People bring me food all the time.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:No, let me make sure I say your last name right.
Marc:Alex Guarnicelli?
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:See, I feel like I know you.
Marc:You walk into my house, and we literally, Jessica and I watched Chopped constantly.
Marc:We were with you through the whole Iron Chef ordeal.
Guest:Oh, my.
Guest:That was really something.
Marc:But I'll tell you something weird is that the familiarity, and I know TV people and I know people who act in comedy and stuff, they spend a lot of time in here.
Marc:But there's something about, and I talked to Scott Conant too about this.
Marc:So with Scott, I never seen that guy cook.
Marc:and and like you know i'd see him on the show and be like all right this guy's got a lot of attitude but where's the where's his vulnerability where's his heart because you don't see that and like when i saw you cook i was like oh my god alex is upset i'm bleeding yeah i really
Guest:know i knew how to drag it out i mean some people said did you lose next iron chef the first time so that you could do it again and put us through that yeah many people have said that i mean i definitely i made all the classics mistakes that you tell yourself when you're a professional you're not going to make i drop my food and water you know oh that was horrible yeah yeah that was all really just kind of i just thought you know i couldn't have made better tv if i actually tried that didn't happen on purpose
Guest:No, not even remotely.
Guest:I can't even tell you.
Guest:You know those moments where you feel so panicked that you have to say to your brain, I'm going to actually have to think about breathing in and out now because if I don't, I'm going to stop and fall over.
Guest:I think that was up there.
Marc:But also, people's interaction when they're cooking, when they're handling food, and when they're in it, it's very vulnerable.
Guest:You know, Alton Brown, this past season of Next Iron Chef, had one of those little cameras.
Guest:And so while they were filming us cooking, he came around with this little camera and, you know, would poke it at you and you'd be prepping.
Guest:And it made me realize that I was panting like a dog.
Guest:And that I couldn't peel a clove of garlic because I was trembling.
Guest:And I thought, you know, that made me realize just what a visceral experience I had.
Guest:I mean, those 45 minute, half an hour, one hour cooking interludes on those shows, particularly Next Iron Chef, are they take years off your life and you can feel the life dripping off you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Hopefully into the food.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But off and on to the beach or the parking lot or wherever it is that the sun is beating down on you.
Guest:You're wearing the wrong sunglasses.
Guest:The sunblock is burning your eyes and melting into some vague semblance of eyeliner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the whole nine.
Guest:It's just all there.
Marc:But how important, like Iron Chef now, I mean, is this the same as winning like a James Beard, you know, award?
Marc:I mean, like, is it an event that people engage with on TV?
Marc:I know that the Food Network has made a big difference.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But I mean, in the world of chefs is Iron Chef.
Guest:Not even really.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:Well, in some ways, I think it's so important.
Guest:And I think for people, you know, my age, my generation of chefs, we've watched Iron Chef for years.
Marc:Before anyone else did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's been on for a long time.
Guest:I've always watched it.
Guest:I sort of liken it to, you know, in Bull Durham.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When Kevin Costner says, you know, you're going to I was in the show.
Guest:I just think I want to be in the show.
Guest:So, you know, honesty, I just did it for myself.
Guest:I didn't do it to get money, to get anything.
Guest:I thought, I just really want to be an Iron Chef.
Guest:This is just something like on my epitaph, you know, daughter, mother, Iron Chef, that just has the right music to it.
Marc:But it also gets you, it garners a lot of respect.
Marc:I mean, you're being judged by peers.
Marc:I mean, Jeffrey's no slouch.
Marc:I mean, to have him sitting there, and that must have been nerve-wracking because he's sort of anal and...
Guest:He's really, you know, he's very buttoned up, but the thing that was hard is, I mean, I went through the competition with him the first time.
Guest:I did his battles with him when he won Iron Chef.
Guest:I did his first six with him as one of his sous chefs.
Marc:Right, I remember that.
Guest:And that was really funny.
Marc:Did he pick you?
Marc:How does that work?
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:He picked me in the finale to cook for a few minutes, and then he said, you know, you want to do this?
Guest:And I said, you know, sure.
Guest:I think that's real.
Guest:I mean, I just love Kitchen Stadium.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, some things you just, some things you say, check, I'm putting this sucker on my resume.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or some things you say, check, bucket list, and I didn't even know it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then there's this other list, which is that I'm a deranged human being and that my internal value system says that this is actually what matters.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It does matter.
Guest:And to me, I don't care what anybody else thinks about whether, you know, the world changed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I'm an Iron Chef.
Guest:You know, I went into Bobby Flay's office after the first time and I said, I'm not going to do this again.
Guest:I don't have to do this again.
Guest:Right away, you know, if you turn yourself in to the Food Network police, you know what kind of response you're going to get.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He just said, you should do it for you, for validation for yourself.
Guest:He said, you should really go at this and try to win it.
Guest:And I thought, well, there is just no other, there's no need for any other reason other than that.
Marc:You said that to him after the first one?
Guest:I went in his office like, you know.
Marc:Why does he produce it?
Marc:I mean, we just went over there.
Guest:No, he's the guru on the hill for me.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, he's really turned out to be sort of a surprising out of left field mentor in terms of, you know, particularly television and stuff like that.
Guest:Because I've been cooking for years, you know, I'm really very French trained.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm still ready for more cooking mentors, but he just sort of turned out to be a horse of a different color.
Marc:And what was the surprise about him?
Guest:He gave me a real kick in the ass.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he just said, yeah, OK, I don't I'm not really drinking your Kool-Aid.
Guest:I don't really I'm not impressed.
Guest:Cry all you want on my rug.
Guest:Just don't stay in the couch on your way out, you know, with your tears and your frozen yogurt and beat it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, you know, it's kind of cool sometimes when someone says I'm not impressed with your whole act and just go in there and do this.
Marc:Well, it's very funny to me about the machismo of some of these cooks or some of these chefs.
Marc:Because Flay seems like a real bro.
Marc:But in order to be a chef, there has to be some sensitivity there.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:I think we have compassion in spite of how we're supposed to be, theoretically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think maybe compassion doesn't fit into the fantasy iconography of a chef.
Guest:You have a couple of different scenarios.
Guest:You have that image of sort of a Kris Kringle type in the back, you know, who's ladling beautiful sauce onto bread's lamb shanks.
Marc:Doesn't even talk, really.
Guest:Yeah, he's just smiling and twinkly-eyed and excited.
Guest:A mustache is key.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then you have another one which is sort of like Swiss and grumpy and military, militant or both.
Guest:And then I think you have just sort of maybe your more modern version of a chef.
Marc:The explosive coked up nut bag in the back throwing things around.
Guest:Sure, if that works for you, fine.
Guest:And I would say the ones that, Bobby Flay's one of the ones for me that really keeps it real.
Guest:He still cooks.
Guest:He's good, right?
Guest:Oh, he's such a good cook.
Guest:The first time I really met him, I randomly wound up judging some episodes of Iron Chef America a long time ago.
Guest:And the first one I judged was Battle Elk, and it was Bobby.
Guest:And I didn't really know him, and I thought, oh, no, I'm not going to like this.
Guest:And I told him this.
Guest:He made an anchovy vinaigrette for one of his courses with pomegranate and sliced elk, like a carpaccio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I ate the anchovy vinaigrette and it reminded me that in 1992, I went to his restaurant Bolo when it opened and I ate that very thing.
Guest:And I thought, this is incredible.
Guest:And I just, the food he made that day was so delicious.
Guest:And from then on, I just, you know, I have a tumbler of his Kool-Aid on my desk since then.
Marc:Yeah, but he's always like on point.
Marc:The guy, like even if you don't like him, I find that with, like even with Conan, like to me, you're sitting there with him, you guys are doing your thing.
Marc:And I'm like, God, that guy's a dick.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and he knows it.
Marc:He does it on purpose.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And then you talk to him for an hour.
Marc:He's just this big inflated marshmallow, that guy.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:I call him a Teflon donut with a cream center.
Marc:There you go.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he knows it.
Guest:He knows he's kind of- He is the first to laugh at himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which makes, you know, I don't think you get to see that when we film Chop, that he will, he'll be unabashedly himself.
Guest:And then he'll, you know, they'll say cut and he'll start laughing.
Guest:Like, what a douche I am.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and it's like, to me, it makes him utterly lovable.
Marc:All right, so I ate at your restaurant.
Marc:I went to Butter.
Marc:It was very good.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Marc:I think I had a pork chop.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It was really good.
Marc:But I'm fascinated with the work of a chef because I saw myself as doing that, but I never did it.
Marc:I think I could have done it.
Marc:I think I have a knack for it, but I didn't pursue it.
Marc:So when do you know that?
Marc:When do you know that you're going to be a chef, you personally?
Guest:I think I just want to make a comment first about temperament and wiring.
Guest:If everybody's a car, so to speak, and I think you know whether your engine is going to go that way, whether you should be gunning it down the freeway or in a supermarket parking lot.
Guest:You kind of know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I would love to tell you.
Guest:So many people say to me, oh, since I was three and I woke up and I made an egg.
Guest:Okay, I didn't have any of those moments.
Guest:I moved through my childhood with a lot of cooking and a lot of eating.
Marc:In your family because your mom was involved.
Marc:What did she do?
Marc:What were her many roles in the cooking?
Guest:Yeah, she's a cookbook editor.
Guest:Well, she's an editor of books, but she's really primarily focused on cookbooks.
Guest:And when I was a kid, I mean, she would test the manuscripts herself in addition to having a recipe tester.
Marc:And she was a good cook.
Guest:She was a good cook, but it doesn't mean everything she made was good.
Marc:Did she edit any big cookbooks that we know?
Marc:Like who?
Guest:Well, she did the 1997 revision of The Joy of Cooking.
Guest:That took almost three or four years.
Marc:Is that the last one?
Guest:No, there's been another since, but my mother's edition, as I like to put it, is still in print, which to me says a lot.
Guest:She's done a number of iconic cookbooks, Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sani.
Guest:I know that one.
Guest:The Splendid Table by Lynn Rosetto Casper.
Guest:She did all the Frugal Gourmets books.
Guest:She did Barbara Trapp's classic, The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking book.
Marc:Did she have a passion for it?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Did you ever talk to her about what does it mean to edit a cookbook other than if you're not going to trust your testers and she's going to make the recipes, was she making sure that whatever she was part of was... I think it's fascinating that you immediately think she was paranoid enough not to trust anybody, which is brilliant.
Guest:Go with that.
Guest:Run with it.
Guest:Take the ball and just go way out, will you?
Marc:A little control thing going on just to make sure that everything tested in her kitchen as well.
Guest:I think she needed to live through it or something.
Guest:I mean, you know, maybe, you know, if she were a filmmaker, it wouldn't have been enough to just direct.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She would have had to try on all the costumes and eat the crafty food and walk around in the rain and, you know, ask yourself.
Marc:And walk around the rain asking yourself what?
Guest:you know, what the hell am I doing?
Guest:Aren't we asking ourselves that every day?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like that Kubrick exhibit, I mean, you know, he may not have been eating the, you know, testing everything, but he certainly had an amazing amount of control and a very specific idea of things you would never even think were there.
Marc:You know, like colors, like working with thematic colors that had certain implications to him or were supposedly meant something and these themes.
Marc:So, I mean, I think control freak is necessary when you're doing that kind of stuff.
Marc:But I mean, she didn't write the books.
Yeah.
Guest:No, but I think Stanley Kubrick, having begun as a photographer, which I think is important, and then moving into some experiences and abandoning projects, too.
Guest:I think that that's things like that Napoleon movie and the Arians about all that research that he did, that it depressed him so that he couldn't make the movie.
Guest:So I think I would say I would liken his need for a visceral living through the movie experience...
Guest:to the way my mother would edit a book and she would bring it home and she just did that because that was her process it wasn't yeah sure we can mix paranoia and mistrust and all that in there I think we can do that with Stanley Kubrick too but I would say it's also based on you know when a control freak has a bad experience in deferring to others he she then says oh my god I knew it all along that on top of the original experience it made them a control freak exactly
Guest:Yeah, it's a game over.
Guest:So it's pretty much a game over for my mother around 1978.
Guest:But it was also very interesting how my mother procured authors and cookbooks, how she would come about them.
Guest:She would scour newspapers and magazines.
Marc:She actually was the one who reached out to the, that signed them?
Marc:Sure, she found them.
Guest:found julie sonny was cooking and there was a a two a three line thing in the back of you know a page of the new york times yeah she cut it out and she said there's this woman cooking in brooklyn heights she's making indian food she's cooking with spices we're going and i said what do you mean i mean we're going to someone's house hi how are you yeah um but it was like that you went to her house yeah i went to her house how old were you oh i was like maybe 10
Marc:So your mom's like, we're taking the train to Brooklyn.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We took the train.
Guest:Hung out with her son, Vishal, who was a few years old.
Guest:And my mom said, get lost, kids.
Guest:And we just went out on the terrace, I remember.
Guest:I remember my mom marveling at the fact that Julie Sonny took flash pictures of fireworks.
Guest:She thought that was very interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a weird memory.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so Julie Sonny, you know, she was very interesting.
Guest:She was very vivid to me because she cooked with ingredients that my mom didn't cook with things like a lot of chilies and spices that, you know, just weren't.
Guest:She came over and she cooked dinner one night when I was maybe 11 or 12 at your house.
Guest:Yeah, and she dropped poblano peppers straight into a hot wok with oil.
Guest:And they sort of exploded.
Guest:The air became so spicy that we had to run out and open the windows and we were choking and beyond.
Guest:So a lot of interesting experiences for me.
Guest:You don't forget something like that.
Marc:And you grew up right in Manhattan.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I grew up across the street from the Carnegie Deli my whole life.
Marc:Those guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, really.
Guest:I mean, we'd go in there.
Guest:My dad and I would go in there and have Flonkin.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Woody Allen.
Marc:That when they had Flonkin?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:They don't have that stuff anymore, I don't think.
Marc:Like, a lot of stuff is gone.
Marc:Kishkas, I think, are gone.
Marc:Flonkin's probably gone.
Guest:The Carnegie does a pretty good job of staying true to itself.
Guest:I'm kind of surprised.
Guest:Oh, I love it.
Guest:And they went through a number of years where the food was not good anymore.
Guest:It was very upsetting.
Marc:And remember that huge waiter that was like six feet tall and he was heavy.
Marc:He had like a mole on his face.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And he was there for 100 years.
Marc:They still make good brisket.
Marc:you couldn't look at anything but the mole yeah yeah you know that guy right yeah i'll have a mole on rye i mean you just couldn't even it was beyond and maybe there was a hair gonna grow out of it and you just it was very hard to focus he was always there that guy yeah so you lived across the street from that and that was part of your life now what did you like were you as like a club kid were you running around were you dressing up in like you know fiorucci outfits and running no strict italian father really oh yeah what did he do
Guest:My father is a therapist.
Guest:Dissect that.
Guest:Discuss.
Guest:I'll just say it.
Guest:My dad's a therapist, period.
Guest:Discuss, period.
Marc:A strict Italian therapist.
Guest:Yeah, but he started out as a history professor, specializing in Napoleonic warfare, of course.
Marc:So it all makes sense.
Marc:It's like, I've learned enough.
Guest:It's all come full circle.
Marc:Now let's go into the head with this.
Marc:And he's still a practicing therapist?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So he sits there and he listens in his wise chair.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, I think it's, you know.
Marc:So you're the kid of a psychotherapist?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I guess we're going to put it that way.
Guest:And two intellectuals, two academics, two real diehard academics who love books and reading.
Marc:And it's New York, so that's like the home of it.
Marc:That's where intellectuals come from at that time, too, when they were, like when you were a kid, I mean the 70s in New York, I mean that's when culture was driven by intellectuals.
Guest:I agree.
Guest:And it's gone now.
Guest:And my father, he took me to the museum.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We would just go to the MoMA, walk over to the MoMA, and he'd say, what do you think?
Guest:You know, we'd look at some Matisse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would just say, I'm okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, Dad.
Guest:That's pretty.
Guest:But the one thing is, I have a five-year-old now, and I've been thinking a lot about learning, and the fact that my father always talked to me as if I were an adult.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As if I understood what he was saying, when in fact, I often didn't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do it with my daughter now, too.
Guest:I find, you know, we have experiences and things are said to us and they're filed in our brain.
Guest:And then later on something clicks.
Guest:You know, why did I get up today and go to the museum and walk around on a Sunday morning?
Guest:That's learned behavior, I think.
Guest:And it was taught to me.
Guest:And I have gratitude for that.
Guest:Whereas as a kid, I thought, oh...
Guest:We went to Paris, and all my mother and father and I did, my dad said, get up.
Guest:He would set the alarm, and we had five minutes to eat breakfast, and we just went from one museum to the next.
Guest:We never saw the light of day.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:And a lot of times people don't have access to it or they don't think it's important anymore.
Marc:It almost seems like a lifestyle that's fading away in some strange way.
Marc:Whatever culture is becoming, it is not that intellectual culture that it once was where that was important.
Marc:My mother used to fly us
Marc:from New Mexico to see like the Cezanne retrospective, the Picasso retrospective, all these things when we were kids, we would go to see them.
Marc:She would go, she was a painter kind of, and make us look at it.
Marc:And it's in my mind forever.
Marc:And it's important to me.
Marc:Like there's a familiarity to it if I go to a museum.
Guest:I can't believe you just said that.
Guest:On my way out of the LACMA this morning, I strolled through the permanent exhibit.
Guest:I just sort of meandered and I thought, oh, look at this beautiful Modigliani and look at this Brancusi and look at this Rauschenberg and look at this Picasso.
Guest:And I just thought, oh, I'm so privileged to have learned that.
Guest:And, you know...
Guest:I majored in art history in college, but in all honesty, the education about art and what I'm looking at came from those moments at the MoMA where I was thinking more about the gift shop and what we were going to eat.
Marc:But you also always felt that it was a special space, that the way things hang on a wall and the whole feeling of a museum, not so much that it's because the art is fragile or that you can't touch it, but just the way the stuff sits.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:on a wall and in certain rooms.
Marc:It's almost like a ritual space.
Marc:There's a significance to it.
Marc:It's put up there for you to have that relationship with.
Marc:Did you ever go to the Tate in London, the new Tate?
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:No.
Marc:You've got to go see that thing.
Marc:That thing.
Marc:It's in there like a turbine building.
Marc:It's a gutted industrial building that housed turbines.
Marc:So the space is huge.
Marc:And there are certain rooms that are just monumental in the main area is almost empty.
Marc:And it's bigger than, it's like an airline hanger.
Marc:So you walk in and you're introduced to this huge empty space.
Marc:And it kind of clears your mental palate to go get it beat up by a bunch of art.
Marc:Beat up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's got to punch you in the head.
Marc:It's got to sit there, right?
Guest:I think so.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Okay, so you grew up with this amazing highbrow upbringing.
Marc:Did you go to the symphony and stuff too?
Marc:Or was that not their bag?
Guest:I'll tell you the truth.
Guest:It's interesting you say that.
Guest:My parents didn't have any money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So the symphony would have been expensive, but the museum wasn't.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So things were dictated by that, really.
Marc:Where did you teach at the time?
Guest:Queensborough Community College.
Guest:My father taught there for, I think, 30 years.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So that's almost social work.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I guess you're right.
Guest:Well, I mean, it makes sense when you think about what my father does now and how much he enjoys it.
Marc:Because that's not, you know, there's something protected about, you know, the lofty schools, you know, if you tease, you know, but when you're out there down in the trenches with kids who might not make it, you know, have a shot, it's a different thing.
Yeah.
Guest:A hundred percent.
Guest:I mean, I think that that's true.
Guest:I never thought about it that way, honestly.
Guest:But I think that, you know, I would say nothing was an accident in that way.
Guest:The thing I really admire about my father is he went to work.
Guest:He always went to work.
Guest:He just went to work.
Guest:And I think he really loved it.
Guest:And I know he was really good at it.
Marc:And this was a time where people could afford to live in Manhattan who had jobs like that.
Marc:That doesn't exist anymore.
Guest:No, my parents have lived in the same apartment for 30, I don't know, almost 40 years.
Marc:That's a beautiful story.
Marc:And it's rent controlled, right?
Marc:Completely or what?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's a great story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They deserve it, damn it.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:They've earned it.
Marc:There's so few of them left, I don't think.
Marc:What are their neighbors like?
Marc:Is it a big building?
Marc:Do you go into that building and there are people that you've known your entire lifetime still?
Marc:That doesn't happen anywhere else.
Marc:That's the one beautiful thing about New York is that people, when they don't leave, they don't leave.
Guest:Oh, it's not a joke.
Guest:It's unbelievable.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But this was a building, and it still is, but I think to a much lesser extent, where there were a lot of voice teachers, theater coaches, photographers, artists.
Guest:And so I would sit on the steps.
Guest:My parents were late sleepers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So one of my closest friends growing up was my doorman.
Marc:Yeah, they're the best.
Marc:Dorman is the best.
Guest:I don't know what I would have done without him.
Marc:For your whole life, right?
Marc:Tell me the same guy.
Guest:Oh, same guy.
Marc:That's the best.
Marc:Like a confessor, you could tell him shit that you wouldn't tell your parents.
Guest:Totally, totally.
Guest:And I learned the seven wonders of the world and all the capitals of the United States with him, and we threw...
Guest:snowballs at buses and you know we did all those you know sort of like eked out some kind of um maybe some semblance of childhood normalcy in a very odd way but i would sit there on saturday and sunday mornings i'd sit down there with him and we'd talk and hang out and you know tony randall lauren bacall yule brenner gig young yeah these were the people walking in and out of the building they lived in your building oh for instruction voice lessons to see their agents to see their theater coach to see wow
Marc:See, it's weird about doorman.
Marc:It's like some people listen to that and go, well, that must have been an upscale building.
Marc:But it wasn't necessarily because doorman was just a job.
Marc:It was a unionized job.
Marc:And I don't know how it was decided which buildings would have them.
Marc:But a lot of, I lived in like a pre-war, you know, high-rise, you know, just always had a doorman.
Marc:And they were not, it was not a fancy building.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:This is not a fancy building.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a whole kind of culture of New York that, I guess it's still there, but not as many as there used to be, I would imagine.
Right.
Guest:You know, I worked as a private chef for a family on Park Avenue a number of years ago.
Guest:And there were four or five doorman in, you know, sort of that wintergreen outfit with the gold epaulettes.
Guest:I mean, but a real epaulette.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, they'd get the door.
Guest:And they knew what was going on in everybody's, they knew everybody's business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think that there's a real culture of that still in New York.
Guest:You'd be surprised in certain neighborhoods and areas in particular.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this was, you know, this is Midtown and geography really makes a difference.
Guest:It was even odd that there would be any intimacy or any sense of community, I think, in a place where you'd step out and look down 7th Avenue and watch the ball drop.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, that's kind of what I looked out on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:um but there is within each building the building is almost like its own sort of it's like coral you know it's like like there's this giant community of people and there's a there's a brain center the doorman knows everything and because what what funnels through the doorman is one neighbor come down i heard so-and-so screaming and then oh really and then they come down is everything all right and it's like well we had a little and then like the stories just build out and they're the ears of the whole thing oh it's exactly like that it really is it was exactly like that it really was it's
Guest:To some extent, it still is.
Guest:I mean, and sometimes I come in and there's a doorman I don't know.
Guest:And he says, may I help you?
Guest:And I have two answers.
Guest:You know, one is, are you kidding me?
Guest:And then the other answer is, yes, I'd like to go to, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Two answers.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So, you grow up in this.
Marc:So, food is constantly going in and out of your face.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Different kinds of food.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But there must have been some moment where some food was presented to you and you realized that there was a whole world of possibilities.
Guest:No.
Marc:I'm just going to project that on you.
Marc:No, Alex, there must have been.
Guest:No, there should be a critical moment.
Guest:There were a few critical moments.
Guest:But when I graduated from college, I thought I really want to go to culinary school.
Guest:So I called my parents and told them that, and they weren't very impressed.
Guest:And so my mom said, go and work in a kitchen for a while and see if you actually like it.
Marc:Where'd you go to college?
Guest:I went to Barnard College.
Guest:I got a BA in art history from Barnard.
Marc:So you're a smarty pants.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm smart ass.
Guest:I don't know about a smarty pants.
Guest:People, you know, teachers would say, you know, you're a very bright girl.
Guest:You know, sort of like when you say bless your heart in the South, you know, there was something there was an appreciation for some raw intelligence that some teachers perceived existed in me that I appreciated.
Guest:But.
Guest:I think, you know, did I have that moment?
Guest:I ate a souffle my mom made once when I was a kid.
Guest:It had marsala in it and cheese.
Guest:I just thought, well, this doesn't taste like anything I've ever had before.
Guest:I think food can represent culture and make an incredible impact because we taste it, we smell it, we see it, we hear it, we look at it.
Guest:I mean, it's just all-encompassing.
Guest:It's all the senses engaged.
Marc:But there's an intelligence behind it, too.
Marc:I mean, you know, things have to go together and there's a way to put them together and you can get by just cooking garbage.
Marc:But if you want to elevate the thing, you've got to know the tricks.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I think texture is huge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, like...
Marc:You know, I never thought until I watched, you know, Chopped or other shows that I'd be sitting with my girlfriend and she would say, you know, I think it's missing a crunch element.
Marc:And I would say, yeah, I think you're right that that was even part of the conversation.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:Acid, crunch, you know, like these are words that I would never use.
Marc:Oh, acid.
Marc:Very important.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I would put a squeeze of lemon on just about anything.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And I think you can't beat it.
Guest:I really don't think you can beat it.
Guest:I think when in doubt, just put lemon on it and just say, shut up and eat it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're going to get away with it.
Guest:I'm chopped a lot.
Guest:That's the big issue for me is acidity.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You can burn something and I'm cool with that, but don't leave out the vinegar.
Marc:right and also there's um uh depth of flavor and layers of flavor or the the sort of building you know i you know i don't when you guys eat things don't don't don't play dumb with me i know you get it you're like oh i don't know i don't really know look at you laughing no no no i mean like when you have this language around it when you were jeffrey or you know and you're you say you're able to get a lot of uh a flavor profile or that kind of stuff
Marc:I mean, there's something like I talked to Scott about it, too, that that I don't know.
Marc:Is that is that a technique to where you can get a depth of flavor when you pull flavor out of things like that's a great question?
Guest:How do you even know to ask a question like that?
Marc:I learned from you.
Guest:No, no, don't say I learned it from watching you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:I think that's one of the big things technique does.
Guest:I think knowing to roast something when it's right or knowing when to just drop something on the grill for a minute to create a different flavor.
Guest:every choice we make should theoretically lead towards heightened flavor i think that's really if i had to pick one goal it would be that in cooking i never thought about it but that's really the goal but that but that also that can be very simple i mean it doesn't oh can it ever it doesn't have to be complex it's not about like a number of spices or anything else it's just about seizing a moment
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Luck.
Marc:Luck.
Guest:You better believe it.
Guest:Luck is huge.
Guest:Luck is huge in cooking.
Marc:But for the initial thing, but in order for it to- That's right.
Marc:You have to maintain a consistency.
Guest:I think you have to develop a sense of how to cook first.
Guest:I think you have to be only one way in my book, which is repetition.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You've got to cook 70,000 chicken breasts, and then you add that with luck, and you win chopped.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:But that's sort of the outlier premise that it's really just miles spent flying or hours spent doing whatever you want.
Guest:You got to log those hours.
Guest:That's totally it.
Marc:Pay your dues.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I don't think there's any way around that.
Guest:I feel like people say to me all the time, so how do you peel a clove of garlic without peeling a clove of garlic?
Guest:I feel like that's the American way is how can I get there smartly, cleverly, and twice as fast?
Guest:And I think cooking just says, yeah, you can go ahead and try.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Go right ahead.
Marc:But why not take the process as part of the experience?
Guest:I don't think that's like going to the museum.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Well, I know, but it's also a time crunch, too.
Marc:It's like some people, they work and they want to get it done.
Marc:So it's like there's very few people that can be like, what are you doing today?
Marc:I'm going to spend the day cooking dinner for my family.
Marc:I mean, it might have happened at another time.
Guest:Yeah, I agree with that.
Marc:But I think people need things to happen quickly.
Marc:And my problem is I eat very quickly.
Marc:So if I spend two hours cooking, I can literally eat that in 10 minutes.
Guest:10?
Marc:Yeah, quick.
Guest:I was thinking more like four.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'd say no one eats faster than chefs.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, I think you're really making the cut for the chefs.
Guest:Hearing about, you know, I'm sort of checking off qualities and I'm thinking maybe, you know.
Marc:oh i'd love it i would i mean if you decide to give this up i think i would love it i just i do i think that now though like if it's not just for my own personal joy that'd be crazy i don't want to compete in the world that you guys live in because i'm you know i'm old and it's uh it's not it's not an old man i i see some of the dudes at chop that come in night and i've worked with them i've worked in restaurants when i was a kid where you just know these these guys have been doing what they're doing forever and they've been there
Marc:confident and they got that like i like the bravado of the recovered alcoholics on shop where it's like i finally turned this turned everything around and now i'm going to kick ass but their techniques are just what they are there's a difference between a cook and a chef i think so um i think a lot of people on that show are scrappy you know that's what i like about it yep and sometimes they can nail it
Guest:I've eaten some stuff in there and I've just wanted to get up and say, how the hell did you do this?
Guest:How did you take this basket and even make this?
Marc:You don't do that after?
Marc:You don't say, like, come here?
Guest:I do sometimes.
Guest:I try to say things to a lot of people that compete.
Guest:It's important to me that it's a show about showcasing chefs.
Guest:It's not a show about the judges or anything else to me.
Guest:It's really a show about showcasing chefs.
Guest:And so to that end, I really like it when...
Guest:I walk away from a day on the set and I feel like all four people are walking away with a heightened sense of self or heightened understanding or something happened for them today.
Guest:And people really, they treat it almost like a spa for the senses or it's some sort of workshop, like hot yoga or something.
Guest:And they come out and I just think, really, of all the things, I'm going to get up today and cook a lamb's head.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Here it is.
Marc:I'm right with you.
Marc:But the only thing that gets me when I watch it is when people are like, where is something?
Marc:Or how did this happen?
Marc:It's like, don't you watch the show?
Marc:How can you get on and not?
Marc:It's over there.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I can't believe you're saying that.
Guest:Because I say to people all the time, yeah, sure.
Guest:With your bowl of cheese balls and your beer, watching the show, it just looks like, come on, dummy.
Guest:It's just like on a game show when you're screaming the answer at the TV set.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:But when you get in there and you're cooking, it is so, yeah, you can't even see.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let's go back.
Marc:So you're at Barnard.
Marc:You're studying art history.
Marc:What are you focusing on?
Marc:What's your specialty as an undergrad?
Marc:Who are your guys art-wise?
Yeah.
Guest:God, no one ever asks me these questions.
Guest:This is great.
Marc:Really?
Guest:No.
Guest:I wrote my thesis on Vincent van Gogh.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I really liked him.
Guest:I thought he was pretty cool.
Guest:I think I like him because he really just learned all the rules and then he was like, yeah, that's great.
Guest:Now I'm going to take the rule page and crumple it up and throw it in the garbage and burn it in front of everybody and laugh about it and stamp on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I really liked that.
Marc:I'm going to paint a painting that's not going to be dry in the year 2000s.
Guest:That's really funny.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:So I really was into Van Gogh.
Guest:I was really into... I liked 19th century European the best.
Guest:I was a sucker for the classics.
Guest:I really liked... I liked French painting a lot in a lot of cases.
Marc:Impressionist or before?
Guest:Yeah, I liked Cezanne a lot.
Guest:I kind of thought he was the OG.
Guest:I thought everybody took a page out of his playbook.
Guest:So originally I thought, really, another bowl of fruit, buddy?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:You got another mountain for me too?
Guest:Got some boxes, let me guess.
Guest:But then I sort of...
Guest:because i was hostile towards saison in some way i would find his aspects of him or maybe those are projections yeah in a lot of other artists whose work i really maybe found much more recreational and more pleasurable to look at um and i thought well all right respect you know you might be like you know it's like dr dre might be one of those oh geez that you've just got a quincy jones type
Marc:Well, it's a tone, man.
Marc:It's like, you know, you can't mistake a saison, whether it's fruit or, you know, a little village or mountain.
Marc:But I mean, there's something about the tone of it.
Marc:All those guys were.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like out of all of them, like you can see the continuity in older art where people are just sort of riffing on a continuum.
Marc:But those guys are like, this is me.
Marc:This is me.
Marc:And that's it.
Guest:And when you walk through a permanent collection and you go from movement to movement and artist to artist, I mean, it's like, wow.
Guest:You are really a pimp.
Guest:I know this is you from across the room.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you do the art thing and you tell your dad, the academic, the therapist, and your mom, the editor, that you're going to be a chef.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they were like, ugh, what?
Guest:My mom just said, really?
Guest:We're not paying for that.
Marc:Oh, that was it?
Guest:Yeah, that was the first thing.
Guest:My mom was like, your father and I are through.
Guest:We've had it.
Marc:Do you have brothers and sisters?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I'm the favorite.
Guest:I'm the only child.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:It's a lot of pressure, I think.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Guest:My dad got my report card.
Guest:He always said the same thing.
Guest:What?
Guest:Onward and upward.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You're the only one.
Marc:Let's make this happen.
Guest:And then my father said, okay, do whatever you want to do.
Guest:He said, just remember, do you want to cook Thanksgiving for total strangers or eat it with your family?
Guest:He said that to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, I'm going to have to get back to you on that.
Guest:So 20 years later, I came home and said, Dad, you were right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've only had a couple of Thanksgivings with you guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that bad?
Guest:Mixed bag.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:But yeah, it is.
Guest:I like my parents.
Marc:But then don't you end up cooking for them if you're going to have the Thanksgiving?
Guest:They don't like me to cook.
Guest:They like when I come home, they say, we'll cook.
Guest:You relax.
Guest:You work hard enough.
Marc:And you can let that happen?
Guest:totally i don't need to control the situation yeah i'm really no i'm okay with that it's not a kubrick moment for me okay so but i mean but are you that way though i mean i don't you don't strike me to be that like much of a control freak you seem a little uh ragged around the edges i think i um that's funny
Guest:I think I have the things that I absolutely must control.
Guest:So I pretend to be super relaxed about everything else so that I can secretly protect my agenda.
Guest:If that makes any sense to you.
Marc:What's the list of those things?
Marc:I mean, like if you're cooking and you have sous chefs and you've got people around, what are the things where it's like, no, you can't.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:You can come in in sweatpants.
Guest:You can be late to work.
Guest:You can BS on the phone.
Guest:You can go downstairs and do whatever the hell you want.
Guest:But when it comes time for dinner service, you better have everything together or it's over.
Guest:And then it's really, so how'd that go for you?
Guest:The phone call, the chats, the Diet Coke on the patio.
Guest:We good?
Guest:Can I get you anything?
Guest:Tea cappuccino?
Guest:You good?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I really go around and I do it that way.
Guest:And I think I disarm people.
Guest:I like to disarm people with humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, if portions are too big, I say, is your mother coming in?
Guest:Is this for your family?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is your grandmother on table 22?
Guest:Because, you know, or someone will say to me, oh, yeah.
Guest:I say, why is this vinaigrette broken and tastes disgusting?
Guest:And they'll say, oh, I didn't have time to fix it.
Guest:And I say, I'll let table 22 know that they're eating something gross because you didn't feel like fixing it.
Guest:I'm sure they'll care.
Guest:So they'll be really, you know what?
Guest:We're going to pay our bill.
Guest:In fact, we're going to pay double.
Guest:It feels so bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Eating this crappy vinaigrette.
Marc:Yeah, does that kid need us to take him home?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Because there's any way we can help him.
Guest:Yeah, so I think I let go of the things that I, I don't know, to keep the core intact.
Marc:All right, so you go, what is the journey of the chef then now?
Marc:So you graduate college and you apply to what?
Marc:What are the choices?
Guest:Well, I thought, oh, I'd go to CIA and, you know, I'll do that in Hyde Park in New York.
Guest:And my mom said, go work in the kitchen and make sure you like it first before we make this, you know, you embark upon this investment in yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went and I worked at Larry Ford Jones at American Place.
Marc:And that's a big place.
Marc:I'm sorry, I don't know.
Guest:No, no, that's okay.
Guest:He's really a pioneering American chef.
Guest:He's sort of one of the first to get up and say, blueberries come from Maine, lobster comes from Maine, porcini mushrooms come from Oregon.
Guest:And he assigned the geography of ingredients in the way that they do in Europe to America.
Guest:And that was very compelling to me.
Marc:What year is this, what, early 70s?
Guest:No, no, this is like, oh, Forgione?
Guest:Yeah, I would say 80s.
Guest:And then when I was working for him, it was like 92, 91.
Marc:So that's the beginning of like, we're Americans and we can own that.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, Wolfgang Puck was making the Chinese chicken salad with the cabbage, and I was just mesmerized.
Guest:So I worked in that kitchen for a while, about a year, a year and a half.
Marc:Doing what?
Guest:Oh, I was so terrible.
Guest:I was so bad at everything.
Guest:I mean, everything I touched, it was like... Why'd they let you do it?
Marc:Because of your mom?
Guest:My mother was editing his book.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I... Hey, will you make my kid miserable so she doesn't pursue what you did for your life?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, no problem.
Guest:I'll talk her out of it.
Guest:Give me half an hour.
Guest:It's like, you know in Men in Black when he says, look into the thing and you'll forget everything?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I can do that.
Guest:We're going to have a talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:You know, I just stayed out of the way because I really just, I very humbly and somewhat desperately and strangely was hooked immediately by the sound and the energy and the dynamics of the kitchen.
Guest:And I just really wanted to learn.
Guest:So I just took it slow and, you know, and I took it slow.
Guest:But I came home every night, you know, with a new cut, a new burn, and I just thought, well, this, you know, sucks.
Guest:I remember actually crying about ruining my hands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, actually thinking, wow, I'm really, well, okay, so I'm not going to be a hand model.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Check off the list.
Marc:But you weren't, you didn't find it like, oh, I'm covered in grease and I smell and my hands are bleeding.
Guest:No.
Marc:This is amazing.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:You weren't attracted to the weird, frenetic immediacy.
Yeah.
Guest:I like the energy.
Guest:I like the vibrancy.
Guest:I like this like hurling towards Earth kind of asteroid quality that dinner service has.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I did not, no, I don't need to smell like fish and have bloody hands to think I'm cool.
Guest:No, that is desperately on chic.
Guest:And plus none of my friends were chefs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they just thought I was, you know, nuts.
Guest:I mean, literally they would just say to me, are you out of your mind?
Guest:Like, I can't hang out with you if you're going to be a chef.
Guest:This is silly.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What did they do?
Guest:A lot of lawyers, a lot of gynecologists, you know, plumbing of a different nature.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Guest:So, you know, if I need a lawyer or a gynecologist, I am good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm good to go.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, it was just odd.
Marc:But those aren't creative fields.
Guest:I think that any field requires imagination to be good at it.
Guest:Will you give me that?
Marc:I think lawyers in general may have applied their creativity to something if they didn't run from it.
Marc:That's what I feel about lawyers and doctors.
Marc:Well, doctors, it's a calling.
Marc:That's different.
Marc:It's a calling.
Marc:I don't know if there's a creativity to it, but it's certainly needed and requires a certain disposition.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the one that I don't have.
Guest:I don't know about you.
Guest:I mean, I can hack up 80 pounds of beef, but hack up a human?
Marc:I don't know how that happens.
Guest:It's just a no.
Marc:The beef is not crying.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:It's just the cutting.
Marc:Oh, no, no, no.
Marc:My father was a doctor.
Marc:It's different to be able to cross that boundary of like, I'm going to fix this and tell you that this is bad.
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:It's a lot nicer to make people laugh or go, here's some nice food.
Guest:Here's a steak.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know about your health.
Guest:Just eat the steak and shut up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm not even sure it's helping your health, but you're going to enjoy it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So they're doing that and you're doing this.
Marc:So you work at this place for how long before you're like, all right, I'm good.
Marc:I can live with my hands.
Guest:You know, I almost stayed there forever, honestly.
Guest:I mean, I really don't mean that in any minor way because I really fell in love with cooking and I got to do a lot of different things.
Guest:But Larry Forgione said to me, you need to go to France.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, that's how I made the choice, really.
Guest:He said, you need to go to France.
Guest:And he seemed like a sharp type, you know?
Guest:And I just thought, okay.
Guest:So then I thought, well, I don't want to pay to go to culinary school, but how am I going to do that?
Guest:So...
Guest:i bought this book and again we go back to this idea why do we go buy a book why do we go to the museum right why is that the path yeah um so i bought the shaw guide to world culinary schools i think it was like 12 bucks right remember and i thought in this book i will find a work study program where i can do dishes and get an education and not pay and sure enough i found a culinary program at laverin in burgundy run by a woman named ann willan it doesn't exist anymore
Guest:Um, she recently retired actually, I think.
Guest:And you, so I, I applied for a work study position.
Guest:I got the gig and I went and I just did dishes and I cooked French food and did more dishes and more dishes.
Guest:And I ate a lot of cheese and wine.
Guest:One of my favorite rituals was to get a bottle of Pinot Noir.
Guest:I mean, in Burgundy, you have two choices, Chardonnay or Pinot Noir.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not bad.
Guest:Yeah, it's good.
Guest:I would get a big bottle of Pinot Noir and I would run the hot water really hot and the steam off the dishes and the dish washing soap and the wine and the washing.
Guest:I'm like, forget it.
Marc:See, so you work, that's a ritual, that's sweet.
Marc:Totally, sedated, sedated.
Guest:I was sedated.
Guest:And you're in France.
Guest:Yeah, and I was in France and, you know, I was, there was a garden and I made wreaths and I acted weird and I made, you know, souffles and madelines and I learned, you know, I took French all through school, but I really didn't know how to speak it.
Guest:So I was really learning how to speak French.
Guest:I mean, actually.
Marc:Did you get a handle on it?
Marc:totally i lived in france for almost about six plus years and you stayed at that place for six years no i did that for about nine months and then i went um what did you learn the basics there or what were you enabled what what could you do there when you were washing dishes were you treated differently than the people that were enrolled
Guest:oh yeah yeah of course i mean of course they were like go get go get the lakes and by the way mop the floor on your way back right um but i worked with a lot of french chefs and i met a chef and i went and worked in his restaurant after i got my degree my work study degree from laverin in uh in the alps i mean in the french alps so i was um in chamboree in the savoir and i worked down there for about i don't know four or five months
Marc:Is there a consistency to the cuisine or French basic?
Marc:I mean, is it all the same no matter where you go in France?
Guest:That's a really good question.
Guest:I would say the techniques, the blueprint for French cooking remains unabashedly and devotedly the same.
Guest:I mean, this is how we did it since the 14th century and on we go.
Guest:But the ingredients change and the local pride in certain ingredients of cheese, for example.
Marc:Do you think that's the only way to learn?
Marc:I mean, for real.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, you get you watch shop.
Marc:I see what's going on.
Marc:There are people that can obviously get a handle on Asian.
Marc:There are people that can obviously get a handle on other things.
Marc:But do you think that the basics have to be drilled into you with that that has been there since the 1400s?
Marc:I mean, do you find that there's a difference in the chef's?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think for me, I'll say my opinion is that for me, that was the only way.
Guest:I mean, we go back now.
Guest:My father took me to the museum to look at the paintings.
Guest:My mom cooked the entire manuscript before it got published.
Guest:The joy of cooking.
Guest:You had to go through it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You had to go through it to get at it.
Guest:You got to go into the river if you want to cross it and you go through that river.
Marc:And I think that's what I did.
Marc:So you're in the Alps and you do that.
Marc:So you're there for almost nine years and then you come back.
Guest:It came back, yeah, I worked at, and I got a job.
Guest:I sort of, you know, I worked in a restaurant in Paris for a guy named Guy Savoie, who... Is he a big guy?
Marc:Is he the guy you sent the wreath to?
Guest:No, a different chef, but same caliber and an amazing man.
Guest:Oh, yeah, three-star Michelin, amazing human being.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was so good to me.
Guest:So when I went back to New York, he just said, you need to work for Daniel Belew.
Guest:I mean, he sort of said, you know, and again, Larry Fordion said, go to France.
Guest:Guy Savoie said, go to Daniel Belew.
Guest:He really takes, he makes classical French food with American ingredients.
Guest:And that, you know, sort of like makes sense.
Guest:I mean, if you take Larry Forgione and you take Guy Savoy and you mix them together, you get Daniel.
Guest:So for me, he really made sense.
Marc:And what'd you learn there?
Guest:I learned that I didn't know shit about anything, basically.
Guest:I had maybe seven or eight years of experience cooking when I started working at Danielle, and I thought, well, I really don't know what I'm doing, but I thought I did.
Guest:What did I learn there?
Guest:I really learned how to make a soup.
Guest:I really learned how to cook meat and fish.
Guest:I mean, like, really, really.
Guest:You know, unmistakably, for the rest of my life, if you hand me a hunk of fish or a hunk of meat, there's not going to be a problem.
Marc:Okay, so just as somebody who actually doesn't know,
Marc:Like when you say I learned how to cook a soup, what are the points?
Marc:I mean, like what, you know, in your mind, what was the difference between what you were doing and what you learned?
Guest:Well, I think, and keep in mind, when I say I learned how to make a soup, I mean two things.
Guest:I mean, number one, I learned how to make a soup the way he makes it to develop flavor, but also how to cook in a way that isn't like how he cooks and get something else.
Guest:developing flavor yeah well so one is a reaction to you know out of respect for what he was doing and then another is sort of what I other things I like that don't have to do with what he was doing so you would start pretty much any soup base with a hunk of prosciutto and a couple pounds of butter yeah and I just thought this is evil yeah and this is dirty and wrong isn't this fantastic yeah and you could just make the most incredible stuff I mean really you know how everybody says fat is flavor yeah and let's get some bacon yeah
Guest:But I mean, really, I really learned the value of that by watching something take shape slowly, layers of flavor from that, that I always consider sort of neutral.
Guest:I mean, heavy cream, does it really have a taste?
Guest:No, but I mean, what happens when heavy cream coats your tongue?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you just want to, you know, go hit the roof.
Guest:So there's those different experiences.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And with meat, a hunk of meat.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, he really liked... One thing I love about him is he likes poultry a lot.
Guest:I'm sort of obsessed with poultry.
Guest:I like chicken.
Guest:I like squabs.
Guest:I like ducks.
Guest:I really love poultry.
Marc:But when you get a chicken, though, it's hard to get good chicken, isn't it?
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:I mean, a lot of chicken's flavorless.
Guest:I think you got to drop the cash on the chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I think it's one of those things you got to drop that cash if you want to get that taste.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We have a couple of really good places in New York now where you can get really delicious chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Both cooked and non-cooked, by the way.
Guest:I mean, is there anything to me a rotisserie chicken?
Guest:It's best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I need to like lock the door and pull down the blinds and just eat the chicken like a savage animal and then just wipe up and go about my day.
Marc:Yeah, I'll do it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'll do that with shitty chicken too.
Marc:I'll go to Vaughn's right now and get a rotisserie chicken as long as it's really burnt or brown on the back.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The best.
Guest:It's like gluey almost.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You need that.
Marc:Yeah, it's the best.
Guest:You won't lick the string.
Guest:You're like pulling the string out of your mouth that was wrapped around the leg.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No shame.
Marc:And that was at the angle, and with meat too, you put butter on meat.
Guest:There wasn't that much of that.
Guest:I'll tell you this.
Guest:He's very honest about keeping ingredients the way they are, you know, so no, in some cases, yes, but just a stock and a sauce made with just, it tastes like lamb.
Guest:Look at your mouth's watering.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lamb.
Guest:I mean, it's like, which is the lamb and which is the beef sauce?
Guest:You would never, you would never mix them up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in other kitchens I worked in, you sometimes couldn't tell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I took it for granted at Danielle that everything tasted the way it was supposed to be.
Guest:And then in other kitchens, you know, I wasn't always sure.
Guest:Is this chicken or beef sauce?
Guest:And then I thought, really?
Guest:You know, do I, can I not tell?
Marc:You got to be able to tell, right?
Guest:I think so.
Marc:It's a mistake on the chef if they can't tell.
Yeah.
Guest:Someone screwed up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:By the way, you know, sometimes it was me.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:Well, you live in Orange, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And continue to do so.
Guest:Cooking is cruel.
Guest:It's a cruel mistress.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Marc:When you started, so how old were you when you first started?
Marc:After Danielle, were you ready to go then?
Marc:Did you executive chef places or what?
Guest:I went, I worked at Patina in Los Angeles for a couple of years on Melrose Avenue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I lived out here for a couple of years.
Marc:When you come out here, do you call chefs?
Marc:Do you have chef friends or regular friends?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I have some of both.
Guest:But there's also the Italian chefs, the French chefs.
Guest:I mean, there's a little bit of that.
Guest:People say to me, oh, do you know Mario Batali?
Guest:And I say, like this, like that, but not really.
Guest:I worked at Danielle, so I'm like Team France.
Marc:How do you feel about Italian?
Guest:I love Italian food, but people say it's really embarrassing to us that your name is Alexandra Maria Guarnaschelli.
Guest:You speak fluent French, you lived in France for years, and you don't make Italian food.
Guest:It's just you've forsaken us.
Marc:Do they really say that?
Guest:Yeah, people say that to me, and I say, you know, I almost think that the food of my culture and my roots is too private for me to use.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I think that there's a little bit of that.
Marc:I know that that sounds a little... Like a rationalization?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just never occurred to me to make Italian food.
Marc:But it seems to me that coming from French, and I don't know enough to be condescending, but it seems like it's actually less complicated.
Marc:Italian.
Guest:I think we get into the zone where if we call Italian simpler, we're going to call it rustic.
Guest:And if we're going to call it rustic, we're going to call it sloppy.
Guest:And we're going to call it crappy.
Guest:And I think that that's so unfair.
Guest:I think good Italian food is almost more complex than French food because there can be so little to it.
Guest:Ingredient ones is just a few things in a lot of cases that you've really got to hunker down and get it right every time.
Guest:And that's almost harder.
Guest:I think a good pasta dough, for example...
Guest:uh is a tough thing one that's not too chewy not too tough just right that right balance of egg the right flour yeah so many minute complex choices i i don't consider italian any simpler than french although i imagine it's perceived as such well that's good to know no i mean like i cook spaghetti with scott and he showed me how to do that spaghetti of his did he really show you i'm impressed no no we cooked it he showed me and i've done it at home
Guest:Oh, that butter.
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:It's all about butter.
Marc:It is.
Guest:Well, Scott has some French in him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has those sort of German roots.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can see it in his cooking.
Guest:It's not like he hides it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that people perceive him to be 100% Italian, but I see a lot of little team Frenchy techniques in there.
Guest:I'm like, really, buddy?
Guest:How's that going there?
Guest:You know, what did Marie Antoinette do a drive-by on Catherine de' Medici here?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So butter, that was your restaurant.
Thank you.
Guest:Yeah, I've worked there for a decade.
Guest:And it's yours?
Guest:No, I don't own it.
Marc:No?
Guest:I don't own it.
Marc:You created the menu?
Guest:I do, and I've cooked there for a long time, and I buy the food, which is my favorite thing to do.
Marc:You don't own a restaurant?
Guest:I do not own a restaurant.
Marc:Do you want to?
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's not high on my list, I've got to tell you.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:No, I have an aversion to the idea of paying rent to someone, and I have an aversion to having to stay somewhere 24-7.
Guest:being part of the other stuff absolutely i mean again we get back to am i making my own movie right or am i just being in one i'd rather just be in one so the so when you create a menu then what what what what do you do i mean what oh i'd like to go to the supermarket and i walk around look at what people are buying yeah i remind myself of things yeah like you know hey buddy you forgot artichokes this year yeah i'll forget about vegetables right
Guest:From year to year, then I go to the green market and I see what's good.
Guest:But that's shopping.
Guest:And as someone once pointed out to me, they said, what's your cooking philosophy?
Guest:And I said, well, I go to the green market and I let things speak to me.
Guest:And he said, that's not a cooking philosophy.
Guest:That's a shopping philosophy.
Guest:And I thought, all right, way to work it out.
Guest:That must have been a good moment.
Guest:Yeah, really.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, it's like, okay, you're not shit.
Guest:You know, like you look in the mirror and you just say, wow, good chat.
Marc:Learn how to talk.
Marc:You're going to be talking to people.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You know, when I show up with a hat full of ramps, like, hi, here I am.
Guest:We're going to make crostini.
Guest:So the problem is that I like when things taste really like they are.
Guest:And I think that's a lot of what French cooking tries to get at via a million different techniques.
Guest:If you're going to make an artichoke, you're going to boil that artichoke down, make a puree, reconstitute it in the form of an artichoke, serve it with an artichoke sauce, fried artichoke, you're just going to artichoke someone to death.
Guest:And I think you just can get... When you do it right, I mean, it's just like, oh my God, this is so good.
Guest:So I guess...
Guest:I'm a little bit much ado about nothing in that I like to kind of come full circle with an ingredient so that it tastes so much like itself.
Guest:I really dig on that.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:So I would say my cooking's French, and it really is.
Guest:And it gets simpler and maybe more classical the longer I cook.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:My mom said pick something and be it.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I kind of really like that.
Guest:Pick something and be it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, those little Dalai Lama moments where you just say, oh, it is this simple.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And sometimes you don't know what it is until you're it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm waiting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You are what you are.
Guest:You are it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It just happened a few years ago.
Guest:I know when it happened.
Guest:I know when it happened.
Guest:Where were you?
Marc:Sitting here.
Marc:and did you just say oh my god i am well what it is is that you kind of feel you know there's a discomfort that we have as creative people no matter what it is throughout your entire life whether you feel like you're a fraud you're not being good enough or whatever and usually there's part of you that all you want
Marc:is to find your point of view, your voice, you know, your mode.
Marc:And you can feel that you may be close to it and you may see glimpses of it.
Marc:But one day, all of a sudden, you know, it just syncs up and you fill your body up.
Marc:You know, you just feel that whatever this journey has been, you've arrived in yourself.
Marc:And then you are it.
Marc:You may not be able to say, like, you know, look at it, but you know just by the connection to your heart that you're there.
Guest:I also think, do you think you kind of make peace with something?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Fortunately, as you get older, shit gets less important.
Guest:Well, I mean, all of a sudden you just say, wow, I'm just not going to take time to do that.
Marc:Or you can just trust yourself.
Guest:Only.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I agree with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like after a certain point, you got to realize, like you said before, you know, however many thousands of chickens that you've made or how many jokes I've told or whatever the hell it is that, you know, you don't you don't have to ask that question anymore.
Marc:Like, do I know how to do this?
Yeah.
Guest:You don't.
Guest:You just feel nervous, like, okay, now that I know how to do this, can I just do this?
Marc:Yeah, and take it to the next level, maybe.
Guest:Oh, I think so.
Marc:Maybe that's that luck thing.
Marc:I mean, when you're talking about luck, I mean, if you've done- Luck is huge.
Marc:But what does that mean for you?
Marc:I mean, you have to be consistent as a chef, or else people aren't going to come to your restaurant to some degree.
Marc:So when you say luck, does that mean just sort of like I had no idea that by leaving that on the stove or by not paying attention to that or happy accidents that I've learned a new technique?
Marc:Or what does luck mean?
Guest:No, I think it means it's a magical moment in cooking for me.
Guest:And by the way, I'm defining luck for myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No one needs to agree with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a moment where you just turn around and you're trying to brown something on all sides and that edge you can't get on a pork chop is browned.
Guest:And the two sides are browned and it's cooked evenly and it's juicy and it looks up at you like, fuck.
Guest:yeah let's do this baby yeah and then you know it's like um it's like all those teenage angst movies where they're about you know in like teen wolf when they're bouncing the basketball in the gym and it's thud thud you know it's that leading up and you can just feel it with cooking i mean the yeah take the pork chop out and it says come on you know yeah the plate is just the right temperature and the sauce and right you just put it all together and you just know you know and then you give it away it's the thing about cooking
Guest:I remember the first time I made my own plate of food, like four years in at Guy Savoy, and I just thought, I didn't want to give it away.
Guest:I thought, well, I can't believe I made this.
Guest:I'm so excited.
Guest:And the chef was like, okay, give me the plate.
Guest:And I was like, no.
Guest:He had to wrestle it from me.
Guest:And he said, you know, you got to let go of this.
Guest:And then I traced the plate, you know, to the end.
Guest:I said to the boss, well, where's the plate?
Guest:Table 22, position two.
Guest:Where's the fucking plate?
Guest:And he brought it in.
Guest:It was swiped with bread.
Guest:So it was empty.
Guest:And then I could see the swipe of the bread.
Marc:And I thought, oh, yeah.
Marc:He did it.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Nailed it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I know you go home and listen to, you know, B.I.G.
Guest:for three hours.
Marc:I know exactly what you're talking about.
Marc:It's like a moment that you're never going to have back.
Marc:Like, that doesn't take away from the consistency of your cooking, but sometimes you just, something happens, and you know that what's going out, that one, that was a perfect one.
Marc:It doesn't mean the one after that was perfect.
Guest:Worse.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:The next one might have been crap.
Guest:But you're addicted to that.
Guest:You're addicted to that plate.
Guest:You're addicted.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're hooked and it's over.
Guest:And it is over, my friend.
Guest:And you chase that through so many bad moments to get that plate again.
Guest:And you get it again.
Guest:And you just keep...
Marc:Right.
Guest:Plotting.
Guest:Just keep pounding.
Marc:Did you ever go to a table knowing that that plate went there and go, how was that?
Guest:Never.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I almost don't want to look at the person who ate it.
Guest:How dare they?
Guest:Who the hell do they?
Guest:Who are you?
Guest:You better be good.
Guest:If you're not the queen of England, I don't know what happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't want to know they took it from me.
Guest:They took my proof.
Guest:What do I have an empty plate?
Guest:What do I do?
Guest:Frame an empty plate and look at it?
Marc:You know in your heart, though.
Guest:Remember the bread?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Come on.
Marc:You know in your heart, though.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I only have one experience to share that's similar to that.
Marc:This is a stupid experience, but I remember.
Guest:That you cooked something or that you ate?
Marc:That I cooked something.
Guest:What did you make?
Marc:I was... Were you here?
Marc:I've made a couple of good things here, but there was this one moment, it was very simple, where I was working at a Jewish deli in Boston called Gordon's Deli, and it was just a messy deli.
Marc:And Boston's weird, because they actually have four kinds of rye bread.
Marc:It's a weird place.
Marc:There's sisal, there's light, there's dark, there's pumpernickel.
Marc:You serve the heel of the bread, which is, it's a different deli mentality there.
Marc:But it's genuine.
Marc:So I was like a grill cook sandwich guy.
Marc:And we used to saute a big thing of onions early in its own pan.
Marc:It was only used for these onions every day, these browned onions.
Marc:And some guy ordered a Leo, lox eggs and onions, and I'm going to make it.
Marc:And there was just a few onions left in that pan, in the onion pan.
Marc:So I made the lox eggs and onions in the onion pan.
Marc:So I had all those juices from all day long and these perfect onions that were there.
Marc:It was just perfect.
Marc:And I made this thing and I knew it was great.
Marc:And I like Leo's.
Marc:And it's important that the onions are done really well.
Marc:Or else they're shitty if you can't taste it.
Guest:If they're mushy or they're not cooked enough.
Guest:An onion is a complex beast.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So this was perfect.
Marc:And I knew it.
Marc:And I served the guy.
Marc:And the plate went out.
Marc:And then he came back and said, there's too many onions in this.
Marc:oh my god right and i was like i knew it was perfect and i was like really you know it was i hurt me and i made him another one but then the old guy the old cook in the back who who made the hash and everything else the the guy sunny the one that mattered right in the back you know i said this guy sent this back and and he tasted it's like oh my god that was perfect and i'm like see see
Guest:There's a lot of that.
Marc:Right?
Guest:This was medium rare.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But you just say, here's another one.
Guest:Have a nice day.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:It's painful.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I don't take that stuff personally anymore, though.
Marc:Well, you can't.
Guest:I wouldn't take it.
Guest:No, you got to.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I got to be humble about that kind of stuff and just do it again.
Guest:Who cares?
Guest:They're paying for it, not you.
Guest:But I know exactly what you're talking about.
Guest:Just the right amount of onions in the pan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know where you think, oh, I need three orders.
Guest:And you look over and there's just that much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm really sorry.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Guest:Was that like 20 years ago?
Marc:Oh, more than that, I think.
Guest:You thought about it in the shower this morning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How could he, that bastard?
Marc:The only thing I was thinking about as you were coming over and I thought like, well, should I have cookies or something?
Marc:Should we go get some cookies?
Guest:I'm flattered.
Guest:I was thinking, should I bring you etched on to a piece of felt soap?
Guest:So I guess we all have our...
Marc:Okay, so let's talk about the book.
Marc:So you chose Comfort Food.
Marc:That makes sense.
Guest:Yeah, I chose Old School Comfort Food for the title so that, one, I wanted there to be an emotional response in the title, but also Old School means I can be as retro or as unoriginal or as tipping my hat to something in the past as I want, and I've got it covered.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So when you take on versions of these things that are classics, I mean, do you hot rod them?
Marc:Hot rod.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I love that.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I realize, I guess I put my interpretation of comfort food.
Guest:So everybody, a lot of people have gotten the book and said, oh, I can't wait to make the macaroni and cheese.
Guest:There's no macaroni and cheese recipe in the book because I just, that's not, I don't file that under comfort food for myself.
Marc:You can't beat the one enjoy cooking.
Marc:Yeah, no, I agree.
Marc:With the onions and the... Agree, just the right amount.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, yeah, definitely.
Guest:I'm never going to forget that, by the way, that pan of onions.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I collected a lot of the recipes that really meant a lot to me, a lot of things that I made with my mom, a lot of things she made growing up where I did have those hints of moments or those inklings or those moments where you can feel your synapses firing a little extra.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's what the book really is.
Guest:It's just a collection of those things with a lot of stories and some moments that weren't so pretty.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Daniel got a huge crab one day when I worked there, and he wheeled it in, and it was still moving, and it looked at me.
Guest:It was so crazy that I almost think I imagined it.
Guest:So he said, cook this crab.
Guest:The president of the French Republic is coming in at 1 o'clock for lunch.
Guest:So I cooked the crab, and then I took a claw, a whole leg down into the employee bathroom and ate it like an animal in the toilet.
Guest:I was standing in the toilet eating this crab, just so hungry.
Guest:It was 14, 15 years ago, and it was still the best thing I can remember.
Guest:And I was so hungry.
Guest:I'm standing, staring at a dirty toilet, eating this crab, and it just didn't matter.
Marc:I think that's a beautiful thing about you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:That's very sweet.
Guest:I like that.
Guest:So are you saying my selective way of moving through the universe is somehow poetic to you and charming?
Marc:Yeah, and hot.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Did you see you ravaging a crab in a bathroom?
Guest:It was savage.
Guest:It was so dirty.
Guest:I came out with a little strand of crab in my teeth, and I just thought, yeah.
Marc:Did you get busted?
Guest:I did not.
Guest:I did not.
Marc:That's a good moment.
Guest:I didn't care.
Guest:I mean, in a really deep way, I got to tell you.
Marc:Do you love to eat?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do love to eat.
Guest:I get really upset when food's not good.
Marc:Oh, me too.
Marc:I can't fucking stand it.
Guest:And it's hard for me to walk away from something when it isn't good.
Guest:You know, I'm in it.
Guest:I'm already in it.
Marc:But I get so disappointed at restaurants.
Marc:I mean, I get like, I'm not that great a cook, but if I'm going to eat something, if I'm going to go out to eat it, it better be something I can't even fucking wrap my brain around making.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, I understand.
Marc:And that can be pretty simple because, again, I'm not a great cook, but I can cook okay and I know what I'm getting into.
Marc:But if I go somewhere and it's just okay, I'm almost furious.
Guest:I think that you're not alone.
Guest:Because I work in restaurants and have for so many years and I know how many things can happen that lead to that kind of unfortunate experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't look at it the way you look at it purely as a consumer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is how you have the right to look at it that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For me, I just think, oh, God.
Marc:You like being a TV star?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I like being on TV.
Guest:I think it's a privilege.
Guest:I really like it.
Guest:I do.
Marc:Do people come up to you and go, that thing you made, I made it at home and I loved it.
Guest:And I love that.
Marc:Yeah, that's great.
Guest:But I'll tell you what I really love is to write books.
Guest:And I would like to write a lot of books.
Guest:And if TV is the platform that you need in order to be able to do that, then I like TV a lot for that reason.
Guest:I'm a writer and would like to write a lot more.
Marc:Well, do it.
Guest:I am.
Guest:I'm already writing a lot of other things.
Guest:And even just writing them, I don't care what happens.
Guest:I mean, people say to me, I'm on my eighth book and whatever else.
Guest:I may just publish two or three books, but I love to read and I love to write.
Guest:And I do a lot of it.
Marc:All right, one last question.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Who's that dude?
Marc:Who's that food critic, the Iron Chef guy, the bald guy?
Guest:Simon Majumdar.
Marc:Majumdar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, what's up with that?
Marc:You like that guy?
Guest:I really do.
Guest:And he said some stuff to me during Next Iron Chef that was really hard to swallow.
Guest:He said one of my dishes looked like I put Kermit the Frog in the blender.
Guest:that kind of stuff when you're competing and you know you want to fall over as it is it's hard to take um he's he's a food historian um but he winds up being so much more than that because he really loves to eat and he loves good food yeah and he likes to cook yeah
Guest:So he's sort of the whole real deal, whereas he might be just come off as somebody sort of stuffy and curmudgeonly and playing by the rules.
Guest:He winds up being really passionate about food and culture.
Guest:I think he thinks you can totally understand a culture through its food.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's very open with what food did to him or did for him as a child.
Marc:So there are food critics you trust and respect and will listen to.
Guest:Him I would really follow pretty much anywhere.
Guest:I drink his Kool-Aid.
Guest:He really does his homework, which is all you need in my book.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, this has been a real honor for me.
Guest:For me, too.
Marc:I feel like I know you.
Marc:It's the weirdest thing.
Guest:Now that we've talked, do you feel like the TV represented the person that...
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Well, except you're deeper and you're smarter and you have a bigger understanding.
Marc:On that show, and I think that you're... At first, I was like, what's her fucking problem?
Marc:I used to get mad when you were on.
Marc:I'd be like, ugh.
Marc:Here's that bitch.
Marc:And she's just going to do that weird look where you don't know if she likes it or not.
Guest:I know.
Guest:God, I've got to get it together.
Guest:I've got to get some Mickey Mouse smile going.
Marc:You've gotten better.
Marc:I think you let yourself enjoy things.
Marc:You've loosened up, am I wrong, over the years at CHOP?
Guest:Oh, I think so.
Guest:You get more out of people when you relax.
Marc:I think you're a little more compassionate.
Guest:Oh, massively.
Guest:I'm the sucker.
Marc:Yeah, but you weren't at the beginning.
Guest:I've always been the sucker.
Guest:I just hit it.
Guest:I've been the sucker since day one.
Marc:Are you guys told that, though?
Guest:Are you told?
Guest:No, we're not instructed on how to act.
Guest:And I think that's why the show's so good.
Guest:Because the creator, Linda Lee, and the producers, particularly Vivian Sorensen, the two of them just... I grew up with her.
Guest:She produced that fucking show?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Vivian Sorensen from Albuquerque, New Mexico?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:What are you kidding me?
Guest:We call her the great tormentor on the set because she will pursue and pursue and pursue until she gets what she wants.
Guest:Do you know I went to elementary school with her?
Guest:I did not know that.
Marc:Did you know she was from Albuquerque?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I do.
Marc:Her brother's Eugene.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:She's awesome.
Guest:She produces that show.
Marc:I went on the bus to school with her.
Guest:I can't believe you didn't know that.
Guest:Is this a watershed moment for you?
Marc:Well, no, I knew at some point years ago, I think I knew she was producing television, but I don't think that I knew that this was at a media connection.
Marc:She is.
Marc:Fifth and sixth grade, we went to Monsanto Day School, and I might have went to junior high with her.
Guest:She is, really.
Guest:She and Linda Lee, the two of them.
Guest:Fantastic.
Guest:They just hold it down.
Guest:They won't let go.
Guest:But they don't tell us how to act.
Marc:They wanted me to do it.
Marc:They asked me to, I think Judy Gold did it, but they were going to do a celebrity thing.
Marc:And I like the show, and I know I can kind of cook, and I know I've learned a lot from the show, but I don't actively cook enough for me to take the hit.
Marc:And I knew I would take the hit, and I just didn't know how graceful I could be at taking the hit, so I turned it down.
Yeah.
Guest:I think everybody does, goes through the, what you, everything you just said.
Guest:Everybody says that to themselves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you have some people that say, screw it, I'm going to do it anyway.
Guest:And people, some people just say, I'm not, are you crazy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I know that, you know, like I know now from watching that show where I'm like, oh, he's going to make a syrup and he's going to, you know, like there's no, you know, I know what he's going to break that down like that, but I don't know if I would actually in the moment.
Marc:It's so nerve wracking.
Marc:But I don't, I don't have the skills, you know, and I can follow a recipe, but I can't riff.
Guest:Yeah, I hear you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tell me about it.
Guest:What?
Guest:I mean, it's tough.
Guest:It's so hard.
Marc:You have to be able to riff a bit or else you're just going to make a mess.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And maybe even you're going to riff and really riff well and still make a mess.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But if you don't have the confidence to riff...
Marc:Like, you know, even to say, like, I'm going to make a sauce.
Marc:I don't know the basics of a sauce.
Marc:You know, I don't eat sauces.
Marc:But I can call it when I see it's about to happen.
Guest:Well, you could put a little vinegar and oil in a blender and say, voila, breakfast is ready.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I have one of those blenders.
Guest:Maybe down the line you'll change your mind.
Marc:The Veg... Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The Vitamix.
Marc:Vitamix.
Marc:You can do anything with them.
Guest:You can puree a carburetor in there if you want.
Guest:You can puree your car.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, it's good stuff.
Marc:In a pinch, if I need to do that.
Guest:Good to know.
Marc:Thank you, Alex.
Guest:My pleasure.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Marc:Okay, that's our show, folks.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:What a firecracker.
Marc:Get her book if you want to cook that stuff.
Marc:What am I saying now?
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Again, get the app.
Marc:Go to WTFPod and get the app.
Marc:So it's the easiest way to get the show.
Marc:And if you upgrade to premium, it's very cheap.
Marc:You can listen to all 400 or so episodes.
Marc:It's fun.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's a way to listen.
Marc:And again, I'm going to put a little more focus on premium content in the future.
Marc:I will be going to Denver, Colorado.
Marc:Heads up.
Marc:Denver, Colorado.
Marc:on the 23rd and 24th of this month of August.
Marc:I will be in Salt Lake City, Utah at the West Valley Comedy Club there at, what is it, Wise Guys West Valley on the 17th, one night only, Saturday.
Marc:Goddamn.
Marc:14 years sober.
Marc:Between you and me, it is a fucking miracle.
Marc:It's a fucking miracle.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:I'm not even supposed to say this, but, you know, if you've got a fucking problem, don't fight it.
Marc:Don't fight it.
Marc:Get willing.
Marc:Go to a meeting.
Marc:Listen.
Marc:Don't judge.
Marc:Listen for what you relate to.
Marc:I'm not supposed to say that.
Marc:I'm not a spokesperson for that type of thing, but it fucking saved my brain, saved my life.
Marc:End of story.
Marc:Boomer lives!