Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 108 - Kwame Onwuachi

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Kwame Onwuachi, the author of 'My America - Recipes From A Black Chef' shares the ingredients of his life and career.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I am Tom Papa. Thank you for joining us for another great show. Today, we have an amazing chef. Kwame Unwachi.

He is a great new chef. He's got a great new book called My America. Recipes from a young black chef. so good, so talented. He is, he has, he's got so much going on. Not only is he super talented, not only is his own memoir. Now he has his own cookbook. I also found out in the middle of this interview that he has a little comedy chops as well.

We had a great conversation. He's just very fresh, very innovative. The recipes in this book are perfect and perfect for this time of year. There is a lot of fish stuff, a jambalaya idea. He's got this great influence from Nigeria and Louisiana and the Bronx that is his unique American journey. And this is the food that comes from that journey. I just liked him so much. You're going to really like the conversation.

I'd like to thank the good people from every plate. Every plate. life is too short for boring dinner. Now you can get all the ingredients brought to your home and keep your taste buds happy with an ever-changing seasonal recipes and a variety of meat, seafood, and veggie options. Skip the store and let every plate plan, shop, and deliver everything you need to cook a delicious meal at a consistently low price. Try every plate for just $1.79 per meal by going to

to everyplate.com and entering the code Papa 179. That's everyplate.com code Papa 179 to get every plate for $1.79 per meal. That's up to a $104 value. Good, fresh stuff delivered to you with recipes and ideas and the meals and you just put them together lickety split and you've got good healthy food that you're going to enjoy and it's a good variety. Thank you every plate for coming on board. So Kwame, Kwame Onwachi, he is super talented. I think you're really going to love this conversation. And now here we are heading into summertime. I had the over Memorial Day weekend. We dusted it all off. It's funny how you start to, you start to, you kind of like relearn what you did last season. The grill, a little ratty. That one part of the grill that lets flames just shoot up

into the sky. Still haven't fixed that. I have a little outdoor fridge, open that up. Still some white claws from the last party we had, probably a labor day. It's time to dust it all off. But we made some really great stuff too. We had corn on the cob was great. I don't know if we live in a world where corn on the cob is only going to be a late summer thing. I'm sure the East Coast corn, that Jersey corn that you get in August is going to be better. But stuff that we had, which in California, in the end of May, beginning of June, pretty damn good. So I'm not sure how much, how much much of the world we live in that's seasonal. I think probably your bang for your buck is going to be following the seasons, but we cranked out some corn and put a little Mexican street corn to it,

a little cheese. We substituted the Mexican cheese for it with a phaida and some lime and salt it up. Holy cow. So good. And then I've got a, big veggie family. So that grill is short-lived because you're throwing veggie dogs out and veggie burgers, grilled vegetables. That's all good. But then of course you sneak in the nice hot Italian sausages, get those on a roll. The dogs following me down the stairs. I have such fun watching Frank the Pug. He knows now if I just take out the metal tongs, he knows it's grill time. and he does not leave my side. It is like a cartoon.

He just gets at my side and it's like he's saying, we're doing this, right? This is going to be, okay, we're going to the grill. All right. And then as soon as I start heading out, he books it down the stairs, out to the yard, waits at the grill. And then he knows I go out there,

turn the grill on, have to come back in for the supplies. He's already, he knows the routine running up the stairs, waiting for me in the kitchen as we're putting it together because he knows if he, he plays his cards right and shows enough enthusiasm, he is going to get some of that meat.

And that is the one time when the rest of the people in the family who he knows are not connected to the meat world, he wants nothing to do with them. Nice big hot Italian sausages on rolls. It was nice. It was a good start to the season. And then I made this Biscotti, which was, holy cow, this might be my new bread, by the way, because it's so hard to ship bread to my loved ones to bring it around. Biscotti, which, you know, is the Italian cookies twice baked, you know, hard. If you don't know what they are, I assume everybody does know what they are. but when I was breaking them out over the last couple of days with people who were visiting, there were a couple of people who had never had Biscotti before, so I can't assume that.

Perfect like these longer kind of cookies, hard. They're perfect with coffee in the morning. The New York Times had a chocolate chili biscotti. Oh, Dutch cocoa, chocolate, chocolate, cashews, roasted cations. cashews. What else went in it? Of course, your salt and your flour and stuff like that. And I want some ancho chili powder. So it gives it a little bit of the spice, a little bit of a inspired by Mexican mole. So good. So then you make that into the dough. You just put it into the thing and you just mix it all up, a couple eggs. You get it all going and makes this sticky dough. You split it in two.

you flatten it out. You bake that for 20 minutes at 3.50. Then you break it out, let it cool for like three hours, and then slice it into the individual biscotti shapes. Put those back onto the sheet, face up, and then you double bake it. You bake it a second time for about a half an hour. Oh, Nelly, so good.

And they last for over two weeks. if it's in a sealed container. So if you're keeping it around the house, you've got your coffee situation set up for the next two weeks. Perfect. And very easy to ship to your loved ones. So I feel like if I can dial this in, this is a good bread offshoot that could be,

I feel like this is a good way to spread this baking experience without having to like try and get a love. loaf of bread out by FedEx for $75 immediately from going off the cooling rack. So I really, I recommend you look it up. It's the ancho chili biscade recipe. So good. And then let's just dive into summer. Let's start breaking out these things and get your own Frank. I recommend you get some hot Italian sausages, adopt a pug, and go to work on the grill. All right, let's jump into it. Let's jump in. There's a great conversation. Kwame is such a, a rising star, a bright light, just showing off the diversity of American food.

He has got, you just look at this. That's what says great about this country, is that you have all of these different influences. You take a kid who spent time in Nigeria, the Bronx to Nigeria, to Louisiana, to the Bronx. There is just that influence, which is uniquely American. experience, I guess except for the Nigerian part, but his starting from here and going there and coming back, that slice. What Kwame has at his disposal of his American experience is going to be so different from somebody else from a different part of this country, which is so wonderful. You're just going to see the recipes and see the life. And it's just, it's just joy. There's just joy, united,

feeling and I hope you get that from this conversation. So enjoy now. Kwame Unwatchy. Again, the book is My America recipes from a young black chef. Of course. Thank you for having me. Yeah, where in New York are you? I'm in Brooklyn and Bushwick right now. Ah, beautiful, beautiful. Well, congratulations on everything. It's such a cool ride that you've been on already in a very, short amount of time. It's very, it's very impressive, and I really thank you for making some time for us today. Your book is very exciting. I got it. I am already intrigued. I love it in so many ways already. It's called My America Recipes from a Young Black Chef. And I would like to start just to kind of set the set the tone. If you don't mind, I'm going to just read your dedication.

Okay. For our listeners, you say, I dedicate this book to my mother, Jewel Robinson, for gracing my hand with the spirit of our ancestors. When a dish tells a story, it has a soul. You are not only cooking to achieve perfect seasoning, but you are also cooking to share a memory and an anecdote. Thank you, Mom, for keeping our history alive. That is really well written.

You're a very good writer, by the way. Your other book proves that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your mom, other than keeping you alive and feeding you and guiding you, what do you mean by helping keeping our history alive? I continue to share recipes.

I think that's a way that a lot of people have kept history and culture going by passing down these recipes. And recipes are stories. You know, recipes tell much more than just, you know, the event that it's for or the occasion. It's a snapshot in history at a certain point of time. And if you can continue to share that, you know, it becomes a beautiful thing and an important thing. Do you have her recipes written down? Is she the kind of mom that just never put it down in writing? My mother is really good cook, but we had to like hold her down and make her write everything down.

Yeah, similar. You know, it's a lot of little bit of this, little bit of that. Just making it time and time again. You know, she doesn't use recipes to make our like treasured family dishes. It's more, it's more just like a muscle memory, you know? So, like, asking her for these recipes is really like just talking through her process mainly. Yeah. Which is cool, too.

Yeah. My, like I said, we pinned my mom down and made her give us all of her stuff. And we wrote it down. Then my friend of mine asked, she's Italian. And we passed on her recipe for sauce, for red sauce. to my friend and she called me and she's like there's no amounts. It just says tomatoes, garlic. Yeah.

It just says all of these things, but it is, it really is amazing how much. So you started with her as a, she really was kind of your early inspiration, I would say. Or like just actually getting you, getting you, putting you to work. Yeah, I mean, she was, she, she started a catering company, you know, from, from the house when I was five years old. So we had no choice but to help out. And, you know, luckily for me, that chore turned into a passion. And it got me here today. But, but I definitely credit her with, with instilling in me a desire for, for the culinary arts. It's, that is, that could have gotten one of, that could have gone one of, that could have gone either way, really. Right. I mean, a catering business, that is, that's hard. that's a hard work. Yeah, and then getting into the business that your parents are, you know, it's usually like you are essentially allergic to it or you love it. Yeah. Did you love it at the time or did it take you a beat?

I did love it. I mean, I could spend time with her, you know, and I think that's what would make me fall in love with it so quickly. But I think I had a natural knack for it. I come from a long line of cooks. So it was something like if you can't cook, like you're really not. a part of his family. You know, so. Yeah, the one, one impressive thing when you were talking about how you, you made a,

you made a dish from food and wine when you were like nine years old, which is kind of unusual to begin with. But the thing that really popped for me was that you, you improvised immediately. Mm-hmm. Right? Absolutely, yeah. That's an unusual, that's an unusual, bold step for a kid to be like, you know, Like, no, I don't think, what was it again?

Like you replaced rice with noodles or something? Yeah, I replaced the noodles with rice instead. You know, I added different sauces to it. I think I added a couple different proteins to it. So, yeah, it was very strange for, you know, this older chef to be watching this young, young, I don't know, I don't even want to call this of a cook at that time, but a young person in the kitchen, putting a recipe and then making a recipe and then making it their own.

Yeah. I think back to me, she was like, okay, we need to start nurturing this a little bit. Absolutely. That's just an innate thing, Kwame. I mean, because, you know, I love to cook, but I get, I'm usually like double-checking the recipe five times. Then I kind of always want to be more bold and want to be like, just let it fly, just use your instinct, especially when it's something new, I really panic.

And I'm just sitting there with my iPad, like double-dust. I don't know why people do that. I tell people all the time, I'm like, what can I do to be less nervous? I'm like, you're not on an operating table. It's this dinner. You know, what's the worst case scenario? You order pizza? Like, that's also a great scenario.

Yeah, but you, but you, it's kind of like when people say to me, like, how do you get on stage and tell jokes? I don't understand that. And it's like, well, it's just me. And it seems more unusual not to do that. I mean, for you, like, at nine to have that instinct, like, no, I'm bold and I can do this and I kind of, I'll make this work. That is kind of, that is innate. That's something that you probably just, I don't know, the confidence of just banging around as a little kid maybe, or maybe it's just your instinct.

Yeah, I would say it's just instinct. And I've always been, I mean, I don't want to use the word bodacious, but a brave person. You know, I acted when I was a kid and I was got the lead and I was just like, finding. with it. If there was any opportunity to have a dance off at a party when I was a kid, I was the first one in line. So I think it definitely aligned with my nature of who I am. Right, right. What age were you when you went to your grandfather and spent some time with him in Nigeria? I was between 10 and 12. Between 10 and 12. Yeah. This is, it's really it's funny when you start piecing it together. It's like these young influence, like you're doing stuff at a very young

age. So it's like, of course you should be part of the 30 under 30 to watch. It's like you were, you were very busy at nine. Exactly. Very busy at nine. Sent away at 10. Yeah. Were you sent away or were you in trouble or were you? I was in trouble, man. I think, I think, you know, children of immigrants should petition, should make it a federal offense to send you back. Like, without your consent. I didn't know I was going back for that long. I didn't have the means to buy my own ticket and get back to America.

Oh, really? I was going for two weeks and I was there for two years. Whoa. What was it? Why were you in trouble? I mean, I was veering off on the wrong path, which is pretty easy to do, like, in the South Bronx. Right.

but um so she was worried about you and was like she just yeah she was worried about me right that was being more and more and more insubordinate and just you know hanging out until whenever i wanted to and um you know that wasn't flying in her house so right did it uh were you aware did it did it did it calm you did it what was the effect of being there and how quickly did it take effect. Oh, man. It was a culture shock. You know, I went from like playing PlayStation to do my homework under Carazine

lamp, you know? I went from taking the longest showers in the world to go and fetch my water and showering with a bucket and a cup, you know, and went from dropping off my clothes to washing full to learning how to get stains out of my clothes from the sun by hand washing them and hanging, you know, them in the sunlight. So it was, um, it was. It was a culture shock, but it also taught me so many valuable lessons, you know, to appreciate the things we have here in America, like running water, like electricity and also like our food. You know, we couldn't just like pick up, you know, a salafane pack of chicken, you know, that's like perfectly cut.

We had to raise, you know, our own chickens and goats and things like that. So it directly correlated to my craft, which is great. But I think it also like helped me just be. better human being at the end of the day. Was your grandfather a strict guy? Was he a loving guy? Oh, yeah. He was the chief of the village.

So he was very strict and very proud. You know, we couldn't do many things that other kids couldn't do. So, yeah, I mean, he instilled a lot of values in me of just like respecting yourselves as well and carrying yourself in a certain way, which we had to do in that village. Right. And then school, school was totally different too. You know, I was a class clown back at home. You, you did something to defy the teacher there. You were carrying a sender block across the soccer field eight times.

You know, you didn't do, if you got into a fight, you have to dig your own height. So like, it was, it was a, it was a crash course in getting your shit together. Yeah. Wow. So valuable, though. That's just to have those. those moments of, like, were you frustrated? Were you like, I got to get out of here at first?

You must have been. Yeah, I felt betrayed in the sense. You know, I thought I would never come home. Also, you know, 9-11 happened at that time. So I'm watching on CNN, these planes hit buildings where my, you know, my mother works around there. So and then we didn't have phones. So we couldn't just like, pick up a phone and call. It's like to go to a call center.

So it was, it was, it was very scary for me. But it, it, it, also made me the person who I am today. And I don't think I would be where I'm at if I didn't go through that. What was the moment? When did you find out you were going back? I don't remember, honestly. I know a date was set.

But by the time I did find out I was going back and I already assimilated to life there. You know, I was in school. Yeah. I had friends. Right. I got used to no electricity. I looked forward to those, you know, cold baths. So like it was it was like oh okay I'm going home in three months cool you know like but I'm going to miss my friends so did you make good friends there I did I did were you the funny one I would hope so I think I was I don't know if they were laughing at me or with me but I was definitely an interesting child you know being um you know from America in this like rural village in Nigeria yeah so yeah I think

everything I said was funny because I had an accent, I guess. You're right. So when you come back, you're like 12 or 13. Did you were you, what, how was, how was the reentry? Oh, man. I mean, the reentry was, I think I was like really, really respectful and good for about a month. And then I was like back to my old ways. Class clown again.

And now I'm back in school. class clown, getting in trouble. Now I have the chip on my shoulder. I'm like, okay, you guys think you're tough out here. Try, you know, walking around with no electricity in a place where you can get kidnapped, you know, so. Yeah. I quickly got back into the things that got me sent out there. Right. So when do you, when do you get right? When do you, what was it that? That's a good question. What date is it? I'm still trying to figure out. I'll let you know when it happens. Exactly.

I'll meet up in LA. You can assess for yourself. But I think when I really started veering or getting back on a straight path as one, I started taking cooking seriously. I think cooking really saved my life in that regard because I was like dealing drugs heavily. It was very successful at it. You know, I was in school, but like just really focused on the wrong things. And then, yeah, I dropped out of school and started working.

in kitchens. You know, I knew that the the criminal life, you know, or whatever you want to call, I guess it's legal now, now to admire things. You know, marijuana is very legal, so I should have stayed in the game, but I knew there wasn't a happy ending to it.

And I remember, like, seeing Obama walk across the stage and, you know, become president, it gets sworn in. I just thought to myself, like, man, you know, this black man became ahead of the most important office in the world, you know, defied odds, you know, like, what am I doing with my life?

I can do anything I put my mind to. And I just started cooking, started as a dishwasher, worked my way up. What age was that? That was 17, 18. 1718. That's cool. And that's still in New York? That was in New Orleans.

I moved to New Orleans or Louisiana. It was Baton Rouge, actually. And my mom had moved there when I graduated high school. She got a big chef gig. So, yeah, man, I started just like one day at a time, you know, taking it super seriously. And, you know, I moved back to New York. I started a catering company. And that even, you know, made things even more serious for me.

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You guys are going to enjoy it. Give it a try. What was that like? What was the schooling like? Like, how, you know, I always hear people talk. about if I don't really understand like yeah like military school almost is it really yeah like you have to have to have your uniforms pressed the knee you have to be cleanly shaven I think they let you wear a beard now but back then you have to be cleanly shaven every day and um and you know they we start off with

fundamentals and learning like knife cuts and how to make stocks properly and sauces and then we go to like banquet cookery or a la carte and cooking like proteins full composed dishes. you know, then we do some other classes. Then we go off on an internship or they call it an externship. And we go to work in a restaurant for like four months. And then we come back and do more intense classes. And then, you know, you graduate or you can do, you know, bachelors and get a concentrated degree, whether in wine, you know, wine studies or whatever. Sky is honestly the limit.

And now they have a master's program, too, which is pretty cool. Wow. And did it, what was like, when you look back at it now that you're at this stage, what was like the, what was the main takeaway from it? Was it the discipline? Was it specific skills? Was it, did it turn you on that like a certain part of it, like culinary-wise? Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of takeaways. Definitely the discipline for sure. And then there was, the introduction to like the proper way to do things, like the proper way to sear things. You know, when you have a natural gift, like a singer, for example, or an actor, like, yeah, you can be great if you're thrown into it. But when someone teaches you the craft, I think your knowledge,

your appreciation for it and just your overall skill, it sharpens. So that's what I learned. And then I learned, you know, the history of food, you know, the history of certain dishes, of degastation menus, you know, and things like that. So it was, it was a great experience for me. Right. The, uh, the book is so good. It's, it's such a, like, what's very cool about it is that it's my America, recipes from a young black chef. And it's, it really made, it really made me think about the country as a whole. Yeah. Because there could be, you could have, someone could

write another chef could write my America and have completely different recipes in it. Exactly. Right? It's such a cool thing in that regard. And this is very much Caribbean

influenced, the Louisiana part of it. There's two things, though, I wanted to if I could just jump in a little bit. You write really well about the pantry and the power of the pantry in the history of the pantry.

And the two items that you talk about are house spice and ginger garlic. Ginger garlic is a paste or ginger garlic? Ginger garlic puree. Purely. It's a paste or puree, but it's a puree. Right. Explain, tell me a little bit about house spice. So how spice is the spice blend that my mom always had in arms reach in the kitchen.

You know, it's pretty much an creole or all-purpose seasoning. blend. It's just like her ratios. And it goes on everything. I mean, we put it in eggs, put it in rice, we put it on fish, she's put on popcorn. But we use it as a base to make our family's recipes like etou fay and gumbo, you know, crawfish pie. She makes these like sauteed shrimp with lots of garlic in time, you know, and house spices is a thing that really takes it up a notch. but everything we cook, we normally put house spice in. So I thought it was important to build a pantry. A lot of like Afro-Caribbean dishes.

They stem from a pantry. You know, there was an act of preservation of building that stuff up or even preserving them, you know, like Italians with tomatoes. So if you start with that pantry, a lot of these dishes become easier. But you can use these pantry items for other things as well to bump up the flavor. in dishes that you know and love. I mean, if you put house spice in a red sauce, that that flavor is just taken up.

There's nothing is like super conflicting. You know, if you're making a salad dressing and you put like Trinidadian green seasoning in it, the flavor is only going to intensify. So I thought it would be great to start with the pantry before you even get to the book. So you have this arsenal of sauces and spices and marinate

that you can be quickly at your disposal. And then they last long. You know, I've given like, you know, freezer times and fridge times. for their shelf life. Oh, yeah, that was what it was. Yeah, I was going to ask that because a lot of times I'll talk to people and they're like,

you know, go through your, go through your spice rack and probably half of that should be thrown out because it's been in there for so long. Exactly. How long can how spice if it's just in the pantry not refrigerated? How long is that last? I mean, I would say like a month or two. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty short. And the ginger garlic? I mean, it can last in the freezer for a couple months as well. In the fridge, not so much, but in the freezer, it can last a bit, a bit of time. And how is that used? Is that used just to pop things up as well? Yeah, it's a base. So if you're cooking anything that already has ginger and garlic in it, use this puree

or use that to marinate your meat. And it's going to inject so much flavor. also, you know, peeling ginger and garlic, that's a whole job in and of itself. So if you can eliminate that and do that ahead of time, you're going to save yourself a lot of time when cooking. Yeah, this is such a great way Kwamey to start the book because there's so many times when you're like, oh, this dish looks amazing. I'll get something up to the New York Times app or something and be like, that looks great. And then it's like, holy cow. Just making, just getting the spices together and mixing the stuff.

It's like, you know, it's so much work. If you could just have it already set, and like you said in your arsenal, it makes everything so much easier. You talk about, and I want to get back to the, I want to get to the cultural part, but just because I love this line, I just want to say it because I wrote it down, when you talk about jerk and you say jerk is like an Instagram filter, it just makes reality better.

It's true. I have jerks that are going to come into me right now from food delivery app. Oh, you do? Oh, my God. It's so good. Oh, and oxdale. Oh, man. When I lived in New York, I'm from New York in New Jersey.

Yeah. I'm in L.A. now for a bit. But we lived in Chelsea in one of our apartments. And there was a place around the corner called Negril. And, oh, my God. It was like real Jamaican food. And it was, oh, my God, it was so good. You eat it every day.

Every day. Every day. It's just comfort, you know. And that's what I want to desigmatize these recipes. They're not exotic, you know, this is as a kid and people were like, why did you call it my America? I was like, because as a kid, I knew I lived in America. I'm eating these foods. And what kid is like, what nationality is this dish from?

You know, like, it's just, I guess it's American food. I guess everybody eats this way until you go to your friend's house and you're like, what the hell is going on. So, you know, a lot of these dishes are super comforting. And everybody has their, like, grilled meat dish. Every culture has their rice dish or their, or their soup or stew. So, yeah, you know, I think this book will be a lot more familiar to people than it will be, like, just, like, very, like, obscure. Yeah. No, absolutely.

It's, it's, it really is the thing. Like I said, it's really this kind of, it creates this. sense of a celebration of the country in a very profound way because you're like, yeah, this is, I mean, it's such a vast, gigantic place. It's almost crazy that we're all in the same country. You know, I know, it's so big. Yeah, I mean, you take the stuff just from Louisiana and you take all of that stuff and all of that influence from the Caribbean and from France, and then you mush it all together and then you've got this part of America that is, it's distinctly American. And then you're going to say that that is the same place as northern Wisconsin.

Exactly. Right? Where there's cheese and white bread and mayonnaise and. Exactly. That's not my America. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't eat the same. Yeah, exactly. But that's what's so what's so cool about it. the um what is what is the when you talk about my america and you write really what well in the book and about how there are certain things and certain spices that come from uh that actually come from slavery or they come from struggle or they come from you know uh being in in the caribbean and being freed by the spanish and living in the hill. in a very rough way. It was almost out of necessity that a lot of these recipes and these things kind of came about. But why do you think tied into the history and also tied into just the

flavor of it? What in your instinct, because you're very aware of the history of all of this stuff, why did some things last and stay relevant while others drop off? I think because they're true. They're honest. You know, these dishes are just honest. They're a snapshot in time of the history. And some of the stories are painful, but they also represent freedom and tenacity and, you know, wellpower. And I think that's why some of some dishes, they just laugh. They stand the test of time. And I thought it was important to talk about that.

You know, there's no Jamaican museum that has a picture of the guy who invented curry goat, you know? Like it's it's it's just been around because that's what was there. You know, you had, you know, indentured Indian servants come over to Trinidad and Tobago, you know, and with them came their food ways. You had, you know, goats that were prevalent on the island. They were very easy to raise and very sustainable. And those two things came together because that's just what was there. Right.

So like, right. So I think that's what makes these dishes more impressive than somebody saying, like, oh my God, I've created this dish. You know, I want credit for this dish. If anybody makes it, they're ripping me off, you know. But these other dishes, like, nothing is new under the sun, you know? And like, these dishes were formed because they just had to be. And I think that really makes them special.

Yeah, that kind of ingrained. It's almost like it's telling a story, isn't it? It's like, it's like this. ongoing, like, evolution. I think about that with writing a lot that it's like, you know, everything's been written about. Everybody's used these words before. Everybody's tried to convey something, kind of like ingredients. And it's like, well, why keep going in a way?

And it's because your people have passed it to you. And now it's your turn to translate it and fold it into today. and your experience and put it out and continue the conversation and then someone will pick it up from you exactly and move it along exactly and that's why i think my mom in the beginning because i'm just an extension of what she did to me you know this book has an extension of of what she what she did you know she yes she makes gumbo and her gumbo is amazing but she didn't create gumbo you know she makes the shrimp stock from scratch she makes her own house spice blend you know she has her ratio of of rue that she puts in there. And that's the way that she views food, you know, and this book is just the way that I view

food. There's nothing in here. I'm like, I'm the creator of this one thing. You know, there's a couple of dishes in there that are from, you know, a couple restaurants that I've done that have just been so popular, you know, and I'm showing the beauty of like Afro-Caribbean cuisine. When you break down the elements of it and then put it back together, you can have something really inspiring. But, you know, I'm also not the first person to create a salad. So, like, it's like, you know. So, yeah, I think it's a beautiful collection of recipes that tell the story of that speak for the inaudible or give a voice to the inaudible. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. The restaurant thing, you know, you've opened some spots and been successful.

And when I read about you or just see you pop up on Instagram or. now the book, I personally am like, okay, how can I find him, go sit at a table with some friends and eat all of this stuff? What are your plans? Do you have plans? Do you think that, are you contemplating your next move as far as a restaurant goes? Or are you going to take a beat? I mean, you know, I'm focused on the book right now and making sure it's out there. And then I have, you know, the family reunion, which is this food festival. Yes. That I throw.

Yes. First, tell me about the restaurant because then I want to, I have a question about family reunion. Well, no, I'm just focused on this book, not a restaurant, but the family reunion, yeah, that's like, that's like, that's my focus as well. Yeah. The, all right, well, I know you're busy. I know you got stuff to do. But if you could just, maybe just do a pop up in L. So I mean, I love to, I have the book.

I'm going to take some cracks at do it and expand what I can make based on your book. But I'm also lazy. And I would like to walk into a pub or I'll come to Family Reunion. So the reason I wanted to hesitate on Family Reunion, I'm on tour right now. And the name of my tour is Family Reunion. Oh, really? Yeah. And yeah, I just love the sentiment behind it.

I just, especially coming out of COVID and, and being isolated, I just felt like family reunion getting together and celebrating with people that you know and people that you just are in your orbit and gathering new people in. It was just so great. And it was so cool to see your event. And this is the second one that you're doing? Yeah, it's the second one. It's August 18th of the 22nd. You know, we're at Salamander Resort and Spa. It's a four-day food festival.

And we bring together like 45 of like the greatest, you know, black food professionals in the country. And we party and we have panel discussions and we cry and we dance. It's so great. Beautiful thing. Oh, it's so cool. And Chappelle came by the first one? Yeah, Chappelle came by, Estelle, Angela Rye. It was a party.

It was great. Oh, man. How many people? 500 people. Wow. That's cool. And was Rodney Scott there? Mm-hmm. Yeah, Rodney Scott.

We did a cookout and Rodney Scott was on the grill. Oh, man. How special is he? Oh, he's a gem. He's a gem. He's so inspiring. He just shows up. You don't even know what he does.

If you didn't, if you had no idea that he was this barbecue master, and he just walked into, if you just ran across him in an airport, you just be like, who's that? Who's that? Why is he making me feel better? He's somebody.

He's somebody special for sure. Yeah. Wow, that's a great thing. Family reunion. So can people get tickets for that? Yeah, so tickets are on sale now on the Salamander website. And, and yeah, it's a special, special thing. you know being able to celebrate black and brown contributions to the food industry

while you know understanding black food ways and and hearing from the people that have made you know this industry and helped build it i i don't i've never been to an event like it and then also the food is just so good it's so great i go to a lot of food festivals and the food is like whatever it's really phenomenal yeah oh that's amazing that sounds so so special What is it about being, you know, both your books are Young Black Chef. What is the part that you're, what is the part of being young and black in America that you're the most proud of? I'm proud of my culture.

I'm proud of being Black. I think it's, I just think it's, it's so rich in, and identity and expression. and creativity and tenacity. It's something that I'm just really, really proud of. So just being black alone, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question,

I hope you don't take offense to it. Because I really, I always wrestle with it, is when is it cultural appropriation and when is it pure out celebration and love? Like I When is what? What is what is what is when is it cultural appropriation and when is it just loving black culture? Like as a kid I think it's case by case.

Yeah, because like as a kid I was like I was so like into run DMC. I was like dressing like them and I was like my father was like loved Sly and the family stone. And I was just like we just loved everything so much. And you know, you would play the music and eat the. food and do the and and you just wanted to more than anything I wanted to be them yeah and and then but then there's like this line where you're like okay I understand like swiping people's music or profiting off of stuff but I always feel like I always feel like but is I want I want I want to I never want my deep love for the culture to be seen as something negative you know what I mean

Yeah, I think there's a respect level that needs to happen. Yeah. I think if you're just, if you like rap music, there's nothing wrong with that. If you grew up in the culture, especially in the 80s and, you know, late 80s, early 90s, and, you know, when rap was really getting solidified as a genre, and that was your thing. I mean, I think that's, there's something to be said when you, when you're a part of the history, you know, you're also doing work, right? Right.

I think when you are. just like, you know, jumping in and listening to, you know, the latest trap music. Yeah. And you're saying the N-word, you know, that's cultural appropriation. And you're wearing a du rag and you have no reason to be wearing a du rag. I think that's when cultural appropriation hits in. But, you know, you cut your hair short and you were cutting it and you were brushing your hair and you got waves.

I mean, that's a different story. Right. And I think same goes with food. You know, you have, you know, like Ivan. Ivan Raman, you know, like he spent time in in in Japan, you know, like learning how to make ramen popular for a very long time. Right. So I think, I'm trying to get his full name, but, you know, I think that's when you're celebrating something. Right.

You know, you're not just like opening up a ramen shop because it's popular right now. Right. Right, right. And you're trying to capitalize on a culture. That's when, you know, you have culture vultures. Right, right. Yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah, because, I mean, you know, the hopeful part of your book, the hopeful part of the country is when we are sharing. It's like when we are like diving in and being like, you know, take that person from Wisconsin and give them gumbo. and let them sit and understand, you know, what it is and the feeling and the sharing and all of that stuff is like the best parts of us is like the communication and the love that everybody gets to share. And then, yeah, and then there's always the twisting of it. It's like all this stuff and it seems like your mission is like uniting, which is really inspiring. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's always the mission to unite.

to separate because we're so much more similar than we think. And I think, you know, racism is like one of the worst diseases to plague this, this world. Because it, it dehumanizes people and removes that. And I think, you know, food can be a way to bring people together and help with understanding. You can really get to know someone's culture by eating their food and sharing and shameless plug, breaking bread with them, you know? That's right. That's an important thing.

Yeah. What is, how do people go wrong with gumbo? In your estimation, what's a bad gumbo? No depth of flavor. You know, either too much rue that's like burnt or too much filet powder. You know, not enough seasoning, not making their stocks from scratch. Right. You know, not using really good sausage or chicken or seafood, kind of like whatever you're making, bad rice.

So, yeah, there's a lot of things where gung both will go wrong. Yeah. You just listed everything that could go wrong. The, when you, when I always find there's always a, there's two ways. Like, either you talk to chefs and they're like, when I'm home, I'm just eating a peanut butter and jelly because I'm, I'm, I'm, there's food. I can't, there's just too much food in the rest of my life. Or they have a balance where they're actually at homes using it to kind of experiment and, and move forward and stuff. What, what is your day to day? Sorry. I mean, my day to day is really, I'm on the go a lot,

you know, so I'm eating out more times than I'm cooking at home. If I'm cooking at home, like I'm craving a piece of steak and I want it done properly. So I'll make that. But it's a lot of microwave popcorn and takeout. Right. You're really on the road pretty hard right now. Yeah. Yeah, I'm on this book tour, which is exciting.

I'm also doing a lot of things. I started a nail polish line. I'm acting. I'm doing stand-up. So like... You're doing stand-up? Yeah, yeah. I don't know that.

Yeah, I have a show in Chicago with the laugh factor. the 26. No way. Ah, the class clown survives. Survives. I preserved the inner child. I did it. All right. So this is, this is a, so you're acting and you're doing stand-up and you're, you're very styly. You've got the, you've got the, the nails, and I know there's going to be some kind of chef clothing line in your future because you always come up with cool new stuff. How do you plan where your focus is going to go in the moment? Is it what is inspiring you at the time? Is it just, I've done this, so let me move to that.

How are you plotting your course right now? It's definitely done with intention and things that inspire me. I've been wearing nail polish for a long time, so I was like, why don't I just have my own line? You know, when I want to open a restaurant, it'll be because I miss being in restaurants. Um, acting came about. Um, you know, I did a table read with a friend that, that wrote a script and he was an actor and he was like, you know, why don't you take some classes and like take this seriously, you know, so. Uh-huh. And I've always acted as a child. So, you know, it's just things I've wanted to do. And I'm definitely under the like, the umbrella of don't label me. You know, like I want to do whatever I want to do that just makes me happy as long as I'm not hurting anyone, you know. just let me do it and you know people are like oh how can you do so many different things i was

like i don't know we i just wake up in the morning and say i want to do something right a lot of this a lot of projects are far out so like you got to start now to be able to like ever see them materialize and the best time to do anything is now yeah no that's that's great i was talking yesterday with with judd apatow and i was like he's always got like so many projects going and he said yeah i thought at one point that maybe I should just focus on one thing, like the way you hear some stories of like someone worked on a screenplay or a movie for like six straight years. And he said, and that always sounded cool to me. I was like, yeah, let's put everything, all my power into this one thing and then wrote it and then nobody wanted to make it. And I realized, oh, I need to

have a bunch of things going on at the same time. Yeah, it's so much more fun. Yeah. So the book is right now the main thing is we're spreading the word and getting people to pick it up. And they should also, your first book is, your first book is kind of like a, not as a, not as a, not as a, not as much as a, a, a tell all as, but it has the, it has the energy and the, um, of like a kitchen confidential from a different perspective. It was like to see like the inner workings of, of a chef in your own terms, people should get that book as well. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that book is,

that book, you know, it's just a culmination of my story of how I got to where I'm at today. You know, and I think more people need to hear the story aspect. And, you know, the journey is the reward, you know, But life isn't a Cinderella. For some it is, you know, but for most, it's not a Cinderella story. This overnight success type of thing, although people think I've rise quickly. I've been doing things since I was five years old. Yeah.

You know, really putting my all into things. And it just tells that story. And I think we all have a story. So I hope it encourages more people to talk about themselves and really understand that they're great. Oh, and in that way of passing it on, by the way, what a cool thing you started a a scholarship program. I saw the there was a I think it was on your Instagram maybe. Yeah.

The first recipient had mentioned it. Yep. They started a scholarship program, you know, that puts, you know, a student through the CIA on a full ride, you know, even through their, through their externship, you know, they get housing and everything. That's so great. I just wanted to create something that I wish was there, you know, when I was there. That would have been very helpful for me. Yeah, yeah. What a cool thing.

And he looked like so you could tell like it was already, I mean, he was just stepping into it. And already he was like, psyched. He's a star. Yeah. How do you make the selections in the process like that? It's an essay. And I reviewed the essays. Oh, nice.

Very cool. Well, this was so great, Kwame. It was really great to meet you. And there's so much going on and there's going to be so many projects going on. When you get to L.A., we've got to... Oh, we've got to link up. Yeah, for sure. We've got to come into the studio.

We've got to share bread. And then also, maybe we can't even bang out some stand-up together. Oh, I love that. Let's do that. Yeah, that would be cool. Congratulations on the book. I will tell everybody, give everybody the links to that and the family reunion. Thank you.

When we post and stuff. And thanks for spending some time. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, Kwame. See you again. Take care. Okay.

All right. That's the big show. Thank you to Kwami. Go get his book, My America. Recipes from Young Black Chef. The photographs are amazing. The recipes are great. That was a really fun conversation.

Go to Tompapa. dot com look up all of my dates i am doing a bunch of club dates coming up in the summer as i get ready for the taping of my next special in september so i'm going to be heading into salt lake city i'm going to west virginia i'm going to hawaii uh new york area michigan all over the place go to tompapa dot com get all those tickets there you guys are the best see you next time