Good Life Project - Good Food, Good Life | Legendary Chefs Take the Mic

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Ever hear the phrase, “food is life?” Well, it rings true in so many ways. It’s not just about nutrition, it’s about love, it’s about your relationship with each other, with family, friends, the environment and beyond. It’s above service, joy, connection, sacrifice, salvation, and elevation. And, here at Good Life Project, over the years, we’ve had the stunning opportunity to sit down with some legendary foodies, farmers, culinary makers and thinkers and doers and chefs. People like the chef, author of New York Times bestselling book and Netflix show, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat. People like Top Chef star, restaurateur and educator, Carla Hall who was launched into the world of not just food and restaurants, but media, and books, with her cookbook, Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration, and TV, with many appearances all over and a run co-hosting The Chew, and beyond. Or, Giada De Laurentiis, who walked away from a life with her iconic film family to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, then become an Emmy award-winning chef, author, and culinary celeb, whose latest book, Eat Better Feel Better, deftly navigates the sweet spot between delicious recipes and a more healthful approach to cooking and eating.We thought we’d share some of the most resonant moments from those conversations in this mouthwatering and soulful conversational montage. If you LOVED this episode:You can find Samin at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Carla at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Giada at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED.Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And I was so inspired by this meal where I felt so taken care of by the staff that I wrote a letter and I asked for a job. And so they hired me pretty much on the spot, I think, in retrospect. As a person who's now run a lot of restaurants, like I think she was desperate and she needed someone. She was like, can you start tomorrow? And I did. So ever hear the phrase, food is life? Well, it rings true in so many ways. It's not just about nutrition. It's about love. It's about your relationship with each other, with family, friends, the environment and beyond. It's about service and joy and connection and sacrifice,

salvation and elevation. And here at Good Life Project, over the years, we have had the stunning opportunity to sit down with some legendary foodies and farmers, culinary makers and thinkers and doers and chefs. People like chef, author of New York Times bestselling book and Netflix show, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat. People like top chef star, restaurateur, and educator Carla Hall, or Giada De Laurentiis, who walked away from a life with her iconic film family to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and then become an Emmy award-winning chef, author, and culinary celeb. And we thought that we'd share some of the most resonant moments of those conversations in this, shall we say, mouth-watering and soulful conversational montage. So excited to share this set of

conversations with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So first off is a wonderful excerpt from a conversation we had with Samin Nosrat. So Samin's New York Times bestselling book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, received the James Beard Award and her Netflix series of the same name is this stunning exploration of food and culture and travel and life called The Next Julia Child by NPR's All Things Considered. Samin has been cooking professionally since 2000 when she first stumbled into the kitchen at the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant

in Berkeley, California. And for Simene, cooking is love, a way to gather and delight and savor time with those you love. Maybe at this time that finds more of us home in cooking, it can become the same for you. Here's Simene. What kind of kid were you? A really weird one. Can I just tell you something? I have had so many, so many people on the podcast who have answered essentially the exact same thing to a similar question. And then like zoom forward 30, 40, 50 years, they're living the most stunning lives and contributing in the most incredible creative ways? I mean, I think a lot about that idea that what seems to have been a constant in my life is that I have always felt like I don't fit in. And until I started going to therapy about 10 years ago, I really felt like it was my job to show up in a room and figure out, sort of read a room or read a person who I was interacting with, figure out which version of me would make them like me the most or make me be the most, either blend in the most or appreciated the most or like the most and be that version of me, which has made me really good at certain things.

I'm a chameleon. You know, some people call it code switching. I'm very likable to many people. But I also, what I did was I sacrificed like any knowing who I was. Yeah, it's like you're perpetually hiding. Yeah, totally. So I'm trying to do a lot of sort of like work of quieting down on the inside and trying to figure out what makes, you know, who am I? What do I like to do?

Sometimes my therapist will say like, what would bring you joy? You know, or, or like, what's play feel like? And I'm like, I don't know what's joy. Like, you know, can you define joy for me? What are the five bullets there? And so, but I think I'm doing a better job of that. And also, I think I understand things through cooking because it was the first profession that I learned. And it was the first thing I ever sort of, I mean, I don't want to claim mastery, but, you know because I consider myself to be like a student of things, I have never forgotten what it feels like to not know. And I just like pushing, you know, I've known other chefs and cooks who even before the age of 30 will tell me stuff like, oh, I'm done learning. Like, I don't need to go to whatever country and work with whatever person.

I can't even fathom that. Can you imagine being done learning? Like, oh my God. I wouldn't want, like, I wouldn't wish that for me. Yeah. And so I'm like, how boring and sad and like, yeah, full of yourself is that. So to me, I'm like, I could go anywhere and learn something new from anyone, certainly in cooking. And I think cooking and understanding that good cooking is all about practice has in a lot of ways informed my understanding of how to write, which I really, I mean, it's something I've done my whole life, but I came to professionally only 10 years ago, you know, and which was 10 years into my cooking career. So. Yeah. So we kind of took a big, big turn in big, yeah, sorry, we skipped a whole bunch of stuff.

Let's maybe let's take a bit of a jump back and fill in some of the big gaps here. So, because we have mentioned that you have cooked, but you didn't, you weren't brought up in a household where, you know, like you were, you had a deep interest in cooking or in the culinary world in any way, shape, or form when you were younger. In fact, it's almost like you come full circle. You were interested in writing in your younger life and you went to college and were up in Berkeley studying that.

But then everything changed. So yeah, I always wanted to write. My mom, you know, my parents are from Iran. I'm a child of immigrants. There are three acceptable job paths. I think we could probably all guess them, right? Doctors, one. Doctor, lawyer, and engineer. And so I, of those ones, I chose doctor. I was like, and so I was like, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. And then when I was in 10th grade or

11th grade, I had this incredible English teacher who really sort of saw that I could write. And then I had this interest in words and books and fostered that. And he gave me my first subscription to the New Yorker. We read poetry and we wrote poetry and he really, really encouraged that part of me. And so by the time I was ready to go to college, I knew I wanted to be an English major. And then when I was in college, I moved to Berkeley where Chez Panisse restaurant, Alice Waters restaurant, had been opened in 1971. And I remember – Which for those who don't know, by the way, is this legendary, legendary place as is Alice herself. Yeah. It's an American institution.

I mean she is a visionary who has changed the way this country has access to fresh ingredients. And she's changed the way that chefs think and work and sort of made it standard for sort of baseline for people to have seasonal, local, organic ingredients on their menus. And so it was revolutionary at the time. And now it's kind of a thing where the great chefs, they start there, you know, and then they go from there. And so it's amazing. It's amazing. And she is amazing. But this was 97. I moved to college to Berkeley in 97. So it was just the beginning of the internet. I think I got my first email address in 95 or something and so there was not really celebrity chef culture in the same way there was not food blogging or food internet food network it was maybe just a couple of years food network existed there was a show with emerald you know but it was not it was not at all what it later became. And I had, again, like a very mild interest in watching that kind of food stuff. And I loved cooking shows as a kid, but not more than I loved other shows, you know. And so my first week, you know, they give you a college orientation and somebody was like, oh, there's this famous restaurant in town.

And to me, I was like, what's a famous restaurant? Like and I was like, oh's a famous restaurant? And I was like, oh, that's where white people's parents take them when they come visit. But my parents weren't going to take me there. My parents were not going to spend $100 on dinner. They were going to take me to some Persian restaurant or Mexican food or our family friend's house to eat. And we just didn't eat in fancy restaurants. I didn't even understand what was the point of a fancy restaurant. And so I sort of like, it went in one ear and out the other. And then the next year I fell in love. And my boyfriend was from San Francisco. And we spent so much of our time eating together and learning about food together because I've always loved to

eat. That's never been a question, you know? And he showed me, you know, his favorite Mexican place, his favorite ice cream place, his favorite pizza place. And he had always wanted to eat at Chez Panisse. And so it became this idea for us to save our money in a shoebox and go there once we had saved up like $220. So that took seven months and we made a reservation and we went there and the restaurant is divided into upstairs is more informal cafe where you can order a la carte and downstairs is like a more formal dining room with a fixed menu. So we were like, okay, if we're only going once, we're going to go downstairs. So we went downstairs and it really

was, I don't even know that I fully understood, my body fully understood what I was entering, you know, when I walked in. But it's a temple to the senses. The place is so's so handmade in the most thoughtful and intentional way. And the art on the walls and the flower arrangements and the displays of fruit and vegetables and everything about it is so extraordinary. But again, really, really, really subtle and understated. And so I think it probably hit me on some level, but I had no idea. You know, I was the child of immigrants. Athletics were not a priority for my family. You know, getting us in and out of school, getting us fed, getting us like, you know, to be respected by our community. Those were the things that mattered. And so I just maybe absorbed it on some like

cellular level. And I was so inspired by this meal where I felt so taken care of by the staff that I wrote a letter and I asked for a job. I always worked throughout college. And so they hired me pretty much on the spot. I think in retrospect that they were probably pretty like as a person who's now run a lot of restaurants. Like I think she was desperate and she needed someone. She was like, can you start tomorrow? And I did. Which is interesting, too, because when you wrote that letter, did you even know what job you wanted or you just knew you wanted to be there?

By then I understood that some college students were busing tables there. OK. And so I was like, oh, maybe I can do that. And even in the letter, I said, I've never worked in a restaurant. I don't have any food experience, but I can learn anything. And we saved up for this dinner and it was so extraordinary and magical. Please, like, give me this opportunity. In your mind, like, what's – is this just like an interesting job at a cool place and – but you're still on the path to being like a writer and pursuing and doing all this stuff.

Yeah, I was still in school. I was still in – I wasn't going to – no, I was too indoctrinated as an immigrant kid to like ever let go of education. For sure. This is a job. At least I get to earn some money on the side in a cool place. Yeah, totally. And like beautiful food, which to me, I'm like, I just want to eat good stuff. Right.

So yeah, it didn't ever occur to me that it wasn't like this is my future. No, not at all. I mean, I had a work study job before that where I basically filed papers in an office. So to me, this was a step up from that because I got to be in a beautiful social environment and quiet and running at such a sort of like slow perfect hum or maybe fast perfect hum it's like a ballet like everybody knows how to move in that kitchen and the walls are actually like a lot of them are lined with copper so the way that the light reflects the wall on the walls is this beautiful warm warm light. And, you know, the chefs are all wearing these like gleaming white chef coats. And there's, again, beautiful produce displays everywhere.

And it just, it seemed like a movie set or something, you know? And I walked through the kitchen into the dining room and they had me vacuum the floor. Even the vacuum was magical. It was like a central vacuum, which I had never seen before. It's just this like 40 foot hose that you plug in the ground and it starts sucking. And I was like, even the vacuum here is amazing. And I just, by then I sort of had some concept of what this place meant in the world. And I was like, I just can't believe they're letting me vacuum the floors. It felt really like an honor. And I held on to that feeling the whole time I worked there because I saw a lot of other people grow jaded over time. And you start to take it for granted because it becomes your normal. And I sort of told myself that I would leave before that happened to me. I wouldn't let that happen. The day I didn't feel privileged to walk up that ramp and come to work at this place, I didn't want to work there anymore. So, I mean, what was it that was happening internally with you that let you stay there, like work really, really, really, really hard,

sometimes on the most basic entry-level jobs, wherever a period of months or years, other people either burn out or get jaded and leave. But for you, it's like, no, I'm in. I mean, I also was only there a total, I think, three or three and a half years. So that jadedness comes to a lot of people around 20-year mark. Got it. So that's part of it.

And also, like, the food world is really hard. Yeah. And there are cooks there who anywhere else would be considered, which is an extraordinarily long time to be a cook. And it's an eon to be a cook in one place. And that says a lot about Alice and the conditions that she creates for cooks and for people. It says a lot about the fact that that restaurant exists for its cooks in many ways and that it's a treat to work there. And you know it the whole time. Because imagine if you're a farmer and you have – for example, there was – now I think there are a few more people who grow mulberries.

But at the time that I worked there, there was basically one mulberry tree. There was one mulberry tree in Northern California and it was in Sonoma. And so of course the woman who grew those mulberries, the one place she would want to bring them to is Chez Panisse. You know, she has had by that point a 30 year relationship with them. And if she wants her fruit to be like, you know, treated with the most ultimate respect on a menu where fruit is everything, she's going to bring it to this place. And so as a cook, you know, you're never going to get to see those mulberries anywhere else. You also know that any farmer, even if they're the same farmers selling stuff at the farmer's market, they're saving their most perfect tomatoes for Chez Panisse. And so it's a luxury. It really is a luxury kitchen in

so many ways. And you don't lose sight of that as a cook. You know. You know what you have. And it's an amazing honor to get to work with that stuff. And it's really, it's so special. It's so, so, so special. So you're, I mean, you're there working in this environment, still going to school, and sort of like diving in, working your way up, and taking tons of notes from what I understand, like constantly, constantly making a lot of mistakes, but staying in it. So many mistakes.

At what point do you start to realize, okay, so I'm getting my degree at Berkeley. I want to pass to be a writer, but this other thing is happening and it's getting bigger and I'm getting drawn into it. I'm more and more interested. Was there a moment or was it just sort of like a gradual process where you're like, this is becoming my thing? I think by the time I'd worked there for about a year, I really was so admiring of the cooks that I wanted to be like them because it's so drilled into me that the only things that matter are things a person can get degrees for, you know, and that's definitely an immigrant mentality. Like I wasn't going to let go of

my education and I wasn't going to let go of the idea of even like a higher degree, but I also wanted this. And I was so inspired by this and I really pushed for it. And every time I was told no, there was always a but. It was like, no, but if you do this thing, if you and they would give me sort of increasingly large set of hurdles, like read these books, cook from this thing, work for who really became my mentor, Chris Lee, he told me, he said, he took me aside and he was like, listen, you have to want this. You have to want to be a cook more than anything else, more than you've ever wanted anything else because there's no glory in it. There's no money in it. There's not really any respect. Like, like there's not, you're not going to get anything. So the only thing that's going to keep you going long term is that you care very deeply about this and you want it so badly. And being the very earnest young student that I was and am, continue to be, I went home and I thought about that for a long time. And I wasn't ever sure that I did want it more than anything else because I really wanted to be a writer. But I came to him and I said, you know, and I said that, I said, I want this really badly. I will give everything I have, but I don't know that I want it more than anything else. And I think that that's true.

I still true. I never wanted to be a chef with my own restaurant. I never wanted to have my name on like a line of olive oils or whatever. Those were not the things that I wanted. I just wanted to learn how to do this thing and be able to stand amongst these people and be one of them, you know, which goes back to my whole like thing that motivates me in my life is I just want to be part of the thing that everyone else is a part of or that I think everyone else is a part of. And so I think because I spent such careful time really feeling about getting my feelings clear about what I wanted, they were able to like, he was like, okay, fine. Like I'll let you in. And, and yet people never really discouraged me from writing or, or from following that other stuff. And I still tell this to anybody who is a young person who comes to me and aspires to be a cook. I say, I'm sure you care about something else. Do not let that go away.

Invest in that too. Go to college too and be a cook. You know, learn ceramics too and be a cook. Because cooking chews you up and spits you out. And I've watched. And that was what he was trying to tell me. You know, he was like, you're too smart to be a cook. Don't quit school for this.

And at the time, it seemed like the most glorious, glamorous thing. But a lot of those cooks who'd worked there for 20 years were still making $22 an hour. And in a cook's – in that kitchen, $22 an hour is amazing. But in the world, anyone else who is very masterful at what they've done and does it for 20 years – Right. And very often works like 10, 15 hours a day. Yeah. And not to say that everything's about money, but the Bay Area is a really expensive place to live. And so it's a really complicated thing.

And for me, I think so much about like bigger social issues. So I understand the why of this has to do with our health care system and our government and subsidies and the way that Americans culturally don't want to pay for their food, you know, pay more money. And many Americans can't pay more for their food. So it's just, it's such a complicated thing, but I've watched it sort of play itself out in so many people's lives who I really care about. And I feel really angry about that and really bad about that. And I had someone who from the beginning warned me, and I never forgot about that warning. So I did want to still be a writer. And I think the moment for me came a couple years into like when I was cooking, like part-ish time and then working for one of my professors after I'd graduated, I was his like assistant. And then I also had a third job on campus where I, even though I'd graduated, I was still editing one of the school newspapers, like the art section. And so I sort of had all these juggling things and I had applied to get an MFA in poetry. And I got accepted to Sarah Lawrence, which was the school I really wanted to go to. And I'd never

visited New York before. And so it was the prospective students weekend. So I came to New York and on that same weekend, Chris Lee and his family were in Italy on their family vacation. And I knew that he was going there and I had asked him to ask Benedetta Vitale, this chef who had come and done a couple events at Chez Panisse, who I had met and really respected, if she would take me on as an apprentice in her kitchen. And so I came to visit Sarah Lawrence and it was amazing and very intimidating. And I felt like everyone was so worldly and there were all these big city people who knew how to take a train and I didn't know how to do any of that. And I was like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to pay this $90,000 and move to New York and figure this out. And Chris emailed me and he said, Benedetta said she would take you. You can come. So I ended up deferring the master's degree

and going to Italy instead. I saved up like for six months to have enough money to go to Italy, which was really formative and really, really difficult in a lot of ways and really amazing. And also I became fluent in Italian by the end. And, you know, this really colored how I understood how to be a good cook for sure. And the kind of life that I have and the kind of career that I have, I can't like plan that it's going to take five steps of this, this and this and medical school and then residency and internship to get to being a doctor. You know, I don't have that. There's no roadmap for me. And so all I know is I can do something that I care about and work really hard. And of course, I have really

ambitious, I have had really ambitious ideas about what the best is, you know, and what's the thing. So for example, when I started cooking, I started reading all about food. And the most amazing column, the most, like to me, the highest column in the land about food was the New York Times Magazine food column. And I read every single one for the past 20 years. And then a few years ago, I found out that one of the email address of the person who now is my editor, Claire, and Sam Sifton. And I wrote them this crazy email, like just this three line email being like, hey, guys, like you don't know who I am, but I am your next columnist. I've wanted this for so long and they never responded. And I was kind of embarrassed. I was like, should I send it? Should I not?

And I was like, well, what do I have to lose? So I press send and they never wrote back. And then two years after that, they, you know, Sam was like, hey, do you want to do this thing? So I was like, I don't know if on the way, you know, maybe that planted a seed. Who knows? And I've asked them both. They're like, we have no idea what you're talking about.

We don't remember. So but to me, it's like I put it out there. I'm really good at asking for things. And I'm also really good at being told no. Like if people tell me no, I'm like, okay, that's not happening this way. I'll go figure this thing out. I don't really get discouraged by that. Maybe because I've been told no so many times.

So I always encourage people to like try to develop a thicker skin because rejection is not bad. Failure is not bad. Failure is not bad. And also, I mean, like one of the things that you saw in your time at Chez Panisse was that every time somebody was like throwing up another, no, here's another hurdle. Like go read a bazillion books. Go do this. Like go find this. I mean, it's like it seems like your experience of that was, but if I do it, like over time you start to realize it's not a no. It's just like are you willing to go there? Are you willing to do what it takes like, are you willing to go there? Are you willing to

do what it takes to get where you want to go? That was definitely what they were doing was trying to weed out people. Cause I think a lot of people at that time certainly came through and were like enchanted by it and wanted that, but they had no business being in there because they had zero skills. And that's not to say that they don't take on people who know nothing. It's just that you have to be willing, you have to. It's just that you have to be willing. You have to be a quick study. You have to be willing to work hard. They don't want someone who's going to come in there and complain about having to pick up the dirty math.

So you're sort of doubling down. You're committing. Every time there seems to be a no, your brain starts to be able to translate it as, okay, so what does this really mean? And how do I move through it? And over time, you start to become an extraordinary chef. I'm saying that I know you might have not necessarily say that, um, and develop, um, or absorb this theory of cooking, which is not, here's a recipe, follow it, here's a recipe, follow it, but really understand the elements like these,

these four powerful elements. And once you do that, everything becomes possible. Yeah. I mean, for me, a big part of that was the fact that Chez Panisse really cross-trains its cooks. And so these people who I was learning from and watching, I was in such awe that I would come in and they were thrown every day what seemed to be curveballs. Like the menus were written and they changed every single day. And they had to do with the chef's whims and the seasons and what was available. And there was no like obvious method to the magic, certainly not to somebody who didn't understand anything. And so, you know, one day we would make, I don't know, French onion soup. The next day we would

make, you know, lasagna. The next day know, French onion soup. The next day we would make, you know, lasagna. The next day we were making couscous. The next day we were making clams from Barcelona or whatever. Like it was just, I was like, how do they know how to make everything? It's not like they read one cookbook and memorized the recipes. It's not even like they read 30 cookbooks and memorized the recipes. They can do anything. And we would sit in these meetings that were more poetry and lyricism than they were like instruction. And their chef might say like, and then I just want

it to feel a little bit like this or be a little bit like this or look a little bit like this. And then these cooks would just get up and go do it and do not. And by it, I mean, make dinner for a hundred people in three hours. Perfectly. You know, We would have the menu meeting was done at 2.30 and dinner started at 5.30. So they literally had three hours to make lasagna from scratch, butcher entire animals and get them on a spit and get them cooking, braise stuff, make stocks. And that is a remarkable achievement. It really is. You have to be calm, but you have to be fast. And they, I couldn't believe that there was never any doubt or there never appeared to be any doubt about what to do. And so I just didn't understand. It took me a long time to understand

that beef bourguignon and braised chicken and pork shoulder that gets turned into pulled pork are all the same recipe. They just change a little bit of the liquid and the cut of meat. But what's in the pot is doing the same thing. That we were always sort of coming back to these four things, to salt, fat, acid, and heat. That we always salted our meat the day in advance, especially for braised or roasted dishes. To give the salt time to penetrate the meat and season it from within. And on any occasion that people forgot to do that, you could taste it. It wasn't like there was some – someone had decreed long ago, do it this way. There was a reason, which was taste.

Taste dictated all of our choices, really. And we would come together to taste every dish. And often the thing was, oh, this needs a little bit more salt. And this needs a little bit more acid, a little bit of lemon. Or, you know, before starting to saute onions, people would ask, do you want me to cook that in butter or in oil? And I always was like, oh, that's like the chef just being like, you know, why would they have an opinion about that? And then later you learn, well, if you're making something from Southern Italy, they don't use butter there. So if you start with butter, your dish will never taste truly Southern Italian.

And if you're making, I don't know, Indian food, don't use olive oil. They don't have olive trees there. So you figure out, oh, the fat matters, you know, and the temperature of the fat matters because the pastry cooks were obsessed with cold butter. And on the savory side, we always wanted like weird, soft, warm butter. Yeah. And acid was always this like tweak often at the end, like, or the fact that always braises needed wine. And I was like, why does there have to be wine in it? And I came from a family that didn't drink wine. So I felt weird, like if I wanted to make something at home, adding wine. So I was like, why does there have to be wine in it? And I came from a family that didn't drink wine. So I felt weird, like if I wanted to make something at home, adding wine. So I was like, well, maybe if I do, you know, a little bit extra tomato, that acidity helps. And if I didn't do wine, I could taste that it tasted totally different than the one at work. And heat for me

was kind of the biggest light bulb in a lot of ways, because there were so many ways that I didn't understand how the cooks knew how to crank the stove or how to crank the oven and things just came out well. And so, but whereas I was like, well, does it be, should it be 325 or 350? Should it be 18 minutes or 22 minutes? And over time I realized, well, for one thing in a restaurant, people are always opening and closing the ovens to get stuff in and out. So the temperature is never what it says it is anyway. And then things like I remember there was one day where I had to make tomato soup and there was no more stove space. The stove was too crowded. So they told me to build a fire in the fireplace and cook over the fireplace. And I was terrified.

I didn't understand how that could possibly be that. And over time, I started to realize a fire is just the same as a gas burner. You just can't turn it up and down. So what you do is you move your pot to the hot spot or the cool spot. And so you change the location of the pot rather than the flame itself. And those things over time gave me this understanding. And I went to Chris and I said, oh, like I see this thing, salt, fat, acid, heat. And he was like, yeah, duh, like we all know that. And I said, it's not in any of the huge stack of books you've told me to read. It's not in any of these recipes. You know, no one's ever told me this. I've been here a year and a half or two years. Why didn't anyone tell me if you all know it? You know, and I understood that if no one had told me, then nobody was telling anybody else who was reading these books.

And at that time, I was like, I'm going to write a book about this one day. And I started taking notes. And then I realized I didn't know anything. So it just became the system into which I filed away everything that I learned. And it became the language that I developed to teach other young cooks. You know, by the time I met Michael Pollan, I'd been doing that for 10 years. So when he asked me to teach him how to cook, it was natural. It was naturally the language that I used. And he picked up on that and he really encouraged me to turn it into a book. Yeah. And when Michael says, this is the book. Totally. You listen, because I had by then bringing, I'd been bringing him like really bad ideas, really bad ones. And he was like, these are bad ideas, Samin. And so I was hesitant in a

lot of ways, even though I knew I wanted to write that book for so long, because I knew it would be hard. Because I'd never seen a book like that before. Because you have such reverence for both writing and for the craft of cooking. Like when you sit down and you know, like, okay, I need to honor, I need to honor everything, like both of these worlds on a level and your standard for what you want to do is so high. Thank you for noticing. I mean, mindset wise, it must have been so hard. It was so hard and so crippling. And I had so many waves and I honestly continue to have so many waves of imposter syndrome. Yeah. The book comes out, it makes a huge splash, huge success. That leads to other interesting opportunities. You create a four-part Netflix series based on sulfate acid heat, which is, this is so beautiful and so good.

And the storytelling and the cinematography and the food, it was like you could taste it through the screen and just like the beautiful humanity that came through. So as we sit here coming full circle in our conversation in this container of the good life project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To be with people that I love around a table, to tell stories and listen to stories, to get to appreciate the natural world, to take care of each other and feel taken care of, to be very cozy on a lot of sheepskins, to get to go swimming in the ocean, to get to garden, to be in a garden. yeah, that's like to me the ultimate good life.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what's the difference between me and you? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So I just love Samin's ginormous heart and openness and humanity. Next up, we have a conversation that we had with restaurateur, author, TV personality,

and top chef star, Carla Hall. Growing up in Nashville, Carla was surrounded by soul food, especially dishes cooked by her beloved grandma. She loved eating it, but she had no interest in cooking it. In fact, she headed into the world of business, building a career in accounting, when in a moment of awakening, she took a hard left turn that took her through runway modeling in Europe, cooking and catering, and eventually onto Bravo's Top Chef, where her amazing, joyful energy and sense of possibility, it just captured

the hearts of everyone. And that launched her into the world of not just food and restaurants, but media and books with her cookbook, Carla Hall's soul food every day and celebration, and TV with many appearances all over and a run co-hosting the Chew and Beyond. Here's Carla. If you're not from Nashville, most people probably think of it as, you know, the town that music built. And it's all about music, but Nashville has this stunningly rich food history

at the same time. And I think when people think about sort of like the food scene in Nashville now, it's the foodie scene. It's like exploded. But it's not like that's a new part of Nashville. Agreed, agreed. My mother's always like that's a new part of Nashville. Agreed. Agreed. My mother's always saying, yes, we're the it city. I'm like, yeah, mama.

But I also feel like growing up in Nashville and having these small restaurants and also the history of how restaurants were built in terms of getting recipes from black cooks. There's also that whole thing, you know, and then there's the barbecue and they're the biscuits there. I mean, there are so many different parts of Nashville. There's hot chicken, hot fish. You know, there are all of these different things that we grew up having that now the rest of the world is like, oh, Nashville has that. Yeah, we've always had that. Yeah. Nashville hot chicken, right? The legend of Thornton Prince III.

Yes. Yes. The third. Right. But you just brought up something, which was one of the things that you shared was black cooks and then sort of like what happened with their creations. Tell me more about that. I'm curious. all dressed dapperly would bring your food to your table. But there are all of these Black cooks in the background. And my dad said in order to work there, a lot of the times they would have to give their recipes to the owners. And so if you weren't sharing your recipes, you weren't working there. And that happened in a lot of places. And when you think about recipes being called receipts, that's where it comes from. And they never got credit for it. You know, there may be a cookbook

coming out of Bellmead cafeteria, but were those the recipes of the owners? No. Yeah. I mean, it's, um, there's all this mythology around the world of food and especially restaurants. And the mythology is almost always around what is very often a bold figure in the front who's either the story, from the history, from the mythology, from the forward-facing thing that we tell about all of this. I didn't know that about restaurants. I'm sure it's not just Nashville, but all across the South, too, probably all across the country. Yeah, when you think about some of the older cookbooks, if you could, but you couldn't write, who are you dictating those recipes to? You know, the lady of the house. And then she turns and writes the Junior League cookbook, you know. So it's really interesting. a lot of this information that I got, I mean, some of it from my dad, but also, um, the

Jemima coat, Tony Tipton Martin with her cookbook and reaching back to tell some of these stories and, and really revere some of these old cookbooks from black cooks. It's, it's, it's a really interesting story. And I think it's not just our story, but it's, it's one of those stories that you want to uncover for all cultures, right? Just the curiosity of like, where do our recipes come from? DNA level expression of history and culture, you know, and, and, and communion and all these things. So understanding, not just like, how does it make you feel when it goes in your mouth? You know, like, but actually where did this come from is, I think it's kind of fascinating,

but I think it's also important. Yes. Yes. But we all borrow from each other. If you say something and I like the way you said it, the next time I say something similar, I'm like, oh, I remember how Jonathan mentioned this thing. And then I color my words that way. And then and so on and so on and so on. And food is the same way. So it doesn't exclusively belong to any one group. But I think the trick is to how do you credit people along the way? Yeah. Austin Kleon, steal like an artist, right? Uh-huh.

We all do. And how do you credit it along the way if you're three or four or five or ten people removed and you actually don't know what the along the way it was? Right. And I think that's where you're talking about. It's amazing to now have people who are devoting themselves to tracing it back so we can actually find that out and find out wow like these are the people who helped me do this thing today yeah maybe a hundred years ago or 50 years ago or three generations ago right um you grew up in a household also. I know grandma, he called granny, legendary cook herself. The classic glorified grits, isn't it? You used to call it? Yes.

But so you were around it in your own house too. But for you at an early age, like this wasn't a thing for you. It wasn't a source of fascination or interest until much later, really. I mean, you know, and people always assume that I wanted to cook from an early age. No, I wanted to eat. I wanted to be at the table of, you know, with this good food. I was out playing. I'm like, call me when the food is ready and I will come a running. But I had no interest in how it came together. And it wasn't until I was in my 20s. I'm like, wait, I have no idea how this food comes together. You know, and how is it that I could be living every single Sunday with Sunday suppers at my grandmother's house after church and not know how it all comes together. But, you know, when you're ready, when you're ready to get the information, you turn to it and you're like, OK, like okay i need the information now yeah you can't push it uh it happens when it happens it sounds like that those sunday dinners also were uh not just sort of like that sense of normalization and like you said like buoying but also a reconnection with food a reconnection with with not just like you know the process of eating, but what happens around

food, what happens with the feeling that you get, the community and communion that forms around it, which eventually, in a relatively short period of time, turned into something bigger and then brought you back to DC, where you're like, let me see where this interest is going to take me. Yes. And in hindsight, when I think of every life changing thing that happened to me, it was around food and it was only being away from it and looking back. Um, so it was in Paris. It was, um, and then when I came back, I started a lunch delivery service as a fluke. It was here. It started, I mean, even with Top Chef, when that's when I sort of fell in love again with like my culture, people saw me as the person who did comfort food. And it was actually the viewers who helped me see that that's what I was gravitating toward. It was all the food from my grandmother's Sunday suppers. And

that was the grounding point. That was my, eventually, comfort foods. But then my last cookbook, soul food, a lot of the things that I was running away from, I found comfort in the food that I was having at my grandmother's found comfort in the food that I was having at my grandmother's table. Yeah. Because I mean, you mentioned Top Chef, you know, so you end up there on season five, but there's a really big window between the time that you come back to DC and you start doing the lunch service, which kind of happens almost as a flute, but then you're like all in and you're building this. And then there's what, 12, 13, 14 years of catering, restaurants, culinary school. In between that time and the time where you land on Top Chef, you know, like well over a decade later where you're developing your chops, you're learning the industry, you're learning everything.

But it also sounds like during that whole season, it's interesting to hear you say Top Chef was the thing that kind of brought you back to that comfort food. Whereas the whole time in between, you describe yourself as running from it. What's the why? So when I was doing the lunch delivery service, I was doing comfort food. I would do soups and sandwiches and breads and biscuits. And then I go to where I was getting, and in doing that, I was self-taught. So I was teaching myself through cookbooks, and I had the practical experience of actually cooking, but I didn't have theory. Then I go to culinary school, a French culinary school, Academy de Cuisine in Maryland. That's when I got the

theory on top of my practical experience. And that's when I learned French food and all of the technical way of doing things. And I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. And I think I turned away from my culture that I took for granted to doing fancy food, to wanting to be accepted or learned. And I didn't want to be known as a black cook because I thought that that meant soul food, that meant the Sunday suppers that I didn't necessarily, I appreciated eating them, but I didn't want to be pigeonholed as a black cook and doing that food. And so I turned away from it. And it was only back to, I mean, and when you said like top chef, I was 42 when I went on top chef. So I was 30 when I went to culinary school. I was 25 when I started a lunch delivery service. So it was like

18 years or so that I'd been cooking and trying to figure out who I was through food. So it really wasn't until I started my restaurant and where I said, I love being black and I love this food. And what turned my, my head or my perception or my thoughts around that, or my self-love, whatever you want to call it, was when I was approached about being the ambassador of Sweet Home Cafe at the African American Museum in Washington, DC. And it was the work that Jessica Harris had done. And she was like, this is the influence of Black cooks all over the country. And I was like, whoa. And it was as if somebody was speaking to me for the first time, like why we should be proud of our food and what we had contributed. And you don't get that in culinary school. I get what

the French had contributed, but not what Black people had contributed. And as a Black cook, that meant so much to me. And I was like, well, I have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of studying to do, a lot of reading. And so that was the turning point there, too. Yeah. So it's sort of like the confluence of you putting in the years, then you landing on Top Chef, then this other experience all coming together, kind of overlapping a bit towards the end there. And also it sounds like that to a certain extent, it was funny from the outside, looking in at Top Chef, you know, if you look back at the season, it seems like the show is incredibly fun and incredibly stressful at the same time. Where do we all go when we're starting to lose our minds a little bit? Like what's the comfort thing? You know, like, and we go back to

the food that we know very often. And, and it also seems like when you turn to that in a public way, it was celebrated and people said more. And so you reach this sort of like a reunion with this food that was a part of your past and also just has this really, really rich history. And then instead of being afraid of being pigeonholed into being this one person, you're like, no, this is amazing. This is not a pigeonhole. It's not a constraint. You know, it's, it's a rich mind to vein and then to build around and then to offer out part of, I know sort of like your lens on food is cooking is love. And it sounds like, you know, that is the central ethos underneath all of this too. It sounds so beautiful when you say it so poetically. Can I have this on tape? I'm going to listen to it at night. Yeah. I mean, after Top Chef, it launches you into the public side in a

massive way, both as a chef and also as a personality. People kind of fall in love with you because you're an awesome human being and it shows really well on screen. And that leads to you being more and more and more and more public, but also having a platform to actually say, this is what I believe and this is what I want to share with the world. Being this sort of like on the border of introvert, extrovert, as you become more and more and more public and people want more from you and also expect a certain thing and don't expect a certain thing from you, as you sort of live in a brighter and brighter light, I'm curious how that lands with you because you're still doing it. You are absolutely in the media front and center. And I'm wondering just on a personal level, how,

how that is with you, how, how, how you feel with that? You know, um, it, it's really important for the platform to mean something like, what do I do with this platform? And what nonprofits do I work with? What projects do I say yes to? And I have a checklist. And so what keeps me grounded and wanting to do this and be in the public eye is to have passion about the reason that I'm doing it. So on the two, it was, I heard from so many people, oh my gosh, it's so great to see a black woman, you know, on daytime in food, um, talking about our food. And so I have to show up authentically my quirky self eating this food, knowing that if I am not there, who is going to be talking about my experience that I'm sharing with so many people.

So that gets me through. When I am still in the public eye, even this summer with the pandemic, you know, and I started this recess, I'm like, there has to be so many people out there who are stressed and wondering which way to turn and, and they don't pivot as easily. And somebody who pivots easily, I was stressed. So I'm like, how do we bring the joy when everything is telling us we should not be joyful. And so part of it is my stubbornness, which I think protects me, but I go into that uncomfortable feelings like I've got to get out of this thing. I've got to get out of this space. And there has to be other people like me. And I'm going to go back just really quickly, like to Top Chef, I don't drink. And so when somebody said, Oh, do you want

to make a cocktail? I'm like, it will have to be a mocktail. Because I'm always thinking, however, I feel whatever I'm doing, there is somebody else who is thinking like me and I am talking to those people. And that gives me comfort and makes me feel less awkward. And in the food industry, my wife was in the restaurant industry in New York for a decade. So we know the industry fairly well. It is a brutal, brutally hard industry. The food, every part of it, catering, restaurant, whatever it may be, it's just a really, really, really tough. You get knocked around a lot. You work insane hours. Sometimes things work really, really well. Sometimes they absolutely

implode and then they implode into the implosion and then they fall apart after that. And I feel like there's an interesting analogy to media because sometimes that happens also. But when it happens and you have this public platform, the blessing is that you have the ability to do incredible things with it. And the razor's edge is also that when things don't work, you can't just process it internally. Well, you can, but people are going to have all sorts of expectations about how that should be processed, how it should make you feel. So you're out there humming along, doing Phenomenal Media. You're co-hosting The Chew. You're doing these specials. And then one of the things that you want to do is actually own a restaurant. Because one of the few things in the space that you hadn't done yet on that level. Yes.

So Brooklyn, what was it? 2015, 2016? Yeah. 2016 to 2017, one year. It took us longer to plan the restaurant and get it built than it actually survived. And I didn't want, I didn't want a restaurant. I was just browbeaten for three years, uh, with my partner. It's like, you know, let's do a restaurant. Let's do it. I'm like, why would I want to do a restaurant? I had all the right reasons for not wanting to do a restaurant. And so I said yes. And it was a great experience. And actually, it turned out that I loved it. I loved the process of learning what food I wanted to serve, the feeling of the restaurant, the people that I wanted there. All of that was really great. It's just that, you know, it's incredibly hard in terms of money. If anything goes wrong, you know, we had an electrical fire and we were shut down for a month. So when this pandemic happened and it is

ongoing, I'm like a month took our business out. So what do you think six months is going to do to a small business? I just, I feel for them so much and I get it. I, I, and you know, we never were the same and that was only a month. And when people are like, Oh, these businesses are going to come back. No, no. The, the, I mean, it's a 95% chance that they won't unless they have the support and unless they have funds that are going to help them. And it is so hard. Like, what do your employees do? How do you, you know, looking at your employees and you want to keep them on and you don't have the business to keep them on? You know, I'm just living through all of that, you know.

And this pandemic brought back all of those feelings of when everybody's looking at you and wanting this paycheck. So it's incredibly hard. Interestingly enough, after it was all over and I actually wrote this speech very publicly about, you know, when you crash and burn publicly, you know, with the restaurant, because nobody talks about it, you know? And I felt like, again, here I was in the public eye. And, and I remember telling, giving that speech and, you know, and tears would flare up, but I was like, I'm going to push through because I want you all to know the real deal. The one thing that keeps me in the public eye authentically is to let people truly know

what I am going through. I don't try to whitewash it. I don't try to make it seem better than it is like, oh yeah, it's great. And I'm great. No, I'm struggling. And it's, it's going to help somebody because I'm talking to that person who's been through the same thing that I'm going through. Yeah. I mean, I think it also sets, it allows people to set some of their own more realistic expectations. So it's not that, you know, wow, everyone's succeeding, but me, what's wrong with me? Right. No, you know what? I said yes to a hard thing where just a part of the process is, is the majority of people

fail, you know, which is the restaurant industry. Is it like 80, 90% of restaurants fail in five years, even in the best of times? I took that as when you went and did that in a very public way, I'm like, that was really powerful because you're essentially giving permission to people who have this love, who like there's something in them that says, I want to do this. I want to try it. But they're terrified of what happens if I don't succeed to say, well, you may not. And I'm on TV. I'm telling you, I'm on TV. I have this platform. I'm still failing you guys. So think about it. So there's, there's no safety

net. There is no easy route for anybody. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was, I thought it was really, really powerful. And that was also really powerful to see that, you know, like, what did you do when you woke up the next morning? You showed up and you went to work. Yeah. You know, it's sort of like, what's next? Rather than, okay, everything is over. You know, it's sort of like, okay, process it.

There's grief. There's for sure loss, but life goes on. And I think that's, it seems like this central thing about you. It's like you wake up the next day and you're like, it's not a delusional thing where you're like, oh, that never happened. You're like, no, that was real. That sucked. But today's today. Like, what do I do now?

Yep. Yeah. I mean, one foot in front of the other. The thing is that I know and the thing that I live by is every single lesson that I have had is going to take me to the next thing. And as much as I don't want to feel, I mean, the heart, the, the chew is incredibly hard for me, um, in learning how to host, but I'm like, okay, I'm going to stand here and I'm going to embrace it. And the one thing that Top Chef taught me was I can be comfortable with the uncomfortable

just because I'm uncomfortable. And it doesn't mean that I can't feel it and keep going on. I know that I'm uncomfortable. I'm going to feel it. I'm going to take the next step. I may be crying. I may be dragging through, but I know that I'm going to be in a better place when I get to that next step than where I am now. Yeah. You, um, so you and I are also, you haven't have had a long career at this point in the media, largely in front of camera. And more recently, you jump into this world of podcasting with your own podcast, Say Yes, which is really, you know, it's the embodiment of your philosophy, which we've kind of like, we've talked about, but we haven't really named it. You literally like, you have this very discreet philosophy. I do.

And my mantra is say yes, adventure follows, then growth. And sometimes we stop our growth by saying no. And this whole thing that I, this mantra is about, I don't know, about seven years old or so. Somebody had asked me, they were doing a book on six words of advice. And I really wanted something that meant something to me. And I'm like, how do I live my life? How do I live my life? What would I say to a young person? And those were the six words. Say yes, adventure follows, then growth.

Yeah. I love that you didn't say success follows. Oh, no. Because that's not what it's about. I love that you didn't say success follows. Oh no. Because that's not what it's about. You know, I mean, yes, it would be nice, but that's, that's sort of like not the, that's not the right middle piece. It's not the point, is it? It's really not present at that time. I mean, it's all relative. And I think that all different kinds of success should be validated and honored and not what the quote unquote successful people whom we think are successful, because then when we find it, when we have these successful people and then behind the curtain, we're like, Oh, Oh, that really, that's you. So I never want to be that person.

I never want to be the person who takes off their makeup and like, Oh, that's what you look like. Um, it feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. off their makeup and be like, oh, that's what you look like? This feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So we're hanging out here in this container of good life projects. So if I offer up this phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To do what your heart wants to do, but to allow yourself to ask the question and listen for the answer. That's the good life. Yeah.

It's worked for me up to this point. Thank you. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. So I don't know about you, but I feel like you can almost feel Carla's radiant heart and smile through her voice. And now we're wrapping up today's episode with a conversation that we had with culinary megastar Giada De Laurentiis. With training from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and a relatability that kind of seems to light up the screen, many people know Giada as the Emmy award-winning television personality of shows like Food Network's Everyday Italian, Giada at Home, Giada's Weekend Getaways, as a judge on Food Network Star and Winner Kick All, an NBC Today show contributor, and a successful restaurateur with restaurants Giada

and Pronto by Giada in Las Vegas, as well as GDL Italian in Baltimore. Or maybe you know her as the author of nine New York Times bestselling cookbooks, including Eat Better, Feel Better, which definitely navigates the sweet spot between delicious recipes and a more healthful approach to cooking and eating. But what you may not know, and what Giada shares in the pages of her book, An Hour Deep Dive Conversation, is how her upbringing in a dynastic family of film, both in Italy and Hollywood, it shaped everything from her love of food and cooking for others to her early disdain for being in front of the camera. Her decision to step into the world of cooking on television, in fact, it caused quite a dust-up in the family.

It's the stuff of legend. So excited to close out our culinary montage today with this conversation with Giada De Laurentiis. As we get older, we start to realize, just embrace the life that you have, accept where you are, and actually you'll have a much better time and your body and your mind will feel better. We spend so much time, at least I did,

trying to perfect and edit and make sure that everything just comes out perfect and you look perfect that it's so exhausting that your whole body and then in your mind takes a huge beating and you don't really realize it because you're in the grind in that rat wheel all the time or hamster wheel. Yeah. It's like you don't have the perspective of being able to sort of like zoom out and the metal ends of looking back in. It's interesting that frame that you bring to it, though, because, you know, and I want to dive a lot into the last 10 years in this new beautiful bucket. But if we take a bigger leap back in time, you're essentially born into a family of film where the idea of producing and creating and perfection and shooting until you get it absolutely right, it's almost like it's part of your DNA from the earliest days. Which is how I crafted my show from the beginning. Even my demo reel, which was also a process because I didn't really want to do it. It really, when I thought, if I'm going to really do this,

then it has to be absolutely perfect. The right timing on the music coming in and out, the same way my family produced movies, my grandfather. But what I didn't realize is that it was going to be my whole career. I was going to spend every moment trying to be perfect. You have to understand too that yes, that's why family did. But my grandmother, my grandfather, they actually lived, they tried to live that perfect life, at least in front of the camera, not really, all sorts of hell breaks loose in private spaces, but at least in front of the camera, it was always trying to be that way. And I think that you innately grow up in that, it's very difficult to run from it. Yeah. I mean, did you feel a sense of expectation

around like that's the way that you would or should bring yourself to the world also? Well, yes, because when I first got offered the show after I'd sent in the demo reel, which was not something I looked for either, but bypassing that whole part of the story, once I told my grandfather what I was doing, and you have to remember this is 20 years ago, Food Network wasn't what it is today. And food television was like, what? It's not like this today. But 20 years ago, people in film, they frowned upon people in television. Television was for people who couldn't make it in film. And so if you keep that in mind, my grandfather was very hesitant. I was the first grandchild. I was a female. And he said to me, I, you know,

he came from nothing. I mean, not nothing, but his parents had a pasta factory, but basically in World War II, everything was gone. So then no money. And he was one of eight children. And so he said to me, I built, I built this family name and I built a business for everybody in the family. If you destroy it with this little jaunt you're on, I will never speak to you again. And I think he was just like, you have to make sure that you remember that it's not just about you, it's about the entire family.

And if you go down, we all go down. If you keep that in mind and you make the right choices, great. If not, and you know, I had no reason to not believe him. I'd seen stuff happen. So, and I think that that's not, you know, a lot of people think, say to me, oh my God, how horrible. I don't know that I thought it was horrible. I think I just thought that's just the way it is. That's the way it always is. You know, he's, he comes from Naples. We're very Italian and that's just the way always is. You know, he comes from Naples. We're very Italian.

And that's just the way it is. So yes, the anxiety of every move I made, I scrutinized everything I did. Everything. It's hard for me even today, even now that I'm 50, to not do that. And he's been gone 15 years. So, you know, it's difficult. But I think it's made me stronger somehow. Yeah.

But I'm really curious. You end up in UCLA and then you're up in Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, come back to LA, doing the restaurant scene, Spago, and kind of like everybody does when they're trying to make their bones in that world, right? And TV is not on your horizon at that point. It's like, okay, so let me build a career in this world of restaurants and food. Did you have a sense even then of what the ultimate aspiration was long before you even start to look at TV or entertainment?

Was it a restaurant or was it, or did you, we're not even thinking that far ahead? No, I did. I mean, I had to figure out a way I could make a living. I knew I couldn't, I didn't want to live off my family forever. So I did. I mean, I had to figure out a way I could make a living. I knew I couldn't, I didn't want to live off my family forever. So I did. I think originally my plan was I loved desserts. Like I really wanted to be a pastry chef. That's truly what I wanted to do. But at the time I also had a boyfriend that I had been dating for a while who ended up becoming my husband and now my ex-husband. I thought, okay, well, I want to be a pastry chef, but I'm probably not going to live anywhere other than LA, other than the time

I spent living in Paris. In Los Angeles at that time, pastries, they really weren't part of our DNA. They're a little bit more now. So I thought, okay, I really love the creative. I love eating it, but I also love the creative part of doing this. I would do ice sculptures and sugar sculptures. I was really into that. And then I realized, okay, I can't pretty much do that unless I get a job being a pastry chef, which is really what I did when I went to Wolfgang Puck's. That was my end goal at the moment. And then I thought, if I can't make enough money working back a house and being an executive pastry chef, then maybe I go back to school for hotels and I end up running a hotel, but also doing all the pastries. So I had those sort of thoughts in my mind, but that was the extent of it. Other than that, I had no idea. I'm always curious because you have built a big public career, multiple shows, books,

TV appearances. You're sort of regularly living so much of your existence in front of a camera. And First Restaurant is open in Vegas right around then also. When this happens and something inside of you says, okay, I've got this massive public forward-facing thing, you know, that in some way needs to be fed to stay alive. But at the same time, if I don't start feeding myself, I'm not going to stay alive. I'm curious how just, how you process that where it's saying like, I need to actually step back

when so much of your existence is so forward-facing? Yeah. My family was basically my show. Yes, I was the face of it, but it was the entire family, including my daughter, who at the time was just barely five. And there was a point where I put my foot down and I just, I said to everybody on my team, I just can't, I can't, I need to take a break. I, for my sanity, because I'm going to, I knew I would eventually just snap if, if I didn't. And luckily the people I have around me gave me the ability to take a breather and gave me space to do what I needed to do. I don't think that everybody gets that opportunity. And it probably also depends on how big you look at myself in the mirror and I will not make my family proud. I have to figure out, I can cook. And if all hell breaks loose and I have no job in front of the camera, I still have a trade and I can still make a living. So I think that I just kept talking myself through therapy, through meditation, through

acupuncture, through diet changes, through quiet, just shutting out the noise, I started to realize, okay, I have a gift that I can cook and I can do that anywhere in the world. And no matter what happens, I can live without this forward-facing persona. And it's going to be okay. And we're going to reinvent ourselves. And it's either going to work or it's not. And if it's going to be okay. And we're going to reinvent ourselves and it's either going to work or it's not. And if it's not okay, that was a longer ride than I thought I'd get. That's just what it is. That's the journey. I started to realize it's about the journey,

not the end goal. And my journey had to switch roads. Basically I was at a fork in the road and I had to decide which way I was going to go. And I honestly picked my daughter and my sanity over everything else. Yeah. There's just a lot of emotional processing that you're moving through, a lot of reexamining your life and your choices and saying, okay, so from this moment forward, what choices do I want to make differently? And why and how also? Because there's a lot of machinery in place built around the choices that you had made

up until that point that there's a big ship that needs to start to steer in a different direction. But at the same time, and you write about this a lot in your new book, physically, your body, your wellness, your wellbeing, your mental health is a huge part of it. But physically, I mean, it sounds like your body had just spent decades at that point taking hit after hit after hit, and it was starting to effectively shut down on you. My body is not as robust as my mind. And that my addiction to sugar was ultimately what was breaking my system down because it was breaking my immune system. And it was many factors. It was emotional stress. It was a lot of travel, irregular meals, not always healthy, grabbing. See, I was never a

burgers and fries kind of girl. I was more like a piece of cake or cookies. Honestly, Jonathan, a sugar cube dipped in espresso. A couple of those, I was good to go, but they're just as horrible for your body as other things are. So I was addicted to those things and I was foggy and I was always sick. I was on medication 24 seven. And I just felt like something really bad is going to happen, like to the point where I'm going to get like cancer or something. I'm going to get an auto immune. Something is going to stop me in my tracks if I don't somehow start paying attention. So tell me how, when you hit this point and you're like, okay, so life needs to look different moving forward and sort of like reconnecting to a lot of values from earlier in life. I mean, what's the path forward for you?

Because there are a lot of different ways that you could go at that point. I mean, and you're in a position where you have choices that you can make. So I'm curious why you made the choices you made when you said, this is the way things need to be moving forward. And what were you wanting to create in that moment? I think, honestly, it's as basic as I just wanted clarity in my mind. I wanted to feel good. I did not want to feel sluggish. I did not want to be so anxious and frustrated and not appreciate anything. And I was tired of rushing through everything. Even with the simple things as either playing with my daughter or doing homework with her, at times I sensed like, I'm obviously tired because I'm rushing her through it.

Come on. Don't, how can you not understand that? It's two plus two. Like how, how do you not get that? Didn't they teach you that? And I, I would look at her and she would look at me and just be like, mom, I just need a minute. I need a minute. And I would leave the room and I would think, okay, this isn't right. What am I doing? And just that fogginess of, of trying to realize like, calm down. What are you, what is so important? You got to get to and just fitting everything in. And I think when I wasn't working, I was trying to fit in everything else that I hadn't done because of guilt, because of anxiety. And so I think all I really wanted was peace to not feel anxious of anything. Now that's obviously not possible in our world, but I started to realize that I slowed everything down and I started to say,

okay, I'm going to only work Monday through Thursday, Friday's off. I'm going to hang with my daughter on Fridays, including the weekend. I only going to do one, like even for this particular time now, leading up to my book launch, one podcast a day. I'm not doing more than that. I want to have the time to be present in the things that I'm doing rather than always thinking about the next thing that I'm doing. That lowers my anxiety. I want to have time to cook meals for myself and my family that I didn't have time to do things. I was just rushing through them all. I want to enjoy the moments that I'm in the kitchen. I want to enjoy walking my dog. I want to enjoy reading with my daughter. Even if we're doing a TikTok together, I want to enjoy those moments and not rush through them. So work was number one, was what I started

to just kind of just really make sure that I only picked the things that made the most sense for me and that I really wanted to do. And then diet was the other one that was really important to me. Really taking time to eat other one that was really important to me. Really taking time to eat good meals, thinking about what I was eating, because a lot of the time I didn't eat until like three o'clock in the afternoon, just because I was running. And I was always fearful that, oh, if I eat too much, I won't have the energy that I need, or I'll just have another espresso or I'll have, and really taking the time because it was never about weight for me. Luckily, I never had that issue. But even though people couldn't see it on the outside,

I didn't feel good on the inside. I just didn't. I felt stomach pains all the time, bloating all the time. I'd eat stuff and I wouldn't digest it. Then you get cranky, right? You get foggy. My sinuses would act up when I was allergic to something. I'd get rashes. Your body's just trying desperately to process. And I think meditation in the morning, even if it's like five minutes or less. Acupuncture. When I'm busy, I do acupuncture once a week that it forces me to relax. And I try to buy and cook the best foods I can for myself. And those are the things I wanted to have time to do that I just, I didn't before.

I've always said that it's not the food so much or the ingredients technically that are the enemy. It's how much of those things we're eating. So instead of using two cups of Parmesan cheese or two cups of cheese, I reduced the amounts to half a cup. Instead of making a whole bag of pasta, you can make half a bag of pasta. So you eat whatever the vegetables or whatever that go with the sauce, you eat less pasta. So I started to reintroduce and reincorporate the things I love that are very much a part of Italian cooking, but less of it. So it's almost like the idea of pasta on the side, just like meat on the side, instead of the protein or the animal fat being the main thing, like a steak with a side of spinach and

a side of potato, it's the potato and the spinach with a side of steak. And it was sort of the approach I started to take with everything. The idea that we have to find moderation in how we eat. So you can clean your system out, which really helps give a break to your body and your organs to process. And then you slowly reintroduce those items that you like. It's the idea of finding that moderation. Do I still eat pasta? Yes. Sometimes is it gluten-free? Yes. Does it always have Parmesan cheese? Yes. And I also wanted people to understand that the quality of the ingredients you're using makes a giant, giant difference in how you're going to feel when you reintroduce them. The way that you approach this, kind of coming full circle back to, okay, so part of your

reclamation of your own health is, let me really dive into sort of clean eating and functional medicine. But also, when you look at the long-term studies of the way that people have eaten in the blue zones where they're the healthiest, the classic Mediterranean diet is one of the way that people have eaten in the blue zones where they're the healthiest. The classic Mediterranean diet is one of the things that so many people point to. And a lot of people in the paleo movement and stuff like this are like, no, no, no, that's filled with all the things that are evil and you can never have. And yet so many folks who have been living this way for generations are amongst the healthiest people. And it's when they introduce a Western diet that things change. And a lot of it has to do, I think, with what you were sharing, which is it's the quality of the ingredients. Flour is not flour is not flour. Grain is not grain is not

grain. And pasta is not pasta. It's not the same. Right. And that actually makes a profound difference in its potential inflammatory effect in your body. But also, like you said, portion sizes. In this country, in the US, and we have an international, amazing listening community, but especially in the US and Western countries, portion size has exploded where you can have the exact same thing in Europe, and you would probably have half the amount of food on your plate and you would eat a lot slower. So your satiety mechanisms would kick in and you would actually feel like you were completely satisfied. So there's a lot of what you're talking about is yes, changing recipes, but also like you were saying, it's kind of shifting just

the approach to the way that we nourish ourselves. And it's a connection between the senses, the digestion, the chew. It all works with the brain and the endorphins that you get. So when Italians eat dinner or whatever, I'm just taking Italians because that's my culture, but Europeans in general. It's a slow burn, meaning they take their time. They talk. They take breaks. They drink some wine.

It's a whole experience. It's not just the dish. They're not in a hurry to get through dinner to get to something else. And all of that connects. So for so long in Western medicine, we've been looking at things separately, right? My stomach is separate from my brain is separate from my arm, but really they all work in tandem as a whole. And that's what functional medicine has done.

And that's what I think for a long while I got away from, you know, I had it as a kid and growing up with my family, but then somehow I got away from. I had it as a kid and growing up with my family, but then somehow I moved away from it. And you look at my mother who's 70, who's unbelievably healthy. And she has always had alcohol. She's drank a glass of wine since I can remember, because I used to pour it for her when I was a kid. She eats bread, she eats pasta, but how much does she eat? Small amounts, many times a day. And she moves. Does she work out? No, she just walks. I think we're starting to realize now that we're so connected with all of our parts that one thing isn't exclusive of the other. And that's why in this book, half the book is me talking about inflammation and where my mind was at and yoga

and acupuncture and functional medicine and supplements, because they all go hand in hand. They all go hand in hand and you can eat a really healthy diet, but if you have high stress and you take no time for yourself and you're always going, chances are it won't matter. It just, it won't matter. And that's, you know, I think people struggle is changing the actual down to the core of how we live our lives here. And it's just very different in other parts of the world. It just is.

Yeah. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think it's just as basic as hoping to see the sunshine every day. And I'd like to smile first thing in the morning when I look at myself in the mirror, because then I know the day is going to be great. Thank you. Thank you. This was really lovely. Well, I hope you have enjoyed these stories and the passion and the insights and the lens on food

and relationships and people. There is something about folks who are passionate about food and preparing it for other people that is just incredibly affirming and heart connecting. If you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work

that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also

find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

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