Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Why Binging with Babish Had to Detox from Craving Online Fame

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Michele chats with Andrew Rea, the creator behind the massively popular Binging with Babish, to talk about how a Reddit side project turned into a culinary empire. Andrew opens up about losing his mom at a young age, why making cooking videos connects him to both his parents, and how he handles the highs and lows of social media fame. Plus, he shares his spin on his mom’s cookie recipe. The trick? “Let out your inner child monster”!   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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["The New York Times"] When I was a kid, I was fascinated with food. Even if it was just buttered noodles, I wasn't talking to anybody, I wasn't looking at anybody. I was absorbed in the act of eating very slowly, annoyingly slowly, and just in a trance with this food. And I heard that and I was jealous of my younger self. Hello, hello. Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. Not just the food, but all the stuff. The laughter,

the sibling rivalry, the cookie, baking, and the memory making. I'm Michelle Norris, and my guest today is Andrew Ray. He's someone who literally makes food jump off the screen right onto your plate. You probably know him best as Babish from the YouTube sensation Cooking with Babish. It's a highly popular YouTube show where he recreates food that you've seen in movies or on television shows and where he shares basic culinary skills. He's also the author of three cookbooks, Eat What You Watch, Binging with Babish, and his latest cookbook is called Basics with Babish and that focuses on making all kinds of foods for all levels of cooks. And he joins us here today and we usually begin with a question about your mama's kitchen, but I want to know about the origin story

behind your name. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm a big sucker for nostalgia watching the shows from our childhood and it's what I put on the background the way most people put on music. I just put on stuff I've seen a million times. Frazier and West Wing are up there. And now we see it. Babish was a very minor character on the West Wing for eight total episodes, I believe, portrayed by Oliver Platt. And the name is proof of the show's accidental success because I named it arbitrarily after my Reddit

handle. My Reddit handle was Oliver Babish. I like naming stuff after sort of obscure characters or things from my favorite shows. All my hard drives are named after restaurants from Frasier. Café Nervosa and L'Issa Gavrillon and anyway. And that was the whole thing in Frasier. Yeah. The whole restaurant thing. Yeah. Everything was a whole thing in Frasier. So I had named my screen name on Reddit, Oliver Babish, and I was obsessed with posting food

pictures on Reddit and getting to the top of the food subreddit. So I was like, well, a video is like a moving picture. I'll make a video that I can post there. What kind of video do I want to make? And I was rewatching Parks and Rec. And anyway, you didn't ask the history of the show, but that's how it started. It was just kind of an accident and I called it Binging with Babish. Binging like binge watch, Babish, that's my screen name. And so now it's what most people think my actual name is. It's emblazoned on all my cookware. It's become my entire identity.

And I'm sure I had the pleasure to meet Aaron Sorkin, creator of West Wing last year at the White House. And I am sure he couldn't have imagined that this minor character he wrote would become somebody's whole thing. And Oliver Platt must love that too. I hope to meet him one day as well. Well thanks so much for joining us.

And I just want to say a special thank you because we talk about the origin story for people and how the kitchens influence us. And in this case, it's a little bit of a difficult journey for you because I know that you lost your mom when you were really young. So thank you for opening your story and also opening your heart a little bit to talk about her. Absolutely. Thank you for creating a space to do that because I don't think we talk about death and loss enough. I think that we should be talking about it. It's part of the cycle. I don't want to sound Pat, but it is. Your dad is Douglas, your

mother was Annie. Can you tell me about the kitchen that you grew up in? Can we start by describing it? What did it look like? I can show you a picture of it. Oh, you came with props. For my birthday two years ago, my family put together this binder of her old recipe cards. So I got all these little recipes here. And we'll touch on those later. But it's glued to the page.

So let's see what we can do. Okay, I'm leaning into look. There it is. Oh, that's you in the galley kitchen with your mom wearing that little striped sweater. I'm the little guy. That's my brother David right there and that's my mom Annie. Oh, wait, you're not in the sweater. You're up next to your mom. No, no, no.

That's you? That's my brother David. That's me. Okay. And yeah, you can see the kitchen here. It had an island, which is an unspeakable luxury. Everything's backwards. It's over there. This is the most 90s oven I've ever seen in my life. 80s oven, I guess. Yeah. And yeah, you can, cooking was usually a communal

thing, usually something that I was allowed to mix something and then I became the one who made it myself, all by myself. Not literally, it's just the story that we told at the dinner table. It was very... Yeah, but it was great. It gave you agency. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it was very... The details you can't see in there is that it was very, how best to put this, like flea market. The lighting fixture was this like punched tin shade that was like hand punched by some dude in Albany, New York. And the decorations were patchwork, the quilts and stuff like that, and crockery and all the stuff that she would get at flea markets and craft fairs and stuff like that. She's an extremely crafty person.

And you grew up in Rochester? Yes, Rochester, New York, the graveyard of Xerox, Kodak, and Bachelon. Yeah, I've heard that you have a Kodak tattoo somewhere. I do. Eastern Kodak Company. You know, people who are from Rochester, for some reason in the past six months, I've talked to several people who were from Rochester. In fact, Tanya Holland, the chef, she's from Rochester also.

Her dad worked at Kodak and people really have strong connections and strong memories of Kodak and it sounds like it really was a company town. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was like if it was a coal mining town, they were the coal company, like they were the economic heartbeat of Rochester. So we miss them. But they, you know, they were like digital stupid. Nobody's going to use this. Yeah, that's, you know, if you don't know the story of Kodak, you really should go and look it up because they got there first. They saw the pot of gold first They just didn't pick it up. Yeah, you know, my dad was a loud advocate for for

digital photography he was doing lectures and and and he was on the teams that were helping develop the CMOS sensor and He it was like if it was a coal town he was selling solar panels. Yeah, yeah. He felt ostracized. Yeah, yeah. They didn't, they just didn't want to touch it. But back to the kitchen. Yes.

So what was your mom's kitchen personality? I wish I could tell you more about her cooking, but I was a buttered noodles kid. It's all I wanted to eat. So you went through that phase. Yeah. There were definitely things that she made that I ate. Some oddly challenging things like clam, linguine with clam sauce. I wouldn't eat, touch seafood.

I wouldn't touch chicken. I wouldn't touch anything, but I would have these canned clams. Was it because it looked like the buttered noodles? It was just had nuggets in it or little chunks of something? You're absolutely right. It's perfect simulacrum. Does it look like the buttered noodles? It was just had nuggets in it or little chunks of something. You're absolutely right. Yeah. It's perfect. She probably snuck.

He won't notice that there are clams in this. It just will look like spaghetti vongole or something. Cauliflower pizza like they won't notice. So you ate clam linguine. Any other dishes that your mom made that you would push aside the buttered noodles and run toward the meatloaf? Was there anything else? Yeah, no, no.

There were definitely things I would eat. Her beef stew, it was very simple. There's a hilarious recipe in here for beef stew. Why is it hilarious? It's from her grandmother and it says boil meat until done So one of my favorite memories that she would do and this is a very simple Thing and it turns out a Canadian delicacy I didn't realize I thought she invented this if she would go just go outside and grab an old cool whip container She would you know repurpose all an old Cool Whip container. She would repurpose all those containers.

Our freezer was full of Cool Whip and I can't believe it's not buttered tubs just filled with other stuff. Yeah, this is before Gladware. Oh yeah, no, absolutely. And she would go outside and scoop up one of those full of snow because this is one thing we have a lot of in Rochester, snow. She'd bring it inside and she would pour maple syrup over it. And after school, sometimes she would, she would serve that to me and my brother.

And it was just such a, such a lovely treat that made you feel like you were eating a little piece of winter. It was nice. That sounds delicious. And it turns out that's what they do in Canada, like at sugar shacks, they'll do these piles of snow and they'll pour Unrefined maple syrup over it and it's much thicker and it turns into candy almost that they like twist on I can see how That would happen it would it would kind of crystallize as soon as it hit the snow

Yeah, it turns into this gummy gooey awesome like like lollipop almost it's great And that's another thing she would do is she would just straight up caramelize sugar. She would just bring sugar to, I don't know what temperature, as soon as it turns amber colored and hard ball stage. And she'd pour it out onto a sheet with some lollipop sticks in there and just bust it up and we would just lick those,

cut our tongues and just bust it up and we would just lick those cutter tongues. And it was just burnt sugar. That's why burnt sugar is one of my favorite flavors now. Still, even today. So you must love creme brulee. Oh, yeah. It was like the best part of creme brulee, which is just the sugar. It is the best part of creme brulee. And also the noise that it makes when your spoon first cracks that.

I can hear that right now. What did you learn about your mom going through all those recipes? Mostly that she's a person of family and tradition because a lot of these recipes, she'll write little notes on them of things she'll do differently, but for the most part, they're untouched. And so she, I know she cooked a lot with her family and her parents cooked for her. And she cooked every one of our meals. Like we would go out for dinner once in a blue moon, but for the most part, we were, once in a blue moon, but for the most part, we were, she was making all of our meals.

And clearly she was cooked for with love and she wanted to pass that on and it worked, it stuck. Because even though, you know, I don't want to disrespect her cooking, but I also think it's important not to deify people and to remember the whole person. And the fact is that a lot of these recipes, some of them are delicious. I'm sure that blueberry tea bread is awesome. But there's one in here where it's like, dip fish in milk and roll in potato chip crumbs

and bake until done. And I'm like, I've actually had that. Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. It's, it's not like, you know, a beautiful Ukrainian recipe handed down through generations. It's just like this very Midwestern simple thing. And what I see here is just a whole lot of love and actually really fitting. She wrote this on one of the backs of one of the recipe cards. It is a pleasure to labor for those we love. love. She wrote that on the back. Oh, that's just beautiful. I mean, that wraps it up.

That's pretty much what this whole binder is about. And you said that she passed that on to you. So that, I mean, think about what you do now and what you do for so many other people and That that came from your mom It's it's really beautiful and it's something I I try to Spouse as much as possible I'm really the amalgam. I mean we're all the amalgam of our parents, but but I am my dad was a

is a photographer he was the But I am, my dad was a, is a photographer. He was the professor of photojournalism at Rochester Institute of Technology. And he got me into taking pictures and eventually taking videos. And here I am making food videos. Like, what are we doing? So you get both of them, you know, they're channeling right through you and the work that you do.

It took me 30 years to figure out, put those two things together, but I'm glad I did. And yeah, it's a wonderful reminder that how important food is and how important cooking for the people you love is for micro and macro reasons. Like macro, it can turn into this, what the conversation that we're having right now. Micro, it can make somebody stay. It can show somebody that you care about them. And that's so important. Yeah, food is its own love language. Absolutely. Absolutely. You were 11, right? When your mom passed away? Yes. And yeah, I was 11. And that's one of the reasons I don't truly remember her food

that well is I really repressed a lot of my everything up to 11. It's very foggy. I don't remember a lot of it. It fits in limbers. Did your family go back into her kitchen? Did they sort of, because it sounds like it was her space, very intentionally put together. Did you and your brother, you know, try to, because you were cooking with her, did you try to do that? How did your dad, you know, try to deal with the business of feeding his sons? I was 11, my brother was 18, so he was in college.

He obviously, of course, came home. He went to Rochester Institute, so he was in college. He obviously, of course, came home. He went to Rochester Institute, so he was right around the corner. But I mean, her dying really fragmented the three of us. And it eventually brought us together. I want to say it with that caveat, because I don't want to say like, it ruined us. But it was just me and my dad. I was turning 11. I was just going into puberty and I was becoming a problem child. My grades were going down.

I was getting into trouble here and there. My dad was wrecked. He's going to listen to this and I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this, but he loved this woman more than anything in the world and he was destroyed. So take a misbeh profound loss and doesn't have this buffer to help with this problem child. It was rough. High school was rough for both of us.

We were at each other's throats. And I will say that cooking was one of the one things that got us on the same page because we did try, he did try to cook. And I did here and there, I didn't really get into it until later in high school. And even then it was for my friends. I doubt that I ever cooked for him. I'm embarrassed to say that, but you know, we were at odds. later in high school. And even then it was for my friends. I doubt that I ever cooked for him. I'm embarrassed to say that, but we were at odds.

But he would try and he would be the first to tell you that he would screw up magnificently sometimes. I remember two instances, one was he mixed up cloves and chili powder, he used like two tablespoons of cloves instead of chili powder on this roast. So you can imagine it tasted like potpourri. I was thinking like a coffee rub, but maybe, you know, okay, no. Cloves is something you can't overdo. You cannot overdo. You shouldn't overdo rather. You said it tasted like potpourri.

And he'd be the first to say that, which is why I feel comfortable saying that. He laughs about that. And another one was when he tried to make stir fry. And, you know, it took me years to get comfortable with the temperatures that you need to hit to do stir fry properly. So it was like, you know, meat and veggies that were gently simmered. He did it at the same time, not the veggies and then the meat separately. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we didn't know what we were doing. And he used an incredible amount of

soy sauce. So it was the stir fry came out like, it looked like Jaja Miano, it was black. And he, but, and we both loved it because it was just pure salt. So we ate it. And, you know, it was like that. Like, and the one thing he could do really well was pot roast. He would do his pot roast every, I'd say every other week or so. He just slow cooker just to he would take a chuck roast and he'd cut slits into it and shove garlic into the slits and then just roast that with carrots and potatoes while we were gone at school and work all day. And, you know, it fall apart apart and it was great because it was our one great home cooked meal that we could have.

And I would say his doing that was the way, if we couldn't have honest and open emotional conversations as much as we wanted, if we weren't capable of doing that, this was his way of doing it. And I'm so grateful that he did, even if it sometimes came out tasting like cloves. It was a beautiful thing. When you first started cooking in high school on your own, were you trying to impress friends? Were you trying to experiment or were you in some way trying to connect with your mom? I think consciously I was trying to impress my friends and subconsciously I was trying to connect with my mom.

Because if you asked, you know, 14 year old me, why are you doing this? I'd be like, I wouldn't say that as a reason. Mostly because I was repressing, I was pushing down hardcore. I remember after she died, we went to this quack therapist who was like, just put your feelings in a closet. I remember saying that. And now looking back, I'm like, what? Yeah, that's interesting. But anyway, sorry. Yeah, no, I was definitely experimenting. I think when you're at that age, you'll do anything for an identity, for something that

makes you unique and likable or just gives you a personality. And I think that was my earliest successful entrant into that department. I had some failed attempts playing bass guitar, saying I was a hacker. Didn't work. And yeah, no, I would cook for friends and family. I wanted to be able to cook to impress girls. What were you cooking? So let's see. It was horrible. Oh my God.

Uh, I recreated it on an episode once. The thing, my signature dish was a chicken breast that I would cut a slit into and then I would stuff it with like cream cheese, um, artichoke hearts and like garlic, like powdered garlic and then I'd stuff it and then I'd like just sprinkle breadcrumbs on it and just bake that until sometimes done. I remember I served it a couple times and people would cut into it be like, oh, I think we need

to throw this back in real quick. And I would get like huffy, not at them, but it was at the situation. Okay, fine. I'll put it back in. And so I wanted to be a virtuoso. I didn't want to need a recipe. So I would just like make stuff up with zero knowledge base. What was your guide for that?

Were you watching Julia Child? Was it like Chicken A la Kiev or something? So when I was homesick, I'd watch Food Network always. Ina Garden, who you've had on the show, and Oldham Brown and Michael Chiarello. Remember him? I don't remember Michael Chiarello. Easy entertaining with Michael Chiarello. Remember him? I don't remember Michael Chiarello. Easy entertaining with Michael Chiarello. Oh, okay. It was on Food Network and now he's got a restaurant out in Yonville in California.

Yeah, no, Food Network was my go to always and that's probably another thing that spurred me. She would always have it on in the background all day when I was homesick. So that was another subconscious probably desire to connect. Yeah, it's a connection. And so yeah, that planted the seeds of stuffing chicken with stuff and whatever. When did you start to realize, okay, I think I might have a skill here. I'm getting good at this. It's almost the reverse. I thought I had a skill when I didn't. I thought, oh man, I'm really good at this. And I really wasn't. If anything, I had a come to Jesus moment when I was like 22, 23.

I, it's etched in my memory. All my buddies from high school came to visit. We hadn't seen each other in years, so we went out, we partied, we were 22, so we got pretty drunk. And we woke up, I was like, guys, I'm gonna make you the hangover breakfast of your dreams. And I had just gotten a sous vide, which, you know, I wanted a sous vide everything because I was like, this needs to be the center of my life now because it cost me $400. So they stumble out of their rooms with hangover with you know, headaches and bleary eyes and I'm sous viding quail eggs. And putting this big. Yeah. Yeah. And I made I made I made a Christina with shaved as, sous vide quail eggs and truffle oil.

They, I think, hangover. Wow. Stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. And I am not the stupidest is up there. And they put they choked one down and they were like, is there a diner anywhere? And we went out and we had chilaquiles and beers and I that was my moment where I was like, I'm trying to reinvent cuisine without even understanding cuisine. Like I'm trying to, to, to innovate in a space. I'm trying to become to write a hit song without knowing how to play the guitar. And I need to, I need to like understand the basics. I need to make

food that people like, like I don't need to challenge them. That was the moment where I was like, okay, time to figure out the fundamentals. And I did that with by just basically repeatedly cooking basic dishes and seeing in what ways I could make them better. Things like mac and cheese, things like beef stew, the stuff that my mom would make. These very simple fundamental dishes and making them and being like, okay, what went wrong? What went right? What can I do better next time? And giving myself room to make mistakes and taking every opportunity to try to learn from those mistakes. At some point, when you adopted your name, the name that you go by on Reddit, you started posting some of these recipes, as you said, trying to get people to pay,

this is the beef stew I made, this is the fried chicken I made. At what point were you starting to feel like, okay, I'm starting to master this, and I want the world to see this, so I'm going to start placing it on Reddit so we can actually have a conversation about this thing I just created. Since the come to Jesus moments, I'm not sure if I ever try to think that I've mastered anything. I don't ever want to think that way. I don't think I have mastered anything. So I guess it was, I mean, it was kind of a social media addiction posting to Reddit, like getting to the

top page, getting all those upvotes, getting all those comments, engaging and talking with people about the thing that I had made became addicting. I was checking it repeatedly, like, to a sickening extent. I would refresh and I would do things like make multiple Reddit accounts to upvote my own stuff to give it a little springboard start out cheat a little bit. I would do anything to hit the top of that page. I don't know why I was chasing that recognition. I guess we're all chasing recognition in some form, but like I guess I was finally getting

the validation that I was a decent cook. I can't say that I'm a master, but I can have other people say it about, there it is. I wanted other people's validation to say like, you did it, you figured it out. Was it just the validation of rising to the top of the clicks? Or was it also that you were part of a community of people that was That were having a conversation Absolutely, that's what I feel like some of Reddit used to be

Reddit nowadays is more I feel like everybody's just there to To worry and complain about things But anyway, that's another show It definitely did feel like a community I would recognize screen names But anyway, that's another show. It definitely did feel like a community. I would recognize screen names. I would get into conversations with people. And I would get ideas.

We would all beget each other's ideas. It's what the internet is supposed to be about. There was an exchange of information. I would get tips and, you know, next time try this or I do this. Like that's beautiful. It's why modern recipes are so good. That sense of community can be very validating when people are responding to something that you've put out into the world. Each of these social media platforms is like, it has its own sort of soil, you know, media platforms has its own sort of soil.

It's like a different kind of soil. Instagram is different from TikTok. Reddit is different from YouTube. But YouTube is where you really have grown and prospered and flourished. When did you make that leap from Reddit into YouTube? And how important was that COVID moment for you in terms of, you know, building your brand and building your audience,

that moment when everyone was forced to stay home and find something to do with their time and cook for themselves. The transition from Reddit to YouTube was also propagated by a personal crisis. I was having just a massive depression, basically. I was in a depressive episode, it was very unhealthy. Basically, I was working on a movie. I worked in visual effects. I was in commercial post-production at the time.

That was my day job. And in my off hours, I was working on this movie and it was a very fraught, a very difficult period of a year and a half, just not getting, didn't get paid for all that work. I got like, I don't know, I think $4,000 for a year and a half of work and it just kind of didn't go anywhere. It just face planted. And it was really, really discouraging from a creative standpoint because I was trying

to, I've always wanted to be a filmmaker and I was trying to establish myself in some way and to see so much effort yield no fruit just crushed me. And on top of that, I was I was in the the throws of the the death rattle of my marriage was occurring in the background kind of unbeknownst to both of us. And the change that took place is I started going to therapy. I hadn't gone since I was a kid because I didn't have a great experience. And I was like, you know, I spent two weeks in bed feigning food poisoning because I could not face the day. I couldn't, you couldn't do anything.

And I was like, okay, time to get some help. So I found a therapist and I got put on a medication that agreed with me and I started finding bandwidth again, which is what I've kind of always referred to it as just the energy and or the psychic space to create stuff, to be creative, to be proactive. And we don't always have that and to have that is very exciting. So I took out a loan, about five grand to buy a camera and a microphone and a light for what? I wasn't quite sure yet. I just wanted to make stuff and I was always renting equipment and I just wanted to be able to make stuff anytime.

And so I like I was saying I was watching Parks and Rec and there was this burger cook off and I was trying to think of you know what kind of food video could I post to Reddit and I saw the burger cook off. Doop. You know, connection made. I was like, oh, I wonder what that would taste like in real life. And I decided to studiously recreate it and posted that on Reddit. The first episode of Binging with Babish, you can hear me say instead of every other episode I say, Hey, what's up guys? First episode I say, Hey, what's up Reddit food? Posted that on reddit the first episode of binging with Babish you can hear me say instead every other episode

I say hey, what's up guys first episode? I say hey, what's up reddit food? And it's because it was specifically for that platform. I know is uploaded on YouTube, but it was for posting on that platform Over the next year it became my hobby I Was just doing it after work whenever I could I was just doing it after work whenever I could. Around episode four is when I got divorced. So I moved out of our apartment and moved in with a friend of mine in Harlem and reconfigured the kitchen to try and be able to shoot there.

It was very disruptive for him, I'm sure. I still feel bad sometimes. And I just was making it whenever I could. Sometimes it was once a month, sometimes it was every other week. It was just whenever I could. And the first big windfall that made me be like, okay, I got something here. I need to pursue it, was the moist maker from Friends, the unfortunately named sandwich that has the gravy soaked slice of bread in the middle

of Thanksgiving leftover sandwich inspired idea. And I went way over the top and I made a whole Thanksgiving meal just to make the sandwich. And it blew up. It got, I think after 24 hours, got like 600,000 views, which was insane. And that's when I was like, okay, time to start doing this every week. And which was a challenge because I was working, you know, 50 hours a week and full time job. And, but you know, I was 28. So I had all the energy in the world and I could just crank. And that was the first big spike

and I didn't see any revenue from it for a year. I started getting some little sponsorships, some YouTube ad revenue, not enough to pay the bills, but enough to excite me and keep me going. And then, yeah, after about a year and a half, all tolls of doing the show, that's when I was able to quit my job because I was starting to make more money than at my day job. And yeah, views just started going up exponentially. It was just taking off.

Every episode was doing a little better than the last. And before I knew it, I had 100,000 subscribers. Before I knew it, I had a million subscribers. Two million, three million. It just kept compounding. And yeah, then I... And that thing you wanted from Reddit was flowing toward you in abundance. It was exploding at me. And I moved into my own place in Soho and it was awesome. And I was just

every like the apartment was incredible. It was beautiful. It was a top floor of this gorgeous building and it had a little private roof deck. It was amazing. But I would say like 90% of the square footage of that apartment was dedicated to making content and so too was myself. Like all I did was make content. I didn't do anything else virtually. Um, I would go out to dinner and watch movies. And then COVID hits.

And then, and you start doing three episodes a week. Yeah. And cause like, if I was only doing that before, I was really only doing it during COVID, because there was nothing else to do. And I'm not used to not doing things. So I'm much better at it now. I love not doing things. Yeah, that obsession was given a license to go crazy. And both everybody being, both my, you know, putting out tons of content and everybody being stuck indoors was a recipe for massive growth for the channel.

Absolutely. I was in a very rare and privileged space where I could make this show entirely myself and not violate social distancing. So that's what I did. And I think at peak growth, we caught like 290,000 subscribers in a month. During that month, I think we were the fastest growing channel on YouTube, if I'm not mistaken. And at this point, it was me and my best friend, Sawyer Jacobs, who's now the CEO of the company. And it was just the two of us. He was working remotely, just cranking. And the pandemic was a big growth moment for the channel. It feels funny saying that, but

everybody was stuck and we were doing what we were doing. Since then, I've adopted a lot of mindfulness practices, meditation practices, which have vastly improved just my overall sense of peace, which I think is very important. Hey there, it's Michelle Norris. I'm sure you've heard of that term aging gracefully. That's all good and fine. But I think most of us really want to age healthily. And that's why I want to spend a few minutes talking to you about Alloy, a company that

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Hey, it's Craig Robinson here. And let me tell you, being sick is no joke. But you know what's even tougher? Feeling like you can't take the time to rest and recover because you've got bills to pay or a job to keep. That's why I'm proud to talk about what Theraflu is doing with their Right to Rest and Recover campaign. For the past four years, they've been championing the right to paid sick time for everyone.

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So when you were finding things that you wanted to create from TV shows and movies, because we're talking about your mama's kitchen, I'm wondering if there was were finding things that you wanted to create from TV shows and movies, because we're talking about your mama's kitchen, I'm wondering if there was a particular dish that you made that you rubbed your hands together because it was like, oh, I can go back to Rochester in my mind. This is not, because some of the dishes were strange. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. We won't even get into that because that was just, you know, the worst thing I've ever eaten. And candy and things that shouldn't be together.

But were there other dishes that you did that you really relished doing because it was a chance to go back to that little kitchen in Rochester? Let's see. So the garbage plate, which is a Rochesterian staple. It's one of our remaining points of pride. It is a pile of macaroni salad, a pile of french fries topped with two cheeseburgers or two white hots or red hots, hot dogs, and then covered in what's called hot sauce. It's not spicy. It's a meat sauce

that I think traditionally was made from burger scrapings off the grill. My God, excuse me. I'm having a heart attack. Yeah. Right here at this moment. I'm good for you. Just thinking about that. Whoa. It's a massive filling and inexpensive meal that is excellent for when you're either drunk or hungover. Not so great otherwise. And that was featured in Place Beyond the Pines. So I was able to recreate

that for an episode that was like, you know, going back home a little bit because I had a lot of those in high school when I could physically handle them. And then, you know, cookies is really any kind of cookie is an opportunity to that is something I remember distinctly about my mom's cooking. In one of your cookbooks, you have the most wonderful allergy to cookies and cookie dough and your mother's cookies and your experience trying to figure out how to make her cookies but also as a very young kid, the way that she would let you put the ingredients together and then you were able to present

this to the world and saying, and everyone would say, this is something that, did they call you Andrew or Andy that Andy put together that Andy did? We always gift our listeners with a recipe. And this is the recipe that you wanted to share with our listeners. Was this sort of all purpose cookie dough? Can you tell us a little bit about it? It's, you know, chocolate chip cookies, minus the chocolate chips are a very basic recipe. There's not too many permutations you can do there. But there's some upgrades in there. I like to brown the butter. That's something I learned from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.

Obviously just gives a roastier nuttier flavor, richer flavor. You have to use more butter as a result so they're butterier. There's a tablespoon of ground hazelnut coffee that I think no matter what you're putting in the cookies, it's subtle and it's a massive upgrade. It just tastes so good. It makes them, I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. It makes them taste slightly like hazelnut coffee. And I think the most important part is to let out your inner child monster when deciding what to mix in there. Go crazy, whatever you got in there that you think is going to taste good. So none of the things I just listed were in my mom's recipe. But what she did do was let

me, like you said, give me that kind of validation of like, you did autonomy agency, you did this, you made this, even though all I did was just mix it or spill her flour or something. And to embrace that moment in a child's life, I think I feel that when I make these cookies because they let me feel like a kid again. I can't wait to road test these. I don't know what I'm going to throw in them. I'm thinking hazelnut would be really great with toffee. Oh yeah. I love that sweet salty combination. Absolutely. So maybe like a ground Marcona almond or something? Wouldn't that be good?

100% That might be good? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. That sounds fantastic. Let me know when you make those. Okay. I will try to, I don't have your video skills, but I'll try to record it and in some way

and share it with you. Should we chill the dough? What you want to do is make the final cookie dough with all your mix-ins and stuff. Scoop it using an ice cream scoop or something. Portion it out, then fridge it. That's very important. On parchment. Yes, on parchment.

And the fridging it does a couple things. It desiccates it. You get some water loss, which is going to concentrate flavors. It's like dry aging, basically. You're concentrating flavors, you're richening, you're making flavors richer and deeper. They just taste so much better after three days in the fridge. And they crisp up differently. Absolutely. They spread differently, they crisp differently, they brown differently. It's a world of difference. And if you can hold on, bake two or three to scratch the edge, but then hold

on to the rest for three days and bake them after that. And thank you for reminding me. That is probably the hottest tip you could take away from this recipe or any cookie recipe. I cannot wait to try this recipe. You are so wise. And before I let you go, I just want you to share, if you can, just briefly, a bit of wisdom for people who cook in a different way, largely because of social media. Because we record so much of what we do and we want to send it out there in the world. You have had great success, but you've learned a few things about balance, about validation, about the importance of slowing down sometimes.

So if there's any wisdom that you could share with people who do get that bug, well, I want to share with the world everything that I cook, and I want that validation too, what would that wisdom be? I called my dad right before this because I wanted to just see if there was any stories that I couldn't remember, anything fresh hot off the tap. And he told me that when I was a kid, I was fascinated with food. Even if it was just buttered noodles,

I wasn't talking to anybody, I wasn't looking at anybody. I was absorbed in the act of eating very slowly, annoyingly slowly, and just in a trance with this food. And I heard that and I was jealous of my younger self. I was like, eating is a background activity for most people, for myself included. It's something you do while you're watching TV or while you're scrolling on your phone or while you're answering your emails.

It's this thing you have to do. And recently I've been making this series where I just cook in real time, unedited. And the emphasis there is put your phone in, do not disturb and focus on this task only. Because it's an everyday thing that becomes so much richer when you engage with it. And I'm talking about cooking or eating. Because when you when you really engage with it and feel grateful for it, both having it and having the opportunity to do it. Social media has us constantly reaching for dizzying highs and validation like I was seeking on Reddit. And also trying to convince us that we're not

enough right now, that we should be doing this or if you're not doing this, you're toast, or just all this stuff that is born of a desire for engagement, following, and controversy, and to slow down and derive joy and pleasure from something so everyday and something so essential. I love the proverb that we are nothing more than walking piles of all the food we've ever eaten in our life. That's it. You are food. And to connect with this essential universal

experience. It's, it's, it's a powerful practice in in in mindfulness and self-love and love for the people around you that is accessible to virtually anybody that is able to engage with it and it's accessible to you now. You could do it now. I have gained so much from this conversation. I have loved talking to you. I hope we get to cook together one day. I hope so too. Somewhere we'll figure that out. I just want to also share something really quick. I just took a video. My mom loved birds

and her favorite bird was the cardinals. And there's a cardinal outside your window? And I just took a video of it so I'll send it to you. Oh stop. But a cardinal just landed on the tree outside my window. Oh my gosh. No shit. You know, we talked to Wendell Pierce and Ryan will back me up on this.

There's a camp, there's a lamp that you see. And when he mentioned his mother, Althea's name, the lamp would go on and off. Oh wow. So, you know, I don't want to get all woo woo on you, but... Oh, trust me. I'm woo woo in ways that I wouldn't even dare say out loud. I also want to just say thank you for bringing the scrapbook in of all the recipes. I mean, that's so beautiful.

It's the first time I think someone has brought in show and tell, so thank you so much for doing that. My pleasure. I'm glad I have it. I just wanted to share this with you because I've been clearing out my mom's condo. She passed away in June of last year. And you've given me an idea of what to do with all of these recipes that some of them she covered in little plastic sheaths.

And she too has notes all over the back of them. But as I went through her condo, I'm finding she has recipes. I think our mothers just had moments of inspiration and they didn't have a note section on their phone. So I'm finding recipes all over the place, inside books, inside drawers, you know. So she just cut out some recipes and then she would take the recipe that was in the Star Entertainment, which is a hometown paper, and rewrite it and put her own spin on it. And so these recipes are just treasure. And it's so wonderful that you have them. But the other thing I wanted to share with you is I found this.

And I almost threw it away because it just looked like, you know, our moms just had a lot of this tchotchke stuff all over the house. Oh, sure. Honey, you know what this is? Card a lot of this tchotchke stuff all over the house. Oh, sure. Honey, you know what this is? Card holder, yeah? I didn't know it. You knew it right away. She had one.

She had one of those. Your mom had one of these too. I did not know what it was. Not that exact one, but yeah, just something just like that. So I just picked up her recipe for rhubarb crunch. Oh, yeah. That is a mom recipe. I wrote a whole essay about my mom and rhubarb at one point because I grew up, we were in

a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. We were in a family. Oh yeah, there's mom recipe. I wrote a whole essay about my mom and rhubarb at one point because I grew up, we were told that rhubarb was poisonous.

And it turns out the leaves are poisonous. Rhubarb is not poisonous. Raw leaves, yeah. Yeah, but I thought rhubarb was poisonous. And my mom served rhubarb all the time. She had a lot of rhubarb in our yard. So I thought she was magical. I thought she was a superhero that she could go out and just slay rhubarb in some way.

And her rhubarb was just not poisonous because I don't know, she put so much sugar in it or something like that. I like to think that you're right. And thank you for sharing that. I obviously that loss is very, very difficult and, you know, welcome to the club. And your show is so important from that perspective and for so many others. Like, I really appreciate the emphasis that you put on the passing down of these things and also the being willing to share that and be open about that. Thank you.

Well, I think I didn't treasure this at the time. You know what I mean? Her recipes. I didn't understand just that this is her legacy in a little plaid box and all the other things that I found with that. I really love this conversation. I'm going to focus in saying goodbye on a few things that Andrew mentioned. Gratitude, the importance of remembering that food is not promised to us. Gratitude for the mamas who raised us and who left us with all of their mama bear wisdom in ways that sometimes we don't even recognize. Thanks so much for joining us. Glad you're with us.

Before we say goodbye, I want to remind you that our inbox is always, always open for you to record yourself. You can make a voice memo or take a video of yourself and send that to ymk at highergroundproductions.com for a chance for your voice to be featured in a future episode. And if you want to try making these cookies and after this conversation, why wouldn't you? You can check out all the recipes at YourMama'sKitchen.com. You will find not just Andrew Ray's recipe for these all-purpose cookies. You will find all the recipes from all of the previous episodes. Thanks so much for being with us. Glad you spent some time. Hope you'll come back next week because here at Your Mama's Kitchen, we always, always, always serve up something

delicious. Until then, be bountiful. Thank you for having me. This has been the far and away favorite podcast I've ever done. Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please be in touch and don't be a stranger. Likewise. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Ever heard a story so wild you just had to know if it was true? I'm Alexis Steele from Degrassi and on Steele My Story we put celebrity guests to the test. Join me and comedian Ian Fisher as we play a hilarious game of true or stolen story.

Our guests share two stories, one from their own life and one they shall we say borrowed. Can you guess which one really happened to them? Subscribe to Steal My Story on the Sonar Network or wherever you get your podcasts.