The Daily Show: Ears Edition - TDS Time Machine | Chefs

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Pull up a chair and tuck a napkin into your collar for The Daily Show's conversations with some incredible chefs. Jon Stewart sits down with Anthony Bourdain to talk traveling the world for food and... culture. Trevor Noah chats with David Chang about the cultural history of food, and José Andrés about feeding the hungry after natural disasters. Chef and author Anne Burrell recounts her experiences on food competition shows and her book "Cook Like a Rock Star", and Kwame Onwuachi tells Trevor about his early life and his book "Notes From a Young Black Chef." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 From Searchlight Pictures comes, Is This Thing On? Directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Canada's own Will Arnett. Is This Thing On is the story of a man's unconventional journey to find himself, seeking new purpose in the New York stand-up comedy scene while navigating his impending divorce. Is This Thing On is a raw, authentic, and hilarious story about discovery, reinvention, and second chances in life. See Is This Thing On, now playing in select theaters everywhere January 9th. You're listening to Comedy Central.
Starting point is 00:00:48 He's a chef and author. His show for the travel channel is called No Reservations. The people here in Mapuche, you know, whenever they have a hangover, they always come for plans. Either we take the medium ones or the big ones. normally they open better than the small ones all right so you generally buy your fish here you go back here and you pick a restaurant which is a place we sit there and then they cook it for us done I got to get out more please Welcome, Anthony Bourdain.
Starting point is 00:01:35 We love your show. It's a great show. Here's what I have decided. Your job is what people would do if they didn't have to work. It's the greatest job. You travel around the world, American all over. Engaging with the local culture eating the local food. It's amazing. I have the best job in the world. There's no doubt about it. How many how often do you are you on the road? About 220 days a year or something like that. So I'm away from home a lot
Starting point is 00:02:08 But you know I decide where we go. I make the show the way me and my friends want to make it the network interferes near to not at all So I can hardly complain about the boss. Is there a place you have? haven't been to that it was too difficult to get to, the arrangements could be made, was there a disappointment? I dreamed for a long time. We've tried year after year to do a, I'm obsessed with Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness.
Starting point is 00:02:36 Yes, yes. And I see myself every year going up the river, you know, tracing the Marla's trip up to Kurtz and the Congo. Uh-huh. There have been some health and safety concerns that have prevented that from happening. I can just see the shot you rising up from the river. having a man. So nothing in, let's say, war-torn regions.
Starting point is 00:02:57 Well, we had a taste of that in 2006. We were shooting what was supposed to be a happy food show in Beirut and ended up getting evacuated by the Marines. We've certainly shot at some places where anything resembling infrastructure is, you know, well, not really there. It's impressive. Some of the places you go to, some of the food you eat, it's impressive. I have gotten diarrhea from watching your show. I was struck down recently with a terrible... Watching the
Starting point is 00:03:30 Mozambique preview and just got hit, just bad. Couldn't leave the house for two days. We caught a joke on the show that, you know, if there's not at least a 50% chance of diarrhea when you need something, it's almost not worth eating. It really isn't. Do you have... Are there certain precautions
Starting point is 00:03:46 that you take when you go into these like shots and... Yeah, I mean, we've the full spectrum there but honestly we avoid the hotel breakfast buffet that thing is lethal would you say that even in the States I would say even that you know that sort of forlorn the shiny ham the the the congealed eggs the you know the little no that stuff is a that's a vector that's not a meal the display of bacon always because I'm a huge fan of bacon yeah but once it gets somehow when it starts to layer and get on top of its right in the crevices lives
Starting point is 00:04:19 baconella or whatever it is yeah if it's more jerky like then then bacon like right you probably shouldn't be yeah have you been struck by uh uh the ability of food to bring cultures together everywhere you've got have you ever been to a place where food was not important to the culture uh it was there it's a bad place you know where people are immune to to the joys of of eating uh and that has nothing to do with budget as someone that Dependably, the best food, the best times we've had on the road are often in very poor countries where they have very little to work with, and they do a lot with it. A country that just don't pay attention to food at all. It's like someone who says to you, I'm not interested in food.
Starting point is 00:05:01 Really not interested. It's like them saying, I don't like, you know, music. Right. And I'm not particularly interested in sex either. You know, it's just not a fan of joy. I kind of got that from the first two. Right, right, right. Hate joy.
Starting point is 00:05:13 Yeah. Not interested. It's incredible. I'm always, you know, I do a very different kind of traveling. It's traveling for comedy, and you're going to clubs, and you're not going. But I'm always curious how you infiltrate the local restaurant system. How do you do that? Where do you go to find actual real good local food?
Starting point is 00:05:33 Drink a lot with locals. So it starts with drink. It really helps. You want to eat where going to the early morning markets is useful because you see what people are buying and the little places around. them that market workers eat in, people are proud of their food, and they'll tell you. They'll recognize a freakishly tall American and say, oh, have you eaten this yet? You don't have to tell me.
Starting point is 00:05:59 Oops. In New York, do you find, is that your comfort level now? You just feel like you know all in New York? You know, it's a big city. I'm always, you know, you always discover new things about it. But it's a perfect example. You know, you always are looking for, what do you eat in New York if you only got one? day here, you know, not the best restaurant New York. What are we good at New York, the best
Starting point is 00:06:21 at New York that nobody else is as good at? I'd say bagel, nova, cream, cheese, deli. We're better at Delhi than anybody. Big deli. So that's what you do. And you're looking for the sort of Vietnamese version of deli or the Singaporean version of deli. What do they do better than anyone else? Like a noodle bagel, something like that. You might be on to something. That's why I don't cook. Well, listen, it's great to have it. We love the show. The eighth season, No Reservations, premieres on the Travel Channel, April 9th, 9 p.m. Anthony Bourdain. My guest tonight is a world-renowned chef and founder of the Momo Fuku Restaurant Group.
Starting point is 00:06:57 He has a new documentary series on Netflix called Ugly Delicious. The women in my life express love through food. My grandmother was an amazing cook. My mother is an amazing cook. Mama. Mmm, mm-mm. Love was shown as, have you had a good? Have you had enough to eat?
Starting point is 00:07:19 Until this day, when I talk to my mom, just the first thing she says is, what have you eaten? Have you had enough to eat? Please welcome, David Chang. Welcome, sir. Welcome to the show. Glad that you're here.
Starting point is 00:07:42 Disappointed you didn't bring any fried chicken with you. I'm addicted to a lot of your food, and so many other people are. This Netflix series has started off with a bang. People are loving it. Why the title, Ugly Delicious? Well, as you saw in that clip, I grew up eating really well. My mom cooked a lot of Korean things.
Starting point is 00:07:59 And growing up in Northern Virginia, it wasn't that cool. In fact, I was like the butt of many jokes. So when I started cooking professionally, those were the foods that I never wanted to touch because I was ashamed of it, or I just didn't want to, like, embrace it. And that sort of encapsulates a lot of the foods that I think are, truly delicious, but may not be cool or looks good on a photograph sometimes, like a curry is a perfect example.
Starting point is 00:08:25 A bowl of curry is so good, but isn't something that's going to be on the cover of a magazine. And for you growing up, your food was a part of your culture, but it was also something that people used to tease you about. Do you think that that's a big part of food, is the cultural identity that comes with it? Absolutely, because we're at a, not a crossroads, but food is more popular than ever before. and it sort of intersects so many different parts of culture throughout the world. Right.
Starting point is 00:08:48 So in so many ways, you know, creating the show with Morgan Neville and Eddie Schmidt, we decided that food could be sort of a Trojan horse to talk about many of the great things in culture and many of the bad things in culture. Right. Like, for instance, with Chinese food. There's an episode where you delve into Chinese food, and it feels like it's less about the Chinese food itself and about how Chinese people in America have had to assimilate
Starting point is 00:09:10 and what that means and how the food has had to assimilate in many ways to fit in with American culture. What, like, what did you learn in that experience when looking at Chinese food on its own in America? I mean, it goes all the way back to when they came to work on the railroads and how they were marginalized way back then in the 1890s or so. And without getting too much in the history, I feel like as delicious as Chinese food is, and it's like the most prevalent kind of food throughout the world, it seems. It's never been seen as, like, as cool as other European cuisines. And quite frankly, I think that there's been a lot of sort of hidden racism in how people perceive, not just Chinese food, like, basically anything that's, like,
Starting point is 00:09:48 different than the mainstream America, right? You see that with MSG or how people see, like, cheap meats in Asian restaurants, Chinese restaurants. And a lot of that's not true, right? They're just, you know, not even misperceptions. They're just wrong, right? It's interesting that you bring up racism with regards to food, because those are stereotypes that you see, you know, rearing their ugly heads all over the world. You know, people go, oh, watermelon, black people, and chicken, black people, and they'll be like, oh, you eat this type of food if you're Asian and you eat this. There are certain ideas that come from food.
Starting point is 00:10:22 There are certain stories that are told by the food. There's an episode where you talk about fried chicken, and what I love is in the story, you know, you're out in the South. You're meeting with people who cook fried chicken, white people who make fried chicken. Did you find that it was interesting to speak to people about where the chicken came from, how it came to be popularized, and how they saw the story as it really? related to the food? Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:10:44 And I think first and foremost about fried chicken, it's a story that, you know, a lot of people don't know about. Everyone I think that eats chicken will find it to be a fried chicken to be delicious. Right. Again, the world over almost, but the story of how it was born out of oppression and slavery for the most part, the fried chicken that we all most are commonly associate with, that's a really tough story to tell, right? And if we can't talk about fried chicken, how are we supposed to talk about other things
Starting point is 00:11:09 that are problematic? Right, right, right. And going back to the sort of the popularity of fried chicken shops, there's a scene where I'm talking to my friends, really, and questioning them, the same questions I'd answer myself. And the reality is it's like, it's a responsibility that I think today in 2018 that we should know more about and we should talk about. And it's not easy to talk about.
Starting point is 00:11:36 I mean, I think you have to watch the episode because I think we're not trying to answer anything. We're just trying to start the conversation about that because it's just too dense of a topic. Do you feel like that's something people could do? Like at restaurants, like the waiter should have to tell you about the history of the food when they give it to you? So you should be like, what are you going to have? I'll have the fried chicken.
Starting point is 00:11:52 Let me tell you about slavery and oppression. This chicken over here comes from a long history of people being oppressed. And you're like, I'm going to go with the rice. Can I go with the rice? No, it's not about that. I mean, certainly it could be, but we live in a world where there's so much information at your fingertips.
Starting point is 00:12:07 Like, why not go down that rabbit in just a little bit? And, you know, there's a scene in that fried chicken episode where it's not about fried chicken, where I say to David Simon, great director of the wire, where I'm like, hey, I would have a problem of someone that's not Korean starts making kimchi. Right. And he sort of smacks me down being like, you're an idiot, right? Like, America is about cultural appropriation when it's done, like, very well. Right. And that makes any sense.
Starting point is 00:12:31 And I thought about that. And I was like, man, he's absolutely right in the sense that the only way I'm going to get this person that's making kimchi to appreciate kimchi is to love. let them go down the rabbit hole. Right, right, right. And maybe they're going to be the biggest advocate of it, but if I'm there judging them saying, like, you can't do this, then I'm not making any progress there. So I feel the same way about fried chicken, and I think that I could have been that fried chicken shop down in Nashville because I love hot fried chicken so much.
Starting point is 00:13:01 Of course, the first thing you want to do is pay homage, but it's a problem sometimes, right? It's a, what happens if you start killing the very thing that inspired you? Right, that's really interesting. And that's, I think, what the show does. It asks questions, it starts conversations, and most importantly, it makes me hungry as shit. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks, everyone.
Starting point is 00:13:19 Amazing to have you here. Ugly Delicious is available on Netflix now. David Chang, everybody. My guest tonight is a Michelin Starch chef with more than 30 restaurants around the world. He is the founder of World Central Kitchen and author of the new book, We Fed an Island, the true story of rebuilding Puerto Rico
Starting point is 00:13:40 one meal at a time. Please welcome, Jose Andres. Please, please. Take a seat. No, no, no, you. Please. No, no, you. Please. No, no, you. It's your show. No, you, that's why you might. No, come on, man. I am an immigrant. You first. I'm also an immigrant, so you first. Together, all right?
Starting point is 00:14:09 Yay. Okay. Welcome to the show. What an amazing book you've written. You know what's funny is I met Jose at an event and we started talking about food. I don't know. He looked at me and he was like, you like food.
Starting point is 00:14:24 And we started talking about food. And this is a fascinating man who told me a story about going to places that have been hit by natural disasters or disasters of any kind and cooking food for the people who have been removed from their homes. How do you get started in that, and how did your story begin with Puerto Rico specifically? Because you've had an interesting relationship with the nation.
Starting point is 00:14:46 Well, Puerto Rico went there first time over 25 years ago, and I really fall in love with that island. Puerto Ricans are amazing people. They love to dance salsa. They celebrate life. I was lucky enough to have a restaurant in Dorado for the last few years. But then, Maria, the hurricane was coming. I was watching. My team and I, we already were in Houston. So we helped there. We made a few hundred thousand meals. We were kind of all right. Hurricane hit on the first plane, we landed. And we began making few meals, a few thousand meals a day.
Starting point is 00:15:23 But we saw that the problem was getting, if anything, bigger and bigger. So we kept cooking. And we went from 1,000 meals to 150,000 meals a day, more than 3.7 million meals in total, 20 volunteers to 25,000 volunteers, from one kitchen to 26 kitchens. We then planned. The only thing we did was start cooking. Every phone call we got, an email, tweet, Facebook.
Starting point is 00:15:50 We are hungry. We never said no. We kept feeding anybody that asks us for a meal. It's a... It's... It's really a story where, you know, the beauty of what... what yourself and your team have done is only, you know, I guess, amplified by the tragedy of the island as well.
Starting point is 00:16:13 Because you went through a really tough period of learning how to cook for the people in each place. Because, I mean, you did this in Haiti as well. Yeah. And what's interesting is a lot of people might say, I want to send food packets there, you know, why are you going there to physically cook for the people? But you talk about that in the book. Could you share why you do that? I mean, you imagine, right?
Starting point is 00:16:31 I think we are who we are, thanks to, in a way, the food we eat. And it's okay in emergencies you just give the MREs the meals ready to eat. But that was created for our military during war. But I saw in Haiti that kids, even hungry, they didn't want to eat those MREs. They prefer to use a humble plate of beans and rice. That brings comfort. Even I was cooking in Haiti, and I made those beans. And we cook for almost a camp, a refugee camp, a thousand people.
Starting point is 00:17:02 And the woman came to me and with a translator. And they were saying, like, we don't like that? And I would like, what? I am Jose Andres. Well, they wanted to eat their beans in the way they liked them. They didn't want them whole. They want them puree to make the beans into a sauce. You know what we did?
Starting point is 00:17:22 We followed their guidance. We made them into a sauce. All of a sudden, they were happy. They were being fed in the way they liked to eat. Food, in essence, gives you hope that tomorrow maybe things will be better. That's why a plate of food is so important in those moments. It's so fascinating because you've been out there on the ground. And it's, I mean, really incredible timing that you're here now today speaking about this
Starting point is 00:17:46 when the president of the United States is tweeting out saying that the disaster wasn't as much of a disaster as people claim it to be. You were actually on the ground. You saw what happened. How does it make you feel and how do you respond to what people are seeing the president saying today? I mean, we need to help our president. We really do. Because we should be showing the empathy he doesn't have.
Starting point is 00:18:16 I think he tries, but I think he's lost somewhere between his hair and somewhere else. And only to see him used to say was only 16 deaths. When it was very obvious for many people in the island that the death toll was much higher. And used to come all of the sudden with this stupid tweet saying, well, actually the 3,000 people, the Democrats made it up. When you are dead, you are no Republican or you are Democrat. You are American people that your government forgot about you. And all those people were on the watch, oh, President Donald Trump.
Starting point is 00:18:53 So come on, man, show some empathy. You show some support because those people die under his watch. And if he did more, probably we will be talking about a match. smaller number. Fortunately, it didn't happen. When you look at the story of Puerto Rico as someone who's been on the ground, what are some of the most inspiring stories you've encountered? Are there moments where you've thought to yourself, you know, this is how Puerto Rico will get through it. This is what makes Puerto Rico so special. You know, I saw so many children, especially girls, 10 years old, like Lola, their father and mother, they work in a foot track, and they will go around
Starting point is 00:19:33 the island. We had a total of 10 foot tracks. She will stay in the headquarters, in a kitchen that we were doing 75,000 meals a day. She was 10 years old, but she was in charge of the entire line of making sandwiches, ham, cheese, mayo, and you had to sit there a 10-year-old in charge of 100 people in a line telling them, come on, people, quicker, more ham, more cheese, more mayo. President Trump, if a 10-year-old can lead a line of 100 people making sandwiches, should and you be living better? Simple. So simple.
Starting point is 00:20:07 Even a 10-year-old could do it. We Fed an Island is available now. An amazing story, an amazing man. Jose Andres, everybody. We'll be right back. My guest tonight, a chef. She hosts the Food Network's Secrets of a Restaurant Chef and co-hosts Worst Chefs in America,
Starting point is 00:20:24 her new cookbook is called Cook Laga Rock Star 125 recipes, lessons, and culinary secrets. Please welcome to the program, Ann Burrell. Very nice. Nice to see you. Very good. Thank you for joining us. Cook Like a Rock Star.
Starting point is 00:20:43 First of all, let me tell you this. Books called Cook Like a Rockstar there. Very nice. Let me tell you this. I'm watching the Iron Chef Super Chefs. You were in there. They, a couple of weeks, your sardine spine, Krispies with the tureen of sardine and sardine soup.
Starting point is 00:20:58 The fact that you got cut for that, I was very upset about. The way you spin it, it just makes it sound so delicious. I'm telling you. How did you not get kicked off? But it looked delicious, and I was upset that you got kicked off on that one. Well, I have to say, I have been upset for months that I got kicked off. And it's just so hard when people come up to me on the street.
Starting point is 00:21:19 And they're like, come on, you better be the next iron stuff. And I'm, like, in my heart is, like, breaking. And I'm like, I'm not. And they're like, if you don't win, I'm going to be. And I'm like, well, I didn't. You know, but... But that show is incredible what they do. They're like, okay, chefs, climb a building on the outside.
Starting point is 00:21:37 Climb a building on the outside. And here is a popsicle stick and a piece of dental floss and a stick of calm and make something delicious in 10 seconds. Right. Yes. And then they got that English guy who's like, your crudo was well formulated, but it's yellow. And that's my worst favorite color. Right. Like your crudo is a little raw.
Starting point is 00:21:57 I'm like, but that's what it is, darling. Is it? Is it? No, Crudeau. That's what it means, Rob. Can I tell you what the food channel has done to me, and this is a terrible thing, done to my children? It has instilled in them the idea that if I prepare a meal for them that they don't like, I can be sent away.
Starting point is 00:22:15 And that, it's a terrible, because I will make, like, I'll make scrambled eggs in the morning, and my son will be like, chef, I like the consistency, but I'm afraid you've been chopped. I'm afraid you've been chopped. Right. No, more, it was like when I was growing up in my house, it's like, if you don't like it, well, I'm going to set the timer, eat it. And if you still don't like it, well, that's it. Done. Done. Are chefs a competitive lot? I've been surprised at just how upset and deeply the chefs are feeling this competition. I have to say, this was incredibly hard. I mean, I have been in competitions. You know, I've been on Iron Chef. I've been Mario Battali's sous Chef for years. I was on chopped, and I got chopped.
Starting point is 00:23:00 But this, I'm like, are we sensing a trend here? Stop. Your crudo was magnificent. Yeah, like, right. I had to do some retail therapy after I got sent home last week. But, no, this one, I mean, Alex Cornicelli and I are really good friends. She is also tremendous with the thing she did with the... Yes, and so she and I have been texting back and forth for months being like,
Starting point is 00:23:26 and then, and then, and what do you think about? that and then watching it and doing the live tweeting and it's been very difficult it's very personal it really is I mean it is truly extremely hard and I'm I'm almost it's terrible not in my job what is what's impressive to me is what's going through your head when they say to you like okay here's your ingredients you got wheat lecoche which is like this crazy black mold on corn sucrette's and you know a lamb's anus and then they're like but then so It's my favorite.
Starting point is 00:23:59 I'd feel so lucky if I got that one. But what is going through your head? How do you break that down? It's amazing. Like, every time I'm in one of these, like, at the minute competitions, I'm like, okay, my brain works so fast, and it's almost like an outer body experience. And I'm like, oh, yes, of course. I'm going to whip this up.
Starting point is 00:24:16 And you just go and do it. And I'm like, the next thing I know, I'm running around, I'm getting pots and pans. I'm cooking something, and I'm like, what am I making? And I get to the end, and I'm like, how did I even think about that? Are you categorizing it? do you say to yourself like sucretz, that's a candy in the form of a lozenge. Right. It's got a little bit of a, right. It's in the form of a lozenge. But if I melt it down and make a simple syrup out of it, it's got a little bit of a, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:39 mentally feel. And so that is what you're doing. Absolutely. You know, you have to have a really good idea of food and how it goes. And it's like, how can I use that in a, you know, a way that if I put it like maybe and pop you out and then you open it up and you get that aroma. There you know, that kind of is always like. Do you ever have the feeling like you just want to be like, oh, here's what I prepare for you. lamb anus with the thing and a f***s right at the air here take that that's the way i felt the day i got sent home well listen brother i enjoy watching it's it's a great show and these are some fine recipes cook like a rock star it's on the bookshelves now and uh next year i think you'll be next year i don't
Starting point is 00:25:17 know i'm working on worst cooks a new season of worst cooks against bobby flay this year so they're putting me up in the big girl leagues i'm going for a three-in-o record we'll see how that goes Roxanne. And Borrell, everybody. My guest tonight is a James Beard award-winning executive chef at Kith and Kin in Washington, D.C. His new memoir is called Notes
Starting point is 00:25:40 from a Young Black Chef. Please welcome, Kwameh, On Wachee. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here. How you doing? I'm fantastic, man, but congratulations on an amazing book and a really, really fascinating story. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:26:05 I mean, you've done everything. In your teens, you were in a gang. In your 20s, you sold drugs. Then you graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. You competed on Top Chef. You opened your first restaurant. It tanked. So now you run a successful hotel restaurant.
Starting point is 00:26:16 Don't give away the whole book. No, but that's the thing. It's less about just what happens and more about how it happens. That's what makes your story so fascinating. When you look back at the book. And you look at the life you've lived. Does it feel real?
Starting point is 00:26:29 Because you're only 29. It's a journey, you know? I would say, like, every part of my life has been either extremely difficult or extremely rewarding. And it's a journey. So, like, you don't really notice it until you put it down on paper. Right. You know, and you read it through and you see it through. What's interesting is how you tell the story of growing up in a world where, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:50 you were lucky enough to go to a private school, but you lived in a place that was basically hood adjacent. and you got caught up in gang culture, you got mixed up with the wrong group of friends. How did you, like, see your life when you turned, when you were in a gang? Like, was that something you, like, prepared or was it something that just happened to you out of nowhere? It just happened.
Starting point is 00:27:10 You know, I talk about it in the book, how I really got into it, and I got into a fight. And then after that fight, it was pretty much an initiation into the gang. And, you know, I don't think it's something that you plan. You know, sometimes we're a product of our environment, which is unfortunate. but also we can get out of that mentality as well.
Starting point is 00:27:27 Right. You know, and for me, it was the moment that Barack Obama walked across stage and he became president of the United States. And I didn't think that I would see a black president in my lifetime. I voted for him and everything. But, you know, 55 years ago, we couldn't even eat at the same restaurants as, you know, white people everywhere. And to see that, it showed me that I can do anything I put my mind to.
Starting point is 00:27:49 That's really a beautiful part of the book is where you're telling the story about how you're selling drugs, you're living in this house where, you know, people are high, you're also high, and then you see Barack Obama walk out there, and he's now present of the United States, and you're like, oh, I've got to get my shit together. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:05 That's a powerful moment. How do you even begin that journey? Like what, you know, you see Barack Obama, yes, but I mean, it wasn't easy. No, so for me, it was removing myself from that environment was the first thing. So I was selling drugs. I moved to Louisiana.
Starting point is 00:28:20 My mother moved there after I graduated high school. Right. So I started doing the only thing. thing I really knew how to do is just working with food. And I just took it one day at a time. And I told myself every year I just wanted to be doing better than I was doing last year. It's not easy and you just have to take it one day at a time. You know, when I got the helm of this huge restaurant, I'm going to be quite honest,
Starting point is 00:28:38 I had no idea what I was doing. Right. No clue. But it was the same thing. Okay, we're going to work on one thing at a time and we're going to get better at this one dish at a time. And every day we just try to do a little bit better than we did the day before. One of the most fascinating parts of the book is when you talk about raising money
Starting point is 00:28:54 to achieve your dreams. And now you don't want to sell drugs anymore, so you decide to go and sell candy on the New York City subway. Yeah. Right? Which is harder, selling drugs or selling candy on the subway?
Starting point is 00:29:07 Because no one pays attention on the train. They have their challenges. Both of them have their challenges. Yeah. One is extremely more lucrative than the other, to be honest with you. I don't know which one, to be honest. We're not going to get into one who was sold.
Starting point is 00:29:21 Because you made a lot of money selling candy. I did, yeah. You made $20,000 in a few months? Yeah. Just from selling candy. What's funny is I haven't really shared this story. I did a dinner. I did pop-ups around the world, and I stopped in Miami.
Starting point is 00:29:36 And one of the guys that used to sell drugs for me, he lived in Miami. So I was like, hey, I changed my life around. You've got to come to my dinner, and I talk about my stories. So we're sitting there, and I get up and I'm in front of the whole dining room. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I sold candy in order to save up for my catering company. And he never knew this part of me. Right. He was like, candy, you're right, like in the middle of the dinner.
Starting point is 00:29:58 I'm like, no, stop, stop. Gee, stop it. When you look at young people now who may look up to you, I mean, you know, it's no secret that there are many youths out there who are products of their environment, who find the allure of selling drugs and getting into a gang really difficult to resist. And you are living a life now, which is legal. successful and inspirational. When young men look at you or when they read your book,
Starting point is 00:30:27 what would you hope that they take away from your story? That anything is possible. You know, if you really put your mind to it and you work and you put in the hours, and you just outwork everyone else, you can be successful in any field you're in. I don't think this book is just for young chefs. I don't think it's for black chefs.
Starting point is 00:30:47 I think it's just for anyone. Right. Anyone to really see that if you really want something, Like, if you really, really want it, you can achieve it. And that's what I want people to walk away from reading notes from a young black chef. Oh, man, it's a fascinating book. I hope everybody reads it. Great story to tell.
Starting point is 00:31:02 Thank you so much for being on the show. Notes from a young black chef is available now. Kwame! I'll watch it, everybody. We'll be right back. Explore more shows from The Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central,
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