The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #9 Disinvited to Shabbat with Jake Cohen

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Notoriously terrible chef Gianmarco Soresi welcomes NYTimes best selling author JAKE COHEN (Jew-ish: A Cookbook) to talk about the downsides of culinary school, working in a test kitchen, Zoom shabbats and why Gianmarco's birthright bar mitzvah doesn't really count. Co-host Russell Daniels, the only non-Jew in the room, also brags about playing Tevye in Fiddler on The Roof three times before he was 22. Join The Downside Patreon for ad-free and bonus episodes on the 1st and 15th of every month. We just released The Downside of Celebrity Encounters and May 1st is The Downside of Having a Family in Politics with Chris Cafero. Follow JAKE COHEN on instagram, tiktok, & twitter Buy JAKE COHEN's NYTimes best selling cookbook Jew-Ish: A Cookbook Watch GIANMARCO SORESI's $5 Zoom show Non-Essential Comedy 8PM EST TONIGHT!!! Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram Watch RUSSELL DANIELS in Characters Welcome 8PM Wednesday on the JFL facebook page Buy tickets to our sketch team UNCLE FUNCTION's show 7PM May 21st at the Asylum NYC E-mail the show at [e-mail] Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi Russell, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you? Uh, I'm stressed. What? Why? Music! One, two, three! You're listening to The Downside. The Downside.

The Downside. With Gianmarco Ceresi. Hello. Hi, why are you stressed? Well, because every time we start this podcast, I have to set up an insane amount of technology. You really do. And this was me. I prepped this.

Because sometimes we have guests that I know personally, and so they're okay if I fuck around for 20 minutes. But this was me maximum prepared. And it still took me. You know, I don't want to say that you're not getting better at it, but it seems like there's different things every time. I'm evolving. There's so many more chords.

You have a lot of, there's 18 GoPros on us right now. I have three Go, these are three GoPros. They're set up. They do this thing where, we just talked about the screen and it looks like it's off. Yeah. While it's still recording. So I get terrified it's not recording. Yeah.

And each one hits one of us. So if one of them doesn't work the whole thing's the shit yes it's going to be like video clips where it's just focused on you the whole time yeah listening to me talk yeah and i'm very paranoid not to turn to my right because of your instructions so i feel glued in my position right now all right we need to do a couple things. We have a new producer, at least for now. Maybe she'll quit after this. We have a producer. We have a producer, not here at the moment. Fawn Sullivan.

I hope I can say her name. I'll censor it after. Fawn Sullivan. She's very excited to have her, but she had a couple notes right out the gate. Wait, and you're just telling me now? Well, yeah. It's not like it wasn't. So 30% less talking from you.

So the things, no, the things she said, we need to introduce ourselves. For a while, we need to say, this is called The Downside. My name is Gimarco Cerezi. This is my co-host. Russell Daniels. Okay, he's sweeter than that normally. This is an interview podcast where we focus on the negative. I'm a negative person.

They're charming. We're in a Larry David type of way, in a chewy way. And I get tired of people online and podcasts. They're like, life is nice. And then, you know, they kill themselves the next day. And you go, well, it wasn't that nice. So something's not quite correct here um fun thought we were too casual though we need to like just remind people well people listen and they go like

you know like in a jewish term what makes this podcast different from other podcasts okay you know what that's reference to no passover hanukkah passover passover what makes this night different than other nights and this is that it's a negative. It's sad. Okay. Well, it's fun sad. The line I was using, I said, this is a place where negativity is celebrated. Kvetching is encouraged.

That's Jewish for complaining. Yes. And silver linings are debunked. Okay. So that's what this is. It's a lot of fun. Also, we have a patreon yes that please join it because russell's dog has cancer and he does we he's gonna need some money soon and the

for him to get money the patreon has to be doing so much more truly 10 000 better i mean john marco's invested thousands of dollars into this. So until thousands of dollars are rolling in monthly, I will see none of that. So we need to hurry because the dog, I mean, you're getting the diagnosis today, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, we know the diagnosis. We're getting like hopefully more of a timeline sort of thing today. So yeah. Okay.

Is everything okay? Anything you wanted to express? No, I'm good. I'm a little tired uh it was my birthday this week happy birthday like um yeah um thank you you called me i texted i called yeah yeah i did all sorts i think i did my due diligence you did you did great you did great thank you you know it's what's important on people's birthdays is to like let them know you're thinking of them, but also not require much back, you know? Sure.

Cause nothing's worse than being like, give me a call back today. Like just, you know, when people leave a message and it's like very clear that I then have no responsibility on my birthday to call them back. Oh God, that's great.

You know, that's good. That's, but, uh, it is the thing of like, you know, can you imagine answering to like,

I can imagine answering if it i can imagine on my birthday answering if it's my parents or like a sibling and like but like if you answered every phone call you know well i have it's very sweet when my parents call i have to do it because it's the only time of the year they do call to check in on me my dad forgot my birthday once and it really it really was like well this relationship's gonna die die soon. How much after did he realize? Or did he not realize? I think two days later he realized. Okay.

It's hard. It's not good. What did you say? I said it was okay. And then I acknowledged in therapy later that I think it did deep internal damage. Now, I've forgotten my mom's birthday a couple times it's in my calendar like but one time in college my mom called me she called me at 11 58 p.m yeah and she said hey uh forget something and i acted i like i have a bad habit i i have a liar gene in me yeah and i

said you didn't get the card and she said you're you're lying. And I said, no, I sent a card. I sent a card. I'm going to, they didn't get there? And she's like, Tomarco, you're clearly lying to me. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I held to that lie. Did you mail a card and then try to pretend? No, I didn't even do that. Tomarco.

Well, I don't want to lie more. I don't want to build the lie out. So she thought the U.S postal service just failed i think one day i will like do like a uh postmarked i'll figure out a way to postmark a letter from like 2009 and like it'll show up at her door at her at her new address and be like oh he did send this he did send this he did send this and inside it just says hey happy b-day yeah peace um yeah but i i also i hate sending cards i hate that i hate it and but it's always nice to get one but i oh but then you yes you've you've explained the nature of giving and taking but i i we have a thing in our house where we if we get a card uh my wife and i if we if of us gets a card, we look at it for probably,

we look at it, read it once, show the other person, immediately in the trash. Like there's just no, like we used to do that thing where like we'll put it up for a day on like a thing

or like on the fridge or something. And it was just like, this is so silly. Just, you know. I keep the Christmas cards. Really acknowledge it. You do. The Christmas cards. Well, Lindsay, my friend keep the Christmas cards. Really acknowledge it. You do. The Christmas cards.

Well, Lindsay, my friend Lindsay, she won't mind me saying this, but like she sent me a lovely card of her and her son, her family and her son, her and her husband and her son. And I kept in my head like, write her. And then I didn't. And then, of course, I got the text. Hey, you get the Christmas card? I was like, yes, Lindsay. It was beautiful. Beautiful family. you're very happy

congratulations and our friend jessica and her husband max says very funny christmas i like theirs because theirs is funny i do save theirs sometimes because it's really funny and it's weird usually and it it it it has a specific message they handwrite the thing on the back of it too i have a feeling if tov and i make it to Christmas that we will do cards. Really? I just feel like- You have an idea? You have a bit you'd like to try out?

Yeah, but she would come up with a bit and if a bit's good enough, I'll do anything. Yeah. I want to bring on our guest, but I want to bring it on like this. So Tova and I, Tova is my girlfriend and you can't tell from her name but she's jewish and um she she she knew uh our guest uh he's the fantastic writer of the the the cookbook

jewish and um we decided we'd make something i'm not a very good chef i'm a notoriously bad chef i'd say i'd say i'm most famous if if anything in my career, for being a bad chef. So we decided to make a babka, which I forced you to have some before. It was so good. Was it good? It was very good. Yeah. I did not contribute.

I bought it. I paid for the babka. Yeah. And I don't have these ingredients. So that babka was a $100 babka. You calculate, because I needed this much kosher salt, but they don't sell these ingredients. So that babka was a $100 babka. You calculate. Because I needed this much kosher salt. But they don't sell this much kosher.

It's a huge fucking box. I have koshers. I will never use this amount of kosher salt in my life. So it's like a $100 babka. And it's really different. You're buying the $100. You pass a pre-made babka for $10. And you're like, I should just get this babka.

But it was worth it when you made it, wasn't it? It was quite good. It's a lot of carbs that I have that I've been eating happily. It's a very good filling. And then, you know, some things I think, you know, just so they can sell books, like when people write cooking books, they write like stories with them. So I'm reading this story out loud as we're making this babka. And as you know, Tova andva and i super casual very just casual you know we could we're today we're together today broken up tomorrow

who knows i don't we're we're dating we're boyfriend girlfriend but i'm sure she loves that yeah i'm sure she loves it but as we're reading the fucking babka story you our guest tells a story where he made babka for his boyfriend and and that was the day they said, I love you. And like, was it the babka? So now I'm under this pressure. We made babka. All of a sudden I have this unknown, like, I'm reading. Oh, now you said I love you.

Great. Fantastic. And you haven't said I love you yet. No, because we've been dating for fucking six months. I mean. That's a while. That's a while. That's a half year. Jay mean. Welcome to our guest. That's a while. Jake Cohen.

Jake Cohen, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. So just to put a time stamp, that was three months of us dating when we did the Bob Got Me I Love You. Well, listen, maybe your Bob Got Me I Love You was better than ours. Because I ate this and I said, I like you. Yeah, gay people are at a faster timeline. Really? Maybe.

With love use? No, I don't know. I mean, I think gay people in general, maybe we throw it out more. And I feel like relationships are a lot, either there's like a much shorter half-life and or there's a... Ah, I see.

So you say, I love you sooner, but you say, I hate you even sooner than that. Potentially. I'm a serial monogamous, so I've never really been in that type of of gay relationship you're still with the person from this my husband that's your husband okay great okay how awkward would that be if you write a book about about some random boyfriend well if you if you get off if you break i there's this guy um named kevin allison and he hosts a pod uh a storytelling show he told this amazing story about meeting his husband where like they met and then they met again 10 years later and they got married and it's beautiful story.

And at the end he has to go like, we're divorced now, but, and then he has to like, and he, you know, it's a stunning story and it just, it, it's a, so, you know, someday, uh, Jewish and divorce. That's the sequel. Could be. Where it's just meals for one. Bobca for one. There you go.

Well, thank you for being on the downside. My pleasure. We know each other through social media. Yes, because your face up close on TikTok with the like one off punch lines. Yes, yes, yes. They're very good. That's very kind of you. Now, have you ever been a performer

no no i mean like i guess like yeah yes in in this context of like food but like no not like a no theater background not chef slash singer are there chefs though where like you're like oh they're the greatest chef in the world but they can't do you they can't do an interview to save their life that's most chefs really I would say most restaurant chefs. That's the hardest thing. Being someone who's worked in media for so many years when you'd have to do videos with chefs or interviews with chefs

and you're just pulling teeth. These are people that are truly meant for basement kitchen. Just cranking out the most gorgeous food, the most incredible perspective, but they just can't open their mouth and like have cohesive statements come out. Now, where did you work? In terms of like.

Like you said, you worked at like a publication. So I started in restaurants. I worked at Danielle and ABC Kitchen here in the city. Okay. I know ABC Kitchen. There you go. And then I worked at Saver Magazine, a website called Tasting Table. I was the food critic for Time Out New York.

Oh. And most recently I was the editorial director for a website called Tasting Table. I was the food critic for Time Out New York. Oh. Ooh. And most recently, I was the editorial director for a website called The Feed Feed. And now I'm just solo. Solo. Cranking out Jew shit. Is this, was this your first book? Yes.

And it did very well. It was a New York Times bestseller. Wow. Oh my God. I have to get this signed. Please, please remind me, Russell. I will not leave without signing it. You totally will be very upset.

Well, that's fantastic. So where'd you grow up? In Queens. In Queens. All right. And you know, this is obviously a negative podcast. You seem open to it. I'm a negative person.

Well, talk to me about like, because originally the idea for this podcast was to call it Kvetch. And the thing is like, you know, I'm Jewish. Kvetch by Gianmarco Soresi. By Gianmarco marcos i'm jewish i would it's fair to say you're an anti-semite no i'm uh i'm nothing but i'm you know not jewish did you even grow up with jews not really no where'd you grow up upstate new york oh like where upstate uh near binghamton like that's that's that's upstate. That's upstate, yeah, yeah, yeah. My definition of upstate, like anything past Rhinebeck is like- No, that's most people here, but yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Canada.

No, that's upstate. You've ever been to a bar mitzvah? No. Really? No. No? Okay. Yeah, and I grew up in Maryland, Potomac, Maryland.

Potomac. And there was just a big Jewish population. So I didn't have a bar mitzvah, but I went to a lot. All the bar mitzvahs. So you should have an adult bar mitzvah, but I went to a lot. All the bar mitzvahs. So you should have an adult bar mitzvah and then he can go. Well, I did do the birthright trip and I got like a speed bar mitzvah at the Western Wall. Naturally,

they always do that. But that's like going to Vegas and getting married. Legally, it counts if you get married in Vegas. But it's not about that. It's about the bar mitzvah. They pick me up in the chair. But it's about so much ritual and incredible kind of like deep diving into identity and connection

and doing like a mitzvah project, which is a big part of it. There's a lot of like deeper things that I think anyone can do as an adult. I think there's a lot of problematic things about the bar mitzvahs of my childhood. Whoa, tell me what was problematic. It's just so riddled in privilege. And just like so far, my sister and I had a b'nai mitzvahs of my childhood. Whoa, tell me what was problematic. It's just so riddled in privilege.

And just like so far, my sister and I had a b'nai mitzvah on a yacht that went around the Long Island Sound. Like it was so... Wait, what did you just call it? A yacht. But you said b'nai. It's called a yacht. Spelled with a C in the middle. Ever heard of it?

It's like... It's a big boat. Like a sailboat? It's when you do like a combined so i did one with my sister so and you called it a but bene so it's a bar mitzvah for a boy bat mitzvah for a girl bene mitzvah for for a multiple that's not like in the bible that's like a later term they're like hey can we come up with a word so our kid doesn't feel like it's a shitty mitzvah? No, it's just plural. It's just, this is Hebrew. This is like plural Hebrew. Okay, so you, were you twins? No, she is 13 months younger.

Okay, so who, was she 13? Was she doing it early? So she was doing it at 12, because oftentimes girls will have their bat mitzvah at 12, boys at 13. Oh my God, I didn't know that. Yeah. Was it, because here's what's interesting about the bar mitzvah like an interesting phenomenon is like

this is like smack in the middle of puberty so like we had some bar mitzvahs that were co-ed and we had a couple we had some really good bar mitzvahs but they were all dudes and at least for me

I liked the co-ed one I liked it because when I was grinding and dancing naturally Shirley Temples Jersey Turnpikes all of it

of course so for you was it fun was it a fun event of course it was fun i mean listen i think so many of these like it really is like pen 15 the show on in the sense that like you really have no grasp on being an adult on being anything you're going through puberty you don't know what's going on you don't like you don't know what's going on with your body some depending on where you fall your bar mitzvah falls within the season you might be pre-puberty might be post-puberty it might happen while you might be happening so it's like it's like you have some people who are like really like developed and then you have children yeah yeah um and then they're just all like running around with glow sticks like acting like this yeah a lot of glow sticks we had i mean because potomac had some very rich people and we

had one where they had you ever do the music you did like a fake music video like green screen yeah and you got like feather boas of course spice up your life and that's what i picked and uh we had there was one that had its own music video center. And sometimes you get drunk, like the really bad kids would like sneak in drinks. At 13, that's pretty early. So I was on this other podcast about Judaism. And right before me, the guest was Elliot Glazer. And he was talking about, he just brought this up. And we were talking on Instagram brought this up and it was i i like we were talking on on instagram

about like how absolutely ridiculous it was that it was pretty common to have these little like cubes of like where they blow money like fake money and you'd have to try to catch as much as you want and trade it in for prizes but i'm just thinking about the optics around all of these and like the goyim there that are watching these teenage Jews just being conditioned to like grab the money. Grab the money. It's so bad. I don't know why. I feel like the father's like running there to push the kids out of the way.

I can get more than your little hands. Like who thought that was a good idea? Okay, so Queens. And how big a family? How many siblings? Just my sister. Just your sister. Okay, so you guys were close.

Yes. So I have a very marvelous Mrs. Maisel setup. So I actually live in the same apartment building as my sister and my sister. Just your sister. Okay, so you guys were close. Yes. So I have a very marvelous Mrs. Maisel setup, so I actually live in the same apartment building as my sister and my mother. Currently now? Currently. Wow. Yeah.

How long has that been for? Two years. Okay, so you lived... I lived in Manhattan for five years. My mom actually moved to this new high-rise in Long Island City. Really gorgeous. We would always go over and use her amenities.

My sister's lease was up, and her and her husband moved in. And then we sold our apartment in the city. And we're like, all right, are we going to Brooklyn? And then we just like, no, we're going to join the party. And the father? My parents are divorced. My dad lives in Astoria. Okay.

And how old were you when they got divorced? High school. High school. Yeah, yeah. Let's go back to like trauma. Oh my God. Okay, so you grew up in Queens. And was it a super religious or was it just cultural?

Exactly. Reformed, didn't grow up with Shabbat, high holidays. Like that was it. Passover. You can't miss Passover. But it's not like we did anything else remotely Jewish in between Passover and Yom Kippur. But you still went to Hebrew school. Yes, that was mandatory until the bar mitzvah.

Then after that, you could quit. And were you glad that you did that? In hindsight, 100%. At the time, is it just like, oh my God, it was like just banging my head against, well, I don't want to go. Like, I just hated it. I mean, it's just like you have to go to more school. We also like, for some reason, we went to chabad uh when we moved out because that's the this is the dipping in the no no it's just like more orthodox oh i'm even

i thought what's the thing where you dip in the the water to purify yourself the the mikvah that's the mikvah that's the mikvah yeah or the bath like the ritual bath and mikvah yeah now did you you go to Israel at a young age? No, birthright. The birthright was my first time. And how old were you for that? I was 19 and I had my 20th birthday. That's the perfect time, I think, to do a birthright.

So birthright, they extended it, I think, to 32 years old. Correct. It's essentially a two-week vacation to Israel. Yeah. Ten days. Ten days. And this is Levit leviticus 10 days and um uh it's i they it's now to 32 years old but i went in the 25 26 year old group and like we're at this age where they would

be like all right guys you need to be back by 10 p.m and we were like no no i'm an adult i'm gonna do whatever i want and we did And it was just very interesting Because they're trained as like a camp type thing And we were just like Yeah we're gonna just do whatever we want We're here So the thing is Birthright is great for

Like it's purpose of getting people Especially when you grow up in New York Like your idea of Judaism And what a Jew is And how they eat And how they celebrate All that stuff Like completely gets turned on its head.

And all of a sudden you're, you're in Israel and you go to the Western wall and it's just like emotional and stuff. And you come back and you, my sister became like very religious when we came back. Really? She, then she married a boy and unraveled and it's like,

well, thanks to now we're again, we're back at like an equal level. Um, but it affects everyone in different ways. That is so funny. But the goal is, I don't think the goal is to make people super religious, but to really start to question what is your connection to being Jewish past having a bar mitzvah

or being forced into all these things. Well, that's a noble interpretation. I also think it's so you support the state of Israel. So Israel pays for it? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's insane. Yes. Who else pays for it? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's insane. Yes.

Who else pays for it? I don't know. No, there are lots of, I mean, it's, what's the term? Endowments. There have been endowments that have been created

by some very incredible, wealthy, knowledgeable supporters of birthright that also help support it. Like famous Jews, Harvey Weinstein. No. Oh my God.

Listen, I know many of them. I'm not going to lie. Yes. Is there a gray area around. Listen, I know many of them. I'm not going to lie. Yes. Is there a gray area around the conversation on supporting the state of Israel? Uh-huh. A hundred percent. But at the end of the day, it's not that deep, too. Because they're not trying to condition you into being like, yay, Israel.

They're trying to condition you in the sense of this is your homeland. You are inheriting this. Yeah. We should say this podcast is sponsored by Benjamin Netanyahu. There was a lot less propaganda than I had. That's what people said. It's a lot of propaganda. There was one speech about it. But on the trip, they pair you with

people who are in the, is it called the army? The IDF. They have a couple students. It's mandatory two years in the IDF if you live in Israel. And they were all uh super liberal oh yeah we're just talking shit on israel um but i remember i did i did a storytelling show uh where i just i talked about the trip and the story and i think we'll get to later but afterwards like this older guy came to me and he was like so you drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no.

I just, I, no, I'm just a bad person. I didn't look into it. I just, someone offered me a ticket. I mean, if I move, if I went to New York, America's done like insane shit too. Like Demi Lovato now. Like she got into trouble with that stuff. We wanted to talk about Demi Lovato. What, about the fro-yo or about the fro-yo?

She's getting, she just really just like is, oh my God. And like, trust me, I'm someone who also, I have my thoughts on diet culture, all that stuff, but this is not that deep. Like you're going for a fro-yo. Listen, if you didn't care about or you didn't want diet options, then you would have gone to like fucking Cold Stone.

Right, right. You're going to fro-yo because there is this like, Ityo it's this air of like it's healthy so if i shove like i always whenever i go for fro-yo the idea is my head is like if it if i try it in the sample cup it doesn't count so then i just get a small portion and then it's like no you didn't just have every flavor three times like yeah it really is that thing where you're like it's it's one of those things where it's not you actually are distracting from a real conversation around diet culture you're actually making it worse for people that are that are talking about that sort of thing because you're like because then people hear that and they're like well where are you gonna go where

you're not gonna see something that's like do you know it's just it's an it's crazy she had the same thing with israel because i was she went on a trip to israel and she got a lot of slack because obviously i think there are two conversations when it comes to israel it's like does israel have the right to exist slash the israeli occupation of palestine which is the west bank and to me i think those are two very separate conversations and i think the concept of israeli occupation should constantly be talked about the conversation about like does israel have a right to exist it's uh currently a place so do you want it dissolved um is the other conversation um but she got all this hate naturally what did she what did she say she posted she posted the fact that they're splitting this

israel and palestine it makes me feel like i need to split my own body she posted pictures at the wall and she got a lot of slack and she pretty much you said slack you mean flack oh yeah whatever slack slack is like it's okay demi yeah it's a beautiful wall yeah um and so she she posted that she's like i got this free trip from one of these organizations and they did not warn me that Israel was this controversial place. And that was pretty much her excuse. And I was just like, excuse me? Like, like, like, I'm sorry. Like, you don't get to like this.

This like really blame that she's blaming the Jews. Really? The accountability of like not Googling things to ever of being like. And just have a stance on it that's yeah yeah i mean you get this level of controversial well yeah it's where it's like i don't know i just think you could be like just existing in america you could be like well america is real problematic if you go i went down south and no one had told me that bad things happened here. Well, yes.

So at least the yogurt thing. Was it like an independent fro-yo place? I think it was a small chain. See, that's what I find even more upsetting. The problem is no one should have the kind of power that celebrities do. So it's already outsized power. And I do get the thing of you're a human being and you're like, I want to complain about something. I love to complain.

But it's just like, then get an alt account because when you complain about it, your followers, they're going to send hate mail to the fro-yo place. It's going to be in all the papers. What is – I'm just like, she saw it. It said guilt-free. It's not even their cookie. It's someone else's cookie. But at the same time, there is that idea. I do think that any press is good press.

Their Instagram following jumps up. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be like, this girl is crazy, and we're going to go support them just because. Are they going to be the people that you want to support them, or is there going to be a bunch of fucking conservatives being like, fuck cancel culture. Now we're fro-yo people. It's like the sound starts having the best fro-yo

in all the world they're all flocking to LA and it's in LA right of course I just think like I was saying to Russell like LA like New York

oh my god I hate LA I think it's the truly what a shithole oh my god there's this huge like problem of there's this thing about scale and size

I mean not to bring this up with Demi Lovato but of like size of like problems in's a, there's a thing about scale and size. I mean, not to bring this up with Demi Lovato, but there are like size of like, of like problems in the world. And I was saying like, if you go to LA, you must've passed on the way to the Froyo place. I don't know,

a thousand homeless people. And like the thought of it just being like, but this, this is the problem that I'm going to call attention to. To me is it's just, it's disproportionate proportion also singling out like you said a small business where if you really wanted to have a thing about diet culture and like use an example of being in a fro-yo place what and you you kind of like thought about it a little

bit more what you were saying um there's a way to talk about it and do the thing without having to then be like a go after and you know why they made it she made it sound like they were like had signs everywhere so like you're a fatty, eat this. It's really, again, not that deep. She's like, could I have a sample? And they were like, are you sure? Or they gave her like a thimble of it. I think there's also the reality of it's like,

if you want to go after diet culture, go after, I don't know, fucking Goop. But you're not going to go after those companies because you don't want to fuck with Gwyneth Paltrow because it's part of your- You're going after an enemy you know you can crush the true enemy in america which i have no it's mlms i am like oh my god really oh my god i've bought them like a true the last one a friend of mine like swore by this one um and i bought it and it was it's just like tons of caffeine and just enough to sustain your blood sugar.

And you lose a little bit of weight. Then you gain it all back. And you're miserable. And truly, that is like the bane of my existence. And they're rampant. There's a lot of food ones. No, there's a lot of diet ones. There's a lot of exercise ones.

There's a lot of exercise. Yeah, sure. But the main ones are like you have like the aromatherapy crazy yeah but the the diet pills big there's i'll take anything i'll put anything into my body if it tells me i'll lose weight really truly you just biked here you're you're doing now i'm in a healthy place now this is like a recent pandemic bettering of myself before it's just like ah whatever it takes you see I think most people in the pandemic

probably made stuff from your book and probably put on a lot of weight and you and that's my fault well frankly I don't know how

you know I'm making I'm making this the babka and it's like I have two loaves what do I call them two loaves that's a lot of babka

yeah you could freeze one you could give it away and also no one's telling you you have to eat both loaves in one sitting it's it's like a very pungent thing it smells good you could bring it to someone's birthday party on saturday the whole idea of this book is about cooking and sharing it does feel nervous i i have not cooked a lot but like to bring something to someone's house i do feel a nervousness of people being like not eating it and it would hurt my feelings. Truly. There is.

That is one of my biggest fears in life. And so the one thing is social anxiety around being Jewish and showing up empty handed. Not an option. I have to bring something. That's one part of the culture I did not take. Wherever I go. That is the most goyish thing you can do. Show up without something.

Oh my God. There is nothing that gets someone uninvited to any other function in the future is if they don't bring anything you do you do i do definitely i learned but i learned like at a late it was something that my parents did not teach me and i had to learn it as an adult being like you can't you have to bring something rooted so much it's i've i've um done a lot of like exploration i'm not religious but in terms of the way that like the secularization of torah has kind of resulted in this like larry david seinfeld-esque america of what a jew looks like and acts like so you think

of to me the most important scene that my family truly embodies is in seinfeld when they when george and susan's parents meet for dinner and they bring a marbled rye and they don't put it out dessert and they take it back he takes it he takes it back and they're in the car and the mom is just like we're sitting there like idiots drinking coffee without a piece of cake who doesn't put out a piece of cake with coffee and they're just going back and forth about how absolutely like they they could have called them a slur like it truly it's that offensive yeah to not serve dessert and not put out something that was brought um and i just completely relate to that and. And I think that's my biggest fear.

I do a lot of cooking and baking for others and I can never be one-upped. Cannot. Like I will die before I get one-upped. Who's one-upping you at this shit? Yeah. Listen, listen. Some of these dinner parties,

some of these Shabbats are... If I was going to your dinner party, like the thought of me bringing food to your dinner party... Well, you can bring wine. You can bring wine. Sure, sure. Everyone's was going to your dinner party, like the thought of me bringing food to your dinner party. Well, you can bring wine. You can bring wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure, sure. Everyone's bringing wine. You're making everything. All right, let's not get too positive here. So you, well, I imagine people invite you to parties. I feel like people must expect you. What do you,

like you, just because of all of this, like I'm not very popular. I feel like you'd be invited to parties where like you're like, does anyone like me or am I just invited for the food? Well, that's a valid thing. very popular. I feel like you'd be invited to parties where like, you're like, does anyone like me or did they, am I just invited for the food?

Well, that's, that's a valid, that's a valid thing. Um, but also not even to that. You're not a popular boy. I don't think so.

I have a few friends, I, but I, I don't have a lot. I'm not one of those gay guys that has like the, the crew and they're in fire Island, like going wild. You're just complaining about those kinds of gay guys.

I just think, I just, you were like, I hope he's not one of those. John Mar kind of gay guys before you showed up. I just think, you were like, I hope he's not one of those gay guys. John Margo likes to throw me under the bus once an episode.

I just find, I think anyone who has more than 10 friends is a character flaw. Like, I just don't think that. I like that a lot. You know what,

that's a great thing. How can you be that close with more than 10 people? You know, we have a friend, Chris, and I've always said he has a character flaw.

He has too many friends. Really? Chris has a lot of friends. He does. I feel like I have a lot of friends. You do? how many people are coming to this birthday like to chris that people that you would call on their birthday oh um you know i have probably five to eight of those yeah exactly i like it so it's a big thing is around like birthday gifts and i'm someone who truly am so neurotic and so like paranoid that people don't like me anymore and i typically gauge that by acts of service as

of like giving gifts or showing up and bringing things and just like what my dad did on my birthday exactly he doesn't love me so like that is something that i as if someone forgets something or doesn't do one of those things then naturally in my head they don't like me anymore and I'm dead to them. I hear that. Wow. I hear that. But I think the problem, we do have a lot of small signifiers like the Facebook birthday thing. I'm not on Facebook anymore because of that.

Yeah. But also it's an old person thing. My mother-in-law is always like, do you didn't see the thing I posted on Facebook? I'm not on Facebook. All of her friends are commenting on shit and my grandmother and them, they're going rampant. But you text happy birthday and I'm like, that's not on Facebook. Like you, you just like all of her friends are commenting on shit. And yeah, my grandmother and, and them, they were going rampant, but you text happy birthday.

And like, I'm like, that's not the same. It's the calling, leaving the voicemail, doing what you said, or you're not your friend. We had a friend.

I used to have a friend. I'm fine with a text. I used to have a friend named Jessica and she's in our sketch team. And she had a birthday party that I was not invited to. And it was her husband. It was her husband. That's at least that's the story. No, it definitely was.

It probably is. But let me tell you, that hurt my feelings in a really deep way. So I haven't actually talked about this publicly yet. So it's been something that has been, I think the next level of that is the pandemic and the way that that has affected things. So for example example my husband

and i we were very strict very very strict especially starting in january because like i started having like work things i did a series for food network kitchen of cooking videos that we were filming in in end of january it's like i can't risk not not even like afraid of covet dying just like i can't i can't risk being out two weeks of work yeah especially then with the book so it's super super strict and we ended up missing a few like gatherings with friends um and i think they started to realize that we were not comfortable or or again we were just like some things we just couldn't do and then we just stopped getting invitations and there was like a birthday weekend and i was crushed. And then I, but again, I'm very like, not, I wouldn't say passive aggressive. I'm just also very like, like, please like me.

So like I found out where they were going for dinner, sent them a bottle of champagne. It sounds pretty sad because it like, it was pretty sad. And it crushed me. Oh my God. I was like, like crushed, crushed, crushed for like more so than it should have affected me. Are we talking like May or like March? This was March. This past March. No, no, this is January. Or like March? This is March. This past March.

No, this was end of February. End of February. Okay, so you're still strict. But now you're doing the podcast. Well, now we're both vaccinated. So you're having big Shabbat dinners? Not big, but we're back to having... We vaccinate people at least.

I went to a couple of my first Shabbat dinners because of my girlfriend. But they were like these Brooklyn Shabbat dinners. Those are real. Where after they read, you know, the prayer thing, they then read the astrological charts

for that week. What? And then someone passed out loose MDMA. That sounds great. My girlfriend and I did not partake in the MDMA. That actually does sound

like my kind of Shabbat. I do pass around edibles on my Shabbats. Edibles sounds nice. MDMA, I haven't done it. It's a lot on my Shabbat. Edible sounds nice. NDMA. I haven't done it. It's a lot. It's a lot.

It's a lot. And it was, I don't know. It was, it was, I should do it more because it was also like, it was a Shabbat with like people who are not in my industry. Like there's a lot of my world socially is just artists, creatives. Yeah. You meet regular people and you're reminded why you don't spend more time with them i think i think you bring up a good point though with with covid specifically uh i feel like there's

a lot of stuff that what happened in terms of of people having different rules for how they were living and you can't help but then have judgment about other people and then so like there's weird things that have been brought up in friend group, in family groups, in things where it's hard to unsee now. Like as you come out of COVID that you're like, oh, you realize things about certain friends or certain family. It's like force majeure. Yeah, it's like it's an interesting thing that's happened. You see where people are like morally in terms of like some people. like morally in terms of like some people you you just see how where where you confront the way people uh view the world and their responsibility as a human being within it in a way that you don't have to deal with i think in average times if like someone's going out and they're like yeah whatever

you only live once and then others like yeah but i want to live as long as i can one of the funniest my mom told me the story and this was like this was early covet this was like april or may and she's in la and uh they were being like you know they were being hyper strict even if you were outside they were like you had to be wearing a mask outside and i totally get like if you were like walking alone on an abandoned sidewalk but she was walking on the beach she calls me she says so i was walking on the beach she's the jewish one of my family i was walking on the beach. She calls me. She says, so I was walking on the beach. She's the Jewish one in my family. I was walking on the beach and some woman was like, remember your mask? And she was like, what a bitch.

Am I right? And I was like, I kind of agree with the woman. You should have worn your fucking mask. Oh, interesting. I actually, on the beach, it's funny because. But this was in May. That's fair. It was the beginning. I was like, I get it.

Just fucking do it. Just do it. Let's just all. Do it. Just do it. I was the beginning. I was like, I get it. Just fucking do it. Let's just all just do it. I was the asshole at the gym in our building. So our gym closed for a bit and then it reopened last fall. And then it was like my lifesaver because I spent a lot of time there. And I am like. What, just reading? Yeah, just reading.

Yeah, just rolling around on the floor. I was just ruthless. If anyone like under the nose, I pull it up. Like just I was that guy because like it's one thing when you're walking or outside but like at the gym people get on the treadmills they're like huffing and puffing and they're just like spit going everywhere it's like that's the one place just like pull up your fucking mask if you can't work out with the mask and get the fuck out like i'm just like sure truly it's like if i'm suffering on this peloton

bike literally like gasping for air, it's like, like you have to too. I'm not like doing this. Um, uh, I, I,

I hear that. I, uh, I eventually found a mask that was good for working out. I originally, which one did you get? I have the Under Armour one. Okay.

So fantastic. Do you, um, uh, I'm in fucking a bunch of straight people. So you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. What do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, I'm fucking a bunch of straight people so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about the Real Housewives of Meek Real Housewives, he's a big Real Housewives

the Jill and Allie masks oh from old days so yeah Jill Zarin I became friends with Allie who would come to Shabbats and oh my god truly after this everyone needs to go to my Instagram when I was doing my book tour I did all these IGTVs cooking with like different

celebrities. And I did one with Jill. And she is so iconically just like stream of consciousness. She started making another recipe. Like she was just everything you could ever wish for. But these masks are super comfortable. They like start making these tie-dye masks. And most of them are like two ply.

So I truly don't think that they do anything. Like I really, I really think that it's like, it's just for, for a show. So you're at the gym yelling at people. You have a see-through mask on. I have one of those mesh ones.

No, but like the, the, it's more of the idea. And also it is funny to see people, some people wear, I saw this just on the way here. Some people have the clear mask over the thing.

I'm like, that doesn't do anything on the subway. Like you're sitting there. They have no cloth on their face. So they just have like the plastic piece covering their face. But like you're like, you're not doing it. You're not doing it. But I'm not i don't understand how i purposely start coughing around these kinds of people 14 months i have my

mask on but i just want them to feel a little fear but they don't they don't know they don't care they're doing it and i'm like 14 months how do you not know how it works that if your face is like open exposed it's kind of get in there well now we're at a weird time i'm that we're all vaccinated yeah but i i do i see some people like i'm gonna wear the mask even when this is over and i'm like let me tell you when it's socially acceptable to like generally not wear this mask i am out two instances i did it i did it but if you're sick there are two instances i am always going to wear a mask on an airplane forever because this was something that we just realized in this pandemic.

We would always go on vacation, and we'd get there, and we'd get sick. And we've just come to this realization. It's like we would always get sick from the airplane, from being so close to people. And if this is the one thing that keeps our vacation sacred 100 that's 100 that's a good point and subways oh i'm not gonna wear like the full one but i'll wear the cloth mask i'll wear like i'm sick or just around i just i'm around strangers like i i'm so i don't like crowds i've never liked crowds and the idea of us going back

to like crowded subways and all these things where you're just so close to people and i just never want to be sick again i was i'm like a falling apart jew that always i'd be every month there would be some ailment and to sure to have a year of not being sick was such a blessing oh it's sick in the head but like not like like physically sick like oh oh so let's let's go back to your divorce your parents divorced my parents because yeah we got to get to the the sads yeah the negatives the downside so you're having too much fun in covid yeah too much fun talking about my paranoia my friends not loving me anymore so your how old were when your parents got divorced uh it's uh

going into my senior year of high school. They couldn't wait one more year. I know. That's what my sister always said. Always said. So she was a junior or did she bump up? No, she was a sophomore. I was going into my senior. So we were, because she was born in February,

I was born in December. Oh, I see. Because of that, how it fell. So how they, did you know it was coming? No. Everyone was completely shocked. it fell so how they did you know it was coming no everyone was completely wow shocked whoa how did they tell you it was like my mom was just crying all morning and then they told us and it was like oh it was so i mean it was such a rocky few years because then i was then we had this one year and under a very tumultuous relationship with my father which is now great but um just the like i had to deal with

it for a year and then i went off to college and it was an adult and my sister had to deal with it for another yeah like an extra two years um before she got to like where'd you go to college i went to the culinary institute of america state so but you could still visit pretty freely actually did sure i did i did visit often but it was just something that was very, it was all a very dark time. And we also didn't tell anyone when we were in high school. Really? Which was a complete, we kept it a complete secret.

I was just terrified. I don't know. Was that based on? We just had shame. We were ashamed of it. And we didn't want to be like another one of those kids with divorced parents. Well, how frequent? There was a lot of divorce, right? Oh, a lot. A lot. it and we didn't want to be like another one of those kids with divorced parents well how how frequent there was a lot of divorce right oh a lot a lot but it was again i think most of them

waited until they finished high school yeah yeah yeah that is interesting if there was a mass mass divorce once people got out of the house i uh i was in college when my mom and stepdad got divorced and i like flew back horrible it was like i flew back to be there for the announcement but the thing is everyone knew it was coming except for my little brother so it was this weird like theatrical was that and that that was that your half brother or like oh yeah so it's my half brother um and uh we we i went back home and they called like a family meeting and we knew what what it was but brother, he was probably like maybe seven or eight, but he was. Wait, how, what was the age difference?

So I was, I think I was a sophomore in college maybe. So I was like, you know, 1920. I had one sister who was junior, senior high school, one sister in high school. And then my brother who was still like a kid. Wow. And so we have this family meeting and the mood is grave. We all know what it's for. So it's kind of weird.

And my little brother, he comes in, he's like, oh, we got to talk about how awesome So we have this family meeting and the mood is grave. We all know what it's for. So it's kind of weird. And my little brother, he comes in. He's like, oh, we got to talk about how awesome I am and how you're not awesome like me. He's not reading the prize. He's not reading the room at all. And I'm like, baby, you're not going to feel awesome for a very long time. I'm sure it hit him more than the three of you. Yeah.

Well, I think it's interesting because we knew it was coming. Yeah. And you said it really you didn't know. No. Looking back, are you like, oh, right. I mean, looking back, like, they were not a well-matched couple. I guess they were in so many ways, but it's like we were such like a picture-perfect family

and then it was just like a downward spiral into, fuck you, mom, fuck you, dad, all of this. My sister and I just went completely AWOL. But we were also very good kids, so it was fine, and we kept it to the house, and now we just have this very free relationship. And I will say it forced us to become adults very quickly. One of the things that I think is the most,

I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. I guess it's just a thing that like we have, especially with my husband and myself, like the roles have reversed. So we really are the, like the roles of parent child have pretty much reversed. And just sometimes like we get these questions and it's just like, are you not capable? Are you not a or you're not

a functioning like how did you decide to have children if you can't figure this out sure and and yeah it makes you really think about like what was in their head and you look up to these people like they're they're superheroes they're your idols they know all and then one day you realize like oh no uh yeah my dad's a republican Like he really doesn't know anything about most things in this category. And then my mom is like, she's a double Ivy League educated doctor who cannot, for the love of dear God, open her iPad. Or like figure out how to update something. And truly you just start to realize like, wow, is this going to be me one day? It's like our.

And then if they're married, you know, they're able to hide some more things that, you know, the father helps the iPad. She liberalizes him a little. Yeah. Are they dating? My dad has a girlfriend and for years my mother has dated. She had the one long term thing. But we really want

her to find someone is she on someone she's on j swipe j date she's i mean i think i'll take a go at this point like anyone they just they have to be they it's just my parents are like and we're all very quirky like we're just you need a specific type of person to match that energy my mother let me just say i do think it's a lot that her children live in the same building as her like they have to jive with you guys in a way that that's that's tough my sister well my sister especially my sister is is she is not like past ones that makes it very well known um that's tough which is fair but like once they hit an age i'm just like my dad's girlfriend incredible we love her really truly truly truly so like he like so he is so

lucky well good good for them i hope it i hope it works out second marriages statistically get divorced more often than first marriage but sometimes people just do that i don't think yeah you know like i think at that point they're both yeah she's she's also a widow so i don't know if like i don't know if i guess i've read that's a personal i don't know if widows get remarried often in the sense or if they i don't know let's make a big statement about widows i uh well okay well let's talk because you talk about a great deal in this book about uh being gay and Jewish and um the only two things I have going for me. So when did you come out? Freshman year of college. Freshman year of college.

Do you think the divorce, you're like, you're getting divorced, well guess what? We're all making changes in our life. No, I just think you go to college, you're on your own. I grew up in Queens, but right before Bar Mitzvah season, actually, I moved out to Long Island. And I just think that so many, there was just not a lot of people who were out. There was a big stigma around being gay, even though it's like, I don't know why.

I mean, like, I don't know. So Long Island and Queens, I mean, is it similar? No, it was actually very different. it's like i don't know why um i mean like i don't know so long island and queens i mean is it similar no it's actually very different because growing up in queens it was incredibly diverse it was yeah long island is like the blueprint for segregation in the sense of creating these suburban towns and and redlining and it was drastic i grew grew up in my class until seventh grade was predominantly different kids from all over Asia. And well, from families that came all over Asia. But there were like a lot of first gen, a lot of immigrant families. So like there was normalization of snacks.

And I would go with my friends like houses after school and we'd pick up like bubble tea and we would go for Indian food and and it was a lot more global and I was actually the minority in terms of being a Jew and then I went to Long Island and all of a sudden it's like oh my god everyone's Jewish everyone's Jewish everyone's Jewish and affluent and that like it was this was like the age of juicy couture so everyone was in their velour tracksuits and they were just completely oblivious to the world around them. You'd think people in velour tracksuits would be very open

to gay culture. But, I mean, it was something that I go to college and all of a sudden it's like, no, no, no, no. This is it.

Alright, I just remember we need to, this is a good part for, this is now, we have to do commercials. Okay. And let's, we don't get to pick them so let's hope good part for, this is now we have to do commercials. Okay. And let's, we don't get to pick them,

so let's hope it's for velour tracksuits. And we're back. Okay, so you went to culinary for college, right out of the gate. So you knew. Yeah. Now who was the chef in your, was your mom or your dad?

None. None. How did you find out? It was, so again, like really. How much cooking were you doing in high school? I was just always enamored by like Food Network. And I would come home and i would just like watch aina and giada and i was just like so mesmerized by these chefs these are food network these are food network aina garden and giada del rentis you have no idea who these people are i know who aida garden is she's the one with she's barefoot barefoot contessa okay yes you've never heard of aina

garden barefoot contessa what does that mean it was a show it was her it was her show and it was the name of her store out in the hamptons she's barefoot i don't know the other one giada de la rentis no little italian girl um oh my god have you heard of rachel ray yes i'm actually i'm gonna be on the rachel ray show on tuesday yeah yeah wow between this and that everything everything's happening. Truly, yeah, that's it. Are you going to be in studio? No, no, it's still remote. Can I just say, when did this come out, this book?

March. March. Is it kind of like, oh, I wish I could be in person and I'm at home doing Zoom with Katie Couric? That was one. Yeah, that was one of them. And you're just like, oh, I wish I could be there. Yes and no. Yes, but I know it's going to come.

No, because it has allowed me to leverage platforms and get eyes on the book that never would have happened. That's true. So that has been really, really, really, really big. In terms of the in-studio things, I've done now the Today Show twice via Zoom. I did Good Morning America via Zoom. Rachel Ray, this will be a second one via Zoom.

And you have an agent now with this. Like that booksies for you? I mean, yes, I have a publicist for my books. I now have managers separate for just like me. That's so exciting. But where were we talking about? So you were cooking. So you watched all these shows in high school.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Are you making anything at home, too? So that's what it was. I was a very heavy kid, and I didn't have many friends, and I was insecure about everything, including my sexuality. No, we say heavy because, like, I have talked about, like, being a heavy kid and have been corrected. I was just, like, a chubby kid, like a very heavy kid.

I would say very i would say that i was probably a foot shorter and 20 pounds heavier okay than what i am now i don't have that i'm trying to like you know like use graphic design in my head i was i was i was very overweight you're very medically very overweight um and so you were watching cooking shows and i started throwing these dinner parties for my friends for people in high school that'd be wild if i didn't i had no high school friends you know my god literally i mean looking back this was it was trash all of it was trash anything what were you making like like it was like parmesan polenta and ratatouille and then i like pumpkin like, pumpkin bread for dessert. Like all these like basic Food Network recipes.

They were all, like looking back, just all terrible. But it really helped me build community. And I just fell in love with this kind of like, almost like a grift of like, you want to be my friend? Come over for dinner. And I do that to this very day. That's why I think a lot of my relationships with people is transactional

in the sense of me like cooking for them yeah yeah as like at least a baseline um food is let me tell you i mean i i'm the the woman i'm seeing you know what she makes a meal like there's there's something very uh a very appreciative there's something very like comforting and warm and having been like single for like a long long long time and eating my own shitty, shitty food, and then coming home to a multi-part meal, it is nice. So you're cooking, you apply. When you apply, do you have to make shit? No, but you actually have to have six months restaurant experience before you enter.

So it's all conditional. These all must be unique because I feel like any kid in high school who is cooking in a restaurant, like, that's a unique kid. I don't know anyone

from my high school who's working in a restaurant. What restaurant was your first restaurant? It was this sandwich shop on Long Island. Still, honestly, one of our favorites.

We go out often just to make trips to get these sandwiches called Roast Sandwich House in Melville. And it was these guys, these old italian guys and how'd they treat you they treat me they treat me very well it was i mean it was all men very like broey jersey shore-esque kind of personalities two of them were brothers the the one of the brothers that did like the front of house was like a muscle head like truly like just like could destroy you um and they didn't i wasn't paid i was paid in like

free food because i like they knew like he'll just take some food give him a salami truly but i was like i needed i needed them as much as they needed me and you just knew you needed that i need i wouldn't i wouldn't for culinary exactly i wouldn't be able to do it so i was like going around different restaurants being like who's gonna take me and someone's like this new place is opening um you have to go and i went and i was like all right so you go to the school what what are what are cooking people like like is there like a trope of like what are i mean are you all like totally different were you all overweight kids that only know no no there were i mean there were a lot of by the time i got to culinary school i was fit my senior year of high school i lost a crazy amount of weight few years ago a lot of chefs have come

through they were like they learned how to cook as a kid no no no i uh maybe the gays at least i think i think it's more common with i know a lot of gay people, both in comedy and in just general life, that were heavier kids and they get really fit. Then all of a sudden attention starts coming to them. And it's this fascinating dynamic of how you manage that while at the same time still being insanely insecure and not understanding the attention. It's like sanely insecure and not understanding the attention. Yeah. Which for a kid coming to terms with sexuality turned out to be like, oh, you're gay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is there, like I'm in theater and there's obviously a lot of gay men in theater, musical theater. I went to college in musical theater. And, you know, at the beginning there was plenty of gay men. By the end there was even more. What is it like in the in the culinary world so it's divided um and it's very strange because you have to remember that not everyone is like me coming straight from high school there are a lot of people who have changed careers so they're like i'll be in a class with someone with people who are in their 40s 50s 30s late 20 all that stuff. And I'm this like 17 year old being like, Hey, but,

um, I would say in the pastry program, so you got to be a culinary arts major or a pastry arts major in the pastry program. You have the predominant. That is very funny. I mean, there's something just like that.

The pastries, that's where all the games are. The pastry. It's true. All the mean massages. I just think it's the big steak guys, the salt bays. Exactly. That's true. Now, why? All the mean misogynists. I just think it's the big steak guys, the salt baes, and whatnot.

That's one school. Yeah. Why do you think that's why? Why? I mean, I'd love to say that there's this level

of masculinity in the back of house and femininity in terms of the artistry around pastry. Maybe. But at the end of the day, I just think it's the way

that it's like the just stereotypes that society has beaten into them. But still, there's something like attracted. around pastry maybe but at the end of the day i just think it's the way that's like the the just stereotypes that society has beaten into them but still there's something like attracted i i had a friend uh rob nanderson he was a producer and he once told me his theory was that the reason there were a lot of gay men in theater was like in when you're a theater kid in high school it's one of this place where you can like express yourself finally in like a different way than the norm and and you know whether you're singing or dancing or whatnot there's more room to be like i mean i think that's

why i became more theater not not because i like had like a unusual energy than the traditional masculine version i wasn't the sports kid and so i just wonder that's just fascinating yeah that that um so you went straight to the culinary. Yeah. I mean, straight to the pastry. No, I did culinary. You did culinary. I did culinary.

And then how long is that program? It was three and a half years because I did my bachelor's. Okay. And were you taking any academics? Yes. So that's kind of the second portion of it. Two years is your associate's degree, which is pretty much predominantly just cooking classes. So you're in kitchens doing things, and that's the meal program for the rest of the second portion of it two years is your associate's degree which is pretty much predominantly just cooking classes so you're in kitchens doing things and that's the meal program for the rest of

the students so you go around and you like swipe your meal card and pick up the dishes that other kids are cooking and so crazy is like little mini like restaurant services which is really cool and you eat pretty well um and then uh then it's like the second part was like all the management stuff and like accounting and like if you're running a restaurant this that and then that's actually where I took my first like food writing course I think it's funny if you like suck at your if you're like a bad student people have to then eat your food well you know a lot of people don't even make it to the number one thing that causes people to have to drop out is they can't pass the math course there's like a very like very easy math course that i mean i it's not a difficult college in the sense of academics

so they took like every api credit i had from high school and i didn't have to take any of those classes but like there's like a very basic math course that a lot of people can't pass that's so interesting because i feel like there's a there's a plenty of people can't pass. That's so interesting. Because I feel like there's plenty of... Tova said that she doesn't really bake. And she said what she doesn't like about baking is it's very... Math math. It's very exact. And when she's cooking at a pan...

It is and it isn't. There's so many things. Like bread is not exact at all. It's pretty exact, but actually you have to be very flexible with it. Everything, I just think like when people say that, it like it's just an excuse like you can do whatever you want like you could still bake like is it really like is it gonna is it gonna kill you just to like crack out the measuring cup and not like shove your hands in the flour like you'll live like reach for your dreams now you i just want to say

because one of the things in the book you named a bread after you it's called like what did you call it Jake's perfect challah now let me just ask like I just feel like but you understand that's not like me naming the bread after me it's just a challah recipe

it's just my recipe you called it the perfect do you think that like when I'm home at Shabbat I'm like oh tonight we're having Jake's the challah recipe. It's just my recipe. You called it the perfect. Yes, but do you think that like when I'm home at Shabbat, I'm like, oh, tonight we're having Jake's perfect challah. I just, so there just must be a thing where like, like you could have called every recipe in this book, Jake's perfect. No, because I think that that's,

cause this is up for interpretation. There are a lot of things that are up for interpretation cause every family and it makes their matzah balls differently, their brisket differently. That's a very family, very personal thing. Challah, this is like my dough recipe that I find is perfect. That anyone like, you're not going to make. I'm looking at the book here and it does say, quote unquote, perfect.

You'll have to talk to the copy editor about that. So, okay. So, so you went to the school. You enjoyed it. You had a good time. Great time. Good teachers. Yeah. And then is this a kind of profession where like you get out and like you can at least make a living?

No. Oh, my God. No, no, no. Oh, my God. Like I was paid when I worked at Danielle. I was making minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. And I was working crazy hours almost like during the busy season about like 90 hours a week

and it was insane and we were doing I worked with their like off-site catering so I was like doing events around the city sometimes I would like wake there was one day where I had to do like a shiva at night so we were then I got back to the restaurant at

midnight packed up my shit like went to a friend's place nearby to crash for a few hours then i had to wake up at 5 a.m to go cook breakfast for mitt romney this was during the election um and it was just non-stop dad must be proud of that i truly um but uh it's just you break your body it was the same thing i had when i worked at abc it's like it was great i I was making, I think then I was making $10 an hour. That's wild. And maybe it was $12. I can't remember.

But I think it was $10. So you're not making, these are what, all your fancy restaurants, everywhere you go, you're like, oh my God, this place is so great. That's what the line cooks are being paid. And maybe things have changed now but i mean i don't know so so it was it was just like your body falls apart truly you just your your your health is just like you you can't withstand that heat being on your feet like just my stomach everything was just like you're like i just knew i couldn't at least you never have to be like hungry though you're always you think you're eating

you're not you're not no you have a grape off no no no if i'm lucky i get down and you have to bend down because no one can see you because a lot of these are open kitchens so you're on you're crouched down like an animal oh my god and you're just like hounding whatever little scrap you can find so it is so dehumanizing to and then the family meal which is like if you're lucky to get it when they have like the lunch for everyone it's you're you're still on the clocks it's like you're like time is going crazy you don't know what's going on like am i going to make it to service it's going to be how many reservations are there so you're lucky if you get a little bowl of rice that you can like inhale or if something gets sent back or like or like a wrong order gets done by someone they're like throw it down the

line i know that i would not do well um because i always feel like on thanksgiving the energy like when you were like going into the kitchen and people are all working on things is so stressful to me like and it's just that one day but And it doesn't even necessarily have to be hostile, but it's just the energy of like, we gotta get this done! Where are the cranberries? And that kind of thing, I always picture that that just must be the...

That's every time. And it's clearly like a respect, like with many professions, there's this respect of the real jackasses. Who's the famous chef that says, you're an idiot sandwich? Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay.

Like, and maybe he's fun. Maybe he's nice. But I'm saying like there seems to be like a respect of chefs where like, yeah, they're a fucking monster. Isn't that amazing? Like there seems to be abuse. I feel like there's probably a lot of abuse in the back of these kitchens. Is there any rule against eating? Like if they catch you taking a bite, you're fired?

No, I mean, no. There was a lot of abuse like there were moments where like they've been there have been punches there have been slurs there have been things that oh yeah lots of slurs um things that would get juice would not oh against everyone against oh it gets everyone everyone well then that's okay um there's there is but that's the thing is when you're at the bottom there was this even this one time where this was at danielle they were cleaning the floors and they put all this i love that you're whispering but i'm just gonna turn up the volume i hope he doesn't hear um but they're cleaning the floors they didn't put up a sign so i'm walking with my whole tray with

an entire watermelon this is the summer literally like a cartoon with the banana peel. I just go up and down, land on my hip. I swear, I probably still have damage to this day. I don't know what happened, but I was so terrified to go to the hospital. They were like, well, if you go to the hospital, we'll have to make a report. And it was almost like they were intimidating me not to, like, don't do it.

This is like whiplash, but instead of drumming, it's killing watermelon. And it was, I like, are you going to be, are you, instead of truly, instead of drumming, it's truly watermelon. And it was, I mean, obviously looking back, like no one did anything. I should have just done it and stuck to my guns, but you're terrified because you're at the bottom of the total poll.

You don't want to like, you don't want to make a big deal about anything. You don't want to like make waves. Same thing with the slurs. Same thing with this. Sometimes, um, sometimes some of the higher ups would come to me when someone they didn't like would say something highly inappropriate, being like, you should report them.

So it's like, this guy said faggot. You should get fired. And they'd say this for like the half of a second. I was like, he's gay. It's okay. There was just a moment where he said it, and I was like, oh, I don't know. Oh, okay. Yes, he said it.

Yes, yes. It's such a weird thing to have a higher-up come and tell you that. he said it, and I was like, oh, I don't know. Oh, okay, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. That's just such a weird thing to have a higher-up come and tell you that to then. Who said it, though? They said it was another one of the line cooks. And he was not. He was not. No. He was French.

He was French. In French, does that mean something else in France, though? It does. It's a term of adieu. But wait, when the higher-up's telling you that, wouldn't you be like, well, I would just be telling you? No, no, no. Because when I say higher up, I mean I'm at the bottom of the totem pole.

This is like. Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. But you made it out. I made it out. I mean, and the funny thing is, it's like, so I made it out just in time to get an unpaid internship at a food magazine before the like the big Condé nas lawsuit where everyone couldn't do that anymore and it was like just as terrible in terms of the way people like acted and like the like this this like this one person she made everyone cry i honestly to this day think the only reason that they kept me on and hired me onto the staff is because she couldn't make me cry

and but like she would these there'd be these well she she was a cook she was she was the she headed the test kitchen and like these girls would be bawling bawling truly it was so she would just like rip them down and would just be constant and constant and just like criticizing everything about them it was terrible and then there were the instances with like anti-semitism where there were there were pennies on the floor thrown and there was one time explain this to me what do you mean just like if there would be like change on the floor i'll pick it up like because you're a jew and like then there was this one instance where someone it's just such a lame it's just such a like a cliche pick it up you do truly and there was this one time i'm actually an expert at this because at my bar mitzvah i grabbed money yeah and then there

was this one time someone put up a um a scriptures calendar in my cubicle and made a joke that i needed jesus and it was like and it's funny because like looking back especially in this current age i could cancel all of them. Like this is, these are things that like, like truly like I really, and things I don't want to, I don't need to, I don't give them really any thought other than like trashing them on a podcast like this. But like, I just hope that they live like waiting for the day that they're like, it turns to them. Because they are the same people that are like, when the whole Bonap thing like oh my god that's terrible can you believe it's like oh just you wait just you wait bon appetit i don't know if you follow it was such an wild thing there was a podcast that was going to do a uh a feature on the bon appetit the podcast called reply yes yes yes and the moment they started all the people

reply all were like you did the same shit actually i'm actually kind of upset because i was really loving but i was loving it and i know i'm friends i'm well no no i was loving this but i never i've never listened to it before yeah they were gonna have two more episodes that were like probably right and i'm friends with a lot of the bon app people were they pissed off about it too i mean it's like they i i mean i'm sure some were some weren't i mean i don't think it did you know it was gonna happen the bon appetit like were you friends with the people that spoke out against them and i'm friends with some of them yeah uh i mean listen i i think that it's you could have never seen this happening in the sense of the response of people taking

them seriously finally which is incredible because this is truly this issue the same thing in terms of me talking about like being a line cook being underpaid like media is no different and on top of it you have all of these gatekeepers and you think of like what it takes to get in you have to be able to afford no pay you have to be able to afford then when you get a salary my first salary was a non-negotiable thirty thousand dollars000 a year. And it was something that was just like, I think about like, this is gonna be how we hire people that represent the world

and write about food and determine what's good food, what's bad food. But we're gonna create this like threshold of like you really have to be like really privileged to even like get that job. It's crazy. I mean- What do you think about i always think i mean i just listen to those first two bon appetit i mean there is this something about the kinds of food you make recipes for yeah like you know for example

like you know you're willing to call like this is it for you but like if you had done a different book and instead called it what is this you'd said jake's perfect holla if you had done a different book and instead called it, what is this? You'd said Jake's Perfect Holla. If you did Jake's Perfect Faux, like people would, it would be kind of like, well, maybe don't come up with your perfect faux. Correct. And that's valid. But likewise, you see, I think the act of those conversations, which is very true in terms of like when I was in test kitchens at the bottom in terms of cooking recipes be seen, not heard, like all the higher ups coming in for tastings that I would do and and

no feedback was required and if you said anything like you would get reprimanded afterwards and it was just dishes pile up and people would just make a mess and you'd have to go clean up after them like you were a literal maid like truly it was so demeaning truly but past that it's the idea of what is good food, what is bad food? What is trendy food? What deserves coverage? What should be on the cover? And it was never Jewish food.

Like you could be a Jew around Passover will throw you a bone, maybe something around Hanukkah and just be grateful. And that was just something like I didn't learn any Jewish food at culinary school. There was no Jewish food on the curriculum. And with that came like as I started to explore it, as I started to explore my identity around like my husband and I hosting Shabbat, all this shit. It was like I want to do more of this. I want to do just this because like who is if no one's going to like bite the bullet and be like, no, this is actually great food. This is actually food that I want to do more of this i want to do just this because like who is if no one's gonna like bite the bullet and be like no this is actually great food this is actually food that i want to celebrate

everyone's like oh my god this book is so gorgeous a lot of them are just shocked because these are like foods from the shuttle from like the poor old country that they that's never been given the resources of a photo shoot and a food stylist and all of these things that every other cuisine every other person gets. Because I think even me with a mild Jewish upbringing and more Jewish family, I still have a very small vocabulary of what Jewish food is. List a couple of Jewish food items. What are all the Jewish food items you know?

Jake's Perfect Sala. And then the thing that we just ate today matzo I almost said matzo pizza matzo pizza is good good I'm glad I got to get the word out on that yeah you know I don't know a lot

but here you just this is important because you just mentioned things if we asked him who's even a little more Jewish, you would be only able to answer Ashkenazi foods. And there is this idea, and I think the huge part of this book is the story of me meeting my husband,

who's Persian Iraqi Jewish, and he grew up very not Jewish. He wasn't also never bar mitzvahed. We're going to throw him an adult one. It's going to be- Circumcised. Oh, he is circumcised. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people are circumcised these days i think it's gonna i think

it's gonna change i probably would you do you want children someday yeah do you think would you want them so i want to do the breasts yeah i'm having a breast for my son which is funny because my sister married a uh a gentile who is from spain um so the is like, they are, he's, if, if what would you do differently from the father to the son? Like, is that going to be fuck up your son? If your penis looks different than your father's,

let me tell you, I've never reflected off the relationship between my father's penis. I think it's probably pretty similar, but like, I don't, I, I just know that like gun to my head. I'm like,

the only reason I don't want my son circumcised is because I think it looks better. And I'm like, well, that shouldn't be a reason. Don't you feel a little bit like, hmm. Let me tell you, whenever you talk about circumcision or make a joke about circumcision, there are groups that are anti-circumcision. And then I get a call from my mother. You need to talk to your sister. She says she might not do it. My brother, your uncle said that

there's a curse, there's a hex on the kid if they don't get it. Lower her Ivy League degree. Truly, truly, truly. This is old Ivy League. I don't know. It's the same kind of conversation

about like why do you why do Jews have to marry Jews they don't have to but there's pressure from like the community and it's because of what you're the music man you're from theater what's the answer tradition

tradition that's it I was thinking Music Man songs. You know, Music Man is also another musical. I don't think it's very Jewish, though. Yeah, but when you said Music Man, I was like, we got trouble in River City. Oh, and you were like a musical theater person. I've played Tevye three times before the age of 22. You've played it three times?

I've played it before the age of 22. I played it in middle school in Fiddler in the Two Year I know in the third one I played it in high school and then I did it in college you're forgetting a fourth oh oh no in my sketch

yeah but that was much later on in life that's that's so funny yeah just like no matter just like where you go

I especially imagine like seventh grade Tevye Russell you know we had like we had a middle school Tevye that was like should not have been Tevye you would have I, we had like, we had a middle school Tevye that was like, should not have been Tevye.

You would have, I was probably pretty good. Were you pretty good? I would love, no, no. Can we get a tape of it someday? I don't think I have a tape.

There's a tape of Josh Grobe and he played Tevye in middle school. And I bet you, I do remember. Oh my God. I do remember, uh, in, in seventh grade,

I remember one night during, uh, uh, if I were a rich man, I went up on the words. And it was just like, Like for the whole verse. I saw someone in the crowd and that made me nervous.

And I was like, And just did gibberish for a full verse of it. And I'm sure they were like, oh, he's doing the original Hebrew. It's in Yiddish. But yeah. Okay. So you're going to circumcise? Maybe.

You are. I would say probably. You are. If both the fathers are. I mean, honestly. Yeah. I don't know. There's a chance that we're going to adopt.

So then I don't know if, because then again,'re gonna adopt so then i don't know if if because then again if you adopt like like are you gonna do it if you just have a baby it depends on how old the baby is there's so many like variables yeah i mean listen if you adopt someone like if you adopt like a 12 year old you need to be up front that that's what's coming you want to come home um beautiful house one little thing um oh god i i have a friend boris hyken he was i think he was circumcised when he was seven he moved from russia or from the ukraine to america or somewhere where like you couldn't get circumcised and then he moved to america and got circumcised at seven his parents or he felt strongly at seven i'm sure it's seven he said like sometimes

sometimes it's medical there are medical things where things where it's too much or too tight, and they have to do it. It's too tight. Yeah. Too tight. Sorry, kid, your cock's too fat. We got to take this. That's a medical term of a doctor.

Sorry, kid. That cock is too fat. I think it would be better. I think sometimes, this is personal, that the head can be overly sensitive. And I think foreskin would have made it not, would have been like the perfect amount of like. Well, you understand that you would have, don't they say you have more sensitivity that we actually lose nerve damage? But I feel like there's like a tick there's like it's like ticklish it's too much so here's the deal someone gives like a very shallow blowjob like a very shallow i'm just like as someone who's been

on the the other end of both um it comes down to their it both are great there is moment like the fact is like to have slack is, this is the right time to the right place to use slack as a word. To have some slack, it's wonderful. Like really guys are uncut and never have to use like lotion or lube when they masturbate. We've ever thought of that.

I'm actually worried we're both no lubers. No lubers masturbating. But at least not all the time. Slack sounds very interesting. Slack, yeah. That's a rough... I feel like we've got some callous...

Callous tics. Don't know where you even get this part. But it just... It all comes down to cleanliness. That's always that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because if an uncut guy is not clean, it is not good. Just smell. is just smell clean up it is the most off-putting rancid i don't even like it just it's yeah it's a is there ever a piece of lint in there i could see lint getting not lint it's never lint what do you mean what is the way you're saying what? What's in it? Smegma. Oh, God! No, no, no, no, no! Oh, God! Smegma. Who's that politician where they made it the term Rick Santorum? Didn't they make Santorum?

It's a politician where... Who's the famous gay podcaster, Dan Savage? Yeah. Dan Savage. He made Santorum like he made it the word for the leftover juices after anal sex and if you look up santorum like that's what that means now rick santorum is a conservative politician i know rick santorum is but you didn't know the other center uh yes no i know you know the whole thing okay great i'm just educating in case my little brother's listening or something um

uh okay well maybe maybe i am glad you are circumcised yeah you're not gonna have a kid no please you're i don't want a kid you're heterosexual so you never know i yeah that's true but i i i don't think i we we i don't think we want them now thank you there you go i like that forever but yeah yeah i could come around to it um all right well let's let's move on to did you read the email i sent that this has got to stop briefly no no i like i skimmed it long i gotta i know i gotta figure it out i clicked i clicked the like where is this happening and then where is this all right done all right so this is uh uh russell will you press the button please i don't don't know which one it is. Neither do I.

I think it's... No, that's a night terror. Stop! Oh, my God. I don't know how to turn it off. No, stop pressing buttons. Russell, that button gets stuck. Okay, so my girlfriend has night terrors,

and she sent me clips of her having them. Oh, my God. Is this Tova? Don't press. This is night terror, Really, really, really, really, really, really. Don't press. No. Do not listen to me. This is Night Terror, so she's completely. This is more entertaining than I ever could have been. I'm just going to leave.

Okay. I think I actually added think I added a new night originally I had this idea that like all the podcasts would end with a new night well it turned off you heard that wait this

oh my god this is the voice honey honey okay it's not hey hey hey fuck no no honey No. Honey, honey. Okay. Please not. Hey, hey, hey.

Fuck you. No. No, honey. I'm ready. This is so upsetting. She falls back asleep like this. You have to say I love you to this woman. If you're still going. This is so upsetting.

I felt the opposite reaction here and there. But if you are staying. If you are still in a relationship with this woman, after a moment like this, 100%. So you have to tell people that. There we go. I think this is a perfect case that just the fact that I put up with it, that covers everything. We don't need to say anything nice. Because it's funny.

In the gay world, it's oftentimes- In the gay world, you'd never put up with this shit. No. You put up with literal shit. Because that's typically the gauge. What? If there's some kind of mishap with sex like how they act in those moments oh really how that is like a huge sign in terms

like gay sex is very intimate and it's very like unpredictable i mean it's could be predictable to a degree but it's like that's a huge sign in terms of how someone's gonna act in those moments we're like we're like there's a big poop disaster yeah big poop yeah i had a woman i was i was dating for a long time and we were pretty deep and uh we were making love and we were pretty deep and we were high we were very high and uh she was on top and i thought she was i thought she was squirting she had never squirted before but I was like I was like oh my god I'm just

I'm like as if I was like as if I was doing anything I was just laying there and I'm like man I'm fucking rocking this right now and I was like that's really warm squirt

and she's peeing on me she's a hundred percent and like I'm a very I'm not I do get squeamish with stuff but I think I registered very quickly in that moment

I was like this is humiliating for her and I was just like oh no a little pee alright here we go and inside I'm like this is the most scarring experience of my entire life that doesn't matter because of the way you presented yourself

I presented myself and we wrapped it up and thank god it was a college dorm mattress so it was like plastic and fine. I think I handled it. I think I'm ready for gay sex. I've been training my whole life.

Whip it out. Let's do it. There we go. I think the fact that I'm very sweet. Let's hope this is right. That was a new one. This is the new one I added. Let's see this is right. That was a new one. This is the new one I added. Let's see if this... Is she seeing something about these?

The tiny little thing that is for me that I'm not sharing with anything. Did she say tiny little what? I think she has siblings and it sounded like something about... I heard tiny little penis. Tiny little penis. Oh no, maybe it was about me. So she has an app that records the night terrors. It's an app that whenever there's noise,

it turns on and records it. So we do get a lot of horn honks. And you plugged it into the... Well, I asked her to send me the fun ones. Those are the most fun. Is she seeing someone? She's figuring this stuff out. I guess she let me play it.

She's seeing someone. It's good. It's been getting great. Amazing. I'm a good guy. Please. This has got to stop. This has got to stop.

This is a segment where we talk about something that is something in the world, societally, that we don't like. It could be big, small, specific. Russell, why don't you start so we can, yeah. This has got to stop. This is a very specific one for one well-intentioned person. But this has got to stop my mom asking me about my dog's cancer because we i have no new information so it's just every day it's like and how's hennessy doing and i'm like well i as again stated for now the last 10 days we have an appointment on the 22nd

we will find out more nothing has changed or will change but every day she asks about it and it's it's it's now been enough days where it'll be stuff like on my birthday she called which is very nice my mom called me on birthday yeah we're having a nice we're having a nice conversation she's like asking me what my plans are what i'm doing you know and i'm like oh and i'm having a great day. It's really fun. And she goes, oh, that sounds amazing. She goes, and how's Hennessy doing?

And I'm like, you know, for a brief moment, I forgot that the dog had cancer, but thank you for reminding me right now. So this guy's up. Mom, I'm going to tell you she's not listening. I will tell you. She should listen. I'm going to give her an update uh after i find out today more information but it's it's just it's that thing where sometimes you don't tell your parents stuff because you're like you're just going to keep asking about it

like yeah so it's really i think that's you have to assess i know certainly for like actors we audition for things yes someone's interested and it's kind of like you you want someone to know you're you're interested and that you like care about them getting it but i also like i don't hear about a lot of roles and i just assume they didn't go to me and so part of you is like just don't ask about it so that's why i don't even tell my parents if like something exciting happened or i got a call back because i'm like so you hear about the thing and you're like mom it's on the third season and i'm not the lead guy did you see the poster it was not me so please yeah please

stop asking me about it so do you understand there's the yeah yeah and it could be a cooking one uh but let me talk about um the my this has got to stop uh online therapy is uh it's a good thing and it's a double-edged sword it's a double started you did well good for you have you ever done in-person therapy yes so here hello just anything anything that becomes commodified i'm automatically a little bit nervous about and uh therapy is one of those things where it is it's an art correct i'm not doing one of the apps i'll be it's more i'm just doing virtual oh sure yeah i've been seeing i've been seeing my old therapist virtually but it's uh there's this new better help which i'm sure like as soon as i Yeah, yeah, yeah. you're going to get therapy in this kind of weird watered-down form,

so you're not going to think it's effective. Or there's something about being in person, which it's just easy to undervalue. And especially once coronavirus is done, there's going to be a lot of like, let's just keep doing it this way. It was cheaper to not rent office space. It was nicer to not have to commute to the place.

And it's like there's things about being in person that when you're with a therapist, you might reveal more. You might connect in a way. And there's things you can't calculate like just being in a room, in a physical room with someone, just smelling them. There's things in your brain that's like I'm with another human being right now. So online therapy, it just makes me nervous that this is kind of the intro to therapy. And it's this weird thing where I always wanted, I want everyone to go to therapy.

And now they kind of are, but they're doing it in this way that I'm like, I'm nervous. There's plenty of bad in-person therapists. It's a really, I got very lucky with my current therapist. I had bad ones as a kid. I had like,

I had one therapist, she would always eat in front of me and it really bothered me. And she would just watch me play with action figures and be like, is the Green Ranger your stepfather? And try to come up with like stories based on my action figures playing. That was bad.

So this has got to stop thinking, just not being skeptical of online therapy. And just taking it with a grain of salt that it's not the whole shebang. That's why this has got to stop. So therapy. This has got to stop therapy. That's why this has got to stop. So therapy. This has got to stop therapy.

I get it. Literally the second I looked into getting a therapist, that was like every Instagram, every other Instagram is an ad for them. Like you just like that. It's one of the, I love ads on social media because I ended up buying a lot of shit that I love because it's very targeted, but then it's just like rubbing in your face.

It's like, you need help. Yeah. So what's your, this has got to stop. it's very targeted but then it's just like rubbing in your face just like you need help yeah yeah so what's your this is gonna stop every like pretty much a piggy off that like zoom just in general like here i'm done with zoom i just don't think you know there's always that thing oh it could have been an email that call should have been the meeting should have been email any zoom can be a phone call now like there's no need to see me see my face anymore like you can call me that's it that's the most i'm going to give and especially zoom events need to stop i've stopped taking on

any other because it's just like people are at this rate i would rather go see one person than like zoom with a thousand people and more importantly like there's nothing good happening on zoom anymore it's just sad it's just like let me just plug right here i do have a zoom show coming up this tuesday at 8 p.m uh please buy tickets to it no i hear what you're saying there was a very funny at the very beginning of coronavirus there was a bunch of like zoom parties i loved it yeah and then two months later they all just kind of trickled and i think of like for example i example, some of my friends helped produce Saturday Night Seder, which was incredible and one of the most insane mashups productions when it comes to just like low production in quarantine, make it happen. And they just did such an amazing job.

And now it's just like, who wants to listen to me just talk? Or even like the cooking ones. Every cooking Zoom I do, no one's cooking. It's these women in their 70s just staring at the camera. And it's just like, are you having fun? I'm not having fun. I get paired a lot with the comedy shows I do. It'll be like they'll have a cooking thing before me.

Love that. And then I do jokes. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's cooking? they're just watching and they're like i'm gonna do this later i'm gonna take they never do they never do they never do i mean there's there's a you know it's gotta stop you're i mean i think the thing with cooking books is there are probably 90 of the people who buy this book are probably really excited about it

and don't bake a single thing in it and that that's, so that's, I think people, there are two things to that. Because I've done one that was really successful. Is I do, since I'm on the board of this non-profit called One Table. Which is all about like getting millennials into hosting Shabbat. I did this challah bake along. Because people are so terrified of bread. So terrified of challah. And we did it live.

So it was like an all day thing that was broken up into segments. I let it rise. And everyone's like, well, you bless my challah because they're like, does this look good? Like everyone's terrified. And that worked so well

because this was like a moment in which I was able to do 125 people. It was like six hours total, but it worked and it was really fun and people really enjoyed it. And then all of the other ones on the other side of that spectrum, they're just miserable. Like, what kind of knives do you use?

Like, what did he do? How much did he add? Like, it's just. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm over. I'm over all of that. It's juice, you know.

Juice. You know. Truly. All right. We got to go to. Oh, let me just ask one thing. This is one thing because I do want to just make sure I address it. Because this is totally like back...

So in this book, you just talk about being gay and being Jewish. And there's this culture where you... I'm sure there's lots of Orthodox Jews or lots of... I'm sure there's some Hasidic walking around with this book. Maybe. I don't think that... You don't think so? I don't think that's it.

You don't think they're buying Jewish? No. They're buying Jew, 100% Jewish. No dash between them. And I just, I mean, you talk about it in your book a little bit. When I went on Birthright, there was one thing that wanted to, we did this, there was speaking of Birthright making people religious. There was this guy.

He did his Birthright. He came back. He was not raised religiously. Then he came back and became an Orthodox Jew. And it was what? I mean, that's how good the hummus is. That image really. He was not raised religiously. Then he came back and became an Orthodox Jew. And it was what? I mean, that's how good the hummus is. And so he got married and he had kids and he's the tour guide.

And like at the final day of birthright, he did this thing. He's like, we're going to play a game called Stump the Rabbi, where you can ask me anything you want about Orthodox Judaism. And I'm pretty sure it was me i can't i've told this story in different ways that i can't tell which parts have like changed in my mind but i'm pretty sure i was the guy who said how do orthodox jews feel about homosexuality just to really fuck up the night yeah uh people were like be like why do we separate the bread and the cheese and i was like shit that's like what a softball question. Let's turn up the heat. And he told this like,

he tried to avoid the question. He was just like, you know, I would hug them and say, oh, the world is so challenging. And I was like, okay. Okay, yes, could you answer the question, please, Mr. Rabbi? And like, it turned into chaos

people started being like why can't a woman be a rabbi and yeah how and it was I live for it obviously because I'm all down to just kind of spoil a good time but like I'm sure that you that you're popular

with lots of orthodox I mean I'm sure just existing in this sphere of Jewish cooking, if people who are gay get to see it and go like, that's great. Yes, that is great. But have you gotten any Jewish hate? Lots. Really? Oh my God, this one woman, it was just last week,

she was calling me a goy because of the fact that I am not kosher. And the fact that I'm gay, you think about like, I actually did the same thing because on my second trip to Israel, it was really incredible. We got a tour of Mea Shurim, which is the Orthodox sect of Jerusalem.

And we were being shown around by an Orthodox woman. And that was something, I just was very candid. I was like, what happens when someone comes out? And the fact is they're excommunicated if they decide to stick to it. And her kind of response to it is like, it's terrible. But at the same time, I think she was like,

it's equally terrible that these people then live in the closet and cheat on their wives with men on the side and it's not fair to those women as well who are just in this and and you also have to remember that like when someone leaves the community or wants to leave the community there's typically bullying there's typically violence and they leave knowing pretty much zero life skills so their organization is an incredible organization called footsteps which is really just trying to get these people acclimated to life after orthodoxy and i think there's a lot of like problematic views around being gay i think there's a lot of

problematic views around um being closed off to the outside world. So like, for example, at Chabad, my husband and I, it's fine that we can go to Chabad and they'll welcome us in because we're both gay Jews. But if we were an interfaith couple, heterosexual, uh-uh. And there's a lot of that. It is funny when there's progress in some realm, like, yes, please suck all the dicks you want, but they must be Jewish dicks.

But exactly. And I just think there's so many instances of that I'm like, yes, please suck all the dicks you want, but they must be Jewish dicks. Exactly. And that's, I just think there's so many instances of that where it's just like, that's the issue with like organized religion in general. And to me with this book and with having this platform, it was very much so like I had to be a hundred percent myself or else people will like smell inauthenticity. Like they, and I wasn't going to pretend I'm not else people will like smell in inauthenticity like they yeah yeah and I wasn't gonna pretend I'm not gonna all of a sudden be yentl like at the end of the day it's like this is who I am this is the shtick I am pushing is like cultural Judaism what it means to be secular what it means to not like have to worry about the rest and do it on your own terms

and if that means I serve pork at Shabbat sometimes, like you'll live. Well, let me tell you, Tova has not had pork or shrimp or anything. Is she kosher? Just that part. Okay. Just that.

But it's because she grew up Orthodox. Yeah. With a name like Tova. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she told me though, if I take her somewhere like nice that we could we could you know get either a pork thing

or a shrimp thing so she's never had bacon don't hold her breath never had bacon because it's funny with this guy oh my god I asked her like

I've never been to Red Lobster in my whole life and I thought like it would be a little cool no no you're not going to take her to have pork at Red Lobster in my whole life. And I thought like, it'll be cool. No. You're not going to take her to have pork at Red Lobster. What you're going to do is you're going to plan. No.

You're going to plan a trip and you'll go to the South and you'll get barbecue. And she'll have ribs for the first time. Yeah. Like just the idea. I know so many people that are so like, oh,

yeah, you're not kosher. You put, you put the pork in your book, but at the same time, they'll eat bacon, but no pork chops or no shrimp. But if it's chopped up in a dumpling, then you know what? That's okay. And there was like, there was this one person literally just the other day was telling me on some Zoom that I hated. That was like, oh, we had our milk milk plates our meat plates and then these red plates

for chinese food because that was when they could have non-kosher food is when they ordered chinese you know that brings up a good point because i was like i i gotta figure out because the what we were gonna have for the for my thing was oysters and uh you can have oysters she's totally like she won't eat them but she doesn doesn't be like, get them away. No, but then there's sliders with bacon. You know what I mean? We'll be fine. All right, the final segment.

This is... John Marco, it's everything. You better count your blessings. All right, this is You Better Count Your Blessings. We say one thing we're thankful for. I'll start since Tova, we talk about Tova a lot. Yeah. We have, you know, I guess it's a six month anniversary.

I tweeted a joke about it and there were a lot of men being like, six months is not an anniversary. Anniversary is Latin for year. Oh my God. It's not real. And Tova told me it is real. And you better do something. Yes, I better.

So, but she found a, it's like a sip and paint. Like it's, you eat snacks, drink, and you paint. Yeah, I've done that. And I like- It's terrible. But it's terrible in the way, like I like activities.

Oh, I'm sure heterosexual, it is truly, when i tell you if you ask me to pick one thing that like embodies a heterosexual couple it is painting and drinking wine at one of these things well then for the first time i will adopt the heterosexual lifestyle and i will go to a a sip and paint and i like activities yeah even if even if they're corny sometimes and uh she she sometimes and she likes them too and she'll find them

she'll set them and I'm very appreciative because I look back at those things and I'm like oh I feel like I did something I didn't just eat I didn't stay home or I didn't just go to a boring restaurant

I did a thing and now I have a painting to show for it so that's my blessing I just need to tell you that my husband when we hit our six month he was he recently left finance but he was in finance for the last seven years so this was like six months in i'm like this like again making no money he is baller wolf of wall street so for our sixth month he surprised me with a full weekend the first night we went out to we went out to the nomad for dinner and then the next night we did a

day spa at aire in tribeca and then we did dinner at the modern and i honestly think there was another dinner too and he just like planned this it was like it was all like on note cards with like it was like written in calligraphy and it was like kind of poetic so you gotta step your game up another option well tova i'm happy with the um you have a blessing yes um this is um my blessing um and also a tip uh something that i had never thought of that was actually a very nice surprise so i had my birthday and uh some friends knew i was like gonna be bopping around to places it was a beautiful day in the city and uh they venmoed me like like thing for like to get like a drink at like different places and i was like oh that's a great

idea i never thought of especially if you know someone's going somewhere to just be like a nice little thing so i was it was very i like it it was a really nice surprise yeah you know i was like oh that's so lovely that they did that you know you were be bopping around i'm not saying i'm not trying to say it to make you feel bad i'm just saying i'm going to bring something on saturday I'm not trying to say it to make you feel bad. I'm just saying. I'm going to bring something on Saturday. Did you have a blessing other than your rich husband?

It's my husband, but not for that reason. It's just, I think it's this crazy time of spending this last year. So, I mean, we've always been codependent, but like now in this past year and coming out of it, and I've been like, why is my phone buzzing this entire time time and my husband was freaky he had no idea where i was and he's like on your calendar and all they said you were recording this until 1 30 i was so worried and so so it's him that's that's good uh all right well did you have anything you wanted to plug i mean you have this amazing book yeah please uh get it jewish um it's very good tova's gonna make so many dishes out of love it and i will buy the ingredients to make up for it um and then you have your instagram is is

everywhere at jay cohen i i got it i paid a lot of like 13 year olds for their handles years ago really oh yeah i've i i'm in touch with at joe marco and we're negotiating a rate right now but you want it you want to hear so i would have paid anything anything for and there are a lot of jake cohen's as you can imagine instagram i was able to get for 25 from this like 13 year old which is great and then tiktok i got for 100 bucks i would have paid thousands i would have paid whatever it took well this is also great for the jewish branding you still rob these kids i truly truly i made them pick it off off the floor too like yeah um russell anything coming up um just still our uncle function show may 21st may 21st remember to put a link in the in the show it's going to be

a good time yeah um me i have uh i was about to plug this podcast. I have this new podcast called The Downside. Please listen. Please check out the Patreon. It's still super new, but the money's going to help with even nicer recording equipment, camera equipment. We have bonus episodes, free episodes. So check it out. Keep supporting. Get Jewish.

And just remember that even the most lovingly prepared, spectacular, delicious meals all turn to shit in the end. Russell. We're now playing the downside mixed in with Tova's night terrors. Maybe this is a very new exit. That's so upsetting. God damn you.