The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Comedian Megan Stalter on Finding Inspiration in American Absurdity

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Before the pandemic, Megan Stalter was an unknown comedian, trying to catch a lucky break at clubs in New York City. But with the arrival of COVID-19, social media became her only outlet, and she quickly found an audience with her short-form, D.I.Y. character videos,  portraying the “breadth of American idiocy,” as Michael Schulman puts it, with such accuracy and heart that it’s hard to turn away. After her rise to Internet fame—she was dubbed the “queen of quarantine”—Stalter was offered the part of Kayla, the overprivileged and clueless assistant, on HBO’s hit series “Hacks.”  It was her first acting job.  Plus, Helen Rosner joins the chef Andy Baraghani in his home kitchen for a lesson on cauliflower ragu. Baraghani, best known for his YouTube cooking videos for Bon Appetit, is out with a new cookbook called “The Cook You Want to Be.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Before the pandemic, Megan Stalter was an unknown comedian doing comedy shows all over the place, trying to get a break in acting, and posting an occasional video on Twitter and TikTok. But once the pandemic hit, those videos became her only outlet. Stalter began producing them at a rapid clip, very short character sketches. and with everybody at home, on the internet, way too much, she started to find a big audience, racking up millions of views.

On social media, she became known as the Queen of Quarantine. April 10th, 2 p.m. Central Standard Time. I just got back from an amazing date. I went to Red Lobster last night, and in between the potato-bated biscuits, I kissed the waiter. And then I got invited back into the kitchen to kiss all the chefs. It shot on her phone, and the props and costumes are whatever she can find around the house.

Her characters embody the full spectrum of socially awkward and clueless. And suddenly, Stalter jumped from the internet to television as the worst assistant in the world on HBO's hit show, Hacks. Okay, Kayla, you're supposed to be on mute. Oh, I am. I just push the thing, bud.

Okay, bud, we can hear you, so you're definitely not. Oh, don't worry. I'm not listening. I'm laughing at a meme. You're supposed to be listening. We've talked about this. You listen and you take notes, right? Yeah. So, okay, where's my notebook? Hey, I need to leave early. I have an adult ballet recital. Like, just I can't miss this one because I missed last week. It just wouldn't make sense. Michael Shulman is a staff writer who covers culture for the New Yorker, and he's one of the many new fans of Megan Stalter. Am I getting it right that Hax is your first professional acting job proper?

Yes. Or were you doing other stuff? Yes. You just went from, like, nothing to HBO Max, huge, comedy hit. Yeah, I couldn't be more lucky. I can't believe it. I mean, that's like my first time on set. Like, that's the first time I was ever had like a professional acting job. And I haven't even done like a commercial. So hacks for people who are not caught up on it. It centers on this old school Vegas headliner comedian named Dipper Vance, played by the amazing, truly amazing, Gene Smart, who hires a 20-something comedian named Ava, played by Hannah Eindner. to kind of punch up her act and be her assistant.

You play Kayla, who is an essential part of the show. Can you describe who Kayla is? Yeah, so Kayla is, so Ava has this manager, and Kayla is the manager's assistant, and she's a bad assistant. Kayla, what is in this coffee? Half and half in sugar. Well, Splenda.

Okay. A couple of Splendos. That's not sugar. It's all chemical. and I take natural sugar. Yeah. Brain, F-R-T. All right.

Is your fun ringing or something? I don't know. Let's find out. She's kind of party fashionista, silly, rich girl whose dad owns the company, so she has this privilege and power. Hi. Hello.

Daddy, that work. So, how's my baby girl doing? She's unbelievable. Really special. Special. She kind of sees Jimmy as they're kind of like equals, even though Jimmy is her boss. But I think she sees them as like co-workers.

And she kind of lives in her own world and doesn't even realize how privileged she is. Yeah, she's what the internet would now call a nepo baby. Yes. And yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Hax is very much about this general, this generational divide in comedy with Deborah Vance representing the kind of old school punchline heavy Joan Rivers School of Comedy.

and then Ava is the kind of less crowd-pleasing, more jagged, millennial, Gen Z kind of comedy. I'm curious if you see your own work in those terms, if you feel like you're on one side or the other of that divide. My hope is always that my stuff can be understood by people of all ages. I feel like I draw a lot from like kind of older comedians anyway, like kind of like an, a more. a sort of like one woman show in the 80s. Right. Like, I don't know, like an older woman doing like a Vegas-style, like, one-woman show is kind of like my inspiration. I like performing for people that, like, I don't know.

I at least I like to hope that people of all ages can be on the inside of the joke. I mean, I love hacks because I feel like there's something for everyone in the show. You know, and I think, like, I mean, Paul was saying a lot that, a lot of times people tell him like, oh, this is like the show I can watch with my mom and like she loves it too. Because I think any sort of, I don't know, comedy is so subjective, but any sort of art that's like not including or alienating a huge group of people is, I just would rather not. I would rather not alienate any age group or like type of person. And I feel like Hax is something that people of all ages and, like, gender would be into because there's something kind of for everyone in it. How did you start performing?

Was there a kind of spark where you felt, oh, I have to be on that stage? Yeah, I really never remember not wanting to perform. I can't ever remember a time I wasn't making videos. Like when I was little, we always liked making videos, me and my siblings and my cousins. and anytime there was a talent show or a Christmas pageant, I'd be desperate to be in it. I remember my choir teacher gave me a solo for the Christmas pageant, and I just practiced the song over and over and over again.

It was just probably two lines of the solo, but I was so like, oh, my God, I just really needed to be on stage. But I do think that I've always been sort of weird, freaky, silly. I definitely didn't fit it in high school, you know, besides like drama club. And I auditioned for everything and I would like research the role

and I would get like, you know, prepare a lot. And I never got the parts that I wanted, probably ever. But I did play Helen Keller's mom in The Miracle Worker. And I didn't even get that part. I was an understudy and then they let me have it because the lead dropped out or something. Really? Yeah.

So I, but that was probably my shining role like she had lines at least. But after high school, I did think like, I mean, I didn't have any money saved to move to L.A. or New York. And we don't, you know, we don't come from money. And I just, like, went to college, like, different community college programs. And all I really wanted to do was perform. But I just couldn't even see a way. But then finally, like, after trying a bunch of different things, like, teaching, nursing, like missions, church work. Like, I did Bible school. You did? Yeah, I was really involved in my church. And I was like, Well, if I can't do what I really want to do, then maybe God wants me to, like, choose something that's, like, you know, like helpful, but a job where I know I can make money after college. So pre-pandemic, what was your life like? Can you just kind of describe what you were doing, what your state of your career, of your life, where you were living? What was going on? Yeah, I had just moved to New York, like six or seven months before the pandemic. And I was having the time of my life, like, on different shows every night.

And it was like, I was like, oh, this is the dream. This is the New York dream. And I think that's when I first started getting any sort of traction online. I do remember right before the pandemic, my first couple videos that had ever gone, not viral, but like a lot of people were watching it more than normal for me. and I think one video was I was playing like it was like woman in the movie

who almost hooks up with the lead before he goes off to find his real true love or something like that and it was like Oh I remember that one Tim we don't have to do this you're a good guy

and you're in love with somebody and it's not me so go get her I'll be okay I have blonde hair I'm fine. Go get her. And I was like, oh my God. Like, wow, I'm really doing it.

I'm in New York and I'm doing these shows at night and I'm like, people are watching my stuff online. But then I think the real attention came with the pandemic. It really changed everything and it was not focusing on trying to get people to see it, to be honest. Like, I just was doing these really crazy themed Instagram lives every night because I was so alone and I was like, this is a fun way to feel like connected. Or even, like, posting stuff, I'm like, oh, this is like a creative outlet because we can't perform live right now.

And it was really scary and sad for me. So I was just trying to stay afloat. I was just trying to, like, not lose my mind. It was just, it was so scary. But then, like, things were happening for me, too. Yeah, yeah. It's this weird combination of, like, a horrible moment for the world. Good time for Meg's career.

I want to look at one of the videos that. went really viral during the pandemic. This was from June of 2021. It was a video for Pride Month. Hi, Gay. Happy Pride Month. We are sashaying away with deals. This month at the Butter Shop,

we're running a special deal. If you can prove that you're queer, you get three pints off your choice of creamed, checked or drowned butter. We love gay. And it's awesome. That video, it was like, I literally was like rushing out the door. It was Pride Month and I've just seen so many ads just from places that would never normally do like a pride thing.

And it just was like, I don't know, something clicked where it was like, God, that would be so funny. We've been making butter since 1945 and we've been accepting all people since the last four months. So yeah, we're gagging for you to come take a taste of Cecily's butter chop at Cecily's. Butter Shop. My friend's mom, I think, is gay. So we think it's cool. I mean, it's obviously a great satire of how companies co-op the language of pride to sell products during June. But to me, what's so funny about it is that it's more than that. It's like you see this character who's just so unused to being on camera, just kind of trying and failing to be presentable. And and pull this off.

So the whole thing I'm reading off the computer. So all of what I said was written, but I think it was, I normally do like to improv with the videos, but that one I was like, it'd be funny if it looks scripted and looks like I'm reading off a script. I think what I'm like drawn to

when I'm people watching or getting inspired to do like a character is people that are really fully themselves, like out loud. They're different than everyone else, but they are like so, themselves that it doesn't matter what other people think of them. Well, there's something about your characters that they sort of like represent the breadth of American idiocy.

Like, there's this one video I love where you play a woman in her car who has just been to Starbucks and is so outraged. And I'm stopped riding my tracks. And, yeah, she goes, yeah, happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. That's what we're saying. And she goes, yeah, happy spooky season. I say, oh, well, the only thing spooky to me is the fact that y'all are,

are celebrating the most wicked holiday. And yet when I come over here in December 11th, when I come over here, December 24th for my, you know, Christmas Eve drink, all I hear is, all I get is, happy holiday. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. We're neutral. We're neutral.

Happy holidays. And of course, like, we all have followed these people who get outraged about the war on Christmas or whatever. And in a way, online culture has just opened up every, has made everyone a kind of on-camera performer. And you do really capture the sense that so many people are performing for the camera nowadays who just kind of aren't up for it. You can see them trying and kind of failing.

It's like we're all performers now. Right. Everyone feels this pressure. Everybody wants to be famous or go viral. And it's so it's fun to make fun of and to explore like why do people feel that way. Why do people feel the pressure to do that? That's what's so funny about these front-facing video characters because, like, that video a lot of people thought was real.

Really? Really? Yeah, like, I think the – my favorite characters to watch are people that feel real. Like, even if they're not – like, bonkers. They just feel like, oh, well, I know that woman. Like, that church woman, even though she was saying crazy things about the Starbucks employee and celebrating Halloween, she's so real. what kind of things were people saying on Twitter who thought it was real?

People were upset with her, this character, and was, you know, saying, like, the whole, like, you know, wow, like, I don't think a Christian should be yelling at a priest or, like, you're not the real kind of Christian or, like, you know, I don't think God would like that. And the other thing is I really like the low quality of the videos because it almost feels like the person's even more real because it's like they filmed with themselves. And when you, the fun thing is about, is like you can prank people because people don't, if they don't follow you, there's so much of that content now online that yours kind of just you can put yours up and people think you're serious. And that's really a part of the joke for me. Megan Stalter spoke with the New Yorkers Michael Shulman. You can see her in hacks.

And the new series, Queer as Folk, a reboot, which premieres in June. You can read Michael Shulman at New Yorker.com. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. more to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Helen Rosner. I'm a staff writer at The New Yorker, and I mostly write about food and cooking and chefs and cookbooks and things like that.

For a foodie like Helen Rosner, Heaven is spending the day in the kitchen with another serious cook. Hi! Hi, it's so good to see you. Learning new dishes and techniques and talking about their favorite subject, even or especially when the conversation is just not fit for broadcast. I was asked a, I don't know how much I could swear here, fuck Mary kill pasta rice bread.

Oh my God. I know my answers. I'm very curious about yours. That's really hard. It's so hard. Okay. I think I fuck pasta. Fully.

Fully. We are fully fucking pasta. Can we just like sacrificial to kill potatoes and keep both bread? rice and bread. Look at you going rogue and bringing in potatoes. Like me, potatoes coming in me like, wait, I wasn't even a part of this narrative. What is happening here? Recently, Helen went to visit Andy Baragani at his home in Brookhaven, New York.

I met Andy Baragani a decade ago when we were working at the same food magazine. Even back then, Andy had had a pretty impressive career. He'd cooked at Shea Ponnis in high school. That's Alice Waters' famous restaurant in Berkeley, California. But you might know Andy from Bon Appetit's YouTube channel, where he brought his personality, his flair to every video and dish that he made. Growing up the gay Iranian-American kid in California who watched Jacques Pepin and Julia Child and Martin Yan on TV, Andy had no idea where his blossoming love of food would take him.

He's recently published his first cookbook. It's called The Cook You Want to Be, and it's explosive, but maybe not in the way you'd think. Andy fills the pages with tiny changes, little tricks, tiny adjustments, small lessons that transform your cooking from everyday home cooking to really restaurant-level dazzle. It's like adding lemon zest to your breadcrumbs, which gives them acidic and floral notes that totally changes the game. When you watch Andy Cook, you also kind of want a pencil and pad right next to you so you can jot down little notes about every little thing he does. So where did this book begin for you? When did you start writing this?

Because you've been cooking professionally for like 20 years or 15 years. 15 years, yeah. The book was actually had a different name for a moment. It was the cook I want to be. And the book was going to be that much more personal, kind of taking on, telling all the stories throughout my life. And while there are definitely still personal essays, I changed the eye to you.

I wanted to bring in the reader. I wanted to extend a hand. And I didn't want it to just be about what I've gone through. I wanted to kind of pass those stories and those lessons to the reader so that to empower them. And so that hopefully they could find out the cook they want to be. I love the way that you approach sauces in this cookbook. I'd love to talk to you about that a little bit too. Oh, yes.

You open, one of the first sections in the book is just a collection of all-purpose sauces, and they're not what I would expect to see in a collection of all-purpose sauces, where you might expect to see, well, like, here's your marinera and here's your pesto, but instead you open with like this shocking lemon and shallot vinaigrette, and you don't even suggest putting it on a salad. You suggest using it on top of grilled vegetables or roasted meats. Yes, I think it's really, when you have a pantry full of great sauces or toppings or sprinkles, it elevates the dish. You don't need to do much to the dish. You can roast some vegetables, and if you have a good sauce, it kind of ties it all together. There's a section for tangy things, which is called a hit of acid, creamy sauces, green sauces, crunchy toppings, fiery, sauces that are, to add some heat. I think it's, it's always helps to have a few sauces in your back pocket. Are there any lessons or tricks or recipes or ingredient pairings in the book that were revelations to you that you learned from someone or that you discovered and that just sort of

made your eyebrows shoot up and you went, oh my God, this is it? Oh my God. Now my, my Rolodex is going through. Oh, that I, that I, I rarely want to roast pistachios because it dries them out or removes their freshness, and I want that tender, creamy inside, so I leave them raw. Or I take my Panko breadcrumbs, which you'll see later today, to the point where they're just almost burnt, but I don't burn them because I want that deep, toasty nuttiness from them. To cook your seeds and nuts in fat, so you have this beautifully fat, a fat toasted nut, but then that scented leftover fat as well.

I don't even know. Always save your pasta water. There's so many things. There are too many things. So now that you've gotten to know Andy a little bit, let's cook. What are we making today? So today we're making this cauliflower ragu with lemony breadcrumbs. And it doesn't have a lot of ingredients, but it has a lot of flavor.

And it kind of mimics the texture and flavor of a bonnese, but without the meat. So we're here in the kitchen. And on this electric stove, you have two big pots. One is slightly taller and more narrow, and one is slightly wider and shorter. What are these two big pots for? I have two pots set up, which I am a firm believer in for pasta. If you're cooking for four people and you're cooking anything more than 12 ounces of pasta, you have to have a two-pots set up.

What that means is you have a pot of boiling water for your pasta and then a pot for your sauce and where your pasta will eventually end up and finish. Not a skillet, but a pot. No, even a very large skillet or a large skillet with the high sides, it still, to me, doesn't do the trick because there's too much going on and the pasta will get messy.

The sauce will go all over. You want a large pot, I'm telling you. It is a game. changer, I promise. So we're just heating some oil up in the same pot where you're going to make the sauce. Heat that up over medium, medium high heat. You'll be adjusting the heat if it goes too hot. And then you're adding half a cup of Panko Japanese breadcrumbs.

And you're just going to let that sizzle and toast. And you'll see how it'll gradually change from this kind of pale, just almost off white color to golden, to then this like deeply, deeply, toasty, crunchy, um, uh, breadcrum.

It happened. They totally just crossed the line. See? They meaningfully got darker. Right there. It's like takes it. And people really would pool like 20 seconds before, but this is,

I think, where it makes all the difference. So, dicing the cauliflower. Yes. So you're taking a whole head of cauliflower. And if you have a food processor, you could just remove the florets and,

and throw in the stems and just pulse it until you kind of get these kind of bitsy pieces. They don't need to be even. You want that kind of irregularity here. And it's bigger than cauliflower rice. It's not like teeny tiny little grains. Definitely. They're like chunks. Small chunks.

And then you'll sit that aside. A little bit of prep work, slice in the onions, slice one red onion. And then quite a bit of garlic. So sauce pot. So sauce pot, you're just heating up more oil up. And then once that's hot, I add the thinly sliced onion and garlic. You take the onions in this step a lot farther than I feel like I'm used to taking my onions when I'm making a pasta sauce. Like, really, like, they're browning on the edges.

We don't want these onions to be blonde and juicy and soft or jammy. You want them frizzled and brown in spots and that kind of come in anchovies. which, you know, you can omit. You don't have to put it in, but I... I don't think we should even give people that option. Okay, I take that back. You can't, you have to use them. I'm sorry, everybody.

They add so much. They're essential. It fools the people who are tasting it that are not to cook, that it's been cooking for a long, long time. And then I add half a cup of tomato paste. It really does get incredibly dry in the pan. When you just have this deep, dark, brick-red, onion, garlic, tomato jam.

And I'll say, like, you'll be very tempted to add more oil because the pot will look dry. And you'll see how the tomato paste is beginning to stain some of the oil, but don't. That's when you kind of add the cauliflower. And then you're going to add your pasta that to the pot that has not cooked all the way. It'll be a little bit too crunchy, but you'll add that pasta and a good amount of pasta water.

I always save my pasta water, but I'll start with a cup, cup and a half, which is a lot. But because your sauce is not really a loose sauce, it's a paste. So you add your pasta, your pasta water. They're not two separate things. It's not pasta and sauce. They need to marry and come together. And this is where it's essential to kind of. take the time. It's gradual.

And then we throw in the butter to kind of add that another layer of fat. Oh, wow. And that takes it to really another level because the sauce has so many things going on. Even with a few ingredients, it's garlicky, it's onion-y, it has all that anchovy flavor. It's spicy. It's tangy from the tomato. And the butter kind of soothes everything and allows really all those ingredients to kind of shine and come through and stop fighting. another. And then you just plate it up in bowls and you have that toasty

lemony breadcrumbs and I am a big fan of carbs on top of carbs. I love it. How do you feel about people who add red pepper flakes as a finishing spice? I don't understand it. I'm very confused because most red pepper flakes are just have no heat to them. They need to kind of come back to life. I feel like they've been living in the aisles, depressed, sad, and just they need to be always. They need to be over. awaken and they need that heat and that fat to kind of come alive. And if you just sprinkle on it, it also tends to be too coarse. So if you're sprinkling it to finish, I would grind it up at least. Not with your fingers, but really get in there with the mortar and pestle.

Andy Baragani is the author of The Cook You Want to Be. And he spoke with the New Yorkers, Helen Rosner. And that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. If you're making the cauliflower ragu, don't burn the breadcrums. and let us know how it goes. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado.

This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Ave Carrillo, Brita Green, Cala Leah, David Krasnow, Gofen and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, with help from Alison McAdam, Harris and Keith Line, and Mung Faye Chen, and guidance from Emily team. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.