The Tim Ferriss Show - #339: Samin Nosrat — Master Creative, Master Teacher

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Starting point is 00:00:32 recommended it in the 4-Hour Body, did not get paid for that. And I travel with it to avoid getting sick. I take it in the mornings to ensure optimal performance. It just covers all my bases. If I can't get what I need through whole food meals throughout the rest of the day. If you want to give athletic greens to try, they are offering a free 20 count travel pack for first time users. I always travel with at least three or four of these. This represents a $100 value. So if you buy athletic greens, you get an extra $100 in free product. So check it out, athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim for your free travel pack with any purchase.

Starting point is 00:01:15 This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks has become the go-to cloud accounting software for literally millions of small business owners who found a faster, more efficient, and much less stressful way to deal with their numbers. And ultimately, this helps you to focus on what you are best at. It is used by many of the fastest growing startups I've invested in or advise, and it's equally used by many of the best freelancers I work with on a daily or weekly basis. It is one of the easiest ways to send invoices, get paid, track your time, and track your clients. If you're self-employed and managing business sometimes means wrestling with spreadsheets, crumpled receipts, and other scattered pieces, FreshBooks can really help.

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Starting point is 00:02:31 almost no learning curve. So in short, it's easy. It saves you time. And right now, FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for all of my listeners. To claim yours, check it out. Go to freshbooks.com forward slash Tim and enter Tim Ferriss in the How Did You Hear About Us section. And that is funky spell T-I-M-F-E-R-R-I-S-S. So again, go to freshbooks.com forward slash Tim and enter Tim Ferriss in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Check it out. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim How Did You Hear About Us section. Check it out. and so on that you can use. And that last little bit was some heavy foreshadowing for this episode. My guest today is Samin Nosrat. You can find her at Chow Samin, C-I-A-O, at Chow Samin on Instagram and Twitter, Facebook, forward slash Samin.Nosrat. And the website is saltfatacidheat.com, which we'll be getting into. And Samin is amazing. She is a writer, a chef,

Starting point is 00:03:47 and a teacher in my mind, first and foremost, absolutely masterful teacher and excellent at turning complexity into simplicity. Her New York Times bestselling first book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, received the James Beard Award. That's like the Oscars best picture for best general cookbook and was named cookbook of the year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. But this episode is about so much more than just cooking. It is about the creative process. It is about creative highs, creative lows, pushing through, rejection, you name it. It's very, very vulnerable. If you liked the Brandon Stanton episode, you are going to love this episode.

Starting point is 00:04:26 And it covers some heavy stuff, some really important stuff. But back to the bio. Samin has been called, quote, the next Julia Child, end quote, by NPR's All Things Considered. And she has been cooking professionally since 2000, when she first stumbled into the kitchen at blank, blank, blank. We're going to cover what that blank, blank, blank is. An iconic restaurant that no doubt you've heard of. And what an amazing Genesis story it is. An EAT columnist for the New York Times Magazine. Samin lives, cooks, reads, and gardens in Berkeley, California. Her latest project is absolutely gorgeous. It is a Netflix original documentary series that may sound familiar, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, same title as the book, produced by Jigsaw Productions. And I heavily,

Starting point is 00:05:14 heavily recommend that you check it out. It is absolutely gorgeous. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix. So without further ado, please enjoy this very wide-ranging, very vulnerable, and to my mind, very important conversation with Samin Nosrat. Samin, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Tim. And I know that people are going to say, wait a second, he just mispronounced her name. And I want them to know that I double and triple checked it with you beforehand. A lot of people say Samin because that would be English friendly.

Starting point is 00:05:52 But the correct pronunciation of your full name is what? It's Samin, yeah. You've graduated past the appropriate American pronunciation into... You're going for true Persian right now, so it's good. Going for Farsi, you know? I will get there. I will get there. I will get there. And I struggled with deciding where to begin topically this conversation, but one thing really jumped out at me, and I wanted to begin there since I like to follow my interest,

Starting point is 00:06:20 and that is the Manifestation Journal. Can you tell me about your Manifestation Journal? I'm so happy you're asking about this. So, I don't know where the idea for my Manifestation Journal came from. I think it may have been like a self-help blog in approximately 2008. But it's just a notebook that I bought in an art supply store. It's just a sketchbook. And I just decided to start writing down the things that I envisioned for my life, whether they were really big and I would ever be too embarrassed to articulate them to anyone, or whether they were really little. And I tried, I sort of knew initially that I should be as

Starting point is 00:07:05 specific as possible. And what's pretty bananas is sometimes I'll misplace the journal, like it'll slide under my bed and I'll forget about it for, I don't know, six months or something. And then I'll pull it out. I think at one point I lost it for about two years and I'll pull it out and I'll look and I'll be like, oh my gosh, like, word for word, so many of these things have happened, you know, and I think, and there are also many things in there that have not come true yet. Or, like, maybe I was misguided and I changed and goals shifted. But it is really sort of mind blowing to go back and look at how specific goals sort of come to life when you plant a seed. You achieve things when you plant a seed and you're really clear about it. And I've always known that and I've always really adhered to that. And so, it's just one little practice that I have. At this point, I like to

Starting point is 00:07:57 look at it around my birthday and around the new year. Those are sort of the two times of year that I pretty diligently will check in and write into it. But it's not a big thing that I do all the time, but it is really incredible, especially as I've started to sort of achieve bigger goals in my career to go back and look at it and say, wow, I wanted always to write for this publication and now I am. Or I really specifically wanted a book deal with a certain amount of money, and I achieved it. And it's, yeah. Well, I have so many follow-up questions, because I'm a nerd when it comes to journaling and notebooks. And it's something that comes up a fair amount in this podcast. From a profile in the California Sunday magazine uh this was discussed in a few lines and when the the interviewer in this case flipped through the notebook which i'm jealous

Starting point is 00:08:51 of immediately it it gave a few examples as next in quote next to small candid instructions to herself example chin hairs under control exclamation point and general life in parentheses, bay leaf pinata, exclamation point. I'm not sure what that is, but that's okay. We'll come back to that. There were goals that I found striking in their precision. Go to Italy, write and publish at least one story in print, start writing her first book. Those were dated 2008 and all have come true. So my question is, do you still use the journal? If so, generally speaking, say from 2008 forward, how frequently do you write in the journal?

Starting point is 00:09:34 And then what does the review process look like? I do still use it. I probably write in it two or three times a year. And I also probably look at it two or three times a year. And it's a treat to look at it. Now it's become this amazing treat where I get to go back and see, did something happen? You know, did I achieve something or did some thought or notion that I had had at some time come true? And it really is. And often it's a nice thing to sort of help me refocus where I'm headed. I feel like with my career, in a lot of ways, it's had a really, what's the word I was going to say, like, amorphous shape.

Starting point is 00:10:20 There has not been one super clear goal or one super clear path that I can model my career on. There aren't a lot of other writer, chef, teacher, you know, often people are just write about food or just cook or just teach. And so I have done all those things and more, and I've always just followed my gut. And that can be really overwhelming because I get really distracted quite easily by shiny objects, you know, or like a lot of money or the opportunity to work with somebody or make a decision because of I'm worried what will happen if I say no. And so I feel like the clearer I am about what I do want to do, the more easily I can say no or just make better decisions about where I'm headed. So even just a couple times a year, having like a little bit of quiet time, and usually I'll

Starting point is 00:11:13 pick up the thing a couple days before my birthday and start thinking about like what I've done in the past year, where, you know, good choices I've made, bad choices I've made. And yeah, it sort of is a nice sort of personal check-in. I don't know. There's a million names for these things. I don't know why I wrote Manifestation Journal, but it really is that. It's also just like a journal. I don't... Yeah. And when you look at a page, is it date and then under that, just a series of bullets for things that you hope to achieve? Basically, yeah. I mean, if I were a little more organized, there would probably be like some sort of method to the madness. But it's, you know, it started out as bullets. And the other day I was telling somebody, I was reading some of the ones from the very first page

Starting point is 00:12:06 for someone and then I was saying how oh there's all these things like I don't know um publish four books you know popular well-reviewed books that I'm proud of by good well-known publishing houses and then in at the very bottom in tiny tiny writing writing, like so small, I could barely admit it to myself. And I certainly can't believe I'm about to tell you. But I wrote in the tiniest writing, MacArthur genius grant, like, like, it's so embarrassing. I mean, like, so like, I can't believe it's just so embarrassing. And then, yeah, I wrote I had a page for long term goals. I had a page for what I hoped to do that year ideas. Oh, there's the Bayleaf pinata, yeah, I wrote, I had a page for long-term goals. I had a page for what I hoped to do that year, ideas. There's the Bayleaf pinata, which was, I wanted to make a pinata that was covered instead of with crepe paper with Bayleaf. So when you hit it with a baseball bat, it smells really good.

Starting point is 00:12:56 And we did it. We did it. My 30th birthday. So if you're looking at this journal, picking it up three times a year, you're visiting it two or three times a year. Is the importance then that you're planting a seed in your subconscious that will somehow very subtly direct your choices in a different fashion? I know that a number of people have been on this podcast. My friend Josh Waitzkin, who's the basis for Searching for Bobby Fisher, Reid Hoffman, do quite a bit of intention setting or journaling either right before bed or first thing upon waking up, which has that flavor to it.

Starting point is 00:13:53 But why do you think this has had an impact in your life if it has had an impact? I definitely think this lines up with the idea of planting a seed in my subconscious and also helping me remain accountable to myself. And then I also have all manner of other intention setting and goal making and list making just at my office above my desk. I have lists of – actually, it's funny. I had a list of interviews I would like to do and yours was on the list. And so I looked at that list. I looked at that list every day. I went to work and sat at my computer,

Starting point is 00:14:29 there's a list right next to that of maybe projects I would like to do, right? And then right next to that is a list of collaborators I would like to have, you know, and there's people on there like wildly, I sort of just stopped being embarrassed at some point about having what seemed wildly unachievable dreams. Or, you know, I put Issa Rae and Ava DuVernay on that list. Do I know them? Is there any possibility that, you know, I don't know. Like, what do I know? I just put them on there because they're people I would like to maybe work with whose work I respect.

Starting point is 00:14:59 And so, there is, I just had to stop being afraid that someone would come into my office and see that and judge me, you know, like, what is this? And so, for a while, when I first started writing the book, I wrote, visualize Oprah's book club, and I had that on a post-it note above my desk for years. And then Oprah's book club ended. And also, I don't think she puts cookbooks on. But, you know, I've never dared, I wouldn't say I've ever been embarrassed to dream big. And I think the better I have gotten at articulating my dreams in words, and then really just being mindful of them, and whether it means coming back to them once or twice a year, or looking at them every day. I do feel like it makes a difference and it helps me stay on track. And then if I look at that list and after a while some goal or some name or some idea doesn't feel right anymore, I can cross it off. I don't know. It's a nice thing, especially when I'm in the sort of rock bottom part of the creative process,

Starting point is 00:16:08 where you're just sort of doing the boring stuff. You're doing the accounting. You're doing the terrible writing that's not coming out easily. It's just nice to look up and be like, oh, yes, I am a creative person who has big ideas and sometimes makes things happen. So I don't know, it's not, it's like a little bit of cheerleading for myself, I guess. This is really important. So I want to explore it for a moment. This is going to be very non-chronological. We're going to bounce all over the place. I do have questions about San Diego, but we're going to come to that. First, since you said the rock bottom of the creative process,

Starting point is 00:16:50 so when you are in the rock bottom of the creative process and almost anyone, except for a few mutants here or there who just seem to always operate in the proper gear, but for most people with any large or unfamiliar creative project, there's going to be maybe one rock bottom, maybe many different rock bottom difficult moments. Do you use anything? We're talking about, in some ways, future tense, the things you want to do.

Starting point is 00:17:20 When you are in that rock bottom place, do you use anything from the past, things you've achieved or milestones you've accomplished or anything from the present tense to also help buoy your spirits? Or is it mostly the keeping your eye on the ball that is ahead of you, that future tense that helps you? I think I wish that, I think I need some more therapy and meditation to get to be the kind of person who can feel good about my past accomplishments and let them buoy me to, to buoy me forward. I think I sort of achieve the thing and then I forget about it. Like,

Starting point is 00:18:01 it's even part hard for me when I receive praise. I get so many emails all the time, which are so meaningful in a way. These are maybe the most meaningful kind of feedback that I get is from people who are like, I read your book, and now I cook vegetables for my kids and they eat them, and it tastes good. And that kind of stuff is really, I think, the most powerful for me. But still, there's a way where I'm like, oh, somebody else did that. And it's really hard for me to accept praise or really fully feel in my body pride and happiness at having achieved these goals I have listed on papers all over the place. So, I do a lot of work in therapy and meditation and just like, you know, trying to be better about my body and connecting with my body and feeling that stuff. So, here up until now, I have not historically

Starting point is 00:18:52 used those things to get me through the creative lows. I often, once I do have to sort of keep my eye on the prize. I think in therapy and in just my own life, I have had to do a lot of work in reframing what success means and what it looks like. So that as I work toward quote unquote success, I'm working towards something that will be positive for me rather than also beat me down. Like, I'm a crazy perfectionist child of immigrants who, you know, like, was raised in a family where nothing was ever good enough, nothing I did was ever, like, perfect. You know, it was just, I'm a perfectionist from childhood. And then I entered a profession and in particular, like, began working at an institution, which is run by, like, a at an institution, which is run by like a world class perfectionist. And so, and so nothing that any of us ever did was good enough, which is good, because it keeps us pushing all toward doing better. But I haven't historically

Starting point is 00:19:56 had a lot of like positive feedback and really allowed myself to feel that. So I'm doing a lot of my own work to sort of be proud at the things that I do, whether they're perfect, quote unquote, or just good enough or whatever. And, you know, I had a lot of fear before my book was released that because it was the biggest project that I had ever worked on. It was a lot the longest dream that I had ever worked toward. I had put everything I had into it. And because it took me so long to do, a lot of people, at least I felt the pressure of a lot of people looking at me and at this book, and people were waiting for it. And I knew they were ready to respond in whatever way, right? I didn't know what way. And I have always, you know, like worked for

Starting point is 00:20:44 external praise, and I'm aware of that. And so, I went to therapy and I told my therapist, I said, I'm really worried that when this book comes out that I am going to sort of sink or where whatever the reception is of this thing, I will still be okay and not like break into 1 million pieces? And so he said, well, we, I'll feel totally successful with this. If I know that I've done everything I could possibly do to make it as good as I possibly can. And that means never, you know, being lazy and not doing another revision, or never not doing the research, or never not hiring the fact checker, or never not testing the recipe again, or whatever. And that once I know I've given everything and like, turned every stone, then I will be able to respond to any criticism, I'll be able to accept any praise, because I'll know that I did anything, right? To me, a big, big thing about responding to criticism is, if there's a reason I made a choice, and I can speak to that articulately, then I'm happy to accept criticism, because sometimes it's

Starting point is 00:22:06 just a difference of opinion. But if I felt pressured to do something, or I know that I didn't do my best or whatever, then a lot of times that criticism like really sort of gets me in the gut. And so I really did that work. And I also sort of committed to not reading reviews and sort of, you know, and not reading comments and stuff. And so, I've sort of shielded myself from a lot of stuff. But I have felt generally really safe and strong since the book came out. And it's nice that there's all of this sort of praise or whatever, but I also just feel, yeah, I feel good about what I've done. And I know the ways I could have done it better. And I get to go do more work in the world and try and do that better, you know?

Starting point is 00:22:52 And it's okay. How did your therapist help you? Or how did you put systems in place so that that definition of success would be at the forefront of your mind? I don't know, of course, because I don't have telepathy, but I suspect there had to be some point where you saw, maybe it wasn't a negative review, but maybe just a lukewarm response, or perhaps just some idiot on the internet with a loud voice yelling something or other. And for at least a moment, you were back in your old mindset of looking for external validation, and in this case, not finding it. Did that happen at all? If so,

Starting point is 00:23:36 happens all the time. So yes. How do you take that, I think, very enabling definition of success, and kind of bring it onto the front lines with you? Were there any exercises that you did? Was it speaking to the therapist on a weekly basis? Because this is something I struggle with. I also have historically beaten the hell out of myself for the smallest mistakes and always looked for the things that can be improved rather than the things that were done well. So this is also just selfishly something I'd love to... Tim, I want to give you a hug. It's true. It's true.

Starting point is 00:24:15 I know. It's true. It's true. I mean, I feel you. I don't know why we're wired this way, but we are and it's its own struggle. I absolutely, you know, I still get those emails. One really clear example that I can think of. Oh, here, you know what? This is so epic. So I had two separate fact checkers check my book for science, for the cooking science,

Starting point is 00:24:40 just because I'm not a scientist and I'm sure I got some things wrong. And it turned out I got a bunch of things wrong. And so luckily we caught almost all of them. And in the last minute sort of shuffle to like input all of their changes, I accidentally, what's the word when you I said something positive when I sort of should have used a negative, I inverted the thing. And it ended up being like on the very first page of anything science related in the book, page 29. And it was like the most basic definition of osmosis, right? And I accidentally inverted it and gave the opposite definition, which really sets me up to look like an idiot, you know, for the next 400 pages. And so, and it happened in, and I didn't realize that this had happened until

Starting point is 00:25:30 the very first, the day of publication when like the first Amazon reviews went up. And someone very kindly mentioned it in an Amazon review. And I lost my mind. I was like, this is gonna, you know, because 70,000 books had been printed. I was like, 70,000 people are going to get the wrong information and understand osmosis wrong because of me and, you know, think I'm stupid. And I sort of just was like, everyone, you know, this comes true, my greatest fear that I'm not a brilliant food science person, you know, which I'm not a brilliant food science person, like all of this. And so it really sort of was, and that was really hard for me to let go of and be like, well, I made a mistake. It's a mistake. I tried my best at everything else. There's going to be many more copies of this book. We're going to fix it for the future. And so I sort of was able to work

Starting point is 00:26:22 through the idea that I had made a mistake, you know, and a mistake is totally different than making a bad choice, or I had to forgive myself for making a mistake. And then, so maybe a year after that, I received this really nasty email from somebody who took the time to, you know, and he was a scientist, he's a scientist. And so he took the time to write this really angry email about this mistake. And how if on page 29, it was basically like he actualized the things that I had been so afraid of a year before. And he made it true. He manifested my worst nightmare. And so he wrote me this really mean email about how could this have made it to publication and how lazy was I and my publisher and don't we do fact checking and if this mistake is on page 29, then he couldn't possibly trust able to write back to him and say, listen, you know, this was a mistake. I'm sorry for this mistake. We've remedied it since in future

Starting point is 00:27:31 printings. And I really hope that the next time you make a mistake, people treat you with more compassion than you just treated me, you know? And so, and then he wrote back, he actually wrote back and he was super sorry, but it was just, you know, that he took, it was, it came on like the official letterhead of his university. Jeez. It was a whole thing. And so, that was a good practice for me to sort of understand the cycle of this thing, you know? And, you know, of course I'm going to beat myself up, but like, then what do I do right after that? And so how do I reframe it? And like, often what I like to do is think about how I treat somebody else, or how I would talk to a friend of mine who made a mistake, such a mistake, or got received such criticism. And I would always be way nicer to anyone else. So I'm trying my hardest to treat myself like that now too, but that's easier said than done. It is easier said than done, but it's, it's, I think it gets easier with the, the addition of

Starting point is 00:28:37 examples like that and people hearing that so that they don't feel quite as alone a but also be enabled in the sense because they see that it can be improved uh and i have to i have to share one one book story because it's it's uh it's not entirely dissimilar but i don't i don't know if i've shared it before i just feel compelled because i'm over caffeinated which is i remember when my my first book so the four-hour work week is getting printed, and I'm going to get my first real copy. And I come home from lunch at one point, and there's this thick, yellow, padded envelope that has been shipped to my house. It's on the doorstep, and I pick it up, and I know it's the book. And what I said to myself, I did not open it. I said to myself, I know when I open this book, I'm going to find a typo and I need to prepare for that typo. So I waited all day until

Starting point is 00:29:37 like 7pm, like poured a glass of wine, like sat at my kitchen table and opened this book. And then right in the fucking dedication huge typo like first like even before we get to the front matter i'm like you have to be fucking kidding me i'm glad i have my wine but and at that point the same thing you're like okay there are however many tens of thousands of these floating around and people are going to open it before they even get to my first paragraph of prose, I'd be like, what? Oh, my God. What a feeling. Oh, man. I mean, it still gets me. I mean, I write a column for the Times Magazine where, you know, it goes through two editors, at least a fact checker and a copy editor,

Starting point is 00:30:24 and still mistakes get through, you know, and people really take the time to write to me about grammatical errors. And so, and so I just, and it always, I have a little punch in my gut and then I'm just like, well, it was a mistake. You know, I, I, I have had, I'm getting better. One small way in which I'm getting better at being nicer to myself is letting go of mistakes. And it is, I do think it's really funny for people like me and you, when we're literally faced with them on the very first page. Like, it's just a good reminder, you know, no one's perfect. Yeah, no matter what, like every single time you have a piece of writing that is important to you, there will be some error that I think has, has like a consciousness of its own and just wills itself through all of the copy editors

Starting point is 00:31:06 to make its way into, into print. But so it goes. Have you found any particular, I've, and I'm not proud of this, but I've never gone to therapy. Uh, I've, I've, I've actually had a few sessions here and there, but really something like three or four sessions over the course of my life. And I never took to it. Have you found any particular type of therapy to be helpful for you? I love my therapist. He's the only one I just like is, I'm just really highly anxious and highly, you know, kind of neurotic. I googled his name a whole bunch of times before I went to go see him. And after I started seeing him to try and figure out as much information about him and the kind of therapy that he practices as possible. He's definitely an old school therapist. There's no information on the internet about him. So, I actually don't even really know. I've asked him so many times and

Starting point is 00:32:14 he's really evasive about the specific kinds of things because he incorporates, I think, so many different types of methods into his work. And even in, we've been together, I think almost, almost maybe not quite 10 years yet, but he's changed a lot. I can tell that he's going out and learning and the things that he focuses on change a lot. So, very frustratingly to me for a really long time, his answer to almost anything I would say would be like, and how do you feel in your body? And I was like, I don't want to talk about how I feel in my body. I want you to tell me what to do. Like, what's a solution? And so, but it's like over many years, he has trained me to really be attuned to my feelings in my body, which I think that's a lot of somatic work. And I think technically what he does is CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy.

Starting point is 00:33:08 And so, that's sort of the larger framework. And then within that, we do a lot of meditation and a lot of this somatic work. And I feel like for somebody like me, who is so much in my head, and so much about action, it is such a nice practice and such a great gift to myself to have this place where I go once a week where I am just led back into my body and into my feelings and have trained myself to really be aware of my feelings and not just my thoughts. I think for, yeah, and so I'm so grateful to him and to this work for that. This is something that's top of mind for me, because a friend of mine just came back, I want to say about a month ago, from a Goenka Vipassana meditation retreat. And I've never gone to a Goenka meditation retreat,

Starting point is 00:34:07 but it seemed, at least in his experience, to focus almost, if not completely, exclusively on bodily sensations. You're not following your thoughts. You're always returning to focusing on these different bodily sensations. And I'd love to hear if you're willing, because I do think this is very important for me and,

Starting point is 00:34:31 and potentially for a lot of people listening, how this somatic awareness, this reconnecting to the body and the feelings ends up translating to your life, right? So whether it's, whether it's, could you give an example situation? I absolutely can, for sure. So, well, and this, Tim, it's so crazy because this is not that different of a conversation than where we started with the Manifestation Journal, to be honest. So, I have always been a really gut-led person, intuitive person, and especially in my career where I'm making decisions about, well, it doesn professional pickle or personal pickle, it's often because I ignored that gut feeling, that gut voice. And so, what this work teaches me to do is I'm basically just strengthening the muscle of that gut feeling, you know, and sometimes it's not just my gut, it's sometimes my heart feeling. But I'm teaching myself to listen to the to like, really, like quiet, everything else, really, as much as possible, quiet my mind and all the things telling me,

Starting point is 00:35:56 well, you should do this, or there was this much money, or shouldn't you do this thing, because then you would get to be on a, you know, billboard with so and so or whatever, you know, all these other reasons, it sort of gets rid of the reasoning and it helps me listen to my heart and my gut. So, let me think of an example that recently happened. Well, here. Here's a... Pete And you could disguise details to protect the guilty. No, I'm just, I'm trying to, no, no. I mean, there are, I'm just trying, there, like, I have a friend who recently, so I have been, I've been in a lot of emotional pain for the last several months.

Starting point is 00:36:36 I've been in a really sort of just my own life and things that I feel responsible for in terms of ways that I've participated in sort of, I don't know, systems that have put me down, you know, as like a immigrant kid with a funny name and sort of I had made decisions to maybe if I just achieve enough that people won't notice that I'm different and then they'll accept me. There's been a lot of that in my life of like, let me infiltrate this elite institution and make my way to the top and then there will be no way that anyone can deny that I belong here. So, that's sort of been looking back at my life, that's been the pattern of everything that I've done. And I am sort of reckoning with what that's meant for me and how I want to continue moving forward. And there's a lot of pain in that for me. So I've been really down and a lot of my friends can really tell that. And to the point where a lot of them started checking in on me, like via the phone, via text, via email. And I didn't know why a lot of people were checking in on me because I just have been

Starting point is 00:37:49 in such sort of rage and pain. And I've had this boulder of anger and sadness and hurt in my chest. And about a month ago, I went to go talk to a friend who reached out to me and she said, please come talk to me. Like, I want to talk to you about this. I'm worried about you. I'm worried that you don't have the kind of supportive, deeply mutually supportive relationships in your life that will support you through this and also through all of the stuff that's coming your way with this show coming out and all this kind of stuff. So I went there and I thought she was going to give me a hug and tell me how much she loves me and tell me how great I am and I deserve all this great friendship or whatever. And she actually sat me down and she said, you know, these are these ways in which you've been letting down me, you've been letting down the people around you. And I know that you're

Starting point is 00:38:41 in pain because you feel really lonely and separate from us, but you're actually doing it to yourself. And so, if you can work on some of this stuff, I think it will not only improve your relationships, but you'll feel better. And I mean, I was not – it was a real intense come to Jesus. We were standing on the side of the – like on the corner of the street in San Francisco and crying. We were both crying for like two hours. It was really intense. And I did not expect it at all. And, you know, and she said all this stuff and my immediate reaction was to be really defensive. And then as soon as I started to form the defensive sentences, but this, but that, I realized like, well, it doesn't even matter because her experience of me isn't,

Starting point is 00:39:27 has nothing to do with my reasons for why I have not been there for her in this way or that way. So I just sort of like deflated and I looked at her and I said, well, what do I do? Like, how do I be better for us, for you, for me, for our friends? And so she told me and she said, later she said, I can't believe you didn't even have a single defensive reaction. Like it was, I was really prepared for that. And it was really amazing that you did it. So we had this very intense sort of three hours together where we unpacked all of this stuff. And I asked her what I could do. She gave me a whole list of basic ways in which I could be a better friend. And, and ultimately, I felt very loved because I think it's really hard to tell somebody, you know, have those hard talks. So, I felt really loved and cared for by the fact that she took the

Starting point is 00:40:13 time and the energy and set the intention of setting me straight in these things. And as I was driving home, I got back into my car and I had this, I sat and I buckled the safety, I think when I buckled the safety belt and it went across my chest, I realized that this pain, that this boulder of pain that has been in my chest probably at least since December, you know, six or seven or eight months, was gone. And it wasn't that I felt so great all of a sudden, but this rock that has been weighing down every breath was no longer there. And it sort of maybe had been broken up and dispersed into my body. And I woke up the next morning and I cried. I mean, I was still really upset about receiving this sort of very difficult feedback. But I also realized I felt really

Starting point is 00:41:13 empowered because she, you know, so much of my pain has been about a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling that like, there are so many things going on in the world that I have no power to change or improve. And this, she gave me something I could do something about. And not only could I do something about it, but I could make my life better and my friends' lives better in the process. And so, I think having power and feeling the, you know, very strong and pure love of my friend really helped to dissolve this bad feeling. And this is not to say, like, my depression has lifted. I suddenly feel so much better. But I will say there was a marked difference, a marked immediate difference. And everyone who I'm around is like,

Starting point is 00:42:05 wow, you're so much lighter. And I really do feel a lot lighter. So I don't know if that was really clear for you. But it's, it's, I think this is important territory to explore. So I appreciate you being game. And we will, we will probably come back to some of this, but I want to make sure that we explore the entire map of the terrain up and down. And you mentioned love a few times. So I thought perhaps if you'd be willing to share, if you could answer the question, when did you first fall in love with food? I mean, was there any particular moment, any particular meal where it just really kind of grabbed you by the collar and made you become as involved or excited about food as you are today? Oh, wow. I don't know. You know, I don't know. Because my mom is such an incredible cook. And it was cooking for us and shopping for us and spending time on food was the primary way that my mom really showed us her love. I think I've always associated

Starting point is 00:43:28 cooking and eating with that feeling of like maternal warmth, you know, and it's what I try to put out into the world. There was, there's, I don't remember eating this, but the story is, I have so many pictures of myself as a little kid and the stories. Also for me now as a cook, there's so many things that I understand about the lengths that my mom went to to make this really delicious and nutritious and culturally meaningful food for us every day and how much work went into that and how much time and labor. And so there's a lot of things that in retrospect I have so much appreciation for her about that I probably just couldn't have ever imagined. But there's this dish that she quote unquote invented called samin polo. And polo just means rice. And so – and it was I think the food she fed me when I was teething, you know, and it was this like mushy, right? It was long, like basmati rice with like really soft pieces of potato and tomato and chicken.

Starting point is 00:44:31 And so it was just all these like, you know, typical kid foods, but really, really soft so that you could eat them even if you didn't have teeth. And I would eat that with yogurt and I loved I've had. And there's the one that sort of led me to become a cook that was, I think, really important in the story and in the timeline. But very rarely is a meal for me about the food. It's almost always about what happens at the table, you know, and the conversations and the feelings and all that kind of stuff. So I think, yeah, for me, like, yeah, it's maybe also not the healthiest thing to associate food so deeply with love. But I do. So. You were, well, let me just ask the question. Where did you grow up?

Starting point is 00:45:43 I grew up in San Diego. I was born there. My parents came from Iran in the mid-70s to San Diego. And then I was born in 79. And I lived this really funny, you know, in retrospect, this really funny life where I was, my high school was two blocks from the beach. I grew up going to the beach all the time. I eaten fish tacos, you know, hanging, driving around in cars with all my, like, very American friends. And then I would come home. And my mom always said, when you come back home, this is Iran. And so, at home, we spoke Farsi, there were Persian rugs everywhere, we ate Persian food. You know, she insisted that we, we like follow the traditions of the culture and respect our elders. And so, I very much had these two worlds that I was very aware of and still sort of look back and think a lot about how that's defined me. And I think it led to me feeling like an outsider no matter where I was because I never quite belonged.

Starting point is 00:46:50 And in a way, I think that feeling of never quite belonging has come into, is one of my superpowers because it's very easy for me, even as I become more like quote- unquote, popular or successful or whatever, to imagine what it's like to be on the outside. And so it really has made inclusivity and inclusion New York Times Magazine, I constantly put myself into the shoes of someone who doesn't live in California and have access to the world's best produce. Or what ingredients can anyone buy at any grocery store? Or will these instructions make sense to anyone? Or am I using language that will make you feel like you don't belong here? Or whatever. So to me, it's this funny thing where these things that caused me so much sort of pain and confusion as a kid have ended up being

Starting point is 00:47:54 really wonderful tools in my work. I'm so glad you're talking about not fitting in being a gift. And it's just, it's so timely. And I feel like we should definitely hug it out at some point. But literally just a week ago, I was reflecting on how many of the things that I've viewed from my past as having damaged me or resulting in me being damaged have actually been gifts. And one of them was always feeling, in a sense, that I didn't fit in and being an observer,

Starting point is 00:48:35 right? Because at least I don't know what your experience was like, but I very often ended up standing in a room and feeling like I wasn't actually there, but I was like a camera on the wall observing what was happening. And what I noticed, for instance, in your writing, and I, I've read a million cookbooks, because I certainly would not consider myself a real chef as you are, but have read a lot. I keep very few in my actual kitchen. And your book is one of those books because you are so good at putting on the lens of beginner's mind and really putting yourself in the place of whoever it is you are writing for, who's intended to receive the teaching that you are putting down on paper or on the screen. So I wanted to dig into that a little bit because I feel that that reframe is so powerful. And it's easy to forget, too. It's easy to forget to put

Starting point is 00:49:40 those glasses on with that reframe. For sure. I definitely have a response to your question, but also you said something so beautiful and so crazy that I feel like I needed to read you this quote that I just saw on Instagram yesterday. I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay. So I just pulled it up. It was by Marco Pierre White. Do you know who he was? Oh, yeah. What is it? White Heat or White Hot? What was the book?

Starting point is 00:50:08 Yeah. He was this like kind of – or he is. He's still alive. Sorry. Sorry, Marco Pierre White. I don't even know how to describe him. He was a trendsetting avant-garde chef in London in the 80s and 90s. He was kind of the original bad boy

Starting point is 00:50:26 if you will like a proto anthony bourdain in some ways just like known for his aggressiveness and um and his sort of brilliance and his creativity and i think he's just sort of this like tortured bad boy kind of guy and so there's this beautiful picture I saw of him on this account called Niche on Instagram, and this quote from him. So, he wrote, I believe there's really two species of human beings. The first species is the most common. There's more of them. There are individuals who, like we all, are born into a certain world, and they become a product of that world. They absorb that environment they're born into. They become an extension of it. They become part of it. The rarer species, in my opinion, is the individual who has

Starting point is 00:51:10 been damaged as a child. They have suffered misfortune and great tragedy. This doesn't mean that they're better people. It just means they've suffered. And very few individuals suffer that tragedy. But what happens is an invisible shell covers you. It protects you. So you don't absorb the world you're brought into. You don't become part of that world. You observe that world. Wow.

Starting point is 00:51:35 It was like exactly what you just said. Yeah, that's incredible. And so it was really, I mean, and I don't know that my life has been so dramatic to have been filled with, like, that level of tragedy. But absolutely, I think even small pains and small traumas, you know, or whatever, just like the circumstances of our lives, you know, can make us feel. And also, the whole idea of being an outsider lately, I've been thinking, I'm like, oh, yeah, I've always felt on the outside. But I'm like, does anyone really feel on the inside? Like, does – Right.

Starting point is 00:52:03 I don't know. So, I don't know. So I don't know. But in terms of the beginner's mind and that work, I think there are two sort of parts to that for me. I think when I started teaching people how to cook, I never forgot what it felt like to be 19 years old in a world-class kitchen and not know anything. I didn't know the difference between parsley and celery or parsley and cilantro. I did know parsley and celery. But I didn't know anything. I didn't know any fancy terms. I didn't know even the most basic things. Everything just was sort of overwhelming and too much information. And so, I've never forgotten the feeling of being so overwhelmed and lost and having nothing to cling to. And I feel like as long as I can remember that and return to that every time I go to teach or talk or write, that then I'm really serving the people

Starting point is 00:53:00 that I'm trying to serve, which who are the people who don't know, you know, there are so many times where I had to reset myself. And remember, I wasn't writing my book or doing my work to impress my peers. You know, it's not for them. You know, it's not, you know, also, like, there are way, there are a million better chefs out there than, than me. And I'm not out there to compete with them. I'm there to sort of be a translator from the professional, you know, for the amateur from the professional kitchen. So, if I can remember that and remember the feeling of being the beginner, then I can do my job right. And as a writer, this, the way, I would say the person who really has served as a model for me in that more than anyone else is Michael Pollan. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:53:49 And we're definitely going to dig into Michael. Yeah. And so I talked to him right after he recorded with you. And he had such a great – I think you blew his mind. Well, the feeling is mutual. He, yeah, he had such a great, great, he just, I think like you blew his mind. But, um, Well, the feeling is mutual. I don't know how that guy speaks in finished prose, but maybe I'll figure it out one day. It's bananas.

Starting point is 00:54:19 But he, um, he really taught me, you know, and this wasn't something he actively taught me. I learned by reading his work and really sitting with what it was that was so moving and effective about the way that he writes. And it's that he is not, it's an old time, time-worn journalistic tool to put yourself in, you know, to go do the experiential journalism. He just has this incredible way of immersing himself in really complicated worlds and being able to articulate them, like what he's experiencing and what he's learning in a way for anybody. And so, you know, he did that with really complicated things about GMO corn. He did that with the botanical world. He's done that with the architectural world. And, you know, most recently, he's done it in the psychedelic world. And so, when I first sat down to write, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this the Michael Pollan way. And I tried to do what he would do,

Starting point is 00:55:14 which was to be this guide, you know, this newbie guide. But I realized that wasn't who I was. You know, what I needed to do was establish some authority as a teacher. So I couldn't take you on this journey with me. He's so good at doing it in a way where he's not condescending at all, but yet he's so informative. And so I really had to sort of sit with that and let it distill through my bones and through my mind and figure out how can I take that kernel of not being condescending, of being really clear and articulate, of holding your hand and bringing you through here,

Starting point is 00:55:50 yet also having some authority. And so, the best way that I found to do that was to do what I did when I teach people how to cook and when I talk to them, which is to tell the stories of when I didn't know anything. And all of the 9,000 times I've messed everything up, because that is the closest that I can be to being in your shoes as a person who maybe doesn't know how to deep fry, you know, or is afraid you're going to burn your house down or whatever. So, ultimately, I couldn't be Michael Pollan, and that's fine for both of us. But I could learn from him and really sort of put some of his techniques into action. And we are going to revisit that because I'm fascinated by writing process, which really for people reading, if you're reading this, then I want to figure out how you're achieving synesthesia.

Starting point is 00:56:39 But for people listening to this, writing process, you can just substitute creative process. It's same, same. I mean, same with experimenting in the kitchen, same with you name it, composing new music. But you had mentioned age 19. And this might be a good segue to the question, how did you first get exposed to Alice Waters? So the very first time I ever heard of Alice Waters was when I moved to Berkeley in 1997 to attend college. And at my freshman orientation, somebody was like, oh, and there's a famous restaurant with a famous chef in town. And to me, coming from San Diego, eating mostly home-cooked food and sometimes fish tacos and Mexican food and Chinese food or whatever, I had no concept of what a fancy restaurant or a famous chef was.

Starting point is 00:57:32 So that sort of went in one ear and out the other. And then the following year, I fell in love and my boyfriend was from San Francisco. And we spent all of our time, like all of our free time eating. It's a good place to do it. Yeah, totally. And so he took me to his favorite ice cream place and his favorite pizza place and all of the sort of childhood places. And he had always wanted to go to Chez Panisse. And so I still didn't really know what it was.

Starting point is 00:57:59 But we decided to save. I knew it was expensive. So we saved $220 over the course of seven months. And we – there's a whole thing where you have to reserve your table at Chez Panisse a month in advance. But the menu, which is fixed, only is published a week in advance. And so I was not yet a really adventurous eater. I definitely think – so we did this complicated thing where we reserved for like four nights in a row. And then when the menu was published, we, we chose the one we wanted and canceled all the other ones.

Starting point is 00:58:34 Oh, because the menu is different each day. Yeah. It's different each night. And so, so I was like, Ooh, that one looks, you know? And so then we, so then we went in and I was, yeah, I was 19. I was wearing like black tank top and denim skirt. We were very out of place in this very, probably Berkeley's fanciest restaurant. I think everyone probably knew that we were not regulars. And we had this really special meal. And I grew up eating really delicious food. So it wasn't that this food was like the most amazing thing I'd ever eaten. It was just the entire experience was unlike any I had ever had in a restaurant.

Starting point is 00:59:18 I really felt like I was at somebody's house and they were caring for me. And they were so attentive to everything. You know, the bread and butter was never empty. The water was never empty. somebody's house and they were caring for me. And they were so attentive to everything. The bread and butter was never empty. The water was never empty. The plate the second we were done was whisked away. There was just this sort of attention that I had never received in a restaurant before. And I think that really got me. And so when the dessert came, it was a chocolate souffle. And the server asked if I had ever had souffle before. And I said, no. And she said, would you like me to show you how to eat it?

Starting point is 00:59:55 And I said, yes, please, sure. And so she said, well, you poke a hole with your spoon in the top, and then you pour this raspberry sauce in. And that way, every bite has sauce. So I did that, and I took a a bite and she said, how is it? And I said, oh, it's really good, but it would be a lot better if I had a glass of cold milk. And I had no idea that it was like so rude to tell this person in this fancy restaurant what would make my thing better you know like i you know and also i had no idea that in fancy you know dining fine dining it's considered like a total faux pas to drink milk after 10 a.m that's why in italy if you order a cappuccino after 10 a.m

Starting point is 01:00:38 they know you're american because only babies drink milk after 10 a.m so this idea wow i had no idea this is good to know. All right. So like even having like the idea of like asking for milk with chocolate after dinner is like so gross to, you know, to people and fancy food. And so she kind of laughed. She was like, you want milk? And I was like, yeah, like, hello, hot chocolate thing, cold milk, like good combo. And so she went and she brought me milk.

Starting point is 01:01:02 And then she also brought us each a glass of dessert wine to sort of teach us the refined accompaniment. And it was this really sweet gesture. Once you've enjoyed your cold milk, you may want to sample another option. Yeah. And so it was just this really, I don't know, it was like a little education. And so I was so moved by this whole experience and this whole dinner that I wrote this letter to Alice Waters. And I said, oh, you know, I brought it in a few months later asking for a job as a busser. And so I always had sort of like a basic job that I worked throughout college.

Starting point is 01:01:34 So I brought it in and they said, oh, you have to bring that to the floor manager. So they led me to the floor manager's office. And when she opened the door, it was the souffle lady. And so she opened the door, it was the souffle lady. And so, she remembered me. I think, in retrospect, I think she was probably really desperate because she was like, you want to start tomorrow? So, I started the next day. And pretty immediately, I was just so enchanted by what was happening in the kitchen. And that I just, I wanted to learn, I wanted to learn what those

Starting point is 01:02:05 people knew. I mean, that restaurant really exists like a pyramid and the cooks are at the top. They're the most respected, most skilled people who work there. And, um, I wanted to, I wanted that, you know, I was so attracted to that. What, what did the letter say that you wrote to Alice? I mean, do you remember any of it? Because you have a letter thing, as far as I can tell, in the homework that I've done. But do you recall any of the elements of that letter? I'm sure I used the word magical. It's a very, like, Simeon word.

Starting point is 01:02:38 I'm like, I had a magical dinner at your magical restaurant. And I was so, you know, inspired. And I also don't think Alice Waters ever saw that letter. I think it like stopped with the floor manager probably, but I had never worked in a restaurant. I'm sure I revealed that, that I was just so moved by this incredible dinner that I wanted to work there. And could I please have an opportunity? I think it was a pretty straightforward one. I'm pretty good with like the flattery i would say that's like an important part of these letters in my life where i where i've like you know i'm writing to someone because i'm a huge fan and um and i'm like looking to collaborate or for some opportunity so i start like really with like laying it on thick you know

Starting point is 01:03:20 and then i mean it's genuine but like and then um and then i do my big ask and so yeah i had dallas waters letter then years later i had the michael pollan letter so let's let's pause on the michael pollan letter so sorry so this this is place it places sort of time and place when you get a letter to Michael Pollan? Oh, um, in when, when's the letter to Michael Pollan? So where were you, what were you doing? Oh, so that was about 10 years later, about 10 years later. Yeah. Almost 10 years later, I was working at a different restaurant in Berkeley and I saw Michael Pollan's name in the reservation book and I was a huge fan of his and I'd met him a couple times at Chez Panisse. And he was, you know, he'd been involved with Alice and her work, like their work really sort

Starting point is 01:04:12 of intersected. And so, they were big supporters of one another. And I remember, you know, before Botany of Desire came out that like, for whatever reason, we had a copy of a galley at Chez Panisse that we were passing around and reading. And I was like, who is this person? This is amazing. And so, since I had read that book, I had been a voracious reader of anything that he wrote. And I really admired the way that he was an advocate and so eloquent about the things that I care so deeply about and work on. And so, to me, he was somebody who I really looked up to. Also, because even though I began cooking, I never let go of the idea of wanting to be a writer. Like, I always wanted to be a writer since way before I was a cook. And that was something that I really kept pursuing in small ways, even as I was cooking. And so,

Starting point is 01:05:06 by the time that Michael Pollan's name appeared in our reservation book, I had applied to a few different creative writing programs and gotten in and deferred and never taken a leap. And I knew that he was teaching at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. So, I wrote this, I like quickly scrawled out this card saying, you know, I'm your number one fan. You mean so much to me. I would love to come audit one of your classes. And, you know, basically that it wasn't even a super big letter, but then I gave it to the servers and I went home that night and I asked them to give it to him when he was eating. So then, you know, they did. And then a few weeks later, I mean, this speaks so like directly to who Michael is.

Starting point is 01:05:49 He wrote me back. He wrote me an email and said, why don't you come in and talk to me? And so, he wrote me back. I went in to go talk to him and I asked him to audit his class. And he said, you know, it might be a little bit tricky because a lot of people want to audit the class. And he said, you know, it might be a little bit tricky because a lot of people want to audit the class. And so he's like, but there's one spot, there's one extra spot. So why don't you come on the first day and we'll, you know, you guys can all vie for that spot. So I showed up the first day of this tiny class, there was like 11 people in the class, I think. And I think over 200 people showed up for that last spot. And so we each had to write an index card saying why we wanted to audit. So we did, and then we went away. And later that day, I was lamenting to my friend that there was no way that I would

Starting point is 01:06:36 ever get the spot. And my friend said, don't you know anything? Don't you know anything about academics? And I was like, I don't. I don't. Tell me. And she said, you need to write him right now and say that he needs to give you this precisely because you are a cook and you will bring a different viewpoint into this class. And the conversations will be different because you're from the inside of this world. Because

Starting point is 01:07:01 the class was about, it's called Following the Food Chain, and it was about the food industry. And so, I did that, even though it felt so wrong to write to Michael Pollan and tell him what he needed to do, you know? Of course. You know, like from, you know, some 23-year-old or whatever. I don't know how old I was, 29 maybe. But so, I did, and he was like, okay. It was so simple and weird. that I could have put my finger on at that time. But now I look back at it, and it's not only when I got to work with Michael and what led to us working together on writing and cooking, but also I became part of an incredible community of journalists and writers, which is a thing I had always wanted. By then, I had a really vast network of cooking people and I was part of an incredible cooking world,

Starting point is 01:08:05 but I didn't have a community at all to support me as a writer. I didn't know what a pitch was. I didn't know anything about writing. I didn't know articles are measured in words. I didn't know any of that. So I learned a lot of that, not only from that class, but also just from being around these people and having peers who I could ask all these questions of. And now I work in an office, you know, a shared writing space with so many of those people. I've gone on to collaborate with them. We, you know, they're my community who I am constantly sort of reaching out to, and now I'm able to support in my own ways. And so, that was a really important thing that I asked for. Let's look at the nitty gritty of that. So you start with a note in the restaurant that says,

Starting point is 01:08:53 I'm your biggest fan. Can I audit your class? Were there any other ingredients in that note? I'm going to hit... Oh, it was a card. So it wasn't... I hit oh it was a card so it wasn't i remember that it was a card it was not like a letter on paper that was we're talking card like hallmark card are we talking to business cards yeah like i went to the i think because on the street where that restaurant was there was a couple stationary stores so i think i bought a card like a yeah like a hot like some sort of greeting card so i it wasn't so long whatever i wrote i think i just i think really it said like my name is samin i'm a huge fan of yours um i have always wanted to write i really would like

Starting point is 01:09:34 to come out at your class um it would be so mean it would be it would mean so much to me i mean they're honestly i don't know why there's no reason why michael pollan should write i don't know i'm not sure you're giving yourself enough credit so that's that's that's part one part two he he writes you back you show up it's like the gladiatorial games with 200 competitors and you write an index card do you remember any of what you put on the index card i don't i oh man I don't remember that. No problem. Oh, I wish I had the index card.

Starting point is 01:10:07 No problem. All right. So then your friend says, hey, don't you know anything about academics? No, I don't. Please tell me. You need to write this. And so you send this follow-up email. Do you remember the subject line, anything else that you put in that email?

Starting point is 01:10:24 No. Should I see if it's in my – I don't know if I had this email address then. Should I search for my oldest email to my phone right now? Well, you know what? We could look it up. I can send it to you later. You can send it to me later and I can... If you find it, I'll put it in the show notes for people. I think the thing for me is that I know that I'm very verbose. So anytime I sit down to ask for something, I think, and I intuitively knew this before, and now I know it really clearly and articulate it to myself and other people, which is like, if you're writing an email to somebody to ask them

Starting point is 01:10:57 for something, just get to it. Right. Don't beat around the bush. Yeah. And so I don't need your whole backstory. I don't need the boo-boo-boo-boo. Just say the thing. So I'm pretty sure I did that one pretty tightly because we were already in this conversation. You need to have me in the class because I'll bring... Yeah, because I'm a cook and I work in the sustainable food world and I'm going to bring... Because what he had told me, I sort of glossed over this before, but what he had told me when I had come to his office hours before I went to that first day of class was he said, listen, I know you want to take this class, but it's never going to happen because I have obligations to a long list of people. And you're at the very end of that list

Starting point is 01:11:37 because first my obligations are to the students of this graduate school and then of the other graduate schools of UC Berkeley, and then to the undergraduates of UC Berkeley and then the community. And so, there are so many other paying students ahead of you that you are low priority to me. I mean, he didn't do it in a mean way, but it was just like he was telling me what it was. And so, but he was like, but if you want, you can come to this day so i did i saw it in action the fact that there were so many people i also think he's a softy at heart even though he's like comes across as a rule follower so even though there were only supposed to be 12 people in that class i think there ended up not followed up with that email and said, listen, like, you class and since the class, it became really apparent

Starting point is 01:12:45 that I did do precisely that, that I did bring a viewpoint that nobody else in that room could have. And I helped arrange for us a field trip, you know, to this like wackadoodle sustainable farm. And there were ways where because I had an insider's perspective, I could connect other students with like the kinds of stories that they probably wouldn't be able to find on their own because I was living it and immersed in it. So I don't think he regrets it. I hope not. So we're talking about a writer who's had a big influence on your writing, your career. Let's backstep for a second to books that have had a big impact on you.

Starting point is 01:13:27 And in the course of doing my homework, I don't know when this came about, but, and you can't believe everything you read on the internet, so feel free to correct. But a list of books that the Chez Panisse chefs gave you. Oh, yeah. Something that came up. And then there were a few folks who came up, I guess, Marcel Hazan, Patience Gray. Could you describe how that list got to you? And what were some of the books on that list that had a big impact on you? For sure. I mean, those are also just cookbooks. So I have other books I can talk about too,

Starting point is 01:14:04 if you want. Oh, both. Let's do both. And you can those are also just cookbooks. So I have other books I can talk about too, if you want. Oh, both. Yeah, let's do both. And you can do in whatever order you like. Yeah. But in terms of the cookbooks that have been deeply formative, I think I don't... So one of the incredible things about Chez Panisse is that, and this absolutely comes from Alice and the world that she's created, is she is an artist above all else. And so she really surrounds herself with deeply creative people and artists of all different kinds. And so food is just one part of this lifestyle that she really tries to create and teach people and immerse people in. And so beautiful writing is a big part of that. And

Starting point is 01:14:47 I think I had a pretty limited exposure to cookbooks before I came to Chez Panisse, where I just knew them as the thing that you look up the recipe in to make for dinner. And so, when I begged the chefs there to teach me how to cook, you know, and just to like set the scene, the time was about, I think this was 2000. The restaurant kept winning, you know, best restaurant in America from Gourmet Magazine, which at the time was like the biggest sort of award of its type. And so it really, there was no reason for these chefs to let me into the kitchen. There was a line a mile long of much more experienced people than me trying to get this job. And I knew that and they knew that. Everyone knew that.

Starting point is 01:15:35 And so I knew nothing and all I had was my enthusiasm really and my dedication and like my work ethic. So I asked the chefs what I needed to do in order to earn an unpaid apprenticeship. Like that's what I was competing for. And they said, you need to cook every day. You need to watch these cooks every day you're here. You need to learn how to taste and develop your palate. And you need to go home and read all these books. And they gave me a stack of like probably 30 books. I mean, they didn't actually give me the books, they told me about 30 books to read. And so, they're like, these are the books that are the Chez Panisse canon. And things like, they were books unlike anything I had ever seen. So, Patience Gray, who was an incredible

Starting point is 01:16:19 writer in the mid-century who traveled with her husband throughout like Turkey and Greece and Italy and Spain wrote this beautiful book called Honey from a Weed that is just, it's like a poem. And yes, there are recipes with like cups and measures in there, but there is just a way that sort of one country to the next, she connects all these dots. And it's so beautiful and moving. And it put together writing and food in a way unlike I had ever seen before. And so, that was a really, really formative book for me. There was another one kind of in the same vein called The Aubergine of the Flowering Hearth by a person named Roy Andrews DeGroot. I think it's his pen name. And this one was like if a novel met a cookbook, kind of. Because it was an imaginary world that this guy had sort of created about this magical auberge somewhere in the mountains.

Starting point is 01:17:17 Auberge, which is? Like a mountain hotel somewhere in France. Yeah. And so, and a mountain inn, a country inn, I guess. And so, there were just these kind of like beautiful narratives that were intertwined in talking about food that were so moving to me. And then there were the basic cookbooks that I had to learn, you know we at my house had – growing up, we had two Persian cookbooks. Our culinary tradition was entirely oral. And then we had like a Sesame Street cookbook that had a banana bread recipe that I used to make when I was little. And that was about it. There was not this like deep tradition of cookbooks that I grew up around.

Starting point is 01:18:21 So this was a really moving and influential thing for me. And then, yeah, writing-wise, I have read, I mean, so many, I read so much nonfiction. I mean, I love, love, love John McPhee. I love, love. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. I mean, to me, I've learned so much about structure from John McPhee. Do you have a favorite, one or two favorites from John one or two favorites the levels of the game i love so amazing recommend to all to all people and if you read the book description people are like what an entire book on a single tennis match trust me yeah and trust you it's so good it's so good and it really taught me that you know there was a period where i was like maybe i write my book like the levels of the game and I find a way to tell a story.

Starting point is 01:19:07 You know, there's just, he is a master of structure. And I find, you know, for me, a challenge as a writer and also as now just like a creative thinker, probably one of the most thrilling things for me that I'm so excited by but also intimidated by is coming up with structure for things. And so, and in being in search of always like the simplest, most elegant structure. And I feel like you can convey information so much more clearly when a structure is right and simple, you know? And so, it's fun. It's a fun practice. Right now, I'm figuring out if I'm going to do another show and or another book. And I think I figured out an idea. And so, now I'm just like, okay, how do I structure it? So, it's just that kind of stuff where I love those. And very randomly, this book I saw one day at a store when I was struggling

Starting point is 01:20:05 like on the 900th draft of my own book, and it has been so meaningful and moving to me. It's called Several Short Sentences on Writing. And it's by a writer named Veralyn Klinkenberg, who teaches at Yale. And he used to have a column in the New York Times, I think it was called like on rural living, and he's written about writing writing and the entire point of this whole small book is make your sentences shorter. And it really is so good. If one is to look at your bio, it's a very impressive bio,

Starting point is 01:20:37 right? Being called the next Julia child by empire is all things considered. You're a New York times, best-selling author. You have this TV show, you have all of these various accolades and i think it's easy for someone perhaps to look at that be very intimidated and uh assume that you've just been getting up at bat and hitting home runs uh since since you since you began one after the other so if you you'd be open to it, I'd love to talk about failures,

Starting point is 01:21:08 whether those are failures, apparent failures that set you up for later success. And of course, those people who've read Travel Mentors will recognize this question or heard the podcast. I like to ask this question in terms of like favorite failures, past failures that really taught you something

Starting point is 01:21:22 that seemed like a failure, but in fact, if they hadn't happened, something else, which was a success wouldn't have happened later. Can you give us any examples that come to mind? I have an endless list. There's so many options here. Yeah, I mean, I was just, I was thinking, you know, I came really close to writing to co-writing two other books before I ended up writing my own book. And neither of those felt right, but I was just so desperate to work on a book that I almost did those ones. And I kind of messed up both of those opportunities. And I felt really bad, like I would never get an opportunity to write my own book.

Starting point is 01:22:01 And if I had done those, I don't think that I... How did you mess them up, if you don't mind me asking? Well, the one that I can remember more clearly was, it was going to be a book about pickling. It was going to be a book about pickling, and I was going to do it with a friend. And there was a way where we met with this agent, a book literary agent who had brought the idea to her. And I just didn't love, I don't know, I couldn't have put my finger on it. But to me, at that time, I was like an agent, like that's a high powered, you know what I mean? Only fancy people have agents. And so, I felt like I needed to prove myself to this agent. And there was something about our relationship just didn't feel right. And I don't think I trusted her completely. And I felt really kind of put down by her, I can't remember exactly what happened. But I think I like inelegantly extracted myself from that, like I had committed to it. And then I uncommitted, because I just didn't feel like it was the right thing. And then I just worried like,

Starting point is 01:23:15 oh, no, does this mean I'll never find an agent or I'll never get to do a book. So that was one. I'm trying to remember. And then, then um then oh there was actually another another agent man I have like really have like a trail of burnt agents behind me um there was another agent um who came to me and um and again she made me feel like I needed to prove myself to her and that my ideas weren't that good and I had this one idea and she didn't want me to do that. And she wanted to sort of. How did she find you? She found me.

Starting point is 01:23:51 I used to do these dinners at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, which is its own cult place. And so because of that, these dinners that I had, it was called 13 After Hours, became like this other, it became a little cult thing. And so, in a very small world, it was a very popular thing. And so, I think she sort of was in that world. And so, she found me through that. And there was just a way, I think what it was, was I, yeah, I've never actually spent the time to think about it. But in both of those situations, the relationships, the fundamental primary relationship, which at that time was with the agent, like it wasn't so much with an editor yet or anything, it just was so on uneven ground. And it was this thing where I was struggling to prove myself as a creative thinker to them. And it was just, I didn't very much feel supported. And that is not a great place for me, or maybe for anyone,

Starting point is 01:24:55 from which to do your best creative work. I've learned that for sure in my career now as a writer who's worked with so many different kinds of editors. Like my current editing situation at the Times Magazine is so wonderful because my editor, I love her so much and she knows exactly how to lay it to me. Like she tells it to me straight. You know, she knows how to give me a smack down when I need it. But she also is so kind and supportive. And so there's just this very fundamental trust that we have, where I used to turn stuff into her every month when I call them. And I would have like a one page apology that I would write this like apology email before with each draft. And she was like, you have to stop sending these apologies.

Starting point is 01:25:43 This is insane. Like you're doing your best. I know you're doing your best. I also know you're not going to phone it in. And also, I'm trying so hard, you know? And so, I now have learned from my own self that I need to be smarter and very careful about what kind of creative collaborations I enter because I need a kind of a relationship that's vulnerable and open. And it's not that I don't want criticism. I actually do want your criticism because I do want to make it better. But how do you convey that to me? And also, do we have a fundamental trust between the two of us that we both are aiming toward the same goal of making the best possible thing? So, I think – I don't know. Sorry, I've completely veered away from your original question. So with a delivery that you find very palatable and that you do want the criticism, but it's a question of it being constructive and delivered in the right way.

Starting point is 01:27:09 Can you give any examples of needle of being both effective criticism, but not making you defensive or deflating you. Yeah, I wish I had a very specific example, but I can set the emotional tone of it, which is that there is, we have developed, I mean, it's been over a year now that we're in constant contact. So we have at this point developed an understanding that I know that she wants the best for me, and she knows that I'm always going to do my best. And so if she tells me something, even in shorthand, sometimes now she does's a phrase that I need to do better, you know, or it's not working. Like, I think so much of it is like a fundamental, the emotional work that we had done earlier. And that had come through these vulnerable exchanges where I had said to her, I'm really sorry. And she said have let go of a lot of the defensiveness. I'm trying to think of some of the early... She was a lot more gentle in the beginning. And I think that had a lot to do with it. She was very gentle and she would sort of write out more complete sentences about why something was over-explaining or maybe too snobby or whatever. So I think she really did the work initially to allow me to trust her and feel safe with her. And then now we have such a nice shorthand

Starting point is 01:28:54 where I can just be like, can you just do this? You know, or whatever. Yeah, you can keep it short and sweet. Before you came to writing, though, we've talked about the co-writing opportunities which did not manifest or that you extricated yourself from

Starting point is 01:29:10 and then ultimately having the opportunity to write the type of book that you want to write do you have any failures or missteps from what preceded that I assume like from the culinary world or restaurant world or otherwise.

Starting point is 01:29:26 Yeah, so many. I mean, I would say the two biggest failures of my career are culinary. And they sit in beautiful contrast to one another. So one of them was I helped run a restaurant for five years that was struggling financially the whole time it existed. And there was a way where it was not my restaurant. I was helping my mentor run it. I felt very loyal to him. And in the beginning, I had, you know, like, restaurants are often lose money for up to five years, you know, before they sort of hit. It's really just a terrible financial model. So, there's a way where like they often lose money for a long time before they sort of hit steady ground. And we actually hit steady ground after

Starting point is 01:30:10 three years, but then in 2008, the economy crashed. And so, it was sort of just this thing where we knew we were never going to make it okay. And there were a lot of sort of, I think, there was a culture issue in that restaurant that now with so many years of distance I can see was almost insurmountable. And if a culture in a place isn't sort of supported, it's really hard to turn the culture of a place around, I think. And so, in some ways, to me, I was ready to call it quits after three years. But for my mentor, this was like his big shot that his career had been working, you me, I was ready to call it quits after three years. But for my mentor, this was his big shot that his career had been aiming toward, and he wasn't ready to give up. So I stayed for two years longer than I wanted to, and I was really unhappy. I was really unhealthy, just physically.

Starting point is 01:31:00 I feel like it took a toll on my adrenal system. I had a really bad temper. This was eventually led to the breakdown that led me going to therapy. I was emotionally just out of touch. I was not that kind to the people who worked for me. It was not great. It was not my greatest hour. And so, I think staying through something and feeling how bad that made me feel, how bad it made other people feel, and that it ultimately sort of fizzled to this slow, painful death, really taught me that I don't ever want to be part of that kind of situation again. Like, I want to be the one calling quits. You know, I want to be the one who like determines the end of a story.

Starting point is 01:31:44 And when I think about it, you know creative project or business probably, in some ways, a business is not so different from a creative project. Things have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even when people sit down to write a movie or to write a series, even if you want to pitch a TV series, an ideal lifespan for a TV series is five to seven years. And so, before you even start, you know how the series is going to end, right? Like, there's a way where it's not a bad idea. An ending is not necessarily a failure. And so, I really got to put that into practice a couple years later when after the restaurant closed, I started this like kind of small food market that immediately became a huge success and got so much media attention. And all of a sudden was, I started it because I just missed cooking for people and I

Starting point is 01:32:37 wanted to cook a little bit in my spare time while I was figuring out how to be a writer. And then all of a sudden, all of my time and resources and energy were going toward running this food market that wasn't even the main thing I wanted to accomplish in my life. And so even as it grew, and we got more followers and more customers and we're making more money or whatever, I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do. So instead of letting that also fizzle out, I ended it after two years. And people really wanted like all the food media was like, what's the gossip? Why is this closing? I was like, it's not closing, you know, nothing's wrong. Like, I'm just closing it because I want to do

Starting point is 01:33:15 something else. And so was that was that an easy decision? A hard decision? I mean, walk us through I don't know, the like the weeks before making it official. This is over. Months. Months. Months. Okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:33:30 It took months. So I knew in one way it was an easy decision because my gut told me that I didn't want to do it. In practical terms, it was much more difficult because there were a lot of people who I felt responsible to who relied on this market for their income. And so – or they thought they relied on the market for their income. And so there was a story that we all were telling about how important this market was in all of these people's lives. And I feel – I have very maternal instincts. Like I feel a lot of responsibility for the community that I create and to them. And so, if anything, I felt a need to stay for them rather than for myself. And that was really

Starting point is 01:34:15 brutal. And around this time, I was like really into yoga, like super into yoga. And when you go to yoga class, like often what they talk about is setting an intention. And so I was really like doing a lot of yoga talk. And I had this thing where I realized that because my career was so amorphous, because there wasn't some like other person on whose career I was modeling my own, there wasn't an easy way for me to know that I was moving, I don't know, in the right direction toward anything I wanted to actually accomplish, right? There weren't like these landmarks of like, when you want to be a doctor, you do this, this, and this, and this. When you want to be a lawyer, you do this, this, and this. And so, I didn't have that. So, how did I know I was on the right track to where I wanted to go? And I really started to hone this thing for myself, which was, well, since I don't know where my ultimate ending point is or my ultimate goal is, what I do know is that it's a feeling. I have a feeling in my belly if I say yes or no to this thing, will it take me closer to or farther away from this feeling that I try to feel and also create in the world? And so probably the biggest conflict in deciding to close that market was that that feeling has a lot to do with community and supporting people. And I knew that closing the market would sort of, in the short term, maybe

Starting point is 01:35:50 take me farther away from that. But I also had to fundamentally believe that it would give me the space to, in a different way, on a larger scale, go back toward that. So a few questions related to that. Why was the food market so quickly popular? Or were there any particular reasons that come to mind? I think part of it was timing of it. So what it was, was I was really good at making pasta. That's like I lived in Italy for two years. I made pasta every day for 10 years. I really love making pasta. That's like, I lived in Italy for two years. I made pasta every day for 10 years. I really love making pasta. And so, people, when the restaurant closed, I would sort of bump into people in town and they'd be like, well, we really miss your pasta. And so, and I really enjoy the like beautiful sort of manual labor of making it and the folding and the cutting and the whole

Starting point is 01:36:40 thing. And so, I thought, well, what if I cut out all of the parts of having a restaurant that I hate and I just make the pasta and sell it to people? So I had these friends who had a commercial kitchen that was empty a lot of evenings. So they let me use it. And I was like, okay, well, how do I sell this pasta to people? So this was, I think it was 2009. So it was before, I think it was before Instagram or certainly before Instagram was really big. And I maybe had a Twitter with like five followers, but like really Facebook was the main thing that I used. And so I think I put on Facebook, like I'm going to sell some pasta. Does anyone buy it? And I made a Google doc

Starting point is 01:37:19 and people started buying it. And so we had a little Shopify storefront where people would order this stuff online. And then so I would know exactly how much to make. Because a big thing in food is like it's already so hard to make money. And really, if you're not efficient in terms of every decision of how much labor and ingredient, you'll really lose money. So by sort of taking my orders in advance, I knew exactly how much to make. And nothing was going to go to waste. And then people would come pick up their stuff. And so then, very quickly, it grew from just pasta to pasta and sausages to pasta and sausages and cookies, because everyone else that I knew who was an unemployed cook, who maybe wanted to start

Starting point is 01:38:02 their own food business also wanted to do these things. So we started doing this and all of a sudden it became this like online marketplace where you could pre-order and prepay for your food and then come and pick up your stuff like a week later. I know it was sort of this way to get beautiful restaurant quality stuff at home, but it was before, it was certainly before caviar. It was certainly before like a lot of these internet food things. And it was also before Good Eggs, which is like a food tech startup that was sort of born out of this thing. And so it was definitely like one of the first online, like, I don't know, order your food

Starting point is 01:38:42 thing. I don't know. It was just a weird time. And so then we had a mailing list from the restaurant and I started sending it out to that. And very quickly, because the press sort of was like very interested in this weird way that I was operating this thing, the mailing list grew to like, you know, many, many tens of thousands of people, way more than I could support. And so it was just, it was, it was a whole thing that grew out of control beyond the resources I had very quickly. And so I was always struggling to keep up and that became

Starting point is 01:39:12 such a source of stress. And all I had wanted to do was to make some pasta. Yeah, funny how things. I'm like managing like 9,000 business licenses and permits and health department and taxes and sales taxes. And vendors and vendor infighting and people wanting their beans vegan or whatever. It was so much more than I ever wanted to do. And it took so much energy and I couldn't do it anymore. And I knew I couldn't do it anymore. So you have this feeling, I can't do this anymore. And I knew, I knew I couldn't do it anymore.

Starting point is 01:39:49 So you have, so you have this feeling, I can't do this anymore, which I think a lot of people have, and yet they keep doing it right for a long time and maybe, maybe forever to a certain extent. Now, while this is happening, you have these maternal instincts kicking in, which make you feel obligated on some level to help these people who, at least in your head at some point, and in their heads, depend on this income. Do you remember the meal, the drinks you had with a friend, the walk you took where you're just like, you know what? Fuck it. I have to close this down. When you went from thinking about winding it down to like, okay, tomorrow morning, that's it. I'm doing it. I'm pretty sure it was therapy.

Starting point is 01:40:39 Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm pretty sure it was therapy and I'm pretty sure I realized I think the like thought that sort of like really hit my body that I realized it was that I had by that point spent 10 years cooking. I had been wanting to be a writer for, you know, since I was 15 years old. I finally had a chance to like make the time to be a writer. I even had an office that I had that I shared with other writers. I had everything in place. But because this thing was ruining my life and making me miserable,

Starting point is 01:41:15 I couldn't do the thing that I always had wanted to do and was basically ready to do. And not that it was some easy thing to just go be a writer. Cause like, well, I was going to write, I ended up writing blog posts for yogajournal.com for $25. Like it wasn't so much income or anything. It was just this, I had this, I knew that this thing was making me like emotionally and almost physically ill. So I had, I just had to stop. And I think in that, now I'm just so much more attuned to that moment, to that feeling of knowing like this thing is bad for me, you know? And no matter how many other people it's good for, it's making me sick and it's making me feel really bad. So I think I try to be a lot more aware of that. And sometimes now I get into situations or projects or jobs where like, I that feeling comes up again, but I'm already in it. And often now a lot of the work that I do is temporary. You know, like it's a one I'd make, I do one project, I do one article, I do one story. I do one whatever. So now for me, it's more about learning and being really attuned to what's happening.

Starting point is 01:42:31 Even just, for example, in the process of making this show. Like I had never made a show before. This was this incredible opportunity that came to me. I was so excited and felt so lucky to go make it and go do it. And I still feel so lucky and so excited. But a lot of things happened throughout the making of the show that I was like, oh, this doesn't feel very good, or this doesn't feel very fair, or I don't ever want to be in a situation like this again, you know. And so now that I know what this situation, what's possible, like I know that

Starting point is 01:43:02 negatively and also positively, I know what to ask for and I know how to articulate that. And so, you know, like I will forever insist, you know, like to me, I'm going to insist on working with a lot more people of color in the future. Like I'm going to insist on making sure that I have a lot more power creatively in anything that I do, because I realized I became very frustrated when I didn't have as much power as I needed or wanted. So, there are just things like it's a constant learning thing. Nothing's perfect. We figure things out as we go.

Starting point is 01:43:37 And like we try to do our best. And like what is failure? I don't know. I mean, it's not that big of a deal, especially if there's some sort of positive takeaway that you have. And maybe my therapist would be really proud of me. Maybe it's really bad for me to even say that my therapist would be proud of me. But I do feel like all of these stories and all of these experiences really always come back to me sort of paying attention to my feelings. Yeah, hear, hear. That's something that I've also personally been working on because I think I muted my feelings or viewed them as a liability for so long. And I've realized, holy shit, you cannot spreadsheet your way out of everything. No, me too. Nor into everything. You really have to pay attention to that.

Starting point is 01:44:22 I mean, I think about that all the time. Like I came from a culture that's like very much about sort of appearances and not very touchy feely in a lot of ways. I came from a family that wasn't super touchy feely. I came, so like, what did I learn to do? I learned to shut down all of my own feelings. And then I made my self, I made my way into a profession who literally tells you to shut down your feelings. Like when you're a cook in a restaurant, you don't have time or room or space for feelings. And not only that, not only emotional feelings, but if you actually burn or cut yourself, there's not time or space to address that. You just sort of wrap your hand up and keep going.

Starting point is 01:45:02 So there's this way where like I have been trying to unravel the many years just sort of wrap your hand up and keep going so there's this way where like i have have i have been trying to unravel the many years of sort of emotional shutdown that i have been conditioned to be in and so now i'm like i'm gone i'm like on way to the other end where i'm like what is the feel you know i read about jill soloway's sets and uh she's the director and creator of transparent and i And I read about, or the other day I was listening to an interview with one of the actors from Atlanta. And I read about these TV sets where everyone's real touchy-feely and like checks in with each other all the time. And like they have an emotional check-in every morning. And I'm like, that's the kind of place where I want to work. Like that's the kind, I'm like, I just want to work where like the cameraman is like,

Starting point is 01:45:47 and we are crying together, you know, like if you are, if, if you do have that experience, I want to have a followup conversation to see if you're like, okay, that's my home.

Starting point is 01:46:00 Or if you're like, you know what? A pendulum swung too far the other direction. Like, I think I want somewhere in the middle. I can only have half the camera people crying. So you have tackled so many different projects in so many different ways.

Starting point is 01:46:16 You've had some missteps. You've made your mistakes, as we all have. Your book was, at least from the outside looking in, a real flag in the ground that has allowed you to do a lot of things. And it's a very, very, it's a very good book. Like I said, it's one of the few I keep in my kitchen. And I'd love to chat just a little bit about the genesis, because I think it was, what, let's say around 2006 when you slipped this note to pollen,

Starting point is 01:46:51 when did, uh, when did your book come out? 20, uh, last year. What's last year? 2017.

Starting point is 01:47:00 Okay. Yeah. And, uh, so this is not a book that you, that you churned out really quickly. You didn't just assemble another cookbook, which you and I both know are everywhere. And it did make a mark. So I'm really curious to know, you're auditing this class with Michael Pollan. What are some of the early ideas for the book or early titles for the book that never saw the light of day?

Starting point is 01:47:34 So after I audited the class with Michael, he started writing a book about cooking, which ended up being cooked. So he asked me to teach him how to cook. So when I would come over to his house, we would cook together and talk about cooking. And every week when I went over there, I'd bring over a different book idea. And there were so many bad ones, so many bad ones. I can't remember all of them. I do remember there was one where i had this sort of mentee employee who was kind of like this like um bipolar gutter punk what is a gutter punk a gutter punk is like uh well we have a lot of them in berkeley um he he's just this kind of punky kid who's like had all the tattoos and um and listened to like you know like loud music

Starting point is 01:48:27 i don't know like he called himself a gutter punk and so he and he had a lot of like learning disabilities and i had given up hope on him as an employee i don't even know why we hired him and eventually i just was like i gave up such hope on him him that I couldn't look at him for, I couldn't look him in the eye for months. And at some point, there was some moment that he had where he turned himself around and he came to work. And suddenly, I think it had to do with taking, honestly, his mental health medication. And so, he just like became this incredible student. And I felt really bad for not having been a better supporter of his. But then I also became motivated to really teach him and support him.

Starting point is 01:49:13 And this incredible moment was when he came to work one day and he was like, I don't want you guys to be mad at me. But I've been going to community college and I signed up for a study abroad program and I'm going to Italy. And I was like, we are not mad at you. I was like, this is the most amazing thing that you somehow went from basically being nearly homeless when you started coming here to caring about food so much that you signed yourself up for community college, you got yourself to go to Italy. This is incredible and we're going to help you as much as we possibly can. So, he was really this, I learned probably as much from him as he learned from me. And I was like, I'm going to write a memoir of teaching Robin how to cook. And Michael was like, that's a terrible

Starting point is 01:49:53 idea. He was like, nobody wants to read that. And then I had this other idea where I was going to write the Tartine After Hours cookbook, the menu cookbook of all these dinners that I had made, that I was making in tartine bakery. And Michael was like, you know, that's fine. Like, but I know you're thinking it's going to be easy and no books are easy. And eventually he would sit down. Yeah, he's just like, there's no such thing as an easy book. Yeah. And so, he said to me, he was like, I know, oh, he would interview me periodically to get quotes for his book. And he said, what's the deal? You're so obsessed with these four elements. And I was like, oh, yeah, salt, fat, acid, heat, you know, that's the system that I used to teach myself to cook. I used to teach other people. I always thought I'd write a book about it one day. And he was like, well, there's your book. Write that. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, that book's going to be really hard to write. It won't have beautiful photos, because it's not about that kind of cooking. And it just, I can't do that. And he just, I remember this so clearly. He said, listen, like, you live in a delusional universe,

Starting point is 01:51:02 where everyone who you know, who's written a successful book is already a celebrity of some kind, either a celebrity chef or, like, some famous writer. And so, you have this really confused notion that book and celebrity are somehow, like, tied together or notoriety or something. But really what publishers want is a unique and strong idea. And that's what this is. I've never heard this before. It makes so much sense. And so, this is your book. And he's like, stop messing around and go do this. And I was like, great. And so, I just felt the weight of this like huge task being set before me. And so, you know, and like I said, I didn't really have the tools in the beginning. I mean,

Starting point is 01:51:43 I sort of knew what went into a book proposal. He sort of told me. But I also knew that this would look much different than any book proposal he had ever written. And so I just sort of started going to my office. I got a writing residency, and I went to go figure this out. What is a writing residency? No, you're good it's it's just like uh it was like an opportunity to go write for two weeks uninterrupted in in a beautiful setting and

Starting point is 01:52:11 like be housed and fed and and that was maybe a mistake to go so early in my writing process because i wasn't really writing i was still very much like ideating so i just had like a wall of post-it notes and then everyone else at the residency would come down to the dinner table and be like i wrote 5 000 words today and i'd be like well i like i always want to slap those people no no offense if anyone listening is one of those people they're like oh man had a pretty tough day only knocked out 5 000 words and you're like what like i barely figured out which font to use on the first page. I laid in a hammock a lot. And that first round, anything I wrote during those two weeks, that was definitely the time when I was attempting to be Michael Pollan.

Starting point is 01:53:01 And so eventually, I realized that wasn't working for me. And then I tried for a short while to be another writer. And then that wasn't working either. And then eventually, I was like, oh, I just have to be myself. Who is the other if you don't mind? It's my friend Tamar Adler, who's an incredible writer. She just has such a beautiful way of writing that I very much enjoy reading. But it's not me, you know, and so and, and it's so good that I want it to be my words, but it's not my words. And so I had to just be okay with whatever comes out of my mouth or onto my page is my thing. And I'm still learning that. Like there are so many times, even when I got this column for the Times Magazine, which at the time when I started cooking was really like the highest sort of, I don't know,

Starting point is 01:53:49 like writing that was coming out about food. It was, it's me. It was like the thing that I had always like dreamt of was to be able to write the food column for the times magazine. So I couldn't believe it when it finally became my job. And I still can't really believe it. And I still have so much terror every time I sit down to write it where I'm like, this is going to be published in the New York times magazine. Oh my God. Like I'm not smart enough for this. And so I'm not good enough for this. And so then, um, and there's this way where sometimes I'll turn, I'll just be lazy and I can't figure out a different way to say something. So I'll write the silly, stupid way that I would say it. And that's the stuff that editors are always like, this is amazing. You're so good. And I, I, every time I'm

Starting point is 01:54:25 like, oh, I thought that's what you were going to cut. Like there was this one time when I said something like, hello, my name is Samin. I basically wrote like, hi, my name is Samin and I'm an artisan bread hoarder, you know, which is such a silly, dumb thing to say. And she was like, this is amazing. And I was like, I don't. And so eventually I had to ask her, I said, why is it that you always like this really silly stuff that's not crafted? And she said, because it's you and because you're here because we like your voice. And so the more true you can be to your own voice, the better that is. And I said, but isn't that like the cheesiest possible stuff? I figured you would cut all those dumb jokes that I make. And she said, maybe if it came from someone else, we would cut it. But when it

Starting point is 01:55:04 comes from you, it sounds so true to what how you would actually talk or what you would actually write, that we it makes sense for us to keep it. And I said, it is how I actually talk. She said, Yeah, so that's why we want it. So I'm still getting it through my head. That the thing that people value about me is me, you know, not me trying to be a MacArthur genius or whatever. Right. And you mentioned, you mentioned earlier, uh, how Michael said to you something along the lines of publishers are looking for unique and clear ideas. And I just want to, uh, take that and expand it a bit because for people who are listening, you know,

Starting point is 01:55:46 I would also say that what any audience or potential audience, the people out there who are part of your tribe or who want the version of you that is the true you that you can put on the page also want not just unique and clear ideas, but they want a unique and clear voice and that I've had friends come to me who have incredible stories and are well-spoken, but they say, I'm not a writer.

Starting point is 01:56:10 I can't write. I don't know if I could ever tell my story. Although people tell me I should write a book. I should do this. I should do that. And that's a longer conversation. Like whether you should write a book or not is, is,

Starting point is 01:56:18 uh, most miserable for years of your life. If the answer is yes, write a book. Yeah. Right. Like if, if, if, if, if for whatever reason it exercises more demons than like years it pulls out of your life, then yes.

Starting point is 01:56:30 But what I try to convey, and this was said to me actually, is that you don't need to be John McPhee. You don't need to be uh anyone who's writing you admire so much that intimidates you uh to actually be a good writer if that makes any sense like if you if you have a unique and clear voice you can consistently be you then you've won more than half the battle and so if you if you don't know how to use a semicolon, it's fine. Like not the most material problem. Uh, and it's, uh, I think you, you accomplished that really well in your book. And I would be curious to know as someone who has dabbled in television a few times now, what did you find most rewarding and challenging about the television format?

Starting point is 01:57:26 And why did you decide to say yes? Because you go from a relatively solitary Queen of the Castle environment when you're writing a book, right? Now, granted, you have editors and so on, but it's kind of your gig, right? In a lot of ways. To, holy shit, who are all these people? What am I going to do?

Starting point is 01:57:48 Do I, how do I, am I supposed to interact with everybody? How do I manage? It's a completely different environment. So why did you decide to do TV? And what were things that surprised you? Well, in terms of this, like, solitary versus social, I have always been both, which is why I continue to cook because I really enjoy both the manual physical part of it, but also the really communal part of it where I get to go be in conversation and ask other people what they're cooking and

Starting point is 01:58:16 eating and learn new things from other cooks. So, I think I'd go bananas if I was only sitting at a desk all day every every day, you know? So, I enjoy having both things. So, to me, the decision to go work on some collaboration that would bring me into, you know, work with a lot of people all the time, that really wasn't a negative thing at all. And then, I don't know, you know, I was so excited. I was so excited about the opportunity to bring this philosophy of cooking to a broad, broad audience I think was around 2006 or 2007, I remember coming to work one day with my friends, with these other chefs, and I said, you know, this is really inefficient. I was like, here I am like teaching 12 ladies, you know, 12 wealthy ladies how to, I don't know, use the right amount of salt or whatever.

Starting point is 01:59:23 Like how many of these 12-person cooking classes am I going to have to teach before I actually teach people, you know, a really broad audience how this kind of fundamental and really life-changing information? It seems like it's going to be hard to reach a large crowd. Plus, just the economics of it that like, for my time and the ingredients and renting a kitchen or whatever, it wasn't inexpensive. You know, I had to charge a lot of money. And so that meant that it was already like naturally narrowing down the group of people to whom I could, you know, teach the stuff. So I came in to work one day and I was like, I think if I had a TV show, I think if I had a

Starting point is 02:00:01 cooking show where I taught people how to cook, I could reach so many more people, I could do it so much more efficiently. And it would really make a difference. And being Berkeley, my two friends were like, that's a terrible idea. You are a terrible capitalist who, you know, has totally, totally like sold out because the idea you know, they're like in Berkeley, most people like don't have television, they don't let their kids watch television. So the idea that I could possibly want to do television was just like, so sort of morally uncouth or whatever. And so that really sort of stung me at the time. But I now I recently remembered, I was like, Oh, this has been something I've thought about and wanted for a long time. So when the opportunity to turn the book into a show

Starting point is 02:00:42 presented itself, I was like, Yes, this is amazing. I get to do something different. I think there's a lot of food TV out there. There's sort of two types of it. There's like the really accessible sort of everyday cooking stuff that is generally shot in a studio with like not so great lighting and is meant to be sort of like getting you to make some simple stuff at home. And then there's the really aspirational like cinematic stuff like chef's table, which is not so much about cooking as it is sort of like a hagiography of a different chef. And it's really like aspirational and quite elite. And so I was really upset when I thought about it that there was nothing that existed that was beautiful and cinematic, but also accessible. You know, why didn't something exist at the intersection of these two things? And so, I knew that I wanted to make something gorgeous and just inspiring, but also be for everyone. And there were ways in which like that was very easy for me to translate because I had already been distilling those ideas into the book and into the way I wanted the book

Starting point is 02:01:51 to look and the vision I had for the way the book would be in the world and function in people's lives. And then there were entirely new things that I had to learn throughout the process of because I've never made a show before. So, one of the things that I like looking back after having gone through both all of the pre-production and then 40 weeks of like production and post-production, I mean, I kept saying to people, they'd be like, when will you have time? I was like, imagine I'm pregnant 40 weeks. Like, imagine I'm pregnant. Call me when the baby's born.

Starting point is 02:02:20 Cause like, that's how, how intense this thing is going to be. And so, one of the things that I did not anticipate, but realized pretty quickly that I was so good at and I really enjoyed doing was, for some weird reason, I don't know why, I have this like ability to ignore the cameras and just be me. Like, I don't change at all and so there's a way people kept saying oh you're a natural you're a natural and so i think that's what they were referring to was that i'm the exact same on camera as i am off camera and i had to learn you know some basic things like where to stand and what's light and where do i look and where do i not look but um one more that was great perfect one more for safety you're like yeah totally i mean where to stand and what's light and where do I look and where do I not look? But, um,

Starting point is 02:03:08 One more. That was great. Perfect. One more for safety. You're like, Yeah, totally. I mean, you want to do everything like 50 times. And I also, because I'm a perfectionist would take it really personally at first and I'd be like, Oh no, I did it wrong. I have to do it again. And pretty quickly I realized, Oh, we're doing it again. And it has nothing to do with me doing it right or wrong. It's because they need a different angle or he messed something, the sound guy messed something, you know, there are just so many variables. So the way that like I could deliver the energy high every time, but you know, and that was, that was stuff that I guess isn't something that everyone has. So I had that. So that was great. And then can I pause for one second? Also, I think that, and this is pure speculation, but you've taught so much. I think that you, I think that you hone

Starting point is 02:03:51 that ability also in the process of teaching. Uh, I just, I've seen that overlap, uh, for, for some folks. So, so I don't know how much of it is nature versus nurture, but yeah, I definitely think for sure. And also even just cooking itself. Cooking is a repetition, right? Cooking is every day you come in and you do the thing again, whether you did it perfectly yesterday or really badly yesterday. And you just have to put your head down and do it again. I feel like there were certain, like, I don't know, calluses that I had formed just from my other jobs that made me be, like, ready to be good at this. But it's funny that there were so many things I didn't know because I'd never done it before and also nobody explained to me. And so, in retrospect, I'm like, because maybe I am a teacher who likes

Starting point is 02:04:45 to put people at ease and explain things to them, throughout the process, there would be these things that I would learn, like distill and articulate. And then at the next day, the next shoot, the next time we were with someone else, I would be able to explain this because we were going around the world and bringing all sorts of different people onto the screen with us. And so, and almost none of them had ever been on camera before. And we show up with this crew of 25 people and all these trucks and all this equipment and lighting. It's so much stuff. And it's so overwhelming for people. And especially in some of the places that we went where it was really off the beaten path, like very rural

Starting point is 02:05:20 places in Japan and in Mexico. And so, I kept trying to do, it's that beginner's mind thing where I'm like, okay, how do I put myself in this person's shoes and imagine what it feels like to have this whole like rodeo show up? You know, it's like a circus. And so, and what is that making you feel like? And when, you know, when it's not explained to these guys, oh, we're going to have to do everything 17 times, but it's not because you did it wrong. You know, so the things that I learned along the way, I would say to everyone, like, don't worry, like we have to do it a lot of times, but it has nothing to do with you. You're perfect. You're fine. Or just look at me,

Starting point is 02:05:55 like don't look at them. Or there's a lot of sort of talking in the background that you have to tune out. And a lot of the time they're calling your name because they're talking to each other about focusing the camera on you. So I had to be like, just ignore they're calling your name because they're talking to each other about focusing the camera on you. So I had to be like, just ignore. If you hear your name, they're not talking to you, you know, because your natural human response is to turn to whoever is talking, you know, saying your name. So there are these like little things that I learned that made it easier for me. took a great pleasure in being the guide for whoever we were sort of, because it's my job to put that person that cook that grandma I'm cooking with at ease, so that she can be her best self. And we can get like the best footage from her. And it's, I don't know, it's that

Starting point is 02:06:36 maternal thing or whatever. It's that teacher thing. And I realized that I was really good at that. And so I, yeah, and it was just nice to have an entirely new field and entirely new skill to hone in terms of just like, what is it to be on camera? What is it to like work with these different people? That part was really fun. I really, really enjoyed it. I'm really excited for you. And I'm also really excited for everybody to see this. I'm excited. Can you just, just to the overall structure of the show, how many episodes are there total? There's four episodes, and each one's about like 50-ish minutes long. And it sort of matches the structure of the book. So there's salt, fat, acid, and heat. And in each episode,

Starting point is 02:07:22 we go to a different country to sort of explore the nuances of that element. But then through voiceover and storytelling and beautiful archival imagery, like really our team who was digging up the archival did such a good job. We're able to connect everything back to some sort of a universal message of, you know, like I could, we went to Japan for salt, but honestly we could have gone to any country for salt. We went to Italy for fat. We could have gone anywhere for fat.

Starting point is 02:07:52 So it's this way where like through the specific, I find a way to then connect it to the universal. And I do, I, my hope for the show and what I think from like early small feedbacks that I'm receiving is that what I wanted it to do was to give you a few little nuggets that you could like put in your pocket. And like, same as the book, never have to return to the book, never have to return to the show, never have to like refer to me again. And that these are going to be the little things that

Starting point is 02:08:21 change the way that you cook. And so, from what I've heard is that people are doing it, like they're doing the stuff I told them to do, you know? And so if, if, um, you know, I think especially like where Netflix is concerned, there's so much beautiful, like food documentary and food, this, and even like food competitions on there. But I think this is the first show that is really sort of aimed to like get you cooking, you know? I'm so excited. Yeah, I need a reboot. I've been I have I mean, I do enjoy cooking. But this this I think is, is such a fun, culturally rich way to do it. So I want let me ask you, as people are listening to this, and to this and they're getting excited to not only see these various locations and cultures and learn from you as you're pulling them into

Starting point is 02:09:13 these stories, salt, fat, acid, heat. So I read somewhere, I think it was on thekitchen.com, that one of your indulgences, and maybe maybe you've changed you can feel free to change is a local olive oil meaning local to you over on the west coast from cat's winery and then there are a few other things could you recommend people who want to just grab a few tools oh yeah uh you know there's no budget limit but we're not going to be buying uh you know the latest and greatest uh super expensive you know immersion circulator or budget limit, but we're not going to be buying, uh, you know, the latest and greatest, uh, super expensive, you know, immersion circulator or something, but like something, are there a handful of things, maybe they overlap like a nice salt, like some type of fat acid, anything that you can think of that most home cooks may have neglected or, or, or not incorporated

Starting point is 02:10:01 that people can just run out and grab in preparation? Yes. Okay. Oh, this is exciting. Okay. For salt, I think that Malden salt, which is the British salt, the little pyramid flakes that comes in a little white box, that is now more readily available in grocery stores, but also you can buy it on Amazon. And I feel like that not only tastes amazing, but it has this incredible texture that you, you just putting a little bit on top of cookies or even ice cream is amazing, but also any salad or tomato toast. I don't know. I have a huge jar of it that I just reach into all the time at home. It's so good. I think one thing that I learned about on the show that sort of blew my mind is that I really hope will catch on after this show is how different and how far superior a good soy sauce is to regular soy sauce, like the regular everyday sort of Kikoman.

Starting point is 02:10:59 And the way you know it's a good one is that it's been aged in a wooden barrel versus a stainless steel tank. So, often it'll say, like, wooden barrel aged or barrel aged on the thing. There's a brand, probably the brand that's easiest to come by in the States is called Nama Shoyu. And, again, you can buy that on Amazon. And so, but it's also, like, probably in, like, higher-end stores. I've also seen it at Whole Foods. And it's a little bit, it's like $9 versus $2.50, you know. But it's one of those things, the flavor is so much richer and so much deeper and like bounces off all of the sort of like angles of your mouth.

Starting point is 02:11:38 It's amazing. It's so incredible. And so I would say that soy sauce is really special. Olive oil wise, yeah, I would say Katz olive oil is really delicious. And also there's another one that's local to here, to us in California, called Seca Hills, which is made on an Indian reservation. It's so, it's like amazing. S-E-C-A, like dry hills? S-E-K-A.

Starting point is 02:12:01 Oh, S-E-K-A. Yeah. And those two are some, two of the like nicest California olive oils. And Seika Hills is actually, I think, relatively inexpensive and you can buy it in bigger things. So, that's kind of my everyday olive oil now. And then acid wise, I mean, I love a lime. It's my favorite. But if you're going to buy, again, vinegar-wise, I think a nice

Starting point is 02:12:25 rice vinegar is really delicious. I'm just discovering how much more delicious... In my recipe testing, I try to cook with the everyday stuff that you can buy at any grocery store so that my recipes are pretty accurate to what anybody's going to make anywhere in the country instead of very specific niche ingredients. But sometimes when I'm making my own dinner at home, I just want to have the delicious rice vinegar. So that same brand, Nama Shoyu, they make a really delicious rice vinegar that's just so fantastic. Yeah, so that's a really good one. And then heat is really... Oh, this is a luxury. This is a little bit expensive, so that's a really good one. And then heat is really, oh, here, this is a luxury.

Starting point is 02:13:05 This is a little bit expensive, but it's the most amazing, the most amazing, the most amazing. I'm ready. So I would say like you always want to have a great pan. And so for me, I'm generally, I often say just have a cast iron pan. It's the most used pan in my house is a cast iron. I bought it at a flea Market for like 25 bucks. But if you want to graduate up from a cast iron, there is a company in, I believe they're in Virginia. It's called Blank Creatives, B-L-A-N-C. They make these beautiful hand forged pans that are, they're steel. They're some sort of a cast steel. They're like, have this beautiful

Starting point is 02:13:46 bluish tint. And they, this pan is unbelievable. My best friend gave me one for a gift a few years ago. And for whatever reason, I didn't start using it really regularly until recently. It blows my mind how good it is because it browns just like a cast iron pan. And, but it heats up, it's much lighter. It heats up a lot more quickly. And, um, and it,

Starting point is 02:14:11 it just, it retains its heat. They're just a delight to use. These pans are a delight to use. I have no, I don't know how else to say it. Like, and it just,

Starting point is 02:14:18 everything that comes out of it is so good. Would you, do you cook everything or can you cook for instance if would you cook eggs in this or would you have yes absolutely yeah and your eggs wouldn't stick nothing would like because it's definitely has a seasoning that you have to um keep up you know and it will rust it will rust even a little bit more easily like sometimes if i don't dry mine really well out in the morning there'll be a little rust forming so i have to wipe it away but it's that seasoning that makes it so beautiful and perfectly non-stick they're also just very gorgeous and look like a beautiful handmade object and uh they're you know i think they're in the 200 range but like

Starting point is 02:14:56 a pan i don't know people buy the lucruse pots for 300 bucks and they use them for 30 years so i feel i feel okay giving giving one expensive pan recommendation. Oh, for sure. And by seasoning, are you, say, heating it up, putting salt in it, kind of scratching the surface, or is it really just letting it absorb the various oils and so on? Yeah, it's just the fat. I'm not so good with the science of metal and these pans and stuff, but I think that what happens is as you cook, if you intentionally like rub it with some fat and then put it in the oven and let it get warm the fats like turn into they pal it's called i think polymerization and so the fats sort of almost like fill in the little any holes that might be in the metal like invisible minute holes

Starting point is 02:15:41 and then create a really smooth surface. And so, the smoother that surface is, the more non-stick the thing will be, which is why, you know, when you buy a cast iron that's not yet seasoned, if you even touch it with your fingers, you can feel that it's a little bit pebbly in there, you know, and that pebbliness is where things stick. It's like that pebbliness is sticking stuff. And Teflon exists at the complete other end of the range where there's, it's like almost entirely smooth. So the smoother the thing is,

Starting point is 02:16:10 the less sticking you'll have here, here. Uh, well, Samin, I think that, uh, this is,

Starting point is 02:16:20 this, I think this is an exciting place to probably tie up. I encourage everybody to check out the book and the show, of course. They can find you on the interwebs. It's Instagram and Twitter, at Chow Samin. Or Samin. Now you're doing it good. You're good.

Starting point is 02:16:39 I'm working on it. I'll just say Samin to keep it easy. But yeah, at Chow Samin, C-I-A-O Samin on Instagram, Twitter, on Facebook, forward slash Samin.Nosrat. And then saltfatacetheat.com is where they can find information about the TV show as well on that at the URL. Yeah, the book show, everything will be on there. Also, all the wonderful people i'm like writing profiles of all the people that we got to meet so you can learn more about the people from the show when the when the website launches yeah and i will also link to everything we've talked about in the

Starting point is 02:17:17 in the show notes as per usual for folks so people listening you can go to tim.blog forward slash podcast for links to everything we've discussed, including the show, the products, the books, everything. And if I can find it, the email to Michael Pollan. That's right. And if you can find it, the actual word smithing that you used with Michael Pollan, I would love to see that. So I'll put that in the show notes if we can find it. Is there anything else that you would like to say or ask of people listening or suggest to people listening before we before we wrap up gosh no happy cooking use more salt use more salt don't forget the lime don't call your feelings and don't forget your feelings

Starting point is 02:18:00 uh well what what a gift to spend time with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. This was so emotionally resonant and fun and just really beautiful. So thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Entirely. Maybe my therapy is doing this podcast. It sounds like it is. It sounds like it is. Maybe that's my version of therapy. Well, once again, really appreciate you taking the time today. The show looks beautiful. I really hope people check it out.

Starting point is 02:18:33 And to be continued. I hope we have many more conversations. Me too, Tim. Thank you. And to everybody listening, as always, and until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 02:18:55 Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off

Starting point is 02:19:32 for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks has become the go-to cloud accounting software for literally millions of small business owners who found a faster, more efficient, and much less stressful way to deal with their numbers. And ultimately, this helps you to focus on what you are best at. It is used by many of the fastest growing startups I've invested in or advise, and it's is used by many of the fastest growing startups I've invested in or advise, and it's equally used by many of the best freelancers I work with on a

Starting point is 02:20:09 daily or weekly basis. It is one of the easiest ways to send invoices, get paid, track your time, and track your clients. If you're self-employed and managing business sometimes means wrestling with spreadsheets, crumpled receipts, and other scattered pieces, FreshBooks can really help. FreshBooks allows you to do many, many different things very easily. Preparing and sending a polished branded invoice takes about 30 seconds. You can set yourself up to receive online payments from your clients in about two clicks, which on average will get you paid twice as fast. Their new proposals feature means you can include a project summary and timeline as part of your estimate. There are many, many other things.

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Starting point is 02:21:21 And that is funky spell T-I-M-F-E-R-R-I-S-S. So again, go to freshbooks.com forward slash Tim, and enter Tim Ferriss in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Check it out. I get asked all the time, if you could only use one supplement, what would it be? My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens. It is your all-in-one nutritional insurance.

Starting point is 02:21:43 I recommended it in the 4-Hour Body, did not get paid for that. And I travel with it to avoid getting sick. I take it in the mornings to ensure optimal performance. It just covers all my bases if I can't get what I need through whole food meals throughout the rest of the day. If you want to give Athletic Greens a try, they are offering a free 20-count travel pack for first-time users. I always travel with at least three or four of these. This represents a $100 value.

Starting point is 02:22:08 So if you buy Athletic Greens, you get an extra $100 in free product. So check it out, athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim for your free travel pack with any purchase.

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #339: Samin Nosrat — Master Creative, Master Teacher

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Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #339: Samin Nosrat — Master Creative, Master Teacher

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.