How To Be A Friend with chef Christina Tosi

0:00If you've ever tried a tasty treat from Milk Bar, or tried the cereal milk ice cream from one of Milk Bar bakeries, or watched Bake Squad on Netflix, or taken part in the Bake Club on Instagram, or read Dessert Can Save the World, or read any of her other cookbooks, then you know Christina Tosi. She is the powerhouse entrepreneur behind the Milk Bar brand, and she's also a dear friend. Instead of talking about what it takes to build a dessert empire, I thought we would go deep on this one and talk about what it means to be a friend. And it turns out the single most important thing is learning how to ask for help.

0:42This is a bit of optimism. The best part about doing a podcast with you is that I get to talk to you. I miss you. And I get to see you. Like on work time. Like it's not like I'm trying to call you in the middle of work and I know I'm not going to catch you because you're in the middle of your work. I just have a moment. Yeah, this is considered work. Hey, Simon, it's a real job to be your friend. What does that mean? I'm just joking. I'm just joking. That's like the, it's what we're saying implicitly, but also it's such a joy. Well, no, it's because we both love what we do for a living and it all makes the most sense when you get to say, my favorite people to spend time with outside of work and share life with are also people.

1:29For me, that's how I know I'm on the right track professionally. So you are famous because of Milk Bar. You're famous for your Netflix TV show. You're famous for your books, your cookbooks. You know, you talk about those things a lot, but there's a Christina Tosi behind all of that magical stuff that I have the deep honor and pleasure of knowing. and I feel selfish knowing that. And I thought that would be a place for us to go today. Okay, anyway, I'm just going to jump right in. So here's the milk bar question I have. I can't wait. How did you come up with cereal milk ice cream, which is honestly one of the greatest gifts to humanity?

2:18I would put the discovery of penicillin

2:24and and cereal milk ice cream way up there that's very sweet for me it's like the you know when you do something that's like bigger than yourself in a way that's like i don't know it just kind of happens and my only job is to be the conduit for it for me cereal milk is the representation of making someone that angry person eating ice cream on a bad day just making them feel like seen and loved and trust somewhere at some point in their life where they felt like calm and safe and trusted and seen without any of the other, this is my name or this is who I am or this is what I do. There's like a sacred moment that happens, I suppose, in a bowl of cereal at some point in all of our lives, no matter what the cereal is.

3:08The magic of that product, it's not just tasty ice cream because there are many flavors of tasty ice cream that I love, but there are no flavors of tasty ice cream that so tap into nostalgia and childhood and my frosted flakes in the morning. I ate it with a friend recently and they loved Froot Loops and I despise Froot Loops. I despise fruity cereals, right? Chocolatey cereals and like frosted flakes are where it's at. And the amazing thing is I had this amazing nostalgic experience of my frosted flakes from cereal milk ice cream. And she had the most amazing nostalgic experience of her Froot Loops from the same ice cream.

3:51How is that possible? It's just witchcraft. I love it. It's like such a concept. I mean, I, in the most boring. It takes everybody back to childhood. It does. In the most like boring way, I just came up with it. I was like, this is either going to be a good idea or a bad idea. Like years before I even opened up Milk Bar, I was working to put a dessert on a menu of a local Fuku restaurant. and I was trying to figure out, it was like a tasting menu only restaurant. So you know what it's like to go out to a tasting menu only. Like you don't get to say what you want. Like you're just, I'm in your hands and I'm a competitive person.

4:24So I was like, okay, after I'm going up last after all of my dude friends that are working all the other courses, my course is up last. Everyone's going to be stuck. They want to get out of there. They want to be in their pajamas, home in bed. They're done with the night. They don't want any more like food or dessert. And And I have to figure out how to make something the right flavor and format that everyone's going to want. Because I don't know about you, but when you go out to eat and you do get to order dessert, there's a chocolate person. There's a fruity person. There's a vanilla person.

4:54Someone orders the creme brulee. Someone orders the lemon tart. Someone orders the cheesecake, the chocolate cake. And I don't – I just – it was like, you know, just this innocent, like, it's either going to be a good idea or a bad idea. And I fed it to Dave and a few other people. And it was like, oh, okay, maybe this is something. But still, you never really imagined what it could be. But I just love that it does the thing for people. That's kind of the only thing that matters. This is why you are you and what we can all learn from you, which is in the restaurant business, in the food business, you're a dessert person, pastry chef.

5:30In that business, there's a lot of, they're going to love my cooking. They're going to love my dessert, right? And by the way, that's in everything. like in in my business it's like they're gonna love my book they're gonna love my speech just wait until they take my course this is gonna be such a good course right just all of these things everybody this is every entrepreneur what goes through all of our minds if they just use my app right and what you started with is oh these poor people they've just been fed an entire meal the last thing they want is to have some heavy cakey dessert that they don't even want all they want to do to go home again in their pajamas, I'm just going to give them the one thing that you actually been willing to eat on your way out.

6:16That is, it's not like, Oh, a little light little, it's, I'm just going to give you something that just makes you feel warm. And is the, is the space between meal and bed. And the fact that you think about the human being and their experience that leads up to what you're going to give them is the reason you are who you are. You think about us before you think about yourself. I mean, if you make dessert, of course, dessert, like makes people happy. It does the thing like desserts, sacred space, like aside from a tasting menu only restaurant where someone's going to serve it to you, like desserts and opting course, right?

6:49Like it's also not, it's something people choose to do, not something that people have to do. And I take that choice personally. Like I take it seriously. I take it personally. That is a sacred, sacred space that people invite you into. Dessert has this habit of showing up, right? Of course, cake shows up at birthdays, but if there's a wake or a funeral or shit, dessert is there. Dessert has this way of showing up for people in these moments. That's some sacred stuff. That's some really sacred stuff. I love the fact that you think about that dessert is a discretionary course. You're not actually competing against other desserts.

7:27You're competing against, let's get out of here and go watch a movie at home. You're competing against, oh, I've put on so much weight. You're competing against all of those things, but you're not competing against other food. You're competing with people's emotional neuroses, like their dark sides, meet their emotional child, meet their intellect. You're in the middle of an argument largely in someone's head or some brilliant resolution where someone was just like in the head be quiet we're going we're going to milk bar we're doing the thing we whatever but i also say that dessert should actually be like sent to someone's home it should be at home if you're doing a fine dining menu dessert should be served i don't know how to do this without it being weird but my real vision for fine dining is that dessert follows you home and is like there for you in bed that are like they give you pajamas to change into so that when you just like dessert bed sleep coma happiness by the way by the way i do this frequently i go for a nice meal i'll have my meal and i will very often say i'd like this dessert to go please and so you don't have to find a way to deliver it at home you just have to find an elegant way to put it in a cooler pack so it stays fresh and is beautifully presented when you get home that's all i do that regularly yeah i take it's like because i want to eat this in home i want to eat it but i want to eat it in about an hour covers yeah i want to eat in about an hour yeah and i want to eat it in front of the tv i don't want to eat it at a restaurant yeah so i'm going to change subjects on you we're going to this is a dramatic shift now this is a dramatic shift of key we're going to go from a major key to a minor key i regularly on this podcast will talk about vulnerability um during covid i made to rule with all my friends that there's no crying alone.

9:23I talk about this idea of no crying alone. What I don't ever say is that during COVID, you and I called each other more than a couple times and cried together.

9:41and I remember the first time you called you were going for a long walk you'd left the house you were in a difficult place it was a difficult time and you said I could go to my husband but he's also in a difficult place and I don't want to add more to his plate and so do you have a minute And I remember, I don't remember the conversation at all, but I remember we cried together. And it was, I always adored you. And I've always been a fan of yours. But it was on that day, this friendship, like, it was set in concrete. You know, it went from fun to solid. Do you remember that day? You know, it's funny you ask, because you're saying this in my head, But I'm like, Simon, I remember the tree I was standing under.

10:39I remember the gate, like when you walk and you kind of almost walk like a soldier where you sort of like kick your heels up a little bit because I was just sort of like grasping for straws. And I remember the phone ringing and I remember hearing your voice. Like I remember where I walked. I remember. I remember those steps. why don't people call a friend in need you know i mean here we are i trust you with everything i would call you and tell you i'm struggling i would call you and tell you i'm hurting i would call you and tell you i'm flailing i would call and tell you i'm confused i'm lost i would call and tell you all of those things and i want to know why other people don't I have friends who don't call other people in times of need.

11:33And they have this weird sense of, I don't want to burden anyone with my problems. Or there's shame or embarrassment attached, especially if somebody considers themselves a high performer. I was going to say, there's probably part of it that also is, if I say it out loud and I have to hear myself, one, that makes it true. And two, making it true means I have to admit it and then grapple with it and deal with it. And if you're talking about high performers, you're talking about people that implicitly don't want to admit defeat and confusing vulnerability with defeat, right, is probably like number one reason why people that are high performers struggle.

12:14And then also, if you're a high performer, the second you say it out loud and you acknowledge that it's a thing, then you have to go out and solve it. And if you don't think you have a solve for it. It's too big to even conceive of stating out loud. Though, of course, the irony is saying it out loud, releasing yourself of it to someone that is trustworthy is oftentimes half, if not so much more of the grappling with it and dealing with it and taking one. Like taking that first step is oftentimes so much of getting through it, getting into it, making way. it's decompartmentalizing because thinking it, you can, it's still ethereal.

12:57It's a thought, right? But by saying it out loud to another human being, you're decompartmentalizing and saying, this is a real thing. And you, you can't escape it now, right? You can't put yourself on notice. Yeah. You put yourself on notice. And that's a very scary feeling if you don't have the solution ready and lined up for the problem that you're, you're putting out there. But that's the whole point of decompartmentalizing. My experience with you is the most beautiful part of our friendship, like why did I call that day? Why were you the person that I called? Because it's not like I tried six other people.

13:31Like I went on a walk. I knew I was going to call you. I hit Simon in my phone and it went. And for me, the biggest piece of that, the reason I knew that you were my person to call was because of the conversations we were having beforehand, which is you not only gave me the space for vulnerability, but you gave me language around the fact that like people that believe part of their work and that is that is part of my belief. I believe that so much of my work and what brings me joy and why I work as hard as I do is because I want to show up and help people. And you, when we're having like our high times and our high moments, you always have this beautiful way of saying like, man, when, like when we're high, we're high, but let's not forget to your point that we can't feel high always, right?

14:26Like we're going to feel grounded. And part of feeling grounded is means that we're going to dip below feeling, feeling, you know, level set. And that happens and it's frequent. And when it does, let's not run away from it. And it almost made me feel stronger to call you to say, oh shit, I'm having a moment. That's like this moment that we're talking about. It was an invitation in to say, you feeling this way actually is validating that your work matters and that you're on the right course and that you're human and that you're all of these things. It was an invitation in to have a conversation around being human.

15:03And I feel like that was a really interesting, I don't know that that's even a backdoor invitation in. It was just talking about the totality of what someone like you or me feels like in a day, a month, a year, the highs and the lows. That was the invitation. It was an open invitation. There's an insight here that is really important, right? Which is most of us, and we're all guilty of this, present company included, right? Most of us offer to support our friends when we see that they are hurting or in pain, which is like calling to buy insurance while the house is on fire. And the insight is, is that we ignore the possibility of hard or bad times with ourselves or the people we love.

15:55We ignore them in the good times because why would we? It's like when the stock market is rallying, nobody thinks about it crashing. And the one thing we did, probably by accident, but the one thing that we did is in the high times and the celebrations and the high fives, we were prescient enough to say, hey, isn't this amazing? But remember, when this feeling goes away, we have to be there for each other. In other words, we bought the insurance early. You knew you had a policy when your feelings crashed. I had my Simon Sinek friend policy already executed, babe. It was filed away. I knew I had it.

16:39You just had to be like, I know it's in here somewhere. Right. Exactly. And I think what you're talking about is the responsibility of good friends. And I would even go so far as the responsibility of good friends, the responsibility of good leaders, and the responsibility of good co-workers, which is in the very high times to start writing policies, to start writing insurance policies, saying, look, I hope you never have to use this. I hope your house never burns down. But on the horrible occasion that it may, just remember, you've got this policy, cash it in. This is huge that in high times, we're not Debbie Downers by reminding people, hey, this isn't going to last.

17:17We're writing insurance policies. Such a good insight. It's applauding the high times and being like, but to be clear, no matter what the time is, I'm always your friend. There's no fair weather here. Of course, of course, of course things are great right now. And to be human is going to be that there's going to be a time in life. And I want to show you what our friendship really means. Were you always good at asking for help or is it a skill you had to learn? I'm in fact terrible at asking for help. in a very interesting way. You are calling out a dynamic of our friendship that is, I would say, very bespoke to our friendship.

17:59I'm terrible at asking for help. I am not great. I'm great at being vulnerable in certain moments with certain people and the rest of the time, I plow through it. So I'm not a one size fits all in this spirit of asking for help and vulnerability. What is the reason you don't want to ask for help? I think probably the tricky part of like, depending on where you're at in life, the things that made you successful oftentimes are the things that hold you back once you move to certain tiers of, you know, air quote success. To be an entrepreneur, you have to be, to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be determined.

18:38You have to go at it, like always stay in the game, never quit. Figure it out. that's not to say you can't ask for help along the way, but you have to be really determined to, you know, solving problems and be okay that sometimes help doesn't come and you still have to succeed. And then all of a sudden being grown up and being like, oh, if I want the richness of life and surround sound, I have to invite other people in. I can't just, to your point, we can't just show, I can't just show up for people. I have to invite other people in. Otherwise I stop losing the connection of like why cereal milk does the thing or you stop losing the richness of friendship i'd like to call bullshit if i know um because nobody i know entrepreneurs who don't ask for help and they can only reach a certain level because they have to be in every meeting they have to make every decision and you you can't achieve what you've achieved in the scale that you've achieved it without being forced, even if you did it kicking and screaming, but you had to delegate and you had to let go and you had to ask people to do things and own things and run things and take accountability for things because you physically could not.

19:52Nobody can achieve scale without maybe not asking for help, but getting it. Perhaps it's for me, I'm being very literal about the I need help will you help me delivery versus versus getting help and part of the getting help for me is the you you have to be fearless as you're building and then you have to be fearless from a failure standpoint I suppose both in building and when you're scaling and you invite other people in to the party truly into the inner circle you have to really trust and be fearless about the fact that people are going to fail, you're going to fail, people are going to let you down.

20:34You might let people down, whether you're trying to or not. And just having like an emotional vigor about you that says no matter what happens, I'm going to be okay. Is your team good at asking for help? I would say that they're very similar to me and that I don't know I've ever had someone say, I need help, but rather an invitation in that sort of implies, I'd love your brain share. I'd love your feedback. I need your support, but not the, there's a little bit of this, like the, the fear of like being like, I need help and what it implies. Cause that's actually, you're so great at that. You're so great at the, the balance of I'm curious and I'd love for you to unlock more than what I do or don't know without overtly being like, the help me feels like I'm drowning.

21:31The help me for me feels like, I don't know how to swim. I'm drowning. I'm in over my head as opposed to the curiosity of inviting other people to the table and saying, tell me more. What don't I know? Tell me more. Do you know one of the things that I've learned is that there's two ways of asking for help, right? Most people think asking for help is, and you said this before, is the admission of defeat. And so their temperament is defeated, right? I don't know what I'm doing. And can you help me? I need help. I need help. I'm drowning. I need help, right? And I've always thought of it as a mindset, which is to ask for help with confidence.

22:18right? Like, Hey, can somebody please like help me out here? I am completely underwater and I definitely need some help. Otherwise I don't know, I'm going to drown or something like somebody please just help me. Right. And to have a sense of humor or a confidence in the asking for help is a mindset. So you're asking for the same thing with the same circumstances in both ways. In one of the cases you're ashamed of it because as you, as, as, as you said that you equate it to defeat, where I've learned to disassociate asking for help with defeat and simply associate asking for help with, I just need help.

22:58Whether it's my workload, whether it's my lack of sleep, whether I'm depressed, whether I'm confused, whether I made a bad decision and now it's compounded on me, or whether I'm just clueless or uneducated, all of those things are true at various points, sometimes in combination. I just need some help. But that's a powerful thing. You know how to call it out. What I think this conversation is doing is I want anyone who's listening to this to recognize that asking for help is normal. And not only is it normal, it's really nice. So I'll just tell you a quick funny story. You'll appreciate this, right?

23:40So a friend of mine went through a really tough time and I didn't know about it. And she's a very close friend, went through a really, really hard time. And I saw her and I was like, Hey, what have you been up to? And she's like, I've been really depressed. I've been really having, I'm like, WTF? Like, I'm one of those friends you call, like, you've told me things before. Like, why did you leave me out? Like, like, why didn't you call me? And she said, I did. I'm like, no, you didn't. She's like, yes, I texted you multiple times. I'm like, what? And I go back and look at my text. It's like, have I been a horrible friend?

24:19And the texts say, what up? What are you doing? Want to come over? And I was like, you mean these? She goes, yeah. I'm like, you mean the ones that sound like every other text you send me? Like, how the hell am I supposed to know that you're struggling when you send me, what are you doing? And she came upon some research that said that when someone is struggling or in need, all they need is eight minutes from a friend to hold space with them to make them feel better. That's all they need is eight minutes. And so now we have a code word, which is what up, how you doing? But when one of us is struggling, the text is, do you have eight minutes and that simply means i need you i'm gonna cry no it's perfect and it's eight minutes eight minutes when somebody texts you eight do you have eight minutes any of us can stop the movie can walk out of a meeting can walk out of a room and talk to a friend in need for eight minutes we spend eight minutes in the bathroom for heaven's sakes and we can be there for somebody for eight minutes we won't we won't we don't need to fix anything we need to acknowledge that they need help and that they just need to know that they're not alone and by the way to be crystal clear there's no greater honor that you could give a friend than to send them a text message that says do you have eight minutes like when you're in your own like darkness yeah i get that you can't see clearly but there is no greater compliment and gift to let someone know how much they mean to you to send that text there is for me as as a friend there is there is no greater like honor i am that is the level friend that i aspire to be and i don't have a zillion friends because i'm like The friends I have, I'm the eight-minute text in the middle of the night friends.

26:29That is the friends. I'm the stop, drop, and roll friends. And to your point, I don't even remember what we talked about. I just remember that making that call and that walk, it wasn't a two-hour walk. No. To your point, so much can happen in eight minutes. It was probably 20 or 30 minutes if I had to guess. Maybe an hour at the absolute most. Eight minutes. Eight minutes. And you really said it best, which is for anybody who says, I don't want to bother anyone with my problems. Like how dare you deny them the awesome honor of getting to hold space with you and sit in mud with you and give eight minutes of their life just to let you know you're not alone.

27:14Not to fix things, just to let you know that you're not alone in whatever you're doing. And sometimes it's not deep emotional stuff. Sometimes like I don't know how to solve this problem and it's silly stuff. But the thought that we don't want to bother our friends is unbelievably selfish. Bother me. I want to be bothered by the people I love. That is what reinforces my love for them. Be the eight-minute friend. And if someone in your life is not an eight-minute friend... Then they're just fun. They're just acquaintances. Totally. They just move them to a different place in your life. Yeah, they don't have to be ejected from your life, but you just wouldn't call them in a time of need.

27:50And that's okay. I have friends that I wouldn't call in time of need, but I love them and I think they're great fun. They're just not on that speed dial. That's true. Can you tell me something you've done in your career? And it doesn't matter if it's commercially successful or not. I don't care. But can you tell me a specific thing that you've worked on in your career that you absolutely loved being a part of? And that if every project or everything you ever worked on was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive. Yes. I can tell you because it's like fresh in my in my in my brain in my life bake club bake club is a it used to be daily now it's a weekly club that anyone can join it happens on instagram live at 2 p.m eastern standard time every friday and I literally just wherever I am we bake something together and I won't tell you what we're baking I'll just tell you what the basic ingredients are that you need and it's usually no more than, I don't know, three, five, maybe seven.

28:50And you just show up with a cannonball spirit of whatever it is. I got my ingredients ready, set, go. And we spend five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes baking. I make a playlist every week. You listen, you dance, you watch, you bake, you make mistakes, you mess up, you burn stuff. I drop stuff, whatever it is. But it's like, it's a carved out time together to be intentional and free in a very lose yourself, find yourself spirit. And it's a club in a way that it's this collection of people that Simon are like, they're all over the US at this point. And they show up for each other. Someone at Bay Club messaged me the other day and was like, hey, this person's mom died.

29:33And she had been battling for a while and she is having a really hard time. I want to show up for her. Her favorite thing is this one thing that you made this one time, can you send a care package to her, et cetera, et cetera. But it has become this network of incredible humans, some of whom, to be clear, don't even bake. They just show up for the vibes and the spirit of community. Some of them have never even met each other. They're just pen pals. And it's a wide open door for anyone and everyone to be the closest thing to that eight minute friend. And it's completely human. It's not choreographed.

30:09It's not rehearsed. It is me on whatever I am at 2 p.m. on a Friday. It's a good day. It's a bad day. It's a rainy day. And I'm showing up and I am an introvert. I do not get energy from being out and about and, and, and. And it forces me every Friday to really ask myself on a good day and a bad day. Like, what are you here for? What are you showing up for? And it's an invitation. It's a door open in to anyone that wants to come into my home and just needs some company or needs to laugh at me or needs to laugh with me or wants to bake or needs an excuse or needs like a babysitter. Some people put their kids in front of Bake Club.