Why Cooking is Caregiving, with Chef Hillary Sterling | Better in Person

0:00This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today. Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. This is the second episode of a new video interview show we've just launched called Better in Person. If you'd rather watch it, which I would suggest you do, that's what it was made for. It is on the Freakonomics YouTube channel. But we're also happy to provide this podcast version of Better in Person for your ears only. As always, thanks for listening.

0:39When people send back food, the whole rumor of a chef spitting. Please. I've never seen it. No. And that's fucking stupid. Like, come on.

0:52This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Hilary Sterling. There aren't many things in this world that you absolutely need to survive and which also bring great pleasure. Food is one of them. For some people, it is so pleasurable to cook for others that they build a career out of it. But it is a relentlessly demanding way to make a living. I recently met a chef who doesn't seem to have lost the pleasure of cooking. Hilary Sterling is executive chef at Chisiamo, a big, successful, very loud kitchen in New York City. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, and she built her career in New York restaurants like Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill and the Michelin-starred Avoce.

1:35So when Hillary invited me into the kitchen at Chisiamo, I of course said yes, and I had barely finished saying hello before she threw me right into the fire. Can you give me the torch, Chris? Hey, can you give me the torch? Hillary leads me over to the big wood-fired oven and hands me the blowtorch to start today's cook fire. Oh, I love a flamethrower. Chisiamo celebrates live fire Italian cooking, and fire is fun until it's not. Can I see your hands? How burned are you? I mean... Not, not... No, if you have burns, that means you're not paying attention. Do you remember that burn? I do. I remember all of them.

2:15Sterling points to a scar just above her right wrist. I mean, this one right here, it was in 2003. It was in the oven at Mesa Grill. Oh, yeah, yeah. This one. Where were you making? I was reaching in the oven for my pork tenderloins, and the guy next to me, Carlos, we were both reaching at the same time, and I moved over so that he could get his steak or whatever out of the oven, and I hit inside. There's like bars inside the oven, and that's what that was. So you learned a very important lesson that day. Stop being so polite, yeah. Yeah. Does it work? Does blatantness work in a kitchen? I would think you have to really be a little bit strong-headed, yeah?

2:52Back then, it was a little different, but it took about a year for Carlos and I to work well together, and I loved working with him the other two years after that. Hilary now shows me how she makes cacio e pepe two ways, with fresh pasta and with dried pasta. Before we taste, she asks me to listen as she tosses it in the pan. There we go. See that noise? That's what I'm looking for. We teach people how to make pasta with their eyes closed sometimes. Oh. It's pretty, um, it's an erotic endeavor, isn't it? I mean, the whole thing about it. I didn't say it, but yes. But I teach them how to cook by using their senses, and that's my fault.

3:30What's wrong with that? Well, people, humans are imperfect. Right. So, and guests do not want things that are imperfect. Okay, now for a taste-off between the fresh pasta and the dry. I try the dry pasta first. Hmm. I mean... These taste like yours? I'm doing right now what everybody I've ever seen eating on a food show doesn't. Because what can you do other than say, mmm, but it's really good. So what I like is that the pepperiness is intense and constant. Really, really good. Eat that one. Yeah. And next up. That was the fresh. It doesn't taste as good. I hate to say it. Fresh pasta does not taste as good as dry pasta.

4:12It's delicious. Don't get me wrong. but um i think because the texture is different which so it made it kind of easy to tell um i i like the al dente and i think the al dente is more fun with the emulsion of cheese and butter and pepper that's all yeah this feels weirdly the homemade feels more um kind of like food that i would make is it like not very like kind of a little bit mushy no offense once again can I have a fork. He just called my pasta mushy. This is really good. Thanks. I like making pasta. I should do it for a living. I like it.

4:51Since Hilary Sterling cooked for me, I decided to return the favor by making her a hearty fish stew. It's a lot of fish. God, it smells so good. Okay, I'm not going to lie. This is a good looking fish stew. When she arrived for our conversation, I had the stew ready to go, and I was excited to share it, because who doesn't like a nice fish stew? I brought her into the kitchen so she could see it simmering away on the stove. I was so moved that you fed me so well, so generously, that I wanted to make something for you. And this is a little... I made a fish stew. What do you think? You're just laughing at my stew.

5:31That's what I hear most. yeah it looks delicious okay either A it looks terrible B you're not hungry C you don't like fish or D you're insulted by stew I know I have this thing about soup I really like you don't like soup or stew but I'm okay with clam chowder this is like clam chowder except it's fish what kind of fish I'm a little hesitant Do you hate fish also? No, I love fish. Love fish. So I buy fish for the stew from Fresh Direct, who sell fish cubes. Fish cubes? I'm sorry. You're not selling me here by any means with fish cube stew. I'm sorry. Hilary has just published her first cookbook called Amatsa, and it has a recipe for garlic confit.

6:25So I added a little something else to the table that I thought she might like. What's that? That's toum. You know, toum? T-O-U-M? Garlic? Like, garlic? Whipped raw garlic? Whipped raw garlic? I think that's what it is. I first discovered it, but I didn't actually make this. But I thought this might go good on our bear bread. Wow. That's going to be powerful. I'm really nervous now. You're regretting ever agreeing to come here, are you? No, because my head's spinning. Like, how many things did everyone tell you that I don't like? What else don't you like, though? Other than soup. Is it just soup?

7:01It's pretty much just soup. Soup and, like, raw garlic. Raw garlic also.

7:13No worries. I ladled the soup into the bowls. I'm going to give you a very small serving. Thank you. You're welcome. And you don't have to finish it. And I want to make sure you get a little bit of fish that's not too cubist. Well, I mean, your presentation, though. I mean, those little potatoes. Are they canned potatoes or regular? You cook them. I'm so insulted. I'm so insulted. They're not canned potatoes. I didn't actually know you get canned potatoes. My mom used to serve me all the time. Yeah. No, everything. No, this is made deeply from scratch with total love. Okay. The only thing I didn't do was to find out how much you hate soup.

7:47She takes her first bite. Oh, no. That's right. Sorry.

7:56It really, it actually reminds me of something like that my grandmother would have totally made. A hundred percent. Because she would definitely. Did you love your grandmother? Very much. So. And did you forgive her for making food that you maybe didn't love? I didn't know I didn't love it. You only know now that you don't love it. Yeah. Yeah. So I think three bites is really sufficient to show that you're. I've had two. Two is good. Would you like some bread? I ate a potato. I love potatoes. I'm clearing. It was delicious. Thank you. But I can get past this. It's delicious. I had a third bite, I feel.

8:34I don't want you to feel rejected. I don't think I could have made something that Hillary Sterling hated more if I had tried. I guess feeding someone isn't just about how something tastes. It's about how it makes them feel, maybe what it makes them remember. So I fix Hillary a cocktail, which she does like, and we sit down in my living room to talk. What's funny, I think, is your mind works totally different than mine. Because I'm always trying to categorize, and you're just trying to synthesize, I think. I mean, yeah, I just, I want to dissect. I want to organize. Okay. You want to create. All right, we're done.

9:15All right, question. Say your name and what you do. Sure, full name. How many names are there? Is there a middle name? There is, but I won't. I don't need to do that. I'd like to know. You want to know? Also, it's a stupid story behind it, which is not in the book for a reason. My middle name is Jean. Okay. And my mom named me after her aunt Jean. But it turns out the cat's name was Jean, and her name was Minnie. So your mom was just wrong? Yeah. Who was named who in the family? Yes. Okay.

9:55Yeah. Okay, let me try to ask this. Just to paint that picture of my mom right here. Let me try to ask this in the most polite way possible. In what way would you say your family is atypical? Yeah, I mean, I think, I don't, I don't. Do you want to just describe your. I should try to be polite about this. You don't have to be polite. My mom's still alive. I have to be polite. Sorry. It's okay. Don't apologize for that. She's like, she fed us cream cheese sandwiches on Wonder Bread and applesauce, so why do you think I'm afraid of texture? I understand. And that's why I'm a chef. So it was your mom that ruined my fish chowder, really, if you go back to that.

10:31She would never have made that. She would open a can of Minute Progresso. Okay, but she fed you too much mush. Too much mush. I mean, canned potatoes on brisket, what was called not brisket. It was called like a London broil, whatever that. I don't even know what cut of meat that is. It's still around. It looks like a brick. It's got a kind of... And there's no fat, and it was just dry with canned potatoes and that licked-in French onion soup mix. Oh, yeah. Do most chefs that you know, did they grow up eating so poorly? No. I think I'm somewhat of an anomaly in that realm because I think a lot of chefs today, especially now, they had access to all that.

11:12They had good restaurants. Yeah. Like, Sheepshead Bay wasn't the capital of, like, cuisine here, like, in Brooklyn by any means. And, like, so I think this was my, like, search of something. Tell me life story, but quickly. Born and raised, same house my dad grew up in. My grandparents bought it in the 40s. And they lived downstairs in the basement, which was, I always think about this as so fucked up, that we put them in the basement and we lived upstairs. Like, it was their house. And what was it like growing up with your grandparents? It was awesome. The house smelled different. When they were there, my grandparents were like these really, really fun individuals.

11:46They would go to, they just loved life. Or it appeared so. I mean, they argued like every other couple and very loudly and it was really funny. Yeah. But like, they just, they appreciated what they had. When did you begin to think that you might want to make food for a living? I worked in restaurants at 14. Where? In Montauk, because I could walk there. What was Montauk like? Just a fishing village? It was an amazing fishing village. And you spent all your summers there? Mm-hmm. Oh, so that explains a lot about you, I think. You love the water, I understand. I love the water, yes. You love sharks?

12:20I love sharks. What is that? See, I knew everything about you except that you don't like soup. I can't believe no one mentioned that.

12:29Like, all those three people know how I feel. Can I tell you, maybe they did, and somehow, subconsciously, I thought, you know, maybe they're wrong. I love the water. I love sharks. I wanted to be a marine biologist, and I think instead I ended up cooking them. So it's just kind of like this reverse. No, wait a minute. When you say them, you don't serve sharks, do you? No, but I love the water. I love going to the Coney Island Aquarium. It was my favorite thing as a kid. So if I didn't know that you were a chef, if I just met you on a plane or something, and we were having a conversation like this, and just the way that you look, I would think you're a creative artist of some kind.

13:05Maybe a writer, theater, director. I think the fact that you seem that indicates what kind of chef you are. And I think that's why I like your chefing, is because you think about food and cooking, even for 400 people, the way that I like my artists to think. And I sense that that's not the norm in the restaurant world, but maybe I'm wrong. Tell me. I mean, I think, so every chef just wants a 40-seat restaurant. No one wakes up and says, man, I want to cook for this many people today. Why is 40 the right number? It's an easier number. You can do things that you can't do at 40. Say some. Explain.

13:38You could make something so beautifully and small and perfect because you only have to cook 10 of them. I have to cook 100 of something. So in order, I don't mind doing volume. I've done Michelin star stuff. I've done volume. I've done rustic. I've worked at a beachside cafe. You name it, I've done that spectrum. And I think the food now I cook is probably the best I've ever cooked because I allow the rusticity of it to come into play. What does that mean, allowed? It means like I don't need a hat for like a gnocchi. Like it doesn't mean that. Let's just make the best gnocchi we can make. Yeah.

14:13And figure it out. One thing I learned when I visited you is that you seem to use senses as much as science. Let's put it that way. Yes? More so. More so. Because I think people are in touch with like, I think there's so much noise out there that But if you tune it all out and just focus on what you're doing, you'll hear that noise of the pan, like when we made pasta. And then like squeezing a lemon, it's like this like crazy thing. It's like an interview question. I was like, how do you like, I do not. If someone wants to put lemon juice in a squeeze bottle, you're not connecting with the lemon to dress the salad.

14:47Do you feel that serving people food is kind of way up there on the scale of great things to do as a human? Because it must feel like you're, you know, part of the life-sustaining force or something. That's also immediate gratification. right you're getting immediate feedback too right so like you're you can see it's like when you people when people manage we're managing in real time you're serving in real time there's no like and it's kind of i enjoy thinking fast and on my feet and this is kind of an industry that like accepts that yeah where i can also like say things that i probably shouldn't say sometimes because it just comes out and i'm like ah that was probably a bad idea like i hate your soup kind of thing i didn't say that once i was actually complimented to you on your soup when you start at the bottom and what were you doing the first few years?

15:30Salads, fry, washing dishes sometimes. Right. I had a chef that likes to use every pot and maybe wash them, torture me. You talked about being tortured in a foreign language for a while. It was just an Irish brogue. Oh. I couldn't understand it for sure. I was like, what? And then they like, hold up this bread. They're like, go get this downstairs. And it was terrible. They made me peel onions in the basement with no ventilation. Most people I assume would have quit? I never crossed my mind. Quitting has never crossed my mind. I've never left a job because someone tortured me. Yeah. I've left because it was time.

16:05Fair enough. But if you could rewind the clock or if you could remake the clock now and run restaurants differently. Because everything I've ever read about restaurants in the kind of heyday of New York restaurant, modern heyday of restaurant culture, it sounds like everybody was tortured and everybody was miserable and everybody drank all the time. and other things, et cetera, et cetera. And so is that how Chisiamo is run? No. Restaurants used to be like that. Yeah. I mean, a lot of industries, to be fair, were. I used to have kegs in my office on Fridays. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the drinking, but what about like the people being mean in the culture of coming up?

16:45Did you experience that or not so much? You just didn't care? Yeah. Right. I mean, I think I was more, I remember like the only times that I like cried Yeah. And it had nothing to do with people. All right. What was it? There was one time where I was my first night on saute at Mesa Grill. And it was Labor Day Sunday night. Big deal restaurant. It was a big, big restaurant and big deal. And I overcooked 100 and something pork tenderloins for hours. I just kept fucking overcooking them. One at a time? Maybe four at a time, five at a time. I just like hammered it. And my chef at the time gave me like a two-pan pickup, which means like I had to like pick up this like scallop dish and the accompaniment to it.

17:26Okay. And I had two burners. Okay. Two burners. But it wasn't the only dish I was cooking. I was cooking pork tenderloins. And my first night like really on saute. And Sunday nights in New York City on a holiday weekend is a busy night. And I just remember getting crushed for hours. Crushed. And I called my dad from Union Square and I told him about it. And I was like totally like he's like, you're okay. It's okay. I mean, I held myself together, and then I like totally, I mean, the walk-in's always a good place to cry in restaurants. But like, and he's like, okay. And I went back in the next day, and I went to my chef, and I apologized for overcooking 125.

17:59Did any of them get sent back? I don't remember. It was kind of like a blur. And then the next week, the schedule goes up, old school on a wall, you know, and I'm on saute next Saturday night. I was like, oh, my God. Someone was on vacation, so they put me there. And I was like, okay. And I go to him, and I was like, are you sure? and he's like, you have seven days to be one with the pork. Oh, I remember that from your book. Be one with the pork, yeah. I was like, I'm gay. And you became one with the pork. I stared at these pork tenderloins for days, cooking them, watching them, staring at the clock, trying to figure out how long it takes to cook the pork tenderloin to perfection.

18:34It was like anchovic chili rubbed. Your hands were red at the end of the shift. There was like a nub bucket. It was just, oh. What's a nub bucket? It was like you cut off the ends and you put it in the nub at the end of the shift. I can't. Don't ask. Are they used? I mean, no. But they're used in like family meal or everyone like, they make tacos, whatever. Okay. And there's like, and. Let me say, no, they're not used except for what the other people working here are going to eat later. Okay. Yeah. And I spent seven days staring at pork tenderloins. Before you're on saute again the second time?

19:05Yeah. You're prepping? I was like, yeah, I was like, he's like, I'm giving you a chance. You're just staring at them. You mean you're going into the. I'm putting them in the oven. I'm searing them. I'm watching what happens. You're practicing. I'm practicing and I'm watching, they change. There's a moment where like, when I, because in my head I'm like, be one with the pork. What does that mean? Oh my God, be one with the pork. I'm so like, like literal at that time. As a cook, I'm like, yes, chef, be one with the pork. Like.

19:32And I remember there was a little clock in the kitchen. It's like right there and I pulled the pork out and it was like four minutes, check the timer. Four minutes, five minutes, check the timer. Check the timer. And then like twist, twist, twist. And at one point there was a moment where they glistened. This may sound so bananas. Wow. Are you sure you want to keep doing this today?

19:55Okay, they're glistening at you? Do you feel like they're glistening at you or with you? Are you glistening? I'm glistening now, talking about it. What did the glistening... It meant it was ready. Oh. Oh. It meant it was ready. It finally showed me how me to cook this mid-rare pork tenderloin. So I hate to sound naive, but isn't that what like thermometers and whatnot are for? No, seriously. I mean, that's because you're right. In the last like 30 years, I feel like cooking has become extremely regimented. Yes. Not just, it's exploded. Everybody wants to cook. And I think it's fantastic, personally.

20:32I don't do much only because it's time consuming. If I had all day, I would love to. It's such a fun science project that you get to eat at the end. Agreed. But I also feel like we've been told by so many people who at least present with authority that this is the way something is done always. And if you don't, then you're making a lesser version. But the story I hear you telling is very, very different. It's like food is real. We're real. It's real. And you have to connect with it. You have to understand it. Because, yeah, could I have used a thermometer? Sure. But 25 years ago, that chef didn't say, hey, where's your thermometer?

21:06It wasn't even like it didn't even cross your mind. Got it. But no one showed me how to cook the pork. Yeah. Right? So, like, this, like, conversation is, like, I had to learn how to do this myself. Yeah. And it was really, and that was a moment that the senses kind of, like, I finally understood. I started to understand what cooking was. I see. Okay. And what is it about you, either in your character or maybe in your, someone that you admired when you were a kid? Like, what was it about you that made you want to be that? To be giving people food as you're living? not just as sustenance, not just as pleasure, but of all the things that it represents.

21:42I feel like I'm a caregiver. I feel like that's where it stems from, right? Like I take care of people. You know, I love nothing more than making my son's lunch and dinner. Like I really enjoy setting the plate up. I enjoy all those things. I think that like I've always been that way. And I cook for friends in high school and like in college and like that kind of stuff. I've always enjoyed playing that role. If this hadn't worked out, what do you think you'd be doing? I mean, I love teaching, but that's kind of like how I am now. I don't think 25 years ago I would have done that. You strike me as that you would have been an impatient teacher back then because you're fast.

22:16I can see your brain and your mouth, they move, which I love. But yeah, I would have been impatient. I'd be like, I don't understand why you don't understand. Like, what do you mean? Like, be one with the pork, right? Like, I wish, I don't think that chef ever understands how much that silly statement resonated with me over all these years. Is he alive? He is. You'll send him the book? I will.