913. - Ella Quittner

9:52Ella Quittner:Trance might, Nirvana won't. I get that. I think for running specifically, it makes a lot of sense. Especially if you're doing long distance, because you sort of want to get into the flow, which I feel like electronic music does better than any other genre.

10:04Jason Stewart:yes and i think they were he mentioned something saying like you know if you if you have your playlist of songs then you're able to sort of get in your head and gamify they're like all right well yes i do i used to do that when i ran black hole sun sound garden is playing right now that means i only got seven more songs left and each song is averaging you know three minutes and 41 seconds i've had time to do the math so that's real that means i've got 3.8 more miles left to go when you're

10:29Ella Quittner:when you're listening to free jazz, you know, it's a little harder to sort of time your splits, you know, in your own head. That's real though. You do. I think that's why a lot of runner, like real runner heads, like all those guys I was with in Jackson hole, they're like, basically like listening to music is for pussies. Like if you need, if you need music, like you're in the wrong game. And I'm like, dude, I don't know if you're doing 250 miles, I need something. I don't know, but maybe a snack. We always got to push it.

10:54Jason Stewart:We always got to push it.

10:54Ella Quittner:But the interview, it is cool. They got, uh, Murakami do the interview though. A known runner, but I just thought it was like that made it really – I feel like that elevates it a little bit.

11:05Jason Stewart:I agree. I mean that's how you get Harry's PR to reply to that fucking email. So we got Murakani on the line.

11:13Ella Quittner:We got Murakani. He's good to go. He's greenlit for this one. He's ready to rock. Other than that, though, not much happening really. Did you see that video of Trump trying to put the metal on the guy and he's so fat it's like a choker?

11:27Jason Stewart:No. he's trying to put a metal I saw I saw it but I did not click play well there's also this trend

11:32Ella Quittner:going on where like hot older women are like this is what I was like mom what were you like in the 90s and the goo goo dolls plays and it's just a montage of like Drew Barrymore being you know the coolest person on earth in the 90s or or um you know different members of the sex in the city cast Brooke Shields I've seen I've seen a bunch of them but it's another that I just love that I I love when internet trends work in the way they're supposed to, where you actually get to post pictures when you are hotter. That's what keeps happening. You know what I mean? It just keeps happening. But when you're a celebrity, it's a little different.

12:04Ella Quittner:I feel like we've seen those pictures before. You know what I mean? We know.

12:07Jason Stewart:Yeah, we know. We have some of them saved on a special folder.

12:12Ella Quittner:That's Jason's special folder. Don't go in there. Don't go in there now. I told you, do not go in there. I'm going to slap your damn hand.

12:17Jason Stewart:These are all rare finds. These are all pre-surgery, boys. Take a look. Take a look. No, we call these.

12:23Ella Quittner:We call these. bc right here oh okay all right we do have a guest today um uh her name is ella any of her fans have already turned this off oh definitely they're they've already yeah they've fast forward if nothing else uh ella quitner uh is her name she has a new cookbook uh obsessed with the best i really like this concept for a cookbook where it's sort of like i really went to the mat to try to find the best of everything and i'm reporting back to you now um i think a lot of head-to-head testing is something that we aren't doing a lot of these days as a culture you like a bench test

13:02Jason Stewart:well you know i think i'm glad that you're you're excited and we found a cookbook with the subject matter that you can sink your teeth into as a person who doesn't cook or own cookbooks well except the ones that are nice looking but well at the but hers i like because at the top it's

13:18Ella Quittner:cookies and at the bottom it's pancakes let me tell you something that's something i wouldn't mind taste testing if you know what i mean big dog okay i know what you mean well i think i'm

13:26Jason Stewart:more interested in figuring out you know philosophically what does the best mean you

13:30Ella Quittner:know what i mean okay i think you're right that it means something different to everyone um especially a super taster all right let's uh let's give her a call

13:40Jason Stewart:but yeah this our pod is not video at all it's just just so we can see each other but it'll publicly it'll be only audio.

13:47Chris Black:Okay, then I can pull my hair all the way back.

13:49Jason Stewart:Yeah, exactly. That's right. You can do whatever.

13:51Chris Black:And no one will ever know. Can you guys hear my dog?

13:55Jason Stewart:You can even put on your big glasses. Just fuck it. Nobody's ever going to know.

14:01Chris Black:These are actually part of my face.

14:03Ella Quittner:Oh, really? You're saying these are your daily drivers?

14:07Chris Black:No, like I was born like this. People assume I wear really big glasses, but it's actually a feature.

14:13Jason Stewart:You're saying this is God's plan. He gave them to you. exactly do you have like emotional support clothing items hats glasses goggles things like

14:20Chris Black:that unfortunately i have a lot and i'm pregnant right now so it's been like really bad like i can't get dressed in a normal way i literally being pregnant has turned me into a trucker like i have these pajamas i swear i got them like for free at an airport in 2004 or 5 i don't know i don't remember how they just like are in my life hold on do they have kit kats on them or anything spongebob cookie monster some of them have like a delta logo and some of them are like just gray but i like have in my head they're from the airport some of them so you mean there's

14:54Jason Stewart:seven okay there's this you're i think you're don't bury the lead that you have that you stole

14:59Chris Black:delta pajamas from the airport in 2004 i have like eight pairs and they're like so fucked up like they're holes in the most horrifying places and i swear like i will wear them out when i go walk my dog in the morning and none of my doormen can make eye contact with me anymore they don't

15:14Ella Quittner:want to see that they said not no no please no yeah because now that you just look like a baby

15:19Jason Stewart:mama that's in the building trap maybe we just got to get her out somehow exactly i'm like the

15:23Chris Black:woman from room running out of room every time they see me every time they lay eyes on me at the

15:30Jason Stewart:door okay so so living like a trucker in that we'll say more on that expand on that please oh

15:38Chris Black:Oh my God. Do I have to? Okay.

15:41Jason Stewart:Well, I've been driving a lot lately. Cross country mostly. Yeah, exactly.

15:47Chris Black:18 wheeler. I, you know, famously pregnancy is a very joyless time in a young woman's life, right? You can't drink or do drugs or like technically eat bluefin tuna much. And like literally that's all of my hobbies is like martini. like the only thing i can do that's my hobby is like talk shit and gossip but it's like if i'm

16:09Jason Stewart:not drinking i don't even welcome home sweetheart welcome home sweetheart well let us scratch that

16:15Chris Black:itch this afternoon so my like new hobby or passion if you could call it that like the only joy of my day is every day in the mid-afternoon i go out to walk my jog and i'll like go into the five guys at the corner across seventh avenue from me and i'll hit the coke 360 machine and I'll do like a new mix, like a Diet Coke suicide. Like I'll do like a Diet Coke. I'll splash in like a Diet Vanilla Coke. I'll hit it with some Diet Cherry.

16:44Jason Stewart:You are not bench testing the Coca-Cola 360 machine, are you?

16:48Chris Black:It's certainly not precise in any way.

16:51Jason Stewart:When you go on the dog walk, do you have a blue roll of masking tape over your wrists? It's actually over my mouth.

16:59Chris Black:Yeah. And it just says call 911. lines.

17:02Ella Quittner:So, okay, when you say Coca-Cola 360, for those of us that aren't maybe as familiar with the soda dispensing...

17:09Jason Stewart:Our AMC Stubs members are aware of this soda fountain technology. I don't, yeah.

17:13Ella Quittner:I haven't been to a movie theater in a long time, so you're saying the Delta... The Coca-Cola 360, you're saying that you hit the buttons and you can try all the flavors, you can mix, you can match. They do have this in the Delta Lounge, Chris, ironically. Well, it's like going... I'm brought back to my youth growing up in Atlanta, going to the world of Coca-Cola, one of our major theme parks and attractions. And the idea was that you could go into this room at the end of the world of Coca-Cola and you could try all of the Coca-Cola products from all over the globe.

17:43Chris Black:Yeah, it's like that. They put that in like a vending machine. And if you pay like$3.99 at the Five Guys on 7th Avenue, you can do that.

17:50Ella Quittner:But you can't get like Iranian Diet Coke. You can only get like...

17:54Chris Black:No, and it's actually fucked up that you can't. Like it's actually like very nationalist.

18:00Jason Stewart:of all the of all the countries to name right oh sorry right now just top of mind it was just top of mind it's activism he had indian in the chamber and he got nervous i mean i was joking around about you bringing the masking tape and labeling it like the bear you know one three parts mr pibb one part you know whatever diet sprite but have you are you are you really doing a new suicide a fresh random roll of the dice every time? Or are you slowly chipping away at crafting a new perfect soda blend?

18:36Chris Black:I wish I could say it was the latter, but it's totally the former. Like, I think people are really surprised to learn this about me, that outside of work and outside of this bench testing I do, I'm so chaotic.

18:48Jason Stewart:Okay. Peaks and valleys.

18:50Chris Black:Like, I'm just going in there and I'm dispensing from the heart. You know, I'm letting my finger. It's like a Ouija board.

18:58Ella Quittner:It's like when I go on a trip, I just spin the globe and put my hand. Exactly.

19:02Chris Black:I let the Coke machine take me.

19:05Ella Quittner:It's all muscle memory.

19:06Chris Black:Yeah. I think that's what it is. I'm so burned out from being a neurotic perfectionist that I just let Jesus take the wheel. And I'm like, I'm one with the machine and I let it kind of guide me where it feels like I should go that day.

19:22Ella Quittner:Because you guys brought up truckers. Sure. And we're talking about food. I don't know if you've seen this trend on the Instagram Reels application, but there's a thing where this guy interviews truckers about what they get at the gas station when they're doing a long haul. So you see these kind of like toothless gremlins go into the fucking 7-Eleven, and they're grabbing the wildest mix of shit you could possibly imagine to fuel a 12-hour trip. And these guys are not pregnant.

19:52Chris Black:Yeah, right. I was going to say, I can't imagine it's worse than like what's in my tote bag right now. Like at any given time this week, it's been, I swear to God, I got a massage last week. And you know, you're naked in a massage. And I like stood up after I got off the table. Right. And I stood up and I got off the table and I like stepped on the floor and my foot crunched on something. And it was, I looked like a cockroach handle it. Well, I was like, Oh my God, is that a cockroach? You know, it's like candlelight. It's like a massage. There's drum music playing. And it was a goldfish. And I was like, oh, my God, that was somewhere on my body.

20:31Jason Stewart:Okay. To be clear, a goldfish cracker, not a live flopping goldfish. Right.

20:37Chris Black:Important.

20:37Jason Stewart:To be more clear, Ella, you don't already have a child.

20:40Chris Black:No, I have a dog. I don't know if you can hear him. He's eating a bone super hard right next to me right now.

20:45Ella Quittner:I guess I'm just more concerned that I don't know any adults who eat goldfish. That's kind of where I'm going.

20:51Chris Black:Yeah. My palate has reverted to a four-year-old white toddler in 1984. Something I can't stop eating is Honey Nut Cheerios. And I keep bringing it up because, again, I can't drink. So I don't have anything interesting ever to share. So I'm like, have you guys had Honey Nut Cheerios? And everyone's like, yes.

21:10Ella Quittner:Yeah, there's no surprise with that. Remember Honey Nut Cheerios? Yes. I'm a known. I eat Cheerios a lot, but the multi-grain. Okay. I think it's a sleeper hit that has more flavor than people would realize. It comes in a purple box or a purple accident box if you're at the store and you're looking to get crazy.

21:27Chris Black:Bit of a brag. No, I'm never at the store. I am such a degenerate these days. I'm always furiously in the Instacart chat. Like, no, you cannot swap good culture low-fat cottage cheese for nonsense. It's not the same.

21:42Ella Quittner:No, you have to let them know.

21:44Jason Stewart:This is why I cannot ever use that app.

21:46Ella Quittner:This is New York shit, Jason. Honestly, it's New York shit. it's like you just have to do this like you just have to no one i know doesn't get groceries delivered no one really i mean i know plenty of dorks that go to the farmer's market do that whole thing but they're still supplementing the farmer's market we still got to get the good

22:01Chris Black:culture in our body exactly i'll performatively go to the farmer's market and i'll like take a picture of like an heirloom tomato and post it to story and be like tomato season hit you know like some i can't even find the words i'm like what would alex delaney say you know actually

22:17Jason Stewart:this reminds me i was listening to a podcast interview and you said you had you were sitting at your boring finance desk job and you'd look at alex delaney's instagram and there'd be a photo of a cappuccino and it just says copped like i still don't know what that means like am i copying am i copying my diet it means it means uh it means cappuccino secured you know what i mean

22:43Chris Black:I guess, but here's where I'm getting tripped up. It's like he bought it. I don't know why this is so funny. Purchased it. With his money, he went in, and this was 2017, so it's not even Apple Pay. He went in and paid for it. It's like Cappuccino purchased. Yes. You didn't cop it.

23:01Ella Quittner:You did technically cop it. In his defense, he's using the term correctly. I guess this is reminding me of when Jason would -

23:08Jason Stewart:It technically does mean you purchased something in a transaction.

23:12Ella Quittner:Talk about early Twitter and be like, my first tweet was tacos for the win.

23:19Jason Stewart:It was just such a simpler time when you could post a photo with a bad sepia filter on it of a coffee drink. I have 7 ,000 of those photos deep on my iCloud somewhere. And you could post that and someone somewhere will be like, I want to have sex with this person. This guy is living la vida loca. I want to whatever you're drinking, sign me up.

23:40Chris Black:I miss that time so bad. Social media is so depressing today. To get someone to want to have sex with you via something you post, you have to work so hard.

23:49Jason Stewart:Tell me more, Ella. Tell me more. What's that like?

23:52Chris Black:Well, I'm married, so my husband has to have sex with me. Yeah. I give him a little goldfish.

24:00Ella Quittner:That's my code word.

24:01Chris Black:No, but it sucks.

24:04Ella Quittner:I disagree with you. I think this line of thinking is wrong. I think social media is better than it ever has been. And you just have to dial it in. I just don't think, I think that people, are you affected by other people? Like, are you affected by jealousy? Like, if you see like a hot chick on an expensive vacation, you're like, that should be me?

24:23Chris Black:So no, but I am greatly affected by jealousy. Like, I'm the most jealous petty person I've ever met other than my mom and I learned it from her and I'm like becoming her. But I'm not jealous of that. I'm jealous of like really arbitrary esoteric things that you wouldn't think I would be jealous of. But if someone's on a vacation, I'm like, oh, cool.

24:41Ella Quittner:Nice vacation.

24:42Chris Black:You know, I'll like Google her dad. You know, I'm just like, okay.

24:46Ella Quittner:That helps. Now we're speaking about it. So do you think anyone that you follow is paying for anything themselves?

24:52Chris Black:I think that comp culture is completely spiraled out of control. I've never heard.

24:58Jason Stewart:You said comp culture.

25:00Chris Black:Comp culture, yeah. Like, people getting stuff comped.

25:04Jason Stewart:I've never heard of anyone put a phrase or a name to my life. It's nice. I like it.

25:09Chris Black:It's all the, it's a diet Coke. It keeps me sharp.

25:13Ella Quittner:Jason loves to complain about comp culture and getting killed with dishes.

25:18Jason Stewart:Getting killed with desserts at the end and then a full check.

25:22Chris Black:That does suck when that happens. I think I'm just jealous and bitter because.

25:26Jason Stewart:All seven sorbets.

25:28Chris Black:I work for a lot of, or a couple of public, there's not even a lot of publications that still exist. I work for a couple publications.

25:35Jason Stewart:You work for both publications.

25:37Chris Black:Yeah, I work for two remaining publications that still have ethics policies. And so I'm not really participating in comp culture. Like if I were to renovate my house, like it would probably not be a good look for me to get like a comped oven or like the expensive fridge I want.

25:54Ella Quittner:You could at least get some Farrow and Ball paint, I'm sure.

25:58Chris Black:You think? I don't know. like what if they were like oh go profile the prim british lady that rebecca mead already profiled 10 years ago but everyone has brainwashed so nobody remembers maybe maybe something from the

26:11Jason Stewart:the andy bargani restoration hardware collection you know something non-culinary specific perhaps

26:16Chris Black:yeah well that's the thing i like i know i never write about fashion so i'm like maybe someone wants to give me like a a product i almost said a product pants like i don't write about fashion

26:27Ella Quittner:um yeah can you tell me what what is the what is the remember when all those startup DTC cookware brands existed for a five-year period all too well what's the worst what's the worst product from that era if you don't mind me asking only because I have my own ideas but I'd like to hear

26:45Jason Stewart:it from an expert I know that Maiden seems to have weathered the storm and they seem to be considered a respected player in the game I don't know if you agree with that or not but maybe I was

26:56Chris Black:thinking more great jones people ride really hard for maiden i think those are well made i think just jura is well made have you seen those they're like sure that sounds like a latin pop star beautiful it does but it's just so stunning it's like this guy gabe in la and he makes like bench scrapers and knives and shit and they look like art okay hold on you're telling me a motherfucking

27:18Ella Quittner:guy in la is making bench scrapers that look like art i'll be the fucking judge of that i don't know if i want an artistic bench scraper i'm gonna head down to the moma right now and see if they

27:26Chris Black:have it okay i think that works i actually did a story on this a few years ago um maybe a year ago i don't know time is time is such a spifer um as a pregnant truck driver the time yeah literally

27:38Ella Quittner:away from you yeah why does a pregnant truck driver need an art artisan bench scraper that's

27:44Chris Black:the real question to scrape stuff off the passenger seat like if like a philly cheatsake like spills out into the leather stitching if one if one of the kilos in the gas tank gets

27:54Jason Stewart:opened up you gotta move some some heavy way i'm i'm of course i'm an oxo girly as it as it pertains to the bench scraping i i'm not familiar with with maiden i mean i know the term but i'm not familiar with we were at the when we were at the restaurant yesterday i was holding that giant oh yeah giant pan that's amazing okay i got you sorry sorry we digress ella no those are nice i

28:14Chris Black:think those are made out of like real metal and i think the ones that people fucking hate are the non-stick they like yassified for millennial non-stick so like always fan was one of those do

28:26Jason Stewart:you remember it came out and it was in everyone's yes it was like in that time of food media

28:32Chris Black:becoming psychotically cool there were these like salmon colored pots and they had like 30 inserts and strainers and i the story i did was because like a year or two ago there were like a trillion listings on facebook marketplace that were like i'm leaving this piece of trash outside my apartment it's like completely scratched up it doesn't work every time i try to use it to even reheat pizza burns it like that kind of thing but i will say i don't know like i think that company did create something which is really cool which i haven't tried either around the time i was writing that which is like a new kind of non-stick that apparently isn't the kind that gets really fucked up if you use it or even look at it but i think the thing about not the thing about non-stick

29:14Ella Quittner:is everybody's a pussy. I think it's going to hurt them. Isn't that the issue with nonstick?

29:17Chris Black:That's why a bunch of people started these nuancified nonstick companies. I think it's called PFAs. It's like a thing in the coating that they feel if it gets really hot or scorched.

29:29Ella Quittner:You're saying if you make it canary yellow, it won't hurt you anymore?

29:32Chris Black:If you get an artist from Brooklyn to paint a tomato onto it, it'll actually make you healthier. You actually can't die.

29:42Ella Quittner:Yeah, you'll live forever if you buy one of these Yeah Yeah, I just feel like that was such a particular time But you're right, that was because the food I feel like that was the first time all of that shit boomed When it was the heady days of the Bon Appetit test kitchen

29:58Chris Black:Yep And like that natural wines We were like, whoa A sour juice?

30:08Ella Quittner:I'm proud to say I've never watched a Bon Appetit video in my entire life

30:11Chris Black:Really?

30:12Ella Quittner:no should we watch one right now together i don't know i don't i feel like anybody i know that did that i know in real life and i don't need to see them do that now you know what i mean does the

30:22Chris Black:name claire sappets mean anything like i can't believe you haven't seen no i've no idea we've

30:27Jason Stewart:we've had molly baz on the pod we've had carla lolly music on the pod we've had andy who else andy bargani on the pod we've had most of the i don't i don't know that i don't know the one you

30:39Ella Quittner:just said though is she hot though or what was the why are you asking like spiritually so sexy

30:44Chris Black:to me because she's just like a fantastic deft kind of stern pastry chef and she had this series that was i think their most popular series where she would like reverse engineer junk food which as we've established as a little bit of me so she's like a bitchy chick who will teach you how to make a reese's peanut butter cup at home not bitchy but like really disappointed in herself all the time in the series. She would be doing a 10 ,000 step molecular gastronomy thing to try to reverse engineer a Twinkie and you could tell she was just so frustrated. She couldn't get it.

31:20Jason Stewart:Carolyn, my wife, she considers her baking like, you know, she reaches to her cookbook for like, when I want mommy to tell me what to do, she opens that book up. You know what I mean?

31:33Chris Black:That's exactly right. Claire Sappets is like, mommy and she's perfect i think you should seriously watch her it's not dominatrix

31:42Jason Stewart:it's not bdsm but it's a little not what does she do now what does she do now that's still

31:48Chris Black:from her kitchen in new york and she does she her thing i think the reason why you guys maybe i mean why you jason maybe don't know her as well is because she's like not really for the tiktok brain rot era she's very soft-spoken and she takes her time to give ideas she would never be caught dead going like vodka and pie crust let me tell you why you know and then diving in and by the way i would yeah but she wouldn't like she's an expert i i don't know her because i don't

32:19Ella Quittner:cook but you're saying that her approach is a little too old school maybe for today's minds

32:24Chris Black:it's not even that like i think that's taking it a level too far i think in this day and age we're not even paying attention to what we're paying attention to we're just scrolling so fast that if something doesn't actively reach out and throttle you while you're just mindlessly scrolling in bed, you're not even going to see at a register that that person exists. Enter the hook.

32:44Jason Stewart:Let alone pick up a book and read it, huh?

32:47Chris Black:No, God, no. A book? Ugh, I wouldn't.

32:50Jason Stewart:So anyway, your new book's out now. We don't have to read it. On the subject of Bon Appetit, I had a question, a little bit of a shot in the dark. but while you were briefly doing some open mic stand-up in New York while you were working in finance, what percentage of your material was based on the Bon Appetit universe?

33:15Chris Black:Oh my God, zero. I was so afraid of them. And also when I was in my 20s, I didn't understand that I was extremely unimportant and irrelevant to the rest of the universe. I'm just a piece of flots. I'm in the ocean. I didn't get that yet.

33:29Jason Stewart:You really mattered to no one at all.

33:31Chris Black:Totally. So the idea that I would talk about someone else that was in New York in my stand-up set and not falsify it in some, I never, ever would have done that. I would have died.

33:41Jason Stewart:So then you didn't really have the cojones to be a stand-up comedian is what it sounds like.

33:45Chris Black:Obviously. I mean, look at me. I don't even have the cojones to put my hair behind my ears.

33:52Ella Quittner:I don't know. Wait, so what kind of jobs have you had? Because I feel like you've already listed three and you're what? You're 21? So that's kind of crazy.

34:00Chris Black:Yeah, I'm 21. I'm 35. As of last week, I've had a lot of jobs. I spent three years as a barista. What did I do? Oh, I did a bunch of internships in college at magazines. I worked on Wall Street for almost six years. That's where you met your husband, I hope. I met my husband in college. Actually, he's the reason I went into Wall Street.

34:24Ella Quittner:Yeah, he's been holding your ass down for that long. Where does he work? He better work at one of the big three. law firms, banks, something.

34:31Chris Black:He works at a very small real estate investment firm.

34:34Jason Stewart:Okay, here we go. Very small. Got it, got it, got it. Small team portfolio. Lars, though. You know what I'm saying?

34:41Chris Black:Yeah, really small. They're based in a brownstone.

34:45Ella Quittner:I've known you for 20 minutes. I knew you had a husband who made bread. I could just feel it.

34:51Chris Black:You'd love him. I already do.

34:53Jason Stewart:I already do.

34:53Chris Black:He'd pay for dinner.

34:56Jason Stewart:Do you know what podcasts

34:57Chris Black:your husband listens to um he's not a big podcaster he's he watches pretty much every tv show ever made it doesn't matter if it's like milf man or season two or like industry or like the sopranos like literally he's just like injecting television into his brain everyone can get touched unless he unless it came out before 2011 and then he says the picture is old like i I don't even know what that means. He says the picture is old. So he won't watch Californication.

35:29Jason Stewart:Is your husband 19? The quality of the image.

35:32Chris Black:He'll be 19 next week, yeah.

35:35Ella Quittner:So he's saying the quality of the image is not pleasurable to his eye, his discerning eye.

35:41Chris Black:I guess, but I wish he'd just say that. When he says the picture is old, I feel like we're in an old folks home, and he's going to throw his cane at the TV.

35:49Jason Stewart:Like, bro, this is not black and white. Obama was in office, bro. It's not that. Girls is actually really good.

35:56Chris Black:Totally. He won't watch Girls, not because of the plot.

36:00Ella Quittner:Sure. It's the picture issue. It's the picture. When you worked on Wall Street, what did you do?

36:05Chris Black:I raised capital for private equity funds. So we would get hired by these GPs who would say, I want to raise a billion dollars for an energy debt fund. And we would work with them for two or three years, doing everything from crafting their marketing message to making all the materials to setting up these meetings with investors all over the country to getting feedback on the meetings and basically getting people to write checks.

36:29Jason Stewart:What character on Industry were you?

36:31Chris Black:None. When I first watched Industry...

36:34Ella Quittner:Sweet Pea Rising? She's like, I'm not into strap-ons. I don't do that kind of stuff.

36:38Chris Black:I didn't say that. When I first watched Industry, I just laughed it off because it's not like that. It's so boring. There needs to be a show that's just actually what it's like to work on Wall Street as a 22-year-old. It's like the most exciting thing in your day is literally like getting up for the first time after nine hours, walking from your cubicle and you're like smelly high heels because you've been in them since like 6 a.m. to the like free coffee dispenser that's 15 feet away and being like, oh, maybe I'll put a sugar in my coffee. Like, I know that's not good for me, but maybe it'll get me going.

37:11Jason Stewart:I'm going to try French vanilla today.

37:13Ella Quittner:You're saying that your experience in finance, you weren't partying? I don't know if I believe that.

37:18Chris Black:No, we were drinking a ton, but again, it's not in this hilarious... In a way, the eye as a cynical person found so funny. I loved watching these men just get absolutely tanked, and I loved hanging out with them. And we had the best time, but it was so silly. It wasn't sexy. Industry's so horny. Industry's cool. It's like these hot kids running around.

37:40Jason Stewart:So when you would go to the office with all the guys, and you'd hit McSorley's and put a bunch back, how often did you end up kissing a woman in a nightclub this is my point like never never you're

37:53Ella Quittner:telling me you had sex you never had sex with kieran and shipka you didn't have sex with kieran

37:57Chris Black:i did but she would work in my office no i we would go out we would get really drunk there was this thing called the quarterly where all 75 team members in our group from all over the world would like get flown out to new york and apparently used to be this really glamorous thing before the recession where they would get flown to like different countries or like breakers palm beach so from a comment there was like this vibe you know like when your cool uncle visits when you're

38:19Jason Stewart:a kid and your parents get all like quarters dead totally they like batch a cocktail it was like

38:25Chris Black:that was the vibe and we would like go to pj clark's side car put a negroni in the freaking

38:31Jason Stewart:water yeah in the office but like the worst thing i ever saw anyone do even when we would like get really wasted stay out really late would be like i don't know like a like either like a boring drug

38:42Chris Black:or like a tobacco in the lip. You know, like a dip. Like it wasn't, there were not, women were not kissing.

38:50Jason Stewart:So things would even escalate to the level where you have a zin on certain nights. Exactly. Like I would have a zin

38:57Chris Black:and then I would like puke in the Uber.

39:00Jason Stewart:Okay, so a real marathon partying.

39:03Chris Black:Marathon partying.

39:04Ella Quittner:But isn't the point of these jobs to stick with it because then you'll eventually make a lot of money?

39:08Chris Black:Yeah, so that was obviously something I did wrong. you're like instead of money i'm gonna make biscuits yeah that's what i said um no i stuck with it as long as i could and i looked around and i was like wow it got easier every year right you're like getting more and more senior you're getting paid like two or three times as much and you're delegating there are people under you and i could look around and i could see what life i would have and in fact i could literally see it because a lot of the time we would either like go to each other's apartments or drop off pitch books at someone's house or whatever like we knew their wives.

39:40Chris Black:We knew their kids. I literally could see where my kids would go to school and how much money I would have and where my Hamptons house would be. But I kind of just couldn't bring myself to not leave and become a writer, which I know sounds so egotistical and dumb. I think it was like my whole life I had wanted to be one and my whole life my parents were like, don't. That's the worst thing you can do. They were newspaper journalists when I was a kid at Newsday on Long Island. And they were like, being a writer, worst career path you could pick. It's just full of rejection it pays nothing like you're just always scrambling and striving and hustling and it's just such a bummer and i like really tried to internalize that and it just didn't work

40:16Jason Stewart:like eventually it just broke well i think on on the plus side you have that to fall back on if your career your creative path didn't work out luckily it seems to be working out well for you but you know god forbid something does happen you you are armed with those skills we can get that

40:34Chris Black:401k juiced up again i don't think i could go back to wall street that's my strategy i have all the time where i'm like back after three years and everyone's sort of acting like i never left but i don't remember what anything means but i think my fallback plan is like a cpg company like i would love to i feel like i'm such an idiot like i would be really i'm like a protein whipped cream doesn't that sound like something if i invented it you would buy it today if it came out right now but

41:01Ella Quittner:unfortunately you got to be ahead of the curve you know no that's true if you can make some

41:04Jason Stewart:impossible crab legs for slutty vegans out there i'll i'll put 10k in right now slutty vegan sorry

41:12Ella Quittner:do you know slutty vegan ella are you familiar with slutty vegan it was a it was a it was a female-owned poc small business in the atlanta georgia area where i'm from that was uh bad boy vegan food and they did close in our bankrupt because she owes millions of dollars they were

41:28Chris Black:where Salt Hanks is now. There was a slutty vegan in my neighborhood.

41:32Ella Quittner:Yeah, there's a few here, I think.

41:34Chris Black:And all of the sandwich names were like, Dripping Wet, BLT. It's literally like sloppy

41:41Ella Quittner:toppy tuna. For real. Let me get a wet ass

41:46Jason Stewart:pastrami, no onions. Literally. It's honestly,

41:49Ella Quittner:there were people talking about the menu yesterday when they announced the bankruptcy and I was like, this is the hottest. It really worked for like a year like people were talking about every there's lines out the door and all of them it was like a whole but veganism in general has really fallen off as far as popular culture goes so i

42:04Chris Black:think it the tides turn i was working last year in la in a writer's room and i remember i was talking to someone else who worked there she was a woman who had moved out from new york um just for this job and i was ranting about this place slutty vegan being on my block we were talking about how there's this like revolving door of things on bleaker street and she said oh slutty vegan i know that place that's my boyfriend's favorite restaurant in new york and i was like

42:32Ella Quittner:i never do this but dump him yeah that's that's actually that's amazing all the restaurants in new york that's really cool that's really cool like is he dead is it like a weekend at burby

42:46Chris Black:situation where he's just been propped up for the six years you've known him and someone's like

42:50Ella Quittner:puppeting weekend at slutty's weekend at slutty's does have a nice ring to it jason it's too bad

42:55Chris Black:i'm already married that'd be such a good wedding at sharette theme weekend at slutty's at slutty

42:59Jason Stewart:vegans yeah on the on the subject of eating pussy you wrote a story called let them eat goo about you know we're talking about harry styles earlier in the pod he's a he's a big runner and those runner types like to suck down some of those goo pouches that's what you were talking about i'm assuming.

43:17Chris Black:Yeah, liquid salad.

43:19Jason Stewart:Liquid salad. I know about that, but

43:21Ella Quittner:I thought you were talking about like Martin, like the ones that all the runners use for fuel. They call it nutrition when they're running. No. Or you're talking about the salad bags for children that men now eat.

43:31Chris Black:Yeah, this is like a little bit more sinister. Yeah, exactly. It's like basically a new line of meal replacement products marketed toward the modern millennial, like Soylent 2.0, 3.0. So there's this one liquid salad backed by a man a grown man who calls himself fiber daddy online um and it's basically like a salad but it's like blended into a pouch yeah i've seen these i get ads for them on instagram okay but you can just say that you have that you eat them no i don't i i would try i would try one i didn't i'm sure

44:04Jason Stewart:somebody from their marketing team listens to the pod you have my address you have my sizes bring it

44:09Ella Quittner:over i hope fiber i hope fiber daddy does it what does fiber daddy look like that was the question because if he's snatched, then I get it.

44:14Jason Stewart:Is he hotter than the Liver King?

44:16Chris Black:He's hotter than Liver King for sure, but that's like a weird bar, I think. Low bar, yeah.

44:21Jason Stewart:Not even a low bar, just a strange bar.

44:23Chris Black:He's like a normal looking guy. I have 28 in my closet right now. I'll bring you one. I'll Uber curry it to you.

44:28Ella Quittner:What flavor do you like the best? Is it just salad flavor?

44:32Chris Black:There's only one flavor, yeah. It tastes like applesauce and like cucumber and gel, and it tastes a little bit like seaweed. Like at the back of your mouth.

44:45Jason Stewart:That's a twisted flavor combo that you just described there.

44:49Chris Black:It's a tough fact, yeah.

44:50Jason Stewart:Well, I haven't read the article, so I don't know exactly what happens at the end, but do you predict anything for the future? Do you see a world where we're reading sweet green sales, earnings, quarters are not looking good, we're pivoting to wraps? Are you going to see these protein-maxing fast casual places pivot into the goo space it's an interesting question let me pivot into the goo space yeah

45:17Chris Black:hope they don't slip um yeah it's a it's a good question because on one hand you know Soylent is like totally fucked they've released a lot of stuff lately being like it's people and um on the other hand you know all the people I spoke to for the story were like I'm busier than ever we live in this late stage capitalism hellscape where everything's vying for my attention and I can be reached by anyone at any time and I'm just constantly getting text messages and my kids are screaming. I have to take them to the thing and then I want to watch TikTok and then I can eat a meal replacement bar instead of a lunch.

45:48Chris Black:Sometimes that solves a problem for me. But I do think largely, and I hope in the next few years or maybe a little longer, we'll have a major cultural blowback and we'll become much more analog. And it'll probably get really obnoxious before it gets better, like in the early 2000s.

46:05Ella Quittner:Yeah, we all stay at the Ace Hotel when they put a record player and a guitar in the room. Exactly.

46:10Chris Black:that's like exactly what i was just gonna say like the when you know the guy you knew from college had a record player and every week he would go to like a different record store and get a different

46:20Jason Stewart:one i like really like bob homemade pizza sauce is actually better than well i mean i think there

46:25Ella Quittner:already is a little bit of a little bit of a movement and i actually as a bar a longtime bar lover not just annex i mean nutritional um i i do think the line of thinking that like it's better to just eat food. Like regular real food is obviously healthier every time. Sure. And I do hear people, I think that is a line of thinking that is making its way back a little bit.

46:51Chris Black:And also there's another complicating strain though, which is like, if this was just the Thoiland era, of course there would be this blowback where we would be going back to like Ace Hotel record, eat real food, Alison Roman chickpeas in a pot type of thing. But now there's also this like Maha politicized nature I think to Whole Foods.

47:09Ella Quittner:Well that's why I'm, that's the only reason I ever eat real food.

47:12Chris Black:You love Bobby.

47:14Ella Quittner:You have no idea how much we love Bobby on this podcast.

47:16Chris Black:I mean you had Olivia on I saw.

47:19Ella Quittner:That's not why. We don't like him for his sexual reasons. We just like him because he's funny and he wears jeans. Just like me.

47:27Chris Black:That's big of you.

47:28Jason Stewart:Actually while we have you here, just a quick aside, Chris and I, we were talking about earlier. Do you have any suspicion or idea what he's hiding under those jeans when he's working out the reason why he never takes the jeans off we're not talking about his penis we're not talking about his huge penis so you know people have said varicose veins a racist tattoo you know some weird disfigurement a burn accident heavy machinery something like that what's he hiding under there i think it's like you know

47:55Chris Black:how he's you know like the maha people really hate like 5g and like cordless headphones i think gets a bunch of like wireless iphone chargers that when he puts his uh phones in the pockets of his pants they like plug right in and he doesn't want anyone to know he's doing that

48:11Jason Stewart:because it's affecting his fertility great idea this is this is a great idea so he's a human hot

48:15Chris Black:spot yeah well no he's a human mobi charger so they're called those things you can like slap

48:21Ella Quittner:your phone on yeah what imagine imagine you meet him at a press conference you give him a hug and your phone starts charging and you don't know why?

48:29Chris Black:That's actually awesome. That would make me want to give him a bigger hug.

48:33Ella Quittner:So you're saying he's a Maha charging pad.

48:36Chris Black:Yeah, because he's got to keep in touch. He's got to keep tweeting. He's got to get back to dawn. He can never be off the clock, even at the gym.

48:45Ella Quittner:Because we talked about this on Monday's podcast, how much liver are you eating personally?

48:52Chris Black:Yeah, right. I only eat liver every day, every meal. I only eat it when I'm in a restaurant where it's been pureed with heavy cream and shallots and cherry vinegar, and it's spread on toast, usually. That's only when I'm encountering it. Unless my dad's like, sometimes my dad's very whimsical, and sometimes he'll go to the market because my mom's been on him for three days to buy yogurt. He'll come back and be like, when I was a boy, your Grammy used to make me liverwurst. And then he'll cut a slice of it and eat it on a crunchy cracker. Liver and onions for lunch. Who wants it? That I would encounter.

49:33Chris Black:But that's once every 10 years.

49:35Ella Quittner:Would your dad take that as a compliment or as a diss that you called him whimsical?

49:39Chris Black:Oh, I think it's just a statement of fact. My dad is the most whimsical man alive. He's so goddamn silly.

49:48Ella Quittner:What does he do all the time? Does he still work or is he chilling now?

49:51Chris Black:He retired last month, and I actually have an answer for you because yesterday I woke up to like a 3 ,000-word text. I can read it to you if you want. In which he said, now that I'm retired, I let myself sleep until 7 a.m. And your mom's right. She's been saying for years the best sleep is between 5 and 7 a.m. It's when you fall into your deepest dreams. And then something like, you know, like nectar of the gods. You sleep like the dead. Like he gets very effusive. And then he described in many characters a dream he'd had in which I was like sort of a bitch. And then my sister, who everyone prefers to me, was like kind of awesome.

50:30Ella Quittner:Wow. Okay. So.

50:32Chris Black:Yeah.

50:32Ella Quittner:Okay. So your dad needs a job, basically, is what you're saying. Because it's already, it sounds like it's going pretty bad already.

50:37Chris Black:No, I think he's really happy. He loves ChatGBT and AI. So he's like really thrilled, I think, to just be able to like.

50:47Ella Quittner:Talk to his new friend. literally yeah he can monitor the situation and yeah he's a big situation monitor he's monitoring

50:54Chris Black:iran right now he's monitoring a number of situations he has my mom and him are like opposite in terms of their aesthetic and lifestyle preferences and she's like an anti-hoarder like when i was a kid growing up you like put your homework on the table and got a glass of water she'd be like who's trash is nobody throwing it out like she's like that and he's like he would be most comfortable if he was just like mummified and like a series of colorful cords like the notches sticking out and stuff so she like relegated him to this space in our house they call the grottage which is like an outbuilding in the back that used to be really beautiful before she let him go into it and now he's filled with grotto and cottage combined into one word grottage the grottage that's exactly right and it's hilarious because it's this space my mom I used to have this interior design blog.

51:40Chris Black:It's got these beautiful wainscoting walls. But now my dad has six screens all in a row. And somehow an extra large keyboard. I think he ordered from Amazon where all the keys are rainbow. And kind of light up in Ms. Airways.

51:55Jason Stewart:I think your dad is jacking off on webcams. I'm sorry to break it to you, Ella. Your dad's charging people for this. Your retired father is a gamer chick.

52:04Chris Black:Good for him.

52:05Jason Stewart:He got these headphones that have little cat ears on them that light up. I just thought they sounded super good and all my friends online said they were cool.

52:12Ella Quittner:So he's into crypto now?

52:15Chris Black:He actually is really into crypto. Yes, he has the grottage and it's just filled with all this stuff and it's this hilarious juxtaposition of this gorgeous aesthetic dream and then just like 3 ,000 cords and tiny sculptures he's purchased at garage sales.

52:30Ella Quittner:Now, just because we're talking about it, your sister, they like more than you. Why do you think they like her more?

52:36Chris Black:I do too, by the way. She's awesome. Both my sisters are so awesome. Oh, there's three of you.

52:41Ella Quittner:And are you number three or number two in the rankings?

52:44Chris Black:I don't know. I think I'm probably my mom's second favorite and my dad's third.

52:47Ella Quittner:Okay. All right. Thanks for the honesty. Yeah, I appreciate the honesty. Do they have kids? Is that why they're ahead? Or are they just generally better?

52:55Chris Black:They're so awesome. One does have kids, but that's not why they're ahead. My older sister is like the funniest person I've ever met. She's like truly the most delightful and wonderful human. What does she do for a living? she's a psychologist and a high security men's prison in Sacramento

53:09Jason Stewart:selfless job as well

53:11Chris Black:a classic comedy job no but she's like so funny outside of it and our entire life

53:17Ella Quittner:you gotta laugh if you're doing that for a living

53:19Chris Black:I think that's exactly right and she does she's so funny she's like so funny I can't go anywhere in public with her because it's anyway my little sister is she lives in LA and she's just like classic little sister like stunningly gorgeous so supportive so nice everyone i've ever met is like are you clementine sister like they're

53:41Ella Quittner:like they're kind of surprised you know like have you got you probably gonna ask me that now does

53:46Chris Black:she have a man she yes she does for now hold on hold on what's his what's his similar to when i

53:51Jason Stewart:said which blank are you which member of heim are you oh um oh i'm definitely not the skinny older

53:59Ella Quittner:one um that's all of them now the the band yeah no i thought the band leader no the older one isn't it esty oh oh okay oh esty i'm sorry yes yes yes and i'm not the like quintessentially

54:11Chris Black:hot one i'm like the third one that's like more fun loving and like i think she's the one that makes them do the social media dances so she probably has something deep within her where she like needs to seek validation that sounds like alana the actress yes the one that the one

54:23Jason Stewart:that's in films okay so you're alana i mean it's not like you're bad or anything they're just like

54:28Chris Black:less of a bitch than you totally and also i get it i'm like pretty low energy you know like when we all go home for the holidays i'm like i'll come out for like an hour they're like wonderful

54:39Ella Quittner:they're effusive you're like in you're in your you're like in your high school goon cave and

54:43Chris Black:they're out hanging out with your parents i don't have a goon cave on record but yeah like come out and i like try to mask that i'm like sort of antisocial by um i like cook for everyone to be yeah exactly i'll like make a big meal but i'll like totally have my headphones in and it'll be like under my hair and i'll be listening to like a murder mystery on audible and then if anyone tries to talk to me i like rip it out and i'm like what mom you said you have avocado oil this

55:14Jason Stewart:is bullshit okay so your parents have two golden retrievers and one cat yeah exactly you're not bad

55:19Chris Black:but you can't compete with the golden retriever no and i wouldn't want to i love them i'm so glad

55:24Jason Stewart:they're great it's how it takes a load off this sounds like a pretty good dynamic for sure you're you said you said your little sister lives in la are you in la right now as well or soon to be

55:35Chris Black:well i will be in la tomorrow i'm in the west village right now um and i'm headquartered i live in the west village but i spend a lot of time in la for work okay okay but you're doing

55:45Jason Stewart:you're doing some pop-ups at some friends of ours restaurants next week oh that's right tomorrow i'm

55:51Chris Black:doing one at quarter sheets sorry i don't know if you can hear my dog it's going crazy um i'm doing one tomorrow at quarter sheets hold on this fucking dog you're this is the most west village

56:00Ella Quittner:ass dog i've ever seen in my fucking life get that motherfucker off my screen does this dog have a food name or no before i throw botch at my screen it's even worse his name is mouse oh hell no oh my god uh i'm just happy you're not wearing like a park sweatshirt your dog is in a bushwick

56:17Jason Stewart:polycule.

56:18Chris Black:Literally.

56:19Jason Stewart:Mouse did the dishes and wants to know if she could get a bump.

56:23Chris Black:Mouse already bought my book and posted it to Stories and Tags.

56:27Jason Stewart:Her work is so important.

56:29Chris Black:Yeah, and the next week I'm doing no, it's he. He often gets that though. He gets misgendered a lot. Might be classic Jason.

56:36Jason Stewart:Sorry, playa. I'm popping up at Etra

56:39Chris Black:next week. Are those your friends?

56:41Jason Stewart:Yeah, both. Yes, both. Both friends of the pod. Hopefully I'll

56:45Chris Black:see you there.

56:45Jason Stewart:Yeah, we're not, I'm not going to be a quarter but i'm going to try to go to etro i went to quarter sheets on sunday and

56:50Ella Quittner:there i got i i did a wild card dessert it was like whoa what was it it was like a grapefruit

56:58Jason Stewart:pie of some kind with like a graham cracker crust this was not the mercat lime pineapple cake that we podcasted about no this was this was some sort of sorry but i there was there was obviously

57:10Ella Quittner:something more sinister that i was with ryan o 'connell he got the bad boy when i got the one that was like fruity which is rare for me but i wanted to take a risk because i trust them what's the bad boy one oh you know like a bread pudding or some you know just some like shit you know is

57:24Jason Stewart:gonna smell like a chocolate chip cookie yeah just some fucked up sticky toffee yeah melty chocolate thingy well actually speaking of la and and restaurants i want to know where you want to eat where you're going to eat and um you were mentioning chicken liver you gotta go get the

57:40Chris Black:the chicken liver at squirrel dinner oh is it good best in class yeah it's either the it's either first or second best in la i feel like there's been so little coverage of it so far which like makes sense because it's la so the food coverage is sort of like limited to max and helen's a lot unless you're reading the la times and by food coverage of course i mean on social media what's max and helen's what's that um it's a small classic diner you'd really love it you know just very classic vibes it doesn't seem like nicholas bronson investor at all

58:19Jason Stewart:okay well are you gonna go to max and helen's no because i don't wait in lines i'm depressed but i yeah but you could go you can get the plug you're plugged up i'm not gonna like trying you're not gonna ask somebody to skip the line for a pancake plug to phil rosenthal

58:35Chris Black:i have the plug okay jason you want to go next week to max and home um we could go yeah i'll go with you but i won't wait in line i for me la dining is kind of two things one is i there are a number of sort of hole in the wall spots that are more or less kind of like take out or very fast that you would go for an hour or two to i mean sorry uh 10 minutes i love sweet green i love sweet green but like northern thai food club they have wraps now they have wraps now i actually did text my husband today about wraps like this is how joyless my pregnancy life is i text him i wish we had a magic wrap machine that if i pushed a button it would spit out a wrap that's warm and crunchy on the outside i'm full of a delicious saucy salad on the inside with some meat i mean it

59:24Ella Quittner:reply this motherfucker this motherfucker is at work you're like rethinking everything i got this

59:28Chris Black:bitch pregnant he's like so such a good guy i feel so bad um but yeah uh no it's for me it's like spots you go to for like 10 to 30 minutes and eat like 6 000 calories like northern high food club it's like i'll hit every three nights while i'm there um i love love to eat so so the

59:46Jason Stewart:old saying la has better food new york has better restaurants no no i don't think that's true at

59:51Chris Black:all. I feel like people are way too harsh on LA. I think one of the best restaurants in the world is Musso and Frank.

59:57Jason Stewart:That's one of the worst restaurants on earth. You're out of your fucking mind. Saying LA has better food is not necessarily going hard on them. Inedible. I would say it's complimentary.

1:00:05Chris Black:I don't think Musso and Frank has the best food. I think it's just a fabulous restaurant. I kind of disagree.

1:00:11Ella Quittner:I think it's very mid. I think it's just kind of mid all around. Chris, since you don't drink, it's kind of dead in the water for you. But there's 15 restaurants like that in New York.

1:00:20Chris Black:I was going to ask. I would never go. I won't go there this trip because I'm not drinking because I'm pregnant. I almost think because I'm sober.

1:00:27Ella Quittner:Would you guys realize that if you have to drink at a restaurant, maybe we're doing the wrong thing? Just something. I'm just putting it out there that maybe that's an issue.

1:00:35Jason Stewart:It's a beautiful establishment that it's a restaurant where you don't go there for the food. I don't go to any restaurant for the food, though.

1:00:41Chris Black:You go there for the sidecar. And I think another one of the best restaurants in the world is in L.A., which is Roast Duck by Paword. I think that's both a fantastic food and fantastic restaurant have you guys been there?

1:00:54Jason Stewart:yeah I have but there's much better duck to be had in LA what? it's in the top 10 but it's not in the top 5

1:01:01Chris Black:can I get your top 5? I feel like I can't

1:01:05Ella Quittner:off record he can't blow up the duck spot he'll get cancelled are you a duck lover?

1:01:12Chris Black:I don't want him to blow up the duck spot I am a duck lover but I'm a paw word lover primarily I love everything about it I love when you go to the bathroom and there's like a colander full of cabbage in the sink.

1:01:21Ella Quittner:Yes, yes.

1:01:22Chris Black:Like it's just one of my favorite.

1:01:24Ella Quittner:I've never even heard of that. I mean, I don't eat duck, but I've never even heard of this.

1:01:27Chris Black:You don't eat duck ever?

1:01:28Ella Quittner:I don't eat meat.

1:01:30Chris Black:Okay, duck is a meat.

1:01:31Ella Quittner:But where is the, technically, I mean, I don't love to kill cute animals. That's just me. But where is the duck place? Thai town.

1:01:38Chris Black:It's in Thai town. It's like on the border of Thai town and Little Armenia.

1:01:41Jason Stewart:It's like a little lunch spot. You can get a little plate with some rice and some crispy duck. And do they also have Hainan chicken as well? I don't think they do.

1:01:51Chris Black:Everything on the menu has duck. So there's like an incredible spicy roast duck curry. There's like a duck salad that has like apples and things in it. All right.

1:02:00Ella Quittner:You're telling me you're eating duck for lunch?

1:02:03Chris Black:Oh, you have to because they sell out by the evening. You can't really go for dinner.

1:02:07Ella Quittner:Oh, hell no. You can't eat duck. People are getting crazy with lunch. It's crazy.

1:02:11Jason Stewart:Say more. Duck is a very nice protein, healthy fat.

1:02:14Ella Quittner:No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that I know you ain't getting duck. It ain't rotisserie duck. There's a lot of other shit with it. You know what I'm saying? She's not getting duck curry at noon is just a little gnarly. Not for me. Okay. You're saying you're built for this shit.

1:02:29Chris Black:I'm built for duck at noon. Like when I don't have duck at noon, I'm hungry for the rest of the day.

1:02:34Ella Quittner:You're feeling off. That's when you reach for your David bar.

1:02:37Chris Black:Exactly.

1:02:38Jason Stewart:Don't talk to mama until she's had her dad.

1:02:40Ella Quittner:If I don't get my duck in a blueberry David bar to tide me over.

1:02:43Chris Black:And I'll slam a liquid salad. I just need a lot to tide me over if I don't get my duck.

1:02:48Ella Quittner:All right, so what are you doing at these restaurants? You're cooking at these restaurants.

1:02:52Chris Black:No, they're cooking foods from my book. And in some cases, we're collaborating to make a Frankenstein menu item.

1:02:59Ella Quittner:This is fucking crazy. So to promote your book, you're making your friends work, is what you're saying.

1:03:04Chris Black:Totally, yeah.

1:03:05Jason Stewart:But also, those restaurants get to have a random Wednesday where they sell out because she markets it on her end and everyone makes a little bit of money, sell a few books, we have fun. Let's find out, Jason. Ella, how are ticket sales?

1:03:19Chris Black:Well, I don't know blissfully, but I agree with you, Chris. It's awful. The whole promoting of a book press is just so humiliating. It's just asking people to do work for you. It's emailing your friend and being like, will you write an article about me? Will you do a podcast episode that I'm on? As someone who hates to do extra work, I viscerally feel it. And I hate asking anyone for anything.

1:03:41Ella Quittner:I think that people, somebody was talking to me about this recently saying something very similar. And I think that if it's your actual friends, they're happy to do it. I don't think anybody would actually be bothered.

1:03:52Jason Stewart:I think people are, once you finish, I don't know, I've never written a book, but I feel like once I do finish that book, when I'm making that call that I've been saving up all my juice for, I'm not going to ask this person for any favors until it's go time. I feel like the excitement of making that call and saying like hey books out let's do this fucking

1:04:13Chris Black:podcast bro you know whatever it is you know you sound like you have high self-esteem I agree that like they shouldn't be so put out by it but I don't know I'm not put out by it if someone calls me and they're like hey can you go to my house and like do all this stuff and I'm like absolutely because I love to feel useful but I think I'm like a freak no but Jason makes a good point as well

1:04:33Ella Quittner:like a Wednesday night or whatever. It's like something exciting to do that gets people in the door and it's fun for everybody. And I also think that this is how I feel about texting people for reservations. Because finally, food people are like, that's my job. I don't care. I'm happy to do it. It's not annoying to me.

1:04:49Chris Black:I hate texting for reservations. I'd rather like...

1:04:52Ella Quittner:That's the only way to go to a restaurant anymore. So you don't have a choice.

1:04:55Chris Black:I know. I know. I mean, it is. But I like when someone else does it and then I get to be in there and party.

1:05:02Jason Stewart:that's me passenger princess that is preferred exactly that is passenger princess bench scraping

1:05:09Ella Quittner:stuff up the passenger seat this table open what are you gonna what car are you gonna drive in la

1:05:13Chris Black:i'm probably not gonna drive a car i rented a car when i was there for a while last year and it was so heavenly and i just like don't want to ruin the memory i think i'm an uber you you want to preserve car summer forever literally i feel like my car was my safe space like i was living like a 1940s ad man i was like waking up and making like a mocha pot of coffee and getting in my rental car and driving to the studio and i would like list blast music i do it every day i'm a really bad driver i know you are every time i get in a car there's a risk of you know i'm a bad driver you

1:05:50Ella Quittner:could tell oh yeah the second i met you i just wouldn't get in the car with you i think you have

1:05:55Chris Black:anxiety around all types of traveling and transportation okay so not true and actually my husband is like nightmarishly anxious about air travel i was just reflecting today i'm so glad i'm flying alone tomorrow we call him the manager when he flies because he acts like he's like actually the pilot of the plane like when we go on like a 12 hour flight he like doesn't sleep a wink. Wait, let me ask you a question.

1:06:21Ella Quittner:When you get on the plane, do you wipe down the seat?

1:06:28Chris Black:No! Me?

1:06:29Ella Quittner:I didn't think so, but I had to ask. We just met.

1:06:32Chris Black:I'm like Hagrid. When I get on the plane, am I ripped pajama pants from 2004 with goldfish falling off of my person? Am I wiping down the seat? No!

1:06:41Ella Quittner:I didn't think so, but that's my true judge of character. If you wipe down the seat, I don't think you're for me.

1:06:46Chris Black:No, you're not for me. And also when they hand me that little thing, I'm like, I don't like when someone gives me something I know I'm going to have to throw out.

1:06:52Ella Quittner:They've stopped doing that. Really? I've noticed.

1:06:55Chris Black:Then I wish they would give me that thing. Airlines are so cheap.

1:06:59Ella Quittner:They really have. I noticed that like a year ago. I was like, oh, they stopped doing this. Because now you can really identify the true freaks because they bring their own.

1:07:07Chris Black:Yeah. Oh, so true. I was. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to tell that story. It makes me sound bad. but I'm glad that my husband isn't traveling with me tomorrow because I'll be able to just enjoy the fact that like if the plane goes down it's just going to go down

1:07:20Ella Quittner:with all of us on it. Best way to die. Best way to die.

1:07:23Chris Black:If he was on the plane and it started to go down he would like ask to talk to the pilot. I'm not kidding. Excuse me can I have a word?

1:07:30Jason Stewart:So he's like Mark Wahlberg with the 9-11 plane if I was on that plane it wouldn't have gone down that way. Your husband would have landed this thing. That's my favorite. I forgot about that.

1:07:39Chris Black:My husband identifies as the main character in Hijack. You know what I mean? He's like, I'm going to solve this hijack. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm going to take all of the Ativan in my purse.

1:07:51Jason Stewart:Okay, so he sits down. He knows exactly what row to have eyes on the situation. He starts flipping buttons on the ceiling that aren't there, like he's in the cockpit and things like that.

1:08:02Chris Black:It's worse. Before we get on the plane, he starts scrolling anxiously at the airport because he's made us get there hours in advance. and he goes oh no ife and i'm always go what's ife and he says in play entertainment i always have to tell you and he's like looking at a model our airplane is on his phone and then we get on

1:08:22Jason Stewart:the plane and i'm airbus airbus 312 fuck i hate this model no ife and also by the way this is a

1:08:29Chris Black:man who hates being bored he's like the most adhd man i've met my entire life but he has like never packed a dog downloaded a tv show downloaded a podcast like anything in his entire life and so he's like oh no i of these so he's already in a horrible mood anxiety's building we get in the air and then immediately he starts he'll i'll be like nodding off and he'll tell me i'll be like yeah so we just descended about 5 000 feet in a two minute span which is really a regular but i'm keeping an eye on the situation and i'm like to what end yeah big bro what are you gonna

1:09:01Ella Quittner:do if we if we go 10 000 you can't do shit about this we went on our honeymoon once we were flying

1:09:07Chris Black:to i love him so much we were flying to turkey like that you have to preface you're where we

1:09:14Jason Stewart:say you're flying to tliddy turkey turkey we were flying in turkey and it was like one of those

1:09:22Chris Black:situations were on like a regional carrier i think we were flying from like istanbul to bethia or something like you know it's like we didn't know anything that was going on the whole

1:09:31Jason Stewart:time you weren't on the emirates flight is what you're saying no absolutely not your hair your

1:09:35Ella Quittner:Your hair transplant looks really good. They did a great job.

1:09:37Chris Black:Thank you. I got very big teeth. And it was one of those situations where, like, people start saying stuff in a different language on the speaker. And everyone around us starts anxiously wrestling and, like, going, like, oh, my God, oh, my God. And then someone gets on the thing and, like, very painstakingly sort of says in broken English, like, hey, so it's, like, a really hard landing today. It's super, super cloudy and the winds are really strong. So we're going to, like, attempt it. but it might not work. They just say that, right? And then we're like, what the fuck? Like, that can't be how they actually said it, you know, fluently.

1:10:14Chris Black:Like, hold on.

1:10:15Jason Stewart:That can't be the word for word translation, surely.

1:10:19Chris Black:I'm sure they said into the thing, like, and then if it doesn't work, we'll, like, come back up and we'll try it again and we'll circle. But they go, like, but it might not work. And it, like, turns up and the plane starts descending and, like, it's like a wind strike against the plane. Like the whole thing is like vibrating up and down and side to side in there. And things are sort of being thrown around us. It's like getting closer and closer to touching down. And my husband gets so worked up about it. Like, he's like, but they can't do this. What's going on? They can't do this. They can't attempt to land in these conditions.

1:10:50Chris Black:And I was like, why are you unbuckling your seatbelt and standing up? Like, what are you going to do? You're going to go talk to someone. Why are you unbuckling your seatbelt? That's like, they lock the cockpit. and he said let me do what I need to do and he stood walking toward the front of the plane and I was like oh my god he's actually gonna ask to talk to the pilot and then a flight attendant very sternly was like sit down he was like okay no problem and he just got back in his seat and buckled and got ready to die

1:11:23Jason Stewart:I like the idea of just going up to the cockpit and just not just tapping on the door hey what's going on

1:11:28Chris Black:are you sure you've got this through

1:11:30Ella Quittner:I know this is kind of your thing or whatever but I'd like to give some feedback if you don't mind.

1:11:34Chris Black:Did he think it was pilot suicide or just like no one but him had considered that it could be a bad idea.

1:11:39Jason Stewart:You're like, Oh yeah. Crashing is bad. I agree.

1:11:42Chris Black:Thanks man. Thanks man.

1:11:43Jason Stewart:Wow. Well, I mean, I feel bad for your husband outing him like that a little bit, but it was a good story. And I think he would be okay with the rent.

1:11:51Chris Black:I love him so much.

1:11:53Ella Quittner:Ella, thank you for joining us on How Long Gone. Obsessed with the best is everywhere you buy books. I assume it's available everywhere you buy books. It is. If you're in LA, go to Quarter Sheets, go to Etra, and I'm sure they can follow you on Instagram to find out about more public appearances.

1:12:08Chris Black:That's right. Thanks for having me.

1:12:09Ella Quittner:And I mean public appearances beyond the five guys on 7th Avenue.

1:12:13Chris Black:Yeah. Please don't say hi to me if you see me there.

1:12:17Jason Stewart:I will sidebar about Squirrel and Duck.

1:12:21Chris Black:Yeah, please. And Max and Hallens.

1:12:23Jason Stewart:And Max and Hallens as well. Great.

1:12:24Ella Quittner:Wow, you guys have a full plan. All right. Well, thank you for joining us. Honestly, it was a pleasure. And safe travels. We'll see you soon.

1:12:30Chris Black:Bye, guys.

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