235: Eric Kim & Ali Slagle

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. It's the difference between creating a recipe and making something so that people can eat food. It's like you don't actually need a garnish, and you don't actually need every texture in every dish that you make. So, like, what are the core elements? And it probably is five ingredients.

0:52You're listening to The Taste Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59here's a bonus episode from our recent conversation with cookbook authors eric kim and ali slagle live at risoli bookstore in new york eric is a new york times magazine columnist and author of the best-selling korean american ali is a recipe developer consultant and author of the best-selling i dream of dinner i hope you enjoy this incredibly fun and candid talk and stay tuned for future live tapings we have many to announce in the summer and fall

1:31Hi everyone, welcome to Rizzoli Bookstore. I'm so glad to have you all here tonight to celebrate the first installment of Taste Live at Rizzoli, our new event series with the wonderful Taste podcast. And now let's give a very warm welcome to Eric and Allie and Matt.

1:55Thank you. Thanks, Christine. We will be doing this with frequency. It's such a beautiful space. I want to thank Shalia and Pat from the Taste Podcast for producing tonight. We're recording this live. Thanks to all the listeners out there. And Ali and Eric, thank you so much for joining me on stage. I have a lot to ask. One more thing. We're going to be here August 17th. Haven't announced it, but we'll do it now. Claire Saffitz and Natasha Pickowitz and Eliza Barbanal celebrating all things pastry. So mark your calendar. How are you guys doing? Great. Yeah? Good. You know, your books came out during the pandemic, and we didn't get to do a lot of this, right?

2:34This is nice. I think Eric's done this more than I have, but... But the difference was I always had a mask on. Yeah, it was always kind of like with the mask and a little bit of social distancing. Well, you both contribute to the New York Times. You both have worked at Food52. You both have released cookbooks. It's such an honor to have you on stage. And I have to ask from the jump, you know, what's happening right now in your home kitchens? Allie, I'll start with you. I think you're always, I think you just did like a total like Instagram bomb today with all the things you've been working on.

3:05That was cool. So what are you working on right now recipe wise? Sure. So every week is different. Every day is a little different. Right now I'm recipe testing for a cookbook, which means I get someone else's recipes and I just make sure that they come out well. The deadline is quickly approaching. So I think I've done, I do about 20 recipes a week on top of my own recipes. And today was grocery shopping day. Okay, so let's go there. So let me ask you about grocery shopping. Do you have help or is it just you? It's me. Okay. Is it multiple stops because you're out on Long Island now or is it one place?

3:45It's multiple stops because nowhere has everything I need. but I have kind of like a mental idea of what is at each store. So I know my routes. You know your route. Okay. And when you're actually, you're testing, is there something like a little, is like the pressure off a little bit when you're just testing or is it still pretty pressure packed? It's a totally different thing because I have to like turn off my developer brain. I have to turn off like, well, I would do it this way or like this way would be better and just really follow someone else's path. And I think I learn a lot from that because I'm doing stuff I would never think to do myself.

4:21And then I get to provide feedback and be helpful in that way. That's great. Eric, what are you doing right now in the kitchen? What's happening? I just, my partner just moved in. So the - Moved in, moved in. Yeah, moved in. Like moved in, moved in. Moved in to my apartment. Damn. All right, we can throw this out. We have a lot of questions. Well, and so the point of that is just that I have a much cleaner kitchen and I realized what a mess I've been making before because no one was looking at it and no one was paying attention. So now I'm working on a fried chicken and it's been the cleanest my kitchen has been, which is strange because frying usually makes a huge mess.

5:01Are we thinking with chicken? Is it like karage or is it on the bone? What are you doing? I was trying to be as vague as possible. Okay, so this is like for instance. that's coming up, but it's boneless. Okay, okay, sorry. Next question. We don't need to go there. So let me ask you both, you write for the New York Times and the cooking app, and I think everyone here has obviously used the app. Let's talk about the comments, because the comments can get kind of real, right? The comments, so what do you, Ali, what do you learn from the comments? Do you read them? I read them when the recipes are just published just to make sure that there's not an error uh yeah I read them pretty religiously but um you know it's really because I'm at first it was to see how people are using them because I'm just so curious and I want to know what people are doing and but now I realize sometimes it's to make sure that a rogue commenter doesn't lead everyone else astray that's like a new thing oh yeah it will be like oh this isn't right i would rather do this and then i see it and i'm like oh god that's going to become the top comment and then everyone's dinner is going to be ruined so i i do it now out of like just protection of other people's food i think for me the comments are are kind of like liberating because one comment will be like i hated this worst thing ever and the next one is like this is the best thing i've ever made in my whole life and it's like if that's the spectrum like i'm just gonna do what i want to do but then the only thing that i listen to is the negative one okay okay well oh no that's only for my therapist but yeah i think um the comments are really helpful really helpful okay that's the net positive of that comment was there any time that you wanted to jump in because i don't think you guys jump in right because that's not part of like near time style i think we're starting to change it actually and the reason i started to step in is because like i said before so a great example is this ham there's a pineapple ham i published and my whole point was that fresh pineapple has a much brighter flavor but in order to use it you need to make sure you like deactivate the the meat melting capabilities of that enzyme because if you don't if you just like try to bejewel the top of the ham with fresh pineapple it will um it will truly turn to glue like pink glue that ham will and um i was trying to warn people because i was like that's why i'm asking you to encircle the ham in the pan instead anyway this one person an early commenter was like i've been making pineapple ham for decades and my ham has never melted that's that's just some gibberish and then I was like kind of worried about it but then I did finally respond because I was like just to clarify canned pineapple is obviously okay I'm just saying fresh pineapple be careful and then there was someone whose ham was ruined like an Easter ham was melted because of this lady who thought she was being helpful so sometimes you have to step in this is like a screenplay yeah it's a whole other thing Ali let's talk about the way that you write recipes particularly in I Dream of Dinner unconventional unconventional sure let's get a little bit because i haven't talked to you about this was that hard to sell the publisher actually no i i expected a lot of pushback on the format of the recipes for those who aren't familiar all of the measurements are in the steps themselves and then you don't really get an ingredient list you get kind of like a grocery list that you can skim so it's like ketchup do i have ketchup yes done there are no head notes it's just like one sentence long.

8:50And I really, I felt strongly about this format and I thought I would have to really sell my editor on every step, but I think she totally got it, which was a huge vote of confidence because it is like a really new way of thinking about how to use a recipe. But I did it because of my own experience working, my own experience cooking from recipes. I had so many questions. I was like, it calls for romaine. Like, can I use something else that's juicy? Can I skip it? What if I don't marinate something for 24 hours like is it going to turn pink um and I just wanted to kind of like let life into the recipes a little bit so you can understand like what has to happen for this thing to come out and what can like kind of just go with whatever works for you yeah I just I love it it's such a strength of this book the way that you decided to format it and it's a bold choice yeah I mean like you said remembering the negative comments like some people really really don't like it yeah but i think you just have to give it a shot like pick up the book if you don't have it because you'll you'll see right away that it's quite intuitive yeah the way um is that going to be your style going forward with other projects we can get into that later i don't know i do it wasn't like exactly how i wanted it designed so i do think there's ways to make it a little bit more straightforward for people um but i like the direction of it yes now eric korean american i want to ask you um there's so much narrative and memoir in this book and we read your writing we see some of that happen but we also see just straight reporting third person absolutely like just going there and reporting on i think um it's a real strength of yours to be able to do both tones when you're figuring out korean american how did you balance the real instruction with the story very challenging and i think you really executed it well personally.

10:40Thank you so much. I feel like I was really inspired by Nigella Lawson's Feast. That was a book that had really, really, really long head notes that were entire pages and introductions that were also just two or three pages. And I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot of space in a book. I mean, for me, it was the fact that finally I had all this room to do whatever I wanted. And so it felt really natural to cook in the daytime and then right at night and right as long as I wanted but then um I don't know if you found this true too Ali but for me the the recipe writing I found myself able to add so many little sentences that I would never you would never be able to do in a in a for like a for an edit for um for a publication or for an employer but I think um in that and because it's your book and you've set the precedent you can write the rules in the very beginning like quite literally you say this is how you use this particular book these are the rules of this book that felt really freeing to me and i don't know one one little example that i can think of is um there's a moment when you put spinach into a pot for this curry this japanese kind of curry or i call it whatever it's complicated we won't go there uh yeah korean japanese curry and um the i say that it it it decreases from the size of a football field to like the size of your fist or I said something like that and those little like jokes um Genevieve does actually let me yeah you sneak a few jokes in the New York Times cooking app if it's like short okay but you know with this book I could write longer and um yeah I enjoyed that part of the process yeah I love in the Epicurious article that just came out about your four favorite cookbooks you you cite Amy Thielen and I love that what let's talk about Amy a little bit because I think it's a great call and I think she definitely when writing about Midwestern cuisine she really brings a lot of memoir to it in such a cool way.

12:34I'd love to see that pick. Yeah. Um, well, that's a great, that, that article or those, those books that I picked are a good example of what inspired me when I was writing mine. And cause those books are real tomes, right? I'm not saying this is definitely not a tome. It's like pretty thin, but, um, I think those books were, had so much research and so much memoir. And I was just really moved by that as someone who was outside of food media at the time. I was an academic. And so I enjoyed reading those books. And so I wanted to write a book that people would want to read. Yeah, I loved seeing that pic.

13:06Okay, let's talk about actually developing recipes. We spoke in our conversation on the show about the milk bread. And you said you tested it 40 times. Yeah. I'd like to get a little more into that because I think 40 times is, and you're next, because I know you also do these crazy tests. You know, like 40 is a, I wonder if it was more. Like I - That was like an undersell. That one was truly, I was doing it every day. But really, I think by the time I was at the 50th, 60th, whatever time, it was because my family was eating it every day. So we just like needed more bread. But also it was therapy for me.

13:42And I think now I'm really allergic to writing about cooking that feels like therapy because everyone, you know, it's like really, everyone's written that one piece. But it really was therapy for me during a time where I didn't have access to therapy. I was like home with my parents, you know, all day and my family. And it was during the pandemic. So I really needed that, I think. So it was more the repetition. I think that's the thing I like about books or cookbooks versus I love writing, you know, for the New York Times. But with a book, you're living the recipe for a year. And that felt really significant to me.

14:20Yeah. because then I could really sell it or I could be like, I truly know this recipe. It's a dope bread. I've made it. It's great. The recipe for milk bread in the book, you can stand on the stage and say, yes, it is good. Thank you. Yourself, do you have like a recipe grail that you're working on that's like just been really stressing you? No, I mean, I think some, like some developers say, like if you do something 40, 50 times, like it just means you should move on and come back to it. um but on the other side of the spectrum it's like you're chasing this idea of a dish that you have in your head and like you're just trying to find the thing so I want to say the recipe that was the hardest for me in this book is this braised cabbage um that like you cook with coconut milk and green curry and I just like was really specific about the texture of the cabbage like how thick I wanted the curry sauce and I just like couldn't find it but and then at the same time I was like just give up like it's just cabbage like move on just cabbage no man I was really committed is really tough is this Napa or is this it was Savoy or green Savoy or green so you're going and so like the texture can get really fucked up you can get it's like it can be too hard and then cabbage releases so much liquid I actually find cabbage and like cauliflower recipes really hard to develop because there's so much water release and so it was like diluting and it's like what's the evidence anyways it was a lot of cabbage for a while interesting and and And for you, Eric, is there a grill that you're working on right now, a recipe that is just really giving you some trouble, or do you just have to move on after, like, take the advice of your editor?

15:55Okay, so I think that I've been working on this. I'll just talk about it. I've been working on this fried chicken for weeks. Yeah. Let's go back to that. We were in some tech difficulty. Now we can go back to it and really focus on this fried chicken. I'll be, like, coy about it to, like, increase demand. But I'm really excited about it because, like I said, my partner moved in which meant i i moved out my sorry this is really specific um i don't think it's tmi though i moved out my full size bed and moved into moved in his queen size bed and it required half of the apartment to be taken over by a bed now and it makes a big difference like this versus anyway so i'm really happy about this recipe because there my my my goal was just to create a recipe that would feel really easy and to take the fear out of frying and I have some like little things that I'm excited to share in a few weeks but I think for me it was being able to go to sleep at night and not smell oil on my pillow and that took that took weeks and to truly get it like really crispy um without without drying out the meat and so yesterday I had a video team with me and we just ate this specific type of boneless fried chicken okay not karage something else or um we did it for you know we did we did it for like eight hours and we we were well we were you know we were frying we went to five to seven five to six like different places and and um and this morning i using some tips that i learned from these amazing chefs and and cooks i um i i got my final recipe and it felt really good and so i'm more at the end of it but um you know for me like something that takes a long time it's really because i'm given the time to do it like i you know i could turn in a perfectly fine fried chicken but it feels good to really go into the ins and outs of something and so rarely do we have the opportunities to do that i think and so it's like it's such a privilege so eliza and i are always giving our writers prompts we're always saying like especially recipe development like we're approaching summer so we need something cold or frozen or whatever i want to know from each of you what is the most difficult prompt from an editor that that you're given when writing a recipe should we talk about thanksgiving you both have been like in this thanksgiving industrial complex of food magazines working on them and starting basically now is it traumatizing for you yet i i have no emotional attachment to thanksgiving my family didn't do it i also just don't understand the food like i don't understand that how the dishes go together and like why they all taste the same it's the same texture and same color like i'm just like what is going on but i appreciate that like people are really emotionally attached to this selection of dishes and so i'm like you do whatever you want i have nothing to add to this conversation and i have actually avoided all but one thanksgiving story.

18:52That's so funny. I love Thanksgiving because it's just like it's like a show to me. It's like a parade. But for me, it's actually I want to know what you think about this. But it's whenever Genevieve and I are talking about something and she's like, this would be great as a five ingredient. And I'm like, oh, and I love I love that prompt. I love it. Five ingredients. But sometimes you really need six. Sometimes you need seven. And so, you know, usually I'm able to go to her and i'm being like i'm able to be like i'm so sorry but this thing this recipe has six ingredients and she's like oh that was yeah that's fine i was always and so she's salt and oil doesn't count right that's like the whole ground rule wait what ingredients salt and oil doesn't count right no they don't but um you know it is is i love that prompt though but it's so hard for me to put out a truly five ingredient recipe that i actually think is delicious but ali's so good i know you really are actually how do you feel about that i think that it is actually how people it's the difference between creating a recipe and making some things so that people can eat food yeah so it's like i think that that's actually what is you it's like you don't actually need a garnish and you don't actually need every texture in every dish that you make so like what is the core elements what are the core elements and it probably is five ingredients yeah well let's speak of ingredients like what's an ingredient that just gives you nightmares we talked about the water level in a cauliflower that might be one i have one yeah yeah i find fresh tomatoes very hard should i explain no i'm you should absolutely explain i mean you're talking about um first they're often bad right so you never know what you're getting and you're developing for a recipe for someone you have no idea what tomato is in their hand a tomato is both sweet and acidic at the same time.

20:44So like how you're balancing that is really hard, but the person's tomato itself could be like not sweet at all. It could be really bitter. And then it has a lot of water. So it's like, but what does that water taste like? I don't know what your tomato tastes like. So I don't do that many fresh tomato recipes. And if I do, it calls specifically for cherry tomatoes because they have less water content. And so they're generally more flavorful. And you're getting a lot of the tomato-ness that you will get with like aroma or whatever hot house is available. Right. And you can't say like go to the farmer's market and get the perfect tomato because like you don't know.

21:19You're also not a douche. Yeah. You don't write your recipes like that. That's a great answer though. The first thing that comes to mind for me, so the way I do it is if I do find an ingredient difficult or I don't like it, I will develop many recipes around it so that I can get better at it. Or like, I don't know, that's something that I feel strongly about. And for me, eggplant was that. And that's why eggplant, I feel like every publication I've been at so far, eggplant was like the first recipe I developed. And I don't know why. And now I love eggplant. You like it. I was going to take, who likes eggplant?

21:53Just raise your hand. You've got about 89, 80 % here. So I appreciate your honesty. But it's difficult, you have to really understand the fruit. and I think I was able to, it felt good to finally arrive at a good place, but I had another answer, a better one, but I forgot what it was. We can come back to it. I'd like to talk about a little work outside of cookbooks and food editorial. You're busy bees and Allie, I know you are working with a cool brand that we've talked about on the show and written about called Hay Day Canning. And I feel like dipping into commerce is probably a pretty cool thing for you.

22:28Do you feel like working with a brand is something that you want to do more of? I just like always want to know food editorial people, like when is it too much to work with a brand or not? I think it's kind of like you, like for me, it's like I'm not a recipe developer. I'm not like I'm not a writer. What I want to do is like help people feed themselves. And like I think that Hay Day Canning is really helping people with that. And so it's exciting to like bring what I do to them, which is really I'm just tasting their beans and telling them if I like them or not. It's really all I'm doing. Tell us about Hay Day, though, because I think it is a cool product.

23:03So it's just started within the last year. It's these two women who met at a natural foods company. One is like an incredible canning manufacturing expert, and one is a marketing expert. But basically they are trying to revolutionize the canned food aisle from beans on. So in the can of beans, you have extremely well-cooked beans. Like really, just the texture of the bean is amazing. But then it's in a sauce, so it's like a sauce simmered bean. So if you were going to buy a can of beans and then make something with it, like the make something with it is already in the can. So you just have to heat it up.

23:37Yeah, I like the harissa a lot. I mean, the citrus, the level of citrus is really nice. Yeah, I mean, there's so much I'd never knew about in terms of canning that I've learned. Like that harissa chickpea used to have rose water in it. But some people have like a really intense reaction to rose water where they cannot taste anything else besides the rose water. and I tasted it. I was like, I didn't taste anything. No way. It's like cilantro. It's got that like effect. Now, Eric, let me ask you, you're writing for cooking and writing for the app, but you also have this column for the New York Times Magazine.

24:09Every month you're writing something. I loved your piece about Scotch and the Rob Roy, the journey to your Rob Roy. Let's talk about writing a monthly column for the New York Times Magazine. What's that like? Is there like a lot of pressure? Yeah, there is a lot of pressure in that it's the deadline. it's um i don't know with the newspaper it all moves so fast and so last minute this is a daily paper and we're just trying to turn out a wednesday section and so things get moved around a lot so you know i won't say that those deadlines are soft but like if i if i don't nail my a recipe by a certain date it's kind of okay um we'll figure it out but um with the magazine so many people are counting on every piece of it but i think because it's so regimented and because not filing is not an option, I think I'm able to get the things out.

25:01And it's pretty regimented. It's week one is get the recipe done. Week two is do all your reporting. Week three is do some research, go out and eat and figure things out. And honestly, the very last thing is I write it. That's a very interesting method. And we've talked off mic, it's like you sometimes will get down to the very end. The pressure of the deadline sort of helps me turn stuff out. But I think what I love about the magazine is with print journalism in general, it's so far ahead, far in advance. So we've already mapped out through December. And I've been doing this column for over two years now, I think.

25:40And so I'm able to, I guess I'm in my second year now. But at the start of the year, I was able to say, okay, I know what these 12 are going to be. And so I've started thinking of them as like little collections. And so that helps me to stay focused. And what really I'm bringing to the table every month for this column is what is like something that really changed my mind about cooking? That's what I was going to ask what that general theme is. And you answered that. It's just it's terrific. Like you're doing such great work in the magazine. I love it. And I mean, how are you inspired? Like, is it just literally like walking around and observing the world?

26:16Or do you have like a real you said you mapped out 12. So yeah, I think it's. It's sort of every time I come back from a trip, you know, it's travel. And, you know, what's really great is the reason this year's column has so many moments that are like, this is the best insert food item that I've ever had. Biscuit, turnips or, you know, chicken I've ever had. I think the reason that happened is because I had to travel so much last year for this cookbook. And also I'm realizing that this is a year anniversary that I've had a Rizzoli talk. So that's kind of cool to be here with Ellie. but um i think because of that i um i come back to genevieve and i'm like she's like okay give me what you got and it's like okay i have this amazing thing here and i had this this this and then it's so it's really easy to it's it's almost like finding room enough room for these things that i've tasted um is is really the challenge okay so i'm going to open up to the floor in a sec i have a couple quick questions uh we're in a bookstore wonderful bookstore i love this place and the cookbook selection is nice because there's a lot of books from overseas there.

27:22So definitely check out the cookbook section. What are a few books that you're reading right now, each of you, new releases? I saw Rob Mouton out there. Yeah, great book. Which I fell really hard for. The great thing about it is if you go grocery shopping for like 10 things, you can make everything in the book, which is awesome. I also really love Yogurt and Whey from the owner of White Mustache. I just think the story is like her voice is both fierce and extremely kind and gentle in a way that I think is really lovely. Yeah, and Ramadan is the food of Sri Lanka and through the lens of London, fantastic book.

28:02Eric, do you have a couple? Yeah. So I've been really obsessed with this podcast, Everything Cookbooks, and I'm not even writing a cookbook right now, but I listen to it and I'm so invested. It's so good. And Andrea Nguyen is one of the hosts and she has a new book out called Evergreen Vietnamese. It's so good. I think I'm even more invested because I've heard her talk about it on the podcast leading up to the release. And I don't know, there's a vegan fish sauce in there that's very original. It's her. She's so seasoned and wise as a cook, but also as a writer and as a recipe writer. And I'll be honest, it's this New York Times job that made me really understand or helped me to respect recipe writing even more.

28:46And I think that book showcases what years of experience writing recipes and caring about the reader will result in. And it's brilliant. And Andrea's voice is just so lovely. And it's full of authority and kindness. Absolutely agree. I have one more question that I'll wrap up with. but let's take some, do you want to hand your mic over to Christine? And we'll go to the audience. Please raise your hand. We'd love to hear from you. The first question is always the hardest. Who wants to do it? Oh, there you go. Thank you. Hi, Allie. I was very intrigued by the idea that you didn't have head notes on your recipe when so much of the conversation around recipes now is giving context and acknowledging the source of your inspiration and how these ingredients were used in different ways.

29:34And I just am wondering, how did you come to this decision? And how do you justify it and explain it within this conversation? Yeah, it was definitely a hard decision because every recipe has a web and is like a tree of other inspirations. And so I definitely was worried about making sure it felt like that web was being represented. So in the back of the book, I do talk about all of the people whose recipes have inspired this. But what I was so hyper focused on in this book is like that moment of like, I have to make dinner for myself or my family right now. Like what is absolutely necessary in this moment and what isn't.

30:12And I think in that moment, like so many people just don't read the head notes or feel like maybe they're going to miss something important. And in my book, I just wanted to be like, you don't have to read that right now. Like it's okay. like just make dinner. Eric I have a question for you um it's really cool meeting you or seeing you um so I'm Korean American and I feel very thankful that you're representing a lot of us out here. My question is did you like struggle with the idea of writing a Korean American cookbook? I think like there's a thought of like do you have the authority to write a book about your own culture do you not like I feel like there's a lot in there and this is probably a very loaded question but yeah like did you struggle with that decision at all um go back and forth with it thank you for the question and thank you for saying all that it's great to see you and we can meet after um when we're signing books if you want but um I uh I was like I do a lot of like thinking when I'm in Ubers and on my way here I was like okay it's been like a year since the the book came out and I think about like, did I do anything in this year?

31:24But for me, it was how hard that was to talk about. I didn't realize, um, I didn't, I didn't realize going into it that it would be so difficult. And what's difficult is just every moment I'm, I'm doing a press thing or every time I'm, uh, reading a comment or I'm like engaging with someone, it's, um, I realized how political it is to have a non-white book in uh in whatever setting and that was something that i don't know that i was right like i wasn't necessarily excited or eager to be someone who has to talk about that every time but then it became something that i was like wait i do want to talk about this because now i have an opinion because this keeps happening to me or um so there's i don't know it's it was written around a time when i was feeling very strongly that that I needed to get my point of view across, which was that there are these distinctions about what's authentic and what's not and who gets to be arbiters of authenticity and who doesn't.

32:29Do you have to be from the culture to cook it or not? And automatically writing a book that for me was supposed to just be like a Genesis book about my culinary life as a kid growing up in Atlanta, it ended up becoming this thing where people picked it up and they were like, this isn't even Korean. Like it's not even a Korean cookbook. And then other people would be like, well, it's not even an American cookbook. And I'm just like, that's the point. It's called Korean American. And so it was really, that part was not something that I was, I thought I was ready to do. But after a year of doing it, I think I, and I also like, I tried to process a lot of it through writing in a very public place called the New York Times.

33:08So I think that's something that I wasn't, I didn't know that I would be doing, but I'm glad I did because I hope that the more of us who speak about how those lines are a little more blurred than they seem on first glance, I hope that that will help people. And whether it's a publisher picking up a book or a proposal or people who are out there in the world eating food in restaurants, answer my hope is just that people will stop um stop having such uh difficult relationships to labels like that I don't know it's that's tough to talk about but it's it's something that after a year I was like wow that was a lot and I think I blacked it all out hi there thanks so much for this this is awesome um so I was just thinking about uh professions in which you know you spend you're able to spend most of your time designing food and making food for people and being very creative about it and I was just thinking what do your conversations look like with chefs or like restaurant owners um where do you guys connect and where do you guys maybe have you know when you guys run into challenges in your conversations and uh how do you guys relate to food similarly or differently I love that question do you want to go um in terms of restaurant chefs that's a great question because I've never worked in a restaurant and I never went to culinary school.

34:34So I definitely feel like they're doing something that is like beyond comprehension for me. But I taste food and I am excited about it. And I think that there are like probably there are many things that chefs can teach home cooks. A great example is I adopted a scallion ginger salmon from a restaurant called Milu, which is here. And the chef was like used to work in really high end restaurants. So I got there like spreadsheets. I got like seven spreadsheets with like formulas and all of this stuff. And I was like, can you just tell me how you make this thing? Like, this is so complicated for me.

35:09Anyways, it really took a lot of work to translate her process into something a home cook could do. And then when I sent her, I wanted to send her the recipe because I was like, this is so different. I was so nervous about sending it to her. And she was like, I don't know how you translated it. So I think there was something really wonderful about like, we both not really understanding our process, but understanding the end goal is the same. I love that. I mean, I just spent 30 minutes on Monday morning. It was the first thing I did this week in a chef's kitchen, just trying to watch him make pesto.

35:44And it's a recipe I'm working on for later, but it only took 30 minutes for me to watch him do it in person with his hands. And he even put like a little chef coat on me. And, um, I don't know, I think in that moment, and it's a restaurant I've been eating at for like 10 years. And I'm also not restaurant trained or anything. I made salads when I was like 16. But, um, I think for me, it was, uh, really watching him cook, even though it was an industrial kitchen, I was like, I really relate to this. Like we're, we, our language is the same in that it's food, but the expertise that I happen to have very randomly and by chance is that I know how to translate his cooking into a recipe and so I love that role I mean that's something I did for Korean American like my mom was the source but it's it's a really lovely I don't know it's a it's a nice moment to get to stand in a chef's kitchen with that person and to watch them cook and be good at what they do but also you know you're a student you're learning and I don't know I think that process of translating is really special.

36:46Do you do it from memory? Or do you take notes? Or do you do video? What's the way of documenting? Because we all have different methods. We're working with chefs. There are no rules, I think. Because I do it differently depending on the situation. But this time, this man was so busy. He had just gotten a shipment. So I wanted to get out of his hair. So I just video recorded it. And it took 30 minutes to make the thing, which is a nice selling point for when I write about it later. but by the time I was out I stopped by a coffee shop and I watched the video and it was perfect because I had the timing I had the I had all the details I needed and that made me realize like the whole book tour for that I was like write down your family recipes before it's too late but then I realized actually just video record your parents cooking it and then archive that don't you don't have to write it down unless you want to but that's a very specific skill that I don't know Kind of to that question, when you're developing recipes, I feel like the cookbooks I gravitate for are like brains I recognize who can explain information to me.