Latest / She’s Smart / Lauren Braun Costello - Mastering Life with Technique, Not Torture

Transcript

Lauren Braun Costello - Mastering Life with Technique, Not Torture · She’s Smart

• 0:03
  Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. I'm your host, Maria Robotham.
• 0:07
  Today's guest is someone I first got to know during the pandemic,
• 0:10
  tuning into her Instagram lives while she cooked in real time with her family,
• 0:15
  dropped hilarious rants from her car, and brought a dose of technique and heart to every bite.
• 0:21
  Lauren Costello of It's Lauren, of course, is a chef, cookbook author,
• 0:26
  former food stylist for shows like The View, and, fun fact, she actually started
• 0:31
  her career on Wall Street.
• 0:33
  In this episode, we talk about how she pivoted from the finance world to culinary school on a dare,
• 0:39
  how her grandmother helped invent the underwire bra, the truth about food styling
• 0:44
  for TV, and why she now takes intentional pauses from social media.
• 0:49
  Lauren is smart, unapologetic, deeply thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud funny.
• 0:56
  Whether we're talking about roasted chickens or raising kids,
• 0:59
  she's full of hard-earned wisdom and doesn't hold back.
• 1:02
  So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart.
• 1:07
  Music.
• 1:09
  We'll be right back.
• 1:26
  I have a bunch of questions. So when I was reading about you,
• 1:29
  I found it fascinating that you started at Goldman Sachs. Yeah.
• 1:33
  And I find that interesting for two reasons. One, no idea that was even part of your life. You did.
• 1:39
  But also, my husband was at Goldman. That's where he started.
• 1:42
  One of my dearest friends, Christy, started at Goldman. My other friend,
• 1:45
  Beth, started at Goldman. and all of you have a very similar way of thinking.
• 1:52
  And it's like the Goldman way. I wasn't a banker, I should say that now.
• 1:57
  I was on the communication side working with the management of the firm.
• 2:01
  My husband's a banker. There's only room for one of those per household.
• 2:04
  But I will say that Goldman Sachs is an incubator of excellence.
• 2:07
  They believe deeply in their own brand of excellence.
• 2:10
  Want to cultivate that and really...
• 2:15
  Do appreciate critical thinkers. I don't recall working at Goldman with anyone
• 2:19
  who wasn't a critical thinker.
• 2:20
  And critical thinking is on the decline. We are in trouble.
• 2:25
  But at Goldman, you were in an enclave of critical thinking.
• 2:29
  I find that. My friend Dawn was there. And when she and Ben get into conversations, it's fascinating.
• 2:35
  I love to hear them talk because of the way they think.
• 2:39
  I think differently. We might agree and disagree on certain things,
• 2:42
  but But the way they come to conclusions and see the sides and are able to, it's fascinating to me.
• 2:48
  Well, I think, so if I could give a visual for that, I think a lot of people,
• 2:53
  their trouble of not being able to understand second, third,
• 2:56
  fourth order consequences, not being able to think abstractly,
• 2:59
  not being able to think critically.
• 3:01
  Analytically is what that really means, is if you think about it in dimensions,
• 3:06
  a lot of people are two-dimensional in their thinking and it's like a hamster
• 3:09
  wheel. They think about things.
• 3:11
  They sit in that rocking chair and they think about it. And I loathe that.
• 3:17
  I like thinking through things. I like getting from not just sitting in one
• 3:22
  place and thinking about it, rocking in the rocking chair, spinning in the hamster wheel.
• 3:26
  I want to get through it three-dimensionally at a resolution of thought or a
• 3:31
  point of view, like to actually synthesize that. And that I consider to be,
• 3:35
  three-dimensional thinking instead of two-dimensional thinking.
• 3:38
  And I do think that Goldman is a self-selecting group.
• 3:41
  You don't get to go there unless you can do that. No, it's true.
• 3:44
  So you started there and then part of your story was, was it a dare that your
• 3:49
  husband gave you to go to culinary school?
• 3:51
  It was a dare that a friend of mine at the time, who actually was a very serious
• 3:54
  banker and married to a very serious banker, who's still a very serious banker, gave to me at the time.
• 3:59
  My now husband, then boyfriend, said to me, we have these dinner parties and
• 4:04
  I don't give people penne and red sauce at my dinner parties.
• 4:07
  I was making very fancy things, ducks and beefs and chicken,
• 4:12
  all these fancy, expensive things when you're in your 20s. It actually is quite expensive.
• 4:16
  And he's like, you could do this professionally. And then a dear friend said
• 4:20
  to me, I dare you, I dare you to apply to culinary school.
• 4:22
  And I thought, okay.
• 4:25
  At the time, I had left Goldman and was at Société Générale,
• 4:29
  which is the French bank. I started my career at Prudential Securities and then went to Goldman.
• 4:33
  And I was at SG at the Societe Generale at the time.
• 4:36
  And I said, OK, why not? What's the big deal? A, I don't have to go. And B, I can go.
• 4:41
  And worst case scenario, it's a six month hiatus of having the freaking time
• 4:46
  of my life becoming the best.
• 4:49
  I was already a very good cook, which was the impetus to do it,
• 4:51
  but becoming a truly excellent cook and getting the foundations to become over
• 4:54
  time a truly excellent cook.
• 4:56
  And my family and friends will benefit this for a lifetime. I was young.
• 5:01
  I had no children. I was 25. So I thought there's almost no downside to this.
• 5:04
  And then two days before I graduated, basically launched my food styling career.
• 5:08
  So it was, I went and it was over. You know, that was the new path.
• 5:12
  I was lucky. I was able to do it in that my then, well, by the time I did it, I guess he was my fiance.
• 5:22
  And by the time I actually went, we were married. So when he dared me and I
• 5:24
  was applying, We were engaged.
• 5:26
  And then by the time I went, we were married. I was very nervous about it because
• 5:29
  I'd never taken a loan in my life.
• 5:31
  I grew up in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. You get the vibe.
• 5:34
  And I went to prep school. This was not, taking loans was not something I was
• 5:39
  familiar with. It made me extremely uncomfortable for myself.
• 5:42
  I just, because it wasn't something I had to do. My husband came from,
• 5:46
  not that, he and I came from totally opposite backgrounds.
• 5:49
  And he said to me, he's like, it's fine. We'll take a loan. At the time,
• 5:52
  I think it was $30,000 to do this.
• 5:53
  I was hysterical. He's like, Lauren, it'll be fine. And he had $100,000 of loans from business school.
• 5:58
  He's like, it's fine. I have to
• 6:00
  say, I was very upset that my father or grandfather wouldn't pay for it.
• 6:03
  I was like, well, if I went to law school, you would have paid for it.
• 6:06
  They're like, but you're going to culinary school, so enjoy it.
• 6:08
  And I was very upset. And the truth is, what a gift, because I can honestly
• 6:12
  say that my culinary career and my success, even just in the nucleus of culinary
• 6:19
  school and then beyond, is really my own.
• 6:21
  And my own with my husband, of course, who I couldn't do it without him.
• 6:25
  And I don't just mean that first financial bit of help and guidance,
• 6:29
  but also the support along the way. But it is truly my own.
• 6:32
  You know, everything else to date was my own hard work for sure,
• 6:37
  but sitting in a little dip of a silver spoon. Right. So, yeah, I know that.
• 6:42
  I mean, I went to great schools, but I was also able to go to great schools. And I did well there.
• 6:47
  I had a running start. This was something I did on my own. And I can honestly
• 6:50
  say it's mine with my husband.
• 6:53
  And that was a gift. So I mean, I'm actually and I was very shortly thereafter
• 6:57
  grateful to my father and grandfather for being like, nope, not, you know.
• 7:01
  And then when I became successful in ways that they perceived to be successful,
• 7:08
  like have super famous chefs put their imprimatur on my first book,
• 7:12
  they got very into it and were braggadocious about it.
• 7:14
  But at first they were sort of, what is she doing?
• 7:17
  Yeah. Everybody thought I'd be something big in a corporate setting.
• 7:22
  Even I did too, but I don't think that really came from a deep place within
• 7:28
  myself. I think that was just like what I was kind of ingrained as you were
• 7:34
  growing up, right? Yeah. Just be. Do you have siblings?
• 7:37
  I have a sister. And what does she do? She is a photographer.
• 7:41
  We have a pretty fractured family. My sister and mother still talk.
• 7:44
  I haven't talked to my sister and mother in a very long time.
• 7:47
  My sister is also a creative person. She was a photographer.
• 7:50
  There was a period of time I actually did a little business where we did food
• 7:52
  photography and turned them into greeting cards.
• 7:55
  They were very cute. I still have many of them in my. In fact,
• 7:58
  I should have brought you some. I will bring you some. It was very, very cute.
• 8:01
  And so we've always been very creative because we have creative grandmothers.
• 8:06
  My father's mother was a painter.
• 8:09
  And my mother's mother was a brassiere designer.
• 8:14
  She patented the underwire and the training bra plus 11 other patents.
• 8:18
  So there isn't a person in the world who doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to
• 8:21
  Lillian Sayers, who was Lillian Hunow when she had those patents. But yes.
• 8:25
  Wearing it right now, that underwire. So I know the underwire is not in vogue
• 8:29
  anymore, but she was sitting with a bobby pin.
• 8:31
  You know the old, you know the bobby pins that are more horseshoe-y?
• 8:34
  They're a little wider. They're not the tight ones.
• 8:36
  Not the tight ones. I prefer the tight ones. Yeah, me too. They use them when
• 8:39
  you were doing like a style. Exactly.
• 8:41
  Like a chignon you could kind of do as opposed to like, I want the good bread.
• 8:44
  So she was sitting in the bath that my grandmother was, looked like Lauren Bacall
• 8:48
  and Marlena Dietrich had a love child. She was a, the original milk, knock out.
• 8:53
  And she was sitting in the bath and just futzing with a bobby pin and going, I don't know,
• 8:58
  Oh, my God. You know, and kind of had it under her boob and like fussing in
• 9:02
  the back. Yeah, she was incredible.
• 9:05
  She was extremely creative and had so much style. My friends could pick her
• 9:10
  out on Madison Avenue two blocks away. They'd say, there's your Nana.
• 9:14
  I'd say, where? I'd say, you see? In that big plaid wrap coat with the big shoulders sauntering down.
• 9:21
  And I'd go, oh, yeah, that is
• 9:22
  Nana on 76th Street. And here we are on 74th Street. She was incredible.
• 9:26
  My grandmother, Phyllis, was a much more soft-spoken, not flamboyant person,
• 9:31
  but a very talented painter.
• 9:33
  So Nicole and I both got that. It runs in the blood.
• 9:38
  I want to talk about this underwire situation for a second.
• 9:40
  Maybe the young girls with very perky boobs and don't have to worry about it or doing no bra.
• 9:46
  Yes. I get it. I'm wearing an underwire now at the moment also.
• 9:49
  I have always worn an underwire. Yes.
• 9:52
  And my sister doesn't. We're California girls. Christina, my sister.
• 9:55
  Sister went full on, no bra, ta-ta's out, carol ass.
• 10:00
  She's in a swimsuit every single day. And I was like, no, these things need
• 10:03
  to be put where they're supposed to.
• 10:04
  After kids, they're still the size of martini glasses. If I don't have an underwire,
• 10:10
  they try to slip out from underneath my bra.
• 10:12
  No one needs that coming out the bottom. Apropos of that, my grandmother,
• 10:17
  her press book was like this bit, like three inches thick.
• 10:20
  And she was credited in the early 1950s. So you know Mad Men when you have Joan
• 10:25
  with the pointy separated boobs.
• 10:27
  You remember before that it was the corseted Mae West look where your boobs
• 10:30
  are pushed together and you look like nice.
• 10:33
  They look like the lactating vessels that they are. Yes. But the perky pointed separated.
• 10:38
  My grandmother literally separated the breasts. She was credited with that.
• 10:41
  And the way she did it was with the underwire.
• 10:43
  Oh, my gosh. This is amazing. So it's amazing. What's really amazing is I have
• 10:47
  totally not gorgeous boobs.
• 10:50
  My grandmother was dying of cancer and had beautiful boobs. Oh,
• 10:52
  gosh. I remember saying to her if she did it before, she died. I'm like,
• 10:54
  Your boobs still look good, Nana. She looks obscenely good looking,
• 10:59
  which I think was probably challenging for my mother, even though my mother
• 11:02
  looked more like Barbra Streisand and Princess Diana had a love child.
• 11:05
  She had this beautiful Semitic kind of look.
• 11:09
  I think having a mother in the 1950s who wasn't behind an apron.
• 11:13
  Who was, you know, Time Magazine named her the highest paid female executive of 1951 or 52.
• 11:19
  I learned that at her funeral. I can't remember if it was 51 or 52.
• 11:23
  People used to tease my grandfather about that. Oh, your wife makes $100,000,
• 11:27
  which was an obscene amount of money.
• 11:29
  In the 1950s, I mean, a house cost $15,000, right?
• 11:32
  So, but now you'd be like, yeah, my wife is the big, you know.
• 11:36
  He ended up becoming extremely successful in his own right in real estate,
• 11:39
  more so than she in terms of money.
• 11:42
  Having given that to humanity is a big deal. Unreal.
• 11:45
  So you have this creative part of you, and you go to the French Culinary Institute.
• 11:49
  Yes, yes, yes. And you graduate, you are starting to style food. Yes.
• 11:54
  For TV shows, for networks.
• 11:58
  Yes. I saw Alice Waters was in there. Yeah, Alice Waters, very nice lady.
• 12:03
  I styled for her on The View.
• 12:05
  Styling for Alice is hard because, you know, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
• 12:09
  To style something Alice Waters is all about, leave well enough alone.
• 12:13
  Just take the very humble radish with its greens out of the earth and make it delicious.
• 12:20
  Don't mess it up. To style for that, you're just giving a radish.
• 12:23
  But there's such beauty in her plates.
• 12:25
  There's beauty in all. From the most fussy to the most simple,
• 12:28
  there's beauty in all of it.
• 12:31
  Think about a Halston dress versus a Versace dress.
• 12:36
  There's beauty in all of it. I'm not a huge Versace person. The Liz Hurley dress, that's amazing.
• 12:41
  A slip dress on the right woman is a beauty. So there's something, and food is like that.
• 12:45
  I've been very lucky. I mean, I've styled for culinary giants.
• 12:49
  I've styled for just celebrities who, you know, I joke with Tricia Yearwood,
• 12:54
  and she came out with her first book.
• 12:56
  I said, Tricia, I'm cutting a country album. She goes, you are?
• 12:59
  I said, no, but thank you for making it that much harder for people like me
• 13:03
  to get our books published, because what the hell do you have to have a cookbook for?
• 13:06
  Because this is the thing you make for Garth, you know, whenever.
• 13:08
  We had a joke. But it was a wild ride. And it all actually started by a guy
• 13:13
  who's a super famous chef, Michel Nishan, who lives in Fairfield.
• 13:16
  But Michel started the Westport Farmer's Market and had the dressing room with
• 13:21
  Paul Newman before it became Portofino.
• 13:24
  It's Gabrielle's now. That was the dressing room many years ago.
• 13:27
  So Michel asked for a food stylist to help him at a press event for Stonyfield yogurts.
• 13:34
  They were having a press event and he needed someone.
• 13:37
  And so the French College Institute said, well, this is Lauren's,
• 13:41
  you know, one of our two best students in her class.
• 13:43
  So they sent me there the day after I graduated.
• 13:47
  Michel calls me. I can barely hear him. This is...
• 13:51
  25 years ago. The cell phone, I can barely hear him. He says, hi, Lauren.
• 13:54
  It's In-N-Out. He says, you know, Oprah Winfrey, her team decided to come to
• 13:58
  my house today because my book is coming out.
• 14:01
  When Oprah says I'm coming today, you can't say I have something else planned. You say, okay.
• 14:05
  He said, you have to do everything and I'll see you tomorrow.
• 14:07
  It was a two-day gig. This was the prep day.
• 14:10
  He's like, you're going to slice the zucchini and you're going to grill them
• 14:12
  and you're going to do this or that. And he hung up the phone.
• 14:14
  I'm like, and I could barely hear him. And I think, well, what thickness do
• 14:17
  I slice the zucchini? Like, what thickness?
• 14:20
  He did say lengthwise. I got that. But like, what thick? And I go,
• 14:23
  okay, you just use all your good training.
• 14:26
  You just access everything. You clean the mushrooms.
• 14:29
  I should take the gills out. I'll clean the mushrooms. He calls me the next
• 14:33
  morning at 7 a.m. He says, Lauren, I need two brioche. You have to find them. I said, nothing's open.
• 14:37
  I thought, Payard, the famous pastry chef, does have a bakery restaurant on
• 14:43
  74th and Lex, not far from my home.
• 14:45
  Somebody's in there at that hour. I'll wear my chef's whites and I'll bang on the door and beg.
• 14:49
  And they looked at me and I go, I know you're not open, but I will give you
• 14:52
  any amount of money for two loaves of brioche.
• 14:56
  I said, it's for Chef Michel Nishan. I have to have it. And they said, thank you.
• 14:59
  So I go to him with the two brioche and he looks at me and he says,
• 15:04
  you know, I've been doing this for 20 something years.
• 15:07
  It's the first time I've ever asked anybody to do something.
• 15:11
  And not only I wasn't even there to oversee it, there wasn't one mistake.
• 15:15
  You did everything as I wanted, which was sheer luck, because he didn't give
• 15:18
  me all the details of everything I had to do.
• 15:20
  He just gave me the broad stroke of what I had to do. I just accessed what I
• 15:24
  had been taught and thought, hopefully it'll be good enough.
• 15:27
  And he said to me, I see you clean the mushrooms. I said, yes,
• 15:30
  I'm sorry. Did you not want them cleaned? He goes, I should have.
• 15:32
  No, I understand. You're French trained. You clean the mushrooms.
• 15:35
  I would have liked the gills kept on, but I didn't tell you it's not your fault. It's beautiful.
• 15:40
  And that started a relationship. He said to me, you want a style for me on CNN tomorrow?
• 15:45
  I didn't know what I was doing. Nobody even knew who Anderson Cooper was at the time. Oh, my gosh.
• 15:49
  I'm in a polo shirt and shorts. Nobody taught me how to be a food stylist.
• 15:52
  I show up in a polo shirt and shorts and flip-flops.
• 15:56
  I'm making this taco for Delta Airlines. Had a little sub-airline called Song
• 16:01
  Airlines, Delta Song. Maybe it lasted for, I think that's what it was called.
• 16:04
  He was the consulting chef on that. So they're like, oh, if you fly to Florida,
• 16:08
  you get an orange. If you fly to New York, you get an apple.
• 16:11
  And so we were making tacos or something I was doing for him.
• 16:14
  The food needed to be on it.
• 16:16
  CNN gave me no place to prepare this, no place to do this. So the anchor desk was open.
• 16:21
  I set my stuff down, very quickly styled it. And I forget, Anderson Cooper back
• 16:26
  then, he wasn't Anderson Cooper yet. He goes, what are you doing?
• 16:30
  I said, well, I'm the food segment in 20 minutes. Nobody gave me a spot to put
• 16:34
  my plate on, so I was just finishing garnishing.
• 16:36
  He's like, I go live in 10 minutes. This is my desk.
• 16:40
  Looking at me like, what is wrong with you? Okay. So then Michelle says,
• 16:43
  that went so well. Delta, so please, do you want to go to CBS?
• 16:46
  So I go to the early show a few days later.
• 16:48
  I'm wearing my whites. I'm like, okay.
• 16:51
  I know how to do it. So then the other airline, so American Airlines or someone
• 16:55
  had, there was like airlines are making food better.
• 16:57
  The other airline guy was there, Sky Chefs guy.
• 17:00
  He's not into chef's whites. I'm like, what is the protocol for being a food
• 17:03
  stylist? It's very interesting.
• 17:05
  I taught myself over the years how to style.
• 17:08
  I taught other young, talented culinarians how to style, all of whom are better stylists than I am.
• 17:14
  None of them are better at the people part. All of them are better at the styling part.
• 17:19
  I consider them all more talented. And I was a good food. I'm not suggesting
• 17:22
  I was bad at it, but they all are truly talented at the food styling part.
• 17:28
  I remember the mentee who was my most important mentee said to me one day,
• 17:33
  she said, I don't know that I could do this.
• 17:35
  And I said, you can absolutely do this. You're very talented.
• 17:37
  She goes, yeah, but I couldn't do this.
• 17:39
  I said, what do you mean? She's like, you just told Bobby Flay how it's going
• 17:43
  to be. He came in and said he wanted this. You said no.
• 17:47
  And you said, that's not how it's going to work. There's six minutes.
• 17:49
  You can have this or that. You can't have both. You don't like it.
• 17:51
  Let's go to the director and talk.
• 17:53
  I can't do that. And they all listen to you.
• 17:56
  They all listen to you. And that is just a personality thing,
• 17:59
  right? That's just like the sauce inside of you.
• 18:02
  Control the room, yeah. And I was very good at that part.
• 18:04
  That's amazing that you could tell Bobby Flay that.
• 18:07
  I have endless stories of this stuff. Bobby Flay and Joy Behar were doing a burger contest.
• 18:13
  I was the food stylist on The View. I love to sidebar about The View.
• 18:16
  The View is an amazing place.
• 18:17
  I was there for many years freelance, but was there almost like every week.
• 18:22
  Back when that was always a segment.
• 18:25
  Once they moved to the news division, which is hilarious, before Barbara Walters
• 18:28
  was still alive, I was there a lot.
• 18:30
  So that's like the Elizabeth Hasselbeck years, when Whoopi first started,
• 18:33
  the Rosie years. I was there with Meredith.
• 18:35
  The original, I saw it through all of that. Bobby Flay was doing a burger contest
• 18:40
  with Joy Behar, and Joy calls me at home. She's like, I want to do a pizza burger.
• 18:44
  I was like, well, I don't know. He's going to do some bacon cheeseburger with
• 18:49
  blue cheese, caramelized onions, and sweet potato fries.
• 18:51
  Why don't we do an Italian burger, but we'll do ciabatta instead of a bun,
• 18:55
  and the sauce can be a beautiful tomato confit, and we could then have pancetta
• 19:01
  for the bacon, which is already round, and we could do a beautiful provolone. I had this idea.
• 19:05
  She's like, now I want a pizza burger. So Bobby Flay is in the back kitchen with me working on this.
• 19:12
  And he turns to me and he says, chef, your burgers look very good. You might win.
• 19:16
  And I turned to him and said, somewhat jokingly, fuck you, Bobby.
• 19:23
  And he goes, what? And I'm like, are you on crack? I'm making pizza burgers.
• 19:29
  I can't win this thing. It's joy. I'm here as a ghostwriter,
• 19:31
  basically. That's what a food stylist is, by the way. It's a ghostwriter for food. And.
• 19:36
  He's like, no, I think you could win. I'm like, okay, we're done talking now.
• 19:39
  It goes on air. And who's the judge? Sherry Shepard.
• 19:43
  So she says, you know, and Barbara also, I think, was on. They decided that
• 19:47
  it was a tie between Bobby and Troy.
• 19:49
  And he says to me after he goes, you see? I go, I see what? That's television.
• 19:52
  You won this contest, Bobby. You won the burger contest.
• 19:56
  But yeah, The View was an amazing place because a lot of people circled through.
• 20:00
  And they were very good to me. When my books came out, I stopped being behind
• 20:04
  the scenes and came out of the background.
• 20:08
  They had me on a couple times, which was really nice as a guest.
• 20:11
  I was on with Meryl Streep for Julie and Julia. I did a styling segment.
• 20:16
  Jada Pinkett Smith was on that day. I remember because Will Smith was in the
• 20:19
  green room with my husband saying, isn't this great?
• 20:21
  We're sitting here, our wives are working and we're just sitting here doing
• 20:24
  nothing. Our wives are out there making the money. And John's like,
• 20:26
  my wife is not making any money.
• 20:29
  You and I are, no, Will, no. Different ballgames, dude.
• 20:33
  I'm the banker who pays for all this crap. So you wrote three books,
• 20:37
  two cookbooks and then a children's book.
• 20:39
  Well, I would say one cookbook, one book on cooking. There isn't a single recipe in it by design.
• 20:45
  That was my most proud achievement.
• 20:48
  That book was the most critically acclaimed, like truly excellent.
• 20:51
  It was in the running for a James Beard Award. I'm really proud of that book.
• 20:53
  I was invited to do the recipe portion of a children's book with an alumna from
• 20:59
  Colgate University where I went.
• 21:00
  We were sitting next to each other at a book signing for our other books.
• 21:03
  And she said, you want to do a third book with me? I want to have food in my
• 21:06
  third book. I said, sure. And we did it. And it was great. She's from California, Mill Valley.
• 21:10
  Tyler's from. Tyler Florence is Mill Valley. Yes. He was very good.
• 21:13
  You know, he let us come out and do a signing and all that.
• 21:16
  Tyler was one of my last food styling gigs when I was pregnant with Jonathan.
• 21:20
  He looked at me and he said, I gave birth five days later. he said to the producer,
• 21:23
  who hired her? I literally was like waddling and I was like.
• 21:27
  Dude, you're going to regret that in about five minutes. And the producer was
• 21:30
  like, you don't understand. She's the best. It'll be fine. He's looking at me like, what?
• 21:33
  And then sure enough, after that, we became buddies. He asked me,
• 21:37
  even when I had injured my hand, can you still just come to the view and babysit my crew?
• 21:41
  Because you know how everything works here. Even though you can't help,
• 21:44
  can you just come in street clothes and watch?
• 21:46
  So he was good to me. And I came out two different times to do signings with
• 21:50
  him, one with that book, which was a really lovely experience.
• 21:54
  What an exceptional reputation. conversation to be brought back all the time
• 21:58
  to have that ability to communicate with people.
• 22:01
  And for people to respect what you do even when i've
• 22:04
  watched you online this is how i know you
• 22:07
  yes i know you during covid when i started watching yes technique not torture
• 22:10
  technique not torture and there were instagram little gifs that i would put
• 22:17
  on things when i would do your recipe i would sit in bed during covid my husband's
• 22:21
  next to me and i love to cook i grew up cooking I can follow a recipe.
• 22:25
  My sister's married to a chef and she's an excellent chef.
• 22:28
  They can take things and create masterpieces.
• 22:31
  I'll follow a recipe. That's what I'm very good at baking. But I watched you
• 22:35
  and I was so entertained.
• 22:37
  And I'm like, oh, Ben, this is so fun. Let's watch this one.
• 22:40
  Lauren's going to be on tonight. So we got to watch it at eight o'clock.
• 22:42
  And then your husband was involved. Your boys were involved.
• 22:45
  When your son would come on and cook with you, I have two boys.
• 22:51
  I'm like, this is magic and real.
• 22:55
  It wasn't like, oh, these are my children and they're so wonderful.
• 22:58
  It's like, stop doing that. That's not, you're not chopping it correctly.
• 23:01
  That's how you do it. You're going to cut your hand off. I would tell my boys,
• 23:04
  you've got to watch this with me.
• 23:06
  My youngest, who's 10, loves to cook with me. I got him a set of not real knives.
• 23:09
  They're like plastic. They're sharp. No, this is the absolute correct. He starts chopping.
• 23:14
  He's got his fingers here. And I'm like, that's how you do it.
• 23:15
  I understood that way of talking to my kids when they're cooking.
• 23:18
  Like, if you're not going to be helpful, I don't need you here.
• 23:20
  I love you, but this is not your place.
• 23:23
  I need this to be correct. That's what Yes Chef is all about.
• 23:26
  I tell my children all the time.
• 23:28
  Cooking is, at its core, incredibly simple. Back to da Vinci, incredibly simple.
• 23:34
  That's why it's so sophisticated, simple. Listen to the directions carefully.
• 23:39
  So if I tell you, stir the pot slowly and don't move.
• 23:45
  Stir the pot slowly and don't move. Don't stir it quickly, then run over there
• 23:49
  to go to the next step because you think you're helping.
• 23:51
  I had that once with an assistant who was the daughter of one of my beloved culinary instructors.
• 23:57
  This guy was amazing. He was a hunter. He's from France.
• 24:01
  He was a hunter and he would go, okay, I got some pheasant this weekend.
• 24:05
  We're going to make some sausage. I'm going to get some duck.
• 24:07
  He would hunt every weekend.
• 24:09
  His daughter, he said to me, oh, would you like to have her as an assistant,
• 24:12
  you know, for one of your gigs? I said, yeah, yeah.
• 24:15
  So she did. I know as chef, I can do everybody's job as well or better than they can. It's my own.
• 24:20
  That's how you get to be chef. In charge. I said to her, I just want you to
• 24:25
  peel these carrots a certain way, pair them a certain way, and then blanch them.
• 24:32
  I don't want you to take it to the next step. Just blanch them.
• 24:36
  The final step is going, a lot of professional cooking is multi-stage cooking,
• 24:39
  right? You mark something and then you finish it in the oven later.
• 24:42
  You take something to 90% and then you finish it later.
• 24:45
  So what does she do? I said, I need that done by a quarter of six.
• 24:48
  She comes to me at 625, all done. and I, she said, glassed them.
• 24:54
  I caramelized them in a way.
• 24:56
  I said, okay, I asked you not to do that.
• 25:00
  She said, yes, I know, but I finished early. So I thought I'd take it upon myself
• 25:05
  to help you and save time.
• 25:06
  I go, you haven't saved time because I don't like how you've done this.
• 25:10
  You've overdone it because you didn't have my guidance. You didn't wait for
• 25:13
  me to tell you how I wanted it.
• 25:14
  And I had another chef with me who had been a longtime assistant of mine and was a colleague of mine.
• 25:19
  Like we went to we were colleagues but sometimes i would bring her on as an
• 25:23
  assistant in my gigs she was chef and ran her own thing and i said to her you
• 25:26
  know we did good cop bad cop i'm like maggie,
• 25:29
  how'd it go she's like dog shit 86 throw it
• 25:32
  out like just to make the point yeah i said
• 25:35
  and i go and now i'm fucked i better hope people don't need
• 25:37
  all the carrots and crudités and we can do this again when it comes in
• 25:40
  during first course because you you like follow
• 25:44
  the instructions incredibly simple
• 25:47
  yeah i didn't ask you to show me how amazing you you
• 25:50
  know most of life is showing up excellence comes from showing
• 25:53
  up and doing the simplest of things if you're
• 25:56
  a kid have your computer charge put your
• 25:59
  water bottle in your backpack have all your papers
• 26:02
  organized show doing the little banal
• 26:06
  things well with excellence is meta excellence yes and people do not they're
• 26:12
  so interested in you know doing the fancy stuff the more dynamic stuff the bigger
• 26:18
  stuff that they forget excellence is in the details cooking is extremely simple
• 26:23
  you're moving moisture through heat.
• 26:26
  I mean, obviously, if you're making a salad, you're not cooking,
• 26:28
  you're assembling. Cooking is moving moisture through heat.
• 26:32
  To do that, you have to follow a certain procedure. And if you're being given
• 26:36
  an instruction verbally, the finesse comes from experience, being able to manipulate
• 26:40
  heat extremely well and being at that's the finesse of putting your own flair in things.
• 26:45
  But at its core, cooking is so common sense, it's hard to follow.
• 26:49
  Do you want to do this and that?
• 26:51
  There is a chicken recipe that I make once a week, and it's a whole roasted chicken.
• 26:56
  It's Thomas Keller's roasted chicken. The most simple thing in the world.
• 27:03
  Best instruction, do not open the oven. Do not attempt to open the oven.
• 27:06
  Don't think opening the oven will be you checking the oven.
• 27:08
  Do not open the oven. This is my big Thanksgiving thing. People say,
• 27:11
  well, I don't know why my turkey dries out. I said, I know why your turkey dries out.
• 27:14
  You're basting it with the oven. But turkey doesn't need to be basted.
• 27:16
  If you feel that it needs to be basted, take it out, set it on top of the stove,
• 27:20
  slam that door shut, and then baste it.
• 27:22
  Then when you're done, put it back in, if that's how you feel. yeah
• 27:25
  it's that's what i mean it's so simple simple
• 27:28
  but it eludes people because it's so simple they think
• 27:31
  that listen when i was a kid when you were a kid that was the last era of figure
• 27:36
  skaters in national and international and olympic competition doing figure eights
• 27:41
  you had to do your edges you had to make figure eights and they're like this
• 27:45
  is so stupid if you're an olympian how do you not know how to do perfect i mean
• 27:48
  there's no every skater should be doing perfect figure.
• 27:51
  The truth is, nobody cares if you can do a quadruple Lutz if you can't hold
• 27:58
  your edge. You don't get to jump.
• 28:01
  To that very far down step, if you can't hold a perfect edge on a blade,
• 28:07
  that's a basic thing. I think that's so lost so much now.
• 28:11
  It is. I feel like it's so lost in everything.
• 28:15
  Cutting corners on making clothes. Cutting corners on building furniture.
• 28:19
  The quality is gone in so many things. And I see it with my kids.
• 28:25
  I don't care that you threw that pillow on there. That is not how you make a bed.
• 28:30
  And every morning you make your bed. If you're going to do one thing in this
• 28:33
  house, you're going to make your damn bed. That's right. Because that's not my job.
• 28:36
  And as they've learned to do that, they've been given more things to do.
• 28:39
  Yes. I just feel like, well, I can do this big math problem.
• 28:43
  I'm like, I get it. But can you do that first step perfectly every time?
• 28:49
  And I'm with you on that. I hope that we, as a generation, because I see my
• 28:53
  friends are trying to change it around us, that we're trying to develop those
• 28:57
  skills for our kids better than previously.
• 29:01
  One of the big problems that swims around this issue, and this relates specifically
• 29:07
  to social media, like we've democratized everything.
• 29:10
  We don't value expertise. We don't believe in expertise.
• 29:14
  Everyone's opinion and approach is equally valid.
• 29:19
  And by valid in this case, I mean worthy of exploration and execution.
• 29:25
  And that's just not true. There is more than one way to roast a chicken.
• 29:29
  And there's more than one way to roast a turkey.
• 29:31
  But there are fundamentals surrounding
• 29:35
  all those different ways that are unchangeable like don't open
• 29:37
  the goddamn door you know there's a lot of people you know you everyone's screaming
• 29:44
  with a megaphone in the forest and no one knows to whom they're supposed to
• 29:47
  listen because it's not clear people who followed it soren of course back when
• 29:52
  i was doing this in a very regular way you know.
• 29:56
  Who I am and what my background is and they can trust that I have this training
• 30:00
  and I have this point of view and I'm a big stickler for classical property.
• 30:05
  That's a value that I personally have and I have the credentials.
• 30:09
  There's lots of people I've watched on Instagram who have 20 times the followership
• 30:13
  that I have and people say, are you ever going to go to culinary school?
• 30:16
  And they're like, why would I do that? I don't need to go to culinary school
• 30:18
  when I can already do this.
• 30:19
  You don't need to in terms of earning money, but the arrogance to think you
• 30:24
  couldn't learn anything going to culinary school and studying under French and
• 30:27
  Italian pastry chefs, like you're an asshole.
• 30:30
  How stupid are you that you think you have nothing to learn?
• 30:33
  I mean, I don't need to learn from a great Italian chef about pasta.
• 30:36
  I know how to make pasta. Seriously?
• 30:38
  I'm a French-trained cook. I know how to make pasta. But you think I couldn't
• 30:42
  get something out of going to a fancy pasta class? Of course I could.
• 30:46
  There's endless ability to learn inside of me until death. I have a very formal,
• 30:51
  excellent culinary education and training in the real world all these famous people.
• 30:55
  For someone who doesn't have any of that, to say there's no room for learning
• 30:58
  is a huge problem that we have with the cutting corners, like you say,
• 31:03
  is that a lot of it stems from the democratization of expertise.
• 31:08
  We don't value expertise anymore and we don't value learning.
• 31:14
  Really. We just value the outcome. We don't value the process.
• 31:17
  You know, people are more, my father always says, people are more acquisitive
• 31:21
  than they are inquisitive, which is true.
• 31:23
  Very true. People want to just have shit and they don't want to know shit.
• 31:27
  But where did that arrogance come from to think that you just know everything?
• 31:32
  From the democratization of information. When we were kids, the only sneak peek
• 31:36
  people had into the upper echelons of society was like Robin Leach.
• 31:43
  Oh my gosh. The Styles of the Rich and Famous. Think about that.
• 31:45
  So true. Remember that he bought this house for $4 million.
• 31:50
  But that was just a peak, right? Most people didn't know that they weren't,
• 31:56
  quote, unquote, and I'm putting this with big quote marks. Most people didn't
• 32:00
  know they were not living well.
• 32:01
  Meaning that they didn't feel an insecurity about their lives.
• 32:04
  Everyone around them in their own nucleus, their own microcosm had a similar,
• 32:10
  you know, the people didn't know.
• 32:11
  Then once you got to see everything. Mm-hmm.
• 32:16
  MTV Cribs. Yes, exactly. It was all post-Robin Leach, right?
• 32:19
  Yes, that was the next one. And that sort of created this, what you have is
• 32:24
  more important than what you know.
• 32:26
  Part of my struggle on Instagram has always been competing with 19-year-olds
• 32:29
  who are better at the medium and understand the medium.
• 32:34
  And I'm competing with them. But I have a lot to offer.
• 32:39
  I'm 48 years old and I'm not alone in this. There are many other people in my
• 32:42
  circumstance who are, you know, we always talk about, oh, we support women,
• 32:45
  we support women. No, we don't, because we don't, as a society,
• 32:48
  let them come back in their mid-40s and late-40s when they could do anything.
• 32:54
  Because they've run a household in addition to whatever career they had before. Dismissed.
• 32:58
  And yet, that 21-year-old who's dumping and stirring some shit in the bowl has 500,000 followers.
• 33:04
  I'll tell you, I don't care about the medium.
• 33:08
  I don't want to be, like, yeah, I'm pretty good at taking food photography.
• 33:11
  I got good at it. But I mean, I got good at food photography on my phone.
• 33:16
  Like all the people I worked with when I did print stuff. I mean,
• 33:19
  my specialty was live television.
• 33:20
  That's what I was really known for. But I did some recorded stuff and I did some print stuff.
• 33:25
  I was like, you're a live television gal, which is a different set of skills, right?
• 33:29
  You have to, that's a like, we're militating against the clock.
• 33:32
  It just has to get done. And that's it. As opposed to the obsession of perfect
• 33:35
  television. Yeah, where the one little flower and the one piece of microgreen.
• 33:38
  The tweezer. I didn't love the tweezers. I mean, I had done it,
• 33:40
  but it's not my favorite thing to do.
• 33:42
  Who does? Well, no, people. Do people like it?
• 33:45
  No, I mean, it's a real thing. Then you look through the camera with the photographer
• 33:49
  and you're like, there's a huge detail. I can't watch a TV commercial without
• 33:51
  going, who styled that? There's a big hole there. It's ridiculous.
• 33:55
  Didn't they see that that was like, I mean, I can't. Oh, believe me. I'm sure.
• 33:58
  When I watch newscasters, I'm like, God, I need to help them so bad.
• 34:02
  Right. Of course. Like, what are you wearing? I'll do it for free.
• 34:04
  It's the same idea. You see everything. You see everything. Yeah. But I, yeah.
• 34:08
  I want to talk about this social media with you. Because I have noticed that
• 34:12
  you take intentional breaks.
• 34:15
  Ever since the war. Ever since the massacre of October 7th. I've taken breaks.
• 34:20
  And I loved when you would be in your car after shopping at a grocery store and you would rant.
• 34:26
  And your rants were. I miss my rants. Decorum.
• 34:30
  Yes. It was just how to be a good human.
• 34:34
  You don't honk at someone when they're trying to cross the way you spoke.
• 34:38
  I was like, this is so obvious. but we all need to be reminded.
• 34:42
  Because society's coarse. It didn't used to be coarse. It didn't used to be
• 34:45
  like that. People held doors open. And guess what?
• 34:48
  Gentlemen, it's okay for a man to be a gentleman and hold the door for you.
• 34:51
  There was nothing wrong with that.
• 34:53
  But all of a sudden, it's all gotten very confusing and no one knows what to
• 34:57
  do. People are just rude.
• 34:58
  So when you would go on these rants, I would be like, I'd listen to them twice sometimes.
• 35:02
  Yes. I'd go back to that story and be like, that's right, Lauren.
• 35:04
  People love the rants. I have them in the highlights because people love the rants.
• 35:08
  They're so good. I would get, for every hundred people who love Durant,
• 35:11
  I'd get one that's like, you're an arrogant snob, whatever. My response would always be, it's true.
• 35:16
  The It's Lauren, of course, community is a highly intelligent community.
• 35:20
  We expect things of people. That'd be my dig. Like, you can't just unfollow me or swipe left.
• 35:26
  You have to insult me. You're going to get it right back. Yeah, it's true.
• 35:29
  People who like Lauren are a thinking people.
• 35:32
  They are a thinking people. I'm like, you think I'm a, and I would say all the
• 35:35
  time, every once in a while, just to reiterate, Right.
• 35:37
  I'm aware that there are big issues in the world. This is just like entertainment
• 35:41
  and meant to point out things that are obvious and frustrating to many people.
• 35:45
  I am not suggesting that the biggest issue in the world is that somebody parked
• 35:49
  their car on a slant next to mine.
• 35:50
  You know, but I will tell you that after the massacre, I could not bring myself back.
• 35:58
  To do the rants, I couldn't bring myself to do it because not only was I and
• 36:04
  my fellow tribesmen having trouble getting out of bed for many weeks just to get out of bed.
• 36:11
  But besides that, I'm a devout American also, and the country and the world
• 36:18
  were burning in ways—it was all just too serious.
• 36:22
  I couldn't rant about some annoying decorum thing that happened.
• 36:27
  And it's funny because people would say, God, Lauren is so outspoken.
• 36:30
  And my best friends always say, yes, but I mean, it's an iceberg.
• 36:34
  She's giving you this much. There's this much below.
• 36:37
  There are many rants I would have loved to have done, but I couldn't because
• 36:40
  it would impugn someone directly.
• 36:43
  People would know who the person was. I'm not mean spirited.
• 36:47
  I'm not vindictive. I don't have a vindictive bone in my body.
• 36:49
  I'm outspoken and absolutely, but I'm not cruel and vindictive.
• 36:53
  I don't get off on mean girl and like destroying people or mocking people.
• 36:59
  There are many rants I would have loved to have done because it would have been a really good rant.
• 37:02
  But everyone in town would have known who it was or somebody.
• 37:05
  I wouldn't do that. So there are a lot of rants that never made it.
• 37:09
  I felt that it was too trivial and I couldn't bring myself during COVID at the
• 37:15
  apex of the universe, so to speak.
• 37:18
  Like my personality coupled with my culinary expertise was the brand and it
• 37:23
  made sense to put both of those things on the table.
• 37:26
  And obviously we were all living in isolation and frustration and de-socialization,
• 37:31
  right? So doing those things made sense.
• 37:33
  I had always made a promise I would never make It's Lauren, of course.
• 37:37
  About anything other than cooking.
• 37:39
  When October 7th hit and I saw it was the largest massacre of Jews since World War II.
• 37:46
  And I saw that on October 8th, everybody reacted in a way that I was born and
• 37:54
  raised, like I believe never again was real.
• 37:57
  I mean, every Jew was raised that way, post-war Jew.
• 38:00
  I saw that it wasn't real and that many people in the world thought it was great
• 38:07
  what happened and there was no condemnation.
• 38:09
  And I, as a Jew and an American, I just couldn't keep cooking and pretend that
• 38:13
  wasn't so. I got, I wouldn't say flack, but sort of curious finger wagging from
• 38:20
  people during the George Floyd.
• 38:22
  Do you remember the black squares that people were putting up on Instagram?
• 38:26
  And I was the only one who wouldn't do it. And I had some friends say,
• 38:29
  but that's you can't do that.
• 38:31
  You'll be perceived as a racist. I said, excuse me. The thing is to amplify black voices.
• 38:37
  I don't have to virtue signal that.
• 38:40
  By putting up a black square, which is supposed to amplify black voices. I am not a black voice.
• 38:45
  To prove that I completely abhor the idea that somebody should be murdered while
• 38:50
  they're being arrested.
• 38:51
  I mean, that's insanity to me. I won't do it. And I didn't do it.
• 38:55
  And then what happens a month later?
• 38:56
  The black square thing was terrible because all these Karens posted the black
• 39:00
  square and it didn't amplify black voices.
• 39:02
  You were supposed to be scrolling through Instagram, meaning that,
• 39:06
  oh, that's a black voice I should amplify. You should forward this to my friends.
• 39:09
  That's right. purchase stuff from their business. But it was every woman like you and I.
• 39:13
  I didn't do it. I understood the assignment, but I was chastised.
• 39:17
  And then only later everyone was like, oh, you understood the assignment.
• 39:19
  I said, yes, I understood the assignment because I can tell the difference between
• 39:22
  virtue and virtue signaling.
• 39:24
  Many weeks later, I decided I have something to say.
• 39:28
  I know what I want to say, but I'm not going to say it when it's supposed to
• 39:31
  be Black Voices Amplified. So I took a photograph.
• 39:35
  Sean, my husband, was holding a mason jar. I had
• 39:38
  done chocolate covered pretzel rods one dark
• 39:41
  chocolate with white sprinkles one white chocolate with
• 39:44
  dark chocolate sprinkles and then in the middle was a
• 39:47
  chocolate covered like a milk chocolate covered one that had American confetti
• 39:51
  sprinkles on it and that was the center of the two and it was holding the jar
• 39:55
  and I said this is a food account I have made it my decision that I won't get
• 40:01
  political but I would like to say on the eve of an election.
• 40:05
  The best thing you can do is to vote your conscience, is to vote.
• 40:10
  And I believe in the promise not yet realized in this country.
• 40:13
  I believe in this country. I believe in our citizens and everyone should go
• 40:15
  out and vote. Here's a link to register.
• 40:18
  And that's what felt right to me. People think that virtue signaling and actual
• 40:21
  virtue are the same thing.
• 40:23
  I am well aware of what the difference is between the two. And the trouble is
• 40:26
  that most people don't. We are in a big problem with that.
• 40:29
  When the massacre happened, I had many followers who said to me,
• 40:33
  You didn't do anything for Ukraine. You're doing this now for Jews.
• 40:37
  You're not being honest about you always said you wouldn't make this political.
• 40:41
  And I was like, listen, they're trying to wipe us out from the river to the sea.
• 40:45
  This is me. And also, I've worked hard for this audience, very hard.
• 40:49
  And yeah, I lost a thousand people. I lost a thousand people. That was OK with me.
• 40:54
  But I found that I didn't care as much about the food as I do about this country
• 40:59
  and about the Jewish people. And I'm not apologetic for that.
• 41:02
  Part of people's attraction to me.
• 41:05
  And so I had many Gentile people tell me, you're like my news feed,
• 41:10
  because a lot of what's happening in the Jewish world is not reported in the
• 41:14
  general media, be it mainstream or alternative mainstream.
• 41:18
  People just aren't following the story. Yeah. And so...
• 41:22
  People were grateful for that, and I was happy to provide that for a while.
• 41:27
  And then I reached an inflection point where I thought, you know,
• 41:32
  this isn't good for me to be on here anymore.
• 41:34
  To be engrossed in this, to be wearing that badge of informer,
• 41:42
  I just had to get out of the medium. I find that I'm a bad consumer of social media.
• 41:47
  It's kind of like how some people just don't keep sweets in their house because
• 41:50
  they can't stop. I can walk by a cookie jar in spite of appearances.
• 41:53
  This is a mysterious endocrine disorder that no doctor can solve. That's what this is.
• 41:58
  I tend to go down rabbit holes, which is what it's meant. It's like a potato chip.
• 42:02
  It's meant to be. I can't stop. It's a black hole you go down. I have that.
• 42:06
  People say, just go in there, do your content, and come out.
• 42:09
  I'm not, you're a stylist, right? If you wanted to, you know,
• 42:14
  I'm wearing this outfit, and I paired the jeans back to this blazer and these
• 42:18
  shoes, you could go in and out and do that.
• 42:21
  My stuff is process-driven if I'm doing what people really want,
• 42:27
  which is the videos, the lives.
• 42:29
  And also, it's, like, you didn't make that blazer, right?
• 42:33
  I did not. Like any photograph you've ever seen me do, I conceived of the idea,
• 42:38
  I shopped the idea, I prepped the idea, I cleaned up after the idea,
• 42:42
  I made it, cleaned up after it, wrote it up,
• 42:46
  photographed it. I mean, it's an inordinate amount of shit.
• 42:49
  And I didn't care as much about it after the war started. I really knew that
• 42:54
  it wasn't good for me to be a consumer.
• 42:58
  And by being on there, it exposed me to consumption.
• 43:01
  Yes. I'm not taking responsibility for my own Instagram but
• 43:04
  it opened whereas if I delete the app
• 43:07
  from my phone you can't even touch it I delete the
• 43:10
  app from my phone and I did after Passover my friend Jackie said
• 43:13
  to me are we going to go on Instagram for Passover I said if you want to I haven't
• 43:17
  been on it was so great to watch you and Jackie cook together and people were
• 43:20
  loving it and people were writing to us oh I miss you so much please do this
• 43:24
  again and the truth is you know I'm 48 years old I came up in the culinary world 25 years ago I don't
• 43:31
  want to be a cameraman and a producer and a director and an editor.
• 43:38
  I just want to be chef. And this medium requires not only does it force the
• 43:44
  democratization of expertise, which I think is broadly in many ways a negative thing.
• 43:49
  But it also means you have to be a jack of all trades to get it out there.
• 43:52
  If somebody said to me back in the day when I had a show on AOL, I had a food show.
• 43:58
  We had producers, budget, cameramen, a stylist and a wardrobe person.
• 44:02
  I hired my own food stylist because I was the on-air talent.
• 44:06
  Sure, I'd do that. But I don't want to be editing food videos,
• 44:13
  directing, doing the lighting.
• 44:15
  I'd want to be the chef. In today's world, it's not just a democratization of
• 44:19
  expertise, but it's a democratization of process.
• 44:23
  And I don't want to wear 15 hats. I mean, three hats would be enough.
• 44:29
  15 is not something. Because of that, I have to accept that that's where I am with it.
• 44:33
  It makes me sort of sad in certain ways because I had dreams not yet realized
• 44:39
  or unfinished or I only got to the first or second or third stage of a certain
• 44:43
  dream and I wanted to hit the apotheosis of that dream.
• 44:46
  And then the truth is, as time marches on, sometimes the dreams shift.
• 44:53
  You pin the tail on a different donkey. That's right.
• 44:56
  You find a donkey in the direction you're facing. Yeah. So it's a weird thing
• 45:00
  about age and perspective too. have something that you, I mean,
• 45:05
  you don't have to bring it up because it could be something you're stewing on.
• 45:07
  Sometimes I have ideas and I don't like to talk about them until I've really
• 45:11
  seen it. So you have something? I do, but it's extremely selfish.
• 45:15
  And it ties back to contributing to the world, which is an interesting notion
• 45:19
  that I also think gets a little distorted.
• 45:22
  I have three different manuscripts on my computer that I've been working on
• 45:27
  completely for posterity and personal.
• 45:31
  I have one is a memoir style thing really for myself and my children to talk
• 45:39
  about all those fractures in the family so they understand. It's the best writing I've ever done.
• 45:43
  I'm a pretty good writer, possibly better at writing than cooking.
• 45:46
  It's funny that cooking has been the medium of getting me out in the universe,
• 45:51
  but I don't know that it's my greatest skill when I really think back on it,
• 45:55
  that that's the route I went, but it's the route I went.
• 45:57
  But the other two manuscripts are cookbooks, recipe-driven books.
• 46:02
  You know, from It's Learned, of course, from that COVID era before and after,
• 46:06
  I have four books worth of...
• 46:09
  If a classic cookbook has 100 to 120 recipes, I've got 400 plus.
• 46:14
  I'd be happy to produce 250 of them in a book form.
• 46:18
  I have two books within me, and my goal is to...
• 46:22
  Do them myself. If something comes of it for public consumption after the fact,
• 46:27
  that's fine, but I'm going to do it myself.
• 46:29
  I want it to be just right. Having worked on three different books, done different ways.
• 46:34
  The cookbook book was published. I took a book deal I shouldn't have taken.
• 46:38
  I was ill-advised. I can't say that I regret it, but I'm so unhappy with it.
• 46:42
  My second book, which wasn't a cookbook, which was a book on cooking,
• 46:46
  is my proudest thing that I've ever done. That was excellent because it was self-published.
• 46:51
  It was a best of the year New York Times. I mean, it was a critically acclaimed book. It sold at MoMA.
• 46:58
  It's a well-known book. I was happy about that book and very proud.
• 47:03
  But it was excellent because it had the control of the people who wrote it.
• 47:06
  And then the third one, the same thing. And I just had a small part in that.
• 47:10
  And I was just so proud of me. But again, that book came out pitch perfectly
• 47:13
  because she spearheaded that herself. It wasn't a traditional publishing deal.
• 47:17
  These things that I want to do is I basically want to have what I've done on
• 47:21
  Instagram bound in a discursive cover to cover form for selfish reasons,
• 47:28
  for posterity, for myself.
• 47:29
  If it ended up being something that got out there and was sold and became successful
• 47:34
  in that way, that would be so wonderful.
• 47:36
  But the truth is, I just want it to be what I want it to be.
• 47:41
  And I just want to see that come to fruition for myself. And I have finally
• 47:46
  come to the conclusion that it's okay to work on things for yourself as opposed
• 47:53
  to in service of other people's metrics.
• 47:56
  You know, there's this American obsession of how are you contributing to the
• 47:59
  world? What are you contributing? What do you do?
• 48:02
  And I look at my sons and I think, well, I did when I say I,
• 48:05
  I mean my husband and I, to be clear.
• 48:06
  I did that. And the one who's 18, so he's fully baked, represents excellence.
• 48:11
  I mean, he is exceptional with what I follow because I follow you and his stutter
• 48:16
  and how he's worked through that.
• 48:18
  He plays soccer and they asked him to speak about playing soccer and working
• 48:22
  through his stutter and how much he's come out of his shell in speaking.
• 48:26
  It touches me and I'm not in your family.
• 48:29
  I showed Easton. My son Easton has sensory stuff. He really has a hard time with food.
• 48:33
  So I've tried very hard to get him to try new things since he was a baby.
• 48:37
  I was showing him how your son was cooking with you in the teen one.
• 48:42
  Yes, the technique, the torture for teens. Right, for teens,
• 48:44
  yes. And I was like, Easton, watch this. He was watching it and noticing his little stutter.
• 48:48
  I was like, look at him out there. He's trying to cook and making things.
• 48:51
  Easton loves French toast.
• 48:52
  I'm like, look it, we're making French toast. I thought how brave of him to
• 48:57
  say yes to that and to push through what he deals with to become a better human.
• 49:02
  Thank you. And that comes from you and your husband as well.
• 49:05
  He has to get that out of him. We gave him the space. You gave him the space. We gave him the space.
• 49:09
  And by the way, I had this idea after the 100 Days Live and then being live every week.
• 49:15
  I got very sick, actually, from all of it. I mean, like, very, very sick.
• 49:19
  I said to Jonathan, I have an idea.
• 49:22
  I think it could be good for you, good to stutter, and it would be good for
• 49:25
  you for life skills and cooking.
• 49:27
  It would be giving the people what they want. They love the videos.
• 49:31
  And it's a new twist on what they've been getting for years.
• 49:34
  I don't need this. I don't need to hock my kid. I'm not trying to use my kid.
• 49:39
  So I'm going to present this idea to you. If it's something you want, I'll do it.
• 49:42
  If there's even a hesitation, never think of it again. I told him, he's like, I love it.
• 49:48
  I want to do it. I said, you do? Because I kind of thought he would say no.
• 49:52
  And he says, I want to do it. And we didn't have to say I'm deeply,
• 49:55
  deeply grateful for all of that time, because the truth is I could have done it off camera,
• 50:01
  but I can't tell you the blessing of being beholden to other people and having
• 50:06
  announced something and a schedule and therefore getting it done.
• 50:11
  Because you say, I'm going to teach you to cook every week.
• 50:14
  We'll make a meal before you go to college and I'll teach you to cook.
• 50:16
  It just doesn't happen. But when it's a professional endeavor, it happened.
• 50:21
  And I treasure those times. That was really great and a lot of fun.
• 50:25
  A lot of people, even without teenagers, were like, I love this.
• 50:29
  It's basic cooking. It's really basic stuff.
• 50:31
  And that was a very special time. When I think back on all the things I've contributed.
• 50:36
  You know, that's such a thing that we as people tell ourselves,
• 50:39
  In particular, women who might be juggling family and career.
• 50:43
  What are you doing? You're not working. You're not doing anything.
• 50:45
  My home is immaculately clean.
• 50:47
  It's lovely. My children sit down to every meal, breakfast, if they're home
• 50:51
  for lunch, sometimes the older one's home for lunch, and at a table.
• 50:54
  They don't eat standing up. They don't eat at the TV.
• 50:57
  We have conversations at every meal. My children talk to me. They talk to my husband.
• 51:02
  They talk to us about the world, about their feelings. I don't have the moniker
• 51:05
  of some kind of career or job title to make myself feel special or like I'm contributing.
• 51:13
  I've grown okay with the idea.
• 51:16
  I have the luxury of not having to work in that traditional sense to have money
• 51:22
  my husband and I divide and conquer our duties.
• 51:25
  And so he's the one who, you know, earns the overwhelming majority of the money.
• 51:29
  And I'm the one who does sort of the overwhelming majority of like more house stuff.
• 51:34
  Although he's quite hands on in many ways. He does all the outside gardening stuff.
• 51:38
  And he's an amazing dad and so involved in all their sports. It's more uneven.
• 51:42
  He does more in certain ways than I do because he does both things.
• 51:45
  But I've come to understand that that's okay. Your contribution to the world doesn't have to be...
• 51:55
  Consistent and it doesn't have to be just one thing. I hear from a lot of people,
• 52:00
  even still, I was at a middle school play two weeks ago and someone's pointing at me and I said, hi.
• 52:05
  And she said, I followed you every day during COVID.
• 52:09
  I said, oh, that's so nice. She goes, yeah, I really loved it. Thank you.
• 52:12
  I've had people, especially the first year or two after COVID,
• 52:15
  walk up to me and say, you really got me through every day. Absolutely.
• 52:19
  And I would say, really? No, you really got like you don't understand like every
• 52:22
  day whenever you decided to go live based on what you were cooking.
• 52:26
  I watched and it helped me.
• 52:27
  I've had many people tell me that.
• 52:31
  So if I did that for one person, that's a really good thing.
• 52:34
  I did contribute something during that time. And I'm by the way,
• 52:37
  people gave a lot to me, too.
• 52:39
  Right. It's a synchronous thing, a symbiotic thing. But then there's the constancy
• 52:43
  of raising, I have two sons, young men, to be good world citizens,
• 52:51
  good American citizens, good Jewish citizens. That's what I'm doing.
• 52:54
  And I'm good with that. Because I feel like a lot of people have punted that
• 52:59
  for the pursuit of personal ambition.
• 53:03
  Yeah. I think there are people who are able to do it all, but not a lot of people
• 53:11
  can really do it all. Yeah.
• 53:13
  You can't do it all at once. Most people can't. It's very few people who can.
• 53:16
  Even then, something gets lost. This whole lean in is bullshit. There's no leaning in.
• 53:21
  You're focused on one thing at one time, then you're focused on the other thing.
• 53:24
  Something gets missed. You do it to the best of your ability while you're in it.
• 53:28
  You give it 100% while you're in it. I give my kids 100% while I'm in it.
• 53:31
  But guys, when I am working on something, you're not getting my 100%.
• 53:36
  That honesty within yourself and with them is the difference.
• 53:40
  Truly, because for me, I'm an A-plus person. My whole thing,
• 53:45
  I mean, that's the whole brand, right? I believe in excellence.
• 53:48
  We talked about Da Vinci. We'll talk about Aristotle. Excellence isn't just
• 53:51
  something you say. It's something you do.
• 53:54
  And it's an entire mindset. I believe in the platonic forms,
• 53:57
  right? The idea of a square is the most perfect square.
• 54:00
  And so that's the beacon. That's what you're trying to pin the tail on,
• 54:03
  right? You're oriented towards that.
• 54:05
  And when I'm doing something and B plus is where I'm at, it's time to stop. That's right.
• 54:11
  And I, which isn't to say that like I aim for A plus and I always get an A plus.
• 54:15
  I'm going to aim for A plus and I get a B plus. But if my aim,
• 54:18
  if I'm satisfied at the outset, would this can be at an 89?
• 54:22
  I remember before I hung up my knives, when I ran my catering company,
• 54:27
  I was pregnant with Jonathan, who's now 18.
• 54:30
  And one of my assistants said, oh, Lauren, you're sending the salmon platter out?
• 54:35
  It doesn't have the little tomato garnish that the other ones had.
• 54:37
  It didn't look unfinished to other people, just to my team.
• 54:40
  I remember one of my assistants looked at me, was like, you okay?
• 54:44
  And I looked at her and I was like,
• 54:45
  I think today's my last day. She was like, are you serious? I said,
• 54:50
  yeah, I think today's my last day, my last gig.
• 54:53
  I think maybe I had one more gig on the boat. Yeah.
• 54:55
  Because you know what your 100% is. And when I wasn't able to give it,
• 54:59
  and that's always been my thing with motherhood.
• 55:01
  I was never comfortable with, well, I'll give two or three different things a B+.
• 55:08
  Whenever I've tried to do that, everything has suffered.
• 55:11
  In COVID, when I was doing that, I was giving it all to it.
• 55:16
  Soren, of course, when everybody was in pajamas and resting and had three,
• 55:20
  four months, I was never worked harder.
• 55:22
  I was sleeping maybe four hours a night. Don't forget everything I was doing.
• 55:27
  I had to photograph, do all that cleaning, write it up and put it on the website
• 55:32
  as a recipe and then do the stories and the Instagram post. I mean, it was it's a grind.
• 55:37
  Any post you see of mine is a minimum of eight hours. Everyone's homeschooling
• 55:40
  the kids, so to speak, and everybody's cleaning the house because no one can
• 55:43
  come to clean the house. And this was universal.
• 55:45
  So that was a good thing. It wasn't unique to me. It wasn't a person on earth
• 55:48
  who wasn't going through the same thing.
• 55:49
  But to that end, once the COVID aspect was over and I was going live like once
• 55:56
  a week, but still like, OK, I'll produce content five days a week.
• 56:01
  I'll do Monday through Friday and weekends will be stories only.
• 56:04
  I put a lot of thought into this.
• 56:05
  How can I find the balance? it's always a seesaw picture you
• 56:08
  framing something and you put the level up that bubble just keeps moving
• 56:11
  i need the bubble to sit i couldn't get it
• 56:14
  to sit i'll do new content monday wednesday friday in
• 56:17
  the static squares stories every day stories aren't stressful i will be honest
• 56:21
  in that respect reels or something else and then the reels came out it's like
• 56:25
  wait now i gotta make this fucking shit it's like having a baby and then that
• 56:28
  thing just starts to crawl you're like i got it it's sitting in the bouncy chair
• 56:31
  i'm showering for a whole 15 minutes
• 56:33
  i can even blow dry my hair Then it's like, no, he wants to cruise.
• 56:37
  He wants to crawl. It's like, you're messing up my whole thing.
• 56:39
  I just got control of this shit and you're messing up my whole thing.
• 56:42
  And this, when they came out with the reels, I'm like, there's more shit I need to do.
• 56:46
  Keep up. And I just feel like a dog at the racetrack, you know,
• 56:50
  following that little bunny.
• 56:51
  And it's like, you need 10,000 followers to get a hyperlink.
• 56:54
  Okay. I busted my ass for every unique follower I had.
• 56:57
  Bust. And I'd never bought a single follower. And you could tell by who's in the community.
• 57:02
  What happens? Once I have like 11,000 people, yeah, everyone gets a link now.
• 57:07
  I'm like, okay, that used to be a thing. That used to be something you had to
• 57:10
  work for. I verified. Everyone can be verified now. I just said to myself, this is a metric that...
• 57:16
  I just feel like I'm not in service to my own desires in this career anymore.
• 57:24
  And it's a career that isn't the livelihood of my family.
• 57:28
  So what's the point? If everything went to hell and I had to earn money to keep
• 57:33
  myself, I'd go back to being a private chef and doing gigs.
• 57:37
  And that would be how I would do it. And I would go back to that grueling work.
• 57:41
  I don't have to do that. I'm 48 years old. I used to work like that when I was 25.
• 57:44
  But if I had to do that, I would. Just following these, you know,
• 57:48
  trying to be a slave to Instagram metrics and this and that.
• 57:54
  And, oh, you can't get a book deal unless you have 30,000. Well,
• 57:56
  that 30,000 isn't enough anyway. You really need 100,000.
• 57:59
  Well, 100,000 isn't enough. You need a quarter of a million. You know what?
• 58:02
  I'm out. I'm out. Not because I'm poo-pooing the whole system,
• 58:06
  although I actually think there's a lot of problems, whole system,
• 58:08
  but maybe one day I'll be back in.
• 58:10
  I have found that if you're fortunate enough to be able to do work for a fulfillment
• 58:14
  purpose as opposed to an actual, I need to provide purpose.
• 58:20
  It really has to work and fit in your whole value system and lifestyle.
• 58:24
  Otherwise, there really is no point. Because if I had to do the grind to get
• 58:28
  a paycheck, believe me, I'd be seven days a week busting my eye.
• 58:30
  I mean, I know exactly what to do. I used to do that, but that's not where I am.
• 58:34
  I think we're at a unique advantage because we did that.
• 58:38
  Yes. I worked every single day in finance. I was up until 2 or 3 in the morning
• 58:45
  until we filed that 10K or that 10Q.
• 58:47
  Ben would be waiting outside to take me to a bar with our best friends.
• 58:51
  At 2 in the morning. At 2 in the morning. Yes.
• 58:53
  Because that's what you did when you lived in New York City.
• 58:55
  That's what you did. Work hard, play hard.
• 58:57
  But you know what it feels like to work hard and earn something.
• 59:02
  I earned every... I didn't have the advantage of having parents who were just like...
• 59:07
  Here you go. I've been working since I was 12. And they didn't want me to work
• 59:10
  at 12, but I loved it. I saw how hard they worked. And I was like, I want that.
• 59:15
  So I worked at the little boutique. I got off the table like it was totally illegal, probably.
• 59:19
  But I got a little check from the owner. I had a little bank account.
• 59:23
  Still trying to figure out how to manage my money at 46. But thankfully, my husband knows how to.
• 59:28
  But I knew what it felt like to work hard and earn something.
• 59:32
  I think we have an advantage because at the end of the day, if shit hit the
• 59:36
  fan, I'd be back at work in a heartbeat.
• 59:39
  I know how to do that. I find value in working hard in everything I do.
• 59:45
  I don't think a lot of people who are younger than us can say that.
• 59:50
  I don't know if the people who've just jumped into a different way of life would
• 59:54
  be able to sit at a desk or stand at a kitchen counter and chop food for other
• 1:00:00
  people for 10 hours a day.
• 1:00:02
  The reason that that is so is because they've been sold a bill of goods that
• 1:00:08
  they should find fulfillment in what they do.
• 1:00:10
  Whereas you and I are at a stage of life where fulfillment is actually a good
• 1:00:15
  reason to be doing something because we're middle-aged. That's right.
• 1:00:20
  But this isn't fulfilling me. Like you're 22, you don't know shit.
• 1:00:24
  All it has to be is not abusive and not bad and not horrible and be fair paycheck
• 1:00:29
  or something. Meaning, like, it doesn't have to be more than it has to be. Yeah.
• 1:00:33
  And I think people don't realize that and feel so entitled to emotional fulfillment
• 1:00:42
  because it's something we sell people. Yes. The truth is...
• 1:00:47
  If you think about our own country, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
• 1:00:52
  you could pursue happiness, but you're not entitled to happiness.
• 1:00:57
  You're entitled to the pursuit of it. Like where in the Bible does it say you have to be happy?
• 1:01:02
  Nowhere. I've never asked my kids, did you have a good day at school?
• 1:01:07
  Never. I've asked them, how was school and what did you do today and what did
• 1:01:11
  you learn? Did anything good happen?
• 1:01:13
  Was there anything bad that happened? But did you have fun at school today?
• 1:01:16
  I think it's the dumbest question.
• 1:01:18
  I hear all these women asking their little toddlers, was school fun today? Who gives a shit?
• 1:01:22
  It's not supposed to be fun. And even in preschool, you're trying to keep them animated and happy.
• 1:01:27
  I'm not suggesting that this should be some draconian Matilda,
• 1:01:30
  like, abusive thing. Yes. But the truth
• 1:01:32
  is, you can even ask a two-and-a-half-year-old, what'd you learn today?
• 1:01:35
  We learned the song. We learned Itsy Bitsy Spider.
• 1:01:38
  Okay, I mean, that's not like learning quantum physics, but they learned something
• 1:01:42
  that they didn't know yesterday.
• 1:01:43
  That's what you should be asking them. Yeah. Was it fun? Who cares?
• 1:01:47
  It sets them up to thinking that every day should be fun. Has to be good and fun.
• 1:01:51
  Who said every day has to be good? People are on drugs. One in three people
• 1:01:54
  are on drugs. I'm the only person in America who's not on drugs.
• 1:01:56
  Everybody's on gummies. Everybody is numbing themselves out because.
• 1:02:02
  Well, I just feel whatever.
• 1:02:04
  And aren't I supposed to be on a constant contact high? No.
• 1:02:08
  You are not supposed to be on a constant contact high. You're supposed to feel elation in rarity.
• 1:02:15
  Yes. You're supposed to feel deep sadness and hopefully rarity,
• 1:02:19
  but you also are allowed to go
• 1:02:21
  through incredibly glorious times that have sustained elation, hopefully.
• 1:02:25
  And there are times where you have sustained depression.
• 1:02:28
  Somebody says, you've been sad for a week.
• 1:02:30
  Well, yes, somebody just ran over my dog or something. God forbid.
• 1:02:34
  You're allowed to be. You're not allowed to be sad for a year.
• 1:02:36
  I'm going to say allowed, meaning it's not healthy for you. Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  But like, it's okay. People don't know how to be in fear. They only know how
• 1:02:43
  they're supposed to be feeling.
• 1:02:45
  Only positive things. We only like things in social media.
• 1:02:49
  It's all about affirmation and feeling good. Live your best life.
• 1:02:52
  Be your best self. How about just be?
• 1:02:55
  And then you might be happier, actually.
• 1:02:59
  Yeah. If you can be, like when people say, how are you doing? I go, fine.
• 1:03:04
  And they go, really? What's wrong? I'm like, nothing. Just fine. You're just fine?
• 1:03:08
  I'm like, I'm great. Is that what you needed? Because now I've jeopardized your
• 1:03:13
  emotional state? Because I said I was fine and now you're fucked up because
• 1:03:17
  it's not elated? I can't deal with this.
• 1:03:20
  I can't. This is, again, back to the hamster wheel versus the two-dimensional thinking.
• 1:03:25
  And I've said to my kids, of course I want them to feel good.
• 1:03:29
  I'm also okay with it feeling fine because much of life is fine.
• 1:03:33
  Much of life, even if you're a wealthy, educated, handsome, intelligent,
• 1:03:38
  has a loving family, you have all these things.
• 1:03:41
  Life is still hard. Life is still largely boring in many ways.
• 1:03:45
  Everything doesn't have to be exciting and fulfilling. I find that my sense
• 1:03:50
  of gratitude is anchored in the idea that much of life is fine. And that's pretty good.
• 1:03:56
  I'll take it. I respond to people now really honestly about stuff. How are you doing?
• 1:04:02
  Actually, I did something really good today and I did this or today's kind of
• 1:04:05
  shitty. Do you find that it's not great? And they're like, oh, it's shitty.
• 1:04:09
  Are you OK? Do you find that people recoil from that, that they don't know how to. They do.
• 1:04:14
  They do. I find that very quick. Yes. They don't want to have a conversation.
• 1:04:17
  I've also tended to not engage in any small talk.
• 1:04:22
  I love being with my people. I love it. I love being with my people.
• 1:04:26
  And I've become very selective with my people.
• 1:04:29
  I prefer to sit and have a glass of wine with my dearest friends and be real.
• 1:04:37
  I want the real, guys. I want it all the time.
• 1:04:40
  And I'm okay with being the person who breaks down in tears at Easter when something happens.
• 1:04:46
  Because that is what I want. And they want the same thing. I want that connection.
• 1:04:50
  I want that vulnerability. I want the realness. Yes.
• 1:04:52
  So I tend to not want to be a part of the groups where I'm like small talk.
• 1:04:59
  The small talk, the fake, the veneer. Yes. Is the proverbial air kiss we used
• 1:05:04
  to say right back in the day.
• 1:05:06
  There's a place for that in the world. Like white lies make the world go round.
• 1:05:10
  You don't have to be brutally honest.
• 1:05:11
  Like you want to come to movies with me? No, I think you're a freaking loser.
• 1:05:15
  Like I have to wash my hair today or whatever the whole like white lies make
• 1:05:18
  the world go round. But like beyond that, active engagement,
• 1:05:22
  like when people say, how are you doing?
• 1:05:24
  And like my world's falling apart, I say not well.
• 1:05:26
  And the people who recoil from that and can't respond to that.
• 1:05:31
  Says something about them in general
• 1:05:34
  or about something something about
• 1:05:37
  them in the moment maybe that they're having something else
• 1:05:40
  going on that they can't be vulnerable and so I've tried to realize you know
• 1:05:47
  I have to be true to myself I'm not going to say I'm great when like things
• 1:05:50
  are falling apart but I will say hanging in there yeah people really hanging
• 1:05:55
  in there hanging in And if they don't like it, it's like, that's okay.
• 1:05:59
  I'm in CVS, guys. I'm not sure what you want from me. That's right.
• 1:06:02
  And I am with you. I think some of that comes from, it's like youth is wasted on the young.
• 1:06:06
  You reach a certain point and you are comfortable with who you are and what
• 1:06:12
  you believe and what you want. So at the end, we do three questions.
• 1:06:15
  I'm ready. Is there something you've changed your mind about?
• 1:06:18
  I've changed my mind about the metric of success and the pace of success.
• 1:06:23
  Because very recently, I've always known this, but I didn't really believe it
• 1:06:28
  until a moment ago, which is that I've always seen it as a failure that in my
• 1:06:34
  40s, I haven't gotten these two manuscripts done.
• 1:06:37
  Three, really, but one is truly personal. And then I finally came to realize, you know what?
• 1:06:43
  No. If I don't start them in earnest until I'm in my early 50s,
• 1:06:48
  when William is off to school, in particular since I want to do them really
• 1:06:53
  for myself, how is that not okay?
• 1:06:57
  It is a marathon, not a sprint. I don't have to complete things on a timetable
• 1:07:04
  that suits some narrative of what it should be.
• 1:07:09
  I can focus on one thing in earnest at a time. I always knew I'd never regret focusing on my sons.
• 1:07:15
  And the truth is, I do better when I do one big important thing at a time.
• 1:07:21
  But that's something I've changed my mind about lately, I would say.
• 1:07:25
  And then is there something new, interesting, fun on your bucket list?
• 1:07:30
  On my bucket list, I wish I could say there were something new and fun.
• 1:07:35
  My bucket list is so boring.
• 1:07:36
  People say to me, what are you doing this summer? I go, with any luck, absolutely nothing.
• 1:07:40
  That's the new thing on my bucket list, doing nothing. I'd love to say it.
• 1:07:44
  We're like skydiving over the, nope, nope, B. Isn't that a boring answer?
• 1:07:48
  But it's true. I love that.
• 1:07:49
  How many of us get that? Where are you going this summer?
• 1:07:52
  God willing, fingers crossed, nowhere. It was my house. Which would actually
• 1:07:55
  be really, really lovely.
• 1:07:57
  I love that. And then the last question, is there one piece of advice you would
• 1:08:00
  give your younger self? Oh, yes.
• 1:08:02
  Absolutely listen to yourself more. When I was in my late 20s,
• 1:08:07
  I wanted to do a Jewish cookbook with my grandfather.
• 1:08:12
  I remember I had producers at The View who said, no, Jewish is like,
• 1:08:17
  I mean, there's 16 million Jews in the world. It's a very specific, tiny lane.
• 1:08:21
  Don't do that. You should do a general cookbook. You shouldn't do a Jewish book.
• 1:08:25
  And I was like, no, but I'm this really young person who knows all the old, old school recipes.
• 1:08:30
  Very few young Jewish women today know who aren't in the ultra-Orthodox world.
• 1:08:33
  My grandfather taught me all the recipes.
• 1:08:35
  It's very unusual. It's always been women. But my grandmother was this big preserve designer.
• 1:08:39
  She could make like 10 things, but she wasn't, as we say in Yiddish,
• 1:08:42
  a ball of busta. She wasn't in there every week and she was in Chanel. She wasn't.
• 1:08:46
  But my grandfather, who was, thank God he was an affluent man because he could
• 1:08:51
  not clean to save his life. He'd use every pot and pan.
• 1:08:54
  Looked like a tornado happened. I'm like, Grandpa, we have to clean as we go.
• 1:08:57
  No, they're here to clean for it. I go, no, no, no, no.
• 1:08:59
  This is not how we function in the kitchen. It was really rough.
• 1:09:02
  But he taught me everything I knew about Jewish food.
• 1:09:05
  I can still picture the cover now. Me and my chef's whites.
• 1:09:08
  Him in a three-piece suit from Saville Row with a bow tie.
• 1:09:12
  Two of us, arms crossed, back to back, looking forward, smiling.
• 1:09:16
  And it would have said, Grandpa and me, some subtitle of...
• 1:09:20
  Jewish cooking, modern Jewish cooking with a grandfather and a granddaughter, some kind of something.
• 1:09:25
  I regret not listening to myself. I listened to other people because I was young
• 1:09:28
  and what do I know? It was stupid.
• 1:09:30
  I wish I had thrown that dart at a board because the cost would have been.
• 1:09:34
  When you're young, there's very little. Yeah. Meaning if it had blown up and been a mistake.
• 1:09:38
  I regret listening to other people.
• 1:09:41
  It's very hard when you're young in particular if you have a personality type like i do which is i.
• 1:09:49
  Equate approval with love i wish i
• 1:09:52
  had been more rebellious in that respect which wouldn't have been rebellious
• 1:09:55
  it actually would have been honoring opposite of rebellion in a way what i did
• 1:09:59
  was rebellion i rebelled against myself if i could tell my younger self something
• 1:10:03
  i would say just do the thing that you know when your heart and soul is a good
• 1:10:06
  idea yeah and i regret not doing it.
• 1:10:09
  It's the only real professional regret I have. I really regret not doing it. That's over.
• 1:10:14
  It's okay. The world will go on. I will go on. But I wish I could tell my younger
• 1:10:17
  self, your inside voice is gut instinct.
• 1:10:21
  I would love to go back in time and tell that girl, just do it.
• 1:10:23
  Just do the book. Just do it.
• 1:10:25
  Do the damn thing. Now you can tell your kids that. That's it.
• 1:10:27
  Listen to it. That's it. Just do the damn thing.
• 1:10:29
  If it feels right, go for it. That's a big thing to talk to my boys about. Does it feel right?
• 1:10:34
  Is it something you love? and that's the thing you bring your best self to it
• 1:10:38
  it really feels a part of you,
• 1:10:41
  that's the funny thing like my show on AOL that I had was me going into people
• 1:10:46
  who sponsored by craft me going into people's homes and them saying my kid doesn't
• 1:10:50
  eat a single vegetable how can I get them to eat vegetables it was called the
• 1:10:52
  pantry challenge go in their pantry see what they have and of course invariably
• 1:10:55
  they had a craft product yeah which isn't hard I mean great people on this craft you know yeah and.
• 1:11:02
  That was a great show. It was a really successful show.
• 1:11:05
  It was actually the most successful show of all the shows they had in that Kitchen
• 1:11:08
  Daily platform at the time.
• 1:11:10
  Five million views in three months. Yeah. Everyone was famous on it except for
• 1:11:14
  me. I had the most views of anyone because it was like really real.
• 1:11:18
  I'm like going in and seeing people and like what are they doing?
• 1:11:20
  People like to see that too. People like to look inside people's houses.
• 1:11:23
  Yes. And to see like, oh my God, the kid's never eaten a vegetable since he's
• 1:11:27
  born. Even the strained food, he would never eat it.
• 1:11:29
  And I'm like, I'm going to get him to eat thirds of this veggie fried rice.
• 1:11:33
  No, you won't. Like, yeah, I will. And on camera, it's like all real.
• 1:11:37
  None of it was fake. Yeah. And that show wasn't my passion.
• 1:11:41
  I was just so grateful to have that opportunity to have my own cooking show
• 1:11:45
  alongside all of these giants. And then me, who's ever heard of me?
• 1:11:49
  That was really, really lucky. I love doing this show. And I love being on camera.
• 1:11:54
  I love teaching people how to, I loved all of it. I feel like a mediagenic person.
• 1:11:59
  I can do that. But the truth is, if I was honest, the thing that I was deeply
• 1:12:03
  most passionate about was the Jewish thing.
• 1:12:06
  And I didn't do it. This was the most fun. Thank you so much for asking me to
• 1:12:12
  do this. I so appreciate having you on.
• 1:12:13
  I'm flattered. I see you as an expert in the culinary field.
• 1:12:20
  I find I've learned from you, and I appreciate you as a person,
• 1:12:26
  how you are able to speak your mind in a very kind, succinct, and smart way.
• 1:12:33
  I sing your praises all the time, and I just thank you. I'm really flattered.
• 1:12:37
  Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.
• 1:12:39
  Thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart. New episodes drop every Thursday.
• 1:12:44
  Don't forget to subscribe and share. Stay cozy.