female speaker: please join mein welcoming to google new york, alex guarnaschelli. alex guarnaschelli: thank you. thank you. do you love my homeythat i brought in the front row texting? how are you? female speaker: that's right. we got a lot of people herethat are psyched.
so at google, passion is huge. we are passionate people. we take on passionateprojects. and i was curious as to howyou turned, and when you turned, your passion for foodand cooking into a career. what triggered it? what triggered the passion evenbefore it was a career, i should say? alex guarnaschelli: well, iwould say that i'm not a
terribly organized person, andthat i don't really think things happen that clearly. my mother cooked withwild abandon. my mother's a cookbook editor. and i know we're no longer inan age where books are the most relevant formof information. but when i was growingup they really were. and my parents are two nerdyacademics that met while they were getting their respectivephds at yale.
my dad got his phd in europeanhistory specializing in napoleonic warfareand was a ta. and my mother was getting aphd in russian studies. you can't make this stuff up. so my mother conveniently speaksfluent russian just in case anything goes down. and my father knows more aboutnapoleon than napoleon did. so they met. they got married at yale.
suffice to say, you can imaginethat books were kind of an important thing. so they got married. and i grew up in a verybig nine-room apartment in midtown. it's rent-controlled, people. my dad told me the rent theypay the other day. and i just kind of twitched. female speaker: oh, god.
alex guarnaschelli: butthey deserve it. female speaker: absolutely. alex guarnaschelli: so mymother had 1,000 books. my dad 1,000 books. you multiply thatby 80, and you have my parents' apartment. so i grew up in a placewhere my wallpaper was bookshelves and books. and i think that that has aprofound effect on you or
consciousness, whether yourealize it or not, when you run around the apartment whereyou live and there's nothing but books and manuscripts. and my mother's process forediting a cookbook was to take the manuscript and cook everysingle recipe in it. the consequence, or the result,was in 1980 when she started really delvinginto cookbooks. she did a cookbook called"classic indian cooking." so that cookbook came out30, 32 years ago.
it's still in print. i mean, what? a black-and-white indiancookbook with no photographs? you can still buy it atbarnes and noble. i go and i look for it. i'm like, i'm going to barnesand noble just to see if that book is sitting on the shelf. i'm not going to buy it. so we spent a year eating indianfood, which was very
confusing because i'mitalian american. and my father loves napoleonand france. and my mom was makingall these souffles. and then all of a sudden we wereeating lentils and dals and spices and all this stuff. and my father doesn't reallycare for indian food because it doesn't have any butteror eggs, so to speak. so he called it themowed lawn phase. he said that everything tastedlike a freshly mowed lawn.
which i really disagree with. female speaker: i disagree. alex guarnaschelli: so thatwas an interesting year. and then the year after that,she did a book called "the splendid table," by lynnerossetto kasper, which was the food of emilia-romagna. so for a year, we went fromlentils and dals to balsamic vinegar and parmigianoreggiano ad nauseum. my father said, if i see anotherdrop of balsamic
vinegar in this house,i'm leaving. she then did a book called"the cake bible," by rose levy beranbaum. so that was not good becausethat was really an elastic waist year. and the thing about my motheris all the while there was this other pulsatingundercurrent of reading and cooking from issues of "gourmet"magazine that she had bound into binders.
i think my mother has 30 yearsof "gourmet" bound in books. so she would make a cake fromrosy levy beranbaum's "cake bible," and then make a pie froma 1974 november issue of "gourmet" magazine and say,do you feel that this cake relates to this pie at all? how do you think piehas changed? i'm 13. this was just really practicefor "chopped." i mean, it's funny, i know.
but it's also insanely true. the fork was in the air. and my mom would say,how does it taste? so there was never just a momentof eating that was just sort of like-- and let's get thisout of the way. i love doritos. i love oreos. and i love fruit loops.
i also really love ice cold skimmilk, fruity pebbles, and a scoop of haagen-daz chocolatechocolate chip in the middle of it. so let's get the junkfood out of the way. i like junk food. and i'm cool with that. so there was just this constantinterview process. so she cooked from allthese manuscripts. and guess what happens when youare an editor and you go
through a book and you cookeverything in it and you edit it that way? you wind up with a great bookbecause it's been sort of lived through theeditor's eyes. and the net result is that mymother has been behind many iconic cookbooks, including the1997 revision of "the joy of cooking," which mymother took on. and that, she spent threeyears doing, sleepless. i was working at restaurantdaniel at the time.
and he used to serve lunch. so i would get up at 4:00 andgo to the restaurant to be there by 4:30, 5 o'clock. i'll talk about whati ate when i worked at daniel in a minute. so i would get up and she wouldbe still up, with her glasses off, you know, thisclose to the manuscript. and i'd say, what's up? and she'd say, does this looklike a malpeque oyster or not?
and she'd showed me a drawingof an oyster. so we'd go back to that momentwith the pie, the cake, the comparisons. there was never a momentwhere it wasn't a quiz. and i said, you know,it looks a little round around the edges. it looks a little bluepoint, if you ask me. what? the next day, mom,how are you?
does this look likea belgian waffle? three years of that. the result is that that bookalso has really endured, that particular edition of "the joyof cooking." so needless to say, i spent a childhood steepedin food in a very peculiar way. the net result is i never oncethought about becoming a chef. i never once thoughtabout being passionate about cooking.
and it never gave me any inklingor idea about what i wanted to do with my life. and i hope that that'sok with you guys. because i think a lot of peoplecome to me and they say, i'm passionate. and i say, cool. i might not be today. i know this is this big momentwhere there's a payoff for you as an audience, where i say toyou all this stuff happened,
and, oh my god, ibecame a chef. and unicorns flew outof the refrigerator. and there were rainbowsand star decals. and i got a gold medaland whatever. no, actually, zeroof that happened. when i went to college, i atea lot of rice-a-roni. good stuff, by the way. don't tell anybody. female speaker: you knowthis is google.
alex guarnaschelli: go togoogle and tell secrets. good idea. so i made a lot of cakes. it was, like, dude, so-and-so'sbirthday, can you make a cake? and i just liked doing it. i just did it. i made these pans of lasagnawith shoplifted pieces of mozzarella.
that stuff's expensive. and i just cooked a lot, but inthat kind of random college way like, dude, i madesome ramen and i put a bay leaf in it. it's good. so, again, i get back to thisidea that i was steeped in food the whole time, andi'm disorganized. and i didn't makethe connection. but when i woke up on graduationday, i thought i'm
going to decide by the end ofthe day what i'm going to do with the rest of my lifeand that's it. so i promptly drank a beer. because if you're going tohave a day like that, you should probably havea beer at 9 am. i had a couple. they were cold. there were good. that cheap beer, you know thatcrappy beer that doesn't
really have a label? so i graduated from college, andi started working in the kitchen for free to kind ofexplore this idea about whether i wanted to spend themoney on getting a degree in cooking and whatever else. and i never looked back. the disorder, the chaos, theanarchy, the peril, the danger, the abuse, thelack of skill-- all those things were just toocompelling to turn down.
female speaker: so it wasn'tso much passion. it was just, soundslike, destiny. did you have another thought of,you know, maybe i will be a spanish teacher. i mean, you have napoleon. you've got someone who'sfluent in russian. you're eating indian food. why not just go a completelydifferent route? alex guarnaschelli: no,this has been my
dilemma with myself. i question whether you actuallycan connect with your passion until you do somethingso many times that you actually become reallygood at it. and that, in fact, is when youactually can say you're passionate. i think roger federer isprobably super passionate about tennis. you notice that?
i'll bet you al pacinois really passionate about acting. i think it takes a long timeto get good at something. and depending on your innerstruggle, i think it can take you even longer to think thatyou're good at something. i'm still getting theremyself, without joke, a lot of therapy. 23 years of cooking and startingto feel like i'm kind of getting the hang ofthis cooking thing.
but i question. female speaker: i think so. alex guarnaschelli:i think it's ok-- female speaker: i thinkeverybody here would agree that you've got thehang of cooking. alex guarnaschelli: no, no. that's sweet. i think it's ok to not be sureif you're passionate, or be confused and decide later.
but then you can get drunk ata cocktail party and tell everybody you're passionate. it's cool. like, get it out. work it out. get on that emotionaltreadmill. let it out. female speaker: that's kind ofwhen the passion comes out, after a couple cocktails.
and you're like, i just loveramen with bay leaves. it is the best food. alex guarnaschelli: i mean, forme, i call my fourth-grade boyfriend and say,i loved you. i did. i really loved you. and his wife is like, he hasto get off the phone now. female speaker: i think we'regoing to have to bring her back for a whole differentinterview about that.
alex guarnaschelli: andi'm censoring as i go. female speaker: maybe we shouldhave had you drink a beer before you got up here. i didn't think about that. those days are over,believe me. female speaker: so, the book. alex guarnaschelli: yeah. female speaker: first question,did your mom help you edit this?
alex guarnaschelli:no, not at all. she only saw the book after iturned in the final revision to my editor. i left on the coffee table. what do we call it? a dummy, a dummy. so the manuscript, loose. but color photographs,assembled the way it's going to look.
so, in essence, it justneeds to be folded and bound at that point. and i left it on thecoffee table. and i came home and my mom wassitting there like a cat on a windowsill like when you've beengone for three days and you didn't leave any food. that where have youbeen bitch look? my mother gave me thatlook and she said, i read your book.
i said, you did? i left it. i cleaned the whole roomout and put the manuscript on the table. i was like, you found it. and she said, i reallylove it. you're a real writer. so that was really cool. and then she was like,it better sell or i'm
going to freak out. female speaker: so passion or nopassion, you have a career that is larger than life-- iron chef, tv celebrity chef,world renowned executive chef. why did you decide to writea cookbook now? and what was your inspiration? alex guarnaschelli: you wouldn'twrite a cookbook-- i mean, you wouldn't directa movie if steven spielberg was your dad.
so it took a long time. but i thought, you know, thati had all these experiences. interspersed throughout the bookare page stories that are just little isolated moments,most of them pretty hideous. but some of them, i think, ifyou're not a chef, but you've had-- everybody worksin a community, in a group of people. everybody fears failure. everybody has momentsof vulnerability.
and i think that that'suniversal. and those stories that i putpeppered throughout the book are those kind of momentsthe way i live them. you know, you live themwith a laptop or with a search engine. and i live them with onions. there isn't reallyany difference. i think we come upagainst the same kind of internal dialogue.
and i thought that i would writeabout that and then in the interim give a lot ofrecipes that are the culmination of a lot of thingsi learned working in restaurants and recipes ideveloped that just always work mixed with the stuffthat i really actually like to cook at home. female speaker: that's thequestion, so why did this book focus more on the old-schoolcomfort food? alex guarnaschelli: yeah, ididn't want to write a chef-y
cookbook with dehydratedham chips. it's just not my style. i mean, i can makestuff like that. but i thought that i go toa cookbook and i open it. and i'll buy anythinganywhere. i don't care. i mean to say, i'll go to theother end of the earth to buy an eye of newt to makesomething specific. but i'm attracted to and drawnto cookbooks where i open it
and i say, i can make a coupleof these recipes from what i already have at home. and i really wanted the bookto have that feeling. i think it's part ofbeing old-school. it's like you're allin a little ghetto. you've got that knife you wonbecause you were the ninth customer at a gasstation one day. and you really like it. and you have these fancy knivesyou got for christmas
two years ago, but you likethat crappy knife. you have a jar of oregano thatyour parents brought you back from a cruise of caprisix years ago. and you're wondering if theoregano's still good. you wonder about the expirationdate of the baking powder in your cabinetthat you've used twice in eight years. i live the same way. i think we all do.
and i wanted the book to makeyou feel like you could live in that kind of context withyourself and be imperfect and be human and cook, and makesome stuff that you like. or just read it and not make athing, and tell everybody that you made every recipein the book. you could do that, too. female speaker: i may. i love that you focus on oldschool, but what is your definition of old school?
alex guarnaschelli: i'mglad you asked that. for me, i lookedup old school. because i like the term. i'm like, dude, that'sso old school. and i'm thinking, what thehell is old school? well, i discovered that oldschool for me is anything that i really like, period. that's actually myown definition. i'm like, dude, that'sold school.
that shoelace is old school. it doesn't matter what it is. but i read that it is a momentwhere you realize something in its original form serves as aninspiration for you to explore new things. so i like the idea that youcould define old school by saying, like, that'sthe og idea. and then you can do all thisstuff, because it smacks of that original feeling.
and i think food isso about feeling. it's about the weather. it's about whether youhad a crappy morning. it's about what you like toeat, what you find, what resonates with you. i mean, i'm sure you all havesome food that you have, you know, that no one but youneeds to understand. and you eat it. probably have many.
and that, really, by the way,also connects to culture. how you grow up, what kinds of ingredients you grew up eating. those are the tastes thatare familiar to you. and, again, i go backto my childhood. it was very confusing. i have two italianamerican parents. my father's family'sfrom naples. and my mother's familyis from sicily.
but my father cooked chinesefood for a hobby. so we had this whole cabinetof soy sauces. i mean, 80 kinds of soy sauceand vinegar and corn starch and rice flour and woks. and then my mom was overhere baking cakes and making indian food. i don't know what the foodof my childhood. i don't know how you woulddefine it, like disaster. but the net result was i feltthat old-school comfort food,
it was sort of my way of sayingthese are the things that resonate with me. and i tried not to makeit too hodgepodge. i mean, to have a souffle withkimchi is sort of like, ok, who are you? female speaker: that's actuallyanother question i had, is that the recipes are diverse, but they're connected. and i'm just curious about howyou approached putting
together, curatingif you will, this collection of recipes. alex guarnaschelli: yeah,my mother cooked a lot of french food. she cooked from all of juliachild's books, and craig claiborne, and dione lucas,and james beard. to just such a point where wewould sit down and my mom would say, julia says thistastes like this. and i'm like, mom, the paddedvan is always parked outside
if things get bad. but she lived andbreathed these-- i'll call them charactersbecause i think that their recipes in their books sort ofadded powder and made you feel as if there was an actual personor form that took shape in your own kitchen. so she lived with thesecharacters. and the food that i ate, i'dhave to say, was fundamentally french in techniqueand in style.
and i think that's why i endedup going to france. because i felt that that waswhere i thought i could really learn how to cook, or build the building blocks of cooking. so the food here is actuallycloset french. and then i hang americanthings on it. it's a french tree withamerican ornaments. female speaker: that'skind of awesome. so in the book, there'sa line that i loved.
it says you do not need awell-stocked kitchen. whatever equipment you gravitatetowards is what you should have. i loved that. because people are like, youneed this and this and this. or maybe it's just me beinglike, oh, i want this, and i want this. and, oh, i shouldhave everything. but i love that it's like,no, it's whatever
you gravitate towards. for me, i guess it'severything. but i'm curious, what doyou gravitate towards? alex guarnaschelli: my kitchen'sso embarrassing. i don't have a nicekitchen at home. and i kind of like that. it kind of takes thepressure off. i know this is where you thinki say i have a viking and a sub-zero and all thisother stuff.
and i actually don't. i have like a ge 1960sthing, ovens. my mother had the same onewhen i was growing up. so i think there's that. but what do i gravitatetowards? i probably have 200 or300 knives at home in boxes and drawers. i mean, you've got to figurethat's normal, right? i mean, it feels normal to me.
i'd been given many knives. i've been sent many knives. i've bought many knives. i've bought knives of peoplethat i've admired thinking that if i had their knife,i would be like we them. do you ever do that? like, if you put on a supermancostume, you are superman? not if you get it at the duanereade, probably not. so i have a lot of knives.
and i like knives. but the ones i like are probablythe ones i recommend, the sabatier, whichis like $6. that paring knife, honestly,when i compete in kitchen stadium on iron chef, i taketwo of those with me. and i have one on either side. because when you're nervous,you know, you-- it's like when you'researching for a pen at your desk.
if you have an important call,i mean, i'm the type i'll put pens all over my desk. so that i'm like, uh-huh, i knowi can grab anywhere and there's a pen. this knife is like my woobee. it's like the lioness,like the blanket. so i have at least two ofthose at all times. i like a microplanegrater a lot. i think you can microplaneanything--
not human beings, butother things. i think a vita-prep blender. it's expensive. it's the one indulgencei believe in. and then just that weirdaccumulation. i like all-clad pans a lot-- not the fancy ones with thecopper this, that, the other-- just that straight-upstainless steel. and i like a castiron skillet.
that's probably all i reallyneed to function. but, boy, do i have-- i mean, i have a seaurchin cutter. i have a quail egg crimper. i mean, i have boxes of stuff. and i open it up, and i'mlike what, like, really? i have eight differentcheese wires. what's wrong with me? but i in my actual kitchen, itry to keep it to a dull roar.
female speaker: i can onlyimagine what kind of roars come out of that kitchen. so writing this cookbook, ialways like to ask-- maybe not passion, but discovery-- so what was your favoritediscovery? or a strong moment you hadduring the writing this book, the creation of this book? alex guarnaschelli: i didn't. i don't think i had any.
female speaker: youjust went for it? alex guarnaschelli: it'sembarrassing, but honest. i think i had had so manymoments of discovery, and i had collected them all, thatthe book was almost like a scrap book of photographs thathad already been taken. and it was actually very easyfor me to put together. and i know this is the partwhere i say i sweat and cried and i listened to adele. and i drank bourbonfor five years.
and here is this book,this baby. but it really wasn'tlike that. i think i had been writingthis book for probably a decade or two, and just reallyneeded to have the courage and the confidence in thinking thatsomeone would like to hear about it or share it withme by binding it into a book. female speaker: did you have anybooks that you read while you were writing yours? alex guarnaschelli: so many.
how much time you got? there's a book called "thegourmet cooking school cookbook" by dione lucas. that's a woman, a chef, and foodwriter we don't really talk about a lot. the book, i think,is from 1965. that book, i sleep with it undermy pillow just in case i forget anything. i like "the zuni cafe cookbook"by judy rodgers.
that really speaks to me. i like "sunday suppers atlucques." that's suzanne goin. female speaker: interesting. alex guarnaschelli: there's amorimoto book-- and i think it's just "morimoto"-- that's awesome. and there's all thesepictures. and he sandwiches, pieces offish in between kombu, which is a seaweed that actually haslike a sort of unappealing
white film on it thatis actually a natural form of msg. and he vinegars the seaweed tokind of moisten and activate, and then puts the fish andsandwiches it, and then let's it sit for an hour or so. and when you take it out, it'ssort of been salted and marinated with the seaweed. come on, how cool is that? are you kidding me?
who's going to think of that? and, again, i get back to thisidea that julia child's not going to do that. she's going to dosomething else. so i like culture. i think it's kind of cool. seaweed? i mean, really? so when i go to the beach and,like, seaweed washes on my
toe, i'm like, you,old friend. female speaker: for us amateurcooks in the room, is there, like, one cookbook thatyou would say buy this, beside yours? alex guarnaschelli: femalespeaker: oh, yeah, no. honestly, i know i'm biasedbecause my mother edited it, but if i was freaking out andreally wanted a book to kind of have and feel like i got alot in it, first of all, "the joy of cooking" any edition.
but the 1997 one, it reallygoes through-- i mean, i go to thatbook constantly. when i'm stuck, i say, whatkind of sauce can i make? and i flip through thesauce section. i just flip and scanthe pages. or the poultry section. or i want to remember one littlenuance about a type of fish, i use it. it's a reference book withrecipes that work.
and that's pretty critical. so that would probablymy guess. i also really like "the fanniefarmer cookbook," may she rest in peace. but marion cunningham's "fannyfarmer cookbook"-- awesome. first cookbook i everreally cooked from. my parents are verylate sleepers. and i'm an only child.
so i was starving. and i would flip throughthe cookbooks. and she had these recipesfor corn bread and coffee cake and stuff. and there was a fewingredients. and i thought, i can do this. so i would get up and bake,and just eat a lot. but, again, it has nothing todo with becoming a chef. it was kind of kooky.
spend your life steeped insomething and don't realize you want to do it. i wanted to be a marinebiologist. female speaker: that actuallydoesn't surprise me, again, given the range thatyou came from. alex guarnaschelli: yeah, butinstead of researching and tagging fish, i caughtthem and cooked them. female speaker: so you are likea marine biologist in some sort of ways.
i mean, you have a seaurchin cutter. it's got to countfor something. alex guarnaschelli: i feel thati'm going to land in the gates of hell, and there's goingto be lobsters strewn everywhere on lawn chairs,like, she's here. chef anxiety dreamright there. a little peek intomy crock pot. female speaker: i see that asa google doodle right there. so shifting a bit intokind of technology--
in this digital age, how do yousee technology changing the way you cook and howyou approach food? alex guarnaschelli: it doesn'tdo much for me. i use google, specifically. female speaker: good. we're happy to hear that. alex guarnaschelli: when i amthinking about a topic, i first google something. and i scan.
and i find the images organizedin the ingredient or the specific thing i'm honingin on very helpful. they're the easiest,most fluid jumping off point for me. but then i go to my books. i'm a little bit traditionallike that. i say, oh yeah. you know, somebody sayslet's make a menu inspired by the 1960s.
so i'll google 1960s recipes,1960s supper clubs, dinner menus. and i'll look through. and then i'll say, i rememberthis and that. and that provides sortof my coat rack. and then the hangers hangingon it are the books and the recipes that pertainto that topic. so i guess i do use technologyto kind of focus my thinking. but i happen to reallylove cookbooks.
i have a very largecollection. so i think i don't move awayfrom that as my bedrock because i am passionateabout it. female speaker: hey,there it is. but what about restaurants? so social media andthe increase in user-based reviews. how has that changed the diningexperience in your restaurants?
alex guarnaschelli: i don'tcare about that. female speaker: really? it doesn't bother you if youwalk into a restaurant and you've got 50 people withtheir phones out taking photographs of food? alex guarnaschelli: no. it's a free country. female speaker: whatabout comments? user-based comments?
i mean, i think it all comesout in the wash. i think if people are going togo somewhere, it's because they have a feeling. or there's something that'smaking them go to that place, gravitate towards that,or be curious. i think sites like yelp andother stuff, i think they can be harmful. i think they can be helpful. what am i going to do?
i mean, if i really got into thetopic the way i've gotten into the topic of cooking withmy personality type, i wouldn't be here right now. i'd be home obsessing aboutyelp, citysearch, this, that, the other. i think people are goingto feel what they're going to feel. i think it's a shame when i seea review and it seems like someone had a bad experience forwhatever set of reasons.
and the restaurant takesthe heat for it. i think sometimes peoplelegitimately have terrible experiences in restaurants. and they write about it. that's everyone's right. what can i do? i don't care if peopletake pictures. when they don't come, and theydon't eat the food, and they don't pay take pictures?
that's when i'll worry. female speaker: that'svery true. i think you should share thatwith a lot of other restaurants. alex guarnaschelli: by the way,you know, i mean, being on tv and on "chopped" andstuff, i've gotten some real doozy emails. i've gotten hate mail. and so i called my dadwhen i got my first
piece of hate mail. do you want me to tellyou what it said? female speaker: yes. alex guarnaschelli: it'sgot a profanity. is that ok? female speaker: ithink that's ok. we'll edit it out. famous last words. alex guarnaschelli: therewas like serious
thumbs up over there. female speaker: there wereserious thumbs up? ok, then i'm not takingthe heat for this. go for it, and they'lledit it out. alex guarnaschelli: no,it's not that bad. but it just said, fuckyou, you bitch. let's see you make adish in 15 minutes. so i woke up. and it was like 6:00 am.
and i'm bleary-eyed. you know, one-eye open. i go to the bathroom. i take my phone. and there's that. female speaker: that isnot a good morning. alex guarnaschelli:i called my dad. i was like, everybodyhates me. i'm not doing this anymore.
i cant believe it. oh, my god. i've spiraled intoa world of hate. i don't know what. i'm going to move somewhereand hide in a bunker. and my dad said,congratulations. you're starting to matter. female speaker: very true. alex guarnaschelli: andi was like, really?
so i don't know. i kind of think that emotionon the internet and with technology can be complicatedand layered. i've gotten four-pagehandwritten letters. these are the reasons my husbandand i hate you and hate to watch you. four pages. i'm like, you guysare watching. you wrote me a four-pageletter.
they're like, we don'tlike your shirt. we don't like theway you look. we don't like your nose. what's wrong with your hair? who are you? what do you know? i'm like, damn, this thingis like 10 pages. i'm like, you like me. you know what i mean?
you've got to do that. you've got to make lemonadeout of the lemons. i read the social media. i read the reviews. and sometimes i say, well,you know what? that's true. i got to go check on that. someone wrote, like, you needto vacuum the rug in your entrance way.
and i was like, that'snot true. and i went down tothe restaurant, and it was like gross. i'm like, dude, what's up? i'm vacuuming the rug. i'm like, oh my god,yelp is right! so, i learn sometimes. there's a lot of truthin what people write. female speaker: sharingof information.
alex guarnaschelli: and thensometimes there isn't. and, ok. female speaker: veryinteresting. so speaking of "chopped"and other things. so you run two seriouskitchens in new york. and you are also a tvfood personality. have to know, is there anythingbehind the scenes on your shows that wouldsurprise people or that we wouldn't expect?
alex guarnaschelli:i don't know. i guess my first instinct is tosay something very simple, which is that all thatstuff is real. i think that's why we watch itand it resonates with us. you know, people say, do theyknow the ingredients before they open the basket? are they briefed? are they-- the answer is absolutely not.
they open the basket. they pull it out. they sit there fortwo seconds. and ted says, yourtime starts now. one time we had to delay for aminute after they opened the basket because there wasof a lighting issue. they changed the basket. and they gave thema new basket. it was like five minutes.
so that's why the show is-- why it resonates with you. it's because theyopen the basket. they get the ingredients. and that's it. and what comes out of you isjust that primal first thought that you have. you know, i call it like yourlittle chef planet that you go to in your brain where you havelike six or eight things
that you actually truly reallyknow how to make. and you've got to livein there, no matter how hard it is. everybody has a coupledishes they can make. it may be an egg. it may be toast. but you have those six or seventhings that if i give you a "chopped" basket,you would go to that little planet.
and i have one too,by the way. and it's never been enoughfor my liking. when i did "next iron chef", imean, my chef planet was like, you have, what's the dr. seuss? the lorax? you know, when they pick all thetruffle out of trees and there's no trees left? like, i had no truffle[inaudible] trees left on the island.
i was like, god, ineed more stuff. and you can't mine forgold all the time. so it's really real. and it's so hard. people sit home and they'relike, this is so stupid. why are they making that? i know what i would make. i would make this or that. when you're in the context,you're literally thinking, why
am i doing this? it's like when you go on aroller coaster and it clicks, clicks, clicks, clicks, clicksup, and if it's about to drop. and you're like, whyam i doing this? why? and then you finish and yougo, i feel invigorated. i feel like i've come to life. people come to life on"chopped." it's like an out-of-body experiencefor people.
people are like, i wantto do this again. and i'm looking at them like,you just got chopped. people say we want tocome back tomorrow. and i'm looking at them like,i don't understand. what don't you understand? but it's just so neat. so i guess behind the scenesis really real. female speaker: yeah? female speaker: that'svery cool.
alex guarnaschelli:kind of cool. it's also hideous. female speaker: hand in hand. so looking towards the future,first question, we do a chef competition here every year. will you come and be a judge? alex guarnaschelli: ok. female speaker: awesome. awesome.
she says yes. alex guarnaschelli: i'm goingto bring security. female speaker: and you knowsomething else is that i'm really bummed about is to hearabout the darby, because it was especially soclose to google. alex guarnaschelli:oh, yeah, yeah. female speaker: we'd go overfor drinks after work. alex guarnaschelli: thedarby has closed. female speaker: andit was so great.
alex guarnaschelli: i know. it's sad. female speaker: but do you haveany details of what's going to be going onin that space? and are you goingto be involved? because we hope so. alex guarnaschelli:i don't think so. i don't think so. i'll say it bluntly and honestlyfor a change of pace.
that space at the darby wasoriginally a supper club called nell's for many,many years. and when i was growing up,it was where prince would go and play. and stevie wonderwould hang out. and mick jagger wouldgo and sing. it was just one of those kindsof places that sort of magically drew a lot oftalent, sort of like a speakeasy in it's truest form.
but, to me, that's a spiritanimal that's a tiger. and we tried to make it intoa persian house cat. alex guarnaschelli: and thespirit animal of that place is an impromptu venue. i think it isn't sort of cloudedby a food, almost. as strange as thatis for me to say. it's a speakeasy and a placewhere people can go and seek refuge and perform and danceand sing and drink. and i think that's whatit really needs to be.
so i'm kind of happy for it. i don't mind. i think it's going to be itstrue spirit animal now. and i think that the people thati work with are the best people for that job. they love that it wasnell's and plum and all these other places. and they'll honor the traditionin the way that place is supposed to be.
i know that may sound odd. i never thought i'dspeak like this. because i went to them and isaid, i'm the only one is going to be out of a job here. but i don't think weshould, you know. that's not what it is. female speaker: buti also hear that butter is opening up. alex guarnaschelli: we havea midtown restaurant.
yeah. which is where i grew up. female speaker: is that forthe next generation? why midtown? alex guarnaschelli:i like that. it's a butter for thenext generation. i think somethingjust happened. i'm going to put that topof the google search. i can't take credit actuallyfor that verbatim.
but i will think you shouldabsolutely use that. we'll see. it's an interesting space. it's big. it scares me. i go in there and i lookat all those seats. it's like if you've beenheadlining an act at a ramada inn in new jersey and thenyou go to carnegie hall. that's sort of how it feels.
i like ramada inn. i'm not dogging newjersey or ramada. so if there's anybody from newjersey, i like new jersey. i serve a lot of producefrom new jersey. it's not the gardenstate for nothing. but that's how it feels. very daunting. female speaker: so not only ami lucky enough to work right by the darby, but i alsoused to work right
next door to butter. and i spent many a paycheckat that bar just-- female speaker: yes,thank you. i also was lucky enoughto go into the basement a couple times. i don't remember much of it. but is there going to be abasement in the midtown? female speaker: no basement? interesting.
if you are just saying thatbecause you don't want people to know about the basement? female speaker: if youdo open a basement, can i get an invite? female speaker: so we'regoing to finish up with finish-the-sentencetype of questions. and we have a couple minutes forq&a. so if anybody wants to ask some questions, there'smics in the back of the room. and then we'll be wrapping upin just a couple minutes.
so finish this sentence. old-school cooking is? alex guarnaschelli: new-schoolthinking. female speaker: new-schoolcooking is? alex guarnaschelli: old-schoolcooking. female speaker: i amchallenged by? alex guarnaschelli:knowing where i am at any given moment. not buying $400 worth of produceat the green market
when i went there tobuy two peaches. female speaker: three thingsthat are always in my refrigerator are? alex guarnaschelli:dijon mustard, several jars, all half-used. cornichons-- little pickles? and lemons. my favorite pop cultureguilty pleasure is?
alex guarnaschelli: oh, give mean example of a pop culture guilty pleasure. food? junk food? female speaker: no, like tv. alex guarnaschelli: oh, how muchtime you got? "breaking bad." alex guarnaschelli: ilove "breaking bad". i'm obsessed.
it's cooking. walter white is cooking,and he's acting more and more like a chef. i also love "sons of anarchy"even though it's-- female speaker: lightshows, very light. alex guarnaschelli: --grusomelyviolent. i really struggle with that. but, yeah, "breaking bad"and "sons of anarchy." female speaker: if i weren'ta chef, i would be?
alex guarnaschelli: i wouldlike to try and become the curator who presides over everyexhibit ever in the metropolitan museum of art. female speaker: amazing. alex guarnaschelli: a-- what do you call it? a painting restorer? i would like to restore thesistine chapel again. or maybe a marine biologist.
yeah, definitely. i want that big squid. where is he? female speaker: waitingfor you. alex guarnaschelli: i'mgoing to cook him. i'm sorry. i want to tag and research himand let him grow and evolve. female speaker: well, i knowwe're all excited that you chose to be a chef, passionor not, choice or not.
and i know we're all reallyexcited to see what you have cooking next. female speaker: and when you'reback at google, judging the google chef competition. alex guarnaschelli:i'll be nice. i promise. female speaker: so we have, ithink, a question back here? alex guarnaschelli: yes? audience: chef guarnaschelli,thank you for coming.
alex guarnaschelli: hi. audience: you had said at thebeginning, you were going to talk us out of beingchefs, i think. and i have a special interestin this because i have a nephew at johnson and wales whokind of lost the romance of the commercial kitchenafter a summer of making nothing but pico de gallo. so talk us out of being chefs. or don't talk us outof being chefs.
alex guarnaschelli:how old is he? audience: 19. so he's just finishedup his second year at johnson and wales. alex guarnaschelli: i don'tunderstand what was-- first of all, he doesn't likepico de gallo? i know that's funny, but i'mactually being serious. audience: i think heliked the first 500 pounds of pico de gallo.
it was the second and thethird and the fourth 500 pounds of pico de gallo thatgot a little boring. alex guarnaschelli: i thinkthat i am perpetually stimulated by repetition. that's something i know aboutmyself that i learned. i like cooking the same thingsagain and again. i like that feeling. i like the process. i'd say that's something thatwould definitely make you lose
your way if that wasn'tof interest to you. i don't think a lot of peoplerealize that, that cooking is a manual craft. it's manual. it's manual labor. and it does involve lotsof repetition. but i feel like as you're honingyour skills, where your learning to dice all thevegetables to make a good pico de gallo and you're learning howto cook beans, i presume
you could add certain things,like learn about epazote as something that you use tocook black beans, how to cook them just so. all the different skills thatare used to make a good pico de gallo are skills that youthen take and turn around and use to make so many hundredsof other dishes. that i worry that he doesn'tsee sort of the value in developing a skill set that hecan then use to do things he really does feel personallypassionate about making.
i would say you have to workin the type of restaurant where the food resonateswith you. i went to a restaurant wherei like the food. and i like what wasbeing made. i liked the way it tasted. i wanted to know how thosethings came to be. and i think if you're notcareful about that choice-- because you're not going to makea lot of money when you start out no matter what,you may as well be
broke and do some like. i mean, really. so i think maybe he shouldn'twork in a restaurant where they make pico de gallo andshould work in a restaurant where they cook and useingredients that he does find stimulating. and then he should alsocook at home. and he should read maybe somecookbooks and google some recipes and do all sorts ofother things to kind of put
his own wood in his own fireand not focus so much on [inaudible]. because cooking isall repetition. if he doesn't like therepetition, i don't know that he'll ever-- maybe a professional kitchenis not the place for him in the field of cooking. food styling for cookbooks,for photography shoots for magazines, catering, jobs wherethere are restaurants
where the menu changesevery day. and there are differentingredients being used. he's just not in theright place. audience: and nutrition andworking with food companies, i mean he understands thosecareer options, too. alex guarnaschelli: it doesn'tmatter what you understand about career options witha field like cooking. you have to figure out what youactually want to spend all those hours doingwith your time.
and then when you hit on theright thing, then you're not broke anymore, either. you're not rich,but you're ok. that comes after. and those kind of reversals thati think don't exist in the same way in a lot of otherfields can be very confusing. audience: thank you. female speaker: questionover there. alex guarnaschelli: tellhim he should be a
chef, goddamn it. hi. audience: yes, hi, chefguarnaschelli. audience: thanks for coming. alex guarnaschelli: sure. audience: a few things. one, i didn't know your motheredited "the cake bible." i got that book for my cousin. she's a caterer.
alex guarnaschelli: amazing. that's a great book. audience: yeah, i know. alex guarnaschelli: thatwoman is crazy. she's like 221 grams of flour. you're like-- audience: my blood sugarwas rising just by looking at the pictures. but i have a question.
so besides just pureunadulterated passion for food, or lack thereof, what'snecessary in your career? because you're beyond, notjust a cook, you're a television personality,executive chef in multiple can you tell us about some ofthe extra things that go into your career outsideof cooking? alex guarnaschelli: like what? specifically? audience: like appearancesat google.
like public appearances,management, and other aspects to being a televisionpersonality. alex guarnaschelli: i don'tthink i get your question. boil it down for m. strip it. what is your question? you want to know howdid i get into tv? i'm not sure i knowthe question. i'm not trying tobe difficult.
i'm trying to get at whatyou're really asking. audience: yeah, so a standardcook would probably cook in a restaurant, ok? but you're like on televisionand "chopped" and "iron chef." can you describe exactly howyou got into that industry? alex guarnaschelli: oh,yeah, i wish i knew. i really wanted to be acompetitor on "iron chef america." i watched "ironchef." i still do. and i liked the way it's ashow that focuses on one
single ingredient and wherepeople take it. and i just thought it wasthe coolest thing. and i had this fantasy thatiron chefs were like superheroes. you know, there's aquaman andthere's wonder woman. it sort of was my own personalchef iconography, i think, of some kind. so i really wanted to be onthat show as a competitor. so that took me a couple yearsto get that opportunity
through begging and pleading,and went on the show and realized that day that iprobably couldn't joke and banter and be myself andexpress and share my personality and alsowin the episode. i made that call that morning. i remember thinking youcan't do both these. maybe some people can. i can't. and i knew that i couldn't.
and when you have a lucid momentabout yourself, you should probably go with it. and i made a choicethat morning. i thought, well, ok, so i won'tworry about winning. i'll make the best food i can. i'll express my personalside as best i can. and i want to sharemy personality. and i think that woundup being effective. i got asked to be on "foodnetwork challenge" after that.
and then they did the screentest where i had to make a minestrone, a basic minestronewith tomatoes and beans and vegetables. so they put the camera on mein this little room at the food network. and i made the minestrone. and i cooked the whole thing. and i explained. and i smiled.
and i did all this stuff. and i finished the soup, and ilooked down and she said, you forgot the tomatoes. and i thought, well,this is a bust. i mean, it's like pizzawithout cheese. how's it going? but then they said, you know,you're really good. we can work with this. and i did "the cooking loft,"which was my first cooking
show, which was really awful. and i really didn'tlike the show. so they said, do you want tomake more of this show? and i said, i'd rather not beon television than make this show because i don't like it. and i think that's a reallyimportant moment there, where i walked away from somethingthat i was really starting to like because i didn't think itwas good enough for my own personal internal setof standards.
and bobby flay kind of gotassigned to my case maybe a year later to produce acooking show for me. and i made "alex's dayoff." and that was a whole different ballgame. he said, wear the clothesyou want to wear. say what you want to say. cook what you want to cook. and i said, really? that's what--
ok. and the studio was right byhis house, his apartment. so he would come and drinkcoffee with these mirrored sunglasses in the morning. and it would like fogup his sunglasses. and he would stand there whilei was shooting the show, just looking at me. i mean, it was like beingwatched by the police. and then they asked me to beon "next iron chef." and i
really always wantedto be an iron chef. and i'm a sucker. you know, i was like,ok, i'll do it. how bad can it be? and it just kind of snowballedfrom there. "chopped" was an accident. they went to shoot the pilot. and i said i don't want tobe on that show at all. i'm sick that day.
and they just hounded me. they just said, we thinkyou're right for this. we think you belongon the show. i wasn't convinced. and so i hate to answer yourquestion by saying it's kind of an accident. but it was all born from onesingular idea that i was obsessed with being on "ironchef america." and it snowballed accidentally andbecame some strange avalanche.
audience: and you becamean iron chef. alex guarnaschelli:yeah, totally. that's crazy. that never gets old. i get up every morning, i'mlike, i'm an iron chef. i'm like, on my tombstone,i'm going to write mom, daughter, iron chef. this is so cool. when the curtain dropped andmy face was there, i
was like i can die. i never thought i'd havea moment like that. i still can't believe it. i have stars in my eyes. it's really hokey and sappyand goopy and all true. audience: all right. female speaker: we actually onlyhave time for about one more question. i'm sorry, but--
audience: hi. alex guarnaschelli: hello. audience: i just wanted toknow, do you feel more pressure cooking on"iron chef" or being a judge on "chopped"? alex guarnaschelli: did youwrite your question down? audience: yes, i did. alex guarnaschelli: ok, so youwere checking your phone. oh, cooking on iron chef.
oh my god, cooking is so hard. to pick what you're going tocook in that moment with that kind of thinking is-- there'snothing like it. sitting behind a desk on"chopped," i'm like, whew, i got a day off. cooking, hands down. well, thank you so, somuch for coming in. alex guarnaschelli: thank youfor sharing your time.
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