WEBVTT - Read This: Uses for Ben Shewry 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.560 Hi there, It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:07.240 yet another episode of Read This Out Sister podcast. It's 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.520 hosted by the editor of The Monthly and book nerd 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.640 Michael Williams, and it features conversations with some of the 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.480 best and most beloved writers from Australia and around the world. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.520 In this episode, we're going to hear from New Zealand 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.439 born chef and author Ben Schuri. Before we do, Michael 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:31.040 is here to share a bit about their conversation. Hello Michael, 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.440 Hi Ruby. So Michael, your guest today is the chef 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.880 and the owner of Attica, which is a very famous 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.680 Melbourne restaurant. But for anyone who isn't as familiar with 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.400 Ben Shuri, could you tell me a bit more about him. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.040 Ben's a really fascinating figure. And if like me, you're 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.240 a big fan of Kitchen Confidential, or you watch The Bear, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.360 or you really like the little rat inside the Hat 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.640 and writer tooy, like you have an idea that a 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.360 celebrity chef is like all about McKeay mow and kind of. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.000 Sweaty rages and big egos. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.280 And the thing that's most remarkable about Ben Shuri is 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.600 not just that He is a culumnary genius in many ways, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.880 but he's widely described as a fundamentally decent human being. 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.400 And the man that I got to talk to was 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.360 a man who's so thoughtful about what he does. Vocational 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.720 about food and about feeding people and about you know, 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.760 producing the best that he can and everything that he does, 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:33.360 but actually really interested in the cultural questions around food, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.160 in the ways in which we build community in a kitchen, 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.720 in a restaurant across the country through the things we 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:40.880 put in our mouths. 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.279 And so his book, it's called Uses for Obsession. It's 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.400 described as both a memoir and as a manifesto. So 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.360 what does that actually look like on the page? 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.080 Look, the most important thing to note is there are 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.280 a couple of recipes in here. In particular, he goes 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.800 deep on his approach to Lazo, and he has a 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.559 number of differing ways that he does that. But yeah, 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.960 this is not a memoir. In there, I was born, 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.240 then I worked in my first kitchen, then up to Attica, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.919 then kind of overcoming the hardship of COVID shutdowns or whatever. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.080 It's not a linear story. It's very much a memoir 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.160 informed by the way he sees the world by the 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:22.480 way in which his philosophy informs the way he works 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.520 the obsessions that he has, and the way he conducts 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.600 himself with those obsessions around other people. And it's a 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.119 really fascinating. 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:36.840 Mix coming up in just a moment. Uses for Ben. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:50.840 Shuri, Uses for Obsession is an excellent title. It conjures 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.000 up what we imagine we might want from the chef. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:57.120 Uses for soliriac or uses for a mandolin or uses 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.120 for Marjoram, something grounded and relatable that translates a familiar 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.359 but intimidating media into a space we think we might 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.920 navigate the achievement of this book, though, is that Ben 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:13.320 Shuri understands that the intellectual, philosophical, creative facets of life 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.480 can be equally served by the methodology of a chef. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.040 After all, what is a great chef if not a storyteller. 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.520 For Ben, the spinning of a tale is central to 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:24.720 how he does what he does. 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:30.040 It's probably more influenced by oral storytelling, actually, and that 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:37.960 comes from my earliest memories my childhood, which was about 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.360 making the most of what you had and getting on 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:45.320 with things. One of the main family traditions for shuries 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.600 and the Turners. Our form of entertainment as a family 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.920 and our extended family was around a fire or around 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.920 a dinner table telling stories. And my aunties and uncles 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.000 and my mother and father were to tell these tremendous 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:06.160 stories about overcoming odds, and often they were very funny, 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:07.840 and it was how we kind of made sense of 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:09.920 the things that were hard that were happening in this 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.000 time in the seventies and. 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.840 Eighties and rural New Zealand. 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:18.680 Often they were against the odds, stories of going up 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.240 against the man. You know. 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.640 That was always the council, which I think is hilarious. 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.400 But there was always humor, and there was always heart, 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.239 and it was always truthful. And so as a child 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.200 I just loved sitting there. 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.640 I lapped all of this up, and eventually, when I 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:37.479 was old enough. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.520 I was able to become a part of that. And 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.200 so in a lot of ways in this book, I'm 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.280 actually honoring my own family's history of storytelling, even though 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:48.920 it's not a written history. 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.919 But the oral tradition. Like part of what's so lovely 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.719 about this book is structurally it has an episodic energy 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.479 where it's not a linear narrative. If it's not a 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:05.480 conventional this thing it is then attica, then you know misfortune, 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.280 and then triumph over adversity. You know, it's not that. 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.360 It's a book that draws deep from your personal philosophy 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.480 and from anecdote and kind of moves between them freely, 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:17.200 like all the best fireside chats. 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:18.480 I think, well, thank you. 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.279 I was well aware of the pitfalls of writing a 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.560 memoir as a well known person, and I just didn't 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.080 want to add something else bland to the market. You know, 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.159 whenever I do anything, I think about that product and 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.000 the need for it, and so it's no different with 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:35.520 a book. If I'm going to write a book and 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.800 use those resources, you know, how is my book going 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:40.400 to be meaningful and useful to people? 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.120 This book does many things beautifully, and it has all 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.320 these kind of parallel tracks going on. But one of 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.799 them is about your journey from not knowing to knowing, 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.200 and a journey that is a constant and ongoing one, 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.440 and that's part of the joy of it. But when 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.240 you write about those early days, you know, when you 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.960 write about the certainty, a knowledge that comes from a 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.960 French cooking tradition, and then there's certainty a knowledge that 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.760 comes from getting access to a tie cooking tradition. One 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.880 of the early engines is a book. Is you going 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.360 into a second hand bookshop and finding a book that 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.279 tells you that the stuff you've learned before then might 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.599 not be adequate for the task. Can you describe that 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:21.200 for us? 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.279 It's a rather beautiful moment. I'm living in Wellington, New Zealand, 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.720 and not long before had completed two years of rigorous 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:34.000 brutal training under French chefs. It was two years of 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.400 formal training at Waikato Politech and the one thing that 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.240 I took away from that I was really young. I 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.280 was sixteen to eighteen, and the one thing I took 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.320 away from it was, yes, there there's a level of 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.120 mastery in these techniques, and there's a history, but that 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.000 history does not feel like this place. It does not 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.719 feel like anything that I know. In fact, it seems 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.120 from a world far away from us in New Zealand. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.760 And so whilst I didn't really know what my cooking 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.679 would become, I did know that that didn't feel like home. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.920 And so several years later, I'm in Wellington and I 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:08.839 go to this bookshop which is still there to the 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.760 stay called Artibs, and it's the second hand bookshop. It's 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.760 a really great secondhand bookshop. And I'm in there flicking 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:19.400 through the covers of the cookbooks that are around, you know, 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.560 And this is a moment where there's a very very 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.840 famous French chef called Thomas Keller, and he has a 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.640 book out about his restaurant called The French Laundry Cookbook. 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.239 And this book is just looming larger in the chef land, 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.840 in the culture, and it just didn't speak to me either, 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.480 with the most respect to him. But what landed kind 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.600 of in my lap in that second hand bookshop was 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:47.760 the small, thin paperback cookbook with hand drawn pictures, no photographs, 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:52.320 which sort of seem to be exuding in internal confidence, 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.920 saying something to me like this is a bastion of 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:04.000 unheralded recipes and ideas and thoughts on Thai cuisine that 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.920 cannot be found elsewhere. And I opened it and I 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.560 began to read it in the bookstore, and immediately the author, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:15.200 David Thompson's words transported me to another place. And I 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.040 remember kind of buying it and clutching it and sort 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:23.400 of skipping home excitedly to begin working from it. And 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.880 what I discovered from working within this cuisine Tay cuisine, 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.720 classic Taye cuisine, or dishes that are hundreds and hundreds 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.240 of years old from the Royal Thai Court, is that 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.679 one Tay Cuisine is one of the world's greatest cuisines, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.280 right up there with more celebrated cuisines like French cuisine 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:48.400 or Italian cuisine. And two more importantly, Tay cuisine is 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.600 a cuisine of the mind. And by that I mean 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:57.080 following recipes is foolhardy on a lot of levels. You 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.680 can follow a French recipe. You and I could follow 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.719 one to day Michael, and to be completely honest, we'd 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.920 get a pretty similar result. But if we both tried 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.760 to follow it an advanced Thie recipe would get incredibly 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:17.400 different results. Now that's cool, because you know ties the 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.000 way that they Seeson is personal. 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:20.319 That's correct as well. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.360 Some people like it's sweet, as some people like it 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.040 more sour, more spicy. But I was I became transfixed 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:30.679 by this book, and it would actually be you know, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.760 the factor that would mean that I would leave my 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.600 home country. I would move to Australia in pursuit of it, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:41.800 and eventually London it would consume my entire life for 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.280 six years. I would be largely owned by it. It would 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.760 drive me close to the edge of madness because it 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:54.280 is so complicated and complex that it's impossible to have 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:55.839 any level of mastery over it. 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:56.800 Well, it was for me. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.760 But one of the things I love about that is, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.920 you know, you say at the point at which you 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.280 read that book and you went home in Wellington and 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.400 you decide, Okay, you're going to try and master this. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:08.880 Not only had you not eaten typhood. I think you 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:10.560 say in the book you might not have even met 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.480 a tie person. And that's true. This is entirely an 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.560 abstraction that you're trying to make real. And when you 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:22.679 get to Sydney and you eat your first proper Thai meal, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.240 the thing that hits you is you can't learn this 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.160 from books books. I can't do it for you. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:28.360 No. 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.520 And the thing that I write about that meal was 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.200 that it was the most ruthlessly beautiful meal that I'd 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.800 ever eaten. And it destroyed me in the best way 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.960 because I learned that I knew nothing, And so I 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.160 love this feeling of being humbled. You know, this is 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:52.240 incredibly powering and compelling to human growth if we choose 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.200 to see it in that way. But at some stage 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.560 I realized, really what Thai cuisine didn't need. 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:06.560 Was me creativity and the twin engines of creativity. It 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.560 seems to me that you kind of tease out in 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.800 this book, both in the book itself, but also in 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.160 the way you talk about cooking and you talk about food, 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:20.640 and they're on the one hand technique and precision and 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.560 learning and those very possibly rigid things. And then on 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:30.079 the other hand there is joy, and there is discovery, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.959 and there is play, and there's those things, and they 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:37.160 seem to me to be potentially intension in any creative process. 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:39.080 Where do you sit on that spectrum? 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.720 Well, you know, I think they serve each other in 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.480 so many ways. I guess as a part of the 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:49.160 book which says that before you can subvert something, you 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:53.480 must completely submit to a rigorous understanding of it. And 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.360 the ways in which people go wrong in all kinds 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.920 of context in human life when they racing to change something, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:07.480 And if you haven't humbled yourself by absolutely committing to 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.680 a complete and utter focus on that subject for a 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.280 sustained period of time, you've really got no business mucking 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:14.920 around with it. 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.320 You know. I love that idea of humility in the 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.600 face of something that matters to you. You know, but 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.439 whatever it is, if this matters, you have to be humble. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.880 You have to concede what you don't know. And I 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.400 think as a society, as a culture, we're very bad 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.640 at saying I don't know, or I can't or I 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:34.439 need to learn. 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:36.360 Well, I think you're right, and I think as a 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:41.280 society we would benefit from more thinking along the lines 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.640 of we're all just making this up as we go. 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.840 When I cook, I don't have enough time left on 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:53.240 this planet to really have any real understanding of what 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.040 is happening and what this is about. And I've been 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.560 humbled time and time. I'm in time, particularly in this 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:06.000 country with sixty five thousand years of continuous cooking and 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.040 cuisine by Aboriginal people and tourist for out other people. 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.480 Because there'd be moments, as a highly creative chef where 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.959 I would have thought that I've reinvented the wheel was 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.240 some concept or some dish that I've made, I've brought 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.040 two ingredients together. And there's a great story about bringing 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:30.800 nerdy Gugoni word for green ants together with raw fish, 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.800 and there's a synergy between these two ingredients in my 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.840 mind as I developed this dish, and I'm like, hmm, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.679 you're pretty damn good, you know, Like it's like that 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.960 feeling of like, well, I've discovered something here. And then 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.600 six months later, being in Maningrida, a community in Arnham 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.960 Land and sitting down for a coffee with an elder 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:55.079 with Auntie Lila Nimbajia, and Auntie starts telling me this 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.880 story about how her mother they couldn't always get fit, 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.480 she had an appetite for fish, that she would try 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.360 to quench her thirst for fish, if you like, by 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.280 eating green ants, and green ants is a medicinal and 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.719 culinary food from that area. 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.319 And she said, we always served. 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.000 Green ants with fish, and I was like, oh my goodness, 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:21.320 how little do you know? 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:23.480 You know, it's absolutely remarkable. 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.120 You're just a speck of sand in the desert. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.800 A gettl Again. The culture tells us that professional food 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:41.000 culture isn't open or generous. It's aggressive. It's a particular 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.680 kind of matcho, it's a particular kind of self aggrandizing. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.640 The prevailing picture in pop culture is that someone who 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:53.840 devotes themselves to restaurant excellence at the highest level is 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:55.440 inevitably some kind of monster. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.680 That's an unfortunate truth. As an industry, we've been incredibly cruel. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:04.600 We've had our. 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.760 Whole mindset around the wrong way, and many of the 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 people that we've looked up to and admired and celebrated 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:18.840 haven't deserved it. And for me, coming into this world 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.240 as a sensitive young man from the back country of 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.000 New Zealand who'd barely been around large groups of people 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.920 in his life, I thought, as an outsider that I 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.760 would find a home in professional kitchens. But I was 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.840 quickly taught that because I didn't fit into the status 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:40.640 quo that quite often kitchens were an incredibly unkind and 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.520 unfriendly place for me, And if it was bad for me, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:50.800 it was devastating for women. So for me, that's always 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.440 been through line. Women have been held back by men, 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.680 have been treated appalling by men and kitchens, and for me, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.120 when I had the chance to run my own place, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.520 that's something that I wanted to stamp out immediately to 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.080 the best of my ability, knowing that I have many 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:12.280 blind spots as a man, but listening to women, making 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.640 sure that there were women in possessions of power making 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.480 decisions at the company. I've wanted to prove in my 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:23.240 career when I had the opportunity that it could be 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.840 done a different way, that this is not actually connected 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.520 to any thing good. You know that yelling and shouting 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.080 and macho behavior and the abuse of drugs and alcohol 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.960 are not things to be celebrated. In the book, you know, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.440 I write about the influence of certain parts of Anthony 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:48.480 Bourdain's memoile Kitchen Confidential. You know that book and parts 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:54.760 of that are incredibly sexist and incredibly damaging, I believe 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.800 to our industry because generations of young male chefs have 0:16:57.840 --> 0:16:59.480 looked at that book and looked up to it and 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.120 worshiped it, and still to this day. 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.720 I think it also valorizes a particular kind of not 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.760 just agro, but ego, I think, and I'm curious about 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.960 that relationship between creativity and self belief. You know, to 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.639 be a creative person, to be making things that you 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.560 put in the world, you have to believe that your 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.560 voice is worth hearing, or people should come and eat 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.280 the thing that you make, or they should come and 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.320 invest in the thing that you are creating. And so 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.840 inevitably there's a requirement for a bit of ego, But 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:37.000 why does that ego in the context of restaurants, in 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.280 the context of chefs, why does it curdle in the 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.200 way that it does into something so ugly, Because. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.280 That kind of ego and that kind of behavior has 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:50.639 been rewarded time and time again. You know, it's been glamorized, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.360 as you point out, by books, by movies right through 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.760 the culture and still ongoing to this day. You know, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.280 largely these stories are to by other people. They're not 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:07.640 actually told by chefs either. But I think that you know, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:12.760 that is all just a way of men controlling the industry. 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.760 You know, there's still a huge imbalance in industry between 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.720 men and women, and of course there are other groups 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.919 of people who are also affected in various ways, But 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.520 most restaurants are still owned by men, and the legal 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.719 and the moral obligation for this behavior to stop begins 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:36.000 and ends with them. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.679 When we returned, Ben shares the risks of writing a 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.399 tell all food memoir and reveals the one thing that 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.040 he allows himself to be a little bit chitter. We'll 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:59.840 be right back. You are someone who has a de 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:07.080 awareness of your responsibility to others. And I'm curious about 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.840 what effect that had on the writing process, because this 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.800 is your story, but it's a story about many people 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.080 in your life, and your awareness of the ways in 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:22.880 which putting it down on paper, you know, has has repercussions, 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.000 that has ripples. Was there an anxiety about that for you? 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.320 Well, first of all, there's stories of others that I've shared. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.280 I've always thought that there's an incredible and grave responsibility 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.800 for writers to consider when sharing other people's stories. So 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.080 that weighed heavily on me in the writing about others 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:46.560 or the sharing of other people's stories. And then kind 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:52.919 of to other point, to reconcile the risk involved, you know, 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.439 long and hard conversations with those closest to me, you know, 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.320 and none more so than my wife Kylie, who has 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.120 bravely encouraged me to write this, you know, and at 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:08.120 every stage even you know, her own frankly brutal story. 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.280 But also the immense amount of peril and risk that 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.800 we've potentially put our company in. I think that we're 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:24.240 very resilient and I am not somebody that gives up easily. 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.280 I also don't mind a fight. 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.399 It seems important, and not as a sad thing because 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.400 it does tap into the recurring thing through this book, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.159 which is the relationship between the art of what you do, 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.040 the business of it, the life that you live when 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.560 you're doing it, and what those relationships look like that 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.040 come out of it, and how we extract meaning I 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.080 guess from what we do. Are you at a point 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.520 in your career where you feel happy with where you've 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.520 landed between those different imperatives. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:58.919 I'm made a point in my career or where I 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.720 feel like letting it rend. I feel like we all 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.600 have limited days on this earth. And there was probably 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.320 some questioning about whether or not I'm too young to 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.480 write this book, but I thought, if I don't write 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:14.879 it today, if I don't take this risk, and if 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.240 I don't face up to these truths, both. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.040 My own failings and the failings. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.479 Of others, I might not get another chance. 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:25.159 I want to talk for a bit about obsession, because 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:29.000 you are an incredibly driven human being, and you were 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.840 driven by a desire for excellence. You hold yourself to 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.920 a standard, you push yourself to that standard again and again, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.600 and I'm interested in how hard it is to both 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.040 honor that on the one hand and not let it 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.000 descend into something corrosive. On the other what do you 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:46.320 let yourself be shit at? 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.919 Ben Suri, Well, I love skateboarding, but I'm not a 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.080 great skateboarder. You know. It's been something that I've done 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.480 my whole life. It informs the work at Attica, and 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.200 even the writing in the book is there's references to skateboarding. 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:03.600 But the thing that I loved about skateboarding was the 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:09.200 skateboarder doesn't just sort of fall off and then give 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.639 up the first time they try a trick. You know, 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.679 they get back up and they try again, and so 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.280 that's very compelling to me. And it also offers up 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.480 a level of kind of pain and intensity in suffering, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.439 which I think is not necessarily a bad thing. I 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.399 know we're going to try to avoid that in the future, probably, 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:27.960 but I don't think we should. 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:29.480 I think there's a level of going. 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:31.680 Through stuff that's healthy for humans. 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:36.720 On being obsessed with things, I think, you know. 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:41.159 Anybody of power or anybody of influence needs to be 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:46.639 really mindful of their ambition, especially when that person works 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.679 in teams. And so I've always had the ability to 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:54.120 kind of consider the people that I'm working with and 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.520 ask the question in which ways do these affect our 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.720 team and it is a neat or positive or is 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.800 it some positive and negative? And by that I mean 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:07.359 there's a lot of people in the world that are 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.600 perfectly happy to shell ten thousand baby pas or pick 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:18.359 twenty thousand lemon time leaves, both insufferable jobs. I would 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:22.720 analyze whether or not it's actually worth it, does it 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.399 actually make an impact on the plate, or is it 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:30.600 pure ego, Because if it's ego, then it's kind of cruel, 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.520 and if it's not ego, if it's necessary. Look, let's 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:37.119 be frank, it's never necessary to pick twenty thousand lemon 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.680 time leaves. But if it is necessary to do this menial, 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:43.679 mind numbing task, then work out a way within the 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.480 team to make it fun. And so that just means 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:49.560 that the whole team does it. Maybe there's twenty cooks 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.840 on a shift at Attica, and all twenty will shell 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.080