Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I'd come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time
Speaker 1: to question everything. About seven years ago, I was sitting
Speaker 1: on a balcony with my dad. We were in Miami,
Speaker 1: and my mom and my brother had gone to bed.
Speaker 1: I remember feeling nervous to ask him something, because as
Speaker 1: close as we are, we don't really traffic in feelings
Speaker 1: all the time. And I said, Dad, did you feel
Speaker 1: lonely when you were growing up? I was kind of
Speaker 1: hoping he would say yes, because I'm so much like him,
Speaker 1: and then he could make sense of this feeling that
Speaker 1: I had. And he sat for a minute and puffed
Speaker 1: his cigar, and he said, no, I was alone a lot,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel lonely. I asked, because there was
Speaker 1: this loneliness in me that never quite went away. It
Speaker 1: followed me no matter who I was with, in relationship,
Speaker 1: with my family, my friends. It wasn't loud, but it
Speaker 1: was always with me. It was almost like people could
Speaker 1: know me, but they didn't know the hole me, and
Speaker 1: that felt lonely. And then a few years ago it
Speaker 1: just disappeared. Poof, I woke up one day and I
Speaker 1: didn't have it anymore. And I haven't fully unpacked why.
Speaker 1: I know I will, and when I come to a conclusion,
Speaker 1: I'll share it with you guys. But if I had
Speaker 1: to sort of pontificate right now in present time, I
Speaker 1: think it has something to do with finally coming home
Speaker 1: to myself. It's finding a sense of belonging that wasn't
Speaker 1: dependent on another person or a city or a job,
Speaker 1: or hoping that someone could see me the real me,
Speaker 1: because I saw myself. What I do think is interesting
Speaker 1: is that I've built an entire career around the opposite
Speaker 1: of loneliness connection. And that is why Kristin Kish, our
Speaker 1: guest today, fascinates me. Because when I read her memoir
Speaker 1: accidentally on purpose, and I sat with her story, I
Speaker 1: realized that we might be asking the same question from
Speaker 1: different directions. Now we all know Kristin as the impeccably dressed,
Speaker 1: effortlessly cool host of Top Chef. But before she was
Speaker 1: hosting Top Chef, she was a winner. She was a
Speaker 1: James Beard Award winner. And if we go back a
Speaker 1: little further, Kristin was adopted from Korea as an infant
Speaker 1: and raised in Michigan, and growing up she often felt
Speaker 1: different from the people around her, and she talks about
Speaker 1: struggling with social anxiety pretty badly. For a long time,
Speaker 1: she wasn't sure she was particularly good at anything, and
Speaker 1: then Kristin found kitchens or kitchens found her. I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure which.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the biggest thing I got out of kitchens, good
Speaker 2: and bad, was finding my confidence, knowing that I was
Speaker 2: good at something, because for so long I didn't think
Speaker 2: I was good at anything.
Speaker 1: And what started as cooking to connect with people became
Speaker 1: the place where she found her confidence, her purpose, and
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging. But even with all of her success,
Speaker 1: she still says.
Speaker 2: Every great thing in my career that has happened is
Speaker 2: because someone else saw my greatness before I could see it.
Speaker 1: So how did Kristin move from feeling like an outsider
Speaker 1: to feeling like she belonged. Well, I can't give away
Speaker 1: all the good stuff. It's time to question everything with
Speaker 1: Kristin Kish it's been a minute since we've talked. You've
Speaker 1: become a trader.
Speaker 2: I was a faithful yeah, but I was playing with
Speaker 2: the trader.
Speaker 1: Has it messed how you read people at all?
Speaker 2: I'd like to say no, because I can separate game
Speaker 2: from real life. However, I did realize in that game
Speaker 2: that my gut was very much right and a lot
Speaker 2: of different things, but not in the context of the game.
Speaker 2: So like, I know immediately if we're going to jive,
Speaker 2: I know immediately if you're my kind of person, or
Speaker 2: if I want to start building that trust with you,
Speaker 2: I can tell. But in a game where everyone's supposed
Speaker 2: to lie to your face, you know, it makes it
Speaker 2: a little bit more difficult. So yes and no, I'm
Speaker 2: a little bit more cautious.
Speaker 1: I'd say, would you say you were a good read
Speaker 1: going into it?
Speaker 2: I mean, the first declaration I made was it's Colton.
Speaker 2: I know it's it. It was not a trader at all.
Speaker 2: But so me, No, I wasn't good. I wasn't good
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that because I think all of your
Speaker 1: time in a kitchen is like you are dealing with
Speaker 1: so many different personalities. I can't even imagine you didn't
Speaker 1: pick up like clues and ways to read people's mannerism.
Speaker 2: You know, I think if the pressure of the game
Speaker 2: wasn't on my shoulders, I think I do well under pressure,
Speaker 2: maybe better cooking under pressure than trying to play a
Speaker 2: social game on pressure. So that was just like in
Speaker 2: a fish bowl all by itself. It was such an
Speaker 2: odd experience. That's so fair.
Speaker 1: I heard that you felt like even in a game
Speaker 1: of lies, it was still less pressure than a professional
Speaker 1: kitchen one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And because in the Game of Traders, my career, my
Speaker 2: thing that I have been doing for over two decades
Speaker 2: and have dedicated my life to, which is food and
Speaker 2: cooking right, was not at risk. So you put me
Speaker 2: in a kitchen, that pressure exponentially grows because now we're
Speaker 2: in real life, Like, if I messed up here, this
Speaker 2: is going to also impact my reputation of if you
Speaker 2: want to come back to my restaurant or whatever the
Speaker 2: case may be.
Speaker 1: It's like Adele doing karaoke.
Speaker 2: Yes, also, but she's so good at anything. Also, ps Pill,
Speaker 2: are you well I have some clunker dishes. I have
Speaker 2: a feeling that Adele has never sung an out of
Speaker 2: two notes ever ever in her entire life. Disagree. Oh
Speaker 2: we've heard this ya, everybody has. You know, in my head,
Speaker 2: she's perfect.
Speaker 1: I like your love for adel While that show might
Speaker 1: not be your normal playground. I read you were struggling
Speaker 1: in the Castle kitchen, like in your rookie Top Chef days.
Speaker 1: Did you really try making grilled cheese and a toaster?
Speaker 2: I sure did so in that kitchen in the Castle,
Speaker 2: there's a kitchen behind the scenes where like catering and
Speaker 2: stuff works out of the kitchen that's on screen. They're
Speaker 2: not going to put a real life kitchen in there
Speaker 2: because all I would do is cook and everyone would
Speaker 2: just like we would no longer play the game. It's
Speaker 2: everyone be eating, and so it would be quite distracting.
Speaker 2: So the kitchen, the only heat source was a toaster.
Speaker 2: I got. I felt a little sassy and maybe a
Speaker 2: little over confident that I could make a grilled cheese
Speaker 2: in the toaster, and the butter melted and then started
Speaker 2: smoking and producer had to come in unplug it because
Speaker 2: it was going to cut on fire.
Speaker 1: How was the grilled cheese.
Speaker 2: It was edible. Lisa Renna still talk says every now
Speaker 2: and again, I hear it. She's like that piece of
Speaker 2: buttered bread that you buttered for me, it was one
Speaker 2: of the best bites of food. Monett I made a
Speaker 2: sandwich for and she was like, this is amazing. And
Speaker 2: that's also then to say, you can kind of see
Speaker 2: how hungry we were, and you know, a deli meat
Speaker 2: sandwich and a buttered piece of bread was a delicious
Speaker 2: bite of food.
Speaker 1: I know that you're used to sort of interacting with
Speaker 1: all these different people because on Top Chef people from
Speaker 1: all over the country come. It must have been sort
Speaker 1: of interesting to be in a house with people from
Speaker 1: all walks of life, Like what was that like?
Speaker 2: I didn't really know anybody. I had heard of some names,
Speaker 2: I'd recognized a few faces, but I had never watched
Speaker 2: religiously their shows that they come from. So like, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get to know these people completely at face value,
Speaker 2: which I think ultimately was a good thing for me
Speaker 2: as someone who has done a lot of work to
Speaker 2: overcome intense social anxiety with new people. The work paid
Speaker 2: off because I was able to go in there and
Speaker 2: just be me. I think it's also the lack of
Speaker 2: caring about how I come off, or do you like me?
Speaker 2: Or am I going to be impressive enough. I just
Speaker 2: went in there as me and I was gonna vibe
Speaker 2: with who I vibe with, and if I didn't, then
Speaker 2: that's okay too.
Speaker 1: Okay. I want to talk about food because it's always
Speaker 1: been the center of your story. Do you remember when
Speaker 1: it became a love language for you?
Speaker 2: I think it kind of always was. So as soon
Speaker 2: as I realized that I could get a good reaction
Speaker 2: or any kind of reaction out of somebody and I
Speaker 2: didn't have to talk, I didn't have to make small
Speaker 2: talk and getting to know you, I didn't have to
Speaker 2: play this game of the social game that I was
Speaker 2: so anxious by. And so when I realized that I
Speaker 2: could just sit with myself, cook something and give you
Speaker 2: food and you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, and
Speaker 2: I didn't have to say a day an word. Great
Speaker 2: when it like everything started to click for me, and ultimately,
Speaker 2: step by step drove me to a place where I
Speaker 2: wanted to be in a kitchen, and then somehow I
Speaker 2: ended up on television. But you know, life is funny sometimes,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it was when I realized I didn't have
Speaker 2: to talk, but I also could do something really good
Speaker 2: for other people.
Speaker 1: And it would make people smile and feel something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so beautiful. Do you remember the first time you
Speaker 1: cooked something that was really delicious?
Speaker 2: Well, my dad said my soy sauce chocolate pudding was delicious.
Speaker 1: It was not, but like we got to back up
Speaker 1: and shared what the soy sauce chocolate pudding is.
Speaker 2: So I was a child, single digit age. I was
Speaker 2: experimenting in the kitchen. I was going through the process
Speaker 2: of cooking long before I realized what it was to
Speaker 2: develop flavor. Yeah, And so I took this memory of
Speaker 2: my mother's gravy that she would thicken with a corn
Speaker 2: starch slurry. She'd put it in the refrigerator. The next
Speaker 2: thing you'd come back and it's like jello. And so
Speaker 2: I remembered the process of how you get that texture.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I'm going to make chocolate pudding.
Speaker 2: There was no chocolate in the house. I think I
Speaker 2: took water, maybe milk, I'm not even sure. And then
Speaker 2: I made a slurry of water and I thickened this
Speaker 2: liquid and then I turned it brown into chocolate by
Speaker 2: using soy sauce, and I put it in the refriger
Speaker 2: and I was so proud that I made this like
Speaker 2: really cool science experiment. My dad came home to took
Speaker 2: goodbite of it, and he was like, hmm, this is great,
Speaker 2: you know, because he didn't want to hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1: I love that you used to think that the color
Speaker 1: mattered more than the flavor, and I think that that
Speaker 1: is actually a really interesting thing to.
Speaker 2: Dissect well, developing a flavor and developing a palette to
Speaker 2: understand what balance and a good dishes. Yeah, that takes
Speaker 2: a lot of practice. That means you are trying so
Speaker 2: many foods. You're out there going to restaurants, you're experimenting
Speaker 2: with other chefs, and so when you're a kid, you know,
Speaker 2: I was eating you know, midwestern kid food. But what
Speaker 2: I did know how to do was make something look
Speaker 2: like something else. Like if you showed me a video,
Speaker 2: thirty minute video on how to build the chair, that
Speaker 2: is kind of I'm a visual learner in that way,
Speaker 2: and just by watching I know how to build that chair,
Speaker 2: and I will get you that chair. It might not
Speaker 2: be good, but I'm gonna do it the same thing
Speaker 2: I went through with cooking. So I was watching it
Speaker 2: all through the screen. I wasn't tasting it, so I
Speaker 2: knew how to get the outcome. I just didn't know
Speaker 2: what it tasted like.
Speaker 1: So you were watching Food Network or.
Speaker 2: I was cooking shows Great Chefs of the World, it
Speaker 2: was It's an incredible show. You should go on YouTube
Speaker 2: if you like really calm, soothing things. It'll put you
Speaker 2: to sleep in all the most beautiful ways. It's just
Speaker 2: these chefs just cooking. Low budget. It's not you know, lights,
Speaker 2: camera action food competition stuff. It is just cooking from
Speaker 2: all these chefs from around the world, and it's dubbed
Speaker 2: over by this woman with this like really charming Louisiana accent,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's amazing you can.
Speaker 1: Make sense of that is like a ten year old
Speaker 1: watching cooking shows, like, do you feel like you were
Speaker 1: just born to do this?
Speaker 2: I think that the way I learn and the way
Speaker 2: that something grabs my attention is in how it looks.
Speaker 2: It's like this visual like draw for me. If I
Speaker 2: were five years old and at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: when I would get home from school, woodworking would have
Speaker 2: been on. Yeah, and I turned that on, I'd probably
Speaker 2: be a woodworker right now. I think it was just
Speaker 2: imprinted in me so quickly. It was less about the
Speaker 2: cooking and more about the structure and the method about
Speaker 2: someone making something.
Speaker 1: So your first job was at a pretzel shop in
Speaker 1: the mall.
Speaker 2: Yes, my first job cooking food. My first job before
Speaker 2: the pretzel shop, I was a post and a busser
Speaker 2: at a restaurant at Lone Star Steakhouse and saloon. It
Speaker 2: was back in the day when you could smoke in
Speaker 2: restaurants and I would clean the axe. Phrase. But like,
Speaker 2: my first real cooking job was twisting pretzels in the mall.
Speaker 1: And you write in your book that it was almost
Speaker 1: therapeutic for you. Yes, everybody I know who has had
Speaker 1: a job similar to that, whether it's in a bakery.
Speaker 1: My mom worked at a pie shop and she was like,
Speaker 1: after four days, I could never look at pie. You
Speaker 1: had the opposite experience, So explain this.
Speaker 2: They were so good. So I would mess with the
Speaker 2: hydration of the dough because depending on the season, I
Speaker 2: could get all dorky about it. But depending on the season, Like,
Speaker 2: my job was to efficiently roll pretzels, so when the
Speaker 2: dough was properly hydrated and properly rested. I could roll
Speaker 2: so fast, like I don't know how many a minute,
Speaker 2: but I was in the window and I would clap
Speaker 2: the rope and I'd twist it in the air and
Speaker 2: I'd drop it. And because there's so many different toppings
Speaker 2: and ways you can explore how a pretzel tastes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was endless possibilities to explore my creativity. And it
Speaker 2: was I mean, it's so good. Who doesn't love a soft,
Speaker 2: hot buttered pretzel. Oh, It's what I order in any movie.
Speaker 2: My mouth is water. Yeah, you got nicely.
Speaker 1: Have you cooked a dish since that has given you
Speaker 1: that feeling.
Speaker 2: The pretzel feeling? Well, that was a very specific time
Speaker 2: of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think when I was working at Stir,
Speaker 2: I was cooking in front of ten people, and I
Speaker 2: liken it to the dance, where like your mind shuts
Speaker 2: off and your body is just going through these motions
Speaker 2: and creating. You know, I have to think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And when I was working at Stir, cooking for ten
Speaker 2: people a night, doing my own dishes during service, it
Speaker 2: was basically hosting a dinner party every night. I found
Speaker 2: that same hypnotic flow. I think that's what they call
Speaker 2: flow state these days, or like what the kids are saying,
Speaker 2: Like I was fully in flow state in those two jobs,
Speaker 2: and I love them so much.
Speaker 1: When did you go from I could do this all
Speaker 1: day to thinking I'm going to build a life around this.
Speaker 2: I think that builds because there are so many different
Speaker 2: stages of life, where when I was eighteen, there's no
Speaker 2: way I could have envisioned what I wanted. When I
Speaker 2: was twenty five, I thought I did, But you have
Speaker 2: no idea. You have to go through every stage of
Speaker 2: life and every year and build upon it, and then
Speaker 2: it is ever changing and ever evolving, and that will
Speaker 2: determine the path that you take. And so I think
Speaker 2: it was a slow build. And in that way, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I can pinpoint exactly, because all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it feels like, you know, I surprise myself now,
Speaker 2: Like I look back at my jobs and the current
Speaker 2: jobs that I have, and I'm like, how did that happen?
Speaker 2: Like I completely in a lot of beautiful ways, just
Speaker 2: completely blanked out, and I just went through it. I
Speaker 2: reached that flow state, and you're just in this new
Speaker 2: system where things are building on each other and you're
Speaker 2: open to opportunities and you just you keep moving through it.
Speaker 1: You can I know it's a hard thing to describe,
Speaker 1: but can you drill into that more. I'm very curious
Speaker 1: about it because I know working in kitchens is so difficult,
Speaker 1: so not everything is in flow, Like I know that
Speaker 1: there must have been awful bosses and difficult moments and
Speaker 1: burns and times where you're like, am I even in
Speaker 1: the right place? Like why am I doing this to myself?
Speaker 1: So how do you know? How does Kristin know what
Speaker 1: the next right move is or even when to make
Speaker 1: a move.
Speaker 2: I think a series of mistakes, all of the choices
Speaker 2: that I've made, some write some are I still make
Speaker 2: bad choices? You think I do? I think? So. I
Speaker 2: think that we are run by our subconscious minds. Yes,
Speaker 2: mindy something percent and so depending like I could ask
Speaker 2: you a question and perhaps today other things were happening
Speaker 2: or you had gone through different things, and you're going
Speaker 2: to give me an emotional response. Three days later, you're
Speaker 2: going to look back and that wasn't the right response
Speaker 2: because it was based off of this subconscious reaction that
Speaker 2: sometimes I think gets confused with a gut reaction. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so I think honing in what it feels like
Speaker 2: to give an emotional response versus logical response, they're very different.
Speaker 2: And so yes, because of that, will make mistakes because
Speaker 2: sometimes I give an emotional response because I just react.
Speaker 1: The last mistake you made. What do you mean I'm
Speaker 1: looking to my answer. I'll give you a very broad yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think that I said yes to the wrong
Speaker 1: job in the moment in which it was put in
Speaker 1: my lab, I was considering a lot of different things
Speaker 1: that weren't driven by my authentic, genuine compass that I
Speaker 1: usually make choices by, and I let something else get
Speaker 1: in the way.
Speaker 2: I let money get in the way. And I wanted that,
Speaker 2: but I kind of forgot that for so much of
Speaker 2: my career, all of my career, I have worked so
Speaker 2: hard to drive in this other lane, and just for
Speaker 2: a minute, because there were other things going on, and
Speaker 2: I just was like, you know what, I had like
Speaker 2: a fuck it moment. I was like, yeah, sure, and
Speaker 2: I don't think for me it was the right decision.
Speaker 2: And it was a nice reminder, and I think it's
Speaker 2: important to have those reminders to recheck you back in line,
Speaker 2: and it resets and reconfirms that over here is exactly
Speaker 2: where I need it to be.
Speaker 1: So appreciate you sharing that, And I think it's so relatable.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to move through real life as an
Speaker 1: adult and not think about money, not make the financial decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you think about what usually drives you? Is it fun?
Speaker 1: Is it integrity for the food?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What is that metric for you?
Speaker 2: Integrity is a great word. I think it's integrity. I
Speaker 2: think it's a genuine connection to whatever it is that
Speaker 2: I'm being presented with. Yeah, an authentic like there needs
Speaker 2: to be a line drawn. I need to be able
Speaker 2: to connect the dots. It's how I create food. If
Speaker 2: I create a dish and I can't tell you the
Speaker 2: point of where I wanted that inspiration, where it needed
Speaker 2: to come from, or usually let me back off a
Speaker 2: little bit. A lot of the food that I create
Speaker 2: is coming from my version of comfort food, what I
Speaker 2: grew up eating. There needs to be one flavor or
Speaker 2: something in there that's like Kristen's favorite food when she
Speaker 2: was five. And if I can't draw that line, it
Speaker 2: doesn't belong on my menu.
Speaker 1: And what is the thing what makes it a Kristin dish.
Speaker 2: So honestly, it's like kind of like trashy processed food.
Speaker 2: I grew up in the Midwest, where cast rolls and
Speaker 2: box foods. I grew up in the era where I
Speaker 2: would come home from school and I'd open up a
Speaker 2: box of mac and cheese and I would doctor it up.
Speaker 2: You know, you add a little bit less milk, add
Speaker 2: more butter, gets richer, and then you like, you know,
Speaker 2: dip potato chips in it, Like that's what I was eating,
Speaker 2: and so that is my comfort foods.
Speaker 1: I love that you said that, because I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would have like understood that, And it's true
Speaker 1: now that I understand it.
Speaker 2: You're so if you come to my restaurant, hopefully you
Speaker 2: come one day, there is a dish that is was
Speaker 2: created off of my love of Hamburger helper. Now there
Speaker 2: is no Hamburger helper. There's none of that. We make
Speaker 2: everything in house, homemade pasta's. The sauce takes like four
Speaker 2: days because we're rehydrating and dehydrating. There's actually no beef
Speaker 2: in it whatsoever. But it's the feeling when you say
Speaker 2: comfort food. Everybody has a reaction on what dishes that
Speaker 2: means for you and comfort food. It's just it's not
Speaker 2: a particular flavor, it's a feeling. And those were the
Speaker 2: flavors of my childhood and my feelings of my childhood.
Speaker 1: So how does this sensitive in tune, socially anxious girl
Speaker 1: go into the chaos of a kitchen?
Speaker 2: You know, I think television, media and kitchen culture was
Speaker 2: glorified for so long this like bad boy behavior, rock
Speaker 2: and roll, drugs, like blah blah blah, And yes, there
Speaker 2: is a lot of that, and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of that. I'm sure plenty of places are still like that.
Speaker 2: But for so many people that chose a life in
Speaker 2: the kitchen, it was a place to feel like you belonged.
Speaker 2: So when you find the right kitchen, not all of
Speaker 2: them are like what you see on TV or whatever.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are safe space for a lot
Speaker 2: of people. That's how my kitchen is. It's a safe
Speaker 2: space for people to feel protected in a way from
Speaker 2: all of the other things around them that make them
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable. And so it was for me a place
Speaker 2: where I felt confident. In some kitchens, I felt very
Speaker 2: protected and supported. So I think it's uncomfortable and maybe
Speaker 2: intimidating for people that have never worked in a kitchen
Speaker 2: or have chosen that career path. Yeah, for the ones
Speaker 2: that do, you know, when you find that right kitchen,
Speaker 2: it's like the most peaceful place.
Speaker 1: Sounds like it was healing for you in some ways.
Speaker 2: It was. Honestly, the biggest thing I got out of
Speaker 2: kitchens good and bad, was finding my confidence, knowing that
Speaker 2: I was good at something, because for so long I
Speaker 2: didn't think I was good at anything.
Speaker 1: Well, you're very, very good at hosting Top Chef, thank you,
Speaker 1: which you have done the past three seasons. What's been
Speaker 1: the biggest shift for you stepping into the host drill?
Speaker 2: You know, I've thought about this question a lot, and
Speaker 2: every year it changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was asked last night, how has your mind set
Speaker 2: changed since being a contestant to hosting and now hosting
Speaker 2: your third season? And there hasn't been because me hosting
Speaker 2: Top Chef. What I think makes me good at that
Speaker 2: job is that I have over two decades of experience
Speaker 2: talking about food, talking to chefs, being the one talked at,
Speaker 2: given feedback. It's this language that I've been talking about
Speaker 2: and talking in for over two decades of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and yes, now we're on TV, I'm in full glam.
Speaker 2: There's more cameras and great lighting and everything around you.
Speaker 2: But the core and the mindset that I have is
Speaker 2: the exact same mindset I have on why food excites
Speaker 2: me and how it has been I heard.
Speaker 1: That Gail Simmons when you got the job, was basically like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course she was going to be Kristian right.
Speaker 2: I'm glad she knew because I had no idea When
Speaker 2: the announcement came out and clearly they needed another post. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like, I wonder who that's going to be.
Speaker 2: There is no chance in hell that I was ever
Speaker 2: going to get that phone call.
Speaker 1: I never went through your mind.
Speaker 2: Never. I thought about it for a split second. Wow,
Speaker 2: that could be fun. But then I let that go
Speaker 2: because I never thought it was going to be a
Speaker 2: possibility for me. Because who we are inside and how
Speaker 2: we feel is sometimes different than what other people see.
Speaker 2: And I've always said it, every great thing in my
Speaker 2: career that has happened is because someone else saw my
Speaker 2: greatness before I could see it. Wow, That's how I
Speaker 2: got competing on Top Chef, different jobs I've had. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you want me and they're like, of course we want you,
Speaker 2: and I'm like why, and then they tell me, yeah,
Speaker 2: what again, it's huge. And so once other people see
Speaker 2: that and say that, it is then my responsibility to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, you're right. I'm going to go prove
Speaker 2: it to myself.
Speaker 1: Now, have you found a classy way to wear sweatpants
Speaker 1: on set? Are you still unbuttoning your pants?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, I don't care if it's classy or not.
Speaker 2: I buy my sweatpants about three sizes too big. There's
Speaker 2: a drawstring, and so if it happens all the time
Speaker 2: walking around set or walking around in my house, if
Speaker 2: I don't tie tight enough, they are too big for me.
Speaker 2: Where if I put the weight of my phone in
Speaker 2: my pocket, they are going to slide downwoosh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the real top chef t nobody's
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: I will tell you this season. So the past two
Speaker 2: seasons Tom I learned from Tom that when you're behind
Speaker 2: Judge's table on seize your legs. And so he always
Speaker 2: changed into shorts and flip flops. And so he'd wear
Speaker 2: a suit jacket and then his shorts. You're kidding, that's
Speaker 2: like COVID outfit correct exactly, and so I was like, well,
Speaker 2: if Tom's doing that, I want to do that. And
Speaker 2: so I would change out of my perfectly tailored fitted
Speaker 2: pants and I would put sweatpants on. This season, because
Speaker 2: they were doing some shots behind Judge's table, we had
Speaker 2: to put our real pants back on. We had to
Speaker 2: keep the full outfits on, and sometimes even the whole
Speaker 2: like the shoes and everything. It was a sad day
Speaker 2: when they took away the sweatpants at judges table. Are
Speaker 2: you busting out of your pants? I have? But what
Speaker 2: you do? You can? I am? I am. They're always
Speaker 2: unbottoned if they can be unbuttoned, yeah, And I'm also
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how I need to sit, because
Speaker 2: when you eat fifteen plates of food, your pants feel
Speaker 2: a little bit tighter, and so you've got to figure
Speaker 2: out a way where you can feel a little bit
Speaker 2: more comfortable for sitting for like four hours.
Speaker 1: I remember people back in the day would always ask
Speaker 1: the top chef, host and judges like if they had
Speaker 1: a workout routine during filming, because you're eating that much food.
Speaker 1: I thought, you're just having a little bite.
Speaker 2: And then in some cases, so I always I've always
Speaker 2: said on TV, I know it looks like we're eating
Speaker 2: so much food, which, yes it is. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of food. But I would argue that every bite that
Speaker 2: I take, if you took every single bite I consumed
Speaker 2: and put it on one plate, the volume of that
Speaker 2: food is no bigger than a regular meal.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I would guess. Like.
Speaker 2: The only thing that makes it a little bit more
Speaker 2: challenging is like so many different flavor profiles that your
Speaker 2: brain is trying to comprehend. But it's not that much food.
Speaker 2: If you ask me, I still need to eat again
Speaker 2: after so you do? We do? We go to dinner.
Speaker 2: Gail Simmons is famous for saying we are human beings
Speaker 2: and the beauty of that is that we can eat
Speaker 2: a meal, but what four hours later you need another one?
Speaker 1: That's so nice? Yeah, really cool. You've been nominated for
Speaker 1: an Emmy every season that you've hosted. As someone who
Speaker 1: used to never want attention to be on her, what
Speaker 1: does it mean to you to be nominated as the
Speaker 1: face of something.
Speaker 2: I think that I am accepting it more and I'm
Speaker 2: a little bit more comfortable with it because this is
Speaker 2: a cooking competition show that I once competed on that.
Speaker 2: I want one because of my skill, and so I
Speaker 2: feel less of like maybe a floating head and more
Speaker 2: of like I came up through this show. I am
Speaker 2: standing in this position because I compete on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your DNA is there.
Speaker 2: It feels it feels genuine and authentic. So sometimes I
Speaker 2: feel like, perhaps I feel a little bit lacking purpose,
Speaker 2: and that sometimes makes you feel uncomfortable. If I'm in
Speaker 2: a room and I don't feel like I have a
Speaker 2: strong purpose here. I feel very grounded in that purpose,
Speaker 2: and so therefore it's more comfortable. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 2: the crew, and it's like it's a show that has
Speaker 2: changed so many lives, that has then gone on and
Speaker 2: translated so many of your lives because we all need
Speaker 2: to eat. And you go to these restaurants, yes, and
Speaker 2: you seek out these chefs that you've just watched on television,
Speaker 2: and you're fueling and feeding the communities because you're going
Speaker 2: to the restaurants and the small businesses. It's just this
Speaker 2: whole ecosystem that goes from TV reality, television entertainment into
Speaker 2: all of our lives in some form.
Speaker 1: I actually want a cultural critic to do a study
Speaker 1: on Top Chef and the increase of popular like mass
Speaker 1: media female chefs. Yes, because I remember I'm from Chicago,
Speaker 1: and I remember Stephanie opened multiple restaurants in Chicago in
Speaker 1: a place that is incredibly male dominated, like we'd never
Speaker 1: really had that before. I just I do think it's
Speaker 1: changed so many people's lives and it sho is a
Speaker 1: land shape of this industry in so many ways.
Speaker 2: I love you talk about the introduction to amazing, strong,
Speaker 2: powerful women in the kitchen that have been doing this
Speaker 2: thing for so long, but now like this moment of recognition,
Speaker 2: same thing with different foods from different cultures that aren't
Speaker 2: mainstream for a long time, weren't like in the top
Speaker 2: like three cuisines that were being celebrated, but now they are,
Speaker 2: and they're surpassing the French and the Italian. Like now
Speaker 2: we're talking, we're going, we're seeking out restaurants that are
Speaker 2: like I mean, I had never been to a fine
Speaker 2: dining Nigerian restaurant before. Now those exist. How cool was that?
Speaker 1: You're right, so you posted across fast foodies, Iron chef
Speaker 1: restaurants at the end of the world, and now of
Speaker 1: course Top Chef. What is each version of that experience
Speaker 1: given you that you didn't expect.
Speaker 2: You know, when you look back on life, you're like,
Speaker 2: all of the right things happened at the right time,
Speaker 2: and then you can start to puzzle piece your life
Speaker 2: together and you're like, oh, it all makes sense now.
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that Fast Foodies lent me
Speaker 2: to posting Iron Chef. I remember there was a very
Speaker 2: top executive that I had known for my Top Chef
Speaker 2: days who was working at Netflix at the time. She
Speaker 2: saw me on Fast Foodies and she's like, oh, Christen
Speaker 2: has found her voice, and that's how my name entered
Speaker 2: somewhere in the Iron Chef consideration. And Iron Chef, I
Speaker 2: know for a fact got me ready for like the
Speaker 2: spontaneity and the unscripted like nis of what Top Chef is. Yes,
Speaker 2: every step taught me that I am actually good at
Speaker 2: these things, and it's got confidence booster like every single
Speaker 2: time I did it. Yeah, I mean, even if the
Speaker 2: show's never got picked up, it just made room and
Speaker 2: experience for the next thing and the next thing. I
Speaker 2: remember I was so sad when one show didn't get
Speaker 2: picked up, and I was devastated and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god. But then three months later, another show
Speaker 2: another network came in, and had the other show gotten
Speaker 2: picked up, I wouldn't have been able to do this
Speaker 2: other one that actually excited anymore.
Speaker 1: You're only able to see it in hindsight, you.
Speaker 2: Are, Yeah, which is like teaching you a lot of
Speaker 2: patience in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another gift of age.
Speaker 2: Also, Yes, I love getting older because I'm learning so
Speaker 2: much more about myself. And also you're embracing all of
Speaker 2: the most amazing things that you never knew you could
Speaker 2: dream that those all start to come into focus as
Speaker 2: each year passes.
Speaker 1: I never thought getting older would happen to me the
Speaker 1: way I don't feel like menopause is going to happen
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: I just genuinely like, I'm not even Yeah, we'll talk
Speaker 3: about it later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, call me when you're having your first night sweat.
Speaker 2: I'll do the same.
Speaker 1: Okay, good. But I do actually like aging.
Speaker 2: I really truly, yeah, I truly do. Life gets better
Speaker 2: and better because I get more comfortable with myself. And
Speaker 2: there's something so freeing about understanding who you are and
Speaker 2: what you want and what matters and most importantly, what
Speaker 2: doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to talk about your personal story
Speaker 1: because we talked a lot about food. But after reading
Speaker 1: your memoir accidentally on purpose, I felt as if I
Speaker 1: understood where your love of food came from. And I
Speaker 1: want everybody to feel that. It's so much about finding
Speaker 1: your way. And you said something I loved. I wrote
Speaker 1: it down it says today. My interest in exploring the
Speaker 1: Korean parts of me is rooted in my sense of curiosity.
Speaker 1: When I hosted travel shows, my tendency to question everything
Speaker 1: was the drive. I'm interested in seeing how other people live,
Speaker 1: in knowing what another.
Speaker 2: Life could be like.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that deep curiosity came from you
Speaker 1: wanting to understand the world or was it really you
Speaker 1: wanting to understand yourself?
Speaker 2: It was more about myself, and it was if we
Speaker 2: take a couple of steps behind that, it was being
Speaker 2: adopted and growing up in a home that I was not.
Speaker 2: I didn't look like everybody else, And so also when
Speaker 2: you are adopted, you can't help but think about all
Speaker 2: the other things that could have happened, that could have
Speaker 2: landed you with another family and any other part of
Speaker 2: the world, and how different your life could have been.
Speaker 2: And that has always been that driving force of the
Speaker 2: curiosity I could have been I could have been anywhere else, Like,
Speaker 2: of course we all have that right. We're born into
Speaker 2: the family, and like what if I was born into another?
Speaker 2: But there's I don't know if there's words to explain it.
Speaker 2: And I think being an adoptee, there is this sense
Speaker 2: of belonging that never really settles in in the way
Speaker 2: that I feel like if you are biologically born into
Speaker 2: a family, so yeah, you always feel like what if,
Speaker 2: what if that happened? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've had friends who are adopted who would say to
Speaker 1: me like they would look around and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe that's my mom, or yeah, you felt that.
Speaker 2: When I went to Korea for the first time, I
Speaker 2: was like kind of taken aback. I was like, I
Speaker 2: look like you're because when you're transracially adopted and you
Speaker 2: don't look like the people. I don't want to say
Speaker 2: long for longenforce is not the right word. But I've
Speaker 2: always been the most curious about what two people made
Speaker 2: me like. And I would love to see a picture
Speaker 2: of these two people that made me because you could
Speaker 2: look at your family member's cousins, mom, dad, whatever, and
Speaker 2: be like, oh my god, we have the same eyes. Yes,
Speaker 2: you can draw that connection, but I don't have that.
Speaker 2: But I will say, more importantly, the thing that I
Speaker 2: can say that I got from my mom and dad,
Speaker 2: which I think is even more important than how you look,
Speaker 2: is your values in your character. I don't think that
Speaker 2: was instilled in me within birth. That had to be
Speaker 2: taught to me by example, and that is more important
Speaker 2: than anything.
Speaker 1: I almost feel emotional hearing you talk about it right now.
Speaker 1: I said to my dad the other day, he was like,
Speaker 1: your eyebrows look good, and I said, well, they're your eyebrows.
Speaker 1: And even at thirty five, I feel such a connection
Speaker 1: because of that, and I truly feel like I'm an
Speaker 1: empathetic person. I cannot even imagine what it would feel
Speaker 1: like growing up and not having that the.
Speaker 2: Thing that you feel for me at least the things
Speaker 2: that I felt like I missed out on. I mean,
Speaker 2: you spend about half a millisecond thinking about it because
Speaker 2: you realize all the things that you actually have and
Speaker 2: the things that you've gained. My life is infinitely bigger
Speaker 2: and better in all the ways because of my mom
Speaker 2: and my dad and my brother. M Like, without question,
Speaker 2: there's no way I would have become this person without them,
Speaker 2: and I know that.
Speaker 1: For a fact. Do you feel now sitting here you
Speaker 1: can say you have found an anchor point or does
Speaker 1: that sense of belonging still sort of sting or live
Speaker 1: inside of you? Vibrate maybe is a better word.
Speaker 2: There's a difference now because there's a personal and professional
Speaker 2: belonging that I'm very much grounded in. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 2: cultural belonging that is still a little bit undetermined that
Speaker 2: needs more exploration. That part needs more permission for me
Speaker 2: to give myself to say, well, already, yeah I am
Speaker 2: Korean enough or I know enough. So the cultural belonging
Speaker 2: is different. Yeah, I go to Korea and I still
Speaker 2: feel I look around and I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: belong And you have to reckon with the idea that
Speaker 2: you feel like you should and then you don't. That's
Speaker 2: like this like inner turmoil that's happening over here. But
Speaker 2: I've gotten more comfortable with that as I've gotten over.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you went to Korea?
Speaker 2: I do. It was for five days for a work trip,
Speaker 2: and I questioned on whether I wanted to go or
Speaker 2: not in that way, but I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is perfect like someone else paying for it. I
Speaker 2: don't have to put so much pressure on myself to
Speaker 2: find it and like to find myself. And so I
Speaker 2: remember some adopted friends that I have said, you know,
Speaker 2: when you get on the airplane and you're coming into
Speaker 2: land in Soul, Korea, you're going to look out and
Speaker 2: you see the motherland and you are going to feel
Speaker 2: this thing. Your eyes are going to well, you're going
Speaker 2: to have this whole moment. And I still remember I
Speaker 2: was sitting on the airplane and I was looking out
Speaker 2: the windows like Okay, that feeling is not coming, like
Speaker 2: what is wrong with me? And then you know, when
Speaker 2: you start to force yourself to feel something, you're like,
Speaker 2: come on, like you like hype yourself up, and it
Speaker 2: never came. And I felt so defeated because I was like,
Speaker 2: everyone told me that this is what's going to happen,
Speaker 2: and then it makes you feel like, well, what's wrong
Speaker 2: with me? Yes, But that feeling came later on. I
Speaker 2: was walking through a market and I stopped in this
Speaker 2: little stamp store and they make like pand stamps or whatever,
Speaker 2: and the guy making the stamps, he's like, well, what
Speaker 2: do you want? I said, my Korean name and he
Speaker 2: was like, well, what is it? And then you know,
Speaker 2: he started asking me other questions and you know, I
Speaker 2: told him I stopped it my first time, blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and he said to me, oh my god, now I'm
Speaker 2: going to cry. This is like the eight time I've
Speaker 2: told this story, and I cry every single time, and
Speaker 2: he goes, he goes, you belong here. It was that
Speaker 2: was That was my moment of coming into the soul
Speaker 2: that I never expected.
Speaker 1: Why does it make you emotional.
Speaker 2: Because I think hearing it for the first time from
Speaker 2: a complete stranger, after feeling like you failed at feeling
Speaker 2: the thing you were supposed to feel coming there, and
Speaker 2: it just like completely caught you off guard. Like I
Speaker 2: was like, holy shit, because I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: belong here whatsoever. Because I spent four months in my
Speaker 2: life there, that's it, and then I left and so
Speaker 2: to find I mean, hopefully everybody can have that moment
Speaker 2: of like, oh my god, I finally belong And it
Speaker 2: was like this permission to be like, yeah, you didn't
Speaker 2: have to grow up here, you don't have to speak
Speaker 2: the same language, I have to know anything about this
Speaker 2: damn country. If you don't want to but you still
Speaker 2: belong here. And I think that was like because there
Speaker 2: was so much pressure I put on myself. Well, yeah, exhale,
Speaker 2: I exhaled hearing you. Yeah. I tell that story all
Speaker 2: the time and I cry every time. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something about your story or the mini stories
Speaker 1: within your larger story. I should say that hit on
Speaker 1: the theme of that, which is this beautiful stranger who
Speaker 1: you never saw again, came into your life and saw
Speaker 1: something in you. And I get the title accidentally on purpose.
Speaker 1: It seems like you fell in love accidentally on purpose too.
Speaker 2: I did complete accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which can we talk about how that could happen
Speaker 1: to me?
Speaker 2: It's going to happen for you.
Speaker 1: That's the most beautiful way to fall in.
Speaker 2: Love is when it just happens.
Speaker 1: I'm joking. I want to hear your story, but it's
Speaker 1: really moving, and I actually want to share your dedication first,
Speaker 1: because you say for the two people whose story I
Speaker 1: do not know yet, but who set my own in motion.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if being adopted shaped that way of thinking
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: How can it not? It is something that sometimes in
Speaker 2: parts of my life I try to feel or like
Speaker 2: create in like this nice little package of like, I
Speaker 2: totally get it and this is what it is. But
Speaker 2: every time I've gone through stages of life, it's opened
Speaker 2: up a part of me that I think is tied
Speaker 2: to that. And sometimes it's a feeling that I carry
Speaker 2: on with me for the rest of my life. And
Speaker 2: sometimes it's just like a fleeting thought, but it's you know,
Speaker 2: I think that is my that is my history, that
Speaker 2: is my connection to my culture, and so I hold
Speaker 2: on to it really really tightly, and I protect it.
Speaker 2: I think it's important. And the same way that you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of my friends have gone on and you know,
Speaker 2: really tapped into their culture and how they want to cook.
Speaker 2: For me, it's like that's the place I go back
Speaker 2: to to find the inspiration on the things that I
Speaker 2: want to do and how I live my life and
Speaker 2: the food I want to cook.
Speaker 1: How do you process the mystery of where your story
Speaker 1: began while owning where it's gone.
Speaker 2: I look at it through a lens of excitement and
Speaker 2: a mystery that never has to be solved. And I
Speaker 2: think when you take that pressure off of you don't
Speaker 2: have to have the answer, you don't have to complete
Speaker 2: the circle. It's the thing and it can remain a mystery,
Speaker 2: and every time I decide to visit it, it could
Speaker 2: be a different question. It could be a different mystery.
Speaker 2: You can tell a different story. And I think that
Speaker 2: is it's like this open ended book over here that
Speaker 2: just gets to live on and on and on.
Speaker 1: I really admire that you're not obsessed with cracking the case.
Speaker 2: No, I had to let that go a long time ago,
Speaker 2: because it's never going to get cracked. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of things with transracial adoption that is very complicated. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are stories, you know, mid seventies to mid eighties
Speaker 2: where you know, American adoption agencies were basically stealing babies
Speaker 2: and it was like they were selling these children internationally,
Speaker 2: and there were accusations on a lot of these agencies.
Speaker 2: And so could I have been part of that. Maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know, and I don't need to know, and
Speaker 2: that's also okay, And I will never know. So the
Speaker 2: things that I know for a fact may not even
Speaker 2: be a fact, which to some people I think might
Speaker 2: kind of drive them a little crazy. For me, it's
Speaker 2: just it is what it is. There's nothing I can
Speaker 2: do about it. So what I know is that the
Speaker 2: story that has been told to me on paper written
Speaker 2: in reports. Was a woman came in a clinic, room
Speaker 2: number two. She was wearing a navy sweatsuit, she had
Speaker 2: permed hair. She came in, she was five to four,
Speaker 2: gave birth to me, never came back. They waited four days.
Speaker 2: They gave me over to the authorities, and then I
Speaker 2: got shuffle around orphanages until I was adopted. That's the
Speaker 2: story I tell. That's the story that I mostly believe.
Speaker 2: But there is a possibility that that's not true. So
Speaker 2: my life's journey is not to solve that story. My
Speaker 2: life journey is actually to just create the life that
Speaker 2: I'm living and that I want.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that second part. The question, the existential
Speaker 1: question of like what is the meaning or purpose of
Speaker 1: life gets thrown around, especially on podcasts, I think a lot.
Speaker 1: And the best answer I've ever heard was from Oprah
Speaker 1: and Ruepaul in an interview, and RuPaul said, well, the
Speaker 1: first thing is for me to enjoy this life.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. We don't have to figure everything out, we
Speaker 2: don't have to have everything in order. You got one
Speaker 2: living life right now that's happening. I mean, it would
Speaker 2: be a horrible thing to watch that pass by trying
Speaker 2: to like solve problems that really don't need to be solved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, tell me the love story.
Speaker 2: So actually it's actually not romantic, I guess. So a
Speaker 2: lot of my relationships before meeting my wife Bianca were
Speaker 2: always founded and rooted in passion and lust that I
Speaker 2: was getting confused with love and at that stage in
Speaker 2: my life that was totally fine. Had a great time,
Speaker 2: mildly toxic, but really exciting, and I learned a lot.
Speaker 2: So at that stage of my life, I thought that
Speaker 2: was love, and that's okay. It was. I can componly
Speaker 2: say that I have loved every one of my exes.
Speaker 2: With Bianca, it was the unexpected. It's the thing that
Speaker 2: I didn't know. I moved to Austin to open a restaurant.
Speaker 2: I had never been there. We have a whole corporate
Speaker 2: team from New York that's coming in, so we're all
Speaker 2: meeting in this place to open up this project. And
Speaker 2: over time Bianca and I became friends. Six or seven
Speaker 2: months we were friends and entered a relationship like that
Speaker 2: before because you go out on a date and the
Speaker 2: goal is to see where this goes, and to date
Speaker 2: and have a relationship with Bianca. I wasn't looking for
Speaker 2: a relationship, but this friendship started to build, and so
Speaker 2: that foundation of getting to know somebody before putting the
Speaker 2: pressures on the future was a very new feeling for me.
Speaker 2: And so just it happened. I can't it's hard to
Speaker 2: give all the different ways that it happened because I'm
Speaker 2: not exactly sure what was going on. But eventually we
Speaker 2: got to a place where it was like, I think
Speaker 2: I'm feeling something. I don't know if she is, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to like overstep. It was also a
Speaker 2: part in my career where like I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't really want to mess up this working professional relationship
Speaker 2: that we have and a personal friendship that has been built. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I was treading very lightly and I don't
Speaker 2: know it just it all happened because we like high fived,
Speaker 2: and that high five lingered just a little too long,
Speaker 2: and that was like a mutual I don't know, it
Speaker 2: was all in high five. You both knew, Yes, it
Speaker 2: was instant.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after what six or seven months of knowing each other, and.
Speaker 3: Then you knew it was worth risking the friendship. It
Speaker 3: was it was worth finding out where it went. And
Speaker 3: I think because at that point, I mean again, we
Speaker 3: had developed a foundation of friendship for six or seven months.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it was a really confident box to stand
Speaker 2: on to want to go into the next stage.
Speaker 1: Tell me, if you're willing, how you've changed now being
Speaker 1: in love with Beyonce.
Speaker 2: I cry a lot more. She required of me to
Speaker 2: become more emotionally available. I thought I was. I was not.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, yeah, and heart I thought.
Speaker 2: That I always needed to be this strong pillar of
Speaker 2: like strength and having it all together. And when doing that,
Speaker 2: I thought that meant I wasn't allowed to feel all
Speaker 2: the things that made me sad, or that made me pry,
Speaker 2: or things that softened me. So she required me to
Speaker 2: be that for myself first and foremost, which then you know,
Speaker 2: helps out her. She is the most. There aren't enough
Speaker 2: words that I know that can properly describe the human
Speaker 2: that she is. I don't and it's you know, I
Speaker 2: talk about her all the time and I'm running out
Speaker 2: of words because they're not they don't carry enough weight.
Speaker 2: It is a feeling. Every single person that has ever
Speaker 2: cross paths with her have always said to me, how
Speaker 2: fuck did you get this one? I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: She is she is compassionate, she is strong, she has
Speaker 2: this magical empathy about her and how she moves through
Speaker 2: the world. She has the heart of of goals. It's
Speaker 2: it's a it's a feeling. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: And so it's been like to exhale in this relationship.
Speaker 2: I have never felt more myself and have been given
Speaker 2: more permission to be all the versions of myself, all
Speaker 2: of them without judgment. It is truly the definition of
Speaker 2: unconditional love, which prior to Bianca I only knew that
Speaker 2: in the form of my families unconditional love. You talk,
Speaker 2: we talk about getting older and feeling more free. It
Speaker 2: is exactly the same feeling. You can breathe, you can disagree,
Speaker 2: you can fight, you can have arguments to you can
Speaker 2: have challenges, but like everything is grounded and we are
Speaker 2: doing like we are going like this is ours. It's
Speaker 2: not going anywhere, and so you're so willing to go
Speaker 2: through all that stuff because you know it's going to
Speaker 2: be okay.
Speaker 1: I saw you well up a little bit when you're tied.
Speaker 2: I typically cry when I talk about her.
Speaker 1: What are you feeling?
Speaker 2: There's a lot of layered feelings because for a long
Speaker 2: time I didn't think I was going to be able
Speaker 2: to get married. Why because it wasn't legal. I mean,
Speaker 2: it wasn't legal for same sex couples to get married
Speaker 2: until twenty fifteen. That's insane. Yeah, and so I never
Speaker 2: thought it was something I could dream. I struggled a
Speaker 2: lot with my sexuality when I was a kid, wondering
Speaker 2: if I was ever ever going to live a life
Speaker 2: that felt true to me. And so when you find
Speaker 2: that person that allows you to do all those things
Speaker 2: in a time where it is now possible. But there's
Speaker 2: this thing that in the book, it says, one day
Speaker 2: I will wake up knowing that I have lived my genuine,
Speaker 2: out authentic life longer than I had not been living. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. I still haven't crossed over that
Speaker 2: threshold of living in that majority yet, and so I
Speaker 2: never take it for granted I'm allowed to live. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's more than gratitude. It's a possibility that I thought
Speaker 2: was impossible for a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you had that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got me too, because I don't know if anyone
Speaker 2: you can read it in the book that I don't
Speaker 2: know if anyone understood unless you have felt it before,
Speaker 2: the hopelessness and the like kind of gave up on
Speaker 2: thinking that you were ever going to be able to
Speaker 2: live the life you could live. I still remember that
Speaker 2: feeling deeply.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that ever goes away, like you
Speaker 1: can access that so quickly.
Speaker 2: But I think when you channel it and you push
Speaker 2: it into attitude and love and opportunity and possibility, it
Speaker 2: just it fuels it even more.
Speaker 1: Were there any books or stories or movies that gave
Speaker 1: you hope when you were growing up that made you
Speaker 1: think like it made you feel seen at all?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think so. My mom and
Speaker 2: dad tried. They would read me like the Korean Cinderella,
Speaker 2: you know, I would see queer people on TV, but
Speaker 2: it was never it was different. It was different back then.
Speaker 2: So no, I think that's why it almost felt I've
Speaker 2: almost felt hopeless.
Speaker 1: Your life is such a testimony then, I mean, I
Speaker 1: hope so, krimh I do some rapid fire with you,
Speaker 1: Kristin the last time, you were a real life trader.
Speaker 2: I was a trader to myself the last time I
Speaker 2: said yes to what I think was the wrong job
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: The most underrated fried food.
Speaker 2: I know you said rapid fire, but I take these
Speaker 2: very seriously.
Speaker 1: No, I appreciate this.
Speaker 2: Would you consider a fried pickle underrated? Yeah? Okay, fried
Speaker 2: pickle delicious, never had dipped it. And excuse me now,
Speaker 2: I'm serious. The most overrated fried food only because they're
Speaker 2: everywhere on menus. Fried olives. I don't need a fried olive.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that would be like.
Speaker 2: You just take an olive, dip it and do egg
Speaker 2: washed bread from and fry it. I'm okay on that.
Speaker 2: I don't need that.
Speaker 1: Okay, the silliest way that you've injured yourself in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Oh god, you really want to know, Okay. I was
Speaker 2: in my twenties. It was a very interesting time of
Speaker 2: my life in Chicago. I was having a lot of
Speaker 2: fun doing extra curriculars, and I went to work not
Speaker 2: fully in my present body. I caught my finger. That
Speaker 2: was so dumb. It was so dumb. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: But also recently, like three christmases ago, this is it?
Speaker 2: Scratch that first answer, three christmases ago, Like I have
Speaker 2: this beautiful Japanese knife and I was washing it and
Speaker 2: I took the sponge.
Speaker 1: I'm scared to hear that story.
Speaker 2: Washed it and I had the sponge in one hand
Speaker 2: and a knife in the other. I got distracted. I
Speaker 2: went to ring out the sponge, but I closed the
Speaker 2: knife hand and my wife took me to the emergency room.
Speaker 2: And it was kind of funny that she was having
Speaker 2: a hard time. I was like laying in bed on
Speaker 2: the thing with my hand up, and she had to
Speaker 2: lay down in the hallway because she couldn't look at
Speaker 2: my hand anymore. And they kept going to her being like,
Speaker 2: are you okay. It's like the moment, you know when
Speaker 2: like the husband passes out because the wife is giving
Speaker 2: birth to a human child.
Speaker 1: It was a little like that moment, okay. The most
Speaker 1: underutilized condiment.
Speaker 2: Underutilized Okay, I say this because it's very divisive condiment, mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: It belongs in everything, in anything you can cook with it.
Speaker 2: It can go in sweet, savory, baked goods. It can
Speaker 2: be a sauce, it can be a thing to help
Speaker 2: brown and crisp things.
Speaker 1: God it with French fries and ketchup.
Speaker 2: French fries and anything. It is beautiful. It translates to
Speaker 2: every part of the kitchen for me. Totally agree.
Speaker 1: Okay, best dinner party hack, and I'm asking for a
Speaker 1: friend with this one.
Speaker 2: Best dinner party hack, Like, what's added value?
Speaker 1: Or why wouldn't you you had to eat one thing
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life and fingers the chef
Speaker 1: you'd want to make your last meal?
Speaker 2: Ooh good Meylan, she's a former Top Chef winner. He
Speaker 2: is one of the most brilliant cooks that I know.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a huge answerable. Okay, something every woman should
Speaker 1: try once.
Speaker 2: Shaving their head. I did it. I did it, and
Speaker 2: I grow back. It wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: the worst either.
Speaker 1: Of a good shaped head. Kristin, No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's why. No, that's why I grew up back. The
Speaker 2: profile is a little flat. So I think it was
Speaker 2: a very liberating moment for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, a book you read that changed your life, something
Speaker 1: you think everybody should read.
Speaker 2: I don't read books.
Speaker 1: Do you listen to them?
Speaker 2: Nope?
Speaker 1: So you wrote one.
Speaker 2: My book changed my life.
Speaker 1: There you go. Okay, grab the question everything, Cardiga, Okay,
Speaker 1: shuffle through. It's like Taro, I really believe you get
Speaker 1: which everyone calls to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I just picked one. Yeah, I see there's
Speaker 2: a red one floating right. That's the instruction card. Do
Speaker 2: plants thrive or die in your care? This is a
Speaker 2: perfect question. Well, they die, but my wife makes them thrive,
Speaker 2: so I win. And that's why you're a perfect care exactly. Kristin,
Speaker 2: you are such a joy to be with. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, as are you. Thank you for
Speaker 2: making me cry cute.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week.