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FEMALE SPEAKER: Please join me in welcoming to Google New
York, Alex Guarnaschelli.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Thank you.
Thank you.
Do you love my homey that I brought in
the front row texting?
How are you?
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's right.
We got a lot of people here that are psyched.
So at Google, passion is huge.
We are passionate people.
We take on passionate projects.
And I was curious as to how you turned, and when you
turned, your passion for food and cooking into a career.
What triggered it?
What triggered the passion even before it was a career, I
should say?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Well, I would say that I'm not a
terribly organized person, and that I don't really think
things happen that clearly.
My mother cooked with wild abandon.
My mother's a cookbook editor.
And I know we're no longer in an age where books are the
most relevant form of information.
But when I was growing up they really were.
And my parents are two nerdy academics that met while they
were getting their respective PhDs at Yale.
My dad got his PhD in European history specializing in
Napoleonic warfare and was a TA.
And my mother was getting a PhD in Russian studies.
You can't make this stuff up.
So my mother conveniently speaks fluent Russian just in
case anything goes down.
And my father knows more about Napoleon than Napoleon did.
So they met.
They got married at Yale.
Suffice to say, you can imagine that books were kind
of an important thing.
So they got married.
And I grew up in a very big nine-room
apartment in midtown.
It's rent-controlled, people.
My dad told me the rent they pay the other day.
And I just kind of twitched.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Oh, god.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: But they deserve it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Absolutely.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: So my mother had 1,000 books.
My dad 1,000 books.
You multiply that by 80, and you
have my parents' apartment.
So I grew up in a place where my wallpaper was
bookshelves and books.
And I think that that has a profound effect on you or
consciousness, whether you realize it or not, when you
run around the apartment where you live and there's nothing
but books and manuscripts.
And my mother's process for editing a cookbook was to take
the manuscript and cook every single recipe in it.
The consequence, or the result, was in 1980 when she
started really delving into cookbooks.
She did a cookbook called "Classic Indian Cooking."
So that cookbook came out 30, 32 years ago.
It's still in print.
I mean, what?
A black-and-white Indian cookbook with no photographs?
You can still buy it at Barnes and Noble.
I go and I look for it.
I'm like, I'm going to Barnes and Noble just to see if that
book is sitting on the shelf.
I'm not going to buy it.
So we spent a year eating Indian food, which was very
confusing because I'm Italian American.
And my father loves Napoleon and France.
And my mom was making all these souffles.
And then all of a sudden we were eating lentils and dals
and spices and all this stuff.
And my father doesn't really care for Indian food because
it doesn't have any butter or eggs, so to speak.
So he called it the mowed lawn phase.
He said that everything tasted like a freshly mowed lawn.
Which I really disagree with.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I disagree.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: So that was an interesting year.
And then the year after that, she did a book called "The
Splendid Table," by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, which was the
food of Emilia-Romagna.
So for a year, we went from lentils and dals to balsamic
vinegar and parmigiano reggiano ad nauseum.
My father said, if I see another drop of balsamic
vinegar in this house, I'm leaving.
She then did a book called "The Cake Bible,"
by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
So that was not good because that was really an elastic
waist year.
And the thing about my mother is all the while there was
this other pulsating undercurrent of reading and
cooking from issues of "Gourmet" magazine that she
had bound into binders.
I think my mother has 30 years of "Gourmet" bound in books.
So she would make a cake from Rosy Levy Beranbaum's "Cake
Bible," and then make a pie from a 1974 November issue of
"Gourmet" magazine and say, do you feel that this cake
relates to this pie at all?
How do you think pie has changed?
I'm 13.
This was just really practice for "Chopped." I mean, it's
funny, I know.
But it's also insanely true.
The fork was in the air.
And my mom would say, how does it taste?
So there was never just a moment of eating that was just
sort of like--
and let's get this out of the way.
I love Doritos.
I love Oreos.
And I love Fruit Loops.
I also really love ice cold skim milk, Fruity Pebbles, and
a scoop of Haagen-Daz chocolate chocolate chip in
the middle of it.
So let's get the junk food out of the way.
I like junk food.
And I'm cool with that.
So there was just this constant interview process.
So she cooked from all these manuscripts.
And guess what happens when you are an editor and you go
through a book and you cook everything in it and you edit
it that way?
You wind up with a great book because it's been sort of
lived through the editor's eyes.
And the net result is that my mother has been behind many
iconic cookbooks, including the 1997 revision of "The Joy
of Cooking," which my mother took on.
And that, she spent three years doing, sleepless.
I was working at Restaurant Daniel at the time.
And he used to serve lunch.
So I would get up at 4:00 and go to the restaurant to be
there by 4:30, 5 o'clock.
I'll talk about what I ate when I worked
at Daniel in a minute.
So I would get up and she would be still up, with her
glasses off, you know, this close to the manuscript.
And I'd say, what's up?
And she'd say, does this look like a Malpeque oyster or not?
And she'd showed me a drawing of an oyster.
So we'd go back to that moment with the pie, the cake, the
comparisons.
There was never a moment where it wasn't a quiz.
And I said, you know, it looks a little
round around the edges.
It looks a little Blue Point, if you ask me.
What?
The next day, mom, how are you?
Does this look like a Belgian waffle?
Three years of that.
The result is that that book also has really endured, that
particular edition of "The Joy of Cooking." So needless to
say, I spent a childhood steeped in food in a very
peculiar way.
The net result is I never once thought about becoming a chef.
I never once thought about being
passionate about cooking.
And it never gave me any inkling or idea about what I
wanted to do with my life.
And I hope that that's OK with you guys.
Because I think a lot of people come to me and they
say, I'm passionate.
And I say, cool.
I might not be today.
I know this is this big moment where there's a payoff for you
as an audience, where I say to you all this stuff happened,
and, oh my god, I became a chef.
And unicorns flew out of the refrigerator.
And there were rainbows and star decals.
And I got a gold medal and whatever.
No, actually, zero of that happened.
When I went to college, I ate a lot of Rice-A-Roni.
Good stuff, by the way.
Don't tell anybody.
FEMALE SPEAKER: You know this is Google.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Go to Google and tell secrets.
Good idea.
So I made a lot of cakes.
It was, like, dude, so-and-so's birthday, can you
make a cake?
And I just liked doing it.
I just did it.
I made these pans of lasagna with shoplifted pieces of
mozzarella.
That stuff's expensive.
And I just cooked a lot, but in that kind of random college
way like, dude, I made some ramen and I put
a bay leaf in it.
It's good.
So, again, I get back to this idea that I was steeped in
food the whole time, and I'm disorganized.
And I didn't make the connection.
But when I woke up on graduation day, I thought I'm
going to decide by the end of the day what I'm going to do
with the rest of my life and that's it.
So I promptly drank a beer.
Because if you're going to have a day like that, you
should probably have a beer at 9 AM.
I had a couple.
They were cold.
There were good.
That cheap beer, you know that crappy beer that doesn't
really have a label?
So I graduated from college, and I started working in the
kitchen for free to kind of explore this idea about
whether I wanted to spend the money on getting a degree in
cooking and whatever else.
And I never looked back.
The disorder, the chaos, the anarchy, the peril, the
danger, the abuse, the lack of skill--
all those things were just too compelling to turn down.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So it wasn't so much passion.
It was just, sounds like, destiny.
Did you have another thought of, you know, maybe I will be
a Spanish teacher.
I mean, you have Napoleon.
You've got someone who's fluent in Russian.
You're eating Indian food.
Why not just go a completely different route?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No, this has been my
dilemma with myself.
I question whether you actually can connect with your
passion until you do something so many times that you
actually become really good at it.
And that, in fact, is when you actually can say you're
passionate.
I think Roger Federer is probably super passionate
about tennis.
You notice that?
I'll bet you Al Pacino is really
passionate about acting.
I think it takes a long time to get good at something.
And depending on your inner struggle, I think it can take
you even longer to think that you're good at something.
I'm still getting there myself, without
joke, a lot of therapy.
23 years of cooking and starting to feel like I'm kind
of getting the hang of this cooking thing.
But I question.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think so.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I think it's OK--
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think everybody here would agree
that you've got the hang of cooking.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No, no.
That's sweet.
I think it's OK to not be sure if you're passionate, or be
confused and decide later.
But then you can get drunk at a cocktail party and tell
everybody you're passionate.
It's cool.
Like, get it out.
Work it out.
Get on that emotional treadmill.
Let it out.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's kind of when the passion comes out,
after a couple cocktails.
And you're like, I just love ramen with bay leaves.
It is the best food.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I mean, for me, I call my fourth-grade
boyfriend and say, I loved you.
I did.
I really loved you.
And his wife is like, he has to get off the phone now.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think we're going to have to bring her
back for a whole different interview about that.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: And I'm censoring as I go.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Maybe we should have had you drink a
beer before you got up here.
I didn't think about that.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No, no.
Those days are over, believe me.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So, the book.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah.
FEMALE SPEAKER: First question, did your mom help
you edit this?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No, not at all.
She only saw the book after I turned in the final revision
to my editor.
I left on the coffee table.
What do we call it?
A dummy, a dummy.
So the manuscript, loose.
But color photographs, assembled the way
it's going to look.
So, in essence, it just needs to be folded and
bound at that point.
And I left it on the coffee table.
And I came home and my mom was sitting there like a cat on a
windowsill like when you've been gone for three days and
you didn't leave any food.
That where have you been *** look?
My mother gave me that look and she
said, I read your book.
I said, you did?
I left it.
I cleaned the whole room out and put the
manuscript on the table.
I was like, you found it.
And she said, I really love it.
You're a real writer.
So that was really cool.
And then she was like, it better sell or I'm
going to freak out.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So passion or no passion, you have a career
that is larger than life--
Iron Chef, TV celebrity chef, world renowned executive chef.
Why did you decide to write a cookbook now?
And what was your inspiration?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: You wouldn't write a cookbook--
I mean, you wouldn't direct a movie if Steven
Spielberg was your dad.
So it took a long time.
But I thought, you know, that I had all these experiences.
Interspersed throughout the book are page stories that are
just little isolated moments, most of them pretty hideous.
But some of them, I think, if you're not a chef, but you've
had-- everybody works in a community,
in a group of people.
Everybody fears failure.
Everybody has moments of vulnerability.
And I think that that's universal.
And those stories that I put peppered throughout the book
are those kind of moments the way I live them.
You know, you live them with a laptop or
with a search engine.
And I live them with onions.
There isn't really any difference.
I think we come up against the same
kind of internal dialogue.
And I thought that I would write about that and then in
the interim give a lot of recipes that are the
culmination of a lot of things I learned working in
restaurants and recipes I developed that just always
work mixed with the stuff that I really actually
like to cook at home.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's the question, so why did this book
focus more on the old-school comfort food?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah, I didn't want to write a chef-y
cookbook with dehydrated ham chips.
It's just not my style.
I mean, I can make stuff like that.
But I thought that I go to a cookbook and I open it.
And I'll buy anything anywhere.
I don't care.
I mean to say, I'll go to the other end of the earth to buy
an eye of newt to make something specific.
But I'm attracted to and drawn to cookbooks where I open it
and I say, I can make a couple of these recipes from what I
already have at home.
And I really wanted the book to have that feeling.
I think it's part of being old-school.
It's like you're all in a little ghetto.
You've got that knife you won because you were the ninth
customer at a gas station one day.
And you really like it.
And you have these fancy knives you got for Christmas
two years ago, but you like that crappy knife.
You have a jar of oregano that your parents brought you back
from a cruise of Capri six years ago.
And you're wondering if the oregano's still good.
You wonder about the expiration date of the baking
powder in your cabinet that you've used
twice in eight years.
I live the same way.
I think we all do.
And I wanted the book to make you feel like you could live
in that kind of context with yourself and be imperfect and
be human and cook, and make some stuff that you like.
Or just read it and not make a thing, and tell everybody that
you made every recipe in the book.
You could do that, too.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I may.
I love that you focus on old school, but what is your
definition of old school?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I'm glad you asked that.
For me, I looked up old school.
Because I like the term.
I'm like, dude, that's so old school.
And I'm thinking, what the hell is old school?
Well, I discovered that old school for me is anything that
I really like, period.
That's actually my own definition.
I'm like, dude, that's old school.
That shoelace is old school.
It doesn't matter what it is.
But I read that it is a moment where you realize something in
its original form serves as an inspiration for you to explore
new things.
So I like the idea that you could define old school by
saying, like, that's the OG idea.
And then you can do all this stuff, because it smacks of
that original feeling.
And I think food is so about feeling.
It's about the weather.
It's about whether you had a crappy morning.
It's about what you like to eat, what you find, what
resonates with you.
I mean, I'm sure you all have some food that you have, you
know, that no one but you needs to understand.
And you eat it.
Probably have many.
And that, really, by the way, also connects to culture.
How you grow up, what kinds of
ingredients you grew up eating.
Those are the tastes that are familiar to you.
And, again, I go back to my childhood.
It was very confusing.
I have two Italian American parents.
My father's family's from Naples.
And my mother's family is from Sicily.
But my father cooked Chinese food for a hobby.
So we had this whole cabinet of soy sauces.
I mean, 80 kinds of soy sauce and vinegar and corn starch
and rice flour and woks.
And then my mom was over here baking cakes and
making Indian food.
I don't know what the food of my childhood.
I don't know how you would define it, like disaster.
But the net result was I felt that old-school comfort food,
it was sort of my way of saying these are the things
that resonate with me.
And I tried not to make it too hodgepodge.
I mean, to have a souffle with kimchi is sort of like, OK,
who are you?
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's actually another question I
had, is that the recipes are
diverse, but they're connected.
And I'm just curious about how you approached putting
together, curating if you will, this
collection of recipes.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah, my mother cooked a
lot of French food.
She cooked from all of Julia Child's books, and Craig
Claiborne, and Dione Lucas, and James Beard.
To just such a point where we would sit down and my mom
would say, Julia says this tastes like this.
And I'm like, mom, the padded van is always parked outside
if things get bad.
But she lived and breathed these--
I'll call them characters because I think that their
recipes in their books sort of added powder and made you feel
as if there was an actual person or form that took shape
in your own kitchen.
So she lived with these characters.
And the food that I ate, I'd have to say, was fundamentally
French in technique and in style.
And I think that's why I ended up going to France.
Because I felt that that was where I thought I could really
learn how to cook, or build the
building blocks of cooking.
So the food here is actually closet French.
And then I hang American things on it.
It's a French tree with American ornaments.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's kind of awesome.
So in the book, there's a line that I loved.
It says you do not need a well-stocked kitchen.
Whatever equipment you gravitate towards is what you
should have.
I loved that.
Because people are like, you need this and this and this.
Or maybe it's just me being like, oh, I want
this, and I want this.
And, oh, I should have everything.
But I love that it's like, no, it's whatever
you gravitate towards.
For me, I guess it's everything.
But I'm curious, what do you gravitate towards?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: My kitchen's so embarrassing.
I don't have a nice kitchen at home.
And I kind of like that.
It kind of takes the pressure off.
I know this is where you think I say I have a Viking and a
Sub-Zero and all this other stuff.
And I actually don't.
I have like a GE 1960s thing, ovens.
My mother had the same one when I was growing up.
So I think there's that.
But what do I gravitate towards?
I probably have 200 or 300 knives at home
in boxes and drawers.
I mean, you've got to figure that's normal, right?
I mean, it feels normal to me.
I'd been given many knives.
I've been sent many knives.
I've bought many knives.
I've bought knives of people that I've admired thinking
that if I had their knife, I would be like we them.
Do you ever do that?
Like, if you put on a Superman costume, you are Superman?
Not if you get it at the Duane Reade, probably not.
So I have a lot of knives.
And I like knives.
But the ones I like are probably the ones I recommend,
the Sabatier, which is like $6.
That paring knife, honestly, when I compete in kitchen
stadium on Iron Chef, I take two of those with me.
And I have one on either side.
Because when you're nervous, you know, you--
it's like when you're searching for
a pen at your desk.
If you have an important call, I mean, I'm the type I'll put
pens all over my desk.
So that I'm like, uh-huh, I know I can grab anywhere and
there's a pen.
This knife is like my Woobee.
It's like the lioness, like the blanket.
So I have at least two of those at all times.
I like a microplane grater a lot.
I think you can microplane anything--
not human beings, but other things.
I think a Vita-Prep blender.
It's expensive.
It's the one indulgence I believe in.
And then just that weird accumulation.
I like All-Clad pans a lot--
not the fancy ones with the copper this, that, the other--
just that straight-up stainless steel.
And I like a cast iron skillet.
That's probably all I really need to function.
But, boy, do I have--
I mean, I have a sea urchin cutter.
I have a quail egg crimper.
I mean, I have boxes of stuff.
And I open it up, and I'm like what, like, really?
I have eight different cheese wires.
What's wrong with me?
But I in my actual kitchen, I try to keep it to a dull roar.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I can only imagine what kind of roars
come out of that kitchen.
So writing this cookbook, I always like to ask-- maybe not
passion, but discovery--
so what was your favorite discovery?
Or a strong moment you had during the writing this book,
the creation of this book?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I didn't.
I don't think I had any.
FEMALE SPEAKER: You just went for it?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: It's embarrassing, but honest.
I think I had had so many moments of discovery, and I
had collected them all, that the book was almost like a
scrap book of photographs that had already been taken.
And it was actually very easy for me to put together.
And I know this is the part where I say I sweat and cried
and I listened to Adele.
And I drank bourbon for five years.
And here is this book, this baby.
But it really wasn't like that.
I think I had been writing this book for probably a
decade or two, and just really needed to have the courage and
the confidence in thinking that someone would like to
hear about it or share it with me by binding it into a book.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Did you have any books that you read while
you were writing yours?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: So many.
How much time you got?
There's a book called "The Gourmet Cooking School
Cookbook" by Dione Lucas.
That's a woman, a chef, and food writer we don't really
talk about a lot.
The book, I think, is from 1965.
That book, I sleep with it under my pillow just in case I
forget anything.
I like "The Zuni Cafe Cookbook" by Judy Rodgers.
That really speaks to me.
I like "Sunday Suppers at Lucques." That's Suzanne Goin.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Interesting.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: There's a Morimoto book-- and I think
it's just "Morimoto"--
that's awesome.
And there's all these pictures.
And he sandwiches, pieces of fish in between kombu, which
is a seaweed that actually has like a sort of unappealing
white film on it that is actually a
natural form of MSG.
And he vinegars the seaweed to kind of moisten and activate,
and then puts the fish and sandwiches it, and then let's
it sit for an hour or so.
And when you take it out, it's sort of been salted and
marinated with the seaweed.
Come on, how cool is that?
Are you kidding me?
Who's going to think of that?
And, again, I get back to this idea that Julia Child's not
going to do that.
She's going to do something else.
So I like culture.
I think it's kind of cool.
Seaweed?
I mean, really?
So when I go to the beach and, like, seaweed washes on my
toe, I'm like, you, old friend.
FEMALE SPEAKER: For us amateur cooks in the room, is there,
like, one cookbook that you would say buy
this, beside yours?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: FEMALE SPEAKER: Oh, yeah, no.
Honestly, I know I'm biased because my mother edited it,
but if I was freaking out and really wanted a book to kind
of have and feel like I got a lot in it, first of all, "The
Joy of Cooking" any edition.
But the 1997 one, it really goes through--
I mean, I go to that book constantly.
When I'm stuck, I say, what kind of sauce can I make?
And I flip through the sauce section.
I just flip and scan the pages.
Or the poultry section.
Or I want to remember one little nuance about a type of
fish, I use it.
It's a reference book with recipes that work.
And that's pretty critical.
So that would probably my guess.
I also really like "The Fannie Farmer Cookbook,"
may she rest in peace.
But Marion Cunningham's "*** Farmer Cookbook"--
awesome.
First cookbook I ever really cooked from.
My parents are very late sleepers.
And I'm an only child.
So I was starving.
And I would flip through the cookbooks.
And she had these recipes for corn bread and
coffee cake and stuff.
And there was a few ingredients.
And I thought, I can do this.
So I would get up and bake, and just eat a lot.
But, again, it has nothing to do with becoming a chef.
It was kind of kooky.
Spend your life steeped in something and don't realize
you want to do it.
I wanted to be a marine biologist.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That actually doesn't surprise me, again,
given the range that you came from.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah, but instead of researching and
tagging fish, I caught them and cooked them.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So you are like a marine biologist in
some sort of ways.
I mean, you have a sea urchin cutter.
It's got to count for something.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I feel that I'm going to land in the
gates of hell, and there's going to be lobsters strewn
everywhere on lawn chairs, like, she's here.
Chef anxiety dream right there.
A little peek into my crock pot.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I see that as a Google Doodle right there.
So shifting a bit into kind of technology--
in this digital age, how do you see technology changing
the way you cook and how you approach food?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: It doesn't do much for me.
I use Google, specifically.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Good.
We're happy to hear that.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: When I am thinking about a topic, I
first Google something.
And I scan.
And I find the images organized in the ingredient or
the specific thing I'm honing in on very helpful.
They're the easiest, most fluid jumping
off point for me.
But then I go to my books.
I'm a little bit traditional like that.
I say, oh yeah.
You know, somebody says let's make a menu
inspired by the 1960s.
So I'll Google 1960s recipes, 1960s supper
clubs, dinner menus.
And I'll look through.
And then I'll say, I remember this and that.
And that provides sort of my coat rack.
And then the hangers hanging on it are the books and the
recipes that pertain to that topic.
So I guess I do use technology to kind of focus my thinking.
But I happen to really love cookbooks.
I have a very large collection.
So I think I don't move away from that as my bedrock
because I am passionate about it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Hey, there it is.
But what about restaurants?
So social media and the increase
in user-based reviews.
How has that changed the dining experience in your
restaurants?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't care about that.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Really?
It doesn't bother you if you walk into a restaurant and
you've got 50 people with their phones out taking
photographs of food?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No.
It's a free country.
FEMALE SPEAKER: What about comments?
User-based comments?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No.
I mean, I think it all comes out in the wash.
I think if people are going to go somewhere, it's because
they have a feeling.
Or there's something that's making them go to that place,
gravitate towards that, or be curious.
I think sites like Yelp and other stuff, I think they can
be harmful.
I think they can be helpful.
What am I going to do?
I mean, if I really got into the topic the way I've gotten
into the topic of cooking with my personality type, I
wouldn't be here right now.
I'd be home obsessing about Yelp, Citysearch,
this, that, the other.
I think people are going to feel what
they're going to feel.
I think it's a shame when I see a review and it seems like
someone had a bad experience for whatever set of reasons.
And the restaurant takes the heat for it.
I think sometimes people legitimately have terrible
experiences in restaurants.
And they write about it.
That's everyone's right.
What can I do?
I don't care if people take pictures.
When they don't come, and they don't eat the food, and they
don't pay take pictures?
That's when I'll worry.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's very true.
I think you should share that with a lot of other
restaurants.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: By the way, you know, I mean, being
on TV and on "Chopped" and stuff, I've gotten some real
doozy emails.
I've gotten hate mail.
And so I called my dad when I got my first
piece of hate mail.
Do you want me to tell you what it said?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: It's got a profanity.
Is that OK?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think that's OK.
We'll edit it out.
Famous last words.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: There was like serious
thumbs up over there.
FEMALE SPEAKER: There were serious thumbs up?
OK, then I'm not taking the heat for this.
Go for it, and they'll edit it out.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No, it's not that bad.
But it just said, *** you, you ***.
Let's see you make a dish in 15 minutes.
So I woke up.
And it was like 6:00 AM.
And I'm bleary-eyed.
You know, one-eye open.
I go to the bathroom.
I take my phone.
And there's that.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That is not a good morning.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I called my dad.
I was like, everybody hates me.
I'm not doing this anymore.
I cant believe it.
Oh, my god.
I've spiraled into a world of hate.
I don't know what.
I'm going to move somewhere and hide in a bunker.
And my dad said, congratulations.
You're starting to matter.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Very true.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: And I was like, really?
So I don't know.
I kind of think that emotion on the internet and with
technology can be complicated and layered.
I've gotten four-page handwritten letters.
These are the reasons my husband and I hate you and
hate to watch you.
Four pages.
I'm like, you guys are watching.
You wrote me a four-page letter.
They're like, we don't like your shirt.
We don't like the way you look.
We don't like your nose.
What's wrong with your hair?
Who are you?
What do you know?
I'm like, damn, this thing is like 10 pages.
I'm like, you like me.
You know what I mean?
You've got to do that.
You've got to make lemonade out of the lemons.
I read the social media.
I read the reviews.
And sometimes I say, well, you know what?
That's true.
I got to go check on that.
Someone wrote, like, you need to vacuum the rug in your
entrance way.
And I was like, that's not true.
And I went down to the restaurant,
and it was like gross.
I'm like, dude, what's up?
I'm vacuuming the rug.
I'm like, oh my god, Yelp is right!
So, I learn sometimes.
There's a lot of truth in what people write.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Sharing of information.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: And then sometimes there isn't.
And, OK.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Very interesting.
So speaking of "Chopped" and other things.
So you run two serious kitchens in New York.
And you are also a TV food personality.
Have to know, is there anything behind the scenes on
your shows that would surprise people or
that we wouldn't expect?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't know.
I guess my first instinct is to say something very simple,
which is that all that stuff is real.
I think that's why we watch it and it resonates with us.
You know, people say, do they know the ingredients before
they open the basket?
Are they briefed?
Are they--
the answer is absolutely not.
They open the basket.
They pull it out.
They sit there for two seconds.
And Ted says, your time starts now.
One time we had to delay for a minute after they opened the
basket because there was of a lighting issue.
They changed the basket.
And they gave them a new basket.
It was like five minutes.
They changed the basket.
So that's why the show is--
why it resonates with you.
It's because they open the basket.
They get the ingredients.
And that's it.
And what comes out of you is just that primal first thought
that you have.
You know, I call it like your little chef planet that you go
to in your brain where you have like six or eight things
that you actually truly really know how to make.
And you've got to live in there, no
matter how hard it is.
Everybody has a couple dishes they can make.
It may be an egg.
It may be toast.
But you have those six or seven things that if I give
you a "Chopped" basket, you would go
to that little planet.
And I have one too, by the way.
And it's never been enough for my liking.
When I did "Next Iron Chef", I mean, my chef planet was like,
you have, what's the Dr. Seuss?
The Lorax?
You know, when they pick all the truffle out of trees and
there's no trees left?
Like, I had no truffle [INAUDIBLE]
trees left on the island.
I was like, god, I need more stuff.
And you can't mine for gold all the time.
So it's really real.
And it's so hard.
People sit home and they're like, this is so stupid.
Why are they making that?
I know what I would make.
I would make this or that.
When you're in the context, you're literally thinking, why
am I doing this?
It's like when you go on a roller coaster and it clicks,
clicks, clicks, clicks, clicks up, and if it's about to drop.
And you're like, why am I doing this?
Why?
And then you finish and you go, I feel invigorated.
I feel like I've come to life.
People come to life on "Chopped." It's like an
out-of-body experience for people.
People are like, I want to do this again.
And I'm looking at them like, you just got chopped.
People say we want to come back tomorrow.
And I'm looking at them like, I don't understand.
What don't you understand?
But it's just so neat.
So I guess behind the scenes is really real.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah.
FEMALE SPEAKER: That's very cool.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Kind of cool.
It's also hideous.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Hand in hand.
So looking towards the future, first question, we do a chef
competition here every year.
Will you come and be a judge?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: OK.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Awesome.
Awesome.
She says yes.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I'm going to bring security.
FEMALE SPEAKER: And you know something else is that I'm
really bummed about is to hear about The Darby, because it
was especially so close to Google.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Oh, yeah, yeah.
FEMALE SPEAKER: We'd go over for drinks after work.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: The Darby has closed.
FEMALE SPEAKER: And it was so great.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I know.
It's sad.
FEMALE SPEAKER: But do you have any details of what's
going to be going on in that space?
And are you going to be involved?
Because we hope so.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I'll say it bluntly and honestly for a change of pace.
That space at The Darby was originally a supper club
called Nell's for many, many years.
And when I was growing up, it was where Prince
would go and play.
And Stevie Wonder would hang out.
And Mick Jagger would go and sing.
It was just one of those kinds of places that sort of
magically drew a lot of talent, sort of like a
speakeasy in it's truest form.
But, to me, that's a spirit animal that's a tiger.
And we tried to make it into a Persian house cat.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Interesting.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: And the spirit animal of that place is
an impromptu venue.
I think it isn't sort of clouded by a food, almost.
As strange as that is for me to say.
It's a speakeasy and a place where people can go and seek
refuge and perform and dance and sing and drink.
And I think that's what it really needs to be.
So I'm kind of happy for it.
I don't mind.
I think it's going to be its true spirit animal now.
And I think that the people that I work with are the best
people for that job.
They love that it was Nell's and Plum and
all these other places.
And they'll honor the tradition in the way that
place is supposed to be.
I know that may sound odd.
I never thought I'd speak like this.
Because I went to them and I said, I'm the only one is
going to be out of a job here.
But I don't think we should, you know.
That's not what it is.
FEMALE SPEAKER: But I also hear that
Butter is opening up.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: We have a Midtown restaurant.
Yeah.
Which is where I grew up.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Is that for the next generation?
Why Midtown?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I like that.
It's a butter for the next generation.
I think something just happened.
I'm going to put that top of the Google search.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Awesome.
I can't take credit actually for that verbatim.
But I will think you should absolutely use that.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't know.
We'll see.
It's an interesting space.
It's big.
It scares me.
I go in there and I look at all those seats.
It's like if you've been headlining an act at a Ramada
Inn in New Jersey and then you go to Carnegie Hall.
That's sort of how it feels.
I like Ramada Inn.
I'm not *** New Jersey or Ramada.
So if there's anybody from New Jersey, I like New Jersey.
I serve a lot of produce from New Jersey.
It's not the Garden State for nothing.
But that's how it feels.
Very daunting.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So not only am I lucky enough to work right
by The Darby, but I also used to work right
next door to Butter.
And I spent many a paycheck at that bar just--
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
I also was lucky enough to go into the
basement a couple times.
I don't remember much of it.
But is there going to be a basement in the Midtown?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No.
FEMALE SPEAKER: No basement?
Interesting.
If you are just saying that because you don't want people
to know about the basement?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No.
FEMALE SPEAKER: If you do open a basement,
can I get an invite?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: No.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So we're going to finish up with
finish-the-sentence type of questions.
And we have a couple minutes for Q&A. So if anybody wants
to ask some questions, there's mics in the back of the room.
And then we'll be wrapping up in just a couple minutes.
So finish this sentence.
Old-school cooking is?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: New-school thinking.
FEMALE SPEAKER: New-school cooking is?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Old-school cooking.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I am challenged by?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Knowing where I am
at any given moment.
Not buying $400 worth of produce at the green market
when I went there to buy two peaches.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Three things that are always in my
refrigerator are?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Dijon mustard,
several jars, all half-used.
Cornichons--
little pickles?
And lemons.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Interesting.
My favorite pop culture guilty pleasure is?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Oh, give me an example of a pop culture
guilty pleasure.
Food?
Junk food?
FEMALE SPEAKER: No, like TV.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Oh, how much time you got? "Breaking
Bad."
FEMALE SPEAKER: Really?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I love "Breaking Bad".
I'm obsessed.
It's cooking.
Walter White is cooking, and he's acting more
and more like a chef.
I also love "Sons of Anarchy" even though it's--
FEMALE SPEAKER: Light shows, very light.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: --grusomely violent.
I really struggle with that.
But, yeah, "Breaking Bad" and "Sons of Anarchy."
FEMALE SPEAKER: If I weren't a chef, I would be?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I would like to try and become the
curator who presides over every exhibit ever in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Amazing.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: A--
what do you call it?
A painting restorer?
I would like to restore the Sistine Chapel again.
Or maybe a marine biologist.
Yeah, definitely.
I want that big squid.
Where is he?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Waiting for you.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I'm going to cook him.
I'm sorry.
I want to tag and research him and let him grow and evolve.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Well, I know we're all excited that you
chose to be a chef, passion or not, choice or not.
And I know we're all really excited to see what you have
cooking next.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: And when you're back at Google, judging
the Google chef competition.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I'll be nice.
I promise.
FEMALE SPEAKER: So we have, I think, a question back here?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yes?
AUDIENCE: Chef Guarnaschelli, thank you for coming.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Hi.
AUDIENCE: You had said at the beginning, you were going to
talk us out of being chefs, I think.
And I have a special interest in this because I have a
nephew at Johnson and Wales who kind of lost the romance
of the commercial kitchen after a summer of making
nothing but pico de gallo.
So talk us out of being chefs.
Or don't talk us out of being chefs.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: How old is he?
AUDIENCE: 19.
So he's just finished up his second year
at Johnson and Wales.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't understand what was-- first of
all, he doesn't like pico de gallo?
I know that's funny, but I'm actually being serious.
AUDIENCE: I think he liked the first 500
pounds of pico de gallo.
It was the second and the third and the fourth 500
pounds of pico de gallo that got a little boring.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I think that I am perpetually
stimulated by repetition.
That's something I know about myself that I learned.
I like cooking the same things again and again.
I like that feeling.
I like the process.
I'd say that's something that would definitely make you lose
your way if that wasn't of interest to you.
I don't think a lot of people realize that, that cooking is
a manual craft.
It's manual.
It's manual labor.
And it does involve lots of repetition.
But I feel like as you're honing your skills, where your
learning to dice all the vegetables to make a good pico
de gallo and you're learning how to cook beans, I presume
you could add certain things, like learn about epazote as
something that you use to cook black beans, how to
cook them just so.
All the different skills that are used to make a good pico
de gallo are skills that you then take and turn around and
use to make so many hundreds of other dishes.
That I worry that he doesn't see sort of the value in
developing a skill set that he can then use to do things he
really does feel personally passionate about making.
I would say you have to work in the type of restaurant
where the food resonates with you.
I went to a restaurant where I like the food.
And I like what was being made.
I liked the way it tasted.
I wanted to know how those things came to be.
And I think if you're not careful about that choice--
because you're not going to make a lot of money when you
start out no matter what, you may as well be
broke and do some like.
I mean, really.
So I think maybe he shouldn't work in a restaurant where
they make pico de gallo and should work in a restaurant
where they cook and use ingredients that he does find
stimulating.
And then he should also cook at home.
And he should read maybe some cookbooks and Google some
recipes and do all sorts of other things to kind of put
his own wood in his own fire and not focus so much on
[INAUDIBLE].
Because cooking is all repetition.
If he doesn't like the repetition, I don't know that
he'll ever--
maybe a professional kitchen is not the place for him in
the field of cooking.
Food styling for cookbooks, for photography shoots for
magazines, catering, jobs where there are restaurants
where the menu changes every day.
And there are different ingredients being used.
He's just not in the right place.
AUDIENCE: And nutrition and working with food companies, I
mean he understands those career options, too.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: It doesn't matter what you understand
about career options with a field like cooking.
You have to figure out what you actually want to spend all
those hours doing with your time.
And then when you hit on the right thing, then you're not
broke anymore, either.
You're not rich, but you're OK.
That comes after.
And those kind of reversals that I think don't exist in
the same way in a lot of other fields can be very confusing.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Interesting.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Question over there.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Tell him he should be a
chef, *** it.
Hi.
AUDIENCE: Yes, hi, Chef Guarnaschelli.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Hi.
AUDIENCE: Thanks for coming.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Sure.
AUDIENCE: A few things.
One, I didn't know your mother edited "The Cake Bible." I got
that book for my cousin.
She's a caterer.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Amazing.
That's a great book.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I know.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: That woman is crazy.
She's like 221 grams of flour.
You're like--
AUDIENCE: My blood sugar was rising just by
looking at the pictures.
But I have a question.
So besides just pure unadulterated passion for
food, or lack thereof, what's necessary in your career?
Because you're beyond, not just a cook, you're a
television personality, executive chef in multiple
restaurants.
Can you tell us about some of the extra things that go into
your career outside of cooking?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Like what?
Specifically?
AUDIENCE: Like appearances at Google.
Like public appearances, management, and other aspects
to being a television personality.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: I don't think I get your question.
Boil it down for m.
Strip it.
What is your question?
You want to know how did I get into TV?
I'm not sure I know the question.
I'm not trying to be difficult.
I'm trying to get at what you're really asking.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, so a standard cook would probably cook in a
restaurant, OK?
But you're like on television and "Chopped" and "Iron Chef."
Can you describe exactly how you got into that industry?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Oh, yeah, I wish I knew.
I really wanted to be a competitor on "Iron Chef
America." I watched "Iron Chef." I still do.
And I liked the way it's a show that focuses on one
single ingredient and where people take it.
And I just thought it was the coolest thing.
And I had this fantasy that Iron Chefs were like
superheroes.
You know, there's Aquaman and there's Wonder Woman.
It sort of was my own personal chef iconography, I
think, of some kind.
So I really wanted to be on that show as a competitor.
So that took me a couple years to get that opportunity
through begging and pleading, and went on the show and
realized that day that I probably couldn't joke and
banter and be myself and express and share my
personality and also win the episode.
I made that call that morning.
I remember thinking you can't do both these.
Maybe some people can.
I can't.
And I knew that I couldn't.
And when you have a lucid moment about yourself, you
should probably go with it.
And I made a choice that morning.
I thought, well, OK, so I won't worry about winning.
I'll make the best food I can.
I'll express my personal side as best I can.
And I want to share my personality.
And I think that wound up being effective.
I got asked to be on "Food Network Challenge" after that.
And then they did the screen test where I had to make a
minestrone, a basic minestrone with tomatoes and beans and
vegetables.
So they put the camera on me in this little room at the
Food Network.
And I made the minestrone.
And I cooked the whole thing.
And I explained.
And I smiled.
And I did all this stuff.
And I finished the soup, and I looked down and she said, you
forgot the tomatoes.
And I thought, well, this is a bust.
I mean, it's like pizza without cheese.
How's it going?
But then they said, you know, you're really good.
We can work with this.
And I did "The Cooking Loft," which was my first cooking
show, which was really awful.
And I really didn't like the show.
So they said, do you want to make more of this show?
And I said, I'd rather not be on television than make this
show because I don't like it.
And I think that's a really important moment there, where
I walked away from something that I was really starting to
like because I didn't think it was good enough for my own
personal internal set of standards.
And Bobby Flay kind of got assigned to my case maybe a
year later to produce a cooking show for me.
And I made "Alex's Day Off." And that was a
whole different ballgame.
He said, wear the clothes you want to wear.
Say what you want to say.
Cook what you want to cook.
And I said, really?
That's what--
OK.
And the studio was right by his house, his apartment.
So he would come and drink coffee with these mirrored
sunglasses in the morning.
And it would like fog up his sunglasses.
And he would stand there while I was shooting the show, just
looking at me.
I mean, it was like being watched by the police.
And then they asked me to be on "Next Iron Chef." And I
really always wanted to be an Iron Chef.
And I'm a sucker.
You know, I was like, OK, I'll do it.
How bad can it be?
And it just kind of snowballed from there.
"Chopped" was an accident.
They went to shoot the pilot.
And I said I don't want to be on that show at all.
I'm sick that day.
And they just hounded me.
They just said, we think you're right for this.
We think you belong on the show.
I wasn't convinced.
And so I hate to answer your question by saying it's kind
of an accident.
But it was all born from one singular idea that I was
obsessed with being on "Iron Chef America." And it
snowballed accidentally and became some strange avalanche.
AUDIENCE: And you became an Iron Chef.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Yeah, totally.
That's crazy.
That never gets old.
I get up every morning, I'm like, I'm an Iron Chef.
I'm like, on my tombstone, I'm going to write Mom,
Daughter, Iron Chef.
This is so cool.
When the curtain dropped and my face was there, I
was like I can die.
I never thought I'd have a moment like that.
I still can't believe it.
I have stars in my eyes.
It's really hokey and sappy and goopy and all true.
AUDIENCE: All right.
Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: We actually only have time for about one
more question.
I'm sorry, but--
AUDIENCE: Hi.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Hello.
AUDIENCE: I just wanted to know, do you feel more
pressure cooking on "Iron Chef" or
being a judge on "Chopped"?
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Did you write your question down?
AUDIENCE: Yes, I did.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: OK, so you were checking your phone.
Oh, cooking on Iron Chef.
Oh my god, cooking is so hard.
To pick what you're going to cook in that moment with that
kind of thinking is-- there's nothing like it.
Sitting behind a desk on "Chopped," I'm like, whew, I
got a day off.
Cooking, hands down.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Awesome.
Well, thank you so, so much for coming in.
ALEX GUARNASCHELLI: Thank you for sharing your time.