Jeff Gordinier, HUNGRY
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[1:55]I'm via Skype today with Jeff Gordonier, who's the author of Hungary, eating,
[2:00]road tripping and risking it all with the greatest chef in the world.
[2:03]Jeff is the food and jinx editor at Esquire and a frequent contributor to the New York Times,
[2:08]or he was previously a reporter. He's the author of Ex saves the world,
[2:12]and co-editor of the essay collection here she comes now. He currently lives north of New York City
[2:17]with his wife Lauren Fonda and his four children.
[2:19]So, thanks for coming on my podcast, especially in this crazy time we're in right now.
[2:24]Your book, Hungary, eating, road tripping and risking it all with the greatest chef in the world
[2:29]was so great and made me sort of salivate for so thick other than chicken fingers.
[2:34]Tell listeners what it's about and what inspired you to write this book, please.
[2:38]Well, this book comes from a very different time, which was, you know, a few years ago when we
[2:44]could go to restaurants, we could go out of our houses. I was working at the New York Times for
[2:50]the food section. I was on staff for six years at the New York Times. I was also in the midst
[2:56]of a divorce and living in a crummy little, you know, bachelor apartment actually down the street.
[3:02]And that very week that I moved out, I got an email from a guy named Renee Redzappi,
[3:09]well sort of through an operative of his, but nevertheless, Rem Renee asking if I was willing to
[3:14]meet for coffee and talk about his new cookbook. And I was just not in the mood. You know, as a
[3:23]journalist, and particularly a food writer, my job is to meet with chefs like Renee Redzappi and
[3:28]learn what they're up to, do my due diligence, but you know, I was, I was in a foul mood to be
[3:33]honest and I didn't want to do it. And I just wanted to go home, but doing my job, I decided to
[3:39]and he's a guy can say he's almost like the Bob Dylan of food. He's a person who's completely
[3:45]changed the game. He's changed the way chefs cook all around the world, the way they look at
[3:51]foraging, the way they look at fermentation, natural wines. He and his team have just innovated and
[3:57]innovated crazily for like a decade or two. And a lot of stuff you eat and encounter in restaurants
[4:04]has been influenced by Noma, Renee Redzappi's restaurant in Denmark, even if you don't know it,
[4:09]like you probably encountered some of his innovations, even just the way things look on a plate.
[4:14]So he's a dynamic force. He's a real star in this world and I had never met him, even though I
[4:21]worked for the food section in the New York Times. So I met him and in a word, my life was changed.
[4:27]I mean, really in an instant, my life changed. It was like I was in the Matrix and I took the
[4:32]Red Pill or the Blue Pill or whichever one it was and everything switched. I mean, he turned
[4:36]out to be this wildly charismatic guy, almost kind of like a cult leader just really mesmerizing.
[4:43]And he was like, you and I are going to go to Mexico. We're going to go on a trip to Mexico
[4:47]together. And I was like, what are you talking about? Who are you? What? He didn't really want to
[4:53]talk about his cookbook. He wanted to strategize this quest through Mexico we were going to do
[5:00]which I thought was financially impossible. And long story short, it ended up happening. I went to
[5:06]Mexico with him to write a story for the New York Times for Team Magazine and one of their publications.
[5:12]And that led to a connection with Renee. We, as a journalist, you don't necessarily become
[5:17]friends with someone, but I did feel a personal connection. And I started to go to Denmark to
[5:22]eat at Noma. I started kind of hanging along with him shall we say because I found him to be a
[5:29]very inspiring person to sort of like the kind of person you meet every now and then who changes
[5:34]your vantage point in life. I was down. I was going through the divorce. I was just kind of,
[5:41]I was basically suffering from pretty severe depression. And Renee was the cure.
[5:47]So, don't tell every therapist. He kind of like, I don't think he intended that to be the case,
[5:56]but he was kind of my therapist. She has it being exactly. I mean, I jokingly, a friend of mine
[6:01]about a year ago before the book came out when he read it in Galleys. He said, I love it. It's
[6:06]eat, pray, eat, love, eat, eat, like, eat, pray, love with way more eating. And I was like,
[6:14]yeah, it kind of is actually. And I love Elizabeth Gilbert. So, I thought that was flattering.
[6:19]I mean, it is kind of, you know, even if some of your audience is not into
[6:23]high-end tasting menus and, you know, the high stakes of gastronomy and all that,
[6:30]all of which I admit right now seems very far away. The book is actually really about reinvention
[6:36]and personal change. It's really about how I changed and Renee changed in the course of these
[6:42]four years we spent together. Yeah, gastronomy. I took my husband who loves food to
[6:47]per se once for the big, you know, like, that was a big splitter for anniversary. And I was like,
[6:54]can I get the rest of this to go? Because there were like 57 courses. They're like, what to go?
[6:59]That's like against the whole point. So, yeah. Yeah, it's too much. It's too, you know, it's funny,
[7:04]you say that because I happen to live. I'm here on the Hudson Valley, the Hudson River is right there.
[7:09]And I'm about 15 minutes from Bluestone Barnes, right? Which is, yeah, I mean, it's like the
[7:14]noma of New York. It's, it's one of the great restaurants in the world. So on Friday, I found out they
[7:19]were, they were selling these $50 dinner boxes with a Blue Hill at Stone Barnes meal for 50 bucks
[7:26]for the whole box. And, you know, so I ordered one and went over and got it, wrote about it for
[7:31]Esquire, Lauren and I had a sort of quarantine date night here. And it was really interesting to think
[7:38]because in this case, it was basically one course, this giant hot pot, this soup, you heat up the soup
[7:43]and you kind of pour it over these meats, charcuterie, vegetables, eggs that they had provided.
[7:50]And it was really great. It was really delicious and distinctive. And it wasn't too much to answer
[7:57]your point. Like, it wasn't that thing where you feel like, okay, we've been here for four hours.
[8:03]We've had, can we, I mean, I know we're very spoiled, but can we leave now? I mean, this is too
[8:07]much. This was actually perfect. It was a perfect meals, nourishing, extremely delicious. Like,
[8:14]each ingredient at a place like Stone Barnes is going to be the best you can ever find. You know,
[8:19]like the best cabbage, the best carrot, the best, you know, so, but I thought, well, wondering
[8:25]in a way, if restaurants like Noma and Blue Hill at Stone Barnes will change a bit after this crisis,
[8:33]I mean, that that sense of indulgence is probably going to feel a little tone-def after all this.
[8:40]And I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them shift to something that's very communal.
[8:45]You know, like you're all together, you have a stew, you have soup, red, fruit wine, you know,
[8:51]something very elemental and beautiful. I would love to see that anyway. It's a little
[8:55]about, no, that's okay. There's a restaurant, I was going to follow it up. There's a restaurant
[8:59]in New Jersey that actually my husband's cousin opened and he does like all the foraging high-end,
[9:05]you know, all of that. And they actually have opened a market, so they've taken all of their stuff
[9:10]and people just come and take all the ingredients like you were saying. You can just go shop there.
[9:14]So yeah. There's a lot that would just go to waste. I feel like I actually have been wondering,
[9:20]if you could, what do you miss most about the restaurant world? Because I actually feel like
[9:24]going out and getting food outside of my house, which I haven't done at all, is like the thing that
[9:28]one of the things in this is like a first world problem, but is one of the things I miss the most,
[9:33]is being able to eat out or get somebody else's cooking, not that I don't love my husband's cooking,
[9:38]or you know, when you stop life, I feel like restaurants and this is like your whole, you know,
[9:43]are like one of the most central things to what we do today, right?
[9:49]Yeah. Well, like, I mean, put it this way. I'm a guy who's obsessively in love with restaurants and bars,
[9:57]and I've basically spent 25
[10:00]30 years, compulsively traveling around the world.
[10:04]And I really love privacy.
[10:06]So being pooped up in a house, it's like,
[10:10]I'm being honest with you, this is very new for me
[10:13]and kind of hellish as much as I love my family.
[10:17]And I do deeply.
[10:18]It is sheer help for me to be kind of pooped up.
[10:21]It's not, I am not the guy who understands this.
[10:24]Like I'm not the guy who's like,
[10:25]I just want to be home by the horse.
[10:27]I mean, there's, there are many positives
[10:30]and it's really quite delightful to hold my twins
[10:33]and in my arms and be with them,
[10:35]really be present in the way we are now.
[10:37]But man, I am missing restaurants.
[10:40]And what I am missing is that sense of escape and romance
[10:45]and it's like people taking care of you.
[10:48]And you know, last night, actually at random,
[10:52]I don't really understand Twitter.
[10:53]I never seem to tweet anything that's popular.
[10:56]But no one laughs, no one likes it.
[10:59]But last night, I went on Twitter
[11:01]and just that random said something like suddenly
[11:04]the idea of walking into a bar and sitting down
[11:09]and ordering a cocktail feels like the most luxurious thing
[11:13]in the world.
[11:14]And I looked this morning and it had like 500 likes.
[11:17]And yeah, my first successful tweet after like a decade.
[11:21]But I think it's because that really resonates
[11:23]with people right now.
[11:24]to realize that we are so lucky to have bars
[11:28]and restaurants and that kind of, you know,
[11:31]privilege or spending a lot of money,
[11:33]just the delight and self care of sitting down
[11:39]and having something really beautiful made
[11:41]and presented to you, whether it's, you know, a cocktail
[11:44]or a taco or a rice bowl or a tasting menu.
[11:48]It's not about it being fancy.
[11:50]It's about that gesture.
[11:52]And it's also about community.
[11:54]I mean, I really, you know, my favorite restaurant
[11:57]is Via Corota in the West Village, okay.
[12:00]So on Grove Street, it's owned by Jody Williams
[12:03]and Rita Sody, who are romantic partners.
[12:06]They're married and they're also business partners.
[12:08]And Lauren and I had our first date there.
[12:11]We got engaged there.
[12:13]I had my 50th birthday party there, which was small
[12:16]but nevertheless, and you know, it's a kind of place zippy
[12:19]where I will wander in on a day like this, you know,
[12:24]just a kind of lazy spring day or rainy day
[12:27]and get a bowl of pasta and some roasted vegetables
[12:31]or salad by myself at the bar and feel so good.
[12:37]Nourished, you know, happy to be in New York
[12:40]or happy to be in a place with this high quality
[12:44]of food and care.
[12:46]And I missed a, I missed a lot.
[12:48]Like I went to a restaurant called Veronica
[12:51]just before this lockdown,
[12:54]clamped down that we're going through
[12:56]and it's in a new photography museum,
[12:59]sort of in, I guess you'd say the flat iron district
[13:02]and it's a beautiful museum.
[13:03]They had an Ellen Vonne Onworth exhibition of her,
[13:07]you know, very sexy magazine photos and stuff.
[13:09]So I went to the exhibition and I met my wife for dinner.
[13:12]And part of it was they made stuff like chicken key of,
[13:15]you know, that you're not gonna make at home.
[13:17]They made lots of fancier old French and Russian
[13:21]and sort of Austrian dishes that are rich.
[13:23]And you know, you're just not gonna,
[13:25]I'm not gonna cook that at home.
[13:26]I don't know, I don't have time.
[13:28]It's too complicated.
[13:29]But this is gonna sound weird,
[13:31]but also when we were leaving,
[13:32]the bar was packed in that New York way.
[13:35]It was like humming, right?
[13:37]And it was, oh, there's Simon Kim,
[13:39]who's a restaurant tour he owns coke.
[13:42]It's his great Korean steakhouse.
[13:43]Oh, there's David Lippman.
[13:45]He's an advertising guy.
[13:46]He used to do some advertising work for him.
[13:48]If we just saw friends, we saw friends
[13:50]as we walked out.
[13:51]We were sort of hugging and high-fiving,
[13:53]catching up.
[13:54]It was social.
[13:56]You know, it was that thing like, wow,
[13:58]we're really in New York.
[13:59]And this is a cool scene.
[14:00]And it's gone right now.
[14:03]I missed that.
[14:04]No, I literally just like getting satter and satter
[14:07]as you're talking as how much I miss.
[14:10]No, cause I'm trying not to allow myself
[14:12]to think about the things I miss
[14:13]and just focusing, you know, trying to be all positive
[14:15]and whatnot.
[14:17]But no, there is something really special about all that.
[14:20]And that's why people are so interested
[14:22]and interested in all the stuff you have to write about it,
[14:24]not just in your book, but in your columns.
[14:26]I mean, even just the act of thinking about it
[14:28]makes people happy.
[14:29]Like this conversation, I mean, it makes me sad
[14:32]because it's making me happy to think about the experiences
[14:35]of restaurants and food.
[14:37]And I mean, how did you get started with covering this?
[14:40]How did this become your job?
[14:41]Like how did you get so lucky?
[14:43]Well, you know, it's a good question
[14:44]because I think when you talk about being a food writer,
[14:47]everybody likes food.
[14:48]I like reading about it.
[14:50]It's kind of nice to write about something
[14:53]that pretty much everybody likes.
[14:55]I mean, everyone has a relationship with food.
[14:59]Everyone comes from a culture in which food is important
[15:02]regardless of where in the world they're from.
[15:04]Food is almost inevitably central
[15:08]to the cultural expression of that place.
[15:10]So I started as, I mean, basically I started
[15:13]as a pop culture writer years ago.
[15:15]I worked for entertainment weekly.
[15:17]I was a music, I kind of like rock columnist
[15:20]in Santa Barbara, California years ago.
[15:22]At entertainment weekly, I wrote about movies and music.
[15:25]I've interviewed David Bowie, Willie Nelson, Norah Jones,
[15:30]Green Day, and lots of different filmmakers, movie stars,
[15:34]Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, you know, people, it was fun.
[15:38]Honestly, Zibi, I felt like I was kind of aging out of that
[15:41]at a certain point, particularly the music.
[15:43]I'm actually in my daughter's room, my 17-year-old's room
[15:46]and there's Harry Styles back there on the walls,
[15:49]you know, and so, you know, the lemon twigs,
[15:51]certain bands she likes, and I actually like these bands.
[15:54]I like Harry Styles, but there's many bands
[15:56]when you get to be 53, I don't know what the hell
[15:59]they're doing.
[16:00]I can't relate to it, you know, and I felt like I was disengaging
[16:05]from music and I was becoming kind of an artifact, you know,
[16:09]like I was becoming personally obsolete
[16:11]in terms of what I could bring to music coverage
[16:14]because I think really when you're 20s and 30s,
[16:16]you can connect with it and then it changes.
[16:19]I'd love playing the old music now, I got admitted.
[16:22]So I started thinking, what's the next step?
[16:25]And it turned out that P Wells was my editor
[16:27]at Details Magazine.
[16:29]P Wells, as a lot of people know, is the restaurant critic
[16:33]of the New York Times.
[16:35]So his job is changing so loud right now.
[16:37]But he went to the New York Times to be the food editor
[16:41]and he kind of said to me, you know,
[16:43]do you want to come over and profile chefs?
[16:46]Like do you want to write profiles of chefs?
[16:48]You've done that with rock stars and movie stars,
[16:52]filmmakers, poets, et cetera, politicians as well.
[16:55]Would you want to bring that component to our pages?
[16:58]And I was like, yeah, that would be awesome.
[17:02]You know, I mean, I still can't believe it happens,
[17:06]but it did happen.
[17:07]And so for about six years, I did that.
[17:09]I also wrote trend pieces and recipes and news stories.
[17:14]I mean, you do everything at the New York Times.
[17:16]I wrote for the travel section.
[17:17]I wrote for book review.
[17:18]I wrote for styles.
[17:19]You know, I'm pretty omnivorous in that way.
[17:22]So I think in the beginning to be candid with your audience,
[17:26]I thought I knew a lot about food,
[17:27]but it turned out I was an amateur compared
[17:29]to all these professionals.
[17:31]I mean, I really loved eating it.
[17:34]I grew up in a family that really was obsessed with food.
[17:38]We, I grew up in Los Angeles.
[17:40]We cared a lot about where we went for tacos
[17:43]and Chinese food, Thai food.
[17:46]I went to Spago when I was a kid.
[17:48]I admit it.
[17:48]I went to Michelle Rashard's restaurant citrus.
[17:52]We would splurge, you know?
[17:53]So I grew up like really caring about this stuff
[17:56]and reading Jonathan Gold and Ruth Rice showing people
[17:59]like that.
[18:00]But once I got into it, I felt like I was playing
[18:03]in the major leagues and could barely swing about.
[18:06]It was like, oh, wait, who are these people?
[18:08]Like, what is that recipe?
[18:11]So I had a lot of learning to do.
[18:12]I had a lot of ramping up.
[18:14]I mean, now I know my stuff.
[18:16]I, this is good 12, 13 years in it.
[18:19]I wrote a whole book about Renee Red's heavy.
[18:21]I feel pretty confident now,
[18:23]but I did not in the beginning.
[18:24]So I think it's a way to write about culture.
[18:28]That's not, I am pop culture.
[18:31]That's not writing about music or movies.
[18:34]Because so much of the cultural conversation these days
[18:38]is about food, you know?
[18:40]People like David Chang, Renee Red's happy, Dan Barber,
[18:45]Dominique Cren, Gabrielle Hamilton.
[18:48]Obviously that we missed Anthony Bourdain greatly.
[18:51]These are cultural figures, great writers
[18:54]in many cases, great thinkers.
[18:56]They're pushing the conversation forward
[18:58]in terms of talking about the environment.
[19:00]Health issues, political issues,
[19:03]issues of how workers are treated.
[19:05]And they're also stars, they're pop culture stars in that way.
[19:09]So I thought, this is kind of a golden eye.
[19:12]I'm not the first person to realize that, of course.
[19:15]There are many, many great food writers out there.
[19:17]I mean, hundreds.
[19:19]But I just thought, wow, this could be fun.
[19:21]And it's kind of like being a Broadway writer,
[19:24]like I've sometimes thought, wow,
[19:26]if you're a Broadway theater critic,
[19:28]when that kept boring, you know, like night after night,
[19:32]it's like the curtain goes up, here comes the show.
[19:35]Some shows are good.
[19:37]Most are probably pretty mediocre, you know?
[19:41]Don't you just get sick on the ritual, you know?
[19:44]And I think sometimes people ask me,
[19:46]do you get sick of going to restaurants?
[19:49]And it's a ritual, you know?
[19:50]You sit down here, the menu, do you want to, you know?
[19:53]Sparkling or still, do you know?
[19:56]It's like Broadway.
[19:57]No, I don't get sick of it.
[20:00]I love every minute of it.
[20:02]It's weird.
[20:03]It's not weird.
[20:04]It's totally understandable.
[20:05]It's always fun.
[20:06]Even with the deal is terrible.
[20:07]It's kind of fun.
[20:08]I agree.
[20:09]As you're saying this, I'm thinking, maybe I could somehow transform my house into a restaurant.
[20:14]Maybe I could pretend like kids are going to be the waitresses, like parent trap.
[20:19]Remember how they made, maybe we'll try to dim the way you can get a tablecloth on like
[20:24]a play table or I don't know, something because, oh yeah, you can do a whole reality
[20:28]show.
[20:29]I don't think anybody would care much.
[20:32]And also, I wanted to ask you about your interviewing because as you mentioned, you have
[20:36]interviewed like a bazillion people and just like scrolling through your list of the people
[20:40]that you've talked to is so impressive.
[20:42]What are your tips for interviewing?
[20:44]What do you think makes good interviewing?
[20:46]When I'm interviewing other people, I don't tend to do this, which is like, I'm talking
[20:51]so much.
[20:52]My friends know me as somebody who blathers on it on, I'm sorry, I'm a big talker, but
[20:59]when I'm interviewing people, you're doing a great job.
[21:02]You're listening.
[21:03]You're just, it's about listening, and paying attention, and paying attention to the nuances
[21:11]of the conversation with genuine intention and genuine connection and heart as much as you
[21:17]can.
[21:18]It helps to spend a lot of time with the individual's work, her music, her films, his cooking,
[21:26]but as much experience as you can have with his or her work, really immersing it, you
[21:32]know, like I remember when I interviewed Willie Nelson, I went on Amazon, this one, I worked
[21:37]for entertainment weekly, and you know, the budgets were pretty generous back then.
[21:44]They were pretty unlimited.
[21:45]So I went on Amazon, and I was like, holy cow, Willie Nelson has like 200 albums, you know,
[21:52]like, I know that.
[21:53]I thought he had, you know, most people up 20, he had like, it was like, did he put
[21:57]out an album every week, I mean, a theme album, so you know, I went to my editors, and
[22:03]they were like, just buy a bunch, you know, it's fine, just pour them, you know.
[22:06]So I bought like 40 Willie, Willie Nelson albums or something, and I spent, you know, like,
[22:12]a week just immersed in his music, also researching and stuff, but really, really listening
[22:18]to all the whole range of his kind of music.
[22:22]And then when I got on the bus with Willie and Colorado, I think this story is, it can
[22:27]be found online, there's not true of all my old stories.
[22:32]This one can, you know, I really felt confident.
[22:34]I felt like I knew his stuff.
[22:35]So if he referred to this period or that period when it used to be a Nashville before
[22:41]he went to Austin or Redhead stranger, I knew, you know, and it, that helps.
[22:46]Like, you don't feel like you're treading water or you're freaking out, you're like,
[22:50]yeah, oh, yeah, you know what song I like on there is this.
[22:53]The artist is going to have so much gratitude that you are respecting them with that.
[23:00]And yes, also with Willie, I partook, you know, I don't know how many people in your audience
[23:06]want it, but, you know, Willie is famous for smoking weed.
[23:10]So yes, I did.
[23:11]You had to.
[23:12]Yeah.
[23:13]You had to.
[23:14]Yeah.
[23:15]I'm about to go and move to Brooklyn just to be more authentic to all the writers of
[23:19]that interview.
[23:20]Yeah.
[23:21]I always find it weird that so many live in Brooklyn.
[23:24]I think that a lot of it is about saying yes, okay, which is kind of what my book hungry
[23:31]is about.
[23:32]It's just about saying yet like it's so many crossroads in life.
[23:36]You're presented with that binary, you know, do you want to say yes to this adventure or
[23:41]do you want to say no?
[23:43]Most always the sensible thing is to say no financially, logistically, it just makes most
[23:51]most, you know what?
[23:52]I don't know.
[23:53]I don't really have the money right now.
[23:55]I think, you know what?
[23:56]I really appreciate it, but I think I'm just going to stay home.
[23:58]Makes a ton of sense.
[24:00]Now that we're all stuck home, sure, as you said, yes to that stuff, like it's so, you
[24:07]know, like, Congress is really about Renee Red's happy coming to me for the Mexico trip,
[24:11]but then really after that and saying, do you say yes?
[24:15]Or do you say no?
[24:16]Because if you say yes, we're going to have a life-changing adventure.
[24:20]And if you say no, deep respect, I know you, it does not going to work out.
[24:25]There was one point when I had written about Renee Red's happy for the New York Times and
[24:29]I went on my email, when you write about somebody, you're not going to be French, you sort
[24:33]of think that's it, you know, like Willie Nelson and I are not going to become buddies.
[24:38]But Renee Red's happy emailed me afterwards, well, what happened was like my email, suddenly
[24:44]there was this little bloop and it said, you have a reservation at Noma for lunch on Friday.
[24:51]Noma is impossible to get into.
[24:54]I mean, literally any given day when it's open, there might be 30,000 people on the way
[25:00]it does.
[25:01]Okay.
[25:02]Right.
[25:03]I know.
[25:04]Also, it's in Denmark.
[25:05]I live in New York.
[25:06]So this was like, wait, what?
[25:09]What's going on here?
[25:10]Why do I have a table at Noma for lunch, you know?
[25:12]So I texted Renee and I was like, hey, man, thanks.
[25:15]But I think there's been a mistake, like maybe there was a computer glitch because it
[25:20]seems like I got a reservation at Noma for lunch and it's in Copenhagen on Friday.
[25:27]And right now, it's Tuesday, it was like something crazy like that.
[25:31]And in true Renee fashion, he basically said, take it or leave it.
[25:36]And I realized it was real.
[25:37]It wasn't a mistake.
[25:38]He was actually kind of testing me.
[25:40]It was like, you can have just meal at Noma or not.
[25:42]It's like, you know, we can find people to go, believe me.
[25:46]And I was like, oh, wow, it's a test.
[25:50]It's like Tony Robbins in the hot colds, you know?
[25:54]So I went on orbit or one of those sites and I found a cheap flight and I booked it.
[26:00]I just booked it from an interpersonal relationship standpoint.
[26:03]That's probably wasn't.
[26:05]So responsible, I probably should have run that by, you know, my ex wife, et cetera.
[26:09]But I just thought I got to do this.
[26:11]So I'm like, loud, I said, yes, yeah, but not just because I got a book out of it because
[26:15]I had this transformed experience and I had a meal that I will never forget.
[26:21]I mean, it really was that good, you know?
[26:23]And I think to answer your question about interviewing, I think that part of it is also
[26:27]that, like, be willing to say yes to the moment.
[26:31]One of my stories that I seem to be still known for and there's very few.
[26:35]I mean, you know, to me being a magazine writer is kind of like being a baseball player
[26:39]or something.
[26:40]Like in the end, people will only remember Kirk Gibson at the World Series.
[26:46]He had like a broken leg and he hit a home run.
[26:48]They remember that.
[26:49]Kirk Gibson, they remember that sometimes people remember you can work 30 years as I have
[26:54]and people remember three or four stories.
[26:56]And that's fine.
[26:57]You know, that's cool.
[26:58]Well, I feel like I'm sorry to cut this off, but I try to keep my podcast to like 30 minutes
[27:03]tops.
[27:04]I find that no matter who it is, people just don't have the attention span to listen
[27:07]much beyond that.
[27:08]So, although I feel like I could listen to you all day, and if that restaurant in the
[27:12]West Village ever opens up again, which sounds amazing, you have to let me know and maybe
[27:17]we can all meet up or something.
[27:18]I got it.
[27:19]Let's go together.
[27:20]Okay.
[27:21]I'd love to be a carotut.
[27:22]We'll go.
[27:23]Okay.
[27:24]We'll all have a night out.
[27:25]Also, I'm wearing a hat from Missy, which is one of Missy Robbins restaurants in Brooklyn.
[27:29]Missy Robbins was Esquire's chef of the year in 2018, and her restaurants as well,
[27:35]Lilia and Missy, like those in Via Corota, I miss so much.
[27:39]I'm missing that really good pasta and red wine and roasted vegetables.
[27:44]That's like a meal of my dreams.
[27:46]Okay.
[27:47]It's something to look forward to.
[27:48]Yeah.
[27:49]All right.
[27:50]All right.
[27:51]Let's do it.
[27:52]I really appreciate your time.
[27:53]That's fun.
[27:54]Thanks.
[27:55]Okay.
[27:56]I appreciate yours.
[27:57]See you around.
[27:58]Okay.
[27:59]Thanks for listening.
[28:00]Thanks again to Peeled Snacks for being a sponsor of this week's episodes.
[28:06]Peeled Snacks, again, discount code Zibi15, capital ZZibi15 for 15 percent off your purchase
[28:21]for this week.
[28:22]Only and go check out the we found time dot com essays.
[28:25]They're so good.
[28:27]And they'll make you laugh and think and feel and all the good things.
[28:31]Have a great week.
[28:32]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time to read books.
[28:36]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan, like texture sound for the sound editing.
[28:40]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[28:43]trim music.
[28:44]Thanks for listening.
[28:45]You could always email me at zibi at zibiowens.com.