Humanity Part 6 - Jessica Brewer

Transcript

Speaker: On today's episode, we talk with Chef Jessica Brewer about her time as an executive pastry chef, where she started, and what personal life looks like outside the kitchen.

Speaker: No job was too little of a job for anybody.

Speaker: Like, something that I had heard, I mean, this is just something that's said a lot, but when people are like, oh, are we going to pay these people as much as we pay people to flip burgers?

Speaker: Or something.

Speaker: And it's really condescending because especially even coming from fast food, like, were we doing like the elbow deep culinary work?

Speaker: No, not necessarily.

Speaker: But it was still honest and difficult work.

Speaker: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Humanity Scudu.

Speaker: This week, our guest is none other than renowned Santa Fe chef, Jessica Brewer.

Speaker: Hello, Jessica.

Speaker: Hey.

Speaker: How are you?

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: How are you?

Speaker: I'm fantastic.

Speaker: It's been a good evening and been looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker: So what I want to know first and foremost is, how's your night?

Speaker: My night's been good.

Speaker: I've had an interesting day, such as holiday week for the restaurant industry in general.

Speaker: It's crazy.

Speaker: I think, honestly, the biggest issue is trying to drive to work and get there alive.

Speaker: because of the way everyone drives.

Speaker: Do you think it's a Santa Fe thing or like a holiday thing or a combination of both?

Speaker: I feel like it's a Santa Fe thing.

Speaker: I feel like it's exponentially worse here than anywhere else I've ever been.

Speaker: Like there's always like traffic that's back to back, but I've really never been anywhere where pedestrians will step out in front of a moving vehicle.

Speaker: Oh God.

Speaker: You haven't lived in Sacramento.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: People are less reckless in Sacramento than they are in Santa Fe.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well in Sacramento, at least like, well, not at least, but there's a lot of ticketing for jaywalking.

Speaker: They're actually pretty intense about that.

Speaker: Oh, they actually like buckle down on that.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: When I was in high school, I had several friends, like we dart across the street and then.

Speaker: You got tickets.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Or parents called depending on how old you were.

Speaker: but they really, they do that.

Speaker: So when I was here and like people would take off in front of the street, I'm like, what is going on?

Speaker: You guys do this here?

Speaker: Technically illegal, but the cops simply don't pursue it ever.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There are bigger, more important bridges to burn here than that.

Speaker: Yeah, that's absolutely correct.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So what I want to begin with this evening is I want to know a little bit more about your industry.

Speaker: What it is that you do, what you got going on, because as I understand it, you are a pastry chef.

Speaker: And not even just a pastry chef.

Speaker: You're like, what's a step up above the pastry chef?

Speaker: Executive pastry chef is the top of our category.

Speaker: Above us is like, I don't know, actually this could like depend on who you ask, but technically in the hierarchy, there's like pastry is separated from savory.

Speaker: So you can have an executive chef and they are in charge of one side and executive pastry is in charge of the other.

Speaker: And sometimes those areas of,

Speaker: you know, authority can be separated.

Speaker: Like sometimes you'll get like the cold station will be under pastry and it just depends on what restaurant you work for and how they decide to split those responsibilities up.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Above me at this point is like as executive pastry chef is the owner of the restaurant.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I was going to say God, like I'm like, you're literally second in command to like the earth, but you also have a boss.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: But the restaurant that I'm at now, at least I still will take a final, uh, I get like a final okay from the executive chef because some things kind of have to make sense with each other.

Speaker: Like the menus have to interact with each other the right way.

Speaker: It just depends on where you were at.

Speaker: So like, I'll be like, Oh, okay.

Speaker: Are you okay with sending this as a final thing?

Speaker: And then we bring it to the owner and they give the ultimate okay.

Speaker: So we get complete freedom, but that freedom can't get kind of crazy because they'll,

Speaker: bring you right back to where they want you to be.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So what I would want to know is when you, you have this level of freedom, do you ever get like this wild hair and you just decide, I want to make like a wild pastry.

Speaker: I want to make something that like looks insane or tastes insane.

Speaker: Or like, I want to just sort of go off the deep end and just do something nuts.

Speaker: But you know, because of your, your skill level, your talent, your experience, you could do something kind of nuts and get away with it.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: So often.

Speaker: So I was the executive pastry chef at Paloma for several years prior to going to the compound.

Speaker: And Paloma is an upscale Mexican restaurant.

Speaker: So things, not that things were like, there was never any kind of like stranglehold on things particularly, but there was always the upfront idea that things had to remain in like the culture and technique and execution of kind of what you were doing.

Speaker: So if it's upscale Mexican, I would never make creme brulee because that is French.

Speaker: And there's no way you can twist or turn that without it being ultimately French because that's what it is.

Speaker: But there's other ways that you can get around that where you could do like crema catalana or matias or something that was similar to that.

Speaker: So I would get like a wild hair all the time.

Speaker: And my boss at that time where he would just say, because he didn't want to degrade me or make me feel bad about what I was doing or where my mind was going.

Speaker: He would just say, I love that idea, but it's not us.

Speaker: And I'd be like, yes, chef, heard.

Speaker: I understand completely what that means.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So now at the compound, which is where I'm at now, it's all...

Speaker: European influenced and American influenced.

Speaker: So like, kind of feel like I can do at that point, it's balls to the wall.

Speaker: Like I could really do anything, right?

Speaker: Like where's the limitation here in this description?

Speaker: So I don't know.

Speaker: I have, you know, given my new menu for the winter to the owner and the chef, and they're totally into it.

Speaker: That includes foie gras ice cream.

Speaker: And that I feel is like kind of crazy.

Speaker: compared to the things that I've been known to do and what I've been doing for years.

Speaker: But like, it sounds fucking wild.

Speaker: People will probably like it.

Speaker: They'll probably read it.

Speaker: And they're like, what the fuck is that?

Speaker: That sounds ridiculous.

Speaker: I would pay $15 to see what the hell she's trying to do.

Speaker: And then they'd probably like it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think there's a lot to be said about some sort of like, I mean, novelty in general, but also when you get people who are familiar with a restaurant or certain menu items, you know, people, creatures of habit and you walk in someplace and suddenly something a little bit more bat shit shows up on the menu and you're kind of like, I need to know.

Speaker: I need to, you know, like it might not even be good.

Speaker: And I'm not going to say that like your food isn't good, but like to, it might not be too, like not be appealing to a majority of people.

Speaker: The masses tastes might not look at this and go, Ooh, this sounds good.

Speaker: But suddenly, you know, some people might try it and go, wait a second.

Speaker: Just because it doesn't sound good doesn't mean it isn't.

Speaker: You never know what you might want.

Speaker: So do you like experimenting for the sake of like, I hope people like this?

Speaker: Or do you sometimes just say, I just want to make something quality be damned?

Speaker: I mean, obviously you want the quality to be good.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But you know what I'm saying?

Speaker: Like, do you ever just want to just like make something just so ridiculous just because you're like, I need to know.

Speaker: Sometimes I do things just to see how people react.

Speaker: Oh, it's like a social experiment.

Speaker: It's like a huge gamble.

Speaker: So for example, I did, um, wine and chili festival is a massive event in Santa Fe.

Speaker: And, um, maybe one day Albuquerque joins in on it.

Speaker: I'm not sure the limitations or why sometimes that isn't all inclusive, but there's like, there's a lot of restaurants in Santa Fe.

Speaker: So I think it'd be like a, a too big of a scale for wine and chili to expand.

Speaker: But with that being said, Wine and Chili's Fiesta does like events all week.

Speaker: And I did the guest luncheon and I did it the year prior to it.

Speaker: And for this one that I did recently last year, I was experimenting with mixing savory and sweet flavors.

Speaker: And I was like, what about mole?

Speaker: This is like the classic part of Mexico.

Speaker: This is not something that would typically be found in a dessert.

Speaker: So how can we make this make sense?

Speaker: And I remember several people and I had conversations about how people would probably not approach mole mixed with dessert in like a way that would be acceptable.

Speaker: And I thought about it and I was like, well, I'll make all 125 people who paid like, I don't know, $200 a ticket for this event, my own Guinea pig.

Speaker: And I did a chocolate mole dessert and they fucking lost it.

Speaker: They loved it.

Speaker: And people came up to me through that whole event afterwards.

Speaker: And they were like, this is the best dessert I've ever had.

Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker: These flavors were so strange, but they all worked.

Speaker: And it's like,

Speaker: You know when you're eating something and it's like weird and you're like, what is that?

Speaker: So you keep eating it.

Speaker: But like on the flip side, when you like it versus trying to figure out what it is, but you're like, oh, this is something I've never had.

Speaker: And it's something weird.

Speaker: So sometimes it works out, but sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker: I guess to be continued.

Speaker: Honestly, have you ever had something that you tried?

Speaker: You were so proud of and it just flopped like even like,

Speaker: And to know if it flops, I mean, is it something that you taste and you go, Oh, I'm not sure if I'm into this, but other people might still be, or have you tried something that you thought, Oh man, I'm, I love this.

Speaker: And then you, you put it in the public and just, uh, it's been like where I like it.

Speaker: And I think it's something that's interesting, not, and it's nothing that's ever been crazy is the thing that I put out that is like strange and weird gets a lot more attention than the stuff that I think

Speaker: just tastes great.

Speaker: So I had like this chocolate cheesecake I made last fall season and it had, it was all gluten free and it had like a pepita and dried cherry crust and like everything was very juicy and very rich.

Speaker: And I had made several of them and they were really pretty too, because chocolate is so forgiving.

Speaker: when you're decorating it in the cooling process.

Speaker: So I felt like the presentation that I had made was really pretty and almost no one bought it.

Speaker: That's a bummer.

Speaker: I don't know what happened because I was like, it was delicious.

Speaker: It was juicy and yummy.

Speaker: It's cheesecake and it didn't grab the attention of other people.

Speaker: I remember coming into work on a Monday that we were closed and I still had like six pieces, which is, you know, a third or yeah, a third of the entire thing.

Speaker: pie and I was like, really?

Speaker: For three days?

Speaker: Because we can't sell it after that.

Speaker: You can't sell stuff that's longer than 48 hours unless you're disgusting.

Speaker: Unless you're disgusting.

Speaker: Yeah, you can't do that.

Speaker: Well, what if you open up yourself up to be a disgusting chef?

Speaker: A disgusting, like what if you modify your business acumen to- As being nasty, chef.

Speaker: I mean, because you know how they throw those businesses out in like- Well, some places do that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like in Ohio, they're like- It blows me away.

Speaker: The restaurant that like, that blows you away as in like, there's restaurants that have weird- In my mind, I'm thinking of those places where like, they purposefully treat you bad.

Speaker: You know, like you go and like, you know, they, you order something and they call you names and then, you know, treat you like shit at your table.

Speaker: Oh, like dicks.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: That's exactly it.

Speaker: Have you ever been to there?

Speaker: No, I've never been.

Speaker: I'm curious.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I've thought about it too, because I thought about how many line cooks would be very successful as soldiers.

Speaker: Because they're just fed up with people.

Speaker: Because they're just speaking their mind where it's like, I think you're an idiot.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: But sure.

Speaker: Or like anyone that orders something medium well, oh, you've like set yourself up.

Speaker: You've already ruined it.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Um, so, okay.

Speaker: So if, if, if the, the food comes out and you make this delicious looking cheesecake and just nobody's eaten it, do you look at it and you say, is it not presented well enough or was like the flavor profile too specific for tastes or like, what is it that helps you sort of, uh, assess what, what to do next time?

Speaker: It can be a combination of things.

Speaker: Usually if something doesn't sell, it's, it's not about the guest at all.

Speaker: It's really about what something you've done.

Speaker: So you can still make something well and it be with good ingredients and done perfectly.

Speaker: And it just won't appeal to the masses.

Speaker: So at that point you look at, okay, so what are these other dessert specials or items that we've had that have been successful that have similar notes to this?

Speaker: And what are the commonalities and the differences between these things so that the next thing we produce is more fruitful?

Speaker: You know, like for example, if,

Speaker: if it's the fact that cheesecake itself is not selling well, no matter how it's prepared or presented, then in that case, we're going to know, okay, it's not the cheesecake.

Speaker: It's, you know, welcome Pluto.

Speaker: It's not the chocolate or it's not this.

Speaker: It's the fact that it's cheesecake.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And maybe the people that are in the area just don't like cheesecake.

Speaker: It's not in the season.

Speaker: It's not in the trend.

Speaker: It's not whatever.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That makes sense.

Speaker: And that's a give and take too, because I know like a majority of chefs I know don't like cheesecake because they think that the sour and the sweet is kind of weird.

Speaker: How do you feel about cheesecake?

Speaker: I love cheesecake.

Speaker: I love cheesecake too.

Speaker: I also just don't like sweets.

Speaker: So I love the blend of savory and sweet and sour and all of these things matter when you're eating them.

Speaker: So it has to have a balance.

Speaker: So if you don't get the sourness from the cheesecake,

Speaker: Like cream cheese, where are you getting it?

Speaker: Because it has to be incorporated.

Speaker: So like, are you putting creme fresh on top of something you're doing or sour cream, ice cream, or what are you doing here to implement that flavor that's going to give the umami that matters to make something that you've made different and rememberable?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So you say you don't like sweet.

Speaker: Now, obviously you have to, to a degree, taste your food as you're making it to make sure it's not like, but you wouldn't go out of your way to eat sweet pastries.

Speaker: You're more into savory.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I love savory pastries, but I will not.

Speaker: I never order dessert.

Speaker: And there's some desserts I like desserts.

Speaker: Like I like ice cream.

Speaker: in gelato or sorbet depends.

Speaker: It's like so specific, but do you like sort of like muted flavors that are, cause I'm, I'm a chocolate and peanut butter guys and that doesn't sound like it's up your alley.

Speaker: Are you like doing like pistachio?

Speaker: Salty and sweet.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Perfect.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause I mean, I drench mine small amounts.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I could eat a whole bowl.

Speaker: It's terrible.

Speaker: I'm trying to like not do that.

Speaker: But you know, I, when I was a kid, it was just vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on top covered in honey roasted peanuts.

Speaker: And it was my favorite thing in the planet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But also I suppose there's going to be different flavor profiles that compliment the whole thing.

Speaker: So it's not exclusively sweet now.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So, okay.

Speaker: So sweets are sort of off the table then as a whole.

Speaker: I mean, you're, how do you feel about dark chocolate?

Speaker: I like dark chocolate.

Speaker: You know, it's funny.

Speaker: is that I have been making toffee for the last two hours.

Speaker: And I was thinking about this and like putting dark chocolate on top.

Speaker: And I thought to myself, well, because this is for a sweets box that I do every once in a while for holiday seasons.

Speaker: And I just happen to have one for Christmas.

Speaker: And I put dark chocolate on it.

Speaker: And I was like, what if people don't like this?

Speaker: Or like something like thinking about kids are mostly the people that don't like it.

Speaker: Because to me, dark chocolate tastes like chocolate.

Speaker: And milk chocolate tastes like heavily sweetened chocolate.

Speaker: Very sweet chocolate.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It doesn't have like the important notes because it's hidden with like all this other shit.

Speaker: So then I was like, should I put dark chocolate?

Speaker: And then I sprinkled it.

Speaker: I was like, I'm going to fuck.

Speaker: Like this is real chocolate.

Speaker: You're buying a real dessert.

Speaker: These people have paid a lot of money for these boxes too, where I'm like, they're going to want chocolate.

Speaker: And like thinking about this debate between several types of chocolates.

Speaker: As far as I'm concerned, there's no debate.

Speaker: It's dark chocolate or whatever.

Speaker: And, you know, it's interesting, too, because as a kid, somebody handed me dark chocolate.

Speaker: I wasn't like a stranger.

Speaker: It was one of my teachers.

Speaker: A teacher in probably like second grade handed us all like pieces of, I think, milk chocolate and dark chocolate.

Speaker: And one thing that they instructed me to do was take this dark chocolate and don't chew it.

Speaker: Don't eat it.

Speaker: Like let it sit on your tongue and sort of melt and take the flavor in.

Speaker: And as a kid who loved sweets, I remember doing this and just feeling like, Oh, this is the greatest sensation I've had with something in my mouth.

Speaker: And from that point on, it activates a lot of different things because there's acids and it's like,

Speaker: tannic some of the chocolates depending on where they're from and that's like chocolate is so complex it's insane like they can be grown in different areas and produce they can be like roasted under certain circumstances and it makes a difference and you can taste all of these things and like some of them activate like saliva production and you're like okay if there's too much of this

Speaker: it's not good for this type of dessert because we're going to want to tone that back.

Speaker: We don't want people drooling on themselves.

Speaker: We just want people drool a little bit.

Speaker: Just a little bit.

Speaker: Yeah, just enough to activate the chocolate.

Speaker: Just a little bit.

Speaker: Chocolate activation.

Speaker: I'm so into that.

Speaker: So you also sort of say that with your pastries, and I've seen tons of pictures of it because the way you design your food, it doesn't look like, oh, I just want to eat that.

Speaker: It looks beautiful.

Speaker: You are making things that are

Speaker: magazine worthy.

Speaker: These are, you know, Ansel Adams could come in.

Speaker: I guess he, I think he takes like photographs of like nature, but whatever he would come in and look at pictures and take these pictures of your beautiful looking foods.

Speaker: And they look, they look good.

Speaker: They make you feel like, God, I just need to eat this now.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Well, I mean, food ostensibly is art, you know, art is crafted because also what you said earlier is, you know,

Speaker: you were thinking about making these different chocolates and flavor profiles, but then you're like, no way, dark chocolate, that's what we're doing.

Speaker: And it's like that old David Bowie thing, don't play to the audience.

Speaker: You know, what is your art and how do you decide to make it?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That to me, I mean, it sounds really exciting for you as the chef to say, you know, you obviously want to appeal to people, but you want to appeal to people with what you've fully decided they get to enjoy.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: So like with people buying like a product from a chef specifically, especially when it comes to like what I'm doing, which is like a sweets box where you know from watching me what I produce.

Speaker: And if you had special requests and stuff like that, like it could be accommodated or something like that.

Speaker: But in reality, it's like

Speaker: When you give full trust to the artist, no matter who it is, whether that be a painter or a sculptor or a tattoo artist or a hairstylist, when you give them the actual genuine full control of something, you're actually getting the best of your money's work because you're getting that artist's

Speaker: best work put forward and like what they're actually talented at doing rather than like being controlling of like, no, I only like this.

Speaker: And I only like this.

Speaker: And I've had plenty of people that are like that.

Speaker: Like weddings are the biggest thing with that because you have a massive amount of people that have different opinions on everything.

Speaker: And so like I had a wedding in particular that I did a few months ago where it was several hundred pieces of

Speaker: dessert and stuff like that.

Speaker: And some of them are like salty, like blondies have salt in them.

Speaker: And, you know, certain things that the bride and the groom had requested were more salty than they were sweet.

Speaker: And they were all requested dark chocolate.

Speaker: And so many people, like there were so many leftover.

Speaker: And that was like the biggest complaint from people.

Speaker: They're like, oh, well, it was like salty and sweet.

Speaker: And I was like, well, this is cooking.

Speaker: I don't know what else to say.

Speaker: Like, this is what I do.

Speaker: And like, this isn't like a bakery or something like that.

Speaker: I'm an actual pastry chef and we do, you know, whatever the client wants.

Speaker: So if that's miso caramel brownies, that's going to be salty and sweet.

Speaker: And it's presented exactly as it should be.

Speaker: And there's always that like, you know, criticism and stuff like that.

Speaker: And I like struggle with that because I want to be very matter of fact all the time where I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker: Like, those are people that are like,

Speaker: I only eat my burgers medium well and anything less than that's so gross.

Speaker: And I'm like, well, that's not a good idea to me.

Speaker: That's your prerogative.

Speaker: And this is what we offer and you chose us.

Speaker: So I don't know what to say.

Speaker: That's what's interesting is if somebody goes to you on purpose and actually I think feels like, Hey, we want to request something specialty, but we want to, you know, that's like saying we really need Andy Warhol to,

Speaker: to make a bunch of prints of like downtown show flyers.

Speaker: Like you're not getting the artists to do with their art.

Speaker: You're asking them to like hand you the cookie cutter.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Or some other weird, like it's hard for us to interpret, especially when talking to people that don't work in the industry and they, or they just like, don't like, they don't enjoy food on the same level that we do.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: But it's hard for us to interpret

Speaker: what someone means when they are not sure how to explain themselves.

Speaker: Yeah, I can imagine that would be difficult because I mean, when you're in a position of like knowledge and authority on something, it's very easy to look at everything and go, Oh, I've got this knowledge, you know, I know what's going on.

Speaker: And most people don't simply put, you know, I also have a very limited degree of, you know, what I want or what I know that I like, but also I think learning how to communicate that would be my responsibility.

Speaker: Now with that, is there anything that you ever feel like you can do to help try to like clarify that for people?

Speaker: Cause obviously you don't want to make them like look or feel dumb, but you want to, you know, when you're in a place of like business, especially you really want to help accommodate to people and educate them is really sort of the goal.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker: What does that look like for you when trying to help sort of like provide people with the information with enough information for them to make what they feel is like an informed decision?

Speaker: I think it's really based on like the way that you ask questions.

Speaker: You can recognize pretty quickly if somebody doesn't, not that they don't know what they're talking about because that's like really condescending.

Speaker: It's more that they know what they like.

Speaker: They just don't know.

Speaker: And it's intimidating when you're sitting with someone who to you is like a professional being like, am I using the right terms?

Speaker: Am I using this?

Speaker: And it's like a lot of pressure.

Speaker: So it's our job to be able to recognize some of that, of being like the best way to,

Speaker: kind of make that work is asking the right questions on our side where it's like, what are some things that you do like?

Speaker: What are some flavor profiles that you really don't like?

Speaker: And things like that.

Speaker: And then it's our job to come up with something that kind of bridges the gap between them.

Speaker: These people are always spending a decent amount of money.

Speaker: So they're willing to have the conversation where they can over explain themselves.

Speaker: Like really communication is like the most important for this because the worst part is when someone pays several thousand dollars for something and you've given them something that they didn't particularly want, but you also didn't ask the important questions to ensure that the guest had the good time.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker: Now, is this something that you simply learned through experience or did you have somebody that really helped sort of instill that design into you?

Speaker: Is that something that you sort of just picked up?

Speaker: I think I got it from my own experience, honestly, because you kind of fly in blindly and I haven't had any guests complain about anything, but I have had enough experience where I'm

Speaker: I had felt walking away from it that there's something that I could have tweaked had I asked maybe another question.

Speaker: Sometimes that falls into chocolate.

Speaker: If people don't like dark chocolate, I'm going to assume that this is more appropriate because it's like real chocolate.

Speaker: And then sometimes where they're like, oh, this is like too intense for me where I'm like, fuck, I should have asked if they liked milk chocolate or dark chocolate and we could have

Speaker: made this a better experience for the guest.

Speaker: Although they weren't like necessarily complaining, there's always that little area where you could have made it better.

Speaker: And then you learn after doing this hundreds of times, the correct way to approach people and how to ask them in a way that they feel comfortable too.

Speaker: Cause it's like intimidating, right?

Speaker: Making them feel comfortable with making their boundaries for what they expect for the money they're spending.

Speaker: And they deserve that.

Speaker: Honestly, they're paying for it.

Speaker: So it's like,

Speaker: Tell me what you want and we'll do it.

Speaker: And that is how everyone should be.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Let's work together to find out what you want.

Speaker: You know, because in the service industry, I also know that like, ultimately my taste is irrelevant.

Speaker: My experience is something I can lend you, but it's not about what I want.

Speaker: It's about what can I do to help you find what you want.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So, uh, it,

Speaker: would you say the majority of your experience really comes from just being a pastry chef or did you have like any jobs when you were younger?

Speaker: Where did you sort of start off with?

Speaker: I mean, what was your first job?

Speaker: My first job in the culinary industry was in fast food.

Speaker: So I kind of have

Speaker: went all the way from fast food all the way to fine dining.

Speaker: And even that was in kind of a condensed period of time.

Speaker: I started initially at Domino's as just like a CSR answering phones and stuff, made my way to the line, which is, it is a line, but line, you know, cause I'm a chef, but went through there.

Speaker: And then like, there's so much,

Speaker: competitiveness in fast food that it's like almost comical.

Speaker: And I ended up going from Domino's from when I was 17.

Speaker: I went over to Pizza Hut.

Speaker: Ooh, the enemy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And actually I will settle the debate now.

Speaker: Pizza Hut has better pizza.

Speaker: They make their pizza more fresh.

Speaker: They make the dough every day.

Speaker: They literally make it there.

Speaker: And at Domino's, they just get it in a truck.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And they have to count all their toppings in a really specific way.

Speaker: And it's just like Pizza Hut's pizzas are just loaded.

Speaker: Anyway, this is not a Pizza Hut debate.

Speaker: Pizza Hut, yeah, there's no debate.

Speaker: I mean, that's clear as day.

Speaker: Pizza Hut also had the red cups.

Speaker: And the arcade, like little cocktail machines and the little salad bar.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the red hatch roof, like, come on.

Speaker: And they serve beer.

Speaker: What are we arguing about here?

Speaker: Right, yeah.

Speaker: That's great.

Speaker: That's a real family restaurant.

Speaker: That's a real family restaurant.

Speaker: Dad can have something.

Speaker: I can play Gallagher.

Speaker: So, okay.

Speaker: So, also, by starting with the sort of fast food restaurant, do you think that

Speaker: having a spectrum of experience because you're executive pastry chef, you are second in command to the boss, right?

Speaker: But having a spectrum of experience, I think really sort of can help you appreciate sort of what all of food looks like.

Speaker: You're not just saying- It's very humbling.

Speaker: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Speaker: You found something to begin with and worked your way up, but you got to see a lot of it so you can contrast and compare.

Speaker: What do you think some of the best things that you sort of learned along the path to pastry chef were?

Speaker: That no job was too little of a job for anybody.

Speaker: Like something that I had heard.

Speaker: I mean, this is just something that's said a lot, but when people are like, Oh, are we going to pay these people as much as we pay people to flip burgers or something?

Speaker: It's really condescending because especially even coming from fast food, like were we doing like the,

Speaker: Elbow deep culinary work?

Speaker: No, not necessarily, but it was still honest and difficult work.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And a lot of it was still handmade and it took a lot of thought.

Speaker: and stuff like that.

Speaker: And like, it's still timing and it's still stuff.

Speaker: That's honestly a lot more difficult than the people that are saying this kind of shit are capable of doing.

Speaker: Cause how many people per hour are you doing in fast food?

Speaker: And so I can't even imagine the stress of just like people per minute coming through a restaurant because the whole purpose is to do it quickly.

Speaker: You know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I would imagine that would be really stressful.

Speaker: Do you feel that nowadays, um,

Speaker: I mean, obviously every job has its own stresses, but it sounds like you get to work at more of your own pace.

Speaker: And I'm sure there are plenty of stresses just in general.

Speaker: What, what are some of the hardest parts about the job for you at this point?

Speaker: Like, what do you, what do you look at and you just say, God, you know, this is still on the daily, just like.

Speaker: Difficult.

Speaker: I mean, at this point now it's like hard to remain relative and creative.

Speaker: There's so many ideas.

Speaker: So the culinary industry is always expanding just like technology is or the medical field.

Speaker: And that's why they compare a lot of these areas with each other because they're always just expanding, expanding.

Speaker: There's always a new way to do anything.

Speaker: And even leaving the industry for a couple of years can bring you all the way back.

Speaker: Like if I were to leave now and let's say I didn't have

Speaker: You know, any kind of popularity in media.

Speaker: And I was just like someone that wasn't known.

Speaker: If I were to leave to like, for example, when I had my son, I left for four years and I still cooked minimally, but I was still out of the executive position.

Speaker: I just started all the way back as a line cook.

Speaker: Because that's how quickly the industry expands and how far you get behind.

Speaker: So it's always about watching what peers are doing, watching trends, like what is new, what is different.

Speaker: Life in itself is kind of overwhelming all the time.

Speaker: And so you go to work and you're trying to learn things that when you're in a position of executive, you've never seen before and there isn't someone to teach you.

Speaker: So you have to teach yourself and introduce yourself to these other trends and these other things.

Speaker: And half the shit you do won't be relevant to anything.

Speaker: And you have to kind of hit and miss so many times until you find like a groove.

Speaker: And it's a dangerous place to be because you can come up in your career and be very popular.

Speaker: But if you can't maintain that, you just tank.

Speaker: And then what do you do?

Speaker: I see.

Speaker: So you're sort of having to keep like a novelty going.

Speaker: You're having to keep a trend resetting.

Speaker: You're having, if you, if you get complacent, you're just sort of left behind.

Speaker: And it sucks too, because like artists in general, if you're going through anything in your life, it's really hard to produce.

Speaker: Like your brain is kind of like clouded with a bunch of other stuff.

Speaker: Or if you have like back-to-back events where you're like required to come up with all these things and all this art,

Speaker: And so you kind of vomit it all out and then you're kind of left with nothing.

Speaker: And it's hard for you to come back from that where you can produce something that you're proud of and stand behind.

Speaker: And I feel like 80% of the time, chefs and probably all artists in general hate what they're putting out.

Speaker: It's so rare that you put something forward and you're like, I stand behind this.

Speaker: I love what I've done.

Speaker: This is really good.

Speaker: Or the imposter syndrome of people loving something that you've done.

Speaker: And you're like, this is shit.

Speaker: This is the worst thing I've ever done.

Speaker: You're stupid.

Speaker: I hate this.

Speaker: And I've even made jokes myself where I'm like, I can get a pie from Sam's Club and tell people I made it.

Speaker: And they'll be like, Jess, this is so good.

Speaker: I'm like, no, it's not.

Speaker: I didn't even make this.

Speaker: So it's an endless cycle constantly.

Speaker: Well, I hear this phrase that says, perfect is the enemy of good.

Speaker: And when you're creating art, God, like the only obsession to do it exactly right.

Speaker: Perfecting it.

Speaker: Is perfecting it.

Speaker: And that I think almost outweighs when we've done something that truly is of a good quality and we overthink it to death.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: And that's what ends up sort of like killing momentum and, you know, I'm trying to think of the right word for it.

Speaker: Sometimes your perseverance, you know, you get squandered because, you know,

Speaker: You obsess so heavily that you just get discouraged to the point of like, I don't want to do this anymore.

Speaker: Has there come a point?

Speaker: And I'm sure for, you know, most people in like any sort of position of like executive power that you've just looked at everything around you and just thought, God, like, can I still do this?

Speaker: Do I want to still do this?

Speaker: Like you're just in the middle of the shit and it's so heavy.

Speaker: You just don't know where to go.

Speaker: What's that been like for you?

Speaker: Very often, actually.

Speaker: And sometimes I feel because I have so many friends in the art community that are not in the culinary.

Speaker: I mean, it's all art, but outside of the food application of art that feel the same exact way.

Speaker: Like, I don't know if you're familiar with Nico Salazar from Meow Wolf.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: He does Future Fantasy Delight.

Speaker: That's his thing.

Speaker: And he's okay.

Speaker: one of the most incredible artists I've ever met.

Speaker: And I'm fortunate to know him because he's my best friend's brother.

Speaker: So I get to know him on a personal level.

Speaker: And we've had several conversations where it's like, we're having to pump and pump and pump this stuff out where we have like nothing left and we hate everything that we do.

Speaker: And then you get stuck in this cycle of putting something out because you're required to, but you like really hate everything that you're doing.

Speaker: And you don't even know what you want to make.

Speaker: And like, what could be the art that you produce that puts it out there that makes it feel like you've done something worthwhile.

Speaker: And then you start to get very skeptical and then you move to another industry or you start studying shit that you would have never thought.

Speaker: Like I have a backup degree and a lot of people in the culinary industry do where it's like, eventually we're going to have to leave because we're going to run out of ideas.

Speaker: We're going to run out of self-esteem.

Speaker: We're going to run out of energy at that point too.

Speaker: So multiple, multiple times, so many times I have thought about how what I'm doing is shit.

Speaker: And I hate it.

Speaker: And I don't belong here.

Speaker: And I want to do something else.

Speaker: It's not fulfilling sometimes.

Speaker: And your mental headspace plays a lot into that.

Speaker: Whenever you're struggling in your mental health life, in your personal life, it reflects on your work a lot.

Speaker: And some people, like myself personally, I feel like I do to the public, at least in their response, the best work I do is at the worst points of my personal life.

Speaker: Oh, interesting.

Speaker: That's where the creativity kind of comes out because that's the coping.

Speaker: The art is the coping.

Speaker: And so we put stuff out on a whim out of pure passion and anger and sadness or whatever the feeling is that we have.

Speaker: And people fucking love it.

Speaker: And they're like, Oh, I love this.

Speaker: And you're like, what?

Speaker: I hate my job.

Speaker: I hate myself.

Speaker: And they, and it gives you a whole other meaning.

Speaker: And then at the same time, anytime that you go and get inspired by doing something different, whether that be like a,

Speaker: you know, a catering in my industry or a random personal project for someone who's personally paid you or something like that.

Speaker: You can get re-inspired really easily.

Speaker: And it's like this toxic, I feel like being an artist is the worst thing that you could do.

Speaker: Cause you're in this endless cycle of hating yourself and everything you do.

Speaker: But then at times you're like, I'm so good at what I do.

Speaker: I'm literally the best.

Speaker: And then you're like, Oh, I hate this.

Speaker: I hate this.

Speaker: I hate this.

Speaker: And it just years pass and you don't even know what's going on.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So when you're, when you're in these moments of just, I mean like self deprecating, like wallowed sorrows, like what is it that sort of like,

Speaker: helps you even out?

Speaker: How do you refocus?

Speaker: Is it people?

Speaker: Is it making something different?

Speaker: Is it trying something new?

Speaker: Is it stepping away?

Speaker: What is it for you that when those moments crop up, get you back on track?

Speaker: Usually, a lot of it has to do with something that I want, that I'm doing myself.

Speaker: I'll indulge in a different technique that is unfamiliar to me because I want to explore because I need something to feel fulfilled or I need this itch in myself to kind of complete something I've never done before or look at something very difficult and being like, this is something I feel like I could never do.

Speaker: And I'm going to do it to prove to myself that I can, or at least learn this new task and new technique and at least be a better artist or chef myself.

Speaker: Like I had made a Pavlava that was super weird with epizote that the Albuquerque journal had posted photos of and did a story about me for.

Speaker: And for me, that was like, I'm sick of this mundane, boring shit of putting cinnamon on everything that I do.

Speaker: because it's like the number one spice for like this region or something.

Speaker: I want to do something that is notably famous to fail at and see how hard I can abuse myself at failing at it until I never do it again.

Speaker: And then like, then it turns into, I have to make this work.

Speaker: I'm better than this.

Speaker: And it's like, like I said, it's an endless fucking cycle of constantly abusing yourself.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And I've even had other local bakers and stuff who have told me like, you're such a masochist.

Speaker: Like,

Speaker: You'll do all these caterings and all these things and combine.

Speaker: I feel like I'm seeing you put all this work out and I'm like, I'm trying to feel something.

Speaker: This is me attacking myself to feel like I'm getting some work done.

Speaker: And the exhaustion makes you feel like you did it.

Speaker: And then the tasks are over and you've done it.

Speaker: But like gunning for the things that are unreasonable and unrecognizable has brought me back every time.

Speaker: And this isn't even so much for the customer.

Speaker: This is really like a personal vendetta against yourself.

Speaker: It is so rare that chefs do shit for other people.

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: We truly do it for ourselves.

Speaker: This is truly the truest form of art as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker: Yeah, that's incredible.

Speaker: As chefs.

Speaker: And I feel like I can speak for so many of us, too.

Speaker: There's always like one part of the menu, like one item on a menu that is for guests.

Speaker: And we fucking hate it.

Speaker: It is like the one thing that we hate to do that we have to do for the people.

Speaker: Like for me, it was churros.

Speaker: where I can't take it off the menu.

Speaker: Like I could not at Paloma because there would be riots in the streets.

Speaker: No one would come, no one would order desserts.

Speaker: They'd be like, where's the fucking this?

Speaker: Where's this?

Speaker: Where's that?

Speaker: But you hated making them.

Speaker: I hated it.

Speaker: Patashu is so boring.

Speaker: Like this is not culinary school 101, but it's a very basic thing and people love it.

Speaker: And there's ways to like make it creative, but it's so rare.

Speaker: It doesn't feel, I don't feel good when I make these things.

Speaker: I do feel good that other people love it and that they're happy eating it.

Speaker: But for me, I'm like, I can't get more creative with this.

Speaker: I pipe it in a circle.

Speaker: And I'm like, is this different?

Speaker: So how do you find that balance then with you get to make something exciting and then you still have to like make the boring staples?

Speaker: Because obviously when people go to a restaurant, there's going to be expectations of, well, baseline needs have to be met, such as churros.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But then, you know, how much does churros take away from you getting a chance to make your big like, you know, this is I hope somebody orders this so I can go crazy.

Speaker: feel good about myself.

Speaker: Well, that's usually what chefs do with like specials.

Speaker: I mean, we get...

Speaker: a big bonus emotionally every time we swap a seasonal menu because we're doing something different.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And so it can be kind of mundane in the culinary industry because you're kind of doing the same thing every day.

Speaker: It gets overly predictable towards the end of the season.

Speaker: You're kind of burning yourself out because you want something new.

Speaker: But chefs that put out a lot of specials are the people that you could see that are kind of struggling with how they feel inside about the art that they're doing because they need to do something different.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So whenever you see restaurants where they release specials often, this is usually what that is, is that they need something new.

Speaker: They need to kind of scratch this itch.

Speaker: We saw, and it could be something so small.

Speaker: We saw a video about somebody frying something like this.

Speaker: And we're like, this would be so much better if we did it like this.

Speaker: And you're like, how about I put that to the test in like an actual setting and bet.

Speaker: the product that I have in the labor that I've put into it and literally bet it and then watch the numbers rise or fall and see if you were right or wrong.

Speaker: Either way, it feels like we're putting out something much more often than we are.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And that's where we kind of get that scratch.

Speaker: Have you ever like gotten the, the chance to make a chef special and you're like, I cannot wait to do this.

Speaker: And then like one month and you're like, I cannot believe I suggested this.

Speaker: I hate it.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: There's been tons of times that I've like convinced my boss that this was a good idea.

Speaker: And I'm like, this is so good.

Speaker: People love this.

Speaker: It's all over the place.

Speaker: Like Bon Appetit, like loves cocoa butter spray bullshit.

Speaker: And then I do it and it's no one gives a shit.

Speaker: And I'm like, still trying to defend myself.

Speaker: Cause I'm like, I felt really good about this.

Speaker: And then like no one else liked it.

Speaker: So even with that, like what if you made something that you thought, oh, I can't wait to do this.

Speaker: And then it gets super popular.

Speaker: But then a month and you're like, I never want to make one of these ever again in my life.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: All the, my entire, my entire menu last season, like the, it's like a running joke at Paloma about saying guava tart to me.

Speaker: Oh, because there was, this was a random ditch dessert that I had made, you know, we came through COVID and that was really difficult.

Speaker: And when we reopened fully staffed and so many other restaurants feel the same pain,

Speaker: you kind of had to streamline what you had because of what was available to you, not based on product, but based on staff and sometimes also product.

Speaker: Like some of our main puree companies that exist in the U S have failed and they're not around anymore.

Speaker: They were like famous staples that we leaned on for flavor profiles and stuff.

Speaker: They're not there anymore.

Speaker: So then you have to like figure out how to get this stuff way in advance to do it.

Speaker: So you're kind of just like coming up with shit to get it moving.

Speaker: And my guava tart was one of those.

Speaker: It was something that was super simple that I had just randomly thought about.

Speaker: I could mass produce it easily for a very low cost.

Speaker: And I literally had that dessert photographed more than anything I have ever made.

Speaker: And I hate it.

Speaker: I hate that dessert so much.

Speaker: That's your regret.

Speaker: I, yeah, I literally hate it.

Speaker: I like felt not creative.

Speaker: And it was like an argument to take it off the menu because guests complain and this is who we serve.

Speaker: So we're going to take what they say to heart and obviously into consideration.

Speaker: It's a business.

Speaker: We're not here to play with our food for free.

Speaker: We would like some money back from it.

Speaker: So then to be like, I couldn't even change my menu for like an additional three months past the season because of this fucking tart.

Speaker: And churros.

Speaker: So two thirds of this.

Speaker: And the other one was tres leches, which is something I had put back on the menu after COVID because so many people wanted it.

Speaker: So for me, I was like, I feel like I work at like any sort of chain store producing the same low quality cheap dessert because it was not interesting at all.

Speaker: It was just very simple and

Speaker: And those desserts have haunted me forever.

Speaker: And they will.

Speaker: I will never make those again.

Speaker: It's a tragedy to hear, but also it's really funny.

Speaker: And I'm sorry that food has haunted you to some degree, but I suppose like any art, you know, this is kind of any art.

Speaker: Yeah, we'll do that to somebody.

Speaker: But OK, so despite the fact that you are obviously as a pastry chef, you're experienced in, you know, one sort of like specialty line.

Speaker: But you obviously have a culinary expertise that allows you to make a variety of things all across the world.

Speaker: You could do all kinds of cool stuff any day, anytime, however you wanted.

Speaker: But I'd imagine by the time you get home, you're on your way home and you're like, I'm hungry, but I don't want to make something.

Speaker: Oh, never.

Speaker: So many people, they're like, oh, what do you do?

Speaker: You must make, or they would tell my son.

Speaker: They're like, oh, wow, your mom's a chef.

Speaker: You are so lucky.

Speaker: You must have this or this.

Speaker: And sometimes that's true.

Speaker: I mean, when we cook, Thanksgiving is a showdown and things like that.

Speaker: But in reality, no, I don't want any of that crap.

Speaker: My fridge is full of every condiment you could ever imagine.

Speaker: But when it comes to making a meal, I only buy it fresh that day in a very scaled amount.

Speaker: There's no leftovers.

Speaker: There's no nothing.

Speaker: I just have condiments and drinks.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: I'm admittingly a fast food addict.

Speaker: Do you look at fast food now with this discerning eye or do you just sort of love the indulgence of like, it's cheap, it's easy, it's hot, it's fresh and delicious?

Speaker: Hopefully it's fresh.

Speaker: All of it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's also just filthy and disgusting.

Speaker: Like nacho cheese on anything and everything is an option depending on where you're going.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: The other day I thought about it and I was like, oh man, I really want some nacho cheese.

Speaker: But it was like in the middle of the afternoon.

Speaker: I was like, I don't want nachos.

Speaker: I don't want this.

Speaker: And I was like, Arby's.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: nasty beef and cheddar that sounds delicious and i didn't stop for that at that point but i was i went to baja taco in san february who puts their green chili cheese fries or like beer battered fries covered in nacho cheese and green chili sold dip into some sour cream that's my favorite thing that sounds super good it's a meal i eat very often

Speaker: Okay, perfect.

Speaker: So you have a couple of go-tos and sometimes the indulgence of fast food really is just a really good way to go.

Speaker: Do you ever like when you take a bite, say Taco Bell, you go to Taco Bell?

Speaker: I love Taco Bell is my favorite fast food place.

Speaker: So it's one of my vices.

Speaker: Do you ever just grab like a Doritos Locos taco and just think like, this is the filth that I want.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Every time I eat it, whenever, cause I've made so many types of tacos in my lifetime, like from straight classics to like, this takes 24 hours from start to finish type fine dining, delicious, high quality, organic, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker: Tacos.

Speaker: But I get the top, like I'll get like a party pack from Taco Bell and I can clear almost an entire one alone.

Speaker: Oh, heck yeah.

Speaker: This shit is disgusting.

Speaker: Whenever people whine where they're like, Oh God, you know, this person just has ground beef and potato tacos at their house with iceberg lettuce.

Speaker: And I'm like, for sure.

Speaker: It's cheap.

Speaker: It's meant to be its own style of tasty food.

Speaker: You know, and so living in New Mexico, that's something that I've heard from a lot of people because they just go, oh man, you eat Mexican food all the time, right?

Speaker: It's like, well, I mean, it's accessible and it's delicious, but also I love Taco Bell.

Speaker: And they go, why would you get Taco Bell if you live in a city with like thousands of taco options?

Speaker: And it's like, sometimes I want a specific flavor that Taco Bell has.

Speaker: It's not because it's better, but it's because that's what I want.

Speaker: It's in its own little area of something.

Speaker: Like we could have...

Speaker: this style of food, but sometimes we just want the shit of the food.

Speaker: I don't need best of the best for every single meal.

Speaker: It's comforting.

Speaker: It's really comforting.

Speaker: It's junky.

Speaker: It's good.

Speaker: It's got all the things you like feel like,

Speaker: Like you have to take a shower.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And sometimes that's a majority of the time.

Speaker: That's what I want.

Speaker: I don't want to feel good about what I eat half the time.

Speaker: I like this stuff and I'm not afraid to be like, I enjoy this.

Speaker: And so many times too, where people ask me, Oh, what do you make for yourself?

Speaker: And I'm like, nothing.

Speaker: I eat a Taco Bell like three times a week.

Speaker: I love that place.

Speaker: It's like cheers to me.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: It's very comforting.

Speaker: Jessica's rolling up, better pull out the party pack.

Speaker: Just as it's, I think, important for you to have worked in fast food all the way up through where you're at, I think being able to indulge in a variety of foods, including lower tier whatever, is just as important because it's still food.

Speaker: It still satisfies a certain specific

Speaker: flavor palette that you crave.

Speaker: And like, I don't ever want to dismiss, you know, like somebody says, Hey, go to the cheesecake factory.

Speaker: Hey, somebody go to Taco Bell.

Speaker: They're both great when you're in the mood for whichever one calls.

Speaker: What it is you're looking for.

Speaker: Sometimes you just want junk food.

Speaker: Sometimes.

Speaker: There's times I've argued even that nachos at the gas station, it's nacho cheese and just chips.

Speaker: Or the movie theater where I'm like, this is so nasty.

Speaker: I don't want to know what I'm eating.

Speaker: I just know I'm eating it.

Speaker: I want greasy, buttery popcorn.

Speaker: It's the number one.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: They're like hardly even food and they're incredible.

Speaker: I don't know what it is.

Speaker: But every day after high school in Sacramento, my little sister and I had to walk past Jack in the Box, which actually it was a dual Jack in the Box and Taco Bell.

Speaker: So it was amazing.

Speaker: Oh, Jesus.

Speaker: How do you decide?

Speaker: And right next door was an A&W mashed with KFC.

Speaker: So connected these four gods of the fast food community.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we would always stop because Jack in the Box tacos were two for a dollar.

Speaker: So we'd go and get hella tacos.

Speaker: And I was like, what is this mash?

Speaker: And I'd look at it and I'm like, I don't want to know.

Speaker: Or the videos where they're like, do you know where that comes from?

Speaker: And I'm like, I literally don't care.

Speaker: It's tasty.

Speaker: I don't know what to say.

Speaker: I can't argue this.

Speaker: It tastes good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm with you.

Speaker: I think sometimes it's really, it's about the whole of it rather than I'm only allowed to eat like the 20% of good food out there.

Speaker: You know, there's food is food and food is,

Speaker: The idea of it, like capturing so many different flavors, good, bad, whatever.

Speaker: Sometimes you just want what you want.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And there's a lot of people that share the mindset and the professional community, like Christina Tosi, who is a world famous pastry chef, has made her career off of being addicted to junk food and snack foods and

Speaker: shit food essentially as the rest of the community would see it.

Speaker: And she's always said that it doesn't have to be fancy to be good.

Speaker: Like it doesn't have to be fussy.

Speaker: It doesn't have to be overthought.

Speaker: It doesn't have to be these things.

Speaker: Sometimes you can combine 20 pounds of butter with some powdered sugar and just deck it out in like sprinkles and sauce and things that are awful for you.

Speaker: And it's amazing.

Speaker: And so she does work with the milk bar.

Speaker: If you ever look her up or them up, if you haven't heard of them, all of her stuff is like crazy junk box food, like things smashed together.

Speaker: And they're one of the most famous people for pastries in the country.

Speaker: Oh, that's cool.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Junk box.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Beautiful.

Speaker: Now.

Speaker: Have you ever thought about, I was watching this show, just I found this yesterday, and it was like this challenge where these people had to go and try to create like, quote unquote, shitty snack food, garbage food, junk food.

Speaker: And the first challenge was like, hey, go in the kitchen and make some homemade Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

Speaker: I just watched this yesterday.

Speaker: And I think that's super fascinating.

Speaker: Yeah, my sister told me about this, and she's super sick right now, and she's like, oh,

Speaker: Netflix queen right now.

Speaker: It's like, oh, you should, have you heard of this show?

Speaker: And I was like, well, I've seen it on my feed and stuff on Netflix, but I usually watch documentaries.

Speaker: So I always go that way.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And I work with food all day, so I don't typically want to do that.

Speaker: That's like the same as...

Speaker: anyone who's like, Oh, well let's make dinner and get together.

Speaker: And I'm like, Oh, let's do my job for free.

Speaker: That sounds awesome.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I don't want to do that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I watched the show just that one episode.

Speaker: Cause I fell asleep after that.

Speaker: And I,

Speaker: I was watching the way that they were all coming about it from different angles, too, because you have people from all walks of life in that show, too, where you have like food scientists.

Speaker: Then you have famous pastry chefs.

Speaker: Then you have people that are famous at getting popular for being at home chefs.

Speaker: And like, how do all these things work?

Speaker: And then how would I do it as a professional?

Speaker: And I was like, what the fuck?

Speaker: Like, these are intense.

Speaker: Like, and then I thought, and I was like, how the fuck do you make hot Cheetos?

Speaker: Literally, like, I don't even know.

Speaker: I don't even know how to approach that where I'm like, okay, polenta makes sense.

Speaker: But does it?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And everything when everyone was having their stuff pop back at them.

Speaker: And I was like, that makes sense.

Speaker: Like your rule is too high in this.

Speaker: And I'm like, I would not be able to probably successfully pull that off on a show.

Speaker: Yeah, I actually thought it was a really impressive challenge.

Speaker: Yeah, what a neat idea because we take it for granted because it's so mass produced.

Speaker: And, you know, you could go to Taco Bell.

Speaker: It's crap food, but we can't produce the crap food as professionals.

Speaker: So what are we?

Speaker: How do you make Pringles easily?

Speaker: How do you make?

Speaker: Yeah, it was a really interesting idea.

Speaker: And I kind of like a sort of taking something that is seemingly simple and, you know, having to analyze the

Speaker: The genuine complexity of it, you know, a factory that does it for them.

Speaker: But like somebody still had to sort of figure this out in the first place.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Where I want to see the recipes now.

Speaker: I thought about even the seasoning.

Speaker: I don't even know how to replicate it.

Speaker: I know that there's a lot of niacin involved in hot Cheetos, which gives you that.

Speaker: tip of the tongue, spicy, tingling flavor, but there's also a lot of acid and like lime flavor.

Speaker: And then where does the cheese come from?

Speaker: I sat there for a while where I was like, I don't even want to mentally think about this because I admit this is something I could not do.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I feel like I could not.

Speaker: Pretty cool to see.

Speaker: No matter how much you know about food, there's always so much more you simply don't.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I think that's actually a really good sort of like sign or maybe even philosophy is to realize that.

Speaker: Well, I don't know if it was Socrates.

Speaker: The more you realize, you know, the more you realize, you know, nothing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it's so humbling.

Speaker: Also, I hope I attributed that to the right person.

Speaker: But it's one of those guys in a toga, you know, doing.

Speaker: Yeah, something I'm trying to think about and I'm like, I know what you're saying, but it's totally true.

Speaker: Yeah, it's good to be humble with that.

Speaker: So even outside of food, then when you come home and you don't want to cook, you don't want to make food, you don't want to be inundated with something you're already doing all day long.

Speaker: Do you have any sort of go-to hobbies or do you watch movies or read books or play games or go running?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Like, what do you got?

Speaker: What's...

Speaker: I definitely never go outside.

Speaker: I've always told people, if you see me running to run the direction I'm running.

Speaker: Something bad is happening.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: No, I am too tired to run or exercise like that.

Speaker: I play a lot of video games.

Speaker: I'm super introverted.

Speaker: So a majority of the time I like to spend by myself.

Speaker: I'll even like lie to people that love and respect me to be alone.

Speaker: And I, they probably know it.

Speaker: I was going to say they're going to once they listen to this.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: And a majority of people will be like, oh, I fucking knew it, Jess.

Speaker: I knew it.

Speaker: Confirming the whole thing.

Speaker: I just can't like working in a kitchen.

Speaker: So I have ADHD very bad too.

Speaker: I have serious sensory issues.

Speaker: I majority of the time I cook with gloves on.

Speaker: I can't touch stuff.

Speaker: I like,

Speaker: makes me feel like that limb is dead to me.

Speaker: It sounds really extreme, but it's really how I feel almost all the time.

Speaker: And so I'm in this, I can be a very assertive person and most people find me or describe me to be intimidating and I don't see it.

Speaker: I'm in this figure of authority almost all the time, all week at my job.

Speaker: And I work in a very loud environment.

Speaker: There's oven hoods blaring, there's ovens themselves on, there's, you know,

Speaker: Things sauteing, things frying, things braising and plates crashing and a dishwasher turning on.

Speaker: There's people yelling to get shit from the pass and like other stuff.

Speaker: And it's so loud and overstimulating that I come home.

Speaker: I live by myself and I always will because it's just crazy.

Speaker: decompressing.

Speaker: So I read sometimes when I can like maintain the entertainment to do so just because I feel like I get distracted by things so often or I'll sometimes reread a paragraph like 30 times and gain nothing from it.

Speaker: I love to read, but it's only in like the right setting.

Speaker: But I mean, I'll watch shows even too, but mostly getting lost in playing video games by myself is

Speaker: really how I spend almost all of my downtime or just napping in general, anything quiet, just low energy.

Speaker: Well, after a busy day of being very extroverted, yeah, it's nice to come home and like the complete opposite, get that balance going.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Constantly too.

Speaker: It's so loud.

Speaker: It's too much.

Speaker: And then even sometimes it's so draining.

Speaker: I don't even have energy to play games, which is the least amount of energy.

Speaker: It's like the most selfish, self-indulgent thing you can do is like turn yourself off and live this other life.

Speaker: And sometimes even that's too exhausting.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You only have enough to exist in wherever you're standing.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: When you play video games, I actually, you know, obviously I'm into video games.

Speaker: I had a couple sort of questions for you.

Speaker: Do you ever play video games and look at food in video games and you either think that looks delicious or I want to make that?

Speaker: Yeah, I do that mostly.

Speaker: I feel like video games don't really like put a lot of focus on food rather than like name what it is.

Speaker: So it kind of limits like the creative ability to recreate something.

Speaker: Because it's like, you know, like Stardew Valley, you have like salmon dinner and like the ingredients for that are salmon, amaranth, and kale.

Speaker: I think kale.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: I'm going to like fuck this up.

Speaker: Stardew Valley.

Speaker: You're so stupid.

Speaker: It's not that.

Speaker: Boycott the podcast.

Speaker: I can do whatever, you know, that entails.

Speaker: But a lot of that is like anime.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Does a lot of that where I look at it and I'm like,

Speaker: What the hell is that?

Speaker: I could recreate that because it's, it doesn't even have a name.

Speaker: It's just being made in this show and it looks so complex and so different.

Speaker: You could actually recreate it.

Speaker: And there's plenty of YouTube people that do that where they look at,

Speaker: food that was made in a show or a movie or something.

Speaker: And then they create a whole series of them recreating what they think that that means.

Speaker: And it's beautiful and delicious.

Speaker: It's a fun idea for people to sort of take that like one extra step.

Speaker: Zelda Breath of the Wild came out a couple of years back and you can just willy nilly throw shit into a pot and makes hundreds of different types of foods.

Speaker: And people started making like their own written illustrated cookbooks that are like, here's how to make, you know, I don't remember the names of half of these things, but you know, like some sort of like apple truffle steak or whatever it might be.

Speaker: And it's, it's so fun to see people sort of take it to like this extra sort of next level of,

Speaker: You know, it doesn't just look good.

Speaker: Here's how you can actually make something comparable at home.

Speaker: I have thought about making my own YouTube show where I do something like this because during COVID, so many people encouraged me to make a show that was based on scientific reasons as to why we do stuff in the culinary industry, especially baking, which I did for a short period of time, not anything complex.

Speaker: Like I just typed things.

Speaker: novels out on Instagram, but it gained a lot of traction to the point that a media local media producer here had said that they would be willing to record me and produce this if it was something I put more effort into.

Speaker: But I don't know how to edit videos.

Speaker: I don't have time for that.

Speaker: At that point, I was married.

Speaker: I had three children altogether through marriage and biologically that I had to care for.

Speaker: didn't have time or silence to have a giant whiteboard where I could share like scientific theory with people.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Do you think that's something you'd ever pursue in the future if the opportunity came up?

Speaker: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker: There's a way I could like make it kind of make sense and be something I could put forward.

Speaker: That was a benefit to other people that I was also proud of.

Speaker: I would definitely do it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I like that.

Speaker: I like how that's expressed a benefit to other people that you're proud of.

Speaker: I think it's a really great way to describe

Speaker: what you do.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's cool.

Speaker: So Jessica, I've got five questions for you and these questions, very important.

Speaker: Very, very, very important.

Speaker: The first question being Jessica, if you got to recommend to me or anybody else, a favorite book.

Speaker: And I know we discussed that like books,

Speaker: are difficult to read makes it so hard to sit there and focus.

Speaker: But if there's one, you've made it all the way through and you just, you feel like it's something you want to share with the world.

Speaker: What's that book?

Speaker: Oh, that's a hard question.

Speaker: Honestly, I think one of the most intense books I've ever read that I recommended the most to people was push by Sapphire, which is the book that precious is based off of because it's a, um,

Speaker: It's written in a very strange way.

Speaker: It's written as like a diary.

Speaker: And it is focused on a woman who had faced a lot of abuse and trauma in her early years and who at this point was already a mother through incest and abuse.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: And she was very uneducated.

Speaker: And you can like read it in the writing style in the beginning part.

Speaker: And you can watch as she becomes educated and experiences things in her life, how it kind of clears itself up and like kind of moves, but it's a very dark and upsetting book.

Speaker: And it was one of the most moving books I ever read where I had to stop a couple of times to cry about it.

Speaker: And it was also, have you ever read Carrie by Stephen King?

Speaker: Oh, like the actual Stephen King novel.

Speaker: When I was a kid, for some weird reason, I don't know why I read Stephen King.

Speaker: That's when I read it too.

Speaker: I was like eight.

Speaker: I had read almost all of Stephen King and Anne Rice's works by the time I was my son's age.

Speaker: Because I was just into reading and my mom was like, oh, you like books?

Speaker: Oh, fucking read all of them.

Speaker: You can read whatever you want that I have.

Speaker: And there were certain ones.

Speaker: I mean, Stephen King's stuff I've read as an adult.

Speaker: I reread it after watching the second

Speaker: movie that they did because I was so disappointed in it.

Speaker: I was like, I have to give myself this refresh by reading the work and then reading it a second time as a grownup where I'm like, this is fucking filthy.

Speaker: Like his language is so nasty.

Speaker: Oh, it's pretty.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I never thought about this as a kid because I didn't know what he meant.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so Carrie was written in a very strange way too, because it bounced between a lot of different viewpoints.

Speaker: Part of it would be Carrie herself talking about it.

Speaker: Part of it would be a psychologist.

Speaker: Part of it would be newspaper clippings.

Speaker: And it was like one of the most interesting written books because it just the way that it was written and same with push by Sapphire, where it was written in such a strange way that it was drew you in.

Speaker: Push by Sapphire.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a very short read too.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Just a short couple hundred pages.

Speaker: Sounds really worthwhile.

Speaker: But it's so brutal and so intense that like I said, you have to stop to like cry because of how intense it is.

Speaker: And it's such a great book.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That sounds incredible.

Speaker: But it's very, very heavy.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Perfect.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: So excellent recommendation.

Speaker: I'm excited to look into that at some point.

Speaker: Now...

Speaker: Second on the list, same thing, but with a movie or a TV show.

Speaker: It could be, this can also be kind of a big question, but.

Speaker: I know movies and TV shows.

Speaker: It's like, I feel like I could lean towards like what, something that could be my favorite versus the other, but I'll go on.

Speaker: My favorite movie is Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, who is my favorite director because he has like such this demented, fantastical view of things.

Speaker: And I feel like,

Speaker: I relate to it so much because I see things as being both beautiful and demented most of the time.

Speaker: So Pan's Labyrinth is like the best because it's like an adult fairy tale of like, what could we imagine these horrors that could exist in the real world?

Speaker: And it's anything Guillermo del Toro thinks about.

Speaker: Like I just watched his Pinocchio.

Speaker: Have you seen that?

Speaker: Not yet.

Speaker: I saw that it popped up on, I think Netflix, but yeah, I've heard it's great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It just, just came out like December 9th.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: So super recently now.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Very recently.

Speaker: And it's great because it like challenges all these ideas of like fascism and like war and how that affects children.

Speaker: Oh, great.

Speaker: And stuff.

Speaker: And when I first watched it, I was concerned as like a parent,

Speaker: not concerned for like what my child was seeing because this is real life shit.

Speaker: And I don't like, I shelter my son from certain things, but I will not shelter him from like the realism of the world.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: At least.

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: And so watching it, it was like a very brutal approach to something that was very real that I knew from like a child's eyes.

Speaker: They would see this as something that was real and has happened or could happen.

Speaker: But it wasn't gory enough that I would like block my kid.

Speaker: It's rated PG because I looked it up because initially there's like a lot of Nazi theme in it, not essentially from like.

Speaker: we like Nazis, we're on the Nazi side or something, but like explaining that during that timeframe that this is, these countries were Nazi controlled and how some of those beliefs harmed and delegated children.

Speaker: So it's like, I really recommend that you watch it.

Speaker: It was very, it's very Guillermo del Toro too.

Speaker: Cause like the characters are very fantastical and strange.

Speaker: And there's like the air of mystery and darkness and the tones of,

Speaker: of the visuals are very dark and shadow like and like, but it was intense and it was a wonderful, wonderful movie.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: No, that sounds fantastic.

Speaker: And you know, I don't think I ever really sat down and consider the implications of Pinocchio being set in like Germany in the early 1900s and sort of what that would have been like to just, you know, small German town and, you know, if it took place during the war and that's actually a really incredible sort of perspective.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, that sounds fantastic.

Speaker: I actually paused it like partway through to look up how parents would react because I would have imagined for me when I was watching it and I paused where I was like, what are the Karens saying about some of these themes?

Speaker: Because they're very realistic, but they are parts of our history.

Speaker: And instead of kind of dubbing them down or making them more sugarcoated, it was presented how it was where children in Italy were

Speaker: were actually taken from a young age to be trained in these camps to die for their country.

Speaker: And they were taught that this was fair and this was just, and that this was what their life was accounted to, which when you're telling children that, especially as a parent,

Speaker: This is not what they're meant to do.

Speaker: These are adult themes and adult arguments and we're, you know, some countries during certain parts and even now still to this day, their lives were being put up for what kind of shit.

Speaker: So it was really insane to see it because there's actually a lot of death in that movie too.

Speaker: And death is a part of life and it's hard conversations to have with your children.

Speaker: But this made it like so approachable in like this very heavy yet lighthearted way that I had to stop to look at what it was rated.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I was like, oh my, I'm watching it with my son.

Speaker: And I'm like, are you okay?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And he loved it because he was like, this is so crazy.

Speaker: Like, cool.

Speaker: This is what it was like.

Speaker: And I was like, yes, there were children that literally had to do this.

Speaker: And they thought that this was the way that life was.

Speaker: And it's crazy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Amazing.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker: And actually that puts a spin on it.

Speaker: That makes me more interested even.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I'll check that out hopefully this weekend, but yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So now that we've gotten a book in a movie, this one, I feel we sort of touched up on, but we get to sort of like, I know it's not truly definitive and that's okay.

Speaker: But if we're going to say you get to pick one food, what's that one food?

Speaker: Tamales.

Speaker: Tamales.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Perfect.

Speaker: But not any tamales.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I mean, from like Guatemalan tamales.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: Wrapped in banana leaf.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Filled with not just marinated pork or vegetables and stuff like that, but like,

Speaker: big chunks of meat that have the bones still in it with like olives and other stuff like banana leaf wrapped tamales are so different from other ones.

Speaker: They're so moist.

Speaker: It gives like a taste to the masa that is unrecognizable.

Speaker: I am very passionate about Guatemalan tamales.

Speaker: It's my favorite food.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That's the number one.

Speaker: So is there any place accessible other than traveling to Guatemala?

Speaker: Is there any place that you might be able to find something like this that people could at least get like a taste of like even sort of authenticity?

Speaker: Tune Up Cafe here in Santa Fe has Guatemalan tamales that I have tasted that kind of hit the nail on stuff that I'm craving most of the time.

Speaker: But honestly, a majority of the time that I'm craving it around any holiday season, I will find someone locally that's selling them and buy them myself.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I thought you were going to say a quick trip to Guatemala just because you got to get the fix.

Speaker: Oh, I wish.

Speaker: I wish I could.

Speaker: Just on a whim.

Speaker: If only teleportation were a thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Fortunately, I know a lot of Guatemalan locals here.

Speaker: Oh, good.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, do you ever have any that you can send to Albuquerque, you know, just a little ways away?

Speaker: Oh, I will.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Let me know because I'm interested.

Speaker: And now I think I know the answer to this one based on a handful of conversations we've had, but obviously we're doing this podcast for not me, but for everybody else.

Speaker: Now I have to ask this because it would be ridiculous if I didn't, but if you had to choose a favorite video game, what's it going to be?

Speaker: My answer is probably going to be a little surprising.

Speaker: because it's such an old game that almost no one, I have literally never met a single person that knew what it was besides me, which my stepdad bought me this game.

Speaker: So I showed an interest in video games when I was like five and my mom built me my own PC so that I could play games.

Speaker: And she always brags about how I like

Speaker: broke the Sims and did a bunch of weird shit.

Speaker: And I was always into any sort of like RPG game.

Speaker: So Final Fantasy was one of my first after that, where I played Final Fantasy seven to death.

Speaker: And this was in the very early nineties.

Speaker: Like I said, I was like five or six.

Speaker: And then Final Fantasy nine is my favorite Final Fantasy that exists.

Speaker: But actually my favorite game,

Speaker: is a game called Kadelka.

Speaker: Kadelka, yep.

Speaker: You know it?

Speaker: I do.

Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You're literally the first person I've met that knows this game.

Speaker: That is my favorite game.

Speaker: I feel like it combines all of the parts of my favorite games.

Speaker: Like it has the fighting style and the map style that Final Fantasy has, which I'm sure you can understand.

Speaker: It has the tones of Resident Evil, but it also has a little bit of Silent Hill in it.

Speaker: It's very dark.

Speaker: It has like an uplifting story to it and like this freedom in the game and like the customizable part of like your characters where it's like so fucking tactical and so...

Speaker: planned and then also scary as shit.

Speaker: Like you've played the game then, right?

Speaker: So here's the thing is I know of the game simply because I've been in the gaming industry for like 25 years, maybe longer at this point.

Speaker: But so I've seen it multiple times.

Speaker: I've checked out the box.

Speaker: I've looked at, I've seen, you know, reviews and things in magazines, never actually played it.

Speaker: for clarity but it looks like this might actually be on my list of stuff to check out if i get yes please do even okay so final fantasy i feel like uh even in its earlier ages was really above or like past its time in its little video scenarios and things that it would put out there like

Speaker: So the same with Kidelka where like cut scenes and stuff were so detailed for that time, but they were so intense emotionally and scary themed.

Speaker: Everything like Kidelka was so gory compared to other games put out at that time.

Speaker: Even like Silent Hill when you watch that, like when Lisa dies in Silent Hill, where it was like for that time, it seemed kind of graphic.

Speaker: To have like this woman who was somewhat sexualized, like covered in blood, helpless and like kind of sick and like dragging herself towards you.

Speaker: Like I can still see that scene in my head.

Speaker: And the first time I saw it, I was what, when the fuck did that come out?

Speaker: Like 1997 or eight?

Speaker: Like I was born in 91.

Speaker: So I was playing this when it was brand new and I was like, oh shit.

Speaker: Like as soon as like I exited out the door from Lisa, like dragging her like bloody self out at me where I was like, this is fucked up.

Speaker: Kidelka is like 10 times worse than that.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Dark, demonic and like actually scared you.

Speaker: And you had to go back and fight the shit that was coming for you in these cut scenes where there's this one specific that's in like,

Speaker: It's when you're swapping over a disc.

Speaker: I remember this because the saddest part about Kedelka is when I was like 16 or 17, I had just moved to Santa Fe from Sacramento and I had all this shit and I was trading in a bunch of stuff at GameStop and I worked at GameStop.

Speaker: And so I was like, okay, I'll get some money back and I'll buy some of this other shit that I wanted.

Speaker: Like the DS had just come out when I worked there.

Speaker: So I wanted all of that.

Speaker: So I was like, I'm just going to trade in all my old PlayStation games.

Speaker: And Kedelka was worth a lot.

Speaker: Like I looked at the checkout and it was like $60 for that game trading value.

Speaker: And this was so long ago where almost nothing that you got, you got anything back from.

Speaker: I think GameStop has been infamous for fucking over people for trade-ins.

Speaker: So when I traded it in, it was worth a shit ton of money.

Speaker: And I was like, oh, that's so crazy.

Speaker: And then like a year later when I was like, I just want Kidulco back.

Speaker: And I looked it up and it's like $200 on eBay.

Speaker: And I was like, oh my God.

Speaker: I like let go this like classic game that I thought no one knew because I didn't know anyone that played it because my stepdad gave it to me after we played Soul Reaver.

Speaker: on PlayStation.

Speaker: And this was something similar in Silent Hill and Resident Evil 2.

Speaker: And I thought this was all kind of in the same boat video game wise.

Speaker: And I still have never gotten it back.

Speaker: I can't, I'm very frugal.

Speaker: I can't justify, you know, another game too, that is very lost that I bet that you were familiar with that I meant to ask you about.

Speaker: One of my employees brought up because he had a memory.

Speaker: He was like,

Speaker: I used to play this game on PlayStation all the time and I didn't know what it was.

Speaker: And I recognized it the way he described it was wild nine.

Speaker: Wild nine.

Speaker: I, the soundtrack done by a band called Sonic mayhem.

Speaker: You had them by Doug to Napel of earthworm Jim developed by shiny entertainment.

Speaker: So you know this, I was like, I can find someone.

Speaker: that knows this, but I was like, for me, I was like, I thought I imagined this.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think I've got a copy of my shelf literally right back there.

Speaker: So what?

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: I'll have to tell them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But that's actually my favorite game.

Speaker: It's like, that's like my white Buffalo.

Speaker: I like traded it in and I never got it back.

Speaker: One of these days forever.

Speaker: I will.

Speaker: One of these days I will justify it is worth $200.

Speaker: It honestly is.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: It's just like so tactical and so dark and so strange.

Speaker: I, yeah.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: That sounds excellent.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause I'm simply familiar with the game existing, seeing the box art and always thought, Oh, this looks, you know, creepy, but never personally tried it.

Speaker: So, okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Now here's the final question before we wrap up for the night.

Speaker: If you had the opportunity really to just sort of give advice to somebody who needs it, advice you wish maybe that you had younger you,

Speaker: You right now, who knows, but what's one piece of advice you would impart upon somebody listening to this?

Speaker: Towards like someone in my industry community, I feel like I would speak mostly to is to really not overthink it, to just go with the weird shit, to go with your intuition.

Speaker: And instead of feeling like you don't,

Speaker: nothing you say matters or like the work that you're putting forward is as good as other people, but to just follow what you feel feels right and natural.

Speaker: And, and that's you, it's, it's called your style.

Speaker: And so many artists stunt themselves trying to produce art from the eyes of someone they're trying to impress or from their boss, but they actually stunt their own growth.

Speaker: And it also leads to imposter syndrome where you feel like,

Speaker: you don't belong anywhere.

Speaker: Oh, I bet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I feel like I would be so much further in my career if I didn't shit on myself so much in my younger years.

Speaker: Just trust yourself then.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Believe in yourself.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's great.

Speaker: And it's great because I think for your industry that holds very true.

Speaker: And I think for a lot of people who are just guessing who they are is, you know, it's so easy to feel like you're disappointing somebody.

Speaker: Maybe just don't do that.

Speaker: Maybe it's just really is just, you know,

Speaker: you have to forge your own everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause that feeling never goes away.

Speaker: The feeling that you suck or you're not producing something that someone gives a shit about it stays no matter what, like I could get published in a magazine once a month and still hate a hundred percent of everything I do where I don't believe anybody because of

Speaker: some of the shit that I would just swallow during my younger years of trying to think of what I thought is creative or outstanding or appealing to other people did not fit what someone I admired had thought of.

Speaker: But that's the thing is like artists can all be good.

Speaker: We're all good at different things.

Speaker: So if you don't take control of like your individuality and your creativity and kind of just like take control of the weird shit you're doing,

Speaker: you're going to go nowhere either way.

Speaker: So, yeah, I think that's phenomenal.

Speaker: I think it's great advice and it's so easy to overlook because overthinking really does ruin everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause you'll never put out the work that you're thinking about if you continue to think about it.

Speaker: Cause you can't get perfect instead, like swap the idea of like where you hold perfection in importance.

Speaker: I like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: like you will like instead of we're going to always strive to make something perfect and you should always strive for that but the you know inspiration to get to perfection and that drive to get there and complete that project is passion and to not let that get kind of skewed in that always strive for for perfection but don't

Speaker: stop when you don't think something is perfect because you're never going to work out.

Speaker: And honestly, other people don't see you or the work that you do the same way that you do.

Speaker: I can put out something that I hate and people think I've done something amazing.

Speaker: And I'm like, you guys are all lying to me and I ignore them and I never do it again.

Speaker: But in reality, you

Speaker: people admire you for a lot of different things and you should just be able to at some point feel confidence and acceptance in the way that other people view and admire you.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: I think that's terrific.

Speaker: I think that's beautiful advice that everybody can use.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So now, Jessica, where can people find you as far as like, I mean, not like, you know, I'm not going to get the coordinates of your address, but as far as like media that you want to give out, like, you know, a restaurant or a page or an Instagram or a Twitter or anything like that, where you feel that you want people to be able to access you.

Speaker: What do you got?

Speaker: So I'm the executive pastry chef at the compound restaurant in downtown Santa Fe.

Speaker: You can find us off Canyon road.

Speaker: We're very classic old restaurants.

Speaker: known restaurant.

Speaker: You can always come there and find my work there if you want to eat it.

Speaker: But if you don't live locally or you don't want to go out to eat at a super fine dining restaurant, my Instagram handle is all lowercase hellajessica666.

Speaker: Bye.

Speaker: which is always embarrassing to tell people as a professional now.

Speaker: But I feel like I can't change it now.

Speaker: So many people know me as that and whatever.

Speaker: Whoever hires me knows I am who I am.

Speaker: I mean, look at me.

Speaker: What would you expect?

Speaker: Expect anything less than that's on you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Perfect.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, so I want to thank you for being part of this series and for being somebody that like, you know, within the past hour and a half, I've learned a tremendous amount about.

Speaker: And so thank you really just for being part of this podcast.

Speaker: And Jessica, thank you for helping create humanity.

Speaker: Of course.

Speaker: Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker: This is such a good podcast for so many people.

Speaker: Like I said, I listened to a couple of them to kind of get a feel because initially me hearing it, I was like, what am I supposed to say?

Speaker: What am I supposed to do?

Speaker: And I was like, just listen to it.

Speaker: But it's an approachable way for everyone to relate to a lot of different walks of life in a non-

Speaker: confrontational way.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: And that's what I was going for is making it comfortable, casual, and hopefully something that everybody can listen to and relate to.

Speaker: So thank you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And you've achieved that.

Speaker: So thank you.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: It's my pleasure.

Speaker: And I'm grateful you're one of my guests and maybe we'll see you again in the future.

Speaker: Yes, I hope so.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Well, thank you everybody and have a great night.

Speaker: Take care.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: you