0:01

The land down under has never been easier to

0:03

reach. United Airlines has more

0:05

flights between the US and Australia than

0:07

any other US airline, so you can

0:10

fly non-stop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne

0:12

and Brisbane. Explore dazzling cities, savor the

0:14

very best of Aussie cuisine, and

0:16

get up close and personal with the

0:19

wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold

0:21

a koala? Go to united.com. Visit

0:23

the website at the.com/Australia to book your

0:25

adventure. Welcome

0:32

to season two of Food and Wimes to Nfoil

0:34

Swans, a

0:36

weekly podcast serving up, inspiring touching,

0:39

hilarious and revealing conversations with

0:42

some of the biggest names in the

0:44

food and beverage world and beyond, and

0:46

giving you plenty to savor even. After

0:48

the episode is over, I'm your host,

0:50

Kat Kinzman, executive

0:53

features editor at Food and Wine, and

0:55

I am eternally fascinated by how

0:57

successful and creative people become themselves.

1:02

What are the moments, influences, missteps, pep talks

1:04

and decisions big and small that

1:08

got them where they are today? When

1:10

Priya Krishna was just a little kid or

1:12

a blob, as she calls herself, she started

1:14

traveling the whole world with her family because

1:17

her mother worked in the airline industry. As

1:20

it turns out, the wildly successful reporter, author and video host had

1:25

a truly wild and wonderful journey ahead of her

1:27

in life. Though

1:29

we didn't actually know it at the time we recorded

1:32

this, she was also about to be tapped as interim

1:34

restaurant critic at the New York Times. When

1:37

we spoke on the show, Priya

1:39

was about to go out on tour for her brilliant

1:41

new kids cookbook, Priya's

1:43

Kitchen Adventures, but I had a chance

1:46

to catch up with my former neighbor

1:48

about her musical theater background, the importance

1:50

of seeing yourself reflected in media, and

1:53

why your weirdness is your greatest asset. Welcome

2:00

to season two, episode 13, Priya

2:02

Krishna and the perfectly translucent onions.

2:14

Priya, I am so happy you're here and

2:16

I was wondering if I could ask you

2:18

a favor. Yeah, sure. Could you maybe try

2:20

to suck at something because like it's really

2:23

rude of you that you're just like good

2:25

at everything. I was just rereading

2:27

your new book this morning. It

2:30

is empowering. It is charming. I

2:32

was just imagining my young self picking that up

2:35

and it's so incredible. You're

2:37

doing this video series

2:39

for the times that it just

2:43

the empathy you bring to it

2:45

and the sort of celebration of

2:47

people's jobs is a truly beautiful

2:49

thing. You know, you're my

2:51

favorite guest on pop culture happy hour when

2:53

you come on there. Do

2:56

you just go full force on everything you do?

2:58

I feel like I'm a lifelong teacher's pet. If

3:00

that says anything. Are

3:03

you comfortable ever have

3:05

saying anything exercise exercise?

3:12

It didn't occur to me until I was

3:14

looking at the dates today because I've been

3:16

living with a galley of your book for

3:19

a long time. The world has not gotten

3:21

to experience this yet and I believe

3:23

the pub date is a couple weeks from now. April 30th soon. April

3:28

30th. Oh my gosh. So it'll

3:30

be out by the time this comes out

3:33

and I'm going to ask you

3:35

a bunch more questions about it and the book

3:37

actually answers this question to some degree. But

3:40

I like to ask everybody who were you when you

3:42

were 10 years old? Oh my God, you

3:44

ask everyone that question regardless

3:46

of whether they wrote a kid's book or not. I do. That's

3:51

amazing. Who was I when I

3:53

was 10 years old? I was annoying

3:56

precocious obsessed with

3:58

food far more. confident

4:00

for my age than I should

4:02

be, thought I knew

4:04

everything about everything, a huge

4:07

people pleaser. Well,

4:09

as we learn in your book, you'd been traveling since

4:11

you were, I believe the word is a blob. Since

4:14

I was a blob, exactly. So

4:18

how did this come about? Not

4:20

a lot of kids get to do that. I think it's a

4:23

beautiful way to teach your kids. And

4:25

it was a tremendous privilege too. My

4:27

mom, she got a

4:30

job when she moved to Texas in

4:32

the airline industry. And for anyone who

4:34

has a family member

4:36

who's a flight attendant or a pilot,

4:38

you get really awesome perks. And back

4:40

in the day, we lived in Dallas,

4:43

which was a hub for American Airlines,

4:45

where my mom did a lot of

4:47

software work for. And

4:49

so we would basically show

4:51

up to the airport and see

4:54

what flight we could stand by on. And

4:56

you could stand by for free. And if there

4:58

was room, you get on the plane.

5:01

It meant that my mom was absolutely

5:03

militant about our airport behavior. We had

5:05

to go through security in five minutes

5:07

or less. We had to know

5:10

how to pack a bag really well. We

5:12

had to know how to get... Oftentimes

5:15

we weren't all seated together, so I would be seated

5:17

by myself. And so I had to know how to

5:19

store my luggage, all of those tricks, and just etiquette

5:21

around travel.

5:26

My mom taught us at a really young age. So

5:30

this must make you, I'm assuming, really empathetic

5:33

to kids traveling, like

5:35

family, or does it do the opposite? Okay,

5:38

okay, okay. So okay, I always ask my

5:40

mom this question because my sister now

5:42

has a kid and she's like, it is

5:45

an absolute nightmare traveling with children. And

5:47

she's always like, mom, I can't imagine not only

5:49

traveling with kids, but going

5:51

to the airport and not even knowing if we had a

5:53

seat on the flight. And

5:55

my mom was always like, oh, you guys were fine. And

5:58

we were like, how much were we fine and how much...

6:00

have you just blacked out how hard

6:02

it was back then? That

6:05

was how we could afford to travel. There was

6:07

no other option. I have to say because of

6:09

that, I feel like I see kids

6:11

dilly-dallying in the TSA line. I was

6:13

like, oh, my mom would never approve

6:16

of this. I would never be allowed

6:18

to do this. So this book,

6:20

so for folks who have

6:22

not read it yet, please

6:25

tell me the motivations behind

6:27

writing it. I realized

6:29

that kids

6:32

are more interested in food,

6:34

in travel, in exploring

6:37

than ever. They have access to

6:39

YouTube. They have access to streaming.

6:41

I have about 10 nieces

6:44

and nephews, and they are so

6:46

into food. They are so

6:49

into watching YouTube

6:51

videos of dumpling

6:53

makers in Hong

6:55

Kong. Yet all of

6:58

the cookbooks for these curious

7:00

food-obsessed kids are

7:03

pretty homogenous. Most of them are authored

7:05

by white people with some exceptions. You

7:07

have the wonderful Waffles and Mochi cookbook

7:09

by Yohande Kamalafe. You have Kalamata's Kitchen

7:11

by Sarah Thomas, which is fantastic. But

7:14

on the whole, these books are authored

7:17

by white people. The recipes lean

7:19

very Western, and they almost feel like

7:21

they are talking down to kids.

7:23

It's like a sandwich cut in the

7:26

shape of a gingerbread man, a

7:28

fruit salad sprinkled with fruit loops. But

7:31

the kids that I talk to, when they

7:33

cook, they want to feel like grown up. They

7:35

don't want to feel like they're a kid.

7:38

They want to be empowered. They

7:40

want to be excited. They

7:42

want to be able to have some

7:44

agency. And so I wanted

7:48

to write a book that felt

7:50

inclusive, that felt empowering, that felt

7:52

fun, that really changed

7:55

the definition of kid-friendly

7:57

beyond butteredoodles. incredibly

8:00

empowering how you have structured this

8:02

as well and the kinds of

8:04

tips that you are giving

8:07

about the sharpness of your knife,

8:09

what different cuts are in

8:11

a way that I'm thinking

8:14

about, you know, I'm older than you are

8:16

and there were even fewer options at the

8:18

time but I clung on to whatever I

8:21

could find, like there was a Betty Crocker

8:23

kids book and I

8:25

remember mastering this cheese strata

8:27

and thinking I'm fancy, like

8:29

it is beyond the

8:31

grilled cheese and then there was a

8:33

book that wasn't necessarily intended for kids

8:35

and it was a book

8:38

about the foods of the 50 states.

8:40

I actually still own my childhood copy

8:43

of it. It was amazing. When my

8:45

parents were cleaning out their house and moving,

8:47

my dad sent me, I talked about this

8:49

in the podcast last season but Madhajafri's like

8:51

book that changed my life when I was

8:53

a little kid. I have a copy of

8:56

it. I have these various other things but

8:58

this was the first one that

9:00

made me on a domestic level realize

9:02

that different states had different food. I

9:04

lived in the state of Kentucky and

9:07

I had not heard of Bagu because that was from

9:09

a different part of the state and I

9:11

became like hell bent on learning this but

9:13

for what you're doing it's a global scale

9:16

and that's something I haven't seen

9:18

before where it's not being exotified,

9:21

it's not being treated

9:23

as oh well over here they do this but let's

9:25

talk about that. You traveling at this young age and

9:27

experiencing these foods and wanting to translate it. I feel

9:31

like when I was little I was sort

9:33

of scared of what was different. Yeah.

9:35

My parents like plunged headfirst into

9:37

what was different. They loved going to places

9:40

where they didn't know the language, where the

9:42

food was unfamiliar, where the people didn't look

9:44

like them. I wonder if

9:46

as immigrants you've just been asked to think

9:49

outside yourselves for so long that you

9:51

just have a much deeper

9:54

appreciation and respect for what's different than

9:56

yours but travel

9:59

is like how I became. came empathetic and curious.

10:01

And to be honest, I think about

10:03

it and you don't need to necessarily

10:06

travel to do that. You just need

10:08

to expose yourself to different cultures. And

10:10

we live in a very multicultural place.

10:13

But it was important to me to talk about

10:15

those countries through the

10:18

lens of these are all cultures that

10:20

exist in this country. These

10:22

are all cultures where

10:25

there are kids and kids eat. And

10:27

they didn't shy away from talking

10:30

about things like colonization and imperialism.

10:32

The copy editor, I will never forget for

10:35

this book was like, I've never read a

10:37

kid's book with colonization references. And I was

10:39

like, I'm very, very, very proud of that.

10:42

And it's not pandering, it's not finger wagging,

10:45

but it's just talking to

10:47

kids the way that I talk to my nieces

10:49

and nephews and not talking down to them. And

10:51

one thing that I think is so interesting that

10:53

I've realized about kids books is

10:55

we think there's this huge gap between a kids

10:58

cookbook and an adult cookbook. I

11:00

actually think there shouldn't be.

11:03

And at least this book, there really isn't.

11:05

Like, yes, there are diagrams for how to

11:07

cut vegetables. I have adult friends

11:10

who could use those diagrams on how

11:12

to cut vegetables. There are explanations for

11:14

what it means when you're folding chocolate

11:16

ganache into whipped cream. I

11:19

think everyone could use clearer instructions and

11:21

recipes for what it means to fold,

11:23

what it means when onions are translucent

11:26

and done sauteing. I just think

11:28

that this book made me

11:30

a better adult recipe developer. I

11:33

have to say, I imagine I'm one of the many

11:35

people who's gonna have that Schitt's Creek moment with the

11:37

folding. There's

11:39

like iconic scene, folded in, what does

11:41

that mean? And you were

11:43

in Dallas, was it? In

11:46

Dallas, yeah. So what was it like shopping there?

11:48

When you got home and you wanna have these

11:50

flavors from places you'd been, was there ever an

11:52

issue about getting the things you

11:54

needed to or did you just adapt as needed? Both,

11:57

I would say. We lived in...

12:00

in a city that was just full

12:02

of different kinds of grocery stores. And

12:04

in fact, my parents were of the

12:06

generation where they shopped at a minimum

12:08

of three grocery stores. They went to

12:10

Sam's Club for bulk items. They went

12:12

to Sprouts for certain pantry

12:15

staples. They went to Fiesta, the

12:17

Latino grocery store, because the produce

12:19

was fresher and less expensive. Then

12:21

they would go to a local

12:23

Indian grocery store to get all

12:25

of their Indian groceries. And

12:27

we very much grew up with that as a norm. I remember

12:29

when the H-Mart opened, we were the first ones

12:31

to go to the H-Mart because my dad was

12:33

like, maybe they have really good tofu. I have

12:36

a really hard time getting good tofu. And we

12:38

certainly adapted. You'll find the

12:41

version of an English breakfast in

12:44

my book as a very Indian version

12:46

of an English breakfast because my parents

12:48

couldn't help themselves. But to add a

12:50

little sprinkle of chopped masala and chopped

12:52

cilantro and onions into the baked beans

12:54

to jazz them up. What I want

12:56

to drive home with this book is

12:58

that I was so lucky and privileged

13:00

to get to travel, but you

13:02

don't need to travel actually to

13:05

gain these skills, to gain this level of

13:07

curiosity. You just need to cook. I just

13:09

can't say enough things about this book. And

13:11

one of the other things that I truly

13:14

love about it is that in

13:16

each chapter, you're making recommendations for

13:18

other books. I mean, that's

13:20

got to be both easy and hard because there's

13:22

some incredible books out there. What made you decide

13:24

to do a bibliography like that? It's not something

13:26

I see a lot in cookbooks. I

13:29

am not an expert on these

13:31

cuisines. And you'll see many of

13:33

the recipes in this are developed

13:35

by recipe developers that I worked

13:37

with, people like Hedy McKinnon and

13:39

Rick Martinez and Chris Ying, who

13:41

developed the really wonderful recipes for

13:43

each country. But my

13:46

hope was that this

13:48

book will get you curious about these cuisines. And

13:50

if you realize you really like a cuisine and

13:53

you want to learn more, I want

13:56

to lead you to the actual experts. you

14:00

who are the people that have

14:02

studied this cuisine their entire lives, who

14:04

have built a career on it. To

14:06

me, giving credit where credit

14:08

is due is just important. I mean,

14:10

it's generosity, but I think a lot of people

14:12

maybe just have too much ego in their own

14:14

personal brand to say like, no, of course I

14:16

developed this, this is my thing or whatever. So

14:19

you've never been that. You've always been the person who's

14:21

done the research. And I wonder if

14:24

this goes back to you being a nerd and

14:26

the teacher's back. Sorry to call you a nerd,

14:28

but I felt like that's where you're going. But

14:30

like, you've been this curious person. I am thinking

14:32

about were your high school papers and things like

14:34

cited to the nth degree? Oh my

14:37

God. Like I was the worst. Yeah.

14:39

Yeah. I started the assignment like at the

14:42

beginning of the term. I

14:44

was so on top of it. And I

14:47

mean, even today my editor at the

14:49

Times is like, you

14:51

know, you could stand to like miss a

14:53

deadline or two. Can

14:56

I like take a life course from you?

14:59

Something I don't know if you want it. Like I

15:01

feel like I expect everyone to be on my schedule

15:04

and no one ever is. It's

15:06

a me problem. So all those impulses that

15:08

you have to be the good student, be

15:10

the best I have to ask based on

15:12

a recent Instagram post of you theater. Talk

15:15

to me about that. Oh my God. Yeah.

15:18

I mean, I feel like underpinning

15:20

everything I do is the theater kid

15:22

in me and the fact that I'm

15:24

literally married to a

15:26

theater kid. And you know,

15:29

a part of me wonders if the

15:31

impetus for this book was really like my publisher reaching

15:33

out and being like the tone of your of

15:36

Indian issues. So whimsical and childish. Like have

15:38

you ever considered a children's book? And

15:41

I do believe that the like wisdom

15:43

and wonder that I feel comes from

15:45

like a childhood spent on the stage.

15:47

I'm not gonna lie. God, I'm such

15:49

an annoying theater kid. Take out the

15:52

word annoying there. You're a very charming theater

15:54

kid. What were your roles? I

15:56

was Bielka in Fiddler on the Roof.

15:59

I was Yertle the Turtle in

16:01

Suicicle the Musical. I was a

16:03

flying monkey in The Wiz. I

16:07

was like chorus member in

16:09

Oklahoma. I'm trying to think

16:11

what else. I was one of the girlfriends in

16:13

The Boyfriend. I did so many

16:16

shows and they were, I mean, in all

16:18

of them, so great. I loved being on

16:20

the stage. This is elementary high school college.

16:22

This was like elementary and middle school.

16:24

I was young. So high school, did

16:27

you tap out? I chose debate over

16:30

theater and it's one of

16:32

those choices that I really, that I

16:34

grapple with still today. So

16:37

you're gonna do a tour. What does that look like? I'm

16:40

doing a small tour on both coasts

16:42

and maybe a little bit in Texas

16:44

where I am from. And

16:47

those events are really gonna be geared like

16:49

just cooking and eating with kids. One thing

16:51

I've had to tell all of my adult

16:53

friends that like, I love you, but these

16:55

events are mostly for kids. So don't come

16:58

unless you have a kid. But

17:00

really we're gonna bring kids. We're

17:02

gonna teach them to fold dumplings.

17:04

We're gonna make elotes with them.

17:06

We are going to assemble spanakopitas.

17:09

We're gonna talk about travel. I'm

17:11

bringing some of my favorite children's

17:13

book authors and they will read from their

17:16

books. So I think it'll be a really

17:18

wonderful celebration with a lot of my favorite

17:20

people. And you also have some of your

17:22

cousins in the cookbook as well. Was this

17:24

a difficult thing to get them to do?

17:26

They grew up on YouTubers, they have to

17:29

be blown away. I think they

17:31

were really excited to be a part of

17:33

it. They were really enthusiastic testers. And then

17:35

when we were doing the photo shoot, Mackenzie,

17:37

my photographer was like, it would be really

17:39

nice to have kids. And especially kids that

17:41

were like stand-ins for your younger self. And

17:43

I thought about my cousins, Radhika and Rishika.

17:45

And I was like, well, they have wonderful

17:47

little brown hands that can be young

17:50

Priya. And so they would come

17:52

after school every day. They

17:54

would bring their homework and they

17:57

were basically our onset.

18:00

hand models and eventually just models.

18:02

And most of the food

18:05

that you see in the book is

18:07

food that they made themselves because we

18:10

had to shoot these step-by-step photos with

18:12

their hands in them. So it's Radhika's

18:14

hands folding the whipped cream and the

18:16

ganache. It's Rishika's hands kneading

18:19

the scone dough or brushing

18:21

the honey onto the baklava.

18:23

And that was really special. And they just brought

18:26

like an amazing energy to the shoot. Photo shoots

18:28

for cookbooks can be so stressful and

18:30

they were amazing. And one thing that was

18:32

really great was that Radhika eats everything. She

18:35

is a really open-minded cook. Rishika is a really

18:37

picky eater. She came to the shoot and was

18:39

like, I only eat two things. I

18:41

only eat bread and cheese. And

18:44

I think because she was

18:46

making stuff with her own two hands,

18:48

she was more inclined to try it.

18:51

And she was basically like, oh,

18:54

corn tastes good when slathered with

18:56

lime and cheese. I thought I didn't

18:58

like noodles, but I

19:00

enjoy them in this sesame soy broth.

19:03

And so it was like witnessing in real time

19:05

as she was changing her mind. And I don't

19:07

know if you know this, but I worked with

19:09

30 kids as recipe testers

19:11

and reading their feedback on the spreadsheets

19:14

was literally seeing a lot of their

19:16

minds processing different ingredients that maybe they

19:18

thought they didn't like and changing their

19:20

minds. I was wondering where those notes

19:22

came from because there are quotes on the

19:25

pages from younger kids. So I

19:28

sort of assumed that was part of

19:30

the process. And I genuinely wonder with

19:32

some of the kids cookbooks that I grew up

19:34

reading, if kids were actually part of

19:37

the process or not, because I still

19:39

love to read a lot of YA

19:41

and younger books and things. And I think

19:44

about the ones that really stuck with me

19:46

and they were the ones that really

19:49

took kids interiority really seriously. I think

19:51

it's why I've always loved the Peanuts

19:55

comics so much. Aside

19:57

from cooking, what was the sort of the children's

19:59

writing that... with you when you were growing up?

20:01

I'm trying to think what were my favorite

20:04

books. My mom, to

20:06

her credit, when she traveled solo, she

20:08

always made it a point to bring a book back

20:10

from that country. My dad would bring books home. I

20:12

love that. It was always

20:15

a different book. So I remember I

20:17

read books about people living

20:19

in the Caribbean. I learned about Hanukkah

20:21

through books. I remember I

20:23

read a book called Minyo and the Moon

20:25

Dragon that was from

20:27

China. And it just absolutely

20:30

astonished me. I think I was

20:32

so interested in worlds and characters

20:35

and people that were different than

20:37

the world in which I existed.

20:40

And those books that really

20:42

activated my sense of wonder

20:45

were the books that really resonated with me.

20:48

I just love a good world. I love to

20:50

live in a world. I

20:53

will just get so caught up in a book. I'll

20:55

read it in one sitting, and then I'll be like, sad. I

20:57

can't live in that world anymore. Same.

21:00

You were talking about bringing up colonialism

21:02

in the books. And I was thinking

21:04

about watching Ms. Marvel and them talking

21:06

about partition on there. And that was

21:08

the first sort of like mainstream representation

21:10

of it that I'd seen. And that

21:12

is in theory for kids, but also

21:14

an incredibly deep and beautiful show. And

21:16

I've got to wonder if you have

21:18

your sights set on any fiction. Me,

21:21

I do not have my eyes set

21:23

on fiction. But I am contemplating or

21:26

actively writing a proposal for a book

21:28

of reported personal essays. So

21:31

we'll see what happens. But I

21:33

think it's time for me to

21:35

explore the non-cookbook world.

21:37

I love writing cookbooks, but I

21:40

also really love storytelling and reporting.

21:42

And I'm curious to see what

21:45

I can bring to the page in that

21:47

regard. We'll

21:50

be back with more from Preakrishna After

21:53

the Break. My

22:00

dad works in B2B marketing. He came

22:02

by my school for career day and

22:04

said he was a big ROAS man.

22:07

Then he told everyone how much he

22:09

loved calculating his return on ad spend.

22:11

My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not

22:14

everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be

22:16

able to reach people who do. Get $100

22:19

credit on your next ad campaign.

22:22

Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your

22:24

credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions

22:26

apply. LinkedIn, the place to be,

22:29

to be. Welcome

22:36

back to Tinfoil Swans. Today, I'm chatting

22:38

with Priya Krishna. Well,

22:41

let's talk about how you got there too,

22:43

because I know you wrote your first book

22:46

when you were in college. Yeah,

22:49

yeah. So when you

22:51

were doing all your theater

22:53

and your debate and everything, where did you think

22:55

that was going to take you? What was next

22:57

for you, so far as you were concerned?

23:01

I thought that I might work for like a think

23:03

tank. At

23:06

one point, my dad convinced me that I

23:08

needed to be a consultant, like the rest

23:10

of my uncles were. I

23:12

went to a college where it just

23:14

felt like your only options were consulting,

23:16

finance, or grad school. Like those were

23:19

the three buckets. But

23:22

food was just always fascinating to me.

23:24

I knew I was more fascinated

23:26

with food than the normal person.

23:29

And I had a food column in my school

23:31

newspaper where I told people what to do with

23:34

their dining hall food and how to make it

23:36

taste more delicious. And

23:39

just like seeing the way even that

23:41

felt universally resonant with people was really

23:43

interesting to me. I ended up writing

23:45

a bunch of college papers on food. And

23:47

I was like, oh, food is such

23:49

a really cool way to explore really

23:51

complex issues in

23:54

a way that feels

23:56

universal to all

23:58

kinds of people. I wrote a paper. to

26:00

just find who feels

26:02

like they have an authentic personality

26:05

and that they'd be willing to open up on camera.

26:07

And keep in mind, like, I

26:10

think 99% of the people we feature have

26:12

never been on camera before. They are

26:14

not used to being profiled. They are

26:16

used to just going about their day

26:18

and going home. And so there is

26:20

a lot of trust building that has

26:22

to happen before I even step

26:25

in front of the camera and introduce them. When you're

26:27

speaking with people, like shy people, vulnerable

26:29

people, people who didn't get into this to get

26:31

famous, well, it feels like half the world

26:33

wants to be famous right now. Like, I think

26:35

the vast majority just want to go about their

26:38

business. And what's

26:40

that transformation been like for you? Because you were

26:42

a theater kid who wanted to be on stage,

26:44

but that is a different thing. Playing

26:46

a role is a very,

26:49

very different thing from being

26:51

known for the person who

26:53

you are. You are with

26:55

your family a lot of the time. I

26:58

think your parents are celebrities at this point.

27:00

And you are as well. And that is

27:02

a very, very different thing from inhabiting another

27:05

character. What's that

27:07

been like for you? Because you're a recognizable

27:09

person. I mean, it's wonderful

27:11

to get to meet people on the street

27:13

who are like, I love on the job,

27:15

or I cook from Indian-ish. Those moments bring

27:18

me a lot of joy. I feel

27:20

really lucky to have a platform. I feel a

27:22

responsibility to use that platform to showcase the work

27:24

of other authors of color, to make it a

27:27

little easier for other authors of color. I'm

27:29

not really here to build and

27:31

grow my platform. I've realized that

27:34

what makes me happiest is just

27:36

telling important stories, doing good work,

27:38

prioritizing my family and my friends. I

27:41

am a reporter, I'm a storyteller at

27:43

my core. So I

27:45

feel like this year has been a lot of just returning

27:47

to that. I know that a lot

27:49

of people are full-time influencers and I have so much respect

27:51

for that. It seems like a lot of work. It takes

27:53

so much work. But it is not me.

27:56

I'm a professional nerd. And

27:59

that's how I'd like to get to know you. a

34:00

lot coming from you if you sort

34:02

of want to express anything about this

34:04

for folks to understand. Yeah,

34:07

I mean, I wrote a piece about minimum

34:09

wage or basically about the tip to minimum

34:11

wage being phased out in DC, which is

34:13

on the ballot in a number of cities

34:15

this year. And what this

34:18

basically means is that instead of paying

34:20

your tipped workers like $2.59 and

34:23

then making up the rest and tips,

34:26

all workers are making a more

34:29

livable base wage. And

34:31

what that means for restaurant owners is that

34:33

they have to raise prices. And

34:35

I think what that means for consumers is

34:37

that they just have to get used to

34:39

paying more for food. And

34:42

on top of that, food still

34:44

costs more than it did before the

34:46

pandemic. A lot of the people who

34:48

were in the restaurant industry in 2019

34:50

are no longer in the restaurant industry.

34:53

And restaurants are trying to build

34:55

sustainable businesses where there isn't crazy

34:57

turnover, where they can offer healthcare,

34:59

where they can offer 401ks, where

35:01

restaurant work isn't treated like gig

35:03

work. But as

35:05

the hard, professional

35:08

work that it is, everyone's like, well, going out to

35:11

eat is so expensive, it has become like a luxury.

35:13

But like, maybe it should be a luxury. Maybe it's

35:15

not like a thing that we do every day. But

35:17

when we do do it, we go out and we

35:19

spend our money. And I've just tried to, as like

35:23

a famously miserly person, I've just

35:25

tried to reframe my thinking as

35:27

like, this is the bare minimum

35:30

for restaurant workers, just

35:32

earning a livable wage and getting the

35:34

same benefits that many of

35:36

the rest of us get by

35:39

having a job, but that have not been normalized for

35:41

a really long time in the industry. I

35:44

think there are some fairly

35:47

harmful front of house systems that

35:49

existed for a long time where

35:52

people wanted to have the humanity of the people

35:55

working the floor erased and

35:58

be invisible, be part of the wall.