Pati Jinich Does It All

Guys, welcome to Expense Account. We've got another exciting episode for you. Last week, I was in San Francisco. Can you believe that this was my first time? I don't know. It's just been one of those places where the flight is basically the same time as going to Paris. So I'd always just rather go to Paris. But I was in San Francisco for a wedding. I had an amazing time. Mark Twain once said that the coldest winter he ever felt was a summer in San Francisco. I'm sorry, but Mark Twain was a. He obviously never spent a winter in Chicago. But I have to admit that San Francisco was much colder than I thought it would be. And here's my real confession. It kind of made me want to get one of those Patagonia puffer vests. Like I get the whole tech bro thing now. They look so cozy. It's like the perfect weather for a puffer vest. Just three nights. Didn't have time to see the town or eat at restaurants. I honestly didn't even see the Golden Gate Bridge. But I did go to Zuni Cafe. Somehow I was able to walk in. Three people, 6.30 on a Friday night. You could never do that in New York. But at Zuni Cafe, the classic California cuisine restaurant in San Francisco, I was able to walk in. And you know what? It is as good as they say. It's even better than my expectations. Somehow. I don't know. It's crazy. They are very. Famous for their roast chicken. And the roast chicken, I'll say, is the best roast chicken I've ever had in my entire life. Like, honestly, it was the perfect roast chicken. It was so flavorful. So moist. It's a little smoky. Takes 70 minutes to cook. But it was worth it. You get it with some shoestring fries. Like, just the thinnest, crispiest fries that are so fun to eat. And also a salad that's made with bread that's soaked in the chicken fat and some bitter greens. With a martini, it's literally the perfect meal. I cannot think of a better meal in the entire world. Also, I waited in line for Swan Oyster Depot a full hour. Like, a solid hour. I can't remember the last time I waited in line for a restaurant for an hour. But I will say, it was worth it. Go to Swan Oyster Depot if you are in San Francisco. It is not just a tourist trap. Why don't they have more restaurants like this? The people want a grubby raw bar. Grubby, but not dirty. We don't want a dirty raw. But like a raw bar that's run by hot, hungover fishermen. My wife was obsessed with all the guys working there. We had oysters. We had sweet little shrimp. We had a plate of sashimi covered in olive oil and capers. Like, literally, why does this not exist in New York? Guys, get on it. And now, let's get into the dish. This episode is brought to you by Yahoo Scout. Speaking of New York, I'm going to Faux tonight. One of the hottest restaurants in New York City at the moment. It's Keith McNally's son's restaurant. I'm so excited for Baby Balthazar. I've heard nothing but good things about this place. I've heard that it's like Lucky Strike in the 90s. I've heard it's full of models and that you could imagine Naomi Campbell smoking a cigarette in the corner. And that the lighting is perfect in there. I've heard that the burgers grow. I've heard the pasta's pretty good. I don't know. We will see. I'll report back. I'll let you guys know. And speaking of pasta, Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Hoom just released a line of boxed pastas called Riff. There are three varieties. Sesame ginger, creamy parmesan, and spicy tomato. And it's been getting a lot of flack online for various reasons. Many are calling it a cash grab. It costs $8.29 a box. It's only $8.29 a box. It's only sold at Target. But you know what? I'm excited about it. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for a chefed up Kraft mac and cheese. I love Kraft mac and cheese. This is like, I don't know. To me, it's brilliant. I've wanted this for so long. But what people don't understand is that this isn't food for normal adults. It's not food for families. This is food for silver spoon latchkey kids. This is food for kids whose parents. Parents are divorced and they go to St. Anne's. This is an after-school snack for a teenage boy to cook themselves after lacrosse practice. This is for NYU students who are fried on Adderall and have spent their allowance for the week. They're so sick of eating at the Smith. This is food for Jimmy Fallon to eat in his dressing room. I don't know. I'm going to an event next week at 11 Madison Park where Daniel Hoom himself will prepare every flavor of Rift personally for some select guests. Such as myself. I can't wait and I will report back. I'll let you know how Rift is. We'll see. This week, I got asked for comment for a CNN story about AI agents booking restaurant reservations. You know what? I honestly don't care. I've got other problems to deal with and I've honestly assumed that bots have been booking up all of these reservations anyhow. I think it might be for the best. These systems are so flawed and no one can get a reservation as it is. I hope this sends us back to the Stone Age where we have to call a restaurant or send a pigeon or know the owner if we want a seat. Power to the walk-ins. And now time for me to introduce our guests. I love all of my guests. They're all special. They're all brilliant. They're all perfect little stars. But there's just something about Patti Henich. There's a warmth that feels like a hug or a Patagonia vest. You can feel it through the TV or your computer screen. She's the host of Patti's. Patti's Mexican Table, La Frontera with Patti Henich, all on PBS. If you've not watched her shows, you really should. I think the work she's doing, especially with La Frontera, is the best travel and food TV since Bourdain. This year, she was entered into the Broadcast Media Hall of Fame at the James Beard Awards. She has a new cookbook called Foods of La Frontera, a new season of Patti's Mexican Table. I don't know how she does it all, but I tried my best to find out. Without further ado, Patti Henich. Patti, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for joining me on Expense Account. This is amazing. Jay, I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to connect. This year, you won two James Beard Awards. I was there. I was in the media room downstairs. We were all cheering for you. Everyone was going crazy. How did you celebrate in Chicago? I was there. Well, thank you for cheering for me. It's so incredibly special. It's easy to cheer for. Aw, thank you. You know, it's so humbling. I measure the worth of my work all the time by thinking, is it James Beard worthy? Like, I really hold the James Beard in such high regards. And I, you know, it makes me feel like I'm bringing Mexicans and Mexico to the table. So I feel a huge responsibility. And when I get those recognitions, you know, the Patti's Mexican Table Award is, of course, incredibly special. Because even though I've won James Beard's for Patti's Mexican Table in the past, we're now going into the 15th season. Crazy. The fact that I got it now means that the work continues to be relevant. And I work so hard, Jay, at every season, making it better. And improving the quality and doing more substantive stories. So that's that. But the Hall of Fame Award just made me feel like the work I've been doing to push my food culture forward has meant something for my people and my home country. And it also makes me feel like as a Mexican in the U.S., I'm contributing in some way. Before we, like, get too deep into it, I think something that, like, the listeners would like. I'd like to know or, like, I'd like to explain to them. It's like you have a bunch of different projects. Like, you have Patti's Mexican Table, you have La Frontera, and you have Panamericana. Like, can you tell us a bit about each project and, like, how they're their own discrete projects? Yeah, of course. So Patti's Mexican Table is a cooking travel show that I started 15 years ago. And it's half-hour shows. And every season, I go to a different state of Mexico and explore it, get to know it. Get to know the people, get to know the food, get to know the ingredients. And then I come to the U.S. to my home kitchen and make recipes, whether it's classic recipes that I encounter, or if I find an interesting ingredient, I'm like, oh, let's play with this ingredient in a new way in your American kitchen. And it has been a way for me. I started it when I was just full of nostalgia and this insane romanticism I had for Mexico. When I first moved to the U.S., because, Jay, I couldn't speak English well, didn't have family here. I just, the way that I was able to feel at home was through cooking the food that nurtured me growing up. I had trained as a political analyst, worked in the think tank, hated it, and realized that I was, I could understand myself and root myself better here in this country by cooking my food and sharing it with people. And so that's Patti's Mexican Table. And it's a show that's evolved because. I started it going. To the places that I knew well and that I missed because I felt like I could explain what I knew. You know, Mexico, Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, the usual suspects, Yucatan. But then as the season evolved and this transition began, you know, the American palette, I felt widened, went from 101 to 202 to 303. And also I started being really humbled and curious about the Mexico I didn't know. So I wanted to go to the states and the regions that I didn't know. And I wanted to go to the states and the regions that people were telling me not to go. So for example, I remember I really wanted to go, I think it was season seven or eight. I wanted to go to Sinaloa because there are many dishes that I love. Yeah. That. Come from there. And I've met people from Sinaloa. They're wonderful. They're full of life. They're boisterous. They're, you know, they're just very happy people. And a lot of the products that we get in Mexico and the U.S. come from Sinaloa. A lot of the produce and the shrimp, they have the best shrimp. And the people that I knew have incredible like work values and family values. And I wanted to go to Sinaloa. And people were like, Patti, no, that's weird. You can't go to Sinaloa. That's where El Chapo comes from. And I'm like, well, watch me, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I just started going to the Mexico I didn't know. And my relationship with my viewers changed from me saying, oh, let me show you what I know to come explore with me. That's cool. In Mexico, I don't know. That's amazing. Especially for Americans. Yes. And at the same time, after going back and forth so many times, Mexico and the U.S., I started visiting places. In the border, you know, Laredo, Nogales. And it pulled me in like a magnet. This was like 2016 because I felt the pull of feeling that I was growing deep roots in the U.S. while I was strengthening my roots to Mexico by sharing it and exploring it. And I felt this magnetic pull to the middle. I realized that there was even more myths and preconceptions about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. So that's when I started pitching La Frontera. So La Frontera is a docu-series that was five one-hours where I crossed the entire U.S.-Mexico border. It's amazing. I would do it ten times, Jay. You got this cross-cultural thing. Oh, there's. Okay, so let's talk about the Mexican-Chinese. Oh, yes, please. Mexicali. Yeah, let's do it. Please. I want to go so bad. Oh, Mexicali is so fantastic. Where is Mexicali? So Mexicali, first of all, the name, it's Meji from Mexico, Cali from California. Okay. And it is on the border between California in the U.S. and Baja California in Mexico. Okay. But it is east of Tijuana. It's as you're moving towards New Mexico and Arizona. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's hot as hell. I mean, when I went, I think it was 110 degrees. Wow. And the people are wonderful. They call the cuisine, the cuisine of the desert. And it has a huge Mexican-Chinese community. There's so many stories of so much pain, you know, wherever you go. Yeah. But at the same time, there's so many stories of people finding the joy. In recreating food that they loved or creating new dishes because they were homesick for a soup, a dish that they couldn't recreate from home and they used ingredients in their new home. And I'm a specialist in finding the joy. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of your story, like that you moved to Texas, right? And that you, and then you moved to D.C. and that you started doing these, like you started cooking to try to find, like to find. To find these, like flavors that you couldn't find, that you, that you missed. And what was, what was the dish that you brought you back? So when I first got married, my husband and I moved to Dallas. And I'm telling you, I couldn't string a sentence in English. I don't believe that. I was so bad. My English was so bad. And my husband was traveling like three out of four weeks a month. You know, his work was very, very demanding. And I didn't have any friends. I was lonesome. I was nostalgic. And, and, and I started going to, to Latino markets and I was a terrible cook. And I would just try to find people who spoke Spanish, who were buying Mexican ingredients and started getting, how do you use these? How do you make your soup? How do you make your rice? Because I wanted to feel at home. I started calling my mom, my tias, my, you know, and then I started having these dream, which I still, I still remember. And we were living in a duplex in a second floor. You, you went up these like tiny little stairs that has small window. And my dream repeated all the time. I was going up these stairs and there was sun coming in through the window. And I was walking into this kitchen in these duplex. And there was a big pot of caldo de pollo of chicken broth that was simmering. And that had the ambience of the kitchen was moist. And it had the aromas of the chicken. Cause you know, chicken broth is such a pillar in Mexican cooking. It's so like seminal. Yeah. Cause that's how you make your caldo tlalpeño, your sopasteca, your, your everything, your pozole, your everything. And I would smell the chicken broth and I would feel so sad and I would start to cry and I would have these dreams. And every time I had these dream, I used to have to bite my lip to wake up because it was like, cause it was, cause I would get so sad. And that's what started me. That's how I started cooking. Cause the memories of the food in Mexico were so painful that I, that's what led me to want to make, you know, where I was my home, but I was a terrible cook when I started. Um, cause I'm very enthusiastic and I oversee some things, but anyway, so that's how, that's how I got into cooking. And then I started cooking up a storm, you know, and yeah. I love visiting Tokyo in the wintertime. It's a little calmer, less chaotic, and the city looks beautiful covered in snow. Also wintertime means soup. You've got your udon, you've got your ramen, you've got your soba. It's also time to eat odon, a sort of Japanese hot pot with simmered fish cakes, tofu, eggs, and daikon in a dashi broth. It's one of my favorite things to eat. When I'm in Tokyo, I love to stay in Ebisu. A short walk to Shibuya, but quieter, less crowded, more neighborhood-y. I love to get my film developed and walk past the store that only sells insanely cute bunnies. There's a ramen spot that does an amazing yuzu shio ramen, and you can find some of the best udon in the city in Ebisu. A short walk away is an amazing standing wine bar and one of my favorite places to drink natural wine in the whole wide world. When you're on vacation, making your own memories, why not let someone else experience your neighborhood and live like a local? That's why it's great to list your home on Airbnb. There's something special about a neighborhood coffee shop, a quiet morning on a real front porch, a street that feels lived in. And when you list your place on Airbnb, it's like you're getting paid a little extra cash to go on vacation. Wouldn't it feel good to know your home is helping create memories for other friends? Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. On a random Wednesday night. It can be incredibly hard to decide where to eat, especially if you've already had a martini. There are a million amazing restaurants in New York City. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming. This is where I love to pull out Yahoo Scout. It's an AI answer engine. It tells me exactly what I want to know in language that just makes sense. And you can see where the answers are coming from. It shows real sources, actual publisher links. It's not just another competent paragraph from a robot. It's a robot. It's like a super powered search engine that's there to help. So when I want to know where to find a great burger in Boston, or if I want some frozen yogurt, but I don't want to wait in an insane line, I ask Yahoo Scout. There are so many options, it can be hard to decide. Yahoo Scout can help you cut through that noise and choose. Try Yahoo Scout for yourself. Find what you're looking for at Scout.com. Because of people like you, like who are doing this work. And like introducing the masses to like these regional cuisines like, like I think that the knowledge for food has never been higher. It feels amazing as a person who works in this field. Like, I don't know, you don't always have to explain everything like, and people are so curious, which is like the coolest thing. It's been a journey for me. I started trying to share the Mexico that I grew up with and the Mexico that I missed. And after being here for so many years, Jay, my three boys were born. Here they're Mexican American. I, I feel as rooted in the U S. as rooted as i am in mexico and i'm not ashamed about it i'm proud about it because i feel like we're forced these days you know in social media and the politics that we live in we're forced to choose are you mexican or are you american oh do you like meat or do you like veggies and we're all like a ladle scope of things and i think that that is why writing this cookbook of la frontera was so freeing because it's when you go to the border and you know we went from san diego tijuana to brownsville matamoros and you hop from one side to the other you realize that there's these plays these dimension where labels become more flexible more forgiving more true it's so comfortable to eat a burrito with queso and brisket you know yeah i mean like also these borders are kind of arbitrary and decided by like who like politics and like weird geopolitical struggles like like i my my background is mixed like i i have like a chinese ancestry but then i my grandma's african-american like uh she her she has her ancestors are were like slaves you know but she was always telling me that she was half native american and like you're like oh i don't know like i guess so grandma and then i did my 23 in me i did like a dna test and it said it said that i was as much black as i am native american but it said native american and it said mexican so like like there there used to be way more like like people like the borders didn't mean as much before like we were all like one continent you know this year we're crossing the lower 48 from montana wyoming colorado new mexico arizona this comes out in october but what i find this is for panamericana this is for pati hinich explores panamericana we just announced it and one of the main threads of the show is that wherever i go because the the premise of the show is let's reimagine what it means to be an american within the context of the entirety of the americas why are we in the u.s the only ones to call ourselves american when we're all american in the americas so it's this idea of of course the u.s is super special super rich super diverse let's explore where our threads come from let's explore the communities that make ourselves so that we understand our people better and where they come from and also like better to get along with your neighbors you know you know i come from a family of refugees into mexico they couldn't come into the u.s because the quotas for polish people were closed how long ago was this so this was at the turn of the 19 the like 1900s okay yeah and they were some fled from polish you know farmer peasant lands and my grandfather used to he grew up eating white onion and potatoes he ate white onion as if it were an apple you know mexico was like whoa to him but you know polish austrian czech and and they all came to mexico and and i was like as a mexican now in the u.s what has been the promise of the americas and who has this promise like what has this promise done to people and what i keep finding all the way from alaska to where i ended in arizona and of course i've explored mexico deeply is that it is the people that have been here before um you know any spanish portuguese british people arrived it is the original people of these lands that are still struggle struggling to make the americas their home and it's like their knowledge and their foods and their ways and their history that in a way can help not only them heal the intragenerational trauma that yeah they've been given but also that everybody can benefit from you know their connection to nature to animals to you know the arab knowledge the you know the connection to to the land to the stars i think that americans are only just starting to understand is that mexicans aren't like a monolith like mexicans are like a diverse culture in the way that america is a different like a diverse culture like there's so many people that come from immigrated from all over the place like you go to mexicali and there's like chinese people like and chinese cuisine is like such a huge part of their culture like it's just so diverse and there's also the european immigration like your family yes like the thing that i was so impressed with about you is just that you're doing so many different things or you're telling so many different stories you have you're on 15 seasons of patty's mexican table like how do you continue to like find inspiration and to like try to tread new ground i'll tell you there's like a there's like a double mechanic that's happening at the same time i feel like i'm getting older my boys are adults now how old are they so so my youngest one is 20 my second one is 24 they're adults and my oldest they're adults so you're 20 24 and 27 and first of all i used to want to travel less and work less because i'm um i'm a mamagallina you know i'm like i think that's true that you want to work less i see the amount of work that you do before i mean i've always been a workaholic but i used to i used to have a lot of guilt you know like if i traveled or i worked really late at night to not take time for dinner or whatever i was like i was like i'm not going to work i'm not going to work i'm not going to work but now my boys are adults i have no guilt they're not home and so much to the chagrin of my husband who's like can you stop traveling for a second and i feel like i have more time i have no guilt and the other thing is because i'm getting older i feel the weight of weight i have less time and i love what i do so much there's so much that i want to do and in terms of what pushes me to do more and what keeps me inspired i feel a higher responsibility to do right by the people who trust me with their time and their stories and huge responsibility it's a huge responsibility honestly jay i just wish for more days i just wish for more years so i can continue doing what i'm doing something that i find so important is that i'm not alone i'm not so fascinating about you or like so interesting is that you have a background in politics that you you moved to dc and you studied at georgetown and then you were a political analyst like that leap to working in food seems crazy to me like what was it like to make that leap so i struggled um i mean i think i wanted to be a political analyst i wanted to be an academic because i wanted to give back to mexico a country where i could be a political analyst and i wanted to be a that gave so much to my grandparents and i wanted to help strengthen civic culture and democratic institutions and i wanted to do right by mexico and then when i moved to the u.s i just started getting really into food maybe it's because i didn't have the language like if i had people over that's how i could share i'm welcoming you this is who i am you know but also i started getting very frustrated because i had devoted myself to the language and i didn't have the a lot of time to studying i did you know a three-year thesis on mexican federalism and then i did a master's here in latin american studies and then i was working at this think tank working long hours and we would have these meetings and these panels and i felt like all the work that i was doing was leading to nothing we kept talking about how things should get better and how there should be better communication between polarizing sides and there was just such gridlock everywhere in the academic circles in the policy circles that i realized that by way of food people have no choice but to understand yeah that's the thing about food connect and it's so much more delicious you know but ironically jay yeah you know paddy's table was much lighter then now i'm doing much more substantial stories but with la frontera really going a lot more journalistic and for sure you know a lot more deep so in a way i'm coming for full circle to my backbone of like research and difficult topics and the thing is i i'm really liking going into hard topics you're great at it yeah yeah i mean la frontera to me seems like a culmination of like uh not knowing you so well but just like it's politics and it's food and it's like you're in two different countries at the same time like i feel like it's such a great representation of you as a person in your interests i thank you so you still cook at home you still like you still even after your show even you make you're making the cookbook you're doing the show and you're still managing to get home you enjoy it i love it so much you know what it's therapeutic for me because i'm such a workaholic that the only way i find to stop i mean two ways two ways one is taking my dog out for a walk which she demands which gets me out of the office yeah but the other is if i'm cooking then i can't be on my phone i can't be on my email i can't be working so it becomes therapeutic to me so i give myself my time i put the apron on i turn on some music and if i'm home i'm cooking every day and what i love having is having things in my fridge that i can use for example i have cowboy candy always what is cowboy candy oh so cowboy candy it's something i discovered for the first time in the rio grande valley in texas and so you know we mexicans eat pickled jalapeños or serrano so it's chiles pickled in in a brine made with vinegar and spices but in texas they macerate the chiles in syrup and like sugar syrup ccc like a sugar syrup but spiced up with like can be star anise or cumin seeds or turmeric or whatever in this cowboy candy j is addicting it's so you you eat it on top of pizza hot dogs just on an avocado toast or um just like a sweet and spicy pickle kind of yes yes it's like imagine so it's jalapenos in syrup okay like candy so like yeah so yeah like candy jalapenos but not hard in that syrup i mean you can eat them with ice cream you know you do that oh yeah i i eat them with pound cake i mean i love chile so much but so i have pickled jalapenos i have chipotles in adobo i have cowboy candy i have a batch of salsa matcha i have preserved lemons i love middle eastern food so much and so when i'm hungry i'll take one of those and make myself a toast with avocado and one of those things i love having things that i can you know like you said like an alchemist lab yeah it's like i have my home vinaigrette that i can mix with whatever salad i make big batches of that vinaigrette every week every week i make big batches so that i have my i have my routines like when i'm home i'll make a big batch of chicken broth big batch i'll make um i'll make a chicken salad with oh you'd love these i'll make with chipotle mayo oh yum and and i love homey food oh i'll pickle poblano chiles so that i can have them in the fridge and just stuff them with tuna salad so being at home makes me really happy but then after being here for a while i really start to itch you know and i want to pack my bag and hit the road again well you have your feet in both countries both like both lifestyles you're like you love you're the border you're you're you're la frontera exactly i'm divided i'm divided yeah yeah what kind of food do you enjoy that's like not mexican food ah um ah so like i mean mexican food of course i love but i love cooking it at home um italian food i'm i'm obsessed with pasta i like my weakness my weakness is like a good bolognese or like a good lasagna i love pasta korean food i die for um chinese food spicy i love um sushi i love i have to tell you i love sushi in mexico because we spice it up mexico city has amazing japanese food amazing the best japanese food yeah i don't know about the best sushi but really good sushi you know i have to say i have to say um i'm very opinionated as you can tell um but i think mexico city has become one of the best food cities in the world it's amazing yeah i mean you guys have such like a abundant uh you have such an amazing resources as far as produce like the produce there is just so good yes and the meat yeah and we have and we have a way to put the stamp on other foods that aren't ours so for example um you know we have mexican food traditional food tacos soup all of that but then we make the the fideo seco which is the mexican style pasta which is a traditional mexican dish but and the italians would die if they see it because we cook the pasta until it becomes mush you know um but for example you know pizza and hot dogs and hamburgers i love a mexican hot dog if you go to any taco stand right next to it there's a hamburger place and we will add chiles to it and we will add you know mexican style picnic salt oh actually in the new book there's um in la frontera there's a smash burger taco with poblano chiles and caramelized onions and it is so yummy a question that i wanted that i've been wondering is you've been everywhere in mexico we're somewhere like outside of like a mexico city and outside of like a like a cancun kind of thing what's what's like a non-touristy place that you would recommend for me to visit uh there's so many well first of all mexico's north is fascinating i mean i was just in coahuila and where is that coahuila so it's where i did the new season of paris mexican table and nobody has heard about it it's c-o-a-h-u-i-l-a coahuila it used to be one with texas okay so it's right under texas right under texas and it is so incredible the food is insane there's muskies that makes its own chorizo and there's general cepeda where they're making like incredible fruit pastes and and cheese and milk and the flour tortillas are to die for and the meat is incredible because they have crazy cattle ranchos and cabrito which is like the baby goats that are cooked on a on a pit i've never had that it's the the goat cooked on a spit slowly over the fire with nothing but salt and you wrap it in a good flour tortilla and you take a bite and you're like what is this so that's coahuila i would highly recommend and then jalisco is in the center of mexico that's where tequila comes from yeah that's where birria comes from that's where red pozole comes from where the tortas ahogadas come from i mean there's there's so much to explore um i would recommend those i mean what's next for you to explore you just got this james beard media hall of fame you've explored everywhere where's that what's next for pati he needs to explore i mean i have to live up to that award when they gave it to me i was like wait i'm barely getting started at learning how to do this thing right and now i feel like i really need to do it right so for next season of patty's mexican table i think i'm going to go to jalisco which is central mexico and i've been doing a lot of mexico's north and i want to do central mexico and then for panamericana it's really fascinating because season three which i'm hoping to go into production into next year i cross from the u.s mexico frontera that i'm so familiar with now and i'm dying to go back to into mexico and i want to go through places that i haven't been through in mexico and then season four of panamericana gets me into central america which i've never done jay i haven't been to guatemala wow that's the next frontier it's a new frontier for me but then you're gonna be then you're gonna have to go down and you're gonna be in south america yes yes i have like five or six more seasons to go yeah you've got a whole lifetime i can't wait i know me too i'm excited i i love i love what i do so much so i mean you're you're so good at it and you're honestly doing amazing like really important work no one's doing it like you right now thank you so much i mean i'm trying i'm just i'm trying i'm trying to do right by the you know the i think the most precious thing we have of course is time so when people give you their time and they're trusting you with their story um and they're feeding you their food that means so much to them um i feel truly truly honored and i i want to earn people's trust to keep on doing it you know no you're you're you're a real force and you're amazing i can't wait to see you next time wait for the new season the heart and soul of the east village are all of the small businesses mom and pop spots the bakery where i buy my bread the bakery where i only buy cinnamon rolls the stamp store my local pet shop and my favorite place to get matcha i love shopping and browsing and buying fun little treats from these local shops i'm a sucker for some artisanal honey or jam fancy crackers beeswax candles tinned fish and i love shopping and browsing and buying fun little treats from these local shops i'm not too proud to admit that i might buy a butter flavored lollipop if given the opportunity there is a b2b platform that allows businesses to stock their shops at wholesale prices with unique and artisanal products the kind of products that i love to buy stocking your business with products from fair is fun fair has over 100 000 products across home apparel beauty food and more so there's literally something 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poshmark i ended up finding a vintage pumpkin colored stone island sweater i think it will be my new wardrobe staple for this season it was rare gorgeous and a great price and now it will be one of my favorite things that i own since ordering additional stone island pieces have been showing up on my watch list millions of closets infinite versions of you try yourself on with poshmark download the poshmark app and use feed me when you sign up to get ten dollars off your first purchase okay so now we're gonna do a quick like little game yeah before we go it's called it's just like a this or that game it's just like okay i love i love yeah okay i have to ask you are corn tortillas or flour tortillas you can only pick one do not do that to me i have to i have to i'm sorry you have to only choose one this is the game it's for fun corn corn why corn because that's what i grew up with yeah that's what you know i grew up with more corn than flour but yeah yeah that was a hard that was a hard choosing okay uh they're earthy like they're more i don't know they yeah the smell of a corn tortilla is just like intoxicating to me there's like it's like my favorite scent in the world same with butter with a smear of butter and a little salt there's a restaurant that i love that is near my house that they do a corn tortilla ice cream and it's it's incredible oh wow oh that is so new to me jay it's a purity burger yeah they use these corn tortillas and they use these corn tortillas tortillas from chicago that i love el milagro tortillas oh i oh i oh i get them when i can't hear sometimes people smuggle them here yeah i always every time i fill up my suitcase every time i go to chicago um next question is rice pudding or flan i mean you're killing me i know that's the point i'm sorry okay yeah but i love rice pudding i know that's a hard one for me i this is this one is one from your show uh from frontera el paso burritos or juarez burritos and can you tell them a little bit about how they're different oh that is a hard one do you know i wrote an article for the times on the burritos from el paso and juarez and how they they have these rivalry i mean i think i would have to say juarez i would have to say juarez but i think the el paso burritos have more of a more american feelings in the burritos like the brisket and the queso and and what was revealing to me of the juarez burrito was how incredibly delicate they and sophisticated they were you know just one feeling my favorite is the chile verde con papa it's roasted chile verde with really soft potato a little bit of cream and queso asadero melty cheese and it's it was like exuberant and flowery and so divine i'm starving fish tacos or al pastor al pastor al pastor mexico city yeah yeah you're mexico city that's fair yeah i love a fish taco though there's such a treat okay last one chilaquiles or chile relleno i mean like i'm hating you right now i'm sorry i'm sorry oof okay if it's morning chilaquiles if it's dinner it's chile relleno yeah you have to choose one okay fine chilaquiles okay that's that's a good answer so now you sent us a photo of your fridge um we're gonna take a little time to just go through see what's in there okay i have it pulled up lots of almond milk do you not do not do regular milk oh yes i do regular milk but we love eating the overnight oats with almond milk in the morning something right to the right of it there's plum jam that my son sammy made because i have a plum tree that's amazing yeah you have so many jars in here i'm like we can't go through all of them but there's just so many oh there's preserved lemons like to the left there's preserved lemons love what are you using preserved lemons for oof i love them so much jay i use them um with brown rice to make chicken just to make like um like a cracked wheat salad quinoa salad i love preserved lemons so much and then underneath is more plum jam that my i want to try this plum jam you love mayonnaise it seems like huh you have qp mayonnaise i love you have three kinds of mayonnaise i'm i i can't have enough mayo i know this is polemic but i love i i love tuna salad i love chicken salad my sandwiches have to have a thick layer of mayo and then it looks like there's a lot of tortillas on the top shelf a lot of i have corn i have flour i have pita bread where are you getting your tortillas from i mean when i can get my tortillas from the top shelf i can get my tortillas from the top shelf and get my hands on el milagro i bring el milagro from the latin grocery store if not mission or um is also really good um kroger has fantastic ready to cook flour tortillas that are raw and they're kroger mercado yeah they're fantastic flour tortillas wow yeah i gotta try those that sounds amazing yeah yeah um i have brown rice in a tupperware i love brown rice it looks like you actually are using this fridge to cook like you actually i don't know some people like their fridges are like some people who work in food media they're just like it's hard to actually cook so it's just like my fridge is so much so many i do cook but it's a lot of condiments mine's mostly condiments so to end the podcast we just do a little we do a thing where we shout out one thing it's something that we love and then we do like a a get out for something that we kind of would rather not have in the world or in our lives anymore so i'll start this week i'm shouting out perfume for so long i haven't been wearing perfume because i before this i like i have like a history and working in sake and wine it's really not so nice to wear perfume when you're like a wine or sake especially sake but i always loved perfume and now i'm excited to get back into it and i went to this store called 80s it's in the lower east side of new york and they have an amazing selection um you tell them i described to them like something kind of abstract that i like and they give you like 20 cents to try and it's just such a pleasure like i feel like i get to find a whole new me so this is my shout out this week it's just perfume oh that is so nice and you know i was with my family on vacation in canada and many places in vancouver island and many places said we're fragrance free and i was like why in the place that we stayed in they had a unscented shampoo unscented conditioner unscented body cream and to me like the whole you know like my favorite cream like body cream is one that is discontinued that was a creme brulee cream oh wow oh my gosh i just felt like i was a flan you know i love it like custard like i want to eat myself it's incredible and then i love you you're shouting out perfume i'm shouting out oils like i've been using almond oil almond oil on your body on my body and i love it because it's slightly naughty slightly sweet my dog loves the smell of it too there is something and just my skin feels just so soft that's that's nice yeah i love whenever i smell it i'm like what is that what is it makes me feel a certain way that's the thing about scents in general they always they have that like what's it called the freudian like the oh yeah the proust madeline like they always bring you back to that like to some moment um it's like food right yeah yeah i will smell someone when i say hi and it brings me back to a friend that i knew from high school or something um so my my get out this week is lunch being over 30 i feel like i don't feel like you should i mean sometimes if you're sitting down for a nice lunch and you're having some wine but i think in general you shouldn't really spend you shouldn't really be spending more than twenty dollars on lunch thirty dollars is like the hard cap i think it's just lunch should be fun and casual it should never be so complex that it needs to be over that amount that's my i'm with you and now and i'll tack on to that that i think no one should bring you the bill until you ask for it or until you've had dessert and coffee like it kills you me when you're in the middle of your salad and they bring you your check yeah and you're like but wait i don't even know if i want dessert or coffee or you know that you feel like you're being kicked out of the place so i think you want me here like i'll leave exactly like don't bring me the check yeah that's a good one yeah that always it always kills me when that happens yeah well thank you so much thank you so much potty this was i don't know i've had a great time chatting um can't wait to see you next time soup with you me too jay these were so joyous i love the conversation this is a really good my friend l is calling me she's who i'm going to foe with tonight it's that uh restaurant that i was talking about at the beginning of the podcast baby balthazar let's see what she has to say hey what's up so we're going to foe tonight are you excited i'm so excited are you excited i'm excited but i'm nervous tell me why you're nervous let's unpack it i'm nervous to look old i'm nervous to feel old and ugly mostly i'm also gonna say the same thing yeah we're gonna be fabulous we're also going at 5 p.m which is kind of a strange time should we get plastic surgery first at least like i don't know i'm gonna get some bodega i'm gonna get some bodega retta and like see what i can do in the next like 24 hours or like 12 hours a little kratom and an ice pack no kratom you don't do kratom okay that's the rule um yeah i'm really nervous to be old and ugly there for sure but the 5 p.m thing should help because i don't think like the youth dines while it's light out do they um i think they do because they don't drink or something i don't know bar oliver's popping all the time shouldn't they be like charging their vapes and stuff at that hour no that's what they're they don't they go home at 10 p.m and charge their vapes okay well we might be the only people in foe who are like actually going really hard on the food yeah that's true i've heard i have heard tell of a pasta dish i'm very excited about which is it's like a rigatoni with pork sausage maybe i saw a photo of that yeah it looks great i feel like it's the kind of thing i make at home so if people are freaking out about how good it is i'm like okay that seems like kind of a high bar to clear for this pasta it must be really fucking good but you're a really good cook like most people the bar is low for most people on pasta not in new york oh my god if you put a pasta on your menu at like a buzzy place it's getting any sort of coverage and it's as the photo looks it's probably some sort of box pasta it has to be good well i'll see you in a little bit see you soon bye ella so that was expense account and i will see all of you next week same time same place thursdays wherever you get your podcasts bye guys