Ugly Delicious (2018) s01e03 Episode Script
Homecooking
1 I made Grace galbitang last night, but I didn't get to finish it.
Do you need help? I'm going to serve it to her for breakfast.
I don't love American breakfast too much.
Although I love bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches.
I just think that Asian cultures have better breakfasts, so Everyone's like, "Oh, you must cook for people all the time.
" I was like, "No.
" You gotta set your bar low.
I mean, if you cook for someone right off the bat, you're fucked.
Then they expect it all the time.
So, honestly, this is stuff I grew up eating.
My mom would make bokkeumbap or fried rice in the morning a lot.
And there was always leftover stew.
Yeah, I was about the same.
A lot of rice.
More bantan.
All these small little Korean dishes.
Eggs I grew up eating a lot of egg in my house, actually.
Like, home cooking is this.
I don't need to get another utensil because I don't want to fucking wash the dishes.
Oh, hey, Seve.
I used to make Seve's food from scratch.
I used to buy organic beef, liver, and we wouldn't I wouldn't even cook for us, but I cooked for him.
This fucking asshole would never eat it.
Now that I have a home kitchen and I cook way more than I ever did, I tend to gravitate towards simpler things, which I think is the normal trajectory for a chef.
This is literally how we She sits down, I stand up.
This is food that I actually make at home and food that I now want to make in a restaurant, which is a strange thing.
This is something that I would never have served in a restaurant before.
Looks like jail food.
It's pretty, I think.
The biggest influence growing up was my grandmother, or my "nan" as we say in England.
I remember her doing lots of Sunday roasts.
Lots of roasted vegetables, actually.
I kind of joke that my plate used to look like the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where he used to build the potatoes up that looked like the mountain.
My mom, one of her specialties was corned beef that was brined in the bag and then boiled for hours.
So that was her thing.
It was like this corned beef, but that was it.
I didn't really have anyone that was a stellar cook in my life.
It was a time where three generations were still living under one roof.
The grandparents, the parents, the kids.
So it was like, 25 people for lunch, 20 for dinner.
It was like a mini restaurant.
My bedroom was right above the kitchen, so I could smell the cabbage, the pork, whatever was cooking.
Maybe that's how I went to the business.
I don't know.
When you're a younger cook, you want to learn ideas that have nothing to do with what you grew up in.
And I had wanted nothing to do with Korean food, I wanted nothing to do with anything of my upbringing.
And then, things come full circle, right? We're here at 163 First Avenue.
This was the original Momofuku Noodle Bar.
This is the lease I signed in 2004.
I was 26 years old.
So, the only reason this was successful was because we were supposed to go out of business.
So we threw out the rule book of what was supposed to happen, what was going to be a noodle bar.
No one knew what a noodle bar was.
And we started to literally cook things that we were not supposed to cook.
We started to change the idea of what an authentic noodle bar was supposed to be.
Next thing you know, we got reviewed by Peter Meehan.
That was a game changer for us.
I wrote the first review of Momofuku Noodle Bar.
And I hated it when it opened, and then nine months later, it was great and wrote this review.
And then I started going, like, every Saturday.
Some months later, we were at the same concert and he came up to me with a beer.
At that point, I knew I could choose writing about Dave or being buddies with the guy that had the beer.
I took the beer and we started hanging out.
We wrote a book together, we started Lucky Peach magazine.
I wanted to do the cookbook with Dave because I wanted to know how to make the food that he was serving at the time.
It was just that delicious.
I'm like, "If I could cook that food at home, I'd be happy.
" Now we're just an old married couple, doesn't talk that much.
- How Korean is this Thanksgiving gonna be? - I have no idea.
- You're gonna cook it? - My mom is gonna cook the Korean stuff.
Your mom's gonna cook the Korean stuff? Are you gonna cook the white people stuff? Yeah.
I'll show you white people how to do it better.
- You're going to reach deep down inside.
- Yeah, yeah.
To that golfing part inside of you and just pull out the whiteness? I'm gonna bring out the biggest bitch of Betty Crocker you've ever fucking seen.
Did you always have traditionally Thanksgiving? Growing up, our Thanksgivings were maybe the highlight of the year.
We would wind up having this massive spread of American white food and very, very authentic Korean food.
When I first started cooking, I just remember the first couple of years I would make the most insane Thanksgiving dinners.
And I would cook for two straight days and I didn't even think twice about it.
Listen.
When you're starting out as a cook, you don't have any freedom of expression.
Right? The only freedom you have is like, in family meals - Right.
- Or like You get to make an appetizer You know, I'm like, working garde-manger.
It's like, "Oh, my God, I get to roast something that's not" You get to touch hot food.
Yeah.
So I just make this insane spread.
Of course I brought my knives down.
It was like I was making food for the king of France or something.
I did a butternut squash, a black trumpet, capon, chestnut soup I did all this crazy shit.
I remember being like, "Wow.
That was unnecessary labor.
Never gonna do that again.
" When I opened Momofuku in 2004, there was like, no more cooking ever again.
- For you at home? - Yeah.
Too busy.
For years, I missed Thanksgiving because of work.
So, the first restaurant I opened up, the original Noodle Bar, is 27 seats.
This is around 200 plus.
So this is a very big restaurant.
I always admire certain chefs, chefs that are in Japan and whatnot, that only have, like, one restaurant.
I don't know, that just never happened.
I got I don't know how the hell it all happened.
- How you doing, chef? - What's up, brother? Home cooking, or what I call "ugly delicious" food, has now become the food that I also wanna make in the restaurant.
There's a way to coax some more out of a dish.
I'm gonna make this braised cod dish that we've been screwing around with.
It's vaguely Portuguese, Korean, but tastes Sichuan style.
I just reached a point where I'm okay making really ugly food.
This is one of them.
This is basically one of the ugliest dishes I have ever made.
I think it's a mixture of age and me sort of coming into my own a little bit.
This is really just a peasant dish of, like, peppers, potatoes and fish.
If I cooked it with paprika, you could almost say this is a Portuguese thing.
If I added sausage, it would be like sausage and peppers, right? But I didn't, 'cause I think it's important to have sweetness when you have something really hot.
We have sweet potatoes in there and carrots and mung bean noodles.
So it's like, "What the fuck are you eating?" You know what I mean? If you try to respect these cultures, you can figure out how to merge them together without bastardizing any of it.
How do you construct a dish where you can't see the seams? Visually, it happens like in an Escher painting, where you don't know what's up or down, where it begins or it ends.
You can hear it in music, Bach's fugues If you play it right, you can, in theory, play it forever.
The dishes that we're making that have been successful they just somehow made sense, right? Even though they weren't supposed to.
You know it's so delicious, but it's not the deliciousness that makes it so memorable, it's something so delicious that you associate it with a memory.
That's what moves you to another time in your life, which is like that Ratatouille moment.
I can't believe I'm quoting a cartoon or Fuck.
But like, they trigger something.
When you eat a dish that's not even like roast chicken, but reminds you of a dish of roast chicken cooked by your mom.
That's where you wanna be at in cooking.
Here's another thing.
At least cooking at my mom's house, there's no tools.
Did you roll down with anything? Did you bring knives? - No.
God, no.
- I almost grabbed knives.
I don't even know if the ovens work.
The microwave doesn't work.
It looks relatively janky.
Cool.
We will go there tomorrow and make Thanksgiving dinner.
Yes, like pilgrims.
- Regardless of the circumstances.
- Yes.
Much like pilgrims, we will get rid of the natural inhabitants and take it for ourselves.
What do you wanna make for lunch? I did not think about lunch.
I don't want my son to suffer.
Hey, Mom.
Do you want to put this in the galbi jjim? You don't put rice cakes in galbi jjim, son.
- We'll see.
- No shrimp? - I'm gonna get some of these.
- That's too big.
- Don't worry, Mom.
- I buy this one.
No, Mom.
We're good.
- David Chang, where you going? - This way.
David Chang, you like this? I don't.
Unless you wanna bring it.
David Chang.
We almost done? No store likes this in New York, right? Not like this.
I'll grab the spoon from over here.
- I got it, I got it.
- Yeah? This is crispy.
Hey, Mom, I got it.
I don't understand how come you so cook very good.
It's true.
You never taught me how to cook one thing.
No.
I didn't.
Not one thing.
In my house, he's the king.
Here.
He's the baby king.
- The baby king? - Yeah.
So we not teach you food.
And it's not a pleasant term.
It's like I'm a spoiled brat.
I mean, honestly, all the recipes I make today that are inspired by you, it's only 'cause I've seen you do it a thousand times.
I made my first bindaetteok last year.
- Oh, yeah? Really? - No recipe.
But I knew how to do it.
I remember all your tricks.
7Up with a mul-naengmyeon.
- That's right, yeah, that's true.
- Right.
Right.
It's a very sparkling taste.
She used to make steaks in the toaster oven.
Because, uh You used to put sirloins, frozen from Giant and you'd cook 'em frozen.
Frozen in the toaster oven.
Ah, you remember too much.
Okay.
What are you doing with the lobster? I was gonna make lunch.
- We're gonna go country style? - Yeah.
- We're gonna have galbi jjim tonight.
- Mmm-hmm.
And you would serve galbi jjim for like, three weeks after.
Right? Till everything was consumed.
So the first two days, you could eat it on the bone.
And then 72 hours, - everything started to turn to mush.
- Right.
Mush.
But, all of a sudden, all the good pieces were gone and then you'd only have the tendons.
You made me eat all the chewy stuff.
I remember one day, I had friends over from elementary school.
You had a two-week-old pot of galbi jjim.
- How come you remember everything? - I remember this.
You made a pot of curry and the curry smell was terrible.
Oh, yeah? I remember looking at everyone's faces, - how horrified they were.
- Oh The next day, everyone at school made fun of me.
- Really? - Yeah.
I'm sorry.
- Mom.
- Yeah? Come on.
But you had no idea.
To you, this was like extraordinarily delicious food.
That was the cultural shock that was so hard for you and Dad to understand.
And the funny thing is, now that food is super cool, which is so weird.
Wow! - Wow, this is good lobster.
- Could have cooked the noodles more.
Did he help when he was little? Was he ever little? - No.
- No.
The person that I saw cook the most was her mom.
My earliest memories are on my grandmother's back, while she's cooking over this She would just cook.
And I would always be there.
And I would spend weekends at their retirement home and I'd always like spending time there.
- Hi.
- Please come in.
- Hi, guys.
- Hi.
Very handsome, yes.
They're big.
- Looks delicious.
- What's up, man? - What's up? How you doing? - Good.
- Hey.
- This is Peter.
- Very nice to meet you.
- How's it going? The funny thing for me is when people think I'm cooking all the time at home or that my boyfriend has the best luck in the world of eating well every night.
Best case, on any day, you'll get some scrambled eggs out of the deal, or you'll get some late-night food after work, but there's not a lot of time for us to plan a meal for even the people we love the most.
I used to cook for my husband a lot.
It was a gesture of true love.
I mean, I feel bad that he doesnâÂÂt get as much love anymore 'cause I make stuff for my kids or I prioritize other things, sometimes laundry.
René Redzepi is one of the world's great chefs.
He's one of my closest friends.
He's most well known, obviously, for being the chef of Noma.
He's someone that's very significant in the culinary world because he's the reason why people eat Nordic food around the world.
The most common thing you hear if you tell people that you date a chef is that, "Oh, my God, you must eat so well at home.
" I mean, we do, but because I cook.
But he's never here when it's dinner time.
When I was pregnant with our first daughter, I started writing down my favorite recipes because I always liked the idea of having this family cookbook.
Some of the recipes that René would be able to pass down through the Noma cookbooks, you can't really make it in a home kitchen.
So I created an Instagram account and started posting dinner on there and was offered a book deal.
It's called Downtime.
It means that we're all gonna sit down and be together and talk.
It's a big thing for us, dinner.
I mean, I will say, having René and Dave at once And they're gonna be joking a lot.
It's a little bit nerve-racking but totally fine.
I remember when we had David Chang over the first time.
He was so happy about it.
He was like, "We never do this in New York because nobody has kitchens big enough to cook in.
You always go out for dinner.
" Even though he doesn't cook a lot, he now enjoys just being able to cook at home.
- Yeah.
- It is nice.
I think increasingly, when people go out, they want something more home cooking.
Whereas maybe before, it was something People wanted something they don't get at home.
- Yeah.
- Mmm-hmm.
I feel like, at least at Noma, a lot of the guests, deep down inside, they have a secret wish that their next dish is a steak and that dessert is a brownie.
You know? That reminds me of when I had my first Noma dinner.
It reminded me of something my mom used to make.
It brought me back to that moment and it was so homey and it was just, like, so unexpected.
And I was like, "This is bonkers.
This is crazy.
" I had no idea I could feel this way about food.
Yeah.
- Oh - Hey.
- Just sneaking in.
- Sneaking in.
Are you guys gossiping? - Arwen, you gonna say hello? - Are you gossiping about me? - No.
She was.
- No? - I know where to get all the answers.
- No, she wasn't.
I just have to talk to you.
We're talking about the differences between restaurant cooking and home cooking.
I mean, we talk about this a lot.
I think that so many things that we do in restaurants can be replicated by any other restaurant, right? The thing that can separate a restaurant experience is literally how much someone cares about making that food.
Here, for home cooking, Nadine just wants to make us so happy.
It has less to do with perfection than, I think, with intent.
- Mmm-hmm.
- The intent is more perfect.
Have you ever used the Noma cookbooks for home cooking? - No.
- Not even once? Well, I mean I loved cooking before I met René, and when I met René, it was incredible.
I would call René and say, "You know that thing that's on that dish, can I do that at home? What do I do?" So, very lucky in that way.
So, this is a dish from a restaurant.
When my mom wasn't cooking or if I wasn't playing golf or something, we'd go to this restaurant called Wu's Garden.
Family restaurant.
Once a week Yeah.
So this restaurant, it was owned by Chinese immigrants that were cooks in the Shandong province of China.
So they cooked with a lot of garlic and scallions, and most people assumed it was just sort of a Chinese-American restaurant.
But my dad and the owner were friends and it looked Chinese-American, but the dishes that we ordered were always Shandong style.
One more plate? We'd always get this braised tofu which is cooked very similar to this dish which is braised boneless chicken which was dark meat that was marinated in Shaoxing wine and a little soy, and then they would bread it and then dip it in egg, which was a very different thing.
I thought it was the greatest dish, growing up.
I loved that restaurant so much and I was very sad when it closed.
We were there for the last day and, like many Chinese immigrant families that open up restaurants, they worked hard so their kids wouldn't do the restaurant business and I asked them for, basically, the recipe and they gave it to me.
And I was very happy.
Your dad worked hard so you wouldn't end up in the restaurant business - and look how that turned out, right? - Yeah.
Nice job, Pete.
How much japchae is your mom gonna make? A lot.
You have no idea.
I always make a lot so I can make it some more food.
Anyway, you the good helper.
How about Dave? Is he a good helper? I told you, he's a king! Mom, you know how many jokes are gonna be made of me now? - I mean, it's really - Thank you.
I'm just trying to get as much out of that well as I can.
- Mom? - Yes.
Look.
Just like Wu's Gardens.
I was pretty adrift when I moved to New York.
Like, I didn't know what I was doing with my life.
My wife and I started cooking and eating more expansively, and lived above a used bookstore, and I started buying cookbooks and just reading them, like You know, for $8, go downstairs, buy another book.
As I watched all of my friends studying to become doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs, I was like, "I gotta pick a thing.
" And I'm like, "I'm gonna make food my thing.
" All these dead people.
Jesus! This guy's got a lot of books by dead people.
There's more of them than there are of us.
I used to come up to this section a lot, which I imagine you would have nothing but bad things to say about.
Nothing but scorn for the The fancy international chef community books? On the other hand - Wait, that's you.
- I love this section.
As we pan down to the Mark Bittman section.
You know, when I was asked to write How to Cook Everything, I was asked to write the new Joy of Cooking.
So I thought, "Okay.
I'm gonna write the most basic cookbook I know how to write.
" The other thing is for 13 years I had that weekly deadline of "The Minimalist.
" And that was supposed to be short, fast, easy, simple.
I can't do anything complicated now.
I won't.
I feel like I did that Momofuku book with Dave.
I was really into all that shit like boning a pig's head and making torchons and freezing foie gras, and doing that all at home and then Actually a friend, him and his girlfriend got pregnant, and he was like, "I need to know how to fucking cook.
- I don't know how to cook.
" - Right.
I bought him Marcella Hazan, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
I'm like, "This book will take care of you.
" And he kind of became the guy that I started writing home cooking books for.
And I think that having a person in mind for it was always good.
But still, you try to test recipes and you try to make them foolproof and you cook them a couple of times and then you send a book to somebody, and they're like, "This was salty.
" And you're like, "Fuck you! That wasn't salty.
" And then you make it and you're like, "That was salty.
" That's why I'll never do a recipe that doesn't say salt to taste.
It's like the gym teaching of writing, but it's still writing.
It's like the computer manual of writing.
It's an instruction manual.
One of Jacques Pépin's best lines was, "Recipes are like rivers, they're never the same from one moment to the next.
" You never cook the same recipe twice.
When I started cooking, I thought the only food that was worth exploring and learning and working hard to be proficient at was high-end French dining.
And that's sort of where I see food at right now in food television, that everything has to be this super glossy affair.
When in reality, good food is everywhere.
And it's not just one person's perspective.
- You tired of making that shit yet? - Not yet, chef.
- Tired of tasting it, I'll bet.
- That's for sure.
It's more than cooking, it's You care enough where you want someone to leave the restaurant feeling that they got value and they loved it here.
That's so important.
- To me, that is home cooking.
- Yeah.
And I think why home cooking is so delicious, why what Nadine is cooking is so delicious, because she cares about it, even if it doesn't taste great.
- You know what I mean? - It's still okay.
- It's still great.
- Okay, David.
I didn't mean it like that.
I said, "Hypothetically speaking.
" I didn't put quotation marks.
I've always felt what made Noma and you so special is you get people to buy into caring.
I only have that place.
Imagine you only had Ko and Ssäm Bar.
Just imagine, dude.
I imagine it all the time.
Part of the reason we're growing and part of the reason you're growing, too, - is to take care of the people around you.
- Mmm-hmm.
Yeah, that's true.
Isn't that so Oh, this looks amazing.
- Well, thank you for all the home cooking.
- Oh, you're so welcome.
Thank you, Ro, for giving me the stink eye.
When you work in a restaurant, you kind of end up having your team be your family, 'cause that's where you spend so much time.
I don't know what it is.
It's become like work, hobby, private life.
The place where everyone knows your name.
- It's our pub.
It's our local pub.
- It really is.
- And the wine's for free.
- I know! That's why I go.
Mmm.
That is so good, these ones.
- You like 'em, too? - Very good.
When I met René, he made such a big deal about telling me, warning me what I was getting into, at one point, I was like, "Is he trying to get rid of me?" But he'd just seen several relationships fail.
I actually remember, I said, "What you're experiencing right now is the best it's ever gonna get.
" - He said something like that to me, too! - We were spending a lot of time.
I didn't have to be on the road.
I could be home by, like, 8 o'clock.
I remember telling her after three months of dating, "This isn't real.
" Chef, wait till you have kids, too.
Because kids don't care.
They don't care how tired you are.
Or how much you need to sleep or whatever.
They need to be changed.
They need to wake up.
I don't know how the hell you did it.
That's, to me, one of the most amazing achievements.
I don't know how I could have run Noma and done what I've done without having the sanity of a family and kids.
- Yeah, you're three behind, buddy.
- Three behind.
Having a child really changed the way that I cook, shop, and personally eat because now, you know, it feels like there's a responsibility to teach him where food comes from.
It doesn't come from a bag or a factory or a can.
My son doesn't eat very many foods.
My son likes to eat breakfast bars.
I mean, I've tried to get him to try stuff.
He'll be in tears and say, "I don't think I can handle it.
" Which is so weird for me, to embrace food so easily and then to feel sad for him to reject it.
He really can't handle it.
And then my daughter loves everything.
You have to do it with chopsticks.
It's okay, Mom.
You have to fry it in frying oil.
I know.
I know what I'm I'm just So this recipe, this is the highlight of any Chang Thanksgiving.
Oily shrimp rolls, we just minced it with some ginger, garlic.
Put prune juice, courtesy of our mom.
Don't put in the prune juice.
Onions.
Easy, peanut gallery.
- It's not gluten free.
- It's not MSG free.
Not MSG free.
And I think you should use some of the farce to seal it, too.
Pete, this is like the fucking Mona Lisa right here.
This is the most sensible version of shrimp toast, I think.
That's why the Irish It's almost a refined version of shrimp toast in the way that something that involves That's why your culture has such great cuisine.
You guys always go the extra mile.
I don't know how you're insulting me, - but I feel like you're insulting me.
-100%.
The entire country of Ireland has ruined my thesis of "tragedy and famine produces great food.
" You know, an exception proves a rule, right? No.
Look at how fucking nice this is.
That's why I love cooking.
You start out making shit like that.
And progress in five minutes.
It's awesome.
There's something wrong about serving this in a restaurant.
- This is not restaurant food.
- No.
These are not good for you.
I eat the crappiest food.
You know? Like, I'm gonna die of diabetes, I think, or from My weakness is potato chips.
The dirty little secret that you'll find with a lot of chefs is that our fridges don't have a lot in them.
I am making popcorn at least two to three times a week at home, and kind of saying that that is dinner.
I always went to sleep with a piece of chocolate in my mouth.
I wake up in the morning, I have sweet dreams.
Nice.
55 years later, I'm still having my piece of chocolate after I brush my teeth.
Every night.
Have you ever made knish dough before? I have never made a knish before.
Ooh.
You have a different technique than me.
That's good technique.
I think yours is better than mine.
Nah.
I can't believe I'm teaching you how to make something.
This is very funny.
Okay.
So now we're just gonna stretch.
I love that we're gonna make cochinita pibil knishes.
This idea could go viral.
Yeah.
I wonder what the rabbi is gonna think about it though.
- What did you call it? - Sacrilicious.
Sacrilicious.
That's it.
So, first time I made these for my mother, she's like, "Oh, my God.
It actually looks like a knish.
" Did you say something like, "Mom, I've been a professional chef since" No, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Okay, this is going to be epic.
Don't you think it's hilarious that we both have really crap kitchens? You do with the stoves that you're given.
Yeah.
And the countertops or lack thereof and I think the more you know how to cook, the more adaptable you are.
Probably.
I mean, my favorite kitchen ever was actually smaller than this area here.
Then the oven was, like, an O'Keefe and Merritt.
My mother kept warning me that it didn't fit a turkey, and in fact, it would only fit a nine-pound turkey.
- Well, this oven here.
- Yeah, there you go.
That was my oven for 20 years.
A Facebook friend I've never met gave me this oven.
Gave me this stove because she felt so sorry for me.
Okay, that, Jonathan, you should get another Pulitzer Prize just for that.
Those smell better than any knishes - I've ever smelt before! - Oh, my God.
These smell so good.
So good.
That is so good.
I don't know that we have ever cooked alongside of each other.
We've cooked together, but not like this.
Extended.
It's a day long.
It's like, I'm very surprised that you've contained your rage over messiness, knife skills.
- It is what it is.
- That looks good.
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, Peter.
May I? I've watched Dave become nationally and internationally famous and open tons of businesses.
The amount of private life I think he even has time for is so small in New York so it's always funny to see somebody have to cook in their socks and take shit from their mom.
You know? Like, I don't know That's a fun thing to see.
So much pain.
So much fucking pain for this stupid fucking dish.
Well, I think the amount of extra cooking for Thanksgiving is part cooking to fill the hours that otherwise could be filled with emotional connection with your family members.
What's happening? - Peter, how are you? - Good, thank you.
So He's just got a little PTSD about these mashed potatoes, but this too shall pass.
Yeah.
To work with somebody for so long, you start to know what they're gonna anticipate.
And I can do a lot of that for Dave, and Dave knows a lot of what makes me tick.
So it's a, I don't know, it's a It's the longest, most intimate male relationship I've ever been involved in, so These are awesome, Pete.
You did a fucking awesome job.
Thank you.
I think that's the most genuinely nice thing you've ever said to me in our decade of working together.
- I'm gonna take it to heart.
- It's Thanksgiving.
- It's Thanks - Don't take it for granted.
Get ready.
They're here.
When Babette's Feast came out, I was It changed my life, you know? I loved the idea of Babette blowing all her money on one night, and it was profound for me, 'cause, as a refugee, you're always scrimping and saving and And you would never do something so frivolous, in a way, you know? So, I saved all my money and I wanted to have one feast, you know? And one feast for, like, a 16-year-old kid.
It was momentous for me.
And I opened up the fridge and I saw my meringue strawberry thing just oozing, you know? Like, quivering.
And then just my Grandma right here, going, "It looks like dog shit.
I would not serve that.
" I was like, "Oh, lady.
" So I carry that every time I put up a new dish.
I would have that experience again, this, "It just looks like shit.
I just shouldn't do it.
" - You want herbs? - Yeah, I got it.
One of the differences between home cooking and restaurant cooking is in restaurants, you gotta pick your thyme, because you can't get the stem.
Home cooking, you just go like this.
Doesn't matter.
What I hate about cooking at home is that, like, everything's so much dirtier and I can't yell at everyone like I would in a professional kitchen.
- Really? - I wanna I wanna say something to my mom right now, but I can't.
I wanna be like, "What are you doing?" But I can't.
I can't say, "Work cleaner!" I can't.
- Enough? Two more.
- Yeah, two more.
Yeah.
I'm slow.
Are you done cleaning the sink? Yeah, don't worry, Mom.
We'll clean up right now.
Don't yell.
No, it's okay.
No.
Now that the camera's on, you're nice.
I see how it is.
This is how tough this woman is.
She's had cancer four different times over 25 years.
The third time she had cancer, it was in her brain, tumor.
Two days after she was released from the hospital, she has a bandage.
It's a chunk of brain here, right here.
She's cooking me She's cooking me kimchi-jjigae.
I remember, she was standing right here and I was like, "Ma, what are you doing?" - Remember that, Mom? - Yes.
Because you're the special.
Mmm? Aw Crazy woman.
My mom is a crazy woman.
No, you're the only one crazy.
Two days! The women in my life express love through food.
My grandmother was an amazing cook.
My mother is an amazing cook.
- Maybe four.
- Mama.
Mmm! Mmm, mmm, mmm.
Love was shown as, "Have you had enough to eat?" Till this day when I talk to my mom, the first thing she says is, "What have you eaten? Have you had enough to eat?" The first thing I remember my grandmother making me all the time were these roasted potatoes with sugar and she learned how to make this Russian soup with ketchup in it, which was very weird.
And when I associate food and love, that's the kind of food that makes me happy.
And I think that maybe one reason why I'm shying away from maybe more of the Euro-centric style of food is that I associate a lot of terrible memories with that.
Working in a kitchen, and I don't mean this physically, but mentally getting the shit kicked out of you, that's hard.
I associate better things with stuff that I think my mom and grandmother made.
You make this at home? - Yes.
- Often.
Often.
What? This is actually a really good dessert to make at home.
Chef Wait till you taste this one.
Pressure's on.
Looks beautiful.
- That looks so pretty.
- Mmm-hmm.
This is from 2015.
I need a little bit of this on there.
That's amazing.
This caramel was like liquid, and then, after a couple of years, the sugar from the prunes have made it thick and it's perfect.
- That's home cooking.
- Mmm-hmm.
- That's so good.
- That is amazing.
- Yeah.
- Holy cow! - Would this - This is three Michelin Stars.
You really think that cooking, across the board, is better than ever? Oh, yeah.
In the way that the world is open today, in the way that everybody shares with each other That, to me, is a new thing.
The world is open.
People are sharing.
People are flicking on some social media and you put out the latest thing you've been working on.
You share everything today.
There's more exchange of information than ever.
Much more! What I don't like about the exchange of information is, I think that, uh the removal of struggle to get that information creates bad cooking.
I think cooks today know more than ever before, but because it was so easy for them to obtain, it's not special to them.
I think you're wrong.
You know, people just struggle in a different way today.
- No, you're right.
- You're just getting old, man.
Yeah, of course I'm getting old.
I guess the romantic in me is arguing for the The peaks are much shorter now.
One of the reasons I wanna be in this profession is to be able to dream for impossible goals.
And while the mean is much higher than ever before, the difference between the lowest of the low and the highest of the high is not that different any more.
And it's harder to find the tightness.
I'm looking for that person and I'm like, "Fuck!" Right? Like, how do they do this? The person that'd get up every morning and be like They are gonna make me work harder than ever before.
Because I have to get to that level.
Yeah.
They're out there.
Chang Thanksgiving 2016 coming to an end.
Thank God.
- Pete! Do you wanna slice? - What? Sure.
- Meehan's cutting! Our guest.
- Meehan's First time a white person has ever cut a Thanksgiving turkey in a Chang household.
Come on, it's not about that kind of day today.
Love you.
Just wanted to thank everyone.
It's been a long time since we've all been together.
We have Pete Meehan, who's basically a Chang, and I'm a Meehan, because we've been together so long.
Uh, but I always love Thanksgiving because of this.
We can celebrate over food and hopefully not bicker too much.
Mom and Dad, we love you very much.
Thank you so much for being patient and providing for all of us.
- Cheers! - Thank you.
Yeah.
Damn.
The cornbread is really good.
Food that I like has a sense of community, has a sense of a narrative that's being told, and, often times, as cliché as it sounds, it's food that's made with love.
That's what separates a good meal versus a tremendous meal.
Uh-oh.
Dancing? Out, little pizza.
The less we say about it the better Make it up as we go along Feet on the ground Head in the sky Mmm! - It's Laura's Jell-O mold.
- First one.
You forgot the chicken again.
And you're standing here beside me I love the passing of time Never for money Always for love Cover up and say goodnight Say goodnight - We did it! - Yeah! I feel like whenever anybody's like, "Dave, what's your career goals?" It's like, buying the Redskins from Dan Snyder.
I'm gonna change the name to The Chinks.
Oh! That Go get it.
Yes! Oh, no, hold it.
Hold it, hold it.
Do you need help? I'm going to serve it to her for breakfast.
I don't love American breakfast too much.
Although I love bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches.
I just think that Asian cultures have better breakfasts, so Everyone's like, "Oh, you must cook for people all the time.
" I was like, "No.
" You gotta set your bar low.
I mean, if you cook for someone right off the bat, you're fucked.
Then they expect it all the time.
So, honestly, this is stuff I grew up eating.
My mom would make bokkeumbap or fried rice in the morning a lot.
And there was always leftover stew.
Yeah, I was about the same.
A lot of rice.
More bantan.
All these small little Korean dishes.
Eggs I grew up eating a lot of egg in my house, actually.
Like, home cooking is this.
I don't need to get another utensil because I don't want to fucking wash the dishes.
Oh, hey, Seve.
I used to make Seve's food from scratch.
I used to buy organic beef, liver, and we wouldn't I wouldn't even cook for us, but I cooked for him.
This fucking asshole would never eat it.
Now that I have a home kitchen and I cook way more than I ever did, I tend to gravitate towards simpler things, which I think is the normal trajectory for a chef.
This is literally how we She sits down, I stand up.
This is food that I actually make at home and food that I now want to make in a restaurant, which is a strange thing.
This is something that I would never have served in a restaurant before.
Looks like jail food.
It's pretty, I think.
The biggest influence growing up was my grandmother, or my "nan" as we say in England.
I remember her doing lots of Sunday roasts.
Lots of roasted vegetables, actually.
I kind of joke that my plate used to look like the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where he used to build the potatoes up that looked like the mountain.
My mom, one of her specialties was corned beef that was brined in the bag and then boiled for hours.
So that was her thing.
It was like this corned beef, but that was it.
I didn't really have anyone that was a stellar cook in my life.
It was a time where three generations were still living under one roof.
The grandparents, the parents, the kids.
So it was like, 25 people for lunch, 20 for dinner.
It was like a mini restaurant.
My bedroom was right above the kitchen, so I could smell the cabbage, the pork, whatever was cooking.
Maybe that's how I went to the business.
I don't know.
When you're a younger cook, you want to learn ideas that have nothing to do with what you grew up in.
And I had wanted nothing to do with Korean food, I wanted nothing to do with anything of my upbringing.
And then, things come full circle, right? We're here at 163 First Avenue.
This was the original Momofuku Noodle Bar.
This is the lease I signed in 2004.
I was 26 years old.
So, the only reason this was successful was because we were supposed to go out of business.
So we threw out the rule book of what was supposed to happen, what was going to be a noodle bar.
No one knew what a noodle bar was.
And we started to literally cook things that we were not supposed to cook.
We started to change the idea of what an authentic noodle bar was supposed to be.
Next thing you know, we got reviewed by Peter Meehan.
That was a game changer for us.
I wrote the first review of Momofuku Noodle Bar.
And I hated it when it opened, and then nine months later, it was great and wrote this review.
And then I started going, like, every Saturday.
Some months later, we were at the same concert and he came up to me with a beer.
At that point, I knew I could choose writing about Dave or being buddies with the guy that had the beer.
I took the beer and we started hanging out.
We wrote a book together, we started Lucky Peach magazine.
I wanted to do the cookbook with Dave because I wanted to know how to make the food that he was serving at the time.
It was just that delicious.
I'm like, "If I could cook that food at home, I'd be happy.
" Now we're just an old married couple, doesn't talk that much.
- How Korean is this Thanksgiving gonna be? - I have no idea.
- You're gonna cook it? - My mom is gonna cook the Korean stuff.
Your mom's gonna cook the Korean stuff? Are you gonna cook the white people stuff? Yeah.
I'll show you white people how to do it better.
- You're going to reach deep down inside.
- Yeah, yeah.
To that golfing part inside of you and just pull out the whiteness? I'm gonna bring out the biggest bitch of Betty Crocker you've ever fucking seen.
Did you always have traditionally Thanksgiving? Growing up, our Thanksgivings were maybe the highlight of the year.
We would wind up having this massive spread of American white food and very, very authentic Korean food.
When I first started cooking, I just remember the first couple of years I would make the most insane Thanksgiving dinners.
And I would cook for two straight days and I didn't even think twice about it.
Listen.
When you're starting out as a cook, you don't have any freedom of expression.
Right? The only freedom you have is like, in family meals - Right.
- Or like You get to make an appetizer You know, I'm like, working garde-manger.
It's like, "Oh, my God, I get to roast something that's not" You get to touch hot food.
Yeah.
So I just make this insane spread.
Of course I brought my knives down.
It was like I was making food for the king of France or something.
I did a butternut squash, a black trumpet, capon, chestnut soup I did all this crazy shit.
I remember being like, "Wow.
That was unnecessary labor.
Never gonna do that again.
" When I opened Momofuku in 2004, there was like, no more cooking ever again.
- For you at home? - Yeah.
Too busy.
For years, I missed Thanksgiving because of work.
So, the first restaurant I opened up, the original Noodle Bar, is 27 seats.
This is around 200 plus.
So this is a very big restaurant.
I always admire certain chefs, chefs that are in Japan and whatnot, that only have, like, one restaurant.
I don't know, that just never happened.
I got I don't know how the hell it all happened.
- How you doing, chef? - What's up, brother? Home cooking, or what I call "ugly delicious" food, has now become the food that I also wanna make in the restaurant.
There's a way to coax some more out of a dish.
I'm gonna make this braised cod dish that we've been screwing around with.
It's vaguely Portuguese, Korean, but tastes Sichuan style.
I just reached a point where I'm okay making really ugly food.
This is one of them.
This is basically one of the ugliest dishes I have ever made.
I think it's a mixture of age and me sort of coming into my own a little bit.
This is really just a peasant dish of, like, peppers, potatoes and fish.
If I cooked it with paprika, you could almost say this is a Portuguese thing.
If I added sausage, it would be like sausage and peppers, right? But I didn't, 'cause I think it's important to have sweetness when you have something really hot.
We have sweet potatoes in there and carrots and mung bean noodles.
So it's like, "What the fuck are you eating?" You know what I mean? If you try to respect these cultures, you can figure out how to merge them together without bastardizing any of it.
How do you construct a dish where you can't see the seams? Visually, it happens like in an Escher painting, where you don't know what's up or down, where it begins or it ends.
You can hear it in music, Bach's fugues If you play it right, you can, in theory, play it forever.
The dishes that we're making that have been successful they just somehow made sense, right? Even though they weren't supposed to.
You know it's so delicious, but it's not the deliciousness that makes it so memorable, it's something so delicious that you associate it with a memory.
That's what moves you to another time in your life, which is like that Ratatouille moment.
I can't believe I'm quoting a cartoon or Fuck.
But like, they trigger something.
When you eat a dish that's not even like roast chicken, but reminds you of a dish of roast chicken cooked by your mom.
That's where you wanna be at in cooking.
Here's another thing.
At least cooking at my mom's house, there's no tools.
Did you roll down with anything? Did you bring knives? - No.
God, no.
- I almost grabbed knives.
I don't even know if the ovens work.
The microwave doesn't work.
It looks relatively janky.
Cool.
We will go there tomorrow and make Thanksgiving dinner.
Yes, like pilgrims.
- Regardless of the circumstances.
- Yes.
Much like pilgrims, we will get rid of the natural inhabitants and take it for ourselves.
What do you wanna make for lunch? I did not think about lunch.
I don't want my son to suffer.
Hey, Mom.
Do you want to put this in the galbi jjim? You don't put rice cakes in galbi jjim, son.
- We'll see.
- No shrimp? - I'm gonna get some of these.
- That's too big.
- Don't worry, Mom.
- I buy this one.
No, Mom.
We're good.
- David Chang, where you going? - This way.
David Chang, you like this? I don't.
Unless you wanna bring it.
David Chang.
We almost done? No store likes this in New York, right? Not like this.
I'll grab the spoon from over here.
- I got it, I got it.
- Yeah? This is crispy.
Hey, Mom, I got it.
I don't understand how come you so cook very good.
It's true.
You never taught me how to cook one thing.
No.
I didn't.
Not one thing.
In my house, he's the king.
Here.
He's the baby king.
- The baby king? - Yeah.
So we not teach you food.
And it's not a pleasant term.
It's like I'm a spoiled brat.
I mean, honestly, all the recipes I make today that are inspired by you, it's only 'cause I've seen you do it a thousand times.
I made my first bindaetteok last year.
- Oh, yeah? Really? - No recipe.
But I knew how to do it.
I remember all your tricks.
7Up with a mul-naengmyeon.
- That's right, yeah, that's true.
- Right.
Right.
It's a very sparkling taste.
She used to make steaks in the toaster oven.
Because, uh You used to put sirloins, frozen from Giant and you'd cook 'em frozen.
Frozen in the toaster oven.
Ah, you remember too much.
Okay.
What are you doing with the lobster? I was gonna make lunch.
- We're gonna go country style? - Yeah.
- We're gonna have galbi jjim tonight.
- Mmm-hmm.
And you would serve galbi jjim for like, three weeks after.
Right? Till everything was consumed.
So the first two days, you could eat it on the bone.
And then 72 hours, - everything started to turn to mush.
- Right.
Mush.
But, all of a sudden, all the good pieces were gone and then you'd only have the tendons.
You made me eat all the chewy stuff.
I remember one day, I had friends over from elementary school.
You had a two-week-old pot of galbi jjim.
- How come you remember everything? - I remember this.
You made a pot of curry and the curry smell was terrible.
Oh, yeah? I remember looking at everyone's faces, - how horrified they were.
- Oh The next day, everyone at school made fun of me.
- Really? - Yeah.
I'm sorry.
- Mom.
- Yeah? Come on.
But you had no idea.
To you, this was like extraordinarily delicious food.
That was the cultural shock that was so hard for you and Dad to understand.
And the funny thing is, now that food is super cool, which is so weird.
Wow! - Wow, this is good lobster.
- Could have cooked the noodles more.
Did he help when he was little? Was he ever little? - No.
- No.
The person that I saw cook the most was her mom.
My earliest memories are on my grandmother's back, while she's cooking over this She would just cook.
And I would always be there.
And I would spend weekends at their retirement home and I'd always like spending time there.
- Hi.
- Please come in.
- Hi, guys.
- Hi.
Very handsome, yes.
They're big.
- Looks delicious.
- What's up, man? - What's up? How you doing? - Good.
- Hey.
- This is Peter.
- Very nice to meet you.
- How's it going? The funny thing for me is when people think I'm cooking all the time at home or that my boyfriend has the best luck in the world of eating well every night.
Best case, on any day, you'll get some scrambled eggs out of the deal, or you'll get some late-night food after work, but there's not a lot of time for us to plan a meal for even the people we love the most.
I used to cook for my husband a lot.
It was a gesture of true love.
I mean, I feel bad that he doesnâÂÂt get as much love anymore 'cause I make stuff for my kids or I prioritize other things, sometimes laundry.
René Redzepi is one of the world's great chefs.
He's one of my closest friends.
He's most well known, obviously, for being the chef of Noma.
He's someone that's very significant in the culinary world because he's the reason why people eat Nordic food around the world.
The most common thing you hear if you tell people that you date a chef is that, "Oh, my God, you must eat so well at home.
" I mean, we do, but because I cook.
But he's never here when it's dinner time.
When I was pregnant with our first daughter, I started writing down my favorite recipes because I always liked the idea of having this family cookbook.
Some of the recipes that René would be able to pass down through the Noma cookbooks, you can't really make it in a home kitchen.
So I created an Instagram account and started posting dinner on there and was offered a book deal.
It's called Downtime.
It means that we're all gonna sit down and be together and talk.
It's a big thing for us, dinner.
I mean, I will say, having René and Dave at once And they're gonna be joking a lot.
It's a little bit nerve-racking but totally fine.
I remember when we had David Chang over the first time.
He was so happy about it.
He was like, "We never do this in New York because nobody has kitchens big enough to cook in.
You always go out for dinner.
" Even though he doesn't cook a lot, he now enjoys just being able to cook at home.
- Yeah.
- It is nice.
I think increasingly, when people go out, they want something more home cooking.
Whereas maybe before, it was something People wanted something they don't get at home.
- Yeah.
- Mmm-hmm.
I feel like, at least at Noma, a lot of the guests, deep down inside, they have a secret wish that their next dish is a steak and that dessert is a brownie.
You know? That reminds me of when I had my first Noma dinner.
It reminded me of something my mom used to make.
It brought me back to that moment and it was so homey and it was just, like, so unexpected.
And I was like, "This is bonkers.
This is crazy.
" I had no idea I could feel this way about food.
Yeah.
- Oh - Hey.
- Just sneaking in.
- Sneaking in.
Are you guys gossiping? - Arwen, you gonna say hello? - Are you gossiping about me? - No.
She was.
- No? - I know where to get all the answers.
- No, she wasn't.
I just have to talk to you.
We're talking about the differences between restaurant cooking and home cooking.
I mean, we talk about this a lot.
I think that so many things that we do in restaurants can be replicated by any other restaurant, right? The thing that can separate a restaurant experience is literally how much someone cares about making that food.
Here, for home cooking, Nadine just wants to make us so happy.
It has less to do with perfection than, I think, with intent.
- Mmm-hmm.
- The intent is more perfect.
Have you ever used the Noma cookbooks for home cooking? - No.
- Not even once? Well, I mean I loved cooking before I met René, and when I met René, it was incredible.
I would call René and say, "You know that thing that's on that dish, can I do that at home? What do I do?" So, very lucky in that way.
So, this is a dish from a restaurant.
When my mom wasn't cooking or if I wasn't playing golf or something, we'd go to this restaurant called Wu's Garden.
Family restaurant.
Once a week Yeah.
So this restaurant, it was owned by Chinese immigrants that were cooks in the Shandong province of China.
So they cooked with a lot of garlic and scallions, and most people assumed it was just sort of a Chinese-American restaurant.
But my dad and the owner were friends and it looked Chinese-American, but the dishes that we ordered were always Shandong style.
One more plate? We'd always get this braised tofu which is cooked very similar to this dish which is braised boneless chicken which was dark meat that was marinated in Shaoxing wine and a little soy, and then they would bread it and then dip it in egg, which was a very different thing.
I thought it was the greatest dish, growing up.
I loved that restaurant so much and I was very sad when it closed.
We were there for the last day and, like many Chinese immigrant families that open up restaurants, they worked hard so their kids wouldn't do the restaurant business and I asked them for, basically, the recipe and they gave it to me.
And I was very happy.
Your dad worked hard so you wouldn't end up in the restaurant business - and look how that turned out, right? - Yeah.
Nice job, Pete.
How much japchae is your mom gonna make? A lot.
You have no idea.
I always make a lot so I can make it some more food.
Anyway, you the good helper.
How about Dave? Is he a good helper? I told you, he's a king! Mom, you know how many jokes are gonna be made of me now? - I mean, it's really - Thank you.
I'm just trying to get as much out of that well as I can.
- Mom? - Yes.
Look.
Just like Wu's Gardens.
I was pretty adrift when I moved to New York.
Like, I didn't know what I was doing with my life.
My wife and I started cooking and eating more expansively, and lived above a used bookstore, and I started buying cookbooks and just reading them, like You know, for $8, go downstairs, buy another book.
As I watched all of my friends studying to become doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs, I was like, "I gotta pick a thing.
" And I'm like, "I'm gonna make food my thing.
" All these dead people.
Jesus! This guy's got a lot of books by dead people.
There's more of them than there are of us.
I used to come up to this section a lot, which I imagine you would have nothing but bad things to say about.
Nothing but scorn for the The fancy international chef community books? On the other hand - Wait, that's you.
- I love this section.
As we pan down to the Mark Bittman section.
You know, when I was asked to write How to Cook Everything, I was asked to write the new Joy of Cooking.
So I thought, "Okay.
I'm gonna write the most basic cookbook I know how to write.
" The other thing is for 13 years I had that weekly deadline of "The Minimalist.
" And that was supposed to be short, fast, easy, simple.
I can't do anything complicated now.
I won't.
I feel like I did that Momofuku book with Dave.
I was really into all that shit like boning a pig's head and making torchons and freezing foie gras, and doing that all at home and then Actually a friend, him and his girlfriend got pregnant, and he was like, "I need to know how to fucking cook.
- I don't know how to cook.
" - Right.
I bought him Marcella Hazan, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
I'm like, "This book will take care of you.
" And he kind of became the guy that I started writing home cooking books for.
And I think that having a person in mind for it was always good.
But still, you try to test recipes and you try to make them foolproof and you cook them a couple of times and then you send a book to somebody, and they're like, "This was salty.
" And you're like, "Fuck you! That wasn't salty.
" And then you make it and you're like, "That was salty.
" That's why I'll never do a recipe that doesn't say salt to taste.
It's like the gym teaching of writing, but it's still writing.
It's like the computer manual of writing.
It's an instruction manual.
One of Jacques Pépin's best lines was, "Recipes are like rivers, they're never the same from one moment to the next.
" You never cook the same recipe twice.
When I started cooking, I thought the only food that was worth exploring and learning and working hard to be proficient at was high-end French dining.
And that's sort of where I see food at right now in food television, that everything has to be this super glossy affair.
When in reality, good food is everywhere.
And it's not just one person's perspective.
- You tired of making that shit yet? - Not yet, chef.
- Tired of tasting it, I'll bet.
- That's for sure.
It's more than cooking, it's You care enough where you want someone to leave the restaurant feeling that they got value and they loved it here.
That's so important.
- To me, that is home cooking.
- Yeah.
And I think why home cooking is so delicious, why what Nadine is cooking is so delicious, because she cares about it, even if it doesn't taste great.
- You know what I mean? - It's still okay.
- It's still great.
- Okay, David.
I didn't mean it like that.
I said, "Hypothetically speaking.
" I didn't put quotation marks.
I've always felt what made Noma and you so special is you get people to buy into caring.
I only have that place.
Imagine you only had Ko and Ssäm Bar.
Just imagine, dude.
I imagine it all the time.
Part of the reason we're growing and part of the reason you're growing, too, - is to take care of the people around you.
- Mmm-hmm.
Yeah, that's true.
Isn't that so Oh, this looks amazing.
- Well, thank you for all the home cooking.
- Oh, you're so welcome.
Thank you, Ro, for giving me the stink eye.
When you work in a restaurant, you kind of end up having your team be your family, 'cause that's where you spend so much time.
I don't know what it is.
It's become like work, hobby, private life.
The place where everyone knows your name.
- It's our pub.
It's our local pub.
- It really is.
- And the wine's for free.
- I know! That's why I go.
Mmm.
That is so good, these ones.
- You like 'em, too? - Very good.
When I met René, he made such a big deal about telling me, warning me what I was getting into, at one point, I was like, "Is he trying to get rid of me?" But he'd just seen several relationships fail.
I actually remember, I said, "What you're experiencing right now is the best it's ever gonna get.
" - He said something like that to me, too! - We were spending a lot of time.
I didn't have to be on the road.
I could be home by, like, 8 o'clock.
I remember telling her after three months of dating, "This isn't real.
" Chef, wait till you have kids, too.
Because kids don't care.
They don't care how tired you are.
Or how much you need to sleep or whatever.
They need to be changed.
They need to wake up.
I don't know how the hell you did it.
That's, to me, one of the most amazing achievements.
I don't know how I could have run Noma and done what I've done without having the sanity of a family and kids.
- Yeah, you're three behind, buddy.
- Three behind.
Having a child really changed the way that I cook, shop, and personally eat because now, you know, it feels like there's a responsibility to teach him where food comes from.
It doesn't come from a bag or a factory or a can.
My son doesn't eat very many foods.
My son likes to eat breakfast bars.
I mean, I've tried to get him to try stuff.
He'll be in tears and say, "I don't think I can handle it.
" Which is so weird for me, to embrace food so easily and then to feel sad for him to reject it.
He really can't handle it.
And then my daughter loves everything.
You have to do it with chopsticks.
It's okay, Mom.
You have to fry it in frying oil.
I know.
I know what I'm I'm just So this recipe, this is the highlight of any Chang Thanksgiving.
Oily shrimp rolls, we just minced it with some ginger, garlic.
Put prune juice, courtesy of our mom.
Don't put in the prune juice.
Onions.
Easy, peanut gallery.
- It's not gluten free.
- It's not MSG free.
Not MSG free.
And I think you should use some of the farce to seal it, too.
Pete, this is like the fucking Mona Lisa right here.
This is the most sensible version of shrimp toast, I think.
That's why the Irish It's almost a refined version of shrimp toast in the way that something that involves That's why your culture has such great cuisine.
You guys always go the extra mile.
I don't know how you're insulting me, - but I feel like you're insulting me.
-100%.
The entire country of Ireland has ruined my thesis of "tragedy and famine produces great food.
" You know, an exception proves a rule, right? No.
Look at how fucking nice this is.
That's why I love cooking.
You start out making shit like that.
And progress in five minutes.
It's awesome.
There's something wrong about serving this in a restaurant.
- This is not restaurant food.
- No.
These are not good for you.
I eat the crappiest food.
You know? Like, I'm gonna die of diabetes, I think, or from My weakness is potato chips.
The dirty little secret that you'll find with a lot of chefs is that our fridges don't have a lot in them.
I am making popcorn at least two to three times a week at home, and kind of saying that that is dinner.
I always went to sleep with a piece of chocolate in my mouth.
I wake up in the morning, I have sweet dreams.
Nice.
55 years later, I'm still having my piece of chocolate after I brush my teeth.
Every night.
Have you ever made knish dough before? I have never made a knish before.
Ooh.
You have a different technique than me.
That's good technique.
I think yours is better than mine.
Nah.
I can't believe I'm teaching you how to make something.
This is very funny.
Okay.
So now we're just gonna stretch.
I love that we're gonna make cochinita pibil knishes.
This idea could go viral.
Yeah.
I wonder what the rabbi is gonna think about it though.
- What did you call it? - Sacrilicious.
Sacrilicious.
That's it.
So, first time I made these for my mother, she's like, "Oh, my God.
It actually looks like a knish.
" Did you say something like, "Mom, I've been a professional chef since" No, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Okay, this is going to be epic.
Don't you think it's hilarious that we both have really crap kitchens? You do with the stoves that you're given.
Yeah.
And the countertops or lack thereof and I think the more you know how to cook, the more adaptable you are.
Probably.
I mean, my favorite kitchen ever was actually smaller than this area here.
Then the oven was, like, an O'Keefe and Merritt.
My mother kept warning me that it didn't fit a turkey, and in fact, it would only fit a nine-pound turkey.
- Well, this oven here.
- Yeah, there you go.
That was my oven for 20 years.
A Facebook friend I've never met gave me this oven.
Gave me this stove because she felt so sorry for me.
Okay, that, Jonathan, you should get another Pulitzer Prize just for that.
Those smell better than any knishes - I've ever smelt before! - Oh, my God.
These smell so good.
So good.
That is so good.
I don't know that we have ever cooked alongside of each other.
We've cooked together, but not like this.
Extended.
It's a day long.
It's like, I'm very surprised that you've contained your rage over messiness, knife skills.
- It is what it is.
- That looks good.
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, Peter.
May I? I've watched Dave become nationally and internationally famous and open tons of businesses.
The amount of private life I think he even has time for is so small in New York so it's always funny to see somebody have to cook in their socks and take shit from their mom.
You know? Like, I don't know That's a fun thing to see.
So much pain.
So much fucking pain for this stupid fucking dish.
Well, I think the amount of extra cooking for Thanksgiving is part cooking to fill the hours that otherwise could be filled with emotional connection with your family members.
What's happening? - Peter, how are you? - Good, thank you.
So He's just got a little PTSD about these mashed potatoes, but this too shall pass.
Yeah.
To work with somebody for so long, you start to know what they're gonna anticipate.
And I can do a lot of that for Dave, and Dave knows a lot of what makes me tick.
So it's a, I don't know, it's a It's the longest, most intimate male relationship I've ever been involved in, so These are awesome, Pete.
You did a fucking awesome job.
Thank you.
I think that's the most genuinely nice thing you've ever said to me in our decade of working together.
- I'm gonna take it to heart.
- It's Thanksgiving.
- It's Thanks - Don't take it for granted.
Get ready.
They're here.
When Babette's Feast came out, I was It changed my life, you know? I loved the idea of Babette blowing all her money on one night, and it was profound for me, 'cause, as a refugee, you're always scrimping and saving and And you would never do something so frivolous, in a way, you know? So, I saved all my money and I wanted to have one feast, you know? And one feast for, like, a 16-year-old kid.
It was momentous for me.
And I opened up the fridge and I saw my meringue strawberry thing just oozing, you know? Like, quivering.
And then just my Grandma right here, going, "It looks like dog shit.
I would not serve that.
" I was like, "Oh, lady.
" So I carry that every time I put up a new dish.
I would have that experience again, this, "It just looks like shit.
I just shouldn't do it.
" - You want herbs? - Yeah, I got it.
One of the differences between home cooking and restaurant cooking is in restaurants, you gotta pick your thyme, because you can't get the stem.
Home cooking, you just go like this.
Doesn't matter.
What I hate about cooking at home is that, like, everything's so much dirtier and I can't yell at everyone like I would in a professional kitchen.
- Really? - I wanna I wanna say something to my mom right now, but I can't.
I wanna be like, "What are you doing?" But I can't.
I can't say, "Work cleaner!" I can't.
- Enough? Two more.
- Yeah, two more.
Yeah.
I'm slow.
Are you done cleaning the sink? Yeah, don't worry, Mom.
We'll clean up right now.
Don't yell.
No, it's okay.
No.
Now that the camera's on, you're nice.
I see how it is.
This is how tough this woman is.
She's had cancer four different times over 25 years.
The third time she had cancer, it was in her brain, tumor.
Two days after she was released from the hospital, she has a bandage.
It's a chunk of brain here, right here.
She's cooking me She's cooking me kimchi-jjigae.
I remember, she was standing right here and I was like, "Ma, what are you doing?" - Remember that, Mom? - Yes.
Because you're the special.
Mmm? Aw Crazy woman.
My mom is a crazy woman.
No, you're the only one crazy.
Two days! The women in my life express love through food.
My grandmother was an amazing cook.
My mother is an amazing cook.
- Maybe four.
- Mama.
Mmm! Mmm, mmm, mmm.
Love was shown as, "Have you had enough to eat?" Till this day when I talk to my mom, the first thing she says is, "What have you eaten? Have you had enough to eat?" The first thing I remember my grandmother making me all the time were these roasted potatoes with sugar and she learned how to make this Russian soup with ketchup in it, which was very weird.
And when I associate food and love, that's the kind of food that makes me happy.
And I think that maybe one reason why I'm shying away from maybe more of the Euro-centric style of food is that I associate a lot of terrible memories with that.
Working in a kitchen, and I don't mean this physically, but mentally getting the shit kicked out of you, that's hard.
I associate better things with stuff that I think my mom and grandmother made.
You make this at home? - Yes.
- Often.
Often.
What? This is actually a really good dessert to make at home.
Chef Wait till you taste this one.
Pressure's on.
Looks beautiful.
- That looks so pretty.
- Mmm-hmm.
This is from 2015.
I need a little bit of this on there.
That's amazing.
This caramel was like liquid, and then, after a couple of years, the sugar from the prunes have made it thick and it's perfect.
- That's home cooking.
- Mmm-hmm.
- That's so good.
- That is amazing.
- Yeah.
- Holy cow! - Would this - This is three Michelin Stars.
You really think that cooking, across the board, is better than ever? Oh, yeah.
In the way that the world is open today, in the way that everybody shares with each other That, to me, is a new thing.
The world is open.
People are sharing.
People are flicking on some social media and you put out the latest thing you've been working on.
You share everything today.
There's more exchange of information than ever.
Much more! What I don't like about the exchange of information is, I think that, uh the removal of struggle to get that information creates bad cooking.
I think cooks today know more than ever before, but because it was so easy for them to obtain, it's not special to them.
I think you're wrong.
You know, people just struggle in a different way today.
- No, you're right.
- You're just getting old, man.
Yeah, of course I'm getting old.
I guess the romantic in me is arguing for the The peaks are much shorter now.
One of the reasons I wanna be in this profession is to be able to dream for impossible goals.
And while the mean is much higher than ever before, the difference between the lowest of the low and the highest of the high is not that different any more.
And it's harder to find the tightness.
I'm looking for that person and I'm like, "Fuck!" Right? Like, how do they do this? The person that'd get up every morning and be like They are gonna make me work harder than ever before.
Because I have to get to that level.
Yeah.
They're out there.
Chang Thanksgiving 2016 coming to an end.
Thank God.
- Pete! Do you wanna slice? - What? Sure.
- Meehan's cutting! Our guest.
- Meehan's First time a white person has ever cut a Thanksgiving turkey in a Chang household.
Come on, it's not about that kind of day today.
Love you.
Just wanted to thank everyone.
It's been a long time since we've all been together.
We have Pete Meehan, who's basically a Chang, and I'm a Meehan, because we've been together so long.
Uh, but I always love Thanksgiving because of this.
We can celebrate over food and hopefully not bicker too much.
Mom and Dad, we love you very much.
Thank you so much for being patient and providing for all of us.
- Cheers! - Thank you.
Yeah.
Damn.
The cornbread is really good.
Food that I like has a sense of community, has a sense of a narrative that's being told, and, often times, as cliché as it sounds, it's food that's made with love.
That's what separates a good meal versus a tremendous meal.
Uh-oh.
Dancing? Out, little pizza.
The less we say about it the better Make it up as we go along Feet on the ground Head in the sky Mmm! - It's Laura's Jell-O mold.
- First one.
You forgot the chicken again.
And you're standing here beside me I love the passing of time Never for money Always for love Cover up and say goodnight Say goodnight - We did it! - Yeah! I feel like whenever anybody's like, "Dave, what's your career goals?" It's like, buying the Redskins from Dan Snyder.
I'm gonna change the name to The Chinks.
Oh! That Go get it.
Yes! Oh, no, hold it.
Hold it, hold it.