Top Chef's Gail Simmons on Jewish Food & Community Perseverance Against Jew Hatred!

Watch and Listen

a quick note today's monologue was recorded a few days before the horrific pagram that took place in Amsterdam on November 7th where Jews were beaten humiliated made to show their passports to prove their identities in a coordinated attack only two days before the anniversary of Crystal KN only this time there's a difference we have Israel what difference can you make this time around there's a speech I've been thinking about a lot over the past year some key lines of which I will quote for you now it would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without social media we live in the age of the masses the masses rightly demand that they participate in the great events of the day social media is the most influential and important intermediary between a movement and the nation between the idea and the people okay full disclosure that's not the exact quote I took the liberty of inserting the words social media in place of the original word radio but the meanings are identical even 91 years after this was originally delivered on August 18th 1933 at the 10th international radio exhibition in Berlin the author of these words is none other than Joseph Gobles the infamous architect of the Nazi propaganda machine who paved the path for Jewish genocide straight through the minds of the everyday masses his speech was entitled radio as the eighth great power a riff on Napoleon's assertion of press as the seventh great power behind the six great nations of his day bonus points if you can name all six without Google we'll put them in the show notes taking up this mantle it would surely be appropriate to anoint social media as today's next great power and one can imagine a sinir or aala saying that without social media it would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have the unending tsunami of anti-israel anti-jew propaganda and vitrio online can feel absolutely overwhelming as my recent guest van Jones put it it's like we left an undefended Basket open and Hamas Iran Russia China they're just draining threes and running up the scoreboard while we try to figure out what game we're even playing our enemies excel at this brand of subversive social disruption measurably influencing American Minds turning us against our values and each other to their benefit and despite knowing this manipulation is happening I'm talking hard evidence of expensive and elaborate campaigns to poison our society we keep losing the forest for the trees I mean Tik Tock is literally owned and run by China an authoritarian surveillance State and we know this and still millions of Americans seem to have a recurring case of temporary forgettin and continue to absorb the algorithm uncritically at f B value it's clear we have to do something over the past year I've been in contact with dozens of different Jewish organizations and initiatives all trying to throw spaghetti at the wall of the social media problem to see what sticks we need bot Farms we need influencers we need celebrities we need commercials but when you're losing eight gajillion to zero the strategy of okay let's start copying what they're doing as fast as we can doesn't exactly scream K de as Napoleon himself might say we need a different approach a comprehensive tactic that goes beyond just messaging if we want to undo the brainwashing that has already been so effectively done to figure out this future let us look to the past when we learn about the terrifying experience of the days under Hitler and the Third Reich we can't help but wonder what would I have done would I have spoken out join the resistance seen the writing on the wall would I be the neighbor hiding Jews in my attic or turning them men for reward what I have fled or fought or prayed and waited in my experience we always overestimate ourselves in regards to this question we like to believe we would have been one of the righteous ones or the brave ones but if every man and woman had been righteous and brave in 1933 there would have been no Holocaust so we know that's not the case and while we will never be able to answer the question of what we might have done then we can answer it now in 2024 in the his hisorical moment of our lifetimes in which we find ourselves today remember the beginning of a disaster is never the beginning of the story The Hitler Youth the slow Nazi indoctrination of an entire generation began in 1922 16 years before even Crystal KN what if every Jew and Ally had spoken up then could they' have changed the outcome which leads me to this dear listeners a call to action Jews May stink at messaging and Optics but boy are we good at making [ ] happen in the real world I mean the average person has no idea that Jews are responsible for their ways app or favorite Christmas song or for winning an inordinate amount of Nobel prizes that hasn't stopped us from winning them you know when it comes to the social media battle for moral Clarity no amount of memes or reals or infographics alone is going to change our fate and yet we all know how easy it is to get lost in the vortex the Mind numbing rabbit holes the endless Doom scrolling and so I want to gift you a little nugget a simple yet profound Maxim to set your watch by From This Moment forward it's one I heard from Rabbi Susan Goldberg leader of nephesh a spiritual Outreach Community Based on LA's Eide she said for every minute you spend scrolling spend a minute doing I wrote it down immediately so straightforward and yet potentially so impactful and importantly so achievable doing can mean so many things start a Jewish Club at your school host a group watch of the Nova documentary we will Dance Again bring drel and gelt into your workplace for Hanukkah call a city council member to combat a BDS proposal check in on a Jewish friend buy Israeli products throw a fundraiser attend a fundraiser on and on and on don't let the scope of the work required or your current bandwidth for doing it stand in your way you don't need to run a nonprofit or quit your job or start a podcast to make a difference just do something it all makes a difference we are where we are today because of acquiescence and inaction but when we normalize standing up and taking space for ourselves guess what happens it becomes normal and if Jews owning our awesomeness ever becomes normal it's going to be a whole lot harder to push us around so what would you have done during goal's time well when you're done scrolling see what you decide to do today and you'll have your answer this is the ninth episode of being Jewish with me Jonah plat [Music] [Music] New York City center of the universe home to world famous pizzas Deli dimsum all kinds of yummy foods We crave my guest today knows a thing or two about yummy food she's a prolific writer culinary expert and a fixture on television's most popular food show of the 21st century she's also a mother a Canadian a bringer of briskets and a noted pickle Enthusiast to know her is to love her please welcome Gail Simmons one of the best intros ever I think that was really really nice thank you you know we try to shine oh I'm happy to be here thank you um Gail and I just had lunch which is like you know playing pickup basketball with Steph Curry whose nickname by the way is Chef Curry so that was on purpose there you go yes I know it what's the difference between chef and a cook would you say and which one are you I'm a cook uh sometimes I call myself a professional cook a pro cook I'm not a chef to me the word Chef I'm a little I'm literal about this and I sort of take it seriously it was my training it was the way I was kind of raised in the industry the word Chef is the French word for boss so when I use the word Chef I mean it about someone who runs a kitchen who is the boss of a kitchen I am the chef in my household Yeah but I do not profess to be a professional chef so if I made the assumption that your first most formative memories of being Jewish were based on food yes would I be correct Fair okay absolutely what are some of those early Keystone memories around Jewish food in your house there's a lot you know my um my Jewish background is ashkanazi my family I was born and raised in Toronto my mother's parents were from Russia and Poland they moved to Canada you know via the St Lawrence River which is sort of the Ellis Island of Canada um between the first and second world wars as so many ashkanazi Jews did is that when there was a big influx into Canada specifically absolutely and specifically into Montreal my grandmother was an amazing cook and my mother in turn was an extraordinary cook and actually made her living at it for a long time as well so my first Jewish food memories are brisket chicken soup borch um a lot of beet borch that my mother my grandmother made um KP and cabbage rolls you know my my grandmother was Russian so there was definitely all of that stuff in my household um my father my father's side was not known for their culinary prowess I should say um but my father was a pickle maker by trade how cool would that have been by Hobby he was chemical engineer and he was not a cook yes well there's science to it right um fermentation yeah my father was not a cook he smartly acquiesced to my mother she was the boss in the kitchen she was the chef there you go but my father did food projects so he made wine oh he made applesauce which was also a staple in our house which I associate with Jewish foods because that is what we ate with our lkas and with everything else but specifically with luas um at Hanukah and my mother made the best luas and I still say that her method is the best method okay we're going to have to ask you about that later yeah but um but also pickles my father made full sour kosher dill pickles in mason jars in my basement and kept them in his wine seller that we would eat all year long we ate them after school as snacks but they were on every Friday night shabbat table on every Passover seder table on every at every Hanukah party like I will forever associate his pickles with my Jewish upbringing when I got married I got married here in New York City um 16 years ago and I wanted my father to make pickles as a gift to give to all the guests at our wedding but it proved difficult to cross a border with that many jars of liquid so him making the pickles and bringing them from Canada was that out of the question so instead I got um a lower e side pickle maker to make me you know 150 jars of full kosher sour dill pickles and we labeled them and the label not as good as my dad's but pretty darn close a that's so sweet I love that pickle juice runs in our blood amazing so you mentioned your mother you know her profession was food yes um I know she was a food columnist and taught cooking classes in your home did you always know you were going to follow in her footsteps into that industry or just you came to it the long way around not even a little I guess they came to it the long way but I don't think that I could have come to it any other way I was very conscious of the fact that my mother was a great cook never a fancy cook she was a sophisticated cook in that she was sort of like cooking from scratch she was going to markets going to Chinatown to get ingredients she was a Trailblazer in that way you know she believed in like sourcing when everyone else was pulling out their microwaves like 80s right for me it wasn't about fancy food it was frustrating because all I wanted to eat was the stuff that all my friends were getting to eat at their houses for lunch and dinner and I wasn't invited because their friends parents would say that they were like intimidated because they assumed I was used to fancy food so that was sort of the beginning of a bit of um sort of resentment I guess yeah I got a little Rebellion against that if somebody watching you in your formative years take your mom aside would they have been like oh she's definitely going to end up working at food like were you in the kitchen all the time were you always cooking not really till College I wanted to write for my student paper MH I like I loved writing I knew I loved writing and I real kind of writing well restaurant reviews I didn't know that's what you loved doing or I mean I know that's what you ended up so you knew I want I wanted do restaurant yes it seemed cool and there was no one doing it so I convinced our student paper Editor to let me do it and they let me do it provided I would also do other kinds of reviews so I was writing some theater reviews I had no I mean I had no authority to be writing reviews about anything and the food in Montreal is amazing so there was plenty to choose from and that was the first moment that I realized that that could be a thing and started reading food magazines in Earnest and cooking in Earnest and thinking about food in a bigger way and it was only then that it dawned on me that that could maybe be a job which is amazing because I had this role model the whole time who had been doing it as a job in some ways it's actually sort of similar to my journey and that you know like my mom right now is the chairwoman of f Jewish federations of North America and if you would asked me even like two years ago am I going to be like hosting a Jewish podcast called being Jewish I would said no way but here we are here we are and thank goodness and thank goodness thanks what was the Jewish Community around you growing up in Toronto like I grew up in a really warm welcoming conservative very sort of traditional Jewish Community I wouldn't say I didn't go to Jewish Day School but we belonged to a synagogue that my family was very invested in and very uh active in uh I went to Hebrew school there three days a week three days a week I mean if I could get my daughter to just focus for two hours I'd be so happy but it wasn't it was a non-negotiable I sang in the sh choir I did all the sh's plays wait hold on what what kind of sh plays give play I a lot of musicals actually growing up I don't know that I've ever heard the phrase sh musical I know there we did there was a musical program there was like a musical theater programing yeah so we know what it was like growing up what's the Jewish Community vibe there now in this post October 7th world yes uh it has changed for sure I mean I think that we grew up I grew up in an enormous of safety in a community that was Broad and inclusive and I still feel that way but uh you know the there has been an extraordinary outlash of anti-Semitism across Canada across the world and you definitely feel it in Canada um a lot of my friends who I grew up with who I'm still very much in touch with have children in Jewish Day schools there who have been profoundly affected by acts of anti-Semitism in their children's schools um and I think in general there's just a lot of fear and a lot of sadness and grief around the way that our community has always been um you know we've always thought of ourselves as connected to the bigger community of Toronto and Canada and it's a really strong community and it's and it still is but I definitely feel there's been an enormous amount of loss there although they've also been incredibly active and um and dedicated to keeping that community alive and well on my list of where people are watching this show from Canada's number two a number of my friends I told I was away with some girlfriends last week and I told them that I was coming home to be on your podcast they were very exciting oh I love that it's true um while we were at lunch you said something I thought was really interesting that in terms of the the makeup of Canada it's more a mosaic than a Melting Pot I thought that was really fascinating what do you mean by that you know it's it's a saying that we as Canadians say often but really until I lived in the states I didn't understand it fully and it's sort of a non-scientific hypothesis about the diversity of Canada Canada is an incredibly diverse place it's an extraordinary Place made up largely of immigrants because it's a very young country not as similar to the US but it's 100 years younger than the US yeah there is still this sort of siloed feeling that as much as it is a diverse country I think that we identify first as our ethnicity and then as Canadian whereas here in the United States and I've lived here now just as long as I lived in Canada I think Americans identify first and foremost as American and then buy whatever ethnicity they have or their Heritage I think that's right I feel it I feel a difference I I feel like for some people since October 7th for some Jewish Americans that maybe that order is flipping perap it is you know but uh but I certainly have observed the same as as you just outlined I also notice that when I moved to New York which obviously has a massive Jewish population the majority of friends here or Jews that I meet here are very quick to tell me that they are what's the term they use um culturally Jewish they make that distinction they're always very quick to say I'm cultur Jewish meaning I was born Jewish and I eat a lka and and that's all that's fine that's totally great I'm not like judging that in any way but interestingly how I was raised now coming to the states I feel like I am one of the most religious people I know yeah not that I'm religious and and it's actually not about religion or even about spirituality although I do think I'm possibly more spiritual than most of the Jewish Americans I know but more culturally observant right more Jewish literacy more Jewish literacy yeah I I have felt the same way at times where I'll I'll be on like a Jewish program even and you know I grew up being conservative like you and a lot of my cousins and family are more modern Orthodox and I was around a lot of Orthodox so I never viewed myself as being at the top of the observancy chain but then I'll get into a space here even a Jewish one I'm like oh I'm the only one that knows this prayer that's interesting right that is exactly the feeling I have yeah I'm assuming you guys celebrated Shabbat growing up absolutely do you still do that with your own family I do we aren't as excellent about doing it every Friday night but it is something that our children especially if we're with any other family if our grandparents or our cousins are with us we absolutely do and we try to as much as we can if if anything just light candles yeah say a prayer over wine and kala and have a moment yeah there's nothing either of my children love more than like dipping their kala in their grape juice kala in the grape juice that's the thing they love it I I was like is she going to say soup is she going to sayone soup sometimes salt you know my my father-in-law insists that we dip it in a little salt I love a Halala dip in the chicken soup oh like of course the greatest they like to dip it in the grape juice the grape juice all right you know days weird but they like it I kind of get it when you guys get together for holidays who cooks interestingly my mom and I don't cook together so much I cook in my kitchen for her and she cooks in her kitchen for me I cook for my kids uh if I'm home in her kitchen but she it's her kitchen and I sort of respect that we don't cook so well together anymore which is too bad but also we respect each other right well you're both like yes teritorial um my mother-in-law when I spend holidays there we cook together a lot she's also a great cook a really enthusiastic cook and we cook together all the time uh maybe because there's lower Stakes you know for whatever reason she's actually taught me a lot of Jewish recipes that I didn't know about beforehand you know just from her their side of family yeah it opened up a whole new vocabulary of Jewish food for me cool but they're always my leas Hanukkah is absolutely my leas all the time are they your mom's recip yes which are really my aunt Sue's recipe okay we got to give props to Aunt Sue yeah she's the best okay awesome what what makes those loas so fantastic two things one I use a food processor to shred them which is kind of controversial is it what else do people use a lot of people still believe that you can only use a box grater like a cheese grater to grate them my problem with that is the strands get very are very short and follow me here if you're grading very short strands and packing them in together they're packed a lot more tightly which means they're a denser lka as opposed to longer strands that sort of give way to an airer crunchier I'm looking for that crunch some people are really against it like I get Jewish mamas telling me that if it's not done on a box grater like they don't want to hear about it relax old school versus new school I guess the other thing is I put a lot of Dill in my laas which also can be polarizing but I think Dill is never the wrong answer agreed yeah um this from the the pickle of Fado exactly um you're known for this famous family brisket recipe that uh belonged to your mom that you've judged up a little bit I I looked up this recipe it looks absolutely ridiculous it looks really hard to make here's the thing about brisket it's sort of how you have to make it brisket is a is a cut that can't be quickly tenderized you know it's a tough cut of meat it requires brazing and if you're going to do properly I don't know if there's a brisket recipe anywhere in the world that's going to take shorter than 3 hours to make if you're cooking for a crowd okay so you already talked about being at Migel you're writing restaurant reviews I don't know looks like your career is maybe going to be a food critic or something and then you go to culinary school in the United States yes was that about trying to I'm going to be a chef now or is it like I need to get you know grad school food experience to then become this writer you nailed it that was it grad school food experience right so I went to culinary school and moved to New York I left the newspaper did a year of culinary school and then they convinced me to go cook as opposed to what I thought I was going to do which was oh I've finished colonary school now I can go and get a job at Food and Wine magazine and work in their Test Kitchen and maybe I could have but I'm really glad that they convinced me to cook professionally because that was really where the learning happened right okay so then you end up at Food and Wine magazine directing special projects including the Aspen food wine classic which as all Top Chef viewers know is part of the Prize Package for winning the show along with the cover story and the magazine so I'm sing there had to be some kind of bridge between you being at Food and Wine to you being on top shelf it was about a year into my time at food and wine when Bravo came to food and wine to our our publisher and our um assist associate publisher at the time my bosses and said we have this crazy idea for a show they had just launched project oneway to much a claim yeah and they wanted to spin it off into the kind of the other pillars of what Bravo was doing at the time and the first was food but they admitted that they didn't know anything about food they had never done a food show before yeah Bravo wasn't doing food you said what they're doing at the time and they weren't doing anything like this the only thing they had about food was query and they had Ted Allen who was the food guy on the original queery right and those Five Guys The Fabulous Five became the pillars by which for a while all of Bravo did his programming interesting so for a while there was fashion food hair um design and pop culture right those were the five sort of categories of Bravo this was you know in the early as and they came to food and wine to say teach us about food you know give us a door to the world of chefs and food and helping us discover young talent in exchange if we like one of your editors we'll put them on the judge's panel to represent the magazine on the show they sent me for a screen test I had also never known what a screen test was before who they the people at your magazine yeah Food and Wine magazine they put me in a room with the camera on and asked me a whole bunch of questions and about 3 weeks later called my publisher and said tell Gail we're flying to San Francisco to shoot the first season of this show wow and it was absolutely bone chillingly scary you just have no idea how anything is going to turn out and will it be gimmicky more than anything will our industry we think that we were a joke because we wanted to make a serious show about the real life of young chefs finding the next great kind of industry stars but could we do that without it feeling cheesy or you know kitchy right speaking of mazeltov this is your Kai year anniversary of the show that's right um in Hebrew all uh letters have number values the word K means life and the letters and y equal 18 so that's why it's the high year anniversary that's I mean that's nuts it is nuts it's amazing to think that like the majority of my adult life has been spent making this show bravoos with their their like one Cooking Show still that you know is before below deck Mediterranean and here you guys are we always really wanted to do a like Tom on below deck cooking I would watch that mash up I think it would be incredible our crew is always gunning for it he will have nothing to do with it we were lucky to be in the moment we were in in in pop culture in the world of food yeah there's two things about the format of the show that I think lend you know have been a reason for its success for sure one is that we change location every season it's not a studio show right we on location and every location informs the look and feel of the show so much and the challenges and the food we eat and by the food we eat it allows us to do such a deep dive into the culture geography history of a place so the food becomes so much more than just the dishes that are put on the plates for us every week yeah and the other thing is that it's always been about the chefs they are the backbone I mean Tom and I and Kristen podma obviously for so many years we were the Main Stays you knew that you were there like we were there but our show has always not been about us something that I really admire about Top Chef is the way that you all have handled this you know cultural shift in America towards inclusivity yes that's you know sort of been mandated by the culture and you see a lot of things across entertainment across all Industries where they're sort of jamming it in there but when you guys do it it's been so organic and smartly done you know you have you've brought in this deep bench of successful former contestants who are already there are already part of the top chef life and they come in now and bring so much color and diversity and different styles it's always like about the story and the food and it all feels very organic and natur and I I've loved seeing that I think there's nobody doing that better honestly I appreciate that so much because we spend a lot of time talking about it it's what makes the show so interesting because our casting team really has found and continues to find chefs that like are undeniably now leaders in our industry if you look at the track record of of our chefs and that's not our doing right give them the platform but they are genuinely extraordinary people do you keep any momentos or souvenirs from your Seasons yes what do you keep this year our set was outrageously beautiful and very Canadian and you're gonna have to kind of wait and see okay but there was some incredible indigenous art on the walls and when they took down the set they let me have a small piece and it felt really really meaningful and I have it now hanging in my house so that's very special do you guys have a nickname for the show like a shorthand or is it always when you're T it's Top Chef top chefer chef chef called Chef one of the most successful Jewish chefs to compete on the show is Sarah Bradley Kentucky who Incorporated a lot of Jewish inspiration into her dishes which was really to see a Jew at home was there any like connection between you two over that aspect of your she came back for All Stars right and that's where I remember her doing a lot of the Jewish stuff absolutely we do get to know them pretty well just from serving and judges table and you know the time we spend with them on camera so I got a sense of who she was that way and certainly from some of the food and I think there was an understanding that I got what she was going for for mhm I have to ask it when we get into Jewish food challenge like it's a good question you know I have many ideas it's we we could you know Shabbat dinner challenge whereever makes a Shabbat dinner and we do like a Russia sha quickfire apples and honey we could do like learning from a Jewish Persian guest Chef if you're looking for a Jewish Consulting producer excellent job producing get some like a shook episode I got to run through the sh and gather things there's so many things I'd like to do the challenges start with the context of where we are right first and foremost and that sort of informs a lot of things sure so that's why it's been hard to necessarily out of nowhere just have a Jewish challenge but there is something this season that isn't quite Jewish but that speaks to a lot of Jewish flavors and ingredients and it was one of the best episodes I think from a creativity standpoint that our chefs have ever done I we were all in awe of them so I'm really excited for the RO to see that I don't necessarily think that people will identify it as a Jewish challenge but it's undeniable that there are elements of Judaism in the ingredients we use very mysterious no it's fine I probably under some sort of NDA but it's I'm psyched now I'm even Morey fun that's awesome the crew Everybody such a warm longstanding familial environment um since October 7th have you felt supported by this community has there been difficulties it's a great question uh it's been on my mind a lot or it was on my mind a lot going into this season it occurred to me that the last time we were all together was before October 7th we wrapped season 21 in Wisconsin um I think we were sort of home before October 1st and then we met up for a week of the finale in early November but so much was yet to unfold right and coming back for the season it occurred to me and I had never qualified it this way that there aren't actually a lot of other Jews on my set of this 150 person amazing group there are a few sure but I guess I had taken it for granted and never thought about it before yeah and I had fears but overall I have felt enormously supported there are certainly people with different views than me on the set mhm our production magic elves is very serious about setting up a conversation in advance about what is appropriately brought to work every day and just from an HR perspective making sure that we are an inclusive kind positive environment to work in for everybody and that is was really important to me yeah the people that I work with the most especially Tom and Kristen have never shown anything but support and love and appre appreciation for me in a time of need they have they have been by my side from the start and very vocal and also just you know as true friends been there for whatever I need and have honored that which I've been really grateful for that's so great to hear and and same really with the people who I'm you know working the closest with day-to-day the my makeup artist and our head of wardrobe and her team and the producers that I work with on the you know the the the S of senior producers that I'm working with and talking to many times a day our director um and and the you know the the ad team so I never felt even an ounce when I was there like we weren't all there for the right reasons and that we didn't make each other like we never made any no one ever made me uncomfortable being on set at all that's so great to hear I'm really glad to hear that but it was definitely top of mind yeah I as it has been for everybody yes um did did discussions about the conflict and current events come up you know in the downtime only in downtime absolutely in like a shoot the [ ] kind of a way in a shoot the [ ] kind of way or sometimes more serious you know Tom isn't really a shoot the [ ] I get that VI I mean he's a great conversationalist but his conversations are serious and he is an incredible activist an incredible um advocate in general for a lot of things um you know and and I think he's also been really vocal and supportive of the Jewish predicament in America right now he he's married to a Jewish woman whose mother is a holocaust her parents were Holocaust Survivors most of her family live in Israel he's raising his children Jewish I was at his son's Bar Mitzvah last year gosh so he is you know deeply deeply um aware of the issues and his ability to articulate it is actually remarkable and he's he's been incredibly helpful and supportive that's so fantastic that's got to feel so good it does you just need an ally yeah the Allies feel the best it really does you've been vocal and visible in your support for the Jewish community on social media and through your cooking on TV and so uh shortly after October 7th you posted the following I am a proud Jew we account for only 0 2% of the world population and I feel compelled to use my voice I'm tired of butts and whatabouts anytime I see anything positive about Israel I'm begging you to acknowledge our pain grief and fear without qualification I'm asking you to stand up against anti-Semitism I am daring you to celebrate our Humanity beautiful statement thank you um how was it received very positively good uh when I wrote that it took me a long time clearly a lot of thought went into that um more time than I mean I was petrified truthfully to post anything yeah I didn't ever feel like that was my I I never felt that there would be a time I could never have imagined a time where I had need to have said those words so clearly um and and um and that it could ever be met with anything otherwise right this has all right been so unfathomable um I definitely had some help in finishing it by um our mutual friend mutual friend Ken who is an extraordinary Advocate and helped me really to get it through the cross the finish line because I was so afraid wow largely it was met with positivity and support I've I've never had something sort of I guess go viral in that way I've never had anything that so many people came out of the woodwork to talk about to me or reach out to me about uh on both sides of the argument and yes certainly I understood that by saying it I would polarize a lot of people and there's always going to be people obviously who dissent there's always going to be people who tell me to just stick to food that is something people love to say right it happens to everyone yeah because we are onedimensional right we can't cook and also have feelings or also identify only thing I watch you on TV for that's right I mean that's everybody in every industry who corre dares to say anything outside of the very narrow Lane for which we know them that's right and so it was very it really felt like new territory to me and my husband actually the original idea for the post was my husband writing it he couldn't sleep none of us could sleep but he woke up one night and wrote it down a first draft Yeah Yeah and gave it to me and I sort of started working on it and and posting it and he has been incredibly encouraging too because this is something very personal for him as it is for us all for all those same reasons and uh and so I was really grateful that I did it like happy and relieved and as many bridges as it might have burned I definitely saw my followers go down in that period somewhat um more over the you know the months that certainly I definitely saw a lot of vicious hate in certain ways but I think that like anything that you say publicly those are the loudest voices but they are not the majority of the voices and I think by and large the positivity that came of it the connections I made the community that reached out to me like you and so many others known not known friends from years ago that hadn't spoken to people I never knew strangers on the street um I think that far surpassed any fear of anything else that I was worried about and It ultimately put more into Focus my voice and and who I am as a person and I can't pretend to be anything else can can you articulate what it was you were afraid of my you know fear of uh I guess just hate vicious Venom Ness uh hate speech also I feel as a public person very vulnerable right exposed I have a family I have young children who are only at the sort of very edges of understanding any of this my my son is six he lives in a very beautiful world that I want to protect him in forever thank God for that yes uh my daughter hears and knows everything but it is very confusing and um it just there's so many mixed messages out there there's so much truth there's so much confusion on the subject and I want her to feel comfortable about who she is too and then you worry about real acts of of hate and um it used to feel like something that was so at arms length from our lives but not long ago I woke up one morning to find a big news story that there had been a swastika painted on the jungle gy in the park and that is six blocks from my house yeah not even and that was the first time it felt like it was infiltrating my universe in a very real physical way mhm and ultimately we were not harmed but it just it made me realize like we can't we as much as we live in a world where I can feel like none of this touches me it absolutely does and certainly after October 7th I realized just How Deeply it touches me and how deeply it affects so many people I know both here and of course in Israel have there been other times you've wanted to say more post something else but you have decided not to um sure since then certainly I feel like I should be doing more all the time more more more and I'm often overwhelmed by it and my issue is always am I contributing noise or not right like what am I saying that isn't already being said or how much power do I really have and and how much do I want to alienate other people or is it alienating I mean I know you know this because you've been so excellent at articulating your feelings on the subject and trying to sort of sift through that noise but I do find there are many days where all I want to do is just hug my children and turn off social media right because that's where most of it lives and I kind of think that too yeah if it's sort of not real in a way all if you don't look at your effective and say things that mean something that aren't just living on my phone right I will say and you know it's this sort of came up on my first episode with Skyler ason who sort of said the same thing he did a big Post in October and then never really posted about it again for some some of the same reasons and what I said to him I'll say to you which is you being who you are and saying things no matter what it is is empowering for people and and makes people feel less alone and makes people feel seen and so you know I would encourage you if there's something on your mind and you feel like maybe I should say this that you know it is going to help guant gued it's going to help somebody you're right the amount of times that I hesitate because I feel like it there is so much out there and I get lost in it I really do yeah you've been to Israel several times in 2019 you went on a free trip with a bunch of other Jewish food luminaries like they weren't even all Jewish I would say only about 50% of our trip was Jewish which made it even better that's even better um how incredible was that trip and like how do I get on the next one with that crew I will get you there thank you 2019 I was approached by a close friend in the industry who organized what he came to call like Chef Birthright although it wasn't Birthright because a lot of people weren't Jewish necessarily but it was a chef trip to Israel to learn about agriculture and the food and restaurant scene and to really do like a very intense dive into the food and people of Israel the history and that did not mean necessarily Jewish by any means sure the food has always been nuanced and extraordinary because it's just at this Crossroads of a million things million influences to see it as a professional and to see it alongside so many great chefs that I admired and have this moment of Discovery with them was so special and we did so many things I mean we cooked with chefs we we went and we cooked in people's homes we went to uh the biggest children's hospital and did cooking demos for the children we went to like you know food labs and Innovation hubs we went to Farms we ate some of the most beautiful special meal meals of my lifetime wow you really packed it in it just was amazing like countless memories also I read you volunteered at a kibo I did I where when how I had been to Israel when I was 16 with my family and a bunch of other families for my cousins Bar Mitzvah and that was sort of the twow week bus tour hit every major site go from morning till dawn right and we did everything I mean you can do a lot in two weeks in Israel it's small country right and then two summers later I decided with my boyfriend at the time my high school boyfriend that we would go and spend the summer there I was 18 there were no cell phones I went to the Middle East for two months with a boyfriend that honestly my parents weren't sure was the right one for me and it turned out they were correct you know things don't work out we were 18 years old right I was working on an unknown kots near the Lebanese border um in a town called naharia uh kot's called betch and it was a beautiful amazing Place Frau with problems uh as the sort of system of kots can be you know started as a movement to farm the land during Independence and in really socialist ideal of community that is extraordinary in theory but harder in practice as the world changes around it yeah my first job on the kots was working in the chicken farm in the Lull in the chicken Coupe and I worked there picking eggs we weren't killing chickens although we had to kill the occasional chicken when a chicken was sick got to kill a sick chicken you it's a quick it's a quick just snap of the did you do it yourself once in a while I was taught to do it which was a huge lesson for an 18-year-old girl yeah so we picked eggs five times a day from 5:30 in the morning until sort of 2:00 in the afternoon and then it got too hot and then they moved me to the kitchen hey to like the mess hall you know where you were serving food for the entire Kut about 600 people three times a day and that was my first professional kitchen that's cool and I learned so much in that kitchen I mean you start as a dishwasher and I wash dishes 68 hours a day W for a few weeks I just had my Sony Walkman that I'd gotten from my B Mitzvah like strapped on clipped onto my was it yellow pants it was yellow of course it was yellow why were they yellow they stand out yes they really did and that was a huge lesson in patience and understanding of my ability sort of Mind Over Matter and then they moved me to the breakfast kitchen and I learned to cook egg and I cooked eggs every morning from 4 in the morning because breakfast started at 6:30 and I was making hundreds and hundreds of eggs a day what's the trick for making 500 eggs well we had to cook them in different ways right so there's a scramble where you're cook you're breaking and making a scramble mix of dozens of eggs at a time and you're working on a flat top right so you have this sort of huge scraper spatula instrument that moves it around I also made fried eggs and I would just kind of crack rows of eggs and by the time you get to the end of that row you go back to the top and flip and it's ready so you just you have a huge long spatula it was great work I mean easy to say now I remember at the time it was sort of tortous sure but it was the understanding of how a real kitchen worked when it comes to contemporary Jewish food what would you like to see next like where where can we expand what can we do that we haven't done yet well I think there's a lot that's happening actually and there's a lot of chefs I love seeing who are doing a lot of really interesting Jewish food bringing back ingredients that were largely taken for granted and exting them cabbage things you know that all of a sudden you know a lot of the food that I associate with Jewish food like a lot of immigrant cultures are food that is cheap that could stretch things like the brisket right things like the matah ball I mean matah meal was a very humble ingredient things like the Beet and the cabbage and I feel like that's just one obviously little corner of the Jewish universe love how you reenter them and there are so many great chefs doing beautiful things with them with vegetables that are not just cooked within an inch of their life anymore but that are shown respect and also the Nuance of Israeli food and the influences from all over the world that Israeli food encompasses you don't want to say improving on them because in a lot of ways they were perfect but I think that expanding expanding them and and I also am really obsessed with the world of Deli uhhuh Jewish jelly is not the same everywhere but I love the study of Deli all over the world and how Eastern European Jews took their ways of preserving food to wherever they landed whether that was New York or LA or Montreal or Argentina and you find these very similar things that just have evolved to make sense in the place they land yeah and I think a lot of immigrants tell the story that they move to another country and they want to make the food from their home country but they have to adapt it to the ingredients they have sort of two things happen and this is certainly true for Jewish jelly you adapt it to the ingredients that you have but you also then put your Technique onto local ingredients which changes sort of both sides of the dish itself right and I think that Jewish jelly is like such an amazing focused study of that now now I'm getting hungry yeah so we we got to wrap this up um thanks giving is coming up pretty soon what's going to be on your menu good question I feel like I'm an outlier I didn't grow up with Thanksgiving right because Canada Thanksgiving is not celebrated the way it is here sure it is by far my favorite adopted holiday really well it is universal it's in America it's non-denominational and it's really an excuse to cook it is the day that you just focus on the food everybody no matter who you are what you do and it's so traditional and I love that everyone adapts it to who they are and where they're from yeah I feel like I'm an outlier in that I love turkey so when people tell me they hate the turkey it's all about the sides I get it turkey can be Bland but I love the ritual of making turkey I love the basting of the turkey I love the piling on of the things with the turkey what do you mean I love the cranberry sauce and I love the gravy and I love the mashed potatoes and better yet I love the gravy and the cranberry sauce and the mashed potatoes on top of the turkey MH so I just feel like it's it's just soul food my controversial hot take is I I hate Thanksgiving dinner I don't like any of those Foods really I mean I like turkey but it's like fine it's fine mashed potatoes they're fine cranberry I'm out on okay all right you know it's heavy it's like you know I like fresh and light Andor do those things right like I say switch it up Jonah I'd like to I don't host it I've never hosted it you know it'll be my mom's house it's hard to change tradition I get it it's it's fine I'll be all right I get it I know you will be but I say maybe you bring a one thing that changes a little bit well I bring I bring the wine okay the wi's important I'll I'll make it have a I'll make us have a good time yes okay I'll take it um okay the most important question of this entire episode how do I get to eat at restaurant Wars oh that's a good one yeah you know you've got a direct line yes so season 23 we can discuss the trickiest thing and people ask that all the time of course I'm like who are these lucky people who are yes they are friends and family in Wisconsin we know 200 friends and family I don't I did know weird a few people but um it's friends and family of a lot of people right we have a big crew and then there's always the tourism Board of wherever we are and and they are helping you get people exactly but you will notice in season 22's restaurant Wars that an inordinate amount of my high school girl girlfriends are sitting behind me okay amazing so just look out for them CU they're awesome I will I'm going to keep an eye everybody D episod oh that's so fun that's great okay to end my questions and then we'll go to some audience questions on something a little more serious sure what would your message be today about standing up and celebrating the Jewish people and being Jewish that's a big question Jonah I know that's why I saved it for last yes yes I will preface by saying that there are so many things I did not appreciate about being Jewish until recently MH and I am unable to deny pieces of who I am the majority of us want the same thing yep which is to live safely and peacefully with people that we love and to be able to show that love and I will say that is a tenant of Judaism and that the other tenant I think about more than ever tiun to heal the world is always at the foremost of my mind at the front of my mind when I think about what I can do in my everyday life right now and that that often just means little things patience and kindness because you never know where anyone else is coming from and you hope that people will do you the same Grace so I would say celebrating who you are and your community has never been more important because it is what makes us human It Is What Makes Us civilized it is what makes us um able to live peacefully and safely and that's all you can do that was great okay couple couple quick questions from social media okay the Mrs Barum says they say food has healing powers what's your go-to healing food for yourself I mean maybe it's cliche but matal soup I mean it's just penic so nourishing it really it's nourishing I I served it for my daughter and husband last night because they were both feeling under the weather lot of Dill a lot of Dill it's key mhm agreed uh MP 7072 asks what was your favorite camp food at Camp New Moon because they also went to Camp New Moon Camp new Moon's a Jewish Camp I went from age 10 to age 14 and then I transferred let transferred I moved to a different summer camp uh all in Canada all outside Toronto there's a very vibrant Jewish summer camp situation it's fantastic actually uh and it is by far like my strongest memories of growing up in the community I grew up in was those incredible Summers spent at summer camp favorite food I mean I remember tuck which was at two or three times a week we got candy and I always what you call it tuck tuck what does that refer to the Tuck Shop was the store at Camp most of the week it was just for buying supplies that you needed you need new batteries for your flashlight uh you need mosquito repellent things like that for for any j z listening a flashlight is a device that you put something called B batteries in and it provides light if your cell phone is not around you correct okay thank you yep so um but two or three times a week the Tuck Shop would give us after lunch during rest hour we got Tuck we got a choice of candy we had the same thing we called it canteen okay canteen so very similar okay tuck I don't know why we call but it's not just a that wasn't a Newan word that is like a Canadian Jewish or just a a Canadian summer camp word H I always got Twizzlers Reese's peanut butter cups or something called Hickory Sticks which they don't have in the United States they're like a potato chip but they're shredded potato chips and they have like a Hickory Barbecue flavor and they're delicious that sounds good I was like a I was a rollos and soda guy yeah rollos was so solid yeah um okay last from some lady named Courtney Anne plat um not a question but please know our son Joey used to play pretend Top Chef in his little outdoor kitchen and make us the judges Top Chef is a family affair in our house thank you Courtney that means a a lot I will say the biggest unexpected surprise about Top Chef when we set out to make it was never like we did not expect it to be a family show as much as it is not that we were trying to make some sort of racy show and I think the earlier years were a little bit sort of more dramatic a little dirtier a little you know worse language things like that but the best outcome that we didn't expect was that so many kids watch our show and it has become like a family tradition in so many households and that is huge for all of us kale please pack your knives and go I had to do it I'm sorry does everyone do that every time like actually no one's ever said it directly to me and it felt kind of good yes uh thank you so much for being here it's really been terrific having you thank you Jenna really appreciate it