Stephanie Boswell

When I do live gigs around the country, I'll be honest with you. I sell T shirts and swag to the folks who are there, and then people always say, can we get this swag without sitting through a whole evening of you. Well, it's happened. It's finally here. You can buy Craig Ferguson Merch on the Craig Ferguson Merch website and you can buy it for yourself or someone you hate or someone you love. For more information and link to the web store, please go to the Craig

That she's really clear, verty funny, enjoy.

How have you been you know, kind of okay, just okay, yeah, i'd be busy. You basically don't know what happened. I started like I didn't work for a while. I don't know if you've ever tried this, but like not working, Oh.

Yeah, I gave it a go. I did not care for it. Personally, it sucks.

It's the worst, Like you don't work and you just sit around thinking about things that you're not or scrolling.

Scrolling.

Yeah, you a scroller.

I just recently became a scroller, and I'm going to be honest, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

Or the human race maybe potentially. Yeah, it's awful.

I've never in my life had trouble sleeping until the short format.

Yeah. Scroll, it's that little magnifying glass on Instagram. People listen to this podcast will get get really mad, probably because I say this at every episode, and I feel like they feel like I'm judging them and I'm not judging them, but I don't like it for.

Myself much judgment.

I'm a fucking judging man.

I I and I feel it's sitting here right now.

You know I'm not judging.

You're walking looking like a bratstall that might kill you, like the chucky version of a brat stall, and the judgment no judgment.

You said you look, I said you look, I said you look sensational. You do look like a golf bratstall though. I think it's great. It's a fabulous look. You are the best pastry chef in the world officially. Is that right?

Oh my god? No, I am not even close, not even close.

No, it's true because I have I don't know if you know this. You know how David Lynch has Best Dressed People of the Year. Sure, well, I have my own version of that. It's Pastry Chef for the Year. And you've won.

Oh my god, oh my god. Can we cuse some kind of music, like a swell of.

There and then there'll be a prize obviously what.

Kind of prize? What's the prize? Is there prize money involved?

Get you get a ham.

Type of hand?

Is it?

Honey baked?

I don't know. You're the chef? Do you you get you get a roll hand?

You just got to pick. You got pig, you get to raise get out.

You got a pig. You have to raise the peg slower the peg, guys, you would name it. Have you ever had to do that?

I have?

I have see I thought I don't think I could be a chef because I think all that like killing stuff way you kill stuff.

I did when I was younger. I used to spend time on on a ranch over the summer to build a character.

Right, was it one of these skip straight things and you tell something?

It was? It was Sally Jesse. Raphael actually said me there and and yeah, you you kind of you become accustomed to the idea of like certain animals you name and certain animals you don't. And the ones you name like work around the ranch, they have a.

Job, horses and stuff, horses.

Dogs, cats, you know, things like that, But thousands of cows.

No, you don't, don't get named.

You don't really want to get attached in that iron.

Well, man, I just I don't think I could do it, Like even people who go hunting. I'm like, I don't think I could.

Do it, you know, hunting is I mean, I sort of appreciate hunting in that idea of you know, when I feel like vegans would sort of appreciate a hunter, you know, like I feel like a vegan would go you know what depends on the vegan. You took it down, fair, fair dudes.

Well okay, yeah, I mean you took it down with what are you an ak forty seven or a knife between your teeth?

You know?

Is that a fair fight? Or yeah?

Are you? Are you hunting it with a bow and arrow? Or is it is it some sort of like mass.

Also bone arrow? Like if you have you been all bean in Maine and seeing the boat you could the bon arrows you can buy, It's like, this is not really, this is not Robin Hood we're talking to.

I haven't, honestly, I've The first time I went to Maine was what two years ago? Take and it's absolutely gorgeous. I here's here's a fun fact. I am horrible with geography, specifically American geography. I didn't realize Maine was part of New England.

What did you think it was?

I thought it was like kind of up by like Canada Canada. Yeah, but I didn't realize that also New England was the accent threw me for a bit of a loop because it was it was a bit family guy.

Yeah, and it was definitely a little family guy.

Yeah.

That's that said in Rhode Island, doesn't it which is near I see where I see the problem. Now I see what you're saying. I'm sorry I didn't understand for a minute. Now I understand.

I don't know, but I'm terrible a joke.

You're the best pasty chef in the world. You won the Craig Ferguson Eamed Pastry Chef Challenge.

And that I am forever great.

Fu Well you want to that thing you like you that made you famous is a pastry cheff? The faberg egg thing? Is that made of actual gold?

Yeah?

There's real gold in it? Right?

Yeah?

How did you make a fact?

Like?

Can you give a recipe? O? Can you say this is how I do it?

Or?

Sure? I mean it's it's more it's more technique than anything else. The ingredients would necessarily I.

Thought, it's like somebody saying, oh, I've got some wheels and an engine, go make yourself car. Sure.

Yeah, it's a little bit like I've got I've got metal and rubber. I made a model.

Tea, right, So but like skill, Yeah, the the.

Raw ingredients are there for everyone. But yeah, it's basically just casting and you know the best ingredients you can find. And then at that after that point it becomes sort of just how do you manipulate those ingredients to be the most beautiful, perfect that you possibly can and.

They're tasting along the way though. Oh yeah, because I mean it's such an an thing to make a fabergy egg out of basically, I guess sugar, mostly chocolate, chocolate. I just I would just start crying and knee all the chocolate. That's that's my technique.

That's also part of the part of the methodology. Yeah, that's a that's a big part of it. Halfway through you begin to cry and just eat and just and just eat it and then start over.

And how did you start off being? Like, did you like when you were a little girly, like I want to be a pastry chef?

No, no, no, I wanted I mean, well, you know, I wanted to be all kinds of things when I was really little. I read The Hot Zone when I was like twelve. It's a book about ebola, and.

Oh, you wanted to be a virus.

I wanted to be. I wanted to grow up to be the best virus I could.

Yeah, we got one.

I wanted to be an epidemiologist or a virologist.

That was that was science though it's sciences, it's it's sent to it. So you wanted to be Uh, well, you into Kate emistry, then you're chemistry, right, so now it begins to make sense, it begins to take shit. So you're into chemistry because because what you do is is really a science. It's a science and an r.

Yeah, you you definitely have to know, you know, because a lot of people say, oh, I'm horrible at baking. I'm terrible, I could never get it right, and it really does become it's it's sort of it's science, and it's also repetition. Right, there's nothing about what chefs do that is so spectacular, like as chefs. I feel comfortable in saying this. We didn't become chefs because NASA wasn't

Are you telling me that it's like practice?

I think I am.

It's like a musical instrument or something or like anything analysy, you just got to keep doing.

Right, but do it for a living, and you got it, and it's sort of incentive by that to you to practice a little bit more.

Because no one's going to let, you know, a twelve year old girl who wants to be a virus coming to catch it and make and make desert.

You'd be surprised.

There has to be there has to be a journey from you know, budding epidemiologist to you know, Fibershire egg in Las Vegas. So what so what's the journey from there to there?

Then?

So you what starts with why did you go off your erms?

Well, it's sort of you know, it's one of those uh it's it's the butterfly effect, right, right. So growing up I was the youngest in my family. I was the only girl, so I got a full attention from my mother of you know, like getting the most sort

And where did you grow up.

I grew up in the Los Angeles, So.

So you're going to Mama and you're going to the gaddy and going.

To that me and like one guy named Da Wilson.

Yeah, you can't read Wilson. The only people I grew up here has it.

Yeah, Mama Lacma was a huge one for me. The Librea tar pits. I mean, you want to give a kid a great day.

I have two children I've raised in Los Angeles, and I'm familiar with your so called.

Well no they're not so called.

They are.

So cold.

The Scottish thing just like try and make everything if it's and Scotland does tarpets were Yeah.

But then you go back to Scotland and I'm sure people say you sound like Medline Monroe.

They get very Do people say you said in Scottish when you're in Los Angeles? Yes, because you've been to Scotland. I saw you there, Yeah, I saw you. You were at my house your birthday bush.

You know.

By the way, did you get COVID That no, because everybody got COVID.

Now I can't stop.

Yeah, everybody got like fifty seven people go COVID stood the.

Most spectacular super spreader I've ever been.

It was a it was a bit of a super It was a banger. It was a banger.

Yeah, it was.

It was a lot of COVID.

I mean, no, I honestly think because we got COVID upon returning, and I truly believe it was from the because right when we were taking off was when the mask mandate lifted. Right, We're sitting in the plane, right, and they come over the PA system and say, the mask mandate has been lifted. Yeah, if you want to take your mask off, take it off, have fun. And every literally the plane cheered, clapped and cheered, took their

Yeah, I mean, just your boxed. I mean, you know the global No, you got to get the global area. I do now, but at the time I did, that's a big difference. Well yeah, I know, well, well you were still in al Qaeda.

You're probably I.

Was flying the flag, you know. I mean, when you're younger, you do things that you regret. You know, you can't take them back, you think about it later on and you cringe.

I you know, I have to say I feel for the young people right now. All the stupid mistakes that they're making, they're all going to be available.

All documented, all documented. It's crazy, isn't it awful? So bad? Like? On one hand, I feel, you know, like I feel sort of like, oh, these kids aren't going to have any of these embarrassing makeup and hair mistakes that I had growing up. Of like, now I look back at the way I styled myself when I was a teenager in my early twenties and kind of recoil at what was happening there.

Part of life.

Yeah, they're not going to have that because they've got you know, millions of tutorials on how to look beautiful at all times. I disagree, Yeah, I disagree. Disagree.

The only thing I think is because you still, even no matter how whale it's applied, you're going to look back at it ten years ago. The fuck was I thinking?

The other thing is it's it's recycling so fast now, you know. It's like now now there's there's people on you know, there's the YouTubers that do specifically makeup and beauty, and they're saying things like twenty sixteen, makeup is back. It's like twenty sixteen.

That's like twenty minutes ago talking about it.

I just dreamed about Jurassics. What is happening?

Moms taking you to museums in Los Angeles and you're looking at uh, well are you looking at? I guess you're looking at everything. It's really eclectic. So from Barbizon, French Impressionists all the way up to Warhole, abstract Expressionism, all that kind of.

Suff're looking at all of that everything.

Can you think cake? And no?

No, not right away, No, not right away, not right away. I thought, I like this, It's fantastic. It's something that, you know, I find a lot of joy in spending every weekend at a museum or the Huntington or going to an opera like it all sort of influenced. And then got into college and did you study at college art history and chemistry?

Art history and chemistry? There now it begins to form out of the mess right exactly.

And then I started doing sort of the ment whole math of I don't actually want to do any of the jobs that a degree in art history or chemistry would lead to Okay, you know, I lead to.

It guys like museum.

Creator, curator or you know, like lab tech.

Like I didn't wait, like way down the list, like beyond what did you study communications in a way?

Yeah? I studied in a way. I studied chemistry and communications. These were my majors. So you're you're looking at these things and none of the things that you're studying leads you to the job you want, right And I didn't know what.

I wanted at that point, you know, like I think now, you know, as an adult looking back, it's really bizarre and almost cruel to say, you're eighteen, what do you want to do forever?

Couldn't agree more?

What do you want to do for the rest of your life? Let me invest one hundred thousand dollars that will cripple you financially into something.

Do you want to think the way while since you've been at college, I got kids.

Now it's s eyewatering.

Yeah, it's too much like a house.

But yeah, I basically I was sort of stock and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And I was talking to my brother about it, and I sort of had this I always loved to cook. My grandmother taught me to cook. I cooked constantly.

This is interesting because a lot of pastry chefs that I know, and I admittedly you're the only one, but a lot of cooks that people I know that work in kitchens, and I do know my brother in laws a chef and my sistant laws a chef, but they kind of fall into people who cook or people who bake. Sure is that? Is that a real thing?

Sure?

It is so culinary. It the way I generally explained it as culinary is just a big imagine it as a big graph, like a big pie chart. Right within that is specializations. So a specialization is pastry of coolinary. You need to know how to cook in order to do pastry right. And then from that specialization you can specialize even further into all I do is vn waree or all I do and ware is it like croissants laminated?

Does all of that like beautiful?

Exactly? And there's people who do like the most astounding things with it that would I mean, just make your nose bleed looking at them, like just incredible work. And then from there you can also specialize in wedding cakes all you do is wedding cakes. All you do is sculptured cakes. All you do is ice cream. All you do is sugar sculptures. All you do is chocolate sculptures. There's so many different specializations, Like it's it's niche on niche on niche.

I love this. Yeah, it's getting really interesting. Is that what happened to you?

I'm glad, No, but is that what happened to you that you.

You kind of go, I like that, and then you start to kind of zero in a little more on on Yeah, how it makes you feel? Does make it feel different?

I just sort of fell into it, honestly because I was talking to my brother and he said, you know, I said, I think I want to go to culinary school and my family would you know, at that point in time, cooking was not fashionable. Being a chef was not fashionable.

It was not you said, the pre Bordain years.

Yeah, this was this was pre sort of food network years. This was you know, cooking and being a chef was sort of seen as a tradecraft. You know, it would be the same as.

Like in America. I mean in France it's been.

For way back right, Oh, very different culture in France about that. I mean, you can start when you're sixteen and just go you know what high school was not for me. I'd like to bake. And that's generally why everyone feels a lot of kind of competitive spirit with the French, right, is because they start from such a young age and they have I mean, by the time an American kid finishes culinary school, they're already six years behind a French person.

French kid, right, So what happened? What culinary school did you go to?

Oh? I just went to a little trade school in Orange County because I had already spent enough money and I knew and I was old enough at that point to know if I go to like a proper Cia or one of these schools that costs a lot of money, I'm going to still start at the same place.

In a kitchen.

I'm going to still start as a prep cooks, even a dishwasher.

I've done that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how you start.

That's the highest rung I got in the culinary world.

Well, it's a good rung. I mean, everyone's everyone is super important in the kitchen, and you know it's a pirate ship, right, So it sort of draws these people in that that have all sort of universally decided we don't want to grow up for a living.

It's a it's a world to itself. Yeah, it is a it's like your hours are different. Is it's collegiate. It's a kind of like a pirate ship, really, isn't it. Yeah? So what you go to this place? And how long are you at the two years?

And I worked at the same time.

And you come out, I know you speak fluent French absolutely, and well you were working in a kitchen at the same time I was.

I was. I was working in a kitchen at the same time and also bartending to keep a roof over my head.

Any fancy places that we would know or just places we would know, Yeah, I.

Mean I worked at Pelican Hill, I worked at the uh golf club. It is it's down in it's down in a Newport coast. It's very fair.

That sounds quite fancy.

Yeah, it's very fairy.

You're making like turkey clubs.

Well at the country club I was making. I started out on you know, just guarde. Well, I started out on prep.

So I was preps for if you don't know, a kitchen was prep.

Prep is a lot of chopping. You're cutting a lot of vegetables, you're making stock. You're making so much stock, a lot of soup, so not even soup you're not responsible for. Yeah, you're making the basically beginnings of soup. You're cutting carrots and onions and celery.

Because it don't feel soup. It's just suits. And then you later.

Loud and yeah, and I mean there was you know, there's steam jackets. There's these enormous kettles. You know, I'm five five and the kettle was probably six two. I mean enormous, and I would have to like dig in there, literally crawl inside a kettle just to clean it out.

Well, today I could have Oh my god, that's horrifying.

And yet I survived.

Has that ever happened? Has anyone ever been you know what I've been? It has, so I don't want to. I know I talked about it. Probably has. So you're working on prep and you're studying. Yeah, and so now at this point do you start to go, I know what area the kitchen I want to work in.

No, you still don't know, because at this point I sucked. I was terrible. I honestly believe and I don't know if it's not my own imposter syndrome or what, but I honestly believe there's no such thing as like someone, and it's just naturally suited for a kitchen, right. It's a different culture, it's a different life.

Oh yeah, I've been aroundom enough to know, Yeah, you've got.

To get a little bit of runway there.

Yeah.

I think people can be born with a natural inclination to understanding flavor and color and balance and texture and all these things, but actually working in a kitchen is a very different thing.

It's a rock band mentality as well. It's a little bit a lot of drugs as well. A lot of drugs, a lot of bad behavior are, a lot of staying up too late, a lot of you know, as long as you can do the one thing that you do, it doesn't matter how you live your life everywhere else.

All that, a lot of burning the candles at both ends, especially in your twenties. But well, you know, then you get, you know, for me specifically, I hit the I hit my thirtieth year and I thought, wait, you know that's not cute anymore.

I did. I didn't even know you were thirty now I did ten years ago. Oh well, muscle tough, thank you. Well, you know what, It's all the moisture being inside those big steaming thoughts, so.

Fresh, like a beautiful braized cook I've been pouched. So you're thirty No, no, I'm forty.

No.

But what I'm saying is we're on your journey.

Oh no, no, no yet at this point I'm early twenties. It's all sort of a glittery haze. I like the hazes, glittering, glittery and like, you know, at that point, I was smoking and like going outside for breaks and waxing poetic on the meaning of life. But I knew enough then to know if I can learn every single station, they can't fire me, right, So I just need to learn, like because right now I'm on prep. If I learn

Many stations, is it like stations of the Cross or similar to stations of the Cross?

More frying, Yeah, more frying, more making of sandwiches. Yeah, it's very It depends on the kind of kitchen you work in, so extremely traditional French kitchens will have like a different person for just making sauces a different person, for just doing intermezzo a different person. Intermezzo is a course in your dinner wherein you have it's almost like a break. So you have like a little bit of celery sorbet okay, with a sour cherry, but.

A musin in the middle exactly right, okay, exactly not a moose bush at the beginning, because that's the beginning, correct moose.

Boushes at the midnute is at the beginning, intermetso is somewhere in between, right, just to sort.

Of and then when's Clette that's at the head.

Yeah, okay, let I love ra klutt. I've got some in the fridge right now. And then you've got minyor D's for your for the finale. Min your d's is the same sort of like tiny little bite, but it's usually sweet so and it can also be kind of given as like a takeaway.

So this seems to me like it's all kind of French. Is that a French restaurant.

Most things are sort of based around the French brigade really, even like yeah, most most kitchens are structured loosely around that, some more stringently.

Even like in an Italian restaurant and stuff.

Yeah, I mean I've never worked in an Italian restaurant, ye, but yeah, it's all sort of it's all sort of based on this similar brigade of of this is like the hierarchy and I guess.

A guitar six strings and how you play it now it's done. It's different, but that's what it is. Yeah, that's the instrument. Yeah, so you're doing you lay on all the different stations in the kitchen for job security.

Correct, right, because I figure they can't fire me if I know everything.

That's true, you'd be surprised.

Fortunately they didn't. But and then at one point, I don't know what I mean, a lot of the different things transpired. So the pastry department suffered losses. There was, you know, one girl moved to the Pahamas, one guy got fired, one guy just quit. So they basically lost the entire department within a week or so. I mean, it was dramatic.

I'm seeing an opportunity for you here, precisely.

My friend. Right, So the executive chef came to like gathered around all the cooks, right, and said, who would like to go help out pastry for a bit because they're suffering. And my hand shot up and I said, I will do it because again job security.

Right.

So I go start working in pastry and realize, oh my god.

It's art and chemistry, chemistry, it's our it's science. It's all the things in the kitchen, and it's in a kitchen and it has all the kind of things. Yeah, this is great, and so now you find your thing.

So now I find my thing.

And you start burning sugar with little.

Yeah things Krembrew lit lots of do.

They start do they start letting you make your own deserts at that point?

No, god, no, no, my god.

So I feel such a fool. So you make what you're told by the executive chef.

Yeah, well by the executive pastry chef.

So there's an executive chef and then execative pastry shof correct, okay, correct.

Yeah, the brigade, the pirate chip, right, so there's there's there's a very first mate.

Yeah.

So the executive pastry chef says, okay, today you're making cranberry and a faberge.

No, executive pastry chef. I mean it depends on where you work. But at a country club, for instance, it's usually more along the lines of you're going to be making six thousand chocolate chip cookies today, and then after that you're going to be making give or take a thousand brownies, and then we've got, you know, on the fly, someone wants a birthday cake, so we're going to need

It's repetitive.

It's it's big, and it's repetitive.

So when do you start getting to feel like you're being creative in.

This not for quite a few years. You you know, you you And that's part of the brilliance and the importance of working for a lot of different chefs is you want to learn as much as you can from each person you work under, right, because each person you work under has, you know, a mirror, you know, it's the sort of the spider web thing almost like this like red red string theory of like everywhere they've learned from So they've learned from all of these different chefs

So this seems to me like a world that's very involved and very insular, right, yes, can be right? So then how come because you're a Food Network star I think I think we can say that the greatest spaceship in the world and a start of the Food Network.

I mean, I am the winner of the Coveted.

Which is like you can have a Michelin starf what but you know that's the one they're all after. It's a new award and like about half an hour old. But the how do you get into like the more kind of show business element, I mean so preduminantly last time you're like everybody. I feel like Bordain is like Jackie Robinson in a way a little bit. He kind of changes it.

Yeah, is that is that right to say that Bordain? I mean, Bordain changed so much of the culture, you know, and he he brought the culture of the kitchen into into a world that like you know, didn't want to necessarily see it and like and he made it cool and he made it rock star and like, I mean,

Yeah, do you end in show business? Really?

Sure?

Well you kind of are not.

You know.

It's so it's such a bizarre thing for me to to say out loud because I still, you know, I have trouble sort of wrapping my head around that, around that reality, because I still see myself as just a chef, and so it's.

Like, yeah, yeah, but it's a different world.

It is.

To be honest, I think everything is show business now, Like even if, like if you're a laundromat, you have an Instagram account and like, come down today, look at these sheets.

My god, all the blood out this guy.

Blood Let's play a game of blood.

Or we may never know.

So how do you make this transition? Then? What happens?

I mean, I'm not sure. I've had this question a lot, especially from you know, like former colleagues and stuff asking me how can they get into it? And and for me, it was it was the most bizarre experience. I was at, you know, I was at the Peninsula Beverly Hills, and and I'd been there for many years.

And you're working in the kitchen there.

I was the executive pastry chef.

Yeah, by this time, this is you're the like you decide who's making the kookies, correct, right, and it ain't ain't you.

It was.

The bus. But I'm also.

Yeah, I never wanted to be like because I grew up with so many chefs that were you know, very hands off and very you know, delegatory thank you uh, to the to the point where you start sort of you know, again the pirate ship analogy. You're not going to get a lot of respect from your cooks if you don't actually get in there with them and sort

Sit and it's a show business environment because it's the Peninsula in Beverly Hills, right, right.

So the executive chef at that point was supposed to be doing their their cooking class for them, and it's only like, you know, fifteen thirty minutes long, right, And he runs into the pastry shop and says, Steph, I can't do it. I'm not feeling well. I need to go. There's a media group coming in that needs a cooking class and it's in fifteen minutes and it needs to be something healthy. So have fun. Good luck.

You're the past chef. How are you doing the healthy thing? You work in sugar?

Yeah, exactly right, exactly what I thought was like healthy, okay, not a fruitball though, Like what am I?

I don't know, I'm I raised for you. This is terrible. This is a terrible idea.

The audacity, the circus of audacity. Yeah, so I think to myself, all right, Pastry Pastry is normally also in charge of the cheese program of most restaurants and hotels.

The cheese Program. It's my favorite show on the BBC.

Yes, the best one. Welcome to all the contestants are so nice, they're so kind today.

Were looking at still Stilton.

I don't even notice.

It's a vainy It's.

A veiny wooster. Gloucestershire cheese, lovely, lovely cheese from all the sheeps in the county.

Mostly just Margaret.

All of the sheeps we euthanize with a soft pillow.

Here in Kent, you've got fifteen minutes to.

Put team instant and put together a demo and also deep clean the kitchen because now we've got people coming in and taking photos and they're gonna be regretting about it is beautiful magazines and talking all about it. So it's it needs to be like everything needs to be scrubbed surgically. So I'm thinking, all right, I'll teach them how to make ricotta. It's cheese, cheese, all protein. It

Samic glaze glaze and perhaps a sprig of something like sprig sprague, a sprig of shovel. That's what I was thinking.

Yeah, so did that. It went great? They came through, I you know, showed them the kitchen. I showed them my sourdough starter, which at that point in time was named Amy Winehouse because I love her.

I'm just going to stop you for a second because I have chefs in my family and I've heard them say sourdough starter. Yeah, I don't know what that is.

So sour dough starter is basically a way of creating your own yeast. So you take flour and usually bread flour, but you can use any that you like, and water

It becomes and it becomes an organic thing. That's why you give it a name.

Yeah, well, it's sort of like having a pet. I mean, it'll never die.

Well. But she comes from a very old Western family. They've had the same Sara dou Star from like the Civil War or something.

That's amazing.

It's crazy.

What does it smell like?

I don't know. I'm not allowed to get.

I want to know. Now, it's just is it like locked in a like it's covered some ways.

I mean, but I think she gives like bits of it to people and you can't.

Yeah, you can. The original sort of yeast of it won't die necessarily, so it's you know, it will change over time with different saturations. So say like the Civil War era yeast, it still exists somewhere in there, but it has been significantly diluted over you know, the last one hundred and twenty years or so, just with new flowers that bring in different types of yeast for wherever they are in the country.

Is a constantly changed and organic thing that lives in uh tupperware.

Sure, some people do like glassware. I have a big cambro that is that like it's a chef thing.

I'm sorry, Yeah, I thought it was like that, Like a camaro.

Does exactly like a camaro. Yes, I keep it inside.

I keep my drives a camaro. That's how wealthy I've become.

It's a cambro. Is it's a brand, It's almost it's sort of like cleanex at this point, I feel like it's a brand name, but it describes like this sort of storage unit that kitchens use and they've got different colored lids, so like a two quart cambro is just a little two quart square container and they stack perfectly on each other. Yeah, it's basically it's industrial tupperware.

Right, yeah. Yeah, So you you show these people around your sod star are you introduced them to your You're so good at keeping on track.

I'm so bad I and you are really just helping out.

I'm the pastry chef, right, So you you do that and you show them around, and they say, you're great. Do you want to come and work in our show business world?

Literally?

Really?

Yeah?

Yeah, that's actually first Gate. Okay.

So they're sitting down having lunch. I check in with them a few times just to make sure they're happy with everything they've had. I send them out a bunch of desserts. Check in again, and one of the women looks up and says, would you like a TV show.

Just like that? Like Hollywood?

Yeah?

Like crazy, And at that point in time, I said, yeah, don't threaten me with a bat, you know, with a good time, Like yeah, yeah, I want all of that. So she said, great, my partner and I will be in contact with you next week. So talk to them and we start developing a show about interestingly enough renovating like kind of failing bakeries and pastry shops. We do a sizzle reel, we shop it to Food Network, we shop it to a bunch of different producers, and they

It's functional.

It's it's functional. It will get you from point A to point B.

It Claire needs exactly, Claire exactly.

But it's not something that costs eighteen dollars. How much it was yes, staggering, eye watering, I mean, just ridiculous extortionate amounts of money for a little tiny pastry.

That I'm angry, you should be.

I was outrage I wrote a congressman, and since then the restraining order is actually but yeah, and then from there Food Network liked who I was. I suppose, you know, like like you are.

A vivacious, attractive personality that has a very marketable skill for a network called the Food Network. It seems to make perfect sends.

It does seem to add up. So we shot a show with them which was like this like, uh, pastry boot camp kind of show and I loved it and I had so much fun doing it, but the focus but we didn't have like a really cohesive idea of what it was like is it a competition, do they win something? Is it just is it just for fun and for volity? Because I was always sort of annoyed by Nailed It the show because Nailed It always felt

They're failing and we're laughing at it.

Right, it felt sort of mean spirited to me. So I wanted to do a show that was actually like, Okay, you're not good at baking. You have raised your hand in life and said I'm not good at baking. I want to get good. So we take these people and literally give them a two day boot camp on how to bake and build a cake. And then, you know, like congratulate the person that made the most improvement from start to finish, and you know, gave them a KitchenAid mixer and stuff like that.

The kitchen Aade mixer is a great thing. I best buy with points from my credit card. Yeah. Well when I say by, you know, I've never used it, but.

It exists in your home and if you ever do need to Megan's.

You know, Meghan cooks and stuff she's good at at Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, she she does that. But anyway, so what's the show you're doing now?

Now we we're currently in you know, it's airing. Is the Next Baking Master Colon?

Paris? The Next Baking Master Colon?

Yeah? Yeah, So you punctuations is important, is it? So?

Can it affect your colon being a bacon master only in the best ways? Yeah? I guess it would. So you go to Paris and you yeah, and you what do you do there?

Go to Paris and we invite ten American pastry chefs to come and compete, and they all live together in one condo that they have to do.

That's the rule of those types of shows. It's amazing.

It's amazing. I mean the the fact that they all live together. Like I didn't get to see any of that, so I was really only there for you know, like what they produced.

And like the Heidlu you're the Heidi Clue is like, never compare myself to I think that's a great comparison. You woke in and go fashion. No, cookery is sometimes very off you mas, one day you are bakings, the next day you're not baking, so your glum and you go, this is not tasty for me, This is tasty for me?

Correct?

Right?

Okay? Correct?

Do you use a I do use a fake German accent actually to go.

Yeah.

It was a little confusing at the time, but then I explained to people, I imagine Heidi Clue, imagine what eight feet of legs saying.

So, now you are a world champion baker. Now you know who you know who wins, but you can't reveal it, right of course? Not right? Okay, what fun would that be?

That's madness.

Now I want to take you back to the very beginning of our conversation. Oh my gosh, because I talked to you about the Faberge egg made you famous, And I see right there you said WII in the Parisian manner. It wasn't just we as in we as way as in like some smug French bastard who says you know, it's saying we properly. So what what led you to the Faberge Because that's kind of that's kind of a thing for you, isn't it. That's kind of you like it was.

I mean, what's interesting about, you know, any any form of art? And I really do think that that culinarian cooking is in is an art form whole to it the form of communication. And at that point in time, you know, I was in my early thirties and I was really not to say I was angry, but I was in this in this headspace of like this almost fight club sort of headspace. If I want to destroy something beautiful, like all of the all of the pieces of art I saw growing up, wouldn't it be fun

It in the genre of late night Kick the Living exactly, I understand.

So, and I thought, you know, at that point in time, like I want to make something beautiful, takes hours to make one, and then give people the opportunity to just smash it to pieces and eat it and destroy it, and that becomes the art. That's the that is the thing. It's not me making it. It's not the hours, it's not the gold, it's not the colors, it's not all of the filligree work. It's the actual destruction of it that is the art.

So, so you you start to make this egg, these eggs, how do you make like the faberc egg based on of course the Faberge eggs made for the Czarina was it?

Yeah? Yeah, it was like you know, Russian, Russian, Russian.

I think it was something Bob Fiberg was making them, Yeah, to please his wife, Yeah, and something. It's God's way of saying, you have too much money, yeah one of So, yeah, started making them. They're basically just you know, the the making of them is quite easy. It's just molded chocolate into an egg shape. And then it becomes a little bit more challenging because you have to essentially fill it with dessert and then hand paint each one in different ways because each one was unique.

There was no two the same, and each.

Feel it like a syringe full of custard or something. You put it insight the egg.

I'm not going to tell you how often it's got to be a well, you know what, maybe we can yeah.

Maybe it's a hatch. It's a hatch. It's a little hatch. Fill it up with custard and then right, okay, so you filled your egg with custard with the hatch. With that, you've closed the hatch, and then you have to decorate the outside. So it's straight up sculpture at this point, right.

Yeah, it becomes I mean it's it's sculptured. It's also hand painting. And and I gave you know, each of my cooks was allowed to do as many as they wanted. It was sort of like a project of like each one of them could use whatever colors they want and decorate.

The however, sex Chef and the Faber interesting I wanted them to. Wanted them with the paintings. It's like, you know, you're like, okay, here's what we're going to do. And then you start directing people to do it.

Yeah, yeah, I love this. But at the same time, they can do whatever they want.

So you let your pastry that you're the executive pastry chef and you're constructing the idea of the faberg egg. You're the one that puts the custards through the hatch with a syringe, with a syringe. And then they all do you give them drawings and say let's do so No, they just do it.

They can do whatever they want, right, Okay, Yeah, that was sort of I wanted each of them.

To even with colors and stuff, your lie, anything they wanted. That's cool for them as well, isn't it.

Well, I would hope so I always you know, it's sort of like raising children. You're not trying to raise kids, You're trying to raise adults, right, you know, nice And I was never trying to raise cooks. I was trying to raise chefs.

Nice.

I wanted them to be able to leave working for me and and know a lot and and have confidence and have a viewpoint and have an artistic thing to say, and and yeah it.

Felt did it?

You know?

So the faberc egg now is that in the peninsula that you do is they still do it. They still do it. So if I had enough money, I could go to the Peninsula and have a fabercy egg and.

A yeah and a speak t Yeah.

What would you what would you have with it? I don't brink alcohol, so I couldn't have a dessert. Way, well, I like espresso with express with dessert. I agree, yeah, yeah, all right, so it's great, so you you can still get And did they name it after you? Is it the definitely? Is it the Boswelian?

No? No, no, because anytime, and this is the same for Savory Side, anytime you create something in an establishment, it naturally the ip sort of belongs to the establishment.

You know.

That's kind of the same like the old Late Night show, like all the ship it all belongs to.

That's that's kind of how it works.

I guess, I suppose what did I get?

Oh?

Yeah, money, I guess.

Well, yeah, it's totally a castle.

Well, just because you've been in my eyes, get you get to call it a castle.

It's because I've seen it, but I get to call it a castle, COVID castle.

It's the whole like observation of it that leads me to call it a cast.

Well, you. You're welcome to it again and here again anytime. It's been lovely talking to you.

This has been amazing.

It's just such fun and I'm so glad you could do it. Now get out all right? No, you know it's we are at the end, we're done.

Can you do it in a full Malcolm Tucker for me?

Though?

No, I can't do that. Why not you could say whatever you want, No, I can't. I don't. Haven't you noticed No? No, I never maybe saying the opposite of what's true for COVID, The effect