In the Kitchen with Martha: Sarah Carey & Thomas Joseph

from Kitchen Conundrums, the popular YouTube series. I'm sitting down with both of them now to talk about their journey into the culinary world, working with me Martha, and of course their love for food. Welcome to my podcast, you guys, thank you. It's so nice to have you here. And I was smiling this morning. We were on The Today Show right near where we record this lovely little recording studio in Rockefeller's Center, and we were with a bunch

of dogs. Those are dogs are all for adoption. I saw and the Today's Show Today shows a wild place in the morning, so you know, they started seven am, probably a little earlier, but seven am. And there are dogs on this show. There's Hake burgers, which I was then demoing after the dogs, and they asked me to They always asked me to do these little extra things. And they asked me to hold one of the dogs. That's a cute dog. No, no, they're all they're all

miscreet dogs. They're all rescues, and they haven't had their DNA ridge yet, but mine probably had five different kinds of breeds in. Its very huge, though, and well behaved. It's a very active morning. And now I'm doing my favorite thing, which is the podcast, because I get to sit down with friends with interesting people and really go in depth about their careers and about what they do

for a living. And Thomas and Sarah, Thomas, you started what year two thousand and seven, so about sixteen years ago. Sixteen years is crazy. It's flown by, Oh it has And you look exactly the same as the day you walked in as this little You were a graduate student when you walked into me. Thomas was getting his master's in what subject? It's food studies at New York University. But I was actually working on my thesis which was based around fu fu, that Vietnamese everyday soup, right yea,

And I loved it. I love that he was really being so absolutely like the finest detective finding the best recipe and it was so exciting. And you have done such an amazing job. Thomas is now our EVP of food all Things Food at Martha Stewart Living and at Sir La Thoms. Yeah, that's right. So it's really I mean, you have your career has burgeoned, and you look tired because Thomas works really, really hard. So let me get

to Sarah. Now, Sarah, you started when nineteen ninety nine, Oh, nineteen ninety nine, so that many years is that I keep saying twenty three but anniversary next year. And her hair went has gone from a beautiful dark kind of reddish brown to now a very beautiful silvery gray with little tones that you have a little bit of gold in your hair. Yeah, that just naturally happens to white hair unless you do something to it, and I haven't

done anything lately. And Sarah's always had her own specific style. She wears clunky shoes, oftentimes they're yellow, and she also wears a real, real downtown clothing, which it goes with her. It just goes with her. And you know why she does all this because she grew up on a commune in Woodstock, New York, a real commune with commune parents. Yeah. So I did grow up on a commune. It wasn't like a free love type of commune. It was more

of a political but really an artistic community community. Yeah, which I compare. Your father's a painter, correct, And he painted one of the fabulous posters for the New York World's Fair in nineteen It was for Earth Day or the original Earth Week in nineteen seventy. It's this incredible poster. It came on the show. That was like the greatest moment I think of his career. But it was such

a beautiful post. Yeah. And so it wasn't the World's Fair, it was right, it was Birthday and what a great thing. And uh and your mom is a jeweler. Yeah, beautiful jewels. Yeah, beautiful. And they still live in Woodstock, New York. Yeah. Well, this is it's so fun to sit down with you. There's there's so much to talk about. What about the food at Martha Stewart. Sarah started with me when I had my daily CBS show, Ye and in Westbok, Connecticut,

we were doing the production in that beautiful studio. Yeah, and we did so many shows from that studio with so many gifts. What are your fondest memories of those days? I still say this, and I said it to my mom the other day. I remember when I first started working for you. I had previously worked for a cookbook author named Barbakafka, and someone that worked for you at the magazine, Stefana, had worked for her before, and she was the one who introduced me to you and to

everybody at the company. And I could not after I got the job, I could not believe my great good fortune that I got to do that every day, every day go up there, create amazing things. But the kitchen that we had up in Westport was had beautiful big windows looking I put into a woodland, looking out into a woodland. We had a garden on the property. We had a beautiful commissary where we had lunch, and we didn't mostly have lunch, but everybody got to eat there.

And we had all these incredible studios that were based on your homes, and it was like cooking in your homes, but in this like incredible vibrant community of people. You know, it's it's fun to get on set every day with somebody interesting. And the guests we had. I just remember Russell Crowe coming on and talking about wines from New Zealand and from Australia. He was an amazing guest. And all the late night talk show hosts came on, and the rappers came on. Yeah, we had a lot of

a lot of fun. But we created with Sarah and we had a wonderful small magazine called Everyday Food that evolved into a program with Sarah as the host, which was on PBS. And what do you think about that show? I mean, I loved that show. The great thing about that was it was a very simple format. There was myself and four other hosts, so there was a lot of energy going on because we all were doing different things.

But the recipes in that little magazine, you know, your concept for that, which was like very simple everyday cooking for people who you know, were shopping at the supermarket. The size of the magazine was designed to fit right into your backs, like a reader's digest size. Yes, yes,

and it was kind of brilliant. And also I do really feel like it was such a great compliment to Martha Stewart Living, which was more elevated and you know more about entertaining and lifestyle, and this was just about cooking. And all the recipes had ten ingredients or less. Everything

was available at your supermarket and they were delicious. And that that little magazine, Everyday Food, I think was the basis for a lot of these meal kits that are being sold, including Martha and Marley Spooky, because those recipes again are about ten ingredients or less. They can all can be cooked in less than an hour. The prep time is simple, and those recipes have withstood the tests of time. People still tell me that, oh, my favorite

recipes from Everyday Food. Yep, so many people tell me that, even though and they've saved every single issue of that magazine. Right, we had an amazing designer who designed the spinet magazine Scott to have color coding, and so each year had its own coding. So when you look at them all lined up, it's the most beautiful thing, you know, they're all it's very compact. And people do still with me as well, tell me I have saved all of my

issues I pull out. They organize them by month instead of by years, so that they can pull out a whole may to get all the best recipes for May and I love that because I feel like, you know, that proves what a lasting impact you've had and what we have provided to people. It really means something to them. Oh it does enemies a lot to us who created all this stuff, because it is an education for our readers. It is a long lasting, lifetime commitment to good food

and recipes. And I'm thrilled with the result. And Sarah had a big part to do with that, and she's still working at Martha. I'm so happy about it because we're working on our Roku show together. Now. Yep, this is a This is a really intense bunch of shows that we're doing, not only food centric, but also garden centric and also entertaining centric. Now, Thomas, have you ever worked in a restaurant? I have? Yeah, I mean well, growing up, my father was a caterer, so something similar, right,

something to share. He was a big caterer in Buffalo, New York. At one point in time, he had the contract for the Buffalo bills for their stadium. So I kind of grew up in the kitchen and then I went to culinary school and I was working in restaurants in Providence, Rhode Island, and then I started in TV shortly thereafter, and that's eventually how I came to you right as an intern. Originally as an intern, yeah, I was. I was trying to figure out some way to get

into the Martha world. Um. And I actually I had a colleague from a w GBH PBS show in Boston who was the stylist on set. His name was Aaron Karamanus. He did flowers for the Martha Stewarts. One of the best stylists ever. He was so great. Where is he where? I think he's in San Francisco, but I think he travels the world. Now. He bought a house in Athens. Aaron Karamanus he styled my that room in my packing room that we called it's the packing room in my

Jim Garage. Oh yeah, he styled that so perfectly. He's amazing, Oh amazing. He's really really amazing. I still try to keep it as neat as he had it, but you know, he was. She just knows how to do stuff. But now the latest and greatest, um, I think accomplishments that that Thomas has done well after he won his James Beard Award for his fantastic show called Kitchen Conundrums. I love that show and I want you to have another one on Roku. Yes, and Sarah should be doing everyday

food on Roku too. My dream is Roku. I hope you're listening, because now I'm announcing it publicly. We have such talent, better talent than anywhere else on TV, and Roku should be the leading food channel or a depository repository of food content. And I think that we should be producing Thomas's Kitchen Conundrums and whatever else he feels like doing, and Sarah should be doing whatever she feels

like doing full time on TV. Okay, okay, I said out loud, and that was one reason I wanted you both on this show so I could say that out loud on radio. Now everybody knows. Okay. But Thomas has been working for the last two years on a major your project, which is the creation of the Bedford, a restaurant by Martha Stewart in Las Vegas in the Paris Hotel,

which is owned by Caesar's Right. And that is a fabulous accomplishment, I mean really, in a very short time from zero to a two hundred seat restaurant, and which is so beautiful. Yeah, and it is like like one of the nicest spots in Las Vegas. That's right, it is so Describe it well. I mean the name the Bedford, it's models after Martha's home in Cantona, New York, which

is also Bedford. I have to say this is part of the reason Martha had said that, you know, working all through COVID in the office, we had to be because we had so much work to do. And ultimately this partnership with Caesar's has been fantastic because they're really great partners and when they do something, they do it right.

So we were really comforted in that, and it took us about two years maybe a little over them over two years to really flesh out the concept have everything built, because that was actually the thing that kind of extended our timeline just because it was also during COVID and

a supply chain, supply chain chain. But it was a really great project to work on the first restaurant for the Martha brand, which I think is fantastic, And it also just layered in what kind of I do on a daily basis, which is so rewarding to me is I get to work with all of the content that you know, Sarah has created over the years, that Martha has created over the years, anyone that kind of touches

the brand over the past forty years. I get to take that content, those recipes and translate them into products, whether that be a baking mix or a menu item a restaurant the restaurant. Yeah, and it is a vast amount of content to go through. Absolutely. I still I have a good memory. But when I tried to remember, where was that? Where did that recipe first appear? Was it in the magazine? What month? What year the magazine is? Let me see it started in It's about thirty one,

thirty two years ago. Um, where is that, which month, which issue, which page? Or was it in one of the books? And we're working on our hundredth book right now. That's amazing. So and many of those, more than fifty of them are food related books. So there is a tremendous amount of content. And uh, and it's fun to there are a few people who know, you know, probably pretty much where everything is. Sarah knows a lot, I

know a lot. And then we have Kim Doomer that I was going to say, yeah, we have to get Kim on the on the podcast So Great, So Great, because she knows where every all the bodies are buried, every single body recipe bodies. So the restaurant has taken up a t end this amount of time. But you know, using those recipes and adapting them for a restaurant distribution is really something. It's a challenge, is a challenge, and

you're not in the kitchen of the restaurant. You are trying to teach those people in the restaurant how to make something and work with the chef, and work with the Sioux chefs, and work with all the workers in the restaurant. And it's such a very nice crew, by the way, absolutely you have put together and making a restaurant like that. Thomas also had to use his skills

of good taste. Based in good taste, because we had to choose the dishes, we had to choose the colors, we had to choose the silverware, the glassware, the flatware. You and Kevin did an amazing job. And I would come into the office and look at all these big tables laden with many different kinds of glasses, and I'd have to choose. I'd have to be the curator and

the editor all that. You know, it's a lot of work, and but all food related because you want the wine to look good and taste good and drink well out of the right kind of glass. So it's a very complex business, that whole restaurant business. So what are you working on right now? What's your big challenge right now? Well, what I'm working on right now is how do we evolve beyond this first restaurant? And I think we have

a lot of ideas. You know, Martha has many homes and each of them has a distinct look and feel. You entertain differently at each of these homes. So right now I'm working on a way in which we can kind of capitalize on that to create some other concepts so we can have more them. We've talked about fish, that's right, yeah, then, and Las Vegas needs a good fish restaurant. Absolutely. There's the demographic in Las Vegas or those coming into Las Vegas is changing. There's a lot

of families, there's it's shifting from what it was. It's almost like an amusement park, fabulous resort for all onlies of all ages right right, and all different tastes. So there's there's this openness to kind of diversifying menus and concepts. But I think it's just it's amazing what you can accomplish in Las Vegas. There's just it. It's so much fun. It's a very nice place. So, Sarah, we have made so many things together, what's your favorite? Do you have

a favorite thing that we've worked on? The thing that I like to do the most with you, which is something that we are both very passionate about, is make jams and pies, things that are very seasonal, particularly to the summer. But I think that we both have a passion for preserving the bounty of whatever is around. So pickling and preserving and making jams and things like that. I think that those are the things that I've loved. But the greatest challenge we have these croissant in front

of us. And I remember when I was working at the magazine getting an assign to make a cuissant recipe, like a cuissant one on one for the magazine, and we had made cuissant on the show. I think with Julia Child, if I'm not mistaken, and so I used that information as the basis, but I was quite nervous because I didn't consider myself to be like the elevated

baker or the like technical baker. And I worked really really hard on that, and you know, you tasted them and we decided like what changes we wanted, what kind of dough, like, all of these things, and it was a real accomplishment for me that I was very proud of. It's those moments and those opportunities that we have throughout our careers here working together to push the boundaries of what we think we're good at and learned something new

while we're creating great content for people. So maybe that, I mean, it's hard to pinpoint one rawberries or we're gonna have a good crop of strawberries, and I hope a really good crop of raspberries is oh slint, and I hope a good crop of gooseberries. So all right, I'm ready, get your get your jars ready, and we're gonna make some jam. But but Sarah and I did a couple of jams segments yea for the show and uh, and the jams are delicious, and Sarah has been making

secretly behind the scenes marmalads. Oh yeah, they are so good. Oh, thank you. You should do that. Um, I guess maybe next year during citrus season or maybe in the fall, whenever your citrus is ready, because it's kind of funny. I have this woman that I love to buy citrus from in California named Laura Ramirez, JJ's lone daughter Ranch And I go to California with an empty bag just so I can bring citrus back, which is ridiculous, but I do it. Oh no, no, it's definitely not ridiculous.

And I bring cases of strawberries right and they smell of the whole plane. I carry them on and put them on the overhead yea, and people are just behind because they s also good. Yeah. So what happens behind the scenes when we're working on food is very different

from what you see on the camera. Describe just creating a kitchen conundrum, Chamas, Well, I mean, I think it's all about testing and perfecting, that's really I think at the crux of it, you know, whether it's creating a recipe or creating a product, it always comes down to

one what are we trying to accomplish. How do we test it to make sure it's the very best recipe or the very best process, or we're showcasing enough of the technique so that the view or the consumer whoever wants to recreate this in the end is able to do it just as flawlessly as we are. So, what's your favorite kitchen conundrum kitchen? And describe what is a kitchen conundrum? Sure? So kitchen conundrum is a you know,

a kitchen problem, um that one might have. And originally the concept for this show was to use kind of viewer comments as content generation so that we would be able to solve their problems, not necessarily in real time, but we would take it back to the test kitchen, um, solve the problem and then like one, what's what's on one of the hardest ones? Well, I mean we've done really simple things and really complex complex things. One was about, um,

what happens when your caramel crystallizes? Like how do you fix it? And it's actually very simple. You just add more water to the pan and continue to cook it using um some of the tips about you know, brushing the sides of the pan, or Martha likes to add the lid um to create the condensation. So um, simple kind of kitchen fixes like that, and then we solve other problems as well, like what you should do if, by chance you roast your turkey and it's overcooked, how

can you fix it? Um? It might not be one hundred percent of a salt, but UM. Carving the turkey and putting it on a platter with a little bit of um turkey stock or broth really helps to kind of reinfuse the meat with some moisture. So it's not a perfect salve, but it will definitely help. Yeah. Yeah, And unless the turkey just crumbles as you get it off the bone, that has happened has happened. I think it happened nowhere with a chicken. I don't think I've

ever done that to a turkey. Maybe a store bought turkey, one that had been frozen. Remember, turkeys were not always what they are now. And by the way, you're never gonna have to buy turkeys again because I have bourbon rids in the chicken coup. Oh really yep. And she and I bought a very beautiful pair, a male tom and and a female and she's laying eggs like crazy and they're all hatching. Yes, so we're gonna have baby turkeys well, and they're going to be ready for Thanksgiving.

They are beautiful too, and they will be delicious. So we spend a lot of time testing and testing and testing recipes. What qualities should every good recipe include? So Sarah, you start that because you're you're really doing more of that now than Thomas is even doing. He's done plenty

he has. I mean, I think that as a brand, and you know, for you and Thomas, myself and everybody who's worked here, the qualities that we look for our clarity, right, we want the ingredients to be accessible and if they're not like immediately accessible, to have a place that we can offer where they can get that. It's much easier now in the days of Amazon, But in the old days we were always like there was a long list of all of the sources in the back of the magazine.

It's much easier now with Amazon. But you know, providing people with the information that they need a clearly written when the steps should be clearly written. They should be in an order that makes sense from a timing perspective.

Measurements should be accurate. Measurements should be accurate. You know something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, and is that a lot of brands us included for years when we're doing baking stories of always used cup measurements, but a lot of people are transitioning to a combination of cups and grams or ounces, and I think that that, you know, not everybody only uses the metrics. You know, a lot of figures since you know a lot of

people don't have scales. So I will always be able to I will always want to provide measurements that come in cups and teaspoons. But I do think that the accuracy and the full proofness of weighing is really important these days because you can there's a lot of information out there, and what we want for our recipes is for them to rise up to the top in terms of quality and you know, success rate and a flour it can be wildly different depending on how you measure it. Yep.

And like Thomas was saying, recipes that are tested by somebody other than the person that creates them, so that it's it's ensured that they are as written they will work is something that we have always taken great care with and I still think it's very important. I totally agree, you know what about taste, Thomas boost taste. When you make a recipe you trust the most, it better be me I think it's it's a collective, right, Like that's

what we typically do. We all get together, we all try things as a group, and we kind of analyze the outcome and say, does this have the right texture, does it have the right taste? Could it use a little bit more acidity or sweetness or salt? Often times it's it's salt. That's what we're doing making this hundredth book. You know, I have not been in the kitchen cooking the recipes myself as I'm doing now for this hundredth book for a while. So I cook for myself all

the time. I cook for my friends all the time. But it is so interesting. I have everybody taste everything and in the kitchen for the next thirty days or whatever it's going to take to photograph these hundred recipes. And it's very important because some people taste something very different from what I taste. Yea, I trust myself. I trust my own taste a lot, but I also want to see if other people agree. So so a having

a little committee is good when you're making a recipe, Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And when you're testing a new dish, what do you look for? What do you look for? Thomas in a new dish. I think it has to be Um Well, I always look for interest, like is this interesting, What's what's new and different about it? I think you know, Martha, you had mentioned Everyday Food and the creation of all of those recipes and how we have really used them as a as an archive for our Marley Spoon business,

our meal kip business. And part of the reason why people love our meal kip business so much is because of the unique flavors, because we celebrate ingredients. It's not just the ingredients, you know, we push the boundaries and people seem to really like that. They want to try new things. So interest is always really important. Are we discovering something for our consumer, for our reader, for our viewers.

One of the recipes I'm putting in the hundredth book is the Alexis's famous chocolate chip cookies, and we have two people helping me prepare the food and one of the one of the women, actually scooped it out with a like a quarter cup ice cream scoop, and I said, I don't think it's going to work because, first of all, scooping them out like that, it makes them around compact ball on the cookie sheet and not they might not spread like the opposed to spooning it out and not

refrigerating the dough. Everybody's refrigerating cookie dough now, but that dough doesn't work refrigerated. You have to sort of scoop it out of the bowl as you after you make it and bake them. And we tested, we tested the greased cookie sheet. This is all during I mean, this is a recipe I have used for forty five years and we are still testing. I found the last time I made them, they didn't spread when I put them on parchment, but if I put them directly on the

baking sheet, they did. Though, if that's right, you cannot use parchment. You can't use parchment, and you can. And the best sheet of all to cook them on is the iron stre baking pan, not an aluminum. It doesn't work on aluminium. And it doesn't work if you pam it, you know it doesn't work. You cannot pam. It has to crawl, ye crawl concentric rings on the And you know forty five years ago when Alexis developed the recipe for me, that recipe, that's an evolution. Sarah Gross, who

worked for me in my catering business. She had this delicious cookie recipe and I asked her for the recipe and she wouldn't give it to me. So I said to Alexis, here, Alexis, make I gave her the cookie and I said, here, make this recipe. And in two tries she had the recipe. So that was you know, and or Sarah. You know, it could have been Sarah's famous chocolate. Sorry Sarah, but it's Alexis. But now we're adding salt halfway through baking. I'm just sprinkling mald and

sea salt on top. Boy, were they delicious. Mike's Organics came by yesterday, mister Mike, and he took home almost the whole pile, of course, Yeah, because they were really good. But bigger, better, less baked, better, salt delicious. I mean it changes everything. That's the evolution of a recipe. And I like that a lot. I that we continue to evolve our recipes even after we know that they're workable and perfect and authentic, and they can still be improved

maybe or at least changed a tiny bit. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, Thomas has also worked on a lot of our mixes. Those are very hard to do. They are. They're definitely challenging to get because ultimately, in the end, the consumer has to participate with it. Yeah, and price right, and we want it to be very consistent. We want it to be just as delicious as if you made the recipe from scratch. That's kind of our motto when creating

any type of food products. So it can be really really challenging, but when it happens, when you unlock it and it's a success, it's really rewarding. And I don't think many of our readers or listeners know about gold Belly, that's right. And Thomas has been working with this company called gold Belly, which is a seller of unique, delicious recipes from famous baker's, famous chefs all over the United States and uh and we have contributed to gold Billy

our some of our delicious cakes. So now this is this is what we go through to see And you think that we don't think about every single taste and every single recipe. We think about everything so much and not not not too not too much enough. And that's really what it takes to make a recipe, to develop a food stuff. It takes a lot of work and thought and tasting. Yes, it's a it's really crazy what I think. One of the perks of the job, too, has been the travel. We have traveled many, many, many

places and got to taste food everywhere. Sarah, where's your favorite place to go? Well, my favorite trip that I went on with you was to Mexico City. We were shooting for the UM the Old show, the Live show UM a piece there and we went to Mexico City for I don't know, I think it was probably only eighteen hours, maybe it was a little bit longer, and

we ate like ten meals. I remember you and we were all staying in this hotel and we had eaten three or four meals, and you said to Kevin and myself, you were like, I think we're gonna skipped in and we had a ten o'clock dinner reservation and we were both like, oh my god, goodness, this is great. We can go to sleep. And then at nine thirty you walked in and you were like, Okay, let's go, and

we had yet another meal. But it was such an incredible experience because whenever we go anywhere for the show, or for the magazine, or for any thing that we're working on for the brand, we have all these incredible doors open to us, and we had the range of food from tacos in this little tiny restaurant that was just you know this big you know the size of this room, which is, you know whatever, fifteen feet long and eight feet wide to the most elevated meals, all

in a single trip. And that's I remember riding a bike around the Yes, I remember the park in Mexico City with the mayor of Mexico City. Yeah, and we filmed him talking about the city and its development. And I had so much fun on that trip. I love that trip. What about you, Thomas, what's yours? I think my favorite trip I don't know if it was it's necessarily a was a great culinary trip. But my favorite trip with you was going to Qatar and we were out there for a food and wine festival. I think

it was their first food and wine That was so fun. Oh, I love that. But we had an amazing opportunity to really see the country and to experience it. And um, I mean I remember what was called like dune crashing or something where we were out in SUVs in the desert going down these giant mountains of sand, yeah, sand. We were in the in the dunes. My favorites, Well, I love I love Japanese food, I love Chinese food. So whenever we are japan trips have been amazing too.

I don't think either I'm on board for going now. But Thomas's well, yeah, we have to do. We have to do a Japanese shows. What about ingredients? What are you thinking about now in terms of ingredients, Is anything hopping up? Well, I think both of us are just anticipating. We're so eager for spring to start so we can get our hands on some of that produce. Move away

from all of the potatoes and apples and freshness. Yeah left over, But I mean we're so kind of blessed here in New York with all of the amazing purveyors that we can go to for really great ingredients, like any new discovery though in terms of an ingredient, yes, and I'm going to bring some in for both of you to try. So. I recently, I was just walking around and I walked by Dispana. I hadn't been there in a while, and I just walked in and I spent half an hour just staring at the wall of

all of the different products that they have. Um. This is a story specializing in the foods of Spain and Um. I happened upon this jar of olives, beautiful green olives, but they were stuffed with preserved lemons, and I was like, I've never had this before. I'm going to buy it. I'm gonna try it. I brought them home. I like my rock and salty lemon. Um. Yes, but in a briny kind of base with the with the olives. And they are delicious, oh, really balanced, not like overpowering delicious.

They would be fantastic in a martini, you know, sometimes you want both the olive and a twist at the same time. Um. But they're really delicious. And salads as well. M have you discovered any new vodias. I haven't actually had it, but I know when you went to EMP you made a cocktail with saltas and I also saw it on another menu, so I'm very curious. Sorry, Yeah, that was sharp saltics. I am planting seltice right now, right so they cuss between celery and let's lettuce right. UM.

I've been noticing it on menus. It has this beautiful trusssi que when it's when it's I don't know what you did to make. Yeah. And the inside is whiter like the heart of celery. Yeah, and it's um and it looks like it looks like a big fat stalk of broccoli, but of brighter, brighter green, lighter, brighter. So

I'm very curious about that. I I we you know, we recently made a salad on the show with the chefs from don Angie, which is an Italian restaurant here, and they used chrysanthemum, which is an Asian green, but in a caesar salad. So I'm very I made that. I made that for my friends the other night. You did that same salad. It was good good, they'll be so happy to Yeah, I made that and uh. And then I went to another restaurant up north. I went to Stissing House, yea, which is we're going to film

there is. This is in a little town called tine Planes way up in like the Millbrook area of New York State, and the people call it upstate. I guess it is upstate. And and they put in their salad not only pomegranate seeds, which I've done before, but they cut up the little Japanese flat per simmon. Yeah, they peeled it and cut it into diced it and put that in the salad. What a game changer. That's so delicious. So now every one of my salad, says Simon Simmon,

and well that's great. See that's you know, we do absorb things. I mean, we're talking about recipe development and recipes before. This is how creativity happens, right, and you'll take that idea and it will morph into something uniquely your own. And I think that that's what is so inspiring about this, like going to places seeing what they're doing,

and for us we really simplify things. We have to get to social media because both of you have been very informative and very creative and very instructive in your Instagram accounts, and I know that you have a lot of followers. People really enjoy enjoy your your your posts. So Thomas, your address is Wow, it's Tojo eight to seven t o Jo, which after Tojo Thomas. Let's yeah Thomas Thomas, Joseph Joseph Thomas. Yeah. I always get people that, Yeah, oh,

I know, two names. What do you call that when you have two first names? I don't know. Oh, there's a specially for that. Yes, indeed, some people call that a double barreled name. Look it up. I will, I will. But you both have been so informative on your accounts. So what do you try to what do you try to show the show the instagrammers? Um? I think ultimately like it goes back to interest for me. What what am I finding at you know, either the grocery stores

or the farmer's markets? Um? And what do I bring home and want to cook with? And um? Whenever I cook at home, I usually favor a lot of fresh ingredients. I like a lot of herbs. I like a lot of fruits like citrus, um, lettuce. I'm a big salad ead or so UM. I would say all of my items are kind of bright and colorful, and I think people are enjoying that. And what about you, Sarah? I, Sarah, you're a little bolder. I'm a little boulder. I'm a

little more eclectic. Thomas's you know, focus tends to be very straightforward, like he shows what he's eating for dinner or a snack. And but but you're so beautiful perfect because there beautiful everything is on a beautiful market and not embarrassed to show a crumb. No, I am not I. You know something that I do and you know, maybe this is controversial or weird, is that I will often talk about my process and successes and failings, things that I want to change, or I'll I'll show something in

the midst of it's not quite perfect yet. Well, you're showing a journey of the journey of a risk, which is very different from what Thomas shows the the finished product finished, And I want to I want to be at your house eating some of those things, Thomas, I really do and uh. And Sarah is Sarah is experimenting and trying and chasting and uh. And then you'll see it in the pages of a magazine or you'll see it on our TV show. And that's that's That's very

different approaches and very interesting too. So what are your family? What is your family? And friends? Thomas goes to Buffalo Still to visit his sister who has how many children? Which is five boys? Five boys from what? And what ages? There's seven and unders, Oh my gosh, five of them. What a loud place that must be. It is, so what do they want you to make all the time. We grew up in a food family, so they're very adventurous. Their palets are you know kids. It's so interesting to

see what they like. What they like like. They like acidity and vinegar and sour tastes and I would have never thought that. So they just want me to cook when I'm home. They want to take a break and not have to do it. So um, I like to Experimentum. I also like to indulge when I'm in Buffalo as well, some chicken wings. There's great food in Buffalo. It's a

little comforting. Thomas and I have Buffalo in common because my maternal grandparents lived in Buffalo their entire lives after they came from Poland, and my mother was born there. And I still go there to visit my brother Eric. And uh, it's right near Niagara Falls that you always go to the falls. When was the last five um, probably like four or five years ago. You should keep visiting it. It's so beautiful. It's really nice to visit.

I think in the winters you get to see all of the ice that goes along with it, and it's really impressive. It's really impactful. But I went last May. Yeah, I went to Buffalo because I wanted to go see this Frank Lloyd right houses that are there which were so incredible, and I went to two of them. But I also then did go to Niagara Falls on the Canada side. Oh yes, it's beautiful. That's that's that's really prettier than the New York side. It's harder to get

to though. They're very strict at the border. They pulled me over. Oh no, yeah, oh no. So um. What is one meal that you'll never get tired of? Thomas? When you think about going out for dinner, what do you really want? Oh? My gosh, Well, I love a French fry. Any restaurant I go to, if they're a French fries on the menu, I will try them. Highbrow, low brow, all of the above. Your favorite restaurant for

French fries. Oh that's a good question, I have to say, and I usually wouldn't say this, Like, I think Perry Street has delicious fries. They're almost they akin to the McDonald's style fries, so very thin and slender but tender on the inside and crisp on the out. Yeah, that's Perry Street. On Perry Street in New York City on the Hudson River, Pastis has pretty good fries. It's just so hard to get into pasties these days. Well, it is, Yeah, I don't know. It depends on what time you go.

I feel like one of the purposes of my job is that I can get into it anywhere you want pretty much. I might have to go a little. The time might be a little problem, but I can usually get in it. I like to eat early June. I'd rather eat early, Yeah, and then that's the best time to try to make a reservation. What about you, sir, what's your favorite go to food? Well, if I'm going out, it will generally be something Asian. I love Vietnamese food, So if I can find a good fun or something

like that, it will be that. But I like to I mean, I love a fry obviously, but I like to go especially fries. We were talking about this, well, I was talking about this on my Instagram the other day. I feel like it's one of the one of things that I don't really want to make it home because I never feel like there is good. Um, I can make good fries, but I'd rather have somebody else make them.

But I like to eat foods when I'm out that are something that maybe is a little bit different than what I cook at home, a cuisine that I'm not as familiar with. So I'm going to ask you some rapid fire questions. Right, I haven't done this to anybody else, but she's your good questions. So what's the last cookbook you got? Well, the last cookbook that I got is uh, it's called Yogurt and way amazing book. And it's the best yogurt in the world. Um, yep. And it's called

the Yogurt White Mustache. Yes mustache m O U s t A c h E. Yep. It is delicious. And that cookbook is beautiful. Yes, I have it with me ik. Well, the last cookbook I took home isn't necessarily a new cookbook, but it was a Michelle Rue cookbook and um, eggs sauces. It was eggs. But I have his pastry and I have his book on sauces. His books are fantastic. It's nice to flip through old books that they're not so old. They're like only about thirty years old. Maybe that old.

I'm just twenty years you know. There's so many cookbooks that come out in the market these days. It's like a constant flow and so kind of going back to the library and opening up some of those pages. It's like it's the one cookbook everybody should have in their library. Who wants to go first Martha Stewart's Cooking School about Martha Stewart and Sarah Carry that's a very good cookbook. Um.

Aside from that, I'm a huge fan. I think I've said this a million times of the Joy of Cooking, the original Joy of Cooking, well, not the original, the nineteen right, So which one? The nineteen seventy five edition is my favorite. That's the one that I grew up with. And it's got some I mean, it's not so much for um recipes for everyday dinner, but it's it's a very interesting read it. It speaks a lot to cooking

in the mid twentieth century. Um and no, but if I if I want, if I want a simple recipe for something, I'll find it in that book. Also, they teach you about everything. I mean, honestly, there's how to like skin a squirrel in there. You know, from how to skin a squirrel to how to make all different kinds of pastries. It's really comprehensive and I just love it as both a book to cook from and also

a research tool. What about you, Thomas, Well, it's not a recipe based book, but on cooking and Food by Harold McGee, because I'm a right, you are a nerd, and that is a very useful book. Harold McGee on Cooking and Food. What is the last interesting place you went out to eat? Thomas? I would have to say, I mean, I am Lebanese, right, um, but I haven't really gone out in your city to a lot of restaurants and so um. It was a couple of months ago, but I went to Sage I think, and it was

like a homestyle Lebanese restaurants. It was very comforting and it was the food was delicious. What about you, sir, Well, I have to say most recently was this restaurant Narrow, which is right here in Rockefeller Center. Yep, upscale Korean food, very elegant and honestly, I went there two days in a row because I had gone to that event, and they served me a rice actually it was chrysanthem or rice,

so there was chrysanthem in it. But their rice preparation is oh excellent good, And so I went back the next day because I wanted to have more of that rice. And I'm not a huge rice eater necessarily, but it was just perfectly cooked short grain. Um, really really lovely. It was a place that the best place I've eaten recently is a restaurant in Salt Lake City, which you know it is not the culinary center of the world,

but it was called raw Topia. And uh. And this is an an Arab guy also from Lebanon, but what delicious food. And he is really centered on the organic, on the farm, grown, hand picked ingredients, really delicious veget and it's vegetarian for the most part, not completely. He's coming on the show. What items should you always have in your fridge? Whom Lemons? Yeah, I always have lemons, and I always have cucumbers, and I always have sour cream.

Random little facts about me. Um, what's your favorite Sarah? Well, I mean I'm trying to think other than lemons, something that I always have to have in my fridge. I mean, I always have dairy in case I want to bake, so eggs, butter, milk, and lemons. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down here in a Rockefeller's Center. Um, I know that two of you are very busy on helping to teach and inspire so so many people about food. To keep up with both Sarah

and Thomas, uh, please follow them on Instagram. So anyway, thank you so much for coming, of course, and you have to come again. We'll talk food, food, food forever and ever. We should do it sort of Thanksgiving one would be fun. It's a good idea. Let's do a hotline, Yeah, the Martha Sarah and and Thomas Joseph hotline to do all the time on radio. I think it's a great idea. Thank you, Bye bye Hi