Ashley Christensen Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Each week I talk to the most interesting culinary personalities around. Joining me today is Chef Ashley Christensen, an old friend of mine and of Cherry Bombe's.
Ashley is a respected award-winning chef and restaurateur based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her AC Restaurants group includes five restaurants, an events company, and a commissary kitchen. Her best known restaurant is Poole's Diner, a beloved spot that just celebrated its 15-year anniversary.
Ashley has been on an incredible professional and personal journey. Last year, she shared on social media that she was newly sober, and she and I do discuss that later in the show. For those of you navigating sobriety on your own or with a loved one, I wanted to flag that so you're not taken by surprise. I just want to say in advance that I appreciate Ashley for being so open and honest with us today. Ashley and I cover a lot of ground, so stay tuned for our conversation.
Some of you know this already, but we will be hanging out with Ashley in-person at the Graduate Chapel Hill hotel in a few weeks for a special Radio Cherry Bombe networking event. I am so excited to be back on the road and catch up with everyone. The event is taking place Thursday, February 9th from 5:00 to 7:30 PM at Trophy Room, the hotel's restaurant. Graduate Chapel Hill is just a short walk from the UNC Chapel Hill campus. Come and meet other folks in the Bombesquad and from the local culinary scene, and enjoy snacks and sips from Trophy Room. Then we'll have a talk and a panel discussion with Ashley and Chefs Sicily Sierra and Cheetie Kumar, and other great food folks. Tickets are $30, and include all food, drinks and a copy of our magazine. Head to cherrybombe.com to snag your ticket and we can't wait to see you.
We are also hosting networking events at the Graduate Hotel in Tucson on February 23rd, and at the brand new Graduate Hotel in Palo Alto on March 2nd. If you can't make it but have pals in any of these cities, let them know. We would love to meet them.
If you are not familiar with Graduate Hotels, it's a collection of 33 handcrafted hotels in college towns across the U.S. and U.K. Each one has a unique design inspired by its hometown and their restaurants and lobbies are perfect gathering places for visitors, students, and locals. I stayed at their Evanston, Illinois, hotel recently, right across from the Northwestern Campus, and I loved the aesthetic and the vibe. I felt I was in a Wes Anderson movie. For more information on our event, visit cherrybombe.com. And for more info on Graduate Hotels visit graduatehotels.com.
Now let's check in with today's guest, Ashley Christensen, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Ashley Christensen:
Hi. Great to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so good to see you. It's been so long. I used to see you all the time.
Ashley Christensen:
The world is a different place these days. Not so much just running into each other on the road anymore.
Kerry Diamond:
Exactly. The world is a very different place. And I was so excited when I heard that Poole's had just celebrated its 15-year anniversary, which is amazing. Congratulations to you and the team.
Ashley Christensen:
Thank you so much. I think after the wild few years leading up to it, it snuck up on us a little bit and here we are.
Kerry Diamond:
Restaurant years are dog years, you know that-
Ashley Christensen:
Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
-better than anybody else. So to hit 15 is remarkable, so that's a big, sincere congratulations.
Ashley Christensen:
Thank you so much. Yeah, we're feeling like we might just get to stay.
Kerry Diamond:
I hope so. I thought it would be fun to go back to 2007 when Poole's just opened, or your version of Poole's opened.
Ashley Christensen:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I was curious where you were in your career at that point and what Poole's was back then.
Ashley Christensen:
Yeah. I had been the executive chef at a restaurant called Enoteca Vin. It's no longer open, but was an amazing place for me to really grow as a chef. It was an open kitchen in Downtown Raleigh, and I came on board there under Andrea Reusing, who is a great friend and mentor, and of course went on to open Lantern and do many other amazing things.
And so I worked under her there and then later became the chef, and from there, the day that it just felt right to start looking for my own project, I found that the lease for Poole's Diner was for sale. And I had some history in that space, I had been a bartender there years before and I had cooked brunch there at some point in my career. So, lots of neat connections to the space.
Kerry Diamond:
What was Poole's? What kind of dining was it? How big, all those things?
Ashley Christensen:
Sure. The building itself is a 2000-square-foot space building. And it started in the '40s as a pie shop called Poole's Pies, and later they added a little lunch counter for the building businesses around the pie shop, and that became Poole's Luncheonette, and they were well known for amazing Southern food and vegetables, and I think the short order breakfast as well.
My father actually lived in Raleigh when he was 19 years old and later told me, "I used to stand in line here to eat vegetables when I was a kid living in Raleigh." So neat history there. But the folks who I bought the lease from had run it as a place called the Vertigo Diner for a while, and it was just this very kitschy version of the American Diner and with a little... It was considered not fine dining for a while, but a slightly more elevated experience. And then later they went back to the name Poole's Diner and made it a little more of an everyday experience.
And those are the folks that I purchased the lease from and kept the name Poole's Diner. My landlord is actually Shirley Poole, now Shirley Jordan, who's the daughter of John Poole who opened the pie shop. So it's a really neat thing to have that connection to the original concept, to honor the name, but to have it be something that's on the lips of folks as this place grows and changes.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. So you take over Poole's. How did you change the menu?
Ashley Christensen:
Vastly. We just swiped it all clean. We went into it thinking it was a turnkey project, and surprise, surprise, it took us almost a year to make changes, get everything through permitting, raise a little more capital than we had anticipated for the project.
So, December 13th, 2007, we opened the doors. And I think initially I really didn't have a menu mapped out, just really this idea of how I wanted the food to make people feel. And I know we see chalkboards all over the place these days, but that wasn't a very popular menu method 15 years ago in Raleigh. And for me, I had two things. I had been in restaurants where we would print these menus every day and someone would make an error and we'd have to scrap 100 pieces of paper and print again.
And I liked the idea of being able to go up and use your fingertips to rub off some chalk and make the change, but also this idea of folks who had walked in to have a unique different dining experience, from other guests in the building, unique to their own space and the space they share with others, to all be looking up at the same space on the wall and starting their experience there from the same place.
So I liked that idea of the community standing around the offering in that space. And at the beginning I had in mind what we wanted to create, which was this idea of folks standing around those chalkboards and later we would see as we established regulars, if someone stepped into the diner and had this curious look on their face as they looked at the menu boards, you'd see a regular say, "Hey, is this your first time here? Oh, you've got to try this."
So I remember seeing that for the first time. I've seen it many times since. But just thinking, that's the thing that I couldn't quite put into words that I hoped to see one day. That's a piece of it that we're very proud of. But as far as what was on the menu, that's evolved over time and changed, but I wanted the approach to be pretty simple and for it to be worded in a very simple way.
So we took really classic, simple things and just tried to imagine how they could be really cared about. And so we describe it as taking something like pimento cheese or macaroni au gratin, or as people think of it just as mac and cheese and throwing that into an exploded drawing and sweating the details of each element and each ingredient and how can we take that and really thoughtfully put it back together in a way that creates an experience beyond what is expected.
With that said though, keeping the wording pretty simple and approachable, to help to establish just this level of comfort for guests as they sit down and look at that chalkboard and think about the experience.
Kerry Diamond:
What is still on the menu today?
Ashley Christensen:
The pimento cheese is still there. The mac au gratin is still there. Probably my favorite thing on the menu, and one of the most simple things is a beautiful head of Bibb lettuce dressed in red wine vinaigrette and finished in just a beautiful aged, it's a 24-month Parmesan that we shave over the top of it. And it's such a simple thing, but it's always there and you can usually count on there being beets somewhere in the vinaigrette section or...
I have a real love of the avocado, though we have no local avocado here. It stretches beyond the seasons for us. So in the Poole's Diner book, we write about that as avocado guilt, the inability to resist serving avocado on various dishes.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm happy to hear the mac and cheese is still in the menu because you know I've been a fan of that for a very long time, and since I'm going to be back in town pretty soon, I actually... When I was working on the questions for you, Ashley, I was like, “I hope the mac and cheese is still in the menu, because I have a feeling we'll be eating at Poole's and I'll be very sad not to eat that again.”
So we know some of the things that are the same. You mentioned the menu items that are still around. How is the Poole's of 2023 different in other ways?
Ashley Christensen:
I think we started with, we were open four days a week and we really went after things with this idea of having one staff, one crew, so that nothing is lost in translation and we had time to rest up a crew to get back in there and really aim for consistency and to evolve together.
Over time it became a seven-day week space and we're very close to the Performing Arts Center, and I loved this idea of being open until midnight so that we could serve folks who are both folks in the ballet or in the symphony, as well as the guest of those experiences. And also restaurant folks who are working at other restaurants, who then are looking for a place to go and dine after work. So that was a really fun thing to be a part of for a long time.
After the pandemic we've come back with hours abbreviated from that. We're no longer seven days, we're not open past 10:00 P.M. at Poole's on any night of the week. And it's very interesting. Over time I came to realize, wow, this building actually really needs a day off, the building itself, and for everyone who's a part of driving that space, to have one day a week where you can... Not that everyone, no one works all the shifts. That said, when you care about a place and you're part of the driving force of that space, it's always on your mind.
So having a day where everyone can shut it down and then reboot for the next day is different and amazing. And so we've really enjoyed that shift. I think, of course when we opened I was there all the time. When you start to have more projects you figure out how to not be there all the time. And of course, having had this restaurant for 15 years I no longer work service. I'm involved in the menu, lots of different tasks, involved in the ownership of the space and how that space can change over time.
But with new projects we look at things a little differently. So in the beginning I was one of three cooks in the kitchen, expediting and cooking on the hotline, and that certainly looks very different now. It's a much bigger crew in the kitchen. And as we grew as a restaurant the way that we organize ourselves is quite different than the very beginning now as well. And I think you see that in a lot of small independent restaurants as they grow.
Kerry Diamond:
I do need to ask, which is the day that you're closed, for all the folks who are listening to this, who've never been to Poole's, who are like, “I need to put this on my bucket list.”
Ashley Christensen:
The day that we... It's funny, next week is the week that we're adding our sixth day, which means the day that we are closed will be Tuesday.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Tuesday's the day of rest, people.
Ashley Christensen:
Tuesday is the day of rest. And Mondays, we found that's a day where people really like to go out, and there are fewer options. So we really like being able to be open on Mondays, and you see just folks overjoyed to find that, oh, in fact they are open on Mondays.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's good. We've had the same thing here in New York, places that used to be open until midnight, now close at 10:00. Today you have an entire restaurant group. You have AC Restaurants, a hospitality group that operates five restaurants, an events company, and a commissary kitchen. Can you walk us through the other four restaurants?
Ashley Christensen:
In order, so Poole's Diner, of course, was first in 2007. That is followed by Beasley's, which is our fried chicken joint. It's called Beasley's Chicken and Honey. And underneath Beasley's… So that's a fried chicken place that's full service, full bar, very fun.
Before the pandemic we had a restaurant called Chuck's, that is neighbor to Beasley's and shared a kitchen. Chuck's did not make it through the pandemic, but we did use that opportunity, or take that opportunity, to fold that dining room into Beasley's. So that allows us on really busy shifts, the ability, brunches, weekends, to seat a larger crowd of folks. It also gives us an intimate, private event space, which we've never had within a restaurant, which is super great for us. And so we're excited to be able to do more community events in that space. That's been a neat transition for us.
But that restaurant sits above Fox, which is our bar, and that's named for my father who actually passed during the pandemic. It's interesting, my father lived at the tip of the North Fork of Long Island in a little town called Orient, amazing place. But after he passed, we were settling his residence and I was able to take all this meaningful artwork and some different things that were really very meaningful to my father in his time out there and to bring them and to incorporate them into Fox.
So we have not reopened the bar yet, it is located in a basement. That wasn't the most popular idea during the pandemic, to take people down to a windowless space. But we will be reopening it in the first quarter of this year at some point, we're pretty close. But in the sadness of that loss, of losing my father, there is something really beautiful about this place, really having a whole different level of identity to the man for which it was named or for whom it was named. And so we're excited to reopen that and share it with the world. And after that-
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so sorry you lost your dad, Ashley.
Ashley Christensen:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't realize.
Ashley Christensen:
Thank you. I appreciate that. It was unrelated to COVID, but just one of those things. And he passed away 12:15 A.M. on New Year's Day, two years ago.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, wow.
Ashley Christensen:
And this year was really the first time I'd been able to catch my breath and see the beauty in that versus just the sadness and the grief.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh. And he was in Orient, I didn't know you-
Ashley Christensen:
He was in Orient, that's right.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't know you had a connection out here. I associate you so much with the South.
Ashley Christensen:
The South. So, yeah, he was in Orient for 30 years. And my brother actually lives in Southold.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh wow.
Ashley Christensen:
Pretty cool.
Kerry Diamond:
The Orient's so beautiful.
Ashley Christensen:
I love it. It's a very, very, very special place to us. But from there we have Death & Taxes, which is our wood-fire grill. For those curious, that's in a building that was a funeral home followed by a series of banks and that's where the name is rooted.
Kerry Diamond:
You took us on a tour of that space before it even opened-
Ashley Christensen:
That's right.
Kerry Diamond:
When we were down there. And that's a big space, you've got a lot of square footage in there.
Ashley Christensen:
It's an intimate restaurant. In the downstairs we've got a really beautiful original bank vault that houses the wine cellar for that building. But up above Death & Taxes, on two floors we have a private event space called Bridge Club.
And we've got on the second floor, a really beautiful demo kitchen space. So we host events there, book events for guest chefs, that sort of thing. And then we do dinners. I do cooking demos there. And the third floor we can seat about 120 people for dinner. So that's where our events department does a lot of their catering too. And then we do some offsite catering as well.
Most recent restaurant for us is Pooleside Pies, which shares a party wall with Poole's Diner, really beautiful, bright, airy space. We've got swim lanes tiled into the concrete floor that is in the dining room and fun little... What we like to be, little subtle details. The shelving suspended above the bars, when you look closely you realize they're like diving boards. And so lots of fun little elements to just kind of-
Kerry Diamond:
I can't wait to see that.
Ashley Christensen:
It's very entertaining, very light and bright space. But that's a Napoli inspired pizza and pasta place. We do some fresh extruded pastas, a beautiful wood-fire oven in the center of the space.
But Kaitlyn [Goalen], my wife, and I actually own that building, so that's our first commercial real estate and the-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, bravo.
Ashley Christensen:
Things of what we do. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Good for you.
Ashley Christensen:
I wish we owned them all. But this is a nice place if you will, to put our toe in the pool.
Kerry Diamond:
Owning real estate's a big deal, so congratulations.
Ashley Christensen:
It sure is it, sure is. But that's all within five blocks in Downtown Raleigh. And it's neat to have, we talked about that party wall, to have the oldest and the youngest of our two multiple concepts right there, bookending the idea.
And then just a couple of miles outside of town, a very short drive from the restaurants, is our commissary kitchen. And there we do our... It's a prep space for us, it's our HQ for our directors. It's where our pastry is prepped. So that's our space, our HQ space. And it's in an old sandwich factory that's called the Fisher Sandwich Factory. It's where they used to make the little triangle gas station sandwiches. So a neat free-standing space for us.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. How many employees today?
Ashley Christensen:
Today 170 employees and growing.
Kerry Diamond:
So we've mentioned Kait a few times, Kait Goalen is your business partner and your wife, she's your life partner. Some folks might remember Kait from Short Stacks, right? Was that the name of the...
Ashley Christensen:
Mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
I bet there are more than a few of you out there who have these in your cookbook collection.
Ashley Christensen:
Single ingredient cookbook series. And her and two partners, they were hand-illustrated and really beautiful, I want to say about 20 recipes based on an ingredient like buttermilk or tomatoes or lemons. So very fun.
And they actually went on to publish a full-length cookbook as well. And Kait has co-authored both of two books with me and the Poole's Diner book as well as It's Always Freezer Season. And she has been the writer for, co-authored with Chris Shepherd for Cook Like A Local, which made it to the James Beard list for cookbooks. And she's been involved in a number of publications. So that was her background before coming on board with the restaurants.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell Kait I said hi. And I miss her, and I miss Short Stacks. What is Kait role at the restaurant group?
Ashley Christensen:
Sure. Kait is the Executive Director and really runs the company. So it's given me a lot of space to work the way I like to work, which is focused on... I like to refer to myself as the head troublemaker in the company. I'm the one who comes back with big crazy ideas and I get to go to the table with some very smart people who push this through a vetting system. And that helps for us to decide what makes sense for us to do and what isn't quite a fit.
But she also has been such a huge part of, as we continue to evolve our culture, our relations with how we want to grow opportunities for folks in the company, she really heads all of that up and just does a beautiful job.
Kerry Diamond:
You personally have had quite the journey. You were very public last year about your road to sobriety and I thought that was incredible, that you shared that with everyone. So thank you. It's hard to be that honest with everybody, especially when you're a chef, when you're in the thick of the hospitality industry. What led to you sharing that, Ashley?
Ashley Christensen:
Yeah, I appreciate the question. I had been working on sobriety since, mildly at the close of the year before and then attempting with a little more energy, early 2022. For me, I think through the pandemic, through the world changing quite a bit and the loss of my father, some other very challenging situations and loss, I saw a shift for myself in how I engaged with alcohol.
And it's something that, as a disease, runs like many families, very thick in my family, on both sides of the family. So that was always in my head for sure. But I always had a very good... I feel I was known for really being able to hold my alcohol, which is... Come to find out, not the greatest trait. But I started to see that I was more prone to see it as a part of my schedule versus something that was just enjoyable to share with friends.
I started to think a lot more about my own anxiety, and over time my job has become much more public and much more out-there. And so I feel a lot of my life is on display. A part of my job is to go and to do cooking demos and to engage with larger crowds. And alcohol became a part of that, where after an event or if I was at someone's cocktail event, a drink was put in my hand at my request, I began to see that as part of just how I calmed down a touch before going into my role as someone who had a very public facing and has a very public facing job.
And then with loss and depression, I found that I, first of all, was drinking more on a regular schedule, was drinking more at times where I might be by myself. And that stood out to me, but I could see it as an issue. And being public about it to me was about accountability. I was at the time I think finding that I had created some dark corners for myself, that when I needed to be able to rely on this thing that had historically been somewhat of a crutch for me, it could still potentially be there.
So I liked addressing it publicly from an accountability standpoint and that really helped me personally. But then I quickly learned how many people it helped for me to be public about that. And so I made a post about it and we can pick that apart, right or wrong, I don't know. I know at the time it felt, what I needed to do for me, if I'm committed to allowing people into my life in this public way, then I need it to be something that helps me when it needs to help me as well.
So it was a commitment for me. The thing I've come to realize is that for a while as I tried to do it, I did it a little bit begrudgingly. And so I realize now, before, when I was successful, I was being compliant. And now I'm being committed to it. And there's a big difference in those two words. And so now I feel just a great deal of joy from that commitment. Not every day is easy, not every day is as hard as it used to be, but right now, tomorrow will be my 90th day of continued sobriety.
To me, it's not really early to speak about it because I've been trying for a while. I'm doing this like many people, day by day, but I'm very committed to it. I hope that my relapses or failures, openness about it can be inspiring to someone else who can't shake it because they're too locked on the shame of it. That's just a part of it. And to me, each day is a new opportunity to get that right.
I feel like a different human in the last 90 days. And I'll say one of the best things about it is, it's been a decade since I've slept well. And every night now, no matter what's going on I'm able to just flip the switch and go to sleep and wake up and go after the next day.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so happy to hear that. You're amazing, Ashley. Thank you.
Ashley Christensen:
Thanks.
Kerry Diamond:
For everything that you're doing.
Ashley Christensen:
I think we're at a really interesting time. I think that we are in the belly of a shift. That's a wonderful thing. I have a friend who is working through a similar journey and as we talk about it, I've said, I feel almost, even two years ago, this would've been so much harder than I feel like it is right now.
And she said, why do you say that? Why two years ago? And I just said, I think we look at the culture of the industry, how much more it is talked about, and I think about mentors I have in this industry across the country who are sober, who I was able at the beginning of this journey, with many relapses after, I was able to call these folks and start to talk through what this might look like. And over time they've just been such tremendous resources.
But also if you look at the conversation in the marketplace of our industry and you see so many different options and everyone has a different take on this as to, if that's the right thing for someone or not. But if you look at the NA [non-alcoholic] space right now and you see how many different products are available from the zero proof spirits that are in production and being celebrated, and the NA beers and specifically the 0% NA beers.
I think a lot of this conversation is on the table, thanks to a lot of great leaders. You're seeing at events and festivals zero-proof dinners popping up and gatherings around that. I think Ben's Friends is an awesome resource that I've utilized a number of times as an industry professional. And I think, the more that it's a part of the conversation, the more we take the stigma out of it, the more the issue of it is addressed. By supporting each other we stand a much better chance of living through it and living a better life.
I love seeing a zero-proof list set of options on a restaurant menu valued to the same level. And I know a lot of people who do drink but might get that cocktail. But more than anything, the comfort that it's able to provide to someone going through this. When you're in a restaurant rather they order it off of that list or not and to not just be handed a soda water with some cranberry juice in it, whatever it might be, that I have to say has a big effect.
And for me, it does two things. I sit down and I look at that list and I feel I want everyone to feel in a restaurant like I've been thought about, I've been considered. But it also brings some comfort to the people that I'm dining with, who know that I'm on this journey, that they're not worried about am I being taken care of. So I think it's nice to have that option just to take some of that edge off of the early stages of this and to have that option for anyone who wants to engage with it.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm glad you brought that up, because there are still some restaurants in New York City, fancy places that do not have a mocktail list. And I know we're going to have a lot of restaurateurs listening to this episode because they want to hear what Ashley is up to.
So if you have a restaurant with a cocktail list, you need to have a mocktail list. I sometimes want a mocktail, and then when there's no list, I'll say, oh, do you have any mocktails? And they'll say to me, well, what would you like? And I'm like, the chef would never ask that in a really nice place.
Ashley Christensen:
Sure.
Kerry Diamond:
It's not a diner, it's not... So I encourage anybody who's out there who influences what goes on in restaurants. Make sure you have a mocktail list.
Ashley Christensen:
And I'll tell you what, it's coming. I think we're going to see a very big shift in the alcohol industry. I just think there is so much more conversation around low ABV [alcohol by volume] and no ABV.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely.
Ashley Christensen:
So it's something. And what a great hospitality opportunity. And I think one that, if someone is looking at it and going, we only have so many people who come in and look for this, that number is increasing.
But also, even before being committed to this, I would notice that if it was an exceptional in a cocktail list. I'll tell you a couple of quick stories. Monteverde in Chicago, if you look at their zero proof cocktails, it's just a beautiful inspiring list, shout-out Sarah Grueneberg, absolutely.
I also was recently at, there's this great little pub restaurant, college bar here called The Players' Retreat, and I was there and I asked the bartender if they could make me a mocktail and in, I don't know, less than a minute and a half, he had delivered me the most beautiful zero proof tiki cocktail. And it was so delicious.
The conversation is growing. It's an important conversation. And yes, I'm with you. I want to see those options thought about. And again, it's just for us, those of us who love hospitality, drink or don't drink, this is just such a beautiful opportunity to elevate hospitality.
Kerry Diamond:
Ashley, how has all this changed you as a leader?
Ashley Christensen:
More than anything, I've been able to find my center again. And one of the very challenging things of the restaurant business, for me as I've grown as a leader is that this is, yes, we love to make food. Yes, we love to make experiences and spaces, but this is the people business and the most important thing that we do is work with individual people and personalities who are coming from all kinds of different circumstances, experiences.
And I think that as a leader, I have learned to just take that all in a different way and to provide opportunity to talk with people, to listen to people, and to take that and help it to... Or apply it in a way that helps our daily process evolve. That said, the personal part of it, the emotional part of it, it's easy to be overwhelmed by that. And historically, I have been a little more overwhelmed by that, and I now find that I'm able to breathe through things a little bit more. And to understand that someone may have come to the table having a bad day that day or their expectations of what they want to do with their future may have changed, but that doesn't change our dedication to what we want to do and how we want to do it.
So I think that I used to wear the emotional feedback of everything that happens in the restaurant industry a little bit more, whereas now I'm able to take things in, learn from the experience of it, but not let all that get in the way of my ability to do the job at hand and to see things calmly and clearly.
And I think that's more than anything, one of the biggest takeaways for me, realizing when I can see things with a little more calmness and clarity, I'm able to do my job in a much more meaningful way to the folks who count on me to do that job.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I'm happy to hear that. I'm thrilled we're going to get to talk about this a little bit more, at the Graduate Hotels event. We're going to have a fun panel and some fun speakers and everyone will get to mingle a bit and network.
For those folks who are new to the triangle area, what are some things they can't miss? Obviously your restaurants are top of that list and we now have a list of all your places that we can go to and check that off, but what else do folks need to see?
Ashley Christensen:
Oh yeah, thank you for that, but we love to be able to take folks to other spots for sure. There is a gentleman here named Michael Lee. He just opened a location in Cary in the Fenton area, but the majority of his restaurants are in Durham.
I think my favorite restaurant in the area is M Sushi, and that's his sushi restaurant. I just think it's such an incredible restaurant with the detail, the quality, and the experience as a whole. So I would definitely encourage folks to go see him there.
Kerry Diamond:
That was nice of you to mention another restaurant. I thought you were going to give us some fun tourist spots to check out.
Ashley Christensen:
I think that the city itself, for Raleigh, just walking around the streets of Raleigh I think is a really welcoming experience. Our downtown retail is pretty much all independent retail, so being able to walk around the area here I think is a great experience. Seeing music at any of the great music venues here. We tend to have a lot of different celebrations throughout the year, where you'll see a lot of different venues open up in a shared experience.
Our performing arts centers are wonderful, both in Durham and in Raleigh. But yeah, I think there's a lot of really cool independent food around that's worth checking out. We of course have Ricky Moore at Saltbox Seafood who won the James Beard Award for Southeast this year. He's in Durham.
I think that's one of the really neat things about the area, a fried seafood joint that brought home the James Beard Award. I think it speaks to the spirit of that food, the way he's able to convey stories through that food. Here in Raleigh we have an incredible donut shop called Bright Spot. It's new and they are partnered with the folks from Jubala Coffee, Andrew Cash.
I think they do a wonderful job. And their bread program here, they are partnered to, the ownership is shared with Boulted Bread. And they also have Benchwarmers Bagels. They do a fantastic job, they are grinding their own grain, et cetera, and just beautiful work. We just had Nancy Silverton in for a dinner and I had Josh [Joshua Bellamy], the baker from Boulted, stop by and bring her a few loaves and it was just amazing to watch them talk bread back and forth. So it is an experience to behold for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh good. I was going to ask you about some bakeries. So now I've got my list of things to check out. All right, let's do a little speed round-
Ashley Christensen:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
And then we will let you get back to your busy day. What is one of your favorite books on food?
Ashley Christensen:
I have so many cookbooks and books on food, but right now I'm just in love with Sarah Grueneberg’s Listen To Your Vegetables. I think, for me personally, she has been such an incredible food mentor, and I also, of course, have a lot of friendship woven into that book because of being used to how she teaches food. But it's a very fun book and I just think she is a brilliant chef with lots to share.
Kerry Diamond:
Best food movie?
Ashley Christensen:
I don't know if you've ever seen it Mostly Martha. It later was remade into, in my opinion, a less enjoyable film called No Reservations, which is the English version of it. But it's this goofy soundtrack, but beautiful food movie. And it's of course subtitled, it takes place in Germany. It's the story of a woman, her sister dies in a car accident and she inherits the child of her sister and raises her in this restaurant. So it deals with the challenges of restaurant, but the challenges of life, and it's a very pure, real food movie.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, wow. Okay. I don't know that movie. I'm adding it to my list. Okay. Favorite kitchen tool?
Ashley Christensen:
The tasting spoon.
Kerry Diamond:
Good one. I think you're the first one who's ever said that. One thing that's always in your fridge?
Ashley Christensen:
Duke's Mayo. And love it on a sandwich. I can't help but plug it, because it's just one of those great ingredients to have around that goes into a quick creamy vinaigrette, or we love mixing a little chili garlic crunch into that and dipping fried seafood in it, just our shortcut into delicious, creamy sauces.
Kerry Diamond:
You are going to turn off the Zoom when I say this, but I am a Hellmann's girl and I-
Ashley Christensen:
That's okay. I was raised a Hellmann's girl. I like the tanginess of the Duke's.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. I had to introduce Natalie [Chanin] from Project Alabama at the SFA [Southern Foodways Alliance] Symposium one year, and I thought I would be funny and talk about my Northern ways and how I don't understand sweetened iced tea or Duke's, and I think I got booed.
Ashley Christensen:
Stand your ground.
Kerry Diamond:
Exactly. Okay, so Duke's. Favorite childhood food?
Ashley Christensen:
This just came to mind for me the other day because of where this is in the news cycle, but I loved pastina when I was a kid, and I don't know if you saw, but they just stopped making it.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes, Ronzoni's not making pastina.
Ashley Christensen:
Stopped making it. And it just took me right back to picturing that little bowl of, just unsalted butter and salted pastina that my dad used to make for me. And I quickly went online to see if I could get some Ronzoni, but I bought a different brand just to have it around the house, like a little security blanket. I don't even know if I'll ever eat it, but it took me right back, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Snack food of choice?
Ashley Christensen:
I love having a little whipped tahini in the fridge. I feel it's such an easy thing to make, and to have this fresh experience of. But that, with just raw, crunchy vegetables, I just love crunchy raw vegetables dipped into something like tahini.
Kerry Diamond:
So when you say whipped tahini, you literally just take tahini and just aerate it?
Ashley Christensen:
I pop it into the Cuisinart or your food processor, get it going. If you want to start, a little garlic in there, some lemon juice, and you'll hear it break and you just add cool water into it until it takes on a totally dippable texture.
And it's an opportunity to add other delicious elements into. I like using black garlic with it. I'll add a little touch more sesame oil to bump up the sesame flavor of it. I like using white soy and regular soy sauce. I've added porcini mushroom paste into it, but it's just a great vehicle to secure that beautiful creamy texture. And I use the Soom tahini, I don't know if you're familiar with those guys, but those women do a beautiful job.
Kerry Diamond:
Footwear of choice in the kitchen?
Ashley Christensen:
As I grow older, I'm finding that the most important thing, of course, having a sole that doesn't slip in the kitchen, but for me, the most important thing is changing up my footwear, wearing something for a couple of days and then switching into something else. So I've got these low boots that I like to wear from Dansko. I love the Vans that are made for the kitchen.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't know there are a special Vans, kitchen Vans?
Ashley Christensen:
They've got a slightly different sole that doesn't slip, but also the ultracush insert interiors of the Vans. I feel all the Vans that I wear now are for people my age, that have the softer cushier insole.
Kerry Diamond:
And I bought special insoles for my Converse. I feel you.
Ashley Christensen:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a thing. All right. Any motto or mantra that you live by?
Ashley Christensen:
Keep going. I think “breathe” is definitely a part of it. I think anything that elevates my blood pressure a little bit, these days I'm able to bring it back to center and just breathe and balance things out a little bit. But to keep going. The world is changing in challenging ways, but great ways. And just to listen and just keep pushing.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Last question, and you can't say “Kait” for your answer. If you had to be stuck on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Ashley Christensen:
I'm going to say Gail Simmons. I love Gail, and I think she's just so positive and fun and down-to-earth. She'd keep you laughing. She's an amazing, amazing cook, the real deal. She's on TV and she's got the chops. But I enjoy her so much as a person. I could hang out on the island with Gail, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I love that. Gail's awesome. Yes, I would be stuck on an island with Gail, happily. Ashley, you are the bombe. Thank you so much for all your time and just everything you do, and we've known each other a long time and I'm just so happy to see what's going on in your world these days.
Ashley Christensen:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Chef Ashley Christensen for joining me today. Ashley, I miss you and I can't wait to see you soon. Don't forget, we'll be in Chapel Hill on Thursday, February 9th, at the Graduate Chapel Hill hotel for a special networking event with Ashley and other food friends. Tickets are on sale right now at cherrybombe.com. I would love to see you there. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tra La La. Thank you to our friends at CityVox for the audio production on this episode. And to producer Catherine Baker and associate producer Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You are the Bombe.