Casey Corn Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine and each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is Casey Corn. It's corn! How many times do you think poor Casey has to hear that? I'm so sorry, Casey, I couldn't resist. Anyway, Casey Corn is a chef, a culinary anthropologist, yes, she explains what that means during our interview. And she's the host of “Recipe Lost & Found” on the Magnolia Network. What else? Casey is on the cover of the latest issue of Cherry Bombe Magazine with some other Magnolia Network stars you might be familiar with. I hope you all saw the cover and have picked up this issue. Our managing editor and executive pod producer, Catherine Baker, wrote Casey's cover story. I chatted with Casey while I was in Atlanta the other week and loved learning more about this energetic, upbeat human being who is fueled by travel, curiosity and my favorite food group, mac and cheese. Stay tuned.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Austin, Texas for our Sit With Us dinner at Olamaie restaurant with OpenTable. It was wonderful getting to know Chef de Cuisine, Amanda Turner, and so many of you. I appreciate everyone who sent recommendations of where to eat and drink in Austin. Austin is simultaneously the coolest and hottest place to visit. Speaking of hot, hot, hot, tonight is our Sit With Us dinner at Zou Zou's in New York City. It is sold out. If you snag tickets, I will see you later. And then next week, we'll be at AOC in Los Angeles on Monday July 24th and at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco on Thursday July 27th. If you are going to be in town, come solo or bring a friend or two. You can book your tickets via cherrybombe.com under our events tab or visit the OpenTable app. Just look up AOC or Foreign Cinema on OpenTable and click the restaurant's experiences tab. I hope we get to see some of you on the West Coast next week. Thank you so much to OpenTable for partnering on the Sit With Us series and for supporting today's episode.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Casey Corn, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Casey Corn:
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so excited to say those words, this is your first time on Radio Cherry Bombe.
Casey Corn:
It is, I'm beside myself. I'm blushing right now.
Kerry Diamond:
The first thing I have to ask you, and this is probably the first thing everyone asks you and you still cheerfully answer the question, but what the heck is a culinary anthropologist?
Casey Corn:
Yeah, so I think it can mean a few different things. But for me, what it really all has to do with is the fact that everybody eats. A really great way to understand people, which is the whole basis of anthropology is let's translate people into a language we can understand is food. And since everybody is eating, whether they're eating what they want to eat, where they want to eat, how they want to eat, everybody is still eating. And that's a really phenomenal way to understand people, to understand who we are as communities. And that's something that I'm really passionate about is not just understanding it, but then taking that understanding and seeing what we can make of it. There's a lot of strife in this world and a lot of things that tear us apart and food should be the thing that brings us together.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you make up the term culinary anthropologist or did this exist?
Casey Corn:
I didn't make it up. I actually was really fortunate to have a professor in college who specifically studied food anthropology in a very different realm. His was more food ways, immigration, but I travel a lot and I realized that people wanted to see what I was eating. Anthony Bourdain obviously is the OG let me eat what you're eating. But for me, it was less about here's this cool unique thing I'm eating and more you can eat things like this too because rice is everywhere, beans are everywhere, tomatoes are everywhere. Regardless of what the ingredient is, it's accessible in some sort of way. I think for me, the idea of being able to make these Venn diagrams that are essentially more or less circles for people and have them understand like, "Yes, okay, I am in Japan eating this dish that probably don't eat at home because it's raw eggs coming from this farm right to this restaurant," maybe go to your farmer's market and talk to a farmer about their eggs and then maybe you can eat this dish at home.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're putting the pieces together.
Casey Corn:
Exactly. And then hopefully also, having people form communities with their farmers, their suppliers, making the connection between I pick up this pack of beef in the store and oh, there was a cow on the other end of that.
Kerry Diamond:
Because we have a lot of people who listen to the show who are in this field or who are career changers and curious about different kinds of careers, when did you figure out that culinary anthropology could be a career?
Casey Corn:
I think I'm still figuring out a lot. One of the first jobs I applied for was with Zero Point Zero Productions. I got a very kind email back from them saying basically we don't hire strangers, which fair, at the time everybody wanted to work with Anthony Bourdain.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. You should say Zero Point Zero is the production company behind all Bourdain shows, famously were the ones who started Bourdain's whole career.
Casey Corn:
Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
His whole career as a TV personality.
Casey Corn:
Yes. And then what became really what food and travel TV is today. I think I realized at that point, okay, I'm going to have to figure out how to do this on my own. I want to do what he's doing, but I might have to come at it from a different perspective because I'm also not a trained chef who's worked in restaurants for my whole life. I haven't written a cool book and I don't smoke cigarettes and swear. And I mean I'm a badass in my own right, but not in the way he was. I think as I grew and realized you need some credibility before someone will just pay you to eat on TV, I did become a classically trained chef. I did work in restaurants, I have worked in every aspect of the food industry.
And I realized that this idea of connection, of showing people yes, there are many unique things to go do, see, eat, there's also a lot of things that are the same regardless of where you are. And that's a pivot I think away from most travel TV that we don't get to see. And that's when I was like, "Oh, maybe this is the thing that's going to get me attention and separate me from everyone else," as I talk about how we shouldn't be separate. Sometimes you do need to be stamped out.
Kerry Diamond:
Sometimes you do, especially in the TV realm. Let's take it back a few steps. You mentioned that you did become a classically trained chef. You went to Le Cordon Bleu in London.
Casey Corn:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you decide to go to culinary school and why that school?
Casey Corn:
I feel like my life is a series of coincidences and I think most people can say that, but I actually met my husband at a club in France.
Kerry Diamond:
In Saint-Tropez, right?
Casey Corn:
In Saint-Tropez, yes. I was living-
Kerry Diamond:
That's very random, but continue.
Casey Corn:
Very random. I ended up in England visiting him and realized that the plans I had to travel were falling through and ended up getting a job as a nanny illegally in London for a while. It got to the point where I needed something else to do and I was actually looking at food anthropology programs in London, food photography, a million different programs. And my now husband said, "You love to cook. Why don't you go to culinary school?" And I was looking for a way to stay in England and I thought, "All right." I mean again, maybe I'll get some credibility if I can actually cook. And it was so hard. It was so much harder than college.
Kerry Diamond:
You got a little kicked in the ass?
Casey Corn:
Oh, totally. And I did just cuisine thinking okay, my partner lives here and so I'll do this nine months and then I can do pastry to get another nine months in England. And I was like... Let's just say I'll never be on the baking podcast because I can't bake to save my life.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have the basics when you got there or were you really starting from scratch?
Casey Corn:
I could cook, but really for me, one of the best parts about being in food is that there's always something to learn. I spent college feeling like I'm good at school. That's definitely where my intelligence is school, easy. And this was so different that I was just like I'm starting from scratch. Anything I know, I'd rather have them teach me the right way to do it. And I feel like that's also really helpful for going into kitchens. You can know how to julienne a vegetable, but every chef in every kitchen might want you to do it differently and instead of being like, "This is how you do it," you may as well just ask, "How do you want me to do this?" And so I think for me, I really was just like, "I'm a blank slate, teach me your ways." It was challenging. I mean the speed that they expected from you and the perfection even from the beginning was just... And I still can't turn a vegetables also to save my life. If you're like, "You're dead if you don't turn this potato," I'm dead.
Kerry Diamond:
So you go to Le Cordon Bleu in London, what happens next?
Casey Corn:
I realized that actually I loved cooking and being in kitchens and unfortunately because of the way that visas are in England, I couldn't stay in work. I did work for a really cool pop-up restaurant while I was in culinary school that was called The Basement Galley. It was basically run out of this transportation museum where they had an old tube coach and we cooked on the microwaves that have the electric stove top on was basically how the whole thing was done. And they were seven course meals all in this tube coach, it was awesome.
Kerry Diamond:
Was the food good?
Casey Corn:
The food was great. Yeah, no, it was really good.
Kerry Diamond:
I guess that just goes to prove you can make good food anywhere.
Casey Corn:
You can make good food anywhere. So I was working there, just visa issues were really challenging. And also I grew up in L.A., I had already been working on the coffee side, but I was a barista in Santa Monica where I grew up and so I knew a lot of food people already and I thought, "Well I'll just go work in a kitchen." I did a stage at Bucato, which is sadly no longer Evan Funke's original restaurant and he offered me a job on the spot, awkwardly because I could brunoise a vegetable I think. He definitely looked at my resume and was like, "Le Cordon Bleu London. Great, come on in."
I worked there not very long until my husband and I had gotten engaged at that point, we were going to do a long engagement, him in England, me in L.A.. And he called me and he was like, "I hate my job, they're not going to transfer me to L.A. We're getting married, I'm just coming." I was really excited about this long engagement actually. We were going to get married and I was like, "I'm really not ready for this." And he was like, "We're getting married so jump on board because it's happening right now."
Kerry Diamond:
There you go. And you're still together so something's working.
Casey Corn:
We are, nine years in November.
Kerry Diamond:
That's very sweet, Casey, congratulations. Take me back to your barista days because this was a little piece of your resume I knew nothing about.
Casey Corn:
I love coffee and I was such a coffee snob and now I'm like, "Is it hot? Is it caffeinated? I'm happy." So I worked at Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica in Brentwood. Excellent coffee if you have not been.
Kerry Diamond:
Whose coffee were they?
Casey Corn:
So at the time, they were doing someplace in Seattle, they were using Victrola maybe or another one with a V that I can't remember, and now they roast their own beans. But I had applied for jobs at Saveur, at Gourmet, at Bon Appetit, never got a response from anyone, which fair. I was graduated from college and was like, "I have a degree in anthropology." And I was trying to figure out what to do. All my friends were moving to New York because I went to school in Connecticut and my mom was like, "Just move home, don't spend the money. There's that great coffee shop, Caffe Luxxe, that we always go to and the baristas are so great. And none of them are just baristas, they're all filmmakers and writers and do all these amazing things and you should just probably get a job there."
Kerry Diamond:
She sounds like a loving, supportive mom. That's nice.
Casey Corn:
She's always behind me, that's for sure. It turned out that one of the reasons she wanted me to work there was there was this barista that she was convinced I was going to marry. Yeah. We are good friends but we are not, spoiler, not married. He also was in a relationship at the time, it was a whole funny thing, but lovely guy.
Kerry Diamond:
It sounds like a movie.
Casey Corn:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. If you are listening right now, you know that Cherry Bombe has a podcast. But did you know we also have a print magazine? We do and our latest issue is now available. Maybe you've never bought a magazine in your entire life or you're a print nerd like me. Either way, I'd love for you to check out our magazine. Each issue is thick and gorgeous and printed on lush paper at an independently owned family run printer in Rhode Island. The pages are filled with great stories, profiles, features, photographs and recipes. You can subscribe via cherrybombe.com. We have a variety of subscription options for you. If you want to buy copies of Cherry Bombe for your entire team, office, or class, we also have wholesale bundles available in packs of five, 10, or 20. You can also pick up a copy of Cherry Bombe at your favorite bookstore, magazine shop, or culinary store, places like Now Serving in Los Angeles, Le Dix-Sept Pâtisserie in San Francisco, Jayson Home in Chicago, Dear Mom in Indianapolis and Golden Fig Fine Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota. Happy reading and thank you for supporting Cherry Bombe.
Talk to me about the travel, you are a travel bunny.
Casey Corn:
I am. If I had my way, I would not own a home in Atlanta, I would be on the road all the time figuring out how to just work my way through kitchens around the world. But it's so not my husband and he's a good sport. He really is happy to get on a plane and go travel with me. I just always loved doing new things and eating new foods. I don't know what started it really, but I went to school in Connecticut after growing up in L.A. I was like, "Get me far away." And then none of my friends were surprised when I married someone who wasn't American. One of the great things about my husband is the first time we traveled together, he had a work trip to Barcelona. I was in culinary school and I had my term break or something and he was like, "Just come meet me in Barcelona." I'm sorry to all the English people listening to this, but English people really, or at least my husband's friends, sorry guys, they're bad travelers. They go to the most expensive resort, they stay there the whole time.
Kerry Diamond:
Casey is generalizing, but continue.
Casey Corn:
Yes, very much generalizing. And so my husband, when we went to Barcelona and he met me after work the first day, I was like, "I already hit these four markets, I've tried these six things." And he was like, "Okay, so now we're going to, I don't know, maybe just hit the pool at a hotel." And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no. We're going to Sagrada Familia, we're going to do all these things." And I've booked us this one dinner. And he was like, "This sounds horrible." And by the end of the trip he was like, "I will never not let you plan a trip again." So because we lived in L.A. for years and we would get invited in the wedding years to a gajillion weddings in England, we would always make a big trip of it and do a week or two just bopping from country to country to country. So we had a wedding in Israel, a friend of mine from Birthright that I did.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you did Birthright?
Casey Corn:
I did Birthright.
Kerry Diamond:
Shout-out to Lauren Goldstein, Cherry Bombe alum. Lauren loved Birthright, I learned all about it through Lauren.
Casey Corn:
Oh my goodness, yes. I did one of the first culinary trips, that was amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks what it is.
Casey Corn:
So Birthright is essentially a government sponsored trip to Israel that you get if you can slightly prove you're Jewish. There's all these different companies that run a million different trips and really to be honest, their goal is to get you to move to Israel. So you have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt, but you can pick any sort of trip. And they've extended the ages now. It used to be from 18 to 27 and I think now there's younger ones and you can go up to 31. So if you are all Jewish listening to this, get your free trip to Israel.
Kerry Diamond:
Good advice.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
What was the food highlight?
Casey Corn:
Oh God, where were we? I think we were in Spot, which is the home of Kabbalah and there was some wrap place, random wrap. I don't even know. It was excellent. It was this rap with this pink slushy thing, it was so good. And then all the markets are just insane in Israel. You could walk around for hours and hours and hours and never run out of things to eat.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, sounds amazing.
Casey Corn:
One of the Israeli soldiers that was on my trip, because they always put Israelis on the trip too so they can have experience and it's a really highly coveted thing for young Israeli people is to get on Birthright, and he and I are still really good friends. He invited me and my husband to his wedding in Israel. It was one of the most fun weddings I've ever been to. And we had a wedding in England the week later. So we went to Israel, then we went to Tbilisi in Georgia, we went to Vienna, Budapest and then went to England.
Kerry Diamond:
You're one of those people with extra pages in your passport.
Casey Corn:
I am. And now that they do the electronic gate, I'm like, "Why did I get all these pages? Just stamp me, please."
Kerry Diamond:
I know. I love a stamp on my passport.
Casey Corn:
Love a stamp.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, we're going to make our next leap.
Casey Corn:
Great.
Kerry Diamond:
Susan Feniger, the iconic chef from Los Angeles and TV Trailblazer.
Casey Corn:
And TV Trailblazer.
Kerry Diamond:
“Too Hot Tamales.”
Casey Corn:
Indeed. When my husband decided, "I'm moving to America, we're getting married," working as a line cook didn't cut it for visa purposes and sponsoring him. So I started looking for a new job and my brother's girlfriend at the time, her roommate was Susan Feniger's assistant. I know, follow that one. She was leaving her job and I got a call from my brother's girlfriend being like, "Is this something you might be interested in?" And I was like, "Absolutely yes." I'd been going to Border Grill in Santa Monica for my whole life. RIP to Border Grill in Santa Monica. Got the job and was basically by her side for almost two years. I have literally nothing but unbelievably wonderful things to say about her. She is the kindest, hardest working chef I've ever met. Everyone should aspire to be in a room with Susan for 10 minutes and just get some of that good juju.
Kerry Diamond:
She's such an energizer bunny.
Casey Corn:
I still don't know how she does it. It's unbelievable. And she's still doing it and they're opening in Palm Springs. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, she just doesn't stop."
Kerry Diamond:
And she also gives back to her community. I know she does, you probably know more than I do.
Casey Corn:
She does every single food festival charitable event that she's asked to do. She's majorly involved in the L.A. LGBT community. She used to do this event Simply Divine, that was for the L.A. LGBT Center. That's one of the most fun food events in L.A. I mean literally everything. If you ask her for a signed cookbook, if you ask her to show up to something, she just does.
Kerry Diamond:
What would you say is the main thing you learned from her?
Casey Corn:
Everything. I think she would say that the thing she tried to teach you the most is to be humble. You're only as good as how hard you're working. There's so many people who just start coasting or become successful and forget the little people, and that's something I've experienced in my own life too. I grew up in the TV industry in L.A. and it's interesting to see really it takes more than a village, it takes an entire city to make projects like TV, like restaurants happen. It's not just about you as the chef, as the person whose name is on the restaurant whose face is on the stuff, it's everyone. And if we could do it alone, I don't know, I guess people-
Kerry Diamond:
That's called social media, it's called TikTok.
Casey Corn:
Yeah. And that's not what I want to do personally.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Great transition to your TV show on Magnolia Network. Tell us how it came to be.
Casey Corn:
So speaking of social media, I guess I'd been posting stuff with the hashtag food anthropology and I got an Instagram message from a producer just saying, "Hey, I saw you're a food anthropologist. I'm looking for someone for a TV show that's not just in academics. And no, this isn't a scam," which I'd been getting the DMs from the 900 casting agencies that do “Chopped” and all those things every day and just deleting because I just don't want to be on a food competition show.
Kerry Diamond:
You are.
Casey Corn:
Oh, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And we'll talk about that in a little bit. It's one of my favorite new competition shows, but “Recipe Lost & Found.”
Casey Corn:
Oh my goodness. Yeah. So we had a conversation, I think I was standing on Broadway and 18th or something in a shop nook, just trying to hear her on this phone call. And she pitched me this great idea for a show, which at the time had a big travel aspect to it. So if you don't know, my show is about I help people recreate lost family recipes, which I think resonates with everyone. The original show was your grandmother is from Minnesota, but she actually grew up in Greece and she makes this really good lasagna and nobody's ever been able to figure it out. And so we would go to the little small town in Greece where she grew up where we would realize oh, well she had access to this unbelievable, really unique cheese that she would then try to buy in Minnesota when she immigrated, but she couldn't find it.
So actually, her lasagna uses a spiced cheddar or something that you would never figure out because why would you use a spice cheddar in your lasagna? Unfortunately with things the way they are, travel is really expensive for TV shows. So that got cut. But we shot a sizzle reel in November 2019, I was back in L.A. for Thanksgiving.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks what a sizzle reel is.
Casey Corn:
Basically just a little video that encompasses what's the idea of the show and who you are, and then that's something you can send to networks before pitching and they can be like, "Yeah, tell us more." So we pitched to Hulu, to Chrissy Teigen and David Chang's team. We pitched to Disney+.
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a long process pitching.
Casey Corn:
Oh my goodness. And also, so we shot this reel in 2019 and then obviously the whole world shut down. So we were doing not in-person pitches, we were doing Zoom pitches. It's hard when you have 80 people on a Zoom and they all are there for a different reason or taking notes for someone and everybody has questions and it's much easier to do in-person. So yeah, we ended up pitching to Magnolia who loved it and wanted to film a pilot. So we did a pilot July 2021 in L.A. and then waited and waited because that's the nature of television is it's a lot of hurry up and wait, as my dad would say. And then got picked up for three more episodes, which we filmed in New York in early 2022. And then randomly got another pickup for six more episodes that we filmed September, October, November 2022. And now, it's all out in the world. And you should watch it because it's excellently cute and heartwarming. And I cry every episode and I know what's going to happen.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so heartwarming. And you really seem to have found a nice home for yourself.
Casey Corn:
I love Magnolia Network, I can't say enough good things about them. And I'm not just doing the diplomatic thing of being nice on a podcast. I really grew up in the film industry, I know how horrible it can be. They're excellent.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. And I think their food programming is so nice. There's a real emphasis on education.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Community. And you don't necessarily find that on a lot of food TV. There is so much emphasis on competition.
Casey Corn:
No. So much emphasis on competition, so much emphasis on here's how you do it. So much stand and stir and look in the camera and be in your beautiful kitchen, which there is a place for all of these shows. But Magnolia's really doing something different. And yes, all the people in front of the camera are excellent. The people behind the camera are excellent too, they're just awesome.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Even the stand and stir shows, as you call them, they're making things from scratch which is so nice.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And listen, everybody loves a shortcut except for those of you who don't. But I can't remember who it was who told me, but maybe it was Zoë [François] or one of the other women on the cover that they had talked to other networks but there was a fear about making things from scratch.
Casey Corn:
Yes. And then I pull out the already made one from my oven.
Kerry Diamond:
There seems to be no fear of cooking and baking from scratch on Magnolia Network.
Casey Corn:
No. One episode I did was this Italian Easter cake, Pastiera Napoletana. And again, I don't bake, but I tried to make this at home. It is a three-day process to make this thing. It's difficult and it requires really specific ingredients to get right. We were trying to figure out how do you film, because my show films in four days, how do you film a three-day process when you only have four days and you only get one of those days for cooking? And usually, we only get one day for cooking and we also have to film the eating that day. This time we were like, "There's no way we're going to make that happen."
And we managed to find this expert who makes 50 every year for her friends and family. And we did a couple shortcuts because you just can't show without the swaps. But then we sat and we waited for 50 minutes while it baked and it's like what do you do? We don't have a thing to eat, we don't have interviews to film. And so we all just hung out for 50 minutes while this thing baked because you got to do what you got to do. And most shows would not do that. They would have you filming something else while you're waiting and Magnolia lets the magic happen.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. My gateway drug into Magnolia was not “Fixer Upper,” Joanna's [Gaines] show, which although now I love, it was Erin French's “The Lost Kitchen.” And we did a cover story in Erin French.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
She is endlessly fascinating. And I watched the show and I just loved the pace and how real it was and how the drama was not like “Real Housewives” drama.
Casey Corn:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
It was like, "Oh, no, the scone dough is too wet."
Casey Corn:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And the scallops didn't show up, and I was like this is so refreshing.
Casey Corn:
Because that's real life drama is the scallops didn't show up.
Kerry Diamond:
In a kitchen.
Casey Corn:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You said you'd never want to do competition shows, but ha-ha, you're on a competition show and it's a really lovely one. It's “Silos Baking Competition.”
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's also on Magnolia Network and it stars our friend Zoë François, AKA “Zoë Bakes,” who's also on the cover. Andrew Zimmern has been on a few. He's a brilliant guy, I've heard him speak a few times.
Casey Corn:
Oh my goodness.
Kerry Diamond:
He's mind-blowing. And Joanna, and it's such a lovely show. It's like America's answer to “The Great British Bake Off.”
Casey Corn:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
And a nice prize, $100,000.
Casey Corn:
Oh my goodness, way better prize than “Great British Bake Off.”
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. You get $100,000 and your baked good goes into the “Silos Baking Co.” bakery in Waco, Texas.
Casey Corn:
Yes, which also don't tell me who wins if you know because I haven't watched the-
Kerry Diamond:
I don't.
Casey Corn:
Okay, good.
Kerry Diamond:
It was so funny watching all of you because I was trying to get into your heads and you're all trying to be so nice to the contestants, but the stories are very heartwarming. When they showed the little vignettes on all the bakers.
Casey Corn:
Basically when I was pitched, "We'd like you to come be a judge," the show looked very different and had a technical challenge. And apparently Jo was like, "But I want everyone to win and I don't really want to do a technical challenge." And also it's disgustingly hot in Waco in September, October.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a lot of conversation about the buttercream.
Casey Corn:
You absolutely have to because it was so hot.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's outside.
Casey Corn:
It's outside, yeah. And it's not in a tent like “Great British Bake Off,” it is outside. And I was actually filming the last episode of a series of what we were filming for my show. And my phone's on silent right now, I'm good about phones off. And we were doing the final emotional taste in one of the episodes of my show and I hear a vibrating and I'm like, "Whose phone... Oh, it's mine." And it was the producer from “Silos Baking” calling me in a panic saying, "We need you to actually get here on Tuesday if possible to do another episode. We need you to fill into Andrew who's been invited to the White House." I was like, "Okay."
Kerry Diamond:
Just that.
Casey Corn:
Just that. So I show up and unfortunately I've been to Waco, I'm familiar with all the Magnolia stuff. And they were like, "Cool, cool. So basically Andrew's job is to be the constructive criticism guy."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, see, I thought Zoë was the constructive criticism guy.
Casey Corn:
Well she's the constructive criticism guy who does baking, this specific technique is wrong. But she would never actually say that. Jo is just her magical self.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I could tell it was painful that Jo had to pick winners and do things like that. Yeah.
Casey Corn:
Which I don't blame her because I didn't want to do it either.
Kerry Diamond:
Everybody gets a gold star.
Casey Corn:
And then they were, "Basically, we need you to be the tough guy." And I was like, "But nobody even knows who I am. My show, I don't think most of it had aired yet." So I really was thrown in on, "We need you to be a little tougher." I think the first episode I did, you can tell that I'm still a little, "What am I even doing here?" And by the second episode I'm like, "Oh, I've got this. I'm really good." And I will say I was tougher than what you see on the show. They really cut a lot of the anthropological side of things where I'd be like, "Well you named it this, but I'm really not getting from the texture why you named it this," but constructively. But it was so fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you channeling Gordon Ramsey or something on there? What were you-
Casey Corn:
Oh, I think I was nicer than him, who also I've heard is the nicest guy in real life. I have a few friends that have worked for him.
Kerry Diamond:
I do want to interview him as part of the issue that we did, it's all about food TV.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
We have our TV hot list and it's our favorite streaming stars and icons and up and comers, and we have Nyesha Arrington in there who-
Casey Corn:
Of course, who was the last chef I worked for actually.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, get out, at which of her restaurants?
Casey Corn:
At Leona, that was my last kitchen job.
Kerry Diamond:
That's very cool. I adore her. And she's on that “Next Level Chef” with Gordon Ramsey. And like I said, I don't really love competition shows, although I love “Silos.” I think we're similar in that.
Casey Corn:
Same. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
But I'm obsessed with “Next Level Chef.” I've watched nothing with Gordon. I only watched it because of Nyesha. And I was like okay, first off, they spent a boatload of money on this and Gordon is the master of the competition show, hands down. You have to watch it.
Casey Corn:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Just watch the first episode. You will laugh so hard and you're going to text me and be like, "Oh my God, this set is..." And you don't even know if it's real. You're like, "Is this some-"
Casey Corn:
CGI.
Kerry Diamond:
But Nyesha's great, Gordon's great. Anyway, so very different show from Silos. So take your pick. Okay, we're running out of time with you. Mac and cheese, you too and I share an outsized love for mac and cheese.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
How did it start for you?
Casey Corn:
Someone asked me this the other day and I can't even really remember what the actual impetus was, but when I was living in Venice Beach, I started randomly hanging out with Feastly, which doesn't really exist anymore. It was a platform where chefs could host popup dinners and they would sell tickets for you and now it's ChefsFeed. But they had this great space around the corner for me. I even helped pick out some of the decor because I used to hang out with the, I don't even know what his title was, but we used to hang out all the time. They were like, "Let us do a dinner with you. What do you want to do?" And I was like it'd be fun to do a five course mac and cheese dinner. And it was a starter, a salad, a main or two and then a dessert, mac and cheese.
Kerry Diamond:
My God, I'm ready to pass out. This is the best sounding thing ever.
Casey Corn:
It was so fun. And I did a few of them and then I moved to Brooklyn and just felt like I didn't really have the connections.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, what was the dessert course?
Casey Corn:
So I do this dessert, mac and cheese, that's mascarpone, baking spices, berry compote. It's just excellent. It's like a mac and cheese version of rice pudding. So that was the mac and cheese entry. And then when I would go to a party with friends, it'd always be like, "Can you bring mac and cheese?" And so I just was always doing mac and cheese. And when I moved to Brooklyn, it all just stopped. When the pandemic hit and everybody was doing pandemic pivots, I had 12, I had fourth floor foods where I would do pantry items and people could order them through Instagram and I'd drop them out of my fourth floor window.
And then when March Madness got canceled, my husband works in sports marketing and he was like, "There's got to be something you could do with March Madness." And I was like, "How about March Mac'ness?" NCAA, please don't send me a season desist. I stole your logo but I did it from scratch. I decided to do this. I did a bracket, I somehow managed to get some food companies to sign up to do prizes. I don't even think I had really any sponsors that first year. And people loved it and decided to do it again. And I got a lot more sponsors. Sfoglina Pasta is a sponsor every year.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that pasta.
Casey Corn:
I love it. They do all my pasta. I do most of their recipe development.
Kerry Diamond:
They have a Diaspora collab, they have a turmeric one.
Casey Corn:
They do.
Kerry Diamond:
That's really cool.
Casey Corn:
I did all the recipe development for that.
Kerry Diamond:
You did?
Casey Corn:
Yeah. It's excellent. Try that pasta if you haven't tried it. But yeah, so I'm going into my fourth, fifth year of doing March Mac'ness. Last year, Tabasco sponsored an entire division. Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont sponsored a whole division. This year, I think Le Gruyère AOP is sponsoring a division. It's just become this really hilarious-
Kerry Diamond:
You've got to take it to the masses, Casey.
Casey Corn:
If anybody has an idea of how to get this in real life situation, let me know because right now I live in Atlanta and I can't like ship mac and cheese to people.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's do a speed round.
Casey Corn:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, this isn't a speed round question, but I'm sure people ask you this all the time because they ask me this question all the time. Is Corn your real last name?
Casey Corn:
Corn is my real last name. And just to double down, Love is actually my middle name.
Kerry Diamond:
Stop.
Casey Corn:
Yeah. My mom's last name is Love and my dad's last name is Corn. So I really found the perfect-
Kerry Diamond:
Why don't you have a popcorn brand or something?
Casey Corn:
Everybody sends me those little pictures of the little packages of that Love Corn corn nuts brand.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh.
Casey Corn:
They make corn nuts.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, they might send you a cease and desist.
Casey Corn:
They can take it up with my lawyer.
Kerry Diamond:
Casey Love Corn.
Casey Corn:
Casey Love Corn, it's my real name.
Kerry Diamond:
Aw. Okay, speed round.
Casey Corn:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Coffee, tea, or something else. How do you start your day?
Casey Corn:
Coffee, coffee, coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you take it?
Casey Corn:
At home with oat milk, at Starbucks with vanilla and whipped cream.
Kerry Diamond:
For real?
Casey Corn:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Never heard a chef admit to a drink like that.
Casey Corn:
You figure out how to make it exactly what you want and if you don't have to say just three drops of cream.
Kerry Diamond:
Treasured cookbook or food book or food memoir.
Casey Corn:
Honestly, my most used food book is the “Oxford Encyclopedia Food.” It's my Bible. I keep it on me, I take pictures of it for when I travel. That is my number one food book.
Kerry Diamond:
Makes sense as a culinary anthropologist. Footwear of choice in the kitchen.
Casey Corn:
Barefoot.
Kerry Diamond:
Barefoot. Okay, what about professional kitchen?
Casey Corn:
The clogs, Dansko Clogs.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Favorite food film?
Casey Corn:
I don't even know the answer to that one. Can I get back to you on that?
Kerry Diamond:
Sure, sure. People say “Big Night”, “Ratatouille.”
Casey Corn:
Oh, “Ratatouille,” for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. “Ratatouille's” great.
Casey Corn:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I just went to Disneyland Paris and went on the “Ratatouille” ride.
Casey Corn:
Oh my God. I mean that is, sorry to interrupt the speed round, but that is always my pitch for my show is the part at the end where Anton Ego's sitting there and he takes the bite and you zoom in through his eyes and he's sitting there crying, eating his little mom's Ratatouille. And then it zooms back out and he's crying, first of all, I cry every time. And second of all, that's what I want to do with my life.
Kerry Diamond:
I hear you. If you have no idea what we're talking about, you have to watch the movie “Ratatouille.” Most used kitchen implement.
Casey Corn:
Either my hands or microplane.
Kerry Diamond:
Song that makes you smile.
Casey Corn:
Embarrassingly my husband and I have gotten really into country music since we moved to the South. How can you cry over country music? It's all so happy.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there one song?
Casey Corn:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
That you love? Okay, just country music in general.
Casey Corn:
Just country music is what we're into.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. And if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Casey Corn:
I think Anthony Bourdain. I never got to meet him and he's the person who has inspired my entire life and career, so for sure Tony.
Kerry Diamond:
Well Casey, I'm so sorry to end this. I'm so happy to have you as a new friend. Thank you for bringing all your wonderful energy to the new issue of Cherry Bombe. I'm thrilled you're a cover star for us.
Casey Corn:
Oh, I'm so excited. Thank you for just letting me be a part of this amazing community. It's like no other.
Kerry Diamond:
Aw, thank you for your time, Casey.
Casey Corn:
Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Want to stay on top of all things Cherry Bombe? Of course you do. Sign up for our free newsletter at cherrybombe.com. Learn about the week's podcast guests, upcoming events and fun news from the world of restaurants, cookbooks, cake artistry and more. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.