Dan Levy and Sohla El-Waylly 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. Each week, we feature interviews with the coolest culinary personalities around. Regular listeners will hear that I have a touch of laryngitis. I talked way too much at our Cooks & Books Festival this past weekend and probably need to stop talking for a little bit. But not just yet, because I am very excited about today's pod.
We have two amazing guests, Dan Levy and Sohla El-Waylly from The Big Brunch, a fun new show that debuts tomorrow Thursday, November 10th, on HBO Max. Dan, who many of you know from Schitt's Creek, loves the chef community and came up with the idea for a kinder, gentler, culinary competition built around his favorite meal. Dan joins me from London for a chat about The Big Brunch judges and contestants, his love of brunch and his strong opinions about maple syrup. Stay tuned.
In the second half of the show, I chat with Sohla, who is one of the judges on The Big Brunch. I got a chance to hang out with Sohla and 9 of the 10 Big Brunch contestants this past weekend to Cook & Books because I moderated our Big Brunch panel featuring Sohla, fellow judge Will Guidara and exec producers, Andrew Fried and Sarina Roma of Boardwalk Pictures.
I'm happy to report The Big Brunch bunch is a great group of people. Fun fact, the contestants like each other so much that some of them got matching tattoos. That is true love. No? Speaking of love, thank you to our Cooks & Books partners Kerrygold, the makers of beautiful butter and cheese, Ace Hotel Brooklyn, and Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore. Now, let's hear from today's sponsor.
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All right, let's check in with Dan Levy. Dan Levy, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Dan Levy:
I'm so happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
We're so happy to talk to you. I'm such a big fan, so thank you for making the time.
Dan Levy:
Oh goodness, of course.
Kerry Diamond:
So let's talk about the origin story of The Big Brunch. How did the idea come about?
Dan Levy:
It came to me as I was going to bed one night. I had a lot of friends that were affected by the pandemic, friends who worked in the culinary arts, chefs, people who did pop-ups, people who could no longer do what they did because of the lockdown. I find chefs to be the greatest people. I find feeding people to be just the most generous, beautiful act of kindness. And it inherently comes from this loving place of wanting to make people happy.
And as a food enthusiast, I am very grateful and emotionally tied to all of my friends that make beautiful food. And I just thought, well, I wonder if there's a world that we can kind of do our part to not only showcase the stories of these chefs, but also offer them a platform to be seen, offer them an opportunity to build their careers, build the exposure of their careers, and ultimately compete for an amount of money that was meaningful to actually move the dial for whatever it was that they wanted to do with their specific business, whether it was a pop-up, whether it was opening a restaurant, whether it was catering, whether it was expanding a baked goods business.
And I wanted-
Kerry Diamond:
It's a nice amount of money. We're definitely going to talk about that in a minute.
Dan Levy:
Yeah, of course. Well, because I don't want the show to feel performative, you know what I mean? I want it to have a real lasting impact on whoever wins. That was really important to me. What was also equally as important was that we tell their stories in a really meaningful way, which is why I went to Boardwalk, who does Chef's Table that I've loved for so long, and I think has really revolutionized the idea of talking about food and telling the stories of chefs in a way that is so textural and exciting and romantic and sexy.
And I just knew that they were the right partner to really elevate this show. I didn't want it to feel like anything else we'd seen before. And I pitched it to them, they wanted to do it. We took it to HBO Max, they bought it instantly. It all becomes quite a quick and lovely experience, which is the opposite of what television normally is, which is arduous and you're waiting for people to bite.
It came quite organically. And so we found 10 chefs, local chefs, who were each making a difference within their communities. And we tell their stories and we share their dreams, their aspirations for whatever it was that they want to do. It was important to us that each of these chefs tell a different story. And for me, I'm such a lover of brunch. I think it's my favorite meal of the day.
It's social. It's often a place where friends come together and share stories of their weekends or in slightly more emotional cases where you come together to really have meaningful conversations. And it felt like a world that I hadn't seen on television before and yet it was my favorite meal to challenge, not only what that could mean for a viewer but also what it could mean for a chef who's coming at it with their own perspective, challenging the idea of what brunch can be to people.
It was the most lovely time. And when you get into the unscripted world from scripted, I think a lot of people raise an eyebrow being like, "Why do you want to do this?" And it gets into your head. And at one point I sort of thought, "Well, was this just sort of an idea that came to me in the pandemic? And now the dust is settling, and is this something that I should be doing?"
And then the minute, the first day we started making the show, I realized, oh, there was something much more profound to all of this that I had never even imagined. And that was what those chefs would bring to this show. It was so life affirming. It was so feel good. It was so wonderful after two years of a very bleak time in all of our lives to be surrounded by people who just wanted to improve the lives of others.
Kerry Diamond:
It definitely is a kinder, gentler competition show. But I'm curious how you can steer a show in that direction when you essentially have strangers competing with each other.
Dan Levy:
Well, it turns out good people just only make other good people better people. There was a lot of people questioning, "Well, could it keep its edge? Would it be interesting if you didn't have conventional sort of conflict," which is what we've seen a lot in competition-based unscripted television, which is TV that has to be predicated on people out to get each other or sabotage each other.
And I just had a very clear idea with this. I knew that if we got the right people, that it would be something really transformational in terms of, yeah, you can be funny. Yes, you can be interesting. Yes, you can have meaningful conversations. Yes, you can have cocktails thrown at people. Yes, you can maybe sip one too many cocktails in a day and have a kind of an off-the-rails conversation about something that has nothing to do with the show.
There is a kind of freedom to the format that felt really exciting. And I think for people who watch it, our hope and our goal was that you would feel like you were sitting down with some friends at brunch and watching people have a good time.
Kerry Diamond:
I got so swept up in the first episode, I actually forgot that you had to send someone home. And I started to think, "Oh, maybe they don't send people home in this show," but you do.
Dan Levy:
Oh yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I think what always struck me with certain types of competition shows is that it feels like people didn't take into consideration the fact that the people that came to compete are human beings who have to go back to their lives. And you can't exploit these people. You have to honor them. You have to honor the fact that these people have taken time out of their lives to come and share their stories and cook and challenge themselves.
So sending people home was always sort of the hardest part because we had to find a way of sending them off on a note that felt celebratory, sending them off on a note that felt respectful to the time that they had taken to come and be with us. And I think we did it. And what was really fascinating that I think caught the chefs off guard too was the fact that even when they did go home, they were obviously upset, but they were happy for the other chefs.
And talking to them at the end of an episode, someone who would go home, I would obviously talk to them after the show. And that was another thing that I think we get to see on the show that doesn't happen a lot is the conversation after. We get to stay with the chef and allow them to tell their story one last time or send a message to the people watching at home about what it is they want to stand for and what they've taken out of the experience.
It's very respectful of the fact that this is just the beginning of this person's career. And I think what I reminded them of in the early days too is that you have to seize the opportunity. You're still going to be on TV. This isn't just a competition. It's an opportunity for you to have a platform. Use it wisely.
Kerry Diamond:
Another way you would get them, Dan, is with the prize money. And it's $300,000. It's not an insignificant amount of money. And you can do a lot with that. Like you said, you can open a restaurant, you can eat your way around the world a few times. Buy a lot of truffles if you want to blow it on something like that. Are there any restrictions on how the winning chef can use the money?
Dan Levy:
I don't believe so. It was really important to me that the money be something that was meaningful. I said it sort of earlier, because otherwise it just feels performative. And I think people who work in the culinary world will catch on to something like that, especially if we're going to have people talk about their lives and their businesses and what they want. And if we're going to ask them to go through the processes of really showing us over the course of a season what they want, how they want it, why they want it, how they're going to go about doing it, all of those things, business proposals.
The last episode, they have to really convince us that they will make something of their business with this money. It had to be significant because I really want the stories that they tell to continue, and I really want to be able to follow up with them and know that that money went into something really, that it was of value. And it wasn't just a token of appreciation, that we were quite literally putting our money where our mouths were when it came to just supporting. It was a very ambitious, smart, talented group of people. So I have no doubt that the lucky person that won will spend it thoughtfully.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I can't wait to see who it is and what they do with it. I also love that it's HBO Max and they don't drop everything all at once. The finale is we've got to watch every show until the end.
Dan Levy:
Yeah, it was a great little model because we give enough to get you into the show and then we got away for it. It was important that we get people invested and that they look forward to seeing what happens. Because I think the stories are really sweet and these people are just, they'll melt your heart. So isn't that what you want over the holidays?
Kerry Diamond:
It is, absolutely. Dan, tell me about your fellow judges. How did you decide on each of them and what do you feel each brings to the party?
Dan Levy:
Well, for me, it was important to have three different perspectives sitting around the table. I was always intended to be a liaison between the chefs and the judges, and that I was coming at it from an enthusiast's perspective that I don't have the vocabulary, I don't have the experience, I don't have the education. It's not my world. I come at it from a sort of fan perspective, which I think is a valuable one to have when you're judging something.
But it had to be offset with very credible voices. And Sohla is just such a dream, and she is so deeply funny and dry and smart and articulate when it comes to the feedback. I think what's going to really surprise people is that the feedback that they get. And I think what we've seen a lot in competition shows is just kind of, it's either this is bad or this is good.
But the constructive criticism that's offered from both Sohla and Will Guidara, who I'll speak about in a sec, it's really constructive and it's really helpful. And the chefs really learned from them, and that was what I hoped for. Sohla, representing someone who has worked in restaurants, someone who knows how to build a recipe, knows what things should be and should taste like, how they should be made. She knows what to look for in terms of the preparation of the food.
And then you have Will who is top of his game when it comes to hospitality. And it was important to know that we have someone there that can offer a perspective that is, okay, we'll talk about the food, but how are you preparing the food? How are you setting your business aside? That whole perspective is really valuable too, because at the end of this, we don't want to give someone a chunk of money and not give them the kind of business conversation and just sort of send them out into the world.
And I think what Will was able to do was really force them to up their game when it came to looking at their businesses, looking at what they wanted to say with their food and say, "Okay, well how can we do this in a slightly more creative way? Or how can I present my food in a way that will get people talking more than it already has? How can we push them a little bit farther outside of their comfort zone so that they're forced to raise the bar on themselves?"
And it was just a dream and we all got along instantly, which was so important. And we have since had wonderful times together in New York City. I was there a couple weeks ago and we all went to Sohla's for food and I of course, offer nothing. I'm just ... Will with hooking us up with restaurants and Will's wife, Christina Tosi, came with a cake. And Sohla made me chicken tenders because she knows I have a child's palate.
We've become this lovely little circle of friends. And I think you feel that too. You feel that we are enjoying ourselves and the whole show is kind of rooted in a place of love and encouragement rather than intensity and drama. Because to me, I don't work well under those kinds of circumstances, and I can't imagine a chef really doing their best if they're feeling really under the gun.
Kerry Diamond:
Dan, you mentioned that you have a lot of friends in the restaurant world. Did you ever work in restaurants?
Dan Levy:
I didn't. No.
Kerry Diamond:
You didn't? Okay.
Dan Levy:
I was too scared.
Kerry Diamond:
Scared of what?
Dan Levy:
I was too scared of messing up an order. I could never remember cocktail recipes. I only know about three. And so I just avoided it because I thought I don't need to have a restaurant, which is my favorite place to be on the planet, is sitting down to a meal. I don't want to tarnish that experience in any way by knowing too much about it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, good point.
Dan Levy:
So I worked in a bakery. That was the closest I came. I didn't bake anything, but I did sell baked things.
Kerry Diamond:
You and Harry Styles. You and Harry Styles have that in common. He did, yes.
Dan Levy:
Well I knew we were connected in some way.
Kerry Diamond:
But he too sold them. He did not make them.
Dan Levy:
Did he also put on 25 pounds the summer that he worked at the bakery?
Kerry Diamond:
I'll try to find out.
Dan Levy:
I have absolutely no restraint and I don't regret a single second of it.
Kerry Diamond:
What was the go-to order at the bakery?
Dan Levy:
I would get there at six in the morning just as the pastries were coming out of the oven. So obviously, I'd have to have a fresh muffin. And then at lunch, I'd have a bagel. It was just a very carb heavy day. But you're young and you don't know any better. And by the end of the summer, I looked like a bagel, which was a wonderful thing.
To me that is an act of love. I was really appreciating the bakers at my bakery and to me the gift of just enjoying their food all day every day was a gesture of love.
Kerry Diamond:
So you have a long time been respectful of culinary creatives. I guess that's the story.
Dan Levy:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of go to orders, I know I've only seen the first three episodes, but if I don't try that woman's scones, I might lose my mind.
Dan Levy:
Danielle [Sepsy]?
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. I need to get out to Long Island or wherever she is.
Dan Levy:
I mean, I think you can buy them online now.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Dan Levy:
Yeah. We'll get you the website. Her baked goods are like, her scones and biscuits are like nothing I have ever tasted, truly. And she's a wonderful human being. And we finished the show in late March. Anytime I am in New York City, I get an email from Danielle saying, "Where are you? I'm sending baked goods."
And the last time I tried to politely say I was there for work, I don't know. I have no restraint. I'm a person that has absolutely no restraint. If you give me baked goods, I will eat them all. But I'm working and I'm trying to just be healthy for the sake of my job. Meanwhile, two huge boxes showed up and what did I do? I went through the whole thing.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. A lot of us can relate to that.
Dan Levy:
I invited some friends over. I gave them away. But for the most part ... She's a miracle, Danielle.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Just have to ask you because people will be mad if I don't find out your go-to brunch order. We know you love the Caesar. You've introduced America to the Caesar. What about your savory order, your food order or it could be sweet, I guess.
Dan Levy:
Okay, here's what it is. There's a restaurant in Toronto that I will not name because I'm going to say something slightly not nice about them. But they do a dish that is a cheesy French toast with bacon. Now, let me explain. It is a plate. It is French toast stacked with crispy bacon in the middle and then melted cheddar cheese all over the top.
Now do you eat the whole thing? Absolutely not. You share it with about three people. Or if you're me on a down day, you eat the whole thing with maple syrup all over the top. That to me is my dream because you get sweet, savory, and a very hearty portion all in one.
The downside is that this restaurant that I will not name charges for extra syrup. Now, I know we're in a world of like ... Will Guidara told me there's now like water sommeliers.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. That's a thing.
Dan Levy:
Okay, sure. I'm glad that someone has a job like that. It's way outside the world of anything I understand. My grandfather used to make maple syrup on his little farm. Just give me the maple syrup. Don't charge me $2 for a shot glass of maple syrup.
When you're giving me French toast, the toast inherently sucks up all the syrup. At least give me enough syrup to have leftover in case I want to dip a piece of the French toast in the syrup. So I've never gone back out of principle because my thing is either give me enough syrup or don't charge for extra syrup.
Kerry Diamond:
You Canadians don't mess around when it comes to maple syrup, do you?
Dan Levy:
We take it very, very seriously, in case you hadn't noticed.
Kerry Diamond:
Clearly. Well Dan, you're the best. I love the first three episodes. I can't wait to see the rest.
Dan Levy:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
I hope the show gets renewed and we get lots of seasons of The Big Brunch.
Dan Levy:
Oh, me too. I hope everybody enjoys it and thank you for watching it, and it was so nice to chat.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Dan Levy. What a sweet human being. We'll be right back with Sohla El-Waylly in just a minute. Those scones, by the way, they are by Baker Danielle Sepsy of The Hungry Gnome. Danielle brought me some of the scones to Cooks & Books, and they are some of the best baked goods I've ever had. You can order them for yourself at thehungrygnomeny.com.
Now, let's hear a word from Cherry Bombe HQ.
Catherine Baker:
Hi, my name is Catherine Baker and I'm the managing editor of Cherry Bombe. The latest issue of our print magazine is almost here. Our cover star is Erin French of The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine. And the theme of the issue is heart and hospitality.
We shine a light on the chefs and restaurant folks who put their heart and soul into everything they do. It's a really beautiful issue and you can pre-order yours at cherrybombe.com or look for us later this month at your favorite bookstore or magazine shop.
Kerry Diamond:
Our next guest is Sohla El-Waylly, chef video personality and a judge on The Big Brunch. In just a sec, I talk to Sohla about working on the show, her upcoming cookbook and the new book she just guest edited The 2022 edition of the Best American Food Writing. Here we go.
Sohla, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Thanks for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
We've got so much to talk about today. You and I don't know each other that well so I'm very excited to get to know you a little bit better. It'd be fun if we had a drink or a meal, but we have microphones in front of us instead so-
Sohla El-Waylly:
No one wants to hear that, the smacking, the slurping.
Kerry Diamond:
So we'll make the most of it. You grew up in L.A.?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I did, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What was that like?
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's really hard not being able to drive anywhere. The great thing about living in New York is if you're growing up here, there's so much freedom because you can get on a train, get on a bus. Public transport in L.A., when I was in high school, I believe that's when they first built the subway. But it goes to two places. It's a joke.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that your family owned a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, they still have it.
Kerry Diamond:
They do?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. They work there every single day. They will never stop working there. I can't get them to stop working there. Take a day off.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have to work there?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, but I know a lot of people who grew up with family businesses where they were like they had to go every single day. It was more like a filling in here and there. But mostly, I remember going there when I was really young and just being in the back of the store while my parents worked and just doing homework back there because they couldn't leave yet.
So it was my daycare, and I would play games with the stuff back there. There was a really big can opener, I don't know. I would pretend it was something ... I loved breaking down boxes, that was my favorite thing because there's a lot of packaging and breaking down boxes. There's like a skill to it. There's an art to doing it right.
Kerry Diamond:
There is. You went on to own a restaurant, and we'll talk about that. And breaking down boxes is a key skill-
Sohla El-Waylly:
It really is.
Kerry Diamond:
... when you own a restaurant. But Baskin-Robbins, when I was a kid, I grew up in the '70s and the '80s. Baskin-Robbins was my life. It was such a treat for us to go to the Baskin-Robbins in the mall. But my poor little brain, 33 flavors back in the day, I just could not decide which flavor I wanted. But I ultimately always pick the same flavor. You'll never guess.
Sohla El-Waylly:
No. I'm going to try.
Kerry Diamond:
Because it's pretty awful flavor in retrospect.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Awful flavor, bubblegum?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. It was bubblegum. Oh, my gosh.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I love that when I was a kid.
Kerry Diamond:
So bubblegum was this bright pink ice cream with actual pieces of kind of Chiclets-size, bright pink bubble gum and, god, I love that flavor.
Sohla El-Waylly:
The flavor was so good, and I don't know if you did this, I would collect all the gum for the end.
Kerry Diamond:
So now that it's more than 33 flavors?
Sohla El-Waylly:
There are so many flavors and they have seasonal rotating flavors and it's a lot to manage because my dad is very, very particular. So actually, he's going to be thrilled to hear this. He has the most successful Baskin-Robbins in the country, sales-wise.
Kerry Diamond:
That's exciting.
Sohla El-Waylly:
He's like super obsessed with the ice cream must be fresh. He's like always rotating. No tubs there for more than a week. It's unheard of, and it's a lot to manage rotating all those flavors. There's so much heavy lifting and they're getting old. But I think it's what keeps them in shape too, constantly lifting these giant 10 gallon tubs of ice cream.
Kerry Diamond:
So who cooked at home since your parents are working?
Sohla El-Waylly:
My mom cooked every single meal every day no matter what. And she worked a lot so I don't know how she pulled it off because Bangladeshi food is almost small plates, so it's kind of like tapas. But instead of bread you have rice and then a lot of little things. And it's not a meal if there aren't at least six things on the table. And she would make all of those things every single day.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have siblings?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. I have a sister.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, it's impressive what some of our parents pulled off with all the responsibilities that they had and little bit less convenience than we have today. When did you know you wanted to be a chef or be in the food world in some capacity?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, it was one of those things, you know how a lot of times when you're younger you fantasize about being a rockstar? So in my mind, cooking was this fantasy thing that I always want to do. When I was little, I would do like pretend restaurants and my mom would let me cook dinner. And I'd make a menu and do plate settings and have a theme, and all of that.
But I never thought that I'd actually go into this industry because my family, well they're a traditional Asian family, they do not want me to be anything but a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. So that didn't fit, but it happened.
Kerry Diamond:
But that's so cute. You were a little kid making little menus and pretending to have a restaurant?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I took a drafting class that I was really into. So I did blueprints of my future restaurant and all this stuff and I think about it now and I'm like, "That would've been a $50 million restaurant."
Kerry Diamond:
Still possible. Dream big, Sohla. When did this childhood sort of fantasy become reality?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, I went to school for economics and then I was working in restaurants, just whatever jobs I could get while I was in school. And then I really, really hated it. So I did drop out after a year.
Kerry Diamond:
You hated economics or just college?
Sohla El-Waylly:
College, yeah. And then I ended up going back to school, but I just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. So back then, we didn't have a digital registrar. It was all paper filing, so it was very easy to game the system. So I signed up for Econ 101, 102, 103, 104 in one semester, and I got done on time even though I dropped out.
And then after that, I was like, "I don't want to do this," and I decided to just focus more on the cooking. I did the thing that they tell you to do and I walked up and down Ventura Avenue with resumes trying to get a job at any of the restaurants because before that, I was just working in chain restaurants like Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen, these kinds of places.
But I wanted to get into fine dining and nobody would take me. I was like, "Please let me wash dishes for free," and they're like, "Someone like you doesn't belong here," because there weren't a lot of girls yet. And on top of it, I was a brown girl, Asian girl. I just don't think that we just weren't there yet.
So the only place that gave me a job was this pub. The owner, he was awesome. He used to be the bouncer. He has his own amazing story that he went through, so he went from being the bouncer to the owner. So he really believed in giving lots of people chances. So, some of the cooks there were formally unhoused. He helped a lot of people, so I was one of those people. He gave me this really great opportunity and he really supported me and he encouraged me to go to culinary school. He's the first person that put me on a hotline. I did cry the first day, but he was there and he was like, "You can do it, please don't stop."
Kerry Diamond:
That's so nice and supportive.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, and then he wrote my recommendation and helped me get into culinary school.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you decide to go to culinary school?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I went because I knew that it would help me get into these nicer places. I really wanted to get into fine dining. I wanted to work in these Michelin star places, and it's very hard if you don't either know someone or have that on your resume. I didn't really learn anything about cooking there, to be honest. It's so fast. I think the whole time there was a butchery course and I had one chicken that I had to share with a partner, so I broke down half a chicken the whole time I was there. I opened one clam. It's very overcrowded.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you not recommend culinary school to folks today?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I do not recommend culinary school.
Kerry Diamond:
What's a different way to get to where you wanted to be if not culinary school?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Now, there are so many ways to build your own portfolio. You can put things up on Instagram, you can make a blog, you can do your own YouTube channel, you can learn a lot from people online. And then there are so many different paths to food now, because before it was like, you got to do fine dining. Fine dining is the first way in. And now, there's all these different options. I don't recommend it. It's incredibly expensive and you're never going to make that money back. But I met Ham [El-Waylly], my husband.
Kerry Diamond:
A bonus.
Sohla El-Waylly:
So we met immediately, and we got married before we graduated.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's sweet. Okay.
Sohla El-Waylly:
So it's worth it for that.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, that's good. How did your folks feel about this pivot of yours?
Sohla El-Waylly:
They were not into it in the beginning. It is very hard, really long hours. I feel like after 2008, fine dining really started to decline. I got into it right before that, and it was like that last era of no overtime, no days off. You're working like 80 hours a week and you're only getting paid for 40. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff, so my parents did not like that. So there was a lot of pushback from them.
But I'm glad I stuck with it and I'm glad that the industry, it does seem like in the last few years has changed. People can demand days off now.
Kerry Diamond:
So you wind up in Brooklyn. You open a restaurant in 2016 called Hail Mary. What was Hail Mary all about?
Sohla El-Waylly:
We went with the name because it was our Hail Mary. We tried to get investors. We tried lots of different things, but we couldn't get any outside investors who were interested in us doing anything outside of our ethnicities. And I didn't want to be a Bangladeshi cook for my whole career.
My husband didn't want ... My husband's like he's mixed too, so it was really frustrating for him that they kept trying to put him in the box of the brown he looks like instead of everything he is. So, we decided to do it with a little bit of family money. It was enough for two months and we decided to just go for it.
We did everything ourselves. We did the floors ourselves, installed all the lights and the toilets and it was very ... We did the whole renovation in two weeks. We stayed up all night. And when we were doing the floors, we rented everything from Home Depot and we were just sanding the floors at 3:00 AM and then the cops would come by because you're not supposed to do work. And we would just turn off the lights, go down on the floor, wait for them to leave, get back up.
But we made it a year. So that was pretty cool because we're really lucky, and we got some really dedicated regulars early on who came at least once a week. And they threw parties there and they bought cakes, and it's why we're able to make it a whole year. But it was still like there was this one really busy day. By the end, we were really picking up and we had these busy days and then I was ... Afterwards I would do the math and I was like, "Okay, it's going to take us ... If every day is like this, it's going to be 10 years before we can break even." And we were like, "No, this isn't ... It's not going to happen."
Kerry Diamond:
I wish I had known you back then. I'm part of the failed restaurant club and owned some restaurants in Carroll Gardens, and same, we had no investors and opened with no operating capital. So literally, the money you made that day was the money used to pay the bills and opened the next day. And it was a tough cycle to be a part of.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's so stressful. I don't know if you did this, but I would just stare at the bank account every day, every transaction coming in, everything going out and just be like, "Oh my God, are we still green?" It was tough.
Kerry Diamond:
It broke my heart when we closed our places. Was it tough for you?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh yeah. And I still feel like I'm not over it. I'm constantly scared of finances. I'm so tight with money. I get really scared to buy a pair of shoes. I need to talk to my husband before everything and he's like, "No, it's okay. We can go out to dinner." It's not the worst habit, but it would be better to be able to relax sometimes.
But it's like I just really don't want to experience that again. And it happened so quickly. It's very easy to mess up your life, and it's very hard to keep it on track. So it's just like I'm constantly focused on trying to keep it on track.
Kerry Diamond:
I think that's probably good for some people to hear, because I know a lot of folks look at you and see all the successes that you've had.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, there's a lot of failures that nobody saw.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a good reminder to everyone that everyone's path is windy.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's more fun that way anyways.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this very big exciting thing that you have in your life right now. It is called The Big Brunch. I love the show. I got to see the first three episodes.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, you did? Oh, cool.
Kerry Diamond:
And it is so sweet and it's really kind of the competition show that, I don't know, it's the kind of competition show I like to watch. Really lovely people, it's casted so beautifully. And then you and Dan and Will really just make a great trio of judges. So curious though, how did you become involved with The Big Brunch?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I'm just like the luckiest person ever. Dan just reached out and it was like, "What? Daniel Levy?" I was really scared just from a DM. But-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, he DMed you?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. That's fun.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Instagram. That's where work is happening. I was immediately interested because of him, but then I was more interested when I found out more about the show. There are a lot of cooking competitions out there and this isn't the first one that approached me to join, which I know is I'm really privileged to have options.
But I wanted to be a part of this show because it is different. It's not a cutthroat competition. It's not really even a competition. It's like you get to watch these amazing chefs who are doing really cool things in their community, work together. You learn so much about them and they became such genuinely good friends.
I think that the hardest part was we shot this very long time ago and we've all been wanting to talk and we've had to be secret. We can't wait.
Kerry Diamond:
That would kill me.
Sohla El-Waylly:
We can't talk to each other. Nobody knows each other. And now that it's out in the open, it's like, "Oh, friends."
Kerry Diamond:
When the trailer finally dropped, I saw how excited everybody was on Instagram and all the contestants were sharing it. And I was like, "Oh, this is so exciting for everybody." So you said you shot a long time ago. Where did you film?
Sohla El-Waylly:
We filmed in L.A. So it was interesting being back in LA in such a different way. I grew up in the Valley and then I haven't seen this fancy side of L.A. I was like, whoa. There's like a place that sells $20 smoothies now. It's really changed from when I was here. But it was really interesting to live in L.A. in such a different way.
Kerry Diamond:
And when Dan proposed this whole thing to you, from the name, everyone can tell it's all around brunch. We'll get into all the brunch controversies in a minute, but did you say, "Brunch? Are you sure you want to do brunch?" Or were you just like, "I'm all in?"
Sohla El-Waylly:
It was pretty clear from the beginning that it wasn't really about brunch because brunch is anything, which is why it's such a good option for the show. Brunch can be sweet, it can be savory. It opens it up for pastry chefs and savory cooks. It can be from any part of the world. And really anything you eat at any time of day is appropriate for brunch. It's a really open concept that allowed a lot of different contestants to be able to express themselves.
Kerry Diamond:
The set was so sexy, oh, my gosh. You had the ... Oh, I won't tell people. I want to wait and let them see it, but maybe they could see it in the trailer. It's a really hot looking set.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, it's funny because it looks like a real restaurant when you're sitting there. The booths are real. It's like fancy fabric, really comfortable. The table is real and sturdy, and it's very easy to forget that it's a show and just enjoy the meal. No, there was a full bar behind us and we can order.
Kerry Diamond:
So that was real?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Real. Real bartender, Kia, she was amazing. She could make us anything, fully stocked, ready to go, making drinks for us and the contestants. So it was very easy to get comfortable and just relax. The booth was very comfortable.
At first, before we shot, there was a rehearsal and I knew that I was with the right people when I saw how carefully Dan thought about table placement. He's like, "Wait, can you reach? Can you eat comfortably? Wait, can Will reach? I know we're all different heights." It was like, "Oh yes, I like this level of particular."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, what's so interesting about him, I mean some folks think that he's one of the stars of Schitt's Creek, but he was creator, director, writer, full picture with that show. And similar, he didn't direct The Big Brunch, but I'm sure he brought all aspects of that to The Big Brunch.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, 100%. He was on top of everything. He was also, it's kind of crazy how he was sitting with us and judging, but he was also popping into the director's booth constantly. He was hopping around doing multiple jobs, figuring out entrances and all these different things. It was really fun to watch all of it because it is a new show. So a lot of things were being worked out in real time.
And for Schitt's Creek fans, there is a little Easter egg in the show, but you'll have to watch to see it.
Kerry Diamond:
I think I've told you this before, but “Fold in the Cheese” might be my favorite thing in TV land.
Sohla El-Waylly:
There's one of those. But that's not the Easter egg.
Kerry Diamond:
That's not the Easter egg, okay.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's very subtle. It's going to be for top level fans. They're going to love it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I consider myself a top level fan, so I can't wait. Even though you say it's not really a competition show, it is a competition show and that you do need to send folks home at the end of the day. How did you deal with that part?
Sohla El-Waylly:
First episode wasn't too bad because we didn't get to know everyone that well. And then it progressively got harder, obviously. But well I just pretended it wasn't a show and was thinking about it as giving feedback to cooks, because when you're in a kitchen, you're constantly giving feedback to cooks. So it's the same thing. It wasn't trying to rank each cook against other cooks, but more focusing on their dish and how it could be the best it could be, constructive criticism.
Kerry Diamond:
The mentorship part comes through and it definitely, and just how thoughtful you all were with the constructive feedback. But people might be laughing when they heard you say you pretended it wasn't a show because you're surrounded by cameras and directors and lights and all these things. How in the world could you pretend it wasn't a show?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I don't know, but I really did. I did not process that it was a show until the last, we finished shooting and then we were doing photos. And that was the first time I looked up and saw the monitors and I saw the cameras and I saw the lights and the set, and then I had a little bit of a freak out. I went in the trailer, doubled over. Someone had to get me out, but I needed to block it all out to be able to get through it. And I think that having a whiskey in hand also helped.
Kerry Diamond:
As I mentioned, brunch can be a controversial topic in the restaurant world. There's this whole F-brunch thing. Where did that come from?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, when I worked brunch, I hated it.
Kerry Diamond:
You did?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I hated it. It's genuinely the worst service. The food is usually super fast because people who are coming in for brunch, they want to sit down, they want to get their food, they want to get their drinks. Everything moves really quickly. I feel like everyone's really cranky, the front of house, the back of house and the diners, because everyone comes to brunch after drinking heavily. Brunch is usually on a Sunday after you've worked a really long, horrible Saturday. And as a cook, you've probably also been out drinking.
So it's just like, I don't know. I remember when brunch was the busiest service at Hail Mary, we had no desire to be a brunch restaurant. But you don't really know what your restaurant's going to be. Everyone else decides for you. And it was just the worst. And there were people who would come in at 9:30. We were opening for 11:00, and they would just yell at me and be like, "Why aren't you open yet?" I'm like, "Excuse me, lady, I just left here last night at 1:00 AM. You need to relax."
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. Like I said earlier, we should have known each other back then because our first place became a brunch restaurant. And they would line up, and my then boyfriend who was the chef did not want it to be a brunch restaurant at all, was very unhappy that this was happening. And I'm like, "People are lining up. This is great." But I did not come from a restaurant background and wasn't the one having to work in the kitchen.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, it's also a very different setup and we were not set up for eggs, so it was very hard.
Kerry Diamond:
Explain what that means for folks who've never worked in a kitchen.
Sohla El-Waylly:
An egg station, it's usually a lot of burners. You have to have a spot for a whole pot of boiling water for poaching your eggs. You need to have a lot of skillets and you need a very skilled cook because cooking that many eggs is very difficult. So we didn't have a cook, we didn't have that many burners, we didn't have the pot. It was really rough because every time we needed to poach an egg, we had to put a pot on for that egg because we didn't have space to have a dedicated poaching area.
So it was really difficult. And on top of it, you don't make that much money for brunch. It's a very fast, hard service. And at the end of it, each guest spends about $30. In New York, that's really not a good ticket average.
Kerry Diamond:
This just popped in my head since we're talking about eggs and customers and cranky customers. Did you follow the whole James Corden thing with the egg yolk omelet?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
What the hell is an egg yolk omelet?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I don't know, but it sounds terrible.
Kerry Diamond:
It does. Does it even bind together? Because you need the egg white to kind of bind everything?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, so at WD-50, my husband used to work at WD-50 and they did this egg yolk ravioli. It was really fancy and delicious, and it was really creamy, perfect like French-style scrambled eggs inside of a square that was wrapped in a thin sheet of egg yolk. So, egg yolk will omelet, but it's just too ... To just eat a plate of egg yolks, that's a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, that seemed weird to me. Now, you are pro-brunch.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I am pro-brunch.
Kerry Diamond:
And as you mentioned, the show really elevates what brunch is and what brunch can be as people will learn when they watch. What's your go-to brunch order?
Sohla El-Waylly:
So my favorite way to brunch is at home. We love having people over brunch because it's just like, it's very casual. You can hang out all day. There's day drinking involved and it's really low pressure too. We've had people over for brunch where everything was store bought. It's just a really fun way to hang out. I still don't like going out for brunch. I just feel the tension and I feel like I should go back there and scramble my own eggs.
Kerry Diamond:
It took me a long time before I could eat in restaurants again like a normal person. After I owned them, I always had to sit with my back to everything because it was too much.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, you just start to feel like guilty.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me what your favorite kind of brunch bread is when friends come over.
Sohla El-Waylly:
We love doing tapas kind of thing because all we'll do is make a tortilla, Spanish tortilla with the potatoes and onions and eggs. We'll get a really nice baguette from breads or from ... We've been really into the bread from La Cabra. Have you been there?
Kerry Diamond:
No. I'll put it on my list.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Very crusty, has a nice tang. And then just open up some canned fish, quick salad, cut up some fruit. It's like ready in 30 minutes and you fill up a table. And because there's so much variety, there's something for everyone. Yeah, it's easy and fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Festive and low pressure.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, and everything's good at room temp so you can eat for hours.
Kerry Diamond:
That's true. You like the long slow brunch.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I like the long slow meal. Every meal I want to be just ... That's how we eat growing up too. My sister and dad would eat and leave. They ate at a normal pace and my mom and I would sit and eat for three hours.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, the million dollar question. Have you had brunch with Dan?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. I mean, outside of the show? Yeah, we have.
Kerry Diamond:
So you had him ... If I remember correctly, you had him and Will over for brunch one day.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, it was really surreal. Will's wife, Christina Tosi was there too and she's one of my heroes. And she brought a cake that she made herself that was incredible. And I just remember looking around like-
Kerry Diamond:
It wasn't just when she grabbed off the shelf at a Milk Bar?
Sohla El-Waylly:
No. It was a flavor that had yet to be released. And so I was just looking. I was like, "Wow, this is cool. This is a fun brunch."
Kerry Diamond:
Low key?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Uh-huh.
Kerry Diamond:
But you did not do your typical spread for that. You actually got a little fancier. What did you make?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, we knew Will liked fried chicken and I know that Dan likes boneless chicken. So we did chicken tenders and made a fancy like rampy potato puree. There's some kind of slaw. Chicken tenders, not too crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
But they were a little fancy. You started a few days early, the chicken was fancy.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, it was a heritage chicken from Dixon's and dry brine. But you have to dry brine your chicken.
Kerry Diamond:
You do. Why?
Sohla El-Waylly:
It makes it juicy. It makes it moist. It makes it tender. It makes it seasoned. And if you're not a great cook and you overcook it, doesn't even matter. Everyone should dry brine.
Kerry Diamond:
How long did that brunch last?
Sohla El-Waylly:
It wasn't all day. People had places to be.
Kerry Diamond:
Everybody knows Dan, or at least I hope you all do. But Will, folks might not know Will Guidara as well. But Will is real hospitality pro, background in fine dining. He was one of the co-owners at Eleven Madison Park, and he's got a book out now. You have a book out right now that you guest edited. It's The Best American Food Writing 2022. How did you get involved in that?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Sylvia Killingsworth reached out and asked me if I was interested.
Kerry Diamond:
And she was the editor of the whole project?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yes. It's like her baby. She's been working on all of them. She gave me a full list of all of the best writing and then I just went down that list and picked from there. So she puts a lot into this. It was not an immediate yes. I was very scared because I don't really consider myself a writer, so just having to judge other writing was really scary.
That was more intimidating than The Big Brunch. And I was actually working on it while shooting The Big Brunch. So it's a very stressful month. But I'm glad I said yes. It was a scary but exciting experience.
Kerry Diamond:
What were a few things that made stories stand out for you?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I wanted to make sure there were all kinds of stories represented, stories about food service workers and chefs and home cooks. And after reading everything, I made big categories and then put my tops in each category so that there was a nice variety in the book.
But for me, the things that I was most drawn to were stories that I haven't heard before. There was a writer named Julia who did a piece called Starving Towards Deliverance and the way she weaved together her Christian upbringing and eating disorder, it was just so interesting and I felt really moved by the whole story, very honest. Those were the stories that I really found interesting.
There was another one by Jaya [Saxena] and her piece was called Limits of the Lunchbox Moment, where she writes about how there's this dialogue that all immigrant children are made fun of for their lunch, and it's not true. There are so many unique perspectives. Another hilarious one by Liz Cook was just about how she got some rodent-repelling tape and ate it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, no.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It was hilarious. That's what's amazing about food writing. It spans so many things. It can be emotional, it can be political, it can be humorous. So all of that's in the book. Hopefully, that was the goal.
Kerry Diamond:
You are writing a cookbook. What can you tell us?
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's almost done. The writing part has been done for a while. We're in the design phase. It's turned into a monster of a book. For someone who doesn't write a lot, it ended up being 80,000 words.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's a lot.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's a huge book. So the designing, editing, every part of the process has been so much longer and harder than I thought because it's just so much. But it's pretty much how to cook everything. It's like cooking school in a book.
Kerry Diamond:
It's ambitious.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, maybe too ambitious. I think book two, I'm going to keep it a little more chill.
Kerry Diamond:
When can we expect this book?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Next fall.
Kerry Diamond:
Next fall, okay. Have you announced the title?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Still figuring out the title.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I should know by tomorrow because I think I have to.
Kerry Diamond:
When are you shooting everything?
Sohla El-Waylly:
We shot in February.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you did already? Okay.
Sohla El-Waylly:
The recipes and photo shoot happened a while ago. So it's really just been, I spent the majority of this year writing and this fall has been all about design.
Kerry Diamond:
So for folks who are curious like what is Sohla food, does this book answer that or is this, like you said, it's more instructional to help people learn how to cook?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I think it's less about Sohla food and more about the way I think about food. It's more about ... There are tons of recipes, so there are recipes in there. But it's more about giving you techniques and a path to figuring out how to put dinner on the table ideally without a recipe ultimately. So it's more about teaching you, giving you a set of my main skills, Sohla skills. Should that be the title?
Kerry Diamond:
Sohla Skills.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I don't want my name in the title.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, okay. It's not the worst title. In addition to watching The Big Brunch, how else can folks support you?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I've got a newsletter called Hot Dish. I'm like on a little bit of a hiatus until I get the book finally finished. But we'll be back in a couple of weeks. I'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
And how do they get that? Is it on Substack, Patreon?
Sohla El-Waylly:
It will be moving to Substack shortly.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a free newsletter right now?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Free newsletter on Substack. You can get all the details on my Instagram. Instagram's still the best place to find me. You can find me, my dog's recipe videos.
Kerry Diamond:
That's how Dan found you. Exactly, how are the pets? You and I are both animal people.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I just need a break from them. Before the pandemic, we didn't see each other this much and now we see each other all the time and they're cute. But it's like I just want to have some pet free time in my future.
Kerry Diamond:
I think my cat needs a break from me, not the other way around. Yeah. I think she liked it when I would leave for work now that I don't ...
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, my pets used to go to daycare, but the daycares around us all closed. So we're hoping something opens back up because they need to get out of the house sometimes.
Kerry Diamond:
And be with their friends?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Uh-huh.
Kerry Diamond:
And you are doing so many things. How are you taking care of yourself these days?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I really haven't been. I think it was peak bad, when I finished the manuscript, I went 10 weeks without leaving the house. Not much sleep. My sleep cycle was all messed up. Hormones were all messed up. So I'm trying to get a handle of that right now. It's as stressful as the restaurant closing, but like all the time because with freelance, there's so much uncertainty with when your next job is going to be. So there's a lot of anxiety over that kind of stuff.
And then when the work comes, you can't pace it out. It's going to be like 10 projects in the same month and there's nothing you can do about it, but take all the work. So I'm trying to figure out how to do that. We just recently started trying to take weekends. It's not happening this weekend, but we're trying to do an evening on the weekend where we do nothing. I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, to everybody out there who works so hard, all you freelancers and all your restaurant folks, we feel you. So anyway, Sohla, it's so good to see you. It's so nice to know a little bit more about you. And you do such a great job on The Big Brunch, thank you. You, Dan, and Will put something really fun out into the world, and I think people are going to love it when they get to watch it.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Sohla El-Waylly for joining us. Check out The Best American Food Writing 2022 at your favorite bookstore. And don't forget debuting tomorrow Thursday, November 10th, it's The Big Brunch on HBO Max. Get ready for some big brunch energy coming your way.
Thank you to Hedley & Bennett for supporting this episode. As we mentioned, the new issue of our print magazine is available for pre-order on cherrybombe.com. And while you're there, sign up for our free newsletter so you can stay on top of all things Cherry Bombe.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thanks to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center, and to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You're the Bombe.