lana lagomarsini and nana wilmot transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene.
Today's guests are Chef Lana Lagomarsini and Chef Nana Wilmot, two up and coming New York City chefs I met earlier this month for the first time at their beautiful popup dinner. It was hosted by a company called Resident that does popups around New York, and it was a multi-course meal woven with their personal stories and the history of Black food in America. Chefs Nana and Lana are here to tell us about their dinner, their background in fine dining and what they envision for the future of restaurants, so stay tuned.
Today's show is sponsored by Lenox. The legendary tabletop company has a special wine glass collab with sommelier Victoria James, and we're going to hear more about it in just a second. Be sure to check out Cherry Bombe's Instagram this week because we have a special giveaway of the collection that you won't want to miss. Let's hear a word from Victoria.
Victoria James:
Hey there, I'm Victoria James, sommelier and the author of the memoir Wine Girl, which chronicles how, in 2012, at the age of 21, I became the youngest sommelier in America.
I've been fortunate to try the best wines the world has to offer and I've learned how a simple wine glass can make or break the experience. The size and shape of a wine glass help capture aromas, control a wine's temperature and enhance a wine structure. When Lenox approached me about collaborating on an exclusive stemware series, I was so excited. I knew I wanted to move beyond the traditional idea of red and white wine glasses and focus instead on terroir, that sense of place that truly defines a wine.
To capture the essence of terroir, Lenox and I have created the Signature Series wine glass collection. Together we've designed one glass for wines from warm regions, think Chardonnay from Napa valley or a Malbec from Mendoza, and one glass for wine from cool regions, perfect for a Burgundian Pinot Noir or a grower champagne. The glasses are affordable, something that's important to me, and high quality. Lenox has been creating heirloom-worthy home and tabletop items since 1889, for presidents and first ladies in the White House to everyone in your house. I'm honored to be part of this rich history. To learn more, visit lenox.com/signatureseries. I hope this special collection brings more joy to your wine drinking.
Kerry Diamond:
Today's show is also supported by Luke's Lobster and American Unagi. Luke's Lobster, along with the Island Institute of Maine, is working to support Maine's coastal communities and the fishermen and women based there. As someone who loves seafood and the beautiful state of Maine, and visits there every summer, that's important to me too.
Luke's Lobster is selling American Unagi's smoked eel on its marketplace, and they kindly sent me some to try. It's rich and meaty with just the right amount of smoke and salt. I made the best smoked eel rice bowl with it the other day. I cooked up some sushi rice and added pickled carrots and shredded red cabbage and topped it with American Unagi smoked eel that I had sliced into baton-shaped pieces. I know that's very specific. Then I topped that with some sliced green onion and some everything bagel seasoning, and I have to say, I impressed myself.
Then this morning, I made a soft scrambled egg with some diced up smoked eel deal and topped that with some freshly ground black pepper and sliced green onion, and it was a beautiful breakfast. Not too dissimilar from smoked salmon and scrambled eggs in terms of taste.
You can try American Unagi smoked eel for yourself. Luke's Lobster is offering all Radio Cherry Bombe listeners 15% off any purchase on lukeslobster.com now through March 31st, just use code cherry15. You can find lobster, of course, American Unagi smoked eel, and other sustainably sourced fish from the state of Maine. Tag Cherry Bombe if you make anything, I would love to see what you cook up.
Kerry Diamond:
And now, let's cook up some conversation with today's guests. Chef Nana.
Nana Wilmot:
Hi.
Kerry Diamond:
Chef Lana.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Hello.
Kerry Diamond:
Welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Nana Wilmot:
Thank you.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
What an honor to have you both here. You're two new friends.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Honored to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
But you two are kind of old friends, so we'll start with that. How do you two know each other? Chef Lana?
Lana Lagomarsini:
I knew of you because I read your article in Bon Appétit years ago. So I was like, "This girl seems awesome." And lo and behold, when I started working at Resident, one day I was going in to pick up an order from and she was there doing prep, and that was the first time we met face-to-face. And I was like, "You seem dope." And she was like, "You seem dope." I ended up buying tickets to her dinner, went and experienced and we just started chatting and here we are.
Kerry Diamond:
How long ago was that?
Nana Wilmot:
That was probably ... I want to say maybe October.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, not that long ago?
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, not that long ago.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it's so funny. So I met Nana and Lana at this great dinner that Resident did a few weeks ago, and you two had such good kitchen chemistry. It was a very open kitchen. I kind of felt for you a lot during that dinner because there was no hiding.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Threw it all on the table.
Nana Wilmot:
No. Yeah, there's no hiding.
Kerry Diamond:
Not for you, not for your teams. But you did the dance well.
Nana Wilmot:
Yes, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this dinner. Dinner was beautiful. A lot more courses than I was prepared for. You fed us well.
Lana Lagomarsini:
That's the idea.
Nana Wilmot:
Yes. Yeah, it was six courses but we kind of made it into eight.
Kerry Diamond:
Squeezed in a few more.
Lana Lagomarsini:
We massaged a few more courses out of that.
Kerry Diamond:
So Nana, I understand this dinner originated with you.
Nana Wilmot:
The last two years has simply just changed. Due to COVID, obviously, but the pivot was real and I started to kind of shift my focus on Black food. What is Black food? I love history, and even more so food history, so I kind of went into this rabbit hole of where do we make the connection from slavery, how we got here, what was the journey like, the voyage? And then realizing slaves were culinary influencers. They came over here with not anything at all and learning how to either substitute, change, implement different food ways. When I talk about food ways, I mean cooking techniques.
So it came onto this journey and I really wanted to celebrate that, so I think it was around October, November, shortly after we met. It was a beautiful thing. I realized she was another Black woman on the roster at Residence, so I got very excited. I was like, "Oh my God, I can't wait to meet her. I think she's going to be so awesome." It's like, when you see another woman that looks like you, you resonate. And I am a big advocate on trying to foster these relationships with a lot of Black chefs, but especially Black female chefs. We started talking and I was like, "Hey, we should do this kind of collab." I know she wanted to dive deeper into her Southern roots, and then I wanted to just make that connection, so we started talking and the menu kind of formed from there.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah. Yeah, she had been doing that deep dive for a minute before I came into the fold, but I was very interested in looking for a reason to start to really honor the side of my family that I really don't know too much about. And in doing the research, I found how intertwined history is, how intertwined slavery is, how intertwined so much of our country is in food and in Black people as the inception for a lot of the food cultures that we still have today, I have a background in journalism, and as soon as you pull on one thread and you realize how much more there is to learn, it's not like a playground, but just you have to take that dive.
Nana Wilmot:
It's exciting.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, it is.
Nana Wilmot:
It's thrilling to be like, "Let's challenge what is Black food?" Just that spectrum of it, it's actually really the origin of American food. So then it just brings the question again, what is it? So then we really, I think, we're just passionate about food anyway, so being able to be private chefs, how we do our own events, it was in our liking to be like, "Let's dive deeper together." And I feel like together you can go farther in spreading that.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Absolutely.
Nana Wilmot:
So it became bigger than us. I think somebody had asked us, "How are you guys able to create this menu together? And both of you having both of your views on it?" And it was just like we were looking at the bigger picture. We want this to be the beginning ... I mean, if not, we're still in the beginning stages of this revolutionary change when it comes across all spectrums. But when we talk about food like that, I want to help usher in this new avenue of what food can be. We had kind of even touched upon Chefs Without Restaurants. It's like, "Where can we take it?" So there was no ego, there was no ... We were just like, "Wow can we make this bomb? How is this going to be awesome?"
Lana Lagomarsini:
Right, "How can we tell this story the best way?" And I don't remember exactly who said it first, but I do remember the phone call when we were like, "Let's make it the story in movement." And I remember we were just both like, "That's it." And once we had that lens to view it from, it was really easy to start to put the pieces together to tell that story in a cohesive way. Given her background, she was in Ghana at the time getting inspiration from everywhere.
Nana Wilmot:
Everywhere.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
You had just come back not that long ago.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, I had spent the last two months in Ghana. And it was so crazy, my last dinner was right before I left and she was there and then we started planning and then-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Right as she got back-
Nana Wilmot:
... as soon as I got back, it was like, "We're doing the dinner." So it was this almost sabbatical that I had taken, and just to look back and see that growth, because it was just like we had just both expanded each other. We were on WhatsApp every day, and there's a five hour difference, so we're just trying to make it work. We had to meet deadlines, you know? And she was in Italy at one point, and it was just like we're just trying to tap every single resource, every inspiration that we could have tapped into. I think that was really awesome.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Well, you did a beautiful job weaving history and storytelling into every course.
Nana Wilmot:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
So not only were you cooking on the fly right there in front of everyone, but you were also telling stories about yourselves and these dishes and the history behind them, weaving everything from James Hemings all the way to Edna Lewis.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about these courses. Nana, do you want to start?
Nana Wilmot:
What was really cool was we were able to ... Special shout out to Jay. He hooked me up with a graphic design company-
Kerry Diamond:
Jay Strell?
Nana Wilmot:
Jay Strell, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, right. Jay Strell. Yes. Jay's everybody's fairy godfather.
Nana Wilmot:
And he was like, "You know what would be really great when you're telling this story? A visual." And I was like, "Yeah." It's tough, you don't want to change it into a school or where it just kind of gets this very ... but you still wanted it to be free-flowing but for people to understand what we're really trying to say. So we were able to map this out where it literally started you see Ghana and then you see the arrows going and the voyage and each number of the course, so it's like where you knew where we were pointing at, where that spot was. So the first course was in my native tongue, which means welcome. So it was the beginning ... No wait, we did actually ...
Kerry Diamond:
The amuse. The amuse. I forgot. Oh my gosh.
Lana Lagomarsini:
What about the amuse?
Nana Wilmot:
So we were like, "Wait. All right, cool. We're going to tease them."
Kerry Diamond:
Because you two are fancy girls. You've got to ...
Nana Wilmot:
It's true. Like, "Oh, they're getting it all."
Lana Lagomarsini:
There's nothing like a surprise course drop to really get diners on board.
Nana Wilmot:
And they're like, "What is this?" Because we waited a little bit to do the intro. So amuse was an okra fritter. So we wanted to kind of correlate how ... I mean, the originating of fritters is from West Africa anyway. Then incorporating okra, this is what's to come, knowing that okra was a big thing that we brought over from West Africa. So that, and then we also used yams. My spiel about yams versus sweet potatoes and that is something that is so funny to me that how ... Because growing up, all I knew were yams and those are African yams. They're a tubular veg that grows in the ground, but at the same time, it's starchy. It's a little on the sweeter side sometimes and it's white, versus here it's like sweet potatoes, but you look in the store and ... So it was like, "This is what it is. This is an introduction to your palette. Let's start talking about what things really are, or what we meant," because clearly we were making that translation of what ... We didn't have yams here, so we used sweet potatoes.
And then it flowed right into the first course, which Lana did a beautiful terrine which was both of our dream because, when you think about terrines, obviously you're thinking European, you're thinking French. So it was kind of an ode for both of us of our backgrounds and-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, I actually spent maybe over a year working at Daniel's specifically making terrines.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. That is a specialty. It was great. I love a terrine.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And I do too, and it's a dying art and I was very blessed early in my career to work for Jean-François Bruel who used to be the exec at Daniel, and he is a pretty old school French chef who loves making terrines.
Kerry Diamond:
So for the folks out there who are like, "What the heck's a terrine?" Tell us.
Lana Lagomarsini:
So a terrine is a cold meat preparation, which doesn't sound super appetizing. But it's like a pate or even a liver mousse could be put into a terrine mold, but the terrine is actually the name of the mold itself. But it's normally used to hold cold meats. And I think it's, like I said, a dying art, a very beautiful thing, but I only learned really how to do it with French ingredients and French flavors. But the technique that I learned can be applied to a lot of different flavors and I started to think of about, "Okay, how can I do something that I love to do, that no one really is doing anymore, in a way that's different, in a way that people haven't seen." And just braised oxtail with plantain was ... It came out as much better than I had actually anticipated when I first did it.
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely, yeah. Because we talked about it. We were just like, "All right, this is what we want to do." Now here's the part where you R&D, where you're trying to put everything together. Can this work? But it came out gorgeous, honestly.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Thank you. Yeah, and I remember trying the first recipe test at my house and being like, "No, this is going to be it."
Nana Wilmot:
"This is it."
Lana Lagomarsini:
And I was so happy, I guess, because it's hard to use this technique in ... I've sported a terrine or two in a popup, but it was nice to utilize this technique, which means so much to me, with flavors that are so near and dear to my heart. It felt good to bring those two things together.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, absolutely. And then we paired that ... It was kind of a little bit of a tag team, we paired that with this Ghana bread that I made.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Oh, yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
It's this family recipe that we have and we make during Thanksgiving every year and I have officially been the one donned with the recipe and I've been making it for the past probably like nine years. So trying to sport off my backing skills a little bit and just a nice, sweet complement. Then we had paired it with this pickled-
Lana Lagomarsini:
The spicy pickles, yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, that was great. It's like sweet and hot peppers.
Lana Lagomarsini:
I thought the bread was perfect, too. Because you normally get bread with a terrine, so it was, I think, a perfect complement.
Nana Wilmot:
It was perfect. Yeah, absolutely.
Lana Lagomarsini:
So that was a fun course.
Nana Wilmot:
That was good.
Kerry Diamond:
What else do we need to know about this bread?
Nana Wilmot:
Well, usually you can get it hot off the street in Ghana every morning, and it's just a fan favorite in my house. Just in the culture, we are really ... I feel like we find our sweetness a little bit more in our pastries and our bread, so we are very adamant about all that, so I just wanted to incorporate as many Ghanaian flavors. And to me, that was nutmeg, cream and butter. So it's very rich and it starts to show what delicacies that we really, really do have in the culture. So it was just a really nice beginning opener to be like, "Hey, this is something that is already had and this is what we could reimagine," and that was the terrine.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And it came together very naturally, too.
Nana Wilmot:
Very natural.
Lana Lagomarsini:
When we were talking, I said, "I think I want to do a terrine," and she goes, "I have bread."
Nana Wilmot:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Marriage made in heaven.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
What came next?
Nana Wilmot:
The second one we went right into.
Lana Lagomarsini:
This or that. That was you, this or that.
Nana Wilmot:
Oh, the this or that. Yeah. So that was my speil coming back full circle about yams versus sweet potatoes. So on that you had this beautiful yam and sweet potato cake that had a smoked turkey jus, and on top I did collards with thick chunks of smoked turkey.
Kerry Diamond:
That was so good. That turkey jus ... It was February but I was like, "I would like this for Thanksgiving."
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely, yeah. And it just really showed that, in Ghana, we have this dish, it's sauce, and it has our greens in it. Mostly spinach, but ... Our spinach is a little bit more fibrous and you start to think of collard greens.
So, with that dish, it starts off the same way the collard greens were made. You're getting a smoked ham hock or smoked turkey and you're starting that. And it's stewed and it's braised all day. And it's the same likeness. Of course, there's other parts to the one that we make, but you can see the foundation like, "Okay, we're talking about the same scene. The likeness is right there." And even how it's paired for Thanksgiving with the sweet potatoes, it's like, "Yeah, we would have it with our yams."
And then tying in another French technique we wanted to do, so I put that smoked turkey jus, which was ...
Kerry Diamond:
Just-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, something.
Nana Wilmot:
It was something.
Kerry Diamond:
You need to bottle that.
Nana Wilmot:
I know. I was like, "Yeah, this is the one, man. This is it."
Kerry Diamond:
That's the Thanksgiving popup. Bottle that stuff and do a popup.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, bottle it up. Seriously.
Kerry Diamond:
I'll be the first in line.
Nana Wilmot:
All right.
Lana Lagomarsini:
I mean, listen, when we were picking up meat, I ended up getting a 30-pound ... I could only get a 30-pound thing of smoked turkey drumsticks and she was like, "What are we going to do with all these?"
Nana Wilmot:
I was like, "What am I going to do with all of this?"
Lana Lagomarsini:
I think we found good use for them.
Nana Wilmot:
No, for sure.
Lana Lagomarsini:
That jus was-
Nana Wilmot:
I was like, "Yeah, we're going to break it down."
Lana Lagomarsini:
It was money.
Nana Wilmot:
It was like all day on Wednesday, I was just cooking all day. Yeah, it was beautiful.
Kerry Diamond:
And did you cook there?
Nana Wilmot:
Yes, we did. Yeah, we prepped Wednesday, the day before. So it was two days, we had Thursday and Friday.
Kerry Diamond:
That was a fancy building.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I had given myself a little self tour. I don't know if I was supposed to do that, but I was like, "Damn, I'd like to move into this building." It had a screening room.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, the amenities were pretty beautiful. Wow.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, the amenities is a real thing in modern real estate, I think.
Nana Wilmot:
Oh, absolutely.
Lana Lagomarsini:
The amenities room in most new buildings.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, that's the fun part with working with Resident is the different beautiful penthouses and these different awesome luxury apartments that we're able to access and see and we're like, "What? I'm cooking ... "
Kerry Diamond:
Right, and this was right in downtown Brooklyn.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I just thought, "I've walked past this so many times and I had no idea."
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, and it's like in the Nook but it's ... Yeah, these really great spaces with beautiful views. It's really kind of an honor to be able to cook in places like that.
Kerry Diamond:
And fun that they open it up to the public.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
If you can snag a ticket and see inside. Okay, next course.
Nana Wilmot:
Next course.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Next course was the head hash. This was definitely something very near and dear to my heart in doing research on Southern food and Ghanian cuisine. And researching that about, I think, 60% of Black Americans today in America can still trace their lineage back to the Port of Charleston, and then doing that deep dive on not only the rice there but also how it affected profits and how it affected the state's economics until even today, and the Carolina rice grain and how important it was to that economy, that they actually ended up terraforming the land to change it to rice patties because the people they had stolen from Africa were rice farmers.
Finding all this information out just started to really pull at something in me and I realized I really wanted to do a dish around this rice. And then I was watching a documentary, High on the Hog-
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say, I thought High on the Hog did a very good job explaining the history of Charleston.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, High on the Hog did a great job and it was a great jumping off point for me to start to do some more research and to dig even deeper. It was a good, "Hey, this exists," just making me aware. So in finding out about head hash, I started to investigate it and see how I could make that. And it just reminded me so much of pulled pork and they said, "Oh, well, you put it over rice," and I was like, "Okay." All of the wheels started to turn and the dish started to come together. Yeah, it was definitely a very proud thing I was able to put up.
But the head hash gravy is just essentially taking a whole pig's head and just putting it in flavored stock and just boiling it down, pretty much, for ... It took about eight hours or so, just to the point where you can pretty much pull the bones just straight out. Then you take the meat and you kind of just chop it a little bit finer. I made my own spice blend to invoke some barbecue spices, put some mustard in it, and kind of just-
Nana Wilmot:
It was delicious. That was definitely a fan favorite.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, that came very much from the heart, just learning all the history around it and how important, like you said, these simple cooking techniques are to just building flavor. I was very, very happy to put that out and it ended up being an unctuous sauce type of thing that I just put on top of some gulf shrimp, because everyone thinks of gulf shrimp when they think about that area in the South, so I wanted to kind of just do a little homage to that particular space, and not only how important it was to the history of enslaved peoples in America, but how that cuisine and how those enslaved people affected that cuisine, and how you can still look at a dish like that and be like, "Okay, yeah, but I can totally see how maybe this was the basis for something like a pulled pork," or maybe, "I can see where these rice grits that I ended up sourcing from Anson Mills in South Carolina, those used to be used by enslaved people because the grains weren't whole."
But you can see how all of these things are still very prevalent in the cuisine today, so I was very happy with that one.
Kerry Diamond:
That was another home run. I mean, they were all home runs. Lana mentioned High on the Hog, for those who are regular listeners, you'll remember we had the producers on last year, and Jessica B. Harris has been on the show a lot of times-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Legend.
Kerry Diamond:
... but if you haven't the show, it's on Netflix, based on a book by Dr. Harris and hosted by everybody's friend Stephen Satterfield.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, I love him.
Kerry Diamond:
So you should all check it out.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Also, and I'm glad that you had the producers on earlier so that you can see how much this show has actually affected chefs, I'm sure, of all backgrounds. But for me, it hit home so deeply that I was like, "I have to investigate this now. This now needs to be ... It's not only a professional thing, it's a personal thing."
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah. It's definitely been in my mission, too. Through food is ... Obviously we carry so much history in our food and I think the best way to learn about a culture, especially, is through food and through music. So all of this was giving me ... There's this word that we use in Ghana, which means you go backwards to move forward. So all of this was just very ... Knowing your history can help you to just move forward, to understand more about yourself and about others. So my mission is to just help people find their way back, help them to find it, to move forward, find some liberation in knowing more about yourself.
So as you were talking about rice grits, in my head I'm thinking about broken rice. That is literally what we use back home. In West Africa, you find that very prevalent. So there's so many parts. When I was watching High on the Hog, I'm like, "Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah." I'm seeing stuff in the market that I would see in Ghana, and all these different parts, and I'm like, "Yes, these worlds are colliding finally." And it's so crazy to know that it-
Lana Lagomarsini:
It's so nice to see.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, it's so great to see.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And it's funny you're talking about broken rice in Ghana, because when I first learned about rice grits, I thought immediately to broken rice being used in Asian cultures.
Nana Wilmot:
Exactly.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And it's funny, the more we learn, the more it keeps us together. The more it connects us than separates us. The more I learn about this kind of ... A lot of cultures have many variations on the same-
Nana Wilmot:
Exactly.
Lana Lagomarsini:
... types of things. We are so connected, just as humans on that human level, that it's almost interesting to see how it manifests in different cultures, but it's also very funny to see how similar it all is when you really get down to the nitty gritty.
Nana Wilmot:
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, we have more courses.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah. So next after that was four.
Lana Lagomarsini:
The fish.
Nana Wilmot:
The fish was four.
Lana Lagomarsini:
The porgy fish.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, that was called homecoming. So like I was kind of referring to, sankofa, homecoming was like returning back home, returning back to what we knew the best that we knew. So we've always cooked with a whole animal, used all the parts. So it wasn't new that we were trying to find our way with whatever was giving us the remainders or the less desirable scraps. So then we were thinking more about cooking techniques, again, and you start to think about fire. That was mainly what we used.
So when you can't control fire and fire's just flaming, what do you start to think of? You start thinking about drying, smoking, grilling, open pit. It just starts to expand. You start to think, "Oh, these are the different ways that we were cooking." You think about hearth cooking and we start to think about James Hemings.
So homecoming was a whole porgies fish fried that we did with suya. And suya is near and dear to my heart. It is a beautiful spice blend mixture that we use, originating in Nigeria, but Ghana and Nigeria always have a little beef when it comes to food. So of course, Ghana had to take over and we made our own, as well. It's very similar in taste. You can tell there's a little bit of difference. Definitely Ghanaians use peanuts in theirs, as well.
But I thought that was just a really fun way to start thinking about how we have barbecue here, how we fry whole fish, and how it's just a thing that we constantly did out of survival, out of cooking and holding things for a little bit longer, so you start thinking about what other cooking techniques we had. And then we paired that with just a nice little light herb salad with our grilled lime.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Grilled limes, yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
It was just a nice fish course. You didn't need anything else.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Right. And the porgy fish also is ... On a personal level, my mom used to grow up eating those. She is originally from Alabama and used to go down and spend the summers with her family and eat the porgy there, and also up here in New York. So I think it's very synonymous, also, with Black culture. Most Black people I know like to eat porgy. But the fish itself is very bony but the meat's delicious, so I was glad we were able to feature that fish, in particular.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, because it's a prevalent ... In Ghana, it's porgies, there's tilapia, red snapper. So when we both ... I said, "Porgy," she was like, "Oh my gosh, my mom used to ... " And I was like, "Yep, we're doing porgies. That's it."
Kerry Diamond:
Nana, you mentioned James Hemings and we haven't talked about him yet, and his really outsized contribution to the culinary world. Do you want to talk about him a little bit? Because you did reference him. I was going to say, throughout the night you referenced him a few times.
Lana Lagomarsini:
We referenced him.
Nana Wilmot:
So now, as we start to think about the map, how we had stopped in Charleston, talking about Gullah Geechee, and then we're making our way up, so now we're hitting Virginia area, and-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Mid-Atlantic.
Nana Wilmot:
... Mid-Atlantic, and the movement, and we start talking about the Green Book in a little bit. So realizing, James Hemings, Sally Hemings' brother, how he was Thomas Jefferson's right-hand man. He was like, "I love French food and I'm going to take you so that I can have French food all the time." So he was the first ever American chef trained in France. And not just Black man, but American chef. So that is a thing a lot of people don't know so we wanted to highlight him and be like, "Hey, he opened doors for us that we're walking through now and we're standing on the shoulders of giants like him." And he came over and he brought back with him mac and cheese. We did this part of ... The fifth course was like a three-parter.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, there was a lot to it.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, and you led the way and I helped to accent the way, if you want to ...
Lana Lagomarsini:
Right. Yeah, I wanted to do ... So it was all kind of jumping off of this chefs of the mid-Atlantic talking about the Green Book. So one of the chefs that I wanted to highlight was a man right here in New York named Thomas Downing who was a free man. He was born free. But he was the oyster king of New York City. He had a restaurant down I think around Wall Street, and his clients were just very high caliber. Actually, I went to the MOFAD yesterday to check out the exhibit on African Americans in food culture, and-
Kerry Diamond:
Is this the Ebony Kitchen?
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes. Yes, it was so cool. Oh my god.
Nana Wilmot:
I am so excited.
Lana Lagomarsini:
It was awesome. But one of the things that I learned, actually, when I was there was that Thomas Downing actually fed Queen Victoria and Edgar Allan Poe, as well. So he was very well regarded in New York City, so I wanted to do a little ode to him as a little intermezzo. So I did a little oyster stew. He used to do a pie, like an oyster pie, and I wanted to play off of that so I did a little puff pastry on the side, and kept it very simple, tried to follow as true to his original recipe as I could, just so people would have a taste of it.
And a gentle reminder that New York used to be an oyster and there's a lot of history here where Black people have made their imprint and intertwined themselves without even really being acknowledged, so I just wanted to throw something out to him.
But then we moved into the course itself, where we're talking about other chefs from the same area, one of which was James Hemings. Another which was Edna Lewis, which was the rabbit that I did. And it was kind of an homage to her stuffed rabbit. And Edna obviously is a culinary icon from Virginia, opened how many doors for women, for women chefs, for Black women chefs, for farmers, for seasonality. So I wanted to do a little something for her there.
She had the mac and cheese. That was also very true to Hemings' original recipe. I just want to also say that Hemings is also the reason why French cuisine is so popular in the United States these days.
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so you did a nice little Mornay sauce on top just to tip our hats to him like-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Exactly.
Nana Wilmot:
... "You brought this in." Macaroni pie, what we know now as mac and cheese, was very simple, very beautiful, delicate in a kind of way, and it was buttery, and it's rich. Because of him, he brought in this new style of cooking. And along, we talked about hearth cooking, as well.
Kerry Diamond:
I wish someone would do a Hemings documentary.
Nana Wilmot:
Honestly. Honestly.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, and Edna Lewis. I've brought this up like a hundred times on the podcast.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, a lot of our history is just erased. Or it's just moved around and all this stuff. So I think we just know how important it is to just be like, "This is us. This is something that we had an imprint on all this stuff and we want to celebrate it and we want to be able to tell this story." Because, so much of the time, our history is told for us and it's like, "Well, this is it." And it's like, "Well, wait. You guys are leaving things out."
So it was important and I was like, "For two Black women to stand up here and tell this story, we don't have a voice most of the time, so we're stepping into the light to create our own voice."
Kerry Diamond:
You know what just crossed my mind? We might not have documentaries on these folks, but we have you two. Seriously. I think what you two did at the dinner that I was at was a form of living documentary.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It's like a documentary in a menu.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's important ... That's the way, like we've said, a lot of our stuff has not been written but the way we did it was we passed it by cooking. That's how I learned a lot about my culture, a lot about the Ghanaian cuisine, was hanging in the kitchen with my mom and my grandma. That's how I learned how to be a woman in some ways. There's so many things that get passed down and you wouldn't know it unless you sat with one of the elders. And nowadays, people are not doing that anymore. We don't have the time.
Thank god for COVID, honestly, because I was able to sit down with my mom and I'm like sitting there, I'm like, "So why do you do that when you ... " I had the time. So I think that opened my eyes a lot like, "Wow, man." That art of storytelling is truly dying. You have to bring it back. I truly love being engaging with people and making ... just think a little differently or open it up a little bit.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the last few courses and then-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, we just have two.
Kerry Diamond:
... I want to get some biographical info for everybody on you two.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, sure.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Of course.
Nana Wilmot:
So yeah, that was the end of course five and then-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Then it was just the sweet potato corn bread.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, course six was the dessert. We did a sweet potato corn bread cake that I had layered with chocolate ganache. So it was just picking up, also ... We were talking about corn. We didn't talk too much about corn on there, but you kind of referenced grits so it was just like, "All right." There is a correlation. Just like we were rice farmers, we also were taught to be corn farmers, as well. And we already had history in doing that so it was just kind of like, "All right." And you can see how much, obviously, the corn has been an impact on this industry, on this society. We use corn in so many different ways in the States.
So using that, we put that in. Corn bread is just always just kind of a staple at every Black table, I think. And bringing back sweet potatoes, "What's another way that we can use sweet potatoes that's not just a starch of some sort that can hold but it also can be sweet and savory?"
Lana Lagomarsini:
My grandma used to make a banging sweet potato pie, so when we were talking about doing a corn bread dessert, I was like, "Can we put sweet potato in it?" And she was like, "Yes."
Nana Wilmot:
I was like, "Yeah, I got something. Let's make something."
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, so again, it came full circle. And then the final ... We just gave little red velvet cookies. When we were talking about dessert, I felt like we should at least do a nod to red velvet and its place in the South. It's, I feel, a big part of Southern dessert cuisine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like it's so intertwined within the South there, so I wanted to do a little nod.
Yeah, and I love to do a little takeaway because it's always nice to see that smile on a guest's face when they're like, "Ooh."
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, absolutely.
Lana Lagomarsini:
So we made some cookies, as well. Yeah. It felt fully rounded.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, congratulations.
Nana Wilmot:
Thank you very much.
Kerry Diamond:
It was a triumph.
Nana Wilmot:
Awesome.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Thank you. We really appreciate that.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, let's talk about you two and how you became chefs. Nana, let's start with you.
Nana Wilmot:
So I had started cooking at the age of seven. I learned from my grandmother. Her name is Georgina. Her name was, she passed away about six years ago, almost six years ago. So she was very influential to my life. She was also a teacher. My brother is two years older than me. I think right after he was born, she came and she was there until I was about 14. So I spent a lot of my formative years with her so I feel like I have a little bit of the old school, the old traditional way. Women in the kitchen and this stuff versus growing up in this modern day.
So that's how I learned how to cook, but there's a lot of trials and tribulations in life that led me back to ... All of a sudden I was in culinary school. It was actually really weird. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after some failed attempts of going to college. I also was a communication major, did PR. So I was like, "All right." This popup ad came up for the Art Institute of Philadelphia. It was the strangest thing. Clicked on it, I was like, "Oh, I could cook." I challenged myself to cook something different for seven days. If I could do it, then I would go.
So the seventh day, I remember I made this stuffed chicken. And my mom was like, "What is going on with you?" Every day I had something. And I was like, "Hey, this is what I want to do. I think I want to go to culinary school." She was like, "All right, well, you got to convince your father," and I'm like, "Oh god." So I went and talked with him, signed a contract.
Kerry Diamond:
With your dad?
Nana Wilmot:
With my dad. Because my failed attempts had cost them some money, so they were just like, "Want to make sure that you're taking this serious." And I went and I just hit the ball rolling, I was Dean's List. They were just like, "Oh, all right." And I just kept it going and, all of a sudden, I started my company, which is called Georgina's in memory of my grandmother.
And I started catering. After working with Wolfgang Puck for a little bit, I kind of gained a little bit of understanding of what kind of food, which way I was going towards. I wanted to go into fine dining, I knew that. Spent some time running around Philly and popping in different restaurants. I ended up working for Iron Chef Jose Garces. And at the time in Philly, it was Stephen Starr or Jose Garces, and I was working for like all the Garces restaurants and I really worked my way around.
I think it was like 2016, Chef Garces was opening up a restaurant in New York and I was like, "Whoa, New York. All right," and came up here on a whim. I was just like, "All right." My mentor Justin Bogle, he was heading the project, so I was like, "Cool. I'm good to go."
And I was there for about six months. It wasn't really doing that great. I was like, "Okay. I don't know which way this is going, but kind of want to get into another avenue." My grandmother passed away, so I was devastated. I went to Ghana for like a month and I didn't want to come back to New York. I was like, "I'm done cooking."
Came back, Justin was like, "Yo, what are you doing?" I was like, "Nothing." So he was like, "Oh, I'm at this new spot. Come check it out." I'm like, "All right." It's Le Coucou. It just opened and I was like, "All right, whatever. Let's give it a whirl." And that was it. I was hooked and it was classical French cuisine. I was like, "This is awesome." And I had done French food before, but this was very ... It was elite. We were doing beautiful things. Daniel Rose just blew my mind and I was just like, "Wow."
Kerry Diamond:
The head chef there. Yeah, it's a beautiful space.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah. Beautiful space.
Kerry Diamond:
Roman and Williams designed. Gorgeous.
Nana Wilmot:
It was beautifully designed, yeah. And right out the gate, we got James Beard Award, Best New Restaurant. We were getting all these nods in New York Times and it was just great. And then, all of a sudden, I got ... During service one day, they were like, "Bon Appétit wants to talk to you," and I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" And they were like, "Yeah, we just want to talk to you," and I was like, "All right, cool."
So they gave my information. They were like, "Yeah, we want to know ... " I was the only Black chef in the kitchen, and I'm whipping around my braids and I'm just running, and they were just like, "We just want to know what's your story being this only black female?" So I kind of told them and it became a whole thing and I was like, "Whoa."
Did a spread. This was like 2018. Did a spread and then we did a YouTube video. It was really almost overwhelming because so many people were like, "Oh my god, that's me. This is how ... Thank you for giving me motivation," or, "I couldn't hack it, but I'm glad you're doing it. Keep going." It was all these different kind of things, and it was pretty awesome, very inspirational for myself. And then I kind of just wanted to see what was going on. I realized I had an opportunity to see a lot of things, be a part of a lot of things. And, you know, went to James Beard House, did a whole bunch of just awesome, awesome things.
Nana Wilmot:
Right before COVID happened, I was supposed to go to Paris.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that. That broke my heart for you.
Nana Wilmot:
Oh, my goodness. So Chef Daniel Rose has two restaurants in Paris that he had actually started before he made Coucou. And I was set and I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to go there for two years. I'm just waiting on my Visa." He comes over, he's like, "Hey. So they're closing France or something. I don't know what's going on." I was like, "No."
So I kind of, made a U-turn and went back to Philly and started hanging out with my mom. I was crushed. I was in pieces. The world's ending. What am I supposed to do?
Kerry Diamond:
It seemed like that at the time.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah. Everything had closed. I was like, "What do I do in New York?" So I just started cooking again with my mom and just kind of came full circle and I started my supper club, where I just wanted to take African food onto another level, look at it at a fine dining level, see what ... Just be like, "What is fine dining?" It's not really this or that, it's a mood. I was like, "It's a feeling."
So I wanted to challenge it and that's how I started going more into Black food, Black history and realizing it all came full circle. Now I'm doing my own thing full time and it's been a really awesome ride. I'm excited to see what happens next.
Kerry Diamond:
And we are going to come back to that question of, "What is fine dining?" But in the meantime, Lana, you tell us your story.
Lana Lagomarsini:
All right. Where to start? I'm from New York. I'm born and raised here in New York City. I ended up going to private school for the majority of my childhood here in the city. And it was definitely a unique and different experience that has definitely come back into play now in my adult years.
So I went to private school. My parents ended up moving upstate when I was 16. Looking back even now as a chef from the viewpoint that I have, it's almost funny that I didn't become a chef much sooner. I was always in the kitchen. I was always eating. Some of my earliest memories of me and my mom going to eat mussels when I was like five. What five year old loves mussels like that? I used to love broccoli. My parents made up songs for me about food. I should have known-
Kerry Diamond:
All the signs were there.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, all the signs were there but I ended up going to college and studying journalism. In my final year of college, I was in a elective class writing a blog, and the teacher said, "You can write about anything you're interested in as long as you can create enough content." I said, "Well." I had been in the restaurant industry my whole life, working as front of house in various multi-different types of positions. And then I just fancied myself a bit of a foodie. I was always watching Top Chef. I was always cooking for my friends. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'll do a food blog."
And it just started to snowball. A friend of mine saw the food blog and then simultaneously had someone walk out of his restaurant. And he called me up and said, "Hey, you're writing about food. Do you want to come and put your money where your mouth is?"
Kerry Diamond:
Whoa.
Lana Lagomarsini:
"We need a chef." And I said, "I have no idea what I'm doing." And he said, "Don't worry. Just show up and chef will teach you."
Lana Lagomarsini:
So that's how it started. And after a year of working in back of house in Boston, I realized that-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I love that story so much because most chefs are like, "Food writers. Ugh. They wouldn't last five minutes in my kitchen."
Lana Lagomarsini:
Right. And it's funny because most people now say, "Oh, you have a degree in journalism. Have you ever thought about food writing?" I'm like, "Yeah."
Kerry Diamond:
You got seven years of the blog.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Exactly. The blog is still active, very slow ... Not a lot of new posts are going up-
Kerry Diamond:
I wasn't going to say anything, Lana.
Lana Lagomarsini:
... but I still own the domain. So you can look back-
Kerry Diamond:
But the blog's really good. It's very revealing. It's a little bit of diary, a bit of food history.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, it was kind of ... I definitely used it as a bit of a journal, per se, to wax poetic on what I thought about food.
But yeah, so after working for about a year in Boston, I realized that I didn't know that much about technical cooking. And it really kind of came to a head when I heard one of my chefs talking to another chef about making consommé. And he was like, "Did you use a raft?" And she was like, "Yeah, of course." And I was like, "What are they talking about? I need to know more." So my chef said, "You need to go to culinary school if you want to learn more."
Kerry Diamond:
And you all need to Google raft because we're not going to talk about that right now but it's fascinating.
Nana Wilmot:
Not right now.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Oh, yeah, and it's awesome. And trust me, I did learn how to make consommé.
Nana Wilmot:
Yay.
Kerry Diamond:
So where'd you go to culinary school?
Lana Lagomarsini:
So I ended up moving home to Beacon and going to CIA. And during that time, I moved home, got into CIA, moved home from Boston, and was looking for a job. I had just bought a car and I knew I needed to work, and Blue Hill put an ad out, Blue Hill at Stone Barns had just put an ad out and I said, "This can't be the same Dan Barber that I just watched his TED Talk about foie gras, can it?"
So I was like, "Let me just throw my resume and see what happens," and they called me the next day. They asked me to start front of house in their events team. And I slowly just picked my way up, worked as a bartender and then eventually was like, "Hey, you know I'm in culinary school, right?" So the entire two years I was in school, I was at Blue Hill, as well, plus an additional year.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow, that's some education.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, so I felt like I was getting ... I went from knowing nothing to knowing everything. So I was getting technical skills at CIA and I was getting food system skills and food and growing food and farming and all those stories you were talking about, being a guest and wanting to know the story behind your food. I definitely learned the stories behind everything. And if I didn't know, everyone at Blue Hill made sure that I learned. So I definitely felt like I went to CIA and then Blue Hill University at the same time.
But it was great. It was a crash course in learning, and also my first taste of fine dining. I was bit by the bug. And by the time I graduated culinary school, I was already 26 and I was feeling the pressure because I knew that a lot of my fellow graduates were 18, 20, and they could totally take a jump on me in this industry. So I said to myself, "I'm just going to work at the best places that will take me," and I just applied to the best restaurants I could.
And just, again, one thing kind of led to another and ended up snowballing and my career was mostly in fine dining, Michelin restaurants up until the pandemic. I also lost my job very suddenly. It was very heartbreaking. I was working at Charlie Bird, and that restaurant, the culture there is just so amazing and I was so happy and had finally settled into a position where I was ready to hang out for the long haul and then everything shut down and went haywire.
And I'm the kind of person that can't sit still for very long, so after like three weeks of sitting on my parents' couch in Beacon, I was like, "I have to do something." So I ended up just making that pivot, turning and becoming a private chef. And the first few months were great. I ended up doing a lot of incredible ... I ended up picking up a lot of really great clients, doing a lot of dinners I didn't think I would get a chance to do.
And then, once I started to kind of get into a rhythm as a private chef, I realized that I still wanted to challenge myself as a chef. My original goal and my goal still is to have my own place one day. So everything I do is hopefully it's inline with that final vision that I would like for my life.
So I realized I want to challenge myself more as a chef and still find my voice as a chef. So how can I do that? And then the popup started to happen because I wanted to continue to find that voice. And then we met and then those deep dives started happening on my own history and the history of Black people in America. Again, I've been bitten by yet another bug where I'm like, "Wow, I have had the training now, so how can I find a way to tell this story that's so near and dear to my heart and that I constantly want to find out more through the training that I've had through food?"
Kerry Diamond:
Before I let you two go, I want to talk a little bit about the future of fine dining, the immediate future. I mean, the future is now for so much, right?
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Where do you think this whole part of the restaurant world is going? Nana, what do you think?
Nana Wilmot:
I think that we are going to ... Things are opening up a little bit. The gatekeepers are changing and shifting, which is going to bring, I think, a lot of more diverse food to the forefront. I think society, we're ready. We're intrigued with new flavors now and I definitely see African food moving to a really different space with gastronomy, just powerful, key players that are really pushing the envelope, including myself, as well. But I'm just really excited to see people who have been in the trenches doing the work being pushed to the forefront.
As the JBF nominations came out yesterday, and even seeing through that, I'm like, "All right. We're seeing a little bit."
Kerry Diamond:
Progress, yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
I'm excited.
Kerry Diamond:
We didn't talk about how many ... You two gave us sort of the highlights of your experiences. We didn't touch on how many talented people of color fine dining has pushed away.
Nana Wilmot:
Right. Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
And people have just walked away from it because they didn't ...
Lana Lagomarsini:
Absolutely.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah. It's a tough one for us.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah. We've both been in positions where we've been the only woman in a kitchen, the only woman of color in the kitchen, or the only person of color.
Nana Wilmot:
Right.
Lana Lagomarsini:
One of those three or a combination.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And it's an interesting thing to look around and realize you're trying to get respect from so many people that don't look like you and don't have your experiences. It definitely can create just a challenge. Unfortunately, it's ... I don't even know how to really ... Let me think on that, I guess.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I mean, you two are the future of fine dining. What you did earlier this month was fine dining.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're reshaping it.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Lana Lagomarsini:
I think, with fine dining in the future in general, though, as you said, it's going to need a changing of the guard but also a changing of the way that fine dining is structured right now. I find that a lot of chefs left New York at the onset of the pandemic, just because it was too expensive for them to stay here. And if you're not from here and you have no ties here, obviously-
Nana Wilmot:
It's hard. Yeah, I know. I got my suitcase right there. It's real. It's real out here.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah. The only reason I live here is because I'm from here.
Nana Wilmot:
Right, exactly.
Lana Lagomarsini:
But that being said, unfortunately fine dining hasn't found a way to pay even the lines cooks, the commis, even the chefs a wage that's competitive right now for a lot of chefs that have made that left turn to go into private cheffing. It's very hard to come back because the industry hasn't caught up, unfortunately, to just the needs of society. And as someone who I own a business and hope to have a restaurant one day, it definitely has me thinking, "How can I change this structure so people are actually making a living wage?"
Places like Dirt Candy where their employees own a part of the company, I am enjoying seeing that happen, but I don't see it happen very often and I think that that's one of the biggest challenges that fine dining is facing these days is just getting enough competent chefs to work. And I don't think that chefs should have to sacrifice-
Nana Wilmot:
They shouldn't.
Lana Lagomarsini:
... their needs-
Nana Wilmot:
I think that's why you're going to see the rise in this underground ... It's growing because we know-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Popup culture.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, the popup culture. Because we know we can't get what we want in so many different ways, and that's why a lot of us have strayed to private, and we can find financially a better situation. So you're going to find these ... not secret, but it's going to be away from corporate. It's going to be a new version of mom and pop, in a way. But somehow, also, they're going to put these people ...
I think the restructure, it's already there. It's going to shift to these popups, and then these popups are going to kind of become not corporate, but move right into that. Because this is dying. No one wants a brick and mortar now. All these ghost kitchens are popping up. We're realizing the one way that we've been taught is not it. It's not it.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, we're seeing now how many ... As the result of COVID, I think a lot of chefs have realized how many paths there are to the same goal.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, man.
Lana Lagomarsini:
And you can go a lot of different ways to get your voice heard. I worked in fine dining for almost 10 years and nobody knew who I was, and now I've been running my own business for a year and a half and it's crazy how much, when you step into your own and step into your own truth, that things will follow, and I think that popups allow chefs to step into their own truth and into their own identity, and to get their names and their voices heard. And hopefully that will lead to, like I said, a restructuring of the fine dining systems.
Nana Wilmot:
Especially the minority chefs.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Mm-hmm.
Nana Wilmot:
We're rising up in there. So the whole focus is going to shift. It's going to take a little while because-
Lana Lagomarsini:
Absolutely.
Nana Wilmot:
... the inside right now does not want to change. So we almost have to let that die. Which, it's happening. So it's like, "Well, all right. You go ahead and die." We're quietly building over here. We're building our own table. We no longer want your table. That's where it's at.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, we'll just do it ourselves. And when it comes time for us to step into that ... We're coming from a totally different viewpoint.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, absolutely.
Lana Lagomarsini:
So hopefully we can change those systems that have kept a lot of chefs down.
Kerry Diamond:
I think about that with the whole seat at the table. I'm like, "Build a new table."
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't want to sit at your table.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, and it's so crazy, we're taught to want that table so badly. But now it's like, "No, man."
Lana Lagomarsini:
You don't want to be anywhere that they don't want you.
Nana Wilmot:
Exactly. I'm totally good.
Lana Lagomarsini:
That's the truth. If you're not invited to the table, then you're missing the party.
Nana Wilmot:
It's like, "Matter of fact, my table's looking real good right now."
Lana Lagomarsini:
I'm having a party at my table.
Nana Wilmot:
Right. I don't know.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, next time you each need to have your own episode because this has been really hard because you two are fascinating.
Nana Wilmot:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
I hope this is just the start of many times we get to talk to you on Radio Cherry Bombe.
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
We got to get to the speed round because I know you've got a nice lunch waiting for you. You're going to Lodi, right next door to where we record.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes. Hopefully we can convince you to at least come sit with us for a moment.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to come get a coffee.
Lana Lagomarsini:
All right.
Kerry Diamond:
I haven't had any coffee today.
Lana Lagomarsini:
All right.
Kerry Diamond:
But anyway, I've loved talking to you two.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Aw, you as well. Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
You're really tremendous and I just love the leadership that you're showing and taking in this industry.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Thank you for helping to lift our voices, as well.
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, let's talk speed round. Coffee, tea or whatever? What do you take and how do you take it?
Nana Wilmot:
Coffee.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah, definitely coffee. Espresso or I'll do a cappuccino. But honestly, I'll take caffeine in any coffee form. I'm not going to turn it away.
Nana Wilmot:
Definitely. I am a cold brew kind of gal, but definitely a cappuccino. I will always get a cappuccino.
Kerry Diamond:
You two are just happy with coffee.
Nana Wilmot:
Yes, coffee.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Lana, favorite kitchen tool?
Lana Lagomarsini:
Okay. Cake tester.
Nana Wilmot:
Ooh.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, you got to explain that. How is a cake tester your favorite kitchen tool?
Lana Lagomarsini:
It was the first one that came to mind and it's very versatile, more versatile than you think. We use it as a temperature gauge. We use it as, obviously, an actual cake tester. But you can also use it to test the doneness of vegetables, of meats, just based on how it feels when you put it in. I think it's an unsung hero in the general at-home cooks, but every line cook who's ever worked in fine dining knows what's up. The cake tester is great.
Nana Wilmot:
That's actually a really good answer.
Kerry Diamond:
I know, pressure's on, Nana. What's yours?
Nana Wilmot:
I'd say just a really nice spoon, like a nice, medium-deep spoon. All purpose. You can baste with it, you can stir with it.
Lana Lagomarsini:
You can serve with it.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, it can work as almost any single tool that you need it to. So yeah, I think that's what I grab for the most. But dang, a cake tester.
Kerry Diamond:
Lana, a treasured cookbook?
Lana Lagomarsini:
Probably my cookbook from Daniel. It has a lot of sentimental value. Daniel has a tradition of, when it's someone's last day, if you have a Daniel cookbook or acquire a Daniel cookbook, we leave it at the pass for the entire staff to sign. So my cookbook is filled with signatures. I was lucky enough to have Daniel Boulud sign it.
Nana Wilmot:
Nice.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Obviously my exec and all of my friends that I worked with, every single one wrote a note. Some of them hid them in different pages based on if that dish came off of their station and stuff. The recipes are also beautiful and truly spectacular, but when I open that cookbook, I see a time and a place and how many people were so sweet that I worked with. So that's definitely probably my favorite cookbook.
Kerry Diamond:
That is special. Okay, Nana. Pressure's on again.
Nana Wilmot:
Ooh. I would have to say, currently right now, Zoe's Ghana Kitchen. I, first of all, love Chef Zoe. I have been privileged to kind of know her a little bit and she's kind of, in some ways, taken me under her wing. But definitely, being a Ghanaian woman as well, and both of us kind of having identity through food, she was very much ... Her father is Ghanaian and I think her mother is Irish, so she has a lot of beautiful twists on Ghanaian food.
But I love this book and it was actually recently reprinted. But it's just so great how she touches in on these classic dishes, some that I actually don't even know how to make, so I was like, "Ah, okay. This is cool." But does it in kind of her own take, changes some things up in some modern ways. Just she inspires me a lot and I look to her as a mentor and just what she's doing is opening up doors for people like me, and especially a young African chef, I'm like, "Yeah, this is me in the future." I'm looking at that. So I think that's definitely-
Kerry Diamond:
She is a force.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, I love her.
Kerry Diamond:
I love her too.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Good answer.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, we're going to jump ahead so we can get you two out of here. We'll do the last question. Okay. Lana, if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why? You can't say Nana.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Okay, I don't know why but Gordon Ramsay keeps coming to mind. You know, he seems like the kind of dude who would know how to fish, would know how to set up a fire, and would have some serious hustle to make sure that we didn't die. But also, I truly believe that he's also a total sweetheart deep down. He just has that energy to me, so I would love to just hang out and get to know him a little bit. So I think he would be a fun person because I just imagine myself trying to get firewood and him screaming at me to do it more and I just think that would be so funny to me that I would enjoy the experience.
Nana Wilmot:
Oh, man.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Nana.
Nana Wilmot:
All right. Me? Okay. I would have to say-
Kerry Diamond:
And you can't say Lana.
Nana Wilmot:
I can't? I would have to say Chef Leah Chase.
Kerry Diamond:
Good answer.
Nana Wilmot:
I really wish I had the opportunity to have met her.
Kerry Diamond:
May she rest in peace.
Nana Wilmot:
First of all, she reminds me a lot of my grandmother, and I just think that she would just have so many gems and tell me what to do but I would be doing it. She'd probably just be sitting there like, "Oh, go out there and fetch this." But I'd be like, "All right," full of joy. I don't know. I just feel like she would be a great conversationalist.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm also going to throw this out there. I think you two need a show together.
Nana Wilmot:
Really? That would be awesome.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yeah.
Nana Wilmot:
Yeah, right?
Lana Lagomarsini:
I would love that.
Nana Wilmot:
What?
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes, any prospective TV producers out there ...
Nana Wilmot:
Yo, hit us up.
Kerry Diamond:
A podcast, a TV show.
Lana Lagomarsini:
A podcast. Podcast people.
Nana Wilmot:
I mean, hey, we have a lot to say, I'd say.
Kerry Diamond:
And we're going to end on that note. What a joy talking to you both.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Thank you.
Nana Wilmot:
Thank you so much, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
Again, I hope it's just the first of many conversations.
Nana Wilmot:
Absolutely.
Lana Lagomarsini:
Yes, please.
Kerry Diamond:
Thanks for your time.
Nana Wilmot:
Thank you.
Lana Lagomarsini:
All right, take care.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Chef Lana Lagomarsini and to Chef Nana Wilmot for joining me today. Check out their culinary adventures on their Instagram accounts and keep an eye on these two special talents. No doubt we'll be hearing a lot more from them in the year to come.
Thank you to Lenox. Check our Lenox and Victoria James giveaway this week and visit lenox.com. Lots of beautiful things over there. And thank you to Luke's Lobster and American Unagi. Use promo code cherry15 for 15% off all products at lukeslobster.com through March 31st.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios, and thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You're the bombe.