Binging With Babish Eats His Last Meal

been very open with my audience. and it felt very strange to be secretive and not open and honest about what I'm facing and what I'm going through. This is a very long answer to your question about whether or not it improves my life in front of the camera or or I don't care about that anymore and I told you it was going to get heavy I'm sorry if it was that way too much for this no, we're just going to need something more strong than c, I'm sure it will be next, thank God, the bourbon is here Regards Regards Jess, so here we have you, you left the bourbon to my choice, oh God, that's good. this is the Garrison Brothers 94 test, yes no this is delicious and a knowledgeable man from Choice Cheers Cheers and then of course we have the Alo oo pasta this is Linguini boiled until Al Dente and then sautéed in garlic chili and some parsley emulsified with the pasta, water and chicken parmesan were made two ways.

Now this, we have history with this one. This is your chicken parmesan method with breadcrumbs, cheese on the bottom, sauce on top. I get it, it protects the crunchy texture and then we got mine with it. Progresso Italian breadcrumbs seasoned then slathered with sauce for the perfect SOG. uh, low humidity, grated Mrs. just to get that nice leopard spot. I can't believe you made not only the breading different but the method different like that, so that's incredibly thoughtful. Now we can test them face to face like we had to do it at my house, but we just did them, we tested them and then we did the next one, but now they're right next to each other.

Yours looks much better, yes it does. The Browning so is the class chicken parm. Look, mine looks significantly worse. Thank you. I'm really curious to try this face to face because the

last

time we cooked this at your apartment I was just drinking to try and steal my nerves. for getting a tattoo done by a man named Joseph with no e in his name, um wait let me try the P chicken swap oh god that's hot we're in an open relationship chicken parm it's cool Polly no, I cant go up. it's all pleasure everywhere Polly it's a chicken no whatever I mean I'm still back here this is what they're both really good but I agree yours is more chicken Parn thank you this is like a chop of fried chicken with sauce and cheese, what rules, sometimes you can improve on the original, you know, sometimes Olive Garden just got it right.

Olive Garden always has a w God damn tell me about the Reddit post, how did the community react when you opened up like that? It was a place not only of support, but also of people sharing not necessarily the details of their stories, but the fact that they had G. You told me before that it was like it was a trope that fills your mouth when someone talks about their dead dad and please talk about your sexual assault while I slurp more pasta. When I posted on the Reddit thread, not only were people very supportive, but they also liked to talk openly about their own stories, they had clearly mentioned it. into something that made the channel great in the first place, which was our sense of community in this normally completely parasocial relationship and it was really beautiful.

I was really very nervous about doing it. I wrote and rewrote the draft. for a couple of days and then I finally clicked publish and I just didn't look at it for a few hours and I thought I can't even deal with this and then I came back and it's just hundreds of comments that are not just supportive, but just open, shared, curious and kind, it was a very rare thing on the internet to happen en masse, something incredibly rare, but not necessarily with you because I remember when I started following your channel and then I started searching.

In the interviews with you you were very open and very sincere and I know that we are now in a kind of therapy industrial complex where it is almost very common for people to say that, but you were someone who six and seven years ago and we are talking very openly. and without shame, almost with pride, like hey, we all start from one place and hopefully we end up somewhere better and it's all one big journey. Do you remember a very long and sincere email I sent you years ago? Yes, I can't recite It word for word, but no, you sent me a, do you know who can?

Can I, can I do a dramatic reading please, because I remember sending it and then I don't remember exactly what it said and then I looked it up the other day. and I thought, I think this would be a good time, I hope I answered the same way, yes, you definitely answered, no, we share this, we share anxious avoidance in common, although yes, no, that's a huge thing, it's like a Sometimes I wish I had done it. I've killed a couple of friendships because it's been so long since I responded to his text that I'm so embarrassed that it just compounds over time and then eventually it's like why you know why I'm trying.

It's over, this is after a while. a little bit of preamble, but we've never been able to talk much due to the constant need to create content and be funny, but I just wanted to say how much it means to me that you talk so candidly about depression and anxiety when I was. Upon finishing my cookbook manuscript a few years ago, I had a massive anxiety attack and started crying uncontrollably and going to Starbucks for about 2 hours. A few weeks later, I had a nervous breakdown in a meeting at the magazine I worked at and when I walked in the next day, he told me to clean my desk for the next 9 months.

I was so exhausted that I couldn't do the right thing and every day I stayed in bed catatonic or exercised obsessively to escape the daily pressure, although yeah, look. In you, I too was stuck in a shitty relationship for 6 years anyway, making cooking videos and getting out of that relationship is also what saved me from what I assumed was perennial dread and misery. It's really cool to see someone at the top of the game. a game that often prioritizes hiding those vulnerabilities being as open and allowing others to feel less alone I definitely didn't watch that because it really was awesome and I'm sorry I didn't watch it, let me tell you, no no buddy no. apologies necessary, it's a difficult table to hug, oh what a terrible table to hug, how are you supposed to do a good interview here, yes, no, it actually happened because I kept trying to hug the guests, they say, let's put a corner where you can't.

Do it, that's so appropriate after the conversation we've been having that you'd think we wrote this, but we really didn't thank you very much for revealing that, not only does it make me feel so much better to share the things I just shared, but also wow, you know you're a great writer and you really know how to connect with people and that's why you're so good at what you do if this is our

last

meal

. I am happy, I would be very happy if this was my last

meal

and your plate number three. We have salmon belly ngiri.

We have Amber Jack Sashimi. We have bagels. These are dying in the window. You have to eat them fresh. first first up oh can you see it oh delicious delicious uni genital there I always thought it's more like a tongue I know it's a genal it looks like a tongue I'm not a scientist but technically I think the tongue is part of the genitals they really know how to do it in the ocean, you know, tell me about the sushi. I used to hate all seafood like all seafood. I never thought sushi would be what led me to seafood, but I don't remember where they took it. me, but it was a nice sushi place in New York and it was these three things specifically that you so kindly prepared and uh oi in particular the ocean butter uh I never thought that that thorny rock that contains these genitals would be so so try me, I want wondering about the future because you said you felt like you were effectively starting over after going to rehab, uh, and everyone knows you know happiness, mental health, none of that is a linear journey, but let's say hypothetically 5 years from now.

The happiest version of yourself exists. What is your day to day life? My goals are getting smaller. What does it take to make me happy day to day and how can I be happy day to day no matter what I'm going through? Yes, yes, because you can. You don't control what is going to happen, you can set all the goals you want in life. I had no goal of becoming a YouTuber. I had no goal of becoming a public figure. That was never my aspiration, but it happened, so if you had asked me that eight years ago, I'd be like, what's going to happen, incredulous laughter, um, but wherever I am and whatever I do, I just want to be happy, um at the time, not necessarily because I did it. this or I achieved this or I built this or I got paid this amount, it will be nice, but I feel like there are so many things in my teeth, thank you, you got it, but there are certainly physical situations that lend, lend, I'm going to hands that lend better. to happiness in others, like um, do you think a part of you needs that high-stress situation to push yourself and survive?

Is there ever a point where you just disappear and open a Babish's Bangor Bagelry? My escape plan is to grab an Airstream or some kind. of whatever and just something that my cat doesn't get scared of and is very sensitive uh and just smoke a lot of weed and just enjoy, that's my retirement plan too. I want to do it because I want to know that. I would be just as happy making the escape plan and just living a smaller, quieter life or a louder one. I want to know that it would be me, that I would be comfortable with both and I don't want to blindly push towards one or the other, the way I did it, that's what turned me around was thinking that there is a finish line and there is no life, It's a life, it's a long distance race, it's not one, there is no finish line, life is a road and you want to take advantage of it.

When I started doing the channel, I was at my lowest point. I had just come off a year and a half long project on a documentary that went nowhere, just face planted and all my work, I just got paid $4,000 for Jesus editing this. feature-length documentary over the course of a year and a half and lo and behold, a few months later I started doing what would change my entire life and now here we are another seven years later and I feel somehow on a much bigger version of the same precipice and it's really encouraging to think in that way where you don't know what's going to happen and it could change everything very dramatically for better or better or worse depending on how you perceive it in the moment, but that's exciting.

The way to live life is in that moment, so I want to be where I will be in 5 to 10 years. I want to be in that moment where I'm ready for things to change, but I mean a lot of this is when I ask you a question. I'm thinking about it and now all of a sudden I don't care at all and I'm going to take a draft and smoke some weed, let's roll, you and I, let's get into some kind of common law in the in the trailer your wife chicken baby says capa your wife understands she can stay in The uh but no cop chicken poop that's cheese we're getting somewhere we're getting somewhere we'll find the pun eventually there's no poultry poultry pulle Love, we have it, no, don't you dare cut the cameras, amoris de Aves, amoris de Aves, Andrew for your final dish, we have maple syrup poured over snow, which is something I'm incredibly ignorant about, and then we have crepe chips, These are crepes that have been sliced ​​and then fried served with vanilla sauce and I have no idea what this is.

I can tell you how we did it. I just don't know what it is, please explain well, so I used to work at a place called simply crepes. in Rochester and I, uh, my job was just making crepes all day and they made these and I was like Dunkaroos as an adult because, you know, it's a cookie with cinnamon sugar and this kind of vanilla custard or glazed sauce. and this So my mom, every time it snowed, I grew up in Rochester, New York, every winter, when the big first drop of powder snow came, you know, she would just grab a um, put away all the cold whip containers. and she used them like Tupperware and they turned orange with all the sauce and stuff that she put in them, so a nice orange Cool Whip container with uh full of fluffy snow and then she just poured maple syrup on top.

I thought it was not only delicious and charming but I thought it was his invention and then at school I went on a school trip to Canada like we all do and they took us to Sugar Shack like everyone does and to Sugar Shacks. I guess this is a thing in Canada where they literally, like, stack a trough of snow on a long table and then they'll pour this thick maple syrup on top and then use, you know, popsicle sticks and stuff to roll it up like chewy leftovers, yeah , we have the popsicle sticks. Please teach me because I have no idea.

Not me, you do it, you do it. I will watch you. I don't even really know how to do it. They literally like it anyway we're eating this snow and eating the maple syrup on top hell yeah now you're like you like a twist or something yeah hopefully it solidifies and we can take it off yeah no, and that's the story, oh. yeah, look, look, look, look, okay, wait, wait, oh I'm doing it and the story here is that on that school trip I wasn't just bragging because it wasLike my mom invented this, but I ate too much, too much. a medically unsafe amount and basically my roommates uh no, that's smart, that's the way to do it.

I don't think she did it right. I think you did exactly how you did it, which is the correct but regular way on this school trip. my roommates in my hotel room I started to become nonverbal and I turned gray and I was shaking and they said we had to call the hospital, they were trying to give me anti-nausea and pills or something and I couldn't keep them down, so in front of me um uh Spanish teacher they gave me a suppository espol own depositor that's so good oh I have to start making that joke you can take it manyou're welcome you've given me the gift of knowing how to make maple candy perfectly but uh yeah , no, so I'm very attached to these these things, let's try this oh, this looks great, great respect for your fry. the fries too because they bake them at Simply Crepes no, not here, this is your last meal, man, you're going out, you don't have to worry, you don't have to worry about the what are they called seed oils that people All that It makes you weird now, it's something I don't know, man, I don't care, but your first good book, your first real one, was dedicated to your mother, who died of cancer when you were 11 years old.

Did that affect her? the way you thought about life and death or even what made a life successful from a young age. um, I didn't deal with that. I was 11 years old and you know my dad was out of his mind, he loved my mom so much and I just tore him down and uh, I, uh, so all through high school, from sixth to eighth grade, I just pushed him down, no I fixed it, he became more and more antisocial, he got worse and worse at school. I was going through a hard time and then my Dad sent me to a private school and luckily this place was amazing and had a teacher named Bob Kain who has since passed away but he, while I was there, started the hospice program , which was a year long course that you could take as a senior and the first half of the year you would learn about the kind of chemical process of death and the different spiritual beliefs around it.

This is a show for kids, yeah, for seniors in high school and uh and. then in the second half of the year you would go to hospice and you would be paired with someone who was going to die and you would experience their passing with them and that would be life changing for me if I hadn't had such a close experience with death, but ultimately it forced me to face it and with that also came my first experiences with meditation where that teacher would do a candle meditation with us. There was an incredibly profound moment where he was the person he was paired with when he died.

He loved Bob. Dylan and we went back to school after it happened and Bob sat me and my other classmates down and lit a candle and put on Mr Tambourine Man and we sat there and contemplated that we wanted every bone in our body to want to talk. and sympathize and figure it out, but he said, no, just stay here with what you feel, with what you just experienced, just stay here with it, allow it to have happened, so he really changed my life and, uh, he died. himself a few years ago from blood cancer, but he has left an incredible mark on the world and certainly on me, does that answer your question?

I don't know, of course, answer that how did that not come up until we are? eat a melted snowman no, that's amazing and I think there are so many people who, even if they've dealt with death, they've done it in an abstract way that doesn't really stare it in the face, not to spin this. interview about myself, but the only reason I started pursuing any kind of creative career and I know that external validation is not yada yada, however, was because I saw my father die when I was 19 and he is someone who every time I thought, all I want is financial stability I'm going to work for the government do whatever he was like you go he's like I know my life didn't turn out the way I thought and I couldn't make your life turn out the way I wanted. but if you just chase safety you're going to regret it and I was like a big scream, man and then he died and uh, that's how I talked to no, I didn't, um, that's always given me some perspective: seeing death. very closely, in a quite visceral way.

I appreciate how you jump right into these interviews, not only because you're a great interviewer but also because of the theme of this show, which is that we're all going to die, yeah and Sorry, if you're just learning this, no, I appreciate that man, thank you um on Elizabeth Kuer Ross on death and dying, she's the one who coins the five stages of grief, um, she calls the way Americans treat death as a unique God complex, um, especially. Coming out of World War II we think we can conquer anything and we refuse to acknowledge that it exists and, uh, it sure does, man, it's coming for a Sun and meanwhile we arrived, there was urine in this snow, by the way, there was a bit. of urine if there's urine all over the snow, yeah, um, your book, your book, your book's tagline is something about making mistakes.

I thought I wrote it down, recipes for screwing it up, trying again and knocking it out of the park, damn it. that's not a metaphor for your life, my life, everyone's damn life out there, I don't know what most food media is, even social media, what you're seeing is a sanitized version of reality in the kitchen, I mean, you're seeing Okay, that's a good metaphor for social media in general, you see a sanitized version of reality, but in the kitchen it's no exception, people will make things look perfect the first time. once and it will make you feel completely inadequate in the same way as everything else. other people on social media do it and I wanted you to know that they shed some light on the fact that cooking is messy literally and figuratively, so yes, each recipe comes with a description of how I personally screwed it up because I wanted people to see to the person who wrote this book and I screwed up several times, so if you do it, it's not the end of the world and there's not this pedestal between you and me, there's the fact that we're both doing the best we can and putting our best foot forward. constantly kicking and waiting for that to happen.

It works, hey, you're ready to get into the lightning round, ready, let's do it, yeah, besides me, who's the only person living or dead you'd want to share your last meal with? I should have an answer for this, um, my other than you. Do you like Radio Head? It could be the guy from Radio Head. I like Radio Head. So yeah, sure, no, I'm kidding, what's Tom's name? and they, you know, there's two of them, but Daniels, the guys who directed, everything everywhere, at once, it's one of the best movies ever made and I'm fascinated by them and I'd love to pick their brains, I just see how can I only know one Daniel Quan Daniel Quan H sucks another Daniel uh what song do you want?

I can't remember the other Daniel's last name, so that's why what song do you want played at your funeral. uh seriously, one is the whole moon by Kieran Jay Ken and I got a tattoo. I'm an avid H tattoo, yes you are and that's my favorite song of all time. I would love it, it's beautiful, um and uh, silly, the worst Chili Peppers album in this opus. in swag baby, uh, what's your biggest fear, hurting someone, literally or figuratively, like if someone jumped in front of my car and I didn't see it, something like that, like just seriously hurting or emotionally destroying someone, I'm I.

I hate it and it's what I constantly try. to avoid at all times what is your biggest regret in life, it's really dumb if I say I don't regret it, no, that's what most people say, so it's a bit dumb in that sense, okay, yeah Look, I hate being a parrot like this. um regret is basically being like I did it wrong and I should have done it better and you couldn't have done it so yeah, I'm going to be, I'm going to be basic and say at least I don't want to regret it uh finally you're happy like we didn't. talked about it throughout the episode, you have crepe chips, how can you not be happy? man come on I'm happy afterwards I won It won't be mhm and later I'll be happy again and I'm really happy right now to be here with you and to share this meal with you.

I'm so grateful you had me and I know it as soon as an hour later. I could now be beside myself in unhappiness and for my entire life I have been lost in it, however I feel like there is actually a 30w limit to that, so if you couldn't, seriously, that's an incredibly deep answer. and um. something I hadn't thought about and I just wanted to thank you for coming man for the candid um I love you to death uh it's weird to say you look up to your friends but I mean I've looked up to you for a long time.

A long time and today proved why I describe you to everyone I know as one of the most dangerously violently funny people, but you also have so much depth, care and wonder towards yourself that you are an inspiration to I, absolutely, admire you, it's not physically We may both admire each other, but we'll try to bow tonight, if you want to say your last words, be easy on yourself, the voice in your head wants to tell you. you who are nothing you should be and in fact you are everything you are supposed to be, that was a great man, most people are like the buried treasure is up there, which is too good, in reality comes from Fraser's resignation. but whoever stole it from Frasier, but that's okay Andrew, thanks again, everyone check out Basics with Babish on the New York Times bestsell list, wherever you get your books, you know the deal, we're back here at mythical cuisine all the time, constantly until The Day We Really Die, See You Next Time.

Face the reality of mortality head-on with our new Last Meal Hat and Tea available now at Mytical.com.