DARIO DURHAM: Do you have a certain recipe or dish, do you have something that you like, man, I do not want to mess this up.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Gumbo, for sure. Oxtails. Curried goat. Shrimp Etouffee. Like a lot of these dishes are like, I can't mess it up at all. Like, just actual, just rice. Just plain rice.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah.

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know. I have a recipe in there just for a perfectly steamed rice, you know? So, like most of these dishes, if I mess up, like, I'm going to get my Black card revoked.

[“We Got a Listen” bouncy and funky theme music plays]

ALISA ROSENTHAL: Hey all, what’s going on? You’re listening to Chicago Humanities Tapes, the audio arm of Chicago’s long-running festival creating experiences through culture, creativity, and connection. I’m Alisa Rosenthal, here to bring you the best of the best of the live festival from the past 30 years… and counting.

Today we’re going to hear from James Beard Award-winning chef Kwame Onwuachi - who you might also know from “Top Chef” - on drawing inspiration from his Nigerian heritage, and trusting your own voice in cooking, and the coolest person he’s ever gotten to cook for - stick around for that one, the answer is pretty dope.

He brings his New York Bronx vibes to chat with Chicago’s own Dario Durham and Sara Faddah from the podcast 77 Flavors of Chicago, a podcast where they discuss the heritage and track down the food of all 77 of Chicago’s historic neighborhoods. I’ve linked to it in the show notes along with Onwuachi’s most recent cookbook My America: Recipes From a Young Black Chef and a full transcript. Check out chicagohumanities.org for more info, along with our spring calendar where we’ve still got tickets available to some awesome events including Costume Designing Black History with Ruth E. Carter who costume designed such iconic films Black Panther and Do the Right Thing and join the waitlist for Stacey Abrams with Jake Tapper.

This conversation was recorded on one of our “hub days” in spring of 2022, where you can explore a full day of curated events, see your favorite speaker, and maybe learn something surprising. We’ll have our fall announcement coming up soon so stay tuned.

In the meantime, give it up for Kwame Onwuachi.

[Applause]

DARIO DURHAM: Good to be here. Thank y'all for coming out. Thank you, chef, Kwame.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Absolutely. Thank you all so much for being here.

DARIO DURHAM: This man is like the Michael Jordan of the cooking world. So also, in addition, one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs, you were mentioned as. Esquire's 2019 Chef of the Year. Zagat and Forbes 30 Under 30. TIME's 100 Next list. What else we got here? Let's see. Food & Wine, Executive Producer. Man, this brother just doing it all out here.

SARA FADDAH: There was a really important one: his cookbook.

DARIO DURHAM: Oh, yeah! And the cookbook! But, man, this is, uh, this is a pleasure to be talking to you and have you here in Chicago and starting off with us here.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Pleasure's all mine. I love Chicago. And as soon as I get off the plane, get a burger from Au Cheval, you know, normally you get a hotdog somewhere. I got to say, I put ketchup on mine. I know that's, like, blasphemous out here, but.

DARIO DURHAM: Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's been good.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Right? At least I was honest. I didn't have to.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah.

SARA FADDAH: Actually, my first after hearing that list, the first thing I thought was, Do you always win at that game of Ice Breaker, where it's like, what is one interesting fact about you? And also, what is the interesting fact that you always pick?

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know what I always say? I always say was Mike Tyson is my uncle.

SARA FADDAH: Is that true, though?

KWAME ONWUACHI: No. But it's hilarious.

DARIO DURHAM: Boy, you sold it. You sold it. I was like I could kind of see it right here.

KWAME ONWUACHI: I see it in the forehead.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah, I can see it right there. You know, we going to jump into the book, but, man, check this out. Like this is—I want to know how you feel about hearing this. Time Magazine called this one of the most anticipated cookbooks of 2022. And I found out—I saw, on your Instagram that it's already one of the number one bestseller on Amazon before it even came out. How does that feel?

KWAME ONWUACHI: It's, um—it's super surreal. You know, it's something that I definitely worked really, really hard for. I did things different, and a lot of people were always like, Why did you write a memoir at 24 years old? You know, why don't you write your cookbook first? And, you know, for me, I just didn't want to do what everybody else is doing. I think it's fun to, like, do things that are different. So in writing this book, even calling it My America, you know, people are thinking it's going to be like pot roast and apple pie. And it's like, not that at all. Because my version of America, you know, looks different from other people's version of America growing up. When you're a kid, you're just a kid. You know, you're not like thinking whatever your parents are feeding you is a certain national type of cuisine. But I know that I was in America, so I just thought all Americans ate like this. But it wasn't true. And that's why I put this cookbook out to show you, you know, give you a glimpse into my life and give a voice to the inaudible.

DARIO DURHAM: There you go.

SARA FADDAH: For sure.

DARIO DURHAM: You talk about the book being very different, and it is very different. That is, I almost feel like to call it like a cookbook is almost not doing enough justice, you know? How did it feel to create something that is very personal to you? And it really explains, you know, how you see your culinary art and where it came from, because you gave a lot of derivatives of where food came from in this book. And I just want to know what you think about that.

KWAME ONWUACHI: This cookbook - it's about, like, the people that came before me. All these recipes are dishes that I grew up eating, so it was relatively easy for me to list out. It was probably harder for me to, like, omit recipes than it was to think of them for this book because I was like, okay, what did my mom cook, you know, this day? What did she cook that day? What did my father's aunt cook? You know, like, I just thought about what everything my family cooked on all four sides of my family. And I wanted to, like, really tell the story of those dishes and show why they've stood the test of time. A lot of these dishes are just selfless. You know, there wasn't—there's no, when you go to a Jamaican museum, the creator of a curry goat. Like that's not there, you know, the creator of Oxtails, it's just like it's born from true stories. And some of them are sad, you know, and some of them are beautiful. And that's what I wanted to portray in this book.

SARA FADDAH: For anyone that doesn't know, what are the four parts of your family where you've pulled these recipes from?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, West Africa, and the American South, like Louisiana and others. But there's there's also influence for me growing up in the Bronx and just eating like Dominican and Puerto Rican food, or being in D.C. and eating Ethiopian cuisine. So it's influence of of all the different cultures that have impacted my life, whether I'm directly related to it or not.

SARA FADDAHi: I think, one of my favorite parts that—while reading it was, you don't shy away from talking about the the darker parts of the history of creating Black—Black America. Right. And I remember—I don't know if it was an interview or if it was in this book, but I did a creepy amount of research. You said—your grandfather told you that it is not your entire history, it is a portion of your history, but you've made a lot of connections between slavery and food. How did you how did you get to that point? Why was it so important to create that connection?

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know, the connection is, is something that's present. It's not—it's not something that I created. It's just that, like, I like to think of food and break it down, you know, for every single dish. And, you know, for American cuisine, it's really tough to talk about American cuisine without talking about West African cuisine because it directly influenced it, whether it's the ingredients that came like rice and watermelon and Benny seeds and okra and yams or, or it's actual dishes like jollof rice, which is, you know, now in America jambalaya or, you know, fufu and stew is chicken and dumplings or, you know, suya is barbecue. So like there's there's always that that there's always something that you can trace within food and you can really, like, tell a story with a plate and also cross oceans. And that's the beauty of it.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah. I think when I read in the book it's really cool how you—it's again, it's not just the cookbook. It is—it's really stories and history lesson. If you—if you turn, every page is a lesson, something that you can learn and something that you can miss if you just skip over and go straight to the recipes. Particularly, one thing that I like is, you put some respect on collard greens, man, and there's a part in the book where you specifically talk about collard greens and the history about it. And it's not just, you know, something that "oh, Black people eat, you know, and it's unhealthy" is kind of what the stigma is. But you kind of gave the reason why collard greens is really important in our culture coming from the Great Migration, something we talk about on the podcast all the time. It really had a cultural impact for generations and I like how you put it in the in the book. You wanna tell us more about that?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah. You know, I think the history of it is pretty spectacular and brilliant and just how much nutrients are actually in collard greens. And the thing that we like the most now is, like, the pot liquor, which is, like, the sauce that comes from, like, stewing collard greens with, like, smoked pork product and aromatics. And, you know, back in slavery, during slavery, you know, the enslaved Africans, all they had was a small piece of meat sometimes, but they were able to grow their own vegetables. They had their own small little plot of land, and collards would grow like wildfire. So they would cook that with, uh, with the small piece of pork. And the adults would eat the greens, but the children would drink the pot liquor because it had the most nutrients. So it would it would carry them for, you know, a couple more hours than just eating the greens. So like, you know, those are the stories that are intertwined in the book, you know, like. Talking about jerk chicken, which is a dish of freedom. You know, the the enslaved Africans escaped from the British and then they climb the mountain and they were trying to figure out how to eat without getting caught. So they got some wild thyme and wild allspice and wild chilies and lots of salt and killed some boars and chickens, rubbed it down and dug a hole and got some embers and threw it on top of that and then covered it so their smoke wouldn't allow, you know, their location to be to be revealed. And that's how jerk chicken came about, you know. So like, those stories I think are so important. You know, some of them, like I said, are are pretty sad, but they're important that we know these things so we can really give them the respect that they deserve. Yeah.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah. I was going to say real quick in that specific section, it's uh, it's green collard greens and other vegetables. There's 14 different recipes, specifically just surrounding like the vegetables and the leafy type of things. And the way you mix them. I'm not a cook, y'all, I'm not a cook at all. So you could have put five different things, I would've been like, dang, that's crazy, you know? You know what I mean, like? But it was it was just really amazing to see that you—you took that and you stretched it. You said, hey, look, there's more creativity with this. So I just want to commend you on that one. That was—it was fascinating.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Appreciate it. Yeah.

SARA FADDAH: My next question was going to be about—in your introduction, no specific page, you talked about your first restaurant shutting down and how that was kind of—obviously a really hard thing when you have a project like that. But then you traveled a lot to kind of revisit the places where you—that inspired a lot of your recipes, right? Mentally, how was that transition from going to—I guess, if people aren't aware, you're French trained, right? So you talk about the incorporating the French technique into cooking the recipes that felt like home that aren't necessarily present in that. How did you mentally get to a point where you are comfortable incorporating both or you're, you know, you're creative and it doesn't feel like you have to choose one or the other?

KWAME ONWUACHI: That's a great question. I think I just started wanting to cook the food that I crave more than anything else. And that was just food that I grew up eating. Now I cook it differently because I have a different culinary lens, you know, based off of my training and my upbringing. But I just got to a point where I just wanted to cook food that that I crave. And the the way I honestly, like, really, really came about was, you know, my first restaurant closed and I was young. I was like 23, 24, lasted like nine weeks. So it was a disaster. But I started doing events and I started cooking more Caribbean style food. And then I did this event for Questlove. And this is like before Impossible Burger Meat came out and they sent it to us and it was for Earth Day, and we had to, like, use that. And I tasted and I was like, this is so gross. I don't know what to do with this.

DARIO DURHAM: Agreed, bruh.

KWAME ONWUACHI: It was an early rendition of it, by the way. And I was like, Why don't I just make Jamaican beef patties? Like, I can put, like, breadcrumbs in it. I could seasoned it really, really well. I can make a dope like calypso sauce and I'll make the, you know, the dough from scratch and everything. And I made it, and it was a huge hit. And I was like, why don't I just, like, massage this and try to keep cooking food that like, I'm super familiar with? And that's how I got really, really comfortable with it.

DARIO DURHAM: That's pretty dope. Along those lines, too, you were talking about, there's a holy trinity of Cajun and Creole foods. And Imma list the holy trinity to y'all: it's onions, bell peppers and celery. I had no clue. I've been praising the wrong guy. And now that I think about it, that is fantastic. Did you come up with that or is that something that's—

KWAME ONWUACHI: No.

DARIO DURHAM: Okay. All right. Look, hey, I don't know.

KWAME ONWUACHI: It's been around for a long time.

DARIO DURHAM: Okay. Shoot. I'll be in the kitchen praising everything now, shoot. Thank you, McCormick. Thank you all that. [Laughing]

KWAME ONWUACHI: Hallelujah. Yeah.

SARA FADDAH: Dario will eat a burger every night if he could.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Oh, there's a burger recipe in there.

DARIO DURHAM: Oh, I saw it, bruh, I saw. That was the first page I turned to. You know, it's funny, you was talking about how you you cook for certain people, and there's a there's a part in the book that is really cool, with talking about baby back ribs. And I have I will quote you also. You have to remember, he said baby back ribs without mac and cheese is like Jay-Z, without Beyonce. Great, of course, but not yet at it's full form. And I couldn't agree more. Now that I think about it, I'm like, man ribs and—you know, have you ever eaten it without mac and cheese? No, you haven't, you know.

SARA FADDAH: What kind of mac and cheese do you like? Do you like, obviously, baked?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Well, if you get the book, "My America, uh, Mac and Cheese That I Love"... um, no, I like baked Mac and Cheese. But my mom, she made stovetop mac and cheese growing up with, like, a bunch of different cheeses in it. So the recipe in the book is kind of a blend of both. Like I make a, you know, a mornay sauce and then fold that into the noodles, add, like, five different types of cheeses and bake it off. So it's like a blend.

DARIO DURHAM: Speaking my language.

SARA FADDAH: I actually—speaking of flavors, because I remember you saying that you don't like bitter flavors. And then I remember your interview with Harper's Bazaar where they said, what do you have in the morning? You said, I'm not a breakfast person, but you have four shots of espresso and you don't like the flavor of coffee. Do you feel like that's a red flag, or...? [All laughing]

KWAME ONWUACHI: It's one of them. It's one of them.

SARA FADDAH: I have another—I have another red flag for you.

KWAME ONWUACHI: I just drink it for fuel. I drink it for fuel.

SARA FADDAH: That's—my, my second red flag is this: this is not a question, I just need you to know that he's not a dessert person, okay? Not a dessert person.

KWAME ONWUACHI: But I like ice cream.

SARA FADDAH: Well, I know you like Jeni's, but what's your favorite ice cream flavor?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Like a generic ice cream flavor. Or like, the fancy shop ice cream.

SARA FADDAH: Your show, whatever.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Like, generic is like cookies and cream. And then, like, at Jeni's is gooey butter cake.

SARA FADDAH: Oh, that's a really good one.

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know what I'm saying.

DARIO DURHAM: Gooey butter cake?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah.

DARIO DURHAM: Wow. I never. I never had that.

SARA FADDAH: That's because you stay in the car any time we go to Jeni's. You refuse to get out and get ice cream.

KWAME ONWUACHI: It smells so sweet in there, too.

DARIO DURHAM: First of all, I knew was a matter of time until she start bringing it to me, you know what I mean? But I had, uh, I had something else. You talk about some history about how mac and cheese really came here and who got credit for it. So, take y'all on a little history lesson, y'all can read the rest of the book, but James Hemings, I had no clue, he was the one that kind of found it. And thanks to you, you told me. Thomas Jefferson got a lot of credit for that. And they used to call mac and cheese macaroni pie. How do you know this stuff, bruh, like.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah you know, there's there's a lot of documentation on these things out there, and it's something that I like to do in my spare time. And I like to get to the root of all different dishes, it's just something—I like to nerd out on that kind of stuff.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah.

SARA FADDAH: Hard pivot. While you travel back for this research and these recipes, for me, one of the things that popped into my head was that when I moved here from Jordan a decade ago, I really struggled with being maybe a bit too pretentious about the authenticity of food, right? So I would always compare it to food that I had back home, and it doesn't taste the same, or, something's, like, slightly different. How do you feel about that concept of, like, food is not authentic? Do you feel like it maybe stifles creativity? Because you're very creative in your recipes,

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, I mean, I think authenticity, it varies from person to person. You know, somebody somebody's gumbo recipe in Louisiana is going to be different depending on what house you go to. I think that there's an essence of each dish that you need to really keep intact before you go out and like do something super creative, I think you need to understand the essence of the dish. And yeah, authenticity: you know, there's nothing new under the sun, you know, and things have been done for a very long time. And if anyone thinks that they created something first, I'm pretty sure that that has been done before. So I think it's—there's a fine line between like just being authentic to a recipe and then having your own creative license on it. A lot of the recipes in the book, I feel, are authentic, but just like the cooking methods and the layering of flavor is just seen through the way that I cook.

DARIO DURHAM: Do you have a certain recipe or dish that based on, like, you know, trying to get it right with the ancestors and your family? Do you have something that you like, man, I do not want to mess this up.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Gumbo, for sure. Oxtails. Curried goat. Shrimp Etouffee. Like a lot of these dishes are like, I can't mess it up at all. Like, just actual, just rice. Just plain rice.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah.

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know. I have a recipe in there just for a perfectly steamed rice, you know? So, like most of these dishes, if I mess up, like, I'm going to get my Black card revoked. So I need to, like, make sure that they're straight.

SARA FADDAH: I know you said previously your mom had a catering company, so you started cooking with her, right? Illegally. Because you were five.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Just trapped for a long time.

SARA FADDAH: Child labor. Has she tried any any of these recipes that are in the book? And do you look for her seal of approval, or—

KWAME ONWUACHI: She tries a lot of the recipes when she's, like, because she still cooks to this day. So I'll send her recipes. A lot of these recipes I've had for a while, like these are a lot of recipes that I've cooked in restaurants, or along—you know, just along the way of, you know, cooking professionally. So she's tried a lot of them. And yeah, she loves them. She does. That's yeah, I don't have a joke about that.

DARIO DURHAM: You better not. That's, that's Mom. Don't play with mom. Yeah. You, you have about over 125 different recipes in this book. I just want to know, man, of all 125: which one? Which one?

SARA FADDAH: Don't say your most favorite.

DARIO DURHAM: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not the—not the most favorite. But which one do you have the most fun making? You know. Just fun. Not the ones you like the most. The most fun making.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Mhm. Probably the jerk chicken because it takes, like, three days.

DARIO DURHAM: And your Black card is solid, my brother, you good. That is a perfect answer. Ain't going nowhere.

KWAME ONWUACHI: The jerk chicken. Because like, I make this jerk brine, I make the jerk paste from scratch, make like a ginger garlic puree and, like, brine the chicken, then marinate it for a couple of days and then smoke it, like low and slow and then make a jerk barbecue sauce. So, like, it's it's something that I take a lot of pride in, is the jerk chicken. There's a lot of bad jerk chicken out here.

DARIO DURHAM: Yes, it is. Yes.

KWAME ONWUACHI: So, um, when you do when you do it right, it feels, it feels great.

SARA FADDAH: Speaking of the garlic puree, your first chapter is Pantry, which, I love that. I don't—it again reminded me that I've related a lot to it because I grew up in my grandmother's pantry where she like pickled things and had house spices and stuff. For the for the people that didn't necessarily have that experience: why was it important for you to start with that chapter?

KWAME ONWUACHI: It's, uh—it's a starting of layering of flavor. Like you can't really get to the other recipes until you get to the pantry. So, you know, it's making all of your hot sauces from scratch, making your marinade, making your spice blends. Even like browning, you know, we used to like, you know, make brown stew, chicken and rice and peas. All those things are important. They also last incredibly long, you know, in the freezer or an airtight container. So if you start with those things that you can make all of these dishes relatively quickly in the pantry, it's so important in the Caribbean and Southern and West African culture because we have to preserve a lot of things. And then through that act of preservation, we also found that it tastes fucking delicious. So, it's an important thing for this book, and I think it can also transcend into just dishes that you already cook.

DARIO DURHAM: Who’s - who's been the most fun that you've cooked for? Because I know—you've cooked for the Obamas. You've cooked for Jay-Z and Beyonce, who's been—who's been the most fun person that you cooked for?

KWAME ONWUACHI: My family.

SARA FADDAH: Awww. Okay, other than that.

KWAME ONWUACHI: The most fun. Probably Dave Chappelle.

DARIO DURHAM: Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. What he ordered. Like what? What’d he want?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Uh...I've cooked for him so many times. Like, oxtails or, like, whole fried red snapper with, like, a brown stew glaze. I did a whole dinner based off of, like, his life one time. So that was, like, from different places he grew up. So there's a lot of different stuff. Yeah. So he's easy to cook for. He just likes everything. So he's not picky. He's just like, hot food. Let's go.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah yeah. about—you have a lot of experience in pretty much all over the world, man. Like, I think that was the most amazing part is because it's like a journey through, you know, with your family, too. You know, when you went back as an adult to Lagos, you know, I mean, that was that was fantastic to hear. What place gave you probably the most inspiration.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yes. I mean, it's hard to, like, quantify inspiration because, like, you never know when it's going to, like, come out. I think it goes in and then it spurts out at different times. I think they all are so great, you know, like being in Nigeria, it was—especially as a child, it was so such a culture shock for me, you know, tending the land. You know, if I wanted a ten piece chicken wing bucket, took five chickens and it you know, it was like five months.

SARA FADDAH: And trauma of murdering the chickens...

KWAME ONWUACHI: And murder, because I name them, and then...

SARA FADDAH: Murder. Yeah.

KWAME ONWUACHI: So... so yeah, but, but it taught me, like, to respect our, our respect our ingredients, you know, not to waste things. You know, Trinidad and Tobago was just like, um, a kaleidoscope of flavors. You know, because all the different cultures there, as well as Jamaica and the American South, is, like, it put a, like, a face to the name, you know, of these dishes that I've been eating this whole time, like seeing actually where they come from.

DARIO DURHAM: Yeah.

SARA FADDAH: When you go home. What is a meal that you request?

KWAME ONWUACHI: From my servant?

SARA FADDAH: From your—no, no, like, like if you—

KWAME ONWUACHI: You know, and I go, "bring me the mac and cheese!"

SARA FADDAH: No, like—

KWAME ONWUACHI: Who am I requesting?

SARA FADDAH: No like, if I, if I go home, I ask my mom to make me something—

KWAME ONWUACHI: Oh, okay, okay,.

SARA FADDAH: —that she makes really, really well.

KWAME ONWUACHI: When I go to my mom's house, I always—I beg her to make gumbo. It was like a dish that she made on our birthdays or on Christmas. So if she ever, you know, is in town. I always make sure that that she makes that and I freeze some, you know, so I can always have a taste of home.

SARA FADDAH: Oh, okay. Cool, cool.

DARIO DURHAM: How long, uh, who's better? You or momma? Whose, whose Gumbo? Be honest.

KWAME ONWUACHI: My mom's.

DARIO DURHAM: Ok, your mom's gumbo still king?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Is this, uh, recording? [All laugh.] No, my mom. My mom is a blueprint for gumbo, and she makes it with her eyes closed.

SARA FADDAH: Oh, wow.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Like, I'm there with, like, two pairs of glasses on, trying to figure stuff out. Like, she's just, like, a total pro.

SARA FADDAH: Yeah. You talk a lot about that. Like cooking with, like, eyeballing things. How hard was it to write a bunch of recipes when that's really, like, how you cook is...eyeball?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Well, no, because I, you know, I operate restaurants, so, like, when I'm at home, I eyeball, but, like, I can't tell everybody to just put a little bit of this little that, you know, you'll have gumbo different ways, seven days, seven days a week if you do that. So I already had recipes pretty standardized before this. And then, you know, we had to test these recipes out as well. So that was another opportunity to, to weigh them.

DARIO DURHAM: What what about this book do you—that stands out the most in the creative process as you were making it? What, what do you remember the most about this book?

KWAME ONWUACHI: It was really hard. That's what I remember because it was a pandemic. I was, like, filming Top Chef at the time. So, like, I was testing recipes, like, after filming or, like, my recipe tester would, like, ship me—because you'd have to test them yourself and then have someone else test it. So they would ship it to me in these, like, Styrofoam boxes overnight. And it was just—it was a lot of work, but it was like a care package from home every time I opened it up because it was, like, recipes that I grew up eating. So it was beautiful process.

SARA FADDAH: I love that. How is the experience from going—going from being a contestant to actually being a judge on Top Chef? That must have been weird.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, I walked in. I thought I was getting pranked and they were going to be like, okay, your time starts now. And I was like, Oh my god. Ah! But that never happened, you know? And it took some getting used to. But I think it came from a more empathy—a place of empathy as a judge that has actually been through that. As opposed to someone who's just, like, you know, a celebrity or something. You know, like, I understand the time constraints, I understand the stresses. I understand, like, being on TV for the first time with a bunch of cameras in your face. You're not—you may not put your best foot forward at all times. So I think that helped me in the judging process. But it was cool. It was really cool being behind—being on the other side of the table. I like that place a lot more.

SARA FADDAH: Are you—are you still a hard judge?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Um. I think I'm just very direct, you know, so I wouldn't say I'm a hard judge.

DARIO DURHAM: Honesty, honesty is the best policy. If it don't taste good, you need more seasoning, brother. Nothing wrong with that, I like it.

KWAME ONWUACHI: I think most of the contestants, they want to hear honesty as well and I think constructive criticism so they can become better. And I think that's what the best chefs are that come out of that show, are the ones that like really listen to the judges and then really impart that into their cooking.

SARA FADDAH: Oh, I wanted to ask you about the nail polish. Okay. So I read—it's the cutest story, I want you to share with everyone how you got to your nail polish.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, so I came up with a nail polish line. It's breathable. It's safe for the kitchen, which is—which is cool. And the colors are, like, based off of, like, kitchen items. So there's saute silver, there's eggplant and there's chef's kiss. But I usually get my nieces every summer, and they begged me to go get their nails done with them. This was like four years ago. And I got all black and I was like this kind of fly. And I never stopped getting it

DARIO DURHAM: You know, this is—this may be, you know, personal for me, but, like, reading your story, man, and just knowing who you are and then looking at the book, do you feel like you are a role model? I would say specifically for Black people, Black men, that's, that's, you know, you know, because using the culinary arts to really showcase talent, you know, in a different way. And it feels different than, you know, you seen other, you know, chefs go about it. Do you feel like you are a role model? Do you want to be a role model?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Um. [Sigh] I feel like anybody with a platform has a responsibility to, like, lift people up. And I would hope that people would look up to that as inspiration. I don't think that that's like the focal point for me. But, but it does come with the territory of making sure you're inspiring people and leaving the world a better place than than you left it. And if we all have that mindset, then we all are role models. At the end of the day, you know, we should all be just trying to, like, spread love, you know, and, and helping out each other because we're stronger together than we are apart.

DARIO DURHAM: Do you have any words for anybody that's looking to jump into, you know, writing a book or...?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Just do it. Just do whatever you want to do. Like, the fact that we're we can talk on cell phones and go to the moon. It shows you that we can do anything that we really put our minds to. So I would say just. Just do it. Just start that chapter. Just, you know, get that job, just go to school, just do whatever you want to do in life because it really is such a gift. And to waste it is a—is a dishonor to anyone who's come before us.

SARA FADDAH: And my last question before we open it up for the audience to ask is: if you—if you were to have people have one take away from the book, what would it be? What would you want people to get from it?

KWAME ONWUACHI: I want them to get—to open—I want them to open their eyes to other cultures and understand how much of a melting pot America is. You know, your neighbor has a totally different upbringing than—than you, but they are your neighbor and just get to know them. And it would expand like your mind a little bit and your heart.

SARA FADDAH: For sure.

DARIO DURHAM: There's a perfect answer right there. I love it.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Thank you.

DARIO DURHAM: Thank you.

[Applause]

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Hi. My name is Oliver. I'm about to graduate high school next week.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Congratulations!

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: And I'm planning on going to culinary school, and I was just wondering, what is the hardest part of, like, fully committing yourself to the craft? Like. Stretching yourself out there and, like, making it, like, a core part of your life.

KWAME ONWUACHI: You got to want it as much as you want to breathe. You know, you have to think about it at every single turn. It's got to really be your everything, at least for a little bit. You know, you have to really dedicate yourself to it. And that's—that's the advice that I give any, any culinary student that comes and asks, like, okay, what should I do? Find the hardest restaurant in your town and go and work there. I don't care if you like the food. I want you to see what it's like to work, you know, really, really hard at a high level. And every single craft is like that. If you want to be the best eyeglass designer, you know, you go to the best and really put your head down. And then when you leave there, you have all the options to do what you want to do. So. So just give it your all.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Thank you so much.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Mmhmm.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: Can you talk about palate fatigue when you're judging on Top Chef and how unfair it might be for the, you know, the eighth contestant or the sixteenth contestant that day?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Hmm. I don't really get palate fatigue when I'm judging the shows. I know a lot of people do. I think because I only take a couple of bites of each dish. I think when I first started, it was—when it was really good, I would eat the whole thing, and [he makes a despondent gesture]. Fuck. And then, you know, I couldn't even eat anything else. But I think when you when you just understand it's a marathon, not a race, it does help.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: So the second part of the question is from your gay contingency of fans. Did you know that you were baiting us by wearing all that nail polish and all the jewelry?

KWAME ONWUACHI: What is—what is baiting?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: That you were sending some kind of like a signal about your gender expression that was confusing to us and making us hope, you know.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Oh. Well, keep hope alive.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: I have a question and a compliment. First of all, I'm a middle school language arts teacher. Seventh and eighth grade. I got your book. It's great. And it's in my classroom library. I think it's wonderful. Are you still friends with the—with the people, the pack that you catered with when you were going through culinary school and working in all those fancy—you're still close with them?

KWAME ONWUACHI: They still work with me. Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: That's fantastic.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: I love that. Thank you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: Hi. Um, so this is a little stupid, but I'd like to know where you get your groceries.

KWAME ONWUACHI: That's a great question.

DARIO DURHAM: It sounds like a sponsorship answer.

KWAME ONWUACHI: "I get my groceries from Whole Foods." Um, Whole Foods, farmers markets. Um, yeah, probably those two things in L.A. What's the—there's a store called Ralphs? Um, Kroger. So it depends on what city I'm in. But, you know, definitely I'll go to a Whole Foods or like a farmer's market for groceries. Yeah, no one's ever asked me that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: I had the same question about spices because one of my friends that used to run a Mexican restaurant would actually go to Mexico to get the spices. So I just wonder where you get your spices.

KWAME ONWUACHI: I get them—like when I'm working in restaurants, they'll be from certain purveyors. So they have like, purveyors that specialize in getting certain spices, you know, like Chef's Warehouse and Baldor.So that's normally where I get my spices. But like, if someone's going somewhere, I tell them, definitely bring me something back because there's certain stuff you can't get here, like from Nigeria, Ethiopia. And then if I'm in like Trinidad, I'll bring back, you know, curry powder. If I'm in Jamaica, I'll bring back certain type of spice. So from the travels, but, like, I can't bring a bulk amount of that, so I get them from different purveyors.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 6: Hi. Thank you so much for for being here today. In my role in my professional career, I'm an advisor for students going into a variety of different fields. And one of the things I talk about with students is the role of mentorship and how that changes over the course of your career. Would you be willing to share a little bit about how you were mentored early on and maybe how that mentorship has changed as you've progressed in your professional career?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, I mean, I didn't really have many mentors like that. My mom was my mentor. You know, she had the catering company. She was someone that I went to for advice very, very often. And then I had mentors along the way that kind of like looked out for me. But that, that like professional mentor that other people have had, I've never had that. It was my mom, honestly. But, um, you know, I think it's really important to, when you do have a platform, to mentor somebody—to like really try to find someone that, you know, you want to push along, someone that you truly believe in. I have the Kwame Onwuachi Scholarship Fund, where I put a student through the Culinary Institute of America on a full ride and then mentor them throughout the way. So they have my phone number. You know, we have like, monthly meetings. Whenever I'm in their city, they'll come and hang out and do events. So, yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 7: So obviously cooking can be an emotional process. So thinking about your cookbook and how you created it. Was there a particular recipe that was an emotional process in the creation and development of it?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, I would say, it's a very simple one, but rice and eggs. It's, like, a Southern dish. It's very cheap to make, you know? And it's, like, the day after you make something with rice, you're like, you know, use the leftover rice and sautee it with eggs and maybe some—a little bit of garlic and creole spice. And that's a whole meal. And I just really enjoyed it as a kid. And I didn't I didn't think I would as I would enjoy it as much as an adult. And it just brought back so many memories of, like, being with my family through struggles but still, like, eating good at the end of the day.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 8: Can you share your, I guess, feelings about everything that restaurants have gone through in the wake of COVID?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah, I think it's been really tough for a multitude of reasons. For chefs having to, like, push through and, like, squeeze every single penny out of anything that they could to to make sure that their staff was working the whole time. I thought that was super admirable. And then what, you know, restaurant workers just kind of being—not kind of, but being first responders at the end of the day, too, you know, people had to eat and restaurants had to stay open. So I think it was incredibly tough. But there's also like a reckoning of the restaurant industry of saying like they don't really want to work in restaurants anymore because it's incredibly tough. They don't get paid a lot. So I think on all sides it was, like, for—for chefs and restaurateurs, it was like, how do we make this a viable business? How do we pay our staff properly and how do we make money? So I think honestly, people are still figuring it out, you know, and it's going to take some time to really figure it out. But I think this industry is a very fickle industry. You know, we need—we need rebates on taxes alone because it is such an integral part of the fabric of America. You know, like restaurants, like, you can't you can't have any event without food. You know, there's going to be food in the back, by the way. No, I'm just joking. But, you know, you know, when you when you're mourning, there's food, you know, when you're celebrating, there's food, when you're going to meet someone there is normally food. It's so important. And there needs to be some, some rebate or something because, you know, the cost of an onion hasn't really gone up in the past ten years, but the cost of rent has. And that that really needs to be addressed.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 9: Okay, final question. Could you name, like, the top, maybe, two or three people that you admire the most and what they're doing currently in the food industry and why?

KWAME ONWUACHI: Top two or three people I admire the most in the food industry. Probably José Andrés for, you know, for what he's doing. You know, there's an independent restaurant coalition, you know, that was—and there's a plethora of chefs that are involved in that. But like, you know, Tom Colicchio and Andrew Zimmer are definitely like the leaders of it, I would say. So, like, I would—I would put all of them in there. Yeah.

DARIO DURHAM: There you go, man. Chef. Thank you so much for being here, man. We appreciate everything you're doing, man, And much success to you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you.

KWAME ONWUACHI: Yeah. Thank you all so much for coming out. Get a book for yourself. Get it for your family. Get it for your friends. I think it's a really important book to have as an American. So thank you.

[Theme music plays]

[Applause]

ALISA ROSENTHAL: That was Kwame Onwuachi with Dario Durham and Sara Faddah recorded live at the University of Illinois Chicago in spring 2022. Make sure to check out the show notes for links to lots of fun stuff, including Onwuachi’s jerk chicken recipe which, looks like that’s what I’m doing for the next two days.

We’ll be back in two weeks with another great episode for you. Chicago Humanities Tapes is produced and hosted by me, Alisa Rosenthal, with tons of support from the wonderful folks at Chicago Humanities who are booking these speakers and making them sound fantastic. Be sure to rate, share, and subscribe, available wherever you stream your podcasts and direct from our website. Thanks for listening, and as always, stay human!