Lex Fridman Podcast
#417 – Kimbal Musk: The Art of Cooking, Tesla, SpaceX, Zip2, and Family
Sun, 10 Mar 2024
Kimbal Musk is a chef, entrepreneur, and author of The Kitchen Cookbook: Cooking for Your Community. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free - NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour - BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/kimbal-musk-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Kimbal's X: https://x.com/kimbal Kimbal's Instagram: https://instagram.com/kimbalmusk/ Kimbal's Facebook: https://facebook.com/kimbalmuskofficial/ The Kitchen Cookbook: https://amzn.to/4ccaCoE The Kitchen (restaurants): https://www.thekitchen.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:50) - Growing up in South Africa (19:21) - Cooking (42:06) - Ingredients (49:11) - Anthony Bourdain (51:26) - Cooking school (1:07:46) - Life-threatening accident (1:21:50) - Road trip across US (1:33:33) - Zip2 (1:38:16) - Tesla (1:45:41) - SpaceX (1:49:24) - Hope for the future
The following is a conversation with Kimball Musk, a longtime entrepreneur and chef and author of a new cookbook called The Kitchen Cookbook, Cooking for Your Community. You should check it out. It is, in fact, the first cookbook I've ever owned. I've already made stuff from it, and it's delicious. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description.
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Growing up in South Africa, you said it was a violent place. What are some formative moments that you remember from that time?
South Africa was... So I grew up in apartheid South Africa, but more specifically, the fall of apartheid. So it was the 80s. I was a teenager in the 80s. And our community would... Part of our social life, frankly, was the anti-apartheid protests and to go be with white people, black people, kind of mixing it all together.
The most formative experience is, frankly, how much I appreciate a place like America where we have value for human life. So there was a country where human life was not valued. It was a It's a weird thing to come from that to here where we take it so seriously if someone dies in a war or something like that. And we just didn't take it seriously in South Africa. People died.
where people were killed. I saw someone killed in front of me. I was getting off a train, and it's a very violent train, known for violence. We were stupid kids. We didn't really listen to our parents. We went on this train, and the doors opened, and I had people trying to get off the train.
And in front of me, two black people, one black guy just stabbed this knife in the side of this other black guy's head. You're like, what the fuck? And you just, I've got to get off the train. How old were you at this time? Probably 16 or 17. And I got to get off the train. And everyone is trying to get me to get off because they're all behind me.
So I step off and I step into the pool of blood, one foot, and then I just walk for about 100 paces while the stickiness of the blood just kind of, for my sneakers, just on one foot, just like leaves a footprint behind me. And you just walk on. You just walk on. Did the others walk on as well? Everyone walked on.
That's an interesting point you make. Underlying the violence is a kind of,
philosophy that human life is disposable the individual life is disposable i mean that underlies many ideologies you know i grew up in the soviet union the value of human life was lower there than in the united states the value of the individual in the united states is really high yeah it's probably an index you can put together like yeah right exactly per nation that
That's a really interesting way to put it because violence is much easier on a mass scale. Suffering, causing suffering on a mass scale is much easier when you don't value the human life.
I've heard this before, which I think I agree with, is when someone is killed, someone is taken from our lives, the vacuum that it creates, the social vacuum, is extraordinarily painful. And it truly is true. I mean, if someone in my community passes away, it's very, very sad for me.
And when you go to a place where, you know, grow up in a place where that human life is not valued, there's something about the, there's a little bit less of the social vacuum created because everyone is kind of expecting everyone to potentially be taken out at any moment. Yeah. But then there's also a beauty to it because there's a much more of a celebratory element.
When my cousin Russ and I, again, we were stupid kids, we shouldn't be doing this, but we'd go into the townships where a lot of the violence would be happening. We really didn't see most of the violence there. It was in these more protests and so forth. But there's a joy that also comes from lower value of human life. There's a real joy. Everyone is like, well, I mean, it's beautiful.
We'd have dinner with black friends, friends with their family. We were still pretty young. And there was just a real joy to it. When you accept mortality, you can really enjoy life. You can really enjoy life. I mean, I think there's actually quite a nice insight. I've never really put it that way, but I think that's right, actually. I think you just chill out a bit.
It takes things a little less seriously.
Because life does end for everybody. It does, right? Yeah. And if you just head on, accept that fact, you can just enjoy every single moment and let go of this attachment and just enjoy the moment.
I do love that we all live longer and so forth, but we should live longer with the goal of joy and the goal of happiness and peace, not some form of misery that you choose to attach yourself to. Maximize joy. Yeah.
Maximize joy, that's right. There's a story that Walter Isaacson writes about where Elon got beat up pretty bad and you were there. And then you also had to watch your dad yell at Elon for an hour, calling him worthless, all those kinds of things. You said it was the worst memory of your life. What do you make of such cruelty? What do you remember from that time?
I mean, it was horrible. I think, you know, coming back to the point of low value of human life, they tried to kill him. It wasn't... There was no holding back, so I just watched someone. It wasn't just one, but there was a main person, and then there was a few others that piled in. They just tried to kill him in front of me.
We were eating sandwiches on a staircase at the school, an outdoor staircase. They were not coming after me, and I just had to watch, and I couldn't help. It was one of the saddest, most difficult experiences. It just was, it's just awful.
Just like that, life can end. Yeah. Could have been you.
Yeah, I think, so I've had a near-death experience where I almost died. I was in 2010, and I think that, and I broke my neck, and I can go into that story in a moment, but this was different. This was, this comes back to the low value of human life part where if someone had killed my brother, if that person had beat him to death, which he was trying to do, Life would have gone on.
That's like an insane thought in an American, maybe in some tough neighborhoods, but for the most part, it's another thing.
Yeah, the brutality of that, the mundaneness of the brutality.
Yeah.
It makes you think of all the places in the world that that's happening.
Exactly.
And all the beautiful people that just disappear. Yeah.
I always say to people who have an opinion about America that, you know, this is a really bad country or whatever, and I say, look, please go try another country before you say that.
Not to say that America can't get better, but please go try another country because not having that perspective or having a perspective that, I don't know, that could chip on their shoulder about the country that they're in Okay, go try another country. And then come back and tell me. Pick any country. It doesn't have to be some very violent country. Go pick any country.
And you just realize that actually the world doesn't think the same way that America thinks. And you're going to just learn a perspective that I think gives you a better way to critique where we live in America.
Yeah, it's humbling. You said that your dad was a roller coaster of affection and then verbal abuse. Walter Isaacson quotes Barack Obama, who said, someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes. And I suppose that may explain my particular malady. Is part of that ring true for you?
What I thought you were going to say, what I thought you were going to end the sentence with, live up to my father's expectations. Mm-hmm. That's what most people say. But then you said the second part, which is make up for his mistakes. Mm-hmm. And I think that's actually, that one rings true for me. He was really, he's still alive, but I'm not connected to him.
But he's very, he taught me, the phrase I used to have was he taught me what not to do. So I still actually learned a lot. What kind of human not to be, what kind of actions not to take. And so that kind of closer to living up to his mistakes, but my father was such a train wreck that it's not really mistakes. It's like intentional actions of what not to do. Okay, don't do that.
But there's still the trauma of that. You know, it has an effect on the human psychology and can permeate through time. So it has probably complex, indirect effects on who you are.
The good and the bad. There's a critique that my friends give me, which is when they're talking to me, I kind of just drift away. I'm still looking at them. I'm still nodding. I might even respond to them in their conversation, but I'm actually not there. And I've realized that actually that grew up because my father would just verbal abuse.
One way to say it, it is abuse, but it's more just verbal diarrhea for hours and constantly saying, do you understand? He wants to make sure that I'm paying attention. So I trained myself to look like I'm paying attention, but I'm not.
To disappear to some place.
Disappear to some place.
Wherever that is.
Yeah, and I do that less and less of the time.
But that path has been paved somewhere in your mind in childhood, so it could be easy to walk down it. You and Elon were close growing up. You're still close. What did you learn from each other? How did you complement each other?
Yeah, I think we are a good complement. I'll talk for myself first. My strength is definitely on the social side. I love the gathering place, and I love putting people together in person, and I love to have vibrant debates and conversations. I've been doing that constantly.
forever and including three fun parties and stuff where where I bring people together and I really kind of want people to have fun and be but be vulnerable in a in a not just like silly partying just but actually like let's all connect definition for me of a good party is people laugh and cry Like I want to have people have an emotional connection.
I go to Burning Man every year and that is, there's no question, you will cry at some point during Burning Man. No small talk. No small talk. Yeah, exactly. No small talk. You're totally right on. Like most parties, not parties, but most events you go to are like clubs, these sort of nightclubs. And I never go to those.
And my joke is, why would I want to go to a place where I pay to shout small talk in the dark? Yeah.
That's what it feels like. The only reason I enjoy those places is the full absurdity of exactly that. Right, it's totally absurd. What are we doing? What is this? What is this like?
But I have, so my compliment for my brother was just bringing joy and social connection. And he's truly, he's an engineering genius. I've worked with him forever and we do compliment each other.
You just came out with a cookbook. By the way, thank you for giving me my first cookbook. I feel legit. I love that it's your first cookbook. I'm going to keep it on the counter and it's going to give me legitimacy when anyone comes over. Hey, listen, I'm basically a chef now.
That's right. Exactly.
When did you first fall in love with cooking?
I started cooking when I was 11 years old. My mom is just... She's wonderful, but she's self-admittedly a bad cook. But at the time, it was... I think anyone with kids goes through this. Your kids just want something like spaghetti bolognese or a burger or something. And my mom would do... Brown bread, plain yogurt, and boiled squash.
You know, like the absolute most disgusting things that a child could imagine eating. And so I said, can I cook? And she said, yeah, if you want to cook, no problem. So I went to the grocery store and I, back in those days, a butcher, separate to the grocery store. And I went to the butcher and I said, you know, what can I cook?
And he pulled out a chicken and he said, this is the easiest recipe for you. Just put it on a pan in an oven, a hot oven, because back then the ovens weren't necessarily like 400 degrees or 450 or whatever. And put it in a hot oven for one hour and enjoy. That was it. And so I went home and actually I also brought some French fries. I'll tell you that as well. I'm a kid.
Of course I want French fries. So the roast chicken was French fries. And the chicken came out and it was just fantastic. It was. Absolutely fantastic. That's incredible, by the way. You didn't screw it up the first time. First of all, I think that also kicks off the magic. If you screw it up and you're like, oh, maybe this is not for me. So for me, it really did kick it off.
You started out on a high note. Yeah, right, exactly. But I'll tell the French fry part, which was a disaster. So I cooked the French fries, but I didn't heat the oil first. So I just put the potatoes in the oil and I waited for it to heat up. And I just was throwing up later that night. Your body can't ingest that much because it sucks the oil then. Oh, wow. And so that was a disaster.
But at the time, it tasted good. The real magic, which I also found was wonderful, was when I cooked, my brother, my sister, my mom, all very, very busy, very intense people would sit down. And we would have a meal together. And I was like, wow, this is a powerful, it's a very powerful thing that I've now got where in no other way could I have that connection with my family.
I mean, obviously we stay connected, we're very close, et cetera, but in no other way can we sit down and just talk about things. or talk about whatever's on our mind, or just to just, not even talk, just to be at the table together. And I've done that now through my whole life, my kids, still for my family, and we will do gratitudes at the beginning of our meal.
And it's just, I think what kept me cooking, what made my love of cooking so great, was actually the fact that we would sit down and be present with each other. And I'm also just also hard with that too. So I also get to be present.
What is that about food that like brings people together and not just together, but like really together where you're like...
paying attention right like what is that what what is why is it food like what else does that sometimes maybe alcohol can do that which is a kind of food i guess yeah but i think alcohol is different because you usually standing when you're doing alcohol so you're you're like you're socializing but it's kind of you're just going to stay in more in the small talk zone yeah right whereas if you sit down and i i see this in my restaurant in the kitchen in boulder
where we have every viewpoint. Or we go to Denver, every viewpoint. We went to Chicago, every viewpoint. And the physical presence of someone being right there is, people are just, they're just very different, absolutely different to what they are online. I think we all know the difference between, you know, you send an email to someone and they misunderstand the email, right?
Oh, if I just had talked to the person, it would have been fine. Well, this is now happening at scale, you know, with all of these, what do you call it, trolling or whatever. And I have sat at the bar and I've had – hardcore Trump supporter, and I'm just curious. I'm not a Trump supporter, but tell me more. And it actually draws the conversation out because you're there for an hour or longer.
There's no rush to get the answer. And I think that's a big difference. I've had one time where just a couple months ago, I had someone, I was sitting at the community table. We have a community table in the restaurant. And I didn't know him too well, but he asked me, did I know that 9-11 was a conspiracy and it didn't really happen? It didn't happen, yeah. And I was like, huh.
So actually, I was at 9-11. I mean, I watched it until I was four. I was there, physically there. Allegedly. There's no doubt in my mind. Okay. But I didn't want to interrupt what he had to say. So I let him talk for five minutes, six minutes, seven minutes. And again, you're there for a while, so you're not in a rush to jump in and argue. And then I shared that I was there.
And I think because I had been willing to listen to him, he was willing to listen to me. And I don't know if he changed his mind. He certainly didn't change my mind, but it was actually a pretty cool conversation to kind of get into each other's mind.
Well, I think you connect on a different level, not on the level of like... the conspiracy, but on the level of basic humanity. That's what you really connect on. And then it almost becomes interesting and fun that you can exchange ideas, even crazy ideas, out there ideas, and kind of play with them. We humans are good at that.
Yeah, exactly. I like the term play with them because what you're not trying to do is shut the conversation down. You're also not trying to... Talk down on me. Yeah, exactly. Like, let me just be nice while I totally disagree with this person. You can do that for a few minutes. You can't do that for two hours.
And there's something about food that... that completely i don't know it must be uh evolutionary that it it makes us vulnerable in a way that even just standing there for a prolonged period of time doesn't there's something about you know like when the animals gather to the water or whatever yeah right like this kind of experience where you're just like all right let's
let's just acknowledge together that we need sustenance. And somehow that kind of grounds us to like, we're just a bunch of descendants of apes here, just kind of like grateful to be alive, frankly, and grateful to be consuming this thing, which keeps us alive. And in that context, you can talk about all kinds of stuff. You can discuss flat earth and enjoy it.
Absolutely. In fact... One of my favorite things to do is you do like a Jeffersonian-style dinner. Let's say five or six people. Sometimes people will break off into individual conversations. That's actually when things break down. So that's when you kind of go back to small talk. Like, oh, I'm stuck next to this guy. I'm just going to do a little small talk.
What you need to do to really create a great conversation is one conversation at the table. And that's where, you know, there'll be some simple questions that I'll say. I'll say, you know, what's your middle name? And you'll be amazed at the stories you get from that. But it's about creating vulnerability. So they're like, oh, no one's ever asked me that before. So then they become vulnerable.
And then something as simple as what's the most fun thing you've done recently and what is the most fun thing you're looking forward to? Mm-hmm. And I have gotten into, with those prompts, I've gotten into hours-long discussions on God. I've gotten into hours-long discussions on love. I've gotten into hours-long discussions on anger.
It's actually amazing when people are just asked a question like, what's the most fun thing you've done lately? Well, why would anger come up? Well, actually... they're in a vulnerable place, so it'll just kind of come out of them.
So you get to see this. You get to see this at the kitchen, and you said Boulder, Denver, Chicago.
Yeah, and we're going to open in Austin. In Austin.
That's what I saw. When? In October is the goal. In October is the goal. Well, I mean, speaking of characters and human beings, Austin is fascinating. I've I forget how long ago, a couple months ago, I was just sitting at a bar, and the two people were talking, and they were talking about Marxism, and it turns out that they're anarcho-communists, which is a thing, and I got into this conversation.
Are communists the likes of drugs? That's a good question to ask. I think I know some of those. Okay.
Anyway, they were beautiful people. I think they're local from Austin. I don't know the depth of their personal experience of the different kinds of communist-like systems, but it was fascinating to listen to and then get to know them and the humanity, the weirdness, like the characters. It's just, I mean, I love it. One of the reasons I really love Austin, I decided to be here is just the fact
the cliche thing of keep Austin weird. I mean, there's a lot of weird characters.
I love it. I think that I've talked to a lot of Austinites who've been here forever. And I'm like, man, you got to hold us accountable. We got to keep this place weird.
Which makes the restaurant seem great because you have all these characters come in. It's great. So I look forward to that. But you were saying like, you get to see humans in real life interact. That's one of the beautiful things over food. In the book you write, Picasso once said, the meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
Then you wrote that you believe food is a gift we give ourselves three times a day. Can you explain that, the gift nature of it?
Yeah, it's actually, I think it's one of my most powerful life lessons is we have to eat. So it's not like you have a choice, you have to eat. And so what I choose to do is I choose to make it a gift to myself for each meal. And most of the time, the best gift is with friends, with family.
So we'll have to cook some scrambled eggs in the morning with my daughter or we'll have dinner with our family. To me, it's a gift we give ourselves three times a day, you know, at least. But for the most part, three times a day. Let's make it a good one. What makes it a good one to you? What aspect of it makes it a good one? Well, first, definitely eating with people. So that makes it a good one.
So eating in a restaurant, it doesn't have to be my restaurant, where you have the energy of people around you, energy of the town, people you don't know, creates a little bit of a vibe. You mentioned the watering hole analogy, the animals sipping at the water. Yeah. But there's an energy to that because they're also like looking around going, am I just about to be eaten?
So they're all in it together, but we need to have water. But there's also a little bit of tension as well in the background. And I think that's what restaurants do is a very, very subtle version of that. You're in a room with strangers. Yeah. And you're, yeah, you're a little cluster. Okay, fine. You guys are connected in it. Yeah.
But you're in a room of strangers and it's just something that adds that energy to the meal.
Yeah. You're a little bit wondering, like, what does everyone else think about our little cluster? Right.
Like, are we too loud? Or just, you also just, people are random. So something random could happen.
And also, depending on your personality, if you're an extrovert, maybe you want to show off to the other clusters.
Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Totally right. I mean, you know, look at the cowboy hat. I mean, actually, I'll take my hat off when I want to have a quiet meal and I can leave my hat on when I'm... So you're aware of the lot. I'm aware of the effect it has. Yeah, absolutely.
Everyone turns. That's right. And then it's back to the watering hole because when you wear a cowboy hat, you just might actually not... Yeah, I'm like, they're going to get me first.
Yeah.
At noon. I love it. I got to tell the story.
So this is, you talk to the, the, the craziness of being, of being in the restaurant world where, you know, you're sitting at a table and anything can happen in the restaurant. So there's one time, I was like 15 years ago, the, um, This guy comes up to us and says he'd like to propose to his wife, his girlfriend. And so we said, okay, cool. We've done this before. We'll make sure it's all set up.
6 p.m. kind of reservation. So she shows up, and we give her a glass of champagne. We obviously didn't want to spoil the surprise, so we're just doing it the weekend. But then he doesn't arrive. And then we're like, oh, man. Yeah. Now we're like, don't leave. Can we get you another glass of champagne? We're doing everything we can.
Because the guy was obviously earnest earlier just because he's stuck in traffic or whatever. And coming through the back door of the restaurant, which is you're not allowed to come through the back door of the restaurant, a marching band from the school, the university, like comes through the restaurant, you know, full-on brass band and the whole thing.
And, you know, he gets down and he proposes. And it's beautiful, sure, but it's also like, man, this is chaos. This is insane.
And we would never have said yes to this if he had actually told us what he was going to do. Well, sometimes in life you have to do it and apologize.
You do it and apologize. But that talks to that kind of what's the crazy thing that could happen. It's subtle, but it's still there. Yeah.
So in 2004, you opened The Kitchen. It's an American bistro restaurant. What was it like? What's it like running a restaurant? The good, the bad, and the ugly. What's the easy, what's the fun, and what's the hard?
I think the thing that I absolutely love about running the restaurant, not eating it, but running the restaurant, is the tangible reaction from people. And you also kind of know when you screwed it up. Mm-hmm. And you also know when you got it right. So even, it's kind of a weird way to say this, but even if the customer's unhappy, you know whether you got it right or wrong.
It's not just about the food you're making, but it's about the person's psychological state. And you'll even, you'll do something that you're like, you know that that was not well. And their psychological state is, they're just in a very happy place and they love it. And you're like, huh. You know, like that's not how I would have reacted to that dish.
And then the other way around, you'd like, no, I got that right. And that person's just like really unhappy today.
Yeah. And it's so hard to read humans because you have to, if you got it right, that can look a million different ways depending on the emotional rollercoaster that human is living through. Like I've been some very low points and I've gone to like a restaurant alone and just sitting there and be truly happy was just the Zen aspect of it.
And it was just a great, like a great steak or something like this. And maybe to other people around me would look like I'm very unhappy just because I'm,
Within myself. Struggling with your day.
Yeah, within myself. But I'm truly happy within that struggle. So, yeah, it's interesting. But you can kind of tell.
Yeah, you can tell. And you mentioned being at the bar. One of the most gifted bartenders really understand that. You know, it goes beyond, but what's also great about a restaurant, it goes beyond the one-time experience that you walk in and have that experience, is the good bartenders, they remember you. Oh, you were in a few months ago, and this is kind of your thing.
You might need a little time. Mm-hmm. And other people will come in, they want a conversation. Yeah. Or other people come in and they're going through a divorce and they just want to be sad for a moment, have a scotch. Yeah. And it's like, it's amazing what you learn in the restaurant world to just be... connected to humanity.
Yeah. What is that about bars? That's a different experience. You said the table, the communal.
The table is when you connect with people, learn about each other. Bars, you can sometimes do that. You can talk left and right, but you have the freedom to always break free. You can say, okay, great, I'm going to go back to my meal. It's kind of like a friend you can turn on and off at any time because the bartender knows that. They're trained. If you want attention, I'm going to give it to you.
If you don't, I'm going to stay away. If you want to be chatty, I'm going to be chatty. If you want to be completely in your head, I'll leave you in your head.
But there's also strangers kind of next to you. There's a feeling with a bar that you're kind of alone together. Yeah. Yeah.
And you can reach out. You can add some conversation or you can choose not to. And you can exit quickly.
You can exit. Exactly.
It's a really good exit. So bars are wonderful. And I love going to a bar by myself after work. I might have a scotch, might not even have alcohol, just have something. And I'll just maybe have a snack or something before dinner because I'm going to go home and have dinner with the family. And that 20 minutes is just an amazing state change from daytime to nighttime.
If I went straight home, I'm like still in my head and I'm just trying to get grounded and I'm not as pleasant of a person. So that's another powerful use of a bar. It's just like a transition time.
Well, I mean, it would be remiss not to mention the other use of the bar, which is like when you're going through some shit in life and you just go. I mean, that's sort of the... It's the cliche thing. I've been... But like the bar makes the melancholy somehow like... rich and beautiful and you feel heard in the silence.
Yes, you feel heard. Like I said earlier, the people going through a divorce, They don't know where else to go. These are mostly men. Sometimes women will do it, but mostly men will do this and women have other ways of processing it. But they just, they want a place to be sad. They want a place where they could feel comfortable talking about it.
They're certainly not going to go into too much detail, but they just want to say something. And the bartender is there for them.
Yeah.
You don't know where to go.
You don't know where to go, exactly. The bar, yeah, you're right. For men especially, it's a place to just go and just, I don't know, what is that?
What is that? I'll be honest, I still do it myself where if I'm at home and I don't have a work thing that I got to deal with and I don't have kids and I don't have my wife or family around, I don't often cook for myself. I actually love going to a bar by myself. I have a glass of red wine, and I usually don't have a starter, appetizer, just like a main meal.
And I just take in the energy of the space. If it's my restaurant or someone else's restaurant, I just take in the energy. And it's so much better than being home and turn the TV on. No, no, no. I want to be out in the restaurant. I want to feel the energy of the town. The other thing that restaurants teach me is they're the front lines of... The economy or what's the better word for it?
Just like the front lines of the energy of how things are going.
Like of a people's in general. Like it doesn't necessarily mean this part of town, but it could be the entire society.
Yeah, exactly. So you can go into a restaurant and I'll use a simple example. And why is the restaurant empty? Mm-hmm. ah, there's a football game going on and there's such a large number of people who want to watch that game that the restaurant is quiet or it might be like another World Series or something. And you're like, wow, that's so interesting.
You can actually watch in America, of course, American humanity, you can watch them move in their patterns just by being in the restaurant. And then another time you might be in a restaurant and it's just jamming. It's a Monday night and you're like, what is the energy that created this on a Monday night and maybe even on a cold February Monday night? What is it?
And sometimes you can't find out, but you can feel it. And it's my front lines of humanity that I also just really love about the restaurants.
Yeah, it could be empty, it could be full. Empty bars, there's a magic to those too.
Yeah.
You could still feel that energy. I don't know.
I actually prefer empty bars than full ones.
It's just you and the bartender. I mean, some of my greatest experiences is just the quiet bar. Totally. It's just me and the bartender and they're doing their thing. And they've seen so many... I've almost like, through osmosis somehow, feel the stories that that bartender has seen, has felt, has heard. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. I mean, that... Not to be sort of...
like spiritual about it but it seems like it's in the walls or something like there's the history is felt and some of these bars are actually very old and it's wonderful like you know they're made in europe like this but there's a couple in new york city a few hundred years old and you you and they're still operating non-stop for that long and man you feel it yeah let me ask you some questions about ingredients what's your favorite ingredient to cook with
For me, cooking is an art, right? So it'd be like asking me what's my favorite paint color to use. It's not that it isn't like there isn't one. It's more like when there is one, it really is one. You know, like there's peaches on the cover of this cookbook. Those peaches, those were in August, Colorado peaches. It just doesn't get any better than that.
On that day, at that moment, that was the best.
That was the best. But that only lasts for a week. And then they don't taste so great. Yeah. But damn, are they so good in that moment. And you just can't stop wanting to use that ingredient.
They look really good.
They're so good. What's your favorite fruit?
I love veggies and fruit. What's your favorite fruit?
I love a smoothie bowl, so I do sort of berries, raspberries. But I use fruit more in the form of a smoothie bowl than I eat fruit that often. I like an apple or a banana, but for the most part, I prefer the blended. Not me.
I love the way you casually said it, like an apple. A good apple is pretty great. For me, it's a problem, I think. Probably cherries, number one. Probably, what are they called? Granny Smith apples, number two.
Oh, yeah, those are great. But try it sometime, come to Colorado in August, and when you try those peaches, it is like heaven has arrived in your mouth. It is so ridiculously good. But just for a week in August.
Just for a week. You can't have it all year long. Okay.
What about veggies? You wrote that Chef Hugo, that you worked with the co-founder of The Kitchen With, taught you the power of a good vegetable. What's the power of a good vegetable?
So I've trained in New York as a French chef, but it wasn't very much ingredients focused. It wasn't very much sourcing focused. He came from the River Cafe in London, which was one of the OGs for the Farm to Table and still going strong today. And he taught me the value of getting to know farmers and getting to know vegetables from that farm versus vegetables from that farm.
And they're actually different. Soil's a little different. The way they grow it, a little different. It's the opposite of the industrial machine where everything needs to look exactly the same. And sometimes you'll get carrots that are kind of ugly and deformed, but there's much sweeter than the carrots you'd get for other purposes.
So you'd make a carrot puree out of that, and then you'd take carrots that are more... typical in shape and size. You might roast them for dinner. So it's the appreciation for vegetables in general. I probably would say carrots is my favorite just because that was an example of one where I've really had to learn how to use the different types of carrots that come from all of our farms.
And it's fun. It's a fun ingredient. If you just went to Whole Foods or just went to a grocery store and you just got exactly the same carrot every time, less fun. But go to a farmer's market and see what you get. And you'll see they're quite different.
Yeah, carrot for me is probably number one. I have rigorous detailed rankings for fruit and veggies. That's amazing. We'll get into it. Well, I am the kind of person that would have like a spreadsheet for that.
That's great.
But I'm mostly just making fun of myself. I do love carrots. I wish they weren't. so full of carbs, but,
Yeah, I'm just not anti-carbs. You know, I think the... Anti-carb, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think they play a role. You know, like I have a great friend who's an amazing doctor, and he did some tests for me and everything, and it turns out I have a gluten allergy. And I was like, okay. So what that means is I shouldn't eat gluten. He's like, yeah. I was like, okay.
But I also have hay fever, and that means I should not go out into nature. So I was like... nah, I think I'm going to go out into nature. And maybe what I'll do on bread and pastas, or like the true carbs, I'll just have it when it's really good. Because when it's really good, it's really good. And you don't want to miss that.
Most of the time, okay, find some crummy bread, whatever, I can skip that part. But I find all of these diets are like, no, none of this, or super this, super that. I wonder if they're just like, people are just looking for something to hang on to. But these diets have been around forever, and if they worked, then we would know that.
Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems with diets is it adds stress when you do have that perfect bowl of pasta. If you have categorized yourself as a low-carb eating person, You might be very stressed about enjoying this thing when you should just let go.
Let go. This is your cheat day or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And I've heard that. And actually, I have friends who do that, their cheat day. And I say to them, I'm only going to hang out with you on your cheat day because that's when you're actually fun.
Yeah. I mean, I would say, like, for me, there's things that make me feel really good. But they're not rules. They're not rules. They're like go-to favorites in terms of diet and so on. For example, I've mostly been eating once a day for the longest time. But that's not a rule. It's completely flexible. And I've mostly been eating very low carb.
Yeah, but you must be eating a lot of food in that one meal.
Yeah, it's not, you know, because it's usually a very sort of meat-heavy. It's not like portions are not that big. But your body needs food. Yeah, body needs food. So you're talking about like 2,000 calories. What you find out is like that dinner... is like the most social time of the day. Yeah.
I mean, I have kids in the morning. So if you have kids, it's for sure a morning experience. But if you don't, then you're right.
Yeah. But like you said, I deviate. You know, I'm more afraid of missing the perfect dessert, the perfect breakfast, the perfect bowl of pasta, pizza, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, right. I don't think of it as a cheat day.
Well, if you're eating one meal a day, you can eat whatever you like.
Well, I want to make clear that it's not one meal a day always, and I'm like this very strict thing. You always have to be open to the experience, to the new experience. Otherwise, you do miss out. Just like you said, hay fever. I think if you want to be really safe, you should never leave your home
Yes, we learned during COVID, if you wrap yourself in cotton wool in your basement, you're not going to die from COVID.
You might die from a lot of other things, pure misery. Yeah. Well, you might live forever. Right, we don't know.
But it certainly doesn't maximize the joy of whatever makes life worth living. It doesn't maximize that.
Yeah, exactly.
You wrote in the book that Anthony Bourdain was one of your heroes. Can you speak to what inspired you about him?
Yeah, he wrote a book called Kitchen Confidential in the 90s. I was in cooking school at the time. He romanticized the cooking in the restaurant so well. His writing is great. He kind of got me into like, oh, that's cool. I want to do that. It was cool. So I got into cooking school, got more engaged in it, and I had this FOMO feeling of I wanted to experience what it's like to be in the back.
When you're cooking school, you are in the back. They had a restaurant we would serve people, but it's not the same thing as actually being in a real restaurant. It's like you're in a submarine with your teammates, and you've got to win tonight. It's a real energy experience. And so that was a big inspiration. I followed him over. He was so sad that he chose to end his life.
But I also had met with him a few times, not like one-on-one over dinner or anything, but just met with him. And I just felt his love for food and truly his love for food.
He gave the advice of don't be afraid, get excited, and cook with love.
Yeah. I've used that phrase, especially the cook with love one. I mean, you know, one of the things about which we talked about this earlier where you get quick, tangible feedback from a customer when you're in the restaurant. I know when I didn't put love into that dish. I know when one of my line cooks did not put love into that part of the dish.
I know when that expert person did not put love into double-checking the dish before putting it on the table. You just know. And cook with love is when you do it for your family. Oh, actually, especially when you do it for your family, the food doesn't have to be perfect. But you're cooking with love.
That's why you love scrambled eggs. I do that. That's in the book, Kimball's Scrambled Eggs.
Yes.
You promised to make me scrambled eggs and I'm going to hold you to it.
That's great.
A cooking school you mentioned, the French Culinary Institute. I heard it was a... a bit of a rough experience in parts.
I would call it, it's not a rough experience in that. In a beautiful way. Yeah, exactly. It's not like I'm a victim of it. It's rough in that they intentionally make it rough. So the school costs the same price as Harvard to go to. You show up. It's an 18-month program. You are allowed to drop out at any time. You don't get your money back. 25 people started, six people graduated.
And the people who graduated, I graduated, but man, there were times where I'm like, I can't handle this. I mean, I would literally say to my friends, oh, I gotta go to cooking school, I'm gonna go get screamed at for the next six or seven hours. And I had this little French chef who was my nemesis. Does he still live in your head somewhere?
in my head exactly he's only nuts he's like five foot two or something and uh and i remember him screaming so much at me that this he's like the short guy i'm six five the spittle would land on my face nice and i would just have to sit there or stand there and take it It was a very humbling experience.
I did learn, though, that it's intentionally rough, so I took a little bit of the edge off it one day when that same chef had come over to me and said, move over a little bit. And I moved over, and he took my carrots, whatever, and started just chopping everything perfectly. And then he said, okay, you can come back.
And then he went over to someone else and started screaming at them, saying that, look, even Kimball can do this. And you can't do this. And I was like, this whole thing's like a psycho game. Yeah. So it did take the edge off when I realized there was... The guy was intentionally trying to break you down. And they do this apparently in the army.
I've not been to the army, but they need to break you down. Everything you know is worthless so that then we can teach you and you can come out of it with what actually we want you to know.
Are there specific technical lessons you remember you learned from that? Sort of how to cut carrots or... how to approach food, how to prepare food, how to think about food, how to carry yourself in the kitchen. You know?
All of those things. I think that the, one of the most beautiful lessons was actually scrambled eggs. So there's different layers of chefs. So they're all master chefs, they're all very well-known people and everything, but Alain Soltner was one of the chief, like, main, main guys. And he just passed away. Master chef. And everything kind of stopped when he would show up in the kitchen.
And he would teach very few things. And all of the other chefs, the same ones that were screaming at us, it was like the Red Sea parting. They have total respect for this human, and he can do whatever he wants. And one of the things he wanted to teach was how do you make an omelette, a French omelette. And it's really fundamentally the same thing. It's the soft scrambled eggs that you fold.
And the love that he put into the time with us, and of course he's a legend. There were moments like that where I'm like, wow, okay. He also, just like the other chefs, didn't have any concern berating anyone. So he berated our master chefs. Saying, I don't trust these people to teach you how to make scrambled eggs. So I'm gonna do it instead.
I mean, can you speak to that? Because a lot of people hearing this would be like, scrambled eggs. Why do you need to be a master chef to really make scrambled eggs?
Well, first of all, for me, it's a learning journey forever. So I make scrambled eggs, I mean, I've made it 10,000 times or more or whatever.
So it's like Jero dreams of sushi, Kimball dreams of scrambled eggs?
Pretty much. Okay. So I will wake up... and be held accountable by my kids to make scrambled eggs. So this happens every morning. And I know all the steps. muscle memory level kind of steps. I don't know how much while I know it. And then I'll cook it and it's very meditative for me because you have to focus.
So most scrambled eggs, soft scrambled egg recipes are 10, 15 minutes to get them to that perfect softness. And the recipe that I got from Chef Alan was something that you do in 90 seconds. But it requires total focus. If you look up for a second, you're going to miss the perfect moment where you have to stop and get those eggs out of the pan. Because the eggs will keep cooking.
And so it's this meditation. And sometimes you hit it perfectly. But most times... Could have been a little softer, could have been a little firmer, could have been a little bit more salt, could have been a little bit more pepper. And so what's really fun about the morning is my kids are kind of into it. So they're sort of like we critique the eggs every morning. Do they have a rating system?
It's more like... And again, it also comes back to how people feel, right? So my kids can be in a bad mood and they can be grumpy. Or it's like a Michelin star system, like what? No, no, it's more like, oh yeah, I like my eggs a little more gooier or yesterday it was this way, but a little bit more salt, a little less salt. Salt is usually the one That is because not all salts are equal.
So if you are used to working with a certain kind of salt and then you just are forced, for some reason, ran out of salt to use some other salt, you actually don't know how to use it. You really want to have the same salt all the time. They have a page on salt in the book, which is fascinating. Salt is... You got to get to know your salt. You got to love your salt.
And you got to use it over and over and over again. And it will teach you how to use that salt. Your own palate will tell you how salty you like things. But if you change it up and you mix up a whole bunch of salt, you've now multiplied your learning path So for me, my favorite salt is kosher salt. And I like to use that all the time.
And if I ever change it, I might sprinkle a little bit of Molden salt, which is a crunchy, sort of a flaky salt. But it's more for that when you're actually eating. For the texture. It gives you texture as well as salt, exactly. You wouldn't use it on scrambled eggs. But if you switch out your salts... It's a different weapon.
You need to learn it.
I like how usually there's wine connoisseurs. You're saying, going back to sort of farm to table, when you're talking about carrots, in that same rigor and nuance, you have to consider the different farms involved for the carrots. In that same way, you have to consider the different salts involved.
And also not even all kosher salts are the same. It's the particular salt that you like, get to know it. Get in a relationship with it. It's like great. You will learn so much.
In terms of the measurement, the proportion, the amount of salt you put in, are you doing that exactly or are you doing it by feel? No.
So it's by feel, and that's where you get the relationship. So in fact, in the cookbook, I have QR codes that people can scan because what I struggle with recipes is they don't teach technique, right? They can describe the technique, but they don't teach the technique because it's a technique. It's not a recipe. And so one of the lessons is how do you salt vegetables?
a steak and the answer is not here's a teaspoon and you do it this way the answer is use kosher salt so you can see with your eyes because they're little flakes how much salt is on your steak and then taste it cook it and then taste it you know do you think you didn't need more or you needed less okay now next time put a little more on because you can see it
And it's about learning the fact that you want to be able to see how much salt is on the steak so that you can then train yourself for the future of how much salt you want on your steak. Yeah, but then the steak and the salt kind of dance together. It depends on where the steak came from.
That's true.
That's true. All the thickness of the steak, that'll make a difference. But for the most part, if you... If you're able to see it, versus table salt, for example, this just disappears. You just can't see what you're putting on your steak. You can't really learn as a result.
I think you talk about roast chickens where your love of food began. What about steak? I love a good steak. It's so great. So in the French school... You add sauces and all this kind of stuff. And in boulders, when you realize, like, there's a beauty to the basic ingredient.
Yeah. Like a good New York strip from a good rancher that, you know, there's a lot of... discussion, controversy on how cattle should be raised. And we have a very different approach, which is we know how our cattle are raised. We go to the farm. We get to know the rancher.
And sometimes you do want to have them be finished on, like they'll be grass-fed for the most part, but then there's some sort of cool recipe of food you're giving them that will then make them taste better. And sometimes it is actually pretty good to have 100% grass-fed. I've had some amazing ranchers that show me that the flavor is all there.
For the average person that might go to Whole Foods or a grocery store, I think the simplicity of a good steak, it is important to get good sourcing, but also it's just good.
What's your favorite kind of meat? It's New York strip, probably New York strip for me.
Yeah, New York strip. Yeah. I like the fact that it's lean, but if you want the fat, you can dive into that little strip of fat or you can leave it alone because you don't want it that night. And it's also a great steak for adding something.
Like if you want to, you could either do a pepper sauce or you could do a lot of ground pepper, which gives it a peppery, it's not sauce, but it's a peppery steak. It's a really good, a canvas for other things.
But the basic ingredients you're playing with is salt and pepper.
Yeah, pretty much. Actually, I will say there's another one, garlic. This is my favorite recipe for steak is you season it, both sides, salt and pepper, You saute it in a little olive oil, barely anything. And you're getting a nice crisp, like a golden, dark golden brown on both sides. The other trick with cooking a steak is don't touch it. You just put one side.
When you're ready to turn it, turn it around. Don't touch it any other time. But at the end, you take a dab of butter and you crush a clove of garlic. Mm-hmm. You don't even chop it. You just crush the glove and you put the two of them in the pan and you just roll the steak around in the garlic butter. I think that's the one.
Bold move, Kimball. Bold move. What are you, since you're in Austin quite a bit, opening... a restaurant here, what do you think about barbecue? It's kind of the Texas way.
Well, I would say there's an Austin way, which is, and actually even Austin would say there's a suburb of Austin way. I think that actually the adventure of food is wonderful. I would absolutely say that Austin is one of the great food cities of America, and barbecue is one of its gifts that it gives the city. But you'll go to one and the other and you'll have a different approach.
And that's the part I love is where there's a real celebration of the artisan. So you might go to one and they have a style that they love and they've been doing it for years. And then you'll go to another and they have a style that they love and they've been doing it for years. And it's not, they're still barbecue, but they're actually different. And it's really beautiful to see that. And that's
I think that's what food culture is. Like it just builds up over time by people who love this style of cooking.
Well, I especially love the communal, like how they structure restaurants usually. Or I don't even want to call it a restaurant because it doesn't feel like a restaurant. It feels like a tavern or some sort. Like Terry Black's is like that.
Yeah, they also have like paper towels. Get as messy as you like. And it's a whole roll of paper towels. They don't even give you a napkin.
they know what you're getting into yeah and it there's just wood everywhere and it's kind of has this feel like this place has been around forever it's not changing i know it's the 21st century with the internet and all this kind of yeah nonsense that you people are building but really this is all about the same yes it's been the same for generations we're doing it the same that kind of feel like if you want to escape the world in that way and then truly connect with people
One of the other things that will happen in a town like Austin is there'll be a barbecue joint that is just legendary, right? And then out of that will come someone who wants to do their own barbecue joint, and they'll take the learning from that barbecue joint. They'll open up a new one, but it won't be the same as the other barbecue joint. Part of it is like, dude, don't just do the same thing.
Do something different. What do you have to say? But also part of it is if you're in the world of food as an art form and you want to go open up another barbecue joint, you kind of want to prove yourself. Like I deserve to have a barbecue joint in this town. I know this is one of the holy grails of barbecue.
And people will follow you like they're following a musician or they're following an artist. And they are excited to... To see what your version is and how well you can pull it off. It's like, it's actually, that's what I love. That's what I mean by like a city with a food culture. Austin has that.
There's also like a legend to certain places. Certain places are more than just the food they create. It's like, that could be a burden. You have to like live up to the legendary nature of the name.
Our restaurant in Boulder, the kitchen, is 20 years old. We're very well known, very well respected, and we do have to live up to the name. I think that our restaurant lives up to its name in not just the food. It's like you walk in and you feel the restaurant, and that is also something we've just done naturally. The space is a 120-year-old building. It used to be a brothel, and it was a
bookstore, like storied history. This was a mining town, right? So back in the 1800s, this was built late 1800s. That sort of Brussels, that was a thing. And so there's an actual tunnel in the basement that goes to the local hotel that would be used for going back and forth between the hotel and the brothel without people knowing.