Dave Chang Podcast: Christina Tosi
The notes from Dave Chang’s email on the latest podcast episode. Christina Tosi is incredible. An absolute force. I’d bet on Milk Bar being bigger than Momofuku.
From the email:
In the latest episode of The Dave Chang Show, Dave talks to his longtime collaborator and friend Christina Tosi. The Milk Bar dessert god who gave us inimitable dishes like crack pie, cereal milk, and compost cookies earns Dave’s undying admiration, because he sees so many of his own traits in her. “You beat me at stubbornness,” he admits. “Someone is more stubborn than me!”
Tosi admits that throughout her career, she’s only truly content when she’s stressed and exhausted and way outside of her comfort zone. “Discomfort makes me happy,” she insists. “Comfortable is boring.”
She’s launching a new Milk Bar in Los Angeles this weekend, so there’s no shortage of discomfort for her. “Opening a restaurant is stress and nerves and questioning everything, nausea, not sleeping through the night,” she says. “It’s exhausting and beautiful. It’s great and terrible all at once.” She and Dave reminisce about how opening the first Milk Bar a decade ago was also horrible, but in a different way. “Ten years ago, it was fear of the unknown. Now, it’s fear of the known.”
The two reminisce about the early days, and Tosi admits that Dave helped teach her that great chefs have to be able to edit themselves, and rein in their bold experimentations. Case in point: her barbecue-flavored soft serve ice cream, which everyone was curious about but no one actually ordered. “I remember you telling me, ‘You are Destiny’s Child right now, you are not Beyonce,’ ” Tosi tells Dave. “You said that I needed to slow my roll, pave the way for myself, and earn the trust. ‘BBQ soft serve is something you can offer when you’re Beyonce.’ ”
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Episode Glossary
In this episode, Chang mentions that you should look up some of the chefs Tosi has worked for, because they’ve helped define American food. Well, we did the work for you. Here’s a quick glossary of people, terms, and anecdotes that Chang and Tosi discuss.
The New York City Health Department story: Chang first met Tosi while she was working for chef Wylie Dufresne at wd~50 (see below). Chang was lost at Momofuku as to how to manage his interactions with the NYC Health Department, and Tosi proved not only to have a command of the arcana of health rules and regulations but also a tireless patience for paperwork. He hired her to help navigate the business side of the restaurant, but soon realized he had a visionary pastry chef cooped up in the office.
David Bouley: Bouley trained under some of the heroes of nouvelle cuisine, including Paul Bocuse, before opening his eponymous restaurant in 1987. Bouley earned a four-star review from the Times along with plenty of other accolades, and his restaurants reigned over the New York scene for much of the ’90s and early 2000s.
Wylie Dufresne: The boundary-testing, modernist-minded chef of New York’s wd~50 challenged people’s perceptions of what was possible in restaurants — mixing nostalgia and science to make playful, idiosyncratic dishes. Think fried hollandaise and things with eggs you didn’t believe could be done.
Sam Mason: Tosi worked with groundbreaking pastry chef Sam Mason at wd~50. Mason has since gone on to spearhead a number of wildly creative endeavors, including Oddfellows Ice Cream in New York, home of flavors like Tobacco, Smoked Chili & Huckleberry, and Chorizo Caramel Swirl.
Alex Stupak: Another wd~50 alum, who cut his teeth upending people’s ideas of how desserts should look or taste. After wd~50, Stupak dove deep into Mexican cuisine, opening several progressive restaurants in New York under the name Empellón (meaning “to push or break through”).
Keith McNally: Famed New York restaurateur responsible for Odeon, Balthazar, Minetta Tavern, and a dozen other hot spots. Here’s the article that Dave read, in which McNally talks about the pre-opening days of a restaurant as being the most exciting.
Cereal Milk: Milk made to taste like what’s left in the bowl after you eat all the Frosted Flakes. It’s the creation that convinced Chang of Tosi’s genius, and one of the foundational dishes of the Milk Bar repertoire.
Compost Cookie: Another Milk Bar classic — a cookie with chocolate and butterscotch chips, graham crackers, potato chips, and pretzels. Widely imitated, never recreated.
FCI: The French Culinary Institute, now known as the International Cooking Center, is the cooking-school alma mater of both Chang and Tosi.rondeau: A large, wide pan that’s like a shallow Dutch oven. It’s often used in professional kitchens for large-scale jobs.
rondeau: A large, wide pan that’s like a shallow Dutch oven. It’s often used in professional kitchens for large-scale jobs.
Daniel: Restaurant Daniel is the flagship New York restaurant of chef Daniel Boulud. Dave worked for Boulud at another of his famed locations, Cafe Boulud.