Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cookies is coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center newsstand studios joined as usual with John right behind me how you doing John? Doing great. Thanks. Everything good.

Everything's pitching

you enjoying this? Whatever this is this spring the spring. Absolutely. Yeah, yes. I sorry. Also in the studio today we have always Joe Hasan rockin the panels. How you doing, Joe? Hey, thanks for joining us. Not in her normal place in an undisclosed location Cheney like we have Anastasia Lopez, how you doing stars? Good. He sounds so enthused to be here. I'm so so excited for you. Yeah. In my world. So I'm happy to be back. Yeah, yeah. Right. Because you're, you're back in. You're back in New York as of next week, right. Or New York ish. I'm in Connecticut. Yeah. I'm in Connecticut. Yeah. And in California, we got Jackie molecules. How you doing?

Great. Yeah, still raining here somehow.

So let me ask you a question. Like for years, all you've wanted is rain. And now that you have it, what are you thinking now that you found rain? What are you going to do with it?

Well, I'm transplant so that's the easiest way to spot a transplant is if someone's complaining about the rain. So

yeah, guilty. Yeah. All right. Okay. And up there on Vancouver Island. We have our customer service extraordinaire, person Quinn, how're you doing?

I'm good. It's great to be introduced the three

Oh, geez. You know what? Quinn the entire time. Like you know, for those you that don't know, like when we get on the you know, together beforehand. Quinta stars needle me today? I don't know where Neela me about bringing the wrong questions last week. You know, I don't know what it is. What did I do? What did I do? You know, or as my stepfather would say, Who did I kill? Who didn't kill just let me know. And today's special guests will introduce as normal before we start shooting the breeze is Benjamin Lord the author of the Christmas present that my wife got me this year for Christmas. The Secret Life of groceries. That dark miracle Oh is it dark miracle the American supermarket or dark miracle the supermarket writ large

American supermarket Americans but you know it's your show. You can rename this

thing but I don't think we should like you know it's first of all, it's great. It's a great slugline dark miracle it like was that you are your editor. Oh, that was me

that was that was you know as an unpopular and no one wanted miracles in the title really, too ostentatious and religious and all these bad things.

So I'm so I wrote a book and I'm trying to write another book. And the slug line of that is supposed to be the miracle of moisture management and about five people on who you know, are fans of that title. And everyone who knows me and cares about me is like do not call it that. You know? Yeah, yeah.

That's like a summer summer problem, like sweat shifting.

Well, I liked the word moisture. Like to me like you know, people always hate on moisture, but like, a cake is supposed still a cake is supposed to be moist. Moist, because maybe a cake is supposed to be vaguely gross and sexual. Maybe? Like moist implies human moistness. That's why people don't like it right moist implies dampness and humidity and like crotch rot. No.

Yeah. Little fungal. It's more of the fungal aspect. Yeah,

but in a cake. It's clean and good. moister moisture. Because you know what, people what do people hate John? dry, dry killer.

Yeah. Was just complaining about that for my breakfast this morning. You had a dry dry cake. No dry pastry. Very sad.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, now. Okay. Okay. And, you know, Joe Hasan here being a part. Sicilian extraction. Am I correct? Joe? Yes, you must enjoy a dry pastry. Um, yeah, no

manager I pray history. Yeah, we have these. The Sephardic cookies called turtle equals that are so dry but delicious. Yeah.

I like what I guess what it is, is if a pastry is supposed to not be dry

and your French pastry. Yeah, that dry. What kind of pastry? Yeah, what are we talking about John?

Okay. Bread with wages.

There we go. A little French French pastries, you know little like pinwheel kind of thing. It's got some it should be a little like custard inside flecked with some raisins. It's delicious. Yeah.

Can we just say that the French do not make the best pastries? No, it's the Austrians. Everyone knows is even French pastries are made better by Austrian Pete? Yes. Yeah.

French still excellent. Okay, yeah. So very

good. Okay, yeah, but not the one you had this morning.

No, no, no, also not in France. Let me

let me ask you. Let me ask you a question. I mean, Was this your fault or the Baker was this three days ago? Pastry that

uses like this morning that I got on my way into here? A stolen front was it

worse than a streetcar pretzel? Because that's to me is like the highest promise and the lowest reward? Yeah, I

don't know. i It's really running on this Dalia. Yeah, one once with your dad. That was That's it? Yeah.

And you have one now and you're like, ah, the textures bad. Everything's bad. Yeah, simultaneously wet on the outside and dry in the middle.

Oh, my expectations was the pretzel, you know, is is to not be great with the sounds hoping for something very good.

Yeah, yeah. Do you know the band King missile? No. Oh, yeah. All right. So John, yeah. So Joe knows King King. This was famous for a couple of songs. Yeah, they Jesus is way cool. They will was a detachable. This is a technical term. It's a song quote. So even though it's family show detachable penis, classic, classic inking, thinking anyway, John Hall, I think is the name of the lead singer. He also has a great song about cheesecake where he starts driving a cheesecake truck and then eats all of the cheese cakes, and then like basically runs away from home because he that's it, but he's still happy. He's like the utility monster. If you know about, if you ever had a friend who's an economics major utility monster or someone who, like their enjoyment stays the same, regardless of how many things they consume, and so they just consume all of it. Right? And he's that way with cheesecakes because for me, I love cheesecake. But like, you know, two slices, Max. This guy eats like a whole truck of cheesecakes. Homer Simpson esque Yeah. Right. Another utility monster anyway, so he is a poet, as it turns out, and he has a double penis. Right? Obviously, the amazing thing about that song is that, you know, it comes off obviously, it's detachable. And he finds it on St. Mark's place. This is in the 80s. And it's, you know, the people used to sell things on blankets over there, which they still do in parts of the cities, but don't think they do it there anymore. Sure, yes. Right, right, like, shaped kind of like a subway churro. And what the interesting thing is, is that the guy wants too much money for it. And so he bargains him down. I think it's amazing that you would find your own penis for sale, and then bargain for it. Like when you just pay the going rate and maybe

you've been disappointed with it your whole life. It's like, Well, anyway, do I really want this? You know,

I don't know even how we got here, but I want to buy the he has a book out that I don't know whether it's any good, but I'm gonna buy it from the Stasi. Anyway. It's called the daily negation. And it's just a poem every day. About like just negating everything.

Got it? Yeah, it's like this. Contemplate your own death like the Death clock app.

Yeah, yeah, but not even like more apathetic than that more just like you know, hey, why would you expect today's gonna be different from yesterday? That kind of stuff. But like for every day, it's kind of like an antidote to people's you know, what? Not self help but like, you know, like those daily affirmations? Yeah, it's the exact opposite.

anchor your expectations in the street car pretzel? Yeah, yes. That's how he's got your day to day right there.

See? It's gonna only get better you got to come back all the time to tell me to drop a little hint of why we were talking about something in the first place.

It's a good start to the show we can anchor expectations about me with the streetcar pretzels it's only gonna present people

show Quinn or or Jackie got anything good from the week anything anything food food or not food food adjacent perhaps.

I made the serious eats Bolognese that was recommended to me via somebody in the discord and it was as delicious as advertised.

Okay, so what makes this different from any other Bolognese or is that those freaks call it now in England when they call it spag ball do they mean bowling AZ are they talking about spaghetti and meatballs because like whenever they say spag ball I just turn on turn off I can't I can't listen. It's no idea anyone anyone know British people you know British people? What are they? It's bolognese. All right. If you cosign that joke, I have no idea. spag ball. Alright, so what's different about this Bolognese as opposed to you know your run of the mill? Bolognese

was it was lamb pork, beef and then chicken livers that you've kind of blend up otherwise pretty much as you'd expect,

I here's the secret sauce. Oh, sorry.

The chicken liver is definitely the secret. Oh, the chicken liver you add it to any type of Bashir Mel like lasagna is phenomenal. So here's an interesting there's an interesting point.

When I was growing up, listening to people read and talk about Our food now obviously there are many, many classic sauces. My, my Francophone and file friend behind me will attest to have liver in them. But it was widely taught when I was young that adding liver to long cook things like soups or giblet gravy would make them better and unpalatable. And so it's glad I'm glad to see that there is a turnaround on this at least with poultry livers. You know what I mean? They will come back. Yeah, liver, liver, come back. I you know, I think also like my generation is was one of the first generations to truly detest liver. You know, like, my parents generation tolerated it. My grandparents generation loved it, you know, like at

the intersection of like, heavy metals. Enter the ecosystem.

Consolidate in the liver. Yeah. And you have to also eat the liver. Yeah. Real battery. The battery testing lever? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also like a very huge switch in the concept of health in major to, to put quotes in the same way that someone will talk about in your book puts quotes on quote, health food. Yeah. Anyway. Interesting. So you like this? You like your your bolognese?

Yeah, it was. It was very good. All

right. Okay. Very, very. And what did you put it on? Pepper dough. Okay. Did you cook it the way that Katie parla told you to cook it? What's the word she uses? That sounds like chode. Don't remember God killed Chioda. Like more,

like extra bells. And yeah, that's it. Did actually.

Yeah. Yeah. Because as soon as she said it, in my mind just erased what she said and put the word choden You know, I'm saying now I can't undo it. It's one of these things. It's gonna like, you know, I'm not gonna be able to undo it. I don't know. What about you when you got anything? Anything?

made a noise, orange, gelato and the creamy was interesting. I had to use. I didn't have to. I wanted to use a 10% cream from a local dairy.

Well, what's a 10%? Cream? That's like a non that's a non thing. 10 What is what is

the highest fat? You know, product? I don't want to use their stuff. But that's like, I may do

like, even half and half is like 15% fat. I don't know. That's weird, man. I don't know, man. I don't know. I'll have to look at this. You have to send me your local support. Hey, did you ever try that the olive oil yet that is from that weird little place? Was it any good?

Oh, you mean the word from Stokes? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah, it's really good.

Okay, we gotta get some to our to our we have a an audiologist who comes on the show periodically. Benjamin who we have to get accredited. They he flies around the world and like self accredited. Well, he know he.

He's got he's got the guy didn't even know there was such a thing. Yeah. And

he's called from place to place the judge things. And he he takes a

very forgiving me the whole Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, your logical community.

You can just call him Captain oily but he takes umbrage when I call him Captain greasy because he's like, ideal in oil. Not grease. Yeah, he's very he plays like, he plays like pansori I don't know. Like, like, it's a whole thing. Anyway, he is very skeptical of anyone else's taste in olive oil other than his own. So when you when you tell him that you like something's like, you know what I mean? But not in a bad way. He's not trying to make you feel bad. Just want you to know that he doesn't trust your palate. You know, saying, Sure. To have that authority. Yeah, yeah. Right. It's like my art teacher used to say he's like, you know, yes, everything is relative, but some more relative than others. Sure. Gain. Yeah. Anyway. Anyone else? Anyone else? Benjamin, do you have any good food stories?

I I go and I just been cooking tacos. I went to Mexico a few weeks ago and I whenever I just settle into a nice rut of something extraordinarily simple and very boring. And just make it until slowly grow disgusted with myself for the same food item.

I like that slowly grow disgusted with myself. Well, that kind of fits in with the tenor of your book. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, love and disgust Yeah, love and disgust together. So anyway, like, better so the subtitle, which is the dark miracle well,

so discussed in the American supermarket.

First of all, I rarely, especially on like non food books, a lot of people in like, you know, in our orbit have read this book. And it is. It's super interesting because you very specifically seem Are you very specifically in the book? I shy away from trying to be the next food? Jesus? I hate food Jesus, you know what I mean? Like, sure that Yeah. And so like the fact that you kind of explicitly upfront are like, hey, hey, folks, no answers here. You know what I mean? Like, it makes it compelling read, but also a little bit more, must have been more difficult for you. And that's probably why it took over five years of research to do is that it's kind of like going into this book is like, jumping into an ocean at pulling you down under it's crazy, you know, and I mean, and yeah, it was

it downer, actually, by the end. I mean, there's some dark. I got into it for upbeat reasons. I was just curious about the supermarket. I live I love I love. I go on vacation, I'll go to the grocery store. You know, I like I like the supermarket. It's a relaxing place. I browse the aisles I feel reassured in a supermarket. But I swam in the supermarket's of water. Yeah, the darker I got the more pulled me under. But But yeah, I did. I didn't want to give a false hope. Not that there isn't hope out there. There is a lot of hope. But there aren't any tidy solutions. And they're nothing that that provides, like neat answers. And so my editor was definitely banging the drum, like, let's get a vinyl chapter with like six bullet points that says, tell us how we're going to solve it and leave everyone was like a uplift. And I was like, Absolutely not. Yeah, that's for this, like, let's leave this boat untied.

Well, but that's something that's the only way to do it. I mean, I don't know whether or not that helps or hurts sales me you can tell me I don't know. But like in terms of like our community. And you know, like both John and I were involved on one of our other things Museum of food and drink. And like, that's kind of where we get into it is that all of the people who try to provide you quote, unquote, answers fall on one side of these two extremes that you deal with quite a lot in the book, which is either like elitist who don't really understand the depth of the problem, and have these paths, solutions and corporate shills. And so somewhere in between these, you know, like, somewhere, not even in between these because it's not, there's no in between. It's not a continuum likes, somewhere, it's in the book is just like, this is, this is what I found Holy crap, you know, at

least warts and all, like, let's just take a look at this. And I do think solving these problems are like, not that far from like solving like human nature problems. So quick fixes to like, like externalizing, it is very tempting, because you can recognize it, you can say That's gross, I don't want to have to deal with that. I want to, I want to like to think that gross things shouldn't exist in the world. But it's not that it's not that simple to solve them. I mean, a lot of them are motivated by our own worst qualities. And until we're willing to, like, do some of that work. But I don't know, I do go back and forth on this. There's something I think, especially in this time, there's something a little irresponsible about putting out something without any hope in it. Don't think the book has no hope. I mean, I think the tone is pretty funny and upbeat at times. And it's very funny. Yeah. And there's an absurdity that, I think is how I deal with the fact that we're in a broken world sometimes. And I think that can provide its own hope. But I'm not gonna lie about, you know, discovering some, like solutions to huge problem, macro economic problems,

right. But I think, you know, part of the thing that I enjoy about it is, you know, I don't know, I'm just gonna get deep fast, I guess. But like, you're not even mad at people who virtue signal by by like, not buying Thai slave shrimp, even though at the same time, you're like, Yo, do you think that shrimp in Honduras are being produced in any better way? You know what I mean? They're just, they're not, you know what I mean, they just don't have the spotlight on them. And so you're like, it's the one hand you're like, listen, you're not necessarily a bad person. The system is designed to try to make you feel okay about the purchases you're making. And it's so complicated that I don't know how you would even come to an opinion you could gel at the end of the book, because if it seems to me and I don't know what I got away, and I received it yesterday, again, like I said, I got it as a Christmas present. And Mike was like, you liked this kind of subject. And it was McNally Jackson's what's you know, staff pick or whatever. And I support local I support local bookseller although acknowledge Jackson although I love him to commercially I remember did that. I love McNally Jackson, however, you should buy this book at kitchen arts and letters and Quinn is going to try to get letters to they come on the show periodically and talk

about their institution. They're great. Yeah, I mean,

yeah, like, you know, anyway, Lila explained. Like, it's just, if you don't come away from it being like, Oh, this is this is no, this is so hard, then you have missed the point of the book. Right.

Yes, I mean, so when I was doing a ton of media when this book first came out in, it's like everyone would ask like, well, what should I buy? Just tell me what I should buy. Like that would be like the last question. And I'd be like, Well, you've missed the, you've missed the point of the book. Like I think I grew up with that ethos the Eric Schlosser kind of like he ends Fast Food Nation with like, make it your own way, Burger King subverted, but like vote with your dollars. And by voting with your dollars, we're going to create this better system. And it's like, I love that ethos. I grew up with it. But I think this book really points to the end of that as a as a way of creating change.

That book was when like, 9899. Exactly, exactly. And it was, it was a great book, but even at the time. I love that. Yeah, I've been deeply troubling, though, in that way. I mean, like, I don't think the average person who wasn't studying this stuff pretty deeply, kind of realized, even until after Colin kind of became food Jesus, not to harp on him, you know what I mean? But, you know, even after that happened, I don't think a lot of people really kind of realized how troubling and elitist these kinds of like, let's write prescriptions for the future. I

think it's not an accident. I mean, I think they're intentionally elitist. You know, in the book, we, one of the big things I go into is like, trying to figure out why we bought like, I was really interested in the rise of the grocery store, like, you know, growing up in the 80s. The grocery store was this like definitionally banal chore of an activity, just like long, looming linoleum floors, and it was just a boring place, you'd go out of obligation and then somewhere one of the triggers for this book was going to my first Trader Joe's with a bunch of Yogi's for this book Yoga Book, I was reading and just watching them run through this store like kids at Disneyland and they were just so excited by the Trader Joe's, which I'd never been in that couldn't quite understand how a grocery store that was the first time you went to Trader Joe's first time I was into Trader Joe's. And it was mind blowing. I was like these are these are grown adults who are like, think that this is a the playground.

But I mean, it's funny, like so in the book, you talk about Trader Joe's specifically marketing to a certain kind of Yes, person. Over was it over, over educated? What was it over educated,

underpaid, over educated, underpaid, kind of Volvo driving professor, that's, that's yoga. That's yoga two, though, that was a conscious kind of pivot. I was like, I don't I didn't want to become yoga Jesus. That was actually in my mind. I was like, I finished that book. And I thought I was kind of set up I could go into like a tour of yoga studios and talk my little insights on how corrupt and narcissistic the big room world was a people would love that. But I just didn't want to be the yoga guy. I didn't just didn't want to do that. I wanted to be that pop nonfiction writer. So but I was like, okay, but I do have a little audience that I carved out in that world. That book landed really heavy with the big room community for for understandable reasons. And like, who else is like, where's something similar and like the Trader Joe's? Sim, same as like using that as a microcosm for understanding the larger grocery industry in the same way that big room could stand in for like, the larger American romanticization in a kind of obsession with yoga. So it was it was I was super conscious of that like parallel.

Alright, so if you pick up the book, it opens with the most first of all, you you get a feeling for kind of your style, which we'll want to talk about in a minute. In the first kind of, I don't know whether it's called I don't remember whether it's a prologue or whatever, but that the whole foods fish counter, by the way, that's my local Whole Foods. And I shop there back in that era. Yeah, so you work there for you won't see this until later. But like, you know, part of your immersive won't get into it. Now. It's sort of like, you worked at Whole Foods for two months. Sure. The hell? Why did you need like, what did like, okay, a week, you're there? What are you getting out of weeks, two through eight of being at the whole foods?

Oh, that's where you really start to settle in. I mean, I do think that the first like three or four days of any experience, you get, like 80%, but then you get that extra little bit. I mean, so by no means what I described spending two months in a grocery store is getting some type of comprehensive and it was a deal. philosophische experience no matter what, but I didn't think I could write about the grocery store without having some substantial time in a grocery store on the retail floor, the the flip side of like the way we interact with it. So to me, it was just a no brainer in terms of like, I like the immersive approach in general. I think it allows you to write with a lot more immediacy. It grants you some kinds of unconscious permission in your audience's brain. But also, I think, just from a really poor found level it subverts a lot of cliches like you're walking around with these set ideas of what something is. And then you experience them in real life. And it never matches one to one like so in the bigger book, like a lot of people call big remote cult, I would never use the word cult because I spent so much time with these people, even if it matches up with like a lot of the descriptors of cults, I would never I saw them as fully formed humans who are doing things for wildly complicated reasons. I, you know, become the guru. Like, you could call him a charismatic narcissist. But like I saw what charisma means by experiencing like, the way he would dominate a room or his energy levels, right. So all of that comes from this up close and personal encounter with things. And so I think there's something about writing, it really refreshes the language, if you're experiencing it not writing from a point of abstraction. Lets lets them be more real people. Yeah, it because I think the instant you separate yourself from something, your brain starts to just push it into categories. At least for me, I'm not I don't have a great memory. And so I simplify everything. As soon as I'm away from it, I shrink it down. If I'm in the moment, taking notes, as it's happening, it's just a lot more blurry. It's a lot more gray. That doesn't fit into these categories. So then if I do reference something like a cult, or I reference something like charisma, I have to put a comma and like 17 descriptors after it to like get at all the different fractured, fractured, fractured ways that this word that we carry around actually exists in the in the world,

right. But you do like to do that. And this will feel like you know, you'll throw a little word bomb and then a footnote and then bloom, you know what I mean? It's like, no, it's an interesting tack. Let's if you are listening, live on Patreon, you can call in your questions to Benjamin at 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And if they're not listening live, John Wayne, Tom, how to join the Patreon and what they get and who's coming up in the future

patreon.com/cooking issues we've got a whole excuse me a whole grade, you know, slurry of guests coming up as always, Chris Young, Matt Sowell is going to be coming up and a couple others that Quinn's working on, it's all going to be great. Awesome discounts with partners like kitchenettes and letters. Hopefully we'll get Ben's book here discounted and yeah, just be part of an awesome community. Join the discord, Google Maps for restaurant recommendations, all these awesome things. So patreon.com/cooking issues. And next

week, we have Abram barons, right, a different day from normal. Is that true? Yes, one day Michigan chef who has a new book on fruit? You know, I've never been to fruit Michigan. You ever been to fruit Michigan,

even though its place? Yeah.

So there's this like, there's this one part of Michigan that because of the lake can grow very good. Fruit. So like a lot of our concord grapes come from there. And it's in the same area where all the furniture people are, you know, like Herman Miller and yeah, we're living in fruit. Yeah. Fruit, fruit and design, you know, two things that I enjoy, actually, you know, but I've never been to that part of Michigan. I've only been to the other side. You know,

I think actually my great grandfather had a farm in that area. I know there's a lot of tomato growing growing around there. And I've know so little about it, but uh, but I think I have been there it's only in fleeting weird memories of my dad dragging me along to on a family trip.

All right, well, you know you go well check out her book pulp. You're interested in cooking with fruit I just received the book I haven't read it yet. So I can't say anything one way or the other which is gonna be on the show next week. That's what's going to happen

fruits one of those universally good things I mean, no one says a bad word about fruit. Okay, can

I can I say this? This what you're saying is almost correct in that it is literally designed for us to like it fruit right now. You know us meaning everything right sugar, right. And we're designed to like it. Yep. There is a huge cadre of people that don't I don't know where it comes into their mind. They don't like cooked fruit. You ever met these people? Oh, but I would have words with them. Yeah, they don't like to cook for certain glances. Sometimes it comes out as as a distaste for pie. And then when you burrow in, you're like, what is it that you don't like about pies? That it's delicious? And they're like, No, it's not that I hate that. It's delicious. It's that I don't like cook fruit

roast peach like oh, like Yeah, what's up?

I don't know. It's a thing. It is a thing. If you go out and ask right? You will find eventually you'll find that person usually cake over pie people there they might just like cake more, but but they might be one of those cook fruit people got it.

Got it. That explains because there are these people who don't like pies. And I've always I grew up pie strong,

especially with your grandfather, a great grandfather would you know? Yeah,

I don't even understand where the problem with pie would begin. But now you've solved life mystery

now. There you go. I'm here for you. Where are we even talking about? How do we even get there? I was talking about future guests. Yes, brain goes, Oh, nothing about kitchen arts and letters where you should buy the secret life groceries. The dark miracle of the supermarket isn't American or not your Messer consumer American supermarket? Although really, let's be honest, aren't all supermarkets American in the end? I'm just kidding. But I'm not.

They're not. It's a very American invention right up there with the roller coaster t shirt, jazz. What about what all he did to it after the after the war like well, they put their own little spin on that model, and it made it extremely efficient. Yeah, even even less. So yeah, it's like the pizza effect. They perfected it and then brought it back to

So you went for the book to go anyway, in circles. You went to one of their distribution centers in the book that was that for an Aldi or was that for like all the discs?

I went to a number. So in the book, getting into distribution centers at that time, was pretty tricky. I could have gone on a formal tour have a few, but it was actually hard to get some access there. So I decided I would embed with a trucker who would make drops at these and I could wander around and kind of poke around through that. And so I went to a number of distribution centers when I was driving around with the trucker but also he was the one that's featured in the book. Yeah,

yeah. I mean, those stores are all these are depressing. The ones I've been into, you know what I mean, but

with great value, I mean literally Aldi I mean it's, they've got a great model of just like banging out some basics and low price that you know, not the lowest quality if they put zero money into advertising zero money into like packaging and marketing. And they're just straight, you know, pennies over the whatever they're making them in terms of margin.

Alright, so this is brought me to a couple of things. Want the trucker? He brought the trucker who is a pseudonym? I just found out Lin and how do you how is the pseudonym pronounced whose name is Brenna? As Lynn Ryles? Okay, Lynn Ryles. All

right, we can really it is a pseudonym. I did, there's very few pseudonyms in the book. But that was one where I thought, if I write about this woman, I could really affect her livelihood. And she didn't want a pseudonym actually actually may be angry at me because of that, but I just thought I would not live with I wouldn't not sleep well, if I wrote something that got her fired or got her blacklisted or

Okay, well, that is so interesting. So in the when the book opens, it opens with what one of my Instagram friends described as the most metal description ever. of the Whole Foods fish counter circa 2013, or 14 Whenever you were there. And again, when I was shopping there and probably buying fish, maybe from you, who knows. Although I bile abuela fish there were the gives it kind of an overall view of what the tone is going to be the description of the smell of this fish counter. And then within that, you're like, Oh, here's one of your footnotes, where you're like, being, by the way, I am, if anything under representing this smell, so you just got how long is the case? It's like 20 feet long. It's like that. Yeah, it's,

yeah, it's right around there. It's, I will stress again, that the reason I have mixed feelings about opening that book up with that image, because it is 100% real, it is exceedingly gross. And it is was intended as a metaphor, because I think the fish that we were selling it that Whole Foods was perfectly safe, it was clean. The fact that the bottom of the case was dredged with like rotten shrimp and entrails of clean fish that we that that hadn't been cleaned in a month and a half or two months, that there was a separation there and to be that metaphor of like clean and downy on the surface with this fresh ice that we lay down every day and the fish sparkling and then you just start digging through that to this muck that was irresistible. But I also I don't know how representative I don't have tons of experience with fish counters, maybe they're all as gross. caveat, I have a talk to some other Whole Foods employees after the book came out and they were like, Yeah, that was a particularly gross fish counter.

Right? But you take a lot of pains to say hey, listen, you know, so what it describes in the book John, you'll you'll This is gonna make you kind of queasy as a you know, current chef, they they would stand up on metal like stands and then chip down into it to cut like two by two blocks of the ice that was two months of ice accumulated of crush there was accumulated and like kind of glacier compacted into the top into like solid ice. But the freezer was on the fritz so the bottom was kind of watery. And they would take these two by two blocks out and after the first block comes out. You start seeing the filth and the smell permeating of it like is apparently worse. Then when you went to Thailand to a trash fish processing unit, which you describe as having a smell that is wait for it. Deafening a smell that is definitely you can't hear what people are saying because it smells so bad in front of this. trash fish.

Ghostly. Yeah, 90 degrees trash fish up to your like mid ankle. Yeah, wading through rotting fish on the you know, right off the dock. But

it's not only 90 degrees, there's also a literally a furnace in front of you. You know what I mean? And so like, you're like you have it That smell is somehow not as disturbing as they smell from the Bowery Whole Foods, which they've replaced, people have replaced anyway. So it's a, it's an interesting way to start the book. But what it leads me to, I don't know whether you're going to take this as an insult or a compliment, but you don't put yourself as front and center and don't do drugs in the book. But it is. Specifically you say that you're not stoned in one or two occasions. But it seems to me to be kind of almost Gonzo, in a way that journalism, you know what I mean? Like,

I have an affection for, for for big writers, for guys who are not afraid to throw around some big, you know, like, I would shy away from Hunter S. Thompson B, I love him, I grew up with him. I don't want to I don't want anyone thinking that I'm trying to be Hunter S Thompson, because he's just only one hunter, a Samsung, and we, you know, leave him where he is. But yeah, I have a lot of affection for those guys. And I think, you know, I love whoever said the opening is metal. I think you got it's like a punk song almost like you gotta get people from the first chord in a book, there are so many reasons not to read in our culture, or to read just like to stick and snippets on Twitter. So if you're gonna go, you gotta go hard, like, you're gonna slow there, there was a time when you could have a slow burn of a book. And I love those books. But I don't know where America's attention is now for the slow burn grocery book. Like, let's say that for something else,

that's most of them. But I have to read a lot of these kinds of things. But so then that brings me so you, unlike a lot of other books, you're present in the book, unlike a lot of other nonfiction books about this kind of subject that like I say, I have to read on the regular, you're extremely present in this book, and judging your own judgments, criticizing your own criticisms the whole time, but clearly a character, and you've given yourself permission to be. And this is the one thing that kind of stuck a little bit on me, like, kind of brutal to some of your people. So this person with a pseudonym, who I can't believe she was mad that you use the pseudonym, you're unbelievably brutal in your description of her cough, like how gross like the fact that she incessantly talks to you about crap that you don't want to hear. I mean, it's pretty hardcore. Yeah. Unusual. So like, what does that? I mean, I can't believe she was cool with it what her real name used even despite that, that's a tribute to her, by the way.

Well, one yes, yes. I think I am hard on characters. I think that really came from the Bikram book where I was. I really wanted to just do like a warts and all portrait of people. And I think I want to be in that book, I was much more of a present character. In this book, like you said, I'm present, but it's not really about me. introspecting maybe I'm reacting to things to give you a contour, but I'm less present. But I want to be harder on myself than anyone else. But I do think there's a lot of bad writing that just kind of hagiography at the end of the day, and yeah, if we can't call call spade a spade. You know, it's, I think it it also dignifies this woman, Lynn, who I call Lynne a little bit to know she has an enormously difficult life. And I think anyone who reads that chapter does cannot come away with an appreciation of how hard the life of a trucker is, how hard the life of a female trucker is, and then in particular, the work that she's putting in and the care that she's putting into that. But if I just write that in a glowing way, and I don't include some, like, obvious, honest reactions to who she is that it loses its luster just becomes another thing and airport magazine have just like this, like saintly female trucker that I that I followed, and that's not real. Right. So so it is hard. It's a hard balance, though. I, I nobody likes what I read about them when they first read it, and some of them don't like it ever, and it's hard because you spend a lot of time with these people. I always share it pre publication because I want I don't want anyone to feel blinded. But now I'm I've been everyone thinks they're gonna like it. And sometimes I'll write things that I think are like, on verging on hagiography and I'm sure they're gonna love and then they read it. And they like, the description sticks on them or the some representation of what they said with my own editorial next to it sticks. And it's, it's definitely one of those things. You gotta have a strong stomach for

now. Well, the trucking one, I think, because of that description, and like kind of this weird thing where you're like, I can't wait to get out of the truck with this.

Oh, I was just done. I mean, I was I was ready to bolt from that chapter. I thought it was gonna be fun. I thought I was gonna be living my childhood dreams of truck driving and mercy America, like, you know, dharma bums on the road. But no, it was one it's a grueling life that deregulation has completely changed the nature of the job from the kind of, you know, more middle class 1970s. But also this

you hate by the way, I

love smoking, the bandit, I don't my dual. There's, there's some good trucking movies out there. But but more, she was a tough cookie. Like she was not she would never be BFFs in real life. And I guess there's something fundamentally weird about me writing that up as if we weren't going to be BFFs. And I think something that would shrink her as a truly remarkable person. I mean, I have a lot of respect for her.

Well I that does come through, especially when she comes back in later. And, but I think one of the most shocking things because I you know, heard about slave slave and shrimp, you know, boats in Thailand. And, you know, I knew some of the history not the personal stuff, with, you know, Trader Joe's, which is one of the main subjects of the book. But, and I knew that, you know, it's part of the museum that, you know, everything we get comes by truck, right. And, you know, you What's interesting is that you would expect that this is going to be a story about and it's mentioned, right to how much gas is burned. And, you know, because those reefer trucks are going 100% of the time, and they're getting their poorly maintained or getting 01 that poorly maintained, but they're still getting much lower than what we say on their on their mileage. And just, as you put it, rivers of fuel being burned every night. Yeah, but that isn't the story. And I was like, oh, because I was like, oh, that's going to be the story. That's not even the story. I could not believe how these people who work these incredibly long hours are reduced to penury, for for. For those that don't, I mean, like, I'm not gonna give you the book away. She works for $100 a week.