March 28, 2025 • 20 mins
Talk show host Tamron Hall takes a seat at Luke’s Diner this week.
Emily, Trix, and Lorelai go somewhere in this episode that Tamron is very familiar with, pinkies up anyone?
And when it comes to steak, Tamron has one sizzling rule. Tune in to find out what it is!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Am all in Again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Lets you, I Am all in Again with Scott Patterson
an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hey Everybody, Scott Pounderson, I Am all In Podcast one
eleven productions, Iheartrated Media, iHeart Podcast Special edition of Luke
Steiner with the one and only Tamaron Haul joining us today.
A two time Emmy Award winning television hosts, veteran journalist,
and best selling author, Tameron is also the executive producer
(00:44):
of her ACCLAIM talk show, Tamaron Hall Beyond the Newsroom.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
She has a passion for the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Which led to the release of her cookbook last year,
and just a few days ago, she launched her latest
children's book, Harlem Honey, The Adventures of a Curious Kid,
So be sure to check it out. Without further ado,
please welcome Tamaron Hall. Hello, Tamaran, Hi Scott, how are
you good.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Welcome to the show. You've got a book out that's exciting.
Look at that great cover. Everybody go out and get this.
Tell us a little bit about this book.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Oh, thank you. You know what it is? Called a
heart Harlem Honey, The Adventure of a Curious Kid. It's
a book inspired by my curious kid who is now
five years old, and I am about thirty minutes from
seeing him participate in his first school musical. And how
that ties into the show, Scott, is that early on,
(01:39):
my son, like so many kids, are what we refer
to those pandemic kids, and that means not that necessarily
were born at that time, is that you were a
kid under the age of eighteen whose life was upended
by this once in a lifetime event. And Moses was
almost a year old, and suddenly we found ourselves smaller.
You know, we're not visiting cousins and grandparents and friends
(02:00):
and play dates and birthday parties. And by the time
life changed and reopened for us, I realized my son
was too and hadn't gone to a birthday party. We
go to the birthday party, the kid that I see
at home, who is outgoing and running around, is frozen
in place in the corner, and I think, Okay, that's
not a big deal. I was that way, you know,
first birthdays, it's noisy, it's a lot of things. And
(02:22):
then we see it more and more, and then we'd
see it at the grocery store, and I noticed that
this fear or this idea that the only safe place
was in our home with us was getting a little
too it was interrupting his joy, interrupting this and I
noticed that early on. So this book was really about
(02:42):
how to face those fears and how to help have
that conversation that fear is normal, fear is healthy. But
what's on the other side off of is this fun thing.
So Harlem Honey, is this adventure of discovering the first
place I think we all learned that the world is
bigger than our home. It's your neighborhood. So Harlem is
this neighborhood, but it can be any neighborhood in the world. Loulli, Texas,
(03:04):
which is where I'm from my first neighborhood. So it's
just a chance to have this loving and fun conversation
about facing fears as we do it tears.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
We used to say big boys don't cry or big
girls don't cry. We don't say that anymore. And this
is an evolution of how to talk about fear.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well, go out and get it, everybody, Harlem Honey The
Adventures of a Curious Kid Tammeron Hall. Instead of complaining,
she sat down and wrote a book to help us all.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I still complain sometimes I'm you know, my mother, I
was talking to my mom and it is outgoing, go
as I am, you know, on the show, and how
I may appear. You know, I still suffer from that.
My friends call me a social loaner because I am
a person who I think I can turn it on
(03:52):
and I love being around people and I'm a people person.
But if you say to me, here is a ticket
to the hottest part in Hollywood and you're gonna I'm like,
I'll take dinner with four friends, you know, it's like, Hello,
I am that person who I enjoy that intimacy. I
enjoy the opportunity to laugh as loud as possible and
(04:13):
just be myself. And sometimes when you are in a
new place or in a new situation, it's hard to
find yourself, even as an adult. And so this book
was a chance to have that conversation but also really
maybe share a bit more about me that people don't realize.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
M hm, excellent, excellent, excellent. All right.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So in uh to Shift gears a little bit the food.
In season one, episode eighteen, the third, Laurele we go
to high Tea with Emily Tricks and Laurel I do
you have any special memories or traditions around high tea.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I absolutely do you do one d There's a place,
Lady Mindel here in New York City. I absolutely love
high tea. I am a snob about it, and I
know that that might surprise you. Country girl from Lulin, Texas.
One stop light in town. No, my first big, big
(05:15):
tea moment outside of the tea parties, and I threw
magnificent ones at age five in my room with the
best tea that you could ever have in sandwiches. It
was with NBC Today Show at the time, and I
had the pleasure of having the assignment of having high
tea at Fortnham and Mason. They shut down the place
and they were teaching me, the country girl, how to
(05:36):
have a proper high tea, and I was off to
the races. So we probably honestly have high tea at
least once a month. There's one fancy one on the
upper Upper East Side of New York. It's a hotel
that's doing it in whatever. They need to fix their
website because I keep trying to book a reservation. But
this is like a high height. But we go to
Lady Mendel and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That's great. That's great.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So you've had this incredible career in journalism and television.
When did your love for cooking begin.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
My love of food began the day I came out
of the womb. My love of cooking was about forty
eight years in the making. My father, who was in
the military for almost thirty years, love, love, love cooking.
It was his love languages that kids liked to say,
or the books like to say, it was everything that
he is. And my dad passed away. When I moved
here to New York to join NBC, I was a
(06:28):
kid who even in college, I was home for Thanksgiving.
I was home for Christmas, Thanksgivings, my favorite holiday. It
was my dad's favorite holiday. And my dad became ill
on Thanksgiving, and he passed away soon after his favorite holiday.
And the next year that came around, went to visit
my mom, and my mom's out of cook My mom
would admit that she probably married my dad because he
(06:49):
could cook and she did never have to go in
the kitchen other than to get ready for dinner. And
I wanted to send and I Love you to my
father who had passed away. So I went on this
journey with a friend Lisch Styling. She happens to be
a James Beard Award winning culinary producer and a phenomenal
recipe tester. We became friends and we sat out on
(07:10):
this journey that led to my cookbook. But the cookbook
was ten years in the making of me really finding
this love of cooking.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's wonderful, what a story. It's called a confident.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Cook, A confident cook because we wanted joys fun in
the kitchen. It's like seventy three recipes that I think
are absolutely phenomenal, but it's also our story. She's from Wisconsin,
I'm from Texas. We are two kids who were underdogs.
Maybe on paper, you would never think that we'd be
friends because people tell you that, you know, she's white,
(07:44):
I'm black, she's gay, I'm straight. You know, all these opposites.
We have the same haircut, though, which is phenomenal. But
we tell the story of these two kids who grew
up in different parts of the country but found friendship
in New York through food and food a common thread,
and we like the same. We are meat lovers. I
mean even our book we have like this triple B Burger.
(08:06):
We have a couple of steaks because I sit listen.
I know the trend is vegan, but you cannot get
a Wisconsin I and a Texan in a room and
let and make us pretend that we don't leave with meat.
So we have like this beautiful steak, this ribbi that
my nephew. He lives in Buffalo. He's from Texas but
like me, and Heath lives in New York. He comes
to see me so often and he brought is now
(08:27):
fiance over and I was like, Okay, what do I make?
And I made this beautiful steak that's in our book
and he's like, I think, God Tamer, this might be
the best thing I heard in my life. But we
are meat lovers. We grill. We have a grasshopper because
we love both ice cream and that minty. It's just in.
It's breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks. But it's a story of friendship,
a friendship that was formed through food. M H.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So what are your favorite go to meals?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
If you were to pick just one, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It's steak. I'm a steak girl. I'm a good steak girl.
We have this beautiful ribbi and it's such a crunchy
sear to it. It's super thick. When I go to
the butcher and order it. Thank god, my butcher loves me,
because the last time I was there, everyone behind me
is like, that's a thick steak. It's like two and
a half inch rare by, but you know, we get
(09:14):
that heat really really high and you get that crunch
on the end, and then we have a compound butter
that you can say for other things that we finish
it off and list jokes. If your smoke detector doesn't
go off in your house, you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's how you see.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
That's how you're there.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Listen. I used to when I was on location last time.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Uh you know, that's how I would cook those steaks
and they weren't that fat, but the smoke I always had.
It was winter up there, so I had opened up
up the doors a cold, so shut up the smoke detector.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But I was doing it right because it tasty.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
You're doing it right. Here's the deal. This is a
funny story. So my home smoke detector is linked to
our alarm, and the alarm insolantly calls the fire department.
And I told my husband was like, I don't this
good idea, and he's like, no, it's better, it's back up.
It's back up. I'm like, okay, I cook. The steak.
Alarm goes off. I forgot that it's hook to the
fire department. The fire comes to my house and I'm like,
(10:11):
oh no, everything's okay, and they're like, what are you
doing there? I start giving them cookbooks. I'm like, can
I started for something? I still got five five hundred
bus but I gave it the cookbook guests that we
believe in that seer, and then you got this beautiful
butter with it. We have a horistic carrot side dish
I pair with sometimes with this beautiful crispy finel zucchini.
(10:32):
But I'm a steak I am a I am truly
a steak girl.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, that's that's that's kind of my go to too.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
That's that's a nice seared on both sides for just
like like two minutes or whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, yeah, what's your temperature?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
You know, it depends on the unit that I'm using.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I mean, I really just I messed up a couple
of steaks on this one because I undercooked them because
this unit I was using when I was you know,
in this condo complex up and but.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It was you know, I finally figured it out. What's setting?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know, it was like between six and seven isn't
super high, but that you know, six and seven provided
a lot of heat.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah yeah yeah. Do you like medium, medium, rare?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
How do you know? I like it?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I like it crunchy on the outside and rare. I
like it red in the metal.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, medium rare for me. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't taste
right best.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
No, no, no, you got to have that red man,
you gotta have yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, so god.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, that's those meals were I love those meals. So
you've interviewed a ton of fascinating people. Has anybody ever
shared a food story or recipe that really stuck with you?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
You know, that's a fantasic question.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
You know, when I started this talk show, one of
the things that I really was intentional about is that
we were storytelling. Right. So we do segments on our show,
we do full hours. Because when I was in morning TV,
not just as the Today Show, when I was in
local news, my pet peeve was like the poor chef
is like through one sentence and you're like.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Get in our website it's like what So for the hour,
we only book three chefs, and what we do is
we give each chef two segments, two full segments of
our shows to show it hours long, so that you
can storytell. And it's important to me to have that
component because our recipes mean something to us, what we
eat mean something to us. Even in my kid's book,
(12:30):
this kid, in exploring his neighborhood, ends up at Sylvia's,
the famous restaurant in Harlem, because the corn bread draws
him and got friends in. Because food means something. And
so when I have chefs or cooks or whomever on
our show, I want you to have that time to
explain not just the recipe, but won't why it mean
something to you. So I've been so many stories that resonate.
(12:52):
I'm not going to name drop, but I will Patti LaBelle.
You know, she's come on and made food and people
often see like patty pies and this like kitschy thing
or whatever. But you know, her food journey, especially her
healthy food journey, came because of the loss of almost
all of the women in her family due to not
(13:14):
you know, through to diabetes, but also lifestyle. And so
here's this beautiful woman, this effervescent woman who still loves
her patty pies and all those great things, storytelling that
you can still enjoy those recipes with also recognizing lifestyle.
And I know that's not the direction people probably thought
(13:34):
I was going to go with this, but it is
a whenever you can bring me into your family and
into your life, I'll tell you. Also, during the pandemic,
we had to do my show for my home and
we still did chefs and we did at the time
and Israeli chef who had taken off and she was
(13:55):
cooking from her kitchen in Tel Aviv and the sirens
went off, said I have to go. I have to go.
I have to go. The sirens are going off. And
I was like, what it was just real life had
come into full play. So it's it's these it's these
opportunities to talk and share that I always look for
(14:17):
and that always makes the food it's so weird, makes
the food taste better. It's a fascinating thing for me.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right right right, Well, your book focuses on joy, no pressure,
cooking pressure. Do you have a favorite the quote unquote
lazy day meal?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
That's that's easy.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It's still delicious tell us about that carbonara.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
I'm a carbonar. I'm not a big pasta person. My
husband's from the Bronx. Our first date was at the
Pizza place because we had an argument over who had
better choice of pizza that he won. This played Emily's
in Clinton Hill and Brooklyn. My son, I believe it
or not, he is well, you know, like a lot
of kids, he likes pasta, but he is If you
ask him what his favorite meal is, he loves curry
(15:01):
chicken and dumplings. That's his thing, curry. It's like he's
five years old walking around like an old Caribbean man
wanting curry chicken. But for me, it's a quick carbonara.
I love like some of a lot of the chefs
that I've cooked with and had the honor of cooking
with over the years. You know, they love those late
night pastas with some shrimp and things like that, But
(15:22):
carbonara every I went to Rome for the first time
at about twenty six years old on a work trip
and then I saw Tom Cruise make it on the
Oprah Winfrey Show after that, and I was like, oh right,
it's like one hundred years ago. It stuck in my
mind and a good carbonar. I keep a nice piece
of panchetta frozen, like a nice stick cut, because it's
hard sometimes to find a New York You go to
(15:43):
the deli and they give you a little thin But
I like a good carvernar, a good eggy moist, not
dry cavernar.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
If you could challenge any other celebrity to a bakeoff,
who would it be?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
A bakeoff?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
A bake off?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Oh god, I guess it would be Carla Hall because
we're halls and only one hall wins. Two halls go
in what comes out.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I just I talked to her yesterday.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
I did too.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Small world.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's a small hall, after all.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
She was great, she said, Oh my gosh, she's the best.
But yeah, I think so because it's just funny. It
would be funny to promo the battle, you.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Know, huh.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And she actually baked my son's birthday cake for his
fourth birthday.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I think it was, and Sarah, okay, maybe we can
arrange that.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know, well, I would lose, so there's no point
in this. I mean, it's just it's only good for
promotional purposes. We know how it goes down.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
What about any book tours or events to promote this.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, We're headed out on a book tour. We have
Books of Wonder here in New York coming up. I'll
be in Chicago and Downers Grove and Anderson Bookstore, Kindred
Stories in Houston will be getting by there. So I'm
just excited to get out here. Listen. I never imagine
I'd be writing any of these books that I've had
(17:22):
a great honor too, but this one really means something
because I think, as I said, you know, I have
a son. There are many things I never imagine. I
do think I'm a product of great storytellers like Judy
Bloom and great shows that made me an empowering woman.
Now that I have this son, I noticed early on
(17:42):
that talking to boys and uplifting them sometimes gets lost
and empowering girls, empowering women like myself. There are new
studies that show boys behind academically, fewer boys going to college,
and all these things that I think sometimes when we
or love into one thing, we leave something else empty.
(18:04):
And I wanted to give any parent, I mean, boy
or girl whatever to read this book. But it was
important for me to have this little protagonist, this little
boy who has some fears, but through fun and through friendship,
through kindness, can start to explore. He's curious. I think
the biggest thing to get over fear is curiosity. I'm
curious about you, Scott. You were curious about my sake.
(18:24):
Before you know it, we're slapping back, we laughing, like
you know, we've known each other our whole lives. Food
does that, food does that? And this kid in this book,
I hope gives a folks an opportunity to talk to
kids about There's so much fun on the other side
of fear. There's fun in food, right, and sometimes we're
afraid to try something. I didn't have a blueberry until
(18:45):
I was thirty five, and now I probably went every day,
So you know, there's fun in it. I appreciate your
time and I appreciate you being interested in it too.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, there you go, tamer And Hall, Ladies and gentlemen,
check out our book, Harlem Honey, The Adventure of a
Curious Kid.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It is out now.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Continue to success on your show and all the best.
And it was wonderful, wonderful meeting you, and I hope
we can do this again in the not too distant future.
Tamer And haul everybody, and remember thanks for your downloads everybody,
best fans on the planet, and remember where you lead.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
We will follow.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
Stay safe everyone, everybody, and don't forget.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Follow us on Instagram at i Am All In podcast
and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio dot com.
I Am all in Again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Lets you, I Am all in Again with Scott Patterson
an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hey Everybody, Scott Pounderson, I Am all In Podcast one
eleven productions, Iheartrated Media, iHeart Podcast Special edition of Luke
Steiner with the one and only Tamaron Haul joining us today.
A two time Emmy Award winning television hosts, veteran journalist,
and best selling author, Tameron is also the executive producer
(00:44):
of her ACCLAIM talk show, Tamaron Hall Beyond the Newsroom.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
She has a passion for the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Which led to the release of her cookbook last year,
and just a few days ago, she launched her latest
children's book, Harlem Honey, The Adventures of a Curious Kid,
So be sure to check it out. Without further ado,
please welcome Tamaron Hall. Hello, Tamaran, Hi Scott, how are
you good.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Welcome to the show. You've got a book out that's exciting.
Look at that great cover. Everybody go out and get this.
Tell us a little bit about this book.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Oh, thank you. You know what it is? Called a
heart Harlem Honey, The Adventure of a Curious Kid. It's
a book inspired by my curious kid who is now
five years old, and I am about thirty minutes from
seeing him participate in his first school musical. And how
that ties into the show, Scott, is that early on,
(01:39):
my son, like so many kids, are what we refer
to those pandemic kids, and that means not that necessarily
were born at that time, is that you were a
kid under the age of eighteen whose life was upended
by this once in a lifetime event. And Moses was
almost a year old, and suddenly we found ourselves smaller.
You know, we're not visiting cousins and grandparents and friends
(02:00):
and play dates and birthday parties. And by the time
life changed and reopened for us, I realized my son
was too and hadn't gone to a birthday party. We
go to the birthday party, the kid that I see
at home, who is outgoing and running around, is frozen
in place in the corner, and I think, Okay, that's
not a big deal. I was that way, you know,
first birthdays, it's noisy, it's a lot of things. And
(02:22):
then we see it more and more, and then we'd
see it at the grocery store, and I noticed that
this fear or this idea that the only safe place
was in our home with us was getting a little
too it was interrupting his joy, interrupting this and I
noticed that early on. So this book was really about
(02:42):
how to face those fears and how to help have
that conversation that fear is normal, fear is healthy. But
what's on the other side off of is this fun thing.
So Harlem Honey, is this adventure of discovering the first
place I think we all learned that the world is
bigger than our home. It's your neighborhood. So Harlem is
this neighborhood, but it can be any neighborhood in the world. Loulli, Texas,
(03:04):
which is where I'm from my first neighborhood. So it's
just a chance to have this loving and fun conversation
about facing fears as we do it tears.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
We used to say big boys don't cry or big
girls don't cry. We don't say that anymore. And this
is an evolution of how to talk about fear.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well, go out and get it, everybody, Harlem Honey The
Adventures of a Curious Kid Tammeron Hall. Instead of complaining,
she sat down and wrote a book to help us all.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I still complain sometimes I'm you know, my mother, I
was talking to my mom and it is outgoing, go
as I am, you know, on the show, and how
I may appear. You know, I still suffer from that.
My friends call me a social loaner because I am
a person who I think I can turn it on
(03:52):
and I love being around people and I'm a people person.
But if you say to me, here is a ticket
to the hottest part in Hollywood and you're gonna I'm like,
I'll take dinner with four friends, you know, it's like, Hello,
I am that person who I enjoy that intimacy. I
enjoy the opportunity to laugh as loud as possible and
(04:13):
just be myself. And sometimes when you are in a
new place or in a new situation, it's hard to
find yourself, even as an adult. And so this book
was a chance to have that conversation but also really
maybe share a bit more about me that people don't realize.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
M hm, excellent, excellent, excellent. All right.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So in uh to Shift gears a little bit the food.
In season one, episode eighteen, the third, Laurele we go
to high Tea with Emily Tricks and Laurel I do
you have any special memories or traditions around high tea.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I absolutely do you do one d There's a place,
Lady Mindel here in New York City. I absolutely love
high tea. I am a snob about it, and I
know that that might surprise you. Country girl from Lulin, Texas.
One stop light in town. No, my first big, big
(05:15):
tea moment outside of the tea parties, and I threw
magnificent ones at age five in my room with the
best tea that you could ever have in sandwiches. It
was with NBC Today Show at the time, and I
had the pleasure of having the assignment of having high
tea at Fortnham and Mason. They shut down the place
and they were teaching me, the country girl, how to
(05:36):
have a proper high tea, and I was off to
the races. So we probably honestly have high tea at
least once a month. There's one fancy one on the
upper Upper East Side of New York. It's a hotel
that's doing it in whatever. They need to fix their
website because I keep trying to book a reservation. But
this is like a high height. But we go to
Lady Mendel and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That's great. That's great.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So you've had this incredible career in journalism and television.
When did your love for cooking begin.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
My love of food began the day I came out
of the womb. My love of cooking was about forty
eight years in the making. My father, who was in
the military for almost thirty years, love, love, love cooking.
It was his love languages that kids liked to say,
or the books like to say, it was everything that
he is. And my dad passed away. When I moved
here to New York to join NBC, I was a
(06:28):
kid who even in college, I was home for Thanksgiving.
I was home for Christmas, Thanksgivings, my favorite holiday. It
was my dad's favorite holiday. And my dad became ill
on Thanksgiving, and he passed away soon after his favorite holiday.
And the next year that came around, went to visit
my mom, and my mom's out of cook My mom
would admit that she probably married my dad because he
(06:49):
could cook and she did never have to go in
the kitchen other than to get ready for dinner. And
I wanted to send and I Love you to my
father who had passed away. So I went on this
journey with a friend Lisch Styling. She happens to be
a James Beard Award winning culinary producer and a phenomenal
recipe tester. We became friends and we sat out on
(07:10):
this journey that led to my cookbook. But the cookbook
was ten years in the making of me really finding
this love of cooking.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's wonderful, what a story. It's called a confident.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Cook, A confident cook because we wanted joys fun in
the kitchen. It's like seventy three recipes that I think
are absolutely phenomenal, but it's also our story. She's from Wisconsin,
I'm from Texas. We are two kids who were underdogs.
Maybe on paper, you would never think that we'd be
friends because people tell you that, you know, she's white,
(07:44):
I'm black, she's gay, I'm straight. You know, all these opposites.
We have the same haircut, though, which is phenomenal. But
we tell the story of these two kids who grew
up in different parts of the country but found friendship
in New York through food and food a common thread,
and we like the same. We are meat lovers. I
mean even our book we have like this triple B Burger.
(08:06):
We have a couple of steaks because I sit listen.
I know the trend is vegan, but you cannot get
a Wisconsin I and a Texan in a room and
let and make us pretend that we don't leave with meat.
So we have like this beautiful steak, this ribbi that
my nephew. He lives in Buffalo. He's from Texas but
like me, and Heath lives in New York. He comes
to see me so often and he brought is now
(08:27):
fiance over and I was like, Okay, what do I make?
And I made this beautiful steak that's in our book
and he's like, I think, God Tamer, this might be
the best thing I heard in my life. But we
are meat lovers. We grill. We have a grasshopper because
we love both ice cream and that minty. It's just in.
It's breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks. But it's a story of friendship,
a friendship that was formed through food. M H.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So what are your favorite go to meals?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
If you were to pick just one, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It's steak. I'm a steak girl. I'm a good steak girl.
We have this beautiful ribbi and it's such a crunchy
sear to it. It's super thick. When I go to
the butcher and order it. Thank god, my butcher loves me,
because the last time I was there, everyone behind me
is like, that's a thick steak. It's like two and
a half inch rare by, but you know, we get
(09:14):
that heat really really high and you get that crunch
on the end, and then we have a compound butter
that you can say for other things that we finish
it off and list jokes. If your smoke detector doesn't
go off in your house, you're not doing it right.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's how you see.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
That's how you're there.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Listen. I used to when I was on location last time.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Uh you know, that's how I would cook those steaks
and they weren't that fat, but the smoke I always had.
It was winter up there, so I had opened up
up the doors a cold, so shut up the smoke detector.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But I was doing it right because it tasty.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
You're doing it right. Here's the deal. This is a
funny story. So my home smoke detector is linked to
our alarm, and the alarm insolantly calls the fire department.
And I told my husband was like, I don't this
good idea, and he's like, no, it's better, it's back up.
It's back up. I'm like, okay, I cook. The steak.
Alarm goes off. I forgot that it's hook to the
fire department. The fire comes to my house and I'm like,
(10:11):
oh no, everything's okay, and they're like, what are you
doing there? I start giving them cookbooks. I'm like, can
I started for something? I still got five five hundred
bus but I gave it the cookbook guests that we
believe in that seer, and then you got this beautiful
butter with it. We have a horistic carrot side dish
I pair with sometimes with this beautiful crispy finel zucchini.
(10:32):
But I'm a steak I am a I am truly
a steak girl.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, that's that's that's kind of my go to too.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
That's that's a nice seared on both sides for just
like like two minutes or whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, yeah, what's your temperature?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
You know, it depends on the unit that I'm using.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I mean, I really just I messed up a couple
of steaks on this one because I undercooked them because
this unit I was using when I was you know,
in this condo complex up and but.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It was you know, I finally figured it out. What's setting?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know, it was like between six and seven isn't
super high, but that you know, six and seven provided
a lot of heat.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah yeah yeah. Do you like medium, medium, rare?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
How do you know? I like it?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I like it crunchy on the outside and rare. I
like it red in the metal.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, medium rare for me. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't taste
right best.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
No, no, no, you got to have that red man,
you gotta have yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, so god.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, that's those meals were I love those meals. So
you've interviewed a ton of fascinating people. Has anybody ever
shared a food story or recipe that really stuck with you?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
You know, that's a fantasic question.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
You know, when I started this talk show, one of
the things that I really was intentional about is that
we were storytelling. Right. So we do segments on our show,
we do full hours. Because when I was in morning TV,
not just as the Today Show, when I was in
local news, my pet peeve was like the poor chef
is like through one sentence and you're like.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Get in our website it's like what So for the hour,
we only book three chefs, and what we do is
we give each chef two segments, two full segments of
our shows to show it hours long, so that you
can storytell. And it's important to me to have that
component because our recipes mean something to us, what we
eat mean something to us. Even in my kid's book,
(12:30):
this kid, in exploring his neighborhood, ends up at Sylvia's,
the famous restaurant in Harlem, because the corn bread draws
him and got friends in. Because food means something. And
so when I have chefs or cooks or whomever on
our show, I want you to have that time to
explain not just the recipe, but won't why it mean
something to you. So I've been so many stories that resonate.
(12:52):
I'm not going to name drop, but I will Patti LaBelle.
You know, she's come on and made food and people
often see like patty pies and this like kitschy thing
or whatever. But you know, her food journey, especially her
healthy food journey, came because of the loss of almost
all of the women in her family due to not
(13:14):
you know, through to diabetes, but also lifestyle. And so
here's this beautiful woman, this effervescent woman who still loves
her patty pies and all those great things, storytelling that
you can still enjoy those recipes with also recognizing lifestyle.
And I know that's not the direction people probably thought
(13:34):
I was going to go with this, but it is
a whenever you can bring me into your family and
into your life, I'll tell you. Also, during the pandemic,
we had to do my show for my home and
we still did chefs and we did at the time
and Israeli chef who had taken off and she was
(13:55):
cooking from her kitchen in Tel Aviv and the sirens
went off, said I have to go. I have to go.
I have to go. The sirens are going off. And
I was like, what it was just real life had
come into full play. So it's it's these it's these
opportunities to talk and share that I always look for
(14:17):
and that always makes the food it's so weird, makes
the food taste better. It's a fascinating thing for me.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right right right, Well, your book focuses on joy, no pressure,
cooking pressure. Do you have a favorite the quote unquote
lazy day meal?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
That's that's easy.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It's still delicious tell us about that carbonara.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
I'm a carbonar. I'm not a big pasta person. My
husband's from the Bronx. Our first date was at the
Pizza place because we had an argument over who had
better choice of pizza that he won. This played Emily's
in Clinton Hill and Brooklyn. My son, I believe it
or not, he is well, you know, like a lot
of kids, he likes pasta, but he is If you
ask him what his favorite meal is, he loves curry
(15:01):
chicken and dumplings. That's his thing, curry. It's like he's
five years old walking around like an old Caribbean man
wanting curry chicken. But for me, it's a quick carbonara.
I love like some of a lot of the chefs
that I've cooked with and had the honor of cooking
with over the years. You know, they love those late
night pastas with some shrimp and things like that, But
(15:22):
carbonara every I went to Rome for the first time
at about twenty six years old on a work trip
and then I saw Tom Cruise make it on the
Oprah Winfrey Show after that, and I was like, oh right,
it's like one hundred years ago. It stuck in my
mind and a good carbonar. I keep a nice piece
of panchetta frozen, like a nice stick cut, because it's
hard sometimes to find a New York You go to
(15:43):
the deli and they give you a little thin But
I like a good carvernar, a good eggy moist, not
dry cavernar.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
If you could challenge any other celebrity to a bakeoff,
who would it be?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
A bakeoff?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
A bake off?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Oh god, I guess it would be Carla Hall because
we're halls and only one hall wins. Two halls go
in what comes out.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I just I talked to her yesterday.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
I did too.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Small world.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
It's a small hall, after all.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
She was great, she said, Oh my gosh, she's the best.
But yeah, I think so because it's just funny. It
would be funny to promo the battle, you.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Know, huh.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And she actually baked my son's birthday cake for his
fourth birthday.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I think it was, and Sarah, okay, maybe we can
arrange that.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know, well, I would lose, so there's no point
in this. I mean, it's just it's only good for
promotional purposes. We know how it goes down.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
What about any book tours or events to promote this.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Yeah, We're headed out on a book tour. We have
Books of Wonder here in New York coming up. I'll
be in Chicago and Downers Grove and Anderson Bookstore, Kindred
Stories in Houston will be getting by there. So I'm
just excited to get out here. Listen. I never imagine
I'd be writing any of these books that I've had
(17:22):
a great honor too, but this one really means something
because I think, as I said, you know, I have
a son. There are many things I never imagine. I
do think I'm a product of great storytellers like Judy
Bloom and great shows that made me an empowering woman.
Now that I have this son, I noticed early on
(17:42):
that talking to boys and uplifting them sometimes gets lost
and empowering girls, empowering women like myself. There are new
studies that show boys behind academically, fewer boys going to college,
and all these things that I think sometimes when we
or love into one thing, we leave something else empty.
(18:04):
And I wanted to give any parent, I mean, boy
or girl whatever to read this book. But it was
important for me to have this little protagonist, this little
boy who has some fears, but through fun and through friendship,
through kindness, can start to explore. He's curious. I think
the biggest thing to get over fear is curiosity. I'm
curious about you, Scott. You were curious about my sake.
(18:24):
Before you know it, we're slapping back, we laughing, like
you know, we've known each other our whole lives. Food
does that, food does that? And this kid in this book,
I hope gives a folks an opportunity to talk to
kids about There's so much fun on the other side
of fear. There's fun in food, right, and sometimes we're
afraid to try something. I didn't have a blueberry until
(18:45):
I was thirty five, and now I probably went every day,
So you know, there's fun in it. I appreciate your
time and I appreciate you being interested in it too.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, there you go, tamer And Hall, Ladies and gentlemen,
check out our book, Harlem Honey, The Adventure of a
Curious Kid.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It is out now.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Continue to success on your show and all the best.
And it was wonderful, wonderful meeting you, and I hope
we can do this again in the not too distant future.
Tamer And haul everybody, and remember thanks for your downloads everybody,
best fans on the planet, and remember where you lead.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
We will follow.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
Stay safe everyone, everybody, and don't forget.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Follow us on Instagram at i Am All In podcast
and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio dot com.
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