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Lunch Break

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by Jalil Johnson

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A podcast where you’re not just a listener, but part of a lively conversation among friends. It's authentic, engaging, and the only thing better than the dialogue is the delicious lunches that accompany it! <a href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">consideryourselfcultured.substack.com</a>

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6/27/2024

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Recent Episodes

October 6, 2024

The season that was: Recapping SS25 with Alexandra Hildreth

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September 17, 2024

Lunch Break with Noah Rinsky at Zabar's

In a way, Old Jewish Men brought me back to Judaism. I first came across it when I saw <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/23162964-liana-satenstein">Liana Satenstein</a> post an Instagram story promoting a “Speed Schmoozing” event. Knowing she’d be there, along with the chance to engage in one of my favorite activities—meeting new people—I decided to buy a ticket. On the day of the event, I had no idea what to wear, so I threw on an <a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfZmA">Alaïa</a> skater dress that I’d bought and resold about three times. After seeing a picture of myself in it recently, I thought, "Maybe I should buy it again?" But that’s beside the point.At the event, I met Rabbi Matt Green, who would eventually become the rabbi I converted with, and the rest is history. I’ve since attended several OJM events, including one that was even covered by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/style/old-jewish-men.html">The New York Times</a>. (Unfortunately, that was also the party where my vintage white leather Dior gloves were tragically ruined by cotton candy.) What I’ve noticed at these gatherings is a lively mix: a gaggle of old-timers, some of whom have been featured on the OJM account, and a wave of younger Jewish folks seeking new ways to connect—not just with people their own age or slightly older, but with their faith as well as the broader community, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.When I sat down with Noah Rinsky, I shared a shorter version of this story. Over the course of our conversation, I learned so much about the Old Jewish Men universe and its quirky cast of characters: Dave, whose wife emailed Noah because she thought her husband needed something to do; Aaron, who responded to a Craigslist ad in 2021 and has stuck around ever since; and the latest addition, Bob, known for his love of Hermès ties.Noah started the account in 2015 under the name dadaroundthehouse, chronicling the antics of his father. Later, the account evolved into Old Jewish Men, and it has since grown into a thriving business. Along with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/oldjewishmen/?hl=en">social media</a>, they now have a website <a target="_blank" href="https://www.oldjewishmen.net/">selling clever merchandise</a> that reflects the humor of the account—and recently, they’ve added a book to the mix.<a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfYyX">The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around</a><a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfYyX"> </a>is a comprehensive handbook, written by Noah and illustrated by Dick Carroll, that humorously covers everything you need to know to consider yourself an OJM. I had the pleasure of chatting with Noah about the book and more, and where better to do it than over bagels (or in Noah’s case, a bialy) at the counter of Zabar’s?Jalil Johnson (00:00): So, thank you so much, Noah, for joining me. Can you introduce yourself and tell everyone who you are, what you're doing, and what you do?Noah Rinsky (00:08): Why I'm here?JJ (00:09): And why you're here?NR (00:11): My name's Noah Rinsky. I am the curator of an Instagram account called Old Jewish Men, and I wrote a book called <a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfYyX">The Old Jewish Men's Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around.</a>JJ (00:24): Yes.NR (00:25): So, Jalil was nice enough to have me on his podcast to chat about the book and probably ask me other questions.JJ (00:32): Yes, I'm very excited. I'm just taking out the book right now. It was really a fun read. It was really fun. And I think...NR (00:40): You read it straight through?JJ (00:41): I did.NR (00:41): Wow.JJ (00:42): I kind of...NR (00:43): Sure. I mean, if you read it straight through, great. But it's a toilet book.JJ (00:49): There are a lot of lessons in there. There's a lot that I want to talk about with the book, but I guess the natural start would be to ask you about Old Jewish Men. I kind of know about where it is, but just to give a synopsis to everyone that might not know Old Jewish Men and where the origins of it are.NR (01:07): Wait, what's that?JJ (01:08): I guess to give context to people that are not necessarily familiar with Old Jewish Men, what made you start it? When did it start?NR (01:17): Oh, the account and stuff? Yeah, sure. So, the origin is, I was visiting my parents in the great state of Israel, Tel Aviv. I'm not Israeli—my parents retired there about 12 years ago. Anyway, my dad was trying to get some exercise and was downstairs in our basement kicking this cardboard box. I just started recording him and thought it was funny, so I made an account called Dad Around the House. I posted the video of him kicking the box, and a couple of other things—him napping and stuff. These were the early days of Instagram, but I still had people being like, "Whoa, what is this?"(02:10): When I got back to New York, I was living on the Lower East Side with my brother on East Broadway. I just changed the account to Old Jewish Men because that seemed to be what people were thirsty for—not just my dad, but guys like my dad. I was living at that point in the epicenter of Old Jewish Men country in lower Manhattan. Yes. I would have to ask somebody who still lives there if it really still exists like it did, like the old Jewish men in that neighborhood, East River people. It's the other side of Dime Square.JJ (02:48): Yeah. Yes. Is there still a high population of Jewish people there?NR (02:54): Yeah, if they didn't die out. It was a really old community even when I was there. We were going to shul and stuff, and yeah, it was a really elderly community.JJ (03:05): Were you born and raised in New York?NR (03:06): I'm not, actually. I was raised in Colorado.JJ (03:09): Really?NR (03:09): Yeah.JJ (03:10): Colorado. When did you move to New York?NR (03:12): 2011.JJ (03:14): What made you want to move to New York?NR (03:16): A series of mistakes, I'd say.JJ (03:19): Do you want to talk about those mistakes?NR (03:21): No, I don't have any big plans to move here or anything. My brother was already living here. He invited me to come share this studio apartment with him, and I didn’t have a whole lot else going on, so I moved here kind of on a whim. I’d seen a lot of—well, we don’t have to keep talking about Woody Allen movies. I’d seen enough Woody Allen to want to move to New York or be intrigued by it.JJ (03:47): What do you think are the qualities of an old Jewish man? I guess this naturally leads into the book, because I think the book lays out a more analytical way. But just the heavy hitters—five points—what are the qualities you need to be an old Jewish man?NR (04:09): Well, nothing's ever good enough, except what you're saying in that moment. You’ve got to know how to tell a story, and you don't really care. It's not even that you don't care who's listening; you're going to tell the story no matter what. I think being an old Jewish man means you don’t even care enough to try to read the room. What’s the point? You’ve got something to say. Old Jewish men are going to interrupt you, talk over you. If they don’t think you're listening, they're just going to talk louder. They're not going to change course. They don’t negotiate—it’s their way or the highway. They prioritize comfort. Comfort is a huge, huge thing. I think comfort is something that really powers that... definitely powers me. But you're always kind of fighting against comfort too, because my dad used to say, "Make the decision absent of fear. Do the thing you’re going to do. Try not to let fear enter the calculation." Dave, the guy that's kind of the mascot of Old Jewish Men...JJ (05:21): Yes. How did you meet Dave?NR (05:22): Dave? His wife actually emailed me. We were doing a lot of stuff in the New York Post, and I think Dave’s wife saw it, caught wind of it, and she emailed me and said, "My husband just sits around all day watching baseball. You should get him involved." Take my husband, essentially. But Dave... he's very zen. It's weird. Then he'll say stuff to me. I was hanging out with Eli the other day, our intern, and he said to us, "I usually don't fall asleep until three in the morning. I'm always worried." I said, "Worried about what? It doesn't seem like you worry about anything." But I think he’s just sort of—everyone's got their things, anyways.JJ (06:12): Are you worried about anything?NR (06:14): Everything.JJ (06:14): Everything.NR (06:15): Everything.JJ (06:16): What are you excited about? Let’s make it positive. What are you excited about?NR (06:19): Well, the other thing about old Jewish men is the hypochondria. Which is classic. You're not an old Jewish man unless you're a hypochondriac.JJ (06:29): That’s very true.NR (06:31): Or at least, not even hypochondria—you just have to get off on talking about it. It’s like a pills-on-the-table sort of mentality.JJ (06:38): Yes.NR (06:39): You put your pills on the table and let people know what's wrong with you.JJ (06:41): Yes.NR (06:42): And you don't care about talking about the kidney stone that you passed 20 minutes ago or whatever.JJ (06:47): Well, that's funny you said that. I was talking to Larry Schlossman, who was a guest on Lunch Break, and I talked about Judaism. What I really love about it is that there is that acknowledgement of the reality of life. It’s not afraid of the bittersweetness of life. And I think that’s very much that "pills-on-the-table" vibe—like, why hide it? This is what's happening in real life, and we're going to talk about it. And I think that also fights against the fear in a way.NR (07:19): Yeah, I think that's true.JJ (07:21): Yes.NR (07:22): And there’s really... there's that chapter in the book about the archetype that’s "possibly Gentile."JJ (07:28): Yes.NR (07:29): And to me, it's such a gentile characteristic to pretend like this isn't happening.JJ (07:34): You’re like, a W.A.S.P.?NR (07:35): If you’re not discussing the thing that’s happening, you’re not really living. I think... why are we both sitting here pretending that you’re not 400 pounds? You know what I mean?JJ (07:47): I’m currently not 400 pounds.NR (07:52): Why is this not a thing? You know what I mean? I think that old Jewish men are willing... it’s like Kramer in Seinfeld. He’d be like, "Well, your nose is crazy." Remember that? Or whatever. Jerry was dating some woman or something...JJ (08:05): I’ve only actually seen a handful of episodes.NR (08:07): Oh, really?JJ (08:07): Yes.NR (08:08): Well, I mean, Kramer’s not really Jewish in the show. I mean, I don’t know. It’s hard. I don’t know. He’s not Jewish in the show, but he is.JJ (08:14): I feel like everything is coded like that. Question mark, maybe? I don’t know. I think this is a perfect way to start talking about the book. The first thought that came to mind when I looked at the book or read it was <a target="_blank" href="https://go.shopmy.us/p-7809543">The Preppy Handbook</a>, and so I’m wondering...NR (08:31): Never heard of it.JJ (08:33): Really? Are you joking?NR (08:34): I’m joking.JJ (08:38): My question was, were you kind of thinking of that when you were putting together the book?NR (08:42): I had to run next to it. The Preppy Handbook was something that I thought about a lot, and I had it on the table a lot of times when I was writing.JJ (08:52): How’d you find it? They’re really hard to find.NR (08:54): They’re very hard to find. At first, I just had PDFs of it, and then my publisher found an old copy. It’s out of print. We share the same publisher, actually.JJ (09:04): I was going to ask if it was the same publisher, also because there was a whole line of... you probably know this... after the Preppy Handbook, there was The Yuppie Handbook, which I have and I love. But this is now adding to that legacy, which is really exciting.NR (09:23): Yeah. I don’t know who did it better. I don’t know. Lisa Birnbach... I don’t know what she’s going to say.JJ (09:32): I don’t know. Did she get a copy?NR (09:34): Yeah, I sent her one email. I didn’t hear anything back. Maybe I should email her again.JJ (09:39): Yeah, email her again. What’s the deal? But no, it’s a really exciting book, and the way that it’s broken up is interesting. Part of it gives archetypes for types of old Jewish men. So, you have the Tough Guy, the Possible Gentile, and my personal favorite, the Soft West Coast.NR (09:59): Yeah, Soft West Coast.JJ (10:00): Yeah, Soft West Coast. My favorite. I love his outfit. So, you have that in there. Then you also have chapters that kind of give you the rundown of how to be an old Jewish man. So, where did these ideas and archetypes come from? I think it’s, what, eight archetypes? Or seven?NR (10:15): I think there’s 10. I think there might be 10. I think eight or 10, yeah.JJ (10:19): And how did you come up with these archetypes?NR (10:22): I had a long... how did I come up with them? I came up with a long list and had to whittle it down.JJ (10:29): There were more?NR (10:30): Oh, I had a lot more. Yeah. I was asking a lot of my friends about their fathers. "How would you categorize your dad?" There were weird ones because I was also thinking about my own dad and how he kind of falls into this. And obviously, these are just archetypes, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/dick.carroll/">Dick Carroll</a>, the guy who cartooned everything in the book and cartooned the archetypes, kind of made me realize that a lot of these archetypes do come down to what they’re wearing in a lot of ways.JJ (11:09): I wanted to talk about the fashion.NR (11:10): And it is hard to think about... for example, my friend Eddie—I was trying to categorize his dad, and he was just saying, "Well, my dad’s like a sweet old Jewish man." It’s like, well, that’s not really exactly a category in itself. It’s somewhere between "Possibly Gentile" and maybe "Schlub" or something, you know what I mean?JJ (11:36): Yes.NR (11:37): And it’s just... there’s not enough really to hang onto. There’s nowhere to hang your hat on that.JJ (11:45): I was going to say, the thing that stuck out to me with those archetypes is how they were dressed. It was so important. And to your point too, you can’t have that archetype without the costume, in a sense.NR (11:58): Yeah.JJ (11:58): And so my question to you is, how did you piece together these outfits? Essentially, you styled these people out. How did you go about styling them? Who were you looking for? I guess you were talking to your dad, your friends' dads, and getting pictures of your friends’ dads, but what else were you doing to really build out these outfits?NR (12:17): Yeah, I think a lot of it honestly came from literally years of me going back and forth with Dick Carroll, exchanging pictures of old Jewish men without any knowledge that we’d be working on this book. It was just something we did for fun, and kind of always doing the little labels that we do now. Like, okay, this guy, he’s got a mustard stain there, he’s got his glasses stuffed in his pocket, he’s got this, he’s got that. He’s either upright or hunched. What does this say about him? He’s wearing these shoes. And we would always be like, geographically, we identified them by neighborhood, and the neighborhood signals certain things about what type of guy they are. And then once we started talking about the book, we already had so much of a back and forth and all this presumed knowledge of who these guys were that it wasn’t that hard, and Dick got it right away.JJ (13:09): Oh, amazing.NR (13:09): I mean, it was very... it was actually seamless.JJ (13:13): Oh, fantastic.NR (13:13): I basically gave him the list. We probably met up once or twice, talked about it. Dick doesn’t use the phone at all, so he only uses Instagram messages, which is extremely annoying.JJ (13:24): Really? I actually am into that. I love just communicating through that.NR (13:29): I think the reason why Dick does that, in my opinion, is because he likes the colors of the avatars. He likes being the avatar, and on the phone, he’s not that—he’s just some guy, and he knows that.JJ (13:44): Yes, I do it because I don’t save people’s phone numbers.NR (13:50): It’s a good way to organize. Instagram’s a way to organize.JJ (13:53): Such a good way. But I know some people don’t like it. I love it.NR (13:57): I’m not into it, really. I’d rather talk on the phone. I’m always trying to get Dick on the phone. I did it once when we were talking money.JJ (14:06): Yes. Oh, that’s a phone conversation. But it’s a really fantastic book. I just love it. The other thing I also noticed is, in terms of the designer belt, a lot of Hermes. What was it about?NR (14:22): On the Tough Guys? Which one?JJ (14:23): This one right here. The Tough Guy has Hermes. But what is it about the brands—the brands that you picked out—and what’s significant about those brands to the identity of the Jewish men? There’s not only Hermes, there’s the Gucci shoe, there’s the collared future. What do you think the sign of those brands means?NR (14:50): Those are decisions, actually. I think that specific Hermes belt was a decision that Dick made. Yes. And I think that those guys—the first Hermes belt that you just pointed out—I think Dick was taking from the Tough Jews archetype, which is kind of the Uncut Gems, three generations before the Adam Sandler character, his grandfather or whatever, his great-grandfather—how they dressed. And I think he was just kind of like a walker on the Diamond District. You’re probably going to see a lot of Hermes belts, Hermes ties. My friend Bob, he’s 75, I was hanging out with him yesterday, and he was talking about his Hermes tie.JJ (15:34): Oh, I love that. What kind of tie does he have?NR (15:36): I can show you a picture if you want.JJ (16:00): That’s amazing!NR (16:00): Yeah, he’s got great taste.JJ (16:04): So his name is Bob?NR (16:05): His name is Bob, yeah. Out of all the Jewish men, he’s one of my favorites. I love how he dresses.JJ (16:10): He’s a fashion guy?NR (16:11): Yeah, he’s a big fashion guy.JJ (16:13): Okay, so I should also ask, how did your gang of Old Jewish Men come together?NR (16:18): Yeah, Bob is kind of the newest addition, actually. I met him at shul.JJ (16:24): What shul do you go to?NR (16:25): I don’t go very often. It’s an Orthodox shul in Park Slope that I go to once in a while.JJ (16:35): Yes.NR (16:36): I probably go four times a year.JJ (16:37): Yes.NR (16:39): And Bob was there one time, and another friend of mine was there, and I said to my friend, "Who is that guy?" And he said, "Oh, that’s Bob. Do you want to talk to him?" And I said, "Yeah, I’d love to talk to him." So I started talking to Bob, and it’s a very weird thing trying to tell people, "Hey, I’ve got this gang, this stable of Old Jewish Men. We go around town and film gags or whatever. Do you want to be part of it?" Because one, you’re basically saying to them, "Hey, you’re old. I noticed you’re old." Two, you’re also asking if they’re unemployed or have free time to do this crazy stuff. It’s a hard thing to say. So, I needed my friend to kind of go over to him and be like, "Hey, Noah does this thing. It’s something that people kind of know about, and he’s interested in you." So, he did that, and he set up a date for us, and we all met at the 24-hour Donut Diner on Seventh Avenue.JJ (17:27): Oh, I’ve never been.NR (17:28): It’s a great place. Great donuts. And Bob, we were sitting there, and I go, "Bob, is it okay if I record you?" And he goes, "Why do you think I’m here?"JJ (17:43): He was ready.NR (17:44): He was ready.JJ (17:46): All your gang of Old Jewish Men, they love the camera.NR (17:46): They love it. They absolutely love it. Aaron lives in Midwood. I met him—he’s the only one in that crew that I met on Craigslist.JJ (17:57): Wait, did you put a Craigslist ad out?NR (17:59): Yeah, I did. Years ago, in 2021, Brian, my business partner, and I put this ad out. We did a casting call on Craigslist, and the first crew was probably eight to ten guys. We made a movie called OGM Capital with these guys. Then, once the word kind of got out, we picked up new guys like Dave, and we kind of whittled it down from there. Some of the guys were just too young to really be involved.JJ (18:31): Yes.NR (18:31): There’s a guy, John—I don’t know if John Ortner is listening to this—but he was good, just too young.JJ (18:38): Because as we were talking, your criteria is that you must be 70 or older, right?NR (18:43): Yeah, they really can’t be younger than 70. It just doesn’t work.JJ (18:49): I feel you. I did think 65 was a good benchmark, but I hear your point. 70 is solid.NR (18:56): You don’t know anything when you’re 65. You’re still a young man at 65.JJ (18:57): You know nothing about the world! Okay, so that is what kind of went into your gang.NR (19:05): Yeah.JJ (19:05): Are you accepting new members into your gang?NR (19:07): Always considering, yeah.JJ (19:09): Always considering?NR (19:09): Well, the thing is, we work with... I’ll still go. Aaron, for example, has a lot of friends that we work into different projects. The crew of those three guys—that’s the core group. We have a lot of other guys around it. I’ve got Aaron’s friend Tommy, who I’ll call, and different guys from the senior center that we did like the Candy Salad video.JJ (19:33): Yes.NR (19:34): I don’t know if you saw that video?JJ (19:35): Yeah, I did. I saw the shirt for it. It’s great.NR (19:39): And so, if we need more guys, we can always get more guys, basically.JJ (19:44): Okay. And how involved were they with the book?NR (19:46): Oh, I interviewed Dave and Aaron extensively.JJ (19:53): And so, with their interviews, did they inform all the chapters about the qualifications?NR (20:01): I interviewed Dave extensively about some baseball history, Ebbetts Field, and Sandy Koufax. Just listening to Dave tell these stories... I worked those into the book. I really don’t know anything about baseball. I’m more into basketball and football.JJ (20:16): Yes.NR (20:17): I’m into the Mets now, but I can’t say that I know baseball. I didn’t grow up being into it. So, I’ve been kind of playing catch-up. And Aaron, I talked to him a lot about the chapters on shul.JJ (20:36): Yes.NR (20:36):He’s a very religious Jew, so I talked to him a lot about shul.JJ (20:40):So he helped you give the shul types?NR (20:44): Yeah. I was asking him questions—how he sees it. If he sees it one way, then in some ways, that can’t be wrong. You know what I mean? Have you ever seen somebody turn down Hagbah or something like that? You know what Hagbah is?JJ (21:02): No, what is it?NR (21:03): Hagbah is when you lift up the Torah. It’s supposed to be an honor, but if you drop it, then everyone has to fast. If you drop the Torah, everyone fasts for a day. You’re supposed to fast for something crazy like 40 days.JJ (21:17): Oh, wow!NR (21:28): Aaron and I had a lot of discussions like that. I don’t go to shul enough to be an expert on this stuff.JJ (21:39): Okay. One of the other chapters I really loved, and part of the reason why I chose Zabar’s—not only because it’s an iconic place but...NR (21:49): That’s my least favorite word, by the way.JJ (21:51): Iconic?NR (21:51): Yeah.JJ (21:52): Tell me more.NR (21:55): Every time I hear it now, I just think that we’ve all gotten to this place where it’s such a good word, but we’re addicted to using it, and we’re too lazy to find an alternative. So we’re just stuck with that word.JJ (22:09): I would agree. I think it’s overused, oversaturated in the vernacular. Okay, so let’s find a different word for iconic.NR (22:17): Classic.JJ (22:18): A classic.NR (22:18): A staple. But neither of those are as good as iconic because iconic is a great word. That’s the thing.JJ (22:24): Yes.NR (22:25): But it’s kind of been soiled by overuse. Who do we blame?JJ (22:28): The overuse?NR (22:30): Vogue? I don’t know.JJ (22:34): You’re going to get in hot water with your wife. Okay, I will fill in the blank with a different word other than iconic or staple. No, I love this. It’s a good argument. I think the same thing about "love," actually. I think we overuse the word love where it feels watered down. I remember in college I was that student who asked, “Is there a different word for love? Did the ancient Greeks have different words?” Actually, the ancient Greeks did have all these different levels of love. But none of those words made it into the vernacular.NR (23:28): Yeah, I mean, the difficult part is describing love. That’s what every jazz song and poem is about, I guess. But yeah, the word love itself is kind of...JJ (23:49):People throw it around.NR (23:50):Yeah, exactly. But we don’t have to talk about love.JJ (23:50):No.NR (23:55):But it’s funny, too. Most songs, when you think about it, are about love.JJ (23:54):Which I find so interesting because there are so many ways to talk about love and relationships. We just don’t have a variety of words for it. But that’s beside the point. We’re at Zabar’s, and part of the reason I picked it was because of its status. It’s an amazing place. I remember coming here during my first year in New York. This was one of my “must-visit” stops, and I had a lox bagel—it was really delicious. You also have a chapter in the book dedicated to the deli landscape. It’s kind of like a chart. So, what does Zabar’s mean to you?NR (24:38):What does Zabar’s mean to me? Let me think...JJ (24:47):What’s your first experience with Zabar’s?NR (24:48):Well, actually, I’m attached to Zabar’s because—though I don’t know how he feels about me—but Willie Zabar, the grandson, is a good friend of mine. I’m not even trying to name-drop Willie or anything. Willie’s one of these guys who’s always contributed a lot to Old Jewish Men. So much so that he went to Detroit with me to film and do the behind-the-scenes work for our movie Sauna Dreams. And I really respected Willie for being dedicated enough to the spirit of Old Jewish Men to want to do that. I’ve met his brothers, his grandfather, and his great-great uncle, and I’ve got a lot of respect for what they’ve built. I mean, what a business!JJ (25:50):An institution.NR (25:51):Yeah.JJ (25:51):Maybe “institution” is a better word than “iconic.”NR (25:56):Yeah, it’s a real institution. It really is. I think it’s a great sign when a place can do so many things wrong and still be loved. Zabar’s can mess up—they can be a Jewish deli that serves bacon, they can have high prices, they can gouge you—and people will still look at them like they’re the great Jewish deli. You know what I mean? So maybe it’s not about what they’re doing right. Look at all the stuff they’re doing wrong, and yet we still go there.JJ (26:33):We should talk about what we ordered.NR (26:40):I’m kind of off bagels right now. I’m ordering bialys.JJ (26:44):Yes, which you talk about in the book, too.NR (26:45):Yeah, yeah. I talk about bialys. Bagels wear me out now. I’m too old for bagels—I have to take a nap after. But I got a bialy with lox and cream cheese, the works, and I ate it much faster than you because it’s a much smaller sandwich.JJ (26:58):Yes.NR (26:59):And it’s funny because I’m usually a really fast eater, but I was savoring it.NR (27:03):Yeah, I eat very fast. I was also really hungry coming here.JJ (27:07):I was too, and I still took my time to eat.NR (27:10):Yeah, I wolfed it down.JJ (27:11):Yes. I got my usual, which is an everything bagel.NR (27:15):Toasted or untoasted?JJ (27:15):Toasted. I have done something blasphemous in the past, though—I’ve scooped out the bagel.NR (27:23):Yeah, that is blasphemy.JJ (27:25):But it kind of feels better.NR (27:27):Why do you do that? Is that for calories?JJ (27:31):Well, I don’t do it for the calories, but I think, to your point, a bagel has a lot of bread. Scooping out the inside takes out a lot of that excess. So, it almost feels like the meeting of a bagel and a bialy because it gives you the amount of bread as a bialy but still has the sensation of a bagel.NR (27:52):Yeah, you’re fooling yourself into thinking that, but I get it.JJ (27:55):That’s my rationale for scooping out a bagel. I didn’t do that today, but the last few times I ordered bagels, I’ve been scooping them out.NR (28:06):It’s funny—my issue with that is, if someone handed me a scooped-out bagel, I’d eat it all day. But I could never order it.JJ (28:16):Would you feel embarrassed?NR (28:17):I’d feel like an idiot. It’s like asking the cashier at Duane Reade to give you a bottle of laxatives or something—it’s just embarrassing. That’s why I couldn’t do it.JJ (28:31):It’s not in the book either, right? I don’t remember seeing it.NR (28:35):Scoop? No, I didn’t put that in the book.JJ (28:35):But you didn’t shame it, either. You don’t shame it.NR (28:41):I don’t shame it, no. I probably just forgot. Also, it goes unsaid—you’d never do that. If a guy did that...JJ (28:53):I feel terrible now.NR (28:53):No, I’m just saying if one of these old guys did that. But that’s the other thing—it’s so strange what some of these guys eat at delis, what their favorite orders are. You’d never believe it.JJ (29:07):What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?NR (29:09):The craziest thing that they do all the time is, you go to a deli, and I’m always paying—sorry, I shouldn’t say that. Dave sometimes pays, too. But you go there, and Bob sometimes will just say, “All I want is a plain toasted bagel and a Diet Coke.” And that means: cut the bagel, toast it, put nothing on it, and hand him just a plain toasted bagel. That’s it. It’s basically like a prison meal.JJ (29:38):And a Diet Coke?NR (29:39):And a Diet Coke.JJ (29:39):Which is, I think, the worst Coke in the world.NR (29:41):He loves it. This guy lives on Diet Coke and cigarettes.JJ (29:49):And plain bagels?NR (29:50):Plain toasted bagels. Or, if the bagel’s fresh, he won’t even have it toasted. Dave, every time—plain bagel, toasted, cream cheese. Aaron, same thing. They don’t like lox.JJ (30:06):Really? Something so quintessentially Jewish.NR (30:09):I think Dave feels ridiculous paying that much for lox.JJ (30:18):Because it’s really expensive.NR (30:09):His family probably buys their lox at Costco, and you can’t rationalize paying for it at a deli if you can get it at home. I totally get it.JJ (30:26):I feel that. I usually go for a lox bagel, but I decided to keep it simple today.NR (30:25):Yeah, sometimes simple is good.JJ (30:26):So, another thing I found really interesting in the book is that while it’s New York-focused, it’s actually more international. There’s a great section where you’re charting restaurants in Detroit, London, and Paris. How did you get that intel? Did you have to travel?NR (30:50):I got the Detroit info when we went there for the movie. A lot of those places I asked people about when we were there. For London, I interviewed a couple of friends of mine, like David—what’s his last name? I can’t remember—but I interviewed him, and he gave me a list of places. I didn’t know anything about London.JJ (31:21):And LA?NR (31:21):LA I knew more. I put Courage in there because I love their bagels and I’m friends with them. It was nice for them to let us do an event there. Formosa—I used to go to the new Formosa Cafe; I never went to the old one. I also interviewed people from Miami, Boca, and New York. A lot of these places are from my friend Alex Trout, who’s another great future Old Jewish Man. He works on the obits desk at The Times. He’s the guy who would tell you that Old Jewish Men live many lives.JJ (32:02):Tell me more.NR (32:03):So, even today... what was the name of the guy who had the obit in the newsletter design? Manfred Kirchheimer. He was a film director who struggled his entire career, and then in 2018, 2022, he made four movies based on footage from the ‘70s and ‘80s. And in his last decade of life is when he shined the brightest. These guys just keep going, you know what I mean? They don’t hang it up. They’re powered by ambition.NR (32:44):And his obit came out, I think, last week, and my guy was saying T-Trot wrote it. The point is that in his last decade of life is when he basically shined the brightest. And these guys, they just keep going. You know what I mean? They don’t just hang it up. They’re powered by ambition.JJ (33:04):How long did it take to write the book?NR (33:07):Robert Caro, by the way—I'm definitely not a Caro completist at all—but just what I know about him and his work ethic, he’s definitely a Mount Rushmore guy for me.JJ (33:16):Okay, you’ve added a fifth person to your Mount Rushmore! But how long did it take to write the book?NR (33:23):The book? Well, the first draft… they over-ordered. They asked me for 70,000 words, but only needed 45,000. That took me about six months from beginning to end. In total, it was a two-year project.JJ (33:39):Oh wow, it’s been a two-year project?NR (33:40):Yeah.JJ (33:41):So you’ve been interviewing people for two years. How many people do you think you’ve interviewed?NR (33:44):How many old guys did I interview for the book? About 40, maybe. Yeah, something like that.JJ (33:56):Did you get to talk to Larry David?NR (33:57):What’s that?JJ (33:58):Did you reach out to Larry David?NR (34:01):No, I never reached out to Larry David.JJ (34:02):Did you try?NR (34:04):I didn’t try, but a friend of mine gave me his cell phone number, and I was going to call him, but I decided against it.JJ (34:12):Why?NR (34:15):I just thought... he doesn’t want to talk to me.JJ (34:20):What happened to facing your fears?NR (34:21):Yeah... well, you’re right. I should have.JJ (34:26):Do you still have his number?NR (34:28):I do. I still have his number.JJ (34:29):I think you should call him. Why not?NR (34:34):I was going to call him to ask him to blurb the book, hoping he would say, “I don’t blurb books,” and use that as a blurb.JJ (34:40):Yes.NR (34:41):But you’re right. You’re really right. I should have called him. I did call Robert Caro, though.JJ (34:47):Oh, how did that go?NR (34:48):His wife answered the phone. It was 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. I called their house, and I got the voicemail first. I left a message like, “Hi, it’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around. I was hoping to talk to Bob.” Then she picked up, and it was his wife, Ina. I said, “Hi, Ina, it’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around.” She said, “You want to talk to Bob?” I said, “Yeah, put him on.” Then Bob came on the line, and I said, “Hello, Bob. It’s Noah Rinsky. I’m calling about The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around,” and he said, “Do we know each other?” I told him, “We have a lot of mutual friends,” and he goes, “What do you want from me?” I said, “I was hoping you could blurb my book.” And he said, “I don’t blurb books,” and hung up.JJ (35:35):Wait, is that one of the blurbs?NR (35:36):We were going to use it, but we didn’t.JJ (35:38):Wait, I feel like I saw the blurb list. There were some really great ones. Your wife had a great one. She said something like, “Master of this generation’s Dead Sea Scrolls.” That’s pretty high praise.NR (36:00):That’s high up there. She also has a really good sidebar in the book about baldness.JJ (36:04):Yes, which I really loved. I’m an advocate for bald men. My boyfriend’s bald.NR (36:11):Oh yeah? How old is he?JJ (36:14):He’s 38 this year.NR (36:14):Okay.JJ (36:15):So, a reasonable age to be bald. He’s been bald since 30. He’s been bald for a while.NR (36:23):Is he totally shaved, or is he just receding?JJ (36:27):He has hair, but there’s a complete bald spot. He’s not going to like that I’m saying this, but it’s the truth. He has hair that he has to cut, but there’s definitely a bald spot.NR (36:38):If you could compare his haircut to any famous person, what would it be? Does he have the Costanza?JJ (36:47):No, Okay. Do you know that guy who was in those Bourne movies? Jason…. This guyNR (36:55):Oh, Statham, yeah. I mean, that’s probably the most attractive living bald man.JJ (37:00):Yeah, that would be his hair.NR (37:07):You’re doing well, then. You’re doing good.JJ (37:07):Yes. So it took you about two years to write the book and you interviewed around 40 people?NR (37:14):Yeah, I’d say so. I interviewed all my friends’ parents, my own father, my mom—I talked a little bit about what it’s like being married to an old Jewish man. I also interviewed my wife’s father, and really, anyone I could.JJ (37:33):Have you always wanted to be an author?NR (37:35):I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer. That’s always been the dream.JJ (37:40):Yes.NR (37:41):Fiction, and also screenwriting. But I’ve always been more into fiction. That’s where my heart is.JJ (37:48):Is there going to be a sequel to The Old Jewish Men’s Guide? I mean, this hasn’t even come out yet, but you can pre-order the book now. Do you foresee a second guide? What about The Old Jewish Men’s Wife Guide?NR (38:01):Why not? I don’t think I’m the right person to write it, but there could definitely be that book.JJ (38:06):You could oversee it.NR (38:08):I could oversee it. I would happily consult on that book.JJ (38:11):Yes.NR (38:12):I already turned in a proposal for a new book, and I will say that Fran Lebowitz is a central figure in it.JJ (38:21):Have you gotten to talk to her?NR (38:22):Not for this book, no. I’ve never spoken to her.JJ (38:27):I think she’s an honorary Old Jewish Man.NR (38:29):Yeah, we inducted her. She was inducted.JJ (38:34):Did you send her merch?NR (38:36):I’ve never sent her merch. I should. I think she’d get a kick out of it.JJ (38:40):Do you think she’d wear it?NR (38:41):I don’t think she’d wear it, but I think she’d look at it, say, “That’s funny,” and give it to someone else.JJ (38:49):Which is kind of a high honor.NR (38:50):Yeah.JJ (38:53):That’s pretty good.NR (38:53):She’d at least chuckle at it, and that’s fine by me.JJ (38:54):No, it’s amazing.NR (38:55):It’s fine by me.JJ (38:56):So, this has been really amazing. I wrap up my interviews and podcasts with four questions. The first one is, you, my guest, get to ask me a question.NR (39:09):Okay. What was the thing that drew you most to Judaism?JJ (39:19):Wow. Okay, that’s a good one. So, I was raised Christian.NR (39:24):And where were you raised, by the way?JJ (39:26):Virginia.NR (39:28):Where’d you go to school?JJ (39:30):College? NYU, which is also maybe where I converted to Judaism. There’s a large Jewish population here, so this seemed like the ideal place to explore it. But anyways, I was raised Christian, and I’m queer, so I was raised to believe that I would go to hell. That just didn’t make sense to me. Then Orange is the New Black had a storyline about one of the characters converting to Judaism, and they talked about how in Judaism, there’s no hell to put you in. I thought, “This sounds amazing.” So when I came to New York, my first Shabbat, I went to the Jewish Center at NYU. I didn’t know anything that was going on, but it felt right. I just love the feeling that there’s purpose—not saying there isn’t in Christianity or any other religion—but I love how in Judaism, there’s a ritual for everything, a prayer for everything. It just felt right.NR (40:34):It’s all feeling.JJ (40:34):Yes, it’s all feeling. It was a seven-year journey, and your wife was a part of it, actually.NR (40:58):She came to the mikvah?JJ (41:00):Yes.NR (41:01):Wow, I remember that.JJ (41:02):Yes, I have to thank your little family. They’ve played such a significant role in my life. Actually, Liana wrote that Vogue piece about me that kind of started a lot. It was because of your event where I…NR (41:20):Oh, it was from that event?JJ (41:24):No, she wrote it before that event. But your event is what got me back into my Judaism.NR (41:27):I remember meeting you at that event. I had never met you before.JJ (41:31):Yes, and now we’re here.NR (41:33):That was two years ago, right?JJ (41:35):I think so.NR (41:36):It was a summer event, right?JJ (41:37):Yes.NR (41:38):It was like speed schmoozing.JJ (41:40):Yes, yes. I wore an Alaia dress.NR (41:44):I don’t know what that is, but nice.JJ (41:47):That’s a very important designer. Ask your wife—it’s a very important designer.NR (41:49):Alaia?JJ (41:51):Yes.NR (41:52):How do you spell that?JJ (41:54):A-L-A-I-A. I think he was also Jewish.NR (41:56):Okay.JJ (41:57):Azzedine Alaia. Ask your wife.NR (42:00):I’ll ask her.JJ (42:02):Okay, so that’s my question answered. Now for my final three questions—all related to culture. Don’t be scared—they’re open to interpretation. Since my newsletter is called Consider Yourself Cultured, these questions focus on culture. The first question is: Who is the most cultured person you know?NR (42:21):How do you define cultured? Is it being well-read? Is it having decorum in everyday life? Is it someone who corrects you when you don’t know something? Someone who keeps up with the latest trends? How do you define it?JJ (42:43):It’s all of that and everything in between. These questions are open to how my guests interpret culture.NR (42:53):Okay, the most cultured person I know... my friend Susie, I guess. She seems to know everything that’s happening now, for better or for worse—probably because she’s a journalist. I guess all my friends who are journalists seem to be quite cultured. My friend Alex Trout—he’s probably not the most current with what’s happening right now, but he knows what came before. He works on the obituaries desk at The New York Times. He can do the most citations while making a point, using historic references to carve his argument. It makes you feel like you need to catch up and read a little more. So, yeah, someone like that. These New York Times guys really know their stuff.JJ (44:01):I would hope! I would expect it!NR (44:02):Yeah, there’s a reason why they work there.JJ (44:39):What is your latest cultural obsession?NR (44:49):Latest cultural obsession? Can you give me an example?JJ (44:56):Okay, so for instance, mine right now are those at-home machines where you can work out on a treadmill while watching TikToks or shows. I’m obsessed with them.NR (45:12):Got it, something like that... Well, I was talking to Liana about this—she just got a pair of those shoes with the toes, you know, the ones that simulate being barefoot.JJ (45:26):<a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfYQg">The five-finger shoes</a>?NR (45:28):Yeah, those. I started running with her probably a year ago, and it makes sense to me to get shoes like that for running—or even wearing shoes like that daily, to simulate being barefoot. I don’t have a pair yet, but I’ve read about them enough to know I’m interested. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed, though. Another thing I’ve been into lately is watches. A couple of years ago, I bought a bunch of old <a target="_blank" href="https://go.shopmy.us/p-7813015">Tag Heuer</a> watches on eBay—probably seven of them—but most of them have water damage. Except for the one I’m wearing now. And they’re diving watches, so I feel like I really got taken for a ride on eBay. But I want to buy more of them! I don’t know why.JJ (46:27):More of the ones that are water-damaged?NR (46:28):Yeah, I like them. I just want to have more of the different colors. I like that they kind of look like children’s watches.JJ (46:35):Does yours look like a children’s watch?NR (46:37):Yeah, it looks like a little toy watch.JJ (46:42):Do you have a metal preference, or are you open to any?NR (46:44):I like silver a lot.JJ (46:50):Would you do gold?NR (46:50):I would do gold. I have a gold one—two, actually. One of them is all gold. And speaking of gold, we’re going to start making gold jewelry.JJ (47:00):Really?NR (47:01):Yeah, we are.JJ (47:03):Like real gold? Fine jewelry?NR (47:06):Yes, real gold. We’re working on it right now.JJ (47:11):That’s kind of amazing.NR (47:12):Yeah.JJ (47:15):Everyone’s doing jewelry right now. I’m doing a jewelry thing as well.NR (47:18):What are you doing?JJ (47:19):I’m coming out with a jewelry line.NR (47:20):Wow.JJ (47:21):Yeah.NR (47:23):What kind of stuff are you doing?JJ (47:23):I can show you after.NR (47:24):Okay, sure.JJ (47:26):I’ll just have to have you sign an NDA.NR (47:28):Sure.JJ (47:31):I don’t think we would design the same thing.NR (47:33):I don’t think so either.JJ (47:36):But that’s such an interesting pivot—jewelry.NR (47:39):Yeah.JJ (47:40):Why jewelry for you right now?NR (47:45):Well, it goes well with the stuff we’re already selling. When you see it, you’ll know why we’re doing it.JJ (47:50):Okay.NR (47:52):It’s specific. It’s a specific lane. It’s not just about making necklaces for the sake of it.JJ (47:59):Yes.NR (48:00):But we’re getting into that, and we’re going to be doing more cut-and-sew stuff as well.JJ (48:04):Yes. You’re really great—I looked on your website today. There’s a lot of cool merch. Who designs your merch?NR (48:10):My friend Brian—well, my business partner Brian. He designs most of the pieces.JJ (48:12):Does he design the slogans, too, or do you co-design?NR (48:19):Well, he has the actual design skills.JJ (48:21):Yes.NR (48:22):So, we ideate together, and then he works his magic. Actually, our intern, young Eli, has kind of taken the reins for our newest line that we’ll be putting out in the fall.JJ (48:41):What’s the new line about? Can I get a preview?NR (48:44):It has something to do with American sporting, but Eli is kind of relieving Brian from carrying such a heavy load with the designing. He’s been helping us a lot.JJ (48:57):I wanted to ask you something. You’re obviously riffing off established houses, most notably... can I even say it, or will that cause legal problems? I guess it’s known...NR (49:13):Who are you talking about?JJ (49:14):Ralph Lauren.NR (49:15):Oh yeah. Never heard of him.JJ (49:20):How do you all deal with that? Have Ralph Lauren’s people ever contacted you about the designs?NR (49:28):Thank God, no. If anyone from his legal department is listening to this, please don’t show him.JJ (49:35):We have to admit, though—he’s a genius. It’s kind of amazing that the most American brand was created by a Jewish man. That’s pretty fantastic.NR (49:50):Yeah.JJ (49:53):You can’t separate the two, which is a really special thing. Does that make sense?NR (50:01):Definitely. I mean, also by a guy who never went to design school, didn’t know how to design, didn’t know how to sew—he was just a guy who could weave these stories.JJ (50:15):I think that’s what’s special. He has an eye, and the way he thinks about things is very American. It’s an American brand, and it’s such an American way to design clothes—to think of it as something cinematic, a universe. I think that’s the thing about being American. I was a history minor, and my specialty was American history, and I think the beautiful thing about America is that it was a homeland for so many different cultures coming together. So this idea that Yiddish is part of the common American vernacular is amazing, and it speaks to that meshing of identities. Does that make sense?NR (51:08):Yeah. Just to add to what you’re saying, it’s like not only is Yiddish part of our daily vernacular, but it’s almost seen as a form of being cultured and educated, when really, it’s a language of peasants.JJ (51:32):Isn’t that fantastic? Isn’t that amazing?NR (51:35):That is amazing.JJ (51:35):Okay, so the last question I have for you is: What should everyone watch, listen to, and read to consider themselves cultured?NR (51:46):Once you’re done with The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around, I’d say... I’m rereading some George Orwell right now, and I’m really enjoying it. So, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. You said listen to?JJ (51:57):Yes.NR (51:58):You always have to listen to Oscar Peterson if you want to feel that swing. And for what to watch... I just went to see <a target="_blank" href="https://www.criterion.com/films/628-le-cercle-rouge">Le Cercle Rouge</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.criterion.com/films/628-le-cercle-rouge"> </a>at Film Forum the other night—they’re doing a Melville retrospective. His movies are very cool. If you like moody black-and-white, jazzy films with strong-jawed French protagonists who carry guns and rob banks, it’s perfect.JJ (52:38):What could be better?NR (52:39):Exactly, what could be better?JJ (52:41):Well, thank you, Noah. This was amazing.NR (52:43):Thanks, Jalil. Thanks for having me.I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.Follow me on Instagram <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/jalil_johnson_/?hl=en">here</a>! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/subscribe</a>

September 7, 2024

Lunch Break with Daphne Seybold at Thai Diner.

During my first season at Saks, Vogue released an article titled “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.vogue.com/article/fashion-week-street-style-publicists">Fashion Week’s Coolest Street Style Stars are Behind-the-Scenes.</a>” That piece marked the first time I laid eyes on Daphne Seybold. Although I had previously met her virtually while interning at V Magazine, and even made several trips to the Comme des Garçons office for pickups and drop-offs, I never managed to catch a glimpse of her in person. But there she was in the Vogue article, wearing what I can only assume was one of her many Comme des Garçons pieces. With one hand tucked casually in her pocket and the other tousling her hair, she exuded a serene aura, no doubt influenced by her idyllic surroundings.One line from the piece that truly captivated me was her description of her signature style: "Katherine Hepburn à la Comme des Garçons. Oversized, layered, and easy, with vintage jewels from my mama, and always a flat: slippers, brogues, or creepers." The phrase 'Katherine Hepburn à la Comme des Garçons' immediately captivated me—how could I resist? I rarely use this word, but in this case, it's the only one that fits: chic. So, when I had the opportunity to sit down with Daphne to discuss her current role at Sky High Farm Universe and her 14-year tenure at Comme des Garçons, I knew I would walk away feeling even more inspired and enriched.After leaving CDG in 2022, Daphne transitioned to Sky High Farm Universe as their Co-CEO and also serves as co-founder and CMO. In our conversation, we delved into her remarkable career at CDG, including the all-important question: what does one wear when meeting Rei Kawakubo for the first time? And perhaps even more critically, how does one leave a lasting impression.As is my usual style, I won’t delve too deeply into my guest’s background here—I encourage you, dear reader, to listen to the episode or read the transcript for the full experience. Sky High Farm’s mission is incredibly close to my heart, and I find Daphne to be so intelligent and insightful that it would be a disservice not to make this episode accessible to as many people as possible. (<a target="_blank" href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/p/lunch-break-with-danielle-duboise">After listening to this episode, I highly recommend going back to my conversation with Danielle DuBois of Sakara Life, where we also explore important topics about the food landscape.</a>)<a target="_blank" href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/6e91bb69">On a side note, as i mentioned yesterday I’ve extended the discount promotion through tomorrow</a>. So if you enjoy listening to or reading these full-length interviews and don’t want to miss a single moment, consider becoming a paid subscriber.One more thing before we dive into Daphne’s episode: Sky High Farm Universe just launched their <a target="_blank" href="https://skyhighfarmuniverse.com/">F/W '24 collection, co-created with Jen Brill</a> of Homme Girls, and they’ve also released an <a target="_blank" href="https://skyhighfarmuniverse.com/products/sky-high-farm-universe-all-purpose-tallow-balm">all-purpose tallow balm</a> that is simply divine! I’ve been obsessively rubbing it into my hands, and it’s an absolute must-have.Jalil Johnson (00:00:00): Alrighty. Daphne, would you please introduce yourself and what you do?Daphne Seybold (00:00:07): Okay. I'm Daphne Seybold. I am the co-founder, co-CEO, and the CMO. We're a startup called Sky High Farm Universe, which is a brand that we built to generate advocacy and revenue for the food equity work of the nonprofit Sky High Farm, which is a farm that's based in the Hudson Valley.JJ (00:00:29): Amazing. So the first time I met you—and we didn't even really meet, it was over email—was when I was still assisting in the styling world, and you were at Comme. So it was probably when I was assisting Scott Shapiro when he was at V Magazine. That was my first encounter with you, and I think the first time I actually got to meet you in person was via Sidney Munch, who I used to work with as well when she was in the styling world as well. And so it's been really amazing to see the growth of Sky High Farm; it has been really fantastic. And so before we get into Sky High Farm and what you're doing right now, I would just love to know where you came from, what brought you here, and what were you doing before Sky High Farm?DS (00:01:16): So I consider myself to have a pretty intersectional identity. I was born in Canada, grew up in Hong Kong, was educated at British schools in Hong Kong, then went to UCLA for undergrad, and then eventually moved to New York because it was always my dream. Just having lived in all of these different places, it's really informed, I think, not only my identity but hopefully my ability to empathize with people of all different stripes wherever I go. I want to be in places that are densely populated, surrounded by people that are different from me, but also eat different food, look different, dress differently. And so eventually, when I moved to New York, which was, I think, 2005, I thought I wanted to be a fashion journalist. At the time, I was really inspired by Cathy Horn, and I just loved the sort of frankness of her delivery. I thought, okay, maybe I should—I had an English degree—and I was like, maybe I should try to get my start out there. So I moved.JJ (00:02:31): Were you writing when you were in school? Were you writing fashion critiques or...?DS (00:02:35): No, I was just reading. And most of our friends and peers in fashion, I devoured magazines. And growing up in Hong Kong, it wasn't always clear what would get imported, but also you’d get the latest issue of Vogue or Self Service or whatever months and months later. They'd come out when the next issue was hitting over here in Europe. So I really kind of clung to what I saw in those issues, and they really kind of informed me of what the industry could look like or what kind of role I could have in it. When I came out here, I decided that in order to convincingly write about fashion, I needed to go to school to learn how clothes were made. And so I did a degree at Parsons—a Fashion Design degree—just to understand construction and hopefully some of the history. And during that time I interned like crazy. I think my first internship was at Mayle, which is Jane Mayle's brand, but I also interned at Alexander McQueen. I did a wholesale internship there, I did a knitwear internship at TSE, I did a brief internship at V Magazine, and I interned at Comme des Garçons.(00:04:05): I made it sort of my business to try to understand every facet of the industry because I don't really think you can figure out what you don't want to do without having actually tried it. So it's funny because a lot of those experiences were formative, and they ended up bleeding over into the job that I would take on at CDG, which at the time I sort of landed there as an intern in the press department, and it was only a press department of one in the U.S. We were still communicating with faxes. It was crazy.JJ (00:04:37): Oh, in 2005 or what year?DS (00:04:40): 2007.<a target="_blank" href="https://go.shopmy.us/p-5877924">Shop my At Present Edit</a>JJ (00:04:44): Wow. But I think that's another interesting thing too, in terms of during the internships and terms are very important. And it's also funny that you interned at V because I was at V as well, but when you were interning, were you also working another job, or how were you able to intern? Because I think that's another thing people often think about. I have questions about, it's like, okay, you're interning. And especially, I think pre-2000—I don't know when the lawsuit happened—a lot of interns weren't paid. You’re just really just unpaid labor.DS (00:05:18): That all happened, that stuff at Harper's Bazaar and elsewhere, happened when I was at CDG. And I'd been there for a long time. It's interesting because I actually interned while I was at school because I knew immediately when I graduated that I had to get a job because I was Canadian. And so I really kind of hustled and did as much as I could and then very quickly realized that it was actually going to be much harder than I had expected. And I remember this acutely. I was sitting in Parsons at their computer lab, and I applied to Vanity Fair thinking, okay, now's the time for me to really start building those journalistic credits. And I ended up getting an email from the then fashion director, Alexis Bryan Morgan, and she calls me in, she's like, listen, I know you applied for an internship, but you could in theory become our new fashion assistant. I was so excited I even contemplated dropping out of Parsons to do that. I was like, when is this going to drop in my lap? I knew how competitive it was. Those jobs open up only when someone actively decides to leave.(00:06:37): No joke. The first question I was asked when I sat down was, you are a Canadian citizen, right? An American citizen? And I was like, actually, I'm not.JJ (00:06:48): Oh no.DS (00:06:49): And it's no knock on them, but I realized right then that despite being qualified, there was a bit of an uphill battle then. So I really spent a lot of time trying to prove my worth in these internships so that they could then hopefully take the leap on someone who I sort of had to prove that there was more value add than just a person that already lived and worked here.JJ (00:07:16): Because they would've had to pay for you to...DS (00:07:21): They would have to sponsor me.JJ (00:07:23): Sponsor you. That's what—so Vanity Fair, so I'm guessing it didn't happen?DS (00:07:28): No. So I finished my degree, and then I went to intern at CDG, and my predecessor left, and they said to me—and I remember I'd been kind of interning there for an extended period of time—they said, do you want her job? Which they referred to everyone as the head of. So I went from being an intern to being the head of the US PR effort very quickly.JJ (00:07:54): Wait, that's because of the size of the team at the very, yeah.DS (00:07:57): They're headquartered in Tokyo, headquarters in Paris, but Europe was very much a satellite, and so they only had one person doing the entire US market.JJ (00:08:10): Wow. And then also too, so going back briefly when you were in Hong Kong and you were getting those Vogues, was Comme one of those brands you were always like—was Comme already kind of in your perspective of fashion? What drew you to Comme initially for the internship?DS (00:08:30): I mean, I knew it through going to the department stores out there, but they didn't have a Comme store yet. I knew the breadth of Japanese design, but I hadn't had an opportunity to fully engage with it. And back then I couldn't afford it. I was in high school, and things like designer vintage—it was all very different then. Not nearly as easily accessible. I was really kind of reliant on going to the department stores to look around. But over time, I continued to follow the brand and understand that what makes them unique is their approach to fashion, which has always just naturally bucked the status quo. They never do anything for the sake of doing it. They didn't believe in diffusion lines; they believed that every collection that they put out had a reason to exist. And I was really always interested in beauty as a social movement, beauty as a sense of identity, beauty as self-expression.(00:09:42): And I remember my interview—I showed up wearing, at the time I was wearing a Vena Cava blouse and a pair of very nondescript wool pants. I was wearing heels. And then I also wore a McQueen scarf that I had gotten on my internship when I was there. And it definitely stuck out. But over time, when your eye adjusts, whatever you had trepidation about and sort of understanding that you only dress for yourself was very important to me. My husband still sort of laughs to this day. I have a lot of jackets in the closet with three arms or that you have to wear inside out or backwards. It's funny; my eye normalized to that pretty quickly. And I realized there were people out there who were actively inspired to think differently about how they could self-express, and that was always really interesting.JJ (00:10:40): It's beautiful. And I think that's also—that is the beauty of fashion really. I think fashion at its best makes a person think and change their perspective or change their opinion on something and really get excited about getting up and putting on that coat with three arms.DS (00:11:02): I mean, it's funny. I used to—this was back when the office was in Starrett-Lehigh, and I would—at the time, my husband was studying at Columbia. I would take the 1, 2, 3 down in my Comme couture, and then I would trudge out from Eighth Avenue all the way out to where Starrett-Lehigh is, which is 11th Ave, through the snow. And I would pack boxes all day. I mean, I had so many samples I had to send out, so I'd be in my Comme, literally just like—and it was kind of funny in hindsight, but I loved everything that the company stood for, that Rei and Adrian had built, what they stood for. And because I got such direct exposure to them, I was like, there's no other place in the world where I would get to talk to them directly at the age of 20, whatever. And then on top of that, the way that they sort of thought was a lot about—a lot of the people that came up through the company had been at the company for a while and really had absorbed the DNA, and they really entrusted young people to do the work of more senior people at other companies. And I just felt like it was a constant challenge. I was of course very much afraid of failing, but at the end of the day, it's a very self-selecting person that chooses to work there.JJ (00:12:27): Well, also, I am kind of dying to know, and I hope this is not vapid...what do you wear to meet Rei? What did you wear to meet Rei for the first time?DS (00:12:41): Oh my gosh. I'm trying to remember.JJ (00:12:44): I feel like that's very daunting.DS (00:12:46): Well, you know why it's hard for me to remember? Because I tripped.JJ (00:12:52): No!DS (00:12:53): On the stairs up to her office, the very first time I met her in person. We'd already corresponded over email by then, but, you know, I was in Paris for my first set of shows. I amble up the staircase and tripped right in front of her, and she was very sweet. She actually started speaking to me in Japanese; she'd forgotten that I was Chinese. I'm pretty sure I was wearing all black, and my wardrobe was minimal at that point. I'd started—pretty sure I was wearing Comme Comme, which is what she wears every day, which is all the kind of codes of CDG distilled into everyday wearables. But yeah, that's what sticks out in my head because I 100% embarrassed myself.JJ (00:13:40): You gave a lasting impression.DS (00:13:42): I mean, they didn't get rid of me.JJ (00:13:45): And then, okay, you were at CDG as the head of PR for how many years?DS (00:13:52): So my entire journey there was about 14 years and seven months. When I started at CDG, there was no Dover yet. Dover came in 2013, but by then I had already—it was kind of ironic. The nature of doing PR was such that I actually got to talk to all of my inspirations. I was on shoots because we would bring the clothes to set ourselves. I was on set with, or I organized stories with, Cathy Horn. I was shooting with Craig McDean, and I was with Karl Templar. I was with Mario Sorrenti. It was just like, Grace Coddington—all these people that I would never dream of having contact with, who I later became very familiar with, and many of them have supported me through this period too, like Phyllis Posnick, who's the legendary sittings editor at Vogue. She created all those iconic images with Irving Penn.JJ (00:14:52): Like with the bee and all those things.DS (00:14:53): Yeah, exactly. Some of the most arresting images.JJ (00:14:58): Yes, I'm getting chills actually.DS (00:15:00): I worked with her. And then a few months ago, we did a shoot for our first beauty product with Tata Harper. Oh my God. So just that there's so much goodwill that kind of followed. And I felt very privileged in that job because I realized pretty quickly that not only were they entrusting the world to me, but I got to talk to all of the experts in the industry. Even though I was scared shitless, you have to push back on Grace or push back on someone. It's not a great feeling.JJ (00:15:27): It must be terrible.DS (00:15:27): But I learned also—the brand like CDG, where we really were careful about the brand image and thoughtful about it—I tried to really approach those conversations with a sense of transparency about our goals rather than playing all of these strategic cards. I was like, okay, I'm 20-something years old.(00:15:46): All I can do is be honest about what we're trying to accomplish and see if they're willing to support us. And it turns out in life that tact has worked pretty well. I'm not a hardliner. I can't walk into a room and be like, I want this, and walk out. And I think that's also a reaction to how in the old days, a lot of the fashion industry was run. It was like one figurehead, I'm going to prescribe the rule of law, and everyone has to live by it. Now, I feel like we live in a society that's much more flat and more voices can come to the table. So anyway, I was in the head of PR job at CDG, doing all the shows, doing every kind of whatever, launch, all the press release writing, all the send-outs, all the show prep, all of everything. And then Dover Street opened in 2013, and they trusted me enough to let that fall under my remit as well. So then I sort of became very well-situated actually to manage the PR work for so many emerging brands...JJ (00:16:53): I was going to just say...DS (00:16:53): ...in the store.JJ (00:16:54): When I think of Dover, I think about the vast amount of emerging brands that they've helped really start in a sense. And that's pretty amazing that you were getting that first experience with them too.DS (00:17:06): Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, I remember Simone. Simone and I are around the same age; we're friends. Craig Green—I remember when I walked into the show in Paris, and he would be there. And at the time he was with Barbara Anii at Drk or Dark. I've never known if it's... but really it was the early days. Melitta Baumeister, Marine Serre—I got Marine Serre her first piece in the New York Times. Just I sort of saw myself as an agent on behalf of all of these young brands that needed support and visibility. I got a piece for Idea Books in the New York Times. They were Idea Books back then. They've become Idea now. But this idea that through the credibility of CDG and Dover Street, we could lend our apparatus to supporting so many up-and-coming designers was amazing.JJ (00:18:02): It's really fantastic. I think I talk to so many people about this. We're in a very interesting retail landscape, and especially emerging brands are so important. And we're going to talk about the brand that you're with right now too. Sky High Farm, which I still see—it's a small brand—I still see it in that emerging category. They're really important. I think they lay the foundation for the industry. They set the trend, whatever they may be, they set, I think, the initiatives for where we're going. So I think about sustainability, I think about investing in initiatives such as food sovereignty. I think those are all important things that we all collectively will have to start thinking about and we should be thinking about. But I want to talk to you about what made you take the step from the world of CDG—which I mean Sky High Farm is still in that world—but go to a different company. Going into a small brand.DS (00:19:03): So towards the end of my tenure at CDG and Dover Street, which frankly I feel is the biggest gift I could ever have had as a career. Dover Street sat at the center of something where you could convene all this energy and power. And I think that's what really got carried through to Sky High Farm, which is really how we got our start. And at the time, I think it was 2018-19, I met Dan. He had already founded the farm, gosh, in 2012, and had been doing that food equity work for that long. But he wanted to make some products that he could sell in a retail space that bore the brand's—not the brand, sorry, it was under the umbrella of the farm—but could bear the farm's icon and be a physical object that someone could interact with and learn more about the farm through. So we met through Marissa Jartcky.(00:20:07): Dan and I began working on a project with my then Vice President, James Gilchrist, and Matty Friedman, who you know, and it was really about utilizing the time—it was vintage clothing, much like you're wearing now, that we could customize and use to uplift not only Sky High Farm but other food equity partners that the farm had. So we organized a talk around a vintage collection for these customized goods and also some jarred products, did it in New York and in LA. We hauled a tractor into Dover Street Market LA. And then the pandemic struck. And Dan and I at that point shared friends in common but had not ever formally met and then really interacted extensively. And he invited me to be on the founding board of the farm, which at the time was myself, John Gray of <a target="_blank" href="https://ghettogastro.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopSbLKkXhCFwGItP9yJKbrDzhdarepWr_sm-6W2vfa-bsylMVRE">Ghetto Gastro</a>, Josh Barfield, who's now stepped off the board and is the co-executive director of the farm. And that's slowly expanded to include many wonderful people that work in the communities that we serve as well as some other experts. But we were in dialogue and the pandemic hit. It was really hard. Everyone was losing the shirts off of their backs. I realized people were really hurting. We would be trying to move goods to keep the store going and had a job to fulfill; it employed all these people. And I just felt like there was such an urgent river of need, and I'd become more attuned obviously, to food sovereignty work at that point. So that happened. And then BLM...JJ (00:22:13): What was the moment that turned your eye to that? Because I feel like you've always—from before you even got to New York—you always had attention to community. So was food poverty something that—when was the exact moment that you became aware of it?DS (00:22:34): I mean, honestly, when I moved to the States, I had come from a homogenous society and gone to a school that was very diverse. But also people's relationship to food back then, or over there, was very different, right? Food wasn't expensive. You could go to a wet market and buy your fish, fresh fish. It wasn't like the kinds of New York prices you're seeing. And it was actually only after I moved to the States and was at a big public school for college. And I really sort of credit UCLA with this. I mean in hindsight, sometimes I'm not sure I should have gone there, but I realized that watching a public school at work and the dynamics within it—it was essentially a small city. It was 50,000 people. There was so much unrest. People were always protesting something. And of course, California has a relationship to agriculture, right?(00:23:28): So I sort of understood a little bit about it then but was really becoming immersed in the dynamics of living in the States: inequity, the way the makeup of the States poses this tremendous chasm between the widening gap between the very wealthy and the impoverished. And so when Dan invited me to be on the board in that sort of immersion, it really kind of—something I became really kind of—not infatuated with it, but I saw a pathway to participate. Whereas before, even though I'd always wanted to volunteer—it was something that me and my friends would be like, oh yeah, when we have time, we're going to do this on the weekend. But at that point we were working 60, 70 hour work weeks and it was a lot. There was no free time. My identity was so wrapped up in my work, and this really allowed me to see that there was a world of need, but also that there was a pathway or an avenue by which I could play a very small role in it. And so around about just following those really sort of pivotal social justice movements—BLM, which is still with us obviously, API—I said, gosh, I don't think I can do the status quo anymore. And there's nothing about CDG that's rote. But I needed to step out of that cycle a little bit.(00:25:01): It was a hard choice because they're my family.JJ (00:25:04): You've been there for so long. You really, in a sense, grew up there.DS (00:25:08): I grew up there. I spent all my formative years there. I married my husband during those years, had my first baby while I was there. It is a part of my makeup now. And I think what really informs a lot of my approach to what we're building, but I remember just sort of thinking, I have agency, I was like, I'm the age I am now, and this is as good as it's going to get. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and be like, oh, I've now metamorphosed into another person. This is it. And I kind of have to trust what I know and the relationships that I've garnered, the friendships that I've made, the little wisdom that I think I have. That's it. I got to make something with that. And Dan and I sort of realized that there was a world in which we could start a brand because the farm had these wonderful icons. We'd already seen the power of those icons to interact with people within the public sphere. They're uplifting; they're playful. When you look at it—I mean, the shirt that you're wearing doesn't even have the name on it, but it's so recognizable.JJ (00:26:28): I would love to talk about this too. So for the viewers is a strawberry sitting on top of the moon. And so where did this idea, this iconography, come from?DS (00:26:40): Well, that really preceded me. So in the years where the farm was operating, Dan worked with the illustrator, Joana Avillez, who's still a very good friend of ours, to create these icons. And there's a whole host of characters, and they're all things that come off of a farm. But it's kind of funny because a lot of people think the moon is a banana, which could be the case. But I have this sort of acute memory: Jake Gyllenhaal was wearing a pair of our sneakers, and I think the stylist—I don't know who it is at the moment, I know who used to take care of him before—but she clearly put these sneakers on him, and he's sitting at a press event, and I forget who was sitting next to him. It was a pretty renowned actor, but he was like, dude, what's up with your shoes? And he's like, well, it's a strawberry and a banana. And then I realized the icons have a capacity to transcend. They're funny. They're cute. They're youth- and adult-appropriate. There's just something in them that is just engaging.JJ (00:27:46): I think the colors too. I feel like red is such a warm color, and I feel like so many people—red and yellow—they just feel very calming. And I think that's also when I think about the farm, I think about the farm and the brand.<a target="_blank" href="https://shopmy.us/jjohnson851">Shop My Fall Wishlist</a>(00:28:03): This approachability to everyone. I think that's what this icon brings to me. It's like to your point, it isn't specific to an age group. It isn't specific to a specific person. It's digestible for everyone. And I think the farm's approach to the farm and the brand, there's something for everyone, which is quite beautiful. And I think something else that's sticking out to me—and this came to me when I went to the festival, which I want to talk about with you as well—it's like the brand and it's truly operating like a farm. There's a whole host of pieces there. It's truly...DS (00:28:44): Inputs,JJ (00:28:44): Inputs. They're truly a community. And that is one of the first words that comes to mind when I think about Sky High Farm is community. And it's beautiful because I think—we were talking off the podcast—but I think fashion sometimes can be very insular. It can be very elitist. And I would say to you, really, that has fostered such community, which feels really refreshing and beautiful and it feels new, especially in the fashion space. Beautiful. DS: So nice of you.JJ: Of course, of course. And I think there are so many people that are supporting Sky High Farm, and their support, they're there for you, they're there for the brand, which is really amazing. And what goes into building a community?DS (00:29:34): I think it's a purpose that has to sort of transcend all of our differences. And I just want to preface all of this by saying I'm one of a team of people that makes all of this happen. I really can't take credit for all of it at all because I realize it's a very spirited group of individuals, including yourself, that have decided to make a change in their work life to support something that's new and unknown. So I kind of see us all as kind of this renegade crew that's building something from scratch that has no known outcome.(00:30:18): But to the point about community, coming from a place that had a very strong identity and sense of community, it seemed obvious to me that that would be a big part of why I would go anywhere is that I would be able to foster something that would join what maybe seem like very different spheres of the world together. And in doing so, could actually broaden the community. And so much of the stated aim of the brand now is to basically coalesce the average customer who cares about these issues but may not be able to write a million-dollar check, may not be able to volunteer—I couldn't back in those days with corporate entities—asking them to participate with their dollars, looking at participants in an industry as a whole and saying, okay, every one of these different sectors or groups of people can be in dialogue with food equity work.(00:31:15): We just have to create the bridge. And I think that has really kind of served us because everyone understands the urgency that we should all be feeling around the state of the world, right? Climate change is fully upon us. The hardship that faces so many farmers is a story that needs to be told more. But also the way that the farm approaches community, and I just want to be clear that they are separate entities, and I'll explain why, but the farm centers its work around the communities it serves. So instead of being prescriptive about what the Ecuadorian community should eat, it instead says, what should we grow that they want? And that dialogue is sort of essential to informing the choices they make about what to grow and what to give away. It's also about giving the best and most nutritious food to people that have been deprived of it.(00:32:15): Many of them help grow it, but they actually can't afford what they grow. And these farmers that we're connected with, they don't benefit from the subsidies that the big agro-industrial complex benefits from. So it's really about empowering the next generation of farmers, right? Regenerative farmers and food system advocates through a model for a nonprofit. Now, I don't know how much you know about the difficulty of running a nonprofit, but you have traditional revenue streams, right? Donations and grants, but those are very much contingent on a wealthy donor's willingness to write you a check of a certain amount of money and that they're willing to do it continuously, right? Because most organizations need this funding to continue their work over time. But oftentimes also when you get grants, there are lots of institutional interests attached to those dollars. So the idea of creating a separate entity that could storytell, that could create vessels for this work regardless of the type of product, but that could also just raise as much money as possible through consumption that people were already engaged in seemed like a way forward.(00:33:28): And in looking at other brand examples that exist out there, you have something like Red, which was Bono’s AIDS and HIV nonprofit. They're still very much active. I think they've generated something like 750 million to date. And then a company like Newman's Own, which is the most ubiquitous salad dressing and popcorn and pizza in the States, they're a hundred percent of profits to charity. They've raised $600 million. I mean, the fact that people don't know this kind of tells you there's something to be said for being able to communicate right to the center of culture to where people feel like they want to be engaged. And if we can package it, which I feel like we're learning how to do in a way that feels like not only we're creating excellent products that are desirable, but people actively can be like, oh, I'm buying this because it's a great alternative to my other hand cream. But it also does something so much greater.JJ (00:34:32): Which I think you're hitting it right on the head about culture because there are a host of things I want to talk to in the realm of culture. One is we're right now eating at Thai Diner, and it's fantastic. We got the same meal, correct? Which is the second time in the history of this podcast has happened except you got a chicken version and I got the mushroom. But something really special happened where I picked this place sometime in terms of the restaurant, it's kind of a back and forth of who picks. I picked this restaurant because I knew last year there was a partnership with Thai Diner and Sky High Farm when you all were developing a drink. Yes. And I would love to hear about how did that come around?DS (00:35:17): So even before we had a clothing line, Dan and I were conceiving of a beverage. It just seemed obvious that we should do something in f&b, but all things, and especially for two people that never set out to make a brand—a clothing brand, at the very least—we learned the process from scratch. And we were very fortunate to have linked up with a fellow named Andrea Schneider at FedUp Foods. And his company is a company that was born out of a desire to rethink the beverage system because that's also very broken. I think that's something that I would say to everyone on this podcast is just that now that we straddle so many industries, you see that they're all dealing with their own systemic issues. And so we learned from scratch how to make a product. We conceived of something that we thought was delicious, a sparkling water flavored with honey.(00:36:16): We love the idea of using honey because honey is great for people to understand the pollinator story and the ecosystem of the farm, but people also understand the plight of the honeybee, which is a very real one. And so we brought that to market, and I'm friends with the owners of Erewhon Market, which of course is a very beloved grocery store.JJ (00:36:39): I've yet to go.DS (00:36:40): Oh, you must. And we essentially launched the drink there. They were very generous with us and also some merchandise to accompany it. And I was really interested in this idea of cross-pollinating—having a beverage, but then also doing clothing with them, thinking about the lifestyle that you could create out of these types of more responsibly produced goods. The drink was a great success. We got so many people contacting us. We were putting it into industry events. And I put it on pause recently because I want to make it shelf-stable right now.(00:37:18): It's a pre- and probiotic drink, so it has to be refrigerated. It has a lot of fiber. We wanted to work to tweak the formulation so that it could have a great shelf life. But what Thai Diner did for us, which gave me a tremendous amount of confidence, was I emailed Ann, the owner, and I was like, would you be interested in carrying this here? She immediately wrote back and said yes. Ann basically was like, we'll take the product in and we'll give you all of the profits from its sales. And I was like, wow, what an act of generosity.(00:38:13): The margins in beverage, in food in general, are so low; for her to do that was really remarkable. And I realized that in some ways, restaurant owners and the people that work in the service industry and hospitality industries, their connection to the land is very real because they’re dependent on the products that come from it. And so the plight of the farmer is equally as prescient to them as an issue, as many other things that we're dealing with. And so seeing that we could transcend this fashion as a space and apply this model broadly was very attractive.JJ (00:38:48): And it was a delicious drink. I can't wait for it to come back. And what made you pick Thai Diner specifically? Is this your...?DS (00:38:59): I had met Anne through friends but have always just loved the vibe. When you come in this restaurant, the food is incredibly cosmopolitan but very well made. And it's always full when I come in. And I feel like there's so few restaurants in New York now that are price-accessible but also make great food that is dependable. And we have a lot of shared friends in common, so it seemed like a great starting point. But yeah, we sent it here. We sent it to Attaboy, which I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they're these two really, really esteemed. It's a chef and his wife. And his wife is my friend, Elliot Park. And JP, they own Atomics, which is one of the best or most highly rated Michelin star Korean restaurants.JJ (00:39:51): Oh, I think I have heard of this.DS (00:39:53): Yes. And they have a whole restaurant group now, so they've got Naro at Rockefeller Center. And they were very supportive too. They're like, we'll put this on the menu. And I was like, wow, really? Their food is amazing. And then the other group that I called was Four Horsemen, because I'm very good friends with Christina Topsøe and her husband James Murphy. They're part owners of Four Horsemen. And I also am very good friends with Amanda. I'm forgetting her last name now. She's going to kill me, but she's not. Well, I just think of her as Mandy in my mind, Amanda McMillan. She was once in PR at PR Consulting and then went on to basically become, I think the general manager for Four Horsemen. So I was like, do you think you could put this on the menu? And she's like, yeah, send it over. Let's see what it tastes like. And just that generosity and everyone's sort of willingness to just take the drink without really knowing if it was vetted or good was kind of inspiring.JJ (00:40:54): It was. And then something else that we have right here too, which is, again, not a fashion-based product, but I think this again speaks to the ecosystem of everything, is a balm. And I got to try it at the festival this summer. And what made you all want to design a balm?DS (00:41:16): Well, first of all, we just embarked on a partnership, a collaboration with Tata Harper, who for me, even long before I knew her, I was a tremendous fan of what she'd built. And there was something very sort of convincing about a partnership between two farms. She is the leader in clean beauty. She has a very devoted and loyal following, and she's just like a wonderful human being, as is her whole team. And we saw that there was appetite for something like this from us, but also all of these raw materials come from the environment. They come from the earth, they come from animals, they come from wherever. And so the idea for the balm—maybe I would've waited a little longer to put it into the market—but was essentially came out of conversations we had with the farmers at the time. I'd also met this amazing group called Shellworks based out of the UK.(00:42:14): They had developed this amazing material called Vivomer, which is basically a plastic substance. It has no plastic in it, but essentially is created by microbes. It's a protein that's extruded from microbes when they're fed, and when it hardens, it behaves like plastic. But not only is it zero plastic, but it also fully decomposes in your home. Wow. So the idea of using a container like that, that was already illustrative of the sort of cyclical circular movement of the earth and the seasons and the soil, was really intriguing. But the idea for this balm, which I'll share with everyone, is a tallow-based balm, which for those of you that aren't familiar with it, is beef fat. Was this idea really that there's an ingredient that exists in a world that's highly efficacious and has been used for centuries. It really kind of tries to illustrate that there are amazing raw materials in the world that might be deemed waste, but that we really see as a co-product, something that comes out of the food system that has tremendous value. Tallow is packed with vitamins. It mimics the natural lipids in your skin, provides a really nice moisture barrier. It's an antioxidant, everything. And the thought that it could illustrate not only that there are these waste products that can be converted to something different, but also that we could potentially successfully create another revenue stream for farmers. Because most of the cattle that they send to the places where the meat is convert, the animal's converted to meat is wasted. 60% of the carcass is wasted.JJ (00:44:07): Oh, that's terrible. So this is a fantastic way to your point. This is all creating a place for those byproducts to go. And then there are 2 scents, I guess you would call them. Yes. So there's tomato leaf and...DS (00:44:23): Meadow.JJ (00:44:24): Meadow. What made you all decide between a tomato? What made you all pick these?DS (00:44:30): Well, I think we obviously wanted to ground the scents in things that felt familiar, but also specific to the scent experience on the farm.JJ (00:44:39): And I'm—for the listeners, our readers—I am putting it on right now.DS (00:44:44): Yeah, rub it into your hand and see how you like the way it absorbs. But essentially, tomato was inspired by when you're harvesting a garden, the smell that comes out of that bounty. We were thinking a lot about tomato stems and leaves, which is such a unique smell that we all know. And then Meadow is really about—it's inspired by upstate New York meadows that are kind of dewy and marine, but also have tremendous sort of earthy smells. So I'm curious, I think you prefer the tomato leaf, right?JJ (00:45:20): I think both smell amazing. I am a big tomato part. I love tomato. I hope it's tomato in anything. Me too. So I have kind of a bias for anything tomato.DS (00:45:29): Yeah, me too.JJ (00:45:30): But no, it feels amazing. I am very particular about hand products, and I told this to you too when I tried this Tata Harper, your collaboration with Tata Harper, fantastic hand cream. I like something that has, I feel like, a bit of weight to it. I really despise very liquidy, thin moisturizers. It just does nothing for me. And I think this is, it's great. It's not greasy. It has that nice weight to it. I love it.DS (00:45:58): No residue, no white cast, nothing. You wouldn't know. Oftentimes what I do is I put it on people's hands and then I tell them it's fat. And they're like, oh, where can I buy this? I got into an Uber the other day, and the Uber driver, I'm not even joking, or she was a Lyft driver, she wouldn't let me get out of the car until I told her where she could buy it and when it was because the scent was so fragrant. And I think it really kind of, like the aromatherapy, which is something Tata is really known for, was important to us. But I'm not a person that can do heavy fragrance. So it had to be sort of subtle and not feel too chemical. But I think that the cream, in some ways, it's so much the embodiment of what we do to support regenerative farming. It's a product that's conceived with the land in mind. It uses the resources from the land that the land naturally produces as part of whatever that cycle of life is. It's not about extracting more from the land than the land can provide, which is where we find ourselves in the current climate. We're basically extracting more from the earth than we put into it. And I wanted to, with Dan, with the team, turn that relationship to products on its head.JJ (00:47:18): That's amazing. And then too, when will this product be live?DS (00:47:23): Well, we're looking to launch at the beginning of September. So after Labor Day weekend, we want to make it really price affordable, whereas the Tata cream is a little bit more expensive. That retails for $50. But everyone should know that Tata Harper is donating a hundred percent of all of her profits from the cream to the farm. So that's fantastic. So the price is a little elevated there, but this particular product, I think, will retail for $38, and it will last a very long time. You just need a little bit; a little goes a really long way, and you...JJ (00:47:55): Can put it on your whole body.DS (00:47:56): I put it everywhere.JJ (00:47:59): And then something else you were telling me too off, will this be available? So by the time this is released, but Barney's is coming back for a brief moment.DS (00:48:10): Yes, yes. We plan to sell our tallow there. Barney's, through the sort of continuing generosity of Julie Gilhart and Simon Doonan and the entire team at Hourglass Cosmetics, they will be hosting a multi-week Pop-up in Soho. Sky High Farm Universe is really sort of privileged to appear alongside many of the brands that Julie helped discover. But Barney's is an identity that has such equity. So the opportunity to show alongside some of our friends Proenza Schouler, Thom Browne, they're all going to be there. And we get to have a platform that not only celebrates the clothing we produce—I think our next collection is co-creatively directed with Jen Brill of Homme Girls, who's a very longtime friend of Dan's, and a friend of mine now too. And we're going to essentially have tallow hot off of the presses there at the store. That'll be...JJ (00:49:13): That'll be fantastic. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to, I mean, it's going to be amazing. Iconic moment.DS (00:49:17): I hope so. I hope so. I hope that everybody tries it and loves it. And the festival was actually a very important moment for us to see if the concept had legs, because I didn't know if anyone would be willing to adopt a fat-based product. Never mind that it's used for... People use it for all kinds of biofuel for cooking. It's been used for time immemorial, but with this specific purpose, it's a relatively new thing in modern culture.JJ (00:49:47): Yes, and then I would love to talk about the festival too, because how... Well, the Picnic? Picnic, picnic festival.DS (00:49:52): Picnic festival.JJ (00:49:53): And how did that come alive? Because that was also amazing that there's so many people there. It was beautiful to see again, community. It was a beautiful community there. And so what birthed that idea?DS (00:50:06): Yeah, so the farm—and I'd love to just take a second to describe the work that it does. It's a nonprofit, again, it was founded almost 12 years ago or more than 12 years ago now by Dan and a group of co-founding team. From day one, they've donated a hundred percent of all of their regeneratively grown produce and pasture-fed livestock to marginalized communities. Over time, the organization in acknowledging that it can't feed everybody, has also undertaken this sort of mantle of helping to create equity in the food system and modeling that change. So we now write grants. This year we're writing $350,000 worth of grants to regenerative farmers, many of whom are BIPOC and unseen by the system that benefits from all the subsidies that Big Ag does.(00:51:02): They're people that are doing this work and actively stewarding change and fostering healthy eating habits in their communities, but are unseen. And in some cases, they exist in opposition to their governments. We also do a paid fellowship onsite, which is a nine-month program, which is very intensive. Six months are spent on the land over the course of the growing season. The next three months are spent on a research project. But the idea really is that people that are interested in jobs in the food system, whether it be in farming or within the actual work of farming itself like that, they can garner the hands-on experience that you actually need in order to have those kinds of jobs. Farming is the most laborious, most skilled labor. Every time I listen to our vegetable farmer talk about what goes into growing and all of the planning, I, I'm amazed she's an engineer and a scientist in one.(00:52:04): But if you think about what that kind of work is, it's not well paid. It's not acknowledged in the same way as other very high specialty industries or work. And so the idea there is to really arm people with the skills they need so they could find those jobs after the fellowship. Then we also do educational programming for youth. Many of the youths that are in the communities we serve, the farm actually is in the process of transitioning onto a much bigger property. It's 40 acres right now, and the property that it's moving on to is 560 acres. So it's almost like a small town.JJ (00:52:45): And how far is the farm moving from where the farm is right now? How far is it moving to this new farm? What's the distance?DS (00:52:53): It's down the street. Oh, down the street, which is pretty amazing. But the idea there is that they can really expand their capacity as it relates to the urgent food donation work they do, but with everything else too, and how that land can be used and stewarded, that's a longer process. But of course, it's important that we begin raising awareness around the work that we're doing as well as funds. So the festival was really sort of our first large-scale fundraiser for the farm. Whereas everything else had been small fundraising dinners. This was really meant to be the opposite of—it's like the anti-gala, not just a bunch of very well-to-do people who know each other, but rather really about bringing all of these people that we serve into dialogue with everybody else. And what was really kind of remarkable is in the same way that the brand is sort of set out to do this through products, we were able to bring together an amazing group of performers.(00:53:55): It was a one-day event in Hudson Valley: the Roots, Moses Sumney, Kelsey Lu, Michaël Brun dj’ed. And then we had Devon Tuscher, who was a prima ballerina at American Ballet Theater performed. But tickets were sold on a sliding scale. Some people in the community came for free. I think we'd allotted 250 tickets out of the 700 for free. And then the rest of the ticket prices range from $250 to $25,000. We were able to bring in a host of amazing fashion companies as donors. Actually, they weren't just fashion companies. We had Chanel, Gagosian, Levi's, Birkenstock, the North Face, Jansport, Nike. We brought in Luna Luna, which is that fair that's opened up on the West coast. Tata Harper was there, was there. So it was really just a collection of our friends and family that really kind of came together to help underwrite the project. And the brand had this amazing sort of merchandise booth where we sold goods, really trying to connect all the dots and using this sort of moment of gathering through music to enliven people's spirits and gather everyone. And then through the merchandise, to raise some additional funds.JJ (00:55:16): It was really fitting that it was upstate too. I feel like it not only is a problem up there, but I think there's something about that land. I mean, Woodstock is—I don't know how far Woodstock was, but Woodstock happened upstate. It was a very magical moment that day. I think there was something about a lot of people from the city coming to the land and getting to see all the greenery. There was a nature walk that Nike put on that was quite beautiful. And the trail guides told us about the different plants. And there are particular plants—I can't remember the name of them—that you can bite into if you are stung by a bee. But no, it's beautiful to see the land. And I also think it taught to appreciate the land that we're on because we only have one earth. And I think, again, a big part of Sky High Farm, the brand, and the farm is to remind us about the importance of where we live, the importance of the land. It was a beautiful moment.DS (00:56:19): I think there are few more beautiful outdoor performance venues than Kaatsbaan, which is in Tivoli, New York. And to be able to share in this moment with everyone outdoors—it was pretty idyllic.JJ (00:56:37): I had lobster rolls.DS (00:56:40): Lobster rolls. I mean, it's interesting. A lot of all the beverages were donated, so we had water donated, we had Moet donate, but all of the food vendors, we invited them to come in and there was no charge. They just sold their goods so that they could make some money. We wanted to give them the opportunity to generate some.JJ (00:57:09): Is this going to be yearly?DS (00:57:12): Maybe not yearly, maybe biannual. It's a lot of work.JJ (00:57:15): I like a biannual. I feel like there's something—it really builds momentum to the... I like it biannual.DS (00:57:21): Yes. Hopefully people won't forget what it is by then.(00:57:23): No, you couldn't forget. So this has been really amazing, and we're kind of nearing the end of our time together. I feel so motivated, not if I feel even more motivated now to get out there and spread the message. And also, I think food sovereignty is so important. I grew up in a very small town. I grew up with a working-class background. And so food always, I have a weird relationship with food. And so I think as I gotten older, I am contextualizing food and also the importance of what it does to our bodies. Yes. Also, making sure that people, no matter—food should not be a privilege in a sense. Everyone should have access to...DS (00:58:13): That's exactly right.JJ (00:58:14): ...good food, whole food, those kind of things. And I think what you all are doing is so important and it's making changes, and that's...DS (00:58:23): Really important. Thank you. Well, having someone like you model in our campaign with Cass Bird and styled by Samira Nasar was amazing, but I might just close on saying the brand has raised in two and a half years a million dollars for this work. And to see that this germ of an idea is bearing fruit, but has almost—it has so many directions to go in and expand into—is very exciting. So yeah, watch this space.JJ (00:58:56): You're going to make another million, more millions. More million. So to wrap up each, we have four questions. So the first question is, do you have any questions for me? This is a very new, new segment I'm doing that was unintentionally given to me, but I thought this was actually kind of brilliant, because I think the purpose of this is for it to feel like a conversation. And I just want everyone to feel relaxed. And I think oftentimes when you're getting interviewed, the interviewee never gets to ask a question. So I'm giving the power back to you all to interviewees. Do you have any questions for me?DS (01:00:04): I do. I mean, I feel like you are in the midst of forging a new chapter in your life, which I told you at the top of the interview that I just have such admiration for the way you move through the world and what you've built through your own identity and sense of self. And even when I was a young fashion person, which I was at some point, I always felt like I was pretty faceless. And I didn't know where. I'd argue that this job has allowed me to really come to the table as myself. And I see you and I think, wow, what you've been able to accomplish in terms of your own identity and representing your values and your interests and also just having such amazing style is wonderful. And I guess, what does it mean to sort of transition through these different identities in this sort of new chapter?JJ (01:01:02): That's a very good question. I only know how to be myself. And I think that clothing has always been a vehicle for me to express who I am, even when I didn't really know fully who I was.DS (01:01:23): Is it a character that you're assuming when you do it, some of your looks have proper characters?JJ (01:01:29): I think the act of putting on clothes as a performance—I mean, RuPaul always has a phrase that...what is the phrase? It's like life is a drag. Or(01:01:41): I will find the quote and put in there. But basically, we're all putting on a performance. And you have to have a costume of what that is. And the real test, though, is will you let the costume be the whole thing, or will you shine through that costume? And so I think something for me is everything I put on my body is genuinely something that I'm invested in and I want. I'm not dressing for another person's idea of what it means to be cool or what is considered trendy. I'm purely dressing for my own happiness. And I think that that's what comes, I hope that's what comes through in how I dress, is that I am trying to find joy in myself first in performing.DS (01:02:27): That seems smart and right.JJ (01:02:31): Because I think so many people go through life concerned about what other people think, which is—that's how we're taught. Also, we're supposed to think about others as we go through life, but it's really a challenge to put yourself first.DS (01:02:48): Yeah, it really is. That's beautiful.JJ (01:02:54): That was a good question. Now I have three questions for you to wrap this up. Okay. So the first question out of the three, who is the most cultured person?DS (01:03:08): It's a really, really hard question to answer because I feel like there's a lot of people to reach for. But the person that I want to talk about is someone who I think is deeply cultured is—he goes by the name of Nav. I don't want to butcher his first name, but I think it's Nav. And he's someone I met this past May, right after the festival in Copenhagen. I was there to speak on a panel with him on the subject of how the consumer can play a role in affecting change as it relates to the climate. And we were in this sort of small panel, and he had built a company called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.thewashingmachineproject.org">The Washing Machine Project</a>, and he's a former engineer that was working at Dyson. And he tired of creating really nice vacuums for wealthy people and was like, I think on a trip he came to see that there are so many women and children or girls that are spending time in developing countries washing clothes.(01:04:21): So he's based in the UK. He's now traveled all over Africa, India, and they have some partners here in the US too, but they're sponsored by Whirlpool. And what he's done over, I think, five years is to create a washing machine that can be assembled by hand. It's almost like an Ikea-style thing where you can assemble it on location, and it's like a manual crank that you have to turn, and the clothes get washed inside. It obviously minimizes the amount of water you use as compared to what we use, but it completely allows anybody who's washing clothes to cut their wash time down from sometimes as much as 20 hours a week to 15 minutes a day.JJ (01:05:09): Wow.DS (01:05:10): So you can really kind of—what you do in terms of not only empowering people with their time or giving them their time back, but the physical hardship, the skin irritation, the soreness in your joints from spending all day washing, but also the ability to make money—you could wash other people's clothes—is really kind of remarkable to me. And when I think of culture, I think of somebody that has a degree of fluidity that can step into different spaces,(01:05:46): Has garnered a sense of empathy and relatability to all kinds of people. And I see that Nav travels to the world in a way where he's, almost all the places he visits is imprinted on him, and he's motivated by those exchanges and experiences. So he's the person that comes to mind.JJ (01:06:10): I have to look up his name. This sounds really,DS (01:06:13): He's incredible.JJ (01:06:14): And is there a way to donate to his...?DS (01:06:17): Yeah. Yeah. So you just look up the washing machine project. He's actually coming to town soon. It'd be cool to introduce you—is the time of the conference that happens in September, mid-September. Fantastic. Yeah, he's wonderful. That's amazing.JJ (01:06:34): That's great. Okay. Wow, that's an amazing person. That's cultured. What is your latest cultural obsession?DS (01:06:47): Cultural obsession.(01:06:53): Now that I'm in the beauty space—or sort of—I'm really into K-Beauty, which has always been around, but little known fact, Korea is the second biggest in terms of our traffic to our website. And in terms of the support outside of the organic influencers that we get in the US, all of our biggest supporters come out of Korea. So new jeans, Jenny, Ruby, Jane, they all buy the stuff. We don't know that they've bought it. They just buy it and wear it. And I'm just so fascinated by their evolution as a people in style. They're so outgoing; they really get the aesthetic. They also love the transformation in the beauty process. So I love that. What was the other cultural question?JJ (01:07:49): Oh, then the last one is a three-parter.DS (01:07:51): Oh my gosh. Okay.JJ (01:07:52): So basically it's watch, everyone read, watch, and listen to consider themselves cultured.DS (01:08:01): Okay. Wow. These are going to be a little different from what you might normally think of, I suppose. So the book that I would pull for—I was going to give you an academic text,JJ (01:08:12): You can do that. You can give two, you give as many as you want.DS (01:08:14): Many as you want. Okay, I'm going to do it. So I'm actually reading a textbook of essays by an ecological economist called Herman Daly.JJ (01:08:26): From what time period?DS (01:08:28): So he wrote this in the eighties and nineties, I believe, this particular book. He's written several books, but he talks a lot about a steady-state economy, which is something that I really have become attracted to in a world where we're kind of juggling the tension between consumption and waste. What he posits is that the earth as a biosphere is a finite space with limited resources, and the economy is like a subsystem that grows within the sphere. And it's not really possible—the economy has got to stop growing at some point when it's used up all of the resources and can't continue to scale at the rate that it's been growing. So, so much of what he tries to address in the book is this concept of what it would mean to have a steady-state economy. And by implication, what that means for the inequity between rich and poor. And it all sort dovetails with conversation around who should pay for the pollution that's brought and who actually pays the price in farming. We talk a lot about externalities.(01:09:41): When you think of a drink manufacturer, anybody that's making anything for raw materials in order to sell goods at a rock-bottom price, someone else somewhere in the production line is paying the price. And so this idea of who pays is a big one to me. And who are we trying to benefit in our choices. The other book I was going to say is <a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfA3S">The Overstory</a><a target="_blank" href="https://shopstyle.it/l/cfA3S"> </a>by Richard Powers, which is a beautiful book that is a series of vignettes by different people in different places over the course of time that talks about nature's constancy amidst the sort of turmoil and peaks and valleys of our everyday life, which it's a really beautiful collection of stories.JJ (01:10:23): Oh, I want to read both of them.DS (01:10:23): Now that you're moving up to Hudson Valley, you should read. And then to watch. I'm trying to think of something recently that I've watched. I watched, okay.(01:10:38): My best friend is a filmmaker, and she does a lot of shorts, and she's working on her first feature film. She co-wrote a film with her then-partner called Civic. And Civic has gone on to become really sort of lauded, especially in the New Yorker where the film critic a year later went back and decided to write a full-fledged review of it. But it's a short that is told from the perspective of a car, and you're sitting in the backseat of the car—whoever it is is sitting in the backseat of the car—and they're witnessing a conversation that's had between the driver and the passenger. And I won't spoil it, but they drive to a number of different places, many of which have significance in this returning person's life. And it's against the backdrop of Los Angeles. And so you see this gradual shift in the scenery and the landscape. Some of the shots are vast where you can see the sky and palm trees and others are parked at a bodega. And I thought it's really hard to do this as a short, but to capture the totality and the range of human life and the sort of degrees of it in one short film was really amazing. So <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/concentrated-but-far-reaching-civic-is-an-ideal-short-film">Civic</a>,(01:12:02): So it's Nicole Otero and Dwayne LeBlanc.JJ (01:12:06): Like LeBlanc, like...?DS (01:12:09): L-E-B-L-A-N-C.JJ (01:12:10): Oh, I mean, what's the guy's name from friends?DS (01:12:13): Matt LeBlanc? Yes. Yeah. Same spelling I think.JJ (01:12:16): Are they related?DS (01:12:17): No, no. Dwayne is African American. I mean, not that I know of.JJ (01:12:26): I'll tell a different story. That's all. Okay. Then what should everyone listen to?DS (01:12:31): Listen to? I don't know if this will be polarizing, but I listen a lot to Pivot, which is a podcast between...JJ (01:12:39): I love Pivot.DS (01:12:40): Yeah, Pivot. And I also listen to Scott Galloway's podcast, which is called Prof G. And that is really—he's an entrepreneur multiple times over, but he sort of speaks plainly about the struggles about what it means to start a company from scratch. But I think he also shares a lot of the same values around some of the systemic inequities we're trying to fight. And I don't know, I haven't really heard a plain-speaking podcaster outside from you in a long time. And then the other one that I love is Ezra Klein, who I just am always like, I sit through the whole hour and listen intently to everything he says. Sometimes I'll listen to it twice.JJ (01:13:25): Those are fantastic. I love both. I love Pivot. Pivot's amazing. Basically, I do the Daily, then I do Pivot. Okay. Which is...that's a very jam-packed...DS (01:13:39): That's a lot of information to squeeze in.JJ (01:13:42): But no, I think Scott Galloway has such, to your point too, a very...DS (01:13:47): It's a very incisive point of view.JJ (01:13:49): Yes, and doesn't beat around the bush. It's tell it how it is. And he doesn't care if it rubs you the wrong way, which I think is perfect. I think so many people are editing themselves. They want, but I think sometimes we need that hard truth.DS (01:14:03): Well, and I think it's very easy to feel lost in what is a really cacophonous, noisy world, and it's hard to decide if you should even care about what's happening in the markets or these, and I do think he's good at distilling what's happening on a macro level and being able to conceive of how that could affect your daily life or break down complex concepts around Bitcoin and crypto and the car industry. I just think as a citizen of the world, it's like you kind of have to understand all of the inputs, even if what you're focused on is so totally different, which for me is the case. But I like to understand all of the dynamics that are in play at any given time.JJ (01:14:46): I think those were all fantastic answers. Well, thank you so much.DS (01:14:49): Thanks for having me.I may earn some commission if you make a purchase through one of the links above.Follow me on Instagram <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/jalil_johnson_/?hl=en">here</a>! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">consideryourselfcultured.substack.com/subscribe</a>

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What is Lunch Break?: A podcast where you’re not just a listener, but part of a lively conversation among friends. It's authentic, engaging, and the only thing better than the dialogue is the delicious lunches that accompany it! <a href="https://consideryourselfcultured.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">consideryourselfcultured.substack.com</a>
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates weekly.
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Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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