Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast

Darin Bresnitz
  • 5.0 (1)
  • FOOD
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so. fiverules.substack.com

  1. Matt Rodbard

    3D AGO

    Matt Rodbard

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with Matt Rodbard, Editor-In-Chief of Taste, the co-host of This Is Taste podcast, and his sub-stack, Food Time with Matt Rodbard, which is required reading if you care about what’s actually happening in food right now. Matt shares his Five Rules for a Food Writer’s Diet, from dialing in your relationship with alcohol, to balancing dining out with cooking at home, to traveling like a journalist, to permitting yourself to call simple meals “cooking.” We also get into coffee as a daily practice, the kind of ritual that sets the tone before the day starts moving too fast. I love sitting down with Matt because the conversation always lands in that sweet spot between fun, useful, and insider whisperings. We can yap, we can talk scene, we can talk craft, and somehow it always ends with something I always think back on after we part. When food is both your profession and your personal driver, the line between work and pleasure gets blurry fast. Matt is great at naming the difference between mindless consumption and intentional living. Eating and drinking with intention is not about restriction, it’s about clarity. It’s about supporting restaurants, taking care of your body, staying present in the room, and building routines that make the whole ecosystem, your work, your relationships, your energy, actually sustainable. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Intro Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with one of my favorite people to talk about the culinary community with, Matt Rodbard, who is the Editor-In-Chief of Taste, the co-host of This Is Taste podcast, and his sub-stack, Food Time with Matt Rodbard, is must-reading for anyone who wants insider insights for the food scene. He shares his five rules for a food writer’s diet. and talks about the importance of dining out versus cooking at home, that when traveling, how to get the most out of your adventures, and that by having a preferred coffee practice in the morning is the best way to ensure a fantastic day. I love any time that I get to sit down with Matt. It’s always filled with a fun conversation, a professional take on cooking, and some great takeaway tips for anyone who’s looking to get the most out of life when it comes to food. So let’s get into the rules. Catching Up Matt, it is always a pleasure to see you. I knew that we were going to get a late start because we were just yapping away before we even hit record. Welcome to the show. It’s always good to chat with you. I know we were definitely talking about... Oh, no, we’re going to cut that out. But yes, we were having a very polite conversation about the scene out here. I’ve known you for decades now. We ran in similar food circles in New York, and we’ve gotten to spend some time together in LA. You’ve been working in the food media industry for 20 years. Do you remember your salad days and those first few meals of eating out? One of my first food stories was in 2005. I was working at a men’s magazine and I was working with consumer electronics and gadgets. And I took this egg McMuffin maker. Oh yeah. I took it to a restaurant called Chanterelle in Tribeca. Legendary place. Legendary. Run by David Waltock was the chef. I took the egg McMuffin maker there and had him test it out, which is cool. He had some funny thoughts. We wrote a little funny thing. And that was like my first real food media piece, which was 22 years ago. Memorable Meals I’m sure with such a long and illustrious career and you’ve traveled the world for not just taste, but for also your writings, your book, Korea World. Do you remember one meal that stands out that only would have happened because of your experience in this line of work? From Korea world, Dookie Hong and I wrote that book together. And we were in Korea for that book specifically three times. We were outside Gwangju. We had this meal. I’ll tell you a couple of things about it. First, it was like a beck bong, 30 or 40 dishes laid out communal. I don’t drink alcohol. During the shoot, I was the only one not drinking. Yeah. My man, Dookie, had a few drinks. Everyone else got super f*****g s**t-based. Wow. It’s very traditional. We’re sitting on the floor. It was just pure joy to see everyone kind of tipsy. We were hosted by a wonderful Beck Soju maker, and she just started pouring these drinks and kept pouring and pouring and pouring. I just really loved that. The food, of course, was incredible. It was mostly local produce and a lot of like small fermentation dishes. Those are the kind of situations where I only could have gotten into that room with the work I do. It’s so amazing. And I think that’s the addictive part to this line of work is getting access to those rooms and to having all these incredible meals. The other side of that same coin is that at some point your body gets older and you get older. When did you realize that you maybe needed more of a balanced approach eating out for work and being on the road? Did it start with a conversation with my doctor? Like a hard conversation at the age of 30, which is 15 years ago. Perhaps. Perhaps that was it. What really started me on the journey of sorts towards thinking a little better about what I was eating was when I stopped drinking in 2015. I just felt like at the time I was just drinking too much. It was affecting my work. It was affecting my personal relationships. And it wasn’t a falling down drunk moment. People around me were dying. Josh Ozersky was a friend of mine. He died. I literally saw him the night he died at the James Beard Awards. It was the night before. And he looked really great. His spirits were super high. Also, I didn’t like the way the interactions that I was having with people in the industry at parties or at events when I’d had a couple cocktails. And remember, this is a decade ago. We’re like, let’s have a corpse reviver and then have a green point and then maybe have a fourth or fifth classic cocktail because everyone was so down with the classic cocktail revival at the time. And I wrote a lot about alcohol. I felt, of course, hungover the next morning. I felt, did I have meaningful conversations with these people? Or was it just a matter of me being drunk and trying to be funny? And to me, it had taken a toll. Either someone’s going to tell you that your cholesterol is higher than a normal individual, or you’re going to wake up a morning saying, I don’t like the way that I feel. That really makes you think about how you want to approach, in many ways, what is a professional world when you go out to eat and drink, which is why I’m so excited for you to be sharing your five rules for a food writer’s diet. Rule 1: Don’t Drink Much in Your 30s and Chill in Your 40s Now, I know you just touched on this. Everyone is going to come to some reckoning with themselves when it comes to drinking alcohol. Your first rule gives a little bit more of a nuanced approach if you don’t want to stop cold turkey. What’s your rule number one? Rule number one is don’t drink much in your 30s and chill in your 40s. The language is intentionally vague. I’m not trying to be prescriptive here. I’m not saying don’t drink in your 40s. I’m saying basically in your 30s, you’ve got to really watch your consumption. Be aware of what alcohol does to you. You know, learn in your 30s, earn in your 40s. That’s a long time saying. So I think in the 30s, you should be really absorbing what’s around you. You should be finding mentorship, all that. Alcohol can really stop you in your tracks. As you enter your 40s, I’m just saying just chill. Just be chill with your relationship with alcohol. Many people maybe don’t drink at all or drink one day a week. And I think in your 40s, you’re going to actually see a lot, a lot, a lot of results as you really curtail your drinking. You’re setting yourself up for the rest of your life. You want to be healthy. You want to be in a good spot. And your 40s sets that up. Rule 2: Dine Out More, Cook the Most A lot of the times that approach to drinking can be affected of where you are dining, whether it’s at home or whether you’re out and about where you feel comfortable or where you’re in control. And your approach to your rule number two can help you find that balance, not just in drinking, but eating and saving money as well. 100%. Rule number two, dine out more, cook the most. Preach it. Two things are here and they’re in direct opposition, kind of a puzzle, right? Here’s what I’m saying. You should dine out and support restaurants. You should learn about food. 100%. You should go out as much as humanly possible for your budget, be it one day a week, two day a week, three days a week, or more. It’s important. And really, food writer’s diet is a larger ethic I live by. And it doesn’t just have to do with what I’m actually consuming. It’s about the diet being how you consume food in your life. Everything about food. Yeah. Media is part of your diet. Recipes, health and wellness. That’s all part of the diet related to food. Through the years of being a food writer, I’ve definitely figured out that if I go out to restaurants more, I’m just going to absorb all these things better. But cook the most. If you’re eating out and you’re dining on your budget, balance that with cooking meals for yourself. We could talk all day about what cooking means. And it certainly doesn’t mean following a recipe from a cookbook and spending $100 and spending half the day no it could be literally opening three packages and putting them together pre-made rice pre-made sauce doll and some protein that is pre-cooked and you’re just heating it all up t

    14 min
  2. David Utterback

    FEB 9

    David Utterback

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I dial up Omaha to chat with sushi chef, David Utterback, to talk about what it means to build a craft without a traditional roadmap. David shares his Five Rules for Being an Apprentice Without a Master, tracing a path shaped by the Saddle Creek music scene, a life-changing trip to Japan, and the decision to develop a personal philosophy instead of chasing someone else’s version of mastery. It’s a conversation about focus, humility, and the long game, told through sushi counters, punk shows, and the discipline of starting over when you think you’ve figured it out. This one hits close to home for me because the overlap between music and food has always been where I feel most grounded. Snacky Tunes came out of that same punk, DIY instinct, make the thing yourself, build the community around it, learn by doing, and don’t wait for permission. That ethos has shaped how I eat, how I host, how I create, and how I move through the world. Punk isn’t just a sound or a look, it’s a way of paying attention, of choosing intention over polish and substance over shortcuts. Applied to cooking, music, or life, it’s about showing up honestly, trusting your taste, and building something that feels true because you made it your own. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Intro Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m in Omaha, hanging out with sushi chef David Utterback, who’s here to share his five rules to being an apprentice without a master. He talks about how the Saddle Creek music scene shaped his outlook on life, how a fateful trip to Japan changed the course of his cooking career, and how by starting over with a personal philosophy is the best way to move forward in life. It’s a deeply insightful conversation from someone who helped put sushi on the map in the Midwest. So let’s get into the rules. Meeting David in Omaha David, it’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for making the time to sit down and chat. Hopefully you’re keeping warm in Omaha. Yeah, I’m trying to. It’s pretty cold here right now. I first heard of Omaha as the legendary punk indie scene with Saddle Creek Records, and I knew that was a big part of your coming up. What drew you into that music scene as a young guy? Girls. Yeah. You know, yeah, when you’re in high school, you’re just trying to do whatever you can to look cool, I guess. Joining a band was the thing to do. Punk music, we didn’t really know how to play instruments very well. And so it’s a really great place to start because you can build all of those songs with just a couple of power chords. At the time, the music scene here is just incredible. One of the capitals of independent music at the time. So it was a really great time to get into music. From Punk to Sushi That punk aesthetic really influenced your whole life and your approach to cooking in the way that you wanted to make the food you want to make, especially prevalent in a fateful trip to Japan in 2008. How did this approach to life eventually affect your culinary career? Before then, I had no interest in being a lifer in the restaurant industry. Most people who, especially at the time, get into the restaurant industry, you’re a pirate. I was living in a house with all my bandmates and their girlfriends. There’s 10 of us living in this house. Incredible. Didn’t have any money. So got a job at a sushi restaurant. Didn’t have plans to do anything more, but this fateful trip that I had taken to Japan by chance ended up at this famous sushi counter. Kind of put everything into focus. Before then, I had never worked at a restaurant where anybody was a professional. These guys, they sort of blew me away. That trip, it’s where I decided to focus. Instead of trying to do everything, I focused on one thing and that changed it all. It changed it all for the better and it put you on this fateful track to open up sushi and omakase restaurants in Omaha. Yeah. Which is a very punk thing to do because not the first place you would think. And I’m sure there are people who are dismissive saying you’re going to open what type of restaurant where. Yeah. How did that trip and how did your belief in punk music and that DIY approach give you the confidence to do it? Especially coming up at the time in the music scene, it was the perfect time to be a musician. You’re recording your first album on tape. You’re recording your second album on Pro Tools, right? You’re doing everything by yourself. It’s the beginning of being able to make your own music, produce it, record it, and distribute it all on your own. So me and everybody here in the city, we were all doing this. When you go to open up the restaurant and the mindset, everything’s possible. You can do it. You’re only limited by how hard you’re willing to work. Setting Up the Rules That hard work, especially in this field of sushi and omakase, usually comes with a big apprenticeship. That’s definitely one way to do it and a similar path that many people have followed, which is why I’m so excited to chat with you about your five rules to being an apprentice without a master, which is a bit of a unique and novel approach to really learning a hundred year old tradition. But you talk about really setting yourself up in your rule number one. Rule 1: Define a Master, Develop a Goal Rule number one here is, you know, and these weren’t rules where I had made them before. You kind of look back on a career and realize the steps you’ve taken. And for me, rule one was define a master, develop a goal. That trip to that counter that really set a goal for me. It was, these guys are so cool. I want to be just like them. I want to make food on their level. That was back in 2008. I had decided to do that. Came back from the trip and was like, okay, enough with everything else. Not going back to school. I’m going to do this. You know, focus. Rule 2: Become a Student It’s funny you talk about not going back to school because it seems like you are going after a different education. A lot of the times with punk rock and DIY, you can eschew learning and just dive head in. But your rule number two talks about the importance of getting fundamentals and working towards gaining a base of knowledge before you go on your own path. What’s your rule number two? Rule number two is become a student. We live in a time where all information is available. And so becoming a student doesn’t seem like it’s necessary. But when I’m coming up in 2008, I desperately want to be like these sushi chefs, but they have a deep apprenticeship program. Coming back from Japan at that time, there’s definitely less than 10 omakase counters in the United States. There really isn’t anyone to teach this material. And so I quickly realized if I want to know something that I need to teach it to myself. And so that means becoming a student, developing what we call in the sushi game waza or skill. I start buying every book on sushi and fish in English, every single one. Sure. The good ones, the bad ones, the at. home for moms anything that might have a little piece of information and i start doing that in japan too i start buying every book in japanese i can find i take myself to jimbocho which is a an area of town that just has used bookstores And I just spend two days popping in each store, just asking each shop owner, do you have any books on sushi? And so now I’ve got this crazy collection. I’m having to use my mom to help translate. I’m looking at pictures, just trying to get any sort of information that I can to get me closer to my goal. Rule 3: Visit Masters I love this idea of gathering the knowledge on your own, becoming a student and reading up, gathering a strong base before you go out and sit with people who have been doing this for so long. It just seems that it leads to such a deeper conversation and you’re not wasting anyone’s time, which is a fundamental of your rule number three. Visit masters. It really does tie in with rule two. Because music or any other creative art form, you can’t just create. It’s got to come from somewhere. You need someone to influence you. You need to see what you like. You’re not creating whole new cuisine out of nowhere. You need to be influenced. You need to know what’s good. You need to develop. a palate. You need to develop taste memory. From that first trip, I start going and visiting every single one of these counters I can get into in Japan. At the time, these guys are known in Japan, but there isn’t a sushi craze or sushi counter boon that we’re experiencing now. And so I’m eating with guys like Takashi Saito when he has one Michelin star and He’s in the parking garage near the U.S. Embassy right now. He’d gone on to get three stars, lose them all because he becomes too famous. What a time. I’m picking up tricks. I’m seeing how they do it. I’m learning about the culture of the cuisine and the counter and how they conduct dinner, how they work with guests, how they talk, how they present food. Then I’m tasting it. I’m holding on to these things, making notes. and trying to come back home and reverse engineer these things. This abalone liver sauce is so delicious. How do I come home and reverse engineer it from memory? Visiting these guys at the top of the game, they give you a reference point. They help train by actually consuming the food. Having this postmodern approach where you’re doing your research and visiting multiple masters of this cuisine instead of following or working under one person is very, very different than most people who study sushi because it’s one way and you’re just trying to impress your master and work your way up to their level of skill so tha

    12 min
  3. Telly Justice

    FEB 2

    Telly Justice

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I’m joined by Telly Justice, executive chef and co-owner of HAGS, one of the most exciting restaurants to come out of New York in the last few years. She shares her Five Rules for Building Trust with your Restaurant & Brand, not through hype, but through how you show up every day. Telly talks about the importance of knowing yourself, being consistent, striving for equitability, communicating early and often, and enthusiastically accepting accountability. She breaks down how those ideas move from a mission statement to the dining room, the kitchen, and the community that forms around the work. This one resonates because it is a reminder that the real flex is reliability. Showing up for yourself, your work, and your team with intention and purpose is not a slogan, it is a practice. When you respect the people who support your projects, your staff, your guests, your regulars, the quiet tables, the loud ones, you build something that can actually hold weight. Everything is connected. The culture in the kitchen shows up in the dining room. The consistency on a Tuesday shows up in the trust on a Saturday. It all works as one ecosystem, and when you take responsibility for your part in it, the whole thing gets stronger. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I am joined by Telly Justice, the executive chef and co-owner of one of the most exciting restaurants to come out of New York in the last few years, Hags. She’s here to share her five rules for building trust with your restaurant and brand. We talk about the importance of consistency, that good communication allows for everyone to have a seat at the table, and that by practicing self-accountability lets you keep showing up for your team. It’s a great conversation from one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2025 and an inspiring conversation for anyone who’s looking to build a better relationship with their staff, diners, or their restaurant at large. So let’s get into the rules. Telly, it is so nice to meet you. I know you’ve been having a very busy January, so I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and chat with me. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be talking with you. I’m a big fan. This podcast is awesome. Oh, I really appreciate that. And I’m a huge fan of Hags, your restaurant. It’s been such an amazing thing to see come together and the community that you’ve created both in and around the restaurant. How early into the concept did you start thinking about the relationship you wanted to have with your customers at Hags? Our vision for our relationship with customers predated our decision to open the brick and mortar, especially as initially a pop-up concept that was born in 2020 during the pandemic. We really wanted to get out there and do what we did just to make people feel a sense of community and a sense of care and joy. We knew that we had this talent and this skill, and we wanted to share it with people. We didn’t expect it to turn into what we’ve built over time. We didn’t expect to open a brick and mortar so quickly. Yeah, it came from this place of caring about people first, and that was essential to when we built hags the brick and mortar being able to be guided by a clear mission statement that isn’t necessarily exactly the food you want to cook or the spot you’re going to open I think does lead to this authenticity and this success your mission statement is by queer people for all people yes why was it so important to you to position hags in this way Speaking to the queer people component, the first part of that sentence, we knew that that was going to be the larger food world’s vision of us. And we wanted to own that first and foremost. We wanted to say that part of ourselves out loud and show that we were proud of it and that that was a place of authenticity for us to operate from and a crucial aspect of building our community. But we also wanted to, following up with the second half of that sentence, we wanted to make sure that everybody felt invited and encouraged and a part of what we were building. And we didn’t see it as an exclusively queer project, but we did want to see ourselves as whole and equal in the exchange as queer people doing the work. So that whole sentence really communicates what we were about when we were building the pop-up and what we continue to be about today. You’ve successfully been able to communicate what you’re about, both by what you stand for and the food you cook. So much so that Food & Wine named you one of the best new chefs of 2025. And not that outside acknowledgement is everything, but it is nice every once in a while to receive such an accolade. How did you feel hearing the news and what has it meant to you as a chef and restaurant owner and as a person? won’t lie i’ve been cooking in this industry professionally for almost 20 years now and amazing when you event that kind of time in these kitchens especially high-end fine dining you can’t help but have that dream that goal i want to awards i want to see myself in that magazine so many of my heroes walked that path and they gave me this thing to look out towards they gave me this goal to look to as a I was clawing my way through these kitchens. It’s hard work and you have to have something to dream about. You have to have something to believe in. When I left the fine dining world behind at the peak of the pandemic to do this pop-up, I kind of forgot all of that. I left it behind in a lot of ways. My goals changed and my priorities changed. What I wanted to do, what I wanted to access with Hags, a restaurant in New York City, became very different from the goals that I had as a young cook. And we were able to achieve a lot of our goals in building meaningful community and feeding some really great people that I love showing up and feeding every day in our dining room. When we found out that I was receiving this accolade from food and wine, it was totally out of left field because we just hadn’t thought about it. It wasn’t something that we were actively pursuing. We were pursuing other things. of course it took a moment of recalibrating what this means to me and what it means to me now that i have this deeply personal restaurant not for nothing hags is a business and it’s been an incredible boon to our business it’s brought a lot of people and a lot of attention our way i would say mostly if not exclusively very positive i love that i love that for the cooks in the kitchen they feel their work is meaningful it’s special they see people out in the dining room getting more and more excited about the project i love that for them i still feel like A regular old chef just cooking it out every day. I don’t think it’s changed how I feel about my practice of cooking much, but I do love to see the effects. It’s really cool. Seeing those effects and seeing the dining room full every night is such a fantastic thing to have created and been a part of, and something that takes effort every day which is why I’m so excited for you to be sharing your five rules for building trust with your restaurant and brand stepping away from the fine dining world can be scary especially with all of its guardrails because of those strict confinements it doesn’t always allow you to explore who you really are which could ultimately hinder you from finding your real success which is a big part of your rule number one Rule number one for me is know yourself. Self-knowledge is so incredibly crucial to any personal project, but also be curious about others. It is really hard when you’re struggling to access that self-knowledge to be truly available to your curiosities about where other people are coming from. Starting with who am I? What do I bring to the table? What kind of food do I want to cook? What kind of restaurant do I want to run? How do I want my guests to feel in my space? That’s so essential. It can’t be something you adopt or inherit from a job that you’ve worked or another restaurant that you’ve come from. You have to think critically about what these things mean to you and how you’re going to build a personal space that represents you and communicates your values, your vision, your ethos. And when you do that, you create so much space for other people to be themselves, which is so lovely when you’re curious about where they’re coming from. When our diners come in, we love to ask them more than just how their experience or how the food is, but how was your day? That’s amazing. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What are you about? What are your interests? What drew you to our space? And by the end of the meal, I find we have more than just diners. We have new friends. We have new neighbors. We have new community members. And that develops such a level of community loyalty, community trust, and a deeper understanding than I think you see at most restaurants. And that’s one of the beautiful things that I get to experience in this space. Having people return, not just guests, but those who work with you and the world at large to your restaurant, to what you’re doing, is such a beautiful thing. But it also comes with a big responsibility of creating the same experience or creating a baseline that people can expect whenever they walk through your doors or sit down with you, which leads into your rule number two. Number two is be very consistent. This is an important follow-up to knowing yourself. It can be really easy to perform what you think you ought to be doing. Yes. But if you know yourself and you know how you cook, if you know how you serve, then when a guest comes in a second, a third, a fourth tim

    14 min

  4. JAN 26

    Katie Parla

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with Katie Parla, a Rome-based writer, guide, and one of the clearest voices on how Italy really works. Not the fantasy version, not the TikTok version, but the real one shaped by neighborhoods, side streets, long lunches, and very good food. Katie shares her Five Rules for Actually Connecting with Italian Culture, from skipping the obvious cities to renting a car to leaving space for meals you did not plan. We talk about how Romans really eat, why oxtail sauce explains more about Italy than most guidebooks, and how letting go of romantic expectations leads to better trips, better meals, and better stories. I love this episode because it is advice you can trust. Katie lives this life. She is not visiting Italy, she is in it, navigating it, working within it, and loving it every day. That perspective changes everything. Her rules are practical, but they are also generous, because they permit you to travel differently, to slow down in the right moments, and to stop chasing someone else’s version of a perfect trip. Listening to her makes you want to book a flight, yes, but more importantly, it makes you want to travel better, with curiosity, humility, and a little bit of chaos, which is usually where the best meals live. You can pick up her new book Rome: A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City, which is available wherever books are sold. Photo by Ed Anderson My latest piece for Pellegrino’s Fine Dining Lovers is out, and it’s a close look at how Brian Dunsmoor thinks about craft, control, and momentum. It moves from his garage pool table to the hearth at Dunsmoor, tracing how his intention and patience shape the way he cooks and leads. It’s about the small disciplines that add up to mastery, and why doing less, better, is often the whole point. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. It is always a pleasure when I get to sit down with today’s guest, Katie Parla, whose new book, Rome, is out on Parla Publishing. You might know her for some of her incredible writing on the food and beverage of Rome, or been lucky enough to take one of her guided tours around the city. She shares her five rules for actually connecting with Italian culture and and talks about the importance of renting a car so you can make your way to lesser known cities, how to avoid the pitfalls of trusting everything you see on social media, and why leaving some room for unexpected meals is the best way to have an authentic adventure. If you’re like me and so many other people, you know that Katie has her finger on the pulse of what’s going on in Italy today. So let’s get into the rules. Katie, so good to see you. Thank you for making time, literally pulling over on the side of the road during your incredible book tour to chat with me for Five Rules. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for hitting me up. I’m stoked to talk to you. I, like so many others, have hit you up when I was planning my first trip to Rome. And despite you knowing the city so well, do you still feel the pressure to pick the right recommendation for the person who’s hitting you up? Rome is definitely a place that is becoming expensive to visit. It’s becoming increasingly complicated because of social media, blowing up places that don’t do good food or care about their stuff or ingredients. I think it’s even more important to direct people to quote unquote the right places so that the people whose work I really appreciate and treasure are able to compete in that new economy. It’s so tricky to navigate these major cities, especially with social media and all of these best of lists. And what I love about your new book, Rome, is that you say it’s not a best of Rome book. It’s about the real Rome. How would you define the real Rome and how long did it take for you to discover it? I mean, I’ve been chipping away at it for almost a quarter century now. Incredible. There are many real Romes. Everyone who lives in Rome and obsesses over it has a reality shaped by what neighborhood they’ve lived in, where they work. And Rome is really dense and it’s gigantic. When I set about breaking down what I think is the real Rome, I was thinking about sharing with people the widest panorama that I could of how Romans eat, how they encounter their food system, where they shop, what they’re thinking about when they’re at a wine bar. And delivering, of course, recipes. But most of the book, as you’ve seen, not recipes. It’s culture, it’s history, it’s urbanism, all in the service of showing the full picture of Roman cuisine, which is not just at the trattoria. It’s not just at the pizzeria. It’s in homes. It’s in cafeterias. It’s in these small moments, Daniel and cobblestones, eating pizza, attempting not to stain your clothes. I would say I have a couple of white linen pants from a summer in Rome that did not quite come back unscathed. That’s on you. You got to think about patterns. Wear patterned clothes when you’re visiting. I know, I know. But the heat, it’s a balance. That’s real. As you’ve done a deep dive into these homes and side streets in the city, what is the one dish that if you’re going to eat or learn to make that really connects you to the country world? Something that always comes to mind that encapsulates a lot is rigatoni with sauce that oxtails have been simmered in. Oxtails are often written off as peasant food, when in reality, they were enticing to all classes. Popes ate them, peasants ate them. This is one of those myth-busting dishes that shows it’s really delicious, but it also has an ingredient that would be status-driven as well. What’s great about it is you can simmer oxtails for hours... serve the oxtail segments as your main and then just use the tomato based sauce to dress your rigatoni and it’s delicious it’s caloric it’s savory it’s practical and it’s pragmatic because we don’t have a lot of time anymore to hang out in rome and this like dolce farniente b******t that everyone lies about is not how we it’s not how we live everyone’s got a side hustle there’s no permanent work anymore and people have to really struggle to get by and when they cook they want it to have maximum impact and those one pot two meal situations are huge help Understanding the best way to navigate Italy is something that takes a long time to master. It’s something that people want to master, which is why I’m so excited to chat about your five rules for actually connecting with Italian culture. Cutting through all the Instagram, cutting through all the AI nonsense, cutting through all of the lists and guides, really understanding that to travel a country and to dig in is such a rewarding process. When you fly into Italy, you’re flying into Rome or Venice or Florence, one of the big cities. And your first rule talks about, while these places are great, and you’ve literally written the book on one of them, that you should explore other parts of the country. What’s your rule number one? My number one rule, skip Rome, Venice, and Florence, and don’t sleep on the secondary or tertiary destinations. This is a rule that goes against my self-interest. I have a tour company, and so I lead tours in Rome and Venice. Florence isn’t really my vibe, so I don’t bother with it. No, it sucks. I love Florence. Are you scandalized? A little scandalized. I know. There are Florence people and there are Rome people. I’m a Rome people. Now that I’ve turned the audience against me and the host. There are places, Senigalia on the Adriatic coast, Ravenna a bit further north, Campo Basso in Molise. When you’re thinking about regions to visit, everyone says like, oh, I’m going to Emilia-Romagna. And they go to Parma, Modena, and Bologna. And those are all very, very busy and popular right now. But they’re in Emilia. Right. Why not ditch Amelia and go to Romania instead? It’s amazing. It’s coastal. There are delicious lard-based breads everywhere. It’s fantastic. When you’re in these tertiary spaces, there’s a higher proportion of real live people who live and work there that you’re going to be encountering. They’re probably going to be less embittered. They’re going to speak less English, but you’ll still be able to have these experiences, whether it’s at the table or at your B&B or driving around and being at cafes where you’ll encounter the culture in a more profound way than when you’re on the well-worn tourist path. Yeah. People get on this well-worn tourist path. They’re chasing what they saw on social media or trying to get the same shot. But it would be really exciting for you to be the first person to post something on social media that other people can follow. But it’s hard not to get caught up in what is your rule number two. My rule number two is don’t believe TikTok. She lies. There’s so much bad information. The content creators who work in the Italy space, many of them have no idea what they’re talking about. Or they do know stuff, but they know that controversial takes are going to get the most views. So people are always like, Katie Parla, what if I want a cappuccino after 1130? In Rome, you can have that. No one’s going to get mad at you as long as it’s not ordered at a restaurant or trattoria. Go to any cafe. Also, you don’t have to eat 25 maritotsi when you’re in Rome. I couldn’t even name 25 places that do really good leavened buns filled with whipped cream. But you should have one at Santa Palata, which never ends up on social media, unfortunately. That consequently means that there aren’t lines around the block. This is a shame. She’s the best. Sarah Ciccolini rules. Be skeptical about what people say are the rules because there’s so many exceptions. And if you follow the social

    12 min
  5. Kristen Hawley

    JAN 19

    Kristen Hawley

    Technology has quietly rewritten the rules of dining out, and this episode gets into what that actually means when you sit down at the table. I’m joined by Kristen Hawley, founder of Expedite and one of the sharpest reporters covering the intersection of restaurants and tech. She shares her Five Rules for Technology in Restaurants, discussing why following a restaurant’s lead matters, how access has become the real currency of dining, and why taking an issue to the internet before addressing it in real life can cause real damage. These are practical rules for anyone who eats out and cares about how modern hospitality works right now. It’s always a relief to get etiquette advice from someone who actually understands how restaurants operate behind the scenes. Not someone guessing, not someone shouting into the void, but an industry insider who’s spent years watching how diners, staff, and systems collide. Kristen brings clarity without being preachy and context without excuses. These are the kinds of insights that make you a better guest, help restaurants do their jobs, and remind you that a good experience is usually a shared responsibility. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcription Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by my colleague, founder of Expedite and freelance journalist, Kristen Hawley, who’s here to share her five rules for technology in restaurants. She talks about the importance of following the restaurant’s lead when it comes to their policies, how by putting your phone away can ensure a better experience, and if there’s a problem with the dinner, to handle it IRL before you take it to the net. She is an absolute expert at the intersection of technology and dining out, and her insights are well informed and well founded. So let’s get into the rules. Kristen, so good to see you again. Thanks for stopping by. Always a pleasure to chat with you. I’m so excited to talk. Thank you. We met at one of the many restaurant technology conferences, and I couldn’t have found a better person to sit next to because you really report on the emerging worlds of tech and hospitality, which is something that’s really evolved to become ubiquitous these days. What fascinates you about that convergence? I started covering this industry more than a decade ago. The same thing fascinates me that got me started, which is the way that the diner experience changes inside a restaurant because of technology is such a fascinating social experiment and observation. I moved from New York to San Francisco in 2009. I noticed the way that restaurants felt different in San Francisco, which I immediately attributed to technology because it was 2009. Twitter was new. DoorDash hadn’t started yet. And it was really just changing the way that people acted in restaurants and their expectations. So that’s how it started. From the start to where it is today, you launched newsletter Expedite, which dives deeply into these topics. What have you found your readers responding to? What are the trends that you see sitting at the top of your most popular articles? People are really interested in stories about access, which can be reservations. It can just be access to chefs. It can be learning about restaurants. The most popular stories on Expedite tend to be about some form of access to restaurants in new ways, in old ways, in every way. It’s so funny because you talk about the old ways and the new ways, and it definitely is an evolving etiquette. How often do you see shifts? Is it gradual or is it a new app comes out or something drops and all of a sudden it’s a sea change? I would say that it happens in steps, but it’s not driven by technology itself. It’s usually driven by social things. I think the biggest shift was COVID, right? That was the biggest shift in the restaurant industry generally in a lot of ways, but it really changed the way that diners experience and the way that they expect to experience restaurants. They suddenly, very suddenly, expected more from a restaurant on a tech platform. They expected better delivery. They expected fast delivery. They expected, again, access. They expected correct information. There are moments where I can see, in retrospect, a big step change. I don’t think tech is driving that. I think social and environmental changes are driving that. And then the technology is just bolstering how people experience restaurants. I remember a time in restaurants where it was a pretty set rules of social etiquette, but those things have changed in the 15 to 20 years since I’ve been going out, especially as it relates to technology, which is why I’m so excited for you to chat about your five rules for technology in restaurants. Yes. Now, every restaurant is different from the mom and pop places to the Michelin stars. So it’s always good to understand where eating and what their approach is to tech, which is a big part of your rule number one. Rule number one, when it comes to technology, please follow the restaurant’s lead. If they are using a screen or a kiosk or a QR code, God forbid, there is a reason. Poor QR codes. Oh, so maligned. They obviously rose to prominence during COVID. They’ve evolved and some restaurants do use them for ordering for an open tab, for convenience, perhaps when they are short staffed or because they are short staffed. If there is technology inside of a restaurant, please assume that it is there because it needs to be and because the business has made a conscious decision to put it there. Sometimes you could feel even today that the tech is maybe invading your privacy or that you don’t want to share too much. Once you opt in to making a reservation or you get into the system, you’re in there all over the place. Being willing to give that information will actually help your dining experience, which aligns with your rule number two. Yeah, this builds off the first one. The same goes for checking in, follow the restaurant’s leads. You’re probably going to be asked for your phone number or some other identifying information, even if you walk in. It’s because the restaurant wants to link your presence to your profile. You should probably want this. If you’re an avid diner and you’re going out and you’re actively participating in the hospitality economy, it is the modern way to track activity. I can appreciate that it feels a little creepy. It can feel weird that a restaurant’s tracking you. There have been some outraged headlines about this recently, especially with some open table product updates. Restaurants have been keeping notes on diners for as long as they’ve been around. Yeah. This is the modern way. This is how they do it at scale. Just give your phone number. Just give your phone number or email address. They’re not trying to steal or take anything away from you. They’re just trying to give you a good experience. One could argue that the quality of your experience is how much you’re allowing to have tech be at your own table, which listen, we’re probably both guilty of this. I’m not going to sit here and say that I haven’t been super guilty of this, but try to think of a time and harken back to an era pre-computer in your pocket, which is your rule number three. Put your phone away. I am so, so, so bad at this. I am so bad at this. Big rule for someone who works in the industry who needs to take photos of food. I’m gonna put an asterisk on this for several things. Photos, sure. Checking your email every five minutes, probably not. I am a frequent solo diner because I travel a lot for work. And I will say too, I try to not use my phone when I’m sitting at the bar. I try to catch up on some print New Yorkers or maybe a Kindle just for reasons of trying to appear slightly more social. Yes. Everybody has a different tolerance for dining alone. But generally, if we’re going to complain about QR codes, if we’re going to complain about intrusions, keep the tech intrusions in your own pocket out of the experience. You bring up a good point because sometimes it is for work. Sometimes you are there working at a dinner, restaurant critics, secret diners, influencers, things like that, especially when a new restaurant pops up. If you’re going to have to shoot or make a video at the table, please keep this in mind for your rule number four. If you must film an influencer video or similar, consider your fellow diners. Book an early reservation, visit on a Tuesday, clear any additional lighting with a restaurant ahead of time. I recently got a confirmation email for a reservation. They like banned outfit changes. And I was like, what? What? That’s a thing that happens frequently enough that it’s in the FAQ that is emailed to a person who makes a reservation. Something I never considered. Influencing is a job. Reviewing is a job. Videos are a job. Photos are a job. I appreciate the hustle, but you got to consider the people that are dining around you. And in a dimly lit restaurant, when you break out the ring lights to take a photo, it is very intrusive and very distracting. You’ve had your meal. You’ve gotten the content. You’ve tried to read a book with your phone in your pocket. Let’s just be honest. Maybe it was a good meal. Maybe it was a bad meal. Maybe your job is to review meals. And we’ve seen this of recent where diners have taken to the internet to spread their grievances. We’ve all seen that this can really hurt a restaurant. Putting something out there in the digital space can leave a nasty footprint. And your fifth and final rule suggests dealing with this in real life before you take it to the web. What’s your rule number five? Talk to the manager before you review online if it is bad. If s

    10 min

  6. JAN 12

    Joshua McFadden

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, chef and cookbook author Joshua McFadden breaks down his Five Rules for Building a Pasta Dish in the Skillet. Drawing from his new book, Six Seasons of Pasta, Joshua shares game-changing insights that demystify the process and empower home cooks to make incredible pasta right in the pan. It’s about intuition, flavor, and letting the pasta do what it does best: bring comfort, joy, and a little magic to the table. Few things in life hit like a bowl of perfectly cooked pasta. It’s comfort food with soul, a dish that can be humble or heroic depending on what you bring to it. Learning how to master it, how to build flavor, balance, and confidence in a single skillet, is a real key to living the good life. Joshua’s rules take away the guesswork and give you a blueprint for something deeply satisfying. It’s not just about eating better, it’s about cooking smarter and feeling more connected to what ends up on your plate. Last week marked the first anniversary of the LA Fires. To honor the moment, I sat down with my good friend Travis Hayden for a profile in Fine Dining Lovers by Pellegrino. The piece is about his first year at the incredible Bar Etoile—equal parts celebration and reflection, especially as it coincides with him losing his home in the Palisades Fire. It’s a story about rebuilding, cooking through the chaos, and finding beauty in both the fire and the aftermath. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by author and chef Joshua McFadden, whose new book, Six Seasons of Pasta, is out on Artisan and available everywhere. He shares his five rules for building a pasta dish in the skillet, a method of cooking pasta that he has perfected. For anyone who’s ever wanted to learn how to salt your water, build the different layers of a dish, and how to finish with a seasonal flair, this is the episode for you. If you’re already an expert at cooking pasta and want to refine your skills, or you’re looking for a new advanced method, this is a conversation for you to enjoy. Let’s get into the rules. Joshua, so good to see you.I think it’s been a decade since the last time we ran into each other in Austin at your book event on South Congress. Thank you for making the time to sit down right now. It’s the busy season. Your book’s out. So good to see you. Good to see you too. Thanks for having me. I love the book. I think it’s really beautiful. One of the opening musings you have in the intro comparing the practice of cooking pasta to the art of writing poetry—and haiku specifically—are tied together. Why do you see these two disciplines as parallels? There’s the simplicity of it that really is fascinating to me. And when you really nail a perfect Pomodoro or a perfect pasta from its texture to all the things, it’s just so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s just a really special little moment in life. There’s very few things that give more joy than pasta. And arguably, push come to shove, it’s the most popular thing in the world. Even more than pizza. Start a war. One of the things I love about the book—and you’ve really built your career around—is the idea of seasonality. You’re known for your Six Seasons. Something that isn’t always tied to pasta is that it is a seasonal dish. Why do you think it is so important to think about pasta in this way? I think I just think about everything in that way, seasonality-wise. I just think it’s so fun to dive so deep into the moments that we’re in within a calendar year. I had my last strawberry several, several months ago, and I’ll have another one coming up here in early spring. Those moments are just anchoring for me. I agree. I’ve kind of always just shuffled around that dance with the seasons. I completely redid Thanksgiving this year based on turkey ragu and turkey meatballs. Again, really seasonally. This is the food. This is the flavor. This is the smell. This is the nostalgic idea of it all. And it just really kind of hit home. I’m a geek for it, for sure. I love that idea of just knowing that when I see spring peas or fresh herbs, it’s a memory. It’s a time of season. Just knowing that I have to wait for something for it to be properly good again, it just adds to the quality and the desire of the dish when the season comes around. Oh, so much. There’s just something about it. The smell, days are getting longer, lights changing. All those things factor into it. It really is, I think, a really special thing. Understanding that, it changes your life a little bit, I’d like to think. Knowing that you’ve put so much thought into what goes into cooking the pasta and when to cook it taps into—I’ll call it your rule zero—which is that cooking pasta is not easy. Mm-hmm. Which is tricky because it’s also one of the first dishes that most people learn how to cook. Exactly. I was making mac and cheese for myself—sure, out of the box—but that was in high school. Why is it such a hard dish to refine? You know, I remember having this conversation with the chef that I worked with a long time ago. I remember him saying, cooking a piece of fish or a piece of meat is really easy because you know the exact foundational rules of what you’re doing. There’s cues and there’s things and you can do it and blah, blah, blah. And I think when you’re in it with pasta, things can change. When it’s in the water, it might say 10 minutes on a box and it could be 14 or it could be six. Paying attention to those things and having all the right things set up. I would argue that I don’t think every single time you make it, it’s perfect. Even just the other day, something was a little bit too toothsome and overly al dente, but it was still great. I could have just given it 30 more seconds in the pan. So there’s always those moments. And I think that that’s why when I say it’s hard, that’s what I’m saying. You really should be paying attention because by the time you’re putting it in a bowl and getting ready to eat it, it’s go time. Up until then, there’s all these different things that can be happening. Too much sauce, not enough sauce, too much butter, cheese at the wrong moment—just a bunch of different things that can all go wrong. Knowing all the things that can go wrong and how to make them go right is something that anyone who cooks pasta always wants to know. And you have your own method, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for building a pasta dish in the skillet. Some of these rules are things that people think they innately know or they know how to do correctly. And it’s not saying they don’t know how to do it correctly, but to your point, it’s about refining it more and more every time. Rule Number OneGetting the water right. You have to have an alarming amount of salt for everyone that doesn’t understand it. But then you’re also understanding that it’s just seasoning the noodles that are in the water. It’s not about putting a bunch of salt in your body. It’s really just seasoning all that. You need a lot in the amount of water because you need a lot of water to be able to, when you put the pasta in, not lose its boil. And those things are very, very important. In the book, we give a ratio for it. Following that and understanding that and weighing that out and getting good at that—knowing that this is the pan I use and this is how much water is in this thing and then weighing out the salt, putting it in—I think is a really, really important thing because then you can check that off as that thing you’re not guessing. I think it’s really important to understand how the building blocks of “I learned from this and then I did this and then it didn’t work.” You follow all the things through. Which one did you not do? Maybe you didn’t add any salt because that can happen and it doesn’t taste like anything. It is definitely the most important thing. A lot of times I absolutely ignore the water-to-pasta ratio. I just throw as much water as I can into a pot where I think it’s going to be enough to cover. Same with the salt. And I go, let’s dump half a box of pasta in without thinking about the right amount. But you have dialed in a specific weight to the ratio of a perfect serving. Rule Number TwoPerfect portions for two. We did the whole book based on recipes for two people. Going back to the idea that I don’t think pasta is easy, that was the perfect way to start getting people to understand how to do it. Also, how to mess up, because they think that, oh, I got this. And then invite people over for dinner and all of a sudden they’re making pasta and it’s like, wow, it doesn’t taste like that. We would have gone the wrong way if we did it for four people, which is kind of typical. You have all this stuff for pasta, you don’t really need it. You can kind of double things up in a really beautiful way with pasta. So we really anchored it around two people and typically four ounces per person of pasta. That changes a lot with the shape of a noodle—rigatoni might look like the biggest bowl—and it’s still just a good generic rule, if you will, to follow, to really start understanding what’s right and what’s wrong, what tastes good, al dente, all those things that will actually teach you how to make pasta. Rule Number ThreeChoose the right pans. Obviously having a big pan for the water is super important so it doesn’t lose its boil. And then having a nice size 10- to 12-inch pan to be able to have the pasta and the sauce and being able to build it so you can all come together is really important. It’s one of those things that is, I would like to think, a very different mindset for when people are reading this book. They’re like, “Oh, it’s all going into the sauce for two minutes

    10 min
  7. David Gelb

    JAN 5

    David Gelb

    On this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with David Gelb, the creator of Chef’s Table and director of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, who shares his Five Rules for Creating a Body of Work You Love. We discuss how his early dreams of making sci-fi blockbusters shaped his unique documentary style, how technology shifts helped his early food storytelling, and why his five rules—such as making what you want to watch and surrounding yourself with collaborators you actually like—are essential for any creative looking to go the distance. It’s always a pleasure catching up with David. He’s someone I’ve known for years and whose work has helped shape how people talk about food on screen. Hearing his insights on how to sustain a long creative career—while staying true to one’s taste and values—is a reminder that the inside track is rarely a straight line. This episode is a great listen for anyone who wants to understand how things get made, what it takes to keep going, and how to build a life around telling the stories that matter to you. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. I’m always excited to sit down with today’s guest, David Gelb, creator of Chef’s Table, who’s here today to share his five rules for creating a body of work you love. He talks about the importance of making a thing you want to watch to be the base of anything you create, a tactful way to ask for and receive feedback, and that to ensure for a long career, always work with people you like. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s starting to think about the projects they want to make, create, or get going this year. So let’s get into the rules. David, so good to see you. Congrats on the Chef Table podcast. Always great to see you putting out new work into the world. And thanks for making time for the show. Of course, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Last time I saw you was at the Chef Conference in LA. We were actually chatting about the projects that— which I’ve seen from so many people these days, whether it’s a newsletter, social series, something like that. What do you think is driving this creative push for people to do their own thing? Well, I think that a lot of it is a technology thing. It’s sort of like when YouTube first started or whenever something becomes accessible, people are excited to do it. I think that’s great. It’s easy to get a microphone, a headphone. You don’t need to get into this specific studio space or can record nice footage on an iPhone now versus needing to get a big camera per se, or even being able to edit on a computer at home, which was something that was not attainable right before my generation of filmmaking. So I think the technology makes it possible and people have a lot to say. There’s an audience of people that are not watching TV and they’re on the internet. I know that advancements in technology and cameras has come so far since you started studying film in college. Did you ever think that these changes would allow you to make your first documentary? I suffered, or in some ways benefited, but mostly suffered from what I like to refer to as film school delusion, which is where you think that you are going to exit film school and then immediately go do a blockbuster, big budget movie, like a Star Wars reboot or Indiana Jones or something like that. Yeah, of course. I think it is specifically afflicts those who graduate from USC film school. The NYU kids think they’re going to make the next Goodfellas. I really had no intention of doing documentary. It only popped up when I saw the movie Fog of War, which I absolutely loved. I wanted to make The Matrix. I wanted to do like big action movies, really cool cinematography and all that kind of stuff. But then I could apply that to my doc work and I kind of fell into this niche and I realized I really liked it. So the opportunity to make Jiro Dreams of Sushi, this was a moment in technology because a new camera called the Red One had just come out that would allow me almost entirely on my own to be able to make it look like planet Earth, to be able to shoot with the shallow focus and have the slow motion without needing a film loader, without needing all that extra stuff. Even when I was making Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I didn’t think that I would still be doing Chef’s Table all these years later. It’s funny how it works out. And sometimes that’s the journey of life is you don’t get exactly what you came in looking for. You get what you actually needed in accepting who you are and the work that you actually do make. I think having that approach and that understanding of a long, creative, professional life, it comes to you later, not earlier, not when you’re a film student, but much later in life and allows you to just stay open to new ideas and new projects. How do you keep coming up with fresh ideas, how do you keep challenging yourself for the next project, for the next idea, for the next iteration of what you’re making? It comes from questions. What are the questions that I want answered that I’m curious about? And then how do I want to see it? What do I want it to look like? I have a project right now. It came in one form. And then I was like, oh, this world is actually quite interesting. And then I’ve kind of figured out the version of it that I want to watch. Being able to understand the work that you want to do and the work that resonates with people, having that meet in the center of a Venn diagram, it’s much more unique than I thought it would be when I was getting started as well, which is why I’m so excited for you to be talking about your five rules for creating a body of work you love. Even though you’ve moved on from the idealistic days of early college you, there is still that core of being creative about following your passion, telling the stories you want to tell, which ties directly into your rule number one. The first rule is make what you want to watch. That’s why I wanted to make The Matrix. I wanted to make the original Star Wars trilogy or make those things, but those things have already been made. My best work comes from, I’m making exactly the thing that I’m interested in that I want to be making. And I have the freedom and latitude to be able to do that. The good work comes from making it for yourself. And if I’m so lucky that the thing that I want to watch is what other people might want to watch or that somebody wants to pay for, I’m incredibly grateful for that. And that’s why I’m able to continue working. That’s the main first rule is follow your own taste. Following your own taste is a great way to get projects going and the extra passion that you put into it. But sometimes I have found that when I get fixated on one project, I’m not doing enough of what your second rule encourages. Number two, I mean, just do a lot of work. Yes. And it’s on to the next one because... Jiro Dreams of Sushi was not my first project or attempted a project, but I see people falling into a trap sometimes. And then I hear people, it’s like, oh, I’ve been working on this documentary for 15 years. I think that that is something that can be folly, where you bet everything only on this one thing. And the process of being a creator is you have to make things and then see how they go. And there’s a certain trial and error of creation that requires doing a lot of work. Ira Glass said it best, doing a huge volume of work because your taste is here, your skill level is only where you started. And so you’re trying to reach this level of taste. People give up because they can’t immediately hit their level of taste or they won’t finish the first project until they feel like it’s that good. But it only gets that good just through the process of making something, seeing, making something and seeing, making something and seeing. And so that’s the whole thing. A lot of work. Having a lot of bites of the apple really pays off in the end. And sometimes the projects that you thought were nothing or a toss away wind up becoming the big thing, the big opportunity. Sometimes that comes from getting feedback from other people who see something or say you could adjust this little thing and it opens up this whole new creative pathway, which ties directly into your rule number three. Listen to notes for the symptoms of the problem, but don’t overcorrect. Don’t lead the witness when you’re getting feedback. The audience is the patient and you’re the doctor. Yes. The audience is always going to ask for another Vicodin. They want the heavy pills. You cannot let the patient prescribe their own medication. We don’t do it. A lot of people you’ll show things to, this never happens anywhere more than it happens in film school, is everybody thinks that they have such important opinions and they want to solve the problem. What you’re looking for is what did it mean to you? Or did you ever feel confused or lost? But don’t let your audience prescribe the solution for you because you have to do it through your own filter. Sometimes it’s not just the audience giving you feedback. Sometimes it’s colleagues or the network or the studio. Oh, absolutely. And I know that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to take feedback and notes better. In fact, on the last thing that I was working on, my buddy said, it’s not a full teardown, but it needs a lot of work. And he opened up the whole thing for me. That only really comes from when you trust the people in your orbit and you can really be on the same page as them, which is a big part of your rule number four. Something that really matters is your team and working with people that you like, that you

    11 min
  8. Jonathan Kung

    12/29/2025

    Jonathan Kung

    This week on Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with chef, content creator, and author Jonathan Kung, a third culture trailblazer whose videos and cookbook, Kung Food, have brought millions into his creative kitchen. He shares his Five Rules For Harnessing Your Creativity, and we talk about where ideas really come from, why limitations help unlock creativity, and how sometimes the best dishes (and videos) are born when you’re cooking in the woods with two coolers and no plan. Jonathan’s five rules dig into the art of improvisation, the power of talking tools with your peers, and the deeper reason why we all create in the first place. Whether you’re a chef, artist, editor, or just someone trying to make cool stuff, this episode is a generous, honest guide to how it all gets done. This conversation really hits home if you’re someone staring down the new year and thinking about how to keep making, building, and growing. Jonathan’s approach to creativity feels both grounded and expansive. He breaks down the pressure of the “feed,” the myth of chasing trend cycles, and reminds us that creativity isn’t about following, it’s about refining your voice, your ideas, and your pace. This episode is packed with the kind of real talk that helps you set intention without burning out. Whether you’re deep in a project or just trying to find your next concept, these five rules give you a compass for staying inspired and making work that actually matters to you. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with chef, content creator, and author Jonathan Kung, whose videos and cookbook Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third Culture Kitchen are enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. He shares his five rules for harnessing your creativity and talks about the importance of finding inspiration in limitation, learning how to improvise to create something new, and how the key to all great success is good communication. It’s a fantastic conversation for anyone who’s looking to head into the new year with good intention about what they want to make and create. So let’s get into the rules. Jonathan, so great to meet you. Longtime fan of your content online and the food that you cook. Really appreciate you taking the time to sit down. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here. Being a content creator comes with the pressure of having to create something daily. How do you harness that consistency? My background, actually, in school, I studied theater and creative writing as a dual major in college. Somehow that has managed to make itself really useful in my career shift as a content creator. Basically, what I’ve done is use the things that I have learned over the course of my schooling and over the course of my life as a cook to inform the things that I do as a content creator. And I pretty much just derive inspiration from all sorts of sources. I’ve noticed that among my peers, one of the topics of discussion constantly when it comes to conventions for content creators and gatherings is: where do you get your ideas from? How do you ideate? When I was just starting out, I was like, oh, I have lots of ideas. Eventually, I will run out and I will need to listen to these people talk about where they get their ideas from. I’m over half a decade in and still I haven’t done a fraction of all of the things I wrote down. I’ve forgotten more ideas for videos to do than I’ve actually executed over five years. Yeah, you think you’re coming up with something new, then you check an old notebook and you’re like, oh wait, never mind. I had that. Do you see a difference between developing a tasting menu or making a video, or are you pulling from that same creative well for all the projects that you do? My sources of inspiration tend to be from the same place in the sense that I look to specific places for inspiration. What I try to avoid is looking to see what my neighbor is doing. Of course, when I was a chef, the last place I would look is other restaurants and other tasting menu concepts that were similar to mine to see what they were doing. Same as a content creator—the last thing that I’m really interested in following is a trend, which goes against what a lot of social media managers will tell you. In the context of social media, trends can give you short-term virality, but they really say nothing about you as an artist or creator or even as a person. When it comes to content, I love going to other mediums of art that are not necessarily connected to my own. When it was food, I loved going to the museum and looking at paintings. Watching films inspired me to do complete tasting menu concepts based off the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Though that is a concept that seems to have been done quite a bit now, I was doing that in 2008. There was really nothing like it, at least where I was. And people were coming in. I had this secret kitchen in Detroit that was completely unsanctioned and totally illegal. But I still had people coming in from Chicago and Toronto to try these things because they saw a Facebook event. What a time. The mid-aughts, man. What a time to be cooking. It was such a time of great millennial naivete. I absolutely loved it. I look back so fondly on that. Back to the thing about trends. Understand that trends are a tool for growth, but they are not a signature of your own expression. I think when you start basing a large collective of your creativity around trends, it might work on social media because it’s fleeting and it moves on. But when it comes time to something more permanent, like your first cookbook Kung Food, doing something on trends is a surefire way to only be on a few shelves. What was the process in discovering what you wanted to say with this book—picking the stories that you want to have be more permanent in people’s collections? One thing that short form media has done is really quickened the pace on how the general zeitgeist of any given topic works. It just accelerates the saturation so quickly. So when I was just starting off writing my book, I do believe it’s probably one of the first cookbooks with third culture cooking even in the title, and it was still a new concept back then. The inspiration for the book, I should say, is simply an expression of my own identity in food. There is an authenticity of self, and that was what I wanted to write in my cookbook. It’s not traditional Chinese food in any kind of way, but it is the Chinese food that is representative of who I am as a Chinese person and my experiences as a Chinese American. Having those experiences and being able to tap into that across your body of work—whether it’s a video or tasting menu or a cookbook—is great to see, which makes me so excited for you to share your five rules for harnessing your creativity. It’s easy to get lost in what other people are doing, especially when you’re doom scrolling or looking at other people’s Instagram feeds. And your first rule talks about focusing on yourself and ignoring that. What’s your rule number one? Rule 1: Ignore your peers and look to other artists. Branching out and finding inspiration, not in the people that do the same thing you do, but from the wider world around you. Understanding that everything can be a source of inspiration if you just think a little laterally. Think outside the confines of your own niche or industry. With that basic tenet of where to find inspiration, it really just becomes limitless. That being said, on the other side of the same coin, there is something great about creating a box and creating structure. Because today, there is the detriment of having unlimited options or choices or things at your fingertips that you become paralyzed. Rule 2: Find inspiration in limitation. After saying that the world is boundless and unlimited, I go right to the opposite end and just tell you that being limited can actually give you such a sense of urgency and just really allows you to focus down. One thing I like to do as a chef is go camping a lot. And I can’t take my kitchen with me. I can’t even take all the ingredients that I want with me. I’m extremely limited to what I can bring. I bring two coolers for fresh food. I have one box of unperishables—sugar, salt, spices, canned goods, camping staples, oats, some grains, what and whatnot, maybe some fried pasta. What I found was I was coming up with recipes that I would never have come up with in the kitchen. And what’s more, they are recipes that I find the average everyday cook is able to do. Because if I can do it in the woods with no running water, electricity, and just some logs and flame, it’s in general easy enough for somebody with a normal kitchen to execute. So not only has it improved my ability to cook as a recipe developer, but it’s also improved my ability to cook as a former professional cook to now a teacher for people who are hobbyists and home cooks. Rule 3: Learn how to improvise. Improvisation is, just like cooking, a skill on its own—the ability to not lock up under pressure. I realized that inspiration can come directly from the moment. I was cooking for another chef. They were catering a wedding. They had everything planned out. They knew who every guest was. But lo and behold, there was a surprise vegan. And I don’t hit on vegans. I was a vegan for two months and a vegetarian for two years. In that moment when you have everything planned out and there wasn’t even really a kitchen there—we were doing banquet style cooking—everything was prepared. So I literally was taking sides here and there and concocting a sauce and came up with a really great dish that the person really liked. And o

    13 min
See All (41)

About

Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so. fiverules.substack.com

Information