- I'm Sohla El-Waylly,
and this is everything I eat in a day.
(whimsical music)
Well, the first thing I do when I wake up
is look at my phone.
It's a really bad habit that I'm trying to work on.
After I do that, I have like weird eating habits.
I think a lot of times people think
that when you're in food, you eat really well,
but it's actually the complete opposite.
When I was a line cook,
I usually didn't eat anything until after my shift,
and then I would go to the bodega
and have like a six pack of beers and a sandwich,
a bunch of potato chips.
So now I'm trying to eat like a person.
So the first thing I do, I make a glass,
a weird mixture of like adaptogens
and things that are supposed to be good for you.
So I'll have a warm glass of water
with a whole lemon squeezed into it,
some freshly grated ginger and turmeric,
black pepper, like ashwagandha root, maca powder,
collagen, and CBD oil.
I chug that, it's pretty disgusting,
but I don't know, I think it makes me feel better,
even if it doesn't and it's a placebo,
it's doing something, I think.
I alternate between coffee and matcha,
it kinda depends on how I'm feeling in the morning.
If I'm really tired, I'll have some coffee.
Black coffee, I usually do French press.
I have terrible taste in coffee,
I get whatever is free.
There's always a bag of coffee somewhere.
And I don't have a coffee grinder, I usually get it ground.
Or I have been known to put it in a Vita-Prep
and blitz it up.
This is a total no-no.
Anyone who drinks coffee will tell you,
this is not how you have coffee,
but most mornings I don't actually need that much caffeine,
and I just like to have a little matcha.
I feel like it's a much like chiller way to start the day.
I get this matcha latte mix
that already has a little
coconut milk powder and coconut sugar.
It's super easy 'cause it doesn't clump,
and it's creamy and perfectly sweetened,
and totally ready to go.
So, that's usually my morning beverage of choice.
If I'm hungry, maybe I'll have breakfast.
I usually don't.
If I'm just like a little bit hungry,
I like to have a little chicken bone broth.
If I know I'm gonna have a really busy day
and I'm not gonna have time to eat,
then I'll have a smoothie.
It's not a delicious smoothie.
So far I'm not having anything delicious.
(laughs)
It's a nutritious smoothie.
So I like to have a little kefir,
like a whole bunch of kale.
Oh, the dog, the dog, she's making so much noise.
Okay. All right.
My smoothie.
Kefir is a fermented dairy product,
it's a little bit fizzy.
It has the body of buttermilk with a milder tang.
And I really like it because it's portable,
so I don't have to deal with like
digging yogurt out with a spoon
'cause in the morning I'm super lazy.
I'll do like a whole bunch of kale.
It's way too much kale, this is not taste good.
Like literally a bunch.
And then I'll do some tahini,
some dates, pea protein, and whey, not whey protein,
what are they called?
Hemp, hemp, a little pea protein and a little hemp protein,
blitz that up, it does not taste good,
but it keeps me full.
That smoothie will carry me through the day.
I have to start the day really healthy
because it just evolves.
It gets really bad, really fast.
Like right now, holiday season,
I'm developing so many cookies.
We got shortbread happening,
toffee, pound cake, and I have to taste it.
I probably don't have to taste as much of it as I do,
but it's really hard to stop, you know?
Like, delicious pound cake right out of the oven.
So that's why I start really healthy
'cause it just goes down the tubes.
If I'm shooting, then it ends up being a more normal day.
I normally don't stop for lunch,
but when I work with Babish
from the Babish Culinary Universe,
Andrew Rea, they always have lunch.
The first few shoots I was like,
"Nah, I'm not having lunch,"
but they kind of forced it on me.
So I usually have lunch with them.
The thing we get the most is probably Sweetgreen,
a salad with sweet potatoes, beans, tofu.
It's really healthy, it does, like, slow me down,
I feel like.
I feel like lunch is like a very inefficient thing.
If I'm developing recipes,
I usually end up snacking on that.
If I'm writing, then I make snacks
and then it gets a little more exciting.
I really like popcorn.
I think I have the best method for popping popcorn.
There's some tools involved.
Can I grab it?
I have it. Hold on, we're at home, this is the benefit.
Okay so, this is a Whirley Pop.
It's super lightweight.
The spindle deal that you crank,
Ooh, it's gonna keep the kernels moving,
so it's gonna heat up really evenly,
but also it's gonna help the steam escape.
And then I douse it in seasoning.
My favorite is nutritional yeast, kosher salt, dried dill,
pepper, sugar, just a pinch,
garlic powder, and onion powder.
Blitz that up, and it's like Cool Ranch vibes.
It's really good.
I like most things.
When I first started getting into cooking,
I was actually a super, super, super picky eater.
I didn't actually like meat at all,
but I didn't wanna be biased.
And I wanted to be able to develop all kinds of recipes.
So I made a point to eat everything.
And now I don't think there's anything I don't like.
Ever since working from home,
I feel like you're just kinda working around the clock.
So dinner can be, sometimes I'm done working at like six,
sometimes I'm done working at eight.
What I eat really varies too.
If I had a big day of recipe testing
and there's a bunch of food, I'll just eat that.
And I really don't enjoy it.
I hate eating something I've been working on all day.
I can't just like, let all that food go to waste.
So I end up eating a lot of that, it's purely sustenance.
I often get takeout.
My favorite place to get takeout is Uncle Boons.
Is it Uncle Boons, or Uncle Boons Sister?
- Ah, it's Uncle Boons Sister.
- Okay, yeah. Okay.
So my favorite place to get takeout
is Uncle Boons Sister.
It's Thai food, it's kind of Thai food.
I wouldn't call it Thai,
but my favorite thing there is the papaya salad.
A normal papaya salad, traditionally,
it's like pounded together with the fish sauce,
dried shrimp, Palm sugar.
They make theirs a little bit different,
it's more of like a coleslaw.
The papaya and carrots are all shredded.
And then you get your dressing, peanuts,
and then you toss it at home.
That's totally not the traditional way,
but I really like it 'cause it's more crisp.
And then they also sell something that they call laab.
Laab is traditionally like a minced meat salad.
This isn't laab at all, it's chicken nuggets.
It's an excuse for me to eat chicken nuggets
and not feel like a child.
It's basically chicken nuggets
with this spicy gingery sauce,
and cucumbers on the side.
There's another place called Han Dynasty.
They have really good Sichuan food.
I'll get some vegetable fried rice.
I really like their steamed bok choy,
but then my favorite dish there
is basically another variation of chicken nuggets.
(laughs)
They're these twice fried chicken bits
that are then coated in like Sichuan peppercorns
and chili oil, it's got it all.
But once again,
it's just like another way to eat chicken nuggets.
I guess on the weekdays,
I just like don't wanna deal with anything too difficult.
You know, you just want shove some nuggets in your face
and call it a day.
I live in Manhattan,
but I think my favorite food city is LA.
I grew up in LA, you can get the best tacos
and then turn around and get the best pho,
and then get the best sushi.
In like a shopping mall, right next to the Albertsons,
you'll find spectacular sushi.
It has a ton of affordable, great options
that I don't think you'd get anywhere else.
If I do cook at home during the week, it's super simple.
I like to do a lot of like spreads
that are like kind of DIY.
One of my favorites is to make hand rolls.
So I'll make a pot of rice, toast up your Nori sheets,
and then pull out some pickles.
Right now we're really, really obsessed
with these Japanese pickles called Fukujinzuke.
It's fermented in rice bran.
They're really a little bit sweet, a little bit salty,
little hint of funk.
So you just like have a pot of rice,
toasted Nori, pull out some of those pickles,
little soy, little wasabi,
and then stick whatever you've got in there.
Like, cook a piece of salmon, seer it skin side down,
flip it over and just kiss it.
Put that in your hand rolls.
Oh, that's really good.
We get a little crazy on the weekend.
Well, my husband is also a chef,
so we do like really crazy meals,
like a full spread of Spanish tapas,
make our own papas bravas, gumbo alheio,
pick up some really good cheese,
make a Spanish tortilla,
maybe go for some like croquettes.
It'll end up becoming like 15 things on the table,
and we spent all day cooking it
and then we'll spend all evening eating it.
So the weekends get really fun.
I want to have dessert after every meal.
I'm trying to control myself and just have it for dinner.
And my favorite dessert is ice cream.
My parents have an ice cream store
and I grew up around that.
So, a little bit of ice cream
at the end of the night for me is perfect.
My favorite ice cream is by Jeni's.
All of her ice cream is Philadelphia style,
so there's no egg yolks, it's just milk and cream.
So I really love her.
She has one that's like, what is it?
Huckleberry? Brambleberry, brambleberry pie.
So it's a vanilla ice cream with a swirl of Brambleberry
and like crumble in there, so it feels like a whole dessert.
My favorite flavor that she ever made is discontinued,
it's called Supermoon,
and it was a violet flavored ice cream
swirled with marshmallow flavored ice cream.
It was really floral and delicate.
And I think I'm the only person in the world that liked it.
But I was really sad that that's gone.
Jeni, if that comes back, please send me a pint.
So that's everything I eat in the day.
Thanks for watching.