- Hey, what's up guys?
My name is Andrew Rea.
I make a YouTube channel called "Binging With Babish"
and today I'm doing the WIRED
"Autocomplete Interview" [words click]
[upbeat instrumental music]
Hey, what's going on everybody?
From "First We Feast", I'm Sean Evans
and this is "Hot Ones".
It's the show with hot questions and ever hotter wings.
Sorry.
First one.
Where does Andrew Rea
live? [paper clicks]
I live here in sunny New York City.
I live in SoHo right now and I'm currently in the terrifying
netherworld where I just had an offer accepted on a home
that I bought in Brooklyn but it's still on the market
so I'm just sitting freaking out.
The whole time during this interview know that I'm just
constantly freaking out in the back of my mind
about this house.
Anywho, I live in SoHo
and hopefully I'm about to live in Brooklyn.
Where does Andrew Rea
come from? [paper cracks]
I come from Rochester, New York.
Oh, you're from Rochester. [muffled speaking]
All right, what's your name, sir?
- [Cameraman] Cory.
- I come from cameraman Cory's hometown.
It's the birthplace of such fallen giants
as Kodak and Xerox. [chuckles]
I have a Kodak tattoo, actually.
This is my hometown pride tattoo.
A lot of people think that this is apparently
a symbol from "Dragon Ball Z".
I have not seen "Dragon Ball Z" so people will be like,
"Oh, sweet 'Dragon Ball Z' tattoo."
I'll be like, "Thanks."
This is actually the original Kodak logo from 1911.
EKC, Eastman Kodak Company.
I saw that, I thought it was so cool, first of all,
that a logo like this existed in 1911.
It was wild.
I wanted something that was a little bit of
like a Rochester hometown pride.
I also wanted a reminder to never get caught in my ways
and always be looking forward.
Unlike Kodak.
Where is Andrew Rea's recipe? [paper cracks]
I don't know. [laughs]
What does that mean?
Where's Andrew Rea's recipe?
You can find my recipes on any of my websites
bingingwithbabish.com, basicswithbabish.com.
That's probably what you're asking.
But is it a recipe for me?
Where is my recipe for who I am?
I can't answer that for you, bro.
Where is Andrew Rea with hair?
What's the [beep]? [laughs]
Where's Andrew Rea with hair?
Like in an alternate universe or something?
He's dead, I killed him 'cause he was insecure
'cause he was losing his hair. [laughs]
So next. [sign clacks]
How old is Andrew Rea? [paper clicks]
I'm 32 years of age as of September 2nd of 2019.
I was born in September 2nd of 1987
at approximately 5:08 p.m.
I don't know if that's true.
September 2nd, 1987.
How tall is Andrew Rea?
I'm five foot nine on a good day. [chuckles]
It's the truth.
I went to the doctor recently and she said,
"Okay, you're five foot seven."
And I was like, "Do it again."
And I stood up real straight and I managed to squeak out
a five 8.5 without shoes on so I wear these boots
they give me a solid half an inch [chuckles]
so I'm a respectable height.
But you're only as tall as you act.
Remember that, folks.
How does Andrew Rea cook? [paper cracks]
With pot and pans.
With a knife, sometimes.
Experimentally.
I'm very okay with making mistakes
and I make a point of showing my mistakes on the show
'cause I want people to not be discouraged
when they make mistakes in the kitchen.
To view them as the learning experiences they are,
both in the kitchen and in life.
This is way deeper question
than this person was anticipating.
How does Andrew Rea know? [laughs]
The answer to that is I don't.
I really don't know what the [beep] you meant by that.
[paper cracks]
How does Andrew Rea live? [laughs]
Are they always like this?
I've watched a few episodes, I don't remember them
being this existential.
How does Andrew Rea live?
One day at a time, mother [beep].
One day at a time, figuring it out,
just like everybody else.
Everybody's just trying to figure it out, okay.
Nobody knows what they're doing.
Everybody's trying to figure it out just like you.
That's the best advice that I ever got
and that's not what that was intended for.
I don't know that that was but I hoped that we gleaned
some useful information [sign clacks]
out of it.
Can Andrew Rea?
This should be good.
Can Andrew Rea age? [chuckles]
Yes, as we speak.
I have gotten about five years older looking
since we've been sitting here.
Can Andrew Rea read? [laughs]
Yeah.
Yep, that's how I read that.
Can Andrew Rea fly? [laughs]
I should have taken like a big bong rip
before I did this so I could--
I didn't realize that these were gonna be so, so out there,
these questions.
Can Andrew Rea fly?
No, I can't fly.
[paper cracks]
Did somebody actually ask that?
Was that an actual search term?
- [Interviewer] These were actual
search terms. - Can Andrew Rea fly?
- What?
Was it a typo?
All right, can Andre Rea podcast?
Yes, I can.
I have a podcast called "Bedtime with Babish"
where I read-- [chuckles]
No good way to describe this.
I always say, "Where I read adult bedtime stories."
And that always sounds pornographic.
And what it really is is Walt Whitman. [chuckles]
Things that grown ups might want to listen to
when they're falling asleep.
What's next? [sign clacks]
Andrew Rea
cookbook. [paper cracks]
Yes. [laughs]
So there's two of 'em.
Andrew Rea cookbook is available now.
Two cookbooks, actually.
My first one is called "Eat What You Watch"
and it's more of a, kind of a coffee table book.
It's food from movies and it's some very pretty photography
recreating the actual scenes from the movie.
It's cool.
My newer cookbook, the "Binging With Babish" companion
cookbook is the first hundred recipes from the show
and it is a must have for any Babish fan, young or old.
Maybe not too young because there's some profanity
and drug use.
Andrew Rea restaurant. [paper cracks]
One day.
I was planning on opening a brew pub this year
but that has been delayed to 2021
'cause I got some big stuff cooking.
Some big things coming out this year.
Very excited to share with you guys.
I can't share it with you just yet
but keep an eye out for it.
A restaurant, or brew pub is very much
in the plans for 2021.
Andre Rea victory. [paper cracks]
You goddamn right.
Did Andrew Rea eat?
Yes. [chuckles]
Yes, I did.
I had a wholesome breakfast this morning.
Single-fried egg with a ring of sriracha around the yolk.
I wasn't even on camera, I just did it for funzies.
Two slices of very thin bacon, which is why I felt like
it was okay two slices, and a slice of wholegrain toast.
And then for lunch I just had a frigging ostrich egg
up in Bon Appetit, go check it out.
Yeah, I ate.
[sign clacks]
What'd we got? [sighs]
Is Andrew Rea
a chef? [paper cracks]
No, I'm not.
And I say that as often as possible
because people will say, "Yes, chef,"
or they'll be like, "Thank you, chef,"
or, you know, "Chef Andrew Rea in town this week,"
or whatever.
And I am not a chef.
My work in restaurants has been limited to
a dessert platter at a restaurant in Brooklyn
called The Chocolate Room
and as a server at a place in Rochester called--
And a crepe maker at a place called Simply Crepes,
in Rochester.
So no, I'm not a chef, I'm an enthusiastic home cook
and I wanna make that distinction
for two very important reasons.
First off, because I haven't earned that title.
People who are chefs put in their hours
in insane work conditions that I've never had to endure
and also because I am a home cook
and I want people to see what I do and think,
"If this doofus can do it, surely I can do it."
So I want people to know that I am a home cook.
I have never had any formal training,
anything like that. [paper cracks]
Is Andrew Rea married?
No, I am not.
I was for a little bit and not anymore.
And I'm not gonna go any deeper into that [chuckles]
out of respect to all those involved.
I am no longer married but I am attached
to a lovely young woman named Jess.
Is Andrew Rea a violinist? [paper cracks]
[laughs]
You guys have a violin?
Do you wanna find out?
You don't have a violin, do you?
- [Interviewer] No, but you can play the smallest violin.
[paper cracks]
Is Andrew Rea zero? [laughs]
This is getting into some like theoretical physics here.
Is Andrew Rea zero?
Yes?
Oh [beep], this is actually cool.
I'm dying to get a zero tattoo on my neck
where Lakeith Stanfield has his number three
just because he has his there
and he's the hottest human being alive.
I wanna get one in the same spot that's a zero
'cause I think zero is the most fascinating concept.
There was no symbol for zero in European culture
for hundreds of thousands of years.
I don't know the exact figures, don't quote me on that.
But zero, there was no symbol for it
because it represents the abyss,
it represents the absence of anything
which if you are tied up in dogmatic ideologies
or whatever, you cannot fathom the idea of nothing
and embracing the void
is an important philosophical concept, I think.
So having a symbol that denotes that,
it's like not being afraid of death.
Embracing and jumping into the void.
I really like that concept
and so I really wanna get a zero on my neck
and I'm just hoping it doesn't alienate too many viewers
when I do something like that.
Is Andrew Rea "Binging With Babish"?
Yes, I am.
Next question. [sing thuds]
[paper cracks] Who is "Binging With Babish's"
roommate?
Well, so back when I was starting to make the show,
his name was Rashid Daroso.
He is one of my--
Was, that's still his name, he's alive.
He's still living in that apartment.
He is one of my oldest and dearest friends,
probably the oldest friend that I have
'cause he was the first friend that I made
when I moved to a new school in 9th grade.
He's one of my oldest and dearest friends.
We still hang out on the regular.
And he is still up in that apartment
that I was making the show in previous.
Now, I do not have a roommate.
I will soon when I move in with Jess.
How did "Binging With Babish"
start? [paper cracks]
Quite by accident and the evidence is in the name.
"Binging With Babish" is kind of a stupid name.
And I picked it arbitrarily after my Reddit handle
as a joke.
I picked my Reddit handle arbitrarily.
Oliver Babish is a character from eight total episodes
of "The West Wing".
I like naming online usernames after obscure characters
from TV shows.
For example, an old Reddit username of mine was
Cam Winston from "Frasier".
He was Frasier's main antagonist for like two seasons.
You know, anybody who gets it, we're automatically friends.
[chuckles] So anybody who gets Oliver Babish,
I know you've seen enough "West Wing"
to have memorized that one character.
It's like a litmus test for who's gonna be your buddy.
So it's very clear that I had no intention
of this becoming my career
or anything that I would pursue full time.
And it started when I was just screwing around
in my kitchen.
I set up a camera, "Parks and Rec" was on in the background,
I wanted to test out my food photography skills,
and Ron and Chris were having a burger cook-off.
And I was like, "Hm, what would that taste like?"
And was like, "Hm, maybe I should just do that on camera
"and just make it as sort of an exercise,
"a creative exercise."
Now, here we are talking about it on "GQ".
- [Interviewer] It's "WIRED".
- [beep] [production team laughs]
Now, we're gonna talk about it on "WIRED".
So that's why I named my Reddit handle Oliver Babsih
and then I named the show after my Reddit handle
'cause I was making the show expressly for Reddit.
I never intended it for it to go anywhere else.
That's that.
Now, it's history.
Now, we're talking about it on "WIRED".
How "Binging With Babish" Jon Favreau?
I assume that means how did I like meet him
or how did we get acquainted?
I found out when I, around when I had 800,000
or so subscribers that he was a fan of the show.
He had tweeted about me when I did the Cubano sandwich
and pasta aglio e olio, he tweeted those videos.
And then when I hit a million subscribers,
he tweeted, "Congrats on hitting a million subscribers."
And when he did that I had just signed with an agency,
I just signed with William Morris Endeavor.
I asked my agent, which was the most exciting sentence
in the world at the time,
I was like, "Can you reach out to Jon's people?
"I really wanna do something with him.
"He clearly cares about food as a construct
"and as a plot device and as a character in movies
"and I think he would appreciate what I do."
The same day, his team reached out and they said,
"We're making this new cooking show,"
which turned out to be "Chef Show" on Netflix.
"We're making this new cooking show.
"Would you like to come by and be on that show?
"And, in turn, Jon will be on your show."
I was dancing around my apartment.
I was never been so happy in my entire life.
Meeting him was the single most exciting
and important experience of my life.
He gave me advice that I hold dear to my heart, to this day.
He shepherded me into this wild new world
that I've entered into where I'm meeting celebrities
and I'm making things that are seen by millions of people.
He had some words of wisdom about that.
It was several years ago.
It was during the winter Olympics.
And while we were there, somebody tagged him on Instagram.
They were an Olympic luge, luger.
They had Iron Man on their helmet
and they tagged Jon in the photo and he saw it,
and he brought it over to me and was like,
"Look at this, this is a almost 10 year old movie
"that affected somebody to the point where they put it on
"their helmet while they're representing themselves
"and their country.
"That is the most magical thing that I could imagine
"happening from one of my films
"is that it could affect somebody to that degree.
"This is what's special about what we do."
And first of all, he said, "What we do."
He plumped us in the same category,
which blew my [beep] mind. [laughs]
And what he meant was telling stories.
I'm doing it in a much smaller way,
to a much smaller audience,
but I'm telling stories and it creates connections
and it creates communities around the things that you do.
It's such a special experience and it's become
the most important part of what I do.
And so that's one of the many pieces of wisdom
that he dropped on me that day.
And he just shepherded me into this new sort of world.
That was a very long answer
to what I hope that question was about.
We'll see.
- [Interviewer] Have you asked him to get on
"The Mandalorian" yet?
- I would be honored, Jon, to be in
"The Mandalorian" season two.
Call me, you have my number.
He actually has my number and one time he called me
when I was in the shower and I came out and it said
missed call Jon Favreau and my [beep] exploded. [laughs]
[paper cracks] How does "Binging With Babish"
cook a steak? [laughs]
Got really oddly specific towards the end.
Really depends on the steak,
is the correct answer to that question.
Skirt steak or something thin that needs high heat,
you're blasting it with heat in a pan and that's it.
You're just charring the [beep] out of it
and keeping it mediumish on a skirt steak
because you can cook it a little bit more
and it will still stay tender and juicy.
We're getting in the ribeye territory,
you know steakhouse-thick steak territory.
I'm a big fan of the reverse sear.
I like it either way, searing and then finishing in the oven
or oven and then finishing in the pan.
It's the best way to get steakhouse-like results.
And also butter basting.
Butter baste your steaks, for God's sake.
Almost any steak, I would say, you should do that.
That's how I cook steak.
[sign clacks]
And medium rare, depending on the steak again,
but medium rare.
Did "Binging With Babish"
[paper cracks] go to culinary school?
I did not, that's a good question.
I'm a very avid home enthusiast.
I've considered a few times going to culinary school
to amp up my chops since I host a cooking show
but any skills that I have you've seen me sharpen them
over the years.
If you go back and watch some of my videos
from four years ago you're gonna see me do some stuff
that I would not do now
and that's because I'm learning right along with you.
Why does "Binging With Babish" use kosher salt?
I'll tell you why.
Because kosher salt is the perfect texture for pinching.
It's the size of the grain, really, that counts.
With table salt, you can't pinch, you have to sprinkle it
and it's very salty because in a teaspoon of table salt
you have much more salt
because of how small the granules are.
There's a lot more salt in any given volume,
be it a teaspoon or a tablespoon,
than there would be or a teaspoon
or a tablespoon of kosher salt.
So it's more forgiving in measured recipes
and with seasoning things you don't measure like,
you know you're just seasoning your eggs or
something you're sauteing, it's much more forgiving.
And you wanna do that with your hands,
you wanna feel how much salt you're putting into the dish.
So you can pinch it,
that's the great thing about kosher salt
is you can pinch it.
You could use sea salt, you could use anything else
that you could pinch.
You could use Maldon flaky salt
but that's more of a finishing salt
'cause it has texture to it.
It's big and flaky and crunchy.
I, and most chefs, like kosher salt because it's forgiving,
you can pinch it, you can feel how much salt is going
into the dish.
It's an essential part of like really understanding
why food behaves the way it does.
Is "Binging With Babish"
allergic to bananas? [paper cracks]
I don't know.
Honestly, I don't know.
The only reason I think I'm allergic to bananas
is because I ate a banana the day before my wedding
and I blew up like a frigging balloon.
I turned red and I doubled in size and volume.
Had to drive myself to the hospital
and the only thing I'd eaten that day was a banana
so I've always assumed it was bananas since then.
And the only way to disprove it is to eat a banana
in front of a physician and have him just sitting there
with the epinephrine just waiting to inject me.
And it's just too scary of an experience
and I don't care enough about bananas to
go through that, so we'll see.
Thank you, internet, so much for these awesome
and sometimes befuddling questions.
Thank you, "WIRED" for having me
and keep cooking.
I will if you will.