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Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Darin Bresnitz
Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so.
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- 6 days ago11 min
Dave Beran
"Great risk, great reward, great failure, but great reward." - Dave Beran James Beard Award–winning chef Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica, joins me to share his Five Rules for Finding Your Culinary Voice. We talk about the importance of self-awareness, learning how to accept the hard truth, and surrounding yourself with people who believe in you enough to tell you what you need to hear. Dave also explains why defining your identity gives you the foundation to take bigger risks—and why confidence sometimes has to arrive before certainty. Together, his rules offer an honest look at the long, complicated, and deeply personal process of discovering who you are through the work you make.What I love about Dave is his continued effort to refine his voice, even after the awards, the acclaimed restaurants, and all the proof that he could simply keep doing what already works. He remains willing to question himself, listen to hard truths, and keep editing until the food feels completely his own. Finding your voice is not a single revelation; it is a lifelong process of paying attention, taking risks, and having the confidence to change when something no longer feels true. Watching Dave continue to do that work reminds me that mastery is not about reaching a final destination—it is about caring enough to keep searching.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline here in Santa Monica.He is the recent recipient of Best Chef: California from the James Beard Awards and is here to share his five rules for finding your culinary voice. He talks about the importance of self-awareness, being able to define your identity, and having the confidence to take risks. It is a great conversation for those starting their culinary journey and those looking to refine their cuisine as they move through their career.If you have a moment, please subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you listen. So, let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Finding a Culinary VoiceDave, always a pleasure to see you. Congratulations on everything. Welcome to the show.Thanks for having me. Great to be here.Going back to that first restaurant job you had in Bay Harbor, Michigan, at Latitude, did you have an idea of the chef you wanted to be, and has anything stuck from that time?No, I had no idea. Latitude was cool. That was a fun summer job. I’d just eaten at a couple Chicago restaurants with my dad. Went there and I saw this, like, cool, fancy restaurant that seemed fun.Sure.Started cooking there. I was 19. I just thought it was neat. It was artistic. The food tasted good and everyone who worked there was cool.Yeah.This is a fun place to be. I didn’t know. I had no idea.Chicago is where you made your bones, and you worked at some of the most legendary restaurants, like Tru and Alinea. Now you have your own spots like pasjoli and Seline. What was the moment when your culinary voice started to coalesce?There’s been several points. For me, it’s been a moving target. There’s been a lot of times where I’m like, “Oh, this is me. Oh, now this is me.”Sure.As of recently, it’s the most confident I’ve been in what I’m trying to do. It’s very much ebbed and flowed. At Alinea, there was a point where I would say a quarter to a third of the dishes on the menu were things I’d created.It’s incredible.I thought they were mine. The bubblegum dish at Alinea was a very famous dish. In hindsight, yes, that was my dish, but that dish doesn’t exist without Grant Achatz and Alinea, for that matter. I was very good at doing what I could do through his lens and accentuating his own thought process and, frankly, helping to evolve the thing that he’d created.I get to Next and it’s all new. I hit a window of three menus—Hunt, Vegan, and Kaiseki—where I felt like this was my food. This was my style of menu. Now I look at some of those dishes in hindsight and I think it’s not so much that I had an identity as much as that’s when I felt most confident. They’d created a foundation for me to be creative. That was a framework. I was creating within that framework.I was very quickly reminded that it was not mine when we switched to Steakhouse. Suddenly, I was making a steakhouse menu, and the internal fights around that menu and the personal struggles that I had of, “I’m not going to do a four-course with à la carte,” and ego gets in the way. I realized that my creative evolution was ultimately going to do a disservice to that restaurant because the more in tune with what I was doing, the more in tune with myself and my desires, the more I was moving away from the philosophy of a restaurant that always changed
- 1 weeks ago10 min
Vanya Filipovic, Marc-Olivier Frappier & Jessica Noël
"If your vibe is you got there at five, but at midnight you’re still there because you just can’t get enough, we’re definitely not gonna kick you out. We’re gonna find a way to make it all work, and that’s where the sidewalk tables get created. Always leave room for excess is something we swear by." - Vanya FilipovicVanya Filipovic, Marc-Olivier Frappier, and Jessica Noël, the co-owners of Montreal’s beloved Mon Lapin, join me from Montreal to share their Five Rules for Hosting Like a Montrealer. We talk about making room when there is none, finding the magic in a winter storm, never underestimating the wine, loving people more than perfection, and always leaving room for excess. Their rules capture the particular generosity of Montreal hospitality: the table is crowded, the bottles keep opening, and nobody is looking at the clock.I love these people, and I love Montreal—the food, the wine, the cold, the warmth, and the way a night there can become something larger than you planned. Few places have shaped the way I think about restaurants and hospitality more deeply, and talking with Vanya, Marco, and Jessica brings all of it rushing back. This episode takes me home, to a city where there is always another chair to pull up, another glass to pour, and every good meal feels like it could last forever.Five Rules for Hosting Like a MontrealerIntroductionHello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m back in the motherland of Montreal, chatting with the co-owners of Mon Lapin, Marc-Olivier, Vanya, and Jessica, whose new cookbook, The Mon Lapin Cookbook, will be out on Phaidon this fall and is available for pre-order anywhere you can get your books.They are here to share their five rules for hosting like a Montrealer. They talk about the importance of always pulling up a chair for one more person at the table, to see the excessive cold during the winter as a positive, and to leave your watch at home when decadence is on the menu. It is a conversation that means so much to my heart and reminds me of why I love the city and the people of Montreal so much.So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Montreal, Mon Lapin, and the People Behind ItVanya, Jessica, Marco, so good to see you. I miss all of you, and I miss one of my hometowns in Montreal. Thanks for making the time, and congratulations on the book.Thank you for having us.Yeah, thank you for having us.Montreal, as you know, is one of the all-time greatest culinary cities in the world. For anyone who’s never been, what makes it so special?Montreal has a vibe. Anyone who’s come to Montreal knows it’s a mix of bitter cold winters, French-English mashup, and beautiful people who just love to go a little overboard in eating, drinking, and being out, just consumption of culture in general.There’s the classic eponymous joie de vivre that really resonates, especially if you haven’t been before. I think it’s something that jumps out at you. We love Montreal.First & Foremost, FriendsYou’ve all worked in the city for years together and at separate restaurants, and have now been at Mon Lapin pretty much since the very first day. How have you inspired each other? What have you learned from each other? And how has the city inspired what you do?We all became really close friends. I mean, Vanya and I are married, but before we opened, we knew Jess for a long time, but not to a level that we do now. And same thing for Marc-Antoine and Alex. It’s been very important for us before everything, before the restaurant, before the food, the wine, to really focus on the people. It’s something that people don’t talk about enough.A happy partnership and a happy co-chefing that we have, Vanya, with Alex and the wine and Marc-Antoine. I find that everything stems from that. If we’re happy, we’re getting along. That trickles down on the whole restaurant, everybody working in it through the customers. That’s the thing that we try to maintain the most. It’s like being with somebody for a long time.Some weeks we have to do nothing and everything’s good. And some weeks we have to do better. It’s normal. We’re five people. The fact that we have this solid partnership, I really find that what makes Mon Lapin the most.The Mon Lapin CookbookI love that. I love that these are the relationships that drive you, connect you with the customers and you with each other. In The Mon Lapin Cookbook: De Toute Beauté: From Montreal, with Love, this through line of all of you being connected with each other, the farmers, the customers, is this beautiful through line for the book. Why was this the driving narrative that you want to center everything around?I think we wante
- 2 weeks ago6 min
Evan Marks
"All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us.” - Evan MarksIf you haven’t already, please make sure to subscribe and give Five Rules for the Good Life on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. Evan MarksEvan Marks, founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, joins me to share his Five Rules for an Abundant Life. We talk about finding gratitude in the miraculous, growing your own food, taking nourishment seriously, making things with your hands, and sharing whatever you have in surplus. Together, his rules offer a thoughtful invitation to reconnect with nature, contribute to your community, and build a richer life by becoming an active participant in it.What Evan and his community have built in San Juan Capistrano is more than a regenerative organic farm. It is a living example of what becomes possible when people come together around food, nature, and a shared sense of purpose. The Ecology Center reminds us that life is not something we are meant to simply observe or consume. We have to participate—to plant something, make something, share something, and give a little of ourselves to the world around us. The more we take part in life, the more abundant it becomes.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Evan Marks, the founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, a truly awe-inspiring, regenerative, organic farm, cafe, and education center located in Southern California.He’s here to share his five rules for an abundant life. He talks about the importance of participating, that making something yourself leads to a much richer life, and that the more you share with others, the more the world shares with you. This conversation offers incredible insights on a different approach to living and how, by redefining your relationship with nature, you will be able to live a much richer life.So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.The Ecology CenterEvan, so nice to meet you. I’m so excited to be talking to you today about The Ecology Center. You’ve built such a beautiful space. Welcome to the show.Thank you, brother. Honored to be here.For those who might be unfamiliar with The Ecology Center, truly a unique place, can you explain its mission and its approach to food?Its mission is to shift culture. How we’ve done that so far is we’ve built an environment, an ecotopia. It’s a 28-acre ecosystem that inspires us to think and be in a different state, and that connects back to food, reminding people of the basic tenets of knowing where your food comes from and being deeply nourished, mind-body-spirit, in those endeavors of food or otherwise.As the founder, how did you take your life studies and adventures and turn it into something tangible?The Sum of a LifeI like to say that we’re just all individually a sum of the parts that we’ve been paying attention to. I guess I was lucky to have good mentors, and I attuned my awareness to mostly traditional people, Indigenous cultures, and tropical environments. I just became fascinated with how humans have lived on this planet for centuries in harmony.That’s really been the design challenge: How do we take those pieces of civilization and culture and integrate them into the present and future tenets in a place unlikely like Orange County?The Principle of ParticipationThere are a lot of tenets that make up what you’ve put together. One of the ones that really stuck out to me was this fundamental principle of participation. How do you weave this through the Center’s farm, garden, cafe, and all of its endeavors?We’re a village, so we’ve got a lot of different expressions. All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us. Participation in our food system. Participation in the joy of being on this beautiful planet.We do that through a whole myriad of programs, from farm dinners to music festivals, to yoga classes, to field trips, to cooking classes, to shopping at the cafe and eating in the farm stand. It’s a real wide aperture of offerings here, but all of it is an invitation to jump on board.I love that you’ve opened up your life in this space, showing people who are looking for a different t
- 3 weeks ago11 min
Justin Pichetrungsi
Justin Pichetrungsi, chef and owner of Anajak Thai Cuisine, joins me to share his Five (Easy) Rules for Taking Over Your Parents’ Restaurant. We talk about burning yourself out—and knowing when not to—along with the importance of arguing with your parents, listening to them, and recognizing that old things are often cooler than new ones. Justin reflects on taking over his family’s restaurant, preserving its history, and finding a way to move the business forward without losing what made it special. Together, his rules offer an honest and thoughtful guide to inheriting not only a restaurant, but all the memories, relationships, and responsibilities that come with it.The beauty of this episode is Justin’s openness about how complicated it can be to carry on a family tradition. He does not romanticize the work or pretend the transition happened without disagreements, exhaustion, or doubt. Instead, he shows how listening, arguing, preserving, and changing can all be expressions of the same love. There is something deeply moving about watching a new generation build upon what came before while making sure the people, stories, and traditions that created it are never forgotten.IntroductionHello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. I’m always excited when I get to spend time with today’s guest, Justin Pichetrungsi who is the chef and owner of Anajak Thai Cuisine.He’s here to share his five easy rules to taking over your parents’ restaurant. He talks about the duality of both burning yourself out and taking care of yourself, the importance of arguing with your parents, and how everything old is cooler than everything new. It is an extremely insightful conversation from someone who has successfully transitioned his family’s restaurant from one generation to another.For anyone who has found themselves in the same situation or for anyone who wants to hear the story of how it is done well, this is the episode for you. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Justin, always a pleasure to see you.Thank you again for splashing us out the last time we were in. Welcome to Five Rules. Thank you, I like this.Taking Over the Family RestaurantIn many ways, the tradition of taking over a parent’s restaurant used to be common. Why do you think that went away and why do you think it’s back? Is it back? You tell me. Oh, why do I think it went away? I actually have thought about this quite a bit.You see this a lot in Europe. You see it a lot in Asia. You see a lot of the passing down of the torch to the next generation, whether or not it’s a restaurant.Why don’t we see it here in Los Angeles so much or in America rather? And I think it’s because we have this belief that we can become independently wealthy within one generation. So it’s not necessary to build upon the intergenerational wealth and knowledge that our parents passed down. I can charge ahead in my own career and live the fullest of my life in the way that I wanna do it.The second thing is that there’s a lot of parents of immigrants, a lot of parents of non-immigrants that are gonna say, no, I want you to live life better than I live. Don’t take over my shop. Pursue your dreams, pursue your life.I was always really afraid that I was gonna lose something if my parents closed the restaurant down. I was gonna lose a part of the family. I was gonna lose my living room where I’m sitting in right now. That fear of what was gonna happen to the recipes and to the memories was really what guided me into it.A Beautiful RenovationYou’re celebrating your 45th restaurant birthday and you recently did a beautiful renovation of Anna Jack. What did you wanna preserve? What did you wanna overhaul? I love the atmosphere that the old place became.It was hard to be able to explain that to my general contractor. In fact, I moved on to different contractors until I found someone who understood this idea that it wasn’t gonna be a change. We’re gonna take the little needle and poke it into the thing, extract the DNA, and then the T-Rex, right? Dave Chang said to me, it was days right before we closed for the demolition, he said.There’s only three things you need to keep. One, the wine in the middle of the room, which makes no sense. One of one.Two, the Kobe jersey, and three, your grandfather’s art. And those were the things that stayed. Sometimes having those items that represent the lineage of the restaurant are so important to have and really help tell the story.Sharing with Your ParentsIt’s amazing because you’ve been able to do all this and share it with your parents. What’s been th
- Aug 17, 20267 min
Carter Hiyama
Restaurant photographer Carter Hiyama, whose book On Service, Volume One is out now, joins me to share his Five Rules for Restaurant Food Photography. We talk about why light is everything, the importance of removing distractions from the table, and why making sure your lens is clean is a must. He also explains how his background shooting skateboarding influenced the way he captures the kinetic energy of restaurant kitchens and the feeling of being in the dining room.Everyone wants to take better food photos, whether it is to show their love of food, support their local restaurant scene, or share something they are genuinely excited about. A great photograph can introduce people to a restaurant, celebrate the work happening in its kitchen, and help us feel more connected to the community around it. I love how Carter’s rules make that feel possible for everyone, regardless of the camera they use or how much experience they have. His inisghts give us the tools to take better pictures while reminding us that the real goal is to appreciate the food, the people who made it, and the experience of being there.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by my good bud, Carter Hiyama, who is a restaurant photographer based out of Portland, Oregon, whose new book, On Service, Volume 1, is out now.He’s here to share his five rules for restaurant photography. He talks about the importance of lighting, why you should remove any distractions when setting up your shot, and, most importantly, why you shouldn’t let taking photos interrupt your meal.It is a great conversation for anyone who is shooting professionally and wants to up their game, or anyone who is just snapping photos for their own social feed. So, let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Getting Started in Restaurant PhotographyCarter, always great to see you. It was such a pleasure to have dinner with you and Veronica Ahum up in Portland the other week. Welcome to the show.Thank you for having me.Photography, especially food photography, has become so ubiquitous today. When did you realize that you wanted to move into doing it more professionally?I think it was probably right around 2019. I had just started to work with some restaurants, most notably Bell’s, but I was actually just doing video at the time. Shout out. That was when I got my first taste of doing restaurant work, and at the same time, I started to get really into food.So, I fell in love with the thought of being able to do it professionally. Luckily, since then, that’s what I’ve been doing.Finding a Personal StyleEvery photographer has their own unique style and approach. What are the stories and themes that influence your work? What are you trying to show through your work?I came from shooting skateboarding. I feel like I always tie things back to that. One of my favorite things to shoot is in the kitchen with a wide lens and just getting right up in there. It feels like I’m filming skating with a fisheye lens.Most of the time, when I’m shooting food photography or just restaurant photography in general, it’s more about trying to convey what it’s like to actually be at this restaurant. Not just showing what the food looks like, but what the surroundings look like, what the vibe of the restaurant is, and what it feels like to actually sit there and eat.Creating On Service, Volume 1If you follow your work on Instagram or just know you personally, you’ve been to so many restaurants and have thousands of photos. How did you select the ones for your first book, On Service, Volume 1?First, I started with really wanting to feature Bell’s and Anajak. From there, I was trying to pick the photos that were the most influential or sentimental to me.Aside from that, it’s a combination of a lot of my favorite shots that I’ve taken over the last five years or so.What I love about your work is that it’s so personal, so accessible, and seems like anyone who wants to start taking their photos to another level can learn a lot from what you do. That is why I’m so excited for you to sh
- Aug 10, 20268 min
Adam Weisblatt
Adam Weissblatt, co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and author of For the Love of Restaurants, joins me to share his Five Rules for Opening a Neighborhood Restaurant. We talk about trusting your gut, treating your landlord like a true business partner, and making sure you can deliver on what you promise. After opening seven restaurants of his own, Adam offers an honest and practical look at what it takes to turn the dream of a restaurant into a place that can become part of its community.What I find most inspiring about Adam is his willingness to openly share knowledge that took him years—and plenty of hard lessons—to earn. For more people to succeed in this industry, we need more people willing to follow his example and let go of the gatekeeping that has kept so much valuable information out of reach. Sharing what you know does not diminish your own accomplishments; it gives someone else a better chance to build something meaningful of their ownIntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m chatting with Adam Weissblatt, the co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and the author of For the Love of Restaurants, An Insider’s Guide from Daydreams to Opening Night, which comes out tomorrow on August 11th.He’s here to share his five rules for opening a neighborhood restaurant. He talks about the importance of trusting your gut, how by building the right team sets you up for the right success, and that by being honest with yourself and those you’re working with allows for a long existence in any community. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s ever dreamed of opening up their own space from someone who has walked the walk and opened up seven of his own spaces.The Neighborhood RestaurantSo let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Adam, always great to see your smiling face. Thank you for taking a break from your restaurants and hospitality group and congrats on the book, The Love of Restaurants, which comes out tomorrow.Yes, sir. Tomorrow. It used to be that a neighborhood restaurant was a bit of a backhanded compliment.Rise of the Neighborhood RestaurantHow has that perception and term shifted over the last few years? As the economy struggles, people are looking for familiarity and they’re looking for comfort. A restaurant is the ultimate form of being able to go out, have a big night out, but then maybe not spend as much, including just on the simple realities of getting to and from. What it costs to get in an Uber or gas or everything like that.It all factors into how people make decisions about where they’re going to eat. Now, maybe more than ever, people are looking for that neighborhood comforting place and want a place they can call their own. That’s really good.The SearchYour group, Last Word Hospitality, has specialized in neighborhood restaurants and has seven different spots in your portfolio. What is the through line that ties them all together and makes them a part of their individual communities? We’re always just looking for beautiful spaces that represent a cool aesthetic of that neighborhood. When you take an old building that’s been there since the 20s or 30s and it’s been uncared for and you put love into it, that already starts to show people that you really genuinely have pride in what you’re doing and that matters.For us, we partner with people on each one of these projects. I love that. Every time you walk into the restaurant and you ask, who is the owner, the chef and the GM are going to be part of that team of owners.You’re going to have that constant connection through the people in the space to ownership. I think that really matters and draws a connection between community. Being able to be a authentic and literal part of the community from the space to the people in it has been something that’s defined your career and approach to building these different spaces.For the Love of RestaurantsThe book, The Love of Restaurants, I remember you telling me about it four or five years ago at a one-on-one event. Why was now the right moment to share it with the world? Three years ago, when I really started to take it seriously, I lost two of my best friends in the same year. One to cancer, one to unnatural causes, unfortunately.So sorry. Thank you. It motivated me to do something really difficult and to do it in their honor.I did always feel like there was a gap in the book market of just a book that you could pick up
- Aug 3, 202610 min
Mackenzie Hoffman
Mackenzie Hoffman, co-owner and operator of Stir Crazy, joins me to share her Five Rules for Creating a Restaurant that Feels Timeless. We talk about welcoming solo diners, staying earnest, and maintaining your principles without compromise. She explains why restaurants should avoid chasing trends, remain grounded in their values, and become genuine friends to the people and businesses around them. It is a conversation about creating a sense of place—one that feels deeply connected to its neighborhood while offering guests an escape from the world outside. Together, her rules offer a thoughtful blueprint for building a restaurant that does more than serve great food—it creates a feeling people want to return to again and again.After nearly twenty-five years of covering and working with restaurants, I have seen that the places that last—both by keeping their doors open and finding a permanent place in people’s hearts—are the ones that embrace their communities. They know their neighbors, welcome regulars and first-timers with the same generosity, and become part of the rhythm of local life. A truly timeless restaurant does not impose itself on a neighborhood or chase whatever is popular in the moment. It listens, contributes, and slowly becomes a place people cannot imagine the neighborhood without.Photo by Shelby MooreINTRODUCTIONHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Mackenzie Hoffman, co-owner and operator of Stir Crazy and a fixture in the LA food scene. She is here to share her five rules for creating a restaurant that feels timeless. She talks about the importance of tailoring each guest’s experience, especially when it comes to solo diners, the tips and tricks of staying earnest, and how to maintain your principles without compromise. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s looking to open a place that can embed itself into the community or for anyone who’s been open for a few years and is looking to become an even bigger part of the neighborhood. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.BACKGROUNDMackenzie, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day at Stir Crazy to sit down for the show.Incredibly honored to be here, Darin. Thank you so much for having me.My absolute pleasure. You literally went to school for food studies and nutrition, something that is rare in the restaurant world. What unique perspective do you feel it gave you in regards to hospitality?BY THE BOOKSThe best way to describe the program was comprehensive. There was a culinary portion to it, there was a microbiology portion to it, food in the arts, food writing, a little business piece, accounting and whatnot. So it really gave me a comprehensive view of food, food systems, restaurants. And then being in New York City was incredible because just the access to being able to study something during the day and then go to my job or go out to eat, grab lunch somewhere. It was awesome.You were in New York at an incredible inflection point in the restaurant scene and you got to work with some of the great names of that time, Four Horsemen, Union Square Hospitality, Major Food Group. What did you learn from working in New York and Brooklyn restaurants that you still practice today?IN NEW YORKI get goosebumps thinking about it because 10, 15 years ago, we were trying to get this craft to catch on. Now, it’s just porn. People can’t get enough of it. Within the past 15 years of seeing restaurants grow and evolve, not just in our industry, but how they affect the world at large. It’s a global industry. The diaspora of all these other ideas and flavors, I feel like we won despite all the adversity, not just happening in localized from city to city and city, but also in the industry at large. I do think that this is a long game and I think that we’re going to win.You’ve been in the industry through incredible adversity like COVID, which affected the restaurant that you moved out to LA for, Onda, but you managed to stay in the game and eventually open up Stir Crazy. How did you take everything that you’d learned and put it into your own place?MAKING IT MY OWNI was fortunate enough to be part of restaurants in multiple different cities and seeing some really, really incredible people, professionals with their own long histories. It was almost like an anthropological view of a lot of different ways to do stuff, not just the how to do it and the what to do, but also why it was being done. I really got to see all the options in front of me and then take
- Jul 27, 202612 min
Greg Baxtrom
Greg's Five Rules for Getting Your Life Back on TrackGreg Baxtrom is the chef and owner of 5 Acres in Rockefeller Center and the author of Nothing Matters but Delicious: A Radically Honest Cookbook about food, alcoholism, recovery, and rebuilding a life. In this deeply personal conversation, Greg shares his Five Rules for Getting Your Life Back on Track. Together, we talk about the long road to sobriety, the daily work of becoming reliable again, and how cooking helped him begin accumulating the days that eventually became a new life.These conversations are important because no one should have to struggle alone. Hearing Greg speak so openly about his lowest moments, the people who helped him, and the work he continues to do offers more than hope—it reveals a path forward. Recovery does not happen all at once, and it does not always move in a straight line. Sometimes it begins with telling the truth, asking for help, or simply doing the one thing you said you would do that day. Wherever you are in that process, be patient and kind to yourself. You are not alone, and change is possible.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m chatting with Greg Baxtrom, the chef and owner at Five Acres in Rockefeller Center, and the author of Nothing Matters but Delicious, a radically honest cookbook, out now on 10 Speed Press. He’s here to share his five rules for getting your life back on track. He talks about the importance of telling the truth, the necessity of building a routine you can actually keep, and that by being patient and kind to yourself is the key to real change. This conversation, along with his cookbook, are deep explorations of Greg’s struggle with alcoholism, his journey through recovery, and how he’s put his life back together. It is a great conversation for anyone who is going through similar struggles or for anyone looking for a insight to understand those who are. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Greg, so good to see you.OpeningCongratulations on the book and Five Acres. Thanks for making time for the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I love the book and it starts off with a very powerful introduction where you talk about living your life in two unequal parts. How much has the concept of balance played a part in your life? I mean, there was none until recently. Sure. Even now, I’m not that great at it. I mean, I’m pretty great at being sober. I don’t have near misses and stuff, but I’m probably on day 55 straight of no days off. Right. Still a work in progress. I take things like going to bed at a specific time. I try to be in bed by 10 o’clock every day. It’s pretty good. I try to wake up and have a coffee. I still have some non-negotiables, but there are ones that get tossed out the window still. I’ll go through a phase of like, now I’m vegan and I’m starting off with a five-day fast and I’m signing up for my trainer.Yeah. So that lasts like four days. And right now I haven’t really been going to the gym because I’ve been coming here every day to just kind of make this new thing land well and represent what we try to do. Yeah. You know, I prioritize my family more. I also just go to Chicago more. I wouldn’t even consider going for a holiday in the past. And now I try to go home for birthdays. I prioritize that a little bit more. A cookbook like yours, nothing matters but delicious, usually comes out as a celebratory, usually four or five-year mark of a restaurant, which was Olmstead. You closed the restaurant last year. The book just came out and a lot of what delayed the book was life happening around it. How do you feel about its release now? It was hard for me to even write the book in the first place. I eventually became acquainted and friendly with Joshua David Stein. And I had other avenues to go down.There were big publishers that wanted a great big Olmstead book. They would make it as beautiful as I wanted and as cheffy as I wanted. Yeah. I was basically told it wouldn’t sell but it would look pretty. Sure. As vain and egotistical as I am to have a nice pretty book, I really didn’t want to do something that from the get-go wouldn’t be even attempt to be successful. I’m dyslexic and I have ADHD. It took Josh to literally lay on my couch while I just talked and cooked and would just type as I was doing stuff. Yeah. I wanted it to be accessible. Yes, there’s some Olmstead stuff in there. A lot o
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Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so.
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