An Interview With Samin Nosrat: 'I Identify as a Californian'

Before Samin Nosrat turned kneading focaccia into sumptuous, sunlit ASMR fodder and charmed viewers (like me) with her genuine delight at the flavor of a sweet lemon on her Netflix series, “Salt Fat Acid Heat,” she was a University of California, Berkeley student looking for a challenge.

She found it in the kitchen of Chez Panisse.

“I didn’t even go to my graduation; I worked a bussing shift that night,” she told me. “Later that summer, it was the 30th birthday of Chez Panisse and we were roasting like 20 lambs in front of Wheeler Hall, and I was like, ‘This is my ceremony.' ”

I talked with Nosrat, a chef, author, New York Times Magazine columnist and, most recently, TV personality, while she was in Joshua Tree on a kind of sabbatical earlier this month.

The response, she said, to her show has been powerful. “It’s wonderful in a lot of ways — it means the message and my show reach a lot of people,” she said, “but I don’t get to be the grumpy person in line in the coffee shop.”

I asked her about growing up in California and building a career in the Golden State. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed for length.

Jill Cowan: Tell me about how you got to Chez Panisse. I saw that you were an English major at Berkeley, too!

Samin Nosrat: I didn’t have a food background at all.

This was 2000. I was an English major who didn’t know what I wanted to do. People weren’t getting jobs in Silicon Valley. I thought I would be a writer — I just didn’t know how to enact that plan. Then I started bussing tables in this incredible place where people were so extraordinary. I’m an immigrant kid, a perfectionist over-worker, and suddenly I was surrounded by everybody who took everything so seriously but in the most thoughtful way. There was the right way to tie a trash bag. It was on me to keep up with them, and that was exhilarating for me, because I’m a masochist.

Cowan: What was your experience like working for Alice Waters? Did you go to Chez Panisse knowing who she was?

Nosrat: I grew up in San Diego with immigrant parents, before the food blogs, before this kind of celebrity chef culture we know now. It was not about Alice Waters for me, it was about the community and the world she had created.

I didn’t get to know her until about 2010, 2011. I started working with Michael Pollan. He’s really close with her.

Cowan: Has she given you any advice about being a known food personality?

Nosrat: I was telling her how I was coming here, and how I was feeling kind of ill from all the eating I’ve had to do, and I said, “Oh my God, I don’t understand how you do this,” and she’s like, “You always have to bring your own food. You just have to figure out where the vegetables are.”

Cowan: Where did you grow up?

Nosrat: University City. I went to La Jolla High School. My parents came from Iran in the 1970s.

Cowan: I’m curious about how growing up in California informed your worldview and your work now.

Nosrat: That was all I knew. I really love the beach. The beach has always been a constant in my life. And you asked about how being a Californian has influenced me: Above any other way of identifying, like above race or religion or anything — or nationality — I identify as a Californian. This way that I’ve gotten to spend so much of my life outside, in different landscapes, has absolutely affected me. Agriculture has affected me. The way there are so many different kinds of people from all over the world — I’m so, so grateful for that. I remember being sick of the fact that it was always sunny in San Diego. My dad said to me: “What’s wrong with you? Everyone in the whole rest of the world aspires to live in California.”

I don’t know — I mean, I love Mexican food so much. I could probably go on for a long time about the differences between Northern California and Southern California Mexican food.

Cowan: I won’t ask you to compare them, but do you have a favorite version of both?

Nosrat: So many of the places I used to go to when I was little are closed now. In Northern California, there’s this place called El Molino Central. It’s in Sonoma, and it’s incredibly delicious. They make their own corn tortillas and tamales. Most of the places in San Diego — I’d have to ask my brothers. I’ll still always go to El Indio.

Cowan: Are you doing another season of “Salt Fat Acid Heat?”

Nosrat: I don’t know what we’re going to do. We haven’t had those conversations yet. I have loved working with Netflix so much. I have loved my people there so much and would happily do anything with them. It’s just not clear if it would be that show or a different show.

Cowan: Where else would you go?

Nosrat: Honestly, an argument could be made for anywhere. There are so many parts of the world that I would love to visit. There’s this beautiful kind of ceramics called Chamba ware that’s made in Colombia, and I would love to see the people who make that. I’ve never been to Southeast Asia. I’ve never been to India — so many people have written to me and been like, “Come do an episode in India.” I just look forward to having the opportunity. I will also say it’s really hard to make a travel show. So maybe a non-travel show.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.