Brooke Williamson shares the driving force behind her go-getter attitude and success at such a young age. Brooke shares her thoughts as a 19 year-old cooking at the James Beard House and how confidence is key as a woman in a male-dominated industry. She talks about why she decided not to attend culinary school and the lessons she learned from opening her first restaurant at just 24 years old. Brooke reveals the piece of advice she would have given herself back then and how, many years later, she sees the value in learning from failure. She talks about how she met her husband and business partner and how they didn’t like one another at first before illustrating what a brainstorm between them typically looks like. Brooke shares her process for creating a cohesive menu and why she is most inspired by seasonal produce and her own home garden. She talks about overcoming the odds to win the first season of Tournament of Champions, losing to Maneet Chauhan in season two, and how she prepares for competition. Brooke talks about being a Chopped judge for the first time, judging BBQ Brawl and her own California spin on barbecue before talking about Best Thing I Ever Ate.
Brooke Williamson shares the driving force behind her go-getter attitude and success at such a young age. Brooke shares her thoughts as a 19 year-old cooking at the James Beard House and how confidence is key as a woman in a male-dominated industry. She talks about why she decided not to attend culinary school and the lessons she learned from opening her first restaurant at just 24 years old. Brooke reveals the piece of advice she would have given herself back then and how, many years later, she sees the value in learning from failure. She talks about how she met her husband and business partner and how they didn’t like one another at first before illustrating what a brainstorm between them typically looks like. Brooke shares her process for creating a cohesive menu and why she is most inspired by seasonal produce and her own home garden. She talks about overcoming the odds to win the first season of Tournament of Champions, losing to Maneet Chauhan in season two, and how she prepares for competition. Brooke talks about being a Chopped judge for the first time, judging BBQ Brawl and her own California spin on barbecue before talking about Best Thing I Ever Ate.
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Find episode transcript here: https://food-network-obsessed.simplecast.com/episodes/brooke-williamson-on-why-she-decided-not-to-go-to-culinary-school
JAYMEE SIRE: Hello, hello, and welcome to Food Network Obsessed. This is a podcast where we dish on all things Food Network with your favorite Food Network stars. I'm your host Jaymee Sire, and today we have someone with a seriously impressive resume and even more impressive work ethic. She reveals what it's like to brainstorm with her business partner/husband, and how it felt to win the hardest competition on Food Network.
She is a chef, a serial entrepreneur, the youngest female chef to cook at the James Beard House, and the winner of Tournament of Champions, season one. It's Brooke Williamson. Brooke, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to chat with you today because I feel like at such a young age have already accomplished so much. Where does that go-getter attitude come from?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I do what I love to do. I think that that's where that comes from. It comes naturally because on a daily basis I'm doing what I love. I don't know. It doesn't feel like I'm go-getting in a work mode. It feels like I'm just living my best life.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, I mean, you discovered what you loved at a very young age. At 15 you were a teacher's assistant at the Epicurean Institute of Los Angeles. So what age did you realize that you wanted to become a chef?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Oh, probably like the age of six or seven. I found myself watching Julia Child and Jacques Pépin on the TV on Saturday mornings instead of Saturday morning cartoons, and for literally hours. And then I would take what I had just watched and go experiment in the kitchen from an insanely young age. And I think that just developed over time. By the time I was in middle school and high school, I already knew that I wanted to be a chef long term.
JAYMEE SIRE: Did your family cook a lot or were you the one taking charge in the kitchen?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yeah, no, my mom cooked. She cooked dinner for the family five nights a week. It was the kind of a situation where we sat down for dinner at 6:30 PM every single night of the week. My parents had their date night on Saturday. They would go out to dinner, I'd stay home with a sitter. And then Sunday night we'd all go out to dinner as a family. So that was kind of our routine, and I would say that I grew up understanding the importance of sitting around a dinner table, and sharing your lives at the end of the day, and enjoying home cooked food.
JAYMEE SIRE: At the ripe age of 19 you became the youngest sous-chef at the iconic Michael's in Santa Monica. What kind of attitude did you have in the kitchen back then?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I was a little girl. I was a naive little girl who-- I kind of always did have that go-getter attitude. I feel being successful at a young age, you had to have that attitude. Enter a situation that you weren't sure that you could really handle and test yourself. And it was succeed or be eaten, like literally. I was a small female in a kitchen full of men at that age, and I had to have this air of confidence to me that I could sort of handle anything, regardless of whether or not I really believed that I could.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned it. How challenging was it to be a young female in a male-dominated industry?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I'd like to say that it had little to do with how I acted or reacted on a daily basis, but I think that that's a naive thing to say. And I actually feel like it was motivation to me to prove that I could handle myself in a professional manner and prove to my peers that I could do not only my job, but potentially their job better than they could. That was part of my motivation was proving to people that I was more than what I maybe looked like.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I mean, you continue to do that. You became the youngest female chef to cook at the James Beard House. What characteristics about yourself do you think propelled you into these opportunities as your career continued to grow?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I think a lot of the opportunities that you're talking about came to me, whether or not I was ready for them. Again, I would enter scenarios where I wasn't really sure that I could handle it, but walked into a kitchen telling people I could handle it. And then it was just a matter of sort of proving to myself whether or not I could handle it.
And because I seemed to be able to carry my own weight in the kitchen, and I could cook, and I could handle myself, and I could work endless numbers of hours without complaining, I think that opportunities started presenting themselves to me before I was maybe ready for them. I don't know that I was ready to be an executive chef at the age of 22, pretty certain I wasn't. But I pulled it off. I faked it until I made it.
And being offered the opportunity to cook at the James Beard House at that age, I knew the sort of grandiosity of the situation. But looking back on that, I really didn't, right? In the moment I really thought I did. I was getting L.A. Times reviews at the age of 21. So I think that everything snowballed into my life, right? And the press that I got was partially probably because of my age and my gender, and I stuck out among a city full of older male chefs.
And so people took note of me and what I was doing, and James Beard House caught wind of who I was and what I was doing and offered me an opportunity that obviously I wasn't going to turn down. And then I went, and I did it, and I did a good job. And then one thing led to another, and then 20 some odd years later, here I am.
JAYMEE SIRE: Here we are.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It kind of just happened. Life just happened.
JAYMEE SIRE: It does. It does. Do you feel like cooking comes very naturally to you, or was it something that you really had to work at to get to the level that you are?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I at the age of 18 walked into a kitchen, Ken Frank's kitchen, at the Argyle Hotel on Sunset in Hollywood and said to him I'll do anything that you need done, you don't need to pay me, I just want to be in this kitchen. And he put me in the pastry department because that was the only thing he had available. I made it very clear that that's not where I wanted to land long term, but it got my foot in the door. And I worked really hard.
But I also decided not to go the route of culinary school per Ken Frank's advice. I was applying to the CIA at the time in Hyde Park, New York. And you had to have a number of actual restaurant hours before you attended. And so I walked into the kitchen thinking I'll get my required hours and then I'll go to culinary school. And Ken said to me, why not just work off of life experience and stay here? You have an entry level job in a good kitchen, and we'll get you to where you want to be.
So I took that advice, but because I didn't go to culinary school I did definitely feel like I needed to spend the extra time educating myself in the fundamentals of cooking. Knife skills, how to make sauces, what the sauces were, how to debone a quail. I took my extra couple of hours a day, and I read cookbooks. And I spent that time educating myself. Fortunately, there was a sous-chef at the Argyle Hotel who really took me under his wing and made a point of teaching me a new technique or method almost every day.
So I had my own personal culinary school. But I was very aware that I was in an industry, and I was the gender that I was, and I was the size that I was, and I was the age that I was, and I needed to have the knowledge, and the wherewithal to back it up.
JAYMEE SIRE: And then at 24 you opened your first restaurant. If you could go back, what advice would you give yourself back then?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Everything that goes wrong when you're taking your first attempt at doing your own thing, everything that goes wrong at that age feels devastating. And I think at the time, I couldn't see the bigger picture of all the things that I was getting out of failure. Now I look at the trajectory of my career, and I look at what I've done, and I know in my head and in my heart that I wouldn't be where I am had I not gone through all of the messy failures and mistakes that I've made in my career.
At the age of 24 I might have done a little bit more investigating on the lease, and the neighbors, and the neighborhood. And all the business savvy experience that I have now, I definitely would have done things differently. But I say that understanding that if I had done things differently, I wouldn't be where I am. So I take all of my failures in stride now, knowing that they are examples of how to do things differently.
JAYMEE SIRE: What is the biggest lesson you learned from that first restaurant?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I mean, never take a location that doesn't already have a liquor license. Get to know your neighbors and how they might fight everything you want to do. My husband and I opened that restaurant not understanding California laws and all of the hoops that you have to jump through in order to get a business to where you want it to be. And now if I were opening a restaurant that really needed alcohol involved, I would not go into a location that didn't already have that approved.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right. Well, fast forward to present times. You and your husband and business partner, Nick, have opened multiple restaurants and food concepts over the years. How did the two of you meet?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I hired him. When I was the chef at Zaks in Brentwood, I was 22. He was 23. Maybe he was still 22, I don't know. I hired him as my sous-chef, and we actually worked with each other for a solid year before we even really got to know each other. We didn't look at each other romantically at first. We were definitely just colleagues and eventually spent so much time with each other and realized that we had a lot in common, and that's where that started. We actually didn't like each other very much for the first year that we worked with each other.
JAYMEE SIRE: Really, why?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yeah. I mean, I think we were kind of competitive with each other. He saw me as the young girl who was in a position that maybe she didn't deserve to be in, which is very valid. And he was this cocky annoying boy who came in and thought he could do everything better than I could, which sometimes was true. Not everything. Not everything.
JAYMEE SIRE: You guys now are the owners of Playa Provisions, previous owners of Amuse Cafe, Hudson House, and The Tripel. What does a brainstorming session with the two of you typically look like?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: All of our restaurant concepts have happened very organically. We find a location, we look at the neighborhood, we think to ourselves, what can we bring to this neighborhood that doesn't exist already. When it comes to changing a menu or changing something within an existing restaurant, sometimes those conversations are a little bit more difficult.
We don't always think the same way, which I think is part of the reason why we make great business partners. I think we make up in each other what the other is lacking, either in that moment or in general. And we're very different trains of thoughts. Recently I've kind of tended to take control over the menu a little bit more, and Nick is the guy that can kind of handle the staff issues and leave the creativity to me a little bit, so we make a great partnership.
JAYMEE SIRE: What is your process for creating a cohesive menu?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Well, currently we only have Playa Provisions open, which is kind of a godsend right now. When it comes to staffing and only having to worry about one location, I'm very grateful right now that I only have to think about one location, but--
JAYMEE SIRE: But it's four concepts, right?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It's four concepts, so it does feel like it's more than one location. It's four different-- several different menus if you look at brunch, and the cafe, and the whiskey bar, and the seafood restaurant, it's all-- the ice cream shop. I mean, there's kind of an outlet for every creative moment in my brain, but maybe 50% to 60% of the menu it doesn't really change, there are staples that stay on the menu. And then the other percentage is seasonal and creatively that keeps me on my toes.
I'm constantly changing the menu. I don't like to do giant menu changes where you're changing like eight items in one day. I feel it's really difficult for the staff to get the kitchen staff to get a grasp on how to execute eight brand new dishes in one day. So I'm weekly changing one or two items and rolling over seasons. By the time I get all of the fall menu items rolling, it's time to change the menu again. So I feel like it's kind of a perpetual creative mode, which I appreciate. It's not like my brain stops in between seasons. Sometimes I'll just get sick of a dish, and I'll change it just because.
JAYMEE SIRE: How do you test your ideas?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I don't know. I feel I've been cooking for long enough to understand what's going to work and what's not going to work. That's not to say that that's always the case. And sometimes I'll put a dish on the menu, and I'm never quite satisfied with it, and it'll only last for a week or two.
I have a garden at my house that I'm constantly replanting stuff in, and so I'm very hyper aware of what's in season and what's in not just by literally walking out into my front yard. I visit the farmer's market, and I honestly can look-- and I will say that I probably am most inspired by produce. So that's what leads my head in certain directions. I'll look at an artichoke and say, what do I feel like doing with artichokes? And look around and see what else is looking good. And I don't know, it just happens very naturally for me.
And to my detriment, I try not to create the same menu item twice. Sometimes there are seasonal things that come back because people love them, but I will say that most of the time it's not inspiring for me to put a menu item on the menu that was on the menu a year ago. I've grown, my customers have seen stuff already. I always feel I need to be reinventing who I am and how I think of food, otherwise it feels stagnant.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the garden. How long have you had the garden and been a gardener?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Five or six years. When I remodeled, we remodeled our house maybe six years ago, and I put a raised bed in the front yard. Sometimes it nags me, and I don't necessarily feel like going out and trimming the passion fruit vines every week. They grow like weeds. And sometimes it feels like just an extra chore, but I also feel like it really keeps me grounded in perpetual creativity and thought of what's going on seasonally, and it keeps me on my toes, and I really enjoy watching things grow and seeing how I can make produce perform better. I've brought some cuttings back from Hawaii four years ago of a dragon plant. And this year for the first time it fruited, and I had beautiful delicious dragon fruit.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It's a delicious-- there's dragon fruit with flavor, which I never thought was possible. I have fruit growing. I'm looking at my dragon fruit plant right now, and there's like six dragon fruit that need to be picked. The moment I saw the flowers flowering, it was like I had just given birth. It's like--
JAYMEE SIRE: It's your dragon fruit baby.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: My dragon fruit babies have arrived, and I've been waiting four years for this, and it was really so gratifying. Not that I even really want to eat them, I'm just--
JAYMEE SIRE: It's just the accomplishment.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Excited that they-- Yeah, I feel very accomplished. There are certain things that make me feel very accomplished and that was one of them.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. Well, I mean, you're lucky. You live in California, Southern California, where you can have a garden all year round. Growing up in L.A., how did the California ingredients and just that influence play a role in your perspective with your food, and your cooking, and your restaurants?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I mean, I think where you grow up has a great deal to do with how you develop as a person, and I think that that's very true when you're a chef. I think that every chef out there takes inspiration from their childhood. And for me my childhood was I had a fruit and vegetable garden growing up. It was part of my daily life to go out and pick stuff off of trees in my front or backyard. Going to the farmer's market was never something that suddenly happened in my career, it was something that I grew up with. So I think that it plays a huge part in how I think of food. I think that the fact that I'm inspired by produce is a testament to how I grew up and where I grew up.
JAYMEE SIRE: Absolutely. You mentioned that you and your husband when you first met were a little competitive. What's it like now, and what's the key to successfully working together with a partner?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It's really the only way we've ever known each other. So we were first successful colleagues and then the romantic side came later. I would be a liar if I said it's always been easy to work with my husband. We actually work very well together. But in that same breath, we take our work home with us. We talk about work 24 hours a day. If things are crappy at work, then they're crappy at home. It's a double-edged sword.
But at the same time, I don't have to explain to anyone what my day was like because he inherently understands what the day was and why I'm in the mood that I'm in, or why I'm excited about something that happened. It eliminates the needing to explain your day and not knowing if your spouse will understand it. We both understand when the other one says I need to spend all night at work, or I need to go in early.
And I'm personally very appreciative that I have someone who can get a phone call at five o'clock in the morning when somebody has forgotten their key to open up who will jump in the car and run down to work for me. We're a great team. We pick up each other's pieces when we're not feeling it, and we can celebrate each other's successes because we understand them unlike anyone else.
But in the same breath, when we have a fight in our personal lives, we bring it to work with us. And everyone at work can feel it. We try not to let that happen very often. It was a little bit easier when we had multiple restaurants, because we could just spend the day at a different restaurant. I also will say that we probably see each other less now than we ever really have in our careers because I travel a lot.
In the last year I've probably been gone for a third of it. And as lovely as it is to have a business partner that I know can carry the weight at work, it's also wonderful to know that my husband is a father who is as involved and dedicated to being a parent as I am, because that's something that I really need in support of my career. So yeah, I mean, we do take long periods of time away from each other and that's something that really didn't happen until I did TV.
JAYMEE SIRE: Up next Brooke talks about her experiences on both seasons of Tournament of Champions, and she reveals who she was most nervous to face off against. I mean, obviously Food Network fans got to see your competitive side on both seasons of Tournament of Champions.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: What are you talking about, I'm not competitive.
JAYMEE SIRE: At all. Just not even a little bit. Season one, of course, you started off as the seven seed, competed your way to victory when you bested Michael Voltaggiio, Jet Tila, and a finally Amanda Freitag for the win. You returned for season two you made it all the way to the finale again but defeated by Maneet Chauhan.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Wah-wah.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, it was such a great battle to watch, so. I mean, after winning season one, what made you want to return and do it all over again?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Nothing. You're assuming I wanted to return [INAUDIBLE].
JAYMEE SIRE: You just had to, right?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: There was a conversation that Guy had to camera during the finale of season one that was like, all four of you will be back next year, and I was like really? I have this strange aching need to put myself in uncomfortable situations where I have no control.
I think it's partially because I'm such a control freak in my life that I like-- and I also am someone who likes to challenge themselves constantly. So being put in situations that are beyond my control, that's like a step in educating myself how to handle those scenarios. And I think that that's something I'm really good at as much as I am a control freak, and as much as I feel competing takes years off of my life every time I do it.
Also there's a thrill to it of knowing that you've put yourself in the most uncomfortable scenario and you come out on top. I strangely I guess have discovered that I'm good in these really high-stress environments. And how do you even discover that, right, if first of all, you have to put yourself in that position to even understand that and discover that. But then once you discover it, it's like what's next? What can I do with this? And the only thing really can do with it is continue to do it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. So with that in mind, are we going to see you back for season three?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I suppose.
JAYMEE SIRE: I suppose. twist your arm. Now, who are you most nervous to face off against in those two seasons?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Well, it's funny. When you were talking about who I battled in season one, the one person you left out of that sort of list of people was Antonia Lofaso.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, yes. How could I forget?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Antonia is one of my closest friends. She's also someone who I think because we're such good friends, I understand her completely. Like we understand each other, we're actually very, very similar people. And I know how competitive she is, and I know how talented she is. And I think that she has been the one constant of a person that terrifies me in battle. And I happened to come out on top in season one battling her, and then I was fortunate enough to not have to battle her in season two, which she wasn't real happy about.
JAYMEE SIRE: Is there a way to prepare at all, or you just go in and see what happens?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yeah, no, I think that going in to that scenario feeling inspired by food in general is the only way for me personally to prepare. You can either handle those scenarios, or you can't. And then it comes to fine tuning your capability of winning those scenarios. And the randomizer is a whole thing, and I actually feel like it really evens the playing field not knowing what you're walking into. And I think that having cooked professionally for 25 years is the thing that prepares me most for that, because I feel like I can walk into any scenario and feel like I know what I'm doing.
If you go into those battles and you aren't feeling inspired by food, like if you can't look at an ingredient and immediately think of something to do with it, then you're in trouble. And I think that the best way to do that is refresh yourself on some old menus, look at pictures of food, just be really hyper aware of how to treat ingredients. I'll spend a couple of days beforehand making sure that I'm just refreshed on what's in season, and styles of cooking. And if I'm given Mediterranean food, what direction am I going to go, because I know that it's a handful of things that I could be given.
JAYMEE SIRE: Does a particular ingredient from the randomizer stand out as being especially challenging from either season?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Ingredient. I mean, there were some insane tools.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. Well, yeah, tool either--
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Like an ebelskiver, like what? But ingredient-wise I feel like bitter melon was really difficult. I don't know. I could look at any ingredient and say like that was difficult because of this, this, and this. But bitter melon is something that definitely stands out, because it's not something that anybody really wants to taste. So it was a matter of like masking an ingredient, but also highlighting it.
JAYMEE SIRE: On the floor, in the competition, do you have an "oh, no" moment? And if so, how do you push past that?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: All the time. I mean, I feel like I live in the "oh, no" moment. There were definitely moments where I thought to myself, I'm not going to finish. And I will say that in the finale of last season when I looked at my broken hollandaise sauce, and I knew that the ingredient that I had to put on the plate was in that hollandaise sauce, and I had to use it, and I had literally seconds before I had to put it on the plate, there was no time to fix it. Like I know how to fix a hollandaise that's broken. I didn't have time to fix it. So I literally just had to put it on the plate and I looked at it, and I was like, oh, this is the death of me.
JAYMEE SIRE: You knew right then?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I knew right then. I knew the moment I put that sauce on the plate that the competition was over. It's a really heartbreaking feeling because you've gotten to this point where you hold yourself to such a high standard, and when you can't follow through it's like you've failed. I plated that plate, I walked off the stage, and I wanted to cry. And it's so funny because the competition is so lighthearted, and we're all friends, and it's not life or death, and I knew I had made it to the finale, it's as far as you can go. But I'll take what I do so seriously, and it's not even about being competitive. It's about performing at the top of my capabilities. And I want to be able to do that all the time. And when I can't, and I don't follow through, it it's really frustrating for me. But I think that that's what makes me a good competitor, is that I care so much.
JAYMEE SIRE: That you care so much, and that's what keeps you coming back for more, right?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I know, right? What's wrong with me?
JAYMEE SIRE: Do you think that that's the hardest-- I mean, you've obviously done a lot of competition shows. Is that the hardest format that you've been faced with?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yes. Fast-paced timed competitive cooking, there really is no more difficult scenario than being given ingredients, and tools, and a style, or any parameters, and then having someone say you have 35 minutes, go. And it's really once you're given those ingredients, it's really moments before you start cooking. And I try to kill time. Like Guy will look over and be like, does anybody have any questions? I'll be like, yes, I have so many questions. And then I'll just be talk-- I'll be in my head thinking like, what can I do? What can I do? Just asking the most random questions that I really don't need an answer to just to buy myself some time.
JAYMEE SIRE: Just to stall a little bit. Do you have any pre-game rituals?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I have a good luck charm that I carry with me, that I've carried with me since my son gave it to me when he was 4 and a half years old for a competition. And that is always in my pocket when I compete.
JAYMEE SIRE: What is it?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It's a little plastic lizard.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Rubber lizard. So it fits very nicely in my pocket.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, I saw you got to be on the other side of the competition recently, filming Chopped for the first time, I saw on your Instagram. What was that experience like?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: That was fun. Chopped is a show that's been on for so long and it felt very surreal. Like I walked onto the set, and I was like, oh, this kitchen is so small, and it's like everybody's right here. I was very hyper aware of how nervous the competitors were, because I've been there so many times. So I think I approach judging maybe a little bit differently than people who haven't done a lot of competitive cooking do. But yeah, it was a very surreal experience just being on the set of Chopped, sitting next like Mark Murphy and Maneet Chauhan, and people who know the production so well that I just kind of wanted to make sure I carried myself well.
JAYMEE SIRE: What would be your Chopped basket kryptonite?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I don't know. I've seen some crazy stuff. I think that the most difficult ingredients are the ingredients that are an entire prepared meal, like a cake that's frosted and has stuff on it, or like a sandwich.
JAYMEE SIRE: Like nachos.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yeah, like stuff where you have to pick stuff out of something to use and deciding which component of that dish to use I think. I feel like would be overwhelming to me.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I saw you were obviously recently a judge on Barbecue Brawl as well with Bobby Flay, Michael Symon, Eddie Jackson. I can only imagine what the behind the scenes of that set is like. Who acts up the most on that one?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: That show is so much fun. And we spent five weeks in Austin, Texas. I had so much fun getting to know everyone involved in that crew, and I can legitimately say that those guys are some of my closest friends now. And it's nice to be on a set where you develop friendships like that, and they carry over into real life.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. What would be your personal California spin on barbecue?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I don't know. I mean, I think that we're very vegetable forward here in California. I mean, of course, you look at California barbecue you think tri-tip and Santa Rosa grills. I have a big green egg in my backyard. I smoke stuff all the time, and not just in the summer. I actually for Thanksgiving I do turkey legs, giant turkey legs like from medieval times.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yes.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: That's my favorite thing to barbecue. So I think that when I think barbecue, I don't necessarily think red meat, which I feel like most of the country does.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, you will soon be appearing on the new season of Best Thing I Ever Ate, which is such a great show because I just think it's so fun to hear chef's personal favorite food experiences at other restaurants. What makes a memorable meal to you?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: A memorable meal it's experiential, right? I think that there's something to be said for a delicious great-tasting well-prepared meal. At the same time there's something to be said for sharing that meal with great people, being in an environment where you want to stay, and hang out, and create memories. To me there's a lot involved in a great meal. It x goes beyond even just what the food is.
JAYMEE SIRE: Do you have a favorite food city?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I've been so fortunate in the last eight, 10 years to be able to do a lot of traveling within the United States. I've really discovered so many little pockets of incredible food in places that I didn't anticipate it. I do an event for the Kentucky Derby called Taste of the Derby. And it takes me to Louisville once a year, and I've discovered some really incredible food in Louisville. I will say that Austin had some really great food. I went to a restaurant in Houston recently called Crawfish and Noodles with Chris Shepherd took me in Gail Simmons there. It was one of the most incredible food experiences I've had in a very long time, like just brought us tons of cajun-Vietnamese food. It was incredible.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I love a city where it feels appropriate to combine different cultures that you don't anticipate because of the demographics of that city and how they mesh and meld with each other. It feels very organic, but at the same time cajun-Vietnamese, what?
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: But it totally works.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love hearing that. I wish we could keep talking for hours, but we are running short on time, so I'm going to finish this off with a little rapid fire round and then we--
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Oh, no.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yes. And then we have one final question for you. All right, so favorite tattoo?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I will say it's my son's handprints from when he was six months old.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, I love that. Favorite part of living in California?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I can run outside any time of the year.
JAYMEE SIRE: Hidden talent?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I am really good at memorizing lyrics to songs, including like mid-nineties rap songs.
JAYMEE SIRE: Especially mid-nineties.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Especially mid-nineties rap songs. So you can put on almost any mid-nineties rap song, and I will know at least three quarters of the words.
JAYMEE SIRE: That is an amazing talent. What about a talent that you wish you had?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I wish I could play an instrument.
JAYMEE SIRE: Any particular one, or just any?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Piano. I feel like piano is something that could be cathartic for me, but it's really not because I can't play it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Play it. It'll just be more stressful. Go to snack?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Popcorn.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite dish to cook with your family?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Not really a dish, but something that I cook often with my son is Boba. He's obsessed with Boba, and we make fresh Boba and a milkshake probably once or twice a week.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow. Latest food obsession?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I have this Clementine tangerine tree in my front yard that has in the last couple of years matured to the point where it's literally the most delicious tangerine that you could ever imagine. It's like really low acid, super sweet, no seeds.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: And every time I walk out of my house, I grab one off the tree and I eat it.
JAYMEE SIRE: That sounds like the perfect snack. Most used kitchen tool?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Microplane maybe.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. All right, well, that concludes the rapid fire round. We have one final question though that we do ask everybody here on the podcast. And that is, what would be on the menu for your perfect food day? So we want to hear what you're having for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. There are no rules, so you can travel, you can talk time travel, spend as much money as you want, it is your day.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I would start my morning with a cappuccino and some delicious pastries. I do love just a good plain butter croissant and a glazed donut, like a simple Krispy Kreme glazed donut.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Lunch, a corned beef Reuben with Thousand Island and coleslaw, and melty Swiss cheese on marble rye bread. Can I have a Happy Hour--
JAYMEE SIRE: Yes.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: With a glass of champagne.
JAYMEE SIRE: 100%
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Or a Margarita maybe, and for a perfect Martini, and--
JAYMEE SIRE: Or all three, whatever.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: And classic caviar service.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK, I'm inviting myself to a Happy Hour.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: And then I'd like a bowl of ramen. Ramen is kind of my go to craveable food. That and sushi is kind of a toss up. And then for dessert I want just like a really simple flan, like a perfectly cooked flan.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Light, not too dense. During the pandemic I got really into perfecting my flan game, so I feel like I would like my own flan.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I was going to say. Are you cooking the flan for--
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Yeah, I'll cook the flan and I'll eat the whole thing. Yeah, and maybe also like a slice of old fashioned, lots of layers, rich chocolate cake.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. But just like a little one, or a big one?
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: I mean, whatever.
JAYMEE SIRE: Like I said, calories don't count on this--
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: It's my dream day.
JAYMEE SIRE: On this question. So thank you so much for taking the time, loved hearing about your journey and what we see on TV right now, and how it all got started. So thank you so much.
BROOKE WILLIAMSON: Thank you, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
JAYMEE SIRE: Talk about the embodiment of a girl boss. Brooke has got it all. You can catch Brooke on the new season of Best Thing I Ever Ate premiering on Sunday, November 21st at 10:00/9:00 Central on Food Network.
Thanks so much for listening and make sure you follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss a thing. And of course, if you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review. We love it when you do that. That's all for now, we'll catch you foodies next Friday.