Stephanie Boswell chats about her career, chef-inspired tattoos, and filming Halloween Baking Championship. Stephanie shares the story behind her two Michelin star tattoos with host Jaymee Sire before diving into the various places her career has taken her. From Chicago to Beverly Hills, Stephanie talks about the lessons learned and innovative dessert creations along the way. She reveals the childhood memory behind her concept, the Faberge Egg, and where she looks for creative inspiration. Stephanie talks about her childhood full of bland foods and void of candy before describing her experience as a judge on Halloween Baking Championship. She talks about how she sourced her own genuine ’80s wardrobe for the current season and the average amount of time she spends in the hair and makeup chair for the show. Stephanie reveals what it’s like to work with fellow hosts Zac Young and Carla Hall and then tells Jaymee where she draws the line when it comes to getting grossed out by contestants’ creations.
Stephanie Boswell chats about her career, chef-inspired tattoos, and filming Halloween Baking Championship. Stephanie shares the story behind her two Michelin star tattoos with host Jaymee Sire before diving into the various places her career has taken her. From Chicago to Beverly Hills, Stephanie talks about the lessons learned and innovative dessert creations along the way. She reveals the childhood memory behind her concept, the Faberge Egg, and where she looks for creative inspiration. Stephanie talks about her childhood full of bland foods and void of candy before describing her experience as a judge on Halloween Baking Championship. She talks about how she sourced her own genuine ’80s wardrobe for the current season and the average amount of time she spends in the hair and makeup chair for the show. Stephanie reveals what it’s like to work with fellow hosts Zac Young and Carla Hall and then tells Jaymee where she draws the line when it comes to getting grossed out by contestants’ creations.
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Find episode transcript here: https://food-network-obsessed.simplecast.com/episodes/stephanie-boswell-on-chef-tattoos-frightening-foods
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAYMEE SIRE: 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 an executive pastry chef on the show to talk about innovation in the dessert world, her famous Faberge egg creation, and what it's like to judge creepy culinary creations.
She is an internationally acclaimed pastry chef named A Woman to Watch by LA Confidential Magazine and a judge on Halloween Baking Championship. It's Stephanie Boswell.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Stephanie, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to dive in about everything with your life because I feel like we have a lot to cover. Of course, Food Network fans have been watching you as a judge on Halloween Baking Championship, which we will get to. But let's start with a fun fact. Do you really have a Michelin star tattoo?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: I have two of them.
JAYMEE SIRE: You have two.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: I have two of them, yeah, on either hand. I got these after working in Chicago because while in Chicago, I worked for two restaurants that achieved a Michelin star each. And it was one of the most gratifying, challenging experiences. And I wanted to remember it for the rest of my life.
And I wanted to put it on my hands because I work with my hands every day, and there's something to the idea of always looking down and looking at what your goals are and keeping that in sight. So I thought if I'm always looking at my hands and I'm always sort of working with them, having that as being a constant goal and a constant mark of what's possible with hard work and a good attitude and pushing through.
So I put them there permanently because most of my tattoos are very kind of scrapbooking in a way, they're not trendy, nothing tribal, nothing like that. It's not based on what's the cool tattoo of the moment, it's all moments in my life that have been impactful for me or things I wanted to remember and hold dear. So I get a lot of tattoos on vacations or places I've lived or moments in my life that I wanted to remember. So my body has sort of become this amalgamation of all these different pieces of art and things that I like.
JAYMEE SIRE: That is so cool. Do you have other ones that are related to cooking and pastry and anything like that?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: I do. One of the most notable ones that I get asked about a lot is on my forearm, it's the chemical composition for sugar. Because when I was in college initially, I studied everything. I was one of those kids that was changing majors as often as I changed socks. When I finally left college and just sort of decided I wanted to cook for a living, I wanted to take this kind of leap of faith.
And my brother actually who's one of my best friends in the entire world, I told him about it and he said, it's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than halfway up one you don't. And so I enrolled in culinary school and then started working in Kitchens and things like that simultaneously. And when I realized this is what-- solidly, concretely realized this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, I got the tattoo on my arm. On my forearm specifically because at that point in time, cooking wasn't really fashionable, it's sort of cool now to be a chef, right? But at that point, it was very much considered tradecraft.
So my family, my mom specifically was sort of appalled that I wanted to cook for a living. She wanted me to be president of the United States at some point. So to her, telling her I wanted to cook for a living was just insane. But I knew that if I put this tattoo on my forearm, I couldn't get a job at a bank. At that point in time, you couldn't have a square sort of 9:00 to 5:00 job if you had visible tattoos. And so it was sort of branding myself of this is what I want to do, I'm making the commitment, I can't work any other job.
JAYMEE SIRE: There's no turning back.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: There's no turning back. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't because now I've got this on my arm. And I love it, and it's gotten a lot of attention, and it's really-- it's funny to see because every now and again I'll meet somebody that's studied organic chemistry or something like that in college, and they just look at me and go, oh, sugar, that's cool. Why do you have that? It's like they know nothing about me but they know the tattoo.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, it's a good conversation starter at the very least. Let's start in Chicago, that time in your life. As you mentioned, you got the two Michelin star tattoos because you were at two restaurants that received them Tru and Naha What do you remember about those days kind of starting out in your career?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: They were hard. It was my first foray into fine dining. So it was challenging. And fortunately, I was young, I was in my early 20s. And so I had good knees and good hips, and I couldn't just run and burst through walls. And at that point in time, I sort of realized my value comes from the fact that I am so tenacious and so stubborn, and I will put a shoulder through a wall if I have to to get the job done.
Because at that point in time when you're just starting out, you kind of suck. Most people think there's no-- I don't know any real prodigies of the craft. There's people that can be born with an incredible palate and an incredible ability to identify color and balance and things like that, but knowing how to work in a kitchen is a very different animal in this sort of logistics of that. The trick to it that I found early on was just work really, really hard. Just outwork everybody that you possibly can because that's where your value lies. And learn as much as you can.
I was working at Tru, I mean, some days were like 21-hour days. And then I moved on to Naha. I was so fortunate I worked for one of the greatest pastry chefs in the country, Craig Harzewski. And he taught me the value of you can be so talented, you can be a certifiable badass in the industry, and you don't need to be a jerk to do it. You don't need to shout, you don't need to throw things, you don't need to denigrate anybody. He was one of the most patient, intelligent, thoughtful chefs I've ever had in my life.
And from him, I got that sort of input of oh, that's what I want to be when I grow up because he was just so gracious and so generous in all of his education for me both emotionally and obviously in practical application. 15 years later, I'll still call him chef. He's never--
JAYMEE SIRE: That will never change.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: That will never change. I will never call him by his first name.
JAYMEE SIRE: What do you miss most about Chicago?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Oh, everything. I adore Chicago. Chicago is one of my favorite cities in the entire world. The people are amazing, the city is amazing. And growing up in California, I didn't know how much I needed seasons until I got there because you don't realize when you're a kid and you're watching the Christmas story and you're watching all of these movies and stuff, and you see this snow and things like that and all the things that sort of represent the holidays, and you look outside and it's palm trees in 85. You don't realize how it feels a little monotonous and robbing of all of these beautiful holiday experiences that you've been told you're supposed to have.
So the first time I saw snowfall in Chicago, I cried. I absolutely just broke down crying because it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. You get real weathered during winter. And as soon as the weather hits 55, it's like, oh, shorts. Shorts and flip-flops.
JAYMEE SIRE: Summer.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Oh, my God, this is the greatest weather I've ever experienced. I love the Chicago, all of its seasons are the most of that season you will ever experience in your life. Winter is the most winter you've ever known. Summer is-- it's like 90 degrees and 90% humidity. And then fall, it's like everything sort of smells like chimney and leaves, and it's just incredible. And it's crisp, and everybody's cheeks are a little bit flush.
And spring, literally, you go out and spring and for some reason after all of the winter that you've been through, you're rewarded with tulips just blossoming. Tulips and daffodils blossoming all over the city. it's incredible. It's an incredible place. I haven't even talked about the food.
JAYMEE SIRE: I know. Yeah, what are some of your go-to spots in Chicago? I know our listeners always love hearing chefs favorite restaurants.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, I mean, I haven't been there in so many years unfortunately, that I feel like any place I named would be like, oh, that doesn't exist anymore. When I was there obviously, there was always Alinea. Alinea was the reason I moved to Chicago because at the time, I was still living in Orange County and working at a country club and kind of scooping cookies and making brownies and stuff like that. And I longed for more. And I went into an establishment that I think is few and far between now, I think they're called bookstores.
JAYMEE SIRE: What is that?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: What are bookstore? I of course, went to the cooking section and the food that I was seeing I'd never known possible. It was over the top too much incredible. And I thought, wherever this is happening, I want to be. So I flipped to the front of the book, saw that Alinea was located in Chicago, and the next week I had a plane ticket.
And I moved there. I didn't have a job, I didn't have friends, I didn't have family, I didn't have connections. I just knew that I wanted to be there. That kind of started the whole fine dining, beautiful career, I've had. And again, it's all based on leaps of faith.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. Well. You took another leap of faith after Chicago and headed to Vegas, which we obviously have to talk about. I would imagine a city like that, where everything is over the top. So much opulence. It's hard to make your mark there, but you certainly did that. How would you describe that chapter of your career in Vegas?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Amazing. I left Chicago because I felt like my career was getting very pinpointed into fine dining. And I had to start thinking about what was the overall game plan? What was the retirement plan? And generally speaking for chefs, a lot of times, that involves getting some kind of hotel experience. The best hotels in the country are in Vegas. We moved to Vegas, worked for the brilliant Sean McLean.
And what I learned in Vegas was-- like in Chicago, it was one of those things of like, guys, we're going to have a real crazy night. There's like 75 covers. We'll go down but it's going to get wild. And in Vegas, that number shoots to like 600. It was an incredible experience because coming from Chicago and all of the fine dining experience I had from there, a lot of it didn't translate.
Because in Vegas, you need to be able to make someone happy that's coming in from Boise. And you need to make someone happy that's coming in from Hong Kong. You need to learn a style that is inventive and interesting and makes people want to come back for more but also is incredibly familiar for humans in general, not based on regionality in any way, shape, or form.
JAYMEE SIRE: We have next stop on your culinary adventure was Beverly Hills where you were the executive pastry chef at the Peninsula. During that time, you were named one of the best up and coming female chefs by CBS LA. So you're back in your hometown and you're getting that kind of recognition locally. What was that like?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Surreal. When you're back of house, you sort of become accustomed to the fact that you're not flashy, you're not front of house, you're not going to be recognized, and that's OK. And you accept that very early on. It's like, you don't do it for the accolades, you don't do it for the ego strokes. Being called out by name as Best Up and Coming and a Woman to Watch and all this stuff. It was really weird. It was really cool and really strange.
I mean, obviously, super flattering. And yeah, I couldn't quite wrap my head around how it happened because I was just sort of plugging away, doing my job every day, doing what I liked, which is I think even more of a statement of how awesome it was. Because I really wasn't trying for anything, I was just trying to do what I thought was cool.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, one of the very cool things that you did was an award-winning dessert creation experience, I guess you could say. The Faberge egg. For anyone that doesn't know, can you kind of describe this dessert experience and how that brainchild came to be in your mind?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: So it came to me right after I left Vegas, which is probably why it was so over the top because I still had the glitz rattling through my head. And I wanted to create a piece of art that involved the guest, that was interactive. And as a child growing up, I was the youngest child, I was the only female, so my education and my betterment was my mother's only concern.
So literally every weekend was a museum, an arboretum, a show, a musical play, something like that. But mostly museums. I heard the words, don't touch that a lot growing up. So I wanted to create piece of art that was breaking a barrier of fine art and don't touch that, right? I wanted to create something incredibly beautiful, incredibly bespoke, that was intentionally given to you to smash. Take a hammer and smash it, destroy it. Because there is something sort of beautifully cathartic about destroying something beautiful.
And in that ended up becoming the art in and of itself. It sort of became performance art in a way. And yeah, because at that point in time, everyone was doing chocolate spheres that you melt with something hot going over, and I thought that's sort of passive. That's not really involving yourself in the process of the art. And I thought, smashing it, that's just too fun.
And I involved all of my cooks with it because as a chef, I believed it was my responsibility to train my cooks how to be chefs. It's not enough to just give them recipes and say do this over and over and over again because I said so, it's my job to teach them how to move forward in life and become chefs themselves. And so each and every single one of my cooks would be given their own eggs every day to design in any way they thought that they liked. Like any color scheme, any pattern they wanted.
So every single one was different and unique, and I loved that about it. And it sort of flies in the face of everything that is pastry because everyone's always saying well, consistency. It's all about consistency. And for me, it's like, yeah, consistency is incredible and it's fundamental but at the same time, art isn't. And a person's artistic eye certainly isn't. Everyone gets their own reality. And as a result, everyone is going to paint a little different and think a little different, and that should be sacred too.
JAYMEE SIRE: How long did it take to paint each one?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Well, some of them, the more sort of elaborate ones, like, there's one on I think my Instagram, it's all got little flowers on it and stuff like that. And that one probably took two hours, and it's fun because then it's like, break it, smash it, eat it. Yeah. There's something about-- because all chefs do art that's meant to be destroyed, right? We just don't say it. There's something very beautifully literal about it that I like.
JAYMEE SIRE: And what was inside when you smashed it open?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: So that changed. That changed from season to season. So it could be anything from a pumpkin pie to black forest. I tried to make it always something very relatable, very, very human. So these flavors that have been around in our classics. And the reason they're classics is because they're good. Because a lot of ways, what I learned in Vegas was this template, if you will, of I want to make things 80% classic and representational and everyone will find it delicious.
And 20% is that little adventure, that little come with, let me try and show you something a little bit new. Because people are a lot more likely to go along with you on that let's explore something new if you go most of the way for them. I felt like the 20% in the Faberge egg was smashing it. So I was destroying it. The 80% was the very familiar, very classic filling. So it was layer cakes, it was definitely chocolate, I mean, it was all kinds of stuff. It was basically a pinata.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love that. You mentioned your experiences growing up going to museums, don't touch that, a lot of that. But what about your food experiences growing up? What was that like as a kid?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: So when I was a kid, I went to the doctor. And this is the 80s. And the doctor took my blood and said, well, she's got really high cholesterol. She's got really strangely high cholesterol for a child. So he told my mom, you need to watch out on that. So from that point on, I was not allowed to have sugar, I was not allowed to have fats, I was not allowed to do anything other than run cross country most days.
Then as a result, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, right? Because it was the only time of year I got to have stuffing and mashed potatoes and dessert and all of these things. I distinctly remember turkey burgers that looked like hockey pucks. I still to this day I can't eat ground turkey because it's makes my eye twitch thinking about the hockey pucks when I was a kid. I had basically like the super macrobiotic diet as a kid. Plot twist, now I'm a pastry chef.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, was that similar to the egg idea? In that all of your life, you're not allowed to have sweets, and you're finally an adult and you're like, I'm going to just make sweets all the time.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Oh, yeah, for sure, yeah. There is definitely a level to me working out my own therapy via my bio pastry. Completely. Yeah, I'm working through some stuff. That's all it is.
JAYMEE SIRE: What about Halloween when you were a kid? Were you allowed to have any of that candy or was that off-limits as well?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: I don't know if this still happens but when I was a kid, there was an urban legend of there's razor blades in the candied apples. There was a lot of that. Like, food was poison, there's going to be rat poison and stuff. And all of these like horror stories that parents told each other at Little League, and it sort of disseminated through the kids. So I was allowed to have a little bit of it. But basically, as soon as I got home from trick or treating, it was confiscated and then doled out if I did something good.
Halloween to me was like a very mixed bag of emotions because I loved the dressing up. The dressing up was more important to me than pretty much anything. I mean, there's a picture of me that I still have of I really wanted to be a butterfly that year, and my mom did not have a butterfly costume. But what she did have was a clown costume. A clown pumpkin costume.
JAYMEE SIRE: Basically the same thing.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, so she put me in that and the entire night, I threw a temper tantrum from basically start to finish. So every picture of me from that night is my face just completely mid-tantrum sobbing my eyes out. I mean, just massive cheeks, just completely distorted, tears everywhere, smearing the pumpkin makeup, hilarious. And of course, my brothers are both having a great time, so they've got their arms around me and hugging me as I'm sobbing in every photo.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JAYMEE SIRE: Stephanie chats with us about the latest season of Halloween Baking Championship. That's coming up next. I think it's a perfect segue way to Halloween Baking Championship, which the finale airs this Monday. The show looks like a complete blast. I got to chat with Zach a few weeks ago. I mean, it seems like just being a judge on that show is pretty much a dream gig, especially everything that we've just learned about you. Did you ever imagine that that would be like part of your job?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Absolutely not. That was a dream come true of impossible dreams. Doing Halloween Baking Championship is a gift. It is absolutely not work, it is the greatest. It's like second Christmas. It's absolutely my most favorite. It's my, it's the most wonderful time of the year. It's so amazing. From the costumes to the incredible cakes that these bakers do, it's absolute perfection. I can't say enough about it.
And then of course, you've got Zach and you've got Carla. Carla, who is essentially human glitter, she's the nicest--
JAYMEE SIRE: Franchise, yes. Glitter, yes.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: She's just the greatest person you've ever met in your entire life. So getting to work with her and Zach every day and then adding to that put on costumes and kind of feel yourself in this space is just amazing.
JAYMEE SIRE: Who do you think takes the characters and the costumes the most seriously on set?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It's this one right here.
JAYMEE SIRE: Really?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: I go a little Daniel Day Lewis on it, I got to be honest. So this last season, we were told it's all 80s, right? It's an 80s-themed homage to the awesome iconic 80s slashers. And then that was true for our quote unquote, "normal dress" as well. So I decide to go to every thrift store, vintage store in Los Angeles and in Central California to buy all 80s attire from the 80s. So every single piece. I'm wearing is actually from the decade and represents--
And I wanted to really kind of hone in on these different vibes from the 80s. So there's like the Adam Ant and there's Dynasty, and there's Pretty in Pink, and there's all these different sort of ilks from within that singular decade that are so spectacular. And all of them are kind of over the top and feel a little costumey nowadays. But yeah, I went in.
JAYMEE SIRE: I think that's incredible, you were the one going out sourcing your costumes. You didn't leave it up to the wardrobe department.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: No, I love homework. I love it. I love it. Give me a task to do, especially a fun task like hey, go find basically everything that has shoulder pads in it in the Los Angeles area.
JAYMEE SIRE: The puffier the better.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, the puffier the better. I mean, it was next-- OK, for the finale, I don't want to go tell and tales out of school. But the outfit that I found for the finale is next level. I can't say too much because I want it to be a surprise. But oh, my God, it was the most expensive thing at any vintage store I've ever seen in my entire life. Let's just say it's purple, it's leather, it's beaded, and embroidered.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's a good tease I would say. So everybody's going to have to tune in to see exactly what that looks like on screen. But I mean, obviously, the costume, the hair and makeup are like you said, next level. How long are you spending in the chair for the show when you're getting all decked out like that?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It depends. So for some of the more tame looks, which I'll say-- let's just say Carrie, the sort of reference to Ms. Spacek. That was probably an hour. That was pretty easy because most of that was just putting on a wig and then dousing me in blood. However, something like the clown costume, which is coming up, that took about three hours because that's a full prosthetic mask, that's a bald cap, that's then hair on top of the bald cap. I mean, it goes on.
The last season, I was the Sasquatch supermodel, which was one of my favorite costumes of all time because again, I get too into character. I heard that I was going to be Sasquatch supermodel and I immediately started kind of diving into like, OK, what does that mean? How am I going to play that?
And I decided on it being first and foremost a supermodel who doesn't fully understand that they are a Sasquatch. So trying to plug their new body spray available at any drugstore. Kind of not with it, just fully committed to being a supermodel and the appearance of the Sasquatch was sort of secondary. That took about four hours to get into.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: And that was one of the hottest things I've ever worn in my life. It was about, I want to say it was like three wigs and two beards, head to toe fur, a onesie jammy kind of situation. It was a lot.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, we should talk about the contestants as well. I mean, what impresses you the most about just what you're able to see them complete during this competition?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It is astounding to me. What a testament to the human spirit it is, because it is not easy. And I get a lot of people asking me, what's wrong with their time management? It's like, this is the hardest situation I could ever imagine putting a person in and then saying, now, make a beautiful cake please.
It is an uphill battle. And the fact that they are able to do these incredible works of art in that amount of time with cameras in their face, cords on the floor, it's a new kitchen that they don't have that muscle memory for yet. So it's sheer pushing through. It's incredible. I am always astounded at what they are able to come up with. It's Earth shattering.
JAYMEE SIRE: I'm always intrigued by how something can look so scary but also delicious at the same time. Where do you draw the line when it comes to the creepy culinary creations?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Because it's surrounded with the overall theme, the ultimate like, it needs to be slashy, scary, there's a lot of leeway there, right? But for me, it's the weird gummy textures that just-- I look at and I just can't. It grows, it literally--
JAYMEE SIRE: It's, like, too real.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, it breaks the barrier of suspension of disbelief. It looks so real that I am put off.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, we're so excited to see the finale. I know you're also a judge on the upcoming Buddy Versus Duff holiday special. Can you give us a little teaser on that? What can we expect for that special?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Oh, my God. OK, what you can expect is nothing short of miraculous. I was picking my jaw up off the floor every single day. What these artists are capable of doing, it doesn't make sense. It is tantamount to witchcraft. I don't know at what point it's going to line up, but there are some cases that they do that literally made me want to cry. They were so beautiful and so intricate and so perfect. I mean, it's hard to believe that it's cake.
JAYMEE SIRE: Now. It's incredible to see what they can accomplish as well. It's been so much fun chatting with you about your accomplishments. We're going to wrap things up with a little rapid fire round and then we have one final question for you. So gummies or chocolate?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Chocolate.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite late night snack.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Cold pizza and ranch.
JAYMEE SIRE: Speaking of pizza, Chicago deep dish or New York style?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: New York. Sorry, Chicago. It's not pizza, it's quiche.
JAYMEE SIRE: Agreed. Or casserole or something, I don't know. How do you like your coffee or tea?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Black.
JAYMEE SIRE: Tricks or treats?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Treats.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite breakfast pastry.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Ham and cheese croissant.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite scary movie.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's a favorite scary movie?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It's terrifying.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love that movie. I will watch that whenever it is on.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Both of them gas-lighting each other. If that's not realistically terrifying--
JAYMEE SIRE: It's the psychological--
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: That's a real life stuff right there. All right?
JAYMEE SIRE: What do you listen to while baking?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Generally, Motown. Anything that I can wiggle to, I can dance to, has a good rhythm. I honestly, I love Kanye West for cooking. And if I'm in like a certain mood, rage against the machine.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, OK.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: That's the spectrum.
JAYMEE SIRE: Runs the gamut there. Easiest and hardest part of your job.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Editing. The creative process. Just when to stop, when to put your tools down and walk away.
JAYMEE SIRE: So that's the hardest, what's the easiest?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: The creative process.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. Well, we have our final question for you. This is a question that we ask all of our guests on Food Network Obsess at the very end. And as you might expect, every single answer is completely different based on the person that we are asking. So the question is, what would be on the menu for your perfect ideal food day? So we want to know what you're eating for breakfast, lunch, dinner, of course dessert, any snacks you want to mix in, you don't have to.
There are basically no rules. You can travel wherever, time travel, spend however much money, anyone can cook it for you. So it is your day, and the floor is yours.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Breakfast, leftover Chinese food from the night before with a fried egg prepared by Chrissy Teigen.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Lunch, I love hiking. Hiking is one of my favorite things to do. I've climbed Mount Whitney now a few times, and I'm wanting to climb Kilimanjaro. So I'm going to say--
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: --cold fried chicken on top of Kilimanjaro.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Goals, I'm setting goals right now.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's a pretty epic picture that you just painted.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It's a little bit Ina Garten now. I'm like, cold fried chicken is one of the best things. It's that little bit of comfort food with a little bit of life goals. Dinner, anything from anywhere in Tokyo. I've eaten some of the most astounding food, and I'm not being hyperbolic, in 7-Eleven in Tokyo.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yes.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It's wild. Anyway, I've eaten amazing foods underneath train tracks in Tokyo, the basement of malls, subways. I've eaten the most incredible meals of my entire life in Tokyo. So I would say anything from anywhere in the entire city, and I'll probably be fine.
JAYMEE SIRE: Nothing's off-limits. What are you having for dessert?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Street crepes in Bangkok, $0.25.
JAYMEE SIRE: What's in them?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: What do you want to be?
JAYMEE SIRE: What do you want to be in them?
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: It's Bangkok, man. Nothing is off the menu, you know what I mean? You can--
JAYMEE SIRE: True.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, the street food in Bangkok is just incredible. You can go days, weeks, months without ever sitting in a restaurant. It's one of the greatest food cities in the world.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, I could keep talking to you forever about a lot food and travel.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Well, then let's do that.
JAYMEE SIRE: Let's have a part two.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Yeah, why can't we just talk forever? What's wrong with that? I'm good with it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Might lose a few people, but we'd have a great time. We'll talk to the powers that be. But for now, we will say farewell and thank you again so much for sharing all of your story.
STEPHANIE BOSWELL: Thank you, this is so great. Next time, ASMR. We start sprinkling things and sipping coffee
JAYMEE SIRE: Love it.
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Well, I have to say being a pastry chef sounds like a pretty sweet life. A huge thanks to Stephanie for joining us. You can catch her on the season finale of Halloween Baking Championship this Monday, October 25th at 9:00/8:00 Central on Food Network and streaming on Discovery Plus.
Thanks so much for listening, and make sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a thing. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to rate and review. We love it when you do that. That's all for now, we'll catch you foodies next Friday.
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