Ask Yourself "What If?" with Milk Bar Founder Christina Tosi

What if this podcast turned into a baking show? For Christina Tosi’s third visit to A Bit of Optimism, we decided to find out. So we headed to Milk Bar to make compost cookies from things in my own pantry and my favorite beer bread from scratch! Christina’s not just my best friend—she’s the founder of Milk Bar, host of Bake Squad on Netflix, a cookbook author, and a fan favorite on this podcast. She lives by one simple question: what if? In this experimental episode, we dug into some big ideas about creativity, uncertainty, and the magic of trying something new. Recipes below! This...is A Bit of Optimism. You can watch the video version of this episode on YouTube here. For more on Christina and her work, check out: christinatosi.com ---------------------------- Simon's Compost Cookie Recipe (makes 15-20 cookies): 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature 1 cup granulated sugar 2/3 cup tightly packed light brown sugar 2 tablespoons glucose syrup 1 large egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon kosher salt Maltesers 85% dark chocolate Optimism Coffee grounds Granola Space/Astronaut Ice Cream Kettle Corn Pop Chips For the full step-by-step recipe, visit Milk Bar's website! Beer Bread Recipe: 3 cups self-rising flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt 4 tablespoons honey (or to taste) 12 oz beer (Samual Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout is Simon's preference!) 2 tablespoons butter (and save a little for the top) Mix ingredients slowly together Bake at 350 for 45-60 mins until baked through ---------------------------- This episode is brought to you by True Classic! I really love True Classic T-shirts, so we called them up and asked if they wanted to work together. And they said yes! Check out their clothes at: trueclassictees.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  This episode is brought to you by True Classic. The way they became our sponsor is because I loved their t-shirts. And so, we just called them up and asked them if they wanted to work together. And they said yes. So, check out their clothes at trueclassic.com. What's funny about this is I always have this in my pantry. Always.

• 0:23Simon Sinek?

  Space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in my pantry.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  I love you so much for that. This is 100% going, like, over my dead body, is this not going to your tacos cookie? Me neither, but we're gonna find out. But hey, what if?

• 0:38Simon Sinek?

  What if? So, bazillion years ago, I went for dinner in New York City at a place called Sam Bar, which was a David Chang restaurant. And in the back, they had a little thing called Milk Bar, which was their, basically, the dessert place for the restaurant. Well, I fell in love with one of the desserts called cereal milk ice cream. And yes, it is the most nostalgic ice cream you could ever eat. It tastes exactly like the milk from the cereal bowl from when we were kids, that sweet milk that we would drink. Little did I know that the founder and owner of Milk Bar would later become one of my closest, closest friends, Christina Tozzi. Christina Tozzi has gone on to have wild success. We can all buy Milk Bar products in our local supermarkets. You can see her on Netflix in her TV show. She's got multiple cookbooks out.

• 1:23Simon Sinek?

  But best of all, Christina is the most wonderful baker because she bakes with love. It is her love language. Because Christina was in my hometown this week, we thought we would do something different. We would do an experiment. And if there's one thing Christina and I both love, it's the unknown. So, this is a live cooking show that Christina and I did. So, if you're listening to this on audio, you will hear some clinking and clanking because we are actually in the kitchen. We are actually baking. If you'd like to see us bake, go to YouTube. The whole episode is there, or we will do our best to explain everything we're doing. We did something we've never done. It could succeed, it could fail. You'll let us know. But, no matter what, I know one thing will happen. You will learn how to make a compost cookie,

• 2:07Simon Sinek?

  and you will learn how to make the tastiest beer bread of your life. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:15Simon Sinek?

  This is a thrill for me personally because you were my first guest on A Bit of Optimism during lockdown. You and I have done this, I think, two or three more times. But I thought you were in L.A. How much fun would it be that we actually baked together? You and I have never... That's not true. We have baked together.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  I was like, every time I come over. Well, it's less about baking and more Simon has an idea.

• 2:38Simon Sinek?

  No, no, no. It's about introversion. It's about introversion.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:40Simon Sinek?

  Because I went to a dinner party at your house and there were lots of people who were all outside being entertained by your front of house husband. And you disappeared into the kitchen. You were a happy place and you didn't have to talk to people. Turns out, I was very close behind you and we ended up experimenting and we invented new breads. We also made new ice creams. We did a... It was an ice cream loaf.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  That's like Bake Club. That's what Bake Club is. It's like, come in, bake with us, learn something new. We're going to set you up for success. And you're the genius because it's putting the things together in your home that will bring you delight, that you can share.

• 3:17Simon Sinek?

  You know, I've never talked to you about baking because I'm either doing it with you or we talk about other things. I've actually never talked to you about baking and now we're going to talk about baking. What was your... Like, where was your entry into baking? Like, was it an escape to... Like, because you didn't want to play outside with other kids that you were like... I was like, I'm just going to be over here baking. Like, what... Where did... Like, why baking?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Baking, okay.

• 3:37Simon Sinek?

  Why not baseball?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I love to be outdoors and I love sports, but baking... So, my mom was a working mom. She's an accountant. So, January through April every year, my grandmas, my aunts, would watch us, basically. And in my family, the matriarchs bake. That's just what you do in your free time.

• 3:56Simon Sinek?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Ohio and Virginia.

• 3:58Simon Sinek?

  I don't know that without...

• 4:00Speaker 01

  And then my mom would ship me off to Ohio to live with my grandma on her farm every summer so that we didn't become city kids when we moved to Virginia. City kids. And I loved it because it was time with them, but really, I loved it because I like cookie dough. Only, I started eating too much of my grandma's cookie dough and she started doing the math and being like, this is not adding up. This should equal this many cookies. Demand planning in her head. And she realized I was the culprit and she basically was like, no more baking with me. Because you keep eating the cookie dough, you're spoiling your dinner, all the grandma things. It was like survival of the fittest moment. And I wasn't allowed to turn on the oven, but I loved cookie dough.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So I would, at a very young age, make these concoctions of like, I don't know, flour, sugar, things that I remembered putting in. And it was trial and error, right? Like, if you don't put in enough sugar, it's not really cookie dough. I'd put a raw egg in and be like, ooh, this is good. You put too much salt and not enough baking soda, etc. Then I was, then got to the age where I could turn on the oven and so these concoctions would actually start baking.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  And that's, I learned how to bake, self-taught as a home baker. And then I moved to New York City, because I was like, I want to do this for a living.

• 5:13Simon Sinek?

  And then you went to, you went to fancy culinary school. Became a fancy baker, worked in fancy restaurants.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I'm intense. I like, I like the competitive, the inner competitive spirit. I'm going to do it the highest of my game.

• 5:24Simon Sinek?

  So here's the thing that I find amazing, which is most kids who discover baking, it's, it's, it's science, it's following, following the formula. And their first recipes are memorized, you know, or, or you read them. But you, you didn't have that. So from the get-go, it was trial and error. From the get-go, you had to learn, like, one egg tastes good, three eggs taste bad.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  And that's how I learned, that's how I think.

• 5:47Simon Sinek?

  Things crumble or things stay together, so you're.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Baking was never precious for me, right? Most people, why do they bake? Because they like the control of it, the science, the security behind it. It's hard, but it's accurate.

• 5:59Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  What I love about baking is the opposite of that reason.

• 6:03Simon Sinek?

  The thing, because I've seen, having baked with you before and having experimented with you before, the thing that I love that you do that no one, I've never seen anybody else do, which is usually somebody makes a thing, right? And even if they experiment, it'll either work, it won't work, and they say, ah, next time, I'll add this to it. You will have four things going on simultaneously. It's like a conveyor belt, this one's got a little more of this, this one's got a little more of that, this one has less. And you, you are, you're treating it like A, B, C, D, and see which one comes out. And that's what we did when we made the beer bread.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 6:31Simon Sinek?

  I remember, because I went and bought the beer. I came

• 6:35Speaker 01

  How many bottles of beer did you try?

• 6:36Simon Sinek?

  We went through a lot of bottles of beer on the wall. And, and we probably tried, I remember we tried a raspberry, a raspberry beer, we tried a chocolate beer, we tried a stout, we tried like, like a fancy beer, we tried a not fancy beer, and we did the same recipe with all these beers until we discovered one we like.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  That's right. And so for me, baking.

• 6:56Simon Sinek?

  Love. I liked all of them.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  No, love, yeah, to be fair. For me, baking and the approach to life is always walking around with this sense of, what if? What if? What if the raspberry one's really good? What if the chocolate's, what if, what if I put pretzels and chocolate together and swirl them into, what if I put cookie dough, sweetened condensed milk, Ritz crackers, and bugles?

• 7:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, that sounds great.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  In the oven?

• 7:22Simon Sinek?

  But there they are.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  But there they are.

• 7:23Simon Sinek?

  I'm looking at them right now.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  And you never know. And the beauty is-

• 7:25Simon Sinek?

  There's a bugle on a cookie.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  The beauty is, you don't know. And I, I love that part of baking. You only know what you know, and I go into it, then I'm not disappointed, because that's the other bit of trial and error. Being a great chef, a great baker, you have to be so good at disappointment.

• 7:41Simon Sinek?

  But you know, even with all your training, you know things that go together and things that shouldn't go together. So how often are you actually disappointed?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  So often. Because I want to defy the odds. For me, like Milk Bar was built on, we're gonna have a bakery, and we're not gonna have vanilla ice cream, and we're not gonna cover cakes on the sides, and we're not gonna make normal cookies that you would find at a bakery. And we're gonna make pie, but it's not apple pie. So you get cereal milk ice cream, and you get Milk Bar pie that's dense and gooey and fudgy, that no, we pull it out when it is still dense and gooey and, right? Because who knows? And who's to say? Who gets to make the rules?

• 8:20Simon Sinek?

  Where did you come up with the name Milk Bar to name your, your company?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Okay, it's kind of two parts. One-

• 8:27Simon Sinek?

  Milk and bar, those are the two parts.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  No. Close, no. My idea for Milk Bar originally, and still is, like my North Star was a modern day take on Dairy Queen with a bakery case.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Like I knew I wanted cookies, cakes and pies, but for me it was all about a soft-serve ice cream machine. And this is before soft-serve was anything beyond what you'd find at Dairy Queen or like a roadside custard stand.

• 8:53Simon Sinek?

  Chocolate vanilla mousse.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like Dairy Queen, Milk Bar, you can see that, right? And then I started Milk Bar originally in the back of a Momofuku restaurant because I was helping Dave build all the Momofuku restaurants. And the naming convention that we always had was Something Bar, right? Noodle Bar, Som Bar.

• 9:09Simon Sinek?

  Oh, Som Bar, ah.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Milk Bar. So part of it's like the origin story and then the other part is like the nostalgic origin story.

• 9:16Simon Sinek?

  So Milk was really your homage to Dairy Queen and Bars because you were forced into it?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Not forced into it, that was just how I thought, yeah.

• 9:22Simon Sinek?

  No, no, but you said all of the things were Som Bar, Noodle Bar.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  But it wasn't like it must be this. I just thought, that's a beautiful way to pay homage.

• 9:30Simon Sinek?

  So you liked it, okay, it's good.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  I mean, it's worked for us. What if I said, no, it's like, that's part of it, you know?

• 9:35Simon Sinek?

  So how much has, how much has baking influenced you as a person in life? Your relationships, your friendships, your marriage, your mom-ness? Or, or the other way around? How much does outside life come into your, into your kitchen?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  It has gone through waves in my baking career. Here's what I know about baking. Even after all that I said, I thought I knew why I love to bake. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that I actually love to bake. Not just because I love to eat dessert. I thought that was really the motivating factor and not just because I love the creative outlet of it. But I do my best talking through dessert. So dessert is my relationship to the world, to community. I'm an introvert. The reason I like to hide in the kitchen is because I want to bake you. I want you to feel known and seen and loved by your not-too-sweet chocolate cake, right? Like I, that's how I say, I got you, I'm here for you, I love you, I'm sorry you had a shitty day, happy birthday, like anything in between.

• 10:32Simon Sinek?

  It's your love language.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  It is, that's why I bake. And it gives me the never.

• 10:38Simon Sinek?

  You bake to give love.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  It gives me the never-ending capability to fall back in love with anything. A simple ingredient, feeling good about a day, being a human in the world. Like, it is my bit of optimism.

• 10:51Simon Sinek?

  I, I think what I want, I think what I, what's important. What I want to get across is that too many of us think baking is follow the recipe. And it's not like cooking. Cooking, you can experiment more and baking you can't. There's less room for experimentation because if you change the variables, the science changes, the chemistry changes, and it doesn't work. And this idea that getting comfortable with failure and that baking is an education for getting comfortable with failure, like it doesn't taste good, so throw it out and make it again, like so what?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Just what did you learn from it? When you fail from anything in life, what did you learn? Right? Use that. There's always good in something. And for me, if you're not failing, you're not taking risks, you're not growing, right? What have you learned today? I didn't learn anything because I crushed it.

• 11:39Simon Sinek?

  How do you define failure? Because nobody wants to fail.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Things not turning out the way that I thought they would. And guess what? That's fine. If not, that's great. That's flexibility.

• 11:51Simon Sinek?

  So how has this mentality towards your cakes impacted you as an entrepreneur? Because you, Milk Bar is your company.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:59Simon Sinek?

  You founded it.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:01Simon Sinek?

  It's had its ups and downs like any other company. You have all the same issues as every other company.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Human in the world, believe it or not.

• 12:08Simon Sinek?

  So I'm very curious because, you know, for me, I can look at myself, I know as an entrepreneur and a business owner, like I know what elements of my personality come and show up, better than sometimes worse, but I know how they show up and work. So because I'm an artist and I have an artist sensibility. And I love seeing things. I love my senses, I love hearing things, I love tasting things. I just love all of that. I know how that shows up at work.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:35Simon Sinek?

  You know, I love the experimentation. I love the messiness. I love the chaos. Because for me, creativity is the skill of finding order in chaos, right?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Skill of finding order in chaos.

• 12:46Simon Sinek?

  Creativity is finding order in chaos. And sometimes that chaos is thrust upon you, market conditions. And sometimes I have to inject chaos in order to get some creativity. Yeah, so I find in my, for me, for work, when it gets stale, and sometimes I don't realize things are stale until I realize I'm bored. And when I'm bored, I realize it's because there's no, and so sometimes I inject creativity. I inject chaos in order to produce a creative output. And by the way, not just mine, everybody's.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  This is a very, can I tell you, this is a very chef mentality.

• 13:18Simon Sinek?

  Really?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Some of the greatest chefs that I worked for. We're most drawn to chaos. Some, some might call it drama. But in a way that was like, if it doesn't exist, we're not alive. We don't feel alive. The spirit of getting something done, the Herculean effort of it.

• 13:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And the sparks that come from that don't exist.

• 13:36Simon Sinek?

  I think the difference, at least from TV shows that I've watched about chefs. Which probably is a terrible way to make this conclusion, but I don't want to be the hero. I don't want to inject chaos and then be like, and I put it right. It's not, it's not like that. It's, I want to inject chaos and be like, alright, everybody, we have a mess. I don't know what to do, even if I made it. What are you gonna do? And I love, I love watching people and pushing people to find creative solutions to the mess that sometimes I make. So, what is it about as a baker? And the way you bake and the style in which you bake, that you can, you can make a one-to-one correlation to you as a, as a, as a, as an entrepreneur and a business owner?

• 14:19Simon Sinek?

  The way you make decisions, the way you lead people, any of it, any of it?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  This is a human business. And if humanity is not a part of what we do, we have failed. And anything is possible.

• 14:29Simon Sinek?

  But what about being a baker has influenced you as an entrepreneur? Like what, like, like me as an artist, I can see it. I can see where it comes in as an entrepreneur. So what about you as a baker? How you bake, the, the way you're approaching baking, you can see?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  You know nothing. Like, ask yourself what if and give it a try.

• 14:47Simon Sinek?

  But it's that sense of possibility.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  That is, like, how did we build a bakery? That is, locations all over the place, a care package business across the country.

• 14:56Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Product in the out, like, all kinds of crazy stuff. It's because we didn't follow roadmap and we were just like, what if? But to your point of the creating chaos, if we're not asking ourselves what if?

• 15:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  With this anything is possible mentality. And by the way, when you're building business, right? We're 17 years in right now. It would be smart to keep just doing what we're doing. Sell the icons, sell the classics. Don't iterate, like, play it safe, keep it simple, right?

• 15:23Simon Sinek?

  Go with your greatest hits.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Right?

• 15:25Simon Sinek?

  But you still have to sing respect if you're Loretta Franklin.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 15:29Simon Sinek?

  You still have cereal milk ice cream in the, in the machine.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  But if that's all we're doing.

• 15:32Simon Sinek?

  Right, right, right.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  The spirit and the heartbeat of who we are, we don't feel like ourselves. We love to do that. And you have to be able to nail your classics every time. But if we're not experimenting and trying and falling flat on our faces and finding these moments? We're suffocating ourselves.

• 15:49Simon Sinek?

  Let's bake.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:50Simon Sinek?

  I want to learn. So you've made something not with me, but I've been in the room when you're making them, which is a compost cookie. And I knew that we were going to make these because I was told, I was given one instruction, which is bring stuff from around my kitchen. Just bring stuff. I have no idea if any of this stuff is bakeable. You don't know what I brought.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  I have no clue what you brought.

• 16:09Simon Sinek?

  But I brought stuff from around my kitchen.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  So I think every baked good, like, it's not about us when we make baked goods. It's about what the baked good does for the person that's eating it. Not too sweet. So the compost cookie?

• 16:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Is a chocolate chip cookie? When you don't have enough chocolate chips to make a chocolate chip cookie.

• 16:26Simon Sinek?

  That was the origin?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It's butterscotch chips. It's pretzels, it's potato chips, it's ground coffee, it's graham cracker crumbs.

• 16:32Simon Sinek?

  It's whatever.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  It's anything and everything. I used to make it on this island off the coast of New Hampshire. A bad storm would come in. I had to bake for 600 people, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it was basically the like, "Ooh, we're not getting any fresh." So I'd just go into the pantry and grab stuff. And it became this beloved cookie because people would guess every time.

• 16:49Simon Sinek?

  So this is my bespoke?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  This is your bespoke compost cookie. I also just think it's fascinating what people keep in their pantries. It says everything. It's the food that fuels them. It's the food that fuels your creative engine.

• 17:03Simon Sinek?

  I didn't bring kimchi. And it's always in my fridge.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  That's okay. But you want to know what? I would have gone the distance with you. But I think the food that people keep at home is the most brilliant insight into them. And I think your taste buds are fascinating.

• 17:18Simon Sinek?

  Okay, well, this-

• 17:19Speaker 01

  And they're different than mine.

• 17:20Simon Sinek?

  Well, hopefully, this will fascinate you. This hopefully is a fascinating.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Okay, let's see.

• 17:23Simon Sinek?

  We're trying something a little different. Instead of a traditional Host Red ad, I invited Ryan Bartlett, the founder of our sponsor, True Classic, to sit down for a conversation. And it turns out there's a lot more that we can learn from him beyond just how great his T-shirts are. And his T-shirts really are great. We call this an ad with authenticity.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  I was obsessed with reading the reviews about what people were saying about the product. And there was a magical moment very early on. It was in the first couple of months. This lady hit us up and was like, "Hey, I just wanted to let you guys know..." My husband, because of your product, he walks out of the house with an air of confidence now that he's never had, like ever in his life. I spent $49 on a three-pack, and somehow that has translated to confidence in him. I can't tell you how transformational it's been. He doesn't feel self-conscious about how he looks anymore. He's actually proud of himself. So, thank you so much for developing this thoughtful product. It has quite literally changed our lives. And I read that, and it just, it hit me.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  And I was like, we're not selling t-shirts, we're selling confidence.

• 18:35Simon Sinek?

  And, like all great companies, what you're doing for your customer, you're doing for your employees. You're building a culture where people feel confident because they have the opportunity to experiment, be their true selves, and build a career with you. So, one of my favorite things in the world, I brought what I have left. Lapsang Sushang tea.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so we got tea, some really fancy tea.

• 18:57Simon Sinek?

  My brother-in-law makes the best granola in the world. His name's Brad, and so we call it Branola.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:03Simon Sinek?

  I brought my, our favorite almonds. I introduced you to these almonds, which are almonds from Afghanistan of all things, but they're the tastiest almonds in the world. I had those in the pantry. I have a half-eaten bag of kettle corn pop chips. I love kettle corn, everything.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I'm getting some play here.

• 19:21Simon Sinek?

  I brought a bag of my optimism coffee.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Oh, this stuff.

• 19:28Simon Sinek?

  That stuff's the magic.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm gonna loop these into categories.

• 19:33Simon Sinek?

  Somebody, I think somebody stayed at my house and left these in my pantry, and I don't know what they are.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  They're wheat puffs.

• 19:40Simon Sinek?

  Or some sort of wheat puff, something like that. I don't know what it is.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:44Simon Sinek?

  There are things in here that, I always, believe it or not, this will tell you something. What's in my pantry tells you about something, about who I am.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  What else we got?

• 19:51Simon Sinek?

  I have, I have a chocolate drawer.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  I know, I know about the chocolate drawer.

• 19:55Simon Sinek?

  So, I just grabbed a lot of bars in the chocolate drawer, everything from crap to really high-end stuff.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  This is gonna be the most primo.

• 20:01Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Pompo cookie we've ever seen.

• 20:04Simon Sinek?

  Because I'm an Englishman, I always have English chocolate.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  I love you that you have a dark chocolate cat.

• 20:08Simon Sinek?

  I have Maltesers, I have Cadbury's, Cadbury's white buttons.

• 20:13Simon Sinek?

  Now, this will tell you the most.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  My bread box.

• 20:15Simon Sinek?

  This will tell you the biggest thing about me. And this is, what's funny about this is I always have this in my pantry. Always.

• 20:23Simon Sinek?

  Space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in my

• 20:27Speaker 01

  I love you so much for that. This is 100% going like over my dead body is this not going

• 20:34Simon Sinek?

  I don't know how that will bake.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Me neither, but we're gonna find out. But hey, what if?

• 20:38Simon Sinek?

  What if?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  What if it works?

• 20:40Simon Sinek?

  That really is compost.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  What if?

• 20:43Simon Sinek?

  What if?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  What if? Okay, great, we've got it.

• 20:46Simon Sinek?

  By the way, you talk about what if? This entire, you and I doing a cooking show?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a what if?

• 20:55Simon Sinek?

  Is an experiment. This could be an absolute disaster failure.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what, I had a great time.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Okay, so first things first, which one do you want to choose? You want to do the granola?

• 21:06Simon Sinek?

  Granola.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  We got you, Brad. Okay, so we're going granola, molteasers, chocolate, space ice cream, pop thingies, and then

• 21:15Simon Sinek?

  Pommens.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Simon Phils. Okay, I'm gonna start chopping some stuff up. In the meantime, you're gonna do 101. When you're making a cookie, you gotta start with fat and sugar, and you paddle them together. So I've got unsalted butter, sugar, light brown sugar, and some granulated sugar.

• 21:33Simon Sinek?

  We have to say we did not pre-bake the cookies because I literally just showed up with the ingredients.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Couldn't do it.

• 21:38Simon Sinek?

  Couldn't do it. So what was the other thing I had to add to this?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Just those three. We're gonna start there. Okay, so butter and sugar cream together till it's nice and smooth. You got it, like 101. It's all about a homogeneous mixture. It's all about scraping down the sides of the bowl to get it going. I'm very excited for this.

• 21:56Simon Sinek?

  Right now, it's very crumbly. Just keep it going.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Just keep it going. It'll come together. You can, we'll do this, ready?

• 22:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Really get in there.

• 22:06Simon Sinek?

  Turning up the

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:11Simon Sinek?

  Oh, we're making dough.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  We're making dough.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Alright, now she's looking good.

• 22:16Simon Sinek?

  When I was a kid, I used to like dipping my finger in the butter and then dipping it in the sugar. And then eating off my finger.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  This is, honestly, baking with children and watching them interact with ingredients is one of my favorite things. No, I just mean, you did it as a kid, because you looked at it with this-

• 22:31Simon Sinek?

  Kid.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Kid.

• 22:32Simon Sinek?

  Kid in air quotes.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  With this childlike sensibility, right?

• 22:36Simon Sinek?

  Yes.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  You ready for this?

• 22:37Simon Sinek?

  What's that?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  See this?

• 22:38Simon Sinek?

  No.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  This is glucose. It is a significantly less sweet inverted sugar compared to corn syrup. But we put glucose in all of our cookies at Milk Bar, because it guarantees you're gonna get a nice dense, fudgy, centered cookie.

• 22:53Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  And, because there's water activity in it,

• 22:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  it guarantees that your cookie stays nice and moist and fudgy for multiple days.

• 23:03Simon Sinek?

  Did I ever tell you that I think that The Great British Baking Show is the greatest television on television? Did I ever tell you that?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Because-

• 23:13Simon Sinek?

  Second to your show only. Second to your show only.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Because it champions the spirit, the true altruistic spirit of a baker.

• 23:21Simon Sinek?

  To me, it's the way life should be, which is we can compete against each other. It's a show with winners and losers. Somebody will be declared a winner. Every day, somebody's thrown off the show. It has losers, and yet, even though it's a competition, they help each other. And that, to me, is the spirit of what life should be. We can compete against each other and help each other simultaneously. They're not mutually exclusive.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Also, you can just compete against yourself, like-

• 23:42Simon Sinek?

  That too.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  We don't need a loser to have a winner.

• 23:44Simon Sinek?

  No, but the fact is, it is a competition in that case.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:48Simon Sinek?

  Oh, so that's the ice cream sandwich? That space ice cream sandwich? I will admit, I prefer the Neapolitan.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I'm kinda into this. It's gonna give us the cookies and cream moment.

• 23:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Got a real fun little situation happening. And then, do you feel like you have a nice homogeneous mixture?

• 24:06Simon Sinek?

  It feels pretty homogeneous.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  It feels nice. You don't have any specks of-

• 24:09Simon Sinek?

  There's a lot of homogeneity going on here.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Okay, great. You gotta put all the dry ingredients together before you-

• 24:15Simon Sinek?

  Oh, I fucked it up.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  No, you're fine. But I will tell you when it makes a difference, and that will- You didn't mess it up, but-

• 24:22Simon Sinek?

  Shit.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Also, this is fun.

• 24:24Simon Sinek?

  Thank goodness this is your kitchen and not mine.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  This is what-

• 24:27Simon Sinek?

  Flour just went everywhere.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  It happens. Can I tell you, even to this day? I'm spilling, I'm mixing, I'm dropping an egg. It all happens. It happens. You know what? Let's just leave the mess. Mess is good.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Mess means we're living, man.

• 24:45Simon Sinek?

  Apparently, in Chinese food, if you leave a mess, it means you enjoyed your meal.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Highest compliment.

• 24:52Simon Sinek?

  So I am...

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Okay, whoa, whoa.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  So, we want a tender, we want, we want the cookie to be on this spectrum, which means as we add the flour, we want to mix it as little as possible, because the more we mix it, the closer it gets on the spectrum to bready.

• 25:07Simon Sinek?

  Oh, got it.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Which is okay. So let's scrape this down, and now we're gonna put our mixons in. You wanna taste some dough?

• 25:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  It's a good base.

• 25:15Simon Sinek?

  That's good.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Is it too sweet?

• 25:17Simon Sinek?

  I didn't screw it up too badly.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  You didn't. For me, this is, this is why I got kicked out of the kitchen.

• 25:23Simon Sinek?

  Why?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  This moment.

• 25:24Simon Sinek?

  Because you would stick your finger in it?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Because once I have one bite of cookie dough, I have to like take two grown-up steps away from it now.

• 25:30Simon Sinek?

  Wait, wait, this is very tasty. And I can taste the, um, I can taste this brown sugar.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 25:38Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, I like brown sugar.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  All right, so we're gonna add some goodies.

• 25:40Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  It's as much or as little as you want.

• 25:43Simon Sinek?

  Well, does it all just get thrown in?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we're gonna let the, the heft of the paddle break some of these bigger pieces down. What I love in a composite cookie...

• 25:53Simon Sinek?

  We're putting in, um, my leftover kettle corn pop chips.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  It's gonna be good.

• 25:58Simon Sinek?

  Those are tasty. Okay, this is the most exciting one of all. That's just gonna be huge and chunky, though.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it'll break down.

• 26:05Simon Sinek?

  You think? There's a piece in there.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 26:07Simon Sinek?

  Why'd you eat it?

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Do you need it?

• 26:08Simon Sinek?

  No, just eat it.

• 26:11Simon Sinek?

  So we have now put in the, and now we've put in the ice cream sandwich, the, sorry, the space ice cream sandwich. We're putting in some branola, homemade, family branola.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I think this one's gonna be the reason you really like it.

• 26:23Simon Sinek?

  I think so, too. Then lots of dark chocolate, very fancy dark chocolate, 85%. Bunch of Maltesers.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  This is a fun one because you're never this untidy about how you think about anything.

• 26:34Simon Sinek?

  You absolutely got me wrong.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Well, you're, you're intentional.

• 26:38Simon Sinek?

  Everybody thinks I'm neat and organized.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  No, no, I know you're not neat and organized, but...

• 26:43Simon Sinek?

  It's the biggest surprise everybody has of me, which is I'm messy.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I, but look at this. But you're, but you're like, this isn't how one should bake. You think baking is a certain way, and I'm like, no, no, no, it's more free, let's make a mess.

• 26:56Simon Sinek?

  This is true, this is, this is true, this is free-form baking.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  You're like that in these other places, and that's where your brilliance comes out.

• 27:06Simon Sinek?

  This is ridiculous. So we just turned on the mixer and it, it sounds like it's the mint mixer with what's going on there.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  It's never gonna be homogeneous, right? Look at this.

• 27:14Simon Sinek?

  This is either brilliant or disgusting. I can't figure it out.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  It's your taste buds, babe.

• 27:18Simon Sinek?

  No, it's just the random stuff I brought from the kitchen.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  It's just random.

• 27:22Simon Sinek?

  Okay. To hearken back to Christina's childhood. You're staring at it like it's...

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Look at it.

• 27:28Simon Sinek?

  But what are you staring at?

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Well, I'm staring at...

• 27:30Simon Sinek?

  Because what I see is a glob of mess. What do you see as a professional baker?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  What I love about it is that when I look at it, I see texture, I see color, I see flavor, and I see possibilities. So I see these big pieces of Maltesers, these dark chocolate balls that I know are filled with this malted milk crunch. But some of them have broken down. All of your popcorners have broken down into much smaller pieces, so I know I'm gonna get a little corny. The optimism coffee is speckled throughout, which excites me because I know it's gonna be bitter.

• 28:00Simon Sinek?

  You can taste it.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  In a way that's good for your taste buds.

• 28:02Simon Sinek?

  But it's very hazelnutty. It's very hazelnutty.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  It is, but I'm not mad at that because then you get all the nuts and the seeds from the granola. You get these Chia Pops and these big and small nuts that are all super earthy. And then you have these still pretty giant pieces of space ice cream.

• 28:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And I love that because they are the total wild card of how will they bake?

• 28:19Simon Sinek?

  We have no idea.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  We have no clue.

• 28:20Simon Sinek?

  If they'll melt, they'll keep their shape.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  But you wanna know what? Let's do it. We're gonna scoop and bake, babe.

• 28:23Simon Sinek?

  My favorite thing about this is for the, the number of years you've been baking, that here I am. That something is, is gonna happen that you have no clue and you've never done.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 28:33Simon Sinek?

  That brings me joy.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 28:35Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  We learn together. We fail together. Like, that's also the spirit of team, right?

• 28:40Simon Sinek?

  But this is why it's fun, I think, to bake with somebody.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Okay. You got a scoop, I got a scoop. So here's my thing in scooping. One, baking 101 when you're making cookies. You wanna use a cookie scoop because you want all of your cookies to be the same amount so that they bake evenly.

• 28:57Simon Sinek?

  This, I've always used a spoon and it's never worked. To use an ice cream scoop is kinda genius.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Ice cream scoop is the best. So I'm gonna do kind of an oversized scoop.

• 29:04Simon Sinek?

  I'm not.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Well, then you're going on your own tray. Because they won't bake evenly if they aren't the same amount. Because they're gonna go in the oven on the sheet tray for the same time.

• 29:14Simon Sinek?

  Do we flatten them or leave them?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  I don't, no. I don't wanna flatten them. Because I'm really curious. They look like giant ice cream scoops of the most random cookie dough.

• 29:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  You've never thought of.

• 29:27Simon Sinek?

  This is, I've never made cookies so easily because it's always difficult. This ice cream scoop thing is a game changer.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  So I'm gonna take your cookies and I'm actually going to arrange them with like two to three inches between them on the baking sheet. Because they will spread when they bake and you wanna give them enough space. Alright.

• 29:45Simon Sinek?

  You could get more on there.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  I know, I can. I wanted to make sure you had enough. I'm really gilding the lily in the size of my spoon.

• 29:51Simon Sinek?

  You're the best. And you know what I realized? It really doesn't matter that I break my fingers because they're gonna get in the oven. Fire cleans everything.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  You're gonna be fine.

• 29:58Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Okay, great. Let me do one more on mine. Ooh, I got some big popcorners. Now, this is the ultimate. Look at the bottom of this bowl. It is just littered with great ideas and flavors and texture.

• 30:08Simon Sinek?

  I'm licking the spoon, I'm licking the bowl.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Okay, great. This is, I know you're having a really good time because you've lost yourself in it. For me, baking is like my favorite activities in life. Baking, going for a hike, running is the like, you lose yourself, find yourself.

• 30:22Simon Sinek?

  Yep.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  You haven't, what have you thought about the rest of life? What have you thought about?

• 30:26Simon Sinek?

  This is good, this is good therapy.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  We have a giant mess of flour and cookie dough and crumbles of all types all over this prep table.

• 30:35Simon Sinek?

  My dreams and ambitions are all over the table.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  And that is, you're all baking's a science and I'm all baking's chaos. Put whatever you want in it.

• 30:41Simon Sinek?

  I know, this has made me very happy. I have a renewed love or a newfound love of baking. Because I always thought it was like getting the ingredients at the right levels. So let's just go through what's in this fantastic cookie.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  A bit of optimism, the compost cookie.

• 30:54Simon Sinek?

  A bit of optimism, the compost cookie. So we have flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, egg, glucose, brown sugar, white sugar, all mixed together.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Butter.

• 31:06Simon Sinek?

  Butter, lots of butter. Then the added ingredients are kettle corn, popcorn, popcorners, dark chocolate moltezers, which are mold bowls from England. We have fancy dark chocolate, just a bar which we cut up. We have my optimism coffee that I collabed with Phil's, which we put in here, which is amazing. That's such good coffee. We put branola, which is the homemade granola that my brother-in-law makes. We have space ice cream, which is freeze-dried ice cream that you can buy at any science museum.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  If it wasn't a part of your childhood.

• 31:43Simon Sinek?

  That's when I first discovered it, and it has been in my closet ever since.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Alright, so we're gonna take these to the oven.

• 31:48Simon Sinek?

  My cupboard ever since.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Your cupboard. 350, 8 to 10 minutes. Mine are gonna bake a little longer because I made really big hunks of cookie dough.

• 31:57Simon Sinek?

  350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 to 10 minutes. That's it?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 32:01Simon Sinek?

  Oh, that's easy. I like mine over cookies.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Well, then we'll leave them in for the same amount of time.

• 32:05Simon Sinek?

  Do you know that about me? Like, when there's a chocolate chip cookie recipe that says 10 minutes or 20 minutes, I do 40.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  This is my face.

• 32:11Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  I promise to still love you even though I know that.

• 32:14Simon Sinek?

  Like, it's...

• 32:15Speaker 01

  That's against everything I believe in.

• 32:17Simon Sinek?

  It's not like, it's kinda like tea. Like, I'll drink tea however you give it to me, but if I make it myself, it's gonna be a very specific color.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Well, you know what?

• 32:24Simon Sinek?

  But it's the same with cookies. Same with cookies. I like cookies however you give them to me, but if I make them myself, I'm overdoing them.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  I think it's the space ice cream guy in you.

• 32:33Simon Sinek?

  I can tell you what it is. I like them right before they burn, that dark, dark, dark brown, because everything's so caramelized. That's why...

• 32:39Speaker 01

  It is. It's a depth of flavor.

• 32:40Simon Sinek?

  Thank you.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 32:42Simon Sinek?

  Is that the beer?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  We're making beer bread. That's Sammy Smith's.

• 32:45Simon Sinek?

  That's that?

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:47Simon Sinek?

  Oh, you went and got it?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, the clock here's open. Do you want an excuse to be drinking at work?

• 32:52Simon Sinek?

  No, but that's so good.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That's why I was like, which one should we do?

• 32:57Simon Sinek?

  We're about to make beer bread. Beer bread, so I discovered beer bread many years ago where it was made for me, and I asked the people who made it for me to give me the recipe, and they did. I couldn't find some of the recipes. There was some sweetener in there I couldn't find, so I just started using honey. And I used to make beer bread all the time. Then, I was with you, and I was like, "Hey, can we make beer bread?" And you're like, "Hey, I've never made beer bread." And I was like, "Well, let's make beer bread, because it's idiot-proof and I can make it." You made one tweak to my recipe. Instead of flour, self-rising flour, which has been a gift because now I get a little more... Because it's such a dense bread. It's a little dense now, and it raises a little bit. And I've experimented for years with so many different beers, and we did that one night of beer, beers on the wall, and we discovered that the best beer for beer bread was, what's it called?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Bum, bum, bum.

• 33:42Simon Sinek?

  Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  It's a good beer.

• 33:46Simon Sinek?

  It is a good beer, and it has existed since 1758.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Oh, God bless. Can I tell you that I also, because I love to ask the question, "What if?" Like, a month or two ago, just started going at not just beer bread, but stuff like, "What if I put a ripe banana into a chocolate stout beer bread?" And then I took it as far as, "What if I take..." What are other brews? Kombucha. "What if I make a kombucha beer bread?" Okay, it's gonna be sweeter and a little bit more berry for it, and then add some berries in it. My kids are obsessed with... It's not even kombucha beer bread, but what then is it?

• 34:19Simon Sinek?

  It's a very bougie.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Bouge, bouge.

• 34:22Simon Sinek?

  Bougie bouge bread. But the thing that I love about beer bread, and this, and this, this, I probably shouldn't say this on the air, because this is what I do, but for Thanksgiving, you know, everybody brings something to Thanksgiving, and I'll make one, two, or three loads of beer bread, and I come in and people are like, "Who made the bread?" I'm like, "I made the bread." And people think I'm kneading dough, and I'm spending all day. Making beer bread is about, it's about five minutes of mixing ingredients, and then putting it in the oven for about, what, an hour, a little less than an hour? That's all beer bread it is. It is absolutely idiot-proof.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  It's reverse engineering what makes bread, bread, right?

• 34:57Simon Sinek?

  It makes people, the joy that I give people thinking that I made bread, and they don't realize that I did it like 20 minutes before I came to Thanksgiving.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  And it's because you're taking all of the elements of bread making, but you're reverse engineering them in your favor, right? So, the yeast is already in the beer.

• 35:13Simon Sinek?

  It's in the beer.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  It's already alive and well. We don't need to wake it up. Okay, well, then let me put this in the micro real quick, but I've got our salt, I've got honey, if you want honey, but then I saved some room-temperature salted butter over here for us, just in case.

• 35:25Simon Sinek?

  Well, I always melt it.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 35:27Simon Sinek?

  So I pour it in.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Great.

• 35:28Simon Sinek?

  So I'll put this together. So I'm putting the flour, which is self-rising flour, into the bowl. I'm now putting this... Which salt do I use? I'll use the salt. I put the salt into the thing, and mix those together. I'm still making a mess, even though there's no Mix-Master. Christina is melting the honey and the butter, while I will add the beer, very slowly.

• 36:03Simon Sinek?

  Slowly pouring the beer into the flour.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  How's it going chef?

• 36:12Simon Sinek?

  Good.

• 36:14Simon Sinek?

  Slowly adding the beer into here.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Perfect. Alright, I'm grabbing our cookies because they look really good.

• 36:22Simon Sinek?

  Are they already done?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Almost.

• 36:23Simon Sinek?

  So basically you can make a compost cookie in less time than it takes to mix a bowl-

• 36:27Speaker 01

  To mix a beer bread.

• 36:28Simon Sinek?

  A bowl of beer bread.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  It smells so good.

• 36:31Simon Sinek?

  I know.

• 36:35Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so-

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Yes I do.

• 36:36Simon Sinek?

  It's now getting, it's very gluten-y and gooey.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:39Simon Sinek?

  So what should, so let's add-

• 36:41Speaker 01

  A little bit of butter.

• 36:43Simon Sinek?

  Add butter and I'm gonna add, is this honey? I'm gonna add the honey. So I always melt the honey in the microwave.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I just did that. She's liquid.

• 36:49Simon Sinek?

  And I do the same thing with the butter, just to make it liquid, to make it easier to stir in. No other reason. So, adding the honey.

• 36:59Simon Sinek?

  Okay, the honey is now in.

• 37:05Simon Sinek?

  Um, I did recently discovered silicone bread things.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Oh, silicone molds are so nice because they have easy release, you know?

• 37:13Simon Sinek?

  So easy. So easy.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm gonna give our loaf pan, and by the way, I'm a really big fan of an eight by four inch loaf pan because you get a taller beer bread loaf.

• 37:26Simon Sinek?

  Now, am I gonna, what am I doing to it? Can I, like, one can over knead bread, can I over stir beer bread?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  I think to over stir beer bread, you'd have to be at it for seven plus minutes. It takes seven minutes to fully develop gluten in a traditional bread recipe, so you'd have to really go at it.

• 37:43Simon Sinek?

  That's so specific.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  I got your back, I know.

• 37:46Simon Sinek?

  Seven minutes.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  The scientists, our, my sweet food scientists of the world, the Harold McGee's of the world, defined that for me.

• 37:52Simon Sinek?

  Seven minutes to fully produce gluten.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Once it comes together in a mass, seven minutes.

• 37:57Simon Sinek?

  Christina gave me a, um, an aluminum nine, what are these, eight by three, eight by three and a three quarter, whatever, bread pan, loaf pan, uh, we sprayed it with some sort of spray thing. And now I'm putting my dough into the pan.

• 38:23Simon Sinek?

  There we go.

• 38:26Simon Sinek?

  In it goes, very gooey looking.

• 38:30Simon Sinek?

  I've made this many times and it's very good. I make it every Thanksgiving.

• 38:37Simon Sinek?

  Because it's easy and tasty and a crowd favorite.

• 38:42Simon Sinek?

  Okay. I'm just flattening it out a little bit for no reason.

• 38:50Simon Sinek?

  And then I'm gonna add a little butter to the top. I always save a little bit extra just to add to the top. Because it makes it shiny and tasty. And now I have to wait here patiently for Christina to come back because I don't know. I guess I can go back to the oven. Okay, I'll go back to the oven. All right, compost cookies. So we're gonna do two things. We're gonna do the magic of television. We have our actual compost cookies that we actually made. And here they are, you wanna put those over here?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 39:18Simon Sinek?

  That we actually made and we did the magic television where you pre-baked a loaf of bread.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Simon Sinek?

  Because otherwise it would take too long.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  What do you think, we taste the bread first and our cookies have a minute to kinda cool down. Will you make me your perfect bite so I can taste it through your eyes? Okay, so.

• 39:33Simon Sinek?

  I'm experimenting here.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  A nice room-tempy butter, some salt, a little on top. I love salt on a little piece of bread.

• 39:41Simon Sinek?

  It's again, going back to my childhood, my grandfather always put butter on his bread and always put salt on the butter. And to this day.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  No matter what.

• 39:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, so it's somewhat tasty and somewhat nostalgic for me.

• 39:53Simon Sinek?

  Okay, cheers.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Cheers. To friendship.

• 39:55Simon Sinek?

  To friendship.

• 39:58Simon Sinek?

  It's so good.

• 40:01Simon Sinek?

  It's so simple and so good.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that salt, when it comes around, like dances on your taste buds.

• 40:08Simon Sinek?

  And that chocolate beer.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  The acid of that chocolate beer. You know me, I like sweets, so I'm gonna put some honey on this babe.

• 40:15Simon Sinek?

  Oh, it's so good. Should we try one of our cookies?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 40:20Simon Sinek?

  Do you like a fresh out of the oven cookie?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  I do, but you like crispy. That's my only.

• 40:25Simon Sinek?

  I let my cookies cool.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  So, we've got some, this I'm very excited about. I love it, look at, look at the peaks and valleys, the texture of these cookies. So we got some thinner crispiers.

• 40:37Simon Sinek?

  For me.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Some taller gooey years for me.

• 40:39Simon Sinek?

  Which one do you wanna try?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  This one.

• 40:43Simon Sinek?

  That, okay.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Alright, so we're choosing one of mine. More cookie dough, same bake time, but we've got some real goo in the center.

• 40:53Simon Sinek?

  This has got some crunch in it.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Chew, right?

• 40:56Simon Sinek?

  Crunch, chew, it's got all the, all the, all the things.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Oh, it's gonna be a real culinary adventure here. Wow. For me, this is, I know you're appalled by this, but there's like, there's a little inner stripe of just cookie dough, warm cookie dough. It's not a Simon Crisp, it's a Christina goo. Cheers.

• 41:17Simon Sinek?

  Mmm. Oh my god, it's a good cookie.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  The coffee.

• 41:21Simon Sinek?

  Mmm. That works. Oh my god, I like this cookie a lot.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  What have you got?

• 41:26Simon Sinek?

  You know the thing that would make this perfect?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 41:28Simon Sinek?

  It was crunchy.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I know!

• 41:31Simon Sinek?

  Ooh, there's something. That's a good cookie.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 41:35Simon Sinek?

  This is a sellable cookie.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  I purposely said it.

• 41:37Simon Sinek?

  If you want to sell a bit of optimism cookies in your, in your stores.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  You'd let me?

• 41:41Simon Sinek?

  You feel free.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:42Simon Sinek?

  I just have to get my brother in law to start making granola.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Granola.

• 41:45Simon Sinek?

  A mess. We will give the recipe in the notes.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  100%.

• 41:49Simon Sinek?

  Do your kids like to bake?

• 41:51Speaker 01

  My kids, each of them is different. One of them, air quotes, likes to bake because she's here for the cookie dough. She's here for the Simon's in it, butter, sugar.

• 42:02Simon Sinek?

  She's her, she's her mother's daughter.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other one loves to bake because he truly loves, from what I can tell, he truly loves bringing something to life. He loves the act of creation.

• 42:13Simon Sinek?

  Does Will like baking, or does Will like eating baked goods?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  No. Will has no interest in baking. Will has every interest in, "Honey, can you put one of every cookie on a plate? And bring it to me, the movie's starting." Like, this is, but you know what? That's what makes a great relationship.

• 42:28Simon Sinek?

  I know, so your love language. I, I remember I came to your house for brunch. And because I know who you are, I said, "Can you please make biscuits?"

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:38Simon Sinek?

  Because I love biscuits for brunch, and you're Christina Tozzi, so to have your biscuits would be amazing. But because you're Christina Tozzi, I expected a biscuit. We got five different kinds of biscuits? We had ones with bacon, ones with cheese, ones with chives, ones with...

• 42:54Speaker 01

  What if?

• 42:54Simon Sinek?

  I mean, the number of bis-, and then, so, which is awful, because then you have to eat them all and compare. And you have to eat them again, because you're like, "I don't know, maybe I like this one better."

• 43:02Speaker 01

  That was a really rough day for you.

• 43:03Simon Sinek?

  It was a rough day.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  I love when people come over to my house and ask for something because to the point earlier like that's why I love to bake.

• 43:12Simon Sinek?

  Now I know that it's your love language.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  It brings me so much joy.

• 43:14Simon Sinek?

  Five different kinds of biscuit. I mean, you don't get more love than me.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  You're not questioning whether you're feeding people what they want to eat. You know you are.

• 43:20Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  And you're giving them permission to eat six different biscuits.

• 43:23Simon Sinek?

  It's so good. So here's what I've learned. I've learned that there's one thing better than baking, which is baking with friends. I've learned that, do you know the whole thing about like Duncan Hines cakes, the history of those? I think it was in the 50s, they came out with powdered cakes and all you had to do was add water and you could, you could make a cake. And it was a failure because people were embarrassed that they didn't do anything. They didn't bake the cake. So they changed the chemistry of it and they made one difference, which is I think you add an egg.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  You add egg, oil and water.

• 44:02Simon Sinek?

  You add egg, oil and water. They changed the chemistry. So now you add water, egg and, and oil. And now people could honestly say, I baked a cake because they mixed in an egg and some oil and of course it exploded. So the idea that people can bake a cake, bake something for someone as a sign of love and putting in a little effort, right? Because with no, with no egg and no oil, that felt that there was no effort.

• 44:25Simon Sinek?

  And what I'm learning from you is I've, I've never, one of the reasons I don't bake by myself unless I'm baking just almond cookies for myself at night. But they're easy is because I don't want to get it wrong. And what I've learned here is it's nothing about getting it right or wrong. It's experimentation and to be able to say, I just put something together, I threw some ingredients and the compost cookie is perhaps the most lovable cookie in the world. Cause you literally can't screw it up and some will taste better and some will taste worse and some will prefer this and some will prefer that. But it is, this is, this cookie is, compost cookie doesn't do it justice. It's a, it's a cookie full of love. And so this was wonderful and I got a beer bread out of the deal. So.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  And we got like, we got so many seven minutes in there.

• 45:07Simon Sinek?

  So many seven minutes. So eight, eight, eight minutes.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  We have so many eight minute blocks in there.

• 45:11Simon Sinek?

  So many eight minutes blocks. That, yeah, you and I talked about that eight minute story. So in one of the episodes that you came on a bit of optimism, we talked about what the value of a friend was. And I told you the story that happened with my friend Maria where she was going through a hard time. I hadn't seen her in a while and I'm at her house. And I was like, how are you? She's like, I'm better now. I'm like, what do you mean better now? She's like, well, I had a hard week last week. I'm like, well, you had a hard week. Why didn't you text me? She goes, I did text you. I'm like, no, you didn't. And instead of being sympathetic, I got mad. Because, you know, to be of service to our friends is a gift. And like deny me the gift of being in service to my friend. And she goes, I did text you. And I pulled out my phone to prove that she didn't. And it said, how are you? What are you doing? Want to come over? I'm like, you mean these texts?

• 45:55Simon Sinek?

  The ones that sound like every other text you send me? How am I supposed to know that's a cry for help? And she had read this article that all somebody needs to feel not alone is eight minutes of time with a friend. And so we came up with a code, which is, um, do you have eight minutes? And that basically means I need you. And anybody can step out of a meeting for eight minutes. And you're not going to solve the problem. You're not going to be there in, you know, for the hour, the hour and a half. But to make someone feel not alone for those eight minutes is everything. Somebody sent me a picture recently that they were so inspired by that story that they made hats for all their friends that say eight minutes on them.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Like you're my eight minutes.

• 46:29Simon Sinek?

  You're my eight minutes.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  You're in the eight minute club.

• 46:30Simon Sinek?

  You're my eight minutes. Like you're my eight minute friend. Isn't that amazing?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  And by the way, the eight minutes can be literally making a compass cookie.

• 46:36Simon Sinek?

  Can be literally making a compass cookie. Literally, it takes eight minutes. And so you and I have talked about this before, but you and I are and have been eight minute friends to each other. And I am very grateful for that.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Through the years, the feeling is mutual. Best.

• 46:51Simon Sinek?

  All right, let's just go eat.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 46:53Simon Sinek?

  Can we just go eat everything now? I've been staring at these the whole time. There are a set that you actually made, but I want to eat them all.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Google bars, Greta's.

• 47:00Simon Sinek?

  All right.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  They're all gooey.

• 47:01Simon Sinek?

  Why don't we cut and have the whole crew come eat?

• 47:09Simon Sinek?

  A bit of optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, David Ja, and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simoncinek.com. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.