David Chang, the bad-boy chef behind the Momofuku empire, isn’t exactly the guy you would think of when it comes to baby food. But there he is in Season 2 of “Ugly Delicious,” one of his Netflix series, applying his immersion blender to a rainbow of fruits and veggies and then subjecting a 9-month-old baby to a taste test. Smiles (bananas), smears (black beans and beets) and even tears (peas?!) ensue.
It’s all in preparation for the care and feeding of Hugo, his year-old son, and a source of awe for Chang, 42, who until fairly recently had almost never even cooked at home. Calling after breakfast and texting videos of that morning’s triple-tiered crepes — which his wife, Grace, declared “one of the best things you’ve made” — Chang expounded on the 10 things he can’t live without. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. “Gattaca”
I remember watching it in college, and it really stuck with me. The messaging was something that I could apply to my life — if you just work very hard, you might be able to get there. And I really did live for a long time with that philosophy of leave nothing for the swim back, which sounds so cheesy and cliché. That concept is something that also resonated with my close friend [the artist] Dave Choe, so we always joke about that. And now we’ve learned with some wisdom that maybe going all in on something, while romanticized, is not really that cool.
2. Charlie Mackesy Illustration
My wife got [a print of a boy on a horse asking, “What is the bravest thing you’ve ever said?” to which the horse replies, “Help”] for my birthday, and of all the things that we have, it’s the thing that I cherish quite a bit. It’s the only thing I pass when I leave my bedroom every day when I’m home. And it’s a reminder that strength is not necessarily being physically strong, but it’s asking for help, to be vulnerable, to be the person that I’m not supposed to be, right? And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
3. Nanit Smart Baby Monitor
It’s just a baby monitor on your cellphone. But I can’t see how the majority of humans in the history of mankind did without it.
4. The Bhagavad Gita
I think about Arjuna a lot because my job seems to be always making decisions under duress. And every time I think, “Woe is me,” I think about that situation he was in, because if he committed to war, it would be the end of civilization. And he’s paralyzed by indecision, as we all can be. And then he realizes that his charioteer is Krishna, and basically God tells him, “You’re an idiot. The only thing you can do is do the best job you possibly can.” I’m sure there are Hindu scholars that would hear what I said and just want to murder me, but that’s how I interpreted it.
5. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
If you looked at my Spotify list, the No. 1 most played thing for the past year or two wasn’t Bob Dylan or Yo La Tengo or Caveman. It was Beethoven. The fourth movement, they should play that in gyms. How does this not get your blood moving? Right now on my list after that, it’s “Children of the Grave” by Black Sabbath. The data does not lie.
6. My Own Kitchen
People think I’m being facetious, but I had never cooked at home except for the occasional one or two meals, maybe like Thanksgiving 18 years ago. If you can imagine a bachelor that can barely keep life straight, that was me. It was plastic forks and knives, paper plates that were accumulated from years of delivery. Why would I ever cook at home, because I was always at the restaurant?
Then when I started dating my now-wife, she realized, “Why is this guy not making anything? I think he’s a fraud.” And when she got pregnant, I cooked like I’ve never cooked before in my entire life at home. Imagine if you only cooked in professional kitchens, but you’ve never cooked in a home kitchen before. It would be like learning how to drive an F1 racecar and then driving a Honda Civic. I had to reverse engineer how a lot of things work, because I’ve never once cracked a home cookbook.
So the past 20 months, I’ve developed my own culinary language that makes no sense to anyone else. I want to be able to make things crazy fast, so I use the microwave, I use the freezer, and I time myself like a weirdo. Everything’s got to be under 30 or even 15 minutes. And my pantry is the most insanely weird thing most people have ever seen — agave instead of sugar, a good fish sauce, MSG, peppercorns, Momofuku seasoned salts. I don’t know how I would ever live without it because I make so much food now that it’s fun. I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d like cooking at home.
7. Nike SB Zoom Stefan Janoski Slip RM
I just want something that’s totally easy, and this is a slip-on shoe but it doesn’t look like one. It’s incredibly comfortable, and I don’t think I’m ever going to not wear the shoe, with the exception of special occasions. I’m sure other people are like, “This guy’s insane,” but any shoe you can slip on without touching is, to me, the goal. I would wear flip-flops year-round if that wasn’t so disgusting and people weren’t like, “Don’t be that guy.”
8. David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”
It’s literally been on my bed stand since 1996, 1997. I’ve started it probably a couple hundred times. I’ve gone halfway through and then started up again a couple of years later, and you’re like, “I have no idea what this is talking about. I’ve got to go back.” I’ve just resigned myself that I will never ever finish that. And I think 80 percent of people are [expletive] lying that they finished it. But for me, it’s a reminder that I need to read more and that there’s a certain kind of book that’s for my intellect level — and that’s not it.
9. Jerry Saltz’s Article on How to Be an Artist
I sent it to everyone in my company because it’s the first time I ever saw anyone write what it felt like to be in this profession of cooking or trying to start a restaurant. It just encapsulates the whole process of finding your voice and dancing naked and all these crazy phrases that you come up with. The things that he wrote about stand the test of time, and it’s great advice for anyone endeavoring to do anything creative. I just love the fact that he did the work so I don’t have to.
10. Matthew Wong
I don’t know anything about art. I’m not going to be a poseur and say, “Yes, I love this period, blah blah blah,” but I felt that his art was truly beautiful. I just thought, “Wow, this guy is doing something different, and for whatever reasons, it’s very moving to me.” And when he took his life, I was so saddened by it.
Man, to me there’s so many people like him, so it’s not just Matthew per se. How many people are out there doing something amazing, but things are not as rosy as they seem? It reminds me that however I talk to someone, however I perceive something, however I come across, it could be important to how someone else takes it. Something like that forces me to never take anything for granted — to really appreciate everything and to know that there are a lot of people out there that need a lot of help, and it’s OK.
