Claudette Zepeda on the Real-Life Intensity of Bobby Flay’s The Line

Food Network Obsessed

Host Jaymee Sire interviews Chef Claudately Zepeda about her recent creative inspirations and her journey toward a 'PhD in Humanity.' The co

Key takeaways

• Claudette Zepeda's cookbook, 'Cooking the Borderlands,' focuses on the stories and resilience of people in Northern Mexico.
• The new show 'The Line' features real-time scoring by general population diners, creating extreme pressure for chefs.

Main topics

• Cooking the Borderlands cookbook
• Bobby Flay's The Line

Notable quotes

Whatever's mine won't miss me. And whatever someone else gets does not take away from me.

Conclusion

An inspiring look at the intersection of personal growth, cultural sto

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) Hello, hello, and welcome to Food Network Obsessed. I'm your host, Jamie Sire. Today's guest believes that food is about so much more than what's on the plate. It's about people, culture, history, and the stories we carry with us. She's a chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and now she's joining Bobby Flay's newest Food Network competition, The Line, where real restaurants, real diners, and real dinner service take center stage. It's Claudette Cepeda. Claudette, welcome back. It is so great to see you again. And as you can see, we've made a few changes since the last time you stopped by here on Food Network Obsessed. So in that spirit, I'd like to ask you, what are you currently obsessed with at this very moment? It could be a place, a food, a TV show, whatever it may be. We want to hear what Claudette is obsessed with. Speaker 2 (0:58) So I know this is going to sound really weird, but I'm looking for things for creative inspiration in all places. And right now it's like brain candy is a word that I heard recently. It's something that makes my brain itch is another one. It's like something that really gets in there and that makes you think. I'm looking for creatives that like make the coolest jewelry, the ones that collaborate with these big fashion houses. As you know, like fashion aside from food is one of my biggest passions. So I'm constantly right now looking for. inspiration in other creative realms that kind of just leak into my world. I just got home from Iceland and I think that Iceland is a magical other planet and I am still like downloading everything I experienced there. So everything in the creative realm right now is what I'm obsessed with. Well, Speaker 1 (1:47) I'm kind of obsessed with the fact that you are recording this podcast on your birthday. So happy birthday. How was the last trip around the sun? And what are you looking forward to as you get ready to embark on the next one? Speaker 2 (2:03) I mean, 41 was a good year. 41 was, I mean, my 40s have been some of my favorite, so far my favorite era. Two years, this is my 42nd birthday. And I can say with all of my chest say that I have never been more myself and more in Comfortable with myself, with my creative, with my weird. And I, 41 was such a good year. So many lessons, so many beautiful lessons edited so beautifully by the, by just how the stars needed to align. And also got to experience some really cool stuff this last year. So I can't wait to just triple that this year. Now Speaker 1 (2:40) was the Iceland trip like a birthday trip or was this just like kind of like a bucket list thing that you had been like wanting to do for a while? Speaker 2 (2:47) You know, I have friends from Guadalajara that are also creatively free in their world. And a couple of them own restaurant in Guadalajara. And they were going to do Iceland for Bjork's rave on the eclipse. And I was like, well, you know, if any day that you go to Iceland, you have to go when Bjork is having her one-off rave in Reykjavik. Like, the stars are perfectly aligned. And I'm like, you know. Bjork in the 90s was exactly what I needed as a weirdo by myself in my room. The stars aligned. It wasn't a birthday trip. It was a do it for you trip. I Speaker 1 (3:27) feel like I need more of those in my life these days. What was your takeaway from that trip? I know you love to travel and you've been to like a million places. What was your favorite part about Iceland? Speaker 2 (3:40) How it felt like it was just for me, like it was revealing itself to me that the tourism is different because it's so remote and you really have to make one hell of an effort to get there. That it felt like every waterfall we ran into and it was just like off the side of the road. I was like, I've seen that in a movie or I've seen that. What planet am I on? It looks like Mars. Like, oh, I saw that in Interstellar. And oh, I saw that on the Martian. Like the landscapes were so foreign, but also so bare. Like there was at one point we were in like the most populated like tourist spot, which is like the Puffin Cliff. Speaker 1 (4:17) But Speaker 2 (4:18) even then there was like 30 or 40 people there. Like that is a crowd in Iceland. I am so happy. So everything felt like it was like nature was just whispering, this is for you. And I, you know, in my little weird self, I'm like, this is for me. Speaker 1 (4:34) This is Speaker 2 (4:35) my present. And I love nature. I am most comfortable in nature. And that is something that's happened over the last decade. Like I need that release of being near water is always something that also has called me. But something about being around a bunch of rocks and hiking and having that strenuous activity with a gift at the end where it's like you're looking over the entire city. That is such a reward for my internal child. So yeah, Iceland is if any, if I can say go somewhere. go to Iceland. It is just sacred. Speaker 1 (5:10) It's been on my list for a very long time. And I'm excited to see you post more from your trip. I know you said everybody should be warned because you have a Speaker 2 (5:20) lot of Speaker 1 (5:21) content coming. Yeah. You know, last time we were here, we... We really covered a lot. You know, we talked about, you know, you growing up between Tijuana and San Diego. We talked about the incredible women in your life, your restaurant, your TV projects. But, you know, one thing I think that really stuck with me was that you said your goal in life is to get your Ph.D. in humanity, which I think is a really beautiful. you know, sentiment. And I'm curious how many class credits you've achieved since the last time we spoke three years ago. Speaker 2 (5:54) A lot. A lot. I'm probably, I'm definitely past my sophomore year at this point. Yeah. If it's a four-year program. Speaker 1 (6:03) And what, I mean, what does that mean exactly to you? Like what is, you know, getting your PhD in humanity? What is, what is that, what's driving you when you say that? Speaker 2 (6:14) I think it's never losing the curiosity of why people are who they are and never giving, never taking what's at face value for face value, like digging a little deeper, you know, something as like on the, on the positive side is the joy someone gives you is the joy that it's they're marrying. Right. Like, so how, imagine what their heart is like when someone gives you with all of their heart, like, or, or is it like a token? Like mine. niece and nephews like made me these like, I want to know why people do those kind of things. And, and then when they do something that you don't like, and you're like, Oh, that was kind of a shitty thing to do. You, you realize that there's a lot more grace to give, because there's a reason why humans are that way as well. And, and I need to give everyone grace and not jump to the conclusion and be on the defensive. So that's just something that I think that it is. It has helped me on my professional life, in my personal life, in my motherhood journey to tell my kids, like whenever someone does something shitty to you, it has nothing to do with you. Usually it's all in them. So I'm constantly just trying to be a better human for my humans, if that makes sense. Like I want to teach them that I've always been so reactive and impulsive as a child and as a creative, I'm just like, yeah, let's go and burn it down. And I'm learning that in my search of my PhD in humanity, it's causing a lot more and being more inquisitive of why, you know, like, why, why did that happen? Or why did, why didn't that happen? Oh, cause it wasn't for me. And that's such a relief for me that I don't, then I don't harbor that I'm not good enough. And those kinds of feelings, which I think we all just human beings feel regardless, right? Like, why would someone mean to me? What did I do? Am I not enough? So in also in the chef world where you're like, oh, well, there's only a certain amount of things that can happen to a certain amount of people. You start to feel like, why isn't it my shot or why is what was why am I not doing good or bad or whatever? The search for my PhD is to search. It's a search for everything is in divine timing. I will get it. Whatever's mine won't miss me. And whatever someone else gets does not take away from me. And that is a beautiful Speaker 1 (8:32) place. Speaker 2 (8:33) to search for constantly because it's Speaker 1 (8:35) an Speaker 2 (8:35) active practice. It Speaker 1 (8:36) is really beautiful. I think it's a beautiful reminder, like you said, to give other people grace in life, but also give yourself grace, right? Like you said, like not, not be so hard on yourself and you, I mean, you have been full speed ahead, I think since the last time we talked, but I also feel like maybe that's just you all the time. Speaker 1 (8:57) But you've somehow become busier. I mean, you wrote a cookbook, won more competitions, traveled to more countries and kind of keep reinventing yourself in a way. Do you ever stop long enough to kind of soak it all in and really, you know, be appreciative for everything you've accomplished and how far you've come? Speaker 2 (9:15) But that was a big reason for Iceland. Like my my my personal reason for Iceland, aside from do this for you, was. do this to sit in the wind that you just wrote a cookbook. You just wrote, Speaker 1 (9:27) you Speaker 2 (9:28) know, 40,000 plus words. Cause I wrote the whole thing myself. It's like, you just wrote all of these words that the entire world has access to about a very specific place that has a special place in my heart. And I would normally just, you know, sit in the wind for a minute, if not, not at all of like, what's next, I'm ready to write the next one. So Iceland was for me to sit on a cliff and be like, you did that, kid. Like, you did that thing. And I just had won, you know, the episode I had just released of winning Global Games. And that was just another one of those moments where at any other given point in time, I would have been like, hey, next. So I'm getting better, at least more conscious that I'm not good at that, celebrating the wins. Speaker 1 (10:14) Yeah, I mean, at least you're aware of it, right? And you're trying to be better. Let's talk about the cookbook as well. Cooking the Borderlands, finally out. I know you spent a lot of years writing it. A lot of just your heart and soul has been poured into this cookbook. And I think that that's one of the things that is so interesting about cookbooks these days and also just really good cookbooks in general is that. it's not necessarily just about the recipes, right? It's about the stories. As you were writing this, I mean, did you have that moment where you're like, this is not, you know, this is not about the food necessarily. It's about the stories and the people behind it. Speaker 2 (10:53) Yeah, there's definitely those cookbooks that are recipe centric, that they, the headnotes aren't super heady. And those are the, there's definitely an audience for those. Those are people that are just like, just give me the recipe. I don't care about the story. And I respect that. I am not that person. I am a, I'll give you a short story long kind of human. My editor, bless his heart, Francis Lam edited. He had to Speaker 1 (11:18) call Speaker 2 (11:18) me before every edit. And he said, okay, don't forget. There's Speaker 1 (11:22) a Speaker 2 (11:22) lot Speaker 1 (11:22) of Speaker 2 (11:22) red. Cause he was like, you got to the point by here. You didn't need. So I actually wrote like 70,000 words. Oh, my goodness. Because I just I love writing and I just want to tell this story as like big and as possible. But so much of cooking the borderlands. You're right. Like it wasn't. It is about the food, but more it's about the hands that make the food and the wise of the food. Because the recipes along the borderlands are a lot of it is a happenstance. Like this happened because or this recipe happened because this is all they had. And these are the tools they had. And this is the, you know, the heating elements that they had. And voila, this is the recipe. It wasn't so like brainy of like, no, this is a technique and blah, blah, blah. No, these are like the most blue collar cowboys that are making the meal that I've cooked. I've cleaned more like dirt off my plates for a meal from cowboys that have made the most delicious meals of my life. And I wanted to share that. And I wanted to share the sensibility of. Speaker 2 (12:24) that in the north we're we don't get talked about in a beautiful way right everyone talks about Oaxaca everyone talks about Mexico City and Tulum and and Cabo and all these you know vacation destinations but if you have ever seen the waterfalls in Chihuahua and like the water the mountain ranges in Monterrey and in the desert the beautiful cactus that grows in Sonora and, you know, that seems to be in the grandmother of all peppers grows wild in the, like the most unhospitable environment in like possible. It tells you, for me, it's such a beautiful, and I guess because I'm a writer and I grew up writing poetry as early as I can remember as a teenager, but it's like, I, there's something so beautiful that the people are like this pepper. These people grow up in some like really, really unhospitable environments and you still manage to rise above that and become something like one of the most beautiful peppers in the world. One of the spiciest, a story of resilience, a story of I don't need much. You know, I always say like I have a cactus heart. It's a little prickly, but once you get in, you want to get past the