TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Abhay (00:00.098)
Hey friends, this is Abhay Dhandekar. Before we get started, don't forget to subscribe to Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing on YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen or watch. That way you never miss our show celebrating the vibrant Indian and South Asian global experience. Thanks.

Hi, I'm Tejal Rao. I'm a chief restaurant critic at the New York Times and this is Trust Me. I know what I'm doing.

My name is Abhay Dandekar and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions, where each person can proudly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Hi everyone, on this episode of Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing we share a conversation with Chief New York Times restaurant critic Deja Lirao. Stay tuned.

Abhay (01:05.902)
You know, I used to be a voracious reader as a child and a teen, but more recently I've gotten back into it and kind of as a direct, very direct function of my ongoing learning for this podcast. I've just been simply reading a lot more and it's taken me a while to sort of better understand that for me, at least written pieces have a true temperature and a tone. And so I have to tell you when I read anything by award-winning

food writer and now chief restaurant critic for the New York Times, Dejil Derao. I just feel kind of warm and very comfortable and sort of like I'm listening to the ongoing advice of a friend chatting about their experiences. Dejil has had a global upbringing and personal stops in many American cities with professional stops at the Village Voice and Bloomberg News before the New York Times. And I'm just so pleased to share a conversation with her now and trust me, I know what I'm doing. Dejil, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, I'm really happy to be here.

You know, I'm going to tell you, I'm armed right now with a little bit of coffee and my, at least my, my Fuji apple. is one of my daily midday things, but I have to ask. I know, right? Well, there's usually some flax during the day too, but that's for other, I guess, reasons. But I guess the idea here is, you know, these are, people have different.

Doctor, doctor cliche.

Abhay (02:30.466)
versions of their rituals throughout the day. Do you have any particular food rituals that either govern you or that you adhere to on a daily basis?

That's such a great question. know, other than the sort of morning coffee ritual, I don't have, I'm really open every day is kind of its own weird adventure that unfolds in a different way.

Yeah, yeah. Sort of take it as it comes, right? Yeah. You know, does anything in a way make you either complete or incomplete from that? Like it doesn't necessarily have to be a particular food, but is there a sort of a cadence to things that like, know, yeah, this is kind of the time of day that I really think about food or I'm sampling food.

See ya.

Tejal (03:12.394)
Not so much. think it's all the time. It's pretty constant. Pretty constant. I know people use that word food noise and I've been trying to understand what that means. For me, it's in the background and it's a sense of curiosity and desire that I actually find really useful and keeps me awake to life. I need it and I love it.

No wonder if does that ever get overwhelming for you.

Not really, because I also have, you know, I say it's pretty constant, but I also have kind of lazy moments. Like if I if I'm home alone for a meal, not that that doesn't happen very often, I'll just have, you rice. Yeah. Like, yeah. Right.

the foundational. So I have to tell you, you know, I really first want to thank you for a couple years ago, you had this quick mango lassi, actually a mango kulfi. yeah. an article that I really enjoyed. And I guess what was kind of a signature moment for me, at least was in reading that it was this great combination of sort of being very inviting with the story you were sharing and also very directive.

Yeah.

Abhay (04:25.352)
And at that point, I appreciate the directive part because it's sort of like a call to action for me. So when you're writing as a critic, do you need to equally have a story in mind as well as having something that's either a directive for your reader or even a thesis for them to appreciate or follow?

Yeah, you mean with a restaurant review itself? I think so. mean, I think a review can't just be telling people, here's what the food was like. It was this good, it was this bad, it tasted like this. I think there always has to be more. And I actually often think that the descriptions of the food itself and of the place are doing that work as well when it's working really well. It's like,

I'm not saying I always succeed at this, but this is the goal. You want to kind of finely tune the food descriptions, the room descriptions. So they're also in addition to telling the reader what the place is like, they're giving you the story as well. You can piece that stuff together to tell a story. And I don't always know ahead of time what it's going to be. Sometimes it's like in the sitting down to writing it and being anxious in front of the blank page. That's sort of when I figure it out as I'm going.

And then sometimes I do know, sometimes that's very exciting. The excitement of knowing what exactly it is I want to draw out before I sit down to write and then writing almost on the like full body high of that feeling. That's really great. But unfortunately that's not there every time.

Yeah, no, I can't imagine the panic of the blank page part, but definitely, you know, as you're sifting through the anatomy of a particular restaurant review, must there always be something that you're hoping that the reader takes away as a directive at all?

Tejal (06:15.21)
As a directive, not so much. mean, that recipe column that I used to write is interesting because you do want the person to finish reading that piece and then cook the recipe. Think about cooking the recipe, you know, which is a big ask. They have to go get ingredients. They have to spend time, you know, it's, it's, but in a sense, the column is doing the work of, I don't want to say selling, but in a sense it's, it's selling the recipe as well. And it doesn't really work the other way around.

Go try

Tejal (06:44.0)
If someone starts with the recipe, they're probably not gonna go to the story, but I'm hoping if someone starts with the story, they'll go to the recipe. But with a review, I'm not necessarily trying to convince you to go to the restaurant or not go to the restaurant. I want you to know what I think about the restaurant. I hope that that is very clear, but I'm not trying to sort of impose my sense of taste necessarily on the reader.

It's something else about the world that I want them to leave with.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, sort of your opinion, your perspective is now out there and sort of it's up to the reader what to do with it. And yet, you know, we live in a very Yelpified, reviewed, constantly, you know, reviewing world in that sort of spirit. I mean, I've asked this to other people before in that, you know, is food and the experiences, are they meant to be judged in a way? In the end, I mean, food is a survival.

You know, we're all motivated by survival and this concept of sort of dopamine fun fulfillment and everyone's journey to meet that is very, very different. But so since food can serve as both survival and really fun fulfillment, is it really meant to be judged? And does that judgment sort of, should it matter? I know it's your livelihood and your expertise.

Yeah, I never I never know how to sort of defend it though, because you know, I hope I like to think that what I'm doing is not just judging the food. Like I don't think of myself as sitting there and sort of like deciding whether or not the food is good or bad. I'm what I'm trying to do with the review is if I think about the criticism that I love to read, I love to read a book review or a film review, whether or not I'm going to go see the film.

Abhay (08:10.478)
Yeah.

Tejal (08:35.798)
because I want the critic to connect some dots for me and kind of open up the world a little bit or take me somewhere I can't go or show me something I might not have seen. It's not just about, it's not really actually about passing judgment, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And from your vantage point, I know in our world, we have to remain agnostic to so many things and pass a judgment, if you will, about like facts that we see. And we're giving our perspective. And in the end, it's, up to patients and families to try and take that information and try and see if they can adhere to something. It's not necessarily apples to apples to compare. Yeah.

It's an interesting comparison though.

But in your case, at least, I do appreciate this idea that like, you you're, wonder if you have to grapple with that a little bit, where you're like, look, I'm not here to, guide you or to direct you in a way, but rather to share my experience of, a restaurant or a particular dish in that way.

Yeah, I think the time the times when it's really where it feels a bit agonizing is when it is more negative, right? I think that's when it's much harder. I don't think it's fun to write. It's difficult to write a negative piece. It's it's difficult in the moment because you're not enjoying what's happening. But then it's difficult later because you have to you don't. I only write about if it feels newsworthy, if it feels worth writing about. And, you know, I wrote a piece recently

Tejal (10:11.564)
I wasn't sure if I wanted to review the place. And then I was thinking about, man, this meal is so expensive and the place is so special and kind of mythological, know, Spago in Los Angeles. And I was thinking about how it would be for my dad to take my whole family there for a special occasion based on the history of the place and the glamour of the place and how he would have this expectation for it to be.

really delicious and really wonderful. And a lot of people can say, the food's not the point. The food doesn't matter. But my dad would go and if let's say the four of us, six of us went out to dinner, that is a very expensive meal to be disappointed by. And it's not just my dad. It's people everywhere.

And you know that I like how you put that, like, know, it's not ever fun to have to put out a negative review. I also loved how you closed that particular piece with like, you know, yes, it matters where you sit and perhaps that experience, you know, does, you know, factor into it. But is that something that you've had to practice quite a bit in thinking about like, how do you make a negative review for a place like that's going to get published?

I mean, I don't do them that often, you know? And I think part of that is the culture of restaurant criticism. think people want, mostly they want to know about great stuff. They want a sense of discovery and excitement about places. But I also think a negative review has to like earn its spot.

You know, if you're only doing 20 reviews a year, which is around what I'm doing, if I'm going to do one, it has to really, it kind of has to mean something. You know, I don't want to, I'm not going to be punching down. I'm not going to be like bringing a spotlight to a place that people weren't already thinking about or maybe, or aren't spending tons of money on, you there has to be a reason there has to be like, it has to be newsworthy. think.

Abhay (12:19.726)
Which is interesting, I've talked to others in other arena of journalism where the negative parts certainly capture eyeballs and views and likes and that sort of thing. yet you're...

That's not my mission, I guess. mean, of course I want readers. I'm writing for readers. I want them there. yeah, I'm not driven by page counts or eyeballs.

Yeah.

You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, let's come back to our conversation with Chief New York Times restaurant critic Tejal Rao. Stay tuned.

Abhay (13:05.304)
Conversation. It's the antidote to apathy and the catalyst for relationships. I'm Abhay Daandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Abhay (13:27.704)
Hi, I'm Vivek Murthy. I'm the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. And you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

Abhay (13:45.048)
Hello everyone, my name is Tan France. Hi everyone, this is Chef Vikas Khanna. Hi, this is Vijay Kumar from Semma, New York City and this is Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

Abhay (14:02.36)
Welcome back to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's come back to our conversation now with Chief New York Times Restaurant Critic, Teja Lirao. Let me ask you a question about that element then of excellence. How have you been able to define excellence as a food critic or a restaurant reviewer? And does that excellence always equate to success? Are they always going hand in hand?

That's a great question. know, the very, the first year that I was working as a restaurant critic, I got an award and that was, it was in 2012. And that, when it happened, it felt like such a, it felt so exciting. It kind of felt like, keep going, like you're doing, you're doing a good job. And then of course, you know, years go by without an award and you realize the award is not, you know, the award is exciting, but it's really, I've learned to identify.

When I feel really good about a story, it's like the way the restaurant made me feel everything that I really observed about the restaurant, I was able to articulate it and I was kind of able to be authentic to my experiences there in a way that just everything like aligns and feels right. And that feeling, when I have that after I publish a piece, that's just like, I know I've done it the way that I want to and that feels really good, you know?

I'll use a very California word. You probably feel pretty stoked. Yeah.

Yes, I'm totally stoked.

Abhay (15:33.528)
Well, and then does that feeling of sort of like saying, hey, I've hit this sweet spot. I mean, that isn't always married to success in the eyes of others or is it for that matter? Like, you know, does it often parallel?

I don't really know. I don't know. mean, I, there's comments on the story. There's comments on maybe like the Instagram post about the story or I don't, I try not to obsess over those or read into those too much. They reflect like a small group of, know, they do, they reflect the readership and that's who I'm writing for. And at the same time, I don't want those voices to be the ones in my head. You know, they shouldn't be.

Right. They're there in the periphery, but hopefully not at the center. You've had such a journey that connects so many dots from London to the Middle East, to India and Atlanta and New York, and now California. And with so many experiences in food services and food writing and food reporting and at the Village Voice and at Bloomberg News and now critiquing for the Times, how have these added to your portfolio as

Yeah.

Tejal (16:20.791)
Yeah.

Abhay (16:45.792)
a leader or as an expert. First off, do you see yourself as a leader?

I I was going to say I'm very kind of, I don't know that I, I don't know that I am. It feels like, I don't know if I would have self-labeled that way. Yeah. You know, I do feel like overall of this time, I've become part of a community and, you know, writers and editors and people who do this work and really care about it and approach it in different ways. And that's really meaningful to me, but I don't know that I, I actually, I often feel very uncomfortable with the idea of like,

the hierarchy of power and expertise and that feels very, uncomfortable. But also, at the same time, it's like, I'm in this position.

Yeah. I mean, being a chief critic, there is that sort of word there that identifies you as the chief critic. And I wonder if like, because your background has, has put you in so many different places and with so many different experiences, whether that adaptability has in fact informed you quite a bit as at least a thought leader or a thought expert.

I couldn't say how exactly, but yeah, that sense of adaptability is really, it's really important to me. think one of the things that keeps coming up is how do I choose restaurants to review or what am I looking for? And I'm not looking for just one thing. I'm looking for...

Tejal (18:19.244)
like a really wide range and a diversity in terms of like price, cuisine, format, of every possible way, because I think, and I don't know, is that like, that's my sense of taste is sort of that, that diversity or that sense of things, wanting things to be really eclectic in some way that just feels right, you know.

Yeah, I can see that. mean, particularly given this, spirit of having tasted so many different experiences in so many different places and, you know, being able to be malleable and yet quite engaged, you know, in each of those experiences. I'm curious for you, how much of a role then does nostalgia play in your work versus that kind of newness and that discovery and that even

re-imagination of old ideas, particularly when you're thinking about how to then write about the experience.

I think, mean, nostalgia is, I feel like nostalgia is a little bit dangerous. And there are times when I'm overtaken by it and I can see it sometimes in my work. I'm like, oh, it was a little squishy, know, a little too much. So I'm trying to be just really aware of it. Like when you're in, when you've shifted into that gear to be really aware that that's...

having some kind of effect on you, and not just on me, but on within restaurants. Like when I notice nostalgia, nostalgia for, I don't know, like if a restaurant is as a British colonial theme, you what does that nostalgia indicate? You know, there's so many different kinds of nostalgia. And I think what I want to do is have an awareness of my own and of other people so that I can kind of interpret it in a clear-eyed way.

Abhay (20:10.486)
Yeah. mean, I was talking once to an executive in the NFL, Bharag Marathi, and he shared something very interesting that's saying that like, you you don't want your past experiences to allow you to get seduced in a way, nor do you want them to bring you down. They will provide that unfair bias to sort of how you engage in each experience. And I imagine that that's sort of the same thing where you just can't, you really, really need to be focused on and

both allow your previous experience to inform you, but not let them to cloud what you're doing.

Yeah, and I also think we can be there's sort of the sense of collective nostalgia that can kind of take hold sometimes to

Yeah, and so I assume that you have not reproduced the Madhubajiya experience from Nairobi.

I've never, I've never, it's so, I brought that up earlier this week too, my, keep thinking about it's, it was, I don't even know if it's fair to call it a restaurant, the version, the one that I used to go to, but I keep thinking about how when I would go there, my grandmother was kind of a regular. And so it was this idealized restaurant experience of walking in and just knowing everyone and everyone's business and knowing that person just had a kid and this person owes that person money.

Tejal (21:28.522)
not just the people who were dining there, but the people working there too, because it was kind of like a for us, by us restaurant. So my grandmother knew everyone. And I've always like, what would it be like to have a relationship like that with a restaurant? I probably never know, you know?

In the subcultural aspect of things, right? There's just so, so rich. You can think about sort of so many different sociologic experiments that you could probably do just by observation. I'll share one experience with you. My wife and I went to a restaurant in San Francisco and had just the most wonderful food and a great, great experience. And then we went back again and, know, we sort of felt like we were, you know, okay, it's our second time. We feel like we're a little bit more of a

regular fixture here, at least the second time around. And the food was, I don't know, kind of mid and just not really like feeling it. But we had an even better actual experience when we were there the second time. And so is there value to what those repeat experiences or those revisits are? But as a critic,

as a critic for sure, I think you can, you know, from one night to the next, from one month to the next, from one year to the next, experience the same place in a completely different way. And it's not like a performance art piece, you know, I can't go to the same restaurant 365 times and then write about it. Unfortunately, like have to limit it to a couple of times. But I do think it's only fair to go more than once, you know. But it's interesting how

I don't know. It's interesting how you're talking about that experience of the food being not as good, but you loving the place more. That's such an interesting tension. I think about that a lot.

Abhay (23:16.194)
Yeah. And again, I mean, like, I don't know if we would necessarily go back. There's so many factors that go into that and, know, who you're with and, you know, who you're actually dining with. And for that matter, you know, the cost and the price and those kinds of things certainly factor in.

But restaurants can become meaningful because you keep returning to them. You make it special by going back and being in relationship with the restaurant. that's a really, that's what was happening at Maru Bajie. We get to choose the places we go back to. And I think if we are obsessed with the new restaurant and all we want to do is go to the new restaurant and the new restaurant.

you never get to get that, you never get to feel that way. You never get to have that relationship. And I think that's really sad.

Yeah, no, totally. And it's, again, about this whole idea of cultivating trust in those relationships. How do you sort of make them sticky and enduring? You and I share something in common in that we both spent summers in Pune with family in our formative years. So I want to ask you this, because tying that back to at least the audience who may be listening or watching this, how is being a South Asian American in a way relevant to your work?

yeah.

Tejal (24:31.982)
I think all the parts of my identity are relevant to my work in a way that I didn't always see, but I see now. want, I think like any, like every critic sort of the criticism that's fun to read at least, or the criticism I emotionally connect to, the critic is kind of bringing their whole self to the work. You don't see the whole person in every piece, but like those pieces all add up to something bigger. And I hope

that I can't say exactly how, but I hope that that part of myself also informs the work, both in terms of what I see, what I notice, what I enjoy, what I convey to readers. I hope it's all there, but it's hard to kind of have the space from your own work to see it. So I don't know that I can.

Do you think it bleeds into sort of how you think or operate on a daily basis? mean, most people think of their anchors and tethers through family or through their cultural traditions, but are there other elements of your South Asian-American-ness if that's even a part of something you think about when you're working?

I don't think about it consciously. I don't think about it consciously, but I think it's always present. I have a lot of South Asian American friends and I used to feel more British, like British Asian than I do now. I feel a lot of distance now, but I left when I was, you know, nine, but I have, grew up in a very different way from like my desi friends here who some of them went to camp with.

other South Asians, like I was often really isolated. And there are places we lived where, you know, I'd be the only, the only kid in school who didn't. When we moved to, I'll be more specific. When we moved to France, it was a very small village and I had to learn French. There were no other South Asians in that village. And so my family had, they didn't say it out loud. You know, they didn't say like adapt or die.

Tejal (26:39.182)
But my brother and I always joke that if we had like a family crest, you know, or a family flag, like that's just be embroidered on there, you know? It was like, yeah, you're going to learn. You're just going to learn to. This is our home now. These are our people. We're going to learn how to cook this food. We're going to learn how to speak this language. Um, it was just so, it was never said out loud, but that's just the way it was in the family.

ADAPT or die.

Tejal (27:08.098)
Yeah, over and over.

You I think about that a lot where like how what we've been programmed to do. like you said, like you're not consciously thinking about your South Asian-American-ness, but again, your experience is very unique and that adaptability like the family crest is one to think about. You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's take a quick break and come back to our conversation with Chief New York Times restaurant critic, Deja Lirao. Stay tuned.

Abhay (27:41.76)
Every story told is a lesson learned and every lesson learned is a story waiting to be told. I'm Abhay Dhandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Abhay (28:06.434)
Hi, I'm Krish Ashok, author of Masala Lab, the science of Indian cooking and you're

Listen, trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Abhay (28:20.322)
Hi, this is Farhan Akhtar. Hi, I'm Ananya Panday.

then.

Tejal (28:25.742)
Hi I'm Kani Kusruti. Hi I'm Vidya Balan

Hi, this is Madhuri Dixit and you are listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing with Abhay Dandekar.

I'm Abhay Dandekar and this is Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with Chief New York Times restaurant critic, Tejal Rao. As you have now woven your way through professional experiences, personal experiences in the US and many different corners of the United States, what maybe have you had to perhaps unlearn or let go of in order to find sort peace?

You mean in terms of that part of my identity?

Yeah, or anything for that matter, like, you know, in order for you to find direct success, you know, in the business you're in, and for that matter, as a writer or a critic, are there elements of your own kind of persona or your identity or anything for that matter that you've had to either unlearn or sort of shed for you to find that piece and success?

Tejal (29:26.35)
That's a really good question. I don't know. I think I used to be much more uncomfortable kind of thinking out loud, do you know what I mean? Or presenting anything that wasn't perfect and finished. I don't know if this is my personality or if this is of my identity, but I am trying actively still to be more and more.

comfortable with just making a mistake. The world will not end. It's okay if I make a mistake. It's okay if I have to try this again. That's a constant process of unlearning. It's okay for this to be imperfect. Keep going.

Right, keep going. Adapter and conform, right? How much has this idea of being able to be comfortable with the imperfections, how much has parenting helped accelerate that?

Yeah, to die.

Tejal (30:27.112)
what a great, you know, I think I am doing a lot in, in parenting. I'm doing a lot of, a lot of work that feels, I don't want to get to make this too much of a therapy session, but I definitely, you know, I, I'm a lot of memories are coming up from when I was a little kid and I'm, thinking about there's like, feel a tenderness towards the, this like version of myself who was put in these very difficult situations. So, you know, my, my kid just transitioned from her.

baby class to her preschool class. And I promise the story has a point. And every day for a week, her teachers in her old class would take her for maybe an hour into what would then become her new class, just to ease the transition that was coming. And they would update us every day and they would take pictures and they were so kind of thoughtful about it and so supportive. And then by the time it was her first day, she was really ready for it. She knew all the teachers there. She knew all the kids there.

it wasn't like the version of this that I experienced was just like, by the way, the school you're going to today, no one speaks English. know, like it was so, so, so many people work together to make it comfortable and to make it easier. And I just think like, there's so many, there are different ways to do this, you know, there are different ways to do this and I really appreciate it. And yeah, it makes me feel a lot of tenderness for that. Like,

little version of me who felt like a soldier going to war or something.

love that. Yeah. mean, you're right. There are so many different ways to do that and, you know, accelerating both the imperfections that we know as children who've had to adapt fast and get thrown into a pool versus the very, very, I mean, gosh, I would love to be at your daughter's preschool. It just sounds amazing. Let me ask you one thing about, you know, back to the sort of, you know, critic life, but how do you normalize the difference?

Abhay (32:22.83)
between, I mean, we're talking about sort of like a regularity to a restaurant and being part of that culture, but how do you normalize the difference between being a kind of a local regular diner versus being a very well-informed tourist?

That's a, yeah, no, I think about that a lot. So when I'm going to, especially I'm going somewhere I haven't been before, that's happened too. I think I owe it to the city and to the restaurant, you know, to do a lot of research and to spend time there and understand the place. And then I think there'll always be a gap between if you're a reporter or critic dropping into a place to do that work versus.

a local critic or a local reporter, like the context I have is going to be different. And it's just about like being honest about that and being aware of that, I think.

Yeah, I mean, think that self-awareness is probably huge. Do you ever feel like you can mirror that local experience or is that a just, you have to accept that that's not something that you can try and mirror and not attempt to even do that.

I think, I mean, yeah, I think the experience I'm getting is always going to be as someone who is visiting, right? And someone who's observing. So I just do my best to pay very close attention. What is my experience? Let me not pretend it's something else. Let me be true to this version.

Abhay (33:54.402)
Yeah, no, totally. I'm going to draw one other parallel back to doctoring and I promise this land will see. But I was thinking about this in, you know, sort of thinking about what to ask you about as far as restaurant experiences go. And the doctor's offices are notorious for the waiting part of your office visit. And, you know, so I'm a bit out of frame to necessarily comment on this, but how does, how does waiting?

or anticipation. How does that element of the restaurant culture affect a review?

mean waiting when you're at the restaurant? Waiting?

I thought about this, right? I was trying to like dissect out what waiting means, but I think it actually means every element of it, right? You wait to get a reservation. You wait when you're there. You wait for all kinds of things. that waiting doesn't always have to be bad, right? I mean, like that waiting builds anticipation and excitement or maybe anxiety. I don't know.

Well, yeah, what kind of fills, guess what, you know, what ends up filling the space when you're waiting. I'm very, I mean, I'm very comfortable with, I don't know, the, like the limb, the physical liminal space of waiting, a waiting room or those little chairs in the restaurant where you're actually waiting. But the waiting in a literal sense is not, it doesn't bother me, but I was just thinking about how when you're sitting at a table and you're waiting, could be

Tejal (35:22.902)
Like five minutes in one restaurant feels very diff- can feel very different from five minutes in another restaurant. And some of it has to do with your own, you know, where are you at and your own emotional state, what's on your mind. And then it also has to do with the people in the room. You know, how are the people in the room making you feel? Are they making you feel like warm and welcome and like something good is on its way? Or are they making you feel like they kind of wish you weren't there? And is that a real feeling or are you-

in a bad mood and you're projecting like there's so much, there's so much going on. It's actually really complicated.

One, I've thought about the anatomy also, or even just like the experience of driving by someplace, knowing it's a really small restaurant and seeing a line that's going around the block to get food from this place. And is that generating some sort of level of excitement for me saying that like, look at that, there's a million people, they're all waiting and they're spending hours waiting potentially. you know, I don't, I

wonder, you know, there's such a waiting culture also with food that people go through as well.

yeah, think people see people waiting and just want to jump in and wait too. And then the waiting is like a communal experience.

Abhay (36:40.142)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me finish with this one. you know, I was wondering about, you know, how, first of all, I did have one question you have as your kind of avatar on both your email and on your website, a picture of some radicchio. Oh, yeah. Pickery. I mean, I was just curious what that is that does that say anything about sort of you and your personality in any way?

I guess you could read into it. It's, you know, it's bitter. It's a bitter green.

It's also very essential in some ways, packed with vitamins, very nourishing.

I love radicchio. It's one of my favorite salad leaves. I love all the different varieties. There's some really beautiful ones. And that particular photo, you can't really get a sense of it because it's cropped into like a tiny little circle, but a photo by this photographer, this Times photographer, Tony Cinecola, and it's just a beautiful, I think it's a beautiful photo.

There go. Well, hopefully saying all kinds of things and, you know, meanings that are a proxy for you. Like I said, let me get you out of here on this. I mean, if you had to think about today, at least, and I know this changes over time, but if you had to think about three people, either living or past, to share a meal with you, who would you invite? Where would you potentially go? And what might you eat?

Tejal (38:00.75)
There is a time where I would have said, I would have said a bunch of writers who I admire, poets I admire, I feel like I'm not. But I really, thinking about my grandparents a lot lately and I would 100%, I would feel like I would give anything to have dinner with them. Can I say four?

Yeah, absolutely. know, grandparents get free passes no matter what. But is there a specific place that you would want to visit? Is there a particular kind of experience you would hope to have? And that would say something that speaks to both their legacy and memory and maybe to what you experienced now.

I would love to cook for them. I would cook for them and it would be like a dinner at home. Like one of those long, long dinners where people get up and do things and then come back to the table and go on a walk after dinner, you know, that kind of thing. What would I cook? I would, this would be very stressful, but I think I would cook a biryani and then like lots of little vegetable side dishes. Did I answer the question?

You absolutely did. That sounds super lovely. Having a meal with loved ones and going for walks and sharing lots of great conversation. Very much like, you know, I hope this experience has been for you. Really, readers are enjoying it. I know I'm enjoying it. And thank you so much, Dejal, for joining us on Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. hope we can revisit with you again. This was lovely. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Abhay (39:32.472)
Thanks so much, Tejal, and you can read her work at nytimes.com and tejalrao.com. Big shout outs this week to the Indian National Women's Cricket Team, my LA Dodgers, and everyone at the American South Asian Network. Please visit them at americansouthasiannetwork.com. Also, you're almost at the end, maybe six, seven seconds more to go. Till next time, I'm Abhay Dandekar.