chefs with issues

From her Chefs with Issues program to her personal consultations with countless people in the restaurant industry to her myriad writings and her own Communal Table podcast, Kat Kinsman is a leading voice for mental health among hospitality professionals. Kat and Andrew discuss coping mechanisms traditional and non- and how they might be employed at this challenging time, and manage to have an unlikely laugh or two along the way.

Also, on the day we lost chef Floyd Cardoz, Plate magazine's Chandra Ram shares a few thoughts about this important chef.

Our great thanks to S.Pellegrino for making these special reports possible.

Please visit our support organization of the day, Kat Kinsman's Chefs with Issues.

LINKS

Andrew Talks to Chefs official website

Communal Table (Kat's Food + Wine podcast)

Industry United Facebook group

A Balanced Glass

CHOW (Colorado)

Calm app

Personal Mise en Place

Insight Timer

Headspace

Cramer Care

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

We'd love if you followed us on Instagram. 

Please also follow Andrew's real-time journal of the travel, research, writing, and production of/for his next book The Opening (working title), which will track four restaurants in different parts of the U.S. from inception to launch.

For Andrew's writing, dining, and personal adventures, follow along at his personal feed.

Thank you for listening—please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback and/or suggestions!

Why do so many restaurant workers struggle with mental health issues and what can be done to help? Food and culture writer Kat Kinsman of Time’s Extra Crispy and NYC restaurateur Will Guidara (Eleven Madison Park, NoMad, Made Nice) talk to host Billy Shore about hospitality and mental health challenges in the food world. Kinsman launched the website Chefs with Issues in 2016 to help bring attention to this problem. “I always tell people, ‘either you have your line cook cry in front of you, or you cry at their funeral’,” she says. Guidara agrees. “Our industry struggles with embracing vulnerability… that’s what gets us,” he says.

Kinsman’s book, Hi, Anxiety! Life with a bad case of nerves, tries to show the reality of what anxiety looks like. “It’s real, it’s pervasive, and has affected every area of my life,” she shares. Guidara talks about the conditions in restaurants that can bring out stress, anxiety and more serious mental health conditions. “Any time you combine… relentless intensity - not only in expectations but in the number of hours you’re working - with an environment where it’s not cool to look weak leads to this situation,” he says. “Our profession needs people doing the things you’re doing now more than ever before,” he tells Kinsman gratefully.

Listen to this critically important conversation that explores mental health and what is being done to help the people who nourish us.

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Kat Kinsman, author and editor, is taking on the subjects rarely discussed in the food world, namely depression, addiction, and burnout. In her talk entitled "Feeding the Beast," presented at this year's Cherry Bombe Jubilee conference, Kat shared her thoughts on helping, healing, and finding a way forward. Kat was welcomed to the stage by her friend, the writer Jordana Rothman. We're sharing both Kat's talk and Jordan's heartfelt introduction on Radio Cherry Bombe today.

Kat is doing more than just speaking up. She launched the "Chefs With Issues" website to help others share their stories and find resources. The book about her own struggles, Hi, Anxiety, will be published this November.

This talk was part of our third annual Jubilee conference, which was held earlier this year at the High Line Hotel in New York and featured interviews and talks with some of the most interesting women in the world of food. More than 300 guests attend the sold­-out conference each year to network, hear the speakers, and enjoy food from the city’s hottest female-­run businesses.