Author and Video Host Priya Krishna Wants You to Embrace Your Weirdness

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

On this episode

When Priya Krishna was a little kid — a blob, as she calls herself — she started traveling the whole world with her family because her mom worked in the airline industry. As it turns out, the wildly successful reporter, author, and video host had a truly wild and wonderful journey ahead. Though it wasn’t public at the time this was recorded, she was also about to be tapped as interim restaurant critic at The New York Times following longtime critic — and Tinfoil Swans guest — Pete Wells‘ retirement from the position. Right before going on tour for her brilliant new kids cookbook Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, she opened up about her musical theater background, the importance of seeing yourself reflected in media, and why your weirdness is your greatest asset.

Meet our guest

Priya Krishna is the bestselling author of Indian-ish and Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, and host of the New York Times labor-focused video series On the Job. Krishna’s work as a food reporter at The Times has been included in the 2019 and 2021 editions of The Best American Food Writing, and she has been nominated for James Beard and International Association of Culinary Professionals writing awards. Krishna began her career at Lucky Peach and worked as a contributing writer and video host at Bon Appétit. In 2021, she was named on the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine’s podcast, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On not talking down to kids

“I realized that kids are more interested in food, in travel, in exploring than ever. They have access to YouTube. They have access to streaming. I have about 10 nieces and nephews and they are so into food and watching YouTube videos of dumpling-makers in Hong Kong, And yet, all of the cookbooks for these curious kids are pretty homogenous. Most of them are authored by white people, with some exceptions. You have the wonderful Waffles and Mochi cookbook by Yewande Komolafe. You have Kalamata’s Kitchen by Sarah Thomas, which is fantastic. But on the whole, these books are authored by white people, the recipes lean very Western, and they almost feel like they are talking down to kids.

It’s a sandwich cut in the shape of a gingerbread man, a fruit salad sprinkled with Fruit Loops. But the kids that I talk to, when they cook, they want to feel grown-up. They want to be empowered and be excited. They want to be able to have some agency. So I wanted to write a book that felt inclusive, empowering, and fun, and that really changed the definition of kid-friendly beyond buttered noodles.”

On fighting fear by confronting it

“When I was little, I was sort of scared of what was different. My parents plunged head-first into what was different. They loved going to places where they didn’t know the language or the food was unfamiliar or where the people didn’t look like them. I wonder if, as immigrants, you’ve just been asked to think outside yourselves for so long  that you just have a much deeper appreciation and respect for what’s different than yours. Travel is how I became empathetic and curious, and to be honest, you don’t need to necessarily travel to do that. You just need to expose yourself to different cultures.”

On embracing your weirdness

“Your weirdness is an asset. It’s not a liability. That’s really the biggest thing I wish I could tell my younger self. I just desperately wanted to look and sound and do what everyone else was doing, but the things I like, the things I wanted to wear, in reality, were so different. I wish I had just leaned into that more. I mean, what is weird anyways? You know? Weird is my normal, I suppose.”

Communal Table

On labor and luxury

“Everyone’s like, ‘Well, going out to eat is so expensive. It has become like a luxury,’ but maybe it should be a luxury. Maybe it’s not a thing that we do every day, but when we do do it, we go out and we reframe [our] thinking as this is the bare minimum for restaurant workers, just earning a livable wage and getting the same benefits that many of the rest of us get by having a job but that have not been normalized for a really long time in the industry.”

On the joy of a bigger table

“I feel really excited that there are enough of us in the industry that it’s not like the burden of representation falls on one person. We have more latitude and freedom to do what we want to do, whether that’s cooking within our culture or making whatever the hell we want. To make a niche reference, I’m really glad we no longer have to vote for, like, Sanjaya Malakar on American Idol just because he’s the only Indian contestant.”

On the Muppet she’s most like

“Sometimes I internally feel like a Beaker, but I’d like to think that externally, I’m projecting more Kermit ‘Rainbow Connection’ energy.”

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

This season, you’ll hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Rodney Scott, Asma Khan, Emeril and E.J. Lagasse, Claudia Fleming, Dave Beran and Will Poulter, Dan Giusti, Priya Krishna, Lee Anne Wong, Cody Rigsby, Kevin Gillespie, Pete Wells, David Chang, Christine D’Ercole, Channing Frye, Nick Cho, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what’s on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.

Editor’s Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.