Are Zoods Food?

a chat w/ Alex Dobrenko about Both Are True, picky eaters, and kitchen secrets

Hey Broiler Heads! This week we’re introducing a new series here at Bad Manners HQ. Once a month I’m gonna tear myself out of the kitchen and talk with someone from elsewhere in the Substack Universe™️. I’ll reach out to people in food, environmentalists, humorists, chefs, and philosophers to get their take on dinner, our food system, and how to be a human. That way we aren’t always in a little echo chamber here and read stuff from amazing writers that make us think. Sound fun? Tap that ❤️ if you’re ready for some new shit.

First up we have the one and only

Alex Dobrenko`

who writes one of the most unhinged and deeply thoughtful newsletters on this platform

Both Are True

.

the best About page graphic in the game

Michelle: You’re a writer and the certified mad genius behind the great Substack Both Are True. What’s been the biggest surprise behind creating and running your newsletter?

Alex: The biggest surprise is that anyone reads it! Jk but fr – I’ve spent the better part of ten years creating stuff in relative obscurity and BAT is the first project of mine that’s really gained a true audience of people who aren’t my family and friends that actually seem to enjoy my work! 

I recently announced that I’ll give complimentary access to everything behind the paywall of BAT for anyone who would like a paid subscription but can’t afford it. I was amazed at how many people reached out to ask for comps and share how much BAT meant to them. Several people shared stories of how things are really hard in life right now and BAT is one of the few bright spots in their day. That alone blows my mind, not to mention the fact that BAT has become a space where people feel comfortable asking for help when they need it. That’s a brave and scary thing to do. I told everyone to not say sorry when they reached out because there is nothing to apologize for but everyone still said sorry, which is interesting. Like we are trained to not feel okay asking for help or something. Lord knows I’m guilty of that, I say sorry every other word. In fact, my two year old son (Wilder) has started saying sorry ALOT when there’s nothing to be sorry for and I’m like ‘oh shit he’s learning that from us.’ 

Michelle: We’ve got to come up with a word that’s below ‘sorry’ but conveys the same vibe. Classic perfectionist goal lol. You’ve just started a new series in your newsletter: “I’m (Not?) The Best?” which you describe as a multi-month deep dive into the ideas of competition, comparison, testing and achievement. How much does perfectionism and competition fuel your creative work? How much does it hinder it?

Alex: Yes to all of it. The core of it, I am realizing, is a feeling of not enough. Of not being worthy as I am, and so trying to achieve things in order to feel worthy of existing. But not just achieving things that anyone can achieve, but doing things that are impossible. Being the best. And to be the best, you have to be perfect. This mindset used to paralyze me. I couldn’t write because everything was awful and I knew it’d never be good enough and so I would just not allow myself to try. That’s obviously changed. 

People also write me often to say how much they love that I misspell things and don’t use proper grammar and that I swear a lot (which I know you and Matt love to do too, it's one of my fav parts of Hungry as Hell). I think that’s one of the ways I’m battling against the need to be perfect and  get it all ‘right’ - right doesn’t exist, just left, and write. Ugh that joke sucks but I’ll leave it in as a testament to what I’m talking about. 

All that stuff hinders me a lot though. I’m never really satisfied with a piece and I hate most of what I write until for a little while I get to the end and feel good about it, a feeling that goes away as soon as it’s published lol.

one of my favorite dispatches from Both Are True, click to read

Michelle: I also struggle with the concept of ‘good enough’. I would edit the cookbooks forever if they let me. The recipes would change constantly but alas they make me stop. You and your wife have been cooking some recipes from our new book Hungry as Hell. You aren’t vegan so I was wondering if anything stood out to you in the book or took you by surprise? 

chomp chomp Alex

Alex: Ok time to get a little real lol but reading your book and picking out recipes really shone a light on how much of a disordered, obsessive eater I usually am. I grew up overweight and decided it was the root of all my problems (specifically why girls didn’t like me) and so my twenties became all about figuring out how to hack my body into perfect shape largely by avoiding almost all foods that are ‘bad’ for you, a list that includes potatoes, grains, sweets, cereals, most cheese, most things with butter or flour or grains of any kind except the approved kind (brown rice? orzo? bulgar?). Nothing breaded nothing fried. No processed food of any sort and in many ways nothing that sounds like it’d actually taste good. 

Somewhere in there I decided that eating bread made me tired, and so I stopped eating that. Except of course the carb balance tortillas which I eat multiple of daily. 

That’s what I mean. This nutritional plan it makes NO sense, which I both understand and don’t really feel able to stop in any meaningful way. 

So like take the noodles and tofu meal, I also bought zucchini noodles to eat instead of the udon noodles which are so good (the udon). And so I just ended up eating a lot of the udon noodles with my hands in the kitchen and then a few on my plate amongst the zook noods. 

I bring all this up because I think it prevents me from what feels like a central part of your book - actually enjoying the food you eat. 

This is my main question for you: how has your relationship with food has evolved over the course of this career? And what tips if any you’d have for an idiot like me to chill tf out and enjoy his food. 

Michelle: I came of age in the diet obsessed 80s and 90s so I totally understand deranged eating. I think that a lot of our fears around food and what it might do to our body come from being so divorced from the preparation of our meals and ingredients. The best way to fix that is to cook more meals from scratch. You’ll appreciate everything so much more. Plus you won’t eat 24 cookies you made from scratch because they took too much effort to just swallow whole.

I’ve relaxed a lot around calories and fat over my career. Labeling food as ‘bad’ and ‘good’ has gone out the window too. My whole goal has been to try and get the best, most nutritious food I can in front people that they’ll actually eat. That last part is important. You can meal prep all damn day but if you don’t want to eat your box of food with the perfect protein and net carb ratios, then you won’t. There has to be a balance there between pleasure and needs because you won’t get far if you only do one. Food is one of the great ways we learn and interact with the world. You are missing so much if you don’t eat a variety of things and savor your meals. Life is hard enough. It’s ok to eat potatoes and bread as long as you eat different stuff all the time. The poison is in the dose dude. One plate of pasta won’t kill you but 5 years of only cottage cheese might.

Speaking of variety, what’s your favorite thing you’ve made so far from the new book?

Alex: Easily the monkey bread. It was so fucking good and tasty and didn’t feel too heavy or like i needed a nap afterwards. I loved too how much joy it brought my son Wilder. Truly I’d never seen him love anything as much as he loved that monkey bread. For the next several days all He asked about was monkey bread. Also the eggplant meatballs were delicious. 

And TOFU?? I truly did not know this was a thing I could be doing so much with. 

Also surprised by how much lighter I felt the morning after eating meals from the book. We are gonna eat less meat! 

Michelle: Cooking often gets labeled as a chore these days but it doesn’t have to be. Do you ever see cooking as a creative outlet?

This is a great question - so normally I am stressed out about cooking and never know what to make. This along with the fact that wilder is usually hungry as fuck already or has moved past hunger and into full out breakdown mode means that cooking is rarely a chill experience lol.  

Buuuuut there are definitely situations when cooking feels like a near religious experience. There’s something about surrendering to the fact that I know it isn’t gonna be anything picturesque and worthy of instagram but that I am gonna make something that we can all eat that really lowers the stakes for me. Like, I get to chill. And then I love following the instructions which, as you maybe saw from the photos I sent, I definitely treat as looooose recommendations instead of anything I have to do exactly right.

Simply put, when the stakes are really low and I don’t feel like there’s a rush, I really enjoy cooking. 

But I want to enjoy it more! I think a big part of enjoying food and changing my relationship with food involves first allowing myself to have more time to make food and enjoy it. Right now all my time is spent working and then everything else is sorta added on as a necessary afterthought, like I have to eat, so ok fine I’ll eat but I’d rather just keep working. God writing this is making me sad! Is there any hope for me I sure to god hope so. 

Oh! I’m really a big fan of salads and making salads that I can eat for several days but at the same time they intimidate me soooooo much. Reading your stuff about salads in this book helped though. We bought a salad spinner!

Question though: is the salad supposed to be 100% dry when it comes out of there? Mine is still definitely a lil wet and so I end up thinking that I did something wrong. 

classic imperfect salad

Michelle: Salad is a lesson in letting go. It’s not gonna be perfect. A little water is fine, it’s a living vegetable after all. You just want to make sure that lettuce isn’t soggy because then your dressing will get watered down and everything will be mushy. I spin, drain the water that came off, spin again, and then drain one more time. You’ve got this, I swear. I used to play with a salad spinner as a kid because I thought it was so fun. No perfection, just dinner, ok?

You’ve got a kid and another one on the way. Has teaching your child about food and watching them develop their tastes and cravings changed your relationship with food?

Alex: Wilder has been a pretty picky eater for most of his life. Not anything awful, but he’ll just go days only eating one thing (bagel) and refuse to eat anything else. These days he’s settled into a pretty wide array of acceptable foods – avocado, toast, avocado on toast. 

Most of all, I’ve learned just how easy it is to put all of my weird food-related bullshit onto him. It’s this reason more than any other that makes me really want to figure out how to move past some of my bullshit with food – I don’t want to pass that stuff onto him. Like I can feel all of my judgment about food seeping into how I think about what he’s eating - “goldfish again?? this is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of any child.”

But like, obviously it’s all fine. He’s a kid and he’s growing and it’s fine. I wish I could have that be more of my default for both him and for myself. 

Michelle: It’s so hard to not put all our baggage onto kids but I think the variety of food they have available is so much better than we ever had. I swear they’ll be less picky for it by the time they’re in their teens.

You’ve got great subscriber and paywalled content for Both Are True plus your subscriber chat and prolific use of Notes on Substack. When you are stressed as hell trying to get all of that done, what food do you most crave? Or are you the kind of creative person that forgets to eat?

Alex: ok this is very very embarrassing but I basically eat the same thing like 3-5x a day. It is the following 

- cottage cheese (regular fat)

- cottage cheese (fat free)

- berry of choice (straw-, blue-, rasp-, black-)

- protein powder (horchata flavor)

- grape nuts (pop rocks for old people) 

I measure it all out and it comes out to about 300 calories. It’s the first thing I eat in the morning and also usually the 2nd and third. After three I’ll either eat something else or just have another. I just had one and would eat another one after finishing this but I am out of cottage cheese so I am gonna run to the store to get more. 

I know this is bad I am sorry I feel like I’m basically telling you that I am a monster, but telling you this feels like coming clean somehow, because I know you won’t judge me but maybe you can help get me out of this mess. It's also okay to just say ‘aw alex wtf are you doing.’

Michelle: Food ruts happen to all of us. But no matter what we binge eat, our body needs variety so you’ve got to mix it up. If you love to eat bowls of mush, then mix up the mush. Play to your preferences and then start adding to them. Make some farro or barley risotto or soup, overnight oats, brothy beans and rice. Cottage cheese can be your fall back but it’s time to actually appreciate what you’re eating, not just managing calories to get you to your next goal. You aren’t a newsletter-writing machine Alex!!

But speaking of newsletters, what do you think subscribers of The Broiler Room would love about Both Are True? 

Alex: I think that there’s a certain chaos energy Both Are True shares with The Broiler Room – an irreverence for how things are supposed to be done (y’all with cooking, me with writing about my own dumb life) that readers will find refreshing. 

Honestly I sorta suck at self-promo so I’d defer to some of my readers:

One reader described BAT as ‘the out-of-control (in a good way) outbursts of a man who's somehow able to get things down on paper with seemingly no filter whatsoever.’ 

While another said, “It's the newsletter equivalent of The Office. You'll usually chuckle, sometimes you'll laugh out loud, sometimes there's a cringe-by-design moment, sometimes you'll rethink your whole goddamn life. And most times, you'll have all those things happen to you in just one newsletter.”

---

Thank you so much to Alex for dropping by The Broiler Room. Got a question that you wish I’d have asked? Let us know in the comments!