People at the Core
From The Greenpoint Palace bar in Brooklyn, New York writers and bartenders, Rita and Marisa, have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar.
People at the Core
Coffee, Culture and Le Cordon Blue: Spilling the Beans with Enrique
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Ever found yourself captivated by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and wondered about the story behind the beans?* Enrique, our guest this week, is a coffee buyer with an exceptional tale that starts in the vibrant heart of Oxnard, California, and stretches across continents. As he unfolds his family's journey from Mexico to the US, we connect over the shared experiences of cultural heritage and the pursuit of dreams far from where our stories began.
Embark on an exploration through the highs and lows of culinary education, the gritty details of the job market, and the balancing act with student debt. Enrique's career path, from food writing to mastering the coffee industry in NYC, is a testament to resilience and the power of following one's passion. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone intrigued by the complexities of coffee—from the subtle art of roasting to the ethics of direct trade and fair wages in the supply chain.
Our conversation concludes with the bittersweet decision to bid farewell to New York's towering skyline for Madrid's charming streets. Enrique shares a deeper look into the enduring influence of family on work ethic and identity, stirring up nostalgia and laughter with tales of his parents' quirks. Join us for a heartfelt episode that's as much about the love and labor poured into each cup of coffee as it is about the indelible marks of family and heritage on our lives.
*Please be patient with us as we improve our recording and editing techniques and equipment. Every conversation we have had with our guests have been too rich and wonderful to not share. We appreciate you all hanging in there as we continue to learn and grow. Huge thanks to Tim Gideon for salvaging this episode!
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Intimate Conversations With Eclectic Individuals
Speaker 1From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2Hi Rita.
Speaker 3Hello Marissa, how are you?
Speaker 2I'm pretty good, excellent, beautiful, beautiful day. Had good sleep.
Speaker 3I'm lucky I did not. I know it's my birthday tomorrow, yay, so I've just been having. I had a bunch of friends from out of town come in and it's just been like non-stop Working and social hour I know and I hate social hour and work as in a bar. Like I'm good at it but I hate it, kind of you know what I mean.
Speaker 2I like when it happens by accident.
Speaker 5That's why, yeah, yeah, it's hard to contact me and I like the impromptu sort of Exactly. I like the impromptu sort of Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2So let me introduce this voice that you're hearing.
Speaker 3Who is our guest today?
Speaker 2This is our guest for today is Enrique. On paper he is a coffee buyer, but in reality he is so much more. He's a writer and a humanitarian who documents his experiences working with various farming communities in places like Ethiopia, colombia and Nicaragua. He's an almost American Psycho level of clean and organized person. I was very interested in that aspect, with a passion for food and eating, with the ability to consume for a man three times his size.
Speaker 5The same. Yeah, I can still do that. Oh great, we are lucky to catch him before he runs away to Spain, maybe forever.
Speaker 2So, enrique, you are originally from California.
Speaker 5Yeah, I was born in Ventura, which is about two Los Angeles, in this colonia called Oxnard.
Speaker 2Colonia, oxnard, yeah, it's the colonia chicas.
Speaker 5It's a very Chicano-influenced community.
Speaker 2With the whitest sounding name, oxnard.
Speaker 5Oxnard yeah, I guess. Yeah, I never looked into the history of Oxnard. All the brown people were like let's go to Oxnard.
Speaker 2Well, it's California Oxnard.
Speaker 4It is a beach town, so it has that nice yeah.
Speaker 5Okay, but yeah, I was born and raised there up until about four and then we moved inland more into getting closer to Palm Springs, oh, okay, so in between Palm Springs, la and San Diego, like right in the center of it all, okay, that's where I went to school.
Speaker 2That's where you were raised. I was, yeah, and your family is Mexican, right? Yeah, my parents are both. What part of Mexico.
Speaker 5My mom is from Zacatecas. Zacatecas. Oh, I didn't say hi to your guests, hi, hola.
Speaker 4Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5Thanks for having me people.
Speaker 3You were right. Yeah, my parents are from.
Speaker 5They're both from Mexico. My mom's, zacatecas, and my dad from Chihuahua, and they met in the Ciguar Juarez, which is a border town of El Paso, texas and Mexico, and they met there at a very young age and they've been together since they were my mom was 16 and my dad was 23. Oh wow, so cute, that's awesome, and so what? They're going on 16. And they've been together since they were. My mom was 16 and my dad was 23.
Speaker 3Shut up, so cute that's awesome.
Speaker 5So what they're going on 60.
Speaker 2I was like your dad just had a birthday right.
Speaker 3Yeah, he turned 80 in December, so 60 year anniversary too it's coming up. Wow, my parents just did their 50th and I totally forgot about it. They were very mad.
Speaker 5Oh, you have to do something big.
Speaker 3I know I totally didn't. I didn't do the math right. I thought we were going on 49 or something. I'm terrible at it, but 60 is insane Because that doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 5Yeah, right, and so, seeing that and my mom's very proud of that She'll let it be known to the world. Yeah, what my mom is, that type of person, center of attention. I love her. I get a lot of my sort of energy and some personality from her. But yeah, they met in Mexico and moved to El Paso Texas after they got married. Okay, so they were teenagers my mom was a teenager and my dad already in his 20s and yeah, they worked in El Paso Texas for a few years and then migrated to California eventually and had well. So I'm the youngest out of seven. Oh, wow, catholics.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean Mexican Catholics.
Speaker 5What does my mom say? She's like something in Spanish, but it's something to do with. Like there was like no commercials. Like have you ever heard that saying it? It's like you're watching TV and you're distracted watching.
Speaker 2TV, but I guess they're making babies in between commercials. That's what it is.
Speaker 5And so it's a joke that Mexicans often say it's like ah, those commercials. And that's when you get it in and have another baby. So yeah, that's what she says.
Speaker 4Oh, that's funny, that's so cute.
Speaker 5But yeah, three were born in Texas and then the rest of us were born in California, gotcha.
Speaker 2My family Mexican, texas Mexicans as well, and they ended up in Michigan. Wow, well, they were migrant workers and then ended up working the fields. I'm very proud.
Speaker 5I like that part of my history, it's like you know, being that state. You know a lot of people would, sort of you know, prefer California and the Chicano sort of movement and all that stuff. But with Texas, I don't know, it's like you know, it's a different border town for me, it feels different. Even to this day, if I'm in El Paso, texas or Dallas, it still feels like. I still feel that energy. Yeah, you know a lot of Mexican history.
Speaker 2Yeah, right, well, I mean it was. I mean, just like California, too was Mexico, but also the movement, like the Chicano movement. That was never a part of my life. It wasn't until I moved to California that I even learned about it, so we grew up.
Speaker 2Just we were Mexican, mexican, american. There was never talk of Chicanos, like we didn't, even though my family also marched in the boycott, the Delano boycott, like I have pictures of my mom on the highway with signs and my tío Juan well, he was Joe for a minute, then he went back to Juan with his you know, military what's the word garb on? They were all. They all fought in wars. They were all in Nam. They all did. You know so. But yeah, but what that conversation looks like when you move those Texans to Michigan or California, like it manifests in different ways.
Speaker 5Yeah, and that's what I appreciate about. You know, my brothers were born there. It's like they're very proud Texans, even though, like they spent the majority of their life in California, but still like they're tapped into something that I don't quite understand.
Speaker 1It's a different identity.
Speaker 4It's yeah because Chicano is more new it's more, right, it's more political, yeah, but political which is?
Speaker 5great, right I political, yeah, which is great. Yeah, I like being, I consider myself to be a chicano, right? Um, but for my brothers, I don't know, it's a different. It's like they have more, I don't know well, they have no.
Speaker 2Pride is a different thing.
Speaker 4Yeah, I can't explain it because it's just yeah, yeah but yeah, that's.
Speaker 5That's the history of my family, you know like what's the average age difference between y'all? My brother. The oldest one is 20 years my senior, yeah oh, wow, okay, so he's like my dad.
Speaker 3Yeah, they were watching. I mean, did you guys kind of raise each other, or no?
Speaker 5like. Well, they were already married when I was oh my god, yeah, yeah because they got married when they were young, had kids. Yeah, like my niece, his daughter. She's two years older than I, mean two years younger than I am right, oh crazy.
Speaker 3So that's like a huge difference yeah so my three eldest brothers.
Speaker 5I didn't live with them, I wasn't raised.
Speaker 4With them, I was raised with the other three gotcha, yeah interesting.
Speaker 2So they're more like tios and tias kind of vibe.
Speaker 3I mean, I won't say cousins because I want to piss them off.
Speaker 4Hey, brother you listening no, no, but yeah, they weren't.
Speaker 5I mean, they were around, yeah, yeah, still it's like they had their family, like they already had their.
Speaker 3Yeah they were starting their own family, yeah right so it's completely different so I was yeah, I grew up with the other.
Speaker 5Yeah, and so we have our stories right, just like my brother, the ones that I grew up with the other. And so we have our stories right, Just like my brother. The ones that I grew up with have stories with my older, older brothers right. We have like this WhatsApp group message and they're like hey, you remember like yesterday he sent me a photo of, like my dad's old Datsun. He had a Datsun. He's like remember this you know truck that dad had and I can't like chime in, right.
Speaker 5But it's like my brothers, having you know like, talking about like you know the good old days, their moments. I don't remember any of that. I was too young. I was a baby.
Speaker 2Right, right you know you never think about that, but that's kind of wild, you know yeah. I mean, I was the oldest in my family, and so we've got, you know, babies. Now my, my younger cousins are making babies, and you know our grandparents are have passed away. It's been 10 years now, so I'm a keeper of stories right my brother and my oldest cousin, the three of us we grew up together, so we're the keepers of these, these tales that that the younger ones didn't get of grandparents.
Speaker 2They didn't even know the original house where everybody grew up in, where we would slop around in the makeshift pond that accumulated every summer.
Speaker 5Other than through pictures. My memory is what I have seen.
Speaker 2Throughout the pictures that I go through, I'm like, oh yeah, I was there, that was me, and you've got a story attached to this visual and then you kind of it's weird how we have not false memories but we create memories from other people's experiences.
Speaker 5Oh, definitely. I'm like oh yeah, I was there. They're like you weren't, or you know, you saw it in a minute.
Speaker 3Yeah, you did, but it was there. It felt like.
Speaker 2I was there. So what brought you to New York? Oh, I was just going to ask that. Oh my, what brought?
Speaker 5me to New York. Oh, I wish I could say something so romantic. But no, I wanted to be a food writer, so I had been a chef for a short period. I went to so after high school, I graduated in 2003. And after high school, I went to like Cordon Bleu and I studied as a chef for a little bit. I was like you know with growing up. Yeah.
Speaker 5I mean, but everything's centered around the kitchen in our home right, and so I would witness my mom, I'd see my mom and how much power she would have. You know, it's like really interesting to see, like a woman in her space, my mom, her space, not to say that women, that's their space.
Speaker 4Right, but my mom that was like it was her space, her domain where she felt most confident.
Speaker 5You don't step foot in my kitchen. I've got this. I'm feeding. I set the tone for the day. I set the tone all the time. Yeah, without me, like, all of this just falls apart right, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's like my dad, yes bread went like.
Speaker 5My mom didn't work right. She raised us and so me seeing that she's. She's the one that did actually, like you know, set the balance and like in our home and made my dad successful, or like you know she organized the finances like without her. It's like so I was witness to that. I'm like I just saw so much power like in the kitchen space. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like so I was witness to that. I'm like I just saw so much power like in the kitchen space.
Speaker 4Yeah, yeah, for sure, and so I always wanted about that.
Speaker 5I always wanted to tap into it like I don't know. It was just. It always gave me joy, right, you know, wake up and see her making tortillas in the morning and smell so good to give it to my dad and stuff, and so it's comforting, but there's also that power element to it. So I've always been fascinated by food, by the kitchen, and so yeah, like one day I saw a commercial for Le Cordon Bleu and I'm like A commercial A commercial I remember the commercials.
Speaker 3I totally remember the commercials.
Speaker 5And I'm like what do I do with my life?
Speaker 2And then, that came on. I'm glad you didn't get the recruitment. No, I don't think, soul check.
Speaker 4That's not me. I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover.
Speaker 5And yeah, so I was like I should apply and go check it out and so. I did. I checked it out, I fell in love with the school. I mean, they make you you know, they made a shit ton of promises that they couldn't keep.
Speaker 3Where is the school? Where?
Speaker 5is it? It was it no longer exists.
Speaker 3It doesn't exist. No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 5Okay, yeah drama People like, because they did they promised the world.
Speaker 3God told me everything.
Speaker 5They said that you know, you would you know?
Speaker 1no regrets.
Speaker 5I love the curriculum, the school, what I was taught. It made me a better, strong, like my work ethic, oof on a whole different level.
Speaker 4Yes.
Speaker 5Thanks to the cordon bleu. Absolutely right, but they did promise you the world. They're like, oh, you'd be an executive chef and all that. Oh, like right out of school, right out of school and this is what you'll become, and all that stuff. And this is 2004, 2005, right? So this is before the height of everything. And all of that, right? People wanting like yes, it was a career for a lot of people, but it wasn't always like the first choice, right? It always like?
Speaker 1the first choice, right? It wasn't looked as like a career.
Speaker 5It was a lot of that, yeah.
Speaker 2Because it was ever since, like the TV shows, top Chef and all that. Yeah, I was going to say before reality TV, before reality TV and all of that and the celebrity chefs.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly yeah. Celebrity chefs started to change everything I mean I'm obsessed, I totally get it Because we did.
Speaker 5You know we had what's his name emerald, emerald. Oh yeah, we had the few you know he did go to the same school and like, but they're like, oh, you were, you're going to be big and you're gonna be making. And also they say you'll be making good money. Yeah, no, but right after you're making like your line, exactly line.
Speaker 5Your hours are awful, yeah, and you can't pay back that very expensive loan you took to go to that school. But besides that, it was like I wanted to do it. I would do it again. It put me into debt, but at the same time, it was so worth it. Because of everything, I became a stronger and better person, because of that school.
Speaker 2I mean, that's part of also, just like education or the scholastic environment. Anyway, it's not the degree that you're getting or what you're studying, it's the environment, it's the accountability, it's the social aspects it is being introduced to new thoughts, new ideas, new patterns. Having to organize your time, having to. You know, there's a hierarchy of. I only have eight hours to spend, but I have 12 hours of things I need to do and just life skill development.
Speaker 3Well, I was just going to say too, would you consider that like a trade kind of school?
Speaker 1in a way.
Speaker 3Because I have so many trade certificates. It's insane, just trying to figure out my life and same as you I don't regret any of it, but at least you don't have the degree in art or something, which is that, oh yeah and same thing promises of you're gonna open your own restaurant and you're gonna run this bar, and you know, these guys are just learning how to make one-on-ones and then and then now, when we get resumes with people who who their number one highlight is that they went to bartending school, you're like no yeah.
Speaker 3No, I mean, I don't even know if that exists anymore. Does it people do?
Speaker 2I'm on forums, yeah I still, you know I'm, I'm like the town gossip who doesn't talk to everybody. Um, I'm always looking at like forums and online things and like reddit shit and people are like oh, I just finished my my you know bartending school certificate. It's a lot of um international people right, right, you know who? Get looped into that and it's like, oh, you don't have new york experience right if you have bartending certificate right right like oh so, but I'm interested.
Speaker 3Let's go back to cora blue. Why did it shut down?
Speaker 5oh yeah, because of those false promises, yeah, like really some students, um, maybe like five years after I had graduated or six awesome, they were a lawsuit, yeah you didn't get in on that?
Speaker 2no, they cleared my debt. Oh fantastic hey, hey fantastic wow because they put in writing right and you guys signed contracts and you guys took out loans and you didn't and you guys signed contracts and you guys took out loans and you didn't.
Speaker 5That's the thing is. Like I would have paid. You know a lot of students like they would put it into forbearance, like they would you know, stopping their loans because you know a lot of people wanted to continue their education um and so with deferred um student loans it just kept like the interest was super high, so my $50,000 loan ended up being like 160 shut my god it was insane shut and so that happened to a lot of students. I'm okay. I was okay with paying my initial, like you know loan absolutely.
Speaker 2Our regulatory system was amazing.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, I mean I went to aveda for spl and it was so expensive but it was totally worth the experience.
Speaker 4You know it was definitely a cult but but worth it.
Speaker 1Oh, I know people.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, you know, but I totally get that, but so they wiped it clean, yeah, fuck.
Speaker 5Yeah, that's awesome, that's amazing so that was good news for me and I'm like okay, I guess maybe that's why I would say I'd do it all over again.
Speaker 2Yeah, because you're not still paying, because that that 160 would have gone up to like 320 what happens when you get out of school.
Speaker 3So are you under the assumption that I'm going to be an executive chef and I'm gonna like well the school like.
Speaker 5Part of the curriculum is that you have to do an externship, so it's like you know, they do push you right and they're like hey, if you want to pass right. Um, you have to go and be a chef somewhere right, and so I couldn't. I didn't figure out where I was gonna go. It was like winding down towards the end of, like my, how long was I there for? I think it's 12 months okay last three is an externship.
Speaker 5They're like Enrique, it's time you need to figure out where you're gonna go, where you're gonna work and so all my friends were applying.
Speaker 5They were getting jobs and stuff, and I'm like I don't know. And then all of a sudden, like you know my chef, who is also my counselor. Um, he's like do you want to go to london? I'm like okay. And he's like, okay, go downstairs, speak to this lady. Her name was mama. She's like talk to mama, she has a daughter, she has a restaurant in london and then you should go I'm like no way and so I went downstairs like hey, mama, I spoke to mama, I said, I'm looking for
Speaker 5mama, and they're like yeah, and I'm like hi, chef George. Um sent me down and not John George, it's a different George. Chef George sent me down and um says that your daughter has a restaurant in London. I need an externship. She's like she hands me a little post-it and it's like here's your number, call her. And so I call her and I'm like hi, she's like yes, and I'm like I'm looking to do my externship.
Speaker 5I'm, you know, studying over here and your mom gave me, you know, your phone number and she's like are you tough?
Speaker 1And I'm like. I'm kind of skinny, like she's like no, are you?
Speaker 5tough. Like are you? I'm like, oh yeah, I can handle anything. She's like okay, great, I'll send you all the information, and that was it, and so I got into you know did they pay for it for you to go, or did you have to pay to? Go. I had oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3I can't remember just out of curiosity.
Speaker 5I think I paid for it. Yeah, one way ticket. It probably was oh yeah, no, I paid for it. Okay, yeah, one-way ticket. It probably was oh yeah, no, I paid for it.
Speaker 2Okay, oh yeah with my first credit card, citycard. Hey, heck. Yeah, we're not sponsored by CityCard.
Speaker 5Yeah, my first credit card and yeah, $500, one-way ticket.
Speaker 3One-way ticket, uh-huh that is so how old were you 19. Wow, how old were you 19. Wow, yeah. So how long were you in London for? Oh, very short period. Did you hate it? I was what happened.
Speaker 5It was around the holidays and it was hard and lonely. I'm 19. You know I was already out of the house because Pasadena is where I went to the Cordon Bleu. It's a two-hour drive from my parents Right, but that was oof I. It was just really, really hard and it was just, I don't know, I wasn't. I was still in the closet, you know, like I didn't, you know. So I was finding myself. It was nice being out, you know, um, in a different country where I could be someone else.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, you can create your own right. London's kind of lonely here.
Speaker 5I was still terrified, but it was a good year Ooh and music and everything. Oh, I bet I had a bad mullet, but you know, because I cut my own hair. You bet you were adorable.
Speaker 3It was terrible. I bet you were adorable.
Speaker 5It was a bad mullet. You're so cute, though, and I did have a really good time, but I missed my family and home. And so I came back within a few months, like four months, oh wow, like in out, but oh, an incredible experience with the chef like she was, she was tough, like I'm glad she like that was the first thing out of her mouth she warned you.
Speaker 5You went with that because she went like at it, she really gets you prepped for anything and I needed that and she would hit me hard, but at the end of service we'd go and kick it and have some tequila and chill and we're best friends talking about things and I'm like I like this balance, I like this life.
Speaker 5This is it. But I always knew I didn't want to be a chef. But I always knew I didn't want to be a chef. It wasn't until I was in school that one of my co-workers what do you call it? Student.
Speaker 2Another student, compañero Fellow student Classmate. Thank you.
Speaker 5So my classmate was like yeah, I'm going to be a writer. I'm like you can do that with food and you can study here and do that. It's not all about like working the line and being a chef, like behind the scenes and all that stuff. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna be a writer. And so I'm like, oh, that was the first time it actually like hit me, because I'm like I'm really good listener, I like learning and it's like. So I was like, oh, I can do all my favorite things and I love. I've always been an explorer since I was a little kid. I was a barefoot little gay boy, just like roaming around in the ditches and climbing trees and just like always getting lost and coming home when it gets dark, because, you know, I wanted to say in those days I'm not that old, but like back then you could leave the house and your mom is just like you know, see you when the sun comes down.
Speaker 3You know, like whatever you knew, when to go home, right?
Speaker 5Exactly, yeah, but always barefoot, always getting lost, yeah, and I can write about like my journey and talk about the thing right. And so when my friend and classmate said that, that's when I started looking more into so when I was in London as a chef, like I knew I wanted to go back to school. And I would talk to her about that. I said you're prepping me for something really amazing. I love this, but I don't want to be a behind-the-scenes chef.
Speaker 2I want to talk about my experiences and I want to talk about what I witnessed when I was a little kid with my mom and that power and that dynamic I didn't realize that until now I wasn't a 19-year-old talking about this stuff, realizing it, but I'm connecting it, but the spark, the flint was lit, you know, yeah, and so I'm like You're starting to make connections.
Speaker 5So I went to school, I went back to community college, I moved back to California after London and I just started taking a bunch of English courses. But then things really shifted when I met another badass professor. She was an art historian and I started taking a lot more art history courses. And she's like, oh, we would chat, we became really friendly. And she's like, oh, you're a chef, like you went to school and stuff like that.
Speaker 5And I'm like, yeah, oh sorry before that I was a chef for a little bit, but then I went to school.
Speaker 4Sorry.
Speaker 5I forgot that part. But she's like, and I'm like, yeah, I want to be a writer someday. She's like why don't you minor in like art history? So do English minor in art history.
Speaker 3Really Love it.
Speaker 5And then all those different elements, like what you bring to the table. She's like I'm writing books about Mayan civilization, right and through, art history and all of that, and art is connected to everything. And so I'm like that was the first time that I'm like thank you, like I didn't realize what was happening, like I'm putting all these pieces together and I'm like I went to school to become a chef, right, to be a writer, but I didn't know it could. Like you know, I can follow a certain path, right, and she's like you can. She's like things will change, right. She's like, but these are the things that I would do to try and make it happen. And so, yeah, I pursued that. I got my bachelor's in English and in art history and then after that, I moved to New York to try and pursue being a food writer.
Speaker 3So how old were you when you moved to New York?
Speaker 527. Okay. Because I went back to school when I was 24. Gotcha.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, so I was a chef from 19 to 24.
Speaker 2Okay, 24. Gotcha, oh, yeah. So I was a chef from 19 to 24. Yeah, and you're a coffee buyer. Now well, can I say my real title?
Speaker 5I'm a chief impact officer and coffee buyer, the impact part is really yeah, of course it does.
Coffee Importing and Roasting Logistics
Speaker 3It's really important to me, yeah, and so now, yeah, fast forward.
Speaker 5Like when I came to New York, I did come with the idea of becoming a food writer. It was vicious, it was hard right.
Speaker 4New York is tough, but I needed that right.
Speaker 5It's like I needed to find a place where I can like, really like you know, feel inspired and have, you know, competition and keep myself engaged and going right. I don't want to be lazy and just live somewhere where I'm like, oh yeah, it's going to come, it's going to happen. No, like New York forced me to want to like to figure life out. You know, I did get a job working for an online women magazine and I hated it because the research was me sitting in an office Googling stuff and that was oh, enrique, write a story about the best cafes, whatever or the best restaurants to go by yourself.
Speaker 5And I'd be like Google, searching.
Speaker 3I'm like, can I?
Speaker 5do this out.
Speaker 3Go to the cafes, like actually go to the cafes, yeah.
Speaker 5And they're like no, you're crazy. You're crazy Like, go get a Starbucks, like sit here, and I'm like I don't like this, whatever. But at that time I was also working in coffee, because while I was in college, I worked for a coffee company and so I was a barista for years. And so when I moved here I was. I couldn't find work, so I just went to the thing that I knew, which was to be a barista, and so I did that, and then also the writing.
Speaker 5Just dropped the writing part, like that magazine, and I just stuck with being a barista and then I became a manager at that store and then I was making good money. So I'm like, okay, I'll just keep doing this, right.
Speaker 1But then I found a new company right, so this is in 2012. Oh, money.
Speaker 5So I'm like okay. I'll just keep doing this, right. But then I found a new company, right, so this is in 2012, oh, 14. So 2012,.
Speaker 5I moved to New York For two years. I was working as a barista with the company that I worked for, the same company that I worked for in California. Okay, so it was easy to just land a job here. They existed out here. They no longer have stores out here. It was called Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. And in 2014, two years after I arrived I found a new company called Think Coffee and I was hired to be a manager.
Speaker 5And you know, work in cafes and you know open up more cafes and do all of that Like operations was my thing. I knew how to do that from going to culinary school it's like I knew inventory management, like easy operations, piece of cake, like all that stuff. I'm like I can do it, I can open up shops for you, I can organize the shit out of this company. Like I can do all of it, like I felt really confident in that right. But I wasn't confident and was like my writing, which you know what we tend I tend to do.
Speaker 5That yeah, yeah right, let me do something that I know I'm confident and just ignore, like what's what I really want to do? Right, but then let's see, in 2014 I started with think and then my first. So think coffee actually imports all their coffee.
Speaker 1Well, I'm that's. I'm the coffee buyer, I'm the imp buyer.
Speaker 2I'm the importer, but at that time I wasn't.
Speaker 5Someone else was importing and buying coffee.
Speaker 2Can I ask a question? Logistically, so I know that your role, that you physically go places and you physically are in the farms talking with farmers Are there other parallel coffee companies who have cafes and also do their own beans are there who don't have contact with farmers and are just kind of like online ordering things? So it seems like are you guys an anomaly? Are you an anomaly? How hands-on you are Because I was like how is that kind of sustainable for so many other places?
Speaker 4And.
Speaker 2I would like to hear more about your on on on site in the farm experiences, but just like on the logistics level, like this is something that not everybody does no, okay, and so that's.
Speaker 5That's the brilliant thing with think coffee. It's like, you know, not every cafe can order like a full container of coffee, right, because when I'm importing, I'm like a full container of coffee, right.
Speaker 2Because when I'm importing.
Speaker 5I'm buying a full container.
Speaker 2And what? Can you break down a little bit of technical stuff on what that means, Like what is a container and what does it mean to me?
Speaker 5So you have like 275 bags Whoa. It's big, you know 152 pound burlap sacks of coffee 275, 150 pound bags. Yeah, it's like 42 000 pounds. Oh my, okay, right.
Speaker 2So that are coming from like Ethiopia.
Speaker 5Ethiopia, right, you know, okay, coming from right. So we're cutting the check, paying the farmer directly, right, and then I'm importing that full container like the scarf is a copy, oh, oh, kind of right.
Speaker 2Well, I was trying to think what was the good Escobar, pablo Escobar, but I couldn't think of the Scarface, and the other part that we'll get to is building up the community and not destroying them. It is a drug and the coffee.
Speaker 3No, it's awesome though. I love it. I love it. Okay, so go on. So just like to conceptualize like the containers.
Speaker 2So they're coming by air and by land. No, no, by boat. It's all by boat. It's all by boat.
Speaker 5Yeah, yeah, okay. So they take like 20 days to arrive from Ethiopia. Well, now 40, because everything's going on in the Red Sea and stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, but yeah, it takes 20 days from central south america, um, but we're buying it outright, like we're paying full price for the coffee. We're buying the full because you have so many locations and we can support that right.
Speaker 5So like if I'm importing four or five containers. Before the pandemic was like six containers a year. Um, we could, yeah, we would, you know, be able to roast and sell that coffee at all of our stores. You know we have 11 locations now. Um, wow, but yeah, we would go through so much coffee, yeah, right, um, now it's down to four, but, yeah, a lot of cafes. It doesn't make sense for them because they can't support.
Speaker 3They can't support that right, they just buy 10 bags at a time.
Speaker 2Well depending on who you know Right, right, right, but especially like a mom and pop shop, like just in the neighborhood where you've got the guy who's opened up two locations now. Yeah, so it's. You don't have that money.
Speaker 5Yeah, he's probably wearing like 10 bags and then going through that right and it's in spanish a warehouse um, but it's new jersey and all the coffee is just sitting there waiting for, because we roast our coffee as well and so that's a technical question I have too.
Speaker 2So when you're getting the containers of the beans, they are green. Yeah, right, so they're. I don't know raw right so the life span of that bean is long.
Speaker 5Yeah, I mean ideally, you want to go through it in one year? Okay, right, because I have gone two years, right? Yeah, so it's a burlap bag and then it has, like another plastic lining on the inside, called a grain probe bag, right and so, and it's not vacuum sealed, right, it's just tied with a twist, tie, you know, and that's it. Air does get into it. Right now they are doing some vacuum sealed packaging, but it's more expensive, right?
Speaker 5you have to pay more for that stuff, and it's yeah, it's just a headache with boxes and more.
Speaker 2Yeah, though, like as a consumer I've been, I mean I will buy crap coffee that I know is crap coffee just to have coffee, and when I splurge I get nice stuff and I totally taste the difference. But the one thing I look at is, I've been told, is the roast bot the roast, date, so that different yeah, so that's the date you pay attention to as a consumer.
Speaker 5Yeah, not when it was harvested and like that so much. I mean yes, for us roasters and importers, absolutely that's what we're talking about. Right, it's like give me the latest harvest from this year. I want something fresh, you know. But I've had coffees, you know, chill in the warehouse for three years and I'm like you're still pretty good.
Speaker 4Yeah, you know it's it.
Speaker 5That's when you change your roast profile right. You play with like the different profiles and you can actually make.
Speaker 2yeah, I guess I'm very ignorant of that part, the roasting.
Speaker 5No, you yeah Cause it can be scary. I went, I ran out of coffee. I don't know how I run out of coffee, but I went to the bodega last weekend and I went to our local little bodega just to pick up whatever, and I saw the roast date and it's back in August of 2023. I'm like you guys are buying that. That's insane.
Speaker 3That's too. Yeah, don't buy coffee like that. So everyone heard that.
Speaker 5Don't buy coffee like that. No and support, Do go to your local shops. And if they are roasters, like hit them up. They always have fresh stuff on the shelf right.
Speaker 1But if you're going to, Bodega.
Speaker 5It's like, how long does it take when you roast it? It takes like another, like two weeks for it to land into the store, sometimes, or even longer.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 5So it's just, and you're paying a lot for it right when you're going to be paying the same for something a lot more fresher at like if you go to a local roaster.
Speaker 2I mean, if you do your blind Pepsi challenge between like old bean, your blind.
Speaker 4Pepsi challenge you know, it's like the Pepsi challenge.
Speaker 2That you can taste the difference.
Speaker 5Oh yeah, and people try and trick you.
Speaker 2So they say like Best Buy expires.
Speaker 5That's bullshit. Just put when you roasted it, like. Just tell people when you roasted that, like I mean, okay, there are some people who really, like you know, have cupped coffee over and over and have tasted it and like, okay, this is when it expires, I can put an expiration date on it right and I feel, I feel confident in that Absolutely right, but it doesn't hurt to say when you roasted it, so you guys are more informed about it, right?
Speaker 3Put true dates on it. Yeah, I think it's okay, the real one and the fake one.
Speaker 5A lot of people, and people may disagree with me, but that's the great thing about our industry. My industry is like there are always new things, new experimentations, talking about what is expiration date on a retail bag. We're talking about this stuff all the time.
Speaker 2So segue talking about you guys doing these cool things. I know that there are some I don't know if you classify them as non-profit but you have some initiatives with communities the farming communities that you have had relationships with developed for years and my understanding is that you guys kind of talk to them and assess together what a need is and come up with a project that benefits the community at large. That is growing the beans, and so can you talk about that a little bit? Absolutely, yeah.
Sustainable Direct Trade Coffee Initiatives
Speaker 5Because the thing used to be like we used to. We weren't always roasters and we never. We didn't import our own coffee. I think he opened in 2006. Okay, and he would buy coffee from another roaster and he would buy coffee that's fair trade, certified or certified organic right. And so a few years later, after that I had been doing it for like three, four years, you know, thanks to like, you know, you know what makes a company successful. Is their employees right? And like noticing things and like seeing like a label that says fair trade. It's like, hey, like what does that mean?
Speaker 5right, you know exactly like let's go check it out, like let's go check out a coffee farm and let's go see what this fair trade certification is about. Like right, so sure enough, they go in 2009 or 10 and it's bad. It's like here they are, this coffee, telling the consumer that it's fair trade certified, and they go and people are still living in like an extreme poverty. It's like there's no running water.
Speaker 3They actually went and checked. Yeah, how many people don't do?
Speaker 5that and a lot of the money goes to like wealthy landowners, farm owners, yeah, and it doesn't trickle down to like the day laborers, the farmers and Reagan Right, it doesn't trickle down to like the day laborers the farm right so it was like we called bullshit. They called bullshit. They're like no, okay. They're like we can't do that, like we don't feel good about serving coffee.
Speaker 5That is fair trade. No, I'm not saying fair trade certifications are bad, but there's a lot of things that are broke right and I get it. It's like you know it's hard to audit and there's different. You know structures in place for you know if you're in central versus south america or ethiopia and stuff. Being a fair trade certifier and auditor it's really hard right, because I do my own sort of audits right and with my own.
Speaker 5You know four or five direct relationships, right, and it's really tricky and hard because a lot can happen. You're not there living all the time, you know, and you can't oversee things, so I get how things can slip right. Um, so it's not always bad, but at least talk about, be honest and be transparent about people.
Speaker 5It's like hey, this is what we work towards, this is what we want to do. It might not always happen, right, but at least you're aware of that, so you, as a consumer, can make that decision if you want to buy it or not, or at least have more respect for someone who's like exactly we don't have it all figured out respect your consumer.
Speaker 5Yeah, and because you're paying a lot for the coffee, right, and so it was really like great and different that for think to go out there, do it and be like you know what? Can we do it ourselves? Can we import this coffee ourselves? Have direct relationships, which isn't a new thing, I should say it's it had been, because direct trade had already been around for a while, with, like through stump town intelligentsia and like you know. So that was there and people had been writing about this stuff since like the 90s.
Speaker 5Right, there's like these brilliant coffee writers who talk about, like, extreme poverty with the day labor and like so it's nothing new, they weren't reinventing, but they were doing something about it. Right, they were like, hey, and actually telling people. It's like, hey, this is the reality of what this meat, like fair trade, looks like. We want to do something else, and you know, and do it our own, like on our own. And so, yeah, they started importing. Well, first they started a dividend program where they would go out and then, like you know, give farmers extra money and stuff, and then eventually it evolved into something where we are not just having, you know, direct purchasing relations with all our farmers, but we're doing projects to help support their day laborers Right, so some of them might not have proper you know, roofs over their head, or they have floors that are, you know, mud or dirt or adobe.
Speaker 5So, you know, I'll give them materials so they can renovate, um, so they can refurbish their homes. I've built homes. I've, you know, renovated water wells. I've, you know, built new water wells in ethiopia. Um, there's a high rate of, you know, for young girls to drop out of school once they start menstruation, and so we've been working. In the beginning, we work with an NGO called Days for Girls, and we would be giving the school girls sanitary reasonable pads and we still do that.
Speaker 5I haven't been able to do that entirely because there was a two-year war in Ethiopia and there's still, like some rebel activity in the community where I work. But hopefully now I'm going to start a partnership with someone new, a local woman of ethiopia, not local to where the farming community is, but she's in the, the town where the war was, in tigre, in the northern part. She makes reusable sanitary pads and we're going to start a partnership with her. We're going to get these pads start that up again, and so it's like it's not just about like.
Speaker 5You know, when I think about like my industry and making it more sustainable and equitable, it's like I mean come on like. Why can't like? It's not?
Speaker 1just okay, not even we could do this.
Speaker 5I can't just buy coffee and then call it like. I actually want to like go to these communities and see what else we can do for them. So that way you know, we can continue to buy coffee, we continue to have coffee.
Speaker 2You have happy farmers it's a reciprocal relationship and it's not just about money and when you're having something that comes from the earth that is tended to by humans, if you don't take care of the humans, then like yeah, yeah yeah, or just the one ten percent of wealthy farmers who you know there's a lot of amazing farmers with excellent coffee, right, but they might not even pay it forward.
Speaker 5They might pay their employees well, like right, and they're living in, like you know, bad living I mean, do you remember the film Water for Chocolate?
Speaker 2Oh yeah, it's the intention going into preparing of the food you put in the emotions. I think the same goes for all things that we consume. When it's done with love and you feel good about where it comes from, who's touching it, who's creating it, the land, it's a whole care system that can't be anything but better for you and for the people and the world and just the end.
Speaker 5Yeah, because right now in the coffee industry they're like, oh, climate change this and coffee prices are so volatile and there's always some breaking news about this. I'm like we can do so much. We can help If we're actually and me, because I have direct relationships I'm able to actually create more sustainable, healthier relationships directly with the people that I'm working with. Now I don't want to do it with more, absolutely we're not on that level yet, but I'm sort of, you know, building that structure of like okay, what do relationships look like right?
Speaker 2showing that it's feasible, yeah, and it's profitable enough to continue it.
Speaker 5And that right and so, and more recently, like you know, projects I still continue with projects and building homes and you know giving water, clean water, um, but now I'm working on something where you know it's really important to me that the day laborers are making enough you know per like, if they're picking coffee, that they're making enough in the day yeah right. And so now I inserted myself into this new concept, new theme which is, you know, you know, fair and livable wages, right.
Fair Wages in Coffee Supply
Speaker 5It's being you know people are talking about that a lot, including here in New York City. Now, right, it's great, because you know. Now I'm asking the farmers. It's like, how much did they get paid? It's like, is it enough right? So, thankfully there are these NGOs that exist that do the field research right. Go out there in the same communities where I'm buying coffee and they're like this is how much they need to make, right? So if it's in nicaragua, it's 310 a month that they need to make right I know, right compared to us yeah
Speaker 3I know exactly.
Speaker 4That's why you need to make it a day, yeah, so 310 in nicaragua, for example.
Speaker 5Yeah, I take that number and I investigate and I go out there and I start asking people whether it's a coffee farmer. It's like the guy the hotel worker. It's like hey, like you know what are your expenses, like.
Speaker 5Like you know what's rent like here I start like asking and I start writing notes and I'm like, okay, sure enough, this NGO Yep, they were pretty correct. I mean, they're they're yeah, their math is brilliant and I can trust them. But still, it doesn't hurt for me to go and verify right and speak directly with the people and being like, is $310 a livable wage for you?
Speaker 5like, oh yeah, like that would be great, like I would love that, and so I take that number and then I start applying it into, like the coffee price, that's amazing, and that's what you guys are doing to sustain this is that you're folding it into the price. Yes, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2So it's not just philanthropic Like you're. You're building it in, and so you're charging your, your whatever your clients, your whatever um that you're selling products to, and it's not like.
Speaker 5I can build a home for a thousand dollars.
Speaker 3Right, so it's not a lot off their back too.
Speaker 5What that's like. Three more cents probably Like if I were to do it with a family of 10, it costs an additional three cents per pound to do that.
Speaker 5And it's like with fair and livable wages. It's just a matter of like what is the coffee price? Now that's the relationship between me and the farmer. Like we agree on a price, that's now that's the relationship between me and the farmer. Like we agree on a price that's enough for him to pay that wage, right? So it's not separate. Like how we support the projects me and the partner, so think coffee and the farmer. We both put an additional money towards a project, so I'll put 10 cents and then he will put another 10, he'll put 10 cents, so 20 cents towards every pound of coffee that we import in that year and that goes towards a project, right? And so it's all attached to the price of coffee now, that is think right I didn't
Speaker 5create, like that was brilliant, like what they did, right, it's like applying it to the price of coffee. So not only are we paying a fair price for the coffee, now we're paying fair wages, right, ensuring that it's happening, verifying it. I'm writing these reports, posting in our website, right, hoping people will read it, and then, on top of that, we're doing projects. You know, and, yeah, I understand it's. It's a lot to ask of any importer and buyer. So we are spec, like, we're different, right, like, but how badass is it that I have a boss and owner who's willing to be like hey enrique, like go out there and do these things right.
Speaker 3You're being active about it, yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 5Otherwise, no, enrique, just stay here and sell coffee. You would probably get more of your job too then, right?
Speaker 3Clearly you have a drive for something bigger as well.
Speaker 5Yeah, you know what I mean, absolutely. That makes total sense and it it fulfills my dream of become like now I'm.
Speaker 2I'm going to these places, meeting amazing people, collecting stories, collecting stories, impacting your documenting stories and I'm telling their stories.
Speaker 5That's the thing I'm not like and that's the one thing, like, I really wanted to change with think coffee and sort of I bring to the table. It's like I feel like there wasn't always that level of respect. Right, I'm a brown man. Right, my parents were farm workers and so I have a lot of respect for the people at origin. Right, I wasn't some savior coming in, like that's what it felt like at times.
Speaker 5You know, it's like it's very charitable and going, I'm like, no, I'm like I'm going to go out there, speak with these people and be the person who will talk about real issues from them hearing it directly from them and then talking about it Like boots on the ground, yeah, like actually doing it Right Instead of just sitting.
Speaker 3Yeah, that makes total sense and not trying to do it.
Speaker 5That's going to benefit and that's the cool thing. It's thing it's like I'm not always. Yeah, I think coffee is a for-profit business. We need to, like you know, sell coffee, do these things you know, market and advertise and tell the world what we're doing and on stuff and hope people will buy our coffee and love how we're sourcing and stuff like that. But at the same time it's like it's you know, it's the mission is just always about those day laborers.
Speaker 2It's not like an ego driven mission, and I'm sure you, being a brown man who speaks Spanish, has a different access and ability to create authentic relationships with people, that people are. Their guards are down when you come in and you're like, oh, so, that's the coffee buyers coming in. And then you show up and you're just like all smiley, brown and speaking Spanish. And it're like, oh, so, that's the coffee buyers coming in. And then you show up and you're just like all smiley brown and speaking Spanish and it's like, oh okay, it's Enrique.
Speaker 5Like I'm staying, like when I'm there I'm staying with the farmers.
Speaker 4I'm staying with like.
Speaker 5I'm chilling in their homes. I'm staying with them. It's like I'm part of to say that I identify like we're not. I will never understand what they go through. Right, I'm always going to be an outsider, right? Even though I am a brown man, I am working at.
Speaker 2You're still coming from privilege.
Speaker 5I'm still coming from privilege, right, Right, and so I do need to, like, I go in like knowing that right, and so there is a certain level of respect that being a brown man here in the us, you know how to check yourself yes, right that skill by not having that, yeah, privilege, yeah, makes you more aware of it or aware of how you want to be treated because I've always so like the narrative that I've always wanted to tell.
Speaker 5With Think Coffee, with what I currently do, and with food, writing and stuff like that, it's just, and with reality tv it's like I always seen people just go and take from these communities whether indigenous or not and say hey world, check this out right.
Speaker 1And I'm discovering, I'm discovering, I'm telling the story yeah it's.
Speaker 5It's that thing of like. Oh yeah, I remember when I you know, I remember Ethiopia 10 years ago, when it was like run more, run down, like does that doesn't? Like what are you taught?
Speaker 1like it's you didn't discover it. It's like it's not like.
Speaker 5So that was sort of the narrative. That was the language that I kept hearing over and over, and it's like there's no respect given back to these people for, like, they're more resilient than I am, than most of us right they're badass people, right. So people we need to, you know, let the world know it's like. So I started removing certain, like you know, pieces of language like throughout like our marketing I didn't want to say extreme poverty anymore or vulnerable.
Speaker 5It's like, yeah, they might be vulnerable at times in the in the supply chain, right, if you think about the coffee supply chain, they are the most vulnerable, right. But I hated it because it sort of painted them as like they're suffering and victims support them. It's like they're badass farm workers and farmers and people who are strong. Help them, support them and look at how amazing they could be and just appreciate them and respect them.
Speaker 2Because you're in a business, it's a partnership. I used to work in nonprofit and work with youth and everything was at risk, at risk. How the fuck do you grow up?
Speaker 5Grand Street Settlement, everything was at risk.
Speaker 2At risk. How the fuck do you grow up grand? Streets that you live in a terrible neighborhood and that you're at risk and that all of these statistics about all of this negative shit that's going to happen to you in your life and the probabilities of your inability to succeed, like that fucks with your psyche, like what you're already setting them up for like. This is your path, this is what you're creating this mentality and culture and sustaining the system with all of your white savior shit coming out of these groups and saying, oh, we're gonna come in and help the little animals
Speaker 5yeah, yeah, so I understand and so that for me, language, yeah, moving forward, it's like very much like I'm always thinking about, like if they're reading this which I, you know I translate stuff I show them the website I do like are you comfortable with this? Like this is the way that I'm talking about like they're like, yeah, like they feel like they're part of you know the business and they're part of the narrative and you know it's sad because I do, I can, it's great that I can talk to you about this and stuff like that.
Speaker 5But if I were to sit like with some of my peers or people in the industry, it's like a lot of people just check out because they're they are just don't want to hear it, they're just about like oh whatever just tell me about them, like the rare, expensive coffee that I can buy right, like from this farmer who, like yeah, is already very famous, you know.
Speaker 5It's like it just turns me off. It's like I, I love amazing coffee because there's a point system with coffee and, like you know, 100 is the best. But the ranges are usually like so in specialty coffee it's like usually from like 83, 84 points and up. You don't buy anything less than that. Um, but people are like oh, give me the 89 point coffee or 90 point coffee and stuff like that, and I paid this much for it.
Speaker 5I like that. I love amazing, delicious coffee and amazing farming stuff but it's so much bigger and you think that's gonna make our industry more sustainable. If you focus on this, one person like this person's not even paying it forward to their employees like, that's where it just all crashes and burns like no, come on, like everybody, like small farmers, big farmers, you know, wealthy, non-wealthy, like ie, everyone's welcome I don't, yeah, I'm not saying that I just strictly strict with, like you know, small farmers.
Speaker 5I go for the big ones too. But hey, we can do even bigger stuff with that bigger farmer, cause he can afford it. I can, like you know.
Move to Madrid for Lower Costs
Speaker 3Yeah, well, I think that's great. We actually it's time for questions.
Speaker 4Oh is it?
Speaker 3Yeah, we went a little over, so we've got time for one question, I think. But, support small farmers.
Speaker 2Yeah, but I wanna ask a personal question. So you're moving to Spain?
Speaker 5Madrid, like why I always stop in Madrid on the way to Ethiopia. I like it and I've been in Greenpoint for 10 years. They raise my rent after 10 years. I'm never here, as you know, marisa, like from like last year, august through December, I was in my apartment like 10 days. Oh shit, right, yeah, so they're like we're raising it.
Speaker 1I'm like I'm leaving.
Speaker 4Like you know, I'm I can't pay that because I'm never here, right yeah?
Speaker 5right, so right. So I'm like where can I live where the cost of living is much lower? And I'm in, like I I was also thinking about being like in between. Like you know, flights are pretty like right now to Ethiopia. It's pretty far 16 hours total, wow so I'm like let me go somewhere where it's like in the center. So yeah, madrid international airport eight hour flight to. Ethiopia right, yeah, and then eight hours to Colombia.
Speaker 1So so it's the in-between and central, so.
Speaker 5I'm going to try that out. Cost of living is much lower.
Speaker 1I'm closer to.
Speaker 5Ethiopia and I do need to work on that project because you know I'm sick of talking about like I'm giving too many excuses. It's like, yeah, there was a war in Ethiopia. And I can't go out there. There's rebels in there. I have to go in and out Like it's not safe for me, but it's like I've got to figure out how to get these kits down to these girls and so if.
Speaker 2I'm in Because they still live there. They still live there, they still have this problem.
Speaker 4Right.
Speaker 2And so.
Speaker 5I need to do it right away. Right, and so me being in Madrid, I can and then continue with everything else.
Speaker 2Oh well, I want to go. We have a floor to sleep on.
Speaker 3Exactly, I love it. I'm super simple. Well, that was amazing, thank you. Well, let's do. I think we have time for one.
Speaker 2Oh, I'm sorry. I feel like you sort of answered a little bit of this, but it kind of seems very also appropriate if you want to expand on it. What are your happiest memories of your parents? I feel like it's a weird tarot situation.
Speaker 5Yeah, yeah, no, I did answer it because I'm like now like the first thing that I think about, it's like it's always me, at like 6 am in the morning, being on the couch seeing my dad getting ready for work and my mom like making him his lunch for the day, and then it's like there was just like this nice. That's why I'm like OCD and like right it's like there's this, just this, like routine that.
Family Dynamics and Personal Identity
Speaker 5I've always loved, but it was like they understood each other Right, not always Right Of course I mean 60 years, yeah, 60 years, yeah, curveballs. But that's what I remember like being very young and just sort of witnessing that, and I'm like look at that great dynamic Right and understand, knowing that it's not always perfect Right At the same time, my mom, you know, yeah, having that interaction with my dad in the same way, and it's just like it works right for our family and so, seeing how strong my brothers are and how strong I've become, it's because, of you know the upbringing, how strong my parents were.
Speaker 5My dad was a badass hard worker. You know my dad's a janitor his whole life, majority of it while I lived in california, um, and made enough to support us right yeah, it wasn't something that it wasn't a doctor or anything like that, but I still like, would you know, go see him at work and I'd be so proud of him, right, because he was on it.
Speaker 5His work ethic that's where I get. My work ethic is from my dad, that's great. And then the personality and the writer, and wanting to like my mom and sort of like my mom is also the balance. I'm a Libra, so like she's not, but. I'm yeah, I'm like all about balancing with friendships and, like you know, I love that.
Speaker 3I love that we're supposed to be, you and I.
Speaker 2Libras and Aries are supposed to be very close. Yeah, well, my parents are not great examples, but I would say my grandparents, my grandparents, my, my Mexican grandparents and similar kind of thing of watching their dynamic, and a lot of it was rooted in the kitchen when I was growing up. They took care of me and, yeah, my grandmother would cook and it was like, oh, papas, nobody could make potatoes in a cast iron skillet like she could. I'm sure they were doused in just like canola oil or something, but they were so good, all salt and pepper so delicious.
Speaker 2My grandfather would be sitting at his chair on the kitchen table and you know we'd eat together and I have photos of when I was a baby and he, they would strap the little roller, the little circle thing.
Speaker 1You know like that were then outlawed because kids were rolling downstairs.
Speaker 2They'd strap me into my grandfather's chair and I would just swivel back and forth and he would dip his tortilla in egg yolk and I would just gum at it and just like and then my, and then my, my, my grandma would go ay mi chula mi chula. And I would just like swing back and forth like a little little crazy thing. So their relationship also not perfect, but that was my childhood and that was like a healthy example of marriage for me.
Speaker 2And they were my steadfast family and they were, yeah, like I said. I mean, obviously when, when you're together for 50-some years, there's a lot. She had six kids. They both came from families of like 10. So there was always a lot happening. But there was a sweet moment in my childhood where it was just like me and them. There were some of the older aunts and uncles who still were like at the house but they were busy and stuff, but it was like me and them together. So that was like my core happy childhood memory.
Speaker 3I don't know, does it say childhood? It doesn't say childhood.
Speaker 2I say parents but I think of like what parent would be like caregiver and marriage yes, a unit.
Speaker 3I guess for me the first story that came up for me. Actually you've heard this story before but, like I love my parents so much but they are nutty, nutty people and they fight like cats and dogs and my father has a severe book addiction.
Speaker 3I love you, dad, but he knows it, but I don't know why but the first thing that popped in my head was one of my favorite fights, because I fight all the time was me sitting at the kitchen table with my father drinking tea and my mother coming down and being like Chuck, chuck, I just found four copies of Mother Night Upstairs Four copies and my dad, he's just stirring his tea and he just looks up and he goes it's Vonnegut, susan, you just buy Vonnegut, I think. For me, as I get older, these ridiculous fights just crack me up. I wouldn't say they're my happiest moments, but they make me smile Because sometimes the shit that comes out of their mouth is so crazy. You know what I mean. I remember one time they got into a fight.
Speaker 3We were on 35W, which is like a highway that goes from Minnesota to Texas. You know, very busy highway and it's Easter, we're going somewhere, and they start bickering and I'm in the back seat. You know I'm older, I'm probably in my 20s, and I'm in the back seat. You know I'm older, I'm probably in my 20s, and I'm in the back seat and they're fighting about something and all of a sudden my mom to like piss my dad off, just goes. You know what? Chuck Obama is an asshole. And my dad pulls the car over in the middle of the freeway and he's like, can you just call the president?
Speaker 1of the car and just smoke a cigarette.
Speaker 3And I just remember sitting on the side of the freeway. Just watching cars zip by Like this is the most dangerous thing I've done in years. And these two motherfuckers are fighting about Obama.
Speaker 2You know, Like ugh.
Speaker 3So I've learned things. I mean I remember as a kid being very like eww about it all, but now I sort of find the humor in it.
Speaker 4And I write stories.
Speaker 2I was gonna say the writer and you you're like yeah, the writer and me really came out because do something with this okay, so our finale.
Speaker 3Are you ready? So we play this little game called fuck, kill b. So you've got to fuck the person, you got to kill the person or you got to be the person it's a riff on you know.
Speaker 2Fuck, kill mary like any person.
Speaker 4No, no, I'm gonna pick three.
Speaker 2She's gonna get, but you know I was gonna say the kid game, which I don't know how else to refer to it. Um, but, yeah, fuck, kill, marry, but instead of marrying someone you actually want to be them. Yeah, so you're taking ownership okay, agency yeah it's different.
Speaker 3Okay, so the only ones I could come up with. This is kind of a bad one, because I think I'm a little hung up. I hope I know them. I'm sorry we're going to do John's today, john's, so we're going to do John Cusack.
Speaker 5Oh Right, oh okay, that's yeah, john Hamm.
Speaker 3Yep, exactly, we know who John Hamm is right.
Speaker 5John Hamm oh, he has a big one.
Speaker 3Yeah, and Johnny Depp, and Johnny Depp. Those will be our three, so you've got to kill one you've got to fuck one and you gotta be one.
Speaker 5Oh, I'm sorry you guys, that's pretty easy.
Speaker 3I know, I know I agree too. I kind of feel bad about it, but I guess I don't want to go over there, well.
Speaker 5Oh well, I may be different because I already so. John, he's cute and all, but I would kill him, yeah okay, I feel you okay just today, because right today I'm feeling like I need something. You, you know.
Speaker 1XL big.
Speaker 5You know like so. And then what's his name? Jon Hamm, yeah.
Speaker 3Fuck For sure, right. What a bitch.
Speaker 5Yeah, and then B you would be Johnny Depp, not with all the shit that's going on, but just the you would be 21 Jump Street, johnny yeah, or Pirate Security, I mean he does own like Island. I was Edward Scissorhand a few times.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, so it's the.
Speaker 5maybe it's not so much him, it's just so like like his character and like what he can become. That I appreciate, and so being able to be that and being like just vulnerable and sensitive, like that and like there's just something really I was young, right, and so something really beautiful and magical about that is it made me more humble. Yeah, um, and so that's the, not the johnny, johnny, but I can, you know, separate the artists from a little bit, but I also heard john cusack's an asshole oh, for real.
Speaker 5Oh, thank you. I'm glad I killed him. I think you did the right thing okay, what's yours okay.
Speaker 2So my original thought was kill Depp, fuck Ham and be Cusack. Because I do feel that I am actually most like John Cusack. I would like to think that I'm most like'm gonna kill death, right?
Speaker 3yeah, be johnny m and fuck john key's act just for it, because all the 80s, you know what? I mean yeah, you know I bet, no, I bet he's a total prick. But that's okay too. You just can hate him, or something.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean I grew up, yeah, everything from Say Anything to High Fidelity, yeah, that's what I mean? His sister Joan, I mean I also want to hang out with Joan.
Speaker 3That's why you should probably marry oh you married Keith Harbell, I'm going to be him. Oh, you're going to be him. Oh right, we're not marrying anyone, joan and I, john yeah, gonna miss you.
Speaker 4Safe travels next time you hear me, I'll have an accent maybe until next
Speaker 3time ciao.
