Ask Yourself "What If?" with Milk Bar Founder Christina Tosi

Summary

A Bit of Optimism: Episode Summary

Title: Ask Yourself "What If?" with Milk Bar Founder Christina Tosi
Host: Simon Sinek
Guest: Christina Tosi, Founder of Milk Bar
Release Date: June 3, 2025

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Introduction: Reconnecting Through Baking [00:00 - 02:32]

In this engaging episode of A Bit of Optimism, Simon Sinek welcomes Christina Tosi, the innovative founder of Milk Bar, for a unique live cooking session. The episode transcends typical interviews by delving into the hands-on experience of baking together, highlighting the spontaneous and experimental nature that both Simon and Christina cherish.

Notable Quote:

• Simon Sinek [00:38]: "So this is a live cooking show that Christina and I did. ... You will learn how to make a compost cookie, and you will learn how to make the tastiest beer bread of your life."

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Christina Tosi’s Journey into Baking [03:04 - 05:13]

Christina shares her unconventional path to becoming a renowned baker. Unlike many who follow precise recipes, her early experimentation in her grandmother’s kitchen, driven by a love for cookie dough, set the foundation for her self-taught baking skills. This trial-and-error approach not only honed her culinary instincts but also fueled her passion to turn baking into a profession.

Notable Quote:

• Christina Tosi [05:08]: "Baking was never precious for me. ... It’s the opposite of that reason the thing."

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Baking as a Metaphor for Entrepreneurship and Creativity [05:13 - 12:08]

The conversation evolves to explore how baking parallels entrepreneurship. Christina emphasizes experimentation and embracing the unknown, much like running a successful business. Simon draws parallels between his artistic creativity and Christina’s chaotic yet productive baking process, underscoring the importance of balancing order and chaos to foster innovation.

Notable Quotes:

• Simon Sinek [12:45]: "Creativity is finding order and chaos."
• Christina Tosi [10:38]: "Dessert is my relationship to the world, to community. ... that’s your love language."

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Embracing Failure and Learning Through Experimentation [10:51 - 15:49]

Christina discusses the vital role of failure in both baking and building a business. She advocates for viewing setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than reasons to give up. This mindset fosters resilience and continuous improvement, essential traits for entrepreneurs.

Notable Quotes:

• Simon Sinek [10:51]: "Baking is an education for getting comfortable with failure."
• Christina Tosi [11:23]: "If you’re not failing, you’re not taking risks, you’re not growing."

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Live Baking Session: Compost Cookies and Beer Bread [15:50 - 35:27]

The heart of the episode features Simon and Christina in a dynamic baking session, creating compost cookies using random kitchen ingredients and beer bread. This hands-on segment showcases their collaborative spirit, creativity, and willingness to experiment without fear of failure.

Notable Quotes:

• Christina Tosi [34:19]: "What if I put a ripe banana into a chocolate stout Beer bread?"
• Simon Sinek [36:27]: "The compost cookie is perhaps the most lovable cookie in the world because you literally can't screw it up."

Key Highlights:

• Compassionate Experimentation: Simon brings random pantry items to create unique cookies, embodying the "What If?" philosophy.
• Beer Bread Simplicity: Christina demonstrates how beer simplifies bread making, reinforcing the idea that some processes can be both simple and innovative.
• Embracing Messiness: Both embrace the chaos of baking, turning it into a creative adventure rather than a source of frustration.

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Reflections on Friendship and Support [35:05 - 46:31]

Post-baking, Simon and Christina reflect on the deeper aspects of their friendship. They discuss the importance of small, meaningful interactions—like sharing an eight-minute conversation—to provide support and build strong relationships. This segment underscores the theme of community and mutual growth.

Notable Quotes:

• Simon Sinek [45:11]: "What have you learned here is it's nothing about getting it right or wrong. It's experimentation and to be able to say I just put something together."
• Christina Tosi [46:28]: "You and I have talked about the whole thing about ... we've been eight minute friends to each other and I am very grateful for that through the years."

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Conclusion: The Power of Shared Experiences [46:59 - End]

The episode wraps up with the tangible results of their baking session—delicious compost cookies and beer bread—serving as metaphors for their conversations on innovation, failure, and friendship. Simon and Christina celebrate their creations, reinforcing the message that shared experiences and support systems are crucial for personal and professional growth.

Notable Quote:

• Simon Sinek [45:04]: "Do you know the whole thing about, like, Duncan Hines cakes, the history of those? ... It's about love and putting in a little effort."

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Key Takeaways

1. Embrace Experimentation: Whether in baking or business, trying new things without fear of failure leads to innovation and growth.
2. Learn from Failure: Setbacks are valuable learning experiences that contribute to resilience and improvement.
3. Foster Community: Meaningful interactions and support systems are essential for personal and professional development.
4. Balance Order and Chaos: Creativity thrives when there is a blend of structured processes and open-ended exploration.
5. Love as a Motivation: Passion and love for what you do drive excellence and meaningful connections.

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This episode of A Bit of Optimism seamlessly blends practical cooking with profound life lessons, offering listeners both inspiration and actionable insights through the lens of Christina Tosi’s baking philosophy.

Transcript

[Simon Sinek]

This episode is brought to you by True Classic. The way they became our sponsor is because I loved their T shirts. And so we just called them up and asked them if they wanted to work together, and they said yes. So check out their [e-mail]. what's funny about this is I always have this in my pantry. Always space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in the.

[Christina Tosi]

I love you so much for that. This is 100% going, like, over my dead body is this not going to.

[Simon Sinek]

I don't know how that will bake.

[Christina Tosi]

Me neither. But we're gonna find out. But, hey, what if?

[Simon Sinek]

What if? So, a bazillion years ago, I went for dinner in New York City at a place called Sambar, which was a David Chang restaurant. And in the back, they had a little thing called Milk bar, which was there, basically the dessert place for the restaurant. Well, I fell in love with one of the desserts called cereal milk ice cream. And yes, it is the most nostalgic ice cream you could ever eat. It tastes exactly like the milk from the cereal bowl from when we were kids, that sweet milk that we would drink. Little did I know that the founder and owner of Milk Bar would later become one of my closest, closest friends, Christina Tosi. Christina Tosi has gone on to have wild success. We can all buy milk bar products in our local supermarkets. You can see her on Net, Netflix, and her TV show. She's got multiple cookbooks out. But best of all, Christina is the most wonderful baker because she bakes with love. It is her love language. Because Cristina was in my hometown this week, we thought we would do something different. We would do an experiment. And if there's one thing Christina and I both love, it's the unknown. So this is a live cooking show that Christina and I did. So if you're listening to this on audio, you. You will hear some clinking and clanking because we are actually in the kitchen. We are actually baking. If you'd like to see us bake, go to YouTube. The whole episode is there. Or we will do our best to explain everything we're doing. We did something we've never done. It could succeed. It could fail. You'll let us know. But no matter what, I know one thing will happen. You will learn how to make a compost cookie, and you will learn how to make the tastiest beer bread of your life. This is a Bit of Optimism. This is a thrill for me personally, because you were my first guest on A Bit of Optimism. During lockdown. You and I have done this, I think, two or three more times. But I thought you were in la. How much fun would it be that we actually baked together? You and I have never. That's not true. We have baked together.

[Christina Tosi]

I was like, every time I come over. Well, it's less about baking. Simon has an idea.

[Simon Sinek]

No, no, no. It's about introversion. It's about. It's about introversion because I went to a dinner party at your house, and there were lots of people who were all outside being entertained by your front of house husband, and you disappeared into the kitchen. You're a happy place, so you don't have to talk to people. Turns out I was very close behind you. And we ended up experimenting and we invented new breads. We also made new ice creams. We did a. It was an ice cream loaf.

[Christina Tosi]

That's like bake club. That's what bake club is. It's like, come in, bake with us. Learn something new. We're gonna set you up for success. And you're the genius, because it's putting the things together in your home that will bring you delight that you can share.

[Simon Sinek]

I've never talked to you about baking because I'm either doing it with you or we talk about other things. I've actually never talked to you about baking, and now we're going to talk about baking. What was your, like, where was your entry into baking like? Was it an escape to, like, because you didn't want to play outside with other kids that you like? I was like, I'm just going to be over here baking. Like, what. Where did. Like, why Baking?

[Christina Tosi]

Baking.

[Simon Sinek]

Why not baseball?

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah. I love to be outdoors and I love sports, but baking. So my mom was a working mom. She's an accountant. So January through April every year, my grandmas, my aunts would watch us, basically. And in my family, the matriarchs bake. That's just what you do in your free time. Did you grow up? Ohio and Virginia. And then my mom would ship me off to Ohio to live with my grandma on her farm every summer so that we didn't. We didn't become city kids when we moved to Virginia. City kids. And I loved it because it was time with them, but really I loved it because I like cookie dough. Only I started eating too much of my grandma's cookie dough, and she started doing the math and being like, this is not adding up. This should equal this many cookies. Demand planning in her head. And she realized I was the culprit. And she basically was like, no more baking with me because you keep eating the cookie dough, you're spoiling your dinner. All the grandma things, it was like survival of the fittest moment. And I wasn't allowed to turn on the oven, but I loved cookie dough. So I would, at a very young age make these concoctions of like, I don't know, flour, sugar, things that I remembered putting in. And it was trial and error, right? Like if you don't put in enough sugar, it's not really cookie dough. I'd put a raw egg in and be like, ooh, this is good. You put too much salt in, not enough baking soda, et cetera. Then I was then got to the age where I could turn on the oven and so these concoctions would actually start baking. And that's. I learned how to bake self taught as a home baker. And then I moved to New York City because I was like, I want to do this for a living.

[Simon Sinek]

And then you went to, you went to culinary school, fancy culinary school, became a fancy baker, worked in fancy restaurants.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah, because I'm intense. I like the competitive, the inner competitive spirit. I'm gonna do at the highest of my game.

[Simon Sinek]

So here's the thing that I find amazing, which is most kids who discover baking, it's science, it's following, following the formula. And their first recipes are memorized, you know, or you read them, but you, you didn't have that. So from the get go, it was trial and error. From the get go, you had to learn like one egg tastes good, three eggs taste bad.

[Christina Tosi]

And that's how I learned.

[Simon Sinek]

That's how I learned things crumble or things stay together. So you're.

[Christina Tosi]

Baking was never precious for me. Right. Most people, why do they bake? Because they like the control of it, the science, the security behind it. It's hard, but it's accurate. And yeah, what I love about baking is the opposite of that reason the thing.

[Simon Sinek]

Cause I've seen having baked with you before and having experimented with you before, the thing that I love that you do that no one I've never seen anybody else do, which is usually somebody makes a thing, right? And even if they experiment, it'll either work or it won't work. And they say, oh, next time I'll add this to it. You will have four things going on simultaneously. It's like a conveyor belt. This one's got a little more of this, this one's got a little more of that, this one has less. And you, you are, you're treating it like A, B, C, D and see which one comes out. And that's what we did when we made the beer bread.

[Christina Tosi]

100%.

[Simon Sinek]

I remember because I went and bought the beer. I came in.

[Christina Tosi]

How many bottles of beer did you.

[Simon Sinek]

We went through a lot of bottles of beer on the wall. And we probably tried. I remember we tried a raspberry. A raspberry beer. We tried a chocolate beer. We tried a stout. We tried, like, a fancy beer. We tried a not fancy beer. And we did the same recipe with all these beers until we discovered one we liked.

[Christina Tosi]

That's right. And so for me, baking.

[Simon Sinek]

Love. I liked all of them.

[Christina Tosi]

No, love. Yeah. To be fair, for me, baking and the approach to life is always walking around with this sense of what if. What if. What if the raspberry one's really good? What if the chocolate's. What if. What if I put pretzels and chocolate together and swirl them into. What if I put cookie dough? So sweetened condensed milk Ritz crackers and Bugles.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, that sounds gross.

[Christina Tosi]

In the oven.

[Simon Sinek]

There they are.

[Christina Tosi]

But there they are. I'm looking at them right now, and you never know.

[Simon Sinek]

And the beauty is there's a bugle on a cookie.

[Christina Tosi]

The beauty is you don't know. And I love that part of baking. You only know what you know, and I go into it. But then I'm not disappointed. Cause that's the other bit of trial and error. Being a great chef, a great baker, you have to be so good at disappointment.

[Simon Sinek]

But, you know, even with all your training, you know things that go together and things that shouldn't go together. So how often are you actually disappointed?

[Christina Tosi]

So often. Because I want to defy the odds. For me, like Milk Bar was built on, we're going to have a bakery and we're not going to have vanilla ice cream, and we're not going to cover cakes on the sides and we're not going to make normal cookies that you would find at a bakery. And we're going to make pie, but it's not apple pie. So you get cereal milk ice cream, and you get milk bar pie that's dense and gooey and fudgy. That. No, we pull it out when it is still dense and. And gooey and. Right. Because who knows? And who's to say who gets to make the rules?

[Simon Sinek]

Where did you come up with the name Milk Bar to name your company?

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, it's kind of two parts.

[Simon Sinek]

One milk and bar. Those are the two parts.

[Christina Tosi]

No, close. No. My idea for Milk Bar Originally and still is, like my North Star was a modern day take on Dairy Queen with a bakery case. Like, I knew I wanted cookies, cakes and pies, but for me it was all about a soft serve ice cream machine. And this is before soft serve was anything beyond what you'd find at Dairy Queen. Or like a roadside custard stand.

[Simon Sinek]

Chocolate, vanilla suave.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah. So like Dairy Queen milk bar. You can see that, right? And then I started Milk Bar originally in the back of a momofuku restaurant because I was helping Dave build all the momofuku restaurants. And the naming convention that we always had was something bar, right? Noodle bar, sambar, Sambar, milk bar. So part of it's like the origin story and then the other part is like the nostalgic origin story.

[Simon Sinek]

So milk was really your homage to Dairy Queen and bars because you were forced into it.

[Christina Tosi]

Not forced into it. That was just convention into it.

[Simon Sinek]

No, no, but you said all of the things were sambar, but it wasn't.

[Christina Tosi]

Like it must be this. I just thought that's a beautiful way to homage.

[Simon Sinek]

It's good.

[Christina Tosi]

I mean, it's worked for us. What if I said no? It's like that's part of it, you know?

[Simon Sinek]

So how much has. How much has baking influenced you as a person in life? Your relationships, your family, friendships, your marriage, your mom ness or the other way around. How much does outside life come into your. Into your kitchen?

[Christina Tosi]

It has gone through waves in my baking career. Here's what I know about baking. Even after all that I said, I thought I knew why I love to bake. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that I actually love to bake. Not just because I love to eat dessert. I thought that was really the motivating factor and not just because I love the creative outlet of it. But I do my best talking through dessert. So dessert is my relationship to the world, to community. I'm an introvert. The reason I like to hide in the kitchen is cause I wanna bake you. I want you to feel known and seen and loved by your not too sweet chocolate cake, right? Like that's how I say, I got you. I'm here for you. I love you. I'm sorry you had a shitty day. Happy birthday. Like anything in between, it's your love language. That's why I bake. And it gives me the never ending.

[Simon Sinek]

It's the love.

[Christina Tosi]

It gives me the never ending capability to fall back in love with anything. A simple ingredient. Feeling good about a day being A human in the world like it is my bit of optimism.

[Simon Sinek]

I think what I want, I think what's important, what I want to get across is that too many of us think baking is follow the recipe. And it's not like cooking. Cooking you can experiment more and baking, you can't. There's less room for experimentation because if you change the variables, the science changes, the chemistry changes and it doesn't work. And this idea that getting comfortable with failure and that baking is an education for getting comfortable with failure, it doesn't taste good, so throw it out and make it again. Like, so what?

[Christina Tosi]

Just what did you learn from it? When you fail from anything in life, what did you learn? Right? Use that. There's always good in something. And for me, if you're not failing, you're not taking risks, you're not growing. Right. What have you learned today? I didn't learn anything because I crushed it.

[Simon Sinek]

How do you define failure? Because nobody wants to fail.

[Christina Tosi]

Things not turning out the way that I thought they would. And guess what? That's fine. If not, that's great. That's flexibility.

[Simon Sinek]

So how has this mentality towards your cakes impacted you as an entrepreneur? Because Milk Bar is your company.

[Christina Tosi]

Yes.

[Simon Sinek]

You founded it. It's had its ups and downs like any other company. You have all the same issues as.

[Christina Tosi]

Every other company human in the world, believe it or not.

[Simon Sinek]

So I'm very curious because for me, I can look at myself. I know as an entrepreneur and a business owner, I know what elements of my personality come and show up for. For better and sometimes worse. But I know how they show up and work. So because I'm an artist, and I have an artist sensibility, and I love seeing things, I love my senses, I love hearing things, love tasting things. I just love all of that. I know how that shows up at work. I love the experimentation, I love the messiness, I love the chaos. Because for me, creativity is the skill of finding order and chaos. Right?

[Christina Tosi]

Skill of finding orders, order and chaos.

[Simon Sinek]

Creativity is finding order and chaos. And sometimes that chaos is thrust upon you. Market conditions. And sometimes I have to inject chaos in order to get some creativity out. So I find in my. For me, for work, when it gets stale, and sometimes I don't realize things are stale until I realize I'm bored. And when I'm bored, I realize it's because there's no. And so sometimes I inject creativity, I inject chaos in order to produce a creative output. And by the way, not just mine, everybody is.

[Christina Tosi]

This is a very Can I tell you, this is a very chef mentality, really. Some of the greatest chefs that I worked for were most drawn to chaos. Some. Some might call it drama, but in a way that was like, if it doesn't exist, we're not alive. We don't feel alive. The spirit of getting something done, the herculean effort of it.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

And the sparks that come from that don't exist.

[Simon Sinek]

I think the difference, at least from TV shows that I've watched about chefs, which probably is a terrible way to. To make this conclusion, but I don't want to be the hero. I don't want to inject chaos and then be like. And I put it right. It's not like that. I want to inject chaos and be like, all right, everybody, we have a mess. I don't know what to do. Even if I made it, what are you going to do? And I love watching people and pushing people to find creative solutions to the mess that sometimes I make. So what is it about as a baker and the way you bake and the style in which you bake that you can make a one to one correlation to you as an entrepreneur and a business owner? The way you make decisions, the way you lead people? Any of it? Any of it.

[Christina Tosi]

This is a human business. And if humanity is not a part of what we do, we have failed and anything is possible.

[Simon Sinek]

But what about being a baker has influenced you as an entrepreneur, me as an artist. I can see it. I can see where it comes in as an entrepreneur. So what about you as a baker, how you bake, the way you're approaching.

[Christina Tosi]

Baking, you can see, you know, nothing. Like, ask yourself what if? And give it a try.

[Simon Sinek]

It's that sense of possibility that is.

[Christina Tosi]

Like, how did we build a bakery that is locations all over the place, a care package, business across the country, product in the out, like all kinds of crazy stuff. It's because we didn't follow a roadmap and we were just like, what if? But to your point of the creating chaos if we're not asking ourselves what if? With this anything is possible mentality. And by the way, when you're building business, right, we're 17 years in right now, it would be smart to keep just doing what we're doing. Sell the icons, sell the classics. Don't iterate like, play it safe, keep it simple, right?

[Simon Sinek]

Go with your greatest hits, right? But you still have to sing Respect. If you're Aretha Franklin, you still have cereal, milk, ice cream in.

[Christina Tosi]

But if that's all we're doing the spirit and the heartbeat of who we are. We don't feel like ourselves. We love to do that, and you have to be able to nail your classics every time. But if we're not experimenting and trying and falling flat on our faces and finding these moments, we're suffocating ourselves.

[Simon Sinek]

Let's bake.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

I want to learn. So you. You've made something. Not with me, but I've been in the room when you're making them, which is a compost cook. And I knew that we were gonna make these because I was told I was given one instruction, which is bring stuff from around my kitchen. Just bring stuff. I have no idea if any of this stuff is bakeable. You don't know what I brought.

[Christina Tosi]

I have no clue what you brought.

[Simon Sinek]

But I brought stuff from around my kitchen.

[Christina Tosi]

So I think every baked good, like, it's not about us when we make baked goods. It's about what the baked good does for the person that's eating it. Not too sweet. So the compost cookie.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

Is a chocolate chip cookie. When you don't have enough chocolate chips.

[Simon Sinek]

To make a chocolate chip cookie, that was the origin.

[Christina Tosi]

It's butterscotch chips, it's pretzels, it's potato chips, it's ground coffee. It's graham cracker crust.

[Simon Sinek]

It's whatever.

[Christina Tosi]

It's anything and everything. I used to make it on this island off the coast of New Hampshire. A bad storm would come in. I had to bake for 600 people, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it was basically the like, oh, we're not getting any fresh. So I just go into the pantry and grab stuff, and it became this beloved cookie because people would guess every time.

[Simon Sinek]

So this is my bespoked.

[Christina Tosi]

This is your bespoke compost cookie. I also just think it's fascinating what people keep in their pantries. It says everything. It's the food that fuels them. It's the food that fuels your creative engine.

[Simon Sinek]

I didn't bring kimchi, and it's always in my fridge.

[Christina Tosi]

That's okay. But you want to know what? I would have gone the distance with you, but I think the food that people keep at home is the most brilliant insight into them. And I think your taste buds are fascinating.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, well.

[Christina Tosi]

And they're different than mine.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, hopefully this will fascinate you. This. Hopefully it's a fascinating.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, let's see.

[Simon Sinek]

We're trying something a little different. Instead of a traditional host red ad, I invited Ryan Bartlett, the founder of our sponsor, True Classic, to sit down for a conversation. And it turns out there's a lot more that we can learn from him beyond just how great his, his T shirts are. And his T shirts really are great. We call this an ad with authenticity.

[Ryan Bartlett]

I was obsessed with reading the reviews about what people were saying about the product. And there was a magical moment very early on. It was in the first couple months. This lady hit us up and was like, hey, I just wanted to let you guys know, my husband, because of your product, he walks out of the house with an air of confidence now that he's never had, like ever in his life. I spent $49 on a three pack. And somehow that has translated to confidence in him. I can't tell you how transformational it's been. He doesn't feel self conscious about how he looks anymore. He's actually proud of himself. So thank you so much for developing this thoughtful product. It has quite literally changed our lives. And I read that and it just, it hit me and I was like, we're not selling T shirts. We're selling confidence.

[Simon Sinek]

And like all great companies, what you're doing for your customer, you're doing for your employees. You're building a culture where people feel confident because they have the opportunity to experiment, be their true selves and build a career with you. So one of my favorite things in the world, I brought what I have Lapsang souchong tea.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, so we got tea, some really fancy tea.

[Simon Sinek]

My brother in law makes the best granola in the world. His name's Brad. And so we call it branola.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

I, I brought my, our favorite almonds. I, I introduced you to these almonds, which are almonds from Afghanistan of all things. But they're the tastiest almonds in the world. I had those in the pantry. I have a half eaten bag of, of those are really good of kettle corn pop chips. I love kettle corn everything.

[Christina Tosi]

Getting some play here.

[Simon Sinek]

I brought a bag of my, my optimism coffee.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, this stuff.

[Simon Sinek]

That's the magic.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, I'm gonna loop these into categories.

[Simon Sinek]

I think somebody stayed at my house and left these in my pantry. And I don't know what they are, but some wheat. Wheat or some sort of wheat puff something around it. I don't know what it is. There are things in here that I always believe it or not, this will tell you something. You say what's in my pantry tells you about something, about who I am.

[Christina Tosi]

What else we got?

[Simon Sinek]

I have, I have a chocolate drawer.

[Christina Tosi]

I know, I know about the chocolate drawer.

[Simon Sinek]

So I just grab A lot of bars in the chocolate drawer. Everything from crap to really high end chocolate.

[Christina Tosi]

This is going to be the most primo.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

There's some fantastic cookie we've ever seen.

[Simon Sinek]

Because I'm an Englishman, I always have English chocolate. I love you.

[Christina Tosi]

That you have.

[Simon Sinek]

I have dark chocolate Kit Kat. I have Maltesers. I have Cadbury's. Cadbury's white buttons. Now, this will tell you the most. This will tell you the biggest thing about me. And this is what's funny about this, is I always have this in my pantry. Always space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in my pantry.

[Christina Tosi]

I love you so much for that. This is 100% going, like, over my dead body is this not going.

[Simon Sinek]

I don't know how that will bake.

[Christina Tosi]

Me neither. But we're gonna find out. But hey, what if, what if, what if it works?

[Simon Sinek]

That really is compost.

[Christina Tosi]

What if, what if, what if? Okay, great. We've got it.

[Simon Sinek]

By the way you talk about what if, this entire you and I doing a cooking show. Oh, that's a. What if is an experiment. This could be an absolute disaster. Failure.

[Christina Tosi]

I'll tell you what. I had a great time.

[Simon Sinek]

No.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, so first things first. Which one do you want to choose? Do you want to do the branola?

[Simon Sinek]

Branola.

[Christina Tosi]

We got you, Brad. Okay, so we're going granola, Maltesers, chocolate space ice cream, pop thingies, and then Common's, Simon Phil's. Okay, I'm gonna start chopping some stuff up. In the meantime, you're gonna do 101. When you're making a cookie, you gotta start with fat and sugar and you paddle them together. So I've got unsalted butter, sugar, light brown sugar, and some granulated sugar.

[Simon Sinek]

We have to say we did not pre bake the cookies because I literally just showed up with the ingredients.

[Christina Tosi]

Couldn't do it.

[Simon Sinek]

Couldn't do it. So what was the other thing I had to add to this?

[Christina Tosi]

Just those three. We're gonna start there. Okay, so butter and sugar cream together till it's nice and smooth. You got it like 101. It's all about a homogeneous mixture. It's all about scraping down the sides of the bowl to get it going. I'm very right now.

[Simon Sinek]

It's very crumbly. Just keep it going.

[Christina Tosi]

Just keep, keep it going. It'll come together. You can. We'll do this. Ready?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah. Really give it turning up the.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, we're making dough.

[Christina Tosi]

We're making dough. All right, now she's like When I.

[Simon Sinek]

Was a kid, I used to like, dipping my finger in the butter and then dipping it in the sugar and then eating it off my finger.

[Christina Tosi]

This is honestly, baking with children and watching them interact with ingredients is one of my favorite things. No, I just mean you did it as a kid because you looked at.

[Simon Sinek]

It with this kid, kid, kid in.

[Christina Tosi]

Air quotes with this childlike sensibility.

[Simon Sinek]

Right?

[Christina Tosi]

Yes. You ready for this? See this?

[Simon Sinek]

No.

[Christina Tosi]

This is glucose. It is a significantly less sweet inverted sugar compared to corn syrup. But we put glucose in all of our cookies at milk bar because it guarantees you're gonna get a nice, dense, fudgy, centered cookie. And because there's water activity in it, it guarantees that your cookie stays nice and moist and fudgy for multiple days.

[Simon Sinek]

Did I ever tell you that I think that the Great British Baking show is the greatest television on television? Did I ever tell you that? Because second to your show, only.

[Christina Tosi]

Second to your show only it champions the spirit, the true altruistic spirit, Spirit of a baker.

[Simon Sinek]

It's. It's. To me, it's the way life should be, which is we can compete against. It's a show with winners and losers. Somebody will be declared a winner. Every day, somebody's thrown off the. The show, it has losers. And yet, even though it's a competition, they help each other. And that, to me, is the spirit of what life should be. We can compete against each other and help each other simultaneously. They're not mutually exclusive.

[Christina Tosi]

Also, you can just compete against yourself like that too. We don't need. We don't need a loser to have a winner.

[Simon Sinek]

No. But the fact is, it is a competition. Competition. In that case. Oh, so that's the ice cream sandwich. The space ice cream sandwich. I will admit I prefer the Neapolitan.

[Christina Tosi]

I'm kind of into this. It's gonna give us a cookies and cream moment.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

We've got a real fun little situation happening. And then. Do you feel like you have a nice homogenous mixture?

[Simon Sinek]

It feels pretty homogeneous.

[Christina Tosi]

It feels nice. You don't have any specks.

[Simon Sinek]

There's a lot of homogeneity going on here.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, great. You gotta put all the dry ingredients together before you.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, I fucked it up.

[Christina Tosi]

No, you're fine. But I will tell you when it makes a difference. And that will. You won't. You didn't mess it up.

[Simon Sinek]

But shit.

[Christina Tosi]

Also, this is fun.

[Simon Sinek]

Thank goodness this is your kitchen and not mine. Flour just went everywhere.

[Christina Tosi]

It happens. Can I tell you, even to this day, I'm spilling I'm mixing. I'm dropping an egg. It all happens. It happens. You know what? Let's just leave the mess. Mess is good. Mess means.

[Simon Sinek]

Apparently in Chinese food, if you leave a mess, it means you enjoyed your meal.

[Christina Tosi]

Highest compliment.

[Simon Sinek]

So I am.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

Whoa, whoa.

[Christina Tosi]

So we want a tender. We want to. We want the cookie to be on this spectrum, which means as we add the flour, we want to mix it as little as possible, because the more we mix it, the closer it gets on the spectrum to bready.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, got it. Which is.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, so let's scrape this down. And now we're gonna put our mix ins in. You wanna taste some dough?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

It's a good base.

[Simon Sinek]

That's good. And I didn't.

[Christina Tosi]

Is it too sweet?

[Simon Sinek]

I didn't screw it up too badly.

[Christina Tosi]

You didn't. For me, this is. This is why I got kicked out of the kitchen.

[Simon Sinek]

Why this moment? Cause you would stick your finger in there.

[Christina Tosi]

Once I have one bite of cookie dough, I have to, like, take two grown up steps away from it.

[Simon Sinek]

Now, wait, wait. This is very tasty. And I can taste the. I can taste this brown sugar.

[Christina Tosi]

It's so good.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, I like brown sugar.

[Christina Tosi]

All right, so we're gonna add some goodies.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay.

[Christina Tosi]

It's as much or as little as you want.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, does it all just get thrown in?

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah. And we're gonna let the heft of the paddle break some of these bigger pieces down. What I love in a composition.

[Simon Sinek]

We're putting in my leftover kettle corn pop chips.

[Christina Tosi]

It's gonna be good.

[Simon Sinek]

Those are tasting. Okay. This is the most exciting one of all. That's just gonna be huge and chunky, though.

[Christina Tosi]

No, no, no. It'll break down.

[Simon Sinek]

What, you think there's a piece in there? Oh, why don't you eat it?

[Christina Tosi]

Do you need it?

[Simon Sinek]

No, just eat it. So we have now put in the. And now we put in the ice cream sandwich. The. Sorry. The space ice cream sandwich. We're putting in some granola. Homemade family.

[Christina Tosi]

I think this one's gonna be the reason. You really like it?

[Simon Sinek]

I think so too. Then lots of dark chocolate. Very fancy. Dark chocolate, 85%. Bunch of Maltesers.

[Christina Tosi]

This is a fun one because you're never this untidy about how you think about anything.

[Simon Sinek]

You've absolutely got me wrong.

[Christina Tosi]

Well, you're intentional.

[Simon Sinek]

Everybody thinks I neat and organized. And the biggest surprise.

[Christina Tosi]

I mean, organized.

[Simon Sinek]

It's the biggest surprise everybody has of me, which is I'm messy.

[Christina Tosi]

I. But look at this. But you're like, this isn't how one should bake. You think baking is a certain way. And I'm like, no, no, no. It's more, let's make a mess.

[Simon Sinek]

This is true. This is true. This is free form baking.

[Christina Tosi]

You're like that in these other places, and that's where your brilliance comes out.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, this is ridiculous. So we just turn on the mixer, and it sounds like it's the mint mixer.

[Christina Tosi]

With what's going on, it's never gonna be homogenous, Right? Look at this.

[Simon Sinek]

This is either brilliant or disgusting. I can't figure it out.

[Christina Tosi]

It's your taste buds, babe.

[Simon Sinek]

No, it's just the random stuff I brought from the kitchen.

[Christina Tosi]

It's just random.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay. To hearken back to Christina's childhood. You're staring at it like it's.

[Christina Tosi]

Look at it.

[Simon Sinek]

But what are you staring at?

[Christina Tosi]

What are you.

[Simon Sinek]

I'm staring at because what I see is a glob of mess. What do you see as a professional baker?

[Christina Tosi]

What I love about it is that when I look at it, I see texture, I see color, I see flavor, and I see possibility. So I see these big pieces, pieces of Maltesers, these dark chocolate balls that I know are filled with this malted milk crunch. But some of them have broken down. All of your popcorners have broken down into much smaller pieces. So I know I'm gonna get a little corny. The optimism coffee is speckled throughout, which excites me, because I know it's gonna be bitter in a way that's good for your taste, but it's very hazelnutty.

[Simon Sinek]

It's very hazelnutty.

[Christina Tosi]

It is. But I'm not mad at that, because then you get all the nuts and the seeds from the granola. You get these chia pops and these big, small nuts that are all super earthy. And then you have these still pretty giant pieces of space ice cream.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

And I love that. Cause they are the total wild card of how will they bake?

[Simon Sinek]

We have no idea. We have no clue if they'll melt or keep it.

[Christina Tosi]

You wanna know what? Let's do it. We're gonna scoop and bake.

[Simon Sinek]

My favorite thing about this is for the number of years you've been baking that, here I am. Something is gonna happen that you have no clue and you've never done.

[Christina Tosi]

I love it.

[Simon Sinek]

That brings me joy.

[Christina Tosi]

I love it.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay?

[Christina Tosi]

We learn together, we fail together. Like, that's also the spirit of team, right?

[Simon Sinek]

But this is why it's fun.

[Christina Tosi]

Like I said with somebody, okay, you got a scoop, I got a Scoop. So here's my thing in scooping one. Baking 101. When you're making cookies, you want to use a cookie scoop because you want all of your cookies to be the same amount so that they bake evenly on the side.

[Simon Sinek]

I've always used a spoon, and it's never worked. To use an ice cream scooper is kind of genius.

[Christina Tosi]

The best. So I'm gonna do kind of an oversized scoop.

[Simon Sinek]

I'm not.

[Christina Tosi]

Well, then I. Well, then you're going on your own tray. Because they won't bake evenly if they aren't the same amount. Cause they're gonna go in the oven on the sheet tray for the same time.

[Simon Sinek]

Do we flatten them or leave them?

[Christina Tosi]

I don't. No, I don't wanna flatten them. Cause I'm really curious. They look like giant ice cream scoops of the most random cookie dough.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

You've never thought of.

[Simon Sinek]

This is. I've never made cookies so easily because it's always difficult. This ice cream scoop thing is a game changer.

[Christina Tosi]

So I'm gonna take your cookies and I'm actually going to arrange them with like 2 to 3 inches between them on the baking sheet. Because they will spread when they bake. And you want to give them enough space. All right.

[Simon Sinek]

You could get more on that.

[Christina Tosi]

I know I can. I wanted to make sure you had enough mine. I'm really gilding the lily in the size of my stove.

[Simon Sinek]

You're the best. And you know what I realized? It really doesn't matter that I lick my fingers, because they're gonna get in the oven and fire clean.

[Christina Tosi]

You're gonna be fine.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, great. Let me do one more on mine. Oh, I got some big popcorners now. This is the ultimate look at the bottom of this bowl. It is just littered with great ideas and flavors.

[Simon Sinek]

I'm licking the spoon. I'm licking the bowl.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, great. This is. This is. I know you're having a really good time. Cause you've lost yourself in it. For me, baking is like my favorite activities in life. Baking, going for a hike, running is the. Like. You lose yourself, find yourself.

[Simon Sinek]

Yep.

[Christina Tosi]

You haven't. What have you thought about the rest of life? When have you thought about what you coulda, woulda, coulda shape? We have a giant mess of flour and cookie dough and crumbles of all types all over this prep table.

[Simon Sinek]

My dreams and ambitions are all over the table.

[Christina Tosi]

And that is. You're all baking society, and I'm all baking's chaos. Put whatever you want.

[Simon Sinek]

I Know, this has made me very happy. I have a renewed love or a newfound love of baking because I always thought it was like getting the ingredients at the to the right levels. So let's just go through what's in this fantastic cookie.

[Christina Tosi]

A bit of optimism, the compost cookie.

[Simon Sinek]

The bit of optimism, the compost cookie. So we have flour, salt, baking soda, baking power, egg, glucose, brown sugar, white sugar, all mixed together. Butter, butter, lots of butter. Then the added ingredients are kettle corn, popcorn, popcorners, dark chocolate, malt teasers, which are malt bowls from England. We have fancy dark chocolate, just a bar which we cut up. We have my optimism coffee that I collabed with Phil's, which we put in here, which is amazing. That's such good coffee. We put branola, which is the homemade granola that my brother in law makes. We have space ice cream, which is freeze dried ice cream that you can buy at any science museum if it.

[Christina Tosi]

Wasn'T part of your childhood.

[Simon Sinek]

That's when I first discovered it and it has been in my closet ever since.

[Christina Tosi]

All right, so we're gonna take these.

[Simon Sinek]

To the oven in my cupboard ever since your cupboard?

[Christina Tosi]

358 to 10 minutes. Mine are gonna bake a little longer because I made really big hunks of cookie dough.

[Simon Sinek]

350 degrees Fahrenheit for eight to ten minutes.

[Christina Tosi]

That's it. That's it.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, that's easy. I like mine overcooked.

[Christina Tosi]

Well, then we'll leave them in for the same amount.

[Simon Sinek]

Do you know that about me? Like when there's a. When there's a chocolate chip cookie recipe that says 10 minutes or 20 minutes, I do 40.

[Christina Tosi]

This is my face.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay.

[Christina Tosi]

I promise to still love you, even though I know that, like it's, that's against everything.

[Simon Sinek]

It's not like it's kind of like tea. Like I'll drink tea however you give it to me, but if I make it myself, it's going to be a very specific color. Same with cookies. I like cookies however you give them to me. But if I make them myself, I'm overdoing them.

[Christina Tosi]

I think it's the. I think it's a space ice cream.

[Simon Sinek]

No. You know, I can tell you what it is. I like them right before they burn that dark, dark, dark brown. Because everything's so caramelized.

[Christina Tosi]

That's why it is.

[Simon Sinek]

Yes.

[Christina Tosi]

It's a depth of flavor.

[Simon Sinek]

Thank you.

[Christina Tosi]

Come on.

[Simon Sinek]

Is that the beer?

[Christina Tosi]

We're making beer bread. That's Sammy Smith's.

[Simon Sinek]

It's that.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

You went and got It.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah, the clock here's open. Do you want an excuse to be drinking at work?

[Simon Sinek]

No, but that's so good. I love that you.

[Christina Tosi]

That's why I was like, what?

[Simon Sinek]

So this is important. We're about to make beer bread. Beer bread. So I discovered beer bread many years ago where it was made for me, and I asked the people who made it for me to give me the recipe, and they did. I couldn't find some of the recipes. There was some sweetener that I couldn't find, so I just started using honey. And I used to make beer bread all the time. Then I was with you, and I was like, hey, can we make beer bread? And you're like, hey, I've never made beer bread. And I was like, well, let's make beer bread because it's idiot proof and I can make it. You made one tweak to my recipe instead of flour. Self rising flour, which has been a gift because now I get a little more. Cause it's such a dense bread. It's a little dense now, and it raises a little bit. And I've experimented for years with so many different beers. And we did that one night of beer beers on the wall. And we discovered that the best beer for beer bread was. What's it called? Samuel Smith's organic chocolate Stout.

[Christina Tosi]

It's a good beer.

[Simon Sinek]

It is a good beer. And it has existed since 1758.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, God bless. Can I tell you that I also. Because I love to ask the question, what if, like a month or two ago just started going at not just beer bread, but stuff like, what if I put a ripe banana into a chocolate stout Beer bread. And then I took it as far as, what if I take. What are other brews? Kombucha. What if I make a kombucha beer bread? Okay. It's gonna be sweeter and a little bit more berry for it and then add some berries in it. My kids are obsessed with it's not even kombucha beer bread. But what then is it?

[Simon Sinek]

It's a kombucha, Brett. Bougie boucha bread. Bougie booch bread. But the thing that I love about beer bread, and I probably shouldn't say this on the air because this is what I do, but for Thanksgiving, everybody brings something to Thanksgiving. And I'll make one, two, or three loaves of beer bread. And I come in and people are like, who made the bread? I'm like, I made the bread. And people think I'm kneading dough. And I'M spending all day making beer. Bread is about. It's about five minutes of mixing ingredients and then putting it in the oven for about, what, an hour? A little less than an hour. That's all beer bread. It is. It is absolutely idiot proof.

[Christina Tosi]

It's reverse engineering what makes bread bread. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

It makes people the joy that I give people thinking that I made bread, and they don't realize that I did it like 20 minutes before I came to Thanksgiving.

[Christina Tosi]

And it's because you're taking all of the elements of bread making, but you're reverse engineering them in your favor. Right. So the yeast is already in the beer.

[Simon Sinek]

It's in the beer.

[Christina Tosi]

It's already. Already alive and well. We don't need to wake it up. Okay, well, then let me put this in the micro real quick. But I've got our salt. I've got honey, if you want honey. But then I saved some room temperature salted butter over here for us, just in case.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, I always melt it.

[Christina Tosi]

Okay, great.

[Simon Sinek]

So I pour it in.

[Christina Tosi]

Great.

[Simon Sinek]

So I'll put this together. So I'm putting the flour, which is self rising flour, into the bowl. I'm now putting the. Which salt do I use? I'll use the salt. I put the salt into the thing and mix those together. I'm still making a mess. Even though there's no mixmaster, Christina is melting the honey and the butter, while I will add the beer. Very slowly. Slowly pouring the beer into the flour.

[Christina Tosi]

How's it going, Chef?

[Simon Sinek]

Good. Slowly adding the beer into here.

[Christina Tosi]

Perfect. All right, I'm grabbing our cookies because they look really good.

[Simon Sinek]

Are they already done?

[Christina Tosi]

Almost.

[Simon Sinek]

So basically, you can make a compost cookie in less time than it takes to mix a bowl.

[Christina Tosi]

To mix a beer bread.

[Simon Sinek]

A bowl of beer bread.

[Christina Tosi]

It smells so good.

[Simon Sinek]

I know. Okay, so yes, I do. It's now getting. It's very gluteny and gooey. So what should. Let's add a little bit of butter. Add butter. And I'm gonna add. Is this honey? I'm gonna add the honey. So I always melt the honey in the microwave.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, I just did that. She's liquid.

[Simon Sinek]

And I do the same thing with the butter just to make it liquid, to make it easier to stir in. No other reason. So adding the honey. Okay. The honey is now in. I recently discovered silicone bread things.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, silicone molds are so nice because they have easy release.

[Simon Sinek]

So easy. So easy.

[Christina Tosi]

All right, I'm gonna give our loaf pan. And by the way, I'm a really big fan of an 8 by 4 inch loaf pan. Cause you get a taller beer bread loaf.

[Simon Sinek]

Now am I gonna. What am I doing to it? Can I one can over knead bread? Can I over stir beer bread?

[Christina Tosi]

I think to over stir beer bread, you'd have to be at it for seven plus minutes. It takes seven minutes to fully develop gluten in a traditional bread recipe. So you'd have to really go at it.

[Simon Sinek]

That's so specific.

[Christina Tosi]

I got your back.

[Simon Sinek]

Seven minutes.

[Christina Tosi]

The scientists are my sweet food scientists of the world. The Harold Magiz of the world defines that form.

[Simon Sinek]

Seven minutes to fully produce gluten once.

[Christina Tosi]

It comes together in a mass. Seven minutes.

[Simon Sinek]

Christina gave me an aluminum nine. What are these eight by three, eight by three and three quarter. Whatever Bread pan, loaf pan. We sprayed it with some sort of spray thing and now I'm putting my dough into the pan. There we go. In it goes. Very gooey looking. I've made this many times and it's very good. I make it every Thanksgiving because it's easy and tasty and a crowd favorite. Okay. I'm just flattening it out a little bit for no reason. And then I'm going to add a little butter to the top. I always save a little bit extra just to add to the top because it makes it shiny and tasty. And now I have to wait here patiently for Christina to come back because I don't know, I guess I can go back to the oven. Okay, I'll go back to the oven. All right. Compost cookies. So we're gonna do two things. We're gonna do the magic of television. We have our actual compost cookies that we actually made. And here they are. You wanna put those over here?

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah, I did.

[Simon Sinek]

We actually made and we did the magic of television. Where you pre baked a loaf of bread.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Because otherwise it would take too long.

[Christina Tosi]

What do you think? We taste the bread first, then our cookies have a minute to kind of cool down, I think. So can you make me your perfect bite so I can taste it through your eyes? Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

So I'm experimenting here.

[Christina Tosi]

A nice room. Tempeh butter, Some salt. A little on top. I love salt on a little piece of bread.

[Simon Sinek]

It's again going back to my childhood. My grandfather always put butter on his bread and always put salt on the butter. And to this day, no matter what. Yeah. So it's somewhat tasty and somewhat nostalgic for me. Okay, Cheers.

[Christina Tosi]

Cheers. To friendship.

[Simon Sinek]

To friendship. So good. It's so simple and so good.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, that salt. When it comes around and, like, dances on your taste buds. And that chocolate beer, the acid of that chocolate beer. You know me, I like sweet. So I'm putting some honey on this, babe.

[Simon Sinek]

So good. Should we try one of our cookies?

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Do you like a fresh out of the oven cookie?

[Christina Tosi]

I do. But you like crispy.

[Simon Sinek]

That's my only. I let my cookies. Cool.

[Christina Tosi]

So we've got some. This I'm very excited about. I love it. Look at this. Look at the peaks and valleys, the texture of these cookies. So we got some thinner crispiers for me. Some taller goo ears.

[Simon Sinek]

Which one do you want to try?

[Christina Tosi]

This one.

[Simon Sinek]

That. Okay.

[Christina Tosi]

All right. So we're choosing one of mine. More cookie dough. Same bake time, but we've got some real goo in the center.

[Simon Sinek]

This has got some crunch in it.

[Christina Tosi]

Chew right.

[Simon Sinek]

Crunch, chew. It's got all the things.

[Christina Tosi]

Oh, it's gonna be a real culinary adventure here. Wow. For me, this is. I know you're abhorred by this, but there's like, there's a little inner stripe of just cookie dough. Warm cookie dough. It's not a Simon Crisp. It's a Christina Goo. Cheers. Mmm.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, my God. It's a good cookie. The coffee that works. Oh, my God. I like this cookie a lot. The other thing that would make this perfect.

[Christina Tosi]

What's that?

[Simon Sinek]

It was crunchy.

[Christina Tosi]

Look at this.

[Simon Sinek]

Ooh, there's something. That's a good cookie. This is a sellable cookie.

[Christina Tosi]

I purposefully.

[Simon Sinek]

If you want to sell a bit of optimism cookies in your stores, you let me feel you feel free. I just have to get my brother in law to start making granola. Granola a mess. We will give the recipe in the notes 100%. Do your kids like to bake?

[Christina Tosi]

My kids. Each of them is different. One of them air quotes, likes to bake because she's here for the cookie dough. She's here for the Simon Sinek butter sugar.

[Simon Sinek]

She's her mother's daughter.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah. The other one loves to bake because he truly loves. From what I can tell, he truly loves bringing something to life. He loves the act of creation.

[Simon Sinek]

Does Will like baking or does Will like eating baked goods?

[Christina Tosi]

No, Will has no interest in baking. Will has every interest. Honey, can you put one of every cookie on a plate and bring it to me? The movie starting like this is. But you know what? That's what makes a great relationship.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, it's your. I know. So your love language. I remember I came to your house for brunch and because I know who you are. I said, can you please make biscuits? Because I love biscuits for brunch. And you're Christina Tosi. So to have your biscuits would be amazing. But because you're Christina Tosi, I expected a biscuit. We got five different kinds of biscuits. We had ones with bacon, ones with cheese, ones with chives, ones with what if. I mean the number of biscuits and then so. Which is awful because then you have to eat them all and compare and you have to eat them again because you're like, I don't know, maybe I like this baby.

[Christina Tosi]

That was a really rough day for you.

[Simon Sinek]

It was a rough day.

[Christina Tosi]

I love when people come over to my house and ask for something because to the point earlier, that's why I love to bake.

[Simon Sinek]

Now I know that it's your love language.

[Christina Tosi]

It brings me so much.

[Simon Sinek]

Five different kinds of biscuit. I mean, you don't get more love than.

[Christina Tosi]

You're not questioning whether you're feeding people what they want to eat. You know you are.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Christina Tosi]

And you're giving them permission to eat six different biscuits.

[Simon Sinek]

It's so good. So here's what I've learned. I've learned that there's one thing better than baking, which is baking with friends. I've learned that. Do you know the whole thing about, like, Duncan Hines cakes, the history of those? I think it was in the 50s, they came out with powdered cakes, and all you had to do was add water and you could. You could make a cake. And it was a failure because people were embarrassed that they didn't do anything. They didn't bake the cake. So they changed the chemistry of it. And they made one difference, which is, I think you add an egg.

[Christina Tosi]

Yeah. Egg, oil and water.

[Simon Sinek]

You add egg, oil and water, they change. Change the chemistry. So now you add water, egg, and oil. And now people could honestly say, I baked a cake because they mixed in an egg and some oil, and of course it exploded. So the idea that people can bake a cake, bake something for someone, is a sign of love and putting in a little effort. Right. Because with no egg and no oil, that felt that there was no effort. And what I'm learning from you is I've never. One of the reasons I don't bake by myself unless I'm baking just almond cookies for myself at night, but they're easy, is because I don't want to get it wrong. And what I've learned here is it's nothing about getting it right or wrong. It's experimentation and to be able to Say I just put something together, I threw some ingredients. And the compost cookie is perhaps the most lovable cookie in the world because you literally can't screw it up. And some will taste better and some will taste worse and some will prefer this and some will prefer that. But this cookie is. Compost cookie doesn't do it justice. It's. It's a cookie full of love. And so this was wonderful. And I got a beer bread out of the deal, so.

[Christina Tosi]

And we got like, we got so many seven minutes in there.

[Simon Sinek]

So many seven minutes, so eight minutes.

[Christina Tosi]

We got so many eight minute blocks.

[Simon Sinek]

In there, so many eight minutes blocks that, yeah, you and I talked about that eight minute story. So in one of the episodes that you came on a bit of optimism, we talked about what the value of a friend was. And I told you the story that happened with my friend Maria where she was going through a hard time. I hadn't seen her in a while and I'm at her house and I was like, how are you? She's like, I'm better now. I'm like, what do you mean better now? She's like, well, I had a hard week last week. I'm like, why didn't you had a hard week? Why don't you text me? She goes, I did text you. I'm like, no, you didn't. And instead of being like sympathetic, I got mad because, you know, to be of service to our friends is a gift and like, deny me the gift of being in service to my friend. And she goes, I did text you. And I pulled out my phone to prove that she didn't. And it said, how are you? What are you doing? Want to come over? I'm like, you mean these texts? The ones that sound like every other text you send me? How am I supposed to know that's a cry for help? And she had read this article that all somebody needs to feel not alone is eight minutes of time with a friend. And so we came up with a code which is, do you have eight minutes? And that basically means I need you. And anybody can step out of a meeting for eight minutes and you're not going to solve the problem. You're not going to be there for the hour, the hour and a half. But to make someone feel not alone for those eight minutes is everything. Somebody sent me a picture recently that they were so inspired by that story that they made hats for all their friends that say eight minutes on them.

[Christina Tosi]

Like, you're my eight minute. You're in the eight minute Club.

[Simon Sinek]

Like you're my eight minute friend. Isn't that amazing?

[Christina Tosi]

And by the way, the eight minutes can be literally making a compass cookie.

[Simon Sinek]

Can be literally making a compass cookie. Literally, it takes eight minutes. And so you and I have talked about this before, but you and I are and have been eight minute friends to each other and I am very.

[Christina Tosi]

Grateful for that through the years. The feeling is mutual. Best.

[Simon Sinek]

All right, let's just go eat. Can we just go eat everything now? I've been staring at these the whole time. There are sets that you actually made, but I want to eat them all.

[Christina Tosi]

Yugel bars, Gretas.

[Simon Sinek]

All right.

[Christina Tosi]

They're all gooey.

[Simon Sinek]

Why don't we cut and have the whole crew come eat? A Bit of Optimism is brought to you by the Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsey Garbinius, David Jha and Devin Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to SimonSinek.com until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.