"Top Chef" Judge Gail Simmons On The 17th Season Of The Hit Bravo Show

Bravo's "Top Chef" Season 17 - All Stars LA features the fiercest group of competitors the show has seen with 15 finalists, front runners and fan favorites from seasons past who have all returned to finish what they started and battle it out for the coveted title. The Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series returns with host Padma Lakshmi, head judge Tom Colicchio and judge Gail Simmons.

Video Transcript

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BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to "Build at Home." I'm your host, Brittany Jones-Cooper, coming to you from my home in New York City. Today I'm really excited to be chatting with Chef and TV host Gail Simmons. But first, I want to remind you guys about the campaign, No Kid Hungry. Due to school cancellations, 472 million school meals have been missed. And there's a lot of kids in communities in need right now. So if you're looking for a way to help out, go to nokidhungry.org for more information. And now I want to welcome Gail. Gail, hey, how are you? Where are you?

GAIL SIMMONS: I'm great. I'm at home, as we all should be, Brittany. Great to see you.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: You too, so where's home home you?

GAIL SIMMONS: Home is in Brooklyn, sorry, yes, of course.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Oh, Brooklyn.

GAIL SIMMONS: Home is in Brooklyn, New York. Yep

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So how long have you been sort of social distancing? And who are you with? And what's your sort of general vibe?

GAIL SIMMONS: Yeah, the vibe is uncertainty. But I would say it's been, I'm going into week four. Our first day of social distancing really officially I guess was on Friday, March 13. So you know, we're almost a month in at this point, which is amazing. The days are blurring together. But we're doing fine. I'm at home in Brooklyn with my family, my husband and our two little children.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So how old are your kids? And what do you sort of doing to keep them engaged? Because I know that's been really difficult for a lot of people.

GAIL SIMMONS: Yes. My children are, I have a daughter who's in first grade. Her name's Dalia. She's six. And I have a son who's 22 months, and his name is Cole. Yeah, a little babe.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Little guy.

GAIL SIMMONS: He is just delicious. And I will say, as challenging as it is to have two children at home with these two different ages that have very different needs, they also have brought us a lot of joy and distraction ourselves. Our little guy is perfectly oblivious and happy just to have everyone home at all hours. We're doing a lot of snuggling with him.

And his big sister is just being awesome, getting time to teach him to do things. And she's been such a great helper. She helps bathe him, she helps feed, she loves to help him color. And that's been really quality time that ironically, we wouldn't have done otherwise in so many different ways, when she's at school and we're both working full-time.

What are we doing to distract them? Everything and anything. Every day goes by very quickly in some ways. It's, what's that saying? That the days are long, but the months are short. We are doing a lot of coloring, a lot of art projects, a lot of cooking and baking projects with my older daughter, of course. Cole is a little young, but he loves doing simple things, like stirring.

He's gotten really attached to our salad spinner. So we put lots of greens in the salad spinner and he sits there pumping it and drying the lettuce for us. We've been doing things like the "Mo Willems Doodle Hour." We've been doing my daughter's ballet class on Zoom. Her gym class from Girl Scouts meeting. And then, of course, homeschooling.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah.

GAIL SIMMONS: And we are trying to get outside every day. We have some beautiful garden space at our house. We feel very, very lucky to have it. And so we get out there every day. My daughter has become an expert rope jumper. Jump roper. And my son, we got him a scooter the day before we really went into shutdown mode. And this little shrimplet of a guy has just mastered the scooter up and down our garden paths. So that's been really great.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: That's amazing. That was great timing on that purchase though, mom, with the scooter.

GAIL SIMMONS: Yeah. Well, it was purposeful. We thought now that we think we're going to be home for a bit, we need to get him a physical activity, because he can't.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Absolutely.

GAIL SIMMONS: Do as much as bigger kids.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah. Seems like you guys are staying busy. That is very different than my social distancing, which has been a lot of my sitting still and watching things.

GAIL SIMMONS: Right.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: You have a busy home.

GAIL SIMMONS: I can't say I'm not envious in many ways. I think parents, especially parents of small children like us, are feeling the grind. It's a different kind of busy, I have to say. And I'm not complaining, because we are healthy and we are well and we are together, but it is a marathon every day. I feel like from the second I get up until 9:00, 10:00 o'clock at night, for my husband and I with two small children, we do not sit down. I barely have time to eat. I might be like the only person losing weight in this quarantine, because I don't have time to eat meals, because I'm spending all my time cooking meals for my family.

And I just feel like if we're not cooking or cleaning or doing laundry or home schooling or changing a diaper or making sure we have groceries or getting outside, we're just sort of flat out by the end of the day. I am, in a weird way, envious of my friends who have older children or who don't have children, because they get some peace and quiet. And I could really use even an hour of that right now. But, as long as we're all in our own lives keeping healthy and well, I don't really care how I get through this.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Well, I just wanted to take this moment to give a shout out to all the moms and dads out there, because I have a lot of friends with little babies, and I just know the struggle is real. But you guys are doing it, and that's awesome.

GAIL SIMMONS: It's also incredibly warming, heart warming to get this time with my children, and I really try to not take that for granted, because I think it's something that we all have taken for granted, is being close to the ones we love, whether they're our children or parents, our cousins, our best friends. What I would do to sit across the table from my best girlfriend and have a cocktail right now. But instead, we're doing it on Zoom, and that's OK too.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And that brings up in New York, the restaurant culture is just a part of the culture here. So you mentioned going out and having a drink. So many of us miss going out and having a meal and sharing that community, and we know that the restaurant industry is just really taking a hit with all of this. So what has been your read on this? Your friends, how are they doing? And what can people do to sort of help support that community?

GAIL SIMMONS: You know, they're not doing great, I will say honestly. You don't realize it until you're in it. I don't think any of us truly understood the gravity and the breadth of the situation until it hit us like a ton of bricks. The restaurant and event and bar industry is built on gathering, is built on bringing people together, and that's the opposite of what we all need to do right now.

And while we all understand that, it means that literally millions of people in this country are not just out of work, but there there's a very good chance that most of these establishments will not be able to get up and running again after this closing. People think that restaurants work in a way that they don't. And I think it's been very eye-opening for the public to come to understand the operations of restaurants.

That the margins of restaurants are so narrow when you factor in rent and cost of food and cost of staffing and all of the factors that go into running a restaurant day to day. Restaurants live hand to mouth for themselves, so that they can feed others. And right now, restaurants, bars are just one of the many industries, but certainly one of the biggest industries that's hit so hard.

And the reason also, is that unlike other big industries, like the cruise ship industry or the airline industry, that's also taking a beating, those industries are unified. There are unions and giant corporations that run the biggest of them. Restaurants are mainly small businesses independently owned. So there is not an overarching corporation or union that is advocating for them. So very, very quickly, the restaurant industry has had to mobilize together across the country at a million different levels. And that's been an incredible challenge.

Thank goodness the restaurant industry is becoming part of this bailout stimulus package, the CARES Act, and that's great. But it is not enough. It will take months, if not years, to get these restaurants back up and running, to give people back their jobs, to get us all out and eating again. And so there needs to be more. And at the moment, there are so many people in the restaurant industry who are struggling to get food on their tables and to keep their families and their businesses alive.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: I know. It's so scary, honestly. I have a lot of friends who serve in the city, and it's just checking in with them, making sure that they're good. I know a lot of different restaurants have GoFundMe for the waitstaff.

GAIL SIMMONS: Yes.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And I think all of us just, if we have a favorite restaurant, just making sure that we're checking in and trying to support it.

GAIL SIMMONS: That's right. And it's not just the waitstaff, it is all staff. It is everyone from the manager to the dishwasher to the cooks and pastry cooks. Every aspect of the restaurant industry. And not just the people in the restaurants, but the people who work adjacent to them. Think about all the farmers that no longer have people buying their food to cook in these restaurants. Think about the people who do everything from doing the dry cleaning of their linens to delivering the flowers.

All of that money is gone. All of those accounts are gone. The people who program the music. The people who supply and are related to and adjacent to every aspect of this industry, myself included. Most of the things I do during the year when I'm not shooting "Top Chef," is related to chefs as well in restaurants, festivals, events to promote and champion them. And that's all gone right now too.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: These are really, really uncertain times, especially for the industry. I just always send my hopes and prayers out to everybody.

GAIL SIMMONS: Thank you.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Just hoping that they're good, hoping that their families are good and that everything is good.

GAIL SIMMONS: Well, there is hope, thank you, there must be hope, and people are asking me everyday what they can do. I think that as a civilian, as a consumer, as a lover of restaurants, the best way to help is either to give to your local restaurant's GoFundMe, buy a gift certificate from them for future use, or get takeout from them if they are providing contactless safe takeout options for you, or delivery service. And that keeps them running as well.

Also, there are bigger relief funds, like the James Beard Relief Fund or Roar New York, for example, which is a local fund that is helping support and advocate for the New York restaurant industry specifically. Or the national independent the National Independent Restaurant Coalition that is trying to galvanize restaurants at a national level to lobby in Congress to make sure we get what we need.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So important.

GAIL SIMMONS: So lots of ways to lend your voice, lend your dollar, $5 count. If you would usually spend $20 on takeout a week, $50 on takeout, and if you still have that money, which I know a lot people don't, but even that amount can go towards making sure that someone else is fed and has some sort of an income during this time.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Absolutely, that's so important, and thank you for sharing all of those organizations, because people just need to be armed with information, so I really appreciate that.

GAIL SIMMONS: It's overwhelming.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah. You mentioned "Top Chef, and we are in the throes of this season.

GAIL SIMMONS: Thank goodness! One thing to look forward to.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So we know, that's like clockwork, going to be there for us every week. How you've been on this show for multiple seasons, but how is this season different or what is the vibe for this season?

GAIL SIMMONS: The vibe for this season, I have to say, couldn't come at a better time. It's incredibly uplifting. This is our 17th season.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah.

GAIL SIMMONS: And it is an all-star season that we shot in LA in the early fall. And so it is 15 of the best chefs across all 17 seasons. Every chef on this season is either a runner-up, so they were in the top five of their season, or they were one of our fan favorites. So these are all extraordinary chefs who are coming back, having already opened their own restaurants. Some of them manage restaurant empires at this point. They have their own shows and cookbook products and restaurant businesses.

And they are coming back to compete for an even greater prize. The prize this year is doubled to a quarter million dollars. And the stakes are high, we're in Los Angeles in the sunshine. And really what this show is about, what the show has always been about, and we maintain it even more right now, is about championing and cheerleading for the chef industry, and giving viewers an inside look at the brilliance and the hard work of the chefs who are on our show.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And these challenges are insane. Do you ever look at the challenges.

GAIL SIMMONS: They're hard.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah, do you ever look at a challengers and you're like, I couldn't do that? Or that would be really challenging for me?

GAIL SIMMONS: Every challenge. Brittany, every challenge. I am not a chef, I want make that clear. I used to be a cook. I worked in restaurants for a long time. But the word chef signifies the leader of a kitchen. And I am not that, nor have I ever been that. I am a critic, I am an expert. I have spent 21 years in the food industry, but I am not a chef who's cooking in a big restaurant every night.

So the stuff they do, I mean, at the most basic level, I could never claim to do. I think I could get in there and give it a good try more than maybe the average person. But time and again, when they put that food on our table at the end of every challenge, I am in awe of what they've accomplished.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Wow. So we have all the authors coming back. You mentioned these are all very successful people. They don't necessarily need this opportunity, but they're all back fighting for it. So what is it that brings them back to this show?

GAIL SIMMONS: I mean, need, I guess, is a subjective word.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah.

GAIL SIMMONS: A lot of them have a need for redemption, a need to see if they could give it one last chance, because they know that the way they were eliminated was just shy of winning. They came really close. They could almost taste it, and they just want to come back and prove themselves. I also think that it is an amazing opportunity. The way that we have promoted and shown the world the incredible skill of our chefs. They have all gone on to do amazing things.

So it's also a lot of money and a lot of publicity, which every restaurant needs, no matter how big you are as a chef. Everyone wants their restaurants full when they can be. And so I think there's a lot of just wanting to be part of that family again, wanting to challenge themselves, prove to themselves, more than anyone else, that they can do it. And to get their shot at the title that was denied them the first time around.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Oh, and it is so good to watch. It is so much fun.

GAIL SIMMONS: It's a lot of fun. I have to say, we had an amazing season. Los Angeles was so great to shoot in. We had some of the best chefs from LA and around the country join us as guests. Some great celebrities come and eat with us. And then for our finale, we were able to take the chefs to Italy. Obviously, long before Italy was suffering the way it is now. Back in November, we spent two extraordinary weeks traveling northern Tuscany with our chefs in Emilia-Romagna. We ate the best food. We showed them the most beautiful country. And I think it really was the most special finale we've ever made.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Wow. That's so beautiful that's it's in Italy. I mean, I know it's a really tough time, but I think it's also a time to remind people about the international community and how connected we are.

GAIL SIMMONS: Yes, absolutely.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So I really look forward to that episode.

GAIL SIMMONS: Thank you.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And before we go, there's a kind of a thing that's buzzing all over the internet, this drink.

GAIL SIMMONS: Yes. I brought you one. I wish I could share it with you.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Me too.

GAIL SIMMONS: I thought you'd find it really fun. It's a Dalgona coffee. It is, it has sort of been sweeping the world on social media during the shutdown and during this time. It's a great distraction, and a really fun thing to make. I found out about it through the "LA Times." One of their writers posted about it, and I just had to give it a shot.

It's an originally Korean invention, a Korean coffee that everyone is making at home while they have time on their hands and need an art project. It's incredibly satisfying to make. And it takes no time, and almost everyone will have the ingredients in their kitchen. You start with instant coffee, which I would otherwise, I have to admit, never drink. I'm very particular about my coffee in the morning. But you can't make it without instant coffee. So if you've got it, here's a great reason to use it.

All you do is mix two tablespoons of instant coffee, two tablespoons of hot water and two tablespoons of sugar in a bowl. And then, using an electric mixer or beater with a whisk attachment, you whisk it until it becomes this beautiful frothy mousse. And then pour it over the cold milk of your choice on ice. And I just have to say, it's been really fun. I posted about it, and I, because we made one, my husband's a coffee obsessive and wanted to give it a try. And since I posted about it online, I don't think I've ever received such response.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Wow.

GAIL SIMMONS: And engagement about some food. And I'm not saying it's the most delicious thing. It's a little sweet. It's sort of funky. But it's just so fun and satisfying.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: First of all, it looks cool. I mean, it looks like ice cream sort of or like.

GAIL SIMMONS: I've been, yes, it does look like ice cream, and it's, I've been comparing it to like the slime for adults. You know how every kid under 12 is obsessed with slime and making slime in their home? And it's not because slime is excellent. Every parent wants to kill a kid when they're making slime. But every kid is addicted to it, because it feels cool to squish, and it looks awesome and it smells good. Well, this is the slime of the grown up world, and I'm sticking to it.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: I have to say, I've been just drinking my plain coffee every day, and this looks like a nice way to sort of shake up my routine, so.

GAIL SIMMONS: It's a little bit of joy, and a little joy goes a long way right now, Britney.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, we all need a little joy.

GAIL SIMMONS: I say just, yeah, I say just succumb to it. You won't be disappointed.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Well, Gail, it was joyful speaking with you today. So much fun. I am going to make one of those drinks. And I am going to keep watching "Top Chef."

GAIL SIMMONS: Go on my IG, Gail Simmons Eats. You'll see my post about it. And I think you can link to the recipe.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: OK, cool. I'm going to try it out. In the meantime, everybody, "Top Chef" airs Thursdays at 10:00, 9:00 Central on Bravo. Gail , hold it down in Brooklyn with those little kids. You're doing an amazing job.

GAIL SIMMONS: You too, thank you.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Stay inside. See you next time.

GAIL SIMMONS: May the force be with you. I am, I'm thinking of you all. Stay well over there.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Bye.

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