The Celebrity Chef vs Your Abuela

“Ay, mijo, you scream at people who BURN TOAST. I raised six children, twelve grandchildren, and not ONE of them burns toast because I taught them RIGHT. You have restaurants in thirty countries and a temper in ALL of them. My kitchen would get shut down? Your MARRIAGE got shut down, and I heard she got the good recipes in the divorce. I cook with the Holy Spirit because GOD is my sous chef and His reviews are better than yours. Now sit down and eat before it gets cold. I don't care how many stars you have.”

“Oh, you want to talk about time? My tamales take six hours because LOVE takes time, something you wouldn't know because you speed through everything — food, marriages, your temper. You make a tasting menu in ninety minutes? It's called a TASTING menu because there's not enough food to actually EAT, mijo. You charge two hundred dollars for a piece of fish the size of my THUMB. My thumb feeds more people than your restaurant! You call my tamales 'sad Christmas presents'? My family FIGHTS over them at Christmas. Your family fights over you on TMZ. And my secret ingredient isn't MSG — it's that my grandchildren ACTUALLY LIKE spending time with me.”

“Mijo, let me tell you something and I want you to LISTEN because nobody else will say this to you. You are talented. You are. But you are ANGRY because cooking was supposed to make you HAPPY and instead it made you FAMOUS, and those are not the same thing. You trained in France? I trained in my mother's kitchen, and her mother's before that. My stained recipe card has more HISTORY than your entire cookbook section at the airport. You earn stars from strangers. I earn HUGS from my grandchildren. Your food is PERFECT. My food is LOVED. And if you don't know the difference, then for all your Michelin stars, you still don't understand the first thing about cooking. Now come here. Give Abuela a hug. You look like you need one more than a third star.”