We are at the tail end of the second season of TruTv’s Fast Foodies, and so far it’s been a blast — thanks to the onscreen chemistry between the three chefs tasked with re-creating and reimagining each celebrity guest’s favorite fast food dishes. Kristen Kish, Jeremy Ford, and Justin Sutherland are great in their roles and really make this show work. The Top Chef and Iron Chef alums have on-screen chemistry that is virtually unparalleled in the culinary tv space.
Part of what makes the trio so fun to watch — aside from their interactions with guests like Reggie Watts, Natasha Leggero, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Baron Davis — is the noticeable friendship and mutual respect between them, and that infectious chemistry was on full display when I sat down with the trio over Zoom to talk about the challenges of season two and get their takes on who is doing it right and wrong in the fast food space.
Dive into the discussion below, and be sure to catch new episodes of Fast Foodies every Thursday night on TruTv.
How has season two of Fast Foodies differed for you personally? What is new about this season?
Kristen: I think from my perspective the greatest thing is, obviously, it still has all of the charm and comedy of the original, hence why season one did so well, but I think from a chef’s perspective, we’ve gotten as collectively as a group of three, more involved cooking. We were given a little bit more time and that allows a bit more creativity to be showcased.
The first go-around we tried to do everything from start to finish and in season two we had pockets of time where we could do longer process items and really explain it on camera which helped to open up how we are able to cook. I think the food is going to be intensified.
Justin: You’re definitely going to see higher-level food from all three of us and I think the interactions between us have been more genuine. The first season we had all known each other but had not worked that intimately with one another. The getting to know you awkward phase was out of the way and I think the three of us have great chemistry and you’re going to notice that off the bat, our real-life friendship shows through.
Jeremy: I think with anything, the first go-around is always that you learn from what you can and can’t achieve within that time frame. It’s a long day of shooting but there is a lot to be done with breaks, lunches, everyone doing their own thing but I think overall we’ve gotten better at it, more efficient, like Kristin was saying we upped the level a little bit. I know this season I went to the farmer’s market a lot more and tried to utilize what was around Cali, so I think that I had a lot more fun.
I know you all have pretty extensive professional culinary backgrounds — what’s your individual relationship with fast food? Is it something you only ate when growing up? Do you still eat it a lot, or is it something you tend to avoid?
Kristen: I certainly grew up eating it, I grew up in Michigan and McDonald’s, Burger Kings, Arby’s, and Wendy’s were essentially on every other street corner, and we frequented them as a family sometimes. Oftentimes during road trips, like driving from Michigan to Disney World and you’d hit every KFC, that was one of my favorites. But the relationship is nostalgia-based for me, I don’t indulge in it every day now, however, let’s be honest, what’s the big difference between fried chicken from KFC, outside of the quality of course, or going to a restaurant and completely gorging myself on fried chicken and other fried items? So I still eat fast food, but probably just higher quality now because you know, the chef world is so vast!
Justin: My parents were health freaks growing up so I didn’t get a lot of fast food as a young child but from my older teenage to college years, being poor and needing to eat effectively, that was when I had the most fast food. It’s definitely nostalgia, I enjoy it now but I definitely don’t indulge as often. But I’m not going to lie and say I don’t lie my late-night Taco Bell runs every once in a while. I’ll take a Beef and Cheddar any day still.
Jeremy: For me, I’m the opposite of these two because I have three daughters and fast food is very much a current part of our diet. I have a four-year-old that literally won’t eat sometimes unless it’s chicken fingers from McDonalds. I’m trying to break that habit because it’s an awful one, but she is the pickiest eater and for us, we want her to be healthy because when you’re a kid it’s the only time you can be carefree over what your diet is.
So I’m stuck in the middle, do I take it from her and feed her something else when she gets hungry, or do I let her enjoy this little gap in life when you have no opinion of yourself?
You guys have cooked for a lot of foodies, a lot of celebrities, who would you love to cook for?
Kristen: That’s a big question there are so many amazing people both living and past that would be amazing to cook for. My go-to is always Mr. and Mrs. Obama, that would be epic. But honestly, because we are who we are and we’re chefs by profession, and this is just our life, honestly, and not to sound super cheesy, but just being able to cook for anyone that actually appreciates something, regardless of your celebrity status, is the main reason we do what we do.
So everyone and anyone… including Mr. and Mrs. Obama.
Justin: I would agree with Kristen, starting up when we first started getting accolades as a chef, I think there were people I thought I really wanted to cook for but now that I’ve cooked for a lot of people… I did get to cook for Obama when he was a senator on the campaign trail — I think nowadays we’ve cooked for so many people that I think it’s all truly about the appreciation, whether it’s Joe Schmoe off the street or some famous celebrity.
I just like cooking for people that enjoy it.
Jeremy: For me, I think there is a guy and gal named Mr. and Mrs. Rubenstine and they have dined at Stubborn Seed, I think we’re at 170 visits now, to me that’s a celebrity because that’s the guy and gal that help pay my rent, hep pay my staff, keep food on the table at my home. That guy and that gal and those individuals that continuously support the restaurant, those are my celebrities, those are the people I see and get giddy inside like “yes, 178!”
You mentioned earlier how a lot of fast food for you is steeped in nostalgia, and I imagine for a lot of people you cook for it’s the same. In your experience on the show so far, what fast food restaurant is the hardest to recreate, and which shows the biggest room for improvement? Sometimes our memories are the greatest spice, and something we think we love might actually taste terrible.
Kristen: The hardest one was the whole Schlotzkys thing because it’s fast food but it’s also not and there is a lot of technique that comes with recreating portions of that item… but yeah, some items are slightly more disappointing compared to others because you thought they were bigger and more robust as a child, but at the end of the day it’s the flavor profile and it’s what it does to transform you back to having that as a child.
Justin: I think as an overall brand, McDonald’s is probably the hardest to truly replicate because it’s been around for so long with the same flavors, it’s so simple, yet so unique. Nothing tastes like McDonald’s. They have their tried and true recipes and they’re crazy simple, but it’s extremely hard to replicate.
Jeremy: They’re all really difficult, to be honest. What they come up with in these labs and the places they come up with these recipes, it’s really hard to find the texture to some of these things, that’s what I find really hard. Kris has a really good way of mashing meat paste and it literally tastes like Taco Bell.
Kristen: Stop!
Jeremy: So it’s like those weird things, like ‘oh a potato masher actually emulsifies fatty oil back into the meat creating a paste,” and even if you’re a chef, that isn’t stuff you learn, those are textural things that are practiced like hundreds of hundreds of times between multiple people and you’re trying to figure it out in 45 minutes.
Justin, I wanted to ask what do you think McDonald’s secret is, is it a touch of sugar?
Justin: We definitely know its sugar, from the added sugar in the ketchup to the French fries to their own secret recipe of Coke that only McDonald’s gets. And it’s probably whatever mystery meat is in those patties. But it’s every element. The slice of cheese, the little onion, the pickles, the ketchup, everything is so uniquely Mcdonald’s. You couldn’t go pick up cheese, onions, pickles, beef, and even an identical bun, and make it taste like McDonald’s.s Whatever their lab-created ingredients are… and a lot of sugar.
Kristen: All of our copycats were certainly light years beyond better, even if we tried really hard to make it shitty.
Kristen could you walk us through your meat paste mashing magic?
Kristen: Oh fuck off!
That’s your brand now!
Kristen: It clearly is. It’s just one of those potato mashers, the ones that are better are the ones that are more like waffle patterns, not the ones that are coils, or one-piece metal. You just literally keep all the fat in there and just mash it and mash it and mash it. Similar to how you’d take a spatula at the beginning of making tacos at home, and you use the edge of the spatula to break up the chunks of meat. The potato masher does it for you and just completely obliterates the strands of protein and incorporates the fat back in.
What was this season’s biggest challenge for your personally?
Kristen: I think and I’m sure both Justin and Jeremy will agree, I think when we film these shows we’re very fortunate and incredibly lucky to be doing what we do for our jobs, for sure. That being said, we’re removed from our restaurants, we’re removed from our daily responsibility, and removed from our families and those that we love for weeks at a time.
It’s not about the food, the food is not hard, what makes it difficult is the mental state and for me personally it was a long run, it was cooking and cooking and cooking for lots of hours of the day and sometimes you hit a mental roadblock. While having the gratitude, you’re also allowed to have feelings and I think that was more difficult this time around given that the world was more opened up, whereas in the first season we were three people doing a really cool thing while no one else was doing anything.
Justin: When we filmed season one it was mid pandemic, our restaurants were closed, the world was shut down, so we came from sitting at home super excited. Not that we weren’t super excited this time around, but doing it while the world was moving around, while our restaurants were operating, while we had other responsibilities other than making the show made it a bit more distracting. Our minds had to be in multiple places at once. But you know, such is life, definitely not complaining. I love what I do and we’re lucky to be able to continue this show, but there was a difference.
Kristen: I think the three of us felt that way because we are three people that truly pour everything into what we’re doing, so when you pour 1000% into one thing or into 100 things you’re bound to have to hold your head on straight for a minute.
Jeremy: My thing is always missing my daughter. I’m super close with them so on week two or three I start turning Into a cry baby and start losing it randomly. I have a one-year-old, a four-year-old, and a fourteen-year-old and the fourteen-year-old needs me right now so when you’re gone for that long you feel bad, you miss them, they call you, and it’s hard.
For me it’s just missing my family, my restaurant I know is going to do great because I have great staff and they’re amazing, so I don’t really worry too much about the restaurant, it’s more the girlies.
Kristen: In a non-covid world I highly doubt we’d have this conversation because everyone would be able to fly their family in and have them on set and do all the fun stuff together. Circumstances with Covid were definitely the catalyst of a lot of challenges.
What fast food dishes do you legitimately admire? Doesn’t have to be something you eat all the time, but who in fast food is thriving right now?
Kristen: I think the changing of the guard of what fast food actually means and how people operate within the fast food world. Obviously, Danny Meyer and Shake Shack is a pioneer in a lot of different things. What he did to revolutionize what fast food could look like, not just from an employee standpoint, but the quality of food standpoint, while still delivering you quite literally fast food is huge, and the price point is relatively in line with other fast food in some respects.
What he and Shake Shack did in reinvigorating the fast food model is huge.
Justin: I’m always impressed with Arby’s ability to continually change and innovate and they’re always trying something new with different meats and different sandwiches and really trying to elevate their game compared to just burger and fry places.
Jeremy: I really like what Chipotle is doing, buying properly sourced proteins and they have a really good tofu thing, but I think from a health standpoint they buy great ingredients. It’s very quick service, it’s very delicious, I’ve never had a bad meal there and every time I go there are 22 people in front of me. I think Chipotle has definitely found a nice niche.
What’s your favorite fast food guilty pleasure? I’m talking the trashiest stuff, airport food, road trip indulgences, the stuff you don’t want people to know, but you’re going to tell us right now.
Kristen: Oh I will admit every garbage food that I ever eat. I’m not above any of it and I fully enjoy most of it. Every fast food chain you can possibly imagine well with the exception of the bad ones… less food wise more viewpoints and standpoints on the world… but I digress!
Jeremy: We don’t fuck with Chick-fil-A!
Kristen: No we do not, I love KFC!
Justin: That’s what I was going to say. I don’t feel like it’s a guilty pleasure or something I have to hide from, between Taco Bell and KFC I love them both. I don’t indulge in them every day, but you shouldn’t indulge in things you love every day. But the gravy from KFC, I will pour that on absolutely anything and will dip anything in it.
And I do have a secret or not-so-secret love for Taco Bell, I just try and only eat it under certain circumstances or uh… certain… conditions.
Jeremy: I’m driving a lot because we opened up a restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens and it’s two hours. So I’ve been loving those grab-and-go egg salad sandwiches from 7 Eleven.
Justin: Gross Jeremy, you are gross!
Jeremy: I know. I get a bag of Doritos with it and a really big Coca-Cola, that’s my jam right now.
Justin: That’s the worst!