How to change careers and reinvent yourself (w/ Dawn Burrell) (Transcript)

Please note the following transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.

Chris Duffy: You are listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today on the show, our guest is the incredibly accomplished Dawn Burrell. We're gonna be talking about something that I think about a lot and that I know that many of you probably wrestle with, which is how do you figure out what you're supposed to be doing, like if you switch careers or change fields?

What does that take? And Dawn is the perfect person to get into this with because you may know her as an Olympic long jumper or as one of the stars on the TV show. Top Chef. But Dawn's career path from the highest levels of athletics to the highest levels of culinary achievement, it has been a long road full of many ups and many downs.

In 1997, she won the long jump title at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. In 2000, she competed in the Olympics in Sydney, and in 2001 she won gold at the indoor world championships. But then she suffered an ACL injury to her knee, which changed the shape of her athletic career. So Dawn reinvented herself as a chef studying culinary arts at the Arts Institute of Houston, and working under acclaimed chefs in the US and London before becoming Executive Chef of Culture in Houston, where she was a semi-finalist for a James Beard Award in 2020.

That led to Dawn appearing on TV shows like Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen and making it to the final three on Top Chef Portland. In 2023, Dawn returned for Top Chef World All Stars, but was eliminated in the second episode. And here's Dawn talking about that experience.

Dawn Burrell: I thought it was a great show and I, and I enjoyed being in the arena again.

I thought maybe, oh, well this is it. This is gonna be the one. Like, I'm gonna really, truly like compete head-to-head and it's gonna be the epitome of culinary athleticism, is what I thought. You know? It was like, and then I just kinda, you know, went in there and I put myself out there. I didn't get on the bracket and I had to come home, and I had to deal with that and find the lesson.

Chris Duffy: Career successes, career setbacks, reinventing yourself, finding meaning through it all. That is the topic of today's interview with the inspiring, the thoughtful, and the incredibly determined Dawn Burrell.

Dawn Burrell: Hi, I'm Chef Dawn Burrell. I am an Olympian, a former professional athlete, and currently a chef.

Chris Duffy: For people who aren't as familiar with your career path or maybe who only know you from your work as a chef, can you talk to us about your time as an athlete and as an Olympian?

Dawn Burrell: So I decided to be an athlete because my brother. My brother was a successful sprinter, right? I followed him to University of Houston at the time when my brother and I were having this conversation. I think I was in ninth grade and he was a junior at University of Houston. He is a, a super successful, um, he led the nation in the hundred meter and um, I think it was the collegiate record holder.

All these good things, right? I. Was a ninth grader trying to figure him out. My, by everything, you know, being overshadowed by my brother, you know, I didn't have a sense of of self or an idea of what I love to do. I only knew that I was incredibly athletic, but I wanted to play basketball, you know, I was like, oh, I wanna do a different thing that my brother's doing, so I won't be compared, you know, my whole entire life.

Which happened, by the way. But we walked to the grocery store and. He was like, you know, Dawn, I know that you like basketball, but I really do think you'll be successful in track and field. It's like you have everything within you. And I was like, okay. Yeah. You know, so I become this track and field athlete just like my big brother, right?

And so I followed him to University of Houston and I followed him into a professional career. This is the time period that I actually needed a, an example, to be honest, because I need an example to follow, and sometimes you need one. And when you're young or immature or whatever, and, and it's always nice to link up, but that doesn't mean like that's your last goal, right?

So if you have an example to follow, you know, as far as whatever career or talent that, that you're aspiring to be, I think it's helpful. I. I do think it's helpful to see an example, but once you mature and you start to have more confidence and confidence in yourself, you decide to travel, you know, roads that are even less traveled, you know, I'm trying to discover new things within yourself that you, your mind has created for you to do.

Chris Duffy: We talked about you getting into, into running, but can you talk to us about getting into long jumping and how that started?

Dawn Burrell: When you decide to compete professionally, you can just kind of. Choose one event or two events or a group of events that that work well together. I went to work with a coach at Rice University and he wanted me to long jump only because he was primarily a long gym coach and I agreed.

Chris Duffy: And then you went to the Olympics, and I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but what about the Olympics was like what you expected and what was different than you expected beforehand?

Dawn Burrell: I've never been asked this before. I imagine that it could open up like a world of new experiences. Like, you know, I've never, I'd never been around so many people from so many different places, and so when I walked into the food hall, I just saw everyone from everywhere and I thought that was really cool.

You can go and talk to people and learn new things. All day long if you wanted to, just about things that you've never been exposed to. Right? And so I thought that was cool and that's, that was what I expected. What I didn't expect is to feel so small in a stadium that was so big and so huge, like it's so full of people.

And I'd never been on a stage that big before. I've, I competed at the World Championships. I competed like all over the world before then, but. I never walked into a stadium like that. It was amazing. It was an amazing feeling and it was also like kinda made me feel like a very small person with a very huge opportunity.

Chris Duffy: We're gonna talk more about that feeling of being small, amidst a big opportunity in just a moment. But first, we're gonna take a quick ad break.

And we are back. I feel like a lot of people who I know in my personal life, and I know people who listen to this show often think about. Switching careers, doing something completely different from what they do, and you have led this very public life of being at the top of two very challenging careers.

What do you actually do when you are thinking about moving from one field to another?

Dawn Burrell: I think that what. I do is I just decide, I just decide to do something. And I do love a challenge. I consider it natural and, and I wish that, um, more people would, would just decide because that's the truly what it I.

What it's about. You know, of course you have to have the talent to do so, and the skill, determination, all those things. But deciding to really believe in yourself, um, and move forward with what you're dreaming about or thinking about is, is the step. You know, you have to just do that first and foremost, and then, and then things will fall in line for you.

Chris Duffy: For a lot of people, and myself included, there's a real comfort to school, right? Mm-hmm. Because there is like a set framework, right? You have homework, you have tests. Doing well is. Getting an A. It's getting this number on a test, right? There's like success and failure are really clearly defined. You moved from university and you went into the world of professional athletics into the Olympics.

There's again, a really clear metric for what you're supposed to be doing for what it means to be successful, for what it means to not be successful.

Dawn Burrell: Yes.

Chris Duffy: And then. In the world outside of a athletics and in the world outside of school. I think a lot of people, and again, myself fully included, really struggle with the idea that there's no longer clear metrics.

That there's not like someone who is the adult in the room saying, well, if you get a 100, that means you are a good boy, right? And if you get a 50, it means you need to work harder. That doesn't exist as much in the real world. So how have you. Adjusted to that. How have you struggled with that?

Dawn Burrell: Initially, when I started out cooking, I would tell you that I needed a metric, right?

I needed a gauge, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna start competing.

I'm gonna compete in culinary, and that'll tell me if I'm any good or not. You know? Because I didn't know, especially as an athlete. For a long jumper like me, a tape measure doesn't lie. That's what you did. I was like, so I need something like that.

And so I think that the gauge is truly when you move people with food. Right? I think for me, my current gauge is like when people come and they, they gather from my experience or I do a catering or, you know, I, I'm doing this tasting event with a number of chefs. I think that when I get. The feedback of how the food was incredibly good to them and if they were moved by it and the wow as they look at that plate.

I think that I consider that a job well done. I think that's the most rewarding part for me, and also the metric that I need to know that I, when people come. And eat with me. They feel like a sense of warmth, a sense of love. They really open up, their face changes and their eyes widen and like it's just a really fulfilling thing for me.

And I'm even more fulfilled when what I do touches children like that or touches or teaches someone about food or food resources. You know? I mean, that's even more rewarding for me.

Chris Duffy: How did you transition from the tape measure to human connection? Because that's, those are really different ways of judging yourself,

Dawn Burrell: I guess, in educating myself about food and culture and understanding that food and gathering the understanding that food is a basic need for all human beings, and to know that everyone in every culture has their idea of what moves them.

Right, or what they love in their cuisines. I think that my transition came where I realized that. This is a need and this is food and people are trusting you to put these things in their body and they're appreciating it, like how it makes them feel on the inside. I think that was enough for me and the more I, I grow an appreciation of this, the less, all of the really fancy, really intricate things about like plating and all those things matter.

Because food is meant to be enjoyed and meant to be. It's not meant to be challenging intellectually, I don't think. You know, I think that you can show really cool things with food and you could do really interesting things that I. With slight manipulation, like make a Chiron outta fish skin and making all these things and people like, oh, I, you know, educating them about how you can utilize the whole thing, the whole animal.

I think those things are cool and I, it's my favorite thing to do, by the way, is, is that type of transformation, but having a plate of food that you have to stare at and understand, try to figure out and understand and wonder what it is. That's not really my jam.

Chris Duffy: You're preaching to the choir for sure. That's not me either.

Yeah. I like to understand what I'm eating and enjoy it. I don't wanna be, there's places where I like to be challenged. That's not one of them.

Dawn Burrell: But in the beginning, like I wanted to know how to do these things and I can still do some of them, but I realized that that's not food for everybody and I'm not saying that.

Everybody knows like what a rutabaga is, but they know that it's a root and it grows in the ground, and they could see it. You know what I'm saying? Oh, this is what it looks like, you know? But if it's manipulated into noodles, then how can they possibly know what a rutabaga is? I mean, no disrespect. I love gastronomy.

I love like. For myself, because sometimes I'm like, what else can we do with food? I just wanna know from my own, you know, knowledge. But because this is my field, but I don't want to serve people in that way. And I love to be a chef and I love to cook food and I love to, to bring people together. But the last one that I said is the most important thing to me.

The, the bringing people together, the communion of everything. Right? And so I love more than anything creating new experiences for people that I'm delving right now into, you know, a type of creativity that I haven't really seen before. And I'm doing it in a way that. That is satisfying to me and elevates not only me, but the artist or the maker or the chef that I'm doing the dinner with.

Chris Duffy: The dinner series is called Sound and Color, and can you give us like the two sentence pitch for what sound and color is?

Dawn Burrell: Sounding color is a culinary experience in collaborations with artisan makers. We come together and we create a unique experience, a dining experience for the guests.

Chris Duffy: I love that.

Dawn Burrell: I'm creating it still because it, you know, every time the experience is different, you know, depending on like who I'm doing the event with.

I no longer have this like. Vivid example to follow. I can pull bits and pieces from people who are still in the culinary field and then more things in the field of artistry and kind of come up with or find resources for the idea that has been planted within me.

Chris Duffy: So when we talked about you getting into.

Athletics and getting into track and field. Your brother was the mentor who really helped you guide the way and show you the path, correct?

Dawn Burrell: Yes.

Chris Duffy: Did you have a mentor or something similar when you were getting into cooking and into food?

Dawn Burrell: Yes. I had a chef, mark Holly here in the city, used to talk to me a lot and he taught me a lot.

Monica Pope is who I started out with here. And then I have conversations with a chef that I truly am admire who's here in the city and it's kind of quietly. Killing it. But he's not seeking like all the other things that like are clawing at. He's not in the, like, the competition of, to be like the chef.

You know? He is just doing his thing authentically and it is amazing. Uh, chef Ryan Para, he's also the husband of a really good friend of mine. She founded the. The nonprofit that I'm on the board of, it's called I'll Have What She's Having and we provide preventative healthcare maintenance for women in the industry and mental healthcare maintenance for men and women in the industry.

Chris Duffy: That's beautiful. What's your favorite thing to cook, and then what's your favorite thing to eat?

Dawn Burrell: I love braises and stews, you know, from all cultures. I think those are my favorite things to make from like the Vietnamese fish, caramel pork, you know, like you, you stew it down and the fish and the sugar and the herbs and the aromatics, right to the African peanut stew.

A very similar concept, different ingredients, right? They're all bras and they're, and they make you feel a certain way, I think, and that's what I like. And then I love a really good salad. I. You know, and so these are my favorite things to make, my favorite things to eat. Involve your hands. Like, I love to eat with my hands.

Mm. That's fufu, that's injera, that's tortilla. You know, anything that I can grab and eat. 'cause I feel like that's the food of the people. Right? It's so good.

Chris Duffy: It's really cool to hear the way that you draw connections between different cultures and ingredients and how they inspire your cooking. And so many of those foods that you just mentioned are my favorite foods too.

So. A lot of the way that people know you as a chef publicly is from being on these cooking competition shows, and then obviously competition was a big part of your life as an athlete. So it seems like that's a thread that runs through your life and your career. I'm curious, how do you think about competition as a virtue?

Dawn Burrell: I've never considered competition to be a virtue, but. I think that when I think of competition, I think of endurance. And when I think of endurance, I, I think of the strength to endure the thing, right? And the reason that I can say the con competition might be a virtue is because I know strength is. I think that I've always wanted to test my skills and test my resilience and test my strength and.

Not only test my courage, but enrich like beef up my courage. You know, you have to be courageous to do some of the things that, that I've done, you know, because I've been on the other side of this too. Like, failures can be damaging, you know? And a lot of people don't have the strength. To move through a thing or move toward a thing like competition, or they can't even picture themselves putting themselves out there.

They may be the best cook, the best chef that I've ever seen, but they just don't have the thing it takes to do that. Right. I've had many chefs tell me that they don't think that they do. They're lacking. The strength and the courage, or they don't see the strength and the courage within themselves, or they are damaged by what they consider to be failure.

I'm also living that right now because like, you know, I am learning how to process failure differently and I do get hurt. When I don't win, because I'm a competitor. I've been a competitor all my life, and I'm like, I've worked really hard for this. What does it mean if I didn't win? You know? Mm-hmm. It's like, what does it mean?

Am I, do I suck? You know? It's like, you know, I had to learn that. It doesn't mean that I've learned to appreciate my failures, you know, to grow me to the next step. You know, because you learn so much more when you make these mistakes and you don't win, or you don't accomplish the goal that you set out to do.

You are learning what it might take and what you didn't do, what you did do, that was very wrong. And so if you have the courage and the strength to take these lessons to the next endeavor or to the next thing, then that's where the growth happens, right?

Chris Duffy: One of the questions that people. Always ask or almost always ask about, you know, me doing professional comedy is, oh man, what happens when you bomb?

What happens when someone heckles you? And people are very. Attached to hearing the stories about like when it goes badly, which is absolutely a big part of the job. Right? But I think it's because they think like, oh, that must be horrible. And I'm, that is actually the job is like you get to have the fun, good parts because you do the parts where it goes badly and people don't like it.

And if you're not getting those, it means that you're actually not trying hard enough. You're not like trying new things, you're not experimenting. You kind of can't avoid that to actually be good. And I imagine it's the same thing in what you do.

Dawn Burrell: Yeah, of course, of course it is. Uh, like I just, I filmed Tournament of Champions last November or December something.

Chris Duffy: This is Top Chef Tournament of Champions.

Dawn Burrell: It's Tournament of Champions with Guy Fieri. It's on Food Network and it's done in a true tournament style. So it has brackets and you know, head to head competition, like seated competition and all of that stuff, you know, and I appeared on the episode that we had to, we were competing to be on the bracket, you know, so it was the qualifying round, so to speak.

And here I am. Competing to be on the qualifiers. And I have some people that compete on Top Chef just like me, who don't need to compete to be on the qualifiers, right? They're competing, they already on the bracket, they've bypassed it and they're on the bracket, or they competed last year so that the re, they did well and now they're on the bracket.

So I had to compete to get on and I lost. And I was devastated for a couple of days and for many reasons, right? But what I learned from that is, you know, the Food network thought my stories are impactful, you know, and they love my interview, said that was the part that I learned the most from what people wanna hear.

'cause I don't know, like I, I don't know what part of my story. People wanna know and are entertained by, right? Or not even entertained, but intrigued by. I learned that telling more and more of it is what it's about for me. It's not necessarily about the win. So maybe I was supposed to lose, you know, because I've gained this knowledge for myself, you know, and this is why I'm able to tell a story to you like this right now.

Chris Duffy: Hmm. So often. You can't know what was, I'm putting it in quotes. Right, right. Mm-hmm. Or wrong until way afterwards in the moment. Exactly. It's really hard to judge, right? Like, it seems like it's a great opportunity. I mean, there's so many like fables and religious parables about this, where it's like, it seems like a blessing.

It's actually a curse. It seems like a curse. It's actually a blessing, right? You, you never quite know until afterwards.

Dawn Burrell: All of that. Yeah. You never, never know. And I had to find what was good about that experience. And I, and when I reflect, I truly have a lot of good stories to tell and a lot of nuggets that I can take for the next time if they allow me to compete again.

Chris Duffy: We are gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back with more from Dawn

and we are back. You had won some really, really big awards, right? You won the 2001 World Indoor title in the long jump and. I think that then going to the Olympics and realizing like, oh, there are other people who are also really good at this. I can imagine. Mm-hmm. That after. Having the experience of being like I'm the, by far the best, to then be surrounded by people who are all the best in their retrospective places.

In some ways, that could be a little like destabilizing to think like, but wait, I'm supposed to be the best. How am I surrounded by this many bests?

Dawn Burrell: So the beauty of being an American, a athlete is that. The most difficult thing to do is to compete at our Olympic trials, our national trials, or our national championships, because we are our best competitors.

Right? At that time, we were leading the sprints, the jumps that, you know, and so it was very difficult to, for us to get on our team. So once you do that. Because the pressure's on the Olympic Games, the pressure's on the national championship. So once you do that, like the pressure's a little bit off, you know, at the world championships because now it's like, okay, I could just bring everything out, abandon all fear of not possibly making the team okay?

Mm-hmm. And so the thing. That is the MO most interesting that you might know, is that we compete against the same people all season. So we see these people internationally. We see these athletes internationally, so we know exactly what we're working with. It's not a new experience every time. It's like, okay.

I remember, you know, that she does this and she can do this. You have your competitors, but you also have to compete against yourself to bring the best out of yourself. 'cause it's not as challenging as you would think because you know exactly who you're working up against. And you also are there, you know, you've made it to, to the spotlight, which is the mo, which was the most challenging part.

Chris Duffy: It's interesting too. Have a moment where you can like redefine what success necessarily means, because obviously like getting to the Olympics is the success. Mm-hmm. Like that is the success. But then there's also this question of like, are you gonna be the number one? And it's like, that actually doesn't matter, right?

Like, like you have to design for yourself. What is success?

Dawn Burrell: What you're talking about is a very internal thing for an athlete, I think because it requires your mental strength. To pull out your best performance and your measurement of success is have I done that? Have I pulled out my best performance?

And it is, you know, and it is a physical measurement, like it is a, you know, something that you can read and identify. We talked about this earlier. You know, there's a metric to it. Like you ran 9.94 here when you are capable of running 9.88 and you've done that this season. What about this performance was lacking?

It's more about like your actual performance and what you did, what you're able to pull out of yourself. When you are looking to your left and you're looking to your right and you have the best competitor, I. In the world, like you're number one, they're number two and three like it, that can change up all season long, right?

It's about who's mentally strong in that moment when the gun goes off, right? And who can pull out their best performance in that moment.

Chris Duffy: So you, you have that mental strength, you have that ability, and you also have this real precision of like, this is how far I can jump. This is the line I know I can do.

Right. And you spent all these years of, you know, having a bunch of events and then whittling it down and whittling it down until you have your very clear specialty. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then you decide, okay, I'm gonna switch and I'm gonna be a chef. Talk to me about the work that it took to then. Start doing that whittling again from a place where it's actually quite open.

Like you could be any kind of chef that you want. You could cook any kind of food, you could do anything. It doesn't have to be a chef. How do you then reapply that to a new field, this new arena, where you're trying to then figure out what your thing is? Again,

Dawn Burrell: when you are challenging yourself and you're entering a new, a new thing, and you are on this stage, like you have to believe that you can even do better than before, by the way.

You have to believe in what is in you that has not yet been seen. I think that is the key to have so much courage to pull out and so much focus to, to pull out what you have not seen in yourself yet is the key. And so when you enter into these new fields, and I. I've tried to challenge myself way before I could do the things that I can do now, culinarily, for example, because I felt like one day I'd be able to do it.

I believe in myself enough to know that I may not have the skills right now, but I am getting myself ready for the time period that when I get my chance, you know? And so I just believe that I can do it and not do the work that will bring it to life and bring it to fruition.

Chris Duffy: It feels like as I'm kind of prodding at or pushing at questions of like competition or mm-hmm.

Success. We keep coming back to really like questions of purpose and then also this idea that like you're not fixed and that you can actually grow and get better and improve. And you have, you kind of combine those two ideas of like, I'm gonna have a really clear purpose and then I'm gonna do the work that it takes to.

Get towards that purpose and that that's really what is Yes. Driving these changes.

Dawn Burrell: That's exactly it. I think I'm still learning that, like what is my purpose? My purpose is, I think my purpose is helping people grow, bringing people together, telling this story. I'm living these things so I can tell this story so that people can.

So people can recognize that they can do these things too, and that it life is not going to be perfect. You are going to fail, and it is okay. You're not always gonna feel great, but you do it anyway. You do it anyway, and you just keep doing it. And as long as you keep going, you'll be able to achieve and accomplish.

All that you set out to do or all that you're intended to do, because sometimes when you set out to do something, it might not be the best thing for you. You know, it might be that you want to be this like, oh, I want to be this Michelin star chef. Well, maybe the intention is for you to create a whole bunch of Michelin star chefs, and as long as you grab hold of what I call it, my heart song.

You grab hold of that thing that you love so dearly and you just take everything, everything as a lesson. Everything as fuel, as fuel and guidance towards your purpose instead of feeling bad because it didn't go your way.

Chris Duffy: When I was younger, it felt like all of this stuff was tied up just in career.

Mm-hmm. Like it was like, okay, if I can have this career success, that's the whole thing. And then. As I've gotten older, I have family that I care about, that I want to take care of. I have relationships that I care about, that I want to take care of, and sometimes it has felt like, well, that's separate from like success or from my goals.

But then when I, I zoom out, it's really like, well, how do you build a life that you're, that feels like a success and sometimes the job and the career successes are, are. Separate from that, they're not actually as entwined as they were when I was younger.

Dawn Burrell: All of these things are intertwined right now. You know, for me, right before Top Chef, my mother suffered a stroke and like she was my why, you know?

And I was like, I need to get home. I'm gonna set myself up better so that I can help with this family situation and. And then I pull my niece and nephews into it and I try to pour into them and am I being a successful member of this family by bringing them into whatever it is that I'm doing, you know, to see if they wanna be a part of it and helping them grow.

And then, you know, to right now where. I'm having to shift how I'm doing work a little bit because my parents are getting older and I have to contribute directly to their household, you know, so that I can make sure that they're functioning and that they're safe. All of these things, or me attribute to success, success if I'm able to balance all of this and endure all of this and still do my work, I feel like it's a job well done in this life, you know?

And so it's not always about. It's not always about the fame and its success and the, and the awards, you know, and your professional career. It's how you balance it all and how you tell your story so that, you know, people know that they're not alone. People have family situations that, that are challenging, but they're still able to do what they love with the right perspective.

Chris Duffy: I mean, to me, I'm so much more impressed by those people. By people like you where you're like, Hey, I take care of people who I love. I'm taking care of my family, I'm taking care of my parents, and I'm holding myself to these standards of not like perfection, but what are my goals? What do I believe I can work towards?

Like having a vision while still taking care of people around you. 'cause it's also, it's really easy to be extremely successful and a terrible human being, right? Like that's actually easier. So I think that, I think when you think of the, the whole picture, that's that just to me, much more impressive.

Dawn Burrell: Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying, and you know, it gets harder because you know the people that you're caring for, they're getting older, so they need more so that the need increases, but. You know, as long as I am willing to pivot slightly or shift how I wanna do things so that I can be available, I think I'm doing a good job, you know, and I have been able to do that, you know, consistently for the last few years.

I still feel fulfilled in, in my career and in everything that I'm doing.

Chris Duffy: Well, related to that, what's your relationship to perfection now? Now with your athletic background and your work ethic and competitive spirit, like how do you think about your relationship to perfection now?

Dawn Burrell: I've never been married to perfection.

I don't even like perfection. I don't think that it exists. But I do love excellence. I. My goal is always aspiring to be excellent, but I do think there's value in imperfection because that's where we, that's what makes us all who we are, those parts, you know? And so I'm not married to perfection. I don't like it.

Chris Duffy: I love that answer. Not a lot of chefs. Get an opportunity to like watch themselves back. It's very rare that they have like footage of themselves. But you were on Top Chef, you've done a lot of televised cooking. Is there anything that you learned about yourself and your cooking from having this ability to watch yourself back afterwards?

Dawn Burrell: Mm, I really. I like to watch how I'm growing my internal battle is that I always feel like I suck. You know, I'm just going to be honest.

Chris Duffy: Relatable, to me, very relatable.

Dawn Burrell: And so to see moments when I didn't suck and I was like, oh my gosh, like look at me. And so it gives me the strength and the confidence to keep going.

This is how, that's my method of going and growing. But I also see myself in that moment when I didn't have it, and to see myself thrive. I'm like, what girl? Like what were you thinking? Like you, you did it and you did very well, and to hear the, like the nation or those that are your fan base. Echo it. Is it like even more rewarding, gratifying, and so I enjoy watching myself in a moment when I was scared to death from the outside after it's always been already been filmed, and seeing myself thrive in a way that I didn't imagine

Chris Duffy: In the kitchen you have to make a lot of decisions really quickly. How do you gain and maintain confidence and trust in making rapid fire decisions, even as things are happening that are unpredictable or that maybe aren't going as smoothly as you, you would've hoped ahead of time?

Dawn Burrell: Mm-hmm. My strength lies in that my, my athletic background taught me to be good under pressure.

And so these decisions, uh, or quick pivots are easy. For me, because I'm always thinking about like wanting this performance could make this better. Like what can I do right now to make this better? Just as when I was long jumping and I was approaching the board. And I would have to adjust a little bit because I was like, oh, the wind is behind me.

Let me slow down a little bit. The wind is in front of me. I need to push a little bit harder. So it made it easy for me to transition at, you know, because I've always made these like acute decisions that can fix a problem, and that is a real part of what being a chef is about.

Chris Duffy: When you're starting a, a new recipe, when you're coming up with a new dish, where do you like to begin?

What does the creative process look like for you?

Dawn Burrell: Most times I begin with an ingredient and I figure out what I would like to do to make this ingredient shine. Or a culture. Like what? What are ingredients that are. Heavily used in this culture and how can I bring them together in a way that reflects me and the culture in its best light?

You know? And so those are the two things that I think I'm led by when I'm creating something. And the season, of course, the season, the ingredient, the culture. If we're talking about vegetables, you know,

Chris Duffy: maybe you could share in kind of like a a, a live reading of one of your recipes that you have on your website, if that's, if you're open to that.

Dawn Burrell: Yeah. Did y'all pull one?

Chris Duffy: It's the kabocha squash and aged cheddar strata.

Dawn Burrell: It's a, so this is a recipe that I came up with for Thanksgiving. It's a kabocha squash with aged cheddar strata. Here are the ingredients: six eggs, two cups of milk, one cup of heavy cream, seven cups of stale crusty bread like a baguette.

Two cups of aged white cheddar, two and a half cups of kabocha squash, thinly sliced because it's a very rigid squash. One cup of red onion thinly slice, two cloves of garlic, grated; five sage leaves chiffonade. Three breaks of fresh thyme. Picked a quarter cup of white wine, one teaspoon of chili flake, one tablespoon of honey, one tablespoon of salt, plus more.

If needed, and a pinch of black pepper, you'll preheat the oven to 400 degrees melt butter in a medium sauce pan and set aside. In a large bowl, you toss together the red onions, the sliced kobocha, squash, sage, thyme, and the grated garlic. Then you'll add the melted butter with the honey and the olive oil and white wine sauce and the chili flakes, and toss the coat.

So after you toss them together, you'll spread them on a sheet tray. Then you will, after you spread them on the sheet tray, you'll roast them in the 400 degree oven for about 20, 30 minutes until they're caramelized. Remove them from the oven and you'll set them aside to cool because you, you don't want them to curl the egg mixture and then you'll reduce the oven temperature to three 50 for the strata itself.

Meanwhile, you'll place the a torn bread. And in a large mixing bowl. And then in another bowl, you'll combine the eggs, milk, and heavy cream and salt and pepper. You'll then add the bread to the egg mixture, and you'll put three quarters of the cheese and also the roasted squash mix. Into the bowl with the egg and bread mix.

You'll mix that all together and then you'll put place that mixture in a casserole when you'll put the remaining cheese on top of it. Oh, you'll soak it for an hour and then you will bake it in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Covered with foil, you'll remove the foil and return the casserole to the oven for an additional 20, 30 minutes until it's golden on the top.

Take it outta the oven and you'll serve it while hot, or you can allow it to cool completely and cut it into portions. Before serving.

Chris Duffy: People can find that recipe, all of it written out, and a beautiful photo on your website, chef don braille.com/recipes. So Chef Dawn Burrell, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, and I really appreciate you making the time and sharing your wisdom and your expertise with us here today.

Dawn Burrell: Yes, thank you for having me.

Chris Duffy: That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, chef Dawn Burrell. You can find her on social media at Chef Dawn Burrell. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects@chrisduffycomedy.com. How To Be a Better Human is stewed together by a team of culinary professionals.

On the TED side, we've got the cultural taste buds Daniella Balarezo, Banban Cheng, Cloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bojanini, Tansica Sunkamaneevongse, Lanie Lott, Antonia Le, and Joseph DeBrine. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson. And Matheus Salles, who never wanna leave a false taste. In your mouth.

On the PRX site, they are all gold medal athletes and currently executing a flawless long jump. Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez, thanks again to you for listening. You make our career journeys possible. Without you, we would be unemployed and just talking into a computer alone. Please share this episode with a person in your life who you think would enjoy it.

 We will be back next week with even more How to be a Better Human. Until then, thanks for listening and take care.