Hey friends, this is the HardCourse Health Health Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Duff.

Today, I have a very special interview for you. I have celebrity chef Chris Valdez.

You may have seen him on Food Network Star or Chopped or any number of morning TV shows where he's done recipes,

talked about his background in Cuban cooking, his family background. He's a great guy. Here are some highlights from our interview. I remember when I was on Food Network Star, I was making an aros con pollo and chef Alex Cornicelli. She's like, do you have to use all these spices? And I turned around and I said, yes, you have to use all of these spices. Because she like less is more I'm like no not in Cuban food

you need you need this this concoction of all of these spices together for it to work I was always

there alongside her and asking her questions why did you add this why is it so colorful why does it

taste like this why does it smell like this and mom always took the time to answer all of those questions

and she would allow me to taste and she would, she just would allow my inner foodie to

experiment in the kitchen at such a young age. I think with the TV is just basically I over-exhausted

myself. I was, I was, and I was hating it at the time because I wasn't supposed to be doing.

I should have been resting. I should have been working on myself, not highlighting myself even more.

I mean, at a time, I was even having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror.

Why would I put myself on a national stage?

We're not only tough, but we're used to sucking it up and just going through whatever we're going through.

Sometimes, you know, we take out that aggression in the kitchen, either yelling,

the screaming, doing all the prep work, ruining dishes, throwing shit on the floor.

But yeah, we're taught to push through to not talk about it.

Follow that feeling you had when you were young because it's a special feeling and it comes

up every now and then and it's a indication that something is happening, right?

Don't be afraid to love.

Don't be afraid to leave. All right. As you can tell from those highlights, we get into much more than just food. We talk about mental health. We talk about Chris's family background, why he took a year off from everything recently, and much, much more. One little issue I wanted to point out, if you're watching the video version, you will see that my video is much lower quality than Chris's.

Something got corrupted with my original video file, so I had to use a backup. Very disappointed about it.

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