Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off.

We started up and we ain't going to starve.

I like you.

I could not.

That's when they got wheels off.

Sylvia Barband is the chef and owner of Larina Pastivichio E. Bino in Fort Green, Brooklyn.

She grew up in northern Italy, and she moved to New York in 2012.

Only a couple of years after moving to New York, she became an executive chef at Aita in Brooklyn. And in 2016, she competed on season 14 of the Bravo television

series Top Chef. She has a lot of fans, well beyond Fort Green, because of the

TV show, but she's beloved in Brooklyn. And she and I became acquainted in Montana at the

Paa's Up Resort. We had both been flown in to be whatever guest entertainers.

She put on a cooking display and cooked, I don't know what you call it. Of course. She showed people

what it looked like when a master chef cooked. And it was incredible to watch. And the food tasted

obviously out of this world. And it turned out that she is just a really bright. And I don't

mean that in the sense that she's smart, which she clearly is, but she's like bright, like a beam

of light. Sylvia is a very positive, enthusiastic, happy, excited, excitable human being. And when I

listened to her speak and when I got the chance to talk with her, it occurred to me that she would be a perfect guest for Wheels Off.

I did have some concerns about having a chef on the show because, for one thing, I don't understand anything about food preparation.

But for another thing, you know, cooking is such a, it's a different kind of art.

But I think once you hear our conversation, you will agree with me that what she does is very much art and that the perspective she has on it

...