Chicken Divan, Being Curious, and Meaningful Dishes With Cord Jefferson

The Dave Chang Show

The Ringer

Food, Arts, Society & Culture

4.8 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dave makes an incredibly unlikely dish for him to make: a casserole. Dave has Oscar and Emmy-winning writer/director Cord Jefferson as his guest and makes chicken divan to try to bring him back to his childhood. The duo talk their recent trip to Las Vegas together, Cord's unusual route to where he is today, and their philosophies on failure and success. They talk about maintaining a worldly curiosity, trying new things, and how learning what you don't like can be just as important as learning what you do, then finish with a MOIF about Vegas. Follow Cord Jefferson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cordjefferson/ Watch American Fiction: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23561236/ Watch Mind of a Chef: https://www.pbs.org/show/mind-chef/ Watch Ugly Delicious: https://www.netflix.com/title/80170368 Watch Gattaca: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ Learn more about the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/animal-liberation-now-peter-singer Learn more about Buffalo Exchange: https://buffaloexchange.com/ Watch Survivor's Remorse: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3231022/ Watch Master of None: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4635276/ Watch The Good Place: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4955642/ Watch Succession: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7660850/ Watch Watchmen: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7049682/ Watch Station Eleven: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10574236/ Watch Cord's Oscar speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEZz2dSXS0c Watch Leaving Las Vegas: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113627/ Watch Ocean's Eleven: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240772/ Learn more about Range by David Epstein: https://davidepstein.com/range/ Host: Dave Chang Guest: Cord Jefferson Majordomo Media Producer: David Meyer Spotify Producer: Felipe Guilhermino Additional Crew: Jake Loskutoff, Dionte Mercado, Nikola Stanjevich, Samya McCoy, Michael Delgado Sound Engineer: Kevin Cureghian Editor: Jake Loskutoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We have, Corey Jefferson as our podcast guest today.
0:09.7	He has a new project that we're working on together, and we spent a lot of time together
0:15.2	in Las Vegas, and he decided to still spend a little bit more time.
0:19.3	And we're going to talk a little about his
0:20.9	career arc a little about a lot Las Vegas and maybe this thing called chicken Devon which I did not
0:28.2	do a good job of making stay tuned welcome to the Dave Chang show part of the ringer podcast
0:34.6	network presented by major DOM media we are on Spotify and also Netflix.
0:39.8	You guys don't know this, but the past five days, I've spent pretty much 14 hours a day
0:44.8	with this gentleman right here.
0:46.4	He is an Oscar-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, former journalist, Corre Jefferson.
0:56.1	What's up?
0:57.0	And, what, repeat, dinner time, live.
0:59.9	Yeah, twice.
1:01.6	But this is different.
1:02.4	This is not dinner time life.
1:03.3	This is dinner time relaxing time.
1:07.9	That's much more easy.
1:10.0	There's no ticking time bomb.
1:11.8	I'm happy. No voting.
1:13.5	Yeah, I was asking how much we could relay on the project we just worked on together, working on a TV show, on provider that I can't really say.
1:34.3	But we've done a lot of cooking shows over the years and a lot of travel companions, whether it's mind of a chef, ugly delicious, whatever.
1:37.3	And I've been blessed to have a lot of great friends, including our friend Aziz, who introduced
	...

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