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Hey, it's Mariel.

There's an inclination I think a lot of us have when we're hosting people for a gathering.

We want it to be perfect.

If it's at our homes, we want it to look like nobody lives there.

If we're serving food, it's got to be picture perfect, all laid out like a spread from Martha Stewart living.

We want the food to be special for people to remember it.

And maybe, if we're being honest, for them to say, well, they're talented.

They really know how to cook.

Samin Nosrat has had this experience too many times while hosting.

I want to do everything and make everybody feel so good that then I get worked into a tizzy. And so then I'm like a Tasmanian devil of crazed energy the whole time. And people are like, oh, like, please sit down. Or you don't need to do the dishes. Or what can we do to help? And I'm like, nothing, nothing, it's fine, it's fine. Like, I got, I got it. I just wanted to be perfect for you. But actually, that's not relaxing or doesn't make anyone feel good. Now, Samin is a professional chef and the author of the highly regarded and successful cookbook, salt, fat, acid heat. So you can imagine the added pressure she feels.

But this is the thing, right?

We want our gatherings to be successful.

And so in a way, they become a performance, not an experience.

What Samin has realized over time is that there's another way, a better way.

The realization started after the massive success of her first book and her Netflix show

by the same name.

My parents are immigrants, and there was a lot of pressure on me to succeed.

And her family had been through a lot.

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