Why Being the Chef on a Yacht Could Drive Anyone to Yell “Eat My Cooter!”
The Waves: Gender, Relationships, Feminism
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 903 Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2021
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate news director Susan Matthews and Waves producer Cheyna Roth talk about one of the most popular reality TV shows: Below Deck. First, they share why they love it even though it is...a bit problematic, and then they bring on Rachel Hargrove, the chef from Seasons 8 and 9. Hargrove dishes on what it’s really like to be behind the camera, the backlash she received after her first season, working in the male-dominated yachting industry, and how yachts and their kitchen are making more room for women.
In Slate Plus: More from Susan and Cheyna’s chat with Rachel. They talk about what you don’t see on television and get Rachel’s thoughts on the upcoming season of Below Deck.
Recommendations
Susan: The HBO and BBC series I May Destroy You.
Cheyna: Setting your parents up with Spotify.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas.
Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.7 | This is the waves. |
| 0:05.6 | This is the waves. |
| 0:06.6 | This is the waves. |
| 0:07.8 | This is the waves. |
| 0:08.5 | This is the waves. |
| 0:09.5 | This is the waves. |
| 0:14.3 | Welcome to the waves, Slate's podcast about gender, feminism, and this week, Below Deck. |
| 0:22.5 | Every episode you get a new pair of feminists to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds. |
| 0:26.5 | And today you've got me, Susan Matthews, Slate's News Director and the editorial director of this podcast. |
| 0:31.5 | And me, Shana Roth, Slate podcast producer for shows that includes this one. |
| 0:37.1 | And today, Shana and I are going to be interviewing Rachel Hargrove from below deck about reality television, the yachting industry, being a chef and being a woman at the same time as all those other things. |
| 0:50.5 | So, Shana, when you first had the idea to book Chef Rachel on the show, I was essentially just like taken aback by your brilliance. |
| 0:58.6 | For me, below deck was a major quarantine binge. My boyfriend started watching it in April of 2020 and watched like an entire season in two days and then was like, you have to start |
| 1:11.7 | watching this show with me. And I think that I got into it because it has provided a set of |
| 1:17.8 | really attractive things for this moment. I always describe it to people as a workplace drama, |
| 1:22.9 | which is something that I was immediately missing when like offices were no longer a thing. And then it also |
| 1:28.0 | takes place in, like, the claustrophobic quarters of a yacht, which felt very relatable at a time |
| 1:33.9 | that we were all stuck in our homes. And I think that the other thing that was really attractive |
| 1:38.7 | about it, though, was that it was also in these exotic, beautiful locations. So you felt like |
| 1:43.3 | you got to travel a little bit, too. |
| 1:45.7 | So I started binging the seasons. And then we got to a very memorable season, which is going to be the |
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