Why Cooking is Caregiving, with Chef Hillary Sterling | Better in Person
Hillary Sterling was a Brooklyn kid raised on cream cheese sandwiches and canned potatoes. So how did she become one of New York City's best chefs? The Ci Siamo executive chef explains on the second episode of Better in Person.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
- Duration
- 42m
- Broadcast on
- 21 Jul 2026
- Audio Format
- other
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Hillary Sterling was a Brooklyn kid raised on cream cheese sandwiches and canned potatoes. So how did she become one of New York City's best chefs? The Ci Siamo executive chef explains on the second episode of Better in Person.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
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This episode of Better in Person is presented by Chat GPT. Put Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new Chat GPT Desktop app today. Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. This is the second episode of a new video interview show we've just launched called Better in Person. If you'd rather watch it, which I would suggest you do, that's what it was made for. It is on the Freakonomics YouTube channel, but we're also happy to provide this podcast version of Better in Person for your ears only. As always, thanks for listening. - When people send back food, the whole rumor of a chef spitting, please. - I've never seen it. - No, and that's fucking stupid, like, come on. - This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and a Hillary Sterling. There aren't many things in this world that you absolutely need to survive and which also bring great pleasure. Food is one of them. For some people, it is so pleasurable to cook for others that they build a career out of it, but it is a relentlessly demanding way to make a living. I recently met a chef who doesn't seem to have lost the pleasure of cooking. Hillary Sterling is executive chef at Chisiamo, a big, successful, very loud kitchen in New York City. She was born and raised in Brooklyn and she built her career in New York restaurants, like Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill and the Michelin starred Avocce. So when Hillary invited me into the kitchen at Chisiamo, I, of course, said yes and I had barely finished saying hello before she threw me right into the fire. - Can you give me the torch, Chris, make your coat? - Hey, can you give me the torch? - Hillary leads me over to the big wood-fired oven and hands me the blowtorch to start today's cookfire. - Oh, I love a flamethrower. - Chisiamo celebrates live fire Italian cooking. Fire is fun until it's not. - Can I see your hands? How burned are you? - I mean-- - Not, not? - No, the burn, if you have burns, I mean, you're not paying attention. - Do you remember that burn? - I remember all of them.
Transcription truncated.
Hillary Sterling was a Brooklyn kid raised on cream cheese sandwiches and canned potatoes. So how did she become one of New York City's best chefs? The Ci Siamo executive chef explains on the second episode of Better in Person.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.