Read the JUL ISSUE #79 of Athleisure Mag and see 9LOOKS | Sporti X Stef Corgel in mag.
Read the JUL ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see ROCK THIS WHEN SUMMER RAINS MIGHT HAPPEN in mag.
For this month’s cover story we catch up with Kenji Fujishima, who is Head of Cultivation at Dr. Greenthumb and Insane OG Brand. He shares how he befriended B-Real over martial arts training under his world-renowned father as sensei; going on the road with the Cypress Hill crew; and growing weed together to become legends in cannabis culture. Kenji recounts tours and trips in Amsterdam; the origin and viral smash following of Kush Bubba (known as Bubba Kush) and Insane OG; and the insane path from growing underground and the Dr. Greenthumb hit anthem to going legit with Dr. Greenthumb’s dispensaries taking over California and expanding to legal states across the US as cannabis mainstreams. Their mission is admirable and necessary in delivering top quality products at an array of prices, while helping legacy farmers grab their share against corporate giants pushing to overtake the scene. We also delve into how cannabis is increasingly crossing into sports, health and fitness, and leisure activities, particularly with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu smoke and roll, and their Team Insane recently featuring the exciting Nicky and Jacob "Jay" Rodriguez at Subversiv 7, their participation in High Rollerz, and more.
ATHLEISURE MAG: So you met B-Real through a friend around 1993 at a Cypress Hill Show, with the Beastie Boys and Rage Against The Machine?
KENJI FUJISHIMA: Yeah, I went to school with this girl and her boyfriend sold weed, and by way of linking with him in that sense, he was like one day, do you want to go check out a show? And it was with Cypress Hill, Rage Against The Machine and the Beastie Boys, a Leonard Peltier Benefit close to LA; at Dominguez Hills College, and we all pretty much started hanging out from there. You can imagine that line-up it was nuts.
AM: It sounds it! So you guys were hanging out and then started training martial arts together too? I see from your background you started doing Shotokan from age 5, right?
KF: Well my father is a world-renowned Shotokan master, I kinda grew up in the dojo. I started training when I was like 3 1/2 probably a little bit more serious by the time I was 5, because 3 1/2 is pretty young, you’re just still getting real legs under you. Both my brother and I, from the time we were in cribs we were in the dojo, and then by the time we were walking we were on the dojo, and when we were actually cognitive of learning things, that’s when my dad started putting Gi's on us and training us.
AM: And B-Real was doing Taekwowndo before?
KF: Yeah, he was already training, we shared the love of the martial arts and stuff, and after many months of checking my dad out, he wanted to switch it up from Taekwowndo to training with my dad. I want to say that probably happened early '94.
AM: That's cool. So when did you get into cannabis?
KF: Oh man, well I've been smoking weed since late '80s maybe like '88-'89, I barely turned 15 years old. Put the first plants, just like from bag seed in the ground around '91. And it just evolved from there, you know. The first time I went to Amsterdam was in ‘96 with them and that’s where I really saw seeds and everything for sale. I mean it was just a whole new world when you saw seeds for sale - it kind of all happened at the same time, right. Like we were seeing stuff in Amsterdam and then we were seeing things starting to change back home with weed. Because around ‘96 we were starting to see little things of OG Kush coming. So those years '96, '97, and '98, I would say where my career in cannabis started taking shape.
AM: Got it. Amsterdam is crazy! There are menus, and even more, there’s the culture.. different vibes and types of world music, like we had never heard of Alpha Blondy, all of those different kinds of hash - you just start experiencing some similar things in and around all of the coffee shops - that has never been re-created yet!
KF: Yeah, you know the culture definitely is really different over there. You know nothing like we were really used to seeing like being able to walk into a shop, buy weed, smoke it, drink some coffee, have some food and just bullshit all day if you'd want to. There were the smartshops where you could walk in and get mushrooms. We had times where we were just trippin' out in the Amsterdam streets, which was pretty wild when you have a crew of like 10 or 12 people.
AM: No one should be fooled by the small mushrooms, those things don't go by the size!
KF: [Laughing] Yeah those small ones, those things did some damage, they were no joke.
AM: We want to go over that story with the original Bubba, and how that blew up! Sounds like a crazy time how it went viral and blew up.
KF: It was one of those things.. At that time weed was like Indo, maybe it was Chronic you know. There weren’t too many different strains in the early 90s, like you saw Skunk, Northern Lights, a lot of the stuff we were seeing with seeds and stems, not like Mexican Brick Weed, but it was green, it was ok. Once the Hydro stuff started coming, it was so expensive, like less than a gram for $20-$25 bucks, so you barely got a joint. Always worked, but like man that was expensive. So we wanted to mess around with the whole growing thing. By the time we had started doing the Bubba, we had grown out some things, but those were from seeds, we never kept any of the plants, we didn’t know really too much about cloning or any of that other stuff. So when the Josh D crew and our crew connected and we got a hold of the Bubba seeds, that's really some our first attempts.
At that time we also had the genetics, some of the seeds from Amsterdam, where we were popping all of these things to try to figure out what's a really cool plant. That’s when I really learned to clone and keep strains - the start of that. The Bubba was given to us by a friend that regularly went and saw Josh D and Matt Berger, they call him “Bubba.” We kind of popped all of those seeds at the same time. We were popping some of the ones we got from Amsterdam like White Russian, White Rhino, Cali-O, and a few other things. And it was like our first real phenohunt, the same batch of seeds was coming out looking different, smelling different, and totally different characteristics and whatnot, and we came up with that one pheno that became to everybody the Bubba Kush. It was so different from what we were seeing in weed at the time from the brightness of the colors, the stickiness of it, the smell, I mean literally that thing stunk up entire neighborhoods from not many plants! We had never seen anything like that as far as plants in front of our face before.
AM: That was all in B-Real's house?
KF: That was in B-Real's house, we put a couple of plants outside, which were the first flowered out Bubba plants. We built a little mother/propagation room, he had an upstairs bedroom with a bathroom and we did it in there, and we used his garage to build the first set of lights. I want to say we had like four lights and that grow kind of became the influence of the Dr Greenthumb song.
AM: So how was all that? We had the honor to talk with B about how that came about. How was it when the song was written and the choice to have the track be what is and not to go commercial with it necessarily..
KF: You know, I guess I really didn’t think about it too much at time just because we were road dogs, we were like already together all of the time. If we weren’t together at the house or going out doing some shit, we were in the studios or karate studio, and I guess it was cool because maybe I knew him for 4 years or so. Just to hear him writing verses on stuff we were doing at his house was cool, but i didn’t really think that was going to change so much stuff for us because that was B-Real, he was already talking about weed. I didn’t think this Bubba Kush or this Kush Bubba was going to change a lot of the culture of weed out there, and definitely think between that and OG pushed a lot of people growing weed in the valley at that time. It spread so fast, there was nothing else that you could do to make that much money at the time. Even though we weren’t doing it at huge scale at that moment, for us we were getting like $7K or $8K a pound and you’re talking about ‘97, ‘98, '99 and 2000’s at the time, and people loved it and it was great weed. It made and ended a lot of good friendships, I’ll tell you that.
AM: All good things do..
KF: You know, money always has the tendency to do that to people. You see a lot of true sides come out, a lot of like long and what I thought were tried and true friendships came astray because of it, but we kept doing our thing. At B-Real's house, it was all pretty much personal stuff, and then at my house I started putting up rooms to pay for extra bills and stuff like that, and sometimes I’d have a roommate to take care of stuff when we were on the road and over the years of being in a bunch of different studios and a hell of a lot of tours. We were gone for like 6-9 months out of the year for a long time, we would always have our weed and when you took stuff like that to the Midwest or East Coast or even overseas, not many people had seen quality stuff like that. So it definitely changed the landscape of what we knew cannabis as it existed at that time.
AM: Did we see that you guys put Snoop on to some stuff too?
KF: Yeah, there was a studio session, and B-Real wanted to link.. oh god this had to be like ‘98-’99-ish, might have even been 2000, but where he wanted to give Snoop Dogg an oz. of the weed, there wasn’t really production of it. You were lucky if you could get an 1/8 in those days and it was like $100. An oz. you know just in general was like $500. Yeah Snoop wanted one and he thought we were going to give it to him. I was like it wasn’t even mine, it came from my boy’s spot, and yeah he had to pay the $500. He at that time, he hadn’t seen nothing that looked like that. You know it that Ooh Wee Snoop Dogg type thing you know. I mean for me, I was already just amazed to be hanging out with Snoop Dogg and crew. B-Real's definitely responsible for it being introduced to a lot of artists out there that talked about it and kind of showed off whatever they had over a lot time and a lot of fans were built over those studio sessions. A lot of creative stuff was done I’m sure.
AM: How much time was put to doing martial arts when the tours were going on?
KF: When the tour was going on not that much. It was attempted, but between going out there originally to train with him, and kind of becoming a roadie at the time and learning the ropes, and those guys with their press schedules and rehearsal, and shows and traveling. Those kind of tours are super tiring, we got to train here and there, but not really anywhere like we wanted to. But I'll tell you B-Real stayed very consistent at home, at the dude almost got to be a Black Belt. He was very serious about it that’s for sure!
AM: We caught the Insane in The Brain documentary for Cypress Hill on Showtime, and it ends with a quote that's very gripping that hits as a throughline for us... "It's one of those eternal flames that we all just keep lit, all of us keep going and being masters of our crafts, better men, better friends, better at business - I mean look at us, 30 years later it was all organic." Seems to be such an important statement right there, what does it mean for you to be the Director of Cultivation for Dr. Greenthumb and pulling in the prior underground lines with Insane?
KF: It means a lot, right. We've been doing our thing for so long on the underground, and never really turned it to a legIt brand. We were busy touring, we loved what we did with the cultivation, and the flavors and the smoking and stuff like that. Everybody was just busy doing the thing you know, we had to be dodgy about it though - we were growing in like houses and bedrooms, spare rooms and guesthouses and everything. The lifestyle wasn't like glamorous as far as the cultivation was concerned, we lived really grimy. The plants got better and the bigger bedrooms. Half the time we were sleeping in like living rooms or the smallest room of the house. Everything was always fucked up because you can't always be super clean and too nice blowing up an entire residential house you know or multiple houses like we did. There was a lot of work put in, but it’s great to see it transition now into a brand that is literally just growing every day.
The team is getting bigger and stronger and with any business and any new crew a bunch of mistakes are made, and we all learn from that and hopefully we don't repeat any of the stuff and we keep on elevating what we do. We don't look sideways, we don’t copy what other people are doing, we just do what we like, we grow what we want to smoke, and if people like it that's great we're going to keep doing it – and if they don’t that’s everybody’s individual opinion in life and we accept that. We just want to keep the people that support us happy and keep bringing new stuff. Thats our goal.
AM: Dr. Greenthumb's has new category offerings from the Legacy, Loyal and Unapologetic lines, it seems incredible that you can get different quality, choices and price points for different kinds of smokers.
KF: So over the years we've built up a lot of relationships with different kinds of farmers, you know some of those being outdoor, or full sun or greenhouse, mixed light or indoor - we know not everybody can afford the top quality, like let's just say Insane bags that might be like $50, $60 an 1/8 at a store. But if there's like sungrown, or mixed light or greenhouse that we can work with our people that we can get to the price points that we want that can be the most affordable, then we want to do that. We don’t want these legacy guys and girls that have been doing this work, you know ended up a lot them in jail, raided, stolen from, killed whatever, like there are so many things that have happened to the people that have tried to bring this culture forward! Now that they are not necessarily struggling, but it is a struggle every day because now its mainstream, all these companies with super deep pockets are coming into the space and not understanding the culture or really caring about the culture. All they care about the money, and them thinking they’re going to come in and take it from everybody. For me, I felt it was kind of a responsibly to help keep these legacy operators active and at least do whatever I can to help support them as long as we know they’re doing the quality, we know we want to work with them and actually instead of just whitelabeling or purchasing whatever they do, them getting the proper recognition for their efforts.
AM: That’s mad cool. Literally Farm to Table
KF: It’s Farm to Table, that’s right yeah.
AM: So tell us about the Garbage Test and the 1, 2, 3 thumbs up test..
KF: We got a bunch of guys over here, we're all friends and we're all stoners, and we see a lot of weed come through these places. And for us it's cool because these people want to submit these products to make it into these Greenthumb bags or Insane before bags and whatnot, you can always appreciate peoples’ efforts, but we can’t put out garbage. So it’s just a test, even our own stuff that we grow, we do the same thing. If I grow, let’s just say 10 new strains, I’m gonna put them on the table and I’m telling everybody OK honest opinions, you tell me what we all like, and it’s just a rating system based off of smell, taste, effect - there’s levels to it. Because for me I don’t want to grow stuff people don’t like. For us we like stuff that’s a lot heavier, so we kinda gauge to the stuff that's a little bit on the stronger side. And that’s it, you know if it’s good and if a majority of us like it, it might make it to the next phase depending on what we are trying to do and how many strains there are. We've all literally had sessions where we all smoked 16 joints each and each joint was a different strain in a test, you know at one time, and it was a 5-6 hour smokeout and I think we kept 2 of those.
AM: You had how many?
KF: Out of 16, 2 that we kept. Not saying those other 14 weren’t good. They just didn’t fit the profiles we were trying to achieve at that time.
AM: You had raised strain standardization before, makes a lot sense..
KF: Well, not saying everybody growing the same thing, but standardizing ways to do it, like we want to keep consistency, especially a brand operating in multiple states. So if somebody goes to a store over here and they buy, whatever an OG Kush from us, we want to be the same over there, not just produced by somebody and it’s totally different and somebody and it’s totally different and we just called it this. Yeah standardized is hard, because there are a couple of different levels of smokers over here. Some people want it the same, they want that same strain all the time, just like us we love OG Kush we're going to die by that you know what I mean that’s our stuff. But like other people want flavors, and people get bored of stuff. Some of these strains may have a year, 2-3 year cycles before people are bored of it. Like Ice Cream Cake or any of these other ones, even though there are a lot of people that buy it, names get played out, artwork gets played out. So you just gotta keep it fresh and always come with quality. We standardize the procedures of what we do so that our stuff comes out, hopefully, the same every time. There are plant issues or failures that might lead to one or two batches here and there not making the cut, but for the most part standardized methods to produce the same - that’s important.
AM: So the Insane Brand is sponsoring Team Insane for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for Subversviv 7 on June 11 on Fite TV. How did you guys put this sponsorship together and connect with Nicky Rodriguez, who is just blowing the sport up with his brother. How did this come about?
KF: Well one of our buddies was working with the Subversiv crew, I think he’s catering the event, and he knows we’re into martial arts and whatnot, and that I've been involved with High Rollerz camp that does the stoner Jiu-Jitsu stuff too and he passed it to our team, and of course B-Real and I loving and appreciators of martial arts definitely wanted to be involved, we thought Insane kind of fits into the mixed martial arts category and we wanted to be known as more than a cannabis brand.
AM: Yeah speaking of Insane, I mean Nicky has been wrecking people.. It’s just been incredible how he's been progressing to the whole industry, that’s going to be sick, his brother too!
KF: That’s what I’ve heard, I didn’t know too much about these guys, I took my eye off paying attention and when all of this came up, and I saw what these guys were doing out there - it's kind of shocking how much this sport has been coming up and evolved, and guys like those brothers that are out there just slaying people. So I’m honored to get to meet them and see these guys rolling and go fuck some shit up. I love the sport and the level of these guys training it’s definitely something to watch.
AM: The High Rollerz looks cool too, how did you connect with that and for those that don’t know that they have cannabis as part of the rulebook and the sport too.
KF: My buddy Matt Staudt is one of the founders of it and right when they were launching we were talking a lot and we just wanted to support that too. It was super interesting that the mainstream people started hearing about the Jiu-Jitsu and grappling events happening, but for as long as I’ve been around Jiu-Jitsu a lot of the guys that have been involved in that have always been smokers - like smoke and roll. It seemed to be one of those things where you smoke before you go roll, and be in that zen spot and then training was just like that. B-Real and I would go smoke and then train with my dad for a 2 hour training session, so you know some people function on it, some people don’t. For us, smoking puts us into a certain zen where our concentration locks into whatever we're into at the time.
AM: Yeah there’s a certain cerebral zone you can hit right. And for recovery too - so it can be good for training, fighting and recovery?
KF: Well for me, definitely on the recovery side too. I’m pretty much always hypertensive. I had back surgery back in ‘02 and so i pretty much did my whole recovery drug-free minus cannabis. It was a little different because the injury that I had, like even when I coughed it hurt, so I had to be careful about how I was smoking so I wouldn't choke too much, but it would definitely help me relax and help me get into sleep versus taking a bunch of pills that were making my stomach bad. To this day, peoples’ addiction to pills is crazy, I just never wanted to go that route, so my medicine has been cannabis you know.
AM: Makes sense the stories with the pain pills, just a couple of missteps and anyone can take a wrong turn with that.
KF: You never know, today there’s Fentanyl and people are dying from the smallest dose where they’re just normally taking a pill or doing something they’re used to and they’re just dropping dead. I don’t really need to worry about that because I’m not taking pills. It’s just something I’ve never been into, you do, or do too much of that and you can’t control yourself, with weed I’ve always felt I’ve been able to micro-dose myself. I guess you can say control hitting the joints or however just to get to the point where I’m good and that’s it, and then I’m going do what I’m going to do. Smoke a joint and go ride 20 miles on a bike just in my zen spot or smoke and hike or go train or whatever. Yeah THC and the other cannabinoids and things like that the compounds in cannabis definitely have medicinal properties and should be researched a lot more so the people can find the benefits from the use of it.
AM: Yeah we're still scratching the surface, between all the different cannabinoids, the terpines and the entourage effect.
KF: 100%
AM: So when you see customers coming in, you have different groups of people where some see the different Indica and Sativa; some looking for the highest THC possible; others CBD.. will people more and more see what their personal relationships can be and become connoisseurs?
KF: That and combined with education, a lot form people walking into dispensaries and are just asking the budtenders ‘what’s your strongest stuff;’ or ‘what do you suggest;’ or saying they like this, this and this; or the whole Sativa and Indica thing which I personally really don’t believe it too much anymore these days. There’s a lot Sativas that look like Indicas, I mean it’s a very hard thing to really solidly I guess to say because there are so many things are crossed these days. There are hybrids and poly hybrids, a majority of stuff you really can’t say is a solid Indica or Sativa, with the exception of maybe a few strains out there. Once people understand the entourage effect and where terpines and other cannabinoids combine, and even the method ingested being smoking or eating, have a big deal how it impacts a certain individual.
AM: So what’s coming down the pike for Dr. Greenthumb’s, you guys are opening up stores everywhere and more states are becoming legal, and you have all these new lines?
KF: Definitely a few more states that are being locked in right now for retail; as well as the possibility of some third-party stores carrying the Insane and/or Dr. Greenthumb brands; we're going to continue to partner with farms to add genetics to the roster of Dr. Greenthumb as well as new skus be it joints, vapes, or concentrates and whatnot, and the same with Insane - Insane will have a lot of new proprietary stuff we're doing, a lot of breeding is going down this year, as well as phenohunting, so we're going to see a ton of new strains coming out probably toward the end of the year, first quarter next year - and beyond that, we’re working stuff on right now that will be released under both lines, merch, extreme sports - keep moving, keep building this culture.
AM: Who are 3 people that have inspired you along your path and journey?
KF: My father for one, he gave me my work ethic and discipline to do what I do.
My wife, actually has been pushing me to kind of come out of the shadows, right. I never really talked about what I did. I never cared about interviews or cameras, we were old school guys, that didn’t talk about it, we just did it, to kind stay out of jail. And this community, B-Real - that dude gave me an opportunity back then to come work for Cypress Hill and I was not in a good way back then, I was making some stupid decisions. That guy, by bringing me into the crew and allowing me to do what I do and make use of the resources that came around to the camp, that really changed my life and I’ll say it now and I’ll always say it that changed my life and I’ll never forget that.
Nicky Rodriguez is taking the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu sport by storm. He transitioned from wrestling in college and had breakout success taking home Silver at ADCC ‘19 as a Blue Belt. Dubbed as the ‘Black Belt Slayer,’ he trained under legend John Danaher, and recently splintered off to co-found The B-Team, based in Austin, Texas. We chat with Nicky Rod about BJJ; training for ADCC ‘22; cannabis and the sport; team-building and nutrition; as well as fighting for Team Insane at Subversiv 7 this past month, with his brother Jacob “Jay” Rodriguez and female fighter, Alex Enriquez.
ATHLEISURE MAG: We see that you wrestled in college and made the move to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, what was involved with making the switch?
NICKY RODRIGUEZ: It was a bit of a tricky transition. There are some things that coincide, like Jiu-Jitsu often times we start from a standing position, so Americanized wrestling is a small aspect of the sport. There's a lot of things I had to adjust as a wrestler you know, you want to take your opponent down but there is always a threat of a guillotine or other submissions, so I had to really solidify a solid defense to have success when trying to be offensive.
AM: You were training under John Danaher?
NR: Yeah I was training under John Danaher for maybe about 3 years, and man I learned a lot, you know the guy is brilliant in his space and dedicated his life to the sport. So I was just there to soak up a bunch of knowledge and it was very beneficial.
AM: And you guys formed the B-Team in Austin?
NR: We opened up B-Team in Austin about 6 or 8 months ago, it's been going well. We're a private competition-based facility. Eventually we'll open up to white belts, newcomers and outsiders, but for now it's a strictly private location.
AM: And it's an elite gym, so you have to be pretty advanced to apply?
NR: You have to be pretty advanced. We have some lower level guys, that compete pretty well, they train hard. You don’t have to be a world beater to be in our gym, but have to be willing to learn and train often. Most train twice a day and want to be professional athletes. We just are keeping it like that because we're athletes ourselves in our prime and we're still looking to compete, and win and grow. Yeah it's been a fun ride so far.
AM: What's next for Mexican Ground Karate?
NR: Well, ADCC Titles are our main focus. ADCC World Championships are the ‘Olympics of Jiu-Jitsu' in September. We have about 6 guys going from our team, potentially more because we have Australian and Asian trials very soon, and a few guys competing over there. We'll have quite a few guys at the event and would be nice to get some gold medals.
AM: In '19, you just dominated people and you got the Silver medal and had a blue belt!
NR: Yeah, exactly. I was a blue belt at the time and was training Jiu-Jitsu for about a year and a half. I won the ADCC trials and then with the year and a half experience I ended up taking second at the World's. That's pretty much why people got to know me, because it was not seen before, a wrestler making a transition so fast successfully as I had. So it definitely opened people's eyes to how they can input NCAA wrestling into Jiu-Jitsu. Now you see a lot more quality wrestling in the sport, and yeah the Americanized wrestling in Jiu-Jitsu has been much more prominent over the last several years.
AM: And they were calling you the Black Belt Slayer?!!
NR: Yes, that’s definitely a name that stuck. People liked it, I liked it. It seemed pretty memorable, so I just rode the wave on it.
AM: And now you’re a brown belt, we see you got it earlier this month..
NR: I got my brown belt a few weeks ago actually. So I’m a new brown belt, still plenty to learn, still fresh in the sport you know. I think it takes time to get acclimated and keep learning, it's about how many reps you do, you can know moves, but you really have to learn and be in-depth with those moves.
AM: So how many divisions are you going for in ADCC ‘22?
NR: I'll be doing the heavyweight which is over 99kg, which is no weight limit, I’ve had guys from 200 to 300, 360, and then the open weight division where you can have much smaller quota like 125lbs all the way to the biggest guys. So absolute division is the most recognized and more valued gold medal you can get because there is no weight class and you are the absolute champion.
AM: You just fought in Subversiv 7 on Saturday, how did that go?
NR: We had a team event at Subversiv 7 with 30K Grand Prize, I was representing Dr Greenthumb and Team Insane OG, they treated us very well when we were out there. It was a high level competition. Team Insane OG did well, we had some wins, we had some losses. As a team, as an event - it was fun, man. A lot of people came out, it was good to see the support in LA. It was a great event.
AM: How did you connect with those guys?
NR: I got contacted through social media, they were looking to expand in the Jiu-Jitsu world, they see the kind of content I put out, and it was a mutually beneficial relationship. I believe social media has a lot to do with an athlete’s success in the business world. Obviously you have to win, but you also have to tell a story. That’s what I do online, tell a story, so it’s a really good relationship with us working together.
AM: How was it fighting with your brother, was this was the first time in a major match fighting with him together?
NR: Yeah it was the first time we stepped on the mat back-to-back and on a team at the same time. In high school we wrestled at the same school and stuff, but I was graduating when he was getting into high school, so we never got to be on the same team together. So it was a great experience.
AM: And he is a blue belt right now? It seems like he is also starting to take the sport by storm, following your, and taking his own footsteps, it is a crazy parallel..
NR: He is a bit of a Black Belt Slayer himself, you know. He's been training for about a year and a half. He just did his ADCC trials where he got his purple belt on the podium, right, but out of 7 matches, he also sub'd all 7 opponents, most of them high-level black belts. I would say his trajectory is even bigger than mine, just because the results he has had at a year and a half you know, I was at ADCC and winning matches, but he is finishing high levels guys with minimal experience and that's honestly never been seen before. We’ve seen me use wrestling to negate Jiu-Jitsu and win, but Jay with a year and a half, he has been using strictly Jiu-Jitsu to submit opponents. So it’s something different and the speed of which he is doing it has never been seen before.
AM: What are some lessons and recipes about making good teams, be it about Jiu-Jitsu, corporate or in general?
NR: To make a good team.. First you need knowledge, you need to have somebody where most people can go to answer questions. Also, it's important to have conversations before and after practice about things you’re having issues on. Many don’t know the right questions to ask. It's a solo sport, although you’re training with teammates, it’s only you out there on the mat. So when you’re practicing you really need to figure out what you’re having problems with and specify what they are so you can ask your coach. So having the knowledge, having people on the team that can answer those tough questions and consistency. Being consistent with your training, for me I train everyday and that’s how I like it. Other people can get away with training less and do well. You can’t expect results to come fast. I think people train a couple times and expect it to work immediately. Things take time, and through pressure and time you can make diamonds man.
AM: It was cool to see you with Team Insane OG. What are some of the cross overs of Jiu-Jitsu and cannabis culture?
NR: Most of the community uses it, whether for nighttime or right before training. It enhances my mood, how I think cognitively about certain things, sometimes it changes the perspective that I’m having, so I can see and move different, or make certain adjustments.
AM: Is that smoking or edibles, in what format?
NR: Usually burn it, maybe roll up a joint or use a bowl. Joint is pretty easy and pretty immediate effect.
AM: Any particular strain?
NR: I’ve had Insane OG, probably the best strain I’ve ever had to be honest.
AM: Yeah shout out to them.
NR: For sure, Dr Greenthumb and Team Insane OG, those guys hold it down for sure!
AM: Have you competed in High Rollerz?
NR: I had a competition at High Rollerz a while back. I did one of their beginning events, it was fun man. I know the guys that own it, run it. They put together a great event. It was great to see the two worlds collide, the hip hop, the cannabis and Jiu-Jitsu culture. I think the two blend together, it just had to be in the right format.
AM: It’s about the vibe, serious but fun, all the blends together -
NR: I think the Jiu-Jitsu world makes it a bit of a party, when you come out to a show, it's not Jiu-Jitsu and leave, you know it’s good music, good vibes, people are drinking, food, there’s a lot going on, it's more of a spectacle, a fun event instead of a quick jits vibe.
AM: You have a handle @nickyrodeats, is that about wellness and food too?
NR: Well it's something personal I’ve been collecting like a food blog, I eat clean - like mainly meats, fruits and veggies. I post the cheat meals too, you know sometimes I grab a coffee and a donut, or some ice cream or something. It's not far-fetched to have a sweet tooth and display that, but it is something I’ve been kind of blogging about with no real direction. I think eventually I’ll have some more in depth content, maybe a Youtube channel. But it's a bit hard to focus on being an athlete and content, so for now I have to really mitigate my time where my thoughts are going.
AM: Sure it will come in time, people will be interested.
NR: Yeah I’ll keep posting, growing it little by little, and when I’m ready to fully commit to it, I’ll be ready.
AM: Who are 3 people that have inspired you along your journey?
NR: I'd say my coach John Danaher, the most inspiring, at least the most valuable asset to my immediate growth. Second, my dad, because hard work runs in the family and it is important to see it first hand, experience it first hand, that way so we can display it often. Three, I would say myself, I’m pretty much self-motivated. I never really get up and have it not hard for me to get going, I never really waste any time or have wasteful thoughts. I like to gear my day towards something positive, towards the next things.
AM: Cool. What do you think can help mainstream Jiu-Jitsu to levels like MMA and boxing?
NR: I think of this here and there. Getting on a major network, like ESPN would help. There are a few things that hold it back.
I think there are lot of different rule sets within the sport, I think it makes it harder for viewers to follow. I think honestly this year’s ADCC will help push us closer to becoming mainstream. It’s a bigger prize, a bigger spectacle, the event itself will be massive. But if we had a huge Grand Prize like maybe $1M to win the absolute devIsion, I think that will pull a lot of people out of their seats and come watch, or just be intrigued, and potentially make it more mainstream to see these guys fighting for a million rather than 10k, 20k or 50k.
AM: Well we'll be rooting for you! You're style is entertaining and your definitely an inspiration for us and a lot of people.
IG @killdrama
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Front/Back Cover, 16 - 19 + PG 70 9DRIP Eitan Miskevich | PG 20 - 23 + 27 - 35 Pedro Garcia | PG 24 Showtime |
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see SMOKE & ROLL | Kenji Fujishima in mag.
This month, we're catching up with one of our faves Alysia Reiner (who graced our cover back in 2017 for our JUN ISSUE #18). She has been in a number of shows that we have enjoyed from Netflix's Orange is the New Black, HBO's The Deuce and ABC's How to Get Away with Murder. Her commitment to her roles and how she peels back the layers of her character like an onion is what makes us excited to see what she will do next. As a storyteller, Alysia is an actress and a producer who is compelled to find stories that explore themes that are at the forefront of what we're navigating as a society.
We caught up with Alysia in late May days before the launch of Disney+'s Ms. Marvel. We talked about how we navigated the pandemic, the power of storytelling, how she approaches her projects, her work in front of and behind the camera, what we can see her in next, the importance of representation and women's ownership of their bodies and how she advocates for these issues.
ALYSIA REINER: How are you, how was your pandemic? Congratulations for keeping the magazine afloat!
ATHLEISURE MAG: Wow obviously we went through it and we had to make a lot of decisions. The fact that we were able to keep it going was amazing!
I can only imagine as for you during the pandemic, you were working!
AR: It’s funny because when it all shut down, I started getting offers for work as early as that first summer. I turned down a lot of things because I just didn’t feel safe enough, just the way you were talking about. It was before vaccinations and it was just like, no this is not worth risking my life for and risking my family's lives for. In those early days, you just didn’t know!
Different people took it very differently and took it more seriously! I mean, we took it very very very seriously from the beginning and it wasn't until Ms. Marvel came that I felt that they had the money quite frankly to keep it really safe. They were testing every day! When the deal closed, within an hour, they had someone come to my house to test me – within an hour!
AM: Ok, they were like, “we’re going to start right!” That’s amazing! It’s so fun to be able to catch up with you as the last time we were with you it was for our cover for your June cover shoot 5 years ago - in person of course. At that time Orange is the New Black was about to release it’s 5th season, Better Things had it’s 1st season that was already out there and you were dropping your clothing line.
So being able to catch up as you have such a presence and I always love hearing from you – it’s good to see what you’ve been up to! I have always thought that you should be a super hero and/or in the Marvel universe so it was no surprise to me to hear that which is so exciting.
You’ve been in a number of shows that I have loved seeing you in How to Get Away with Murder, The Deuce – which I loved your character in that. I was like, “that girl can rock some sunglasses!”
AR: I mean on a fashion level, that was so freaking fun right? The 1970’s style, I can live in! It’s so fun!
AM: It’s fun to see you in STARZ's Shining Vale and you’re going to be in Ms. Marvel, what do you love about being a storyteller and a creator?
AR: I think my favorite part is telling stories that help evolve humanity you know? I have been really lucky to have been part of some seminal art in that way like Orange is the New Black which really changed the way people saw incarcerated people, particularly incarcerated women. The amount of women that have been incarcerated has increased by 731%. 731% in the past 30 years and it’s not because women are being more illegal. It’s about this system of slavery that we have embraced and if anyone has not seen Ava DuVernay’s 13th, it’s a really seminal piece about what I mean by that. But, how we see the incarcerated population, mass incarceration and the business of incarceration and additionally how we see the trans community.
There has been some incredible things that we have seen from trans humans and acceptance of that as well as push back from people that are deeply afraid. But, I always say that that’s how you know you’re succeeding is when people get afraid. I feel so grateful to be part of that kind of filming. With Better Things, we saw an authentic flawed mother in a way that we had never seen before. Now with Ms. Marvel, we’re getting our first ever Muslim superhero. It feels so outrageously wonderful and I feel so lucky to be part of that storytelling. That’s my favorite part. I was talking to someone last night, another producer friend. She was at a meeting for the Oscars for The Academy and someone said and I’m paraphrasing here – that really in America, the 2 ways people get their information is education and entertainment.
It’s so deeply important that our education system isn’t banning books and that people are able to learn everything from Critical Race Theory, the Holocaust where some people are trying to fight against that so it’s deeply important that we educate people on that. But the truth is entertainment has become a piece of our educational system and so for me, there’s a level of responsibility with that. I want to enlighten people and to entertain them obviously, but I want to connect with them and I don’t want people to feel so alone. I want them to feel part of, connected, loved and that they belong. I also want to be able to illuminate certain things that people don’t know because it’s only when we know about things, that we can change them.
AM: What do you look for when it comes to taking on projects whether it’s from the actors lens or a producing role?
AR: I think it’s exactly that. I look for if this is a story that needs to be told and I am the best person to tell this story. Is this a story we have seen a 100 times before? I will be honest. I was asked to look at a project a few days ago and I chose not to do it because first of all it was a story that had been told a lot of times and I felt it had some stereotypical tropes in it and some tropes that were very specifically about an image and the importance of one’s looks essentially. I was like, I don’t need to tell that story. I don’t need to be part of this essentially antiquated ugly duckling storyline. I feel like it’s one of the stories that we have told since the beginning of time. The ugly duckling that turned into the swan, but I don’t feel like we need to tell that story anymore. We can write a new story about how we perceive ourselves and how we love ourselves regardless of what we look like. I guess the question is, what is the new story there? I haven’t cracked that but I do know that I don’t think I need to keep telling that story.
AM: Do you have a process that you go through when you begin to prepare for your characters?
AR: I feel like every character tells me something else. I sort of have to ask the character what they need. Certain characters it’s about a pair of glasses or an accent or a psychological gesture. Some is about research. Is it a period of time that I wasn’t alive during. So each character, sometimes it’s internal and sometimes it’s external. So each character sort of talks to me and tells me what they need if that makes any sense.
AM: In looking at your other projects that you’ve done. You have Egg which you produced and acted in. How did this come about and how did you get attached to it?
AR: Oh, such a good question. Egg was based on a play that I did almost a decade before. I thought it was such a seminal piece about motherhood and the choice to be a mother. When I first did the play, I was not a mother yet and I hadn’t decided if I wanted to be yet. I loved the questions, conversations and thoughts that revolved around the issue. Around what it means to be a mother, what does it mean to be a father, what does it mean to be a parent, what does a family mean, what are those dynamics, what does it mean to be childless, what does it mean to be childless by choice and why does society have so much problems with that? I loved that piece and thought there was such insightful wisdom in it and it was hilarious. The writer did such an extraordinary job with balancing those two things.
Almost a decade later, I bumped into the writer on a ferry from Fire Island. She was coming from Kismet, Fire Island, so I like to say she was coming from Kismet. She said that she just wrote the screenplay for Egg and if I wanted to read it. I said, yes. A decade later, it was still all of these things that we don’t talk about. I remember before I became a mother, all of these people were asking me when I was going to be and it’s as if it was anybody’s business!
AM: I was going to say that! It’s like to ask that question, you don’t know if the person may not physically be able to or simply chooses not to because they like their lives as is.
AR: Exactly! It blows my mind how people think that it’s their business! Once I had my child, it became about when I would have a second child. I was disgusted and horrified at people’s responses. I would say, I don’t think that we’re having anymore and people would say, “oh, just the one?” They were like mourning for the second child that I wasn’t having. You just have no idea what’s going on in anyone else’s life and what’s best for them.
It’s the same conversation that we’re having now with abortions. I am so ok if you are deeply Christian, deeply Catholic and think it’s a sin and horrific to have an abortion. I am so down with that. I don't care who care who you are and you can believe whatever you want, just give me ownership of my own body. That is my only request. Every human deserves ownership over their own body. This whole thing is so deeply saddening to me. The idea of children being born and unwanted – can we just talk about that? People being forced to have children, so you’re bringing a child into the world that is unwanted and that is absolutely heartbreaking.
AM: We're days or weeks away from hearirng the decision on Roe v Wade which has been around for 50 years, if SCOTUS strikes it down, what other precedents that have been established like contraception, interracial marriage, gay marriage – how will these be handled?
AR: It’s in so much trouble.
AM: It’s mindboggling to me.
AR: I will advocate for and love on every human being to have access to their own body. That’s really important to me and that’s a big piece of what Egg Is about. It’s on iTunes and we sold it to Gravitas so you can now watch it online. I think it’s a really important time to watch it as it’s about this moment. There is a conversation in this movie that’s about abortion. So it’s really important that we have these conversations and that we don’t stop. That’s part of arts power is to help have those conversations.
AM: Circling back to what we were talking about before, how did you get attached to Ms. Marvel?
AR: I don’t know how everybody gets attached to a Marvel project. I would say that for me, it came up out of the blue. I never auditioned for anything, I didn’t know I was being considered and they are so secretive that essentially, all I knew was that I was being considered for a new show called Ms. Marvel and that I had to sign a NDA to even be considered for it. My lawyers had to do the contracts for it and they wouldn‘t even tell me my character's name until we signed. I couldn’t read anything, it was top, top, top secret. Even though it’s coming out in June, it’s been top secret to the very end. They won’t let me say anything except that I’m in it and I had a blast! I’m so excited to be part of the Marvel family, not only because of this particular story which has the first Muslim superhero, but that they keep on breaking boundaries in the world of cultural change. In the Eternals we saw a gay superhero and a blind superhero, a deaf superhero and they really use the art and the comics as a way of a Trojan Horse to talk about the things that we are sometimes afraid to talk about on this planet right know. I am so excited to be part of that family of storytellers that are down with talking about things that other people may be afraid to talk about.
And representation, authentic representation of all communities.
AM: Can you tell us about where this series sits within the MCU? We read somewhere that there is another movie coming out and will you possibly be in this movie as well.
AR: I am not, but there is some crossovers with some of the Marvels. There is definitely potential for my character to cross over additionally in the future.
AM: That’s very cool! What was it like being on that set?
AR: It was so much fun! It’s a great group of humans. Sana Amanat (Marvel Rising: Initiation, Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors, Marvel Rising: Chasing Ghosts) our showrunner, is so fantastic and what’s so exciting about her is that the character is loosely based on her and that’s so cool. To be with the person that it is based on is awesome. Another magical surprise was that Meera Menon (You, Outlander, Dirty John) who directed my first picture that I was a producer in for Equity was the director of a couple of the episodes. Marvel is so secretive that they didn't even tell her that they were casting me. I texted her and I was like, hey I’m coming to Atlanta for a project and I heard you were there and she said she was and she didn’t even know. I thought maybe she put in a good word for me she had no idea. It was so fun to be back on set with her and it was so exciting when Kevin came to visit. We became a really tight group of humans. We may have gotten a tattoo together. One of the actresses that I got really close to is named Yasmeen Fletcher (Andi Mack, Upside Down Magic, Let Us In) and she turned 18 right at the end of our shoot. She brought her uncle in and he's a tattoo artist for her birthday and we may have gotten matching tattoos.
AM: There is something about entertainment being a way to educate because you can hear something, but when you’re watching it you can think about it and you’re seeing things happen. Even if it’s not an experience that you’re aware of, it has to change you as a person one way or another or to at least get that element of being able to look out for it.
Going Places is another project that you’re involved in that’s coming out soon, what can you tell me about this movie and why did you want to be attached?
AR: It is so fun! So, the filmmaker is Max Chernov (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Blood Brothers) and I read the script and I thought of my God it’s so fun this is such a ride that I want to be on. We had just wrapped Ms. Marvel, there were a lot of stunts involved in this project and I wasn’t afraid because I had just done Ms. Marvel. But I did know what questions to ask now that I would have never known because I did Ms. Marvel. When the offer came in I asked them would there be a stunt coordinator, would there be a stunt double? Because I did my own stunts on Ms. Marvel, but they did have all of those people just in case I couldn’t do my own stunts. It was so much fun. I did stunt training and stunt fighting. I loved it so much.
Similarly, it’s a high action adventure comedy that has some deep things to say. I love something that is deeply entertaining that also has some deep things to say. Ms. Marvel does it by talking about racism quite frankly. Going Places does it about our perception of success and what does it mean? Similar to Ms. Marvel, it’s about high school students and it looks at what success is and what does it mean. These high school students have just graduated and are on their way to college and the amount of pressure they put on themselves. In this moment, when I’m looking at every headline that you’re reading right now that talks about this generation. The teens of today are under such pressure and they’re really struggling with mental health. I love this script because it goes there about what the pressure we’re putting on young adults – teenagers. I now have a 13, and is technically a teenager. What does it mean to be successful. I like to call the COVID times the meditation retreat that none of us signed up for. I really see it that way. How can we use this experience to really grow ourselves, to learn and to really evolve? I don’t think that we can do that unless we are willing to really go deep and to look at what’s not working. We have so many kids that are not happy.
So something is not working friends. How do we change that? I feel so deeply that I only want my kid to be happy and I don’t care about her grades and whatever. I care that she does her best because I want her to feel the esteem about that. Really looking at what are the messages that we’re sending young people going into the world and why is not working really – let’s be honest. There is a disconnect there. So many young people are so deeply unhappy.
AM: This is true. Because you have played in so many roles. Are there roles or topics that are sitting on your vision board that you would like to do through this art?
AR: Ooo such a good question! I think I’m deeply curious in this moment it would be really fun to do a period piece. I’ve done it on stage and I did it for one movie, but I would like to do more in the past. Something that is deeply gripping and talks to the moment today which would be the Salem witch hunts. It would be interesting to do that as we’re pretty much primed for that right now. So that’s really interesting to me. If there were a way and I was just talking about this yesterday with some producers – I’m really curious how we tackle abortion and the war on women right now. What does that look like, how do we do it it in a way that it is the Trojan Horse where more people will watch and that it isn’t just a preaching to the choir situation. Doing it in a way that everyone is watching. I know that Handmaids Tale is that but to an extent is there a different version that really talks about it in a different way and maybe not in a dystopic way that Handmaids Tale so clearly is. Those are issues that I’m really curious about. I’m producing a movie right know called Flat or James Thomas Thinks The Earth is Flat which is an unlikely buddy comedy between an 8th grade Black science student and a very infamous NBA player who thinks the Earth is flat. The 8th grade student has to convince the NBA player that the Earth is in fact an oblong sphere in his science fair. It’s so fun and a real buddy comedy and a real movie for anyone from 9 to 99. We have Kelly Park (Call Me Kat, How I Met Your Father, The Game) who is the director who is a fantastic director. She has done a bunch of TV including The Upshaws, Grace and Frankie – she has incredible TV credits. I’m producing it with Diana DiMenna who produced What the Constitution Means to Me and Thoughts of a Colored Man and Spencer Paysinger, the TV show All American, is based on his life and he is the writer and producer. Another actor Brian Tyrell Clark – I’m super excited about that. That’s the kind of storytelling that I want to tell. We’ve never seen – at least I have never seen a movie about a brilliant 8th grade Black science student. And I will probably be one of the very few white people in the the movie. The movie is predominantly a black story and it’s about Black joy and obviously, it’s a Trojan Horse to how science and medicine has failed the Black community which it has in a 100 different ways and we will be going there. We also really want to celebrate a beautiful family. They are a beautiful intact family and we want to celebrate a Black scientist coming into the world and to celebrate his brilliance and intelligence. I’m on the board of the Geena Davis Institute and we talk about when you see it, you can be it. The importance of representation and how so many girls when they saw The Hunger Games, the amount of girls that took up archery or when Queen's Gambit came out, the amount of people that took up chess! That’s our dream for Flat that we get this huge ginormous blockbuster hit so that kids can be excited about science!
AM: That I so exciting and can’t wait until this comes out.
AR: I am so exited about that for multiple reasons but also being the environmentalist that I am, I believe that science is an innovation from youth and the ability to see things in a new way and to reimagine what can be possible. It can change everything.
AM: Like we’ve been talking about, if you’re not being represented, there isn’t an easy way to know this is something that you would want unless you have the path to place you there. I think this is awesome.
We were also talking about the madness of the pandemic and a lot of us had to adjust our lives and to figure things out. We also had random hobbies and interests that came out of this. But you became a firefighter or you trained for it at least!
AR: (Laughter) I am officially a Probational Firefighter. I passed all my tests!
AM: I mean! How did you decide that this was something that you wanted to do and what was it like training. We love watching 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lonestar and any type of show along those lines. I can imagine you doing anything, but I didn’t have that on the Bingo card – but I can see it happening.
AR: During the pandemic, we lived on Fire Island which is a small island off the coast of Long Island. It’s a series of villages where there are no guards. In our village, there is no police, no hospital, no doctors full-time. The only thing there is volunteer firefighters. I feel like that community created a safe haven for myself and my family. I like to say that when I was a little girl I would read Little House on the Prairie books – I loved them! I dreamed them! I dreamed that one day I would live that way but I knew that it wouldn’t be possible. Then the pandemic happened and I lived like Little House on the Prairie. I was alone on the island, there were very, very, very few people on the island. In our community, maybe there were 10 families and no one was going near each other. It was a really seminal moment in my life and I was so deeply grateful to that community as it felt that it saved my life by giving me health and safety and I wanted to give back to the community. Really all there is is volunteer fire. Similar to anything that I have ever done that is really really really hard, I had no idea how hard it was going to be going in. So, I said yes and I thought I want to do this and it’s going to be easy. I didn’t think it would be easy but I didn’t think it would be so hard. I started my training and some day I may actually write a book about it.
AM: You absolutely should!
AR: It challenged me on so many levels that I didn’t anticipate! The first level was my teachers were all older white men and a majority of them being Republican I believe. I had never spent so much time with so many older white men in my entire life. I was not educated that way – I grew up in NYC – it was a very different crowd. I didn’t feel that I was good at this. I’m still learning. I have a lot of acumen for a lot of things that I do in my life and I feel pretty good as an actor, I feel that I’m not a super strong producer but I have produced a couple of successful movies, I have movies that are in development and a number of TV shows that are in development – I know what producing is and I know how to do it successfully. I have been married for more than half of my life now and I feel pretty successful at that and I feel successful as a parent and my child is doing great. I do not feel successful as a firefighter. Every day I would come home from training and you can ask my husband, my chief, my best friend – hours of tears happened.
I felt like I could not do this. The physical work was really, really, really hard and I am incredibly strong, you know me, I work out everyday, but there is a level that I just couldn’t. The body weight it takes to hold a hose, you’re carrying 70lbs of weight on your body and you’re carrying tools and climbing up a ladder and a gas mask on with oxygen on your back and you’re blindfolded basically. It’s bonkers and then I was never good at standardized tests as a kid and every week, we would get these tests and then we had a 4 hour exam at the end. I have to tell you that the first few exams I did, I failed! I hadn’t felt like a failure in a really long time and I really, really, really felt like one – because I was failing. I’m not exaggerating and I had to become ok that I got a 70 and not a 100. I have an A type personality, I need a 100.
AM: Same!
AR: I wasn’t getting 100s and I would train at home physically every single day. I passed in the end. My training will never stop. I will continue to train because part of being a firefighter is always being ready for an emergency.
AM: That’s pretty amazing and I can definitely see how it would be a little humbling as well. But to also know that your commitment to your community and to give back in a way that was able to give back to you in terms of being a safe haven was so important that you were able to navigate that to get to where you ultimately wanted to be able to do which I think is cool.
AR: Aw well thank you!
AM: I can imagine that that was really tough. I thought, well dang, some people were just making sourdough bread during the pandemic!
AR: One of my best friends when I called her hysterically crying and snotty, she said you know what, do your best. If you fail, it will be the best parenting lesson that you could ever give your child. She said, show your child that you can do your best, still fail and still get back up! I have the chills even saying that again and I said ok, I’ll give it my all and if I fail, it will be the best parenting lesson of all. That got me through. I called her later and said, “I’m a horrible mother, I passed!”
AM: But she also got to see that sometimes you can give 100% of yourself and you may not get that back and that’s realistic too! Things happen.
AR: She saw me coming home hysterically crying, struggling with standardized tests which was really, really, really good for her.
AM: What do you want your legacy to be seen as for all the work you do in front of and behind the camera, the activism that you do and just the way you dig in as someone who is so present?
AR: Wow, the first thing that comes to mind is my dad was a management consultant and the motto for his company was, “make a difference and have fun.” I put that on his gravestone and it’s really my words to live by. The words that I think about for my life are love, service and wonder. Our production company is called 2 Wonder Full To Be Limited and my biggest goal particularly as I age is that the older people get, the more that feel to know things, that the uncertainty is untenable and I want to be more and more willing to not know and to be comfortable with the uncertainty and to be ok with that and to not need to know. I want to keep on wondering. I would say that wonder is my biggest legacy because it’s only when we wonder we can keep on growing and learning and that we can keep on loving other people as opposed to whether you know that someone is doing something that is wrong and you know and you’re mad – there isn’t a lot of space there. But if you wonder, you can think about why someone did something. I wonder – there’s a little breath there. I guess my hope really is that it’s my dad's thought to make a difference and to have fun. That fun is really key. As I learned in my course, joy is an act of resistance and now more than ever it’s so important that we value joy!
AM: I love the word wonder!
AR: Yeah, I love the word wonder.
AM: When you say it, it’s nice sometimes to think about that as opposed to the black/white or win/fail. But when you say wonder, it gives you that air to breathe and maybe to put yourself in a number of positions and maybe I should do that a lot more because sometimes I’m like no – it’s this.
AR: Well, it’s comforting to know. To love yourself through that. It’s comforting when you think you have the answer, but to wonder, that’s where the air is.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 43 - 51 + PG 169 - 171 9LIST STORI3S Laurie Bailey | PG 52 - 57 STARZ/Shining Vale |
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see LEAD WITH WONDER | Alysia Reiner in mag.
We love reality shows and a number of our readers enjoy The Bachelor/The Bachelorette and even tweet along with us during each episode. We love seeing the social interaction, the dates, experiences and more. Prior to the pandemic, reality shows that focused on relationships went to the next level with an array of social experiments from Love is Blind, The Circle, The Ultimatum and more. These shows break new ground and really allow us to analyze how we interact with another.
On June 24th, The One That Got Away hits Prime Video. It allows people to look at their past to see if someone at that time could be a great fit for them. We caught up with singer/songwriter, Betty Who who is the host of this show. We talk about how she got attached and what we can expect. We also talk with Elan Gale who serves as the showrunner and executive producer delves into the intricacies of relationships with us.
ATHLEISURE MAG: It was such a great show to watch as who doesn’t love how we continue to explore social experiments when it comes to dating? What drew you to this show to want to be part of it?
BETTY WHO: I am such a fan of reality dating shows and it actually started with The Bachelor! I wasn’t really a fan of this and being in this sort of world. Then I got the chance to perform on The Bachelorette in Becca’s season. I was shooting it and I was thinking, “this is crazy – this world and this whole thing.” So I got super into The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and that’s how it introduced me to the world and now I feel like I’m a connoisseur and I’m all about it now! So when this conversation sort of started, someone came to me and asked if this would be something that I would be interested in. I was like, “guys, I don’t want to oversell it but, I would crush this job!” I think that this is a very powerful combination for me. I feel very lucky and yet very perplexed as to why they booked me, but I did what I could and I think that I showed up and showed out I think!
AM: I think that it’s such an amazing fit because in watching you, we’re used to the formats of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette where the host is interacting with the primary person and the people competing. In this situation, we have 6 people that are exploring themselves, you coming in and connecting with them and being able to interact with them when they’re broken down in the experience of it all! There are some intense moments and being able to see you in that way, what was your takeaway in watching all of this?
BW: I think that I really appreciated the opportunity to have conversations with those contestants in that moment. I think that as someone in my personal life, I really want to be warm and a safe space for my friends. I want to provide that warm energy with people and that’s something that I also like to do on stage as an entertainer. You want to create that safe space where people want to be able to come in and enjoy themselves. It was a new way for me to stretch my muscle in that way as it was 1-on-1, but still in this very highly curated environment where it’s still fundamentally about entertainment for us. I love to have a job, I love to entertain and I love to have all of these incredibly talented and creative people who know so much more about how to make a reality television show because what do I know? They’re like, do this and I’m like, ok this is such a fun adventure and I was in good hands! I think that that is a huge part of my enjoyment and experience on the show being such a positive one. I give that all to the people who sort of held my hand along the way. I feel very lucky.
AM: I saw the initial 6 episodes via the screener ahead of the launch on Jun 24th and I can’t wait to see the remaining 4! I really want to know as every episode I was transfixed!
BW: I’m so glad that you’re hooked! This is exciting!
AM: I am so hooked. As a reality junkie – I love this format.
BW: Oh, so you’re our target demo! So if you’re loving it, this is good news!
AM: For sure! At first when I heard the concept about the portal I was a little confused about it. But then I started watching it and getting how you guys delved into picking people from there past. Although at one point, I was like, wait they literally just got the guy that followed her on Instagram? I’d be mad too. To see you reasoning with her and asking her to go back one more time because there was a better person, was pretty funny.
BW: Um yeah, we’re definitely a little bit shady! But I think that that is my favorite part! I was watching to do some prep before I hosted a television show. I was looking at getting a lay of the land. I saw all of these hosts that did different things and I was watching Nick and Vanessa from Love is Blind.
AM: Love that show!
BW: I love that show and I was checking everybody out and I know that this isn’t a dating show, but I think that Jeff Probst – how shady Jeff Probst is on Survivor is one of my favorite things about the show! The way that he says, “so and so, I see you’re still having a tough time over there.” He is not afraid to stir shit up and I think that that’s especially amazing. I pray for a season 2 so that I can get even more. I just wanted to be nice the first time around and to have everyone like me as I was totally a fish out of water. But now that I know what’s going on, I’m ready to start some stuff up – you heard it here first!
If you have enjoyed watching The Bachelor/ette, Elan Gale executive produced both of these shows for a decade. A few years ago while we were tweeting along with others about these shows during a season, we noticed Elan talking about the episodes and providing insights.
With the launch of TOTGA, we talk about the power of relationships, what makes a good show and the impact of our interactions.
ATHLEISURE MAG: As long time watchers of The Bachelor/The Bachelorette, it’s amazing to chat with you and we love interacting with you on Twitter to hear your thoughts. Before we get into The One That Got Away, what is it about relationships that you love delving into as this is something that has been a large part of your career in creating these shows?
ELAN GALE: Great question! I think that the honest answer is that I have always felt that my relationships are the greatest things in my life. I have a hard time focusing on anything else if I’m being really honest. I always found that I only know what I know. I am only around the people that I am around, I only have relations with people that are in my life and generally from where I’m from because that’s where we are and that’s how we meet. Relationship shows have always given me an opportunity to just watch other people interact with each other and watch them build bonds that hopefully are life changing. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship has to be permanent. I think that that is something that often we put too much emphasis on because almost all of our relationships are impermanent and it doesn’t mean that it’s not important or that it doesn’t change us or make us grow.
So watching people focus on things that are non-linear like relationships which are probably the most important aspects of their lives as well – I think it’s really interesting and it’s a window into how we interact with each other. I think that people are really interesting! I like watching them do whatever the hell they want to do!
AM: So what do you find to be the secret sauce in terms of putting that into TV as a medium? What are the dynamics that make a good show about relationships?
EG: I think that more than anything, we’re looking for people who are effusive. Anyone could be a good TV dating contestant really. What’s hard is finding people who want to explore their emotions in real time. When something happens to me, I process it. I take some time and I’m pretty shy about how I interact with my own emotional life. I would go so far as to say, almost a little cowardly in the way that a lot of people who come on this show aren’t. There’s an incredible bravery in being able to say that I am going to go through all of these intense emotions, but I’m also going to allow people into that and to let them into my world. So finding people who have specific points of few, strong emotions, strong desires, but simultaneously willing to be able to get it wrong because that’s what we usually do. We almost always get it wrong until we get it right! But it doesn’t mean that those are the most compelling relationships either!
Looking at relationships that are raw and based on feelings rather than logistics, I think that TV shows do a really good job of removing the logistics from relationships. I think that’s also one of the things that people find the most jarring about them. It doesn’t feel real to me because the logistics are taken away. But I have found personally, and maybe this is just me, I have found that when I am falling in love, when I’m in a relationship and when I am with people that I feel are important parts of my life – logistics do kind of take a back seat. If we’re going to continue to claim that relationships are the most serious driving force in our lives, then putting logistics to the side is probably a good idea. You can probably figure that out later. The weird magic of love and whatever is the stuff that you can’t do later and you can’t figure that out thoughtfully over time – I don’t think.
AM: I don’t think so either! What brought you to want to be part of this project. I watched the screeners and I’m obsessed, the fact that all of the screeners weren’t available at once made me mad because I’m so invested and I want to know what happens!
EG: I’m so glad you liked it. Thank you for watching!
AM: It was a great watch. I took a Sun and just let the storytelling unfold!
EG: That makes me so happy! Honestly, these 6 people just went for it. This is a terrifying show. You don’t know who is coming through that portal and who you are letting into your life. That is such a bravery that they had to step into this – I don’t have it! That’s part of what was so exciting to me. I have a similar relationship that I think that most of the people in the audience had – I wish I could do that to have the tenacity and the openness!
AM: I could never!
EG: For me, I have done so many dating shows where strangers meet strangers. There is such an interesting dynamic there and I love those kind of shows. I love watching those shows, but secretly probably the show that I am most addicted to is 90 Day Fiance. What I love about this show is that by the time you meet these people, they really have complex relationships. You have to peel it back like an onion as a viewer. So this – all the things that I love about dating shows, people meeting for the first time and adding this layer of complexity where you get to watch people who they were, previous iterations of themselves and for me, I really wanted to approach this show differently from any other show. I wanted to treat it like sci-fi. I wanted the portal to be like a real-time machine and if I’m being honest, this might sound really crazy – for me the show took more inspiration from Rick & Morty than any other dating show I have worked on in the past. Looking at this like one tiny sliver of the multiverse where you can suddenly live a life that you have never lived for a short amount of time and see what that life may have been like. Yeah, if those relationships can go back into the real world, maybe they do – I don’t know. But if they do, that’s really interesting and beautiful, but more importantly, this slice of life, this time and this place where nothing really exists is interesting. In the first episode, Jeff meets someone who he hasn't seen in 15 years. They were 2 people and now they're 2 different people just like everyone else is. Getting to watch them date for the first time, but also being able to come to terms with how they’ve changed and to see that through the eyes of someone that’s dating them, it’s really one of the most transformative processes for me as a viewer. At the end of the day, that’s what I am. Getting to watch them and these things that were happening and to be able to watch them and to really see them going through it! The thing that I am most excited about is that no one was focused on results. Everyone got a happy ending but it doesn’t mean that it’s the one that audiences were expecting. I think that we’re set up to believe that dating shows end like this. And maybe they don’t have to. Maybe dating is enough. Maybe moments with people and experiences that you share, looking inward on yourself through the eyes of someone who knew you back then – maybe that’s enough. I think it is and I think that that’s what makes the show so different.
AM: That’s so true. I think that when you look to The Bachelor/ette where you have a designated person that is available although in the upcoming Bachelorette there are 2 – but you have the designated person and then you have this whole group of people who are another dynamic. The idea that you have a couple of people for a certain person and how they interact with the separate house and the main house, that’s something because they’re also bringing in their own versions of the person that they know. That’s a whole other sociological study right there!
EG: I think you made a really good point. One thing that I think that this show does really nicely is that it plays up the dynamic friendships that the leads have with each other and of course with the arrivals as well. They’re going through this incredible process together and it’s something that no one else has ever been through before. The bonds are permanent and we don’t just revel in the rivalries on the show. Someone goes out on a date 2 days ago and their friends are hoping and wishing and praying that they come home happy and had a good time. Again, it’s all about building that universe. We talked about this on set. We called our location Lacuna. You never see it on camera – it’s just something that we talked about internally.
Lacuna is an unwritten piece of a story or a missing page in a book. We just kind of tried to build an environment where whatever story that person had been living, it was paused for a moment. They were encouraged to write a new story in this period of time and they go off into the world. Maybe it folds nicely into what you already have or maybe it doesn’t but it’s going to be interesting and it’s going to be messy. That’s what I love so much about the show too! Life is a fucking messy, disaster 90% of the time! Acting as if things are linear, perfect and meant to be – maybe they are, but there is also something about embracing chaos. I think dating is chaotic and I think that that is also what makes it fun. I’ve never gone on a first date and went, “it’s remarkably average and I can’t wait to do it again.”
AM: How did you go about finding the arrivals? There were those like the person from the confirmation, another who went to school together and then you had the one who just followed the lead on Instagram?
EG: Honestly, it was the most complicated process that I have ever been part of. Primarily, the way that our casting team did it was talking to family and friends of the individuals and trying to figure out people who they would be interested in. The leads also gave lists of people that they thought about, wondered about or were curious about. So there was some kind of dynamic combination of people that their mom or sister might have thought was perfect for them, a best friend or if they were close to their ex – someone that they thought that they knew. It could also come from someone from their very very long list or someone who was fascinated by them on their social media and felt more connected than maybe they actually were.
I think it also points out the way that we all create our own histories. We all tell our own stories or what part of our lives are important or not. I think that in a lot of the cases of the leads that they may have been more impactful on the lives of others than they realized. That’s really empowering for a lot of people where something that you said, or something that you did or a look you gave someone – even if it wasn’t meant in a romantic way, it stuck with them and made you important enough to go through a whole casting process, get on a plane, go to LA and then just walk through a portal to see someone. You had to have meant something to someone to fill them with a feeling and that’s a great place to start a relationship. Even if it doesn’t go somewhere because everyone can feel that a question that has haunted them, can be answered in a way that everything else is guessing. It’s fun to have a moment in life where you get to answer the many questions where I don’t know about you, but I’m haunted and plagued and live in a state of permanent regret! If I could go somewhere – can you imagine knowing what the sliding door version of your life is or lesser so the Butterfly Effect of Ashton Kutcher version? It’s a good movie, underrated – fun!
AM: Like you said, in watching this show, removing the dating/romantic aspect – you think about the coffee cart guy you see everyday on the corner and during the pandemic, you didn’t have it and you felt that there was a hole. The concept of relationships and interactions and what it means to you and the other person is an interesting dynamic.
What do you want people to walk away with in watching this. Should we all be digging into our past to find our relationships to figure our shit out?
EG: It’s such a good question! I’m not confident that the takeaway should be that we should go back into your past to find your future. I don’t think that’s the answer. I do think that the takeaway should be, that if you are actively looking for love, you should leave no stone unturned. I think that most people will not find their future from their past. A lot of people might. But if you’re curious about something and you have been looking for this long, maybe you don’t need a portal to do. Maybe you do and I’m glad that these people did, but these days you can pick up a phone. You can send an email and ask a question and it will probably lead nowhere because most things in life do. It might lead you somewhere really magical and you might find the one that got away and that would be pretty fucking cool.
IG @bettywho
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Prime Video
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS | Betty Who + Elan Gale in mag.
We grew up watching Food Network's Iron Chef America as well as the classic Iron Chef We grew up watching Food Network's Iron Chef America as well as the classic Iron Chef where competitors navigated culinary challenges presented by the chairman. The idea of being able to create a number of dishes from the secret ingredient was always a thrill to see.
Like a number of our faves, Netflix's Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend is back with a few twists in it's 8 episode season. Challengers who you may know from visiting their restaurants or their appearances on BRAVO's Top Chef go up against 5 Iron Chefs (noted chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Dominque Crenn, Curtis Stone, Gabriela Cámara and Ming Tsai) to see if they can ultimately become an Iron Legend. Each episode has secret ingredients and Alton Brown and Chef Kristen Kish keep us connected to the action as well as providing culinary nuggets that we can use in our own kitchen! The judges (Chef Andrew Zimmern, Nilou Motamed - who both serve as permanent judges and a special guest that joins them) also weigh in on the dishes and share other culinary tidbits that creates a relaxed style around the business at hand.
This month, the much anticipated The Bear hits Hulu. We follow Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White - Homecoming, Shameless, The Birthday Cake) who is a young chef who comes home to run his family's sandwich shop in Chicago due to a death in his family.
We see him navigate how this culinary world is different then what he is used to, the realities of working in a small business, staff dynamics and the impact of his brother's suicide. With his understanding of what he has taken on, he is also aware of the need to transform The Original Beef of Chicagoland, his brother's restaurant, himself and his staff as he embraces his chosen family.
LISTENING IN
QCODE
We use voice assistant devices to navigate our day. Whether it's adding a note to our to-do list, turning on devices without having to lift a finger and pulling up other kinds of information, it's such a comfort. What if you were able to use your device to find out about what's taking place in your apartment building and you find out more about your life that you never knew - even a potential plot that could ultimately affect your life? QCode's Listening In takes us on this immersive ride.
Read the JUN ISSUE #79 of Athleisure Mag and see Bingely Streaming in mag.
There is nothing that we enjoy more than being able to scroll through our IG feed and to see charcuterie boards and how we can make them our own! In Boards: Stylish Spreads for Casual Gatherings, we have the blueprint of how we can do this for our friends, family or when we want one solo to enjoy during our next show!
ATK's food stylist and expert, Elle Simone Scott shares how we can make our own as well as to keep them looking fresh all night long! This book has over 35 boards and includes 150 recipes that you can build your board around. It'll also stir your imagination as boards can be as creative as you want and include a diversity of foods to enjoy.
Regardless of the board being presented, she shares the balance between texture, flavor and visual appeal. We enjoyed seeing the customizable baked potato board, DIY Bloody Mary board and even a grilled platter! You'll find boards for snacking as well as those that are meant to be enjoyed as a meal.
We also love that you can make your own, buy items from a store and arrange it or do a mixture of the two.
We know that nuts are a great snack, but it's also a great item to incorporate into your meals. In Let's Go Nuts: 80 Vegan Recipes with Nuts and Seeds, we have a number of recipes that show how this ingredient can be used throughout the year and it can be the star! Whether you're vegan or not, the options are endless.
We explore this superfood that is rich in protein, healthy fats, fiber, and minerals. Recipes include a no-cheese fondue, walnut Bolognese on zucchini pasta and lentil lasagne filled with cashew béchamel sauce. You'll find soups, salads, dips, cakes, breads and desserts.
Each recipe will have photography, kitchen equipment needed and tips for serving as well as substitutes. You'll also learn about nuts and seeds from nutritional information, history, origins and how it can be used.
FOOD YOU LOVE: THAT LOVES YOU BACK
Mesorah Publishing Ltd.
There's something about the change of seasons that makes us look into our pantries to mix things up. In Food You Love: That Loves You Back, we look at dishes that can become our new favorites and the fact that they actually love us back in terms of nourishing our bodies.
Rorie is known as a star in the kosher cooking community and takes us through a number of our favorites and transforms them in ways that benefit our bodies. Ensuring that the foods that she creates align with a healthy lifestyle is something that she is truly passionate about. You'll find recipes for a number of items from pancakes, brisket, kugel, pizza, salads, chocolate mousse and so much more.
In addition, the 200 recipes that are included have easy to find ingredients and many are gluten free. She even included prep and menu planning tips along with a list of kitchen essentials. For those that need more assistance, you can scan the QR codes to watch her shop, prep and cook the meal so that you can feel confident in making your new favorite!
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see BINGELY BOOKS in mag.
You don't need an excuse to come together with friends and family for great conversation and good food! If you opt to make it more of an intimate affair with your significant other or to enjoy solo, a great meal is always welcome!
In Nov 2020, we chatted with Chef David Rose about how to prepare for the holiday season. At that time, we were navigating the pandemic and celebrations looked different from years past. As we continue to navigate the new normal, we're excited to think about fun times ahead! We talk about his first cookbook EGGin': David Rose Cooks on the Big Green Egg (Volume 4), the art of grilling and how we can create great meals for Father's Day and other events that we're excited about - even if it's just a random day ending in "y."
ATHLEISURE MAG: Since we last talked, EGGin Volume 4 came out late last year. Can you share with our readers about this cookbook?
CHEF DAVID ROSE: I’m really excited about this! EGGin’ is in it’s 4th volume but it’s my first cookbook! This cookbook has everything from mains, sides, salads and desserts – everything that you need is in there that you want that can be grilled! It’s your heart’s desire! It’s just a celebration of food, a celebration of every culture, every region – every state has their own culture of open fire barbecue and open grilling. From asado in South America, to North Carolina in the South to Alabama to Texas to Korean and Jamaican. So this book covers it all and pays an homage to everything and doing it in a sensational way. We have the honor of hitting #1 on Amazon for a couple of days back in Feb around my birthday. So it was the perfect celebration for my 40th! So, the book is huge and it’s doing very well.
AM: Every time we see you on Instagram, Good Morning America etc – it’s like, that man loves to grill!
CHEF DR: I do! If you can’t see my Instagram and don’t know that I love grilling, I don’t know how else to show it!
AM: What is it about grilling that you love and why is it good to prepare foods in this way?
CHEF DR: For me it’s just something that, the cave men got it right all that time ago, thousands of years ago. Raw meats, fire – put it right on there! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’m from the school of utilizing that and the Jamaican culture, I’ve grown up around these amazing grilled foods – especially jerk chicken and there’s something about the grill being the secret ingredient where you can infuse flavor with different types of wood, different types of marinades and anytime you smoke something, brown is flavor, brown is deliciousness. You get that great char on there and it brings out that deep caramelization, sweetness and savoriness and fruits and vegetables and finish. I’m one of those guys where grill season – I don’t know what grill season is – for me, it’s 24/7, 365 and even if it’s snowing – the grill is still going to be hot so we’re going to have to cook!
AM: Well, for people who aren’t familiar with grilling – let’s say those that it’s their first time. What are 3 tips that you have for someone who has that grill, but they’re not sure about using it?
CHEF DR: Yes, yes ok. The first thing I would say is that a clean grill, is a happy grill. Every time you finish and start up, you want to brush off all that debris, grit and grime. There could be an accumulation of food, maybe a critter that might have got up in there. Because you don’t want none of that on your food. After you’re done cleaning it, always use an oil with a high smoke point to oil it down like a grape seed oil, canola, vegetable oil – because the last thing you want to do is to spend all that time seasoning and marinating and then the meat, protein or vegetables stick to the grill. You always want to oil the grate so that the food releases. That way, you can taste it and eat it.
I’d also recommend secondly, getting a digital meat thermometer. That way, it takes all of the guesswork out of whether the steak is ready or not ready. Is your chicken 165° yet? A high quality digital read out thermometer is a great investment!
And 3, get a copy of EGGIN’, David Rose Cooks from the Big Green Egg and keep your freezer chock full of Omaha Steaks so you can be ready to grill from your hearts desire! There is a Harris Poll that was done earlier this year that says 83% of Americans agree that having high-quality meat on-hand to prepare at a moment’s notice would make their lives easier. So with those three things, I think that those are pretty good tools to get them started.
AM: I love it and like you’re saying, grilling can take place any time of year! I’m originally from Indiana, I live in NY, I love a grilled meal! Now that it’s the summertime and with all the holidays coming up, how do we stay grill ready in terms of keeping our fridges stocked?
CHEF DR: You know, the great thing about working with Omaha Steaks is that we carry a variety of steaks, poultry, seafood, ready to eat sides and meals. The steaks are expertly carved and trimmed and we age them, especially our Private Reserve for a minimum of 35 days and that maximizes tenderness. We do a flash freezing process and what that means is that when the food is at the height of perfection, the flash freezing presses that pause button and until you thaw it out, it’s going to remain in that status of deliciousness. It’s a great thing to have everything at the ready because you never know when you’re hearts desire or a craving might hit. So it lets us do the hard work for you – by delivering you those quality meats and having those recipes that we do have on the website where we have them for days like Father's Day. I have a sensational recipe with their Private Reserve filet and it’s a Blue Cheese and Chive Compound Butter and a loaded Hasselback Potato. I’m not sure if you know what a Hasselback Potato is -
AM: Oh, I know my potatoes!
CHEF DR: Ok, ok you know! Hasselback Potato, thinly sliced, cheese, bacon and sour cream – that and the filet, it’s love! What better way to show dad or yourself, how much you care and to love yourself with our steaks that can be delivered anytime because that’s the gift that keeps on giving – at least until you eat it.
AM: Once again, what’s really great about this time of year is the impromptu nature of things. Whether you have a deck, backyard, rooftop, front stoop or wherever you’re eating. If we’re coming to your house for an impromptu meal, what are you making for us?
CHEF DR: Alright, well definitely there will be a ribeye on there. The ribeye is my favorite and we carry this Ribeye Crown Steak – it’s the ribeye cap, the most tender and coveted part of the steak so you’re definitely going to find some of those. We have some sensational St Louis ribs so you will find some of that. I’m Jamaican so I’m going to have to have some of my snapper on there. We serve Jamaican Snapper Escovitch with a marinade of pickled onions, scotch bonnet peppers, pimento, garlic and whenever I’m cooking especially around my family, spices are always in the mix. Of course, Lobster Mac & Cheese because what is a barbecue without Macaroni & Cheese and just make it better with Omaha Steaks Lobster Tails so it’s a win-win.
AM: A lot of people when they’re grilling, they do think about meats and vegetables. But the grill can also be used for a lot of things. What are dishes that people don’t realize that are totally a grillable food?
CHEF DR: Oh yeah! In EGGin’, there’s quite a few cocktails – smoked cocktails. We have a Charred Pineapple Margarita, we have a Grilled Watermelon Sangria and also smoking adds a really good element to baking! You can bake sweet items on there. We have a Smoked Peach Crostata a Jamaican Rum Raisin Bread Pudding – so the great thing about the Egg and grilling on it is that it can go low and slow, it can do hot and fast and once you put the plates on there called the convector, that essentially turns the Egg into a convection oven. So then you can bake, do pizzas and anything that your heart desires. There is nothing that I have yet to throw at the Egg that it can’t do. So that along with the Omaha Steaks with their meats, poultry and sides, you can’t lose.
AM: I love hearing about this and is there anything that you can share that’s coming up that we should keep our eye out for whether it’s more cookbooks, TV segments etc?
CHEF DR: Yes for sure! I have a couple of really good events coming up in the near future! I have Essence Fest which I will do for the very first time that’s coming up in July so I’m very excited about that! I have a book signing and a demo coming up with that! I will also do the Macy’s NBC 4th of July Fireworks Special and I will do a demo for that as well! It’s kind of exciting as well as a surreal moment! Growing up in NJ, I would always watch it so it’s a full circle moment. We have some great recipes coming down the pipeline, even more deliciousness with Omaha Steaks not just for Father’s Day but for everyday consumption for meals and Sunday cooking with the family.
AM: Well Chef, that’s a lot that’s going on and congratulations on everything! A few years ago I did Essence Fest for the My Black is Beautiful booth where I shared style tips and get ready! There are a lot of people that come through there so definitely eat your Wheaties!
CHEF DR: I’m ready – I stay in shape, I’m ready!
PHOTO CREDITS | PG 60 Omaha Steaks | PG 63 - 67 Facebook/Chef David Rose |
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see THE GRILL MASTER Chef David Rose in mag.
We always enjoy a bite that's filled with savory and herbaceous flavor. We head to Hell's Kitchen to swing by Jaz Indian Cuisine which is known for their British-Indian Cuisine. We wanted to talk with owner Jas Rupall to find out why she wanted to open this restaurant, her 2 chefs that helm the kitchen and what we can expect when we swing by for a meal with friends, family or solo!
ATHLEISURE MAG: Jaz, tell me about your culinary background and how you came to open this restaurant?
JAZ RUPALL: Growing up in a British – Indian household and the daughter of Indian immigrants to the U.K., I learned how to cook from an early age. I have 5 siblings and I was the second eldest, so I was always helping my mother cook traditional Indian meals to help feed our family. I used to love watching her create these amazing dishes from our native Punjab region in India. This formed the inspiration for the restaurant because I wanted to create a warm and inviting space for people to come and enjoy good food and taste authentic British-Indian cuisine.
AM: Tell us about the chef that helms the kitchen at Jaz. Can you talk about his culinary background/journey and what he does in the kitchen?
JR: Arif Ahmed started his career back in 2014 with Arora India as a Junior Cook. He then went on to join Bombay Grill in 2018 where he worked as a second Chef. He joined Sapphire in 2019 where he manned the Tandoor Ovens and ran the kitchen with the Chef. His journey finally lead him to join Jaz Indian Cuisine in February 2022 as the Head Chef where he leads the kitchen staff, he makes all of the sauces and grinds fresh organic herbs and spices in-house.
AM: For those that are coming in to dine, can you talk about the ambiance of the restaurant?
JR: Hell’s Kitchen has every type of restaurant available and for Jaz, we wanted to create a warm inviting space that stood out. We focused on providing an experience that was upscale yet accessible to all. Warm lighting, linen tablecloths, and solid cutlery were important to me. We wanted to provide context and quality to the restaurant that reflects the effort and quality of the food itself.
AM: For those who opt to stay at the bar and enjoy Happy Hour, what are 3 items you suggest from this menu?
JR: You cannot go wrong with the Salmon Tikka Jalfrezi; fresh salmon that is cooked with our signature blend of vegetables and spices to create the perfect dish to share. The Bhindi Masala has been a huge hit; this is stir-fried okra that is cooked traditional style with tomatoes, spices, and cilantro. I have customers ordering 3 at a time so they can take them home and freeze them for weeknights! The Sheikh Kebab is exceptional; cooked in our Tandoor Oven, the Kebab is placed on skewers and is slow-cooked with aromatic spices, grilled onions, and tomatoes.
AM: To start our meal, what are 3 appetizers that we should get when sharing with friends?
JR: The Lasuni Gobi is a customer favorite; these are lightly battered-fried cauliflower florets that are dipped in garlic sauce and is a good vegetarian option. I would also recommend the Tandoori Platter as this gives a tasting of the Chicken Tikka, Ginger Chicken and Sheikh Kebabs. This is a real treat for those looking for lighter fare, my personal favorite is the Shrimp Balchao; these are spicy pan-fried shrimp with an onion-chili dressing that provides a real pop of flavor.
AM: What are 3 entrees that we should order when we come for lunch or dinner?
JR: Favorites include the classic Chicken Tikka Masala; tandoori chicken pieces (off the bone) in a creamy tomato sauce that is a staple of our kitchen. The Saag Paneer is a family favorite, creamy fresh spinach and greens that melts in the mouth, especially with a side of Garlic Naan! For the more adventurous, the Goat Curry is brilliant; a darker blend of spices that is cooked with yogurt and onions, (small pieces cooked with the bone).
AM: What are 3 sides that are a must to enjoy with our meal?
JR: Our fresh naan breads are just divine, my favorite is the Peshawari Naan that is cooked fresh with raisins, almonds, and coconut. We keep the Tandoor Oven hot 24/7 to ensure that we are producing the absolute best tandoori dishes on demand. The Matar Pullao Rice is a more flavorful take on the traditional basmati rice; spiced with cumin and green peas, it compliments any of our curry dishes. For the more traditional-minded, the simple Tandoori Roti is a classic (wholewheat based) and this is what I make fresh when cooking for my family at home.
AM: What are 3 cocktails that we should keep in mind?
JR: Our Pimm’s & Lemonade cocktail is a big hit on the weekends, especially as we enter the summer months. Pimm’s is a British staple that is an essential drink at any British garden party. Growing up in the U.K., I wanted to serve this unique cocktail at the restaurant as I believe it is a marker of our whole ethos, serving classic Indian food and drink with a transatlantic twist. The spicy Chili Margarita is a fun way to start an evening as is the Mango Martini.
AM: For dessert, what are 3 that we can share with friends?
JR: The Kheer Rice Pudding is exceptional. My son has loved Indian rice pudding since he was little, and this version is a real treat; creamy rice pudding is lightly spiced with Cardamom. It is just the best way to end a meal. The Gulab Jamun is a syrupy delight; sweet fried balls of dough made from milk solids and semolina, soaked with an aromatic syrup spiced with green cardamom, rose water, and saffron. For ice cream fans, the Kulfi has pistachios with shavings of almonds. This blend is formed on the basis of Indian street vendor favorites.
AM: Guests have the option to eat inside as well as outside, will you continue to have this option throughout the summer?
JR: Yes, absolutely. We believe in giving our customers the choice of where to sit. The last few years have been a challenge for the restaurant industry but one thing I have seen in my years in NYC is that this city is resilient and there is no better dining scene in the world. Eating outside has become part of the tapestry of the city’s dining scene and one we encourage for those who wish to do so to continue.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Jaz Indian Cuisine
Atzaró Beach is open for the summer season. This A-list hotspot is great for an upscale beach lunch or dinner destination with fabulous sea views.
Chef James Adams has brought in a new concept which includes a focus on sharing plates, grilled options and utilizing ingredients that are grown on the grounds of the estate in their Vegetable Garden. The new menu has options that include wholesome, light and delicious meals that include seafood as well as organic fruit.
Meals can be enjoyed beachside on their daybeds or sofas. We suggest sitting back and enjoying bites with friends from tuna ceviche with mango, cucumber and lime, burrata with sourdough and pesto as well as watermelon salad with feta and mint.
For those who are hungrier, we like taking in some pasta, grilled lobster with garlic butter to order and 4 different kinds of paellas that are perfect to share.
When it comes to sweet treats, San Sebastian cheesecake with a raspberry compote, grilled pineapple with coconut ice cream and chilli or orujo panacotta with strawberries as well as homemade icre creams and sorbets - are great ways to complete your meals.
For those who enjoy spending their days on property, they will experience a boho style 70's aesthetic of Ibiza. It incorporates the environment it resides with natural woods, terracotta pots and local plants - cacti and palms! The properties' color palette has soft neutral sandstones with pops of color that compliment the beach and crystal clear waters of the sea beyond the eyes' vantage point.
The low-key atmosphere is perfect for lounging from day to night. From the chairs, sofas, swing seats and more - this is the way to take in perfect summers.
Playa, Av.
Cala Nova
S/N, 07849Camí de Sa Vorera,
Balearic Islands, Spain
PHOTO CREDITS | Atzaro Beach
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see ATHLEISURE LIST | Atzora Beach in mag.
There are 2 foods that are always a must, bagels and pizza. At Bagel+Slice, there are a number of creations that take these bites to the next level. Founded by Brad Kent, a food science professional, he is focused on improving the quality of delicious food. Bagel+Slice is a concept where people can purchase reasonably prices bagels and pizza throughout the day in a neighborhood setting and focuses on sustainability, community involvement, health and safety.
Although they are not 100% organic, Bagel+Slice strives to be as organic as they can and is focused on Regenerative organic which means that by purchasing ingredients in this category, it contributes to the aim in the reversal of climate change. Regenerative organic farming has been listed as the most highly effective way to sequester carbon from the environment to reduce greenhouse gasses. These farming practices add to topsoil as opposed to eroding it which creates biodiversity and improved crop yields.
It is important to Bagel+Slice that they support the local community as well as family farms.
Those selecting bagels and/or pizzas will find that heritage seasonal regenerative wheat in each one. Bagels are rolled by hand, boiled and baked on burlap-lined bagel boards. Their hand-crafted pizzas use mindfully sourced ingredients with an array of flavors and textures.
With a choice between an organic and an organic gluten-free wheat bagel, we suggest an Egg Breakfast Sandwich (Keller Farms Bacon, organic egg, cheddar and jalapeño pistachio pesto), Goldilox (Kvaroy Arctic Lox, scallion cream cheese, red onion, dill, capers and lemon olive oil) or The Superfresh (Select cream cheese or vegan cream cheese that's nut-based, tomato, cucumber, red onion, dill and pistachio chimichurri).
For those looking for the perfect slice, we suggest Cheese (Red Sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan Reggiano), Vegan Vodka (Creamy tomato vodka sauce that's nut based, vegan cheese blend, mushroom fennel sausage and red onion) or Pizza Bagel (Red sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan Reggiano, extra virgin olive oil and you have the option to add pepperoni for an additional charge).
Highland Park, CA 90042
PHOTO CREDITS | Bagel + Slice
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see ATHLEISURE LIST | Bagel + Slice in mag.
Here in NY, we know that the summer season has really gotten underway when Governors Ball's 3 day music festival comes to the city. Held at Citi Field Stadium, fans came to enjoy hearing an array of artists that represent those in hip hop, pop, rock and more. Acts performed across 3 stages: GOVBALL NYC presented by Verizon, GOPUFF Stage and Bacardi Stage. Performances included J. Cole, Kid Cudi, Becky G, Jazmine Sullivan, Playboi Carter, Tove Lo, DIESEL, Halsey, Coi Leray, A$AP Ferg and Jack Harlow to name a few.
In between waiting for the next act, there were plently of options to keep them engaged from Instagrammable areas, staying hydrated at the ElectroLit Zone, Casa Bacardi to enjoy their classic canned beverages and so much more.
This season those who couldn't attend were also about to watch virtually via Governors Ball Livestream on Twitch which was presented by Levi's 501's as well as via the radio on SiriusXM's app to keep the good vibes going.
With high energy all around, here are some of our favorite moments as we count the days down to Governors Ball 2023!
IG @govballnyc
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | PG 110 - 111 Aaron Rickets | PG 1112 - 113 + 116 - 117 Paigge Warton | PG 114 - 115 Greg Noire | PG 118 - 119 Charles Reagan | PG 120 - 121 Roger Ho | PG 122 - 123 Mickey Pierre - Louis |
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see Governors Ball in mag.
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and read #TRIBEGOALS in mag.
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see 9DRIP | Kenji Fujishima in mag.
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see 9PLAYLIST | Skip Marley in mag.
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see 9PLAYLIST | ANAME in mag.
Read the JUN ISUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see 9LOOKS | SS23 Louis Vuitton Menswear in mag.
Read the JUN ISSUE #78 of Athleisure Mag and see HOW TO DRESS | When Meeting Up at the Beach in mag.
