My Mark with Marcus Samuelsson: Part 1

[birds chirping]

This is a deeply personal experience.

You gotta look in your surroundings and be like, okay,

what is the terra of this place,

what is the soul of this place?

The environment that you cook in has to be inspirational.

This is a home, but it's also a chef's artist studio.

My process in making food, it's all one for me.

The room, the dining room, the chairs, the art, all of it.

Beautiful, clear shapes and lines.

And I'm excited about the smells

that's gonna come from this kitchen.

In a couple of weeks this place will come alive.

[bright music]

As a creative I have to recharge.

And this is a place where I can truly do that.

I might be the only studio Swedeopian you will ever meet,

but through food, I can share that.

We gonna plan thees dishes here

and then send them out to the world.

[upbeat music]

I'm Marcus Samuelsson and welcome to My Mark.

An intimate look at professional chef's home lives

and kitchen.

[Maya] This looks delicious.

I'm on pancake duty. Where this gonna go?

The orange. Yeah.

Cooking and being a chef, it's my life,

you know, I have my family and then cooking

and I don't see any separation between it.

Nice.

I mean, making waffles, making pancakes

is something that we do very, very often.

Kitchen looks great, huh?

Yes, I'm very excited about it.

What's your favorite?

Cooking Ethiopia food, actually, Marcus,

I'm gonna cook Ethiopia food for you.

Can you imagine all the meals

and all the dinner parties we'll have here.

It was a lot of fun to create together with Maya

this not big kitchen, but distinct.

It's stunning in its design and the way it performs.

Smells so good, Marcus. Right, right.

I love that smell.

I love how precise the stove is, it's like unbelievable.

Mashed banana's ready. Good, pancakes ready too.

Good. Are you ready?

[Maya] I'm ready.

I'm eight months pregnant.

Can't be more ready than that.

Let's eat.

[Maya] You promise to make me this every day?

Mm-hmm. Cheers, thank you.

[waves splashing]

[calm music]

Getting married with Maya rooted me in Ethiopia.

Maya taught me the Ethiopian alphabet.

I was born in Ethiopia

and my sister and I, my mother, we had tuberculosis.

When I was around two years old our mom passed away.

My sister and I survived.

We were saved by a nurse at the hospital that took us in

and eventually gave us up for adoption.

These dual experiences and identities

between Sweden and Ethiopia is something that

constantly has been in my life.

I went back to Ethiopia in the mid 2000s.

I'll never forget when I got to the village,

it was just these huts.

[calm music]

Seeing the hut that I was born in,

both being fearful of that and not quite fully understand

how we could survive in that and you know,

that hut is smaller than two restaurant tables.

It was a very emotional day.

Anytime you're close to the ocean, there are certain noises,

there certain sounds, there's certain smells

that you either have them in your veins or not.

[rhythmic music]

This is broken rice, it's smaller.

Because it is so much smaller

it just makes it the whole dish lighter.

I've been fortunate enough to live in Harlem for a long time

in West Harlem, where it's a huge west African community.

I cooked and traveled all over West Africa.

So I've had jollof in many different places.

You start with your vegetables,

you start with your garlics and your chilies and your ginger

and you build up.

[rhythmic music]

You saute the rice, you just toast it up a little bit

and adding that liquid in

that has a little bit tomato, onion, chili.

[inspirational music]

We should celebrate the seafood that is here.

If it's spring it could be softshell crab

and if it's fall it could be more around

clams, mollusks, or lobsters.

This dish, it's not a pure jollof,

but it's really a beautiful sort of postcard

to West African culture.

For me, it's also the beauty in nature.

There's all natural colors that I want

in my restaurant and my home.

All the shapes that I think about are in nature.

Cooking is a craft, but it's also an art,

and that balance between artistry, look at the design.

It's gonna make you more ambitious.

[inspirational music]