Questlove's Food

The Lempert Report
November 04, 2022

Phil: QuestLove, I happen to really like Questlove. I loved his movie last summer, Summer of Soul, that came out. People laughed that he has 15 jobs, but now it looks like another job that he's got is making a plant-based Philly cheese steak. He comes from Philadelphia. He's really getting into the food world. Tell us a bit more about what he's doing, with food and his commitment to it. 

Sally: He's so wonderful. I agree, Phil. And he's just a man of many talents and he seems to have his hands in a lot of things. So he is on the board of the Food Education Fund, and what they are doing is they have started this future of food entrepreneurship program. Now this is for underserved communities where he's going in and finding high school kids that want to get involved in a culinary arts program or with an established food tech company, which is fantastic. It gives teaching skills, it's giving opportunities to those who may not otherwise get these opportunities. But it seems as if Questlove has always had an interest in the food world. I loved reading about how he used to host these food salons in New York in his apartment where he would get about 70 people in his apartment and have a couple of chefs there, and they would try some different things. And one of those things he talked about was he had a Shake Shack style burger up against an Impossible burger and had people trying and see what, what they liked best. And that's when he found out that he liked the plant-based burger better. And so, you know it was this idea, this concept of his about trying something that is a different version of a food you love, maybe plant-based, maybe healthier, maybe gluten free, you know, and finding better things that we can eat. 

Phil: And, you know, when you talk about the Impossible Burger against Shake Shack, Danny Meyer, who owns Shake Shack or the CEO of it, you know, was there as well, which is very cool. And what I really found interesting the more I read about QuestLove, when the Roots came back, they lived in London for a while, and then they came back to the US and they signed a new record deal and the record company, I guess complained that they had a full time chef on their payroll. And Questlove basically said that it's the food that makes the community and gives people, you know, the ideas for music and everything else. So yeah, very, very cool. Very cool guy. I would like to taste his plant-based Philly cheese steak having gone to school in Philadelphia. I love Philly cheese steaks, but I've never had a plant-based Philly cheese steak.