The Recipe for Happiness and Deeper Connections with Paul Cure

Ashish Kothari: Welcome to the HAPPINESS SQUAD Podcast. Today, we have a special guest, Paul Cure, who has delved deeply into the world of food, exploring its joys and complexities.

Paul is the co-founder of Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, Colorado. He's a food writer whose work has appeared in many publications, including City Lifestyle and Iconic Life. He's currently at work on his next book, Comfort Food: Exploring Our Relationship and Craving for Love and Belonging At the Table. Paul lives in Boulder, Colorado.

In this episode, Paul shared his journey into the world of food and his passion for exploring different flavors and cuisines. We discussed a range of topics, including the importance of communal dining, the role of food in creating connections and fostering happiness. We also explored the concept of slow food and its emphasis on local, cultural, and enjoyable eating experiences.

Stay till the end, where we discuss several practical ways in which you can take tiny steps to change your relationship with food and make it a source of healing, connection, and joy in our worlds. Come join me in welcoming Paul to the Happiness Squad podcast.

Hi, dear Paul, welcome to the Happiness Squad podcast. We are so excited to have you with us, my friend.

Paul Cure: It's a pleasure to be here. I'm very happy to be here. I'm always grateful for spending time with you.

Ashish Kothari: So listen, I want to share what a special journey this is going to be. And you've been in the world of food; food is always a big source of nourishment, it can be a huge source of joy, it can also be a big source of suffering and you're one who's really delved into this space so deeply.

So share with me a little bit around how your journey started into this world of food, and what sparked your passion to explore and get into the space so deeply?

Paul Cure: It’s such a funny question. When you think about our relationship to food, as human beings, it's necessary that we eat or we're not going to last too long. And growing up the youngest of four in a Midwestern Catholic family, ketchup sandwiches were indulgent.

So my relationship to food really started to blossom with friends and families. I had a really great childhood, and I had good friends, the DeLucas and the Ronquillos. We played music together, RJ and Lawrence, and I would go over to their house for band practice.

And at the DeLuca house, they had three generations living in that house. One day, they made homemade spaghetti carbonara and I'd never smelled, tasted, or experienced anything like that.

I went over on Friday afternoon, and my mom called the DeLuca household on Sunday evening and said, “have you guys seen Paul?” And I didn't want to leave the smells, the aromas, the tastes, and the same thing was true for the Ronquillo. They were Filipino. And so, being introduced to those smells and those tastes was really that first experience of what it could be.

Growing up in Detroit with an Eastern market and with such a huge Middle Eastern population, kidney meat and suddenly, all of these new flavors, especially as I was growing up, were huge in getting me a palate. And I think people's relationship to food really depends on expanding that palate and finding out what you like.

Fast forward 15 years after that first experience of spaghetti carbonara, and I started an organic farm in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm in Turin, Italy, eating a mushroom risotto at Terra Madre with slow food. So stay curious and let that journey and that curiosity lead you into really great spaces.

Ashish Kothari: Now that's such a beautiful story. How old were you when your mother called that you were missing for two days?

Paul Cure: We were kids, we were probably 9 to 10, and we had this great little punk band called The Plague. So, we had band practice and music, and that also goes into something that I really truly believe in regards to food, which is the setting. How food is introduced to you and what is your experience about actually sitting down at a table?

And especially with that intergenerational experience that I had with the Deluca family, having their grandmother there talking about how she actually made it, all of these inputs were instrumental in getting an understanding of what is it that I love about it, especially when I started the farm, it was about hosting those types of events and getting people on the land.

And then my current experience of writing about food and restaurants is now guided by this AJ Liebling quote, which is “the only prerequisite about writing about food is a good appetite.” And I have a huge appetite for all of these different types of experiences.

Being a food writer now has really enabled me to live out my dream and my passion, and writing this current book, Comfort Food, which is that exploration of what is it that we love about food and our relationship to food.

Ashish Kothari: There are so many things you mentioned that are worth noting and bringing back. One is about India. I grew up in India where multi-generations living together is just a part of life. Even if you don't have multi-generations, there is this really close-knit community.

For instance, my parents live in a complex with about a thousand other households; everybody knows everybody's business. It's amazing because the phone starts ringing from seven in the morning and doesn't stop till eight or nine at night, and they're always bringing people over if they cook something or my mom is sending things to people.

This notion of relationships with these families and multi-generations, I believe, is so critical to flourishing, and it's something we have lost.

Paul Cure: It definitely needs to be highlighted. You've got to keep the door open; if it's not a direct family, then it was a next-door neighbor. And food is the way that we share affection, especially with neighbors.

Whether it's housewarming parties, or ways that we grieve or celebrate, it's always based around the concept of food. Whether it's a favorite dish or something that we want to celebrate, food is that communion of how we actually share an experience.

Ashish Kothari: Yeah. And we share that experience together now with the city club. It's a beautiful community, and at the heart of it is food and unbelievable food. We were there together yesterday, and what an amazing, delicious meal! I want to come there more often.

But another thing you mentioned, Paul, which I'm not sure many people know, or maybe they might have heard it, but I'm not sure people fully understand what slow food is. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Paul Cure: My experience and the history of slow food is a comical one. I love the comedic aspect of these histories. I went to school in Paris, and in the late ninies, there was a French farmer named Jose Bove who famously drove a tractor into a McDonald's, not as a guest but as a protest. That definitely made an impact in France.

My experience was, as a student, going and hearing him at the Cafe Select in Paris. Slow Food was born out of that belief that food should be local, understood, cultural, and enjoyed with others.

Rather than the predominating trend of fast food where people were not even knowing what they were eating, where the beef or vegetables came from, or where the potato for the French fries came from. My experience of it really framed my thinking of how we can make a difference.

We have an interesting relationship in America with sensuality and food. It's like, especially in the Midwest, if it's not cheese, we're suspicious. For instance, when Alice Waters and Chez Panisse started, what Alice was really bringing was a sense of terroir or a sense of place. The food that was grown was particular to that land, just as you were talking about for India.

There are certain crops, there are certain flavors that are only particular to that specific town. So that same sensibility was something that slow food wanted to do regionally all over the world. And so, doing it in Boulder, Colorado and raising a farm and raising animals, it was like, “here you go, this is what a Boulder, Colorado carrot tastes like.”

And sometimes you would plant a seed and you felt like you were putting a rock on top of it because the soil is so rocky here. So that same type of persistence and same type of belief.

And really, slow food is a way for people to have a philosophy, to bind each other together, which is needed. Food is communion and food is a way for us to lower our shoulders and enjoy each other's company and find happiness.

Ashish Kothari: Isn't it interesting? I love it, Paul. There are fast food restaurants, but then we think about our own relationship with how we consume food. People talk about fast food restaurants, but the problem is not just fast food restaurants; we have become faster food consumers.

What I mean is, look at lunchtime and how people break something up and scarf down food while working. They have no idea what the food is often because they've worked all the way through the first four hours without a break. What they're putting on their plate is as much about giving themselves a reward or overcoming that stress. So, it's not necessarily the best.

And then, we're often eating alone. Your notion of communion and community is missing. Secondly, we're not even with the food. We're just scarfing it down. If you're just scarfing something down, you need very little. We overeat. We consume way too much.

If it was just for preservation of the body, you wouldn't eat as much as you do. And so, we've come so far from what you're describing, where food can be such a big source of joy, nourishment, and truly a holistic nurturing practice.

Paul Cure: It's about ritual, and we're lacking in ritual. Our priorities are production, which is understandable for a good economy, for a good lifestyle, we need to be productive. Yet, I truly believe, and I'm an optimist at heart, that companies that put the priority on well-being—and food is well-being—then those employees thrive and the companies thrive.

With the rise of medications like Ozempic and Wigovi, denying one's appetite is a metaphor for many things, and this is something I'm exploring in the book. Comfort and ease through food is really emulated in Scandinavian cultures. If you look at the happiest cultures, Scandinavian cultures are right on top.

This concept of comfort being hygge, and such a plethora of sheepskins that you wonder where the sheep are getting their fur in Scandinavia. But that understanding of when you create a space and when you hold a space for ceremony and for ritual for food, it doesn't have to be long. It can be just half an hour.

But if you say, 'you know what, we're putting away our phones, we're sitting down together at a rather sharing something together so that we can actually have a deeper connection,' I wholeheartedly believe that those companies and those people will be happier.

And that's something that most companies are paying attention to, rather than denying health insurance for medication prescriptions.

Ashish Kothari: Yeah, it's there, whether we want it or not. In fact, one of the things that as part of this rewire program we've created, which is all about building habits, is the habit of savoring.

I'm a big proponent for people to build the habit of savoring because we've built the opposite habit. It's about truly training ourselves in that moment to enjoy whatever it is that we are consuming, whether it is a cup of coffee and we are brewing it, truly letting the aromas, the flavors, the taste, really be with it.

If we are eating, noticing what we are putting on a plate, the colors, the textures, the smells, tuning into that taste. If we truly do that, we are practicing mindfulness. We have to take every opportunity to train our brain because we've trained it the opposite way with smartphones.

Every opportunity is an opportunity to look at the phone. But second, I think we feel so much more satiated, if we take even 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is, but if we are with it, even if just for 5 minutes, enjoy your meal. Notice, I think we will eat less. We will enjoy the food more and, in the end, we'll feel more nourished as a result of it, instead of just feeling sluggish.

Paul Cure: And this is especially important for kids. As the father of two daughters, I also want to meet people where they are. When you're raising kids and you have a family, and even pets like dogs and cats, making food a priority becomes really challenging.

However, education is key, and this is something that Ann Cooper, known as the renegade lunch lady, does so well. She really takes the time, especially in schools, to educate them that food is not just energy. Food allows you to think better, be more productive, and connect with yourself and others. This educational model is essential.

And like I said, you have to meet people where they are. For example, in community-supported agriculture (CSA), there's always that first week when someone who has never done a CSA before opens the box and finds three bunches of kale and wonders, "What the hell do I do with all this kale?"

The key is to provide a parachute with some recipes to help them engage with their food. Because as you mentioned earlier, many people are accustomed to eating a bar or just throwing some pasta and sauce from a jar together, adding a lot of salt because salt has become a predominant flavor we go for.

Ashish Kothari: Absolutely. So, talk a little bit about the community-supported agriculture (CSA). What are some ways in which individuals can really start to engage more with their local food systems, and start to integrate a bit of ritual, even in our busy lives?

What are some things that people can do to start to shift and truly turn food from often a source of suffering or at best just a necessity into something that can be a big source of joy?

Paul Cure: Yeah, it's something you have to take slowly, leaning back into that slow food philosophy. People are often intimidated. I remember feeling intimidated even starting a farm, wondering how we were going to do it. People have conceptions that it's going to be too expensive or involve too many vegetables.

The way people can really take that first step in a different direction with their relationship to food is just to ask questions. Ask coworkers, "What are you having for dinner? I've got this CSA, can you come over and help me cook this stuff up?" It can be a source of curiosity and every great challenge is an opportunity for innovation.

The CSA model lets you pay one lump sum, or in installments, to a local farmer who grows food for you. You get your weekly amount of vegetables, local chicken, eggs, beef, and even locally roasted coffee, all of these ways to connect you to where you are.

For me, it gave me such a deep sense of community and gratitude in regards to growing the food for those families, as well as those families discovering new foods like chard for the first time.

And the key thing is that you enjoy it. You try things out and make it make sense for you and your family. As you mentioned about salt, butter, and cheese—being a Midwesterner, if I can't put cheese on something, I don't know what to do.

People really start training a different part of their palate when they start to eat local food. Suddenly, people say, "I never knew a carrot could taste like this; I always thought carrots were dry and rocks." When they taste local food that's been harvested that day, people realize, "I don't have to add so much to this dish because the food already has flavor."

So, I'm right with you, everyone. I was right there in that sense of skepticism of how best to engage with my local food supply and grow that food. What is really like a proof of concept that food tastes different when grown locally and harvested freshly?

There was this gentleman who loved fresh eggs, and he would come knocking on our door at 6 AM, whether we were up or not, eager for the fresh eggs that had been collected that day. I love that sense of ownership from people.

Obviously, we need to have our personal boundaries, but that devotion to food is profound. And as you asked, how do people get started? I love going out to eat, I love local chefs, I love inventiveness. Ask the chefs, they're immersed in this day in and day out.

For example, Chef Tyler at City Club puts on a Thanksgiving dinner every day. There’s so many important people doing such important work. I will share one story. Recently, I was at Taste of Vail, celebrating their local chefs as one of the food judges. It's a great gig.

Each chef chose one cut of meat from Fitch Ranch in Colorado Springs and created a dish. And so you get like the classic Italian dish and there's about four of us that are judging and we're like, “Oh, the Italians! It's always so good.”

And then, there was the dish that came through that had a presentation that was just gorgeous—a piece of steak cured into a rose topped with caviary sitting on a waffle with salsa verde underneath. You take it almost as a single bite, and it was just perfect.

We all agreed, "This is it. This is the best dish." The presentation, the flavor, the inventiveness, the waffle with steak—it was just perfect. After the tasting, I was talking to a friend who asked, "So, which one was the best?"

I replied, "Oh, the steak with caviar and waffle." He said, "The kids made that." Surprised, I asked, "What do you mean the kids?" He explained, "Yeah, teenagers made that." This was a blind tasting; we didn't know who made it. So I inquired further, and he mentioned there's a local chef named Santosh who, in his off hours, trains local teenagers to be sous chefs.

I thought, "I have to meet this guy; this guy is a saint." When I met him, he discussed how important it is to educate our labor force about food as a viable way of life. "If I don't go in and say, 'Hey, I'm a local chef, and I want to train you as a teenager how to make your own food...'" he noted the comical side of it too, "I'm Muslim, so I don't even eat beef. I had to have the kids explain, 'Does this even taste good?'"

Because the kids and he came up with the recipe and the presentation together, it was a story that really checked all the boxes: a talented individual dedicated to the craft of food and kids whose curiosity was allowed to bloom—and they won. It wasn't sponsored by Disney, but it was one of those experiences that was poetic, beautiful, and delicious, which is the most important part.

Ashish Kothari: Reflecting on the story you shared, Paul, so many thoughts and inspirations are coming to me. The first one for me is the mental health of our teenagers and young adults, which is much worse than it's ever been.

We have an inverted happiness curve for the first, where it used to be that people like you and I in our forties and fifties were the most unhappy and older people were happy along with the younger people. Not anymore. Younger populations are struggling much more.

In fact, we had someone yesterday researching the younger adult population in Canada, and almost 40% of them are struggling with something, and they expect almost half the population by the time they are 40 to have some kind of a mental health issue, a lot of it around work and social media.

But what you are bringing up for me is an inspiration. I think we also, for this generation, because we've gotten busy and we're living fast lives, haven't helped. There's a very broken relationship with cooking among younger kids.

They're not in multi-generational homes like you mentioned, where you can really bask in the flavors. Kids don't cook that much anymore, and hence we eat out often at fast food places. What you're highlighting is a beautiful way for parents to connect with kids: cook something, create something that can be a source of joy, and then sit around the table and eat it.

Reflecting on this, I don't know when was the last time I cooked with my wife and son. She's an amazing cook, and I'm always working, so she ends up making something amazing. We used to have these Sunday roasts, she's English. But from this conversation, one of the things I'm going to start doing is every Sunday, let's all cook together.

Let's pick something, make three dishes, find things that are local, and just sit around and have a wonderful meal. So thank you for providing that inspiration. Maybe this summer, we'll start making mistakes.

Paul Cure: You know, we make a homemade pizza and sometimes it's the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten, but the whole point is, like I said, start where you are. If it's making toast and peanut butter and jelly together, there's something so connecting about it.

Like I said, food is a relationship. And like any relationship, you've got to give time, space, and commitment. It can start so small, with something as simple as oatmeal. And all you have to do is add the oats to the water, which sometimes I find hard to find the inspiration to do. I'm the same way.

Callie Cavanaugh has a great book, "The Eat In Method: Eating by Design," which I'd be remiss not to mention for the beauty that Callie brings to the world. It's something that starts small. You'll be amazed at where it can go. You don’t have to make it to the Sunday roast this Sunday.

Ashish Kothari: I love it. Yeah, start small and most importantly, just slow down. I think it's the act of what you do together—the notion of slowing down, starting small, and togetherness can create such a beautiful experience. Ask questions. Be curious.

Paul Cure: What do you want to eat? It's my favorite question.

Ashish Kothari: And, Paul, the other thing that comes up for me, tying this back to the first part of our discussion, is how lucky you were to grow up experiencing amazing Italian food alongside your home food and Filipino food.

And I have a personal story about the importance of trying different foods from different cuisines and regions. You might be surprised and should start it early. My son, Ashwin, until about 11 or 12, ate a very bland diet despite us eating Indian food five days a week at home, which Lizzie cooks amazingly.

We used to have to make two dishes. Then, around 11 or 12, he discovered Indian food, out of necessity, funnily enough. The last place you'd expect good Indian food is in Lucerne, Switzerland. Everything was closed, and Lizzie and I decided to get some Indian food.

He was hungry, so he tried it, and he had this Chicken Makhani, which was spicy, and oh my God, he fell in love with the food. So, this variety, this notion that you don’t know what you don't know.

You have a story in your head about what it's going to be like, or taste like, or what you like. But part of the curiosity is about the variety we can expose ourselves to, versus sticking to whatever our standard is.

Paul Cure: Yeah, it's a love affair. It's a relationship and the relationship is a love affair. And speaking of kids, our eldest, Georgia, as a baby, we had this experience of slaughtering one of our own hogs, and Hugo from the kitchen and Kimball and all the great work they do there, they helped out.

We cooked it and made a porchetta. This was a moment I was really out of my comfort zone as a suburban kid. We have this great picture of Georgia gnawing on a pork chop from that pig. And now she claims she's a vegetarian and I always want to show her that picture.

You can't always win, it's just what it is. And now she's a fashion designer and wants to go to Manhattan to be as far away from the organic life as possible, which is beautiful—it's a full rainbow of life.

Ashish Kothari: It is that journey. So, my friend, talk to me a little bit about your book, Comfort Food: Exploring Our Relationships and Craving for Love and Belonging at the Table. First of all, I love the title.

Paul Cure: Oh, thank you.

Ashish Kothari: Talk to me a little bit about what you're covering in your book. I know you're about two or three chapters into it. We'll have to have you back to delve more into it, but could you give us a snippet of what you're putting into it?

Paul Cure: Yeah, I'd love that. It's something that I feel is prescient for the moment, given our conversation today. There's an experience that we all have, my kind of Proustian involuntary moment through the book, when you go into a restaurant and have this setting.

It's beautiful and warm. You look around the room and everyone you see makes you think, "These are my people. I want to be here," creating a sense of belonging in the restaurant. Then you look at the menu and think, "I love all these foods." Suddenly, all these things are happening to you mentally, physically, and emotionally.

It's beautiful, bringing you comfort. That sense of place is something our relationship to food needs to have a sense of intimacy. Like I said, we have a hard time giving space for and giving time towards it.

So I'm exploring those spaces in restaurants that really give us the psychology beyond just “Guess what? Someone else is doing the dishes tonight,” the convenience factor, but there's also a comfort factor that we can bring into our own homes and lives.

It's really just a dialogue with chefs, a dialogue with myself around what I love about the comfort of about food. Like I said previously, I truly believe that the introduction of the priority of food in your life will change it. It's a relationship, right? If you give priority to something in your life, you'll be amazed at how it evens out the other priorities.

Like for the Sunday dinner, you'll find yourself in the grocery store on Thursday thinking, "I'm going to make roast carrots to add to Lizzie's roast beef." It's a joyful moment that really empowers people.

Especially for kids, if you tell your children they get to make the dessert, that agency you give to each other in the kitchen, something that Callie does so well, it's amazing what you can add to your life.

There's a sense of enchantment, which as we've spoken to throughout this conversation, whether it be about mental health or searching for meaning, brings enchantment to those moments in your life when you're sitting and eating and sharing a moment with each other.

You'll be amazed at how you want to multiply those moments and how they really even out the playing field for the rest of your day, your month, and how you want to engage in the world.

I've been really enjoying writing this book and making the recipes on how to bring a greater sense of enchantment, a greater sense of love and belonging, which I think we all can use in abundant quantities.

I salute you for this podcast because this is what you're trying to give an invitation to for people when you're driving, listen to this podcast; when you're cooking, listen to this. It gives them a sense of empowerment, because people feel intimidated in the kitchen. They don't want to make something bad, don't want to be embarrassed, don't want to take the time, but we're all worth it.

We're all worth that time to give to ourselves, the love and appreciation which food provides to us. It's the nourishment that's the direct way that we can, as a species, show affection to ourselves, most importantly, and to the people in our home and to the world. So, yeah, as you can see, I'm in the thick of it.

Ashish Kothari: Now it's so beautiful. I can't wait to read it. We're going to hopefully have Callie on our podcast too, to talk a little bit about the Eat In Method, her book.

Paul Cure: Yep. She's great.

Ashish Kothari: You know, for me, Paul, this has been such an amazing conversation. Personally, it's a reminder, and hopefully, our listeners are taking this away too. Someone asked me the other day, "What's a good time to meditate?" We were discussing meditation and mindfulness.

I was going to give the classic response, but then I thought, we are breathing every moment we're alive, from birth until death. Breath is one constant, in addition to others, of course. We don't control how our heart beats, but we always control how we breathe, whether shallow or deep.

Every moment is a great opportunity to be mindful and to cultivate the presence of really being present. With this podcast, what I'm walking away with is that we eat at least three times a day, unfortunately sometimes five or six if we're snacking.

Every one of these moments is an opportunity. I often hear people say, "Life is so busy, I don't know where the days, weeks, or months are going." If we just take those three times a day when we eat to eat more intentionally, we're really engaging with our food.

Changing our relationship with food is not just about scarfing down something to numb ourselves, but about truly relishing it. It's an invitation to be curious about where our food comes from. We've strayed so far from the farms, from the sources of our food, from the spaces that our ancestors and older generations enjoyed at the table.

I think we can bring that magic back into our lives, which for many today feel dull, busy, and faster than ever. Thank you.

Paul Cure: Absolutely. The heart is what will sustain you. Put your heart into what you make, especially with your food. Just put your heart into it and go easy on yourself. As we said about oatmeal, it can be a gateway into a whole other world. You deserve the time, you deserve the nourishment, and don't worry, there are plenty of books to help guide you along the way.

Ashish Kothari: Exactly. With that, my friend, it would be remiss if we had a conversation about food and I didn't ask you: What is your favorite food? And if you have a recipe for it, would you be willing to share with our listeners?

Paul Cure: Absolutely. I'll make it as simple as possible. The best recipe is to gather your dearest friends and family, invite someone you want to get to know better, and just sit with them at a table. It doesn’t even matter what you make, but it’s the conversation and the act of bringing people together that is the greatest source of happiness for me.

It feels like Christmas morning and Christmas dinner every day when I can do this. That’s something I really prioritize. I hope that you and Lizzie, and your listeners, can experience this too.

It’s the best recipe I know: get people together, let the food speak for itself, and you’ll be amazed at what you're inspired to do. If there’s one takeaway I could share, it would be to say yes to that. For me, it's been delicious.

Ashish Kothari: Amazing. Well, thank you, my friend. What an amazing conversation.

Paul Cure: Oh, thank you.

Ashish Kothari: God bless you for all the beautiful work you're doing in the world. I’m grateful to have you as a friend. All the best.

Paul Cure: Absolutely. I look forward to our next meal, my friend.

Ashish Kothari: Take care. Cheers, Paul.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love, and meaning.

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