IN GOOD TASTE | CHEF TOM COLICCHIO, CHEF KRISTEN KISH, AND GAIL SIMMONS

We're excited this month's cover of Athleisure Mag is graced by Chef Kristen Kish (S10 winner of Top Chef, Fast Foodies, Restaurants at the End of the World), Chef Tom Colicchio (A Place at the Table, The Simpsons, Billions), and Gail Simmons (Royal Pains, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, The Food That Built America). We sat down with them ahead of the S21 premiere of Bravo's Top Chef Wisconsin. We talked with Kristen who is on the other side of the judging table as a host as well as her fellow judges Tom and Gail! In our interview, we spoke about the impact of this iconic food competition show, their approach to judging the dishes, what they hope viewers and fans enjoy when watching this show, and why filming is a bit like Summer Camp!

ATHLEISURE MAG: We are so excited to be able to talk to you guys as we have been fans of the show ever since the beginning! We have interviewed each of you individually over the years on various projects that you have been involved in, but to be able to have you guys as our cover for this month and to have you all together as S21 premieres on March 20th is amazing!

What was the dish that you fell in love with that made you realize that you wanted to be in the culinary industry?

CHEF KRISTEN KISH: Oh wow! Well I can tell you the first thing that I ever made when I was 5!

AM: Yeah!

CHEF KK: It was a chocolate pudding, but there was no chocolate or pudding. I saw my mom make Thanksgiving gravy and she would thicken it with cornstarch slurry and she would refrigerate it. It comes out and it looks gelatinized and so when I started watching cooking shows before I had any concept of food, flavor, or actual technique, I was like, “I could make a chocolate pudding.” So I had soy sauce, thickener, and cornstarch. I did that and it sat in the refrigerator and my dad came home from work and gave it a try and he said it was great and off I went!

AM: Oh my goodness, I love that!

GAIL SIMMONS: That’s a good dad!

AM: That was sweet. And Tom!

CHEF TOM COLICCHIO: It was no particular dish. I’m actually writing a book called Why I Cook.

AM: Nice!

CHEF TC: During the pandemic I was doing a lot of these Zoom cooking classes and I kept coming back to certain themes. There were 2 things in particular, both around my grandfather that I think led me to food. One, at a young age, I used to fish with my grandfather and I was responsible for 2 things – one cleaning all of the fish and crabs and clams before my mother and grandmother cooked them and my second job was keeping my grandfather awake on the ride home. So that was always fun! That meal, because it was a larger meal, it was 20 people around the table and I think that somehow I took away from that was that’s what food does, it brings people around the table. That was probably more important than the food itself.

Then I struggled as a kid with ADHD. I wasn’t diagnosed back then and my children are all clinically diagnosed and I found that cooking was something that I could figure out very easily. It came very easily to me. Once I started working in the kitchen, all that chaos just cut through the clutter in my brain and I was able to hyper focus on my cooking.

So it’s not a particular dish, but those are the 2 sort of memories that led me to a career of cooking.

AM: I love that. Gail?

GS: Again, I also don’t think that it was one particular dish, it wasn’t that one moment. My mother was an amazing cook when I was growing up and she had a cooking school that was run out of our house and wrote a column for our national newspaper of Canada as a way to be able to stay home and also work while her children were small. I had 2 older brothers and there was a lot of noise in our house. I think that it was just watching her do this all the time! She ran these classes in our house so there were always people in our home, she was always entertaining and I just saw how much pleasure it gave her and everyone and how fulfilling it was for her to nourish people and to feed people.

I remember that this wasn’t a real dish, but my favorite thing to do as a child while my mom was in the kitchen cooking was to put my little wooden stool at the sink and she would put a big pot in the sink and let me just invade her spice cabinets and I would squirt a bit of this and drizzle a little bit of that and take a big wooden spoon and I would make soup. It allowed us to be together and it gave me such purpose in doing that with her and it was just this imaginary game where I could be a chef and I think that that was sort of that feeling where this was just something that could sustain others and make me feel great and I just sort of loved that feeling of being in the kitchen.

AM: Wow that’s such a memory.

Well, Gail and Tom, you guys have been on Top Chef for 21 seasons and just seeing everything through this food competition, what initially drew you to being part of it and what do you hope that fans are getting out of it when they are watching you guys?

GS: Drew us to be a part of it. I don’t think that either of us were drawn to being part of it because when we started, it wasn’t a thing. There was no food competition reality shows. There was Iron Chef Japan, but obviously that was a very different kind of competition. So this was a real trailblazer at the time and when they came to both of us, neither of us knew what they were talking about, nor were we that interested necessarily because it didn’t seem like a rational thing to do with your career at that moment. I was working at Food & Wine Magazine and actually Bravo came to Food & Wine to partner with them, to teach them about the restaurant and food world and to help them with sort of part of the prize and to learn about the industry. They said, well in exchange, if we like one of your editors, we’ll put them on the judging table to represent the magazine as this partnership. I was chosen to be that person, but I very clearly remember that when my publisher gave me that news, I was sort of terrified!

AM: Gulp!

GS: But I was doing it for my job and I knew that I would still have a job after even if no one liked the show. I had this totally different job with the magazine and this became a side thing to try out to sort of – as a lark. But I knew that Tom was doing it and I had known Tom for many years. But more importantly, the magazine really trusted him. He was a Food & Wine Best Chef, James Beard Award Winner, and I knew that there was going to be a moral compass to the show because of that. So we headed out to San Francisco with very little expectations and I think that that has been the greatest surprise that it exceeded anything that I could have imagined!

CHEF TC: For me, I said no 3 times before finally being coerced into saying yes. I got a call from the producer who said they were doing a show and we think that you would be great. There was a show around that time that featured a chef and it wasn’t a competition and I was like, I don’t want to do that. Then they sent me some DVDs of Project Greenlight and I loved that show.

AM: Same!

CHEF TC: So they sent someone to get me on camera and they asked if I could come in for a screen test and I said no I’m not going in for that. There was a documentary done by a producer from ABC News on the opening of Craft so I sent them that and they said, they wanted to make an offer.

Part of the reason that I said yes and my wife always says that I shouldn’t tell that story, but I will! I got tired of going to food festivals and I’m sitting next to Bobby Flay and he signs 300 books and I signed 20 and I didn’t think that it was because he had a better book, it was because he was on TV!

GS: That’s a great piece of the story! Like if you were living in NY at that moment, everybody knew Tom Colicchio!

AM: Absolutely.

GS: He was the NY chefiest chef! He was the chef-y-chef and still is to the end! But he was such a NY icon, and there wasn’t like a history or a precedent yet where there were chefs that had huge national followings except for the few that were on Food Network. You had Bobby, Emeril, Wolfgang, and that was sort of it. So I think that that sort of recalibrated things.

CHEF TC: What I hope that the viewing audience gets from what we do is that – one thing that just drives me crazy is when people think that there is some kind of game that we are playing. That we are trying to promote one person over another. We don’t care who wins. I’m not a fan.

AM: We can see that when you’re talking on the show.

CHEF TC: Right. I’m not a fan, I’m there to do a job and to be as honest as possible. I hope that that comes across. We’re not playing favorites, we’re not saying that a woman won last season so a man needs to be in this one. No, we don’t care. We judge on the food and that’s it. The only thing that I asked the producers from day one is that judges make decisions. So far, we have made every single decision.

GS: And we have never regretted one either!

CHEF TC: Right! There is that little disclaimer that they say that they help us. If we’re stuck, they’ll say, “well you said this or you said that – what do you think about this?” But they don’t make the decision.

AM: It’s more like running the tape.

GS: Yeah!

CHEF TC: Exactly! It’s kind reminding us of things that we’ve said and trying to get us to discuss. But that happens so infrequently! It happened in a few finales where we were really stuck and because also I think in the finales we pay more attention to it because there is so much on the line and some of them were so close that it would just come down to –

GS: Tiny nitpicking things.

CHEF TC: But, yeah, that’s it.

AM: Kristen, we love that you won Season 10 and it has been great to see you come back for various guest judging, but now you’re on the other side as a host! How do you feel about that and what does it feel like to know how it is on both sides of the table?

CHEF KK: I mean – it’s still a wild thing to know that this is happening! But you know, I will say that having competed, guest judging and obviously when I was done with my season, developing a relationship with these two that went far beyond then the actual show itself, like coming back into it already felt like you were coming back into a family setting. You see producers that have been there since my season and long before, these 2 obviously, I’m very familiar with and so as new as the position was, me coming in and being with these people wasn’t a new thing. So that brought a lot of comfort. I think really the main difference between competing and judging and now hosting is that I get to be part of the whole thing! I get to experience all of the chefs and all of the different variations that they are and regardless of how long that they are there, I get to be there for the whole thing which is pretty fantastic! I also get to say that, “you’re Top Chef!”

GS: For us, where we stood, filling Padma’s (Top Chef, Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, Waffles + Mochi's Restaurant) very high heel shoes, there were very few people that we thought would fit all of that and I think that in a way, it was a very obvious choice to us. Especially because, we knew that we didn’t need to bring in for the 21st season, someone who had never been part of the show before.

AM: Right.

GS: It only made sense because we had created this massive family of 300+ chefs over the seasons who have gone on to such success that it would only make sense to bring someone in who had already been part of it and Tom and I were not the ones that were making the decision, let’s be clear about that. We were involved in the conversations, but it was just so natural and it made such great sense, because she has become such a leader in the industry because she won a season and went on to just – I mean, we have been sitting there being so proud of her for a decade watching as a friend! So, it just felt like the most natural, possible choice.

CHEF TC: I had conversations with the producers and no other name came up!

AM: There you go! We were so happy when we heard that it was you!

CHEF KK: Me too, me too!

AM: What did you guys love about being in Wisconsin for this season and where would you like to see it go for the next one?

GS: Wisconsin was interesting. We were just talking about this. We have been to every corner of this country at this point and we have been abroad, you know our last season, our 20th season Top Chef: World All-Stars was a massive milestone by being able to shoot the entire season in London and in Paris. That was extraordinary, but coming back home to the heartland, we hadn’t explored the Midwest. We were in Chicago in 2007 and that feels like it was an eternity ago especially in the life of restaurants. So I think that it was great to be able to go back to that part of the country and to explore its foodways (Editor’s Note: In social science, foodways are the cultural, social, and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food. Foodways often refer to the intersection of food in culture, traditions, and history.), its indigenous culture, its agriculture, its history, the immigrant populations that brought so much of its food culture, and I don’t know, we had the greatest time! We ate a lot of cheese, we drank a lot of beer.

CHEF KK: There was a lot of custard!

GS: Oh yeah, frozen custard was obviously a highlight.

CHEF KK: I mean, thinking about where to go, I have only been to Milwaukee and Madison so the possibilities on my end – I mean wow, there’s so many places that we can go far and wide. But even from their perspective, they can speak to that, but after 21 seasons, there are just countless places that we can go and there are just so many options.

CHEF TC: The best parts of the show and they don’t get enough credit, the producers do such a great job. They’re on the ground 4 months before production starts, digging through, looking at different foodways, looking for interesting locations and really sort of teasing out some of these challenges. The team spends so much time doing it and yeah, we do a little bit of research. I mean, Gail does all of the research on the restaurants. I just tag along!

GS: I know where to go for dinner afterwards!

CHEF TC: But they do such a great job of researching for us and every season, it’s just beautiful because that location becomes its own character.

AM: Yeah.

CHEF TC: It becomes a real backdrop for everything that we do. Wisconsin was so great and the people were really friendly and so easy to work with.

GS: Coming from London, London was extraordinary for all the reasons that it was extraordinary, but London –

CHEF TC: Britain didn’t care about us!

GS: The UK doesn’t have Top Chef!

AM: Right.

GS: Their culture is all MasterChef all of the time.

CHEF TC: And the Queen died.

GS: Then the queen died in the middle of our season.

AM: Yes, that’s right!

GS: So then they really didn’t care about us. It was sort of refreshing, I liked that, but we were completely anonymous, no one cared, no one made a fuss over us, but sometimes you want a little fuss. I mean, you just want people to care that you’re there – just a little bit. Although I think it made us work harder and it challenged us in the best way, but coming back to Milwaukee – they were like – I mean, they were ready to welcome us with open arms! And that felt really nice.

AM: Love that!

And what about the 15 cheftestants this this season? Is there anything that we should keep an eye out for or what you were excited about or whatever you can share?

GS: I think that it’s really interesting that they’re fun, they’re all really good people, and they have great stories. Again, our casting team does the most amazing job because you think it’s just about casting the 15 best cooks that you can cast, but there are so many factors beyond that and our industry has changed so much and I think that it’s sort of a chicken and egg situation. Did we help mold the industry trends or did the industry trends help mold the show? I think that there is such an interesting interplay there, but you know, the diversity of our cast now versus 12 seasons ago in all senses right? Obviously people of color, we have always had a 50/50 women to men ratio which let me assure you is not the ratio in the real industry

CHEF TC: That’s right.

GS: It is such a massive undertaking casting people who are not only at the top of their game, but all have stories to tell and all can cook and talk at the same time, have perspectives and points of view that will carry over to our audience. It’s just an amazing thing the cast every season and the people that we meet and what we learn about them. I think that this year you will see a few really interesting things. Obviously stories from parts of the world from where they come from, their origins that we have never seen before which definitely is played out on their dishes and also, we’re talking a lot more about what it is like to cook with a disability in the kitchen. Which, this isn’t something that we have faced in a big way on this show. The chef who is actually from Wisconsin, Chef Dan Jacobs, the local chef and he has an amazing story to tell and I just think that it ups the level of appreciation for the craft.

CHEF TC: I think that this season, the chefs were somewhat a little inconsistent. One challenge, a chef would do amazing and then the next challenge it was – what happened? It was just hard to figure out –

GS: It kept us on our toes!

CHEF TC: It could have been nerves.

AM: Just looking at your face, we can see how you didn’t understand how that could happen.

CHEF TC: It was just so hard to understand because there were these ups and downs. But it was a great season and it was a lot of fun.

CHEF KK: It means that the challenges were very good though.

CHEF TC: Yeah, yeah.

CHEF KK: Because it challenged different parts of you and you couldn’t consistently be great at everything.

GS: And the same person wasn’t always on top.

CHEF TC: Yeah, it was an interesting season and there’s some fun stuff! We had a Sausage Race!

AM: When I saw that, I was like yes! Because I’m from the Midwest originally – I’m from Indiana!

GS: Oh!

AM: I was like what? They’re sharing the Sausage Race from the Milwaukee Brewers?

GS: It was the best! It was low hanging fruit. That kind of sounded dirty, but you know what I mean!

AM: Yes!

This season each episode is supersized for 75 mins. There wasn’t a Quick Fire in the first episode, the way immunity is handled – so what are the different twists that we can expect from this season?

CHEF KK: You know, I think that I’m really the most excited that I think midseason that’s after Restaurant Wars or something like that – that Tom and Gail are also part of the Quick Fire. So all 3 of us get to have the same conversation.

AM: Oh wow!

CHEF KK: Include it into the deliberation if you need it. It’s also nice to have the company and to have a little bit more time with them. So for me, that was one of the more fun changes that happened to do it with them.

AM: With the Elimination Challenge on the first episode, each of you had a task that the 15 cheftestants were divided to create 1 of 3 dishes. What was the thought behind the soup (Kristen’s Challenge), the roasted chicken (Tom’s Challenge), and the stuffed pasta (Gail’s Challenge)? Which we loved all of those.

GS: I think that we see patterns over the years right? We have been sitting in these chairs for a really long time Tom and I, longer than we want to admit and we see patterns in cooking. We see trends come and go, but even in the foundations of cooking, I feel that we and our producers have seen things that recur in good ways and bad, over and over again. There are certain foundations and techniques that every chef should have mastered long ago when they get to this stage, but amazingly, they get to the Top Chef Kitchen and it’s not that they don’t know how to make a roast chicken –

CHEF TC: Mmm

GS: And we know that they do it beautifully in their own kitchens.

CHEF TC: Mmm

GS: Or not.

CHEF TC: Mmm

GS: Some of them not.

ALL: Hahaha

GS: But it trips them up and they freeze and so we just wanted to first of all, put them in check and also, make sure that they understand that they shouldn’t be calling it in because something that seems really simple that we see so often on the show can be problematic and also for Kristen, I think that it was a great introduction for the first challenge because she had such a vivid memory in her season.

CHEF KK: We had to make a soup in order to make it to Seattle in the first place. So I cooked for Emeril in Vegas and there were 5 or 6 of us. You had to get his stamp of approval on the soup before you went on. So that was an easy choice for me!

CHEF TC: Roast chicken – if you’re a chef of this caliber and you can’t make a great roast chicken, maybe you need to rethink what you’re doing!

GS: Yeah!

CHEF TC: But also, there’s a certain maturity that you attain when you’re cooking for years, when you’re comfortable enough to leave something alone. I wanted to see who was going to over chef it.

AM: Right!

CHEF TC: Right? Versus having the confidence to just leave the roast chicken alone. I thought that it was a good way to start.

AM: Love that!

We all have our favorites whether it’s Restaurant Wars or certain guest judges that come in. What were your exciting moments of this season?

CHEF KK: Restaurant Wars was awesome! Restaurant Wars is fantastic and I love it so much. If I could ever go back in my life and redo one thing, it would be Restaurant Wars. I let it go.

GS: It ended up ok!

CHEF TC: I think you did alright!

CHEF KK: I just want to prove that I can do it! But it was nice to be part of it from the other side and now to be able to watch it when I see that episode – to see the thought process and the strategy that was played because I didn’t think about it in that way. So, throughout the season, I’m learning a lot about how to compete on Top Chef and I’m never going to do it again in terms of competing on Top Chef. But to also learn a thing or two with different perspectives and great chefs around the country who have something to teach us as well.

GS: I love all the challenges that take them out of the kitchen to cook in weird and wonderful places – on a farm, on a beach, in a baseball stadium. I think that it just changes everything and it gives us energy and it inspires us. But I also think that learning – everywhere we go as we obviously say – there are foodways, there are local traditions that we get to learn about and over the last several seasons gratefully, we have incorporated the indigenous foodways of everywhere we are – in Portland (S18), in Houston (S19), and certainly in this season in Milwaukee and I think that it really helps you take a step back from the way you think of food in the modern kitchen and in that sort of modernist way and we think that the way that we think of produce and agriculture gives us so much perspective as cooks.

CHEF TC: One of my favorite challenges was the Door County Fish Fry.

GS: Oh my God, wild!

CHEF TC: And the reason being was that there was this guy that does fish fry’s, probably 300 a year and he had a very specific way of doing it. We were all in the parking lot actually watching this happen and if you watch it with chef eyes, you’re like, “this is ridiculous. Why are you doing this?” You’re going against everything that you are taught. But the guy has been doing this a long time and it blew my mind that the chefs weren’t really paying attention to what he was doing. They were just like, I’m going to do it my way.

GS: Or I can make it better!

CHEF TC: Right, I can make it better. Yeah and it was interesting to watch.

AM: Oh wow!

CHEF TC: We also at some point, they were all calm and then you saw them all come to this realization that they really should have listened. Should have paid attention.

GS: They definitely should have paid attention in math class that day!

CHEF TC: Yeah.

AM: What can you tell us if anything about the finale that we should be looking forward to?

GS: I don’t know what we can tell you about the finale – there is a finale!

AM: There you go! There’s going to be people there.

CHEF TC: There’s people there.

GS: It’s not in Wisconsin. Every year it’s always a little different.

AM: So Tom, you always say that shooting this show is like Summer Camp.

CHEF TC: Yeah!

AM: What do you mean by that?

CHEF TC: Well I didn’t go to Summer Camp, but if I had –

AM: Neither have I.

CHEF TC: You go to Summer Camp, you have those friends. You see them for 6 weeks in the summer and you go back every summer and you see them. When we do this show, there’s probably 150 people on a crew these days. There has probably been about a quarter or 50 that have been doing this for 10+ years and so you see your summer friends. These are our summer friends and you hang out with them. You go out to dinner and a bunch of us play instruments and we get together and play so it’s fun!

GS: There are a lot of campfires!

CHEF TC: Yeah and it’s a fun get together and you fall right back into relationships as soon as you get there. It’s just immediately you’re right back into Summer Camp.

AM: What instrument are you playing?

CHEF TC: I play guitar!

AM: That’s what we thought!

CHEF KK: He’s very good!

GS: I play the cowbell! I’m joking!

AM: Kristen, what are you playing?

CHEF KK: If there was a keyboard, I would be playing.

CHEF TC: We’re going to get you a little accordion!

GS: Oh yeah!

CHEF KK: I will learn to play the accordion!

CHEF TC: Absolutely, we’re going to get you one so you can play.

AM: When we’re in the kitchen, we always love our favorite playlists while we’re making our dishes. What are 3 songs that you like listening to when you’re cooking?

CHEF KK: I don’t know if there is a particular song. But in my restaurant kitchen, there’s certain kinds of music that we go with the Beyonce, Whitney Houston vibe.

GS: Wow.

CHEF KK: Everyone loves it – it’s not politically drawn any which way.

AM: It’s just good sounds.

CHEF KK: It’s solid music. A lot of Earth, Wind, & Fire as well. At home, I listen to Van Morrison because I have great memories of my dad. My mom in the summertime in Michigan, all the windows in the house open and spring cleaning starts and my dad has like a CD player in the kitchen and it would blast through the house – Van Morrison – so for me, I always like to listen to Van Morrison.

AM: Tom?

CHEF TC: God, It all depends on what I am in the mood for.

GS: Yeah.

CHEF TC: I often cook with reggae and Grateful Dead - Anthony Bourdain just rolled over one time in his grave because he hates them, but it all depends. I do like cooking with music especially when I’m home.

We do have music in the kitchen here in NY at Craft, I stay out of it! I walk down there sometimes and I’m like, what the heck? But it’s like, do whatever you want.

AM: Gail?

GS: I would say the same. I love when I can be in my zone in my kitchen. I don’t like talking to people when I’m cooking, it's my quiet happy place. Everyone in my house knows that it’s my space. It’s not to say that I don’t speak to my family. I can also get them involved. But when I am in a rhythm with music, it really is my meditation in so many ways that that zone that you get into – but I listen to all kinds of things depending on my travels, where I have been, what’s happening in the moment. My husband actually works in the music industry. He creates playlists so there’s always playlists on my Spotify made from him. It also depends on my kids. My daughter has very strong opinions about the music so when she comes home she’ll often change it, but I just love a rhythm when I am cooking for sure.

AM: My last question has 3 parts, and is part of our feature, THE 9LIST 9M3NU, this month, it looks at: a) why you enjoy cooking in the Spring; b) what are spices that you enjoy cooking; and c) for Tom and Kristen, what are 3 dishes that we can enjoy are your restaurants and Gail, what are 3 dishes that we could enjoy if we were at your home?

GS: That’s a big 3 part question!

AM: We did this recently with Alton Brown and he got such a kick out of it!

So what do you love about the Spring when you are creating your dishes?

CHEF KK: I’m just excited to be out of fall! Because growing up in a 4 season kind of place, Austin is very different. I had to learn what food seasons there were. You had two tomato seasons – there’s a long story behind that. But you have 2 tomato seasons, 2 strawberry seasons. But I mean, for any season change that happens, by the time fall is nearing an end, I can’t do any more with squashes. I’m ready for the green fresh and the vibrancy! Now that my wife has started gardening, she has a whole Spring list that she is excited about. I’m excited about the fresh stuff at home and to be out of the fall vegetables!

CHEF TC: This time of year, morels, peas, and asparagus, fava beans, and rhubarb. I just shot photos of a book that I’m working on yesterday and it was Spring. There’s nothing happening in Spring right now although we had some great weather, but nothing is coming out of the ground yet. But in California, it’s already Spring and we had a bunch of stuff there that we shipped in. You know, it’s my favorite time to cook. I think that part of it is that it is Spring Renewal and you’re coming out of the winter, food becomes lighter, fresher, greener. The flavors are something that I really enjoy!

GS: I think that there is a reason that if you think about the rhythms of the world, like even in religion – Passover, Easter, or Eid, they all happen in the exact same time of year for a reason because it’s renewal, it’s celebration of the Earth and all of the waking up of the world again and so Spring is absolutely the best time of year to cook. All of the early berries and the rhubarb. All of the peas – I could eat peas all of the time, every moment of the year! But I don’t because they are so much sweeter and I like to eat them in the Spring and asparagus. All the fresh herbs, everything comes to life and I just feel like there is so much flavor there and you don’t realize until you get to cook with them, how much you have missed them through the cold winter months!

AM: Very true!

What are 3 spices that you like cooking with?

CHEF KK: Ooo someone else take this first so I can think about this one!

GS: Not together, but right now that I have been leading on a lot, sumac, smoked paprika, and cardamom. Again, not together!

AM: Right.

GS: But they are 3 spices that I find really add dimension to whatever I’m cooking.

CHEF TC: I love sumac! I always forget about sumac.

GS: I’m going to bring you some! I’m going to bring you some! I just received this giant pint container of the most beautiful sumac that I have ever tasted.

CHEF TC: Spice wise, pepper, black pepper, and long pepper which you don’t see a lot of. Fennel seed, I just can’t get enough of that!

GS: Oh me too!

CHEF TC: I absolutely love it, it’s one of my favorites. Gail and I are lovers of licorice, right here. The black ones, not the red stuff that’s candy. Actual licorice is my favorite.

GS: Ooo White Taragon is my favorite!

CHEF TC: Fennel – wild fennel fronds woo!

GS: Delicious!

CHEF TC: It’s the best!

CHEF KK: I agree on the black pepper! However, I like to toast my black pepper. So I toast my peppercorns before they go into the grinder. It just adds a whole other dimension of flavor. One of my favorite spice blends is Montreal Steak Seasoning.

GS: I love you for that answer!

CHEF KK: It’s so good!

GS: If I didn’t love you before, I love you now!

CHEF KK: It’s so good, so yes – Montreal Steak Seasoning.

GS: On everything? No matter what or just on meats?

CHEF KK: No, I do it on vegetables.

GS: Salty, smokey!

CHEF KK: I have it as a finishing salt on certain dishes. I don’t do it at my restaurant, I do it at home.

GS: I don’t know why it’s called Montreal Steak Seasoning.

CHEF KK: I don’t know either!

GS: It’s not particularly Montreal spices.

CHEF TC: It’s like why is that rice that San Francisco treat?

GS: That’s a really good question! It’s a mystery of the universe!

AM: Ha!

The last part of the question is for Kristen and Tom, what are 3 dishes that our readers should try at your restaurant that you would suggest for our readers to come and have?

CHEF KK: One of Arlo Grey's most popular dishes is this beautiful Malfaldini Pasta not that it was done intentionally, but I cooked these mushrooms several times and it just so happened to be a mushroom that got me my first win on Top Chef, but people love to come to the restaurant to try it. It’s like a 4 day sauce that you dehydrate and rehydrate it and it’s just humble white button mushrooms.

There’s this Crispy Rice dish which is my ode to crab fried rice in a lot of ways.

There are 3 dishes that will never change those two and the Lime Sorbet which has pink peppercorns, coconut, and people really love it and it’s like the dessert palette cleanser.

AM: Tom

CHEF TC: Well, it depends on the restaurant!

AM: Well choose your restaurant!

CHEF TC: So Small Batch out in Garden City, LI, I would say the Braised Chicken Thighs. We do it with semi-dried tomatoes, soppressata, lots of sherry vinegar, roasted garlic confit and really good.

Craft NY, the Braised Beef Short Ribs are the go-to there and any of the pasta dishes that we make are really good. We make them all by hand at Craft.

Then Temple Court, the Roast Chicken is really good! It’s a Spring roasted chicken with lots of garlic, ramps, and mushrooms.

AM: Gail, if we were to go home with you, what would we have for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner?

GS: Oh wait, now I have to give you a whole day? That’s a lot of things!

AM: Well, it’s 3 dishes!

GS: Alright, sure, ok! That’s fair!

Alright, I’m a big egg person so I would always make you eggs in the morning. I like just a simple, well I like eggs anyway that you give them to me, but one of my favorite ways is just a really simple soft scramble with some chives and a little parmesan. But I’m very particular, I hate when eggs are overcooked. I don’t want them undercooked.

CHEF TC: You hate the Spanish Fry.

GS: I hate – well I love them in a Spanish Tortilla but the fried egg with the crispy edges – I like it when the egg yolk is still runny.

CHEF TC: Ok.

GS: You know what I mean?

CHEF TC: Alright!

GS: There’s a delicate balance, but for a scramble or an omelet, it really drives me nuts when you get that brown crust on top! A soft scramble means cooking it slowly. People just want to pummel an egg and that’s not nice to the egg. So that’s what I would make you for breakfast.

For lunch, lunch is kind of random – it’s not like I’m making elaborate lunches! But maybe I would make a roasted chicken with some spring vegetables or make you a really big fresh salad with a beautiful piece of fish on top.

For dinner, my family, we love soups all year around. We make a lot of soup and braises as well as stews because it’s really great for families to eat and to make in big batches! But now that it is Spring, maybe I need to get out of that.

I’m trying to think of dinner because I don’t have a signature or a restaurant so I don’t have to cook anything ever more than once! I love that as a cook, I can make whatever I want.

AM: That’s right!

GS: So I think that it really depends on the time of year and where I’m coming from. Every time I’m coming back from a trip, I bring back with me these memories of a favorite thing that I was cooking then so I just got back from a trip from Quebec and all I want to eat now is Maple Syrup on everything. So, I might make you a very traditional Quebec Tourtiere which is a savory meat pie with a beautiful golden crust. It’s sort of like a chicken potpie, but it’s a little heavier. Or maybe a Tarte au Sucre which is a traditional Maple Sugar Tart – for dinner – just tart!

IG @bravotopchef

@kristenlkish

@tomcolicchio

@gailsimmonseats

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | FRONT COVER Stephanie Diani/Bravo | PG 16 - 39, BACK COVER + 9PLAYLIST COLLAB David Moir/Bravo |

Read the MAR ISSUE #99 of Athleisure Mag and see IN GOOD TASTE | Chef Tom Colicchio, Chef Kristen Kish, and Gail Simmons in mag.

JUST DANCE | INNA

We're always thinking about the song of the summer or a series of songs that we can identify with this time of year when we look back! There's nothing like a series of songs that you can dance too, have great energy and have a number of memories that you can attach to them whether you're solo or with friends and family!

We caught up with Romanian singer/songwriter INNA who is known for this kind of music as well as creating fun videos that are filled with dancing. We wanted to know more about how she came to the entertainment industry, how she goes about creating and collaborating with her music, her latest songs, Dance Queen House and the fact that last year, she croosed over to having over 10 billion views and streams! She tells us all this and more!

ATHLEISURE MAG: What was the first song that you remember that made you fall in love with music?

INNA: Hmm, most likely Romanian songs sung by my mother, grandma, grandpa. I was born and raised in a family where music was an important part of our lives. But some of the artists who had a big impact on me when I was a child were Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

AM: When did you realize that you wanted to be an entertainer?

I: From the very first years of my life. I was singing all the time: in the church choir, for my family and friends.

AM: How do you define your style of music?

I: Dance music, energetic, uptempo, about love, friendship, having fun, enjoying life.

AM: When you’re creating new music or a project, how do you get inspired?

I: I find that Inspiration comes from everything around me: my life, my friends lives, my memories, my experiences.

AM: How does your creative process change when you collaborate with other artists?

I: We establish sessions, we start talking about different stuff, we think of a concept, of an idea and we start developing on it.

AM: You have worked with a number of artists from Sofi Tukker, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Alok and more. What do you look for when it comes to those that you want to work with?

I: Sometimes a song brings artists together, sometimes the idea of “let’s collaborate, I love your music and I respect you as an artist.” It goes both ways.

AM: You’ve released a number of albums and have received a number of MTV Europe Music Awards, as well as others throughout your career. Last year, you crossed over to having over 10 billion views and streams! What did this mean to you to cross that benchmark?

I: It was and it still is surreal! It’s out of my imagination. I didn’t dare to dream it might happen to me. I am truly grateful to my fans, to people listening to my music and to my team, of course!

AM: You kicked off 2023 dropping Yummy, tell me about this song!

I: Yummy is a sexy song I teamed up with Stefflon Don and Dhurata Dora and it kind of sounded like a banger. It’s a nice collaboration, I enjoyed the female energy and the fans enjoyed it as well.

AM: Tell us about the Dance Queen House Album as this seems like an interesting concept in terms of how you go about creating albums that are released in this name.

I: Last year marked the third season of Dance Queen’s House, a session that lasted for 16 days while I was isolated in a house with producers and songwriters from Global Records, my record label. We work on new music, we have fun, we shoot the entire experience and at the end of these days, we release vlogs on my YouTube channel and of course, the album.

This is something I started doing in the pandemic, because I wanted to stay in touch with my fans and since I couldn’t tour, these vlogs and new music were the perfect way of staying close to them. After these three seasons, I managed to release 3 albums Heartbreaker from the first season, Champagne Problems in two parts and Just Dance in two parts as well.

AM: What’s it like to create your songs for albums that are part of Dance Queen House?

I: It’s very nice I get to share the entire process with my fans and also do a lot of activities.

AM: You also dropped your 9th studio album, Just Dance which was released in 2 parts, why did you release it this way and what songs are you excited about?

I: We worked on a lot of music in a very short time, just 16 days, songs that needed time to be produced to sound good. And also, there were lots of songs, so I felt we had to share them separately, so that my fans get to enjoy them.

AM: Tell me about your latest release with Gamuel Sori, Party Songs and how did this record come about?

I: My manager played me the song, I liked it and I jumped on it!

AM: Why is this song going to be on summer playlists this year?

I: Party Songs is the perfect party anthem, with summer flavour and amazing energy!

AM: Do you have any routines that you do before you hit the stage and do you have anything that you do after doing a show to relax or to come down from all the energy?

I: Before the show, I rest for a bit, because I’m usually travelling the same day. After that, I enjoy a coffee to get me energised, I start doing my make-up, my hair and I am getting ready for the show. After the show, I usually spend time with my team, we talk about the show and after that, I have to sleep a lot!

AM: Do you have any upcoming events or projects that we should keep an eye out for?

I: It will be a summer full of shows and festivals and I cannot wait! Stay tuned and check out my socials for updates!

AM: We like asking celebs about how they stay fit. As a singer and dancer, what are 3 workouts what do you do to stay in shape?

I: I’m walking 10 000 steps daily (or more when I have more free time).

I go out with my skateboard

I workout at home, with different routines, depending on the mood that day.

Or I go to the gym and I work out with my personal trainer.

AM: We’re always looking for new dishes that we can add for our meals and we hear that you cook for your friends and family and are vegan! What are 3 vegan dishes that you enjoy cooking for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

I: Hummus, guacamole for breakfast (although, most of the times, I skip breakfast)

Melanzana (eggplant with tomatoes, basil, tofu and vegan parmigiana) for lunch

Pasta for dinner

AM: In addition to all of the amazing things that you have done musically, you are an advocate and support an array of causes from being a human rights activists, participating in campaigns against domestic violence, supporting children’s rights, supporting the LGBTQIA+ community and raising funds for Ukraine. Why is it important to you to use your platform to support these diverse causes and to make your following aware of this?

I: I believe it’s important to use my voice to do good and help people in need, support causes that need awareness. This is something I won’t stop doing for the rest of my life.

AM: What do you want your legacy to be known as?

I: An artist who brings joy in people’s lives through her music, an artist who loves people and who loves to spread good energy.

IG @inna

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY | PG 78 - 79 + PG 144 9PLAYLIST INNA

Read the JUN ISSUE #90 of Athleisure Mag and see JUST DANCE | INNA in mag.

MANIFESTING THIS LIFE | CANDIACE DILLARD-BASSETT

One of our favorite reality franchises is BRAVO's The Real Housewives. It gives you a glimpse of a city with a group of women that are friends who open up their lives. You find that they are ambitious driven women who navigate their communities. The Real Housewives of Potomac is one of our favorites in this city specific series and when Candiace Dillard-Bassett arrived starting in the 3rd season, we met a woman on a mission who had an array of accolades under her belt while being focused on building her legacy. We talk with her about pageantry, her career prior to being on RHOP, the show, what the platform has provided, her music career and how she continues to give back to others!

ATHLEISURE MAG: In prep for this inter-view, I really liked learning about your background. You grew up with parents who both worked in the Air Force as physicians, graduated from Howard University and you worked in public service at the White House Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs for President Barack Obama as well as serving as a staffer during his 2012 reelection campaign. Why was it important for you to begin your career in this way in public service?

CANDIACE DILLARD-BASSETT: I know that I grew up in a household that de- manded excellence. I grew up in a household where everyone was a professional. My parents were physicans, they have a military background and they raised me as well as my siblings to model that. They taught us the truth of being people of color in this country, how the world might not always see us in the way that we see ourselves when we’re surrounded by like-minded people who look like us and think like us.

I always tell this story, it’s funny. I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a physician, I started out wanting to be a dermatologist, and I wanted to be an OBGYN. I think I must have gotten to the 9th grade and chemistry, algebra and calculus were kind of kicking my butt and I discovered that these were not my friends, so it let me pivot to something else that I am really good at which is communications. I love publc speaking – I love writing and I love aspects of journalism. I ended up being co-editor of my yearbook and co-editor of my newspaper in high school. I love to read. So, thank God, that I found something else because that math got me!

I want to encourage women who are going out in those fields for STEM because it’s so important and it’s something that we need to have more faces there that look like us there and showcase that representation. I’m a cheerleader and I’m in the back in the hallways saying, “go my STEM sisters!” But it’s just not my ministry. You have to know your strengths.

AM: That’s totally true. I thought about med school and then law school, but then you think about those years and the kinds of studies involved and I just kept continuing to code and work in fashion. But I love seeing those who are deeply involved in STEM and STEAM – all of that! So, you were Miss United States 2013. I never did pageants personally, but I have styled projects with Virginia Limongi Miss Ecuador 2018 ahead of her competing for Miss Universe as well as Nia Franklin Miss America 2019. I love this element of the pageant world as it’s more than looking beautiful as there are these other facets to it. Why was it so important to you that you wanted to do that and how important is that for character building?

CDB: I’m a pageant girl for life. I started competing since I was 5 years old and it was just ingrained in me. I will always speak up and speak about that part of my life because I always want to serve as an example of what it truly looks like to be a product of the pageant industry and of the pageant world as a whole, because there is this stigma – this neg- ative idea attached to women who compete in pageants that we’re dumb, we’re self-absorbed that we are mean – cutting each other’s dresses backstage, cutting lipsticks -

AM: Breaking zippers!

CDB: Yeah all of that stuff!

AM: I was a cheerleader – so yup!

CDB: Same! So you understand! So there’s that Toddlers and Tiaras sort of trope that people always ask me when I say that I have competed in pageants, “oh is it like Toddlers and Tiaras?” I mean, yes there are some aspects of the pageant world that can be superficial and that can be seen in a negative light, but my experience in all my years competing and I have competed a lot, I have always felt uplifted and empowered, seen and heard and loved. It’s where I learned to identify who I was. Where I learned how to brand myself, where I learned how to speak up for my- self and be an advocate – not just for me, but for causes that I believe in. I learned how to communicate those things in a way that was palatable and respectful and made sense to different audiences. I credit my mom and pageantry for all of those things. Some of the most brilliant women that I know – doctors, lawyers, scientists, inventors, dancers – you could not imagine the pedigree that you find in pageantry, and it goes far beyond just smiling, waving and being a robot. That’s only one aspect of the game of the sport because I do feel that it is one. I’m so proud to be part of it!

AM: You also have an agency where you help other people in the pageant system. Can you talk more about that?

CDB: I founded my consulting firm Candiace Dillard Pageant Consulting for the very reasons that I explained. After I won Miss United States, I found myself being a coach on accident – being someone that is empowering women around their pageant journey. It was my director at the time, Laura Clark who is now the director of The Miss Earth United States Organization – she’s a bad B! She’s a bad woman, I love her! My makeup artist at the time, Melissa, we were sitting in the hotel room and I was helping to co-produce a pageant for them one weekend. We were talking about me helping the girls and we were talking and they said, “this is a business – why don’t you start a business?” I was like, “no, why would I do that? I could just help them.” They explained that I could do it for free but when it could be framed as a structured enterprise that has tiers and everything that these women need to truly get the most of this experience by someone that has been through it.

I was like, ok and it was born! I have coached over 500 women to different titles and different places. Obviously have not been as active lately because I can barely keep an eyebrow on!

AM: You’re just a bit busy!

CDB: It’s always something that I go back to. My girls – they’re my friends, my sisters – I call them my pageant sisters. They’ll call me and let me know what’s happening. Even the little girls that I have coached, I have watched them grow up and compete as junior teens and now they’re in the Miss category. They’re like my little babies and they have just flourished. It’s rewarding to see and it’s work that I would do for free.

AM: I think that that’s amazing when you’re able to give back and infuse peo- ple in that way. You’re always going to remember who shined a light on you and to do that across all the people that you have mentored – it’s phenomenal.

CDB: Of yeah, it’s so rewarding and I would do it for nothing – just for fun. You get to play dress up, help women decide who they want to be and you’re doing it with them! It’s like having your own children helping them out and I love opening doors or women who are al- ready so special, intelligent and wise. It’s just giving them that polish and tweak that they need to accomplish their goals in the same way that I was fable to use pageantry to accomplish mine.

AM: I don’t know how you sleep because you also have a successful hairline, Prima Hair Collection by Candiace Dillard. Why did you want to be involved in the hair industry and why are you so passionate about it?

CDB: Prima Hair Collection was really a spin-off of pageantry so I love that you put those questions together. When I was competing coming up in the 90s, it was hard to find hair extensions that worked, were human hair, that came in different lengths, different textures and different colors that worked for me and worked with women that looked like me. We were stuck with synthetic hair or bad weaves or very expensive extensions because there was a monopoly on the market. There are a lot of different hair extension companies that you can choose from now, but I still had a passion for sector of the beauty history. It was my mom who said, “this should be a business.” There’s that theme where it’s always a woman empowering me to see something great for myself. It was my mom this time and she said that we were going to do it. I was like, “really we are, yay!” She helped me do the re-search and she gave me the investment. She purchased my first large order of hair. My sister got involved and 7+ years later, we are a full-service company that does business across the world. We have international clients that will clamor to get Prima hair. We are looking to move into other products soon. I have always seen myself move into other hair care products. I see myself at some point moving into skincare – I love it so much!

AM: I could see that!

CDB: Yes, but that’s really something that I would want to take my time with and find the right people, the right chemist that will ensure I’m putting out the products that I would use myself. But that’s down the road. Right now, Prima Hair is still kicking and we’re moving into other hair products.

AM: I think it’s amazing to hear this. I graduated from college in 2001 and the first 6 to 7 years, I was modeling and what it was like then to model as a Black woman – some people didn’t know how to do my makeup, you brought your own items! When we launched this magazine, 6 years ago I said that it was unacceptable for a hair or makeup person to come to set saying that they couldn’t work with various skin tones and poking around.

CDB: Yeah! We have had to learn to bring our own makeup for ourselves and to do our own hair. Right now, if it’s not one of my own makeup artists, I’m like, “I’m ok, I can do it myself.” You just come conditioned not to feel seen and not to be represented in those spaces.

AM: It’s so sad. We had someone come to set, is super accomplished and she brought 3 bags of her own makeup and it broke my heart. To know that she was known and she still felt the need to do that, I told her that she didn’t have to do that and we had great talent on set. Of course, our MUA killed it but seeing that the feeling still exists even after all of this time – it broke my heart. I always enjoy hearing that people like you and others are doing the good work!

You joined the cast of RHOP in the 3rd season. I already loved it when it first came out and then you stepped on the stage and I was excited as your personality is like my own. What made you see this and want to be part of it?

CDB: So, I can remember – I’m originally from Georgia – when The Real Housewives of Atlanta started, I thought, “oh my God, a show about Atlanta.” I watched with my mom and we were all engrossed in the show and then of course, I went off to college in Howard and then I was living in the DMV which we call the DC, Maryland, Virginia area and my best friend called me and asked I had heard about this new Black Housewives show. I hadn’t, but then I started watching. It was exciting that on a network like BRAVO that is very popular and well known and very much engrossed in pop culture – Atlanta was the premier show for women of color and here we are now with the second iteration of women of color in this franchise. This was exciting. I wanted to know who the girls were and at that time, I had been here for 14 years – a long time. I came to Howard in 2005 and I never left. I wanted to know who was on the show, what they were wearing and where they were going. I was interested and I was watching it with my boyfriend at the time, Chris and I thought, why am I not on the show? I knew I should be on this show and I remember praying about an opportunity to be on the show. I said, “listen God, if You give me the opportunity to be on this show, I promise that I will glorify You and I will use it as a vehicle to be a catalyst to accomplish all the things that You said that I would have.” Literally, the next year I was getting a call from the casting director – the Power of the Tongue. I live by it – I manifest with the Power of the Tongue. Speak what you want – that’s the message of today.

AM: Are there things that you had to consider when you knew that you would be putting your life out there and did you think about aspects involving bringing friends, family and your relationship on there?

CDB: Yes, so obviously, I had to talk to Chris. At the time, we were not engaged. We had talked about it and he had explicit instructions on what that ring would be.

AM: Check!

CDB: My mom – I didn’t worry about her because if you watch the show, you know that that woman was made for TV! She created me – my mom named me after Candice Bergen from Murphy Brown and Dominique Deveraux played by Diahann Carroll from Dynasty. So she knew what she was doing. So that lady knew what she was doing. That lady was ready! I didn't have to tell her anything except what time and where she had to be!

AM: She might have outrun you to get there!

CDB: EXACTLY! She was getting in there. Chris and I sat down and we said that we wanted to do it and we wanted to use the show, like I said, as a catalyst and a vehicle to accomplish our goals. We agreed upfront that it would be us against everybody and that we would never allow anything to infiltrate our relationship and that we would do it until it wasn’t fun anymore. Those were solid conversations that we had. So far, we have stuck to that and we have been able to use the platform in a way that has been beneficial in our careers. I’m so grateful to BRAVO and to our production company because they have allowed me to get married on the show, truly start my music journey on the show, my acting on the show and my hair business on the show. You should come in and want to use this platform to advance yourself. Being a career housewife is wonderful, but I know that there is more to do beyond the platform and so I’m here as long as it serves me and then it’s on to the next.

AM: So, how long do you guys film for?

CDB: We shoot for about 4 months.

AM: That’s a chunk of time.

CDB: Yes and it’s a stressful chunk of time because it’s a job. You are with the pro- duction company for that entire period of time and you have to tailor your life to that time. Luckily, the show is a docuseries so they’re following our lives. Most of what we’re doing, they’re following. The more you have going on the better and I have too much going on this year! It’s making my edges fall out! The plus and the minus is that having a lot going on is great, but it is an ensemble cast, so a lot of things that are happening in your life, may not make it and may stay on the cutting room floor. They have to get equal amounts of everyone's story. So they pick and choose what makes it and we have no control over what makes it. So that’s always an interesting journey to go on to find out that right before it airs, they cut that whole story out and it’s like they shot 5 scenes for that and it won’t air.

AM: My favorite scenes are the confessionals because you’re glammed up and you’re talking about what you thought about something that is taking place on the episode. How do you come up with the outfits that you’re going to wear?

CDB: That’s always really fun! Shout out to my style team - my hair and my make-up glam team and my stylist. We come together and we decide together what we are going to do. So, one of them – sometimes it won’t be my hairstylist, my wardrobe stylist will send a hair look that she thinks would be amazing. My hairstylist, Stephanie will say that she loves it and my makeup artist Kendell will say that this is a great look to go with it. We then piece it together. One thing that people may not know is that we shoot the same look, multiple times. It’s always a challenge to find a look that is intricate and unique, but can be recreated. I’ve had braids twice now and braids are tricky because you shoot with them when they’re new and then you come back and shoot with you again in the same look in a month or month and a half and you’ve been running around in the world living with those braids and you need a touchup. But what I do, is that I have a headwrap when I have braids and you can’t tell when my roots start to show. I love confessionals, it’s like playing dress-up and you’re talking and chatting with your producer, saying what’s happening, being funny and being shady while having some champagne.

AM: It’s safe to assume that you will be back for the 7th season?

CDB: Well I think I saw somewhere that someone at BRAVO had to make an announcement that everyone was asked back because I made a little bit of a cryptic tweet and it had the Internet in an uproar.

There are just days where trolling is my ministry!

AM: It is what it is!

CDB: So yes, that was a funny day because my publicist told me that everyone was calling and E! wanted a statement and I said that they would be fine! So, I think that everybody is coming back.

AM: Like you said, you’re always using the platform to share your body of work and interests. We have seen your music career on the show and now DEEP SPACE, your debut album is out! How was that, you released it fall of last year – you’ve had over 2M streams – it’s amazing!

CDB: It’s crazy! It’s surreal because I had always seen something with music happening in my head and it really started when Chris and I got married and I knew I wanted to perform a song for him at our wedding.

AM: It was a beautiful song.

CDB: Thank you. I See You was my first recorded song. Originally I wasn’t going to do an original piece. I wanted to do a Toni Braxton song – she’s perfect at love songs. My wedding was being filmed for the show and my producer said, if you want us to capture you singing, you can’t do someone else’s song. For those that may not know about television is that there are so many rules and one of them is that you have to keep in mind the licensing. Toni Braxton is gong to demand the fees of herself, the producers, the writers and her label. That could be $40K or $100K for the show to play her song on the show and they said they weren’t going to pay that.

So I thought I would write the song and I worked with Veda Whisnant and my good friend Cliff as well as the gentleman who is now my music director, Aaron Hardin. They created I See You and that was the snowball effect and people were looking to work with me including Chucky Thompson, may he rest in peace. He did a disgustingly amazing job on the I See You the Go-go Remix – Go-go music has been a huge part of my life since I have lived in DC. It kind of snowballed from there and got bigger than what I thought it would. I knew I would put out a few songs, but then as I continued to move through the music industry, it went to doing an EP, to doing an album to performing live – it just materialized before my eyes. It’s still going!

AM: What’s it like to have Anita Baker, Nicki Minaj and Toni Braxton to bless your work? I’ve been a huge fan of Anita Baker’s work and have such a respect for her and obviously, Toni Braxton and Nicki Minaj are amazing as well. What has that been like?

CDB: I don’t even know! I have no words. When you grow up listening to these voices. For me who has a lower register, I never felt confident about my voice. Every- one celebrates Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston that has these soaring Soprano voices and I never felt like I heard anything like my voice until I heard Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Brandy who I love. They liberated me and helped me to be proud of my voice and showed me what I could do with my voice and I studied their voices to really feel like I could sing and that I could use my voice to emote and be an artist. I owe them everything. What do you mean that Anita Baker knows who I am?

AM: I read that twice and was like, oh – Anita.

CDB: It’s still crazy to me. It’s like shut up, I can’t believe that.

AM: And yet, it happened!

You came off the Femme it Forward Tour – how was that? SWV, Faith Evans and Mya? That’s some legit superstar magic right there!

CDB: Not me – them! I’m still processing.

It's just unbelievable because again, these are Black women in R&B that wrote the soundtrack to so much of my life in the 90s and on. They wanted me to be with them on their stages, on their platforms and they respect me and they see me. That is heavy, but it’s also light in a way because I’m doing all day – that’s where I am with it. I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t worthy and I’m just trying to live in the worthiness of it if that makes sense.

AM: It totally does! Once again, you’re manifesting up a storm. You’ve been on Netflix’s Family Reunion and being on BET’s The Christmas Lottery. The level of creativity that you have embraced and do, what does it feel like to know that it’s ok to embrace on all of these activities and to nibble on them, try them and to make it their own way. There are so many people that shy away from taking on so many things especially when they are not in the same area and I always encourage people to lean into it.

CDB: I feel like if I didn’t do all of the things that are inside of me, I would explode. It just has to come out. Some- times it doesn’t make sense and some- times I’m exhausted and sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing and I feel that sometimes.

AM: And that’s ok.

CDB: Yes, it’s ok to not know what you’re doing. If you’re following your heart, you’re following your dream, just follow it. You don’t have to ask questions – you just need to follow it and be led by it. That’s what’s calling you and you have to trust that if you’re spiritual or not but that which is leading you is coming from a higher place. That’s literally it. Some- times I’m like, “girl what are you doing and I’m like I don’t know.” But I trust and I continue and then I see the fruits and then I know why it makes sense. That’s why there is a DEEP SPACE, that’s why there is a Family Reunion, that’s why there is a Water in a Broken Glass – whatever projects I’ve worked on and there's more - so much more that I want to do in the acting realm episodically and on the big screen. I want to continue to tour and collaborate musically with new people.

AM: You’re just flowing. I always say that – I say it, I pray it, I step out on it and I just pray that God catches me.

CDB: Yasss! That’s all you can do.

AM: The rest will be figured out and if it gets messy, we’ll figure it out and make it to something else.

CDB: Exactly.

AM: Tell me about My Sister’s Keeper and why you wanted to create this organization?

CDB: So this goes back to pageantry. It was competing in pageants that led me to feel like I could create an organization that truly empowered women that were not in a position to receive resources in the same way that I was. I was a student at Howard University and it’s located in NW Washington DC. There are no gates, you are in the city. You are a part of the fabric in DC and that’s not always attractive. There’s homelessness, there’s crime – it’s a lot of pieces to that puzzle. The school directly across the street from Howard was Banneker Senior High School. I used to tudor there and I noticed that there was a lack of guidance for a lot of the young women who attended school there and just in general as I maneuvered through DC, I experienced the youth in the area – particularly in lower income areas in SE DC. I felt like I could help and part of it was ignorance. I grew up in a way that I hadn’t seen that with my own two eyes. So when I’m out in the world and I’m now doing my own thing, I realized that I had all these resources and I had someone who reared me, taught me and showed me – I said I could do that and help with that. That’s how we started. We go into schools that are mostly in the DC area and just have conversations with these young women.

We do these things called a Girl Talk Circle where we sit in a circle and put questions and thoughts into a bowl and pull them out and talk about what they’re feeling or thinking. Sometimes a girl will own it and sometimes she won’t but that’s the point. You can have an issue and not be judged. I have integrated My Sister’s Keeper into Candiace Pageant Consulting because everyone is not cut out for pageants, but you can tell when a young woman has that spark or that je ne sai quoi piece that she could rock a stage or that she could be good in this space. It’s a great way again to iron you out and give a woman poise and purpose. You have to know who you are in order to compete and it forces you to figure out who you are and I want it for all women but especially Black women because we’re not first. No one is giving us the right – it’s not a privilege – the right to feel empowered and to feel that we can have whatever we what.

AM: And to understand what the game- board is and to navigate that! And to do it one way versus the other way. Although, you might have to dig in that bag every now and then again too.

CDB: That’s part of it too. It’s knowing how and when to code switch and when to use what resources where and how – yeah!

AM: Are there any other up and coming projects that we should keep an eye out for because I feel like you’re this till that keeps on springing forth.

CDB: YES! Part of the reason why I am so tired is because I was finishing up one of my final classes for my MBA program at Howard. You’ll be seeing graduation very soon and at the same time, I made this 14 slide pitch deck that I had to do for this class, I was in the studio recording new music. I am really excited because we are going to be doing a deluxe version of the DEEP SPACE album and that will be set to come out some- time this summer! I haven’t talked about that, that’s an exclusive to you guys!

AM: I mean, you just dropped your album - last fall!

CDB: It hasn’t even been a year – I know we dropped it in Sept. But you know, I didn’t want to get stale and there’s so much left to sing about and there are so many good tracks, such good music and so much to write and I have such a cool writing team. I’m newer to writing music. My team is really patient with me and lets me make changes whether I don’t like something or I want it to feel more like this or that. We make it work. So I have been in the studio for the last 3 days so I’m finishing that. That’s done and I’ll be listening to the songs ad nauseum so I’ll be sick of that ha! But we’ll be piecing them together. It’s in the works – but a TV series that I can’t say a lot about but it’s in the works. I would be playing someone that is not a whole lot like me which is exciting and it will be shooting right here, so I wouldn’t have to leave the area which I’m excited about that! So look out for that coming out soon! I think that’s it – music, TV, the show – you’ll get all the entertainment from RHOP.

AM: Every time you hit the screen on RHOP, I’m like ok, what’s happening now ha!

CDB: It’s a mess, my God. Me enjoying life, married life and I’m still decorating my house – just living!

IG @candeegal09

PHOTOS COURTESY | PG 34 - 38 Paul Morigi | PG 41 -49 +9LIST STORI3S PG 154 Candiace Dillard-Bassett |

Read the MAR ISSUE #75 of Athleisure Mag and see MANIFESTING THIS LIFE | Candiace Dillard-Bassett in mag.

9PLAYLIST

Read the Sept Issue of Athleisure Mag and see 9PLAYLIST in mag.