Into The Fridge ☯️
Chris Gayomali on the best kombucha flavor and going full dummy mode
Chris Gayomali ☯️
is a writer, magazine editor (GQ, ever heard of it?), and brand consultant. He writes , a modern and spiritual Substack about health and wellness that was a fast favorite of mine. He’s originally from Long Beach, California—so quite naturally he surfs and still remembers how to play the baseline to “Santeria”—but currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two-year-old son, and English bulldog named Hank. Chris is undoubtedly a pillar of the modern internet / NY media / wellness community, so just know that we’re in for a real treat today.
What is your fridge philosophy?
90% whole and mostly unprocessed foods, 10% treats.
Your fridge is always always always stocked with ____.
You know that one Dril tweet?
Our version with a toddler is basically…
Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
BERRIES $3,600
Utility $150
Someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. My family is dying
Top 5 condiments, go.
1. Sichuan Chili Oil - Our friends Erik and Ninh Wysocan make their own and give it out as gifts during the holidays. For whatever reason their version is so, so good that I try to stretch it out for dishes that are deserving. I’ve told Ninh that if they ever decided to sell it in jars I’d happily become an angel investor.
2. Ranch - Our most West Coast tendency. We put it on everything but salads. Jack in the Box forever.
3. Peter Luger Steak Sauce - We eat a lot of grass-fed steak, and Luger sauce is goated.
4. Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce - The best hot sauce, hands down.
5. Viet Huong Fish Sauce - A little dash adds umami to everything—especially a big pot of chili.
Fine, I’ll open it up to pantry too. Let’s hear your favorite snacks / pantry staples:
Jasmin white rice - My wife and I grew up eating white rice with every meal, so we always have a batch going in the rice cooker. Which brings me to the one hill I’m willing to die on: brown rice, in every conceivable context, is far inferior to white rice. It doesn’t soak up sauces properly, takes longer to cook, and contains more heavy metals. We usually drive out to Long Island to grab a big 25 pound bag at 99 Ranch, but we heard that there’s a new H Mart in Queens that has decent parking.
This photo is so awesome Dutch Meadows Farm Old World Sourdough - The best bread. Made with like four ingredients. I try to place an order whenever they have it in stock.
This photo might be even more awesome. I love Hank!!! Cuties - Our kid goes through these so fast I swear he’s 75% Mandarin orange juice.
Tate’s Bake Shop cookies - Squarely in the treat category. I like that I can recognize all the ingredients and that none of the big ones have more than three syllables (milk, flour, butter, cane sugar, eggs?). We usually spring for the coconut crisp ones, because our local bodega always has them on sale lol.
Synergy Watermelon Kombucha - I’m not a huge booch person but the Synergy watermelon flavor tastes so good and makes me feel like they’re assembling The Avengers in my gut microbiome. (The Health-Ade one is gross, like assembling the Suicide Squad.)
A meal that’s on heavy rotation these days:
We do Filipino chicken or pork adobo a few times a month. My version is sort of an amalgamation of my dad’s recipe and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s, and lightly improvised, depending on what we have handy. The basic version is:
Two pounds of meat, four cloves of chopped garlic, two cups of vinegar (we use a Filipino brand called Datu Puti), one cup of dark soy sauce (also Datu Puti), two tablespoons of turbinado cane sugar (regular sugar is also fine!), a bay leaf, a teaspoon of whole black peppercorns, and another teaspoon of ground black pepper. Lately we’ve been throwing in a chopped Thai chili or two, de-seeded for the kid. Or if we have some coconut milk in a can leftover from making ice cream or something, we’ll add a splash of that, which thickens the sauce and gives it a silky sweet layer.
You can brown the chicken first if you’d like, but typically we just throw everything together in a pot, cover, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer for around 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The vinegar renders the meat pick-apart tender, and it tastes even better the next day. Serve over white rice with a big side of something green and light.
Let’s go a little deeper…
What’s the mantra you keep coming back to?
All the other health protocols are kind of meaningless if you aren’t getting enough sleep at night.
What products / practices are part of your regular mental (and physical) wellness habits?
My mental health is deeply contingent on my physical health, so I prioritize getting in a workout five or six days a week at Five Points Academy, my Muay Thai gym. (I’ve outlined what that all sort of looks like as a writer/dad on HEAVIES.) Usually, working out means 15 minutes of stretching followed by 90 minutes of some combo of hitting bags, Thai pads, sparring, clinch work, jumping rope, kettlebells, or cardio, usually sprints on an assault bike or on the treadmill. It’s a lot! But I love going fully dummy mode.
I feel like a good workout is a functional mind-wipe. This might be dumb, but I think of it as a mise en place for deep cognitive and creative work, like writing, which I usually spend all afternoon doing.
I try to get a massage at one of my go-to spots every week, mostly because I’m 39 (washed) but also because it makes me put down my phone for an hour. I’ve also been going to MOCEAN, this wonderful physical therapy and wellness spot near Grand Central. They helped get me ready for my last fight.
It’s run by this guy who used to be the medical director for the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the treatments are holistic and mad cutting-edge: targeted PEMF therapy, cryo, dry needle, cupping, infrared beds—whatever you need that day. Spending an afternoon at MOCEAN feels like heaven.
What do you think is the most underrated part of wellness?
Eating stuff that makes you happy! I believe in eating clean most of the time, but pizza once in a while is crucial for your mental health.
…and overrated?
Juice cleanses, paleo/carnivore or any one-dimensional diet that’s based on restriction, fasting windows.
Picture this: you wake up one morning and feel like shit. What’s your next move:
Hit snooze and pray my kid doesn’t wake up soon.
Give us your ride or die wellness products:
I have a Hypervolt massage gun that I use a lot at home, but my favorite recovery doodad is a $10 muscle scraper/gua sha tool that I bought on Amazon. I love digging out all the kinks in my legs at night. I also have this Higher Dose sauna blanket that I’ll roll out once in a while. Thirty minutes sweating in that thing before bed and I sleep like a baby. An asteroid could explode over Manhattan and I’d be none the wiser.
Supplement-wise, I’ve been adding a few scoops of collagen to my coffee in the morning. I was originally taking it to help with joint fatigue, but my wife said the deep wrinkle between my eyebrows has mysteriously vanished, which is a cool side effect. And, lately, I’ve been adding in a scoop of beetroot powder to my morning glass of green powder (I switched to Bloom instead of AG1), which is supposed to help with inflammation. (And, purely for vanity purposes, I read on some bodybuilding forum that it helps with vascularity lol.)
It’s official: RIP AG1. Gone but never forgotten. A few weeks ago I joked to my wife that we should start making cold-brew sleepytime tea. Somehow, that’s mutated into us actually cold-brewing chrysanthemum tea in a pitcher, which is nice for winding down before bed. (I know there’s a whole argument for not drinking cold stuff at night, but your boy runs hot.)
One thing you do everyday that makes you the most YOU version of yourself:
I try to read a half hour of fiction before dozing off every night. Yasi Salek told me that just seven minutes of reading before bed changes your brain chemistry and makes for better quality sleep, a lesson that I’ve sort of internalized. I read so much drudgery for my day job that I try to keep the nighttime book purely in the “fun” category, something to look forward to.
Whose taste inspires you?!
It’s almost impossible to be interested in wellness and be genuinely cool, so Chris is a rare breed. Huge thank you to him for dropping all of this knowledge! I’d highly recommend subscribing to his Substack,
, if you haven’t already at this point. You can also follow him on instagram and find his fridge favorites and more here.Feel free to leave a comment or respond to this email with questions you want asked, people you want featured, or anything else that’s on your mind. Don’t be shy, I love hearing from you. I’ll see you with a review soon!
Collagen is life
Collagen is my life