1 Do your homework.

“I had Charlie Trotter on, and I was super nervous because he did not suffer fools gladly. So I researched the absolute shit out of him, found out he’d worked at a nautical-themed restaurant in high school, and opened with that. I think it really warmed him up.”

2 Listen closely.

“The rapper Saba called me out on this. He was like, ‘You’re looking at me with this crazy intense stare.’ But it’s so important to not just be thinking of the next question. If I didn’t listen to what you were saying, you’d think, Well, Mark is a narcissist.”

3 Take some detours.

“If you have a chef on, don’t just focus on food. I had Paul Kahan on, and we spent maybe a minute and a half talking about food. After that, it was about a haircut he got, the Blackhawks, growing up—even though he could have spent 30 minutes on the farm-to-table movement.”