Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan, Fraud, Prison, and Sociopathy | Lex Fridman Podcast #288

He made me think that, you know, everything was gonna be reversed and okay, and anybody that money was borrowed from, they would get it back, you know, maybe tenfold. And so it was this weird situation of having like one foot in his reality and potentially believing the things he was saying or even over time wanting to believe them more and more because the alternative was so. The alternative was worse. The alternative was like, was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare.

The following is a conversation with Sarma Melangalis, a chef and restaurateur who was the subject of the Netflix documentary Bad Vegan Fame, Fraud and Fugitives that documents the rise and fall of her vegan raw food restaurants in New York City that ended with what she called a road trip from hell. Being arrested in Tennessee, her pleading guilty for stealing over $2 million and serving four months at Rikers island jail. Sarma disputes the veracity of the documentary and its conclusions, saying that she was misrepresented. So I wanted to talk to her to get the full story and to seek understanding of who she is as a human being. The good and the bad. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Sama Melangalis. You said that you did a lot of reading when you were growing up and you mentioned Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. So from the reading you've done in those early days, how did you see the world? Was it to you a beautiful place or a cruel place?

I don't think I thought about the world.

You were focused on family, just basic day to day life.

I think I was focused on day to day. I had an awareness of not fitting in, but I think back then it felt like something was wrong versus some people are just that way. And speaking of books, I read a book called Party of One by a woman named Aneli Rufus that somebody gave me and suggested I read. And that helped a lot. That was one book that made me feel like it made me understand things from the past that I hadn't understood before, specifically kind of feeling out of place, even among my family, which is where you're not supposed to feel out of place.

Yeah, I'm not sure where I saw it, but I think you mentioned that you were a bit of a loner.

And.

And I also think I saw somewhere pictures of you with green hair in high school and a wild haircut. What was that about? Was that real? Am I just imagining?

No, you're not imagining it. It's strange because I Was kind of a loner. So it would be strange to do something that calls so much attention to yourself. Because back then, I mean, I grew up in a suburb of Boston in Newton. And anybody that was there around that time, probably if you said, you know, that girl with green hair or blue hair, it was blue most of the time they would remember like seeing me walking down the street because it stood out like crazy, especially back then. Now it wouldn't stand out so much, but back then it really stood out. So I was trying to think about why I did that when I was kind of a. Kind of, kind of shy and on the one hand wouldn't want to bring attention to myself. But I did something that did. And it wasn't my family. To their credit, they were fine with it. So it wasn't a rebellion against them or anything like that. They were fine with it. I don't think they loved it.

But your dad was a physicist at mit?

Yes.

So he was cool with your green hair? When you're rebellion, that's just the way of life.

He was fine with the green hair. But I think in some ways maybe they had to be fine with it because I didn't cause problems otherwise. And I got good grades in school. I was a very low maintenance child.

I think pretty good even with the green hair. So Hunter S. Thompson wrote a lot of good stuff. He has a lot of just brilliant quotes, a lot of brilliant lines. So one of the ones I love is life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather just skidding broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride. What do you think about that? Is that good life advice from Hunter S. Thompson?

I think so. I think he followed it right. Somewhere I heard recently what he consumed in a day and it was kind of astonishing. It's funny, when I was in college, there were always really interesting people coming through speakers and whatnot. And I tended to not go to events and whatnot. But in the four years I was there, I mean, really interesting people came through and gave talks, you know, I don't know, just a lot of famous people and. But then one day Hunter S. Thompson came to speak and the only one I attended.

Oh wow.

That was. The only interesting person who came to speak on the campus that I attended was Hunter S. Thompson. And he had a, you know, he had a glass of whatever it was, whiskey and I don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was. It was entertaining.

And yeah, I mean, later in his life he started making less and less sense, but he was still somehow like, embodying the crazy that he represented throughout his life. The boldness, the fearlessness, the wildness, all that kind of stuff. And we'll talk about Johnny Depp a little bit, too. Funny enough, there's like a echo. Obviously, Johnny Depp played him or he starred in Fear and Loathing and they hung out together and it just seemed to somehow, like the universe rhymes in these two individuals. They're both mad men in different kind of ways. So you also told me that Leon the Professional is one of your favorite films. It's also the reason you named your dog Leon. So what do you find beautiful and powerful about this film?

I've watched it a bunch of times, but it's been a while since I've watched it.

So for people who haven't watched it, there's a guy named Leon, played by Jean Renault. There's a. A young girl, I don't know, 13, 14, Matilda, played by Natalie Portman. And she's abused. She has a really hard life. Her parents are, spoiler alert, murdered. And then she finds protection under this fella, Leon, who also happens to be a professional assassin. And he is also kind of a Forrest Gump type character. Like, he's a really simple, simple human. He almost. He seems to be like the immature one, or like rather the one who's young. And she seems to have a wisdom far beyond her age because of the hard life she had to live through. And then they're here huddling together from the cruelty of the world and finding connection.

Yeah, I think it's one of those films where there's so many interesting things about it. But, you know, I'm sure one of them is just the contradiction of him being a caring person and reluctant to get attached to her. You know, he tries to. I think he knows he's. He is very reluctant to get attached to her in the beginning. And so you see all of his humanity, but yet he's also an assassin that kills people. So that's interesting. And I think probably a psychoanalyst would have a field day with why I like that movie so much. And I haven't necess. I haven't gone there myself, but there's something I think about she. Even in the brief part that depicts her in the beginning, it seems clear that she's sort of out of place in her family. And then, yeah, there's all kinds of interesting things about Their relationship along the way.

What I like about that movie, and I had to think about it recently because I've read stuff about it that bothered me or it bothered me the fact that I haven't really thought about it before for people who haven't watched the movie. So here's a young underage girl who kind of comes on to him. First of all, I think she actually just doesn't know what like familial love is. So this is the only way she knows how to express love. That's one and two is. You know, a lot of bad people in this world would take advantage of that. Right. And the fact that she finally met a human being who doesn't and is just there to protect her, that's a real sort of, I don't know, a powerful statement of what it means to be sort of like a father figure, I suppose, a protector. So that. To me, I love the idea of being sort of the protector. That there's something like something worthwhile in this world to protect amidst all the cruelty that's all around. So that's a beautiful kind of. You're basically saving this young human's or you're repairing this young human's path to love, to real love in life because that idea of love was destroyed for her just family. Everything is. Everything is sort of. Everything around her is broken. And he's kind of repairing it by re establishing what that kind of love can be. I don't know.

And the plant, they saved the plant also.

Well, there's also just the simple. The simplicity of the film just from a cinematic perspective is beautiful. The music, the way it looks, the.

Minimalism, even the violence was beautiful.

Yeah, violence. It was over the top. And also the. The bad guy, the bad cop played by Gary Oldman.

Yeah, he was amazing.

I think he was listening to Beethoven or something like that and he'd taken some sort of pills and drugs of some kind. And so there was a kind of like a.

Like.

Like it's part of the orchestra. Like the violence was part of the. Of some kind of musical creation.

Yeah. It's interesting because I. I turn away from violence or films usually that have violence or TV or anything that has that sort of element to it. Except in certain cases where.

Where the violence is beautiful.

Yeah, yeah. Or did you see the movie True Romance? Yes, that's my second favorite movie.

Okay. That's probably my favorite movie.

Oh, well, interesting. That's my second favorite movie.

That's a more simple kind of love, but also with the violence that Is beautiful, I suppose you could say.

Yeah. And my. My favorite scene is the one with Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini.

Oh, yeah. Where she. There's a shotgun involved.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then it.

It actually makes me cry every time I see it for some reason.

So. For people who haven't seen the film, I think. I think he's actually. I think. Think he's hitting her or like there's blood and violence and so on because she's resisting being murdered.

Yeah, there's a lot of violence. And then, you know, he throws her into the glass, the shower thing, and she's all cut up and beat up and she laughs. Yeah. There's just so much passion in it. You know, she knows she's gonna. Or in that moment she knows, or thinks she knows that she's gonna die anyway.

Yeah.

Cause she knows he's gonna kill her. So she kind of gives it her. Gives it all she has and.

But she also just has guts. She's not afraid.

Yeah. Well. And also she's, you know, she loves Clarence.

Yeah. The love comes through. Through that violence. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just like Clarence. Her fella in that film has the same kind of thing when he visits.

Well, it was Gary Oldman again.

It was Gary Oldman again. That's right. The pimp. Looking very Drexel.

Dre. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's also fearless in that interaction, saying, she's not mine. It's interesting, that movie. So romantic. And that happy ending. Spoiler alert.

In a way, that's what I like about it too. Cuz I. I feel like some movies should come with. I don't want to watch a movie if it's going to be devastating, usually unless it's worthwhile in some other way. But I'm kind of sensitive and I don't want. I don't like movies that have a terrible ending, you know, I mean, there's a book I read because it got so many good reviews. And the very last scene, the woman steps in front of a train and it was like. So I'm partial to movies with happy endings.

Leon ends with loss. Leon the movie.

Right. But it's still inspiring.

A love persists in some kind of form. Yeah, persists.

And the plant. And the plant.

Okay, sure, sure. True romance does have one of the. I mean, it's probably unhealthy.

Is just amazing.

You're so cool. Where she is that one. The way where she just kind of looks at Clarence and her son and child or whatever, and she's saying, you're so cool. You're so cool. Yeah, that's. That's love.

I just felt so much in it because it's, you know, it's funny. And there's so many. So many good actors in that film.

And Brad Pitt plays, in that film a pivotal role of pothead on couch.

Yeah. They're just. They're all so good and funny. And Michael Rapoport and even Val Kilmer. People don't realize he's in the movie because he doesn't look like himself.

Wait, what? What did. Val Kilmer.

Val Kilmer's. In the very end. It's, you know, when he's. There's, like the Elvis sitting there talking to him in the end. Yeah, that's Val Kilmer. Yeah. You don't notice it unless you.

Yeah.

Somehow. Either are very perceptive or noticed it in the credits.

Yeah. And Quentin Tarantino wrote the film, I think.

Yes.

Which is interesting. Directed by Tony Scott. And the music is beautiful, too.

And Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper.

Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper plays Clarence's dad. And they have this very racist sounding scene. But the big important aspect of that scene is it's a father willing to die to protect the sun. I mean, there's so much. So much beautiful violence.

There is. There is. I love that film so much.

And she's a prostitute, or not really. Part time. Short time.

No, it was her first time.

First time, yeah. Okay. And he saved her. And.

My third favorite film has no violence whatsoever. What's your third film? A Room with a View. I feel like you'd like it. It's. I forget the author. It's a book. And I read the book much later, but it's Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day Lewis is in it. And Julian Sands.

Daniel Day Lewis is a fascinating character.

He's amazing in this film because he plays. He's very funny. He sort of plays a. He's a comical character, which is unlike most of what he does, I think. I don't watch a ton of movies, so. But, yeah, his role is funny.

Well, that's a heck of a top three. You brought me some books. Some bread and books. Yeah, Some Russian bread. Russian inspired bread.

Yeah. I mean, it's Latvian, but it's similar to.

Close enough.

Similar to what's made in Russia, and it's made at a Russian bakery.

Where your dad is from, right?

My dad is from Latvia. Yeah.

So you got me some books. Beautiful Ruins.

Yeah. And if you never read them, who cares? That's totally fine. You know, people give you books and Then you feel like you just. You're. You sort of feel like.

I see. This is. We'll. We'll talk about this. This is part therapy session. I don't feel the need to. To satisfy people's happiness.

That's a good thing.

Okay. So. But they. It could also be a. An opportunity to experience something I never otherwise would have. So. Beautiful Ruins.

It's a book that made me laugh and cry, and it's just a happy story. And for some reason, I don't know exactly why, but for some reason, when you asked me to come first, it just. I thought, oh, I'm going to bring a copy of that book.

That's. You just felt it came. A voice told you.

Yeah.

There's others. Darkness Visible.

These are more.

Memoir of Madness. Compelling, harrowing. A vivid portrait of a debilitating disorder. It offers the solace of shared experience. The New York Times.

This is William Styro. There's a little bit about this book that reminds me of the Karl Deisseroth book because he writes about his own condition in. I mean, he's an amazing writer, so he writes about it in this beautiful way, and oddly enough, in some ways, it's kind of delightful. So it's not at all a depressing book. At least I didn't find it depressing at all. I don't think it is. But he writes about his own experience with depression in such a beautiful way. My own copy is full of underlines.

I would love that copy, too. I would love to look into the underlines and the. And then the books with notes, those little secrets that people leave.

That's part of why I like paper books, is because I underline. I tend to underline like crazy. The. The Carl Deisseroth book is full of underlines, too.

Well, I do the same thing on Kindle, but. And then you can actually more effectively go back to the things you've underlined because you highlight and so on. But, in fact, when you underline on paper books, you sometimes never go back, which always makes me sad.

To the book?

To the things you've underlined in the paper books? Yeah, in the paper books.

Oh, I do. I go back. Yeah, I go back a lot.

Do you wonder what the heck you were thinking about when you wrote something?

No. Well, sometimes I underline things that are. Well, also, what I do is I have a whole file in Evernote of transcribed quotes from books, ones that I want to save. So I might underline a lot of things in a book and then maybe like a third of Them. I want to write them down somewhere. So I. I write those down. And I think even the time it takes to transcribe it is somehow worthwhile. It's like searing it in your brain and.

And you're reliving the memory, having it read it the first time.

Yeah. And then sometimes I'll pick up books. I even. And sometimes I just underline sentences that are. It's not the content of the sentence. It's more that. It's just a beautifully written sentence or like a particularly apt metaphor or something that's. That's really nice. And I like paper books, too, because I bought Beautiful Ruins. I would have never heard of it, I don't think, except one of my favorite things is to go to used bookstores. Actually. Goodwill sometimes has really good big book selections. Depending on the area where you go, sometimes you find a lot of treasures there. And what ends up happening a lot is I end up buying books that I know sometimes also because I lost all my belongings at one point. So I'll very often buy books that I've already read just to have them. But then what always ends up happening is I'll find there'll be a couple of books that I buy that I've never heard of the author. I don't really know anything about. I don't know anything about the book at all. But something drew me to it. And what I like about that is you're buying. You're buying used books, so it costs a dollar or two. So if you made a mistake, like, no big deal, who cares? So. But every time I come back with a book haul, there's usually at least one gem that I end up loving. And I'm so glad that I read it. And Beautiful Ruins was that book for me, and I was drawn to it because of the COVID art. Like, I just loved. I just loved the COVID and the colors and. And then I picked it up and read the back and bought it. And I also feel bad sometimes buying used books when the author is still alive, because I feel like if you write a book, you should get the. The royalties, so.

And. But you get to live with that regret.

Well, also, I mean, I'll usually end up putting a picture of Leon reading the book online, and then other people buy it and read it. And so I feel like I've made up for.

You make up for it.

I've made up for depriving him of the royalties.

I used to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I know it well. I used to hang out of the pit in Harvard Square, with my green and blue hair when I was very way too young to be doing that by myself.

And there's a guy that I think has been there for a long time, sort of between Kendall and Central, that would just lay out used books and sell them. And I always loved that guy, whoever he was. Had a. Had a cool hat. He's an older gentleman, and you could just tell he's seen some things. I don't know who he is. I always wanted to actually, like, talk to him for a long time, but I was too afraid, maybe because I wouldn't be able to handle what he had to tell me, because I almost wanted to maintain the innocence of just. Okay, here's this guy. But he was so. Every time you would ask him a question about a book, first of all, he's read all of them.

Oh, that's interesting.

Which means he's traveled quite a few places inside these worlds. And then you would tell him, I would look at a book, right. And he would catch you being curious about it, and then he would walk up to you, and then he would start talking about the book, and he would always forget that you were there. He's almost like he's not trying to sell you the books.

Talking to himself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, almost like an ex girlfriend he's visiting through this book or something.

Did you buy books from him?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. But the experience of just. Just being there because he lays them out, and people actually that watch or listen to this probably will be able to tell me what his name is, because I'd love to find that guy again. I'm sure he's still there.

Maybe he'll have him on the podcast.

I 100% will, but it's almost terrifying. I'm not sure I can handle, because he's been through some things. I'm not sure if he's homeless or just looks like it.

Yep, that's sometimes a thing.

And some of my favorite people either are homeless or look like it. So. Okay, what's the third one? A Confession of a Sociopath by me, Thomas A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight.

It's a book I recommend a lot because I've read a lot about sociopathy, and I've read all the books by psychologists and. And this one's written by a woman who understands herself that she is a sociopath. And so it's beautifully written. But I learned. I. I learned more from that book than from any other book. And I think I thought about it a long time ago. I think a Lot of conversations. You've talked a lot about good and evil and, you know, whether everybody's really good or some people are not good. And I think sociopathy is something that I think the world needs to understand much better. And so that book helped me understand a lot. And it's beautifully written. And she tackles all the really interesting moral questions. Like, you know, like, what if we were able to definitively diagnose people in some way? Like, there was a. You could immediately identify who's a full blown sociopath, and then what as a society would you do with them? Because in most cases, you know, they're. They're just going to cause destruction and pain and harm and. Or potentially rise to power and become president or something. So I just found that book fascinating.

And we'll return to this idea because it's fascinating. We'll return to human psychology and human nature. But let's go through. Let's go through the timeline of your life. Let's take a stroll. So you wrote that the documentary about you called Bad Vegan Fame, Fraud Fugitives is not a documentary. It got some things right, some things wrong, and some were, quote, disturbingly misleading. So let's go through and get things right today. First, can I give you a whirlwind summary, the way I understand it and also for context of people. So 2004, you, Matthew Kenny and Jeffrey Chottarow open Pure Foods and Wine in New York City. Did I say their names correctly?

Pure Food and Wine.

No, there.

Oh, there's. Well, yeah. Matthew Kenny, Jeffrey Chattero. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's. And I'll ask about what it takes to. To. To. To launch and run a restaurant in New York City. That's a fascinating story in itself. So it's an upscale raw food restaurant. All right, that's 2004. 2007, you opened one Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway and second and third locations in 2009. All of those things close in 2016. 15. 16. 15 and 16. Okay. All right. 2009, Jeffrey lends you $2.1 million to buy the business outright. And Matthew is out.

Matthew was out earlier than that. And then time passed. Time passed. And I had. What was complicated is I had started one Lucky Duck brand on my own.

At first it was a dot com that was doing, like, delivery.

It was a dot com where people could order ingredients and things and all of the products that we made and packaged. So we made a bunch of cookies and snacks and things that were, I think, different and if I may say so myself, better than Other strong words.

Products already.

Yeah. But I feel like I can brag about our food and products because I wasn't, you know, a few recipe, you know, recipes early on I came up with. But it was the people that worked with me that created really good recipes and products. And I was just kind of there curating it all or helping to get it out there.

What was your favorite thing that you've created? Maybe yourself.

Eat.

Not you created, but this whole. All of these efforts have created in terms of meal. Like you said, cookies. What are we talking about?

That's a hard question.

It's just. Okay, not the favorite, but like something that pops into memory that brought you joy.

The Malar. Everybody loved the Malamar. So very often we made like raw vegan versions of things that people are familiar with. So it was a. I think it was pecans. It was like a salty cookie made with nuts and then covered in chocolate. And then there's a big blob of coconut cream.

I love coconut.

Which. It didn't taste coconutty. Our ice cream was made with a coconut also. It's like the meat from coconuts pureed and then there's some soaked cashews in there. But anyway, it was a blob of vanilla flavored cream. Kind of like a, you know, like a healthy, natural version of fluff. I don't know if you're familiar with fluff.

Basically every single word you say, I'm not familiar with. You should see my diet. I don't. It's like steak and vegetables.

Fluff is like a thing that I remember it from my childhood. Like peanut butter and fluff is a ridiculously delicious combination.

Is it fluffy or is it.

It's like a marshmallow. It's basically like, like if you softened marshmallows and made it into a luxurious amazing good.

Oh, so it's like a fancy.

And then put it in a jar.

Okay.

And then it's spreadable marshmallows kind of.

Oh, I see.

I think that's. Yes.

So spreadable marshmallows. Got it.

Yeah. So there's a big blob.

I didn't know that existed. That's a thing.

Fluff.

Fluff.

I know.

Does everyone.

For you.

Do people know about this?

Oh, yeah, everybody knows people. I mean, I think so People know about fluff.

See, I think I went. I took the road less traveled by, you know, I went the. The peanut butter and Nutella road. In terms of spreadable things, Nutella is.

Like the chocolate version. And then fluff is like the vanilla equivalent, sort of. But I think commercial fluff that you buy in the store is just like sugar and whatever else they put in there.

Anyway, it's not actually fluffy.

It's kind of fluffy, but it's wet.

Because Nutella is not fluffy.

Yeah, it's. It. So it's like Nutella, if you whipped it and then kind of got a little bit, like, a little bit aerated, so it's a bit more fluffy.

So fluff was a part of the formula here. So this fluff.

So the coconut cream that we made was like a healthy version of fluff? Oh, kind of. Except it would, you know, you could make a quenelle, like a. Like a little scoop of it, and it would stay in that form. Malamars were refrigerated, and then there's like, chocolate drizzled over that. So it had that, like, salty, sweet thing going on that was probably my favorite.

And that's a dessert.

Yeah, it was like a. It was like a dessert snack. It wasn't as you wouldn't order it on the restaurant menu, but in the takeaway you could get them, or sometimes some people would get them shipped on dry ice and pay a lot of money, like a lot of money to have them shipped on dry ice.

People are funny.

I know. I kind of want to, like, name drop because it was Tom Brady used to order them.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, they would order those shipped on ice to Boston.

Yeah. Continuing on, in 2011, you meet Anthony Stranges on Twitter and then in real life also around this time, I think before you got your rescue dog, a pit bull named Leon. 2011, 2010.

Do you remember it was September 2010? Because I think he was born roughly around March. I gave him a designated birthday of March 10, 2010.

Why is that? Why March 10.

I wrote about the story of adopting him on my website a long time ago, and then I reposted it here on my current website. And what happened? I got weirdly obsessed with Leon. Before he was Leon, he was a. A dog in a shelter named Quinn. And I couldn't stop thinking about him and the him. Specifically him specifically.

You saw him and there's something very special about him.

I was trying to convince somebody else to adopt a dog, so. And I. Alec Baldwin. Yeah. And it didn't occur to me that I would.

I like how you didn't name drop him, but you named Dropped Tom Brady. I like it.

So I was trying to convince him to get a dog because I thought, you know, he should have a Dog. I saw Leon's picture and just got weirdly obsessed with it in a way that I couldn't really explain. And I was laying in bed one night and thinking. I just couldn't stop thinking about him, the dog. And the paper or the. His description in the shelter bio said that he was roughly five months old, or however whatever it gave as his age. I went back and it would have been March 20, would have been March of that year that he was born. And I had a cat that I was particularly attached to. I had two cats, brother and sister, but the. The boy cat, we had sort of like a. Something that felt like a, you know, like we'd look at each other and like there was something there. I don't know what it was, but. And in fact, when he got sick, I knew it before he even had any symptoms. It was like something in the way that he looked at me. I knew something was wrong. And then.

Was it friendship? Was it like. Was there a power dynamic? Cats seemed to not really give a. Yeah, they seem to dismiss you usually.

Yeah, Your.

Your entire worth as a human being.

Right.

In a single look. Was that there or.

He was more dog. Like he would occasionally fetch like this little Styrofoam thing I had. He would fetch it and bring it back and he was friendly and, you know, if somebody came over, he would jump in their lap. He was less standoffish than most cats, but there was just something about the way he would look at me. I don't know. And I maybe probably in his mind he's just a cat. I give him food. Whereas in my mind it's some kind.

Of, you know, great soul connection, great long running romance.

Not in his kitty mind, but either way. So he died in March. And I thought. So I sort of concocted this. I just thought, you know, that, well, if he died, and he died on March 10, and so I thought, well, maybe Leon was born that same day. And that's why. That's why I'm so drawn to him. I don't know.

Okay, that makes sense. But like when you saw him, you just like there's something.

It was this picture. Yeah.

Oh, the picture. And you were drawn something about the personality and the eyes.

It was something about his picture. I don't know what it was. And everybody at the time was like, what are you thinking? Why would you get a dog? You can't, you know, can't even take care of yourself. You're overworked and busy and why would you get a five month old Pit bull mix. You know, why not get an older dog that's easier to take care of? And for me, it was like, I don't want any dog. I don't want. My intention isn't to get a dog, but there's something about this dog that I have to get. And so I went to see him, and then I had already filled out an application. It was just. I went to see him, and then I. It was the afternoon, and I sort of decided in my head, like, all right, I'm coming back to get him. I have to. And so the next morning, I got on the subway and went back to get him. And I was crying on the subway. And I remember thinking that people. I don't like crying in public. I cry a lot, but I don't like crying in front of other people.

I love it.

I thought people on the train looking at me probably think that somebody died.

Sorry. You're crying on the way there, on.

The way back, on the way there to get him. And I don't know why I was crying. It was just something about. It was overwhelming.

So tears of happiness or tears of something?

Something. I. Yeah, I think tears are overwhelming. I know I'm, like, jumping off, but there was some. I don't. Now I'm trying. Was it in your conversation or the book? Carl Deisseroff talks about tears of joy and trying to explain them. And he said something about how it was, like, about, you know, because tears of sadness could be understood in a. Having, like, a evolutionary purpose. But why? It's years of joy. And I think he said it was something about, like, hope that could be, like, lost. So if you cried at a wedding, it might be like you're crying because their love is beautiful, and you're crying because, you know, they could get hit by a bus tomorrow or something. You know, like, it had something to do with that. And I thought. But I thought, to me, it feels, like, overwhelmed, because then how would that explain music? Because music will make me cry?

No, because it's. It's anything beautiful, like love you realize you're gonna have. It's gonna be over one day, so.

Or it's just overwhelming.

It could be overwhelming.

I think it's just overwhelming.

But over. It could. Like, if you had to explain, like, one way to explain it, as you're saying is it's so awesome that it breaks your heart that it's going to be over. This feeling is going to be over the. Either it's the song or the person you're going to lose. Them one day or.

But even when you're just watching something that. This is completely ridiculous. But I remember one time, I probably was hormonal or something, but it was like an episode of Family Feud years ago, and the. The fam. Oh, no. Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, it was Wheel of Fortune, and some family, like, won all this money and they were so happy. Like, it just. They were so happy. They must probably needed the money or something. And I started crying, and I'm thinking, why am I crying? But I think it's just. I think it's just like an overwhelming. I think it's overwhelming in some way. And crying, because crying is a relief. Like, you feel better after you cry, but that's not.

Doesn't explain the crying. You feel better after you cry, and you're saying it's overwhelming, but that's. On the surface. The question is, what's going on underneath? That's the junging shadow. And I don't think neither you or I can answer that question.

Right.

But there's something going on.

There's probably something that touches you in some specific way.

Yeah. And so you were crying on the subway.

So I was crying in the subway.

It's very, very New York thing to do.

Yeah. Well, that's one of the things I love about New York is people. You can be weird and do strange things and nobody's gonna look at you strangely or.

The fascinating thing about New York, it's super crowded, and yet you can still.

Feel super alone, but also energized, because a lot of other things and places will make me feel depleted. But there's something about the energy of New York specifically that feels energizing.

I mean, everybody is going up about their day, excited for a future they're building and so on. And that. That could be energy. Sure, sure. It could be overwhelming, though.

It can be, yeah. I mean, also depending on what neighborhood and what part.

Well, I'm just talking about the subway, right?

Yeah.

And then there's the musicians. I love New York. New York at his best is a special place. I've never lived, but every time I visit, it's so many characters, so many fascinating people.

Yeah.

And. And then there's a bunch of people always crying on the subway. And you're one of those people.

I was one of those people one day. Yeah. I befriended some busking musicians, like the. The guys that just play out on the street, these two young guys playing guitar. And I felt like it was one of those moments where was, like, Candid Camera because nobody was paying Attention. And I thought it was like. It was so beautiful. I may have cried or almost cried or. But anyway, ended up becoming friends with them and helping them out in some ways and. And I knew I was like, well, they're gonna do really well. And now they're like playing large places and it's kind of fun to watch via Instagram. You know, they're going on tour in Europe and they were these two scrappy guys. Well, now it's just one of the guys, but they had, like, no money, nowhere to live, nothing. And another.

And they didn't quit.

No, persisted. That's cool. Exactly. So. But I cried on the subway and I got there and he was there and I adopted him. But it just felt very profoundly like a force that was beyond me. Like I couldn't not get him.

So he was the same in person as he was in the picture. Like, meaning in terms of, like, something like pulling you towards him. Like, some.

Yeah. When I first met him the day before, he was really distracted, which I think is, you know, he has a puppy that spends most of his day in a cage, which is not natural. So when I. They let him. They let me take him for a walk and he was kind of, you know, distracted and all over the place. But then when we put him back in the cage, he sort of lay down and looked at me and I looked back at him and of course I imagined all kinds of. I just looked at him and I thought, all right, I'm. Don't worry, I'm coming back to get you. Like, I'll. I'll get you. So, yeah, it just. It felt like. It felt like something that I. I had no choice that I had to do.

And that was the beginning of a 12 year journey together.

An ongoing. An ongoing one. But. So I wrote about these things on my website and. And I think it was, you know, among the many things that was later weaponized by Anthony Stranges, just.

Oh, the fact that.

Yeah. And also just. It's not like I believe that, you know, that I was just expressing my feelings about how I felt going to get him. That there was something about Leon and specifically that I. It was like I felt like I had to get him.

So is there words you can put to your connection with Leon? Like, is it love? Is it friendship? Is it some kind of, like, what is it? Or are we getting to the crying and being overwhelmed, something you just can't put words to?

Yeah, it's probably something that's hard to put words to. Kind of like I sort of feel like love being something that's hard to define is part of. Is the definition of love the fact that you can't define it?

You know that the moment you define it, you're no longer talking about love.

Sort of something like that, so.

Well, my definition of love is whatever's going on in true romance. I don't know. Let me fly through the timeline before we get to any of the interesting details. So in 2011, you meet Anthony Strangis. Then in 2012, you two get married. 2015, the staff walk out due to failure to pay from the two restaurants. It reopens in April of 2015, and July of that year, there's another walkout, and so on.

There's all this kind of confusing timeline.

Well, it's not. To me, that's not even. The point is, in 2015, there's chaos happening. Okay. 2016, in the spring, Pure Foods and Wine closes.

Closed in 2015.

2015. Okay. There's some factual stuff that's not. Yeah, maybe. Correct me on it. To me, it's not that important. To me, the spirit of the thing is important. Okay. May 12, 2016. You and your then husband, Anthony Stranges, were arrested after he ordered pizza using his real name. Okay. In May 2017, you pleaded guilty to stealing more than $2 million from investors and scheming to defraud, as well as. This is from Wikipedia.

Yeah. They're wrong.

Well, let me just finish reading it, and then you tell me why it's wrong. In May 2017, you pleaded guilty to stealing more than $2 million from investors and scheming to defraud, as well as criminal tax fraud charges. Why is Wikipedia wrong? And how dare you?

Well, I mean, I did plead guilty to those things, which I had to. Oh, I was. I got a jury duty summons, and I had to fill out, like, what charges I pled guilty to, and I had to go online and look it up because I didn't really remember, which is. I thought that was interesting. I had to go look it up.

But actually, let me finish the time because there's one more point.

Oh, yeah.

March 16, 2022. Bad vegan documentary comes out where you're interviewed. Does they tell the story? Some stuff is true sometimes, some is not. Some is disturbingly misleading, as you said. Okay, timeline over. Anyway, what. What's wrong with the. How would you elaborate onto the. You pleading guilty for $2 million stealing?

So a lot of people plead guilty when they're for reasons other than they're actually guilty. So, you know, it's even right now, if I knew that I was going to have to spend four months or three and a half at Rikers, and I was thinking about this recently, and even if I knew that I'd be acquitted at the end of a trial, I very likely would have just taken the four months because, you know, the stress of going through a trial, but in particular, it'd be incredibly stressful not knowing the outcome, and then money and expense I didn't have. And so, you know, people plead guilty all the time, even if they don't think that they. That they should. And my situation was so complicated and hard to understand that it just was the easier thing to do. But also, I just was kind of going on the advice of lawyers.

And so the choice, just so I understand, was to plead guilty or to go through a lengthy trial. And that trial would stretch a long time, and it would be extremely stressful and extremely expensive because you have to pay the lawyers.

Right. And I didn't have anything.

Right. And so a lot of people in that situation might choose to plead guilty, and so that doesn't necessarily mean the full heaviness of that statement of guilt.

Right. And I think people plead guilty all the time in situations where they're being threatened with, like, a heavy sentence and they sort of feel like they have no choice. But that's kind of part of a lot of things that are messed up about the system overall. That didn't necessarily apply in my case, but.

So we'll talk about to what degree you're guilty and what that even means.

Yeah, yeah. Because it depends on intention, I think.

Yeah, yeah. But then the word intention also means a lot of things, like the word love.

That's true.

All right.

So the restaurant closed the first time when I was away and told to be off communication. And then I.

By Anthony.

Yes.

And then he told you not to talk to anybody?

He told me not to, like, open email or look at my phone or whatever. And so when I came back and had to get it reopened, which seemed like an unbelievably difficult task, and I was kind of shocked that I was able to pull it off. You know, I worked incredibly hard to get it reopened, and, you know, because that place meant everything to me. And so I just, like, I just had to get it reopened.

Were you surrounded by people that were just angry at you at that time?

Not. Well.

The staff and all that.

Yeah. But most of them came back. A lot of them came back. I think what was so unbelievably painful about that Whole time was like, not being able to tell anybody what was really going on, and in a sense, not really knowing what was going on myself. But not being able to. Like, having to pretend all the time was just like, so you didn't really.

Tell anybody about Anthony, about him and.

What was really going on? In part because I didn't really understand what was going on. So what I did was I raised money to reopen the restaurant. And I think I raised something like 8, maybe like 900 grand, and probably 90 of that went to reopen the restaurant. And I even made two sales tax payments right before we disappeared. So it just sort of logically seemed like. So I didn't. It's not like all of this money was taken. And then he and I ran off together with a whole bunch of money. It was like, I raised a bunch of money to reopen the restaurant, you know, because I wanted the restaurant to exist again, and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to run it. I wanted to reopen the restaurant, and most of that money went to reopen the restaurant, and then I disappeared. So sort of the timeline gets a bit wonky. So it's. You know, this impression was created that we ran off with a whole bunch of money, and we didn't. So, you know, if I wanted to be a criminal and steal a bunch of money, why would I have put it all back into the restaurant and reopened it? And then also made two $10,000 sales tax payments that I didn't, you know, And I also repaid, you know, $10,000 of another loan. I'm. You know, I was making repayments and stuff, and then, boom, I disappear.

So is your mind going through a roller coaster here? So could there have been multiple use there? So one. One mind is like, I love this restaurant. I'm going to reopen it on this chef, business owner, this person. And the other. The other is a human that's in this complicated love affair.

It wasn't a love affair.

Okay. These are just words. How can I. Okay, what? I don't want to. I say that lightly, but also not because love can make us do dark things. And you can say, that's not love, but. Okay, the thing that traps us, the things that pulls us in to a connection with another human being, that's love. Even when it's abusive and dark and toxic and all those kinds of things.

In some cases, I think, like, if it's voluntary, but in other cases, somebody pulls you in, so it's not like you're drawn towards them. They. They Pull you in.

So just to clarify, even when it's not physical, when it's. When the poll is with words. So it's emotional.

Yeah.

Okay. Where is your mind when you raise 8 to $900,000 to open the restaurant? Working your ass off to open this thing. Okay. Making payments and then all of a sudden disappearing. Where was your mind? If you had a lengthy conversation with Carl diceroth in privacy, what would you be telling him?

As your therapist, I would probably be asking him questions.

Okay. No, get the call as part of this.

Well, and actually I have more questions for Andrew Huberman because, you know, I've had to investigate all of these things myself, like dissociation and even there's a psychologist who believes that he must have used neuro linguistic programming on me, which is something that Keith Rayneri from the NXIVM cult, he was known to have used that with people. And I think neuro linguistic programming is kind of the same as like a sort of like hypnotism.

The only reason I know about what NLP is is because in. In what I do, there's something called natural language processing, artificial intelligence stuff. So it has the same, like three letters.

Right.

What was the other thing that nlp. Neuro Linguistic.

Neuro linguistic programming.

Yeah. Anyway. All right, well, we, we talked about Andrew, my friend Andrew Huberman offline. And you definitely. You should do a podcast with him. He's a. He's a fascinating. He's such a brilliant and kind human being. Definitely worth talking to.

Yeah, I've listened to a lot of.

A lot of his podcasts, and you said that you listened to a lot of his instructions on getting light in the morning or whatever during the day. It's very important for your mental. Like there's all these kinds of studies. It's good for your. For your mind, for your.

Oh, and also the other thing that he got me to do is to try to delay having coffee. So instead of having coffee right when you wake up, I always drink a lot of water first.

Yeah.

But then instead of having coffee right away, if you wait an hour or an hour and a half or two hours, then your body is able to naturally do something that drinking coffee too soon would sort of blunt that. So then you'll be more tired in the afternoon. So if you wait an hour and a half or two hours or as long, you know, before you have your first cup of coffee, then you won't be as tired in the afternoon.

Interesting.

There's a lot of.

Does it work?

Yes.

One coffee Addict talking to another coffee addict.

Yes, it works. And so I try to get up and do other things first before I have coffee, so. And the light thing also makes a lot of sense to me. Getting light early in the morning. I have one of those bright light boxes, and I would love to have an apartment that had a little deck or something where I could just step outside. Because when you live in an apartment, you kind of have to, like, go all the way outside and then there's people everywhere. And so to get that early morning light isn't that hard to do when you're.

Are people good for you or bad for you? What does Andrew Huberman say about that? I'm just kidding. It's a joke. Okay, so moving back to where was your mind that led you to disappear to. Do you guys go to Vegas first and then Tennessee?

No, I kind of refer to it as like the road trip from hell.

It's a very Hunter S. Thompson way to describe it.

Right.

You went back to back country.

Maybe it was sort of Hunter esque, Thompson esque, except without actual drugs. That was one of the first questions my father asked me was, was it drugs? And I wished that I could have said yes.

Yeah.

Because I didn't know how to explain what had happened. But. So Roadship took me away involuntarily. Except, you know, of course, he wasn't holding a gun to my head, but all along it was like a metaphorical gun.

Was there ever physical abuse?

No. What would qualify as sexual abuse? Yes, but physically? No. A couple of times we would get into slightly physical fights, but he never. I mean, he was big and as large and blubbery as he was. He was also really strong. So sometimes he would, like, subdue me. But other than that, no, there wasn't physical violence. But a lot of people will say that the psychological violence is. I don't want to diminish physical violence, but some people say that the psychological and emotional violence is more destructive.

It's just that the physical violence is easier to identify.

It's easier to identify. And. And it seems kind of more straightforward. Whereas psychological, you know, and you have a bruise on your face or you break a bone, and those things hopefully heal in a visible way. But psychological stuff, you know, you can't easily identify or understand or others can't easily identify it.

And then you find yourself crying for no reason at a beautiful song at some point.

Yes.

And it's that that has to do something happening in the depth of your mind. Okay, so he took you away, but where was. I mean, where was your mind that was doing both of those things? Was able to be taken away, but also was pushing to this. The. The. The flourishing, the reopening and the flourishing of the restaurant.

Well, you know, I wouldn't have reopened the restaurant with. And then knowing I was gonna all of a sudden be taken away from it and it was gonna get closed again. You know, it's like, why. Why would I do that? Why would anybody do that? And one of the things that I tried to do towards the end was I was trying to get myself off the bank accounts because I didn't want him to be able to get money out of me. And so there was one time when I tried to get one of the investors. We went to the bank together to put her on as the signer and take me off. And because we didn't have the operating agreement, they wouldn't let us do it. So it was like this little snafu. And so all of these things are sort of the opposite of criminal intent.

But that's a legal thing. What's going on in your mind at this time?

I don't know.

I mean, were you always. Did you give yourself a chance to just think?

No. And I think that's part of one of the things that might have saved me or anybody that's pulled into a cult. One of the things that they do is they keep you exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and afraid. And so you don't have any time to think. So you're just kind of constantly running and you're confused and then things are happening. It's funny, I have some quotes in my book draft because I listen to a lot of podcasts. I don't know what the logistics are of, like, crediting a quote from a podcast in a book.

Yeah.

But I have a couple. I think it was Andrew Huberman on Joe Rogan said something about if a animal. If a human or animal, I don't know how he would know the human or animal is stressed. And I'm paraphrasing this horribly, but they're much more easily prone to be. Not prone to, but forced into delusional thinking. And so that quote resonated for me because, you know, he kept me in this incredibly stressed out, afraid, confused state. And then whatever he's sort of planting in my mind, I'm going to be that much more likely to just kind of go along with it.

Well, we'll see how this whole journey ends. Let's actually just step back a little bit and just looking at the employees of the restaurant and so on. Do you have remorse for what happened, especially from the perspective of the employees and the staff?

Yeah. I mean, hurting them was sort of the last thing that I would ever have wanted to do. And in part, I mean, there was financial harm, but I don't know whether it's more important or not. But, you know, it was taking a place that was very much like a family to them, and it was as if I destroyed it. And so I think that because we were so much like a family, it was almost as if, like, mom went off the deep end and got together with some cuckoo, abusive guy and sort of abandoned them and they didn't know what was going on and what was happening.

And so do you regret lying to them?

I regret lying to anybody in all of those circumstances, but I wasn't lying. You know, he made me think that, you know, everything was going to be reversed and. Okay. And anybody that money was borrowed from, they would get it back, you know, maybe tenfold. And so it was this weird situation of having, like, one foot in his reality and potentially believing the things he was saying or even over time, wanting to believe them more and more because the alternative was so. The alternative was worse. The alternative was, like, was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare. So.

So there's this whole situation where you're constantly giving him money, you're constantly borrowing, borrowing money. Well, this idea that it'll be repaid like 100x fold.

Right.

Kind of like.

So sort of like lying to somebody because you're planning their surprise party, you think, like, well, I'm lying to somebody, but I'm. But it's because there's a good reason.

Yeah.

You know, it's sort of.