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On the Emmys, learning to appreciate fine dining, and growing beyond the need for chicken smoothies.

Joel Kim Booster isn’t much of a foodie — ask him, and his go-to meal of choice (“for speed and efficiency,” he stresses) is putting cooked chicken and water into a blender, blitzing it till smooth, and choking it down for the protein.

It’s the kind of story he loves to trot out to horrified tablemates, particularly in Freeform’s newest series, Chrissy & Dave Dine Out, which premieres its first episode today. The premise is simple but delectable: Model, actress, and pop culture icon Chrissy Teigen and friend/celebrity chef David Chang go out to different acclaimed restaurants in the Los Angeles area — like iconic pizza joint Pizzeria Bianco, or Michelin-starred haute cuisine establishment Providence — inviting a host of celebrity friends (Jimmy Kimmel, Regina Hall, Simu Liu) to sit down, eat some food, and chat.

That last part is where Booster comes in, as Chrissy and Dave’s one permanent dinner guest for each of the season’s five episodes. An acclaimed writer, actor, and standup, he’s the omnipresent social lubricant, an affable but unfiltered conversation partner who doesn’t hesitate to ask probing questions. The combo of Chrissy and Joel’s verbal sparring, and Dave’s back-of-house shop talk with the chefs as he watches them cook, makes Dine Out an infectious watch.

The Spool sat down for a few minutes to talk turkey — or chicken, rather — with Booster the night after this year’s Emmys, where he’d snagged noms for writing and producing Hulu’s gay rom-com Fire Island. Together, we talk about Chrissy & Dave Dine Out, his upcoming guest stint on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and whether he’s still choking down chicken slurries for breakfast.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

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You were just at the Emmys; not only were you nominated [for Fire Island] but you got to see friends like Ayo Edebiri and Quinta Brunson win. What was that whole night like?

It was really incredible for a lot of reasons — I’ve been watching the Emmys for the better part of three decades. It was wild and surreal actually to be there for the first time. The biggest part for me last night was looking around at people I used to do open mics with in New York at midnight, in the back of terrible bars. And then to see us at the Emmys? It was really, really gratifying.

I’ve known Quinta and Ayo both for so long and I could not be happier for both of them. It could not have happened to two better, nicer, kinder, harder-working people.

Let’s talk about Chrissy & Dave Dine Out — how did you get wrapped up in this project? Did you know Chrissy?

It was mostly Dave — I’ve been a fan of his for a while, through his other food TV work, and he was a guest star on the Apple TV+ show I’m on, Loot, a couple of times because he’s good friends with Alan [Yang]. I get to interact with him the most when he’s on Loot, and I get to be really mean to him. I think he just knew what kind of person I was.

Listen, I’m the personality hire, is what I’ve been saying. I think they wanted a little element of chaos, and that’s what they got.

Yeah, the phrase I wrote down in my notes is “conversational fluffer.” What qualities did you feel made you uniquely suited for that? What did the atmosphere of all these conversations end up being?

I’m deeply curious about people, I always have been. I’m the person at the party who meets someone new and doesn’t ask, “What do you do? Where are you from?” I want to know, “What’s your drama?” I think that curiosity can bind with an innate lack of filter.

It was a really fun job for me, quite honestly. I don’t often get starstruck — I mean, I sat across from Regina fucking Hall and that was an internal struggle for me not to geek out the entire time. But for the most part, I know those celebrities were there to have fun, eat food, and talk. They know the game, I know the game. I’m not going to be worried about stepping on anyone’s toes or being starstruck. I just wanted to chat.

Then you add the element of food and fine dining to it, of course, which we’ll get into your specific dietary quirks later. But are you much of a gourmand otherwise? How familiar is this kind of restaurant experience for you?

I was kind of shocked when Dave wanted me to do this show because I’m not a foodie at all. I don’t have a super-developed palette. I’m not somebody who goes out to eat a lot in general. I think that’s the other role that I serve on the show: I’m representing what I would say is probably the bulk of America who has never eaten at a Michelin-star restaurant before. Who isn’t necessarily well versed in what is good food or bad food. I eat whatever tastes good, and I think Dave would agree with that too. That’s the simplest distillation of what good food is: If it tastes good.

But the show did teach me a lot. It was a nice little crash course on what makes food special.

Did it demystify anything for you about that kind of fine dining experience?

A little bit. Especially going to Providence, which was my first Michelin-star restaurant. It’s intimidating, but it was accessible. That’s one of the takeaways that I hope people come away with. Even if a restaurant is in vogue and hard to get a reservation at, it doesn’t mean you don’t belong there. Food is for everybody.

You get into a lot of really interesting topics with the guests, too — I’m thinking specifically of the Yangban episode, where you have a lot of conversations about Koreanness and the Korean-American experience. What was it like getting to share those experiences on screen and with those other people?

That was a really special episode. It’s the kind of conversation that I have, where it feels very normal and intimate. I was at a restaurant with another Korean adoptee, sitting next to her adopted brother, sitting across from a Korean icon, you know? So we could hit many different facets of that experience and identity, and compare and contrast. We’re not a monolith, and it was interesting to see the ways our stories diverge and come together. I’m excited for people to be able to see that episode.

Is there a restaurant or a dish in particular from the show that still sticks in your mind?

I mean, it’s the wings at Yangban. They’re the greatest chicken wings I’ve ever had, in LA or otherwise. It’s the one thing that, when people come to down, it’s the restaurant I take them to and the dish I say they have to order. I can think of it even right now. And maybe I’ll order it tonight, I don’t know.

Speaking of chicken, we do have to talk about the Chicken Smoothie. Were you expecting it to become such a running thing throughout the show?

No! Okay, yeah, it is funny, the journey we go through. I hope people know through this article that there’s a happy ending to this story: During the strike, I did start to learn how to cook because I realized I didn’t have any hobbies. I dove into it headfirst, and over the months of the strike, I’ve gotten pretty good.

I’ve come to appreciate the time involved in making a meal involving chicken, and not just getting it down my gullet for the protein. But it’s a funny thing to show people, and it’s even funnier that I tricked Dave into doing it.

Is there a dish you feel like you’ve nailed since learning to cook?

Italian food is my favorite food to eat and make, and I’ve gotten good at, like, a classic six-hour bolognese on the stove. I mean, it’s not the most difficult dish, you just have to let it all cook, and patience, patience. But it’s so good and I’ve never been prouder of myself.

Another show I’m obsessed with right now is season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I know you’re slated to be a guest judge. Can you say anything about that experience?

Oh my god, it was wild. It was really fun for me. And I’m glad I was there — I think I can say this — on a comedy episode. Thank God I’m here on a day where I can actually help these girls and judge them from a place of my expertise, as opposed to a sewing challenge. I had a blast.

I was so relieved I didn’t get a flop lip sync; that was my worry going in. No spoilers, but the lip sync in my episode is incredible, and I think everyone should look forward to that.