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" Lindsay Kaufman, 22 Hometown: Irvine, California Hostess at: Comme \u00C7a, West Hollywood ESQUIRE: Congratulations, Lindsay. So where are you from? LINDSAY KAUFMAN: I&amp;#039;m from Irvine.  ESQ: Home of the Anteaters. What&amp;#039;s that like? LK: It&amp;#039;s a pretty quiet town, but it&amp;#039;s... It&amp;#039;s near everything. I mean, I was very bored growing up there, but I love going back now, because it&amp;#039;s so quiet and pretty.  ESQ: So does that mean living in Orange County is like the show? LK: No. First of all, the show was filmed in Los Angeles. Secondly, the real, quote-unquote, housewives of Orange County \u2014 those people live in, like, ten-million dollar homes in Laguna Beach. That&amp;#039;s certainly not the average person in Irvine. The housewives live in a bubble, within a bubble, within a bubble. Behind a curtain. ESQ: You are the very first Hostess of the Week from Orange County. Would you say that growing up there makes you a better hostess? More chill? More relaxed? LK: I don&amp;#039;t think so. Every time somebody asks me where I&amp;#039;m from, they expect a really different answer. So I guess maybe I&amp;#039;m not typical Orange County. Which makes me kind of sad, because I don&amp;#039;t want to diss where I&amp;#039;m from, but it also... I don&amp;#039;t know. It&amp;#039;s a good thing, too. ESQ: Where do they think you&amp;#039;re from? LK: They tend to think I&amp;#039;m from the East Coast because I&amp;#039;m loud and... blunt. Blunt, maybe. ESQ: So you&amp;#039;re mean. LK: Yes. I&amp;#039;m kind of mean. I&amp;#039;m a mean girl. Or maybe I&amp;#039;m not the typical kind of pretty that people associate with Orange County? ESQ: Completely untrue. A Hostess of the Week that does not make. In terms of personality, we mean. In any case, there&amp;#039;s something to be said about making a good impression within five seconds, repeatedly, for hours on end. How do you do it?  LK: I&amp;#039;ve heard some other hostesses say that they treat everyone like they&amp;#039;re coming in their home. That&amp;#039;s not what makes a good hostess. You&amp;#039;re running the show! You have to have total control, and not be shaken by crazy people. And you have to remember: It&amp;#039;s just dinner. They will survive. If they have to wait, you do things to make them happy. But at the end of the day, it&amp;#039;s just dinner. It&amp;#039;s not an emergency. And anyway, it&amp;#039;s about sales, too. I&amp;#039;m really good at sales. I&amp;#039;m selling myself, and I&amp;#039;m selling the restaurant.  ESQ: If you had to attribute a monetary value to what you&amp;#039;re selling, what would it be?  LK: Priceless.  ESQ: What about the food? What&amp;#039;s your favorite dish? LK: I&amp;#039;m a psycho about our food. Because it&amp;#039;s really, really good. Our burger \u2014 it&amp;#039;s the burger to end all burgers. My bosses are going to get mad at me that I plugged the burger; they don&amp;#039;t want to be known only for their burgers [laughs]. ESQ: Let&amp;#039;s just say it randomly came up. What do you think makes it better than an In-N-Out burger, then?  LK: It&amp;#039;s gourmet, without being pretentious. It&amp;#039;s simple. It&amp;#039;s just the best possible cuts of beef, and they make this gourmet slaw that&amp;#039;s not too much for people who like things really plain. ESQ: You describe that burger like you would a person. If the burger was a person \u2014 a non-pretentious, upscale person \u2014 who would it be? LK: That&amp;#039;s so funny, because I have somebody in mind. When you asked that, I immediately pictured Charlize Theron. She&amp;#039;s gorgeous, a classic-beauty movie star, but she doesn&amp;#039;t care that maybe she&amp;#039;s a size ten. She&amp;#039;ll be gracious to her public, but if she&amp;#039;s out with her mom, she&amp;#039;s speaking Afrikaans, so they won&amp;#039;t get up in her business. I don&amp;#039;t know how that relates to a burger, but... ESQ: It completely relates to a burger. When somebody doesn&amp;#039;t get to sit down when they want to, what do you do?  LK: The trick is, honestly, to make them feel like you&amp;#039;re on their side. You want what they want, and you&amp;#039;re working your hardest to get that for them. And in the meantime, you give them some free champagne and some canap\u00E9s. The thing is, people are pissed because they&amp;#039;re hungry. And then if you feed them, and you give them free drinks... ESQ: So sometimes we should just go with a full stomach on a busy night and we&amp;#039;ll get free champagne and canap\u00E9s. LK: And pretend like you&amp;#039;re really angry. ESQ: What do you do when you&amp;#039;re finally off, after hours of giving out champagne and canap\u00E9s?  LK: It feels really nice to take off heels, put on flip-flops, and go hang out with a friend. I&amp;#039;m not very big on going out. So I&amp;#039;d much prefer to go decompress at a friend&amp;#039;s house. But definitely the shoes come off first. ESQ: Well, you&amp;#039;re standing in heels for a long time. How do you do that? How do you build up your body strength?  LK: My feet are freaking killing me by the end of the night, but your shoes... What are you going to do? I give one foot a break. But if you&amp;#039;re going to have to keep standing in those heels, you can&amp;#039;t really give yourself a break, because when you stand back up, it&amp;#039;s torture. You just push through it. It&amp;#039;s pain, but it&amp;#039;s fashion.  ESQ: It&amp;#039;s fashion because it&amp;#039;s painful. LK: Honestly, I&amp;#039;m not required to wear heels. I could go in flats. But I want to look sexy. I want to look my best because then I feel really good and I feel really confident. So what are you going to do?  ESQ: We appreciate your efforts.  LK: I love it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/interviews/a8871/comme-ca-west-hollywood-110410/>