Before Taryn Delanie Smith was crowned Miss New York in 2022, she worked at a call center. At one point, she said, she was only pretending to take calls.
“I was actually making these little videos at my desk or on my way to work,” she said.
Ms. Smith, 28, is best known for her TikToks as Denise, a receptionist in heaven with a New York accent. Dressed in a robe and a towel head wrap, she welcomes newcomers and fields calls from heaven hopefuls through her headset microphone (a pink razor). In one video, Denise is drinking holy water at the Saints Lounge with Princess Diana and Whitney Houston. In another, she responds to viewers who want her to welcome their loved ones who have died.
She is a self-described “reigning chaos goblin” whose videos err on the side of comedy. Now with more than 1.4 million followers on TikTok, she creates videos full time and is a co-host of “Influenced,” a talk show on Amazon.
“I’ve never felt safer and more protected than by New Yorkers,” said Ms. Smith, who is from Seattle. “And so that is sort of what Denise embodies to me.”
Sundays, Ms. Smith said, are an anchor for her and her husband, Alec Castillo, whom she describes as a “big tatted-up dude who loves to cook.” They live with their “city cow,” a Great Dane named Bruce, in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
A SLOW MORNING By the time Alec gets back from a bike ride around 8 a.m., I’m still having a slow morning. I wake up mouth to mouth with a Great Dane. So Bruce sleeps staring at you. Great Danes are very emotional. They’re very attached to you. So you will wake up with an arm around a Great Dane and his paw on your shoulder. It’s very sweet. But also if you’re someone who doesn’t like dogs, it might be very gross to you or off-putting to have an animal in your bed in the early morning hours, but I love it.
A NEIGHBORHOOD JAUNT We take the dog on morning walks pretty consistently, but especially on Sundays. And these are like two- to three-hour walks. We just love to mosey. We take him up Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side.
As a New Yorker, you know you’ve really started to become part of a community when people recognize you and they go, “It’s good to see you.” That’s so fun to run into your friends.
ON THE SPOT We love to go to the Sensuous Bean on the Upper West Side. I always get a maple doughnut latte double shot, light on the milk, iced. Alec and I both get them. Bruce gets a treat. We often sit on the bench and, again, there’s lots of interaction with the community. I run into a lot of fans, which is always so fun. I will absolutely make a Denise video on the spot for somebody.
A WALK IN THE PARK Central Park is God’s gift to New Yorkers. It’s like my favorite place to be in the city, I don’t know if it’s cliché to say. We walk Bruce all around, no specific path. We’ll sit in the meadows and we’ll talk. We love to walk over to the East Side. Actually, I am a closeted Upper East Side lover from my old days living out there.
OFFLINE Sunday’s a low-phone or no-phone day if I can manage it. For me, that’s important for my mental health. I get thousands of messages a day and I want to try to read them all. I love them all, but I do get into this place where I often feel like I cannot put my phone down because it is my work. And so Sunday is a good opportunity for me to put the phone down.
A DIFFERENT SUNDAY SERVICE There might be some friends that are shocked to hear I don’t go to church on Sundays. Or some that won’t be shocked to know. But me and God are good. He sees me out on my Sunday. He gets it.
CONSULTING THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA We come back home, we drop the dog off and this is usually the point where Alec starts discussing our dinner. Yes, it’s only noon, but he’s a chef. Alec will absolutely consult Ina Garten, his goddess and mentor. We have multiple Ina Garten cookbooks on our counter. So the Barefoot Contessa, I hope she reads this. We’re big fans.
He makes this amazing roast chicken that she invented, which is like — it sounds stupid to anybody who cooks, but I don’t really cook — he ties the little feet together, it looks like a little prisoner chicken, and he stuffs it with goat cheese, apple and seasoning.
THE DUO THAT WORKS OUT TOGETHER Yoga is great because as a couple sometimes when you work out together, at least for us, I hate being told what to do. I found that we argue more when we work out together. We still work out together, but I feel like when you’re lifting you get mad. So with yoga, it ends up being such a chill, fun, physical activity to do with your partner.
SHOPPING, SOMETIMES If it’s a very good Sunday, which is my favorite Sunday, while running errands I love to go thrift shopping. I love a Housing Works stop. We love an antique store shop.
In Central Park, there are artists that line up and sell art there. We’re always stopping and looking. It’s really hard for me to walk past an artist and not see their work. I’m not a billionaire, so I don’t go art shopping every single Sunday, but this is absolutely a huge part of our lives.
THE SUNDAY PLAYLIST We come home with whatever goodies we have. Alec will start cooking and then absolutely the Sunday music comes on, which is mostly jazz. It also depends on what we’re cooking. There’s a lot of Gregory Porter in there. There’s always a little bit of Al Green in there. I name each playlist after the house that we live in. It literally takes me back to this totally different time in our lives because music does that. It’s interesting to see how each space and home made me feel.
AN OPEN-DOOR POLICY Hopefully we have people coming over. I really do love to entertain. We’ve always loved having people over. We sort of have this revolving door on Sundays of folks stopping by, coming over, having dinner. Maybe they don’t want to eat. Maybe they just want to bring a bottle of wine and sit and talk. There’s a lot of laughter and love in our house and that more than anything is what I’m so grateful for.
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