From Paris to New York: Jonathan Waxman on Food, Wine, and Cooking’s New Frontiers

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We're very lucky, Paul, because you think about all these people

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that have brought their contribution to American

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soil, whether it be Greek,

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Thai, all the regions of India, all the regions of China,

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you know, Japan, Korea. I mean,

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it's amazing. I think we're so lucky. Sit

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back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with

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Paul K. Welcome. To Wine

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Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern

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California, Monrovia, broadcasting all the way through to

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New York with our good friend Jonathan Waxman. We'll get to

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introductions in a second. Wine Talks is available, of course, on

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Spotify, Pandora, iheartradio, wherever you hang out for your

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podcasts and always sponsored by the original Wine of the Month club, now

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sporting the Bordeaux and Napa series wine

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clubs. This is such an honor to have you on the show, Jonathan.

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Mr. Waxman, chef, probably have lots of

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accolades. Thank you for being on the show today. My pleasure.

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Happy to be here. Just starting out. I mean, it is 65

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degrees today in Southern California. How about.

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Well, it's interesting, Paul. Yesterday in New York, it was almost 50 degrees

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and I was talking to one of my ex

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chefs in Houston, it was 10 degrees. So I.

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The world is topsy turvy. We

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probably have to talk about climate change and the world of wine as well.

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I did want to say one thing, though. Going through this and

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wanting to have you on the show. And I've read Chef's Drugs and Rock and

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Roll, I've read your three cookbooks, or at least the intros and prologues and things.

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But we have a pretty amazing list of mutual friends,

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not the least of which is our friend Melvin Masters, who, I don't

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know, I think I've been buying from him for probably 30 years now. But

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Bruce Neiers, an old friend, used to

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sell wine to my dad in the 70s. That's so funny. So

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I first met Melvin in 1979 when

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I was at Michael's and he was at Jordan Winery at that point

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and he was the wine director for Tom Jordan and

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getting the winery open. And I was picked

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to do the opening dinners at the Jordan Winery

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by Melvin. And Tom was very

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generous and he said, look, you know, what are you going to serve? I said,

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I don't know, Tom. He goes, well, that sounds great. Here's my

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plane. Fly around wherever you want in California and pick up

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whatever you need. A true story.

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And so I arrived. I was working for Michael

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McCarty at the time, and it was Michael, myself and Nancy

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Silverton, I think was one of the sous Chefs. And

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we arrived at Jordan on this turbo prop plane,

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and the wings were filled with food, and we just

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unpacked, you know, Catalina lobsters that I

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picked up in, literally in Santa Barbara. Wow. Lambs

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from Sonoma. I got king salmon that we

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picked up in Point Reyes. And it was, you know, we just. And I got

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off the plane and Melvin and Janie were there to meet me. And

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they go, so what are you making for the first dinner night? I said, I

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have no clue. Let's pick out the food. And

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we unpacked all the stuff. We laid it out in this beautiful kitchen they had

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at the Jordan winery. And I just sort of walked around and

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picked out some stuff. But what I really wanted to know was what kind of

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wines they wanted to serve. That was because they hadn't told me

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ahead of time. And I always feel. Feel that wine comes

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first, food comes second. So I wanted to make sure that

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whatever we served married up well. So Melvin then proposed to

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have lunch. And I remember I made. I got some of the

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lamb legs from, you know, the spring lambs from

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Sonoma. And we, We. I cooked lunch. And of course, he had

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Beaujolais for lunch. Not. Not Jordan. And I remember the

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lunch went. Figure that out. 5:30 in the afternoon. And all of a sudden we

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realized we had to cook dinner that night for the. For the dinner. The one.

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Yeah. But it all, you know, those days you had more stamina than. Than a

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horse. And it all worked out well, that. So anyway, that

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I've got all this conversation to talk about Michaels and Nancy and.

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And Janie and. And Melvin. But

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was that normal to just get on a plane and go around and pick up

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your. No, I. You know, it was. Nothing

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was ever normal about anything I did with Melvin, to be

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honest with you. Character, you know. Yeah, character and a

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half. And, you know, Melvin and I became best friends.

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You know, we bonded over that, and we ended up

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becoming partners. And I read that

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three restaurants in New York starting in

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1983. Was Janie part of that?

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She was a trained chef. Did she work at Chez Panisse for a while? Jane,

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Janie is funny. What happened was, you know, I had been at

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Michael's since 1979. It was 1983, and

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I wanted to move to New York for some reason, don't ask me why.

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And Melvin invited me for

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lunch at the Four Seasons when I was in New York.

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It was Janie's birthday, actually, and we had lunch at Four

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Seasons. And back then, the Four Seasons was the most magnificent place to have lunch.

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And we sat and had one of those lunches that went from 12 to

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whenever, till, you know, till dinner. And during

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that lunch, Melvin and Janie said they had moved to New

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York and they wanted to open up a fish restaurant and

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name it after Billingsgate, the old fish market in London,

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which is sadly no longer there anymore. And

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they said, we'd like to have you think about becoming the chef

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for the restaurant. I said, well, you know, it's funny you said that. I'm actually

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thinking about moving to New York. So we talk about it. Anyway,

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so long story short, we ended up sort

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of changing Billingsgate to, you know,

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more of a Waxman style restaurant.

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And Jenny said, Grace gracefully said that, you know, why don't you

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be the chef? And you know, I'll, you know, I'll,

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I'll be there, but not, not in a, you know, real active role. And,

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and Melvin and I started jams, which stood for Jonathan and

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Melvin. Wow, I didn't read that. And the thing that. That's what it stood

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for. Janie's a trained cordon bleu,

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I think. Right. She's a magnificent cook.

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And, you know, might have been better for his

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marriage that he didn't do this with Janie. So

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who knows? But, yeah, I remember. So,

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Paul, the funny thing was they had bought a house up in Bethlehem,

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Connecticut. So we used to go up there before we found a space. You

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know, in New York there's an old adage, you either have a space

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and you don't have an investor or you find an investor, you don't have a

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space. So at that point we had a space, but no investors.

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And we were desperately seeking a name. And Melvin

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and I were stuck on the bus coming back from Bethlehem, you know. Right. You

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know, next to the bathroom. And it was pretty disgusting. And

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going back to New York early in the morning and he looked at me with

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his sort of baleful eyes that we have to come up with a name right

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now. So I just blurted out, you know,

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I don't know. And he goes, you know, in French there's this expression, la

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vieille d' or son confiture, which means life is not worth living without jam,

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which really means life isn't worth living without. Without cash.

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Confiture meaning money. Yes. Right. And so we

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just said, we both said at the same time, jam. And that's how.

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Oh, Jonathan, Melvin. And then the s. I'm not gonna tell you what that means.

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Well, all right, so that's, that's Mel. And Mel

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is Mel. In fact, he's been in here in the studio last time he was

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in town, and he's promised Magnums

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at Willy's Wine Bar when all this clears up. So

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we'll get you on the list. Because, you know, and. And

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be through. Melvin. Mark and I became very good friends.

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So I've been going to Willie's. It's the greatest since

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the beginning. So that's like 83, I

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think, when he started. I think 1980.

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1980, because it's been that. Exactly that. Oh, yeah, he just released

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his book. Well, I have. I have a poster in my house.

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It's the 1986 or 87, you know, Willie's

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poster that my dad brought back. And he also had a

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signed and autographed a menu that. That Mark had signed.

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And we were up in Napa, my wife and I, during

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COVID Actually, I was doing some podcasting, and we were walking down through Yountville,

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and there's a little condo complex on the right side as you're headed into Yontville

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from the north. And I spy. My wife

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actually spies a poster through the window. So here we are, like Peeping Tom's looking

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through this guy's living room window, and there's a Willys wine bar poster. It wasn't

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the same one, but it was my wife because that looks like a Willy's type

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poster. And so it looks like, lo and behold, I took a picture and emailed

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it to Mark. He says, yeah, that's one of our posters. He says, where is

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this? I go, it's a Gonville Napa. I said, you were already out here.

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People are paying attention. But then I was watching

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one of the TV stations during COVID It was on the news station.

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And over the guy's shoulder who's in, you know, broadcasting from his home,

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is the poster that I have at my house, a Willy's poster. So I took

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a quick still shot of that and sent that to Mark, and

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we became friends through those sort of this communication and because of Melvin is

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too. So you're in Magnum's at Willy's.

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I don't know. I suppose summertime or sometime before it

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frees up. But how about Bruce Neiers? I was talking to Bruce the other day,

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had him on the podcast as well. He used to come to see my father

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in 1972 and 75 and sell him wine

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from Joseph Phelps. What he says, he goes,

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oh, you got to say hi to Jonathan for me. So. So I

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first met Bruce when I worked at chez

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Panisse. In 1977. And I

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had worked in Napa, actually, maybe before that, because I had worked at Domain Chandon

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in Napa Valley. I think I met him then. Or Barbara. I

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can't remember who I met first, but Barbara was great friends with Alice,

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of course, and as was Bruce. And, you know,

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Chez Panicks was nothing but a kind of a great place to

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have friends hang out and have dinner and drink wine and,

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you know, talk stories. And that's when I

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first met Bruce. But I got to know Bruce even better

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when I was at Michael's.

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Alice threw a 10th anniversary party

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at Phelps in 1981 and

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invited Michael and

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myself up with our than girlfriends. And,

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you know, Bruce and I spent a lot of time at that party for some

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reason, drinking margaritas and talking about life.

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And we bonded. And then he

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used to come out and hang out at Wally's. Steve

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Wallace had become a really good friend. And so I

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used to spend a lot of time with Steve and Bruce. What

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a party. Carl Domaney and the

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whole. That whole group of people.

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And you know, Paul, it was really a remarkable time, I have to tell you.

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You know, we're going to talk about Michaels in that period.

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Ken Frank, we become friends. He's been on the show. He wants to want

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you to come back up to latoke and do another show. But one

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that surprised me. We'll get into the guts of this conversation. But I was talking

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to Mark Toll yesterday. He's a vendor. He'd been around the wine business for a

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long time. And he says, well, Jonathan Waxman used to stay at Sandy

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Garber's house when he came.

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Well, that's a. That's actually a kind of funny story. So when I was at

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Domain Chandone, I.

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I started off in the pastry department and then I moved over to the savory

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department. And I used to cook lunch.

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That was my job. And one of the waiters was a guy named

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Ralph Meyer. And Ralph. And Steve

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Gordon was another waiter, used to sort of torture me. Over

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there was. The kitchen was in the basement and we had a microphone and

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a video set up. And they would yell at me to send food

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up in the dumb waiter. And, and. And

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Ralph and I and Steve became really good friends. And Sandy

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at that time was working at.

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For Mondavi as a tour director. And she hated me.

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Yeah, hated me from. Hated me. Hated me from day one. And

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she just did. It was a long story. Some other time, we'll

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talk about it. But in any case, when

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I moved down to LA to become work at Michael's and

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Ralph and Sandy Ralph came down to LA because he was going to film school

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at ucla. And so we sort of

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reconnected in that point. Sandy Ralph and I became somewhat

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inseparable. And that's

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funny. That's really funny. Yeah. So we've been

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really great friends since 1977. She's a

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character. Well, she called the other day looking for a

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place to move a lot of Rose real fast. She extended herself

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a little long, but I think I've been buying from her for, I don't know,

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20 years. At least 20 years. And Mark, the sales guy was telling me, he

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goes, well, well, I asked Jonathan, where should I go in Tennessee

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for a dinner. And you recommended this. I can't remember the name now,

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Western something, but it's a fried bologna sandwich. He wanted to make sure

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I mentioned that. Oh, yeah. So that's.

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It's called the Great Waxman is asking for

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recommending a fried loni sandwich. Okay. Well, there's a wonderful

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honky tonk called Roberts on Broadway in

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Nashville. And it's a place that is the most

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egalitarian bar in the world. And they have the best

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Nashville groups that play there. There's

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no cover charge. There's seemingly no. They don't

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card anybody, but they give people once over.

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And the only admission is that you go in and, and

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dance and. And listen to music and eat fried bologna sandwiches

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and drink cheap beer. I don't know. That sounds pretty. It's

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really. It's really. Honestly, I took Giada there

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one. One night and I think, I think Giada has ever had a

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better time in her life dancing and having a great time. It was really.

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No pictures? No, no pictures. Okay, good. Sorry.

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You touched on a couple things just through these stories. I want. I was going

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to peel back anyways, I'll get to them and we'll talk about your career. Getting

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into, you know, the aha moment that Freya Troglo and

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places like that. But, you know, you said something interesting. It's kind of just

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started at my house, even though we've been doing this a long time. And that

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is. You said wine first and then

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we're going to cook around the food. And you know, so much of. I think

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so much of many people that just that like wine and maybe cook at home

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or go to dinner will start the other way. They'll start with, well, what am

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I eating and what should I drink? And I've become.

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When I get home now, particularly through confinement,

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like I feel like a Beaujolais. I feel like

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an aged Burgundy. I feel like. And then what should

256
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we eat? Is that. Yeah. Is that the way you approach it?

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Well, it's sort of. You know, I'm

258
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loath to use this word, but it's an organic process. You know,

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Sandy and I go to the market in Santa Monica

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and we shop for food and bring the food home and kind of lay it

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around. And. And then she starts talking about wine first. What do you want to

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drink? I love that because, you know, then

263
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you start thinking in your head, what, how can I turn

264
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this food into something that will marry up well with those wines we want to

265
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drink now, invariably, we don't stick to the program.

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Well, that's because, you know, you'll just. Everything, you know, like, life goes

267
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sideways. But I think it's important.

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I think, you know, I was very lucky when I

269
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went to Berkeley for a short period of time, UC

270
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Berkeley, and I took an enology course. And

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it was back in the day when it was taught, you know, very much on

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the old. On. On the Davis standard. It was very textbook

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and chemistry oriented. It was very

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passionate at all. But what was nice about it was I

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got to learn, you know, so the core values of

276
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winemaking and the wine. The wine process.

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And because I worked at Domain Chandome, you know, I got to, you know, go

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into the. Into the winery and wander around.

279
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They let me see everything. And the winemakers were

280
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very open about how they did things.

281
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And that really helped me along the way, I think, to

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understanding how important wine is in my world. Well,

283
00:17:33,009 --> 00:17:36,849
so I'm going to venture. Say your restaurants embrace that

284
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concept. Barbuto and jams,

285
00:17:41,169 --> 00:17:44,929
wherever. That's an important part of the equation. And

286
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I wrote down here, I know, because particularly with the Italian food,

287
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nothing makes me cringe more than when I see somebody

288
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come to, let's say, Union here in Pasadena

289
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and bring open a bottle of Duckhorn Merlot when.

290
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,800
Ah SAHM has spent a lot of time and energy to pair up the

291
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foods of the restaurant to the wine list and present to

292
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the public something that would be interesting to taste and be with. And

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I don't have any problem, of course, bringing wine to a restaurant I think is

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fine, but I just want to talk about wine's

295
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evolution with their indigenous foods. You spent time in

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France, where you. Where you were near Lyon, you know, in

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Rouen, right. Fred Tragro. And. Well, I was

298
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very lucky by. I went to school in Paris. I went to La Verne cooking

299
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school. And, you know, What?

300
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And I actually used to go take classes at the Blue Fox when it was

301
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Steven Spurrier. I didn't know Melvin and Steven had a

302
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relationship at that time. And actually. And Tim Johnson was there and everything.

303
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But in any case, you know, there

304
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was a. We took an Easter classmates. And I rented

305
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this horrible car that had a 2 by 4, 2

306
00:19:00,180 --> 00:19:03,980
by 2 by 4 holding up the front seat. And I said, let's go to

307
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all the best restaurants in France that we could afford.

308
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And the first restaurant we went to was Trois Gros and

309
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Rouen. And I had never,

310
00:19:15,060 --> 00:19:18,220
I actually had been to a three star restaurant before that. I'd gone to Chez

311
00:19:18,220 --> 00:19:20,970
Denis, you know, the famous Chez Denis in Paris,

312
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which was underwhelming at best. But

313
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I, I had to go because of that whole, you know,

314
00:19:29,530 --> 00:19:33,210
article in the New York Times. But I. We went to, you know, Trois

315
00:19:33,210 --> 00:19:36,890
Gro and they, number one, it was the middle of,

316
00:19:36,890 --> 00:19:40,730
you know, the first of Easter. It was cold, it was

317
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snowy outside. But they welcomed us as if we were, you

318
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know, the, like royalty. And they,

319
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and they, and they served this sort of classic Trois

320
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Gro menu of, you know, the foie gras that was seared

321
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:58,440
that I never had before, the fresh foie gras. And then

322
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:03,520
they had this dish, you know, the salmon o lazai, which is, you know, the

323
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famous dish with vermouth and cream. And then they had

324
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roast duck with cassis berries and

325
00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:15,680
their famous cake. And then after the meal, they took us into the kitchen and

326
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showed us the kitchen. You know, I,

327
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I don't remember the wine at all from that meal. But

328
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the next day, everybody abandoned ship

329
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except for one person because they had just said, I'm not going to eat like

330
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this the rest of our lives. We're done. So this one

331
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Trencherman and I, and we were about to leave and it was snowing,

332
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and Jean, trial girl walks up to us. What are you guys doing for lunch?

333
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And we said, well, we were thinking about heading down the road. He goes, oh,

334
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come and have lunch. It's on me. So he sat us down in the

335
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bar area of 12 row and he just says,

336
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I'm going to cook for you. And he brings out a. A

337
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so filled with ice and a pewter

338
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jug filled with flurry. Wow.

339
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Duck it on ice. Wow. And it probably was

340
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the best meal I've ever had in my life. They serve, they serve this little

341
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dish. It was called panache of poisson, which these little

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fish from the river, the little sonde.

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And they were just poached in a little bit of courbillon with a little beurre

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blanc on top. And then we had

345
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light lunch. We had cote du boeuf with

346
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these, you know, gratin potatoes that they make at foie gro.

347
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And, and we just drank Fleury with that.

348
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So. And, and I, and tell you, Paul, you know, that to

349
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me was, you know, sort of that,

350
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that, that awe moment where you

351
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realized that I was going to do this the rest of my life. That's for

352
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sure. Yeah, it really was. But you were cooking

353
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school at the time, right? I was, but, you know, I had no idea. I

354
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was, I was, you know, I was a musician that, you know, turned, you know,

355
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I got to go to cooking school and everything else.

356
00:22:06,550 --> 00:22:09,720
And, you know, it was that seeing that kind of

357
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just perfectionism with

358
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everything was. Everything was the graciousness, the hospitality,

359
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the service of the wine. Everything else was so

360
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comfortable and so passionate, yet,

361
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you know, he didn't get in the way. He didn't come over and bug us

362
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during lunch. He just wanted to make sure we were happy. And it

363
00:22:33,930 --> 00:22:37,690
taught me a million lessons that day. And it really stuck with

364
00:22:37,690 --> 00:22:41,530
me. Do you think that aha moment, I mean, it

365
00:22:41,530 --> 00:22:44,490
definitely has to happen in the wine business, and I'm going to guess it has

366
00:22:44,490 --> 00:22:48,330
to happen in the culinary side for you to take on that schedule, to

367
00:22:48,330 --> 00:22:51,810
take on the role of not only entrepreneur, but as

368
00:22:51,810 --> 00:22:55,650
chef. And then, you know, all the headaches and all the headwinds of opening a

369
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restaurant. I mean, isn't that where the passion comes from? A moment like that

370
00:22:59,410 --> 00:23:02,260
at Trois Gros where you're like, okay, I get it now

371
00:23:02,900 --> 00:23:06,660
100%. I had another one during that time period.

372
00:23:07,540 --> 00:23:10,820
I had this Austrian girlfriend who had a car.

373
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I didn't, I didn't date her for the car benefits.

374
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And one Sunday we, I said, let's go out

375
00:23:19,020 --> 00:23:22,660
to the champagne country and go wine tasting. Of course, we arrived

376
00:23:23,220 --> 00:23:26,380
too late for wine tasting on Sunday. And I realized that they were, you know,

377
00:23:26,380 --> 00:23:30,070
they're Catholic. They're Catholic and they don't do tastings a lot. On

378
00:23:30,070 --> 00:23:33,830
Sundays they go to lunch. So we, I looked in the guidebook

379
00:23:33,830 --> 00:23:37,470
and there's this two star restaurant called Boyer, which was not in

380
00:23:37,470 --> 00:23:41,150
Rennes at that time, was out in the countryside near Epernay. And we showed up

381
00:23:41,150 --> 00:23:44,870
this little country house and Sunday lunch and about one o' clock

382
00:23:44,870 --> 00:23:48,430
I walk in and stupid me, you know, of course they're booked, you

383
00:23:48,430 --> 00:23:52,270
know, and, you know, probably months ahead of time. But the woman at the front

384
00:23:54,070 --> 00:23:56,870
looked at us and took pity on us. And they created this little tiny table

385
00:23:56,870 --> 00:24:00,670
for us off the side. And I remember

386
00:24:00,670 --> 00:24:02,950
sitting down and having a bottle of

387
00:24:04,230 --> 00:24:06,790
61 go say, wow.

388
00:24:07,830 --> 00:24:08,230
And

389
00:24:12,390 --> 00:24:15,510
the first course was a salad of

390
00:24:15,990 --> 00:24:19,760
mosh petals, lamb's lettuce to

391
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:23,520
people, lamb's tongue lettuce, if people don't know what it is, with olive oil,

392
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:27,320
sea salt, and shaved paracord truffles on top. And that

393
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:31,120
was it. That's it. That was it. And you think about it,

394
00:24:31,120 --> 00:24:31,760
you know,

395
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,480
there was no real skill there other than

396
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,480
perfection of choosing perfect ingredients, serving them

397
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:46,030
perfectly, and having the restraint to not

398
00:24:46,270 --> 00:24:49,870
not, you know, put too many things on the plate and

399
00:24:49,870 --> 00:24:53,470
knowing what would go well with champagne. And I, I,

400
00:24:53,790 --> 00:24:57,590
to this day, you know, I. I try to emulate that. I never

401
00:24:57,590 --> 00:25:01,150
really can because, you know, sometimes those ingredients, because

402
00:25:01,150 --> 00:25:04,830
they've been using it for hundreds of years, it's difficult

403
00:25:04,830 --> 00:25:08,670
to do that. But it was really, you know, it really. That was another

404
00:25:08,670 --> 00:25:12,270
awe moment, I think, for me. It seems that

405
00:25:12,460 --> 00:25:16,180
cuisine, then, is that. Would you. Would you call that. Because you're talking 19. What

406
00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:19,780
did you say, 70 or 80 something? This is 1976. Yeah.

407
00:25:19,780 --> 00:25:23,300
So was that nouvelle cuisine? Did they have nouvelle? I mean, it sounds

408
00:25:23,300 --> 00:25:27,020
nouvelle. It doesn't sound like. Yeah, it was. It was. It was, I would think,

409
00:25:27,020 --> 00:25:30,500
what people now call nouvelle cuisine. And I think there's.

410
00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:34,300
There's. There's a lot of sort of, you know, controversy about

411
00:25:34,300 --> 00:25:38,140
what that meant. But what it meant was, I think these guys in France

412
00:25:39,090 --> 00:25:41,010
and Freddie Girardet, of course,

413
00:25:43,410 --> 00:25:46,850
they were sort of tired of the sauces that were, you know, that they

414
00:25:46,850 --> 00:25:50,450
cooked, you know, a month ahead of time and just

415
00:25:50,450 --> 00:25:54,290
reconstituted, which is what a lot of restaurants did, because it was just economical.

416
00:25:55,250 --> 00:25:58,930
And they threw away the old ruse and they had

417
00:25:58,930 --> 00:26:02,610
natural reductions, but I think. But it was more. That the

418
00:26:02,610 --> 00:26:06,440
cooking got more delicate and it got more

419
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,040
refined, and it got. And food became

420
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,400
prettier. It looked better on the plate. You know, there was a

421
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,280
strong, you know, obviously, you know,

422
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:21,040
Bocuse and Roger Verger and all those people, they had

423
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,760
a certain style about what they did, and

424
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,640
that style became what is known as nouvelle cuisine. But what it

425
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,870
really was was taking the old classics and kind of

426
00:26:34,270 --> 00:26:37,630
reinventing them a little bit or adjusting them.

427
00:26:38,270 --> 00:26:41,990
And I think that's evolution. It has to happen, you know,

428
00:26:41,990 --> 00:26:45,750
otherwise a business doesn't work, you know, I think so. And no, I

429
00:26:45,750 --> 00:26:49,510
really think that that happens in every. Everything. But I was very lucky to

430
00:26:49,510 --> 00:26:53,190
be in Paris when that was happening. So it

431
00:26:53,190 --> 00:26:56,910
served me well. Well, it took. Well, it took until, what, the 80s?

432
00:26:58,190 --> 00:27:01,940
One of my favorite subjects is haute cuisine in New York, you know, Le Pa?

433
00:27:02,170 --> 00:27:06,010
On and Lutesse. And. And then why then did

434
00:27:06,250 --> 00:27:09,530
this idea that you're saying in 76 that you tasted in.

435
00:27:09,930 --> 00:27:12,970
In. In Leon or Le Ron, you know,

436
00:27:13,690 --> 00:27:17,210
how did it land in America? Was, was. Was Alice

437
00:27:17,210 --> 00:27:20,970
Waters like the linchpin of this idea

438
00:27:20,970 --> 00:27:24,690
moving forward, or was that an accident? And now

439
00:27:24,690 --> 00:27:27,530
that you're in New York, was what was happening in New York at this time,

440
00:27:27,530 --> 00:27:31,290
was it still the les of the world that were pouring, you know. Yeah,

441
00:27:31,290 --> 00:27:35,010
I, I shame out of things. I think if you had to pinpoint

442
00:27:35,170 --> 00:27:39,010
one, one area was Los Angeles, you

443
00:27:39,010 --> 00:27:42,770
know, when, you know, certain chefs,

444
00:27:42,770 --> 00:27:46,490
you know, like l' Orangerie and, you know, those

445
00:27:46,490 --> 00:27:50,170
restaurants, I think they were more in tune

446
00:27:50,170 --> 00:27:53,890
with what was going on, like in the south of France with Roger Verger and

447
00:27:54,530 --> 00:27:57,490
in other places. And Alice was

448
00:27:57,970 --> 00:28:01,600
tangential in that respect. I don't think that

449
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,360
she was really influenced by some of those guys as much as

450
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:09,160
she just had her own style. And it happened to

451
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,560
be coincidental in many ways to what they were doing in France,

452
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,960
though, You know, Pierre Trois Gros sent

453
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,200
his son to work at Chez Panisse

454
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,800
right before I was at Chez Panisse. So there was

455
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,530
some sort of, you know, you know,

456
00:28:30,770 --> 00:28:34,210
communication amongst, you know,

457
00:28:34,450 --> 00:28:38,170
chefs around the. Between France and Italy

458
00:28:38,170 --> 00:28:42,010
and Switzerland and even in England at that point. And I

459
00:28:42,010 --> 00:28:45,850
think, you know, you know, it's like any good idea. It spreads. It spreads like

460
00:28:45,850 --> 00:28:49,410
wildfire. And, you know, people gravitated toward it,

461
00:28:49,490 --> 00:28:53,050
but it was hard to kind of pinpoint where it really

462
00:28:53,050 --> 00:28:56,840
sort of took place in America. Now, I love Lutestown, and

463
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,240
Andre Soldner was sort of my uncle when I first moved to New York, and

464
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,840
he was really my mentor and. But his food was not

465
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,960
what I would call, you know, cutting edge

466
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,640
food. He was much more of a classic. Seemed very traditional, according

467
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,320
to his cookbook, anyway. Very, very traditional, which I really appreciated as

468
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:18,800
well. Yeah, I think there's room for, for everything. So I think

469
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,570
there's, you know, that's why I really appreciate when people do

470
00:29:22,570 --> 00:29:26,210
go back to the classics and do you sort of channel, you

471
00:29:26,210 --> 00:29:29,890
know, older recipes, which is what Alice

472
00:29:29,890 --> 00:29:33,050
really did at Chez Panisse. She went back to old books and she looked up

473
00:29:33,050 --> 00:29:36,650
recipes, but she probably did serve them in her style,

474
00:29:36,650 --> 00:29:39,930
which probably could be called nouvelle cuisine, which is kind of interesting.

475
00:29:40,490 --> 00:29:44,170
Well, I have to tell you, I've been after the Hundred Foot Journey.

476
00:29:45,770 --> 00:29:49,530
I told you, my daughter. My daughter's a boulanger in New York. She

477
00:29:49,530 --> 00:29:52,940
went to Isanjo for pastry school, and she ended up at

478
00:29:53,330 --> 00:29:57,050
the New York French Cooking School. She worked for Benno for a while. When they

479
00:29:57,050 --> 00:30:00,730
earned the star. She was the boulanger of record for the Michelin star they

480
00:30:00,730 --> 00:30:04,490
earned, which they now are closed and reopened. So

481
00:30:04,490 --> 00:30:07,010
we've seen a lot of the passion it takes to do this,

482
00:30:09,009 --> 00:30:12,810
but I've tried to make the five mother sauces now. I think I

483
00:30:12,810 --> 00:30:15,730
got the sauce tamat kind of under control, the bechamel,

484
00:30:16,450 --> 00:30:20,130
but, man, I could not eat the espanol. I tried to make the

485
00:30:20,290 --> 00:30:22,450
beef broth from scratch, and it.

486
00:30:25,070 --> 00:30:28,150
I don't know. I don't know what I did. I'll tell you a funny story

487
00:30:28,150 --> 00:30:31,950
about sauce espanol. So one of my jobs before Chez Panisse, I went

488
00:30:31,950 --> 00:30:35,550
from Domain Chandon. I went to

489
00:30:35,630 --> 00:30:39,270
work in Monterey at the Monterey Bistro, which is no

490
00:30:39,270 --> 00:30:42,590
longer there. And the chef was. The owner was this old

491
00:30:42,750 --> 00:30:46,350
German guy who was very classically trained from the 40s and

492
00:30:46,350 --> 00:30:50,190
50s, and his chef was this very small,

493
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,400
wiry, very nice French guy. And I said,

494
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,480
you know, so, you know, how do you make your sauces? He comes in and

495
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,160
shows me in the. In the walk in There is this

496
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,400
24 gallon VAT of sauce espanol.

497
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:08,520
Really? I said, so how often do you make it? He goes, I make it

498
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,320
once every three months. And so I would happen to be there

499
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,520
on the day he made it, and literally he made this big

500
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,780
vat of. Of beef bone broth

501
00:31:19,820 --> 00:31:23,620
in one pot and he cooked it overnight. And he put a

502
00:31:23,620 --> 00:31:27,260
can of tomato paste in and two cans of tomatoes, and

503
00:31:27,420 --> 00:31:30,860
it was this bubbling cauldron of beef

504
00:31:31,500 --> 00:31:35,180
madness. And then his other pot, he made this roux

505
00:31:35,660 --> 00:31:38,540
with a number 10 can of flour

506
00:31:39,180 --> 00:31:42,220
and oil,

507
00:31:43,030 --> 00:31:46,830
and he made this roux. And then he sifted, you

508
00:31:46,830 --> 00:31:50,510
know, this cauldron of beef broth into

509
00:31:50,510 --> 00:31:54,030
the roux and cooked it for about an hour and a half, this

510
00:31:54,030 --> 00:31:56,790
bubbling thing, and it stiffened up

511
00:31:57,750 --> 00:32:01,470
like glue, stuck in the walk in.

512
00:32:01,470 --> 00:32:04,790
And every day he would go in and scoop up

513
00:32:05,670 --> 00:32:09,400
enough that night. And you think about it,

514
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,040
and that was what people had done for years. Yeah, but

515
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,720
real sauce espanol, when I was at Chez Panisse and other places that we

516
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,320
did, really is. It's a wonderful. It's a wonderful sauce

517
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,680
if it's done correctly. It's really amazing. Well, you're lucky you didn't go on day

518
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:26,320
29, because

519
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,880
that's like the time I would have had sushi and mammoth, and it was the

520
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:33,840
day before the fresh shipment was coming in. You know, it's just not exactly,

521
00:32:34,780 --> 00:32:38,580
you know, it's an important. This aha moment,

522
00:32:38,580 --> 00:32:41,100
just for reflecting on that a second, do you think,

523
00:32:42,540 --> 00:32:46,180
for a young chef, and I'm going to say this from experience, when my daughter

524
00:32:46,180 --> 00:32:49,420
was looking for places to learn how to cook and

525
00:32:49,580 --> 00:32:53,420
bake, we went to ICA in Napa and listened

526
00:32:53,420 --> 00:32:56,980
to that speech, and we went to the one in New York. And it

527
00:32:56,980 --> 00:33:00,740
seemed like at that moment, the pitch by the chef

528
00:33:00,740 --> 00:33:03,140
was more about, well, if you don't want to go to college, you can come

529
00:33:03,140 --> 00:33:06,680
to food school, and then we're going to make you. Well,

530
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,400
everybody thinks they're going to be a TV chef, but it seemed like more of

531
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,360
an outlet for people that didn't want to go to college than it was for

532
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,960
passionate people to learn how to cook, or at least the techniques of cooking to

533
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,320
go do something. Because this is a tough industry, and it takes a lot of

534
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,480
energy and passion. I mean, just watching my daughter get up at three in the

535
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:27,320
morning to go bake, you know, is enough. You can't do it without

536
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,080
that passion. What's the current temperature for

537
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:34,890
coming into the industry for young chefs? Well,

538
00:33:34,890 --> 00:33:38,730
obviously, Covid is, you know, throwing everything, you

539
00:33:38,730 --> 00:33:41,090
know, to. For a loop. But

540
00:33:41,810 --> 00:33:45,130
heretofore, you know, I think one of the big

541
00:33:45,130 --> 00:33:48,650
pushes that my friends and colleagues and

542
00:33:48,650 --> 00:33:51,970
peers are trying to do is throw a wider

543
00:33:52,290 --> 00:33:55,730
net to attract more individuals into our business.

544
00:33:56,770 --> 00:34:00,380
And I think, you know, that

545
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:04,460
for good or bad, TV has drawn people to our business.

546
00:34:05,180 --> 00:34:08,780
So they see people like Bobby Flay and Giada and

547
00:34:08,780 --> 00:34:12,140
Michael Simon and people like that, and they said, well, they look happy and

548
00:34:12,140 --> 00:34:15,740
successful and rich, and they're doing something

549
00:34:15,740 --> 00:34:19,260
they love. You know, I'd like to do that. And

550
00:34:20,780 --> 00:34:24,540
the problem is that it, as you and I

551
00:34:25,100 --> 00:34:28,890
well know, it's. It's tough work. You know, the old

552
00:34:28,890 --> 00:34:32,570
adage is, you know, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

553
00:34:32,570 --> 00:34:36,250
Because kitchens are. They're, they're hot, they're sweaty,

554
00:34:36,250 --> 00:34:39,010
they're uncomfortable, they're

555
00:34:40,210 --> 00:34:43,730
just delicious. I love being in the. I love being in the kitchen,

556
00:34:44,530 --> 00:34:47,650
but you have to be that type of person.

557
00:34:48,290 --> 00:34:51,410
Now, do you have to be in the kitchen to be a chef? Absolutely not.

558
00:34:51,410 --> 00:34:55,260
You could work for, as a private chef in someone's home. You could do

559
00:34:55,260 --> 00:34:58,940
what your daughter does and, you know, work in a different department where you

560
00:34:58,940 --> 00:35:01,700
don't have to work on the line. You have a different

561
00:35:02,580 --> 00:35:06,220
style of cooking. You could be a pastry chef, you can make

562
00:35:06,220 --> 00:35:09,700
ice cream. There's lots of different facets of it.

563
00:35:09,860 --> 00:35:13,380
There are certain people that are very good at just the

564
00:35:13,380 --> 00:35:17,180
economics of food and they

565
00:35:17,180 --> 00:35:20,820
go into the business part of it, which is, I think, one part of my

566
00:35:20,820 --> 00:35:24,620
business, which I think is sorely lacking. You know, I like

567
00:35:24,620 --> 00:35:28,260
to be able to attract more MBAs,

568
00:35:28,420 --> 00:35:32,100
more people that are, you know, that are business

569
00:35:32,260 --> 00:35:35,700
trained individuals that would like to be in the food business.

570
00:35:36,180 --> 00:35:39,780
But the most important part of the food business is that it really is

571
00:35:40,580 --> 00:35:44,340
like a family. And the culture that I

572
00:35:44,340 --> 00:35:48,060
was lucky to, you know, glom onto very early on

573
00:35:48,060 --> 00:35:51,760
and hopefully, you know, in my restaurants I try to emulate that, is

574
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,600
that we try to create places where people can

575
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,400
grow as individuals. And the most important thing I think about is, is

576
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:03,080
trying to elicit people's passion and find out what

577
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,720
they're good at. And a lot of people are very shy and they don't really.

578
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,720
They're reticent about talking about what they really like and really want

579
00:36:10,720 --> 00:36:14,440
to do. And I, I feel that's kind

580
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,750
of. I, I've, I'm pretty good mentor in that respect. And,

581
00:36:18,150 --> 00:36:21,830
you know, I try to get out of people what they're good

582
00:36:21,830 --> 00:36:25,550
at. And I think, you

583
00:36:25,550 --> 00:36:29,390
know, we all, we all should find that little spark in our

584
00:36:29,390 --> 00:36:33,150
belly or that little fire, whatever, whatever

585
00:36:33,150 --> 00:36:35,510
you want to be. If you want to become a welder, you want to become

586
00:36:35,510 --> 00:36:38,870
a doctor, you want to become a winemaker, whatever it is, that little

587
00:36:38,950 --> 00:36:42,470
passion would, will make you happy.

588
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:46,440
You know, it sounds like you have the business part of it down pretty well.

589
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,960
I mean, maybe the numbers aren't so great when it comes to whether you sit

590
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,720
around and look at them, but certainly how to grow a staff in

591
00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:57,400
an environment that's quick and hot and fast paced and filled

592
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,960
with sometimes complaining customers, and you're tapping into

593
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,560
the resources of each employee to maximize their

594
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,720
experience with you. Anyway, that's a huge part of business, isn't that?

595
00:37:09,610 --> 00:37:13,050
Yeah, I think that, you know, you look at it rather than a business, you

596
00:37:13,050 --> 00:37:16,370
look at it as a family and that they're part of your family, they're part

597
00:37:16,370 --> 00:37:20,050
of your sort of extended family and that, you know, you, even when

598
00:37:20,050 --> 00:37:23,450
they leave, you still feel responsible. Like I was talking to

599
00:37:24,649 --> 00:37:28,330
Mark Peel, who was Nancy's husband

600
00:37:28,330 --> 00:37:32,170
at Campanile the other day, and, you know, he still says, you know, you're

601
00:37:32,170 --> 00:37:35,890
still my boss. Yeah, from 1980, I'm

602
00:37:35,890 --> 00:37:39,530
still his boss, you know, and, you know, I always Laugh about

603
00:37:39,530 --> 00:37:43,370
that. But I think, you know, to be a good boss is

604
00:37:43,370 --> 00:37:46,090
a difficult thing and you make a lot of mistakes and you do a lot

605
00:37:46,090 --> 00:37:49,730
of silly things and you say, say stupid things sometimes. But

606
00:37:49,730 --> 00:37:53,290
if your intent is correct and you, and you, and you're

607
00:37:53,290 --> 00:37:56,330
mindful of, of your place and in your business,

608
00:37:57,290 --> 00:38:00,650
the most important thing is making good. Food for people, for sure. You know,

609
00:38:00,970 --> 00:38:04,090
and, you know, I think that at the end of the day, if that's the

610
00:38:04,090 --> 00:38:07,780
goal that's ever present. So I think

611
00:38:08,420 --> 00:38:12,220
I've been lucky in that respect that I didn't shy away from

612
00:38:12,220 --> 00:38:15,900
that. You brought up an interesting point because in Andre's

613
00:38:15,900 --> 00:38:19,300
book, and I talked to him yesterday, by the way, Mr. Soltner, Chef Soldier. I

614
00:38:19,300 --> 00:38:22,660
don't call him Andre. We're not that close. But he's gonna be on the show

615
00:38:22,660 --> 00:38:26,500
pretty soon when he gets back from a trip he's taking. But he talks

616
00:38:26,500 --> 00:38:30,300
about in the book that he didn't really pay attention to the numbers. He

617
00:38:30,300 --> 00:38:33,020
was, I forgot who he was talking about. His wife or somebody was doing the

618
00:38:33,020 --> 00:38:35,820
numbers and he didn't really care. He ordered what he wanted to order and he

619
00:38:35,820 --> 00:38:38,400
made what he wanted to take. And they would tell them, you know, toward the

620
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,200
end of the month maybe that things aren't looking so great that we got to

621
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,840
do this or do that. And in today's environment, and

622
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,400
my, my wife's cousin owns a restaurant here in Pasadena called Mi Piachi, has been

623
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,880
around 30 years, which is a huge time frame in certain Southern

624
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,600
California for restaurants. And you know, it's not so easy.

625
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,680
I mean, it's just not that easy these days with the cost of labor and

626
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,520
the cost of government and the cost of food and, and you want

627
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:06,170
to produce high quality food that tastes good, you got to find good

628
00:39:06,170 --> 00:39:09,810
food that tastes good. How

629
00:39:09,810 --> 00:39:13,130
is this relate to? This is really what the question is.

630
00:39:13,290 --> 00:39:17,130
You've got chef centric restaurants like yours, right? Like

631
00:39:17,130 --> 00:39:20,330
Espago, like, you know, Chez, and then you have

632
00:39:21,210 --> 00:39:25,050
corporate restaurants and here's like a Danny Meyer who's got like

633
00:39:25,050 --> 00:39:28,250
this amazing chain of, you know, burger joints and

634
00:39:29,060 --> 00:39:31,220
a couple restaurants in New York or maybe more.

635
00:39:33,780 --> 00:39:36,340
How does a restaurant like that, like yours

636
00:39:37,380 --> 00:39:41,060
manage all those pieces still

637
00:39:41,060 --> 00:39:43,860
squeak out of profit so you can be there the next day and employ all

638
00:39:43,860 --> 00:39:47,340
the people that you're mentoring. I mean, how does that happen these days? You know,

639
00:39:47,340 --> 00:39:50,820
Paul, I'm going to say this and you're going to laugh, but a lot of

640
00:39:50,820 --> 00:39:54,660
it's luck. Well, you know, I'll tell you A funny story. So

641
00:39:54,660 --> 00:39:58,410
when Barbudo was about 5 years old, it was

642
00:39:58,490 --> 00:40:02,050
9th 2009. The crash had just

643
00:40:02,050 --> 00:40:05,450
happened in New York, and obviously the world and

644
00:40:05,690 --> 00:40:08,570
our business just dropped precipitously.

645
00:40:10,810 --> 00:40:13,850
It was the darkest days in January of

646
00:40:13,850 --> 00:40:17,650
2009, and certain people told me that

647
00:40:17,650 --> 00:40:21,370
I was going to go to business, and that didn't sit well with

648
00:40:21,370 --> 00:40:25,000
me. So I fought as hard as I could. And

649
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,840
then I got a call from this woman, Sarah Abel, who is my

650
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,560
PR person for Baltz & Co.

651
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,760
In New York. And she goes, jonathan, I want you to do this TV show

652
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,520
called Top Chef Masters. I don't have to do. I'm not doing

653
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:42,840
any TV show. That's, you know, Bobby Flay worked for me, and Bobby did great.

654
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,880
And, you know, I was Bobby's mentor and he worked for me for a long

655
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,840
time and he, he did great. I said, I'm not gonna be. I'm not Bobby

656
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,310
Flay. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm too ugly and I don't want to be.

657
00:40:53,350 --> 00:40:56,790
And she kept pestering me and pestering me, and I just told her to, please

658
00:40:56,790 --> 00:40:59,950
don't do it. And then I got a phone call from Tom Colicchio, and he

659
00:40:59,950 --> 00:41:03,510
goes, jonathan, just fucking do it. And

660
00:41:03,590 --> 00:41:07,270
I went on the show, and we

661
00:41:07,270 --> 00:41:11,110
went from 0 to 100 miles an

662
00:41:11,110 --> 00:41:14,710
hour in April in the restaurant, doing the TV

663
00:41:14,710 --> 00:41:18,390
show. Now, that wasn't serendipity, that

664
00:41:18,390 --> 00:41:21,150
was sheer magic of, you know, tv.

665
00:41:22,590 --> 00:41:26,230
And I was very lucky to, number one, have

666
00:41:26,230 --> 00:41:29,630
lasted as long I was trying to get fired every week I was on TV

667
00:41:29,630 --> 00:41:33,390
because I was so out of shape and old and tired

668
00:41:34,110 --> 00:41:37,550
and, you know, I wanted to go home. But at the end of the day,

669
00:41:37,550 --> 00:41:41,350
Paul, what was interesting to me was that, number one, I love doing tv.

670
00:41:41,350 --> 00:41:45,110
So that was. I was wrong about that. And I loved and that worked

671
00:41:45,110 --> 00:41:48,910
out, but it was miraculous for my restaurant.

672
00:41:49,150 --> 00:41:52,870
Now think about someone else who doesn't have that, that ability to

673
00:41:52,870 --> 00:41:56,550
be on TV or, you know, have that exposure. How do they make it

674
00:41:56,550 --> 00:42:00,309
work? You know, I think you just have to grin and

675
00:42:00,309 --> 00:42:04,070
bear it, and you just have to use every ounce of

676
00:42:04,070 --> 00:42:07,710
intellectual and physical power to make things work.

677
00:42:08,670 --> 00:42:12,350
And, you know, I, I, it's, it's a tough business. And

678
00:42:12,350 --> 00:42:15,830
never sacrifice the quality of the food. No, but I think

679
00:42:15,990 --> 00:42:19,710
it's tough. But I think that the tougher it is, sometimes the

680
00:42:19,710 --> 00:42:23,390
harder you try, and the harder you try, the better the product becomes.

681
00:42:23,390 --> 00:42:26,230
True. You know, so prune.

682
00:42:27,030 --> 00:42:30,070
I just thought of that, you know, unbelievably.

683
00:42:30,470 --> 00:42:34,030
Eloquent article that she wrote about

684
00:42:34,030 --> 00:42:37,470
closing. And what my anecdotal story with that is that when my. When we decided

685
00:42:37,470 --> 00:42:41,030
after my daughter graduated from University of Southern California, I said, now, if you want

686
00:42:41,030 --> 00:42:43,730
to go to cooking school, you find, you know, so she went to Isanjo. I

687
00:42:43,730 --> 00:42:47,570
told you that we're going to send her to New York, and she's going

688
00:42:47,570 --> 00:42:51,210
to go to the French cooking school, which I think is now icc, which is

689
00:42:51,210 --> 00:42:54,850
now closed. She calls and says, well, I'm not going to go to school now.

690
00:42:54,850 --> 00:42:57,690
I go, what do you mean? She goes, well, Prune offered me a job. I'm

691
00:42:57,690 --> 00:43:01,410
like, you're. No, you're not. Because a lot of chefs have told

692
00:43:01,410 --> 00:43:04,290
her, you know, cooking school is not that important.

693
00:43:05,170 --> 00:43:08,970
Get yourself in on the line and get. Get working. And so she

694
00:43:08,970 --> 00:43:11,240
toyed with this idea. But I. I paid a lot of money to send her

695
00:43:11,240 --> 00:43:14,120
to New York and get an apartment. She's going to just do this.

696
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,360
And then we learn that, you know, what a sad environment.

697
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:22,400
You know, if she's coming back or any rumor of what's going on with Prune

698
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:26,039
in the future. Well, well, the good thing about Gabrielle is

699
00:43:26,039 --> 00:43:29,880
that she is a magnificent writer. Yeah.

700
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,840
Clearly that, that will. She'll be able to

701
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:37,280
channel that into a bank account that's sustainable. That's

702
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,080
number one. Number two is that I do hope she

703
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,840
comes back. I hope restaurants of her type will come back.

704
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,120
I have no idea. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, I think now

705
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,800
that that New York got smart and is allowing,

706
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,560
you know, restaurant workers to get vaccinated, I think that's.

707
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,840
That's a game changer for everybody for sure. Because that was the

708
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,410
thing that really has present prevented me from reopening was.

709
00:44:05,410 --> 00:44:07,970
Was the safety of my customers and my staff.

710
00:44:09,010 --> 00:44:12,370
And, And I think now that we have the

711
00:44:12,370 --> 00:44:16,050
wherewithal to protect the staff initially

712
00:44:16,050 --> 00:44:19,730
and hopefully customers as well, that that

713
00:44:19,730 --> 00:44:23,010
will create some hope. But,

714
00:44:23,810 --> 00:44:26,410
you know, I don't. I have. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know.

715
00:44:26,410 --> 00:44:30,170
There's barbud. I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

716
00:44:30,170 --> 00:44:33,870
Tough. On the call, you mentioned that the TV talk, being on TV

717
00:44:34,910 --> 00:44:38,550
being so important or having been so important for the restaurant. How

718
00:44:38,550 --> 00:44:41,150
important is the Michelin Etoile,

719
00:44:42,270 --> 00:44:46,070
the book, the Guide, three stars. How important is that to

720
00:44:46,070 --> 00:44:49,830
the career of a restaurant, at least at that level of food quality you're trying

721
00:44:49,830 --> 00:44:53,630
to present? Well, you know, when I went to France

722
00:44:53,950 --> 00:44:57,760
in the mid-70s and mission guide was

723
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,840
everything. You know, if you got in the Michelin guide, you got a, you got

724
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,680
a star, two stars, you know, three stars. That was, you know, the

725
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,840
ultimate. That was everything. And

726
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,880
I bought into that philosophy

727
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,040
of, you know, pleasing the Michelin

728
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,280
style person or whoever, whoever made that guy.

729
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,290
And, you know, when Michelin decided to go worldwide, I thought

730
00:45:26,290 --> 00:45:28,970
that was really interesting. But I still think

731
00:45:29,850 --> 00:45:33,450
back in the day when it was just centered really

732
00:45:33,450 --> 00:45:36,970
in France and a little bit in, you know, other countries

733
00:45:37,050 --> 00:45:40,810
that were, you know, connected to France. It was a little tighter, a little

734
00:45:40,810 --> 00:45:44,410
more succinct, you know, but it's a

735
00:45:44,410 --> 00:45:47,290
valuable guide. I still use it. It's right next to

736
00:45:49,310 --> 00:45:52,750
my toilet. I always have a commission guy there. I'm not,

737
00:45:52,910 --> 00:45:56,590
I'll be honest with you. Great place. And,

738
00:45:57,070 --> 00:46:00,750
you know, I think that the romance

739
00:46:01,150 --> 00:46:04,910
of finding that little restaurant tucked, like you

740
00:46:04,910 --> 00:46:08,510
talked about, the hundred foot journey tucked into a village that you have to

741
00:46:08,510 --> 00:46:12,350
drive hours to or your car breaks down in front of this two star restaurant

742
00:46:12,350 --> 00:46:15,950
that you didn't know existed and you walk in tired and hungry.

743
00:46:16,630 --> 00:46:20,350
And, you know, the word restaurant means to restore one's spirit. And that's

744
00:46:20,350 --> 00:46:24,190
what the Michelin guide to me means that you find this place. There's

745
00:46:24,190 --> 00:46:27,670
a little place that I go to. We go every summer to

746
00:46:27,750 --> 00:46:31,430
Talwar. A friend of mine has this wonderful house there. We go

747
00:46:31,430 --> 00:46:35,270
every summer, spend two or three weeks there. And there's this restaurant that

748
00:46:35,270 --> 00:46:38,910
I found, it's about an hour away outside of

749
00:46:38,910 --> 00:46:42,390
Aix le Bain. And it's this young couple and this beautiful

750
00:46:42,910 --> 00:46:46,550
little restaurant overlooking the vineyards of this, you know, Savoir

751
00:46:46,550 --> 00:46:50,390
vineyards. And, you know, I went in there for the first time, I

752
00:46:50,390 --> 00:46:53,710
talked my. I brought my two sons and, and a couple other people

753
00:46:54,030 --> 00:46:57,790
and it was a revelation. Paul. Wow. Here's this young couple

754
00:46:57,790 --> 00:47:01,230
out in the middle of nowhere cooking food

755
00:47:01,470 --> 00:47:04,870
that was magical. And it was of a place. It

756
00:47:04,870 --> 00:47:08,470
wasn't importing lobsters in Brittany and, you

757
00:47:08,470 --> 00:47:11,660
know, you know, lamb from

758
00:47:11,660 --> 00:47:15,380
Germany. It was all food from that region, from

759
00:47:15,380 --> 00:47:19,180
that little valley. And you could taste it. And then you had

760
00:47:19,180 --> 00:47:21,740
the wines, all these amazing, you know,

761
00:47:22,780 --> 00:47:26,340
wines from that region that were. That are extraordinary, that don't

762
00:47:26,340 --> 00:47:30,180
travel. You'd never see them in this country. You know, Kermit lynch has

763
00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:33,900
a few of them, you know, things like that. But seeing that sort of

764
00:47:33,900 --> 00:47:37,470
dedication, they probably have 12 tables, 15

765
00:47:37,470 --> 00:47:40,710
tables. Wow. To me, that's the Michelin guy.

766
00:47:41,430 --> 00:47:44,950
That's it in a nutshell. It seems like food is

767
00:47:45,190 --> 00:47:48,990
food. Wine obviously are partners. But the idea

768
00:47:48,990 --> 00:47:52,670
behind going to a place like that, in a restaurant that's tucked away, that's only

769
00:47:52,670 --> 00:47:56,190
using local foods, it's somebody else's hands preparing, and they come up with

770
00:47:56,190 --> 00:47:59,950
flavors that maybe Jonathan Waxman's never tasted before. And

771
00:47:59,950 --> 00:48:03,480
that then that can change from vintage to vintage. For instance, with a

772
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:06,960
wine and how complicated and infinite the

773
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,240
idea of good food can be. And

774
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,200
finding little places like this. I don't. My listeners know that the Michelin

775
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,960
guy, which started like in the late 20s, early 30s, and it was meant for

776
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,800
you to drive out of Paris and go use up your tires so that

777
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,600
you have to buy more tires from the Michelin people. I mean, that's what. That's

778
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,480
what the whole point was. So. And I find that fascinating

779
00:48:29,460 --> 00:48:33,060
to have learned that. So the. The.

780
00:48:33,140 --> 00:48:36,500
There's a movie. I don't know if you've seen it. My French, you know,

781
00:48:36,740 --> 00:48:40,580
I take French, but the American in the English translation is the

782
00:48:40,580 --> 00:48:41,700
Wing or the Thigh.

783
00:48:46,340 --> 00:48:49,740
It's a funny movie. It's a. It's in French. It's probably from the

784
00:48:49,740 --> 00:48:53,540
70s. It's about two competing food guide

785
00:48:53,540 --> 00:48:57,100
people, and they're trying to sabotage each other. And it's a huge slapstick comedy. So

786
00:48:57,100 --> 00:49:00,920
if you haven't seen it. Oh, I love that. Well, it's interesting that, you

787
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,600
know, when I. The reason I went to Paris in the

788
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:08,080
first place, one of the reasons was I saw this guide called

789
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:12,160
the Juilliard Guide to Food. It was written by

790
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:17,000
Gomeau. And so when I

791
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,160
went to France and Go Mio at that time was actually more

792
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,560
influential and probably a little more avant garde than Michelin.

793
00:49:24,720 --> 00:49:28,390
And so you looked at Gomeau to find the nouvelle restaurant,

794
00:49:28,620 --> 00:49:32,060
nouvelle cuisine restaurants, and they were more, I think, a little more

795
00:49:32,060 --> 00:49:35,820
topical, not as stodgy as Michelin was. Michelin was a

796
00:49:35,820 --> 00:49:39,420
little more comme il faux, a little more traditional. But

797
00:49:40,140 --> 00:49:43,900
I love. I felt that they really were warring against each

798
00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:47,620
other. You know, that's what Mayweather was. And. And I love that. I

799
00:49:47,620 --> 00:49:51,180
love that sort of juxtaposition. Now, in Italy, funny enough,

800
00:49:51,340 --> 00:49:55,140
they have a lot of guides. And, you know, when you go

801
00:49:55,140 --> 00:49:58,890
there and you go to the bookstore, there's like eight or nine guides of

802
00:49:58,890 --> 00:50:02,570
food that are all very competitive and they're very

803
00:50:02,570 --> 00:50:06,330
dense and they go into, you know, they're very

804
00:50:06,330 --> 00:50:10,090
wordy and they're talking about these places. And I wonder how do they have

805
00:50:10,090 --> 00:50:13,610
the time to do that? You know, go to these restaurants and all they do

806
00:50:13,610 --> 00:50:17,410
is drink, drink and eat and write. You know, these flowery phrases about these

807
00:50:17,410 --> 00:50:20,450
restaurants, but it

808
00:50:20,530 --> 00:50:24,330
informed me about where to go. So that was

809
00:50:24,330 --> 00:50:28,130
important. Well, it's, you know, the, the contemporary

810
00:50:28,530 --> 00:50:32,210
app. I, I don't use any of them. Foursquare, Yelp, I don't care

811
00:50:32,290 --> 00:50:36,010
because I, I can't trust a bunch of people. And you can't trust

812
00:50:36,010 --> 00:50:38,690
those ratings anymore anyway because they're so. They're so

813
00:50:39,650 --> 00:50:43,490
congested with false information. And so I, that's

814
00:50:43,490 --> 00:50:46,770
why I find refreshing about the guide is that at least, you know, that is

815
00:50:46,770 --> 00:50:50,410
a baseline of quality, a baseline of what food should

816
00:50:50,410 --> 00:50:53,970
be and service should be, that you have a reasonably expect the

817
00:50:53,970 --> 00:50:57,530
reasonable expectation that the food's going to have,

818
00:50:57,770 --> 00:51:01,370
you know, it's going to survive your expectations. You know, there's, there is a

819
00:51:01,450 --> 00:51:05,290
dive. What's the name of the show? Drive Ins, Diners and Dives. Gee

820
00:51:05,290 --> 00:51:08,730
Fiori Show. And there's an app and I've used it for fun

821
00:51:09,130 --> 00:51:12,530
and, you know, I'm like 50, 50 with it. I mean, I went to one

822
00:51:12,530 --> 00:51:16,090
place in Tennessee. It was like bad. It was really bad. And

823
00:51:16,090 --> 00:51:19,530
so, yeah, I thought. But I think like

824
00:51:19,530 --> 00:51:23,130
anything, you know, you want it, you want it to be a fresh guy.

825
00:51:23,130 --> 00:51:26,890
That's. You wanted to

826
00:51:26,890 --> 00:51:30,450
be newly minted. You wanted to get, you know, you want to make sure.

827
00:51:31,170 --> 00:51:34,890
I should look at the air data that show maybe. Exactly.

828
00:51:34,890 --> 00:51:38,570
You know, and I think, you know, and listen, the restaurant business, you

829
00:51:38,570 --> 00:51:42,130
know, things happen. So that's, you know, you know, restaurant changes,

830
00:51:42,930 --> 00:51:45,970
change his hands. So, you know, you never know. I wanted to shift gears a

831
00:51:45,970 --> 00:51:48,930
little bit. You're in Italy and, and

832
00:51:49,650 --> 00:51:53,330
you don't tell this to the French. But when Catherine Medici

833
00:51:53,330 --> 00:51:56,690
came to. The Medici came to from Florence and she married King,

834
00:51:57,810 --> 00:52:01,410
was it King Henry? You know, she brought with her these Italian

835
00:52:01,410 --> 00:52:05,010
cooks and it's purported that she, you know, taught the

836
00:52:05,010 --> 00:52:08,840
French how to cook. You know, the Russians taught you how to serve, serve food

837
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,360
and they touch how to cook. But there's, there's such a dramatic difference

838
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:16,800
between Italian and French cooking. I find that hard to believe or find an

839
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:20,560
interesting belief. But how important in America were

840
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:24,359
the immigrants that came here bringing their. What

841
00:52:24,359 --> 00:52:28,200
they didn't know was necessarily any kind of cuisine to

842
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:32,040
the extent that now Armenian food or Russian food or Chinese food or

843
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:35,840
Italian food is the staples of what we eat. But how

844
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:39,400
important is it? Well, I was very lucky. My. My parents, my

845
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:42,980
father's Bronx and my mother was from Bed Stuy and they moved out to California,

846
00:52:43,300 --> 00:52:46,660
I always say, ostensibly to have me in 1950 or 49

847
00:52:47,140 --> 00:52:50,500
and I remember as a young kid, my mother was an

848
00:52:50,500 --> 00:52:54,140
intrepid cook and diner, and she would

849
00:52:54,140 --> 00:52:57,860
travel to Fresno to buy grape leaves to make dolmas. She would

850
00:52:58,580 --> 00:53:02,260
go into Chinatown to find rice noodles.

851
00:53:02,260 --> 00:53:05,460
She would scour these.

852
00:53:05,940 --> 00:53:09,780
There's a place called Ratto's in Oakland. You know, the barrels to find

853
00:53:09,780 --> 00:53:13,380
the best, best olives and, you know, wow. You know, the best

854
00:53:13,380 --> 00:53:16,580
olive oil and, you know, and I've never

855
00:53:16,740 --> 00:53:20,500
understood how she had that passion. I mean, it didn't, you know, it.

856
00:53:21,140 --> 00:53:24,740
She. It was never really explained to me. But I

857
00:53:24,740 --> 00:53:28,460
think, you know, we're very lucky, Paul, because you

858
00:53:28,460 --> 00:53:31,460
think about all these people that have brought their

859
00:53:31,780 --> 00:53:35,580
contribution to American soil, whether it

860
00:53:35,580 --> 00:53:37,700
be Greek, Thai,

861
00:53:40,660 --> 00:53:44,260
all the regions of India, all the regions of China, you know,

862
00:53:44,340 --> 00:53:47,940
Japan, Korea. I mean, it's

863
00:53:47,940 --> 00:53:51,660
amazing. I think we're so lucky. We are. You

864
00:53:51,660 --> 00:53:55,220
know, I think it. The. The layers that

865
00:53:55,700 --> 00:53:59,220
are available to us now. If you go to any supermarket

866
00:53:59,300 --> 00:54:02,940
or any farmer's market and you see the amount

867
00:54:02,940 --> 00:54:06,660
of food and the rainbow effect

868
00:54:06,660 --> 00:54:09,940
of all these different cultures colliding

869
00:54:11,060 --> 00:54:14,580
in the supermarket, I think it's fantastic. Do you think

870
00:54:15,380 --> 00:54:19,100
the New World. These people came, like I said, they didn't know what are. They

871
00:54:19,100 --> 00:54:22,140
came, they brought their food, they made it at home because that's what they had

872
00:54:22,140 --> 00:54:25,940
to do. But do you think that part of our food

873
00:54:25,940 --> 00:54:28,980
culture is because we had nothing indigenous,

874
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,960
Maybe corn? Right? I mean, this. We had an open book. And

875
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:37,640
Jacques Lardier said in Louis Jadot, like, that's what. That's what the New

876
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:41,360
World's about. There's no shackles. There's. We're not forced to grow Pinot Noir

877
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:44,200
here. So, yeah, I think there's a little bit of that. But I always love

878
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,720
the idea. Like, I read, when I was reading Lonesome Dove about, you know,

879
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,960
going on the prairie and knocking a prairie chicken over the head and roasting

880
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,560
over the fire. You know, we had things they,

881
00:54:55,890 --> 00:54:59,330
they. We didn't grow a lot of stuff, though. You know, the, The.

882
00:54:59,570 --> 00:55:03,250
The. You know, the. The Native Americans really did have

883
00:55:03,330 --> 00:55:06,770
a food culture that we're just now finding more about.

884
00:55:07,730 --> 00:55:11,330
You know, Anastasia corn, for instance, back from the 12th century,

885
00:55:11,489 --> 00:55:14,770
you know, there's. There's. You know, anthropologists are

886
00:55:15,250 --> 00:55:19,090
still gleaning what, you know, what was here. But I think

887
00:55:19,250 --> 00:55:22,640
in a way that it was really

888
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,800
like, think of these guys from Genoa going to San Francisco.

889
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:31,160
They went. Obviously, they went to another port and they knew how to fish.

890
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:34,800
And that was. That was not alien to them. They became

891
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:38,560
fishermen, but then they Brought their wine stocks with them. So they brought up to

892
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:42,320
Napa Valley and they planted them, you know, they. They planted

893
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,920
olives. They, you know, they wanted to have the food from their country,

894
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,300
so they started growing these things. And then other cultures did the

895
00:55:50,300 --> 00:55:54,140
same thing, bringing their little bits and pieces from home, or they say

896
00:55:54,140 --> 00:55:57,540
or write to their cousins in the old country. Can you send me some,

897
00:55:57,780 --> 00:56:01,220
you know, some asparagus or whatever? And. And

898
00:56:01,460 --> 00:56:04,860
as. As that developed and people started

899
00:56:04,860 --> 00:56:08,020
becoming, you know, I remember the whole story about Meyer

900
00:56:08,020 --> 00:56:11,460
lemons. Fred Meyer from, you know, this botanist from

901
00:56:11,700 --> 00:56:14,650
California went to China and found this, you know, this

902
00:56:14,890 --> 00:56:18,650
crazy lemon. He brought it back, and now we have Meyer

903
00:56:18,650 --> 00:56:21,770
lemons everywhere in the world. Yeah, think about.

904
00:56:22,410 --> 00:56:25,970
Exactly. Think about avocados. Think about all these different. Think about blood

905
00:56:25,970 --> 00:56:29,370
oranges. When I was a kid, oranges were orange. Yeah.

906
00:56:29,769 --> 00:56:33,090
I didn't. I didn't know it. Blood orange. When I first went to Venice and

907
00:56:33,090 --> 00:56:36,850
I had blood orange juice, I thought they were kidding me, but it was

908
00:56:36,850 --> 00:56:40,530
the greatest thing ever. So I think we're so lucky that

909
00:56:40,530 --> 00:56:44,170
these people brought their food with them. And not just. Not

910
00:56:44,170 --> 00:56:47,530
just their food, but their recipes,

911
00:56:47,930 --> 00:56:51,610
you know, about how to do. You

912
00:56:51,610 --> 00:56:54,330
know, I'm in love with Mexican food. I really am.

913
00:56:56,730 --> 00:57:00,450
I'm just gaga over Mexico. Come to la. Open a decent

914
00:57:00,450 --> 00:57:03,850
place, will you? And, you know, I'm just. I'm

915
00:57:03,850 --> 00:57:07,450
enthusiastic about flavor in particular. I'm

916
00:57:07,450 --> 00:57:11,150
enthusiastic about colors in food. I'm enthusiastic about. But as I get

917
00:57:11,150 --> 00:57:14,790
older, I'm more. Also

918
00:57:14,790 --> 00:57:17,150
more in tune about how food affects us

919
00:57:18,910 --> 00:57:22,750
both, you know, in our. In our. In

920
00:57:22,750 --> 00:57:26,470
our deepest soul. But, you know, that we're healthy with it. And,

921
00:57:26,470 --> 00:57:30,030
you know, so the. The, you know, the amount of things that I've

922
00:57:30,030 --> 00:57:33,630
changed my way of eating dramatically. And

923
00:57:34,350 --> 00:57:38,080
I realized that I'm enjoying food more.

924
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,800
I'm tasting it better now. I have a better. I love. Like,

925
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:46,160
that's really. Before COVID my wife

926
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:49,040
or, you know, my daughter would go to the farmer's market, and they just buy

927
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:51,880
whatever they want, you know, and then they put it out and they go, okay.

928
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,360
And they would go off, do something, and they say, okay, we hopefully dinner will

929
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:58,440
arrive in two hours. And I love that. And.

930
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,710
And the things they bring back from the farmer's market are astounding.

931
00:58:02,710 --> 00:58:06,510
Paul. I mean, think about Jerusalem artichokes. When I was kidding, there

932
00:58:06,510 --> 00:58:09,910
wasn't. Maybe they existed, but I didn't actually see them,

933
00:58:10,150 --> 00:58:13,950
you know, I think the most amazing vegetable on the planet.

934
00:58:13,950 --> 00:58:17,670
And they're really good for you. And who knew? So, you know,

935
00:58:17,670 --> 00:58:21,430
I, I'm, I'm enthusiastic even more

936
00:58:21,430 --> 00:58:24,870
about what the future of food will be in America

937
00:58:25,430 --> 00:58:28,920
and if. And, and going back to this story about trying to get, you know,

938
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:32,680
people in, involved our business, you know, so it's hard. Who

939
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:36,520
cares? You know, life is hard, really. You know, it doesn't really matter. You

940
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:39,880
know, it and, you know, it's like, like anything.

941
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:43,400
It's only hard for the first four or five years.

942
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:48,800
Well, but it, if you have the passion, like, look,

943
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,640
I've been. This is my 31st year. I've tasted 100,000 wines.

944
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:56,080
I don't think it really hit me until maybe five, seven, ten years ago.

945
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:59,960
There was something very special about what we were doing in uk, what we're doing

946
00:58:59,960 --> 00:59:02,800
and the product that we were selling. And it's no longer work now. I like

947
00:59:02,800 --> 00:59:06,000
coming to work. I like turning people onto

948
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:10,279
really interesting vintages of wine that they can hold

949
00:59:10,279 --> 00:59:14,040
in a glass and go, I either want to taste this again and

950
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,600
figure out what it is, or I'll move on to the next one. But whatever

951
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:20,180
it is, I challenged you to do something with your palate.

952
00:59:20,410 --> 00:59:23,570
In fact, the other day I tasted. I couldn't believe it. I bought two cases

953
00:59:23,570 --> 00:59:27,130
just for my cellar wine from the Canary Islands.

954
00:59:28,090 --> 00:59:31,930
And when, when you. In my database of wines that when I taste, I

955
00:59:31,930 --> 00:59:35,410
put everything in a database, and if I start to spell a grape that's already

956
00:59:35,410 --> 00:59:38,610
in the system, it pops up as, this must be Chardonnay, this must be

957
00:59:38,610 --> 00:59:42,250
Cabernet. And nothing was coming up. When I was putting Listin Negro

958
00:59:42,650 --> 00:59:46,170
and, like, where, you know, I had never tasted the grape, I had never

959
00:59:46,170 --> 00:59:49,950
tasted the wine from the Canary Islands. And it was volcanic

960
00:59:49,950 --> 00:59:53,110
all the way. It was absolutely fascinating wine. I said, I got to put this

961
00:59:53,110 --> 00:59:56,750
in my own cellar. And that's. That's exciting. That's exciting. It's

962
00:59:56,750 --> 01:00:00,470
really. Those little discoveries is so great. You know, one, one

963
01:00:00,470 --> 01:00:04,230
thing, you know, when I started doing this, I mean, the only reason I did

964
01:00:04,230 --> 01:00:07,630
Barbuda was, you know, I, I. My

965
01:00:08,110 --> 01:00:11,790
neighbor, new neighbor upstairs for me here in New York is

966
01:00:11,790 --> 01:00:14,900
a Italian fashion photographer,

967
01:00:16,090 --> 01:00:19,930
Fabrizio Ferri. And he and his wife, Alessandra Ferri,

968
01:00:20,250 --> 01:00:23,490
who at that time was the most famous ballerina in the world, had moved in

969
01:00:23,490 --> 01:00:27,210
upstairs for me. And they used to sneak downstairs and I'd

970
01:00:27,210 --> 01:00:30,969
be cooking dinner, and Fabrizio is this big bear, like, guy, and

971
01:00:30,969 --> 01:00:34,650
he would come in and invite himself to dinner. We became friends. And

972
01:00:34,650 --> 01:00:38,210
he said, you know, Jonathan, you have this restaurant called Washington Park. But I had

973
01:00:38,210 --> 01:00:41,780
this little space on Washington Street. Would you ever think about

974
01:00:42,020 --> 01:00:45,100
opening a restaurant? So I said, no, I don't want to do it. So he

975
01:00:45,100 --> 01:00:47,660
said, just come over and see it. So I walked over there with Jimmy Bradley

976
01:00:47,660 --> 01:00:51,220
from the Red Cap. And I walked by and Jimmy Bradley said, that's a dump.

977
01:00:51,780 --> 01:00:55,260
And I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. Anyway, so Fabrizio kept bugging

978
01:00:55,260 --> 01:00:58,140
me and bugging me. So I finally said, oh, yeah, I'll do this restaurant with

979
01:00:58,140 --> 01:01:01,140
you. And I said, what kind of, you know. He goes, we're going to be

980
01:01:01,140 --> 01:01:04,740
doing an Italian restaurant. I said, you know, I'm a nice Jewish boy from Berkeley.

981
01:01:05,300 --> 01:01:09,020
I don't do Italian food. I'm not worthy of that. He goes, no,

982
01:01:09,020 --> 01:01:12,760
Jonathan, you don't get it. You cook like my Roman mother.

983
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:17,000
I said, what are you talking about? He goes,

984
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:19,960
that's funny. You're not from the same place. You don't.

985
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:23,640
You don't have the same, you know, cultural background. You don't.

986
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:28,200
So I open up an Italian restaurant. But what was great about

987
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:32,000
that was that I got to go to Italy and start

988
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:35,680
doing more wine tasting. Now I had with Tim

989
01:01:35,680 --> 01:01:39,350
Johnson and Mark Williamson, I had done. I actually done the

990
01:01:39,350 --> 01:01:42,870
first Tribuchiere tasting in. In really, in Alba

991
01:01:42,870 --> 01:01:46,710
Piedmont in the 90s. And so I've been going to Italy a

992
01:01:46,710 --> 01:01:50,430
lot for wine and for food, and I just loved it. But now I got

993
01:01:50,430 --> 01:01:53,510
to go back and I realized the hidden

994
01:01:53,830 --> 01:01:57,630
treasures of Italy. And one of them were these little

995
01:01:57,630 --> 01:02:01,350
wines in these little regions that I'd never heard of. And, you know,

996
01:02:01,350 --> 01:02:04,800
and all of a sudden you discover this stuff and you just. It just

997
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:08,240
boggles your mind. And, you know, I love the. I love

998
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:12,080
that discovery, you know. You know,

999
01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:15,800
it's like Palo Bella. First time I drank

1000
01:02:15,800 --> 01:02:19,560
one of the Sagratinos, I almost fainted. I'm sorry. But

1001
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:23,400
it was. I think it was. It was such a revelation for me because,

1002
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,800
you know, I, you know, listen, I love Roti. I love all those great wines,

1003
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:30,280
the Rhone and blah, blah, blah. But I had this wine, the Sagratino from

1004
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,970
Palabe, and it's still, to me, like a temple.

1005
01:02:34,770 --> 01:02:36,050
And, you know,

1006
01:02:38,370 --> 01:02:42,210
how does that person take a grape, a simple grape off the vine

1007
01:02:42,210 --> 01:02:44,450
and turn it into this magical

1008
01:02:45,570 --> 01:02:49,290
substance? And so that was very lucky for me. And that's why

1009
01:02:49,290 --> 01:02:52,930
a part of Barbudo, I think, was such a treasure for me,

1010
01:02:52,930 --> 01:02:56,730
because I got to put those wines on the wine list. And, you know, occasionally

1011
01:02:56,730 --> 01:03:00,490
I would pop a bottle open and Michael Kelly, who's my wine director, who's been

1012
01:03:00,490 --> 01:03:03,850
with me since day one, we've gone on the journey together.

1013
01:03:04,650 --> 01:03:08,330
And since then, he's not just been

1014
01:03:08,330 --> 01:03:12,090
Italian centric, he travels the world wine wise.

1015
01:03:12,890 --> 01:03:16,570
But his palate of mine are very similar. And

1016
01:03:16,970 --> 01:03:19,210
we talk about this thing about bearing food and wine.

1017
01:03:20,650 --> 01:03:24,110
I think my food is so simple that it's,

1018
01:03:24,500 --> 01:03:28,300
it's not wine agnostic, but it does

1019
01:03:28,300 --> 01:03:31,140
have a wider, I think,

1020
01:03:32,020 --> 01:03:35,140
palate in terms of what could go well with my food.

1021
01:03:36,020 --> 01:03:39,020
And I like that. I like being able to sit down. Whether you want a

1022
01:03:39,020 --> 01:03:42,060
simple glass of rose or do you want to have a, you know, a glass

1023
01:03:42,060 --> 01:03:45,540
of champagne with a certain dish, they both

1024
01:03:45,700 --> 01:03:49,500
will work well, they'll marry well with that dish. They'll

1025
01:03:49,500 --> 01:03:52,980
just have. You'll have a different flavor profile and you'll have a different experience,

1026
01:03:53,220 --> 01:03:56,700
which I think is fantastic. I love that. Next time you go to

1027
01:03:56,700 --> 01:04:00,460
Montefalco, my friend is the mayor, retired mayor

1028
01:04:00,460 --> 01:04:03,700
there. Valentino Valentini. Okay. The guy should

1029
01:04:04,260 --> 01:04:07,740
have been a movie star or something. You know, as we're getting on an hour

1030
01:04:07,740 --> 01:04:10,859
here, and I wanted to touch one subject. We have so much, there's so much

1031
01:04:10,859 --> 01:04:14,380
still we could share. I wouldn't even talk about the, the, the Michael,

1032
01:04:14,380 --> 01:04:16,100
Michael's restaurant days, but

1033
01:04:18,020 --> 01:04:21,740
we used to go to this San Francisco food festival every year. Fancy

1034
01:04:21,740 --> 01:04:24,340
food festival. I used to do the whole show. We'd walk up and down, and

1035
01:04:24,340 --> 01:04:27,700
I always had this question. I asked chefs and I ask friends,

1036
01:04:28,260 --> 01:04:31,860
and the question is this. I'm standing at the booth where they're selling bone

1037
01:04:31,860 --> 01:04:35,060
sucking barbecue sauce or something. And I asked the young man, I said, okay, I'm

1038
01:04:35,060 --> 01:04:38,780
gonna ask you a question. If I brought forward from 1945

1039
01:04:38,780 --> 01:04:42,460
or 1958 or somewhere in that range, a reputable

1040
01:04:42,460 --> 01:04:46,260
steak from a reputable steakhouse. In other words, it wasn't one of the charlatan beef

1041
01:04:46,260 --> 01:04:50,060
people that, you know why the USDA got involved, right? A real

1042
01:04:50,060 --> 01:04:53,620
steakhouse. And you put it next to a steak from, let's say, Fleming's or Ruth's

1043
01:04:53,620 --> 01:04:57,100
Chris or one of the today's steakhouses. Which one would taste better?

1044
01:04:57,740 --> 01:05:01,380
And he says, well, let me ask my mom, because she used to serve

1045
01:05:01,380 --> 01:05:03,260
at one of those steakhouses in the 40s,

1046
01:05:04,860 --> 01:05:08,300
overcomes this woman, she must have been 90. And she says, absolutely,

1047
01:05:08,540 --> 01:05:12,260
the steak from 1940 would be better. And we've got places

1048
01:05:12,260 --> 01:05:15,980
like Blue Hill Farms with biodynamic foods and obviously

1049
01:05:15,980 --> 01:05:19,740
wine and organic wines and biodynamic wines and raw wines. All these new

1050
01:05:19,980 --> 01:05:22,300
evolution of wine business is happening.

1051
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:27,720
And the concept of you are what you eat, eats, and you are what you

1052
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:30,320
drink, drinks, how does that play in.

1053
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:34,000
I don't say the quality of the food. I mean, if you and I went

1054
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,480
to the market together and I went to the organic section and you went to

1055
01:05:36,480 --> 01:05:40,080
the conventional section, vice versa, and we cooked everything exactly the same, the same

1056
01:05:40,080 --> 01:05:43,840
temperature, the same serving, would one necessarily taste better?

1057
01:05:45,600 --> 01:05:49,400
You know, that's such a subjective thing, Paul. I think it's

1058
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:53,120
so hard. It's such a huge subject. I'll tell you a funny story. So

1059
01:05:54,000 --> 01:05:57,760
my uncle worked at Hebrew national in their

1060
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:01,400
butcher in the 50s. And when they come to our house

1061
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:05,120
in New York, from New York to California, he used to bring what was

1062
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:08,400
called shell stakes. We're talking about 1961. 62.

1063
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:12,320
And I remember the eye of the steak was about 8 or 9 inches,

1064
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:16,530
and it was perfectly marbled. Wow. And, you

1065
01:06:16,530 --> 01:06:20,370
know, I remember. I remember the taste of that steak right now. And I

1066
01:06:20,370 --> 01:06:24,090
think, you know, going back to that whole Blue Hill thing, I think what. What

1067
01:06:24,090 --> 01:06:27,370
Dan and other people are doing is they're trying to get back to what steaks

1068
01:06:27,370 --> 01:06:31,050
were like in 1940. I think you're right. Right. You know, I think before

1069
01:06:31,130 --> 01:06:33,930
there was pesticides and before there was, you know,

1070
01:06:34,410 --> 01:06:38,250
mechanized growing machines, and before there was,

1071
01:06:38,250 --> 01:06:42,070
you know, you know, all this stuff, people just. They survive,

1072
01:06:42,070 --> 01:06:45,790
you know, I grew up on a farm in. In Sonoma. You know, we, you

1073
01:06:45,790 --> 01:06:49,030
know, we. We had composting because you had to do it, right? We had,

1074
01:06:49,590 --> 01:06:52,350
you know, we, you know, we dug out the weeds because you had to do

1075
01:06:52,350 --> 01:06:56,070
it. But I remember putting a board on top of the BlackBerry bush in my

1076
01:06:56,070 --> 01:06:59,710
grandmother's backyard and picking a pail of blackberries and coming back with an

1077
01:06:59,710 --> 01:07:02,910
empty pail. My grandma says, well, what happened to blackberries? And she looked at me,

1078
01:07:02,910 --> 01:07:06,630
I was smear with BlackBerry juice. I. I think,

1079
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:10,000
you know, these kind of things are what.

1080
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:14,480
What bring me back to those basics. Right. And

1081
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:17,440
I. I applaud anybody that. That tries to do that.

1082
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:21,840
So, you know, whether it's conventional farming or organic

1083
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:25,200
farming, as long as it's dubbed with love and care,

1084
01:07:27,680 --> 01:07:30,880
I think it tastes pretty good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Does that make

1085
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:34,660
sense? It does. I think you're right. It comes down to how much passion

1086
01:07:34,660 --> 01:07:38,500
you have in preparing it and growing it. I mean, if you can, I'm sure,

1087
01:07:38,500 --> 01:07:42,260
conventionally grow beautiful vegetables and beautiful fruit that tastes really good if you.

1088
01:07:42,260 --> 01:07:45,220
If you care, if you're just doing it for the work that's probably a different

1089
01:07:45,220 --> 01:07:49,060
story, but. And you need a mentor, you need some. You need

1090
01:07:49,060 --> 01:07:52,660
to learn from somebody or you learn by mistake, which is the hardest way of

1091
01:07:52,660 --> 01:07:56,460
doing, because that's the way I've done it. It's far better to have

1092
01:07:56,460 --> 01:07:59,340
learned from a master, whoever that person is.

1093
01:08:00,450 --> 01:08:04,010
You know, that 90 year old woman in the back is where. Who I'd want

1094
01:08:04,010 --> 01:08:07,850
to learn from. The part that gets to me is they

1095
01:08:07,850 --> 01:08:10,770
bring the wines in here, for instance. And I had a great conversation with

1096
01:08:11,490 --> 01:08:15,170
Isabelle Legeron. She's got the raw movement. I had

1097
01:08:15,170 --> 01:08:18,610
a conversation which is a book you should read. If you haven't called the

1098
01:08:18,610 --> 01:08:21,930
hotel at Place Vendome. It's Tilar Mazio who wrote Veuve

1099
01:08:21,930 --> 01:08:25,690
Clicquot's book Widow Clicquot. But she talks about. The liberation of Paris is

1100
01:08:25,690 --> 01:08:29,420
phenomenal. She turns out, since I love the book, I was talking to her.

1101
01:08:29,660 --> 01:08:33,500
She has a sparkling wine house on Vancouver island, you

1102
01:08:33,500 --> 01:08:37,260
know, probably the least hospitable place in the world to grow champagne grapes. And

1103
01:08:37,260 --> 01:08:40,940
she closed because of COVID but she doesn't even disgorge her sparkling

1104
01:08:40,940 --> 01:08:44,060
wine. So you get this wine which. Which now reading

1105
01:08:44,700 --> 01:08:48,540
Widow Clicquot was the wines from the 1750s. You know, they didn't know

1106
01:08:48,540 --> 01:08:51,660
how to get the stuff out of there. So now they're trying to figure it

1107
01:08:51,660 --> 01:08:55,200
out, like. And she wants to sell it that way. So. But the point I

1108
01:08:55,200 --> 01:08:58,440
was going to make is I taste a lot of, you know, these really bad.

1109
01:08:58,440 --> 01:09:01,960
It's like I don't want to drink it just because I think I'm doing

1110
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:05,360
myself a favor. Even though it's still 14 alcohol.

1111
01:09:06,320 --> 01:09:09,640
I don't want to have to stomach it just because it's raw or organic or

1112
01:09:09,640 --> 01:09:13,200
biodynamic. I want to enjoy it. I want to emote over it. I want to

1113
01:09:13,200 --> 01:09:16,720
have a conversation about it. So I'm not going to force myself to drink something

1114
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:20,080
because I think it's contemporary and hip to do.

1115
01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:24,320
It should taste good. I mean, it should still create experience. Isn't that

1116
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:28,000
the bottom line? You know, that's why I think tasting blind

1117
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:31,720
is so important. Yes. That you know that you really should not

1118
01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:35,480
know what's in the bottle or you should guess.

1119
01:09:35,480 --> 01:09:38,560
You shouldn't see the shape of the bottle. But you, but you pour it in

1120
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:42,280
the glass and you know right away you're gonna pinpoint it

1121
01:09:42,280 --> 01:09:46,080
to pretty close relative. Relative degree. And as soon as

1122
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:48,660
you smell it and people think, well, you have to taste it. No, as soon

1123
01:09:48,660 --> 01:09:52,340
as you smell it. You're 90% there, you know,

1124
01:09:52,340 --> 01:09:56,020
And I think that's the beauty of winemaking, because it's about

1125
01:09:56,020 --> 01:09:59,260
the winemaker and the terroir and

1126
01:09:59,900 --> 01:10:02,980
putting those two things. That's why I love going to. I love going to Piedmont.

1127
01:10:02,980 --> 01:10:05,980
I stay with Pia Buffa from Pia Cesare, and

1128
01:10:08,380 --> 01:10:12,140
I love walking with him in the vineyards. I love going out and getting my

1129
01:10:12,140 --> 01:10:15,790
finger. I love getting my fingernails into that dirt and seeing

1130
01:10:15,790 --> 01:10:19,310
what. Seeing those steep, you know, trails in Barolo, walking around

1131
01:10:19,310 --> 01:10:22,950
and, wow, it's so. I can smell it. Romantic. It's

1132
01:10:22,950 --> 01:10:26,550
so romantic and so beautiful. But then you sit down the table and you. You

1133
01:10:26,550 --> 01:10:29,550
try, you know, 202007

1134
01:10:29,550 --> 01:10:33,390
Barolos, and they're all so different.

1135
01:10:33,390 --> 01:10:37,110
It's good work if you can get it. Say. Say, you know, same,

1136
01:10:37,110 --> 01:10:40,830
same year. So different, my children. It is a

1137
01:10:41,230 --> 01:10:43,850
fascinating part of the. I mean, that's. That. That is the.

1138
01:10:45,850 --> 01:10:48,730
That. That's the part about wine that's different than any other beverage in the world.

1139
01:10:48,730 --> 01:10:51,930
Right. I mean, you drink Jack Dallas because it tastes like Jack Downs. You drink

1140
01:10:51,930 --> 01:10:55,610
a Heineken because it tastes like Heineken, but you drink a Barolo

1141
01:10:55,850 --> 01:10:59,210
from the specific district because it's going to taste different the next year and the

1142
01:10:59,210 --> 01:11:02,570
year after that and the year after that. And that's the part that, to me,

1143
01:11:03,130 --> 01:11:06,970
is fascinating about grape. And the grape taking on the terroir

1144
01:11:07,610 --> 01:11:10,410
and the winemaker really getting out of the way

1145
01:11:11,550 --> 01:11:15,350
to let that express itself. That's hard. That's

1146
01:11:15,350 --> 01:11:18,870
really hard. Paul, you think about it, you know, it's really hard not to intervene.

1147
01:11:18,870 --> 01:11:22,030
Yeah. Not to try to. Not to try to tinker with your product.

1148
01:11:22,750 --> 01:11:26,030
You know, it's what chefs do. Chefs tinker too much. You know,

1149
01:11:26,429 --> 01:11:29,750
we're past an hour, Chef, and I don't want to take any of your time.

1150
01:11:29,750 --> 01:11:31,910
I hope we can do it again. I do want to talk about your three

1151
01:11:31,910 --> 01:11:35,310
books real fast. We've got. The latest is the Barbudo, which is

1152
01:11:36,030 --> 01:11:39,580
recipes from the restaurant. They are. And the

1153
01:11:39,580 --> 01:11:43,420
simple recipes we're talking about. You know, we're talking about.

1154
01:11:43,420 --> 01:11:47,140
We're trying to talk about what the quintessential Barbuda recipe is And.

1155
01:11:47,220 --> 01:11:50,900
And carbonara comes to mind. You know, it's.

1156
01:11:51,300 --> 01:11:54,340
It's good pasta, good

1157
01:11:54,340 --> 01:11:58,060
guanciale, good eggs and good

1158
01:11:58,060 --> 01:12:01,060
cheese, and that's it. What else. What else is there in life?

1159
01:12:02,420 --> 01:12:06,270
I mean, you think about it, but it's how it's

1160
01:12:06,270 --> 01:12:09,550
cooked and how it comes together, which is the magic and.

1161
01:12:10,350 --> 01:12:13,950
Coming from your hands. We've Got the Great American Cook, which is

1162
01:12:13,950 --> 01:12:17,470
more traditional American type recipes,

1163
01:12:17,470 --> 01:12:20,350
that's. More recipes from jams. And it sort of channels

1164
01:12:21,230 --> 01:12:24,110
my love of regional American cooking. And

1165
01:12:25,630 --> 01:12:29,270
I'm such a lover of New

1166
01:12:29,270 --> 01:12:32,670
Orleans food and Southwestern food and

1167
01:12:32,830 --> 01:12:36,270
food of the Northeast. You know, I could live in Maine,

1168
01:12:36,430 --> 01:12:40,110
but, you know, it's, it's, it's my sort of little ode to American

1169
01:12:40,270 --> 01:12:44,030
food. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm American boy,

1170
01:12:44,030 --> 01:12:47,790
what can I say? And your first book was Italian My Way.

1171
01:12:48,510 --> 01:12:52,270
That was first, right? Yeah, yeah, that was, that was my second book. Okay, so

1172
01:12:52,510 --> 01:12:55,310
the Great American Movie was first. And, you know,

1173
01:12:55,790 --> 01:12:59,300
Italian My Way was really kind of my love

1174
01:12:59,300 --> 01:13:03,100
poem to my travels in Italy. And, you know, I, I got to

1175
01:13:03,100 --> 01:13:06,820
spend, you know, vacations with Alice Waters in Siena, and

1176
01:13:06,820 --> 01:13:09,740
I got to, you know, hang out in Positano

1177
01:13:10,540 --> 01:13:14,339
with this and eat amazing. You

1178
01:13:14,339 --> 01:13:17,860
know, Italy is remarkable in terms of food,

1179
01:13:17,860 --> 01:13:20,460
and the more you go, the better you like it.

1180
01:13:22,460 --> 01:13:26,030
I'm chef. Thank you again for the time. Hope we can do it again. We're,

1181
01:13:26,900 --> 01:13:30,660
we are due in New York. Nothing can be open if

1182
01:13:30,660 --> 01:13:33,420
you're going to open again, but we're going to be out there visiting my daughter.

1183
01:13:33,420 --> 01:13:37,140
She's having her first child this month.

1184
01:13:37,300 --> 01:13:40,980
She lives in Manhattan Village, and she just got off

1185
01:13:40,980 --> 01:13:44,740
a short stint with Daily Provisions.

1186
01:13:44,740 --> 01:13:48,420
She revamped their bread program and got them

1187
01:13:48,420 --> 01:13:52,140
some fresh. So have a crack at the Multi Grain and multi. And

1188
01:13:52,140 --> 01:13:55,640
Danny is so amazing. I mean, to have that sort of vision and,

1189
01:13:56,990 --> 01:14:00,830
and what's her first name? Lisa. Lisa. So she

1190
01:14:00,990 --> 01:14:03,670
just finished it about. I don't know, they called her in and said, can you

1191
01:14:03,670 --> 01:14:07,350
help us with this program? She spent about three weeks and they just

1192
01:14:07,350 --> 01:14:11,110
released the breads, I think, last week. You must be so proud. You know,

1193
01:14:11,110 --> 01:14:14,870
really, seriously, before we get off, I'm not sure that I would have

1194
01:14:14,870 --> 01:14:18,590
ever felt that before. I'm Armenian and you're Jewish, so, you know what pressure

1195
01:14:18,590 --> 01:14:22,430
the parents would put on for other careers and do things and, you

1196
01:14:22,430 --> 01:14:26,150
know, you know, why can't you be like you're. And when she got back

1197
01:14:26,150 --> 01:14:29,270
from France and she worked here in Southern California, she worked at Superba, she did

1198
01:14:29,270 --> 01:14:32,950
their breads, and then went to New York and worked for Lincoln. She

1199
01:14:32,950 --> 01:14:36,710
worked at Lincoln with Jonathan Benno. Jonathan grabbed her and brought her to

1200
01:14:36,710 --> 01:14:40,550
Benno and Leonelli. So I, I can't tell you how

1201
01:14:40,550 --> 01:14:44,230
proud I am about somebody who's pursued her passion

1202
01:14:44,230 --> 01:14:47,710
and her love of, of cooking and bread. In fact,

1203
01:14:48,110 --> 01:14:51,850
when she played softball in high school when I got home from work and she

1204
01:14:51,850 --> 01:14:55,650
was baking, she had had a bad day on the field. This

1205
01:14:55,650 --> 01:14:59,490
was her, like, release to just regroup

1206
01:14:59,650 --> 01:15:03,490
herself. And, and we were, she was destined to do this. And so I, I

1207
01:15:03,490 --> 01:15:07,250
thought, I never thought I'd be proud of having a baker. And

1208
01:15:07,250 --> 01:15:10,130
I'm, you know what? To me it's. Matt, it's, it's magical.

1209
01:15:11,330 --> 01:15:15,090
It really is. And, and it's. To me, it's. They're the real

1210
01:15:15,090 --> 01:15:18,870
magicians. They are field. They're fantastic. I look forward to one

1211
01:15:18,870 --> 01:15:22,030
day having a glass with you, chef. And if you

1212
01:15:22,670 --> 01:15:26,510
do, if you do get out to Southern California and you hang out with

1213
01:15:27,230 --> 01:15:30,670
Sandy, you know, maybe we'll have a chance to do that. I would love to.

1214
01:15:30,670 --> 01:15:34,350
Cheers. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers. Take care. Thank you. Bye bye.

1215
01:15:34,350 --> 01:15:37,310
Bye bye. Very good, Chef. Thank you.