WEBVTT - Ruth Reichl 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:03.760 Did you like it when you lived to I did, 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.040 and I so didn't expect to. I mean, I went 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.440 from Berkeley with this huge Berkeley ship on my shoulder. 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.479 I hate l A. I hate l A people, and 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.560 I loved it almost instantly. It's a very easy place 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.400 to live. I know, I don't. I don't know if 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.599 it was Jimmy Stewart. There was some great movie star 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.560 who was like, the thing about l A is that 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.680 you go out and you go for a swim when 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.760 you're twenty five, and you lay down on the sun 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.280 lounger when you go back in the house you're eighty four. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.320 It's so true. It's so true. It's like times past 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.159 at all, and it's like, no, you're a hundred who 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:45.040 are not? You really are? Hello, I'm Mini driver. Welcome 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.400 to Many Questions, Season two. I've always loved Pruce's question 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.600 that it was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.920 players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.920 revealing the other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method, really. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.440 In asking different people the same set of questions, you 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.760 can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal. 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.679 I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.440 if these questions were just the jumping off point, what 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.920 greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.360 as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.959 these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.680 wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.960 pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.800 were you happiest? What is the quality you like least 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.399 about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.440 What question would you most like answered, What person, place, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.480 or experience has shaped you the most? What would be 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.120 your last meal? And can you tell me something in 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.800 your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:58.280 I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.880 I am honored and humble to have had the chance 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.520 to engage with. You may not hear their answers to 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.880 all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.360 which questions felt closest to their experience or the most surprising, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.280 or created the most fertile ground to connect my guest 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.240 today on many questions, is food writer and revolutionary Ruth Miracle. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.160 There are very few people who can articulate their passion 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.840 and point of view with as much clarity and humor. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.640 In two thousand and fifteen, she wrote a cookbook called 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.239 My Kitchen Year, A hundred and thirty six recipes that 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.960 saved my life. Any insights she shared about life and 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.079 it's attending pain along with the recipes were a constant 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.400 companion to me in my kitchen and to millions of others. 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.919 She was editor of the famed gourmet magazine in its 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.079 heyday until its very end. Just do yourself a favor 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.359 and googled David Foster Wallace's piece for that magazine entitled 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.560 Consider the Lobster. She has repeatedly asked us to look 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.200 at food differently, to consider her food is made and 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.960 the provenance of our ingredients. She began doing this at 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.640 a time when ease and plasticity had become cornerstones of 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.640 home cooking. My other favorite thing about Ruth there are 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.160 many characters and disguise as she employed to avoid detection 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.920 while working as a restaurant critic for The New York 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.720 Times and for The l A Times. I Smell a 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.919 TV show and I'm off to option this idea as 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:33.240 soon as I have finished this. Where and when were 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.040 you happiest? I am one of those people who, once 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.080 I got past my childhood, have been pretty happy. I mean, 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.320 I think it's one of my great gifts in life 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.120 is that I am a generally happy person. I mean, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.440 I usually like where I am and who I'm with, 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:48.120 and I'm one of those people who never wants to 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.920 leave a party or you know, wherever I am, and 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.360 it's a great gift to have that. But probably I 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.120 loved being at Gourmet. I loved my staff. I love 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.280 the people I work with. I love the feeling that 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.120 we were doing something consequential, that we were making a difference. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.880 And it was also, you know, my son was ten 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.880 and my husband had a job he really liked. We 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.120 had money for the first time in our lives, and 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.159 we weren't worried about, you know, can we pay the rent? 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:22.320 And I was just happy in that job. And I learned, 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:24.920 I mean, I've never really been a manager before, and 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.840 I learned that there's something wonderful about having the ability 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.400 to pull a staff together and to figure out what 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.440 made other people happy and how to do that. So 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.359 you know, when I look back at my life, it 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.320 was a great ten years. God. It's such a funny thing, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.480 isn't it. Like when you find yourself doing something you 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.320 love and then you also find that you're good at 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.400 something else he didn't know before that something's revealed in 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.600 that happiness, another attribute is revealed. But I always think 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.360 there's like when something's going well in life, like everything's 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.760 wonderful with my son and everything's great with my partner, 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.000 I'm like, God, damn it, something's going to funk up 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.560 on the workfront because my three legged stool is just 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.240 never going to be balanced. And those moments where it is, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.880 where everything just seems to kind of level out, they 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.440 are pockets of such wonder they are. And the other 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.360 thing about that moment in life was I was doing 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.479 something that I really didn't know how to do, and 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.480 I think that that is what sort of keeps you 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.080 alive and young. I mean that sort of learning process. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.200 And that was wonderful too. I Mean there I was 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.719 in a completely new world for me and sort of 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.559 navigating my way through it was that being an editor, 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.000 was that the plot that you didn't know how to 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.760 do well? I didn't know anything really about how to 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.400 run a magazine, how to be an editor, how to 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.400 be a boss, I mean all of that. I mean 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.760 I've been a writer alone pretty much all my life. 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.719 I've never been in charge of anything. And you know, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.720 the magazine world, you know, I mean, it's a newspaper person. 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.640 You know, newspaper person. There's people are kind of like grubby. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.279 It's a grubby world and something I'm in this world 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.039 of glamour. Everything about that job was completely new for me. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.159 Was gool Conde nast. Yes. I think that was what 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.600 was brilliant about that publishing house as well, was they 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.400 were sort of I d perfectly unlikely people with the 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.520 continuance of that brand like that. I think was what 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.160 made them so brilliant was that they would go, no, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.080 Root Ricle should be editing gourmet, and but she's never 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.200 done it before. It doesn't matter, She'll figure it out. 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.720 And I kept saying, you know, you're crazy. You don't 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.640 want me for this. I don't know how to do it, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.720 and so I knew how has just kept saying, I 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.000 want you to do this, and I know you can 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.279 do it. And the thing about PSI and the thing 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.240 that is truly gone forever is I think he was 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.640 the last publisher who truly thought that if you give 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.279 the public something of value, they will pay for it. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.200 He was absolutely not cynical about who the audience was 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.719 and what you gave them. And he said, you know, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.119 what do you think is a great magazine? And I said, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.119 it's a publication. It doesn't give people what they want. 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.800 It gives them what they didn't know they want. And 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.560 he said, yes, you're right about that. And I don't think. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.200 I mean today everybody does these focus groups trying to 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.280 figure out, you know, how do we give the audience 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.400 what they want so they will pay for it. And 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.720 so I had a bigger vision. He was a very 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.080 strange man, but he had a bigger vision of what 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.880 the media should provide to people. It's weird because it 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.120 is it is a service, but it is a creative service. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.680 It's the idea that you should only be led by 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.840 sort of. I don't think it should be the consumer 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.720 that curates like That's the whole point is that lots 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.680 of different things in I guess one would hope would 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.920 be curated and then you get to choose, as opposed 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.240 to the job being what trendy or what like. You 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.480 said a focus group that on that day of the week, 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.160 eight people out of the ten said this thing, But 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.160 if you ask them the following week, it might well 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.120 be different. And the problem with that is, I mean, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.360 one of the reasons I really fear for our democracy 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.440 is that increase. Certainly, we're just hearing what we want 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.840 to hear. I mean, if you let the audience choose 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.160 what they want to hear, they don't learn anything, you know, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.960 they get no new ideas. And that's where we are now, right, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.280 you know, So you know the people who don't hear 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.560 the other side, and you know the people on the 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.040 other side only hear what they want to hear. And 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.040 it's a very scary time. I think it's a crazy 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.840 schism that again media is feeding into because they're not 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.960 even trying to, I think, bridge the differences. It is 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.240 such a chasm now that they're like, Okay, well we're 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.800 on this side, We're going to curate for our side, 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:36.960 and the other side will curate for their side. I 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:38.720 feel like that must have happened at some of the 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.800 time in history, and that everything it's always some sort 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.600 of path that winds its way and balances out. You're 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.760 very optimistic. I mean, I'm not saying that there isn't 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.959 the collateral damage of like lost generations, because I think 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.360 they probably will be. I mean, it's it's pretty dark 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.360 right now, I've got to say, but I don't know. 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.960 I hope for the sake of my kid that it 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.640 works out, but a journey continues as opposed to it 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.720 being this dead end that it feels like right now. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.280 I hope you're right, but I just keep thinking about 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.040 my father used to talk about his father who read 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.000 eight newspapers every day and he read right across the 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.920 political spectrum. I try and do that, and it makes 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.080 my blood boil and makes me feel sick. And that's 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.160 maybe you know where this whole notion of being a 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:20.640 bit of a snowflake comes from. I think we have 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.000 to have a stronger stomach and really start metabolizing what 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.720 all these different thoughts are about how we should live. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.000 I totally agree with you, but I'm with you. I mean, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.200 my husband's very good about it, and he reads everything 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.400 and listens to everything, and then I just go, how 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.880 can you listen to that? I know, I know my 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.120 boyfriend is the same, He reads all of it and 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.960 then that is then synthesized through you know, the prisms 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.199 of him. But it requires balanced intellectual acuity that I 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.920 do not have. You know, I don't read so Gari. 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.040 It is astonishing the amount of different things that you've 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.240 done in your life. It really is like I was 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.319 just looking at of your career and it's amazing how 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.200 many different things you've done. This is off, sort of 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.319 slightly off topic, but do you find that when you 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.040 would finish one thing that even if it was hard, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.800 even if there was a fallow period, did you always 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:14.640 have a sense that something else would be coming and 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.520 that you just had to hold your course and just 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.719 mine whatever this empty moment was and it would lead 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.640 you into the next thing I did. And if it didn't, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.360 then I would you go out and actively try and 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.040 make it happen. But you know, I feel really fortunate because, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.760 you know, having grown up with a really crazy mother, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.760 I saw that how my father stayed saying was by 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.400 always doing work that mattered to him. And so I 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.840 grew up with this very strong sense of work will 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.280 save you, and no matter what is going on in 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.120 your life, if you do work that gives you a 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.200 sense of purpose, then you'll be okay. So I've always 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.559 gone to that place. I mean, even at the most 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.920 despairing moments in my life, it's like, okay, go to 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.520 work and with that for you would be writing. You 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:04.520 would just go and just apply the seat of your 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.720 pants of the chair and just write. Not necessarily, I 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.720 mean there's writing, but sometimes it's just you know, get 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.400 a job, bussing tables, you know, anything, just do something. 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.839 It is the only thing that will bring you back. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:29.200 So what a person, place, or experience most altered your life. Well, 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.040 I come back to my mother. I mean I think, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.600 you know, my mother has really been the dominant influence 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.320 in my life, for both good and bad. My mother 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.480 was bipolar, and she literally never know who she was 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.080 going to be when she woke up in the morning. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.480 I mean, she she went through really wild mood changes. 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.439 And I literally wake up every morning grateful that I'm 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.600 not my mother, grateful for sanity. And I think it's 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.319 the thing that has been the most defining thing of 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.679 my life is that relationship with this woman who made 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.600 the life of everyone around her really difficult. But in 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.080 the end, it just made me so grateful to be me, 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.440 you know, I mean, she was incredibly intelligent, and you know, 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.560 I mean Bertrand Russell asked her to marry him. And wow, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.280 I have fifty years of letters between my mother and 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.640 Bertie Russell. If he published things, well, I mean they're 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.160 mostly personal, you know, but every once in a while 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.120 there's something. And she actually took me to meet him 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.559 when I was twelve. Did you know who he was? 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.880 Did that? I mean at twelve, I can't imagine that. Oh, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.840 you know, I knew who he was because they talked 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.880 about him all the time, and my father always talked 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.440 about When Russell was in New York giving a series 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.000 of lectures, he stayed with my family and he apparently 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.920 had come. I was only a baby, but he thought 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:48.800 I was older. He'd sort of got in his head 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:50.360 that I was three, And he came with all these 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.640 stories he had made up for a child, and my 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.679 father said, and because you were too young, he told 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.360 them to me. Here I am with the greatest mind 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.640 of Virginia Ration and he's telling me children's stories. Wow, 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.040 so I did know who he was. So your mom 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.720 was she an academic? But now she my mother got 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.240 a PhD at this alt one when she was nineteen 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.760 because of her bipolar and she started things and she 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.680 never finished them. She had a million projects she started 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.760 that never finished. And then as the disease sort of 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.840 took hold more and more, she had these moments of 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.440 incredible grandiosity where she would blow everything up. But she 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.360 also had a great capacity for fun when she was 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.200 in the middle place or in a place where she 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.160 was neither you lying in bed for months reading the 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.560 same book over and over, or you know, out there 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.600 having shopping spreece. Did you always know that it was 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.080 a thing that was happening to her? Did you know 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.880 that that wasn't the fundament of who your mother was, 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.040 that that was this thing that was happening to her. 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.800 As I got older, I did. I don't think I 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.719 knew it when I was very small. It must have 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.880 been so confusing as a little child, you know, as 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.000 I got old her, I mean, my mother was one 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.880 of the first people to be taking lithium. I mean 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.720 she took ten years before it was approved, and I mean, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.880 I will never forget she had basically a nervous breakdown, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.360 and I called her psychiatrist and said, look, she's been 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:16.520 seeing you for five years and she's worse than she's 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.640 ever been. I was twelve, and he said, this new 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:24.080 field called psychopharmacology, and I'm going to send your mother 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.040 to see one of them. And I will never forget 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.560 my mother coming home and saying, you can't imagine what 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.040 relief it is to be told that it's not my fault. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.560 You know, she set up in an analysis for all 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.680 these years where people have said, you know, you're doing 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.640 this because you hate your mother, You're doing this for 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.000 this reason or that, and she said, even if they 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.440 can't cure me, just the relief of being told that 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.840 it's happening to me, that it isn't me is enormous. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.600 I'm sure, I'm sure that must have been a huge relief, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.520 But that's a lot. At twelve, I remember reading he 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.480 said that she just was like horrible cook, which I'm 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.520 sure was to do with like the way that she 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.360 was actually why but the fact that she was a 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.280 horrible cook, which made you into this extraordinary cook. I 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.600 was thinking this, did your love food come from a 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.440 lack of its sort of preparation and provision or was 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.960 what did it happen? Later? I have always loved food, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:21.920 and I think part of it was that One of 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.840 the ways I connected to my father was that he 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.960 and I would walk New York on weekends and we 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.520 would go to these food neighborhoods, you know. And he 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.000 took me to Yorktown. He was German, and we go 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.400 to Yorktown and it was like he found home in 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.640 the food. And then we went to Spanish Harlem and 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.360 we went to the Lower East Side. And I always 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.400 sort of understood food as I mean, I loved it, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.240 and I loved to eat, and I love to cook, 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.240 you know. And I grew up in Greenwich Village, so 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.040 the kids who went to PS forty one with me, 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:54.880 it was like a real mix of you know, there 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.800 were Japanese kids and Italian kids, and so I loved 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.560 going to their homes and eating what they're there's made. 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.480 But I always thought of food as much more than 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.400 just something to eat. I always thought of it as 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.280 really emotional, and it was that it was about history 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.320 and culture. And I discovered M. F. K. Fisher's writing 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.760 when I was really young, and and she sort of 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.640 soft food in a way that was bigger than just recipes. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:25.800 So I've always been comfortable in the kitchen. I've just 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.760 always liked. You know, when I don't know what else 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:40.320 to do, I go into the kitchen. My next question 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.360 is what question would you most like? Onset? I think 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.440 the thing that I'm most curious about, I mean, is 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.880 there a purpose to life? Or is it all just random? 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:52.920 And I and I guess in some ways, I'm sort 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.040 of is there a God? But it's bigger than that. 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.600 It's like, do we just have to be good for 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.480 our own sense of doing the right thing? Or is 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.480 there is there some bigger reason? I mean, don't you 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.000 wonder about oh God? Yes, all the time, and have 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.600 written about it quite a lot recently as well, since 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.480 my mother died. I've been obsessed, it's not the right word, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.719 but really preoccupied with this notion of is meaning in 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.879 life assigned? And is it assigned by us? Because I 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.760 have a feeling that in this emotionless like the universe 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.600 is so beautiful and so energetically driven, but it feels 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.679 like there isn't intervention. There isn't an intervention when something 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.000 that we perceive as terrible is about to happen. I 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:40.400 don't think there is anything interfering with our human experience, 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.600 but it does feel like we decide what the meaning is, 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.040 but most people want to believe that that's not the case. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.480 I think it's because it's frightening. I think because death 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:52.840 is utterly terrifying. I think it is at the back 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.040 of our minds all the time, this notion of there 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:57.960 is a finite amount of time that we are here, 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.760 there is a clock ticking, and the idea of there 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.200 being a parental force and figure, which I'm not saying 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.600 I don't believe in on some level that there is 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.280 a source energy that is bigger than us that we 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.600 can choose to be a part of. I just think 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.879 that this human thing, this physical reality, is purely experiential, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.040 and that us being good or being evil is up 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.520 to us. I don't know that there's like a greater 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.880 meaning because it feels so much like it's just consciousness 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.439 is kind of experiencing itself. It's like a flow that 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.639 you can either be in or be out of, and 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.000 the physical body bit is going to end. But perha 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.800 tending your soul, tending your spirit, perhaps that's the that's 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.359 as much meaning as I can find. But it could 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.359 be that could also just still be an expression of 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.919 my grief. I don't know. It's really hard, and I 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.560 feel like it gets harder all the time because we're 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.200 making such a mess of the world as human beings. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.040 I know. I mean it must be strange as well 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.080 because you've also really been like revolutionary in an area, 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.560 like you know, you say that you were part of 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.119 this generation who was raised to kind of believe that 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:02.520 they were going to get married and be taken care 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.320 of by a man, and you just expressly went out 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.880 and did something radical and different, not just in your 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.520 own life, but then sort of affecting a whole movement 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.560 around this particular thing. So it's amazing because you see 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.480 what it's like to actually affect change but not enough change. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.320 So man, I sort of have this feeling that we 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.119 have lived through this moment and I see the world 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.160 food first, so I can describe it in food terms, 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.240 but it doesn't matter how you describe it. I mean, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.440 there was kind of a moment after World War Two 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:39.480 when we as human beings had the opportunity to make 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.879 life on earth pretty wonderful. We've conquered so many of 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.960 the things that had made life miserable for most human 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.199 beings for most of human history. We've become comfortable for 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.560 the first time. I mean, we weren't constantly being eaten 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.960 up by insects, and we weren't you always cold or 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.280 always hot. The middle class was ascendant for the first time. 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.440 Ordinary people were living decent lives, and it looked like 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.600 everybody's children were going to have better lives than they did. 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.280 And you know, we had antibiotics, and we were just 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.000 we were conquering disease. And you know, in food, we 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:18.280 actually had the ability to feed most people. We could 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.720 conquer hunger. And there was this moment when it really 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.040 looked like the human possibility was extraordinary. And then we 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.479 let it all go to hell. And what did we do. 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.760 We've destroyed the climate, We've waged more war, We've made 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.080 income inequality bigger than it's ever been before. You know, 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.600 we've got this world where half the people were starving 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:42.800 in the other half of our beasts. You know, this 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.399 moment of promise, we just let it slip through our fingers. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.600 And you know, in terms of food, we let our 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:54.920 food become increasingly industrialized. We've let you know, in this country, 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.760 six out of ten people have food related chronic diseases. So, 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.119 you know, I feel like living in Berkeley in the 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.240 seventies when we sort of saw what was happening to 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.840