Speaker 1: Did you like it when you lived to I did,
Speaker 1: and I so didn't expect to. I mean, I went
Speaker 1: from Berkeley with this huge Berkeley ship on my shoulder.
Speaker 1: I hate l A. I hate l A people, and
Speaker 1: I loved it almost instantly. It's a very easy place
Speaker 1: to live. I know, I don't. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was Jimmy Stewart. There was some great movie star
Speaker 1: who was like, the thing about l A is that
Speaker 1: you go out and you go for a swim when
Speaker 1: you're twenty five, and you lay down on the sun
Speaker 1: lounger when you go back in the house you're eighty four.
Speaker 1: It's so true. It's so true. It's like times past
Speaker 1: at all, and it's like, no, you're a hundred who
Speaker 1: are not? You really are? Hello, I'm Mini driver. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Many Questions, Season two. I've always loved Pruce's question
Speaker 1: that it was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where
Speaker 1: players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at
Speaker 1: revealing the other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method, really.
Speaker 1: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 1: can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal.
Speaker 1: I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what
Speaker 1: if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
Speaker 1: greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions
Speaker 1: as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
Speaker 1: these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
Speaker 1: wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
Speaker 1: pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered, What person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 1: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 1: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And
Speaker 1: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
Speaker 1: I am honored and humble to have had the chance
Speaker 1: to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
Speaker 1: all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
Speaker 1: which questions felt closest to their experience or the most surprising,
Speaker 1: or created the most fertile ground to connect my guest
Speaker 1: today on many questions, is food writer and revolutionary Ruth Miracle.
Speaker 1: There are very few people who can articulate their passion
Speaker 1: and point of view with as much clarity and humor.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fifteen, she wrote a cookbook called
Speaker 1: My Kitchen Year, A hundred and thirty six recipes that
Speaker 1: saved my life. Any insights she shared about life and
Speaker 1: it's attending pain along with the recipes were a constant
Speaker 1: companion to me in my kitchen and to millions of others.
Speaker 1: She was editor of the famed gourmet magazine in its
Speaker 1: heyday until its very end. Just do yourself a favor
Speaker 1: and googled David Foster Wallace's piece for that magazine entitled
Speaker 1: Consider the Lobster. She has repeatedly asked us to look
Speaker 1: at food differently, to consider her food is made and
Speaker 1: the provenance of our ingredients. She began doing this at
Speaker 1: a time when ease and plasticity had become cornerstones of
Speaker 1: home cooking. My other favorite thing about Ruth there are
Speaker 1: many characters and disguise as she employed to avoid detection
Speaker 1: while working as a restaurant critic for The New York
Speaker 1: Times and for The l A Times. I Smell a
Speaker 1: TV show and I'm off to option this idea as
Speaker 1: soon as I have finished this. Where and when were
Speaker 1: you happiest? I am one of those people who, once
Speaker 1: I got past my childhood, have been pretty happy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's one of my great gifts in life
Speaker 1: is that I am a generally happy person. I mean,
Speaker 1: I usually like where I am and who I'm with,
Speaker 1: and I'm one of those people who never wants to
Speaker 1: leave a party or you know, wherever I am, and
Speaker 1: it's a great gift to have that. But probably I
Speaker 1: loved being at Gourmet. I loved my staff. I love
Speaker 1: the people I work with. I love the feeling that
Speaker 1: we were doing something consequential, that we were making a difference.
Speaker 1: And it was also, you know, my son was ten
Speaker 1: and my husband had a job he really liked. We
Speaker 1: had money for the first time in our lives, and
Speaker 1: we weren't worried about, you know, can we pay the rent?
Speaker 1: And I was just happy in that job. And I learned,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never really been a manager before, and
Speaker 1: I learned that there's something wonderful about having the ability
Speaker 1: to pull a staff together and to figure out what
Speaker 1: made other people happy and how to do that. So
Speaker 1: you know, when I look back at my life, it
Speaker 1: was a great ten years. God. It's such a funny thing,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Like when you find yourself doing something you
Speaker 1: love and then you also find that you're good at
Speaker 1: something else he didn't know before that something's revealed in
Speaker 1: that happiness, another attribute is revealed. But I always think
Speaker 1: there's like when something's going well in life, like everything's
Speaker 1: wonderful with my son and everything's great with my partner,
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, damn it, something's going to funk up
Speaker 1: on the workfront because my three legged stool is just
Speaker 1: never going to be balanced. And those moments where it is,
Speaker 1: where everything just seems to kind of level out, they
Speaker 1: are pockets of such wonder they are. And the other
Speaker 1: thing about that moment in life was I was doing
Speaker 1: something that I really didn't know how to do, and
Speaker 1: I think that that is what sort of keeps you
Speaker 1: alive and young. I mean that sort of learning process.
Speaker 1: And that was wonderful too. I Mean there I was
Speaker 1: in a completely new world for me and sort of
Speaker 1: navigating my way through it was that being an editor,
Speaker 1: was that the plot that you didn't know how to
Speaker 1: do well? I didn't know anything really about how to
Speaker 1: run a magazine, how to be an editor, how to
Speaker 1: be a boss, I mean all of that. I mean
Speaker 1: I've been a writer alone pretty much all my life.
Speaker 1: I've never been in charge of anything. And you know,
Speaker 1: the magazine world, you know, I mean, it's a newspaper person.
Speaker 1: You know, newspaper person. There's people are kind of like grubby.
Speaker 1: It's a grubby world and something I'm in this world
Speaker 1: of glamour. Everything about that job was completely new for me.
Speaker 1: Was gool Conde nast. Yes. I think that was what
Speaker 1: was brilliant about that publishing house as well, was they
Speaker 1: were sort of I d perfectly unlikely people with the
Speaker 1: continuance of that brand like that. I think was what
Speaker 1: made them so brilliant was that they would go, no,
Speaker 1: Root Ricle should be editing gourmet, and but she's never
Speaker 1: done it before. It doesn't matter, She'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: And I kept saying, you know, you're crazy. You don't
Speaker 1: want me for this. I don't know how to do it,
Speaker 1: and so I knew how has just kept saying, I
Speaker 1: want you to do this, and I know you can
Speaker 1: do it. And the thing about PSI and the thing
Speaker 1: that is truly gone forever is I think he was
Speaker 1: the last publisher who truly thought that if you give
Speaker 1: the public something of value, they will pay for it.
Speaker 1: He was absolutely not cynical about who the audience was
Speaker 1: and what you gave them. And he said, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you think is a great magazine? And I said,
Speaker 1: it's a publication. It doesn't give people what they want.
Speaker 1: It gives them what they didn't know they want. And
Speaker 1: he said, yes, you're right about that. And I don't think.
Speaker 1: I mean today everybody does these focus groups trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, how do we give the audience
Speaker 1: what they want so they will pay for it. And
Speaker 1: so I had a bigger vision. He was a very
Speaker 1: strange man, but he had a bigger vision of what
Speaker 1: the media should provide to people. It's weird because it
Speaker 1: is it is a service, but it is a creative service.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that you should only be led by
Speaker 1: sort of. I don't think it should be the consumer
Speaker 1: that curates like That's the whole point is that lots
Speaker 1: of different things in I guess one would hope would
Speaker 1: be curated and then you get to choose, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the job being what trendy or what like. You
Speaker 1: said a focus group that on that day of the week,
Speaker 1: eight people out of the ten said this thing, But
Speaker 1: if you ask them the following week, it might well
Speaker 1: be different. And the problem with that is, I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I really fear for our democracy
Speaker 1: is that increase. Certainly, we're just hearing what we want
Speaker 1: to hear. I mean, if you let the audience choose
Speaker 1: what they want to hear, they don't learn anything, you know,
Speaker 1: they get no new ideas. And that's where we are now, right,
Speaker 1: you know, So you know the people who don't hear
Speaker 1: the other side, and you know the people on the
Speaker 1: other side only hear what they want to hear. And
Speaker 1: it's a very scary time. I think it's a crazy
Speaker 1: schism that again media is feeding into because they're not
Speaker 1: even trying to, I think, bridge the differences. It is
Speaker 1: such a chasm now that they're like, Okay, well we're
Speaker 1: on this side, We're going to curate for our side,
Speaker 1: and the other side will curate for their side. I
Speaker 1: feel like that must have happened at some of the
Speaker 1: time in history, and that everything it's always some sort
Speaker 1: of path that winds its way and balances out. You're
Speaker 1: very optimistic. I mean, I'm not saying that there isn't
Speaker 1: the collateral damage of like lost generations, because I think
Speaker 1: they probably will be. I mean, it's it's pretty dark
Speaker 1: right now, I've got to say, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hope for the sake of my kid that it
Speaker 1: works out, but a journey continues as opposed to it
Speaker 1: being this dead end that it feels like right now.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right, but I just keep thinking about
Speaker 1: my father used to talk about his father who read
Speaker 1: eight newspapers every day and he read right across the
Speaker 1: political spectrum. I try and do that, and it makes
Speaker 1: my blood boil and makes me feel sick. And that's
Speaker 1: maybe you know where this whole notion of being a
Speaker 1: bit of a snowflake comes from. I think we have
Speaker 1: to have a stronger stomach and really start metabolizing what
Speaker 1: all these different thoughts are about how we should live.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you, but I'm with you. I mean,
Speaker 1: my husband's very good about it, and he reads everything
Speaker 1: and listens to everything, and then I just go, how
Speaker 1: can you listen to that? I know, I know my
Speaker 1: boyfriend is the same, He reads all of it and
Speaker 1: then that is then synthesized through you know, the prisms
Speaker 1: of him. But it requires balanced intellectual acuity that I
Speaker 1: do not have. You know, I don't read so Gari.
Speaker 1: It is astonishing the amount of different things that you've
Speaker 1: done in your life. It really is like I was
Speaker 1: just looking at of your career and it's amazing how
Speaker 1: many different things you've done. This is off, sort of
Speaker 1: slightly off topic, but do you find that when you
Speaker 1: would finish one thing that even if it was hard,
Speaker 1: even if there was a fallow period, did you always
Speaker 1: have a sense that something else would be coming and
Speaker 1: that you just had to hold your course and just
Speaker 1: mine whatever this empty moment was and it would lead
Speaker 1: you into the next thing I did. And if it didn't,
Speaker 1: then I would you go out and actively try and
Speaker 1: make it happen. But you know, I feel really fortunate because,
Speaker 1: you know, having grown up with a really crazy mother,
Speaker 1: I saw that how my father stayed saying was by
Speaker 1: always doing work that mattered to him. And so I
Speaker 1: grew up with this very strong sense of work will
Speaker 1: save you, and no matter what is going on in
Speaker 1: your life, if you do work that gives you a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose, then you'll be okay. So I've always
Speaker 1: gone to that place. I mean, even at the most
Speaker 1: despairing moments in my life, it's like, okay, go to
Speaker 1: work and with that for you would be writing. You
Speaker 1: would just go and just apply the seat of your
Speaker 1: pants of the chair and just write. Not necessarily, I
Speaker 1: mean there's writing, but sometimes it's just you know, get
Speaker 1: a job, bussing tables, you know, anything, just do something.
Speaker 1: It is the only thing that will bring you back.
Speaker 1: So what a person, place, or experience most altered your life. Well,
Speaker 1: I come back to my mother. I mean I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my mother has really been the dominant influence
Speaker 1: in my life, for both good and bad. My mother
Speaker 1: was bipolar, and she literally never know who she was
Speaker 1: going to be when she woke up in the morning.
Speaker 1: I mean, she she went through really wild mood changes.
Speaker 1: And I literally wake up every morning grateful that I'm
Speaker 1: not my mother, grateful for sanity. And I think it's
Speaker 1: the thing that has been the most defining thing of
Speaker 1: my life is that relationship with this woman who made
Speaker 1: the life of everyone around her really difficult. But in
Speaker 1: the end, it just made me so grateful to be me,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, she was incredibly intelligent, and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean Bertrand Russell asked her to marry him. And wow,
Speaker 1: I have fifty years of letters between my mother and
Speaker 1: Bertie Russell. If he published things, well, I mean they're
Speaker 1: mostly personal, you know, but every once in a while
Speaker 1: there's something. And she actually took me to meet him
Speaker 1: when I was twelve. Did you know who he was?
Speaker 1: Did that? I mean at twelve, I can't imagine that. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew who he was because they talked
Speaker 1: about him all the time, and my father always talked
Speaker 1: about When Russell was in New York giving a series
Speaker 1: of lectures, he stayed with my family and he apparently
Speaker 1: had come. I was only a baby, but he thought
Speaker 1: I was older. He'd sort of got in his head
Speaker 1: that I was three, And he came with all these
Speaker 1: stories he had made up for a child, and my
Speaker 1: father said, and because you were too young, he told
Speaker 1: them to me. Here I am with the greatest mind
Speaker 1: of Virginia Ration and he's telling me children's stories. Wow,
Speaker 1: so I did know who he was. So your mom
Speaker 1: was she an academic? But now she my mother got
Speaker 1: a PhD at this alt one when she was nineteen
Speaker 1: because of her bipolar and she started things and she
Speaker 1: never finished them. She had a million projects she started
Speaker 1: that never finished. And then as the disease sort of
Speaker 1: took hold more and more, she had these moments of
Speaker 1: incredible grandiosity where she would blow everything up. But she
Speaker 1: also had a great capacity for fun when she was
Speaker 1: in the middle place or in a place where she
Speaker 1: was neither you lying in bed for months reading the
Speaker 1: same book over and over, or you know, out there
Speaker 1: having shopping spreece. Did you always know that it was
Speaker 1: a thing that was happening to her? Did you know
Speaker 1: that that wasn't the fundament of who your mother was,
Speaker 1: that that was this thing that was happening to her.
Speaker 1: As I got older, I did. I don't think I
Speaker 1: knew it when I was very small. It must have
Speaker 1: been so confusing as a little child, you know, as
Speaker 1: I got old her, I mean, my mother was one
Speaker 1: of the first people to be taking lithium. I mean
Speaker 1: she took ten years before it was approved, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I will never forget she had basically a nervous breakdown,
Speaker 1: and I called her psychiatrist and said, look, she's been
Speaker 1: seeing you for five years and she's worse than she's
Speaker 1: ever been. I was twelve, and he said, this new
Speaker 1: field called psychopharmacology, and I'm going to send your mother
Speaker 1: to see one of them. And I will never forget
Speaker 1: my mother coming home and saying, you can't imagine what
Speaker 1: relief it is to be told that it's not my fault.
Speaker 1: You know, she set up in an analysis for all
Speaker 1: these years where people have said, you know, you're doing
Speaker 1: this because you hate your mother, You're doing this for
Speaker 1: this reason or that, and she said, even if they
Speaker 1: can't cure me, just the relief of being told that
Speaker 1: it's happening to me, that it isn't me is enormous.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure that must have been a huge relief,
Speaker 1: But that's a lot. At twelve, I remember reading he
Speaker 1: said that she just was like horrible cook, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure was to do with like the way that she
Speaker 1: was actually why but the fact that she was a
Speaker 1: horrible cook, which made you into this extraordinary cook. I
Speaker 1: was thinking this, did your love food come from a
Speaker 1: lack of its sort of preparation and provision or was
Speaker 1: what did it happen? Later? I have always loved food,
Speaker 1: and I think part of it was that One of
Speaker 1: the ways I connected to my father was that he
Speaker 1: and I would walk New York on weekends and we
Speaker 1: would go to these food neighborhoods, you know. And he
Speaker 1: took me to Yorktown. He was German, and we go
Speaker 1: to Yorktown and it was like he found home in
Speaker 1: the food. And then we went to Spanish Harlem and
Speaker 1: we went to the Lower East Side. And I always
Speaker 1: sort of understood food as I mean, I loved it,
Speaker 1: and I loved to eat, and I love to cook,
Speaker 1: you know. And I grew up in Greenwich Village, so
Speaker 1: the kids who went to PS forty one with me,
Speaker 1: it was like a real mix of you know, there
Speaker 1: were Japanese kids and Italian kids, and so I loved
Speaker 1: going to their homes and eating what they're there's made.
Speaker 1: But I always thought of food as much more than
Speaker 1: just something to eat. I always thought of it as
Speaker 1: really emotional, and it was that it was about history
Speaker 1: and culture. And I discovered M. F. K. Fisher's writing
Speaker 1: when I was really young, and and she sort of
Speaker 1: soft food in a way that was bigger than just recipes.
Speaker 1: So I've always been comfortable in the kitchen. I've just
Speaker 1: always liked. You know, when I don't know what else
Speaker 1: to do, I go into the kitchen. My next question
Speaker 1: is what question would you most like? Onset? I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm most curious about, I mean, is
Speaker 1: there a purpose to life? Or is it all just random?
Speaker 1: And I and I guess in some ways, I'm sort
Speaker 1: of is there a God? But it's bigger than that.
Speaker 1: It's like, do we just have to be good for
Speaker 1: our own sense of doing the right thing? Or is
Speaker 1: there is there some bigger reason? I mean, don't you
Speaker 1: wonder about oh God? Yes, all the time, and have
Speaker 1: written about it quite a lot recently as well, since
Speaker 1: my mother died. I've been obsessed, it's not the right word,
Speaker 1: but really preoccupied with this notion of is meaning in
Speaker 1: life assigned? And is it assigned by us? Because I
Speaker 1: have a feeling that in this emotionless like the universe
Speaker 1: is so beautiful and so energetically driven, but it feels
Speaker 1: like there isn't intervention. There isn't an intervention when something
Speaker 1: that we perceive as terrible is about to happen. I
Speaker 1: don't think there is anything interfering with our human experience,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like we decide what the meaning is,
Speaker 1: but most people want to believe that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: I think it's because it's frightening. I think because death
Speaker 1: is utterly terrifying. I think it is at the back
Speaker 1: of our minds all the time, this notion of there
Speaker 1: is a finite amount of time that we are here,
Speaker 1: there is a clock ticking, and the idea of there
Speaker 1: being a parental force and figure, which I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I don't believe in on some level that there is
Speaker 1: a source energy that is bigger than us that we
Speaker 1: can choose to be a part of. I just think
Speaker 1: that this human thing, this physical reality, is purely experiential,
Speaker 1: and that us being good or being evil is up
Speaker 1: to us. I don't know that there's like a greater
Speaker 1: meaning because it feels so much like it's just consciousness
Speaker 1: is kind of experiencing itself. It's like a flow that
Speaker 1: you can either be in or be out of, and
Speaker 1: the physical body bit is going to end. But perha
Speaker 1: tending your soul, tending your spirit, perhaps that's the that's
Speaker 1: as much meaning as I can find. But it could
Speaker 1: be that could also just still be an expression of
Speaker 1: my grief. I don't know. It's really hard, and I
Speaker 1: feel like it gets harder all the time because we're
Speaker 1: making such a mess of the world as human beings.
Speaker 1: I know. I mean it must be strange as well
Speaker 1: because you've also really been like revolutionary in an area,
Speaker 1: like you know, you say that you were part of
Speaker 1: this generation who was raised to kind of believe that
Speaker 1: they were going to get married and be taken care
Speaker 1: of by a man, and you just expressly went out
Speaker 1: and did something radical and different, not just in your
Speaker 1: own life, but then sort of affecting a whole movement
Speaker 1: around this particular thing. So it's amazing because you see
Speaker 1: what it's like to actually affect change but not enough change.
Speaker 1: So man, I sort of have this feeling that we
Speaker 1: have lived through this moment and I see the world
Speaker 1: food first, so I can describe it in food terms,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter how you describe it. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was kind of a moment after World War Two
Speaker 1: when we as human beings had the opportunity to make
Speaker 1: life on earth pretty wonderful. We've conquered so many of
Speaker 1: the things that had made life miserable for most human
Speaker 1: beings for most of human history. We've become comfortable for
Speaker 1: the first time. I mean, we weren't constantly being eaten
Speaker 1: up by insects, and we weren't you always cold or
Speaker 1: always hot. The middle class was ascendant for the first time.
Speaker 1: Ordinary people were living decent lives, and it looked like
Speaker 1: everybody's children were going to have better lives than they did.
Speaker 1: And you know, we had antibiotics, and we were just
Speaker 1: we were conquering disease. And you know, in food, we
Speaker 1: actually had the ability to feed most people. We could
Speaker 1: conquer hunger. And there was this moment when it really
Speaker 1: looked like the human possibility was extraordinary. And then we
Speaker 1: let it all go to hell. And what did we do.
Speaker 1: We've destroyed the climate, We've waged more war, We've made
Speaker 1: income inequality bigger than it's ever been before. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got this world where half the people were starving
Speaker 1: in the other half of our beasts. You know, this
Speaker 1: moment of promise, we just let it slip through our fingers.
Speaker 1: And you know, in terms of food, we let our
Speaker 1: food become increasingly industrialized. We've let you know, in this country,
Speaker 1: six out of ten people have food related chronic diseases. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like living in Berkeley in the
Speaker 1: seventies when we sort of saw what was happening to
Speaker 1: the food supply and we saw, you know, that climate
Speaker 1: change was on the horizon, and we didn't fix it
Speaker 1: when we had the opportunity. So um, I find that
Speaker 1: incredibly frustrating that we should have we should have created
Speaker 1: more change, we should have stopped the future that we
Speaker 1: now have in our hands, and we didn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are million reasons for it, mostly political, but you know,
Speaker 1: we we let you know, all our resources get exploited
Speaker 1: in a terrible way. And I'm ashamed of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed of my generation that we didn't do better. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's really depressing, but it's not. You know, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like that's the fatal flaw of I would say, of
Speaker 1: being human. But I mean, I've got to say it's
Speaker 1: really men. I mean, it is like if we had
Speaker 1: shared power equally through all this time, I would take
Speaker 1: responsibility or have women take responsibility. Posh, really, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's been man driven by agreed in a resistance to evolve.
Speaker 1: But you know, Darwin was right, it's like evolved or die,
Speaker 1: that's how it goes. I think you did a lot
Speaker 1: I think you did an enormous amount. I don't think
Speaker 1: that any of that is lost, And if anything, it
Speaker 1: creates a blueprint that if it's not too late, we
Speaker 1: have plenty of examples of how people can affect change
Speaker 1: in this world. Look how quickly we came up with
Speaker 1: a vaccine for COVID. Wasn't it amazing? Just look at that?
Speaker 1: And I know, you know, I know that we had
Speaker 1: been working on coronavirus vaccines like that predated the COVID strain.
Speaker 1: But still, when all these people came together, look what
Speaker 1: we did in a year. And that's what's so frustrating.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have that ability, We have these giant
Speaker 1: brains that we have been using in the wrong way,
Speaker 1: and it is it is really frustrating that we have
Speaker 1: this capability, and look at the world we've allowed to happen.
Speaker 1: We're trying to fix it. We're trying to fix it.
Speaker 1: So what's the quality you like least about yourself. I'm
Speaker 1: fear full, and I'm squeamish. I'm horribly embarrassingly squeamish about
Speaker 1: what kinds of things like blood, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: I used to be afraid that I couldn't be a mother,
Speaker 1: because what if my kid cut himself and I fainted?
Speaker 1: Did you have a big giant sheet up when you
Speaker 1: were giving birth so that you couldn't see any of
Speaker 1: what was happening down by your apron pocket? No? I
Speaker 1: mean the amasically back. Giving birth is what I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I'd always been afraid of it. And then you get
Speaker 1: all these hormones that make it's all easy and a
Speaker 1: good old oxytocin. Really, so you're squeamish and you're fearful.
Speaker 1: How is that when you're cooking? Like, how do you
Speaker 1: handle sort of butchery? Well, butchery is fine, but you know,
Speaker 1: I if I cut myself and it bleeds really badly,
Speaker 1: it's not pretty. So it's connected to your own mortality
Speaker 1: or the mortality of your No, I can faint taking
Speaker 1: the cats to the vet. Wow, I've always been that way,
Speaker 1: and it's it's very embarrassing. I hate it. I just
Speaker 1: hate it from it makes you very empathetic to people
Speaker 1: who if you see someone who is feeling fearful in
Speaker 1: that way, it probably makes you very understanding of that.
Speaker 1: It does, And of course, the the other thing I
Speaker 1: have conquered this I wrote about it a lot was
Speaker 1: I'm phobic, and I was very phobic about driving over
Speaker 1: bridges and driving on you know, the eight lane highways
Speaker 1: of California make me crazy. Do you get into the
Speaker 1: root of like what you think that comes from of
Speaker 1: the phobic nature? I think it's a way of tripping
Speaker 1: yourself up. I mean I've never been quite sure. I
Speaker 1: mean the only way I conquered it was by just
Speaker 1: facing it and just refusing to let it stop me.
Speaker 1: And I've written about it a lot, and I'm stunned
Speaker 1: at how many people are phobic. You know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a way of not facing other fears, you know, wheel fears,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's a way of metabolizing them. And actually,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very literal thing to look at
Speaker 1: a freeway with six or eight lanes, and that can
Speaker 1: then become the physical embodiment of deep affears that you're right,
Speaker 1: can't be named. And there is certainly something really scary
Speaker 1: about it, terrifying. I mean, I try driving in London,
Speaker 1: where the roads were built for one small horse and carriage,
Speaker 1: and now you've got two range Rover drivers with battling entitlement.
Speaker 1: It's a nice What did you write about the phobic
Speaker 1: thing in I want to read that. I wrote about
Speaker 1: it in my first book, Tender at the Bone, And
Speaker 1: what surprised me was just how many people that you
Speaker 1: would never expect to be phobic will come up to
Speaker 1: me and say, oh, that thing about the bridges, I
Speaker 1: so understand it. Wow. Tunnels terrifying, I mean, And the
Speaker 1: thing about tunnels is you can't get out, you know,
Speaker 1: once you once you've committed to that tunnel, you're in it. Yes,
Speaker 1: And then you think, like, what if I did something
Speaker 1: really terrible? What if I turned the wheel? You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad that you resist turning
Speaker 1: the wheel and that you write about it. I do
Speaker 1: think it's it's so interesting how our fears play out,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones that we don't name, and we're
Speaker 1: not trained to examine and to give a name to
Speaker 1: these things that really frighten us. Like people love to
Speaker 1: go and see horror films, and I'm convinced it's just
Speaker 1: because it's like it's a way for them to actually
Speaker 1: scream at the fear and the terror of what it
Speaker 1: is to be alive. Sometimes. But I will tell you,
Speaker 1: you couldn't pay me to see a horror film. I
Speaker 1: think the last horror film myself was Psycho when I
Speaker 1: was eight, and I still won't get in a shower
Speaker 1: if I'm home a home. No that it's hideous. I
Speaker 1: hate them, I absolutely hate them. Life is frightening enough,
Speaker 1: Like there are enough tunnels and bridges though we actually
Speaker 1: have to go through. And what would be your last meal? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, being a food person, it's a question I
Speaker 1: get asked a lot, you know, every time I answer it,
Speaker 1: I answer it different. But I think that's okay because
Speaker 1: the ending is maybe always changing, but today it being
Speaker 1: this sort of weird in between season. It would make
Speaker 1: me happiest right this minute. If if I were going
Speaker 1: to die an hour from now, what I would want
Speaker 1: right now is one perfectly ripe peach, ah stone fruit.
Speaker 1: It is hard to get a perfect peach, you know,
Speaker 1: but I mean really juicy, the kind of peach that
Speaker 1: you have to go into the bathtub with all your
Speaker 1: clothes off to eat. You know, it just drips down.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that they're so rare and you
Speaker 1: know they're fragrant, they're beautiful, and it's such an elusive flavor.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I've had maybe in my whole
Speaker 1: life ten perfectly ripe peaches, but I would really love
Speaker 1: one right now. I like that that's the holy grail
Speaker 1: of food. It is like the perfect peach. I would
Speaker 1: put money on it being in Italy or Georgia. Actually,
Speaker 1: you can get a really good peach in a good
Speaker 1: year in California. Frog Hollow Farm grows really good peaches
Speaker 1: up in northern California. But the thing is that you know,
Speaker 1: really perfect peaches don't travel, so no commercial people grow
Speaker 1: them because you know they're they're perfect when they're pipped,
Speaker 1: and then the next day they're not perfect anymore, so
Speaker 1: they're not a commercial product. I like that, though, it's
Speaker 1: like you have to go and find it. It requires
Speaker 1: your desire and lack of it being kind of immediately accessible.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably also part of that. So maybe
Speaker 1: you'd have to go on a walk to find your peach.
Speaker 1: In this hour, you'd spend four or five minutes walking
Speaker 1: to find the peach, pick it, eat it, and then
Speaker 1: pop off, and I'm happy, happy to the tree. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about something that has grown out of
Speaker 1: a personal disaster. I've always been afraid that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a good mother. I'm not a person who particularly
Speaker 1: loves babies. I like children, and their babies I find
Speaker 1: kind of boring. I was really scared that it would
Speaker 1: be hard. And then we adopted a baby. Oh you did, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, and then the birth mother changed her mind.
Speaker 1: I can't I just can't imagine that pain. It was.
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize the person that I had become because
Speaker 1: I loved that little girl so much that even as
Speaker 1: I was walking her at night when she couldn't fall asleep,
Speaker 1: and I was like, somebody take this child for me.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I will kill anyone who tries
Speaker 1: to take this child from me. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: leave the country with her and give up my life
Speaker 1: and leave the country. Then I miraculously became pregnant, and
Speaker 1: I am convinced that the two are connected. And you
Speaker 1: had trouble conceiving in your life, yes, And we had
Speaker 1: done everything. I had never been pregnant, wow, I had.
Speaker 1: We had gone through every kind of you know, in
Speaker 1: vitro fertilization, years of trying to get pregnant, never been pregnant,
Speaker 1: and so we adopt Gav and I genuinely think that
Speaker 1: something happened with that, you know, the experience of having
Speaker 1: her and loving her so much, and then you know
Speaker 1: having her taken away, which was just devastating, and you know,
Speaker 1: I would wake up thinking that she was crying for
Speaker 1: me and wondering why I never came. And then literally
Speaker 1: a month later, out of nowhere, I'm suddenly pregnant and
Speaker 1: I was forty one years old, and our whole story
Speaker 1: had been so public in Los Angeles. I mean, actually
Speaker 1: L A Law did all they somebody heard it and
Speaker 1: they wrote a whole episode of l A Law kind
Speaker 1: of based on this, and it was so public that
Speaker 1: I didn't even want to go to the drug store
Speaker 1: and get a pregnancy test. I mean I actually said.
Speaker 1: I was with some friends the night before and everybody
Speaker 1: was drinking, and I said, I'm not going to drink tonight.
Speaker 1: And my friend Robin said why and I said, I
Speaker 1: think I'm pregnant. And she said, how late are you?
Speaker 1: I said one day? And she said I thought you
Speaker 1: had lost it completely. I thought, okay, just losing Gav
Speaker 1: put her over over the top, poor thing. And the
Speaker 1: next day I went and I went to the supermarket
Speaker 1: and I bought a pregnancy test and I went into
Speaker 1: the bathroom at on my way to work. And so
Speaker 1: I'm at the l A times and I'm in there
Speaker 1: and those now it's pretty quick, but then you had
Speaker 1: to juggle all these things. I'm in one of those stalls,
Speaker 1: juggling all this and sure enough it comes up that
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant. And I call my gynecologist and say, you know,
Speaker 1: I just did a pregnancy test and I'm pregnant. You
Speaker 1: know those things, aren't it all accurate. Don't believe it.
Speaker 1: You're not pregnant. There's no way. Come down here and
Speaker 1: I'll give you a real test. And I go down there.
Speaker 1: She said, oh my god, you are pregnant. But you
Speaker 1: can't tell anyone because the chances that you're going to
Speaker 1: actually carry this baby to term. She said, you're one
Speaker 1: day pregnant. I made It's like, you can't tell anyone
Speaker 1: till you're at least three months pregnant. And I immediately
Speaker 1: go to my husband's office. He was then the news
Speaker 1: director of the CBS station, and I'd never stopped to
Speaker 1: see him before. I stopped in on my way home
Speaker 1: from the doctor, and I said, you know, Michael, you
Speaker 1: can't tell anyone. And Michael immediately turns added shouts to
Speaker 1: the newsroom. She's Oh, my goodness, what a joy, What
Speaker 1: a joy that must have been. And then I had
Speaker 1: the easiest pregnancy. I mean I was ever sick for
Speaker 1: a moment. I worked until the day it was born.
Speaker 1: I never had more energy. I thought, God, if i'd
Speaker 1: know him being pregnant was like this, I would have
Speaker 1: been pregnant a hundred times. No, wonder if all Kennedy
Speaker 1: had all those kids. Wow, how amazing. I know. And
Speaker 1: please feel free to say, no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about that. But did you ever have any contact
Speaker 1: with Gaby afterwards? No? And we were sure we would.
Speaker 1: I mean we're absolutely sure that. I mean we fought
Speaker 1: this incord. I mean it was it was a crazy story,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, I mean, this is I'm not
Speaker 1: a spiritual person, but I feel like we felt we
Speaker 1: had a purpose in her life had we given her
Speaker 1: back immediately. I mean, she was going to be the
Speaker 1: child of an unwin mother who was not very motherly.
Speaker 1: And because we went to court, the mother called her
Speaker 1: longtime boyfriend, who she had not told she was pregnant.
Speaker 1: Because she had dreams of a better life, and so
Speaker 1: she'd come to this country to get an abortion, but
Speaker 1: by the time she got enough money, she didn't have
Speaker 1: enough money to have an abortion. Anyway, they got married
Speaker 1: and he was like a lovely man, and so I
Speaker 1: feel like we our purpose in her life was we
Speaker 1: gave her a family. I think about her all the time,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad she got to grow up with her
Speaker 1: biological parents. I hope they stayed together, and I hope
Speaker 1: she's had a good life. But I feel like she
Speaker 1: was very loved for the first four months of her life.
Speaker 1: And I think that matters to Oh my god, yes
Speaker 1: it does, and your basic architecture, it does, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of right back to the beginning, that notion
Speaker 1: of purpose, you know, and self sacrifice. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: sometimes it looks like you're getting a raw deal, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Invariably there's something in that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's not incredibly sad, but you've got your nick. What
Speaker 1: a miracle. I mean, yes, it was a miracle. It
Speaker 1: worked out the end, and I hope it did for
Speaker 1: her too. I hope so too. Oh Ruth, and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for talking to me. It's been such
Speaker 1: an immense pleasure. Likewise, I'm so inspired by your life
Speaker 1: and all the things that you've done, and it makes
Speaker 1: me just want to do more. So this was this
Speaker 1: was so easy. I mean, you know, I've never met
Speaker 1: you before, and I feel like I'm talking to an
Speaker 1: old friend. So thank you. Ruth has two more recent
Speaker 1: cookbooks entitled Garlic and Sapphires and Tender at the Bone.
Speaker 1: And from that particular book, I can only tell you
Speaker 1: make the lemons who flay. Just finished listening to this,
Speaker 1: and then go and make the lemons who flay Many questions.
Speaker 1: Is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Round. Original
Speaker 1: music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay,
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and Annicke Oppenheim
Speaker 1: at w kPr de La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg,
Speaker 1: and for constantly solicited tech support, Henry Driver