Speaker 1: You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Hillary Clinton and this is You and Me Both,
Speaker 1: where I get to talk to people who are doing
Speaker 1: extraordinary things. You know, the holidays are upon us, and
Speaker 1: while we may not be able to gather with friends
Speaker 1: and family the way we wish we could, we can
Speaker 1: still take pleasure in another important tradition, making and eating food. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, food insecurity because for many people, food is
Speaker 1: in short supply, whether because of the pandemic and economic crisis,
Speaker 1: or maybe natural disasters, or because of the everyday reality
Speaker 1: that millions live with. And then we've got the insecurities
Speaker 1: in the restaurant industry when it comes to trying to
Speaker 1: keep businesses open, trying to be safe but also produce
Speaker 1: a good product in these tumultuous times. Of course, then
Speaker 1: on a lighter level, there's a fact most of us
Speaker 1: just don't feel all that secure when it comes to
Speaker 1: cooking at all. Well, we're going to get into all
Speaker 1: of that. We're gonna hear from chef Jose Andreas, known
Speaker 1: for his Michelin Star restaurants and for his work bringing
Speaker 1: food to people in Moments of Crisis. I'll also be
Speaker 1: talking to Rocco de Fasio, the owner of de Fasio's
Speaker 1: Pizzeria in Troy, New York, which makes some of the
Speaker 1: most delicious pizza I've ever had. But first, Samine noz
Speaker 1: rap I was so excited to talk to Sami. Not
Speaker 1: only is she the author of the cookbook Salt, Fat,
Speaker 1: Acid Heat, which is also a Netflix series, she got
Speaker 1: her start learning from a chef I've admired for a
Speaker 1: really long time, Alice Waters at Chaponnese in Berkeley, California. Hello,
Speaker 1: Secretary Clinton. Oh s mean, you've got a whole podcast
Speaker 1: set up going there. I love it. That is so cool.
Speaker 1: You know, I've read so much about you. How you
Speaker 1: came to cooking, and then you know, working in restaurants
Speaker 1: and becoming a chef, and then food writing and and
Speaker 1: all of it is really interesting to me because although
Speaker 1: I love to eat, I am not someone who is
Speaker 1: a natural in the kitchen. Let me just say that,
Speaker 1: despite my best efforts. So give me a little bit
Speaker 1: about your background. I know you were raised in California,
Speaker 1: You're the child of immigrants from Iran, But how did
Speaker 1: you end up doing what you're doing well. I also
Speaker 1: was not a natural in the kitchen. I definitely came
Speaker 1: to the kitchen through eating, through the love of eating,
Speaker 1: and my parents came to California from Iran, and my
Speaker 1: mom really wanted to instill in me and my brother's
Speaker 1: a sense of our culture through our food. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know what I've come to learn as I've grown
Speaker 1: up and become a cook and just a person in
Speaker 1: the world meeting people from all over the world, is
Speaker 1: that food is a way that people really connect to
Speaker 1: their family history. And especially if you are forced to
Speaker 1: leave where you're from, you know, it's a way that
Speaker 1: you connect to your homeland. And so for my mom,
Speaker 1: I think in the seventies and eighties in southern California,
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of our traditional ingredients from Meran available,
Speaker 1: so she really made it her full time job to
Speaker 1: sort of traverse the city and even the state to
Speaker 1: find the flavors of home. And she is an extraordinary cook.
Speaker 1: But like a lot of immigrants, what she wanted for
Speaker 1: me and my brothers was for us to succeed at
Speaker 1: school and to be really sort of successful in life.
Speaker 1: And so she didn't want me to be a cook.
Speaker 1: She didn't want me in the kitchen. She wanted me
Speaker 1: doing my homework. So apart from like a few sort
Speaker 1: of cleaning fava beans or the occasional picking herbs, I
Speaker 1: was not really in the kitchen, although I will say
Speaker 1: she had a lot of sort of hippie tendencies. So
Speaker 1: we you know, we didn't have a lot of desserts
Speaker 1: in the house, and so if we wanted anything like that,
Speaker 1: we had to make the dessert ourselves. That's a good rule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I did do a little bit of baking as
Speaker 1: a kid, and that was something I did do. I
Speaker 1: have to say that among my friends and acquaintances in
Speaker 1: the Iranian American community, there's a lot of emphasis on
Speaker 1: keeping that cultural connection to Iran to their Persian past
Speaker 1: by the food. Absolutely, did that make you feel a
Speaker 1: little bit like an outsider when you were growing up?
Speaker 1: I think I always felt like an outsider. And definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom would make us our delicious We
Speaker 1: have this um kind of a fritatic called cuckoo sabz
Speaker 1: and so she would make that and then we would
Speaker 1: have cuckoo sandwiches for lunch. And no other kids had
Speaker 1: that in their boxes. So I was very aware of
Speaker 1: having different foods, and you know that my foods looked
Speaker 1: and smelled different, and I was made fun of that.
Speaker 1: You know, I was very aware of being different, and
Speaker 1: I've always felt like an outsider. And now I think
Speaker 1: that in a lot of ways, that's the source of
Speaker 1: probably my strength, and it's definitely what kind of guides
Speaker 1: all of the choices I make in all of my
Speaker 1: work and in all of the things that I want
Speaker 1: to do, because I don't really ever want to make
Speaker 1: anyone feel that way, So I try to create work
Speaker 1: that makes everyone feel included. I love that. So when
Speaker 1: did you begin to realize that you wanted to go
Speaker 1: from admiring your mother's cooking and the efforts she put
Speaker 1: into it into wanting to cook, and not just in
Speaker 1: your home kitchen, but in the outside world. It was
Speaker 1: just total serendipity. I moved to Northern California for college
Speaker 1: in Berkeley, and my sophomore year I fell in love
Speaker 1: and my boyfriend was from the Bay Area. In a
Speaker 1: big way of how we spent our time together was
Speaker 1: eating food and so um. He had always wanted to
Speaker 1: eat at a restaurant called Japanese and you know, to me,
Speaker 1: I just knew it as a fancy restaurant. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know anything about it, and so we had this
Speaker 1: kind of like change box that we saved all of
Speaker 1: our laundry quarters in, and and then eventually we went
Speaker 1: and ate there and we had kind of what ultimately
Speaker 1: was a life changing meal, not so much in that
Speaker 1: it was like this kind of mind blowingly delicious meal.
Speaker 1: It was delicious, but for me it was the first
Speaker 1: time I ate in a restaurant that felt like almost
Speaker 1: like eating in the best kind of someone's home, where
Speaker 1: just every thing that you could possibly want was there
Speaker 1: for you. It was just it was magical. It was magical.
Speaker 1: So you had this incredible meal, and then what happened.
Speaker 1: You know, I always had jobs throughout college, and so
Speaker 1: it inspired me to ask for a job bussing tables,
Speaker 1: which I did, and at the time, I was um
Speaker 1: studying to be a poet actually really Luke Wort of Careopathy,
Speaker 1: and so as I was kind of nearing graduation, I
Speaker 1: was sort of struck by this panic of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm an English major skills, what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I was every day going
Speaker 1: to work in this amazing sort of sensory temple, and
Speaker 1: so I was watching cooks. I was watching chefs who
Speaker 1: are the best at what they did, cook the most
Speaker 1: beautiful dishes, and it was so inspiring that within just
Speaker 1: a few weeks I still have my journals. Within just
Speaker 1: a few weeks, I was like, Wow, maybe one day
Speaker 1: I could do that. So I started begging them to
Speaker 1: let me in the kitchen, and eventually they said, we can't, really, like,
Speaker 1: this will never go anywhere unless you really commit to it,
Speaker 1: because there are people, you know, lining up from culinary
Speaker 1: schools and kitchens around the world to work here. So
Speaker 1: they gave me a stack of cookbooks, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: books high, and they said, you have to go read these,
Speaker 1: and you need to commit to doing unpaid internship and
Speaker 1: you have to have years of sort of paying your
Speaker 1: dues before this will turn into anything. And so I
Speaker 1: did that, and eventually I got hired. And actually, I
Speaker 1: have a really funny story that I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: tell you, because if I'm not mistaken, one of the
Speaker 1: themes of our conversation today is insecurities, right, like mistakes
Speaker 1: and learning along the way. And so I had this
Speaker 1: one week where every single day I went to work,
Speaker 1: I had these colossal failures day after day after a day,
Speaker 1: for two days in a row, I ruined huge batches
Speaker 1: of rice, which, as an Iranian person is like, my gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be at And then the third day,
Speaker 1: we were preparing to host some sort of like picnic
Speaker 1: and Golden Gate Park for you. Oh my gosh. I
Speaker 1: remember that it was going to be like a barbecue
Speaker 1: or something long tables, and so there was a dish
Speaker 1: that I was making that had an element in common
Speaker 1: with something that we were going to serve at your dinner,
Speaker 1: at your lunch. Maybe it was like a pork sauce
Speaker 1: of some kind. So they said, well, since that's going
Speaker 1: to be the same thing for I think at the
Speaker 1: time you were First Lady, So for First Lady Clinton's lunch,
Speaker 1: then go ahead and just double the batch, double the
Speaker 1: batch of sauce. And I probably had made this thing
Speaker 1: two times before, but I was like, okay, I can
Speaker 1: do this. So what it was was it's a pork sauce,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like a rich stock. So it
Speaker 1: was like I had to roast these bones and put
Speaker 1: them in a pot and then pour like rich chicken
Speaker 1: stock that we had already made. You know, it takes
Speaker 1: a whole day to make and pour that over it
Speaker 1: and simmer it for another day and then reduce that
Speaker 1: into this delicious sauce. So I did that. I just
Speaker 1: made twice as much, and I put it in this
Speaker 1: humongous pot and you're supposed to bring it to a
Speaker 1: boil and then turn it down to a simmer and
Speaker 1: you kind of can forget about it. And then maybe
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes later, there was this really bad smell,
Speaker 1: like really bad. Oh no. I just kept being like,
Speaker 1: who's ruining something? Like everyone who could be doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was like, someone's really making something smell really bad.
Speaker 1: It just didn't even a ocurred to me that could
Speaker 1: possibly be my thing, So I just let it keep going.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And then eventually the chef came and
Speaker 1: he realized, like he was like, you have ruined like
Speaker 1: hundreds of dollars worth of bones and stock. He was
Speaker 1: so mad at me. And what I didn't understand, because
Speaker 1: I'd never done it before, was that all of the
Speaker 1: weight of these many pounds of bones had like compressed
Speaker 1: down at the bottom of the pot and because I
Speaker 1: cranked up the heat. It was just like settled on
Speaker 1: this burner, just burning, you know, and I felt so terrible,
Speaker 1: and to me I wrote about in my book and
Speaker 1: I was like, and then I ruined, you know, first
Speaker 1: Lady Clintons sauce. And so I do remember the lunch.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how beautiful. It was, a typical Alice
Speaker 1: Waters special. How long were you at shapinice um so
Speaker 1: that first round? I was there about three and a
Speaker 1: half years, and then I went to Italy and then
Speaker 1: I went back for another couple of years. What was
Speaker 1: the experience like in Italy? Was that dramatically different? I
Speaker 1: had always wanted to go to Italy, and I think
Speaker 1: in certain ways there might be parts of Iranian culture
Speaker 1: and Italian culture that are very similar. Certainly the love
Speaker 1: of food and family and so certain things about it
Speaker 1: felt really familiar. And in Shapanese and in this kind
Speaker 1: of like California cooking, we have a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of French and Italian traditions that we pull from, and
Speaker 1: I always felt much more close to and inspired by
Speaker 1: the Italian ones. The French ones are a lot tighter,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm messy, I'm not like a neat, organized
Speaker 1: person or cook. I'm a messy, loose, relaxed cook and
Speaker 1: and I like to sort of use however many tomatoes
Speaker 1: are left. I like to use whatever amount of onions
Speaker 1: are on the counter. You know. I like to chop
Speaker 1: stuff up into whatever sized pieces makes sense. And that's
Speaker 1: what Italian cooking is versus French cooking is like cutting
Speaker 1: stuff into perfect sized pieces. Yeah, but you know part
Speaker 1: of you know, look, I think part of your success
Speaker 1: has been you try to make it accessible for people.
Speaker 1: You know, your cookbook Salt, Fat, Asset Heat is framed
Speaker 1: around what you say are the four fundamental elements of
Speaker 1: good cooking. And you know, I feel like you're, in
Speaker 1: a sense talking to somebody like me, who you know,
Speaker 1: my prowess in the kitchen is limited, and you're basically saying,
Speaker 1: kind of go with the flow, give it a try.
Speaker 1: Here are things you can do. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's really a philosophy of cooking. It's not just a
Speaker 1: collection of recipes. Am I right about that? Yeah? Absolutely? Well,
Speaker 1: So do you have you ever cooked anything? Oh? God, yes,
Speaker 1: I've cooked a lot of things. Like what's a what's
Speaker 1: a success? Well, you know, my cooking is I would say,
Speaker 1: workman like, sort of serviceable. I mean, it usually is edible,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not anything that I'm particularly secure about.
Speaker 1: You know. That's why I found what you wrote in
Speaker 1: your Netflix and other you know, even the podcast you're
Speaker 1: doing now called home Cooking is really addressed to people
Speaker 1: like me to kind of root out my own insecurities
Speaker 1: about oh, how many pieces of tomato actually have to
Speaker 1: go in and all of that. But how did you
Speaker 1: go from being given thirty books, being in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: finding your way, and then really coming up with this
Speaker 1: incredible theory. I saw the pattern. I think after about
Speaker 1: two years in the kitchen, I saw this pattern. We
Speaker 1: would taste everything and every day they would say, oh,
Speaker 1: this needs a little salt. Oh the salad just needs
Speaker 1: a little squeeze of lime, or that soup it just
Speaker 1: actually needs a little bit of vinegar to brighten it up.
Speaker 1: Or are you going to start that carrot soup with
Speaker 1: butter or olive oil? Do you want it to taste
Speaker 1: French or do you want it to taste Italian? Interesting?
Speaker 1: And even with heat, like, do you want this thing
Speaker 1: to be blistery and hot or do you want the
Speaker 1: texture of your meat to be tender and falling off
Speaker 1: the bone. So it was just these kind of patterns
Speaker 1: that I saw over time, and eventually I actually went
Speaker 1: to one of the chefs and I said, oh, I
Speaker 1: think I see something. I think I see salt, fat, acid, heat.
Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, duh, like we all see that.
Speaker 1: That's a language we all speak. And I actually was
Speaker 1: felt really betrayed. I was like, if you all see this,
Speaker 1: how come nobody told me? And and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: because it's like so natural to us, we all get it.
Speaker 1: That was when I understood, like there's something so basic
Speaker 1: for these guys that nobody explains it. And so that
Speaker 1: was I actually said I'm going to write this book
Speaker 1: one day, but I still didn't know enough, Like I
Speaker 1: needed to go do still years and years more homework,
Speaker 1: figure out how to talk about it and teach about it,
Speaker 1: figure out how to write, figure out you know, basic
Speaker 1: science homework. I still had so much more work to
Speaker 1: do before I could sit down and write. And then
Speaker 1: the book was a big success and then Netflix came calling.
Speaker 1: So talking that experience, I mean, I will say probably
Speaker 1: as early as like two thousand seven, two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: it occurred to me that my desire was to teach
Speaker 1: people how to cook as many people as possible, because
Speaker 1: I saw so many people afraid to just do these
Speaker 1: basic things, because there would be something like I would
Speaker 1: go to a potluck, let's say, and I would make
Speaker 1: something so simple like roasted cauliflower with like pine nuts
Speaker 1: and currents. You know, It's like that was like six ingredients,
Speaker 1: pine nuts, currents, salt, olive oil, cauliflower five ingredients, and
Speaker 1: people would be like, I don't even know how you
Speaker 1: did this. This is amazing. What did you put in this?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, literally, it's like salt cauliflower, like
Speaker 1: it's nothing. There's nothing in this, you know. And so
Speaker 1: it's not that what did I put in this? It's
Speaker 1: just that I know that you know, this is how
Speaker 1: you slice the cauliflower. This is how much salt I used.
Speaker 1: I probably my oven was hotter than yours. Probably I
Speaker 1: spaced the cauliflower out on the cookie sheet a little
Speaker 1: bit more than you did. You know, I probably groasted
Speaker 1: it farther than you did, right, But like, did I
Speaker 1: put anything different in it than you know? It's just
Speaker 1: I knew a little bit of this this and this,
Speaker 1: and so if you knew this, this, and this, you
Speaker 1: could make it too. We'll be right back. There were
Speaker 1: two other things though about the Netflix experience, because clearly
Speaker 1: they went after you smartly, because that's exactly what you
Speaker 1: were doing, trying to make cooking less mysterious more accessible.
Speaker 1: But you know, it took a while to get used
Speaker 1: to being on camera totally. How is that for you?
Speaker 1: I always wanted to make a show, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I understood exactly what it would mean for me
Speaker 1: to be the person on camera, or for me what
Speaker 1: it would mean for me to be the conduit for it.
Speaker 1: I also don't think I understood that I had a
Speaker 1: specific talent for it. I just people kept telling me, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a naturally. Are natural? And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever. I just keep showing up and
Speaker 1: doing it whatever like And I think later I actually
Speaker 1: asked somebody, another director who kept saying I was a natural,
Speaker 1: was like, what does that mean? And he said, Oh,
Speaker 1: it just means you act the same when the cameras
Speaker 1: are on and when they're off. You don't stiffen up.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, but a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: I mean that that is absolutely something that you are
Speaker 1: lucky that doesn't happen. Yeah, it just happens to be.
Speaker 1: My thing is I can block out a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff and really focus on whoever is there with me.
Speaker 1: But again, what was funny was I really wanted this show,
Speaker 1: but I wanted the show because I wanted to to
Speaker 1: send this message out to the world. You know. It
Speaker 1: wasn't for me to be the star of it. And
Speaker 1: I think it didn't really occur to me what I
Speaker 1: was doing until the show almost came out. What did
Speaker 1: occur to me throughout the filming was that I am
Speaker 1: not like a blonde, skinny woman. I am not let's
Speaker 1: say like like, I do not adhere to the traditional,
Speaker 1: let's say Western ideals of beauty. I am a brown,
Speaker 1: curvy woman, and I would be eating on camera and
Speaker 1: I'm a person who really loves to eat, and those
Speaker 1: things are not historically, you know, like shown on camera.
Speaker 1: I also, and I think that was so endeared. You
Speaker 1: were enjoying yourself, you were enjoying what you were doing,
Speaker 1: you were enjoying what you were eating. I think that
Speaker 1: all contributed to the success of it, Thank you. But
Speaker 1: I think there's another element and you alluded to it,
Speaker 1: which I connect to. You know, you want people to
Speaker 1: not only enjoy food, but to feel comfortable actually preparing it,
Speaker 1: and that has become so important during this pandemic. All
Speaker 1: the people who are at home, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of articles, you know, they're doing sour drow bread
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that is motivating them. But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who now are able to
Speaker 1: take a deep breath and out of necessity or choice,
Speaker 1: are trying to actually get reconnected with food. Absolutely, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I think there are so many dark ings weighing on
Speaker 1: us during this time, but one of the most hopeful
Speaker 1: things for me is the idea that practice is the
Speaker 1: way that we become better cooks. And this time has
Speaker 1: forced so many people to cook, and so when we
Speaker 1: emerge from our cocoons, you know, I think that there
Speaker 1: will be an entire generation who has a kind of
Speaker 1: cooking skill. Then I think a few generations in this
Speaker 1: country kind of didn't get it wasn't passed down to
Speaker 1: us well, but part of it, you know, speaking for
Speaker 1: myself and as a young woman, you know, there were
Speaker 1: two things that you didn't want to do because you
Speaker 1: thought it was giving into the stereotypes of the past.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to cook, you didn't want to type, totally, totally.
Speaker 1: So my mother would put three very healthy meals, you know,
Speaker 1: on the table every day during my entire childhood, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'd set the table or maybe chop and
Speaker 1: I'd help clean up. But boy, you know, the idea
Speaker 1: of being in that kitchen was not something that looks
Speaker 1: like what you were saying with your mom. It's not
Speaker 1: something that I was attracted to, you know, unlike me,
Speaker 1: you were ignited. So I just have to ask you
Speaker 1: what's on the menu for you know today in this week.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you cooking up that you can
Speaker 1: share with me? Oh yeah, oh man, uh. I actually
Speaker 1: I have a pot of bean soakings that I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to go cook. And then we have these tomatoes
Speaker 1: that we grow here in California at this time of
Speaker 1: year that are they're called dry farmed tomatoes. Dry farm
Speaker 1: dry farmed, and so it means that the farmers stop
Speaker 1: watering the plants after the plants send out their first leaves,
Speaker 1: so it forces the plants to send really deep roots
Speaker 1: into the ground. And then when the tomato fruits start coming.
Speaker 1: They're like kind of small and shrivel e, but they're
Speaker 1: really really intense in flavor, and they are the most
Speaker 1: delicious tomatoes. They're so good. I can't even tell you
Speaker 1: how good they're so um. Oh my gosh. So I
Speaker 1: have all the delicious dry farm tomatoes. I was gonna
Speaker 1: make a tomato salad, and then I got fresh corn massa,
Speaker 1: so I was going to make tortillas. I was gonna
Speaker 1: make casesa dillas and beans and tomatoes. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you to me and and this this,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to confess this. My beans don't ever
Speaker 1: really work out. I mean, I know you're supposed to
Speaker 1: soak them and soak them and soak them and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it. But you know, beans are such
Speaker 1: a good source of protein. I mean, I love the
Speaker 1: idea of beans and when somebody else makes them, you know,
Speaker 1: good black beans and good fava beans and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. What am I doing either wrong or
Speaker 1: not enough of Okay? I like soaking because I think
Speaker 1: of it as inactive cooking. So it's like I'm lazy.
Speaker 1: So I'm like I'll just soak it, and how long
Speaker 1: do you soak, I just put it in water the
Speaker 1: night before. Oh okay, so you did overnight. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: if I can think of it, or if I can't
Speaker 1: think of it, then I'll do it in the morning
Speaker 1: and then i'll cook in the afternoon or something. Okay.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have the time to soak, and
Speaker 1: even if I do soak, I would add a little
Speaker 1: pinch of baking soda to the water. Baking soda, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what your water is like where
Speaker 1: you live, but if you have hard water, that can
Speaker 1: make your beans tough, and if you have even a
Speaker 1: little bit of just like slightly acidic water, that can
Speaker 1: make your beans tough. So baking soda can help balance
Speaker 1: out your water. It just makes them a little bit softer,
Speaker 1: so that is nice. And then I also put salt
Speaker 1: and whatever other flavorings I want. But I also think
Speaker 1: the other criminal thing that people do is they don't
Speaker 1: cook their beans long enough. So I think in general,
Speaker 1: you just have to cook them much longer than you think.
Speaker 1: And so when you say much longer, how long is it, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: you are. Like every bean is different, but probably until
Speaker 1: the first few are falling apart. Like my friend Tamara
Speaker 1: Adler says, you have to taste five beans and they
Speaker 1: all have to be creamy, and that's how you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is very helpful. Thank you for everything you've done
Speaker 1: to make people like me who are insecure cooks feel
Speaker 1: much better about trying in the kitchen. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you for everything you've done. Thank you, Smin. You can
Speaker 1: listen to Samine on her podcast Home Cooking, which she
Speaker 1: co hosts with Rischie Cache. Here way so means fantastic
Speaker 1: cookbook is called Salve Fat Acid Heat. Up. Next is
Speaker 1: chef Jose Andreas. I first heard of the chef because
Speaker 1: of the restaurants that he started opening up and I
Speaker 1: began to eat at, and then I learned about how
Speaker 1: committed he was to help people in need. He started
Speaker 1: a whole nonprofit disaster relief organization called World Central Kitchen.
Speaker 1: He was born in Spain. He moved to New York
Speaker 1: City when he was a young man, I think like
Speaker 1: twenty or twenty one. And since the COVID nineteen pandemic
Speaker 1: broke out, he's been doing what he does best, jumping
Speaker 1: into action to feed people. Back in February, he set
Speaker 1: up a field kitchen to cook for passengers and crew
Speaker 1: members quarantine on the Diamond Princess Cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan,
Speaker 1: and then just spread across our country in the world
Speaker 1: to help people. I was so happy to catch up
Speaker 1: with him again. Jeff, it's wonderful to see you, and
Speaker 1: welcome to this podcast, my friend. Thank you for having me. Well,
Speaker 1: you're so busy. We've been lucky to find you in
Speaker 1: between disasters and restaurant openings and all the things that
Speaker 1: you are involved in. And I want to start a
Speaker 1: little bit in the beginning, just so listeners know a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you got to where you are.
Speaker 1: You were born in northern Spain. You moved to Barcelona
Speaker 1: when you were just a little kid, I think around
Speaker 1: the age of five. How did you end up going
Speaker 1: to culinary school when you were fifteen? So I was
Speaker 1: not a very good student in the traditional sense. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I was not highly interested in learning,
Speaker 1: but the traditional school system being in front of a
Speaker 1: teacher and listening to what the teacher had to tell
Speaker 1: you didn't work for me. My father I knew I
Speaker 1: had love for cooking. My father always cook at home,
Speaker 1: and he said, why you don't join cooking a school?
Speaker 1: And I went to cooking a school. But exactly the
Speaker 1: same thing happened. I barely went to cooking a school
Speaker 1: because I beg I'm going to work in the restaurants.
Speaker 1: And me I am the living proof that you still
Speaker 1: can't learn, only you have to be learning in the
Speaker 1: way that really suits you. And and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: a guy that likes to be with the boots on
Speaker 1: the ground for learning. And this is the way I've
Speaker 1: been doing it all my life. From that time that
Speaker 1: you came to this country as a very young man
Speaker 1: until today you're equally well known for your restaurants as
Speaker 1: well as then the philanthropic work that you are now
Speaker 1: so well known for. You almost came up with a vision,
Speaker 1: because I do think it was a vision about how
Speaker 1: to bring food to people. How did you come to
Speaker 1: the realization that this was something you had to do.
Speaker 1: What was the inspiration? What gap were you trying to fill?
Speaker 1: Obviously there's many things in life. My mom, my dad,
Speaker 1: they were nurses. They work on different shifts on the hospital.
Speaker 1: The hospital was the place they exchange My brothers and I.
Speaker 1: So I spent a lot of time in the emergency
Speaker 1: room nearby, waiting for my mom or dad take us home.
Speaker 1: I always saw nurses and daughters going the extra mine.
Speaker 1: I think for me watching in the distance because I
Speaker 1: was not involved Katrina, and especially is seeing what happened
Speaker 1: at the Superdome in my brain, an arena a stadium
Speaker 1: is a gigantic restaurant that entertains with the sports and musicians.
Speaker 1: Was not reason that we were supposed to leave so
Speaker 1: many men and women stranded in an arena which actually
Speaker 1: had every single infrastructure to provide quick and fast relief.
Speaker 1: So me I began thinking is I realized that you
Speaker 1: send authors and nurses to take care of the wounded
Speaker 1: and create hospitals. You bring first responders and search units
Speaker 1: to look for people under the rubble, to bring experts
Speaker 1: in every category. But actually we were not bringing cooks
Speaker 1: to feed people in need of food. And I realized
Speaker 1: the problem is very simple, because we need to show
Speaker 1: up and he's millions of restaurants around the world. Is
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of food people around the world. Let
Speaker 1: me great organization that there's lowly, but surely we are
Speaker 1: able to respond anywhere. So that's how it began. Let's
Speaker 1: be quick, Let's be fast. When anybody is hungry or
Speaker 1: anybody's thirsty, they cannot wait a week or a month
Speaker 1: from now for governments or agency relief agencies to provide
Speaker 1: eight food and water must be achieved right now. And
Speaker 1: that's what we began doing. And so far we keep learning,
Speaker 1: but every day we keep answering two more natural disasters
Speaker 1: in America and around the world. I want to talk
Speaker 1: for a minute about the cruise ships, because you went
Speaker 1: to Yokohama with the cruise ship that was quarantined there.
Speaker 1: You also went to the West coast here, and at
Speaker 1: the time that you went, that was considered pretty dangerous.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody really understood what this pandemic was going
Speaker 1: to mean. Talk a little bit about what that was like.
Speaker 1: Because it's one thing to show up after the disaster
Speaker 1: has sadly and tragically passed and you're helping to cover
Speaker 1: It's another show when it's unfolding and you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of it. I began following this pandemic right at
Speaker 1: the beginning of January. One of my best friends, Ambassador
Speaker 1: Orgel Hardo, he was the Mexican ambassador in China over
Speaker 1: six years, so he had a lot of knowledge of China,
Speaker 1: and he was getting me a lot of information in
Speaker 1: the thing I love, which is how the Chinese, the
Speaker 1: Bohan Redium was feeding their citizens. So my brain already
Speaker 1: began working on that front. When Jokohama happened and the
Speaker 1: Princess Crook ship was arriving and many bad decisions were made.
Speaker 1: I was a navy boy, I know only a bit
Speaker 1: or two about being inside ship. I was very amazed.
Speaker 1: Between all the big agencies in the world, they will
Speaker 1: not make the right call, which was take everybody out
Speaker 1: of the ship as soon as we can, especially the
Speaker 1: people that may be infected, and test everybody else. But
Speaker 1: for us, we had a lot of experience in Haiti
Speaker 1: and in most Ambigue with cholera, and we kept all
Speaker 1: our teams clean and healthy, and the people we were
Speaker 1: feeding the camps, we were feeling healthy. These gable is
Speaker 1: kind of an understanding how to behave in kind of
Speaker 1: a disease that maybe in thanks you so in the
Speaker 1: case of cholera, because they're the conditions of the water
Speaker 1: and sanitation. But this we arrived and we did a
Speaker 1: very good job. We feed there eighteen thousand meals a day,
Speaker 1: almost over forty days. What I was very proud is
Speaker 1: that if you will see the health experts in the port,
Speaker 1: and you will see the other people that were in
Speaker 1: wide has MutS, you will have our time understanding who
Speaker 1: are the people taking care of the health code and
Speaker 1: who didn't. I was very happy that wasn't dragging chen.
Speaker 1: We went through all of these without getting one person sick,
Speaker 1: wearing masks, wearing globes, sanitation keeping distance. We began that protocol,
Speaker 1: and we began sharing that protocol with all the Wall
Speaker 1: Central Kitchen family. To this day, we've been very healthy.
Speaker 1: We had more than twenty seven hundred restaurants across America.
Speaker 1: We've been feeding people in five six seven countries. We've
Speaker 1: been in Laura in the hurricane, We've been in the
Speaker 1: fires in California, we've been in the explosion in Lebanon,
Speaker 1: and the team's of War Central Kitchen we've been saying
Speaker 1: because we did simple things to take the barttle seriously,
Speaker 1: to make sure that success was not getting infected yourself
Speaker 1: and more important, not infecting anybody else. And this is
Speaker 1: what has allowed us to keep feeding millions of meals
Speaker 1: through this pandemic successfully. We're taking a quick break stay
Speaker 1: with us. On a personal note, I am so grateful
Speaker 1: for the partnership between the World Central Kitchens and the
Speaker 1: Clinton Presidential Center and Little Rock because when the schools
Speaker 1: closed there in March, as schools did in most of
Speaker 1: the country, a lot of those children lost their lunch,
Speaker 1: some of them lost their breakfast. And in partnership between
Speaker 1: World Central Kitchens and the staff at the Clinton Center Library,
Speaker 1: you've been able to feed I lost tracks six eighty
Speaker 1: thousand people, and now you're putting together produced boxes for
Speaker 1: people to be able to take home. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to personally and publicly thank you. You know, I've heard
Speaker 1: you say often that food is a national security issue,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't agree with you more. And it's a
Speaker 1: national security issue in a lot of different ways. We
Speaker 1: cannot be so dependent on external food sources. I saw
Speaker 1: a graph the other day where a pair grown in
Speaker 1: Argentina was sent to Thailand to be packaged and then
Speaker 1: sent back to the United States to go on a
Speaker 1: supermarket shelf or into a restaurant pantry. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: We've got to deal with food as a national security issue,
Speaker 1: in part by creating better agricultural supply lines. These many
Speaker 1: things that have to happen at the ground level, but
Speaker 1: there's many things that they should be happening at the
Speaker 1: top from in this case, from leadership, Congress, White House.
Speaker 1: And there's many things we know today that we didn't
Speaker 1: know twenty forty years ago. But one thing is certain.
Speaker 1: If food is not taking seriously, the next revolutions will
Speaker 1: be because lack of food. In a moment that on paper,
Speaker 1: food will be plentiful right now, we had two plagues
Speaker 1: of locusts in Africa back to back. They ended with
Speaker 1: huge parts of Africa without grain. We've been having fires,
Speaker 1: we are having issues with water. One day the perfect
Speaker 1: storm may be coming and one day we will wake
Speaker 1: up and realize, actually we don't have as much food
Speaker 1: in our hands as we thought we had. That's why
Speaker 1: it's important that we need at the highest part possible
Speaker 1: of government a person that will always be thinking as
Speaker 1: food as a national security issue. Let's make sure we
Speaker 1: are ahead, and let's make sure that food doesn't become
Speaker 1: a problem, but that food becomes a solution to keep
Speaker 1: everybody healthy. Better nutrition in a school, creating jobs, making
Speaker 1: rural America richer again. And of course we know right
Speaker 1: now that a lot of Americans in this richest of
Speaker 1: all countries are skipping meals. They are lining up in
Speaker 1: their cars or on foot to pick up food supplies,
Speaker 1: getting donations from pantries and other charities. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of the problem is that we just don't really
Speaker 1: understand how food insecure, vulnerable people are trying to live.
Speaker 1: We don't see them. I mean you see them because
Speaker 1: you go not only into disaster areas, but you try
Speaker 1: to help feed the home was you try to have
Speaker 1: a backup system like you did with us in Little
Speaker 1: Rock for kids who are out of school. They don't
Speaker 1: have that free lunch anymore. How are you thinking about this?
Speaker 1: Because you're right, we have to have the national security plan,
Speaker 1: uh and it should start yesterday, but we also have
Speaker 1: to have the real hunger and food and security plan
Speaker 1: as well. What I realized is that thought should not
Speaker 1: be political and should be a Republican Democrat issue. Right now,
Speaker 1: we need a strategic plan until COVID is beaten to
Speaker 1: fit America. In a very simple way, right now, we
Speaker 1: throw money of the problem. Let's make sure that instead
Speaker 1: of throwing money with boxes that sometimes there are not
Speaker 1: even reaching the people. Let's make sure that we put
Speaker 1: restaurants up on working like walls and each has done
Speaker 1: three thousand restaurants that we've been paying per meal. The
Speaker 1: restaurants can be open, they can pay their lists, they
Speaker 1: can hire their people back. Those people can the rents,
Speaker 1: they can buy from the farmers and the fishermen. In
Speaker 1: the process, the local mayors they have a place where
Speaker 1: to go to feed their communities. You need every dollar
Speaker 1: that comes from the federal government or from private donations
Speaker 1: is multiplied by three. That's it's my idea. Why we
Speaker 1: don't keep school lunches up and going breakfast and lunch
Speaker 1: in every community, and not only for children, but for families.
Speaker 1: Why we don't increase snaps what we call food steps
Speaker 1: so people can use set in restaurants, so people that
Speaker 1: if you are elderly and you don't want to go
Speaker 1: out because it's not safe for you to go out,
Speaker 1: what you cannot use maybe snaps to get food delivered
Speaker 1: to your house is gonna be cheaper because those elderly
Speaker 1: people are gonna be healthy, they're gonna be fed, and
Speaker 1: you are investing in keeping the economy up and running.
Speaker 1: Right now, we lack this kind of leadership three sixty
Speaker 1: degrees strategy that we should be putting in place in
Speaker 1: this moment, but they should be lessers learned about how
Speaker 1: to make sure that in the process of keeping every
Speaker 1: American child said, we keep the local economies running, rural
Speaker 1: America getting is stronger, and putting everybody at work in
Speaker 1: the process of feeding America. This will be a good
Speaker 1: investment in the future of America, but it requires a
Speaker 1: vision and then political will. Right, Let's hope that we
Speaker 1: keep pushing on one day. We hope that one plate
Speaker 1: of food at the time, we can keep creating a stronger,
Speaker 1: better America. Well, I hope everybody is listening because that's
Speaker 1: a great policy overview for what we need to do
Speaker 1: about food security. And I want to underscore what you said,
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure many people know this, is that
Speaker 1: World Central Kitchen has been paying restaurants to be their
Speaker 1: partners so that they can keep their employees employed and
Speaker 1: they can keep doing what they do so well, namely
Speaker 1: making food that will nourish people. You know. To wrap up,
Speaker 1: I just want to reiterate my gratitude to you for
Speaker 1: everything you do. But I know how hard you work.
Speaker 1: I know even in the middle of the pandemic, you're
Speaker 1: on and off planes. You're going from wildfires to disastrous
Speaker 1: explosions in Beirut and everywhere in between. It is so
Speaker 1: important that the people who are helping to take care
Speaker 1: of others also take care of themselves. You know, you
Speaker 1: and I've had some pretty long days. But at the
Speaker 1: end of those days, if we're going to keep being
Speaker 1: of service, and particularly someone who is literally creating a
Speaker 1: new brand of philanthropy, you've got to replenish yourself too. Well.
Speaker 1: I'm very blessed because I have a wife I don't deserve.
Speaker 1: My best friend. She keeps me honest, she gives me
Speaker 1: a straight I've been taking a little break this summer.
Speaker 1: Actually I lost forty pounds and it's still I promise her.
Speaker 1: By the end of the year, I should be losing
Speaker 1: another thirty pounds. So this is very important. And if
Speaker 1: I want to be jumping between helicopters and amphibious vehicles,
Speaker 1: and I want to be doing this, it's my calling
Speaker 1: life feeding the many. Obviously, I want my restaurants successful too.
Speaker 1: We have only four hundred working right now. But I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to have everybody else back sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: So yes, the responsibility is on the shoulders. I wish
Speaker 1: I had a little restaurant in a little island and
Speaker 1: just be there with my wife, making ROMs hours and
Speaker 1: cooking a little grill chicken on the beach. But I
Speaker 1: decided to have a slightly more complex life and was
Speaker 1: Senator Patrick moyneghan that back in nine on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: almost first customer I ever had in my restaurant, Halleo
Speaker 1: on Seventh and in Northwest Patrick Moneghan told me that
Speaker 1: if you love America, America will always love you back.
Speaker 1: America has given me and a great place to belong,
Speaker 1: three and beautiful American born daughters, an opportunity to serve.
Speaker 1: The least I can do is used to get back
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything I got. If we all
Speaker 1: do that, I know America is gonna be always a
Speaker 1: country that we all dream of. It's a pleasure always
Speaker 1: talking to you. Thank you so much for spending some
Speaker 1: time talking about food and life and everything in between.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having Since the pandemic broke out,
Speaker 1: World Central Kitchen has provided more than thirty million meals
Speaker 1: in four hundred cities across America. To support their vital work,
Speaker 1: visit w c K dot org. Now I can't talk
Speaker 1: about food without talking to one of my favorite restaurant owners,
Speaker 1: Rocco di Fasio from Troy, New York. I first started
Speaker 1: meeting with him, working with him, and eating his fabulous
Speaker 1: food back when I was a senator from New York.
Speaker 1: I know you can have a big fight about what
Speaker 1: makes for delicious pizza. I can just tell you that
Speaker 1: Rocco's pizza is really special, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: of all the love that this three generation business puts
Speaker 1: into it. So I wanted to talk to Rocco about
Speaker 1: what things have been like at the restaurant during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: how he's adapting to this new reality, and of course
Speaker 1: get a little update on his famous pizza and legendary gelato.
Speaker 1: And a quick disclaimer for those listening, this interview will
Speaker 1: leave you craving both. Hello, beer, It is so good
Speaker 1: to see you. This is not as good as being
Speaker 1: with you in person, but it will have to do
Speaker 1: until you know we can travel again. I still remember
Speaker 1: very well eating your pizza for the first time. It
Speaker 1: was delicious. But in addition to such delicious pizza, it
Speaker 1: was just so much fun. The business that your parents started,
Speaker 1: that you've kept going, that you've now passed on your kids.
Speaker 1: It's such a great American story and it is centered
Speaker 1: around food. You know. I first learned about you because
Speaker 1: when I was senator from New York, I used to
Speaker 1: read local newspapers all the time, and I would find
Speaker 1: things in it and I would say, Hey, let's follow
Speaker 1: up on this. And I saw this article about how
Speaker 1: you wanted to try to rebrand Troy, New York to
Speaker 1: really make it a kind of little Italy destination, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a great idea. So I
Speaker 1: contacted you. But first my office tried to call to
Speaker 1: connect with you, and you kept hanging as I because
Speaker 1: you thought it was a prank. Give a little bit
Speaker 1: of history to our listeners about your parents, Anthony and Josephine,
Speaker 1: and you know, are American journey, which of course led
Speaker 1: to starting the business. Yes, both of my parents came
Speaker 1: to the United States in the very early thirties. My
Speaker 1: mother was from near a small town outside of Naples,
Speaker 1: and my father was from Calabria. And my mother's friends
Speaker 1: would always tell her how did you marry this color braise?
Speaker 1: Why did you? Oh? Yeah, because the two didn't Why
Speaker 1: did you marry this color Braise. So when you're parents,
Speaker 1: Anthony and Josephine started the business back in nineteen, what
Speaker 1: kind of business was it, because I know it's changed
Speaker 1: throughout the years. Oh it has, we have changed. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was a neighborhood store, but there were dozens of
Speaker 1: these stores. What was the point at which you all
Speaker 1: discovered the attractiveness of pizza and especially wood fired pizza.
Speaker 1: Wood fired wasn't known anywhere, but we had this building
Speaker 1: next to us, and so I'm talking to my parents saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we should open up pizzeria. And
Speaker 1: they both said, I think you should use a wood
Speaker 1: fired oven, because both of their parents use a wood
Speaker 1: fired oven. And it'll be from the old country, from
Speaker 1: the old country. That's all they had. My dad always
Speaker 1: used to say when things were going well, now we're
Speaker 1: cooking with gas. Well that's where that expression came from. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're moving up. We're moving up in the world. We
Speaker 1: have gas. When did you actually take charge of the business. Nine.
Speaker 1: I just had this conversation yesterday with people from Brooklyn
Speaker 1: who were up to try it, and they said, your
Speaker 1: pizza crust is unique. Well, I can attest to that,
Speaker 1: having eaten a lot of us, and everybody will say
Speaker 1: that because it isn't pizza though, it's my grandmother's itali
Speaker 1: and breaddough recipe. Now is this your Neapolitan grandmother or
Speaker 1: your it's my colored braise. So and I tweeked the
Speaker 1: recipe for pizza. You know, even after everything you've seen,
Speaker 1: all of the decades of hard work that changes in
Speaker 1: your neighborhood, did anything in your past experience prepare you
Speaker 1: for a global pandemic? How did you even wrap your
Speaker 1: head around it? And how as a small business owner
Speaker 1: did you figure out ways to survive? Open the playbook,
Speaker 1: Matthew my son, we would talk we need to open
Speaker 1: the playbook now, meaning things that we have been working on,
Speaker 1: we gotta do them now. Like give me an example.
Speaker 1: First thing we did, We're going to offer breakfast, interesting
Speaker 1: breakfast pizzas, breakfast pizzas, a and vegetables, which was a
Speaker 1: big hit. Sounds delicious, are delicious to the fastest growing
Speaker 1: food segment is vegan. So now you have vegan pizzas. Yes,
Speaker 1: we make vegan gelato. Okay, what's it tastes like? Tell
Speaker 1: me the truth? Heaven really the only thing I will
Speaker 1: leave now. You know a lot of listeners are challenging
Speaker 1: themselves by trying to cook through this pandemic. What is
Speaker 1: the secret to trying to make a great pizza at home?
Speaker 1: We've been selling a lot of our pizza dough ready
Speaker 1: to make, and I really tell people, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: make it, just come and buy it from us. Don't
Speaker 1: buy the stuff in the supermarket, go to a bakery
Speaker 1: and go to Italian bakery or a pizzeria that you
Speaker 1: like their dough. And we sell dozens and dozens of
Speaker 1: fresh pizza dough to people who now want to do it.
Speaker 1: Interesting and I told Matthew one of the things I
Speaker 1: want to do for the holidays is a pete some
Speaker 1: making kit and we also have directions on this. So
Speaker 1: what we're going to be offering for the holidays is
Speaker 1: people can buy to dough, to sauces and very good
Speaker 1: imported Peccorina Romano cheese. Then you just have to get
Speaker 1: your toppings to make your pizza and explanation how to
Speaker 1: do it. And you know what the first set is
Speaker 1: in the directions, turn off your TV, get off your phone,
Speaker 1: put some Frank Sinatra music on so great Ord Martin
Speaker 1: or Tony Bennett, and then start making it. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that is so perfect. You know, I hope everybody is
Speaker 1: listening because it's not only the actual ingredients of the pizza.
Speaker 1: It's like what's in your mind and your thoughts right
Speaker 1: your heart beating? Thank you well. I hope you're not
Speaker 1: going to be inundated by people after this podcast runs
Speaker 1: calling you for pizza, doll. But you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get ready Rocco because that may be coming.
Speaker 1: To turn off the TV, turn off and talk to
Speaker 1: each other to plan a visit to Rocco's visit De
Speaker 1: Fasio's pizza dot com. That's it for today's show, Wishing
Speaker 1: you all a happy holiday season and thinking of everyone
Speaker 1: who can't be with family and friends right now. Let
Speaker 1: us all hope and work to make it so that
Speaker 1: our country in the world are different this time next year.
Speaker 1: You and Me Both is brought to you by I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subran and Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: with help from whom I Aberdeen, Nikki etur Oscar Flores,
Speaker 1: Rihanna Johnson, Nick Merrill, Lauren Eaterson, Rob Russo, and Lona Valmorrow.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Zack McNeice and original music is by
Speaker 1: Forest Gray. And a huge thanks this week to opal
Speaker 1: ve Done for her help with this week's episode. If
Speaker 1: you like the show, tell someone else about it. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe to You and Me both on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. Send us your questions
Speaker 1: and comments or even ideas for future episodes to You
Speaker 1: and Me both pod at gmail dot com. Come back
Speaker 1: next week when I talk with three incredibly thoughtful people
Speaker 1: who have struggled with mental health. Veteran author and advocate
Speaker 1: Jason Candor, Broadway actor and Tony Award winner Audra McDonald,
Speaker 1: and author Ali Brausch. I hope you'll join me then,
Speaker 1: m