Speaker 1: I'm maybe a natural journalist because I'm a really died
Speaker 1: in the little skeptic.
Speaker 2: I've got to prove it to myself. Hello everyone, Today
Speaker 2: we have a very interesting guest. Florence Fabricant, also known
Speaker 2: as flow Fab, is the longest running writer in the
Speaker 2: New York Times Food section. She is the longest running
Speaker 2: amongst the talented team of food writers at the New
Speaker 2: York Times. Her weekly columns Front Burner and Off the
Speaker 2: Menu explore the new and interesting in the culinary world.
Speaker 2: She also writes the Pairings column that appears alongside the
Speaker 2: wine reviews. She's authored thirteen cookbooks. Her most recent work
Speaker 2: is The Ladies Village Improvement Society's one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: fifth anniversary cookbook. Florence and I have both wined and
Speaker 2: dined and tasted and explored around the world, and we're
Speaker 2: here today to talk about the best of it. Welcome
Speaker 2: to my podcast, Florence. It's so nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Wonderful to see you. Martha, so nice. And we've talked
Speaker 2: like this a couple of times in our careers, and
Speaker 2: I certainly have known you for a very very long time,
Speaker 2: very long time. You started at the New York Times.
Speaker 2: What year nineteen seventy two, oh, seventy two, And then
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two I wrote my first book when
Speaker 2: I sort of came into the culinary world.
Speaker 1: And I wonder what year we first met. You're nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Okay, so well that was in Westport. What
Speaker 1: was I doing catering in a store at my little store? Right?
Speaker 1: We have friends in reading who gave me a heads
Speaker 1: up about it?
Speaker 2: Oh they did, yeah, oh nice? And there she is,
Speaker 2: the intrepid reporter coming out from New York to do Westport, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: But that wasn't so far and Westport was like the
Speaker 2: hotbed at that time of all kinds of great things.
Speaker 2: Paul Newman was our favorite. Robert Redford would come and visit,
Speaker 2: and we had an awfully good time there in Westport, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: And that's where I really started my catering business and
Speaker 2: started writing books when I started entering the Florence fabricant world.
Speaker 2: But we also have our Eastampton connection. I had my
Speaker 2: house on Lily Pond Lane, and I was an avid
Speaker 2: supporter of the Ladies Village Improvement Society. And you edited
Speaker 2: that beautiful cookbook, authored, actually authored and edited the Beautiful Cookbook.
Speaker 2: It's a lovely compilation of favorite recipes from well these
Speaker 2: chefs and other people celebrities.
Speaker 1: Yes, the difference between that one, I mean until that book,
Speaker 1: more or less. There was another one before, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of drab. But until that book, it was
Speaker 1: the first sort of real color photograph professional cookbook. Prior
Speaker 1: to that, they were these spiral bound jobs that had
Speaker 1: been done starting in the log I don't know, sometime
Speaker 1: one hundred years old.
Speaker 2: That was tradition for all these Ladies clubs to have
Speaker 2: that spiral bound. I have many of those from all
Speaker 2: kinds of times at all, and I love them. Every
Speaker 2: now and then you find a recipe that becomes part
Speaker 2: of your repertoire, and I just love them so much.
Speaker 2: And I wrote the Heather Kirkland, who is my producer
Speaker 2: on this podcast, look at this giant pile of papers
Speaker 2: about you, Florence. She included my forward to that book.
Speaker 2: And it makes me miss Easthampton. I sold my house
Speaker 2: two years ago, and I kind of missed lily Pond
Speaker 2: Lane and the elm trees and the beauty of that town.
Speaker 2: Because the Ladies Village Improvement Society, of which you've supported
Speaker 2: society for so long. The villash ladies do protect those
Speaker 2: elm trees. They really kept the beauty of that town
Speaker 2: and protected all the important buildings.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons it was founded was
Speaker 1: because they decided that the village needed sidewalks, and they
Speaker 1: were the ones that pushed that campaign and at.
Speaker 2: The same time put those sidewalks over the roots of
Speaker 2: the elm trees and didn't hurt the elm trees because
Speaker 2: they are still alive and well, towering over those beautiful
Speaker 2: shady streets. And I love that town. It is, of
Speaker 2: all the Hamptons, I think the most beautiful Hampton. Yah.
Speaker 1: It's also in many ways the most diverse in terms
Speaker 1: of the culture and the art scene and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Florence lives not far from where I lived.
Speaker 2: But what did you learn about food out into the Hamptons.
Speaker 1: I learned really the difference between fresh picked in grocery
Speaker 1: store fresh picked in supermarket.
Speaker 2: Because of all the farm stands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's why I started writing about food. It
Speaker 1: would drive me crazy to see people buying the supermarket
Speaker 1: tomatoes that were pale pink in July when their neighbor
Speaker 1: probably had a pile of freshly picked from their garden
Speaker 1: on a car table in their front yard and a
Speaker 1: jar for the money, right, And it really was something
Speaker 1: that would I felt I needed a megaphone because so that's.
Speaker 2: Really really what started you. Yeah, oh yeah, I decided,
Speaker 2: I mean I was. It's complicated, but you know, well
Speaker 2: it had a very good education. She went to college
Speaker 2: Phi Beta Kappa. You have garnered many, many honors in
Speaker 2: the culinary world, which are very impressive. But to find
Speaker 2: out that your love of food and your intent to
Speaker 2: write about food came from that is very interesting and
Speaker 2: very telling.
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up, grew up in a household
Speaker 1: with parents who were foodies at a time when they
Speaker 1: were not, and my mother was a superb cook. In fact,
Speaker 1: a year ago Mother's Day I did a story about
Speaker 1: her and her recipes and what I learned from her.
Speaker 1: What was her favorite recipe, Well, it was a recipe
Speaker 1: for lambshanks that she got from a restaurant that no
Speaker 1: longer exists. I think it was in the East thirties
Speaker 1: called Balkan Armenian Bulkan Armenia.
Speaker 2: I ate there. I loved Armenian food, Oh my.
Speaker 1: Gosh, with green peppers and red peppers and onions and nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the way I wrote the story was, I said,
Speaker 1: every time I sliced onions, I think of my mother,
Speaker 1: and it's not because she makes me cry. It's because
Speaker 1: she's onions so carefully, and that's I learned that from her.
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of what you wrote about
Speaker 2: about the freshness of food and the importance of using
Speaker 2: fresh ingredients not just supermarket ingredients, really encourage a lot
Speaker 2: of people to start their backyard gardens. Also, well, you're
Speaker 2: much more of a gardener than I was. I'm a serious,
Speaker 2: serious vest gardener now and I am harvesting today. You
Speaker 2: would be so happy to see my solariac. I grew
Speaker 2: solariacs this big this year and pure white inside. They
Speaker 2: are so beautiful. I've never had celariac like that before,
Speaker 2: not that large and not that sweet. So your love
Speaker 2: of food comes from travel, from what you've traveled so much.
Speaker 2: And you are fluent in French. You studied Did you
Speaker 2: spend your junior year in France?
Speaker 1: Yeah? OK, and then I have a graduate degree in French.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: My love of food I grew up with it. I
Speaker 1: can remember being very young, for or five years old
Speaker 1: and we'd go to a Chinese restaurant and it was
Speaker 1: very important to me to get the amount of soy
Speaker 1: sauce that I put in my egg drop so just right.
Speaker 1: It had to be the right color, and I worked
Speaker 1: at it, and I can remember that as of being
Speaker 1: a very young child. I can remember hating a kind
Speaker 1: of pudding cold junket.
Speaker 2: I hated it. Oh, junket. I actually liked junket that
Speaker 2: came out of a package. Yeah, And that was kind
Speaker 2: of liked it because we were not allowed very much
Speaker 2: sugar in our family, so every now and then if
Speaker 2: we had something like the chocolate putting out of a
Speaker 2: box or a junket, it was kind of a treat.
Speaker 2: But I agree with you right now, I couldn't. I
Speaker 2: couldn't eat that. If you see.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I ever had pecan pie.
Speaker 1: I think it was at a White Turkey in Midtown Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and I was fascinated when I guess it was the
Speaker 1: waiter or the chef, because I wanted to know how
Speaker 1: it was made. I probably was ten years old or
Speaker 1: some and how you start with all of the nuts
Speaker 1: and the filling mixed together, but the nuts rise to
Speaker 1: the top and make their own crust, so to speak.
Speaker 1: I thought that I had to go home and make one,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't believe that that's how it happened.
Speaker 2: Besides your parents, who really influenced the way you thought
Speaker 2: about food.
Speaker 1: I had an aunt who was more like a grandmother
Speaker 1: to me. My mother's oldest sister was also a very
Speaker 1: good cook. Later on, I devoured what I could read
Speaker 1: in the New York Times at Gourmet magazine, and and
Speaker 1: then my parents we would go to the top restaurants.
Speaker 1: We lived in Westchester, but we'd go to the theater,
Speaker 1: and beforehand the routine was to go have dinner at
Speaker 1: the Algonquin, and I remember they they did a chicken underglass.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I ate sweetbreads there. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are all very vivid.
Speaker 2: I loved going to the Algonquin. That was really quite
Speaker 2: a treat. What about le Vaudor do you remember that?
Speaker 2: I do? Oh, and did you go there for escargo? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I remember taking my very young daughter in the nineteen
Speaker 2: late six I guess like nineteen sixty eight or nine
Speaker 2: or something, and she loved Escargo even as a very
Speaker 2: young young child. Where else did you eat you well.
Speaker 1: I can remember my father taking me to Chamboard and
Speaker 1: they had all the different sized champagne bottles in the window.
Speaker 2: Such a beautiful place.
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't go into the restaurant until he gave
Speaker 1: me the names of all those. But you know the
Speaker 1: Nebeka Nezzar and the Jeriphone and the Ralphazar.
Speaker 2: Those are so beautiful. And then the kitchen there, do
Speaker 2: you remember the kitchen was open to the seating area
Speaker 2: to the restaurant with those copper pots and pants hanging.
Speaker 2: I love that restaurant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My father would take me to Dominic's on Arthur Avenue
Speaker 1: because my mother hated it. Oh, so he would haul
Speaker 1: me up down there, and oh, my father would.
Speaker 2: My father would take me to Chinatown and we would
Speaker 2: eat Chinese food, or to Houston Street so we could
Speaker 2: go to Rustling Daughters in those places. I remember going
Speaker 2: to Luchow's, Oh yes, remember Luchaus, Oh my gosh, and
Speaker 2: Rubens for apple pancakes on fifty eighth Street after the theater.
Speaker 2: So you began writing about food for the Easthampton Star
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two. Why did you start there?
Speaker 1: Well, as I say, I thought I needed a megaphone
Speaker 1: to I mean, I had friends who I was the
Speaker 1: one They always asked where who's got the best?
Speaker 2: But were you married then? Oh yeah, oh yeah, you're married. Okay,
Speaker 2: what year did you get married? Nineteen sixty? Oh I
Speaker 2: got sixty one. I got married. Florence is still married
Speaker 2: to her same husband, same husband, and I am not.
Speaker 2: And your daughter actually designs some of people.
Speaker 1: Sign the lviis, Oh yeah, we've done six cookbooks together.
Speaker 2: Oh great, Oh great, so she's a graphic designer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: What newspapers in nineteen seventy two are looking for a
Speaker 2: food writer?
Speaker 1: Well, the Easthampton Star wasn't looking for a food writer.
Speaker 1: And it never occurred to me to be a food
Speaker 1: writer as a full time career. I was debating whether
Speaker 1: to go to law school, and I mean I was
Speaker 1: out of college. I had worked in market research and
Speaker 1: advertising straight out of college because it was the only
Speaker 1: job I could get that didn't require me to be
Speaker 1: a secretary. I tried to find something using my wrench
Speaker 1: and couldn't. So, and I stopped working to be a
Speaker 1: full time mom when my daughter was born, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to go back to work because seventy two both
Speaker 1: kids would be in school full time and looked into
Speaker 1: various and sundry and in the meantime, I'm in Easthampton
Speaker 1: over the summer and people are buying iceberg lettuce in
Speaker 1: the supermarket. Is making me crazy. So I suggested to
Speaker 1: Everett Raptory, the editor of the Star, a food calm.
Speaker 2: This is the Easthampton Star, which is such a charming newspaper.
Speaker 2: So what did he say?
Speaker 1: He said, write a sample. I said how many words?
Speaker 1: And he said four hundred? And it took me two weeks.
Speaker 2: I mean, what was it? What was the first column? Tomatoes? Uh? Huh.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, you know today I could
Speaker 1: write back column in the shower of words.
Speaker 2: Of course, Well you get practic. Practice makes perfect.
Speaker 1: And I said to myself, if he agrees to pay me,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. And I started doing it, and within
Speaker 1: six months I was getting assignments from the Time.
Speaker 2: So there you have it. So they found you there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you've been writing for the Times ever since. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic career. And very few people stay at
Speaker 2: such a job for that long and a mass such
Speaker 2: a wide audience. Because you have a very wide audience,
Speaker 2: you have made a tremendous mark in the world of food,
Speaker 2: and the chef better platform, and chefs love you. It's
Speaker 2: no better platform in my view than the New York Times.
Speaker 2: End of story.
Speaker 1: I could possibly be a blogger today and make a
Speaker 1: ton of money, but it's not where my head is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I read that. It's the first thing
Speaker 2: I do in the morning when I wake up. When
Speaker 2: I woke up and I read the New York Times
Speaker 2: cover to cover on my iPad. Today is Wednesday food,
Speaker 2: although the food articles come out online like the day
Speaker 2: before or the day before that.
Speaker 1: Actually the non alcoholic line story was first published on
Speaker 1: and I think Thursday. The thing about the Times is
Speaker 1: number one, it's run by it's owned by people who
Speaker 1: believe in journalism number one and number two, there is integrity,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Who was at the food section when you started there in.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty, Well, Jeene Hewitt was there. Oh, I love
Speaker 1: Jeane Hewitt, mem Memi.
Speaker 2: Sheraton, uh, Marion Burrows, Marion Burroughs, Moira Hodgson, Frank Prile,
Speaker 2: every name very very familiar to those of us who
Speaker 2: really did read The New York Times. Yeah, whose restaurant reviews.
Speaker 2: Did you like the best?
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question. I would say maybe Craig Oh.
Speaker 2: Remember, oh, I'd loved him.
Speaker 1: Was there when I was there? Yeah, because he kind
Speaker 1: of set a standard. And what I so admire about
Speaker 1: him is that the restaurant reviews were not about him,
Speaker 1: That's right. They were about the food. He wanted to
Speaker 1: communicate with an audience, and his opinions were important, and
Speaker 1: he believed what he believed, but it was not He
Speaker 1: was never a grandstand show off.
Speaker 2: You're right, you're right, and that was And so you
Speaker 2: got to know him, Yes, I did you out in
Speaker 2: the Hamptons. Yeah. It was so exciting to get to
Speaker 2: know Craig Clayborne, whose books I loved and whose own
Speaker 2: recipes I liked so much. Ye too, Yeah, I remember
Speaker 2: going to one party with him and James Beard, so extraordinary.
Speaker 2: What are some of the stories that help you build
Speaker 2: your presence in the New York Times? Do you remember
Speaker 2: the different stories.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a really to me kind of a benchmark.
Speaker 1: I got an assignment from the magazine some I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess it was in the mid eighties to write
Speaker 1: about one restaurant west of the Mississippi one restaurant. Brian
Speaker 1: Miller was going to write about one restaurant east of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi, and he opted to write about the rhine
Speaker 1: Beck Inn. I forget who was the chef there at
Speaker 1: the time. It was somebody pretty famous. I started to
Speaker 1: think about it, and a few months previously I had
Speaker 1: visited for the first time, and it was fairly new
Speaker 1: at the moment. At that time, it was quite new
Speaker 1: Matsuhisa in Los Angeles, and I had never been. I
Speaker 1: had had Japanese food. Sushi was beginning to show up,
Speaker 1: and I had never seen a restaurant with a thirty
Speaker 1: page menu, and I thought the food was amazing, the
Speaker 1: squid pasta, for example, and the rock shrimp tempura and
Speaker 1: the black cod. I mean, his landmark recipe dishes that
Speaker 1: he still produces and so does everybody else in the world.
Speaker 1: So that's what I wrote about. Oh, I'd like to
Speaker 1: read that.
Speaker 2: And I never heard from him until he opened. You
Speaker 2: did not hear he did this. Matsuhisa is the formal
Speaker 2: name of Nobu the great chef Nobu Matsuhisa.
Speaker 1: And his first restaurant was matiz Yes, it was on Losienica,
Speaker 1: so It wasn't. It wasn't a pretty restaurant. It was
Speaker 1: very very simple.
Speaker 2: Sort of in a strip. It's enlarged greatly and they
Speaker 2: have that huge parking lot on the side and they
Speaker 2: and during COVID they covered that over and people ate
Speaker 2: up so well.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to opening Nobu in Manhattan and Robert de
Speaker 1: Niro and uh Drew and so forth, and Nobu was
Speaker 1: there and when he met me, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I never thanked you.
Speaker 2: For writing about Matsu. I said, that's okay. I must say.
Speaker 2: I am a big fan of Nobu and what he's
Speaker 2: done for Japanese cuisine in America, bringing it from Japan
Speaker 2: to Peru and then to New York. I had a wonderful,
Speaker 2: wonderful book launch party there, I think for my weddings book,
Speaker 2: and he was charming. If there's a Nobu, I go
Speaker 2: and visit. I was in I think maybe it was
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabian. I went to a Nobu. Wow, he's all
Speaker 2: over the place. Yes, yea. You know they're opening a
Speaker 2: Nobu hotel on the Upper East Side and they're beautiful hotels,
Speaker 2: really beautifully tasteful. Now, how is the food editorial team
Speaker 2: organized these day? There seemed to be a lot of
Speaker 2: new names, tons and lots of names. The department is
Speaker 2: now more than one hundred people. Oh really, that went
Speaker 2: an off premises test kitchen and everything else, and so
Speaker 2: many new recipes every single day, feeding that insatiable desire
Speaker 2: for easy, for fast, for one pot. I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff going on. Pan yep, sheet, pan cooking. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all of that. So it's one hundred people, now that's huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of it devoted to video, because video and
Speaker 1: photographs and all of that is what drives eyeballs to
Speaker 1: the website.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's very important. In your New York Times column
Speaker 2: front Burner, you review new foods, food stores, cooking products.
Speaker 2: What do you look for in products and places that
Speaker 2: you select?
Speaker 1: Well, the column is evolved over the years, and the
Speaker 1: mandate for the past several years has been new products,
Speaker 1: new stores, new people, new events, and so forth, which
Speaker 1: is extremely helpful for me because it helps me narrow
Speaker 1: down what I'm writing about, because otherwise I'd go nuts.
Speaker 2: How many objects do you get a week to review? Well,
Speaker 2: I always get a lot. I only get what I want, Okay.
Speaker 2: The percentage of the times people send their things to people.
Speaker 1: Do send stuff, but I've tried to limit that down
Speaker 1: to almost zero because I don't want stuff that I
Speaker 1: haven't requested and I'm not interested.
Speaker 2: I see. So, what are three products in the last
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three that you would highly recommend to
Speaker 2: someone like me or anybody, any reader.
Speaker 1: Well, the line of you know, there are a million
Speaker 1: chili crists now. And I got a new chili crisp
Speaker 1: pitched like every single day, No thank you, but the
Speaker 1: line by this company, fly by Jing, I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1: I like what she does. It just came out with
Speaker 1: a chili crisp. It's different because it has pumpkin seeds
Speaker 1: and things like that, so it's crunchier and I really
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, And then what else?
Speaker 1: I got samples of these baked goods from Alexis Gamblin,
Speaker 1: who's French and he just started this company che Tonton,
Speaker 1: and he does a very interesting take on a pecan pie,
Speaker 1: which is not a filling in a crust, but it's
Speaker 1: more like a short red crust. It's a very short
Speaker 1: pastry with the pecan filling running through it, and then
Speaker 1: the top surface have glazed pecans all over it, and
Speaker 1: then he does a little cookie versions of those. He
Speaker 1: calls them little cakes, and I think that those are
Speaker 1: kind of great. And the third well that turn up
Speaker 1: Malcomber turn up from upstate that originated in Massachusetts. White
Speaker 1: is that white and it's very big and it's sweet.
Speaker 1: I just picked all of mine and it's kind of rarity.
Speaker 1: Oh it's they're so beautiful. They are as big as
Speaker 1: like softballs. I have a new raised bed garden. So
Speaker 1: everything this year grew incredibly well and blemish free, which
Speaker 1: is very nice. Fence turnip comes up pure white and
Speaker 1: no blemishes. You know you're doing something right. Absolutely, those
Speaker 1: are very nice fines.
Speaker 2: So if you want to know the latest and the best,
Speaker 2: read the Wednesday edition of The New York Times Florence fabricat. So,
Speaker 2: how has your audience changed or has it? When The
Speaker 2: Times moved much of the food content but behind a paywall,
Speaker 2: because now you know, you go to find a recipe
Speaker 2: and it's so you have to join the New.
Speaker 1: York Well, there there are two kinds of paywalls. Is
Speaker 1: the paywall for subscribers, yes, which is expensive. The subscriptions
Speaker 1: of The Times online is very expensive. The cooking website
Speaker 1: Cooking dot n lie Times dot com. If you're not
Speaker 1: a subscriber, is a separate paywall, right and you could
Speaker 1: subscribe just to that. Yes, and I think it's been successful.
Speaker 2: I mean, the oh, it must be if you have
Speaker 2: one hundred employees working in there.
Speaker 1: The digital keep subscribing, the numbers keep going up and
Speaker 1: up and up. And the other thing, the other discovery,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about discoveries, is I've been
Speaker 1: following that's non alcoholic lime seeing. Yes, I was just
Speaker 1: going to ask you about that very I mean, I
Speaker 1: had a big story recommending whites and reds for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and the whites are the best ones. In the beginning
Speaker 1: were the sparklers. Sparklers because the carbonation sort of compensates
Speaker 1: very nicely for the lack of alcohol.
Speaker 2: But the whites have.
Speaker 1: Been getting better and better, and now the reds are
Speaker 1: coming along. I think they need they need work.
Speaker 2: Still.
Speaker 1: There are a couple that have appealed to me. Beers
Speaker 1: are amazing, And what shocks me is that more restaurants
Speaker 1: are not putting them on their list, putting you know,
Speaker 1: they have them by the glass, Let people buy a bottle.
Speaker 1: The nice thing about non alcoholic wine forgetting everything else
Speaker 1: is you can enjoy it at lunch regardless of your
Speaker 1: attitude exactly.
Speaker 2: But it's the best variety. Can you make some suggestions
Speaker 2: for not all well?
Speaker 1: I tend to prefer varietals. There are companies that do
Speaker 1: non alcoholic wines that are concoctions with tea and not
Speaker 1: using wine as the base, that try and mimic wine,
Speaker 1: and I haven't found much that appeals to it. So
Speaker 1: how is a non alcoholic wine made well? There are
Speaker 1: several methods. One is through. They can use a centrifuge,
Speaker 1: They can use reverse osmosis. There different techniques that are
Speaker 1: used to get the alcohol out, to take the alcohol
Speaker 1: out now. I have found Sauvignon blanc to be quite
Speaker 1: reliable because it has good acidity, good minerality, and across
Speaker 1: the boards. Sauvigno blancs I've tasted have done pretty well
Speaker 1: on the red side and also reestling. Reestling, there's a
Speaker 1: something called gruner Ice, which is a blend of grunervelt
Speaker 1: Leaner and it also holds up on the red side.
Speaker 1: They're just beginning to figure it out. Most of the
Speaker 1: reds are a little flat, a little sweet, they don't
Speaker 1: have that complexity that you and the tannins you expect
Speaker 1: in a red wine. But I've got a couple that
Speaker 1: I haven't opened that I'm waiting to try.
Speaker 2: So what you see happening in food right now that
Speaker 2: you find so exciting.
Speaker 1: Well, more and more of paying attention to the environment,
Speaker 1: paying attention to seasonality in a very honest way instead
Speaker 1: of just saying it's all farm to table and then
Speaker 1: serving raspberries in December. Come on doing their homework, when
Speaker 1: chefs do their homework when they go shopping. And I
Speaker 1: think it's increasingly important, and you know, carbon footprint and
Speaker 1: all of that figures into it, but you cannot take
Speaker 1: away from the need to keep things local as little
Speaker 1: industrialized as possible. Wheat has changed so much, so much,
Speaker 1: and it's not good for you. And it drives me
Speaker 1: crazy that restaurants are serving Parker House roles. You know,
Speaker 1: I would I look for whole grains all the time now,
Speaker 1: But I think that there is more and more attention
Speaker 1: paid to that aspect, and I think that that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. More vegetable friendly menus across the boards as well.
Speaker 1: So what do you think of Levin Madison Park.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: I think what he's doing is commendable. I don't love
Speaker 1: everything he's doing. I'm sure you probably feel the same way,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly very interesting. You know, Cafe Chelsea in
Speaker 1: the Chelsea Hotels, they have a main course, my talkie
Speaker 1: mushroom oh Puavre that is so delicious and it's so
Speaker 1: big you can't I couldn't finish it. But it's just
Speaker 1: delicious and it's a main course. And I think the
Speaker 1: more you see that, the better, you know, the eating
Speaker 1: less meat, of course, maybe more fish, but maybe maybe
Speaker 1: more vegetables. Yeah, and the vegan the vegan crazes is
Speaker 1: quite astonishing to me that people are trying it and
Speaker 1: trying it and trying it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just had a young woman on my show
Speaker 2: on TV the other day who made it smoothie. She thinks,
Speaker 2: she really really believes and that her smoothie in the
Speaker 2: morning will compensate for her not eating pretty much the
Speaker 2: rest of the day. And it's all. It's all, it's
Speaker 2: like oat meal and not too much fresh stuff, but
Speaker 2: purple potatoes and all all kinds of adages which I
Speaker 2: don't think take the place of a fabulous green vegetable Now,
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think you know, these vegetable pills in a bottle,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in that at all. I believe in
Speaker 1: real food, and I think that there are elements in
Speaker 1: real food that you get that you cannot reproduce by
Speaker 1: taking a pill or that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Right in nineteen eighty four. Notwithstanding, I think, I think
Speaker 2: we have a long way to go before we're going
Speaker 2: to be just eating pills or drinking just weird smoothies.
Speaker 2: I don't want that to happen, not in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: Of the changes that you've seen over the years in food,
Speaker 2: what really surprised you? What surprised me?
Speaker 1: I think most recently over the past let's say decade
Speaker 1: or so, is how fast stuff catches on. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that has to do with social
Speaker 1: I think sort of a watershed moment might have been
Speaker 1: back in the late eighties when restaurants started serving redicio
Speaker 1: and arugula and using balsamic vinegar, and suddenly everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to buy those things. I mean, in the past, if
Speaker 1: you ate something in a restaurant, I can remember growing up,
Speaker 1: you weren't interested or going to try and reproduce that
Speaker 1: restaurant dish at home, unless you were my mother. That's
Speaker 1: another story, but most people didn't. And now I think
Speaker 1: the availability of arugola and redicio and some of these
Speaker 1: other ingredients that the availability and the ease with which
Speaker 1: people can buy and use garlic. When I was growing up,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a hell of a lot of garlic around.
Speaker 2: Oh and I have like eighteen varieties of garlic in
Speaker 2: my garden and they all are different and they are
Speaker 2: all delicious, cooked different ways.
Speaker 1: And then I think about something like what Dan Barber's
Speaker 1: doing with these new vegetables, the garlik Have you tried that?
Speaker 2: Oh? I just had a dinner with Dan where he
Speaker 2: served garlik's, which is a cross between a leak and garlic.
Speaker 2: It was delicious. He just brazed them very simply and
Speaker 2: they were delicious. And he's working with a group that
Speaker 2: is called the New Organic Project. They are trying to
Speaker 2: verify what is organic and what is not organic. Organic
Speaker 2: is just a word now and the supermarkets it's slapped
Speaker 2: on and.
Speaker 1: I see people selling organic salmon. I said, what what
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, how could that be? But in the vegetable
Speaker 2: department especially, Yeah, we don't know that it's organic or not.
Speaker 2: In order to age gracefully stay healthier, we can't fill
Speaker 2: the hospitals with ailing people. We have to know what
Speaker 2: we can eat that's going to keep us really going. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The one thing about the l the Highest Cookbook I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're aware of, is that it is
Speaker 1: a salmon free cookbook, surf free. Well, I did not
Speaker 1: know about that. Salmon doesn't belong in East Hampton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't be fished there and they cannot be.
Speaker 2: But you do have something that I see the signs
Speaker 2: that I went to that little place on the way
Speaker 2: to Amagansett where it says clam pies on a sign
Speaker 2: of nailed to a tree. What the heck is a
Speaker 2: clam pie? Oh, it's delicious. There's my recipe in the book.
Speaker 2: Oh that's your clam pie. Goes way back.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go back to the Spiral Bound
Speaker 1: lviis cookbooks from the nineteen forties, say you'll find clam pie.
Speaker 1: It's a two crust pie and the filling is chopped
Speaker 1: up clams, usually onions and potatoes and whatever clam juices
Speaker 1: as a pie filling. Oh, so it's like a stuffed
Speaker 1: clam in a crust. Well, it's not as finely mince.
Speaker 1: There's no bread or anything, and it's not as finely
Speaker 1: minced as it's almost more like a clam pizza topping
Speaker 1: without the cheese, okay, in a crust. And in fact
Speaker 1: I've used like a clam pie sometimes it has bacon.
Speaker 1: Also use that filling mixture to make caesadillas as odors.
Speaker 2: Oh, I bet that's good. It's delicious. I bet that's good.
Speaker 2: But clams now are like two dollars each for a
Speaker 2: little clam. Do you have a special little clam spot
Speaker 2: in Easthampton where you go dig your own?
Speaker 1: I don't dig. I buy them, but I open them.
Speaker 1: I think clams are easier to open than oysters.
Speaker 2: Oh. I have a clam knife now, an oyster knife
Speaker 2: and a scallop knife, because they are growing scallops in
Speaker 2: Maine in the ocean on long ropes hanging down into
Speaker 2: the sea, and they are delicious and you can really
Speaker 2: enjoy them braw. You can have them as crudos, so nicely,
Speaker 2: so good. Well, you've hosted a speaking series. I want
Speaker 2: to mention this at Guildhall where you are on the board.
Speaker 2: Do you have any favorite moments of those events? Well
Speaker 2: with you? Oh yes, well that was that was so
Speaker 2: fun and it was still out crowded.
Speaker 1: And we had a really nice sign and you brought
Speaker 1: this amazing corner cope, you have vegetables and flowers from
Speaker 1: your garden. It was But I'll tell you the very
Speaker 1: best was Anthony Bourdain. Oh well, he was always the best.
Speaker 1: He was outrageous, funny, just amazing, and people were hanging
Speaker 1: from the rafters to hear him speak.
Speaker 2: Wow. He was unforgettable. So six of your books were
Speaker 2: designed by your daughter, thirteen books to date. What do
Speaker 2: you like about working with your daughter? We get along.
Speaker 2: We've got a very good relationship. Yeah. And how do
Speaker 2: you stay curious? Because you're very curious. Well, I've always
Speaker 2: been curious. I've always said that if i'm if I'm
Speaker 2: no longer learning something, I'm going to stop. But you
Speaker 2: talked it like this, turnip, I've got background on it,
Speaker 2: or somebody is doing something unusual and I learn about it.
Speaker 2: I'm always learning. I'm always researching. Somehow I'm going to
Speaker 2: be writing about Mark Kolanski's onion book. Oh and I
Speaker 2: was fascinated with a lot of what he had to say,
Speaker 2: I bet I haven't seen it one of the things
Speaker 2: I've said. I was reading it, and coincidentally, it reminded
Speaker 2: me of Thanksgiving because when I was growing up, there
Speaker 2: were always creamed onions on the Thanksgiving menu, and he
Speaker 2: has a whole chapter about cis Wow of all things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I haven't made creamed onions for a very long time.
Speaker 2: He says, they're out of fashion. And what's your advice
Speaker 2: to young food writers or these youngins who want to
Speaker 2: write a cookbook, what's your advice? Do homework?
Speaker 1: Don't just accept what people tell you. Look it up,
Speaker 1: go back and do your homework. It just shocks me
Speaker 1: how accepting people are of certain things that are just
Speaker 1: not true or accurate, and that they don't do diligence
Speaker 1: in terms of getting information. If they're publicists working for
Speaker 1: a client, they accept what the client says whole cloth,
Speaker 1: without ever make asking a question. I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how often I've said to a publicist who
Speaker 1: is pitching a product. Let's say a condiment, and I'll
Speaker 1: say have you tasted it no? Or a gadget have
Speaker 1: you tried it no? Or you could use such and
Speaker 1: such website. Have you gone to the website to see
Speaker 1: if it works?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you do anything without digging. I'm
Speaker 1: maybe a natural journalist because I'm a really died in
Speaker 1: the little skeptic and I got it.
Speaker 2: I got to prove it. I've got to prove it
Speaker 2: to myself. Well, you're you're a great and your columns
Speaker 2: show it. Thank you so much for sitting down with me.
Speaker 2: You can find Florence. Florence's writing in The New York
Speaker 2: Times each week, and you can follow her on x
Speaker 2: at flow fab F L O F A B. Thank you, Martha.
Speaker 2: This is a pleasure.