WEBVTT - Matthew Barzun 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.720 Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:08.320 and Adamized Studios. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.799 Whilst campaigning and then serving as President of the United States, 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:17.000 Barack Obama relied on Matthew Barzen, asking him to run 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.760 the two thousand and twelve campaign, and then appointing him 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.560 Ambassador to Britain during the heady days of the Scottish 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:30.200 independence and Brexit referendums. Matthew, with his wonderful wife Brooke, 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.920 redefined the special relationship by bringing art, music, and most 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:41.160 of all fun to the Ambassador's residence, Wingfield House. Recently, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.159 Matthew has written The Power of Giving Away Power, a 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.200 must read book for a soul. He's in Kentucky right now, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.920 I'm in London. But if there is a special relationship 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.880 between the US and the UK, there is definitely a 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:05.039 special relationship between Matthew Barzin and myself. Matthew, would you 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.000 like to read the recipe that you chose to read? Yes? 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:11.240 I would be honored. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:12.000 Okay. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:17.800 Fried artichokes serves four eight artichokes the small purple Italian 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.759 winter variety are best for this recipe. Two lemons, two 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:26.240 tablespoons plain flour, tepot zero zero is best one liter 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.240 sunflower oil. To prepare the artichokes, cut off the stem, 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.160 then carefully pull away the outer leaves until you get 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.440 to the pale green heart. Cut off the tip, cut 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.200 into quarters, and remove the center choke. Place the pieces 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.319 in water with slices of lemon. Combine the flour with seasoning. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.680 Drain the artichokes and shake dry in a sieve. Toss 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.760 into the flower mixture. Keep the oil to one hundred 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.800 and eighty degrees celsius in a deep pot. Add the 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.680 artichokes and fry until light brown. Drain on kitchen paper, 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:00.680 Season and serve with lemon. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.880 Thank you, Matthew, Why of all the recipes of all 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.160 the books, did you choose deep fried art of chicks. 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:11.600 I'm so thrilled to do because it's one of my 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.600 favorite things to eat. So tell me why it's yours. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.320 Well, I love to eat them, and then I had 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.880 the great honor of being able to prepare them when 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.440 you let me. I mean cook is a strong word. 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.560 You help let me participate in the magic that is 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.280 the River Cafe one Sunday morning, and I was put 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.680 in charge of the fried artichokes, or a piece of 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.920 the fried artichoke process. And you know, it's funny. As 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.240 I read it out loud, it says, you know, carefully 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.519 pull away the outer leaves. That's actually not that hard 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.480 until you get to the pale, green heart, and there's 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.280 something beautiful about that. This was the tricky part. Cut 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.120 off the tip, cut into quarters, and then remove the 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.680 center choke, which sounds straightforward, but if you don't remove 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.600 it enough, you have that nasty stuff in there. And 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.200 then I started getting paranoid, and your nice member of 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.200 your team was gently telling me to remove more of 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.440 the choke. Then I went overboard the other way, and 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:10.320 then there's barely anything left to eat, and so trying 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.960 to find that balance was a challenge, but that's why 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:13.440 I picked it. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.280 And what are your memories of that day? 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.960 Beautiful Sunday morning. I got to put on the cool 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.760 white chef's jacket, so that was cool, and then I 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.000 got on my little station and I had the water 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.640 with lemon, and I was amazed by the calm. And 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.720 it's funny. It reminded me when I first got to 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.080 go to the West Wing. I had seen the West 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.360 Wing on the television show, which I loved, and then 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.160 movies and in the movies they always show it as 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.880 like hustling and bustling and it's kind of loud, and 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.360 it was just really calm. And I felt the same 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.880 way about the River Cafe kitchen on a Sunday morning, 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.440 before any of the guests arrive, it's just wonderfully calm 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:53.119 and joyful. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.920 It's very rare for us to have someone in the 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.560 kitchen because kitchen is a dangerous place and there's a 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.680 lot of sure, however calm it seems. But I think 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.400 you have always been, as I said from our first conversation, 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.200 really interested in food, in cooking and the process of 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.160 cooking food. Yes, let's go back to the early days. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.440 Who cooked in your house when you were growing up? 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.320 What was food like in the bars and house? 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.680 Food? Was it changed? Because my parents got a lot 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.480 of things changed in my life when my parents got divorced. 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.159 I should say at the outset, I have a wonderful 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.680 mother and a wonderful father, even though when I'm about 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:29.960 to say sounds a little strange, which is when I 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.960 was eleven years old, they got divorced, and in the summertime, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:34.960 my favorite thing to do was to go down to 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.599 this little cottage, little series of cottages in Cape Cod, 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:40.640 but it was my father's family's place, and so, for 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.080 understandable reasons, my mother was not keen post divorced to 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.560 go down there. And I said, well, that's too bad 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.440 for you that you got divorced. I'm still going, and 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.680 they somehow listened to my eleven year old self. So 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.480 I spent Monday through Friday all summer when I was 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.360 eleven by myself, and then my father would come down 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.640 on weekends. And so he was a really good cook, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.599 and his mother, who at this point had died, my grandmother, Mariana. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:10.240 She was a really good cook and he sort of 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.200 learned it from her, And so my memories of cooking 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.760 were sort of learning to cook for myself and then 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.240 learning to cook for friends to try to get them 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:21.920 to come over so I'd have someone to hang out 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.520 with during the week. And then the most fun was 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:27.880 on Friday nights, all the grown ups. So my father 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.560 would drive down, my aunt and uncle would drive up 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:32.960 from New York, and all these grown ups would arrive 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.200 and be tired after a long work week, and I 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:36.240 would make them dinner. 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:37.880 What would you make? Do you remember? 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.320 I do? I made gosh, what do we call it? 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:47.120 It was poached chicken breasts in Vermouth with sort of 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.720 prescudo and cheese and sage. It was sort of like 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.800 chicken sealtumboca, but not really that a tow. But yeah, anyway, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.720 and I did it and they were so unbelievably appreciative. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.240 It wasn't very good, but they just thought, I mean, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.320 they didn't have to cook it, so that was a 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.320 big bonus for them and that appreciation. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.440 And what age were you eleven? You were eleven? Yeah, yeah, 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.520 that's very young. And it's also a performance, isn't it 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:16.200 that you had to know it's. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.239 Totally a performance. And I got applause and that felt 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.400 good and encouragement. So that those were some early memories. 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.560 In these conversations, I'm always touched by the presence or 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.960 influence of a grandmother, even sometimes more than the parent 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.240 that the people have memories. Tell me about your grandmother. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.479 She died when I was ten or nine maybe, and 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.720 so I didn't know her when knew were as a 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.920 kid would know a grandmother, and she was quite formal, 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.200 but in the kitchen she was a really good cook 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.719 and chef, and she passed on to my father, and 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.720 then he passed on to me. Now this isn't New England, right, 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.520 So this is not and you remember back then, I 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.640 mean there aren't lots of choices of what you got 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.400 in the grocery store. So she had this curry recipe 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.560 which I loved and I thought it was the only 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.760 kind of curry. Now I've learned more. But I got 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.800 invited when I was ambassador to compete in up in 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:14.600 Bradford in the International Curry Cookoff. It was really fun. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.800 they did something and so as a stunt or whatever, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:18.840 the embassy people like, oh, he likes to cook, he'll 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.200 cook the curry. So I cooked my grandmother's curry recipe, 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.760 which he'd gotten from a British friend, and they brought 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.840 in some amazing chef from India and they were cooking 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.239 proper curry and I was cooking the sort of water 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.840 down curry and embarrassingly it had and there was lots 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:39.160 of Muslim participants and guests and judges, and her recipe 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.520 for curry had three quarters of a cup of vermouth, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.320 which of course would not be appropriate to serve, and 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.400 so without telling me, they substituted in white grape juice 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.120 instead of vermouth, and it was the most disgusting curry. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.560 So I came in last place. Did you come in 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.640 the last place? Yeah? Yeah, I mean just absolute last, 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:01.440 and I deserved that. 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.240 Because it's also interesting that your grandmother in that period 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.440 of time encouraged your father to cook. 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.400 Yes, And back to the divorce, I mean so I 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.440 never associated my father really with cooking until after they 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.320 got divorced. But then he would have us every other weekend, 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.000 and he really made cooking a big deal. We got 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.280 to each rotated. I'm one of four children, and we 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.240 got to pick what he would cook, and we could 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.040 say anything like I want fried Wanton's and he'd say okay, 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.000 and he'd figure out how to cook them, and so 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:43.319 that became a nice ritual. 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.360 It's rather beautiful that he chose that way through food 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.079 to express love and to express I'm giving you attention 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.160 on my weekend as a father, do you think, yeah, exactly. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.520 So you had this childhood of being between and cooking 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.280 for yourself age eleven, performing for other in the kitchen 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.559 for your family, and then what happened when you sort 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.720 of started living on your own as a student. Did 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.560 you carry that with you when you left home. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.480 I really didn't. There was like this whole I was 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.000 gonna say dark period, but that's sort of dramatic in it, 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.240 not with bad connotations, but I mean I don't think 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.800 I through college and then I lived out in San 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.640 Francisco and the sort of dot com internety days, and 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.240 I had a one room apartment that had a little 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.800 kitchen on the side, and I don't think I ever ever, 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.760 I mean toasted a piece of toast or made a 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:34.840 cup of tea. I mean, I just didn't use it. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.200 We all just sort of ate out. Wasn't very healthy. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.839 And so until I met my lovely wife, Brooke, who 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.640 by the way, sends her love to you, Ruthie. And 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.920 then we moved in together and she had a tiny kitchen. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.280 I mean you could fit you know, one person in 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.520 it maybe, And we started going to the farmer's market. 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.400 And then I started cooking again, and I started back 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.720 after ten years of not cooking or eight or whatever, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.080 with scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, ushrooms and time nice and 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.520 scrambled eggs. I think is a great demonstration because I've 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.960 tried to teach my kids all are interested in cooking. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.280 And so it's been fun kind of trying to pass 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:11.600 that along. And the point and you've made it to 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.640 me and other who are amazing chefs that you could 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.480 just tell you can certainly taste, but even before you taste, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.079 you can just look at a plate and tell if 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.480 something was cooked with love or not. And there's something 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.040 about scrambled eggs. Just do the love test on three 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:26.880 different plates of scrambled eggs. You can tell. 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.800 You can tell it's an ingredient, isn't it? It is? 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:30.400 It is? 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.440 Oh, I love that it's an ingredient. 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:37.160 Oh that's good. We're living and you were living in 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:41.320 San Francisco and eating out a lot. So what was 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.839 it like eating out? Did you explore coming from New 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.080 England and the family and the kind of things you 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.160 had there? Was it? What was it like eating out 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:52.680 in restaurants for you? 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.240 Restaurants? You know? Growing up? I mean it was it 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.200 was a huge deal to go to one. I mean 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.360 there wasn't one in our town, but there was one 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.880 in the next town, and so we really looked forward 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:03.920 to it. And so to have a city with so 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.760 many right nearby and making money so you could go 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.000 to them. It didn't have to ask for permission. That 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.880 was really fun. And back then there was a famous 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.080 Visa commercial that just ran during every football game that 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.040 showed the Fog City Diner. I don't know if you 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.320 remember that anyway, So it turns out where I worked 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.880 at CNET was four hundred yards from the Fog City Diner. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:24.800 I was like, I can't believe it really exists, and 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.440 I got to go in and so I love that. 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.840 And then a really famous place called, oh gosh, now 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.400 I'm forgetting the name, Buena Vista, which was like a 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.480 famous Irish coffee place that was right near where we lived. 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.079 So that was good memories of San Francisco. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.640 And I think restaurants it's quite telling the way someone 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.640 actually is in a restaurant kind of. I think that's 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.560 why people like going on first dates sometimes in a restaurant, 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.520 because it does tell you something about the person, do 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:51.440 you think, Well. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.440 It does, and I'm reminded that the first So I 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.360 got set up with my now wife Brooke on a 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.319 blind date and I got good points. I picked a 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.280 hipster call val twenty one in San Francisco, which was 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.760 in the mission Valencia and twenty first, which is where 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.359 it got its name, and it wasn't sort of the predictable, 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.679 preppy kind of place that she thought I might take her. 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.440 So I get some early points. But then Ruthie I 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.440 did something terrible. The server comes around and says, you know, 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.320 here's the wine list. Would you like a bottle of wine? 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.880 And this is a blind ad first aid, and I 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.560 don't know why I did it, but I said, no, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.200 that's okay, Brook, if you want wine, you can have 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.480 a glass of wine. I'm going to have a bud light. 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.440 And she went back and she told her father, who asked, like, 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.439 how is the date, and she said, oh, he's a 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.760 nice guy or whatever. But he didn't split a bottle 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:42.400 of wine. He ordered a bud light and I had 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.160 a glass of whatever she had and he's like, oh, dear, okay, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:46.720 well there are many fish in the sea. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:47.160 Move on. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.800 So it almost ruined it. It almost ruined. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:56.000 Reverse exactly, Yes, the reverse. Yeah, people, that's so funny. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.440 But there you are. How many years later that was 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.960 h twenty five? Yeah, and what about when you just 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.360 mentioned before about the White House and the West Wing, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.120 And I remember in the series the West Wing, there 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.920 was always a scene in the canteen downstairs, wasn't there 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.960 Toopy and the Josh and they were all meeting over 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.800 the food and the canteen. What was food like in 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:21.080 the White House? Yeah? 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.760 Well I never worked there, so I got some friends 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.440 of mine. Would you have the White House mess which 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.640 is really cool and sort of neat and because of 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.360 the show, it's great. And then there's the place sort 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.400 of under the Eisenhower Executive Office building, which is just 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.360 deeply unremarkable and just sort of like a cafeteria like 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.560 anywhere else. But it is fun and all you know, 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:45.800 you want to save the little napkin with the White 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.440 House logo and the little Aminam. You're just sort of 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.080 like you become a little bit like a child in 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:52.560 a good way. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.800 I hope when you went to Sweden was that food? 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:57.600 What was the food? 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.320 Gosh? Did I love the food like herring? I mean, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.240 if you had asked me if I liked herring going 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.040 into it, I would have said no. And now I 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.400 adore it. The mustard herring and the sort of just 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.880 regular pickled herring and the sour cream and chives. I 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.880 think it is so I love and herring for breakfast. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:17.040 Weirdly, you know, that's there. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.960 And then Swedish meatballs were fun to try to learn 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.720 how to cook, and then they're famous. You know how 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.720 some countries have the famously sort of disgusting to most 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.240 people food. And our wonderful driver named Bjorn, who is 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.880 just an amazing, amazing driver. He's an amazing historian and 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.480 loves the culture. And he's from a part of Sweden 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:40.840 called Sunsvaal, where my mother had spent her summer abroad 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.240 when she was sixteen, and so I grew up hearing 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.720 this story and I heard it sort of misheard it. 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.000 So I heard that in Sweden and Sunsvaale they take 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.880 fish and they bury it for one hundred years and 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.000 then they unearthed it and they eat it. Now that 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.320 is not true, but the kernel of truth was sir strumming, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.240 which means sort of sour herring, and it comes from 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.280 the herring at the bottom of the barrel and it 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.400 is a delicacy. And so we had Bjorn serve it 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.280 to the children and to me and to Brook and 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.000 it is like if you open it, like there are 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.280 rules against opening a can of this stuff in an 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:18.360 apartment building because people will just wretch. Yeah, there is 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.240 there's a lot of death in that can, and it's 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.880 pretty grim. I haven't learned to like it, but the 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.760 kids were troopers. They all ate it, and I did too, 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:28.640 And so I said to Burn on the way back, 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.520 to close off these serres drumming story, I said, I said, well, 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:34.680 it's rotten fish, and he very sweet. He's just like, 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:39.240 it is not rotten. It is controlled spoilage, controlled spoilage. 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.080 And I thought that was such a nice distinction. And 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:47.160 then his comparison was, you know, gorgonzola or French blue 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.960 cheese or whatever that you don't call that rotten cheese, 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.000 although you could call it that, but that's a different 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.240 framing of the same product. 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:11.040 I like that contained controlled spoilage and spoilage. After Sweden, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:16.600 you went and you campaigned for President Obama, and presumably 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.120 you traveled all over the United States, and what would 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:21.600 you eat on the campaign trail? 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.480 I gained so much weight roofye on that campaign, and 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.640 at the end of the campaign, thank goodness, we won. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.160 But it was a lot different from you were on 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.800 that campaign too, that first campaign in two thousand and eight. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.160 Anyone involved, wherever they were London, back home in America, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.600 they would also have described it as like this amazing 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.880 sort of wave that we were all surfing and it 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.440 just felt magic twenty twelve, and I'm so proud of 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.440 the work we did. It was not a wave to 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.280 be surfed. It was really kind of like a slog 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.080 and so that kind of stress for me. Anyway, we 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.000 would go to this place called Wildberry at the base 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.760 of Chicago headquarters with my friend Rufe and Sam and 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.040 Kevin and a lot of people, you know, and we 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.400 would just eat there and we would eat really unhealthily. 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.000 And so at the end when we won, their sort 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.000 of thank you gift to me was a framed and 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.000 signed menu from Wildberry because we had just overeaten there 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.720 for you know, throughout the campaign. And so then my 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.280 lovely daughter Eleanor at the time, said right after that, 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.960 she said, Daddy, you have a really cozy tummy, and 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.159 she sort of pushes at my belly and I was like, 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.120 oh gross. It was like a lovely way of I mean, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.480 you could frame it differently and it was kind of 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:40.639 like controlled spoilage of weight gain and cozy tummy. And 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.800 then I thought, okay, I need to really lose weight, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.639 so I did, which I had never really done a 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.360 diet or anything like that before, but then I did 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:49.000 and that worked. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:53.320 So and so from Sweden to the wild Berry, back to. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.560 London and then to London and then the food was 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.000 great again thanks to you, and the food was. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.120 Great at Winfield House. Did you did you influence them? 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.119 Did you talk about the kind of food as an 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.520 American ambassador that you wanted to serve at Windfield House? 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.879 Well, I remember I had a phone call with my 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.040 predecessor because there are certain questions you sort of can't 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.280 ask the State Department, or you don't feel comfortable, sort 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.560 of petty householdie things you didn't want to really bother 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:21.760 them with. And I said, well, look, if it's a 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.640 Saturday morning and I just want to wake up early 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.240 and make the kids pancakes, and you know, do I 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.439 do that in the upstairs little kitchen? Ad do I 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.320 do it in the big kitchen downstairs? That kind of thing? 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.960 And he laughed and he's like, you are never going 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.280 to set foot in that kitchen. And I knew that 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.159 he was, you know, he wasn't into cooking. And I 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:40.880 was like, no, no, no, you don't understand, Like I'm into 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.400 that thing. I certainly will, but he was more right 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.880 than wrong in the sense that there was a wonderful 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.240 team there who did it. I mean I did go in. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.879 I never really cooked there, you know. I would say, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.879 can we try this? And they were amazing, but I 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.760 didn't really do And I really miss cooking because that 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:00.920 was to the earlier point about my father. I mean, 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:02.879 it was a way I tried to show love to 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:04.800 my kids and I was gone a lot, you know, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.919 out every night, and was sensitive and they picked up 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.919 on that because they're smart and perceptive, and so I thought, oh, well, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.600 at least I can cook and try to show, you know, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:15.520 if I'm missing their games or whatever, at least I 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.720 can cook. But I kind of couldn't, so that was 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:18.160 too bad. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.760 But I remember the food was very good there. You're 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.560 going to the residence with you and Brooke was always 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.000 it was warm, and it was it was also there 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.199 was a formality, which we wanted. We wanted that formality. 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.240 I always felt that I liked that expectation of going 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.000 to the residents of the American Ambassador. But we had fun, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.840 you know, and you made being an ambassador of fun 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.480 and you made us feel welcome. And I can remember 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.640 the meals, and I can remember you taking me into 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.399 the kitchen to meet the cooks. And you know, my 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:53.120 grandchildren can remember the chocolate fountain. You know, Oh my god, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.640 I did have a You did bring something very very 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:58.640 important to the food when filled out. 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.560 Well, that team was amazing and I'm glad that worked. 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.760 I mean, I remember, you know how everyone loves like 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.280 sea salt chocolate, and there's just that sort of salty 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.159 sweet magic or popcorn with you know, milk doudgs in 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.320 it or whatever. And so I felt that the formality 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.679 of the place was so obviously formal and kind of 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.440 intimidating to people, and so we would have fun doing 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.160 the sort of fancy silver trays, except with paps blue 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.760 ribbon cans on them, you know. So it's just sort 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.560