Speaker 1: John Gray and I met last May when You're on Appeal,
Speaker 1: the global director of Arts for Chanel invited me to
Speaker 1: be his guest on their Connects podcast. John and I
Speaker 1: got together and we spoke about family, our cookbooks, ghetto gastro,
Speaker 1: collaborating with creative partners, food activism, and a lot more. Today, though,
Speaker 1: the tables are turned and Sean is my guest on
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four. He's just had a lunch at the
Speaker 1: River Cafe and now with Sean Owen, we're ready to
Speaker 1: pick up where we left off. So here you are.
Speaker 1: When did you get here? Did you just fly in from.
Speaker 2: On fresh off the plane dropping the flame? Fresh from
Speaker 2: New York? Your birth state?
Speaker 1: I know it is one hundred miles north. We still
Speaker 1: claim you, you can claim you. That's a good state.
Speaker 1: And what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: I'm here for freezing the one five four Art Fair
Speaker 2: and to see you. I don't want to wait till
Speaker 2: you got to New York. I wanted to come do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to do it here? Well, why don't we start?
Speaker 1: As we're talking that food? Your recipe? So we asked
Speaker 1: you to choose the recipe from one of our twelve cookbooks.
Speaker 1: And you chose I.
Speaker 2: Got the linguini with crab. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: pronounce it with the Italian pronunciation linguini al grancio. Is
Speaker 2: that right? You said you like linguini agraaccio. Linguini with
Speaker 2: crab serves ten Two large male crabs about two to
Speaker 2: three kilograms, cooked and picked. Three fresh red chilies, finely chopped,
Speaker 2: Three handfuls flat leaf parsley finely chopped. Make sure that
Speaker 2: knife is sharp, juice of four lemons, three garlic clothes
Speaker 2: ground to a paste, five hundred grams of linguini that
Speaker 2: evo aka extra version olive oil. Put the white and
Speaker 2: brown crab meat in a large bowl. Lookas everybody's coming together.
Speaker 2: White and brown. Add the chili and most of the
Speaker 2: chopped parsley, the lemon, juice and crust garlic, stirring the
Speaker 2: olive oil. This sauce should be quite liquid. Cook them
Speaker 2: linguini and a generous amount of boiling salts of water.
Speaker 2: Then drain and stir into the crab sauce. Serve with
Speaker 2: the remaining finely choked parsley.
Speaker 1: Okay, so why did you choose this recipe?
Speaker 2: Well, crab is a very meaningful ingredient for me, And
Speaker 2: then when I think about ghetto gastro our signature dish
Speaker 2: involves crab. It's the triple c's corn bread, crab and
Speaker 2: caviare and for me, like growing up in communities that
Speaker 2: are historically underestimated, they tell you things like, oh, the
Speaker 2: people in your community are crabs in a barrel. They
Speaker 2: don't want anybody to succeed or thrive. But you know,
Speaker 2: crabs don't belong in a barrel. So when you think
Speaker 2: about different types of environments that humans should exist in,
Speaker 2: it should not be in environments with scarcity and lack.
Speaker 2: It should be abundance. You know. I think it's enough
Speaker 2: on this plane of for us all to thrive and
Speaker 2: not just have to.
Speaker 1: Survive and tell us a corn bread yeah, cornbread.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this dish like it started with the name
Speaker 2: I want to say, like I feel like in twenty
Speaker 2: and thirteen, we just I was listening to this group
Speaker 2: called Triple Seeds, the Carol City Cartel, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we should do a dish name Triple Seeds, And I
Speaker 2: just started thinking of things that would work with the
Speaker 2: letter C. So corn bread we use as a base
Speaker 2: and the dishes had iterations like we've done corn bread
Speaker 2: with crim fresh and cucumber, but none of these things
Speaker 2: were just they didn't work like properly. But then we
Speaker 2: were like, oh, let's just make it. Let's make it opulent,
Speaker 2: and then we built the storytelling into it once once
Speaker 2: we found that. So when you think about corn bread,
Speaker 2: that's a collaboration between enslaved Africans and indigenous Native Americans, right,
Speaker 2: because that's an American ingredient corn. Then you think about
Speaker 2: the crab again with the crabs and a barrel, so
Speaker 2: like having that layered storytelling in the dish. And then
Speaker 2: caviat you know, which often people reference as the pinnacle opulence.
Speaker 2: Like you think caviar, you think truffles. Right, when you
Speaker 2: think something that is expensive, like when you're on a
Speaker 2: date and they're like do you want that supplemental caviar
Speaker 2: or truffle, you look at across the table like take
Speaker 2: it easy. But yeah, So it's something that is not
Speaker 2: necessarily European. It's really like Middle Eastern, you know, when
Speaker 2: you think about coming from the castm and see Persia.
Speaker 2: Russia also connects to that, so and it's black. So
Speaker 2: you wanted to put the black at the top of
Speaker 2: the dish, you know, so to think about how these
Speaker 2: things could stack up to have a narrative.
Speaker 1: So tell us about Ghetto Gastro.
Speaker 2: Well, Ghetto Gastro. It's a collection of individuals from the Bronx.
Speaker 2: We use food as a vehicle to tell stories. So
Speaker 2: it's me, my partner Lester, my other partner, Pierre, and
Speaker 2: we started just doing a lot of like creating experiences
Speaker 2: like around the world. Really started doing house parties at
Speaker 2: my house now. I remember my first time having caviar
Speaker 2: was caviar that Lester took from his job at Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden that they had like extra because he was
Speaker 2: the soux chefs at the Delta Suites, so they were
Speaker 2: all these crazy ingredients like far grive and often they
Speaker 2: didn't use them all, so he had a lot of caviar.
Speaker 2: I remember he took some file he made a beautiful
Speaker 2: torch show. I used my food stamps and go to
Speaker 2: Whole Foods to go to the farmers park a gets
Speaker 2: some produce and we would host these dinner parties for
Speaker 2: friends at my tiny West Village apartment. And this is
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve, and then from there we just started
Speaker 2: doing projects with different collaborators like brands or art institutions,
Speaker 2: and they wanted the essence, and it's really about highlighting
Speaker 2: the reference material where we come from the Bronx, you know,
Speaker 2: looking at hip hop as an exercise and postmodernism like
Speaker 2: a symblige, like taking things that people don't imagine go
Speaker 2: together and creating a new vernaculus.
Speaker 1: When you describe yourself, are you a chef? Are you
Speaker 1: a cook?
Speaker 2: I've typically called myself the dishwasher with thin ghetto gas
Speaker 2: show because my partners are like farm trained, restaurant trained chefs,
Speaker 2: whereas me, I'm good with the menu in my hand.
Speaker 2: I handle the business in the creative direction. I would
Speaker 2: like to think my palette is incredible just because I've
Speaker 2: tasted so many things and I have a deep love
Speaker 2: and knowledge and respect for the people that use their hands.
Speaker 2: I don't have the skill to make it all work
Speaker 2: on the plate, but the concepts are there, so it's
Speaker 2: a great collaboration.
Speaker 1: Do you talk a lot about collective and I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could tell us what collective is. What
Speaker 1: is the meaning of a collective?
Speaker 2: I think convening and being a part of a collective
Speaker 2: in community is essential to me because I never really
Speaker 2: took the time to become really good at anything but
Speaker 2: assembling people. So I kind of need other people to
Speaker 2: help make things that I want to exist in the world.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of been a means of survival for me,
Speaker 2: like a necessity like and it started I think early
Speaker 2: when I was really young and most of my friends
Speaker 2: were a lot older than me. So when they drew
Speaker 2: they drew way better, and I was like, I'll never
Speaker 2: get this good. But I have a lot of ideas.
Speaker 2: So can I use them as a vessel to help
Speaker 2: create the ideas that are in my brain and look
Speaker 2: the way I want them to look because my hand
Speaker 2: wasn't able to create what I was thinking?
Speaker 1: And is it for profit? Is it it's a business?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And then what about your work in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: The community efforts that we do. I feel like, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, growing up how we grew up and where
Speaker 2: we grew up and still having family members and relatives
Speaker 2: and dear friends that might be living below the poverty
Speaker 2: line or not have certain access. It's not like we
Speaker 2: just escape the reality, you know. So it's unfortunate, but
Speaker 2: it's also I do love the grounds and effect that
Speaker 2: I still live in the community that I grew up in,
Speaker 2: you know. So you're dealing with issues of broken homes, incarceration,
Speaker 2: all of these things that come with generations of systemic oppression.
Speaker 2: But for us, we focus on food. Food is our tool, right,
Speaker 2: So we work with organizations I like to say, we
Speaker 2: try to empower and provide resources to people that are
Speaker 2: actually doing the work. Like we have a platform and
Speaker 2: we talk about it, but we work with the Southretta
Speaker 2: family their own Lamorada, which is a hawking restaurant in
Speaker 2: the South Bronx, but they're undocumented. When the pandemic hit,
Speaker 2: they just started using the food that they had in
Speaker 2: their pantry and cooking for families and just not charging them.
Speaker 2: So we saw that work happen and we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we need to support this, and then we partnered with
Speaker 2: Rethink Foods, got some money from some brands, use some
Speaker 2: of our own dollars, and just like started feeding people
Speaker 2: and also people that were forgotten about, like people that
Speaker 2: were formerly incarcerated elders that couldn't like walk down from
Speaker 2: Nisha to go get to the soup kitchen, like, so
Speaker 2: delivering it to their door at the height of the
Speaker 2: Pandemics and they also have a community garden. So we've
Speaker 2: been doing a lot of work with them in The
Speaker 2: Bronx and then some our organization, some stuff with Lauren
Speaker 2: Halseley South Central la some organizations we work with in
Speaker 2: New Orleans, and we try to spread it out.
Speaker 1: South Bunks is one of the poorest series in the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it's still accurate, but it
Speaker 2: definitely had the poorest congressional district in the country, which
Speaker 2: always shocked me because we.
Speaker 1: Think that's amazing that in New York. You think poverty
Speaker 1: would be in Appalachia in the South.
Speaker 2: Or Mississippi or something. My ignorance, I was like, all right,
Speaker 2: that has to be somewhere different. But now it's like
Speaker 2: in New York City, what do they say, eighty blocks
Speaker 2: from Tiffany's Like there was a movie that came out
Speaker 2: about how different things are eighty blocks from you know,
Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue or whatever.
Speaker 1: Access to food is very evident in poorer areas of
Speaker 1: the United States. We're in any country that I remember
Speaker 1: reading about the South Bronx, but you know, if you
Speaker 1: look at the kind of access we have to food,
Speaker 1: in other areas that the access of fresh vegetables in
Speaker 1: the South Bronx was limited.
Speaker 2: It's so ironic. This is very true the Bronx in general,
Speaker 2: not just the South Park, but when you talk about
Speaker 2: food insecurity or when you talk about poverty, the Bronx
Speaker 2: is highlighted. And the thing that's so ironic about the
Speaker 2: Bronx is that the largest food distribution center in the
Speaker 2: world of its kinds in the South Bronx. So much
Speaker 2: of the food that's in the Bronx leaves, but it
Speaker 2: not just leaves, right. The people in these communities are
Speaker 2: dealing with the effects of the diesel fuel emissions, right,
Speaker 2: So when you look at asthma rates in these neighborhood
Speaker 2: when you look at obesity or different like hypertension, high
Speaker 2: blood pressure, all the results that come from lack of
Speaker 2: a healthy diet, the lack of access and how inconvenient
Speaker 2: it is to find a spot to get fresh food,
Speaker 2: like Hunts point with the food distribution centers actually one
Speaker 2: of the most food and secure spots probably in the
Speaker 2: city because it's so industrial and it's like broken up.
Speaker 2: But I also think there's a lack of We also
Speaker 2: have to talk about desire right, And I think culturally
Speaker 2: so many of our foods, Like when people think about
Speaker 2: Black American food, they think about often what they call
Speaker 2: soul food, and I think all food is soulful. But
Speaker 2: when we look at the diets that our ancestors had,
Speaker 2: they were like more and more balanced. I think for us,
Speaker 2: it's also about creating desires. And I think you create
Speaker 2: the desire through the storytelling and also making it compelling
Speaker 2: and culturally relevant. For like vegetables to taste delicious in
Speaker 2: a certain way.
Speaker 1: We worked Sean and I for a couple of these.
Speaker 1: We went to Edible school Yard. Do you remember that
Speaker 1: experience of trying to teach children about vegetables, about food
Speaker 1: through having gardens in the school that could be on
Speaker 1: the roof, it could be in the car park, but
Speaker 1: to grow, which she calls the edible school yard.
Speaker 3: Do you remember in Shepherd's Bush where I live, I
Speaker 3: cook with school there. I like to bring the kids
Speaker 3: to the River Cafe, so it's always a Monday in July.
Speaker 3: Usually the culmination of the working with them is that
Speaker 3: they cook a meal for their parents, the teachers at
Speaker 3: the local community and everyone layser table and they serve
Speaker 3: everyone and cook. But I show them around the first
Speaker 3: of all, I like hook them in by showing them
Speaker 3: the toilets at the River Cafe because I don't know
Speaker 3: if you went, but they're very bright and.
Speaker 1: They're like, wow, look at these toilets. You know.
Speaker 3: I'm like, they were all like oh, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: guess who instagram the picture of themselves?
Speaker 1: They love it.
Speaker 3: And then we show them around and there's kids from
Speaker 3: diverse area. It's interesting to see the difference of what
Speaker 3: they know. Often some of the North African kids know
Speaker 3: a lot about hubs and broad beans and things that
Speaker 3: other kids are just like eating fish fingers every night.
Speaker 3: They ever even see the broad bean. It's nice to
Speaker 3: see that played out with the young ones.
Speaker 2: I think edible schoolyard is important because when you're able
Speaker 2: to connect where the food comes from and you have
Speaker 2: an emotional connection, like if you plant it the seed
Speaker 2: tended to a garden that carrot, just like when you
Speaker 2: walk into a restaurant where the hospitality is great, everything's
Speaker 2: going to taste better. So it's like, how do we
Speaker 2: make it so that knowledge doesn't get left behind in
Speaker 2: the school where it could also come into the homes
Speaker 2: and be reinforced. And some of the reasons why it's
Speaker 2: a lack of access and food in America, it's because
Speaker 2: the government subsidizes cash crops, right, so farmers are less
Speaker 2: inclined to grow fresh vegetables because of shelf life, and
Speaker 2: more inclined to grow corn soy. We eat a lot
Speaker 2: of these monsanto crops. It ends up destroying the nitrogen
Speaker 2: the soil because people aren't rotating regularly, so the agriculture
Speaker 2: isn't regenerative. And also it drops the cost up of
Speaker 2: fresh vegetables. So and when you're looking at calorie to
Speaker 2: calorie and when people are making economic decisions, it's often
Speaker 2: not going to be the freshest best option for your health.
Speaker 1: But it is also to do with all of what
Speaker 1: society values, you know, how we feed our children in school,
Speaker 1: how we seek people in hospitals. Really what we value
Speaker 1: as a society in terms of feeding and educating people.
Speaker 1: That's a basic we got to put a profit. It's
Speaker 1: a human right to eat well and to feed up people.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe is excited to announce the return of
Speaker 1: our Italian Christmas gift boxes, our alternative to the traditional Hamper.
Speaker 1: They bring you all of our favorite ingredients and food
Speaker 1: and home wors from the River Cafe kitchen, the vineyards
Speaker 1: and the designers from all over Italy. They're available to
Speaker 1: pre order now on shop the River Cafe dot co
Speaker 1: dot uk. So you grew up in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2: I grew up between East Harlem, the South Bronx and
Speaker 2: the North Bronx. I spent the majority of my time
Speaker 2: in the North Bronx.
Speaker 1: And North Bronx is on the way to Connecticut, right, it's.
Speaker 2: On the way to Connecticut Westchester upstate. It's like right
Speaker 2: on the border of Westchester County.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and tell me about growing up. What was your
Speaker 1: home like?
Speaker 2: So my childhood was interesting because my mother single parent.
Speaker 2: We lived on the floor in co Op City, which
Speaker 2: is a Mitchell Lama kind of rent control, lower middle
Speaker 2: class like housing. They created opportunities for people to get
Speaker 2: homes and like have fixed rent and be in a
Speaker 2: beautiful community. My grandmother lived on the same floor as me,
Speaker 2: so it was like a real in My my grandmother
Speaker 2: and my aunt my other car. So it was like
Speaker 2: a firm matriarchal situation. It was that was the only
Speaker 2: male in my family. It was my great grandfather who
Speaker 2: had three daughters, my grandmother being one of them. All
Speaker 2: of those daughters except my aunt Sheila, she didn't have children.
Speaker 2: They both had two daughters, and then my mother had me.
Speaker 2: So it was like all of these women and then me.
Speaker 2: So even at a young age, I felt like I
Speaker 2: had to take care of things, like I had a
Speaker 2: burden that I just self imposed. Nobody like put pressure
Speaker 2: on me. Everybody was doing fine, but I felt like
Speaker 2: I needed to take care of these women that took
Speaker 2: care of me. And they're all educator. So I grew
Speaker 2: up like with knowledge being important. I always struggled with
Speaker 2: my behavior though allegedly.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that you had to take care of
Speaker 1: them food wise as well? Did your mom cook?
Speaker 2: My grandmother's not going to listen to this. My grandmother
Speaker 2: wasn't the best cook, which is probably why my mother
Speaker 2: went hard to become a great cook. And my mother's
Speaker 2: also just a different type of person where it's like
Speaker 2: she gets interested in something and she studies. So my
Speaker 2: mother has two culinary degrees, one from the Natural Gramet
Speaker 2: School of Cooking in New York, and she went to
Speaker 2: a special pastry school in Chicago. Whereas me, when I'm
Speaker 2: interested in something, I started business and learned about it
Speaker 2: just from doing the things. But I was able to
Speaker 2: benefit from my mother taking these courses and learning how
Speaker 2: to do the thing, and so yeah, she's a really
Speaker 2: good cook. But my mother often worked during the day
Speaker 2: at a hair salon. She used to wash Lenny Kravitz
Speaker 2: and Michael Jackson's hair at this I want to say
Speaker 2: it was John ash Atkinson is a hair salon. She
Speaker 2: worked on the Fifth Avenue. That job exposed to a
Speaker 2: different type of eating, so she was going to like
Speaker 2: the French bakery for lunch, or like the Italian spot
Speaker 2: or the Indian curry spot. So naturally I kind of
Speaker 2: inherited that curiosity about food. So she often didn't have
Speaker 2: time to cook because she after work, she would go
Speaker 2: work on her college degree, and then at night it
Speaker 2: was just us. She picked me up from my grandmother's
Speaker 2: a babysitter or whatever, and then we'd go out for dinner.
Speaker 2: That was like our bonding time. And at this moment,
Speaker 2: I was living in the East Harlem, like one hundred
Speaker 2: Street between First and Second and Metro in the projects
Speaker 2: called Metro North. So we go to the upper east
Speaker 2: side off then, and I remember this restaurant called First Walk.
Speaker 2: It was a Cantonese restaurant, and we would then just
Speaker 2: sit there eat, and I remember it was this older woman,
Speaker 2: an older Jewish lady. She was a regular too, so
Speaker 2: we would we would eat there and see each other
Speaker 2: whole time. And I asked her. I was a social kid.
Speaker 2: I asked her about you know what she ordered. She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I always get the lemon chicken. And in that night,
Speaker 2: I ordered the lemon chicken. And I was like, this
Speaker 2: is not good. And I told her what she should
Speaker 2: order and why she should order that, and I want
Speaker 2: to say it was probably the orange chicken or the
Speaker 2: sessame chicken. And I was like, it has a sweetness,
Speaker 2: it comes with the broccoli, fried garlic. And this is
Speaker 2: how I was thinking about ingredients and the assemblage of
Speaker 2: things coming together to make a dish. And I remember
Speaker 2: she tasted it the next time we were there, and
Speaker 2: she was like, you know what I ordered, what you
Speaker 2: said I should order. You're such a remarkable boy. And
Speaker 2: I remember the confidence I felt, because you know, your
Speaker 2: parents and your family members tell you you're excellent, You're great.
Speaker 2: You could be anything you want. But getting that external
Speaker 2: validation gave me such a boosting confidence, and I think
Speaker 2: subconsciously I just associated food with that feeling for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life. It took me as an ad
Speaker 2: to like search, spind the block and come back around
Speaker 2: to knowing that food is where I find joy and
Speaker 2: the communion with people and all of the things that
Speaker 2: food brings. The window in the culture. Even growing up
Speaker 2: in the hood in the Bronx, you go to the
Speaker 2: Chinese spot and you understand, like, oh, people eat with
Speaker 2: things other than folks and knives. There are chop six
Speaker 2: let's learn more about this. And I'm just a super
Speaker 2: curious person and I love history and people's stories and
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: So interesting. I think also it's the sort of thing
Speaker 3: that even the young guys who work with the there's
Speaker 3: people of all ages here. And I always say to
Speaker 3: the chefs, there's no shame in wanting to have a
Speaker 3: night off work, because you've always feel like if you're
Speaker 3: a chef, you have to work really long hours. There's
Speaker 3: no shame in going out and saying I want to
Speaker 3: read about food. If I want to go and cook
Speaker 3: and cook with friends or go out as any as groups,
Speaker 3: and they don't eat in places I imagine that Ruthie frequents,
Speaker 3: but they're together and talking, and you know, more than
Speaker 3: ever you see people trying to put their phones away,
Speaker 3: so they actually communicate over a meal of whatever it is,
Speaker 3: and they have a constant dialogue about food. It's really important.
Speaker 3: We were really bad people to go out for dinner with, though,
Speaker 3: because if I go out with my partner, I try
Speaker 3: not to talk too much about the food because it's
Speaker 3: probably boring for a not and I'm just like trying
Speaker 3: to keep that to myself, so I'm not like this
Speaker 3: is like too much soul or that this isn't placed
Speaker 3: how I want it. And every day is that conversation
Speaker 3: with yourself about what you're eating and where you're eating,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 2: You gotta just pick better friends that want to talk
Speaker 2: about her food. Like my friend Dream is sitting here
Speaker 2: now and she has a concept called I don't know
Speaker 2: if she trademarked this for food Tap, So it's like
Speaker 2: it's like knowing people that you'll kind of submit to
Speaker 2: with their restaurant recommendation. Right. So she's probably the boss
Speaker 2: of most of her people in terms of picking the
Speaker 2: spot where we're eating. I'm probably gonna pick what we're ordering,
Speaker 2: she says. I'm her food tap, where she'll trust me
Speaker 2: to make the right judgment on a restaurant or some
Speaker 2: place to go. And then I have one person, my
Speaker 2: friend Giorgio from Italy, who I don't want to use
Speaker 2: my brain. If I'm in Italy with him, I'm like, yo, Georgia,
Speaker 2: whatever you take us, I know it's good. Do the
Speaker 2: thing I don't. I don't want to to think about it.
Speaker 2: So it's like being able to bond and like I've
Speaker 2: built community. Food is usually the connective tissue, Like if
Speaker 2: we love food, we're going to like have deeper conversation,
Speaker 2: We're gonna break bed, we're going to do things and vibe.
Speaker 2: And I think also people that care about what they
Speaker 2: put into their body and like the ritual of that
Speaker 2: and how important that is really have a different value
Speaker 2: for life. Like now, people that just have a bunch
Speaker 2: of money and want to go to all the fancy
Speaker 2: spots and it's just like another thing to do just
Speaker 2: to check off Michelin start restaurants. But people that like
Speaker 2: it could just be getting a bagel or a cinnamon
Speaker 2: roll from a bakery or like knowing to write bodega
Speaker 2: in New York to get the chop cheese from. But
Speaker 2: like people that consider that part of their day, I
Speaker 2: think are like really great people to be around.
Speaker 1: Favor feeling the restaurants and people like or where they'd
Speaker 1: like to go or what they choose to eat in
Speaker 1: a restaurant. I think it tells you a lot about
Speaker 1: a person. And that's why sometimes when you do have
Speaker 1: to recommend someplace that you would like, you really are thinking, well,
Speaker 1: that is telling a story about me. This is true.
Speaker 2: We might have to get some like restaurant therapists. That
Speaker 2: might be a whole nother lane of practice.
Speaker 3: What do you think about, say, if you eat out
Speaker 3: and you're with friends and you're trying to break down
Speaker 3: what that is and what's good about it? Is it
Speaker 3: the combination of the food that's on the plate, or
Speaker 3: is it a combination of the people or the room
Speaker 3: or the lighting or where you are in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, because often I think amazing meals are more
Speaker 3: than just food, aren't they. They're about an atmosphere where
Speaker 3: people feel like they're welcome. They're sitting on a comfortable
Speaker 3: chair or but trying to create that setting is also
Speaker 3: part of what makes that experience so good, isn't it.
Speaker 2: I think the hospitality starts before you walk on the door,
Speaker 2: like from how do you book the restaurant? Like what's
Speaker 2: the story of how you got there? Were you not
Speaker 2: able to get a booking? And you just walked up
Speaker 2: and they took care of you. I have some crazy
Speaker 2: stories that are just we never thought we were going
Speaker 2: to be able to get a table. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if it made the food taste better, but it
Speaker 2: does elevate the experience. So I think all of those
Speaker 2: things come into place. Flavor is of the utmost importance
Speaker 2: as well, and different people have different priorities. Like Ruthie say,
Speaker 2: you can tell a lot because some people are strictly
Speaker 2: ambianced and they'd be like, oh, the food is greater
Speaker 2: than the place. And then you go and you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't know about the food. It's a lot of
Speaker 2: pretty people in the room, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: the food is really hidden.
Speaker 1: But then you can have really good food and have
Speaker 1: an arrogant waiter. You know, that makes you feel small, insignificant.
Speaker 1: I always say to the person who answers the phone,
Speaker 1: to take the booking. This is your first introduction to
Speaker 1: the person who's going to come here. How you answer
Speaker 1: the phone, how welcoming you sound, how you feel it's
Speaker 1: the most important job, is that receptionist answering your phone
Speaker 1: to take a booking? You know, I think it tells
Speaker 1: you a lot until from that moment when they book
Speaker 1: the table too, not when they've left the table, not
Speaker 1: when they've paid the bill, not when they've kind of
Speaker 1: walked down and say goodbye. It's one they're in their
Speaker 1: car and the door is closed, then they're not yours anymore.
Speaker 1: But up until that moment, they're kind of yours.
Speaker 2: I think the first impression is essential, like you said,
Speaker 2: like that first barrier, like when you cross the threshold
Speaker 2: into the realm, it should always be warm, welcoming and
Speaker 2: consider it.
Speaker 1: So tell me about what you're doing now, because you're
Speaker 1: working also with Nike, you're working with big companies. How
Speaker 1: do you marry that with also the work that you're
Speaker 1: doing in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2: So when I think about working with these brands, I
Speaker 2: think of it as not just working with the brands
Speaker 2: for money, but also meeting people where they are. And
Speaker 2: we call it put in the medicine in the kool aid, right.
Speaker 2: So if I want to talk to teenagers that are
Speaker 2: in high school that are doing certain things, they might
Speaker 2: not want a verbose explanation of what food does this
Speaker 2: are or why these things impact them or why it's
Speaker 2: a certain type of food available in their neighborhood. But
Speaker 2: when we do a sneaker release with Jordan, that brings
Speaker 2: them into our world to where they might be more
Speaker 2: keen to listen or participate in some of the matters
Speaker 2: that affect them in different ways. So a lot of
Speaker 2: it is like, yeah, we're going to do the work
Speaker 2: and collaborate because it's cool, it's fun. But it's also
Speaker 2: when people associate you with these things that they feel
Speaker 2: like are part of their lives and what they care
Speaker 2: about in a passive way, they might really be able
Speaker 2: to join your community and connect with you deeper. So
Speaker 2: we just try to think about, like like when we
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, thinking about what do we want to exist
Speaker 2: and how do we create the things that we want
Speaker 2: and layer it with meaning where it's not shallow and
Speaker 2: it's not just about materialism and consumerism. It's like, how
Speaker 2: do we create a new formula for how business should
Speaker 2: be done. Because just like ghetto gas show doesn't exist,
Speaker 2: the River Cafe didn't exists before you dreamt it up.
Speaker 2: Once you dream it up now with a model, and
Speaker 2: you could keep refining it. But it also inspires and
Speaker 2: it becomes a platform for other things to happen. And
Speaker 2: I think that's how you scale chain that spark thought,
Speaker 2: create community, and then it's step by step.
Speaker 1: Do you think the cultural identity of food? Identifying a
Speaker 1: culture food is that important? Do you think we've passed
Speaker 1: that now?
Speaker 2: You know? I think it's always important to site sources
Speaker 2: and pay homage to where thinks come from, especially if
Speaker 2: they're coming from places or voices that have been silenced
Speaker 2: for a very long time. But I think it's also
Speaker 2: important to collaborate and create. I think some of the
Speaker 2: most beautiful things are mixes and collisions of culture. And
Speaker 2: when I think about hip hop, Dream loves this because
Speaker 2: she knows I love talking about hip hop. It's a
Speaker 2: collision of breakbeats, jazz samples, different drums, Puerto Rican, Black,
Speaker 2: Jewish people, white people creating thing. I think it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful thing that has impacted and changed the world that
Speaker 2: we live in.
Speaker 1: What about your book A Black Power Kitchen, It's about that.
Speaker 2: For us, when we think about black power, you know,
Speaker 2: we think about how long black people have been creating
Speaker 2: value in the world but have been left out of
Speaker 2: the part where they capture their value that they create.
Speaker 2: So for us, being unapologetically black, boisterous, loud about it,
Speaker 2: we try to base it in academic thought, which is
Speaker 2: why I keep people like dream around me to keep
Speaker 2: me honest. It's just important. And I think it's also
Speaker 2: like ghetto gash or it could be a polarizing idea,
Speaker 2: right people see a word like black black power, and
Speaker 2: they could be offended or afraid of it. But for us,
Speaker 2: it's really about leaning into the beautiful things from our ancestors.
Speaker 2: So when I think about like black power, that's a
Speaker 2: phrase coined by Kwame Torre aka Stokely Carmichael, who was
Speaker 2: a revolutionary Yeah from the Bronx, though.
Speaker 1: From the Bronx, and he married Mariam mckiva Okay, probably
Speaker 1: in the sixties. I guess she was from maybe Johannesburg.
Speaker 1: She was South African and she had this beautiful, beautiful voice,
Speaker 1: and she could do this thing called the click. We
Speaker 1: all knew her music and then there was Stokely Carmichael,
Speaker 1: who was this great political force of the Black movement
Speaker 1: of the sixties, and then suddenly he married her. Stokely
Speaker 1: Carmichael was so handsome, and then they married Maria McKay.
Speaker 2: But it was like, wow, it's the bronx, the bronx
Speaker 2: tackle and you know, it gives a little extra charm,
Speaker 2: a little extra riz. Food is a tool for liberation,
Speaker 2: you know, when you think about how lack of access
Speaker 2: to food could often be a tool for oppression, saw
Speaker 2: a tool for liberation, like to tell stories of the
Speaker 2: ancestors of potential futures of love and convening and communion.
Speaker 2: I think the dinner table is the first social network.
Speaker 2: You know, so people break bread, share ideas. It might
Speaker 2: be a little bit of trolling and arguing, but a
Speaker 2: lot of it went down at the table so well.
Speaker 1: Before we say goodbye and we are so happy to
Speaker 1: have your hair, and we'll have to do this again,
Speaker 1: and this is our second time together. We often say
Speaker 1: that food is you know, food is staving off hunger.
Speaker 1: It's for sharing, it's for cultural heritage, as you were
Speaker 1: explaining it, it's for alleviating, for gaining access to choice.
Speaker 1: It's also comfort, and so I suppose my last question
Speaker 1: to you is to ask you if you needed comfort,
Speaker 1: is there a food that you would go for? Or
Speaker 1: would it be that crab caviat and coin bread? It
Speaker 1: could be anything.
Speaker 2: Every day is a different it's a different thing. But
Speaker 2: answer right now, man. That one nut, I'm a retta tart.
Speaker 2: Were very confident with the pistachio. So I took some
Speaker 2: my pistachio ice cream and put a bit of it
Speaker 2: in my express so like I wake up from from
Speaker 2: the flight, but that, wow, that was extremely confident.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Thank you, Sean. It was good.
Speaker 2: You really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's lovely to see you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Ruthie's Table Flour is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers. It's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 4: Our executive producers are Zad Rodgers and Faith Stewart. Our
Speaker 4: production manager is Caitlin Paramoun. This episode has additional contributions
Speaker 4: by Sean Winer. Special thanks to everyone at the River Cafe.
Speaker 1: Come Up Up,