WEBVTT - Michael and Kim McCarty 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.160 This episode is brought to you by Me and M, 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.800 the British modern luxury clothing label designed for busy women. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.280 Founded and designed in London. Me and M is about 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.960 intelligence style. Much thought and care are put into the 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.640 design process, so every piece is flattering, functional and made 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.520 to last forever. Me and M is well known for 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.000 its trousers and how I got to know the brand. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.079 It's my go to for styles that are comfortable enough 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.480 to wear in the kitchen or the restaurant, also polished 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.000 enough for meetings. Me and M is available online and 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.720 its stores across London, Edinburgh, New York. If you're in London, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.000 I'd really recommend heading to their beautiful, brand new flagship 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.440 store in Marlevin, which opens on the twenty ninth of October. 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.760 There is one email I cannot wait to receive each year, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.519 and it always starts like this, Ruthy, Kim and I 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.559 are coming to London. Can we have a table at 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.040 the River Cafe and will you be there? Answer to 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.240 the first is yes and to the second, well yes yes. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.720 When Michael McCarty walks in, he immediately fills the room 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.600 with his warmth and his kindness. He knows what working 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.640 in a restaurant means introducing himself, recognizing staff from his 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.960 last visit, and checking out the customers. Sean Owen, our 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.119 executive chef, told me that on Monday night, he walked 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.920 up to her at the pass and praised in detail 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.720 the grouse he had just eaten. Restaurants are, of course, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.800 but he knows best. When he and Kim opened Michael's 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.360 in Santa Monica in nineteen seventy nine, they brought California 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.840 cuisine to the world, artichokes, asparagus, tomatoes, and peaches grown 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.600 in the sun and eaten under the sun. Ten years later, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.760 California came to New York when they opened Michael's in 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:47.160 Midtown Manhattan. When my brother Michael also and his wife 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.320 Bianca married in New York, there was only one restaurant 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.360 they wanted to celebrate in. We are family, And when 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.560 Michael and Kim leave, I'll say goodbye, knowing there'll be 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.720 another email in a few months time, Ruthie, We're coming. 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.800 Will you be there, And the answer will be yes. 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.600 So here we are, here, we are, You're here in 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.120 the River Cafe. The sun is coming. You broughtably. It 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.200 was gray and grim, So what we'll do if you're 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.040 happy to do that is start by reading the recipe 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.480 for the grouse that you ate the other night. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.640 Well, the roast grouse. This has all of my favorite 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:27.560 ingredients in it. 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.480 Oh good, What are they? 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:36.239 The ponchetta, the time garlic butter without butter butter, four 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:41.400 slices thin panchetta, two large fresh time, one garlic clove, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:46.000 peeled and chopped, twenty five grams of unsalted butter. Two 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.880 hundred and fifty mili liters aletico dipuglia. One grouse, plucked 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.799 and cleaned. So you start preheat the oven to three 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.320 hundred two hundred and thirty degrees. We're in England, so 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.120 it's the puts it two thirty, place the times brig 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.800 on the breast of the bird, cover with punchetta slices 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:09.360 and tie the legs together. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.800 Put the grouse in a rusting tin and cook. Depending 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.080 on the size and how rare you like the grouse, 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.800 we serve them slightly pink. The easiest way to test 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.120 for dunness is to pull the leg away from the 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:23.480 body at the thigh. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:24.959 It's still blue. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:26.600 Cook for a little longer. 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.280 Grouse very in roasting time because they differ so much 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:31.079 in size. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.400 Remove from the oven and leave to rest two to 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.640 three minutes and untie the string. Put over a medium 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:42.000 high heat, add the wine reduced by half, return the 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.120 bird to the pan, and coat in the juice is 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.880 den serve This is delicious, served with cavello nero. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.600 Do you serve game in Michaels. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:50.360 We don't. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.160 We serve quail, squab, but they're off arm raised, beautiful 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.280 low duck. Of course, we have great duck, but our 0:03:58.360 --> 0:03:59.960 squab is spectacular. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:02.520 Squab is the appeasial pigeon. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.640 Yeah, your pigeon here and the quails are sensational. That's 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:07.800 about it. You know. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.920 To me, I find pheasant unless it's perfect, it's too dry. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.960 I mean that grouse last night was spectacular. 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:19.520 So tell me about growing up the McCarty household. Was 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:21.040 eating important in. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.520 Your Yes, it was a very interesting. 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.920 We grew up in New York in the Hudson Valley, 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.080 in a little town called Briarcliffe, Manor. My dad commuted 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.200 thirty years to New York. My mother he worked with 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:39.680 General Electric. He was the founder of the corporate communications. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:39.640 For ge and the forties. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.359 In the late forties, right after the War, and he 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.560 graduated from Michigan with my mother and they moved. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.920 To Schenectady, New York, which is where go there. 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.760 The building is still there, and my father was put 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.040 in a room and the guy who hired him said, 0:04:58.040 --> 0:04:59.760 this is your this is going to be your partner 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.960 and doing this turned out it was Kurt Vonnegut. So 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.159 my father and Kurt spent five years in that ge. Yeah, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.479 and they were there. If you look at some of 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.440 his beginning books that were all take place in Connectedy, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.520 and then in about nineteen fifty they He went on 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.599 to become a full time writer, and my dad moved 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.919 to New York and City, but we remained. They remained 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.039 friends all the way up until my father passed away. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:29.479 But at any rate, the whole crowd of my parents' 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:35.720 friends loved to party. They entertained all the time, all seasons. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.160 We had a little beach shack in Missquarmiketrhode Islands. We 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.440 were there and in Vermont in the winter, and everywhere 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.880 we went, you know, we learned quickly, you know, what 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.320 was growing there and how to cook it, and what 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.599 were the traditions. And my mother and father, you know, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.000 it's not like today where everybody teleentrically talks about food, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:58.800 you know, it was. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:00.320 More like this. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.040 This would have been in the fifties and the sixties. 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:04.080 Yeah. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.800 But the thing is, I really got into this because 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.799 of the The allure was the entertainment aspect. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:11.200 So they would have fun. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.120 Oh my god. We had huge party, huge parties. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:16.680 One party called the ten to ten and there were 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:18.600 people that stayed from ten in the morning until ten 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.039 at night. And there were like five different menus throughout 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:21.760 that whole time. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.160 We participating or did you sit on the steps. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:26.560 And watch grabs? 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:27.039 Yeah? 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:27.279 You know. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:28.919 After a while, I was in the kitchen with my 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.919 mother and she'd make her beef stragging off or she'd 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.160 make you know, my father would make these like really 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.600 good barbecue pork tenderloins and grill them and you know, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.960 and the whole thing. Again, it was always very simple. 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.719 Yeah, tell me about the house with the kitchen. Was 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:45.480 it a big kitchen? 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.200 Well, my father, working for GE, we every house we 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:50.240 moved to the appliances. 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.800 She'd tear out the garden and she'd tear out the kitchen. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.320 Those are the two things. Yeah, And so she always 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.480 had the latest ge you know, like I remember in 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.560 New York at the one house we lived in, she 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.400 put in the beginning of the modern sort of Jensen 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:10.000 George Jensen super you know, modern refrigerators hidden in this 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.720 into that and always but they always had a barbecue outside. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:15.480 She have a collection of cookbooks. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.600 She I gave her the Well she cooked basically from 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.600 the New York Times cookbook and oh very good. 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:28.480 Yeah sixties seventies. Yeah, that was that was the good cookbook. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.280 I introduced her to Julia Child after I got back 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.720 from France, and we got her the Double Whammy, you know, 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.520 the two cookbooks, and she poured over them. 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:39.720 She passed away. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.600 Recently we got all the cookbooks back. We have them 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.960 in a room in a box right now. We went 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.360 through them once. But yeah, a lot of a lot 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:49.560 of mementos. 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.640 Before we leave home. Tell me about your growing up 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:54.440 in your house, Kim was. 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.800 My household was very different because when I was born 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.600 in Los Angeles, but my parents were from Youngstown, Ohio. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.640 We moved abroad to outside of Genevan, a little area 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.600 called Conch when I was five. My father said he 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.760 couldn't get a job anywhere. He was a chemical engineering 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.960 and he kind of figured out this paint company. So 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.080 he was a great salesman going around places. So we 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.560 my mother being from the Midwest, she saw, you know, 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.440 all this fresh salad in Geneva and all this stuff, 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.119 but it had bugs in it. And they were very 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.920 post war, you know, fifty sixties. So we had to 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:31.880 go to like we were like army brats. We went 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.559 to the canteen and got chef's boyard and iceberg lettuce 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.720 and American candies, and. 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.280 That's what we would eat fair enough. Yes, So she 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.000 didn't know the place, the language, probably, and so she 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:48.480 looked for. 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.000 So we were always at the dentist because we had 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:51.920 so many cavities. 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.800 And yes, it wasn't until much much. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.120 Later that we realized that all the nutrients that were 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.120 in these you know, food could cheese to be in excellent, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.280 excellent And for the I mean I was there from 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:08.320 five to sixteen. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.240 Was what did they entertain? They did? 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.440 They did not that much, not that much because my 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.400 father was one of those men who were always traveling, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.440 always traveling, so we did not. It was very, very 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:27.680 differct because Michael's family, Michael's family was all about food. 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.319 My family, I was a family of three girls him 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.320 a family of four boys, so we always had to 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.480 be on diets, you know, because my father is very 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:37.320 strict that way. 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.040 They're pickers. They pick all day. 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.480 Oh I see little bit sol day, little bits all day. 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.120 Did you leave home at an age to go to 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:47.360 college or where you went to front? 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.720 I went to France as a junior in high school. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.680 So I'm sixteen and I got accepted to this program 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.640 school year abroad. They had one in ren Brittany and 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:03.360 one in Barcelona, and fifty young kids eat from all 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.000 over and we would go and they put you in 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.559 a family and you spend the year there and then 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.360 you know, your brain is still clean, so you really 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.680 pick up the fluency of the language. But the night 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.160 before I got on the boat, my parents took me 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.360 to Laurent, which was one of the. 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.600 Classic you know, lives and lies in New York. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.720 And it looked like Maxims and it was September, and 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.360 it was everybody was stunning, and everybody dressed up in 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.960 those days and they were all tan, and they were 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.120 all eating and having a big time going this is 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.000 just like my parents' parties. About halfway through the meal 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.640 in walks, the owner and the whole electricity level in 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.719 the room ratcheted up like there was no tomorrow. He 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.720 started working the tables like we do, you know, and 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.880 you're greeting all your friends and your guests, and you're 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.840 meeting new people, and it's a riot, and everybody's going 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.800 crazy about the food and all of that. And then 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.440 at the end of the meal, had his glorious meal. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:58.520 And at the end of the meal, you know, they 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.440 bring a check. And I said, well, now this makes 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.680 sense because my father a businessman, you know, I go 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:05.840 back and forth, they go, wow, this is a throw party, 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.719 and then give everybody a check, you see, so it's 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.839 a business. The next day I get on the boat 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.280 and it is the SS Aurelia, which was his last voyage. 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.440 But it had fifteen hundred school year abroad students, most 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.160 of them except for the fifty of us were in college, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.480 and it was run by the Italians. So and it 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.120 took eleven days to get to Laharvo. 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.960 Eleven eleven. I was like, you do do do? 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.480 I went it was five? 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:35.920 I think, yeah, no, no, this was a tanker. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.640 And at any rate, you know, they had five meals 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.800 a day, they had boothe yeah, so it was sixteen. 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:43.600 I was sixteen. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.840 Yeah, so it was pretty rowdy eleven days. But then 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:49.920 I landed in laharv and I went to put in 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.280 my family. And my family was a very interesting Bretton family, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.760 you know, classic folklore, love Britney. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:11:59.320 Guess what they did all the time? 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.560 Eat, party, party, eat. They had a house on the 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.760 beach like we did. They had one in the country. 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:08.920 They had a nine hundred year old chatteau that had 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.840 never seen repairs and maintenance for eight hundred and sixty 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.160 of those years, and bathroom one open, you know, I mean, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.920 it was completely crazy. But I'd go down and there'd 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:19.800 be the person that grew all the vegetables, the one 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.600 who did the chickens, the one who did the beef, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:22.400 the pork. 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:23.960 And that's who explained to me. 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.720 The Eeko hotelier, the French hotel and restaurant school if 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.000 you wanted to be a chef. We didn't have those 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.280 in America. So then I went back to Paris. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.400 Spent the first half of the seventies in Paris, and 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:35.079 that did it. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:37.040 You just studied cooking there. 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:37.920 Yes, I graduated. 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:39.400 Did you want to cook or did you want to 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:39.720 be ann? 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.720 Well? I realized early on I wanted to have a restaurant. 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.840 When I realized early on that you had to be 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.760 a good chef, and it helps, it helps, well, you know, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:51.760 you have the classic idea, you know, your chef walks 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.240 out of you on a Saturday night, what happens. So 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.760 it was sort of that ingrained in the fact, but 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.199 I really got into it, you know, I mean living 0:12:59.280 --> 0:12:59.920 in Paris. 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:01.559 What year were you in Paris? 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.080 It's seventy two three of that. 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.120 That's when I was there. Were you, Yeah, because Richard 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.880 was building the Pompadou that's exactly when. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:09.240 That's exactly when it was happening. 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.080 Yeah, we were, we were, so we must have. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:12.760 Because Leo was still there. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:13.120 That's right. 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:13.760 Yeah. 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.240 And where did you live in Paris? 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.040 I lived in several places. I lived right next to 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.679 the rue Uftau, the market, yeah, the Yah, and then 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.720 I lived down El San Luis in the beginning, and 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:26.679 it was what were you doing? 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:27.840 Did you work in restaurants? 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.440 I worked one night in the three star restaurant. It 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.200 was less Air, yeah, and. 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.320 I said that's on the on the right back, yeah. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:36.600 Yeah. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:42.120 And after working one day there, I said, this is 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.880 not for me. You know, I can learn more eating 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.600 in this restaurant in one meal than I can spending. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.679 You know, this was still the old archaic way of 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.640 running restaurants. What was that, you know, where you are 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:56.360 sentenced to the potatoes for six months. Yeah, and then 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.199 they move on to the mushrooms. You know, it was 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.360 still Remember this was the beginning of the new bell 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:05.160 cuisine revolution and you had the Gone Mio had just 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.360 opened and I was taught at the Cold on Blue 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:09.760 which I went through for two and a half years. 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.840 Oh yeah, and that's where I met Julia in nineteen 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.880 seventy two. Yeah, child, you know, she had come back 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.560 and Madame Brassal was this a little tiny owner. She said, Michael, 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.480 I think you need to meet this lady. So we 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.960 went to lunch and it was at two o'clock and 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:32.160 by seven we finished lunch. So we became pals for 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:33.080 the rest of her life. 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.200 And so you were at the Court of You studied 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:37.400 restaurant or did you. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.120 I studied that was cooking, that was entirely cooking. And 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.480 then at the Eco hotelier you study in the three years, 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.040 you study all three You studied cooking mostly, then management, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.520 and then dining room. My first restaurant was actually in Anio, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:54.120 San Luis. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:54.880 It was a. 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.560 Totally illegal could have come. It was as big as 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.480 this room. It's at twenty people. Yeah, and uh, you 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.840 know I Selouis was a different town in those days. 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.840 It was more like a village and had two fish 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:06.560 guys three. 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.640 Weeks oh fabulous, several Yeah. 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.760 Well, my cooking school got out of about seven every night, 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.000 so I would pre order the night before from everybody there. 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.200 Wow, and then they would it would be on. 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.000 My doorstep when I got there, so I could cook 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:22.240 for my thirty or forty people. 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:23.280 And what did you cook? 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.080 Well, that was the beginning of how I sort of 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.600 created what the modern American New American food. Again, like 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.920 you did last night with the with the grouse. You know, 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.080 you take a protein the market, you got really simple herbs, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.680 you use butter, you use salt and pepper, and you 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.320 accompany it with like a little pasta or little little vegetables, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.680 you know, but very simple and stunning fish. You know, 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.040 everything we did all that, we began to compose the South. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.960 That's a good fish because you know, we lived in 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.480 the Marie, we lived on the Route Descent, and then 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.800 we lived in the class and honestly, I used to 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.560 get my laundry done on the There was that launder 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.240 bat and I chose it because, you know, you crossed 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.160 the sin every day to get your laundry, and I thought, well, 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.400 in the city would their baby, then you could cross 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.120 the scind to have your you know, your sheets washed. 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.360 It was. It was amazing. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.520 Yeah, that was that was an amazing the first half 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:18.720 of the seventies in Paris. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.560 How long was your How did your restaurant exist? 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:23.760 Well, it was totally illegal and a totally fake. 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.240 It was in the bottom floor of a friend's building, Okay, 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:28.800 And I just ran. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.160 At that one year and then you came back to 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:31.800 and then I. 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.360 Graduated while I was in school. Once I graduated in 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.080 seventy four, I came back and that's sort of where 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:45.360 I learned what it means to run a restaurant. 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.520 The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.440 steps away from the restaurant is now open in the 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:57.000 morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristata from 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.400 our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed hoops and 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:06.359 River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates, Salumi, misty mozzarella, Brisquetta, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.040 red and yellow peppers, Vitello, Tonado and more. Come in 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.240 the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:25.840 No need to book see you here. Did Michael cook 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:26.119 for you? 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:26.720 Well? 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.280 Actually, this is an interesting story if I can just 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.840 say that the first meal in my apartment, he said 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.280 he's going to bring me dinner. So I had a 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.879 little cat. I was then, you know, doing my design 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.320 projects all night. And he comes and he knocks on 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.919 the door and he has two live pheasants and it's like, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.679 what like live and he lets them fly around the 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:53.919 apartment and there's like they're going nuts nuts. So I 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.800 grabbed my cat, I shut him and. 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.560 Lock him in the apartment and I fly you left 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:00.399 him in the part. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.879 I was doing two ways of preparing them, but I 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.280 had to start with you know, part of the theory 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.120 was how do you how do you prepare them? 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:14.720 She ate it when she came back. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.439 I did not eat it. I did not. Was there 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:18.960 a dessert? 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.600 No, no, The dessert was in the dessert. 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.320 When we were in going to school on Boulder, Colorado, 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.600 and Michael was teaching French cooking, and French. My roommate 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.000 who said for the final you know, they would be 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:32.680 bringing a raspberry sou fle. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:35.520 And then I was just in. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.280 I was in, food is seduction. It is, it is. 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.600 You know, so many people can remember, Oh by your 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.840 Friends in his podcast that he remembers cooking for Willow, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.159 the first thing he cooked for her. And you know, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.640 there was Michael Kaine's movie The Hipcress File where he's 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:57.040 you know, and I think food for you know, male 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.479 or female is part of It's very seductive. I think 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.120 for women to have a man cook sexy, don't you think. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.439 But at that time, again, just going back to forty 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:13.399 now forty eight years, no young college person was a cook. 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:14.560 Mail was a cook. 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:20.120 So everybody it was an extremely extremely suspicious my family, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:21.600 what chef? 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:23.840 You're kidding? 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.840 You know, Now it's a very elevated thanks. 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:33.320 So we actually haven't started with Michaels because Michaels was 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.160 your first major, major restaurant. It's still there. Yeah, it's 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:42.159 a restaurant that really brought the world a kind of 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.760 way of looking at a restaurant, which was could be 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.879 delicious food, incredible ingredients and fun. It wasn't intimidating, to 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.280