WEBVTT - From The Archive: Nancy Pelosi - Part 1 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:10.480 and Adamized Studios. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.760 There is an infinite amount of subjects I'd like to 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.560 discuss with Speaker of the House Pelosi, but you know 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.920 the rules of River Cafe Table four. We only discuss food, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.960 memories and how food fits into our lives, family, work, 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:37.720 and values. Nancy Pelosi and I share the same aspirations 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:43.599 and concerns inequality the environment. The difference is that I 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.519 wake up every day worrying about the world, and she 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:53.480 goes to work every day to change it. In an hour, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.200 fifty guests will be arriving for dinner in our home 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.320 to celebrate this awesome woman. While we are talking agripher 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:06.480 cafe chefs are cooking risotto ammaroni, poaching Langestine, roasting pumpkin, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.280 And because Speaker Pelosi loves chocolate, We're going to have 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.920 two chocolate desserts, a bit of chocolate sorbet and a 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:16.240 rich chocolate cake. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.920 I'm very happy to read the recipe for chocolate sorbet, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.080 one of my favorite basic foods. In order to achieve 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.759 this work of art, you take seven hundred and fifty 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.880 milli liters of water, two hundred and fifty grams of 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:42.000 castor sugar, one hundred and fifty grams of cocoa powder, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:47.240 one hundred milli liters of recchio romagna. Gently boil the 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.760 water and sugar together to this light syrup. Add the 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:57.600 cocoa powder, quit gently stirring for fifteen to twenty minutes 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:03.480 until the coco powder is completely He dissolved strain, cool 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.400 and add the brandy. Put the mixture into an ice 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:11.919 cream maker and churn until frozen or freeze and flat 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:12.760 freezer trays. 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:21.920 Thank you. Before we go into food and values, and 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.400 food and family and food and memories, tell me about 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:26.519 your love for chocolate. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.560 My earliest memories are about loving chocolate. I remember once 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.720 when I was a very little girl, my big brother, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.000 who was a teenager. My parents said, you can have 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.920 the car if you bring Nancy home some ice cream. First, 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.920 he brought vanilla ice cream home. I put it under 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:50.600 the bed, never ate it because it wasn't chocolate. Why 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.400 would he bring me vanilla ice cream? But I've always 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.360 loved it, And as time has gone by, I've loved 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.880 it darker and darker and darker. 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.480 And what about ice cream? Because I did read that 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.200 you have ice cream for breakfast or is that an 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:07.800 urban myth. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.880 No, it's not an urban myth. It's convenient, it's right there, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.720 it has long shelf life. I don't have to worry 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.320 about it. It's right there, and but I have it 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.560 for breakfast. It's a great way to start the day. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.960 I don't have it every day, but I have it often. 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.320 And when I was younger, I used to have it 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.800 before I went to sleep, a pint device chocolate ice cream. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.000 But as time has gone by, the later the chocolate, 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:38.040 the less sleep I have. 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.960 You find the caffeine and the chocolate. So as a child, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.320 so you ate chocolate. Did your mother know that you 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.360 were having a pint of ice cream before you went 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.000 to sleep? And that was fine. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.560 It was not usual. We didn't have sodas or soft 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.800 drinks or anything in our home like that. Everything was fresh, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.320 except we had chocolate ice cream. 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.080 I love ice cream. When I go to the River Cafe, 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.240 my restaurant, or go to any restaurant, the dessert I 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:06.680 go for is always ice cream. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.680 Well, people say to me, you're going to some of 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.120 the fanciest restaurants in the world and you're ordering chocolate 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.479 ice cream. For dessert. Don't you think you should have 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.479 something more sophisticated. 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:21.520 I think it's delicious. I think it's the way to 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.039 end a meal. Should we go back then to your 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.520 mother and your older brother. How many of you were 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:28.360 there in your family? 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:30.960 Well, I'm talking about my oldest brother. At the time, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.240 there were seven children, six boys, one girl. I was 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.240 the youngest, and I'm talking about my brother who was 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.719 like eleven years older than I was. My oldest brother. 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.320 When we talked about if you want to have the car, 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.480 you have to get ice cream for Nancy first. 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.680 So your parents had six boys and then they had you. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.839 One of them died when he was young. So I 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.600 was really raised with five five boys. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.200 Yeah, and the Della Sandra household of six children. How 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:02.440 is the food? Who cooked? 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.400 The cook cooked? And my mother, may she rest in peace, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.520 bless her heart. She had a cook and what was 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:11.320 what was it like? 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.480 Well, it was very. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.520 Italian, but it was also very fresh and delicious. Sin 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.919 of the rest, I mean the cook would come in 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.720 the morning and make breakfast in that what would that be? 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.480 It could be anything you want. It could have eggs 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.960 or you could have oat meal. There were some standard 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.080 things sometimes that would even drink coffee at an early age, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:36.920 like eleven or twelve, and. 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:38.880 Would you all sit down to breakfast, So that would 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.680 be if six or seven children and two parents, was 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:43.960 breakfast and meal that you all shared. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.320 Sort of dinner was what we shared. Now. My father, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.000 my whole life, My father was the mayor of Baltimore 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.320 from when I was in first grade when I went 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.640 away to college my freshman year of college, he was 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.599 still the mayor of Baltimore. So our routine was he 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.720 would come home and in those days a long time ago, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.240 he would go out to make all of his speeches 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.679 in the evening in black tie. Everything was very formal. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.160 So he would come home from work, we would have 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.719 our family dinner together early. What time would that be 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.279 like five point thirty, Yeah, because he'd have to then 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.760 go on the campaign trail or just the civic engagements. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.200 So that was the time that we were together. And 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.000 then of course Sunday brunch and those kinds of things. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.479 But I'm just talking about every day and to this day, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:39.039 my husband, Paul, who was born and raised in San Francisco, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.880 I was born and raised in Baltimore. To this day, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.839 he likes to dine at eight, and I like to 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.679 eat at five early, like a peasant. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.880 Now well, actually I find that now in the restaurant, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.960 more and more people are eating earlier. We used to. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.320 Everybody used to make fun of Americans for wanting to 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.960 eat early, and now it's harder for us to sell 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.039 the later tables. Even young people. Everybody wants to eat early. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.880 But going back to this day of your father coming 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.040 back from work and you're all sitting down, would it 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.400 would there be? Would it be raucous? Would it be talk? 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.440 Would everybody be? What was it like at the table? 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.320 Would be a mixture, just depending what the mood was 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.240 at the time. But there were certain things that I 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:27.200 carried over to my own children, and I'm still that way. 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.880 In a restaurant I had, we always had to have 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.600 a tablecloth, you know. I mean that was a long 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.360 time ago, so it doesn't it isn't so unusual to 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:40.920 think tablecloth then. Now it's almost a luxury. And so 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.160 for my own children, we've never had a meal without 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.920 two things, some linens, whatever it might be, could be 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.080 place matt and salad and whatever else we happen to have. 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.239 And when they were growing up, the five of them 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.360 five and six years in one week to the day 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.240 a pack. I had different things I would try. I 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.680 would try when they came home from school. I'd say, 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.560 let's have dessert now for three thirty four o'clock, we 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.120 have dessert and then we'll have dinner later. Then I 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.440 decided wouldn't be a good idea because they came home 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.840 that they were hungry to have dinner at four o'clock, 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.480 So that they would have their dinner and then we'd 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.920 have dessert later. We've tried all kinds of things to 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:31.440 satisfy their appetites. 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.760 I loved that you said that your families were basically 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:48.160 a map of Italy of those very and so tell 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.360 me about the Italian influence on the food. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.680 Well, my father's mother was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.760 her parents, which would be my great grandparents, one was 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.559 born in Venice and one was born in Genoa, so 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.160 there was a lot of that influence in the in 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.520 the food Northern and northern Italian. My mother's family was 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.560 from Compobasso, which is in the center of Italy, but 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.959 we lived in an Italian neighborhood, so there was every 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.559 food you can imagine in the neighborhood and every dialect 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.400 that you could imagine in the neighborhood. But there was 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.080 one thing in common, the smell of very fresh bread 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.000 early in the morning, fresh Italian bread. To this day, 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.800 it's one of the my happiest memories, the smell of 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:38.360 fresh bake bread smells. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.680 Yeah, that's a good smell. But I think we always 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:45.400 talk about Italy, you know, which was became a country 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.920 very late. So you have the very strong regional dishes, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.559 don't you. So in Venice you have the polenta, and 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.160 in southern Italy you have smattest, and then in Florence 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.640 it's very in Tuscan it's very bread oriented. And then everybody, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.240 I guess came to Baltimore and there was there was 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.439 everything in every area. 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:12.040 Thing. You had the Trascana, the Siciliana, the Marca, John 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.280 or bruts As, the what do they call the Genovase 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:21.040 Gena Basically they were the other different names from Ligorian, Yeah, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.640 the Venezzi that goes from Venice, by the name of 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.120 where they came from, because they were all sort of 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.160 like city states. Whny of the northern Italians came early, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.000 you know, As I say, my father's mother she was 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:42.480 born in Baltimore, probably like in the eighteen eighties or 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.640 something like that. Yeah, they came earlier than the others. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.480 And then the Southern Italians came later. You think the more. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.440 Later, the middle and later. And then San Francisco is 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.640 a very Italian American city. The Bank of America was 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.640 originally the Bank of Italy. Yeah, as a bank of Italy, 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:07.080 and the influence there is very Italian in terms of food. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.480 So it was a comfortable move for me. 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.240 And what did you so, what would a meal be liked? 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.360 Would they make? Did you have a lot of spaghetti 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:15.080 or pasta? 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.840 Well, we laugh because we used to say in those 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:24.520 days you had macaroni and gravy and ice cream, and 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.679 then it became pasta and sauce and gilato. 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.400 Did you have pasta every day? 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.880 Regularly? It may may not be actually every day, but 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.600 on the average of every day in one form or another. 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.000 And we had, you know, my husband's family Italian. My 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.840 husband was born in Florence, and his mother was born 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.000 in Trieste, and his father was born he was born 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.640 in Nice and they moved to Triesta. The whole family 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.720 is very Italian. We tell the story that one of 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.080 the cousins came to visit from Florence to London and 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.320 they put the food on the table and there wasn't 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.800 a pasta. Started to cry because it was just a 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:03.880 meal without pasta. 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.600 It was not and pasta wasn't the meal, it was 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.080 part of the meal. Yeah, yeah, it's a PREMI When 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.800 my friends this or that where they'd have a exchange 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.840 student or something like that, it would be we tell 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.200 the story when they were having lunch and they said, well, 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.200 you know who's having peanut butter and jelly, who's having 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.959 this or that? What would you like? And the child said, well, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.160 how about a little veal with lemons. Yeah it came 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.480 from Tuscan exactly. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.120 And so did you remember the pastas that you had? 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:37.760 Do you remember the food? Exact food? 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.360 Oh? I know, all the standard stuff that you see now, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.760 of course, but I loved it. I always liked it 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.280 a little thicker and a little more all Dante, whether 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.920 it was that chuccini, of course, Rigatoni would be hard. 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:55.320 I preferred cheese ravi only polenta, and was very amused 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.800 because my big brother. One day a very fancy restaurant 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.680 opened up in Maryland, not in Bolt but in sort 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.080 of eastern shore of Maryland, it was very acclaimed and 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.640 it's hard to get into and this or that. And 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.400 my brothers went to the restaurant and he came back. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.600 He said, Nancy, you'll never believe it. They had polenta, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.560 as if it was from a former I said, no, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:20.760 tell me if that's become She. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.520 Out, no, exactly what year would that have been? 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:31.240 Remember probably about twenty five years ago that became. It's 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.760 not like they're having your grandma. There's polenta they're having. Well, now, 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.840 let me just say, people say to me, what is 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.120 your In fact, my grandch son said to me for 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.280 our family tree project in our class, we have to 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.520 have a family favorite family recipe that's been in our 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.959 family for generations, and what would you suggest? And I said, well, 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.000 when I would suggest, it's probably chocolate supflor chocolate moves. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.000 And he said, no, I mean a traditional family thing. 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.200 My mother wasn't. She wouldn't like me saying this. She 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.040 wasn't a big cook. I mean she was capable of cooking, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.600 but she always had a cook and her mother didn't 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.280 cook because her husband cooked. He was a chef. He 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.760 would I would see him break the neck of an 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:22.040 eel or whatever it is, and cook these fabulous Your grandfather, 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.280 my grandfather and so my grandmother never cooked and I 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.600 was like, you better talk to your father about a 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:28.800 family recipe. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.480 So the Italian influence so stayed and stayed. 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.160 Well you think the deliciousness of it. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.440 So I think, you know, it's funny that you say 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.360 about polenta, because polenta and a lot of the dishes 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.440 that come from very traditional family are I hate the word, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.920 but what they call peasant food. I would never let 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.040 it be called peasant food. But rest of cooking, family cooking, 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.600 family dishes are now so as you say, so sophisticated. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.320 Well, my husband's mother made tripe all the time, and 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.040 that was pretty standard. She made Oh she made tripe 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.520 with polenta, tripe with polent or polenta with almost anything. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.600 So when it became chic, we thought, oh my gosh, Nana, 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.560 it's really on the forefront. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:26.800 Did your parents speak Italian? 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:32.320 No, Well, I don't know. Do you know I didn't 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.680 speak Italian. See, my father's mother was born in Baltimore, 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.280 so it wasn't the case of his He didn't know Italian. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.000 My mother she spoke some, but I don't know how 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.360 good she was. And every time I would go to 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.040 see my grandfather, who was so beautiful and wonderful, and 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.360 I loved him so much. The chef he was going 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.720 to teach me how to speak Italian, and every time 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.600 i'd go, he'd get out a map and we'd start. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.360 These are different diet elects of Italian. So I could 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.239 give you the map of Italy and the different dialects, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.040 but I don't know to speak Italian because we'd start 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:09.200 with that map every day. 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.520 No, there are they're very you know. My again, my husband, 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.080 I was saying, was born in Florence, but when we 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.440 would go to Venice, very often he couldn't understand some 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.720 of the fishermen, you know, what they were speaking. It's 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.240 interesting because in these podcasts I talked to many people 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:29.280 who recall their grandparents cooking almost more than their parents cooking, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.800 And very often they come from families that emigrated from 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.000 another country. And I often think that perhaps the mother 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:41.760 was trying to adapt to the new environment where the 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.280 grandparents probably, you know, that was their identity and took 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.760 it with them. But I haven't ended you know the 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.640 fact that your grandfather was actually a professional chef. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.640 My understanding of this is before I was aware of 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.680 what he was doing. He sold postive. He had one 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:03.400 of those shops that's sold products from Italy, pasta, dry 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.160 pasta and those kinds of things. So he was a foodie. 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.720 I mean, he was into food and a chef. And 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.560 my grandmother was treated like a queen. She never did 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.000 any housework or anything like that. And she didn't cook. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.560 That's I mean, I never knew how to cook. One thing. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.280 In my mother's case, she had these seven children. Is 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.960 she were alive in another generation, who knows what she 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.560 would have been. She was a mom, she was a 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.600 political organizer from my father. She was a poet, she 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.520 was an inventor. She did all kinds of things. She 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.480 said to me once when I was a little girl, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.960 I know that the telephone can be used for more things. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:47.840 I just have to figure it out. 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:50.399 And also you were her only daughter. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.240 We're very by the way, in all of this, very 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:59.960 devoutly Catholic. So lots of times the ritual of food 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:05.679 surrounded Mass, either after or midnight or Sunday branch or 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.200 A lot of it revolved around going to. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.080 Church, coming home and each afterwards. 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.280 As I always say, we were born in the family 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:20.680 was devoutly Catholic, fiercely patriotic, proud of our Italian American heritage, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:22.840 and staunchly democratic. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.880 Yeah, staunchly democratic. Those principles came in very early. 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.439 They related to our Catholicism in our view of taking 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.080 care of other people and food. People came to our 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.480 door when people were poor. My brother Tommy, my older brother, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:39.639 he used to tell me that when he was a 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.159 little boy, people would come to the door and Mommy 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.600 would always be giving them food, giving them food, giving 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.919 them food. And even in her old age, she was 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.440 giving ice cream to children and they knew to come 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.600 to the door to get ice cream. So it was 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.480 all about nourishment one way or another. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.639 And when you left this incredibly close family and centered 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:02.399 around the table and food, food and church, when you 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:08.400 left this family and went to university to college, how 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.680 did you deal with food then? Do you remember? 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.359 Yeah, I went away. The only place that I was 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.200 allowed to go would be a woman's Catholic college. 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:20.480 That would be where was that? What college? 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.719 It was called Trinity College in Washington, d c. The 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:30.840 oldest Catholic women's college in America. It was strict academic school, 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:36.840 and it was within fifty miles of Baltimore, Maryland and 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:42.720 our college. It's not exactly a culinary July any but 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.520 we used to. We used to don't tell anybody who 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.520 told you this. We used to go at night. They 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.919 know now years later they know. But we used to go, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.359 like in the middle of the night, down to the 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.199 dining room and break into the freezer to get ice cream. 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.399 Now they was locked, so you can only lift it 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.480 a little bit and put the scooper in there and 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:09.400 pull it out. 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.119 We better not tell certain members of the house about 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:14.720 this exactly. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.560 It's hard to tell a flavor and the dark and 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.840 the dark, and you could tell if it's chocolate or not, 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.479 but peach, strawberry and the rest it kind of comes together. 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:30.480 And sometimes we would order pizza so that the guard. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.399 We'd say to the guard. Somebody would go talk to 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.960 the guard and said, I ordered pizza. I'm waiting here 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.000 for the pizza, while we would go down and steal 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.480 the ice creams steal the ice cream. 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.719 And so your college days were spent stealing ice stealing 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:58.040 ice cream. Basically twenty minutes speaker Nancy Pelosi was never 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.840 going to be enough time to explore her movie and 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.440 memorable food story. So join us next week when we 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:11.800 will continue our conversation River Cafe Table four Part two. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.080 To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:27.240 to shop Therivercafe dot co dot UK. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.560 River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:36.760 Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.280 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.