WEBVTT - From the Archive: Mel Brooks 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.200 You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:12.320 Mel Brooks makes the world laugh. Watch the Producers Blazing 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:17.160 saddles Young Frankenstein, Listen to the two thousand year old Man, 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.080 or read his autobiography All About Me, and you are 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.600 guaranteed to find yourself laughing out loud until it hurts. 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.560 But for me, having known Mel for twenty five years, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.640 funny is not the first word I would use to 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:38.440 describe this amazing man. Hungry, hungry, fiercely proud. Do you 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.239 think that's your adjective? You get hungry with you. I 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.040 get hungry when I see you. Wow, we love you there, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.519 fiercely proud of his children and his grandchildren, the first 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.040 one to pick up a phone to a friend in trouble, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.800 refusing an award in opposition to the Iraq War and 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.520 waiting to accept it from President Obama, manerable after the 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.840 loss of people he loved. To Mel, food and wine 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:11.080 are crucial. Many of his life's happenings have occurred in restaurants, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.640 and as for wine, he will tell you himself. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:15.839 Spill it all over the table. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.720 I'm trying to take this seriously today. It is home. 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.520 We are together, lucky me. We're going to talk about 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.520 wine and family and friends and be prepared to laugh 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.640 because mel Brooks is funny. So that was a serious introduction. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:41.280 I want to tell you what do you want to 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:46.160 tell me that before we stopped talking, Before I forget, 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.160 I would like to do my imitation of a cat, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.400 because not a lot of people know that I do it. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.560 I make your best cats sound in the world. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.520 Ready, I just want just gonna be I just need 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.920 one second to really get myself into this. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:09.600 Okay, here's working the sound of a cat. That is 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.679 that is a perfect sound. It's hard to do, hard 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.560 to do. I do it in young Frankenstein. I think 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.680 it's it's a dart throwing contest and one of the 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.799 dots hits a cat and you hear you know, did you. 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.519 Do the sound? I get there every night? Can you 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:27.040 do it again? 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:28.359 Wow? 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:30.200 That's good? So what's a technique? 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.519 Technique is to is to squash some air between your 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.720 cheek and the front of your mouth. 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.680 As we're talking about cats and fish, maybe fish, you 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.079 know cats like to eat fish. We could actually read 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:49.679 the recipe. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:54.679 Oh yeah, my favorite of all the all of all 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.520 the things in the book. There's a good picture of 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:02.040 it too in your cookbook River Cafe, London. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.399 Thirty because that was done for our thirty. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:08.560 Three threeh thirty years. Wow. 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.240 Do you remember you came to the party? 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:11.720 I did. Oh? 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.400 You and Richard sat there the whole night in the 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.920 oh yeah, in the restaurant, and everybody just came to 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.639 your table. Everyone. Everybody wanted to see. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.160 It wasn't as important as the food on my plate. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.560 A lot of food, paid attention to all. He eats, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.120 Ali eats are supreme. Let me read the rest of Okay, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.960 there dover soul with Marjora. I don't know what marjoram is, 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.320 but I love it. Okay, whatever it is, whatever it is, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:45.360 one bunch of fresh margarine leaves, one whole dover soul, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:51.200 weighing twelve to fourteen ounces three fifty to four hundred grams, 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.080 scaled and cleaned. Of course, of course I'm not going 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.280 to eat it with the scales on, never and with 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.840 the stuff inside, No, sir. One lemon cut in half. 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.160 I have lemons, Mayer lemons for my Mayer lemon tree. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.880 We're just outside here and they are golden yellow and 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.040 running with lemon juice that is superior to anything in 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.479 the world. So if I have a dover sole, I'll 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:20.280 bring my lemons. 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.920 Okay, well, we get armored lemons from Amalfi, so they're 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:23.599 pretty good too. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.960 Okay, here we go. Pre eat the oven to four 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.800 hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. That's pretty hot. That's pretty hard. 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:37.799 Brush a large flat baking sheet with extra virgin olive oil. 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.839 Scatter half the mordrum leaves over the sheet along with 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.919 some sea salt and black pepper. Place the fish on top, 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.080 season with sea salt and black pepper. Then scatter the 0:04:52.200 --> 0:05:00.960 remaining mordorum drizzle drizzle generously with olive oil. Okay, that 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.040 sounds great. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Tests with 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.119 the point of a sharp knife inserted into the central 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:08.479 with the thickest part of the soul. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:09.120 Ah. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.919 If cooked, the flesh should come away from the bone. Okay. 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.880 Squeeze the lemon, either from a malfy or from mel 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:24.120 Brooks's lemon tree, over the fish, and serve with any 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.479 juices from the pans that are left. I like that. 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.760 Let's begin at the beginning earliest food memories. What do 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.800 you remember from you know, your early days. Did your 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:36.400 mother cook? 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:41.800 Yeah, my mother, okay, it was It was a standard Williamsburg, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:48.640 Brooklyn Jewish tenement food. So breakfast in the winter was 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.840 always a hot cereal, cream of wheat or ralston which 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.040 was the kind of Baridge brown porridge, and then in 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.640 the summer cornflake strice krispies or wheaties. 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:03.760 What year would that have been? How old would you? 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.400 I would that would be thirty five. I'd be around nine. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.479 That's when I went my uncle Joe, shortest jew on earth. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:18.920 Short he was about four to four when when a taxi, 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.440 a big checker taxi cab rolled down the streets of Brooklyn, 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:28.520 and there was no driver. That was Joe. There was 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.960 no driver. It was so short it get just about 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.279 peer over the you know. Anyway, Joe took me because 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.320 his friend al was the doorman of the Alvin Theater 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:44.159 on fifty second Street, and running at that same theater 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.120 was Cold Porters Anything Goes. I had never seen a 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.239 Broadway show. I was nine years old and Uncle Joe 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:59.919 took me to see Anything Goes. I was stunned. I was. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.479 I couldn't believe it, even though we were in the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.560 second balcony as far away from the stage as you 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.760 can get ethel Merman was too loud. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.160 No MIC's she was just she was in anything. Anything 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.920 goes did say the mother, Yeah, yeah, the woman. It's 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:16.840 on a ship, isn't it. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.320 And it's on the ship. Very good, yea. And Victim 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.560 Moore was the gangster, the gang Yeah. Yeah. It was 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.760 so good. At the end, I nearly clapped my hands over. 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.320 I just couldn't stop clapping and screaming and shouting. And 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.360 then I got back an Uncle Joe's camp. I said 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.080 to him, Uncle John, I'm not going in the garment center. 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:42.200 Everybody at three sixty five South third Street, between on 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:48.840 Hooper and Use three sixty five South third Street, everybody 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.400 in that building worked in the garment center. They were 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:58.720 shipping clerks, they were cutters, they were designers, they were salesmen. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.720 They every buddy I think on the street, the sixty one, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.880 three sixty three through sixty five, these tenements, everybody in 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.320 the garments set. And I screamed at my uncle Joe, 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.040 Uncle Joe, I'm not I'm not going into the garments that. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.120 I'm not. I'm gonna go into the show business. I 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.160 loved it. I loved it, you know, and it changed, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.360 but it did and I did. And because of course 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:23.960 he take you. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.400 To food, what do you take you out to eat? 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:29.800 I always went to the theater as a kid, and 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.880 then there was the meal afterwards, lunch before it was 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:33.360 a day out. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.320 We had some favorites that Uncle Joe would take us to, 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:42.800 where one was called Gallagher Steakhouse. They had like half 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.000 a cow in the window. I always had these half 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.440 cows in the window, you know, the raw meat hanging gallaghers. Yeah, 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.719 and the and the steak was incredible. And sometimes you 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.240 go to Jack Dempsey's restaurant. 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:56.559 And what was that? 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:01.439 And that was great, but you know it was it 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.240 was all meat, it was. There never any fish in 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.160 a restaurant. Yeah, and I never liked fish. I don't 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.560 think I ever liked fish until I was seventy or 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:09.520 eighty and I went to the. 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.520 River Cafe, and so really you never ate fish. 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.880 I hardly ever ate fish as But. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.400 It's interesting to me that you you describe a kind 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:23.160 of modest home life in terms of food, but you 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:24.160 went out to restaurants. 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:31.559 So a lot of Jewish restaurants were called dairy restaurants, 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:36.080 and they serve stuff like blinches with sour cream and 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.080 old dairy. You never mixed meat and dairy with something 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:41.280 some religious nonsense. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.000 Did your grandmother cook for you? 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:43.880 My grandmother cook? 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.760 What did she cooks? Which grandmother? Your mother's my mother's mother. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.439 I never knew my you never knew your father's. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.240 No, No, my father's grandmother. I did know. She did 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.760 say to her meals best over meals in Bensonhurst where 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.920 they lived in a big one family hand. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:09:59.600 Did they come with their first generation? 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.280 I know they were. They were European? 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.079 Yeah, and so do you think your grandparents brought their 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.280 food with them? The food they. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.040 Cooked the same stuff. Mostly it was chicken, chicken and 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:16.000 chicken soup. 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.160 And uh briscuit. 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.920 Yeah, they made brisket. Absolutely, they made brisket and brown potatoes. 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.000 Do you know my grandparents came They were They came 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.360 from Hungary and Russia. And my father remembers my grandmother 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.800 having in the Lower East Side a carp swimming in 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.680 the bathtub that they would make a filter fish out of. 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.080 So do you imagine having they would bring it a 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:41.160 live fish. 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:41.959 Live fish? 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.200 We would get a live fish. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.360 My brother Bernie and I were usually one week. We 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.080 loved and we called them arty, and we fed them 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.839 bread crumbs and we chased them around the bathtub. And 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:59.640 then it was unspeakable. I can't even describe it. Irving, 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:03.040 my old oldest brothers Irving and Lenny held us back. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.640 We were screaming, don't kill him, and my mother would say, 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.400 we gotta eat, we gotta eat supper, and she she'd 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.040 kill audience, serve him, it was and we would cry, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:15.480 and but we ate him. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.480 And then would you get another carp and kill that? 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:18.320 We got another car. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.480 It's so interesting that they had live fish swimming in 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.920 the back in the back, yeah they didn't. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.880 It's amazing that you had to say. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.720 Yeah, my brother Michael, who you know, just wrote, I 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.280 have found that something my father had written about his 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.960 memories of food and just living in the Lower east Side. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:37.400 But you weren't in the Lower east Side. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.440 Were the Lower east Side? An extension of the Lower 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:41.640 east Side was Williamsburg. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.199 That was probably one step up, was it. 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.840 Well, it was one step up if you put it 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:54.200 next to a section of Brooklyn called Bronzeville, East New York. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.840 And that was really where they had coal stoves. They 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.160 didn't even have gas. Know, we had electricity and we 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.720 had guess so we were one step of Browns built 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.839 equal to the lower east side. And let me tell 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.360 you that my mother used to make every once in 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.640 a while on a Sunday night, she would make spaghetti. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.240 She would buy a box of Muller's noodles. 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.280 They were flat, flat noodles. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.360 And she cooked them until they were dead. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:28.160 They'd be really soft. 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.080 Oh, they were really soft. And then she'd put them 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.080 in a baking pan and she would empty a bottle 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.280 of Heinz ketchup over them. This is spaghetti. And then 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.360 she'd bake it for thirty or forty minutes until the 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.040 pan was dead, till everything was dead. And then she 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.280 cut them into squares and served it to us and 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:52.160 said spaghetti. And I was from eight years old to 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:57.080 about thirteen or fourteen. That was spaghetti and it was okay. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.240 Yeah, it was really okay. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:06.679 Then I had joined a club called Baltzer Bugs. We 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.520 made model airplanes. I think we enjoyed smelling the glue. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.600 Where do we like backing the planes? But we may so. 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.920 One of the Baltzer Bugs was Bernie Steinberger, was Flappy Rothman, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:23.320 and there was Tony Galliani Italian an Italian, and Tony said, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.280 I'm going home. It was Sunday and I said, He said, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.080 I'm going home to have spaghetti. I said, we have 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.240 spaghetti on Sunday too. He said, well try, you know, 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.800 come on and have bar spaghetti. So I went home. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:41.079 I walked into his apartment, which was in green Point, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.959 a little on the edge of Williamsburg. As I walked in, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:52.920 I was assaulted by these incredible smells, just as the 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:59.320 aromas of of garlic, and I mean, it was just incredible. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:06.320 Then I sat down. They served this warm, squiggly spaghetti, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:16.679 real spaghetti, squiggly but not dead. Fought back and sauces 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:23.680 red thick, red, beautiful sauce with meatballs in it, and 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.960 sprinkled on top of it was this white stuff snow. 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.240 I think it was Parmazan cheese. And I took I 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.000 took one bite and I started to cry. 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:33.640 Did you cry? 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:38.520 I wept? I wept, and I said, Tony, this is 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.880 this is spaghetti. This is spaghetti. I was about fourteen, 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.160 and I just wept and I went When I came home, 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.200 I said, Mom, you're not making spaghetti. I don't know 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.520 what tide of stuff is that cardpoint? But it's not spaghetti. 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.720 You're starting to tell me about your her mother's food. 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.800 What was her mother's food when you went to your grandmother's. 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.560 Well, we went to the state. It was, I know, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:08.360 they made little dishes before to celebrate the Jews freedom 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:14.720 from slavery in Egypt, and had something with apples and 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.720 stuff that was supposed to mimic the mortar that the 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.760 Jews carried up to make sure these big stones stayed together. 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:27.240 And then some salt for the heart, for the suffering, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.280 for the tears, and it was a lot of those 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.720 little things. And then she served this thing called the 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:38.240 filter fish with red horse rice has they called it 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.360 crane crane or grain, and it was just thrilling. I 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:43.840 loved it. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.960 So you love food from food? 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.760 I tasted food. My mother wasn't making food. She was 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:52.880 she was making something at bathroom food. 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:54.840 So do you think your mother was not? 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.960 And the first time I had Chinese food? Where was 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.120 that Inburg? We never went to it. My mother said, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.560 we're gonna go to a Chinese restaurant, all right. And 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:12.280 each meal, the whole meal menu twenty five cents, and 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.560 the Chinese restaurant and the Chinese restaurant, and you got 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.880 you got egg that's right. First. Then you got chowmine, oh, cholmine. 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.480 And then you got a yellow ball with little pieces 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.880 of ice in it, round ball that was the ice 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.280 cream dessert. And and then some portun cookies with with 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.280 the paper in it that you know. I hate the paper. 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.240 I hate everything. Everything was, everything was sweet. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.160 The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:55.080 steps away from the restaurant. Is now open in the 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.560 morning and Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristada from 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.920 our past your kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed coops 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.960 and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, Misti, mozzarella, brisquetta, 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.560 red and yellow peppers for Tello, tonato and more. Come 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.520 in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.640 the bar. No need to book, see you here. 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:31.199 One of the most delicious things was very simple. We 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.560 lived at five five stories up in this tenement and 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.880 I was I wasn't going to come up. They will 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.720 get that I was not going to come up for lunch. 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.800 I was not why because there was five stories and 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.399 I didn't want to leave the game, right, So we 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.520 took a break in the game and we all had lunch. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:53.919 They all brought bags and stuff with them, sat on 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.280 the carry of my friends and my mother would throw 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.120 in it throw down in a brown paper bag, kaiser 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:08.560 roll smeared with a lot of butter, fresh butter, and 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:13.400 almost a whole tomato sliced and salted and put that 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.600 and it was the most delicious thing. You catch it, 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.680 and I'd always catch it. But one time I missed it. 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.719 I was going to say five stories up as. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.080 One time I missed it and splat blast, you heard 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:30.399 the sound, and the bag was crammed with wet So 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:35.119 I very carefully peeled that what used to be the 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.680 bag away from the sandwich, and I began eating the sandwich, 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.639 and I once again cried. It was so great. It 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.960 was the closest thing to pizza. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:45.840 When did you have your first pizza? 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.480 Oh? I had my first pizza when I was I 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:51.360 was sixteen or seventeen. 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.239 So as a teenager, you lived at home, and then 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.680 when did you leave you When you left home, did 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:57.800 you cook for yourself? 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.960 Well? I didn't leave home home, Okay, I was sent 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:08.080 to Virginia Military Institute the Army. There's a guy that 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.760 came to my high school and we were going to graduate. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.719 We were seventeen. We're going to be eighteen and graduated 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.680 from Eastern District High School. Our claim to fame was 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.840 a red hour back was a great, incredible basketball coach 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:29.280 and world famous and he was on the team and 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:35.160 he was a genius. Anyway, I left because the guy said, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.520 if you can pass the test, you'll be in the 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:44.439 Army Specialized Training Reserved program and it would stand you 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.000 in good stead because later when you were drafted or 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:54.919 taken into the regular Army, you already had some background 0:19:55.320 --> 0:20:01.119 in military and you could maybe choose your branch of service. Great, Okay. 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.280 So I took the test and the test was not hard. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.719 It was how much is doing too? I said, well, 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.280 if you put them next to each other, you got 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:12.360 twenty two, you know. But it was easy and they 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.520 wanted you. So when I was seventeen, they sent me 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:21.320 to v m I, Virginia Military Institute, the West point 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:27.439 of the South, and uh go to restaurants in Lexington, Virginia. 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.639 And when the waitress to take your order, she answer 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:32.639 back one thing. She said you want grits with that? 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:37.040 And we said what she said, do you want grits 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.040 with that? We said, no, grits are made with gri that. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:43.040 I just couldn't understand. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:44.400 I couldn't understand later. 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.439 It's kind of like plent It's kind of like, you know, 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:52.760 what was it like the food in the military. Was 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.919 that awakening? 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.040 Yeah? Can I can be very honest with you and 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.160 say some words. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.639 That's yeah, this is a podcast. We can do it. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.119 Okay, it's a podcast, we can do it. I remember 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.200 the only thing the army had a I went into 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.720 the mess hall at four Dicks, and I was shocked 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:18.560 by what I saw on a on a great big griddle, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:24.080 maybe maybe twelve feet by twelve and it was just enormous. 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.920 I saw a thousand eggs, sunny side up, and you'd pick. 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:32.399 You'd say, give me two, give me three, give me four, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.280 and then that was that was eggs. And then there 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.919 was like a trash barrel clean one of course, that 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:44.240 had oatmeal in it, and then there was it was 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.480 just that kind of you know, so it wasn't so bad. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:48.440 We're homesick. 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:49.320 I was homesick. 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.320 Could be so homesick? How old were you. 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.359 Oh, well I was. I was nearly old enough to 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.240 be in the regular army, so I was seventeen and eighty. Yeah. 0:21:57.440 --> 0:21:59.160 To take you out of Brooklyn, to take you out 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.040 of your hair, yeah, put you in a place. 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:03.959 It was a strange place. But anyway, we're all together 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.280 and we we you know, we alearned to each other. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.480 Yeah. Did you take anything away from that experience? 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.719 Yeah? I did. They were They were unusually nice to us, 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.520 these cadets, these Southern cadets they had, and they taught 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.399 us never to lie. Honor is the best thing. You know. 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:22.800 That stayed with you, and. 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:25.520 Stay that stayed with me. Hardly, I hardly ever lie. 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.120 Except in show business. You're forced to liar. 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.159 Say something, to tell somebody their work is good. To 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.280 do that good. Always tell something. 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.359 You look so great today, you know that. 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.639 I said. A friend of mine once interviewed Isaiah Berlin, 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:42.640 you know, the philosopher said, he said, when you admire 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.320 somebody's work, you just say I loved your work. And 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:46.960 they said, no, no, no, that's for the work you 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:50.119 didn't think so much of. If you really loved their work, 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:52.680 you I died, you know, I was on the floor. 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.680 You know how do you how do you give I love? 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:58.639 Your work is for the people whose work you didn't like, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.840 you know, that's what you say. That's fine. Yeah, But 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:03.200 then what happened after. 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.840 The and anyway? I went into the real army and 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:11.800 there I saw a thousand eggs sunny side fourth That 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.639 was Fourth Dicks, New Jersey. What you would have been, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:21.399 I'll tell you exactly. June forty four, I was transferred 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.000 from v M I to four Dicks. I was in 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.600 the regular army. And then there was a thing that 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:31.800 was on the table. It was a big round bowl 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:36.000 with stuff in it, and it was not at the table. 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.280 It was like where where the cooks were, you know, 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:41.920 And they had big spoons and they could slop it. 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.160 They could they put it on on some toast, and 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.760 you know, and I didn't. I never took a chance. 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.200 But once I said, you know, I said, the guy's 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:55.680 next to me, ate it. So I took a chance 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.280 and I got it. And I said to them what 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:02.639 is that? What this we're eating? And they said, ship 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:07.200 on a shingle? I said, what ship on a shingle? 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.199 It turned out to be cream beef on toast, and 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:13.960 it wasn't so bad. But the army, you. 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:15.920 Know, did they send you abroad? Did you go? 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.240