Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Across the garden from where a Surgeon General Viveq Muthee
Speaker 1: and I are sitting, people are having Sunday lunch in
Speaker 1: the River cafe. Walking into the room, you hear the
Speaker 1: rise and fall of conversation and laughter, friends and families
Speaker 1: connecting over food. At age thirty seven, Viveague was appointed
Speaker 1: as the youngest Surgeon General of the United States by
Speaker 1: President Obama and is now serving a second term with
Speaker 1: President Biden. During COVID in his gap between terms as
Speaker 1: surgeon General, he might have researched illnesses, cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
Speaker 1: but instead he chose what he saw as another epidemic
Speaker 1: of our time, loneliness. His book Together, The Healing Power
Speaker 1: of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, tackles loneliness
Speaker 1: as a condition seriously detrimental to the health of millions
Speaker 1: of people. He is a surgeon general who sees love
Speaker 1: as a foundation of policy making. How rare to hear
Speaker 1: the word love as a solution to a diagnosis. He
Speaker 1: says food is an antidote to loneliness, believing loneliness is
Speaker 1: like hunger, and like thirst, I am privileged today to
Speaker 1: talk with and listen to the Surgeon General and to
Speaker 1: hear how as a doctor, a father, a husband, a child,
Speaker 1: and now my friend. Food is a connection and food
Speaker 1: is love.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is.
Speaker 1: Also why you're here, Snith, are you doing a conference?
Speaker 1: So it is a global concern.
Speaker 3: Now, and it's actually why I find that this work
Speaker 3: around food to be so powerful, because I think that
Speaker 3: people like you, Ruthie, who have been so deeply immersed
Speaker 3: in not just the preparation of food, but food is
Speaker 3: a cultural force. I think have long recognized that food
Speaker 3: has a power to bring us together, to put us
Speaker 3: in a place of ease where we can be more
Speaker 3: open and talk to one another, which is I think
Speaker 3: people like breaking bread with one another, and conversation happens
Speaker 3: differently over food than it does in a conference room.
Speaker 3: But I think that food is also, at its best,
Speaker 3: you know, a force for love. And I feel that fundamentally,
Speaker 3: the question that's before us in society, not just in
Speaker 3: the US, but all over the world is do we
Speaker 3: want to be a society that's driven by fear and
Speaker 3: with all that comes with that anger, anxiety, insecurity, or
Speaker 3: do we want to be a society that's fueled by
Speaker 3: love and by all that comes with that, compassion and
Speaker 3: kindness and generosity and looking out for one another. And
Speaker 3: so that's ultimately what I hope that we can build
Speaker 3: together as a world fueled empowered by love. And I
Speaker 3: think that's a world where we can build extraordinary things,
Speaker 3: where we can bring benefits to everyone, where we can
Speaker 3: overcome adversity no matter or what comes, and where we
Speaker 3: feel a sense of optimism and hope. It worries me
Speaker 3: greatly that as I travel that so many people feel
Speaker 3: pessimistic and anxious. But I also think that what gives
Speaker 3: us hope during hard trip is our connection to one another.
Speaker 3: And so that's what I want us to rebuild. You know,
Speaker 3: in our lives. We have it within us. I think
Speaker 3: this is actually our true nature. It's a question of
Speaker 3: giving voice to it and coming together around that kind
Speaker 3: of society, and I think we can build it.
Speaker 1: We will, Yeah, we will, thank you. So what we
Speaker 1: like to do is to read a recipe. And you
Speaker 1: chose the recipe of pumpkin soup. Yes, so would you
Speaker 1: like to read that recipe?
Speaker 2: And you can read it any way you like.
Speaker 3: Sure, So this is a recipe for pumpkin soup. And
Speaker 3: I chose pumpkin soup in part because I having grown
Speaker 3: up in Miami, Florida, where it's very warm, and then
Speaker 3: having subsequently moved to very cold weather places, I was
Speaker 3: always craving warmth, and soup was the easiest way for
Speaker 3: me to find them. And I love pumpkins part because
Speaker 3: I love Halloween. So pumpkin soup three tablespoons of extra
Speaker 3: virgin olive oil, fifty grams of butter, two cloves sliced garlic,
Speaker 3: twenty sage leaves, a two kilogram pumpkin, peeled, seated, cut
Speaker 3: into large cubes, one potato, peeled and cubed, one red chili,
Speaker 3: one liter of chicken stock, two tablespoons of grated parmesan,
Speaker 3: and one tablespoon of crim fresh. Heat the olive oil
Speaker 3: and butter, Add garlic and sage, and fry for five minutes.
Speaker 3: Add the pumpkin and potato. Fry for one minute before
Speaker 3: adding chili. Seasoning and season well with salt and pepper.
Speaker 3: Poor enough stock to cover the pumpkin and bring to
Speaker 3: a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for twenty minutes
Speaker 3: until the pumpkin is tender. Strain half of the stock
Speaker 3: from the pumpkin into a bowl and set aside. Pouring
Speaker 3: what is left into a food processor pulse until the
Speaker 3: mixture is very thick. Return the mixture to the pan
Speaker 3: and add strained stock and stir. Serve with parmesan and
Speaker 3: a drizzle of olive oil and crumbfresh on top.
Speaker 2: Is something you could imagine eating and cutting.
Speaker 3: Yes, in fact, I found myself getting hungry even though
Speaker 3: I had a whole meal after reading this recipe.
Speaker 4: This is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if we begin at the beginning, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a long, less conversation about life and
Speaker 1: work and loneliness and happiness food. Tell me about your
Speaker 1: family were Are they from India? Came to London to England.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my family's originally from India. My mother is from Bangalore,
Speaker 3: a city in the south of India, and my father
Speaker 3: is from a small farming village about two hours outside
Speaker 3: of Bangalore, and they grew up in fairly modest households.
Speaker 3: My mother's family was, you know, middle class. My father, though,
Speaker 3: came from a poor farming community and his family did
Speaker 3: not have much at all in the way of resources.
Speaker 4: Growing up. After they got married.
Speaker 3: They moved to England and they lived here for seven years,
Speaker 3: in London for some part of that time, and then
Speaker 3: in other parts. They lived in Leeds, they lived in
Speaker 3: up North, in Huddersfield, which is actually where I was
Speaker 3: born and where my sister was born. They lived in Wales, Scotland,
Speaker 3: and then ultimately moved to Canada and then eventually to
Speaker 3: the US.
Speaker 2: Did they bring the food of India with them? They did.
Speaker 3: They've never They've never left the cuisine they grew up
Speaker 3: with behind, and they not only cooked and sought out
Speaker 3: that cuisine when they were in England, but even growing up.
Speaker 3: The aromas that I remember as a child are of
Speaker 3: the Indian food that my parents looked at home.
Speaker 2: What was it like? Do you remember they?
Speaker 3: You know, they had very different styles of cooking. So
Speaker 3: my mother was a primary cook, but my father cooked
Speaker 3: often and he brought great joy to cooking. So my
Speaker 3: mother her The hallmark of her food were it was
Speaker 3: simple but rich flavors. So she would only cook with
Speaker 3: a few ingredients, but she would somehow make all of
Speaker 3: them sing and people from the community would often come
Speaker 3: and ask her, how did you make that? How did
Speaker 3: I have the list of ingredients, but somehow I can't
Speaker 3: get quite the same flavor out of it. And she
Speaker 3: would always say to me that one of her secrets
Speaker 3: was that was her intention when she cooked. She said
Speaker 3: she would think of the love that she wanted the
Speaker 3: food to represent, and the love she wanted to give
Speaker 3: to the person who enjoyed the food, and she would
Speaker 3: bring that into her mind and pour it into the food.
Speaker 2: One of her ingredients.
Speaker 4: Yes, love is one of her ingredients.
Speaker 3: And my father was an incredibly creative cook. If my
Speaker 3: mother's a hallmark was simplicity, his was complexity. He had
Speaker 3: often many ingredients. And if you ask my father, how
Speaker 3: did you make that dish because it was so good,
Speaker 3: he'll have a hard time telling you because he doesn't
Speaker 3: quite remember the proportions. And this he doesn't measure. He
Speaker 3: just adds based on his instinct. But he so he's
Speaker 3: a creative cook, but an equally an equally talented one.
Speaker 2: But did he cook on special occasions or did he
Speaker 2: just cook every day? Did he did he?
Speaker 3: When we were growing up, he would cook on special
Speaker 3: occasions because he was he was working office. He was
Speaker 3: a doctor, and he initially worked in emergency rooms and
Speaker 3: in hospitals, then eventually set up his own clinic, you know,
Speaker 3: in Miami in nineteen eighty five, which he continues to
Speaker 3: work in until this day now alongside my sister who's
Speaker 3: also a primary.
Speaker 1: Doctors in the family more than three three of us,
Speaker 1: yet the are just three of us in the nuclear family.
Speaker 3: So we say my mother has is essentially close to
Speaker 3: a doctor herself because she she actually ran the medical
Speaker 3: practice that my father worked and she managed the whole operation,
Speaker 3: and because there was a small shop, it was just
Speaker 3: the two of them seeing patients. So a lot of
Speaker 3: times the patients would come and talk to her about
Speaker 3: what they were going through, and over time she came
Speaker 3: to sort of recognize various symptoms and be able to
Speaker 3: make diagnoses on the side. So it was very interesting.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and.
Speaker 1: When you went to Miami, did you live within a
Speaker 1: very Indian community or was it?
Speaker 3: When we first got there, we didn't know many people
Speaker 3: who were Indian. The Indian community was still small, and
Speaker 3: over time is more as a Indian community grew, that
Speaker 3: became an important part of our experience. But initially it
Speaker 3: wasn't the case. And I think that's part of the
Speaker 3: reason why. I You know, I felt quite different as
Speaker 3: a young person growing up. I didn't know a lot
Speaker 3: of people in those early years who ate the food
Speaker 3: that we ate, or had the customs that we had,
Speaker 3: or had names that sounded like ours, and I often
Speaker 3: felt like an outsider. And it's interesting. It's funny to
Speaker 3: know how these early experiences stick with you. And I
Speaker 3: still remember that feeling of what it felt like to
Speaker 3: be an outsider and do not feel like you belong.
Speaker 3: And it's why I have found that in years since,
Speaker 3: I'm really sensitive to when other people feel like they're
Speaker 3: outsiders because I felt that and it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2: So did your sister experience that as well?
Speaker 4: She did? Yeah, she did?
Speaker 1: Your parents and your parents? Did your grandparents come with
Speaker 1: you at all?
Speaker 2: Did they?
Speaker 4: I wish they had? They did not.
Speaker 3: They stayed in India, and I missed them a lot
Speaker 3: because when we were young, during holidays, during Christmas and Thanksgiving,
Speaker 3: people would go away and spend time with extended family.
Speaker 4: They would come back with these wonderful.
Speaker 3: Stories about their grandparents and about how Grandma gave them this,
Speaker 3: their Grandpa took them here, And I often wish that
Speaker 3: our grandparents were closer, but they came to visit a
Speaker 3: few times when we were younger, and I really treasured
Speaker 3: those times. Did they cook, yes, well, my grandmother would cook,
Speaker 3: my mother's mother and my father's mother had unfortunately passed
Speaker 3: away when he was young, when he was ten, but
Speaker 3: his father would actually cook his well because he had
Speaker 3: been used to cooking for himself. And they all had
Speaker 3: their own styles, but the one thing that was common
Speaker 3: among all of them is there was a lot of
Speaker 3: joy when they were in the kitchen. They were cooking
Speaker 3: from a place of happiness. They knew they were going
Speaker 3: to be bringing happiness to people with the food. It
Speaker 3: wasn't functional, it wasn't ah.
Speaker 2: Got to be on the table if you get the
Speaker 2: food out.
Speaker 4: That's right, it was. There's some real joy.
Speaker 1: Do you think that is specific to Indian cooking, that
Speaker 1: is more of a group activity or good question.
Speaker 3: I think other cuisines, other cultures have that as well.
Speaker 3: But I do worry that in modern living that we've
Speaker 3: gotten away from a lot of that, and that food
Speaker 3: preparation has become more functional than nurturing and therapeutic, and
Speaker 3: that old community style of sitting together and both making
Speaker 3: the food and consuming the food that I think there's
Speaker 3: I think some of that got lost, perhaps just as
Speaker 3: life structures change and in the interests of efficiency, or
Speaker 3: we can just get food delivered, or we can pop
Speaker 3: something in the microwave, and it does feel like it
Speaker 3: saves time. But I think perhaps what may not have
Speaker 3: been as as deeply appreciated was how much was lost
Speaker 3: in terms of the community that's built. The relaxation also
Speaker 3: that comes when you're working with your hands and creating
Speaker 3: something beautiful in the form of food that others will enjoy.
Speaker 1: People often say to me, how can you cook for
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty people and in the restaurant when
Speaker 1: it's hard to give a dinner party at home for
Speaker 1: twelve people, I go, I can't do a dinner party
Speaker 1: for twelve people at home. It's so much easier doing
Speaker 1: it in a restaurant because you're collaborating, you know, you
Speaker 1: have you're cooking. It is that thing of cooking with
Speaker 1: other people, sharing a conversation, tasting each other's food, talking
Speaker 1: about what you're going to do, and that community.
Speaker 2: Of working in a restaurant is so nice.
Speaker 1: You know. I do, of course cook for twelve people
Speaker 1: at home, but it can be very solitary just being
Speaker 1: in the kitchen by yourself.
Speaker 3: It can be yeah, And that's where I think doing
Speaker 3: it together, whether it's as family as friends, really makes
Speaker 3: a difference. Some of my best memories growing up or
Speaker 3: actually of all of us, my sister and I along
Speaker 3: with my both my parents actually cooking together. So when
Speaker 3: we would have guests over, that was it was stressful
Speaker 3: at times because we're going to get everything ready for
Speaker 3: the guests in time, et cetera. And but the fun
Speaker 3: part was that we made things together. So one of
Speaker 3: my jobs was to make the list of items that
Speaker 3: we were going to cook that.
Speaker 2: Day for shops going to shop or shop.
Speaker 3: But actually for cooking also like the dishes that we
Speaker 3: were going to make. And then I would be, you know,
Speaker 3: a sous cheft for my mom and then she would
Speaker 3: help put things together. I would chop, I would you know,
Speaker 3: mix things together. I would watch things on the stove
Speaker 3: and roast vegetables or other ingredients and and when they
Speaker 3: were done, it was my job to check it off
Speaker 3: in the list. And I had to ultimately make sure
Speaker 3: that everything was checked off before the guests came.
Speaker 2: So preparation for sure life maybe even to.
Speaker 3: This day when I go home if we're going to
Speaker 3: have people over, and my mother still still turn to
Speaker 3: me and say, make the list, make the list.
Speaker 4: So I make the list.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what you said also about your grandparents, because
Speaker 1: people that we've talked to on the podcast, very often,
Speaker 1: if especially they've come from another country, from Ghana to London,
Speaker 1: or from China to London, from wherever they've traveled, they
Speaker 1: very often talk about their grandparents almost more than their parents,
Speaker 1: because sometimes the mother adapts, you know, the mother adapts
Speaker 1: her cooking. The child only sometimes wants to eat the
Speaker 1: food of the culture he's moved to, but the grandmother
Speaker 1: clings to more to what you know, or the grandfather,
Speaker 1: i should say, from their country. Did your mother adapt
Speaker 1: or did she only cook Indian food? Did she ever
Speaker 1: make you hamburgers or meatballs in spaghetti.
Speaker 2: Or was all the food of your home the food
Speaker 2: of India?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, my mother still to this day primarily
Speaker 3: cooks Indian food, like and almost exclusively, I would say,
Speaker 3: so that is what we ate growing up. My father,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, has he still makes a lot
Speaker 3: of traditionally Indian food, but he does a lot of
Speaker 3: creative fusion food. So he has an Indian version of
Speaker 3: spaghetti that he.
Speaker 4: Makes, and of other pastas well.
Speaker 3: I don't know what he calls doesn't actually have a name,
Speaker 3: but when you eat it, you taste all of these
Speaker 3: flavorful Indian spices. And then he does other interesting things too,
Speaker 3: like he'll take jackfruit, which is I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: you've had it or not, but it's a fruit that
Speaker 3: grows in the tropics. When it's ripe, it's yellow and
Speaker 3: rubbery and very sweet. But in its raw form it
Speaker 3: can actually be used for savory dishes and it's quite tender.
Speaker 3: It can actually mimic a steak. So he'll chop up,
Speaker 3: you know, raw jackfruit, and then he'll drop it into
Speaker 3: the pasta, and so it almost tastes like you're eating
Speaker 3: meat in the pasta, but it's all vegetables. So he'll
Speaker 3: do all of these crazy creative things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, both of them sound like great cooks.
Speaker 4: They are.
Speaker 2: How did they work all day.
Speaker 1: And then come home and did you sit with your
Speaker 1: sister every night around the table and your parents after
Speaker 1: a long day at school.
Speaker 4: We did.
Speaker 3: And the reason we did that was actually because my
Speaker 3: parents were insistent and that we always have dinner together
Speaker 3: every night. Sometimes my sister and I as kids growing up,
Speaker 3: we'd get annoyed, you know, we'd say, well, you know,
Speaker 3: our friends get to like sit in front of the
Speaker 3: TV during dinnertime, why can we do that? Or you know,
Speaker 3: why don't you guys have dinner. We're busy doing something,
Speaker 3: you know, we're reading this book. Well, we'll have dinner later.
Speaker 3: But they were always insistent that we have to eat together,
Speaker 3: so much so that when I was in high school,
Speaker 3: Ruthie and when we you know, sometimes we had a
Speaker 3: lot of homework and I was in the middle of
Speaker 3: like writing an essay and I didn't want to stop
Speaker 3: exactly when dinner time was, and they would just they
Speaker 3: would just wait for us. And I still feel guilty,
Speaker 3: and so I'm embarrassed to say this, but like I
Speaker 3: still remember many nights in high school where I was
Speaker 3: like stressed about an exam and I was late studying
Speaker 3: and I don't feel could quite break and they would
Speaker 3: stay up and just wait until and we would eat
Speaker 3: at nine or nine thirty or ten o'clock at night,
Speaker 3: but they would just wait because they wanted to have
Speaker 3: dinner together. Still can't believe I made them wait that long,
Speaker 3: so I probably didn't mind.
Speaker 1: I think I can imagine waiting for my children to finish.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, they probably it was your sister
Speaker 1: as well, would.
Speaker 3: You, yeah, study, Yeah, And we were in the same
Speaker 3: grade growing up, so we thankfully had a lot of
Speaker 3: the same assignments and everything.
Speaker 4: So, but yeah, did.
Speaker 1: You go to friends homes for dinner? Did you go
Speaker 1: to other people's houses for dinner?
Speaker 3: We did, Yes, we went to other people's homes, and
Speaker 3: and that was always a real source of joy because
Speaker 3: it was it was always a family affair, and it
Speaker 3: was always always very informal. So it wasn't that there
Speaker 3: was a big long table and everyone would sit together
Speaker 3: around that table. Usually there was food that was made.
Speaker 3: People would often bring food, almost public style. All the
Speaker 3: dishes would be laid out on a table and everyone
Speaker 3: would just noisily, messily grabl plate, you know, put food
Speaker 3: on it, and then go to various parts of the
Speaker 3: house in small groups and this and that. And as
Speaker 3: kids we were, you know, we would just all hang
Speaker 3: out in a room together and eat and play and
Speaker 3: it was fun. I really enjoyed it. It was community,
Speaker 3: it was food, It was entertainment.
Speaker 1: Very evocative, very beautiful description of this life at home.
Speaker 1: Did that it was at a big break then when
Speaker 1: you went off to university, when you went to Harvard,
Speaker 1: was a shock to the system that suddenly you were
Speaker 1: away from that.
Speaker 4: It was a shock.
Speaker 3: It was actually extremely hard for me, and I struggled
Speaker 3: a lot, especially during my first semester away. I felt
Speaker 3: really lonely. I felt just really disconnected, and being a shy,
Speaker 3: introverted kid, I had a hard time just making friends
Speaker 3: off the bat, you know. It took me a while
Speaker 3: to get to know people, and so that was it
Speaker 3: was very hard. I remember coming home at the for
Speaker 3: the first time after enrolling in college during Christmas break,
Speaker 3: and I had my suitcase.
Speaker 4: In my hand.
Speaker 3: The door opened, I stepped in, I put my bags down,
Speaker 3: looked up at the ceiling of the house in which
Speaker 3: I had grown up, took a deep breath, and I
Speaker 3: said to my father, I feel like I've just been
Speaker 3: released from prison. And I had almost forgotten that I
Speaker 3: had said that until a few years ago. He reminded me,
Speaker 3: and if I brought back this flood of emotions of
Speaker 3: what it had felt like to be just separated from
Speaker 3: this love that had nurtured me for so long. And
Speaker 3: things got a bit better after that, as I was
Speaker 3: able to make friends and build a community. But some
Speaker 3: years after, when I was in my residency training in
Speaker 3: my first year, when I was working you know, abobbly
Speaker 3: eighty ninety hundred hours a week, but seeing and working
Speaker 3: with patients who were going through some of the most
Speaker 3: difficult moments of their life, including people who are my age,
Speaker 3: you know at that time, young people in their twenties
Speaker 3: who were dealing with metasatic cancer and only had a
Speaker 3: few months to live. I started reflecting then and thought
Speaker 3: to myself, I never want to lose my connection to
Speaker 3: my family. I want to make sure that every moment
Speaker 3: that I have that I'm spending it with family and friends,
Speaker 3: you know, whether that's vacation time, weekend time. I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to make that a priority. So after that,
Speaker 3: I started going home much more often to see my
Speaker 3: parents and to spend time with them, even if it
Speaker 3: was just for a weekend. You know, it was worth
Speaker 3: it because I always remember those patients I cared for,
Speaker 3: are those young patients, and this reminds me that we
Speaker 3: never we all don't know how much time we have,
Speaker 3: and I want to make sure I'm spending that time
Speaker 3: with the people the time I have with the people
Speaker 3: that I love.
Speaker 1: Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's
Speaker 1: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Speaker 1: Linden Napkins Kitchen, were toat bags with our signatures, glasses
Speaker 1: from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right
Speaker 1: next door to the River Cafe in London or online
Speaker 1: at Shopthrivercafe.
Speaker 2: Dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: When you were growing up, you describe always eating at
Speaker 1: home and cooking at home in the community of home.
Speaker 1: But what would you go to restaurants in Miami?
Speaker 2: Would that be?
Speaker 4: We would from time to time.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, I do I remember that my parents because
Speaker 3: they liked spicy food in particular, and some stories I
Speaker 3: can tell you about spice and my father and the
Speaker 3: crazy yes he makes. He makes a series of different
Speaker 3: hot sauces from different types of peppers, including some are
Speaker 3: from habanero peppers, some are from special Jamaican hot peppers,
Speaker 3: some are from ghost peppers. He's like extremely spicy saw
Speaker 3: so much so that when he makes them, we all
Speaker 3: have to leave the house.
Speaker 4: When he makes the.
Speaker 3: Sauce in the kitchen, we have to step outside because
Speaker 3: and he wears something that's equivalent to a gas mask
Speaker 3: when he makes it, because the fumes there's so incredibly overpowering.
Speaker 3: But once he's made it and put it in a bottle,
Speaker 3: you add a little bit to your food, it tastes
Speaker 3: incredible as long as you can tolerate the spice. So
Speaker 3: but you know, and I generally like, I eat a
Speaker 3: lot of spice, but that level of spice is even
Speaker 3: hard for me to tolerate.
Speaker 2: Would he find a restaurant that could serve him the.
Speaker 3: Equivalent, so we would always be on the lookout for them,
Speaker 3: And so I remember many times going to Chinese restaurants,
Speaker 3: for example, and he would ask them like, can you
Speaker 3: make it spicy? And there was always a cadence to
Speaker 3: this conversation. First question, can you make it spicy? They
Speaker 3: would say yes, Second question, how spicy can you make it?
Speaker 3: They would say, well, we have a five star scale
Speaker 3: and we can make it one to five. Then the
Speaker 3: third question would say can you make seven stars? Can
Speaker 3: you do get six? And then they would get scared
Speaker 3: because they didn't want something to happen against you. But
Speaker 3: then he would go through trying to convince him that
Speaker 3: he really could take the spice. So generally, when we
Speaker 3: went out to eat, it was often with in restaurants
Speaker 3: where they hope people could make the food spicy, Chinese restaurants,
Speaker 3: Thai restaurants, you know, food food cuisines of that sort.
Speaker 1: And when you were in university, did you do what
Speaker 1: was the food like? There was that a shock as well,
Speaker 1: just sitting down to the kind of food they serve
Speaker 1: at school.
Speaker 2: Did you go out?
Speaker 4: It was?
Speaker 3: I actually lost a lot of weight in college. You know,
Speaker 3: I think I'm a fairly normal weight now, but I actually,
Speaker 3: if you can picture this, I weighed forty pounds less
Speaker 3: when I was in college.
Speaker 2: Did anybody notice?
Speaker 1: I mean, did anybody notice that there was a student
Speaker 1: in his freshman year homesick and losing weight and lonely.
Speaker 2: Do you think was there any.
Speaker 3: You know, no one ever asked me that question. Outside
Speaker 3: of my family, I don't think anyone noticed, you know,
Speaker 3: And but it was it was painful to my family. See,
Speaker 3: they were there, they clearly knew something was wrong. I
Speaker 3: wasn't feeling happy.
Speaker 4: Et cetera.
Speaker 3: But yeah, what I used to do is because I
Speaker 3: missed the food of home. Also is I had a
Speaker 3: little packet of spicy powder that I would take with
Speaker 3: me to the dining hall and I would sprinkle it
Speaker 3: on on everything, anything and everything you'd find.
Speaker 4: I would just like spice it up.
Speaker 3: And so even people who didn't know me knew that
Speaker 3: I was I was a kid with the spicy powder.
Speaker 4: You know who.
Speaker 2: I have a friend who travels with chili's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she always travels with some chili that she can
Speaker 1: put on yeah food. I don't know whether she's afraid
Speaker 1: of having inconsequential food or whether she just loves it
Speaker 1: with spicy but.
Speaker 3: Well, I learned that actually from my parents, because when
Speaker 3: we would go out to restaurants I couldn't make food spicy,
Speaker 3: sometimes they'd be really disappointed. So they would always have
Speaker 3: their own like powder that they would add to it.
Speaker 3: I remember a few times going out at that time
Speaker 3: with his kids. We loved pizza and we wanted to
Speaker 3: eat pizza, and we didn't make pizza at home, but
Speaker 3: we always wanted to go to pizza Hut or something.
Speaker 3: So sometimes they would be grudgingly go and they would
Speaker 3: dutifully bring the spicy powder and sprinkle it all over
Speaker 3: the pizza so that they looked like red pizza.
Speaker 1: You know, you were in Harvard and Boston and Cambridge.
Speaker 1: Did you have lobsters or did you try the local
Speaker 1: food from the cake?
Speaker 3: I had some of the local some of the Italian
Speaker 3: food I had in the North End.
Speaker 2: Was that a revelation or had you had it Miami?
Speaker 4: It was? It was much better in the North End.
Speaker 3: I think the limited past side I had in Miami
Speaker 3: was it wasn't as authentic, you know, as what the
Speaker 3: North Ends was. So that was that was quite quite extraordinary.
Speaker 3: And then the pastries also, like the Italian pastries, were
Speaker 3: just incredible. I had never had anything like that before.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Indian desserts are they quite saying the right?
Speaker 3: So some of them are dairy based, yeah, and a
Speaker 3: lot of them are not. The Indian sweets tend to
Speaker 3: be tend to be quite rich, you know, and and
Speaker 3: also quite sweet as well, which is why some people
Speaker 3: love them.
Speaker 4: Some people really don't like them.
Speaker 2: Do you like them?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I have like thirty two sweet teeth,
Speaker 3: so I have. I just love the love desserts, which
Speaker 3: is part of the reason I try to eat them
Speaker 3: very sparingly, because otherwise I would just eat dessert all
Speaker 3: day long. But I used to when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: I would I learned to make one of the sweets
Speaker 3: in particular that became.
Speaker 4: So it was.
Speaker 3: It goes by different names, but in our family we
Speaker 3: called it k City bath, and it's also called Shida
Speaker 3: and other parts of India. But it's a very it's
Speaker 3: sort of my mom's type of dessert. It's very simple
Speaker 3: in terms of the ingredients and involved. Basically, what you
Speaker 3: do is you take a pen, you put let's say
Speaker 3: two cups of cream of wheat or something equivalent to that.
Speaker 3: You roast that with some clarified butter or ghee, and
Speaker 3: you put some raisins in there to roast as well.
Speaker 3: So you're roasting that for a while until you start
Speaker 3: to smell like the wheat, you know, sort of aroma
Speaker 3: cum come to your nose, and once it's slightly brown,
Speaker 3: then what you do is that you actually add You
Speaker 3: can add a couple of things. You can start by
Speaker 3: adding a little bit of sugar, right about a quarter
Speaker 3: a cup or a half cup of sugar, just to
Speaker 3: do you start to see a glisten in the sugar melt,
Speaker 3: and then what I used to do is I would
Speaker 3: actually slice bananas and add them to that as well,
Speaker 3: and then you crush cardamom, you know, with the mortar pestle,
Speaker 3: and then you sprinkle the cardameom on top, and then
Speaker 3: you mix it all together and then let the water
Speaker 3: evaporate until you have something that's very silky smooth, and
Speaker 3: you just the combination of the sugar, the fruit and
Speaker 3: the cardamom really brings the dessert to life. So I
Speaker 3: used to make that, you know, when I was growing up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just made it a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: From my kids, it seemed very like recent, I was
Speaker 1: the way you were describing it. Was it something that's
Speaker 1: just always stayed in your mid It's.
Speaker 3: Always seen in my head, Like I made it two
Speaker 3: weeks ago for the first time in probably ten years,
Speaker 3: and it brought back all these wonderful memories.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you cook at home now?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: Very little, you know, which I regret. I used to
Speaker 3: cook a fair amount up until I finished my medical
Speaker 3: training and then and then it just sort of fell off.
Speaker 1: I did you cook when you were doing your medical education?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you have a family then or you I did not,
Speaker 1: so put everything into your studies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got married later in life when I was
Speaker 3: thirty eight years old. In fact, I got married and
Speaker 3: then now I have two wonderful kids. But in those days,
Speaker 3: I was a bachelor doing my own thing in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: What did you study in medicine? What was your specialty?
Speaker 3: So I ended up studying internal medicine, which is the
Speaker 3: care of adults. And I ended up specializing in hospital
Speaker 3: based medicine. So when people are admitted to them there's
Speaker 3: sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, then I
Speaker 3: was the doctor who would take care of them there.
Speaker 4: So that that's that's the And.
Speaker 1: Yeah, grueling.
Speaker 2: Now would you would you be working again?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about how you did you did you manage
Speaker 1: to cook?
Speaker 2: You said you did cook when you were I.
Speaker 3: Did cook, yeah, but it wasn't I mean I had
Speaker 3: to like cook a bunch of food and then like
Speaker 3: eat it over several days because there wasn't Sometimes you
Speaker 3: would come home at three in the morning and then
Speaker 3: you'd have to leave two hours later, five in the
Speaker 3: morning to go and start the next days run. So
Speaker 3: there wasn't a lot of time to cook. So I
Speaker 3: would try to cook in advance, you know, and have
Speaker 3: some food, but sometimes it wasn't easy, and so I
Speaker 3: ended up having to eat out or eat in the
Speaker 3: hospital cafeteria a lot, which was we could talk.
Speaker 1: About hospital food. Yeah, that is such an issue now.
Speaker 1: The way we feed our children and the way we
Speaker 1: feed sick people in our society, I think tells us about.
Speaker 2: How we care for people.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think it's very astutely said, and I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think one thing, if you look at the list
Speaker 3: of medicines that we prescribe, there's one thing that's missing
Speaker 3: from that list, and it's food, right, because food is
Speaker 3: medicine and food helps us heal in many direct and
Speaker 3: indirect ways. Yet somehow it does feel that the food
Speaker 3: we give people in hospitals, and the food that we
Speaker 3: even give kids in school. I think about the cafeteria,
Speaker 3: you know, in my school growing up, and like what
Speaker 3: we used to eat, and it's not the kind of
Speaker 3: I think food we would want to give children and
Speaker 3: give people who are ill if we fully understood just
Speaker 3: how powerful food is in healing and how vital it
Speaker 3: is for our well being in sustenance. And I do
Speaker 3: worry that what has happened in part over the years,
Speaker 3: is that we've allowed and I'm you know, my primary
Speaker 3: experiences with the United States, but I do think sadly
Speaker 3: this is happening in many other parts of the modernized world.
Speaker 3: I do think we've allowed our food supply to become
Speaker 3: poisoned in a sense by food that are overly processed
Speaker 3: and that are filled with excessive amounts of salt and sugar,
Speaker 3: and we've gotten away from, I think, some of the
Speaker 3: healthier food that we all need. And it starts really early,
Speaker 3: you know. I think if children had the opportunity to
Speaker 3: experience healthy food, I meanly, I think it would make
Speaker 3: a big difference. And I do believe, just from a
Speaker 3: moral perspective, that no child should ever have to go hungry,
Speaker 3: no child should ever have to eat food that is
Speaker 3: bad for them just to survive. Yet that is a
Speaker 3: reality that so many families are living right now, and
Speaker 3: I do think it comes from just a failure from
Speaker 3: a policy perspective to understand the vital importance of healthy
Speaker 3: food in raising our children and making sure that society
Speaker 3: is healthy and whole.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to think of how that happened and
Speaker 1: when that happened, you know, the path to not being
Speaker 1: concerned about feeding our children.
Speaker 3: I think that the paradoxes that we've somehow made unhealthy
Speaker 3: food cheap and made healthy food expensive, which has put
Speaker 3: health out of the reach of so many people in society,
Speaker 3: And that is what we have to flip because if
Speaker 3: we don't do that, then I worry that this rise
Speaker 3: in chronic illness that we're seeing heart disease, diabetes, cancer,
Speaker 3: significant amount of which is driven by diet, that we'll
Speaker 3: see those trends continue unless we manage to get back
Speaker 3: to the root of what's driving it, which is in
Speaker 3: large part our diet.
Speaker 1: And so you're going from describing being the person that
Speaker 1: people met in hospital and working with patients, and how
Speaker 1: did that segue from that until how do you become
Speaker 1: a surgeon general? You know, people who are listening who
Speaker 1: might not know whether the two words surgeon general comes from,
Speaker 1: can you.
Speaker 3: Tell us absolutely well? In the United States, the position
Speaker 3: of surgeon General is designated to be an individual who's
Speaker 3: sometimes informally called the nation's doctor, but whose responsibility is
Speaker 3: twofold and one is to make sure that the public
Speaker 3: has the best possible information about health. So that they
Speaker 3: can make good decisions for themselves and their families. And
Speaker 3: the second is to oversee one of our eight uniformed
Speaker 3: services in the US government, which is called a US
Speaker 3: Public Health Service Commission CORPS. People are familiar with the Army,
Speaker 3: the Navy, the Air Force. Well, one of our services
Speaker 3: is the Public Health Service as well, and we focus
Speaker 3: entirely on protecting the health of people, not just in
Speaker 3: the United States, but also extending that mission outside the
Speaker 3: US as well. So those are the responsibilities I have
Speaker 3: as Surgeon General.
Speaker 1: And how did you go from being a doctor in
Speaker 1: a hospital to being the Surgeon General.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I don't entirely know, to be honest
Speaker 3: with you, and I'll tell you how it happened. But
Speaker 3: after I finished my medical training, I was teaching at
Speaker 3: a hospital. I was practicing medicine and caring for patients.
Speaker 3: I was doing that for a good chunk of my time.
Speaker 3: And then on the side, I was actually building a
Speaker 3: technology company that I I hope would help to accelerate
Speaker 3: medical research to help bring treatments and cures to people
Speaker 3: more effectively. And I was I had gotten involved probably
Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight I
Speaker 3: think around that timeframe also in health policy work. So
Speaker 3: I was doing that hodgepodge of things like that, you know,
Speaker 3: at the time, but never actually thought of working in government.
Speaker 3: But then one day I happened to be, you know,
Speaker 3: actually picking up my dry cleaning that day from the
Speaker 3: dry cleaners, and my hands were full, and my phone
Speaker 3: rank and it was a two to two area code,
Speaker 3: which is the Washington d C. I lived in Boston
Speaker 3: at the time, and I didn't recognize the number, so
Speaker 3: I didn't pick it up. But then finally I decided,
Speaker 3: let me just take the number, and that happened to
Speaker 3: be a call from the White House at that time,
Speaker 3: asking if I'd be interested in being considered for this position.
Speaker 3: And what I came to understand later is that the
Speaker 3: President Obama and his team, we're looking to modernize the
Speaker 3: Office of the Surgeon General. They recognized this was a
Speaker 3: new age that we were coming in to where people
Speaker 3: receive their information differently, they learned about health issues differently,
Speaker 3: and there's a whole new dimension of health threats that
Speaker 3: we were facing, including the operate epidemic and the fentanyl crisis.
Speaker 3: So anyway, they seem to think that I might be
Speaker 3: a good fit for that role. So they reached out
Speaker 3: at that time and that's how the whole journey began.
Speaker 1: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 1: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: When you had that break between being surgeon General with
Speaker 1: President Obama and then now your position with President Biden,
Speaker 1: tell me what did you do and how did that
Speaker 1: lead to your interest in loneliness.
Speaker 3: Well, to be honest with you, Ruthie, I was quite
Speaker 3: lost in the beginning.
Speaker 4: And I you know, I was.
Speaker 3: Coming off of serving as Surgeon General for about two
Speaker 3: and a half years or so, and my identity had
Speaker 3: become wrapped up in that role, and I was abruptly
Speaker 3: as civilian again and trying to figure out a bunch
Speaker 3: of questions. And one of the things I was struggling
Speaker 3: with in the process was that I had really lost
Speaker 3: any sense of community during those few years that I
Speaker 3: served in government. I had largely you know, I sort
Speaker 3: of told myself, I think a familiar story that many
Speaker 3: people tell themselves, perhaps when they have jobs for a
Speaker 3: short period of time, which is I got to put
Speaker 3: everything I have into this job, and I'll have time
Speaker 3: to do the right catch up with life afterward. And
Speaker 3: as a result, I had not caught up with friends,
Speaker 3: I had not kept up with even family members at times,
Speaker 3: and when I was with my parents or my wife
Speaker 3: or you know, my sister, I was distracted often, you know,
Speaker 3: I was going through my inbox, trying to clear out messages,
Speaker 3: keeping up with the news that was relevant to my work,
Speaker 3: and that just led to this real profound sense of
Speaker 3: isolation and loneliness when I came out, and so I
Speaker 3: struggled with that for quite a bit of time. And
Speaker 3: in the process, one of the things that I was
Speaker 3: digging into was recognizing that that experience of loneliness that
Speaker 3: I was having, that it wasn't unique to me. I
Speaker 3: was like reflecting more and more on conversations I had
Speaker 3: had even when I was in office. The social connection
Speaker 3: that I was missing and that I found was missing
Speaker 3: for so many others was not just a good feeling.
Speaker 3: It was actually something that was really vital to our
Speaker 3: physical health and our mental health. And it's why, well, ultimately,
Speaker 3: when I wrote about loneliness, it was about that profound
Speaker 3: health impact around the recognition that when we struggle with
Speaker 3: being disconnected from one another, that actually has an impact
Speaker 3: on our mortality. And the mortality impact actually of loneliness
Speaker 3: and isolation are similar to the mortality impact we see
Speaker 3: with smoking, and even greater than that which we see
Speaker 3: with obesity. So this is a real issue, but it's
Speaker 3: also one that's deeply felt, and I certainly felt it
Speaker 3: a lot during that time. So coming back the second
Speaker 3: time to serve felt very different than the first time,
Speaker 3: in part because the country in the world was in
Speaker 3: a very different place with COVID, but also because I
Speaker 3: realized I really wanted to focus in on this deeper
Speaker 3: mental health crisis that was running under the surface and
Speaker 3: that was impacting so much of our lives, and that
Speaker 3: was particularly impacting kids with rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide.
Speaker 3: That we're all going in the wrong direction. And so
Speaker 3: that has been really where I have focused much of
Speaker 3: my time these last three years, is on addressing loneliness,
Speaker 3: understanding the deeper roots of this mental health crisis, and
Speaker 3: thinking about and honesty in a very personal context, not
Speaker 3: just in terms of me, butters of my own kids.
Speaker 3: You know, my kids are now six and seven, and
Speaker 3: I want them to grow up in a world where
Speaker 3: they feel happy they don't, where they feel connected to
Speaker 3: other people, where they feel connected to other cultures. And
Speaker 3: I want them to know that if they mess up
Speaker 3: or do something wrong, that they are people who will
Speaker 3: forgive them, men who will lift them up.
Speaker 4: And I want to know.
Speaker 3: That they will do that for other people as well.
Speaker 3: But that means creating a world that's more kind and compassionate,
Speaker 3: more forgiving and understanding, more connected and invested in one another.
Speaker 3: But that's ultimately I think the work that I feel
Speaker 3: is really essential for us to do.
Speaker 2: Now, would you also add trust to that?
Speaker 1: If you have trust, then you trust that there will
Speaker 1: be that support system or that people are not there
Speaker 1: to do you harm that you then might accept more.
Speaker 4: Yes, that is the right word trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the thing is trust trust can't be manufactured, and
Speaker 3: it also doesn't come about overnight. It comes through relationship, right.
Speaker 3: It's like when we get to know people and understand them,
Speaker 3: then we come to trust them. And when we trust people,
Speaker 3: we can also tolerate disagreement because we recognize that that
Speaker 3: we're more than our opinion on a single issue, Right,
Speaker 3: that there's something deeper that binds us together common hopes
Speaker 3: and dreams, or shared humanity. But when that gets lost,
Speaker 3: when we can't see each other as human beings, but
Speaker 3: we only see each other as posts that we that
Speaker 3: we write on social media, or as positions on a
Speaker 3: particular controversial issue, then it becomes very hard to build trust.
Speaker 3: It becomes hard then to move together in the face
Speaker 3: of adversity. And that's why a key part of not
Speaker 3: just preparing for better health, but also preparing for the
Speaker 3: next pandemic has to involve rebuilding our ties with one
Speaker 3: another and the trust that we have in society.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite stories is of they were looking
Speaker 1: into a happy community and happiness factors, and it was
Speaker 1: this town in Denmark, and they interviewed people about why
Speaker 1: they were happy, and it was to do with trust.
Speaker 1: And they told the story about a Danish woman who
Speaker 1: had which I remember, had taken her baby to New
Speaker 1: York and she went inside to my Balthazar, one of
Speaker 1: the cafes there, and left the baby outside in a
Speaker 1: pram and she went in to eat because that's what
Speaker 1: she would do in her town in Denmark. You know,
Speaker 1: she thought that actually that's what they would do. They
Speaker 1: would leave the baby outside, you know, but she.
Speaker 2: Was able to watch it. And she was arrested for.
Speaker 1: You know, being whatever you call irresponsible towards an infant
Speaker 1: because she'd left a baby outside, you know. But that
Speaker 1: was to do with trust. And I think that what
Speaker 1: you're doing is so you know, so inspiring and so important,
Speaker 1: and you are actually in a position to make change.
Speaker 1: People were saying in the River Cafe, thank you, So
Speaker 1: as an American, I would add myself to those thanks
Speaker 1: and to ask you as our last question, if food
Speaker 1: is something that helps loneliness, if food is the way
Speaker 1: you cook for your own children and the experience of
Speaker 1: taking them places. Food is also comfort, So what would
Speaker 1: be your comfort food search?
Speaker 2: In general?
Speaker 4: I comfort food.
Speaker 3: Well, there is a it's something my mother makes and
Speaker 3: it's a particular.
Speaker 4: A dish.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a spicy broth water that's called russam
Speaker 3: sam and traditionally you would mix it with rice to
Speaker 3: eat it. And it's beautiful, spicy, flavorful as curry leaves
Speaker 3: in it, as pepper, has all kinds of spices and
Speaker 3: very ripe tomatoes. But you can also pour it in
Speaker 3: a cup and drink it, and when I do that,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's almost like an elixir that I'm having.
Speaker 3: It sort of fills me with warmth literally, but also
Speaker 3: with these beautiful memories I have of my mother. You know,
Speaker 3: I had a professor once who said to me, he
Speaker 3: said love. He said, food is not the calories you
Speaker 3: put in your body. Food is the love your mother
Speaker 3: gave you as a child. And I have thought about
Speaker 3: that so often because that's what to me makes comfort
Speaker 3: food comfort food. It's the food that reminds me of love.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you so.
Speaker 4: Much, Rudy.
Speaker 2: You'll see you again very soon.
Speaker 4: I hope, so I as well have this love.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair.
Speaker 3: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 4: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 4: Nigel Appleton.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Faye Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our
Speaker 3: production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator is
Speaker 3: Bella Selini. Thank you to everyone at the River Cafe
Speaker 3: for your help in making this episode.