Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four.
Speaker 2: In partnership with Montclair, Jane Hardley was the American ambassador
Speaker 2: to France and Monaco and now to the Court of
Speaker 2: Saint James. She has the qualities necessary for the role
Speaker 2: in abundance, leadership, resilience, duty. I know the qualities she
Speaker 2: has as a close friend, kindness, empathy, humor and love.
Speaker 2: I've witnessed Jane negotiating difficult situations and people impressed by
Speaker 2: her curiosity, strength and integrity. She has a courage to
Speaker 2: challenge others and, though a diplomat, to say what she thinks.
Speaker 2: In the two years she's been the ambassador to the
Speaker 2: Court of Saint James, Jane has had two monarchs, three
Speaker 2: prime ministers, four chancellors, and a late stage pandemic. She
Speaker 2: works rigorously to be informed. Her husband, Ralph Schlostein, is
Speaker 2: a committed cook and knows almost more about food than
Speaker 2: I do, to giving serious attention to serious wines. He
Speaker 2: and a group of friends meet every Monday discovering new restaurants,
Speaker 2: and apparently his lifetime ambition is to find the best
Speaker 2: pizza in New York City. I always introduced Jane as
Speaker 2: Ambassador Hartley. But my nickname for her is miss Sparkle.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen her without sequence on
Speaker 2: a sweater, a dress, earrings, or even the shoes she's wearing. Today.
Speaker 2: Jane has just been in the kitchen with Joseph cooking
Speaker 2: a dover sole. Now we're going to get together to
Speaker 2: talk about work, duty, family and food. I know she
Speaker 2: will be informed and I know she will sparkle.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ruthie, Thank you.
Speaker 2: So what was it like being in the kitchen. I
Speaker 2: don't think I've ever sat at a table. We didn't
Speaker 2: order dover soul.
Speaker 1: I ordered over sol every time I come, and you
Speaker 1: have by far the best over soul that I've ever had.
Speaker 1: I was asking where he got it from. Of course
Speaker 1: it's it's from the UK. But you do something special
Speaker 1: in terms of the cooking and in terms of my capers.
Speaker 1: I always ask if you'll add capers, and you do.
Speaker 2: It's unusual because some people want capers off.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love capers, but I love but literally,
Speaker 1: I said to you when I walked in today. I
Speaker 1: come into this restaurant and I feel like I'm home,
Speaker 1: and no matter how hard my day is. And some
Speaker 1: days are pretty hard. I see you and I sit
Speaker 1: at that corner table and have my dover soul and
Speaker 1: my usually April sprits Apple spirits.
Speaker 2: But that's what that's what Conversely, we feel when we
Speaker 2: see you coming in at your family, and I think
Speaker 2: that it isn't just how you can relate to a restaurant.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it is being taken care of, you know. Un Thus,
Speaker 2: we always tell the people work for us, you know,
Speaker 2: take care well.
Speaker 1: You do it perfectly. I only know one other person
Speaker 1: who's also a friend of yours, because everybody's a friend
Speaker 1: of Ruthie's, but Danny Meyer, who's a friend of mine
Speaker 1: from New York, and when he started his restaurants, he
Speaker 1: said what he wanted to provide was service that everybody
Speaker 1: came in and felt that, you know, they were known,
Speaker 1: they were taken care of, and it was home. And
Speaker 1: you did that better than anybody.
Speaker 2: Well. Also, you never know how people when they walk
Speaker 2: into a restaurant, how they are feeling. You know, they
Speaker 2: may be celebrating something, or they may be grieving over
Speaker 2: something sad, or they may just be, as you say,
Speaker 2: had a really tough day. And you do have tough days, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I do have tough days for the
Speaker 2: work you do. You grew up in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Connecting western Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Did you have fish? That part of fish?
Speaker 1: You know? It's thank god she's no longer with us.
Speaker 1: She was a wonderful woman. But my mother was not
Speaker 1: the best cook. Although it was interesting because she cooked
Speaker 1: meat and fish quite well. So she cooked meat rare,
Speaker 1: which is how I like it, and she cooked fish moist.
Speaker 1: Now vegetables unfortunately met their death in her kitchen.
Speaker 2: Was hard to cook. You know, Lord, what did she do?
Speaker 2: We don't want to be too bad.
Speaker 1: I love my mother. But she cooked once for Ralph,
Speaker 1: my husband, who is the best cook in the family.
Speaker 1: My son may be close so Kate and I not
Speaker 1: so much. But my husband came once to I think
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving dinner and my mother uttered the words, you
Speaker 1: can't overcook a vegetable, and I thought Ralph was gonna
Speaker 1: fall on the floor.
Speaker 2: She worked every day, did she was? She worked, She.
Speaker 1: Did various jobs coming home, and it just it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't think cooking was important to her in terms
Speaker 1: of feeding the family. My father, I think, was not
Speaker 1: a gourmetl though he was very interesting. He insisted on
Speaker 1: meat rare. So anytime we'd go out to dinner, and
Speaker 1: usually on Sunday evenings.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the restaurant? Were they the same restaurant
Speaker 2: or would you go to differ reson?
Speaker 1: I think it was called White Fence Inn. It was
Speaker 1: up in Litchfield County. The one thing I remember more
Speaker 1: than anything else, though, is I have a twin brother
Speaker 1: who I'm very close to. It's just the two of
Speaker 1: us is riding around in a car and it was
Speaker 1: long before ways and Google maps and things and them
Speaker 1: being lost and my brother saying in the backseat, can't
Speaker 1: we just go anywhere? We're hungry?
Speaker 2: And your father would insist on the meat being rare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, meat being rare. And sometimes the drink first, never
Speaker 1: wine with the meals. So that was interesting that taste
Speaker 1: I developed later cocktails A cocktail first, yeah, cocktail first. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So more about growing up, So your mom worked, your
Speaker 2: father worked, and you would have you know, would you
Speaker 2: and your brother sit down to dinner and your parents
Speaker 2: every night, which you have a family meal pretty.
Speaker 1: Much, but we ate very quickly. My brother played a
Speaker 1: lot of sports, but it was wonderful, and that the
Speaker 1: other thing I remember from growing up, and it's it's
Speaker 1: what Ralph is doing now, which is after I participated
Speaker 1: in various athletics and this was mainly swimming. After our
Speaker 1: swim meets, my father would take the whole team out
Speaker 1: to pizza. And I still remember the name of the pizza.
Speaker 1: Zachary's an odd name for Waterbury. This was in Waterbury. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you grew up with a at the table,
Speaker 2: you know, what were your parents in discussion about politics
Speaker 2: or duty or being a citizen and giving something back.
Speaker 2: Was that imbued with it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really was. I mean we always talked about politics,
Speaker 1: and my whole family had been in it kind of indirectly.
Speaker 1: My sister in law now my sister in law currently
Speaker 1: is in the state Senate and she was deputy speaker
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, Connecticut. So we always we always had discussions
Speaker 1: about politics. Yes, that was something and I think I
Speaker 1: was very young when President Kennedy was president. But you know,
Speaker 1: the whole concept of ask not what you could do
Speaker 1: what your country asked, what you can do for your
Speaker 1: country as opposed to what your country can do for you.
Speaker 1: Didn't get that exactly right, but that whole that whole
Speaker 1: value of in my parents, especially my father frankly, that
Speaker 1: we were lucky, lucky to grow up in America, we
Speaker 1: were lucky to be there, that there was such a
Speaker 1: thing as the American dream, and because we were lucky,
Speaker 1: we also had a responsibility to give him something.
Speaker 2: I can remember. I think where I was when Kennedy
Speaker 2: was shot. You in school, because I was in a classroom.
Speaker 1: I was in a classroom too, my I you know,
Speaker 1: I think everybody remembers. I was in a classroom also,
Speaker 1: and all the children had to leave schools. So my
Speaker 1: father came to get us in his car, and I
Speaker 1: remember driving home and my father was crying.
Speaker 2: He was crying. In my school. I was at a
Speaker 2: sort of what they call a central school. So we
Speaker 2: all bussed in from Yea because it was in the countryside. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it came over the loudspeaker, you know, that we
Speaker 2: were the buses would be outside. We were all going home.
Speaker 1: Seven They told us we were going did they tell you?
Speaker 1: But then no, they didn't even tell us that. They
Speaker 1: just said you're all going home. So I never heard.
Speaker 1: And in the car my father was just crying.
Speaker 2: And finally, and did he participate in politic was he was.
Speaker 1: He participated, He was more participated indirectly. I think he did.
Speaker 1: He did run for senate once in Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Well that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Well you state senate? What might still he lost?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Still?
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but my family was always a little
Speaker 1: bit involved. Yeah. And my mother's family hit on the
Speaker 1: newspaper until until it went bankrupt. What that pack up
Speaker 1: the paper went out of business?
Speaker 2: Was your mother's family? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was the Waterbury Democrat ran out run out of
Speaker 1: town by the Weterbury Republican.
Speaker 2: Were they for.
Speaker 1: Two papers because you couldn't support two papers in one town?
Speaker 2: That's interesting there was one called Democrat and actually one
Speaker 2: was called Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that tells you about bias in the press.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: And so when you when you left, when you went
Speaker 2: to college, did you have that sense that this is
Speaker 2: what you wanted to pursue or did that come later?
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I kind of I kind of knew. I
Speaker 1: consider myself lucky because I remember when my children were
Speaker 1: growing up. I always sort of had this passion saying
Speaker 1: to my kids, find your passion, until I realized that
Speaker 1: was really the wrong thing to say to young people,
Speaker 1: because many times you find your passion when you're forty fifty,
Speaker 1: however old you are, you find your passion, and it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a burden for young people.
Speaker 2: I think there's something about finding your passion. I was
Speaker 2: just listening to Scotty, but we had the passion. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was saying, if you don't find the passion in
Speaker 2: your work, then find the passion in your family or
Speaker 2: something else. Ye say, exactly is what will give me
Speaker 2: the ability to have the time when you have.
Speaker 1: A passion a different listen. In my life, I've worked
Speaker 1: in the public sector, I've worked in the private sector.
Speaker 1: My passion is the private Is the public safe, because
Speaker 1: I think that's where you can make a difference. But
Speaker 1: I've certainly worked in the private sector, which is much
Speaker 1: easier when you have a family. And I also moved
Speaker 1: to New York after the White House, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's a balance. Life. Life is a journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But he went straight from college to Washington.
Speaker 1: I did. I went. I was very lucky. I was
Speaker 1: going to go to law school, but I didn't because
Speaker 1: I've got an opportunity very very early, which is sort
Speaker 1: of through luck and being in the right place. And
Speaker 1: there was a legendary man. His name was Robert Strauss,
Speaker 1: Bob Strauss. She probably knew me.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: He ran the Democratic Party. He was later ambassador to
Speaker 1: Russia USTR. He did so many different things. But I
Speaker 1: had been doing some work on fiscal economic issues on
Speaker 1: the Hill budget priorities, and somehow was introduced to him
Speaker 1: because a lot of the budget fiscal stuff had to
Speaker 1: do with cities, urban policy and revenue sharing things like that.
Speaker 1: So I got to know him, and I was introduced
Speaker 1: to him, and I got a big job at the
Speaker 1: Democratic headquarters at the DNC.
Speaker 2: They called so was a Carter White House.
Speaker 1: It was right before the Carter And I do remember
Speaker 1: when I was interviewed for this job, because it was
Speaker 1: quite a big job. They asked me how old I was,
Speaker 1: and I remember wearing a black dress and glasses to
Speaker 1: the interview. So they said how old are you? And
Speaker 1: I said about thirty. Now, if anybody I interviewed every
Speaker 1: said about thirty, I would roll. I was twenty four.
Speaker 1: I worked there and I had a lot of visibility
Speaker 1: because you were. I was working with a lot of
Speaker 1: the big city mayors at the time. In urban policy
Speaker 1: was one of the key issues that she did.
Speaker 2: It was huge housing in urban development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, I went there first, and then I
Speaker 1: went to the White House for a legendary woman who
Speaker 1: was at the White House. Her name was Anne Wexler,
Speaker 1: and she controlled, She controlled the White House, and she
Speaker 1: controlled so much in that city. Stew Eyes Instead always
Speaker 1: said to me once, if Anne had come eighteen months earlier,
Speaker 1: Carter would have won the election. But she came maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe eighteen months in and I came
Speaker 1: right after that.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe is excited. We're opening the River Cafe Cafe.
Speaker 2: Come for a morning Briochian cappuccino, a plate of seasonal
Speaker 2: antipasty on the terrace, or an ice cream or a
Speaker 2: paratibo in the sun. We can't wait to open, and
Speaker 2: we cannot wait to welcome you. Do you remember having
Speaker 2: left college and having set up on your own? Do
Speaker 2: you remember working what you ate? Do you remember food
Speaker 2: at that time? Would you grab something? Would you go?
Speaker 2: Were you suddenly having restaurants to go to in Washington.
Speaker 1: Washington didn't have the restaurants that they do now, but
Speaker 1: there was one quite famous restaurant that was on right
Speaker 1: above DuPont Circle called Nora's and we got to know
Speaker 1: Nora quite well. And the restaurant was right across from
Speaker 1: where Ralph lived because Ralph was at the White House also,
Speaker 1: so we went there all the time.
Speaker 2: When did you meet Ralph?
Speaker 1: I'd met him briefly before I went to the White House,
Speaker 1: but then we started working together. So Ralf and I
Speaker 1: worked together all the time. And the joke about that
Speaker 1: was that memos to the President were always due on
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, and we were the point people for the
Speaker 1: memos to the President and urban policy. I was the
Speaker 1: point for Anne and he was point and then there
Speaker 1: was the omb person Office of Management and Budget. But
Speaker 1: we could never agree, so we'd be editing late into
Speaker 1: Friday night. And the joke was we broke so many
Speaker 1: dates with other people as they do, we ended up
Speaker 1: together from Wes Wayne, Yeah, exactly, couldn't get a date
Speaker 1: because we had to break them because we were working
Speaker 1: in midnight.
Speaker 2: Was he as rest and food then? As he is?
Speaker 1: He always loved food. Yeah, he always loved food and
Speaker 1: he was always a good cook.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So did he cook for you?
Speaker 1: He cooked for me? Yeah, I remember, Well, we did
Speaker 1: go to dinner light a lot because we went to
Speaker 1: this place, Nora's across the street, because we worked so late,
Speaker 1: both of us. But I do remember one time, right
Speaker 1: in the beginning of our relationship, he had been in
Speaker 1: France for work for something with the White House, and
Speaker 1: he came back with all these French cheeses. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're supposed to bring French cheese back into
Speaker 1: this country, and he was working at the White House,
Speaker 1: but somehow we put them through. So I went to
Speaker 1: his house and did a tasting of French cheese.
Speaker 2: Did you eat in the canteen in the White House.
Speaker 1: Pretty much every day? It was a wonderful place. Actually,
Speaker 1: I went back to the White House just like six
Speaker 1: months ago or something and went there again, and one
Speaker 1: of the things I was disappointed is they took out
Speaker 1: they had in the White House mess for years and years,
Speaker 1: they had a big round table which was called the
Speaker 1: staff table, so you never had to make a reservation.
Speaker 1: You could just go in and sit at this big
Speaker 1: round table when you'd be sitting next to Vice President Mondale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was wonderful. It was just a fantastic, fantastic experience.
Speaker 1: So I was very disappointed that they got rid of
Speaker 1: it last year. When I was there, it's no longer there.
Speaker 2: Did you go upstairs to the residents that never have
Speaker 2: meals with the carters?
Speaker 1: I went upstairs to the residents maybe then, but probably
Speaker 1: more when President Obama was.
Speaker 2: President, And do you remember those meals?
Speaker 1: I think it was mainly cocktails. President Obama and President
Speaker 1: Biden care quite a bit about food. They have their
Speaker 1: own they have their own special treats that they like.
Speaker 1: So when President Biden comes to Winfield House, which he
Speaker 1: has four times, I think since I've been here, we
Speaker 1: always have to make sure we get ice cream. His
Speaker 1: favorite thing in the world is ice cream. He likes
Speaker 1: chocolate chip, but I think last time we had vanilla,
Speaker 1: but he loves ice cream. President Obama came recently, just
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, and he's very careful about food.
Speaker 1: Six almonds for breakfast, right but when he's relaxing, his
Speaker 1: favorite thing steak and martini vodka. Straight up, you know
Speaker 1: he loves it. So you always want to make them happy.
Speaker 1: Work so hard when he's here, so I always get
Speaker 1: ice creamy anything he wants he gets. He deserves all
Speaker 1: of it. And President Obama, I've had dinner with him
Speaker 1: at Martha's finger and stuff. So he always makes the martinis.
Speaker 2: Does it good Martin vodka? If we're going in the
Speaker 2: order you went from Washington and then you were in
Speaker 2: New York with your having your children. Were they all
Speaker 2: born in New York?
Speaker 1: My children were born in New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They consider themselves total New Yorkers actually, although both of
Speaker 1: them went to Dartmouth which is up in New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: and Kate, when she came back, applied to business school.
Speaker 1: She ap fled to Columbia. And I remember, as a
Speaker 1: mother always worries. I said, shouldn't even been applying more
Speaker 1: than one school? And she said, no, I'm never leaving
Speaker 1: New York again. If I don't get in, I don't
Speaker 1: kid in.
Speaker 2: Did you find as a working mother that did you
Speaker 2: have help for taking care of child?
Speaker 1: It's nutty. No, it wasn't easy. I mean anybody who says,
Speaker 1: even some of my friends at the time would say
Speaker 1: it was easy, and I thought they were probably not
Speaker 1: telling the truth. It's not a bit. It's terrorI it's
Speaker 1: really hard. It's really really hard. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think the kids that not that they suffered, but there
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of cooking in the house, Ralph and
Speaker 1: I would come back. We'd be exhausted and tired. And
Speaker 1: one time a friend of ours was a journalist for
Speaker 1: he'd been at the Western Post and Time, and he
Speaker 1: was writing a book about young people with children and
Speaker 1: how difficult it was, and Kate was actually in the book.
Speaker 1: One of her lines was when the doorbell rings, Kate
Speaker 1: would say dinner, because we got take out every night.
Speaker 2: I have one of my children. Once when I started
Speaker 2: the River Cafe and he went to the American School, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he came. He called me up and he was
Speaker 2: out a playdate around the corner and he said, Mom,
Speaker 2: can you just come come over pick me up? And
Speaker 2: I thought about the ground the corner. He said, no,
Speaker 2: just come pick me up. And he wanted me to
Speaker 2: see what a good mother's fridge look like.
Speaker 1: That's so funny, this is a good mother.
Speaker 2: And it was that, you know.
Speaker 1: It was one of those double door fridges, filled vegetables
Speaker 1: and all the things. And I said, I have a.
Speaker 2: Good mother and I have a good fridge. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't have sixteen thousand different types of I was.
Speaker 1: Ab I was a good very good and what I
Speaker 1: did well, but I didn't have a good fridge, fridge
Speaker 1: they were. It all worked out very well. I love
Speaker 1: my children and they're terrific adults. Terrific you said them,
Speaker 1: terrific people. Even though they may have gotten rafts take out?
Speaker 2: Did they did?
Speaker 1: He was, you know, during the week, it was so hard.
Speaker 1: We both worked and we were both exhausted, so we
Speaker 1: didn't really cook during the week, but he did cook
Speaker 1: Friday nights usually we'd have dinner with the kids, and
Speaker 1: they got into this one thing. At one point, I
Speaker 1: was like, do we have to have it again? They
Speaker 1: loved steak and chicken fajitas, so we had steak and
Speaker 1: chicken fajitas every Friday n them.
Speaker 2: Would he make them?
Speaker 1: Make them? You'd make them?
Speaker 2: Because now he's such a passionate cook, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that happened later, think.
Speaker 1: Well, I think he always it's just time, you know.
Speaker 1: And even now he mainly cooks some weekends. But he
Speaker 1: loves he loves food, and he has a great feel
Speaker 1: for it, whereas I'm much more in I'm sort of
Speaker 1: I'm a perfectionist by nature, even cooking, and I think
Speaker 1: it makes me less good at cook I have to
Speaker 1: follow a recipe to write the exact what it says,
Speaker 1: and roughness has a feel for it. You didn't have
Speaker 1: to follow anything.
Speaker 2: What was it like going to Paris.
Speaker 1: We had a couple of favorite places in Paris, but
Speaker 1: one thing I remember that is of more serious, having
Speaker 1: to do with food. When I was in Paris, I
Speaker 1: was there during the worst of terrorism, so I got
Speaker 1: there right before Charlie Hebdo. It was Isis terrorism during
Speaker 1: the time when I was there in Isis terrorist attacks
Speaker 1: and Bodaclan was the huge attack at the music van.
Speaker 1: You called Bataclan, but there were like three different attacks.
Speaker 1: Huge numbers of people were killed. It was in November,
Speaker 1: right before Thanksgiving. I'll never forget that night because Charlie
Speaker 1: Hebdo had happened, which was a terror, which was a
Speaker 1: you know, a terrorist act and a terrible thing, but
Speaker 1: it appeared more targeted, where this just shook the city,
Speaker 1: shook the country, shook the world because it was done
Speaker 1: for ef fact, it wasn't targeted. There are just young
Speaker 1: kids in a music venue and huge, huge numbers of people.
Speaker 2: Died.
Speaker 1: I remember that night because Ralph happened to be there.
Speaker 1: Ralph was not in France much. He was there maybe
Speaker 1: six days a month, but this night he happened to
Speaker 1: be there. So we were out to dinner and the
Speaker 1: security rushed over to my table and said, you have
Speaker 1: to leave now, and they'd never done that before, especially
Speaker 1: because we were in the middle or just finishing the
Speaker 1: main course. So Ralph said, but I haven't had dessert,
Speaker 1: and that is Ralph, and my secure already said she's leaving.
Speaker 1: We don't care what you do. And I got rushed back.
Speaker 1: And I did have safe rooms in my residence, so
Speaker 1: got rushed to a safe room. And you have kept
Speaker 1: up all the time with oh yeah, and I'd calls
Speaker 1: from the White House. In the situation room, we did
Speaker 1: brief the White House, and there was a wonderful woman.
Speaker 1: She was head of Homeland Security, Lisa Monico. She's now
Speaker 1: Deputy Attorney General. But I laughed because I used to
Speaker 1: say she'd hate to see my name on her phone
Speaker 1: because she was head of home on security for the president,
Speaker 1: so I'd always be calling her with bad news. Other
Speaker 1: than after nine to eleven, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: The streets of Paris were empty, empty, not a person,
Speaker 1: not a car. They had the Christmas decorations up, and
Speaker 1: Ralph got a picture of one of the main avenues
Speaker 1: totally empty with these Christmas decorations. I mean, the juxtaposition
Speaker 1: was just heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things when you have this terror and
Speaker 1: terrorist attacks, you worry not just about the terrorist attack,
Speaker 1: but what they're going to do to the economy of
Speaker 1: the country and the economy of the city. And that's
Speaker 1: how they often win, because then everybody's afraid to come.
Speaker 1: So the mayor I was about to go into Christmas
Speaker 1: season very very worried. They said, can you do anything?
Speaker 1: So no one was on the street. We decided there
Speaker 1: was a cafe around the corner from the embassy that
Speaker 1: Ralph and I would go very publicly and sit and
Speaker 1: eat lunch on the street so everybody could see us,
Speaker 1: and people took photos and whatever. And then when we
Speaker 1: got to the cafe it was empty, and I remember
Speaker 1: by the time we lacked, a few other people started coming,
Speaker 1: because you know, you have to fight terrorism in many ways,
Speaker 1: but you can't let them win economically either.
Speaker 2: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 2: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts. Thank you. When you were in New York
Speaker 2: with your two babies to wearing up a new working
Speaker 2: so hard, What were you doing at that time?
Speaker 1: What was your What was my career In the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was doing media. After the Whitehouse, I went into
Speaker 1: media on the business side of media. That a company
Speaker 1: that became CBS UH and Universal. But after that I
Speaker 1: became a CEO at a macroeconomic consulting firm that did
Speaker 1: a lot of work with G seven countries. It was
Speaker 1: called the G seven Groups.
Speaker 2: So you kept your political social.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that was that was sort of nonpartisan.
Speaker 1: But I kept involved on policy stuff for sure, the
Speaker 1: economic and political.
Speaker 2: I know that you're a chairman of sessme Stet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right now, which was a huge social innovation in
Speaker 2: our country in terms of the value of children of
Speaker 2: teaching them on television, teaching them. My children certainly learned
Speaker 2: to love to read, and I think it had an outreach.
Speaker 1: To It's one of the things I'm the most proud of.
Speaker 1: I did it as I actually did after I was
Speaker 1: Ambassador to France and I was on a lot of boards.
Speaker 1: I was on the Kennedy School Board and I was
Speaker 1: on the Carnegie Board and I was doing.
Speaker 2: So this wasn't somehow, this wasn't this is what I
Speaker 2: had been on the SESIM.
Speaker 1: I'd been on the Sesame Board earlier, but only as
Speaker 1: a member and fairly briefly. So then I got out,
Speaker 1: and when I came home from being Ambassador to France,
Speaker 1: I had been on them once before, you know, once
Speaker 1: again I was doing more kind of policy Kennedy School, Carnegie,
Speaker 1: things like that. But the amazing Joan Cooney who started
Speaker 1: who's now like ninety four started Sesame Street, called me
Speaker 1: one day and said, I want you to be chair
Speaker 1: of Sesame Street. Were about to do all this work
Speaker 1: with refugee children and you would be perfect. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I said no to or twice and Ralph finally said
Speaker 1: to me, you know you're going to say yes to her.
Speaker 1: Just get it over with. And it was one of
Speaker 1: the more impactful things I've done because at the time
Speaker 1: they had just gotten a grant from MacArthur, huge grants,
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars from MacArthur, a genius award to
Speaker 1: educate refugee children. So we had a huge program in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan,
Speaker 1: and Syria to go into both refugee camps and destabilize
Speaker 1: areas to teach children. But that's just to teach them,
Speaker 1: to really help them deal with trauma and anxiety, which
Speaker 1: they were all obviously having and given the life they
Speaker 1: had just witnessed.
Speaker 2: You were appointed ambassador to Paris by Obama. Yes, and
Speaker 2: tell me how that happened.
Speaker 1: I'm met President Obama in two thousand and six. I
Speaker 1: think I was one of his early supporters. I had
Speaker 1: seen him at the convention at two thousand and four
Speaker 1: in Boston, and to be very honest, even though I'd
Speaker 1: always been involved in politics and policy, I didn't really
Speaker 1: know much about him. And I heard that speech, that
Speaker 1: famous speech he gave at that convention, and I remember
Speaker 1: after it calling somebody from Chicago, like Bill Daley or
Speaker 1: somebody saying is this guy for real and them saying, yes,
Speaker 1: he's very much for real. So I got to know him.
Speaker 1: So I was an early supporter, even though I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Hillary Switch, you know, but I was
Speaker 1: an early supporter of President Obama and worked with him
Speaker 1: in his first administration. I was on a board that
Speaker 1: I also loved because I didn't want to leave New York.
Speaker 1: But then the second term the firm I was running
Speaker 1: was called the G seven Groups, so we did a
Speaker 1: huge amount of work with the G seven countries, both
Speaker 1: on economics, central bank policy, currency politics all that. So
Speaker 1: I was a good fit for it. I was a
Speaker 1: little surprised with the children grown up with that I
Speaker 1: they ever grown up. But I really had a life,
Speaker 1: you know, I really had. I was I had a company,
Speaker 1: and I was on boards, and I really had a
Speaker 1: life that you know, when you're ambassador you have to
Speaker 1: pick up and leave it is well worth it, which
Speaker 1: I learned it is well worth it. But the time,
Speaker 1: the name of it was Valerie Jared, who was a
Speaker 1: good friend and an amazing woman. So one day she
Speaker 1: called me and said, so let me see if this
Speaker 1: interests you. You said no to everything else, she said,
Speaker 1: Ambassador to France. First woman, second, second woman there a
Speaker 1: second woman here, all right, you know, second woman here,
Speaker 1: two in two hundred years, in the first and fifty years.
Speaker 1: So we don't do very well. But the story on France.
Speaker 1: So it was funny because Ralph was in London. It
Speaker 1: happened to be in London at the time. He worked
Speaker 1: here occasionally, so He called me when he was in
Speaker 1: London and he said anything new And I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you come in home, maybe we should talk. And
Speaker 1: he said why, I said, because I might be moving
Speaker 1: to France. Who was president of France when you were
Speaker 1: ambassador president alone? He was president, and you know, we
Speaker 1: worked very closely. He was president. Kazanov was prime minister
Speaker 1: most of the time. I was very close to him
Speaker 1: because he was in charge of security, and we worked
Speaker 1: very very closely for most of the time he was
Speaker 1: prime minister. Emanuel Macron was economics minister, so I worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got to know him very much, very smart. Did
Speaker 1: you he cared a lot?
Speaker 2: Did you entertain a lot? The embassy was a part
Speaker 2: of the that you.
Speaker 1: Always have to entertain. I though, have a purpose for
Speaker 1: my entertaining. I never entertained just to entertain. So whether
Speaker 1: that's to do something in terms of public diplomacy, in
Speaker 1: terms of women, or in terms of working with the
Speaker 1: business community to make sure they do more in their communities,
Speaker 1: or whether it's highlighting you know, Gina Romando when she
Speaker 1: comes over here, our wonderful commerce secretary. I always have
Speaker 1: a purpose behind it. And culture, well, culture, culture, I
Speaker 1: love culture. I love yeah, and I did a lot
Speaker 1: in France. I do even more here.
Speaker 2: Were you there with the Jeff Coons when the Jeff Coons?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw it.
Speaker 2: The other day I saw.
Speaker 1: Jeff Jeff is fantastic.
Speaker 2: I was, I was.
Speaker 1: I was involved. This is after our ambassador with his
Speaker 1: sculpture in Paris. But the first off, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: very involved in that.
Speaker 2: So, whether it's for culture, whether it's or politics, whether
Speaker 2: it's a visiting personal business, do you mass would you
Speaker 2: talk to the chef at all? Would you think about
Speaker 2: what you want to serve?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do think absolutely. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: you want to think about who you have there, what
Speaker 1: might appeal to them, obviously allergies, but no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I absolutely talked to them about what I think would
Speaker 1: be right for that particular group. So I care about
Speaker 1: menus and I care that it fits the occasion and
Speaker 1: that everybody's everybody's comfortable. Chef is very Was it a friend.
Speaker 2: Would you bring your own chefs?
Speaker 1: No, you never bring your own chef. It was a
Speaker 1: French chef.
Speaker 2: But then you did have a party where you had
Speaker 2: shake check, oh.
Speaker 1: Shake check. Yeah. They Meyer is a good friend, you know,
Speaker 1: I love him and I love his restaurants. But it
Speaker 1: was very funny because how shakeshak started was the first
Speaker 1: holiday party that we had, not this last this year,
Speaker 1: but the last year, and we wanted to make it
Speaker 1: very American. So we were thinking, how do we make
Speaker 1: it very American? And initially they were saying free, well,
Speaker 1: let's do caviar. And I'm like, no, no, no caviar,
Speaker 1: no cavia. And then I, you know, since Danny's a friend,
Speaker 1: I said, I know how to make an American shake shack.
Speaker 1: But it's a huge hit. Now he does it every
Speaker 1: event we have. And the first holiday party, the funny
Speaker 1: thing was the then foreign secretary came and they had
Speaker 1: closed the kitchen and he's a lovely man and he
Speaker 1: was so disappointed. So Danny went into the kitchen and said,
Speaker 1: Foreign Secretaries, here, make a burger for him.
Speaker 2: Michelle Obama had a garden. Yes, Obama had a garden
Speaker 2: at the White House. Yes, to sort of try and
Speaker 2: teach about food through the garden, what grows, what you
Speaker 2: in a city, about organic food, about the importance of nutrition.
Speaker 2: And you have a farm in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: I have Terma Connecticut. And I, by the way, when
Speaker 1: I was in France, did a garden just like Michelle
Speaker 1: Obama did at the White House.
Speaker 2: And how did that go? Tell me about creating a
Speaker 2: garden vegetable It was great. We did.
Speaker 1: I love herbs, so we had a lot of herbs,
Speaker 1: but what would grow and what wouldn't grow. And it
Speaker 1: was out in the back of the house. Wasn't as
Speaker 1: big a garden as we have in Winfield, but out
Speaker 1: to the right and we used it. We had berries,
Speaker 1: and we had herbs, and I think we had tomatoes.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly, but yeah, we absolutely used it
Speaker 1: here in Winfield. I don't have one because there's the
Speaker 1: legendary person who takes care of the grounds is Stephen.
Speaker 1: He's been with Winfield almost forty years and he has
Speaker 1: greenhouses and everything. If you go back, it's quite a
Speaker 1: production what we have at Wingfield House and he's in charge,
Speaker 1: but herbs, everything. You walk through these greenhouses, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: On the farm in America, Yeah, we have a.
Speaker 1: Garden there too. I'm never there and Roun's out there
Speaker 1: very much, but we do. We have a We have
Speaker 1: a pretty we had a pretty big garden, cucumbers and
Speaker 1: zucchini and cherry tomatoes, yellow and red berries. It was great.
Speaker 1: We'd go out and pick our pick our vegetables and
Speaker 1: cook them.
Speaker 2: You're using food, as you say, to have dinners at
Speaker 2: the embassy, to represent the United States, as you say,
Speaker 2: with a purpose for bringing culture business.
Speaker 1: I had a small one for Obama. He was here
Speaker 1: for the Obama Foundation. I had one for Hillary. I
Speaker 1: think you were at that. One for Hillary was very funny.
Speaker 1: When I was discussing with her the dinner, I said,
Speaker 1: who do you want? And she said, I only want
Speaker 1: fun smart women. So we had fun smart women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a smart woman. You're a smart woman. And
Speaker 2: I think that we're so lucky to have you here,
Speaker 2: we being Americans who have you as our ambassador, and
Speaker 2: the country for having you as ambassador. And if we
Speaker 2: always wind up with the one question at the end,
Speaker 2: which is food is for feeding people who are hungry,
Speaker 2: Food is for entertaining. Food is a political issue in
Speaker 2: terms of social value. It's also comfort And so if
Speaker 2: you were seeking comfort in a food, is there a
Speaker 2: food that you would turn to for comfort?
Speaker 1: Probably a pasta dish when I'm really tired or really
Speaker 1: kind of overwhelmed. That's what I would go for. I
Speaker 1: don't love desserts. My mother made an amazing apple pie.
Speaker 1: I still love that, but I do when I'm tired
Speaker 1: or need comfort, it would be it would be a carb.
Speaker 1: It would be a pasta dish, some really good bread,
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, well we're going to go and have lunch now,
Speaker 2: No good, So you have past over soul, oh my favorite.
Speaker 2: Most of all, you have my love and thanks for being.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being such a good friend. Good you
Speaker 1: are amazing.
Speaker 2: No, you are lots of thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair
Speaker 2: Mm hmm