Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adam I's studios.
Speaker 2: As an American living in Britain. A visit to London
Speaker 2: by Congressman Adam Schiff is a big deal. That we
Speaker 2: gave dinner for him and our house was a great honor.
Speaker 2: Adam was on the way back from Ukraine meeting with Zulansky,
Speaker 2: and over past and winter vegetables, he talked to us
Speaker 2: about world we are living in, food shortages, child poverty,
Speaker 2: and food insecurity. Today we'll continue, but also talk about
Speaker 2: the food he grew up with, the food he cooks
Speaker 2: for his family, the food he personally finds comforting. Adam,
Speaker 2: will you begin by reading a recipe you've chosen from
Speaker 2: River Cafe Cookbook thirty.
Speaker 3: So I've got a wonderful recipe for spaghetti. I have
Speaker 3: to love pasa and my favorite is spaghetti or angel hair.
Speaker 3: So this is a perfect recipe for me to share
Speaker 3: with you. Spaghetti brought tomato and arugula, or as you
Speaker 3: you would say in Britain rocket rocket, So spaghetti three
Speaker 3: and twenty grams plum tomatoes. You'll need four of those.
Speaker 3: You'll need two garlic clothes dried chili. Just one dried
Speaker 3: chili unless you like it really spicy, capers, two tablespoons
Speaker 3: black olives three tablespoons. Now I'm in a huge olive fan,
Speaker 3: but it does work great in spaghetti arugula. You'll have
Speaker 3: three leaves and three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Speaker 3: So you will cut the tomatoes in half, squeeze out
Speaker 3: the excess juice and seeds, and chop the flesh coarse thing.
Speaker 3: Peel the garlic and squash with one teaspoon of sea salt.
Speaker 3: Then you'll crumble the chili, rinse the capers, and stone
Speaker 3: the olives. Then you'll roughly chop the arugula. Finally, combine
Speaker 3: the tomatoes with all the ingredients except the rugula, seasoned generously,
Speaker 3: add the olive oil and put aside for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3: You cook the spaghetti and boiling salted water until all dante.
Speaker 3: Then drain and stir the pasta into the tomatoes. Add
Speaker 3: the rugula and toss to coat each strand season with
Speaker 3: black pepper. Served with olive oil, and.
Speaker 2: Delicious, beautifully read. Always think your recipe is half science
Speaker 2: and half poetry, So there you go. You read it
Speaker 2: as a poem. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3: Thank you glad I didn't read it as a scientist.
Speaker 2: Beautiful. One of the things that I really love about
Speaker 2: you is that I think you're a really good eater.
Speaker 3: I wish I was not a good eater, but I
Speaker 3: do love food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: I meet people from time to time that can kind
Speaker 3: of take or leave eating. I don't understand them. I
Speaker 3: think I think they're from another planet.
Speaker 2: Tell me about growing up in the Schiff household. What
Speaker 2: was it like food wise?
Speaker 3: Yes, I think this is why I love to go
Speaker 3: out to eat, because when I was a kid, it
Speaker 3: was such a rarity. And I always liked to claim
Speaker 3: to my wife because you know, only a husband can
Speaker 3: make this claim that I'm the ideal husband because I
Speaker 3: don't want a homecook meal. I really love going out.
Speaker 3: You're not distracted by the phone ringing, you're not distracted
Speaker 3: by the TV or this kid wants to run off
Speaker 3: to do homework instead of finishing the meal, and so
Speaker 3: you're at a table. You're just focused on each other
Speaker 3: and the food. But I think part of it is
Speaker 3: that it was a rarity when I was growing up.
Speaker 3: My mother was a good cook. But didn't like to cook.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, we ate at home all the time, and
Speaker 3: my father was a traveling salesman in the shmata business
Speaker 3: and helping business, and it was a big deal when
Speaker 3: we could go out to one of our favorite restaurants.
Speaker 2: I think that it's changed so much because I also
Speaker 2: grew up where you went out to dinner if somebody
Speaker 2: graduated from high school or there was a birthday or
Speaker 2: an anniversary. Now having a restaurant, I just see people
Speaker 2: eating all the time. They come with their children, they
Speaker 2: come on a Friday night with their parents. They use
Speaker 2: a restaurant in a very different way than we did.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. And because my mother didn't like
Speaker 3: to cook, a lot of our meals were very kind
Speaker 3: of standard.
Speaker 2: Fair tell me about them. What did she cook?
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of canned food, to be honest.
Speaker 3: But my favorite meal that my mother used to make
Speaker 3: was something that she made using these little boneless chicken
Speaker 3: pieces that she breaded. You made it with a sign
Speaker 3: of spaghetti and they were breaded with cheese on them,
Speaker 3: so it was kind of like a mini chicken permeshan
Speaker 3: with spaghetti. But I guess my strongest memories in childhood
Speaker 3: of food were of the high holidays. When we get
Speaker 3: together my grandparents and they would make a great, big meal.
Speaker 2: Were they born in the United States or were they
Speaker 2: immigrants from another country.
Speaker 3: My father was an immigrant from London. His parents immigrated
Speaker 3: from Eastern Europe. My other grandparents were born in the
Speaker 3: United States, but their parents, my great grandparents, all came
Speaker 3: from Eastern Europe. But when we get together for the holidays,
Speaker 3: it would be a lot of manzibol soup and holly,
Speaker 3: bread and brisket, and it was quite a feast. Telling
Speaker 3: a lot of that. I didn't want to go near
Speaker 3: like chocol ever, Yeah, that'll do it. There is an
Speaker 3: eternal debate in Jewish households about whether manzibal should be
Speaker 3: light and fluffy or should be the kind that when
Speaker 3: you drop them they go through the floor. I just
Speaker 3: want to state, unequivocally, without hesitation, they need to be
Speaker 3: the kind that fall through the floor.
Speaker 2: That suspense was killing me as you were telling this,
Speaker 2: I was going to think, what is he going to
Speaker 2: go for falling through the floor or light and fluffy.
Speaker 2: I did think you might choose light and fluffy, but
Speaker 2: I will it has to be that really heavy sinking feeling. Yeah.
Speaker 3: As a politician, sometimes we have to make difficult decisions. Yes,
Speaker 3: I know, and I am firmly in the camp of
Speaker 3: the very very heavy monster ball that you know, when
Speaker 3: you've eaten it and it doesn't get lost in the broth.
Speaker 2: You interested in eating? Were you interested in cooking?
Speaker 3: When I did cook, it was frankly as a kid
Speaker 3: and through adulthood at the barbecue.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's very male. That's that's kind of I always
Speaker 2: think when men feel that they can cook, is the barbecue. Yes,
Speaker 2: funny barbecued. What did you do?
Speaker 3: You know? My cooking pre pandemic was pretty basic.
Speaker 2: Fair, And what happened in the pandemic, well.
Speaker 3: You know, we not going out to eat, and it
Speaker 3: was a huge lifestyle change, among other things. So I
Speaker 3: got myself a few gadgets. You know, I think this
Speaker 3: is also a male thing. You like to cook with gadgets?
Speaker 2: Yeah, gadget. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I got an air fryer, and I got a pressure cooker.
Speaker 3: I started making curry tofu and the pressure cooker with
Speaker 3: vegetables and potatoes, and it seemed to be a pretty
Speaker 3: fail safe device in terms of coming out well and
Speaker 3: likewise the air fryer. I have to tell you a
Speaker 3: funny story. I had a political event in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: and I gave my speech, and then a brand new
Speaker 3: assembly member went up to the microphone, real sharp up
Speaker 3: and comer. He was saying some nice things about me,
Speaker 3: and then he said, and I got some of the
Speaker 3: most important advice from Congressman Shift when I was getting started.
Speaker 3: So the most important advice I've forgotten. And I was
Speaker 3: waiting to hear what sage political advice I'd given him,
Speaker 3: and he said, he told me to get an air fryer.
Speaker 2: You've just come back from Ukraine. Did you experience the
Speaker 2: food shortage challenges we did.
Speaker 3: We discussed this with the President Zelenski when we sat
Speaker 3: down with him. This was a congressional delegation that Speaker
Speaker 3: Pelosi led, as it turned out, the first congressional delegation
Speaker 3: to Ukraine since the war. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that was apparent to us before we left, but became
Speaker 3: much more apparent as we discussed the issue is that
Speaker 3: when the Russians blockaded Odessa, they were not only trying
Speaker 3: to cripple Ukraine's economy, but as Ukraine has been the
Speaker 3: bread basket of Europe, a lot of the grain to
Speaker 3: Africa and other places as well. The Russians were also
Speaker 3: blockading food that a lot of people will need it
Speaker 3: to survive, and it caused not only a great increase
Speaker 3: in food prices, but also risks starvation in many places
Speaker 3: that really have relied on Ukraine for their grain. And
Speaker 3: so part of the appeal that Zelensky was making for
Speaker 3: the weapons that he needs to sink that Black Sea
Speaker 3: fleet and the equipment he needs to do de mining
Speaker 3: was this is important to Ukraine, it's important to our economy,
Speaker 3: but it's also important to the rest of the world
Speaker 3: because the real food shortage.
Speaker 2: Issue, Well do you think it will be like in Egypt,
Speaker 2: in North Africa? What is going to happen when they
Speaker 2: can't get their food?
Speaker 3: You know, it certainly risks great instability, and just in
Speaker 3: its own right, of course, it risks starvation. And I
Speaker 3: think it's one of the reasons we have to do
Speaker 3: everything we can to try to bring this war in
Speaker 3: Ukraine to an end. You know, sadly it's hard to
Speaker 3: see that path. I think it does require us to
Speaker 3: give Ukraine what needs to defend itself. To increase the
Speaker 3: costs on Russia, so the Russian people see the folly
Speaker 3: of what their dictator has done. But this tragic war
Speaker 3: has had a lot of repercussions, and one of those
Speaker 3: I think the world at least understands is the impact
Speaker 3: it has on people's ability to get enough to eat
Speaker 3: in many parts of the world.
Speaker 2: What do we do now? What are your major concerns
Speaker 2: in terms of poverty and equality?
Speaker 3: You know, I think that we have experienced the revolution
Speaker 3: in the economy and the global economy as a function
Speaker 3: of globalization but also automation, and the result is that,
Speaker 3: you know, millions of people in a million in the
Speaker 3: middle class are at risk of falling out. A lot
Speaker 3: of working families have to work harder than ever to
Speaker 3: try to get in the middle class. At the same time,
Speaker 3: these structural changes in the economy have produced very great
Speaker 3: concentrated wealth. So while we have students in our colleges
Speaker 3: who can't get enough to eat, we have captains of
Speaker 3: Jutury literally flying into space on tourist trips.
Speaker 2: I agree, you are very vocal and very concerned and
Speaker 2: very politically engaged in food inequality. When I think it's
Speaker 2: seventeen million of our children in the United States faced
Speaker 2: with hunger every day.
Speaker 3: It really is extraordinary. And I had a meeting some
Speaker 3: years ago, this before the pandemic, with a group of
Speaker 3: community college students for my district, and they were talking
Speaker 3: to me about and it came up in a kind
Speaker 3: of an offhanded way about the food banks they had
Speaker 3: on campus for students, and I was astonished that each
Speaker 3: of them, and they were going to three different community colleges,
Speaker 3: all had food banks on campus. This was still before
Speaker 3: the pandemic. So the economy was strong, far stronger than
Speaker 3: during the recession and fully recovered, and yet the hunger
Speaker 3: was greater than ever. And it really pointed to me
Speaker 3: of some strong structural problems in the economy that even
Speaker 3: when it was doing well, it wasn't doing well for
Speaker 3: millions and millions of people, to the point that college kids,
Speaker 3: you know, not only at community college, but the state
Speaker 3: colleges of the private universities, were going hungry. So I
Speaker 3: introduced a bill to try to expand the free and
Speaker 3: reduced lunch program that we have in K twelve up
Speaker 3: through community college, and that was the genesis of the
Speaker 3: Food for Thought Act, and we've been working to get
Speaker 3: that passed ever since and trying to address broader issues
Speaker 3: of hunger and homelessness as well.
Speaker 2: In Britain in the pandemic, what became very clear was
Speaker 2: that when schools were c there are enormous a number
Speaker 2: of children who not having lunch and therefore had depended
Speaker 2: on lunch as their meal for the day. Did you
Speaker 2: find that in the United States as well?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And what we discovered is that schools, these kindergarten
Speaker 3: through high schools, were one of the major providers of food,
Speaker 3: as it turned out, to low income families. And when
Speaker 3: those schools closed and people went to remote learning, suddenly
Speaker 3: these families didn't have meals. Yeah, these didn't have meals.
Speaker 3: So what a lot of our schools did. And I
Speaker 3: visited so many of these sites in my own district
Speaker 3: and participated is they would prepare meals and families would
Speaker 3: drive up in their car. We would ask how many
Speaker 3: kids did they have, and we would give them the
Speaker 3: number of meals for the kids and their family that
Speaker 3: they would have had if they were in school.
Speaker 2: About the road from being a barbecue of meat and
Speaker 2: fish to being vegan, what is your vegan story.
Speaker 3: Well, my cholesterol has been high and I tried medication
Speaker 3: like Satin's, but they didn't sit well with me. I
Speaker 3: couldn't tolerate them very well. So my wife, was a
Speaker 3: very healthy eater, suggests that I tried being vegan. And
Speaker 3: I've been vegan for about three days. When I was
Speaker 3: in my district and I was at an event, and
Speaker 3: of course, at any event in Los Angeles, you talk
Speaker 3: about food. I was talking about a great restaurant i'd
Speaker 3: been to, called Crossroads, and the person I was talking
Speaker 3: to recognize it was a vegan restaurant, and she said
Speaker 3: to me, can I tell people here you're vegan? And
Speaker 3: I thought that was kind of a strange question. Why
Speaker 3: would people be interested in that? Then I realized where
Speaker 3: I was. I was in West Hollywood at an animal
Speaker 3: welfare event. Oh oh, yes, I guess that is a
Speaker 3: big deal at an animal welfare event. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: I've only been vegan, to be honest for three days,
Speaker 3: and if you tell people, I'm going to be pretty
Speaker 3: locked in. But you know I need the incentive go
Speaker 3: ahead and tell people. So that was six years ago,
Speaker 3: and you know, I do allow myself to cheat from
Speaker 3: time to time.
Speaker 2: The truth be told when you cheat, what do you
Speaker 2: go for.
Speaker 3: Usually cheat when I'm traveling because it's hard for me
Speaker 3: to always find vegan food, so I try not to
Speaker 3: be too tough on myself. I also cheat during Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: because I had my first Thanksgiving as a vegan and
Speaker 3: it was just an awful experience.
Speaker 2: You had just cranberry sauce and vegetables and no turkey.
Speaker 3: We were actually out at a place in Pennsylvania, nice
Speaker 3: little place for the weekend. Our kids were with us,
Speaker 3: and we had ordered in advance two vegan meals and
Speaker 3: then two traditional turkey dinners. You know, our family is
Speaker 3: kind of isolated in DC. We don't have other family there,
Speaker 3: so we often have Thanksgiving out or at friends. And
Speaker 3: they brought these two beautiful plates for our kids, and
Speaker 3: then they got our own plates and it looked like
Speaker 3: someone had opened the Gerber's baby food jar and poured
Speaker 3: it on the plate, and it was not at all satisfying.
Speaker 3: And so I thought, Okay, on Thanksgiving, I'm going to
Speaker 3: make an exception.
Speaker 2: Do you know when I talked to Paul McCartney who
Speaker 2: about being a vegetarian. When he and Linda, his late wife,
Speaker 2: became vegetarians, they said that the first Christmas they had
Speaker 2: they made a macaroni and cheese, but they shaped it
Speaker 2: into a turkey and carved.
Speaker 3: I have a challenge for your listeners if I can,
Speaker 3: okay on behalf of vegans the world over, and that
Speaker 3: is how to make a good vegan pizza. I really
Speaker 3: have yet to find one that I really like because
Speaker 3: most of the places you go to use a kind
Speaker 3: of a dyet cheese which is made of coconut oil.
Speaker 3: It doesn't taste anything like the real thing. So I
Speaker 3: put this up there with the Heart Lung Machine. If
Speaker 3: somebody can invent.
Speaker 2: Pizza, we do just beauty, you know, cooked tomato sauce
Speaker 2: with a pizza. You don't have to have a cheesy pizza.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you substitute cheese for cheese. I
Speaker 2: think substitutes are tricky, aren't they. One of the things
Speaker 2: about this restaurant is we're really good for vegetarians and
Speaker 2: for vegans because the Italian diet that we serve is
Speaker 2: so vegetable based. So when you come in there are
Speaker 2: big huge plates of you know, braised artichokes or charred
Speaker 2: or pumpkins, whatever the season is. And so if somebody
Speaker 2: says I'm vegan. It's actually that sounds wonderful, so we'll
Speaker 2: do that. And so I suppose my last question to
Speaker 2: you is that if food is love, and food is sharing,
Speaker 2: and food is alleviating hunger, it also is comfort. What
Speaker 2: would be your comfort food?
Speaker 3: I think my comfort food, to go back where we
Speaker 3: started with the original recipe, is pasta. I think pasta
Speaker 3: is hard to beat. I have so many fond memories
Speaker 3: of it as a kid, through adulthood, having pasta when
Speaker 3: I travel, and there's nothing more comfortable than a great
Speaker 3: Italian meal with some wine and some bread and worrying
Speaker 3: about the carbs tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Okay, And so when you come to London in September,
Speaker 2: we'll have pasta together. N lots of love to you,
Speaker 2: Thank you, Adam, Thanks such lots of love. But tell
Speaker 2: me about what an air frier is, because actually I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I know this gadget.
Speaker 3: Well, an air fryer has a pot that circulates air.
Speaker 3: The device circulates air around the basket or the pot,
Speaker 3: and it is like deep frying, but you're using air,
Speaker 3: so there's boy. So it's kind of a healthy version
Speaker 3: of fry.
Speaker 2: To visit the online shop of the River cafe go
Speaker 2: to shop Therivercafe dot co dot.
Speaker 1: UK, River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
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