WEBVTT - Bonus: Michael Elias on his new book, Bender's LA 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.000 Ruthie's Table four is now a book. Paul McCartney, Michael Caine, 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.760 Kamala Harris, David Beckham, Tina fey Elton John and many more. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.680 It's full of stories, beautifully designed, and a celebration of 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:18.040 the way food connects us all. It's available now wherever 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:24.400 you buy your books. Ruthie's Table four brought to you 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:33.199 by Sky and Montclair. My brother Michael Elias is one 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.240 of the most interesting and provocative people I know. When 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.920 in doubt or I'm not sure what position to take 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.280 on any subject, from the politics of the day to 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.920 the Nicks winning or losing, I call him, and although 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.519 he is in Los Angeles and I'm in London, he 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.840 sets me in the right direction. Recently, though our calls 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:59.360 have been about one important thing. His book, Bender's La 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.280 compelling and beautifully written. As as Hero is a comedy 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:10.480 writer in the nineteen seventies, navigating success and rejection, relationships 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.759 and heartbreak, the political and the personal. Today, we're going 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.360 to talk as if we were at the same table 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.800 in the River Cafe, though he is Los Angeles and 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.759 I'm in London, about writing, cooking, and most of all, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:30.399 this brilliant book vendors La. So, Michael, here, we are here, we. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.920 Are how are you? What's what? Six thousand miles, six. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.240 Thousand miles, a few oceans, valleys. It's so good to 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.280 be with you. It's the beginning of your day in 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.880 Los Angeles. It's the end of my day in London. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.040 And I thought that, holding this book, there's so much 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.720 that we want to discuss. There's so much for each 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.440 of us to say. But I thought maybe the way 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.480 we could begin this conversation is for you to read 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.440 a paragraph from the book. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.240 Okay, this is about Bender in New York. In New York, 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:05.240 Bender had. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.600 Submitted jokes and sketches to comedians and agents, earning money. 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.840 As a substitute teacher in the public schools. He was 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.200 a jack of all trades, adept at math, science, art, Spanish, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.480 facing rooms of surly adolescents ready to do combat with 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.520 the sub He measured teaching days like a fur trapper. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.919 Counting pelts. Four pelts paid the rent at their apartment 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.880 on the Lower East Side. Three brought groceries for a month, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.880 two got them movies and an off Broadway play and 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.959 dinner in Chinatown. Ellen worked weekend nights at Joe Allen 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.639 and fed Bender when she was on duty. They weren't poor, 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.079 they weren't rich. They were two American immigrants in Manhattan, 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.800 learning the language of the city, finding their burrows and 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.560 nests in the village, then Soho, finally settling in the 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.400 Lower east Side. Priced out of the world of Capote 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.119 and Naylor, they didn't care or even notice they got by. 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.720 Their apartment had a gas refrigerated, barred windows overlooking a 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.920 field of junk and no sink in the bathroom, but 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.960 Alan Ginsberg lived upstairs. They never ate in a restaurant 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.280 that owned a law or lay, but alternated between Ratner's 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.760 and Max's, with an occasional stop at the BNH or 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.600 a fat egg roll at the entrance to the irt 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:28.320 on astor place. 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.960 That's a beautiful reading. Tell me, really, how do you 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.160 see what this book is about. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.920 It's the Atomic Adventures or the Journey of Bender. He's 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.800 a writer who comes from the seventies radical theater of 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.440 New York to work in Hollywood, where he jogs with 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.600 Burt Lancaster, He plays tennis with Abbey Hoffman. He hides 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.400 a weather on the Ground member from the FBI. He 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.000 even he goes back in time and falls in love 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:02.320 with the young Marilyn Monroe. He's unhappily separated from his 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:08.960 radical lawyer wife, helplessly attracted to a series of fascinating women, 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:14.760 among them a fictional Ef Babbitts. He's got a really 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.920 smart psychiatrist and a powerful agent, Neil Navitz. 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:26.440 The last line of your book says Bender, hurry, food 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.200 is getting cold, and that I think is a beautiful 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.280 last sentence. But it also brings me to talk to 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.960 you about food because so much of it takes place 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:43.960 in Los Angeles restaurants, Dantana's, The Palm, a Maison Delicatestins. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.480 And so I suppose I was thinking, we have done 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.680 a podcast with you about food, what you eat, what 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.159 you cook, your memories of growing up. If I were 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.560 having Bender on this podcast, and I would love to 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.080 have because of his ca character. He was a person 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.719 I would love to have interviewed. Would you have told 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:05.640 me about his life and food? 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:08.280 Oh, Bend. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.880 It brought his appetite from New York to Los Angeles, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.440 that's for sure. He found in Langers as Nora Ephron's 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.680 ad the best POSTROOMI in the world. He found the 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.480 city suburbs of Los Angeles that had the best Chinese 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.320 restaurants in the world. He found and discovered Mexican food 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.239 that he had never imagined. He saw supermarkets that were 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:37.320 like football fields filled with the freshest produce one could imagine. 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.559 He found Wolfgang Puck who had risen or emerged from 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:49.240 Mammaison to Spago with Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton, and 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:54.599 these were all they transformed the appetite of Los Angeles, 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.560 and they made it exciting, and they had no boundaries. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.600 And we'll take a little bit from the Japanese cuisine 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.200 and we'll add some Cambodian and it became eating in 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.560 Los Angeles became a great adventure. 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:09.640 And Bender enjoyed it all. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.200 He did enjoy it all. How do you find the 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.320 food culture in Los Angeles right now? 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.200 I hate to use the word better, but I think 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.640 it is. The restaurants are varied, as I said, and 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.880 their discoveries to be made all the time, and all 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.040 of a sudden, everybody's flocking to Glendale for the best 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.880 Armenian restaurants or Westward Boulevard with it, we call it 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.719 Little Tehran. And the search for the perfect Hamburger, which 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.480 I'm getting a little bored with. I have to say, 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.960 I imagined a fortune teller looking into a crystal ball 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:52.000 and saying, I see the end of the smash Burger. 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:53.320 I hope. So. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.480 Reading the book myself and knowing the author very well, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.440 there is a sense of biographical in this novel. Did 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.520 you ever think of writing it as a memoir instead 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:06.320 of as a novel? 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.560 Yes, but I chose to write it as a novel 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.640 because I could invent things in my hero's life, Whereas 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:16.520 if it were a memoir, I suppose I would have 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.320 to tell the truth, which I enjoy writing fiction and 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:25.480 making up events and embellishing probably a lot of What 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.560 was my life in Hollywood? 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.440 What was your life? Tell me about it. 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.120 I came from New York, and I had a background 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.440 in radical theater and the New York Off Broadway scene, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:38.360 the living theater of a Mama. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.760 Judson as an actor, or as. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:43.840 I started as an actor, and then I became a 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.360 comedian and still keeping my career as an actor. But 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.080 here I was with my partner Frank Shaw on the 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.640 Johnny Carson Show, and a producer called and said, who 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.240 writes your material? And we said, we do. He said, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.840 would you like to come to Hollywood and be writers? 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.320 And we said yes? And then I said what about 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.600 the act? And he said not interested. So we gave 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.760 up the act, came to Hollywood and started writing comedy 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:13.080 and what did you write? 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:14.360 We first started writing. 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:20.280 Variety shows Glenn Campbell, Smothers Brothers and Leslie Ugghams, and 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.680 then we transitioned from We changed from variety shows which 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:29.520 died out to sitcoms and we wrote All the Family 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:34.440 and Mary Tyler Moore, and then I teamed up with 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.000 rich Eustace and we created our own a half hour 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.959 sitcom called Head of the Class, a show about high 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.640 school students. But our take was they were really smart, 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.560 and they were naive and unsophisticated about the real world, 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.959 but they were all really smart. And then the last 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.600 season was the Teacher and the star of the show 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:00.720 was Billy Connolly and that one of the best experiences 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.520 in my life. He was brilliant, inventive and it was great. 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.360 I also wrote screenplays all during this time, and on 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.720 one of the shows I worked with Steve Martin. 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.840 We were both writers, but he was a writer. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.440 Who was becoming a comedian and I was an ex 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.880 comedian who was becoming a writer, and we had a 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.120 friendship and a collaboration and I ended up writing The 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.920 Jerk with him and some specials and we've remained friends 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:27.520 ever since. 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.360 Yeah, I just saw him. He's in London right now 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.439 filming Murders in the building, so he and Marty Short 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:39.439 are here, and he talked so compellingly really about writing 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.800 The Jerk with you and the effect of that. And 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.800 it's also interesting to think about what how much comedy 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.520 and what you were working in terms of comedy when 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.240 there was a kind of tumultuous political and social environment 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.320 going on at that time, wasn't there. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.200 Well, it was a Vietnam War in the seventies, and 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.360 it was it divided Hollywood in a lot of ways. 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.960 Those who were against the war. Jane Fonda down at Sutherland, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.280 there were Sds Tom Hayden, Black Panthers. 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.000 It was a tumultuous time. 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:15.920 And it's the same but you also had John Wayne 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.280 on the other side, and Nixon was president, and so 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.880 Hollywood was a really interesting place. 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.840 At the time, coming from the theater and comedy to 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.920 writing television. We know about the parallels between your life 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.160 and Benders. You're going from New York to Los Angeles. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.199 But tell me more about as a writer creating this character. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:38.880 Tell me more about Bender. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.600 Bender gets by, he misses New York when he comes 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.560 to love Los Angeles and its own incredible art world 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:51.280 with Edrew Shea and Frank Romero, Patsy Valdez, Charlswood, Karabedian 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.840 for Bender, I would says he gets to know La 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.320 New York receipts. At the same time, Bender has his 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.240 own confession to make about his betrayal of a friend. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:10.040 So he and all the time I think Bender survives. 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.960 Yes, he does, he does. He really prevails. I think 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:15.720 when I read it so visual as well, did you 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.320 think about writing it as a movie? What compelled you 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.400 to write this as a novel is apart from say 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:23.280 a film. 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.520 Raymond Chandler said, when you come to Hollywood, you're going 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.560 to be a Hollywood writer. You better have something that 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.440 you're writing that is yours and nobody can tell you 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.160 how to change it. No producer can rewrite it, no 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.760 director can rewrite it. And it's yours. Whether it could 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.160 be a poem and essay, a play, whatever. And I 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.240 always and the thing about writing a novel after years 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:48.880 of writing screenplays and television shows, is that you control it. 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.280 You're in charge until it's finished, and then you can 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.920 work with an editor, of course, or a publisher. But 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:00.480 that freedom to do what you want is what, at 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.880 least that's what propelled me to really love and enjoy 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:05.360 writing a novel. 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.960 Bender comes to La, but he does miss his New York. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.959 And so you've told us what it took to get 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.319 used to it. City where you have to drive everywhere, 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.800 city that was just called a city, but as there 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.800 was no there in many ways? Do you find that 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.760 missing New York was that interesting to write for you? 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.000 Did that feel very real to you. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:29.440 People? 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.000 It was? It's funny people at the time. 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:33.880 I would hear people say I missed New York a lot, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.760 and it turned out what they missed was Bloomingdale's and 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.480 Broadway musicals, and I think that was I didn't miss that. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:49.880 I missed some ways. I missed my Chinatown, my living theater, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:56.839 the artist loft parties, the Bowery lofts, and all of 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.160 a sudden, I found myself in a car culture which 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:05.079 I wasn't used to. I found myself driving freeways. La 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.600 was separate. It's almost like separate villages, and you had 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.360 to learn to connect and navigate them. And that's what 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.440 Bender does and the people, and once you discover it 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.600 or get to know it, it's an amazing diverse place. 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:20.559 Now. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:25.000 We have neighborhoods that are labeled. We have a Filipino town, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.960 we have Korea Town, we have japan Town, we have 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:36.800 Little Armenia, we have Little Tehran, and they have their restaurants. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:37.120 Their bookstore. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:39.640 So it's an amazing place to live now. 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.840 The way that this book does feel like it couldn't 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.640 be written in any other city. It was also an 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.560 out friendship in Los Angeles, which brings me to your 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.640 friend and Bender's friend based on if babbitts. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.760 Yes, I met even New York when she was working 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.560 for the East Village Others and I was in the 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.360 Living theater. We met a Salvador Dowley opening and we talked, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:08.080 and then she gave me your phone number and said, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:09.840 if you're ever in La call me, and I did. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.479 And that was the beginning of a forty year friendship 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.120 and a collaboration. And I'm a character in her books, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.440 and she became a character in my book. She's me me, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.920 and she spent her moral guide almost in his life 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.840 and is his constant friend and closest friend all throughout 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.800 the novel, as she was in my life. The other 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.640 thing about Eve is said, when I arrived, she brought 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:40.160 me into her family. And her father was a classical violinist, 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.720 her mother was an artist, and her sister designer. And 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.760 it was great to happen. Well, it was to arrive 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.760 in Los Angeles and find a family. 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.080 When you were writing about her, did it bring back 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:53.600 a lot of the times that you had? 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.840 It was revisiting our friendship. And she was an important 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.560 part of my life and an important part of the 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:06.320 LA literary scene at the time, and even more so now. 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.080 And I think, why do you say more so now. 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.840 There's been a revival of her work thanks to her 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:19.200 a longtime agent, Erica Silverman, who got her books all republished. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.040 And it's funny. When I was living in Paris, sometimes 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.760 I would meet a writer who would ask where I'm from. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.840 I would say La and they would say, oh, wow, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:34.360 do you know Eve Babbitts And I did. And also, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:39.080 of course Lily Anilik, who wrote a biography of Eve 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.080 and alongside of this. My publisher is taking Place Books 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.360 is publishing two screenplays that Eve and I wrote together. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.560 One was turned into a French movie called Envoy a 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.320 Les v Alone and the other one remember Pearl Harbor, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.240 about Hollywood right after the Second World War. It's more 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.120 of a Hollywood noir. We had a great time writing them, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.760 and I'm so glad that Sticking Placebooks publish them. 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.920 Let's talk about your writing. Do you have a routine? 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.840 Do you eat before you sit down? Do you take breaks? 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.560 How does food enter your working day? 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.760 Unfortunately I live within walking distance of a refrigerator. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.520 But I'm pretty good about it now. 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.120 I you said, joked that my writing schedule was avoiding 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.040 it as long as I could, until I couldn't do 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.240 it anymore. Then I started writing, and I find great 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.920 comfort in my relationship with my computer. And you said, 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.000 be what I think a writer would take a break? 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.320 Walk around the block. And now I take a break 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.000 and I don't know, read the Huffington Post or listen 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:41.960 to your podcast. 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.960 Yeah, I'm calling from the middle of London. And I 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.080 walked into this meeting room that a friend hasn't led 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.480 me in his restaurant, of all places, I'm talking to 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.160 you from another person's restaurant, and she said, what is 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.520 what are you carrying? What is that book? And I 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.960 told her and she said, what a beautiful cover. And 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.280 we don't tell a book by its cover. But I 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.879 know that you are an art collector. I know that 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.200 you have his sister as we both do as a painter. 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.000 We know that museums are your first stop in a city, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.200 and so it isn't surprising to me that you have 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.720 this beautiful work of art on your cover. Tell me 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.040 the process of choosing the cover of the book. 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.679 The cover was designed or made by Devorah Blom, who's 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:31.359 done a series of beautiful portraits of Los Angeles. And 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:36.520 we plan another edition, a hardcover where every chapter will 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:43.040 include one of her drawings of Los Angeles. Yeah, so 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.439 that was really lucky. 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.720 Find Benders la Is on seld Where and tell me 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.800 how we can buy copies of this book. 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:58.200 You can get it from the publishers, Sticking Place books 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.440 and I hope and bookstores in London. 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.480 It is and it's for sale, and it's for sale 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.520 in the River Cafe, so you can have a meal 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.280 and buy a book. The other question that we ask 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.040 every guest at the end of the interview, and it 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.280 will be my last question to you is what do 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:21.880 you think Bender's comfort food would be? If Bender needed comfort, 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.640 he would want to prepare or have prepared for him. 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.359 Bender would prepare it. He's got a big appetite and 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.840 he likes to cook, so if he had the River 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:37.040 Cafe cookbook in hand, he would make a comfort meal. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.000 It would start with ricotta al four note, then risotto 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:47.480 con pizilli and pork cooked in milk. The dessert, he 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.000 wouldn't tackle the chocolate nemesis or the caramel ice cream, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.000 so dessert would be a peach. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:01.440 Thank you, Michael, and thank you Bender Benders written by 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:06.399 Michael Elias and on sale now. I really tell you 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.200 all of you listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, go 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.720 and enjoy this book. Thank you Michael, Thank you. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.640 Ruthie's Table Fur was produced by Alex Bell, Robbie Hamilton, 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.520 and Zad Rodgers with Andrew Sang and Bella Selina. 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.320 This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.