WEBVTT - Mike Bloomberg 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:05.400 Adamized Studios. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.480 A few years ago, Serpentine, a small museum in the 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.680 center of Hyde Park, gave a party to celebrate its 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.160 new chairman, Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. There must 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.000 have been three hundred people in the pavilion and we 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.400 listened to the Mayor say, when government can do everything, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.280 private philanthropy has to step in. Which is lucky enough 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.280 to be able to step in a true dictum? But 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.239 what I remember most from his moving speech was the 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.600 ending come to New York City, and if you do 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.879 and want to have coffee or lunch, just call me. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.879 This is my number. I did go to New York 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.280 City soon after number in hand. I never made that call, 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.879 something I'll always regret. But here I am, almost ten 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:55.480 years later, having the coffee with Mayor Bloomberg, ready to talk, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.840 ready as not. Would you like to read the recipe? 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:07.880 I would be happy there. Okay, serve six two tablespoons. 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:09.840 Oh you need to say linguini with fresh and dry. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.640 We started that who's running this? 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:15.320 We both are. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.880 Linguini with fresh and dried oregano. And since I have 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.840 not had lunch yet. This is a perfect time to 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.360 focus on it. The size of this is it serves 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:32.880 six unless I eat two portions. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:34.199 How do you do it? 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:41.720 Two tablespoons fresh oregano finally chopped, one tablespoon dried oregano crumbled. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:43.640 Don't be obsessive. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:49.920 Here twelve red cherry tomatoes, twelve yellow cherry tomatoes, one 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.480 hundred milli eat is extra virgin olive oil, one tablespoon 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.600 red wine vinegar, three hundred grams of linguini. I want 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.680 me to tell you how to combine these things. Okay, Well, 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.400 you mix the fresh and dried regano together step one. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.680 Step two, chop the tomatoes and combine with the olive oil, 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:16.960 the red wine vinegar, sea salt, and black pepper. Three 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.160 you set it aside to marinate, which means time to 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.080 go do something else. Then next step is you cook 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.720 the linguini in a generous amount of boiling salted water, 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.040 then drain and return to the pan. And last step 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.359 you toss with the oregano mixture and the marinated tomatoes 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.960 over a high heat and then serve on very hot plates. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:43.400 Don't touch the plates. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.400 Don't touch the plates. You need to have a hot plate, 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.600 because the sauce isn't hot, it's tossing in. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.880 Always do it that way. When I make a regano 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:53.359 at home. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.520 Always make it. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.920 So tell me about my mother cooked everything in a 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.560 pressure cooker or straight out of the can. Okay, my 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.079 mother never saw a kitchen she liked. 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.400 Really. One time I did come home. 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.400 From boy Scout camp and I said the food was 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.640 better at boy Scout camp than at home, And she said, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:12.880 why don't you go back? 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.120 Oh? Okay? And so what did you eat at home? 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:16.359 Then? 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:17.040 What would you have? 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.720 It was delmoni peas straight out of the can, cooked 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.640 in the water that comes with the peas. It was 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:25.240 brisket or chicken. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:26.040 Oh, briscuit. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.760 So she made briscit, Yeah, you know, in a pressure 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:30.680 cooker or something. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:32.359 I don't remember. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.720 But the recipes that she used were good enough to 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.160 get her to one hundred and two years in perfect health. 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.040 Yeah. And to give you an appreciation of food or 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.520 did that come later? If you grew up with this food? 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:45.160 What was it like? 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.840 Food was relatively plain. Most things that I see on 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.400 her menu today, she wouldn't have known what they were, 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.040 and certainly didn't serve them, but the food and the 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.840 process brought us together. And there was my sister and I, 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.160 sister two years younger, mother and father. Father worked as 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.920 a bookkeeper, made six thousand dollars, the best year of 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:10.480 his life. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:12.440 But mind, what are we talking about. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.080 He was born in five I was born in forty two, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.400 so this is let's say fifties, early fifties. And we 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.680 had a rule, my mother's rule. We waited for my 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.039 father to come home. And they didn't travel in those days, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.479 so it was always together. But we waited. We sat 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.239 as a family six o'clockish. My sister and I set 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.160 the table. My father helped in clearing the table and 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.279 doing the dishes. My mother did the cooking and the dishes, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.600 and we sat around and my father had a procedure. 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.200 He'd pick on somebody of any one of the four, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.560 including himself, and that person had to spend two minutes 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.960 saying what they did that day, and then the conversation 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.560 had to be everybody else chiming in about that conversation 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.280 about that subject of what they did, and then we 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.120 go to the next person. And we did it virtually 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.919 every night, and I tried to do it with my daughters, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.000 but everybody traveled, including me, and it just didn't work on. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.760 Would you be thinking about what you were going to 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:14.520 say about your day? 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.600 But did you Yeah, you had to think about it 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.120 because yeah, well, oh, here's a good rule for everybody. 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.359 And if they followed this rule, the world would be 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.000 a lot better place. Don't do anything that you'd be 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.279 ashamed to tell your kids about when you went home 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.120 at night. And if everybody followed that rule, we'd have 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:34.320 a lot less problems. 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.440 Would you continue this conversation or every dinner that until 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:39.159 you left home? 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.960 Maybe we missed it occasionally, I don't remember, but yes, Basically. 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.920 It also teaches you to listen, doesn't it. It teaches 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:46.600 you how. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.320 To defend yourself, teaches you how to speak to others. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.159 Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I have in the last 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.560 few weeks, I've talked to Nancy Pelosi. I've talked to 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:01.920 President Biden's sister who's just written a book about, Yeah, 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.800 Val Biden. She worked in the campaign, and she's just 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.240 written a book called Growing Up Biden. Because when his children, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.880 you know, his son and his wife were killed, she 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.159 kind of moved in to take care of the two 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.320 children and cook for them aged twenty six. But she said, 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.840 you know, there is a lot of description from that 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.240 generation of family meals of sitting around a table. Do 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.040 your children are your grandfather? Do you have ben? 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.200 I have three grandkids, an eight year old boy who 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.000 hits a golf ball almost as far as I Candiday JD. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:39.320 A seven and three quarter year old granddaughter who's learning Mandarin, 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.200 and a ten week old grandson. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.159 And do they have family meals the way you did 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.360 with your parents or is it a different way? 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:49.680 Yeah? 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.279 I think so. I don't think it's quite as organized. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.720 And you know, today families come and go around the table. 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.080 We do not have what I call the Norman Rockwell 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:06.400 families anymore. Norman Rockwell used to paint the pictures on 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.360 the cover of The Sad Evening Post was a seven 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:16.240 posts and he one of his most famous pictures was 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.360 a father, a mother, a boy and a younger daughter, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.960 the traditional family with a turkey in the middle or 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.840 some of the table. And the way I describe it, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.880 we don't or very few kids are lucky enough to 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.119 have a Norman Rockwell family in this day and age. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.280 Too many single families, too many broken families. 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.880 There's too many people having to do two jobs or 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:39.920 working night shifts. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.680 And yeah, but society is different. You know. 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.440 We think that the zoom replaces the water cooler at work. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:48.960 It does not. 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.240 And we think that families can come and go without 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:59.720 serious conversations between parent and child, and parents are unwilling 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.600 to who face difficult issues with their children confront them, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:10.160 help them, guide them. Is more of an attitude of Oh, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:16.120 education is responsibil is the responsibility of teachers. No, education 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:21.320 is the responsibility of parents. Teachers can help, and that's 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:26.080 why some cultures where there's a premium in the culture 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.240 on education, the parents work with their kids, sometimes till 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.920 two in the morning, helping them, guiding them, giving them advice, 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.360 listening to them, working out, helping them work out problems, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.559 social problems or mathematical problems, whatever it is. 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.840 But I also think you invested in education, and I 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.280 think that if we do invest in educating people who 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.080 will be parents, then they will also be better better. 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.240 Well, if you want to solve the problems of poverty 0:08:55.400 --> 0:09:02.960 and crime and discriminate, those things can only be done 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:04.559 if we work together. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.360 If your father was born in nineteen oh five, where 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:19.760 was your grandfather. 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.600 Born someplace in Eastern Europe, so they emigrated. He wasn't 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.280 even sure where he came from. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.640 Both your mother and your father's parents immigrated. They were immigrants. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.800 My mother's parents were one generation earlier. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.000 Yeah, And did they bring the culture of food that 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:36.560 they grew up with? Do you think did they have 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:37.240 Eastern I. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.160 Don't remember any well, no, because keep in mind, my 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.120 parents were born in America, so were. 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.199 Your grandparents around at all in your life. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:52.000 Grandmother on one side, grandfather on the other. But in 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:58.040 those days, coming from overseas, you tried to strip out 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:03.199 and throw away all the culture, whether it's food or clothing, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:09.920 or religion or even names. We anglicized our names. Today 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:16.640 it's the reverse. I'm a Dominican American, I'm an Italian American. 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.600 In the olden days, you would say I'm an American. 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.760 In the great migration waves in the twenties, it was 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.840 become as American as you could possibly. 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:27.440 Melting. 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:29.520 The melting were talking about it. 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.720 Sometimes it was comical because they didn't really understand what 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.559 they were doing though, or that they thought Americans were 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.120 doing something they weren't. But it all worked out, and 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.160 those were the days when America really added an enormous 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.640 amount to its culture because it came from all around 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:45.080 the world. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.080 And the food culture of New York, you know, it 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.760 is identified by Chinatown about. 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:55.319 Little absolutely an those Tokyo Chinatown is down to one street, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.840 and on either side of those streets there are other 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.120 cultures that have movedthnicities that have moved in, and the 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.000 Chinese population has spread themselves around the city or out 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.120 in the suburbs without being interested in as being as 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.280 close to others of the same ethnicity. There's still areas 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.320 where people go a story of Queens, for example. It's 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.640 all immigrants and they live in tight communities, but their 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.720 children are going to schools with other kids of other 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.920 ethnicities and they will live outside of those communities. They 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:33.199 tend not to stay in them. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.440 And in terms of the culture food, when I've talked 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.600 to a lot of people who are children of immigrants, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.440 it seems like the grandmother kept the food, you know, 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.440 the mother assimilated and the children totally rejected. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.520 And the children never speak the language. When they say 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.680 they speak it, it's a joke. They don't really. America, 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.080 somebody once said to me, is the death of foreign languages, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.440 and that's basically true. I don't think that the world 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:07.280 understands how isolated America is. Something like two thirds of 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.560 the members of Congress and the Senate don't have passports. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.240 George Bushton only had a passport because his father was 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:15.920 the ambassador to China. Isn't that right? 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.640 Think about that? And they vote on things that impact 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:20.400 the world. 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:22.280 Very scary, scary. 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.480 What about when you moved from your mother's house and 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:26.120 father's house? 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.800 Did you I went to college in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins. 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.199 Then I went to Harvard Business School, and I lived 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.839 in Cambridge, fifteen minutes away from where my mother was living. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.800 My father was deceased already, and if my mother hadn't 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:41.840 lived close, I never would have gotten through because she 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.480 had to type my papers. I can't type and I 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.440 can't spell. For sure, much to her Americas. 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.520 To Harvard Business School, she was a type two papers. Yeah, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:53.920 did you eat on campus? Did you go to rest? 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:54.360 Did you start? 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.120 They had had a lunch at Hall, We'd eat there. 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:59.800 I certainly never money to go out to many restaurants. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.760 Did your parents ever take you to a restaurant? 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.400 Yes, we went to Carol's Diner. In Medford Square and 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.080 one restaurant in Malden. And I met somebody recently whose 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.160 family owned Carol's Diner. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.560 It was just one, was there, Yeah, the only diner. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.760 Did we ever go to a fancy restaurant? Probably never, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.239 at least I certainly don't remember a miniscool number of times. 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:25.800 When you moved to New York? 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:26.880 Were you when I was? 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:28.840 When I got to New York, I cooked all my 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.960 own meals for the first two or three meals three years. 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:32.760 What would you cook? 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.439 Baked beans and hot dogs and that sort of stuff. 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.960 I remember on Sundays, I'd make French toast and read 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.400 the newspapers and eat an enormous amount covered with maple sugar, 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:45.600 syrup and salt. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:47.079 Did you use cookbooks? 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.239 No? I did have some cookbooks. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.040 I must have been interested, because I did have it, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.400 and this still on bookshelves someplace in my house now. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.080 But I'd look at the pictures and then they'll probably 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.720 never get around to doing it. I didn't know there 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:02.200 were two kinds of a regano. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:04.760 We didn't know there was dried to Recordnow you crumble 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.040 on fresh nuger, now you know. 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.560 But that's what restaurants before, and then now I go 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.760 out virtually all the time. Do you so what girlfriend 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.280 likes to cook? My attitude is there are twenty five 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.160 thousand restaurants in New York City. Each one probably has 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.040 twenty different things on the menu. 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:25.880 So yeah, that's an. 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:30.080 Awful lot of twenty five thousand. Double this fifty thousand 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:34.800 plus a zero is five hundred thousand, five hundred thousand 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.360 possibilities if I go out one if I stayed at home. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.960 Did you always know that you wanted to have food 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:42.640 creating a company like Bloomberg? 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.360 Well, when I started at Solomon Brothers. For the fifteen 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.560 years I was there, we did not have food. They 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.000 might have been coffee, but I don't even remember that. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.600 But when I started the company, it was in a 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.400 one room the first day, two rooms a second day. 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.880 I went and bought. The first day, I was the 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.600 only one in the company. Second day I added three 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.920 other people. But the one thing I did is I 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.720 went and I bought a small refrigerator and a coffee pot. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.120 And it was from a department store which was on 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.080 the same spot as my current building. There was ripped 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:19.600 down and they built a building and then we took 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:23.200 that space. My job is to get people together. It's 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:28.520 the synergy of working together that makes you successful, I think, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.040 or increases the odds on being successful. It's hard to 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.760 manage people if they're not together. It's hard for people 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.440 to be their best if they can't run ideas by 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.880 other people and learn from other people. How do you 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.800 get them together, Well, you have a building where they 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.240 have to come to first rules. Second rule is to 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.920 the extent possible. You don't have walls. You have open spaces. 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:57.360 And this building, the design from Norman was to not 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.480 put the elevators in the middle, to have a big 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.040 open skace space and put the elevators on the outside 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.000 and all of the infrastructure on the outside, the plumbing 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.720 and that sort of thing. So it's exactly the reverse 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.080 of the buildings you're seeing on the horizon. Here they 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:17.000 put the least important people, the older executives who are 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.960 on their ways to retirement. They give them the best 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.520 offices on the outside. I never made any sense to me. 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:25.800 Those are the people you should put in the middle 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.960 and they can help people, and then put the younger 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.240 people out. But the food is another thing. It gets 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.960 you to sit together and we all entertain together. Our 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:41.120 families get together with foods. The thing that it's not 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.640 so much the food, it's that it forces you to 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.160 be there and touch it and share it, and you're 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.080 doing the same thing that the other person is. Now, 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.480 if the food's good, that's also benefit and healthy. 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:52.840 I don't know. 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.000 I would take a bores Head, nottwork and Boston baked 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:57.920 beans over anything. 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.200 Well, they said. When I just went outside and talked 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.400 to two people, I went up to them, and you know, 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.159 I said, okay, can I just ask you what you 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.960 like about sitting here? And she said, well, we hardly 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.040 knew each other. We're working in the same department I've 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.800 just started, and sitting here in this space makes us 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.800 want to get to know each other, talk talk about 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:20.440 our work. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.160 And think as any question. Does it work? 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:24.600 Yeah? No, they love it. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:30.600 If the CEO walls her or himself off, what kind 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.879 of a CEO? I don't want that person in my company. 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.720 I have the same sized desk right in the middle 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.560 of a bullpen like everybody else. And I came back 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.760 from twelve years in city Hall, and I had had 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.800 an agreement with New York City. I wouldn't go to 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.480 the company or visit them or talk to them about it. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:50.800 I was totally separate. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.720 I get back and I'm talking to some people, and 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.199 we had to rule no offices, no private offices. And 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.240 there weren't any private offices when I came back, but 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.520 there were a dozen people who had a desk right 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.160 by a glassed in conference room where they had their 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.520 family pictures in it. On Monday, they came back in 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.440 the walls, the offices were gone. I had them taken 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.960 down over the weekend, and then I realized that they 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.680 had bigger desks as well. You know what happened the 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:24.879 next Monday. That's I'm a believer. You treat everybody, the 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.560 person just starting out. It's just as important as the 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:42.480 one that's really irreplaceable. I like to cook, and Diana 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.800 likes to cork, which is our lives are. There isn't time. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:46.840 But do you cook? Now? 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.920 When you're going to shaking baked chickens? The last thing 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.320 I made. You get this stuff in a bag, you 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.920 put the chicken in it and shake it and then 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.800 broil it in a frying pan. And I put an 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.560 extra amount of it in the bottom to soak up 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.680 all the grease and burn it and that's what I eat. 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.480 Not good for your waistline or your cholesterol, but it's 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:10.240 really good for. 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.840 You like that. I mean, what about when you used 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:14.280 to take your did you cook for. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.360 But I don't remember cooking. Maybe I did, but I don't. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:20.560 Remember taking a woman out. 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:22.680 We go out to a restaurant. You know. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:26.879 Somebody told Sam that you went on the Staten Island 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:28.479 ferry and ate hot dogs. 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:28.840 Yeah. 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.160 Yeah, And I used to go when I was a mayor. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:33.760 I spent a fifth of my time in each of 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.200 the burrows, and I was on Staten Island a lot. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.520 And it's very different than the rest of the city. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.160 Not that there's a couple of fancy restaurants, but much 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.879 more plain kind of food. 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:45.560 But I loved it. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.320 And the people on Staten Island were as nice as 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.600 you could possibly be. The smaller restaurants would serve wine 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.159 out of paper cartons. You know, get the people that 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.520 drink elegant wines these days, make fun of them, But 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.560 I'll tell you they were as nice as people because 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:04.400 you ever want to meet. 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:05.879 And the wine wasn't that bad either. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:07.200 Do you drink wine? 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.159 I have not had a drink in two and a 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.080 half years, and I keep saying I'll go back because 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.879 I love white wine and red wine and beer. Yeah, 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:16.959 I didn't drink a lot of hard liquor. 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.960 But I don't know. If I'll go back, I'll see. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:21.960 And so what do you look for in a restaurant? 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.080 Is it the food? Is it the atmosphere? Is it 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:25.840 the food? 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:26.160 Food? 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:31.600 I could go to a divy place. I love diners 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.520 where everything comes in five minutes, no matter what. They 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.560 got fifty things in the menu. How they do that, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.240 I don't know, And it all tastes good and I'm 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.320 not fancy. But if I go to a really great restaurant, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:45.800 I appreciate the food and I like it. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.639 Can you tell something about a person when you go 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.800 to a restaurant with them? Do you think can you 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:51.760 tell what they're like? 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:52.120 Yeah? 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.960 I think if I if I had lunch of job 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.560 interview at lunch, and if they had an alcohol drink 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.560 at lunch, it would sort of turn me off a 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:08.399 little bit because just wine's appropriate with dinner, not at lunch. 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.800 Just in my mind, maybe that's the way I grew 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:11.640 up or something. 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.040 Well, when you told me that when we had dinner 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.840 last time, it was quite funny because you said, if 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.400 I interviewed somebody and they ordered a glass of wine, 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.040