Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: A few years ago, Serpentine, a small museum in the
Speaker 2: center of Hyde Park, gave a party to celebrate its
Speaker 2: new chairman, Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. There must
Speaker 2: have been three hundred people in the pavilion and we
Speaker 2: listened to the Mayor say, when government can do everything,
Speaker 2: private philanthropy has to step in. Which is lucky enough
Speaker 2: to be able to step in a true dictum? But
Speaker 2: what I remember most from his moving speech was the
Speaker 2: ending come to New York City, and if you do
Speaker 2: and want to have coffee or lunch, just call me.
Speaker 2: This is my number. I did go to New York
Speaker 2: City soon after number in hand. I never made that call,
Speaker 2: something I'll always regret. But here I am, almost ten
Speaker 2: years later, having the coffee with Mayor Bloomberg, ready to talk,
Speaker 2: ready as not. Would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 3: I would be happy there. Okay, serve six two tablespoons.
Speaker 2: Oh you need to say linguini with fresh and dry.
Speaker 3: We started that who's running this?
Speaker 2: We both are.
Speaker 4: Linguini with fresh and dried oregano. And since I have
Speaker 4: not had lunch yet. This is a perfect time to
Speaker 4: focus on it. The size of this is it serves
Speaker 4: six unless I eat two portions.
Speaker 3: How do you do it?
Speaker 4: Two tablespoons fresh oregano finally chopped, one tablespoon dried oregano crumbled.
Speaker 3: Don't be obsessive.
Speaker 4: Here twelve red cherry tomatoes, twelve yellow cherry tomatoes, one
Speaker 4: hundred milli eat is extra virgin olive oil, one tablespoon
Speaker 4: red wine vinegar, three hundred grams of linguini. I want
Speaker 4: me to tell you how to combine these things. Okay, Well,
Speaker 4: you mix the fresh and dried regano together step one.
Speaker 4: Step two, chop the tomatoes and combine with the olive oil,
Speaker 4: the red wine vinegar, sea salt, and black pepper. Three
Speaker 4: you set it aside to marinate, which means time to
Speaker 4: go do something else. Then next step is you cook
Speaker 4: the linguini in a generous amount of boiling salted water,
Speaker 4: then drain and return to the pan. And last step
Speaker 4: you toss with the oregano mixture and the marinated tomatoes
Speaker 4: over a high heat and then serve on very hot plates.
Speaker 4: Don't touch the plates.
Speaker 2: Don't touch the plates. You need to have a hot plate,
Speaker 2: because the sauce isn't hot, it's tossing in.
Speaker 3: Always do it that way. When I make a regano
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 2: Always make it.
Speaker 4: So tell me about my mother cooked everything in a
Speaker 4: pressure cooker or straight out of the can. Okay, my
Speaker 4: mother never saw a kitchen she liked.
Speaker 3: Really. One time I did come home.
Speaker 4: From boy Scout camp and I said the food was
Speaker 4: better at boy Scout camp than at home, And she said,
Speaker 4: why don't you go back?
Speaker 2: Oh? Okay? And so what did you eat at home?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: What would you have?
Speaker 4: It was delmoni peas straight out of the can, cooked
Speaker 4: in the water that comes with the peas. It was
Speaker 4: brisket or chicken.
Speaker 2: Oh, briscuit.
Speaker 4: So she made briscit, Yeah, you know, in a pressure
Speaker 4: cooker or something.
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 4: But the recipes that she used were good enough to
Speaker 4: get her to one hundred and two years in perfect health.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And to give you an appreciation of food or
Speaker 2: did that come later? If you grew up with this food?
Speaker 2: What was it like?
Speaker 4: Food was relatively plain. Most things that I see on
Speaker 4: her menu today, she wouldn't have known what they were,
Speaker 4: and certainly didn't serve them, but the food and the
Speaker 4: process brought us together. And there was my sister and I,
Speaker 4: sister two years younger, mother and father. Father worked as
Speaker 4: a bookkeeper, made six thousand dollars, the best year of
Speaker 4: his life.
Speaker 2: But mind, what are we talking about.
Speaker 4: He was born in five I was born in forty two,
Speaker 4: so this is let's say fifties, early fifties. And we
Speaker 4: had a rule, my mother's rule. We waited for my
Speaker 4: father to come home. And they didn't travel in those days,
Speaker 4: so it was always together. But we waited. We sat
Speaker 4: as a family six o'clockish. My sister and I set
Speaker 4: the table. My father helped in clearing the table and
Speaker 4: doing the dishes. My mother did the cooking and the dishes,
Speaker 4: and we sat around and my father had a procedure.
Speaker 4: He'd pick on somebody of any one of the four,
Speaker 4: including himself, and that person had to spend two minutes
Speaker 4: saying what they did that day, and then the conversation
Speaker 4: had to be everybody else chiming in about that conversation
Speaker 4: about that subject of what they did, and then we
Speaker 4: go to the next person. And we did it virtually
Speaker 4: every night, and I tried to do it with my daughters,
Speaker 4: but everybody traveled, including me, and it just didn't work on.
Speaker 2: Would you be thinking about what you were going to
Speaker 2: say about your day?
Speaker 4: But did you Yeah, you had to think about it
Speaker 4: because yeah, well, oh, here's a good rule for everybody.
Speaker 4: And if they followed this rule, the world would be
Speaker 4: a lot better place. Don't do anything that you'd be
Speaker 4: ashamed to tell your kids about when you went home
Speaker 4: at night. And if everybody followed that rule, we'd have
Speaker 4: a lot less problems.
Speaker 2: Would you continue this conversation or every dinner that until
Speaker 2: you left home?
Speaker 4: Maybe we missed it occasionally, I don't remember, but yes, Basically.
Speaker 2: It also teaches you to listen, doesn't it. It teaches
Speaker 2: you how.
Speaker 4: To defend yourself, teaches you how to speak to others.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I have in the last
Speaker 2: few weeks, I've talked to Nancy Pelosi. I've talked to
Speaker 2: President Biden's sister who's just written a book about, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Val Biden. She worked in the campaign, and she's just
Speaker 2: written a book called Growing Up Biden. Because when his children,
Speaker 2: you know, his son and his wife were killed, she
Speaker 2: kind of moved in to take care of the two
Speaker 2: children and cook for them aged twenty six. But she said,
Speaker 2: you know, there is a lot of description from that
Speaker 2: generation of family meals of sitting around a table. Do
Speaker 2: your children are your grandfather? Do you have ben?
Speaker 4: I have three grandkids, an eight year old boy who
Speaker 4: hits a golf ball almost as far as I Candiday JD.
Speaker 4: A seven and three quarter year old granddaughter who's learning Mandarin,
Speaker 4: and a ten week old grandson.
Speaker 2: And do they have family meals the way you did
Speaker 2: with your parents or is it a different way?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think so. I don't think it's quite as organized.
Speaker 4: And you know, today families come and go around the table.
Speaker 4: We do not have what I call the Norman Rockwell
Speaker 4: families anymore. Norman Rockwell used to paint the pictures on
Speaker 4: the cover of The Sad Evening Post was a seven
Speaker 4: posts and he one of his most famous pictures was
Speaker 4: a father, a mother, a boy and a younger daughter,
Speaker 4: the traditional family with a turkey in the middle or
Speaker 4: some of the table. And the way I describe it,
Speaker 4: we don't or very few kids are lucky enough to
Speaker 4: have a Norman Rockwell family in this day and age.
Speaker 4: Too many single families, too many broken families.
Speaker 2: There's too many people having to do two jobs or
Speaker 2: working night shifts.
Speaker 3: And yeah, but society is different. You know.
Speaker 4: We think that the zoom replaces the water cooler at work.
Speaker 3: It does not.
Speaker 4: And we think that families can come and go without
Speaker 4: serious conversations between parent and child, and parents are unwilling
Speaker 4: to who face difficult issues with their children confront them,
Speaker 4: help them, guide them. Is more of an attitude of Oh,
Speaker 4: education is responsibil is the responsibility of teachers. No, education
Speaker 4: is the responsibility of parents. Teachers can help, and that's
Speaker 4: why some cultures where there's a premium in the culture
Speaker 4: on education, the parents work with their kids, sometimes till
Speaker 4: two in the morning, helping them, guiding them, giving them advice,
Speaker 4: listening to them, working out, helping them work out problems,
Speaker 4: social problems or mathematical problems, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: But I also think you invested in education, and I
Speaker 2: think that if we do invest in educating people who
Speaker 2: will be parents, then they will also be better better.
Speaker 4: Well, if you want to solve the problems of poverty
Speaker 4: and crime and discriminate, those things can only be done
Speaker 4: if we work together.
Speaker 2: If your father was born in nineteen oh five, where
Speaker 2: was your grandfather.
Speaker 4: Born someplace in Eastern Europe, so they emigrated. He wasn't
Speaker 4: even sure where he came from.
Speaker 2: Both your mother and your father's parents immigrated. They were immigrants.
Speaker 4: My mother's parents were one generation earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And did they bring the culture of food that
Speaker 2: they grew up with? Do you think did they have
Speaker 2: Eastern I.
Speaker 4: Don't remember any well, no, because keep in mind, my
Speaker 4: parents were born in America, so were.
Speaker 2: Your grandparents around at all in your life.
Speaker 4: Grandmother on one side, grandfather on the other. But in
Speaker 4: those days, coming from overseas, you tried to strip out
Speaker 4: and throw away all the culture, whether it's food or clothing,
Speaker 4: or religion or even names. We anglicized our names. Today
Speaker 4: it's the reverse. I'm a Dominican American, I'm an Italian American.
Speaker 4: In the olden days, you would say I'm an American.
Speaker 4: In the great migration waves in the twenties, it was
Speaker 4: become as American as you could possibly.
Speaker 3: Melting.
Speaker 2: The melting were talking about it.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it was comical because they didn't really understand what
Speaker 4: they were doing though, or that they thought Americans were
Speaker 4: doing something they weren't. But it all worked out, and
Speaker 4: those were the days when America really added an enormous
Speaker 4: amount to its culture because it came from all around
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 2: And the food culture of New York, you know, it
Speaker 2: is identified by Chinatown about.
Speaker 4: Little absolutely an those Tokyo Chinatown is down to one street,
Speaker 4: and on either side of those streets there are other
Speaker 4: cultures that have movedthnicities that have moved in, and the
Speaker 4: Chinese population has spread themselves around the city or out
Speaker 4: in the suburbs without being interested in as being as
Speaker 4: close to others of the same ethnicity. There's still areas
Speaker 4: where people go a story of Queens, for example. It's
Speaker 4: all immigrants and they live in tight communities, but their
Speaker 4: children are going to schools with other kids of other
Speaker 4: ethnicities and they will live outside of those communities. They
Speaker 4: tend not to stay in them.
Speaker 2: And in terms of the culture food, when I've talked
Speaker 2: to a lot of people who are children of immigrants,
Speaker 2: it seems like the grandmother kept the food, you know,
Speaker 2: the mother assimilated and the children totally rejected.
Speaker 4: And the children never speak the language. When they say
Speaker 4: they speak it, it's a joke. They don't really. America,
Speaker 4: somebody once said to me, is the death of foreign languages,
Speaker 4: and that's basically true. I don't think that the world
Speaker 4: understands how isolated America is. Something like two thirds of
Speaker 4: the members of Congress and the Senate don't have passports.
Speaker 2: George Bushton only had a passport because his father was
Speaker 2: the ambassador to China. Isn't that right?
Speaker 4: Think about that? And they vote on things that impact
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 3: Very scary, scary.
Speaker 2: What about when you moved from your mother's house and
Speaker 2: father's house?
Speaker 4: Did you I went to college in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins.
Speaker 4: Then I went to Harvard Business School, and I lived
Speaker 4: in Cambridge, fifteen minutes away from where my mother was living.
Speaker 4: My father was deceased already, and if my mother hadn't
Speaker 4: lived close, I never would have gotten through because she
Speaker 4: had to type my papers. I can't type and I
Speaker 4: can't spell. For sure, much to her Americas.
Speaker 2: To Harvard Business School, she was a type two papers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you eat on campus? Did you go to rest?
Speaker 2: Did you start?
Speaker 4: They had had a lunch at Hall, We'd eat there.
Speaker 4: I certainly never money to go out to many restaurants.
Speaker 2: Did your parents ever take you to a restaurant?
Speaker 4: Yes, we went to Carol's Diner. In Medford Square and
Speaker 4: one restaurant in Malden. And I met somebody recently whose
Speaker 4: family owned Carol's Diner.
Speaker 3: It was just one, was there, Yeah, the only diner.
Speaker 4: Did we ever go to a fancy restaurant? Probably never,
Speaker 4: at least I certainly don't remember a miniscool number of times.
Speaker 2: When you moved to New York?
Speaker 3: Were you when I was?
Speaker 4: When I got to New York, I cooked all my
Speaker 4: own meals for the first two or three meals three years.
Speaker 2: What would you cook?
Speaker 4: Baked beans and hot dogs and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: I remember on Sundays, I'd make French toast and read
Speaker 4: the newspapers and eat an enormous amount covered with maple sugar,
Speaker 4: syrup and salt.
Speaker 2: Did you use cookbooks?
Speaker 3: No? I did have some cookbooks.
Speaker 4: I must have been interested, because I did have it,
Speaker 4: and this still on bookshelves someplace in my house now.
Speaker 4: But I'd look at the pictures and then they'll probably
Speaker 4: never get around to doing it. I didn't know there
Speaker 4: were two kinds of a regano.
Speaker 2: We didn't know there was dried to Recordnow you crumble
Speaker 2: on fresh nuger, now you know.
Speaker 4: But that's what restaurants before, and then now I go
Speaker 4: out virtually all the time. Do you so what girlfriend
Speaker 4: likes to cook? My attitude is there are twenty five
Speaker 4: thousand restaurants in New York City. Each one probably has
Speaker 4: twenty different things on the menu.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's an.
Speaker 4: Awful lot of twenty five thousand. Double this fifty thousand
Speaker 4: plus a zero is five hundred thousand, five hundred thousand
Speaker 4: possibilities if I go out one if I stayed at home.
Speaker 2: Did you always know that you wanted to have food
Speaker 2: creating a company like Bloomberg?
Speaker 4: Well, when I started at Solomon Brothers. For the fifteen
Speaker 4: years I was there, we did not have food. They
Speaker 4: might have been coffee, but I don't even remember that.
Speaker 4: But when I started the company, it was in a
Speaker 4: one room the first day, two rooms a second day.
Speaker 4: I went and bought. The first day, I was the
Speaker 4: only one in the company. Second day I added three
Speaker 4: other people. But the one thing I did is I
Speaker 4: went and I bought a small refrigerator and a coffee pot.
Speaker 4: And it was from a department store which was on
Speaker 4: the same spot as my current building. There was ripped
Speaker 4: down and they built a building and then we took
Speaker 4: that space. My job is to get people together. It's
Speaker 4: the synergy of working together that makes you successful, I think,
Speaker 4: or increases the odds on being successful. It's hard to
Speaker 4: manage people if they're not together. It's hard for people
Speaker 4: to be their best if they can't run ideas by
Speaker 4: other people and learn from other people. How do you
Speaker 4: get them together, Well, you have a building where they
Speaker 4: have to come to first rules. Second rule is to
Speaker 4: the extent possible. You don't have walls. You have open spaces.
Speaker 4: And this building, the design from Norman was to not
Speaker 4: put the elevators in the middle, to have a big
Speaker 4: open skace space and put the elevators on the outside
Speaker 4: and all of the infrastructure on the outside, the plumbing
Speaker 4: and that sort of thing. So it's exactly the reverse
Speaker 4: of the buildings you're seeing on the horizon. Here they
Speaker 4: put the least important people, the older executives who are
Speaker 4: on their ways to retirement. They give them the best
Speaker 4: offices on the outside. I never made any sense to me.
Speaker 4: Those are the people you should put in the middle
Speaker 4: and they can help people, and then put the younger
Speaker 4: people out. But the food is another thing. It gets
Speaker 4: you to sit together and we all entertain together. Our
Speaker 4: families get together with foods. The thing that it's not
Speaker 4: so much the food, it's that it forces you to
Speaker 4: be there and touch it and share it, and you're
Speaker 4: doing the same thing that the other person is. Now,
Speaker 4: if the food's good, that's also benefit and healthy.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I would take a bores Head, nottwork and Boston baked
Speaker 4: beans over anything.
Speaker 2: Well, they said. When I just went outside and talked
Speaker 2: to two people, I went up to them, and you know,
Speaker 2: I said, okay, can I just ask you what you
Speaker 2: like about sitting here? And she said, well, we hardly
Speaker 2: knew each other. We're working in the same department I've
Speaker 2: just started, and sitting here in this space makes us
Speaker 2: want to get to know each other, talk talk about
Speaker 2: our work.
Speaker 3: And think as any question. Does it work?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, they love it.
Speaker 4: If the CEO walls her or himself off, what kind
Speaker 4: of a CEO? I don't want that person in my company.
Speaker 4: I have the same sized desk right in the middle
Speaker 4: of a bullpen like everybody else. And I came back
Speaker 4: from twelve years in city Hall, and I had had
Speaker 4: an agreement with New York City. I wouldn't go to
Speaker 4: the company or visit them or talk to them about it.
Speaker 3: I was totally separate.
Speaker 4: I get back and I'm talking to some people, and
Speaker 4: we had to rule no offices, no private offices. And
Speaker 4: there weren't any private offices when I came back, but
Speaker 4: there were a dozen people who had a desk right
Speaker 4: by a glassed in conference room where they had their
Speaker 4: family pictures in it. On Monday, they came back in
Speaker 4: the walls, the offices were gone. I had them taken
Speaker 4: down over the weekend, and then I realized that they
Speaker 4: had bigger desks as well. You know what happened the
Speaker 4: next Monday. That's I'm a believer. You treat everybody, the
Speaker 4: person just starting out. It's just as important as the
Speaker 4: one that's really irreplaceable. I like to cook, and Diana
Speaker 4: likes to cork, which is our lives are. There isn't time.
Speaker 2: But do you cook? Now?
Speaker 4: When you're going to shaking baked chickens? The last thing
Speaker 4: I made. You get this stuff in a bag, you
Speaker 4: put the chicken in it and shake it and then
Speaker 4: broil it in a frying pan. And I put an
Speaker 4: extra amount of it in the bottom to soak up
Speaker 4: all the grease and burn it and that's what I eat.
Speaker 4: Not good for your waistline or your cholesterol, but it's
Speaker 4: really good for.
Speaker 2: You like that. I mean, what about when you used
Speaker 2: to take your did you cook for.
Speaker 3: But I don't remember cooking. Maybe I did, but I don't.
Speaker 2: Remember taking a woman out.
Speaker 3: We go out to a restaurant. You know.
Speaker 2: Somebody told Sam that you went on the Staten Island
Speaker 2: ferry and ate hot dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I used to go when I was a mayor.
Speaker 4: I spent a fifth of my time in each of
Speaker 4: the burrows, and I was on Staten Island a lot.
Speaker 4: And it's very different than the rest of the city.
Speaker 4: Not that there's a couple of fancy restaurants, but much
Speaker 4: more plain kind of food.
Speaker 3: But I loved it.
Speaker 4: And the people on Staten Island were as nice as
Speaker 4: you could possibly be. The smaller restaurants would serve wine
Speaker 4: out of paper cartons. You know, get the people that
Speaker 4: drink elegant wines these days, make fun of them, But
Speaker 4: I'll tell you they were as nice as people because
Speaker 4: you ever want to meet.
Speaker 3: And the wine wasn't that bad either.
Speaker 2: Do you drink wine?
Speaker 4: I have not had a drink in two and a
Speaker 4: half years, and I keep saying I'll go back because
Speaker 4: I love white wine and red wine and beer. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I didn't drink a lot of hard liquor.
Speaker 3: But I don't know. If I'll go back, I'll see.
Speaker 2: And so what do you look for in a restaurant?
Speaker 2: Is it the food? Is it the atmosphere? Is it
Speaker 2: the food?
Speaker 3: Food?
Speaker 4: I could go to a divy place. I love diners
Speaker 4: where everything comes in five minutes, no matter what. They
Speaker 4: got fifty things in the menu. How they do that,
Speaker 4: I don't know, And it all tastes good and I'm
Speaker 4: not fancy. But if I go to a really great restaurant,
Speaker 4: I appreciate the food and I like it.
Speaker 2: Can you tell something about a person when you go
Speaker 2: to a restaurant with them? Do you think can you
Speaker 2: tell what they're like?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think if I if I had lunch of job
Speaker 4: interview at lunch, and if they had an alcohol drink
Speaker 4: at lunch, it would sort of turn me off a
Speaker 4: little bit because just wine's appropriate with dinner, not at lunch.
Speaker 4: Just in my mind, maybe that's the way I grew
Speaker 4: up or something.
Speaker 2: Well, when you told me that when we had dinner
Speaker 2: last time, it was quite funny because you said, if
Speaker 2: I interviewed somebody and they ordered a glass of wine,
Speaker 2: I might not want to hire them. And Norman Foster said,
Speaker 2: if I interviewed somebody and they didn't order a glass
Speaker 2: of wine.
Speaker 4: That's what makes a market right there. There's room for everybody.
Speaker 2: But I think that I asked my children and they said,
Speaker 2: you know, they drink wine. They said, we would never
Speaker 2: have a glass of wine if we were being interviewed.
Speaker 2: Do you notice the way they treat a waiter or.
Speaker 4: How people treat each other. So yeah, if they were
Speaker 4: snapped at the waiter and when nasty or something like that,
Speaker 4: I would notice that that would be.
Speaker 2: A turnoff as mayor, as a political person, through and
Speaker 2: through as a owner of business. What do you feel
Speaker 2: about government and food? What is your you know, how
Speaker 2: do we look at the poverty, the insecurity.
Speaker 4: Well, I think, you know, government has some responsibilities. One is,
Speaker 4: if people don't have enough food, they've got to find
Speaker 4: ways to get it to them, particularly children. I think
Speaker 4: government has a responsibility to make sure that the food
Speaker 4: that's sold in stores is not dangerous, and I do
Speaker 4: think they should warn against certain things and point out
Speaker 4: the calories. Two things that will really kill you are
Speaker 4: two biggest causes of death I think in America certainly
Speaker 4: smoking and obesity, and the government. I don't think they
Speaker 4: should force you to not smoke, but I think they
Speaker 4: should certainly tell you about the dangers. And in New
Speaker 4: York we have a rule can't smoke in a place
Speaker 4: where people work, so nobody has to choose between their
Speaker 4: job and their health. But you can go outside and smoke,
Speaker 4: and you can buy cigarettes, and I would defend your
Speaker 4: right to do that, not for kids, because kids can't
Speaker 4: and should aren't able to matter what they say, to
Speaker 4: make those kinds of health decisions in America. The other
Speaker 4: day America band jewel these fake cigarettes, and I think
Speaker 4: we should keep kids from buying cigarettes. I would agree
Speaker 4: with and enforce, but not against adults being letting you smoke.
Speaker 4: Where other people have to choose between the health and
Speaker 4: the career. Waiters or waitresses, cooks know that you should
Speaker 4: not be allowed to smoke. And that's the law that
Speaker 4: I had passed in New York City protected the workers.
Speaker 4: So if you went to a place where they're volunteer waiters,
Speaker 4: you could smoke because they weren't Technically it was under
Speaker 4: your administration for the first big city to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and what about obesity, what did you do,
Speaker 2: Wes Mayor.
Speaker 4: To, Well, you can't and I don't think you should
Speaker 4: stop people from eating, but we tried to have much
Speaker 4: healthier food in the schools and have warning labels.
Speaker 3: And then you know me.
Speaker 4: They used to joke about the big gulp when I
Speaker 4: wanted to have people get smaller cups of soda when
Speaker 4: they bought it. You could still buy as many as
Speaker 4: you want to drink as much money, but just a
Speaker 4: smaller cup. Chances are you wouldn't go back for the
Speaker 4: second cups.
Speaker 3: You would drink less.
Speaker 4: Mexico at that time was the most obese city and
Speaker 4: the smitty still is. I don't know, but they had
Speaker 4: a maximum size permitted in cups and it did help them.
Speaker 4: So I think government had some responsibilities. But in the end,
Speaker 4: you are responsible for yourself, and I don't have a
Speaker 4: problem if you're not very responsible, you just paid the penalty.
Speaker 4: But when it's your children, then I think we do
Speaker 4: have a societal interest in not taking away your responsibility,
Speaker 4: not telling you what to do, but making sure the
Speaker 4: kids are treated with the best science that we have
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 2: Your generosity and feeding and taking care of the people
Speaker 2: who work here is extraordinary. But there was a time
Speaker 2: when you had to close your office and food was
Speaker 2: not available. What did you do during the pandemic.
Speaker 3: One of the things we did.
Speaker 4: We all our employees got paid, but we also paid
Speaker 4: the companies that provide services. We use outside services, you know,
Speaker 4: electricians and plumbers and some cleaning and security functions. Companies
Speaker 4: would tend to outside and we made sure we continued
Speaker 4: to have those people paid while we were closed. So
Speaker 4: if you had worked here for another company, we didn't
Speaker 4: pay the company we paid, had them send the money
Speaker 4: directly to the employees.
Speaker 2: And so food is something we do to encourage people
Speaker 2: to come to work, to feed them well, to feed
Speaker 2: our citizens well. It is also delicious, and it's exciting,
Speaker 2: and it is family. But it also is comfort, isn't
Speaker 2: it In times when we sort of think about what
Speaker 2: would make us feel better in ourselves. If you're down,
Speaker 2: if something has happened, you might turn to music for comfort,
Speaker 2: you might turn to art for comfort, but you also might.
Speaker 3: Turn to food and use the word nibble nibble.
Speaker 2: So I was going to ask you what would be
Speaker 2: your comfort food.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm addicted to popcorn with probably too much salt.
Speaker 4: Although the doctor says I have love blood pressure. So
Speaker 4: he said, you don't have to stop cheese. Its are
Speaker 4: an American little biscuit, probably not good for you. But
Speaker 4: I could eat bags and cheese. It's love it, jelly beans,
Speaker 4: those kinds of things. I try not to eat too
Speaker 4: much fattening stuff, and I do watch my weight.
Speaker 2: You look very fit.
Speaker 4: The last couple of days I've eaten more than I
Speaker 4: should have.
Speaker 2: Is that because you go out for I was.
Speaker 4: Just where the food and stuck in front of you. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the conversation wasn't boring, but other people were eating, and
Speaker 4: so I went.
Speaker 3: But I would.
Speaker 4: I don't eat a lot of red meat anymore. I'd
Speaker 4: love a big American steak, but I wouldn't have one
Speaker 4: very often, maybe once every two months or something. Hamburgers
Speaker 4: and hot dogs, love those, but a lot of times
Speaker 4: I would have a piece of chicken or fish just
Speaker 4: because of lower calories.
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to see each other on Thursday night
Speaker 2: where we celebrate you.
Speaker 3: And I ask what the menu is.
Speaker 2: Might be a surprise, but it might involve a lot
Speaker 2: of vegetables. And pasta to start, and then you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of slightly going off the idea of a
Speaker 2: big main course, and also we're not eating till nine,
Speaker 2: so I think we'll keep it kind of light. Do
Speaker 2: you like that idea?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Do you have suggestions?
Speaker 3: What would you like?
Speaker 4: No, I'm going to have a hot talk in Hamburger
Speaker 4: before I leave. No, looking forward to it, and thank you.
Speaker 4: And then I'm getting a plane and going back to
Speaker 4: dealing with American cooking.
Speaker 2: And then you'll come back to us.
Speaker 4: Used to come here an awful lot stop during the
Speaker 4: virus starting again. I've been here three times in the
Speaker 4: last two months.
Speaker 2: Well, London's a better city when you're here.
Speaker 4: I'll come back, but I think London's a wonderful city.
Speaker 4: My former wife, who is still one of my best friends,
Speaker 4: is a brit father was in the RAF. She grew
Speaker 4: up around here. Mother came from York, father from the
Speaker 4: Isle of Wight, and I don't know that she cooked
Speaker 4: British food, but I do remember when we first when
Speaker 4: we got married, she had a hot water bottle. Yeah,
Speaker 4: only the breads, and I didn't know.
Speaker 3: They did that.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, nice.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. Thank you I'm looking forward to dinner.
Speaker 2: I know I have a nice time. Thanks.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
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Speaker 1: from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
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Speaker 1: River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for cooks of all ages.
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