WEBVTT - Scott Rothkopf 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.200 This episode is brought to you by Me and M, 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.600 the British modern luxury clothing label designed for busy women. 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.360 Founded and designed in London. Me and M is about 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.960 intelligence style. Much thought and care are put into the 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.720 design process, so every piece is flattering, functional and made 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.520 to last forever. Me and M is well known for 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.000 its trousers and how I got to know the brand. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.119 It's my go to for styles that are comfortable enough 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.520 to wear in the kitchen or the restaurant, also polished 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.000 enough for meetings. Me and M is available online and 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.239 in its stores across London, Edinburgh, New York. If you're 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.360 in London, I'd really recommend heading to their beautiful, brand 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.400 new flagship store in Marlevine, which opens on the twenty 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:47.479 ninth of October. The connections between Scott Rothkoff, director of 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.040 New York's Whitney Museum, and I run very deep. When 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.600 Rose and I wrote the first River Cafe cookbook in 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.360 nineteen ninety four, Scott's husband Jonathan Burnham helped us with 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:03.720 our introduction. When the Jasper John's retrospective opened at the Whitney, Scott, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.039 who curated the show, took us and our young children 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.800 through slowly describing the paintings he loved most and why 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.399 museums and restaurants are about connecting art and people. They 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.679 welcome audiences Scott's chosen word, into his space and create 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.080 something beautiful to see, or we cook something delicious for 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.880 them to eat. When I spoke to you yesterday, I said, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.039 what's new, and you said, Ruthie, what's new is that 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:36.399 I had a visit from Barack and Michelle Obama to 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.480 see the show that is on right now, which is 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:40.600 called Edges of Aley. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:41.680 Tell me about it. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.800 Yeah, it is really one of the most exciting thing 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.400 that's ever happened at the Whitney. The show is just 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.360 this extraordinary look into the life and work of the 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.760 American choreographer Alvin Ailey, who famously said that he wanted 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.560 to chronicle in his art, which was Dan dance the 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.040 Black experience, and he does that, but for me, that's 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.400 the American experience. There's everything in this work, you know. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.720 He grew up in Rogers, Texas in the South. It 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.600 was a sharecropping family, very poor. He lived in la 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.480 He danced on Broadway, he danced in movies. He choreographed 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.440 the opening night of Studio fifty four. You have the Church, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.280 you have Soul Train, you have Gospel, you have Duke Ellington, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.240 you have the State Department, which funded his journeys around 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.360 the world. As you know, one of the great choreographers 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.840 of America, beginning in the nineteen sixties, he danced at 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.320 the Lynda Johnson White House, and Ailey has never been 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.480 subject of a big show like this, And he is, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.280 to my mind, not you know, the greatest black choreographer 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.480 or even the greatest choreographer. He's one of the greatest 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.280 creative geniuses of the twentieth century in any medium period. 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.600 And that's what this show is about. So when the 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.360 Obamas came calling on the second or third day that 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.280 the show was opened to say could we come for 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.000 our anniversary, I thought, sure that we can make happen. 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.600 So they got a private visit too, Ruthie. An hour 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.200 and fifteen minutes they stayed, and it was so moving 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.640 to see that show through their eyes. Was really something 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:10.400 I'll never forget. 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.680 Well, lucky them, yes, lucky to have you and lucky 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:14.959 to take them there. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:16.639 So you've come for. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.679 Freeze, I've come for freeze, tell me. And also I 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.480 came for a birthday party of one of Jonathan's old 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.639 friends called the Destination Party. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.720 It was it was your station. 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.000 We were at Castle Howard, which is a very glamorous 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.800 place to celebrate a seventieth birthday of a mother and 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.760 a thirtieth birthday of her daughter, which ensures that you 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:37.440 have a lot of good looking young people as you 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.600 get older, and I, being forty eight, was really upset 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:42.720 that I was seated at the old people's table. Well, 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.119 I thought, you know, and you know, like I had 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.000 this bridge generation. Yeah, so that was a good you know, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.839 having an English husband means that there are certain things 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.600 that bring me to London other than just art fairs 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:55.800 and museum openings. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:57.720 Why don't we read the recipe? 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.000 Well, this is very exciting for me because I don't 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.440 think I've actually read a recipe since I met my husband. 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.600 He does all the cooking and I do all the eating. 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.200 But this is something I really enjoy. I love artichokes, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.600 so I'm delighted to read about spaghetti with artichoke pesto 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.200 for six. If we were making it at my home, 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:15.800 we'd probably make it for eight, even if we were 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.160 only having six. Comeback, because Jonathan is always panicked, there 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:18.839 won't be enough. 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.599 That's a nice quality, so there's always too much. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:28.359 Exactly six small globe artichokes boiled, one hundred grams of 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:33.560 pine nuts, one garlic clove, two fifty mL of milk, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.960 two tablespoons of parsley leaves, one hundred and fifty grams 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.520 of grated pecorino, one hundred and fifty mili liters of 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:47.000 olive oil, four hundred grams of spaghetti. Blend the artichokes, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.359 pine nuts, and garlic to a rough pulp. Add the milk, 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.680 parsley and pecorino, and pulse again. Add the olive oil 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.279 to the mixture to form a cream, season and put 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:02.720 it into a small p Cook the spaghetti until al dente. 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.640 Drain and return the pasta to the pan with one 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.120 ladleful of hot water, toss, Add the pesto and toss again. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.240 The sauce should be wet and creamy. If necessary, add 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.000 more water. Serve with freshly grated pecorino or parmesan. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.680 Oh great, what do you want to get him? We're 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.400 going to bring some over cooking. Get there in the restaurant, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.400 even though you're having lunch. We'll have a taste. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:27.320 Well. I didn't have breakfast in anticipation of. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.600 My lunch, so there have spaghetti before lunch. So let's 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.279 talk about growing up in Dallas. First, the start at 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.720 the beginning. In the beginning, tell me about the food 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:37.480 as a child in your home. 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.160 Sure, I was born in Arizona. I was born on 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.360 an Air Force base called Luke Air Force Base that 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.680 was outside of Phoenix, and my dad was in the 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.159 service then. This was in the seventies, and we moved 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.720 to Dallas when I was just almost a year old. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.200 So I really did grow up in Dallas and really 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.640 was a kind of child of the nineteen eighties. 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:55.680 And thous sisters. 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.160 No, I have a stepsister who entered my life when 0:05:58.160 --> 0:05:58.800 I was twelve. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.080 Let's say, so you were an only child with your parents. 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.200 I was, My mom worked, My dad was a doctor. 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.719 My mom worked at what was then a new saxophonth 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.880 Avenue store selling handbags to you know, these people in 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.280 Dallas in the eighties who wanted very glamorous looking bags 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.960 covered with rhinestones and things. And she was a good cook. 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:19.840 And when I was really little, in our household we 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.120 kept kosher actually, so that was interesting and it was 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.000 you know, not that strict. When we went out, we 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.080 kind of cheated, but at home it was because it 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:33.719 was no pork, no pork, no shellfish, no milk and meat, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.279 which actually meant I was introduced to all sorts of 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.680 funny products like cool whip, which was a kind of 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.240 fake whipped cream because you couldn't have whiped cream on 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.719 your dessert after a meal that had eaten at things 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.000 like that. And she was a good cook. My mom 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.200 and her grandfather had been a baker, and her grandmother 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.440 the cook at a restaurant in a hotel in the 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.599 Catskill Mountains that they know what it was called the Liberty. Yeah, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.560 it no longer exists, that hotel. It was very close 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.119 to Gross. It was the sort of less less known 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:04.640 cousin of Gross Singers. 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:07.240 Yes, that's where I grew Yeah, I know, so my 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.640 years right and you know that area. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.000 Well, the hotel was actually called the Dixie Lake Hotel. 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.680 The town was Liberty, New York. That was the nearest 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.840 one to it. So she grew up in this world 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.760 of hospitality. It was a kosher hotel, and she learned 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.160 certain things from from her mother and her grandparents. So 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.320 we did have a lot of home cooking. I remember, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.480 especially the Jewish holidays like Passover and restaurant on everyone 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:30.960 coming together around big meals. 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.880 Did your mother have a recipe book of her grandparents' recipes? 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.840 You know, she joked that her grandmother and her mother 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.080 used to always sabotage all the recipes that they would 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.360 give to her, which apparently is not uncommon. They would 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.440 accidentally leave out so that she was sort of foiled 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.320 and ever being as good a cook as they were. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.120 But you know, it was a time in Dallas where 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.600 there was probably like the kind of inkling of a 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:56.160 dawning food conscience. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.720 Or you know, we're talking about what years in the eighties. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.120 Let's say it's not we didn't go to farmers markets, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.080 nobody had ingredients like that. But I remember, you know, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.360 you could buy basil at the supermarket that wasn't flaked 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.240 and dry, or you know, my mother had this cookbook 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.440 that reached us from New York City. It was called 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.920 the Silver Palette Cookbook, and it was about it was 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.520 from this store on the Upper West Side that sold 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.440 prepared foods basically in New York and my mother must 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.240 have thought that this was incredibly kind of chic and worldly, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.320 and this was sort of before anybody had heard of 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.480 inine Garden, let's say, and the kind of things that 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:32.640 she has you cook. And she would make recipes from 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.680 that cookbook, and I remember looking at it thinking this 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:36.840 just must be the most glamorous place in the world. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.280 I always had an obsession with New York, so it 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.680 wasn't all old fashioned kosher cooking. 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.120 So she would work during the day and shop and 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.199 then come home and would you sit down to dinner? 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:48.480 And we did as a family. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.040 We always pretty much always sat down to dinner. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:51.160 You know. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.320 My parents divorced when I was nine or ten, and 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.000 they had joint custody, so I would go back and forth, 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.520 and it kind of meant that whatever night they had me, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.440 they were home. They didn't make other plans because that 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.040 was maybe only half the time. And we would eat 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.560 my mom, my stepfather, and I and she would often, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.120 you know, grill like a simple chicken breasts I can remember, 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.599 like marinated in Italian dressing, which also probably seemed like 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.560 an interesting food concept at the time. And my stepmother 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.280 also cooked. But my father had a recipe that he 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.679 thought that he was famous for. Famous perhaps only to 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.960 those who knew him well, called hamburger lemons surprise. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.200 Which part was a surprise. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.920 I don't know, probably the amount of lemons or the 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:33.880 black pepper corns that as a child I used to 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.800 have to avoid, you know, burning my mouth. And that's 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:39.760 the only thing I can make without a recipe. 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:39.920 I can make. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.439 Yeah, you can make it too, Ruthy, I bet, I 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:43.440 don't think you'd want to. 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:45.959 You ever put it with pasta? 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.520 You know you could. You could put it with pasta, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.000 You could put it with anything. You could feed it 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:51.520 to your dog. 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:58.960 Do you think your father was was expressing some form 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:00.000 of love for you in a way? 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:01.400 There might have been a bit of that. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:02.440 I went to Dallas. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.560 I was in Dallas, which and I he was working 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:09.200 with Ray Nasher m hm, great collective course, and we 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.520 insisted on staying downtown. But this was in the seventies, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.760 maybe late seventies. But we had some good food and 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.280 I was wondering if you did you go out meals 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:19.000 with your parents? 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.840 We did? You know? We went to Italian or Chinese 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.079 restaurants in the neighborhood. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:24.880 Special occasion. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.200 Yeah, well there were special occasions there, you know, there 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.240 were and you might know more about this than I did. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.680 But at that time in Dallas there was this kind 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.800 of beginning of a kind of Southwestern cuisine, and there 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.120 was a chef called Fearing at the Mansion on Turtle 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.880 Creature so expensive that had a really well known chef, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.240 and they were bringing together ideas from some Mexican cuisine 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.520 and some barbecue and you know, grilling and blackening things 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.560 and kind of thinking about the Southwest and some of 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.920 the more local cooking traditions and a sort of elevated manner. 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:58.440 So that was a thing. And then there were a 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.480 couple of like really old fashioned kind of restaurants I'm 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.440 sure that don't exist in hotels like the Adulphus, and 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.839 you would go and that's where we stayed, did you there? 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.120 You go, that's the hotel with staff. I'd thought of that. 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.200 In forty year I. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.600 Had a restaurant there and it was called the Pyramid Room, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.200 and you could have a sorbet, you know, intermetso that 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.800 they would bring out a frozen swan that I think 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.760 had like a flashlight inside, so it was like this 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.080 glowing ice swan. And you could have a chocolate souflee there, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:26.120 which is the only time in my life that I 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:27.600 ever had a soup flet until probably I went to 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.800 France many years later. So there were these occasions that 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.800 you did go out, you know, infrequently, for these super 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.240 what seemed like very grand dining experiences. 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.480 So going back to the art history, who grew up 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.120 always with art and with the I. 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.000 Visually grew up just always loving art. It was the 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.120 thing that excited me and interested me the most of 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.520 anything in the world. And I had friends in Dallas 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.480 and the eighties who liked football or American football, I mean, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.160 playing sports. I never had any interest. My father remembers 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.720 me picking flowers by the side of the field at 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:02.520 my first soccer game, and I think he realized I 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.480 was not going to be one for team sports at 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.960 that point. But my mother was interested in art, and 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.240 she painted little herself, and she really encouraged me. And 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:17.240 I developed an absolute fascination with Frankloyd Wright, the architect, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.360 and he had designed the theater in Dallas where I 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.199 took little acting classes and did plays as a kid. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.280 And maybe when I was about nine or ten, right 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.080 around the time my parents were getting divorced, actually I 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.520 sort of wanted to go see some of these buildings, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.559 and my mother, I think, realized that this was something 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.520 that she could encourage in me. And we'd plan these 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:40.319 trips and we went to see falling water outside of Pittsburgh, 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.880 and we went to Taliessen, and we went to Chicago, 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:44.600 and we went to all these different places, and it 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.360 was this kind of wonderful time in the life of 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.440 a mother and a son. Well, I was probably at 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.360 that point, about eleven to twelve thirteen. 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.200 What do you think was it that drew you to 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:54.760 Frank Cloyd? 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.320 There was something, you know. I used to study the 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.360 floor plants and I could memory all the buildings. I 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.400 was absolutely obsessed, and I would ask for volumes of 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.600 the catalog Raisina for my birthday. They were very expensive 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.200 and they were printed in Japan. I think we'd go 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.640 to the Soli store and I had a collection of 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.360 Frank would write books, and there was something about the 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.840 kind of complexity of the space, and I would get 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.320 lost in these floor plans and try to understand how 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.959 the rooms fit together. And also the story of him 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.680 was kind of grand and he went under the cape 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.240 and a beret and you know, thwacked his cane and 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.800 made pronouncements. Then at some point an interest in contemporary 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.880 art sort of supplanted the architecture fixation. But what my grandparents, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.920 who were very I was very close to my grandmother, 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.520 especially my father's my father's mother was it just about 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.440 my favorite person in the whole world. I'm even thinking 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.840 about her now, I get a little choked up. I 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.920 miss her. She always had her face made up and 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.280 went to the beauty parlor, and you know, she wore 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.640 some jewelry. And her husband was an accountant who had 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.880 been born literally in a tenement on Ludlow Street and 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.840 went to City College for free, which was a great 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.199 opportunity that people had in those years during the depression. 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:09.959 But she really believed in supporting my interest in art, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.160 and she and my grandfather I would I would go 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.160 once a year to stay with them in August for 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.400 like a week on Delta Airlines as an unaccompanied mint 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.920 or whatever age. I would yeah, Badge and I would 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.600 get there, and I can still picture that that drive 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.080 from LaGuardia Airport out to Hicksville, which is of course 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.120 not a very attractive drive, but in my mind that 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.000 was like people have what's your favorite journey, you know, 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:34.800 like they're going to the Alps, you know, to go 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.520 see My favorite journey was from LaGuardia to Hicksville, you know, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.360 your grandmother. Yeah, with them in the car. I remember 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:44.920 being picked up and the anticipation of what that week 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.840 would be. And they took me to the Whitney Museum 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.440 many times as a child when it was on Madison 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.560 Avenue to look at Calder Circus. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:54.600 Will you describe what Calder Circus was? 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.000 Yeah, Calder Circus is one of the real treasures of 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.400 the Whitney's collection, made by Alexander Calder, and he made 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.680 sort of for fun, but it became a great artwork, 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.520 all these different circus figures that he could, you know, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.680 pull a lever on a kangaroo and you know, it 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.800 would walk and move its feet. And it's actually on 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.640 view right now in the Whitney Museum in downtown Manhattan, 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.720 and I take my son there and he's totally into it. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.840 The lion, all the different characters, and I'm just reminded. 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.280 It's very touching to meet things do come full circle. 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.480 The River Cafe Cafe, our all day space and just 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.400 steps away from the restaurant, is now open in the 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.960 morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristada from 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.320 our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, I screamed coops and 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:51.320 River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates, Salumi, Misti, mozzarella, brusquetta, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.000 red and yellow peppers, Vitello, tonado and more. Come in 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.200 the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:00.960 No need to book see you here. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.560 Just thinking of change in your life also in terms 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.480 of the way you ate and what you could eat 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.800 and maybe what you didn't need or bother eating. 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.320 You went to college and you went to Harvard. 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.720 Was that either an awakening because of the restaurants that 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.120 were available in Cambridge or did you you know? 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.160 I mean I ate a lot of you know, bad 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.200 dorm food, and I didn't cook and I didn't have 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.520 a kitchen then because I lived in a dorm. But 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.840 it was obviously a more international context. 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:37.160 You know. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.920 Now Dallas has many immigrants from all around the world too, 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.240 But we didn't grow up going to those kind of restaurants. 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.520 I remember the first time I ate Ethiopian food and 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.000 the kind of tang of that bread, or the first time, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.640 you know, I had Vietnamese fa you know, the kind 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.040 of thing in Cambridge exactly, and the kind of thing 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.080 that people associate with graduate student life and cosapolitan areas. 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.000 My taste definitely started awakening to a broader range. Like 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.800 in Dallas, were going to be the only Asian food 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:07.120 I would have had would have been a certain kind 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.040 of Chinese food, and I say certain kind meaning American kind. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.600 But as I got to college, I had, you know, 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:14.720 Japanese food and all these things, and a lot of 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:16.439 it was was cheap, and we would go out with 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.400 our friends sometimes venture into Boston. 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.120 After Harvard, you moved to New York. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.240 I moved to New York for a year in an apartment, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.960 in a little apartment in Chelsea, about three blocks from 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.160 where I'm living now, which is just to talk about 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.840 coming full circle. It was a studio apartment. I did 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.560 not have a bed. I had a sofa bed from 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.840 Ikia that I rarely opened because that was going to 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.680 require too much efforts. I slept sideways on this ikea 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.560 sofa bed, and I don't know that you would call 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.280 it a kitchen. It was not even a galley kitchen 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.280 because it wasn't even enclosed. It was kind of part 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:54.080 of this room essentially the only enclosed part. I don't 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.520 know what it's called. It had. It had a stove, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.000 and it had a fridge and had an oven, none 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.840 of which will probably ever used. I think if you'd 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.080 open my fridge then you might have found, you know, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.119 some tonic and some cocktail olives and some leftovers or 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:06.080 something growing on them. 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.720 So social life was centered around going to. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:09.720 All the restaurants. 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.480 Yeah, we had these teeny tiny apartments and nobody really 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.240 entertained at home. And I remember going, I mean speaking 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.760 of like being in London to around the corner from 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.440 me was the art dealer Gavin Brown, who now was 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.520 part of Barbara Gladstone had this really cool gallery and 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.439 he had this really cool bar, and he had a 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.160 bar called Passerby Yeah, in the front of the gallery. Yeah, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.159 this social space. So this would have been in my 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:35.600 first year in New York. So let's say its ninteen 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:37.800 ninety nine or something. And I would go to this 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.440 bar and I was very aware that everyone in the 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.680 room was really cool and really interesting, and I knew 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.879 they were I knew who you know. Elizabeth Peyton, Oh 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.920 my god, ELIZEB. Peyton's at the bar and I remember 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.760 there was this kind of shorter woman with big curly hair, 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.480 who it turned out was Amanda Sharp, the founder of Freeze, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.920 speaking of the Freeze Art Fair. So I kind of thought, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:01.720 you know, I'm just not ready for New York. I 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.399 got to go back to school and I picked up, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.520 and I went back to Cambridge for graduate school, so 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:11.399 studying art history. And then at some point I was 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:13.560 offered a job of moving to New York to become 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.199 a senior editor, and I thought, I better get to 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.520 New York in my late twenties, and I was going 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.119