Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2: A few weeks ago, a very special person came to
Speaker 2: dinner at our home, Speaker of the United States House
Speaker 2: of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Before greeting the other guests, Nancy
Speaker 2: and I talked together about food and politics, food and family,
Speaker 2: food in her Italian American childhood, and being the mother
Speaker 2: of five children. We also spent quite a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking about our shared passion for chocolate ice cream.
Speaker 2: Is it sev? What time is it the seventh? Okay,
Speaker 2: well they want.
Speaker 3: Us to not time to eat yet, but I can't wait.
Speaker 2: I can't wait up tonight we're having two chocolate Okay.
Speaker 4: I was thinking that can make that my whole meal.
Speaker 2: I won't.
Speaker 4: My husband and I got married. We lived in New
Speaker 4: York now New York for me. When I was a
Speaker 4: young girl, a child really, our family would go to
Speaker 4: New York regularly. We'd go to plays, we'd go to dinner.
Speaker 4: All that New York was like heaven. So here we
Speaker 4: were young, married in Manhattan. Paul was working but we
Speaker 4: didn't have children yet.
Speaker 2: The first year and what kind of restaurants would you
Speaker 2: seek out.
Speaker 4: We had shall we say, champagne taste and beer bottled purses,
Speaker 4: so we didn't say that and go. We would go
Speaker 4: to the best restaurants as if we were entitled, almost
Speaker 4: or we would just go to the neighborhood Italian Americans
Speaker 4: on New York or something, or the corner place to
Speaker 4: have whatever it was. But New York was great because,
Speaker 4: for example, if you wanted to have chopped chicken livers,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, the best place in the world for
Speaker 4: chopped chicken. You know, anything you wanted, the best was
Speaker 4: there carry out that would be. But we were largely
Speaker 4: into dining out. Then we had children, and then it
Speaker 4: was more than me.
Speaker 2: And so when you when you were bringing up the children,
Speaker 2: did you follow your mother's footsteps? Did you have somebody helping? No?
Speaker 4: No, we had no help none. I mean, that was
Speaker 4: a different world. When you have five children in six years,
Speaker 4: help doesn't come anywhere near your house. They take detours you.
Speaker 2: Help wouldn't come near you.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, why would they.
Speaker 4: You could go work with somebody with one child or
Speaker 4: two children, why would they going to work with somebody
Speaker 4: with five children?
Speaker 2: So how did you do it?
Speaker 4: It was intense. It was intense, but I would love
Speaker 4: to do it all over again. It was the most
Speaker 4: glorious thing.
Speaker 2: Even lived in an apartment in New York. Or was
Speaker 2: that time we were in San francisc.
Speaker 4: No, well, we had four children in New York.
Speaker 2: We did.
Speaker 3: We left New York.
Speaker 4: We had four children, the oldest was four, and we
Speaker 4: had a lovely apartment in Beakman Place, and then we
Speaker 4: moved to San Francisco and had a big home. I mean,
Speaker 4: we didn't realize how small our apartment was until we
Speaker 4: moved into a home in San Francisco, and that was lovely.
Speaker 3: And then we had our fifth child there.
Speaker 2: And how did you cook for five children? Did you
Speaker 2: both cook? Did you cook? How did you feed them healthily?
Speaker 4: They'll not say that I was a great cook. I
Speaker 4: mean it was standard fair. And then as they got older,
Speaker 4: I just got tired of washing pots and pants. I
Speaker 4: didn't want to wash anymore pots and pans. So I
Speaker 4: developed a practice where I would go to some place,
Speaker 4: say MacArthur Park, which was a restaurant then that the
Speaker 4: greatest ribs okay. Or we go to Lorocas which was
Speaker 4: a seafood place. Or we go to Chinatown, taking duck
Speaker 4: and I would make a salad, and I would bring
Speaker 4: home this food. And it wasn't strictly carry out like.
Speaker 2: Fast food.
Speaker 4: It was delicious food from these restaurants. We have this
Speaker 4: meal Linen's salad. So when I went to Congress, my
Speaker 4: youngest daughter, Alexandra, she said, mother, I'm so proud of
Speaker 4: you because you're a pioneer. I said, really, because I'm
Speaker 4: a woman member of Congress. She said, no, Remember when
Speaker 4: you used to cook and then you stopped. Well, now
Speaker 4: a lot of people stop cooking, but you were the
Speaker 4: first to stop.
Speaker 2: Oh good, that's good that you pioneer. Oh it is
Speaker 2: a liberation, isn't it. It can be creative cooking. It
Speaker 2: can be exciting, it can be relaxing. I think affair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lovely thing.
Speaker 4: But three times day, every day, and with five children,
Speaker 4: five will get you ten every time because they bring
Speaker 4: So it's a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But the pots got me, the pots and pants that
Speaker 4: got me.
Speaker 2: So you got you got that's good. And then the
Speaker 2: children got older. You then became more and more involved
Speaker 2: in politics and participates.
Speaker 3: Always said, we're in school all day.
Speaker 2: How did food fit into that life? I mean, how
Speaker 2: did it fit into working and being a working mother.
Speaker 4: Well, the children would call it child labor. But we
Speaker 4: would have many events at our home all the time,
Speaker 4: and we always had food.
Speaker 3: You know, the Democrats.
Speaker 4: It was about people coming together, people coming so we
Speaker 4: would always have food so that kids would help prepare.
Speaker 3: And they say to.
Speaker 4: This day, you know, for every salmon on a bagel,
Speaker 4: we'd eat one and put one on the tray, and
Speaker 4: these little ones. And when we would have dinners. I
Speaker 4: hope none of our guests hear this, but here's how
Speaker 4: we would do it. Say we have like many many
Speaker 4: people coming to dinner. Once we had nearly two hundred,
Speaker 4: we had a big house. We bought one of those pools,
Speaker 4: you know, those little pools that children. You inflate it,
Speaker 4: fill it with water and wash the lettuce in there.
Speaker 4: Then you put it in a pillowcase, tie a knot
Speaker 4: in it, and you put it on the spin cycle.
Speaker 3: The dishes in the washing machine. The washing washing machine.
Speaker 4: We have to be very careful because sometimes while we
Speaker 4: tell people and they get it mixed up, they put
Speaker 4: it in the dryer. That doesn't work. Had to be
Speaker 4: in the spin cycle of the washing machine and come
Speaker 4: out crispy. You have to have a big thing to
Speaker 4: wash the lettuce and spin cycle.
Speaker 2: Have Edie Vachel taken on that recipe for us, No, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think so.
Speaker 4: I think that they don't entertain one hundred people at
Speaker 4: a time.
Speaker 2: So I think shopping is a hard thing to do.
Speaker 2: Don't you think getting this shopping done well.
Speaker 3: We have a little motto.
Speaker 4: If I don't have to shop for it, cook it,
Speaker 4: or clean it up, I'm all in for it, whatever
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: But that's not your life.
Speaker 4: It's very important. It's an art. I remember fascinating my
Speaker 4: grandchildren by having them put a mountain of flour. Each
Speaker 4: had their mountain of flour, break eggs and net, mix
Speaker 4: it up this that and net, let it sit, roll
Speaker 4: it out neat, you know, put us through the machine
Speaker 4: and in the pot of water, and they're eating pasta
Speaker 4: that was a mound of flour with an egg in
Speaker 4: the middle.
Speaker 3: They had their own individual.
Speaker 2: Cooking in a restaurant, I say, people say to me,
Speaker 2: how can you cook for two hundred people? And I
Speaker 2: can't cook for eight? And I go, I don't think
Speaker 2: I can cook for eight. It's much harder, you know,
Speaker 2: because in a restaurant. It's so collaborative. You have somebody
Speaker 2: chopping the barsa and somebody helping you pick the crab.
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people cooking at home
Speaker 2: as a performance, and you know, and it's quite hard
Speaker 2: to entertain. You feel that you are being judged or
Speaker 2: is it good enough? Or well is it hot? It's
Speaker 2: the old thing and it keeping it hot. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a challenge in a restaurant too. And so what about
Speaker 2: the Washington moving from San Francisco is a very food city.
Speaker 2: I mean you have Alice Walters, you had Judy Rogers,
Speaker 2: you have women chef, you have so many different types
Speaker 2: of food. So was it a big wrench going from
Speaker 2: such a food city to Washington.
Speaker 4: Let me just say I live in San Francisco, I
Speaker 4: work in Washington, Okay, And I was always working because
Speaker 4: San Francisco is three hours earlier, so when other people
Speaker 4: might go out to dinner, it was at seven o'clos
Speaker 4: four o'clock in the afternoon in San Francisco. So I
Speaker 4: was really always working. And people would say, what's a
Speaker 4: good restaurant. I mean, I'm the worst person to ask,
Speaker 4: but there are some wonderful restaurants in Washington that I
Speaker 4: can now and look forward to, you know, just putting
Speaker 4: work on the shelf.
Speaker 2: What do you like about a restaurant? What do you
Speaker 2: look for in a restaurant? Is it the food? Is
Speaker 2: it the welcome, is it the descort? What?
Speaker 4: First and foremost, it's the food. And it's very, very
Speaker 4: important that there'd be a tablecloth. The tablecloth is not
Speaker 4: only a tablecloth, it's absorbed sound. So it's little calmer
Speaker 4: when you have that. Now there are many restaurants that
Speaker 4: don't have tablecloths, that are wonderful restaurants. But I'm always
Speaker 4: happy when I have a tablecloth, still at this point
Speaker 4: in life. And I especially still like Italian food. But
Speaker 4: of course I like friend. I like all you know,
Speaker 4: good food, just like they're all different kinds of music,
Speaker 4: from classical to rap whatever. Just as long as it's good,
Speaker 4: it's good. And same thing with food. Well, we have California,
Speaker 4: we have you know, the Mexican influence, we have the
Speaker 4: we have every kind of food you can imagine in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 3: In San Francisco.
Speaker 2: So have great farms. And I think Alice has done great.
Speaker 2: She's farmed to the table. She's a force.
Speaker 3: This I mean unbelievable. Yeah, she's fabulous in every way.
Speaker 2: Do you ever work at a restaurant? Would you take
Speaker 2: somebody out and work over dinner or do you find
Speaker 2: that you kind of work when you work and you
Speaker 2: eat when you eat?
Speaker 4: I like just to enjoy dinner. Now, maybe that's being Italian.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm a big believer in putting things on the shelf.
Speaker 4: There's an expression in Latin a jay kuadaj. Just do
Speaker 4: what you're doing if you're dining, if you're eating, and
Speaker 4: then even if it means you have to split the
Speaker 4: eating out and I'll work then, But I don't want
Speaker 4: to do them together, especially since some times your conversations
Speaker 4: can become.
Speaker 3: Contentious.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't mean in a negative way, but
Speaker 4: it's like, why are we talking about this now? I'm
Speaker 4: trying to eat my dinner.
Speaker 2: And what about How does food fit into your work life?
Speaker 2: Do you stop always for lunch? Do you have a
Speaker 2: sandwich at your desk? Does it depend on the day
Speaker 2: my work? No food?
Speaker 4: Well, I have a salad maybe at my desk, but
Speaker 4: like on Wednesdays, I have now for a long time now,
Speaker 4: it's been a pick up lunch for my members. I
Speaker 4: wish that I could be having them for dinner more
Speaker 4: and stuff that we really can't because of COVID for
Speaker 4: a long time, and some of the restaurants that would
Speaker 4: be able to handle that scale just don't even exist
Speaker 4: any I mean, some of them have moved on. But
Speaker 4: the food is not an important part of my life
Speaker 4: in DC.
Speaker 2: In DC, when you travel, do you look forward to
Speaker 2: having a state dinner or lunch? Is it something that
Speaker 2: you think about on your foreign trips? What did you
Speaker 2: have for lunch today? In London?
Speaker 4: Today we had a beautiful lunch hosted by the Speaker
Speaker 4: of the Househoil. It was lovely in every way and
Speaker 4: he told me that they have a cook there at
Speaker 4: the House of Commons, and it was beautiful in every way.
Speaker 4: It was a lovely, lovely dining experience. It wasn't just
Speaker 4: eating lunch. It was a dining experience.
Speaker 2: How many of you were there?
Speaker 4: Maybe one table, probably at least forty people at the table,
Speaker 4: big long table, beautiful, beautiful flowers, beautiful food.
Speaker 3: It was. It was lovely.
Speaker 4: AND's London's come a long way, baby, I mean from
Speaker 4: when we would come here when we were young.
Speaker 3: Now you have everything yeah, you have everything.
Speaker 2: It's really really good restaurants in London very much. Where
Speaker 2: were you last night?
Speaker 4: Last night we were at IV How good that nice?
Speaker 3: I love Scott's.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we have to get you to the River Cafe.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, all of the River Cafe too. You're in there.
Speaker 2: You come to myrowng time. One thing we have to get.
Speaker 2: We're closed on Sunday nights, so you're forgiven for last time.
Speaker 2: But we would love you to come.
Speaker 4: And I like Wolsey because it has a lot of
Speaker 4: we love it.
Speaker 3: I want to chocolate.
Speaker 4: That's why I go there. I mean, yeah, one of
Speaker 4: the reasons.
Speaker 2: That's a great restaurant I think London has. Definitely there's
Speaker 2: so many different types again, different types of restaurants, and
Speaker 2: that's one of the heartbreaking things about Brexit, you know,
Speaker 2: is that we want to encourage different cultures and being
Speaker 2: open and that's something we we must we mustn't forget.
Speaker 2: We share values, we share concern for inequality, the fact
Speaker 2: that there are children who are going to bed hungry
Speaker 2: in Britain and in the United States. That we know
Speaker 2: that during the pandemic, certainly in this country, school shot
Speaker 2: a lot of children that was their main meal, and
Speaker 2: so being in a position of influence and policy, what
Speaker 2: do you feel about the question of child hunger, of hunger, yes,
Speaker 2: well you know homeless people queuing up for food.
Speaker 4: Well, I always say to members of Congress, know your why.
Speaker 4: I'll tell people your why. Why do you think you
Speaker 4: should be in Congress? What has motivated you? And my
Speaker 4: why why I went from the kitchen to the Congress,
Speaker 4: from housewives to house speaker was that one in five
Speaker 4: children in America goes to sleep hungry at night. That
Speaker 4: I couldn't handle it. It was just that we had
Speaker 4: five children, and you think one of these children will
Speaker 4: not have food, will not will go to sleep hungry
Speaker 4: at night in America now and take it globally, and
Speaker 4: it's sinful. It's sinful any place. It's immoral. And that
Speaker 4: was my motivation and all that that implied. If they
Speaker 4: were hungry, they weren't learning to their capacity, they were
Speaker 4: not feeling that their needs were being met, and their
Speaker 4: families were just not able to meet their families' needs.
Speaker 4: And it is a kitchen table issue for some families.
Speaker 4: Are they going to be able to put food on
Speaker 4: the table, pay the rent, pay the utility, bill pay
Speaker 4: for their children to go to school if that required
Speaker 4: some payment. So the food issue, that one in five
Speaker 4: children living in poverty going to sleep hungry at night
Speaker 4: was my why, and so we all every step of
Speaker 4: the way, have worked for policy to alleviate that, to
Speaker 4: not only supply food, food programs, launch protos and that,
Speaker 4: but also to improve the standard of living of people
Speaker 4: so that they didn't have to choose between paying the
Speaker 4: rent or feeding their children at dinner or taking a
Speaker 4: turn eating.
Speaker 2: And when you went into Congress, I just will say,
Speaker 2: what was it one in five, how many years ago?
Speaker 3: And it's still the same.
Speaker 4: And that's really what's so tragic, because no matter how
Speaker 4: you try to do one thing and another, all kinds
Speaker 4: of things come along. My also when I went to
Speaker 4: Congress was to fight HIV AIDS, and that was my
Speaker 4: first speech on the floor of the House was about AIDS.
Speaker 4: So you have all these challenges, and right now with COVID,
Speaker 4: when we're talking about the Southern hemisphere and that people
Speaker 4: are like, I have to worry about feeding my family
Speaker 4: before I worry about what else is going on in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 3: And it's still a challenge.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't be and again, it's it isn't even an issue,
Speaker 4: it's a value.
Speaker 3: It's an ethic.
Speaker 2: It's a value that goes way back. The concern, you know,
Speaker 2: for looking after children is something that is just eight
Speaker 2: years old. It's something that is a principle forever. And
Speaker 2: in a way, it was very much feeding your children
Speaker 2: and taking care of them. And then we became as
Speaker 2: we advanced, we knew that we had to also educate
Speaker 2: them and we also had to treat them in a
Speaker 2: certain we had to love them, we had to you know,
Speaker 2: show them different environments. But that we still haven't achieved
Speaker 2: the feeding of children.
Speaker 4: And when you think of it, Ruthie, when you think that,
Speaker 4: when we're raising our own children, it's about nutrition and
Speaker 4: you know, feeding the right thing, and then these.
Speaker 3: Other children.
Speaker 4: We have urban deserts in terms of you go to
Speaker 4: the store and it's all process food. It's not fresh
Speaker 4: vegetables or fresh fish, this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 4: So these children are not even getting the nutrition even
Speaker 4: if they're getting fed.
Speaker 2: And adults, you know, Steve McQueen, the director, told me
Speaker 2: that he was in Chicago and there were no vegetable
Speaker 2: stores in poor areas. So it's something that we all
Speaker 2: need to keep.
Speaker 4: Just for one example, in Flint, Michigan, when they had
Speaker 4: the water crisis, it gives me chills just to even
Speaker 4: think about what it meant for those children. They were
Speaker 4: drinking water that was harmful to them, but not only that,
Speaker 4: it hurt their development in the rest. And we had
Speaker 4: scientists and doctors who would come to us and say,
Speaker 4: the only way out is for these children to have
Speaker 4: fresh food and vegetables.
Speaker 3: And you know all.
Speaker 4: This, and if you go there, there might be one
Speaker 4: store someplace that might not be near where they are,
Speaker 4: whatever it is that would supply that. Now we're getting
Speaker 4: a little more informed to that. You have to have
Speaker 4: stores that are farmers' markets and things like that where
Speaker 4: people can get fresh, fresh food. But it is directly
Speaker 4: related to the development of their brains.
Speaker 2: And this is how we should judge a society and
Speaker 2: the value we place in the future of our children.
Speaker 4: So it's not only a value, it's an art.
Speaker 2: And that's what I was going. We're coming and they're
Speaker 2: all waiting for us upstairs. But before we do, go
Speaker 2: upstairs and eat and talk and greet the people who
Speaker 2: are all waiting for you. In London, I would say
Speaker 2: that we agree that food is values, food is an art,
Speaker 2: food is family, food is memories. It is also comfort.
Speaker 2: And there's a food and I can probably guess what
Speaker 2: your answer is going to be, but there is a
Speaker 2: food that we turn to when we just need comfort.
Speaker 2: And Nancy Pelosi, my friend, what would be your comfort food?
Speaker 3: Ice cream? No, dark, very dark. The older I get,
Speaker 3: the darker the ice cream.
Speaker 2: I would say that you were ever predictable, but I
Speaker 2: did predict that answer.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 4: love you, love you to thank you.
Speaker 2: To visit the online shop of The River Cafe. Go
Speaker 2: to shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.