Speaker 1: This week is a big week for us, for me
Speaker 1: and for the team that works on my brand. We
Speaker 1: are launching a book that is very special to me
Speaker 1: and deeply personal. It's called Martha the Cookbook. It is
Speaker 1: at one hundred recipes, which is a mix of classic
Speaker 1: Martha recipes, family recipes, recipes from chefs we've known throughout
Speaker 1: the years with Martha tweaks, and recipes that have stood
Speaker 1: the test of time in my own kitchen, favorite recipes
Speaker 1: that we also revisited and updated. It is the hundredth book,
Speaker 1: a book that I published with a big team of
Speaker 1: people and includes also my team at Clarkson Potter, some
Speaker 1: of whom have been with me for over thirty years.
Speaker 1: It also includes many editors and designers and photographers, and
Speaker 1: the team who helped me plan and create this book
Speaker 1: is here today around my dis on thirty fourth Street
Speaker 1: at our office on the fifteenth floor to talk about
Speaker 1: the making of book number one hundred. I just want
Speaker 1: to make it clear that this is not our one
Speaker 1: hundredth cookbook. It is the number forty ninth cookbook right.
Speaker 1: Forty eight cookbooks, thirteen holiday books, eight entertaining books, eight
Speaker 1: crafts books, eight gardening books, six homekeeping books, six weddings,
Speaker 1: three decorating, one business book, and one health and logivity book.
Speaker 1: So that is the basic library. The other day we
Speaker 1: did a show with Drew Barrymore and one guy came
Speaker 1: in who has all one hundred?
Speaker 2: That man, wow, guy, so adorable.
Speaker 1: And I'm very, very proud of the fact that we
Speaker 1: have reached number one hundred. So we have Lisa Wagner
Speaker 1: and Lisa, why don't you introduce yourself?
Speaker 3: That number thirty is how long I worked for you, Martha,
Speaker 3: and I started back in nineteen eighty eight and my
Speaker 3: first book with you was the Christmas Book, and that
Speaker 3: was a very small team in your house at Turkey Hill.
Speaker 1: Oh remember that.
Speaker 3: And I was pregnant with my oldest son, and that
Speaker 3: was really my first introduction into you and into the
Speaker 3: way you like to create a.
Speaker 1: Book and work on a book. I remember Chris Baker
Speaker 1: or a photographer who barely made it to the end
Speaker 1: of the book. Oh my gosh. We ran those photographers
Speaker 1: into the ground. We still do. Oh yeah, we have one.
Speaker 1: We have one sitting right here, Beta Gallagher.
Speaker 3: This one for me, it was fun because it was
Speaker 3: I had left the company and it was fun to
Speaker 3: come back. And not only was it great to be
Speaker 3: back with the team and with you, but I would
Speaker 3: often when I went down to the basement looking for props,
Speaker 3: think who else would know where this was?
Speaker 4: Or who else could fit in between the rest?
Speaker 1: Why you were there, Lisa Wagon because in my basement
Speaker 1: describe the basement.
Speaker 3: But the basement now is like a prop house with
Speaker 3: metro shelving and everything from years of collecting in the
Speaker 3: studio from East Hampton everywhere, and everything is there on
Speaker 3: those racks in a pretty organized way.
Speaker 1: She did a masterful job, and every picture is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I got a phone called yesterday from Charlotte Beers, who
Speaker 1: was on our board in the early days, on the
Speaker 1: board of Martha Stewart Living on the Media, and Charlotte
Speaker 1: was in charge of She was the CEO of Ogilvy Mayor,
Speaker 1: the largest advertising agency in America, and she had nine
Speaker 1: thousand employees and then under secretary stayed under Colin Powell.
Speaker 1: She sat down with the cookbook. I sent it to
Speaker 1: her last week because she's going to be interviewing me
Speaker 1: on my book tour in Charleston. And she sat down
Speaker 1: and she said it is the most beautiful cookbook she
Speaker 1: has held in her hands, isn't that? And thank you
Speaker 1: Dana Gallagher. So, Dana, you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself and your history with the company and me.
Speaker 5: Martha, I met when I was a baby, before I
Speaker 5: was twenty eight.
Speaker 1: You were twenty seven when you came to Uschleppa with us, Yes,
Speaker 1: which is really Useppa, a beautiful island the western coast
Speaker 1: of Florida. But because there are no cars on the
Speaker 1: island and only the golf carts, we had to schlep everything.
Speaker 5: You were there.
Speaker 4: Different, We had.
Speaker 1: To schlev all the props and we were doing like
Speaker 1: a week long shoot down there, remember I do, And
Speaker 1: it was I.
Speaker 5: I was one of the main schlepper.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So we changed the name of the
Speaker 1: island to and please forgive us Useppa a residence. It's
Speaker 1: called Uschleppa now. So you were working for Vicky Pearson.
Speaker 5: I was one of my mentors, who is amazing, who.
Speaker 1: I'm still in contact with. I just heard her yesterday.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Vicky. She said her avocados are ripening.
Speaker 5: Actually I had done one story for the magazine at
Speaker 5: that time, and it was a coffee story. And it
Speaker 5: was supposed to be like a little front of the
Speaker 5: book story, and you guys made it into a well story,
Speaker 5: and I was over the moon. Vicky was a prankster,
Speaker 5: and she blacked out Martha's tooth on the cover of
Speaker 5: the magazine and put it on the coffee table in
Speaker 5: her cottage, and then everybody came over for drinks, and
Speaker 5: I was like, Vicky, what are you doing? And she
Speaker 5: was just like hilarious, and I was like, God, I
Speaker 5: hope so. And Martha came in and immediately saw it.
Speaker 5: You laughed. You thought it was so funny.
Speaker 1: And then my story, I have a good sense of humor.
Speaker 5: You do, and you like a good prank.
Speaker 1: And then I offered you the job to shoot the
Speaker 1: entire menus for entertaining book.
Speaker 5: I get a call. Martha calls me from her, but
Speaker 5: it was when phones were like the size of a brick,
Speaker 5: and she's like I had this image in my head
Speaker 5: with Martha with like a brick calling me from here
Speaker 5: black suburban. And you asked me if I wanted to
Speaker 5: do your book, and I was like, uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And that was such a good Oh. I love that book.
Speaker 1: I still use so many of the recipes in that book.
Speaker 1: We would do five menus a day. Remember how hard
Speaker 1: we were?
Speaker 5: Big stories like that clam bake.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that clam bake was delicious. Yes, that was
Speaker 1: Dana Gallagher who then came back and shot lots lots
Speaker 1: more for the magazine, the Order Handbook, which I love
Speaker 1: so much. And uh, that's Gelfinium story that we did
Speaker 1: up in Maine. Remember how beautiful that was. That is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories. It is Oh good, oh good.
Speaker 1: I love that story.
Speaker 5: Also, we got to write on your plane and you
Speaker 5: made a lot of cocktails.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. If you did so, then Sarah Carrey's not.
Speaker 1: I think it's we're going in a chronological order, because
Speaker 1: then you came next. What year did you start?
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety nine. I started at the company working with
Speaker 2: Martha on her television show in her Westport studio and
Speaker 2: with Lisa as well. And I did that for a
Speaker 2: pretty long time before I started working at the magazine,
Speaker 2: maybe about five.
Speaker 1: Up up in Westport, Connecticut, when we had that fabulous
Speaker 1: studio so beautiful now an what is yeah? They turned
Speaker 1: it into an Oh don't I have a party there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be amazing.
Speaker 1: We had such great parties there. Remember the parties. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like the Christmas party and oh, we had so much fun.
Speaker 1: But that was a great studio and you worked so
Speaker 1: hard with John Barrettchilli. Yeah, and we had a kitchen there.
Speaker 1: We served lunch to everyone. Remember we had a Yeah.
Speaker 2: The curmissary was incredible. I mean we were really treated well.
Speaker 2: The food was delicious. John was in charge of the
Speaker 2: commissary for a while, and then he started working in
Speaker 2: the test kitchen with us, and we had Dave and
Speaker 2: Mark Go and Fernando I think working in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: and it was delicious lunch every day. I skipped lunch
Speaker 2: a lot because I was usually getting ready for my
Speaker 2: next segment, but it was pretty luxurious. And then sometimes
Speaker 2: we would have cookouts in the backyard and that was
Speaker 2: always really fun parties.
Speaker 1: And then you became the food editor for Martha's Stewart
Speaker 1: Living in nineteen ninety nine through twenty twenty two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just marshaled that magazine into even greater heights than
Speaker 1: it had been before. No, really, I loved all the
Speaker 1: work that you've done. You helped me so much with
Speaker 1: The Essential Guide Cooking School, which is in so many
Speaker 1: people's kitchens. I love seeing that book because it is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books. I still use so many
Speaker 1: of the recipes in that book.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We worked really hard on that together.
Speaker 1: Suzanne Rupert is editorial director of Books for Martha's Stewart brand.
Speaker 1: Her first book projects for Martha were Meatless and Living
Speaker 1: the Good Long Life is still one of my very
Speaker 1: favorite books. Living the Good Long Life is a real
Speaker 1: nice handbook for living well and aging beautifully gracefully. I say,
Speaker 1: and you worked on both those projects simultaneously. That was
Speaker 1: a lot of work.
Speaker 6: That was twenty thirteen. Okay, yeah, so now I've worked
Speaker 6: on like this hundred, like twenty books.
Speaker 1: Now, only twenty.
Speaker 2: Twenty in eleven years is pretty good.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 6: I started, I was hired to work on the book
Speaker 6: department as a managing editor, and then it turned into
Speaker 6: working on both books and magazines.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, your book, Your job grew and grew working
Speaker 1: on this one hundredth book, Suzanne really helped so is
Speaker 1: essentially curating all the archival photographs. We have a room
Speaker 1: full of photographs, and you worked with us so hard
Speaker 1: to create a new imagery and keeping us in order,
Speaker 1: helping me choose the hundred recipes. That was a big job.
Speaker 1: Susan gave me pages and pages of recipes to choose from,
Speaker 1: and then I had to go through it and you know,
Speaker 1: discard some, put some back. It took a while. That
Speaker 1: took like a month to choose one hundred recipes. But
Speaker 1: I think we did a very good job. According to
Speaker 1: according to my mentor, Charlotte Beers, she every single page.
Speaker 1: She said, she kept calling people that were in her
Speaker 1: house to see this picture and that picture. She said,
Speaker 1: you have the essential roubarb recipe. And she, you know,
Speaker 1: she likes that there's odd ingredients like rubarbi is odd
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, but she said then and
Speaker 1: then she looks at something so simple as green juice.
Speaker 1: You know. So it was really a nice choice and
Speaker 1: a nice mix of recipes in this book.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a nice collection. It's very personal, you know,
Speaker 6: to you, and I think there's something for every reader.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And last, but not least, is James Mikeowski, who
Speaker 1: always is cheery somehow. You started as an art director
Speaker 1: at Martha Stewart Living in January two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: team and you worked on how many.
Speaker 4: Issues like forty three, forty forty.
Speaker 1: Three issues of the magazine, and this was your very
Speaker 1: first book project with us. It was yep, and you
Speaker 1: did an amazing job. Thank you again. So we were
Speaker 1: pretty we don't you think? We were pretty organized though
Speaker 1: as we got as we got going, we had a
Speaker 1: certain number of days to shoot. We had a certain
Speaker 1: number of people that could fit in my house. We
Speaker 1: didn't want a big, big gang, so we really kept
Speaker 1: it kind of Where's Carlo is my boyfriend? Carlo? Who is?
Speaker 1: I mean? I liked if he hadn't been there, I
Speaker 1: would have been in a really bad movie. He was
Speaker 1: he because I I got through every day. He was
Speaker 1: always there to help and that's Dana's assistant. And he
Speaker 1: was just amazing. He was such a good presence.
Speaker 5: He's a good egg. I'm working with him next week.
Speaker 1: Give him my love.
Speaker 5: He'll have to hear the podcast.
Speaker 1: Okay, please in Carlo, I'm in love with you. And
Speaker 1: this was his very first project for Martha and James.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite stuff that you did here?
Speaker 7: It's always the food stuff. I always wanted to be
Speaker 7: on Sarah's team. She's the best.
Speaker 2: James and I had a lot of fun because he
Speaker 2: really understands food in a way that not all our
Speaker 2: directors do. And so that love of food and doing
Speaker 2: food stories really shines through.
Speaker 1: What happened with this donut shoot.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, that shoot. When Sarah made so many donuts,
Speaker 7: it was like you know those like six foot speed
Speaker 7: racks of just full sheet pans. It was just like
Speaker 7: nothing but donuts.
Speaker 1: Sarah. Sarah creates effusively, if I can use that word,
Speaker 1: because there is so much food when she's doing a story,
Speaker 1: because she knows what the perfect perfect object will be
Speaker 1: the perfect picture and that's what you do. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you find the perfect donut for that picture? I
Speaker 1: think we did.
Speaker 4: There's a picture that the belly band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, our biggest thing that we were looking for was
Speaker 2: for our donuts to have this perfect belly band, which
Speaker 2: is actually really hard to get and it's a little ephemeral,
Speaker 2: like you don't exactly know what it is, but it's
Speaker 2: the perfect amount.
Speaker 1: Of generally that you know that they get that with
Speaker 1: those automated turners in the oil And we don't have.
Speaker 2: Automated No, we didn't. My automated turner was me and
Speaker 2: Today Show and she was like frying doughnuts.
Speaker 1: What did you turn the donuts with a chopstick.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had a friend come who was a pretty donut
Speaker 2: expert person, and he taught me to turn my frying
Speaker 2: foods with a chopstick, and it's actually really great.
Speaker 1: That's what the Japanese do. Did you use a metal
Speaker 1: chopstick or wooden? I used to, wouldn't want to have.
Speaker 1: I have the middle chopsticks. Those steels that are very fine,
Speaker 1: can turn anything. I use that my tempura.
Speaker 2: Yeah, super long.
Speaker 5: Get them in a picture.
Speaker 1: I remember the onion rings. I think they're there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the onion rings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, oh they're great for that ring.
Speaker 2: That onion rings, by the way, in the book is
Speaker 2: divine and it's the recipe we've been making for years,
Speaker 2: and you changed it a little bit for the buck.
Speaker 2: By I know what you did. You added wonderflower, used
Speaker 2: wonderflower instead of regular flower from a less lighter crisper.
Speaker 7: Oh.
Speaker 1: I can eat a pile of those onion rings right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't love fried food.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: When you do fried food, it has to be very
Speaker 2: light and very crisp. And that's what you got with me.
Speaker 1: So listeners, try the onion ring recipe. You will love it.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 1: And another person missing from the table is Fossil, who
Speaker 1: has I've known since she was born. She was my
Speaker 1: husband's best friend's daughter. I was there when she was
Speaker 1: born in New York City, and she worked as a
Speaker 1: food editor at the magazine for many years and she's
Speaker 1: now a freelancer. But she came back to work on
Speaker 1: the book for the first A good part of the
Speaker 1: first part of the book. That's our little team that's
Speaker 1: around the table, and I thought we would just go
Speaker 1: through the kinds of things we did to make the book.
Speaker 1: On page two hundred and eighty one, there is a
Speaker 1: remembering column which I entitled Martha the Author, and it
Speaker 1: is how to write a cookbook, How to create a cookbook.
Speaker 1: It's a little essay that I wrote, probably one of
Speaker 1: the last essays I wrote for the book, right, and
Speaker 1: it talks about the very complex process of creating a
Speaker 1: book like this, and it is complicated because once you
Speaker 1: have the recipes, which takes a while, then you have
Speaker 1: to determine who your team is. Then you have to
Speaker 1: determine how you're going to shoot it, where you're going
Speaker 1: to shoot it. And there was no question in my
Speaker 1: mind that we would work at our farm, Cantato Corners
Speaker 1: in Bedford, New York. Was there any question about that, Suzanne.
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I mean, I think for this book,
Speaker 6: you wanted to make it very person Nolan. You wanted
Speaker 6: to make sure to bring the readers into your home,
Speaker 6: into your kitchen, and you know, make every aspect of
Speaker 6: a personal use your collections from your house. As Lisa,
Speaker 6: you know, talked about the props. You wanted to bring
Speaker 6: the food presented the way that you present the food
Speaker 6: to your friends and family, and you wanted to make
Speaker 6: sure every all the photos were represented that way. And
Speaker 6: I think everyone did a really great job of doing that.
Speaker 6: And I think that's why you said you wanted it
Speaker 6: at your house. You were in the kitchen cooking, yes,
Speaker 6: every day, long days.
Speaker 1: I tried very hard to be there for I approved,
Speaker 1: if I didn't cook it, I approved what it looked
Speaker 1: like after it was cooked. But it's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: What was the how many did we do in one day?
Speaker 1: What was the most most recipes we did in one way?
Speaker 6: We did six to ten six recipes a day, plus
Speaker 6: additional shots and step shots.
Speaker 1: We had beautiful light, not every day, but you made
Speaker 1: the light beautiful and the way that Dana, I mean
Speaker 1: she made the table on the floor. Most of the
Speaker 1: time everything was shot on a table on the floor,
Speaker 1: and it's just a surface. And we have marble surfaces,
Speaker 1: and we have wooden surfaces, and we have fabric surfaces
Speaker 1: that we use that looks like a table. And we
Speaker 1: have an outside kitchen at my farm as well as
Speaker 1: an inside kitchen, but most of the time we were
Speaker 1: cooking inside, big heavy prep stuff was on outside. And
Speaker 1: then we even moved down to the pool house that
Speaker 1: had beautiful light.
Speaker 5: I know, I love that.
Speaker 1: I love the pictures taken in that pool house.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I think people would be
Speaker 3: really surprised at how and where we've set up the
Speaker 3: photos and every day looking for another spot. But I
Speaker 3: was looking back at my camera roll and I have
Speaker 3: a picture of the surface by your kitchen door on
Speaker 3: the floor blocking the door and the dogs looking in.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just that it was on that I
Speaker 1: think it was. It might have been slice duck breasts.
Speaker 5: It was just such a funny.
Speaker 3: It was such a funny place to be and I
Speaker 3: don't think anyone would And.
Speaker 1: The brown room was surprisingly a night. My brown room
Speaker 1: is our big dining room. I can seat like twenty
Speaker 1: people for dinner. And that was a surprisingly nice room.
Speaker 1: The light was very nice in there morning and afternoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you have all your plants in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so beautiful in there.
Speaker 6: There's yeah, beautiful spread in the books.
Speaker 1: And the servery which is our which is our butler's
Speaker 1: pantry between the kitchen and a smaller dining room. That's
Speaker 1: a nice room too. The light comes from from the
Speaker 1: north and the south in that room.
Speaker 5: I left that room.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: We shot there a lot.
Speaker 1: We shot a lot. And then the interspersing these great
Speaker 1: old archival pictures of me and the garden and me
Speaker 1: and my original apartment in New York City, me with
Speaker 1: my my ducks, and oh I love all those pictures.
Speaker 1: They're so beautiful. But I wanted to ask Dana, what
Speaker 1: was the hardest thing to shoot in this book? What
Speaker 1: what gave you the most trouble? Oh my gosh, every
Speaker 1: single every single dish gave her trouble. Yeah, yes it did,
Speaker 1: Oh yes it did. She was struggling some days and
Speaker 1: I kept saying, it's just a beautiful picture, please, and
Speaker 1: but you did it, you did it. No, matter what.
Speaker 5: Well, we were like Lisa and I would sometimes go
Speaker 5: downstairs and we would struggle to find like the right vessel.
Speaker 5: I feel like a lot of times or we wanted
Speaker 5: the right surface with the right vessel, and so we
Speaker 5: would struggle. You had a lot of things, and we
Speaker 5: were trying to like make sure we were always changing
Speaker 5: it up.
Speaker 1: But really you did not repeat, which I'm thrilled about
Speaker 1: because we used to keep big charts with little polaroids
Speaker 1: of what we used. I did that from day one
Speaker 1: because people would, you know, get start to get lazy
Speaker 1: toward the ninety ninth recipe and certainlyybe try to sneak
Speaker 1: in something again, but never sneaking in here.
Speaker 5: That's my superpower.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is really great.
Speaker 1: But you have a good memory for details.
Speaker 5: You have amazing amazing.
Speaker 1: What about the drinks? How hard were they to photograph?
Speaker 5: They were actually fun.
Speaker 1: I love that martini and guess what's happened. We have
Speaker 1: a picture of an espresso martini in the book, which
Speaker 1: is a cocktail shaker full of ice, two ounces of
Speaker 1: vodka Belvedere or Zubrowka, one ounce of coffee Liqueur, and
Speaker 1: one double shot of espresso. And I have an espresso
Speaker 1: machine in my kitchen. So the espresso was really good.
Speaker 1: You shake, shake, shake, and it makes a froth and
Speaker 1: you pour it into a gorgeous glass. This is a
Speaker 1: Venetian glass. Is that hexagonal? You know, it's octagonal octagonal glass.
Speaker 1: And I have become addicted to espresso Martini's nice. That's
Speaker 1: my dessert. Now I don't order a dessert in a
Speaker 1: restaurant anymore. I order one of those with half the
Speaker 1: amount of vodka because then you you know, then you know,
Speaker 1: you don't feel so bad.
Speaker 2: You heard it here, Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: Half the amount of vodka, and I don't and the
Speaker 1: coffee doesn't keep me up anyway, since I don't sleep,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great example of the way that
Speaker 2: this book worked because we did not plan on shooting
Speaker 2: an espresso martini, and the day that we were shooting
Speaker 2: the drinks, you came in and you said, I've been
Speaker 2: drinking espresso martinis. Let's make an espresso martini. And we
Speaker 2: just did. And there's a lot of not maybe a
Speaker 2: ton of examples in the book that do that, but yeah,
Speaker 2: this is one of them where you said that and
Speaker 2: we made it and Lisa found a beautiful glass and
Speaker 2: you know, Dana found this beautiful light and it and
Speaker 2: you know, it's very contrasting with the rest of the
Speaker 2: way that the rest of the cocktails are shot because
Speaker 2: it's very dark and brown and it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1: It should be what it should be.
Speaker 2: You know, when it all came together in a really
Speaker 2: short amount of time and we just made it happen.
Speaker 1: And my favorite it was something you want to had.
Speaker 1: My favorite summer drink, said of instead of Margarita's, my
Speaker 1: favorite go to drink is a Piperinia made out of
Speaker 1: a cashassa Brazilian liquor. But then the Meyer Drop that
Speaker 1: we serve at the restaurant. That is a delicious drink.
Speaker 1: That is such a good drink. And the last cosmos
Speaker 1: and the cider bourbon Kcha. We've been making a lot
Speaker 1: of those because I had really good cider this year.
Speaker 1: It's the best cider I've ever had, and I think
Speaker 1: because the apples. It wasn't a good apple yet.
Speaker 2: It was not a good apple, but the.
Speaker 1: Apples were extremely sweet. Every every variety of apple that
Speaker 1: I grew was sweet. And so the Jude and her
Speaker 1: friends came up to make cider. They loved the cider
Speaker 1: and they made they made it, you know.
Speaker 2: Actually had some of your cider and it was very very.
Speaker 1: Good, very good, and the kids were so proud of it.
Speaker 1: But it was the apples. Julips are delicious. I made
Speaker 1: that when I went to the Kentucky Derby, and I
Speaker 1: made it down south with some friends in Charleston.
Speaker 3: That the pomegranate drink would be great for people for all. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they made it up for your party.
Speaker 1: The frozen pomegranate Martha delicious. Yeah, and that that is amazing.
Speaker 1: We had a book party at Jean George's new restaurant
Speaker 1: at for twenty five Park Avenue, and they did it
Speaker 1: very good. Everything I ate was delicious, amazing.
Speaker 3: Actually I was sorry when they started passing dessert because
Speaker 3: I was like.
Speaker 2: Not those were delicious too, that that grape pective or delicious.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that wonderful? But not in the book.
Speaker 5: That caviar that they were passing around on the little buttered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with the egg.
Speaker 1: And that's an egg on egg because that's a that
Speaker 1: is a really weirdly cooked egg yolk in between the
Speaker 1: two little pieces of brioge with caviar on top, so
Speaker 1: it's eggs on eggs.
Speaker 5: That's in the next book.
Speaker 6: We have a lot of caviar, and we have a
Speaker 6: lot of eggs.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the caviars. Caviar has become extremely popular and
Speaker 1: extremely widely served at parties in New York and and
Speaker 1: I think you can get pretty good caviar for not
Speaker 1: the you know, the hideous prices that it once costs.
Speaker 1: I think another masterpiece, it looks like another Landish painting,
Speaker 1: is the Crept the book We Crept with crem fresh
Speaker 1: and caviar. That is a beautiful picture taken in the
Speaker 1: brown room. Glass pedestals, a shaping dish filled in with marvel.
Speaker 1: Remember that there's some good ideas in this book for
Speaker 1: those of you who like to do decorating and table decorating.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of good ideas in this book. And
Speaker 1: everything is sparkling and the silver is polished and the
Speaker 1: napkins are ironed. We went through a phase at the
Speaker 1: magazine which I hated, and I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it started with Lisa Wagner. Just the linen napkins taken
Speaker 1: out of the dryer.
Speaker 3: That no, because I looked iron So that wasn't me.
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say. Another thing that
Speaker 3: that silence like to do is show the crease in
Speaker 3: the napkin or in the tablecloth.
Speaker 1: And I don't mind that hard please, I like it.
Speaker 3: But I love to iron so and I I iron
Speaker 3: all my napkins.
Speaker 1: And you're like I am. I iron all my linens
Speaker 1: on top of a cherry towel so that so that
Speaker 1: any embroidery or any any beautiful it gets pressed into
Speaker 1: the towel and you have no wrinkles whatsoever. So what
Speaker 1: else was hard to shoot?
Speaker 4: Dan Dane?
Speaker 6: What was maybe one of your favorite days of shooting?
Speaker 5: It is my favorite day. I don't want to talk
Speaker 5: about what's hard.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, okay, what was your favorite?
Speaker 1: What was your favorite?
Speaker 5: The Paia day with the one day Carlo wasn't there
Speaker 5: and he missed it.
Speaker 1: He missed.
Speaker 5: You'll have to cook it for my hat. You made that, Paie.
Speaker 5: You were in such great spirits because you invited.
Speaker 1: The entire form, all the farm workers.
Speaker 5: Everybody came up and you made that enormous.
Speaker 1: No hair, no makeup, no wardrobe. Great, but the whole
Speaker 1: meson plus of all the ingredients for the pie. It's
Speaker 1: a double page spread. And if you have never made pie, listeners,
Speaker 1: please make this paea because it is the best. Made
Speaker 1: in a great big pan over a wood fire. Has
Speaker 1: to be a wood fire, and you have to get
Speaker 1: that smoke and you have to get the flames up
Speaker 1: the side of the pan. The Spanish people told me
Speaker 1: you have to have the flames licking the side of
Speaker 1: the pan to cook the rice. So everything is cooked,
Speaker 1: and it is. It's a beautiful, beautiful recipe. And I
Speaker 1: learned that recipe from a Spanish friend probably fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: That is an entertainment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, it's not an entertaining No, no, it
Speaker 1: wasn't no no. We made it in Florida when we
Speaker 1: went down to in the Keys. Yeah, that's where it
Speaker 1: was is and from the magazine, Yes, it's in the magazine.
Speaker 1: But I learned that from a friend, my dentist's best friend,
Speaker 1: and she had been making that in a stovetop. It
Speaker 1: was a stovetop. Respect Then Gail Towie adopted it for
Speaker 1: her own home in New York City. She makes it
Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, she makes it every single year on
Speaker 1: the stovetop. But then I started making it in those
Speaker 1: giant pants for you know, enough for sixty people.
Speaker 2: It's a great entertaining because it's fun to make. It's
Speaker 2: a place to gather around and you can come there outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't go wrong. And it follows the instructions.
Speaker 6: And you stood in front of that grill with the
Speaker 6: smoke and cooked away and Dana got some nice candid
Speaker 6: shots of you without hair and makeup and you.
Speaker 1: Know, beautiful, really nice, really nice, and everybody got to
Speaker 1: eat them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you just have plates for everybody.
Speaker 1: That was that was a really beautiful.
Speaker 7: Because that fine.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we had to tie your sleeves back right.
Speaker 6: And then the other day, that was really my favorite
Speaker 6: day was when you were making the paro g because
Speaker 6: that was that was sort of the days in general
Speaker 6: were very harried and frenetic because there was so much
Speaker 6: going on. But when you started making the piro gi,
Speaker 6: you were it was like almost standstill, like we all
Speaker 6: just sort of stuck what we were doing and started
Speaker 6: watching you roll out the dough and stuff the paro
Speaker 6: gi and you make.
Speaker 1: Sure and that's the picture on the back cover. We
Speaker 1: chose that an homage to my mom, Big Martha. But
Speaker 1: the recipe it works. It is delicious and uh. And
Speaker 1: yet you know when people try to make this recipe
Speaker 1: like and you know, I've tasted other people doing this,
Speaker 1: they make they don't put enough filling in the in
Speaker 1: the dough.
Speaker 2: But you do have to be careful. It's a fine balance.
Speaker 2: And actually that dough, which seems fussy, is actually not fussy,
Speaker 2: and you think when you put the right amount of
Speaker 2: filling in. Martha taught me how to make them on
Speaker 2: this shoot.
Speaker 1: Actually I've bet been with her.
Speaker 2: It seems like it's not going to fit and you
Speaker 2: have to stretch the dough over the film's stretch and
Speaker 2: it's really stretchy and nice and it's so elastic that
Speaker 2: it's kind of magical.
Speaker 1: Really, And with Crown butter and sav we're perfect.
Speaker 2: My, we're not perfect. I think only Martha's got into
Speaker 2: the picture.
Speaker 4: Because it's like the twist and the push and yeah.
Speaker 5: But you guys made a sweet one too, that's my
Speaker 5: that's my very favorite one.
Speaker 1: Apricot or Peach.
Speaker 2: When your mom came on the show, I remember in
Speaker 2: like nineteen ninety nine, we made Yes.
Speaker 1: You have to sweeten the sour cream with vanilla and
Speaker 1: a little bit of sugar, and you and it is
Speaker 1: the best thing in the world. That is that's dessert.
Speaker 6: Really it is actually love how you wrote that instruction
Speaker 6: in there too.
Speaker 1: The book, I know every word because you have to
Speaker 1: edit every single word and talk about the essays. That's
Speaker 1: why I want to hear what my editor has to
Speaker 1: say about the essays.
Speaker 6: So two parts of it. The headnotes, which are the
Speaker 6: introductions to the recipes Martha wrote, are extremely personal and
Speaker 6: have a lot of stories. But also there are archival
Speaker 6: essays throughout, like about twenty twenty five archival essays in
Speaker 6: the book which really make this book special and help
Speaker 6: those Once Martha wrote those and the introductions on the
Speaker 6: head notes, we were able to pick the beautiful, charming
Speaker 6: images from Martha's personal archives, and the stories that Martha
Speaker 6: wrote are just really really special, really amazing, I think
Speaker 6: is I mean, I worked for Martha now for twelve
Speaker 6: years and there there are still so many of the
Speaker 6: stories that were fresh and new to me. One of
Speaker 6: my favorite images from this is in the beginning of
Speaker 6: the book, where Martha's cooking in curlers in a kitchen.
Speaker 1: That's my New York two ninety Riverside drive. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 6: I mean you share so many personal stories that are
Speaker 6: just I think readers.
Speaker 1: Are really going on twenty pounds.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, like is that amazing?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And what's nice is like even Darcy Miller, who knows photographs,
Speaker 1: she told me, she said she hasn't seen many of
Speaker 1: those pictures. And the same for me. Yeah, I kept
Speaker 1: those secrets. You did book. That's great, it is so nice.
Speaker 6: And then once you would write your headnotes, then we
Speaker 6: could find an image that would click with that, like
Speaker 6: of course for the steak, the broiled steak. There's when
Speaker 6: Jacques and Julia were you cooked you made steak with
Speaker 6: them in nineteen ninety one, so that image isn't there.
Speaker 4: That's so great.
Speaker 2: That was an amazing when they.
Speaker 1: Came a child at least, yes.
Speaker 2: Everybody, it was such a great day to have them.
Speaker 2: You don't remember it was it and it was in sport. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they came at least once.
Speaker 1: Aulia came at least three times.
Speaker 6: Right, I think that's my other book that they wrote together. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but they were cooking steaks, so it connected to your
Speaker 6: steak recipe. And then so we tried to make that
Speaker 6: editorial link in there. And then of course there were
Speaker 6: all those beautiful images from your family. In the dessert chapter,
Speaker 6: there's that image of your entire family, and you talk
Speaker 6: about all the desserts that your entire family, their.
Speaker 1: Favorite cakes, their birthday cakes. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then James, in terms of a design, he really
Speaker 6: made some effort in like choosing the font that made
Speaker 6: sense for this, that made it special.
Speaker 7: He was like trying to find the perfect thing, and
Speaker 7: I discovered this one. It's called Rome and it's designed
Speaker 7: by Margot Leveck. It was part of her master's program
Speaker 7: in Paris, and it's based on nineteen sixties fashion and stuff.
Speaker 7: I thought it was the perfect match.
Speaker 1: It is beautiful.
Speaker 7: And then if you look at the italic am at
Speaker 7: the beginning, it looks like your signature that it was
Speaker 7: meant to be. It does so, and the faux was
Speaker 7: directly from your walls right for is your house.
Speaker 5: He pulled us all together, we need to do oh yeah,
Speaker 5: when you came in and just like I mean, we
Speaker 5: were on point.
Speaker 1: But like he said, graphic design is never easy, and
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to cut out too much text.
Speaker 1: But this is all very clear and it's all on
Speaker 1: one page, which really makes me happy because that's what
Speaker 1: I want. And my favorite cake in the book is
Speaker 1: the Tipriani Classic Meringue Cake, and I'm an aficionado of Tipriani.
Speaker 1: I went to Tipriani in Venice, and then I tasted
Speaker 1: the cake there years and years and years ago and
Speaker 1: came back to New York and found it in the
Speaker 1: restaurant here. Now they have about four restaurants in New York.
Speaker 1: But I to get the recipe, I had to do
Speaker 1: a TV segment with the baker, the female bakers, a
Speaker 1: young girl who makes like a hundred of these every
Speaker 1: day day for all the different venues. And it's a
Speaker 1: simple recipe because all it has in it is, if
Speaker 1: you want to hear the ingredients heavy cream, confection or sugar.
Speaker 1: You have egg whites, and you have sugar and let's
Speaker 1: see where that's the meringue. The cake has only unbleached flour,
Speaker 1: six large eggs, egg yolks, and sugar. That's it for ingredients.
Speaker 4: And then you have to buy the book to get
Speaker 4: the steps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to tell you that, but it
Speaker 1: changed drastically from what I eat at the restaurant to
Speaker 1: what I make at home because of my egg yolks.
Speaker 1: I have my own chickens and the cake is bright
Speaker 1: yellow at home because the egg yolks are like orangey
Speaker 1: yellow from my own hands. And it really changes the recipe,
Speaker 1: but not for the worst. I mean, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4: You make it beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I made four of these cakes for Memori's birthday party,
Speaker 1: Yes four, to take you a big dinner party, and
Speaker 1: it was the hit, of course. But it slices nicely, beautiful,
Speaker 1: serves beautifully, and you never leave anything on your plate.
Speaker 2: It's very light and airy. I do love this as
Speaker 2: an example, Martha, because it's a favorite recipe of somebody
Speaker 2: else's that you've incorporated into your repertoire. Repertoire, and I
Speaker 2: think that there are beautiful moments throughout this book, but
Speaker 2: do that, And I love how that highlights like you're
Speaker 2: always learning, you're always taking you know new, You're not
Speaker 2: going to sit in the past, and you're going to
Speaker 2: either ask other people to share their recipes.
Speaker 1: With you, evolve.
Speaker 2: Your own recipes, like that mint Julip when we made
Speaker 2: it for the television show. We make all of this
Speaker 2: lemons zest and we make a syrup and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: why aren't we using the lemon zest for anything? And
Speaker 2: so then we just candied the lemons zest and used
Speaker 2: it as garnish. And that was something that you just
Speaker 2: added last year to a recipe that you've been making
Speaker 2: for years.
Speaker 1: And I loved that.
Speaker 2: It's really exemplified in this book. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: moments like that.
Speaker 1: And the smashed baked potato, I would that has become
Speaker 1: a famous recipe. Smashed baked potato the simplest thing on earth.
Speaker 1: I learned that recipe in Lubec, Maine, way up the
Speaker 1: potato land of Maine where they grow these beautiful potatoes.
Speaker 1: And they told me, oh, and once you run to
Speaker 1: roast it, if you don't break the fibers by smashing it,
Speaker 1: it's nothing. It's just like a hard potato. So now potato.
Speaker 1: Now you have to smash your potatoes when they come
Speaker 1: out of the oven. And it makes a world of difference.
Speaker 6: And I talk about in the head not yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's the most favorite first course at my restaurant
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas is this smashed potato. Heavier helps. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a great, a great dinner. I can't I'm going
Speaker 1: to roast on this weekend because we just dug our potatoes.
Speaker 1: We have, we have many bushes. Another favorite recipe is
Speaker 1: the street corn. This street corn is a delight, and
Speaker 1: it's it's made even worse by adding these crazy crucheye
Speaker 1: it's called this. It's a oily fried fried in oil,
Speaker 1: red chili pepper, not like white light as can be as. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crunchy, and they're packaged in these vacuum packed little bags.
Speaker 1: They're very expensive, but they go a long way and
Speaker 1: you just crumble them on top of things. I learned
Speaker 1: about those in a restaurant in California, in Los Angeles.
Speaker 6: And you have a lot of pasta dishes in here.
Speaker 1: And I love pasta. I love simple pasta. I cannot
Speaker 1: sit down to a pasta that has more than four
Speaker 1: or five or six ingredients in it, and only one.
Speaker 1: If there's shellfish, it's only one shellfish. You can't have
Speaker 1: ten shellfishes in it.
Speaker 2: Your turkey meatball is pretty amazing because it's huge and
Speaker 2: super flavorful from this pepper around.
Speaker 1: Which I discovered somewhere along the line, And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just delicious with a turkey.
Speaker 2: And we had done Martha, you did a column for
Speaker 2: the magazine. That was a burger column, and the turkey
Speaker 2: burger had the relish in it. And when you wanted
Speaker 2: to do your turkey meatballs, you took that idea and
Speaker 2: made it into the meatball. And they're giant, they're gigantic.
Speaker 2: They're eight ounces each. So you put that on top
Speaker 2: of a Plato spaghetti and it's really magnificent.
Speaker 1: That is impressed. That's a good meal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you might make that tonight.
Speaker 1: That would be good. Yeah, get the butcher brind you
Speaker 1: half a turkey bread. You can't buy it around all. Wait,
Speaker 1: so you're saying, all, wait, meat.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can do a combination, but they had no
Speaker 2: reci They.
Speaker 1: Get it freshly brown. Yeah, because don't buy I don't
Speaker 1: buy any ground meat in the store, sorry, supermarkets, or.
Speaker 2: Just get out your kitchen aid meat grinder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and grind your own.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: So I just want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming here. It's so much fun to talk about and
Speaker 1: the book is on sale November twelfth, twenty four and
Speaker 1: I just want to thank all of you for sitting
Speaker 1: down with me today and thank you again for helping
Speaker 1: me with this book. And we have to start on
Speaker 1: the next book soon. I'm trying to get Sarah Carry
Speaker 1: to do her own book. Okay, well, well.
Speaker 2: Francis Lamb, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: And but we have, we have, as you can hear,
Speaker 1: on a very interesting time when we're creating one of
Speaker 1: these what I call a masterpiece. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: all of you. Thank you, thank you.