Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: Is it, Seve? What time is it? Is it seven? Okay?
Speaker 2: Well they want us.
Speaker 3: To not time to eat yet.
Speaker 4: But a few weeks ago a very special person came
Speaker 4: to dinner at our home, Speaker of the United States
Speaker 4: House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 3: I can't wait, I can't.
Speaker 2: Wait up tonight. We're having two chocolate desserts.
Speaker 3: I saw on that. Okay, I was thinking, that can
Speaker 3: make that my whole meal. I mean that I won't.
Speaker 4: Before greeting the other guests, Nancy and I talked together
Speaker 4: about food and politics, food and family, food in her
Speaker 4: Italian American childhood, and being the mother of five children.
Speaker 4: We also spent quite a lot of time talking about
Speaker 4: our shared passion for chocolate ice cream.
Speaker 5: My husband and I got married, we lived in New York,
Speaker 5: now New York for me. When I was a young girl,
Speaker 5: a child, really, our family would go to New York regularly.
Speaker 5: We'd go to plays, we'd go to dinner. All that
Speaker 5: New York was like heaven.
Speaker 3: So here.
Speaker 5: We were young, married in Manhattan. Paul was working, but
Speaker 5: we didn't have children yet.
Speaker 2: The first year, and what kind of restaurants would you
Speaker 2: seek out?
Speaker 5: We had, shall we say, champagne taste and beer bottled purses.
Speaker 3: So we did.
Speaker 5: Say that and go We would go to the best
Speaker 5: restaurants as if we were entitled, almost or we would
Speaker 5: just go to the neighborhood Italian American restaurant in New
Speaker 5: York or something, or the corner place to have whatever
Speaker 5: it was. But New York was great because, for example,
Speaker 5: if you wanted to have chopped chicken livers, oh my gosh,
Speaker 5: the best place in the world for chopped chicken. You know,
Speaker 5: anything you wanted the best was there carry out that
Speaker 5: would be. But we were largely into dining out. Yeah,
Speaker 5: then we had children, and then it was more.
Speaker 2: Than And so when you when you were.
Speaker 4: Bringing up the children, did you follow your mother's footsteps?
Speaker 2: Did you have somebody helping?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: No, we had no help none. I mean that was
Speaker 5: a different world. When you have five children in six years,
Speaker 5: help doesn't come anywhere near your house.
Speaker 3: They take detours.
Speaker 5: So you mean help wouldn't come near you, Oh my gosh, no,
Speaker 5: why would they. You could go work with somebody with
Speaker 5: one child or two children. Why would they going to
Speaker 5: work with somebody with five children?
Speaker 2: So how did you do it?
Speaker 5: It was intense. It was intense, but I would love
Speaker 5: to do it all over. Then it was the most
Speaker 5: glorious thing.
Speaker 2: You've lived in an apartment in New York? Or was
Speaker 2: that time you were in San Francis? Were?
Speaker 3: Well? We had four children in New York?
Speaker 2: We did.
Speaker 3: We left New York.
Speaker 5: We had four children, the oldest was four, and we
Speaker 5: had a lovely apartment in Beakman Place, and then we
Speaker 5: moved to San Francisco and had a big home. I mean,
Speaker 5: we didn't realize how small our apartment was until we
Speaker 5: moved into a home in San Francisco and that was lovely.
Speaker 3: And then we had our fifth child there.
Speaker 4: And how did you cook for five children? Did you
Speaker 4: both cook? Did you cook?
Speaker 5: How did you feed them healthily? Yea, they'll not say
Speaker 5: that I was a great cook. I mean it was
Speaker 5: standard fare. And then as they got older, I just
Speaker 5: got tired of washing pots and pans. I didn't want
Speaker 5: to wash anymore pots and pans. So I developed a
Speaker 5: practice where I would go to some place like MacArthur Park,
Speaker 5: which was a restaurant then that had the greatest ribs okay,
Speaker 5: or we go to the Rocas, which was a seafood place.
Speaker 5: I would go to Chinatown Peking Duck and I would
Speaker 5: make a salad and I would bring home this and
Speaker 5: it wasn't strictly carry out like.
Speaker 2: Fast food.
Speaker 5: It was delicious food from these restaurants. We have this
Speaker 5: meal Linen's salad. So when I went to Congress, my
Speaker 5: youngest daughter, Alexandra, she said, mother, I'm so proud of
Speaker 5: you because you're a pioneer. I said, really, because I'm
Speaker 5: a woman member of Congress. She said, no, Remember when
Speaker 5: you used to cook and then you stopped. Well, now
Speaker 5: a lot of people stop cooking, but you were the
Speaker 5: first to stop.
Speaker 2: Oh good, that's good that you pioneer. Oh it is
Speaker 2: a liberation, isn't it.
Speaker 4: It can be creative cooking, It can be exciting, it
Speaker 4: can be relaxing.
Speaker 2: I think a family affair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lovely thing.
Speaker 5: But three times, and with five children, five will get
Speaker 5: you ten every time because they bring So it's a thing.
Speaker 5: But the pots got me, the pots and pants that
Speaker 5: got me.
Speaker 2: So you got you got that's good. And then the
Speaker 2: children got older.
Speaker 4: You then became more and more involved in politics and participas.
Speaker 3: Always said, we're in school all day.
Speaker 2: How did food fit into that life?
Speaker 4: I mean, how did it fit into working and being
Speaker 4: a working mother.
Speaker 5: Well, the children would call it child labor. But we
Speaker 5: would have many events at our home all the time,
Speaker 5: and we always had food.
Speaker 3: You know, the Democrats.
Speaker 5: It was about people coming together, people coming So we
Speaker 5: would always have food so that kids would help prepare.
Speaker 3: And they say to this.
Speaker 5: Day, you know, for every salmon on a bagel, we'd
Speaker 5: eat one and put one on the tray, and these little.
Speaker 3: Ones and the one we would have dinners.
Speaker 5: I hope I none of our guests hear this, but
Speaker 5: here's how we would do it. Say we have like
Speaker 5: many men, many people coming to dinner. Once we had
Speaker 5: nearly two hundred, we had a big house. We bought
Speaker 5: one of those pools, you know, those little pools that children.
Speaker 5: You inflate it, fill it with water and wash the
Speaker 5: lettuce in there. Then you put it in a pillowcase,
Speaker 5: tie a knot in it, and you put it on
Speaker 5: the spin cycle in the dishes, in the washing machine.
Speaker 3: The washing washing machine would have to be.
Speaker 5: Very careful because sometimes while would tell people and they
Speaker 5: get it mixed up.
Speaker 3: They put it in the dryer that doesn't.
Speaker 5: Work, had to be in the spin cycle of the
Speaker 5: washing machine and come out crispy. You have to have
Speaker 5: a big thing to wash the lettuce and spin cycle.
Speaker 2: Have any of your children taking on that recipe for us?
Speaker 3: So now, I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I think that they don't entertain one hundred people at
Speaker 5: a time.
Speaker 2: So I think shopping is a hard thing to do.
Speaker 2: Don't you think getting this shopping done?
Speaker 3: Well? We have a little motto.
Speaker 5: If I don't have to shop for it, cook it
Speaker 5: or clean it up, I'm all in for it, whatever
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 3: But that's not your life. It's very important. It's an art.
Speaker 5: I remember fascinating my grandchildren by having them put a
Speaker 5: mountain of flour. Each had their mountain of flour, break
Speaker 5: eggs and net, mix it up this that and net,
Speaker 5: let it sit, roll it out neat, you know, put
Speaker 5: us through the machine and in the pot of water,
Speaker 5: and they're eating pasta that was a mound of flour
Speaker 5: with an egg in the middle.
Speaker 4: They had their own individual cooking in a restaurant. I say,
Speaker 4: people say to me, how can you cook for two
Speaker 4: hundred people? And I can't cook for eight and I go,
Speaker 4: I don't think I can cook for eight. It's much harder,
Speaker 4: you know, because in a restaurant it's you have somebody
Speaker 4: chopping the parsa and somebody helping you pick the crab.
Speaker 4: I think for a lot of people, cooking at home
Speaker 4: as a performance, and you know, and it's quite hard
Speaker 4: to entertain. You feel that you are being judged or
Speaker 4: is it good enough?
Speaker 2: Or well is it hot?
Speaker 3: It's the old thing and it keeping it hot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was.
Speaker 2: That's a challenge in a restaurant too. And so what about.
Speaker 4: The Washington moving from San Francisco is a very food city.
Speaker 4: I mean you have Alice Walters, you had Judy and Rogers,
Speaker 4: you have women chef, you have so many different types
Speaker 4: of food. So was it a big wrench going from
Speaker 4: such a food city to Washington.
Speaker 5: Let me just say, I live in San Francisco, I
Speaker 5: work in Washington, Okay, And I was always working because
Speaker 5: San Francisco is three hours earlier, so when other people
Speaker 5: might go out to dinner it was at seven o'clock.
Speaker 5: It was four o'clock in the afternoon in San Francisco.
Speaker 5: So I was really always working. And people would say,
Speaker 5: what's a good restaurant. I mean, I'm the worst person
Speaker 5: to ask, but there are some wonderful restaurants in Washington
Speaker 5: that I can now and look forward to, you know,
Speaker 5: just putting work on the shelves.
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?
Speaker 5: What? First and foremost, it's the food. And it's very,
Speaker 5: very important that there'd be a tablecloth. The tablecloth is
Speaker 5: not only a tablecloth, it's absorbed sound. So it's little
Speaker 5: calmer when you have that. Now, there are many restaurants
Speaker 5: that don't have tablecloths, that are wonderful restaurants. But I'm
Speaker 5: always happy when I have a tablecloth still at this
Speaker 5: point in life, and I especially still like Italian food.
Speaker 3: But of course I like friend, I like all you know,
Speaker 3: good food.
Speaker 5: Just like music, they're all different kinds of music, from
Speaker 5: classical to rap whatever.
Speaker 3: Just as long as it's good, it's good. And same
Speaker 3: thing with food.
Speaker 5: Well, we have California, we have you know, the Mexican influence,
Speaker 5: we have the we have every kind of food you
Speaker 5: can imagine in the world in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: So have great farms, and I think Alice has done great.
Speaker 4: Oh she's farmed to the table. She's a force, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, unbelievable. Yeah, she's fabulous in every way.
Speaker 2: Do you ever work in a restaurant?
Speaker 4: Would you take somebody out and work over dinner or
Speaker 4: do you find that you kind of work when you
Speaker 4: work and you eat.
Speaker 2: When you eat?
Speaker 3: I like just to enjoy dinner. Now. Maybe that's being Italian.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm a big believer in putting things on the shelf.
Speaker 5: There's an expression in Latin a jay kuada. Just do
Speaker 5: what you're doing if you're dining, if you're eating, and
Speaker 5: then even if it means you have to split the
Speaker 5: I'm eating.
Speaker 3: Now and I'll work then.
Speaker 5: But I don't want to do them together, especially since
Speaker 5: some times your conversations can become.
Speaker 3: Contentious.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't mean in a negative way, but
Speaker 5: it's like, why are we talking about this now?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to eat my dinner.
Speaker 4: And what about How does food fit into your work life?
Speaker 4: Do you stop always for lunch? Do you have a
Speaker 4: sandwhich at your desk? Does it depend on the day
Speaker 4: my work?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Food?
Speaker 5: Well, I have a salad maybe at my desk, But
Speaker 5: like on Wednesdays I have now for a long time now,
Speaker 5: it's been a pick up lunch for my members. I
Speaker 5: wish that I could be having them for dinner more
Speaker 5: and stuff that we really can't because of COVID for
Speaker 5: a long time. And some of the restaurants that would
Speaker 5: be able to handle that scale just don't even exist
Speaker 5: any I mean some of them have moved on. But
Speaker 5: the food is not an important part of my life
Speaker 5: in DC.
Speaker 3: In DC and.
Speaker 4: When you travel, do you look forward to having a date,
Speaker 4: dinner or lunch. Is it something that you think about
Speaker 4: on your foreign trips?
Speaker 2: What did you have for lunch today? In London?
Speaker 5: Today we had a beautiful lunch hosted by the Speaker
Speaker 5: of the Househoil. It was lovely in every way and
Speaker 5: he told me that they have a cook there at
Speaker 5: the House of Commons and it was beautiful in every way.
Speaker 5: It was a lovely, lovely dining experience. It wasn't just
Speaker 5: eating lunch. It was a dining experience.
Speaker 2: How many of you were there?
Speaker 5: Maybe one table, probably at least forty people at the table,
Speaker 5: big long table, beautiful beautiful flowers, beautiful food.
Speaker 3: It was. It was lovely. And that's that's.
Speaker 5: London's come a long way, baby, I mean from when
Speaker 5: 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. Really Where were
Speaker 2: you last night? Last night?
Speaker 5: We were at Ivy how good that's 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.
Speaker 2: You're in there that you come to myrowng time thing
Speaker 2: we have to get We're closed on Sunday nights, so
Speaker 2: you're forgiven for last time. But we would love you
Speaker 2: to come.
Speaker 5: And I like Wolsey because it has a lot of
Speaker 5: we love it.
Speaker 3: I want to chocolate. That's why I go there. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: one of the reasons.
Speaker 2: That's a great restaurant.
Speaker 4: No, I think London has definitely there's so many different
Speaker 4: types again, different types of restaurants. And that's one of
Speaker 4: the heartbreaking things about Brexit, you know, is that we
Speaker 4: want to encourage different cultures and being open and that's
Speaker 4: something we we must we mustn't forget. We share values,
Speaker 4: we share concern for inequality, the fact that there are
Speaker 4: children who are going to bed hungry and in Britain
Speaker 4: and in the United States, that we know that during
Speaker 4: the pandemic, certainly in this country, school shot a lot.
Speaker 2: Of children that was their main meal.
Speaker 4: And so being in a position of influence and policy,
Speaker 4: what do you feel about the question of child.
Speaker 2: Hunger, of hunger? Yes, well, you know homeless people queuing
Speaker 2: up for food.
Speaker 5: Well, I always say to members of Congress, know your why.
Speaker 5: I'll tell people your why. Why do you think you
Speaker 5: should be in Congress? What has motivated you? And my
Speaker 5: why why I went from the kitchen to the Congress,
Speaker 5: from housewives to house speaker, was that one in five
Speaker 5: children in America goes to sleep hungry at night. That
Speaker 5: I couldn't I couldn't handle it. I mean, it was
Speaker 5: just that we had five children, and you think one
Speaker 5: of these children will not have food, will will go to.
Speaker 3: Sleep hungry at night in America?
Speaker 5: Now and take it globally, and it's sinful, it's sinful
Speaker 5: any place. It's immoral. And that was my motivation and
Speaker 5: all that that implied. If they were hungry, they weren't
Speaker 5: learning to their capacity, they were not feeling that their
Speaker 5: needs were being met, and their families were just not
Speaker 5: able to meet their families' needs, and it is a
Speaker 5: kitchen table issue for some families. Are they going to
Speaker 5: be able to put food on the table, pay the rent,
Speaker 5: pay the utility bill, pay for their children to go
Speaker 5: to school if that required some payment. So the food issue,
Speaker 5: that one in five children living in poverty going to
Speaker 5: sleep hungry at night was my why, and so we
Speaker 5: all every step of the way, have worked for policy
Speaker 5: to alleviate that, to not only supply food, food programs,
Speaker 5: lunch proves and that, but also to improve the standard
Speaker 5: of living of people so that they didn't have to
Speaker 5: choose between paying the rent or feeding their children at
Speaker 5: dinner or taking a turn eating.
Speaker 4: And when you went into Congress, I just will say,
Speaker 4: what was it one in five, how many years ago?
Speaker 3: And it's still the same.
Speaker 5: And that's really what's so tragic, because no matter how
Speaker 5: you try to do one thing and another, all kinds
Speaker 5: of things come along. My also when I went to
Speaker 5: Congress was to fight HIV AIDS, and that was my
Speaker 5: first speech on the floor of the House was about AIDS.
Speaker 5: So you have all these challenges and right now with COVID,
Speaker 5: when we're talking about the southern hemisphere and that people
Speaker 5: are like, I have to worry about feeding my family
Speaker 5: before I worry about what else is going on in
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 3: And it's still a challenge. It shouldn't be.
Speaker 5: And again it's it isn't even an issue. It's a value,
Speaker 5: it's an ethic.
Speaker 2: It's about way back.
Speaker 4: The concern you know, for looking after children is something
Speaker 4: that is just a years old. It's something that is
Speaker 4: a principle forever. And in a way, it was very much.
Speaker 2: Feeding your children and taking care of them.
Speaker 4: And then we became as we had vats, we knew
Speaker 4: that we had to also educate them and we also
Speaker 4: had to treat them in a certain we had to
Speaker 4: love them, we had to you know, show them different environments.
Speaker 4: But that we still haven't achieved the feeding of children.
Speaker 5: And when you think of it, Ruthie, when you think that,
Speaker 5: when we're raising our own children, it's about nutrition and
Speaker 5: you know, feeding the right thing, and then these.
Speaker 3: Other children.
Speaker 5: We have urban deserts in terms of you go to
Speaker 5: the store and it's all processed food. It's not fresh
Speaker 5: vegetables or fresh fish, this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 5: So these children are not even getting the nutrition even
Speaker 5: if they're getting fed and adults.
Speaker 4: You know, Steve McQueen, the director, told me that he
Speaker 4: was in Chicago and there were no vegetable stores in
Speaker 4: poor areas. So it's something that we all need to
Speaker 4: keep working.
Speaker 5: Just for one example, in Flint, Michigan, when they had
Speaker 5: the water crisis, it gives me chills just to even
Speaker 5: think about what it meant for those children. They were
Speaker 5: drinking water that was harmful to them, but not only that,
Speaker 5: it hurt their development in the rest. And we had
Speaker 5: scientists and doctors who would come to us and say,
Speaker 5: the only way out is for these children to have
Speaker 5: fresh food and vegetables.
Speaker 3: And you know all.
Speaker 5: This, and if you go there, there might be one
Speaker 5: store someplace that might not be near where they are,
Speaker 5: whatever it is that would supply that. Now we're getting
Speaker 5: a little more informed that you have to have stores
Speaker 5: that are farmers' markets and things like that where people
Speaker 5: can get fresh food. But it directly related to the
Speaker 5: development of their brains.
Speaker 4: And this is how we should judge a society, and
Speaker 4: that the value we place in the future of our children.
Speaker 5: So it's not only a value, it's an art.
Speaker 4: And that's what I was going. We're coming and they're
Speaker 4: all waiting for us upstairs. But before we do, go
Speaker 4: upstairs and eat and talk and greet the people who
Speaker 4: are all waiting for you in London. I would say
Speaker 4: that we agree that food is values, food is an art,
Speaker 4: food is family, food is memories.
Speaker 2: It is also comfort.
Speaker 4: And there's a food and I can probably guess what
Speaker 4: your answer is going to be, but there is a
Speaker 4: food that we turn to when we just need comfort.
Speaker 4: And Nancy Pelosi, my friend, what would be your comfort food?
Speaker 3: Ice cream? Dark, very dark. The older I get, the
Speaker 3: darker the ice cream. I would say that.
Speaker 2: You were ever predictable, but I 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. To visit the
Speaker 4: online shop of The River Cafe. Go to shop the
Speaker 4: Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
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