Jacques “Not So Julia” Pépin

Bonjour, les enfants de club! This week we debone, season, and roast iconic French chef Jacques Pépin’s buttery memoir “The Apprentice.” From giving Charles de Gaulle gout to inventing the midtown souperie, Craig Claiborne’s sassy homosexuality, befriending la (trés) grande dame Julia Child, the shame of the American supermarket, communal bread ovens and the proper way to kill a canard— ça c’ést une journée délicieuse! Bon appétit, bitch.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Slavery club.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Uh, how are you feeling, monsieur. I know you have
come down with a serious kit of gout.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
It's so tired of being president France.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
It's such a tumultuous time with the war in Algeria.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
This revolution must be making you very hungry.

Speaker 5 (00:44):
Weird more.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I want another. I am a speak perhaps.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I know Miss Giovanne has said, no I speak, But
I have made you just a small plate of vill
de CAAs covered and something I speak, with a side
of cheeses and some Pamela fruit with a small omelet.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
That is.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
That I could have like a goose I cream of
goose I inside o.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
You know, cream of goose is one of my special ties.
But I'm told that will give you cream good.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
No, no, it's not a food that gives me the god.
It is the It is this like yer eevil is
on n skimmer the desert.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
This is the desert. Why why over there? Let emulate
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
This one or.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
A well?

Speaker 4 (02:18):
I don't sure bend joy to a rump over my bure,
little me spank.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Who's that knocking at the door. It's all your friends,
you filthy horse. Your husband's gone and we've got books
and a bottle of wine.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Till it's Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's books, it's gossip. I'm sure it's memoir, it's martinis.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Celebrity Poop Club can read it while it's hot.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Celebrity poop Club, tell your secrets. We won't talk celebrity books.
No boys are allowed.

Speaker 6 (02:57):
Celet say it.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Buzz me in. I brought the queer.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Film Your Best Friend. Oh my god, Well, you guys,
it's been an incredible every other summer. Thank you so
much for.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
For living and every other summer with.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Us and slowing down and taking stock of life and.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Let us know what happened in your hashtag every.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Other summer, which is now officially over.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Isn't it crazy? Because then September is still like hot?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I know, but it's still like back to school.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Okay, September resolutions go.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Okay. Got in touch with my second cousin?

Speaker 6 (03:50):
Amazing?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah. I actually don't even know what is a second cousin.
Is that my cousin's kid?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I felt that. Yes.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, then here's a question, and for you, as someone
who is recently engaged and now that's and now it's
public on main grid, are you going to invite your
cousin's kid to your wedding.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
My cousin's kids are only like babies at this point,
or actually the oldest one I think of six. The
real question is, because now we do know more people
with kids, am I inviting kids to my wedding or is.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
It like one of those like adults only weddings.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
I think it's just like I'm going to invite kids,
but just like I.

Speaker 6 (04:22):
Think we know the kids are going to bed at some.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Point, I don't think parents want to bring their kids
to a wedding, if I'm not wrong, right.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
No, But I do think if it's it's fun when
a nine year old is drinking on the dance floor,
because that is what's a wedding.

Speaker 6 (04:36):
That is so we also like go Tyler, go Tyler.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Right, and it's like so flower girl, and it's like
some girls are doing the daddy daughter dance, and I'm
kind of like, where's my daddy daughter dance.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
I've never been to a wedding where it's collective daddy
daughter dance.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
I feel like that's such a thing.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
At a wedding, it's usually just the one bride dancing
with her father.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
No, but then there's a bunch of seven year old girls,
like seven year old brunettes, all on their daddy's shoes
I have.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
I'm not seeing them.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's so creepy. And it's like this full as grooming party.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
But you know who's not that creepy?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I guess no, literally, actually the least one of the
least creepy male authors we've ever read. Yeah, someone who
is joyful, super joyful, someone who is French, super French.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Someone who is historical, someone who is, say with me,
still alive.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Literally still alive. So he's historical yet still present.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, he's our link to the past, which is why
we're doing this book. It's kind of an oral history.
It's kind of like talk to your elders.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
It's very school assignment, interview your grandfather, or it's like
interview your grandfather's friend at the home.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
And that's what we're doing. We're keeping his memory alive.
This really famous person who doesn't need us.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
I actually know, I think he needs us.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, I don't think. Well, I talked about that much.
I agree, and not enough. Is the critical role he
played in like so many evolutions, one may even say
revolutions of cuisine in this country.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Cuisine revolution, televised cooking revolution, Yes cookbook, all.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Of which led to the moment that we live in today.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Which is reels, smashed garlic, potato, parmesan chillie.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I like the TikTok era of just like the brazy
chop chop chops slappy.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Me and my husband make a steak salad every Sunday.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
This Sunday.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
This is what we're doing. Find the ingredients in the comments.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's a tie. Last, Okay, we we're talking about.

Speaker 6 (06:29):
Who we're talking about?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
No?

Speaker 7 (06:30):
No, Then Jacque his book The Pie, My Life in
that Kitchen, IB with recipes.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
So for those you don't know Ja, you probably will
recognize them as been a close friend of JULII and
they had their kind of iconic very nineties WGBH Public
Access that's like.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
It's really kind of like Calming and PBS, and like
it's towards the end of her era or her voice
is getting like.

Speaker 6 (07:04):
And they're making kind of.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Just like straight up classic like parent food and just
kind of like slowly pulling Parsley.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
But they're also so adept, like, yeah, did you watch
Cooking with Julie jaquick Like when they're in that studio kitchen,
That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, But like they're like
soup episode, it's in one half hour. They make five
soups and they kind of show you how one base
can turn into five soups. And they're so definitely just
like having six pots going and like cooking next to

(07:33):
each other. But let's she'll just be like, give me
some onions. Oh, I think you need a little dijon
in now, and like they're really actually making the food live.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Also, it looks like they're actually like cooking together rather
than some kind of like stage thing where it's like
what are you up to now?

Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's like she really is like.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
So, do you think you're going to do garlic? And
he's like, no, I don't think I'm gonna do girlick yeah,
And she's like what if we did? Then he's I
don't think I will. But what's in samba the show
is I watched the part of the salmon episode and
then chicken a little bit of Hamburger.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, we like it's all about cow and it's the
cow app.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, And it's like as supposed to most cooking shows
that maybe just do one or two meals, it's about right,
like soup five soups, chicken, five ways to roast chicken. Yeah, fish,
let's do salmon five ways. It's all about kind of
the one ingredient five ways rather than like here's one
complicated dish that you'll make once at a German right.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
It's also interesting because then you you learn more because
you're like actually learning about what meat is and you're like, okay,
so this is the timeserline and you're gonna cut it
like that because that's what you do with that cut, right,
and you're like, damn, these come from different parts of
that animal.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Look at this, or like the way they take apart
to salmon, they're like make grove locks and then do this.
It's kind of like casual nose to tail without being
precious butcher about it.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Period casual snippets.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Now, Okay, to get back to kind of the nose
to tail of it all. Yeah, let's get back to
his child doing word.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
So Jacques Pepin, he's known for this like being this
TV cook and the kind of eighties and nineties with
Julia Child, but he had such a long story we're
getting up to that point and was like present for
so it's almost Forrest Gumpy, where he's present for so
many moments throughout food history in America and France. He
literally grew up in World War Two having this crazy

(09:21):
like both idyllic but scary but fun childhood.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Like terrifying beautiful basically, like the book starts out at
age six, when his mom just drops him off like
out of farm to like be a farm intern because
that is like traditional for boys.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Oh well, and she's she's got like a bunch of kids,
and she's like, it's just gonna be easier.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, and the whole thing is that the farm I
don't know. I was like, this is good for boy,
our boys, our country boys. Basically you drop your little
boy off at the farm and he does chores and
then the farm gives you like meat and eggs at
the end of the summer.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
The way child labor laws do not exist in nineteen forties. Friends,
And that's kind of like a vibe because then she
like buys restaurants. She basically is like a flipper, and
so she buys this like tiny shitty restaurant and nero
like like outside of bourgone breasts and like and this

(10:19):
is we're talking leon for those of you who know,
we're talking Rohane Valley here. Fateful and it sounded so
like iconic.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
That's just like sounds just so beautiful. He's like she
just started to cook because the father was the fresh
Revolution and he was like up in the hills fighting.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah. So like the Nazis were like came to Bourg
and they were like lining up random people like accused
of being part.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Of you were dressed in simple dress.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
And then like they like killed two random people in
the town, but like spared the dad, and the dad
like escaped to the hills and like was in l
rasistance and they would come back in the night and.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Like sleep with.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
And I'm like leave a flesh orange from the mountains
and like he'd never had an orange before.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
And that's when men were husbands before they were fathers.
So true, right, and he's been like and when we'd
wake up as little boys and I would sit at
the taper with Mama, she would have a slight smile
on her face. Yeah, and I would see the orange
of our father because she.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Just got a you know what else I loved was
the town. How they all shared one bread oven.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
And they're like all running and bacon. This one road,
we would.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
All get together at the village oven and like all
the women are gossiping, and like all the children are
running around, and like the whole town's smells like bread
and they're all baking their bread for the week. It's like,
isn't that so beautiful? That sense of community?

Speaker 6 (11:51):
Do you imagine?

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Can we bring back communal ovens?

Speaker 6 (11:54):
You going to the ridge with ovens.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
And you're seeing all your exes at the ridgewood oven
but also like gossip and it's just like it is
the central perk.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
It's all my exes are We also all baking our
like pizza crests.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
And I think it's a just load based and that's
how you keep it cool, Like you do have an
oven at home that.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Like that's what that Some people would maybe also bring
like a couple other like casseroles and beans to kind
of throw in there.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh you're doing your sou fleg Yeah, like in the
town oven show.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, here comes Madame Lagoon again and it's like take
that home. I know. It's kind of like we're doing
bread right now. Well.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Also, the way he learned wine, I say, child, he
would just steal gummet goo rapes in the countryside and
drink them, I mean to eat them.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, And so we started learning about grapes from just
like plucking them fresh vine and being like a nasty
little thief.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, may I read this part about how his father
so he his dad would buy wine barrels from the
vineyard and then he would like bottle them at the
red at Mama's restaurant. To draw the wine, I learned
so much here. Papa drew some of the wine through
a glass syringe, poured it into a stemed glass, examined
it for clarity, sniffed it, and finally tasted. Although a

(13:14):
conventional wine taster would spit the wine on the floor
before proceeding to sample another one, I never saw Papa
wasteen this sep To draw the wine out of the barrels,
he used a piece of rubber tube attached to a
stick of wood and inserted the apparatus into the barrel
through the bunghole. The tube extended to just above the
level of the sediment in the bottom, so only the

(13:36):
clear wine would be drawn.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
So I never knew that hole in a wine barrow
is called the bung hole.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
I kind of had one, yeah, Pappa never discarded that sediment.
So it's like, so natty Mama used it in the
red wines, so she also coated with the sediment. Mama
used it in the red wine sauces she served a
beep or chicken dishes.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
One theme in this book is his tip to tailness,
where it's like he's he's always like the way we
ever made a prophet is to use every piece of
the market, and everything of the animal, and every piece
of the wine.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
It in everything, get every The dad isn't being I
was waiting for the moment where like he's teaching him
how to bottle wine. I thought that dad was going
to be so like American nineteen fifties dad where he's
like slapping him from wasting wine, and it's so like
all books about like creepy dads in the fifties. But
his dad is just like laughing and being like, oh

(14:27):
now we see this.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Wait, wait, let's do the thing where he's teaching is
go to page thirty two. Let's do this little dialog
with the dad and the sun. Here.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
Okay, you beat Peppa, I'll be Papa. Take youduin in
your mouth and d over your tongue. Just taste it.
I did his instructed. Now he said, juwe it's just
like a piece of bread. There seemed to be breachon londicure.
But as I did instructed, nothing bad happened. This is
the outbath, he said. Open your mouth a little bit

(14:57):
and from your lips and doing oh like you're going
to whistle.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
I shape my mouth as instructed.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Good not sucks some math to the wine to allow
it to breathe. This will let you taste it, and
it's okay.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
What it did was force a great deal of the
wine up into my nose. I sneezed and spottered, sprang
if I missed of wine.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Not that for istad vibes. You bleeding so odd. The
next time I.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Was open, there wasn't going to be here next time.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Okay. This is also him where he's like this crazy
story happened. He was just like and then the crazy
story said, He's like, I spilled some wine. You're kind
of like, well that wasn't not that all right, But.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I guess it's like so romantic in French because he's nine.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
No, and it is so cute, and the dad's just
being like, now you're drinking and then the water.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
The water so p iconic. But he got to you
of age and like he's already probably like nine. He's
done like so many summers.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
And yeah, now of age is literally nine.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
He's going from the school yard straight to my mom's kitchen.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
No, well, I think it was actually even six. So
they would literally just dilute wine with water, or it guess,
dilute water with wine.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
It would take baby drinking the pair to be drinking wine,
and then they would take a tablespoon of their wine
and then put it in the kid's water. Yeah, so
they could get used to.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Tasting climatizing to the wine as they're having like dinner
at the restaurant with the village prostitute.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
And he's always like the dwellers the village prostess and
he was like the prostitutes would come back and open
their lids and see if they langustins were retty or not.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
It's so idyllic. So they keep like moving. She basically
is like flipping and like his mom's buying these rundown
restaurants and then like turning a profit.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
And by the time she leaves classic everyone loves them.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
And then she like moves to a slightly bigger restaurant.
But there's that scene where they like cook the fish
in the river. Hmmm. So it's like him and his
brothers are exploring like this new river, classic exploring new river.
They like see this like shining thing in the water,
and then they start fishing for them. We wait on
the bank, baited our bent pins, flung our lines in

(16:54):
the water, and waited. Eventually, the tip of my stick
wiggled ever so slightly. You've got one, shutted Roland. I
eve back might lean in a shiny minnow about two
inches long, flow of the water and into the bushes
behind me. I put on my run part of the leaves.
There it was. I picked it up with my thumb
and next finger and showed it to Roland. It's varon,
said Roland. It was too good to be true. Despite
their sides, varon were considered delicacies, eating battered and fried

(17:16):
like white bait, like the once Papa catches. I said, exactly,
said Roland. Bison yelped and yanked another varon out of
the river, said, but Roland and I were busy with
two more fish. It didn't take long rest of mass
enough for a feast. Let's cook them and eat them here,
I suggested, But we don't have anything to cook them in.

Speaker 6 (17:35):
This is so French, it's insane.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
And so then they're like, we'll need oil, flour and
escalet and matches.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Bread too, said in French country bread, I'll get you.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Don't worry, said Bichon. As he don't go. The little
guy was smiling as if we had done him as
starter in favor. So then it's like his little brother.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Goes off, runs off, gets flour, butter, bread and like exkillet,
like I'm sorry at nine were you being like, let
me actually like go get provisions and get like a
stunning bread, and like he just comes.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Comes back back to the side of the river where
they're fishing with a stick. They're making fishing poles out
of sticks. They've got this huge batch of these tiny
little fishes, and then they make a feast. They don't
have like anything to batter the fishing. They don't have
like a container to put it in. So he makes
his brother rip off his undershirt.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
So sexy.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
I know. The vagar was good as good as any
and tasted best of all. I cooked them myself. Didn't
you like read that. I was like, I've never lived
a dam my life. No, I was just like, I've
never done anything.

Speaker 6 (18:38):
I'm like food experiments.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
I mean, I remember like grabbing some blueberries from a
patch as a kid, and I feel like I was
always wanting that adventure when I would like walk a creek.

Speaker 6 (18:49):
But no, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
It's also the bravery in the imagination and the you know,
non screen time pilled brain where you're just like, you
know what, why shouldn't we make an adventure out of this.
Let's go try to find a pan and that will
be its own thing. And I'm going to make a
fishing rod out of a stick, I mean and not
be so oh do you want to go fishing? We'll

(19:12):
book your fishing experience on Airbnb.

Speaker 6 (19:14):
I do you feel like I did?

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Was fishing with the stick as a child, Okay, like
in man like once.

Speaker 6 (19:22):
One string stick.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
What we're calling did y'all catch?

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Not with the stick?

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Right? Yeah, it's just you know, we've lost some of
that and we just want to be But we're in
the suburbs. People are afraid where they're not like told
what's going to happen before? You know?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right now, there are some wild, wild boys out there.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
I guess boys are wild. Maybe it's just like boys
are still wild, but they're being wild now on TikTok.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Being talking and like they're being like, y'all, we got
a catfish and catfish, I've battered skillet and.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
They're like doing backflips off of roofs or whatever.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
No.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
I mean, like I'm not saying that kids aren't having
fun anymore, but it didn't.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Make me feel like romantic and like you do need
to go get a pan and a stick like now, because.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
It's just like life is all about restaurants and reservations now,
and like remember when it wasn't remember.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
When you didn't even know what was I don't know.
At ten, I was pretty much like still wanting reservations.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Of cottonwood.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
So he has this come to Jesus moment where his
older brother is like, you know, the one who's getting
the skillet, he's who's just like I would kill to
like never be in a restaurant like again.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
But he's working in the mom's restaurant. He's like, oh, no, bitch,
I love that.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
And he hears that and he's like, no, I'm addicted
at that point he basically asked Mama if he can
leave school for good and join the apprenticeship program in
France and just like be brought to a restaurant.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
And so he goes to the Grand which is in Bo.
And so I looked it up. This Grand Hotel is
no longer the Grand Hotel del Rope. Can you guess
what it is now? You're actually probably not going to guess.
It's kind of more disappointing. Not no, it's the best Western,
Isn't that kind of sad?

Speaker 2 (21:26):
And wait, that's so.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
So dumpy because he described it was the fanciest hotel
in the region, and it was like where he started
to learn how to, like, you know, cook in the
traditional French way and learn like how to make a
sioux flet and a demi class and like all the
big And there's this parta times about learning by observation,
which I think is so essential to like being an

(21:52):
actual cook, and something that can only come with experience,
that like the recipe will never teach you. Because I
learned at the Stoba visualizmost I did not in part
much in terms of specific explanation. They said, he allowed
me to look and imitate by touching a piece of meat,
I learned to determine his degree of done. This raw
meat was spongy, well done meat hard. I learned percse
Haited determinal the stages in between by pushing a finger

(22:12):
against the surface of meat. Here he was significant too.
The snap of an asparagus spear, the crunch of an apple,
the pop of a grape, or all indicator is a
freshness in quality. I learned to listen to the sizzling
sound of a chicken roasting in the oven. When the
chicken things, I knew that the lair is a fatic.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Clarify that part my foul skin started sizzling.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Now are you good at those like signals?

Speaker 6 (22:38):
I'd say seventy percent of the time.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
I'm right, I'm yeah. I'm just not confident enough.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I guess with chicken, and I would I mean, I
would kill to have a rotisseriy spar My home was
spinning rotisseri.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
So scary, dear ladies, you walk in and he's got
a rotisserie in the kitchen, to your removed wid calling
the police.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
No, it would be more of like I had a
yard in my beautiful like let's say.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Oh, you're thinking more like such a medieval spit.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
That, but you could have a smaller thing. Yeah, no,
if I had some like commercial.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Commercial grade, like kind of small like my dad. We
were grilling tuna recently, maybe summer a few weeks ago
on Nantonka. He knew exactly when it was done by
touching and being so jac pipin. I was like, he
was like, I had the girl mons in the side,
but it was like we were doing big steaks right, yeah,
like wanted to be rare on the inside. And he

(23:35):
was like very like, this needs thirty more seconds, this
needs twenty seconds. And I was like, oh, you really,
you've been around here for a minute.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
What was also really like taught to me in this
book was the fish course. Like he's always doing a
fish course with chives, and then there is like the
rib ros or like the chicken or the cognac.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah no, I mean the amount of con and these recipes,
it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
And on French coricaine, I went to the region where
they make armagnac, the French cog and there's some very
ancient French recipe he talks about, which uses armagnac and ortolan,
which is a very small bird, and there is a
very rich, knotty way of eating it, which is you

(24:23):
cover yourself in a napkin and cover yourself in a
you basically roast l in armagnac, and it is so naughty.
You literally cover yourself.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
So you're putting on like a little ghost outfit with.

Speaker 6 (24:35):
Little so no one sees you because it's like so rich.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
And and you cover yourself as you eat this coveredmgnac
and you realize what traditions they have there, they're rich.
Like this book is just so funny because you're like
it is the American verse French thing where it's like
their food is insanely rich, but everyone talks about how
thin French people are. Is just about long dinners. But

(25:04):
it's like Jacques this whole time, like throughout the whole book,
he was just like, we just hit a simple country
lunch of veal, selection of cheeses, grapes for dessert, custard
for after dessert, and is.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
A white wine cream sauce finished with cream. Everything is
like finished with cream, right, Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
So he works his way through all these apprenticeships as a.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Teen and then makes his way like very quickly, honestly,
because he's still quite young. He's his teens. To La
Plaza at which is still one of the like greatest
restaurants in the world. Al Ducas. Maybe you've heard of him.
I heard of him, was like the executer chef there
like in the nineties and like is dead now, but
like was so kind.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Of like and have you been to the Plaza and
A I have not, Okay, so it's something on your
butt list.

Speaker 6 (25:55):
I just think I thought you've been time.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Oh, it's definitely a bucket list for me.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
For shore.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
My parents did go there recently on their like fiftieth
anniversary trip to Frances.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Oh yeah, I saw like the Shutterfly book they made.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
It back, okay, where it's like so blown up and pixilated. Anyway,
Tail knows to tail. The brigade system at Plaza Athenay,
so it's so insane. There's like a third Camie, then
second Camie, then first Comitte, and that's all just you're
an assistant and then you spent a year at one
station in this insane kitchen.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
And you have to master that station until you are
moved on from that station. So he started with I
think just like chopping. Was he even just a chopping
vegetables or was he like cleaning.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Blah blah blah. When a cook had made the rounds
of all stations a second comite, he would move through
all the stations as a first committe. The result was
staff had a tremendous depth a camille and the guard
men at the galmon. Jane knew exactly how to trim
ofveal chop because he had also spent months working at
the elbow of a grill chef who would discarded any
cuts of meat less than perfectly trimmed. But bad cuts
never reached the grill chef because the comie working the
grill had also worked in the Gavin Molchan and could

(27:02):
whip out a knife and fix any problems on the spot.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
So here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
And he talks about like Americans. He's like most now,
like you'll just have someone maybe in like the girl
station of the fish station, who masters that. But that's
all they know.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
And here you go today the French spaghetti cuisine, it
was diametrically opposite to what often happened in the kid.
Just now in restaurants the United States, where the emphasis
is on specialization, today, the idea is to take someone,
often an immigrant from Latin America, and train him or
her to do one specific task and that's it.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
And that's a way to protect the toxic, tatted male
chef at the head.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
It is and I feel like, you know, Anthony Bourdain
talks about this too. It's like you'll have this Ecuadorian
line cook who's amazing at this one thing, but they're
not empowering these people to learn the other skills and
like become shops and come up in the system. And
they're just like, no, you're gonna sit there. You're going
to batter a fish eight thousand times and that's all
you're ever going to do.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
And the French has this culture of like bring you
up through the guests.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
In skill development. And it's also i think because food
is so part of their culture and it's just such
a deeper part of their history, whereas America it still
doesn't have that.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
And it's getting there, right, It's yeah, it's getting there,
and I think that is changing.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, that is changing. And this is a part of
the new generation of chefs like David Chang and Mario Carbaum.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Got steven Zo Oracle, so the Bleazza. It was also
a home to many famous people that would.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Come, oh wait no, but this was oh yes, which
is this restaurants in the Left Bank that's in the
fifteenth by mon Balnas, which I've actually been to. It's
very old school that you've been to, yes, and it's
kind of very fancy and touristing now, but back in
the fifties it was like a spot for like intellectuals
and philosophers.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Basically, this comes to a time where he's now like
kind of like getting in his knives basically, and like
he's in he gets two days off and he's like
making eighty bucks a week, and he like.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
And he's like selling dummy glass in the black market.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
So fab so like this one restaurant he saw these
guys literally throwing up bones.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, and so he's like, no, let's like reduce the
bones further, make a glass and like we're just even
more and then sell that to like other restaurants in
lay all.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
For ten bucks, you know.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
And it was just like everyone knew that that was
like the saucier's side hustle, and like you're allowed as
the saucier to have that side hustle.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I didn't know that it makes sense that he was
saying that like to be promoted to Sassier is kind
of final bus because how you think, Sue, But it's
like you think of the delicacy to make a chame.

Speaker 6 (29:39):
So wait, how was your bechamal?

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Okay, so this is what I actually love about Jacques paper.
So I made a soufle which is basically flour, eggs,
butter and milk, and then I also made a mornai
sauce to go with it, which is not in his recipe.
But we had had that sou flag a few weeks
ago at longer than on in Tucket, and I was like,
I need a morning and so I looked up this recipe.
You had a both have bechamel as at base, and

(30:01):
bechamel is one of the French mother sasas another mada.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
It is all about technique and the win.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
So it's all about technique, and so I Jacques Papa's
description of how you make the sou flet is He's like,
so you saute butter on low heat, melts, got a
nice butter in the pan. Melts. Okay, y'all know what'd
be happening when you be Santan. Then he's like, you
put in the flour, and he's like, whisk it in
ten seconds, make your roo. Get the flour into the butter.

(30:30):
He's like, and then in one motion you put all
the milk in and it's like two cups of milk
and it doesn't it's not warm, it's cold. It's fine,
it's cold. You put it in and then you just
whisk constantly with the heat on high and it should
become smooth and thick. And it literally did. And I
was like, oh, I didn't have the heat high enough.
Those like a little bit longer, and I just kept whisky,
kept whisky. Trust trust the process, the process, trust time.

(30:54):
And so I did that and it became this perfect
bee milk, no lumps, delicious, amazing. Then I was making
the morning and I was using some recipe on just
like bitchin wife.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
In Utica.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, I'm just like, I'm a Greek sister dot com.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well and this is okay. This is the thing of
like where we have our phones and it's easier to
go to the website to learn abouh of mel when
it's just like I literally have Craig Clayborn's New York
Times Cookbook, which has all these sauces and major recipes
in it. But I find myself going to bitch who
spends with Pennies dot com right instead of pulling out

(31:32):
because I'm like, it is this big book and I'm
finding the pages. Where is it?

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Because you just want to google quickly more how do
I make it?

Speaker 2 (31:37):
And then you're shuffling is jumped to rest it and I.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Go to this fucking bitch with her Pennies. It's way
more complicated. She's like heat up the milk separately, not
to boiling, but to warm, and then slowly add the milk,
and it like wasn't enough flour. So it was like,
first of all, I had a dough on a row.
It was like already becoming a ball, so I had
to add more butter that I'm adding the milk and
slowly but it's clumping because there's not enough milk. Yeah,
And I'm kind of just like the milk didn't need

(31:59):
to be warm and it didn't need to be little
by little. What I need to do was jocks where
it's like you're just being more legato about it, and
just like damn confidence and the confidence and he made
me feel confident when he was like do it all
in one motion. Like that's like, well, the.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Thing about how confident he was also at sixteen, and
he also like, can I just say to all the
like toxic chefs out there, like this was refreshing because
this is a non toxic male chef memoir. He literally
is just talking about himself, like joking in the kitchen,
but it's also not so insane. He's been like yeah,
and then the like old French chef at like the

(32:32):
Plaza de Paul or whatever like bent over. So I
started like thrusting and like shoving a knife to his ass,
and then he backed it up and I did stab.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
His and I accidentally stabbed him with a parent Yeah,
and everyone was giggling, and it's like there are highjinks,
like when they like haze him by making him going
to get like a pasta maker, but it's actually cinder blocks,
and he's like running around town Karen cinder blocks.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
And then they're all cackling at him and beautiful and.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Know and that's the kind of like fun that we
love to see.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
We love to see it. But also right, he's not
like building himself up. Is like it was so crazy,
like he is being like it was crazy, but he's
not like making it seem so insane, like these just
are like, yeah, man, we were raising each other and
giving each other scars.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Yeah, And he's not just like, yeah, we were all
like jacking off in each other's vows and like fingering
every girl on the walk.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
End. I mean, I guess he is kind of like
Kookie and Visional, where he's always just been like these
naughty ladies were walking by and I didn't know, and
they were prostitutes.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
But he is a bit of a virgin. Wait, go
back to the I feel like we didn't didn't So
he's at law ratund.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Decked out in Taylor made suits that costs far more
than I could write for the afford. I became a
regular the in spots. One evening at Cafes and Place
La Blanche, and older guy asked if we minded taking
his vacant seat. That's our table. There was nothing unusual
than this, nor was there anything out of the ordinary
in this. Immediately joining in the conversation which concerned to
play we'd recently seen. Our new found companion was a

(34:00):
wonderful addition to the table. Not only did he spring
for drinks always welcome, but he spoke eloquently and knowledgeably
about all aspects of the theater. He seemed to know
everybody who was anybody. I listened to him, transfixed to transfix.
It soon became obvious that he misunderstood my intentions. During

(34:22):
a load in the conversation, he brushed my arm and
Gwadity suggested that we depart together. I begged off, and
the evening progressed with the same engrossing conversation, steady flow
of vine. On the way back to the room, I
kept in a small hotel and rude the obsessing montmart
Sure that's pronounced pretty wrong, I commented to a friend

(34:46):
about the stranger. He knew everything about the theater. I said,
you don't know who that was. I shrugged that my
friend was Jean.

Speaker 5 (34:57):
Jeanne oman Dieu, the creator of queer theory.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yes, the famous the first gay.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Literally the first gay guy like invented you and every
other like gay guy.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
He has this like weird kind of no homo attitude
about gay guys. So Craig Claiborne, the famous New York
Times restaurant critic, who becomes a close friend of his,
and they have all of these like meals out in
the Hampton.

Speaker 6 (35:25):
I mean he gets married at Craig Claiborne's.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
They're part of this whole like revolution in American dining,
where like the average person is becoming much more interested
in food, et cetera. When he first describes Craig, he goes,
I've been in the country just two weeks from Pierre
Fray instruce me to a friend of his, a dapper,
drawling Mississippi named Craig Claiborne. A graduate of a Swiss
hotel school, Craig was thoroughly trained in classic French cooking
and eager to get to know anyone with a similar background.

(35:48):
Although our ages and upbringings, not to mention sexual orientations,
could not have been more different, could not have been
our interest in all aspects of food durist together. It's like,
oh no, it could. Don't try.

Speaker 6 (36:01):
It's very like, oh my god, well just not for me.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
But he is so gay and I was so straight.
But there's this.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Idea, but he also is like it is the sixties
and for a guy who I guess is like literally
straight and has his all of his best friends are gays.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Well, I don't have all this I feel like it's
most of them, all the Jean Claudes and Jean Pierre's
like are straight. I feel like most of them are
kind of like proto toxic chefs. And there's some games
and then there's crag and a couple of because most
gays were being a little bit more clause to it
back then, or they were in a salon that like
just wasn't really like.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
I feel like also maybe Craig was having his like
French guy nights with like all the gens and they're
coming over and they're making like muscles and like going clamming,
and then the next weekend is like gay guy weekend.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
He was definitely having gay guye weekend where they're all
like sniffing whatever, but they're all sniffing bitters whatever whatever
that was of the day. But it's like he's so
kind of virginal. I almost feel like he was virginly
met his wife. He was because he talks about prostitutes
all the time, being like yes, like I tried to

(37:07):
hook up with the prostitute, but then I was like
awkward about.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
It because he knows he is like a gooky French
mon I think, And it's like he could be guy.
So he has to let you know in the book
being like and you think.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
It's that because his stulanity is not as legible.

Speaker 6 (37:23):
He's not like his father.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
In the sort of turn of the Lennium America where
he's writing this book. The cratasy writing the book is
like he is kind of like gone draper. He's not
done draper. He's kind of a fancy boy, a dandy.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
But he also isn't like his dad and all these
like French revolutionaries with their big mustaches.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
No, he's not so barrel chested. I mean he has kind.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Of like is a Roman face kind of lashie. Yes,
it's a lashing and the long seventies hair.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, and his brows are like a little bit like shapely.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Okay, well, let's get into this woman that he meets
at Craig's house, who he's like, you probably won't hear
of her, but she was like iconic in her day,
like the editor of Yeah, and she tells him stop
wearing European socks, which is so you Basically, he has
these short socks and she's like, don't be a bagot,
like stop but the short socks. And she tells him
that like his hair shouldn't go over his collar, and

(38:14):
she's being so like waspy and old. Yeah, but then
like she is the one who like brings him Julia
Child's infamous note cards that were to become Master French
cooking because she's jealousy when he sees.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I wish I'd written this because it's like making things
actually approachable.

Speaker 6 (38:34):
And he's like, we didn't have this. Nothing has ever
been written step by step.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
But then, as you and I were mentioned earlier, there's
this weird thing where Julia is like not kind of
in the book as much as that would be.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Right, because they go on to write a book, make
multiple TV.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Show together, and he kind of references a couple of
things they shot there, like there's this funny time when
she cut her finger, and then like that became dan
Ackroyd's sketch on Esthaal about Julia like making a chicken,
like was blurting everywhere, And basically every time he mentions her,
he manages to work and that she's six three. He's
always just been like she was the giantess of a woman.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
He's like Julia enveloped both of us semultaneously in a
big barrack. This was somewhat awkward if you allow for
the considerable difference in our heights. You couldn't guess approximately
where my face fits when she rapped me in her arms,
and he was like straight in her like big naturals
and her like denim dress in Cambridge.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
I doesn't I don't sense that there's any animosity there.
But maybe he's just kind of like.

Speaker 6 (39:36):
I don't think there was.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
I think he's like Julia is so famous. This is
my only book. Yeah, I'm not gonna miss my book.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I'm not gonna make I'm gonna make it much more
about like my cat skills right now than I will
about my friendship. But Julia, Yeah, and his day. Sorry
I didn't know that, Like he revolutionized. Also Howard Johnson's.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah, he moved to New York and he gets a
job at a fancy restaurant here, and then like pretty
soon after that he like stages us like walk out,
and then the Union guys are like against the wall.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
This wasn't these full like mafiosos. And he's been like
these big Athanian men are throwing me against the wall.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
All these maraudas are like coming in and like smoking.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
And they'll be like you'll work over time, you hear me.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
And it's like they're kind of doing the opposite of
what like I thought a union is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, I think that was the thing. Then when like
the mof.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Where it's like the teamsters are being so.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Like paid off by the bosses and it's so corrupt and.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Like everything's corrupted. Yeah and everyone else. So he like
couldn't sit you walk up, But they kind of all
left anyway.

Speaker 6 (40:35):
They weren't being such like folks like union leader no.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
And they weren't like posting their fires being like.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Luckiano like Gabanelli is like posting being like hey, if
folks want to meet up tonight to talk about the
walkout at law Provence, we're hosting a meeting in Little literally.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
So we get this job working for Howard Johnson's, like
making their like pre frozen food that they serve in
all of their restaurants. For those who don't know, Hojos
is like a hotel chain that like doesn't exist anymore,
but like there's a.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Few Howard Johnson's and but there was this thing called Hojo's,
which was the restaurant which is like back in the sixties,
Like I think one of like the first like literally
chains like the Chili's or whatever. We're like a traveling
kookie American road trip. Yeah, you could stop and always
get a meal at a hojo.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
And you know, you can get a hot, warm meal
that would feature family at hojos. And it's so kitchen
nightmares because he goes in. He's basically like, what if
we stopped using garlic powder in your soups and started
using meal garlic.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
And there's like some you know, fresh out of a
hotel school guy who's like, no, no, no, it has
to be efficient.

Speaker 6 (41:45):
Yeah, we're doing garlic powder.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
And he's like, no, we're gonna use garlic. And then
everything changes and like the food is good and like
they make a clam chowder that they serve in every hojo.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
And you know it eventually leads to the Revolution of
America cookiing of like leading up to Alice Waters and
ingredeni answer and exciting, But I do like how he
weaves in through so much of the story is like
him letting go of like the intense regimen and all
of the like, yes, necessity is the French cuisy I
was saying, like, you have to do things this way,
and everything has to be like heavy and old and

(42:18):
kind of like embracing what he sees is an American
sense of freedom and liberation.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, he said this crazy. He was like, you know, Americans,
even though you think of them as so just like
I want my pizza now. He was like, they're actually
like so much more down to experiment with food than
the French, which is literally true because like.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yes and no, though, because I also think that there's
this really interesting thing we're talking about the supermarket the ap.

Speaker 6 (42:43):
Right with like the brand mushrooms.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Everything was boxed or wrapped in plastic, as if the
contents were something to be ashamed of. Packages, packages, and
more packages. That I thought was a genesting way of
thinking about it, because obviously packaging is a scorch on society.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
But at that time, that was the fifties and the
sixties of canned And it's like he discovers that you
can only find the meats he wanted at like ethnic markets.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yes, like and he's like there were no leaks, like
now there are leaks at the supermarket, and like that's true,
but I do still think that like the supermarkets are
overrun with things that are overpackaged.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Absolutely, and goodles or whatever, mac and cheese and everything
has like a thousand I mean, as we were saying,
like everything is like a cheese in a taco now.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, and like you know, it's like they'll find those
like you know, peppers that come in like a pre
sealed bag, just like green peppers. Oh yeah, you know.
It's just like there's stuff that Trader Joe's and the
Trader Joe's which is like obviously food for babies if
you discussed, and it's like it's what.

Speaker 6 (43:36):
You're talking about.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Also, like the taste because of there's lesser rules in France,
so like the mushrooms you get here are gonna not
taste as good as maybe the wild the mushroom mu
gets in France.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
By the time, about the American taste, I do think Americans,
while some are so fast food and like whatever in package,
but I think a lot of Americans are more down
to taste ten cuisines than the traditional French people these.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Type of cuisines. Yes, but I think what it represents
that I think it's interesting to talk about it in
terms of shame like that the actual food itself in
its pure form is something to be ashamed of. And
that's what Americans are afraid of, because shame is really
a sister of fear, right, and you see that. I
feel like that is deeply American and like there's nothing
more American than like the wind dexed house, the vinyl house,

(44:23):
where like fear of things in their natural raw form
is like something that is like so ingrained in the
American psychics.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
So everyone's like someone coming to my house and you know,
we kept our butter outa you believe.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Right, Yes we're afraid. Yes we're completely afraid.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Butter is meant to be left out unless you are
making a pie crust in that way, the butter should
be chilled.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
You know. And there we're just terrified of the natural
world a little bit. And I think that comes from
a very American like, you know, let's conquer everything, let's
pave over everything. That's pave over paradise.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
But yeah, I think it's basically like the is the
French snobbery of like we're not gonna try this cuisine.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Or like I won't try a fish if it hasn't
been cooked in the exact.

Speaker 6 (45:09):
Exactly like Louis the fourteenth recipes.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Yes, and like that's the French snobbery, but there's also
the French appreciation for ingredients, which I still think elludes
the American psyche to some extent. Even though we've had
this incredible revolution over the past thirty years, we're still overpackaged.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I mean probably not even just France. I think it's
most countries have more of an appreciation of ingredients than.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yes, although I've also seen but it's you know, I
do think that's something like the UK and it's like
so Saints Burns and everything is like pre frozen.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well it's just right, and you are getting like so
many random frozen.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Things and they're like But I also think that some
of that, like you know, the packaging bonanza, has been
imported around the world, as with McDonald's defied the World,
and like now you go to France and you go
to the supermarket, I think that's remarks are still much
more fabulous than ours.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
But they're being plastic.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
There is there's more plastic than there is to be.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
But then on the other hand, a few weeks ago
the McDonald's I went into McDonald's to look at the
menu like as an anthropologist, and you can buy for a.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Dollar wear in Spain? You did this?

Speaker 2 (46:08):
No in Rama, Okay, you can just buy for a
dollar piece of parmesan. I was a genius.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
McDonald's, McDonald's just mc palm.

Speaker 6 (46:17):
Mcparm just a little just.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Like a wedge, a wedge that is really amazing.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, not wedge, Yeah, a little little protein snack mcparm.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Okay, all right. Well, then he invents Halen Hardy, which
is insane. He opens a restaurant Potage.

Speaker 6 (46:37):
Is the original soup nazi.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Did you see the photo of the potajure in here
with all the tile and it's really fab It's really
like the eighties interior that Instagram account.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
No, that's what you want to basically for two twenty
five they make three soups a day.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
For two twenty five. You get a soup, you get
a piece of cheese, a side of bread, a drink
of coffee coffee tea, and a dessert of like fruit.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
And then if you want wine or beer, that's sixty
cents extra.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
And it was like we were making so much money
but money by the way, just sorry. The way he
meets his wife is so iconic. And like such a
sixties movie. On the weekend, he becomes like a ski
instructor at Hunter Ski Mountain and he starts teaching lessons.
I'm like, meanwhile, he is like he's already.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Oh and by the way, first of all, he learns
English at Columbia University, like does night classes, then decides
to get his master's in eighteenth century French literature. Just
fully gets a master That's what.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Made me feel like I'm not doing it.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
I think it's like and he's just doing it on
the side of being like a very respected chef who's
like he's being respected, plays.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Literally making American cuisine, like inventing burgers and clamchowder.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
And then you're also just randomly getting masters just for funds.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
This just means you can do anything. You are a
kookie Frenchman. Well, it's goss to call some boomer stuff
buy a house for ten dollars, no I know, And
it's like, go to Columbia for a dollar.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
You know what. They didn't have to contend with social
media addiction, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
They're killing us because they don't want us to buy
a house exactly period.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
If it's the disease that we can take their medicine.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Okay. So he's this woman wants a private lesson from him,
and she's married. Lesson yes, and then he's so into her,
so classic he's mean to her, which then again that
makes me think he's like a virgin because he's still
kind of like fourteen year.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Old and they do this ski lesson. He's nagging her
so much and just being like no, no.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
But and then like whatever house beautiful woman is like
you know she's married, and then she's like she wants
another lesson and you know she just got separated. So
his wife was like horny for him, and he says
they gave him an amazing ski instructure outfit, So I
do give it up to.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
That because it's like all red or something.

Speaker 6 (48:47):
Yeah, it's like so chic and not price ski and
like whatever.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
So seventy so second lesson and then he invites her
and he like cooks for her, but he cooks her
like a hojo pre frozen scowl.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
This is this kind of like he's very it like
trick that he keeps playing on people where they're like,
oh wow, what a delicious dinner you cooked. And then
he's like.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
He's also being so shark Tank, being like, yeah, it's
not it's.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
How Johnson, it's frozen Hojo's, and Laurie's just like this
is really good and I'm not a super person.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
And I'm going to get this soup into every Sam's Club.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
I know this is super yummy. And how many calories?

Speaker 6 (49:33):
Only four hundred and fifty?

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Anyway, basically, she I think maneuvers it, but they end
up dating.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Well, and the ruse is that she's actually really good
at skin.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yeah, and he's like she still owes me for two daughters.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
But yeah, they kind of date, and then he's also
being kind of weird about the dating.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
He's really weird with the dating, where like she's afraid
to cook for him, so she keeps all these Deli
meats because she knows he loves the American sandwich and
like music, but Deli means really expensive.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, I kind of I don't know all of that logic.
And then he was like, but I would make sandwiches.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
I think he was like, she knew I would just
make a sandwich so she didn't have to cook for me,
and like impress me. But if she gave me salami,
I would just like make myself this epic sandwich.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
But then it's like they are cooking and she is
making like scallops.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
But only after they've like figured out how to truly
like be a couple and communicate and.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Cook in the kitchen. I mean, which is a lifelong
I think journey that couples take is finding your rhythm
in the kitchen. And he does say accurately, I think
the person who's less experience will feel a little bit
like intimidated by them, and.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
He was like a power dynamic can ruin a relationship.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
Andy'lso want to step aside, or they'll resent the more
experienced person. But then like with the more experienced person
resent the less experience person for not learning enough or
participating enough.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Or because they're like, oh, well you're just gonna be
mad to let me step out. But also like sometimes
you're in a mood to cook together, yeah, and sometimes
you're like I just want to make this and like
be more presenting it.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Yeah, we're very I feel like we're a little more
switch off, and like we kind of like to surprise
each other with the final dish, like as a gesture,
as a romantic gesture. So there is a lot of
just like get out of here, like don't look at this,
but then sometimes it's like I need to to shop
this onion. Right.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Honestly, I think the way we do is we just
kind of kind of at the beginning, like Melodie like
I'm gonna make you with this ground rules before we
had yeah, it was lesbian communication. But then if it's like, oh,
let's learn how to make this like Chinese pull noodle
together as an activity. Right right hour two, I just

(51:40):
have to say this.

Speaker 6 (51:41):
They've renovated two homes.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
His daughter is like, I read like the head of
the wine program for like a cruise company.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Oh Claudine, yeah wait, that's so hojo of her. Yes,
but she's like, I'm revolutionizing cruise beverage.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
And then they they had a show together and he
was being so like, oh.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
He was being so daddy daughter dance right.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Extremely down to generate, and he was like, oh, I'm
sure the producers are gonna like think our chemistry is
too warm and hate it and they're gonna want more Jacques.
But then actually, like the ratings show that they love
seeing this friendly French father cook.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Right. Wait, there's this part where he is like talking
about how nouvelle cuisine like could become bad. So like
nouvelle cuisine basically being like the revolution of like the seventies,
where it was like everything doesn't need to be like
a Morne, like browning browning and cream and butter and
flour in like this old fashioned way, and like things
could be juicier and newer and lighter and more lemonade.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
And I think it also means like creating your own dishes. Yes,
his French is very traditional.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
But then he like talks about how like also nouvelle
cuisine could like become kind of stayed in its ways
and become bad in its own way. Goes well. Used
to be called ironically cuisine de palas so tail food
in France and continental food in the United States. Boring repetitious dishes,
often involving thick sauces, pale and overcoaked vegetables and potatoes
piped around the periphery of the plate, was replaced by
bad nouvelle cuisine. Paper thin slices of meat fanned out

(53:05):
in the middle of an oversized plate and surrounded by
eight types of undercooked baby vegetables and three different over
reduced sauces finished with butter with a slice of exotic
fruit or few raspbers on top, which is so like
the balsamic drizzle of it all of like ninety eighties
and nineties cuisine of like the plates could not be huger.
You're getting saut over reduced just like this thick balsamac.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Because I think it was like the revolution against where
everything is so rich and they're like, actually, we're really godmice,
so we're going to give you a tiny, tiny piece.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yea meat on a massive plate, and like we're.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Still in massive plates, small food, but we're also now
in like family, we're in family style and handhelds.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
I would almost say we're now in like small plates small.

Speaker 6 (53:52):
Well because the plate is smaller in the well.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
When you think about like the shareable small plates revolution
that we currently live in, of everything Mediterranean inflected like
chili flex and everything is like pickled fennel and fennel pickle,
It's like everything is so over salted and like under
everything and it's everything is just like it's almost like
the epidemic of a laziness where they're just like, oh,

(54:15):
do you want to get the pickled fannel. Yeah, so
it's three sites is a sourced fennel, and on that
we have raised pepper and you're kind of like what
you just put pepper on a slice of fennel with
vegetable sides and then you just put like a ton
of salt on it or.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Now where it mean like it's like family size and
it's been like a fusion tie chili pepper, like Korean
fried chicken, like massive plate. So it's like that's where
Americans are morenmenting too much to close out on Jappa
Penn Basically to me, him and Julia are what kind
of like Aina and Alison are today in this way

(54:49):
where it's like they are a little more like a
chef for the person at home and they have cookbooks
and like he is more kitchen but it's like about
this like friendly you can do it at home, but
also like a lifestyle of like being in a rustic
kitchen and like having wine with friends.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
And being hanging pots and slowing down and.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Like going fishing at seven. He says in this book
he wakes up so late and again not in like
this crazy whiskey way, and I kind of like sleepy
Frenchman way.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
And like even though Julia and Jock like they shot
in studio WGBH, like it's still so like down home
and sweet and adorable.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
And like all these random cats in the background of
the show.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Like really cooking, and it's it doesn't feel like Rachel Raggiata,
like a lot of the post them the whole like
TV Revolution said.

Speaker 6 (55:41):
Revolution well because at the beginning, because that.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Has inauthenticity to it, But that was so fun.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
It's moment of being nineties and everything being so like
thirty minutes. Yeah, and now I think we're going back
to like actual hour of.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
It all, yeah, and enjoying the process. And I feel
like Alison just recently, like on a new edition of
her recently relaunched home movies YouTube show The Row, it
was like, it's going to take a while to like
cut the onions just subtle in because like this is
the vibe. It's not so thirty minute A lie.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Of the nineties food Network stuff is everything was already
in its mizenplaus so made you think you're not going
to be spending honestly forty seven messy minutes, right and stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
It's like, well, sorry, there was a whole team doing
the Muslim plas and it's like busy moms don't.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Before we moved to segments. One moment of the rustic
upstate of it All. He goes to buy ducks, and
the hippie selling the ducks thinks he's going to give
the duck as a pet to his daughter, and then
he snaps the neck of the duck in front of
her and she's like, you're a monster.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
And he's been like, what did plump pa?

Speaker 1 (56:54):
What's the perfect mea for November?

Speaker 3 (56:56):
I left murder? She was just selling them as like pets.

Speaker 6 (57:01):
I guess this is weird anyway. I guess for like
if your pond, like, oh, put them on your pond.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Yeah, it's kind of just like, well, why don't you
want them?

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Are you selling ducks?

Speaker 3 (57:09):
You're selling ducks?

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Hashtag? Why are you selling ducks?

Speaker 3 (57:22):
She's in how does she eat?

Speaker 2 (57:26):
What did she wear?

Speaker 3 (57:27):
What does We've kind of talked about what he eats.

Speaker 6 (57:30):
We talked about what he eats.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
He's very I'm using old tile from like Howard Johnson's
which I loved.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah, and he's forging for mushrooms and like it's always
snout to tail and we're finny fish in the river
or upstate and we're grilling them and we're poaching his
wife girls in a basket that like I got from
a fire sale of like a restaurant that was closing.

Speaker 6 (57:53):
It snos to tail a decoration.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
I do think at the end of the day is
probably pretty like comfy nineties French cunt tree side in
the living room, and I think it's a really small TV.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
I think the TV could not be smaller. I think
it's it's like a lot of reds, kind of red colors,
like deep couch.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
I feel like there are paintings like that he got
from Craig Claiborne after he died.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Yeah, but maybe there's also some just like eighteenth century
French landscapes.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Definitely sorry tile in the living room, carpeted.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
Bedroom, tie in the living room.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Yeah, in kind of like a coastal way, because his
house in the coastal Connecticut and it's like sand is
getting on it.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (58:36):
I do think a red burgundy.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Or almost in like a Marseilles way where they have
that sagon skin hot sagonal terracotta tile that could actually
be real skin. Living room. I love that. What does
he wear. I'm just always picturing there's like a little
like neckerchief because he's so fucking gay. You know, he's
like I feel like he's he was always saying he's
not good.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Younger style was really cool and it was like big
seventies collars, and he is always like happy when he
gets like a cool uniform.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yeah, and he gets like a brand new chef's uniform
of like starched pants and suspenders and chef white.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
But I think he was kind of like leisure suit
and like big, like polka dotted seventies shirt.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
But there's something like about his shirts that's always like
a little bit loose because he needs movement.

Speaker 6 (59:21):
Yeah, no, they're not tight.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
And I think his ninety style is very just like
blue van Heusen button. But I appreciate periellus.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
I think it was more periolous. In this FanHouse. I
think he was like being because it's lininy. Like if
he is T shirt, he's T shirt in like a
old Levi's way.

Speaker 6 (59:37):
I can't even imagine he's not my T shirt.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
I could picture him in like a white tea shirt,
a soft old white tea hot in like a French way,
in like a mime way right, like stripes. Maybe yes,
maybe being.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
So literally the baron is in the white I think he.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Could be the bear and the white teeth. He's certainly
not in like an under armour like wick away.

Speaker 6 (59:58):
Anyone's thinking he's in a.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Way nerved away.

Speaker 6 (01:00:02):
I think it's he's.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Not wearing something that says like the Minnesota Bears or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
He's mostly in a button downe, in black slacks and
like weird French loafers.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
But then in this dad way, maybe he could be
in a Minnesota Bear. It's like kind of thick beefy
tea that like someone left behind for a weekend.

Speaker 6 (01:00:19):
It's way more like marathon food.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Like that's what I'm saying, Like my dad might be
in a random like because my dad's wearing like a
Boston Strong tea.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
He's not in a Boston trunk. He's in a nineteen
ninety six taste of Denver shirt. If there is a
thrash tya, it's a taste of Denver period.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Okay, Denver tea spoof. Who are you in the book?
Obviously I'm Craig Claiborne. I'm so terrified of becoming Craig Claiborne.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I'm so sad, so sad at the end, So this
is so sad. In the book, he talks about how
amazing Craig is and then talks about how cranking alcoholic
and like the gay shame and he came out with
this book about his abuse and in his pant but
he's like people forgot the real Craig.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
I mean that is the worst part. Not only like
he came up with a memoir about his childhood sexual
abuse and it was panned, and he's like a New
York Times critic and had a sexual abuse more panned.

Speaker 6 (01:01:14):
Oh, He's like you, no one knew him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
And then this summer I read the no Fronk collection
of essays Wildflower a the Orgy, and she has this
whole essay about like, what a huge cunt Craig Clay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
He started being a bitched everyone. He was like getting
wheeled around in his wheelchair and like drinking Scotch at
like the paragrd and like not having the trade.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
And being like, oh they make a horrible soup.

Speaker 6 (01:01:34):
Fly here and get me another Scotch.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
And as Jacques says, clinging to his Hampton's home, that
he wouldn't even visit anymore because of his health. I mean,
it's it is the worst nightmare, and I mean it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Said we're of a different time, the shame that Craig
was living with.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
I just fear becoming so bitter.

Speaker 6 (01:01:56):
Well then don't I think you have a choice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
But it's like, do you know it's happening? When it's happening,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I think someone has to be there to say stop
being better.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
So I'll guess I want you to stop me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
I think I honestly, I feel like I am kind
of shocked, and I'm like walking through Times Square being
the way sandwiches.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Or I had the pistr me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
It was amazing. Yeah, I don't know if I'm getting
my night thesis.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Maybe you're not getting your master's in the eighteenth centre.
But I could doors always doors open.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
I rate this book on this way.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
It was such a bell reading it, and ilen so
much about history of America and French. There were some
gaps in it, so I give it to four cognacs
out of five.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Yeah, I give it four like creamed goose liver, stuffed
rabbit entrails out of five. Just because it was very insightful.
I really appreciated how like not boring.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Incredibly vibrant descriptions of food and history woven together. It
was maybe not as self introspective as I was maybe hoping.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
No, But I guess it's like when he had to
introspect on food so much that it's like he didn't
have the time to introspect on himself.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Yes, And but I think it's a great lesson because
he seems so happy and he's literally ninety years old
and he's still like cooking. So it's kind of like, yeah,
that's the key to life, you know, you don't focus
on yourself so much. Catch fish and he.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Kind of talks about all these people being like spiraling
and he at the end and he's just being like
dumbdy dumb. Here's the thing about me. I love squab,
but so I also a lot of like mushrooms and
you're like, okay, periods with him just like catching more
fish and eating it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I don't see Iraq huge rack love you.

Speaker 6 (01:03:44):
I love you, and make them all go make a bonnet.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Go makeup, make any best.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
Best executive except in.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
A uh just and l s Darby.

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Master Dantors, if a book chose a called if shock
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(01:04:43):
the song and so Fnivo excellent, Don't Pray Sadia, Stephen
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Fat There the Day.

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Apple Podcasts, but Teddy Blank, trek Cus, the Macas and
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