Andrew Zimmern's wild — and tasty — ride

Andrew Zimmern always knew he would be involved with food. On this week’s episode, S.E. talks with the chef and adventurer about how that connection started in his childhood days in the kitchen, grew throughout his adolescence in the New York City food scene (attending James Beard’s Christmas parties?!), and blossomed on his TV shows where he demystifies global food. But the wild aspects of Andrew’s life run deeper and beyond his taste buds. S.E. and Andrew get into it all — addictions, his lowest points, and crawling his way out of it all. And of course, stay tuned for a yummy lightning round!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
When you have spent hours telling the world how delicious,
fermented walrus Ainus can be get, you get to not
like a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, everybody, welcome to off the cup my personal anti
anxiety antidote.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Today's guest is Well just one of my favorite people.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I love food, so I love foodies and chefs and
TV chefs, and he's just one of the all time
best in every possible way. I promise you know who
he is, because in addition to being so charming and
so smart and so kind and talented.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
He's also so busy.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
At any given time, it feels like he's on seventeen
TV shows at once, either in syndication or new series.
And I've had the pleasure of having him on my
news shows, and we have a lot in common. Cooking
Well is not one of those things that's all him.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
But we are both deeply curious.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
We are interested in politics and the world, but we
can't really be put in a single box. We both
love to write, We're both outdoorsmen, sportsman. We're both attuned
to the importance of mental health. We are both obsessed
with our kiddos. We love to travel and try new things.
We like to set social media boundaries. But the thing

(01:21):
I like most about him is his thoughtfulness because, in
the midst of doing all the shows and all the
things he does for so many people, randomly a package
will just show up at my house and it's a
treat from him, just because he's a chef, restaurateur, producer, philanthropist,
food critic, author, host of Bizarre Foods and its many spinoffs,

(01:43):
a four time James Beard Award winner, host of the
new show Field to Fire, and you can also learn
knife skills on his YouTube channel. I told you he's
very busy and I adore him. Welcome to Off the Cup,
Andrew Zimmern.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Thank you, my friend. That was very sweet of you.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Are you exhausted just hearing about all the things you do?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
No, but I was. I never unless you're in the
position of actually writing it down, like if someone's getting
married or you are attending something at which you will
speak and be a part of a salutary event in
their honor, you never actually get to sit down and

(02:26):
write something like, oh, yeah, I have a lot in
common with those with that person. Everything you said that
we have in common is absolutely true, which I guess
is why we're friends in your life, but it I was.
You just kept going on and on, and I was like,
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, uh huhah uh huh.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yes, Well it's so true.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
And I mean, you meet people in life that maybe
you have a lot in common with, but we, I
feel like, come from very similar places. We see the
world in a very similar way, and I think our
priorities are very similar.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
And as we get through this interview, I think it'll come.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Up sort of repetitively how similar we are.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
So let's just get into it.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't remember how we first got connected, how we
first met.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Do you remember?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Weren't we both guests on someone else's show on CNN?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
That could definitely be, but then I had you on
my show, that is correct, But yeah, I don't remember. Yeah,
probably we met on someone else's show. And we don't
get very political here because Off the Cup is a.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Break from that.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
But I remember saying to you, maybe as you were
going to come on my show, something like, I know
we don't totally agree politically, and you stop me and
you go, we don't. I think you'll be surprised at
how much we do agree on. And it seemed in
that moment, and probably more generally, it seems important to
you to find connections with people and look for those

(03:57):
inroads to connections with people.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, because when I started Bizarre Foods in two thousand
and four, started pitching it, id eating it. It premiered
in two thousand and seven and went on for twelve
thirteen years before Travel Channel had a vowel movement and
became turble TRVL on your screen. And when all ghosts

(04:23):
and paranormal I wanted to do a show about patience, tolerance,
and understanding in a world that I saw back then
was increasingly exhibiting less and less of it. There was
a divisiveness. I could smell it was, it was happening,
and I couldn't understand it. I am of a generation

(04:47):
and you know, from a Jewish family in New York.
When we were arguing at ten o'clock at night, you
did not go to sleep until it was settled. You
didn't carry anything over into the next day. And I
felt that we should all, well, that's sort of the
way political discourse should be and how municipalities and state
houses and Washington, DC should run. And I was schooled

(05:11):
very early on by a couple of men who were
well known politicians, both of whom have passed away, but
one of whom very famously was part of my twelve
step recovery group in Saint Paul. And when someone has
passed and has publicly acknowledged it and been public about

(05:32):
it themselves, we are not outing them. But Congressman Jim Ramstead,
Republican of Minnesota was the person who said to me, Hey,
hit me on the back of the head. As he's
saying it. You don't just have to do service for
other alcoholics and drug addicts and recovery. You're not in recovery.
You can knock on doors for the things you believe in.

(05:53):
And I was, like, knock on doors, what the heck is?
I'm from New York. You don't knock on someone's door. Actually,
it's not true. You knock on their door to tell
them their smoke coming out from under it. I mean,
that's like it.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I used to joke when I was living in Manhattan,
if someone knocked on my door, I'm calling the police.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's exactly right, that's exactly right. Food delivery people buzz
everyone buzzes it. So it was with that in mind
and the stuff that I learned, you know, the first
seventeen eighteen nineteen years that I was sober. That caused
me to think about patient's tolerance and understanding with other
people in that specific way. And I thought, if I

(06:30):
could make a show where people in Canada could see
how people in Japan eight and how people in Uganda
could see how people in Sweden eat, yeah, and how
much we had in common, that I would actually be
doing something fulfilling. That healing and fulfilling. So yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
That comes across, That comes across, even in very short
interactions with you, and I want to get into some
of the challenges and then your incredible career.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
But going back to the kid in New York's, what
kind of kid? Were you?

Speaker 1 (07:03):
A smart ass, someone who thought he knew everything, over educated, spoiled.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, you went to some fancy schools.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Oh he did? Yeah, No, I definitely did. I went
to two schools my whole life. I went to Dalton
on the Upper East Side. I was a you know,
I started there in kindergarten, nursery school and went all
the way through to graduating. And then I went to

(07:33):
matriculated to Vassar College, the pearl of the mid Hudson
Valley and it was there for like sixteen years. That
took me to graduate because I had discovered women and
drugs and alcohol and rock and roll and just the.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Whole the didn't discover that at Dalton.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
I did. Actually, I was I was hoping to skirt
buy that. I mean, it's funny that you mentioned that,
because there's in the bathroom in my home is the
opening night invitation to Studio fifty four. How I survived
homelessness and all my things being sold is only think,
in some small part to my stepfather who held on

(08:17):
to that. I guess I had come home at like
seven in the morning, passed out, and the you know,
he had tried to pick up after me, and you know,
the plots of and jetsam on the floors. I made
my way to my bedroom. Had included this invite and
he sent it aside, and he gave it to me
long after I sobered up, as one of my most
treasured possessions, because you know, famously, the opening nights there,

(08:40):
you know, were Andy Warhol's party, Halston's birthday, Pak Jagger
riding in naked on the horse. The whole thing. Now, yeah, yeah,
the whole nine yards and that was tenth grade. And
we went at night. And you know, if you said
to your parents, where are you going on? Once you
fifty fourth, they knew where you were and they went

(09:01):
there themselves. So it was it was just a whole
The seventies was a crazy time. You know. You you
have to remember, you know, Pink Floyd is playing and
led Zeppelin are playing at Madison Square Garden, and the
the Ramones and the Sex Pistols are playing down at CBGS,
and then there's discos in midtown and it was it

(09:24):
was a wild time to be in high school. People,
did you see a problem? So I came. I came
into college, you are correct. I came into college with
a heroin addiction, a cocaine addiction, a lucinogenics addiction, a
downer's addiction, a pot addiction, and very quickly because I

(09:45):
really hadn't been a drinker until I got to college.
College was way more about drinking because it was just
available and out there all the time. Growing up as
a kid in New York City, you know, drinking was
something you did. You know, he did too much coke.
I mean, it was just it was you know, how
you come down. It wasn't necessarily like the thing that

(10:07):
you went out and did being a city kid. However,
very quickly I realized, oh wow, this is great and
it's cheaper, and that proved to be in many cases
both a life saver for me and that it hastened
I didn't sober up for ten more years, but it
hastened my downfall and at the same time, probably in

(10:28):
many ways, saved my life.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
So take me back before that, you how do you
start attending James Beard's Christmas parties Sunday Sunday party dead.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
How does that happen?

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Well, my dad had moved out of my mother's My
parents divorced when I was really young, nineteen sixty five
sixty six. I was fish. My father had gotten married
to my mother so that he could have a son.
He knew since the time he was in high school
that he was gay. I found this all out much

(11:06):
later in life, and they had a child. Their intense
friendship and relationship did not survived the marriage, but they stayed,
you know, very close for the rest of their lives.
My father, I guess, about a year before he left
our apartment on the Upper East Side, met and fell

(11:26):
in love with the love of his life, the person
that he was with for nearly fifty years, finally marrying
my stepfather, Andrea Laporte, who was very famous painter and
designer when Maine passed the Marriage Equality Act. My father
and Andrea, you know, loved to cook, They loved to travel.
You know, we had a house in the Hampton's they

(11:47):
you know, they were living that life. And downtown you
had sort of a gay food mafia that had retreated
to the West Village, you know, James Beard, Craig Claiborne,
you know, on and on and on, and so, you know,
everybody knew everyone. New York City is a is a
big town, but it's also a city of small neighborhoods,

(12:08):
and people who love the same things tend to find
each other, even in a city of fourteen fifteen million people.
It's just how it is. And so my father and
Andre got invited to Beard's house on Sundays for his
famous brunches, which did not start at eleven am. They
started at one point thirty in the afternoon, okay, because

(12:32):
Jim Beard liked to drink a lot the night before
and have a good time and sleep in and then
get up and cook. And a couple of times I
was spending the weekend with my dad's but they felt
they had to stop by, and I was just fascinated
by it. And he lived in this big brownstone. We
lived two blocks south at two Horatio Street, and I
just remember running around this crazy, big house, and you know,

(12:57):
the food was insane, the music was great. The people
look fantastic, and they looked like my father's friends. They
came in pairs of men and pairs of women. It
just seemed like a very natural thing. Oh that's what
my dad's world was. And I was lucky enough to
have met him a couple of times chastised. I remember

(13:19):
him yelling at me because in our home, when my
dad was carving the Thanksgiving or holiday roast, little bits
of the best bits fall on the cutting board and
I would stand next to him while he was doing
this and reaching and spitsh from the cutting board. And
I did that. At beard time, I was the only

(13:39):
kid there and I did that, and I mean he
looked down and slapped my hand and said, you need
to learn how to behave. And it was just one
of the great moments of my life, especially as I've
become more and more involved over the years with the
Beard Foundation. You know, I cooked in the James Beard
House three or four times, both over four different decades,

(14:01):
both before the renovation after the renovation. I've been heavily
involved in the house during all of its administrations. I've
been lucky enough to be nominated for I don't know
fourteen fifteen awards and won a bunch of them, which
is really flattering and humbling. And you know, I'm still involved. Yeah,

(14:22):
So it's neat being one of those few people that
actually met him, the grandfather of American cookie.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, yeah, and that's like very young exposure to a
very rarefied world. Was that exposure sort of you know,
informative of where you were going to go?

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Did you know then this is what I want to do?

Speaker 1 (14:43):
No, it was symptomatic of it. It was It was
really my father's you know, here's the deal. During the wintertime,
we would go and have eleven o'clock dim sum down
at Bobo's in Chinatown, a restaurant that no longer exists. Yeah,
and then we would go shop on Arthur Avenue in
the Bronx and take stuff home and make a big

(15:05):
Italian feast, or maybe eat a five o'clock meal out
in Arthur Avenue and then bring the stuff home to
make a big Italian feast on Monday.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Sounds amazing that that was how I grew up.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
We went to cool restaurants what few there were in
New York in the sixties, because New York in the
sixties was not New York in the late seventies. There's
that fifteen years was an explosive growth in the history
of New York City restaurants and American restaurants in general.
I think you can say it of almost every large
city in America. People think it was always like it

(15:35):
is now. It was not always like it is now.
But summertime things took on a whole new bent. We
went fishing, We went surf casting. In the late afternoon,
my dad would hold me by the legs and lower
me in the jetties on Georgiica Beach at Main Beach
to pull up big ropes of fat, black muscles to

(15:57):
throw into the pot. Yeah, we took chicken legs and
let them rot for a week, and then the next
weekend we would when my dad came out, we'd throw
them on a string, get out into Georgia pond and
pull it in and scoop up all the blue crabs
that follow the chicken leg. He collected rose hips in
late August early September so my mother could make rose

(16:17):
hip jelly. We didn't call it foraging. We didn't call
dragging a clam rake in Barnes Landing clamming. We just
called it fun. I realized it was an excuse for
my father actually to drink beer while I opened clams
for him. But you know, that's how I grew up,
and so going to places where there were food people

(16:41):
and food was front and center is more a symptom
of the greater ecosystem that was going on. I knew
from the time I was three or four years old
that I was going to be in food.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
You start working very young, at like fourteen at the
quiet clam.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, that's not allowed today. Can you work at fourteen now?

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Not? Really? No, not the way I worked back then.
I think it's ran that was That was a con
job that I ran on my parents everything in my
you know, I'm not sure what this says about me,
but I ran. I still run a lot of con jobs.
I my father said when the summer of seventy five

(17:36):
rolled around, he said, what are you going to do
this summer? And I was like, beach tennis club, you know. Say.
I was like, but you know, and he said, but
there's no allowance this year. And I said, excuse me,
come again and he he said no, no. You know,
my dad ran away at age sixteen and a half

(17:58):
seventeen to join the name in World War Two. He
came back and ran as far as he could to
the Midwest, where they were literally paying kids to go
to school who were returning on troop carriers because these
big Midwestern universities had emptied themselves out of and many
women to serve. And my dad had left a boy,

(18:21):
came back a man and didn't want to go back
home to his parents' apartment on seventy ninth and West End.
So you know, it was that same sort of attitude
that he carried with me. He was strict about a
lot of things, and he's like, yeah, you know, do
something with yourself. And I was smart, I thought, and

(18:42):
I sort of said okay, and then went and got
a job at my godmother's restaurant, which was, you know,
a cheek little seafood restaurant in the seventies out in
East Hampton, and my parents were horrified, but they really
couldn't dial it back because after a night or two
of being there, you know, my godmother, you know, kind

(19:03):
of relied on me.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, cover it.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Like I knew how to shuck clams and oysters. That's
where I started. I was faster than other people, and
I was dirt cheap, you know, I was a dollar
an hour or whatever. But I didn't want to I
didn't want to whole wheelbarrows of manure around like my
friends were doing for the landscaping company from five in
the morning to four in the afternoon, then catching a swim,
passing out and repeating, I wanted to be with older people.

(19:29):
You know, there were cool people listening to cool music,
smoking a joint after work. You know. I this this,
I mean, I found my tribe in restaurants and I
had a talent for it. So I worked there for
a couple of summers during high school. My last two years,
I worked a day a week, well one night a

(19:50):
week for some pretty famous chefs in New York because
I beg my parents let me. I want to cook
in a better restaurant. I want to cook in a
better restaurant, and so I worked at One Fifth for
Leslie Revson and in a couple other pretty cool restaurants
and knew right away this is what I wanted to
do with the rest of my life. But my father

(20:11):
had convinced me, and I believed it to be true
that going to school and getting an education was really important.
And I felt in my heart I could do both.
That there wasn't a clock running, and I went and
visited Vassar and really liked it. Vassar in nineteen seventy
nine was perfect for me, and so you know, off

(20:32):
I went, and interestingly enough, I studied history and art history.
I was a double major. And I loved the storytelling
of it. It's what I loved about history. It's what
I loved about the good history teachers and the good
art history teachers is they just got sucked into this.
You didn't realize you were being taught something or just

(20:52):
learning these incredible stories. And it wasn't until my first
year doing bizarre foods I was, or maybe was the
second year. I was in a jungle market in the
wilds of Nicaragua and there was this bowl of chung faina,
this gut soup that was put into my hands, and

(21:13):
I looked at the camera and I just started telling
them everything about you know, two thousand and nine in Nicaragua,
in the wilds of the untamed mountainside villages of that country,
by looking at that bowl of soup. Yeah, And I
put it down, and our director was like, wow, that

(21:34):
was so cool, and it's a great moment in the show.
But to me, I realized months later that it was
exactly what my art history teacher had done when she
popped up a slide of sixteenth century Flemish life and
there were seven elements in it and no one knew
what the heck it was. But she could look at

(21:54):
that picture and tell you everything about sixteenth century fresh
life through that that picture. And so I finally wound up.
When my dad saw that episode, he finally felt that
my education was worth.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I was also an art history major and drawn to
it for the same reasons because you learned a lot
about a lot, and it didn't feel like you were
actually doing much learning. You were just these slides, these
paintings or sculptures were portals into a place and time
and a people and a culture, and I was just

(22:31):
endlessly fascinated. The visual was the way in and I
loved the visual, but the visual was the way into
a story. And I loved that about art history. I
love that about food and travel as well. Again, another
thing we have in common. So you're kicking around, you're
working at a bunch of cool restaurants.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
What brings you?

Speaker 2 (22:52):
I know what brings you to Minnesota, but what in
your life makes you decide now I need to go.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
To Minnesota surviving suicide. I mean it's.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's where are you in your life and your career
at this time.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
So I graduate school. I was on a five year plan.
I graduate school, I go back to New York, I
start cooking. I have a rocket ship career. I'm doing
a lot of really great things and with some incredible organizations.
I realized that I want to I want to have
the best restaurant company that I can. I don't want

(23:28):
to be tied to a restaurant. I don't want to
be the world's greatest chef. I don't want to be
the world's greatest operator. I want to have a hospitality
company that defines the industry. And so I cooked, I
managed restaurants. I worked for Roger Martin, who at the
time was the big pr guy in the in the
eighties in New York as it was sort of exploding.

(23:49):
I did a lot of cool things during the decade
of the eighties that I remember. I did a lot
of cool things that I don't remember that had been
told to me later. I called the eighties my missing decade.
But I do know that over the course of the eighties,
I went from being talented, hard working, good guy, somewhat
reflective of the person i'd like to think I am

(24:11):
now to being a one d percent unredeemable human being,
user of people, taker of things. Count on him to
always be lying, always be cheating, always be stealing, because
I was in a very high stakes game of survival
where my drugs and alcohol were making every decision for me,

(24:35):
and at one point, fascinatingly in an apartment building where
I was living next to Chris Farley over on the
West Side in forty fifth forty sixth Street, one of
the first big towers to kind of go up in
what was the beginning of the cleanup project of that

(24:55):
part of the city. My father, one last time trusted me,
bought an apart for me and said, yeah, you just
pay the you know, the mortgage on it. That's going
to be your rent and your name's on it, and
good luck. And I blew that Sheriff of New York.
I didn't know there was a sheriff in New York.

(25:16):
I knew there was a Sheriff of Nottingham. I didn't
know there was a Sheriff of New York.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
It turns out they or it does.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
It turns out they mostly do evictions. So I met
the Sheriff of New York and I went down to
the shot and beer bar behind Penn Station, where I
had spent many a night. Because open until six in
the morning, they hosed the place down and reopened at seven.
And I was complaining to everyone there, you know, because

(25:44):
everything was your fault. Everything was your fault. You know,
I didn't have this. That was your fault, that was
their fault. I got five. That's there. I mean, I
never pointed the finger at myself, even though in my
heart of hearts, I knew that I was to blame
in my drugs and alcohol were to blame. I just
I just had to try everything I could except that

(26:05):
to accept quitting to get well. And they said, hey,
why don't you come stay with us, you know? And
I had my duffel bag with me with a whole
bunch of dirty clothes, and I went down to this
abandoned building on Sullivan Street, just south of Houston. Now,
I will tell you today there's an Agnus b boutique there.

(26:29):
Sondra Bullock has a very famous double brownstone on that block.
It's a beautiful block. So don't ever take friends down
there and say, not looking at it, this is the
hell hole I crawled out of which I have had done,
only to have them say this looks pretty nice. And
I was like oh. I turned around and I was like,

(26:50):
oh no, no, no. Back then it was wind swept. It
was a very scary part of New York. It was
abandoned building with case cement casements in the windows instead
of pains, and seven or eight people all run by
this street urchin named a j Why I remember this stuff.

(27:10):
He had no teeth, but he kind of ran the house.
And I got a place on the floor and I
dumped my dirty laundry out and I stole a bottle
of Comet cleanser every two or three days from the
local bodega and sprinkled it in a circle around the
pile of dirty clothes so the rats and roaches wouldn't
crawl over me. After I passed out, I stole purses

(27:32):
off benches at fancy restaurants with outdoor cafes to you know,
finance my At that point my drinking, I'd stopped doing drugs.
Drugs were bad, Drugs were my problem, and I just
exclusively drank, which is actually when things really went off
the rails. And ultimately I just thought of myself as

(27:53):
as a loser in life, and I, you know, bought
a fistfull of barbituates and got a case of popuav
vodka and checked into the San Pedro Hotel. The word
hotel is the word looking back, and it was a
marketing mistake on their part, since there were no hotel
services there. There was a bulletproof glass fronting behind which

(28:18):
a gentleman sat and he would with a little tiny
six inch TV set that he was always watching, and
the place charged by the hour. And I shoved like
two hundred dollars into the till area, a little scoop under.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Things, and.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Basically just said, you know, hold my calls, and went
upstairs and shoveled all the barbituates into my body and
drank a bottle of pop Off and somehow woke up
two days later and I wasn't dead, which it is
truly a miracle. Based on number one my intent number two,

(28:58):
I followed through number three what I consumed, and I
had a moment of clarity, very brief, that just said
you need to ask for help. And I mean this
very seriously. I had never had the thought ever in
my life to ask anyone for help for anything. The

(29:19):
words I don't know how to do X, can you
help me? Had never left my lips. And I plugged
the phone back into the wall in the hallway and
which was right outside my room, and I called one
of my friends and I said, can you come get me.
I'm in trouble. I need help. And he said where
are you? We thought you were dead? And I said,

(29:41):
I'm at the San Pedro hotel and you know, and
I gave him the address and he said there's a
hotel there and I said yes. Anyway, he came and
got me, tried to drive me out in his apartment.
That didn't really work. But he didn't care because he
was already working with an interventionist and a bunch of
my other friends. And I went to my you know,

(30:03):
unteenth meeting where people were going to tell me how
much they loved me and how I should go to treatment.
Except this time I walked in and I just said,
what time's my plane? And I let everyone talk and
I got on the plane and left for Center City,
Minnesota and began my relationship with the Hazelden Continuum of Care.

(30:24):
And that was, well, this January, it'll be thirty three
years ago.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
When you woke up, Were you relieved.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
At Hazelden.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
No, when you woke up at the San Pedro Hotel.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yet, Well that's a no one's ever asked me that question. No,
I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I was.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
I was scared. I was so, so, so so scared
because I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, I had.
I had made a decision, a horrific decision, a pained
decision with a capital P. It didn't work. I was alive.

(31:10):
I didn't know what to do. My mind was racing
with all these things. I just knew I at that moment,
because I kept using Later that night, I started using
right now again. But that late morning early afternoon, I
didn't feel like using. I just wanted someone to help me,

(31:36):
which had literally never occurred to me before. So it
was really scary and really confusing the emotions and things
I had never felt before. And I kept drinking. I
was stealing booze at Clark's house, you know, from the
moment I got there later that evening. You know, he
made me take a couple of showers. You have to
remember we didn't bathe at the home that I was squatty.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Squatting, and yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
You know, I looked like one of those people you
cross the street to avoid hair matted and greasy layers
of clothes because I'm essentially living and sleeping outside. It's
January and New York City, so lots of layers, and
you know, black and soot and grease on my face
from a lifestyle of not caring really bad skin issues.

(32:30):
I mean, I was, I did not look well, and
it was It's just it shows you how powerful the
disease is. That the minute I got to my friend's
house that night, I start stealing his liquor and not
tell him about it, but I started doing things like saying, hey,
this has been great. I know I called you and

(32:50):
I asked you for help, but if you could just
give me like five grand, then I can do you know.
I started hustling and chucking and jiving again. It was
it was awful. It was really truly awful. I did
not have a sense of relief until probably about ten
eleven days into my stay at Hazelden, where I started

(33:14):
to realize get my first clue that I was in
a safe space and that maybe, like an iota, like
a million of one percent, this may work.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Out, which you had not contemplated before. How will this
get solved? This doesn't feel solvable.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
That's why I tried to kill myself. There was, you know,
my relief. My solution was to just take myself off
the board, and there was no doubt in my mind
that that was the best decision at the time. As
I learned and listened to more stories of hope and
heard from more people just like me who had the
same experiences, who I grably over a couple of days

(34:01):
learn to trust and be like, oh, this is interesting,
And then heard people with real long term sobriety speaking
on the in the auditorium at Bigelow where you went
every night at seven o'clock to hear it outside speaker
come in.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
It was.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
It was quite a profound experience. And then I, through
other people on my unit, I began to understand that
this thing that I thought, because I thought happiness and
success was for everyone else in the world but me.
When I got to treatment, I felt recovery was for
everyone else but me. And then around eleven days I

(34:40):
started to realize that I thought maybe I could do
this too. And it was a very it was a
very specific moment that I will think, I think would
bore a lot of people unless they're in recovery or
challenged by it. But I would share that it was

(35:00):
pointed out to me. You know, I thought you had
to have this relationship with God and work these steps
and get an a from you know, sobriety school, and
that was the only way it worked. But in fact,
someone pointed out to me on day eleven that the
twelfth step in our program is written in the past
tense and it says having had a spiritual experience as

(35:24):
the result of these steps. Well that was important to
me because the book said you can't stay sober without
having had some kind of spiritual experience, some exchange of ideas,
that the way I was running my life was not
how to do it, and that letting something else run
my life, letting go, connecting with a higher power, listening

(35:45):
to other people, just have other people make your decisions
for you much better was the way to go. And
it's written in the past tense for a reason. And
I realized that a friend talked to me about this
and said, yeah, I mean, you know, it's a rope thing.
You just go through the steps as a result of
which you will have a spiritual experience. And I was

(36:07):
just like, oh my god, that sounds like the ticket.
You know, I just have to do the homework. I
can do the homework. And I asked someone two days
later to be my sponsor. And I've been sober and
a proud member of my twelve step groups ever since.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Well, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
You know, we try to do that here in this space,
to talk openly about.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
People those kinds of challenges will have.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, I mean, make no mistake about it. I mean
everyone has those challenges. Yes, I mean me A person
who doesn't have doesn't want to talk about mental health issues.
Doesn't want to talk about fears and successes and failures.
And I'll show you someone who's really sicker than hurting.
They know and hurting. And you know, it's fascinating because

(37:18):
Jim Ramstead, who was a member of one of my
groups when I was when I sobered up here and
a ferocious advocate for mental health parody laws, actually teamed
up with Paul Wellstone, who I mean you talk about it.
I mean, Jim today would be called a very centrist geopier.

(37:39):
Wellstone today would still be all the way to the
left of center. I mean, he was very much a
progressive progressive and the two of them were fast brands,
and they helped introduce the very first mental health party
law legislation. The first time I ever went to lobby
anyone about anything was with them. Didn't get to say anything.

(38:01):
I was in the shut up and listen of contingent
on the side. But it fascinated me, like, oh my god,
we can change laws and help other people. And that
really set me on the course on the second half
of my life, because you know, people know me over
the last twenty years, most from television and then a

(38:25):
big step down anything else. I mean, television is a
very powerful medium for recognition. However, I probably spend the
majority of my time working for the boards and nonprofits
and civic causes that I hold so near and dear.
One of the big ones is still to try to
put more teeth in the mental health parity laws that

(38:47):
we have on the books. They're a little bit toothless.
Senator Tina Smith, one of my senators here in Minnesota,
has been advocating for that a lot over the last
four years, especially in the wake of the COVID nightmare
that we lived through for so long. So it's kind
of in our Minnesota DNA out here, and we have

(39:09):
so many, so many really committed people around the country
who want there to be a solution for folks for
whom they have. They want to be treated just like
you have a broken arm. You know, the hospital pays
you and bills you, and if the government pays for it,
the government pays for it. And look, I'm no advocate
for the healthcare industry here. I think we've got a

(39:31):
lot of problems with our healthcare system, but we need
to have we need to treat mental health issues the
same way that we treat broken arms because hurt people
hurt people, and we see so much of that in
society today. I think it's really really important.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Yes, and I do too, And I'm wondering if you
can tell me.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
So.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I stay incredibly busy for a number of reasons. One,
I'm always afraid I'm going to lose my job or
one of them, so I I've always gone a bunch
of jobs.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
That's the media paranoia that comes with this industry.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Same same, But also it is good for my mental
health to feel productive. When I don't feel productive, when
I don't feel valued at work, when I feel disconnected
from work, I spiral into a bad place. Because I've
learned through therapy in many years that a lot of
my self worth and self identity is connected to my work, for.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Better or worse. That's just how I am.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Why I say, I mean, there's lots of reasons, but
I was a hyper ambitious kid. I you know, was
great at school but also in this very competitive classical
ballet environment and wanting to be really good at stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
I find it fascinating. I mean, I was talking at
work today with a colleague about burying myself in work
at times in my life as a way to not
deal with something, right, huh. And you know I have
to be very careful that I'm not practicing avoidance. Yes,

(41:14):
when I do that, it's fascinating to hear you talk
about it, as you know, from a productivity standpoint, because
I have. I have learned that and I have to
be careful with it that I can be like, oh no, no, no,
I have to go to one week save the world
crusade over to this far corner, like everything in balance, right,

(41:36):
And you know, so I can feel you know, I
call it work. But if I really look at it carefully,
I can make myself busy in other ways. There are
some people I know who have made themselves busy perpetually
twenty four seven three sixty five through do good riism. Yes, right,
it doesn't matter what it is, it's all. It's all

(41:57):
a different form of avoidance of something. And the avoidance
for me is sitting with my feelings of discontent. I
was in Sicily for eight or nine days and I
had a horrible day. No access to the internet, phone

(42:17):
was I was in rural Sicily. I had to focus
on what I was doing at the time, some of
which was God forbid relaxing for a few hours, that exactly.
And I had to just sit with some really, really
really uncomfortable shit. And that happens to me once a month,

(42:39):
and I have to I have to just literally focus
on the fact that that's what I'm doing and that
it's good for me. Like a sauna that feels too
hot and you're like, I got to get out of here. No,
you don't. You're gonna be fine. You're not going to
pass out. It's not two hundred and ten degrees, right,
it's well below that. You're fine, you're hydrated. It just

(43:03):
feels uncomfortable, right, But sitting with that discomfort is how
is how I learn to not use another crutch like work,
like do good rism or some other some other ism, overeating,
you know, I mean, we gambling. I mean, I could

(43:24):
add seven hundred things to that to that list. They're
all isms. And at least for me, my voyage of
emotional sobriety over the last ten, twelve, fourteen years has
learning how to live with that. What I'm still really
shitty at is telling the people in my life this

(43:45):
is what I'm dealing with. I'm not really pleasant right now.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Yeah, and I need a minute, I need some time.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
And telling people that because they think, I mean your kids,
your significant others, your colleagues are like whoa, someone got
off on the wrong the wrong side.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Of the band.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
It's like, no, I just if truth. Here's the thing
for so many people, and this speaks to being honest.
The truth is option five. The truth should not be
option five. The truth needs to be option one and
option one A and then way far down there is two.

(44:22):
But essentially by telling the truth and not having it
be option five, you then vault ahead of ninety nine
percent of evolved humankind, for whom the initial response, hey,
how you doing fine? Everyone who says that is not fine? Right,
so already they're using what's fine? Option three? Telling some

(44:44):
other lies Option four. I mean option five I always
joke about is the way I want you to think
I am right. It's craziness. And the reason why it's
it's real craziness is that it's super dangerous to how
we live our lives, our relationships to ourselves, our relationships

(45:04):
to other people, that become toxic when we become habitual
untruth tellers. Yeah, it is practice, not perfection.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Right, I've started recently answering that very question, how are
you by saying I don't know, which is one hundred
percent true and liberating and I don't have to be fine.
I don't have to put up a facade. But also
I don't have to unpack it. That's right, because I

(45:35):
don't know it right now. Maybe I'll find out in
my next therapy session. Maybe I'll find out when I'm
on the door. Answer right, But for me, I don't know,
is okay?

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Is enough? Is enough?

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And people laugh because they think I'm joking and it's funny,
and that's fine too. That's fine too. It's disarming a
little bit, But for me, it's an honest answer.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
I don't know. Let me.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
I'll get back to you on that, And there's nothing
wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's a great one. I got to remember that one.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Okay, there's one more question that's a little tough before
we get to sort of.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
A lightning round.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
I love the lightning round.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Oh, the lightning Round's fun.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
I knew this person a little bit at CNN, but
certainly not as well as you knew him.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Tell me about Tony Bourdain.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
The most magnetic, charming, smart person that I've ever met
one of the top five. You know, hard to think
of another four, But you know, I don't want to
be so absolutist or put him up on too much

(47:03):
of a pedestal. A glorious, glorious human being funnier in hell.
For those of us that were close to him, I'm
not sure there was anything more fun than the two
times a year we were in either that we were

(47:25):
in the same city and one of us would text
the other one like, oh my god, we're both in Paris,
or we're both in New York, or we're both in
la or whatever. I want to grab dinner. Yeah, and
we would go out to dinner and laugh yeah, so hard.
I mean how he was in real life and is

(47:50):
how he was in many ways on TV, but in private,
so wickedly funny and by the way, conversing about things
that he and the other person wanted to converse about.
So I mean, just fantastic, glorious, glorious human being and someone.

(48:13):
But you know, I think about him all the time,
but I'm also asked about him on a weekly basis.
I'm not sure I goes by oh yeah, because it's
it's you know, he has that kind of outsized impact
on our culture and just adored him a great, great
great man.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Okay, lightning round Question one, Why walnuts?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
The answer really is why walnuts?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
But people like them. It's a thing that people like.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Fine, and that's why there's chocolate and vanilla walnuts. Walnuts
are arguably the least interesting nut on planet Earth, right
above a brazil nut. When they're when you have to
walk past a beautiful roasted pecan to get to a walnut.
I don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
That it's interesting. But why do you dislike them so much?

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Because I don't like them? And when you have spent
hours telling the world how delicious fermented walrus anus can be,
you get to not like a couple of things. So
I don't like walnuts. I don't like raw cookie dough
ice cream, I don't like raw cookie dough. I don't
like oatmeal.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
These are odd things to not like, considering the things
you have eaten and enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
I can make a very powerful case for all of them.
Oatmeal is essentially gruel with Oliver twist. When Dickens wanted
to put the worst possible to do that in an
orphan's bowl, it was gruel. Otherwise known as oatmeal.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Okay, perfect, Okay, the bear. How realistic is it? Uh?

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Very? I see it more as a passion play about
isms and alcoholism. Are there some cartoonish elements in it
that are played for the theatricality of the of the
entertainment vehicle? Of course, of course there are. I got

(50:19):
into it the other day with someone who said, well, yeah,
I think it was you know, season one, episode four
or five, the cousin puts the tranquilizers and the kids
punch at the birthday party. All the kids are passed
out on the lawn end scene. We all know that
if that happened in real life police swat team, I

(50:42):
mean eighteen children on the ground, jail, it's jail, I
mean so, and that didn't happen, So it's it's obviously there.
And I use that as an example because that, to me,
was the biggest thing in season one that wasn't necessarily true.
And I don't really care that they have no money,
and yet in season one, Army is you know out,

(51:05):
you know, getting people to stage with them and doing
all this kind of dreaming and stuff like that. If
you're looking at it so hard, then you're missing the
beauty of what's going on in front of you. Entourage,
same thing, La law same thing, you know. I mean,
they're they're great shows. I have lawyer friends that can't
watch lawyer shows. I get it. I get it. I

(51:27):
have trouble watching food shows, I'm sure. But that one,
that one I love, that one I like. And you know,
I have look, I know everyone, you know, I know
the people in it. And with each increasing year, they
have more and more cameos and more and more in
this and more and more of that. I was backstage
at the Beard Awards, the first one after COVID, I think,

(51:49):
and I was going out to present an award. I was,
I think I was. I was in between hosting years
and I'm standing there and I'm getting ready for my
queue and I sent someone's behind me, and I turned
around and it's Jeremy Allen White and I knew him.
The bear hadn't come out yet, but people knew the
bear was coming out. But I knew him from that

(52:13):
great show on Showtime with William Macy about the Alcoholic Family.
I'm banking on the name, and he a show that
really did alcoholism. I mean, they nailed a couple of
things about alcoholism. Shamel, Well, they're Shameless, thank you. And
I turned around to him and I said, oh my gosh.
I turned to introduce myself. I said, I'm Andrew Zimmern.

(52:35):
I'm a big fan of your work on Shameless. And
he looked at me and he just was kind of
like dumbstruck for a second. And you have to remember
the show's not come out yet, but he's still a
working actor with a big show on television. And he
looks at me and he says, if I could tell
you how many times I've watched your show, listen to

(52:58):
take you know, like in doing research for the Bear,
because he was about to give the award after the
award that I was going out to give, and they
kind of queue you up like planes on the tarmac
as you're getting ready to take off. And I talked
him for a little while afterwards. An absolutely brilliant, insightful guy.
Can't wait to see what he does with Bruce Springsteen.

(53:20):
Love what they've done. I love with Chris Storer. Taking
nothing away from the great acting in that show. The
ensemble is fantastic, the writing is great. But Chris Storer,
the creator, writer, director, who's the artistic genius sort of
behind the thing is just lights out brilliant.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I consulted for a show, an Aaron Sorkin show called
the Newsroom, and he.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
Would I'd be on Aaron.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
He'd call in the break to be like, what you know,
unpack what just happened, and blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
One time.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
I saw a script and in it a producer is
calling for sound on tape and in the business which
that's a SOT, and we just call it a SOT,
And I said.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Aaron, No one would say that.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
No producer would say, okay, now we go to sound
on tape.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
They'd say, now we go to SOT. And he goes,
I don't like the way that sounds.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
It sounds ugly, said okay, And he's right, of course,
viewers don't care about versamilitude. But this is this is
a thing that comes up repeatedly, especially with a lot
of sort and work, because he, you know, he has
very particular ways about the way things should sound.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I'm kind of obsessed by him, he has said. As
someone who writes and someone who makes TV and makes
TV for other people and does all that other kind
of stuff, I'm always for some reason, he always pops
into my head. I mean for a million great sortasms.
But you know, put two people in the room who
disagree and you have a story, and I just love

(54:57):
how distilled down and simple that is. I was a
huge fan of Newsroom. I've had the opportunity to do
three or four different shows like that where I was
the you know, off camera consultant, none of which went
every anywhere. So I'm over four. So I'm like, oh,
you know, for Frick's sake, when is when is it?

(55:20):
When is my We were we were so close, like
uh like a year ago. We'll we'll get there, We'll
get there, So I can you know, I can put
all my It's.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Really They're great. I did.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
I did the Newsroom, and then I consulted on Apple
TV's The Morning Show, which when I was brought in
was meant to be a comedy. I was very excited
about someone kind of skewering my business and making fun
of it, and it turned into a drama after.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
But but it's.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
A good drama, A good drama.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
Oh it's terrific.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I love Newsroom. I mean there's things in Newsroom that
I you know, still to this day, will pull up
on YouTube or something, and.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
It was wonderful because yeah, I love it, so what
a great show. I made some wonderful friends from that business. Okay,
best food Destination.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
You know, earlier in the podcast, you asked what I
thought was one of the most insightful questions that nobody
has ever asked me.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Oh, and then this is the worst, got it? Okay?

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Now the worst? The worst one is what's the worst
thing you've ever eaten?

Speaker 3 (56:25):
I would never ask you that.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
And but but here's the problem with this is the
second work Best Destination. No, it's it's just it's trying
to compare things for which there is no equal footing
to compare those and you know you, I mean, look,
France and Italy have very narrow takes on food.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Mm hmm okay, but they do them so well.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
They're an inch deep and they're an inch wide. But
everything in that box is insanely great, right, and I
love eating there. Yeah, you know. Mexico China are the
two greyst cuisines in the world. They are a mile
wide and a mile deep. The techniques, the regions, the flavors,

(57:11):
the textures, the contrasts, the difference in style, you don't
even know you're eating the same country. If I put
two bowls of food in front of you simultaneously, if
I was able to sort of play that way, you know,
So do I pick anything from those four? Everyone? Everyone?
Who I When I'm telling you, you know, gun to

(57:35):
my head, send me to Tokyo. Y you know, send
me to Tokyo. And then once I say that, I'm like, jeez,
but what about and oh gosh, you know the answer.
You know, there's food is so good all over the world.
My usual stock answer that is wherever I've just come
back from. And I just came back from Sicily, where

(57:58):
I was reminded about how perfect microregional Italian cuisine is,
to the point where I was in an olive vineyard
and I had a bowl of chickpea soup with five
ingredients in it. One of the ingredients was brand new
oil just been crushed, bitter and green and drizzled all
on top of it. I literally said, this is the

(58:21):
best I turned someone next to me, I said, this
is the best thing I've eaten in the last five years.
And I hunt it. And then I was talking about
this chickpea soup at a at a vineyard like ten
kilometers away and they're like, oh, there's chickpea soup around here.
I mean like literally, it was like we made fava

(58:41):
bean soup, we would chickpeas. What are you crazy? And
I just I mean that's how micro regional and unique
Italy is in a way that many just doesn't exist
almost any other place in the world where it's microregional,
micro seasonal, and micro simple. It just it's unique that way,

(59:03):
and it's why we love it. That and tomatoes have
all those glutamates.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Yes, right, Okay, Yeah, what's the best movie about food?

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Someone posted that question on Twitter the other day, sorry,
on x the other day, and I had to scroll
through about one thousand really bad answers to find someone
who mentioned what I believe are the truly great food
movies of this or any other age, in no particular order.

(59:33):
Big Night is in my top five. Yeah, but The Cook,
the Thief, her wife, and his lover is number two
for me. Babbett's Feast is number one. Okay, Babbet's Feast
is one of the most brilliant food movies ever made.
Because I am increasingly convinced that most people in the

(59:55):
food industry are not talking about what defines Babbett's feast,
and that that is I'll put my chef hat on,
I toil for two days over a dish, I put
it in a bowl, I put it down in front
of you. I am done with my relationship with that dish.
That is it. My experience is over. Your experience starts,

(01:00:18):
and they are too, can can be diametrically opposed, they
can have overlap, but it is a completely different experience.
I don't think we talk about that enough. We fetishize,
We fetishize the world of the chef. We fetishize just
look at Instagram and TikTok and all the rest of
the world of the eater, right, and we're not understanding

(01:00:39):
that they are two very different experiences. They are not
the same experience shared by two different types of people.
They are different experiences. And that that's feast. That is
the integral part of that idea. She serves this incredible
multi course meal to people who've never seen this type
of food before. Eat Drink Man Woman, Uh, Tampopo, Big

(01:01:02):
Night are all right up there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
For me, those are great. I love Big Night. It's
one of my all time favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Movies as as as do I as do I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Okay, the last question is very very important to me culturally,
spiritually spicy Mark.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Hmm oh, I thought the answer was going to be
spicy Mark close though. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
When is iced coffee season.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Well, I drink an inordinate amount of coffee and I
do pour over coffee, so it's like consummate. It's very
low acid. So if the pot doesn't get consumed, it
goes into the refrigerator. And when I get a quart
of it, yes, I turn it into granita. I turn
it into something I will cook with it, or I

(01:01:53):
will just that's a Sunday morning milk ice and just
sip it all more long.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
I love ice coffee twelve months a year, and that
includes January Minnesota when it's thirty below zero.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
That is the correct answer. The correct answers. Your route,
your route, You answered correctly. I knew you would. I
knew you would. Thank you, my friend. This was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Coming up next week on Off the Cup, I sit
down and talk to doctor Drew Pinsky.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
By the way, there's no blueprint for anything I've done.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
I did not expect to be doing any of this,
It happened by an accident.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Off the Cuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
If you want more, check out the other Reason.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land Pod.
For Off the Cop, I am your host, Si Cup.
Editing and sound design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are me Se Cop, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. Rate
and review wherever you get your podcasts, follow or subscribe
for new episodes every Wednesday.