December 29, 2025 • 37 mins
One of the most influential portrait photographers of the last century Annie Leibovitz sits down with Ruthie to talk about her early career at Rolling Stone, the importance of feeding the people she’s shooting, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Preorder Table 4 at The River Cafe—the star-studded, food-filled book inspired by the beloved podcast: https://bit.ly/Table4AtRiverCafeBook
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ruthie's Table four is now on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
To watch this episode and others, just visit Ruthy's Table
four dot com forward slash YouTube.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me
and em Intelligence Style for Busy Women. Last November, after
a long day in the River cafe, I was finally
getting into a taxi there when I saw three women
kind of lost looking for our front door. Instinctively, I
(00:30):
felt they were from New York, and instinctively I knew
it had been a long day for them too. It
was only when they were safely inside that I looked
up and saw someone I'd never met, but I'd always loved,
Annie Leibowitz. The restaurant wasn't ready for dinner, but we
went to a table close to the kitchen. It began
a conversation that I wished could have lasted forever. What
(00:54):
we were thinking, of, the books we'd been reading, where
we were going, how we were feeling, and the friends
we shared. Today. Annie is here at home to continue
the conversation. We'll talk about food, our memories, her mother's
recipe for chicken liver, and most of all, her book
Women That is next to my bed. Annie Leebou. It's
(01:15):
a woman I met in the rain, a woman I
loved before meeting her, and a friend I love now.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So we were just that day.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes, we were just coming from Linda and it's very
rare that we have time at the end of the day.
And Catherine said, come on, we're going to go to
River Cafe. And we couldn't believe it that we could
find the door or anything. And the Rear Cafe is
probably the most iconic restaurant in London, and you know
(01:48):
it's usually like hard to get into. But there was
a time in the late nineties, you know, when I
was with Susan Sontag. She was obsessed with food and
going out and and my time with her, I really
learned about going out to eat. With Susan Sontak, you know,
(02:10):
she loved the River.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Was it Did you ever cook at home? And it
was food going out?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, at a certain point, you know, I really wanted
I wanted to stay home, and I started to argue
with her about not going out all the time. And
you know, she knew Alice Waters and honestly, everything that
I know about food screams down from from Alice Waters. Well,
(02:37):
that's a.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Good that's a good stream down because she is an influence.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I had to cook, you know Mona Talbot who worked
with Alice, And you know, all the people I know
are kind of like in food. I'm a big admirer
of food, but I don't cook myself because I'm I'm
working all the time. But I having children, I wanted
them to to eat well. And you know, we really
(03:03):
you know Mona Talbot and Laura's Reuben, if you know
Laura's Reuben, but they were they each one of them,
you know, had worked, had worked for me, and now
they are on off on their own.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I was going to ask you, So you grew up,
you had you had six children in your family, So
you had a mother who cooked.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Father, Yeah, she cooked, but she was The food was
was really not very very good.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
If you're feeding six children, by the way, I mean that,
but how many what level? Where are you in the sty?
I mean the third two older and right? Were younger?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And what was that like having all those kids? Did
you all sit down to dinner every night?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Tried? You know, my my father was in the military.
He had come back from World War two, and started
a business in Waterbury, Connecticut. It kind of went bankrupt,
and then he went back into the military. And then
we grew up, you know, moving every couple of.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Years, going you know, on the road somewhere.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Blocks in Mississippi, for Worth, Texas, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Because he was because of the military, and he stayed
in the military.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
He stayed in the military. He retired and then he
went into you know, building houses, and he succeeded, you know,
he did very well.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And so what was it like sitting down to dinner
with six children your mother? Would she cook a different
meal every day or would they all kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Depending on what day of the week it was. That's
what like, you know, Friday night was fish sticks, Saturday
was hot hot dogs. You know, it's like Sunday would
be a roast beef. You know.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Did she work? Did she have a job?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean she didn't really on and off she she worked,
you know, but she pretty much you know, had us
and it was full on. But she was such a
bad cook. She didn't want us the vision she was
and she was not a good cook, I see, And
I didn't know that food could taste cook until you know,
(05:09):
I left home. I didn't know bread. It was like
like wonderbread. And so when we left home. But she
was a great baker.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
She actually so she cooked. That's cooking.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was a great baker. And she would make the
best desserts and pumped.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
But I remember what you remember her?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
The Angel food cake. Angel food cake was our birthday cake.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That cake that rises very high and it was beautiful.
And did you but the's still the meals? Would you all?
Was it chaotic or did you? Because I'm still slightly
overwhelmed by six children. Part of the still I.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Think, especially as as you know, my older sister and
brother left for college and and it just sort of
dwindled down. Yeah, it was hard to We tried. I
think there was an attempt to try to sit together,
but it didn't really didn't always work. She never I'm
(06:08):
just remembering. She never really sat down for dinner.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
She didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She would like stand in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And did your father cook it all?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Okay, did you know he would?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well he could do egg plant on the you know,
because his mother cooked. His mother who was your grandmother,
they Rachel Rachel Rachel leeve Vits. But you would go
to her house and she would always have a kitchen.
She always have a chicken in a that's pretty good.
She always had chicken. She lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, So
(06:40):
you know, I would say, when I started working for
Rolling Stone, you know, and I was working on the
East Coast, I would sometimes, you know, go up and.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
See her drive is a chicken liver recipe that you have?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The chicken liver is my mother.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So when she wasn't baking, she did make a recipe
that you have. How many years later this is kept We.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
All remember this because you know, and and it's true
to her. In her later years, she was saved food.
I mean, I think, you know, being not having much money,
they were very careful about about food, and so she
would save food and you know, leftovers. And then when
(07:23):
you would go visit my father and my mother in
their later years, there'd be things in the refrigerator you'd
be afraid to will. You didn't know what you were,
you know, you'd be afraid to eat. She was great
around the holidays. She loved holidays.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And when would you have the chicken liver?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Almost every holiday she would make she would make this, uh,
this chopped chip chick chopped chicken liver.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was your identity as a family Jewish family. So
and what was the background where did they come with
a your grandparents come or your great grandparents?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, uh, but my father Romania and his mother Romania
and then my mother was Curi and which is really
Russia at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, so the identity of Jewish food chicken liver. I
grew up, you know, chicken livers. It was very kind
of identifiable recipe for a kitchen.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
She left us a recipe, but it was it was
still like it's it's still very vague. You know. My
my younger sister and I tried to make it. We're
not too sure of the ingredients, and we worked on it.
The last few usually happens at at I know it's
a chicken liver, but we usually do it at beleeve
(08:47):
or not at Thanksgiving. So we go out and get
the chicken livers and you make it. It is funny
because when my mother my father died first, and when
then when my mother died, and we were going through
through all the belongings in the house, and you know,
between the six of us, you know, everyone pretty much
talked about what they would like to have out of
(09:07):
what was there of my my parents. Everyone was very
happy with you know, how we divided everything up. And
I have one sister who's a lawyer, so she was
there in case, you know, we decided, you know, there
was a problem. So there was only one problem, and
that was my sister Barbara wanted chopping device, you know,
(09:29):
there and there, So there were actually two of them,
and then there were wooden bowl two wooden bowls that
they made the chicken liver. My mom made the chicken livers,
and so there was a bit a bit of a
fight for it. So we had to like draw straws,
you know, and you wanted it and she wanted she
wanted it.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, it was great and who got it? She got it?
I got the secondary one though, And what is that photograph?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's my mother who was a hard act to follow
for sure. I mean she danced. She took you know,
lessons from Martha and Graham when she was young.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And did she dance with you? Did you dance with her?
With her?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
She sent us all to dance lessons. I mean I've
gone to dance classes with her. But you know, I
mean she danced until you know, until until you know,
late in her life.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, she studied with.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
No not with Twilight with.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Martha Graham and Martha if.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You if you look at photographer's life, there were photographs
of her father.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
This photographs taken at your mother and just to.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The Hampton's just my father and mother just on the
beach and my mom's just doing her kick. She was
famous for her kick whenever.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And if we can see this on YouTube, we can.
On the audio we can, but it's beautiful. Did you
mostly eat out? Did you eat out restaurants or six ado?
We never could never eat out.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I even remember there was a period of tiv dinners
you yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
After living at home, when when did you leave home?
What did you do when you well, I kind of
went to.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
High school in the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco,
And it's not quite clear to me when food really
became more important. I knew it tasted better when I left,
for sure. I think the first year I was I
(11:32):
was away from home. I ate corn flakes and ice cream,
you know, I mean I didn't really you know that
you went.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
To when you went to the Art Institute that presumably
had an apartment or you lived in No, I had residence.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, I lived the first first semester with my older
sister who was in Berkeley, and then moved into the
city into into an apartment, and then shared an apartment
on on Telegraph Hill. What year was that, sixty nine nineties?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, in sixty nine. I came here because a lot
of my friends were leaving for the draft, you know,
because of the war. There's a picture upstairs I'll show
you have a demonstration outside the embassy. But they were
heady times, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I do want to say it was interesting coming into
to London and I was in Spain just you know,
opening a show there of fashion work at the mob
Foundation there in a Corona, and just leaving the United
States and coming into London. It just it just felt
(12:35):
so normal.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We can talk about that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
In your perception it may not be, but compared to
America now, it's just you don't realize the tension and
the impression and the oppression in the era. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I was there last week, and I mean every morning
I wake up and I read the New York Times,
you know, and every night I go to bed and
I watched Christian on a Board else on CNN. So
you feel I mean, I do feel it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You try not to see the news all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, but you can't. You can't, you can't, well, I can't.
But then I always say, it's a bit like pollution.
You know that we're walking around and we don't you know,
if we don't see it, we know there is something
in the air that's getting inside us and making us sick.
It's like when people swam when there was small in California.
Do you remember in the eighties and people would swim
(13:27):
and a friend of mine said, you'd get out of
the pool and you couldn't catch your breath. And sometimes
I personally feel I can't catch your breath because it's
so bad you know what is going on in our country.
But I think there probably is a bit of distance
that you get here. I know from friends of mine
who live in New York or California wherever they're living,
and they get here, they say exactly what you say.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Really, it just feels it's that palatable, you know that
you feel. I mean, you think, well, now you understand
why people move here. I mean, I'm I'm American, and
I'm I'm going to I have I have work to
do there, you know, I want to work on, you know,
(14:10):
whatever can be done. I mean, it was interesting. I
saw Christian Naboord do an interview with John Stewart.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah he's great. Yeah, he is phenomenal and she is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They both she said, you know, she made me feel like,
you know, we are doing our job. We're reporting this,
we're we're going to continue doing this. We're going to
just and that is what we need to just keep doing.
So it was very promising to hear her speak, even
though it's it's really it's really hard.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think that's what I ask everyone is how do
we oppose? You know, I know how we used to
pose you stop, you demonstrate, you don't pay your taxes,
you chain yourself to the West House, and then you think,
what do we how do we do that now? But
I think, you know, and I don't know, we just
every day we're thinking about it and acting on it
(15:05):
and talking. I think it is important to talk about
it and to take steps and to be you know,
as we just saw in the White House the other
day in the Oval office, with an ABC journalist being
spoken to in a way, or a Bloomberg journalist being
called picky, you know, why didn't people walk. You know,
why didn't everyone just walk out of that room say
this cannot be done. You cannot do this, you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Know speaking, which is why you know, you know the
Women's book, you.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Know, yes, let's talk about that with this.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I feel so responsible to it. I wish I was.
The people who should be talking are really the people
who wrote the essays, you know, Susan Sontag and Glorious
Steynem and Shim and Manda. You know, the essays are
amazing and they are they are really really they are.
And it was interesting with with Gloria because I really
(15:59):
when her right away when I when I thought about
doing the second volume, you know, and you know, she
she wrote something that was you know, nice to begin with,
and I I, you know, I called her back up
and I said, Gloria, no, you need to tell us
where we are. What's going on? Are we gone backwards?
(16:21):
You know since we lost roe versus weight? What is
going Yeah, you know, like where you know? And she
put it into perspectives so well. I mean, she grew
up in the fifties and she said, we're not going backwards,
you know. And I loved Chimamanda saying, you know, these
women in the new book. You couldn't done that those
(16:44):
photographs twenty five years ago. Why these women are she said,
fearlessly confident? You know it's true? I mean I felt
that was the word I was using, was that I
felt a comp evidence in who we are as women
today in these photographs. But when she said fearlessly you know,
(17:08):
or and quietly confident, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Well, tell me about the first volume in the second pisode,
the first one was written.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, no, the first the first one was done with
Susan's antag nineteen.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's what I was asking the nineteen ninety and she
that was twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yes, and things weren't. We're pretty good for women. I
mean in the late nineties, middle late nineties, it was
you know, it just came out of Hillary Clinton at
the Beijing Conference for Women as the first lady saying
you know that that speech for things went you know,
it went viral basically where she said, you know, women's rights,
her human rights, human rights, women's rights.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It was Susan's idea to do a book on women,
and I thought it was a bad idea because I
just thought it was too big of a subject. It
was like you're talking about, you know, doing your book
with everche you know, just pick one.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
One thing, Lemons. But there is a continuity to it.
There is a power to that book that it has.
It has a range, but it has a very each page,
every photograph takes you there. And then sometimes I look
at it, as I said, it's next to my bed
and an original. Do you have the when it first
came out, No, I don't, No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So you know, I I too think it's it's like
a remarkable book. It was designed by Ruth Ansel. It
was really a great designer and and there was a
lot of thought put into it. It was it was
really yeah, we we imagined. I mean I I kind
of thought about every single walk of life, try to
(18:40):
try to have as many different walks of life as possible.
And it was really kind of modeled after August Sanders
book on you know, people in different trades, you know,
in Germany. It took it took you know, three years,
three four years, you know, photographs done for the book.
So and this, So the second volume is really just
(19:00):
an homage to the first volume. It's just a collection
of work that I've been in the last thirty years,
twenty five, thirty years since the first volume, and certainly
I never had any kind of plans to to make that,
to make another volume on women, you know, so this
was this was like it's more like a magazine. You know.
(19:22):
I just kind of like, did it really? We did
this in a year? We did this like really fast,
and that is fast. Hillary Clinton had had come to
me about a year ago and said, we really would
like to commemorate the original book from nineteen ninety nine,
and the book was out of print, and I thought
it was an interesting idea, and then we thought about
(19:46):
I thought about this companion book to put with it.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Did you mean Alice, by the way, in the early
is that when you were there, not till.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
You really knowing Susan, I mean I opened up the whole,
you know, I became a little more serious knowing Susan.
But I met, you know, so many incredible people.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I mean, Susan loved food. Susan loved Did she grow
up with good food?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
She?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Did she grow up with good food in her That's
a good question.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I mean she would have been a great person for
your Gusty, because you know, we ate out every every
every single night, and she would you know, comb the
New York Times for reviews of restaurants, and all over
her refrigerator would be she ripped them out and put
them on the refrigerator, and and she when she walked
(20:35):
into a restaurant, it was like, you know, the Queen
was walking and they always had a table, you.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Know, for her, and she was I was just reading
about Joan Didion. Did you read that piece in the
New York Times?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
No, I did. I did not read that piece about
their Thanksgiving. I know, I know many people who went
to that Thanksgiving. They were kind of like people had
no place else to go.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
They were.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Mona Talbot, who it's kind of like this protege from
from Alice Waters. We were doing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton,
and you know, Mona was cooking for me at the
time because I had managed to talk to Susan into
letting me have a cook and then you know, like
maybe once or twice a week we would eat at home.
She's the one who, for Susan's sixtieth birthday made her brains.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Very funny actually, to give Susan brains exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So it was great to be home eating.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Did you eats.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I didn't. I don't remember eating them.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Susan would eat anything, you know, So she made her brains.
But Mona stayed on through my first having my first daughter, Sarah,
and she's the godmother of Sarah. And but when we
had that fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, she insisted upon bringing
in apples from the Hudson Valley and and it was
(22:06):
it was like, she said, why do people buy fruit
from Florida? You know, you have the Huston Valley which
has this incredible fruit and farms. It's amazing. And I
honestly never understood that about the Husson Valley. And it
was like she really has helped develop the whole food
(22:27):
idea in the Husson Valleys. You know, it's like sort
of sprung out from from Alice. And so she has
a wonderful uh place in Husson that she's you know,
sells food from all the wonderful farmers and everything. And
but anyway, I ended up finding this place upstate because
(22:49):
you know, I didn't even know there was an upstate.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's amazing and it's fine that we call upstate state state,
but it's very tied to New York. So tell me
about it. What is Do you have a farm there?
Do you grow?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
No? I have a couple of hundred acres, but we
is it on the river. The buildings aren't on the river.
I was always gonna build on the river, but you
could walk out to the river. But it does go
out to the river. But for sure, we have a
vegetable garden that we love. And we have chickens, you know,
(23:24):
and we nothing like fresh eggs. And my daughters they
all are great cooks, are they Okay, they have a.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Susan here, so tell me about their cooking.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
They you know what, I'm impressed with my older daughter.
She can make anything out of leftovers. It's kind of impressive.
You know. She loves to to dabble like that. And
she and I have a cook but she doesn't want
the cook to cook for she likes to cook, you know,
for herself. You know, Sarah, the older one. Imagine having
mona talbot, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
And and Laura's Reuben, who is another Alice Waters person,
you know, kind of mentor these girls as they grew
up and taught them everything about cooking, and so it's
kind of wonderful. They kind of broke that you know,
I've gotten into it a wonderful place with understanding food
(24:23):
and seasonal food. Particularly. Yeah, my daughter Sarah loves the
British Bakeoff.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Oh, let's talk about the British Guess what I auditioned
for that And I didn't get the part. Oh my god,
somebody else she was that wasn't critical enough, she.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Says, watch. And then what she likes to do is
in is in the middle of the program, she likes
to make go to the kitchen and make a dessert
and then come back out and then because it's taped, yeah,
and and and and you know, eat a dessert, you know,
like you know, she makes these incredible desserts, you know
that are that are kind of amazing chocolate.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
This and that is that when you're at the art institute.
Was that when you started doing photography? Because I was
going to ask you about photography.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
As a painting major and took a night class night
classic photography, and uh and loved it. And you know,
loved you know, because I was an awkward, undeveloped person
and you know, developed, not developed, and the photography just
took you out and socialized you and took you out
(25:36):
into the world, and I don't know if it's much
better right now.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But yeah, no it is. Did you take the photography
and then continue with that through through school?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You know, it was the middle of viennam War. Yeah,
the g I s would come back through San Francisco
and and g I Bill they could go to school.
So there were a lot of so you know, met
a lot of photographers who were soldiers and it was
such a difficult time in America. I actually made a
(26:08):
decision to go to Israel, and.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I didn't know if I was going to come back
as a student or.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Still as a student. I set up with my own
kind of program where I would go away for a
semester or a year and then but I ended up
going back to school. And then within a semester, my
boyfriend drew me down to Rolling Stone Magazine and I
showed them my work and they started. You know, I
didn't eve get a.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Chance that Rolling Stone started in San Francisco. And then
so you started working with you when I'm at Rolling
Stone in those early days.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Right, and so thirteen years there, How old were you
probably nineteen twenty?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, So did you finish school?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
And then my father insisted that I finished school and
they let me graduate early. I graduated a year early.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And how did it work at Rolling Stone? Did he
would he say, we're going to do a story about
well they were doing, and you have to take photo
visuals that they want.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It was more of a well, they liked the idea
that I could you know, take photographs and it didn't
look like it was going to cost them very much money,
you know, and it was it was it was kind
of a you know, it wasn't just about music, it
was you know, about popular culture.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And political going on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And actually my first cover was Jean was Away and
it was a protest in the middle of San Francisco
and you know, allan is were smoking a joint and
you know, and they ran that well, while jan was away,
they ran it into cover. They wait, Yan went away,
and they would run things that you know, he didn't
(27:46):
necessarily so he did a cover of Rolling Stone when
you were how old, you say, nineteen twenty maybe yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And then what was the heavy days life? And did
Yon like to eat? Did you guys go out? Was
food any endportant? They they were very sophisticated that when
you learned I believe it would be good. That is
that when you discovered that eating could taste of something good.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think just things just tasted better in general, you know, regardless.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
But did you travel, did you experience other cultures? Did
you have other food from other cultures? Great food, Indian food,
Chinese food, Well, in San Francisco you can get all
of that, you know, Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What was it like?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
So then you went to New York just going through
the trajectory of your life. You went from San Francisco
and Rolling Stone to New York to New.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
York and the latest they moved in the latest seventies.
And I thought I was going to go for a year, yeah,
you know, And I didn't think I And it was
hard for me to leave California. I loved California so much.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I loved it. Had you been to New York but
you knew it, You're going to a city that you
vaguely knew or well, they.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Joan and Jane were very comfortable with New York, but
I it was never that comfortable. I don't think I
became so comfortable with New York until Susan. You know,
did you meet to Susan taking her photograph. Yeah, for
Aids and his metaphors a book, but she didn't use
it on the book.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
She used it was called it was metaphor. It wasn't
illness as metaphor.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You're right, it was illness.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's an really important but it's important to say it's
the important book for meating that Ellis is a metaphor. Yeah,
you said that you loved her voice. What was her
voice like or was it the words in the voice
or was it the voice itself?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was probably all together, you know, just you know,
you couldn't stay mad at her too long because you know,
the way she would say things, it was quite beautiful.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And so you were in New York with Susan in
the eighties and this is the eighties, late eighties, you know,
to the late nineties.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, late eighties. I think my real food adventures started,
like so many other parts of life, meeting incredible people,
you know, really started with Susan, you know, and and
and and understanding and appreciating the art of good food,
(30:19):
a really really really good food.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And would she would she kind of say to you
try this and try that, or she.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Did it, did it, But we never we never liked
you know, high end anything. It was it was all
that was all fake, you know, to us it was
it was more like, you know, when she found a
place that she loved, she would returned to it over
and over again, like the River Cafe with Howard you
know so and you know, honest to god, they were
(30:53):
food snops. She also she did like Chinatown. We would
go down I remember now in New York in the
mornings on Sundays, we would go to the flea market
and then we would go down to Chinatown and have
them some if. She loved that on Sunday mornings. It
was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
What was her routine when she was working with writing?
Would she eat at the desk? Would shed a day? Yeah,
she would just start writing and stay there.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah. No, Sometimes she would break away and and and
at the kitchen table.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Do you think that was partly the solitary? Is your
being a writer? Is that in the evening you want
to go out? That having been insane totally that she.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
She You know, it drove me crazy because I would
be if I was out, I was usually working all
day and then I came home and want to go out,
and she would want to. I mean we didn't literally
live together. We had two apartments in the same building.
But you know, she she always wanted to go out.
It was because of you know, she would work all
(31:55):
day long and a lot. It wasn't easy for her
to write. I mean some write like she would gets
so mad about Larry McNulty. You know, you know that
he could like write eleven pages in the morning and
then you know, go off and she it was all
emotional writing for her. So I think she really saw
going out to dinner as a release. Release definitely a release,
(32:17):
a way to you know, reward herself at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Did she drink good wine? Did she care about wine? Yeah?
I think that the it's very similar to but it's
like the artists of the you know that those the
sort of seventies and eighties in Maxis, Kansas City and
working painting all day and then going out at night.
You know, whereas the work that you do and the
(32:42):
work that I do and work there was filmmakers do.
It's very collaborative. There's a team, there's people, there's all that,
and so when you come home from that you just
want to probably do little, whereas if you're sitting in
front of a typewriter or a computer.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Then yeah, it was hard for me, for me to
for me to go out, but I I but it
was great, It was great. I enjoyed her enjoying it.
The reward, you know, at the end of the day,
after you work, you know, to to go out. And
I was thinking about here in England. I was trying
to remember the shoots and I was thinking, like, for example,
(33:20):
working with Nicole Kimmen in Charleston, photographing there and what
was that?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
What was that for? What was it you were photographing probably.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
For probably for Vogue and she was on eyes wide
shut and you know, to to finish the day and
then be able to come to you know, sometimes Susan
would accompany on some of those trips and she would
stay at the Cannock. She just knew the you know
(33:48):
the best.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Graydon Carter, he's here, you know, I saw him last night,
see a lot of great when he's here. Say hello,
Well he said, he just come for Thanksgiving. But he
said you when you did a photo shoot that you
always fed people who were working very very well. Do
you do you do you believe in giving? Is that
(34:09):
something that you care about is making sure that the
people who are.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think we have we have. I mean usually it
goes over several hours, so we want to make sure
everyone's you know, eating well. I don't know. I don't
think twice of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No, he said it was unique anyway that he thought
you're concerned.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Talking to Katherine McLeod and she we were talking because
I was asking about food experiences while working, and she said,
like in La we built a chef and food in
you know, in the studios there, you know, and had Yeah. No,
I do believe in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Do you eat when you're working?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
How do you? I'm careful. I'd like to eat right
after I yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, it's like making a movie or theater. People always
want to eat after the play rather than.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You have all those restaurants around those Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
What are your what are you? I'm on the road
with talking about the women's book. I know I'm headed
back to to more portraiture and stories and excited about
what's happening in some politics right now. The governor of California,
the women who won all.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
These great Stitts, and a mayor of New York and
the mayor of New York.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
So I'm interested in in in doing work and you know,
along those lines when I get back and I'm sort
of making my lists about, you know how, who I
want to photograph.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So before we go, we have one last question, which
is that a food is you know, a memory for
you of your of your mother's chicken liver, and it's
it's it's something that you you have on the shoot
so you work or you alleviate hungary. It's also comfort.
So if you come home nights, or you've had a
hard day, or you want to go out and have
(36:08):
something that will just give you comfort. Is there a
food that you would reach for?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It can be a peanut butter sandwich, you can.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I do love peanut butter and jelly. I mean, you know,
from from from having the children and having you know,
when you go on the plane. Now there's no there's
really not any very good food. So I used to
pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for them, and then
I would eat them too because I love them. I
actually I did love peanut butter and jelly. It's true.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I know that I've reached sometimes for but I've had
a bad day, I'll want some pasta because it kind
of I love comfort, you.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Know, when I'm when I'm alone in the house and
the cooks off or whatever, you know, I'll boil a
couple of hot dogs.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Okay, thank you, Annie, Let's go have some food. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Ruthie's Table for was produced by Alex Bow, Robbie Hamilton,
and Zad Rogers, with Andrew Sang, Daniel Naranjo Rodriguez and
Bella Selini. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Ruthie's Table four is now on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
To watch this episode and others, just visit Ruthy's Table
four dot com forward slash YouTube.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me
and em Intelligence Style for Busy Women. Last November, after
a long day in the River cafe, I was finally
getting into a taxi there when I saw three women
kind of lost looking for our front door. Instinctively, I
(00:30):
felt they were from New York, and instinctively I knew
it had been a long day for them too. It
was only when they were safely inside that I looked
up and saw someone I'd never met, but I'd always loved,
Annie Leibowitz. The restaurant wasn't ready for dinner, but we
went to a table close to the kitchen. It began
a conversation that I wished could have lasted forever. What
(00:54):
we were thinking, of, the books we'd been reading, where
we were going, how we were feeling, and the friends
we shared. Today. Annie is here at home to continue
the conversation. We'll talk about food, our memories, her mother's
recipe for chicken liver, and most of all, her book
Women That is next to my bed. Annie Leebou. It's
(01:15):
a woman I met in the rain, a woman I
loved before meeting her, and a friend I love now.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So we were just that day.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes, we were just coming from Linda and it's very
rare that we have time at the end of the day.
And Catherine said, come on, we're going to go to
River Cafe. And we couldn't believe it that we could
find the door or anything. And the Rear Cafe is
probably the most iconic restaurant in London, and you know
(01:48):
it's usually like hard to get into. But there was
a time in the late nineties, you know, when I
was with Susan Sontag. She was obsessed with food and
going out and and my time with her, I really
learned about going out to eat. With Susan Sontak, you know,
(02:10):
she loved the River.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Was it Did you ever cook at home? And it
was food going out?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, at a certain point, you know, I really wanted
I wanted to stay home, and I started to argue
with her about not going out all the time. And
you know, she knew Alice Waters and honestly, everything that
I know about food screams down from from Alice Waters. Well,
(02:37):
that's a.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Good that's a good stream down because she is an influence.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I had to cook, you know Mona Talbot who worked
with Alice, And you know, all the people I know
are kind of like in food. I'm a big admirer
of food, but I don't cook myself because I'm I'm
working all the time. But I having children, I wanted
them to to eat well. And you know, we really
(03:03):
you know Mona Talbot and Laura's Reuben, if you know
Laura's Reuben, but they were they each one of them,
you know, had worked, had worked for me, and now
they are on off on their own.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I was going to ask you, So you grew up,
you had you had six children in your family, So
you had a mother who cooked.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Father, Yeah, she cooked, but she was The food was
was really not very very good.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
If you're feeding six children, by the way, I mean that,
but how many what level? Where are you in the sty?
I mean the third two older and right? Were younger?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And what was that like having all those kids? Did
you all sit down to dinner every night?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Tried? You know, my my father was in the military.
He had come back from World War two, and started
a business in Waterbury, Connecticut. It kind of went bankrupt,
and then he went back into the military. And then
we grew up, you know, moving every couple of.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Years, going you know, on the road somewhere.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Blocks in Mississippi, for Worth, Texas, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Because he was because of the military, and he stayed
in the military.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
He stayed in the military. He retired and then he
went into you know, building houses, and he succeeded, you know,
he did very well.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And so what was it like sitting down to dinner
with six children your mother? Would she cook a different
meal every day or would they all kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Depending on what day of the week it was. That's
what like, you know, Friday night was fish sticks, Saturday
was hot hot dogs. You know, it's like Sunday would
be a roast beef. You know.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Did she work? Did she have a job?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean she didn't really on and off she she worked,
you know, but she pretty much you know, had us
and it was full on. But she was such a
bad cook. She didn't want us the vision she was
and she was not a good cook, I see, And
I didn't know that food could taste cook until you know,
(05:09):
I left home. I didn't know bread. It was like
like wonderbread. And so when we left home. But she
was a great baker.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
She actually so she cooked. That's cooking.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was a great baker. And she would make the
best desserts and pumped.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
But I remember what you remember her?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
The Angel food cake. Angel food cake was our birthday cake.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That cake that rises very high and it was beautiful.
And did you but the's still the meals? Would you all?
Was it chaotic or did you? Because I'm still slightly
overwhelmed by six children. Part of the still I.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Think, especially as as you know, my older sister and
brother left for college and and it just sort of
dwindled down. Yeah, it was hard to We tried. I
think there was an attempt to try to sit together,
but it didn't really didn't always work. She never I'm
(06:08):
just remembering. She never really sat down for dinner.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
She didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She would like stand in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
And did your father cook it all?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Okay, did you know he would?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well he could do egg plant on the you know,
because his mother cooked. His mother who was your grandmother,
they Rachel Rachel Rachel leeve Vits. But you would go
to her house and she would always have a kitchen.
She always have a chicken in a that's pretty good.
She always had chicken. She lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, So
(06:40):
you know, I would say, when I started working for
Rolling Stone, you know, and I was working on the
East Coast, I would sometimes, you know, go up and.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
See her drive is a chicken liver recipe that you have?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The chicken liver is my mother.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
So when she wasn't baking, she did make a recipe
that you have. How many years later this is kept We.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
All remember this because you know, and and it's true
to her. In her later years, she was saved food.
I mean, I think, you know, being not having much money,
they were very careful about about food, and so she
would save food and you know, leftovers. And then when
(07:23):
you would go visit my father and my mother in
their later years, there'd be things in the refrigerator you'd
be afraid to will. You didn't know what you were,
you know, you'd be afraid to eat. She was great
around the holidays. She loved holidays.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And when would you have the chicken liver?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Almost every holiday she would make she would make this, uh,
this chopped chip chick chopped chicken liver.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was your identity as a family Jewish family. So
and what was the background where did they come with
a your grandparents come or your great grandparents?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, uh, but my father Romania and his mother Romania
and then my mother was Curi and which is really
Russia at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, so the identity of Jewish food chicken liver. I
grew up, you know, chicken livers. It was very kind
of identifiable recipe for a kitchen.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
She left us a recipe, but it was it was
still like it's it's still very vague. You know. My
my younger sister and I tried to make it. We're
not too sure of the ingredients, and we worked on it.
The last few usually happens at at I know it's
a chicken liver, but we usually do it at beleeve
(08:47):
or not at Thanksgiving. So we go out and get
the chicken livers and you make it. It is funny
because when my mother my father died first, and when
then when my mother died, and we were going through
through all the belongings in the house, and you know,
between the six of us, you know, everyone pretty much
talked about what they would like to have out of
(09:07):
what was there of my my parents. Everyone was very
happy with you know, how we divided everything up. And
I have one sister who's a lawyer, so she was
there in case, you know, we decided, you know, there
was a problem. So there was only one problem, and
that was my sister Barbara wanted chopping device, you know,
(09:29):
there and there, So there were actually two of them,
and then there were wooden bowl two wooden bowls that
they made the chicken liver. My mom made the chicken livers,
and so there was a bit a bit of a
fight for it. So we had to like draw straws,
you know, and you wanted it and she wanted she
wanted it.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, it was great and who got it? She got it?
I got the secondary one though, And what is that photograph?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's my mother who was a hard act to follow
for sure. I mean she danced. She took you know,
lessons from Martha and Graham when she was young.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And did she dance with you? Did you dance with her?
With her?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
She sent us all to dance lessons. I mean I've
gone to dance classes with her. But you know, I
mean she danced until you know, until until you know,
late in her life.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, she studied with.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
No not with Twilight with.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Martha Graham and Martha if.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You if you look at photographer's life, there were photographs
of her father.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
This photographs taken at your mother and just to.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The Hampton's just my father and mother just on the
beach and my mom's just doing her kick. She was
famous for her kick whenever.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And if we can see this on YouTube, we can.
On the audio we can, but it's beautiful. Did you
mostly eat out? Did you eat out restaurants or six ado?
We never could never eat out.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I even remember there was a period of tiv dinners
you yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
After living at home, when when did you leave home?
What did you do when you well, I kind of
went to.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
High school in the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco,
And it's not quite clear to me when food really
became more important. I knew it tasted better when I left,
for sure. I think the first year I was I
(11:32):
was away from home. I ate corn flakes and ice cream,
you know, I mean I didn't really you know that
you went.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
To when you went to the Art Institute that presumably
had an apartment or you lived in No, I had residence.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, I lived the first first semester with my older
sister who was in Berkeley, and then moved into the
city into into an apartment, and then shared an apartment
on on Telegraph Hill. What year was that, sixty nine nineties?
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, in sixty nine. I came here because a lot
of my friends were leaving for the draft, you know,
because of the war. There's a picture upstairs I'll show
you have a demonstration outside the embassy. But they were
heady times, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I do want to say it was interesting coming into
to London and I was in Spain just you know,
opening a show there of fashion work at the mob
Foundation there in a Corona, and just leaving the United
States and coming into London. It just it just felt
(12:35):
so normal.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We can talk about that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
In your perception it may not be, but compared to
America now, it's just you don't realize the tension and
the impression and the oppression in the era. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I was there last week, and I mean every morning
I wake up and I read the New York Times,
you know, and every night I go to bed and
I watched Christian on a Board else on CNN. So
you feel I mean, I do feel it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You try not to see the news all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, but you can't. You can't, you can't, well, I can't.
But then I always say, it's a bit like pollution.
You know that we're walking around and we don't you know,
if we don't see it, we know there is something
in the air that's getting inside us and making us sick.
It's like when people swam when there was small in California.
Do you remember in the eighties and people would swim
(13:27):
and a friend of mine said, you'd get out of
the pool and you couldn't catch your breath. And sometimes
I personally feel I can't catch your breath because it's
so bad you know what is going on in our country.
But I think there probably is a bit of distance
that you get here. I know from friends of mine
who live in New York or California wherever they're living,
and they get here, they say exactly what you say.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Really, it just feels it's that palatable, you know that
you feel. I mean, you think, well, now you understand
why people move here. I mean, I'm I'm American, and
I'm I'm going to I have I have work to
do there, you know, I want to work on, you know,
(14:10):
whatever can be done. I mean, it was interesting. I
saw Christian Naboord do an interview with John Stewart.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah he's great. Yeah, he is phenomenal and she is.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They both she said, you know, she made me feel like,
you know, we are doing our job. We're reporting this,
we're we're going to continue doing this. We're going to
just and that is what we need to just keep doing.
So it was very promising to hear her speak, even
though it's it's really it's really hard.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think that's what I ask everyone is how do
we oppose? You know, I know how we used to
pose you stop, you demonstrate, you don't pay your taxes,
you chain yourself to the West House, and then you think,
what do we how do we do that now? But
I think, you know, and I don't know, we just
every day we're thinking about it and acting on it
(15:05):
and talking. I think it is important to talk about
it and to take steps and to be you know,
as we just saw in the White House the other
day in the Oval office, with an ABC journalist being
spoken to in a way, or a Bloomberg journalist being
called picky, you know, why didn't people walk. You know,
why didn't everyone just walk out of that room say
this cannot be done. You cannot do this, you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Know speaking, which is why you know, you know the
Women's book, you.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Know, yes, let's talk about that with this.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I feel so responsible to it. I wish I was.
The people who should be talking are really the people
who wrote the essays, you know, Susan Sontag and Glorious
Steynem and Shim and Manda. You know, the essays are
amazing and they are they are really really they are.
And it was interesting with with Gloria because I really
(15:59):
when her right away when I when I thought about
doing the second volume, you know, and you know, she
she wrote something that was you know, nice to begin with,
and I I, you know, I called her back up
and I said, Gloria, no, you need to tell us
where we are. What's going on? Are we gone backwards?
(16:21):
You know since we lost roe versus weight? What is
going Yeah, you know, like where you know? And she
put it into perspectives so well. I mean, she grew
up in the fifties and she said, we're not going backwards,
you know. And I loved Chimamanda saying, you know, these
women in the new book. You couldn't done that those
(16:44):
photographs twenty five years ago. Why these women are she said,
fearlessly confident? You know it's true? I mean I felt
that was the word I was using, was that I
felt a comp evidence in who we are as women
today in these photographs. But when she said fearlessly you know,
(17:08):
or and quietly confident, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Well, tell me about the first volume in the second pisode,
the first one was written.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, no, the first the first one was done with
Susan's antag nineteen.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's what I was asking the nineteen ninety and she
that was twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yes, and things weren't. We're pretty good for women. I
mean in the late nineties, middle late nineties, it was
you know, it just came out of Hillary Clinton at
the Beijing Conference for Women as the first lady saying
you know that that speech for things went you know,
it went viral basically where she said, you know, women's rights,
her human rights, human rights, women's rights.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It was Susan's idea to do a book on women,
and I thought it was a bad idea because I
just thought it was too big of a subject. It
was like you're talking about, you know, doing your book
with everche you know, just pick one.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
One thing, Lemons. But there is a continuity to it.
There is a power to that book that it has.
It has a range, but it has a very each page,
every photograph takes you there. And then sometimes I look
at it, as I said, it's next to my bed
and an original. Do you have the when it first
came out, No, I don't, No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So you know, I I too think it's it's like
a remarkable book. It was designed by Ruth Ansel. It
was really a great designer and and there was a
lot of thought put into it. It was it was
really yeah, we we imagined. I mean I I kind
of thought about every single walk of life, try to
(18:40):
try to have as many different walks of life as possible.
And it was really kind of modeled after August Sanders
book on you know, people in different trades, you know,
in Germany. It took it took you know, three years,
three four years, you know, photographs done for the book.
So and this, So the second volume is really just
(19:00):
an homage to the first volume. It's just a collection
of work that I've been in the last thirty years,
twenty five, thirty years since the first volume, and certainly
I never had any kind of plans to to make that,
to make another volume on women, you know, so this
was this was like it's more like a magazine. You know.
(19:22):
I just kind of like, did it really? We did
this in a year? We did this like really fast,
and that is fast. Hillary Clinton had had come to
me about a year ago and said, we really would
like to commemorate the original book from nineteen ninety nine,
and the book was out of print, and I thought
it was an interesting idea, and then we thought about
(19:46):
I thought about this companion book to put with it.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Did you mean Alice, by the way, in the early
is that when you were there, not till.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
You really knowing Susan, I mean I opened up the whole,
you know, I became a little more serious knowing Susan.
But I met, you know, so many incredible people.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I mean, Susan loved food. Susan loved Did she grow
up with good food?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
She?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Did she grow up with good food in her That's
a good question.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I mean she would have been a great person for
your Gusty, because you know, we ate out every every
every single night, and she would you know, comb the
New York Times for reviews of restaurants, and all over
her refrigerator would be she ripped them out and put
them on the refrigerator, and and she when she walked
(20:35):
into a restaurant, it was like, you know, the Queen
was walking and they always had a table, you.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Know, for her, and she was I was just reading
about Joan Didion. Did you read that piece in the
New York Times?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
No, I did. I did not read that piece about
their Thanksgiving. I know, I know many people who went
to that Thanksgiving. They were kind of like people had
no place else to go.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
They were.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Mona Talbot, who it's kind of like this protege from
from Alice Waters. We were doing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton,
and you know, Mona was cooking for me at the
time because I had managed to talk to Susan into
letting me have a cook and then you know, like
maybe once or twice a week we would eat at home.
She's the one who, for Susan's sixtieth birthday made her brains.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Very funny actually, to give Susan brains exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So it was great to be home eating.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Did you eats.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I didn't. I don't remember eating them.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Susan would eat anything, you know, So she made her brains.
But Mona stayed on through my first having my first daughter, Sarah,
and she's the godmother of Sarah. And but when we
had that fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, she insisted upon bringing
in apples from the Hudson Valley and and it was
(22:06):
it was like, she said, why do people buy fruit
from Florida? You know, you have the Huston Valley which
has this incredible fruit and farms. It's amazing. And I
honestly never understood that about the Husson Valley. And it
was like she really has helped develop the whole food
(22:27):
idea in the Husson Valleys. You know, it's like sort
of sprung out from from Alice. And so she has
a wonderful uh place in Husson that she's you know,
sells food from all the wonderful farmers and everything. And
but anyway, I ended up finding this place upstate because
(22:49):
you know, I didn't even know there was an upstate.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's amazing and it's fine that we call upstate state state,
but it's very tied to New York. So tell me
about it. What is Do you have a farm there?
Do you grow?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
No? I have a couple of hundred acres, but we
is it on the river. The buildings aren't on the river.
I was always gonna build on the river, but you
could walk out to the river. But it does go
out to the river. But for sure, we have a
vegetable garden that we love. And we have chickens, you know,
(23:24):
and we nothing like fresh eggs. And my daughters they
all are great cooks, are they Okay, they have a.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Susan here, so tell me about their cooking.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
They you know what, I'm impressed with my older daughter.
She can make anything out of leftovers. It's kind of impressive.
You know. She loves to to dabble like that. And
she and I have a cook but she doesn't want
the cook to cook for she likes to cook, you know,
for herself. You know, Sarah, the older one. Imagine having
mona talbot, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
And and Laura's Reuben, who is another Alice Waters person,
you know, kind of mentor these girls as they grew
up and taught them everything about cooking, and so it's
kind of wonderful. They kind of broke that you know,
I've gotten into it a wonderful place with understanding food
(24:23):
and seasonal food. Particularly. Yeah, my daughter Sarah loves the
British Bakeoff.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Oh, let's talk about the British Guess what I auditioned
for that And I didn't get the part. Oh my god,
somebody else she was that wasn't critical enough, she.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Says, watch. And then what she likes to do is
in is in the middle of the program, she likes
to make go to the kitchen and make a dessert
and then come back out and then because it's taped, yeah,
and and and and you know, eat a dessert, you know,
like you know, she makes these incredible desserts, you know
that are that are kind of amazing chocolate.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
This and that is that when you're at the art institute.
Was that when you started doing photography? Because I was
going to ask you about photography.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
As a painting major and took a night class night
classic photography, and uh and loved it. And you know,
loved you know, because I was an awkward, undeveloped person
and you know, developed, not developed, and the photography just
took you out and socialized you and took you out
(25:36):
into the world, and I don't know if it's much
better right now.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But yeah, no it is. Did you take the photography
and then continue with that through through school?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You know, it was the middle of viennam War. Yeah,
the g I s would come back through San Francisco
and and g I Bill they could go to school.
So there were a lot of so you know, met
a lot of photographers who were soldiers and it was
such a difficult time in America. I actually made a
(26:08):
decision to go to Israel, and.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I didn't know if I was going to come back
as a student or.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Still as a student. I set up with my own
kind of program where I would go away for a
semester or a year and then but I ended up
going back to school. And then within a semester, my
boyfriend drew me down to Rolling Stone Magazine and I
showed them my work and they started. You know, I
didn't eve get a.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Chance that Rolling Stone started in San Francisco. And then
so you started working with you when I'm at Rolling
Stone in those early days.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Right, and so thirteen years there, How old were you
probably nineteen twenty?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, So did you finish school?
Speaker 2 (26:47):
And then my father insisted that I finished school and
they let me graduate early. I graduated a year early.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And how did it work at Rolling Stone? Did he
would he say, we're going to do a story about
well they were doing, and you have to take photo
visuals that they want.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
It was more of a well, they liked the idea
that I could you know, take photographs and it didn't
look like it was going to cost them very much money,
you know, and it was it was it was kind
of a you know, it wasn't just about music, it
was you know, about popular culture.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And political going on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And actually my first cover was Jean was Away and
it was a protest in the middle of San Francisco
and you know, allan is were smoking a joint and
you know, and they ran that well, while jan was away,
they ran it into cover. They wait, Yan went away,
and they would run things that you know, he didn't
(27:46):
necessarily so he did a cover of Rolling Stone when
you were how old, you say, nineteen twenty maybe yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And then what was the heavy days life? And did
Yon like to eat? Did you guys go out? Was
food any endportant? They they were very sophisticated that when
you learned I believe it would be good. That is
that when you discovered that eating could taste of something good.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think just things just tasted better in general, you know, regardless.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
But did you travel, did you experience other cultures? Did
you have other food from other cultures? Great food, Indian food,
Chinese food, Well, in San Francisco you can get all
of that, you know, Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What was it like?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
So then you went to New York just going through
the trajectory of your life. You went from San Francisco
and Rolling Stone to New York to New.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
York and the latest they moved in the latest seventies.
And I thought I was going to go for a year, yeah,
you know, And I didn't think I And it was
hard for me to leave California. I loved California so much.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I loved it. Had you been to New York but
you knew it, You're going to a city that you
vaguely knew or well, they.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Joan and Jane were very comfortable with New York, but
I it was never that comfortable. I don't think I
became so comfortable with New York until Susan. You know,
did you meet to Susan taking her photograph. Yeah, for
Aids and his metaphors a book, but she didn't use
it on the book.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
She used it was called it was metaphor. It wasn't
illness as metaphor.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
You're right, it was illness.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's an really important but it's important to say it's
the important book for meating that Ellis is a metaphor. Yeah,
you said that you loved her voice. What was her
voice like or was it the words in the voice
or was it the voice itself?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was probably all together, you know, just you know,
you couldn't stay mad at her too long because you know,
the way she would say things, it was quite beautiful.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And so you were in New York with Susan in
the eighties and this is the eighties, late eighties, you know,
to the late nineties.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, late eighties. I think my real food adventures started,
like so many other parts of life, meeting incredible people,
you know, really started with Susan, you know, and and
and and understanding and appreciating the art of good food,
(30:19):
a really really really good food.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And would she would she kind of say to you
try this and try that, or she.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Did it, did it, But we never we never liked
you know, high end anything. It was it was all
that was all fake, you know, to us it was
it was more like, you know, when she found a
place that she loved, she would returned to it over
and over again, like the River Cafe with Howard you
know so and you know, honest to god, they were
(30:53):
food snops. She also she did like Chinatown. We would
go down I remember now in New York in the
mornings on Sundays, we would go to the flea market
and then we would go down to Chinatown and have
them some if. She loved that on Sunday mornings. It
was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
What was her routine when she was working with writing?
Would she eat at the desk? Would shed a day? Yeah,
she would just start writing and stay there.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah. No, Sometimes she would break away and and and
at the kitchen table.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Do you think that was partly the solitary? Is your
being a writer? Is that in the evening you want
to go out? That having been insane totally that she.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
She You know, it drove me crazy because I would
be if I was out, I was usually working all
day and then I came home and want to go out,
and she would want to. I mean we didn't literally
live together. We had two apartments in the same building.
But you know, she she always wanted to go out.
It was because of you know, she would work all
(31:55):
day long and a lot. It wasn't easy for her
to write. I mean some write like she would gets
so mad about Larry McNulty. You know, you know that
he could like write eleven pages in the morning and
then you know, go off and she it was all
emotional writing for her. So I think she really saw
going out to dinner as a release. Release definitely a release,
(32:17):
a way to you know, reward herself at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Did she drink good wine? Did she care about wine? Yeah?
I think that the it's very similar to but it's
like the artists of the you know that those the
sort of seventies and eighties in Maxis, Kansas City and
working painting all day and then going out at night.
You know, whereas the work that you do and the
(32:42):
work that I do and work there was filmmakers do.
It's very collaborative. There's a team, there's people, there's all that,
and so when you come home from that you just
want to probably do little, whereas if you're sitting in
front of a typewriter or a computer.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Then yeah, it was hard for me, for me to
for me to go out, but I I but it
was great, It was great. I enjoyed her enjoying it.
The reward, you know, at the end of the day,
after you work, you know, to to go out. And
I was thinking about here in England. I was trying
to remember the shoots and I was thinking, like, for example,
(33:20):
working with Nicole Kimmen in Charleston, photographing there and what
was that?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
What was that for? What was it you were photographing probably.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
For probably for Vogue and she was on eyes wide
shut and you know, to to finish the day and
then be able to come to you know, sometimes Susan
would accompany on some of those trips and she would
stay at the Cannock. She just knew the you know
(33:48):
the best.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Graydon Carter, he's here, you know, I saw him last night,
see a lot of great when he's here. Say hello,
Well he said, he just come for Thanksgiving. But he
said you when you did a photo shoot that you
always fed people who were working very very well. Do
you do you do you believe in giving? Is that
(34:09):
something that you care about is making sure that the
people who are.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think we have we have. I mean usually it
goes over several hours, so we want to make sure
everyone's you know, eating well. I don't know. I don't
think twice of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No, he said it was unique anyway that he thought
you're concerned.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Talking to Katherine McLeod and she we were talking because
I was asking about food experiences while working, and she said,
like in La we built a chef and food in
you know, in the studios there, you know, and had Yeah. No,
I do believe in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Do you eat when you're working?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
How do you? I'm careful. I'd like to eat right
after I yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, it's like making a movie or theater. People always
want to eat after the play rather than.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You have all those restaurants around those Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
What are your what are you? I'm on the road
with talking about the women's book. I know I'm headed
back to to more portraiture and stories and excited about
what's happening in some politics right now. The governor of California,
the women who won all.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
These great Stitts, and a mayor of New York and
the mayor of New York.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
So I'm interested in in in doing work and you know,
along those lines when I get back and I'm sort
of making my lists about, you know how, who I
want to photograph.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So before we go, we have one last question, which
is that a food is you know, a memory for
you of your of your mother's chicken liver, and it's
it's it's something that you you have on the shoot
so you work or you alleviate hungary. It's also comfort.
So if you come home nights, or you've had a
hard day, or you want to go out and have
(36:08):
something that will just give you comfort. Is there a
food that you would reach for?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It can be a peanut butter sandwich, you can.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I do love peanut butter and jelly. I mean, you know,
from from from having the children and having you know,
when you go on the plane. Now there's no there's
really not any very good food. So I used to
pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for them, and then
I would eat them too because I love them. I
actually I did love peanut butter and jelly. It's true.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I know that I've reached sometimes for but I've had
a bad day, I'll want some pasta because it kind
of I love comfort, you.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Know, when I'm when I'm alone in the house and
the cooks off or whatever, you know, I'll boil a
couple of hot dogs.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Okay, thank you, Annie, Let's go have some food. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Ruthie's Table for was produced by Alex Bow, Robbie Hamilton,
and Zad Rogers, with Andrew Sang, Daniel Naranjo Rodriguez and
Bella Selini. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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