September 9, 2024 • 37 mins
This week on Ruthie's Table 4, we're revisiting our time with actor, filmmaker, writer and comedian, Mel Brooks.
Mel makes the world laugh, but funny isn't the word he'd choose for himself. That word, would be hungry.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Mel Brooks makes the world laugh. Watch the Producers Blazing
saddles Young Frankenstein, Listen to the two thousand year old Man,
or read his autobiography All About Me, and you are
guaranteed to find yourself laughing out loud until it hurts.
But for me, having known Mel for twenty five years,
(00:28):
funny is not the first word I would use to
describe this amazing man. Hungry, hungry, fiercely proud. Do you
think that's your adjective? You get hungry with you. I
get hungry when I see you. Wow, we love you there,
fiercely proud of his children and his grandchildren, the first
(00:50):
one to pick up a phone to a friend in trouble,
refusing an award in opposition to the Iraq War and
waiting to accept it from President Obama, manerable after the
loss of people he loved. To Mel, food and wine
are crucial. Many of his life's happenings have occurred in restaurants,
(01:11):
and as for wine, he will tell you himself spill
it all over the table. I'm trying to take this
seriously today. It is home. We are together, lucky me.
We're going to talk about wine and family and friends
and be prepared to laugh because mel Brooks is funny.
(01:33):
So that was a serious introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I want to tell you what do you want to
tell me that before we stopped talking, Before I forget,
I would like to do my imitation of a cat,
because not a lot of people know that I do.
I make your best cats sound in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Ready, I just want just gonna be I just need
one second to really get myself into this.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, here's working the sound of a cat. That is
that is a perfect sound. It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Do, hard to do.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I do it in young Frankenstein. I think it's it's
a dart throwing contest and one of the dots hits
a cat and you hear you know, did you.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Do the sound? I get there every night? Can you
do it again?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That's good? So what's a technique?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Technique is to is to squash some air between your
cheek and the front of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
As we're talking about cats and fish, maybe fish, you
know cats like to eat fish. We could actually read
the recipe.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Oh yeah, my favorite of all the all of all
the things in the book. There's a good picture of
it too in your cookbook River Cafe, London.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thirty because that was done for our thirty.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Three threeh thirty years. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Do you remember you came to the party?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I did? Oh? Are you?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And Richard sat there the whole night in the oh yeah,
in the restaurant, and everybody just came to your table. Everyone.
Everybody wanted to see.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It wasn't as important as the food on my plate.
A lot of food paid attention to all. He eats,
Ali eats are supreme. Let me read the rest of Okay,
it the dover soul with Marjora. I don't know what
marjoram is, but I love it. Okay, whatever it is,
whatever it is, one bunch of fresh margarine leaves, one
(03:43):
whole dover soul, weighing twelve to fourteen ounces, three fifty
to four hundred grams, scaled and cleaned. Of course, of
course I'm not going to eat it with the scales on,
never and with the stuff inside, No, sir. One lemon
cut in half. I have lemons, Mayer lemons for my
(04:04):
Mayer lemon tree. We're just outside here and they are
golden yellow and running with lemon juice that is superior
to anything in the world. So if I have a
dover sole, I'll bring my lemons.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Okay, well, we get armored lemons from Amalfi, so they're
pretty good too.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Okay, here we go. Pre eat the oven to four
hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. That's pretty hot. That's pretty hard.
Brush a large flat baking sheet with extra virgin olive oil.
Scatter half the mordrum leaves over the sheet along with
some sea salt and black pepper. Place the fish on top,
(04:47):
season with sea salt and black pepper. Then scatter the
remaining marjoram drizzle. Drizzle generously with olive oil. Okay, that
sounds great. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Tests with
the point of a sharp knife inserted into the central
with the thickest part of the soul. Ah. If cooked,
(05:10):
the flesh should come away from the bone. Okay. Squeeze
the lemon, either from a malfy or from mel Brooks's
lemon tree, over the fish, and serve with any juices
from the pans that are left. I like that.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let's begin at the beginning earliest food memories. What do
you remember from you know, your early days, did your
mother cook?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, my mother, okay, it was it was a standard Williamsburg,
Brooklyn Jewish tenement food. So breakfast in the winter was
always a hot cereal, cream of wheat or ralston which
was the kind of Baridge brown porridge, and then in
(05:58):
the summer cornflake strich crispies or wheaties.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
What year would that have been? How old would you?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I would that would be thirty five, I'd be around nine.
That's when I went my uncle Joe, shortest jew on earth.
Short he was about four to four when when a taxi,
a big checker taxi cab rolled down the streets of Brooklyn,
and there was no driver. That was Joe. There was
(06:28):
no driver. It was so short it get just about
peer over the you know. Anyway, Joe took me because
his friend al was the doorman of the Alvin Theater
on fifty second Street, and running at that same theater
was Cold Porters Anything Goes. I had never seen a
(06:49):
Broadway show. I was nine years old and Uncle Joe
took me to see Anything Goes. I was stunned. I was.
I couldn't believe it, even though we were in the
second balcony as far away from the stage as you
can get ethel Merman was too loud. No, MIC's she
was just she was in anything, anything goes.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Did she say the mother? Yeah, yeah, the woman. It's
on a ship, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it's on the ship. Very good. Yeah. And Victim
Moore was the gangster of the gang.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
It was so good. At the end, I nearly clapped
my hands over. I just couldn't stop clapping and screaming
and shouting. And then I got back an Uncle Joe's camp.
I said to him, Uncle John, I'm not going in
the garment center. Everybody at three sixty five South third Street,
between on Hooper and Use three sixty five South third Street,
(07:48):
everybody in that building worked in the garment center. They
were shipping clerks, they were cutters, they were designers, they
were salesmen. They every buddy I think on the street,
the sixty one, three sixty three through sixty five, these tenements,
everybody in the garments set. And I screamed at my
(08:08):
uncle Joe, Uncle Joe, I'm not I'm not going into
the garments that I'm not. I'm gonna go into the
show business. I loved it. I loved it, you know,
and it changed, but it did and I did.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And because he take you to food, what do you
take you out to eat? I always went to the
theater as a kid, and then there was the meal afterwards,
lunch before it was a day out.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We had some favorites that Uncle Joe would take us to,
where one was called Gallagher Steakhouse. They had like half
a cow in the window. I always had these half
cows in the window, you know, the raw meat hanging gallaghers. Yeah,
and the and the steak was incredible. And sometimes you
(08:53):
go to Jack Dempsey's restaurant and what was that? And
it was great, but you know it was it was
all meat, it was. There never any fish in a restaurant. Yeah,
and I never liked fish. I don't think I ever
liked fish until I was seventy or eighty and I
went to the River Cafe, and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So really you never ate fish.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I hardly ever ate fish as.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
But it's interesting to me that you describe a kind
of modest home life in terms of food, but you
went out to restaurants. So what's.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
A lot of Jewish restaurants were called dairy restaurants and
they serve stuff like blinches with sour cream and old dairy.
You never mixed meat and dairy with something some religious nonsense.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Did your grandmother cook for you?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
My grandmother cook?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
What did she cook? Olsh grandmother? Your mother's mother's mother.
I never knew my you never knew your father's No.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No, my father's grandmother. I did know. She did say
to her meals best over meals in Bensonhurst where they
lived in a big one family hand.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Did they come with their first generation?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I know they were. They were European?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, and so do you think your grandparents brought their
food with them? The food they.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Cooked the same stuff. Mostly it was chicken, chicken and
chicken soup.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And uh, briscuit.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, they made brisket. Absolutely, they made brisket and brown potatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Do you know my grandparents came? They were They came
from Hungary and Russia. And my father remembers my grandmother
having in the Lower East Side a carp swimming in
the bathtub that they would make a filter fish out of.
So do you imagine having they would bring it a
live fish?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Live fish?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We would get a live fish.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
My brother Bernie and I were usually one week. We
loved and we called them arty, and we fed them
bread crumbs and we chased them around the bathtub. And
then it was unspeakable. I can't even describe it. Irving,
my old oldest brothers Irving and Lenny held us back.
We were screaming, don't kill him, and my mother would say,
(11:06):
we gotta eat, we gotta eat supper, and she she'd
kill audience, serve him, it was and we would cry,
and but we ate him.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And then would you get another carp and kill that?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
We got another car.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's so interesting that they had live fish swimming in
the back in the back, yeah they didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It's amazing that you had to say.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, my brother Michael, who you know, just wrote, I
have found that something my father had written about his
memories of food and just living in the Lower east Side.
But you weren't in the Lower east Side.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Were the Lower east Side? An extension of the Lower
east Side was Williamsburg.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That was probably one step up, was it.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Well, it was one step up if you put it
next to a section of Brooklyn called Bronzeville, East New York,
And that was really where they had coal stoves. They
didn't even have gas. Know, we had electricity and we
had guess so we were one step of Browns built
equal to the lower east side. And let me tell
(12:08):
you that my mother used to make every once in
a while on a Sunday night, she would make spaghetti.
She would buy a box of Muller's noodles.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
They were flat, flat noodles.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And she cooked them until they were dead.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
They'd be really soft.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Oh, they were really soft. And then she'd put them
in a baking pan and she would empty a bottle
of Heinz ketchup over there, This is spaghetti. And then
she'd bake it for thirty or forty minutes until the
pan was dead, till everything was dead. And then she
cut them into squares and served it to us and
said spaghetti. And I was from eight years old to
(12:52):
about thirteen or fourteen. That was spaghetti and it was okay, Yeah,
it was really okay. Then I had joined a club
called Baltzer Bugs. We made model airplanes. I think we
enjoyed smelling the glue. Where do we like baking the planes?
(13:12):
But we may so. One of the Baltzer Bugs was
Bernie Steinberger, was Flappy Rothman and there was Tony Galliani,
Italian an Italian, and Tony said, I'm going home. It
was Sunday, and I said, he said, I'm going home
to have spaghetti. I said, we have spaghetti on Sunday too.
He said, well try, you know, come on and have
(13:33):
bar spaghetti. So I went home. I walked into his apartment,
which was in green Point, a little on the edge
of Williamsburg. As I walked in, I was assaulted by
these incredible smells, just as the aromas of of garlic,
(13:56):
and I mean, it was just incredible. Then I sat down.
They served this warm, squiggly spaghetti, real spaghetti, squiggly but
not dead, fotback and sauces red thick, red, beautiful sauce
(14:20):
with meatballs in it, and and sprinkled on top of
it was this white stuff snow. I think it was
Parmazan cheese. And I took I took one bite and
I started to cry.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Did you cry?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I wept? I wept, and I said, Tony, this is
this is spaghetti. This is spaghetti. I was about fourteen,
and I just wept and I went When I came home,
I said, Mom, you're not making spaghetti. I don't know
what tide stuff is that cardpoint, but it's not spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You're starting to tell me about your her mother's food.
What was her mother's food when you went to your grandmother's.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, we went to the state. It was, I know,
they made little dishes before to celebrate the Jews freedom
from slavery in Egypt, and had something with apples and
stuff that was supposed to mimic the mortar that the
Jews carried up to make sure these big stones stayed together.
(15:22):
And then some salt for the heart, for the suffering,
for the tears, and it was a lot of those
little things. And then she served this thing called the
filter fish with red horse rice has They called it
crane crane or grain, and it was just thrilling. I
(15:43):
loved it.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So you love food from food?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I tasted food. My mother wasn't making food. She was
she was making something at bathroom food.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So do you think your mother was not?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And the first time I had Chinese food? Where was
that Inburg? We never went to it. My mother said,
we're gonna go to a Chinese restaurant, all right. And
each meal, the whole meal menu twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Five cents, and the Chinese restaurant and the Chinese restaurant,
and you got you got egg that's right first.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Then you got chowmine, oh, cholmine. And then you got
a yellow ball with little pieces of ice in it.
Round ball that was the ice cream dessert. And and
then some Portu cookies with with the paper in it
that you know. I hate the paper. I hate everything.
Everything was, everything was sweet.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just
steps away from the restaurant. Is now open in the
morning and Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristada from
our past your kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed coops
and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, Misti, mozzarella,
(17:08):
brisquetto red and yellow peppers for tello, tonato and more.
Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist
in the bar. No need to book, see you here.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
One of the most delicious things was very simple. We
lived at five five stories up in this tenement and
I was I wasn't going to come up. They will
get that I was not going to come up for lunch.
I was not why because it was five stories and
I didn't want to leave the game right, So we
(17:48):
took a break in the game and we all had lunch.
They all brought bags and stuff with them, sat on
the carr of my friends and my mother would throw
in it throw down in a brown paper bag, kaiser
roll smeared with a lot of butter, fresh butter, and
(18:08):
almost a whole tomato sliced and salted and put that
and it was the most delicious thing. You'd catch it,
and I'd always catch it. But one time I missed it.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I was going to say five stories up.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
As one time I missed it and splat blast, you
heard the sound, and the bag was crammed with wet
So I very carefully peeled that what used to be
the bag away from the sandwich, and I began eating
the sandwich, and I once again cried. It was so great.
It was the closest thing to pizza.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
When did you have your first pizza?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Oh? I had my first pizza when I was I
was sixteen or seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So as a teenager, you lived at home, and then
when did you leave you when you left home, did
you cook for yourself?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Well? I didn't leave home home, Okay, I was sent
to Virginia Military Institute. The Army. There's a guy that
came to my high school. We were going to graduate.
We were seventeen. We're going to be eighteen and graduated
from Eastern District High School. Our claim to fame was
(19:20):
a red hour back was a great, incredible basketball coach
and world famous and he was on the team and
he was a genius. Anyway, I left because the guy said,
if you can pass the test, you'll be in the
Army Specialized Training Reserved program and it would stand you
(19:44):
in good stead because later when you were drafted or
taken into the regular Army, you already had some background
in military and you could maybe choose your branch of service. Great, Okay.
So I took the test and the test was not hard.
It was how much it's doing too? I said, well,
(20:06):
if you put them next to each other, you got
twenty two, you know. But it was easy and they
wanted you. So when I was seventeen, they sent me
to v m I. Virginia Military Institute, the West point
of the South, and uh go to restaurants in Lexington, Virginia.
(20:27):
And when the waitress to take your auder, she answer
back one thing. She said, you want grits with that?
And we said what she said, do you want grits
with that? We said, no, grits are made of that.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I just couldn't understand.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I couldn't understand. Later.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
It's kind of like plent It's kind of like, you know,
what was it like the food in the military. Was
that awakening?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah? Can I can be very honest with you and
say some words.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's yeah, this is a podcast. We can do it.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Okay, it's a podcast, we can do it. I remember
the only thing the army had a I went into
the mess hall at four Dicks, and I was shocked
by what I saw on a on a great big griddle,
maybe maybe twelve feet by twelve and it was just enormous.
(21:25):
I saw a thousand eggs, sunny side up, and you'd pick.
You'd say, give me two, give me three, give me four,
and then that was that was eggs. And then there
was like a trash barrel clean one of course, that
had oatmeal in it, and then there was It was
just that kind of you know, so it wasn't so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
We're homesick.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I was homesick.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Could be so homesick? How old were you.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Oh, well, I was. I was nearly old enough to
be in the regular army, so I was seventeen and eighty. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To take you out of Brooklyn, to take you out
of your hair, yeah, put you in a place.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It was a strange place. But anyway, we're all together
and we we you know, we alarmed to each other.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah. Did you take anything away from that experience?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah? I did. They were they were unusually nice to us,
these cadets, these Southern cadets they had, and they taught
us never to lie. Honor is the best thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That stayed with you, and stay that stayed with me.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Hardly, I hardly ever lie. Except in show business. You're
forced to liar.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Say something, to tell somebody their work is good. To
do that good. Always tell something.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You look so great today, you know that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I said. A friend of mine once interviewed Isaiah Berlin,
you know, the philosopher said, he said, when you admire
somebody's work, you just say I loved your work. And
they said, no, no, no, that's for the work you
didn't think so much of. If you really loved their work,
you I died, you know, I was on the floor.
You know, how do you, how do you give I love?
(22:56):
Your work is for the people whose work you didn't like,
you know, that's what you say. That's fine. Yeah, But
then what happened after.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The and anyway? I went into the real army and
there I saw a thousand eggs sunny side fourth That
was Fourth Dicks, New Jersey. What you would have been,
I'll tell you exactly. June forty four, I was transferred
from v M I to four Dicks. I was in
(23:25):
the regular army. And then there was a thing that
was on the table. It was a big round bowl
with stuff in it, and it was not at the table.
It was like where where the cooks were, you know,
And they had big spoons and they could slop it.
They could they put it on on some toast, and
(23:45):
you know, and I didn't. I never took a chance.
But once I said, you know, I said, the guys
next to me ate it. So I took a chance
and I got it. And I said to them what
is that? What this we're eating? And they said, ship
on a shingle? I said, what ship on a shingle?
(24:07):
It turned out to be cream beef on toast, and
it wasn't so bad, but the army.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
You know, did they send you abroad? Did you go?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, eventually, But let me tell you, at breakfast and
old meals in the army, there was no short cutting
you You got into a lot of trouble. If someone
said passed about or past the jam or past the whatever,
you passed it. If you stopped and took some of
it and put it on your plate, that was short cutting.
(24:37):
And you had to leave the table in the middle
of your meal. That said your your throat.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So you pass and then you waved.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You passed, and waited, you waited. And then when we
were on bivouac. Bivouac means when you're you're on a campsite.
You pitched tents and you sleep on the ground, and
then you go through a mess line with this stuff
to eat with. It's all aluminum. And then there were
indentations for food in it. Yeah, and then they always
(25:13):
did the same thing. It was beef stew. They put
the beef stew in the deepest dish, in the dray.
Then yes, for the let's say the mashed potatoes. You figured, well,
there's a big spot next to it. It's deep. Give
that No on the meat.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
On the meat, and then mashed potatoes on the.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Meat, on the meat, and then at the top it off,
or slice beaches on top of the mashed potato. And
there were places in each plate for sections where everybody
you can eat like a person. But they invariably put
beef stew, then meshed potatoes and then and I don't know, so.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You always cared about how food tasted.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, And there was one big another, very big revelation
in about food. Jeane Wilder, I could cry take of him.
He's so sweet, sweetest invited Anne and I to dinner
at his house and in the village, at his house
apartment in the village. I forgot what we ate, but
(26:17):
he served wine. Up until then the only wine I
had ever really, I never cared for wine. I don't
say it tastes a little sour. Oh, up until then,
mana Chevitzai carmel is a sweet Jewish wine. And I
(26:37):
tasted this wine.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Was it a French wine?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It was a French wine, Santa's steph, you know, And
I said, what is this? He said, it's wine. I said,
so this is wine? And he got me hooked. And
from that day I think I was twenty something whatever
(27:00):
for twenty six I don't know to that day to
this If I have wine, it's always a good wine.
It's either a good Italian wine or a good French one,
or a good and a half of valley wine. But
he taught me that wine wine could actually taste, really
taste good, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And so how did you make the kind of voyage
from tasting wine to having one of the great sellers?
And well, up.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Until Blazing Saddles, I was hanging on the show business
with the skin of my teeth, not making any money.
The first movie I made was The Producers, good movie.
I won the Academy Award for the screenplay, but just
about broke even. And then the next one was The
Twelve Chairs, which was a foreign movie kind of you know,
(27:48):
maybe it was a good, very one of my best movies,
but alas, it didn't make a penny. So I was
thinking of going back to television, where I was doing
all right, I was making money. And then Blazing Saddles
and that was an explosion. Busted open the doors and
windows and gave me enough money to buy a house
(28:11):
and you know, finally pay pay for dinner and didn't
have to slip me money under the table.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I was okay, blazing saddles did it? And that?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
How did you educate yourself in wine? Did somebody help
you or did you?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well? Once once I tasted those wines and I looked,
I looked up. You know, I got a book. I
got a few books. Can you find a book? Take
a look, look up on the on the shelf there,
look up on the shelf. See if you find a
wine book. Yeah. So I've always got books find finding
(28:48):
out well.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
You know, if somebody said they want to learn about wine,
would you say read?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I would say read.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I would say read. I would say read. Yeah, yeah,
what book? Bordeaux?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So then you just learned. And you visited, and.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You and I visited, you know, and I went cheval
Blanc invited me the owner of the chateau, and I
spent the weekend.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Do you still go down Do you have your wine
cellar downstairs? Do you go downstairs?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I don't drink much wine now because of my belly.
I can't drink a lot of wine.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
But you can drink some.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I can drink some, Yeah, I can, I can. I
can drink some.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
What do you feel about Italian line?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I love Italian mine.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, I love a barollo.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And you know, the wines can be soft and wonderful,
they can be rough and beautiful. You know a lot
of Italian great.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It's changed now, you know, there's a new generation of
Italian winemakers whose father's werem was farmers. You know, everybody
had a vineyard and kianti or whatever. And then this
new generation of taking it seriously. And I actually even
came to California to learn more about wine.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
All right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
We talked about food in the army. But what I'd
like to talk to you about food and filmmaking so
or television. When you were working in film and the studios,
what would food be like? There would there be a
canteen where you ate? What would they call the commissary?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
What would they commissary?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Commissary?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
What was that mesole? Yeah, in the movie studios it's
a commissary.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And what happened? What was that like?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Well? Some some had a fox was very good, really,
I mean fox you could get an omelet, you know.
Are the other studios didn't know what an omelet was,
you know.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So tell me about a lunch. Would you stop for
lunch and would you all meet other actors from other films.
Everybody would just meet. There was that a way of
kind of meeting people. Who did you when you had
the Commissary?
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, well mostly the folks that I met, you know,
the stuff that you know Allan lad Jr. Who ran
Fox often liked to eat at my table. Yeah. And
the guy who just passed away lest this literarlier this
year with Richard Donner. Yes, I loved so much. He
was so mischievous. And uh Jay Canter, who at one
(31:23):
time as an agent for MCA handled Marlon Brando, Grace, Kelly,
I mean, and they all liked him because he was
soft and sweet than he was. So Jay used to
eat with us, and.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
He was on the movie set was and.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
He had You wouldn't invite people to come to the Commissary.
They'd come to the Fox and eat with us.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Your good friend Alan up whenever he was in town.
He told me to ask you a story about Carry Grant. Yes,
what's the story about Carry Crah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's a good story.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I was not yet a filmmaker, but I was writing
a movie for a guy called Marvin Schwartz on the
universe a lot, so I'm writing this movie. And I
look across the way and I see grand Art g
r a n Art, and I say to Marvin Schwartz, Marvin,
what the hell is Grant Grandhart? Who works there? He says,
(32:17):
that's Carry Grant. That's Carry Grant. That's about twenty feet away.
It's thirty feet away right here?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Was this smell?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
This was? I can tell you exactly fifty nine. Yeah,
I think fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So you're watching.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I'm watching to see carry Grant. I'm watching, and sure enough,
a Rolls Royce comes. A guy gets out of chauffeur.
He opens the back door, bounding two steps at a
time up up the stairs to Grandharts in a gray
(32:56):
it has got to be Good's, dark gray with talk stripes,
double breasted Carry Grant. It was him. I said, holy shit,
Carry Grant. I can't believe it. So one day soon
after that, I'm walking down about twelve thirty two, the
commissary at Universal. I hear a little click clack behind me,
(33:24):
and I turn around and I hear mel Brooks. I
jun't believe it. It's mel Brooks. I said, oh my god,
it's Carry Grant. I said, how do you know me?
He said, I got your record. I just bought your record.
You cost me one thousand dollars. I bought so many records.
And then he said, wed, where are you going? I
said to the company. He said, well, let's go together.
(33:45):
So wow, I'm going to have lunch. I had lunch
with Carry Grant. I called my brother Bernie, Lenny, Irvy.
I called everybody, Williamsburg there. You wanted to know what
he ate? I said he had two poached eggs, yon toast,
but I tunic, Yeah, okay. Next day, phone rings, it's
Carry Carrie. Yeah, it's Mal Carry Mal come lunch. Yes, well,
(34:09):
boom together, Me and Carry Grant. We walked down the
Wednesday was me and carry it. Thursday, Me and we're talking.
What's your favorite color? I say blue? He says yellow.
What's your favorite car? I say a buick? He says
the rolls or comes right. I don't know what they
ask him. I don't you know. I know it's gonna call.
I run out of dialogue. So the phone rings, and
(34:33):
I say to Marvin, if it's Carry Grant, I'm not in,
which is not true, but I mean it makes makes
for a great Did.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You see him ever again?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
All the time. One of the carry Grant stories.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, I used it in my stand up stuff
and I made it funny, but actually, if I told
the truth, it was really very touching because he was
really a good act dirt and he made some very beautiful,
you know, intelligent soft films about love and people and
(35:10):
and and they have none of it. I kept saying,
why don't that was such a great picture? Why did
they make? You said, because the money was in in
the light comedies.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I think that you know life through food and
through your family and to your grandparents and coming here
to do this home and memories.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Food at the River Cafe still is literally some of
the best. And and I've eaten in some really great restaurants,
you know, and I've had duck at the Tour do
Je and you know, oh yeah, my finest omelets with
Madame Romainne de Leon. Never split an omelet. She said,
(35:56):
if you split it, it'll run. She said, you can
split a steak, but never split it on lit.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
When I came here, I told Danny, remember Danny the chef,
And I said I was coming to see you, and
he said, you know, I once made a risotto for
mel and he came up to the past and he said, Danny,
you made that RESULTO. You should be proud of yourself.
And it was so something, so meaningful because you didn't
(36:21):
say I'm proud of you, and you said you should
be proud of yourself. So I'd like to end this
by saying, mel Brooks, you should be proud of you.
I love you, Thank you. One last question. If food
is something to alleviate hunger, if food is something to
give someone we love, it's also comfort. There is a
(36:43):
kind of food that we go to, we need to
come from.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
We have when I have a really upstanding meal, like
like your spaghetti have you made for my son Max?
We we just came in upon your and Max was
hungry and you said I'll make him and you may
have made him some spaghetti, and I take it was
the most delicious spaghetti in the world. When food is
(37:09):
really good, it serves the soul. It serves the soul.
And I'm not talking about dover soul. But when food
is really good, it serves more than just the belly
and the hunger, and it serves the soul. And you
should be very proud of yourself and the restaurant. That
(37:30):
that's one of the best restaurants in the world. You bet.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Mel Brooks makes the world laugh. Watch the Producers Blazing
saddles Young Frankenstein, Listen to the two thousand year old Man,
or read his autobiography All About Me, and you are
guaranteed to find yourself laughing out loud until it hurts.
But for me, having known Mel for twenty five years,
(00:28):
funny is not the first word I would use to
describe this amazing man. Hungry, hungry, fiercely proud. Do you
think that's your adjective? You get hungry with you. I
get hungry when I see you. Wow, we love you there,
fiercely proud of his children and his grandchildren, the first
(00:50):
one to pick up a phone to a friend in trouble,
refusing an award in opposition to the Iraq War and
waiting to accept it from President Obama, manerable after the
loss of people he loved. To Mel, food and wine
are crucial. Many of his life's happenings have occurred in restaurants,
(01:11):
and as for wine, he will tell you himself spill
it all over the table. I'm trying to take this
seriously today. It is home. We are together, lucky me.
We're going to talk about wine and family and friends
and be prepared to laugh because mel Brooks is funny.
(01:33):
So that was a serious introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I want to tell you what do you want to
tell me that before we stopped talking, Before I forget,
I would like to do my imitation of a cat,
because not a lot of people know that I do.
I make your best cats sound in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Ready, I just want just gonna be I just need
one second to really get myself into this.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, here's working the sound of a cat. That is
that is a perfect sound. It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Do, hard to do.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I do it in young Frankenstein. I think it's it's
a dart throwing contest and one of the dots hits
a cat and you hear you know, did you.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Do the sound? I get there every night? Can you
do it again?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That's good? So what's a technique?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Technique is to is to squash some air between your
cheek and the front of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
As we're talking about cats and fish, maybe fish, you
know cats like to eat fish. We could actually read
the recipe.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Oh yeah, my favorite of all the all of all
the things in the book. There's a good picture of
it too in your cookbook River Cafe, London.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Thirty because that was done for our thirty.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Three threeh thirty years. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Do you remember you came to the party?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I did? Oh? Are you?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And Richard sat there the whole night in the oh yeah,
in the restaurant, and everybody just came to your table. Everyone.
Everybody wanted to see.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It wasn't as important as the food on my plate.
A lot of food paid attention to all. He eats,
Ali eats are supreme. Let me read the rest of Okay,
it the dover soul with Marjora. I don't know what
marjoram is, but I love it. Okay, whatever it is,
whatever it is, one bunch of fresh margarine leaves, one
(03:43):
whole dover soul, weighing twelve to fourteen ounces, three fifty
to four hundred grams, scaled and cleaned. Of course, of
course I'm not going to eat it with the scales on,
never and with the stuff inside, No, sir. One lemon
cut in half. I have lemons, Mayer lemons for my
(04:04):
Mayer lemon tree. We're just outside here and they are
golden yellow and running with lemon juice that is superior
to anything in the world. So if I have a
dover sole, I'll bring my lemons.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Okay, well, we get armored lemons from Amalfi, so they're
pretty good too.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Okay, here we go. Pre eat the oven to four
hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. That's pretty hot. That's pretty hard.
Brush a large flat baking sheet with extra virgin olive oil.
Scatter half the mordrum leaves over the sheet along with
some sea salt and black pepper. Place the fish on top,
(04:47):
season with sea salt and black pepper. Then scatter the
remaining marjoram drizzle. Drizzle generously with olive oil. Okay, that
sounds great. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Tests with
the point of a sharp knife inserted into the central
with the thickest part of the soul. Ah. If cooked,
(05:10):
the flesh should come away from the bone. Okay. Squeeze
the lemon, either from a malfy or from mel Brooks's
lemon tree, over the fish, and serve with any juices
from the pans that are left. I like that.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let's begin at the beginning earliest food memories. What do
you remember from you know, your early days, did your
mother cook?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, my mother, okay, it was it was a standard Williamsburg,
Brooklyn Jewish tenement food. So breakfast in the winter was
always a hot cereal, cream of wheat or ralston which
was the kind of Baridge brown porridge, and then in
(05:58):
the summer cornflake strich crispies or wheaties.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
What year would that have been? How old would you?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I would that would be thirty five, I'd be around nine.
That's when I went my uncle Joe, shortest jew on earth.
Short he was about four to four when when a taxi,
a big checker taxi cab rolled down the streets of Brooklyn,
and there was no driver. That was Joe. There was
(06:28):
no driver. It was so short it get just about
peer over the you know. Anyway, Joe took me because
his friend al was the doorman of the Alvin Theater
on fifty second Street, and running at that same theater
was Cold Porters Anything Goes. I had never seen a
(06:49):
Broadway show. I was nine years old and Uncle Joe
took me to see Anything Goes. I was stunned. I was.
I couldn't believe it, even though we were in the
second balcony as far away from the stage as you
can get ethel Merman was too loud. No, MIC's she
was just she was in anything, anything goes.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Did she say the mother? Yeah, yeah, the woman. It's
on a ship, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it's on the ship. Very good. Yeah. And Victim
Moore was the gangster of the gang.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
It was so good. At the end, I nearly clapped
my hands over. I just couldn't stop clapping and screaming
and shouting. And then I got back an Uncle Joe's camp.
I said to him, Uncle John, I'm not going in
the garment center. Everybody at three sixty five South third Street,
between on Hooper and Use three sixty five South third Street,
(07:48):
everybody in that building worked in the garment center. They
were shipping clerks, they were cutters, they were designers, they
were salesmen. They every buddy I think on the street,
the sixty one, three sixty three through sixty five, these tenements,
everybody in the garments set. And I screamed at my
(08:08):
uncle Joe, Uncle Joe, I'm not I'm not going into
the garments that I'm not. I'm gonna go into the
show business. I loved it. I loved it, you know,
and it changed, but it did and I did.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And because he take you to food, what do you
take you out to eat? I always went to the
theater as a kid, and then there was the meal afterwards,
lunch before it was a day out.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We had some favorites that Uncle Joe would take us to,
where one was called Gallagher Steakhouse. They had like half
a cow in the window. I always had these half
cows in the window, you know, the raw meat hanging gallaghers. Yeah,
and the and the steak was incredible. And sometimes you
(08:53):
go to Jack Dempsey's restaurant and what was that? And
it was great, but you know it was it was
all meat, it was. There never any fish in a restaurant. Yeah,
and I never liked fish. I don't think I ever
liked fish until I was seventy or eighty and I
went to the River Cafe, and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So really you never ate fish.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I hardly ever ate fish as.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
But it's interesting to me that you describe a kind
of modest home life in terms of food, but you
went out to restaurants. So what's.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
A lot of Jewish restaurants were called dairy restaurants and
they serve stuff like blinches with sour cream and old dairy.
You never mixed meat and dairy with something some religious nonsense.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Did your grandmother cook for you?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
My grandmother cook?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
What did she cook? Olsh grandmother? Your mother's mother's mother.
I never knew my you never knew your father's No.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
No, my father's grandmother. I did know. She did say
to her meals best over meals in Bensonhurst where they
lived in a big one family hand.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Did they come with their first generation?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I know they were. They were European?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, and so do you think your grandparents brought their
food with them? The food they.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Cooked the same stuff. Mostly it was chicken, chicken and
chicken soup.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And uh, briscuit.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, they made brisket. Absolutely, they made brisket and brown potatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Do you know my grandparents came? They were They came
from Hungary and Russia. And my father remembers my grandmother
having in the Lower East Side a carp swimming in
the bathtub that they would make a filter fish out of.
So do you imagine having they would bring it a
live fish?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Live fish?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We would get a live fish.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
My brother Bernie and I were usually one week. We
loved and we called them arty, and we fed them
bread crumbs and we chased them around the bathtub. And
then it was unspeakable. I can't even describe it. Irving,
my old oldest brothers Irving and Lenny held us back.
We were screaming, don't kill him, and my mother would say,
(11:06):
we gotta eat, we gotta eat supper, and she she'd
kill audience, serve him, it was and we would cry,
and but we ate him.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And then would you get another carp and kill that?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
We got another car.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's so interesting that they had live fish swimming in
the back in the back, yeah they didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It's amazing that you had to say.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, my brother Michael, who you know, just wrote, I
have found that something my father had written about his
memories of food and just living in the Lower east Side.
But you weren't in the Lower east Side.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Were the Lower east Side? An extension of the Lower
east Side was Williamsburg.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That was probably one step up, was it.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Well, it was one step up if you put it
next to a section of Brooklyn called Bronzeville, East New York,
And that was really where they had coal stoves. They
didn't even have gas. Know, we had electricity and we
had guess so we were one step of Browns built
equal to the lower east side. And let me tell
(12:08):
you that my mother used to make every once in
a while on a Sunday night, she would make spaghetti.
She would buy a box of Muller's noodles.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
They were flat, flat noodles.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And she cooked them until they were dead.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
They'd be really soft.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Oh, they were really soft. And then she'd put them
in a baking pan and she would empty a bottle
of Heinz ketchup over there, This is spaghetti. And then
she'd bake it for thirty or forty minutes until the
pan was dead, till everything was dead. And then she
cut them into squares and served it to us and
said spaghetti. And I was from eight years old to
(12:52):
about thirteen or fourteen. That was spaghetti and it was okay, Yeah,
it was really okay. Then I had joined a club
called Baltzer Bugs. We made model airplanes. I think we
enjoyed smelling the glue. Where do we like baking the planes?
(13:12):
But we may so. One of the Baltzer Bugs was
Bernie Steinberger, was Flappy Rothman and there was Tony Galliani,
Italian an Italian, and Tony said, I'm going home. It
was Sunday, and I said, he said, I'm going home
to have spaghetti. I said, we have spaghetti on Sunday too.
He said, well try, you know, come on and have
(13:33):
bar spaghetti. So I went home. I walked into his apartment,
which was in green Point, a little on the edge
of Williamsburg. As I walked in, I was assaulted by
these incredible smells, just as the aromas of of garlic,
(13:56):
and I mean, it was just incredible. Then I sat down.
They served this warm, squiggly spaghetti, real spaghetti, squiggly but
not dead, fotback and sauces red thick, red, beautiful sauce
(14:20):
with meatballs in it, and and sprinkled on top of
it was this white stuff snow. I think it was
Parmazan cheese. And I took I took one bite and
I started to cry.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Did you cry?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I wept? I wept, and I said, Tony, this is
this is spaghetti. This is spaghetti. I was about fourteen,
and I just wept and I went When I came home,
I said, Mom, you're not making spaghetti. I don't know
what tide stuff is that cardpoint, but it's not spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You're starting to tell me about your her mother's food.
What was her mother's food when you went to your grandmother's.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, we went to the state. It was, I know,
they made little dishes before to celebrate the Jews freedom
from slavery in Egypt, and had something with apples and
stuff that was supposed to mimic the mortar that the
Jews carried up to make sure these big stones stayed together.
(15:22):
And then some salt for the heart, for the suffering,
for the tears, and it was a lot of those
little things. And then she served this thing called the
filter fish with red horse rice has They called it
crane crane or grain, and it was just thrilling. I
(15:43):
loved it.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So you love food from food?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I tasted food. My mother wasn't making food. She was
she was making something at bathroom food.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So do you think your mother was not?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And the first time I had Chinese food? Where was
that Inburg? We never went to it. My mother said,
we're gonna go to a Chinese restaurant, all right. And
each meal, the whole meal menu twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Five cents, and the Chinese restaurant and the Chinese restaurant,
and you got you got egg that's right first.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Then you got chowmine, oh, cholmine. And then you got
a yellow ball with little pieces of ice in it.
Round ball that was the ice cream dessert. And and
then some Portu cookies with with the paper in it
that you know. I hate the paper. I hate everything.
Everything was, everything was sweet.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just
steps away from the restaurant. Is now open in the
morning and Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristada from
our past your kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed coops
and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, Misti, mozzarella,
(17:08):
brisquetto red and yellow peppers for tello, tonato and more.
Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist
in the bar. No need to book, see you here.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
One of the most delicious things was very simple. We
lived at five five stories up in this tenement and
I was I wasn't going to come up. They will
get that I was not going to come up for lunch.
I was not why because it was five stories and
I didn't want to leave the game right, So we
(17:48):
took a break in the game and we all had lunch.
They all brought bags and stuff with them, sat on
the carr of my friends and my mother would throw
in it throw down in a brown paper bag, kaiser
roll smeared with a lot of butter, fresh butter, and
(18:08):
almost a whole tomato sliced and salted and put that
and it was the most delicious thing. You'd catch it,
and I'd always catch it. But one time I missed it.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I was going to say five stories up.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
As one time I missed it and splat blast, you
heard the sound, and the bag was crammed with wet
So I very carefully peeled that what used to be
the bag away from the sandwich, and I began eating
the sandwich, and I once again cried. It was so great.
It was the closest thing to pizza.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
When did you have your first pizza?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Oh? I had my first pizza when I was I
was sixteen or seventeen.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So as a teenager, you lived at home, and then
when did you leave you when you left home, did
you cook for yourself?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Well? I didn't leave home home, Okay, I was sent
to Virginia Military Institute. The Army. There's a guy that
came to my high school. We were going to graduate.
We were seventeen. We're going to be eighteen and graduated
from Eastern District High School. Our claim to fame was
(19:20):
a red hour back was a great, incredible basketball coach
and world famous and he was on the team and
he was a genius. Anyway, I left because the guy said,
if you can pass the test, you'll be in the
Army Specialized Training Reserved program and it would stand you
(19:44):
in good stead because later when you were drafted or
taken into the regular Army, you already had some background
in military and you could maybe choose your branch of service. Great, Okay.
So I took the test and the test was not hard.
It was how much it's doing too? I said, well,
(20:06):
if you put them next to each other, you got
twenty two, you know. But it was easy and they
wanted you. So when I was seventeen, they sent me
to v m I. Virginia Military Institute, the West point
of the South, and uh go to restaurants in Lexington, Virginia.
(20:27):
And when the waitress to take your auder, she answer
back one thing. She said, you want grits with that?
And we said what she said, do you want grits
with that? We said, no, grits are made of that.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I just couldn't understand.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I couldn't understand. Later.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
It's kind of like plent It's kind of like, you know,
what was it like the food in the military. Was
that awakening?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah? Can I can be very honest with you and
say some words.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's yeah, this is a podcast. We can do it.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Okay, it's a podcast, we can do it. I remember
the only thing the army had a I went into
the mess hall at four Dicks, and I was shocked
by what I saw on a on a great big griddle,
maybe maybe twelve feet by twelve and it was just enormous.
(21:25):
I saw a thousand eggs, sunny side up, and you'd pick.
You'd say, give me two, give me three, give me four,
and then that was that was eggs. And then there
was like a trash barrel clean one of course, that
had oatmeal in it, and then there was It was
just that kind of you know, so it wasn't so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
We're homesick.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I was homesick.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Could be so homesick? How old were you.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Oh, well, I was. I was nearly old enough to
be in the regular army, so I was seventeen and eighty. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To take you out of Brooklyn, to take you out
of your hair, yeah, put you in a place.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It was a strange place. But anyway, we're all together
and we we you know, we alarmed to each other.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah. Did you take anything away from that experience?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah? I did. They were they were unusually nice to us,
these cadets, these Southern cadets they had, and they taught
us never to lie. Honor is the best thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That stayed with you, and stay that stayed with me.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Hardly, I hardly ever lie. Except in show business. You're
forced to liar.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Say something, to tell somebody their work is good. To
do that good. Always tell something.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You look so great today, you know that.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I said. A friend of mine once interviewed Isaiah Berlin,
you know, the philosopher said, he said, when you admire
somebody's work, you just say I loved your work. And
they said, no, no, no, that's for the work you
didn't think so much of. If you really loved their work,
you I died, you know, I was on the floor.
You know, how do you, how do you give I love?
(22:56):
Your work is for the people whose work you didn't like,
you know, that's what you say. That's fine. Yeah, But
then what happened after.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The and anyway? I went into the real army and
there I saw a thousand eggs sunny side fourth That
was Fourth Dicks, New Jersey. What you would have been,
I'll tell you exactly. June forty four, I was transferred
from v M I to four Dicks. I was in
(23:25):
the regular army. And then there was a thing that
was on the table. It was a big round bowl
with stuff in it, and it was not at the table.
It was like where where the cooks were, you know,
And they had big spoons and they could slop it.
They could they put it on on some toast, and
(23:45):
you know, and I didn't. I never took a chance.
But once I said, you know, I said, the guys
next to me ate it. So I took a chance
and I got it. And I said to them what
is that? What this we're eating? And they said, ship
on a shingle? I said, what ship on a shingle?
(24:07):
It turned out to be cream beef on toast, and
it wasn't so bad, but the army.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
You know, did they send you abroad? Did you go?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, eventually, But let me tell you, at breakfast and
old meals in the army, there was no short cutting
you You got into a lot of trouble. If someone
said passed about or past the jam or past the whatever,
you passed it. If you stopped and took some of
it and put it on your plate, that was short cutting.
(24:37):
And you had to leave the table in the middle
of your meal. That said your your throat.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So you pass and then you waved.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
You passed, and waited, you waited. And then when we
were on bivouac. Bivouac means when you're you're on a campsite.
You pitched tents and you sleep on the ground, and
then you go through a mess line with this stuff
to eat with. It's all aluminum. And then there were
indentations for food in it. Yeah, and then they always
(25:13):
did the same thing. It was beef stew. They put
the beef stew in the deepest dish, in the dray.
Then yes, for the let's say the mashed potatoes. You figured, well,
there's a big spot next to it. It's deep. Give
that No on the meat.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
On the meat, and then mashed potatoes on the.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Meat, on the meat, and then at the top it off,
or slice beaches on top of the mashed potato. And
there were places in each plate for sections where everybody
you can eat like a person. But they invariably put
beef stew, then meshed potatoes and then and I don't know, so.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You always cared about how food tasted.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, And there was one big another, very big revelation
in about food. Jeane Wilder, I could cry take of him.
He's so sweet, sweetest invited Anne and I to dinner
at his house and in the village, at his house
apartment in the village. I forgot what we ate, but
(26:17):
he served wine. Up until then the only wine I
had ever really, I never cared for wine. I don't
say it tastes a little sour. Oh, up until then,
mana Chevitzai carmel is a sweet Jewish wine. And I
(26:37):
tasted this wine.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Was it a French wine?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It was a French wine, Santa's steph, you know, And
I said, what is this? He said, it's wine. I said,
so this is wine? And he got me hooked. And
from that day I think I was twenty something whatever
(27:00):
for twenty six I don't know to that day to
this If I have wine, it's always a good wine.
It's either a good Italian wine or a good French one,
or a good and a half of valley wine. But
he taught me that wine wine could actually taste, really
taste good, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And so how did you make the kind of voyage
from tasting wine to having one of the great sellers?
And well, up.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Until Blazing Saddles, I was hanging on the show business
with the skin of my teeth, not making any money.
The first movie I made was The Producers, good movie.
I won the Academy Award for the screenplay, but just
about broke even. And then the next one was The
Twelve Chairs, which was a foreign movie kind of you know,
(27:48):
maybe it was a good, very one of my best movies,
but alas, it didn't make a penny. So I was
thinking of going back to television, where I was doing
all right, I was making money. And then Blazing Saddles
and that was an explosion. Busted open the doors and
windows and gave me enough money to buy a house
(28:11):
and you know, finally pay pay for dinner and didn't
have to slip me money under the table.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I was okay, blazing saddles did it? And that?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
How did you educate yourself in wine? Did somebody help
you or did you?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well? Once once I tasted those wines and I looked,
I looked up. You know, I got a book. I
got a few books. Can you find a book? Take
a look, look up on the on the shelf there,
look up on the shelf. See if you find a
wine book. Yeah. So I've always got books find finding
(28:48):
out well.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
You know, if somebody said they want to learn about wine,
would you say read?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I would say read.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I would say read. I would say read. Yeah, yeah,
what book? Bordeaux?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So then you just learned. And you visited, and.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You and I visited, you know, and I went cheval
Blanc invited me the owner of the chateau, and I
spent the weekend.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Do you still go down Do you have your wine
cellar downstairs? Do you go downstairs?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I don't drink much wine now because of my belly.
I can't drink a lot of wine.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
But you can drink some.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I can drink some, Yeah, I can, I can. I
can drink some.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
What do you feel about Italian line?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I love Italian mine.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, I love a barollo.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And you know, the wines can be soft and wonderful,
they can be rough and beautiful. You know a lot
of Italian great.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It's changed now, you know, there's a new generation of
Italian winemakers whose father's werem was farmers. You know, everybody
had a vineyard and kianti or whatever. And then this
new generation of taking it seriously. And I actually even
came to California to learn more about wine.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
All right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
We talked about food in the army. But what I'd
like to talk to you about food and filmmaking so
or television. When you were working in film and the studios,
what would food be like? There would there be a
canteen where you ate? What would they call the commissary?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
What would they commissary?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Commissary?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
What was that mesole? Yeah, in the movie studios it's
a commissary.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And what happened? What was that like?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Well? Some some had a fox was very good, really,
I mean fox you could get an omelet, you know.
Are the other studios didn't know what an omelet was,
you know.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So tell me about a lunch. Would you stop for
lunch and would you all meet other actors from other films.
Everybody would just meet. There was that a way of
kind of meeting people. Who did you when you had
the Commissary?
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, well mostly the folks that I met, you know,
the stuff that you know Allan lad Jr. Who ran
Fox often liked to eat at my table. Yeah. And
the guy who just passed away lest this literarlier this
year with Richard Donner. Yes, I loved so much. He
was so mischievous. And uh Jay Canter, who at one
(31:23):
time as an agent for MCA handled Marlon Brando, Grace, Kelly,
I mean, and they all liked him because he was
soft and sweet than he was. So Jay used to
eat with us, and.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
He was on the movie set was and.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
He had You wouldn't invite people to come to the Commissary.
They'd come to the Fox and eat with us.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Your good friend Alan up whenever he was in town.
He told me to ask you a story about Carry Grant. Yes,
what's the story about Carry Crah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
It's a good story.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I was not yet a filmmaker, but I was writing
a movie for a guy called Marvin Schwartz on the
universe a lot, so I'm writing this movie. And I
look across the way and I see grand Art g
r a n Art, and I say to Marvin Schwartz, Marvin,
what the hell is Grant Grandhart? Who works there? He says,
(32:17):
that's Carry Grant. That's Carry Grant. That's about twenty feet away.
It's thirty feet away right here?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Was this smell?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
This was? I can tell you exactly fifty nine. Yeah,
I think fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So you're watching.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I'm watching to see carry Grant. I'm watching, and sure enough,
a Rolls Royce comes. A guy gets out of chauffeur.
He opens the back door, bounding two steps at a
time up up the stairs to Grandharts in a gray
(32:56):
it has got to be Good's, dark gray with talk stripes,
double breasted Carry Grant. It was him. I said, holy shit,
Carry Grant. I can't believe it. So one day soon
after that, I'm walking down about twelve thirty two, the
commissary at Universal. I hear a little click clack behind me,
(33:24):
and I turn around and I hear mel Brooks. I
jun't believe it. It's mel Brooks. I said, oh my god,
it's Carry Grant. I said, how do you know me?
He said, I got your record. I just bought your record.
You cost me one thousand dollars. I bought so many records.
And then he said, wed, where are you going? I
said to the company. He said, well, let's go together.
(33:45):
So wow, I'm going to have lunch. I had lunch
with Carry Grant. I called my brother Bernie, Lenny, Irvy.
I called everybody, Williamsburg there. You wanted to know what
he ate? I said he had two poached eggs, yon toast,
but I tunic, Yeah, okay. Next day, phone rings, it's
Carry Carrie. Yeah, it's Mal Carry Mal come lunch. Yes, well,
(34:09):
boom together, Me and Carry Grant. We walked down the
Wednesday was me and carry it. Thursday, Me and we're talking.
What's your favorite color? I say blue? He says yellow.
What's your favorite car? I say a buick? He says
the rolls or comes right. I don't know what they
ask him. I don't you know. I know it's gonna call.
I run out of dialogue. So the phone rings, and
(34:33):
I say to Marvin, if it's Carry Grant, I'm not in,
which is not true, but I mean it makes makes
for a great Did.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You see him ever again?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
All the time. One of the carry Grant stories.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, I used it in my stand up stuff
and I made it funny, but actually, if I told
the truth, it was really very touching because he was
really a good act dirt and he made some very beautiful,
you know, intelligent soft films about love and people and
(35:10):
and and they have none of it. I kept saying,
why don't that was such a great picture? Why did
they make? You said, because the money was in in
the light comedies.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I think that you know life through food and
through your family and to your grandparents and coming here
to do this home and memories.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Food at the River Cafe still is literally some of
the best. And and I've eaten in some really great restaurants,
you know, and I've had duck at the Tour do
Je and you know, oh yeah, my finest omelets with
Madame Romainne de Leon. Never split an omelet. She said,
(35:56):
if you split it, it'll run. She said, you can
split a steak, but never split it on lit.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
When I came here, I told Danny, remember Danny the chef,
And I said I was coming to see you, and
he said, you know, I once made a risotto for
mel and he came up to the past and he said, Danny,
you made that RESULTO. You should be proud of yourself.
And it was so something, so meaningful because you didn't
(36:21):
say I'm proud of you, and you said you should
be proud of yourself. So I'd like to end this
by saying, mel Brooks, you should be proud of you.
I love you, Thank you. One last question. If food
is something to alleviate hunger, if food is something to
give someone we love, it's also comfort. There is a
(36:43):
kind of food that we go to, we need to
come from.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
We have when I have a really upstanding meal, like
like your spaghetti have you made for my son Max?
We we just came in upon your and Max was
hungry and you said I'll make him and you may
have made him some spaghetti, and I take it was
the most delicious spaghetti in the world. When food is
(37:09):
really good, it serves the soul. It serves the soul.
And I'm not talking about dover soul. But when food
is really good, it serves more than just the belly
and the hunger, and it serves the soul. And you
should be very proud of yourself and the restaurant. That
(37:30):
that's one of the best restaurants in the world. You bet.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
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