March 18, 2026 • 49 mins
Award-winning Author Betty Fussell has been delighting readers and food lovers for years with her witty essays and thought -and -palate- provoking books – 12 in all- including “The Story of Corn,” “Raising Steaks,” “My Kitchen Wars,” and “Eat, Live, Love, Die.” At age 98, she has published “How to Cook a Coyote” (2026), both a memoir and Fussell’s unique “recipe” for embracing your senior years, enjoying small rituals and living each moment of your life as it were the last day of your life.
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Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
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Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I love having women like you and
men join me to talk about how to live life
to the fullest at every age and stage. If you've
been following me in this show for the last thirteen years,
you know that a lot is the eolved and sometimes
I do the show solo to share my inspiration on
(01:05):
life and the challenges and overcoming him and sometimes I
have amazing guests. Over the years, have gotten very picky
about the guests I choose to have on my show.
They have to be people who I admire and who
I feel can give an amazing sense of their own
unique perspective of life with you, my viewers, now, my
viewers and my listeners, my guest today. Absolutely, I get
(01:28):
goosebumps just thinking about the fact that I'm interviewing her.
I've known her off and on for years because we're
both members or have been, of the prestigious Women in
Fine Food and Beverage group Les Dame Discoffier. She was
a member of the New York chapter with me. She
now is in California. We are talking about the amazing author, essayist,
(01:50):
food writer Betty Fussell. She is joining us from her
home in Casa Dirinda, Santa Barbara, California, where she lives now.
She's actually a born and bred California girl who spent
a lot of time on the East Coast. If you
run around in book circles or food circles, you may
know Betty because she's written twelve books, many on food
(02:15):
and life. I just finished reading one of her most notable,
which was her memoir My Kitchen Wars. I highly recommended it.
It really as I read it, I thought about my
grandmother and my mother and all the evolution of women
in this world today, where we were then and where
we are now. She also who has written a book
(02:37):
I'm currently reading of her amazing essay is called Eat, Live,
Love and Die, published in twenty eighteen. But here's the thing.
She's written another book, How to Cook a Coyote. Will
show the book. It has come out the Joy of
Old Age, and she's written it at the amazing young
age of ninety eight. So if you've not written a
(02:58):
book yet, or maybe you're putting off written that second
book or third book like me, just remember that Betty
Fussel has written her twelfth book at age ninety eight,
and she's just as energetic as ever. And we're going
to bring her on now because she's going to share
her life and her amazing perspective on living life to
the fullest. Betty, Welcome to Fearless Fabulous.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
You. Thank you so very much. I am honored melon Betty.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Your energy comes through in your writing. I'm just amazed.
Every Like I said, I've been reading three of your books.
I've known your books for years, but you know I
always go and revisit and really do a lot of
prep for this show. You are a writer that I
admire because you write about life, lust, joy, passion, and food,
(03:49):
and you are natural at it, right.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
You can call it. So I grew up a very
lonely child. I didn't know that that was going to
be my lucky.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well, it's interesting you say that, because the revelations in
My Kitchen Wars your memoir were amazing. You grew up,
you have a Scottish background. You grew up in a
what is termed as a calvinistic, very tight lipped, strict background.
Talk to us about that and how you found your
joy in what is otherwise a joyless time. You know,
(04:22):
growing up it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Was particularly joined us because I had a wicked step
stepmother right out of you know those wicked step mother
books that scared little children. And my mother had I
didn't know had killed herself. We thought she had. We'd
been told she had just by mistake, taken some rat
poison while her husband was off teaching college, teaching high school.
(04:50):
And this is in Riverside, California. But my folks, like
so many in California at that time, were escaping the
farm depression. And so this is way way back there
doing the depression. And we had zero money because my father,
as a school teacher, made no money whatsoever, and he
had four I think it was or five mortgages to
(05:15):
pay for So we grew up poor and you had
to make your own way and figure things out for yourself.
Only the church did it for us in my house
when they were very very strict evangelical type of worshipers,
and I spent my you know, I was there at
(05:37):
the church every every day for one thing or another,
for school or for skating lessons of all things. We
had our own little skating that you couldn't be any
place else because this was the only place that was
sacred with the church. And my wicked stepmother told me
I was going to hell anyway, So you know, from
(06:00):
the beginning I was no good.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So how did you overcome that? Because it really was
that you called the stepmother dido and it was a
revelation that you found your mother. You thought abbsite my
only put her fingers on the rat poison, but you
quite later found it was not accidental, and that's very traumatic.
How did you overcome this joylessness and trauma, I mean
that's an emotional trauma and find your way to what
(06:24):
brought you joy.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
What brought me joy was working, and working meant doing
something something concrete. So as a child, I drew. I mean,
I always had a pencil in my hand, and my grandparents,
who had raised me after the death of my mother,
taught me how to write by age two, which is amazing.
(06:53):
So I was writing little ditties. And I loved writing
because nobody had to see them but me, and I
could keep them secret. It's like a secret diary. And
I loved turning out because I was dependent upon nobody.
It was all inside me. How wonderful I didn't have
(07:14):
to wait for somebody, you know, like a teacher.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You did you keep a lot of diaries as a child,
and as you grew, did your journal throughout your life?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yes? I did. I kept. Yes, I always had a
diary hidden away under my mattress of needed and I
loved writing writing down because it made it, it made
it real. Otherwise it was just floating around in my head.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I still have my diaries from when I was six,
and I've been keeping diaries ever since. I've fallen off
a little bit this year because the line how funny
about the diaries, I write it, and I brought the
wrong diary. I'm very funny about the shape and size
of the book I and Longhand but I find them
like you, they really are sacred. The first thing that
packed up when I left New York is I said,
(08:08):
we got to take care of the diaries.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Right, right right. And I encourage everybody who's you know,
everybody has a story. Everybody is a story, and I
always encourage people to write it down. Write it down
because you will forget it. And if you have kids,
if you have family that they won't even know when
(08:31):
they find out that we delighted.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, you know what's interesting is just for our just
to think about it. You were born in nineteen twenty seven,
I mean, yes, a century ago. So much changed in
the world that you follow it in my kitchen wars.
And you know, you were an academic's wife. Your husband,
your former husband now late former husband, Paul Fussel, was
(08:56):
a successful academic and academic circles. But you long to
be in that world as a legitimate writer. And you
were not necessarily encouraged.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Oh not only not encouraged, but get back to the
kitchen where you belong, right. And my husband really thought
women were another species and if they put their nose
outside the kitchen, something was wrong with them.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You mastered the kitchen though, and what's interesting, Betty, is
you mastered it self, taught reading the books and following
the recipes of Julia Child, who became your friend. In
Craig Claiborne and many others, you became a master in
the kitchen, which kind of took you into the opportunity
to gain a career in food writing. So you broke
through the bonds that were set. You attained a master's
(09:52):
degree and a PhD in English to teach, because you
have to have that. That was not easy at your time.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I fought for each time. Yes, but I happened. I
mean good luck. I was in the age of revolution,
which I was the UH. I came at the right
time with Julia. Julia rescued women from the kitchen bye
bye by putting her on television.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Did you I know you were friends with her?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And I was at her Yes, I was friends because
by that time I was living in New York, I
had left California, and I was I was doing journalism,
and I was a sign I forget for which magazine
UH to do a story on this woman who had
(10:45):
just written this book called The Masters of American Cookery.
And was about to launch her first television program. And
since I was in Boston, I mean nearby getting a
degree in Harvard because well, women couldn't go to getting
(11:08):
a degree in Brdic because women were not allowed in Harvard. Yes,
and I got to attend that first first television show
and it was so exciting because nothing like that had
(11:29):
happened in America. Americans thought American Puritan culture, we thought
food was an animal and you know, degrading and not
ever to be talked about. It is like going to
the toylet don't talk about like company. And I was
baffled by that because I had met Julia and we
(11:51):
became and she took me immediately to her house and
her kitchen, and I am so grateful to her forever.
Thank you, Julia.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Well, she's an inspiration for me for many reasons. One,
she found her voice after the age of fifty and
published and I stand for that because I am violently
vehemently against ageism at every level. And I had the
opportunity to work with Julia too, because I started the
James Spirit Awards and I got to take her around
and escorter and I found her delightful and mastering the
(12:23):
art of French cooking. I think I have three copies
of it now because I inher it is it's just
so treasured. What was it? What was some advice she
gave you as you were pursuing your uh still fairly
nascent writing career.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Uh, she really just talked. We talked about food and
the kitchen and the precision, and that in itself was fascinating.
You know, a recipe with oh, it's going to take
you half a day to make the preliminary too, through
dish you were making. So she taught me process and
(12:59):
the process and why it was necessary. And from my
point of view, I was learning the joys of food
because the food in my house was absolutely crappy and everybody,
my father did the cooking because my wicked stepmother was
a doctor of osteopathy and she's not looking food way
(13:23):
beneath her. Ah, So it's amazing. I wanted to know
what does it mean to be an American? That's what
interested me because I was an American and the world
was opening up then, I mean, because the War One,
in World War two, we had to become aware of
other nations and the speed of all these revolutions that
(13:47):
happened in my particular one hundred years were so amazing,
Like the airplane. My grandfather had never had his death,
and he lived a long time, had never put foot
in an airplane, because, as he said, if God wanted
(14:07):
men to fly, he would have given them wings. And
these men who crossed the prairies and bought Indians and
he crossed the prairies and a you know, a wagon.
It's so strange because every revolution that happened, and they
happened so many, was giant. As you're talking today. Think
(14:33):
of that.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You know, we're still in a revolution. We're in a
technology revolution now. But I mean, you went through two wars,
World War one, World War two, rationing, the Great Depression.
You know people now, don't you know younger people. Yeah,
those young people, they don't know what it's like to
really suffer and struggle through a depression and not having food.
(14:57):
I mean, we're kind of getting there because foods can
really expect now, but the necessity. They don't know what
it's like to be told you can't write. Your late husband,
your late former husband, Paul said you can't write. He
really said you couldn't write. He said you belong in
the kitchen, like to being put in your place. I
don't even know that. My mother was lucky. My father
put her on a pestle and let her get a
(15:18):
two master's degree and teach and all that.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Where did she get her master's degree? Who would take her?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga? She said, she went to
Sophie Nugam, the women's college where I also went to
New Orleans, and then gave up a career to work
at the United Nations to marry my father. He likewise
gave up a promising career in the military. He was
a West Point grad. They settled in Chattanooga, where she
grew up, and she had a master. She was a
(15:47):
speech therapist. She met. She her major was speech and communications,
but while doing that and working in speech therapist, she
got a master's degree in psychologists.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
As a psychologist, I've got psychology was revolution right.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Well, like you, she was an actor, so you acted
you you were bursing gruth creativity. Mentionedly, my mother, my
mother lived in a not a calvinistic role, but she
was a nice Jewish family. You had to follow. My
grandmother used to lie and say my daughter doesn't work.
She's a volunteer.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, those.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Good rooms didn't work. And but my mother, unlike you,
my mother hated to cook for you. Food. Food became
an escape, It became a joy. It became a carnal pleasure,
a sensuous and sensual wil pleasure. You're writing exudes that.
I mean, just to share some of the books that
you mentioned Embracing America Masters of American Cookery nineteen eighty four,
(16:45):
I hear America Cooking nineteen ninety seven. I'm skipping around
the story of corn really just an amazing book, Crazy
for Corn, and you know your corn books are pretty
And then you wrote My Kids Raising Steaks. But what'
you saying? Your first book was not about food, and
it was in nineteen eighty two. How old were you
when you published your fookbook, which is called Mabel Hollywood's
(17:08):
First I don't care girl. So it's kind of an
interesting independent type girl.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
We don't get We had our kitchen was terrible. As
I said, father did the cooking. This the wicked stepmother
was a doctor of osteopathy and thought cooking was very
but beneath her. So she never liked to put she
kept her foot out of the kitchen. My brother hated this,
my brother who was four years old, because he thought
(17:33):
it made a patsy out of my packed pecked father
and gave him shame thereby. So this is all screwed up.
It was so so different, and I was fascinated by
why was why was food considered you know, almost evil?
(17:56):
And why did it have these connotations of stay out
of the kitchen and before Julian And in trying to
answer those that question, it led me into what does
it mean to be an American? Because other companies were
not like this. France was not. Once I got to
(18:17):
France and it was not this way. It was just
Impuritian Americans. The Puritan part of Britain, you know who
rebelled against came over and the Purisans, of course that
that's their name pure, they're pure of animal innstin. So
I went head over animal. Let's find out about animal industry.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And you did. You had you know, you clearly admit
that you had affair as you explored your animal instincts.
You did it with joy. I mean you had to
because you couldn't live as a suppressed woman.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Well, I couldn't live as a singer. I mean, what
was it about I was? You know, I had to understand.
Please let me, let me understand what's my body for?
What's wrong with screwing somebody?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It's not just the vessel to make babies. You know,
you can have pleasure, No what the baby? So animal
animal instinct Speaking of animal instincts, so you've you know,
how to cook a coyote? Obviously anyone who loves MFK.
Fisher thinks of how to cook a wolf? And I
am a huge MFAK Fisher fan, have all her books?
(19:29):
You wrote this. There's so many metaphors about a coyote.
I look them up online because in the indigenous world
that coyote symbolizes a lot. Talk to us about the
book is called how to Cook and why my injury.
Let's put the book cover back up in a small corner.
How to Cook a coyote the Joy of old Age.
There's there's two powerful messages. If the how to cook
(19:50):
a coyote, which people a lot of them that you know,
when I posted this on social media, they're like, well
that's interesting, But the Joy of old Age really interested
me as someone who to caretake her mother in a
fairly joyous last year of her life at eighty eight,
and you can approach old age certain ways. How did
these two themes come together? And how come the coyote?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And in my view, the real title of the book
is how to put a Coyote and how to Enjoy
So it's two recipes, one looking at coyote and the
other is for enjoying hold it. So how can those
possibly crazy things to begin with? How can they possibly
(20:35):
go together as a how to write?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
And I found the more I investigated, the more I
like they became. And first you have to find your coyote,
because if you live in the city, but people didn't
always live in the city, and coyotes, it turns out,
were the only animal to be native to the Western hemisphere.
(21:04):
All the others came by is a ship. They came
across the waters, one ocean or another Europe or China community.
And that was astonishing to me. So he the coyote
has very special uh existence in America and South America,
(21:28):
and America got rid of rid of the coyote as
in so far as it could be, because it had
no status, because it didn't come from abroad. It came
from the pretty old uh, the place of Indians. And
we know what happened to the Native American.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yes, well considered wild. Yeah, I grew up. We grew
up fearful of coyotes. I mean I grew up in Tennessee.
They weren't want to, but there were coyotes and they ran,
and so they were scary because they ran in packs.
B they ate little dogs, and we have little dogs,
and we didn't like that.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
And you're hungry, you eat what's there. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, it's like like how to cook. Well, I mean,
if you're hungry, you will tame and eat what you
need to to feed your soul and nourish yourself. Yeah,
whether you like or not. Interestingly, in your book, you
do have these, you know, the coyote theme runs through.
It's also a tough the tough meat. It's a tough animal,
and you have to you have to tame it, uh,
(22:30):
which is kind of how old they are. Growing old
is not easy either.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
But the wonderful thing about then is that he is
physically the least fierce and of of all the predator animals,
I mean, the wolves go on up to lie there
because he's smaller and he doesn't have the physical strength,
(22:58):
and so he has to have something else. And when
he has his smart, he's smart. He is tricky. He
disguises he can't do it by knocking out the wolf
with his paw because the wolf is bigger and stronger.
So he has to play games. So he'll pretend to
(23:20):
run away and he'll sneak around the back and hit
him in the roof wells.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Historically, you know, coyotes are known to be They've been
described as cutting trickster. Wiley Coyote was a cartoon character.
He was a very crazy troublemaker.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
He had to be smart because he couldn't be strong enough,
which is the human condition, as you can see. So
we share this with coyote. We're much closer to coyote
hood than we are to being a wolf.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Also, they're known for being resilient and adapting, but you
have to do in life right. Resilient and adapt.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
The shape changers and as part of their smarts, and
there are also actors. I mean, there's sort of everything
I was. Therefore, I identified very quickly with the powers.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So the book itself is essays and and kind of
it embraces your life. Now you soldier home in the
East Coast and moved into Costa Darenda, where Julia also
lived it. It is a is it an independent life
care center? Would you call it independent?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
So?
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Okay, well, independent life care. Independent care is supposed to
be like the euphemism for old folks home.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I have as you know, you're right about it.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
You've been there. How many years have you been there?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Now, Betty, it's either as it's fifteen or twenty, and
I never quite remember which.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So one of the point that things you wrote I
mean and you write about You write about the breakfast
club and the rituals and getting together. But the and
the rituals are important. So talk to us about the
rituals that you embrace, which are meaningful to you. Now.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I always hated repetition, so I'm somebody who'd never like
to repeat, Oh I've done that, And it turns out
in my old age, I adore repetition. I count on rituals,
and that the rituals I developed. And most of my
life I've lived alone, even though I've had a lot
(25:32):
of I had a husband and two children and a
lot of lovers. But that just means life. But I
learned that, h I've forgotten what I was. Wata said,
That's also part.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
When you talked about you. When you were younger, you
didn't like repetition. You like to be, and now you
embrace rituals, repetition.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Ritual like crazy. And I'm very curious, why is this?
Why does I went during COVID when a lot of
friends died as a rendo her I am, and we
couldn't see them, We couldn't say goodbye to them because
we couldn't the infection. And to this day, my heart
(26:20):
aches and what I do my device here, I put
them in the moon, so every time there's a lead
full moon, I can say hello, pat, Hello, Reddy, because
they have to be someplace, because it's so strong in
my memory, because they I never got ready to say
(26:40):
goodbye to them, so I'll keep on saying goodbye until
I joined them in the moon.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well, if you know, COVID was so hard on so
many people. It was devastating for both my mother and
my mother in law, and really sim at that point,
their lives took a downturn. The quality of their lives
took a downturn. For the ice relation that they experienced.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
And that is the biggest surprise to me alone of all,
because I have, in effect, I always lived alone. Even
when I was married, I was living alone.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Who didn't have two children? You did have two children.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I did have two children, and they got neglected thereby
because Okay, I learned to take care of myself. What
you will learn is how to take care of yourself,
and they did. What they didn't learn was the joys
of family because I had not ever experienced that, right,
So that is my deepest regret, and I apologize to
(27:38):
them every night and comes out. It keeps you busy apologizing.
So I'm also so joyful that they managed to survive
their neglectful parents and survived in health and have had
perfectly wonderful lives. But what they don't have and won't
(28:03):
is the joys of their own children. But they're not
all the rest. They have the talent and their friendly
ye experience, and I adore each of them.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So again, you're ninety eight, your a century. Uh You know,
I had long talks with my mother, who passed away
at eighty eight. You act, my mother willed herself to die,
which was very devastating and a whole other thing. She
refused to eat. You know, she just said, this is
the year I'm going to She decided this is the
year I will die. You know, she said, this is
the year I will die. And that's that. How do
(28:37):
you face as you write in the book, we all
are going to the same end.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
We're all going to die.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, right, So how do you embrace? What do you
say to people about embracing the rest of the journey
and how do you approach it?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
First of all, language say was die, You're going to die,
You're not going to pass over. I hate you? From
business speak to use the words that apply, don't be scared.
And because it's a crazy what kind of creature would
create a preacher that lived on other creatures before it
(29:15):
became a father to the next creature. It's crazy and
that bothered me from the beginning of my recognition of
what a crazy world we live in. But is that
there are different attitudes towards that. Is that make you sad?
Does that make you happy? Well that's a little weird,
(29:36):
but you I want to understand that. And nobody could
answer my questions. The church I was in, I was
no good at all. They just said, well, you're going
to hell or heaven? Going to hell or heaven? Where
are they? As somebody said, they are now and you
are in it? Whatever whichever both? So yes, what was
(30:02):
the question again?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well, I think it's a fairly it's a very personal
approach to how you live the rest of your life.
Are there things that you do differently? Now? I mean,
obviously you have macular generation, so your site is your
lack of sight is a challenge. So you do have
a physical challenge. How do you deal with that? How
do you deal with the physical challenges and the mental
challenges which come Well, you don't seem to have any
(30:26):
mental challenges, but the physical challenges of aging.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
They absolutely go togain and the physical challenges are you
And this is a little you can do about it,
you know, even with all of the great worship of science,
I just hope to pass on without inconveniencing somebody else
(30:53):
in a drastic way. Would you want in all, folks,
instead of living off one of my kids? So I
encourage people to come to live with others. That is
a surprise me, who lived alone? What do I adore here?
(31:14):
Other people and whoever they are. However, crazy, however, intelligent
or remote. Just to rush rush shoulders is a joy
because it's a you know, it's temporary, but we're you're
(31:36):
all going to end up in the same place. That odd.
It is funny. Yes, we're all on the boat and
the boat's gonna sink.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And you know, people I always say that, people think
I'm being morbid, but you know, it is the reality.
So live life every day, live life on your terms
every day. As a result of that, so you do
have some rituals that I think are interesting. First of all,
you go to the market. You enjoy go to the market.
You have a beautiful farmer's market, and you go when
you have your vendors and you that is a ritual
(32:09):
of joy. And you also listen I love this to
opera and classical music on Saturday mornings.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Because I loved and I had the joy of living
in New York and going to the met me too,
and there's nothing like opera. And I was also blessed
by the depression in California because where did Madame Schumannhiit
retire that great opera star. She retired to Riverside, California.
(32:40):
And because it was depression, she gave money to the
high school. Like the high school, but the next ship
the college that was free there, you know, it was
in college. She gave money to have opera perform by
(33:00):
local people, and so I heard opera from the beginning
of my childhood. Imagine it was everything I loved, drama,
show biz, music all on the stage before me. And
it's just I would live from opera to opera a
great reward, Thank you, madam.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think I think that you know, as you get older,
you know and and well throughout life, forget as you
get older. Because when I was going through cancer treatment
for breast cancer and my mind was not white with chemo,
I had something called chemo brain, I would go to
the Metropolitan Opera and just sit and and and just
(33:43):
the music is very therapeutic. And I think if you
can't see or maybe you can't move a lot. My
mother watched My mother watched opera and was watching The
Nutcracker like all day before she died. The Nutcracker ballet.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Es Yes, and why is music? Music isn't necessary to us? Yes,
because it puts us in another world. And I don't
know what world that is, but that world and that's
where if we go deaf, will we'll remember it? You know? Well?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I have questions. So since you have challenges with your vision,
do you listen to books on tape?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I'm very I'm not a fan of books on tape
because the readers are usually so bad. I used to
read for the Wind in New York. I would do
the recordings and I love doing it. But I love
reading aloud because we were trained to do that in Riverside,
(34:49):
California with the Frank School. These are all the blessings
of depression, and so reading is if it was the
author reading fine. Otherwise the words are apt to come
like this and there goes all the way you've been from. No,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I love reading aloud. It's interesting, Betty. I'm I've have
been a writer around my life. My parents are both
writers with both arts are really important on and on.
My mother acted like you. I when I sleep, the
older I got. I write stories in my sleep. I
just wish they could record them while I'm sleeping, because
they're great. Does that ever happen to.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
You well, because recording is the key here. Yes, I'm
always I'm always waking up in the middle of a story. Yes,
about my creation or somebody's creation. But it's getting through,
but I can't remember. And my daughter gave me a
(35:51):
little palm. Ooh what do you call it when you
talk into a microphone? Yeah, but because of my I sigh.
It is too complicated. All of these advices to help
to get rid of the problems of blindness. They all
(36:13):
seem dependent upon being able to see that tiny series
of little buttons that almost all be pressed in the
right order. You're not going to be able to open it.
That's what happened with this little recorder. So I am
on the lookout for a recorder that will record the message,
(36:34):
then read back alive, allowed to me, then allow me
to return and change to edit when I've just written.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
In fact, there's going to be something like that. I'm
sure there is something. A lighthouse of other blind may
have it. I mean, have you had to learn braille
or now?
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I tried burial for a while and that's it. It
wasn't for me, And I said to explain, it wasn't
just that the institute that UH developed. So the braille
is run like a it's run like a machinery. It's
it's mechanical, and yeah, that work for me. So I
(37:20):
have not solved this problem of something that will record
and then revise under my without music. But oh, there's
another button right up. Oh see here, he's right up there.
Don't you see it? No, I don't see it. Do
you see it? No? Because it takes to another button
just like it.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You know the challenges, you know, I'm you know. I
have friends who are dealing with mobility issues right now,
terrible mobility. And my mother never got up after she
broke her help. That was a problem. So yes, we
know where that goes. I've done shows on that hash
palette changed because a lot of people say, oh, the
older you get, your palate changes, or your tolerance are food.
(38:03):
Have you felt your palate has changed? Has anything grown
more stronger in sensation or less or less appealing.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
All of the above, because palettes are very sensitive, right,
and it's just it's like the rest of the body.
The palette kind of slows down. Something. Don't change some
things do. I never had a taste for sugar. That
was a lucky thing.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
But to me, neither me neither alcohol. Do you do
do you drink cocktails? And when you don't have to
tell you after reading my kitchen waters. I just wanted
to have a Burgundy because in the book, you and
your then husband are in Europe and you're traveling and
you're going you go to burg to breast and do
the chickens, and you're drinking Shennon black more Burgundy. And
(38:54):
I said, yesterday for our wedding anniversary, we were at
Commander's Palace here in New Orleans, I was like, I
just want a really good glass of Burgundy. Just one glass,
That's all I want. And I did.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Relically means so much to my generation because we went
through prohibition and all no, no, and so naturally I'm
going to drink, and my taste for drinks have I wanted.
I have one cocktail each night, and this is part
of the ritual of AH. During the day, I can
(39:28):
write and then and then it's at five o'clock, Ah,
it's time to stop. This was in New York. Go
to the local bar just down the end of the road,
and you're immediately with friends. The bartender, the same people
come every night and you are in company and you
can eat it eat at the bar, or you can
(39:49):
go next door for food. You know, that's the ritual.
I want and I can't my body craze it, so
I go to the to the we have the grill
as opposed to the main dining room, to the bar,
because there's it's like a New York bar. It's there's
the uh the bar, and there's there's my favorite bartending.
(40:13):
Et cetera is part of it. It's hugely ritual.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Do you have a contail that you like, a specific crocail?
Julia like the reverse Martini? What about you? What do
you like? Is a cocktail?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Martini is too strong for me now in my own
so I have my favorite husband for a long time,
forgotten his name, so I'll tell you My current one
is the Cadillac Martin and the Cadillac. What's the Mexican drink? Mohito?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You like a Marina?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
You for the You go for the tequila? Girlfriend?
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Yeah? Yeah, Well, I I like a strong drink and
with lots of flavor. And that's only one and then
on to whatever the night right. I can have a
glass of wine if I'm really thirsty, but that's not usual.
(41:12):
It's usually just my one.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Actually, mohdos. It could be tequila, but it's often pisco,
which I like. I love pisco. Yes, yeah, pisco pisco.
So I can't. I'm finding it's more difficult to have
hard spirits. I drink a lot of wine, but hard
spirits are very hard for me. At at Commander's palace
yesterday they have twenty five cent martinis at lunch. My
(41:35):
husband had two. I know, I know, it's unique to
commanders at lunch, and they give you, they allow you
three after three, as Dorothy Parkers did, You're under the table,
and then I'm four under somebody else. I did the
three once and I was under the table and had
to do the walk of shame to pick up my belongings. Oh,
(41:58):
it was so embarrassing, stuck with my thanks to you,
my beautiful glass of bird white burgundy, which I nursed
with my fish. But David had the My husband had
the two, the fifty cents worth of Martinez, and he
took a long snory nap when he got home. But
it was a lot of fun. You know, my friends,
My friends are now, my peers are in their sixties
(42:21):
and seventies, and everybody loves the ritual of having a cocktail.
Thank god, I live in a city, New Orleans, where
the cocktail is king and nobody has the sphere of
getting sick or they're going to die from alcohol. Like
someplace I.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Used to go once a year because I had a
friend who had moved there, and she was, yeah, and
we would have a ritual barbecue. So what was it?
It was one of those, was it? It was a
football night, football and based the turkey at the same time,
(43:03):
so it had to be.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Thanksgiving is yeah, everything everything evolves around eating and drinking
down here. And I don't think I could live in
a community where eating and drinking is not important. I mean,
I like you have lived in New York. I grew
up in Tennessee eating and drinking. It was good. There
was just different, but it's such an integral part of
my life and yours. What do you want your last
meal to be? If you had if you could choose
(43:27):
your last meal?
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I used I used to ask that. I mean, I
mean really when I was when I was oh, I
would ask people that question when I was reported and
report the answers. And it was funny because you would
the kind repetition I expected and the kinds of very
unexpected and the last meal. I used to have a
(43:53):
formula for that, and that's completely changed, and I think
I got tired of it answering the question what do
I want? Or But I don't remember what my trick was,
so I have to say I don't let her. I
don't let her. That's the coyote says, I won't let her.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Well, probably it probably won't be coyotes, Sue. But your
book is an amazing book. I just recently wrote that
I don't want my last meal to be salad. I
eat a lot of salad, but I don't want that
to be my last meal. I want my last meal
to be a beautiful plate. Aposta just showered with truffles,
and then I said, Dune, you can sprinkle the rest
of them over my grave. You know it's like, just
(44:35):
sprinkle truffles over my grave. Please. That's really all I want, right.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Just tell me, Just tell me when you go.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I will and it'll be a big party too.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Well.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I you know, first of all, I'm still trying to get,
you know, my own memoir out about my life and
food and about four others that keep popping up in
my sleep going melanies. Start writing the damn book.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
You.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
I love the book. I love all your books. This
is one This is all right ninety eight he publishes
a book. Most people ninety eight are not even around.
You're around, and you're still doing really well. You've got
amazing energy. What you've gotten great reviews. I just read
the New York Times review lots of reviews for How
to Cook a Coyote. The Joy of Old Age. Wonderful,
wonderful gift to give people as well for people who
(45:18):
are you know, thinking about the joy of life. And
as I call progress, moving on in your journey, That's
how I call it, moving on in your journey. What
are you going to do now? Now that you have
the book out, you're out promoting it and everything. Is
there anything else you want to do?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Last time?
Speaker 4 (45:36):
In as soon as I guessitating machine, I've worked on
something called murder in Montesito said, where actually live? I
never mad. It's my first real fiction only of course
(45:57):
I know an awful lot of people, Oh this would
be inappropriate books.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Well, I hope I can read it.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
I hope I get to get to write it. Find
find me, find me a book a thing I can
use that it is not full of little buttons I
have to push.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I know we got to find that or someone just
to help you. My mother dictated to me when she
was better than in her final year, I sat and
she just kept talking and I would write everything down
because she had a column Social Field, the column articles,
and I just did that for her. So that's another
thing to think about, is get someone who's willing to write.
You speak and they write it down for you.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
But you know, I've tried that too. I think I've
tried everything I could, and I need to write alone.
I think, what oops, what are they gonna say this?
You know, it's a hazard if you're used to being
(47:05):
absolutely alone, and that's part of the joy.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, well, point, well taken. Well, hopefully we'll find you
a wonderful recorder that doesn't evolve lots of buttons. Meanwhile,
I love the fact that you have your stuff coyotes.
My mother when she would do interviews at eighty eight,
she had all her giraffes around her stuff giraffes because
she had a thing for giraffesse. She'd raise millions of money,
millions of dollars to have a giraffe exhibit created the zoo,
(47:31):
and the giraffes are everyone. So I love that you
have your symbolic coyotes and this terrific book. Again, as
we wrap up, we've been talking with Betty Fussell, who
is just has more energy than many people I know.
At thirty years younger than you. She is living life
to her fullest at ninety eight with a new book,
(47:52):
How to Cook a Coyote, The Joy of Old Age.
We should all have the same joy that you find
in living every day every agent stage of our life.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And I wish everyone joy because, as I say every day,
if you thank the powers and me, you're thanking them
before the first day and the last day of your
life at the same time exactly. It comes.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah. I mean, you know, Dylan Thomas once said we
once were born, we began to die, and it was
a profound comment, but it's true. You're born and then
there's the end and everything in between. You have to
decide how you want to live, which, again, thank you Betty.
As I always wrap up my show, I like to
say to the people that my listeners and viewers on
(48:40):
the why I created this show is that you have
choices in life on how you can live. Always choose
to live life on your terms and not on the
terms that others place on you and expect of you. Yeah,
he'p bring you joy. Make sure that you can expand
your horizons, break through those bars, and become the person
(49:01):
you are intended to be and wish to be at
every age in your stage, and always choose fearless and fabulous.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you. Happy day, everybody.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Happy, happy day. Thank you,
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We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young, and I love having women like you and
men join me to talk about how to live life
to the fullest at every age and stage. If you've
been following me in this show for the last thirteen years,
you know that a lot is the eolved and sometimes
I do the show solo to share my inspiration on
(01:05):
life and the challenges and overcoming him and sometimes I
have amazing guests. Over the years, have gotten very picky
about the guests I choose to have on my show.
They have to be people who I admire and who
I feel can give an amazing sense of their own
unique perspective of life with you, my viewers, now, my
viewers and my listeners, my guest today. Absolutely, I get
(01:28):
goosebumps just thinking about the fact that I'm interviewing her.
I've known her off and on for years because we're
both members or have been, of the prestigious Women in
Fine Food and Beverage group Les Dame Discoffier. She was
a member of the New York chapter with me. She
now is in California. We are talking about the amazing author, essayist,
(01:50):
food writer Betty Fussell. She is joining us from her
home in Casa Dirinda, Santa Barbara, California, where she lives now.
She's actually a born and bred California girl who spent
a lot of time on the East Coast. If you
run around in book circles or food circles, you may
know Betty because she's written twelve books, many on food
(02:15):
and life. I just finished reading one of her most notable,
which was her memoir My Kitchen Wars. I highly recommended it.
It really as I read it, I thought about my
grandmother and my mother and all the evolution of women
in this world today, where we were then and where
we are now. She also who has written a book
(02:37):
I'm currently reading of her amazing essay is called Eat, Live,
Love and Die, published in twenty eighteen. But here's the thing.
She's written another book, How to Cook a Coyote. Will
show the book. It has come out the Joy of
Old Age, and she's written it at the amazing young
age of ninety eight. So if you've not written a
(02:58):
book yet, or maybe you're putting off written that second
book or third book like me, just remember that Betty
Fussel has written her twelfth book at age ninety eight,
and she's just as energetic as ever. And we're going
to bring her on now because she's going to share
her life and her amazing perspective on living life to
the fullest. Betty, Welcome to Fearless Fabulous.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
You. Thank you so very much. I am honored melon Betty.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Your energy comes through in your writing. I'm just amazed.
Every Like I said, I've been reading three of your books.
I've known your books for years, but you know I
always go and revisit and really do a lot of
prep for this show. You are a writer that I
admire because you write about life, lust, joy, passion, and food,
(03:49):
and you are natural at it, right.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
You can call it. So I grew up a very
lonely child. I didn't know that that was going to
be my lucky.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well, it's interesting you say that, because the revelations in
My Kitchen Wars your memoir were amazing. You grew up,
you have a Scottish background. You grew up in a
what is termed as a calvinistic, very tight lipped, strict background.
Talk to us about that and how you found your
joy in what is otherwise a joyless time. You know,
(04:22):
growing up it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Was particularly joined us because I had a wicked step
stepmother right out of you know those wicked step mother
books that scared little children. And my mother had I
didn't know had killed herself. We thought she had. We'd
been told she had just by mistake, taken some rat
poison while her husband was off teaching college, teaching high school.
(04:50):
And this is in Riverside, California. But my folks, like
so many in California at that time, were escaping the
farm depression. And so this is way way back there
doing the depression. And we had zero money because my father,
as a school teacher, made no money whatsoever, and he
had four I think it was or five mortgages to
(05:15):
pay for So we grew up poor and you had
to make your own way and figure things out for yourself.
Only the church did it for us in my house
when they were very very strict evangelical type of worshipers,
and I spent my you know, I was there at
(05:37):
the church every every day for one thing or another,
for school or for skating lessons of all things. We
had our own little skating that you couldn't be any
place else because this was the only place that was
sacred with the church. And my wicked stepmother told me
I was going to hell anyway, So you know, from
(06:00):
the beginning I was no good.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
So how did you overcome that? Because it really was
that you called the stepmother dido and it was a
revelation that you found your mother. You thought abbsite my
only put her fingers on the rat poison, but you
quite later found it was not accidental, and that's very traumatic.
How did you overcome this joylessness and trauma, I mean
that's an emotional trauma and find your way to what
(06:24):
brought you joy.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
What brought me joy was working, and working meant doing
something something concrete. So as a child, I drew. I mean,
I always had a pencil in my hand, and my grandparents,
who had raised me after the death of my mother,
taught me how to write by age two, which is amazing.
(06:53):
So I was writing little ditties. And I loved writing
because nobody had to see them but me, and I
could keep them secret. It's like a secret diary. And
I loved turning out because I was dependent upon nobody.
It was all inside me. How wonderful I didn't have
(07:14):
to wait for somebody, you know, like a teacher.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You did you keep a lot of diaries as a child,
and as you grew, did your journal throughout your life?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yes? I did. I kept. Yes, I always had a
diary hidden away under my mattress of needed and I
loved writing writing down because it made it, it made
it real. Otherwise it was just floating around in my head.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I still have my diaries from when I was six,
and I've been keeping diaries ever since. I've fallen off
a little bit this year because the line how funny
about the diaries, I write it, and I brought the
wrong diary. I'm very funny about the shape and size
of the book I and Longhand but I find them
like you, they really are sacred. The first thing that
packed up when I left New York is I said,
(08:08):
we got to take care of the diaries.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Right, right right. And I encourage everybody who's you know,
everybody has a story. Everybody is a story, and I
always encourage people to write it down. Write it down
because you will forget it. And if you have kids,
if you have family that they won't even know when
(08:31):
they find out that we delighted.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, you know what's interesting is just for our just
to think about it. You were born in nineteen twenty seven,
I mean, yes, a century ago. So much changed in
the world that you follow it in my kitchen wars.
And you know, you were an academic's wife. Your husband,
your former husband now late former husband, Paul Fussel, was
(08:56):
a successful academic and academic circles. But you long to
be in that world as a legitimate writer. And you
were not necessarily encouraged.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Oh not only not encouraged, but get back to the
kitchen where you belong, right. And my husband really thought
women were another species and if they put their nose
outside the kitchen, something was wrong with them.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You mastered the kitchen though, and what's interesting, Betty, is
you mastered it self, taught reading the books and following
the recipes of Julia Child, who became your friend. In
Craig Claiborne and many others, you became a master in
the kitchen, which kind of took you into the opportunity
to gain a career in food writing. So you broke
through the bonds that were set. You attained a master's
(09:52):
degree and a PhD in English to teach, because you
have to have that. That was not easy at your time.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I fought for each time. Yes, but I happened. I
mean good luck. I was in the age of revolution,
which I was the UH. I came at the right
time with Julia. Julia rescued women from the kitchen bye
bye by putting her on television.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Did you I know you were friends with her?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And I was at her Yes, I was friends because
by that time I was living in New York, I
had left California, and I was I was doing journalism,
and I was a sign I forget for which magazine
UH to do a story on this woman who had
(10:45):
just written this book called The Masters of American Cookery.
And was about to launch her first television program. And
since I was in Boston, I mean nearby getting a
degree in Harvard because well, women couldn't go to getting
(11:08):
a degree in Brdic because women were not allowed in Harvard. Yes,
and I got to attend that first first television show
and it was so exciting because nothing like that had
(11:29):
happened in America. Americans thought American Puritan culture, we thought
food was an animal and you know, degrading and not
ever to be talked about. It is like going to
the toylet don't talk about like company. And I was
baffled by that because I had met Julia and we
(11:51):
became and she took me immediately to her house and
her kitchen, and I am so grateful to her forever.
Thank you, Julia.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Well, she's an inspiration for me for many reasons. One,
she found her voice after the age of fifty and
published and I stand for that because I am violently
vehemently against ageism at every level. And I had the
opportunity to work with Julia too, because I started the
James Spirit Awards and I got to take her around
and escorter and I found her delightful and mastering the
(12:23):
art of French cooking. I think I have three copies
of it now because I inher it is it's just
so treasured. What was it? What was some advice she
gave you as you were pursuing your uh still fairly
nascent writing career.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Uh, she really just talked. We talked about food and
the kitchen and the precision, and that in itself was fascinating.
You know, a recipe with oh, it's going to take
you half a day to make the preliminary too, through
dish you were making. So she taught me process and
(12:59):
the process and why it was necessary. And from my
point of view, I was learning the joys of food
because the food in my house was absolutely crappy and everybody,
my father did the cooking because my wicked stepmother was
a doctor of osteopathy and she's not looking food way
(13:23):
beneath her. Ah, So it's amazing. I wanted to know
what does it mean to be an American? That's what
interested me because I was an American and the world
was opening up then, I mean, because the War One,
in World War two, we had to become aware of
other nations and the speed of all these revolutions that
(13:47):
happened in my particular one hundred years were so amazing,
Like the airplane. My grandfather had never had his death,
and he lived a long time, had never put foot
in an airplane, because, as he said, if God wanted
(14:07):
men to fly, he would have given them wings. And
these men who crossed the prairies and bought Indians and
he crossed the prairies and a you know, a wagon.
It's so strange because every revolution that happened, and they
happened so many, was giant. As you're talking today. Think
(14:33):
of that.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
You know, we're still in a revolution. We're in a
technology revolution now. But I mean, you went through two wars,
World War one, World War two, rationing, the Great Depression.
You know people now, don't you know younger people. Yeah,
those young people, they don't know what it's like to
really suffer and struggle through a depression and not having food.
(14:57):
I mean, we're kind of getting there because foods can
really expect now, but the necessity. They don't know what
it's like to be told you can't write. Your late husband,
your late former husband, Paul said you can't write. He
really said you couldn't write. He said you belong in
the kitchen, like to being put in your place. I
don't even know that. My mother was lucky. My father
put her on a pestle and let her get a
(15:18):
two master's degree and teach and all that.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Where did she get her master's degree? Who would take her?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga? She said, she went to
Sophie Nugam, the women's college where I also went to
New Orleans, and then gave up a career to work
at the United Nations to marry my father. He likewise
gave up a promising career in the military. He was
a West Point grad. They settled in Chattanooga, where she
grew up, and she had a master. She was a
(15:47):
speech therapist. She met. She her major was speech and communications,
but while doing that and working in speech therapist, she
got a master's degree in psychologists.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
As a psychologist, I've got psychology was revolution right.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Well, like you, she was an actor, so you acted
you you were bursing gruth creativity. Mentionedly, my mother, my
mother lived in a not a calvinistic role, but she
was a nice Jewish family. You had to follow. My
grandmother used to lie and say my daughter doesn't work.
She's a volunteer.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, those.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Good rooms didn't work. And but my mother, unlike you,
my mother hated to cook for you. Food. Food became
an escape, It became a joy. It became a carnal pleasure,
a sensuous and sensual wil pleasure. You're writing exudes that.
I mean, just to share some of the books that
you mentioned Embracing America Masters of American Cookery nineteen eighty four,
(16:45):
I hear America Cooking nineteen ninety seven. I'm skipping around
the story of corn really just an amazing book, Crazy
for Corn, and you know your corn books are pretty
And then you wrote My Kids Raising Steaks. But what'
you saying? Your first book was not about food, and
it was in nineteen eighty two. How old were you
when you published your fookbook, which is called Mabel Hollywood's
(17:08):
First I don't care girl. So it's kind of an
interesting independent type girl.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
We don't get We had our kitchen was terrible. As
I said, father did the cooking. This the wicked stepmother
was a doctor of osteopathy and thought cooking was very
but beneath her. So she never liked to put she
kept her foot out of the kitchen. My brother hated this,
my brother who was four years old, because he thought
(17:33):
it made a patsy out of my packed pecked father
and gave him shame thereby. So this is all screwed up.
It was so so different, and I was fascinated by
why was why was food considered you know, almost evil?
(17:56):
And why did it have these connotations of stay out
of the kitchen and before Julian And in trying to
answer those that question, it led me into what does
it mean to be an American? Because other companies were
not like this. France was not. Once I got to
(18:17):
France and it was not this way. It was just
Impuritian Americans. The Puritan part of Britain, you know who
rebelled against came over and the Purisans, of course that
that's their name pure, they're pure of animal innstin. So
I went head over animal. Let's find out about animal industry.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And you did. You had you know, you clearly admit
that you had affair as you explored your animal instincts.
You did it with joy. I mean you had to
because you couldn't live as a suppressed woman.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Well, I couldn't live as a singer. I mean, what
was it about I was? You know, I had to understand.
Please let me, let me understand what's my body for?
What's wrong with screwing somebody?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It's not just the vessel to make babies. You know,
you can have pleasure, No what the baby? So animal
animal instinct Speaking of animal instincts, so you've you know,
how to cook a coyote? Obviously anyone who loves MFK.
Fisher thinks of how to cook a wolf? And I
am a huge MFAK Fisher fan, have all her books?
(19:29):
You wrote this. There's so many metaphors about a coyote.
I look them up online because in the indigenous world
that coyote symbolizes a lot. Talk to us about the
book is called how to Cook and why my injury.
Let's put the book cover back up in a small corner.
How to Cook a coyote the Joy of old Age.
There's there's two powerful messages. If the how to cook
(19:50):
a coyote, which people a lot of them that you know,
when I posted this on social media, they're like, well
that's interesting, But the Joy of old Age really interested
me as someone who to caretake her mother in a
fairly joyous last year of her life at eighty eight,
and you can approach old age certain ways. How did
these two themes come together? And how come the coyote?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And in my view, the real title of the book
is how to put a Coyote and how to Enjoy
So it's two recipes, one looking at coyote and the
other is for enjoying hold it. So how can those
possibly crazy things to begin with? How can they possibly
(20:35):
go together as a how to write?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
And I found the more I investigated, the more I
like they became. And first you have to find your coyote,
because if you live in the city, but people didn't
always live in the city, and coyotes, it turns out,
were the only animal to be native to the Western hemisphere.
(21:04):
All the others came by is a ship. They came
across the waters, one ocean or another Europe or China community.
And that was astonishing to me. So he the coyote
has very special uh existence in America and South America,
(21:28):
and America got rid of rid of the coyote as
in so far as it could be, because it had
no status, because it didn't come from abroad. It came
from the pretty old uh, the place of Indians. And
we know what happened to the Native American.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yes, well considered wild. Yeah, I grew up. We grew
up fearful of coyotes. I mean I grew up in Tennessee.
They weren't want to, but there were coyotes and they ran,
and so they were scary because they ran in packs.
B they ate little dogs, and we have little dogs,
and we didn't like that.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
And you're hungry, you eat what's there. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, it's like like how to cook. Well, I mean,
if you're hungry, you will tame and eat what you
need to to feed your soul and nourish yourself. Yeah,
whether you like or not. Interestingly, in your book, you
do have these, you know, the coyote theme runs through.
It's also a tough the tough meat. It's a tough animal,
and you have to you have to tame it, uh,
(22:30):
which is kind of how old they are. Growing old
is not easy either.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
But the wonderful thing about then is that he is
physically the least fierce and of of all the predator animals,
I mean, the wolves go on up to lie there
because he's smaller and he doesn't have the physical strength,
(22:58):
and so he has to have something else. And when
he has his smart, he's smart. He is tricky. He
disguises he can't do it by knocking out the wolf
with his paw because the wolf is bigger and stronger.
So he has to play games. So he'll pretend to
(23:20):
run away and he'll sneak around the back and hit
him in the roof wells.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Historically, you know, coyotes are known to be They've been
described as cutting trickster. Wiley Coyote was a cartoon character.
He was a very crazy troublemaker.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
He had to be smart because he couldn't be strong enough,
which is the human condition, as you can see. So
we share this with coyote. We're much closer to coyote
hood than we are to being a wolf.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Also, they're known for being resilient and adapting, but you
have to do in life right. Resilient and adapt.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
The shape changers and as part of their smarts, and
there are also actors. I mean, there's sort of everything
I was. Therefore, I identified very quickly with the powers.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So the book itself is essays and and kind of
it embraces your life. Now you soldier home in the
East Coast and moved into Costa Darenda, where Julia also
lived it. It is a is it an independent life
care center? Would you call it independent?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
So?
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Okay, well, independent life care. Independent care is supposed to
be like the euphemism for old folks home.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I have as you know, you're right about it.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
You've been there. How many years have you been there?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Now, Betty, it's either as it's fifteen or twenty, and
I never quite remember which.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So one of the point that things you wrote I
mean and you write about You write about the breakfast
club and the rituals and getting together. But the and
the rituals are important. So talk to us about the
rituals that you embrace, which are meaningful to you. Now.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I always hated repetition, so I'm somebody who'd never like
to repeat, Oh I've done that, And it turns out
in my old age, I adore repetition. I count on rituals,
and that the rituals I developed. And most of my
life I've lived alone, even though I've had a lot
(25:32):
of I had a husband and two children and a
lot of lovers. But that just means life. But I
learned that, h I've forgotten what I was. Wata said,
That's also part.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
When you talked about you. When you were younger, you
didn't like repetition. You like to be, and now you
embrace rituals, repetition.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Ritual like crazy. And I'm very curious, why is this?
Why does I went during COVID when a lot of
friends died as a rendo her I am, and we
couldn't see them, We couldn't say goodbye to them because
we couldn't the infection. And to this day, my heart
(26:20):
aches and what I do my device here, I put
them in the moon, so every time there's a lead
full moon, I can say hello, pat, Hello, Reddy, because
they have to be someplace, because it's so strong in
my memory, because they I never got ready to say
(26:40):
goodbye to them, so I'll keep on saying goodbye until
I joined them in the moon.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well, if you know, COVID was so hard on so
many people. It was devastating for both my mother and
my mother in law, and really sim at that point,
their lives took a downturn. The quality of their lives
took a downturn. For the ice relation that they experienced.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
And that is the biggest surprise to me alone of all,
because I have, in effect, I always lived alone. Even
when I was married, I was living alone.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Who didn't have two children? You did have two children.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I did have two children, and they got neglected thereby
because Okay, I learned to take care of myself. What
you will learn is how to take care of yourself,
and they did. What they didn't learn was the joys
of family because I had not ever experienced that, right,
So that is my deepest regret, and I apologize to
(27:38):
them every night and comes out. It keeps you busy apologizing.
So I'm also so joyful that they managed to survive
their neglectful parents and survived in health and have had
perfectly wonderful lives. But what they don't have and won't
(28:03):
is the joys of their own children. But they're not
all the rest. They have the talent and their friendly
ye experience, and I adore each of them.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So again, you're ninety eight, your a century. Uh You know,
I had long talks with my mother, who passed away
at eighty eight. You act, my mother willed herself to die,
which was very devastating and a whole other thing. She
refused to eat. You know, she just said, this is
the year I'm going to She decided this is the
year I will die. You know, she said, this is
the year I will die. And that's that. How do
(28:37):
you face as you write in the book, we all
are going to the same end.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
We're all going to die.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, right, So how do you embrace? What do you
say to people about embracing the rest of the journey
and how do you approach it?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
First of all, language say was die, You're going to die,
You're not going to pass over. I hate you? From
business speak to use the words that apply, don't be scared.
And because it's a crazy what kind of creature would
create a preacher that lived on other creatures before it
(29:15):
became a father to the next creature. It's crazy and
that bothered me from the beginning of my recognition of
what a crazy world we live in. But is that
there are different attitudes towards that. Is that make you sad?
Does that make you happy? Well that's a little weird,
(29:36):
but you I want to understand that. And nobody could
answer my questions. The church I was in, I was
no good at all. They just said, well, you're going
to hell or heaven? Going to hell or heaven? Where
are they? As somebody said, they are now and you
are in it? Whatever whichever both? So yes, what was
(30:02):
the question again?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well, I think it's a fairly it's a very personal
approach to how you live the rest of your life.
Are there things that you do differently? Now? I mean,
obviously you have macular generation, so your site is your
lack of sight is a challenge. So you do have
a physical challenge. How do you deal with that? How
do you deal with the physical challenges and the mental
challenges which come Well, you don't seem to have any
(30:26):
mental challenges, but the physical challenges of aging.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
They absolutely go togain and the physical challenges are you
And this is a little you can do about it,
you know, even with all of the great worship of science,
I just hope to pass on without inconveniencing somebody else
(30:53):
in a drastic way. Would you want in all, folks,
instead of living off one of my kids? So I
encourage people to come to live with others. That is
a surprise me, who lived alone? What do I adore here?
(31:14):
Other people and whoever they are. However, crazy, however, intelligent
or remote. Just to rush rush shoulders is a joy
because it's a you know, it's temporary, but we're you're
(31:36):
all going to end up in the same place. That odd.
It is funny. Yes, we're all on the boat and
the boat's gonna sink.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And you know, people I always say that, people think
I'm being morbid, but you know, it is the reality.
So live life every day, live life on your terms
every day. As a result of that, so you do
have some rituals that I think are interesting. First of all,
you go to the market. You enjoy go to the market.
You have a beautiful farmer's market, and you go when
you have your vendors and you that is a ritual
(32:09):
of joy. And you also listen I love this to
opera and classical music on Saturday mornings.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Because I loved and I had the joy of living
in New York and going to the met me too,
and there's nothing like opera. And I was also blessed
by the depression in California because where did Madame Schumannhiit
retire that great opera star. She retired to Riverside, California.
(32:40):
And because it was depression, she gave money to the
high school. Like the high school, but the next ship
the college that was free there, you know, it was
in college. She gave money to have opera perform by
(33:00):
local people, and so I heard opera from the beginning
of my childhood. Imagine it was everything I loved, drama,
show biz, music all on the stage before me. And
it's just I would live from opera to opera a
great reward, Thank you, madam.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think I think that you know, as you get older,
you know and and well throughout life, forget as you
get older. Because when I was going through cancer treatment
for breast cancer and my mind was not white with chemo,
I had something called chemo brain, I would go to
the Metropolitan Opera and just sit and and and just
(33:43):
the music is very therapeutic. And I think if you
can't see or maybe you can't move a lot. My
mother watched My mother watched opera and was watching The
Nutcracker like all day before she died. The Nutcracker ballet.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Es Yes, and why is music? Music isn't necessary to us? Yes,
because it puts us in another world. And I don't
know what world that is, but that world and that's
where if we go deaf, will we'll remember it? You know? Well?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I have questions. So since you have challenges with your vision,
do you listen to books on tape?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I'm very I'm not a fan of books on tape
because the readers are usually so bad. I used to
read for the Wind in New York. I would do
the recordings and I love doing it. But I love
reading aloud because we were trained to do that in Riverside,
(34:49):
California with the Frank School. These are all the blessings
of depression, and so reading is if it was the
author reading fine. Otherwise the words are apt to come
like this and there goes all the way you've been from. No,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I love reading aloud. It's interesting, Betty. I'm I've have
been a writer around my life. My parents are both
writers with both arts are really important on and on.
My mother acted like you. I when I sleep, the
older I got. I write stories in my sleep. I
just wish they could record them while I'm sleeping, because
they're great. Does that ever happen to.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
You well, because recording is the key here. Yes, I'm
always I'm always waking up in the middle of a story. Yes,
about my creation or somebody's creation. But it's getting through,
but I can't remember. And my daughter gave me a
(35:51):
little palm. Ooh what do you call it when you
talk into a microphone? Yeah, but because of my I sigh.
It is too complicated. All of these advices to help
to get rid of the problems of blindness. They all
(36:13):
seem dependent upon being able to see that tiny series
of little buttons that almost all be pressed in the
right order. You're not going to be able to open it.
That's what happened with this little recorder. So I am
on the lookout for a recorder that will record the message,
(36:34):
then read back alive, allowed to me, then allow me
to return and change to edit when I've just written.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
In fact, there's going to be something like that. I'm
sure there is something. A lighthouse of other blind may
have it. I mean, have you had to learn braille
or now?
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I tried burial for a while and that's it. It
wasn't for me, And I said to explain, it wasn't
just that the institute that UH developed. So the braille
is run like a it's run like a machinery. It's
it's mechanical, and yeah, that work for me. So I
(37:20):
have not solved this problem of something that will record
and then revise under my without music. But oh, there's
another button right up. Oh see here, he's right up there.
Don't you see it? No, I don't see it. Do
you see it? No? Because it takes to another button
just like it.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You know the challenges, you know, I'm you know. I
have friends who are dealing with mobility issues right now,
terrible mobility. And my mother never got up after she
broke her help. That was a problem. So yes, we
know where that goes. I've done shows on that hash
palette changed because a lot of people say, oh, the
older you get, your palate changes, or your tolerance are food.
(38:03):
Have you felt your palate has changed? Has anything grown
more stronger in sensation or less or less appealing.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
All of the above, because palettes are very sensitive, right,
and it's just it's like the rest of the body.
The palette kind of slows down. Something. Don't change some
things do. I never had a taste for sugar. That
was a lucky thing.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
But to me, neither me neither alcohol. Do you do
do you drink cocktails? And when you don't have to
tell you after reading my kitchen waters. I just wanted
to have a Burgundy because in the book, you and
your then husband are in Europe and you're traveling and
you're going you go to burg to breast and do
the chickens, and you're drinking Shennon black more Burgundy. And
(38:54):
I said, yesterday for our wedding anniversary, we were at
Commander's Palace here in New Orleans, I was like, I
just want a really good glass of Burgundy. Just one glass,
That's all I want. And I did.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Relically means so much to my generation because we went
through prohibition and all no, no, and so naturally I'm
going to drink, and my taste for drinks have I wanted.
I have one cocktail each night, and this is part
of the ritual of AH. During the day, I can
(39:28):
write and then and then it's at five o'clock, Ah,
it's time to stop. This was in New York. Go
to the local bar just down the end of the road,
and you're immediately with friends. The bartender, the same people
come every night and you are in company and you
can eat it eat at the bar, or you can
(39:49):
go next door for food. You know, that's the ritual.
I want and I can't my body craze it, so
I go to the to the we have the grill
as opposed to the main dining room, to the bar,
because there's it's like a New York bar. It's there's
the uh the bar, and there's there's my favorite bartending.
(40:13):
Et cetera is part of it. It's hugely ritual.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Do you have a contail that you like, a specific crocail?
Julia like the reverse Martini? What about you? What do
you like? Is a cocktail?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Martini is too strong for me now in my own
so I have my favorite husband for a long time,
forgotten his name, so I'll tell you My current one
is the Cadillac Martin and the Cadillac. What's the Mexican drink? Mohito?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
You like a Marina?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
You for the You go for the tequila? Girlfriend?
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Yeah? Yeah, Well, I I like a strong drink and
with lots of flavor. And that's only one and then
on to whatever the night right. I can have a
glass of wine if I'm really thirsty, but that's not usual.
(41:12):
It's usually just my one.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Actually, mohdos. It could be tequila, but it's often pisco,
which I like. I love pisco. Yes, yeah, pisco pisco.
So I can't. I'm finding it's more difficult to have
hard spirits. I drink a lot of wine, but hard
spirits are very hard for me. At at Commander's palace
yesterday they have twenty five cent martinis at lunch. My
(41:35):
husband had two. I know, I know, it's unique to
commanders at lunch, and they give you, they allow you
three after three, as Dorothy Parkers did, You're under the table,
and then I'm four under somebody else. I did the
three once and I was under the table and had
to do the walk of shame to pick up my belongings. Oh,
(41:58):
it was so embarrassing, stuck with my thanks to you,
my beautiful glass of bird white burgundy, which I nursed
with my fish. But David had the My husband had
the two, the fifty cents worth of Martinez, and he
took a long snory nap when he got home. But
it was a lot of fun. You know, my friends,
My friends are now, my peers are in their sixties
(42:21):
and seventies, and everybody loves the ritual of having a cocktail.
Thank god, I live in a city, New Orleans, where
the cocktail is king and nobody has the sphere of
getting sick or they're going to die from alcohol. Like
someplace I.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Used to go once a year because I had a
friend who had moved there, and she was, yeah, and
we would have a ritual barbecue. So what was it?
It was one of those, was it? It was a
football night, football and based the turkey at the same time,
(43:03):
so it had to be.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Thanksgiving is yeah, everything everything evolves around eating and drinking
down here. And I don't think I could live in
a community where eating and drinking is not important. I mean,
I like you have lived in New York. I grew
up in Tennessee eating and drinking. It was good. There
was just different, but it's such an integral part of
my life and yours. What do you want your last
meal to be? If you had if you could choose
(43:27):
your last meal?
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I used I used to ask that. I mean, I
mean really when I was when I was oh, I
would ask people that question when I was reported and
report the answers. And it was funny because you would
the kind repetition I expected and the kinds of very
unexpected and the last meal. I used to have a
(43:53):
formula for that, and that's completely changed, and I think
I got tired of it answering the question what do
I want? Or But I don't remember what my trick was,
so I have to say I don't let her. I
don't let her. That's the coyote says, I won't let her.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Well, probably it probably won't be coyotes, Sue. But your
book is an amazing book. I just recently wrote that
I don't want my last meal to be salad. I
eat a lot of salad, but I don't want that
to be my last meal. I want my last meal
to be a beautiful plate. Aposta just showered with truffles,
and then I said, Dune, you can sprinkle the rest
of them over my grave. You know it's like, just
(44:35):
sprinkle truffles over my grave. Please. That's really all I want, right.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Just tell me, Just tell me when you go.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I will and it'll be a big party too.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Well.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I you know, first of all, I'm still trying to get,
you know, my own memoir out about my life and
food and about four others that keep popping up in
my sleep going melanies. Start writing the damn book.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
You.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
I love the book. I love all your books. This
is one This is all right ninety eight he publishes
a book. Most people ninety eight are not even around.
You're around, and you're still doing really well. You've got
amazing energy. What you've gotten great reviews. I just read
the New York Times review lots of reviews for How
to Cook a Coyote. The Joy of Old Age. Wonderful,
wonderful gift to give people as well for people who
(45:18):
are you know, thinking about the joy of life. And
as I call progress, moving on in your journey, That's
how I call it, moving on in your journey. What
are you going to do now? Now that you have
the book out, you're out promoting it and everything. Is
there anything else you want to do?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Last time?
Speaker 4 (45:36):
In as soon as I guessitating machine, I've worked on
something called murder in Montesito said, where actually live? I
never mad. It's my first real fiction only of course
(45:57):
I know an awful lot of people, Oh this would
be inappropriate books.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Well, I hope I can read it.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
I hope I get to get to write it. Find
find me, find me a book a thing I can
use that it is not full of little buttons I
have to push.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I know we got to find that or someone just
to help you. My mother dictated to me when she
was better than in her final year, I sat and
she just kept talking and I would write everything down
because she had a column Social Field, the column articles,
and I just did that for her. So that's another
thing to think about, is get someone who's willing to write.
You speak and they write it down for you.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
But you know, I've tried that too. I think I've
tried everything I could, and I need to write alone.
I think, what oops, what are they gonna say this?
You know, it's a hazard if you're used to being
(47:05):
absolutely alone, and that's part of the joy.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, well, point, well taken. Well, hopefully we'll find you
a wonderful recorder that doesn't evolve lots of buttons. Meanwhile,
I love the fact that you have your stuff coyotes.
My mother when she would do interviews at eighty eight,
she had all her giraffes around her stuff giraffes because
she had a thing for giraffesse. She'd raise millions of money,
millions of dollars to have a giraffe exhibit created the zoo,
(47:31):
and the giraffes are everyone. So I love that you
have your symbolic coyotes and this terrific book. Again, as
we wrap up, we've been talking with Betty Fussell, who
is just has more energy than many people I know.
At thirty years younger than you. She is living life
to her fullest at ninety eight with a new book,
(47:52):
How to Cook a Coyote, The Joy of Old Age.
We should all have the same joy that you find
in living every day every agent stage of our life.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And I wish everyone joy because, as I say every day,
if you thank the powers and me, you're thanking them
before the first day and the last day of your
life at the same time exactly. It comes.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah. I mean, you know, Dylan Thomas once said we
once were born, we began to die, and it was
a profound comment, but it's true. You're born and then
there's the end and everything in between. You have to
decide how you want to live, which, again, thank you Betty.
As I always wrap up my show, I like to
say to the people that my listeners and viewers on
(48:40):
the why I created this show is that you have
choices in life on how you can live. Always choose
to live life on your terms and not on the
terms that others place on you and expect of you. Yeah,
he'p bring you joy. Make sure that you can expand
your horizons, break through those bars, and become the person
(49:01):
you are intended to be and wish to be at
every age in your stage, and always choose fearless and fabulous.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you. Happy day, everybody.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Happy, happy day. Thank you,
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