December 9, 2024 • 27 mins
Food magazines? Remember them? Sure, there are still a few around. But the print versions have certainly fallen off.
Back in the day, we had a long, full career with food magazines, including being contributing editors and columnists for some of the biggest. Do we have stories to tell!
We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of three dozen (and counting) cookbooks. We've written over ten thousand recipes for magazines. And we're so glad you're willing to share our passion for food and cooking!
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:54] Our one-minute cooking tip: Have the supermarket butcher unwrap shrink-wrapped meat to make sure it's still good.
[02:54] We're laughing through our stories about writing for food magazines!
[24:19] What’s making us happy in food this week? Our new cookbook that's out in the summer of 2025, as well as vintage port.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bruce (00:01):
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Scarborough, andtogether with Bruce, we have
written so many cookbooks.
We've published, I don't know,probably written tens, literally tens
of thousands of original recipes.
If not hundreds of thousands.
No, it's not that high, butit's in the tens of thousands.
I used to keep track.
I don't even keep track anymore.
Um, we've had a long career, about25 years in the food business,
(00:23):
and this is our podcast aboutthat passion, food and cooking.
We are so glad you've joined us.
We've got a one minute clip.
cooking tip up ahead.
We're going to talk about our careerin writing for food magazines,
something that has gone away.
Mostly food magazines.
Most of these are now gone by thewayside, but we'll tell you some actually
funny stories from the two decadesin which we wrote for food magazines.
(00:48):
And then we'll tell you what'smaking us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip.
If you're buying meat at the supermarketand it's pre wrapped, pre shrink wrapped,
not like it's been wrapped behind thebutcher counter, but you know they
brought it in shrink wrapped like the waya turkey is or a duck or a leg of lamb.
(01:10):
Don't be afraid to ask the butcherto open that package for you.
You want to make sure it smells good.
You know how many times I have broughta leg of lamb home and opened it
and it smelled like rotted meat.
So if you ask them to open it andit's good, they could just rewrap
it and put a price on it for you.
And you don't get home andget stuck with some rotten.
Mark (01:29):
Yeah, this particularly goes for turkeys, as you say, for legs
of lamb, for those lamb shoulderroasts that are prepackaged.
Oh, it happened with a
Bruce (01:37):
rabbit once.
It was so nasty.
Mark (01:39):
Yeah, it happened with a rabbit.
Not that, again, as Bruce says, not thestuff that's sitting on the styrofoam
trays that's wrapped in the meat counter.
But if you know this thing came infrom afar, just ask them to unwrap it.
There's a butcher back there.
And they'll do it in a minute if theydon't want to go to another store.
Yeah.
And mostly they'relooking for things to do.
So just ask him to do it andthey'll be glad to do it.
(02:02):
And you can tell immediately if the thinghas gone off, don't waste your money.
All right.
Before we get to that nextsegment of this podcast, let me
say that we do have a newsletter.
It comes out.
I don't know.
I used to say every two weeks, maybenow once a month, because I'm in
the middle of the design of our nextcookbook, which is out in July of 2025.
So I, I haven't had a minuteto spare to write a newsletter.
(02:24):
But if you want to sign up for thatnewsletter, which is not really connected
to this podcast, you can find how todo so on our website, bruceandmark.
com or cookingwithbruceandmark.
com.
Scroll down the splash page or the landingpage that you'll see at the bottom,
a way to sign up for the newsletter.
Just to remind you, I don't collectyour email, nor do I allow the
provider MailChimp to collect it soit can't be sold to other services.
(02:49):
You can always unsubscribe.
at any time.
We're happy to have youalong for the newsletter too.
Okay, let's tell some talesabout writing for food magazines.
I get to start.
Okay.
Um, so I want to talk about writing forcooking light, which is now long gone.
Oh, we
Bruce (03:08):
used to write so much for them.
Every issue we had a column.
Yeah.
We had a column in every issue, andwe got to write other features for
them, and it was a really, really nicerelationship we had, and we had a great
relationship with our editor there.
Mark (03:22):
We did, and she was a great editor to have.
She was very forthright and honest,which is what you want in an editor.
She was very seriousabout pitches as writers.
You want this, somebody wholooks over the pitches and goes
no or yes, which you don't want.
As a writer, in case you don't knowthis, is you don't want equivocation,
or you don't want long delay, likea month later, she hasn't even
(03:43):
said anything about your pitches.
For feature articles, you want somebodywho's, you know, back in a few days
and goes, nope, no thanks for allof these, or yeah, this is great.
The third one looks good,and let's talk about it.
That's what you want.
It's just a fast, easy response.
Bruce (03:57):
And you have this relationship, usually long distance, because
not everybody lives where you do.
I mean, we were in New York,and you would think, oh, it's a
food magazine there in New York.
Nope.
Cooking Light was based in
Mark (04:09):
Alabama.
Yeah.
Well, and I want to tell you beforewe get to Cooking Light about
a little side point about this.
When I say that we pitchedmagazines, this is is what we did.
Um, we were a contributing editorfor years to, uh, eating well,
but we still pitched the foodeditor ideas for feature articles.
I mean, we had to come up with thesubject matter of the content and we
(04:30):
were out to dinner once with a veryprominent and snotty couple who wrote
cookbooks and food magazine articles.
And I was talking about this very thing.
And he, the man of this couple,looked across the table.
at me with this withering look,and he said, We do not pitch.
And I thought, Oh God, okay, great.
(04:50):
You're way more important than I am.
I still have to get an editor toapprove of what I'm gonna write.
But, okay, yes, that was us.
We did pitch.
So, we would pitch cooking a lotof these stories, and one time we
were at the International Barbecue,Expo in Atlanta and we drove over
to Cooking Light in Alabama, right?
(05:10):
Yeah.
And we drove over to where theywere and we met our editor.
Finally met her because we'd never, we'd
Bruce (05:16):
only ever, you know, email.
Mark (05:18):
You know, I was deathly afraid of meeting her because,
you know, it's Cooking Light.
So I'm like, God, what arewe going to have for lunch?
I better have like celery ora glass of water or something.
Half an aspirin.
And I was like, are you
Bruce (05:29):
kidding?
She's going to take us to some,you know, place where we're
going to be served a carrot.
Right, and I was like,
Mark (05:33):
I don't want to fill up on a whole aspirin.
Why don't you just give me a half of one?
Bruce (05:37):
Instead this woman took us to Two kind of two different barbecue restaurants
because she felt that the brisket and theribs she couldn't decide which were better
So we had to eat them all at both The
Mark (2) (05:50):
second restaurant part of going to this two barbecue restaurants from
one lunch and the second restaurant forcooking light The second restaurant it was
Mark (05:57):
all going there also because they had this giant cream cake and she wanted
to get a huge slice And eat it, and I waslike, okay, so much for my theory about
aspirins or carrots or celery or whatever.
So, what have
Mark (2) (06:08):
we learned today?
Mark (06:10):
What have we learned
Mark (2) (06:10):
today is that, uh, the editors at Cooking Light, they may have cooked
light, but they didn't eat light.
I was like, holy crow,I can't eat two barbecue
Bruce (06:20):
meals in one sitting.
That woman also loved her bourbon.
Mark (2) (06:23):
Yes, she did.
She
Bruce (06:24):
did.
Loved her bourbon.
She did.
Mark (06:27):
Um, for years, we wrote for Wine Spectator.
In fact, you might consider thatreally our first magazine gig
is writing for Wine Spectator.
And it was really a bit of a posh gig.
Oh, it was fabulous.
Because, uh, it was back in the day whereyou had to be totally anonymous, and we
were writing food and travel articles forthem, and we had to do the whole thing
of just being absolutely under the radar.
(06:47):
We'll tell you about that in a minute.
And it was very old school.
This is so old school that inwriting for Wine Spectator, we
were given an expense account.
Bruce (06:55):
Well, we had to pay for all those meals we were reviewing.
But this is the best.
The funniest thing about, here weare writing for Wine Spectator and
we did not get to write about wine.
Mark (07:05):
No.
Bruce (07:06):
We were disallowed
Mark (07:07):
from writing about wine.
We weren't the wine experts, wewere the food and travel experts.
We weren't James Suckling and all thesereally important people who raided wines.
And so, we had to write this.
these reviews, let's say that we didthis whole piece on the Vaucluse, this
region of France and we had to go to allthese beautiful restaurants with these
giant wine lists, oh I have to tellyou about it in a minute, with these
(07:28):
giant wine lists and then, you know,we would review the meal that we ate
anonymously and stayed anonymously, paidfor it, paid for ourself, we couldn't,
you know, accept anything for free.
They didn't get to know who we were.
No, exactly.
Exactly.
And then.
Afterwards, I would reveal myself to themand say, okay, this is who we are, but
this was a great, this article and youknow, I, I described the vocaloos and
(07:50):
the hotels and the restaurants and allthat, and then I literally had to leave
space in the article that says, you know,copy about wine goes here because of
course they would look at the wine list.
And this is one of the things thatI think is so funny about writing
for spectator when we did it.
So we would, after.
eating dinner at a restaurant.
Then I would call them thenext day or drop by and I would
say, okay, here's the truth.
(08:11):
We were critics for Wine Spectator.
We're writing an articleabout this region of France.
We'd like to include your restaurant.
And most importantly, whatI need is your wine list.
So I went.
to this one.
We went to this one restaurant, had aspectacular meal in the south of France.
At the end of it, I asked, uh,well, the next day, actually,
I asked for the wine list.
The wine list, just to tell you, itwas 175 pages long, 175 pages of wines.
(08:38):
And we were traveling and I wasn't goingto carry this thing around and they
didn't offer it to me anyway, right?
This is a fancy restaurant with like, Twowine lists, you know, two copies of it.
So I asked her to fax it to us.
Remember fax machines?
Yes.
Remember the
Bruce (08:51):
paper that rolled up?
So what happened?
So we got home after three weeksof this trip, and the fax machine
was on my desk in the foyer of ourapartment, and there were hundreds
and hundreds of scrolled paper.
Out of order, out ofsequence, on the floor.
In that, that glisteny kind of pseudowet paper that fax machines would
Mark (09:12):
spit out.
We had to pick them upand put them in order.
And put them in order.
That was the
Mark (2) (09:16):
kicker.
Is it 175 pages?
Mark (09:18):
And I was trying to figure out, okay, wait, what's the And
it's not necessarily paginated.
So, I'm like, oh, my gosh,how do I put this thing in
Bruce (09:24):
order to give to my editor?
And when we went back to that placeto talk to them afterwards, to
actually talk to the chef, he waslike, oh, have a glass of champagne.
I'm like, no.
We can't even now, after thefact, we cannot even have a
glass of champagne with you.
Absolutely nothing.
Which is why it was a little bizarrewhen we wrote an article for Wine
Spectator about Austin, Texas.
(09:45):
Mmm.
Um, if you don't know me, if youhaven't heard enough stories about
me, I am always looking for a deal.
And a bargain.
And we were going to review thesehotels in Austin and restaurants,
and I wanted to stay at the Driscoll,which is a really, really nice hotel.
Mark (10:01):
Really old school hotel.
I mean, so old school in Austin, ifyou don't know the history of Austin.
This is where LBJ, Lyndon BainesJohnson, would hang out in the lobby
and essentially make legislativedeals when he was a state legislator,
and then even when he was acongressman and a senator from Texas.
Bruce (10:17):
You know, our expense account paid for the nice meals, but it didn't really
allow us to stay in the best of hotels.
Mark (10:22):
Well, okay, let me back up and say, so Spectator put us on an
expense account, which is reallylovely, and it would have been a
generous expense account for one hotel.
person.
But there were the two of us.
We came as a pair.
So we had a split.
We took what one writer would getback in the days of expense accounts.
(10:43):
And then we had to get a double room.
We had to eat twice asmuch food, all that kind of
Bruce (10:48):
stuff in the
Mark (10:49):
restaurant.
Bruce (10:50):
So I called the marketing director at the Driscoll.
And I said, look, here's the deal, Markand I are going to be writing an article
in Austin for Wine Spectator and Iwant to stay at the Driscoll, which was
breaking the rules immediately there,and I asked him what kind of deal he
could give me, and he ended up saying,you know, he gave me a really good deal
on this room, and we ended up showingup at the hotel, and basically that Good
(11:13):
deal, which I thought was per night.
He was only charging us for the wholestay, and he was including dinner.
Like, 99 bucks for like forthree nights, three or four
nights, plus one night dinner.
And it was going to be abig tasting menu dinner.
And
Mark (11:25):
mind you, here's how unethical this is.
He's charging us 99 for four nights.
And yes, we're going to eat in hisrestaurant one night, but we're going
to go to other Austin restaurants.
So we're staying on his dime toreview other restaurants in Austin.
Oh, it was terrible.
So.
Uh, we weren't married yet, butwe had a relationship loudness
over this when I got there.
(11:46):
So
Bruce (11:46):
we go down to the dining room now, and usually this is
supposed to be anonymous, right?
The chefs don't have to know who we are.
And I told him the chefmay not know who we are.
Of course, he said, no, no problem.
I will keep you anonymous.
At our table was a littlesign that says the Driscoll.
Welcomes
Mark (12:03):
Wine Spectator.
So, right, you're supposed to beanonymous, like the old days with
Ruth Reichel, when she would, like,put on the wigs and the dresses,
and nobody would know who she wasdining in New York restaurants.
Okay, it's supposed to be like that.
Not quite that bad, because we're nota known quantity like Ruth Reichel was.
But still, we're supposed to be totallyanonymous, and there on the table was
this thing, uh, just glowed, a WelcomesWine Spectator, and I was like, Oh my God!
(12:27):
Oh, my God, we're goingto be fired from this
Bruce (12:31):
gig.
The chef comes out.
And by the way, the head chefwas off that night, but I brought
him in just to cook for us.
And he had planned a12 course menu for us.
Now, if you've listened to us talkbefore, there are certain things
I don't like to eat and don't eat.
And so I told him things I don't eat.
He just freaked out.
He ran, he thought it was a test.
(12:51):
He ran back to the kitchenand they had to rethink it.
And it was a fabulous meal.
And luckily we kind of keptit as honest as we could.
We did.
Mark (13:00):
We wrote about it in Spectator.
But now even this many yearslater, this is like 20 years later.
No, 25 years later, I'm stilljust super embarrassed by it.
It just makes me cringe inside.
It was, it was a great gig with Spectator.
It was.
But, uh, we were definitelythe non cool kids on the block.
(13:20):
Oh, I have to tell youthis about Spectator.
They had their big offices inNew York City and the, uh, Marvin
Shakin owned Wine Spectator.
He owns Cigar Aficionado, several ofthese really high end magazines and
at the time, and so we went up to theoffices and you walked into the Wine
Spectator offices and there was thisgiant glassed in wine cellar and like an.
(13:41):
Idiot Rube from Texas, which I probablyam an idiot Rube from Texas I walk
up to the glass wine cellar and Ilook down and I see this bottle of
like 1889 Bordeaux literally like1889 1888 Bordeaux and I turn around
to my editor and say is that real?
Yeah, cuz they're gonnahave a fake bottle there.
(14:02):
It's like a wine spectator.
It was so Overwhelming.
I thought, wait, what?
What is this?
This cellar of wine that's in the, inthe reception area of Wine Spectator.
Yeah,
Bruce (14:13):
I will say that when we came up with ideas and we pitched
our editor at Wine Spectator forarticles, it was actually a lot of fun.
And it was It's easier than pitchingfood magazines because food magazines,
you're thinking about, okay, let's do anarticle on turkey leftovers, or let's do
an article of what to do with cranberriesor something, you know, really weird.
For instance, with fine cooking oncewe had written a ham book and we said,
(14:37):
let's do a ham thing and let's replaceturkeys at the holiday with ham.
And they did an article where theyrecreated the Norman Rockwell painting
freedom from want where the mom isputting the turkey down on the table.
That was me.
The mom.
And then I was there to carveit, and it was like him.
Precious is the dad.
Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?
So those, it's very different whenwe were pitching for Spectator,
(14:58):
so we had this brilliant idea.
Look at a place like Cannes, you know,it's a fancy resort place in France.
It's a fancy resort.
What is it like without the festival?
What, what is a city like?
What's Cannes without the film festival?
What is it without the festival?
Are the restaurants still there?
Are they still good?
Well, they are, but what are they doing?
Are they, what are they doing?
Are they still up to game?
(15:18):
So we pitched that and we wrote apiece on Cannes without the festival.
And that whole problem of twoof us and one expense account
reared its ugly head, didn't it?
Mark (15:28):
Yes, we could afford to eat in the really high end restaurants
we were expected to eat in.
I mean, we're expected to eat intwo and three Michelin starred
restaurants for these articles.
So, really high end.
You're spending a ton of money on dinner.
And we were expected toorder really nice wine.
We had to show the billsthat we had bought.
Really nice bottles of wine.
Even though we couldn't write about it.
(15:48):
Even though we couldn'twrite about the wine.
We had to show the billsthat we had bought.
Um, our editor preferred it when webought two bottles of expensive wine.
So there you go.
So we had to do all of that, but giventhat there were two of us eating in these
really high end places, the budget waseaten up and we couldn't afford a hotel.
So we paid for a hotel out of ourfee, not our expense account, our fee.
(16:10):
And so of course we tried tofind a really cheap hotel.
And
Bruce (16:13):
we did.
There are cheap hotels in Cannes.
Did you know that?
Oh my god, like a
Mark (16:17):
hotel so cheap I wouldn't have stayed there as
a traveling college student,
Bruce (16:21):
so come on.
No, a hotel where you're going to sleep inyour clothes and shower in your sneakers.
And it was above some Moroccan nightclub.
It was.
And I could swear they were slaughteringa camel every night down there.
Mark (16:33):
There were always these gangs of motorcycle guys, guys on really
loud motorcycles, on the middle of thenight, whipping away from this bar,
and I always referred to them as thePrince of Morocco and his entourage,
because I'm like, what is going on down
Bruce (16:48):
there?
Loud music banging up in our
room.
So the dichotomy of going to these three star restaurants and
eating like princes and then goingback to this disgusting no star hovel.
Mark (17:01):
We went to this one restaurant once for a spectator
in, uh, nearby Aix en Provence.
And so we're in Aix and,uh, well, outside of it.
And it's this countryrestaurant out in the country.
don't think really peopleintend to stay here.
It is one of these restaurant withrooms in France where there's a, you
know, a fancy restaurant and theyhave a few rooms where if you want to
(17:23):
stay the night, you can't put the word
Bruce (17:24):
rooms
Mark (17:24):
in quotes.
Yeah, but I don't thinkmost people really do that.
They take a limo from aches or whereverout to this restaurant and back again.
Okay.
But we didn't cause when, you know,again, two people, one expense account.
So we stayed in the rooms ofthis really fancy restaurant.
And let me just say that I.
opened the door, the room was cinderblocks, painted white cinder blocks, and
(17:45):
there were filled, completely filled, flystrips hanging all over from the ceiling.
If you're not familiar with that,
Bruce (17:53):
those are those sticky yellow tape that comes out of the canister
that hangs on the ceiling and flies get
Mark (17:59):
stuck to it.
We were stuck here, we like the flies,we were stuck here because we were
writing at the restaurant, so we hadto go to dinner and spend the night.
And eat dinner, but I was stuckin this room where literally
I showered in my sneakers.
Yeah, it was disgusting.
I kept my tennis shoes on andshowered because I refused to put bare
(18:20):
feet on the tiles of the bathroom.
Can you believe this?
That you spend, I don't know, you spend400 euros for dinner, 500 euros for
dinner, and yet the room is so disgusting.
You're showering in your sneakers.
Oh God, it was con all over again.
It was.
So.
We're going to tell you acouple of stories here at the
end about the New York Times.
Now, you know the New York Times fanciesitself a serious place of journalism,
(18:41):
but let me tell you, in our experienceof writing for the New York Times, it
is hardly a serious place of journalism.
Instead, it was a place of reallyweird and far out gimmicks.
So once the New York Timescame up with the story, which
actually, we didn't pitch.
Oh, see?
No, they came to us.
We don't pitch.
So
Bruce (18:56):
here's their idea.
They said, so we have decided to aska bunch of famous bestselling authors
to give us a paragraph, to write us aparagraph that says the scene, and we
would like you, Bruce and Mark, to comeup with a drink that would be served
in that scene, or that that scene istalking about, and we will photograph it.
It's not
Mark (19:15):
the cheesiest idea you've ever heard.
So the first, I'm going to read it,and Bruce can tell you what he made.
So, for example, they They picked peoplelike Jackie Collins, and they, they said,
Okay, Jackie Collins is gonna write alittle paragraph scene, and then you have
to make a cocktail that fits this scene.
That was the assignment.
Let me read you the Jackie Collins bit.
Lucky Santagelo, a strikingly beautifulwoman with wild black hair, olive
(19:39):
skin, and eyes darker than night,strode into the Manhattan bar for
her meeting with Silvio Mancotta.
Ha, she thought.
Does this poor excuse for a mob bossreally imagine he can get one over on me?
No way!
She smiled at the barman and he noddedback, the usual Miss Santangelo.
(20:01):
Absolutely,
Bruce (20:02):
she replied.
That's the paragraph.
What he made her, in our opinion,we called it a sweet revenge.
An ounce of grappa.
Topped by a teaspoon of Sambucaand a teaspoon of creme de cassis.
I don't know.
Why
Mark (20:16):
not?
It's
Bruce (20:17):
the
Mark (20:17):
Serious New York Times that is doing this.
Tamma Janowitz, which shewrote for this same assignment.
Ready?
It was a party of people pretending.
The host, A nebbishy guyfrom Queens, what, nebbishy?
Okay, alright, alright, you gotta befrom New York to know what that means.
The host, a nebbishy guy fromQueens, had for years pretended to
(20:40):
be from an old New England family.
There was an artist, very, who wasactually too terrified to paint a
stroke unless he had his assistantstanding behind him saying yes or no.
A blonde.
Who was really a brunette.
And an English aristocrat whohad spent years pretending he
was a tough guy from the slums.
Otherwise, no one would takehim seriously as an actor.
(21:01):
Even the drinks, shocking pinkmartinis with the fragrant tang of
pomegranate packed a lethal bite.
But who cared really?
It was all such delicious pretend fun.
Okay, that is the most overwrittenpiece of junk I've read in a long time.
A blonde who is really a brunette.
(21:23):
You know what?
I'm going back to Henry James.
Mark (2) (21:25):
But, um, what drink did you come up for this with the pink pants?
Well, I decided that
Bruce (21:29):
that pink drink was called Pink Panties.
That was the shockingly pink
Mark (2) (21:32):
martini.
And
Bruce (21:33):
it was an ounce of Absolute Courant, which is that
black currant flavored vodka.
Half ounce of Cointreau.
A little bit of lime juice.
And topped with a splashof pomegranate juice.
There you are.
And I'm sure it serves you up, right?
Like a martini.
Well, yeah, like a Cosmo.
Yeah.
That's sort of more like a Cosmo.
Oh, God.
Now, can I tell you one more
Mark (21:53):
story?
Sure.
So, we had to go to the photo shoot forthese drinks for the New York Times.
We had to show up and we weregoing to style the drinks.
So, they had all theirprops and all that stuff.
But, really, what Bruce hadto do was make the drinks.
So, we got to this one, which wouldBruce had titled Pink Panties, and, you
know, I thought, well, this photographerwas there, and I was there, and I said
to him, well, what if we put a pairof pink women's panties in the shot
(22:15):
with the drink, right, next to it?
That's the New York Times.
That's the New York Times, right?
So, uh, he looked The photographer,but he, he was this old Russian
man and he agreed to it.
So we, he went to the prop roomsomewhere and found, believe it
or not, some pink women's panties.
My question, were those part of theprops or did someone leave them?
I don't know.
These are huge prop roomsfrom fashion shoots.
(22:37):
There's everything here.
So he finds a pair of pink panties.
We put them on the set.
We take the photograph.
And at this point, the editor walksin, the New York Times editor walks in.
He absolutely freaks out because why?
This is a serious newspaper.
We do serious journalism.
We're not
Bruce (22:55):
gonna have women's panties in a shot.
I'm like, dude, no, but you'regonna print the Tamma Janowitz.
You're asking paragraph
Mark (2) (23:00):
Tamma Janowitz and Jackie Collins to write crappy paragraphs and
make drinks up to go with them, andyou're offended at a pair of pink panties.
Okay?
Yeah.
Take your seriousnesswhere you need to take it
Mark (23:11):
and do with it what you need to do.
Absolutely lost it.
In fact, I think he's so lostit with Oz that that was the
last time we ever wrote for him.
It was the last time.
I think I had stepped overa line by suggesting actual
pink panties in the shot.
And then fighting him on it.
Well, no, I really fight him.
We just, we're done like we'd taken itand you know, listen, this photographer,
(23:33):
I'm sure they're paying him by the second.
And so he spent time setting up the shotand taking it and then they can't use it.
So he's irritated.
The editor is irritated at me andalso believes that I don't understand
the gravity of the New York times.
So, you know, I mean,it's the whole thing.
thing.
But listen, how can you be gravitatedif you've got Jackie Collins and
Tamma Janowitz writing for you?
I don't know.
(23:53):
Anyway.
So those were our stories aboutwriting for various food magazines.
We've got lots more that we cantell you if you're interested.
There's so much to say.
But before we get to the last segmentof this podcast, let me say it would
be great if you could rate thispodcast or if you could write a review.
We're unsupported, as you know, andsome of the platforms like Apple
Podcasts allows you to write reviews.
(24:13):
So if you could do that,that'd be a spectacular thing.
that you can support ourotherwise unsupported podcast.
So let's talk about what's makingus happy in food this week.
I can start.
I, one of the things that made me happyis as you've probably heard, I am dealing
with our new book in layout and design.
(24:34):
And that means the designerhas put it into page format.
It now looks like it'sgoing to be printed.
I have a huge printout.
of it.
I'm not going to tell youwhat the book is about yet.
I'm holding it in abeyance, but I cantell you this is probably the most
beautiful book we have ever produced.
The designer did a spectacularjob laying it out on the page.
It looks, as they say in theindustry, built, meaning that it
(24:57):
looks like a book that has somekind of heft and weight to it.
The photography isgorgeous from Eric Metzger.
I'm just dumbfounded as I'm goingthrough this book, and it's making me
very happy because, you know, we'vewritten a lot of books in our career,
and some of them we wrote because theyfit the market, like Instant Pop books.
No shine on those books, but we werecatching a trend as it was happening.
(25:20):
This book, we're not catching a trend.
We're actually writing something wewant to write about, and I'm so happy
that the chance we got to write aboutsomething we want to write about has
ended up looking so beautiful on the page.
It's just kind of undoingme, and it's just to say.
It takes a giant, giant horde of peopleto make a book, not just authors.
It takes designers and editors andmanaging editors and traffickers and
(25:45):
jacket designers and font negotiators, andit takes a lot of people to create a book.
So this one is kind of special,and it's making me very happy.
Okay.
What's
Bruce (25:57):
making me happy is a port, a vintage port from 2003 by Taylor Freedman.
It was a gift from our literary agent.
And we've cellared it for a coupleof years and finally opened it
with friends the other night.
And it was so raisiny and molassesy and grape y and rich and it
(26:18):
tasted like the best jam withthe best wine and dried fruit.
And It was an amazing portand that was making me happy.
Mark (26:26):
It was really crazy.
Even the Brit at the table wasimpressed by the port, which is,
is, uh, quite an accomplishment.
So that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for being on this journey with us.
Thanks for spending time with us.
We appreciate it that you have chosenthis podcast to listen to among
the many about food and cookingon all of the web's airwaves.
Bruce (26:47):
And every week we tell you what's Making us happy in food.
So please go to our Facebookgroup, Cooking with Bruce and
Mark, and share with us there.
What is making youhappy in food this week?
Because we want to know onCooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Scarborough, andtogether with Bruce, we have
written so many cookbooks.
We've published, I don't know,probably written tens, literally tens
of thousands of original recipes.
If not hundreds of thousands.
No, it's not that high, butit's in the tens of thousands.
I used to keep track.
I don't even keep track anymore.
Um, we've had a long career, about25 years in the food business,
(00:23):
and this is our podcast aboutthat passion, food and cooking.
We are so glad you've joined us.
We've got a one minute clip.
cooking tip up ahead.
We're going to talk about our careerin writing for food magazines,
something that has gone away.
Mostly food magazines.
Most of these are now gone by thewayside, but we'll tell you some actually
funny stories from the two decadesin which we wrote for food magazines.
(00:48):
And then we'll tell you what'smaking us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip.
If you're buying meat at the supermarketand it's pre wrapped, pre shrink wrapped,
not like it's been wrapped behind thebutcher counter, but you know they
brought it in shrink wrapped like the waya turkey is or a duck or a leg of lamb.
(01:10):
Don't be afraid to ask the butcherto open that package for you.
You want to make sure it smells good.
You know how many times I have broughta leg of lamb home and opened it
and it smelled like rotted meat.
So if you ask them to open it andit's good, they could just rewrap
it and put a price on it for you.
And you don't get home andget stuck with some rotten.
Mark (01:29):
Yeah, this particularly goes for turkeys, as you say, for legs
of lamb, for those lamb shoulderroasts that are prepackaged.
Oh, it happened with a
Bruce (01:37):
rabbit once.
It was so nasty.
Mark (01:39):
Yeah, it happened with a rabbit.
Not that, again, as Bruce says, not thestuff that's sitting on the styrofoam
trays that's wrapped in the meat counter.
But if you know this thing came infrom afar, just ask them to unwrap it.
There's a butcher back there.
And they'll do it in a minute if theydon't want to go to another store.
Yeah.
And mostly they'relooking for things to do.
So just ask him to do it andthey'll be glad to do it.
(02:02):
And you can tell immediately if the thinghas gone off, don't waste your money.
All right.
Before we get to that nextsegment of this podcast, let me
say that we do have a newsletter.
It comes out.
I don't know.
I used to say every two weeks, maybenow once a month, because I'm in
the middle of the design of our nextcookbook, which is out in July of 2025.
So I, I haven't had a minuteto spare to write a newsletter.
(02:24):
But if you want to sign up for thatnewsletter, which is not really connected
to this podcast, you can find how todo so on our website, bruceandmark.
com or cookingwithbruceandmark.
com.
Scroll down the splash page or the landingpage that you'll see at the bottom,
a way to sign up for the newsletter.
Just to remind you, I don't collectyour email, nor do I allow the
provider MailChimp to collect it soit can't be sold to other services.
(02:49):
You can always unsubscribe.
at any time.
We're happy to have youalong for the newsletter too.
Okay, let's tell some talesabout writing for food magazines.
I get to start.
Okay.
Um, so I want to talk about writing forcooking light, which is now long gone.
Oh, we
Bruce (03:08):
used to write so much for them.
Every issue we had a column.
Yeah.
We had a column in every issue, andwe got to write other features for
them, and it was a really, really nicerelationship we had, and we had a great
relationship with our editor there.
Mark (03:22):
We did, and she was a great editor to have.
She was very forthright and honest,which is what you want in an editor.
She was very seriousabout pitches as writers.
You want this, somebody wholooks over the pitches and goes
no or yes, which you don't want.
As a writer, in case you don't knowthis, is you don't want equivocation,
or you don't want long delay, likea month later, she hasn't even
(03:43):
said anything about your pitches.
For feature articles, you want somebodywho's, you know, back in a few days
and goes, nope, no thanks for allof these, or yeah, this is great.
The third one looks good,and let's talk about it.
That's what you want.
It's just a fast, easy response.
Bruce (03:57):
And you have this relationship, usually long distance, because
not everybody lives where you do.
I mean, we were in New York,and you would think, oh, it's a
food magazine there in New York.
Nope.
Cooking Light was based in
Mark (04:09):
Alabama.
Yeah.
Well, and I want to tell you beforewe get to Cooking Light about
a little side point about this.
When I say that we pitchedmagazines, this is is what we did.
Um, we were a contributing editorfor years to, uh, eating well,
but we still pitched the foodeditor ideas for feature articles.
I mean, we had to come up with thesubject matter of the content and we
(04:30):
were out to dinner once with a veryprominent and snotty couple who wrote
cookbooks and food magazine articles.
And I was talking about this very thing.
And he, the man of this couple,looked across the table.
at me with this withering look,and he said, We do not pitch.
And I thought, Oh God, okay, great.
(04:50):
You're way more important than I am.
I still have to get an editor toapprove of what I'm gonna write.
But, okay, yes, that was us.
We did pitch.
So, we would pitch cooking a lotof these stories, and one time we
were at the International Barbecue,Expo in Atlanta and we drove over
to Cooking Light in Alabama, right?
(05:10):
Yeah.
And we drove over to where theywere and we met our editor.
Finally met her because we'd never, we'd
Bruce (05:16):
only ever, you know, email.
Mark (05:18):
You know, I was deathly afraid of meeting her because,
you know, it's Cooking Light.
So I'm like, God, what arewe going to have for lunch?
I better have like celery ora glass of water or something.
Half an aspirin.
And I was like, are you
Bruce (05:29):
kidding?
She's going to take us to some,you know, place where we're
going to be served a carrot.
Right, and I was like,
Mark (05:33):
I don't want to fill up on a whole aspirin.
Why don't you just give me a half of one?
Bruce (05:37):
Instead this woman took us to Two kind of two different barbecue restaurants
because she felt that the brisket and theribs she couldn't decide which were better
So we had to eat them all at both The
Mark (2) (05:50):
second restaurant part of going to this two barbecue restaurants from
one lunch and the second restaurant forcooking light The second restaurant it was
Mark (05:57):
all going there also because they had this giant cream cake and she wanted
to get a huge slice And eat it, and I waslike, okay, so much for my theory about
aspirins or carrots or celery or whatever.
So, what have
Mark (2) (06:08):
we learned today?
Mark (06:10):
What have we learned
Mark (2) (06:10):
today is that, uh, the editors at Cooking Light, they may have cooked
light, but they didn't eat light.
I was like, holy crow,I can't eat two barbecue
Bruce (06:20):
meals in one sitting.
That woman also loved her bourbon.
Mark (2) (06:23):
Yes, she did.
She
Bruce (06:24):
did.
Loved her bourbon.
She did.
Mark (06:27):
Um, for years, we wrote for Wine Spectator.
In fact, you might consider thatreally our first magazine gig
is writing for Wine Spectator.
And it was really a bit of a posh gig.
Oh, it was fabulous.
Because, uh, it was back in the day whereyou had to be totally anonymous, and we
were writing food and travel articles forthem, and we had to do the whole thing
of just being absolutely under the radar.
(06:47):
We'll tell you about that in a minute.
And it was very old school.
This is so old school that inwriting for Wine Spectator, we
were given an expense account.
Bruce (06:55):
Well, we had to pay for all those meals we were reviewing.
But this is the best.
The funniest thing about, here weare writing for Wine Spectator and
we did not get to write about wine.
Mark (07:05):
No.
Bruce (07:06):
We were disallowed
Mark (07:07):
from writing about wine.
We weren't the wine experts, wewere the food and travel experts.
We weren't James Suckling and all thesereally important people who raided wines.
And so, we had to write this.
these reviews, let's say that we didthis whole piece on the Vaucluse, this
region of France and we had to go to allthese beautiful restaurants with these
giant wine lists, oh I have to tellyou about it in a minute, with these
(07:28):
giant wine lists and then, you know,we would review the meal that we ate
anonymously and stayed anonymously, paidfor it, paid for ourself, we couldn't,
you know, accept anything for free.
They didn't get to know who we were.
No, exactly.
Exactly.
And then.
Afterwards, I would reveal myself to themand say, okay, this is who we are, but
this was a great, this article and youknow, I, I described the vocaloos and
(07:50):
the hotels and the restaurants and allthat, and then I literally had to leave
space in the article that says, you know,copy about wine goes here because of
course they would look at the wine list.
And this is one of the things thatI think is so funny about writing
for spectator when we did it.
So we would, after.
eating dinner at a restaurant.
Then I would call them thenext day or drop by and I would
say, okay, here's the truth.
(08:11):
We were critics for Wine Spectator.
We're writing an articleabout this region of France.
We'd like to include your restaurant.
And most importantly, whatI need is your wine list.
So I went.
to this one.
We went to this one restaurant, had aspectacular meal in the south of France.
At the end of it, I asked, uh,well, the next day, actually,
I asked for the wine list.
The wine list, just to tell you, itwas 175 pages long, 175 pages of wines.
(08:38):
And we were traveling and I wasn't goingto carry this thing around and they
didn't offer it to me anyway, right?
This is a fancy restaurant with like, Twowine lists, you know, two copies of it.
So I asked her to fax it to us.
Remember fax machines?
Yes.
Remember the
Bruce (08:51):
paper that rolled up?
So what happened?
So we got home after three weeksof this trip, and the fax machine
was on my desk in the foyer of ourapartment, and there were hundreds
and hundreds of scrolled paper.
Out of order, out ofsequence, on the floor.
In that, that glisteny kind of pseudowet paper that fax machines would
Mark (09:12):
spit out.
We had to pick them upand put them in order.
And put them in order.
That was the
Mark (2) (09:16):
kicker.
Is it 175 pages?
Mark (09:18):
And I was trying to figure out, okay, wait, what's the And
it's not necessarily paginated.
So, I'm like, oh, my gosh,how do I put this thing in
Bruce (09:24):
order to give to my editor?
And when we went back to that placeto talk to them afterwards, to
actually talk to the chef, he waslike, oh, have a glass of champagne.
I'm like, no.
We can't even now, after thefact, we cannot even have a
glass of champagne with you.
Absolutely nothing.
Which is why it was a little bizarrewhen we wrote an article for Wine
Spectator about Austin, Texas.
(09:45):
Mmm.
Um, if you don't know me, if youhaven't heard enough stories about
me, I am always looking for a deal.
And a bargain.
And we were going to review thesehotels in Austin and restaurants,
and I wanted to stay at the Driscoll,which is a really, really nice hotel.
Mark (10:01):
Really old school hotel.
I mean, so old school in Austin, ifyou don't know the history of Austin.
This is where LBJ, Lyndon BainesJohnson, would hang out in the lobby
and essentially make legislativedeals when he was a state legislator,
and then even when he was acongressman and a senator from Texas.
Bruce (10:17):
You know, our expense account paid for the nice meals, but it didn't really
allow us to stay in the best of hotels.
Mark (10:22):
Well, okay, let me back up and say, so Spectator put us on an
expense account, which is reallylovely, and it would have been a
generous expense account for one hotel.
person.
But there were the two of us.
We came as a pair.
So we had a split.
We took what one writer would getback in the days of expense accounts.
(10:43):
And then we had to get a double room.
We had to eat twice asmuch food, all that kind of
Bruce (10:48):
stuff in the
Mark (10:49):
restaurant.
Bruce (10:50):
So I called the marketing director at the Driscoll.
And I said, look, here's the deal, Markand I are going to be writing an article
in Austin for Wine Spectator and Iwant to stay at the Driscoll, which was
breaking the rules immediately there,and I asked him what kind of deal he
could give me, and he ended up saying,you know, he gave me a really good deal
on this room, and we ended up showingup at the hotel, and basically that Good
(11:13):
deal, which I thought was per night.
He was only charging us for the wholestay, and he was including dinner.
Like, 99 bucks for like forthree nights, three or four
nights, plus one night dinner.
And it was going to be abig tasting menu dinner.
And
Mark (11:25):
mind you, here's how unethical this is.
He's charging us 99 for four nights.
And yes, we're going to eat in hisrestaurant one night, but we're going
to go to other Austin restaurants.
So we're staying on his dime toreview other restaurants in Austin.
Oh, it was terrible.
So.
Uh, we weren't married yet, butwe had a relationship loudness
over this when I got there.
(11:46):
So
Bruce (11:46):
we go down to the dining room now, and usually this is
supposed to be anonymous, right?
The chefs don't have to know who we are.
And I told him the chefmay not know who we are.
Of course, he said, no, no problem.
I will keep you anonymous.
At our table was a littlesign that says the Driscoll.
Welcomes
Mark (12:03):
Wine Spectator.
So, right, you're supposed to beanonymous, like the old days with
Ruth Reichel, when she would, like,put on the wigs and the dresses,
and nobody would know who she wasdining in New York restaurants.
Okay, it's supposed to be like that.
Not quite that bad, because we're nota known quantity like Ruth Reichel was.
But still, we're supposed to be totallyanonymous, and there on the table was
this thing, uh, just glowed, a WelcomesWine Spectator, and I was like, Oh my God!
(12:27):
Oh, my God, we're goingto be fired from this
Bruce (12:31):
gig.
The chef comes out.
And by the way, the head chefwas off that night, but I brought
him in just to cook for us.
And he had planned a12 course menu for us.
Now, if you've listened to us talkbefore, there are certain things
I don't like to eat and don't eat.
And so I told him things I don't eat.
He just freaked out.
He ran, he thought it was a test.
(12:51):
He ran back to the kitchenand they had to rethink it.
And it was a fabulous meal.
And luckily we kind of keptit as honest as we could.
We did.
Mark (13:00):
We wrote about it in Spectator.
But now even this many yearslater, this is like 20 years later.
No, 25 years later, I'm stilljust super embarrassed by it.
It just makes me cringe inside.
It was, it was a great gig with Spectator.
It was.
But, uh, we were definitelythe non cool kids on the block.
(13:20):
Oh, I have to tell youthis about Spectator.
They had their big offices inNew York City and the, uh, Marvin
Shakin owned Wine Spectator.
He owns Cigar Aficionado, several ofthese really high end magazines and
at the time, and so we went up to theoffices and you walked into the Wine
Spectator offices and there was thisgiant glassed in wine cellar and like an.
(13:41):
Idiot Rube from Texas, which I probablyam an idiot Rube from Texas I walk
up to the glass wine cellar and Ilook down and I see this bottle of
like 1889 Bordeaux literally like1889 1888 Bordeaux and I turn around
to my editor and say is that real?
Yeah, cuz they're gonnahave a fake bottle there.
(14:02):
It's like a wine spectator.
It was so Overwhelming.
I thought, wait, what?
What is this?
This cellar of wine that's in the, inthe reception area of Wine Spectator.
Yeah,
Bruce (14:13):
I will say that when we came up with ideas and we pitched
our editor at Wine Spectator forarticles, it was actually a lot of fun.
And it was It's easier than pitchingfood magazines because food magazines,
you're thinking about, okay, let's do anarticle on turkey leftovers, or let's do
an article of what to do with cranberriesor something, you know, really weird.
For instance, with fine cooking oncewe had written a ham book and we said,
(14:37):
let's do a ham thing and let's replaceturkeys at the holiday with ham.
And they did an article where theyrecreated the Norman Rockwell painting
freedom from want where the mom isputting the turkey down on the table.
That was me.
The mom.
And then I was there to carveit, and it was like him.
Precious is the dad.
Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?
So those, it's very different whenwe were pitching for Spectator,
(14:58):
so we had this brilliant idea.
Look at a place like Cannes, you know,it's a fancy resort place in France.
It's a fancy resort.
What is it like without the festival?
What, what is a city like?
What's Cannes without the film festival?
What is it without the festival?
Are the restaurants still there?
Are they still good?
Well, they are, but what are they doing?
Are they, what are they doing?
Are they still up to game?
(15:18):
So we pitched that and we wrote apiece on Cannes without the festival.
And that whole problem of twoof us and one expense account
reared its ugly head, didn't it?
Mark (15:28):
Yes, we could afford to eat in the really high end restaurants
we were expected to eat in.
I mean, we're expected to eat intwo and three Michelin starred
restaurants for these articles.
So, really high end.
You're spending a ton of money on dinner.
And we were expected toorder really nice wine.
We had to show the billsthat we had bought.
Really nice bottles of wine.
Even though we couldn't write about it.
(15:48):
Even though we couldn'twrite about the wine.
We had to show the billsthat we had bought.
Um, our editor preferred it when webought two bottles of expensive wine.
So there you go.
So we had to do all of that, but giventhat there were two of us eating in these
really high end places, the budget waseaten up and we couldn't afford a hotel.
So we paid for a hotel out of ourfee, not our expense account, our fee.
(16:10):
And so of course we tried tofind a really cheap hotel.
And
Bruce (16:13):
we did.
There are cheap hotels in Cannes.
Did you know that?
Oh my god, like a
Mark (16:17):
hotel so cheap I wouldn't have stayed there as
a traveling college student,
Bruce (16:21):
so come on.
No, a hotel where you're going to sleep inyour clothes and shower in your sneakers.
And it was above some Moroccan nightclub.
It was.
And I could swear they were slaughteringa camel every night down there.
Mark (16:33):
There were always these gangs of motorcycle guys, guys on really
loud motorcycles, on the middle of thenight, whipping away from this bar,
and I always referred to them as thePrince of Morocco and his entourage,
because I'm like, what is going on down
Bruce (16:48):
there?
Loud music banging up in our
room.
So the dichotomy of going to these three star restaurants and
eating like princes and then goingback to this disgusting no star hovel.
Mark (17:01):
We went to this one restaurant once for a spectator
in, uh, nearby Aix en Provence.
And so we're in Aix and,uh, well, outside of it.
And it's this countryrestaurant out in the country.
don't think really peopleintend to stay here.
It is one of these restaurant withrooms in France where there's a, you
know, a fancy restaurant and theyhave a few rooms where if you want to
(17:23):
stay the night, you can't put the word
Bruce (17:24):
rooms
Mark (17:24):
in quotes.
Yeah, but I don't thinkmost people really do that.
They take a limo from aches or whereverout to this restaurant and back again.
Okay.
But we didn't cause when, you know,again, two people, one expense account.
So we stayed in the rooms ofthis really fancy restaurant.
And let me just say that I.
opened the door, the room was cinderblocks, painted white cinder blocks, and
(17:45):
there were filled, completely filled, flystrips hanging all over from the ceiling.
If you're not familiar with that,
Bruce (17:53):
those are those sticky yellow tape that comes out of the canister
that hangs on the ceiling and flies get
Mark (17:59):
stuck to it.
We were stuck here, we like the flies,we were stuck here because we were
writing at the restaurant, so we hadto go to dinner and spend the night.
And eat dinner, but I was stuckin this room where literally
I showered in my sneakers.
Yeah, it was disgusting.
I kept my tennis shoes on andshowered because I refused to put bare
(18:20):
feet on the tiles of the bathroom.
Can you believe this?
That you spend, I don't know, you spend400 euros for dinner, 500 euros for
dinner, and yet the room is so disgusting.
You're showering in your sneakers.
Oh God, it was con all over again.
It was.
So.
We're going to tell you acouple of stories here at the
end about the New York Times.
Now, you know the New York Times fanciesitself a serious place of journalism,
(18:41):
but let me tell you, in our experienceof writing for the New York Times, it
is hardly a serious place of journalism.
Instead, it was a place of reallyweird and far out gimmicks.
So once the New York Timescame up with the story, which
actually, we didn't pitch.
Oh, see?
No, they came to us.
We don't pitch.
So
Bruce (18:56):
here's their idea.
They said, so we have decided to aska bunch of famous bestselling authors
to give us a paragraph, to write us aparagraph that says the scene, and we
would like you, Bruce and Mark, to comeup with a drink that would be served
in that scene, or that that scene istalking about, and we will photograph it.
It's not
Mark (19:15):
the cheesiest idea you've ever heard.
So the first, I'm going to read it,and Bruce can tell you what he made.
So, for example, they They picked peoplelike Jackie Collins, and they, they said,
Okay, Jackie Collins is gonna write alittle paragraph scene, and then you have
to make a cocktail that fits this scene.
That was the assignment.
Let me read you the Jackie Collins bit.
Lucky Santagelo, a strikingly beautifulwoman with wild black hair, olive
(19:39):
skin, and eyes darker than night,strode into the Manhattan bar for
her meeting with Silvio Mancotta.
Ha, she thought.
Does this poor excuse for a mob bossreally imagine he can get one over on me?
No way!
She smiled at the barman and he noddedback, the usual Miss Santangelo.
(20:01):
Absolutely,
Bruce (20:02):
she replied.
That's the paragraph.
What he made her, in our opinion,we called it a sweet revenge.
An ounce of grappa.
Topped by a teaspoon of Sambucaand a teaspoon of creme de cassis.
I don't know.
Why
Mark (20:16):
not?
It's
Bruce (20:17):
the
Mark (20:17):
Serious New York Times that is doing this.
Tamma Janowitz, which shewrote for this same assignment.
Ready?
It was a party of people pretending.
The host, A nebbishy guyfrom Queens, what, nebbishy?
Okay, alright, alright, you gotta befrom New York to know what that means.
The host, a nebbishy guy fromQueens, had for years pretended to
(20:40):
be from an old New England family.
There was an artist, very, who wasactually too terrified to paint a
stroke unless he had his assistantstanding behind him saying yes or no.
A blonde.
Who was really a brunette.
And an English aristocrat whohad spent years pretending he
was a tough guy from the slums.
Otherwise, no one would takehim seriously as an actor.
(21:01):
Even the drinks, shocking pinkmartinis with the fragrant tang of
pomegranate packed a lethal bite.
But who cared really?
It was all such delicious pretend fun.
Okay, that is the most overwrittenpiece of junk I've read in a long time.
A blonde who is really a brunette.
(21:23):
You know what?
I'm going back to Henry James.
Mark (2) (21:25):
But, um, what drink did you come up for this with the pink pants?
Well, I decided that
Bruce (21:29):
that pink drink was called Pink Panties.
That was the shockingly pink
Mark (2) (21:32):
martini.
And
Bruce (21:33):
it was an ounce of Absolute Courant, which is that
black currant flavored vodka.
Half ounce of Cointreau.
A little bit of lime juice.
And topped with a splashof pomegranate juice.
There you are.
And I'm sure it serves you up, right?
Like a martini.
Well, yeah, like a Cosmo.
Yeah.
That's sort of more like a Cosmo.
Oh, God.
Now, can I tell you one more
Mark (21:53):
story?
Sure.
So, we had to go to the photo shoot forthese drinks for the New York Times.
We had to show up and we weregoing to style the drinks.
So, they had all theirprops and all that stuff.
But, really, what Bruce hadto do was make the drinks.
So, we got to this one, which wouldBruce had titled Pink Panties, and, you
know, I thought, well, this photographerwas there, and I was there, and I said
to him, well, what if we put a pairof pink women's panties in the shot
(22:15):
with the drink, right, next to it?
That's the New York Times.
That's the New York Times, right?
So, uh, he looked The photographer,but he, he was this old Russian
man and he agreed to it.
So we, he went to the prop roomsomewhere and found, believe it
or not, some pink women's panties.
My question, were those part of theprops or did someone leave them?
I don't know.
These are huge prop roomsfrom fashion shoots.
(22:37):
There's everything here.
So he finds a pair of pink panties.
We put them on the set.
We take the photograph.
And at this point, the editor walksin, the New York Times editor walks in.
He absolutely freaks out because why?
This is a serious newspaper.
We do serious journalism.
We're not
Bruce (22:55):
gonna have women's panties in a shot.
I'm like, dude, no, but you'regonna print the Tamma Janowitz.
You're asking paragraph
Mark (2) (23:00):
Tamma Janowitz and Jackie Collins to write crappy paragraphs and
make drinks up to go with them, andyou're offended at a pair of pink panties.
Okay?
Yeah.
Take your seriousnesswhere you need to take it
Mark (23:11):
and do with it what you need to do.
Absolutely lost it.
In fact, I think he's so lostit with Oz that that was the
last time we ever wrote for him.
It was the last time.
I think I had stepped overa line by suggesting actual
pink panties in the shot.
And then fighting him on it.
Well, no, I really fight him.
We just, we're done like we'd taken itand you know, listen, this photographer,
(23:33):
I'm sure they're paying him by the second.
And so he spent time setting up the shotand taking it and then they can't use it.
So he's irritated.
The editor is irritated at me andalso believes that I don't understand
the gravity of the New York times.
So, you know, I mean,it's the whole thing.
thing.
But listen, how can you be gravitatedif you've got Jackie Collins and
Tamma Janowitz writing for you?
I don't know.
(23:53):
Anyway.
So those were our stories aboutwriting for various food magazines.
We've got lots more that we cantell you if you're interested.
There's so much to say.
But before we get to the last segmentof this podcast, let me say it would
be great if you could rate thispodcast or if you could write a review.
We're unsupported, as you know, andsome of the platforms like Apple
Podcasts allows you to write reviews.
(24:13):
So if you could do that,that'd be a spectacular thing.
that you can support ourotherwise unsupported podcast.
So let's talk about what's makingus happy in food this week.
I can start.
I, one of the things that made me happyis as you've probably heard, I am dealing
with our new book in layout and design.
(24:34):
And that means the designerhas put it into page format.
It now looks like it'sgoing to be printed.
I have a huge printout.
of it.
I'm not going to tell youwhat the book is about yet.
I'm holding it in abeyance, but I cantell you this is probably the most
beautiful book we have ever produced.
The designer did a spectacularjob laying it out on the page.
It looks, as they say in theindustry, built, meaning that it
(24:57):
looks like a book that has somekind of heft and weight to it.
The photography isgorgeous from Eric Metzger.
I'm just dumbfounded as I'm goingthrough this book, and it's making me
very happy because, you know, we'vewritten a lot of books in our career,
and some of them we wrote because theyfit the market, like Instant Pop books.
No shine on those books, but we werecatching a trend as it was happening.
(25:20):
This book, we're not catching a trend.
We're actually writing something wewant to write about, and I'm so happy
that the chance we got to write aboutsomething we want to write about has
ended up looking so beautiful on the page.
It's just kind of undoingme, and it's just to say.
It takes a giant, giant horde of peopleto make a book, not just authors.
It takes designers and editors andmanaging editors and traffickers and
(25:45):
jacket designers and font negotiators, andit takes a lot of people to create a book.
So this one is kind of special,and it's making me very happy.
Okay.
What's
Bruce (25:57):
making me happy is a port, a vintage port from 2003 by Taylor Freedman.
It was a gift from our literary agent.
And we've cellared it for a coupleof years and finally opened it
with friends the other night.
And it was so raisiny and molassesy and grape y and rich and it
(26:18):
tasted like the best jam withthe best wine and dried fruit.
And It was an amazing portand that was making me happy.
Mark (26:26):
It was really crazy.
Even the Brit at the table wasimpressed by the port, which is,
is, uh, quite an accomplishment.
So that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for being on this journey with us.
Thanks for spending time with us.
We appreciate it that you have chosenthis podcast to listen to among
the many about food and cookingon all of the web's airwaves.
Bruce (26:47):
And every week we tell you what's Making us happy in food.
So please go to our Facebookgroup, Cooking with Bruce and
Mark, and share with us there.
What is making youhappy in food this week?
Because we want to know onCooking with Bruce and Mark.
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