0:05

He's going to read his day say hello,

0:07

you're recording from the naire. You

0:22

okay? So I'll just read this little thing

0:25

and then we cann't talk today.

0:33

I've come to New York and I'm in one of my favorite

0:36

places in the world, the Museum of Modern

0:38

Art, a place that I have treasured

0:40

since a young child from upstate New York.

0:43

Beautiful spaces that are welcoming and

0:45

exciting are crucial. That is what we

0:47

do in our own small way at the River Cafe.

0:50

And what Glenn Lowry has done here in

0:52

a big way over the past thirty

0:54

years. Is that right? Thirty years eight? Okay?

0:57

I say, over almost thirty years

0:59

as director, he's transformed the collection,

1:02

broaden the collection, and turn

1:04

the museum into a space where people cannot

1:06

only look at beautiful art, but meet

1:09

sit in the garden and eat delicious

1:11

food. Glenn and I like to bring

1:13

the world of art and food together. At

1:16

the River Cafe. We're doing projects with Ed

1:18

Ruschet and Damien Hurst, and one

1:20

of my favorite drawings is a

1:22

self portrait. Ellsworth Kelly drew

1:24

the River Cafe bathroom and a

1:26

message so I twombly left me on a menu

1:29

after a long lunch. If

1:31

we have brought art to food, Glenn

1:33

has brought food to art with a fabulous

1:36

restaurant, the modern and small

1:38

cafes throughout the building. Glenn

1:41

is a close friend of the River Cafe and

1:43

a close friend of Richard and mine.

1:46

Today we're going to discuss food and art,

1:49

Art and food, our love for both

1:52

and our love for each other.

1:54

So great to be here.

1:55

Thank you. I said I was coming to

1:57

the museum and we'd be doing this interview

2:00

surrounded by the greatest start in the world, and

2:02

I'm looking at four black wolves two

2:04

stories down.

2:06

We'll have to do something about studio.

2:08

They can know. That's great. Actually, do you spend

2:10

a lot of time down here?

2:11

Do you record esodically?

2:12

We were, you know, we we we used

2:14

to do a lot of audio

2:16

guides in house, and

2:19

so we needed a recording studio for that.

2:21

Now they're produced all over the place, and so it's

2:23

a little bit different.

2:24

Do you have a podcast as museum have a podcast?

2:26

We have a thing called Post

2:29

which is online. It's not really a

2:31

podcast, but we do a

2:33

number of conversations.

2:35

Is probably a better way of putting it in podcasts.

2:37

Yeah, I actually

2:39

did a little Audio one for the Custin

2:42

show. They came and asked me to talk about

2:44

because my father was a great friend of Philip

2:46

Gustin.

2:47

I didn't know that.

2:48

You didn't know that. Oh yeah, I

2:50

grew up in Woodstock and so

2:52

Philip was in our house all the time. Actually,

2:55

they liked the food my mother was cooked, you know.

2:57

And I think music. His wife was a

2:59

poet and fill up the painter. What

3:01

about artists and food.

3:02

Oh, I think they go together.

3:04

I can't tell you the number of artists

3:06

that I know who are either

3:09

fanatic about the food they cook or

3:11

just love to go out side Twombly. I mean,

3:13

yeah, you know, lunch was side

3:15

Twombly or dinner with side Twombly was always a

3:17

feast.

3:18

And what was it like? What are your memories?

3:20

Oh?

3:20

My memories were being out you know above

3:22

Geita with Sigh and some

3:25

small hilltop town where

3:27

Nicola had found a fabulous restaurant

3:29

and you know, lunches that would go on for two or two

3:31

and a half hours. But the food would

3:33

be absolutely spectacular. Of course, one of the great things

3:36

about Italy is the tiniest place

3:38

can produce the most delicious

3:40

meal.

3:40

When you see a three star Mischlin in Italy.

3:42

I always sort of avoid it. You want to go to those

3:45

small Oh yes.

3:46

The magic for me of traveling around

3:48

Europe in general, but particularly Italy is

3:51

the serendipitous encounter with a place

3:53

that you'd never even heard of that creates

3:55

a meal that you'll never forget.

3:57

Okay, So did you ever live in Italy

3:59

as talking about it?

4:00

No, Alas, I mean I spent a lot of time in France.

4:03

You know, I am, in fact French. So now

4:06

is well you have to go back to Livingstein.

4:08

And my father was German, my mother was

4:11

French. They met during the Second World War.

4:13

But I regained

4:15

my French citizenship a year ago.

4:18

Okay. So you were born in

4:20

France, so is that why or is it through your mother?

4:22

Through my mother? I was born in New York.

4:23

Because I have a son who was born in Paris,

4:26

and I ever think great, he's going to be you know, can

4:28

have French citizenship, but you have to live

4:30

in France between the ages of

4:32

eighteen and twenty two. I e. Go to the army,

4:35

right, you know, but I don't know if that's changed.

4:37

But that's cool that you've got French citizens.

4:39

Yeah. Well, I've always felt French.

4:41

You know.

4:41

It's a strange thing that because my mother

4:44

spoke to me in French from the moment

4:46

I could speak, and because we

4:48

spent every summer there, and I

4:50

have lots of friends. I went to the Universitated

4:52

cornob when I was younger.

4:55

It's in the blood, yeah, but

4:59

and I think what's in the blood is a lot for

5:01

food, love,

5:03

for all those things that were in the soul of

5:05

France.

5:06

Did she cook?

5:07

My mother is a great cook. Is a great cook.

5:09

She is, okay, tell me about her cooking.

5:11

So she was a self taught cook. She

5:13

was not somebody who grew up cooking.

5:15

But when she came to the United States and subsequently

5:18

married my father and then had children,

5:21

she had to learn to cook. And she started by just

5:23

following cookbooks. And in her words,

5:26

it's not actually that difficult. You just follow the

5:28

recipe precisely until

5:30

you un mess.

5:31

It's River Cafe cookbook, rug, but.

5:34

Until you get confident enough to play right.

5:37

And she she we grew up in a house

5:39

where food was everything.

5:40

Let's go to the very beginning. So where were you

5:42

born.

5:43

I was born in New York City, but I grew up in Williamstown,

5:45

Massachusetts.

5:46

Is your father involved with Williams No.

5:48

My parents met because they loved to

5:50

ski, and so

5:53

I was born in New York. My sister was born three

5:55

years after me, and shortly thereafter

5:58

they decamped to Williamstown, which

6:00

is in the Berkshire northwest corner

6:02

of Massachusetts, because it was in ski country.

6:05

So they just moved on a whim and

6:07

so that's where I grew up. What was his job, I

6:09

follow was an engineer, so the

6:12

weekends were for skiing, and

6:14

as a child we grew up skiing

6:16

every weekend and eventually became a racer

6:19

and it was part of my life in

6:22

France for all

6:24

over I was on the ski team of the university

6:27

and I was also racing on

6:30

sort of the lower

6:32

level of the FIS circuit.

6:34

So it's all good.

6:36

I still ski, but not nearly as much or

6:38

the way I would like to. I mean, it's pure pleasure,

6:41

but it's difficult when you live in New

6:44

York City and you have.

6:44

A day job whisky. As a family, it's

6:46

always been our thing of our holiday.

6:49

Where do you school holidays? Well, we've gone

6:51

back over and over again to Courchevell to

6:53

the toi Valet, you know, because you can go

6:56

from Corceevel over mary

6:58

Belle to you know, Valtorol,

7:01

and that's a very very good skier and has

7:03

children. So it's kind of been our family sailing

7:06

and skiing, but you know, our part is

7:08

much more the skiing. And I was I

7:10

have skied in this in Veil

7:12

and in Aspen and recently

7:15

in Tellyride, and we could go back

7:17

to food in that case, because there's

7:19

no comparison, dare I say between the food

7:21

that you get on the mountains in France. You know, that

7:24

was a real awakening. This was

7:26

someplace they don't let you drink on the slopes,

7:28

right.

7:28

Oh, it's terrible. I mean, you know, for

7:31

all of the great restaurants

7:33

this country has today, and it does

7:35

state the fact that ski

7:37

culture here hasn't generated the

7:40

kind of ambience that you have

7:42

in Europe. We had for years and years

7:44

and years an apartment in majev so that's

7:46

where we would ski, and before that in Valdize

7:49

when my parents were younger, and you

7:51

know, you'd spend the morning

7:53

skiing hard and then you'd find a little place to have lunch

7:56

and it would be a spectacularly delicious lunch, simple

7:58

but delicious. And then you go,

8:02

you know, throughout New Hampshire, for instance, and

8:04

you go to these ski resorts and you see

8:06

these signs that say fine food served

8:08

here, and the only thing that was certain is

8:10

that the food wasn't fine.

8:13

It's just a different it's different.

8:15

We used to say, we used to fit a bit of skiing in

8:17

between, you know, good food.

8:19

Richard was absolutely passionate about the food

8:21

in the course of because he's loved.

8:25

Ski till he was about eighty six. A

8:27

friend of mine who makes wine in Tuscany,

8:31

mister Bonnicassi, he's called, He said, is Richard

8:33

skiing? I said, well, you know, he's finding

8:35

it a bit difficult

8:37

now that he's sort of in his early eighties.

8:39

He said, oh, tell him to continue, because I

8:41

went through that in my early eighties and

8:43

then it came right back in my late eighties.

8:47

It just requires patience.

8:48

My mother's skied till she was ninety,

8:51

and every year from about eighty

8:54

four or eighty five till

8:56

she stopped, she would buy new skis in a new

8:58

outfit and you'd say, Mom, but you only

9:00

take one run a year. That the great

9:04

run like it matters

9:06

to me.

9:07

So back to the food your mother was cooking when

9:09

you were saying about cookbooks, because I learned

9:11

to cook through Julia Child, which is probably

9:14

later, but I always say reading Julia

9:16

Child was it was like a science cookbook.

9:18

You know.

9:19

It gave you exactly the measurements,

9:21

exactly the size of the bowl, the spoon,

9:23

the amount. It was so precise

9:26

and almost you couldn't make a mistake, and

9:28

that gave you the freedom to then experiment

9:31

on your own. Do you know what your mother used

9:33

Julia Child.

9:34

She did lots of other cookbooks,

9:36

but I mean I ended up getting one

9:38

of.

9:38

Her copies of Julia Child.

9:40

She had several that you know, it was tattered, actually

9:42

in pieces. But I

9:45

think that's what you learn about

9:47

cooking, that it becomes fun when

9:49

you have the confidence to an away

9:51

go off piece to start experimenting

9:54

and inventing, as well as following

9:56

the directions. And also that you can't

9:58

really make a terrible mistake. Yeah, people

10:02

worry that it won't taste exactly

10:04

the way they want it to, but every time you do something,

10:06

you learn a little bit about what you've done that

10:08

lets you do something else.

10:10

Did you participate with her in

10:12

cooking?

10:12

No, I didn't actually start cooking, strangely,

10:15

until I met Susan, my

10:17

wife, and her father was

10:20

an extremely good cook, as

10:22

well as her mother, of course, and he became

10:24

a kind of role model for me because on

10:26

the weekends he would do the cooking. He

10:28

liked to cook Chinese food because he had represented

10:31

Chinatown in Montreal as a

10:33

federal parliamentarian, and

10:36

watching him cook and learning

10:38

from him just stayed with

10:40

me. And I met him when I was seventeen seventeen.

10:43

Would meals be a very important part of

10:45

your life sitting down to dinner at night? Did you

10:47

all sit, you and your sister and your parents sit

10:49

down meal cooked by your mother?

10:52

Absolutely.

10:52

We lived initially in a

10:54

very small house, and then eventually my parents

10:57

moved to a larger house. But the

10:59

meal was the key point

11:02

in the day. And my mother what

11:04

time would it be?

11:04

Would it be would she'd go on French terms and

11:06

have dinner at eight or would it be earlier

11:09

school?

11:10

It was earlier, you know, seven

11:12

ish. I like to eat late. Now.

11:14

I don't remember what I like to do when I

11:17

was a child. I just ate when when the opportunity

11:19

was there. But my mother, you

11:21

know, up until I was in seventh

11:24

or eighth grade, maybe beyond, which

11:26

would bring me lunch at school because she just didn't

11:28

think the school would produce a good enough lunch.

11:30

So as a child, you

11:33

were both teased because it

11:35

was that embarrassing.

11:36

It was horribly embarrassing. But on the other

11:38

hand, I had a very good lunch.

11:39

Yeah, she'd actually bring

11:41

it to you, or she'd give it to you to take.

11:43

Sometimes she gave it to me. Sometimes she would.

11:45

Be really embarrassing to have your mother come with

11:47

a plate of but nice, so nice.

11:49

You know, my mother was is

11:51

a fantastic mother.

11:52

So she sounds great.

11:54

And she believes that, you know, if you don't

11:56

have a good meal, you're not going to have a good day.

11:58

That's kind of where.

11:59

She's started that.

12:00

Yeah, I do.

12:01

Yeah, put you know, let's put

12:03

it this way. A bad meal puts you in a bad meal.

12:05

Yeah. And so you grew up in this house. Did

12:07

you say your father cooked.

12:08

No, My father once

12:10

a year would make potato lotkis, which was the one

12:13

thing he could make.

12:14

Where did he learn that, I.

12:15

Guess from his mother or his grandmother In Germany.

12:18

But the kitchen was a disaster after

12:20

that, so my mother was

12:22

never that keen to have to do it because

12:24

my father and cleaning up weren't actually

12:27

synonymous. So latkis

12:29

were delicious, but they were a treat to

12:32

be had once a year.

12:33

And so you grew up in this household of primarily

12:35

French food.

12:36

Almost always Bogigno. My

12:38

mother would cook a fabulous lamb, you know.

12:41

Every once in a while she'd do, you know, a spaghetti

12:43

of some sort, mostly spaghetti

12:45

with meat balls. Very it was not her favorite

12:48

thing to cook for some reason, but

12:50

and my father loved meat, so we had, you

12:52

know, probably the worst diet in the world. We had

12:54

a lot of pork, beef, lamb,

12:57

but always cooked, you know, even when it was

12:59

a very simple my mother had a

13:01

way of cooking it perfectly. I remember

13:04

at some point a friend of hers told her about

13:06

kind of salmon. It was not quite a smoke salmon,

13:09

it was a cured salmon. So she started curing salmon

13:11

that was spectacularly good. I mean everything

13:13

she touched, yeah, turned out really well.

13:16

I wonder if she could find the ingredients she wanted

13:18

in Williamstown.

13:21

You know, there was a store.

13:24

Half hour forty minutes away that she

13:27

would go to. And you know, it's

13:29

gotten better over time, and now when

13:31

I go there to visit her, you can get pretty

13:33

much anything you want. But that certainly wasn't

13:36

the case growing up.

13:37

What we did our first book, Random

13:39

House had a policy that whatever

13:41

recipe you did had to be available

13:43

to their cookbook editor who lived in

13:45

Maine, that within fifty miles

13:48

that she could get the ingredient. And

13:50

now, of course with the Internet, it's all changed

13:52

anyway. Everybody can get everything.

13:55

Yeah, did you go to France in

13:57

the summer? Did you go visit? Where were your

13:59

grandparents?

14:00

So my grandmother lived in Paris,

14:03

and my cousins, who also

14:05

lived in Paris, spent the summers

14:08

in Cannes and the south

14:10

of France, so we'd go and visit

14:12

them. And then when I was eleven,

14:16

I was sent off to live in the

14:18

summer with some friends of my parents

14:20

in ex Leba in the Subwa

14:23

and I would go and live with them for a

14:25

couple of weeks, and then I would go to ski camp for

14:27

a couple of weeks, and then I would come back and live with them.

14:29

So I had this kind of idyllic childhood.

14:32

It's such a regional cooking, isn't it. The food

14:34

that you would eat in Paris or Normandy, and

14:36

it wo'd be different from Brittany and from

14:39

excell and France, from the south of France, and it

14:41

was very different.

14:43

Yes, that's that whole idea of

14:45

teoir, that everything has

14:47

some kind of deeply rooted local dimension

14:49

to it that you can almost smell sometimes. Right,

14:52

it's in the earth

14:55

and in the way things are made. So you

14:57

can have a chicken from

14:59

Bresse in the savoir and it

15:01

won't taste the same.

15:02

Yeah, just to have curiosity as a chef.

15:04

Did she cook a lot with butter? I

15:06

mean, I love butter. It's very interesting

15:08

because we have an Italian restaurant where everybody's

15:10

meant to love olive oil, and we all do. But

15:13

when you get chefs around the table and we talk

15:15

about cooking with butter, you know, it's so

15:17

delicious, isn't it?

15:18

Creasy?

15:18

Masso never entered the house ever.

15:21

Maybe why my father had a heart attack at sixty

15:23

Yeah, did he survived

15:25

in many good years after that, But no,

15:28

my mother cooked very traditional

15:31

French food all the way

15:33

through so her Bogignon was

15:35

a very rich redland

15:38

sauce. And in the same way that she'd make a rule

15:40

with, you know, the best

15:42

butter she could find.

15:43

Yeah, growing up with this food, the French

15:46

culture, going to Paris, you know, extremely

15:49

elegant way of eating, going to

15:51

the savoir. How did this affect

15:53

you? I mean, did you have a standard of

15:55

eating, of going out, going to restaurants.

15:58

So it's interesting. I wasn't

16:01

that conscious of it as a child,

16:03

because in fact, it just seemed normal. But I

16:05

realized by the time I was seventeen or

16:07

eighteen or even twenty, that one I

16:09

loved going to restaurants. Two

16:11

I loved to eat. That there was a certain kind of pleasure

16:14

that came with a meal that you

16:16

couldn't find otherwise in it. And a

16:18

meal that had been thoughtfully put together

16:20

was even more interesting than something quickly

16:23

assembled. And when

16:25

I met Susan and we met when I

16:27

was seventeen, what did you meet?

16:30

We met in grenad I was

16:32

there to race and she was there to study, and

16:34

so somehow we got together.

16:36

And our favorite restaurant when we lived in Gronold was

16:38

a little Vietnamese place called the Poda

16:40

La. I still remember it vividly. This

16:43

is like fifty years ago, but it

16:45

was exquisite Vietnamese food, and

16:47

you learned quickly. And I hadn't really

16:49

had Vietnamese food before it had some

16:51

Chinese food. You learned very quickly,

16:54

at least I learned very I have eclectic taste. I love

16:56

Indian food and I love Vietnamese food. I love

16:58

new tastes that are unfamiliar. And

17:00

then you try to understand how how

17:02

did that taste come about? What had to happen

17:05

to make chicken with lemon grass

17:07

taste the way it does. And sometimes

17:09

these things just sit in your mind, like I can remember that

17:12

restaurant as if it were literally

17:14

yesterday. I actually remember most meals

17:16

I've had.

17:17

I think people, that's what we enjoy about

17:19

doing this, is that food triggers.

17:21

It's like a piece of music, you know. I

17:24

can hear a song and remember where I was

17:26

standing when I heard that piece of music. And

17:28

I think food, for many of us, maybe not

17:31

is a trigger for memory, isn't it Absolutely?

17:34

Because it's olafactory right,

17:36

It's got smell to it, it has taste to it,

17:38

it has texture to it has location yeah,

17:41

right, you know, having the River

17:43

Cafe, which I have to say this is not an advertisement.

17:46

I'm just going to say it's my favorite

17:48

restaurant in London.

17:49

It should come now.

17:50

You know, I was supposed to be.

17:51

In London, but I had a back operation that

17:53

threw my schedule off, so.

17:56

I'll be there in the New York.

17:57

Oh, it's a great season, and that's maybe now

17:59

we should be the recipe because I thought it was really

18:01

interesting that, you know, when you think about all the seasons

18:04

of food, we love when something goes

18:06

and something you know, when the fennel goes and

18:08

then you have peas, or you know, the

18:10

melons go and you can't bear it, but then

18:12

you have peaches. But for me, as a cook,

18:15

I really look forward to the autumn. I think

18:17

the autumn is almost a cook's time

18:19

when you have the dark pumpkins. In England we have

18:21

grouse, we have partridge and

18:24

now at last the porcini

18:26

are really good and we just yesterday

18:29

gout white truffles are amazing. So

18:31

it's a very good season right now. So

18:33

AS really pleased that you chose

18:35

a recipe which I love, which is I

18:37

think from the first book pasta

18:40

with tomato and a dried

18:42

porcini mushroom.

18:44

So you start with seventy five

18:46

grams of dried porcini mushrooms. I'm

18:48

already salivating because I love porcini,

18:51

four tablespoons botlive oil,

18:53

three garlic coves, peeled

18:55

and sliced, one tablespoon

18:58

of fresh time leaves, two

19:00

tablespoons of parsley finely chopped,

19:03

one dried chili crumbled,

19:06

eight hundred gram tin of peeled

19:08

plum tomatoes drained of their juices.

19:11

One hundred twenty milli liters of double cream.

19:14

Can there ever be too much double cream? I'm just asking,

19:16

Is that possible?

19:17

No?

19:17

I don't think so.

19:18

So we could add more to it.

19:20

One hundred and twenty grams of parmesan,

19:22

freshly grated, two hundred and fifty

19:24

grams of conchili, pasta, sea

19:26

salt and freshly ground black pepper,

19:29

and extravergin olive oil. So

19:32

you start by soaking the mushrooms in hot

19:34

water for twenty minutes. Heat

19:37

the olive oil in a pan and fry

19:39

the garlic gently with thyme,

19:41

parsley, and chili. Add

19:44

the porcini and cook to combine the flavors.

19:47

Add the tomatoes. Cook

19:49

together gently until the tomatoes have thickened.

19:52

Add the cream, season then

19:54

remove from the heat and stir in half

19:57

of the parmesan. Cook

19:59

the pasta and oiling salted water. Then

20:01

drain thoroughly. Add to the

20:04

sauce with the remaining parmesan. Stir

20:06

well, add more

20:08

parmeasan and extra virgin

20:10

olive oil, and delight in the taste.

20:14

Do you make a lot of pasta? I do, so,

20:17

what is some of the what are you cooking now? So?

20:19

Last night I made a pasta that I

20:22

sort of add libed on that we like, which

20:24

is broccoli rob and spicy

20:26

sausage. Is very simple pasta

20:29

pasta.

20:30

Did you use with it?

20:30

I just use linguini, something

20:33

that just pulls the sauce

20:35

a little bit and it's just like

20:38

super simple. Broccoli rob

20:40

gives a little bitter taste, but

20:42

it's super easy.

20:43

Do you buy the sausage meat out of the sausage

20:45

or do you cook the sausage and then crumple it.

20:48

I take the wrapping

20:50

off the sausage and cook it that way

20:53

so.

20:53

It crumbles up.

20:54

And I always put a little bit of wine in. And

20:57

you know, some cheese

20:58

and.

21:00

That just for the two of you. Do you entertain?

21:02

We do?

21:03

Yeah, what's your If I come to dinner at

21:05

the Lowery House, what would it be like?

21:08

Nine times out of ten it's going to be some form

21:10

of lamb. We have a great producer of

21:13

lamb where we live in Canada. I mean

21:15

just really epically good lamb.

21:17

And so we'll either grill it roasted

21:21

cubit and make shish kebabs,

21:23

but mostly I like to do a spit turned

21:26

wood fired leg.

21:27

This pretty hard to beat.

21:29

And how many people do you invite?

21:30

There are five of us with my children. Then

21:34

when we're up in Canada, Susan's

21:36

brothers and sisters and cousins are there, so we're

21:39

usually at the get go between

21:41

twelve and fifteen. Then if we invite

21:43

some friends over pick we get to fifteen

21:45

or twenty, so it can be a be a.

21:47

Big Are you in the kitchen well

21:50

yourself? Yeah?

21:54

Did you know? The River Cafe has a shop. It's

21:56

full of our favorite foods and designs.

21:59

We have cookbook, bos linen, napkins, kitchen

22:01

were toad bags with our signatures,

22:04

glasses from Venice, chocolates from

22:06

Durin you can find us right next

22:08

door to the River Cafe in London or

22:10

online at Shopthrivercafe

22:13

dot co dot uk.

22:31

Let's talk about the museum Monarch, because I started

22:34

out by saying that food and art

22:36

and art and food. And I have to say

22:38

I was saying to Zad before that,

22:42

I'm off an ask in these questionnaires you know what's

22:44

your greatest luxury or you

22:46

know what is your luxury? And I always say,

22:49

you know, you can keep your cavea, or you can keep your

22:51

champagne, maybe

22:53

even a white truffle. But for me, going

22:55

to a museum when it's closed is

22:58

the greatest luxury. And I've had that luxury,

23:00

and it really is to see art. But I have

23:02

to say that two weeks ago I was here

23:05

and my kids were here, and we all came here

23:08

and it was packed.

23:10

It was full of people. There

23:12

were babies and children and people

23:15

lining up, and actually I found it so

23:17

beautiful, so exhilarating to walk

23:19

in. I think all these people want to

23:21

do is come to the Museum Modern Art. They could

23:23

have gone to Central Park. It was a beautiful

23:25

day. They could have gone a boat down the river. They could have

23:28

gone to a football game, and I've been

23:30

fine, but they were here and I

23:33

love that, you know, I love that so many people

23:35

were here, and you

23:37

know, congratulations, because

23:39

I've been to museums that are packed and you want to run

23:41

out the door. But it felt really

23:43

good. And I'm not just flattering you. It really

23:46

did feel a special to be here.

23:48

Well.

23:48

I love it.

23:48

I mean, the reason that I enjoy

23:50

working in the museum is because I love

23:53

the engagement between art and people.

23:55

Right.

23:55

I love to think about art, to talk to artists,

23:57

to look at art, to write about art,

24:00

to just meditate around art.

24:02

But I also feel that when you

24:06

work with objects in space with

24:08

people, they come alive in a different

24:10

way, and there's an incredible

24:13

thrill and exhilaration really that

24:15

comes when you see people enjoying an

24:18

exhibition or an installation, or

24:20

encountering a work of art they weren't expected

24:22

to see or not even knowing

24:24

that it existed. And

24:27

you'll notice as you move around our museum

24:30

that we've played a lot with where we locate

24:32

benches. Originally, when I started,

24:34

benches were always put in the middle of a room because

24:37

you assumed that circulation

24:39

was the most important thing and you didn't want to interrupt

24:42

people's ability to move around. And

24:44

a brilliant art historian that we were working

24:46

with just before our last expansion said,

24:48

you know, if you want people to look at art, put

24:50

the bench in front of the object and

24:53

they'll actually sit there and look

24:55

at what's on the wall, as opposed

24:57

to sitting on a bench and looking at their cell

24:59

phone. So we tried. We didn't

25:01

actually believe her, but we tried a few little experiments.

25:04

She was completely right. So now

25:06

when I walk through the museum, what I love is

25:08

that you'll actually see two or three or four people

25:11

seated together, strangers looking

25:13

at a work of art and talking to each other about

25:16

it. And it's that sense of community

25:18

that gets created in the space of a

25:20

museum that makes it so rewarding

25:22

to be here. So I'm so glad you enjoyed it, because I

25:25

get turned on to a museum and

25:27

see people.

25:28

Yeah.

25:28

No, it was really exciting to

25:30

see that. But I also think that Richard

25:33

did the Pompatouo with Renzo piano.

25:35

Brilliant and broke and broke the old

25:38

mold and created the new mold.

25:39

Well, he did that music well, the very early,

25:41

very first idea of the escalator on

25:44

the outside was that you could come to

25:46

a museum and not go look at

25:48

the art, you know, they could just take a ride up the

25:50

escalator, have a good time, and then maybe one

25:52

person would say, oh, I'd like to go in,

25:54

or maybe everybody would want to go in. But

25:57

there was a restaurant always,

25:59

you know, George is quite a well known

26:01

restaurant. Renzo Piano in Chicago

26:04

has a restaurant named after him, of course, called

26:07

Tertzo Piano. So it's

26:09

a player on the word piano, Piano, the

26:11

third Floor and Renzo Piano.

26:14

And here you have the Modern

26:16

with Danny Meyer. What it was your idea of putting

26:18

a really important restaurant in a museum.

26:21

So it goes back to this very simple equation

26:24

that looking at art is an incredibly

26:26

pleasurable exercise, and eating

26:28

at a museum should be equally pleasurable, and

26:30

that there was no excuse not to

26:33

have an outstanding restaurant

26:35

at the museum, even though until

26:37

we did the Modern, I can't think

26:40

of another museum that had a

26:42

really great restaurant and restaurants

26:44

that were adequate, but not a place that in

26:46

and of itself was a draw. So

26:48

working with Danny and we interviewed dozens

26:51

of restaurant tours. I mean, actually it was

26:53

quite a lot of fun because we spent six months

26:56

trying out restaurants all over town.

26:57

And then what year was it?

26:59

This goes back to two thousand and three

27:01

when we started to really put this

27:03

all together, and then when we met Danny

27:06

and understood first of all that Danny loves art.

27:08

He comes from a family of collectors, he grew

27:10

up around museums, so he's totally comfortable

27:13

with the culture of museums. He's

27:16

also an incredibly generous individual,

27:19

but he also loves hospitality and fine

27:21

food, and so the

27:24

combination was perfect. And we actually

27:26

set out with Danny to say, can we

27:28

actually build the best

27:30

restaurant imaginable for anyone,

27:33

forget whether or not it's a museum. And

27:36

to his credit, he has really

27:39

done a spectacular job. As you know, it has a

27:41

casual side to it and a more formal side,

27:43

but the food has always been

27:46

fabulous. And now we have a young chef, Tom

27:49

who is just knocking it out.

27:50

Of the park.

27:51

And what is your involvement?

27:53

Our involvement is really quite passive. I mean,

27:55

obviously if we see things that are troublesome.

27:58

We talked to Danny, but it is really a

28:00

Danni Meyer restaurant. He and his food group

28:03

Union Square Hospitality Group are responsible

28:06

for operating it, managing it, and

28:08

we have been consulted when there have been

28:10

changes in chefs, which is very nice of

28:13

Danny. But it's really a

28:15

Danni Meyer restaurant at MoMA,

28:18

as are the cafes.

28:19

Tell me about the cafes, So the cafes.

28:21

Are really designed to be first of all, a completely

28:23

different kind of price point, so that more

28:25

affordable, much quicker, faster,

28:28

less extensively prepared food so you

28:30

can get in and out relatively quickly, but still

28:33

a place where you can get a great panini or

28:36

a great rigatoni al pomodoro that's

28:39

memorable that you can actually say, well, that was the best

28:41

panini I've had in a long time. And they've

28:43

worked very well. I have to say that the menus

28:46

are quite on the sixth floor. It's a very small

28:48

menus or super simple, a few

28:50

appetizers, fehumanes

28:53

and a couple of desserts. Cafe

28:55

two, which is the larger of

28:57

our cafes has a much broader

29:00

menu, and then of course the barroom and the

29:02

modern are full scale operations. But

29:05

I can honestly say I've never had a bad meal

29:07

at any of those places. And it's not just because they know who

29:09

I am. It's because Danny really

29:12

pays attention to the quality of the food.

29:14

Constant question that's interested in the

29:16

way you describe the restaurants

29:18

and the cafes and the Edibushire

29:20

show is obviously on the moment, which is just

29:22

fantastic and everything. I would like enough to interview

29:24

him. Last year in Los

29:27

Angeles, I had his image of him in his

29:29

studio in the desert, very contemplative by

29:31

himself creating his artwork. What

29:33

do you think it's like for him to come here and see it viewed

29:36

in these very very busy spaces

29:39

and the restaurants and the cafes. Do they

29:41

like that or do they think it should be more sort

29:43

of spiritual in the way all contemplative.

29:46

No.

29:46

I think most artists, and certainly artists

29:48

of Ed's stature who enjoyed

29:51

long and very successful careers,

29:54

you know, you make art to share it with people, and

29:57

I think one of the pleasures of working with the curator

29:59

is you have an interlocutor who

30:02

can help you see your

30:04

own art, perhaps in new and different ways, but

30:06

who can also tell a story with it for

30:08

a public, perhaps that you're unfamiliar

30:10

with. And I think Ed was a little doe eyed.

30:13

You know, he's a very.

30:14

Love he's such a such an

30:16

unassuming man. I mean, it's

30:18

not that he's without ego, it's that he's just a gentle

30:21

person who doesn't assert himself

30:23

in space. And yet of course he's incredibly

30:25

successful. And I think he was a little doe

30:27

eyed when people came for the opening,

30:30

and it wasn't one or two people, but it was hundreds

30:32

and then thousands of people, all of

30:34

them absolutely goggle eyed at what he

30:36

had achieved.

30:36

And I think he was like, Wow, I

30:39

can't tell how people are talking about the chocolate Room.

30:41

You know, that's a great cutorial device.

30:43

It's sort of just absolutely can bring.

30:45

It to chocolate

30:47

room. What was it like for the museum to

30:49

have that?

30:50

Well, first of all, it was incredibly complicated to

30:52

experiment with how to do it. The chocolate

30:54

room is a room. It was a kind of conceptual

30:56

piece that Ed did. I think first in nineteen seventy

30:59

two or seventy four, and it consists

31:01

of hundreds of sheets of paper that

31:03

have been coated in chocolate. So the room

31:06

has a certain tonality shades

31:09

of brown, But more importantly, it

31:11

has smell, and a deep, rich

31:14

chocolate e smell that over time tempers

31:16

a little bit, so it doesn't smell today exactly

31:18

the way it did a month ago. But you begin

31:21

to smell it before you can see it, which is what

31:23

I like. So you're kind of pulled

31:25

along by this associative

31:27

smell of chocolate that doesn't feel

31:29

like it should be in an exhibition. And

31:31

then you see this room and you marvel at the fact

31:33

that actually it's chocolate,

31:36

but it's not chocolate you can eat. You're

31:38

never going to take one of those pieces of paper and

31:40

chew it. And there was a lot of experimentation

31:43

of what kind of chocolate would produce the right kind

31:45

of tint, and how would it sit on the

31:47

paper, and how did the paper have to be treated so that

31:49

the chocolate would remain because the chocolate

31:52

retains a kind of monochromatic

31:55

flatness to it, but if it started

31:57

to show pooling of oil

31:59

and modeling, it would

32:01

be very different that that kind of flatness

32:03

would begin to discision.

32:04

I thought it was like being in some monks sell Actually it's

32:06

very strange experience. You have that richness of the chocolate,

32:08

but also that austerity of the space.

32:10

Right, and and those sheets

32:13

they're pinned right, so the sheets have a three

32:15

dimensional quality to them.

32:16

They're not glued to the wall.

32:18

They flutter a little bit.

32:24

If you like listening to Ruthie's Table

32:26

four, would you please make sure

32:29

to rate and review the podcast

32:31

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

32:34

Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever

32:36

you get your podcasts.

32:38

Thank you.

32:55

You talked about your mother and

32:57

father and your grandmother and Susan

33:00

food.

33:00

What about your children so

33:03

interesting? My eldest son is

33:05

a non eater. I mean he eats only

33:08

because his body needs it. Our daughter

33:10

is an art historian, a curator.

33:12

She just opened a beautiful show of

33:14

an artist, a Columbian artist, Delsi

33:17

Morello. She loves to cook. She

33:19

loves to cook, and she learned from her both

33:21

of her grandmothers, from her mother, from

33:23

her father. She's a fantastic cook. And

33:25

it turns out our youngest son, the one who

33:28

is now a journalist and working

33:30

in Jerusalem, also loves

33:32

to cook, and so Susan

33:34

is constantly sending them recipes

33:36

reminding them what to do.

33:37

You know you have your mother's recipes.

33:39

So long ago, my mother made one of the great Kishas

33:42

in the world.

33:42

I mean truly.

33:45

A show stoppingly delicious, simple quiche

33:47

laur and it still makes, you know, a

33:49

cheesecake that I've never tasted better,

33:51

but it is as light as a soux fle And

33:54

she has shared the recipes with us on many

33:57

occasions as we asked for them. But

33:59

what I've learned for my mother is, and

34:01

this happened with the Keish verses, she gave us the

34:03

recipe and then

34:06

let's say three months four months later, I said, Mom, you

34:08

know, I think I lost her recipe. Can you give it to me again?

34:11

And she gave it to me and it was like, but I don't

34:13

remember you telling me about the tablespoon of flour.

34:16

And what I learned is that my mother will divulge

34:18

a recipe, but never one hundred

34:21

percent of the recipe.

34:22

So it's just little trick,

34:24

Like, yes, it's her little trick.

34:25

Then you got to write

34:27

each one of them down and merge them

34:29

together until you get the whole recipe.

34:31

One of you should do it because it's a treasure.

34:34

You know, when you meet people who they say,

34:36

oh, well, my mother left me, you know, a

34:39

little book of her recipes, and my grandmother

34:41

left me a book. It means a lot.

34:42

Oh yes, and then there you know,

34:44

I think as children, you grew up with those tastes,

34:47

right, those tastes means something to you, and then your children

34:49

memory have those memories of their grandparents

34:52

because of the taste of eating the cheesecake

34:54

at your grandmother's that she cooked just

34:56

for you.

34:57

Right, those things are special.

34:59

So here we are New York, which has incredible

35:01

amount of restaurants. I'm actually rather ignorant

35:04

of New York restaurants because

35:06

either when I come it's a hurry, or I

35:08

eat with my family or friends in their

35:10

houses. What do you look for in

35:12

a restaurant and what restaurants do you particularly enjoy?

35:15

So I look for places that are

35:18

casual. I'm not necessarily that

35:20

interested in a formal meal,

35:22

though on occasion that's that's nice.

35:25

That are casual with outstandingly good

35:27

food, places that really care

35:30

about the quality of the food. How

35:32

it's prepared, how it's presented, and

35:35

that make you feel welcome

35:37

even if you've never been there before. And you know it's

35:40

a trick, right. You

35:43

can have a really good meal and you're treated

35:45

miserably and you probably.

35:46

Won't go back again.

35:47

You can have a mediocre meal where you've been treated extremely

35:50

well when you might go back. So when you have a place

35:52

that treats you really well, that understands

35:54

what the welcome should feel like, and the

35:57

food is exceptionally good, then

35:59

you remember, right, it just gets seered into

36:01

your mind. You say, well, that's one of my favorite places. Of

36:03

course I'm going to go there.

36:05

And in New York where coming name names, yeah,

36:07

because are nice.

36:09

There's a restaurant that used to be seen

36:11

down on Chambers Street and then it closed and as

36:13

a result of the pandemic, but it reconstituted

36:16

itself as Chambers. It's an outstanding

36:18

restaurant. The food is just always incredibly

36:21

well prepared, and it's small and

36:23

cozy. People treat you really well.

36:25

It's one of my favorite restaurants in the city.

36:28

Glenn, the question that we ask

36:31

and I'm sorry this is coming to an end, and we

36:33

could do part two. When you come to the River Cafe,

36:35

you could show us how to cook lamb. And if

36:37

food alleviates hunger, or as you say, if

36:39

you're an athlete and you're going to ski down a mountain

36:41

or ride a bicycle up a hell, or

36:44

if you're going to feed your children or you're

36:46

in the country, it is a pleasure

36:48

to share. It's something that is healthy,

36:50

it's something that makes you work better and

36:52

think better. But it also is comfort.

36:55

And there is a time in all our lives when we

36:58

need to turn to food

37:00

for comfort. And I was wondering that's

37:03

my last question to you today in New

37:05

York is if you're going to food for comfort,

37:08

what would that be.

37:09

There's nothing for me like a

37:11

good slice of pizza. I just

37:13

take this and I like to make pizzas. There's

37:16

so much fun to cook and just

37:18

you know, a simple pizza, a little bit of

37:20

tomato, sauce, you know, maybe

37:22

some mozzarella, a leaf or two of basil,

37:25

keep it simple. I could eat that

37:27

non stop all day long.

37:29

Okay, Well, let's have pizza question.

37:31

Wait, do you have a good pizza for you?

37:33

Well, this is one of the things New York does,

37:36

So you know, the people in New York get really

37:39

bulshy about pizza. So Roberta's is,

37:41

you know, buying large considered Yeah,

37:43

in Brooklyn, sort of the gold

37:46

standard. And I

37:48

like cooking my own pizzas. Honestly, there's

37:50

something actually almost alchemical

37:52

about a pizza, right because of the heat of the oven

37:54

and the way both heats from below and the convection

37:57

above. And once

37:59

you once you free out how to get the

38:01

taste you want, then you can replicate it. But

38:03

if I need to, if I have this urge, this kind

38:05

of when I have that deep urge

38:08

for a slice of pizza, honestly, almost

38:10

any slice will do. Around here. There's

38:12

a place called Angelo's. It's not anything you wouldn't

38:14

necessarily travel across the country for, but when you really

38:16

need a good slice of pizza, it works.

38:18

Thank you. And you know, if food is

38:20

art and art is food, and museums or

38:22

restaurants and restaurants or museums.

38:24

And chefs are artists.

38:25

And thank you, thank you.

38:28

Thanks So

38:35

it's great, well and love we have time to go and see

38:37

the modern before leaving the.

38:40

Museum, thank

38:41

you, Mr.

38:43

And so we're just doing

38:46

a podcast play and then

38:48

I just wanted to say a few.

38:49

Words that.

38:51

You should if you're working here.

38:56

Ruthie's Table for is produced by Atomised

38:58

Studios.

38:58

For iHeartRadio is hosted

39:01

by Ruthie Rogers.

39:02

It's produced by William Lensky.

39:04

Our executive producers are Zad Rogers

39:06

and Fay Stewart.

39:07

Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore.

39:09

Our production coordinator is Bella Selini.

39:12

Special thanks to everyone at The River Cafe.