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This episode is brought to you by a dozen cousins, soulfully seasoned, ready to eat beans. Learn more at AdozenCusins.com. This week on Meet and Three, we head into the second part of our mini series on global trade, where we talk about all things sweet, from chocolate and sugar cane to the cultural festival that accompanied the growth of the date industry in the U.S. They're using this romance and fantasy to say dates are exotic and you should consume them. I like to think of the food that we eat as archaeological artifacts, in part because the history of humanity is in the stands in your produce market.
It's not like other foods. We have very like personal feelings about chocolate. Tune in to Meet and Three, HRN's weekly food news roundup wherever you get your podcasts. Every Tuesday from roughly noon to like roughly one or so. Uh I am uh as usual in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Uh Nastasia is in transit between uh California and uh New York. We have uh John in uh where are you now? You're in Connecticut now, and Matt in Rhode Island, just to let you know where we are. Uh but today is oh uh today is a uh different from normal. We're not gonna do our normal um, we're not gonna do our normal thing.
Uh today is a tribute to uh Maria Guarnicelli. Maria Guarnicelli was my uh my editor. She's the reason that I wrote a book. She forced me to write uh to write a book. She passed away this uh this last weekend.
Um she was one of those people in the food world that um if you weren't in the food world, especially food publishing world, you might not have known who uh she was, but she had an incredible outsized influence on uh on book publishing uh in general and cookbook publishing in particular. Um we have uh we have with us today uh like some of the amazing people that she you know helped um you know help bring that their authorship out into the world. Uh and also her uh the other important thing she brought into the world I just saw came on is uh Alex Guarnicelli, uh her daughter, uh famous uh chef, teleview, uh television personality. Uh Alex, hey, uh good to uh good to see you. I hope uh, you know, I'm sorry for your loss.
Uh thank you. I mean, this is what my mother would like. People talking about her. Well, so like I think we're gonna keep it relatively uh freeform. So I'm gonna uh say uh later on in the show, we're gonna have uh Rick Bayless uh coming on, who is one of her long time authors, long, long time authors.
Uh but right now, uh, we have also uh on the line with us, uh, we have uh Harold McGee. Uh interesting. Hello, Harold. There he's here, he's here somewhere. Yeah, he's on mute.
Yeah, he's coming back in. So Maria actually signed him up for signed up the right before she moved publishing houses. She signed up for the second edition of On Food and Cooking. So if you enjoy the second food uh edition of On Food and Cooking, you have Maria to uh thank for that. Uh we also have uh Kenji uh Lopez Alt on the phone.
Uh, how you doing, Kenji? I'm doing good. How are you? Uh doing all right. So if you've read a cookbook in the past uh five years or so, you know uh who uh Kenji is, and Maria was also the person who stewarded uh his you know uh book uh the food lab into um into existence.
So um, you know, Harold will be back on in a second, he'll dial back in or something. John, if you can help navigate Harold back on to the conversation, that'd be that would be great. Um so you know, I'll just I'll start by saying this, and you know, Alex, you might have something to say in Kenji as well. Uh but first of all, Nastasia, you should chime in a lot here too, because she loved Nastasia. Like so like the love, we loved Nastasia.
So for you know, for those of you that never met Maria, like Maria had let's just say a reputation. Would you say that's fair, guys? Yeah, describe her, Dave. Or Alex, describe your mom. I mean, you know, I would go to parties in my 20s when I first started cooking.
I would go to like chefs's parties and stuff, and people would say, you know, I'm Jenny, nice to meet you, and I'd say, I'm Alex Horner Shelley, and half the time people would bristle and say, Oh, I know your mother. And 56 times out of that, they would say, She declined my book. So I started stop saying my last name at parties. Does that describe my mother in a roundabout fashion? Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm like, you know, I'm gonna say this with all due respect.
She was scary, right? She was the only person. She's the only person that ever scared Dave Arnold. And we've worked together for 13 or who knows how many years. I've never seen him scared of anyone but her.
She scared the life out of me. She did, she scared. And you know what? And the thing is is that like I know that she and I've seen her be incredibly harsh to people, right? But like she was never harsh to me ever.
Ever. No. But she scared the daylights out of me. Like something about it is like, because I think like what was kind of best about like one of the professionally best things about her was that she was just such a judgment machine. She was always judging whether something was good or bad, or like whether it was, and so like you were always petrified because she was so fine-tuned to everything that you were just petrified that you were gonna like say something, be like, Oh my god, I was wrong this whole time.
You're an idiot, get out, you know. She was constantly like, so like whenever I was with her, I was just completely nervous all the time, right? It was it was a kind of a weird dynamic. Meanwhile, she would say, Oh, that Dave, he sucked, what a doll. And that Nastasia, what a doll she is, but Dave didn't do his homework.
And here we are waiting for Dave. And I know he's brilliant, but I just don't know. And then she'd say, But Kenji, on the other hand, Kenji has done all his homework and is brilliant. So she thought you both were brilliant, but it was more like a teacher. And the ones that sat at the front of the class and turned in their homework, those were the, you know, those were the people on the on the on the nice list, the Christmas card list.
You know what I would say about her is that she was she was also just sort of, you know, fiercely loyal. Um and if you were um if you had done your homework and you were on her good side that day, um, she she was your biggest advocate and your biggest supporter. Um and I and you know, when when she was editing my book, I I had never felt supported in the way that I did with her, not from not from any other teacher or any other boss, um, you know, with the exception maybe of of Ed Levine, who is uh who is also uh fiercely loyal. But um, you know, wet what it was what whether it was it in in her office or you know, or or the frequent three to four hour lunches we had, um, which were you know we're s were scheduled for an hour and would go on for the entire afternoon. Um she you know, she was the same in or out of the office, and and you could always tell when someone was coming like when someone came into her office, they came in with that kind of deer and headlights look, um, or when a server came to our table, or when the chef came out to talk to her.
It was all peep she she definitely had a reputation. Um and and it was one that you didn't even have to know her to under to see it, you know. She she she she wore her emotions on her sleeve, and you could tell um in the first time you met her, you could tell that whatever she was going to say to you right now is going to be something honest. She didn't, she'd never beat around the bush about anything. Um, and and I, you know, I I I admired that because I you know, I'm I'm the kind of person who needs someone to tell me when you know something I did sucks or or when something I did is good.
Um, because um, yeah, I mean I think I think that's how that's how you that's how you know she she she wasn't accepting of anything other than perfection. Um and I I actually really admire her about that. Yeah. What what restaurant did she take you to? Kenji was did she choose one and take you?
She always took us to my lino. Yeah, it was most frequently my Lino, actually. Yeah. Yeah, she loved that place. And and I and every single time we went, there wasn't a single time when we didn't sit and then have to be moved to a different table because she wanted to go sit somewhere else.
Yes. Oh my god, Kenji, I can't believe you've managed to. I was wondering what little sort of nuances would come out. I kid you not when I say my mother and father and I would go out and she'd say, I want to sit over there. I I don't like our table.
And we would move one time we moved three times until my mother felt that the the light was hitting our table in the right way. And also, um, people say to me, you know, like, how did you become a chop judge? And how did you become a judge on TV? And I'm, you know, I say, Well, I was in training for it my whole life by accident. My mother collected gourmet magazine, every um it um every single issue and put them in bound, you know, in binders.
So my mother has every issue of gourmet magazine from like 1960, whatever, until 1990 or whenever it was. Um, and she would make a pie and she would say, Is this as good as the 1974 October one? Or do we like this as much as the 1981 uh November one? And why? And that was sort of what we and then you had to have an answer.
You had to, you know, and I was like, Jesus, I don't know. I'm stressed out. This is pie. It's just a pumpkin pie. And my father would say, Well, I, you know, the crust is my mother would say, Yeah, you know, the filling is just so I think when she started in on cookbooks, I knew it was really something when she would take the whole manuscript and just cook it.
Wow. And she would, and we did the same thing. And so every author was on trial at my childhood home, you know, for uh, you know, like, oh, there's so-and-so, you know, none of his recipes work. And that's how I came to know people for life, you know. Oh, he's late on his manuscript.
I can't say hello to him. She always said hello to me, and I was always late. Yeah, but you ever notice how uh Alex, if you didn't have a sat what she considered a satisfactory answer, she wouldn't say anything, she just keeps staring at you until you had a satisfactory answer. Oh yeah. Oh god.
By the way, I might describe all of you as an irreverent band of marauders in your own right. So I just want to say it's not like my mother picked the straight and narrow types to deal with. I think she she she knew, I mean, the two of you in particular, she knew about you before she worked with you and she talked about you. And I used to say to her, I mean, Kenji really, my mother, before I could say anything to her about Kenji, she was already talking to me. But you, Dave, honestly, I said to her, you know, Dave Arnold, this guy can, you know, he's so he's such a nerd in the most glorious way.
He loves to know the why, the mechanics, why things work, why they don't. He likes a clear answer. He will diligently work until he finds one. You know, I said to my mother, he's so up your alley. Just the way he does his work and his what's the word I'm looking for, I guess, like a well, really integrity at all cost.
And uh that's what she found. Um, and and look at your books. I mean, look at how great the books are. It's not just because of my mom, but don't you think my mom just kind of like gives great flowers, like the right water and and sunlight. I I can tell you, I mean, you know, my book, um, I I mean, I wouldn't, I would definitely not have the career I have today um if if it wasn't for your mom.
Um, you know, what when I when when your mom called me, I I had already talked to um a dozen other publishers, including you know, including my former employers um at Cooks Illustrated, who, you know, who also do science and stuff. Um, um, and virtually all of them had had, you know, told me that they they wanted a shorter book or they wanted it to be um, you know, they you know, we we a very different book from from what what it ended up being with your mother. Um, and I I remember when your mother called me, um I was I was living in a in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn um with no windows. I I went out onto onto the uh the balcony um to take the call in my in my underwear in the winter. Um because because you know, because I was inside and my wife was working inside, and um and your mother the reason I mean the reason I went with Norton um is because uh is because your mother knew what she was talking about is is you because your mother would clearly had read some of my work um and i knew like you know i want someone who sort of understands what it is i'm trying to do um and she did and i got that in our in our first 20 minute phone call um i got that she got that um and then to her credit you know when i was writing my book and originally it was supposed to be five or six hundred pages and i you know i turned in 800 she was like this is good can you give me another can you give me 600 more pages i'm like sure all right um and you know and so with without her it would have been a very different book my career would have been very different um and you know i i never felt more supported than when i was than when i was working with her um and and you know and and be even be even before i met her um of course i would not have been able to do what i what i do now um had it not been for um you know for for Harold's book uh and and and for the new edition of joy of cooking um and you know all the all these works that um sort of paved the way for um and you know Einstein told what Einstein told us cook I think that was hers as well yeah all you know all these books um that on science food science and technique that were sort of aimed at home cooks things that um um you know that that my my work is very much based on um without your mother I I can very safely say that that I would not be doing what I do right now um which you know so I I owe her a ton beyond beyond just my immediate um working with her as my editor.
And she also did blockbuster books that weren't in that vein. You know, like she did uh she was uh Fuchsia Dunlop's American editor, Jimmy Rogers, uh Lini Cafe. Yeah, the Zuni Cafe cookbook, huge, huge book. You know what I mean? That that manuscript sat around the apartment for years.
I I that Zuni Cafe book, and the first manuscript was in the bathroom. Like, think about like the what I bring to the table is like that was the toilet reading in my bathroom. Was the the Zuni Cafe manuscript? And so of course I I was reading it, you know. And my mother said, What do you think?
And I said, I just don't see it, you know. And I generally was okay, but I was like, I don't see this. And she said, just wait. And I remember that. And then the book, then other versions of it started appearing, and I was reading and reading, and I said, You're really teasing out a story here that I didn't see initially.
And she said, Yeah. She said, We're getting there. And then she just brought home the book, and she was so nervous because I think, you know, she really worked. Let me tell you, there were some books she worked harder on, even harder on than others. Um, and that was a book we we ate a lot, we ate most of that cookbook, my father and I.
Um, but she was just really wanted the story to come out, and and it just did, I guess, um, in a very lasting way. Sometimes I say to, you know, chefs, you know, how do we hit the refresh button? And I say, sometimes you've got to go back to an old book to refresh. I said, just go read the Zuni a little bit. Go zone out on the and the 20 page uh bread, you know, salad recipe.
It's like five ingredients and it's like a 20-page recipe. You know, the the irreverence and indulgence of thinking there was that much to say and going with that. You know, my mother didn't um seem to reference anybody around her. There was my mother was not one for social comparison, if you know what I mean. She would wear a Ferragamo scarf with a Prada purse and new balance sneakers and a Lanz and t-shirt.
She just had no, she didn't care um how you combine things. She just wanted what was good. And my mother was always wore comfortable shoes, also. I remember that. Yeah, I mean, good.
That's just it. My mother, my mother just uh called me from the hospital uh not a week ago, and she said, uh, I'm looking at Mark Forgion's restaurant. Is he good? And I just said, how do I sum up someone like whether they're good or not? But that's how my mother, oh, he's good, or she's good, or that croissant I took a bus train and a boat to was worth going for.
That's the other thing about my mother would go to Kuadaloop to taste one good olive. You know, it didn't matter what she had to do. And I think you were all like her favorite olives. That's it. She you remember she would how much she hated people whose recipes didn't work.
Oh god. Oh yeah. I mean, people out there, the stories. If I could tell you half, she was also could be, let's say, real rough on people that she thought had done. And if I could tell you guys the stories, oh my god.
Oh my oh my god, the things she would say were amazing, amazing, you know. Yeah. If you didn't do your homework, man, you were out of the circle of trust. And here's what was so strange is that I was always sort of surprised anybody wanted her approval, you know, because it was so hard to get. But I think um what was it you think?
I think she I think she I think she knew how to translate what you wanted to say or help you find your voice and sort of connect the dots, or you know, I always feel like my mom would, you know, if it were a a book were a closet, you know, she would show up with the empty closet and the clothes and the rack and the hangers and just say, you start by hanging them all, and then I'm gonna rehang them and we're gonna argue, and then we're gonna rehang them again, and then we'll see what we have. I mean, what happened to your books with my mother? What happened when you were done? Oh, you well, my book got it went through several iterations, you know. For uh initially it was going to be she's like, Kenji, we have to do this in two volumes.
Um, and then I remember doing I remember we went in and had a long three-hour lunch um talking about how the book was going to be in two volumes, how we're going to divide it, and then a week later she was like, Kenji, the two volume idea is stupid. That's a bad idea. We're going to we're going to make it into one volume. You know, it was that kind of thing where whatever whatever her idea at the moment was, she was um she was all in on it, you know. Um, but she could also change her mind.
But you know, but the thing about working with your mom was that um just given her track record, um, you know, she I think right before mine, my right while we were working on mine, she um Molly Stevens' second book might have come out all about all about roasting and the um and uh Grand Cosina had had just come out. Um, and it's like all these great, great books. Um, and she, you know, she doesn't have a bad book in her in her in her backlog, you know, so it's like whatever you knew that if she was if she was if she said what you're doing is good, and if she said the idea, you know, what it what how it's turning out is good, then you knew that it was good. Um, because I I had never published a book in my life, and and so I kind of had to go, I had to trust her, you know, and and I did. Um, and I'm and I'm very glad I did.
But you know, like you said, she she was a she was a great judge of what's good and what's not. Um and so if she told you something you was you were doing was good, then that you know that's why you sought out that approval because you knew that she could tell. Um so yeah, my experience was with working with her was that every meeting was passionate, every meeting was full of um this is this is terrible, this is great. Um, but what you knew that whatever we were gonna land on at the end was going to be great. And she was also it's it was everything too, right?
I know with me, she was like, what about what about this form factor? What about she would just hand me a bunch of books and like paper stocks, and she would be always be thinking about like what's the paper stock gonna look like? What's the book gonna look, you know, like what's the physical form factor, how's it gonna feel, like where's it like how is someone gonna use it? She was just like tuned into all of the like book as object thing as well, which of course, you know, someone my age, I groove on book as object because I am a lover of books as things, you know what I mean? Um but also a book you're gonna use that you're gonna open and reference and thumb through and leave on the counter, open to a certain page.
She was really big on the size and the shape of the book. And I won't even tell you what a book jacket experience was like. Particularly when I was like, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten, and in my early teens, my mother would bring home 14 jackets and hang them all up and we would sit in the kitchen, my mother, father and I, and look at them all. And my mother would say, what do you think? And you know, we would just stare at book jackets.
I mean, I don't know what everybody else was doing at the dinner table. But what I was looking at any number of book jackets. I remember that by the time the Zuni Cafe came out, I had seen seventeen iterations of that jacket. It was it was actually jarring when I saw the book in the store because I just thought, oh, you know, that's what I've been staring at for five years at home. And here other people know about this, right?
Um boy how she agonized over how it felt and how it looked. And and it's surprisingly um that's the thing kind of about my mother is the vanity of the book. You know, even though you would certainly not accuse my mother of being a vain person, she knew the importance of vanity for the book as object as you say. I mean I think it's I I wish more people still thought about that. That's so many books look so nasty nowadays.
You know what I mean? Like they're just nasty. Yeah. Because nobody cares about them anymore. You know what I mean?
So it's uh I don't know. So uh Harold I see is back on Harold, how did she convince did she have to convince you to do the the the the second uh the second version like like I know that she signed you on to do the second version and then she moved the publishing houses, but how'd that go? Yeah. Yeah, it's uh one of the great regrets of my life that I uh I was her author and I never got to work with her. Right.
Uh yeah, uh timing uh just didn't work out. So yeah, I was it was 1994 when I first met her, and uh it was at a dinner with a bunch of people after an IACP meeting, and I didn't know her, she didn't know me, but by the end of the dinner we realized that um uh I was at Scribner, she was at Simon and Schuster, she was in charge of Scribner food books, and so I was hers. And uh we had been trying for I would say a year to convince uh Simon and Schuster to do uh revision of On Food and Cooking, and basically getting nowhere. Um maybe two, three days after I got back from that IEC trip in in New York, I got a phone call from my agent who said, So uh Maria's been in touch. Uh we've got a contract.
It just happened like that. Um then uh it took me 10 years to write that book, and that was just too long by the time um I was halfway done. Um she had moved on to Norton. So I uh never got the chance to work with her, but I I had many opportunities when our whenever I was in New York, and in that time and afterwards, actually, we would get together for lunch or dinner and uh talk about uh all kinds of things. And you're mentioning uh Judy Rogers' book reminded me of uh something that I'd actually forgotten about until just now.
Uh when Judy was writing her book, Maria came out to work with her in uh Berkeley, uh San Francisco, and uh uh Judy wanted to ask me some technical questions, and so Maria said, Why don't we all get together for dinner? So we all got to dinner, uh, got together for dinner at Chay Panese. And uh I'm thinking, you know, this is this is a great gig answering a few questions and getting to eat here. Uh we're we're in the middle of dinner, and uh Maria looks over my shoulder, uh, says, Excuse me, gets up from the table, walks over to another table, and says very loudly, I love you. And it turned out to be uh Mark Morris, the dancer who was in town for a performance with uh at the Berkeley um uh public events program.
And so they had this wonderful conversation. You know, Judy and I were kind of looking at each other and uh and wishing that we were as bold as she was to just get up when she saw what someone she loved and uh uh and love them. So uh yeah, she was she was irrepressible. That's such a great word. Yes, irrepressible at any moment.
By the way, she calls you how. Yeah. Right. And so she I said, my I said, I'm making this squash soup every day at the restaurant, and sometimes when I put it in the fridge, it bubbles and it frops, and it's almost fermenting, and I don't know why. And my mother said, Well, just ask how.
Just call him. And I said, Who's how? She said, Hal McGee. And I said, Mom, I'm not going to call Harold McGee and say, hey, buddy, I've got some fermenting soup and I don't know why. I think he's got bigger fish to fry.
And she said, Oh, for God's sake, just call him. I'm sure he's there. And I did write you a note, and you answered me that indeed the squash was fermenting. I think we talked about dairy uh interacting with the squash when it sits. Um, but that was just it.
I mean, if my mother wanted to ask Barack Obama a question, she just would pick up the phone. Um, she um in the nursing home I had, I put her in a nursing home for a few months because she couldn't really couldn't, she needed that level of care. And I would she I'd call her and she'd say, Well, they just delivered my lunch. And I'd said, Oh, okay, you know, and I would send her food and because I knew how, you know. And she'd say, I called down to the cafeteria, and I told Jay that I thought his soup was pretty good today.
You know, the seasoning was really on. I thought, and I'm thinking to myself, like, my mother is still crossing the room at Shea Panice in her way, like wherever she is, she's evaluating and admiring. Constant evaluation. I'll tell you a story that she said about Kenji. Here's the kind of thing she would do.
Uh oh. So like Ken Kenji and I were writing our books at the same time. We're writing our books roughly at the same time, right? Mine much shorter. So, like, even though it took me infinity for how long it should have taken to write it, you know, plus the years to start writing it, which Maria was very patient.
Anyway, so like we're we're actually physically writing at the same time. And you would go into her office, and by the way, back me up, back me up, folks. Like her office, I don't know if she actually had furniture because it was constructed of books. You know what I mean? Yes.
You'd walk in, it's just like just books, just books, books. She would like constantly throw books off. So every time you had a meeting, you would end up with five books, and yet somehow like her office was still all books 100% of the time. So I walk in, and her uh her assistant, for most of the time I was there, it was a guy named Mitchell Coles, right? So like uh you you go across, and the the assistant's office it was much neater.
It had a uh like a bookshelf/slash filing thing, and on it were stacks of printed manuscript stuff. And Kenji had like, you know, like a giant section of stacks of paper that he had already submitted via manuscript to uh to Maria. So like I would go in and see Kenji's growing stack of paper and be very jealous. Uh and she was trying to play us off just to see who was gonna get their manuscript done first, so she would like poke fun at each of us. But I'm I remember um like early on in the process, because she was like, you know, like I was saying, very very keyed into things like photos, right?
And if I have time, I'll tell us another photo story later. So she's one day out of nowhere, she just looks at me in her office, and okay, like I said, like whenever I'm with her, my my knees are shaking. I'm petrified that she's gonna all of a sudden excoriate me, which she's never done. And she goes, You know, Kenji wants to take all of his own photos, and then just gives me this look. Just gives me this look.
Like her eyes open up like three times wider than normal. And her eyes opened wide, which she wanted him to, folks. And like, I was just like, um, um. And then I think I like maybe like three minutes as you were there. You remember this?
Yeah. I was like, oh my God. But like, you know, look, she let him do it, and it ended up being the right thing to do because, you know, Kenji, there's no way you could have written that book with a photographer. No. No.
Especially, especially because I I I mean, I I didn't really have the space for it. And uh, or yeah, and and I and like I said, I I I wrote a lot of my book in my underwear at like from like midnight to 4 a.m. So pulling the tubing, doing the tuban book there. Yeah, I'm I'm not great at work at working with other people in general. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's true. I have to, and it sucks, believe me. But uh the uh not just not just use us, come on. Uh the yeah, so I'll tell you a quick story about a photography. So I also like find it difficult to work with people that I don't already know intimately, you know what I mean?
Uh so I wanted to use my uh, and you know, since she's gone now, I can safely say this. So I I wanted to use my brother-in-law, who's a professional photographer, Travis Huggett, to shoot my book, because among other things, like he knows me and he knows my level of disorganization, my level of crazy, right? And also he's quick and doesn't mind working with whatever lights are around, he's not gonna like you know, prim it all up and all this other stuff. So I I knew I wanted to work with him. And um, I was like, Well, we, you know, I I floated the idea of working with my brother-in-law to Maria, and she was like no you may never work with your family on a book.
And I was like, uh what I did was, hey, we got Rick Bayless on. Hey Rick, how you doing? I am doing great. How are you? Oh, doing well, doing well.
So what I did was, folks, is I said, okay, this is this is the closest I got to lying to Maria. So you just you guys decide whether this is a lie. So I um I just got Travis to shoot a bunch of uh photos of of cocktails, because we'd already decided I was gonna do a cocktail book on a she didn't want me to write a cocktail book, by the way, at first. Um she's like, people don't read cocktail books, don't write a cocktail book, write a book people will read. She's right and right and right and wrong.
She ended up bending back. Anyway, whatever. Uh so uh I had Travis shoot a bunch of stuff, and I just gave her the the pictures, and she was like, Yeah, we can use this guy. And so then I had to maintain this fiction the entire time. And I never said he's not my brother-in-law.
I said, What do you think of this guy? And and so we ended up using my brother-in-law. I'll never forget, we were in her office for one of these marathon photo sessions where she was going through the photos and how they matched up with chapters, and Travis and I were there at Norton, you know, seated in one of these like conference tables, and she turns to me terrified, terrified. Everything, especially when we were together, terrified. She turns to me, she goes, Where are you going uh for Thanksgiving this year?
Oh and by the way, Maria always uh went to Thanksgiving at Jean-George Restaurant. Alex, am I right? Oh yeah. Yeah, that was her Thanksgiving. That was her Thanksgiving tradition challenges.
Yeah, yeah. Uh, which by the way, good call, probably, right? Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Nice room.
This is a nice room. If you've never been to JG's main room, nice room. Anyway. Uh so she's like, Hey Dave, where are you going to Thanksgiving? She doesn't talk like that, but you know what I mean.
Hey Dave, where are you going to uh Thanksgiving's year? I'm like, oh, uh, I'm going to uh Connecticut. And then she turns to Trav. Well, what about you, Trav? Where are you going for Thanksgiving?
And he goes, I'm also going to Connecticut. And that was the closest. And we're both like, don't dig, don't dig, don't dig, don't dig. And she didn't dig. And she ended up like really liking Travis's work.
And I think understanding that you know the way he could interact with me, like made the book better. So I don't know whether she secretly knew somewhere deep inside that something was up, but that's the closest I ever got to lying to Maria. Well, Dave, she didn't know, but now she does. And there will be repercussions. Yeah.
I feel good coming clean. Nastasia knew, so I made Nastasia maintain the lie. It's never cool. Never cool making somebody else maintain your live for you. But that's the thing.
Is it a lie, or did I just like is it a hard omission? You lied. Dave. As the only remaining Gorna Shelley Gene pool, I'm gonna say you've lied. You shall be judged.
Well, I knew she would judge. That's why like I had to like I had to maintain it. Had to maintain. You should just you should know that my mother would call me and only reference people as to how their book sales were. You know, she'd be like, Well, Joe called me, 60,000 in print right now.
That's how she would identify people. Everybody was how many copies were in print. Um and she was always so excited about how well your book did in a category that she didn't she didn't have faith in, honestly. She did not have faith in the category. And the only reason it ended up being that was she um I was super late in even starting to write a book, and she hauled me into the Norton offices and had me like do like a song and dance for the North Norton uh freaking uh bigwigs, and I made them a bunch of cocktails, and she's like, Well, Dave, it turns out that the that the um you know the management here at Norton are a bunch of booze hounds, so they want you to write the cocktail book, whether or not it sells.
I was like, okay. I remember that. I literally remember that, and I remember her saying she was surprised that they were on board and that she was very she had uh every faith in you, um, but that she didn't believe in the trend. And I think she was always so astounded by how well the book uh did and is still doing. Well, for a cocktail, I mean that's why she like she wanted me to write a book that like a lot like look, like Kenji, you're like the the the home run hitter, right?
So it's like you know, she knew that that book was gonna be a monster, you know what I mean? And so uh you know, she was really good at that. She was good at seeing like a uh uh a need that didn't quite exist yet, and then like hitting that, you know what I mean? That one, that one was uh, right. So can I tell you one quick story before Rick comes in on charcuterie?
So the the Oh yeah, Jim Leahy, another one. Hi, Dave. Hey Jim, how you doing? Best uh uh two two quick things I'll say. So Jim Leahy's Sullivan Sullivan Street Bread.
That book, right, sold more bread books, the first no-need bread book than like any other bread book ever, right, Jim? I don't I don't know if that's true. I would love to think that that's true, but I think that there were true. Well, thank you. I wish it were true.
But if it because it because if it were true, um, I guess I would be I would be in a very great, a nice place right now. Um but uh you know, yeah, it definitely uh, you know, uh it I mean I know I kind of I'm I'm a little late to the conversation, and I apologize. Uh but yeah, Maria was you know an amazing editor. And uh, you know, as you know, Dave, she she was is quite was quite a character. As are you, Jim.
And yeah, no, we had we had many arguments, but they always ended up, you know, uh, we always ended up in agreement in the end. This conversation has become like a pirate ship. Yeah. Yeah. This is a ship of pirates.
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Learn more at a dozencousins.com. I wanted to get all these people on just because we're so like some of us like are in similar veins, but we're also so different. I wanted to show some of the breadth of what she kind of was involved with. Well, I I will say, knowing that Rick is here, um, Rick, how many books did my mother do with you? Am I wrong saying it's more than 20?
No, it's way way less than 28. Oh, we did eight we did eight books, eight books together. Eight books. Wow. That's a lot.
It was amazing because she was the first and only editor that I had. We did this one other little book uh that I did with my daughter. Um, and Maria just couldn't get her head around it. And it was a P because Maria only wanted to do books that were rock solid and that would last forever. And I knew this book wasn't gonna, it was a it was a point in time book when my daughter was between 12 and 16 years old, and we wrote this book together.
And I knew it wasn't gonna have legs um beyond uh maybe three or four or five years. And so she couldn't wrap her head around it. So we sold it to somebody else, but it taught me a huge lesson that um Maria was one of the few editors that really edited. And um so we were with another company uh for that one book, and I was shocked beyond belief that my editor in that one didn't really even read the book, just said, oh, it'll be fine. And I was like, wow, I was used to Maria going through every single word I wrote and marking it up, and the manuscript would come back and it would look like slashed.
Reduce you to to your your your your your lowest, your lowest level. Absolutely it's breaking you down. It would break you down. It was super interesting to me that having worked with her for well, she bought my first book 35, 36 years ago. And so then um I didn't do anything with her for 10 years after that because we were just getting started in our restaurants, and I put all my um focus on that were well for about eight years, and then I I wrote my second book 10 years that came out 10 years after the first.
And um it was so surprising to me that she would look at everything that I wrote as though um it it like I don't know whether she never retained the knowledge, but she always wanted me to explain everything really clearly, and I would say Maria, you've taught I've I you know I've written about this already before, and she'd go, now remind me what that is again, and I was like, Oh, I'd want to pull out my hair, but that actually is what made the books really good is that she was coming at everything with this sort of new perspective um every time, and it was just fascinating to work with her. I I you know, I I know a lot of people had um knockdown drag out fights with her. We never did. Um, I know. And I you know, I don't know.
I mean, well, first of all, well, Rick, you were Rick, you were her favorite author, and she and she she would let me know that all the time. I don't know. She would remind me. She would remind me like constantly about about what an amazing author you were. Jim, she had a favorite author every year.
I love you all. Whoever turned in their manuscript on time with good recipes was the favorite author. Yeah, I believe that. But but I can say Alex, I'm I'm I think you're probably lucky you didn't have siblings to um to that she was she would have pit you guys against each other. I think, you know, for me honestly, peep like people hounded me for years.
Why haven't you written a book? And I said, if you know my mother, you'll know why. I've never written a book. I was never going to write one. And finally I wrote one and I only left it in front of her when it was already published.
And she just said, Wow. I had her babysit Eva and I left the book on the table and she said, Really? So you didn't want me to read it. And I said it would have never gotten published um if you had read one word. Rick, your first book was Authentic Mexican.
Is that right? Yeah, that's right. We I tell you I know what the cover of your book looks like. Like burned in my brain for life because my mother agonized over your book jacket. My mother agonized over all books, really, but that book jacket and the message, sh I think she felt like you two were entered in a relationship where you were exploring a new topic and new territory.
And I think sh she would always say to me, Rick knows so much about what he's working on, what he's doing, his subject. He's a master of his subject, and I want him to explain it all to everyone so they can understand. And that's gonna take a lot of remedial, I think was the word she used. Talk about what every little thing was and meant and how to use it. Because I think she felt the ingredients and the curating of the recipes was so unusual.
However, simple the cooking ended up actually being. Yeah. I think that she she wasn't it it she didn't have a natural affinity toward it, which was actually to my benefit because it gave me it really forced me to be able to bring things alive in a completely clear way so that people could understand it. I mean, she taught without her, I would be nowhere in the cookbook world because she really taught me how to write. How'd you get with her, Rick?
Um, it was just uh one of those crazy happenstance things. She had published Barbara Trapp and somebody else um that did really serious books. And um I had through a friend of mine, actually um uh Martha Rose Shulman, who writes for the New York Times a lot now, um Martha had introduced me to her age, and she had just published her first book, and uh through that agent, um I we we put the manuscript, well, as much of the manuscript as I had in front of Maria. And I'll I'll never forget going to New York the first time to meet Maria, and I was of course scared to death. Um because this was like nine 1985, and she took Dean and me to a to a an Indian restaurant, like in the 30s someplace, and uh and drank a martini.
I'll never forget it, and drank a martini. And I was like, oh my god, if I have any alcohol, I might just fall in a heap on the floor. And um, so we talked about things, and I couldn't, I I I it was a super strained um conversation. And I thought, oh, she's gonna hate she'd already signed it by that point, but she I thought she's gonna hate me. And but the one thing that she kept saying is, you know how to do your research.
You know how to you're this is what I'm after is somebody that can do the research. And because we had both um been in graduate school and learned and knew how to do research, she was one of the very few people that would actually like support people like me. And honestly, without her, I don't know where I would be. Oh wow. Well, you should know.
I mean, she just you're right when you say she didn't have an affinity. And I I don't know, I don't want to say she disliked. Not having an affinity and disliking are not the same thing. Right. But she also we we didn't cook, she didn't cook the your food at home ever.
My father wouldn't have liked that kind of food. And by the way, just so you know, my mother would not make anything, my father didn't like, so I didn't we didn't eat avocados or peanut butter or anything my father didn't like, anchovies. If my father didn't like it, it just didn't exist. And I think you know that my Mexican food, the way you are and we're cooking it. Oh, that was just that was like may as well have been food that was dropped off from Mars.
Right. I I really thought that she react reacted to it or related to it in that way, but you know, that one Christmas, because we always spend Christmas, not this last one, but always spend Christmas in Oaxaca, and I convinced your mother and your father to come to Mexico and spend Christmas with us there. And it was so fascinating because I knew that neither one of them had much of an affinity for the food. And um, your father knew so much about all the history and the especially ecclesiastical history. And so we visited a ton of um uh churches and cathedrals and stuff like that.
And it was so remarkable to just see the two of them kind of come alive during that time. And and and then I think your mom said to me at the end of our our trip, oh my god, we had no idea what we were getting into, and we wouldn't trade this for the world or whatever. You know, I mean, it was just that the suddenly I could see that she could see me in in the midst of that culture, and this is what I was bringing to people through the books. Totally. Oh, so great to hear this.
Jim, how'd she get with you? Um I'm trying to remember. Um, so the New York Times published that article. I think 2006 or something like that. This is the Bitman, the Bitman article.
Yeah, yeah. And then I remember when that came out. I'm so happy that you just referred to it as that article, and we knew all of us knew what you were talking about. Yes, the Bitman, the Bitman article. Like how you didn't you didn't use the Bitman word, you're just like the article of the P article.
And uh, and then I ended up hiring a an agent, which was Janice Deneau. And Janice, I don't know if Janice is on this call too, because she was such good friends with Maria and had such um uh like held Maria in such high esteem. Um and knew her so I mean like like us, we knew her very well. Um but she um uh she I guess began, I guess, uh after we had written a proposal for the book, um, my my co-author, Rick, Rick Flast, um she ended up um uh you know putting it up for bid, and you know, obviously I I I did not go with uh I I I I I went with what what would have been the best uh the best uh uh uh editor as opposed to the highest bid, I believe. Um I remember that.
And um, you know, I'm I'm glad that we um we did that, you know. I mean the book recently has gone through its fifteenth reprint, which isn't bad. Great for a bread book, like cocktail books. She told me bread books don't sell. Yeah.
And and kind of and to kind of echo what what Rick was saying, that you know, she really had this affinity for things that eat that she wasn't necessarily that interested in, but she she kind of would uh almost like try to have this sense of the the book or the the written word or the thing that you produced, the the whole book, not just the words in it, but the photographs, everything, the jacket, as some sort of like testament or some type of of of thing you leave behind. Um and she kind of I mean she made me very aware of of of that as well. Um I don't know whether she you know baked bread at home. I mean uh uh Alex you'd have to say whether she did or not. Um well we started eating your bread.
Uh-huh. And that and that my mother would have never been interested in you. Uh obviously. Yeah. We started eating your bread and she brought it home, and I said, This bread gets stuck in the back of your teeth in the best way.
And she would say, right, the crust and can people make this at home? She would always say that about you. Can people do this? Well, she was I think she's nervous and fearful that people would think it was something you buy and not something you could actually make yourself. Yeah.
Um, and I said, I think you're gonna get him with your help, you're gonna get him to articulate how. Yeah, I think that but like what Rick was saying, like it's it's so important that that an author tries to explain even at the you know, or over explain or explain it in the most direct way possible, so that like anyone would get it, not just like not the audience that's already like ready to whatever bake bread at home, but but I mean, as I think uh we used to call the the avatar the nickname of the avatar was something like Susie Topeka. Like, imagine this person in the middle of the country, somewhere in the middle of the country, or Johnny Topeka, who picks up the book and and and has to read it and and you know obtain pleasure from it. You know, because at you know at the end of the day when you when you you know the aha moment with a a cookbook recipe is you you take the the thing that you're making or you labored over or didn't labor over out of the stove and it's amazing. And then and then and then everything else that you you did to get there you know was worth it you know and I and I think that if a book at least with cookbooks if they don't do that then obviously uh you know it's I mean they're not really gonna have a life after you know what I think she took credit for in your book Jim was the word no work on the cover.
Yeah she's like she's like that sold thousands of books. Yeah. Yeah yeah she was she was really aware of that too that like like how the the mass market would view things. And she was really kind of she was really she opened my eyes up to a lot of a new way of seeing what it is that I was doing and what it is that that that people do. And and again from the perspective of a publisher from the perspective of you know her office overlooking the New York public library which can't can't get a a better office location for a publisher, a book uh an editor that is than than that, you know um there was something you know really beautiful about that you know her where her office was in relationship to the library I I found, you know, as a novice.
I think here's the thing. My mom was such a so high functioning, honestly, and so smart, and she w curated a um like a pick the expert. You know, she would always say to me, he really knows about this, or she really knows. She was only interested in the true expert who had done the work. That's the only kind of person that ever appealed to my mother.
And she would sort of sniff out the phonies or sniff, you know, weed out her idea of someone who wasn't gonna report for class on time. But then even though she picked the expert and there was there were all these high-level conversations with all of you, she wanted it to be explained in the books in the simplest of terms and laid out so simply that anybody could be be invited in to the book. And I think it's kind of interesting that we're all talking about how she was basically Darth Vader, but somehow she wanted everybody to come to the party on the Death Star once the book was done. Don't you think? Yes, well, I I like to look, I used to look, yes, but I yes, I would say she wanted to extract the essence of the idea that you were trying to put forth so that everyone could get it.
And I think that was the hardest thing, at least for me to do or or grasp, and you know, that just to kind of like you know, not speaking in tongues, but speaking in a language that people can get. Um I I I used to compare her not necessarily to Darth Vader, although that is a really good analogy. I used to I look at her as you know, remember the character that Hugh Laurie used to play on that TV show House? Yes. I used to view her as a that same character, but as a book editor.
That's brilliant. And that's and yeah, and she, you know, basically the walking, eating, drinking, the work of that she was working on. And then all of a sudden I would imagine her in the middle of the night figuring out what needed to be done, and then writing you the next morning or calling you or asking for a meeting to find a way to of maybe trying to convince the author to maybe change the slightly their direction, you know. That's so great. She would she yes, I think she teased out the really clear explanation from the brightest in every topic, don't you think?
Mm-hmm. I think, you know, in that sense, I think she was really sort of a true um, you know, academic, you know, a s a scientist almost in that in that everything that went into any of her books, um, and and this is true of all the books, all I mean, uh I haven't read all obviously all the books she's edited, but uh everyone that I know of, um, there's no there's nothing extreme, there's no throwaway lines, you know, there's nothing that isn't backed up by an explanation. Um and I found that working with her also, she was never afraid um to change her mind when there was new, you know, when when when there was a new idea or when there was new evidence, you know. So she you you could be going down one path and and and working on a book in one way, and then suddenly if she had um new information presented to her, if you had a new chapter to turn in, she wasn't afraid to completely throw out everything that we had just worked so hard on um to to retool it and and break it down again and and and come up with a better approach. Um so you know, in in that sense, she was always always always um willing to go back on her um on her own previous decisions, um, and and of course to challenge you um as the author, um, whether whether you were presenting things in the best way possible.
Yeah. Was it always for the better? That's what I want to know. When you say uh sort of she would admit or throw out, do you think it was always for the better? Well, I I think we all well, I mean, I I think we always ended up landing on the best idea, or at least as close an approximation to the best idea as we could.
So, you know, sometimes we would go down paths that we weren't sure of. I mean, she would always act like she was sure of them. But once we got to once once she realized, you know what, this isn't working. Um, that you know, that that's that was a phrase she would use a lot. This isn't working.
Um, and and it could it could come after weeks of work. Um, so so you know, it was the the decisions we made um in the process all weren't always for the better. Um, and but but that was what was great about her is that she would always be willing to say, you know what, this isn't working. Um, and and and wasn't afraid to say it, you know. She would she would say it a lot, um, even after even after you put in all the work.
I I find I I said to my I hundreds of millions of times, I'd say, Mom, what are you doing? And she'd say, I'm daydreaming about my books. My mother must have said that to me a hundred million times. That was very clear that she lived in those books until they were, you know, finally uh off of her desk completely. She really lived in the middle of them and really spent a lot of time with them and giving feedback and so forth.
Oh, so I mean going back to what you were saying, did she do something uh like uh is things you disagree with? It's like uh the one thing I really disagree with her, where she like you know didn't bend and like I was like fine, we'll bend was on the title of the of my book twice, right? So she chose liquid intelligence as the title. Which I think is is smart. And the tagline, the the art and science of the perfect cocktail.
I was like, Maria, there is no such thing as perfection. Like my whole shtick is there is no such thing as perfection. She's like, that's the title. And I was like, okay. Uh and uh I she was right.
It's I'm sure it's sold more as a result of the title. So who am I? You know what I mean? She really agonized over that title, let me tell you. Oh my god, that was a rough one.
But she I remember her being feeling ferocious also, which is not shocking to anybody on this call. Um, you should just know if you didn't know that as her child, um, boy, did she love you all and the work that you did and admired you all so much. I think you all represented something. You know, my mother, I always say, like, my mother was the reason I became a chef was because my mother intellectualized cooking, and and the net result of my childhood was my desire to go out and actually cook. You know, it was like she began the sentence, she began with a phrase which was the intellectual delving and sharing of cooking, and I finished it by actually going and cooking chicken 70 million chicken breasts to substantiate her idea.
So you should just know that I think you all represented something she admired so much, and whatever whatever nasty things she said to you, she meant every word, and whatever loving things she said, she meant every word in equal measure. You know, uh Alex, I once had an interaction with her on the other side when I was the enemy. Did you know this? Did I tell you this story? No.
No. So uh Kenji, you brought up how fierce she was about defending her authors and her books. And we've and we've all talked about um how uh we've all talked about how she would choose like uh like niches that didn't exist yet and kind of like like make them exist and charcuterie, which came up was one of them. No one had written a book on charcuterie. And ruleman, Polson, I don't think had written a book yet.
Ruleman had done um, you know, his uh Soul of the Chef book, which I sold infinity copies or something like this, right? It wasn't that his book, and um so they wrote the charcuterie book, and there were no technical, there was no books on how to do charcuterie. There was Grigson's book, which wasn't really a how to, and um it didn't exist. And I was writing for Food Arts magazine at the time, you know, a lowly, you know, whatever, you know, 20 something year old guy, or you know, uh, and my job was to write about charcuterie in restaurants and for food arts, which was anyway. So, like I had the the galleys or the proofs, right?
And I'd read through it and I had some questions about like technical recipes because I was gonna you know recommend it to chefs and whatnot, the charcuterie book. So like I didn't expect the editor of the book to call me, but she she called me, and oh my god, when you were perceived as her enemy, which any critic, by the way, of one of her books had anything critical to say, was the enemy. Oh my god. Oh my god. If she could have sent nanobots through the freaking telephone lines to like gouge out my ears and eyes and like you know, shred me into and I wasn't saying anything bad because you know it was an important, super important book, you know what I mean?
But I was like, uh, you know, I was like, well, this salt ratio and this, but you know how I am, people. Anyone who's listening to this show knows how I am. You know, like all these little things. And I thought she was gonna reach through the phone and rip my head off. I was like, and and I remembered her.
And that's maybe one of the reasons why I was so scared out of my mind when uh I was meeting up with her for uh Nastasia forced me to meet with her because she was gonna because Maria forced me to write a book. So yeah, I know what it's like to be on the other side of that equation of her fiercely defending her authors. That charcuterie book was a book that uh she carried around with her in her little backpack emotionally for years and years. She really worked hard on that one. Again, not a subject.
My mother, by the way, when I was growing up, made a lot of pr pâtées and stuff. When I was a young when I was really little, she always had pattes in the fridge, weighted down with bricks and she was sort of a novice at Charcuterie when I was really little. And um, so I think when that book came up and the topic came up, it probably I don't know, she was that was really a tough one for her to get through. Um and I know that Michael Roman didn't mince words. I know that I I I don't know, I don't think they were on each other's Christmas lists for some time.
But the net result, like you could no one could argue with the results um and the impact that book had. You know, m I would see Michael at a party and he would cross the room, you know, to to say to me, like, How is your mother? How's she doing? You know, it was sort of like uh it was like uh Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, you know. It was it was gonna be, but it wasn't gonna be always so pretty, and yet it was also gonna be beautiful.
So it looks like we're running out of time. You want to just go around the go around the room and and uh share something on the on the way out. By the way, thanks all of you for uh being on the book. Thank you, especially Alex are coming on. Yeah.
Yeah. So uh yeah, Dave, if you want to go around, it might be best since you've got a list of names in front of you to like call them out because everybody probably has different orders and my kids. Oh yeah. All right. Okay.
Uh well, Harold, why don't you start us out? Okay. Well, um as I said, I didn't really have the chance to work with her, but I really enjoyed every chance I had to chat with her. And the last time was um unfortunately almost 10 years ago, I did a a talk at the uh natural history museum, and she came and uh we walked from the museum down Central Park West, uh beautiful spring night uh in into Midtown, just talking about all kinds of stuff. And um that's it it was just wonderful.
And you know, we parted and said, you know, keep in touch and um yeah, so that it um I I wish I had more memories to share, but but that's the one that sticks with me. The last time I spoke with her was about a month, maybe a month or so ago. And I guess she was in the hospital, if I'm not mistaken. She sounded really kind of happy, but maybe medicated because she was kind of a little loopy, like, yeah, I mean it's okay. It was good.
So I didn't realize she was, you know, having I didn't know. I mean, I wish I'd, you know. And it she seemed to be dealing with the, you know, the crappy, crummy situation that we were all in as well as could be expected. Um I I, you know, the only one memory that I have was that you know, we did have a meeting one time in her office. Um, you know, I have so many memories of Maria from photo shoots to, you know, sometimes uh, you know, we had at the beginning when we first started establishing a working relationship.
I remember I had we handed her a manuscript that we thought was good. She had sent it back, you know, basically deleting the entire thing. Um marking up every single page, uh, eliminating whole chapters. I mean, you know, like this is not the direction. This is no, you're not doing this.
You know, we had written basically like kitchen confidential from the from the point of view of a bread baker. Umitially, and she's like, That's not the book you're writing. This is the book you're writing. And I remember having a confront with her about something to do with that, where she ended up crying. We it was like a screaming match, just screaming at me in that meeting room in Norton, the top of her lungs.
And and I and it was just one of these moments where, you know, I mean, I I I love, I truly loved her. I mean, she was a a really great person, but I also, you know, in my my youth and my arrogance, you know, I kind of like wasn't really understanding what she represented um and how much she really cared. And that, you know, at the end of the day, that, you know, she's really understood her subject, not the subject necessarily uh that um that I was trying to express but the her subject being the publishing world and books and how you know almost like um a Broadway play it's like you can't put the book if the book isn't doesn't go out perfect then you you know it didn't didn't didn't matter what your intentions were in writing the book and it you know it's almost you know she she took it that seriously and I think what she was really great at was uh you know kind of like focusing an author focusing a writer to to really get their point across you know I've got a photograph of Maria that's like at the last photo shoot I have a photograph of her that's like literally seven feet it's like six feet by four feet tall of her sitting in our apartment freezing because I don't remember why we ended up having the uh the apartment was somewhat cold um but it but but it's it's you know it it it's I might need to find a home for this photograph Alex I don't know if you want it but it it really is it really of course I do yeah it's beautiful it's beautiful it is it is the essence of your mom you know so Jim for the people out there if they want to see kind of process and exasperation and kind of what she could bring like by forcing you to bring your best why don't you tell a quick story about the that iconic photo of you with the bread on your face. Oh, I that was just me goofing around with the photographer. I mean, she she just liked the, I mean, we uh, you know, she put me together with the photographer Squire Fox.
Um, and I another thing I can be grateful for, um, you know, I I Squire and I have become you know dear friends over the years, and I would never I wouldn't have that relationship, that friendship, um, if if Maria hadn't introduced us. And you know, he was, I think the moment doing work with Tyler Florence or something like that. You know, I mean, she's kind of like, you know, you gotta use this photographer. He's great, he's fantastic. You have to use him.
He's the best. He's he's the person you're gonna use. And she had, you know, like almost like an iron will that if she wanted some you to do something, you were gonna do it. Even if you even if you ended up arguing with her, you were gonna do it. You know, you know, and you know, I'm I I and I have to say it's like, you know, you know, uh he he he was a an incredible gift because we we we're we're we're deep deep friends as a result of that of that introduction.
And we've done all three books together, you know. So that dough on the head thing was more like um just kind of like whimsy in play. But she saw when she saw the contact sheet, she was like, brilliant. Yeah, I think she would say we often don't know, Jim, with you, where you begin and the loaf of bread ends. Yeah, exactly.
Well, yeah, sometimes I feel like a blob of duck. Don't we all especially after 11 months in Corinth, uh 11 months and working under these conditions, yes, we'll call it. Uh Kenji. Yeah, you know, Maria, so the last time I saw her in person, um, we've talked on the phone a few times since then, but the last time I saw her in person was um uh right after my daughter was born, um, so maybe three and a half years ago or so. Um, and I, you know, um she she we we met in person because she insisted on on meeting so that she could give me a gift for my daughter, which is a this beautiful um blanket that my daughter still uses.
Um and you know, to me, it she she was so she was so happy that that I was happy, you know. She was so happy that that I had just had my daughter and and how happy we were about it, and and she was still you know, riding high on how well the food lab was doing. Um, and you know, her telling me that she was proud of me, it it it it it really it there's nobody else in the world who other you know, maybe even more than my my own mother who's who's whose approval meant that much, you know, and and and whose um you could tell that she she felt about her um her writers um and the people that she loved and the people that she worked with. Um she she loved them, you know, and she and she was so passionate about them and so supportive of them. Um and it it it was it's it was weird to see because you know, at the beginning of my relationship with her, it's like here's this person who you know is tough and you know is honest and you know is you know doesn't mince words is um is someone who you're probably going to butt heads with.
But um that's you know that that the fact that she's so passionate about everything um means that when you finally do um become close with her, it's it's it's as close of a relationship as you're ever going to have with with another person. Um, and and I and i and i knew, you know, like after a couple years of working her with her that she was going to have my back um as much as any family member would um no you know that that that winning her trust and and having her believe in me um was just you know it's is very very meaningful um much more than any other person I've ever worked with um and um yeah you know it's it's it's even now you know even now with her gone it it still feels like when I'm when I'm I know when I'm gonna be right you know what as I'm writing another book now but it is that um sh you know she's going to I I still is I still feel like I'm I'm I'm seeking her um I I want to make her proud you know that I um that her approval um that that she's still she's still um looking at me and and making sure that I'm doing the right thing um it's it's it's a feeling that you don't I don't I don't really have with many other with many other people um other than I you know other than my own family and a few very close friends. Um so um yeah I don't I don't know if everyone if everyone gets that feeling but that that's that's how I feel about it. Of course it's it's her defining the standard you had for yourself already and her she's matching it. And the only way to match the standard is to show you to illustrate that she loves you and even if that love wasn't expressed always in the prettiest way she leaves you with the standard and you and you just keep using it.
It doesn't dissipate with time. Mm-hmm. Yeah exactly yeah um I I I've got a couple of things that come to my mind, and one of them is actually uh way back in like 1986, we had turned our manuscript in, and um the basically what she she didn't respond for six weeks, and I was devastated. I'd worked on this book for five years, and I was and I didn't know what to think, but I didn't really know her or anything. And I thought, what if she just tells me that she's not gonna to publish the book?
And finally I got I think a letter from her, if I'm not mistaken. And basically the gist of the the letter was this book needs to be cut in half. And that was the most devastating thing anybody had ever said to me, and the most perfect thing that anybody had ever said to me. So I started the work of basically, you know, condensing it and um and and going through the manuscript, and that lesson taught me the most important lesson of my life, and that is how to be succinct, how to be careful with the words that I'm saying. To I always ask myself, do people really need to know this?
Or is this extraneous and would actually get in the way of people understanding things? And over the years, having the opportunity to work with her over and over again, I started writing for her, literally writing for her. And so I I could say to you all that every word I have ever written in a cookbook has always been written for Maria. Um, because I thought she was so insightful in what needed to be said that um, and sometimes I would write something and I will go, okay, she's gonna she's gonna flag this. I know she's gonna flag it, but I want to put it in there anyway, and then when she would flag it, I would go, okay, cut it.
You know, I mean, it was like I had already had the conversation with her, but for some reason I felt like it needed to be in there, and um I I swear she taught me how to write, and I I am forever ever, ever grateful for that because it was a super hard lesson to learn the first time through, but not a lesson that um I I didn't need to know. And um, I I will say that I I thought she was just brilliant at being able to pick things out that were positive and things that were negative, and so I she really she really taught me. I and I even told her that um, like towards some of the last books that I did with her, and I would say to her, you know, I've written this entire thing for you. So um I could tell you there's places you're gonna flag, but most of it's gonna be okay. I can tell you that just handing it in to you right now, and that was really um uh a fabulous thing, I think, because I think she knew then what a huge contribution she had made, not just to my production of books and stuff, but to my life.
Wow. That was mutual. Nastasi, you want to say something? Oh, I just loved her so much. I really, really loved and looked forward to our very long lunches, and you know, there's few people in the world that are truly themselves and authentically themselves, and I'm so happy to know her because she is one of those people, and I I will always aspire to be as truthful and as authentic as she is.
Um, so she's a real inspiration. And I and I love most of all that she scared the death out of you, Dave. So well, uh, I mean, I think, you know, that's probably the most, I mean, like that that's basically in a nutshell, Nastasia, like her, like the authenticity is amazing. Um, I'm gonna give uh I'm gonna give Alex actually the last word. I'll say something and I'll give Alex the last word.
Alex, when you're done, just say cooking issues and then it's over. That's how the show ends. You just say the cooking issues and it's over. Um, but um thanks again, uh, you know, Rick Rick Bayless, Jim Leahy, uh uh Harold McGee, uh Kenji, uh we're all well like uh Alex, obviously. I got everyone, did I miss anyone that we were talking to?
No, I got everyone, I think. Um I really appreciate you guys coming on. I just thought it was important uh for people to who never got a chance to work with her to kind of understand how important she was, not just to, you know, not just uh to us, but you know to to everyone who's ever read a book that she helped bring into existence. And I think uh you have a uh it's it's there's this fiction that authors do things kind of on their own and they don't. Uh and she just had such an outsized uh impact um on the world.
And you know, I uh I'm a huge consumer of content and information, uh, and um so much of it is garbage, is so bad. And so uh, you know, the fact that she brought like so much like amazing, well thought out things into the world, so much content into the world, and that she cared so deeply about it. Um, and this is something that I think doesn't really it's not that it existed everywhere because the world has always been garbage, but um I think it's even rarer now to find anyone. No one could approach what you know the way she was and the way she handled things, but um, you know, I I I I see the world getting further away from her ideals um in terms of the quality of content. And um I just think the world is a worse place without Maria.
Wow. Um I'm trying not to cry. I wish that my mother could have heard all this, but I'm sure she would have waved it off and said, Oh, don't be silly. Even though you weren't that articulate, you would have made it some way on your own without me. She would probably, you know, like she would describe your shortcoming and then give you a huge compliment.
So you didn't know where you ever stood. But um one of my favorite things was my mom gave um someone who didn't know my mother at all at the Institute of Culinary Education asked her to come in and give a talk about book writing. And I was a teacher on the faculty at the time. Um, and so she gave this sort of seminar on, you know, writing a book and what that would be like. And she stood and they mic'd her, you know, they put a microphone on her and she was walking around the room talking, and the room was full of students, and I was there.
Um, and she was just talking about books and whatever else, and she um this young, uh bright-eyed, bushy-tailed student said, 'You know, I I really want to write a book.' I think, and my mother said, Hold on a minute, I have to go to the bathroom. I mean, this is in front of like 200 people, I swear to God. She just walked out of the room with her microphone on, went to the bathroom. We heard her peeing. Everybody heard her peeing because the mic was still on.
And she came all the way back into the room and said, Okay, I'm ready to listen to you. Now, what were you saying? And the student said, I want to write a book, but I really don't know what about. And my mom said, Well, then don't write a book for God's sake. Don't waste our time.
And she turned and walked away. And I thought, yeah, okay. Like, I don't even know where mom, I work here, and you're embarrassing me. Like, I don't even know how that covers the eighth of it. But there's something so endearing about the trueness of every single moment from the peeing to the blunt response.
Um, you should just know that she loved you all so much. I I grew up, um, and even in this part of my life, I know so much about all of you, above and beyond how I came to know all of you myself on my own. I I know a lot about all of you. Um, and I want to thank you for giving my mother a purpose and a use for her great quirky gift. Uh, and with that said, ah, editor issues, and cooking issues.
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