Transcripts For WHYY Charlie Rose 20140826

Always why, why, why. You know, i was 33 when i got diagnosed. And at that point i had been working in kitchens all my life. And working 16, 18 hours a day. And you, at that point, you still feel like youre insinceable invincible. I didnt feel like i was 33, i felt like i was 23. And to be faced with that severity of illness was, it takes you back. Kuz you would never think that would happen. I have never regretted anything. And that is a good life to live without any regrets. Or its better to regret what you have done than what you havent done for sure. Rose a celebration of the art of cooking when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg. A provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Daniel Boulud is here, his flagship restaurant daniel is celebrating its 20th birth day this year. The New York Times has said certain restaurants can folk down the barriers between you and happiness for a few hours, every taste seems to transport you to another world. Daniels which turned 20 this year can make you feel that way. Im pleased to have Daniel Boulud back at this table. Welcome. Hello, charlie, how are you . Rose why call it my french cuisine. Well, ive been for three decade in new york. And i dont think you could take the french out of me. Rose yeah, good for you. I was born and raised on the farm. So 95 of what we had on the table every day was coming from the garden, coming from the farm the cheese, the chicken, raised by us, made by us. And we were doing the Farmers Market once a week. Offering that to guests. Rose okay, so the ingredients are one thing. Uhhuh. And what else about french cuisine, is it the way you cook s it what you add to the food. Well, i think when you see today every country has their own cuisine. And i think the foundation of many cuisine are based on french cuisine. And especially when you elevate the cuisine to a much more gas fro nomic and complex experience. And even the greatest chef of spain or the greatest chef everywhere will say, the greatest chef in america, Thomas Keller. Rose hes the greatest chef in america. Well, hes one of them. Theres many other. Rose well, you said the greatest chef in america. He and i think hes also cooking french. And yet hes definitely a it isnt called french but its definitely based on french cuisine. Rose and french style of cooking . I mean what goes into cooking i have learned that from the 70s in france where the greatest chef 6 france were sort of changing the face of french cuisine at the time. And there was the now el cuisine. Rose and whoses responsible for that michele girard, roger, of course a lance also and paul boea construction coup and many other french chefs. And i think this revolution of france in the 70s started to come here early 80s in america. And today, all the young chefs who have learned with some of the most creative chefs who came to this country, are today expanding and expanding the cuisine in america here today. And i think you know, its wonderful what we have been accomplishing, chef, in the last 20 years in america. And i think we have amazing, passionate young chefs here who have helped us elevate the cuisine. And but whats incredible is that in the past europe was the country to be asked to open restaurant in asia or other part of the world. And today theyre looking in america, and the chef and the restaurant and they have to try to open in different city where they try to bring a more cosmopolitan. Rose which raises this question as youve heard before. So when you opened daniel 20 years ago, that was your beenee, that was where you were going to pour everything you knew. And i did. Rose and you did. I worked hard for that one. Rose you bet. And then it was successful and took its place. People wonder how do you define a kind of philosophy so that you dont have to be there and it has the same quality. Because in new york you go to all your restaurants. I mean i think i have a real. Rose you skip around. Days of dna of daniel. Of course, the dna of daniel, even in the most casual restaurant, even in the retail store im very conditioned about what we do every day and i think Restaurant Business is about the team. Its not about only one individual. And even if you have an individual chef in the kitchen, he cannot Touch Everything thats going to make the experience to dine in that restaurant. So after how well organized you are, how much you trust your team, how much you stay in touch closely with them, how much you motivate them and how much you give them the chance to do the job right with buying the best ingredients and having the right team and having the right tool to work with. And i think, ive been blessed. I have wonderful people working for me. And i spend most of my time in new york at daniel because we only open at night. But during the day i visit the other restaurants. I stay in touch with my chef. I think its important and im not the only creator of everything in the restaurant. Because i think that will get too steal and too stuck into to stale and stuck into a sol confined model. Rose when you cook at home is it the same as cooking at the restaurant . No. Rose its much simpler. I do a onepot meal. Rose a onepot meal. A onepot meal. For example, i have a recipe of a chicken here, a chicken casserolement i love to cook casserole at home because i start with what is going to take the longest and maybe is going to bring the most flavor and finish little by little by adding as its cooking. And within 45 minutes i have a meal ready for everyone. Talk about wine. Wine is, i think, the most important equation. When we talk about french cuisine we can talk about french wine or we can talk about wine in general. I think the way french cuisine has been the foundation to many other cuisine, i think france has been the foundation for many other wine country or many countries to develop wine in their own country. And wine is i could not think of dining without drinking wine. Rose nor can i. And i think it takes its the most magical thing to have a wonderful meal and its made to pair with a particular wine. Rose yeah. And thats funny because sometimes the wine comes first. You choose the wine first, lets say youre going to have a special dinner. You choose the wine first, then i create the meal around the wine. Or you choose a dish on the menu and i will suggest a wine to go best with. Rose so tell me about seasoning and spices. Thats a very important thing and for me french cuisine its about the balance in seasoning. So we can go very well with wine. Its very important that the seasoning dont damage the wine. Rose yeah, exactly and so seasoning and spice is the most difficult thing to teach a young cook is to season perfectly. Because in the service, during the service, you take a piece of fish or a piece of meat and youre going to have to add the seasoning just before you cook it or at the end and the cook has to be able to measure with two finger, with three finger, with four, depends what he is seasoning. And hes going to have to do it on the spur of the moment and consistantly and make sure its to the about being overseasoned as much as just perfectly seasoned. Rose how much of it is the feel. Its the feel and teaching how to season. A very good chef is has just very precise hand. Rose what should we say about cheese. Cheese, i mean today we have the most compatible selection of cheese in the america than we can wish from transand on the cheese tray. Rose in other words, cheese in america as is as good as cheese in france. Im going to wisconsin, actually. Im going to milwaukee to do the book tour. And im looking forward to visit the cheese farm there. Rose yes. But cheese today, i mean we have some wonderful cheese locally and nationally and we always have on the cheese tray at daniel, half french, half american, very much like everything i do. Stock is important to you. Of course. But its not. Rose what does that mean, stock. Stock is its again what fortifies a preparation it will fortify a sauce, it will fortify a braise. It will certainly by reduction fortify a preparation. And stock is take long time, cost money and sometimes disappear not sauce, you cant tell where it is. You call it the Flavor Foundation of french cooking. Very much. Rose lets talk about what bill fewford douse, he has been on this program, he did this whole thing with mario. The book was called heat. Well, bill buford four or five years ago told me then after he had produced heat and had an amazing success, i think translated in 37 language, he say well he say i want to go to france i think everyone talk about the french and french cuisine but no one really knows, never live there and really understand maybe 9 way i wish to understand. And he move to leon with his kid and wife jessica and two points and has been spending the last four years in leone. Rose living there fulltime. Living there fulltime, being an apprentice in the kitchen, being a chef, visiting a lot of restaurants. But also producers and important people who make a part of french cuisine. Rose what is he trying to do. He is going to come out with a big book next year and i was kind of jealous that he was tooking cooking with all those french in france and he hadnt cooked with me. So i invited bill to come to new york an i told him, i said bill, i want to cook with you. And i want to cook recipe you may not have done in france. And recipes who are mealin mealing meaningful to me for what french restaurant but also recipe with a bit of the past, for the 1800s, the all those times. And thats what we did for three weeks together in new york. We cooked and produced those majestic recipes. And what i wanted from bill was the words. I said bill, i dont want you to hold a pan and watch me cooking. Youre going to cook next to me and were going to video everything and then go home and write what you want. Not to be writing but to be cooking. Exactly, thats what we did together. Rose is new york because its a melting pot,. Yes, but also just before coming to america i lived in denmark and we talk about rene. I was will be there were already things happening with chefs but i felt i am maybe 45 minutes away from paris by plane and i felt very far away from france. The community of the france wasnt so big and i never felt like unless im becoming danish, im never going to be french here in this country and coming to america and being in new york i always felt like i can stay french and i can be an american. Rose there is also this, the notion that france is becoming a museum theres a sense that france has lost its well, in cuisine i think we are still very relevant and absolutely most of the chefs will not admit but by side traveling the world in asia and traveling in europe and different country, france and italy are certainly the two country where today we are looking about, you know, cooking local and cooking, and trying to honor the. Rose you mean like the land. The terrwa which means the region, the region where you live in and how you live with that. Rose that is important for wine. And i think for food it is too. I think were trying to see in America Today in every city they really are trying to pull the best out of what they have. And i think that is what france has always been. What do you think of frerean adria and what he did. I love him, you know, spain, the history about food, the way france had, spain had to sort of reinvent itself. And spain had to create something new for themselve. And i think frerean adria was the leader in looking at food in a whole different way. And i think he has been an amazing inspiration to a new generation of chef but at the same time most of those chefs are still inspired by what ferran teach but also inspired by what the past teach as well. Rose exactly. And i think its important to still dig into that. Rose congratulations. Thank you, charlie. Rose the book is called daniel, my french cuisine. Rose ferran adria is one of the worlds most renowned and innovative chefs. He revolutionized the concept of eating with his restaurant of elbuli. Rose im pleased to have ferran adria back at this table, also glad to have his interpreter sofia perez as well, welcome. What is the elbuli foundation. It is a project we want to help society. Motivating people to create. Cooking as a tool. And dialogue and other disciplines. Its made up of three projects. It is difficult to explain because there is no frame of reference for it. Kind of a media lab for gastronomy. You could visit an when are you a small child, could understand what the Creative Process is. The dna is a Creative Team that there in the lab, everything they create will be spread on the internet. And a reflection on information and knowledge. In a world where the internet has changed all the rules. What is the information that we have to find. What knowledge do we have to have. In any discipline, in this case cooking which is is the one i am in. Rose are you one part chef, one part scientist, one part artist. How did you become that way . Im just a neighborhood kid, didnt go to university. I give classes at harvard. And si have the good luck to be with marvelous people, for example now, because it wouldnt be logical before. And the only thing i have done is learn, observe, and ask the why of things always why, why, why,. Because i have passion for what im doing. Because i like challenges. I always believe im to the going to reach, but i fight to achieve them. In the end thats what life is, struggle to reach a challenge and relative to cooking, which is a wonderful discipline. Because millions of yearses and the earth he started to eat. Our brains got bigger. And thats how we are what we are today, for food. What happened . Over 2 million years, in relation to cooking, there were few things that we were able to make back then we didnt have the in fell against to create a lot of things. But its magical when you look at cooking, in this relationship, between the first, among humans the first creativity was cooking. The foundation, were going to be asking ourselves these questions. Rose you were the number one chef in the world. You had a restaurant that people begged to come to, reservations took many, many months. You gave that up, you closed the door. Because you said you wanted to create a legacy for the next generation. I closed the restaurant to not close we decided to transform it t was because we could look ahead and see that maybe in five years we were going to decline a creative decline. And we had to sort of create a chaos. But so that that wouldnt happen. And especially because im 50 years old. Im very good friends. He was telling me ferran, do you know that youre going to die. And whats going to happen then with all this. Whats going to happen with the legacy. In the end the restaurant is ephemeral. And how are you going to do this . So we started constructing the foundation, in this space, strange space because the restaurant opens or closes. It doesnt get transformed. This is what is amazing, were constructing every day the story. People will come from other display from any discipline, where well compare and well share the Creative Process. Is it better to work in the morning or in the evening . Do you have teams of one, three, five people . How do you make up the teams . How do you teach them mental strength to a team how does the spaces have to be, the Creative Spaces all of my experience over these years, we want to share it. So david chang, our friend, our mutual friend. We had a meal together, lunch at davids. He says this is an inspiration, this is an inspiration to chefs, to constantly and continually question the status quo. When we had elbui, it was open, i didnt think too much about what it meant. Now that its closed im a little more free to think about what i thought about that place. The idea of ego on my part is already covered. In other words, it would have been called the adria foundation. Its called elbui foundation because it was created by a lot of people. The 2 to 3,000 people that passed through an people like david chang, even though he didnt work there he believed. We believed that what we were doing there was making cuisine evolve. When you look at all the people that have passed through that today are the most influential cooks in the world, you knew Something Special was going on there. The spirit the ethics, honesty, sharing, liberty, freedom, risk, passion. In any kind of business, in any kind of business its the dream that you could have that the whole team would have this. And this is createsed by all the people that pass through and this is the strength of it. There are lots of young chefs that have this philosophy, not so of the dishes them certificate themselves but the philosophy. Rose okay those are images that are in these, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven books. Evolutionary analysis 2005 to 2011. The first dish one, take a look at this. This is a cocktail. 20 2005. We started to understand and do solid cocktails. Today in quotation its kind of a fashion now. And the world cocktail world has been revolutionized and there are a lot of people that are doing these kinds of creative cocktails. Rose next one is dish two. This one is magic. Its a green almond before you would cover it like a vegetable and you would make like a juice. A juice that you would make. You would only do it in el bui no one did it before. Rose dish three. Its a dessert create bid his brother albert adria. The concept is nation. Their roots. And its one of the most imitated styles in the world, in the dessert world, the pastry world. Sort of copying nature. In the pastry world. Now dish four. This is also incredible. Theyre roses you can actually eat these roses. People were like roses, as if it was a veg i believe. What is an artichoke its a flower and roses are too. If we treat it like a vegetable, we treated it like a vegetable here it was magical. He thinks its the first time in the history that they did this, that someone did this, that someone prepared a rose in this way. Rose next is culinary evolution someone. Within the work that were doing now, when did cooking start as we understand it today. We were talking archaeologists anthropologists, we were studying it we reached a conclusion that was in the neolithic period because why . Because you have erten wear, you can boil things, friday things, do things f we didnt have these tools imagine, then we have agriculture so grains, flowers, you have you have commerce and trade. People Exchange Products and we stopped being nomad and became sed enter. Cooking as we understand it today starts then. Before you could eat, of course. And thats a theory, well, its very proven. And it marks sort of the past of the study for the future. Rose number six, culinary evolution two. This is to get the theory set up, theres no photos, you have to explain it half a million years ago. How do you, how can i visualize it when i would imagine homo eating fruit. I draw in the morning. I would get up at 7 00 in the morning. And it was sort of a story would i imagine in my mind. This was sort of the exposition that we did. And now going to los angeles in may and then cleveland and minnesota. Visualizing. The next one is culinary evolution three. Its a reflection of how many trees give fruits or produce fruits were there in the origin. Maybe there from five and they good hybridized and mixed and then we have thousands. The evolution in nature this made me think, three million years ago there were very few vegetables. And fruits. Everything was mixed and hybridized and it changed the genetics. In a slow way but a pluchl, for example, is a mix. A nectarine is sort of a mix of peach and plumb. And this has been the evolution in history. I imagined how it was evolving. All the whole vegetable world and fruit world till today. Rose thank you for coming. Im pleased to have grant and thomas at this table, welcome. How did you two first meet. I wrote a letter to chef keller wanting to work at the French Laundry for months and months and finally he said yes. Rose you wrote more than one letter. Multiple letters. I think there were probably 15 all in. Rose and what would you say. It ranged from i really feel passionate about working for you and i love the French Laundry from what i have seen and read and finally he called me and said why dow keep writing these letters. Stop harassing me. It worked. It worked. He probably brings the same passion to cook as he got into getting a job with you. That is an indication which really shows what he does. And then when you wents to, i guess it was october 28th, 1996 was your first day. It was. What was that like . Life changing and not only from a culinary point of view but from figuring out how youre going to live the rest of your life meeting people that are still in my life today. It was a monday amountal step to becoming who i am did you know it at that moment though . Did you feel . No, no. But as the whole thing unraveled and the four and a half years that i was there being mentored by chef and meeting people that ultimately would become great friends it was the most important step in my career. Rose you can spot the ones that have Something Special . Yes, certainly, i think you can tell there is Something Special there when someone swoms in the kitchen and works. You see their ability its kind of a natural ability, whether its the way they walk in the kitchen, the way they hold their knife, the way they clean their station. You know, just the way they handle food. Theres a huge sense of respect. Exactly the word i was thinking, it shows a respect for self and task and place. And when you see that, you say okay, theres somebody who is going to be wonderful and create some day. You also went with ferran adria in his kitchen. Hmm. What did you learn from him . Well, i learned actually chef set up a for me at that restaurant. I knew nothing about elbui. Rose his restaurant that closed for a while. And chef keller said to me at one point, i really think that you should spend a week in this kitchen because of your curiosity and your kind of, your knack for looking beyond what is right in front of us and went there and you know, go there at the time as a sous chef at the French Laundry which was considered the best restaurant in the world so there is a certain arrogance, theres a certain ego that a young man has, a young chef and when i walked into that kitchen outside of barcelona everything was new. So the smells, the language, the cooking techniques were things that are very unfamiliar with so it kind ofs it incredibly humbling. And it made me come back to the u. S. And question what exactly i wanted to do with cooking. Rose and the answer . The answer was to do exactly what chef did which was forge your own path. Rather t would have been very easy for me to go out and open a restaurant and cook Thomas Keller food but by go toggle bui and seeing somebody doing something completely different t made me realize i need to actually figure out what i want to do. How i want to express my way through cuisine. Rose an dow look at him and say i see there in his eyes, his passion myself as a younger person . You know n some ways. I think the great thing about our profession is that there is an attachment to history. Rose right. And i look at the chef that came before me, the chefs that taught me, the those great chefs, and you see i little bit of yourself in them as well. And you hope that they see a little bit of them in you. So we pass on this connection to cook an to nurturing people from generation to generation to generation so, yes, i think we all see that and its about community. And i dont think theres another profession that i know of anyway that has such a strong bond not just with the generation that they are part of but also with the previous generation and the following generation take a look at this, this is a clip, i want you to see, i think is you talking. Here it is. There so much going on in terms of upside, that im afraid to turn any of it down. I was talking to heather last night when i got home at 3 00 in the morning. She said to me what are you doing. You almost died. Dont forget you almost died three years ago people that have stage four cancer, they dont sleep four hours a night. They sleep 8 because thats what their doctors tell them that theyre supposed to do so that the cancer doesnt come back. Youre sleeping four hours a night. Thats ridiculous. Youre going kill yourself, you know you have two kids, you have me, like and i look at her and i cant argue with her, i cant say knox, youre not right because shes right, but right now the opportunity is too great. Everything is lining up in a way that ive never seen it line up before. Its either going to help me attain my most wild fantasies, the most prompt nents life goals that ive ever had. Or its going to kill me. And im not really sure which yet. I dont really care. I dont have a choice. Still here. Rose tell me about you what said. I feel like if people are truly passionate about what they do and really wholeheartedly believe in it, as i mentioned, you almost dont have a choice. Not that you dont want to make a choice but it catapults you into this energy, into this passion, into this sense of being that if you werent doing it you would feel unfulfilled. Rose what are you most proud of . Oh charlie, ive been blessed to have so many things that i am proud of. I think that what i am most proud of is the next generation. The grant achatz, the david breedens, the aaron zebolds, who are continuing this quest for, i dont want to say greatness but for to bring to america an to our culture and our society a really wonderful connection to the table and to each other, because lets face, at the end of the day, the experience around the table is about those individuals at the table. And to be able to offer wonderful food in a great setting so that they can come together, loved ones can come together, family, friends can come together and experience something that is compelling, that resonates with them. I think thats something that we can all really be proud of. How do you two differ . Age. I think we look at it very similarly. But theres a generation gap that makes it different. So in other words, you know, where chefs food was maybe more based on classic western european technique, and then he took that american engine uity and creativity and whimsical approach to things at French Laundry where. Me, now t is more about trying to find my way to create that nexgen re of cooking. Where, this is difficult for me to say when hes sitting right across the table from me. Rose i love t every moment i love. But its like, you know in the late 90s and early 2,000 and even up until this point with per se Thomas Keller and per se and French Laundry have solidified a brand and a repertoire of cuisine. And a baseline of excellence. So now the next generation that he had spoke of were trying to define ourselves. And we know that we have to make it different, so what do we do, what do we utilize to carve out our own identity. Rose lets first talk about cancer before we go here. Okay. Rose cancer of the tongue. Yes. Rose when you found out what did you say to yourself. I got to fight this. Yeah. I cant let this it was, you know, i was 33 when i got diagnosed and at that point hi been working in kitchens all my life. And working 16, 18 hours a day and you, at that point, you still feel like youre invincible. I didnt feel like i was 33. I felt like i was 23. And to be faced with that severity of an illness was, it takes you back. Kuz you would never think that would happen at that point. And because youre in the midst of your dream. Youre right in the middle of it, you know. We had just opened millennia, and gourmet magazine named us one of the best in the country and everything, we were busy, everything was going really well. And you know, you get hit with that news but like youre saying, much of the same way that we approach every day going into the kitchen where you basically have to climb the mountain every day when you go into the kitchen. I said to myself, really, just another mountain that im going to have to climb. And it was a steep mountain. But you know, its do about. How are you today . Fine. So a little over five years out of treatmentment the doctors now are telling me that the chances of me getting any type of cancer are similar to anyone else on the planet getting cancer. So the good thing with the university of chicago and the way they approach medicine is exactly like we would think about food. Analyzing it, taking it apart piece by piece and then putting it back together. And they did it in such a smart way that it was Organ Preservation was the priority. And then saving life. And they accomplished both. Congratulations. Thank you. Great to you have here at the table. Thank you. Rose thank you. Thank you. Rose gabriele hamilton is here. Her life growing up prepared her for everything she is today. Her french mother fed her bone marrow, skourd the woods for mushrooms and taught her to eat very, very well. Meanwhile her father theatre set designer taught her to create beauty where none exists. Mi pleased to have gabriele hamilton at this table. Are you a writer who cooks or a cook without writes . I strucked with wanting to be a chef or working in kitchens for the longest time. Coy not find the purpose and meaning in this work. I felt like i spent a lot of my day just sort of making fancy food for rich people or something. I couldnt quite find my place there. And conversely when i went away to graduate school and spent all this time in academia and spent the wol day writing i felt like this is too inert and not enough of life itself. So now i have this nice marriage between the two that i get to do some writing, and do a lot of cooking. This is the story of a womans life. Not a single recipe. In fact, its a little bit of a baitandswitch, i think. So we think were buying a bock about how to cook. A chevy book and in fact its about life, i think, if youve ever been married, you might find something in here, if youve ever been a parent f youve ever been a daughter or you might find something in this book f you have ever v worked very hard in industry. Its not about food so much. Though it is surround you know, food is the context of my life so its its riddled, its littered with food. Rose its the constant theme of your life. Yes. Rose let me take you back to the beginning that i understand. The two parents that you had as i said at the introduction taught you different things. Yeah, i had all that discipline and thrift from my french mother who was a ballot dancer and she taught to us eat, really. She was and afraid of the woods and quite knowledgeable with them. And she would take us out and hunt for chantrelle mushrooms and could pick the fiddle head ferns and dand lion leeches and took us to the farm to get raw milk and also could and will to, in fact, cook nose to tail, what they call nose to tail, now its trendy of course we were doing that 30 year ago in our home. So from her i learned all of that about getting everything i could out of the animal and eating very naturally from the land in a way and my father was very generous s very generous. Rose he was also an artist. Thats right. He sees everything in that sort of water color romantic way he was a set designer, so the scenery was a big deal for him. The lighting, the smiles, where people would stand, et cetera. Rose they splits up. Yup. Rose when you were 12, 13. Right in there was sort of a gradual, i think i was 11 when they split and 12 or 13 by the time they got the whole thing really dismantled. Rose heres what is interesting about that, to me. Is that they almost forgot parenting. They went their own way forgetting that they left you and your brother to fend for yourself a bit. There was a rough summer there which there were five kids, and im the youngest of five. And my next brother in line, we got sort of ditched for a summer in the house that we grew up in. By accident, by oversight, im not quite clear sure how that happened. It was more, you know that was a defining home. That was the end of childhood for sure. The family never reconvened after that summer. So that was, yeah t all started then. My selfreliance and getting a job and all that stuff started at a young age. Rose and when did cooking start. Yeah, right then. Well, you had to eat. So i was starting to raid the pantry and see what i could make for dinner out of whatever strange jars and cans of things my moth her left behind in the pantry. And i started washing dishes at a local restaurant and you know how that goes. You are in the right place at the right time and they need an extra set of hands so you start out washing dishes but suddenly they need someone in salads, so quickly youre doing salads, and then there will be some day when someone doesnt show up on the line and are you doing some the hotline stuff. So it is kind of a downward spiral. Rose but you developed skills. Thats right. Rose but you were you became wild. Its true there are a few experiences i would be glad to the no the so to have had. Rose . Which we will not talk about. Rose why not . Because youre not going to get that out of me. I didnt write it in the book and youre to the going to hear about it. But one, an astute reader will understand. Rose yes, go ahead. You leave a 12yearold on the border of adolescence alone, and shell get herself into some deep dodo. Rose you try everything, right. Yup, yup, everything. Rose but take me to sort of the experience of getting to from 18 to 20, because to go from where you were your experiences include the darkest of the dark and at the same time the most as operational of anyone. Graduate school, mfa. I did educate myself. I have been educated, its true, thats why i dont, when you asked me earlier that i was held bent on being, getting into drugs or something, i think, i dont know if i was really getting into drugs or its was just part of the time that nothing sunk in so deeply. I think i was on the border verge of true delinquen delinquent delinquent wednesdayee and stared at it. I got at that when i was working at the lone star and i was charged with grand larceny and possession of stolen property. Rose but you were a child so you got off. I did, exactly but that was a pretty Pivotal Moment where i understood that what i had been sort of practicing for or rehearsing to be like truly bad ass was actually about to unfold in front of me. And i got sobered by that you know, you can play around the edge and then the edge says come on here we go, talk the talk. Rose exactly. And i think i backed off and went away to up. , took care of myself in a very profound way. I was alone for two years. Almost two years, traveling around with only myself to rely on for money, for getting from place to place. And it was an incredible time of deliverance, i think that might be the word. Rose thats a good word. I purged everything, all my bad thoughts, all my sadnesses, all my falsehood, all my false starts. And when i came back i was ready to sort of hit it, hit the road, go. Get on with life in a regular way. Rose i used to think and would ask questions like, you know, do you regret it, are you sorry you want there, i have heard from so many people who have said to me, i had to go through that to be where i am. Yeah. Its like going through a bad passage because only by going through the bad passage could you reach your place that. Well, i have never regretted anything. And that is a good life to live without any regrets. Or its better to regret what you have done than what you havent done for sure. But my time here so far on earth has not all been so dark and bad and get through to the other side to the other shore, i mean that two year almost two year backpacking trip around the world was also filled with richness and happine and discovery and learning things. Rose you didnt have much money when did you this either z you. Very little cash. I was definitely broke and often starving and bedraggled and nervous, frequently nervous about the next meal. I think there was one day where i, or one period where in the period of five days hi eaten salted pumpkin seeds, half a raw red onion and a glass of warm dried over five days. I cant imagine. Tell me about the time, when you met the guy, when you were thinking about a restaurant and a guy came up to you who had the great place that he to show you. I was running out to park the car one morning in the east village and i ran passed this abandoned restaurant on my block. And the guy who lived in the building upstairs from this space eric he was sitting out in front of it shuttered and he just, we said i had to each other. He said hey, you still cooking, i said well, i sort of am, i had tried to get out of this business an had just gotten back from getting my mfa and thought i will give it a shot a little longer, try and be a writer and to the get back into the kitchen. But he opened the gate and we walked through and it was covered in rat excrement t had been shuttered for two years left with carcasses in the coolers. I opened a box of apples that had become just dust black dust. And it all swarmed up into my eyelashes and nostrils testimony was just a fetid put rid place and yet i could see, i could see that it had charm. So as you know its much cleaner now. Did it. Its been blasted. But you saw t had a tile. It had stuff in, it had a look that was familiar to me i had worked and it reminded me very much of that much of the it had been a french bistro so it had some of that mealing that was very familiar it was also a small and i felt as a first restaurant i could manage Something Like that and it had 10 burners. Its got 30 feet thats right, but tiny, 450 square feet or something ridiculous and the stove was small and i just thought i can do this im just going cook a few things. I will have myself and a dishwasher and well just put dinner out each night and there will be some nice girl at the door an bobs your uncle but it has now turned into lunch, brunch, dinner, i have 30 employees. And this is where you met the man who became your husband. I did in walks this italian man, and he starts eating the food and exclaiming outloud this is exactly lick my mother used to make. So i think he kind of fell in love with the food and then me somehow. Rose and you . I was unsure in the beginning and it took maybe five or six years to really get into the marriage. We were having an affair and that part was great. We ate well together and you know, the other thing. We did that, that was nice. Eating and that were never our problems but you know a marriage is more than that. But you didnt live together. We never livedding to. We had a two Year Experience once where we lived in brooklyn together and answered that question. You say you want to grow old in italy. Wouldnt that be nice. I dont know, i would like to grow old in new york. I want to be that woman in her black woolen sweater, shelling the fava beans, sitting outside her italian house with her grandchildren running around. Looks so simple and nice. Is that what you like . I think. You are a romantic at heart, arent you. I know, i know. But the italians take care of their old ladies. Its good for the older woman there, i think. So you know that phrase, one brother which is the old chicken makes good both. And thats the kind of culture i can appreciate that thinks that way. Gabriele hamilton, thank you. Thanks for having me. For more about this program and early episodes visit us online pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org. Funding for charl wrooe rose has been provided by the Cocacola Company supporting this Program Since 2002. American express, and charles schwab. A decisional funding provided by narrator in a place called hell valley, an ancient tribe relies on each other to survive. A monkeys position in the group is inherited from its mother. Bloodline determines rank, and every member knows their place. But in this world of tradition, there are opportunities to change your fate. One quiet moment can have great significance, when a young monkey bonds with the leader of the troop. In this clan, nothing goes unnoticed