Thank

you.

How do you feel? I'm holding it.

Well, I feel relieved that it's over, right? Because getting on that stage and looking out at all those people.

I haven't done it, but it seems a bit intimidating.

A little bit intimidating.

So it's nice that it's over, but really and truly, it sounds silly just to say I'm honored, but...

I'm so honored.

Now, how did you get involved in the first place with them?

You know, uh, Well, luck, let's put it that way.

Daniel, who was one of, Danny, one of the creators of Hexclash, right? I guess was a fan of my restaurant in Los Angeles.

And this is when he had just experiencing the success of Hexclash.

of Hexclad as a brand and was trying to recruit a few different leaders and chefs from around the world to be, you know, sort of spokespeople for his brand.

And I was one of them, luckily, because it's a great brand.

It is, first of all, they're a wonderful, generous, supportive company.

And

[laughs]

I left him, and I went on to Spago, but that's another story.

And so I started working with him.

And what was so eye-opening for me was that, and this was something that I couldn't be taught or they didn't teach me at the Cordon Bleu, which was if you understand the basics, and that's in cooking and everything, you've gotta understand and have a good grounding of those basics.

But once you understand them, then that's when your, let's say, creativity can come in.

And so I saw Jimmy making all sorts of things, and for that time was very unusual.

You know, we're talking 1979.

Yep

Right, that would

be biblical or before that.

And then sourdough, I'd have to go back and start mining for gold, right? And so neither of anyone.

And actually, I would say I was very lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

And whatever happened, I got much more credit than I was due because there were two people that were doing the style of bread that I was doing beforehand.

I was doing it.

One was Michael London on the East Coast, who I just heard about, but it was Steve Sullivan on the West Coast.

Were there people that were aspiring you in that direction or that was just, you're just naturally drawn to that cuisine?

You know what? I

will.

I will because I love everything virtuous.

Yes.

And I love the few little sound bites I just heard from you.

Thank you so much.

And I don't want to be president either.

So what does it mean to feel winning a Lifetime Achievement Award? Well,

How did you react after that was your what was the next steps after that happened.

Firstly I walk away.

And then I come back.

And I try to walk through the dish again.

So what it was, was that the pizzeria, we have a few entrees, not a lot, but a few entrees.

One of my favorite, look, I'm gonna knock this over again with my hands, I'm getting all excited, is a fish dish, right? And it's a baked fish dish, because we try to use our wood-burning oven as much as possible.

So it's a sea bass that is going on top of a tomato bell pepper kind of sauce, but the sauce has to be prepared ahead of time.

Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what that's like and that experience that you're getting into?

And do you remember doing pastry? Do you remember a particular dish or two that you were particularly proud of or that you felt was your part of putting that on the map?

Yeah, because it was sort of...

Well, one thing Wolfgang absolutely wanted was a marjolaine, which is a layered cake Very low, one of the layers is a meringue with a lot of nuts in it.

This was something that, I don't know if he was doing it on his own or if it went back to one of the places that he worked in in the south of France, but he wanted a marjolaine.

I had no idea what it was and he talked me through it.

But I think for me there was three things that I put on the menu that he absolutely loved.

One was a creme brulee.

doing

[laughs]

Uh, and it was there that I discovered that what I wanted to do, and m- at that time, it was, I wanna be a cook.

You know, as you had pointed out earlier, there weren't those role models, there weren't those TV personalities really.

I mean, there was of course, like, Galloping Gourmet, and there was Julia Child was, you know, had a TV show, and, but I didn't watch those.

It wasn't like in today's world.

But so my, my aspiration was, I wanna cook.

I wanna be a cook, and I wanted to be a cook for a few reasons, is that one was my mother told me, 'cause I was so frustrated by my inability to be an artist, right? And she said, "You are an artist and you love working with your hands." She loved the way I used clay and sculpted.

Yeah

How did you learn to trust your instincts? When did you first really start trusting those instincts and knowing that, okay, I understand, not only myself, but others?

I think that it wasn't, you know, that's something that in hindsight, if you were to say to me, what makes you successful? And it may have been my answer to a question, what do you think you're most talented as? And I might have said that I know what people want, that I can tell what people want to eat, or I give them what they want to eat.

And that may have been where this part of the conversation is going wrong.

And I think it's not so much that I'm saying, okay, what do people want now? I think it's also, what do I want now? Or what makes me feel better? what would bring me back? Right.

And I think that, um, the diner, this diner that I just opened with Phil Rosenthal, Max and Helens, which is a small little place in, on Larchmont Boulevard.

Right.

Um, which, um, sometimes has a four-hour wait.

As well, which I think is super

Mm-hmm.

But I wanted to take...

And there's several examples of these recipes, things that I never liked and tried to make myself a fan of.

And so what I did with the angel food cake is firstly, I tried to give it a little texture, and I gave it that texture by greasing the sides of the pan and sprinkling o- on sugar, right? So that it gave a crunchy crust to the typical no texture in the angel food cake kinda world, right? And then by folding in melted chocolate, not only did it have those, um, striations the way a babka does, but just those threads of chocolate gave a lot more flavor to the angel food cake, and yet it still could be a vehicle for whipped cream and berries.

But I think you have thought about cinnamon rolls and probably propose a, a better solution.

You know, I think so.

I, too, you know, when I think of cinnamon rolls, I think of Cinnabon.

And sure, I've been at the airport when, you know, people that I'm traveling with will buy Cinnabons 'cause they love them and I'll pull off a piece and I'm like, "Ugh." Sweet, dry.

know, I think that if

you were to rephrase that question and say, like, what do you think? Well, you kind of said like, kind of like what the key to your success or what would you feel like that what you have that's kind of special that makes it all work.

And I think that something that I had not recognized at the time, but have recognized looking back.

or with reflection, is that I think I figured out what people want to eat and then gave it to them.

So whether it's a certain type of dessert, let's say... desserts that had a lot of different elements that I would bring in, whether it's temperature contrast, or I should say desserts with contrast.

So whether it's textural, temperature, flavor, I was able to weave those into the desserts that I made.

And that really is what put me on the map in the first place.

Well, I actually only have two now because my middle

Mm-hmm.

...

in a way that, uh, uh, he can honor their names and sort of their personalities, but in the end, he's getting, uh, a, a genre of food that speaks a lot to him, which is what he thought of in his youth as a diner that he would go to with his, with his father especially.

Mm-hmm.

And we go different places, eh, for four of those times we did go to Italy, then we took a break and we went to France.

But we're going back to Italy on one of those trips, um, going to Puglia and Campania in September.

So I'll be there again in...

And so this time, and I was there in March, or February for a food show, so this year it'll be four times that I get to go that I wouldn't.

(laughs) Yeah.

You know, it's funny that you say that, 'cause I was talking to Jonathan.

Like, so, we are where we are, 'cause look at, Jonathan and I, we're, like, the same age, right? So, and when you say, like, all my accolades, it's only 'cause I'm so old, right? I mean.

But, um, just kind of thinking about, how did we get to where we are now, and who's gonna be the next group of people that arrive? And he's saying, like, "That generation is over, or that ability to get to where we are is over, because we didn't know what we were doing." We just sort of faked it for so long.

And now the younger generation, right, has just too much information.

(laughs)

Those days are over.

Um, and then, uh, I was lucky enough to work with this mad pastry chef, uh, very young.