Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 76 - Laurie Woolever

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Tom is joined the prolific and wonderful writer Laurie Woolever who brings us Bourdain The Definitive Oral Biography.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's our goal. Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey! Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. You guys are the best. Thank you for joining us at the table once again.

Very excited for today's show. We have Lori Woolover, who is walking around and sharing with the world this amazing book, Bordain. She worked with Anthony Bourdain for a long time and compiled all of these great interviews and comments and stories about the great Anthony Bourdain. Such a good book, and I'm so glad that she's going to be joining us on the show today. I want to thank the good people. It's scribbed, scribed, like ribbed or fibbed. A great, great service. No complicated credits.

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All right. So I want to get right to this because she's so great. Bourdain, the definitive oral biography. It's a great, great book. I mean, Anthony Bourdain was just one of these special, special people that we were lucky enough to have. his legacy, his books, his TV specials, he was just, he, he was a rock star. He was a rock star. And I mean that in the terms that he was not going to just go with the status quo in any part of his life. He was always searching. He was always pushing. He was always looking to discover and be more. And

he really is one of those like Lou Reed, uh, character. from New York where you just, they were just ballsy, they were adventurous, and they put, they just took a no-b-s approach to their art. And Anthony touched so many people's lives. And when he passed, you just saw how the world reacted. And that only happens when people have been touched by someone. He's amazing. This book is amazing. I love that you can just pick it up and open it and just go to any section because it's just compiled of stories from everybody in his life. Jeff Allen, I'm just going to read some of the people off the back that are in this book.

W. Camau Bell, Anderson Cooper, Alex Lowry, Matt W. Walsh, Rob Stone, Sam Sifton, who has been on this program. It's just the confluence of food and culture and life, and it's really a celebration of Anthony's life. And Lori was able, as an insider in his life for such a long time, this was a passionate, passionate work of hers. The book is great. She's great. And I'm lucky that we got to spend some time with her. So please, right now, welcome and enjoy Lori Wolliver. Nice to see you, Lori. Yes, thank you. Nice to see you too. Congratulations on the book. And I say that coming from a kind of a strange perspective because I know this is, you're a great writer and you've written a ton of stuff on your own. But I know this is something very different.

This is a, I just did a similar thing with a friend from college who was beloved and passed early. And it was my job to interview everybody to give a history to his daughter who's now 19 years old and going to college. And his wife had seen that I had written about him in one of my books. And she said, well, you go and gather more stories that we can give. And this was a fraction of what you did. This was just a, it was literally, you know, eight people. And it wrecked me for the month of putting that thing together. It is a much different weight.

And to, and knowing the scale and the history. and the depth that you in the amount that you compiled. 450 pages. And then you have to go out and do interviews about it. This is a, I hope at the end of this, once this is really sailed out there into the world, you get a nice break because this is, I just want to recognize the monumental weight of what you've done. Well, thank you.

I appreciate that. Yeah, it was really cathartic, actually, because, I got to meet with some people who I knew already and some people who I'd never met before, but everybody that had a story about Tony and loved him and had some insight into him. So it was like this extended Shiva or wake or memorial service of getting to talk about this guy, ask questions, learn things. I didn't know about him. And I thought, you know, I was his assistant for nine years and I talked to him every day.

And I thought I knew everything there was to know about this guy. And I learned a lot about him just. in the process of doing the interviews. Yeah. It's amazing how, isn't it amazing just in life? Like, even people that you're currently in these close relationships with, you never like interview them. You never asked them, so what were you feeling that day?

So they were very, we're really unknowable. And I think that was kind of in a very, in a very profound way, that was the attraction with Anthony, even while he was alive. I mean, when when people leave us, you start searching for answers. But even while he was in the in the throes of creating what he was creating, he was a guy that you just couldn't really nail down and figure out. And for me, that was such the appeal of watching him.

Yeah, he was much more complicated. I think that the first impression that a lot of people got and they maybe just ran with it was that he was, you know, the modern day Marlboro man. You know, he was tall and charismatic. and funny and confident and brash and he was all of those things, but he also was this kind of slightly insecure, socially awkward, shy guy, which was very surprising and, you know, maybe didn't fit in with people's image of him. But if you met him in person, he was, he could really be that way.

Yeah, you know, it was interesting in reading your book and hearing that part of the insight from a lot of people of the vulnerability or the, him being shy. And even in the, uh, in the documentary, they kind of touched on that too, on in that Roadrunner documentary. And it reminded me of when I read Keith Richards' autobiography, because Keith Richards was this such a rock star persona, bad boy thing. And then when you read his words, he was a, he was kind of nerdy. He was Keith Richards, this ultimate badass was like this frail and he would speak so kindly about his mom. And he, he, he, had this little time and that really matches up with with the portrait of Anthony.

He was this really interesting combination of very well-mannered. You know, he was brought up in the 1950s and 60s and kind of the madmen era and, you know, manners were important and books and culture, literature. And, you know, you went to private school, even though his parents really could ill afford it. And that is, that's mentioned in the book as well. And then he catapulted himself into this world of, you know, of, you know, ex-cons and army guys and, you know, sometimes probably literal pirates, you know, and drugs and, you know, the cook bending the bride over the dumpster and the back of the restaurant, you know, all of that. So it was this, he really embodied both of those things, you know, this high and low culture. Right. It's such an interesting thing. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the comedian Greg Gerardo, who had passed.

He was a very good friend of mine. And he had a very similar, super strong attraction to, for lack of a better term, the rock and roll lifestyle. Just loved in New York, loved the underbelly, the, I mean, the same like really respectful. But they just love that thing, that rock star thing. And it's a dangerous thing to kind of flirt with at times. but it's also very appealing. Like whenever I get attracted to it, then I just, I go home. I'm like, I got to get up early.

I can't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's, you know, it speaks to the tendency to toward addiction, you know, which as much as Tony was very open about his heroin habit in the 90s, I don't know that he ever really self-identified as an addict, you know, maybe because he didn't. didn't go through the part where you go to 12 step and you do all that stuff.

And he never, you know, he quit doing heroin, but he didn't, he didn't get sober, you know. Right, right. And you look at him now in hindsight and this definitely comes up in the book that he, he sort of approached everything addictively, you know, whether it was jiu-jitsu or, you know, personal relationships or, you know, literal drugs and alcohol or work or whatever it was. He was all in a thousand percent, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He reminded me of, and I used to go see, and I'll just throw these names out, but Eric Begosian, when I would go see his one-man shows and Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, like he was of that time in New York and that kind of a guy, which was so unique.

Like the world doesn't make those guys very often. Right. Or maybe it does, but we're not like we're now too old to, they don't resonate. with us, you know. I don't know. I mean, is Harry Stiles the new Lou Reed? Probably not. No, no. We're doing some bottled water. We know all the, we all know, we know what it means to be mentally unhealthy. We know, you know, it's kind of kind of that part of it. So for

your perspective, you, you got pulled back into working closely with him after you had worked with him a little bit earlier, just helping with some writing, correct? That's right. So I met him in 2002. initially. I had been Mario Battali's assistant for a long time. You were? I was. Yeah. Oh, man. I love Mario. He's a complicated guy. He is a complicated guy. Yeah. I mean, you love the welcome. Here's an espresso. Here's some funny stories going your way. But yeah, that's like being an assistant for a volcano. Yeah. I mean, I will say, I learned a lot. It was a tremendous experience for me as a person. I was in my, you know, early to mid-20s working for him.

It's really exciting. And, and I learned a lot. I got to see a lot of things. And, um, yeah, you know, tough, uh, tough end of that story. But I know, I know. It's so unfortunate. Yeah. But that's, but that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, it's a very, uh, intense place to cut your teeth. Yeah. For sure, for sure. And I, you know, I met some of people who are still my good friends and, you know, it was, it was an education in everything. So I had learned how to write and edit recipes and do that kind of stuff with Mario. And so when I was winding up that job, Tony was looking for someone to help him with the Laal cookbook,

which was the first book he wrote after Kitchen Confidential. So he hired me based on Mario's recommendation and I did that work with him on that book. And then several years later, I had a kid. I was looking to work part time just to do something that was a little more flexible than the magazine work that I had been doing. And as it turned out, Tony's assistant was on her way out. And he said, well, I know, you know, maybe this is, this is like not what you want to be doing, but would you want to give it a shot? And I probably wouldn't have been anyone else's assistant at that point, but it was Tony. It's like, yeah, of course.

I love the way you tell it in the book, too, the, just the, you really do sum up his character in such a great way, just in this interaction that you're explaining of. And then I sent an email and then he responded, fine, you know, or yes, very Tony. The way I'm paraphrasing what you're doing, but you do a really great job solving that up. It was now, just to go back at just a hair, were you at all interested in the food world before you met Mario? Like was that an interest of yours or did that bring you into this whole world? Yeah, no, I had actually just graduated from cooking school. Oh, right, right. Yeah, I thought I thought I wanted to be a chef.

after about two days of cooking school, I was like, ooh, I don't want to do this. Oh, really? Yeah. Why? What happened? I mean, I love cooking, but I realize, I don't think I realized the way that you're cooking in a restaurant is different and difficult. And I just know myself well enough to know that like, oh, I don't think I have the like

internal fortitude to do this day in, day out. But I stuck with it, obviously because, you know, once you pay your tuition, you don't get that money back. So I was like, let me do this program. I'm very glad that I did it. I learned a lot of great skills, but I knew that I needed to figure out another way into the business that didn't involve being a line cook. And as it turned out, Mario was hiring his first ever assistant. And he liked me.

And, you know, I whatever. I literally think I was the only person who applied for the job because it was back so long ago that nobody knew who he was really. Right, right. So it all worked out for everyone. And so yeah, I always had an interest in food, but really I knew I needed a set of skills because to try and just make it as a writer, especially in the late 90s, kind of pre-internet writing, it's like, well, I will starve to death. So I need to have a job and have some skills and something and then figure out how to be a writer from there. So how was it working on that book with Anthony? Was that, did it satisfy that part? Yeah, it wasn't so much writing as recipe editing and testing, but getting to work with him,

which was mostly by email because he was already busy and traveling. But he was great to work with. It was a great resume builder. And he wrote a ridiculously hyperbolic piece about me in the acknowledgments of the book, which just was very typical of his style of he would not really stand there and go, you did a great job, you know, give you a big hug. Like that was not who he was. would behind your back, you know, he would tell everybody else what a great job job you did,

or he would write something about you. So that was a great, it was a great intro to him. And, you know, it sort of sealed, sealed my fate as far as him trusting me and being willing to hire me to work for him years later. Yeah. And then you come in as, as personal assistant. And that is a very intimate relationship, especially when somebody is so busy, because then you end up really being a part of every single part of their life. Yeah, yeah, to an extent. I mean, there was sort of a nice built-in boundary and that he was traveling so often.

So we weren't like together in an office, which I think really suited both of us. You know, we could really work well together without getting on each other's nerves. You know, I mean, I'm always convinced that I'm getting on somebody's nerves. So it was like that took all that guesswork out of it. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I was doing things like restaurant reservations, and hotels and planes and whatnot and a lot of just, you know, just basic assistant stuff. But also, you know, one of the last times I saw him, I picked him up at the, after you got a colonoscopy. He's all goofy. Yeah. So there was that, you know, you definitely are aware of like, you know, who's, who's ready to go to get their prostate checked or whatever. Right.

Yeah, exactly. I know. It always has to even like sharing anything with anybody. And then to, but, but he was so incredibly, incredibly busy. I mean, I can, I can connect to a lot of that just from being on the road myself, that what that does to you. And, you know, it's very different when you're going out and performing by yourself and you're having an audience that's telling you great job. But that gig of, you've got that crew with you. and it's a lot of times really tough travel and it frays on your nerves and you just kind of have to

think you're doing a good job and you don't get you don't really know until it really is edited and comes out and then some and even then it's not really that satisfying somebody says a good thing where they renew you for another year but you don't get that feeling of a mass of people saying yes you did it it's it's that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a for really being a little lost. Yeah, I think it could be very isolating. And that definitely comes up again and again in the book that, especially in the later years.

You know, at first when he was making television, it was a little crew, everyone flying and traveling together, staying in the same hotels and really being together. And I think that was really fun. And then as it got bigger and bigger and he got more busy and more busier and busier, he would have his own van to set.

And sometimes he would stay in the four seasons and the crew would stay at the, you know, Holiday Inn Express and, you know, they started to be more kind of isolation in different ways. I think the way that he was able to get that instant validation was he would do these lecture tours, maybe once a year he would go out and do a bunch of cities. I mean, in fact, I think he had a little bit of a fantasy of being a stand-up. He did, he had, and this is in the book, too. I interviewed Bonnie McFarland. Yeah, I love Bonnie. I was happy to see her in there. She helped him get a just a one-night gig at the comedy seller. And he didn't tell anybody.

Nobody was there. He just went up unannounced and did a set. And I guess it was all right. I don't know. He was good on stage. You know, he did have, I wouldn't say he was a comedian at heart, but he could really hold a stage for an hour. Right, right.

Yeah. You know, it's an interesting thing reading, reading your book, really. really kind of solidified that he was at his heart a writer. I mean, he really was. He was, when we talk about the rock star thing, it was the literary rock star thing. And writing is a very solitary thing, you know, like when you're really in it and really working, like, you're shutting everybody else out. You kind of have to when you're doing those, those things.

and the show and the thing that he became famous for after his successful book was the opposite of that. Yeah. You know, that's a, that's a weird combination to have to have to live. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, his discipline as a writer was always so incredible to me that I just, I don't, I don't know how he did it. You know, he would, especially when he was still working as a cook, he would cook for, you know, you'd go in at maybe noon and you're there for 12 hours. then you go up a few drinks with your co-workers after. And I guess he would sleep at some point.

And then he would get up at six and start writing. Yeah. And that's kind of how he wrote his, he wrote two crime novels and then he published Kitchen Confidential. It was just really, he had an extraordinary work ethic. But yeah, you have to, you have to be kind of make yourself lonely

in order to actually get the writing done. Yeah. Yeah, it's a strange thing. I didn't realize he did two crime novels. Yeah, in 95 and 97. The first one was called Bone in the Throat and the next one was called Gone Bamboo. And they're really funny and really, I mean, you see all that voice that really got developed further in Kitchen Confidential, but it's all there. Yeah, yeah, man, he was very true to his voice.

It was interesting because, you know, I've been in, I've gotten through television things. And it was pretty remarkable that there's no, there's no part in his story where he had to really fight with the networks about like, there's like this little tiny little, But nothing like, they must have, I don't know if it was fortunate or if he was just so strong or maybe the show was so small in the beginning. But he, he wasn't like, they weren't dragging him through like the food network processor and saying you have to do it this way. Yeah. Well, and then once they did, I mean, there was a point, I think after the first two seasons of a cook's tour, which was his first show where they did start to try and push him into doing more domestic shows and why don't we just. do a barbecue roundup or, you know, they really wanted to push him more into their mold because it's, you know, more economical and more what the people wanted. I mean, he was already kind of

far outside the norm for that network. So they left, you know, they didn't want to be a run of the mill. He didn't want to be the next Bobby Flay or Di Fieri. He wanted to stay true to his own vision and voice. Yeah. Man, the cultivation of a voice like that, it's, it's, uh, you just have to be really kind of true to yourself. It's a very, it's not many people do it. Yeah, yeah. It was sort of the way that Kitchen Confidential came about was kind of lightning in a bottle. And I think that he was able to be so free with his voice because the originally,

the genesis of it was an essay that he wrote intending to publish it in the New York press, which is a free, you know, downtown newspaper. I don't know if they publish anymore. But, and, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't trying to hit the, the New Yorker voice or the, you know, it was just something to make himself and his colleagues laugh. And so he didn't feel constrained. And I think the best writing comes out of that when you're just, you're writing it for your, for your buddy next to you on the line, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Who do you write for? You know, I have a colleague from Wine Spectator who's a little bit older than me. And it's really, really smart. And, uh, and I always try and think about. writing to make him laugh because he's he's funny and and educated and you know whenever I email with him I'm always really trying my hardest you know I mean in a relaxed way because I'm like

well it's just the two of us reading it but that's definitely and Tony I mean of course now you're not going to read it but anything I did when he was alive I always was kind of waiting for his reaction and sometimes he would like things and he would say something and then it sometimes I knew if I didn't hear anything from him that it didn't impress him. Right, right. So I still keep, I still keep him in mind for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's funny that I've had people in my life like that or no longer here who work close to that.

Like they're almost like the, you're measuring stick of like how you're doing. Like you always, I always think like, well, would Dave approve of this? Would Dave think I was doing? Is this, is this cool enough? Or would Dave think I'm selling out? Like those people, they really kind of, they kind of, when you think about it, they really help mold your personality. Yeah.

Because for you to carry them like that, that's, it's almost like they've become part of your subconscious. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I love the stack of books behind you, too, by the way. Oh. It looks like, yeah, they're about to fall over.

That happens all the time. There is actually a bookcase that's, it's like a spine, you know, but it's, I think I'm really pushing the limit. of the physics there. It's good. It's impressive. So when you were his assistant for all that time, did you ever go on the road with him in those situations or were you at Ground Central?

I mean, most of the time I was home back in New York with my kid and just kind of living a regular life. But at some point, when my kid was a few years old and I started to travel on my own, own and ask Tony for advice. He said, oh, you're ready to travel again. Why don't you come with us? You can choose one location a year and I'll pay your expenses. And, you know, you can just come and hang out and see what we do. And if you want to pitch a magazine story about something else while you're there, that's really attractive to a magazine editor because you've, you know, you've got your expenses paid to get to Japan. And, you know, they don't have to worry about it.

So I did that for, I think five or six years in a row, I went to, I always went to Asia because Tony was paying for a business class flight. So, you know, I might as well really milk it. So I went to, the first one I went to was in Vietnam in the city of Hue in central Vietnam. And then there were two back-to-back trips to Japan and then Sri Lanka, Philippines, and then Hong Kong was the last one. Wow.

Wow. So I did, I had some adventures. Yeah. That's like a dream list. Yeah. That's amazing. What was your highlight? Did you?

You know, there was a time when we were. We were in Conantzawa, which is sort of on the northwest coast of Japan, and the whole crew was moving from there to Tokyo the next day. They were driving with all the equipment. Tony and I took the bullet train from Conantzawa to Tokyo. So it took about three hours. And we had this really cool lunch on the train. You know, the service is just outrage. You know, it's not the Amtrak.

Like, it's really pretty nice. And then we get into Tokyo. I had never been to Tokyo before. of course, Tony had been a million times. And we were staying at the Park Hyatt, you know, the hotel that was famously featured in Lost in Translation. And of course, Tony is like big, big VIP. So they send a driver with the Rolls-Royce and the driver literally gets on the train as it stops and collects us and guides us through this intense, you know, Tokyo station is really a huge train station. Yeah.

Guides us through into the Rolls-Royce and drives us into the city to the, you know, to this magnificent hotel. So just to have that sort of like super VIP, but very low key kind of Japanese treatment. And then that night, because he didn't have to shoot because the crew was on their way, he said, well,

do you want to just like go get some dinner? So we just got into a taxi and went over to Shinjuku, which is kind of an exciting, bright, you know, flashing neighborhood. I just got some kind of nondescript like Yakutori. But just to do that with Tony, where there were no cameras, there was no performance.

It was just strictly, a fun low-key dinner and he was so genuinely pleased to be able to show somebody Tokyo for the first time, you know, a city that he really loved. And he didn't really get recognized. And it was just, it was that to me was such a highlight to just have truly a relaxed enjoyable dinner in, you know, one of the great cities of the world. Wow, that sounds so great. Oh, man, that is an experience. Isn't it amazing? Whenever, whenever, whenever, whenever you hear of like, oh, experiences are better than gifts. It's really true.

That is such a perfect example. Absolutely. God, you'll carry that forever. That's amazing. He was being so close to him. And like you see in the book, like people kind of always, it seemed like all the more of the friends, I think, even than the family, it seemed like they always kind of had a little bit of concern about his happiness or his,

where it wasn't like a big dominant thing, it seemed like there was that kind of a quiet, like, is he okay? Did you get that sense when you were with him? Yeah, I would say not all the way through, certainly. There were times, you know, really sort of depended, you know, his life was in a bit of turmoil when I worked for him

and he was married and then he separated and then he was in a new relationship. So I could sort of tell when, things were were up or down. You know, I think I probably took him more at his word than other people. You know, my job was to was to keep him happy and keep him getting what he needed. And so when he said he was happy, I wanted to believe him, you know? And I think I, I think I probably bought into the romance of things, maybe more than was

when was realistic. But he was pretty straightforward with his, you knew, you knew when he was. was unhappy. You know, I mean, he would, if you were close to him, he really couldn't hide it, you know, and so I did what was, you know, within the boundaries of my job to try and, and keep him happy or keep him on an even keel or, or just, you know, do good work so that at least he didn't have to worry about the car not showing up or the, you know, make sure he gets the, you know, 2,000 thread count sheets or, you know, whatever it was. We would occasionally have conversations about mental health, you know, not all the time, but when when he wanted to talk about

that, I was certainly interested in listening. And, you know, I try and suggest therapy because it's worked really well for me. And in all the conversations I had with him, he was like, I'm too old for that. Or, you know, it's bullshit. You know, he wasn't with me, he was never open to it. I know that close to the end of his life, he was suddenly very interested in therapy, and that was a great, a great thing. But unfortunately, you know, we know how this story ends. Right, right. It's amazing how he, man, it's such a strange, it's such a puzzle, isn't it? It's like, it's a puzzle. People are, like we said in the beginning, people are a puzzle to begin with. But then when they, when they leave us before is natural, that puzzle becomes even more.

And someone even mentions in the book to, are we even supposed to know that? Like are we supposed to, like maybe that's, we're not supposed to find out like exactly everything about them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's,

it's impossible not to sit and relive the last few days and, you know, the last conversation and, you know, so many of us were comparing notes, of course in the immediate aftermath of just, you know, when did you talk to him? What did he say? And it's, yeah, I think that we have this illusion that if we know exactly what happened, will somehow be okay with it. And I, unfortunately, I don't think that's true. You know, I mean, if someone were to magically, you know, be able to have video evidence or something,

it still would be as painful because the result is the same, you know? Right. But I think we do have to tell ourselves some kind of a. story about what happened. You know, for me, I have to believe that that it was a spontaneous act. I truly don't believe that it was a long premeditated thing. I think it was a spasm of despair. And, and, you know, these things, you make a decision. And if you act on it quickly, I mean, that's it. You know, you don't get to go, oh, just kidding. You know, right. Yeah. No, that's a, it's an interesting perspective because that's kind of the troubling thing about it just from, I mean, you know, when people are close, that's one thing, but for all of us

who were just fans, what he was doing for us was showing us the world. And if, and that narrative is very troubling that you showed us the world and then you left. That's like, wait, wait, wait, no, that's not supposed to, you're supposed to give us a sliver of hope after you saw all of this stuff. Yeah. But you're probably right. It probably had nothing to do with that as much is what he personally on a smaller level was going through with whatever his relationships were in that kind of just tumultuous time and whatever he was kind of slipping. I mean, I like to, I'm going to buy into that because I don't like to think that he saw the world and didn't see hope. Yeah, no, I don't think that's true at all. You know, I saw him, the last time I saw him in person

was probably two or three weeks before he died. And he was ecstatic. He was on his way to Florence. and they made an episode there that he was really excited about. You can see some footage of it in the documentary that came out this summer. They never actually made an episode out of it. But he couldn't have been happier. And he was really so excited about continuing to do that work. So I don't think that the world ground him down. I think it was a much more internal situation.

Right, right. Well, yeah, what a loss. It's really such a shame. Because the writer, the rock star writers, like any writer, the older they get, the better it gets. It's kind of like the cool. It's kind of the greatest thing. And it's like you would have loved to have seen him continuing to write, especially it was going through different phases and becoming a different kind of a person.

Yeah. Is really interesting. If you're looking for the right book and the right audiobook and you want to just sit down and get something and you can't go, you have time to go through. walk through a bookstore. I love bookstores, but there's also a great service. It's called Scribd. You get instant access to millions of e-books, audiobooks, magazines, and more. You also get thoughtfully curated editors' picks, smart recommendations based on what you've read. It starts to learn what you like and keeps feeding you more of it. Look, streaming is revolutionized our lives in so many ways, and now with literature and books, it does the same thing. I mean, it's such a cool thing. I mean,

we're sitting here talking with Lori and you could just go and access a book online. That's pretty amazing. You get instant access to millions of audiobooks, millions of magazines at one low monthly subscription. My book is on there. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that. You should just get scribbed just to get my books. That sounds like it makes perfect sense. Your dad stole my rake and you're doing great and other reasons to stay alive. And the book that I'm currently writing now that is ruining my life and is just a giant weight around my neck and causing me to write on airplanes and backstage of shows and in movie trailers. I'm sorry, I went off track. Scrib is the most fascinating library in the world and it's all at your fingertips for just $9.99 a

month. Explore your interest in any format. If it could be simpler, they would just fill your a place up in your head with books that you've read. It's the only way to make it actually better. Scribd, honestly, is a great service. It's a digital library to the world. You can right now get Scribd a 60-day free trial. Go to try.d.com. S-C-R-I-B-D. That's try.org dot-s-R-I-B-D.com slash Papa and get 60 days of Scrib for free. Was there one person? I mean, there's so many people in the book that you spoke to. Was there one that really surprised you or like gave you more, more insight than others?

That's a tough question. Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, so many. But, you know, Tony's brother, Christopher, who I never had occasion to meet while Tony was alive. He filled in a lot of stuff about Tony that I didn't know, you know, especially early life stuff. and his relationship with his mother and his father. And, you know, I never met their father. He died in 1987. So I learned everything I knew about Pierre from Christopher.

But, yeah, I'd say he was an interesting source of information. It was interesting overall to hear from people, even, you know, highly accomplished, very high-profile people like Anderson Cooper and Nigelo Law. and Kamau Bell, who had the same sense that everyone else had, that Tony was always seemed like he was on his way somewhere and on his way to somewhere and that he was never quite fully, it was, it was rare for him to be at a moment of peace and calm and really, uh, ready to just hang out and have as much conversation as you might want, you know, that there was always the sense that he was on the move. And one of his directors, Nick Brigden said, you know, he was like a shark. He sort of had to keep moving to survive.

And so it was interesting to hear that didn't matter like who you were in the world that that Tony just couldn't quite slow down long enough to satisfy, you know, that we all wanted a little more time with him. Right. Yeah. So Anderson said something like you wanted him to like you. Like you wanted his approval. Like it's really true. You can see that. It's like you would want that guy to think you're cool because then that would be like the real deal.

Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. But it's interesting because when he was a cook and he was writing, he wasn't, he didn't really see the world yet. Like he wasn't on the move, right? I mean, he was going to that kitchen every day. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's kind of a microcosm of that life within the kitchen, you know, where you're never standing, you know, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean.

So you're never standing still. You're always trying to be efficient with your movements or you're telling somebody else to keep moving. You know, there's a frenetic quality to that life. But yeah, he hadn't traveled. He had been to St. Martin a handful of times and France as a kid. And it wasn't until, I think, 98, he was sent to Japan to help open the lay-all in Tokyo. That was his first time really anywhere outside of the Western Hemisphere. And it just kind of blew his mind open.

Yeah. And then it's almost like it's in some way the same guy, but in another way. And I guess this happens with everybody in their careers. if you're working hard and moving. And it's almost like three separate guys. It's like that first, you know, rock and roll chef. Then it's the TV star. Then it's, he goes into this kind of playing the role almost of a family man.

You know, and his love for his daughter and all of, and that part of it. It's almost like he was reborn a couple of times. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely at least a three act kind of arc. Yeah. I think he truly, you know, I think he truly loved being a dad.

And I think he was such a romantic that I think he also had this very idealized, you know, sense of what it was to have a child and be a married man and be a family man. And I think he tried his hardest to make that successful. But it's very much at odds with traveling, you know, 250 days a year. It really takes a toll on a relationship. And that's that also was touched on in the book, how it just was almost impossible to make both of those things coexist.

Yeah, it's like you dip in. It reminded me of the Johnny Cash, the movie, the Johnny Cash, like, and he would come back and try and be this guy and it's like, I got to get back on the road. Yeah. It's too intense. Yeah. It's, you know, I think it's, everyone thinks it's the dream job and it was the dream life to be able to do that all the time. But it's, you know, there's a reality. There are people that get, that get left behind because of it. Yeah. Yeah. It really is a, it's unfortunate. But. But also beloved, like he, when he was present, he seemed like he had an effect on that, on his daughter. And it seemed like he was that intensity probably just as a father-daughter, you know, love gun. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was super into it. He was kind of like to get himself. And so, I mean, she talks in the book about how they would watch like Dexter and Archer. I mean, shows that were not exactly child friendly, but yeah, she's a super smart, super, super talented kid that she's got a really good head on her shoulders. Right, right. What was interesting about watching the documentary, and I haven't seen it in a bit, but was that there was all this footage of him before he was the guy.

Like he was, it was even before the success of his book, the cameras were rolling. Yeah. He was documenting. it. It was like he knew where he was headed. Yeah. Well, there was a filmmaker named Dimitri Castorin who started to make a documentary about Tony right when Kitchen Confidential was about to come out. And he shot hundreds of hours of film and never actually ended up cutting it into a documentary. I'm not quite sure why. He didn't want to be interviewed for the book. But he did license all of that footage to Morgan Neville, the filmmaker who made the Roadrunner documentary. So it's really amazing

gift of getting to see true documentary footage of Tony really before he broke out. And a lot of the same people that were interviewed in current times for the film were also interviewed back then. So you see, you know, side by side footage of those people who were with him at the beginning and able to comment on him at the end. So it's really, it's pretty remarkable. It is. It reminds me of like early Bob Dylan stuff. Like before he was famous, people were taking pictures of him, you know, with his girlfriend or like, you know, an a, you know, on a fire escape. It's like, how did he know?

Yeah. You know we'd want to see this. Some people just have that. I think Tony probably always had that charisma, you know, before he published a word. I think people just, and you see it in the book, too, people just saying he was the best storyteller. He was, he made things sound more fun than they were. You know, he always was kind of able to rally the group to do something, to have an adventure. So I think he was kind of born, born to be that guy, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So what's next for you? What are you, are you writing, are you in the wine world? Are you in the food world? Are you leaving it all behind? So I, I'm actually working, if you're going to like this, I'm working on a book about bread. You are. Yes.

So I'm learning how to make sourdough. And I never, I didn't get into it, early quarantine. I was like, I don't care. You know, I don't eat that much bread because I'm trying to like stay in my, you know, pants. So, but I'm working on a, it's going to be called a book about bread and it's with a baker called Richard Hart, who has a bakery in Copenhagen. He's a British guy. He was the head baker at Tartin for six years and then went over and opened a place in Copenhagen. So we are working on what we hope will be the new essential book, not just about sourdough, but also about other other breads.

So it's really fun. Well, that's great. Yeah, I read about him. I probably, I follow, I mean, bread people are my rock stars. Yeah. And I travel all over and visit them and stuff. And I think him, I might have read an interview. It was the him going to Copenhagen because when I was during the pandemic, sorry to go off the rails, but when during the pandemic, I would, I was for some reason

craving, I would have my iPad. I was craving places like Copenhagen and, and, and like the Germanic breads. and I was putting together my travel list of like where I would like to go. But Copenhagen just seemed like when you start looking at those bakeries, they're so clean and they're so dialed in. Yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating. This is going to be a great book.

Yeah. I spent two weeks in Copenhagen in July just like hanging out at the bakery. They didn't let me touch anything. For like the first two weeks, they were like, eh. I mean, I know what I'm doing, but like it's a whole different thing. So by the end, I was allowed to. to start pre-shaping loaves. And, you know, this girl next to me would do like 40, you know,

and I would be like, like, two, you know, and then they would just take it and reshape it anyway. So it's really, you know, it's like the simplest and most complex thing in the world, as I'm sure you know. Yeah, it really is amazing. It's amazing. In that regard, what's amazing to me is that the same sticky, overly hydrated bread in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing does not stick.

and in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they're doing or it just doesn't know enough, it's sticking all over the place. That to me is pretty remarkable. Yeah, it's that light touch. Richard says it's a ballet, not a boxing match. Oh, that's brilliant. That's great. Oh, I can't wait.

When do you think that'll be next year, maybe? Yeah, we, I think they're looking to do it early, 23. So, which feels like a million years away. But then when I look at how much work we have to do, it feels like, shit, we've better get on this. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite kind of wine? Well, you know, I quit drinking about four years ago. So it's cold turkey, all of it. Yeah, well, I quit drinking. And then it took another 18 months to quit smoking weed, which I really, you know, I did it like it was my job for a long time. So I've been truly sober for almost three years. While I was at Wine Spectator, I mean,

it was like, well, what's, you know, what's close to my desk that I can open around noon? I'm working. Yeah, I loved, I did really love drinking. So, I don't know. I'd spend so long now. I mean, I, you know, I always liked a, I liked a reeling. I like sort of the stuff that was like a little bit more obscure. But I don't know.

I really, honestly, I was not super picky. Right. That's so funny. All these people looking to you for guidance, you're like, yeah. Like, have you tried AA? That's really good. They have great coffee. Yeah. Do you feel better? Do you sleep better? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just a whole different. I mean, you know what? People can drink safely and responsibly. Like, that's great. I've got no, no issue with that. For me, it was just, it just was progressively more and more dangerous. And, you know, I have a friend who's a, who's a medical examiner in New York and he, like, deals with dead people all day long, you know.

And he said like, saw how I was drinking, was like, you're going to die. You know, you might not get cirrhosis, but you're going to step into traffic or you're going to fall downstairs or you're going to get into a cab with the wrong person. And first I was like, ah, fuck you. You know, like. Yeah. But you hear that enough and you start to go. Yeah.

He's on to something. So I didn't have a dramatic rock bottom, but I'm glad, you know, I didn't, I didn't lose anything significant. But yeah, for me, it's, it was a great decision. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Good for you. Good for you. That is it's it's it there's they're very sneaky substances. They're just so romantic and so wonderful. And then before you know it, I always say with alcohol specifically that it's like drowning. Like when people drown, it's silent. It's just this kind of quiet slip. And it's the same thing with drinking. You don't really realize it until you pop your head up. You're like, whoa, I've been doing this a little more than I should have. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But man, the one thing Anthony did, which I'll probably never shake, was he made smoking look really cool.

Really did, right? As a writer, don't you feel like, oh, just like that romantic thing, like he just finished writing a couple chapters and you sit outside wherever you are and just think for a minute like that. Yeah, yeah. He quit for a while and then he got back on it. And again, like with a vengeance, you know, it was like. Like, I'm either going to smoke, you know, four packs of Marlboro Reds a day or I'm going to smoke again. And we had this meeting at his apartment. And I had to have a smoke eater installed in his apartment because people were complaining in his building about how much he was smoking. And it was coming in, you know, through their walls and ceiling. So we have this like casino grade smoke eater so that he continued to smoke with abandoned in his apartment. And we were having a meeting.

And I was kind of sitting under it and he was facing me and he was smoking constantly. And so the smoke was being drawn, like basically filtered through me first and then up into the thing. And I walked out of there smelling like a, you know, like a bar from the 1990s. Yeah. Yeah. That helps me a little. That takes a little of romance off. Yeah.

It's gross. Yeah. It's disgusting. Well, congratulations. Good on you again. I know this. I mean, it's cathartic and wonderful and hard and all the rest of it. This is this was a heavy lift.

But you're one of the only people. that really could have done it and done it really thoughtfully and and you you did and it's it's the great kind of book that you really can bounce around i love that you can books like this you'd literally just open at any point and then you you get a little more nugget and it's one of those that'll stick around on my end table forever it's really well done good thank you i appreciate it all right enjoy making bread and uh we'll talk when that one comes out sounds good thank you all right thank you so much, Lori. Bye. Bye. All right, that's it, everybody. Thank you so much to Lori Williver for joining us. Go get the book. It's Bourdain, the definitive oral biography. She's amazing.

Thank you to our good friends at Scribd. You guys are the best. We'll see you next week. Enjoy your day.