Fresh Air - Best Of: Making 'Maestro' / A Restaurateur's Journey

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

Bradley Cooper talks about writing, directing, and starring in the new film Maestro, in which he portrays conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Also with us is conducting consultant Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The film focuses on Bernstein's music and his relationship with his wife, including the friction caused by his affairs with men. Also, we hear from restaurateur Rose Previte, author of the new cookbook Maydān: Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond. And Justin Chang reviews Memory, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Bradley Cooper talks about writing, directing, and starring in the new film Maestro. He plays conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein.

He's joined by conducting consultant Yannick Nézet-Sagan. Yannick conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The film focuses on Bernstein's music and his relationship with his wife, including the friction caused by his affairs with men. Also, we'll hear from restaurateur Rose Prevett, author of the new cookbook My Dawn, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond.

And Justin Chang reviews Memory, the new film starring Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Terry has today's first interview. I'll let her introduce it. My guest Bradley Cooper directed, co-wrote, and stars in the new film Maestro. He plays the internationally famous composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Also with us is the internationally famous conductor, who served as Cooper's conducting consultant, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He's the music and artistic director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, music director of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and principal

conductor of the Orchestra Métropolitaine de Montreal. Bernstein is considered the first great American conductor. He led the New York Philharmonic from 1957 to 69. He wrote classical music. His most popular music was the music he wrote for Broadway musicals, including On the Town, Wonderful Town, West Side Story, and Candide, and the score for the film On the Waterfront. Maestro is about his music life and his personal life. He was a very public figure, appearing often on TV and leading the Philharmonic in his young people's concerts. A major part of his life was kept hidden from the public. Although he was married to the actress Felicia Cohn-Montalegre, and they had three children together.

He was bisexual or gay and had flirtations and boyfriends during the years he was married. Felicia is played by Carey Mulligan. Bradley Cooper also wrote, directed, and starred in the 2018 adaptation of A Star is Born and starred in Nightmare Alley, American Sniper, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, and The Hangover Films. Bradley Cooper, Yannick Nézet again. Welcome back to both of you. I really enjoyed this movie, and I'm grateful to have the chance to talk with you both.

The pleasure's ours. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having us. Thank you, Yannick. Bradley, you wanted to conduct since you were a child, and you asked for a baton as a birthday gift when you were a kid, and you conducted records in your bedroom. Brother, before learning how to conduct for real when you were conducting as a kid, did you just like, basically wave your arms around a lot passionately when you were air conducting?

I mean, I won't take offense to that, Terry. No, no offense intended. But I think there was more, there was more musicality involved. But yes, one can make the argument. But no, I felt, I mean, obviously, I love music, rhythm. And there was something magical about being able to physically move to a rhythm and the changing of rhythms always, and then having a baton and then in my imagination, be able to perceive that I was actually harnessing and commanding that music. I mean, it was really like a magic trick. Every time, all I needed was music and that baton, and I felt like I could be a wizard. You know, Bradley, I did the same, exactly, at the same age.

And I do believe that, you know, maybe we, Terry, we were waving arms passionately, because in a way, the first immediate draw that we have with conducting, and I know if I speak for myself, of course I was learning piano, but when I got interested, to say, how can it be magical that someone waves their arm and just having this magic wand and music happens and it's a group.

And Yannick, what is your relationship musically to Bernstein? Was he an important figure in your musical education? Bernstein was hands down always my greatest conducting model. I unfortunately can't call him a mentor because he passed away when I was 15. Well, we were both 15, Bradley and I. But still, from the recordings, the videos, because he's of course a very documented conductor, I always felt, even when I was a teenager, that this is the way I wanted to express music on the podium. Just express with all my body, not being shy of showing my emotions on the podium. So I'm really not the only one to say this, but clearly Bernstein was a great role model. So there's a piece, it's kind of like the musical centerpiece of the film is when Bradley, you as Bernstein are conducting Mahler's second, the final movement. And this is also known as the Resurrection Symphony.

And you're conducting with enormous passion. So Bradley, what did you do to get as accurately as you could what Bernstein did to conduct this piece? It's a very tricky endeavor because I had no desire to imitate what he was doing, because that would have been a soulless, in my experience, endeavor. And I learned that early on when I did American Sniper. It was the best way to create a human being would be to take all of myself and the research and of Chris Kyle was the human and then the character in American Sniper. And it wasn't doing an imitation of Chris Kyle, but immersing myself enough in the world and letting that sort of alchemy occur. Now there's this incredible video

of Lenny conducting this piece in 1973 in Ely Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra, which is exactly what we replicated. But I always knew that I wasn't going to just imitate what he was doing. It was actually finding that middle ground. And Yannick was in particular so supportive of me as Lenny finding whatever that mode of conducting is, which was, of course, infused entirely by not only the interpretation of the score, which is what we did in terms of tempo, but also in terms of his gesticulating and all of that, but having it be original because the goal was to conduct in real time this piece and record it.

So the part I want to start with at the end of Resurrection is where there's a slight pause in the music. It's like one beat, and then the music begins again. And when the music begins again, right after a choral part, or I should say a soloist part, you as Bernstein jump, and you know, you jump in the air and continue conducting was jumping a kind of Bernstein thing oh yeah and and in particular he jumps in that moment in that piece um but yeah there's that there's wonderful photographs of him you know levitating above the podium and many recordings of one being able to hear his feet stomping on the podium after having been, you know, a foot in the air. So, yeah, that was one of his trademark sonic gifts to his conducting.

Yannick, do you ever jump? I do. I unfortunately do a lot. But I say unfortunately, I don't think I should be ashamed of it. You know, sometimes we're taught in school, it's still taught that conducting should be this and that and in a box and not too much of this and not too much of that. And I don't want here to insult any great conducting teachers around the world.

They're doing amazing work, but sometimes we forget that conducting is about just living the music. And at that moment, that's what Lenny taught all of us, in a way. At that moment, the music is jumping. There is this big, it's almost like the whole world is waking up. So one needs to illustrate that, and why not jump, you know, as long as it's organic. One more thing I want to ask before we hear the music, and that is, there are passages in this in which, Bradley, you know, as long as it's organic. One more thing I want to ask before we hear the music, and that is, there are passages in this in which, Bradley, you have your mouth wide open,

as if just, you know, like singing along, or just expressing this sense of awe with your mouth, like wide open. And Yannick, I think I've seen you do that at the podium. Am I right? I cannot imagine conducting mouth closed, especially not when there's a chorus. I mean, conductors, we don't sing. We might moan a bit or whatever happens through our mouth. Oh, I feel like I'm quoting one line from the movie now.

No spoilers. But what I'm saying is that, yeah, Lenny did that a lot. And I think we all do it because it's, yeah, it's kind of breathing. It's letting even more the sound feeling open when we let our mouth open. There's something that, you know, the arms are open when we let our mouth open. There's something that, you know, the arms are open, the heart is open, and therefore the mouth is just opening up all that's possible for one of the greatest climactic moments in the music. And Bradley, do you want to talk about conducting with your mouth open like that?

What was going through your mind? It's very funny you say that. So I did notice that I opened my mouth a lot just conducting to a recording of anything. And thank goodness Lenny did that. In the video from 1973, as I recall, he's only opening his mouth when he's actually saying the words of Mahler's Resurrection that the chorus is saying. And what's in the movie is the last take. The way it went down is I really messed up the whole first day. And also, because I had entered into it with fear and 99% of the movie I went into fearlessly, but I'd set up all of these cameras really thinking that

deep down I wasn't going to be able to conduct it and I'd have to cut, edit, create a scene out of, in the editing room. And so I went into it already fearful. And obviously when you do that, you can be struck by fear and then not be able to succeed. And so I was behind tempo. I forgot to cue people and I messed up. And the second day, which we weren't even supposed to shoot that scene, I brought in the techno crane, which is a manner of filming from outside into the hall. And I created one single shot, which is what it always should have been. So because I really let loose that last take, and I did an audible prayer in front of everybody to Lenny, thanking him and thanking them. And we did it one more time. And I really allowed myself true abandon. And that's why my mouth was open. And that's sort of more than I would have

liked. But it was so pure and real that I thought, no, this is it. This is it. And it is 100% authentic. So I can't, there was no reasoning behind it, Terry, other than that's kind of what happened organically. But I was aware that maybe that would be weird, but it's real. It's important, Terry, to know that it was a crafted interpretation, not on click, not on anything. People were playing on Bradley's conducting

and I was there guiding and I had been rehearsing, but we crafted an interpretation which would be to explain to the listeners, you know, you can play the smaller symphony a million ways and you can be a little bit more straightforward and just get and not pull so much before the big chords that are climactic. But actually, you know, Lenny, that's not how he did. He was always holding and holding more and then drawing every little ounce or every little drop of life out of this music. And this is what we crafted. And therefore, this is the way you conducted, Bradley, this last take.

And this is why it's so powerful. And I cannot imagine how Lenny would have done this with his mouth closed. All right. I can't imagine how Lenny would have done this with his mouth closed. All right, so time to actually hear the piece of music we've been talking about. This is Mahler's Second Symphony, and what we're hearing is the finale. And this is also called the Resurrection Symphony. So here's the end, and again, it starts with Bradley Cooper as Bernstein jumping in the air. This was partly through the finale.

Here we go. I don't know. CHOIR SINGS ¶¶ That was music from the film Maestro, which stars Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein. And that was actually Bradley conducting part of the finale of Mahler's Second Symphony at the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a piece that Bernstein conducted and really cared about. Also with us is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the cared about. Also with us is Yannick Neze Sagan. He conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Yannick served as the conducting consultant for Maestro. We'll hear more of their conversation with Terry after a break.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Let's get back to Terry's interview with Bradley Cooper and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Bradley stars as composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in the film Maestro, which Bradley also directed and co-wrote. Yannick served as Bradley's conducting consultant. He conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. So the movie is not only about Leonard Bernstein and music, it's about Bernstein's personal life and his relationship with his wife, Felicia Cohn Montalegre Bernstein. So she was born in Costa Rica to an American father and a Costa Rican mother with European ancestry. She moved to Chile when she was eight and then to New York in her

20s. She was an actress. Was she a good actress? What was her acting life like? I would say she was a great actress. You could still see some of her television films on YouTube. And when she met Lenny, when they were both in their mid-20s, one could argue that she was more famous than he was. And she moved to America under the guise of taking piano lessons from Claudia Rao, because she didn't want her father to know that her real goal was to be an actress. But that was always the case. So you imagine this woman coming from Chile to New York City in her mid-20ies, not really knowing many people, and pursuing acting. That's a very powerful statement for a young person from anywhere, let alone that time period. She knew that he was gay or bisexual before they married. And I keep wondering, like,

why did she marry him knowing that his sexual orientation was at least partly not heterosexual? Hopefully the movie is exploring that very question potentially from a viewer and answering it hopefully as well. To me, I certainly understand why she would still do it. Their connection was so solid, and it was so integral to both of their DNA when they met, and the quality of time that they spent together and what they were able to explore together in every way, in every facet, that when she wrote him that letter,

and then we turned that into her proposing to him in the topiary maze of the Tanglewood, I'm understanding her. I think, why not give it a whirl as she wrote? So that's a quote from a letter? Yes. Let's give it a whirl? Mm-hmm. conductor and composer Serge Kuzovitsky, who emigrated to the U.S., recommended to Bernstein that he keep his life and work clean, meaning, I think, like, keep that you're gay or bisexual hidden, knowing it could ruin Bernstein's career. And he also suggested to Bernstein that he change

his name to Burns. Kuzovitsky was Jewish. he knew all about anti-Semitism, and he didn't want Bernstein to be a victim of that. And Bernstein didn't take either part of that advice. What was the extent to which he was out? I think that it was clear within his circle who he was. But more importantly, in terms of the movie, which is really what I could speak to, it was about a character who didn't quite understand why he would ever have to lie about anything. And that's why when Felicia tells him, please lie to our daughter, it really paralyzes him. A man who's extremely verbose and never, never fails to be articulate about something, finds himself speechless at the end of that scene when he lies to his daughter. Yeah, because the daughter has heard rumors that he's gay,

and she wants to know if it's true, and Felicia tries to tell Bernstein, don't tell her it's true. And he says, well, I mean, she's at an age where I think that it's probably time where she's able to know what it is that, and then Felicia says, no, absolutely not. That was our, that was my choice. And he says, no, no, no, it was our choice to be married and live this way. And she says, well, don't you dare tell her. And that kind of kills him because he does believe that there is a way to understand it. And I think that's part of potentially his blinders of his inability to see the pain that he's causing around him.

Yannick, how would you describe Bernstein's place in queer history, in queer like arts history? I feel like we all know in classical music that Leonard Bernstein was gay or bisexual, as you put it. And of course, you're absolutely right in saying this. But it took many years to be able to be more open in a field, especially that is traditionally associated with history, things that are really traditional indeed. And therefore, it's a field that it took more time maybe than other fields for people to really feel they could be openly what they wanted to be. And I have to maybe even credit Lenny for not because he was really out in his life, but actually the fact that he lived this and didn't hide it completely, well, it allowed people like Michael Tilson Thomas or like me to now live it fully, have

husbands. And this is why also one of the many reasons why this film is so important. It's not so much that it's about a bisexual or gay character, but more about how complex it is. And it's about love. It's about love of a very strong relationship with Felicia. And yet that could also have something else around. Not without its pain, of course. And that's also the other layer of the movie.

But it's clearly Lenny, to get back to really your question, Terry, I mean, clearly Lenny is an immensely inspiring figure for pioneering still some of what we see today, including about sexual orientation. I want to thank you both so much for the film and for being with us today to talk about it. Thank you, Bradley Cooper

and Yannick Nézet again. Thank you. Thank you, a pleasure. Let's close with a Bernstein composition that's in the film and it's the prologue to West Side Story. This is like the prologue

when the jets and the sharks are, you know, the jets are probably walking down the street then the sharks start chasing you know, the jets are proudly walking down the street, then the sharks start chasing after them, and it leads into the jet song. RATLI COOPER Bradley Cooper wrote, directed, and stars in Maestro. Yannick Nézet-Sagan is the film's conducting consultant. Maestro is now playing in theaters and streaming on Netflix. And the new film Memory, Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard play two troubled New Yorkers who forge a life-changing connection. It's the latest film from the Mexican writer-director Michel Franco, and it won Sarsgaard the Best Actor Award at last year's Venice International Film Festival.

Our film critic Justin Chang has this review of Memory. The Mexican writer-director Michel Franco is something of a feel-bad filmmaker. His style can be chilly and severe. His characters are often comfortable bourgeois types who are in for some class-based comeuppance. His usual method is to set up the camera at a distance from his characters and watch them squirm in tense, unbroken long takes. Sometimes all hell breaks loose, as in Franco's dystopian drama New Order about a mass revolt in Mexico City. Sometimes the nightmare takes hold more quietly, like in Sundown, his recent slow-burn thriller about a vacation gone wrong. I haven't always been a fan of Franco's work, not because I object to pessimistic worldviews in art,

but because his shock tactics have sometimes felt cheap and derivative, borrowed from other filmmakers. But his new English-language movie, Memory, is something of a surprise. For starters, it's fascinating to see how well-known American actors like Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard adapt to his more detached style of filmmaking. And while his touch is as clinical and somber as ever, there's a sense of tenderness and even optimism here that feels new to his work. Chastain plays Sylvia, a single mom who works at an adult daycare center.

From the moment we meet her at an AA meeting where people congratulate her on her many years of sobriety, it's clear that she's been through a lot. She's intensely protective of her teenage daughter, rarely letting her hang out with other kids, especially boys. Whenever she returns home to her Brooklyn apartment, she immediately locks the door behind her and sets the home security system. Even when Sylvia's doing nothing, we see the tension in her body, as if she were stealing herself against the next blow. One night, while attending her high school reunion, Sylvia is approached by a man named Saul, played by Peter Sarsgaard. He says nothing, but his silent attentiveness unnerves Sylvia, especially when he follows her home and spends the night camped outside her apartment. The next morning, Sylvia learns more about Saul that might help explain his disturbing behavior. He has early-onset dementia and suffers regular short-term memory loss.

Sometime later, Sylvia takes Saul out on a walk and begins asking him questions. Where'd you go to school? Woodbury. So did I. Really? Yeah. Now you remember me? No.

No? Well, I guess people change after many years. But we didn't go to school together. Oh, I remember. You really don't remember me? No. You remember Ben Goldberg? Yeah, we went to high school together.

Yeah. He used to get me drunk after school. I was 12, he was 17. Some of the backstory and memory is confusing by design, and some of the present-day plot details strain plausibility. You have to wonder why Sylvia would attend her high school reunion in the first place, especially after she reveals that Ben not only got her drunk, but also sexually abused her with his friends. At first, Sylvia accuses Saul of having abused her too, although we soon learn that he couldn't have, because they were at school at

different times, it would seem that Sylvia's own memory, clouded by personal pain, isn't entirely reliable either. Despite the awkwardness and tension of these early encounters, Sylvia and Saul are clearly drawn to each other. Seeing how well Saul responds to Sylvia's company, his family offers her a part-time job looking after him during the day. As their connection deepens, they realize how much they have in common. Both Sylvia and Saul feel like outcasts. Both two have issues with their families. Saul's brother, played by Josh Charles, treats him like a nuisance and a child. And while Sylvia is close to her younger sister, nicely played by Merritt Weaver, she's been estranged for years from their mother,

who refuses to believe her allegations of sexual abuse. The movie poignantly suggests that Sylvia and Saul are two very different people who by chance have come into each other's lives at just the right moment. At the same time, the story does come uncomfortably close to romanticizing dementia, as if Saul's air of friendly, unthreatening bafflement somehow made him the perfect boyfriend. But while I have some reservations about how the movie addresses trauma and illness, this is one case where Franco's restraint actually works. There's something admirably even-handed about how he observes these characters trying to navigate uncharted waters in real time.

Chastain and Sarsgaard are very moving here. It's touching to see how the battle-hardened Sylvia responds to Saul's gentle spirit, and how he warms to her patience and attention. This isn't the first time Franco has focused on the act of caregiving. More than once I was reminded of his 2015 drama, Chronic, which starred Tim Roth as a palliative care worker. I didn't love that movie either, but it had some of the same unsettling intimacy and emotional force as Memory. It's enough to make me want to revisit some of Franco's work with newly appreciative eyes. Justin Chang is the film critic for the LA Times. He reviewed the new film Memory.

Coming up, my yummy conversation with restaurateur Rose Previtt. She has a new cookbook called My Don, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. One of the first lessons restaurateur Rose Previtt learned early in life was what she calls the secret code, the ways her family used food to hold on to culture. Previtt grew up in a small town in Ohio, eating almost exclusively home-cooked Lebanese dishes that were passed down from her great-grandparents who immigrated to the U.S. But as she writes in her new cookbook, My Dawn, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond, it took a life-changing move to Russia for her to discover that following in her family's footsteps was her calling. In her new cookbook, which Bon Appetit recently named one of the best cookbooks of the year, Previtt shares some of her family's tried-and-true recipes, as well as recipes from home cooks throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Many of these recipes come from areas we often think of as conflict and war zones, like Lebanon, Georgia, and Ukraine. Prevett owns four D.C. area restaurants, Compass Rose, which serves street food from around the world, like Jamaican Curried Conch, Mexican Tacos, El Pastor, and Algerian Vegetable Tajin. The Kirby Club in Virginia, which specializes in kebabs. And the Michelin star-rated Maidan, which serves food from Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. She also runs the neighboring cocktail bar, Medina.

Rose Previtt, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. That was a kind introduction. Maidan is such a rich word because as we learned from you, it's a word that carries across regions and languages and it means the same thing. I find it a really powerful word. And, you know, ironically, it is an Arabic word that I learned in Kiev, Ukraine, which seems like not a place where you would hear a lot of Arabic. But as I was sightseeing while my husband was working back in like, I guess it was 2009, I just kept hearing everyone say, meet at the Maidan, meet at Maidan. And I came to find out it was sort of the slang or the colloquial local way of saying like the main square, which I believe is Freedom or Independence Square technically. but generically, it's called Maidan. And so I looked into it a little bit more and realized in Tbilisi, Georgia, in Tehran, Iran, in all of these countries, the word is used in the exact same way to mean this kind of central gathering place.

And I thought that was the power of what I wanted my restaurant spaces to be, you know, like where the food is very similar throughout a vast region, but it's actually all the same at the end of the day. In this cookbook, we not only learn recipes from home kitchens that span across the Middle East and Eastern Europe, we also learn your origin story, how you came to this idea of bringing home kitchen food from the world into a restaurant setting. So I think it's best to start there because your journey started with a three-year stint in Russia beginning around 2009. And your husband is journalist David Green, who folks may know as the former host of Morning Edition. At the time, he had gotten a job as a foreign correspondent in Russia. This was his dream job,

but this is not, it was not part of your life plan. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely. I don't know if any of my life plan went the way I expected after I met David. But most of that is a very good thing, actually. We were living in New York City just one year exactly when he came home and said that there was an opening in the Moscow Bureau. And nowhere in my whole life had I desired to live in Russia. Had you ever visited before? Oh, heck no. No. I had done study abroad in the south of Spain. I traveled Europe. And I had an amazing sense of adventure. And the travel bug had 100 percent bit me after that study abroad experience.

So I wanted the adventure. I wasn't quite 30 years old. We didn't have kids. So logically, I could justify the decision. Right. And, you know, I was also probably overly confident that study abroad had prepared me for Moscow because it didn't. I assure you nothing prepares you for that. And I also think I underestimated the difficulty of not knowing the language before we went. Nothing I anticipated. And probably that's why we went because had I realized how hard everything would be, I might not have agreed. You would have said no right away.

Yeah. The thing as well was that you had a career that you were headed towards in public policy. Oh, yeah. I was fresh out of grad school with the vigor of a young person who thinks they can go out and change the world now that they've studied the law and policy. And that's what I went to DC for in the first place was to change the world and fix things. And I felt policy school was going to be that way. And I had worked for just one year exactly with the New York City Council, was really enjoying it. I was a policy analyst. So yeah, it wasn't exactly in the cards to get on an airplane to Moscow exactly a year after moving there. So you all were stationed there in Moscow. You and David also, though, while you were living there, visited lots of other

places, I think more than 30 countries. And this is where most of your culinary discoveries happened. You write about how you and David would try to eat local foods wherever you went. Always. And David has a stomach of steel. I should also give credit to that. He can eat anything. That was the greatest part. We learned a lot in Russia, but the fact that we were able to travel was really powerful. It was to places we would never have been like, oh, let's go on vacation to Kazakhstan. No, like Americans rarely say that, right? But there we were, Kazakhstan, Belarus, parts of Central Asia, and then in the Middle East, which I didn't travel to as a child. So it was very cool to start going to Egypt and Turkey regularly. So it was all around, yeah, like a food-filled travel experience. When David wasn't working, we would explore together and often get lost together.

And this is, by the way, he has a black market iPhone. I don't. This is on just the cusp of iPhone. So we're still getting around with like maps and stuff. Oh, you've got like Thomas Guy type maps. We've got our Let's Go books. We've got all that because truly we don't have that access that we have now. So we were getting lost a lot.

But what would end up happening is almost always we would find some amazing place to eat and find directions. But then, you know, stay for something, some snack, and then get back on our way. Once we figured out we weren't forever lost and we were going to get home, you know. You all had something called the kebab test where you would have a kebab and it would tell you something about a place. We have this theory that, you know, almost all the countries we went to had a kebab culture of some sort and it was always tied to street food. And that's why Compass Rose's first menu was based on street food.

Yes, sorry, Compass Rose, which we opened in 2014 after getting back to the U.S. But it was a menu of street foods from around the world because that was David and I's favorite thing. And that tended to be where our greatest memory was held was, again, in some street stall, rarely a food truck. Let me tell you, the places we go, food trucks are really a privilege and luxury. Like most of the time you're just talking a grill or a fire on the side of the road. Like a stand. Just a stand. Yeah, There's nothing fancy about it like we have here. So I'm talking just grills, fire. Sometimes a whole goat is just hanging and they're cutting off slices of goat and throwing it on the fire. Sometimes it's camel. We did that in Oman. But we ate all of it

and we couldn't have been happier. And then always had like some memory, like getting lost or finding someone amazing to talk to. And it always came back to the food. But the kebabs, like some memory, like getting lost or finding someone amazing to talk to. And it always came back to the food. But the kebabs, like to me, they carry like the flavors of whatever country you're in. So often it's whatever spices, like when we were in Oman, it was tamarind. Tamarind rubbed in marinated shrimp. And tamarind was a flavor that, for example, in Lebanese cooking, we don't use that often. So it was just a profile that I will always associate with that trip, with that experience, with the guy who was grilling the shrimp, who we begged for the recipe, who was really confused why we would want it. Oh, really? When you asked, he thought, well... Yeah, I'm just, you know, there isn't like some

big food culture or restaurant culture in a lot of these places. So for me to say, I'm dreaming of opening a restaurant one day, I'd really love to know how you made this. It takes a minute. And then usually there's an element of, you know, kind of surprise and then flattery. That's like, oh, okay, you like it so much, you would bring it back to America and put it in a restaurant. And, you know, we had that experience over and over again. But I feel like, yeah, the kebab tends to be a real, you know, example of what you're going to find when you dig deeper into the food culture of that country. Well, what's interesting about your restaurants and this cookbook is that you all traveled all around the world, but your eyes are kind of set on Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and specifically places where we consider them conflict zones, where anytime those areas are

brought up, it's in the context of something that has happened there. But you're drawn to those areas. Definitely. And I think my sense of adventure is great. So that overcomes fear often. And David, as a travel companion who's gone into war zones for his entire career, is not afraid of anything, you know. So we were definitely not afraid to travel to parts of this region, like, you know, generally called the Middle East. A lot of us are trying to get away from that terminology, but for purposes of the cookbook, it was definitely easier to use that to describe the region. But I like to say we traveled from, you know, Tangier to Tehran

and from Batumi to Beirut. So if you think of that region of the world, that's where we concentrated a lot of our travels from while we're in Russia. And since we've been back in the States, I go repeatedly back to Lebanon and to Turkey. I'm dying to go back to Oman, but I haven't been there recently. And then the Republic of Georgia, which a lot of times is not associated right with the Middle Eastern food, but it is the crossroads of everything. And you'll hear me talk about it and you'll hear it in the book over and over again. It's in the cookbook, yes but it is the crossroads of everything. And you'll hear me talk about it and you'll hear it in the book over and over again. It's in the cookbook,

yes. I'm sorry, I'm obsessed. You have a love affair with Georgia. And not a drop of Georgian blood. I mean, you know, 23andMe will confirm. What is it about the people and the places and the food? It is such a beautiful place physically, but the people, the hospitality, the food and the wine are like nothing I've experienced. And now we've been to over 60 countries. And Georgia reminded me so much of Lebanon or Lebanese culture where it's like, our love language is food. We are going to invite strangers to our table. We're not afraid of you. We want, regardless of the fact that you don't know who we are, because like you said, of conflict, if it was part of the Soviet Union for so long, that so many Americans just clump it with Russia, and it couldn't be more

different. There was this important trip that happened near the end of your stint. You and David traveled the full route of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which, let me get this right, it spans 6,000 miles. Yes. I bet a lot of contemplation about life and purpose happened with you on that train trip. I was really antsy to go back to work at this point. And then David says, my finale story is going to be this train from Moscow to Vladivostok. And it's the length of the largest country in the world. And we're going to take the regular old train. You've got to describe this train.

But anyway. Surprisingly, I think everyone sees the vision of the train as cold. What's funny is it's below freezing every single day. Not one day did it ever get above freezing that we're in Siberia in December in 2011. So what are you wearing on the train? You're full. Well, by this point, I figured out what kind of winter coat. So yeah, we're all bundled up.

But the train itself is actually very hot because it's fueled by coal. It's very warm. There's a samovar full of water at the end of every train car. So the one gift the train gives you is constant hot water. So we're eating, you know, ramen noodles and stuff like that because the train car that has the dining car that has this huge menu actually turns out to have none of the food that's on the menu. And it ended up being a joke with us because we, you know, after days, we're talking like you go 60 hours without getting off the train, right? And the only thing you have to look forward to is the meal car. So we'd go down regardless of what train we

were on because we would get off. We took three weeks to take this trip. You can do it in four days if you don't get off at all. But we're getting off in villages. We took three weeks to do it. So we were on different trains. But the one thing that every train had in common as a food person, you can understand my utter dismay, was a completely wretched food car. And there'd be this elaborate menu as thick as the Bible. And you couldn't get anything on it. What you get borscht and you have to describe what that is i mean the only thing they had was borscht and we still laugh about it because we're like chicken kia stuffed cabbage we point to all these beautiful things and they say nia nia nia just no no no in russian over and

over and over and then finally they'd say borscht which is a beet based vegetable soup you can. You can add meat if you want, but oftentimes on the train there was no meat. It was just vegetables and, you know, beets basically, so this red broth. And while good at first, it gets real, real old. Like I couldn't eat beets when we got back to the States for a couple years. Like it was memory of these long journeys and the just complete disappointment of thinking that you were going to get a nice hot meal and all you would have was borscht. So that was the state of the train. Lots of tea, lots of ramen noodles. You would get off for a minute maybe at a stop and you could buy like sausages or these stuffed baked goods.

They were stuffed with potatoes or cabbage or whatnot, you know, on the side of the train tracks or something when we could jump off for a few minutes. But it really wasn't enjoyable because it was freezing wherever you were. So to get off, it was like a shock of cold and then you get back on the hot train. Food is political. What we choose to eat, who has access to it. I mean, it's a story shaped by economics and geography and immigration. These are all things you're thinking about. All of the time. And I think, you know, the moment it all collided was in my realization living in Russia that I couldn't actually get Georgian wine at the time. It was embargoed.

At the time, Russia was punishing Georgia for a skirmish that they had had a few years before we got there. So all the expats are like, you got to have the Georgian wine. It's the cheapest, highest quality wine you'll ever have. But oh, sorry, you can't actually get it here right now. And once I dug into like the politics of it, I'm like, this is crazy. But then I thought for the first time after policy school, oh my God, wine is geopolitical. This is all my world's crashing together. You're punishing this country because the only people buying Georgian wine back then were Russia and it oh my God, wine is geopolitical. This is all my world crashing together. You're punishing this

country because the only people buying Georgian wine back then were Russia, and it really affected the economy. The bright side is it caused Georgia to have to start selling to other countries, which is now why we can get it so easily and a lot of people in Europe can get it so easily. But that was a shift out of necessity because the wine industry was decimated once Russia did that. But then I said to myself, that's where the policy person came in and thought, well, when I open this restaurant, I'm going to sell as much Georgian wine as seemingly possible. It's my Putin protest. And, you know, I have to say I was very proud. Compass Rose for the first few years did sell more Georgian wine than any other restaurant in America.

But then as we traveled, I realized Georgia is not the only place. They have this 8,000 years of winemaking that nobody knows about. Because in the US and the Western markets, we're always like France and Spain and Italy. That's it. There's like three European countries. That's it. And it's like, wait a second, Lebanon, my ancestral homeland, full of amazing wine that is very hard to access in the United States. And so I realized this is a political problem. Because why don't we? Because of geography, because of politics, because of socioeconomic reasons, because of war. That's the only reason we don't know about Georgian wine or Lebanese wine. And so yes, I've made it partially my mission to combine my food and policy background in this way. There's so much conflict happening in these regions at this very moment. I'm thinking about the origin of Maidan for you came from a visit to Ukraine and you hearing that term.

How do you reconcile all of that as you're trying to provide joy, a space where people are consuming food that comes from these places, while also holding space for people who are really dealing with terrible things? No, from day one of opening Maidan, my hope was to welcome people into the space the way people had in the countries that we visited. So our opening team went to Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, the Republic of Georgia, and Turkey. Those were the five countries where we did a research trip. A lot of countries you do associate with conflict. And we had the absolute opposite experience, right?

We could not have felt safer. We could not have felt more welcomed. And so Maidan's intention from day one was to extend that hospitality and, again, inform people that the places that they only associate with things like the Arab Spring or communism actually have people just like us, trying to be just like us, which is safe, and care for their families and feed their families. And, you know, food to me has always been that equalizer, the thing we all need. And what we hope with the cookbook and what the restaurants are always, you know, trying to do, even in the hardest of times, like we're in right now, is to continue that message of like, again, back to the obligation that I have to keep telling people, you know, about these beautiful places I was fortunate enough to see and to try to make them seem more approachable through the food. Rose Previtt, thank you so much for this conversation and this cookbook.

No, I appreciate you letting me have it. Thank you for listening. Rose Previtt's new cookbook is called My Dawn, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. For Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.