Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - How A Crush On A Cute Guy Kickstarted Nancy Silvertons Culinary Empire

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

In this special episode, we join James Beard Award-winning chef, baker and author Nancy Silverton in her new beautiful restaurant, Osteria Mozza, in Washington DC. Nancy takes us back to her childhood kitchen in Southern California where her mama refused to take shortcuts -- swearing off "convenience cooking" and microwave meals. She reveals that her cooking journey started after a crush she had in college and talks about how she re-learns to love cooking every year in her kitchen in Italy. Plus, we learn how to make her mama's Brisket al Fomo.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So I immediately had to plate the dessert, spoon that hot fruit over the, over the brioche tart, cut a piece, sticking in her mouth, you know, and then tears started coming down, right? And initially I thought, oh, no, I have burnt Julia Childs because that fruit was hot. And then when she said, this is a dessert to cry over her. I knew that I hadn't burnt her. But what I did know at that time, and it brought to words everything I realized. A cook has been successful.

When someone eats something and they say, whatever it is, oh, this tastes like my grandmothers. Hello, hello. Welcome back to your mama's kitchen. This is the place where we explore how we were shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. And not just the food, all the stuff that happened there, the laughter and the loud talk, the conversations about grace or grievance or getting ahead in life.

I'm Michelle Norris. I am so glad that you're here with us as I get to go on a little bit of a field trip because today we're joined by James Beard Award-winning chef, baker, author, and restaurateur Nancy Silverton. Nancy is an icon for food fans in Los Angeles for opening her first restaurant, Campanile, and her first bakery, Labrea Bakery, within months of each other, which is kind of insane. She did that in 1989. Since then, Nancy's opened up several more acclaimed restaurants, including Michelin-Star Restaurant,

Osteria Mosa, and Mata, D.C., which has just opened just a quick jot from my house here in Washington, D.C., lucky for me. If you haven't tried the food at her restaurants, worry, you can cook from one of her 11 cookbooks at home. And for those who are listening and can't see us here, I want you to know that Nancy is not just known for her amazing food, but also for her incredible sense of style. Thank you so much for being with us. A pleasure to be here, including I love listening to most of the time the inaccurate appellate and so. Oh, no, no, no. Just take it. Just absorb.

of all of it. No, you're a professional. You got them all down. Yeah. The years are right. Okay, good. I'm glad we were accurate. We had to leave some stuff out because I could have spent 20 minutes just kicking through everything that you got it right. There's there's a lot there. Now, you know how the show works. We talk about the kitchen that you grew up in and how it has influenced you. You grew up in Sherman Oaks, California and Encino. Yep. So when I was 10, I moved to Encino, both the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, the suburb of Los Angeles. at a time when those areas were booming, a lot of houses being built, kitchens were becoming sort of a thing then with a little bit more design and style kitchen islands. But also it was the era of, well, quick and convenient ways of getting food on the table using some package things like hamburger helper and rice errone. Yes.

And many things that whoever was in charge of the kitchen, which is usually the woman, would be able to make food quicker, right? But in a sort of less tasteful, nutritional way. And that was the antithesis of how I grew up. However, I resented that my mother didn't buy those packaged goods. Oh, you want an hamburger helper? I wanted him for help. You wanted Tater Tats. You got it.

I wanted it all. And she refused. Good for her. Good for you. Good for me. Eventually, yes. You know, all of a sudden one day I realized she was spot on, right? But not growing up.

Growing up, I was, even though being at the table, and I'm sure we'll talk about, that was a very important part of my daily regime, what I was eating. was not always. You wanted what the other kids had. Do me a favor. Take me inside the kitchen. Choose which one, either Sherman Oaks or Encin, describe it for me if I walked through the front door of your house, made my way back into the kitchen.

Close your eyes and tell me what it would look like. What would I see? What would I smell? I don't remember the kitchen in Sherman Oaks as well as I remember the kitchen in Enino. Both kitchens had the same dining room table where we ate at, or it was right off the kitchen, the dining room table that I still have in my house today, which is really a wonderful tree. You have your child at the dining on the table. That's great. And it's so fashionable. It's mid-century, you know, it's great. But I love the fact that the kitchen was part of

where we ate, meaning that we had an open kitchen. So I know that that was really important to my mom. idea of standing at the stove, stirring something in the pot, right, and looking at us at the table and then joining us. It's just a memory that I always, that I have, right? That's the beautiful thing about an open kitchen. Yeah. That sometimes can get a little loud, but you can cook in a way that you're part of your family. You're not separated from your family in a space where they're off doing something else. Cooking becomes a communal exercise. Right. And especially if the person that's cooking is enjoying the process. So I didn't realize it then, but I definitely realize it now that for my mother, it wasn't a chore or it wasn't something that she was expected to do. That was what she

wanted to do. My mother was a writer. So first short stories and then eventually it turned into writing for television, right? But I just know every day around three-ish, four-ish, she stepped away from her selectric typewriter, right? Oh my God, when you said that I could just hear it. I could hear that return on the selectric. And how much she loved that selective typewriter. Three o'clock, four o'clock, she would step away, and that's when she would start to prepare dinner. So, first of all, the routine that she stuck to it. Yep. That she wasn't skidding into the kitchen at five trying to put something together.

Because if you're eating, I read that you ate every night at 6.30. Every night at 6.30, at the table, my father would always be home by that time. my sister and I had our places at the table, my dad, my mom, and every night, that's what we did is we sat down as a family where we talked. What kind of cook was your mother? Was she an adventurous cook? Did she have a few staples that she returned to time and time again? Did she allow you to travel through her cuisine? That's a great question because she was an adventurous. as cook. Now, you know, back in the 60s, you know, I was born in 54, but, you know, I don't remember

those first few years, but so I say that growing up in the 60s eating, it was, there weren't a million, you know, cookbooks out there like there are today. There was, you know, but the ones that she would collect were tiny little ones that sort of involved non-American cooking. So she was not an American cook in this sense of she never made fried chicken. Meatloaf, not her thing. I don't remember meatloaf. I remember her playing around with beef borgon, and I remember her playing around with a lot of Greek food. My parents are always very interested in sort of the smaller restaurants, flavors that were

kind of more not as common as they are, you know, that people that I was growing up with who were eating spaghetti and meatballs and they were eating fried chicken and they were eating meatloaf. And that wasn't what my mom was cooking. So she would go to a local restaurant. She'd have grape leaves, Spanacopat, something like that. You got it. Like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to reverse engineer this and I'm going to figure out to put it on my table.

Right. And I would say all the time, why can't. You can't you cook like a normal mom? And I remember that. And her answer would be? I'm not a normal mom, probably. Because they weren't, you know, they weren't kooky. They had some kooky friends out there.

But they just weren't mainstream, you know. They weren't mainstream people in their taste, with their politics, with just even in the way that they raised me. You know, my father was a very involved. parent. Most of my kids growing, you know, most of my friends growing up, their fathers were like absentee fathers, you know. They watched sports on weekends, you know, and my father would take us horseback riding and hiking and, you know, they were just... That's really wonderful. What a gift to you. Yeah, what a gift. You know, I'm thinking about the time frame. It's interesting that your mother chose to cook, that she chose to cook carefully, that she chose to cook spending two, two, three

hours, prepping a meal because the messaging that a lot of women were getting at that time from the food industry was, we're going to free you from the drudgery of cooking. We're going to allow these working women to give it all to their work and give something resembling healthy food to their kids because it came in a box or it came from the frozen food section. And it sounds like she wasn't buying that. Was she influenced by Julia Child? You know, it's funny. When you mentioned beef organ, you know, that's why I wondered.

Well, you know, that was when I was older. You know, so it wasn't when I was 10, but more when I was, I don't know, when was, when did Julia Child's mastering the art of French cooking come out? I don't know, but I remember my mom and I have my mom's copy on my shelf. You do? Yeah. And I do. And I remember when my mom mastered the roast chicken.

And she loved to talk about how many pages long the recipe was, how many times you had to turn the chicken, how many times you had to change the temperature. But she felt accomplished. You know, she really felt like she had accomplished a big, a big thing. Yeah. We have done, you know, 70 episodes of the show and 70 plus, I think, now. And it is amazing the influence that Julia Child had on an entire generation of women in the kitchen. And that it wasn't, there's something about her.

There's probably a whole dissertation to do on Julia Child and how accessible she was. Yeah. you know, it was not necessarily easy what she was doing, but she made it accessible and inviting. And fun, and that's the thing. It didn't seem like for her either a chore or it was tedious. And she also didn't hide behind her mistakes. She made them, she dropped them, and she just went on, you know. But for me, I think the idea that she enjoyed what she was doing. And, you know, I talk about that now when you walk into kitchens where you see unhappy cooks and then you eat the food and you know that unhappy cooks make unhappy food. You know, that comes up again and again

in our show also. Yep. You taste the emotion of the cook. You do. So I'm going to go back to the childhood kitchen in a moment, but since we're here in your restaurant and you believe that to be true, what do you do to make sure that your cooks are happy at a space like this? How do you create a happy kitchen? Well, for being, you know, having a restaurant in Washington where, I mean, I was here a week and a half ago for one day. And I hadn't been here since before the summer, a few months, you know. And obviously, I'm not here on a daily basis to check in. I try when I'm here to make sure that they know that I'm always thinking, about them, which I am. But, you know, that kind of leadership starts from the top. So it's very important for me to really have a strong relationship with the chef and make sure that that chef

is still, still has her heart in it, his heart in it, right? I mean, it's important because once that stops, once that is dialed in, the kitchen, the place falls apart. You know, we're in a moment culturally where there are so many shows that take us behind the scenes in restaurants right now in a show like The Bear or Black Rabbit that was just on Netflix. And they do a good job of showing the kitchen as a pressure cooker. Right. You know, where they're just all kinds of tension that they're navigating. But it sounds like throughout all that,

the kitchen does need to be a space where people are still finding joy. Joy. The food is an expression of joy in some way. Absolutely. No matter what kind of kitchen, look at some of the kitchens like, let's say the bear, for instance,

because I think most people are familiar with that show. So, you know, these nightmares that the chef is having all go back to a time in his life where he worked in kitchens, right, where the tension was so high, and the food that they were making was, you know, food that was so technically driven, you know, that it just took so much out of you.

Well, there's those kinds of kitchens, and there's kitchens that the food is a lot, let's say, simpler to make where the motions are not quite as high. Both can work is what's so important. and so necessary. And I think people are realizing that. And I see a lot of people that I've heard had a reputation several years ago about leading a very difficult kitchen and how they're working on their own personalities and making those changes. So I think it's a wonderful time to be in the restaurant business because I think kitchens are becoming easier places.

to work. And giving people a little more agency over how they cook and how they present having uniformity but improviseation also. Because I never, you know, people when I first started cooking, I remember the first

sort of attention I got from journalists was when I became, when I opened Spago in 1982 with Wolfgang Puck and nobody knew what that restaurant was going to be But very quickly, it was on everybody's radar.

And I was in a reservation. It was the place to go if you were in Los Angeles. Yep. And I was inundated with interviews with journalists. And I remember most of them, the first question was, what does it mean to be a woman in the kitchen? And I didn't know what they were talking about. I didn't realize that, because I was from California,

and all of my heroes happened to be female chefs. I didn't realize that that could be an issue. And I didn't know how to answer it. Like a woman in the kitchen, what does that mean? Because I grew up with very strong women in my own family. And so I didn't have any of these nightmare stories that you talk about, or we see on shows like The Bear or in movies where it was very, you know, women really struggled or women felt very, you know,

I'd take an advantage of abused, mistreated, all that. I really had. Didn't have access to capital, you know, to open restaurants? Yep. So I was very lucky. I want to talk about your entry into the food space and how you were influenced. How does the kitchen that you grew up in influence the chef and the businesswoman that you are today, watching your mother and father, you know, navigate their own kitchen.

How did that impact the person that you are today? I think the way it impacted me was that I knew that I could become anything I wanted to become. And that was key because when I chose to cook, and that's really all I chose to do was cook, I didn't choose to, I didn't choose to be a cookbook author or an owner of multi-unit restaurants or a television personality. None of that. In my day, it was just to cook, right? You decided you were heading in another direction and you, as Michelle Obama would say, swerved. Yes. And decided to do something else. Yeah. And that came from knowing how happy or how fulfilled or how important it is.

to find that thing in life that makes you happy. And both my parents loved what they did, and both my parents would share what their day was like at the table every night, and never once did either of them ever complain about what a miserable day they had. And that, just as my friends' parents were cooking crazy food that I wanted,

but one thing I didn't want is something I heard all the time was how unhappy their day was and how wonderful it was to come home, take off their shoes, make themselves a martini, and turn on the TV because they had a miserable day. And I knew from very, very young that I would never work in anything that I was, did not give me pleasure, that that had to be synonymous, life and work, that there was no separation. You didn't want a job that would beat you down to the point that you needed a drink to take the steam off. No, not at all, you know. And I feel lucky that I never once did anything that forced me to have that drink and turn on the television.

What was the, was there a meal or a moment that was like an epiphany for you? Like something you ate, something you saw, something you cooked, something you experienced that made you think this is what I want to do. I want to spend my life making food, making joy for people, creating meals. Yes. And that was when, you know, growing up, there was absolutely no interest in the world of food, as I think I've made it pretty clear that. Even though your mom was, we should say, I did read about you. Your mom was making Spanicaa pita and Colorado chili.

Yeah. And she had this like Caesar salad, but, you know, like a ritual with anchovies and eggs and everything. thing. So she was really an adventurous cook, but you weren't interested. But I was an interest in that. I wanted young to be like everybody else eat what everybody else was eating. And again, a TV dinner was a treat. Why do you have to work so hard it makes something where. So Johnson's already been for you. No, but my epiphany was not, was in college when I started cooking in my college dorm, first semester. freshman, not anything to do with food, not anything to do with needing to get some supplemental income to help me pay for school, neither one of those. But more, why else do you go to college? Besides an education, just to meet a cute boy, right? I mean, you know, good boy. So where were you,

and what were you cooking on? I was at Snow. No, in the dormitory kitchen. So it was a brand new kitchen, brand new dormitory at Sonoma State College in Northern California. And he was the vegetarian cook. He was a student, and he was there to supplement his education. He was the vegetarian cook. I became a vegetarian the day I walked up to him and said, I'd love to cook in the kitchen. Well, I became a vegetarian that day and also a food enthusiast that day.

He must have been really cute. And he was really cute. And he still is really cute because I still see him, by the way. He's a winemaker now. Walked up to him and said, you know, I'd really love to cook in the kitchen. I'd love to cook. And can I cook in the kitchen, right? And he hired me because he needed a team.

I bought a cookbook. It was called Cooking Creatively with Natural Foods. I had never even cooked at a cookbook. I didn't. And that was when, by the way, the high. height of bad vegetarian food. So everything was heavy and brown. Yeah. Yeah. Lentil. Lots of, you know, a lot of lentils, a lot of. Sightan and, yeah. Wow, I'm so impressed. Sightan. Yeah. That's, you know, that's like flower and water. Yeah. It's paper mache. It's paper mache made into something that

looked like a tri-tip or something. But I do remember bringing out a casserole and it was vegetables, right, with a ton of cheese melted all over and sesame seeds, right? And setting them on the buffet, the vegetarian buffet, and people coming up to me and telling me how much they loved my vegetable dish. And the feeling of, I don't know, was it recognition? Was it whatever that feeling of feeding somebody or feeding people that loved what you made, what it did, you know. It really just resonated.

It sends a glow through you. It does. That sense of radical hospitality really does something to you. I believe in that. And that's where I got the bug. It was then with vegetables with too much cheese and sesame seeds. Actually, that sounds pretty good. I think I could make it better today. Yeah.

So then you kept going. And you eventually called home and you said to your parents, I think this is what I want to do. How did that conversation go? Yep. And it could have gone so. South. Today, you call your parents and you say, I don't want to be a doctor. I want to be a chef. And then like, yay, because they've seen people like Nancy Solerton.

Great. But look at there, there was no role models. There was, yes, Julia Childs was on television and the galloping gourmet. But chefs weren't what they are today. Let's face it. But I think it was, again, that my parents knew. It didn't matter what you do. You got to love what you're doing. And they didn't disown me. And, you know, this was my senior year. It's so easy for a parent to say, you've got one more semester. Just finish.

Get a degree. But my feeling was, there's nothing I'll do with a, degree, why waste? What were you studying? I was at that time, I had gone in as political science. I ended up in liberal studies. There was nothing I would have really, I don't know, what I would have done with that degree. And the idea of just sticking out for the sake of sticking out was just not something

I was interested in. But it was my father that said, just do me a favor. Enroll in the Cordombleau, which I had no idea what the cordomble was, you know? And that's what I did. There was a year plus waiting list to the one in London. At that time, there was a school in London and a school in Paris. And I didn't speak French, so London seemed like the place to go. And I waited that year and a half cooking while I waited and went to school.

Did that, I assume because of what you've now chosen to do, deepened your interests. but some people go to cooking school and it actually, they think they want to be a cook and they decide that the rigidity is just not for them. You found comfort in that. I felt comfort in all of it except for the desserts. And yet you became a baker.

And I became, isn't that? And the reason why is exactly for what you said is the rigidity. So in the dessert part of the cooking experience, that's where the rigidity was pounded into us. You cannot deviate from the scientific restrictions of baking. And I thought, wow, how limiting, you know. No room for creativity. That's not for me.

And yet, that's the part of the kitchen I'm the most comfortable in. Did you become a baker because I'm going to show them, I'm going to introduce some improvisation into this genre of cooking. I became, I started with pastries right before bread, first of all. And pastries because that was the only opening in the kitchen of the restaurant that I wanted to work at. You know, my mentor there was Jonathan Waxman, probably one of the most talented, genuine, chefs that still working every single day, right, in New York. And I was lucky enough that he was the chef of the restaurant

that was sort of the hottest restaurant in Los Angeles when I came back from Europe. And that was the kitchen I wanted to work at. And that was the only opening. So I thought, well, okay, look it, gets me in the door, you know. And then I'll quickly or as quickly as possible transition over to the savory. side. And I just never left that world or I didn't leave that world for quite a few years. The setting for this episode is special. Nancy Silberton's acclaimed restaurant, Astoria Moza.

This is a beautiful space. It just opened recently. I am so excited because it's a quick drive from my house. It's not just a restaurant. There's also a market up front where you can get olive oil, vinegar, spreads, jams, all the good things to create the space of most in your own kitchen. I love talking to Nancy and hearing about the summers that she spent in Italy cooking by herself in the kitchen. I love how she described the kitchen that she created where it's full of all the things that she needs, but it's also a simple space. It's about function and it's about creating a space for hospitality. One of the things that I love most about traveling is discovering new cultures through food. When I travel, I'm often staying at an Airbnb,

and I love to cook in a kitchen, but I also like to venture out in the world. And when I do, sometimes wonder, it'd be great to learn more about this restaurant, to actually get in the kitchen and figure out how to learn these recipes so I could bring it back to home. When I travel, I'm always looking for special experiences that bring together food, culture, and connection. Moza has done just that with their Airbnb experience in Los Angeles, where guests from around the world step into the kitchen to learn the art of Italian cooking and the philosophy on the culture. It's more than a class. It's an immersive culinary journey that showcases how food connects people across cultures and traditions. Just like the stories on

your mama's kitchen, the Airbnb matzah experience reminds us that the kitchen is where legacies are built. Flavors become memories and strangers become family. Discover more experiences on Airbnb and create your own unforgettable kitchen story. What is the secret to, if there is like one or two or three things that really are the secret to your success, because you have had phenomenal success across a number of restaurants that are all very different. I mean, Campanile just took off immediately. Part of it was probably the food.

Part of it was a beautiful building that it was in. LaBrea Bakery had lines, you know, out the door. What is it that people find? in your special sauce for business that makes them come back again and again again. You know, I think that if you were to rephrase that question and say, like, what do you think, well, you kind of said, like, kind of like what the key to your success, or what would you feel like what you have that's kind of special that makes it all work? And I think that something that I had not recognized at the time, but have recognized.

looking back or with reflection is that I think I figured out what people want to eat and then gave it to them. So whether it's a certain type of dessert, let's say desserts that had a lot of different elements that I would bring in, whether it's temperature contrast or I should say desserts with contrast. So whether it's textural, temperature, flavor, I was able to weave those into the desserts that I made. And that really is what put me on the map in the first place. But then after that, realizing that people want to eat bread and good bread, realizing that what people really only want to eat is a delicious,

toasted, buttery grilled cheese sandwich. And I gave him that. And then there was pizza. So I think that I wasn't trying to. trying to figure out what is my next trendy thing I could do to make my place trendy, which always means short-lived. So that's who wants to be trendy, right? You just want to be sustainable, right?

But just the ability to figure out what it is people really want to eat. And I don't think people really want to sit down at a table for four or more hours with tiny little courses. and bowing to the chef between each course. I think really what people want to do is to be with people that they want to be at a table, eating food that is helping them to promote great conversation and great love and great community. I mean, I think that's what people want in dining.

And every once in a while, they want a four-hour meal. where they want to be impressed, right? Is the goal also to give people to introduce them to new things, but also have something that is very relatable to them, like something that would taste like this would be served at someone's kitchen table if you weren't at a restaurant? Not only kitchen's table, someone's kitchen table, absolutely, but also that can bring them back somewhere that it's either a memory

or something that's comforting to them. You know, people love to talk about and bringing us back to Julia's Childs. You know, there was that famous episode of the baking show that I did with her that after eating the dessert, she started to cry, right? And people always say, like, what was that like?

And I said, well, I think what I did is I did what chefs or cooks are supposed to do. Is they're supposed to make people or help people remember parts of their lives that were joyful. Can you talk about that moment because it really is iconic? I mean, you know, many people have made her swoon. Few have made her cry. And, you know, that the act of her crying, you know, was just that I know that, I know that,

at first I thought I burned her. Let's put it this way. So when cooking on her show, which was a show that could be edited and parts were edited, but for the most part, she liked to have her show be in real time. The instructions that she always gave

the people that she cooked with was when there's three minutes left in the show, I'll give you a hit on the hip and that means stop what you're doing, cut what you have, stick it in my mouth, and I'll taste it, right? And so I was making a dessert for her that involves sauteing stone fruit in a very hot syrup. And that's when I got that whack on the hip. So I immediately had to plate the dessert, spoon that hot fruit over the brioche tart, cut a piece,

sticking in her mouth, you know, and then tears started coming down, right? And initially, I thought, oh, no, I have burnt Julia Childs because that fruit was hot. And then when she said, this is a dessert to cry over, I knew that I hadn't burnt her. But what I did know at that time, and it brought to words everything I realized. a successful cook has been, has a cook has been successful. When someone eats something and they say, whatever it is, oh, this tastes like my grandmothers.

Or I remember in, you know, 20 years ago, I was here and I was with and I ate something, you know, and that's what food is supposed to be. Food is supposed to bring back, it's supposed to be good enough. Yeah. Yes, yes, that it takes you back in time. That takes you back in time.

And that's what it did with her. She was probably somewhere in France with her beloved husband Paul, who was no longer alive at that time. And they were somewhere, and she had something that tastes like that. It wasn't that the dessert was so delicious. It was that the memory was so special. And it's interesting that you create food. I'm having a little chill here as I think about this,

that you create food that people, years on, will say, when I ate at Austria. Monza. This reminds me of that dish I had at Campanile. This reminds me of this bread, this olive bread that is, I've been searching for this taste and I've never found it, and this is the first time I've had it. And, you know, you will never know about that because it'll happen years hence, but that's what you try to do.

That's just, yeah. I love, you mentioned grilled cheese, hot, watery, gooey, grilled grilled grilled grilled cheese sandwich. I love that you leaned so heavily into grilled cheese. You had grilled cheese Thursdays. Yes, at Campanile. On the menu. What is the secret to a good grilled cheese sandwich?

Well, I think simplicity. So, you know, I think that what happens sometimes with the best things, it's hard for cooks to leave them. Oh, they do too much. They do too much. They add too much. You know, for me, the success of a great grilled cheese sandwich is, first of all, great bread, you've got to have great bread.

It's got to be buttery. You've got to have the right cheese. Do you put slathered butter on the bread or on the pan? On the bread. It has to have cheese with the right meltability. I really like the guerr-air types of cheese because they just, I love that stretch. But I like it just cheese. I like some onion in there sometime.

But not that. It doesn't have to have caviar or foie gras or, you know, short ribs. It can. But to me, a simple grilled cheese sandwich sandwich. nothing beats it. Do you have thoughts on people who put mayonnaise instead of butter on the bread? You know what? And I have. And it was certain breads and certain styles. It does work. My son introduced that to me. And it was actually with a kind of hard, crusty bread. It works

really well. It does. It gives it a crisper. And it also adds a little color to the toastiness of the bread. Your son was right. Yes, he was. He's, he actually, I'm learning from my kids. who love to cook now. And that's one of the benefits of cooking also, is that your mother was doing this planting seeds in you, right? You were watching her. Did you ever work with her in the kitchen? Were you a sous chef? You didn't chop for a braise or anything like that? No, and it wasn't like, it wasn't like, this is my kitchen, me speaking as my mother, this is my kitchen, this is my domain, I don't want anybody in here, right? It wasn't anything like that, but for some reason, there was never come on in and help me,

And I didn't have the desire to help. So I'm not sure because I know a lot of people that really have stories of cooking side by side with their mothers or baking with their grandmothers. And that is a memory I don't have. So you were in the kitchen doing homework or something, but not actually cooking with her. So this was also at a period where we were starting to talk about ecology. Now we talk about climate change. Right. But back then we were talking about ecology.

And remember there were those little bumper stickers. that people had with the green e that they would put, you know, on the back of their car. And we were worried because of the oil crisis. And the through line here is you now have a green star. Right. Which you must be very proud of because there are a few restaurants that do. And for Osteria-Mozza, you have the green star for sustainability. Are there misconceptions around sustainability?

Is it actually easier for people to do if you bake it in to use a mess? metaphor, if you bake it into your concept from the start. Exactly. Now, we haven't gone to the extreme. There's a very well-known chef in the south of France who has eliminated all plastic from his restaurant, including his purveyors, are not allowed to deliver anything. In plastic. In plastic. That eliminates a whole lot of stuff. Oh, yeah. And I'm just thinking of all the plastic, What do they call? The delis? The delis, yes.

You know, that there's just, they're everywhere in a kitchen. Exactly. Yeah, none of that. And no plastic wrap, nothing. Now, that's really a committed person. But if you build in to your daily routine, then it's easy to follow. But it's funny growing up, my mother was already on that. and I hated her for it.

So for instance... I wondered if there was a through line. Oh, yeah. One thing I couldn't stand about... Well, there were many things. Look, I don't know how you felt growing up, but there's a lot of things that kids are resentful or wish their parents were a little bit different.

So my mother never... I shouldn't say she never allowed us things like potato chips and things like that. But when she did, that wasn't something that We got every day. That was really a treat. But she would never buy the individual bags of, like, say, potato chips. Oh, the little mini bags of free-dos. Because wasteful, you know, wasteful all the packaging.

Only if she ever bought it, it was the giant one. Also economical. Economic. Economic, but that wasn't the reason. It was wasteful. She recycled bags, grocery bags from the supermarket. So I didn't get all the beautiful little sandwich. I mean, lunch bags that all my friends got.

I got the giant supermarket bag rolled, you know, rolled over a million times. Nothing was wrapped in plastic. She felt wax paper was the way to go, hated it. I used to say, but cling wrap, you know. Like your sandwich would be wrapped in wax paper? Yeah, wax paper. Never the crust cut out the way I wanted. My fruit was not peeled.

Carrots were not peeled because of, the healthy part was in the skin, those kinds of things, which, yes, I've adopted. But growing up, it was sometimes humiliating. Your mother, her name was Doris. Her name was Doris. Let's sing a praise song for her because she was pouring into you a practice that you now have built into your own life. Exactly.

And those are the kinds of things that I would love if she was still alive. that I could say thank you, or you knew what you were doing? Nowadays, you are so busy. You spend a lot of your time in Italy. Every summer you live there for how many weeks? This summer, seven weeks. Oh, now that's living a very good life. That's really living a good life.

And you run a number of restaurants, which means that you're at least in the kitchen. In the United States. But in Italy, I could. cook so much. I make up for my years of not being able to be behind the stove during

my time in United States. So what is that period in Italy like for you? Well, part of it is, I love that. That is what I love being in the kitchen for the most part by myself

cooking what I want to cook at the speed I want to cook it at, and then inviting people over. But something else I do in my time in Italy, though. So there are the moments that I am by myself. And I just, I love it. I love it. I turn on classical music and I'm doing exactly what I've come on this earth to do, right?

But I've also, the last handful of years, have sold through auctions for many, many charitable causes, dinner at my house in Italy for 12 people. And this summer, I did five of those and raised $500,000. They each went for $100,000. Three of them to childhood cancer research. One of them to actually an event we did last night here at the restaurant, which is no kid hungry. Yes, yes. We love that organization. That's a wonderful organization that. besides many things that it does and many tools it gives to schools and parents, but it provides school lunches. And so important right now with the cuts on the SNAP program.

So, you know, thank you for doing that righteous work. Dinner at my house for 12. And then the other dinner was some awful childhood skin blistering disease that is just awful. And sold five of those this summer. So that was also a lot of work, too, and people say, you're on vacation. Why are you having all these dinners at your house? And for me, vacation is cooking in Italy.

Yeah. Doing what I want to do. It's not, and that's when you know you're doing what you want to do, right? When you still want to do it when you're supposed to be off. Yeah. Yeah. When you're supposed to be. Right.

You are off. You're still. So you're also working with Airbnb to provide experiences. Right. For people when you're staying at an Airbnb, be, you can also venture out in the world and learn how to cook. And with that in mind, and also with the listeners in mind, you know, this is a show about your mama's kitchen, remembering the kitchen you grew up with. Some of these people are creating that kitchen right

now, right? The kitchen that their kids will remember. Their kitchen that their family will remember, the kitchen that will create all the holiday memories. So I'm curious about your thoughts on how to create a functional space and hospitable space. Yes. And how to do do both of those things at the same time. What are your must-haves in the kitchen? What are the things that you have to be able to reach for that are right next to you? What does the lighting need to look like? Just, you know, if you could riff a little bit on what makes a difference to create something that is both functional and hospital. Well, I think for me, I've lived in the house that I live, still live in for 31 years, which was just a long time. It was when my last child, right before my

last child was born. So I know how old he is. Three children, yes. Well, I actually only have two now because one, my middle son passed away two years ago. And so that's so, but I still say I have three children. So let's say I have three children. But when my youngest, so I know how old, how long I've lived in my house and how old my son is. I see, for the same time. One thing I didn't want, I didn't want the quote unquote chef's kitchen. Right? I have that at work. I wanted a home kitchen. So I think that that's key is to make the kitchen a home kitchen. So it's not, first of all, it's not intimidating. There's not a lot of stainless. It's not large. But in my own kitchen, I have a collection on one wall of rolling pins that not only I use, but go back to my father's time

of the summers he spent on his family farm in Canada. So I have like four of their rolling pins where every time I look at them, I just think of the generations, right? And what was rolled out with those. My window, I have a bay window and rather than it having, say, curtains, its curtains are all these kind of egg beaters that I've collected over the year. So they're hanging. So they're kind of hanging. And so they're window treatment. But that kitchen feels like. like me. I've got my olive oil and my vinegars that I use in cooking. I've got a very modest stove. I've got a nice crock with wooden utensils and good whisks, you know, things that feel good in my hands. I have a drawer, a very organized knives, so it's not like I'm pulling out a drawer. and there's all these knives that are, you know, that are bumping up against each other or dangerous to, you know, reach in. They're all kind of lined up. I've got two great drawers full of saute pans and sauce pans.

But nothing's fancy. There's nothing that plugs in. I do have a five-court kitchen-aid mixer, and that's the only thing that has a plug besides my espresso machine. No blender? I don't have a blender. I have a hand juicer. I love my juicer. But I don't have a food processor. I have probably eight mortar and pestles because I love mortar and pestles. But that's really all I have a nice wood work table in the middle of the kitchen. But my kitchen could be anybody's kitchen. It's not a kitchen that's designed by a chef. you know, for a chef. It's designed for a person that cooks at home when they cook at home. And that's the same as in Italy. Although I don't have an espresso machine in Italy.

I have a chemist. I would think, okay, well, that makes sense. I was going to say, I would think that you would want that there. I don't have enough counter space in Italy. At home, I have enough space for an espresso machine. Well, we always gift our listeners with a recipe. and your recipe sounds delicious and it comes with one or two sauces. It is brisket.

Is it the brisket that your mother made? Well, it's, first of all, my mother loved making brisket, loved making brisket and was very proud of her brisket. And I still remember, I just know, I mean, I can see to this day sort of the smile on her face as that brisket is cooking. Now, I said to you that around three or four, my mom put away the Selectric typewriter, right, and began dinner. But that brisket had to be started much earlier in the day because it cooked for a long time. So that's the smell I remember in her kitchen, but also the smile on her face when she made that brisket.

When she presented it? Yeah, but I've, you know, changed it over the years. I've added beer to the braise, you know. Beer and wine. And wine, yeah, to the brays. She only had wine in hers. I've added some aromatics, things like that. But always with her spirit of, that's what she loved.

Loved making was brisket. And then we love the horseradish sauce, and I love the salsa verde. And it's not a whole. hard recipe to make at home, but it's very, very comforting. And you can't rush it, right? You need to get it. No, it needs a long time because you're working with a very tough piece of meat that becomes not tough. I love that you gave us the choice, though, the sauce a verde or the horseradish sauce

and to actually get actual horseradish. Yep. and use a very microplane. Yep. A great tool. That brings in my father into the... Oh, where does your father? Where does your father?

Where, now how was he come into the recipe there? He loved to fiddle in his workshop. So the microplane was actually developed by a carpenter, right? And it was... The one that we used to zest, lemons and limes, and in this case, Yeah. Think about it. It was like a plane or a file. Yeah. But it was developed by a carpenter, a smart carpenter. I imagine a chef. I could use that in the kitchen. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to take this and wash it off well and use it now in the kitchen. Right. I have loved talking to you. And I feel so special that we were able to do it here in this wonderful space in this building that is what, well over 100 years of

It's one of the city's original city markets. So people, you know... In this room, can't you see it? It doesn't feel like you're in Europe? It does. It does. At a market? Yeah.

And if these walls could talk, they would tell incredible stories about power brokers in Washington and new people who were newly arrived in the nation's capital trying to make their way. And you have made a beautiful space. here and thank you so much for inviting us. Thank you. I've loved this conversation. My very best to you. Thank you. Well, I knew this was going to be a special conversation and it certainly was. Nancy's story shows us that the inspiration can happen at any moment. It tells us that you can swerve and you can make a difference by making a different choice in your life. She's helped us figure out how to create a space that is, yes, functional and hospitable. And she does it all with incredible style.

You have created spaces where people create memories. And in your cookbooks, you have become a teacher so people can make those memories in their home too. So thank you, very, very much. Well said. Thank you. Thank you. I knew I would love that conversation. And it was a real treat to be able to do it here in the restaurant.

Now, before we let you go, I want to remind you that our inbox is always open. We want to hear your stories. We want to hear about your mama's kitchen. Maybe some of the recipes, maybe some of the thoughts on some of our previous episodes. You can record an audio message or you can record a short video and send that to us at yMK at higherground productions.com. Your voice might be featured in a future episode. Maybe one of your videos might be featured on YouTube now that our show is on YouTube as well. If you want to try the recipe for the brisket, Nancy Silverton's mama's brisket recipe along with the horseradish sauce or the sauce of verde, You can find that at our website, your mom's kitchen.com.

And when you're there, make sure to spend some time scrolling through because you will see recipes for all the previous episodes, and there are a lot of good ones on there. Thanks for being with us. I hope you come back next week because we're always serving up something delicious. Until then, be bountiful.