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Renowned restaurant critic, food writer, and magazine editor Ruth Reichl joins Sam to talk about why taking a job as the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine was such a hard decision, and how it ended up changing her life. They talk about getting paid to do a job you would do for free, her new documentary “Food and Country,” thoughts on meal kits, and their recurring waitressing nightmares.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Ruth Reichl, Samantha Bee

 

Samantha Bee  00:01

Hey everybody, I am recording this intro the day after the election. And ah, so it’s going to be a really short intro today, because I’m just not I don’t have a lot of words in this moment. I’m pretty shell shocked. I’m so tired I want to say something smart and pithy, but you know what? I don’t I don’t have too much right now. Elections, boy, they take a lot out of us, and this one has taken it all. So yes, I mean, of course, I have serious choice words for everyone who decided to give Donald Trump a second chance. And yet again, somehow at the same time, no, no, no great words at all, just big, deep sigh, not sure what to say. I guess we all unclench our jaw and roll our shoulders back and get busy. I don’t know.

 

Samantha Bee  02:34

This is Choice Words. I’m Samantha Bee. My guest today is renowned food writer and magazine editor Ruth Reichl and we spoke last week prior to election day. Somehow I knew and felt deep in my bones that we would need a palette cleanser today. And this is that thing, Gourmet magazine, which Ruth edited for a decade, was such a huge influence on me growing up. It really was a delight to talk to her. And so I hope that you can take a moment and just listen to this really fun, engaging, interesting conversation. As I said, it was a pre palate cleanser for me, and I hope that it can be that for you today as well, so take a listen and make good choices.

 

Ruth Reichl  03:26

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

 

Samantha Bee  03:29

Thank you so kindly for being here. I’m just such a huge fan of my friend is so jealous that I’m talking to you today because you’ve just been such a huge influence in both of our lives, and we’re just in total gratitude to you.

 

Ruth Reichl  03:44

How could I be an influence in your life?

 

Samantha Bee  03:47

I could, well, if you would like me to articulate that to you directly. I mean, when I was a teenager, I got a subscription to Gourmet magazine, and I was just a Canadian kid. We never had, you know, we just didn’t. It just wasn’t my world, the world of food writing, the world of beautiful restaurants, the world of cuisine. It just was not part of my worldview. And I was so drawn into the pages of gourmet under your leadership, I think you changed the way that I see the world.

 

Ruth Reichl  04:20

Oh, my God, I am really touched, because I am a huge fan of yours and in awe of your courage with what you do, I mean.

 

Samantha Bee  04:29

This is the mutual admiration society, because I have to tell you like I think that you and your work, you put me on a track of great interest. You taught me how to cook. Gourmet magazine taught me how to reach for something that I couldn’t quite get there, but it was aspirational in ways that are just have been present in my life ever since. It was probably so meaningful.

 

Ruth Reichl  04:52

You can’t imagine. You know, when you put out a magazine and we did it, I mean, I don’t think there’s ever been. And a group of people had that much fun at work, as we did for this 10 years. But, you know, you put it out there, and you sort of hope that it will have an impact, you know, really thinking, sure, and so it’s very moving to maybe hear you say that.

 

Samantha Bee  05:15

I think that you touched a lot of people’s lives, like, I literally remember trying to make, like, like a pecan crusted trout for someone who was coming over, like a boyfriend or something. And it, it didn’t really work, and it was sort of, you know, I kind of, like, burned the nuts and but it was trying for something that I could have never imagined prior. And it set the course. It set the course for a lot of people so and also just your writing in general. Have all your books. I feel like, I feel like, when I went to see food and country, which is your great, great documentary, and we’re going to talk about all kinds of things, and we’re going to talk about food and country, but when I went to see food and country, I was like, oh, there’s your writing room, because I’ve seen it in the pictures of all your books, incredible.

 

Ruth Reichl  05:59

Yeah. And you will notice that I am not in my writing room at the moment.

 

Samantha Bee  06:03

I notice, because.

 

Ruth Reichl  06:03

I do not have Wi Fi out there.

 

Samantha Bee  06:06

Oh, you don’t. Oh, intentional.

 

Ruth Reichl  06:09

I have my phone, so okay, but I just okay it initially, it was like, I just want to be cut off when I’m out there. I mean, you know, it’s this lovely little cabin in the woods, yeah, and, you know, when they when we were building it, I said, No, just don’t wire me.

 

Samantha Bee  06:27

It’s smart and it’s a beautiful view. It is all the seasons.

 

Ruth Reichl  06:32

It is a beautiful view. It’s very beautiful. I walk in there and I’m peaceful. You know, I think it’s important for people to have space that is totally theirs. I mean more than, I mean more than just a room of one’s own, but a space that basically other people don’t come into.

 

Samantha Bee  06:50

Like a little womb space or something that’s just for being creative, for thinking, for reading.

 

Ruth Reichl  06:57

Yeah, and I, you know, nobody ever comes to my cabin. I mean, occasionally, when we have guests, I will let them sleep out there. But other than that, nobody ever comes knocking on my door ever and nice. So it’s just my space and I need it.

 

Samantha Bee  07:14

We talk about choice a lot here, big choices, small choices. That’s kind of like the entry point to the whole conversation on I’m curious how you make decisions, because you’ve made some big you made some big swings in your life, and you’ve made big choices. Is there one that you can kind of point to that was so consequential in ways you might might not have expected?

 

Ruth Reichl  07:35

Yeah, um, probably the biggest swing I’ve made in my life was going to Gourmet, and I turned it down like more than once because I I liked the job I had. I didn’t know how to be an editor. I didn’t know how to be a manager. I mean, I was terrified I was going to be in charge of 65 people, right? And, you know, I’m a writer who spent my life more or less on my own, and I knew nothing about magazines, you know, I ultimately took it because I really saw that. You know, it was like 1999 it was just at the point where it seemed to me, Americans might be ready for a food magazine that didn’t just talk about recipes and restaurants and right that, you know, there was all this stuff out there that I thought people should know, and the thing I didn’t know. I mean, I remember when I said to my agent, you know, when I was saying I wasn’t going to do it, she said, well, you know, you make more money. And I said, no, I’ve never done anything for money. And besides, you know, what? Can they pay me twice what I’m making now? And Kathy said, no, Ruth, I think you’re talking about a major multiple. And I literally didn’t know that people in journalism made the kind of money that they paid at Conde Nast and I absolutely did not take it for the money. But I don’t even know if I should be admitting this, but my life would be very different now, if I did not have if I hadn’t had that money. I mean, I have, I have a very sick partner, and the way medicine is in America today, he would probably not be alive if I hadn’t been able to pay for good medical care for him, right? And that I never anticipate. You know, at 50, when I was saying, I’ll never do anything for money, right? And I don’t think people should do things for money, but when you get older, it’s really nice not to be poor.

 

Samantha Bee  09:53

To have just like a foundation, just having the opportunity to build a foundation. I. Such a gift. I mean, a gift.

 

Ruth Reichl  10:01

I’ve never said that to anyone before about, you know, how that money has changed our lives in really significant ways. But you know we were, I mean, journalists make no money, as you know, yeah, yeah. And we really, you know, we were those people who couldn’t really afford to live in New York, but we were living in New York. In New York.

 

Samantha Bee  10:23

Right.

 

Ruth Reichl  10:24

And really stretching all the time. But you know, that’s what you do.

 

Samantha Bee  10:30

Well, I’m so thankful. I’m so thankful that you were able to do that. And also, what a something to cherish being able to actually make a beyond a living wage like lay that foundation while doing something that you are so direct and so passionate about, like, the marriage of those two tracks, it just feels almost unthinkable, yeah, to people.

 

Ruth Reichl  10:54

And it was to me at the time. I mean, I really understood. I mean, as I said over and over again, I would have done that job for free. It was right, so exciting. Every day was great, and I learned so much about myself at the time.

 

Samantha Bee  11:10

So who taught you like Who did you have a mentor when you took over the because it is a big deal to go from being a journalist to suddenly managing 65 people. I mean, that’s a big deal. Managing is not something that you’re typically training for. When you’re the food critic, you know you’re not like, it’s not in your imagined reality that all of a sudden you’re going to be like, negotiating things and doing business stuff.

 

Ruth Reichl  11:39

And even more than that, I mean, it wasn’t so much the business stuff, it was just, you know, how, how do you help people be the best that they are, which is big part of management, right, right? And, you know, I don’t. I’m a person who doesn’t like it when people are unhappy, you’re never going to make 65 people happen.

 

Samantha Bee  12:00

No.

 

Ruth Reichl  12:01

And you know, that was a constant worry for me. I had, I had my first boss, Rosalie Wright was the editor of New West magazine when I was, you know, their restaurant critics. And Rosalie was not like any of the male bosses I had ever had before. I often went in early in the morning, when Rosalie and I were the only people in there, she would answer the phone take, you know, notes for people. She just was a a regular person, and she was also fierce, because we ran the the Jim Jones pieces, okay, um, they were, they were in New West, and he organized a campaign to get advertisers to pull out of the magazine, to keep the magazine from publishing the first article. Really, yes, and I was in the office one morning when Rosalie got phone call after phone call after phone call saying we’re canceling our advertising if you don’t take out that gym job. Wow, Rosalie just said we are not going to be manipulated and hang up the phone.

 

Samantha Bee  13:15

Boy, do you see that? Do you recall that? Not that I was going to go down this path, but when you read about like the Washington Post declining to do an endorsement. Do you think back to that and go, This is what is required, bravery?

 

Ruth Reichl  13:28

Yes, courage. I absolutely. I mean the cowardice of both of those people. I mean Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world. Why is he? What does he care? I know, you know. I mean.

 

Samantha Bee  13:44

Why does he even want the paper if you know, just proximity to the prestige of it, if he’s going to interfere, if he’s not doing journalism in the public interest, or he’s not interested in that, it’s journalism in the personal interest. I don’t see well.

 

Ruth Reichl  14:00

I mean, I don’t know if you’ve read Marty Baron’s, it’s been, maybe it was in a New Yorker, but, you know, he said he was especially disappointed, because Bezos was the best publisher he’d ever had, you know, stood by him in every decision. And he said, Really, he wished he had been more interfering, not less. I mean, he wished he’d been there, weighing in, because everything he had to say was smart. And, you know, he said that he was really shocked by this particular action.

 

Samantha Bee  14:30

Least a huge disappointment. We’ll be right back after this.

 

Samantha Bee  14:42

I think that when I because I’ve read so much about your career, I’ve heard you speak about it on many occasions, but I think it’s so interesting that at so many junctures in your career, you’ve kind of gone I don’t really want to do that. That’s I don’t think that that’s the right job for me. I’m not that interested, like, even becoming a food critic. You were kind of, like, pulled into it.

 

Ruth Reichl  17:45

Well, I’m very change verse. I mean, I am a person who, I mean, this is a blessing. I’m person who’s generally happy where I am. You know, if I’m in one conversation, I’m not I don’t want to be in another one. If I’m at a party, I don’t wish I were somewhere else. And what that means is, you know, I feel good where I am. So why would I want to change.

 

Samantha Bee  18:12

Right, well, we’re all very glad that you did. I don’t know how much you’re in the world of social media, I get your newsletter stuff like that. But isn’t it so interesting now that Instagram posts and like tiktoks are doing so much work in the field of restaurant criticism? Like, do you relish the kind of democratizing effect that that has. Or do you kind of think, oh, but it’s not like quite what we were going for. Or do you just see the whole open field and all are welcome?

 

Ruth Reichl  18:49

Well, I mean, I have a lot of feelings about it, and one is as someone who was born into a country that didn’t care about food at all, the fact that food has become so much of popular culture that it’s you know, all over Tiktok and Instagram is fantastic. I’m thrilled when people are interested in food, because I think it takes you to very good places. I’m really happy about it for that reason. Yeah, I also think the more voices that you know. So rest fire criticism in the United States was pretty much invented by Craig Claiborne, and it pretty much starts in the 50s. And for the longest time, a few people had such loud voices, and now we get this big diversity of voices, and I think it means that people have to make up their own minds, right? You know, you get this information coming from all these different places, and if you’re a smart person, you take them all in, and then you make your own decision. And that’s a lot better than listening to, you know, someone who says this restaurant. Is great. And you go there just because one person said, so.

 

Samantha Bee  20:04

Right, yeah, it’s like movie reviews, really. I really just don’t base anything I go see on anything I read about it. I just kind of go, does this? Is this interesting? Although I will say that, like, if I read about a bakery in more than three different publications, I’m just gonna go there as I need to know, and I’m gonna get a sampler box of everything. Can you talk about food and country, because I think so often about food systems. Here, the documentary is amazing for people who have not seen it. Can you tell us a little bit about it, and kind of, what was the genesis of that documentary, which you started filming during COVID.

 

Ruth Reichl  20:45

We filmed it all during COVID. All of it pretty much, yeah, the movie is basically about our broken food system. But the genesis of it was my husband and I were in LA on March 11, and we looked at each other and said, if we don’t go home, they’re going to close the airports, and we better get home. And we got home, and I said, Okay, I’m going to go out and do one giant shopping, and then we’re going to go into quarantine. And I go to the grocery store, and the shelves are empty, and there’s a sign on the door that says, We have no bread. Don’t ask no bread. But they also had no rice, no onions, no pasta, no chicken, no. I mean, yeah. And I came home and said to Michael, you know, this may be the moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Maybe this is the time when Americans stop taking food for granted. This is going to be an interesting time. You know, people are going to be home cooking for the first time, and, you know, maybe this is going to be a great thing. And he said, Yeah, but the other thing could happen, which is all the restaurants go out of business, all the farms go out of business, and we’re left with nothing but industrial food. And I said, You know what? I think so I don’t know where we’re going to end up, but I think someone should make keep a record of what’s happening. And I just started calling the farmers I knew, and they would introduce me to someone else, chefs, policy people. And my idea was just, I would have this record. It was all done on Zoom, and I would have this record that could go in with my papers. And 40 years from now, if people wanted to know how we why we were where we were, there would be a record of it, right? And then I heard that Laura Gabbert, the director who made City of Gold, that Jonathan gold, I heard that she was doing a movie about LA restaurants, and I called her and I said, you know, I think it’s much bigger it, it’s the whole food system, right? And she said, you know, you’re right, and you want to team up. We, of course, thought COVID would last six weeks. That’s what everybody thought, right? And the idea was that we would spend that six weeks. I would make all these phone calls. I would identify six great characters, and then we would go shoot on their farms, or we go out on fishing boats with them, or whatever. You know, whoever these characters were. Two years later, I was still zooming. And, you know, every time we started to go shoot, they closed the airports again. So after, you know, the end of, like, more than two years, that’s a lot of times to be talking to people, if you’re talking to them every couple of weeks. And I had come really close friends with a lot of people I had never met in the flesh, but it was such an odd time that people were really happy to have someone to talk to outside of their immediate family. Yeah. And so here I would come in this stranger, and a lot of the people said, you know, you’re kind of like my shrink. And a couple of years in Laura, one year in Laura, said, look, we’ve just changed the budget for the film. We’re going to use the zooms. And I was really horrified. I mean, you’re going to use the zooms. I’m doing these in my pajamas. I mean.

 

Samantha Bee  24:36

I thought we were going to set this up with lights and stuff. Yeah, wait a sec.

 

Ruth Reichl  24:43

I mean, you know, I’m coming out of bed and it’s like, no, you can’t do it. And she said, you know, Ruth, there’s some really amazing stuff happening. People are crying on camera. You watch me develop a relationship with this. We called him the hot cowboy, the rancher, the rancher. And I have to tell you when we brought, when we had, we opened at Sundance. We brought all of the people in the film to Sunday. And so we, I met them for the first time, and they were meeting each other. And I want to tell you the hot cowboy really was hot. I mean, women all over Sundance were like looking at him.

 

Samantha Bee  25:30

I really love that you did it, because there is such a it is really people have such trauma, even talking about or thinking about that period of time. So I think having a record of it, seeing it, remembering we need that. I think culturally, we need that the pivots that people did to keep their businesses viable, the businesses, the brain trusts that were lost, the businesses that somehow held on. I did think it was very interesting watching people make beans for the first time. Like just people making a pot of beans was like everybody just trying it for the first time, maybe in their lives, and just going, Oh, I should be I could you mean there? You mean that people do this all the time. They just make themselves a pot of beans and eat it all week. That’s a good idea. There were a few things in the documentary that really surprised me, what surprised you when you were making it?

 

Ruth Reichl  26:31

You know, I have been giving a speech for 50 years saying the great thing about food is that as consumers, we can change what we don’t like. We vote with our dollars, you know. And what I learned in the film is we vote with our votes. The government sets food policy and right, we can all feel very good about ourselves, because we are, you know, going to farmers markets and supporting independent agriculture, but that isn’t helping independent agriculture. I mean, it’s the government and so, I mean, that’s why there’s so much in the film about the history of how we got to this place where what we’re doing is supporting industrial agriculture right to the detriment of everything else, and that we really don’t raise very much food in this country. What we mostly raise is commodities that go to feed animals or go into industrial products. But you know, those acres and acres and acres of wheat and soy and corn, they’re not going to sustain us in another crisis, and there will be another crisis. I don’t know if it’s going to be COVID or something, but we need regional food sheds. You know, you and I were able to go and get food from farmers, but there are a lot of places in this country where there are no farmers growing food, and we really need to be supporting regional food sheds so we can actually feed ourselves.

 

Samantha Bee  28:06

It’s a really telling moment in the documentary where I’m I’m sorry because I don’t remember the names of the brothers. Yeah. Lee Jones.

 

Ruth Reichl  28:15

Lee Jones.

 

Samantha Bee  28:16

Lee Jones, crafting those beautiful food boxes, delivering them to people who need them or want them, people coming and picking up their fresh food boxes so that the these beautiful crops don’t go to waste, and then having the the Trump people take over, take over the distribution of food boxes and completely change them, give the contracts to a giant agricultural company, the food box, the content, the character of the food box, totally different, and a form letter from Donald Trump being like, I gave you some food, better be grateful.

 

Ruth Reichl  28:53

To me that is really I mean when it happened and when So Lee describes what has happened to them that they thought they were going to get this contract, it was pulled out from under them after they’d already planted, and that they couldn’t afford to pick this gorgeous organic produce, acres and acres and acres of it. And he just starts crying because he says, I feel like a failure. There are people starving in America, and we can’t get them this food. There’s something wrong. And, yeah, his crying. It’s just a heartbreaking moment for all of us, because you realize it, yes, it’s this is the predicament we’re all in.

 

Samantha Bee  29:37

It’s revealing that it’s more fragile than any of us want it to be or are willing to think about it’s a very it’s precarious. Independent producers are in a precarious position. Agriculture is difficult. It’s difficult at the best of times it’s it’s kind of like whimsical based on the weather and climate change. Engine, your the results vary every year. They can vary pretty widely. And there’s not much you can do about it. You know, it’s a really great portrait of just kind of like independent producers going like, how can I make this viable?

 

Ruth Reichl  30:15

The moment for me, the other real moment is when Steve Stratford, the cowboy in Kansas. You know, I said, what do you want your kids to do this? And he said, Look at it this way, every year I go to the bank, I borrow $8 million as operating capital. I work three jobs. I work 100 hours a week, and in a good year I take home $50,000 so you have to be an idiot to risk $8 million for 50,000 but I love this work, and basically that is the position of every independent farmer in America. They go to the bank, they borrow money, they pray it’ll be a good year and the prices will be high enough so that they can repay the loans. And we’re not talking about little loans. I mean, which I you know, those, those machines cost, like, a million dollars, a lot of them, right? These, these are, these are big loans they’re taking out. And big risk. It’s all risk. It’s all risk. And the people we chose ultimately, I mean, I talked to 178 people in the course of making this film. And, you know, to narrow it down, I don’t I feel like I gave Laura an impossible job, but Right, the people we basically decided to focus on were all people who came out of COVID Better than they went in?

 

Samantha Bee  31:44

Right, yeah, I’m talking about it like it’s devas. And there are devastating moments in it, certainly. But actually, I can honestly say that I walked out of the theater feeling hopeful, like, not feeling like there’s a Pollyanna version that like answers all these questions, but I did, in the individual stories, feel a sense of hope. And I do think that in New York City, or maybe in the country writ large, like there is a resurgence of caring about restaurants, and people are eating out again, and there is an excitement around food that feels real.

 

Ruth Reichl  32:24

And it’s not just, I mean, when you talk about restaurants, it’s not just about food, it’s about community. I mean community like being out in a place surrounded by happy strangers who might ultimately become our friends.

 

Samantha Bee  32:40

Um, do you like the bear? Do you like watching? Oh, my God, shows about.

 

Ruth Reichl  32:43

I love it so much. Although I have to say I like the second season much better than the third. Oh, do you interesting? I love the second season.

 

Samantha Bee  32:51

The second season was really good. Hold that thought more Choice Words after one more break.

 

Samantha Bee  33:04

Do you read about food, is it both so it, yeah, you do. Of course, you’re like, still, because sometimes, I mean, as a person who has worked in comedy, I rarely watch comedy, so I wondered if that was.

 

Ruth Reichl  36:51

Yeah, well, no, that makes sense. But no. I mean, you know, first of all, I mean, the food world isn’t that big, so I know so many people who are writing things, and of course, you have to read your friend’s work.

 

Samantha Bee  37:04

Yeah, you have a novel release this year. Oh, I’m behind. I gotta read this thing.

 

Ruth Reichl  37:09

The Paris novel is just pure fun. It’s escapist. It’s I’m not a person who likes to write, you know? I like having written.

 

Samantha Bee  37:19

I’m sure, you know, but yeah.

 

Ruth Reichl  37:22

But you know, don’t, don’t. I will do anything to avoid sitting down at the computer, except for this book, I couldn’t wait every day. I mean, I would pick up my computer, go out to my studio and say to my family, I’m going to Paris now. And it was like, I got to go to Paris as I was writing it. This is real. This is like a fantasy. I went back to 1983 so it’s, I can’t believe this, but 1983 is considered historical fiction.

 

Samantha Bee  37:52

Oh, my God, what?

 

Ruth Reichl  37:55

Oh, but you’ll see it’s listed under historical fiction. But it was a wonderful time in Paris, and I got to write about all the things I love, best, food, art, fashion, the city of Paris.

 

Samantha Bee  38:15

Oh, boy. Okay, I’m in, gow are you feeding yourself now? What are you? You know, how you get into, like, when you cook for yourself, a lot, you get into little groups. You you start, you know, I don’t know about actually, I should not speak for you, but sometimes, if I, if I really like a breakfast, I’m going to do it for five days straight, because I’m just into that thing. Are you like that? Or are you constantly.

 

Ruth Reichl  38:37

Well, here’s the thing, I almost never cook for just myself. If it’s just me, I will probably just make myself a bowl of soup, you know. I mean, I don’t do serious cooking for me or just you. And how I cook now is pretty much I you know, I get up every morning and say to Michael, what do you want for dinner? And then I make whatever it is that he’s asked for for dinner. I guess I cook more for other people than I do for myself.

 

Samantha Bee  39:11

I think that’s very interesting, because I would say, if I was by myself and no one was asking for anything, I would probably have cheese.

 

Ruth Reichl  39:21

Oh, well, there is that, yes.

 

Samantha Bee  39:24

Cheese and crackers, cheese and bread. Cheese and crackers. Absolutely delicious.

 

Ruth Reichl  39:29

Yes. I mean, nibble. Yeah, that’s my midnight and I, before I go to bed and I’m kind of hungry, I stand in the kitchen and eat cheese and crackers.

 

Samantha Bee  39:40

There’s nothing more satisfying, or in a pinch.

 

Ruth Reichl  39:43

Crackers and butter.

 

Samantha Bee  39:46

Crackers and butter. Oh, that’s good. Oh, that’s really good.

 

Ruth Reichl  39:50

Matzah and butter, it’s very good.

 

Samantha Bee  39:53

Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever, I don’t think I’ve ever tried that in my life.

 

Ruth Reichl  39:57

Oh, it’s good.

 

Samantha Bee  39:58

Going to now. Yeah. What do you think about the advent of meal kits for families? Do you embrace that kind of conceptually? Are you like the more people who are doing more things in the kitchen, the better it is for all of us?

 

Ruth Reichl  40:11

No, I love those notes. I love the idea of them. I can’t believe I remember when we did the London issue doc and I were walking around a supermarket in London, and they had these meal kits, which, you know, were, and it would tell you, you know, they divided they there was like, one sprig of cilantro and a stick of lemongrass or whatever. And I said, you know, these are fantastic. Why don’t we have these in the United States, and it took so long for the United States to catch up, but it did. I feel like it is a great starter drug for cooks. You take that home. You’re successful, right? Because, and you, after a while, you start thinking, well, cooking isn’t really that difficult, and you branch out. So I love the idea. I mean, you know, the choice is, are you going to do this, or are you going to order in or take the kids to McDonald’s little kit? Well, every time.

 

Samantha Bee  41:14

Little kit, I love it. I started buying them occasionally for my kids so that they will cook dinner.

 

Ruth Reichl  41:23

Does that work?

 

Samantha Bee  41:24

You know? It does work. It has worked. It’s worked beautifully, because the instructions are crystal clear. The portions are kind of set. There’s like, a little bit of it’s active, but it’s not overwhelmingly active. And then they feel a sense of pride because they’ve made a successful meal that everybody’s eating, and it’s tasty and everybody likes it, which I think is laying some solid groundwork for the future.

 

Ruth Reichl  41:54

Oh, smart understanding. Oh, my God, it’s so easy. This is how I can please people. That’s really easy. You know.

 

Samantha Bee  42:02

it’s exciting. It’s nice to feel the warmth of other people. There’s something about nourishing other people that’s incredibly satisfying at and it can be, I think, at at any age. Oh, certainly, absolutely. Can we talk about tipping a little bit, because there’s so much happening in the world of tipping, the future of tipping, restaurants that tried to go tipless and have come back to it, and a sense that I’m getting, and I think the reality of businesses paying still like insufficient, like putting the cost of hourly wages onto the consumer, as opposed to just paying their employees fairly.

 

Ruth Reichl  42:49

I have a lot to say on it, but let me start by saying that when we think of tipped people, waiters and waitresses. Yeah, we urban people are thinking of the people who are waiting tables at high end restaurants right Gramercy Tavern and you know, whatever. But the majority of waiters and waitresses are employed in the in the middle of the country, in ihops and restaurants like that. And if they’re in a place where there is a tipped wage, which is, I don’t think I have it exactly it’s like 237 an hour.

 

Samantha Bee  43:32

Yeah, much, much lower.

 

Ruth Reichl  43:35

And the idea is that that’s all the restaurants are paying these people, and the rest of the time they’re really depending on tips. Those people during COVID could have worked full time, but they had not earned enough money to qualify for unemployment. I mean, we’re talking about millions of people. We’re not talking about, I mean, it’s a huge industry. That’s where I begin. The conversation about tipping is that in states where there is a, you know, a wage, that is a tipped wage, wage, right? The people who rely on tips are basically, you know, if you’re a woman and I’ve waitressed, I mean, I waitressed all the way through college, yeah, you know, you know a lot you have to please people. And so, you know, people do horrible things to you, and you smile. You shouldn’t have to. I mean, nobody’s nobody’s living should depend on there, putting up with a lot of junk from people. You know, it just, it just shouldn’t.

 

Samantha Bee  44:44

Do you still have waiter Do you still have, uh, waitering nightmares?

 

Ruth Reichl  44:49

I do. Yep me too. Okay, what’s yours? Then I’ll tell you mine.

 

Samantha Bee  44:54

Okay, I know exactly what it is. It’s a recurrent nightmare that I’m going. To that I go to take the order of a rowdy table, and it’s a huge, Round Table of like, maybe eight to 10 people, and they each order a milkshake, a crazy milkshake. And I as a wait at any place I ever worked, the the waiter had to make the milkshake. And it’s just these elaborate milkshake orders, and I’m trying to write it all down, and then they’re like, and I want an Oreo cookie, like, I want a stack of Oreo cookies with a straw through it on time. And I just start crying. And I just start crying. What is your nightmare?

 

Ruth Reichl  45:35

My nightmare is that I am waiting tables and I’ve got, I don’t know, like, eight tables in my section, and there’s a table over in the corner that keeps saying, miss, Oh, Miss, and I say I’ll be right with you. And all night, they’re miss, they’re forgotten.

 

Samantha Bee  45:54

Oh, that’s so stressful. Oh, my God, this is a palette cleanser, because I’m so excited to be talking to you, but we don’t know what the results are of the election and Godspeed everyone and but I do think, I actually think I reflect on just the impact of whoever gets elected, on undocumented people. And I think, you know, I’ve did many pieces at Full Frontal about how the food system is entirely dependent on people’s labor, and if you endeavor to deport 11 million people overnight, we’re not going to have a food system left. We are not it’s over. So it’s such a terrible and impossible idea, and really not one we should aspire to.

 

Ruth Reichl  46:45

If all the undocumented, that’s what Lee Jones says to the camera in food and country, you can, you can round up all the undocumented people, and then you will have no forms in America, because Americans will not do this work. And the what’s it called, The guest worker program, is the only way they have to legally get people, and it’s not enough. And so we will have, you know, every restaurant has illegal people in in the kitchen. Every farm has illegal people harvesting those crops, we will have no homegrown food in America at all, and we’ll have no restaurants.

 

Samantha Bee  47:34

The food system is truly built on the backs of undocumented labor in this country, to the extent that I just don’t think many people consider, and it is a huge it’s, it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay, tell me about the last What’s the last best thing that you ate? And we can leave on a note of thinking about things we’d like to morsels we would like to chew on.

 

Ruth Reichl  48:00

Well, I just came back from Basque land, Basque France, and Basque Spain. And I think the single best thing I ate was this shrimp at echabare. And he gets these shrimp from the coast of brava, and he the ship lands every night, at around midnight, he sends someone down to the ship, and they have a tank of salt water, and they put the shrimp which have been caught in this net, and just caught. I put them into the salt water, and then then the next day, so 12 hours out of the ocean, he grills them. Oh, and that grilled shrimp was incredible. You know, sucking the heads that, I mean, that’s just most anyway, it was that whole meal at ecchi was really memorable.

 

Samantha Bee  49:07

Okay, that’s so hungry. I’m so hungry for my lunch now. I just have enjoyed every moment of this. What a gift.

 

Ruth Reichl  49:21

Me too. Thank you.

 

Samantha Bee  49:27

That was Ruth Reichl and I had no choice but to look up one thing. We talked about tipping restaurant workers and how there has to be a better way than paying them a base hourly wage of a little more than $2 that’s what I got paid when I was in the service industry. And it is no joke. But when did that even start? Well, back in 1966 Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum floor for tipped wages, floor. Hour is good, but I think we can figure out a way to make it so much higher. Thanks for joining us. I’m Samantha Bee. Take care and see you next week for some more Choice Words.

 

Samantha Bee  50:23

Thank you for listening to Choice Words, which was created by and is hosted by me. The show is produced by […], with editing and additional producing by Josh Richmond. We are distributed by Lemonada Media, and you can find me @realsambee on X and Instagram, follow Choice Words wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.

 

CREDITS  50:53

Thank you for listening to choice words, which was created by and is hosted by me. The show is produced by its via Baron Reinstein, with editing and additional producing by Josh Richmond. We’re distributed by lemonade, and you can find me at real Sam B on x and Instagram. Follow choice words, wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.