Erin French Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. I'm coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
On today's show, I'm talking with Erin French, one of our favorite guests around here. Erin is the chef and founder of The Lost Kitchen, a special restaurant up in Freedom, Maine. The only way to get a reservation is to send a postcard. Erin is also the author of the memoir “Finding Freedom” and of two great cookbooks, and of course, she's a Cherry Bombe cover star. I'm talking with Erin today about her brand new TV show on the Magnolia network. It's called “Getting Lost with Erin French.” Each week, Erin and her husband, Michael, tour the country in search of new ingredients and inspiration. Stay tuned for our conversation.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by OpenTable. As you may know, we've been on the road this summer with OpenTable for our Sit With Us community dinner series, which highlighted amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe and OpenTable networks. Thank you to everyone who joined us and to the amazing chefs and teams at the featured restaurants. We kick things off in early June in New Orleans with Chef Melissa Araujo at Alma, and then we headed to Atlanta for an evening with Le Bon Nosh with Chef Forough Vakili. We were in Dallas at José with Chef Anastacia Quiñones-Pittman, and we had a sweet ending to our series at Nostrana in Portland, Oregon, with Chef Cathy Whims. It was such a treat meeting so many of you. Beautiful food, beautiful people, it's been so much fun. Thank you to OpenTable for bringing these experiences to life with us. By the way, if you are interested in curated dining events like the Sit With Us dinners, check out the OpenTable experiences on their app and website. Head to opentable.com/experiences to explore what's happening near you, or use it to find fun events to enjoy on your travels. Like OpenTable's Summer Sets, a dinner series that combines music and food to create one-of-a-kind evenings in cities like Miami and New Orleans.
A little housekeeping. Thanks to everyone who joined us last Friday at Elizabeth Poett's Rancho San Julian in Santa Barbara County for our Women Who Grill series. It was a beautiful night, and it was great catching up with Elizabeth and so many of you. This Friday, July 26th, we will be with Chef Camille Becerra, author of the new book, “Bright Cooking,” for an Art of Entertaining Dinner at the Sound View Hotel in Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island. Tickets are on sale at cherrybombe.com. I look forward to seeing some of you there. Thank you to our event sponsors, Kerrygold, Le Creuset, and Pernod Ricard.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Erin French, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Erin French:
Thanks, Kerry. It's great to be back.
Kerry Diamond:
It's great to see you. You have been busy.
Erin French:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You somehow managed to record a whole TV show in between your previous season and the current season.
Erin French:
In the off season. Yeah, an off season TV show.
Kerry Diamond:
The show just debuted a few weeks ago. Tell us how it came about.
Erin French:
Well, gosh, I guess it was about a year and a half ago the network came to us and they said, We love “The Lost Kitchen.” Everyone loves this show, but we want to do something a little different. And I'm like, what do you mean different? This is what we do. This is all we do. We run a restaurant, and this is how we do things. And I looked at Michael, and I was like, I don't know. The only thing I could tell you guys is we want to do this trip, and if you want to follow us, that's what we're going to do in our off season. And boom, just like that, immediately we're in, we want this, we want to follow, we're coming along. Then all of a sudden, it made me realize, I guess we're really going on this trip now.
Kerry Diamond:
So the trip was pre-planned.
Erin French:
We had always wanted to. I mean, it was something that Michael and I had talked about for years of saying, wouldn't it be incredible if we just traveled the country and we took time off to do that? We don't take time off. So to consciously think about that and to make a trip like that happen was going to take some planning and dreaming, and once I planted that seed and they were like, let's go. I was like, all right, we're going on this trip now. We're doing this.
Kerry Diamond:
So what would you guys always do on the off season? Just hang out in Maine.
Erin French:
In the early years, when it was just a restaurant and we would close for the winter, that was when we would really just hibernate and get our energy back together because the restaurant would just suck so much energy out of you. I mean, your mind, your soul, your body. We would go until New Year's Eve, and you'd get home at four in the morning, and then literally, I work with my dear friends every day. We wouldn't talk to each other for three weeks after that. We were done. We were so done.
Your body is just toast, and we would just take the winter to pull ourselves back together and remind ourselves that we still love what we're doing so we could show back up in the spring and do it all over again. And then, as we started growing here, it's been, for me, trying to find new ways of inspiration, trying to keep inspired because I always have this great fear that I would wake up one morning and then there would be no idea in my brain of what to make for dinner that night, and I'm always flying by the seat of my pants creating these menus every day. It's like, what if that moment happens and I wake up and go, it's blank today, I don't know what we're going to cook tonight? And I have a full house of people showing up in about eight hours, and I have no idea what I'm inspired to make.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you choose the locations and the people?
Erin French:
You would be astounded by the incredible people who are out there in this country, and that was a really hard decision. We made spreadsheets that were so extensive. It started out as a dream board of places that I had always dreamed about going to, places I had never been to before, and then we just started building off of it. Then it came into, like, oh, who was available, who wanted to take us in and see us, and what time of the season it was. A lot of times we were in some off seasons for certain places that maybe weren't open. It was really incredible to find these incredible human beings all around the country. In every stop, we made these absolutely just beautiful connections, friendships, like I'm still texting with these people. We're still sending each other love letters and just remembering these incredible moments we had together.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you traveled a lot?
Erin French:
No, I didn't grow up traveling because I grew up in the restaurant business. My dad owned a diner, and that was our busy season. At a really young age, I mean, I started on the line with him, really seriously cooking. I was 12 years old when I started that, so every summer was spent in that dairy bar or behind that fryolator. My parents didn't take vacations. We took Tuesdays off, and that's what we would do. And we would go eat lobster, or we'd have a cookout, and that's how my dad would fill his week back up. My mom being a school teacher, it's like, she had summers off, but she would be working in the diner too because it was all hands on deck.
I mean, it was a busy time, so there was no traveling. We would go to Florida in the winter on February vacation, when my mom would have that week off from school and my dad had the diner closed, and that was the one time that we would all either stay in Maine and go skiing or go to Florida, and that was it. So he never went anywhere. I mean, still to this day, my dad's never been on a plane across the ocean, I was the first person in my family to ever cross the ocean. It's become a little bit of a mission of mine to come get out there and see it and do it.
Kerry Diamond:
You did not have the traditional chef path. You didn't really work for other folks except for your dad. You didn't go to culinary school, you didn't travel around to figure out palate.
Erin French:
Yeah, yeah. I really honed my skills at my dad's diner and then got a catering gig and started waiting tables in a restaurant and kind of watching how they made food. And so I've been slowly teaching myself this whole time and whether it was cookbooks, or shows, or just following my own instincts and intuition of the way that I wanted food to taste or I could taste it in my own mind, which was a good thing because I was teaching myself the way I wanted things to taste instead of someone telling me the way that they should. But it's also been a challenging journey being self-taught as well. I mean, it's definitely not traditional, and my knife skills are still absolutely terrible. There's a lot I can't do, but there are some things that I've worked really hard to try to be really good at too.
Kerry Diamond:
As a member of the bad knife skills club, I was very happy to see your episode with Mosquito Supper Club, the grandma chop.
Erin French:
Gosh, right.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell everybody what the grandma chop is.
Erin French:
Well, grandma chop is just that old-fashioned chopping of an onion that there's no real rhyme or reason. You're just hacking that onion up, and you're getting the job done, and that soup still tastes delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. I didn't know about those tubs of oysters with all the oyster liquid in them. That seemed like a magical little tub right there.
Erin French:
Have you ever seen the size of these oysters? I had no idea. No one warned me about the size of these oysters. I mean, I'm from Maine. I eat a lot of oysters. We serve a lot of oysters. I have never in my life seen an oyster that's literally the size of your fist, and they use hammers like breaking into these things. That part didn't even make it on the show because the audio was so loud in this place of just a dozen people just whacking into these oysters. They're all wild and gnarly, and they're the size of a fist, and they're using full-on tools to break into these guys.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
Today's episode is also supported by Pernod Ricard, Creators of Conviviality. Pernod Ricard is a worldwide leader in the spirits and wine industry and embraces the spirit of conviviality as we all should, and is focused firmly on a sustainable and responsible future. Their prestigious portfolio of brands includes classic names beloved by bartenders and mixologists around the world. There's the Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch, Martell Cognac, and Código 1530 Tequila, just to name a few. If you are a regular listener, you know my preferred drink is always bubbles, so I love a glass of Perrier-Jouët champagne to kick off a special night out, and I also love a champagne cocktail. My favorite is a French 75, which you can make with Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut and some Malfy Gin. That sounds lovely, doesn't it? To learn more about Pernod Ricard, head to pernod-ricard.com, and don't forget, always drink responsibly.
Our Paris issue is out right now. If you are headed to the city of light this summer or dreaming about a trip to Paris, our new issue is your perfect guide. Learn about the amazing women taking over the Paris food scene and discover all of their restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and more. We've got stories with some of your favorite Francophiles, folks like Ruth Reichl, Dorie Greenspan, and Mashama Bailey. You can pick up a copy at your favorite bookstore, or magazine shop, or culinary store. Places like Smoke Signals in San Francisco, SCOUT in Marion, Iowa, Now Serving in Los Angeles, and Books Are Magic in Brooklyn.
My favorite part was watching you in all the farmer's markets. Like many of our listeners, we're all super farmer's market nerds, so just seeing you nerd out over citrus at a farmer's market and just contrasting it to what it would be like in Maine at the same time, I loved that.
Erin French:
It was incredible to be able to be in the middle of winter being able to see citrus. I've never bought citrus at a farmer's market before, so that was truly special.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your favorite farmer's market?
Erin French:
I have to say I really love the farmer's market, and Manhattan Beach in California was so beautiful. I mean, the fruit, the nuts, the flowers, it was just busting with everything you could ever dream of as a cook.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell us some of the locations. I saw New Orleans, you did Austin and Houston. Where else do you go?
Erin French:
Our next stop was Arizona, so we spent a week in the Sonoran Desert just outside of Phoenix, and then we headed over to California, and we stopped in L.A. for a day, spent a day there, went to Ojai, which was incredible. Never been there before. And then we spent an entire week driving up the California coast to make our way to Oregon. Never been there before. Absolutely incredible. From there, we went over to Idaho and then spent a week driving all the way across to Kentucky, and that was one of our longest legs. So then to Kentucky, and then last stop back in New York, realizing we are so close to home.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow, you covered a lot of ground. I just got back from Portland, Oregon. Where were you in Oregon?
Erin French:
We were just outside of Portland; 45 minutes. We posted up at one of the vineyards that we work with, at Illahe Vineyards, stayed there for a week. We were around McMinnville, and we just had the most beautiful time out there. It was just so special and lovely. The people, the place, I mean, it just, wow.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm trying to trace the map with my finger. That's a kooky map that you guys followed.
Erin French:
It was a lap. It was 10,000 miles. Yeah, 10,000 miles, three months on the road in a 26-foot Airstream with two twin beds.
Kerry Diamond:
And you two are still married.
Erin French:
Still talking to each other, stronger than ever. You really learn a lot about yourself on the road. Sometimes you don't learn the best things about yourself, but that's where you find room for improvement. So I think both Michael and I found plenty of improvement in our lives, but yeah, we've never been stronger. It was really a really strong trip for us.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you learn about yourself?
Erin French:
Okay, I'll admit to you something that was shocking for me to discover that I have some social anxieties. I figured that out. I found some social anxieties on the road, and so I've been working through those. I think I'm just learning about my patience level. As you're traveling, and there were some days that we didn't know where we were sleeping that night and trying to figure out what is that going to look like and going with the flow, learning how to go with the flow and be okay with it, and making do sometimes. Sometimes we would end up in incredible places, and we're like, look, we're spending the night. Isn't this so great? And other nights you're like, okay, let's get up really early in the morning and get out of here real quick. You never know where you're going to stop.
Kerry Diamond:
Did this whet your appetite for more travel?
Erin French:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, we got home, and there's a moment when you just settle back into being home after being away for three months. It wasn't like a jet lag, but there was this feeling of you stopped. We were in motion for three months, and then you stop, and you're home. And there was something very discombobulating about it. And now looking back, it's like we have all these photos, we have all these memories, we have all this new friendship, and it's like, how rich is that? To have that opportunity to get out in the world, to meet new people, and that's hard for us to do, especially at this age, meeting new people and continuing to just find inspiration and get excited about those connections and new dishes, new people, new places.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, you're back in Maine.
Erin French:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
When did the season start?
Erin French:
We opened the restaurant four weeks after we got back, which was a mad rush. I know four weeks sounds like a lot, but for us around here, I mean, it is months of planning to get this baby up and back running and get the doors open at the restaurant. So we opened in May. Yeah, we're running for it. We have the best season ever, ever.
Kerry Diamond:
And this is season 11?
Erin French:
Season 11. Yeah, season 11.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you filming another TV show?
Erin French:
We're not filming right now, which is nice because we filmed all winter, so we've got a little bit of a break.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't miss those cameras following you, Erin.
Erin French:
No, I have to tell you, we really grew to just love that team. We really grew to work together, and it became like we were storytellers together. I mean, we've always been telling our stories through food here, whether the cameras are here or not, and then to have the cameras here to be able to tell that story to a broader audience and to be able to work together as a team with a production team and our team and how we learn to move around each other and do our jobs and still create these meals and moments without having it feel intrusive in any way. We were very clear about that. If we were going to open up our kitchen, and our dining room, and our space, our whole goal here is to give people this experience, and we didn't want the cameras or anything to be in the way of that, and I think we accomplished that successfully.
Kerry Diamond:
Because people come with those expectations, is there much that you can change? I mean, the menu changes every day, but within that framework, have you done anything differently this season?
Erin French:
Every year, it's like we just keep trying to up it a bit because every year the expectations, they rise, and it continues to make my heart pound. My heart pounded on year one. My heart pounded on year five, and now year 11, my heart still pounds here. And I realized that if my heart stopped pounding, it meant that I didn't care as much anymore. We all feel this great duty and responsibility, this entire team here at Lost Kitchen, because we know that the expectations are coming in so high for people who are coming hopeful that they're going to have one of the best meals of their lives, and it's very scary for us.
It's part of what drives us, and it's part of what keeps us growing, and striving, and trying to just achieve this moment and this night for them. And to tell you, it gets me teary sometimes because I've seen this dining room still filling up with people who get weepy at the center. I'm like, we're still doing it, ladies. We're still bringing it. We're still giving them that feeling after all these years. And to hear people come in here and say, "I came here with such high expectations, and you guys blew it out of the water." It's like, thank God. We put so much into it, they're still feeling it. I'm just really thankful and sometimes a little speechless about it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I'm happy to hear that. You made so many things on the show, and just the first two episodes, I was like, oh, I want the recipe for that. I want the recipe for that. Are you making those recipes available, or are you thinking about doing a book based on your travels?
Erin French:
No, that's funny. Someone just said something recently, like, "Are you going to make a cookbook about the travels?" I didn't even think about that. There was only one recipe that I jotted down. I had a journal with me, and I was like, oh, I have to write this down. And I made a soup in Texas that I was like, I need to jot down this general idea because this is working.
Kerry Diamond:
That poblano pepper smoked chicken soup?
Erin French:
Yeah, it came out so good. It was real-life good, no joke. But the thing about the way that I cook is that I'm never creating the same things over and over again. The menus, it's so funny, for a while I wasn't saving my menus. And I was like, why am I not saving these? Every night I would go on my computer and I would erase last night's menu and rewrite it and then print it, and I was like, why wasn't I saving it as that date? And I started to do it recently. I mean, that's the joy of cooking for me is that it's endless and that you can keep creating new things. And so writing recipes for me isn't always the easiest thing because I'm making them up in the moment. And to make a good recipe, I think some people think it's a very easy thing, and I'm always arguing with Michael about it.
He's like, so-and-so needs a recipe, can just whip up a recipe? It's like, babe, you don't whip up recipes. You test them over and over and over and over again. It ends up taking me a month to really write a good recipe. If you want me to write a bad recipe, sure, I'll whip one up for you. But to make it truly work and to make it worth people's time and energy to go out and buy those ingredients. I'm rather terrible with that because the time that it takes, and that's why one cookbook every four years is what it takes.
Kerry Diamond:
So talk to me about this season. What are some things you've been playing with lately?
Erin French:
So we are in Maine bluefin tuna season right now, so that's been really fun to get that beautiful fish coming in through our doors, and strawberries right now are just abundant. So I've got a whole big bowl of whole berries over on the counter that I'm going to get playing with. And I bought a shaved ice machine because I was so inspired by my trip in New Orleans, and I am determined to make Lost Kitchen-style snowballs with Thai basil and fresh strawberries and come up with all of these different infusions with fresh syrups to make the sort of Lost Kitchen-style snowball because-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, you didn't buy that big machine that we saw in that-
Erin French:
I didn't buy the big machine. I bought the starter version of that machine. They were like, you need to get one of these. I was like, are you going to come fix it when it breaks down? So I bought a hand crank one for now.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, a hand crank one. That sounds very Lost Kitchen. When I saw that one on the New Orleans episode, I was like, that's a beast.
Erin French:
Oh, it is. It's a full-on beast. But in the moment, I was like, I am getting one of these. And the ladies at Red Rooster were like, here's where you'll go. Here's the guy you talk to. You need to get one. We're going to come to Maine, and we're going to help you figure this out. And I was on a kick, and then I looked at the price, and I said, Okay, let's start with the starter version. I don't think we need to start-
Kerry Diamond:
I like a hand cranked one. Is that why your biceps look so good? You raised your arms and I was like, Erin's biceps look amazing right now.
Erin French:
Lots of ice, just crushing it.
Kerry Diamond:
But I will say when you and Michael were talking about buying one of those, having owned restaurants and been on the receiving end of bad ice machines, I was like, oh, that baby has, it's going to break down written all over it.
Erin French:
I know, I know. And that's why I was like, hand crank won't be breaking down.
Kerry Diamond:
And it always breaks in the season that you need it. It's like-
Erin French:
August.
Kerry Diamond:
... ice coffee season.
Erin French:
Everything breaks in August.
Kerry Diamond:
The air conditioner, the ice machine, all of it. You talked a lot about pepper and strawberries. Talk to me about that.
Erin French:
I think it's a combo that, if you know, you know. You're in on it. But black pepper and strawberries is just such a strange and magical combination because it sounds strange. It's like you've got the sweet and then kind of that savory kick to it. We've been serving it at the restaurant, we've been making these frozen custards and then just serving it with whipped cream and strawberries that are just macerated with granulated sugar and then a crack of black pepper. Everyone's minds are blown because they're just like, it's strange. You wouldn't think of it. It's so simple, and it just takes simple and just pops it to a whole new level.
Kerry Diamond:
It sounds so good. We had beautiful strawberries at the farmer's market and I know you are a less is more gal and I was just eating them whole with a little bit of yogurt on top of them because they're so perfect.
Erin French:
I'm telling you, I told the whole dining room the other night that I based this dessert that we made upon a moment that I had as a 7-year-old girl at the Freedom Grange during Strawberry Festival. And I'll never forget that moment of having a fresh strawberry that was still almost warm from being in the sunshine that morning. It was just tossed with sugar, and then there was a big bowl of heavy heavy cream to douse it all with, and it was just the best thing I'd ever eaten in my life. And it was three ingredients: cream, sugar, and strawberries.
Kerry Diamond:
Beautiful. What do you do with the bluefin tuna?
Erin French:
I mean, I just love searing it and serving it, sometimes serving it with strawberries. Like a strawberry and cucumber relish. Really good. That sweet on that. And it's buttery. The fish we've been getting in right now, you don't even need a steak knife. It's like you could cut it with a butter knife, and it's pretty spectacular.
Kerry Diamond:
And how about your boards? What are on the boards these days?
Erin French:
Ooh, we have gone back to the bone marrow butter because the world's been asking for it. So bone marrow butter and grilled olive oil toast. We've been getting this really beautiful coppa from a local farm. Olives, cheese puffs, radishes, and butter. More butter. More butter, anything that we can slather some butter onto. We're throwing on the butter boards these days.
Kerry Diamond:
I loved all the butter interpretations you did on the road. You did the one for the steak where you mixed in the salsa matcha. I think it was in Houston, that looked great.
Erin French:
Yeah, that was a good meal. I'm going to tell you, there were no bad meals that were had on the road, and I truly did bring three different pant sizes and at the end, I had one entire drawer in the Airstream that was all the clothes that no longer fit.
Kerry Diamond:
When we were talking about strawberries and bluefin tuna, I was thinking of Alice Waters. She just popped in my brain. Have you two met yet?
Erin French:
No, never. Maybe someday our paths will cross.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I think you would just be so floored having a meal at Chez Panisse because you really have such similar ideas toward produce and ingredients and less is more.
Erin French:
The simplicity of it.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Erin French:
But you know, for a while I felt really guilty about, I felt like that I couldn't be considered a real chef because of lack of knife skills or hadn't been to culinary school. And how dare you think that you could make just simple food and call yourself a chef or say that you own a restaurant? Like that, don't ever think that you're going to be eligible for an award or anything, like, no. And then I just realized it was like, why am I holding all this shame for this? There's nothing to be ashamed about. This is actually the food I want to eat. And I think the thing that I really learned on the road this season was there has to be a question that has to be answered if you're making food that is really touching people. The question is, why? Why are you making this? Are you making this dish to win awards?
Well, that's not going to make people feel something. For me, something I started doing this season at the restaurant, and I'm just so proud of it and it's very secretive, but there are some people who have picked up on it in the dining room. It's like everything I'm serving has a why. Whether it's a hot donut we're serving after dinner and it tastes just like the one that my grandmother made when I was a little girl. There's why. There's a story to be told through that, and it may just be a simple bit of fried dough, but there's a story to be told through that. Whether it's some homemade ice cream because it reminds me of those dairy bar summers that I used to spend, or anytime we serve a fried appetizer and I'm like, there's my fryolator moment. There's all those moments I spend there that there has to be some sort of connection or feeling, whether it's a memory that, a dish, something that happened in your childhood that takes you to that moment.
I think that is how we've been telling stories here at the restaurant. For a while I think I couldn't understand why people were responding to the simple food, and I think it was because we were putting feeling into it and it wasn't about trying to make the best dish in the world. It was about trying to make a really incredible feeling in that moment of experiencing that dish. Our food right now has never been better. Our team has never been better. I'm so proud of these incredible women who are by my side running with me every day, and it's gone down to like, I have women who have been with me for 14 years now who are still here, and we're still loving what we're doing. We show up every day, and we're still loving what we're doing. And that says a lot because this industry is so challenging and it tears you down in so many ways.
I mean, even in this wonderful work environment that we've created here, it's still hard. It's physically hard, it's mentally hard, and we still show up every day, and it's like we get high from the joy that we are creating in these moments. So when everyone asks, What do you want to be doing in 20 years? I still want to be doing this. Exactly this. I'm not going to tell you I'm shooting for something in the stars. I'm right where I want to be. I'm doing exactly what I want to do, and I hope I'm still here. As long as my knees are still working, I'm going to still be working.
Kerry Diamond:
We hope you're still there too. Do you think being on the road for a chunk of it really helped you recharge your batteries in a way you hadn't previous seasons?
Erin French:
Oh, yeah. It also made me miss home. You need to step away and have those moments. The fact that I didn't see my team for a while, and I left everyone here and then to come home and to appreciate everything we saw and did, but appreciate and realize why we are where we are and how much that we do love being here. It gave us that moment and that change of perspective to really take a step away and be away from home, appreciate that moment away from home and then come home, and deeply appreciate being back home.
Kerry Diamond:
You touched on being part of the industry, being so separate from the industry, doing things your own way. For folks who are out there who want to be in the food world, or maybe they already are, and they have their own restaurant and the system is just not working for them. How did you have, I go back to Julia Child, the courage of your convictions to do it your way?
Erin French:
I mean, to be honest, Kerry, I was in a point of no choice. I was going through a really challenging time in my life, and I look back on it now, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Some of the things I did felt crazy in the moment, but I was in survival mode, and there's something about being in survival mode that gives you this adrenaline that can only be captured when you are in survival mode. And a lot of that adrenaline that kept me pushing here and kept me just going was because of hard times. I used to laugh. It was like I cried so much to get to this point. There was so much that wasn't working, didn't go well. It was a struggle. And then I'll never forget that first season I was cooking at the stove here at the mill, and I looked out the window and I could see the waterfall from there, and I was like, oh my gosh, you cried all these tears, and it created a waterfall. You cried your way to a waterfall, but it really is about keep going and listening to your gut.
There were so many people who would tell me I was wrong, and I had this feeling, it's like if I listened to my mind, I would've done the prudent thing, the smart thing, and probably not opened a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. But there was something that was just so burning inside my stomach, the pit of me just saying, you keep going. There is something here. You're doing the right things. Follow that, and I can feel it. My gut is a really good judge, and it's hard because it's not always logical, and I have to fight against that sometimes because the logic says, don't do this. And my gut is like, girl, lean in and run. And so I started listening to my gut over my brain. That was probably the best thing that I could have done. I don't know that Michael would agree sometimes. He's always like, wait, babe, pump the brakes, pump the brakes. And I'm just like, yeah, but my gut says we got to go do this. And he's like, all right. My head says we need to slow down over here.
Kerry Diamond:
That's interesting because you kind of answered my next question, and you and I have talked about this a little bit in the past, but you've really resisted the urge to do more, open another place, do more services, extend the season. How have you been able to protect yourself and your team in that sense?
Erin French:
It really has been, we did go into protection mode when the restaurants started to really gain momentum, which it was momentum I never expected to receive. Because I realized that what we had created was truly special and different, and I knew that we were going to have to change, we were going to have to find ways to grow. But I also knew the ways that I didn't want to grow because I wanted to protect what we had. It was so good. But you also can't stay the same if the world's coming at you. So how do you do that? I mean, the only thing we've changed here in this dining room is we added one table of four. That's it. We're out of space. We're at max capacity, and sure, could we grow? Could we expand? We've had every opportunity under the sun and something, I'll say this, this is funny.
It's interesting being a woman in this industry, and when you have success and how people will, they love to raise you up, and then when you get there, they start to cut you down a little bit because they actually, they're not sure that they want to see you succeed in this way. But I've had people online, and I've gotten really good at this over the years of shrugging things off of saying she's getting too big for her britches, which they would never say to a man, but they'll say to women all day long, and I'm like getting too big for britches. What does that mean? We haven't changed. We've stayed the same. The restaurant is the same. I'm still behind the stove every night, and if I'm sick, the restaurant's closed. It is that reliant upon keeping this small and showing up, and this same team here, and we didn't open new restaurants, and I've stayed right in my hometown.
There's very little that has changed, and I think it's frustrating for people because they want more. We're in this time, in this place, where we want it now. We want it immediately, and if we can't get it, we're going to be really angry about it. So there are plenty of people who are very frustrated with me because they can't get in, and I have to be okay with that. I have to be okay that this is actually what we're capable of with these two hands, this one heart, this one dining room, and this is all that we can provide you in one season. We know that when we show up, we're giving our absolute best, and to ask for more means that we would have to give less, and I'm not willing to give less.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you worry about selling out? Is that part of it?
Erin French:
Oh, yeah. I mean, it is something I've been like, that's never happening. We're not going to do that. So many things have come our way, and I think the most important word for me and the success of still loving what I'm doing and still feeling like we're being our authentic true selves here is no. There are very few things that have come our way that we have said yes to. The TV show was a really big one for us, and that was one that took a lot of thought and really being thoughtful about answering the question, are we able to be our true and authentic selves?
Are we able to do this in a way that we're able to share more? Because that has been a struggle. If you don't want to grow your restaurant and you want it to stay the same way, how do you grow? How do you share more, and how do you do it in an authentic way? And that continues to be a struggle here. I continue to try to look for ways, and we've tried to answer that question whether it's been, we started our farmer's market, and so every Tuesday we can open up the entire property for everyone under the sun to come and visit us to celebrate local beautiful ingredients and to be a part of this place. And I'm here every Tuesday.
Kerry Diamond:
Is that happening all summer?
Erin French:
Yeah, it happens all summer. We make treats. I'm serving cake out of the back door, and it's like, all right, you may not get into the restaurant, but here's a bite of it and here's a moment, and this is the way that we can share ourselves. So it is about trying to find those true authentic ways to keep growing and keep sharing, but at the same time, not growing out of yourself. Growing to be stronger and growing to be your better self, but not growing to necessarily be your bigger self, just to be your best self.
Kerry Diamond:
Are there more books in the works?
Erin French:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I love your books. I loved your memoir. I really think everybody should read it, regardless of whether you are in the industry or not. And I love your cookbooks. I didn't go to culinary school or anything like that. My favorite thing, I think that's why I love what you do so much, is to go to a farmer's market and buy something and just let it shine, maybe roast it, put it in a salad in some capacity. So for folks like that, your cookbooks are beautiful because it pushes you a little bit out of your comfort zone, but not so far that you feel like you can't do it.
Erin French:
Right, it keeps you safe at the same time. It's like familiar but inspired.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think you'll do more nonfiction?
Erin French:
I've thought about it. I've had moments. I've journaled some things, and it's funny because people used to say something about, in my first book, you wrote a memoir so early and life hasn't even started. I was like, a lot happened in those early days. A lifetime of stuff happened in those early days. I don't know, we'll see. I'm still flying by the seat of my pants every day.
Kerry Diamond:
Listening to you talk and you were saying you learned to trust your gut versus just listen to the rational side of your brain. I think a lot about things like gate-keeping and decision-making and how things could be a little easier. Do you ever look back and think, what were some of the easier things I could have done?
Erin French:
That is a question I have never asked myself or gone there. I think it's because I used to think this all had to happen. I think we get caught up with thinking that we should be having this straight, easy, narrow life, and it's supposed to be not rocky, and the goal is for it to be easy, right? I don't know that that's necessarily the goal. I think that we have to have hard moments. Those are the moments that teach us the most. I've really found this way to come to terms really with myself and the hard things that I'd been through of saying there's not one thing I would change. Every hellish moment, I wouldn't change it because I wouldn't be right here right now. I wouldn't have learned the lessons that I learned right now. I wouldn't have the strength that I have right now if I hadn't been tested, if I hadn't been pushed, if it hadn't been hard.
Even getting to this age now of looking back into my childhood and being like, man, I wish my parents didn't do X, Y, and Z. I'm actually like, you know what? If they had done it the other way, it wouldn't have built me to become who I am now, and I wouldn't be here. So I look at it as like you got to celebrate those hard moments. It's not an easy thing to do, but it feels necessary to me that we shouldn't be expecting that if it's not an easy path, that somehow we did something wrong or somehow we were dealt a bad hand. It's like, no, this is the hand you were dealt and it's all about what do you do with it.
Kerry Diamond:
You know why I asked the question? I have so many young women who ask me questions about their lives, jobs, careers, things like that. I just often think there had to have been an easier path than what I did. And what you just talked about, is that the only way forward? Did we have to go through so much? Did we have to cry a waterfall of tears, take ourselves to the brink so many times?
Erin French:
Maybe we didn't, but would we be the better for it? I don't know. Yeah, there's an easier path, but I don't know that the easier path would have me sitting here right now talking to you. If it was easier, everyone would do it.
Kerry Diamond:
I do tell myself that. Okay, let's talk about food one more time. What's in the kitchen in front of you?
Erin French:
A lot of cookbooks right now. The kitchen's quiet and dark on this quiet Monday. Planning, and ordering, and organizing, and just starting to dream. This is the day when all of the lists from all the farmers start to stream in, and then you start to get excited and see like, ooh, baby, new potatoes this week. That's a first. All of those first of the season things. We are in that season where it's like, all of a sudden, the lists are on fire. We've been waiting for this because June always tricks you, May is like, hey, my gosh, there's greens, and you get all excited, and then June comes to a screeching halt because all of the greenhouse crops have gone by and then the field crops haven't come in yet, and so they tease you, and then now it's like July hits, and then you just start seeing, it's coming online like peas, and potatoes, and strawberries, and just waiting for that first of the season tomato, and then you've really made it.
Kerry Diamond:
What's next on your travel bucket list?
Erin French:
Ooh, good question, Kerry. I don't know. I haven't dreamed that far ahead yet. That's why the fall's an exciting time to be doing dreaming ahead for the winter. So right now, head is down restaurant season, all we are thinking, breathing, and doing is restaurant, and then we pick our heads back up in October and start to go, okay, how are we going to fill ourselves back up now?
Kerry Diamond:
Erin French, you are the bombe. Great to see you.
Erin French:
Thanks, Kerry. You too.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. Let me know what you think about the show and who you would love to hear from on a future episode. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our content and partnerships manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the bombe.