Erin French:
It's a very fine line but I think you can't make good food if you're in a bad place.
Kerry Diamond:
Hey Bombesquad, you're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host Kerry Diamond coming to you from Newsstands Studios in Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Today's guest is Erin French, founder of The Lost Kitchen a very special restaurant in Freedom, Maine, a tiny town with a population of 722 people. Erin is also the star of a Magnolia Network series named for her restaurant and she's the author of Finding Freedom, a bestselling memoir that came out earlier this year. In it, Erin details the struggles, addiction and family issues that made her who she is today. We are very lucky to have Erin with us as she is in the middle of her busy season. She is a wonderful warm person and I can't wait for you to meet her.
Some Cherry Bombe housekeeping. We announced the dates for our Jubilee 2022 conference. It's taking place April 2nd and 3rd in Brooklyn, New York. Early bird tickets are on sale right now. It's going to be an amazing weekend of food, drink, networking and talks and panels with some of your favorite personalities in the food world. Past speakers have included Ina, Martha Padma, Mashama, Ruth, so many incredible people with tons of wisdom to share. Visit cherrybomb.com to snag your ticket.
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Now, here's today's interview.
Kerry Diamond:
Erin French, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Erin French:
Hey, Kerry, thanks for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Of course. Of course. I saw you not too long ago virtually. We did a fun event with Ina Garten. But I don't think I've seen you in person, my gosh, since we did an event in Portland, Maine, was that 2019?
Erin French:
Pre-pandemic, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Pre-pandemic. Yup.
Erin French:
That time feels like, I don't even know what years those were anymore.
Kerry Diamond:
Me neither. It could have been 2018. It could have been so many things. So, we'll be talking about The Lost Kitchen, the lost time, so many things. All right. Let's jump right into it. Erin, first off, I want to say thank you for joining us as it's the height of the season for you and your team at the restaurant. How are things going this summer?
Erin French:
Well, it's been pretty wild up here of trying to figure out how to keep going and managing this business this season. And we've figured out some systems last year and we've been dining outside and this year has been the transition of like, "Okay, how do we get back into that dining room that we can someday get back into?" And so we just had our first indoor dinner last weekend. It's feeling pretty good to start to make baby steps getting back to normal here.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's great. How did the first dinner go?
Erin French:
It was just like a cakewalk and getting back on a bike again. And the best feeling ever to be floating around that dining room that we had just turned into this well-oiled machine, and then the rug got taken out from underneath us. And we've just been pushing so hard to do these outdoor dinners and cooking in the woods and cooking in our backyard and just trying to reinvent ourselves over and over again.
So, we used to think it was hard in here and then we learned what hard really was and so being back in this space has just been just amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Describe for everybody what The Lost Kitchen is.
Erin French:
So, The Lost Kitchen is my restaurant here in Freedom, Maine in the middle of nowhere in an old 1800s grist mill. We seat about 40 plus people a night to do one dinner service with a full prefix. I mean, gosh, I think, this weekend we did like 12 courses, and it was like a four and a half or five hour dinner. So, it just keeps going on and on and over and over again. And it's run by all women out here, all my best friends, we got the little engine that it could.
Kerry Diamond:
And what is the season for you?
Erin French:
Well, normally in a typical year, we open when the grass turns green here in Maine, which I know it sounds crazy, but it's May. And then, we go until around the first frost of the year when everything changes. So, typically in October.
Kerry Diamond:
Erin, how do you make a reservation to eat at The Lost Kitchen?
Erin French:
Well, we do things a little differently. It's not your typical reservation system. So, we take postcards for reservations. And I know that sounds crazy. But we really found ourselves in a position as the restaurant kept growing year after year, and the interest was just exploding. We were finding that we couldn't keep up with it anymore. And there was no system that was going to be more fair or slow things down because we really wanted to just slow things down. Then, a simple postcard that we could just pull cards, luck of the draw lottery style and make calls and set up reservations for people.
Kerry Diamond:
What is the furthest place you ever got a postcard from?
Erin French:
Well, I do remember one time picking a card and calling someone and they told us that they were on a train in Vietnam at the moment when we caught them. So, that was pretty wild.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's fun. And do people really go all out with interesting postcards, cool stamps, things like that to try to catch your attention?
Erin French:
Yeah, I mean, there's a whole slew. I mean, you have the most basic, most simplistic postcards that will come in. And you have people who have clearly spent hours on these that are really trying to catch your eyes. So, there's a little bit of everything. And sometimes it's beautiful pieces of art. People are painting or we've gotten quilted pieces, we've gotten really interesting stories. And sometimes it's just basic postcard too.
Kerry Diamond:
Does a more creative postcard increase your chances of dining with you?
Erin French:
I mean, the answer is no, not really, because there are so many that it would be almost impossible to sift through and find your favorite. But I will tell you that it is a human process. And there is a moment if there's one sitting on top that really catches your eye, but it made its way to the top of the pile that was luck of the draw.
Kerry Diamond:
That's good to know. Now, you mentioned doing a dozen or more courses. I would love for you to walk us through some of those courses. Because obviously, it's hard to get a reservation there, it's hard to get there, you are so far away. Give us a sense of what's on the menu, what people can expect when they visit.
Erin French:
Yeah, sure. Well, we generally start people out with a little something to drink. And we've been really into on these hot summer days making these interesting sort of slushies because I've kind of been going back to my roots and serving like either gas station or diner food. And I know that sounds crazy, but elevating it.
So, when I grew up there used to be these things called slush puppies in the general stores and they were bright blue or bright red and they were icy. So, I've started making them with all sorts of things like with Thai basil and making like a Thai basil syrup. I made a Linden blossom one recently. So it's fun to make these interesting slashes. Then we start out with these nibble boards. And that's really kind of classic local cheese and little bits that you can just nibble away with your wine.
And then we roll into another course. And it's usually some oysters, maybe we're serving them two different ways, a fried one or a raw one. And then it's baby burgers because I go back to my diner roots. So we're always making these very fancy mini cheeseburgers with crazy beautiful beef that was finished on fermented apples or something like that. And it just keeps rolling.
And then we do sorbet. And we do cold cloth and then we roll into soup. And then we have a salad and ...
Kerry Diamond:
Wait. What did you call that cold what?
Erin French:
Cold cloth. So we have a course that's not really an edible one. But we take these little hand towels and we ...
Kerry Diamond:
Cold cloth. Okay, I was like, what, I've never eaten a cold cloth. I definitely have never eaten a cold cloth.
Erin French:
Well, we like to serve them, for example, after we serve our baby cheeseburgers that you have something to sort of wash up with. And we roll his cloth in rose water and tie them with lavender. And it's like a fancy moist towelette.
Kerry Diamond:
Beautiful.
Erin French:
But it just keeps going soup and salad. And then this weekend, we had a beautiful halibut dish. And then, it goes into a tea service where we find whatever we've got for fresh things that are growing that we can put in these beautiful glass teapots and steep at the table and they'd be ice cream cones, and then there's many donuts and then whatever we're making for dessert that evening and ending on like chocolates and cookies. And it's just kind of the dinner that feels like it's never going to end or that you never want it to end.
Kerry Diamond:
And you're very driven by what's local and what's seasonal.
Erin French:
Very much. I mean, all of my menus are really kind of made up the day before and the day of and it's really driven by what the produce is. I never make a menu and then go shopping. I go shopping and then make the menu. So, it's really driven on what's showing up from the farms.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you tell us about a purveyor or a producer who's kind of been with you through this whole ride?
Erin French:
Oh, gosh, we have really amazing farmers that we work with here. I mean, they're even our great friends. We know everyone by name. And I mean, I love the Buckle Farm and squash blossoms that they produce for us every year. I have a friend who's also my massage therapist who also grows all our rhubarb and carrots. And she farms by day. And then at night, she goes, and she does these massage appointments. And you have to be well rounded to live in Maine, and you have to have a few different jobs to kind of get through it all.
And I have my friend Ashley, who works here at the restaurant, she grows all of our flowers for us. And Krista who also works here at the restaurant, she grows all of our tomatoes and all of our edible flowers for us. So, that's kind of the fun and interesting thing about the women who work here at the restaurant, they don't just come here to work, they're also providing us with produce. So, it feels like this full circle from seed to plate.
We've planted those seeds together, we've grown them in the greenhouse. And then, for these women to be able to serve the dishes from the food that they grew feels really special.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, that's obviously what made 2020 all the more difficult. Obviously, the summer is very different than last summer was. Can you tell us what went down summer of 2020?
Erin French:
Yeah. It was tough. I mean, when everything seemed to come to a screeching halt, it was very confusing time. And had we known how long that this was going to last, we could have been planning more long term, but it just felt like constantly having to just be agile and pivot every day. And you couldn't even plan two weeks in advance. And for us, the way that we kept going is we started an online farmers market, because I recognize that the day that we closed our doors, it was a ripple effect, because all of the farmers who were relying upon our account were no longer going to be getting those orders.
So, we wanted to share the great photos that I've been able to source over the years with our customers. So, we started an online market where we could put that produce directly into consumers hands because we weren't able to be move that amount for them. So that was one thing. And then, we got into serving outdoor lunches and doing fried chicken and slowly built up the confidence to be able to get back into dinner and do some outdoor dinners to get through it all.
Kerry Diamond:
Was there ever a fear that there would be no season?
Erin French:
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I wasn't sleeping. I was eating little. I was freaked out that maybe we had seen the last supper that would ever happen in this space. But there's also this thing that happens and I feel it's a very human moment when you find yourself in survival mode, which I found myself in this a few times and the adrenaline that comes out of it. It's like you go to this animal space of just like head down, you're going to survive, you're going to keep going.
So, even though I was questioning what was going to happen, I think, I still was never willing to stop. I was always going to keep going and I was always going to find a way even though it was scary, the fear was driving that adrenaline to keep pushing me forward.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to jump around a little bit here. I don't want to give away too much for people who haven't watched your TV show in the Magnolia network. But you actually do deal with the restaurant, maybe not opening in the very beginning of the show. Tell me if I got this correct. You filmed the first episode on the last day of service in 2019, right?
Erin French:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Am I remembering that correctly?
Erin French:
We filmed the pilot the last week of service and we filmed the very last dinner and little did we know that it actually was the very last dinner that we would have in this space until after the pandemic.
Kerry Diamond:
And it was so celebratory and so beautiful. I mean, I just would imagine that you were so probably exhausted but be just so happy how things had turned out. And you're watching this TV show and you're like, it's almost like a horror movie. You're like, "Oh my god, Erin has no idea what's coming."
Erin French:
Yeah, I mean, we didn't. What's funny, though, I mean, there's part of me when I look back at it and I see how emotional I was. And, yeah, part of it was relief like okay, we're done for the season, we can rest and rejuvenate and get ourselves ready for next season and roll into the best season we're ever going to have. And I've had these weird premonitions, these moments and all the way back to my first restaurant when I lost that through my divorce and I remember sitting on stairs and crying then too.
There was this feeling of finality but not really understanding but it really was the final dinner. But, yeah, it was celebratory and then became extremely, extremely challenging. Like, oh my gosh, wow.
Kerry Diamond:
It's incredible. You had someone there to document it. How did the TV show come about?
Erin French:
Well, over the years, we've had a lot of opportunities that started knocking on our door. And as the restaurant started to just gain this momentum and more eyes were on us, we were getting calls left and right. And we recognized that all of a sudden, we were having these opportunities and none of it felt quite right. I had done one reality TV show, like way back when I was going through a divorce. And I hadn't opened this restaurant yet. And I thought it was what you had to do to be successful in this industry was to do these sorts of shows, and I did it and I came out feeling so hollow afterwards. And it just didn't feel like me, like I'm not a competitive cook. It's not what I do.
And other opportunities of shows that kept coming our way and we recognized that we had a story to tell here. But we also knew that that we didn't want it to be in the wrong hands. And when we were approached by a production company, we trusted in this group that we were dealing with. And then when the Chip and Joanna Gaines piece came along, we recognize that this was going to be our opportunity to be able to share more of this place that we've been at our ceiling for years and not able to share this place with more people because we can only seat 48 people a night?
How can we share more of this story, because we found that it was inspiring other people to reach higher and dig into find their own dreams and create their own good lives. And how can we do that in an authentic way? And when we have this opportunity with Magnolia and with Chip and Joanna, we were given permission to be our exact selves and never have anyone push us in a corner and tell us that we had to be this or that. That we could be our true selves, we could document this on a daily basis. And we could share this story with so many more people than we could ever touch within the four walls that we had here.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting. We had Jamila Norman on the show last week, she's the star of the new Magnolia Network show Homegrown. And my takeaway from her show and your show were the same that they feel almost more documentary in nature and not the sort of forced performance that food TV had become. And it's just so nice. You really do feel like a fly on the wall just watching life unfold. With your restaurant and what Jamila does every day. It's really lovely.
Erin French:
Right. It's important too. I mean, you think about it, I mean, here we are, we're just a bunch of girls in the middle of nowhere and it was scary at first of like, what are we opening our lives to? And what are we doing here? We asked ourselves a lot of questions before we embraced this and said, "This is a good thing. And we can do good with this."
And at this point now, this crew, they're like second family. They're a part of our team. And we do feel safe and respected. And we're excited to be able to share this story.
Kerry Diamond:
The show is called The Lost Kitchen, just like the restaurant, how do you describe the show?
Erin French:
Well, it's a docufollow.
Kerry Diamond:
A docufollow. I never heard that term before.
Erin French:
following us around. Well, that's what I say when people are like, "Oh, you have cameras all the time." I was like, "They're there when I wake up in the morning and they're there when I'm making dinner for my family and there's really no in between, they're always there." And it's really just chronicling our moments here in Freedom and the dinners that we're creating. It's really celebratory of people.
And that's what excites me, the fact that we get to celebrate the farmers who are the people that make the food so special at this restaurant. And what makes this place in Maine so special and it really is a celebration of place and people and that means just Maine is such a beautiful spot and the produce that's coming out from the water to the land, there's so much to share. And I do hope that it's inspiring for other people to find a way to live their own dream too.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, let's jump a little bit to your memoir that came out earlier this year, Finding Freedom. Somehow, you found the time to write a memoir and we'll talk about that. Why did you decide to write a memoir?
Erin French:
Well, there was something that one of my editors once told me, she said, "You're going to know what your next book is because it's going to burn inside of you." And I remember starting to hear snippets from people just through social or I would get letters in the mail, who had read my cookbook, which had a few bites of things that had happened in my life, just a taste of it, it wasn't the whole story.
And people started to recognize that, oh, there were some struggle here. There were some struggle in order to make the life that you've gotten to now and I found that it was giving people hope of saying, "Oh, you've been through this. And now you've created this? That seems impossible. And thank you for letting me know that the impossible is possible."
And I recognize that when I was going through some of these hard times, I felt very alone. And one of the lessons that I learned is how to feel less alone and surrounding yourself with a village. And it took a lot of work for me to get to that point. And I wanted other people to understand that this wasn't a fairy tale out here. This didn't come about in this magical sort of way. It took struggle, it took strife, it took pain, it took tears to get to this good life. And I think it's very American and something that maybe we don't talk about as much.
We don't like to talk about people's imperfections and felt that when I started to admit my imperfections that it was almost this relief. And then, there was acceptance of that it was okay to be a bit imperfect. And sometimes, you needed to go through all that to get to where you are.
Kerry Diamond:
Your story is definitely not a fairy tale. I can attest to that having read the book, and I absolutely love the book. Can we talk about your cover for a second? I want to talk about the title and the cover. But the cover is you holding this massive bunch of flowers, explain what the cover is all about.
Erin French:
Okay, so ...
Kerry Diamond:
And you can't see your face either.
Erin French:
Yeah, I was very specific about that. Although, everyone at Celadon really fought against that and wanted to see my face. I was like, "No, I don't want it. I don't want my face to really be on the cover." I shot that with my friend Sig Harvey. And this was in the middle of the pandemic, before vaccines, and before you could hug or see people. So, it was a challenging shoot. And it was also like this moment of wanting to feel this burst of color and relief.
And I met Sig through the passing of a mutual friend of ours. She was in her mid-30s and she passed away of leukemia and left behind two little boys and that's how I got to meet Sig. And this was a celebration for a mutual friend of ours who would have been so proud of this accomplishment. And we kind of thought that this explosion of color and feeling like there's no place like home, it was a little bit of a Dorothy moment to it with the poppies and it's got this dark background but then this explosion of color, which felt like the good life coming out.
Kerry Diamond:
I did not pick up on the Wizard of Oz part. But that makes so much sense right now that there's no place like home reference. Let's talk about the title, Finding Freedom. And, folks, I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, but folks should not buy the Megan Markel book of the same title by accident. You want to look for the book by Erin French. There's so many ways to interpret that title. Why? Why that title?
Erin French:
Well, yeah, this is definitely the last royal version of it, right? Her book had come out in August and then my manuscript was done. I was like, "Oh, my god, the title has been stolen." And everyone said, "Don't worry, the book will be over by then. And we're just going to run with this title." So, Finding Freedom was really the story of me in The Lost Kitchen and how I was lost and how I found myself and how I discovered true place and true home, which happened to be the name of the town that I grew up in, which is Freedom.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, I don't want to give away too much for folks who will read the book, but how hard was it for you to tell your story because you're also telling other people's stories, in particular, your family, your former partners.
Erin French:
That was very tricky. It was a fine line. And I did consciously think about the people that I was discussing. And I got a lot of permission for things if I was writing about my mom, then I was like, okay, read this. And are you okay with this? And what do you think? And I tried to be as delicate as I could be about telling the story including the people who had affected me but without telling their honest story of who they were, why they were that person.
I mean, there are reasons that I know why certain people in my life are the way they are but they have their own stories to tell about how they got to be that person. So, I tried to make sure that it was about how that person affected me. If I was talking about that person, it had to be in my interpretation of how their actions affected me as opposed to saying, like, why their actions became their actions and what happened to them in their childhood or whatever. I didn't give any of those details about, about their personal lives in that way. But I gave the details about how their lives affected my life.
Kerry Diamond:
To me, your mother was very much a hero of this book. Tell us about her.
Erin French:
Well, my mom, she was quiet in her way. And it makes a lot of sense to me now as an adult, because I recognize the relationship that she was in with my father, was one where she was dumbed down and not allowed to be her true self or speak up or voice her mind. But the thing was that she was always physically present. And sometimes, she wouldn't tell me her real opinion, which is probably on some days good because she probably would have told me I was crazy for doing a lot of things. But she was always there.
And she would always stand by my side from the moment that I had my son as a single mother at 21 years old to the time that I opened this restaurant in the middle of nowhere with barely a penny to my name. She showed up and she was always present, always just willing to put in the physical hard work, to just push through. She has such great strength in that way that was inspiring to me. And I think it's part of who I am. Of what just keeps me showing up every day.
Kerry Diamond:
The title, Finding Freedom, applies to your mother, as well.
Erin French:
It does. Yeah, my mom found her ... It's really interesting of, usually, it's the parent who watches their children blossom, and I had this rare and sort of beautiful opportunity, through my own falling down and my own tumbling and then my own recreation in life of myself, my mother found her own empowerment through that. And she also managed to get out of a toxic marriage. And that strength came from watching me do that. And so, I got the chance to watch my mother blossom, which has been really, really unique.
Kerry Diamond:
But you have to say, Erin, even though I've read the book, I read your cookbook, I've watched your TV show now, I still marvel at your sense of resilience and optimism. And I should know where that comes from having read the book. But when you stop and think about yourself, I don't know, to me, it's remarkable, like where does this come from in you?
Erin French:
Well, again, I think part of it is that a lot of my life has been in survival mode. And it has been that human adrenaline that's pushed me. But I had role models who were hard working. My grandmother was one of the hardest working people I've ever met. She was born and raised in Maine and she believed in hard work. My grandparents believed in that and they pushed me to believe in that.
My father, even for his own demons, he was also a very hard worker and he did teach me that that work ethic that you just keep going. I mean, I grew up watching him work 16 to 18 hour days and finding myself in that same position. And it's different now, I'm raising my own son and I'm looking at that I haven't instilled that work ethic in him. I don't know if it's just his generation or what it is. But I learned by example maybe there's a little bit my blood but I also think it's that human survival mode, adrenaline just pushing.
Kerry Diamond:
You started working in the family diner at a very young age. How old were you again?
Erin French:
Well, I mean, I was there all the time from kindergarten on but I started lending a hand when I was around 12 pitching in. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And you did not go to culinary school?
Erin French:
No, I did not. When I was younger, I wanted anything but to work in a restaurant. I just wanted to get the heck out of here and run away from food and found myself back here and recognizing that I actually loved food. I adored it and it was this creative outlet for me where I could play and put things on a plate and make something that felt truly mine and unique and had my personality and flavor in it. And then, to watch people enjoy that, it just felt really divine and something I just kept going back to and wanting more of.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, as I mentioned, you do have a cookbook. Your cookbook came out a few years ago. How would you describe the cookbook?
Erin French:
The cookbook is really a seasonal cookbook kind of cooking in Maine. So it's divided into four seasons and celebrating the ingredients that I work with here and that I love each season. The things that I look forward to like in the spring, it's rhubarb and in the winter it's the comforting meatloaf and custard and just everything that I'd want to eat in all four seasons in Maine.
Kerry Diamond:
And the rhubarb that you get from your misuse.
Erin French:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I absolutely love that. All right, what would you say is the most personal recipe in the cookbook?
Erin French:
So, the most personal recipe in the cookbook would have to be the meatloaf recipe. And that is one that came from my dad. I write about it also in my memoir of this poignant moment of feeling his love of him giving me time and attention to teach me a recipe. A recipe of a dish that he had made for me over and over and over again in my childhood and was teaching me how to replicate it. So, I'd say that's probably the most personal dish from the cookbook.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the secret to the family meatloaf?
Erin French:
The secret would have to be cheese and carrots. There are grated cheese and grated carrots in it. And then the glaze that goes on the top, which is just like ketchup and brown sugar and mustard.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it sounds so good. I forgot about the grated cheese and the grated carrots. My family meatloaf definitely did not have those two additions. What did the carrots bring to it?
Erin French:
Well, the carrots just bring just a bit of, not necessarily like a ton of flavor, but a texture. It just sort of binds everything together really nice. And I don't know, maybe it was his way of getting vegetables into it.
Kerry Diamond:
And then, how about the recipe you make the most often?
Erin French:
So, the one I probably make the most often would be the spoon cake. And it's in the spring section. It's a rhubarb spoon cake. But the fun thing about it is that it can be any season spoon cake. You can put any fruit or even jam in the winter if you don't have fresh fruit. And it's simple. You don't have to use a KitchenAid to make this cake. You make it a cast iron skillet. And it's so easy to throw together. Especially if you've got last minute people coming over and you've always got all the ingredients somewhere in your fridge.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you know why it's called a spoon cake?
Erin French:
Well, I called it that because it was a cake that would never make it to the table because I would just start eating it with a spoon before it would even get to the table. It's not really one that you slice, it's more of a thin skillet cake.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. So, folks can probably tell this from our conversation, but you've made your creative output. You've got your TV show, you wrote a memoir, you wrote a cookbook, are you able to do these things because the restaurant is only open part of the year?
Erin French:
That's definitely part of the help here of being able to have the bandwidth to do those things. Although, I feel like I've been doing all of them all at once in the busy season this year of like the restaurant and the show. But the winter is a time that really gives us time to pause and plan and think and I recognize that as part of really a plan of balance after my first restaurant. I was not running it in a healthy way for myself. And so, as I opened this restaurant here in Freedom, I wanted to be able to have that, to give myself that healthy space to rest and rejuvenate.
And so, I do sort of run the restaurant with like the basic, how much we can get out of this place to get through a year as opposed to just trying to push it to the limits. So, rest is definitely something I continue to work on with balance.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, you know that's a big question in the restaurant industry right now, how to find balance and chefs wanting to get away from this treadmill that they're all on of working too many hours, too many days, staff burnout, chef burnout, all of that.
Erin French:
And maybe just because I'm in this but I always feel like it's one of the hardest jobs that you could ever had because it's physical, it's mental, it's emotional. It can just grind you down and spit you out if you let it and it will do it on autopilot. It will just do that to you. There are 18 hour days. And I spent all day yesterday just on the couch because it's the one day off. I get one day off to rest my body and you wake up and you feel like you've been hit by a truck because you've pushed yourself and sometimes you recognize, I haven't eaten in two days, a real meal, I've been nibbling on things.
It's important to just sort of re-think what a restaurant needs to be. And I feel like I've been trying to do that. And even though when people start asking for more, when the restaurant has just been so insane with more and more people wanting to come here and you think like, "Oh, I should be growing it. I should be making it bigger. I should be opening more restaurants."
My instincts were to make it smaller, backup, close more days because you could feel it coming for you like it was going to swallow me alive again. And if I didn't try and own it and be very conscious about having balance and saying no, I could have been swallowed alive again.
Kerry Diamond:
Again, having read the book, you kind of understand where that came from. But I think that's such an important message for other folks to hear because I know so often, you just worry that it's all going to end. So, you need to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. And you're saying, you don't, that's not healthy.
Erin French:
Yeah. It's a very fine line. But I think you can't make good food if you're in a bad place and if you've got a terrible work environment. And, for me, it's been believing and taking the risk that everything would be okay here if we focused on creating that good work environment. And maybe that it was actually worth it to close more days because you could be a healthier workspace and a happier workplace and enjoy coming to work as opposed to just grinding yourself into the ground for every dollar you could pull into the place.
And I used to have people would say things to me, like, "Oh, she's just running this as a cause, it's just a place of hobby." I was like, "It's definitely not." And I knew that I wasn't running it, if any business person would say, "Well, you should be open more days, and you should be looking at your spreadsheets." And I just didn't ever run it that way. I ran it with my heart, even though I didn't have the financial place to not be business smart. I didn't have the room to fail.
But I recognize that if I ran myself into the ground, that was just fail it. So, why not take the less is more approach and see where it takes you. And I think we've kind of bucked the trend here with this restaurant and proven that it doesn't have to be that traditional, toxic place to get it all done.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to say, though, I don't think men in this industry get asked if their businesses are hobbies.
Erin French:
Yeah, I agree with you 100% there.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. We talked about that a little bit with Jamila from Homegrown, people ask her all the time if her farm is a community garden. And she's like, "No, this is a working farm. We raise all these fruits and vegetables. We sell them." But still, she gets asked that question. She gets asked who owns the farm, all those things.
Erin French:
Yeah. And I was even thinking, I had someone once recently say something about the price of what we were charging and was like, "This is way cheaper than what any man who's doing this sort of similar thing is charging." And I was like, again, getting under cut on that part too.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, well, I almost feel bad for asking after that conversation asking this question. But what's next for you?
Erin French:
I don't think I usually think in those terms. I'm not someone who plans years out in advance. Because the truth is that I think I've just been trying to maintain what I've grown and appreciate what I have. And I'm not looking to grow things to be bigger. I'm not looking to open more restaurants. I've told myself and I do say never say never but I say I'm never going to open another restaurant. I'm not going to expand it. I'm really in kind of protection mode at this point.
I want to keep doing what I'm doing exactly the way we're doing it for as long as I can because I love it so much. And I know that nothing lasts forever. And maybe this is the wrong way to look at it but I'm in maintenance mode to try to hold on to the good life that I've created instead of trying to build it bigger, better, stronger, faster. One day at a time.
Kerry Diamond:
That's great advice. We are going to jump to the speed round. What's your most used kitchen tool?
Erin French:
Fish spatula.
Kerry Diamond:
A fish spatula, okay. Okay. Favorite cookbook or most treasured cookbook, I mean, you probably have a lot of them.
Erin French:
Oh gosh, most treasured cookbook? Skye Gyngell's Favorite Ingredients. And Nigel Slater's Ripe.
Kerry Diamond:
Obviously, you like the UK writers.
Erin French:
No. I don't know why I find myself there.
Kerry Diamond:
Music in the kitchen. Yes or no?
Erin French:
Yes. Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
At The Lost Kitchen and at home?
Erin French:
Oh my gosh, non-stop. I mean, music is my life. We listen to it in prep. I am curating my playlist for Spotify for the dining room all the time. And it's my greatest compliment when at the end of the night, someone says, "Do you share your playlists?"
Kerry Diamond:
Do you share your playlist? Can we find them?
Erin French:
I don't but ...
Kerry Diamond:
You don't.
Erin French:
... maybe I need to make it shareable because I make a new one. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. What's on heavy rotation right now?
Erin French:
Heavy rotation, we're really in a Christine and the Queens situation. We're listening to old Stevie Nicks. And we are pulling in some Billy Eilish too.
Kerry Diamond:
Kitchen footwear of choice.
Erin French:
Okay. So, Blundstones for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Your last pantry purchase for home, not the restaurant.
Erin French:
For home, good god.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you just swipe stuff from the restaurant? People who don't work in restaurant probably wonder about that. Do chefs grocery shop or do they just grab stuff from the restaurants?
Erin French:
I grocery shop at my restaurant. The market is always open for me. It's great. Pantry at home, probably spices for Rogan Josh because I don't cook when I'm at home. My husband makes this really great Rogan Joshua, so he's always getting the spices to have that dish ready.
Kerry Diamond:
Great. What's the oldest thing in your fridge at home?
Erin French:
Oh god, the oldest thing in my fridge at home probably an old jar of kimchi.
Kerry Diamond:
Dream travel destination.
Erin French:
Wow, I've been dreaming of so many. It's hard to pick one. Greece.
Kerry Diamond:
Why Greece?
Erin French:
I just want to go eat fish and cucumbers and tomato and feta just sit by the ocean.
Kerry Diamond:
I can get down with that. Last question, if you had to be stuck on a desert island with one food celeb, who would it be and why?
Erin French:
It would be Ina.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you're going to say that.
Erin French:
She'd be fun. I want someone who's got a sense of humor. So, laugh with her.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. She's on my shortlist of people to be stuck on the desert island with. I love Ina too. Well, Erin French, you are amazing. Thank you so much for your time, especially knowing that we're cutting into your downtime. But you have built such an amazing thing up in Freedom and I'm just so happy for all your success.
Erin French:
Thanks, Kerry. Thanks for including me. It really means a lot to me.
Kerry Diamond:
No, absolutely. And have a wonderful season. You've still got some time left.
Erin French:
We're still rolling. The frost is months away, so.
Kerry Diamond:
It's great to hear your voice and I do hope I get to see you in Freedom sooner rather than later. I've got to make a road trip up there.
Erin French:
That's right. That's right. Get in the car.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Erin French of The Lost Kitchen. Be sure to pick up a copy of Erin's memoir, cookbook or both at your favorite bookstore. And check out Erin's show The Lost Kitchen on the Magnolia Network. If you can't get to Erin's restaurant, it's kind of the next best thing. But get that postcard-ready for next year.
Thank you to Cypress Grove, my goat cheese pals for supporting today's show. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe magazine, which you can subscribe to at cherrybombe.com. And while you're there, I would love for you to sign up for our newsletter. Learn about episodes such as this one and our other Radio Cherry Bombe interviews with fab food folks like Alice Waters, Samin Nosrat and Yotam Ottolenghi.
Radio Cherry Bombe is recorded at Newsstands Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer of Newsstand Studios and to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. Thanks for listening everybody. You're the bombe.
Harry From When Harry Met Sally:
I'll have what she's having.