Gayle Pirie Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine and, each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is Gayle Pirie of Foreign Cinema, the beloved San Francisco spot that combines food, film, and art. Foreign Cinema is 24 years old. I'm sure all of you know this but it is amazing for a restaurant to be around that long and still be a community hub. Gayle and her husband, John Clark, are the co-owners and co-chefs of Foreign Cinema. I had the pleasure of spending time with Gayle recently when we hosted a dinner with OpenTable as part of our Sit With Us series. I loved meeting up with everyone who joined us and catching up with some old friends. Gayle is a unique human and I am honored I had the opportunity to interview her so please stay tuned. And, if you're in San Francisco and haven't been to Foreign Cinema, go visit. And here's a pro tip. Have your meal in the courtyard where they screen the 35 millimeter films, it is quite the experience. Thank you to our friends at OpenTable for supporting our dinner series and for supporting Radio Cherry Bombe.
Next up, Team Cherry Bombe is headed to Philadelphia. Any Philly folks out there? We are doing a live event on Thursday, September 7th, that's Thursday, September 7th, for our Future Of Food Is You podcast and host Abena Anim-Somuah will be moderating a panel of local food folks. We'll be at the new High Street event space and there will be great food and drink and networking. For tickets or more information, check out cherry bombe.com. Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting this event.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Gayle Pirie, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Gayle Pirie:
Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's start by sharing what Foreign Cinema is all about because it is not just a place to go have dinner.
Gayle Pirie:
It's true, it's a community hub that has defied multiple economic and catastrophic moments and it's been an evolution, certainly, since its inception. Which, to me, is the most powerful thing you can do is just evolve your business to make it reflect the exact moment. So, it has gone through a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's not just dinner.
Gayle Pirie:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
What else is there to Foreign Cinema?
Gayle Pirie:
Well, Foreign Cinema is a place that you can come and make it what you need it to be. There is a bar, Laszlo, on Mission Street that has music and DJs and wonderful comradery, a neighborhood feel on Mission Street. And then, the restaurant, it's a hub of artistic inclinations so it's essential experience really. There's film, there's food, there is hospitality, there is generosity and those things make it interesting to compose every day, all the elements that come together. So, we're very proud of the art part of it and making that work all these years has been wonderful.
Kerry Diamond:
And actual artwork. Is it a revolving collection? I know you have a lot of art there.
Gayle Pirie:
Well, luckily, we fused an amazing relationship with Martin Muller from Modernism Incorporated in San Francisco and he is a legacy in and of himself in the industry of art, modern art. So, he curates the Modernism West Gallery, he named it and we've been working together with him for years and he curates the shows. They do change throughout the year, maybe 12, 15 times a year and we do have art openings, book readings, poetry readings. Right now, we have a beautiful collection of Martin Scenes, a Ukrainian artist from the '20s and '30s of film posters, it's wonderful. So, when the room isn't booked for a private event, it is an open public space that's very charming.
Kerry Diamond:
I really have never heard of another restaurant like this.
Gayle Pirie:
It's pretty unusual and you could have never planned or designed it. It all came organically, really. I hate to use that word, it's overused but it really did happen like that. We had a space that was part of our lease agreement and it needed to be developed. One of our regulars, Martin, hosted these art dinners, art salon dinners every last Sunday of the month and great writers and artists and interesting people would come and dine with us. And as we tried to lease the space to various people, it always fell through. But one day, Martin came in and I said, "Martin, I know this is going to sound crazy but could you look at this space and tell me what you think we need to develop it? It should be a gallery," and he said, "Of course."
He came in and he walked through the back and he just looked around and I was explaining what it could be and he just said two words, "I'm in," and the rest is history. And we developed it, we painted the walls, put in the floor, put in the bar and he has, since then, has just graced us with beautiful timeless shows that are inspiring for us and the community. Anyone who happens to wander in there, they're still quite surprised that it exists.
Kerry Diamond:
“I'm in” is a good statement, isn't it?
Gayle Pirie:
I'll never forget it. That was it.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you, at some point, said I'm in because you started working at Foreign Cinema years ago. Tell us how you wound up there.
Gayle Pirie:
Well, John Clark and myself, we are the co-executive chefs and co-owners. We weren't at the time, we were hired guns to come in to a restaurant and try and stabilize and improve the restaurant in its early days of rocky beginnings but it was an undertaking of epic proportions because my son was two. And the restaurant had great bones, a beautiful room, amazing potential, we had dinner there and we thought, "Well, this could be an amazing opportunity to make it a daily changing California Mediterranean experience," the only thing we know how to do. And so, in July of 2001, we began the odyssey and it wasn't easy.
Kerry Diamond:
Had you two worked together previously?
Gayle Pirie:
Yes, John and I had a consulting practice for seven years prior to that that took us around the world fixing restaurants or developing restaurants or letting restaurants go organic or helping communications among management. We were problem solvers globally around the world for restaurant operators. So, we did that together. And then, before that, John and I were at Zuni from very incredible years, '85 to '93, so we worked really closely with Judy Rodgers. And before that, we were at a small restaurant called Vicolo together. So, we've been together a long time.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the secret of working together with your spouse?
Gayle Pirie:
Well, I think understanding that there are good days and bad days and you both bring a certain amount to the table and there's a definite positive yin yang where everyone benefits. And it's exciting to be able to work together and to tap each other's skills but it's not perfect but we try.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you transition from chef to owner?
Gayle Pirie:
Well, as hired guns, we understood the commitment of what it was going to take to turn this place around. The place had a lot of problems. Infrastructure wise and just business wise, very complex reasons. I think we came in at the dot com bust, there was 9/11 a few months after that and it was all encompassing, it was taking up a lot of time. And I remember, when we had the job and we were about to start it, I just cried for a couple of days because I knew, we had a little boy, and I knew what this restaurant was going to take. We are not naive when it comes to what it takes to turn a restaurant around and to bring in that daily sense of menus and to get every purveyor paid off.
When we got there, there were some problems and so we just wanted to make sure that everything became proprietary, purveyors were paid, the restaurant went organic, the menu would be written every day, we would look for good quality management and cooks and that's just a 24/ Our partner, Bruce, understood what that was going to take out of two people's lives and we said this will not be possible to do this on mere salary but we'll need to see some investment on what we're going to give this business because there were so many ways this business could have failed.
The fact that it's still there and doing so well is a testament to hard work and dedication and passion but also Bruce's willingness and business sense to have us be partners. And then, once we were partners, all of it made much more sense because you were doing something for your future. Chefs and cooks work so hard so to have a piece of something to work towards makes it that much more sweet because so many things can go wrong.
Kerry Diamond:
How is Foreign Cinema different today than it was when you started there?
Gayle Pirie:
Oh, my goodness, okay. Well, to our team's credit, we still maintain an incredible staff who's been there since the beginning which is amazing. We-
Kerry Diamond:
You have staffers who have been there 24 years?
Gayle Pirie:
Yes, we do.
Kerry Diamond:
That's incredible.
Gayle Pirie:
We have a few amazing beautiful souls that have, I call them our jefes because they are still there and working hard and happy to be at work. The restaurant is a fully developed restaurant idea. I would say, in the beginning, the partners, the opening partners including Bruce McDonald, our partner, and our past partners, John Varnado and his team of opening managers had an idea and it was a romantic idea. And I think, when you're trying to develop a space in those early days, you don't know, you're just biting off chunks of this or that. And so, the opening founders thought it could be a pub, a brew pub, it could be a film school, a lot of things happening, a gastro pub, a lot of amazing ideas.
And I think, in the beginning, it was supposed to be a secret club and so it's difficult to find. No marquee, no nomenclature, no address. Under film listings back in the day, when you were checking out what's playing where in a theater, Foreign Cinema listed its film that week and it did have a dedicated film team, artists curating the films. So, in the early days, it was more of an art project, a little edgy, not a lot of easy things for newcomers to find and so it was a little odd. We'd have people show up in the early, early days really annoyed that there was food happening during the film.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to ask, because of those listings, did you literally have people show up thinking it was a movie theater?
Gayle Pirie:
Absolutely. And once they did wander down the hall and figure out that it was completely something else, not a restaurant, you'd have people mad. But John and I were walking into a set of clandestine, mysterious kinds of business thoughts so, that summer, we really were surprised and we made a lot of changes to that inception which helped it be a better restaurant. Because, A, you want it to be a fundamentally well-run restaurant with really good management and a sense of hospitality and a mission statement and, in those early days, it was just so many things to so many people. And so, we immediately put up a sign-
Kerry Diamond:
How radical of you.
Gayle Pirie:
Yeah. And I think, in the early days of the phone book, Foreign Cinema, there was no address, just a phone number. Same phone number, just Foreign Cinema, (415) 648-7600, no address. So, we had people driving around looking for the place and what the restaurant is now is just a much, much, much, much better conceived restaurant with, oh, yes and we happen to have these amazing details for your pleasure, for your escape for the next two hours.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to ask, why didn't you and your husband run away? It sounds like it was a little bit of a mess and you two were consultants, you could have moved on to anything, you had a two-year-old. What got in your blood? Why did you stay?
Gayle Pirie:
I think what got in our blood was we were going to see this thing through. We arrived there with hundreds of problems and I think we like to solve problems. We don't like to complain, we just like to change things so that they work properly. And I think the way John's mind works and my mind works is you get a list and you have these priorities and you just start crossing them off. And so, when we got there, there were difficult labor issues, there was crazy food cost issues, there was just a lot of mismanagement or no management because there was so much going on. The partners had bought Bruno's and sold it and then bought it again, Laszlo had opened and it was a circus.
And so, for John and myself, not running away was positive. And once Bruce made us a partner, everything seemed, oh, we've got to wake up and see what's going to happen today. We've got to get to the other side of this problem. Can we fix it? So, those things really inspire our minds, just not giving up but we should have. I did cry. In those days, we were driving to Monterey Market, doing the flowers, doing the produce with our son in the back of my pickup truck, driving the produce to Foreign Cinema and just making it-
Kerry Diamond:
Your son not literally in the back of the pickup truck.
Gayle Pirie:
Well, he was in the cab. Yeah, you're right. Just trying to make it a home. And so, I think what has happened today since then is this amazing art project founded by really great thinkers. We have now taken that great idea and really fortified it with things that have longevity and that makes us feel really good.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. The Cherry Bombe online shop is temporarily closed because we're switching warehouses. If you are looking for the newest issue of Cherry Bombe, be sure to visit one of our amazing stockists. Cherry Bombe is carried by great bookstores, cafes, magazine shops and culinary boutiques across the country and abroad. Places like Now Serving in Los Angeles, Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco, Avril 50 in Philadelphia, and the brand new First Light Books in Austin. Visit cherrybombe.com for a stockist near you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi, everybody, I'm Abena Anim-Somuah, the host of The Future Of Food Is You podcast talking to you from Mexico City. Team Cherry Bombe is headed to Philadelphia, we're doing a live Future Of Food Is You event on Thursday, September 7th and I'll be moderating a panel of local food folks. We'll be at the new High Street event space and there'll be great food, drinks and networking. For tickets or more information, check out cherrybombe.com. Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting this event and I hope to see you there.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's jump to today, tell us about the menu. What are some highlights?
Gayle Pirie:
Oh, the menu is a love affair. You'll see on the menu everything that John and I want to eat and that's very selfish but I think it goes along the lines of what a painter wants to see they paint and a writer who wants to write, they have to get the story out. The menu is basically everything that John and I love. We immediately expanded the oyster list when we got there. I think the last chef had a couple of oysters, we immediately made it a much broader shellfish category on the menu so that it could feel like Paris and you could walk in and just get the best shellfish in the world and it was going to be the terroir of Northern California and a little East Coast but you could walk in and just get that.
So, that has been expounded upon, the menu has things that are our favorite things to eat. We do brandade in different variations because I think it's one of my favorite things in the world to have, it's luxurious. Whenever a restaurant would feature it as a special and then you go back and they didn't have it, "Oh, I really want that," So, at our restaurant, we make it every day. Sometimes it has cummin, sometimes it has green chilies, sometimes, in season, we envelop that brandade with crab, possibly Maine lobster just to give it a little seasonal push. It's a very fish centric menu so you'll see a couple of fish main courses. We do a lot of what we did when we opened the restaurant so it's really a bitmap to our philosophy.
So, a natural steak product, a beautiful pork chop, we do duck almost every night in some variation. We try and source beautiful ribeyes and New Yorks from reputable purveyors, meat that we believe in. The menu is vegetable centric as well. You can walk in and get four or five or six things that are completely vegetarian. So, there is a model of the beginning and then it's just a play on that. If you look at today's menu and you look at a menu from 20 years ago, a lot of the nouns are the same, it's a little bigger, it's a little bit more generous. When we can, we cured anchovies, we feature those.
The one heartbreak that we did experience during this 24-year period were the fact that sardines were readily available when we got to the restaurant so we immediately bought sardines, cured them and featured them on the menu for about 15 or 16 years. And then, when the sardine population sadly went away, those sardines went away. But once in a while, our reputable fish people will score some sardines and we'll get them and, for old time's sake, we cure them and we feature them on the menu once more.
Kerry Diamond:
So, these were local sardines?
Gayle Pirie:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's sad. I love sardines so much.
Gayle Pirie:
Me too.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell people how it works exactly for folks who've never been.
Gayle Pirie:
Sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you essentially booking something for the duration of the movie and you come and you have a meal and a movie or are people coming and going?
Gayle Pirie:
Right. Well, we like to make sure people understand that, fundamentally, it's a very groovy restaurant. We're open seven nights a week and we do two bustling brunches, weekend brunches. I believe that we are the grandam of brunch in San Francisco.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say, you are known for your brunch.
Gayle Pirie:
So, the film starts at dusk and so a lot of people who are confused who may read about the restaurant, they don't understand where you sit or how it works. So, the film will begin at dusk regardless. So, in the wintertime, that's 5:00. And the film, the 35 millimeter film, which we show, 35 millimeter, you got to think about that for a minute.
Kerry Diamond:
Some folks might not even know what that is.
Gayle Pirie:
So, that's what you used to see in a theater and each canister would weigh anywhere between seven and 11 to 15 pounds each. We get some movies, we will be showing “Titanic” and that is 10 reels and that takes some muscle to cue that up on the spool. But what happens throughout the year is the film will begin later and later and later as dusk is later. Right now, we don't show the film until maybe 8:00. So, the courtyard where we have alfresco dining is where the film is shown but, before that, you're in a beautiful space. It's a bit of an anomaly that that space could exist. And then we have the indoor dining room with the fireplace, open kitchen and back bar, they work symbiotically.
We leased five spaces from the landlord and turned it into one and the architects did a great job of making the long entry hall feel like a theater. A lot of the details about the restaurant, architecturally and building wise, have some history but you'll enter a restaurant and a film will begin. Those films are chosen through the film companies that still feature 35 millimeter and it's a real joy to be able to just have that projector go on, it makes me emotional. And the flicker of light and the timing of it, it's very analog and I hope that I can give tours to people who want to see it because you really forget what our world used to be because we have so much amazing technology at our fingertips. So, I'm very proud that we still have this amazing film program.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have to sit outside to see the film? If you sit inside, can you see it?
Gayle Pirie:
If you sit inside, you can see parts of the film that are more ambiance. If you're outside, you do get the fuller experience. We do have drive-in speakers that work, that take a tremendous amount of maintenance. Oh, my God. Thank God there's people who still help us fix this stuff because those humans are rare to find.
Kerry Diamond:
I can imagine. So, you're getting bits and pieces of the film. It's not like you're going there to sit there and watch a movie for two and a half hours.
Gayle Pirie:
Yeah. We would try and guide a new guest to remember to come have dinner, enjoy yourself, oh, and, by the way, a film will begin. And that can be a challenge because sometimes you have people called campers who won't get up but we try and gently move these beautiful guests over to a upper courtyard where you can experience the film on couches and that's a new thing, too. So, another thing on John and Gayle's list that finally got done, the upper courtyard with a beautiful fireplace, great sound so you can have your after dinner drink and finish the film there.
Kerry Diamond:
Amazing. I'm sure there are a lot of restaurateurs and restaurant folk listening to this who haven't been just thinking, "How the hell did they make this work? As if a restaurant is not hard enough."
Gayle Pirie:
Right. Well, it is called the wild, wild west because there are multiple rooms and I guess any manager or industry person would understand each room has a spirit and a mood and trying to corral each room each night is interesting, it's a challenge. It's such a beautiful experience that, these things, we look forward to, we don't look at them as problems. When someone doesn't want to move because they want to see the end of the film, we try and not interrupt that and I think a lot of other restaurants don't have the capacity to allow a table to linger, they can't do it, they won't make the money they need to make the business go.
So, we relish the fact that, sometimes, we don't have to ask a table to leave. Sometimes we do and, if we do, we offer to buy them a drink at the bar. We really try and make it generous.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about San Francisco for a minute. As you know well, you've been in this business for a long time, there are lots of ups and downs and things are cyclical but there's no denying that, a lot of our cities, a lot of our favorite cities are really suffering in specific ways these days. New York, L.A., San Francisco. How is the restaurant scene handling things these days?
Gayle Pirie:
I think the restaurant scene is handling it well. I think our restaurants, the brothers and sisters running the city in their restaurants, they are courageous, creative, hardworking people who have been through a lot and are always the first to give in times of calamity, this is what we're made of. It's easy to feel down and especially to see so many restaurants close after 40 years because they just can't do it or they lost their lease. So, I think everyone who is operating today has had an opportunity to make their business leaner, meaner and more resilient. So, the ones standing, I think, had a lot going on and the ones that are gone probably had enough problems that was not probably going to survive the pandemic and it was an opportunity to just say okay.
But I do want to say there's a lot of positive stuff going on with younger chefs who are getting their restaurants open, getting the opportunity to do interesting things. So, I think it's a time of renaissance even though there are scary stories. I think San Francisco is like a lot of cities and I think we get a lot of press. I think we get myopic press every day, nationally because we're a liberal city and I think we're a great punching bag. But I've talked to a lot of people, a lot of natives, a lot of regulars in the restaurant and they say San Francisco has never felt so good. Layoffs and the pandemic and just the layers of things that have happened have made our city shine its resiliency but you're not going to see that through the national lens. And do we have bad things happen? Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
My take is what seems to have hurt you all the most is work from home.
Gayle Pirie:
Yes. In a way, we're going to mine that and it's going to turn into something that's going to be the new future. We already have but I think things are changing on a monthly basis with it but our downtown can be a new place where it really is a renaissance. A renaissance doesn't begin in times of flourish, renaissance starts at a base level where calamity has occurred and the decks have been cleared and, now, the decks are cleared. The possibilities of rethinking how downtown should be are so exciting. And does it suck right now? Yes, especially for brothers and sisters with restaurants down there, small businesses, with business that's reliant upon.
I really feel for them and I want to do whatever I can to help but I think it's going to come back, I know it's going to come back. So, this time is a great time to rest and rethink things so that San Francisco can return back to its Bohemian roots.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about you. You are obviously such a true creative and a big thinker and a passionate human being. How did you become a chef?
Gayle Pirie:
Well, I didn't think I would be a chef but, somehow, when you're going to school to be a painter or an artist and you end up in restaurants and you end up working with artists, somehow those worlds fuse. I really thought that I would be some a artist teacher but working for Judy in 1985, being hired by Kathy Riley and then having Judy Rodgers arrive and to watch Zuni become what it is today under her direction was absolutely mind blowing. Because both John and myself there, many, many hours every day for over seven years, and they were incredible years, those days of cooking were mostly, for me, an artistic expression. So, I was making paintings and cooking and getting my degree at San Francisco State in art history, after switching from a painting degree, it all worked together. And so, I continued to paint and, somehow, after leaving Zuni, I did paint some more and then we ended up doing the consulting business.
I didn't go to cooking school but I learned from amazing women in this town, was a female-centric town for lots of badass women chefs and that's my experience. I like to dabble with my art now, I think, at some point, I really want to return to it and you will see a few of my murals in the upper courtyard at Foreign Cinema where you can watch the movie. I did do a couple of acrylic murals there, you can see that and I do continue. It's a lot in my mind. We have raised two children. So, with the restaurant and two children, the art world takes a back seat and you end up putting every artistic inclination, as John does, into the restaurant.
We're very proud of the details in the restaurant like a poster collection that has taken decades to frame, acquire frame and now they're hung in the restaurant and we're very proud of those. The act of a restaurant, as a lot of chefs out there know, is artistic so I do feel like there's an amazing symbiosis there. And I think about paintings all the time. We are so grateful for the opportunity to have a passionate outlet, it gives you reason to get up and, again, solve some problems and just make people happy.
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm. Who were some painters or other artists who inspired you when you were an art student?
Gayle Pirie:
Oh, holy cow. Well, Edward Hopper. You can see my paintings at the time of my student work, all San Francisco landscapes completely inspired by Edward Hopper. Vermeer, Vermeer completely slays me. Howard Hodgkin, who's an abstract British painter, slays me. Those are a few. Hopper, so many.
Kerry Diamond:
How about filmmakers? Do you get involved in selecting the films?
Gayle Pirie:
Currently, I select the films right now because, during the pandemic we had to wear a lot of hats. We opened a restaurant with a much smaller staff and a management team, I started selecting those and I think, after the pandemic, my goal was to make people feel really good. So, when you're selecting these films, A, you have to figure out which ones are available to you when you want them and on 35 millimeters so there isn't a huge selection. What you want to go for when you're choosing films, people to look up from supper and to just go, "Oh, look at that dress," or, "Oh, my God, I love Paul Newman. Oh, my God, I love Robert Redford," things that excite you.
So, I think the film curation has changed incredibly over 24 years from serious, film school, film buff, artistic, Bohemian, experimental, edgy to, now, post pandemic classic things that really resonate with people. Whenever we show “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” on 35 millimeter, the response from guests, they don't really need to see the whole film, they are just so happy to see something from their past that brings such great memories, it's like dopamine. So, it's not to say that we don't show edgy movies but they just have to be powerful and beautiful and positive. And so, coming out of the pandemic, that really changed.
And also, it doesn't mean that you won't see Akira Kurosawa's “Kagemusha” but you would see film noir. Oh, my God, “Sunrise,” Murnau's beautiful silent film, oh, my goodness. When we show that film on 35 millimeter, it's incredible and that is homage to Tom Luddy. We show things like “On The Riviera” with Danny Kaye, “Singing in the Rain,” beautiful things that just provoke dopamine. We just can't get enough.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about Judy Rodgers a little bit more, the late great Judy Rodgers. I know some of our listeners know her, some won't be familiar with Judy. What did you learn from her?
Gayle Pirie:
Where do you start? She brought a vision to San Francisco at the time, which was the mid-'80s, where she was going to put in a brick oven and a wood-fired grill. None of those things existed when she arrived, it was a similar line with just gas burners. She had a vision of cuisine that was comforting and of another generation. And in that time of fusion and nouvelle in '80s, it was such a vision and so we got to watch that firsthand. And reading cookbooks in Italian, cookbooks in French, bringing Chef Pepette Arbulo to Zuni in 1986 to cook her southwestern Cormier cuisine, duck and foie gras and I remember we had luminaries show up at the restaurant, Elizabeth David, Richard Olney, show up for lunch. Chefs, Jeremiah Tower was there, sometimes three times a week eating.
And it didn't dawn on me because I was so young what exactly was happening except that all the food that she wanted to do and how she wanted to realign the restaurant from its wonderful southwestern appeal which was sweet and wonderful and why I ate at Zuni before I worked there. And I remember, on my 21st birthday, I went to Zuni and I said, "I wanted to work here," but it was southwestern at the time. It just had to do with the space, the visual space, the mood and so it was so important to me. And then to watch Judy come in and transform the space with me watching so closely by her side and to do braises, whole lamb, we serve duck carcasses that are part of the southwestern tradition where we had ducks butchered and then the carcasses were left and we would roast those and serve them on a plate with gremolata.
The idea was just to pick off the shards of crunchy meat off the carcass, come on, that is the greatest thing ever. We did that a few times. She brought doubes, braises with beautiful pastry on top, served in copper pots, inspirational. Really, this wonderful woman had such a vision and was generous with her time and ideas and I remember just spending seven years with her. When you're a young cook and you're trying things and you find things that you love and you want to perfect, she was so generous with me. I think generosity is what I learned from her with me and John I think could say the same thing. Along with her intellectual knowledge and her memory, an amazing mind for flavors and just knowing where things come from.
So, I was a student and I think it was this existential moment. I kept making rabbit rillettes on a Sunday night and I kept overcooking them and then over whipping them and so the texture was like teepee as opposed to mouthy tender strands of rabbit. I must have screwed it up four times every week and every time she'd go, "I can't get mad because I know you will be so hard on yourself I don't need to." And that's how it was, you make a mistake and she just knew and you did. You kicked yourself metaphorically in the butt until you got it right. I did get it right and I do love rillettes. In her honor, we have been running gesiers at Foreign Cinema. It's a dream I've had for 25 years to make this dish.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about it, I don't know what that is.
Gayle Pirie:
It's a southwestern dish that has to do with confit and it's a byproduct of confit which happens in the southwest of France. And a lot of the particulate that ends up at the bottom of the pot, the beautiful gelee or the juices that have a lot of gelatin and the little shards of the duck confit and possibly gizzards that you've confied end up at the bottom of the pot and you form those, you use those as a beautiful charcuterie item. Now, they're rough and they don't have a beautiful appearance, they're very rustic but that was the beauty of Judy. A lot of the food that we made wasn't necessarily beautiful but, my God, did it taste good and it tasted of another world and it took you to another place.
At that time, in the mid-'80s, when everybody's doing a little bit of Caribbean and Chinese and French combinations, she went straight to the tradition and to the country. Anyway, we're making these gesiers at the restaurant right now and I'm very proud and I think of her all the time and I wonder if she'd like them. And I was with her when she passed and we were very close after we left Zuni so it's very emotional. I can't believe she's gone, I still cry. And I do go to Zuni a lot and visit the team there and I do feel close to her when I'm there and I think John also gets choked up because it doesn't seem right. But the city was an amazing place at that time for women chefs, she was one of them and I think of her daily.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I'm so sorry you lost such a good friend. For those listeners who are very sad that they missed the Judy Rodgers era, there are cookbooks, there's still Zuni Cafe.
Gayle Pirie:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And you can go and, if you haven't, I highly encourage you to go visit. I know you've also listed Alice Waters as one of your mentors.
Gayle Pirie:
Oh, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us-
Gayle Pirie:
My goodness.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us why. Dumb question but tell us why Alice.
Gayle Pirie:
Well, she needed an assistant in '93 so, while we embarked on our consulting practice, I did take on a very intimate relationship at the restaurant helping her. I remember archiving menus because she was going away and she needed someone to take care of her arsenal of menus that were very precious because their line of cuts. And I remember being able to just go through that alone as a young, starry-eyed cook and read these beautiful menus that she composed with her great team of Chez Panisse throughout the years. And why Alice is so special is that she loves good food, she loves people and she created this ethos that we still operate on today and, hopefully, younger operators do as well of just sourcing the best and investing in the regeneration of farmland and working with amazing farmers who will save the world.
And the education that she has brought to the school system, not only in California, but to the nation is completely inspirational. I remember, when the Edible Schoolyard was being conceived, which is a very amazing think tank and operational garden in Berkeley at Martin Luther King Junior Middle School, and the spot that she had in mind was just a concrete parking lot. So, I was able to help break the concrete and it was a series of phases and I remember just thinking, "Wow, how do you plan for this thing?" It's come a long way since 1993, it is the most enchanted place a child can learn, not only harvest the food, but then go into the classroom kitchen and make the food that you've grown, it really is the great equalizer for kids. Good food should not be about a zip code, it really is about bringing people together.
Kerry Diamond:
How did that happen?
Gayle Pirie:
Over that parking lot and I remember we seated it and it became ground cover and then that got churned and then just all these amazing artisans came in and helped. And then it became a bigger project over the decades and I'm just floored that it is part of a national and sometimes international educational school model. And that, in of itself, is just mind blowing.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you've had a front row seat to all of this.
Gayle Pirie:
To watch it grow. Literally.
Kerry Diamond:
You beat me to that, literally. All right, we are running out of time so let's jump ahead to speed round. Tell us a favorite food book. It could be a cookbook, it could be a memoir.
Gayle Pirie:
Oh, my God, there are a hundred books. David Lebovitz's books are amazing. David Tanis, everything David Tanis writes about, I want to read, he slays me as a writer.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have time to stream things? Are you streaming anything right now?
Gayle Pirie:
No, I don't but I do like Jim Gaffigan.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What is your favorite kitchen implement?
Gayle Pirie:
Tongs.
Kerry Diamond:
Tongs, good one. Footwear of choice in the kitchen?
Gayle Pirie:
Comfort wear. They are these funny shoes I'm wearing now, comfort wear shoes, yeah. They're for Achilles tendonitis which I have in both feet. The other good support shoes are Dansko's, I have multiple pairs of those.
Kerry Diamond:
A song that makes you smile.
Gayle Pirie:
I don't know why Iron Maiden Nomad comes up.
Kerry Diamond:
You're the first to say that, I love that. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Gayle Pirie:
I would say Gordon Ramsay. Yeah, I like his repertoire and I like his volatility but I think he's a really good talent and he would probably entertain me a lot on the island.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Gayle, this has been so much fun. You are amazing.
Gayle Pirie:
Well, what a generous moment to have with another luminary in the world and I'm honored and I'm so pleased to have been able to spend this time with you. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Want to stay on top of all things Cherry Bombe? Sign up for our free newsletter at cherrybombe.com. Learn about the week's podcast guests, upcoming events, and fun news from the world of restaurants, cookbooks, chefs, and more. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker, our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is London Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, you're the Bombe.