Laurie Woolever 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. Today's guest is Laurie Woolever, an old friend of Cherry Bombe's. Her new memoir, “Care and Feeding,” will be out tomorrow and it is one of the most anticipated food books of the year. In it, Laurie shares what it was like being the assistant to Mario Batali, the disgraced celebrity chef. And later, the assistant to Anthony Bourdain, the beloved and complicated TV superstar, author, and journalist. Laurie also shares her own story, and how she almost lost herself while tending to the care and feeding of others. She is a terrific writer. I'm so glad she made it through to the other side and got out from under the shadows cast by her former bosses. Before we get started, I want to flag that we discuss a lot of sensitive topics on today's show. Stay tuned for my interview with Laurie Woolever.
I want to thank everyone who joined us for our International Women's Day events in Las Vegas this past weekend. It was wonderful seeing all of you and getting to celebrate the Bombesquad and some of the incredible women on the Las Vegas scene. If you haven't checked out my Las Vegas podcast miniseries yet, please do, new episodes drop every Wednesday. And I've talked to lots of cool folks from burlesque queen and kitchen enthusiast, Dita Von Teese, to pop-up baker Kimmie Mcintosh of Milkfish. Thank you to Vegas for supporting our series.
Tonight I'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina for our latest Sit With Us dinner in partnership with OpenTable at Tamasha, a modern Indian restaurant co-owned by Tina Vora. I'm also going to record some pods while I'm down in Raleigh, so stay tuned. You'll hear those interviews later this spring.
Lastly, our next big event is Jubilee, happening Saturday, April 12th in New York City. Be sure to get your tickets before they sell out. If you're a Cherry Bombe member, check your inbox for special member pricing.
It was interesting talking to Laurie and reading her book, because it brought me back to the days before we launched Cherry Bombe and Jubilee, when women were often treated as second-class citizens in the food and restaurant worlds. I don't ever want to see us backslide and return to those days. I am very grateful for this incredible community we have of kick-ass women doing amazing important things across the country. I know how hard all of you work, and I'm sending you lots of love and strength.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Laurie Woolever, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Laurie Woolever:
Thank you for having me. Very happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
I could not put your book down. I got an early copy and I was just like, oh my God. I didn't even really write out questions for you because I was so blown away by the book. I was like, you know what, let's just see where the conversation goes. But I do think my first question has to be, how are you still here?
Laurie Woolever:
Do you mean, how did I survive the-
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. All of it.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I did. I don't look at it as a collection of traumas or horrible things that I survived. It's just like, well, this is the life that I led. I was a drunk. I had a wild streak that I think surprised people. Suffered some losses, for sure. But just keep getting up every day, put one foot in front of the other, I guess.
Kerry Diamond:
You've kept that side of your life fairly private.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, I don't think I present as someone who is living dangerously. I think I seem quiet. This was something, actually, that Tony Bourdain would say a lot. That I presented very quiet, but then I would go on Twitter and really mouth off and be disgusting and crude, or tell a joke or write something down, but I'm not outwardly wild. Although, I don't know. If people were drinking with me or doing karaoke with me, or whatever in my drinking days, they might've seen that side of me. I was raised to be a good girl. That's definitely the self-presentation that I've maintained, but I had interests and desires and addictions and things that led me down a different path.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about the title, “Care and Feeding.”
Laurie Woolever:
Well, someone said to me a long time ago, talking about my career, "Gosh, you've made a career out of the care and feeding of difficult men." Of course, referring to my two big bosses, Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain. And it just struck me, I never really looked at it that way. I thought that my work was in the service of my own writing career, but really, there was the a through line of handling men's affairs. And then I think the idea of care and feeding are threaded throughout the book. There's a lot of cooking, there's getting married, having a baby, all of this care and feeding that's involved with being a head of a household. It's a through line, but it really came from that friend making that observation about the way my life was structured.
Kerry Diamond:
For me, the title had the extra layer of it was the care and feeding of yourself, ultimately.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. After a fashion. Figuring out how to be a little nicer to myself, how to take care of myself, how to really recognize when I needed help. Which, I was not very good at asking for help or even recognizing that maybe I needed it.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you want to write this book?
Laurie Woolever:
In some ways, I think this is a book that I've been writing in my head my whole life, for a very long time. I remember being a very young kid, maybe four or five years old, and just becoming aware that I was telling myself a story or trying to remember things so that I could eventually tell the story of what happened. This was just in me. Basically, it's a 25-year time period in this book, and I have a lot of stories to tell from my career, from my personal life, from everything that I've seen and done living in New York since college. It just seemed like the right time.
These are stories that I think are very universal. And as much as they're very specific to me, I think stories about being a woman in the workplace, going to culinary school, working for some very big personalities, travel, marriage, motherhood. These are all really universal stories. I've always been really comforted and pleased when I can read a story that makes me feel my own experience is being reflected back. I think when people read this book, wherever they're coming from in life, they'll see something relatable to their own experience in the world.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you go back and talk to anyone who's in the book? Did you feel you needed to show some people what you had written?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Some of the romantic entanglements, I reached out to some of those people and just said, "Listen-
Kerry Diamond:
Not awkward.
Laurie Woolever:
A little awkward. Yeah. Just, "I'm going to write about this time. I want to let you know." I showed some people the pages, I made some changes. I really didn't want to hurt anyone or blow up anybody's life, or make them feel whatever way. It's not about settling scores or anything. And this is noted in the beginning of the book, I did make some detail changes in order to keep people's privacy intact. I've given the whole book to my ex-husband. I don't know that he's read it yet, but he's got it. And, yeah, people that I worked with back when I was working for Mario Batali, some of my co-workers. Just to say, "This is what I remember, this is what I've written. Does this square with your memory of things? Are there details I've gotten wrong or things that I've left out?" And that was really, really valuable. But all along the way, I really tried to make sure that I was telling a story that was as accurate as I remembered it to be.
Kerry Diamond:
And what about your son?
Laurie Woolever:
He has not read it yet. He's 16 now, he knows that I've written a book. He knew all along when I was working on it I would tell him I'm writing a memoir. I got a big box of galleys a few months ago and I said, "This is the book that I've written. And if you're interested, I've got 25 copies here. You're very welcome to take one. And I'll of course talk to you about anything you want to talk about. And if you don't want to read it, that's okay too." And he has not read it.
I'm relieved, because there's some tough stuff in there that I think he'll have questions about. But I totally understand the impulse to not read it. I've said this a couple times now, if my mother wrote a book about her feelings, I'd be like, "Ugh, no. Thank you. Keep that to yourself." I completely understand his reluctance. And maybe when he's older he'll read it and I'll be very happy to talk to him about it. But for now he's like, "I'm good."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, this is a lot more than about his mother's feelings.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, it's about his mother's behavior, it's about work, it's about the marriage. There's a lot in there. Again, I changed his name, I tried to protect him. Didn't really write too much about him after his very young years. I'm sure it will be embarrassing to him if he ever reads it, but I didn't want to make it horrifying and expose him.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
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How did you remember everything? I'm trying to remember if you've mentioned in the book that you kept diaries or journals.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, I've always been a big journal keeper, so there was a lot of handwritten evidence, especially of years and years ago that things might be a little fuzzy. I also use email a lot as another form of journal. I was always a big letter writer even before the advent of email, and then continued to do that. Even if a friend that lived in New York that I might see once or twice a week, I'd still not really think much of just writing an eight-paragraph email. This is what I did last night, or let me tell you about this or that. And I have all that. I have over 20-year email record.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God, you didn't delete all that email?
Laurie Woolever:
No. For better or worse, it's all there. That was really helpful to go back and just look at what I was thinking and feeling and who I was engaging with. And it's a written record.
Kerry Diamond:
I remember over the past few years us talking about your boss, Tony Bourdain. You had mentioned that for a long time your relationship really was just email-based, that you didn't even see him. I don't think a lot of people realize that.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, I would see him very rarely. A couple times a year maybe, just when there was maybe a party for a TV season premiere or some extraordinary circumstance where I did have to be there in person. But it was mostly email and a little texting, and the very occasional phone call. I'm so grateful I have all of that now too. I have this nine-year correspondence with him. A lot of it is very mundane and not that interesting, but there are some good stuff in there that I feel really glad to have preserved.
Kerry Diamond:
And then, I won't say the exact situation, because don't want to give too many... I don't want to give any spoilers away with the book, but you do write something down to disastrous effect toward the end of the book. And as I was reading that, I was just like, "Oh, Laurie, don't write that down." When it was a horror movie, you're like, "Don't open the closet." I was just like, "Don't write that down."
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. There's been a few times in my life where I've gotten in trouble for writing things down when I should have either written it down in a place where nobody could find it or maybe just kept it to myself. The one that's in the book is definitely the one that really blows everything apart, for better and worse.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Let's go back to the beginning. Where did you grow up?
Laurie Woolever:
I grew up in upstate New York outside of Syracuse, a village called Chittenango, which is the birthplace of L. Frank Baum, the author of “The Wizard of Oz.” And also the place where I grew up.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you look at the rest of the world like Oz? Were you dying to get out of there and go to the big shiny places?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. Yes, for sure. I didn't know how far, and I thought maybe... I think my world view was still limited, but I thought if I can go live in Ithaca, or if I can go live in Rochester. The big cities around me seemed compelling and interesting enough to grab my attention. I came to New York once when I was in high school, it was an art club class trip where we got on a bus at two in the morning and came down and went to some museums and went back. And I found it overwhelming and too much for my brain to really comprehend. But then when I was in college, and I did go to college in Ithaca, then I came to New York more often and got a little more comfortable with it. There was no question that after college I would end up in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
When did writing and food start to become of interest?
Laurie Woolever:
Writing was always an interest from elementary school. And I got some positive feedback on my writing skills and I was like, "Great, if people say nice things to me about my writing, this is what I'm going to do." I was not athletic, I wasn't very gifted in math. This was the thing that got me that feeling of that validation, and I talk about it a lot in the book. Writing was always there.
Cooking really came up for me in college because I didn't have a lot of money. Ended up learning to cook for yourself, just out of a sense of self-preservation, and I really enjoyed it. It really was this way for me to turn off my brain, stop thinking about all my schoolwork and stress, and also feed myself and feed others. Do something for other people and have a built-in social life. Because everyone loves to be fed. I was a vegetarian, which Ithaca is a great place to be a vegetarian, especially in the early 90s. There were a lot of vegetarian restaurants, including the famous Moosewood, so I learned... Really, that was my first cooking text was Sundays at the Moosewood.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you learn you could put the two things together and make a career out of it?
Laurie Woolever:
I think it occurred to me while I was in cooking school, which was two years after I graduated college. I-
Kerry Diamond:
Went to French Culinary Institute.
Laurie Woolever:
I went to French Culinary Institute, which sadly no longer exists as a standalone, it was absorbed into Institute for Culinary Education. I realized pretty quickly that as much as I loved cooking in the way that I loved it, I really didn't feel that I was cut out to be a professional restaurant cook.
Kerry Diamond:
It wasn't a common thing for a writer to go to culinary school back then. Some people did it, but not a lot. It's not the way it is today, certainly. What were you thinking would the outcome of going to culinary school? It's also expensive, culinary school.
Laurie Woolever:
It is. Yeah. Although it's a lot cheaper back then. It was $24,000 in 1998, so I don't know what the inflation is on that, but do the math. I was a private cook, an untrained private cook for two years. And after a while I thought, "I want to get better at this. I don't really know what I'm doing." My clients didn't mind, because they wanted very simple food, but I wanted to actually have the skills so that I could go work for different clients, or maybe work in a restaurant.
I read an article about restaurant chefs, and I saw that they could make up to $85,000 a year. Did not give it a lot of thought. I just went, "Oh, I'd like to make that money. I'm going to go to cooking school." Once I got into the professional kitchens of the culinary school, I realized, this is not the same thing as hanging out and listening to Ani DiFranco and making a pot of black beans. This is serious and hard, and humiliating and humbling. And I'm not sure that this is really what I want. I was desperate to figure out a way to still use this education but not have to do the thing that scared me.
Kerry Diamond:
You were very scrappy when you were in New York.
Laurie Woolever:
I guess so. I'm still in New York. I don't know. I feel-
Kerry Diamond:
Still scrappy?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, I still feel scrappy.
Kerry Diamond:
But you had so many different jobs. You were at the Botanic Garden, you were doing all the private cheffing. I think there were some other things involved. Who were you back then? Were you just trying to piece things together?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, just trying to piece things together, trying to figure out how to get my writing published. Starting in the mid-90s, the internet was a very different thing. It was really not a presence in publishing. I think there was a lot more gatekeeping around getting your work published anywhere. And I remember setting the goal for myself, I just want to see my name in print. And I thought that might not ever actually happen. And it did eventually. But it was trying to figure out how to get better at writing, how to learn something to write about, and then how to get the connections and the information. Just trying to figure out how to make it as a writer. And honestly, I'm still trying to figure that out.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you wind up on Mario Batali's doorstep?
Laurie Woolever:
As I was finishing up cooking school, I kept going to different people at the school, the career counselor, the dean of students, and saying, "I don't think I want to work in a kitchen. Can you talk to me about what my other options are?" And everyone kept saying, "Listen, you have to work in a kitchen for six months at least. You have to prove your seriousness. No one's going to take you seriously in these other avenues unless you have actually had some real kitchen experience." Which was good advice, and I tried to take it. But I ultimately ended up getting an interview to be Mario's assistant right after I graduated. This was the end of 1998. He already had a television show, had just opened Babbo, and was really on the rise to become the media sensation that he became.
I didn't really know who he was. I aware of Pó, I was aware of his television presence, but he wasn't yet famous in the way that he became. I was the only person to apply for the job, unbeknownst to me. And it also just wasn't something that people were doing at the time. Like you said, people who wanted to be food writers weren't really going to culinary school. And so all of my classmates and everyone that was around me at school, everyone was trying to figure out how to go cook in restaurants, so nobody else was interested in the job, or heard about it, so I got hired.
Kerry Diamond:
While you were working for him, is that when his star really took off?
Laurie Woolever:
It started to.
Kerry Diamond:
He was enormously famous and popular at one point.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, he definitely got a lot more famous and popular when I worked for him, but I think even after that, things continued to really grow and blow up for him. When I stopped working for him in 2002, they were just on the cusp of opening Otto in New York. He had a handful of New York restaurants. And after I left, there was an expansion into Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Boston, Singapore, I think maybe even Hong Kong. He became part of a network, a broadcast network show that really expanded his platform. And many, many more books after I left. Things got much, much bigger after me, but he definitely was on the on-ramp and was already really blowing up.
Kerry Diamond:
You were seeing lots of bad behavior, some of it even directed at you.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. At the time, I knew that it was not great, it didn't make me comfortable. It made me wonder what was going on and whether I should speak up. It wasn't as bad as it got, apparently. I can only say what I've read, whatever a lot of people have read in the various pieces that came out in 2017. But what I experienced was still not great, still not what you want at your workplace.
Kerry Diamond:
I was shocked to read about the things directed at you personally.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, no. I had my ass grabbed. There were some very unkind words spoken to me. And there was a general sense at work that this is who Mario is and what he's going to do. And like it or leave it, pretty much.
Kerry Diamond:
I've thought about this scene many a time, that humiliating scene on the plane when you were traveling with him.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, he made me straddle him, basically, to get up and over. We were in adjoining business class seats on a flight. I was on the window and I wanted to get up to use the bathroom, and he basically said, "You got to sit on my lap. You got to straddle me to get out." This was room tone. I think this was just the way that it was for people in his world. And I've talked to some people for whom this was definitely not okay, and this was a reason to leave or a reason to really push back. And there are other people who went, "Meh, it's just whatever." And I think it probably breaks down along generational lines or what decade you were born in.
Kerry Diamond:
But you were also young, and it was not a time when women could necessarily talk back or even make a change. I think your only option was to quit.
Laurie Woolever:
Absolutely. There were a lot of benefits for me to have that job. It was a tremendous opportunity to make connections with people. And I think it's a very common story that you hear people talking about if they assisted a big Hollywood director or anyone in a position of power, especially in entertainment or any of these fields that are very desirable for people, you're going to put up with some (beep) because you want to move up in this field that's tough to break into. I see it differently now, but this was the water that we were swimming in, as I say in the book. It's like, and if you want to get out of the pool, get out. But otherwise, this is where we are. I wouldn't give that advice to a young woman now.
Kerry Diamond:
When you say you see it differently now, what do you mean?
Laurie Woolever:
I think that the things that have changed in our culture, in our work culture. Now there are more protections in place. There is a different expectation of how people behave. And there are companies that didn't use to have HR, now have HR. Now is HR there to be your best friend and protect you? Not really. But there are systems of accountability, and I think those should be used. That's what they're there for. We didn't have that. We had a couple of ladies in a midtown office that printed our paychecks, and they were not there to help anybody.
Kerry Diamond:
I did notice reading, and especially in the early years, and I don't know if it ever changed, but you didn't have women of power in your life to turn to. Or mentors. You were really figuring things out on your own.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. There were older women that were powerful in media, but that's complicated because sometimes they're writing about your boss and they want access, and they don't really want to hear the bad stuff. And what are you risking by saying, "Hey, look, this guy's not that great." It's a whole structure of loyalty. It's not unlike certain presidents of countries that we live in, a whole structure of fear and intimidation and loyalty.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you in touch with Mario anymore?
Laurie Woolever:
No. No. We haven't spoken since 2017. The crazy thing, I didn't put this in the book. Because at some point it's like, the book would be 1,000 pages. But we had this interview, I was doing a piece for a financial website, and they asked me if I would interview him about money. And so we had this sit down interview in the spring of 2017, and it was great. I felt like he was showing me a level of respect. Not that we were ever equals, but I walked away from that interview feeling like he finally sees me as an adult. And he was kind. And he didn't answer all the questions the way I wanted him to, he was very smart and cagey about asking about his money, which I understand. But had a really nice feeling coming away from that interview, like we were able to speak as friends. I guess? There's some dad stuff there.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say, does he still have this weird hold over you, in some sense?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. Now not so much, but I don't wish to hear from him. I don't think that... If I were in his shoes, I don't think I would be happy with the things that are in this book. I tried to be fair and say that he was really funny and smart, and that he gave me opportunities. And that it's a complicated thing to learn about this investigation into his behavior, and to be pressured to answer questions about it. It's very easy to say that it's very black and white when you don't have personal relationships or personal history with the people involved. Ultimately, his behavior was reprehensible. And arguably allegedly criminal. And I want to be very clear that I see that, and I believe everyone that told their story. The stories are too similar and too numerous to be doubted for a second, but it's complicated. I wouldn't quite say family member level complicated, but it's not so black and white.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you worried at all, or your publisher worried at all about a lawsuit? When you're an author writing things like this, how do you protect yourself?
Laurie Woolever:
I publish with Harper Collins with Echo, which is a imprint of Harper Collins. And of course they don't want a lawsuit, and so they have a very smart legal team. They do a very thorough legal read and we go over every single detail. And if there are things that they feel are going to put anyone at risk, then there's a change and an edit, and we did some of that. We really tried to... The way as a writer to do it, to start from the beginning is to tell it from your point of view. To make sure that it is true to the best of your recollection. A best case scenario, you've got other people in your life that you spoke to about these things at that time. You've got journals, emails, contemporaneous record of some kind. And so, everything in the book has been legally vetted.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, so you leave Mario's organization, you wind up working for Tony Bourdain, as you call him. How did you wind up as Tony's assistant?
Laurie Woolever:
There were a number of years between being Mario's assistant and becoming Tony's assistant, but Mario introduced me to Tony. That's another thing that I wouldn't have met Tony without Mario. I gave Mario a year's notice and I explained why in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
In retrospect, is that advice anyone should follow?
Laurie Woolever:
No, no. If you're not interested in your bonus, I would say a year is too much, even for someone who's so obsessed with loyalty. But that's what I did. And so Mario knew I was leaving, and he had met Tony. This was shortly after “Kitchen Confidential” had come out, and so Tony was becoming a celebrity in his own right. They had met at some event, and Mario said, "I met this guy, Tony Bourdain, he seems great. He's about to write a cookbook, and he asked me if I could recommend someone to help him test the recipes and do some editing, and so I recommended you. So reach out to him."
Great. He didn't have to do that. That ended up being a really fruitful collaboration. I worked with him on what became “Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook.” I took all the recipes from the kitchen there and made them into home-cook style recipes, and then tested them all at home. We got along really well. The book did great. It continues to be on the favorite lists, et cetera, et cetera.
The couple of years went by, I did a one-off event with Tony. He needed somebody to go with him to Montana to do some cooking for a private event. And then I had a baby. I was working full-time, I was looking to do something else, and I reached out to him and probably 25 other people in an afternoon. And just said, "I'm looking for part-time flexible work. I have a baby. If you know of anyone, please just keep me in mind." And he was one of maybe two people that wrote back to me that day and said, "Oh, as it turns out, my assistant Beth is leaving. Is that something you would ever consider?" How do you say no to that? I thought about it.
I thought, "Do I want to go back to being an assistant?" 35 years old, I have a baby. I've done other things. I've been an editor at magazines. Can my ego handle this? And ultimately it was like, yes. Because it's Tony, because of the flexibility, I'll get all of it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to see maybe I can make this work. And I did.
Kerry Diamond:
You had such a... I don't want to say miserable experience, because I know you had a lot of colleagues you loved when you worked for Mario. But were you worried, based on “Kitchen Confidential,” what this experience would be? Were you like, am I getting into another situation where it's just not going to be great?
Laurie Woolever:
No. I knew Tony well enough by that point to know how he operated, how he moved in the world, and working on the cookbook. I was always paid on time. He was really respectful. He gave me a big bonus. He just was a very, very fair employer. And then I had another good experience with him working that private event in Montana where it was just, I got paid for the work that I did right away. I knew it wouldn't be the same thing. Plus, it was remote, so there was just none of that weird possibility for gray area or bad behavior.
Kerry Diamond:
It seemed, once you get into the book a little bit, he seems the opposite of Mario Batali.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, in some ways. I think they're very, very different the way that they moved in the world. I think that maybe there's some similarities too in just the voracious hunger, that thing, whatever it is that drives very successful people. Or some very successful people. Just an appetite for more. Being surrounded by people that are very reluctant to say no to anything. Having a lot of power, no surprise, that can be a very corrupting force for people. And a very destructive thing that can... It didn't ultimately work out that great for either one of them, unfortunately. In very different ways.
I quoted Dwight Garner from the New York Times in the introduction to the book, and I won't try and recreate it from memory here. But it's basically, "If you've got no checks, if you've got nobody telling you no, if you've got access to absolutely everything you wanted all the time, that doesn't ultimately work out that well for you."
Kerry Diamond:
Do you feel the same about yourself?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. I feel the 12-step programs are riddled with these corny cliches. And you roll your eyes at them at first, or I did anyway. And then they start to make sense so you go, "Well, okay, that's a little corny, but I can see it." One of the things that people like to say is "rejection is protection." Every time you don't get something that you want and you feel that you've been wronged, you're disappointed or angry, but there's probably something that you've been saved from. And it's not always the case, there's certain losses that are just tragic and should never have happened. But to not have all the success and access and money, and whatever it was that I thought I wanted all the time, probably saved me from humiliation, self-destruction. Who knows?
Kerry Diamond:
You really saw Tony go from zero to 60 in terms of his career and his life, and how it changed.
Laurie Woolever:
By the time I met him he had published “Kitchen Confidential,” and that was... I wouldn't have met him otherwise. If he had just remained a journeyman chef working in New York, we would've had no reason to meet.
Kerry Diamond:
The Tony who wrote “Kitchen Confidential,” and then over time became just one of the most admired, famous human beings on the planet.
Laurie Woolever:
It's true. Yeah. He was already quite big from “Kitchen Confidential.” He had started television when we started the cookbook. And then when I started to be his assistant, he had “No Reservations.” And then I think going from “No Reservations” on the travel channel to “Parts Unknown” on CNN was an enormous shift in his profile, and in his connection with so many more people in the world. And I think the level of respect that people had for him, it was no longer funny jokes about toilets and sandwiches, it was a more serious and deeper endeavor.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Some people looked at him as like a statesman.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. My impression was that he squirmed. That was not something he was comfortable with. I think he was very happy to say, "I don't know", or "That's not my area of expertise." And he wasn't someone who was going to bull(beep) about a topic if he didn't know it. Now, there were plenty of topics he knew a lot about. But he would say, "Well, I don't know that much about Iran." And then he would talk about the last 50 years of foreign policy, or know all the players and the incidents. But if there was something he didn't know about, he was very happy to defer to people that did.
Kerry Diamond:
As his star grew and expanded, did your role as his assistant change?
Laurie Woolever:
It did. It started to get bigger. From the beginning, it was really just keep my schedule and make my appointments, and be a stopgap so that I'm not having to personally entertain every query and question. Over time, he started to give me more responsibility for some of the books on his imprint. I started out line editing on a few of the books, and then eventually we co-authored a cookbook together, “Appetites,” which came out in 2016. And I would do a little bit of copy editing or sometimes a little bit of ghost-writing for things. I got to be pretty proficient at at least sketching out something that I thought he would say or write. And sometimes he would go, "Great. That's great." And sometimes he would go, "No, do it over." Or he would do it himself. I think the job did expand to fill this space of how big his life had gotten by the end.
Kerry Diamond:
And did he know how complicated your life was personally? You weren't buddies, even though you had worked together for so long?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, no. Toward the end of his life, which I of course had no idea was coming, my marriage was starting to unravel. My whole life felt very unmanageable. And so, I did reach out to him and say, "Listen, none of my close friends have been divorced yet. I might be the first person that is thinking about divorce, and I'm wondering if you can talk to me about your experience with that." And he said, "Yeah, great." I thought it was just going to be a couple of emails. And he said, "All right, let's go have lunch at Porterhouse," one of his favorite restaurants in the last few years of his life. "Let's go have a lunch at Porterhouse and we'll talk about it."
There were a few instances where I was just desperate for advice from someone who had been through it. But my job was to make things easier and less complicated for him, so I tried to be really careful about not asking much of him because he gave me so much in terms of compensation and opportunities. When I told him that I quit drinking, he was very surprised. "I never thought you had a problem." "Well, you haven't seen me." I tried to not burden him with my life.
Kerry Diamond:
And I'm guessing he never burdened you with his.
Laurie Woolever:
Not really. We had a few surprising conversations. I think that for him, and I learned more about this in doing the interviews for “Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography,” which came out in 2021. I think there was a porous line between friends and colleagues that was one and the same, which I think comes from being a cook. Your friends are going to be other cooks because you don't have time in your life to have friends outside of the restaurant industry. I think that just carried over to when he became a TV guy. He did have some friends outside of the TV world, but really, I think the guys that traveled with him a lot, his producers. And they weren't all guys, but mostly guys, they were his friends too. It makes a strange relationship because there's obviously a massive power imbalance, and ultimately he's the boss. But yeah, occasionally he would tell me something, but it's pretty rare.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like I'm going to cry asking you these next questions. I hope I don't make you cry. I just can't imagine how you dealt with things that day.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. It was awful.
Kerry Diamond:
Sorry, everybody. His loss was felt by millions around the world, and so many people look to you for so much. I'm just curious how that day unfolded for you, and if you have even had time to really heal from what happened with him.
Laurie Woolever:
I write about it in detail in the book. But, yeah, I got a call very early in the morning the day that it happened, from his agent, who's also my agent, Kim. And, yeah, it was impossible to believe. It just didn't seem real. It was, I'd say the worst summer of my life. Just absorbing the shock, trying to figure out what's next, trying to move forward with the project that we had already started together, the book World Travel, losing my job. Just trying to understand, what does life look like? Because it was so oriented around Tony and his needs. And I loved my job, and I loved the people that I got to work with because of my job. By coincidence, my marriage had blown up about three or four weeks before Tony died. I really had a summer where I was just like, I don't even really know who I am because I no longer have this job to anchor me, and I'm no longer a married mom living in a nuclear household.
Give a lot of credit to my therapist, and also a lot of credit to SSRIs. And RFK Jr. can come fist fight me if he thinks he's going to take them away. Yeah, it's a very long process. People now that I talk to that have suffered a loss... I'm not a grief counselor. I'm not any kind of social worker or professional in any way at all, I just have the experiences that I've had. And if people want to talk about it, I just say, "It's a very long process. And it's strange and weird, and it's going to come in waves. And you're going to think you're okay, and then you're going to get smacked inside of the head one day by grief. And it'll bring you closer to some of the people that are around you that are also surviving. And in some cases, it pulls those relationships apart." It's something that hopefully people don't do alone. It can be very isolating.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I'm so sorry for everything you went through.
Laurie Woolever:
Well, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
I was really happy when I found out you were writing this book. I was really happy because you're someone I've always admired and cared about. And I worried about you under the weight of his legacy. And he's the kind of person where you had to do these projects. Obviously, you could have said no, but you had to finish that book that you're working on with him. And then the oral biography, I don't even know how you would say no to something like those projects. But how have you drawn that line between being your own person and your own writer, and being one of the people expected to tend to his legacy?
Laurie Woolever:
That is a great question. Well, I think this book really does that. Because as much as Tony and Mario are inextricably bound up in my story and they provide some of the narrative backbone, this is not a book about Tony, and this is not a book about Mario. This is my story and my interactions with these people, and there are plenty of chapters where neither one of them show up, or they're just mentioned in passing. Tony's shadow is, and Mario's to a lesser extent, they're too big to outrun. But I don't also want to just spend the rest of my life toiling, retelling and repackaging these experiences. Tony's name is on the front, and that is a marketing decision. And this is going to get somebody to stop and say, "Well, why should I read this memoir and not this one? Oh, okay. Well, I like Tony Bourdain." And I understand.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think anyone begrudges you that.
Laurie Woolever:
No, I mean it wasn't my choice.
Kerry Diamond:
You gave a lot of years.
Laurie Woolever:
In some ways, it feels... I don't want to say an impossible situation, because I'm in it and I know I'm very lucky to have these touch points that are going to get people at least paying attention, but you can't outrun these legacies. I hope that people feel that they are learning a little something more about Tony, and that they can get... But again, it's not a book about Tony. Some people, I'm sure... I am not going to read the comments. And I am trying to really protect myself, but I'm sure there are people that are going to be like, "Well, I thought it was going to be a book by Tony Bourdain." And disappointed. It's like, well, buy my other book. That one's about him.
I think this is the last word about these guys. And whatever my next project is, I want to break away completely. I used to say this before I even worked for Tony, I say this about Mario. No matter what I do for the rest of my life, my gravestone is going to say, "She was Mario Batali's assistant." Until I got the job with Tony. And then it's like, it's a point of connection that it's something that people can grab onto, for better or worse.
Kerry Diamond:
How does it feel to almost have this book in the world?
Laurie Woolever:
Exciting, scary. This morning I reached out to one of those romantic entanglements who I hadn't talked to in almost two years. I had said, "Listen, I'm doing this book," and we had discussed some of the details. I reached out today just to say, "Hey, the book's coming out soon. I'm going to probably be in your area and I don't expect you to be there." And I wanted to say, "Don't come." But I just said, "I don't expect you to be there, but just so you know, I'm going to be in your area." And just writing that email gave me such a sense of vertigo and just like, oh my God, it's real. It's going to be real soon.
I'm nervous. Right now it's this thing that's only had a little bit of oxygen because there's been a limited number of prior readers. The best thing that could happen to me is a lot of people read it and some people have strong feelings about it. Especially now, there's so much going on. There's so many books, television, movies. Not to mention the political news fast and furious. If people have strong reactions, I have to look at it as it's all gravy. But I am nervous.
Kerry Diamond:
So you'll be on the road.
Laurie Woolever:
I'll be on the road, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You've got a big book tour, I saw it on your Instagram.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, it's about 15 cities now. There's a graphic that's on my social media that doesn't yet include Toronto and Calgary, Alberta, but I'm doing those. I'm doing one in NYAC later in the spring. But there's 12 US cities that I'm going to be in, which is a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
And some of our favorite lady-owned bookstores.
Laurie Woolever:
Yes, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Books Are Magic.
Laurie Woolever:
Books on food, Books Are Magic.
Kerry Diamond:
Buffalo.
Laurie Woolever:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Read It & Eat.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah, they reached out to me. And I haven't been to Buffalo since before I went to college, so I'm excited to get back there and check out what that city's all about now. And Syracuse, my hometown crowd. A lot of Northeast cities. I'm going to get very familiar with Amtrak, so I'm excited.
Kerry Diamond:
Bring snacks.
Laurie Woolever:
Yes. Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Pack your own food.
Laurie Woolever:
Some of the nicest people in the world work the cafe car at the Amtrak, but I get very tired of waiting on line for a $40 pretzel.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you're not the kind of person who doles out advice to people, so I'm loathe to even ask you what you want people to come away with having read this book.
Laurie Woolever:
Well, I'd say that the value of honesty is... So you're going to tell a story, if you're going to recount something, there is no sense in sugar-coating it or protecting yourself or other people. Tell the best story you can in the most honest way that you can. I would like for people to feel a little less alone, having been through tough work situations or very devastating losses, or certainly addiction. Some of the most useful things to me, before I got sober, were listening to people that I respected on podcasts, or reading their books about quitting drinking. If someone feels that after they've read my book they want to give that a try, that would be incredible. And there's a million different ways to do it, and I did it one way. But there's a lot of ways to try and get sober, if that is something that you're considering.
Kerry Diamond:
You also read the audiobook.
Laurie Woolever:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
And I know that was a fun experience for you.
Laurie Woolever:
God, I loved it. I really felt like this was what I was put on earth to do, was to sit in a tiny room with a microphone and read my own writing, but I would gladly read the telephone book. Not that that's a thing anymore. But whatever the modern day equivalent of the telephone book is. I really, really enjoyed it. Just the whole experience. Plus they buy you lunch. Which, how many jobs do you have where they buy you lunch every day?
Kerry Diamond:
Did you feel like you had to be actor-y sometimes?
Laurie Woolever:
No, I tried not to be too much. I listened to a lot of audiobooks, and I tried not to be. I guess it's like, if I would find this annoying listening to myself, let me retake it so I'm not so over the top. But I tried to be expressive. I sang in high school and I was in all the musicals and the plays, and so I was able to-
Kerry Diamond:
There's so many secret show kids. Theater kids in the food world.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. I felt like I had some vestigial, those skills left. I did-
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a ham deep down? I did not know about this side of you.
Laurie Woolever:
I think if I feel very safe, and I think around my family. Or certainly around my late mother, I think she just... If I could entertain her and make her laugh, that was something that we had between us.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you want to sing for us right now?
Laurie Woolever:
No, I have not kept up my singing voice, so catch me at karaoke maybe.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there a director there?
Laurie Woolever:
Yes. Well, in the case of my recording, there was a director who I believe was in L.A. She was in my headphones on a call. And then there was an engineer, live engineer in the next room. I really felt supported. They were really good at what they did. There's some really sensitive material in the book, and I just felt very safe reading it with them. I can't say enough about the experience I had doing it. So if anybody doesn't want to read their audiobook, please reach out to me, because I will do it in a heartbeat.
Kerry Diamond:
Was it cathartic or a little out of body reading some of those sensitive parts of the book?
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. I didn't expect it to be so much that. But there was a couple of tough chapters where I was like, "I'm going to take 10 minutes and just walk down the hall and breathe a little bit." I will say, not to bring it up again, but the SSRIs really help keep you on an even keel.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you're honest about that.
Laurie Woolever:
Why not? I talk about it in the book too. There's a thing that I think a lot of people do or did, we go on and off for no reason. They were prescribed to me by just a general practitioner, so I didn't have anybody saying, "Hey, let's check in." And I think people do it. Let me just see how I can do without it. And for me it was never a good idea, but you don't know until you try. I love just my little light dose of a little something just to keep me even.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, whatever gets you through the day, especially these days. Oh, my gosh. All right, Laurie, let's end on a fun note. We're going to do a speed round.
Laurie Woolever:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
What beverage do you start the day with?
Laurie Woolever:
Coffee. Cafe Bustelo, always. And whole milk.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your most used kitchen implement?
Laurie Woolever:
Chef knife.
Kerry Diamond:
What are you streaming these days?
Laurie Woolever:
I listen to the same playlist over and over again, that's called Post-Bop Classics. It's jazz that keeps me focused and working. But also MJ Lenderman, like every other dad rock lady out there. I love his stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I don't know who he is. Are you saying every mom has a crush on this guy?
Laurie Woolever:
Well, kind of. Yeah. I feel like he's blowing up right now. Check him out, MJ Lenderman. He did a duet with Waxahatchee that's a very popular song called Right Back To It. And it's a real earworm, but it gets you in the feels.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. And very telling, you're the first person to answer that question with music. Most people tell me what they're watching on HBO or-
Laurie Woolever:
Oh, streaming.
Kerry Diamond:
Hey, still...
Laurie Woolever:
Well, that too. “White Lotus,” obviously. And all the “Real Housewives” I can get.
Kerry Diamond:
I haven't started “White Lotus” yet.
Laurie Woolever:
Oh, it's good.
Kerry Diamond:
Good? Love Parker Posey though. Can't wait to dive in.
Laurie Woolever:
Yeah. I love 90s era Parker Posey. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about current day, and she's just... This is the role she was born to play.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like you should have a Housewife podcast, and your hot takes on the Housewives would be hilarious.
Laurie Woolever:
I have a couple of friends that I DM with on Instagram about Housewives almost exclusively, and it's very sustaining.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite snack food.
Laurie Woolever:
Ice cream.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your favorite food as a kid?
Laurie Woolever:
I think ice cream, it's been a consistent through line all the way through. Yeah, I get these little single serve cups. If I have the pint, I can't be trusted around it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's so smart. Are you a chocolate or a vanilla based gal?
Laurie Woolever:
My first choice is always coffee if they've got it, and then I'll go for vanilla. Chocolate, it's just not that interesting to me. It's good, I'm not going to kick it out of bed, but it's not that interesting. But vanilla to me is much more satisfying than chocolate.
Kerry Diamond:
Dream travel destination.
Laurie Woolever:
I would like to go back to Vietnam. It's been 11 years, and I feel like there's a lot more of the country for me to see.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I love it there. The people, the food, everything. Oh, do you have a favorite cookbook, or one you turn to very often? I feel like you've got so much in your head now. Do you even need cookbooks anymore?
Laurie Woolever:
I've got a house full of cookbooks. I'll just say the one that I've been using the most lately is “Bodega Bakes” by Paola Velez. Not only are the recipes so good, she's a real pastry chef and these recipes work. And they're also so interesting. She's funny, and I just love it. The guava and cheese cookies that I've made probably a dozen times.
Kerry Diamond:
We love Paola, she was on our cover a few years ago. Do you have a motto or a mantra?
Laurie Woolever:
I'll go back to the 12 step thing. Move a muscle, change a thought. It's so corny. But it's like, if I'm in a funk or a ftoots about something, it's like, go take a walk. Or just go vacuum the rug. Or do something, move yourself out of this space and go move your body for 10 minutes, and I guarantee you're going to feel better.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you good at trusting your gut?
Laurie Woolever:
I've gotten better. I'm a work in progress on that, but I have gotten better as I've gotten older.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, last question, Laurie Woolever. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be, and why?
Laurie Woolever:
I think I said the same thing last time, but it would be Tony, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, most people say Tony, Martha, or Ina.
Laurie Woolever:
Ah, okay. Any one of them. Although... Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You'll stick to Tony.
Laurie Woolever:
I'll stick to Tony.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, Laurie, congratulations on this book. I can't imagine what it took personally to write it, but I'm very glad you did. And I think a lot of people will love it and get a lot from it.
Laurie Woolever:
Thank you. Really glad to see you again, and thank you for the opportunity.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Be sure to pick up Laurie's book, “Care and Feeding,” out tomorrow. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode? Let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you to Good Studio in Brooklyn and Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer at Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.