Meet Master Chef Jacques Pepin

we are here with Master Chef Jacques Pepin it is such a pleasure to meet you thank you for welcoming us into you thank you okay you're welcome we are so looking forward to you joining us for our Gala on October 1st and really giving our viewers an opportunity to to meet you and at the same time support our station they know you so many people know you from your cooking shows yeah and and from PBS uh that really that's really PBS yes more than that I mean I'm a big PBS man and I've been on PBS 40 years like this you know so uh the first Theory I did was in 1982 you know in Jacksonville Florida and eventually most of the Syria I deal with KQED San Francisco and we showed here as well so uh yes I'm a big PBS man me and Julia of course of course I was Julia lived in Boston and I teach at Boston University actually for 45 years you know so a long long time so you used to teach together actually so we had a great time I met Julia in 1960. so I know a long long time I wonder a lot of people probably wondered did you meet and know each other before you did the PBS series together yes for many years before Yes actually I came here at the end of 1959 I came to America and I met Julia in 1960 you know not long after I had a friend of mine Helen McCauley where the foot editor of McCord house beautiful she became kind of my surrogate mother in New York way before I was married and she said oh I could see the manuscript of a book you want to take a look at it and eat while mastering the other French cooking and she said well the woman is coming to New York next week you want to cook for her I say yes she said a tall woman with a terrible voice and I met Julia and at that time I met James Beard the and Craig leban who started at the New York time so this where the Trinity of cooking in America Craig had won the New York Times James Beard and Julia and I knew them less than six months after I was here to show you how small the food world was at that time it was another world and could you have imagined when you met her that uh however many years later you and Julia would be on public television no absolutely not she didn't either because when I met her she had never done a book before she had never done television she was never the full editorial magazine newspaper so she was not known at all you know at that point so and she just came back from France I remember because when I met her we spoke French more than English French but better than the English at the time so you and Julia had such a great friendship and and I think you could really see it on the air yeah we argue all the time but we drank a lot of wine too hi Julia to you okay you did but I think the viewers saw that you were genuine that that was a genuine friendship and I think I think they loved you too you know you know why because to start with I've done 13 series of 26 so what I said with KQED and at the beginning they said anything is too expensive you have to do it on time so a 30 minute show like 29 minutes uh I did three recipe two so I would have someone coming with a sign say 15 minutes seven minutes three minutes one minute wrap up which is pretty stressing you know in some ways so that was it then when I started doing a series with Claudine my daughter I wanted her to be the The Works popularly to be able to explain what I was doing people so I said you know it's going to be hard for me to show how to make a dough she's rolling it and I see a sign one minute I'm gonna push her over grab it so that's okay but not too much or a four five so we did those show and go five five minutes over or so we started with Julia Julia say we're going to cook when it finish we'll tell you I think we are sure which were 80 or 90 minute I don't know what happened to the b-roll which that was one thing the second thing also is that when you do a series on television that I've done you come at least with the menu script of the book so people in the back kitchen have an idea of what you're going to do we have no recipe here with Julia so we said let's do still tomorrow let's do whatever so why did I put scallion industry because they happen to be on the table they're there we have no recipe no recipe a lot of wine and no time limit so we had a good time I think people can feel it I think so I think that appealed to a lot of people and they loved you you just had such great chemistry together the two of you so you're coming up to visit us in Plattsburgh on October 1st have you been to Plattsburgh before the Adirondacks I don't think that I've been to the Adirondack I mean I used to ski in still Vermont Wellington and of course I used to live Upstate New York and the Catskill in at Hunter Mountain you know so I used to do a lot of skiing and so many of our friends are north of the Border in Montreal and Quebec and you've been to Montreal before Mercy good food up there did a number of good restaurants good with great Foods get food good good people so I had a great time in Montreal and in Quebec you know I've been there many times yeah with Frank you really enjoy showing people many who have never cooked before or never been in the kitchen never picked up a spatula you show them how to make really delicious meals quick and easy on a budget and and is that really what you love doing yes I mean you know I was in apprenticeship in 1949 so you can see I'm gonna be 87 so I've been in the kitchen uh 75 years or more professionally you know so I have done I've worked with the very important people I've done uh some of the greatest restaurants so I've done very fancy food and uh and the challenge you know your metabolism changed and now at my age I realized maybe other young Chef I think you can to add and add and add more to the plate and this and that now that I get older I can retrieve retrieve from the plate to be left with something more essential like the Tomato just out of the garden right temperature a bit of Corso I don't need embellishment anymore so you know it changed one is not better than the other your life changed this way and certainly at the beginning of the pandemic there my daughter Claudine told me why don't you do some recipe of like three four five minutes to show people what they are in the refrigerator in the pantry in the freezer what they can use and we've done almost 300 of those with my friend Tom that you've met and Tom has been a photographer for my book for 40 years is the one handling my my outside also and and that is the one taping those through the one we do them we do usually 10 to 12 show a day do the five minute you know and just the two of us because we started at the beginning his wife didn't even want to come in the kitchen beginning of the pandemic so I cook and do the dishes so it's pretty simple I I realized also I'm sorry to get you but all of those shows that I've done KQED and so many series that we had to raise one one and a half million dollars to to do those here here we do those two things together respond there will be two three hundred dollars going to the market and that's about it you know so very cheap production and that is amazing you mentioned nearly 300 videos you've done on YouTube on Facebook live you've also done cooking demonstrations on Facebook live that my daughter use it on Facebook and my son-in-law use it on the on Instagram as well so my son-in-law is a chef as well British is cooking at Johnson and well and he's the one who created the jackpaper foundation with my daughter so which is fantastic I'm going to ask you a little bit about that during the pandemic you mentioned people were stuck at home a lot of people were really forced to go into the kitchen and and to cook for themselves absolutely I mean I'm sure the battery caused a lot of divorce but it's also of course a lot of people to get together more and cook together and not only cook together but eat together sit down and that's very important I mean when including my daughter she didn't know 15 now she was three years old or two years old I hold her in my arm and I said so she would mix with me you know so she quote eat it because she made it with that you know so right something with my granddaughter she came she's taller than me she's starting at bu actually next you know next month so we remember her as the little granddaughter who joined you on your show exactly so I put a stool next to me and I thought okay give me the salad because you think it's clean enough what do you think test it give me a ball go to the girl I need some parsley so I go there with the girl I said no that's right I've tested that's parsley okay taste it go to the market with her I said give me some tomato make sure they arrive or pear did you smell them you think they are ripe came back he helped me and that's where the you know a kind of canvas on to wish to build a conversation and of course a more important part is the sharing of the food after you sit down and talk so in our family this has always been a very very important part of our family the sharing of food the making of food and being together you know so and so many viewers grew up watching Claudine and then Shori and and really enjoyed them because they asked so many of the questions we would ask what are you doing how are you preparing it and Senator said you said that because the first area I did was Claudine cooking with clothing well of course people tell her how is it to have a jackpot famous platform she took I don't know I didn't even have another one this one so of course we had great food at home but she never knew what we were created fine you know so when we started doing the theory I didn't even tell her what we were doing the the menu so so we started she said wow that's how you do it and a lot of people wrote that she's faking it I'm sure she know no she didn't know she oh knew how to read it she already but she never knew how to do it so it was so it was very natural this way so she could ask question and and so forth so when she moved to BU many many years ago she's mid 50 now so at Boston University and I started teaching there at that point a long long time ago so I remember I I helped her renovate a little apartment there I built up the kitchen I do stuff too and then she invited me for dinner one night I was there so she went to the market and my father loved chicken I wear the chicken with roast potato onion I love that symbol I brought a bottle of wine so she looked at chicken and there was other bigger chicken next to it twice as expensive some will take those those were of course Han poultry so she cooked them they were dried like hell and oh it could be good too so we ate we drank that bottle of wine and I didn't say anything and finally she's so so what do you think a nice apparently I told her you want my opinion that the father or the chef at the father it was very good that's wonderful no you mentioned uh Claudine and Raleigh her husband they with you established the pen the foundation right and yeah you really do you've in just a few short years you have raised Millions to help organizations that help people yes we work with the community kitchen and usually not for young Chef it's usually people in the mid 30 mid 40s mid 50s mostly people who come out of jail a former drug addict homeless people uh veteran even so people who've had kind of a problem in life you know I may be dinner franchise and so forth you can you know I did so many shows so many hundreds of of techniques that I've done a video and so forth so we use those video as well as cookbook to give them the basic technique of cooking so that they can reincorporate the world of food and you know within a couple of months the guy messed out of that dishwasher on the vegetable but if he works good within three four weeks you move it up you move it up and you can you can redo a life and get some of your dignity back and some happiness so it's good we've done very well with that and I'm very very proud of what my son-in-law including this area yeah life skills culinary skills and many of them find jobs in the food service industry in The Culinary industry yes absolutely and we need people like this ability no question in the food world now we need a lot of people which we don't have so uh yeah it's nice it's nice to do that and you know the kitchen is uh is really a teamwork you know you work in a kitchen oh I mean I did that all my life and my motto also is that everyone is the same in the eye of the stove so you know whoever you are Black White did that too it's 11 o'clock you have 100 people sitting for lunch you better move whoever you are so this is the kitchen you know but it's it's really a teamwork you know in the kitchen and you you get involved in that and you can be very happy I mean of course you have to do it for the right reason and the right reason is that you like to to cook and please people so but it's a nice life I mean I've done it for close to 80 years so and you've changed lives with the foundation that that must be satisfying for you to be able to do that absolutely yes we did already when I was at the French Culinary Institute in New York for years there was a dean there we used to give some scholarship to people who were a bit different franchise like that and it's exciting you know to see a young guy or a young woman four or five years later they are the chef at that restaurant and now they have a life to throw it you know at that point that you challenge someone's life you know so and that's that's good you're such a prolific author of 31 32 books so the 32nd is going to be coming out in September right and uh tell us about that your latest book it's called The Art of chicken and as you may know in my family I was married 54 years and all those years when people came to the house we write down what we did the menu for our front family and people sign on the other side it was a funny thing then sometimes we put the music with a great bottle of wine or champagne we take the label stick it in so uh clothing actually my daughter came a few months ago back to the house and she said what did I hit for my third birthday I said let's look we find our third birthday she had to draw little chicken and all that too so those books for me is my whole life I mean my mother in there everyone is in their book so I decided to do a book actually I did a few years ago a book of menu like that like Eddie Eddie illustration of menu which people buy to fill up themselves when they do so going back to the book it's going to be published in September there out of chicken I realized that in those illustrations I was doing a lot of chicken so I decided I said well I want to do a book of my children my chicken illustration and my editor you know publisher said yeah great terrific but we want recipe I said I don't want PCP after hundreds of books so I actually we have over a hundred pounding of chicken and with story story of Chicken story of eggs or chicken I have a book called the apprent this which is a story of my life so with the same idea I will talk to you about what I serve to the president in France up to a truck stop somewhere in South Africa you know in terms of chicken or eggs or stuff sorry from China to Connecticut you know so so it was a fun book and it also includes your artwork some of your beautiful paintings that's it we have a hundred pounding of chicken in there so that's good and your kitchen here is decorated with some of your your beautiful yes yeah we do that I used to do some Mosaic like that good thing and some fighting yes I I used to do a lot of floor I mean in the house that we are renovated here I did a lot all the the war outside I used to do that I mean I used to love to do cement and stone wall and feed trucks and you know yeah I work with my hand my father over the cabinet make him by trade and but of course when I was a kid uh 13 years old I left to go into apprenticeship my mother at a restaurant and my father was a cabinet maker at that time of course we didn't have the telephone with Intel television of course we didn't have already we didn't really exist really so uh no magazine or stuff so life was probably much simpler and easier than now so either I had blinders either I'm a cook or cabinet maker so I wanted to cook it cookie game yes yeah it was an easy choice I guess you love to paint is that is that your your hobby your passion yes I do and we have that outside that Tom is doing and is doing very well we uh I'm amazed even I mean I never would have never would have done a foundation I would never have done an outside to sell party and he's selling a lot of money so so illustration and menu uh you know I do menu for special occasion or people ask me and so yeah it's fun and the art was that something as a child or when did you nurture yourself artwork when I came back to to when I came to the U.S 1959 I left school when I was 13 years old so I wanted to go back to school when I was in New York people I said the best school somewhere told me is Colombia University so I took the subway went to Colombia and three weeks later I was enrolled at Colombia English for following students so forth that was 1959 and I went on to Colombia until the end of 1973 working but going English or foreign students and some type of validation program but I did a bit and I did a master that I was doing a PhD there so I went there forever and at some point at the beginning I took an art class I had some drawing I think and another one in the sculpture and so that started and then after we had a whole bunch of friends we rented a house Upstate New York and the Catskill you know at Woodstock and it was kind of a artist Community you know so we all started redoing old chair or panning or repairing or planning or doing stuff and we're a whole bunch yeah that was fun so I know a lot of people probably wonder all the years you've cooked in the kitchen all the wonderful meals you've prepared do you have one that you love the most is there a dish or a meal that that just is your your absolute favorite either to prepare as a chef or to enjoy I tell you if you can get my the greatest possible bread baguette and the greatest possible butter it's very hard to beat bread and butter it's an extraordinary thing otherwise I cook depending on what the market does or or what what I have in the garden or when I'm in the mood of you know whether it's winter or summer I want to soup this whether I have the hangover on that so I'll have to do so yeah you you work with with this or special occasion two weeks ago actually with Michelle Nisha with a great chef to Florida and my son-in-law Roddy the three of us to feed 20 people who pay like seventy five thousand dollars for the foundation on price that we give for them to come play Bull with us and it so we had Lobster souffle I had truffle we had caviar we had you know very fancy eventsy stuff so one of the last great dinner we did a lot of champagne a lot of stuff so yeah everyone already finished with food but as you've mentioned though for you if you have that perfect bread and oh fresh bread and butter are you kidding yeah and is there a comfort food you mentioned soup is there anything that you would turn to as a as a comfort food soup probably even more so as I get older and with my wife labeled fridge soup I opened the fridge and whatever is left over half a carrot a piece of onion this tattoo that goes we do as soon finish it with a bit of pasta or whatever yeah soup winter somewhere we of soup yeah I never throw anything out you know so I am I'm a very miserly cook you know probably because of my being ready during the second world war and my mother being this way yeah and all of those women in certainly Leon where I've come from in France is known for the the formidable woman of Leon of Chef you know some of the greatest Chef France were from a young woman and in my family in France I can't count 12 restaurants 12 of them run by women I were the first male to go into that business so but some of the three-star restaurant in in Leon were owned by by run by woman and so forth so that type of cooking is basically what I go back to I guess you know the dishes that you have as a child you know are very visceral you know they are very powerful and you go back to those tastes whether you come from South Africa or Indiana or anywhere in the world doesn't make any difference those taste stuff when I always think of those kids in in the war in Afghanistan or Iraq whatever whatever they dream of at night you dream of the grandchilder of your father or the Southern Fried Chicken of your mother or you know the doctor role very good so at that point the food become much more than the physiological function of food itself it transcends the level of taste it become home it becomes security it becomes love it becomes so food yes those those dishes of your youth are very powerful yes you remember them forever for a lifetime absolutely yeah I can you know blind it it was the way it was also in France remember when I was uh there was no book there was no recipe you work in a restaurant and it was to confirm the chapter you do this and you never questioned if you say why would I say because I just told you about the end which is a different way of teaching now entirely different but this was the way it was so I remember I can close my eyes in Paris or this is the striped bass of the Pavilion in New York I will recognize those days you know well yeah I remember those when you got here to the states and and at some point did you realize that a lot of people just didn't know the didn't have the knowledge didn't have the techniques that they noted that they needed to uh another world to start with I have to say that most people come to America to uh to get a better economic life usually or for a for a political reason or for religious reason or racist reason I didn't have any of this I was doing very well in Paris my parents are the restaurant in Leo but I wanted to come to America America was El Dorado you know the uh and so I started a year maybe two years and come back which of course 60 years ago so uh it's true that it was another world I mean the Pavilion I work in New York where The Graduate French restaurant too and all of the great so-called restaurants were kind of fragile so-called Continental with French menu usually totally misspelled but anyways so it was another world and when I was actually in the spring of 1961 I was a further job at the White House or Kennedy and I went off at the job for Howard Johnson which was there and I went to Howard Johnson and people always asking why would you do that because at that point the cook was really at the bottom of the social scale any good mother would have wanted their child to marry the lawyer or an accountant you know or a certainly note or an architect but certainly no they cook now we are genius I don't know what happened but in any case so in the context of the time you know I was with president in France when I was with the girl and I said I don't know where an area Tito's over the head of state at the time not anyone ever would ask you to come hero in the dining room that did not exist not anyone I never had an interview with a magazine newspaper or television barely existed that did not exist the cook was in the package on that set if anyone come there it was too complain about something so again I'm saying that to say that I had no inkling of the possibility of publicity whenever that's to go to the White House I had done it and I was at Colombia I was doing all the things so I didn't want to leave New York so that's what I went to and actually Howard Johnson it was a totally American environment I learned about mass production marketing chemistry of food all kind of thing that I didn't know when I left I stayed 10 years at Howard Johnson 1960-1970. I opened a restaurant on Fifth Avenue called La potassium for the mass production soup to then I opened the World Trade Center with Joe bomb big thing then I was a consultant at the Russian tea rooms I'm saying all of that to say I would never have been able to do any of those jobs without the training of Howard Johnson other friendship I didn't know about production or stuff like this so it was another another world you know it was exciting it was very exciting at the time you know and I realized in the 2000 actually Time Magazine asked me to they did 100 most important people of the 20th century one of them was rare Crocs the McDonald you know but I knew him personally I had met him several times with Mr Johnson Howard Johnson they asked me to do his profile and I realized at that time when I was doing a bit of research in 1960 I was in 1960 1917 the mid-60 Howard Johnson was the largest Restaurant Group in America bigger than McDonald Kentucky Fried Chicken Burger King all together were smaller than Howard Johnson where the 1200 restaurants it served more people except for the American Army so it was a big company it was a big company and you really enjoyed your time at Howard Johnson absolutely I know people have always probably asked you though did you think back years later about oh should I should I have gone to the White House should I have been the chef for the president and and the person General but not really I mean my life challenge you know this is a very existential is this way you know I feel that you do a decision somewhere IT projects you and put you there from there you do another digital project you there you know so this is the way life work I mean I came to America for a year and you know for that small decision it had to think a big decision than other decisions that you do like that in life I think that's the way it works for me no I never really regretted it yeah I've been to the White House a few times so and your years on public television your your years of doing television shows and writing books right you've really enjoyed that over here yes I did I did as a as a cook for me you know uh it was interesting that I wrote for the New York Times for like 10 years and full on my magazine and so forth so if I had to do that every day from The New York Times I'll probably get out of my mind but the beauty of it I was consultant to do restaurant uh when I shop there I did the magazine I did television so it's all food but if I were to do only television I probably would get crazy you know so but doing all of those different type of thing in the world of food yeah that made my life very enjoyable and you still do so many events Facebook signings and demonstrations and my daughter pushed me and she's on a cruise now she started today I am the executive culinary director of a cruise line Australia Cruise Line and she is one of the Godmother of a ship so she and will be there actually in the in September I'm going up your way up to Montreal and of the north I'm coming back with the marina one of the ship I do a couple of you know Cruise usually every year doing some demonstration and to the people so I enjoy that too nice wonderful so how's the summer been uh it's dry here in Connecticut has that affected your your Gardens at all yeah it's uh it's raining today fortunately you can thank you we brought the rain with it yes yeah no my garden oh my God it's still there I have to say less and less as I'm getting older and older you know I work less and less in the garden but I have a lot of foam around so I can go and get fresh peas and tomato or whatever so I'm not deprived so and you have your own herb garden here and oh yeah of course and is there anything any ingredient that this Summer that you're you're trying out that's new and different in your cooking not really I mean you know what I do I went to the market actually last week when you said that was a Chinese market because they wanted to have some tribe some kid in there I bought some all kind of stuff that I don't really use much for me because when I uh when I do the show that I do I often even have the package from the Superior market so people can relate to it so the best that I can find the CPR Market but the regular Super Market so people can identify it with the with the food you know so yeah and during the pandemic some folks were limited in what they could get at the supermarket you probably covered that in some of the videos that that we're going to use what's either in your fridge or what is available at your supermarket in the freezer and do stuff and freeze it and you know we do yeah absolutely thank you so much for taking the time thank you talk with us we are so looking forward to having you come and join us in October I'll bring to Pittsburgh and all my friends there and I'll see you soon thank you thank you and happy cooking thank you thank you

Channel: Mountain Lake PBS

Views: 24,895

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Id: 5cIiDKM3WhY

Length: 31min 15sec (1875 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022