Meet Master Chef Jacques Pepin

We are here with MasterChef Jacques Pepin. It is such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for welcoming us. 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 meet you and at the same time support our station They know you so many people know you from your cooking shows and and from PBS 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 The first area I did was in 1982 You know in Jacksonville, Florida and eventually most of the series I did with KQED San Francisco and we showed here as well So yes, I'm a big PBS man me and Julia, 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 used to teach together actually, so we had a good 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. Yes many years. Yeah. 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 McCulley was a food editor at McCord how beautiful She became kind of my surrogate mother in New York way before I was married and she said oh I could keep the manuscript of a book You want to take a look at it and eat while mastering the art of 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 tall woman with a terrible voice And I met Julia and at that time I met James Beard and Craig LeBron who started at the New York Times So this where the Trinity of cooking in America Craig LeBron 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? However, many years later you and Julia would be on public television. No, absolutely 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 food editor on magazine newspaper. So she was not known at all But she just came back from France. I remember because when I met her we spoke French more than English French but better than You and Julia had such a great friendship 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 a genuine that that was a genuine friendship And I think I think they loved you You know, you know why because I had to start with I've done 13 series of 26 So as I say with cake you eating and at the beginning they said Anything is too expensive. You have to do it on time. So at 30 minute show like 29 minutes I did three recipe twos I would have someone coming with a science a 15 minute 7 minutes 3 minutes 1 minute wrap-up, which is pretty Stressing, you know in some ways so that was it then when I started doing a theory with clothing my daughter I wanted her to be the Vox populi 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 her 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 minute other or so We started with Julia Julia say we're gonna cook when it's finished. We'll tell you I think we are sure which were 80 or 90 minutes I don't know what happened to the b-roll That was one thing the second thing Also, is that when you do a series on television and I've done you come at least with the manuscript of the book So people in the back kitchen have an idea what you're going to do. We had no recipe here With Julia, so we said let's do skew tomorrow. Let's do whatever So why did I put scallion in that's you because they happen to be on the table there there We are no recipe no recipe a lot of wine and no time limit That's how we had a good time. I think people can feel it I think I think that appealed to a lot of people and they loved you you you just had such great chemistry together 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 Adirondacks. I mean I used to ski in Stoke, Vermont Of course, I used to live upstate New York in the Catskill Hunter Mountain Used to do a lot of skiing and so many of our friends are north of the border in Montreal in Quebec And you've been to Montreal before. Oh, yeah, I'm a real me that me I'm a real J'aimerais pouvoir retourner vous voir en six jours, mais peut-être que je le ferai bientôt en attendant a votre santé merci Good food up there did a number of good restaurants You really enjoy showing people many who have never cooked before 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 a private shipping 1949 87 so I've been in the kitchen 75 years or more professionally, you know, so I have done I work with very important people have done some of the greatest restaurants, so I've done very fancy food and And it changed, you know your metabolism challenge and now at my age I realized maybe other young chef often you can to add and add and add more to the plate and this and that So they 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 course I don't need embellishments 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 or five minutes? We show people but they are in the refrigerator in the pantry in the freezer But they can use and we've done almost 300 of those With my friend Tom that you met and Tom has been my photographer for my book for 40 years he's the one handling my my art side also and And then he's the one taping those show. So when we do that, we do usually 10 to 12 show a day Those are five minutes, 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, you know the pandemic so I cook and do the dishes and he So it's pretty simple I Realize also, I'm sorry to get you but all of those show that I've done KQED and so many series and we have to raise one one and a half million dollars to do those here here We do those two things together. I spend maybe two three hundred dollars going to the market and that's about it Very cheap production and that is amazing. You mentioned nearly 300 videos You've done on YouTube on Facebook vibe. You've also done cooking demonstrations 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 But he teaches cooking at Johnson & Wales and he's the one who created the Jacques Pepin Foundation with my daughter So which is fantastic. I'm gonna 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 to cook for themselves I mean, I'm sure the pandemic caused a lot of divorce But it also caused 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 Claudine, my daughter 15 now she was three years old or two years old I hold her in my arm and I said hey all you so she would mix for me, you know so she could eat it because she made it with that, you know, so 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 give me the salad because you think it's clean enough What do you think test it? Give me a bowl go to the guy. I need some parsley So I go there with the guy. I said no, that's right. Test it. That's parsley. Okay test it go to the market with her I say give me some tomato make sure they are ripe or pear. Did you smell them? Do you think they are right came back? She helped me and that's what a you know I kind of canvas on to which to build a conversation and of course the 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 And so many viewers grew up watching Claudine and then Shuri And and really enjoyed them because they asked so many of the questions we would ask. What what are you doing? How are you preparing it? And it's interesting you said that because the first area I did with Claudine cooking with Claudine Well, of course people tell her How is it to have a Jacques Pepin famous chef from she took I don't know So, of course we had great food at home, but she never knew what she ate it fine Yeah, so when we started doing the series, I didn't even tell her what we were doing 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 knows. No, she didn't know she knew how to eat it She already had but she never knew how to do it. So it was it was very natural this way so she could ask questions And so forth. So when she moved to be you Many many years ago. She's 50 now So I brought some university and I started teaching there at that one a long long time ago So I remember I helped her renovate a little apartment there. I built up the kitchen I did stuff too and then she arrived me for dinner one night. I was there So she went to the market and I found a love chicken where the chicken with roast potato onion love that simple If you look at chicken and there was all the bigger chicken next to it twice as expensive some would take those But those were of course hand Poultry so she cooked them very dry like hell and other cook because So we ate we drank the bottle of wine and I didn't say anything and finally she's so so what do you think? And I apparently I told her you won't pay opinion of the father or the chef Other father it was very good That's wonderful now you mentioned Claudine and Raleigh her husband they with you established the Joppa pen foundation and 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 50s mostly people who come out of jail Former drug addicts homeless people Veteran even so people who've had kind of a Problem in life, you know, I may be dealing franchise and so forth You can you know, I did so many shows so many hundreds of techniques that I've done 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 may start on a dishwasher on the vegetable But if he works good within three four weeks, you move it up you move it up and you get 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 Life skills culinary skills and many of them find jobs the food service industry in the culinary industry Oh, yes, absolutely. And we need people like this after it. You know question in the food world now We need a lot of people which we don't have so Yeah, it's nice. It's nice to do that. And you know, the kitchen is It's really a teamwork, you know, you work in a kitchen Wow, 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 this that to the 11 o'clock You have hundred 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 in the kitchen and you get involved in that and you can be very happy 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 And you've changed lives with a foundation that that must be satisfying for you to be able to do that. Absolutely We did already when I was at the French Culinary Institute in New York. Oh, yeah, there was a Dean there We used to give some scholarship to people Who have been dealing from size like that and it's exciting, you know to see a young guy or a young woman for five years later That's the other chef at that restaurant and now they have a life. You saw it, you know at that point that you challenge someone's life You're such a prolific author of 31 32 books at the 32nd is going to be coming out in September, right and Tell us about that with your latest book It's called the art of chicken and 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 friend family and people sign on the other side It's a funny thing and sometimes we put the music for a great bottle of wine or champagne. We take the label stick it in. So 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 draw the chicken and all that too. So Those books for me. It's my whole life. I mean my mother in there. Everyone is in their book So I decided to do a book actually did a few years ago a book of menu like that Any any illustration of menu which people buy to fill up themselves what they do so Going back to the book going to be published in September there out of chicken. I realized that in those illustration I was doing a lot of chicken. So I decided I said I want to do a book of my children my chicken illustration and My editor, you know publisher say yeah great terrific, but we want recipe I said I don't want Hundreds of books So I actually we have over a hundred Piling of chicken and we story story of chicken story of eggs or chicken I have a book called the apprentice which is a story of my life So it the same idea I will talk to you about what I say up to the president in France up to a truck stop somewhere in South Africa You know in term of chicken or eggs or stuff sorry from China to And it also includes your artwork some of your beautiful We have a hundred panning of chicken So that's good. And Your kitchen here is decorated with some of your beautiful. Yes. Yeah, we do that I used to do some mosaic like that routine and some time. Yes, I used to do a lot of Floor I mean in the house that we Renovated here. I did a lot all the the wall outside him. I used to do that I mean, I used to love to do cement and stone wall and Heat rocks. Yeah. Yeah, I work with my hand. My father was a cabinet maker by trade and But of course when I was a kid 13 years old I left to go into a partnership my mother at a restaurant and my father was a cabinet maker At that time, of course, we didn't have the telephone. We didn't have television. Of course, we didn't have a really we didn't really exist really so No magazine or stuff. So life was probably much simpler and easier than now So either I had blinders either I'm a cook. I can't be that big With 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 he's doing very well. We are I'm amazed you and I mean I never would have Never would have done a foundation. I would never have done an outside to sell padding and he's so so illustration and menu You know, I do menu for special occasion or people Ask me and so yeah And the art was that something as a child or when did you? When I came back to when I came to the u.s. 1959 I Left left school when I was 13 years old. So I wanted to go back to school. I was in New York people I said the best school someone told me is gonna be a university So it took the subway went to Columbia and three weeks later. I was enrolled at Columbia English for foreign student so forth That was 1959 and I went on to Columbia until the end of 1973 Working but Going English for foreign students at some type of validation program that I did at VA But 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 another one in the sculpture and so that started and then after we had a whole bunch of friends right at the house of say New York and the Catskill, you know, I would stuck and it was kind of a Artist community, you know, so we all started either we doing old chair or planning or repairing or planning or doing stuff 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 just is your your absolute favorite either to prepare as a chef or to enjoy? I'll tell you if you can get my mind the greatest possible bread They get that other kid 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 What I'm in the mood of you know, whether it's winter summer. I want to soup this there. I have a hangover or not Yeah, you you work with with this or special occasion two weeks ago actually with Michel Michel With a great chef to follow my and my son-in-law Raleigh the three of us to feed 20 people who pay like $75,000 for the foundation on price that we give for them to come play bull with us and eat So we have lobsters with me. I had truffle. We had caviar. We are very fancy Yeah But as you've mentioned that for you if you have that perfect bread in the end 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 and I get older and what my wife Labeled fridge soup I open the fridge whatever is left over off a carrot a piece of onion this To that goes we do a soup finish it with a bit of pasta or whatever. Yeah, so winter summer We have soup. Yeah, I never throw anything out. So I I'm a very miserly cook, you know, probably because of my Being raised during the Second World War and my mother being this way And all of those women Certainly Leon where I come from in France is known for the Formidable woman of the all of chef, you know Some of the greatest chef France were from the old woman and in my family in France I can count 12 restaurant 12 of them run by woman. I was the first male to go into that business but some of the three-star restaurant in in the older owned by 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 They are very powerful and you go back to those taste whether you come from South Africa Indiana Anywhere in the world doesn't make any difference those taste up when I always think of those kids In the war in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever what a dream of at night you dream of the clam chowder of your father or the southern fried chicken of your mother or You know the dr. Rowe 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 Become security become love it become so food. Yes those Those dishes of your youth are very powerful Yeah, I can you know blind it it was the way it was also in France remember when I was There was no book. There was a recipe you work in a restaurant and It was to conform the chef said you do this you never question if you say why would I say because I just told you That's about the end Which is a different way of teaching now entirely different, but this was the way it was so I remembered I can close my eyes If I have the chicken my mother I said that my mother chicken This is not a souffle of the plaza 10 in Paris. Oh, this is a striped bass of the pavilion in New York I will recognize those taste When you got here to the States 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 know yeah, they needed to to go to another world to start with I have to say that most people come to America to To get a better economic life usually or for for political reason or for religious reason or racist reason I didn't have any of this. I was doing very well in Paris But I wanted to come to America America was El Dorado, you know the And so I said I'll stay here maybe two years and come back which of course 60 years ago. So It's true that it was another world. I mean the pavilion I work in New York But I graduated restaurant too and all of the great so-called restaurants were kind of French The French menu is very totally misspelled but 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 was a further job For Howard Johnson to that and I went to Howard Johnson people are always after 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 a child to marry the lawyer Accountant, you know Certainly not of an architect, but certainly know that cook now. We are genius. I don't know what I But in any case so in the context of the time, you know I was with president in France and also I was with the goal and I said, I don't know where Mary Tito's over the head of state at the time. Not anyone ever Would ask you to come **** you do in the dining room I didn't exist but anyone I never had an interview with a magazine newspaper or television Existing that did not exist the cook was in the back kitchen that said if anyone come there it was to complain about something so Again, I'm saying that to say that I have no inkling of the possibility of to be sitting when I was asked to go to the White House I had done it and I was at Columbia. I was doing the thing 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 Potagerie for the mass-production So to tell I opened the World Trade Center with Joe bomb big thing Then I was a consultant at the Russian tearooms I'm saying all of that to say I would never have been able to do any of those job Without the training of Howard Johnson. I have found chef. I didn't know about production or stuff like this So it was another another world, you know, it was exciting And I realized in 2000 actually Time magazine asked me to they did 100 most important people of the 20th century One of them was Ray Kroc McDonald's, you know, I knew him Personally, I'd made him several times with mr. Johnson Howard Johnson He 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 60s Howard Johnson was the largest restaurant group in America Bigger than McDonald's Kentucky Fried Chicken Burger King all together were smaller than Howard Johnson But over 1200 restaurant, it's there are more people except for the American Army, so it was a big company And you really enjoyed your time at Howard Johnson. Yeah, absolutely. I know people have always probably asked you though Did you think back years later about who should I should I have gone to the White House? Should I have been the chef for the president and and the first lady? Really I mean my life Challenge, you know, this is I'm very existential is this way I feel that you do a decision somewhere it project you and put you there from there You do another decision project you there, you know, so this is the way life work I mean I came to America for a year and you know Well, that's all decision the thing a big decision than all the decision that you do like that in life I think it's not the way for me. No, I never really Regretted it. Yeah, I've been to the White House at the time. So And your years on public television your your years of doing television shows and writing books, you've really enjoyed that. Yes I did I did as a cook to me, you know It's been interesting that I wrote for the New York Times for like 10 years and put on my magazine and so forth So if I had to do that every day for the New York Times, I'll probably get out of my mind But beauty of it. I was constantly trying to do restaurant. I was a chef there. I did 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 book signings and demonstrations and My daughter pushed me and she bought a cruise now it started today I am the executive culinary director of a cruise line Oceania cruise line and she is one of the godmother of a ship so she and will be there Actually in September. I'm going up your way up to Montreal and of the north and coming back with the marina one of the ship I do a couple of You know cruise usually every year doing some demonstration So, how's the summer been It's dry here in Connecticut. Has that affected your gardens at all? Yeah, it's a training today. Fortunately, you can thank you We brought the rain with it. Yes. Yeah. No my god. Oh my god. It's deep 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 Well, I have a lot of fun around so I can go and get fresh peas and tomato or whatever So I'm not deprived and you have your own herb garden here Oh, yeah, 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 Let me you say that when a Chinese market because I wanted to have some tribe some kidney I bought some all kind of stuff that I don't really use much except for me because when I when I do the show that I do I Often even have the package from the supermarket so people can relate to it So the best that I can find the supermarket with the regular supermarket so people can be don't be fine 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 was that we're gonna 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 Yeah Chocolate pen. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us We are so looking forward to having you come and join us in October. I'll go to Pittsburgh and all my friend and I'll see you soon, thank you Happy cooking. Thank you. 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