Speaker 1:

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Dan Pashman:

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Dan Pashman:

I'm going to do a live explicit language warning. We haven't actually done the show yet, but I'm confident there's going to be explicit language. If Angie Mar talks like she writes, there's going to be explicit language. So this episode contains explicit language. This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsessed about food, so learn more about people and we're coming to you from the Palace Hotel in New York City.

Dan Pashman:

Thank you all so much for being here. We are at Trunk Club which is a personal styling service that has this clubhouse lounge space kind of palace or versailles vibe here in the Palace Hotel, and it's really nice. Trunk Clubs owned by Nordstrom and I want you all to know that they gave me a shirt and they took a picture of me wearing the shirt, and they posted on their blog, which means I am now a model.

Dan Pashman:

Thank you. It feels good. These days in the world of food, we hear a lot about plant based, veggie centric cooking. We hear about the problems with saturated fat. Health and wellness are the words of the day my friends, Americans are even drinking less. When chef Angie Mar threw a party recently to celebrate the release of her new book, there was fried chicken, a carven station of dry aged prime rib, and people were drinking straight from mini-champagne bottles with straws.

Dan Pashman:

She said her favorite part was quote, watching my guests scoop obscene amounts of caviar onto their french fries, and not on rib bones, butter dripping down their arms onto their tuxedos. I think this image pretty well sums up the experience of reading Angie Mar's book, Butcher and Beast. It encapsulates the whole feeling of eating in her restaurant, The Beatrice Inn, the Roast duck flambe is lit on fire at your table. And the $950 Tomahawk rib-eye steak for four looks like a Caveman's club. I don't know how it tastes because I didn't order it, but that's what it looks like.

Dan Pashman:

Well, my question is like, when you're one of food and wines, best new chefs you're getting nominated for James Beard awards. You're running a restaurant. How much time do you yourself have for this kind of debauchery? Well, we're going to find out. Please welcome Angie Mar.

Dan Pashman:

Hey Angie.

Angie Mar:

Hi guys. Hi.

Dan Pashman:

I think the intro kind of gave a sense for folks who aren't familiar with your work of your style, but one thing I want to start off talking about you, just really drive home the point. You were in a pig roast competition and you made a red velvet cake.

Angie Mar:

I did.

Dan Pashman:

Tell us about the red velvet cake that you made.

Angie Mar:

I made it with pig's blood. Isn't that how you guys make red velvet cake? Am I the only one? Okay, I guess I'm the only one. All right.

Dan Pashman:

So that made it red. And then there was also candy guanciale?

Angie Mar:

Yes.

Dan Pashman:

Like sort of candy bacon kind of thing.

Angie Mar:

Candy guanciale. Yes. I think it was bone marrow. And I'm sure I did something with the fat and probably whipped it into like a cream cheese frosting or I did something.

Dan Pashman:

Yes, you whipped lard into the icing.

Angie Mar:

Fantastic.

Dan Pashman:

And apparently the caramel involved pork neck.

Angie Mar:

Yeah, that's right. I made a caramel out of pork neck stock. Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Pashman:

Instead of butter or in addition to?

Angie Mar:

In addition to, because why choose? I need all of the things.

Dan Pashman:

Yeah. So you made a red velvet cake and it had four kinds of pork in it?

Angie Mar:

Yeah.

Dan Pashman:

Before we get into the whole big story. I'm want to hit you with a couple quick lightning round questions.

Angie Mar:

I love lightning round.

Dan Pashman:

All right, you ready?

Angie Mar:

Yes.

Dan Pashman:

The first couple, I'm going to use a word that is often used to describe you, and I want you to give me your take on that. Number one female chef.

Angie Mar:

I hate being called a female chef, because last time I checked, I was just a chef. Yeah, I'm just a chef. When I started cooking, everybody started to say, what is it like, you're female, you're Asian American, and I would always say like, food should have no gender. Food should not have gender, it should not have race behind it. There shouldn't be religious. Really good food brings really great people to the table. And that's just it.

Dan Pashman:

Badass.

Angie Mar:

Thank you. You know what, I just say thank you. I just say thank you, that's it.

Dan Pashman:

There's a new anthology of essays out called Women on Food, it's edited by Charlotte Drucker. And one of the points made in there is this idea that like when you call a woman a badass, you may mean it well, but really what you're sort of doing is complimenting her for acting like a man.

Angie Mar:

But here's the thing, like I have never referred to myself as a badass. But, if the New York Times is going to call me a badass, who am I to argue with the New York Times? Like who are we to argue with the Times? You know what I mean. I just say thank you.

Dan Pashman:

Last lightning round question. What's an opinion that you have about food that everyone disagrees with, but you don't care that they disagree?

Angie Mar:

Seasonality. Yeah.

Dan Pashman:

What about it.

Angie Mar:

I don't really believe in seasonality. I don't, I know. I just, I don't. Yeah, if you come to my restaurant, in the dead of winter, there will be like two feet of snow on the ground and I will still have fresh cherries, because that's what I want to eat. So I get them flown in from Chile. Because why not? Why not?

Dan Pashman:

And what about the hottest days of summer?

Angie Mar:

I'm still eating meat pie. I have a summer for that I wear. I do, I have a summer for it and it's just very cold and in The Beatrice. That's it.

Dan Pashman:

Growing up, your dad cooked steaks a lot. Tell me more about food in your family growing up.

Angie Mar:

So I come from a family of restaurateurs, and my aunt was Ruby Chow. She was a very famous restaurateur and later on politician-

Dan Pashman:

In Seattle.

Angie Mar:

... in Seattle, yes. And Bruce Lee was a dishwasher for her and-

Dan Pashman:

I like Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr. came to eat in her restaurant.

Angie Mar:

Regulars. Yeah.

Dan Pashman:

I mean, she was going to be a major figure in Seattle dining.

Angie Mar:

Absolutely. My other aunts had a frozen food factory, and then on my mother's side, her father had instant noodle company in China, so yes, it's in my DNA.

Dan Pashman:

What is the gene? What is the food business restaurant industry gene?

Angie Mar:

I don't know. Because they worked really hard so I wouldn't have to do this. I mean, I think it's might be a flawed according to my family, but yeah.

Dan Pashman:

Maybe it's a feature not a bug, though, Angie.

Angie Mar:

Could be.

Dan Pashman:

Because I mean, you come from a family of workaholics?

Angie Mar:

Yes, absolutely.

Dan Pashman:

And so the restaurant industry attracts workaholics or is it that workaholics are the only ones were able to succeed in the industry?

Angie Mar:

I don't really know. I mean, look, when my family got into the industry, it was because of the Chinese exclusionary act. So, then if you were Chinese in America, you could not own a business. You were in restaurants or you at a laundromat, and that was it. And so-

Dan Pashman:

Legally, that was the only legally entities.

Angie Mar:

Legally, yeah. And so my aunt started Ruby Chow's because that was all she could do. And it's just really interesting when you think about it, because she started this amazing restaurant, and it wasn't just Chinese food in the way that we think about Chinese food today. It was like the spot. I mean, you're talking about 1948 you're talking about dinner clubs, everybody went between this place called Ruby Chow's and the Phoenix Social Club, and that was it. And you were in black tie and you went out to have a night. It was a supper club.

Angie Mar:

So for her to take what maybe people would have think like this is terrible. This is all we can do and really make it into a thing and make it successful and for her to launch a political career out of that is huge.

Dan Pashman:

What do you think you have in common with her?

Angie Mar:

Well, she and I have the exact same birthday for one. Yeah. And I grew up a block away from her. So she had a big hand in raising me and my dad used to be like, "You are so stubborn. You're just like your aunt Ruby. You're so so stubborn".

Dan Pashman:

You said that every dish you serve you like to have some element of masculinity and some element of femininity in it. What ideas about masculinity and femininity did you get from growing up?

Angie Mar:

I don't know if it was really growing up that really formed those ideas. It's more, I think when I started cooking, and I started really writing my own menu, I obviously never really been big into vegetables. Sorry, but it's real. I was like, there [crosstalk 00:10:02]

Dan Pashman:

Angie, we just did a whole show while back about picky eating. And I was like parents of your kids don't eat vegetables, don't worry, they'll be fine. They'll eat them eventually. There's a lot of research.

Angie Mar:

I never grow up. I still say to this day, and my mama says this, too. It's like, I want to eat beef, and I want to wear heels. That said, nothing has changed since I was five, it's the same person.

Dan Pashman:

So you grew up in this family. You went out into the world, and you went into commercial real estate. Did you think when you did that, that was going to be your life?

Angie Mar:

Yeah, I did. I was making really fantastic money. I was traveling all over, and it was a good life, but it's not really what I wanted to do, because clearly I've always wanted to do something a little bit more creative. But when I think about it, and people are like, do you wish you had started cooking earlier? The answer is no. Because having that life for almost 12 years was it taught me how to understand labor costs. It taught me how to negotiate leases. The thing is, is that, I think a lot of people get into this business for the creative aspect because they want to cook and I think that especially the younger generation of cooks, they've got this very romanticized idea of what the restaurant industry is. But at the end of the day, it's a business and you have to make money, you've got to be able to pay the rent. If I had my way I would be in my kitchen every single day, just cooking and creating and all of those things, but there's the business side of it, too.

Dan Pashman:

And do you remember the moment when you decided to go to culinary school?

Angie Mar:

I do. Yeah.

Dan Pashman:

What prompted it?

Angie Mar:

So I had quit my job. I quit my job, and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do yet. So I traveled and I was in East Africa, and then I was in Spain, and I was in Serbia. And I was eating and I had this amazing pork steak. And it was from an Iberico pig. And it was so beefy, and it was rare. And it was so well marbled, and it was just delicious. And I remember at that moment being like, I just really love food. I know that my family's not going to want to hear this but I really love food and this is what I want to do.

Dan Pashman:

So you come out of culinary school, you start working your way up to the kitchens in New York City.

Angie Mar:

I came up at Andrew Tarlow's restaurants in Brooklyn. Reynard, I worked at Diner, I worked at Marlo.

Dan Pashman:

And I know from there, you ended up eventually at The Spotted Pig, which for folks those who haven't followed the news, ended up being sort of the poster restaurant for Me Too issues. That was the restaurant owned in part by chef April Bloomfield and her partner, Ken Friedman, and that was the place that allegedly had a private room. They've been nicknamed the rape room where Mario Batali would hang out. Were you surprised when those allegations came out?

Angie Mar:

I don't think I was surprised because I had heard things. But yeah, I mean, look, it's really, really unfortunate what all of those women went through. And I know some of them. April was actually always really good to me. I mean, the things that happened there were atrocious. And I actually never witnessed any of them. I've always just been around to work, and that's it. I walked in here and you said, "Can I get you a drink?" And I said, "No, I actually don't drink". I don't have friends that are chefs. And if I do know chefs, it's not like I actually hang out with them. I worked there for a little bit less than a year and it was just work go home. And that's what I did.

Angie Mar:

At the end of the day, it all starts from the top. And it's unfortunate that that's how that restaurant was run and how other restaurants like that were run. But since that's happened, I think that there's been a huge focus on well, what is the restaurant culture like now and what are we as business owners doing to change that? Look, my restaurant has always been a dry house. We don't do shift drinks at the end of the night.

Dan Pashman:

There is a common restaurant industry through tradition, at the end of a shift, you get a free drink. It's almost like part of your salary. So at Beatrice Inn you eliminated shift drinks?

Angie Mar:

I did that in 2013 when I got there before I even owned it. Yeah, as soon as I took over the kitchen there, there's no shift drinks and that's it. A, because I was concerned about the bottom line of that restaurant because when I got there wasn't making any money. And B because it's not the culture that I've ever wanted with any of my houses.

Dan Pashman:

Did you get any pushback?

Angie Mar:

Of course. Of course, I got pushed back because that wasn't how it was being before. And look, what I always say is that there's two doors, you can leave out of either one of them, and that's really it.

Dan Pashman:

Coming up. Angie buys The Beatrice Inn, she races to turn it around. It does something that to me at least sounds kind of crazy. Stick around.

Speaker 1:

Time to cook up some advertisements.

Dan Pashman:

Call me a kid, but I still love getting mail. I love seeing it in the pile there. I love opening it up, wondering what kind of card it's going to be. My aunt Merrill always puts glitter inside the cards. So when you open them up, and you open the card, you read it, glitter falls all over you and all over the floor. Now I've learned that about Merrill, so now I open the cards over the garbage, you got to watch out for auntie Merrill. But the point is getting a card makes you feel good. And sending a card will make someone else feel good, it reminds them that you care.

Dan Pashman:

And let me tell you, Hallmark just send me some of their new holiday cards. Check it out. These cards are beautiful. They're like works of art. If I got one of these cards, I would know the person who sent it really cared. And the other great way to show someone you care is to take time to write something nice in the card. Tell your friends and loved ones about the past year. Wish them all kinds of good stuff in the year ahead. It's a great simple way to make their season just a little brighter, so give it a try and see what a card can do. Visit hallmark.com/sporkful to shop holiday cards for everyone on your list and use promo code sporkful to get 20% off your card purchase.

Dan Pashman:

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Dan Pashman:

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Dan Pashman:

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Dan Pashman:

Welcome back to the Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. In last week's episode, I talked with former Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi. His family moved to the states when he was a teenager and he and his father had very different opinions about American food.

Aasif Mandvi:

My dad who's like what do you mean, this is America. This is what we do. We put 16 toppings on our ice cream, that's how you are in America.

Dan Pashman:

I love that part in the book, where you guys go for ice cream and you order chocolate and he's like, "It's like we came all over to this country so you can order chocolate?"

Aasif Mandvi:

He's like, "It is an insult to every beggar on the streets of India to only eat chocolate ice cream".

Dan Pashman:

That episodes up now, find out why Aasif calls himself a human turducken. Check it out. Now back to my conversation with Chef Angie Mar tape live on stage. After working her way up through the kitchens of various New York restaurants. Angie ends up as the chef at the Beatrice Inn. It's a spot with a long history. 100 years ago was a speakeasy where Hemingway and Fitzgerald drink. Then it was an Italian restaurant for 50 years, then an infamous nightclub. By the time Angie gets there, it's been reopened as a restaurant, and it's struggling. After a couple years, Angie is thinking about leaving, then the owners approached her about buying the place. In 2016, they seal the deal. Angie buys the Beatrice with her cousin and immediately begins recipe testing, trying to work out what her vision of the food would be.

Angie Mar:

I wanted to cook food that was very much a reinterpretation of what I grew up eating. I didn't want to put things on my menu, just to placate people. I think there's a lot of restaurants out there that have something for everybody. And I knew from the get go that my restaurant was going to be for everybody. And I was okay with that. I'm still okay with that because when you go to restaurants and you eat food, and you're like this is plated perfectly. It's beautiful. It's season perfectly. Everything about it's perfect, but maybe it's kind of missing something. I never wanted to put food out that was like that. I wanted my food to have soul. I wanted to have personality, I wanted it to have a lot of integrity, and I wanted it to be things that I could really get behind. That's why I don't have vegan dishes on my menu. Just never going to happen. It's never going to happen.

Dan Pashman:

Right, you definitely don't have vegan dishes, that is true. So you had this vision but yet when you reopened, you had a night when you decided that the vision was not being executed. What happened?

Angie Mar:

Fired my whole kitchen.

Dan Pashman:

You fired every cook in the kitchen?

Angie Mar:

Everyone.

Dan Pashman:

Why?

Angie Mar:

Because it wasn't the culture that I wanted. Because when I bought that restaurant, nobody knew who I was. I didn't have a track record and I couldn't actually get cooks that were really like, I really want to work for this person because of X Y Z because nobody knew who I was. I didn't have a Times review. There was no Food & Wine Best New Chef, there was none of that. So I had cooks that were there that were purely there for the money. They were there for the paycheck. They weren't there to execute a vision. They weren't there to put their soul and their passion and their integrity onto a plate. And we were right in the middle of review period. I think Wells had been in ones.

Dan Pashman:

Meaning you just reopened under your name and you knew the critics we're going to come to review you.

Angie Mar:

I have just reopen.

Dan Pashman:

And Pete Wells from the New York Times had already been in once. So you're really under the microscope.

Angie Mar:

Yeah. And he usually comes three times, three to four times, yeah. So he had already been in once. And look, I wrote about it in my book, there was drugs going on, there was alcohol happening. And that's not the kind of restaurant that I ever wanted. So I was left with a choice, and I had Nicole with me.

Dan Pashman:

Nicole was your sous-chef at the time?

Angie Mar:

Yeah, she was my sous-chef. And there's a great restaurant around the corner called the Llama at the time. And I walked around the corner and I sat there and I was like, I have to make a decision. And it's either I'm going to have bodies in the kitchen, and somebody there to execute it or I'm going to have to execute it all myself, me, Nicole, my other sous-chef, Lou Cerro, but it's going to be A, what I want, and it's going to be, B the culture that I want. And I'm not going to have to deal with any of the bullshit. Because I didn't want to deal with the drugs. I didn't want to deal with the alcohol. I didn't want to deal with all of those problems that we just had a conversation about with The Spotted Pig, and all of those things that went wrong. That was not going to be my house. It was never going to be my house.

Angie Mar:

So I picked up the phone and I've told them to fire them all. And we did. It was Friday night, handed out paychecks. It's like here you go, you're fired. Here you go, you're fired. And we rebuilt from scratch.

Dan Pashman:

With that first night? I mean, you built it back up, but you don't just flip a switch and do that?

Angie Mar:

No.

Dan Pashman:

So you fired everyone on a Friday, what was the next night like, Saturday night?

Angie Mar:

It was scary. It was scary. I woke up the next day and I was like, I called Anita Lo who is a chef and owner Vanessa and I called her and I said, "Anita, this is what I did yesterday". And she said, "Yeah, 100% you had to do it, 100% I would never tolerate that shit". And she sent me some of her old cooks that she knew were available. And I called friends that were getting ready to open up the grill at the time, Mario Carbone was getting ready to open up the grill at the time.

Dan Pashman:

I thought you said you didn't know any chef.

Angie Mar:

I know a couple. And that's how we cooked, that whole season while we slowly hired and rebuilt, and it really paid off.

Dan Pashman:

And so I mean, I understand that you said, you didn't want to put anything on the menu that you didn't love. But could you articulate, exactly what was it or is it what you were trying to say with the food.

Angie Mar:

It was really interesting because I can articulate it now but back then I could only cook it. And it was really interesting because my cousin kept asking me, she kept being like, well, what's the restaurant? What's the idea behind it? And I said, I don't know. I just need to cook. And that review came out, Wells review came out.

Dan Pashman:

The P Wells review in the New York Times.

Angie Mar:

Yeah. And he nailed it. And I remember sitting down that morning and I was so nervous. I woke up at 6:00 in the morning.

Dan Pashman:

You knew the review is coming out.

Angie Mar:

I knew the review was coming out. Fact check have been done, photos have been done.

Dan Pashman:

And I'll read one quote from it. P Wells wrote, Miss Mar cooks animals, of course, but she also cooks for animals. She cooks for the animals that we are, she knows that certain instincts kick in when we sit together taking another animal apart. She has a vision, a vision isn't the same as a concept. And the restaurant business is a concept is a market niche. By following her gut she has made The Beatrice Inn one of the most celebratory restaurants in the city. I don't mean that you should there to celebrate an anniversary. It's a place to go when you want to celebrate your life as an animal.

Dan Pashman:

So what did you think when you read that?

Angie Mar:

I burst into tears, honestly. And it was very much a validation for me because I couldn't. Like I said, I couldn't describe my food until then. I just knew I could cook it and that was it. When my cousin and I bought that restaurant, what I think was missing from that restaurant was this come as you are. I think it had a bit of that when it was the Italian restaurant because it was really of the neighborhood. And we wanted to bring it back to that. Just come as you are.

Dan Pashman:

Come as you are, but it's still, it's not a cheap meal. Let's be honest.

Angie Mar:

Well, it depends what you order.

Dan Pashman:

The burger is what, 38 bucks. So I hear it's an amazing burger, I didn't get to try that when I came in.

Angie Mar:

No, but you ate very well.

Dan Pashman:

I did. Yes. I got one shot at the big time Angie.

Angie Mar:

You ate very well.

Dan Pashman:

I was curious to get your take on my order, was four of us, my wife and I and two of our friends. And I said, "Let's start by sharing a salad". And everyone at the table looked at me, as like a record scratch at the table. They were like, we thought this place was famous for meat. Why the hell did you order a salad? And I said, because I want to eat something that's cold and crispy and acidic. Because that is the exact opposite of a steak. And if I just have a few bites of salad, then the steak will taste that much better. Do you feel that that's an acceptable situation to eat salad?

Angie Mar:

Yeah, and by the way, I don't put anything on my menu that I don't eat myself. So I actually happen to really like the kale salad, that's on my menu. And I have romaine on the menu as well because I actually love romaine. I mean, granted, it's mostly water. So it's probably why I like it. But it is cold and it's crisp, and it's crunchy. And I'm a little European in the way that I eat because I just I want all the shellfish. And then I want to go into all the meats. And then I want a salad before I have my cheese and dessert. It's a palate cleanser.

Dan Pashman:

I do get what you're saying, which is like you wanted a welcoming vibe. And even an expensive restaurant can still feel warm and welcoming, even if not everyone can afford to eat there.

Angie Mar:

But why is it always that my restaurant is always cast as expensive. I do $15 fried chicken at the bar. The pork shoulder is a signature dish on my menu, which I've been cooking since I was 15. And that's I think $34, that's not crazy. You're talking about literally the top 1% of beef in the country. I get literally the best products possible. And I think that it's really interesting when people always say, well, this restaurants expensive or this restaurants expensive, and I had this really interesting conversation with Thomas Keller the other day and he was talking about, we've ever had a-

Dan Pashman:

He is one of the top chefs in America.

Angie Mar:

In the world. So Thomas and I are having this conversation. He said, "There's expensive, and then there's quality". He said, "Look, what are your margins on the food? What are your food costs?" Because he gets the best lamb in the country. I get the best beef in the country. Am I more expensive than Ruth's Chris? 100%. Is my meat 100 times better than Ruth's Chris? Yeah, 100%. So it's really where you want to spend your money. You get what you pay for.

Dan Pashman:

I think also, when you use the word expensive, like everything is relative. A $38 entree seems normal to some people and insane to other people. It depends on who you are and where you live, and a lot of other factors play.

Angie Mar:

Exactly.

Dan Pashman:

So you come out with the book, Butcher and Beast, which ostensibly is a cookbook, but I feel like lately you've been saying, you can take the word cook out. It has recipes.

Angie Mar:

Yeah, it has recipes. And I actually said that that was not going to be a cookbook from the day that I sign the contract six years ago.

Dan Pashman:

And so, it's sort of part memoir, part cookbook. I think, to me, the most striking thing is the photography-

Angie Mar:

It's beautiful.

Dan Pashman:

It's beautiful, but it's all these sort of blurry polaroids of a late night party at The Beatrice Inn. It's as debossed as the intro to Angie's food sounded when I talked earlier. And then, as others have commented, there's cleavage in this book, Angie.

Angie Mar:

And there's cleavage right now.

Dan Pashman:

Look, thanks for filling in the listeners at home.

Angie Mar:

Yeah. Restaurants are this beautiful, living, breathing thing. And they change from day to day and that's one of the reasons why I love this business. Really great restaurants. Okay. It's not all about the food. It is on beyonds, followed by service, followed by food and I wanted this book to be window into our world. And it couldn't just be about just the food, it had to be about everything else too.

Dan Pashman:

It's interesting to me that you describe a restaurant as a living organism because clearly the book is sexy. All right.

Angie Mar:

Well, food should be sexy.

Dan Pashman:

Why?

Angie Mar:

Food in the act of eating, its sensual. Look, I eat with my hands all the time because I want to smell it, I want to feel it, I want to taste it. And when you walk into The Beatrice, it smells a certain way and there's cocktails that are being smoked to order and you can smell the herbs that are throughout the kitchen.

Dan Pashman:

And you said you prefer to use animal fat over butter in your cooking because you feel that butter leaves you feeling kind of weighed down animal fat not so much and you said that one of your goals with the restaurant is to serve seductive food in a seductive space, but leave people quote able to get laid afterward.

Angie Mar:

100%. 100%.

Dan Pashman:

The adjective that keeps coming to mind when I think of your food and the book and the restaurant and everything we're talking about, people talking about hedonism or debauchery. Everyone talks about meat with you, but to me the word is carnal. There is something so visceral and like base element human about it, and it's just like, it feels to me like your goal is to just sort of somehow tap directly into the most base human urges.

Angie Mar:

Yeah.

Dan Pashman:

What appeals to you about that?

Angie Mar:

Look, I am a person who is massively unapologetic. I just want to eat the most amazing things and smell the most amazing wines and wear amazing clothes and just I want to like in this ... and yes, I am very hedonistic that way.

Dan Pashman:

So hedonism and debauchery are great when it's your special night out of The Beatrice Inn but it's not always the best way to live every day?

Angie Mar:

No, I think everything should be done in moderation.

Dan Pashman:

And I think part of what you tapped into is that so much of food and eat and culture today, especially in more upscale circles is concerned with health and I understand there are some valid reasons ethical and your own personal health too to think about these things, but to leave any of those lifestyles requires you to deny yourself a lot of the carnal pleasures that we're kind of hardwired to crave. And that's a downer.

Angie Mar:

It is.

Dan Pashman:

And I do it sometimes too, but then when you're like, "What, I can just eat all the meat".

Angie Mar:

Yeah. Well, according to The Times, you now can, so that's okay. But no. Here's the other thing too. When I started cooking, I was in culinary school and I wanted to do fine dining but how do I really like to eat. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to create a place that wasn't so like okay, we're going to spend all this money on food but I don't want to laugh too loud because that maybe I'm going to bother the table next to me right that's not the place that I wanted.

Angie Mar:

And so for The Beatrice to really have kind of redefined what fine dining can be, you get perfect service. There's amazing wine. And we're ironing the tablecloth in between every turn. But there's still 90s East Coast rap, like Beastie Boys through the speakers. And it's a fun place. And yeah, you can absolutely have this debaucherous hedonistic night, or you can go and you can have a chill night there, but the food regardless of which one you do, is still going to tap into that carnal pleasure.

Dan Pashman:

All right, her new cookbook, no, not cookbook, her new book. It has some recipes, but it's a great book, even though you don't cook the recipes. It's called Butcher and Beast. Her restaurant in New York is The Beatrice Inn, big hand for Angie Mar.

Dan Pashman:

Thank you all so much to all of you for coming out. Good night.

Dan Pashman:

Want to win a copy of Angie Mar's book, which is really a memoir more than anything else, get on our mailing list and you're automatically entered into this and all our giveaways. If you're already on the list you're already entered. If not sign up by December 19 at sporkful.com/newsletter. This was the last live event of Sporkful World Tour 2019. A tour of select cities in the continental United States. We do have one more episode to drop from DC that'll come out early next year. But I just want to say first of all, we didn't make it to your city. I'm sorry. We'll be doing more live shows in other places. We hope to come to you soon.

Dan Pashman:

To those of you who came out to our shows, it was so exciting to travel the country and meet so many of you. And so I just want to say thank you. Next week on the show, I go to a potluck Christmas party, attended entirely by grandmas from all over the world. They will feed me. That's next week. My thanks to Caroline Mattingly, Catherine Lyman, Kyle Donash and everyone at Trunk Club for having us for this show. This show is produced by me along with-

Gofen Gutobwala:

Gofen Gutobwala.

Dan Pashman:

And-

Harry Huggins:

Harry Huggins.

Dan Pashman:

The show is edited by Tracy Samuelson, our engineer is-

Jared O'Connell:

Jared O'Connell.

Dan Pashman:

Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher, our executive producer are Chris Bannon and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

Fraser:

And I'm Fraser from Toronto, reminding you to eat more, eat better and eat more better.

Dan Pashman:

Do you know that in the time you just been listening to this podcast, you could have clean shoes? Because Rothy's shoes are machine washable. You could have watched them while you were just listening and they put them on the be like brand new. Isn't that so great? Check out all the amazing styles available right now at rothys.com/sporkful. Go to R-O-T-H-Y-S, rothys.com/sporkful to get your new favorite flats time for the holidays. Comfort, style and sustainability, these other shoes you've been waiting for. Head to rothys.com/sporkful today.

Speaker 1:

Stitcher.