Bonus: Declan Kelly On Going Vegetarian

0:00Declan Kelly:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. As a restaurant genius, I know the experience starts long before the food hits the table. Genius by Global Payments makes it easy. Digital menus and price updates in real time. No reprints, no surprises. The kitchen and floor stay perfectly in sync. So every dish arrives exactly as it should. From game day crowds to memorable meals. Big League Reliability for any business. That's genius. Ruthie's Table 4, presented by Sky.

0:4415, what was the path to vegetarian? Was there one, or did you just, how did that happen? Because that's very young to make a decision. I know, and in Ireland at the time, I think there were two vegetarians, but the other one, I think he probably died of starvation. uh so so i was left on my own so uh yeah no no vegetarians in in ireland in in the in the 70s and 80s that was a tough station let me tell you but now of course it's you can have anything you want but uh yeah one day i just stopped liking red meat and you know it wasn't squeamishness i mean i've i've been to abattoirs and i've grew up in a farm and had to kill animals and had to you know i've seen i've seen you know i've seen it not squeamish at all just didn't like the taste of red meat couldn't process it and then eventually that that went on to chicken and then it went on to fish and then one day I announced at the family table um that I was no longer going to eat meat and my father asked me if I was feeling okay yeah and I said yeah I'm feeling fine and he wasn't quite convinced but in any event he let me do it and um yeah since that day I've never tasted meat you've never had it again never yeah and did you did you adapt with other vegetables there was a Bounty of vegetables and beans and corn and your mother.

1:57Protein and other forms of protein and whatever. And as you get older, you get smarter. Yeah. And you realize what you really need and what your body needs and so on and so forth. But that was not my intention when I stopped. I had no idea. I just stopped because I didn't like it. We did an interview with Paul McCartney. And, of course, I would say that he kind of made vegetarian sexy. He did. He and Linda. He and Linda said, you know, rock and roll, but we're not. And they became very serious. I was once. There was a restaurant called Crank's, which was here. Do you remember that? I remember.

2:24When I first met Richard, so that must have been in the late 60s I was here, and we went to have lunch. I've never told this story. And we went to have lunch in Cranks, and I was so happy to see him. I was so in love, and my arms were around him, and I was sitting on his lap, and we were just having the best, best time. And a woman came over to a table, and she said, I've been watching you two. And I was 19. She said, I've been watching you two, And I think what you're doing is appalling. It is so embarrassing and so impolite and so rude. But that you should be doing it in a vegetarian restaurant.

3:03It makes it really bad. Oh, my God. And the horror. But that was a symbol of, you know, until McCartney's, until young people started being vegetarian. And it was very much a feeling that it was not fun to be a vegetarian. You couldn't have a good time. You couldn't, you know, eat well. and that i think that has changed so much now it's the opposite how do you find it now every city in the world yeah it's no longer other countries that are harder somebody told me france is harder yeah france is hard because um you know when you go there france and spain i find are particularly difficult if you're a vegetarian yeah very meat-centric culture yeah yeah but uh you know italy i love yeah i mean i'm at home in italy all day and this is why i love the river cafe and you know I love Indian food and tonight we're going for dinner in an Indian restaurant and you know but you know now it doesn't matter back then it was now I mean now vegan now gluten-free do you think bacon is hard yeah I like my dairy I like yeah yeah but it's hard and that's a real commitment my favorite restaurants in America believe it or not our steakhouses even though I've been a vegetarian yeah for 42 years yeah it's because they have the best vegetables yeah and i don't know why but some of my favorite restaurants are actually steak houses and you get what are the vegetables they have just all different ones you know they have anything that's going but always have a baked potato yeah what's the food like at home i'm very fortunate uh my wife is a great cook yeah and her mom and my wife is russian and uh she came to america in 1991 actually on the day of the coup completely coincidentally and her parents came a year later and I knew nothing about Russian food and I showed up in their apartment in Brookton having just met Julia and I was introduced to you know Pilmeni and Pierogi and you know Borsh and you know some of the most amazing Russian food and now it's become part of my life So do you eat, is that what you generally eat?

5:11We eat all kinds of food. Everything, yeah. But, you know, one of my, it's Russian Easter coming up very soon. And I can't wait to go and have my mother-in-law's Russian food because she makes incredible Russian Easter cake. And, you know, she paints the eggs by hand. Beautiful. And, you know, my kids are now 18 and 15. We still sit there and we isolate who's getting what eggs. And we pick them all apart. And we tell stories about why the egg was decorated that way. Of course, as you've proven a thousand times, food brings you a thousand stories. And so Easter in Russia, of course, is super important.

5:46And yeah, so I'm very lucky. And your daughter and both children are great kids. When I was younger, my mother would always sort of pack my lunch. And we used to get up early in the morning because we would milk the cows before we go to school. And you'd go and feed them in the winter, in the dark, and bring hay. And my father would already be gone to work somewhere else. My mother would probably be milking the cows before she went to another job. And so you bring in the cattle, then you feed them, then you come and have breakfast, and then you cycle to the bus to go to school. It sounds like...

6:21Game night rush, or any night of the week, really. Genius keeps every order moving. From online ordering, to your kitchen, to the front counter. Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Thank you.