Michael Elias

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0:34Welcome to Ruthie's Table 4, a production of iHeartRadio and Atomize Studios. Michael Elias is impressive. An actor, director of movies and television, a writer of novels and screenplays, a black belt in karate. He is generous, funny, he has great ethics, and he is a fantastic cook. They tell me that I fell in love with him the moment we met. Michael Elias is impressive, and Michael Elias is my brother.

1:09Michael, the recipe that you've chosen is ricotta al forno. Would you like to read it? Ricotta al forno takes a handful of fresh mint leaves, basil, and parsley. You'd need 500 grams of buffalo ricotta, 120 milliliters of double cream, two eggs, 150 grams of parmesan, and 12 black olives. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade. Coat the bottom and sides of a round springform tin with butter and parmesan. Put the herbs in a food processor with half of the ricotta and cream, and you blend until bright green. Add the remainder of the ricotta and cream. Add the eggs one by one. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

2:03Finally, fold in the parmesan. Spoon into the tin and spread the olives over the top. Bake for 20 minutes. The torts should rise and have a brown crust but still be soft in the center.

2:30I was really pleased that you chose this recipe, and I checked today because I wasn't 100 % sure. But in 1987, the first day, September 10th, that we opened the River Cafe, this recipe, this dish, ricotta alforna, was on the menu. And so it does take us right back to the history and to the early days. Before we go into our childhood, your childhood, would you tell me about the first days of the River Cafe? Well, I remember the River Cafe as a place that made great hamburgers. Careful. I always tell people it was an Italian restaurant from day one. Oh, well, it evolved into an Italian restaurant, and it had a sensibility in the beginning that was Italian, that only could be increased with the addition of Italian dishes.

3:20So goodbye to the hamburger, the croissants, and the French fries, which I miss. I still miss. They were great. So that was my introduction to the River Cafe. And probably the next time I came back, it was full-blown Italian. It was so wonderful to see all these dishes for the first time, and including the ricotta al forno, which I probably had at a family dinner that you cooked. And here it was on the menu. And then the next thing I know, it was on a recipe. And I could make it. And I made it all the time. I think that, again, you're being kind of immodest because really your involvement in the River Cafe in the early days was so supportive to Rose and to myself.

4:04You made baseball hats and T-shirts from L.A. you were constantly on the phone sending people to this tiny little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I remember you wrote a review of it. Do you remember that? Absolutely. And I remember the baseball caps and t-shirts that I had printed up with the menu. And I would arrive in London with a steamer trunk full of t-shirts and baseball caps. I was the Willy Loman of the River Cafe. And I saw it get bigger and bigger. The food always was great, but it was such an exciting place. And it was designed by Richard, Richard Rogers. So it was just stepping into a beautiful, beautiful world of the most delicious food and wonderful people.

4:53It was something to be supported, not only in our family, but all our friends. And you were actually also not just an amateur because you were involved in restaurants in Los Angeles, weren't you, with Marmaison and Spago and other restaurants? Well, I invested in two restaurants in my life, one financially, Spago, and the other emotionally, the River Cafe. And they both paid off until I found out that I was the only investor in Spago who didn't know that you could eat there for free. So I paid all my bills dutifully. We grew up in a town about as far away from London or from Los Angeles or the glamour of Spago or other restaurants.

5:41Where do you think that came from? Can you describe the early memories you have of food in our house? Well, we grew up in the Catskill Mountains, and we had a family in New York City, and the food in our families, our grandparents, was kosher Eastern European Jewish food. They were Hungarian. They were Hungarian, yeah. Rosie and Sam, she was a great cook. What did she cook? She made these beautiful red stuffed cabbage and roast chickens, and she ground all the meat for whatever she was making herself. And my father had six sisters, and they all cooked. They made grandma's recipes, and so everybody loved food.

6:27And we always had big family dinners in the backyard under the trees. It was wonderful. Our grandmother, our father's mother, was a very passionate cook, wasn't she? I remember two stories. She came to see you, her first grandson from New York, which was quite an arduous trip. and she traveled and our mother put you in the crib and put you in a beautiful little outfit and everything. And when she rang the bell and came in, our mother said to her mother-in-law, would you like to come and see the baby? And she said, apparently, let's eat first. So I think that that was that one. And then the other one was that she would bring her own rolling pin to roll out the strudel.

7:09I think what was different for us, at least, was that our father, Fred, who had gone to medical school in Europe, in Germany and Switzerland, was actually rather sophisticated in terms of food and came back with European tastes. I'm not saying he taught my mother these recipes, could barely boil water. But we had sauerbraten, we had kippers and eggs and onions for a Sunday breakfast, eggplant parmesan. So we had really interesting food growing up. And I think we all demanded it for the rest of our lives. And I think he was an influence in that. You've described cooking at home, the meals that you had with our parents, the detail, really, of the kind of food that our grandmother cooked, the experiences of eating in her house.

8:00And when you left all this home life that you had in Woodburn, you went to college in Maryland. What was it like leaving home and having to fend for yourself food-wise? Was it a segue into something that was easier? Did you seek out food or did you try different foods? Annapolis, Maryland was the home of the crab and the oyster. You could go down to the docks and eat both. Then moving to New York, I found out I couldn't afford any of those things because I was a struggling actor. The concept of restaurants, most of them were unaffordable. and we depended on the kindness of friends who were in the publishing business and they had expense accounts and they would take us to lunch and that was wonderful.

8:45What year was this? It was in the early mid-60s. I was working in off-off Broadway theater, the living theater. You were living in New York and you were acting in New York and then you went to Europe. And was that a revelation of what the food would be like outside of the United States? Well, my first stop was London to see you and Richard. And in those days, we, of course, had great meals at your apartment. And I remember being introduced to Greek food because you used to love to go to Soho and you had favorite Greek restaurants. That's right. Am I right? Yeah, we did. Also, it was what we could afford in those days.

9:22I think it was called Jimmy's. It was on Warder Street. It was one of the first restaurants Richard took me to. And you went down these stairs and it was just incredibly noisy and fun. It was the days when you could either eat fancy British or French food or you could go and have a great time and noise and pay very little, but it would be Greek or Italian or, you know. And then you went to that very foreign country called Los Angeles. The Living Theater went on to Paris and I went back to New York and resumed my life as an actor. then eventually made my way to Los Angeles where I had a writing career.

10:01Was that a big change in going from the food of New York to the food of Los Angeles? I think I went in 1969 and yes, it was very different. First of all, there were these enormous supermarkets that were open 24 hours a day and I had never seen so many fruits and vegetables. They were like giant warehouses, brightly lit. You could go in at 4 o 'clock in the morning and buy food. And then there were Mexican restaurants. And as I said, you know, I met my first taco at the farmer's market at this wonderful Mexican restaurant. And that became my love, I would say, Mexican food. Mexican. Yeah. I remember you took us to that place in Santa Barbara.

10:48That was a roadside. Super Rica. Super Rica. Super Rica, which was made famous by Julia Child saying this is the best Mexican restaurant on the West Coast. And she was right. That was a fab day. Or as you get up really early on Sunday morning, you drive to Tijuana. You could drive to Rosarita Beach where they had a little restaurant that served broiled quail and the most exquisite baked potatoes. I remember you took us there. Remember that restaurant? When Richard was teaching at UCLA, we drove down very well. There was a Basque restaurant in Tijuana that was very famous and another one called Cesar's where they invented Caesar salad.

11:32So they would make a Caesar salad for you at your table and then go home. But you saw the evolution from probably 69 through the 80s and 90s of the food scene in California, whether it was San Francisco with Alice Walters, or as you said, LA with Wolfgang Puck. That's the thing about Los Angeles food. There are chefs who bring in everything, and they're not afraid, and they figure out these incredible combinations. I think it was Wolfgang Puck who changed the world. I mean, he really did. To open a first-class restaurant and serve pizza, not only that, it was revolutionary. and he was also the first one to say, I'm going to use Pacific influences in the food.

12:20So all of a sudden you got the Japanese influence and the Chinese and very subtle into this, what was basically an Italian restaurant. Also, I think he was one of the first celebrity chefs. He would bring you something or the waiter would say, Wolfgang wants you to try this. And people would melt, you know, movie stars. And he never saw a movie. He was in the restaurant the other day. He came after such a long time. He came in, and we were all so excited to have Wolfgang, who has restaurants in every country and restaurants in every airport. And I said to him, Wolfgang, I want to be like you. I want to have 40 restaurants.

12:59And he said, Ruthie, I want to be like you. I want to have one. And he was so, so charming. And he has been a huge influence. And I remember eating with you at Marmaison, which was a very fancy French restaurant, and saying that his next one was going to be a pizza place. And we were all completely mystified. But, you know, he did it.

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14:28Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Meeko Mini Plus, only at Costco. When you move to Los Angeles and you describe the food markets and the Mexican food and discovery of artichokes and avocados and the sun and the farms and the markets. What was your work like and what were you doing there? I was a comedy writer and I wrote a variety of shows, Glenn Campbell, The Smothers Brothers, Leslie Uggams, and at the same time writing sitcoms for All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore. I was a pretty busy fellow with my partner at the time. At the same time I was writing television, which I considered a day job.

15:13And I loved it, but I always knew that I wanted to do something by myself. So I started writing screenplays. Can you tell us about the movies that you've made? Yeah, the first one was The Frisco Kid. It's with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford. And it was about a young rabbi who comes from Poland to America at the time of the gold rush and makes his way across the country to San Francisco. And then I teamed up with Steve Martin and we wrote The Jerk. And then my partner and I, Rich Eustice, wrote Young Doctors in Love. And then I had my passion project, as it were, which was a movie, a screenplay about two jazz musicians, which I wrote and insisted that I direct.

15:56And I attracted Jeff Goldblum and Forrest Whitaker and made this movie called Lush Life. We ate well from that point on. I mean, there was no restaurant in L.A. that we couldn't afford. But at the same time, eating in a restaurant, for me, is I always ask the question, could I make this at home? And L.A. has so many ethnic restaurants now, Cambodian, Laotian, Mexicans of every region, and Chinese and Japanese. And that I can't make at home, and I wouldn't even try. And that's the fun of going out in Los Angeles. How did you handle food as a director? On one movie set, I insisted on we all eat together.

16:36director, writer, all the crew, actors, and we talk about what we're doing. And I think that communal experience is important in the creation. I hate it when everybody goes off to their dressing rooms and has their sandwiches or whatever they have. I wrote a French film and visited the set and they took a French lunch. They took two hours. It was great. At a certain point, I think I was finished with television and I decided to write novels. You know, we talked about the way you ate when you were making a television show, and we've spoken about the way you prefer to eat when you're directing a movie, all which involve a lot of people.

17:15You know, you're feeding people, you're eating with people, but writing a novel is a very solitary experience. It's you and your laptop. Somebody asked me my writing schedule, and I say it's doing everything I can to avoid writing until there's nothing left to do. and then I start writing and I put in three or four hours. And one of the things that I like to do is shop for food, cook, and then write. So you're correct. Writing is a solitary thing. And if you write at home in a home office, you're only a few feet from the refrigerator. That's a place to go. And that's the place to go when you can't think of the next sentence.

17:55you can always find the next piece of cheese. So for me, sometimes that's a distraction. So that's my process. Tell us about the books. My most recent book is about a young policewoman in Queens, a homicide detective, trying to find the killer of her father, who was an abortion provider, and he was assassinated by an anti-abortion terrorist like other doctors. and at the same time she's investigating murders that may emanate from a women's shelter. And somehow I managed to combine the two. I like to write about what my characters eat. I feel it's just as important as their size, the color of their hair and eyes and their character.

18:43So I write a lot about food and writers who write about food attract me. I think it's very important. So when you're writing a book and you're thinking about the character and you're putting them through the day or their work and you have really interesting food scenes and the way they seek food, is that important to you? Yeah. If she goes to her boyfriend's house and he's a cook and I always say, well, what would I cook for my girlfriend when she came over? What would lead us, you know, would we have a shower before we cook? And so that's important. And I talk about the lousy food she eats when she has to be on a stakeout and she's got a foot-long submarine sandwich that she can only eat half of and a lousy soda that's bubbling in her stomach.

19:29And so that's important to me. I don't like it when I read a novel and they say, we stopped for dinner and then moved on. Well, what did you have for dinner? Yeah. Do you think that your parents understood your passion for food? I mean, when you would go home, having been in Paris and London and L.A. and cooked and eaten, and then you would go visit them at home, how did that work? Well, I think I'm undemanding, as long as it's good. And I think son returning home from college, from Europe, from anywhere, two daughters too. Parents want to make the best food for them, and they did. And the summers in Woodstock, when we had fresh corn, and people would put the water on the stove and have it boiling so that when they came back from the corn stand, which was at the edge of a corn field, they would just tear off the cover and throw the corn in.

20:29And it was almost like contests. Who could have the freshest corn? And there were tomatoes. And farm stands was such a part of our life in the summer. You know, farm to table, that's what it was. We never used the expression. And then there became, then there was a period when there were these kind of, I don't like the word, boutique farmers who made the, who grew the vegetables for Wolfgang and the other restaurants that followed. And, of course, everything was baby vegetables, baby carrots, baby asparagus, as baby, ripped untimely from the soil to come to your plate. Growing up in Woodstock, or actually I probably grew up more in Woodstock and you'd already left, but when you came back, you became very close to the artist Philip Guston.

21:23And I know that he also loved to eat, and a lot of his paintings reflect having overeaten, a kind of vivier of love of food, and he loved you. And I was wondering whether you might describe eating or cooking or just being with Philip Gustin in those days. He loved very simple food. He loved those big hamburgers and fries. And he also loved the new, sophisticated food. The last time I saw him was in San Francisco in 1980 when they had a retrospective. And I went to San Francisco and there was a big dinner for him. And he invited me to come to this. And then he took me aside and he says, I'm coming to L.A.

22:05after this and I want you to arrange a dinner party for me. I said, I'm happy to. He said, just comedians. He said, no art critics, please. And Philip was a funny guy. And did you? Well, you know, he died. Oh, before he came to L.A. Just before, yeah. He died, actually, tragically. He died in our house having dinner with our parents. It's something that I think our father really never recovered from, that Philip had a heart attack in our house. Yeah, well, our father was a doctor, and it was such a massive heart attack from eating, smoking, drinking, hamburgers and fries and everything else. And Daddy couldn't save his life, and it really affected him.

22:54And they were really close. I think that was that Fred, our father, lost his best friend. So that was really sad.

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24:15What color was the hamster's cape? And what did he pack for lunch? Unlock your child's imagination. discover Miko Mini Plus and the magic of AI exclusively at Costco. Michael, you've talked about eating in restaurants, about eating in our parents' house, but you really haven't talked about, as I said in my introduction, the fact that you are a really good cook. And so what is cooking like for you at home? I think what I like to cook is from you, and it's a connection to you, which is risotto. and I think I make really good risotto and it's from your recipe the Amarone risotto is my favorite and it just connects us it's about showing love for somebody you love and feeling loved by somebody who cooks for you who loves you and I've had those two experiences of cooking for my son when I was a single father and cooking the things that he loved and marrying Bianca Roberts, who is a great cook, and everything she cooks is with love for me.

25:28She has the experience of living in France and Switzerland, and she makes the best French dishes, and her blanket of veal is something that is special for me. So those are two things. So that's my connection to food. Sometimes it doesn't matter what it is. It's just a way of showing and getting the warmth and comfort of somebody who you love. I think we've talked about food as a memory. Food is history. Food is family. Food is friends and travel. Food is life and food is death. Food is also comfort. It is comfort. It's the comfort we have when we're alone or we're sad or we're in pain. Or it's just been as simple as a hard day, just a hard day or maybe even a hard couple of hours.

26:23And so a question that I always ask everyone else, so I would like to ask my brother, is what would be your comfort food, Michael Elias? I think my comfort food would be our Aunt Florence's cheese blintzes. What is a blintzer? I know what a blintzer is, and you know, but there might be a whole lot of people out there that do not know what a blintzer is. Oh, a blintzer is a thin pancake stuffed with delicious kind of sweetened cottage cheese and some sugar and then folded over and fried in butter. and you put sour cream on it or applesauce to your taste. I'm a sour cream guy. Our aunt Florence lived in Stockton and periodically she would send me via a bus a box of her frozen cheese blintzes and I would eat them until there were no more.

27:22And then she would send me another box. And the last box she sent me, she died while I was in the middle of eating those cheese blintzes. and I wanted to make them last as long as I could. So whenever I'm feeling, when I need something that really connects me to my family, our family, our heritage, the generosity and the beauty of the women who cooked in our family, I go and find somewhere a deli that I can get cheese blintzes. Well, this is a connection, and I might not be a Blinza, but I am your sister, and I love you, and I think we find comfort in each other, love in each other, and I'm so happy we did this together.

28:16Thank you, Michael.

28:20If you like listening to Ruthie's Table 4 Would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Or wherever you get your podcasts Thank you