339: David Lebovitz

0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.

0:31Well, what was interesting was when I started blogging, it was 1999, by about 2006, 2007, there were a lot more people coming into it. And, you know, the number one question people would ask me is, how do I make money on my blog? And I said, do it for free for eight years and then start making money. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59There aren't a lot of things on the internet that have been around since 1999, but David Leibovitz's blog, and now Substack, full of quips, stories, and recipes from his life in Paris, is one of them. David is the author of many cookbooks, including The Perfect Scoop, Ready for Dessert, Drinking French, and the iconic My Paris Kitchen. This is such a fun conversation full of life and stories about pastry in San Francisco and Paris. David is one of our all-time favorites, and it was so fun having him in the studio. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:39David Leibowitz, welcome to This Is Taste. What's up, man? I am so happy to be here because we are here at Random House Studios. Yeah. Here with you. It's been years. Yeah, Crown Publishing, Penguin Random House. It's been years. And thank you for coming in. I just hit you up on Instagram. Saw you're in town. Are a lot of people hitting you up when you say, like, post your flag in the East Village? Well, the good thing about living in France is you learn how to say no. And no doesn't mean you're a jerk. Non si tu ple. It just means, as my friend Ajiri, who wrote a book on French joie, she's like, no means.

2:11I want to do something for myself. I love that. So what have you been up to in New York? I mean, you certainly spend some time here, but you're not here all the time. What have you been hitting up? Food. One thing great about New York is there's so much food. And it's all different price categories. It's all different cultures. And, you know, just on one block, I'm staying in the East Village. And within a block, there's very good sushi. There's good Middle Eastern food. There's really good bakeries. I had an amazing meal at Claude last night, which was, it kind of blew me away. Oh, wow. It was really good.

2:51Like everything was really good. It blew you away in that you have worked in restaurants in America for what, 30 years you worked in restaurants? And so you have, you know, a take. Yeah, and I'm picky. You're picky. No, I'm, as you would say, exigeant or discriminated, discerning. Discerning. I was trying to explain to my partner that the word French for exigeant means discriminating. And he goes, it's not about discrimination. I was like, no, it's not a, it's not discrimination. It's discerning. It's discerning. So bakery wise, have you been to Mel? You know what they closed? Oh, they did? They moved to Hudson.

3:31I tried to go last, my last visit. Everyone said, if you don't get there by like 9.30, you're not going to get anything. Okay. Where have you been for bakeries then? I went to, I'm going to screw up all the names. Sure. Sorry. Okay, La Cabra? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I had a really good cardamom bun. Yeah, a cardamom bun is cool. It looked like a bum, but it was a cardamom bun. It was the most carefully made coffee I've ever witnessed in my life. It's true. I was a little like... You were a little like... Yeah, you don't have to get it that. Go to Italy, they just throw the coffee and it's perfect.

4:05Hilarious, David. I mean, it is such a scene there, La Cabra, in the East Village. but that bun is pretty special. Yeah, it was good. Where else did I go? Ah, I went to Seed and Mill in Chelsea Market and I had the most amazing halva sundae. Oh man. That place is like, I don't know what, like, I'm speechless. Shout out, I love that you're speechless. Shout out to Rachel who owns it. I mean - She's great. She's amazing. And also just like for tahini based products, holy cow. Yeah. It's an amazing place. It's hard to appreciate halva until you go to the Middle East and go to the countries where they make it.

4:44But Rachel and I actually went to the Joiva factory in Brooklyn. They've been making halva for 100 years, and they make the tahini on one side of the street, and there's a pipe that runs under the street that brings it into the, I don't want to say factory, but it's a bunch of guys with really big shoulder muscles stirring this sesame paste until it becomes halva. Wait, so you were at this factory. She doesn't make her stuff there. You just were there with her? No, she doesn't. She has another, she gets her tahini and halva from another place. Yeah. You just were just doing a little tour with her?

5:20Yeah, she got invited and she asked me if I wanted to go. So four of us went. It was me, Rachel, Susan Spungen, who's a noted food stylist. Oh, she's on the show. Susan's great. She's great. And Jake Cohen. Yeah, great. I love that crew. So we, and Rachel yelled at me because I was, they had me and Jake packing chocolates. And she was like faster. She was like screaming at me. I was like, Rachel, calm down. Oh my God. What a great, what a fun afternoon. Well, I love your picks. I'm sure there'll be more, but let's take a little trip into the past. I think, David, you are truly an OG food blogger.

5:56And I think our listeners, if they don't realize that the guy who does this incredible sub stack and these cookbooks and, you know, don't realize that you actually were online before most, if not all. Let me ask you a couple questions pointed. First, I guess, do you think the time back then was better for food media than now? What do you mean by better? Great question. Great follow up, David. More diverse, more personal, you know. one thing food blogging really did, and I started in 1999, was it broke down a lot of barriers. Like if you wanted to know about Vietnamese noodles, for example, you had to go get, buy a book on Vietnamese noodles and maybe a TV show might be, might have a special, you know, a segment.

6:49There was a guy called Noodle Pie, noodlepie.com, and he lived in Vietnam and he was posting all these noodle pictures of all these Vietnamese noodle stands. And it was amazing to see that stuff. And you had people from all over the world sort of jumping in. You had people from Germany. You had people from the United States, from France. So it was kind of a great time. You know, people talk about Anthony Bourdain a lot still today. You know, he broke down a lot of barriers to food writing. It used to be, oh, you had to write for gourmet, you know, to be a to get a book deal and so forth. And he was kind of a line cook, not even a chef, I don't think.

7:31And he just came out of nowhere, wrote a book, was in the New Yorker and got this, had this amazing career. Savor Magazine also broke down a lot of barriers. They were important. And by this time, we're doing a whole week of Savor. We're recognizing it. Yeah, we have three interviews, and I'll link to those in the show notes. Yeah, it's our favorite, to be honest. I'm glad you bring up that title. Well, Savor would go to like a country fair, or they would watch some grandmother make a pie or something. And that's kind of what food blogging was. It was more personal. I'm reading a book by Lori Colwyn right now, Home Cooking.

8:11Oh, yeah, right on. Classic, man. And it's like she writes to you. Like when she's writing about living in this little tiny New York apartment and she's not glamorizing it. And that's what kind of food blogging did was brought people into our lives. It took away the barrier, I think. I agree. And I'm so happy you say this and you made your statement qualified because I'm certainly – it is more diverse now, which we celebrate. There's more money in it, which we celebrate. I mean, you know, back then there was very little monetization. And I think like the first person element in the kind of this point of view that was so solid and so it was firm from the creator was why I loved thinking about early food media.

8:56And I think about like the truly first person blog, which you were part of. Well, what was interesting was when I started blogging, it was 1999. By about 2006, 2007, there were a lot more people coming into it. And, you know, the number one question people would ask me is, how do I make money on my blog? How do I make money? How do I make money? And I said, do it for free for eight years and then start making money. It's true. And that's, you know, I started, I didn't have any ads. I wasn't really, I had my books on there, but it wasn't, you know, I think Amazon wasn't even around when I started.

9:31I was just doing it because I love doing it. And that's sort of what you should do. Yeah. Great advice. In general. I'm going to ask you a question straight up, Dave. Okay. Do you still love France? Do you love New York? Wow. Whoa, yeah. I mean, I moved out of the city two years ago, so I love it less. I'm in the Hudson Valley now. So at that time, I would say not as much. That was me. What about you? Do you love France? There's great things in France. There's great things about Paris, and I celebrate, and I love those things. and there's also things that aren't necessarily wonderful. And those kinds of things are actually, I enjoy because the quirks of life, I always said like, I would be really rich if I wrote these wonderful books about how perfect life in France was, if I moved to the 6th Arrondissement, if I sat in beautiful cafes and had hot chocolate every morning and posted pictures of that.

10:27But I don't, because I think it's funny, the daily situations, the real life in Paris. so you know like like new york a lot of people like in paris people have a love-hate relationship if you talk to parisians you're like do you like paris they're like oh yeah it's like horrible everyone's rude and so forth um but everyone we all live there together where it's like new york we're all like a team yeah it is a team sport for sure living new york and in paris and i ask you that and i expected an answer as you beautifully just said i mean you write on your newsletter and in your books very honestly about the struggles.

11:02You wrote a whole book about your apartment renovation and search, which I'll link to in the show notes. It's a very cool book. And I love that, the realism there. And like, you're just writing about the daily struggles. Yeah, but I also chose to live there. Yeah. You know, I could live anywhere. I mean, well, actually you can't live anywhere. During certain election cycles or things, people are like, we're moving to France. I'm like, you know, most countries you have to go through a process. So I went through the whole process. It was, you know, very, my favorite word is challenging. I use that a lot when I write about things.

11:35It was very challenging. So I went through that. I have a partner who's amazing. Um, and you know, I, one thing France, like I really appreciated France when COVID hit, because although we had very strict restrictions, um, you know, you see what a, you know, having healthcare, having people covered, like people weren't freaking out about, you know, they were freaking out getting sick, but it wasn't like they were going to get hit with hospital bills or something. And so, you know, it's not a perfect society, but there's a lot of things about France that I think they do really well. Yeah. And I love that you definitely split the difference and you talk about your love and the challenges and challenging is a good word.

12:21Is it that infrastructure is old? Is that part of it too? Yeah, it's very old. But, you know, during the strict lockdowns, the only things that were allowed to be open were essential businesses. and one of them was bakeries. Yeah. Because you couldn't shut the bakeries in tobacco stores. Oh, yeah, of course. Because that's very important. Yeah. But what about bottle shops? How are you drinking your, you know, Chablis? All the liquor stores were closed, but you could buy wine in the supermarket. Oh, right. Yeah, there was plenty of wine. We all had wine. Wine was good. Oh, yeah, that. Yeah, I mean, I just, I love how you write about Paris and your travels, too, because you talk, you write about the holidays, which are so, you know, cemented in the French culture, not just the summer holidays, but the, you know, the holiday holidays too.

13:06Well, people have this image, like French people get all these vacations, they're lazy, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, you know, French people didn't get vacations until the 30s. It was a social movement and, you know, people were working like seven days a week and it was a social movement. The people, you know, one positive thing about France, you know, the strikes and so forth is the people are letting their opinions be heard and they're actually making changes in government policy. It actually does work. Yeah. We're going to see during the Summer Olympics if I keep thinking, oh, that's a pretty good time to go on strike.

13:44Oh, yeah, I'm sure it'll be politicized in many ways. Although on the other hand, people might have a pride in their country and not do it. Are you a Tour de France head? Do you follow the race? What is it? No. I don't, because when you live there, it's like, oh. You're like, it's just a thing that's on TV. Yeah, you watch it a little bit on TV, but it's not. I love it so much because the government pays so much attention to the historical elements of the towns. So, like, the broadcast will flip into, like, a great story about the chateau or the winery that's there. Well, Americans are very attached to France.

14:21And when Notre Dame burned down, it was unbelievable. I mean, I'm not saying in a good or bad way, but America was like in mourning. And we happened, I think, to be in America at the time. And somebody said to Romain, they were like, I am so sorry. And he was looking at me like, why? They're like, Notre Dame burned down. He's like, this is like the third time. Yeah. Yeah. Hilarious. It was, you know, the last version was not, was a redo of a previous version and so forth. So it's. Yeah. It's like if Macy's burned down. I'm sure people would be like, I'm sorry for your loss. You know, no. No, if Amazon burned.

15:03What's interesting, I just learned that the number one website in France is Wikipedia and the number one website in America is Amazon. Wow. Because we want to shop and in France, people want knowledge. Or to settle an argument. it's just, I'm letting it hang there in the air a bit, Dave. That's interesting. That's really, I want to see an infographic of websites in countries now. I'm going to seek that out. That's great. Okay, moving on. Are you offended by American croissant culture? No. Okay. Very little. The good thing about getting older is you get less and less offended by things. You know, people get like outraged because somebody uses like the wrong kind of black pepper on Cacio Pepe on the internet.

15:48I'm like, you know, there are sort of worse problems in the world. I'm actually astounded by the beautiful croissant in America. Like here in New York, I went to a bakery, I'm going to say Libre. Yeah, sure. Okay. That beautiful croissant. They were spectacular looking. I didn't try one, but La Cabra, you know, bakeries. Yeah, Combi in LA when they were doing that was like the best. and we have one up in the Hudson Valley at Cafe Yen and make it amazing. I say this not looking at some of these boutique bakeries that we love and are doing such great jobs, but it's just the way Americans, you know, we have the crust sandwich at Burger King.

16:30Yes, well, I was at Stu Leonard's this weekend. For people that don't know, it's like a supermarket chain. You watch your mouth, David. Are you going to slight Stu Leonard's? They had a Philly cheese steak croissant. Okay. So there are a couple. I kind of draw the line. Oh. Pumpkin spice croissant. They had pumpkin spice bacon there, which didn't bother me. I didn't know if it had vanilla in it, maybe. I just don't have vanilla in my bacon. I think you answered my question just there. Okay. There's really great, you know, laminated dough production here in the States. Yeah. But Gaston Le Nôte said you can change anything as long as you make it better.

17:18And I don't want to offend anybody, but I don't know if a Philly cheesesteak croissant improves it or not. I will leave that up to the listeners. I love that. I have learned to be diplomatic living in a foreign country. I used to lead tours and I would explain to people things about France, about French food, French chocolate, French products. and I remember being in a store explaining to people about the salt in France. And this French woman said to me, she goes, you're very diplomatic. Back to that. I said, merci, madame. Speaking of tours, we're actually doing one of our Taste Travels tours.

17:54We're going up to Normandy in August. Oh. Marissa Mullen, great cookbook writer and friend of ours. Are you going to Isigny for the butter? We're going to definitely hit some butter. No, you have to go to Isigny. Okay. Okay. Let's talk it. Okay. Isini, first of all, they have these cows up there called Normand. It's called the race. The race is called Normand. And the cows are beautiful. They have rings around their eyes. And they make the best milk. They produce really good milk. So the butter and the camembert there are amazing. And I was with my friend Rye, who has a Supermoon Bake Shop. Oh, wow.

18:33Yes. And it was just him and I. And we were with the people from Berd-Isini. and they had ice cream. And they're like, oh, well, it's 11.50. We're going to have lunch in a few minutes. And we're both like, so what? So we're eating ice cream before lunch, but it was really, really good. And one thing that people don't know is that the Disney family is from there. Oh. Disney, D-apostrophe-i-sini. And they have the most amazing Disney museum. And I, no offense to anybody, but I don't have a thing for Disney. but there was all these vintage Disney things that this French woman collected for like 60 years like before the internet and like these tea sets of Steamboat Willie.

19:18Is she a family member? Is she like a long lost family member? No, nothing. Zero. She's a lot of pride in the city? Yeah. She died and she left her museum to the town hall. That's amazing. It's amazing. So what food should we be seeking out in Normandy? Because, you know, I think about Normandy, I think about Calvados. I think about, of course, Camembert and some of the ice creams up there. But you know the region better. So where should we be seeking? You know, it's hard to say where exactly. You just named like Calvados. You should go to a Calvados producer. There is something called pomo, which is a mixture of Calvados and apple juice.

19:56And when I was there with Rye, we went to visit a farmer and he served us glasses. He's like, what is this? And I can't do his Australian accent. But it was amazing. And if you can go to where they make the Mimolet, it's not a Normandy cheese and you'll get in trouble if you say they make it there in Normandy. But they make it at Isini. And it says round cheese. It looks like a melon. And it's really cool. Oh, my gosh. And the camembert. Just get me excited. I'm going to link to that trip in the show notes. How do I get on it? Exactly, David. You can definitely dip in. I mean, I know somebody who can get you up there.

20:31You and I should do a trip. I'm grouchy. I know. I'm like, I don't want to be talk to people in the morning. Like, yeah. Your call time can be one. Let's just get real. David speaks between one and six. Meals are all separate. I mean, listen, I'm joking. I think once you get on a trip, you get you vibe with people. Yeah. I led tours for 15 or 10 years. It was great. But I kind of after a while I was. Yeah. It's a lot of talking and a lot of people. Oh, yeah, definitely. And I was really fortunate because like everybody was amazing. Yeah. We had really amazing guests. I'm all about the group trip.

21:11I think group trips are extremely underrated, particularly in food, because we can keep the costs down if we bring people together. And we can just see so many different things, like no planning required. Well, if you do, the one good thing about, because I used to do day tours of Paris. And I was like, I should do like week tours because you can't go into like the chocolate where they make the chocolates. You know, they don't want people. Now there's so many tours. You go to chocolate shops and there's like a tour group inside and two waiting on the sidewalk. But when I was doing them, you know, I knew all the chocolate makers and the people that worked in the stores.

21:45But you couldn't say every day, you know, it's like, okay. So we got, I got to know everybody and I did amazing tours. I had great people. Oh, yeah. But you want to quit when you're on top. I agree. And like, you know what, if you don't want to ever do a tour again, I mean, God bless you, man. You did it for 15 years. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about My Paris Kitchen. In prepping for this interview, I read another interview back maybe eight years, seven years ago, maybe 15. And you mentioned something in the interview, and I really want to talk to you about it. You had a personal crisis during the writing of this book.

22:19You're laughing. I hope I didn't hit anything hard. I'm like, this book is like one of our favorite books ever, My Paris Kitchen. Oh, wow. One of the greatest covers, you know, Ed Anderson, correct? Ed Anderson. Yeah. Ed. He had shot Fanny Gerson's book called My Sweet Mexico, and he caught something about Mexico and the sweet culture, the bakery culture, that was not just a topical, beautiful book with pretty pictures. He sort of got into it. So I said to Ten Speed, our publisher, I said, I would like him to shoot my book. I don't know who this guy is. And so they said, okay, we'll have Ed. You know, and I thought there was going to be some old guy with like a fishing vest and a camera show up.

23:03And this guy shows up in Paris and he was like kind of looking at me and I was looking at him. I said, we're going to go have crepes now. And you're going to take pictures in there. And he was just kind of sitting there looking around. And I was like, take pictures, shoot that. And first I was like, oh my God, this guy. And then I realized Ed is on his own schedule. Yeah. And he's also the, he told me this himself. He's like, I'm the most passive person. And I fell in love with him. I think everybody, you're nodding too. Oh, I absolutely just, he's such a charming, thoughtful, kind human who is so fucking good at his job in dope.

23:44And he brings all the vessels to the shoots. And like, he's like, and he, but I love the reportage and that's that cover of yours. and also what's inside. It is truly a great book. Thank you. Once again, I was so, like when a photographer comes, the great thing about doing a book is when you, especially if you're involved in the photography, I love, you know, I styled my first two books and I was very involved in the photography. Sometimes the authors aren't even there. Like you don't even, you know, a lot of people don't realize that. Working with Ed on the book, I saw things through his eyes after he shot it, and I would change the descriptions.

24:25And we just had a really good time. Yeah, he's a fun hang for sure. Now, let's back to the story of the manuscript, though. Okay. So you were in the middle of personal crisis. Having PTSD. And you lost the manuscript. I don't know if you said it. I didn't lose it. Somebody else did. Oh, so what happened? Well, to make an extremely long story short, I wrote a whole book about it called La Parte. So I was working on the book, and I started a renovation. And I told the contractor, I said, well, I need to start working on a book. I need a kitchen. You know, how long is this going to take? And he said, oh, three to four months.

24:55I said, okay. So I sort of started writing in my old apartment. I was doing renovation. I was overseeing it. Things weren't going that well, but I was keeping an eye on things and blah, blah, blah. And then I had this manuscript I was working on. And I work on paper a lot. I don't work on my computer. and this is sort of before the days of like Dropbox and everything. Yeah, Google Docs, yeah. Yeah, and I write on paper when I type a recipe. When I write a recipe, I do it on paper because I don't want to get my computer. Anyhow, so I had the manuscript. I had all my testing notes, all the recipes, and it was time to move.

25:30So I put everything in boxes and put that in a box. So for the next year and a half, I think it was all my – the renovation still – the three-month renovation was still going on. Right. Right. Everything was packed in this room under a big tarp. Whatever. Two years later, nobody found, I couldn't find the manuscript. So I had to start all over again. It's just like the box was not there. A lot of stuff. There were things that, there were condoms I found. Oh. It's like, what happened in my apartment? Oh, wow. Yeah, not used. They were new. Yeah. But I was like, these aren't my size. Whose are they?