>> rose: welcome to our program, toto want, a conversation about the new broadway play "the mountain top" with angela bassett, am yule. will jackson, katori hall and kenny leon. >> i think our younger folks need to be reminded what dr. king the man was really about and so i think the play inspires young people to make a difference in our country. and it brings a smile to my face most nights when i see young people coming out of the theater >>nd i feel sometimes we have a very simplistic idea of dr. king. that he s just this perfect man who was supposeed to stay on the wall, and he's not. he's an inspiration. like john lewis said, an idol, but at the end of the day he went into the grod as a man. >> rose: we ntinue with chef

jacques pepin who talks about cooking and teaching cooking. >> you know, when i did that book, the conundrum for me was do i leave those recipe it is way i did them 30 years ago, 35 years ago to show a moment in time or then do i make it so that it's simpler, more usable? and i chose the second option which actually then was more work than doing a book from the beginning. >> rose: the broadway play "the mountaintop" and the chef jacques pepin, nex.

captning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

captioning sponsored by >> rose: on april 3, 1968, dr. martin luther king, jr. delivered his icon mountaintop speech at mason temple in memphis, tennessee. dr. king said "i've been to the mountaintop and i've looked over and i've and seen the promised land. i may not get there with you, but i want you to know that we as a people will get to the promised land. the next day, martin luther king, jr. was assassinated on the balcony of his motel. a new play by katori hall reimagine it is events leading up to his death. it the called "the mountaintop." joining she the playwright, katori hall, kenny leon the director and the two stars, samuel l jackson and angela bassett. i'm pleased to have them here to talk about this. welcome. >>hank you. >> rose: so tell me about the creation abouthis before we bring these actors and directors in. >> well, absolutely. a lot of people always ask me "what is your personal connection to dr. king? you're so young, you were born way after 1968." well, my personal connection starts with my mother.

my brother grew up around the corner from the rraine motel and she was 15 years old when dr. king came to speak in support of the sanitation workers' strike. she heard he was going to be speaking in mason temple and she wanted to go. she had never heard him speak before in person so she really wanted to be in the presence of his greatness, she always said. and so she asked her mother, big mama, we called her "can i go to mason temple and hear dr. king speak?" and big mama was like "you know they gonna bomb tha church, you better sit your tail at home. somebody's out to get that man." so it was april 3, 1968, very rainy, very stormy night and my mother decided to heed her mother's advice and didn't go. so theext day we allknow history. he was taken from us. my mother told me the story very young, ten years old. and it stayed with me because i was thinking well, if my mama was afraid to go to the church he must have really been afraid to go to that church. this was a man who got up in

spite of of. there was all this danger standing outside his motel door all the time. and my mother's story allowed me to he this kind of inspiration moment and i made me delve into what he was going through at the end of his life. his psychological landscape, his frailties, his vulnerabilities and his fears. so that's really where the story came from was my mother's regret. >> ros i think i read somewhere your mother had two photographs in her house. >> my grandmother. big mama. dr. king and jesus. that's... you know, that's the level we put him on in our family and even within the community is like he is a d.e.m. god, a diety. for me it's always important to take him off of that wall. take him off of the portrait and put him inhe room with us. allow them to walk around with us. let him be flesh and blood like us. >> rose: so you come to do this, direct this. what are you looking for?

>> i'm looking for an answer to that 15-year-old kid when you ask him "what do you know about dr. king"? " and he says "that's that civil rights dude. "a this is a great answer to that. and our younger folks need to be reminded what dr. king was really about. so i thi the play inspires young people make a difference in our country and it bridges smile to my face most nights when i e young people coming out of the theater and for the first time they talk about dr. king the man but who did wondful, incredible, great things. i want them to pick up that baton and do something about their lives, do something about our country. >> rose: and also know that heroes are also flh and blood. they're real people with real fears and real hes and real flaws and all of that no matter how od, no matter how famous, no matter how great. >> rose: right. and also i want them to come to

love and respect theater. so come and sit in the theater and laugh and think an cry and go home and discuss life. and i thought katori did a wonderful job of creating a beautiful place that can work anywhere in the world and so it's a great piece of theater and i love that about it. >> rose: i love theater when you have two people talking to each other as much as you see this. >> a these two. >> rose: yeah, these two talking to each other. >> these two joining us on stage it's an event, it's very special. we know about dr. king. >> rose: we'll later understand more about him. who's your character? >> my character knocks on his door bringing him the cup of coffee. >> rose: he's just comeack and he's tired.

>> he's tired and sick and he wants to stay up andeep working on the speech. >> rose: what we heard... >> from people who knew him, andy young and ralph's wife was there. >> rose: ralph aer net think. >> yes, that room was known as the king abernethy suite because they stay in that room together. he never bought cigarettes but bummed cigarettes off everybody so he smoked lot. they have photographs of him smoking. >> rose: define the relationship between the two. >> well, camae is is a young woman who comes in and she like everyone else has heard of him, seen him on television. she says she's seen him on t.v. down at the woolworth which lets you know she's poor, she doesn't own one but she certainly peeked at and proud of him, nervous when she com into the room to meet him for the first time.

meeting eyes... she stands up straighter in his presence. but e's a simple country girl that doesn't have advanced education. she's good at this, cleaning up other folk's messes and she's been judged because of her laugh of education, the melanin of her skin and it goes back and forth even in this room a bit class wise because he is educated and she says to him at one point "you think us poor folk dumb? you think we can't talk?" because she uses a 25-cent word or a 50-cent word. >> rose: and he's attracted toer in a sense of she's interesting to him? >> yes. >> rose: they're having a dialogue. >> we're engaged in a different kind of conversation. a kind that he doesn't normally have. he may joust with his friends from time to time, but he's talking to this young lady who has another idea about life and she challenges him in different

ways. she... she is attractive. there is that whole thing about dr. king's wandering eye. but he looks at her and does not want to be alone in that room. he does want ral of the come back with those cigarettes but he's not going to let her go until he shows back up so he continues to engage her in conversation and they get into some heated discourse at a certain point. ey laugh a bit and then they get into some heated discourse about where he is and who he is and how he sees the world and how she sees in the terms of how he serves the people. even though she had him on this place he kind of comes... she chips away. >> sheotally chips away at him. even down to the point of saying "you're just like everybody else you got stinky feet." (laughter)

>> jt talki one on one, talking to a man. >> from intellectual conversation to common sense conversation. how these two things should mesh and meet and she hears him talk to his kids on thehone and she hears hohe loves his daughter, what he thinks of him. he knows... she knows he lies to his wife, another thing, he does that in her presence. so there are all kinds of things that take him off that pedestal that make her look at him like "you're just like every other man i met because you look at me like every other man i met.". >> rose: how did you go about creating the dialogue? what was informing you when you wanted to create the dynam of this conversation? >> i think for me it had a lot to do with being from the south and having that kind of miracle way of speaking, lots of metaphor, lots of witticisms like, you know, camae is just... she has a working-class background and so her dialogue was steepe in something that was a little bit more colorful

whereas dr. king sometimes uses big words. but i really wanted to take it away from the king who was the scholar, the great orator. i wanted it to be this man behind the scenes talking. so i actually tried to stray away from any speechifying with the dr. king character. it was very important for him to just be in the room with th woman. i even lt like sometimes he was taking on her, too,you know "i likes that, too" instead of "i like that, too." >> you identify him as being sidity. >> people who speak sword of proper. >> exactly. >> so i think the properness came in the way things were pronounced and not exactly the content of what was being id because i really wanted him to just be a guy in the room. and so that's where i came from,

my pspective in creating the back and forth that i call the tennis match of words between those two. >> rose: so at's the challenge for you? directing? >> i guess the challenge is... like any, you have two actors. so the first thing is you have to cast two really good actors who understand the world of a play. so that's a challenge to keep the action moving so that it feels like there are 10 people on stage you know, it runs an hour and a half. there's no intermission. so when he's... when these actors come out, they're on the roller coaster and i want the audience to stay with them and i want every moment to be full of surprises. it's important when they're on the stage every night that they listen to each other because every night it's subtly different depending on what's happening between them. so it has to become real for the audience. it can't be a lay, it can't be a performance. >> rose: take a look at this. this is the scene which you're

in. here is a scene in which camae mes to talk. here it is. >> we've been drowned by holding our dreams, being washed away. >> yes. >> we've been bitten by dogs. >> chewed up. >> our skin forever scarred by hatred at its height. ungodly crowns have been turned into ashtrays. >> yes! >> for white men and lunch counters all across the south! come on! >> to this i say my brethren that a new day is coming! new day! >> i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired! >> rose: that was it right now. when you see that scene you're ready to go. what's happening there? (laughter) >> she goes on and on and on. >> she's... he's... >> challenging him. >> right. and she him saying walk in... she calls it walking, he marchi,

it's just not working. or it's not workg fast enough. whatever you call it it's not working. and his argument, his side, and she just says we need to be doing something else to get rther along to have... to get more power, get a say, stand up. and she says what would you do if you were he? and i'm like, you don't want to know what a woman would do. i got ideas but i'm a woman. which is an idea of that time. how many women were in the inner circle. so he allows her to speak. what would you do if you were me. what would you do? so she dons his coat... >> rose: what's going through him? give me this track of dr. king. >> the arc? >> rose: right. >> or the arc of... >> overall. >> overall. she brings a lot of things up

that he has to deal with that he deals with all the time but never gets to verbalize. he never gets to verbalize the fact that he is frustrated with how white people react to him and the affect he's having running around the country and maybe his speech about non-violen is torking. maybe, like she said, the voice of vie violence is the only thing white people are going to listen to. he criticizes her for having panther like attitudes or references her as malcolm x after that particular speech because she advocates violence and he talks about why malcolm died. malcolm died because he advocated violence. you speak by the sword, you die by the sword. >> you speak about love, you die by hate. >> so it's all about that, too. so there are all these things that are just directly opposed to each other and he's full of all this love that she keeps referencing and we hear it.

we hear him talk about the love he has for his people, the starving children in mississippi you hear him talk about the love he has for his daughter and his wife. you hear him talk about the frustrations he has with people in his inner circle like jesse jackson. you can always come up... jesse can always shootown evebody else's ideas but all he can come up with is "we need to be doing something else." that's just not... and all those things are there and he's never had a chance to say that to anybody. and here she is, a stranger. and they're having this intimate conversation wh which she knows more about him and his inner workings than a lot of people that have been around him the whole time. it truly a wonderful, wonderful ride for me. and andy young came to see the show and he came backstage and said, wow, that was like really insightful. >> rose: did he say "i felt like i was in the room with dr. king in some sense"?

>> he talked about what happened in the room that night and how close we were to some of the things that actually happened including the pill bow lowe fight and all those other ings. he said "the only thing missing was we had a lot of catfish because we were hungry. we had catfish and we didn't have any food." >> i wish there was food out there. i'd like to eat. >> he told me... >> rose: he wanted food. >> he would order catfish, he wouldn't want no cigarettes, he would order catfish instead of a cup of coffee and i was like i don't think i can change that right now. >> rose: but then he... >> but then he took a pause in the moment and you could see he was very thoughtful and he said "but it doesn't matter." because he wanted it to be changed to catfish instead of dr. king smoking. and he said he actually said that tow yo in an earlier draft when he read the script but after seeing he just said "but it doesn't matter." and he also said "it's hard to make death entertaining." he said "but you did it. you did it." so he enjoyed it.

>> rose: is there any part of the african american community saying "this is our man, this is dr. king. we don't want anything. don't mess with dr. king." >> absolutely. i remember during previews there was a young woman who got so upset that the play was funny. like this is too serious to be... we can't be laughing at this. this is his last night on earth. but laughter is a release, you know? we laugh out of nervousness. and i think that a play needs to be entertaining but i think this particular play is edu-taining. you learn things at the end of the day. >> and at the end of the day audiences always have expectations before they see a play so there's always conversation outside of the thet cher we can't control no matt what the play is. so it's after you see the play, what's the response then? and i can't tell how many people come to the play and they're like "i didn't expect that. i didn't expect that." and they leave and said "i'm so

glad i saw that. >> someone said to me, and i kept it, she said "i laughed, i cried, i sighed." >> rose: you went to mortar house college, didn't you? >> yes. >> dr. king's alma mater. >> i was there, he was on and off campus. i got there in september of ' and he was back and forth on caus. i had a lot of the same professors. >> rose: what did they say about him? >> they always built up the... the more houseman was built up to be a special kind of guy. (laughter) it's one of the things people say you can always tell a more houseman but you can't tell him much. (laughter) at the theater other dayomeone said "you can't tell him nothing." >> rose: did other people go to more house as well? >> no, but lots of people, lots of famous alumni.

they kicked me out another one point. >> rose: was this an easy choice for you? >> it was an easy choice. i knew about the play in london, i had to see it but my work schedule didn't allow know get there and kenny and i will leave the golf course one day and he got called about directing the play. oh, that's the play they're doing about dr. king in london. i said "well, when you get it, let me read it." i didn't say i wanted to do it. so keith sent it to me and i read it and called him and asked if he was going to take the job and he said "i think i'm going to do it." i said "well, do you think they'd be interested in me doing it?" he was like... (lghter) >> rose: ishat right? >> exactly. exact response. >> rose: maybe, maybe. (laughs) >> i think we're so lucky and

fortunate and blessed to have these o. i couldn't imagine the play happening thout these two and i hope that it's the type of experience that as many people as that can make it to new york come to this play buwe can only see 1,200 people a night. but i'm hoping long afr this production is over that in small cities across this country people will do this two-character play. >> rose: two character one act play. >> yeah, not only just understand dr. king and want to read about dr. king but dr. king is the metaphor for the telling of story about the imperfection of man and that's a beautiful story. >> it's so bizarre. every night now when i'm sitting there on the bed talking to you about all these poor people coming together in washington and you see them... all the white people, indian folks, chinese folk, mexicans all banding together to shame this country. every night when i say that now all i see is o.w.f. my whole

head goes straight there. the wow, a rainbow of people chanting "stop the war" but we're still fighting the war on poverty t you're stopping something else. stop the money,top the banks from doing this. but it hasn't changed. >> rose: and the gap between rich and poor has grown. >> oh, the chasm has grown so much wider. but they asked me last nht in the talkback what would dr. king. >> rose: you're doing the talkback thing? >> yeah. what would dr. king think of now. >> he'd cry. >> it's way worse now than it was when he got kild. my parents and yourarents still hamiddle-class jobhen he died. built making stuff in factories and plants that sent us to college. >> rose: and they thought it would be better than their life. >> exactly. now those jobs are gone. we don't make anything anymore. there's no craftsmanship in america anymore. i found myself online the other day trying to find that "made in

america" web site because i was intending to buy christmas gifts that were only made in america. but i... you have to do something. but the play makes me think about those things and how far we have not come and how i wish there were more and more people in the streets. not just those kids need to be out there. the parents need to be, too. >> rose: they also need to be in washington and everywhere else. >> for sure. >> rose: this is a broader base... >> we need to do something about the people running our country. >> rose: exactly. didn't you play malcolm x's wife? >> yes. >> rose: is the rivalry here much... i'm looking forward to seeing it. is the rivalry between them part of this dialogue? >> not really. it comes up. >> it just comes up. >>ose: they had one encounter.

>> rose: i just did a thing with harry belafonte. >> in '39. >> that was at opening night. >> he's a wonderful man. dedicated his life to helping other folks. >> i admire him so much. >> rose: and played a central role between dr. king and the kennedys. got the kennedys to talk to dr. king. saying "you you've got to... listen..." you hope people... you especially hope young people come see this. you want them to know. >> i want all of america to come see it. and most of them are coming to see it. but i especially want young folks to come. >> rose: how many other productions? london and here? >> yes. >> rose: where will the next production be, do you know yet? >> my hope is that it will be done all over the nation. it's been translated into russian. we did a reading in russia earlier this year and it was so interesting to see that this russn audience reacted to the play the sam way that the

london and american audiences have reacted to it. it's a testament to how universal the story is, about this man struggling to come to terms with his life, with his mortality. and with his imperfections. >> rose: and how hard it is to be... >> ...put on this pedestal. absolutely. >> rose: thers a scenein the room where he's looking for bugs knowing j. ear hoover s looking for him. >> the f.b.i. always... there's that story that's been circulated of the f.b.i. like getting together and... some say it's a false but it's supposedly a tape of him with him having relations with a woman and that tape w supposedly sent to mrs. king and some people say it's a lie but it was really the f.b.i. really taunting him and that led to a lot of his depression and stress that was put on that i mean wear tick late in the play visually.

>> rose: is there literary license here in which it's something you think there is a truth beyond the facts that did not, in fact, happen? >> um... >> rose: other than the relationship to conversation here? >> it's highly fictionalized. this did not happen. >> there are nuggets in there that are true. for instance, there was a biographer for coretta scott king who came the other night that you met. and she said she was so eited that t idea of king end sending coretta artificial flowers... >> which he really did do. >> so i guess as an audience you might not know that that was so but she did. how you used that information in the play. or that he had his... he was 39 but he had... because of the stress, his heart was that of a 60-year-old man. >> did an amazing job of taking little nuggets from dr. king's

life. so i would say this play is inspired by dr. king's life. >> rose: for you, tater is a church. >> absolutely. we can'tearn from the theater and sit next to each other and rub off each other and bring that southern baptist in there next to that jewish person next to the latino and become that common audience. that's what it's about there me. we grow from each other, learn from each other, laugh with each other, cry with each other. >> and it's so beautiful. every night that audnce is so diverse. it's like a church of dr. king's dreams. we'vdone something really special on broadway right now. >> me with yarmulkes and beards crying and women clutching their beads and crying. it's like, wow... >> i see that, she doesn't look. i'm the one staring in the audience. (laughter) how do you do that?

>> rose: there was a line that was a reference to prident obama that you took out someone said? >> oh... >> rose: or it's still until? that asked will someone follow me and she says there's one that has your voice or something like that. >> oh,here's one that kind of got your tongue but they'll never be another you. that was actually in the london version where we were writing... the euphoria of obama's election and i ended up cutting that line because i didn't want people to think that i was saying that because obama is in office that we have reached the promise land and dr. king is just like obama and obama is just like dr. king. that's not what i was trying to get across at all and tre were some people who took it that way. for me it's all about all of us have responsibility. we all can be kings. we all can be great. we're all part of the tapestry that will change america. so that's what i was trying... >> that's what that last speech

is about i'm doing? (laughter) >>. >> rose: you didn't get that? wow! (laughter) who should have told him? you or her? (laughter) >> at the end of the play i stand there and what i know for a fact is that dr. king loved his family loved his wife, his country andgod. and i say, wow, everything that was positive in his life from this play we know tha about him. how do we apply that to our lives? so i think... i don't know if sam understood subliminally he understands that. >> rose: i'm sure he does. >> and angela understands that because audiences are moved every night and the director makes one very proud. >> rose: before you go. are you receiving an award or giving an award? >> i have an opening night for a broadway show. >> he's so busy! >> rose: this is not fair, is

it? you're not in two performances, are you? >> no. >> rose: you're not in two performances. >> well, i learned that from him. he loves to work. when we were younger our families got up to go to work. that's what we do. so i'm opening another play tonight but i love going from play to play. i've never had two at the same time but i want to work and i think that's what young americans want to do. put them to work. >> and i know you're not talking about work. this is the hardest working man in television. (laughter) you've got to start getting up earlier. >> rose: wake him up and put him to bed. take a look at this. this is president obama at the martin lutr king memorial dedication in october talking about what he hopes his daughters will know about dr. king. here it is. >> this sculpre-- masve and iconic as it is-- he l remind them of dr. king's strength but to see him only as larger than

life would do a dissvice to what he taught us about ourselves. he would want them to know that he had setbacks. because they will have setbacks. he would want them to know that he had doubts because they will have doubts. he would want them to know that he was flawed because all of us have flaws. it is precisely because dr. king was a man of flesh and blood and not a figure of stone that he inspes us so his life, his story, tells us change can come if you don't give up. he would not give up no matter how long it took because in the smallest hamlets and the darkest slums he had witnessed the highest reaches of the human spirit. because in those moments when the struggle seemed most hopeless he had seen men and women and children conquer thr

fear. because he had sing hills and mountains made low and rough places me plain and the crooked places made straight and god make a way out of no way. that is why we honor this man. because he had faith in us. >> rose: a couple more slides i wantou to see. >> he should drop his kids off at t play next time. (laughter) >> we'll take care of that. aughter) >> rose: maybe we better send him this tape. he's going to be watching. john lewis who obviously knew dr. king, here he is in 1998 talking about who d. king was. the roll tape. for you, what was king like? >> martin luther king, jr. was a hero, an idol, later he became a friend, a big brother. he was a warm, warm man. so sensitive and so caring.

he did little things that really madeou feelike you were just another warm, friendly good human being. i remember we were walking one day from selma to montgomery and i had been hurt in an early part of the march and he was wearing a little hat, a little cap and he took his cap off of his head and he put it on my head and said "john, you should wear this cap, you need to protect your head. you've been hurt and your head needs to be protected." i will never forget that. and was a littlethin he would ask "how are you doing? how are you feeling? is everything okay?" he was a good listener and he was very, very compassionate. >> rose: so tell me what you want people to know about drking? >> simply he was a great man. a great man who was human. a great man whose name was

actually michael. people don't know that. a man who struggled. a man who was an extreme sionary but was still s deft and nuanced and had his feet on the ground even though his head was always in the sky. that's the dr. king i want my audience to see and the dr. king i know was there and i feel sometimes we have a very simplistic idea of dr. king that he was just this perfect man who was supposed to stay on the wall and he's not. he's an inspiration. like john louis said an idol, but at the end of the day he went into the ground as a man. >> rose: one more, harry belafonte in a conversation i did with him sunday night at the 92nd street y talking about his friend dr. king. here it is. >> he said "you don't know me, myame is martin luther king, jr. and i'm coming to new york and i'd welcome an opportunity

to meet with you." and he was coming here to speak to the religious community trying to encourage them to become more engaged in the movement he had started and the montmery bus boycott cot. and i said yes and when he came he went to abyssinia to speak and i listened to him speak for the first time and i was blown away by his articulation. you all heard him so you know what his passion can be like and then we retired to the basement to speak for... he said only a few minutes, it was almost four hours. (laughter) but when we got threw, i knew that i would be in his service for the journey that he had embarked on. >> rose: last point. this is from his mountain top

speech. and how electrical haven't it is to today what you make. something s happening in our world, the massess, the people e rising up andherever they are assembled today, johannesburg, south africa, my nairobi, new york city, atlanta, georgia, jackson, mississippi, or memphis, tennessee, the cry is always the same, we want to be free. which is part of the anthem of the arab spring, part of the anthem of people everywhere. that struggle goes on. thank you. great to see you. >> thank you very much. >> rose: jacques pepin is her he began cooking in his parents' restaurant in france at the tender age of 12. over the next six decades he would become charles de gaulle's private chef, run the iconic new york restaurant and write 25 cook books and host 11 television series. he is credited, along with julia child, with helping teach americans how to cook proper

french food. here is a look at the two of them together. >> togetr we're going to do souffle. as everyone knows, the heart of a good souffle is... >> egg whites! beaten egg whites. and i'm going to do mine in copper. i did hit in the machine. >> we're going to see if you're faster than the machine. one, two, three. >> rose: his latest book compiles more than 700 of his favorite restpys. it includes a d.v.d. of his techniques and a new pbs series of the same name debuted on pbs. i am pleased to have him here at this table. welcome. >> thank you. thank you so much for having me. >> rose: so this book is a diary of your life you say? >> sort of it. it shows the way i cooked when i was in my 20s andn middle age and older man.

so it did change and i've been in america for 50 years, 51 years. i've been married 45 years to a woman born in new york city from a puerto rican mother and cuban father so from black bean soup to fried chickent's not necessarily french. >> rose: has i become simpler? >> yes. it's become simpler and it's good because even after years and years of cooking, i simplified it, even the recipe th i say why did i do that? i could avoid doing this and make it easier. >> rose: and equally good? >> equally good, yes. >> rose: you peared down the recipes to about 700 started with 2,000. >> something like this. yes. it was a process with a lot of redun dancesy. a salmon recipe with the same ingredients. so after arguing with my editor for one thing or another.

>> rose: how has this... other than being simpler, how has cooking from you evolved well, in fact, when i did that book the conundrum for me was do i leave those recipe it is way i did them 30 years ago, 35 years ago to show a moment in time or do i make it so it's simpler, more usable which actually then was re work than doing a book from the beginning. we don't use as much fat as we used. we don't used the same type of fat, more olive oil, less butter. much less cream. the time of cooking has changed a great deal in vegetables and fish. the way things are put togetr. yes. it does change. >> rose: how often do you cook? every night? >> basically everyday. >> rose: doe she cook for you as well? >> oh, yes, yes, she does. and usually when i come into the kitchen with my wife of 4045

years telling me "darling, what do you think?" she says "don't touch anything." >> rose: (laughs) because most people whethey meet chefs they always say "do you cook at home?" of course you cook at home. >> of course, of course. for me i haven't had a restaurant in quite a while so basically all my recipes are done at home. my recipes are done with myself, i get an idea, i go to the market, write it on a yellow pad start doing the recipe. i give it to norma my assistant for 27 years and she retypes it and basically this is it. >> rose: that's the recipe. >> the team is between norma and me. >> rose: have the products changed? are they better? >> no question. when i came to america 50 years ago there was no leeks or shallot, there was only one type of shallot, that was iceberg lettuce, you know? i remember going on 50th and first avenue gng to bag and seen the know, a good market and they said "we're out of mushroom."

aisle 5 was canned mushrooms. you had to go to a specialty store to get mushrooms in new york. now it's an embarrassment of riches. there's 20 different types of salad, there's 15 types of mushrooms. the supermarkets have never been as beautiful as they are today. >> rose: never been as good? >> no. >> rose: and do you still spend a... people who cook always say to me the better... the ingredients are better, the cookinis better. the fresher the vegetables, the better. >> absolutely. >> rose: the better the product, the better the result. >> there is no question about it. bu you know we do exaggerate in america all the time. so now we are all locavore. we have to eat local food and now we get totally crazy with organic food. i have been to restaurants where they come and introduce you to the carrot. the carrot was born on the seventh of may, her name is hilda. we can get exaggerated. >> rose: you use less butter? >> yes, much less. >> rose: and more olive oil.

>> yes, more olive oil. even some other type of oil >> rose: is olive oil good for you? >> yes. >> rose: butter is not? >>es, everything is good for you. it depends on the proportions. >> and we should eat less, shouldn't we? >> probably. i could lose a few pounds. you're very trim. >> rose: i could eat less, too. that's the key, really, to being able to say this is enough because we don't need to. and americans especially. >> i worked for howard johnson many, many years ago, for ten years and i remember at that time early 1960s i would see a soda that was 12 ounces. now we get to 45 ounces. a mammoth food. it's too much. >> rose: i've never known why you went to work for howard johnson's because you had be if i remember correctly, you'd been de gaulle's chef. which i referenced. what was he like? >> well, i worked under three

governments at the time in france. the governmentwere changing at a rap pace but usually you deal with the lady of the house and madam de gaulle, of course i was there at christmas, otherwise you deal with the day di of the house and at that time the work of the cook was very very low on the social scale, you know? any good mother would have wanted her child to marry a doctor, a lawyer. >> rose: not a chef. >> an architect, definitely not a cook. we are genius now. >> rose: what's the difference between a cook and a chef? >> well, the cook is the one who cooks like i do at home. the chef i the one who runs a team. that's why you're the chief, or the chef. so at home i am the cook. if i work in a kitchen and i have five, six guys working for me i have a chef. >> rose: so you come to the united states. did you have an opportunity to go to work for president kennedy? >> yes. yes. actually when i worked athe pav i don't know in the spring of 1960 i went up for a job at the white house. rose: is that because of the played in the economy?

>> no, it was at that time actually... it was the whole kennedy clan came to work at the piffle i don't know. ... pavilion. and ten t kennedy clan went and they asked for... it was john f. kennedy who said "we need a chef for the white house." so they called me and as i said, never having been on a nepaper, a magazine or any type of plicity, never have any kudos, when i... i don't know, i don't know who was head of state at the time, never would anyone come and thank you. so that did not exact. so when i was asked to go to the white house i really didn't have any idea of the possibility of publicity and the... i didn't realize what it was at the same time. i work at the pavilion with fear

and howard johnson who created the company was one of the patrons and he told pierre "you're going to come and work for me." when pierre decided to go to work for howard johnson he tells me "you come with me." so i had to choose between the white house and howard johnson. >> rose: why did you do that? >> for me it was another world. i would learn about marketing, mass produce. >> rose: america. >> american eating habits. i was in the world trade center, i worked at the russian tea room i opened a restaurant on 6th aven, i would neverave been able to do those things if i hadn't had the training at howard johnson in terms of production and all that. howard johnson was very good to me. >> rose: here's what i don't understand, it was soups, wasn't it? >> yes, all soups. >> rose: and coca-cola wanted to buy it? >> did they? >> rose: yes, yes. >> coca-cola bottling company it

was marriott, it was five or six companies wanted to buy the ncept and we did soup of high quality in largerocks. black bread, bag get, we had one apple and a piece of cheese and it was $3. >> rose: it was a great lunch. >> it was a great lunch and it was on... between 45nd 46th o 5t so we seat 102 people and have done 864 lunches. a turn over every... >> rose: so what happened? >> so i stayed there for about six or seven years and then i went on to do other things like open the world trade center and eventually my partner sold the business ten years later. >> rose: but you mostly have been writing books and teaching, right? >> after that, yes, because at that time i had a car don't that limited me to a certain extent so i moved more in the direction of cooking, cookware, cooking

school we're opening at the time in the '70s so it was crazy. so iwent for that direction. >> rose: how long would it take you if you have individual instruction everyday and someone who was very attentive and worked hard to make a good cook. >> to make a good cook it depends on the person. but you can tell when you work with someone in a couple of hours if they're going to be good. >> rose: what do you see in >> you see their anticipation, you'll see if they understand the food rather than... a recipe is purely a... you know, a type-written page. explaining... they're either a conundrum between creating a recipe because you start with an idea so you're free to do whatever you want. you put a and b together. then you have this and that. so there's a freedom.

but as you do this and write it down you finish a typewritten page and i give you that and you start with that structured things. >> rose: but you stress the importance of technique. >> absolutely. by technique i mean something which has to do with manual dexterity and knowledge. this is the technique that professional chefs have to learn. th is the technique you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat so much that they can become part of yourself. then you can reject it. then you can think in terms of color and texture. my hand has no problem slapping down onions, doing those things. you can look at someone slicing an onion and they say "don't disturb me" because they are totally related by that menial task so you have to transcend that level.

to put your own talent and you could run a kitchen by being a good technician but you'll never be a great chef. a grt chef is more than that. and there are people who are technicians but great talent. >> rose: but they spend a lot of time on business, too, don't they? >> now more than ever. the chef never did that before. >> rose: so many chefs today want to get on television as fast as they can. >> it's true. >> rose: they want to be a celebrity and on food channel. >> we didn't have that pressure interestingly enough when i work in paris at the maxime the idea was to wk in a certain kitchen and confirm exactly to the habit the taste of the house. so we did the lobster, but we were 45 chefs, i'm sure that 45

of us could have been able to do that and you would not have known which one had done it. that would be the oositeow when the chef wants to sign this dish and say "i have done this, i have done this." so now it is something very egocentric as opposed the way it was before not necessarily worse but it's different. quite different. >> rose: is there nothing within you that wants to own a nice little restaurant? >> you always want it. it's always i did. i opened a couple restaurants in connecticut. gloria's french cafe. my wife's name is gloria. we did that in connecticut where i lived years ago. i did another one and my wife wanted a restaurant. everyone wants a restaurant when you don't know what it is. shwas disgusted pretty fast. >> rose: why? >> oh, the pressure, 24 hours a day. it's a great deal of pressure. for me not really you're born in that business but for young chefs you still have to go to the business for the right reasons which gratified you,

makes you happy, you want to fit people. it's something you find pleasure in. if you go to become a star on television or write a book it's likely that it will not happen and you may have... but if it happens it happens but if you're happy with... you know, they're in a great deal of conviviality and being with your customer. a great deal of happiness and when we come we are not threatening. ere's a doctor telling you you have a cancer, i bring please usually. so people look at you and smile. i mean, you are welcome usually so that's what being cook is. >> rose: you were the first male member of your family to go into... >> that's true. that that's much to be said because many americans think that french chefs are basically male when, in fact, my mother, i had two aunts my sister-in-law,

they all had restaurants. i can count seven restaurant in my family. >> rose: what are you going to do in your new television snow it >> it's extrapolating recipes from essential cooki and i did it, we taped it already and i did it like we did with julia. a do a theory on soup, vegetae fish and shellfish and so forth. >> so we have all these books about julia now and a telesion show and a movie about julia. what was she like for you. >> i met julia in 1960. >> rose: when she lived in paris? >> no, she came back in 1949. and in 1949 france she came back in 1959 or whatever. and a friend of mine was friends with james beard.

started at the "new york times," came to write a piece and i became friends with craig. he introducede toelen. helen introduce today in james beard and in the spring of 1961 helen told me i have a manuscript i want to show you the manuscript of the book and look at it. she said the woman is from california coming next week so let's cook for her. she said she's a very big woman with a terrible voice. of course that was julia. so what i'm saying is in 1959 i came here, by the spring of 1960 i knew the trinity of cooking, james beard, julia child. so you see how small the food world was. >> rose: so you knew everybody by then. >> it was very, very small, the food world. >> rose: was she a good chef? a good cook? >> she was a very good cook. >> rose: she was more than a performer. >> being a chef entail it is running of a kitchen.

she always said "i'm not a chef" but she was a terrific cook. she loved food and she always excited about it and always ready to help people and to argue with people. >> rose: did you know about her world war ii experiences? >> of course, she talked about it, yes. she always said "i was a secretary, i never did anything anyway." >> rose: i wasn't james bond. >> no. >> rose: this book is called "essential pepin." thank you very much. great to have you here. >> thank you. delighted to be here. thank you so much.

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