>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Welcome.
I'm Joe Yonan, the
food and dining editor
at The Washington Post and hi.
[ Applause ]
The post as I hope you
know is a charter sponsor
of The National Book Festival
and this is the 15th year
that the Library of Congress has
hosted The National Book Festival
so thank you very much
for coming today.
I have the pleasure
of introducing one
of my favorite people in the area.
Patrick O'Connell as you will
soon see is an absolute delight.
When he opened The Inn
at Little Washington,
in the Virginia countryside in
1978, it was a converted garage.
He turned into something
quite different than that.
Patrick is a self taught chef and
yet he pioneered what has become a
refined regional American cuisine
and way long before anyone
uttered the words farm to table.
Patrick was cultivating
relationships
with neighboring farmers.
For any of you who are here
for Nora's talk it's a very
interesting combination
because the two of them are
really icons of the DC scene.
They own two of the longest
running restaurants in the area.
We had Patrick on the Post's online
chat with readers a few months ago.
After, to talk about his book
that he's talking about today.
And one of the things that
he said really stuck with me,
he said that he considers
himself quote, an incrementalists.
Which I really love.
He said I sometimes think of
The Inn as a tree or a garden.
It starts with a seed and after
careful tending, if you're lucky,
it blossoms into something
and continues growing.
So these days The Inn has won just
about every award you can imagine.
It's really considered to be an
international culinary shrine.
It's more than the food, which is
what Patrick's book centers on.
It's really a testament
to a meticulous luxurious,
yet whimsical design.
Thanks to Patrick's unerring eye.
It's expanded to include not
only original main building
but also an entire village of
cottages, guest houses and gardens.
Designed in collaboration with
Joyce Conway Evans, a London stage
and set designer, the Inn has
truly become a culmination
of Patrick's life's work.
Now this is not a food book,
even though Patrick is
here in the food pavilion.
Because well he might be
able to answer a thing
or two about cooking as well.
And entertaining and cleaning.
I say the last, the last bit because
after one of my several visits
to The Inn, I was reminded again,
when I went in to that
kitchen visit.
How unbelievably sparkling
clean the kitchen is.
If any of you have seen
it, I was so amazed
by that I actually commissioned
an entire story on the subject.
So, among other things
that you might ask him,
ask him how they managed to keep the
thing looking so amazingly perfect.
Ladies and gentleman, please
welcome Patrick O'Connell.
[ Applause ]
It's a tough fit over there.
>> Thank you so much
real pleasure, thank you.
Hi everybody, it's great to be here.
It's still early morning
in a cooks life.
So I'll say a warm
good morning to you.
This is late dawn for us.
In our world.
But it's fabulous to be
at this wonderful event.
On this terrific gorgeous
holiday weekend with you.
And isn't this living
proof that some
of the best things in
life are still free.
[ Applause ]
But I think that was Streisand's
line from, Second Hand Rose.
She came to the Inn at Little
Washington once herself.
And we had lots of fun.
I was coming home from a trip
and the phone in the car rang,
young lady said, oh thank
goodness I caught you.
I just wanted to let you know
that Barbara Streisand's coming
for lunch tomorrow and I said oh
that's a really good one you got
any others.
And she said, I'm serious and I
said, are you out of your mind,
who let her in, we're
not open for lunch,
we've never been open
for lunch [laughter].
We can't do this.
And she said I tried to
tell him, I said who?
And she said, President Clinton.
I said woo, woo we
are not open for lunch
and he said so much the better.
So she came and it was
a dream in it's own.
We played all her music
all morning in the kitchen.
And at the end she said,
your work is just like mine.
[ Laughter ]
I'll take that any day.
So it seems just like yesterday
that I was here at the book festival
but it's already 11 years
since I was invited to speak
from my last book called
Refined American Cuisine.
And that year was the first year
that a chef actually two chefs
that year, had ever been invited.
Finally after all these years we had
decided to be considered authors.
And actually by Laura Bush.
So, the two chefs were
Jacques Pepin and myself.
And Laura Bush had a party at the
White House, a brunch actually.
And Jacques and I were there and
we met and we were like a couple
of little nervous boys
from elementary school.
And Laura Bush came out to greet
everybody and we were deciding
who would go first, I said no no you
you, she knows you, you're on TV.
No, no, no you're a local boy,
she said now go go go first.
And she came up and greeted
both of us at the same time.
We both thought she
wouldn't know who were.
She said to me, Patrick we are
so thrilled to have you here
and I adore your restaurant
and Jacques and we listen to,
watch you all the time and then
she said to me, I have your book
at the farm and I cook
from it all the time.
And it was so sweet and so rewarding
that, yeah had she been running
for president she would
have had my vote right then.
Later, Laura Bush celebrated
her 60th birthday in our kitchen
and the theme of course was books.
We made a gorgeous cake
for her birthday, her 60th.
Of a stack of books and then every
guest had a miniature little replica
of a stack of books.
And she also likes country music, so
we had a reception in the kitchen.
And we dressed up musicians up
as cooks with dalmatian spots
and whatever and they stood
all over the counters.
And it was a bit surreal.
And she had a wonderful time.
Later that night I got a
call from the White House,
one of our boys cooks for the
family there and has for many years.
Tommie and he says what
the hell did you feed her?
And I said why, she's
okay isn't she?
He said, yes she came in and said
I don't want to eat anything.
I just want to glide on
the wonderful memories
of the taste I had at The Inn.
And he said all I had to do
was feed daddy his hamburger.
[ Laughter ]
He was deadly serious.
There's something about writing
a book that always helps clarify
and distill where you are
in your life's journey.
So this book is a retrospective of
my life's work and really the story
of transformation at an
unlikely collaboration
with a gifted artist and designer.
A woman from London, Joyce Evans.
For whom The Inn has
also been a life's work.
But I continually remind myself
that without you, our loyal guests
and patrons and fans, who've
supported us over the last 37 years.
The Inn would not thrive
and exist and be there.
So, rest assured that when
you're coming to dinner,
you're also making a wonderful
contribution to ongoing dream
and the transformation of a
tiny town in rural Virginia.
And the protection of that dream.
So, it's been very rewarding to know
that we've now achieved a
3rd generation of clients.
We have a second generation staff.
Our senior team has been with
us 20 years and now their sons
and daughters are working for us.
But the other night a woman
came in the kitchen and said,
her parents told her that
she was conceived there.
[ Laughter ]
I was afraid she was
going to tell me what room
and I think it was room six.
We would definitely do
a thorough cleaning.
[ Laughter ]
So some might be perplexed,
some are perplexed,
why a chef would decide
to write a design book.
Because after all we're only suppose
to know how to cook and whisk.
Use foul language and get tattoos.
And scream at people and berate
people and just be crazy.
So I've never been
comfortable with any label.
Because I think it's
sort of a reduction
as to way of thinking about life.
So I think we're all
more than one word.
And I hope I'm more
than just one word chef,
which only means chief,
boss, leader, whatever.
But I think it's important
for a creative person
to elude labels whenever possible.
Because they can be
constrictive and damaging.
So, someone asked me recently,
couple of days ago in an interview.
Well, what are you?
What are any of us?
Magical beings.
There was a an ancient quote
from Teilhard de Chardin ,
that said we are not humans
seeking a spiritual journey.
We are spiritual beings
trapped in a human form.
And I rather like that
way of thinking
about who we are and our potential.
So, this particular interviewer
wanted one word for everything.
That's how they like it
these days, the soundbite.
So I said well, if it has to be
one word how about illusionist.
And aren't we all illusionists
in our own way.
We are presenting our best side
sometimes disguising our flaws
at the same time.
So this is also true for
an architect or a designer.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of
becoming an architect until I found
out that math was also
a requirement.
And some idiot teachers had
tried to use me as an experiment
in a new kind of instruction
for math.
And that was visually
counting objects
to learn to add and subtract.
So we started with out fingers
and you know you're limited to 10
and then we had a counting box.
So you had no sense of the abstract,
you were sitting there
counting everything out
and of course it destroyed
all future abilities to add,
subtract, multiply or divide.
They abandoned it after
a year and a half.
I don't think they're
doing it that way anymore.
But it convinced me that
if I was actually to go
to architecture school
and build a house
that surely it would
fall on someone.
The snow load alone would
be severally dangerous.
People always want to
know how on earth I ended
up in little Washington, Virginia?
And I reflect that as a child
in those days people took a
Sunday drive and they always
from Washington drove
out to the country.
And so every spring and every fall,
we got packed into our 1954 Ford.
And we had ultimately six children.
It was a crowd in the back.
And my brothers like to punch
each other all the way out.
They were tough guys,
football players.
And I would crouch farther and
farther into the back corner seat.
Where there was this fabulous little
invention called the no draft.
A triangular window that
really should be brought back.
Because it was the greatest
automobile invention of all time.
By opening it you could deflect
the wind, it didn't blow on you
but it aerated the whole car.
So I would crouch in the back
seat, much like a dog with my nose
in the no draft, shielded myself
from punches and play a little game.
And never told anyone
about the game.
It to this day, has
remained a mystery.
But by lifting one finger
in front of my eyes,
I was able to erase
anything in the world
that I found unsightly
or unpleasant or ugly.
And I have to say I erased a lot.
I erased whole towns.
And imagine the Catholic
guilt that went with that.
Thinking after erasing a little
trailer park, that was rusting away,
what the kids might feel like
when they came home from school.
Their house wasn't there, it
was returned to virgin forest.
I would leave anything
quickly by dropping my finger,
that I deemed worthy of remaining.
And immediately pop it up again.
And it was very reassuring
that I could obliterate
ugliness in my mind.
And I thought always I was
acting for the common good.
And in the best interests
of humanity.
To this day I'm not sure as we
drove through Little Washington
if I erased The Inn or not.
Because it was a falling
down garage.
But, a couple of years
ago I was out in a field
and I had acquired
another piece of property.
We always begin by dragging the
appliances out of the front yard.
And going from there and eliminating
everything that is horrible
and the carbuncles that had been
added to old buildings and trying
to find their original soul.
And opening a dialogue with them
to see what they want to be.
What their aspirations are?
And it hit me like a lightning bolt,
I'm still doing the same thing
I was doing at six years old.
Only now I'm doing it in reality.
I haven't been arrested.
But there are so many parallels
between cooking and designing
that it would surprise people.
But a good chef must also
be a visionary, a editor,
a collaborator and a producer.
And when a good chef looks at an
ingredient whether it's a vegetable
or a fish or a piece of meat.
First you're little Rolodex turns
on and you see all the possibilities
of what you could do with it.
And then you step back
further and you listen.
And if you listen closely, the
ingredient will speak to you.
And so I use to go to the market
and I would look and
this was very eerie.
But the vegetables would talk.
And they would give me ideas
of what they would best be.
In the process of transformation.
So, no one ever taught me how
to cook, but I had a grandmother
who when I was very
little was a fabulous cook.
But I regarded her as a magician.
My mother would always say
that when she came home
from school at about age 11.
She would find the door locked and
my grandmother would say always,
skip down to the butcher
dear and ask
for a little piece
of liver for the cat.
Well everyone knew
they didn't have a cat.
But it was the depression and
with a little piece of liver
or a little piece of scrap meat,
she could make a beautiful
dinner for 12.
And like a rice casserole
or something this kind
with lots of other ingredients.
Outside the back door was an apple
tree and a little rhubarb patch,
a strawberry patch and a kind of
self sufficient little farmstead
in a small town in Wisconsin.
So whenever I went, she
would go into the kitchen
and then magically a feast would
appear out of seemingly nothing.
So the idea of making something
out of nothing feels today still
like magic and it's
what we do everyday.
We have fabulous ingredients
now to work with.
My grandmother also had
a little breakfast nook
where she would install
my grandfather.
And for every casual meal and
then she would push the table
in so he was unable to move.
And then she would talk at him
for 2 1/2 hours while she fed him.
As long as he was chewing
it was okay.
When he took the last bite
of his pie or his cobbler,
he would bang his fists on the table
and say goddammit woman
let me out of here.
And that was how they kept
their marriage together.
So in my kitchen at The
Inn at Little Washington,
I've installed two breakfast
nooks and they look exactly
like my grandmothers and if you
come you can be installed in
and it's very cozy, very reassuring.
In the winter there's a warm fire.
So, she was one of my
greatest inspirations.
So, I have found that the joy of
transforming buildings and spaces is
that very dialogue that
begins when you listen.
And usually our tendency
especially as Americans is
to impose our will on something.
And interior designers usually
have a look, a style or a formula.
That they come in and insert and you
can walk into the room and instead
of feeling and seeing the room.
You're seeing the designer
and I like in that to trying
to read a book and the
words getting in the way.
So I like to walk into a room that
makes me feel like I should smile.
And that's kind of the
definition of a good room.
Also one that appears to
always have been as it is.
We redid a farmhouse and we took it
down to studs, everything was gone,
new roof everything totally.
And put it all back together.
And somebody came who had known the
house and it's previous incarnation
and said well what did you do?
It looks just like it always did.
And that of course was
the ultimate compliment.
And I said we did a
thorough dusting.
So we've tried to do a very
careful and thorough dusting
in Little Washington over 37 years.
And keep in tact the soul and
the feeling of the old buildings
that are there and integrate them
and begin to allow them to resonate
and relate to each other.
Working with an artist in London,
was a fascinating collaboration.
She came about into the
picture about 36 years ago.
We had engaged a local architect
to begin the transformation
of the garage that we were
renting for 200 dollars a month.
And he did some drawings and
they were fabulous, gorgeous
and I said what color do you
envision these interiors.
And he said white and
I said white that's it?
White, all white?
And he said of course,
architects always love white,
they don't want anything to get
in the way of the architecture.
So I said but I want it to
feel as if it's been here
for a long long time and
you know to have a mystery
and in a vocative sense of history.
I think white is going to make
it look like an elevator shaft.
So he said well if pushed
I could go to putty.
I said I think we need more input.
So he volunteered that
he had a friend in London
who was absolutely mad and if we'd
liked he would send her a blueprint
to see if she had any thoughts.
So what came back was the
first water color rendering
of the entryway to The Inn that was
as a grand and magnificent as sort
of an Irish country house castle
or something out of down Abbey.
But it was all done through
illusion, through collages
of wallpaper that changed
the architecture.
So we realized then that most
American interior design is
about changing color, changing
fabrics and this sort of thing.
Whereas the woman we were working
with in London altered the
architecture of an interior space
through adjusting and
changing the interior.
And emphasizing the strong points of
a room while deemphasizing the flaws
and eliminating the flaws.
So finding that balance.
But she is a masterful illusionist.
And only after we'd worked
with her for about 10 years,
did she come over and she
had a little sore throat
and I made her a hot toddy.
She doesn't usually drink,
just a wee bit of champagne.
And then she loosened up a little
bit and confessed that most
of her life had been working
for the royal family in England.
But one must never
speak about such things.
I could only think
for fear of beheading.
But, it was her fear of no
further associations if you talk.
So it was wonderful to go full
circle and be able to create a party
for Queen Elizabeth when she did
come for the 400th anniversary
of the founding of Jamestown.
And in the book, we have a
section that we added sort
of at the last moment
about entertaining.
Hoping that people could be inspired
by some of the magnificent parties
that we've been able to do and
understand that when we take The Inn
on the road it's more
than a catered event.
It's a theatrical performance also.
And people are always asking
for ideas and tips about cooking
and about entertaining
and I'm always surprised
that they think it'll come
about if they just walk
into the kitchen 20
minutes before the guests.
And try to pull something
together and I think to myself,
would they approach playing
the violin in the same way.
Would they call their
friends together for a recital
and open this thing and say
I read the instructions.
I'm ready to go.
So my sense and my suggestion always
is, obsession can be your friend.
Don't regard it as a
neurosis or a handicap.
It's a wonderful, wonderful
thing to fall back on
and you can forget
all of your problems.
I always say what could
be more important
than having friends to your house.
And we have a saying in the kitchen
all the time, I say okay boys,
all right fine, it
ain't life or death,
it's much more important than that.
We're feeding somebody.
Get worried.
I go around saying you know
you're allowed to get nervous.
Getting nervous is a good thing.
It brings up your adrenaline.
So, we need to get nervous more,
we need to take the little things
and the little details
more seriously I think.
Or not. Your choice.
The book also has a
wonderful section on gardens.
And gardens as rooms, outdoor rooms.
And I think again it's so important
to be able to open a dialogue
with whatever space you have.
Whether it's a postage
stamp front lawn,
a window box or a thousand acres.
For me the revelation
occurred when I was living
in a small shack in the country.
And that's all in the memoir
that I'm not sure we have time.
It had a school bus attached
to the rear, an outhouse
and eight wrecked cars in the front.
It was my starter house
in the country.
But I went on a tour of James
Madison's home, Montpelier.
It was while the DuPont
Scott family still owned it,
it had not been converted
as it is now into a museum.
And I stood on the front porch
and I looked out and I was unable
to distinguish whether
I was seeing reality
or an English landscape painting.
And then I realized the
feeling of being able
to visually create your
own world is astonishing,
it's very powerful also.
Whether you do it on canvas or
whether you do it in reality.
But it's one of the great joys of
for me of living in the country
because you can sculpt your world,
you can also obliterate
anything you don't want to see.
Tall hedges, stone walls whatever.
But it's as if you can live
like a fairytale person
in your own private fantasy world.
And in reality.
So my, I have a friend who
whenever he calls he says,
so tell me child, he's a minister.
Tell me child when did
these problems begin?
They began with my mother
reading fairy tales.
We had a lot of children, the only
way she could settle them down
and she loved to read it was her
fantasy to be a reader to children.
So she was, every night.
Or every afternoon even
when we were very little.
She would read the fairy tales.
And of course the one that haunted
me was little red riding hood
and that is what changed the course
of my life and took me into cooking.
Because I realized that food
was much much more than food.
Food was a key to your
survival, food was a source
of manipulating your predators,
food was your protection.
Food could control the world.
And as long as people, as long
as humans are chewing
they're not dangerous.
So to this day, hope there's no
shrink in the house, but to this day
when I look out in the
dining room as long
as everybody's chewing I
feel a great sense of safety.
So when a waiter says
it's all right,
it's right there okay,
but they're not eating.
So I have a friend who says,
you're the only person I know
who if somebody isn't eating
something every 15 minutes you go
up off your nut.
So, those early early
childhood books, memories
and stories are universal
and do a great deal
to influence who we become.
So, I thank my mother
for reading to us
and of course I have
an Irish background.
My grandfather also
told Irish fairy tales.
So this is book is not
really a design book,
that's how it's being marketed.
It's really a dream book and a book
about transformation
and a living fairy tale.
A somewhat fractured fairy tale.
Sometimes, but nevertheless approach
please as a reader, as a fairy tale.
And hopefully an inspiring one.
And to know that some
kid from Clinton,
Maryland could craft his own world.
I hope we'll inspire many of
you to believe in your dreams.
So do I have three more minutes?
I have just well I'll
take three more minutes
and then we're going
to have some questions.
A week ago, I went
to Cuba and on a sort
of reconnaissance mission
hoping that I might be able
to offer some services as a
kind of culinary ambassador,
or an ambassador of hospitality.
To create a dialogue with the
Cuban people as they prepare
to ready themselves for an enormous
influx of American tourists,
possibly five million as
soon as the flood gates open.
They're not at all
prepared of course.
But a lovely young woman who spoke
three languages was our guide.
And just before I left
I had a dream.
I have a lot of dreams.
I had a lot last night.
But in this one I saw
an old decrepit hotel.
On a, a rise overlooking the
sea that was of course pink.
It's a tropical country.
And I woke up and I thought,
ah Christ I am not even going
to entertain the notion of opening
a hotel in Cuba, am I crazy.
I mean hundreds of
opportunities open
in Washington DC come
to me all the time.
And I think, ah ah can I handle that
and run the mother
ship at the same time.
So I said to myself, I don't want to
see that, I'm not going to see that,
that's right out of my mind and
we went to visit Hemingway's home,
which is one of the things
you're suppose to see in Cuba.
And outside of Havana and went to
a small village a fishing village
where he wrote The
Old Man in the Sea.
And we were driving over a crest
and my staff member who was
with me said, oh my god,
and I thought uh oh there's
a dead body on the road.
And I looked and I saw it.
And it was the hotel.
It was precisely and exactly as
I dreamed it and there it was
and of course falling down.
All the windows gone,
but it had been a jewel
of the tiny little community.
So the woman who is interpreting for
us is observing this whole process
and we give her a copy of the book.
And she says this is all
very mystifying to me.
Because in Cuba, we
don't know how to dream.
And at first I thought
what is she saying.
And they don't have a culture,
they haven't grown up in a culture
where they allow themselves
to dream.
So, two days ago I got an
email from her and she said,
how much she enjoyed being with us,
we were locked together
for six days.
And she said you've
given me a dream.
I want to come to Little
Washington and work with you.
And it's going to come true.
So that made the whole
trip worthwhile.
We have, we have a few minutes
left for some questions.
If anyone has them, any at all, on
any subject don't limit yourself.
Stupid questions I love,
because they often turn
into being the most
intelligent ones.
Oh we have one.
>> Mister O'Connell thank you
very much for your presentation,
it was absolutely lovely.
I recently finished
Anthony Bourdain's,
Misadventures in the
Culinary Underbelly.
And he describes a
professional kitchen
as a very barely survivable
living hell.
Now he's talking about the kitchens
of the restaurants of New York City.
However what is your opinion about
what the environment in a structure
of the professional
kitchen, what should it be?
>> Well Jean-Paul Sartre said
once, we are each others heaven
or we are each others hell.
And guests come in every
night and they say,
the kitchen is very beautiful
if you haven't seen it
and it's gorgeously
captured in the book.
They say this doesn't
look like Hell's Kitchen.
And I said no this
is heavens kitchen.
So I think the difference is, it's
also where I live, it's my home.
It's my, a source of
inspiration and salvation.
And I wanted to make it the
most beautiful room at the Inn.
So it was inspired by a
room at Windsor Castle
where the cheese was made,
called the dairy room.
So I think we so easily fall
into stereotypical
ideas about everything.
And so there was a time when
insecure chefs felt they had to run
around doing a lot of screaming so
everybody knew who was in charge.
And they had to get the best out of
their teams through intimidation.
And I think the more
mature and centered
and secure you are
about what you're doing.
The more you can understand it as
a collaborative artistic adventure
which requires everyone's input.
So stress and screaming shut
down peoples creative process.
Imagine trying to write
while somebody's screaming
at you write faster, write
faster, or dance faster.
So we look upon it as a
totally different process
and we have to have fun.
My sense is if we're
not enjoying ourselves,
that's going to be communicated
through the food to our guests.
If we're loving what we're
doing and having fun,
they're going to sense
that and feel that.
So the only way you can do that
is, in a sort of family kitchen.
So we did everything in our
power to make it not appear
to be a commercial kitchen.
It simply looks like the
kitchen of a fine old house.
And that's how it's run.
So I'm momma and daddy.
>> Thank you sir.
>> Your welcome.
>> Thank you chef.
Right over here.
Thank you for sharing
about your creativity.
I'm passion for design and cooking.
I wanted to ask you
about hospitality.
It was, I was trained at a
classical hotel in London.
I won't speak of whom I served.
However, they was a bit stuffy.
So how do you, would you
describe your service
and hospitality philosophy
that sets The Inn
at Little Washington
apart from others?
>> That's a fascinating question.
>> Thank you.
>> Where is the, oh
you're over here, oh.
The light is tremendously
bright over here.
He looked like he would
have an English accent.
I didn't think you did.
I thought it was ventriloquism.
[ Laughter ]
Well, it is constantly changing.
It is constantly evolving.
Can you imagine how much America's
culinary consciousness has altered
in 40 years.
We were and this is the reason
that Cuba was interested in me,
we were not to far
beyond Cuba, 40 years ago.
In our culinary consciousness,
so the same is true
of our style of hospitality.
Because our ambiance
resembles a house,
a private home in the country.
It's much easier to
use that as a kind
of an inspiration for the service.
We're trying to make people
feel as if they're guests
at a dinner party in a private home.
And there are no rules.
They can be as naughty as
they want to be and they are.
Every night.
So the key is that and I
think was a big turning point
in service and hospitality.
You can't have a formula anymore.
Those don't work.
The chains try them.
And they try giving their staff
a script and for a little while
that was charming and fun and
safe and then it got predictable
and then it got tired and then if
I hear that one more time I'm going
to kill somebody, you know.
So what we tell our team every
night, our service team is
that we don't want them to
learn how to be a waiter.
We want them to learn
how to be themselves.
And we want to draw
on their inner poise.
And we want them to be able to be
authentic and to feel authentic.
So I always tell them
when they're going home
to practice describing the menu.
Sit down at the breakfast
table with your mother
or your girlfriend or whatever.
Without any notes and
tell them about the dish.
And then listen to the tone you use
and the words you use
to describe it.
And you won't be play acting,
because that's very off putting.
So, in a nutshell I think
and this is being changed
across our whole country.
People are invited to be more real.
Especially with the
younger clientele.
And everything that was stuffy
or stagey feels now silly.
Well it would be one thing
if everybody arrived
in white tie and tails.
But our dress code
today is no wet bikinis.
[ Laughter ]
I don't have a bit of a
problem with the dry ones.
The wet on the velvet you know.
Is not good.
So when you're being stagey
and phony and pretending you're
in the palace to somebody
who's arrived in flip flops,
which happens, sometimes.
Is just all whacked.
You're in the wrong movie.
So using a film is the
best analogy I have
as a tool in working with my team.
And I actually walk around
like this all the time.
And I say no, no, no,
no, no get that out
of my movie it doesn't belong.
Or they come in with something and I
say it's, you're in the wrong movie.
That won't work here.
So it's about consistency and it's
about appropriateness and what fits.
So its all changed
whether in England or here.
We live in a different culture.
Some come lament that the
good ole days are gone
and are never coming back.
We do have better food, it
tastes better across the board.
But anyway, thank you
for the question.
>> Thank you.
>> And do we have one more
question or we wrapped up?
We're pretty wrapped,
please can we make it a wrap
up question real quick.
>> I can be really quick.
The restaurant was definitely one
of the most memorable
experiences of my life.
But I got to know about the cow?
>> You don't get it about the cow?
>> No I didn't know
why the cow was there,
because we have this
beautiful elegant restaurant
and there's this catchy cow.
How did the cow come to be?
>> The cow came to
be as an illustration
that we don't take
ourselves over seriously.
And typically an expensive
restaurant will trot
out a Christofle 14,000 dollar
cheese cart and a cheese
like wine intimidates some people
because they don't
know a lot about it.
And they're not about to
start learning they just want
delicious cheese.
And so interjecting a little
humor puts them at ease.
And then we have cheese whiz
who goes with the cheese cow
and he now has his own fan club
and we're thinking of sending him
to the moon for a sabbatical.
But we had a young man Cameron,
cheese whiz who was having
trouble finding his niche in life.
And I pointed him in the direction
of cheese, he became obsessed
and he's now a master
cheese something or other.
There's two in the United States.
And he can answer any
question in the world.
So it was just to make people not
take the experience over seriously.
So what America brought
to the world stage
in fine dining was the
ability to have fun.
When you went to France years ago
and I started going in the 70's.
You had to sit up very
straight and you had to worry
about doing the wrong thing.
And you had to bow down
in the sacred temple.
So, we have changed all that.
You can be who you are,
you can come as you are,
you can do anything
you want but most
of all we're all there
to give you a good time.
The more you laugh, the happier
we are that something is working.
So, that cow with the mooer some
more gets a lot of compliments.
So get with the times.
One more? Thank you.
You were so quick there's
time for one more
and this gentleman's
been so patient.
>> Thank you.
Are you going to buy the pink hotel?
And if not, why not?
>> We're going to have a little
collection box on the way out.
I just need 25 million.
And I know it's in here somewhere.
You get to go Cuba, you get to bring
your friends down, it is the going
to be the best fishing
in the entire world.
You know why?
For 50 years nobody's
been allowed to fish.
They don't want them in boats.
You know what happens.
They drift.
So, the great thing
about a dream is,
it doesn't really matter
if it comes true or not.
It's about having it.
So I have the dream.
If it's suppose to
come true it will.
But I'm enjoying having it.
So I hope all of you will
embrace some more of your dreams
and realize just have
them for the hell of it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, thank you.
>> This has been a presentation
of The Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.