Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American-born restaurateur, broadcaster and writer who made food fashionable in Britain, credited with improving restaurants and public enthusiasm for food.
On the island
Eight records
the first choice reminds me of downtown Manhattan because uh I was born in Tarrytown, New York, and uh I very soon uh went downtown to New York because it it's a magnet, you know, for all young kids.
I'd like to play the music from the Ballet Les Fauins, the Moscow Radio Orchestra.
I got fascinated by Weil and all the things he did. And I love that kind of raucous singing voice, speaking voice of his wife, Lottilene.
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Third Movement)
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the London Philharmonic Orchestra
I think that Bartuck typifies that kind of mad, exciting, explosive talent that Paris had in those days.
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves
I think I'll go back to that coronation and play something from the coronation, huh? Because it was that that really made me feel... that fabulous magic of of uh Queen Salati and all the great Kirkhas and God knows what and the costumes and the panoply
I want to go to one of the greatest singers of all time who I really got to love here in her concert. I went every night to her concert uh in London, and it's Peggy Lee, one of the greatest singers.
she sings in the best way possible of all the songs about New York, she sings New York, New York.
Toi qui sus le néant (from Don Carlos)Favourite
I wanted someone who's done with her life what I hoped to do with mine, which is she started out as a very ugly girl, big, fat, pimpled girl from Brooklyn. And she became one of the most beautiful women in the world, and one of the most talented women in the world, and one of the greatest singers in the world.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:56Are you going to be pernickety about the food on this desert island?
I don't think I'm going to find [a three-star restaurant]. This is true. Unless it's a very strange desert island. I don't think I'll be pernickety. I think it's going to be quite exciting to find out just how somebody like me can cope with whatever's there.
Presenter asks
4:04What kind of a family did you come from in New York?
My father was a lawyer and a judge... He was Irish uh descent, and uh my mother was German, and she was a great cook. And a very free and easy lady. She was a great party lady. She was very beautiful. And she treated her three boys like adults.
Presenter asks
9:29How did you stop being the editor of [the newspaper in Paris]?
Oh, it failed. He failed. He'd got what he'd wanted, uh, which is, you know, and uh they just withdrew the money. And uh I s after about a year and a half of very hard work and uh loving it actually. And I sat back like a little king. I'd never asked for a job in my life, right? And I thought everybody was going to offer me a job. Nobody did. So I thought I was a failure, a failure at the age of twenty five.
The keepsakes
The book
Lawrence Durrell
I think I'm going to pick Lawrence Derrell. And I think it's going to be the Alexandria Quartet, because do you remember it's four separate stories of the same people... I could write my own version of the whole thing.
The luxury
a tagine is a great clumsy cooking pot from Morocco... you cook on an open fire, so that's perfect for Desert Island, innit?
Presenter asks
15:20When and why did you first come to Britain?
You won't believe it. But I came to see the coronation... I was in uh Italy at the time and uh ready to go back to America to be honourable and honest when uh friends of mine came on a holiday and I went off with them to uh Ischia, as a matter of fact. They had problems with their business and I kept saying... Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? and they said, Oh, if you'd only come and do it for us And I said, Well, you know, the coronation's on And if you keep very mum about this, I'd love to come for a month and see the coronation and help you with the business, which is what I did.
Presenter asks
19:42What is it like being a restaurant owner, and would you advise people to be one?
I would, because I think it's fantastic. Yes. If you're willing to work very, very hard. And if you're willing to take full responsibility. Nobody can come in the restaurant business and think it's just saying hello to people and having a drink with them, because that's the least of it. The most of the work is behind the scenes. It's like theater, very much like theater.
Presenter asks
26:27What plans do you have for the future, and are you going to go back into the restaurant business?
Do you know, I was just offered one in New York and I was very, very tempted. But I decided that I would withhold for a little bit longer. Because I want to try some whole new career... I've decided in my old age I'm gonna be a painter.
“I want to prove I've never been educated for anything. I've never gone to university. I've never learned to write. I've never learned to cook. I've never learned PR. I've never learned speaking on radio. I want to prove that if you want to do something and you're willing to give it all your attention and willing to give up everything else for it, uh you can do it.”
“I am going to paint very large canvases of food. And of nude women. Because the light falls on female flesh in the most extraordinary way.”
“I just have to rediscover that innocence and that childhood and stop being self-critical. I have to accept that we're children. And that color is it, and that expanse and light is it, and I think I'm gonna have a fabulous time.”