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Piers Morgan Live
Interview with David Carr, David Simon; Hail to the Chefs
Aired July 25, 2013 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST: This is PIERS MORGAN LIVE. I'm Anthony Bourdain, host of CNN's "PARTS UNKNOWN." In tonight for Piers.
Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I also want to welcome our studio audience.
Tonight, chefs, drugs, national security and grownups, and I can promise you this. No royal babies. Also no Weiner jokes -- maybe. I got nothing against either but we've got other things to talk about, like this country's war on drugs and what I think is a fair question. Would we be better off if we just legalize them?
Also Washington's NSA hijinks. I'll talk about both with some of the smartest guys I know. The two Davids. The "New York Times'" David Carr and David Simon, creator of "The Wire."
And chefs gone wild. I'll share my favorite cocktail with my special guests Eric Ripert and Mario Batali.
And god help us, cronuts.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
Joining me now David Carr from "The New York Times" and David Simon, the creator of "The Wire" and my boss on Treme.
DAVID SIMON, CREATOR, THE WIRE: Briefly.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Too briefly.
BOURDAIN: It's been 40 years since Nixon declared war on drugs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: David Carr, as you described at length in your harrowing memoir, your drug of choice was crack cocaine. My drug of choice for many years was heroin. All of these years later, 40 years of drug war, would either of us have difficulty anywhere in the United States finding our former drug of choice within 45 minutes?
DAVID CARR, COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think you and I could walk out of here and within about 90 seconds of yelling, looking, at least someone come toward us and probably somewhere within five minutes of that, probably west of here, we'd both be able to take care of whatever we needed.
BOURDAIN: And from what I'm reading and what I'm hearing, that would be just as true in South Bend Indiana, Portland, Maine, or just about anywhere in the United States.
CARR: It's more true than ever the spread of drugs to rural areas both opiates and crystal meth has been -- I mean, it's gone very viral. This used to be something if you want to develop the kind of hobby that you had or I had we'd have to go to a big place. Now you can sit in Mayberry and the drugs will come to you.
BOURDAIN: Now look, half of the world's incarcerated people, half of the total prison population in the world are allegedly in jail for non-violent drug-related purposes. We surely haven't skimped in locking people up department. All these years later, who is winning this war, David Simon, and who are the casualties of this?
Well, you suggested that it is in fact a war -- a class war rather a drug war.
SIMON: Yes, there are a lot of losers. I mean, you know, we're paying for it. Society as a whole. Certainly the underclass, people of color particularly in this country are the chow, that are being chewed up by this war.
I think the only people who are winning right now are those select stockholders and officers of those companies that have created a for-profit prison industry that actually, you know, has figured out a way to monetize this and worse than that they're taking their profits and they're lobbying legislatures to become even more draconian.
And if it was draconian and it worked you could have sort of an intelligent conversation about whether it was worth it or not to destroy this many lives for policy. But it's draconian and it doesn't work. The drugs are pure. They're available in far greater -- you know, more places. It's astonishing how much failure you can build in 40 years and still keep going.
BOURDAIN: What about decriminalizing them? Just give it up and say, look, war -- let's declare the war over and attack this from --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: A treatment situation.
SIMON: Just ignore them. I mean, in the sense of stop locking people up. I don't -- I'm not particularly interested in watching whatever misadventure would be an attempt to legislatively legalize drugs. I mean, you can imagine the astonishing stupidity that what would happen as that went out of its way through state legislatures or even the U.S. Congress.
But if you stop doing more damage and you put the money to other things to try to integrate one America with the other economically, just throw it at job training, you couldn't do much more damage than you're doing right now and achieve so little. So the idea of actually having an argument about the law is almost futile in this kind of -- you know, don't be anything but negative on drugs.
BOURDAIN: In "The Wire Season Three," a commander -- a police commander declares a de facto moratorium on enforcing drug laws in Baltimore. He calls this free-fire zone "Hamsterdam." Let's take a look at what that looks like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear the WMD, by chair, by chair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear the WMD is the bomb.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: WMD by chair, by chair.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: WMD.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give me two, yo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: WMD right here WMD, right here. WMD, right here. Right here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: So, David Carr, why do you think if we have had actual Hamsterdams, what would America look like or do we have them already?
CARR: Part of the problem is drug addiction tends to be a serial matter and it's not easy to fix and people say treatment doesn't work, and in fact it doesn't. I went to treatment four times and went back and used, and then somehow magic number five, I sobered up, I got lucky, I hit the jackpot and I've been paying taxes ever since, raising kids, going to school board members, sitting in church like a normal human being.
The money that got sunk into me back in the day has been paid back. You can argue about the importance or advocacy of the work that I do but it's better what I used to be up to. And I do think that for people to say that I'm -- that incarceration is any kind of fix that it does anything other than manufacture rage and market, a feeling of hopelessness among a huge class, I mean I think it's interesting who gets locked up. You and I had fairly good careers doing what we did. I mean, I went to jail, but I never went to prison.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
CARR: I don't think that -- I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm a white person.
BOURDAIN: Nor I.
SIMON: You know, this drug war has gone on as long as it has because it's targeted people of color. If they were locking up white folk at the rate that they've been locking up people in this country, it would -- it would end it a long time ago. As a matter of fact one of the reasons you'd start to see opposition to drug war start coalescing is things like the sentencing guidelines and the fact that, you know, with methamphetamine, as David says, in the west, you know, you're starting to see white folk getting locked up.
But what I was concerned about -- what I am concerned about is that if they could somehow take that portion of the drug war that is the most sort of easily rationalized and that deals with white, middle class kids, you know, it's not -- not that they're the only ones smoking weed, but if they could actually get that part out of the equation, they might go on with this despotic policy for another 40 years, chewing up people of color. So what --
CARR: But they will.
SIMON: Well --
BOURDAIN: Surely.
SIMON: And that's what I'm worried about.
CARR: They will.
SIMON: You let those people off the hook and -- it's like the draft. It's like, you know, they got rid of the draft and now we can fight wars of choice wherever we wanted. You know, you get marijuana out of the drug war and they will brutalize the inner cities for another two or three generations. And so I'm really down on the idea of not treating this holistically and systematically and saying what are we doing with drug prohibition.
BOURDAIN: Bummer. I don't -- I don't see it ever -- I don't see anyone running for office in the United States any time soon standing up and saying, I'm for the decriminalization of heroin or cocaine. I don't -- no one will --
(CROSSTALK)
SIMON: I agree -- I do agree that there is no -- there is no political percentage in talking about the legalization, but the idea of decriminalization, the idea of, you know what, let me tell you something. I'm from Baltimore. Right? We got a little bit of a crime problem in my city. And when they started locking up people for drugs at a higher rate, the clearance rates, the arrest rates for all major felonies, for murder, for rape, for robbery, they all went down.
They stop locking people -- you know, we taught a whole generation of police have not to do police work. They go in your pockets and get dope. They couldn't do police work. And that's what we've created is we've actually -- we've actually harmed our ability to police ourselves by wasting our time on this.
And that's -- that's the great tragedy is if you could somehow focus the idea of, you know what, we're going to -- just the guy can pay it. We're going to use the resources for something better, you might have a shot.
BOURDAIN: When we come back, we're going to turn to the NSA's hijinks and I want you to know or I want you to know if you two have a problem with the government looking over our shoulders.
(APPLAUSE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: Six tons, whole sale value?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is over $300 or $600 million.
BOURDAIN: So these are all kilo blocks?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, kilo blocks. One kilo, one life. You can imagine how many -- how many lives in here.
BOURDAIN: Fifteen years ago this would have been what I'd ask Santa Claus to bring me for Christmas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: I'm Anthony Bourdain in for Piers Morgan and I'm talking to "New York Times'" columnist David Carr and David Simon, creator of "The Wire."
The government -- our government has a program or a capability, I guess you call it, called PRISM that vacuums up apparently all data and allows access to online activity, basically your call, hoovers up your call records, presumably as well as hitting for keywords.
Do you have a problem with this?
CARR: Well, whenever I feel somebody's hands up my skirt I'm always sort of interested in what exactly they are trying to find up there. People say well, if you have nothing to hide, why would it bother you?
It doesn't feel good to have people's hands up your skirt unless you invite them, and I do think that our government -- if you have -- if you take the Obama administration which came in with the promise of being the most transparent administration in history, has prosecuted six, now seven times on the Espionage Act, they're pretty fond of their secrets and they're pretty fine being secretive about their secrets.
And I really think it's time -- I'm sad that the House almost got there but not quite, to shine some light in there and just let us at least know what you're up to. You say all you're looking at is metadata. Well, what does metadata mean to you?
BOURDAIN: Well --
CARR: How much you really know about it?
BOURDAIN: What does it mean to you, David Simon?
SIMON: Well, you know --
BOURDAIN: You've expressed somewhat less outrage or certainly less surprise.
SIMON: Right. I think I'm actually being really precise about what I'm concerned about and what I'm not concerned about. You just conflated PRISM with phone metadata and they are actually different programs and they're subject to different laws. And ultimately, phone metadata was not part of PRISM. PRISM is about the Internet. It's about capturing that, and that is targeted overseas allegedly.
That's not -- you know, they're not looking -- they're not authorized to look. What they're actually doing, if you have an actual moment where you show it's being misused, that's another ball of wax, but right now when you talk about, you know, phone metadata, what you're saying to me effectively is that all of a sudden after 30, 40 years of this stuff being legal for law enforcement, for all forms of law enforcement, whether you agree with it or not, suddenly, it is -- we're going to apply a different standard of the Fourth Amendment. I can't get my back up about that.
At this point you can't show me a single American that has been denied his Fourth Amendment rights because the NSA is gathering all of the stuff in a pile on the floor, and running through it.
BOURDAIN: But I mean, I think it's fair to say that you -- one would think that you take a pretty dim view in general of the ability of policy makers to restrain themselves. I mean, can we trust the FISA courts and our officials to not --
SIMON: No. Well --
BOURDAIN: -- misuse this information?
SIMON: My concern is that --
BOURDAIN: Or just access.
SIMON: My concern is about the FISA court and about how little supervision there is. And how it's not an adversarial court. That's really my concern, is there's nobody speaking for civil liberties. You know, there is no adversarial situation. There's no federal public defender who's basically arguing the other side of any of this.
The FISA court I got a lot of problems with, but the idea that government should not have -- you know, I guess what I'm saying is technology is technology, and you can't argue that it's not going to be here or that it doesn't have meaningful uses for law enforcement or counter terror. What you can say is that if it's misused, at that point, you have the opportunity for real reform and it's at that point and the whole notion is this notion that you're going to go from United States of America to a surveillance state at the first misuse.
I mean, you know, our history is replete with, you know, locking up citizens in detention camps at points, or con intel pro or all the excesses of Hooverism or McCarthyism.
BOURDAIN: Well --
SIMON: I mean, it's --
BOURDAIN: This is where I'm not surprised.
SIMON: It's not one moment if we flip over and all of a sudden we're living in Orwell.
BOURDAIN: Ever spy show, every movie that we've ever seen that's ever on television assumes as a basic premise that we're doing these things already. But I don't know, let's say you were an elected official or a candidate with a secret life as an online weenie wagger or a devotee of chatrooms.
CARR: That's outrageous.
BOURDAIN: With (INAUDIBLE) wooden creatures with disgust.
CARR: Would never happen.
SIMON: But they've got that anyway. Tony, they got that anyway.
BOURDAIN: Well, I mean, who knows more about you, the NSA or Amazon?
SIMON: Tony, if they want --
(LAUGHTER)
Exactly. But if they want you, if they -- if they Tony Bourdain, or if they want any politician or any member of the political opposition, you know, a regular run-of-the-mill FBI agent, run of the mill U.S. district court, it gets your phone metadata. They don't need the big pile out in Utah and they wouldn't risk it for that. There is no reason to risk it for that. They can have it any time they want. It's legal under the Constitution and has been for 30 years.
BOURDAIN: So Edward Snowden, good guy or bad guy or edging towards good guy or edging towards bad guy in your estimation.
CARR: I was talking with someone not that long ago and I was making a big long stem-winding, civil liberties, anti national security speech, and he just looked at me, and he says, who is he to decide? How is he the one that's going to decide what should be known and what should not be known?
My concern is over and over is not that we have a government -- I'm not one of these people who think that there is black whisper helicopters outside my house gathering everything, but I don't have the visibility or the confidence that David has that we're not building a huge turnkey national security apparatus so that maybe not this guy, but when some bad guy or woman shows up in that office, that all they got to do is click it just a little bit to the right and all of a sudden they own me. They own me. They know me.
BOURDAIN: So take a quick and totally non-scientific poll here, anyone here who feels kind of generally sympathetic to Edward Snowden?
(APPLAUSE)
It's not bad. Don't like him at all, enemy of our country, and helping to -- on the side of the terrorism? Don't like him. Cheers? Claps? Wow. So pretty --
(CROSSTALK)
CARR: People feel bad he's been in the airport for a month.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
CARR: We're all been there.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: Right. You're telling me.
SIMON: That is the dumb --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Yes, OK. No, here's the real question. If you had to spend the rest of your life in Russia or Venezuela, where would you pick?
SIMON: I've not been to either place. I really don't feel equipped.
BOURDAIN: Let me answer for you.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: You're the man.
BOURDAIN: Venezuela, you'll eat much better.
SIMON: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: You do not want to spend the rest of your life eating in Russia.
(APPLAUSE)
CARR: Yes, I mean, the good (INAUDIBLE) is crime and punishment. I think that Mr. Snowden in some sense is his own version of patriot and he was motivated to do the things that he did. By good -- but if you saw, once he did what he did, he aligned himself. I mean, if you want to stay at large and do what you do, you probably shouldn't call some guy who's locked in the Ecuadorian embassy in Britain and say, what's my next move --
SIMON: Right. I think he butchered it. And by that I mean, I think Snowden has done some good things we're now talking about all this.
BOURDAIN: Yes, I'm glad I know this stuff.
SIMON: I'm glad it's a public discussion. I think -- I think where he butchered it was I think he had one moral place to stand, which was, are they spying on Americans? If that's your concern that they're violating the Fourth Amendment of your fellow citizens, it's sort of an unlawful order you've been given.
You know, if you're -- if you're a soldier in combat, and you're given -- it's the only reason --
BOURDAIN: (INAUDIBLE).
SIMON: You know, if you believe that, if you believe you're being asked to do something unconstitutional then stand on that and stand in your own country, and argue that, you know, you were -- by revealing this you were not following a lawful order.
When he started getting into the business of sort of going overseas, and he's talking about our capabilities for spying overseas, well, you know, that's kind of what the CIA is there for in peacetime and a war, that you know, if you have intelligence agency, they're supposed to put on the president's desk the best possible information for what is going on in the world.
BOURDAIN: As always, you surprise me. David Carr, David Simon, thank you.
Coming up, chefs gone wild, my pals Mario Batali and Eric Ripert.
(APPLAUSE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we have a chili pepper made with cashew nuts, ants -- these are ants. ERIC RIPERT, EXECUTIVE CHEF, LE BERNARDIN'S: Wow, they're huge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're huge ants.
RIPERT: OK. I should try it?
BOURDAIN: Yes, yes, totally. You're not loving it, are you?
RIPERT: No.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. What do you think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my god. Delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, everybody. It's going back. It's supposed to be in your belly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: I could watch that all day. I'm Anthony Bourdain and guest hosting for Piers. And that was Mario Batali wrecking havoc on ABC's "The Chew." He's of course also an author and one of my favorite chefs and he's here along with another of my favorites Eric Ripert, executive chef of Le Bernardin's.
Chefs have become celebrities. Is that a good thing? Look, we've seen -- I'm not going to go into the whole Paula Deen thing, but we've seen one TV chef's career pretty much vaporize overnight to what really amounted to -- what started anyway with accusations of maintaining what -- I think could be charitably called a hostile work environment.
And yet here's the biggest, most successful celebrity chef going, someone you may know by the name of Gordon Ramsey.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON RAMSEY, "HELL'S KITCHEN": Kevin, are you -- you wonder why I go a little bit (EXPLETIVE DELETED). It's in front of you. This is all taking place naturally. Oh, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me. Every (EXPLETIVE DELETED) table I'm getting screwed.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BOURDAIN: Is that appropriate workplace behavior? I --
(LAUGHTER)
I ask you. I mean, look, should chefs be role models or should they just make good food?
Mario Batali, what do you think?
MARIO BATALI, TV HOST, ABC'S "THE CHEW": It depends. I would say there are ways on creating a workplace where you get better results, and there are two ways to look at it. One is the beat them with a stick until their behavior improves, and the other one is to coddle them along and hopefully course them into the good way by being nice to them.
In the old days when cooks were pretty much just this side of slaves, there was a lot of beating going on in the traditional old -- old brigade kind of way.
BOURDAIN: Yes, the French we should point out.
BATALI: Right. There's the French, as a matter of fact, started that.
BOURDAIN: Yes. His fault.
(LAUGHTER)
RIPERT: Come on, guys.
BATALI: But no -- but now in the 21st Century, you -- there's a -- it's a lot smarter group of people working in a kitchen, and they won't take that kind of a beating and it becomes counterproductive.
BOURDAIN: Yes, but don't you kind of miss the old days? I mean, you're a product of that system. I mean, you yourself, you were a victim of that system of --
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Marco Pierre White --
BATALI: Marco Pierre White -- eat risotto at my chest.
BOURDAIN: I heard he poured it down to your pants.
BATALI: No. That's -- it was later, much later.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: Deeply traumatizing experience and you certainly were a product of that system, and in fact you yourself, at some point in your career early on as a chef, well, you were a miserable son of a bitch yourself, weren't you, Mr. Ripert?
RIPERT: Yes, I was. And I --
(LAUGHTER)
And look, I learned the hard way because the smart guys of the team left me and I lost most of the talent at Le Bernardin's at the time. And I learned that you have to beat the team and to beat the team you have to show respect to your staff, take care of them, nurture them, and the guy was shaking like that and scared cannot cook better than the one who's inspired to cook for someone, right? So I believe yes, we have to be role models because it's the right thing to do and also practically it's better for the team. I mean, they cook better.
BOURDAIN: So it's all -- it's like a hippie commune in kitchens now. It's all peace and love?
RIPERT: Love and kiss and stuff like that. You can't not discipline, too. I mean, you have to have a strong discipline. Actually, if you don't have a strong discipline some of the staff sometimes become abusive and some of the staff just shut down. So the role of the chef is to keep the discipline in the kitchen and that's where we can go on.
BOURDAIN: What about saving the planet and other concerns like that? Do you have as a chef, are -- are you in the pleasure business principally or should you care about, oh, I don't know, sustainability, cruelty to animals?
I mean, where does it end? I mean, are you principally in the pleasure business? Shouldn't you care first about presenting the most delicious tomato at a reasonable price point? Or should you care whether, you know, that tomato might possible cause tumors in lab rats?
Does -- does it matter?
BATALI: Well, I certainly don't think you want to be serving cancerous food to your customers, if you know what that is. But I would say that if you're really thinking about the good of the planet, I mean, there's two ways to look at it for me.
I think that on one hand, I think that it would be smart of me to drive the biggest, most gas guzzling car I can because I will help us get rid of our addiction to oil, because I'll get rid of it. But then in the back of my, I'm not sure what -- if we take it all the way, will it be good?
In the food world, it would make a lot more sense if we responsibly use the products that we use so they're sustainable.
BOURDAIN: I know you think about this all the time.
RIPERT: Yes.
BOURDAIN: And the bright (ph) eye (ph), you know, this -- you serve all these sustainable -- sustainable fish. RIPERT: For sure, I mean, if you know that one species is becoming depleted or endangered, obviously, you don't want to serve it because you have responsibilities, not only as a chef, as -- as a human being living on this planet. You -- you want to make sure you're responsible and inspire people to do the same.
Therefore, our children and grandchildren will be able to eat species that are today, sometimes, on the verge of disappearance.
BOURDAIN: What if there's only one blue fin tuna left on earth and it's really beautiful, it's already dead. You know, they just hauled it up in front of you.
It's -- it's the last one on the planet and they cut it open...
(CROSSTALK)
BATALI: If it's the last one on the planet, I'm certainly not serving it. I'm eating it.
BOURDAIN: You're eating it.
RIPERT: Me, too.
BOURDAIN: Guys, you're such bad boys.
BATALI: Well, it's the last one. And there it is. What -- you're going to -- you're going to chill out and put it in the museum.
BOURDAIN: What about looking after your customers like, you know, bartenders who continue to serve alcohol to alcoholics. What if like Frank Boonie (ph), the former "New York Times" food critic comes in, you know he's gout.
And he asks for a double order of wagrati (ph), you say, sorry, man, I -- I just can't do that to you, dude, you know. Cease and assist. Are you in that business, too, that you've got to look after...
BATALI: I -- I don't think that's the responsibility so much...
BOURDAIN: If they want to kill themselves with food, it's OK with you?
BATALI: Right, but not alcoholic, yes. It's a kind of a funny day cutting (ph) me (ph) back (ph).
RIPERT: Yes, we -- we don't serve alcohol to someone who's drunk at a restaurant. Now, if you want more portions of chocolate cake, it's your problem.
BOURDAIN: So you wouldn't cut them off?
BATALI: Of course not. They're just ordering cake.
BOURDAIN: Well, what about business, the military readiness issue? I actually -- this is the one area, the one issue that me and Ted Nugent agree on.
In every other way, we disagree on absolutely everything as I think any reasonable person would. But we -- we agree that -- that maybe this is a military readiness issue, you know.
How are we going to -- how are we going to raise a giraffe or smoke terrorists out of their holes if we're -- we're too fat to squeeze in after it?
BATALI: Even with -- even with we were skinny, we were not doing a very good job at smoking the terrorists out of their holes. But we were all skinny.
I don't think it's a military readiness issue. I don't think that there's really going to be hand-to-hand combat too often in our future.
BOURDAIN: Really? So I should really -- I should have another piece of cake?
BATALI: Have another piece of cake. You could have six or seven more pieces of cake, dude. You're looking good.
BOURDAIN: All right, well, look, speaking of feeding alcohol to alcoholics, when we come back, we are going to be sharing one of my favorite cocktails.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: So let's face it, I mean, we're friends and all, like you never would have hired me for a prep job. If I hired at your restaurant with my knife kit saying, you know, chef, could I get a job cooking, prepping your restaurant...
RIPERT: But you're too old.
BOURDAIN: Well, OK, at any point in my life.
RIPERT: I think you would be able to boast (ph) to me and get the job.
BOURDAIN: Well, I would have gotten the job but I wouldn't have lasted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: I'm Anthony Bourdain, guest hosting for Piers. And that was from back (ph) Eric on the "Reserve Channel." Back with me now -- two of my favorite chefs, Eric Ripert and Mario Batali.
Oh, we have a question from the audience, from Charice (ph).
QUESTION: Yes, hi, guys.
RIPERT: Hi.
QUESTION: So I -- recently, Taylor Swift left and ate -- a $500 tip on an $800 bill so that's like 62.5 percent. And I was just wondering, what are the rules for tipping?
BOURDAIN: That's a 62.5 percent tip? That's a -- that's pretty good. That's pretty reasonable. That's a good rule. She has (ph) a great rule. So what, when you go out to dinner, what -- what is it? New York City in particular, but across the board, what's an acceptable tip?
What's a good tip? And where do you really start to get into offensive?
BATALI: I think 20 percent is pretty much the standard. I generally tip between 20 and 30 percent, depending on what or where I'm at. I mean, if it's an $18 check, if it's not that outlandish, to leave $40 on the table.
BOURDAIN: Yes, what do you...
RIPERT: That's true. I -- I do the same. I mean, I leave about 20 percent. It's easy to calculate. And then if it's -- if it's (ph) a breakfast and the bill is very inexpensive, I leave more.
BOURDAIN: Yes, it's got to be pretty spectacularly bad service for me to go below 20 percent.
BATALI: Right.
BOURDAIN: And I think also people should know, the -- the biggest sin in my -- by my (ph) way (ph) is taking out on the floor staff or a waiter your unhappiness with the kitchen. So that's -- don't do that.
That said, when was the last time you got bad service?
BATALI: I don't get bad service anywhere. And I'll tell you why. Let me tell you why because I walk (ph) in and I say, hi. I'm here to have a good time.
And you can help me. And if I -- instead of weighing out all of my bad week or whatever problem I might think that I can resolve here dinner, I just want to participate in the experience.
BOURDAIN: And I'm sure you -- you disappear into that crowd of other guys with shorts and clogs.
BATALI: Very nicely.
(APPLAUSE)
BOURDAIN: Let's -- I promised a festive summer cocktail for you guys and this is something that is spread most like an evil virus from you, to me, to Eric. You taught me about this drink, the negroni.
RIPERT: The negroni.
BOURDAIN: And you started drinking them.
RIPERT: Yes.
BOURDAIN: And men, they're good. What's in this cocktail?
RIPERT: This is one-third gin, one-third sweet Italian vermouth and one-third campari. And there's a lot of rumors about how or who invented it.
My favorite is that Salma George Ali (ph) and Luis Bunuel (ph) on the set (ph) -- the set of Ocean and Delu (ph) created a mixturing that had no mixer.
BOURDAIN: I heard it was Charles Negroni (ph) who -- who the Americana was not strong enough. In any case, here is a really important question.
RIPERT: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I mean, it's bitter. There's a sweet element. Your first sip, if you've never had one before, you think, I don't like this and then a few sips later, it's like -- you (ph) say (ph) later, like (ph) where are my pants and how did I get here?
BATALI: And how did we get to bologna (ph) anyway?
RIPERT: Right. Three alcohol is in one, you know that...
BOURDAIN: Yes, and it sneaks up like because they're -- they're good before dinner. They're good after dinner. How many negronis is too many?
RIPERT: Personally? Three. Two, you still remember the experience.
BOURDAIN: Right.
RIPERT: Three, you stop...
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Danger zone.
RIPERT: Yes, memory (ph).
BOURDAIN: Would you agree with that?
BATALI: I think that's a little short to be quite frank.
BOURDAIN: All right, speaking of -- of drunken behavior or allegedly drunken behavior, in -- in news that's captivated America, one of the burning issues of the day, one of my favorite artists, Justin Bieber was filmed recently going through the kitchen of -- of an operating nightclub, a -- a busy kitchen and apparently chose to relieve himself into a mop bucket in the actual kitchen itself, in front of the kitchen staff, more of the point, left a mess for, you know, the night cleanup guy, the morning dishwasher.
Surely, you don't approve of this sort of behavior. What would be the appropriate response (ph)? Were you the chef at this establishment and young Justin Bieber decided to stop at your kitchen to relieve himself to siphon the python into the mop bucket...
BATALI: Into the mop buckets.
BOURDAIN: ...how would you respond?
RIPERT: I would have brutally kicked his ass.
(APPLAUSE)
RIPERT: I would grab him by the ear and...
BATALI: I mean, that's -- that's -- that's not just being funny and flip. That's actually peeing on somebody's workplace. That's odd.
RIPERT: Yes.
BATALI: That's weird. That's just -- I think he just needs a wakeup call. I don't think he's an evil kid. I just think (ph) -- the real question is, what if your buddies put that on the internet?
BOURDAIN (ph): Well, yes.
BATALI: It was one of his pals that were there, right?
BOURDAIN: Yes.
BATALI: You know, the boys (ph) or whatever.
BOURDAIN: Forty-four billion (ph) Bieber freaks are going to be like now, setting (ph) you (ph) -- Bielbebers are going to be, you know, they're like, bronies (ph) but worse than -- they're going to be -- they're going to be sending you nasty -- nasty mailbox.
BATALI: No, no, because you can't defend that. You can't defend someone...
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: Well, you can and they (ph) will (ph)...
BATALI: I'm sure he really didn't realize it's a mistake. It's a mistake. He made a mistake. And they're going to cut him a break because he's a famous guy. And...
RIPERT: He's drunk and stupid.
BATALI: Well, he's not supposed to be afraid to use...
(CROSSTALK)
BOURDAIN: You know what, no matter how drunk and stupid I've ever been in my life, I never, you know...
RIPERT: Pee (ph) in a bucket?
BOURDAIN: All right, last question. Guilty pleasure -- I mean, by guilty pleasure, it's 3:00 in the morning. Many you had one too many, the bronies (ph), what -- what dirty, shameful thing do you find yourself craving to eat?
BATALI: I feel no guilt about pleasure, first of all. But second of all, a greasy cheese steak is, for me, one of the greatest things. It's the -- not USDA prime beef, cooked on a griddle, covered with cheese wiz and onions and...
BOURDAIN: I'm with you.
What about you?
(APPLAUSE)
RIPERT: I -- I guess I (ph) need (ph) guilty pleasure when it comes to food.
BOURDAIN: Yes, yes, yes. But let me -- so you're drunk. What are you eating? What are you...
RIPERT: I -- I always have spicy chorizo, cucumber (ph)...
BOURDAIN: Oh, like we -- don't we all? Oh, you're sitting (ph), the refrigerator with come (ph) on (ph), some cooked too long, no cap'n crunch with crunch berries.
RIPERT: You're just jealous.
BOURDAIN: Little -- little corn beef cash out of the can.
RIPERT: I think what he's talking about Tony (ph).
BOURDAIN: All right. When we come back, speaking of guilty pleasures, you guys had -- you tried the cronut? You had a cronut?
RIPERT: Yes.
BOURDAIN: You're -- you've had -- you see your post-cronut? You've -- you've had one?
BATALI: I've had a cronut.
BOURDAIN: I'm -- I'm a cronut version. I've never had one. And I'm told, I'm promised, tonight's my night.
BATALI: It's the last thing you're a virgin of. (APPLAUSE)
BOURDAIN: When we come back, the love child of quasanno (ph) donut (ph), cronuts for everybody.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: Humor when as the enterprising reporter for "New York Magazine's" Grub Street who broke the story and helped kickstart cronut mania.
What have you done? What have you done? People are paying a hundred 50 bucks for one of these things? They're promising sexual favors on the internet for -- for just a bite of with (ph), a cronut? Your feelings on -- on this monster-eating (ph) health (ph) food?
You know, I think on one hand, you could say, when Grub Street talks, America listens, you know. But I think that -- that Dominique Ansel is -- is like a -- he's a chef genius basically.
And you know, he wrote the song. And I'm the guy, you know, where the people who just basically put it on the air for the first time, you know. And -- and the spectacle happens.
BOURDAIN: Well, I've never had a cronut. I stare (ph) there shuttering (ph) with unrequited desire for some time, watching the rest of the world get off.
So let's try one, shall we? Chef Ansel is here. And finally, I get to pack my cronut jelly. Cronut...
ANSEL: The cronut (ph) -- the DKA (ph).
BOURDAIN: DKA (ph). OK, cronut first. What -- what is a cronut?
ANSEL: So a cronut is a -- something we launched on the menu in (ph) May (ph). It's a hybrid between croissant and a donut. So it's like it's very light.
The outside is -- is deep fried in grapeseed (ph) oil. And it's spilled with cream and finished with a glaze. We change the flavor every month.
And we've been receiving like good comments from people.
BOURDAIN: People are waiting hours for the -- god, it's good. Oh, god, it's really good. Why don't you make more of this? I mean, you only make 300 a day, you know, people, you know, begging on the windows, sleeping on the sidewalk.
ANSEL: You know, it's (ph) one bakery. And we just launched the -- the cronuts about eight to nine weeks ago. So it's still pretty new on the market.
We've been -- inspiration (ph) like -- by -- by and large since we -- we started it. We first started it, we made 50 and then 75 and hundred.
And now, we are two to 300, 250 (ph) a day.
BOURDAIN: But I mean, you -- you -- I know your career a little bit. You have a long and distinguished career baking a full variety of pastries and delicious things.
It's pretty much going to say creator of the cronut on your headstone. You do make other stuff like...
ANSEL: This -- this is -- it's called a GKS (ph). So it stands for Dominique's School (ph). The outside is -- the outside is caramelized. And the inside -- and the inside is flaky.
And there's layers of butter, dough and sugar.
BOURDAIN: This is a traditional...
ANSEL: This is -- this is traditional from Britain (ph) meals (ph), butter (inaudible). And traditionally, they make it in larger size.
There's a lot (ph) of (ph) butter (ph) as (ph) you (ph) go (ph).
BOURDAIN: Wow.
ANSEL: So this is my -- it's much lighter. And this is our bestseller and something we...
BOURDAIN: That's good. Wow. All right, audience, you all have your two pastries, the cronut and the DKY (ph).
(UNKNOWN): DKA (ph).
BOURDAIN: DKA.
ANSEL: There (ph) it (ph) is (ph)...
BOURDAIN: Yes. Only reason I'm doing this show is for the cronuts, by the way.
ANSEL: Yes, I heard you want to try it.
BOURDAIN: I'm terrified (ph). They had -- had to put on a jacket, makeup, but it was all about the cronut man. So here we go. It's voting time.
If you prefer the cronut, pink card up in the air and the DKA (ph), yellow card -- a surprisingly strong performance for the DKA (ph) -- very...
ANSEL: It's hard (ph), if you're in a bakery, people like...
BOURDAIN: That's not a (ph) -- that's...
ANSEL: Sometimes, I get lot of bugs (ph). It's hard to tell. BOURDAIN: That's not a bad place to be because, you know, the cronut is -- sort of benefits from enormous notoriety. It's been copied everywhere.
There's cronut knockoffs happening all across the country. I will tell you, this is an entirely situational thing for me for me.
Generally speaking, the DKA (ph) is exactly what I like in a -- in a pastry. Earlier -- early in the evening, this is what I would be eating.
Late, after a couple of cocktails, standing there in a dirty shirt and my underpants in front of the fridge, after watching a "Simpsons" episode that I've seen around 40 times, cronuts, baby.
So do you have -- do you cut the line at -- at Dominique's Place now that you helped turn this into a Frankenstein monster?
MERWIN: I've cut the line twice. And I'm not proud of myself for doing that. It's a horrible feeling.
BOURDAIN: Hugh, Dominique, thank you very much. we'll be right back.
ANSEL: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: That's it for us tonight. I want to thank Piers for the chance to sit in. And I want to thank my studio audience. I'll be back on CNN in September with a new season of "Parts Unknown." And here is a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: I don't think I have a future in this.
(UNKNOWN): No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: Yes, that hurt. Tomorrow, Matthew Perry guest hosts and sits down with an old friend, Lisa Kudrow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PERRY: So I was doing a Hollywood reporter interview a couple of weeks ago or like a month ago. And it was one of those, hey, I hope I get nominated for an Emmy interviews.
I did not -- it did not work. But I still had to do the interview. And I find myself sort of reminiscing about how much fun the show was and you know, the hours that we worked, and how much, you know, you could see how much we've laughed and everything. And I tell myself saying, if I could -- if I had a time machine, I would like to go back to 2004 and not have stopped, you know?
KUDROW: Yes, no.
PERRY: So I found that -- so just assuming for a second that time machines are just around...
KUDROW: OK.
PERRY: ...would you get a time machine and -- and have stopped? Would you want to change that or...
KUDROW: Yes, I mean, if -- if it were up to us...
PERRY: Yes.
KUDROW: ...you know, like individually...
PERRY: Yes.
KUDROW: ...then yes.
PERRY: You would have kept going or you would have stopped?
KUDROW: Oh, I would keep going.
PERRY: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN: That's Matthew Perry, guest-hosting tomorrow night. And Anderson Cooper starts right now.
