The writer talks about whom he most enjoys cooking for, drinking with Mario Batali in Spain, and whom he'd serve if he could cook for anyone.<br /><br /> <br /> <br />Question: Whom do you most enjoy cooking for? <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Mark <br />Bittman: It's a toss up. My wife is the greatest dining <br />companion and a total joy to cook for and she's a good eater and we really have <br />fun together, but I have to say that my kids, who grew up eating my food and <br />can call and say I'm coming over, could you make something Asian or I'm coming <br />over I need this pasta dish or I'm coming over and could you just -- could we <br />have one of those -- it's really nice and if there are people who don't like to <br />eat I don't want to cook for them. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />I don't want to <br />have to convince anybody that what I'm making is good. I know it's good. I usually enjoy it. If someone enjoys eating, they'll enjoy <br />eating the stuff I cook. If they <br />don't, something is wrong somewhere. <br />There's not -- Julia Child used to say, "The great thing about <br />cooking is you get to eat your mistakes." <br /> <br />The thing is <br />that if you take care in cooking and if you know what you're doing, even a <br />little bit, unless you burn something there are very few things that wind up so <br />bad that you can't enjoy them. <br />Very few. So I mean I'm <br />lucky enough to have been doing this long enough and writing about it and <br />learning from other people and thinking about it so that generally speaking the <br />stuff I do is pretty good and the people I cook for tend to enjoy it. But I said before it's not brilliant, <br />it's not earth shattering it's just good food. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Question: What was it like hanging out with <br />Gwyneth Paltrow and Mario Batali in Spain? <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Mark <br />Bittman: Well, Mario and I have known each other <br />probably ten years and we've gotten increasingly busy, so we don't see each <br />other that much. So it was really <br />a treat to hang out so much and I know from my -- the people who -- I was going <br />to say my fans, which I guess is right, but anyway. I know from people who've watched "Spain on the Road Again" <br />and my other TV shows that everybody thinks that TV is the most fun thing in <br />the world and everybody's completely jealous of, "Oh, well you got to hang <br />out with Mario and Gwyneth and who's that beautiful woman and the food in <br />Spain must be so amazing." <br /> <br />The <br />fact is television is a tremendous amount of work. And for every minute on screen there is an hour of <br />work. So for every 60 minutes on <br />screen, there's a week of work and it really is like that. So we did a huge amount of driving and <br />there's a lot of setup time and not exactly rehearsal but figuring out what <br />we're going to do. So none of that <br />was my favorite part. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />My favorite part <br />was nighttime when everything was done and we all got drunk together. So that was really great and Mario, of <br />course, can drink anyone under the table. <br />I think he'll admit to this, maybe it's not an admission, I think he'll <br />be proud of this. Whereas I can't <br />drink anyone under the table plus I go to bed earlier than anybody else. I go to bed earlier than anybody. <br /> <br />So we'd finish <br />the shoot, we'd have a bite to eat, we'd have a fair amount of wine. It would be 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, I'd go <br />to bed. Mario would be up until <br />four in the morning. Everyone else <br />was waking up with black eyes and broken shoulders, he was always in great <br />shape. So that was sort of what it <br />was like. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Question: If you could cook for anyone, living <br />or not, whom would you serve? <br /> <br />Mark <br />Bittman: So I could say I would cook for Adolph <br />Hitler and serve him poison. I <br />could say that. I could say quite <br />sincerely -- see I don't think you could influence people really, I mean I -- <br />the obvious answer, an obvious answer is well, I would cook for President Obama <br />and set him straight on a number of issues but he's already got a lot of people <br />setting him straight. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />I think the people I'd most like to cook for would be my maternal <br />grandparents, who I loved very much and have been dead a long time and who I <br />think, in some ways, were responsible a lot for my personality and a lot for <br />the way I handle myself and also for my love of food and saying that makes me <br />think I should go cook for my parents more often than I do. They're alive, fortunately, so I'm <br />going to go and [do that]...
