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Marcus Samuelsson Interview · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Real, for real celebrity joined the Breakfast Morning. Everybody is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: DJ Envy Angela yee, Charlemagne the guy. We are the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club now, Angela ye, Charlemagne. I make a world
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: class renowned omelet, ham and cheese style and style now
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: is kind of close to my omelet. His cooking style
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and cooking ways. All right, Andy, just shut it up.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: We got Marcus Samuels in here. How are you thank
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you for having me? The name of the show is
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, yea, yea yeah. I appreciate the foods,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you say, with dad's lunch dinner. Yeah, but baked chicken, vegetables,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: ground rice is the Breakfast Club. I thought it would
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: be some scrambled I gotta come back with some chicken
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and waffle for your dare you can't do that? French
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: told I got you. Don't assume we like chicken just
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: because we're black. What we do like chicken because it's good?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Bird Culenar grad you. No, he claims to be a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: chef five years, he's never bought edition. Does he bring breakfast? No,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: we've never had anything. Having all these chef coats bad now, MICUs,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I tell you he likes you. He can't stand chef Roby,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: though Roby's good, A bunch of fun facts about you
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and talks about Marcus. Marcus cooked sent Obama. Listen, listen,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm up. So I brought I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: brought the wrong meal. The club was rude to the producer. Wow,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this is a tough morning talk about to meet your
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: gay president Obama. It was a good state, not meet me. Yeah,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: it was a good meal. We're growing. It was a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: good meal. But you know, just my luck I cooked
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the meal where there was all the controversies, like you know,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: when the lady crashed the party, that was my meal.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's my luck. I get the chance to
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: do it, and I have to do it that time,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: so nobody wanted to eat when no, it was good,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: good dinner was good. I cooked a good cooked the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Indian meal, a lot of vegetables, and we used to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: missus Obama's vegetable garden. It was good. It was a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: good meal. I thought it was steak though, state dinner,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: State state stay. I thought you thought about prime wrong.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, when did the steak become an Indian meal?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought it was screamed heat,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: stay united. Got you eat Indian food all the time?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I did, you know what. You're not wrong though, because
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: when the President came to Red Rooster, I did cooking steak,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: so maybe you were there made I just actually thought
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he said steak dinner. No, it was I cooked from
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a bunch of times when when he came up to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the restaurant, I did cooking steaks. Steaking behind you when
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you when you cook those secret starts, watch over you
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: make sure you don't put on the recording and stuff.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: They're with me right now. Actually they're right here in
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the state. No, but it's a it's a lot of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: things that you got to go through, and you know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of course you're cooking for the man. It's it's it's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a big deal. I was nervous. I tell you, I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: was more nervous when he came to the restaurant because
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's you just don't want anything
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to go wrong. You try it first to make sure
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it's not poison. Yeah, a lot of a lot of tasters.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: That should be a good job for you to be
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: like a professional taster. Nobody said he just called he
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: just cuts you fat. Chef, chef, chef, now you want
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: just to taste she chef. That's horrible. I'd be hearing
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: things that you can see I clearly can't hear. Are
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: you guys coming to hallow meat up harm this week?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And oh what now? I lost of all I will
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: come to that. I don't know about these guys. President
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Clinton is coming, like all of Harlem's coming out cooking
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: classes for free. Me dips it, no, no, no, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: none of my chef friends are coming around sun She's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: going to give a cooking class for free. Bobby Flay,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be no, He's coming every How do we
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: get in these cooking classes? Though? If we want to,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you go to Morningside Parks from from noon to eight o'clock.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be cooking classes. It's gonna be seminars. We're
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: bringing thousands of thousand people uptown to just you know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: to celebrate hallow Meat Up. Every restaurant in Hallam is participating,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: just showing that we can do it too. I love
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Hallom restaurants right, love Sylvia's Amy Roofs Red Rooster. I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: don't really really oh my fault, but I like it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It's the seafood restaurantood restaurant. That boy, that's about to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: get you fat scrimps, and you have to come up
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to a new one. The street Bird restaurants all based
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: on hip hop and graffiti, like rotisserie chicken places. We
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: just opened it, you know, easy takeout and you know
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it's really cool. Can you sit down and have drinks there?
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Take out? Okay? Both you can? You have a fifty
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: seats and then you can go, you know, deliver to you.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Is funny to come there too. Yeah, we don't also
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: come to the comedy shows there all kinds of music,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. Always a good DJs. And I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: think you guys like if you don't like, I think
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you like street bird screetbirds, and like yellow and the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: cooking pigeons. No chicken. We just have some like good
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: like roasted chicken where it's good. Pigeon's actually amazing and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: street birds yeah, not pigeons. Why do you come up
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: with that name? The street is you know, the whole
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: thing is inspired really by old school graffiti and hip
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: hop culture, so it's a little bit street and then Bird,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I love bird, you know, so we are
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: like you know, from rundem Sea to NASA. I just
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: picked that era between sort of like early eighties to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: early nineties of hip hop. That that's there that I
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: love about hip hop music. And then graffiti is the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: same way. You feel like people's eating habits are changing
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, definitely, definitely, and and more people are
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: want to eat delicious and yummy of course, but it
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: will also tell theater. You know, you do you hire
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: your only family members because you have eighteen brothers and sisters,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: so you could just hire your family. I do hire locally, though,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I do absolutely. You know, half of my you know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: about eighty percent of my staff comes from Harlem. And
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that's the good thing really with things like Ruster and Sylvia,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: as the restaurants are in the community and create jobs
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: for us. You can't really outsource a restaurant job, you know.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So with all the restaurants coming up and you know,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: opening in Harlem, that means it's more jobs created. It's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: really hard to keep a restaurant in business, though. I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: think there what was the statistics of restaurants that open
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and the percentage of them to close? Yeah, I mean,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like I don't know any business America that is easy
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a restaurant business. Yeah, it's hard, but you know, I've
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: been very fortunate. I've had my place for many, many years.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And unless this guy stops, I want to stay in business.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I just want to shut a brother down, like exactly.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Oh you know, I meant to perform. Yeah, I've seen
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you somewhere. You got maybe on TV. Real tall wife. Yeah,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: she's way taller than you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: not that he's a famous Cheff, but I was with
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: this chaff. The fact that he's a fam I was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: with this chick who was taller than me. Was it
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: your wife? No, it wasn't. Actually it was years ago,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and she thought that we was gonna have a future together.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So she was giving them as an example of us
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: being together because he's short and she's mad tall and
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: your short. What just happened? I just thought about it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, say, bring Cheff in the corner, come up.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: There's nothing to do with them. Eat up festival, Eat
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: up Ethiopia. I was born in Ethiopia, grew up in Sweden.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: That's I mean, it's the irony because you know the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: stereotype of Ethiopia. Yeah, the kids over there starving. I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: mean of course some of them are. Yea, a lot
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: of them are. But I would this guy, I would say,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you know, honestly, after they showed here in America, it
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: is right right, but it's you know, Ethiopia is completely different,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: just like just like in America. We have a lot
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: of web About ten million kids every day in America
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: go to bed hungry. So you know, yes, it's it
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: was really bad in Ethiopia, but it's you know, it's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: tough here too. That's one of the reasons you wanted
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to get into like cooking. Yeah, absolutely, I mean to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: make it different, you know, I really I love that,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I answer. He just laughs, where are you you? No,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: don't stay over there, come through you and I went
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to cooking school. Producer said he never gets pictures, He said,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: can I and you try to slide in a picture
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: with me and Marcus at some point? Have you have
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: you have a cooking somebody who didn't like your food? Yeah, yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: happens all the time, all the time. But people people
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: take it's very different. You know, You're just like and people,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: especially in New York and Holland, people are very upfront.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Hey I didn't like this, so you just got to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: take it to humble beginning on a humble journey. You
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: gotta watch for exactly a lot of people do that. No,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to start a rumor here because people
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: don't say you said it on the radio like this.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: You guy really want to shut me down? No, no, no, yes,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: black oh bop, let's go, let's go. It says, uh, yes,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: your mom walked seventy five miles to Yeah. Yeah, she
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: did walk from the village to the hospital. Me and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: my mom and my sister had tuberculosis. We survived, and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: then we got adopted to Sweden. It was really in Sweden.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I started as a family there. Yeah, I was a kid.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: She carried me. I didn't send yeah long. Yeah, so
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: she died on the way she did. Yes, she did
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: actually die in the hospital. So you know, TV was
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a big tuberculosis big thing back then, so it still is.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Actually in Ethiopia. So you write a book, sir, Yes,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: yes Yef, I did number one best selling, number one number, Yes, Jeff.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: The book is called Yes Yef. I'm gonna send it
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to that girl and try to explain for you. Marcy
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Salmon's a pretty Salmonson's a pretty big deal. This guy's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a pretty big deal. I don't know if you're aware,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: actually game I come back. I can't even many friends.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't know he was coming today. I'm what man like,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't know you don't read emails. Nice, thank you, sir. Nice.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna read Marcus you'd like to read. It's a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: short book. Yeah, I'm a foreigner. I made it very
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: easy for us to read. Yeah. But I did show
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: up to Red Roosted when you first open. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I went like the first week that it opened. A
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of us can because we were excited, were
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: like marksman is interest and you were there, yeah, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you were coming to every table saying do you like it?
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Do you like it? And I feel like the menu
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: has changed a lot. Yeah, we got to evolved, you
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: know when Harlem has changed too. So but we're still
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: doing as the supper club at Jenny's. We always have
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: music down there, and you know that was the whole
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: idea with Hall of Meat Up, to do something to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: celebrates just food, our culture and music and art. So
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: tell us about Harlem eat up is because I know
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people go. I already tweeted about it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and a lot of people are asking, Okay,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: so what is the whole festival has got to confuse
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: exactly what it is. A lot of lesbians and ham
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: they don't, well, they should come up town because we
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: haven't make them not that confused. It's gonna be it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: really a celebration. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Whether they go up Tune or downtown, They're gonna have
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's gonna be eat, I tell ye.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And now it's just a food festival celebrating all the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: restaurants in Harlem. And you know, like I said, thousands
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of people coming up. Bill Clinton is really the one
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: that helped us put the festival together, and he's coming
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: through on Saturday. And we're just really excited about having
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: thirty top restaurants in Harlem, with the thirty top shots
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in the country coming together, working together. It's happening in
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: our community. And it's affordable, which is baking key for us.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of these festivals always expensive. We want to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: make sure it was affordable. So some things cost ten, ten,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: fifteen bucks, some things are for free. This Bill requires
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: special dishes. Now he's more on the vegan vegget. Now
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: he's eating healthy, so yeah, definitely, he's eat more fish
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and a little bit more vegetarians. So yeah. But before
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: like ten years ago, he ate, you know, he ate
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: more like a southern guy. Got you now? Who your
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: family in Florence to cook? My grandmother, my grandmother really
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: want to help me, you know, like she she believed
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: in me, supported me. My sisters always tried to like
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I'm the youngest one, so they were always on me
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and my grandmother when we sort of cooked together. It
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: was always me and my grandmother against my two sisters.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: And my grandmother always meet. Make sure that I want
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Swedish grandmother, Sweetish grandmother, Swedish grandmother. Yeah, it's a big family.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: That's fun. You know how to make Swedish meat bolls?
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I do? I do you like them? You just smoke
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: swish your sweets? What what? What? What? I smoked? Swish? Sweet?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about what This guy's embarrassing. Man, No, he's good.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I like he's kick stuff. I like to kick you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: with baby nice Gucci print. Wow, I think the print.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Mike's haste that was like this morning,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like, just put them on my well, tell them
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: again about how what restaurant you own, how to get
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: get in touch with you, how they could come check out,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and congratulations on the new come to Street Birdstrie on one,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: sixteen and eighth, that you come up to town this
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: weekend to Harlem Eat Up. It's going to happen all
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: week and from Friday to Sunday, come through. It's going
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to be a fun festival. And Red Rooster and Jennas
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: supper Club and we're gonna have a good time Jimmy's
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Supper Club. Are you an even that after a bird?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: It was actually just Jenny is the old later that
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it's later that we knew, and we just want to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: honor her and have a place of sort of jazz
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and music. Okay, And you can go to Harlem eat
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Up dot com to get more information and Jessa, you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: know the proceeds from the ticket sales will be donated
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: to Harlem Park to Park and City Mills and wheels. Yes,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and thank you for having me come up all right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: next time, Chicken and waffles, Baby, I got you that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Street Bird and Waffles MARKA. And this is the Breakfast Club.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Marcus Samson