The Restaurant Guys

William Alexander’s $64 Tomato

• The Restaurant Guys • Episode 106

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This is a Vintage Selection from 2006

The Banter

The Guys talk about a big change in NYC restaurant ownership as well as the implications of invasive grass.

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys welcome William Alexander to hear about the trials of being a home gardener and the shocking realization that his home-grown tomatoes cost him $64. 

The Inside Track

The Guys have an amusing conversation with Bill discussing the battles with deer, groundhogs and the neighbor’s cat.

Bill: My latest battle was with the neighbor's cats who insisted on peeing on my organic lettuce. 

Mark:  That's still organic. 

Bill: Well, you know, I think I found a way to get, get even with them. I started to use their litter box. But I think the moral is that no matter what you do, animals are going to get into your garden because of the simple truth: You may be smarter, but they've got more time. 

-William Alexander on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2006

Bio

William Alexander, spent nearly four decades as director of technology at a psychiatric research institute.

Having broken into writing with the critically-acclaimed, bestselling memoir The $64 Tomato, Bill wrote Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World. 

Bill has contributed over a dozen op-eds to the New York Times, where he has opined on such varied issues as Martha Stewart's release from prison, what the honeybee crisis means to the home gardener, the difficulties of being organic, and The Benefits of Failing at French, which achieved the distinction of being the most viewed, e-mailed, tweeted, and Facebook-ed article of the day.

Info

William’s site

https://williamalexander.com/index.php

William’s book

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden

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Mark:

Good morning, mark. Good morning, Francis. How are you this morning? I am dynamite. Boom. I love that one. That's like my favorite intro.

Francis:

If it's, you got kids that think it's funny. Um, uh, restaurant gossip. Have you seen the Tom Collicchio is leaving Gramercy Tavern?

Mark:

I have indeed seen. These are, these are two of the biggest, uh, restaurateurs. I. on the face of the planet, but certainly in New York City.

Francis:

Yeah. Indulge us if you're, if you're listening from outside the listening area and you're not near New York. Gramercy Tavern is a fantastic restaurant. Um, that is where they're, they've both been partners for a long time now. Tom Colicchio has gone on to host top Chef. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then of course his other restaurants are craft. Uh, craft steak in Las Vegas now. Craft steak in New York. Witchcraft, witchcraft, of course, the sandwich shops. And of course, he's just done a bunch of things. Real high profile Chef and owner.

Mark:

And Danny Meyers, a head of a large restaurant group there that owns, he has tabla and a bunch of other restaurants. Tabla 11

Francis:

Madison Park, the Shake Shack. Mm-hmm.

Mark:

and I think that for those of us, uh. Insiders, it's always been kind of curious to us. They had such great success with Gramercy Tavern. Uh, Rader is one of the top restaurants in the country. It's had a really, really nice, long run as, as a really nice restaurant that, that's a really comfortable place that, that Francis and I go to all the time you know, just a nice place to go to with an exceptional cheese course. And the food's always really, really good people eyes. And the people are nice. And so for us it was always kind of peculiar that these two guys, especially when you talk to, to Francis and me, who, uh, though we hate each other's guts, we are, are not breaking up our partnership after 14 or 15 years. But, uh, seriously. I think it was, I think it was peculiar to all of us that these guys went off to do their own projects when they were so successful together.

Francis:

Mark, there's a certified letter for you on your desk when you get back up. Just, just wanted you to know that.

Mark:

Thank goodness. I hope it's an offer. Anyway, uh, so now these guys actually have completely, uh, separated ties, although, uh, it's reported that it's, that it's amicable and that these guys are still get along and

Francis:

Danny Meyer butt out. The, so Danny

Mark:

Meyer now owns, Gramercy Tavern all, all to his very own and continue to run it. So good luck to everybody. Yeah, I think that's great.

Francis:

Sorry for the, uh, local gossip for those listening in Alaska.

Mark:

I'm not sorry we gossip sometimes.

Francis:

Um, here's just something with worldwide implications. Uh, this is from the Associated Press. Um. Remember we were talking with the agribusiness people and they said, listen, genetically engineered crops, there's no problem with them. Don't worry about them. They'll, they'll only stay on the farm. Uh, the grass is escape mark, right? The grass is escaped. It seems as though grass,

Mark:

what's a big deal? It's just grass. What could it do? It's

Francis:

seems as though the grass that was genetically engineered for golf courses is now growing in the wild, posing one of the. First threats of agricultural biotechnology escaping from the farm in the United States. Please

Mark:

note that that reads one of the first threats. Yeah. Because it is only the first of many threats yet to come

Francis:

because of the how, how about the, the pharmaceutical corn? Uh, the mm-hmm. Uh, that, that they're growing. They're trying to grow all genetically modified plants to, to produce drugs in them or genetically modified plants to, to, to change yield. And here's the thing about this, the way modern American. and Canadian by now Iraqi Law, uh, is read is that the company that owns the genetic engineering that owns the genetic bit of code owns any organism in it. That has that code in its DNA. So this grass that the golf course bought, um, escapes. Okay. And is now growing wild. Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, this grass is resistant to Roundup, which is the most popular, herbicide used to, to kill it. Right. So. Now you have this grass that can't be killed or can be killed, but you have to use a much more toxic right now. You need to use something more toxic, overside if you wanna kill it. It's replacing the natural grasses that are normally out there threatening the biodiversity of the planet. And guess what, uh, the people who own, uh, Scott's Miracle grow or, and, and in cooperation with roundups manufacturer. Monsanto, um, own that genetic code. So literally, if that grass starts to grow on your lawn, you and Monsanto says, Hey, yeah, our grass is growing on your lawn. You've gotta pay us a licensing fee.

Mark:

So if you own the golf course next door to the golf course that's growing this engineer, no. If you own the

Francis:

backyard, oh, hold on.

Mark:

Let's, let's start, let's let, and this grass begins growing in on your property. You now. Can be sued by Monsanto for having a grass growing on your property that you didn't plant, that you didn't want, because the wind blew it across from, from one golf course to another. We'll take this the next step. You own the yard next to the golf course, next to the golf course and the the third generation of grass. Now grass seed now blows onto your lawn. Starts crowding out your tomato plants

Francis:

and you go and get, not only

Mark:

do you have an issue with your tomato plants,

Francis:

right, and then you go and get some roundup'cause you don't wanna do the weeding. Mm-hmm. And you spray it on there and it doesn't work. So you gotta pull'em out by hand. But also if your lawn gets crowded out by the creeping bent grass that was genetically modified, which has been modified, uh, by Monsanto and Scott's Miracle Grow, to resist Roundup. Mm-hmm. They can come and say, Hey, you've got our genetic material on your lawn. You need to pass a licensing fee. And the United States and Canadian law has held that up. It sounds unbelievable. Because I think it should be, Hey, your genetic materials on my lawn, get it off. Get, get it off my lawn. But that's not how it works. Okay. Because the corporations have a tremendous amount of control, and I'll refer you to our show that we did on the future of Food. Mm-hmm. Which you can find our on our website, which was. a film produced documentary produced by Deborah Konz Garcia, where she talks in depth about Percy Schmeer, who is the Canadian farmer who took it all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court and the American law is the same. And lost because, and lost because. They own the life form itself, even if it's the child or the grandchild of that life form. So, uh, now the, uh, the to apologist, uh, geneticist says, um, what's his name? Uh, this is not a killer tomato. It's not the asparagus that ate Cleveland said Norman l Strand, a geneticist and plant expert at the University of California know that's coming next.

Mark:

Yeah. But what we, what we do know is in the wild, we're getting hybrids here. Okay. And if we can get hybrids, we can get other hybrids that that can affect. And Francis said this before, the biodiversity of what is in our fields is what? In the wild grasses that are growing in, the grasses that grow on our lawns. In the, in what is in our, on our farms. Okay? For all we know, uh, these grasses could. Uh, it could become stronger than, uh, the corn that's in our fields. And then we have to create something that kills the grass, but doesn't clear kill the corn. And we just keep going down this horrible, horrible cycle

Francis:

here. And now, here's the deal. Uh, and just so you all understand what's going on here, this grass can cross breeded with your grass. Mm-hmm. Making a new type of grass. But since it has that same genetic material, Monsanto still owns it. Okay. Now hold on a second. So and so you have, what if it

Mark:

crossbred with a. A grass that somebody else besides Monsanto owned who would own the new grass with both genetic materials in it, you, you would have to pay licensing fees

Francis:

for the both to both of'em is exactly

Mark:

what would happen. You'd have to pay them both.

Francis:

Um, you shouldn't be able to own life. And if they were 10 of'em,

Mark:

you'd have

Francis:

to

Mark:

pay it

Francis:

to 10 of them. You shouldn't be able to patent life and you shouldn't be able to change DNA and then release it into the environment where this grass can cross with that grass and can cross with that grass and cross with that grass. And remember. Any of these hybrids, they say it can cross with about 10 different species. Mm-hmm. Any of those hybrids that come from, you can get 10 different crosses from 10 different species. We've already got a hundred different things out there. And Monsanto's responsible for the DNA that was created in a laboratory and if it

Mark:

blows on your lawn and grows, you have to pay them or legally,

Francis:

and all I have to say is, does anybody remember kudzu? Okay, kudzu is taking over the south, climbing up telephone poles. You know, it's, it's a menace and at least that was, had a native predator somewhere on the planet. Anyway. Alright, now in just a moment we'll be talking with William Alexander. His book is the$64 Tomato. It's a gardener's memoir about how when he figured it all out, what he spent on gardening his tomatoes wound up costing him$64 a piece. It's a great memoir. Uh, and he'll be here to talk with us in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Hey everybody and welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant guys, mark and Francis of Captain Lombardi and Stage Left Restaurants in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. Um, the$64 tomato is a gardener's memoir. William Alexander's book relates his many trying and many rewarding experiences with his 2000 square foot garden with 22 beds, and I think one of the most interesting points. Uh, welcome to the show, William. Thank you.

William:

Nice to be on the show.

Francis:

I think one of the most interesting points you said is that, you know, after you'd established this 2000 square foot garden with 22 beds and you had a vision of, a Victorian garden in your head, what you realized is the Victorians had a lot of servants.

William:

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that, you know, I think. I think the problem that my, my wife and I had was we looked at this space, try to figure out what to do with this space for two years. And during those two years, for Christmas, for birthdays, for Father's Day, we gave each other large format garden books. The kind we've all seen with titles like Monet's Garden as Veni, and great Victorian Gardens. You know, we're, we're talking about garden porn

Speaker 5:

and in our, in

William:

our, we were young kids of like 43. We, we didn't realize the nuance that every everybody else did, which is of course, one of the things that made great Victorian Gardens great is that they came with great Victorian gardeners,

Francis:

by the way. And those great Victorian gardeners had great Victorian laborers working under the gardeners.

William:

They sure did. They had lots of help. And it was just little old me standing out there in the middle of those 22 beds and 2000 square feet.

Mark:

Alright, recognize that 2000 square feet here in Central Jersey. You, we put like four houses on that. Yeah.

Francis:

So, so now you had, let's, let's talk about, so you decide you are going to take this space and you're gonna make a garden. So you had contractors come in to lay the beds. Why don't you start with your arc, with your initial experience in putting this garden together.

William:

So. Well, we realized the space was, was deeply sloped and it held water like a, like a wet spot. And so we knew that we, that we needed help. And, um, and the woman that came, came over I, I guess it's safe to say that we chose her, not so much for her background in building this type of a garden because she had never. Done that. But um, my wife really liked her beautiful teeth, her great smile, and when she started to speak the Latin names for the plants, I just went head, head over heels. And then the real thing though, was her dirty fingernails. And so she had all the, all the right stuff. It seemed a certain zenner her, as it were.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah.

William:

And then from her, we went to a, a gardener who bore a scary and incredibly remarkably, um, accurate resemblance of the actor Christopher Walken, both an appearance ending in spirit Uhhuh one might say,

Mark:

I don't feel really good about that.

William:

And, uh, well, you know, I, I should have known from the start because my, my wife called him and he appeared at the house like in 90. Seconds. And we all know whether it's a plumber or carpenter or a a, a gardener, the better the contractor the longer it takes to get'em to your house. Right? Yeah. If, if you get'em at, at all.

Francis:

So what happened with these contractors that they didn't work out?

William:

Well, walk-in, um, looked like he was doing a, a good job,

Speaker 5:

Uhhuh.

William:

And uh, until, uh, he got to the point where he was, he was undoing the work of the first con contractor by the way.'cause he, we had to lay. a, uh, four inch steel plate along the edge of the beds because the, a woman who, uh, who had built the garden for us thought that, um, Kentucky blue grass would look beautiful running up the middle of this garden. Well, Kentucky Blue Grass is a weed. It grows by underground runners, and at no time at all, I was spending most of my time weeding, pulling grass out of my beds.

Speaker 5:

Oh, no. So we've gotta

William:

get some, some edging in there. So that's when we called. Walking in and he was doing a great job. And I have to say, having a gardener for a while was great to go to work and come home and see work having been done in your garden while, while you weren't there.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, that's not fair. Was

William:

magical uhhuh and, uh, and things were going fine until he thought that the garden center had shorted him a dozen of the spikes that hold the edging to the, to the ground, and he was ready to grab his AK 47 and go over and settle the score. So we felt it was best to part ways at, at that point, rather than

Mark:

have'em fire off a few rounds in the local, uh, yeah. Herb.

Francis:

So, so how did, how do you wind up getting it finished?

William:

Well, I've spent a lot of time out there. Mm-hmm. You know, all of my leisure time and, well, it's hard to call leisure. I was gonna say,

Mark:

it's not leisure time,

William:

you know, look, it's, it's also a, a labor of love. It's, it's the garden that you, you can't live with and you can't live with without, you know.

Francis:

So now this has become a really important part of your family life, this garden, right?

William:

Yeah. And you know, at one point I, I kind of compare it to, you know, it's like a part of the. family, it's a relative, not so much the beloved. Grandma that you kind of take take care of in her old age, but more like that kind of loud, obnoxious uncle that we all try to avoid at the weddings, who spends way beyond his means. Mm-hmm. And, um, and stands

Mark:

a little too close to you and gets a little saliva on you when he talks.

William:

Exactly, but you know, even so, it's still a member of the family and you know, when, when we take out a better or two, you know, the kids mourn. They, they gave me a real hard time the year that I, I told'em I, I couldn't grow corn anymore. They said, you want us to buy corn at the farm stand

Francis:

now. Now with a, with a garden this size, do you ever get to even go away on vacation in the summertime or does do it require year round tending or all summer long tending. Well,

William:

we sneak a week in here and there, but we have not taken a vacation in August in years, because August is, of course, in the northeast is when everything comes in.

Speaker 5:

Mm-hmm.

William:

You know, the beans and tomatoes and the, and this is nutty. I'll be the first one to admit this. This is nuts.

Francis:

Are, do you work, do you work more hours on your garden or your job?

William:

Um, on my job, I have to say. I'm sitting at my job now, so I'll answer at, at. At my job, but I'll admit that while I'm at my job, my mind isn't always on my job.

Francis:

We, we we're gonna talk more with, uh, William Alexander about his experience planting a 2000 square foot garden why did you call your book the$64 tomato?

William:

Well, let me choose my words very carefully here. Um, this was my wife's fault and she was passing through the garden, won late summer night, and she walked past one of my prize brand new wines and said, oh, what a beautiful tomato. And I said Something not so witty, like, yeah, it ought to be, it probably cost us about 20 bucks to, to grow. And I knew that it did, and it probably cost us. Three or four, though I guess it'd been kind of a, a rough year in the garden. I hadn't gotten many, the groundhog had gotten as many as I had, but it started me thinking what had I actually spent to, to grow those. So that night I sat down, I got back all the records that, uh, of having the garden built and I spread that out over 20 years. That's a good life. So you advertise

Francis:

the, the cost,

William:

advertise it over over 20 years. That's fair. You're

Mark:

gonna have the life of, you're gonna have the garden for 20 years.

William:

GM or someone, I could deduct all those costs in one, one year, but I'm not right. I advertise it over, over 20 years. Looked at what I had spent that year, which was the real shocking part. You don't realize all those Saturday morning trips to the garden center and the, you know, the hedge trimmers you leave out in the rain and all that. Stuff. It just, it, it adds up.

Mark:

For me, it was always the hedge trimmers that I cut the cord on as I was trimming the hedges and went to go back and get that little branch that I had just missed.

Francis:

Mm-hmm. So you really came up with a$64 per tomato cost when you figured it all out.

William:

Yes, that was, that was the cost of each of the 19 brand new wines that I had had harvested in that, in that season.

Mark:

That's awesome. I love the way you actually do, I mean, in, in the book you'll see the actual math of how this all breaks down. And, and, and not to mention the fact that you're advertising, you know, a lot of the fixed causes over 20 years. Very good generally accepted accounting principles here. You've done a thank you. You did a very good job, with the numbers here just to. To make this all work out. Uh,

Francis:

so was the tomato really, really good?

William:

You know, you know, I, I I, I kind of went through something once I had done this math, and, and I, I would say that this is something you probably don't wanna do at, at, at home Kids Uhhuh. But once I had done this, I think I went through something akin to the, the five stages of, of grief, denial, and shock. And then I just kind of came to say, okay, this is, this is what it costs. And the way I. I look at it now is, you know, coming back to the concept that the Garden, being a family member. When my kids are grown and out of the house, I don't think I'm going to, I hope I'm not going to look back and say, gee, the cost of all those oboe lessons and summer camp, was Katie really worth it. And we, we think the same way about the garden. My favorite line

Mark:

in the book is. you ask your wife, uh, if it was it worth it, and she says, maybe that one filled with crab. Anyway, we'll be right back. You're listening to the restaurant guys,

Francis:

The book is the$64 tomato, how one man nearly lost his sanity, spent a fortune and endured an existential crisis in the quest for the perfect garden. That man is William Alexander and it's his memoir, and we're talking to him today. Now, William, this, you have a garden this size. Does this pretty much feed your family in summertime?

William:

Uh, some, some years it, it, it really does. Um, other years are a little light.

Mark:

Have you, you know what would help you if, uh, you need to feed your family during the summer is a groundhog stew. Yeah.

Francis:

Talk to us about the kind of tribulations that a, that a, a gardener finds that your person who's not really into gardening might, uh, we spoke about a groundhog earlier, but what were the enemies that you battled to make this garden produce?

William:

Well, we mentioned the groundhog. Deer, of course, are just rampant. Um, my, my latest battle was with the, the neighbor's cats who insist on peeing on my organic lettuce.

Mark:

That's still organic,

William:

although, yeah, well, you know, I think I found a way to get, get even with them. I started to use their litter box. But, um, I think the moral is that, you know, you can bring in as I have electric fences and, and wires and I've heard of people bringing in dogs. No matter what you do, animals are going to get into your garden because of the simple truth. You may be smarter, but they've got more time.

Francis:

Yeah, yeah. They're, they've got nothing else to do full time. That's right. That,

William:

that, that groundhog's job while you're at work, his job is to, is to figure out how to get to your garden.

Francis:

So talk to us about the groundhog. Problem that you had in the, the one groundhog that you hug, that you nicknamed super.

William:

Yeah, and I, I never had a problem with, with gr groundhogs over the years,'cause I have this. Electric fence. Uh, but my neighbor, uh, does not have such a fence, and he, he would complain. So I would just pull this ground groundhog gap. It's a place under my little barn where there's always one, and I, so I would trap it, and within a week or so, through some, I don't know, groundhog's, Craigslist, a new one would move in and I would eventually trap trap him and, and things were, were fine. Until the day that I saw the biggest fattest groundhog I'd ever seen sitting in my garden, munching on a brand new wine,

Francis:

drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. Just to figure out how he got, yeah,

William:

were flying in the sun like, you know, Bridgette bar, bar Bardo or someone, and I could not trap this ground groundhog. I couldn't figure out how he was getting in. And then I found out that my, electric fence, the charger had, uh, had failed to bid on me. And I was only getting a mere 3000 volts out of, instead of the six I was. supposed to be getting out the charger. So I went and I bought a new charger and figured as long as I'm buying a new one, let's, let's juice up the baby. So now I had a 10,000 volt charger, and the groundhog would approach the fence, jump through the wires. I. Shake it off, shutter and shake it off like a quarterback taking a hit, really move on, eat the tomatoes just

Francis:

a little bit of, and then, uh, onto dinner.

William:

He didn't seem to mind. And then he would take a little nap and he would kind of brace himself and he'd take the zip on the way out. So at that point, when I started talking to my wife about, well, maybe we need a few more volts at this point, guys, I was ready to hook it up to the, the, the street current of that. Right. The light

Mark:

dimed every time Super chuck went into the, into the garden.

William:

But then I, I saw something, it made me realize it wouldn't have mattered if I had a hundred thousand volts there because, uh, the way that electric fence works is that it sends out this charge once every second, and there's a pause, boom, boom. And I watched this guy approach the fence. Wait and leap through in the one second pause between the charges.

Speaker 5:

How did

William:

he know? Well, I don't know. He is a groundhog. How he knows. But then what really struck me was that I realized I had created this groundhog. I had made super chuck because by taking away the dumb easy to trap ones. These guys were really the ideal tenants. They were the ones they should have been leaving, and it was in a very Darwinian way. It was guaranteed a sooner or later I would get a ground groundhog that was too smart for the trap uhhuh,

Francis:

and

William:

also would find a way to get into my, my garden. So how does

Francis:

this story end? Did we ever get rid of Super Chuck?

William:

Well, I have to say the story ends badly for, for us both. I don't want, I don't wanna spoil the ending, but I'll say there were no, no winners here.

Francis:

You poisoned super chuck, didn't you? I'm not telling. Alright. Alright. I

William:

love animals.

Francis:

No, I love animals too. Medium rare with a little bit of, a little bit of barbecue sauce. Um, so now people think you were crazy when you planted this 2000 square foot garden. How did the neighbors react?

William:

Um, yeah, they just kind of looked at me, the, the very first words of the, of the guy next. Next, next door. The very first words of the garden as I was exalting in my brand new topsoil had just been brought in that I, I shudder to remind myself$60 a yard and I was in my garden joint. From the very first words I heard were gonna be a lot of weeding. I had my own Greek chorus next door who would kind of keep, keep an eye on things and, and warn me about the weeds and the gr groundhogs. And, and he was right. Most, Of the time.

Mark:

my dad had a, a little farm up in upstate New York when I was growing up, that we would go to on weekends. And my grandmother lived, uh, in full time. And what I remember is when we decided to do that big garden, and it was pretty similar in size to the one you did. What I remember is taking rocks because we had to rott till and, and you would remove the rocks as the rocks came up to the surface. The, the rocks that we removed had to be, if about twice the size of the garden. I still don't understand. Today we built a giant rock wall that was, you know, probably 4,000 square feet out of our 2000 square foot garden. And I, and, and nature is a very funny thing, and that, that punishes us for such decisions. Yeah.

William:

They, they call that growing rocks. What it.

Francis:

The motivation behind the garden? I mean, is it mostly for aesthetic beauty of the, of being in the garden or the, the work and how it brings the family together or the food that you get out of it? What,

William:

what's the, you know, it, it, it's really a complex question and I, I've given that a lot of thought and I, I think it's all of those things, but when, when push comes to shove and I really get kind of tired of it and I'd rather be doing something else on a Saturday instead of slaving away at it, and I. Consider not having a garden or having a much smaller garden. What always comes back is, but man, I'm gonna miss that fresh lettuce. So I really think that it's about the food for us.

Mark:

Now do, do your, now you were talking about your kids earlier. I was 12, 14, 15, years old when, when my dad had the farm, and all I remember is going to the grocery store and saying, huh, 10 pounds of potatoes for three bucks. Maybe we should buy the potatoes. Dad, this is a lot of work. It's really, really hard. Do, do your kids feel the same way

William:

I, I, you know, I was hoping my kids would be more in, involved in, in the garden too, and that, and that was part of the plan. And that first year, the garden was finished in the spring. So for, for Easter, instead of the kids getting chocolate bunnies and then so on, they got their own little kid sized garden tools, those really cute ones

Speaker 5:

and their own

William:

gardening gloves. Um, a book Gardening for Kids. And the best news of all was that, uh, the, the news that they could have each their own two beds. In the garden. And they reacted honestly, as if, um, we had told them that instead of going to school from now on, they'd be working in the, in the mines. Couldn't be less enthused about the garden.

Mark:

They really wanted those little yellow peeps instead, didn't they? They, they sure did. That's, that's, you know, that might have been a little nicer. Uh, anyway, one of the things that I remember about the garden is my dad telling me, yeah, asparagus, uh, takes three years to grow. Three years. I don't have three years to, to wait for this. I mean, the, the other thing that I, that I learned, I think from, from my dad's garden and from his farm was patience was, was that the rewards of patience came, you know. From, from waiting in the garden and, and watching what happened and, and tasting that delicious food.

William:

Yeah. I'm still hoping that that patients will, will come to me. Um, one of the things that I did when I, when I built the garden, I had a water spout, a little spigot so I could put a drip, drip hose in mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:

On

William:

every bed. And, uh, and that first winter when the garden was there, and as, as the snow melted, I had these obscene, tall black. Pipes with a faucet each about a foot high.

Speaker 5:

Mm-hmm. And

William:

it looked like, you know, an abandoned oil rig.

Speaker 5:

Mm-hmm.

William:

And so I went out with my glue and my fittings, and I cut everything down to sit like four inches from the ground. And didn't realize that over time my beds would get taller when I added things to them. And now every time I go out to, uh, hook on a hose, I have to battle with the darn thing. And I'm, I'm always telling myself that. Patience in the garden. It's a good thing. I should try to remember that. Yeah,

Francis:

exactly. Hey William, I wanna thank you for coming on the show to talk with us about your book. It was great.

William:

Thank you. It's been fun. Alright, take care. Thanks very much, William.

Francis:

That's, that's William Alexander. The book is the$64 Tomato. Uh, and you can find out more about it on our website, restaurant guys radio.com. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, You know, I, I fully sympathize with that guy. Mm-hmm. This the$64 tomato I got. Can I got, can I tell you?

Mark:

Got that this year? Yeah. I did not get to eat a single tomato. Why? Because there's a little squirrel. And he goes, and he takes my tomatoes and my neighbor said he saw'em, okay? Mm-hmm. He says, I've seen'em every day. And he says, every day he picks a little tomato off your tomato plants, you know, little, you know the ones that's just starting to turn before I would pick them, but you know, it seems to be just right for my little squirrel friend, Uhhuh. And he says he runs over and he sits behind this little tree that overlooks my my neighbor's property. And he eats my tomato, has a

Francis:

bottle of wine,

Mark:

and he's really making me mad. And, and I'm not thinking about the have a heart trap. Okay? That's not, that's not what's running through my head. But seriously, one of the things that, Bill talked about in this book is that, when you do all this backbreaking work and you do understand a little bit about what goes into growing some of the foods that we grow. It's, it is amazing that we have, you can buy a pound of string beans for a dollar. Francis and I have said before, we think some of the prices on some foods are artificially inexpensive and that maybe we should be paying a little bit more for some of the foods that we eat and it should be a little bit higher percentage of what we spend out of our pockets. In

Francis:

the 1950s and sixties, the average American family spent working class families spent. And middle class families spent 50% of their disposable income on food. Mm-hmm. Today, the average family spends 10%. That's a big difference. It's what we've done. What it means is that, farms just aren't sustainable like that. Mm-hmm. In order to make food that cheaply, you've gotta make it unhealthfully, you've gotta make it, uh, unhealthy food. You've gotta, you've gotta do things that really compromise the environment. And look, I'm, I'm not that much of a tree hugger, you know what I mean? But. You know, you, you've gotta be willing to pay a little more for your food and it it'll be better for you. You know, we eat up a box in a can and we're getting to be a big fat country full of big fat people who just can't control their weight and aren't really getting that much great food anymore.

Mark:

Yeah. Well there, there are are certain things though that I, in the food and wine and restaurant world that, uh, may be artificially cheap, but there are certain things in that world that are increasing in price quickly, very, very quickly.

Francis:

mark. Is referring to wine, of course. And, you know, uh, there was an article recently in the, in the San Francisco, uh, gate. Gate, yeah. it's only in Napa Valley and Bordeaux with 25.6 ounces of fermented grape juice sell for$500. And if you think about it, it's crazy. And on the top end wine prices despite a worldwide wine glut mm-hmm. In the, in the middle range, which is actually working to some consumers advantage, but. You know, I don't know what it says long term for the industry. the top wines are just getting more and more crazy expensive. Now, in California we only have cabernet that fits into that top tier. Really like Screaming Eagle. Napa Valley Cab is$1,500, for a pack of three. That's, uh, the most expensive current release wine made in America.

Mark:

Sure. That's the retail price too. That's, you wanna have it in a restaurant you can expect spend about double that.

Francis:

Um,$300 LA in the 2002, and the 2003 was just released and. And that's a crazy amount of money, but it's nothing compared to the Bord Olas. Mm-hmm. The people in Bordeaux are going crazy. Two, 2005 chat, Lafitte Rothchild,$600 a bottle on pre-release. They're buying futures. In other words, this wine is still in barrel, hasn't been made in bottle yet. Right.

Mark:

It actually, it might turn. And you don't know

Francis:

yet, right? And you've paid for it. So the 2005 Chateau Laet Roth, but it's not gonna turn. Of course, the, the 2005 chat Laet Rothchild selling for$600 a bottle. Chateau Margot released at$760 per bottle.$760 per bottle. Oh, well put, put your hat back on the 2005 Chateau Pet. Is$2,000 a bottle phenomenal for wines that are still in barrel and won't be around for 18 to 24 months

Mark:

and really probably shouldn't be drunk for 20 years after that. So let's, so let's do the math there in the, in the future of, of what those bottles actually are in future dollars you're talking about like. Some of those wines would, would factor it to$10,000 a bottle, 20 years from now,

Francis:

$24,000 a case for pet, for a brand new Petrus if you buy it before it's released. Okay. What are you gonna do with that? Look, I, I'm, I mean, I'm all for it if you got it, spend it. Mm-hmm. But, you know, is that wine a hundred times better than the$20 bottle or, um, or is it 10 times better than what you can get for$200? I don't think that is, well, you do know what's,

Mark:

you do know what's happened in the marketplace and part of what's happened in the marketplace. There are two things that are happening. A, they are collectors. Okay. Who just simply have to have this in, in their arsenal. And b, there are, there are people drinking wine out there who just, you know, if you make$4 million a year, what's the difference between a thousand dollars bottle and a$10 bottle? Is it, is there a big difference?

Francis:

Yeah, I don't know. It's just, it seems, it seems excessive to me. And I'll tell you what though. They're saying that most of these people who buy these bottles in on the over 500 bottle range, most of'em aren't buying'em to drink. They're buying them to have, they're like, it's like a stamp collector. You know, the thing about wine that makes it so collectible is. You know, like a limited edition stamp you can't make anymore after that vintage of that particular wine. I don't understand why Bordeaux is like that, because they have very large productions, but I understand why. You know the cult, small cult cabs, you, there's a hundred cases in the world of this year's wine you love, it's, you want it. And if you're a collector, every year somebody breaks a bottle. Mm-hmm. Every year somebody drinks a bottle. Right. You know, if there's one fewer one in the world. And so from a collector's perspective, it's interesting, but from a wine lover's perspective, I think it's kind of gross. Mm-hmm. And you know what? Nobody cares what it tastes like. They only care if Robert Parker gives it 99 points. We care. Or a hundred points probably value. If you were to open it for me, I would certainly drink it. I care a lot. But, but no, why would you care? You're not gonna have that wine? Actually, we probably will. We're lucky guys, but somebody else is paying when we have it, that's for sure. Anyway, I wanna talk more about the wine and, how much of a bottle of wine is from. The making of the wine and how much of it is just collecting stamps? Uh, in just a moment, you're listening to the restaurant guys, You're listening to the restaurant guys. We're, um, can I say bitching on the air? I guess so. You did. Okay. We're bitching out about the high price of, uh, cult wines and we're not really bitching.'cause frankly, I don't care. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not ever buying a$2,000 bottle of wine on release or before release. I mean, and this is the one that you're supposed to age. Look, these are, there's a point at which it just becomes a collector's item and it's not about. It's so singular in the way it tastes that it's really worth it. And I think if you read

Mark:

Parker, he would agree. And one of the things that Francis and I profess, and we truly believe this, that the great wines of the world cost much more to make than the not great wines of the world. Why does a hundred dollars bottle of wine cost more than a$3 bottle of wine will Usually because a lot more has gone into it

Francis:

and. And we, and we could go into the, the, the many different expenses that go into making a great bottle of wine, but literally up into about a hundred dollars a bottle. Um, this is not to say that every winery does this, but you can justify the differences in price based on the differences of what it costs mm-hmm. To produce grapes. I mean, uh, in many places, lowering the yield gets you a better quality of grape. And so, you know, you got a farmer who's got a field and you say, listen, don't make. 10 tons of grapes, right? Prune it back so we get two tons of grapes. Well, those grapes are gonna cost you five times as much, and then it goes on from there. But once you get over a hundred dollars a bottle, you're dealing in supply and demand. And frankly, when you're over like three, four, or$500 a bottle, it's just a collector's item. And it could be a bank, it could be a stamp, it could be, you know, a rare butterfly. I don't know what they, I don't think you get that much for butterfly. I think

Mark:

I, I think, you know, well, I guess where I, the problem comes in for me is. Maybe that$500 bottle of wine is better than the, than the a hundred dollars bottle of wine or the$200 bottle of wine. but I think what, what you start to see as you escalate and price like that is that the differences become more subtle. They become more nuanced, they become smaller.

Francis:

And I think you, you hit a point, especially with American Cup Cabernets and with Bordeaux, that it. What the wine tastes like. Doesn't matter. Did Robert Parker like it? Mm-hmm. Is the, is the market control? It matters what, what it tasted like to Parker. Right. And, and or did the wine spec taste? And that's no shot on Robert Parker, you know? Right. But what it's saying is great reviewer that people, what that is either an investment or a bobble, you know, something to show what they have. And you don't, you know what I mean? It's a power thing. It's not about the wine anymore. And you know, I, let's just go, you know, mark. Let's go have lunch. I have a better idea. Let, let's get a$15 bottle of wine and collect some Berger eggs. I can't afford F eggs, but I can. Another 15 bottle of wine. Alright, hope you've enjoyed the hour. I'm Francis Chop. And I'm Mark Matt. We are the restaurant guys. Central Jersey 1450. Time is 12 noon.