This is the Moth Radio Hour, and I'm your host, Suzanne Rust.
I live in a household with an Italian husband,
where while we're eating breakfast, we're thinking about lunch.
And at lunch, we're planning dinner.
It's a family trait that we've passed down to our son and daughter.
We definitely live to eat because a good meal brings such joy.
But beyond sustenance, food is a magical vessel.
It transports us back to our childhoods,
back to memories of meals shared with friends and family, back to road trips and vacations.
And through it, so many stories are born, nurtured, and remembered over the years.
Sometimes food is what you do for a living.
Our first story comes from chef Arlene Stewart, who told it at a show in East Hampton,
New York, where Guild hall was our venue and partner.
Here's Arlene live at the Moth.
It's late spring, early summer, 1997, New York City, Hudson River.
It's the reopening and rebranding of an acclaimed New York City chef's restaurant.
We have to learn his style, his techniques.
We have to take his ideas, his palate, and put it on a plate.
But for some reason, when the chef met me, he decided to make me his personal punching bag.
No matter what I did, I could not please him.