And it was a little bit of a delusion. I mean, to me, being comfortable and being safe meant this sort of false idea that he thinks I'm perfect. He doesn't see any of my flaws. You know, he sees me through, he sees me the way that I wish I could see myself. Laurie, hello and welcome.

Hello, thank you for having me.

It's lovely to have you here. I have been excited about this conversation.

I feel like I'm fascinated with all of the worlds that you've operated in.

And this memoir, of course course care and feeding that has just

come out I would love to I suppose start with what what made you decide I want to write this now

because you've been living in the world of food and publishing for a very

long time and worked among some really prominent people who I'm sure we'll talk about.

What made you decide I'm going to write this memoir now?

Well, I had finished two books in 2021, put them both out in 2021, and the decks were sort

of cleared for me.

And both of those books were about or with the late Anthony Bourdain.

And so I had some traction in the publishing space and I had some momentum and I had always wanted to do something

with all of these stories I accumulated over, you know, a decade, two, two and a half decades

in the, in and around the food world and the media world. I had recently gotten sober.

My life had changed in a lot of ways and I felt like this was the time to

try and tell these stories. I wasn't sure if I would do a memoir or perhaps auto fiction or a collection

of essays and the more I kind of thought about it and bounced ideas around with some people,

memoir just seemed like the most natural

form to tell this this story of my adult working life for about 25 years and for people who

haven't read it yet and I have been really really enjoying the book the first part of the book

centers on you in your 20s and going

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