Bridget Everett: Dinner at Pascal’s Manale

Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle

Music Interviews, Arts, Food, Comedy Interviews, Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Comedy, Music, Science, History

4.4 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bridget Everett’s last meal takes us to New Orleans’ second oldest restaurant, where Creole and Italian cooking collide into a cuisine called (you guessed it) Italian Creole! The owner of Pascal’s Manale, Dickie Brennan, joins the show to talk about the special menu and the restaurant’s long history.

Bridget performed her delightfully raunchy cabaret act for years before landing the lead role on HBO Max’s Somebody Somewhere (and she still performs it!), but she made a living working in restaurants. We talk about the highs and lows of her 30-year restaurant career, and when she was able to quit. And she tells host Rachel Belle how she learned to cook on national television.

Both Bridget and her character on Somebody Somewhere love ordering “French toast for the table” at The Chef, a diner in Manhattan, Kansas. Is French toast actually French? We learn its origin story from Max Miller, host of Tasting History.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Alaska Airlines has teamed up with Hawaiian Airlines to create new nonstop international flights.
0:05.8	Go to Alaskaair.com or Hawaiian Airlines.com and I'll tell you more details later in the show.
0:19.7	I'm Rachel Bell and this is your last meal. The show where celebrities share stories
0:25.2	about the foods they love most, and we dig into the history, culture, or science of those meals
0:30.0	with experts from around the world. Today on the program, Bridget Everett, Emmy-nominated
0:36.7	actor, writer, and producer of Somebody Somewhere.
0:40.1	The same show we talked about last week when her co-star, Jeff Hiller, was on the podcast.
0:45.4	Jeff was much more charming than me, so I apologize in advance.
0:48.9	Oh, great.
0:51.3	Bridget is also a singer and comedian.
0:54.0	Time Out called her one of the funniest people in New York,
0:56.8	and she's currently touring her cabaret show with her band, Bridget Everett, and The Tender
1:01.4	Moments.
1:02.4	I got to see her show last week, and she has two more coming up in New York City in October.
1:07.5	Bridget's last meal takes us to New Orleans' second oldest restaurant. And I chat with
1:12.4	the owner Dickie Brennan about what Creel Italian food is and the restaurant's long history. And
1:19.6	French toast. Is it actually French? We'll find out later in the show. But first, my
1:25.5	conversation with Bridget Everett.
1:33.6	Before she started getting TV roles and long before she scored her first starring role on
1:39.0	somebody somewhere, Bridget spent many years performing her own wild, playfully raunchy cabaret show in New York City, a show she still performs. I started developing it earlier in my career, and it was, I just had a lot more sort of like a will-to-beast kind of energy. I just felt like sort of untamed. And every time I would get on stage, I felt like I shot out of a can. And so there's still a lot of that energy in it. It's very physical. It's like an athletic event for me. The singing is hard. The performing is hard. But in the best kind of way, I want to just use every inch of my body to make people feel alive. So that's what I try to do. You worked in restaurants for 25 years.
2:18.2	At least.
2:18.7	I think it might be more.
	...

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