You're listening to Ruthie's Table for in Collaboration with Me and m Intelligence Style for busy Women.

Gail King is known as America's best Friend.

I didn't know countries could have best friends, but if I was a country, I definitely want her as mine.

Anchor, producer, magazine editor, and amazingly an astronaut.

Gail is a friend to millions of Americans who waked to her on CBS Mornings, Loved for combining serious journalism with warmth, intimacy, and fun.

Gail is only in London for two nights, so there's no time for our usual Ruthie's.

Table for at the River Cafe.

We're recording our conversation here right before we eat at home, which seems exactly right for where else would you want to have America's best friend?

And I hope very soon in mine?

But at home.

That was such a beautiful introduction.

Thank you so much.

And I came and I brought my appetite.

Tell them what you're eating?

What do you know I have for katcha bread, yeah, with sorell with some tomatoes.

Yeah you have?

So we always the drill, you know, we always ask people to read a recipe.

What have you chosen?

I wanted to pick a recipe where it looked like you could look it off the page.

Okay, that's not rude, is it?

No?

Just also please know this, I don't cook.

I chose spaghetti with lemon serve six two hundred and fifty g's of spaghetti.

That's a gram gram.

You've got the English like you got the European version.

But ge it means a gram.

Okay, graham juice of three to four lemons, preferably a Malfi lemons as opposed to those regular lemons.

You know, a Malfia on the southern coast of Italy.

One hundred and fifty mls of olive oil milli liters's got it, one hundred and fifty milli liters of all one hundred and fifty g's which I've just learned as grams.

A parmesan has to be freshly grated.

Of course, two handfuls are fresh basil leaves picked and finally chopped.

We have to pick our basil leaves.

Well, you have to pick them off the stem.

Oh, okay, okay, I told you I don't cook.

Okay, finally, but I'm a very good eater, Ruthie, that's more important.

Finely grated lemon zest.

That's optional, but I highly highly recommend.

The only other ingredient needed is sun Oh my favorite color is yellow, and my yellow because it's the color of sunshine and butter, both of which I enjoy very much.

Cook the spaghetti and a generous amount of boiling salted water.

Then drain thoroughly and return to the saucepan.

Ruthie, you're cracking me up because you're looking at me like this is the first time you've heard you're.

Very good at you're very good at writing recipes.

This is really very pressed by a receivation.

Meanwhile, with the lemon juice, I actually know what that is.

With the olive oil, then stir in the parmesan, it will melt into the mixture, making it thick and creamy.

Oh, that's good season.

With sea salt, not regular salt.

Sea salt.

Why sea salt not.

Regular sea salt has a saltier taste.

It has a grain and you can crumble it, so you do it yourself.

And black pepper and add more lemon juice to taste.

Add the sauce to the spaghetti and shake the pants so that each strand of pasta is coated with cheese.

Do you know who Marcella has Ona, She was a great Diana Italian cooking and cheer.

Whole thing was toss, toss, toss, and then toss again, toss again.

That the whole thing with pasta is making every because otherwise the stranda pasta without the sauce, it's just flowering water and it's naked and it's naked.

So each strand is coated with cheese like that, finally stirring the chopped basil and ideally some grated lemon zest I'd never had the lemon with spaghetti before.

Okay, well I'll have it.

We'll go to Molfy one day.

We can make come in the summer to the river cafe and we'll do very very But you you were born in Ankra, Is that right?

Well?

I was born in China Neo Good, Tennessee.

I was only there for eighteen months, but my childhood was in Opera, Turkey.

So from first grade to sixth grade that's where I lived.

My dad worked for the government and we were sent over there.

I've been told ruthy and I have no I do not know if this is true that people say to me, Gail, your dad probably worked for the CIO and think about this, a black man in opera from sixty to sixty six.

And at our home, we had a room that we were not allowed to go into the kids.

I'm the oldest of four girls.

And he would be in there at all hours of the day and night.

My mom told me that it was his hobby Morse code, so he'd be in there with the radios.

So we were told, you're never allowed in that room at any time, and he would go in there and that was his hobby, how much as he choose to believe, he was electronic engineer.

So that's what he said with it, but he was an engineer theoretically.

I really liked Turkey fruit.

I think it's a thing.

You know what I remember about her.

I remember the Turkish bread.

So in Turkey the breakfast is tea and bread.

You know, it's very It's not eggs and bacon and pancakes.

And I can remember going to a when I was a kid, I could speak Turkish, going to a Turkish girl friend's house for breakfast and they had you know, the tea, the bread with the jam and stuff.

I had thirteen pieces of bread, the little ones.

And the father didn't know I could speak Turkish, and he said, this little girl, what.

Was there someone who cooked for you?

Did your mother?

We did?

We did have a cook.

Yes, we would have bread in the cheese.

We would have that, a lot of fish.

Potatoes.

I love potatoes everything, Oh my god, I love it.

There is no such thing as a bad potato, No such thing.

And when you come home, would there be family?

Do you remember family meals?

When we were all around the table every night talk.

Those houses that you all had to eat dinner together, we didn't.

Yeah.

My thing when we came back from the States, my favorite thing was McDonald's because I had never seen anything like that.

Yeah that was yeah sixty six.

So McDonald's was a treat.

That was a treat for me.

And your four sisters were older than you.

I'm the oldest, you're the oldest.

So there were people told.

Me, Ruthie that I was very bossy as a child.

I can't imagine, No, I can't.

I call it good executive skills.

I do not think it was bossy.

What was it like the home life of favor with four girls?

And your parents and.

I had a really great childhood, was it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, of four kids.

Just think I think about my mom by the time she was twenty five twenty sixty, had four girls.

I didn't have my first baby until I was thirty one.

Yeah.

I can't imagine at twenty six having four girls.

And you know, my mom was in college, she was on her way to law school, and she went to the doctor and they thought she had a tumor and the tumor turned out to be me.

Oh, okay, how old were you.

When you had your first baby?

Twenty four twenty hours little?

Yeah, that seemed that I had three stepchildren when I was twenty one, twenty one, yeah, twenty one.

Yeah, so can you imagine?

Okay, but you just kind of did it, you know, you know you're exactly right back then.

You just did it.

We didn't and you.

Didn't think about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually we moved to Paris, and so again I was twenty two to twenty three in Paris.

Yeah, and that was so have you have you ever had went.

To Paris as a kid?

Yeah, yes, you know.

The father, the engineer.

Well, the thing about living in Turkey, we traveled a lot.

So for a vacation we went to Paris, I would go to the Acropolis, which is you know, as in Greece.

I was talking to somebody at the dinner the other night that the majority of Americans don't have passports.

Not only Americans, but our senators.

Do you know that?

They founding to me A portion of Senators don't have passports and they don't you know, travel.

I don't mean even now, even now, most Americans do not have passports.

I mean, yeah, I'm sort of I'm taken aback by that.

Do your kids travel do they?

Did you take your kids everywhere?

How many children do I have too?

I think travel is I think exposure and travel, if you can do it is very important for children.

And food.

That's the thing when you travel again, going back to the food, is that when we travel.

You know, when you travel, now, do you think about where you're going to eat and what you're going to eat and if you're going to have tea in britten in London?

But how do you mean that?

You know?

You get there.

I like to get the lay of the land and then you like to find out what are they And it doesn't have to be I just like to really have great food.

School where in California?

So in the I lived in a place called me I went to Menlo Athern and High So I lived in something a place called Menlo Park, which is a Bay area Palo A, Menlo Park.

It's a big Silicon valley.

Now, when I was in high school, that wasn't the case, but now it's you know, it's a it's a very hot spot to live.

And then you went to college where.

I went to University of Maryland.

My parents moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland my senior year, and I stayed behind to finish my senior year of high school.

Where did you stay?

Where were you?

So?

I lived with a teacher.

I lived with a teacher and his he was he was my social studies teacher.

I ended up being with him and his wife and his two children.

And now I look at it when you know kids today they have college tours and they're going looking at different place.

I only wanted to go to University of Maryland because it would be put me closer to the family.

That was the only place I wanted to get.

Your sisters were still there, Yeah, Yeah, when you lived with this teacher, was it was it a very different experience.

No, no, because Peggy the mom could actually cook.

I can still remember her zucchini.

She used to make this sauteed zucchini with mozzarella cheese.

Isn't that good?

Sound?

Sauted zucchini with onions garlic?

God, it was so good.

Do you think your parents discourage you from cooking?

Because no, it wasn't that.

My mom was an okay cook.

It's not like she was, you know, she did the basics.

But it's not that they discouraged me.

I just I think I just had no interest in it didn't fair enough.

But with you, I wish I could do you.

Oh my god, what else would you do other than cooking?

What else you wish you could do?

Sing?

Sing?

You can sing?

We just sang, go on l the way you.

Look at me.

I love I love singing.

So yeah, but I know that I can't sing.

But I think what a kick it must be.

I just think to be on a stage like Taylor Swift's new music just and I just think what it must be like to be on stage where you've just written something on a piece of paper and then it becomes a hit song that everybody knows the words.

What a kick that is.

I sometimes get a theater and I just must die of jealousy because I just say, the awe of it.

Music is very unifying.

Music, sports, food or something.

You know.

We live in the world now where everything is such a meat show that you know, I crave moments of sanity and joy, and I think food food does that.

Going chronologically back to Baltimore, you were at the University of Maryland.

Yeah, and we're living by yourself.

It was in the dorm or did you stay with your parents?

I was grown up.

I was in the dorm.

You Not only was I in the dorm, I was an r A.

What does that mean?

So I was a resident assistant.

So I was the one who was in charge of the floor of this.

You said bossy, you said that.

What did you enjoy that?

Not bossy, RUTHI executive leadership.

Go.

This is thing about me.

I've always been a very curious kid, and I also like hearing about other people's problems.

And I'm very good at listening to problems and giving unsolicited advice.

Yes, that's my son and daughter.

I'm really good at it.

I had this idea of writing a book called we're so smart.

Listen to us.

You know how we always want to giving advice, like to our kids.

This is like, we think we're so smart.

We're so smart.

Listen to us, because we're just so smart.

Just about so I'm giving.

I think I have good common sense.

I really, I really do.

I think I have good common sense.

And I always liked listening to how people are doing and what they're thinking.

Oh, Ruthie.

I will sit in a conversation and I go, I'm not going to say a word.

I'm just gonna listen, and somebody will say something and I just friggin can't help it.

I'll go, well, why did you think so and so and so and so?

Why did you do so and so?

This is even strangers.

I don't even know.

So.

I thought that I would either be a child psychologist.

I thought I'd be very good at that, or I'd be a lawyer, because I saw myself arguing my case in front of a jury, and I was never going to represent the bad guy.

I was always going to represent the state.

I had it all figured out, and then life sec a turn.

I got a job at a TV station when I was in college, when in the newsroom when I was hooked.

What was your job?

I had a very entry level job, you know, where you see like if I was interviewing Ruthie Rogers and I type out Ruthie Rogers and your title.

I was a person who did that.

I'd get the scripts, rip the scripts and you know, give them to the anchors, roll the prompter back.

Then you know where they're reading.

So it was very entry level.

But I say, you can if you're if you're really serious and really good, you can parlay an entry level job to something else.

And that is what I did.

Tell me about that.

So this was at I graduated from University of Maryland.

I got a job.

And while I was in college, I was working at a TV station in Washington.

And then when I graduated, I got a job in Baltimore, Maryland.

You can do creative writing on your resume without lying, but very creative writing.

And I got a job.

And I always say to people, you want to make sure the boss knows your name, not in a bad way, like oh my god, she's so I'm not just da da da da.

You want somebody who knows I was a kind of kid, you know.

Is there anything I can do, or can I go out on a story with you?

Or I tried writing this, could you take a look?

So you know, I volunteer to work on holidays or weekends or whatever it took to make myself useful is what I did.

And then you get noticed and people start calling on you and asking you to do things.

I think as on the other side, now that we're both on the other side of that of that table, don't you notice it when will do yes?

Yes, yes, yes.

Do you know David Putnam, producer in Great Films, he was looking for an assistant.

Everybody kept, you know, trying to impress him, impress and then this young person said, mister Putnam, I will make you the best cup of coffee you've ever had yet You're hired.

And it's just something about the simplicity and the passion I'm wanting to do something.

Yeah.

Really, that's why when people come in and their interns, you can tell there are some interns that are looking at their watch like, oh my god, how much longer is there's going to be and others that are that are really eager and there's a way to do it without kissing ass you.

Yeah, as employers don't want to take the person necessarily who make us the best cup of coffee.

Want to take somebody's curious, that's curious.

That's the one.

When people ask me what I look for in an interview, I always say curiosity.

Yes, I think you know.

I was told as a kid that I was nosy.

I hate that word nose.

I don't like that.

Man'll see not nosy, No.

And I said, I'm not nosy.

I am curious.

Curious.

There is a difference, yea.

So tell me more about it.

Me.

So I got into a reporter training program back.

At DC, and what year, what decade are we in?

Like we're in the seventies.

Do you think it's changed the Well.

Digital makes it different, but I think, you know, the work ethic doesn't change.

I mean, I applied for this reporter training program and I didn't get it the first time.

And I thought that I was a shoe in because I knew everybody who was interviewing.

It was at my old station.

I said, they know me.

I think they liked me, I think, and I didn't get it.

They only had four slots, and I remember being stunned that I didn't get it, And so I went to the boss and he's in his office and he's reading a newspaper and his feed are up on the table, which is never a good sign.

And I walked in and he went yes, and I went, well, I was just curious about why I didn't get the reporter training program, because you know, I've been here and I think you all are familiar with my work, and it just it just didn't see fair to me.

And he's sitting there, he doesn't miss a beat, he's reading the news.

Baby goes Gail, life ain't fair anything else.

I mean you just kind of go, uh no, sir, thank you for your time.

I mean, I was so thrilled by that.

What a great thing.

But it was such as life ain't fair.

You don't always get what you think you're supposed to get, you don't always get even what you think you deserve.

Sometimes life ain't fair.

It has nothing to do with you.

And so that was a really really uh defining moment for me.

And then what did you do to know?

Well?

So then I applied and got another job, and then I ended up in Baltimore as a production assistant, the entry level position, and I did that and then I got my first real job where you're gayl okaying Action News in Kansas City, Missouri.

I applied all over the country and got this job in Kansas City, Missouri.

I had my little resume tape and I can remember being out on my first live shot.

There was breaking news.

I was supposed to interview the police chief, and I was very nervous.

My clothes hadn't come, you know, from moving cross country.

I'm wearing the same thing i'd worn two days in a row.

So I called one of my mentors and I said, Bruce, I'm so nervous, my clothes haven't come.

It's breaking news.

I'm about to beat the police chief and I'm not sure what to do.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

And he goes, oh, grow up and hung up the phone.

That was less than number two.

You know where you go Hello because you can't believe I've called you in distress and you're like, oh, grow up.

Click, But Ruthie, in the moment, it's shocking.

It's shocking, and then you got to put on your big girl panties and figure it out.

But at the time I didn't think it was good.

The time, I was devastated by it.

And another good lesson for me was Maya Angelou.

She was, you know, my Angelou.

I was friends with her, and she was like wisdom and liquid poetry, and you know, Oprah and I would go to her house and we feel like we needed a notepad because everything she said was so good.

And I remember calling her something had happened at CBS, and I said, and then then they said blah blah blah blah blah, and then I didn't get to do blah blah blah blah blah.

And she goes, stop it.

I go, wait, wait, I'm not done.

Yeah, it doesn't matter right now.

Just say thank you.

I go, what am I saying thank you about?

Just say thank you?

So I went thank you.

She goes, Gail whining is so unbecoming.

It lets them know there's a victim in the neighborhood.

Isn't that good?

How did it overha?

How did Oprah?

I met her when we went to when I went and got the job in Baltimore.

Oh, she was in Baltimore.

Yeah, yeah, okay, So we met when we were twenty one and twenty two.

So I'm here in the newsroom and she's here.

She's the anchor.

She's like, whoa, that's Oprah Whiffy, she's the anchor.

I used to go to open and say, do you have any cairns for your piece?

She was she was twenty two, and.

We became friends there, and now we're seventy and seventy one.

We've been friends a long time.

And I remember calling my mom and saying, mom, my friend opened the newsroom.

She went to casual corner and she bought two sweaters because I was putting mine on layaway.

And I remember Opah was twenty two and when she turned thirty, she made thirty thousand dollars, And I said, wouldn't it be cool if when you turn fifty you make fifty thousand dollars?

Boy?

Things have change?

Did she a right?

She liked food?

No, she loves to eat.

Yeah, tell me about she comes.

She's really great with pasta.

Yeah, she makes really good pasta.

She makes lovely sandwiches with turkey and melted cheese, and she likes crunchy bread.

She's good.

Do you remember those days and when you would go so, how.

Did she do that?

Now?

She still she wasn't cooking when we were younger.

No, No, I think that's the thing when you're working, and then when you had children, because you had children while you were your career, So how did you manage domestic life?

And my search and.

Mary and I had a husband.

Unfortunately, my husband didn't believe in monogamy, so that can be challenging.

Okay, So I got a divorce when my kids were four and five.

And I just think that you just, you know, a working mother, you just juggle a lot of balls.

You're gonna have some.

Yeah, that's going to drop some.

Did you have help?

Did you have was your family nearby?

No?

No, No, because I was anchoring the news in Connecticut.

No, but I had a nanny.

I had a nanny.

But I just think, you know, when you're a mom and you're working, you you don't get it right all the time.

And my thing is you drop some balls, but pick the balls up and keep on going.

What my children did know is that they were the most important things in my life.

I tried to make it so I was the first thing they saw in the morning and the last thing they saw at night.

I really did try to do that very diligently.

You know, he's an anchor.

Yeah, Yeah, I was an anchor.

I was a reporter.

Yes, I was started as a reporter.

Then I was a reporter slash anchor.

Then I became a full time anchor.

And I just think, you know, I think when you're happy at what you do, it actually makes you a better mother.

Yeah, I do.

I didn't listen.

Being a sting at home mom was not something I wanted to do.

You know, when I started in my career, because he was a lawyer, the plan was that I would be working and by you know, he would go to law school, and then by the time his career was up, then I would be ready to leave mine.

Say, when the kids were thirteen fourteen, and it just didn't work out that way.

They turned thirteen or fourteen, I was thinking, I don't want to leave my job.

I was divorced by then, but I was still thinking I don't want to leave my job.

I'm sitting here today at seventy thinking I don't want to leave my jo.

I keep waiting for that feeling.

Then after my grandchildren were born, people said, oh, she's gonna quit, she's gonna go, she's gonna I don't want to do that.

I still really love what I get to do.

Still, of course you do.

Still, I just thought about doing a new restaurant this summer and I thought, yeah and everything.

You know, the restaurant business is very difficult.

Every job is hard, and I you know, being a restaurant person being not really well, maybe they are, Yeah, I don't.

I think the way you work in the image of a restaurant, that old fashioned male image of the angry chefs and they're screaming a bully and they're screaming and they have to get the food out.

I think back in the day, people like in the newsrooms, you had people throwing typewriters and screaming and hollering at.

You had people burning people's hands, and they would punish chefs by you know, just getting the thing hot.

I have a chef and said she was taking soufleets out of avan here in London.

Yes, and the I won't say it was, but the bent over to her and he said that if those two plays don't rise, this frying pan will be on your head.

So he was threatening to hit her over the head with a rhyme pan and that's against the law, you know.

That's what I think so too, that women today don't take the stuff.

They don't don't take it anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are there more women that you work with now than before you find them?

Ye?

Yep.

It's still not equal, but yes, there are definitely more women.

And I think women are lasting longer too.

You know, it used to be thirty five, forty fifty, forget it.

You know, because men can age, they can get wrinkles, they can get fat tummies, they can go bald, and they're just distinguished.

When it happens to women, it's like, God, she looks old.

And I just think that that's changing.

I think that that's changing.

Tell me about space, because we have to go up to dinner soon.

Tell me about it was terrifying.

Tell me because Ruthie, I am not a raper.

I'm a very nervous flyer.

I don't get on a roller coaster.

But there was something I had said in January, I'm going to open myself up to new adventures.

I was referring to dating, and I said, I'm going to open myself up to new adventures.

I found yourself instead with myself on.

A friggin rocket, and I thought there's something about stepping out of your comfort zone and being part of the first all female crew was attractive to me.

I have to say, I just felt that that I'm going to lean into it.

I'm as afraid as I am, and I was very afraid I'm going to lean into it.

I called Tyler Perry, he did a zoom prayer.

I called t D Jake's.

I talked to my kitchen cabinet, which is my favorite daughter, Kirby, favorite son, Will and Oprah of course, and if any of the three of them it said, I don't think you should do it, I wouldn't have done it.

If any one of them they almost said, we do you think you should do it?

If you want to do it, you should do it.

And so we go up.

It's very terrifying, and I ask you what you may I eat anything?

I wanted my empty I wanted nothing just in case.

But we went up.

And then when we're coming down, we had said to Katie Katy Perry, are you going to sing roar or are you going to sing fireworks?

She goes, shut the bleep up.

I'm not going to sing a song.

And if I was, I'm not going to sing any of my own friggin songs.

But when we came back down, I could feel myself getting really really lightheaded, and I thought, oh my god, please don't let me pass out, please, because that's how scared I became.

I thought I'm about to pass out.

And the image I didn't want was everybody comes off the capsule and they can stretch.

But as we broke through and we came back down, all of a sudden, Katie starts singing iced dreams, What a wonderful world.

So we're in the capsule and you just hear that Katy Perry voice in a cappella singing icy dream That gave us all goosebumps.

We were all like, oh my god.

It was just so special.

So I'm very proud of myself because I'm as I said, and I'm not brave, but that I did it and that we came back.

I came back in one piece, didn't use a diaper, and I.

Was fine, and we were hungry, but it was great.

It was great.

I think we're forever bonded.

Would you do it again?

I would.

I'm not going to do it anytime soon, but I would definitely do it again.

Well, we have to stop because we have to go and eat.

But before we do, we have a question that we ask everybody.

Then I hope you don't have to seek comfort very often, Gail King, because I love you.

Oh, thank you, Ruthie, thank you.

If you do need comfort, if you seek comfort anyone, it isn't food.

Is there something that you would reach for?

Anything?

With icing?

With icing?

You love icing?

I love our good cupcake.

Yeah, a terrible, terrible sweet tooth.

The comfort of connection with other human beings matters more than anything.

You know this, and it's not necessarily.

You can create your own family as you see, but connection with other human beings matters to me more than anything anything.

Like connector We've connected.

Thank you, Thank you.

Ruthie's Table four is proud to support Leukemia UK.

Their Cartwheel for a Cure campaign raises funds for vital research and more effective and kinder treatments for a cute my Lord Leukemia.

Please donate and to do so search Cartwheel for a Cure.

Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bell and Zad Rodgers with Susannahlock, Andrew Sang and Bella Selini.

This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.