Erin French, FINDING FREEDOM: A Cook's Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch

[0:49]Zibby Owens: This is Zippy Owens and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.

[1:14]Zibby Owens: so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com.

[1:25]Zibby Owens: Listeners, if you enjoy this podcast, I promise you will love my new audiobook for moms don't have time to a quarantine anthology. It's not about the quarantine, but a lot of the essays were written during that time about other things that moms don't have time to do or other busy people, things like reading, eating, working out, breathing, having sex. And 60 bestselling and notable authors wrote essays. All those authors have been on this very podcast. So if you like to listen to my conversations, if you want to get to know these authors better, I read the audiobook myself. Check it out on Audible, Moms Don't Have Time To, a quarantine anthology. Again, Audible audiobook. Go listen to it. It's like sixty minute podcasts. I hope you enjoy. Erin French is the author of Finding Freedom, a cook story, remaking a life from scratch. She's the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40 seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine that was recently named one of Time Magazine's world's greatest places and one of 12 restaurants worth traveling across the world to experience by Bloomberg.

[2:26]Erin French: Welcome, Erin. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss finding freedom, a cook story, remaking a life from scratch. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. Wow, you have such an amazing life story and you wrote about it so beautifully in this book. Would you mind just telling listeners why you even decided to write this memoir and what it's essentially about? Well, I know some people think like, are you, why are you spilling all your guts here in this book? One part was really writing it for myself and writing it because I had a lot of things I hadn't quite put to bed yet. And I hadn't quite fully processed or, digested in a healthy way. And I to have some closure and put it down in my own words. And so part of it was writing it to myself. And then the other part, I'm sorry, my dog is barking. That's That's right. And then, you know, the other part was really to share this story for other people to give them hope and maybe feel a little less alone if they've had their own struggles or their own just feelings of deep darkness and despair, and to be able to see my own depths and my own highs, that maybe that would would provide a little bit of inspiration. So one aspect of your life of the many that are interesting, you decided you wanted to leave your small town of freedom in Maine and go out into the world, particularly into Boston, which was like your dream destination. And you got these two college acceptances and you got a free ride to the University of Maine and you and your mom were kind of like in cahoots and decided, you know what? Forget that. Let's just go with your dream school in Boston and see where life will take you. And you go and you reunite with an old boyfriend and get pregnant and then have all this pressure to perhaps not have the baby. Then you have your son and you feel like your life is over and you have to return back to your town and you missed your shot in the world. And take me back to that moment, which of course was not true and you've become the most, you know, not that not that other outcomes wouldn't have been equally amazing, but you've ended up finding this fantastic restaurant cult ish amazing destination and and really persevered through, you know, so much abuse and, you know, hard difficult partners and like all the rest. So take me back to that moment maybe when you found out you were pregnant, and you were just worried that your life was over, if you don't mind. Yeah, well, thing about growing up in a rural small town, and it always felt like it was this quiet unsaid something that, you know, you can't do anything meaningful or special in middle of nowhere. And I knew that to get that chance for almost like an escape to get away from here and that going to Boston just felt like that final, that dream come true, that girls like me don't get that chance. And you made it and you made it out of here and you're going places and you're going to live your dreams. And then to feel it sort of come crashing down and realize that with one decision, you've squandered everything with a choice that you made and an accident that may have happened. And so I really came home feeling deflated and depressed and frustrated with myself. And my family was frustrated with me and just this gross disappointment that ended up being one of the greatest joys of my life. Know, that's the way it goes sometimes. But it was it was a really, really challenging time to think that that I had I had messed up my one chance. And you also you talked about the closeness you had with your mom and how your father was not particularly supportive. And then I was interested to see at the end, you said something like you weren't sure he'd ever read this book or talk to you, or I'm wondering sort of what the status of your relationship now is. But that's a lot, the pressure that he put on you and sort of the shame that he added to your pregnancy and that your mom was like your BFF on this whole journey and like really like a co parent with you as you raised your son. Tell me a little more about sort of having to deal with that relationship and maybe, you know, as I saw your life unfolding with all these different men in your life, you know, how you feel like maybe that relationship sort of set you off on a certain path or something. Know. I'm not give to you like a therapy session this morning. Could use all the therapy I could get right now. It's me, you know, you're you're raised by these parents. And that is what you have as an example of what a relationship should be. And so my understanding of what a relationship was, was only what I saw of my parents relationship, which was unhealthy. And I wasn't raised to understand that I was raised that this was this was what was normal. And I just thought this is the way that families behave. And, it wasn't really until, I mean, gosh, until pretty much like seven years ago that I realized that my parents relationship was toxic and that I had absorbed that and I got into my own toxic relationship. I basically remarried my father. And there were, there were lots of my ex that were, that had a lot of similarities. And I was probably attracted to that because I thought that's what was normal. And I thought that's what relationships were supposed to be. I'm very fortunate to have broken that pattern because some people aren't able because they don't see the difference because I can tell you from being there, you don't know the difference. You just think that this is you that you're supposed to feel like crap every day. Like that's just what is and you don't know it until you find another way. You know, again, I do feel really fortunate to now be in a healthy marriage and, and to have broken to broken free that my mother even finally, through my own divorce, saw the dysfunction in her relationship and recognized that and was able to break free from her toxic marriage as well. And my mother was a big, a big supporter by my side and my father was continual disappointment with him. Never quite could please him. And we've even as of late, the relationship continues to be strained and it always will be. And that's how relationships go. There's no ending to the story. It's constantly evolving and it's a constant challenge. Over the past three years, we went without speaking and I just showed up and brought him some lilacs on his birthday this year. And I brought him the audio book because I knew he'd never read it and, but he's been listening to it. And I needed him to hear that and I needed him to understand my point of view as his child, what that child had looked like. It's easy. I think it's easy to gloss over as a parent to maybe not recognize that and see the the different points of views of of how actions affect people. I find this whole notion of like, even parents who end up sort of harming kids that sometimes they're just doing the best they can. And like this whole, like, when we're adults, we end up forgiving parents for whatever shortcomings because they tried. I don't know. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I feel like it's very true. I've been recognizing my own faults as a parent, as I've been as an adult now analyzing how my parents raised me and how that shaped me and recognizing how I became the person I did and maybe where the stubbornness came from, the good traits and the bad traits and where they came from and why I am who I am. Your childhood is so shaping of who you sort of become. I look at my own son and have these fears of like, oh, what did I do in those moments? I knew that I was doing the best that I could have done. I'd love to get it all over again and do better because now I know better. But in that place and in that time, it was the best that we all could do. And that's the thing, we have this expectation of parents to be these immortal just, you know, just perfect, these perfect beings that are just supposed to be this pinnacle of perfection. And it's just impossible to be a perfect parent. And so, so hard and no one gives you a manual. It's, it's definitely, it's definitely a struggle. And I'll see what my kid writes about me in his memoirs. Yeah. Seriously, sometimes I think about that and I'm like, Oh no, is this going to go in the book? The book of my shortcomings eventually, you know, doing all these podcasts. No, I'm kidding. You had the most amazing writing about your divorce and also the very dark place that you got to when your whole restaurant was sort of burned to the ground or not burned, but, you know, demolished and the locks were changed and your whole life's work was sort of taken away and oh my gosh. And I wanted to just read maybe a little bit of the section if that's okay. You said let's see. I scribbled my signature at the bottom of the form, and I walked down the hallway back toward my room plotting my discharge. I would check myself out. I would fly home, and I would kill Tom. This is after you realized everything that had happened. I would kill him with the anger that was raging like wildfire through my body. I would kill him for all the lies he had told me, the pain he had caused me, and everything he had stolen from me. I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. I wanted to feel what it felt like to squeeze every single last drop of air from his lungs and watch his face gasp with panic until his lying blue eyes turned gray and rolled back into his head. I wanted him to feel the pain and fear that he made me feel. I rolled into my bed with the murderous thoughts. If I killed Tom, they would know it was me. It was too easy. I'd spend my life in prison. And then you have the suicidal sort of ideation and then decided not to do it, thank God. And it was your son and his sort of calling to you from that roped you back in and that made you put down the shoelaces. But what a point of life. What a like, I mean, tell me take me back just for two seconds to that moment. Because now I feel like you've Yeah, I know that sounds like just hearing you say that's like, my god, that's crazy woman crazy moment. No, no, no, no, no. I feel like everybody can relate. Like everybody at times has these feelings that they're like, oh my gosh, like what can I do? And there's a difference between feeling it and acting upon it. Let's be very clear. And yes, I think it's human to have these, these just these emotions. And so that's describing a moment when I call home and I'm in a rehab facility dealing with prescription drugs and depression. And I've called home to find out that my ex husband has taken all of my life's work. He has locked the doors on the restaurant. Find out that I'm not I was only on the mortgage. I wasn't on the deed. They had lied to me and my restaurant has been closed. My staff has been fired and he has seized everything while I'm in recovery. And it was this moment of, you know, I've lost my home, I lost my business. He's taken my son who was I'd let my ex husband adopt my son because I was a single mom and I met him. So I've lost everything that mattered in my life. And that feeling of self hatred for myself, hatred for this person who had, who had just taken everything that I loved and cared about in one cruel momentary sweep. It's it was this just, I've never felt such deep, wild emotion of, of just the biggest smack in your face you could ever imagine. And nothing you could do about it. You know, I was in, I was in lockdown at that point, and just swirling through of trying to figure out how to go through it. And luckily I was, I was in a place that, that was able to help me deal with those emotions and help me move through that and get to a better place. And now like take me up on the, on the upswing where you have this wildly successful restaurant and you manage to sort of rebuild everything, which is amazing. I mean, such an accomplishment and really tapping into this whole, you know, just tell me what it's like now, like on the other side having reached those lows to be on this high, I'm assuming, but you shouldn't say. That's why I wanted to tell the story because no one really knew about the lows. They only saw the bright and shiny highs. It may have looked like, you know, this young woman in the middle of nowhere opens this restaurant that's filled with flowers and it's by a waterfall and nobody can get in because everyone wants to eat there. It just sounds so dreamy and romantic. And the truth was, this place would never be here if I hadn't tumbled through all of those moments and fought, to rebuild my life, to find a healthy way to rebuild my life and find a good life because I was living in a very toxic, toxic life. And so that's the main message of like sometimes you to tumble you just have to become a mess to get to the other side. You have to get through that. And I recognize that now that I would never be right here without all of those deep, dark, hard moments that occurred. Now feeling thankful to be living a good life up here and running this restaurant that it's just still mystifies me that one of the hardest restaurants to get into in the country, which is terrifying to me because the pressure of having to make that a reality for people who are coming here expecting the best meal of their lives. It's a lot of pressure, but it does keep pushing me and pushing me to become a better cook and a better hostess and to care for people just so deeply. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[17:44]Erin French: Yeah. It's a nice brush. I love your use of the word tumble because so often people talk about falling, and that seems like so static, right? To fall means like you fall and you're like in one place. But to tumble suggests this like, you know, I'm doing like a wheelie motion with my hands, you know, that you it's not just one you don't just hit one place. You it just you fall and then it makes you go into other places, and then, you know, you bounce you have to bounce back. It's not like a one time thing, right? It's in motion. Well, I once had a therapist who when I was deep, deep into therapy, going just in the depths of all this crap in my life. She said, I have something for you. And she handed me this little black smooth rock. And she said, I want to tell you about this rock. It came from an island off the coast of Maine, which is where I live. And it's stone that has been tumbling and going through the waves and it survived all these main winters and nor'easters and it keeps crashing and tumbling and going through. And look at what it is now it's this beautiful stone and it wouldn't be so soft and smooth and beautiful if it hadn't gone through all that hell. And so that's my little token that I keep with me. And I remember like, you know, sometimes you gotta gotta tumble to find the beauty in things. Oh, I love that. I just love that. Wow. So how was it writing this book and having to relive all of this? I mean, this must have been a really intense experience to go from like the restaurant and then sort of mining all of the the pain of the past to create this manuscript. Yeah. It was definitely one of the most challenging things that I've done in my life to have to go back and relive it. And my family was extremely patient because there were moments when I would have to make phone calls to family members and say, hey, do you remember how this went down? And am I remembering this correctly? And so they were reliving these moments with me and it was challenging. Or I could be working on a piece all day long and then I'd come out of my room and have to make dinner and remind my family, I'm really sorry if I'm in a bad mood, but I'm 2,004 right now. And that's where my brain is. Because I would have to take myself back to those moments to really immerse myself, to be able to describe them and recount them. And so it was kind of a personal therapy journey almost for myself to go back and really think about those moments more in-depth where some of them, just for survival mode, just pushed through them just to get through and survive and didn't really take the time to process it and accept and put it to bed. So this was my opportunity to do that and relive it and you know, hopefully not have to do it too many more times. But it empowered me to have that moment to be able to be okay with it. And I found more acceptance than I had expected through it as well. And what is it like knowing that everybody knows your story now? It was harder the days and the months leading up to the publication, because I had really almost written this as a journal to myself of recounting it in a way. And then realizing that it was going live, there was a lot of anxiety, but the day that it came out, it was almost like this huge breath of air just came back into my lungs of feeling like, okay, this is who I am. And people will read it and you'll either love me or you're or you'll hate me. And at least you know who I am. You can make that judgment on your own. And that felt that felt important. I'm writing this memoir now myself. And there are some parts where I'm like, well, this is sort of embarrassing. Like, this doesn't reflect particularly well on me. Do I really want people to know? I could just easily not put it in and have people not know. But is that true? Is that the truth? You know, like, then they I don't know. There's like, I feel like in picking what to include, I don't know, I feel like it's challenge. How badly do you want people to think about you? And I think for me, it was important to let people know because I knew that the messy moments that I was sharing, I felt so sure that there were other people who had experienced that too. And that's something I learned in rehab. Was like when you found that you were in a safe place and that you could open up and talk about those things, all of sudden you discovered that you weren't the only one. And you discovered that someone else felt that way. And it just made things feel lighter. Like, oh, it's not that dirty. Like you're not the only one you're human. And there are zillions of other people who've gone through this and they may not talk about it because it may not be romantic. It may not be cute. It may not be sweet, but it's important. And to recognize that our imperfections and recognize that we're doing what we can do. And that's where I found strength when I've found groups of other people who understand because they've been through it. And so I think sharing those stories can be so important and not just for your own life because you survived it, but for other people. I knew that that could be important for their own survival of saying, wow, like you felt that and now you're here like you got through it. I knew if I touched just one, one person and it changed their life, then this book would all be worth it. And didn't matter how many people, you know, didn't like me because of my imperfections. And I, you know, I know that that job has been accomplished at this point. That's great. So what is coming next for you now? Oh gosh. Well, we're right in the middle. We're filming for our show right now. We have another cookbook on the horizon. We just sold them rights to the book. So it's possibly produced into film and then the restaurant, which is just the guiding light out here. Just opened this past season. I mean, this past weekend, so that's why I look so tired. Back to sixteen hour days and just trying to get back to normal after COVID with the restaurant and get back into some service. And tell me more about the show when you said back to filming. We've got our show on the Magnolia Network and we're just filming away out here. Amazing. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? Oh gosh, that's really good. It's so funny because I don't even, I have a hard time considering myself an author. So I look at that book and the day it showed up and I held it in my hands and I dropped out of college and I'm holding a book 300 pages that I wrote was really like a wow moment. I guess I'd say have patience with yourself and give yourself space. Yeah, I always had to find a nice quiet space and it was always getting your head and I always have little notebooks that I'd leave next to my bed when it'd like, oh, I'd have a thought. Alright, sometimes they'd be in the car and I'd leave myself a voice mail and be like, oh, like talk about this moment or cause it comes to you. Mean, me, it would just come to me and start moments, Oh, there's Penny. She's getting old now. You can definitely call yourself an author. Your book was beautiful and amazing. And I'm so glad you wrote it and that we all got to live through it. And I have so much respect for you and all the things you've overcome and what you've created. And it's really amazing. So thank you for letting us all into your life. Thank you. Thank you so much. If somebody were coming to your restaurant, last question, what should they get? Like what's your favorite thing that you make or what's like your go to? Oh, well, that's the great thing about the restaurant is you don't have to make any decisions. It's all prefix and it's just whatever I'm making for dinner that night. And so it's like a 10 course dinner. You just come in and you sit down and we change the menu every day and it would just fill you up with food. No decisions to be made. Oh, okay. Well, it's like going to a friend's dinner party for the night and not having to think about anything. Wow. Alright. Awesome. Okay, Erin, thank you so much. Thanks for coming on, moms. No time to read back. Okay. Take care. Bye. Thanks

[25:26]Zibby Owens: for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.