Produce Pete and co-author Susan Bloom

Bert Baron

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Produce Pete is back with a new book co-authored by Susan Bloom entitled 'They Call Me Produce Pete'

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TitleProduce Pete and co-author Susan Bloom

AuthorBert Baron

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Duration24:46

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Uploaded31 Mar 2023

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Produce Pete, a well-known figure in the television and radio industry, has released a new book called "They Call Me Produce Pete." The book is a memoir that tells the story of his upbringing as the son of an immigrant and his journey in the produce business. Pete shares how he got his start in television after being approached to talk about a grape scare in 1988. Despite initially declining the offer, Pete eventually agreed and it led to more opportunities and a long-standing career in television. He later joined NBC and became a regular on the weekend program. Pete's book also explores his relationship with his father and the challenges he faced as an immigrant. The book has been well-received and Pete is grateful for its success. The pandemic also played a role in the book's creation, as it gave Pete and his co-author Susan Bloom the time and opportunity to work on it. Overall, the book focuses on Pete's experiences and the lessons he learned throughout his life. No stranger, of course, to anyone in television, radio here in Northwest New Jersey, and even if you visit Donaldson's or some of the other great places where you get the best, freshest produce that is available, you've probably, maybe you've run into this guy doing his thing and visiting some of our great locations. Out with a spectacular brand new book and here to talk about it here today, it is so great to welcome the produce, Pete, back to the RNJ main studio today. Pete, good morning. Good morning. How are you? Oh, I'm great. Thank you so much for coming back in today. Oh, it's my pleasure. And Susan Bloom with you here today. Susan, my co-author of my new book, they call me Produce Pete, and basically, my new book is somewhat of a memoir, you know, and has some recipes in it, it has some stuff that, you know, growing up in, you know, my father was an immigrant, came to this country, and I started working selling produce off the back of his truck at the age of five. Wow. Wow. So I think people know the name Produce Pete, but maybe they don't know the story, you know, the origin story of Produce Pete, and you detail that in the new book, Pete? Yeah, well, I tell the whole thing about how with a little bit of luck and a little bit of what happened was there was a grape scare in about 1980, I guess it was 1988, where they found cyanide in the grapes. And a local TV station, it wasn't local, it was WOR, they were national, but a woman by the name of Rosemary Maddy Henry came to, wanted to do a story on it. So she wanted to do a story on it, and she said to one of her producers, she was the executive producer of the show, and she said, do you know anybody in the fruit and vegetable? And one of her producers said, yeah, well, I go buy this stand in Bergenville, New Jersey, and I stop and buy apples and stuff every once in a while. So she said, the owner seems to know what he's talking about, he's always talking to people there and everything. So they gave me a call, and being the smart guy I am, I said, I'm too busy, I can't, I can't go, I mean, I'm running a store, I'm too busy. So she went back to her executive producer, Maddy, and Maddy said to her, what is this guy, crazy? I mean, we've got a national show, you know, we're offering them a TV spot on a national show to come in. And they called back two or three times, I gave her the same answer, and then the other smartest woman I ever met in my life, my wife Betty, she answered the phone, and she said, yes, send a car, he'll do it. So I came home from the market, and there was a limousine sitting there, and she said, you better go home and change, because you'll be on TV. So I got there to the studio, and they said to me, Maddy met me, and she says, are you nervous? And I said, I'm a little nervous. So she said, and I still remember it to this day, 32 years later, make it a conversation, make it a conversation. And I was used to that, knocking on doors when I was five years old, selling produce, threw the door off my father's truck, and I used to, you know, in those days, a woman would come to the door, you know, there wasn't too many ladies working like there is now, and they would say to me, you know, and I'd say, lady, would you like to buy a tomato, you know, come to the truck and everything, and if they said no, I'm too busy, I'd go, you know, I was only a five-year-old boy, I'd go, you know, if you don't go down to the truck, my father will make me walk home. So I always had a, you know, a little stick for it, so. Guilt him into it, of course, right, right. So I went on People are Talking, and we did a little segment with the grapes, and I, you know, I was always the common sense type guy, and to me, you know, it was 22 pounds of grapes in a box, there was maybe 20 grapes to a, you know, to a pound, so that's four to five hundred grapes. It took two weeks to get here, they put a thousand boxes of grapes in a tanker to get here from Chile. Wow. They said it was cyanide, cyanide, by the time it got here, if it was done in Chile, it would have been a raisin, not a grape. So one of the anchors there said to me, well, are you afraid to eat grapes, and I said no, and before we went to break, I popped two grapes in my mouth, and I guess when they came back from the break, they thought, everybody thought I'd be laying dead on the floor, but I was alive, and then two weeks later, they called me back to do some more things, and then they gave me a contract. That's great. And that's how I started, and then I went to NBC in 1992. And this is Philadelphia for a little bit? Well, when I was working as a spokesperson for Pathmark Supermarkets, who is now defunct and not in business anymore, but I was still in Jersey, and we had stores in Philadelphia, so I used to do some stuff for them in Philadelphia, too. That's great. Everybody, Produce Pete loves those Saturday morning segments that you do. Oh, yeah. I mean, I went there in 19, to be perfectly honest with you, at WOR, I had a, they were changing. I mean, you're in radio. It's all about change. You know what it is, and everything changes, and it got to be more of a, not a segmented thing. So, by 1992, the summer of 92, I was ready to leave. You know, I had my 10 minutes of fame, and I thought that was it. And the Wednesday, in a Wednesday in September, I got a call from Matt Lauer, who was one of the anchors at WOR, and had left, and he said, do a new program in NBC. And I said, what, weekend programming? And he says, you'd fit in perfect there, and I go, well, you know, listen, I don't know. Again, my wife, the smartest one in the family, stepped in and said, yeah, he'll do it. And so, I went there on Friday, the day before the show aired, and there was five guys out of the soap operas, reading off a teleprompter, talking about the virtues of zucchini, and for some reason, I got the job. And this September, it'll be 31 years, the longest segment, segmented segment, in history. Because it's usually a six-month deal. Yeah. 31 years. 31 years. Oh, man. Wow. At NBC. Congratulations. The real NBC weekend today in New York. So many people I know that love to watch that segment Saturday mornings, and yeah, it just, it continues to grow. I mean, it's great. I mean, growing up with a father that thought I was going to be nothing, a bum, and this and that, and you know, I mean, it was just the old ways. There was nothing, you know, nothing mean about it, but it was just there. And in the book, there's a tremendous amount of things about my relationship with my father, and how finally, at the end of, you know, it took to the end of his life, but finally at the end, I just said, you know, this is it. I have to, if I'm going to stay mad the rest of my life, then it's just going to tear me up inside. So I had to just say, enough's enough, and I just had to come to the conclusion. And it tells a story. And you know, we've done really well with this book so far. It just came out right after Valentine's Day. Yeah. But we've been, we did a tremendous, we're doing, it's unbelievable. I'm just so, you know, shocked about how much the book has done. And we're selling a lot of books, which is great. And we're getting a lot of people asking us to come on and talk about it and everything. Well, I'm flattered you're here today. Well, I mean, it's terrific, you know, well, if you go to these big editors, and you go to these places, and they say memoirs, well, you know, it's a lot about memoirs in here. They go there and they'll say, you know, you're not De Niro, you're not Pacino, it's kind of hard to sell a memoir of a local guy. But I think it's, it's not just me, it's when you read the book, you understand, you know, what happens to people that come here and immigrant people that come here and how they, you know, how they work hard to do it. And that's what we did. We, you know, we worked hard. We, you know, I was poor most of my childhood, you know what I mean? We went out and did it, you know, years ago, I did some stuff for Laura Tish, for the owner of the Giants. Oh, sure. I did a movie for her. And she talked about peddlers and stuff. And when I was being interviewed, the one of the people that interviewed me said to me, you know, well, you know, what you did is impossible. And I said to her, it's not impossible. All you have to do is want to work. That's it. That's what it is. Yeah. All you want to have to do is work. Thank you so much. Produce Pete is here. Brand new book. Terrific. Co-authored by Susan Bloom. The book is called They Call Me Produce Pete. And The Produce Pete is back with us here today. And Pete, talk about, if you could, the role, the pandemic, obviously, what it did to so many of us. I mean, you know. Did it play a role in this book? Oh, yeah. The pandemic was a terrible thing that happened to this country. Put a lot of these little business people out of, you know, out of business. And you know, I've always been, right from the beginning, I've always been, you know, going to these little mom and pop places, we call them, and little stores and stuff. And I've always done my book signings and different stuff in there. But the pandemic, actually, if it wasn't for the pandemic, I don't think we would have had this book done. Susan and I, who I met over, I guess, almost 12 years ago, Susan, and I met in Chester, at a show in Chester. And we clicked really well. I mean, and I've had a lot of people over the years, but me and Susan clicked really good. And so, we do a lot of papers, we, you know, the Asbury Park Press, New Jersey Monthly, a lot of New Jersey Bites, I mean, a lot of different, you know, things. So, we click good. So, my most asked question is not how to pick an eggplant. It's really, it's longevity. And what's longevity? Longevity, we all know what longevity is. In the produce field, they think it's a, you know, a squash or something. No, but it's a longevity means, you know, how did you last so long? So, we've been thinking about it for years, doing a book about, you know, how I got involved the tribulations with my father, what my father taught me, how my childhood was just working all the time and stuff like that. So, we were thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. Now comes the pandemic, so I'm doing stuff at home every week for the segment. I'm not going into New York. I'm not being in the field anymore. We're not doing this. So, one day Susan calls me up, she says, let's do the book, and I go, okay. And that's what happened. That's how we did it. And, you know, the good thing about Susan is she writes like I talk. And I've always, you know, I've always had different people that wanted to do stuff with me, and they don't write like I talk. Now, you know, like I said, sometimes I mispronounce a word, sometimes I do this. It's just my upbringing and all. And so, when we started doing this book, I mean, it was like, you know, it was terrific. She'd come to either the house or we'd talk on the phone. It's two years in the making. We both had the same ideas of what we were doing. Like I told you before when I was talking to you, we, I always, I hate reading something and then at the bottom it says go to page 975 to see a picture or something. I wanted the pictures right with the, with the, with the narrative, you know, the book, you know. So, there was a lot of stuff that we wanted to do. And then I wanted, the main thing was that one thing that I learned from my father, I had a terrible relationship and I'm not proud of that with my father, but one thing I did learn from my father is tell the truth. A lie lasts forever. Truth is only a short story. It's not a long story, which some of our politicians should really realize. But that's what I wanted to do, tell the truth. So, you know, Susan would come to the house and Betty, my wife, would be there and, you know, I'd be talking and she'd be writing and listening and stuff and then she'd look at Betty. Betty'd look at her and go, you really want to say that? And I'd say, yeah. I mean, if I'm going to, if I'm writing something, this is the absolute truth through my eyes. This is what the truth is. And that's what this book is all about, you know. And a lot of stuff in this book has to do with, like I said, my father, a lot of the book has to do with when I started at NBC, getting up in the morning, getting there, what products I was picking, what I was doing. A lot of, the book has a lot of stuff about Susan interviewed Pat Battle, Gus Raffi, all the people I worked with, people from years ago, Donaldson's Farm, you know, Katie and Greg, Farmsview Farm, you know, Dana and her brother and the mother and stuff. So she interviewed all these people. The Katzmann family, who I still do some stuff for in Hunts Point Market, who is more family to me than anybody in the world, whose father actually put me in business. So that's what we do. So she interviewed everybody and she did this, that's in the book. And then in the book is a lot of stuff about what my father taught me. Like I said, yes, the best is, they say it in Italian, but I'll tell you in English, the best is walk around the block. Now what's walk around the block? Well, walk around the block is during your life, people are going to come up to you and they're going to say, you know, or your boss is going to come up to you and say, I have to cut your salary or your boss or somebody is going to say to you, listen, I have to do this or this and this, and you don't, you take offense to it. Well instead of opening your mouth and saying something there, you know, calm yourself down, walk around the block. Now that doesn't mean you have to walk around the block, but that's what it is. Then if you have a problem with them, then you say something. But how many times did something that you let that, you say something and then bingo, you say to yourself, why did I say that? And I do the same thing. Yeah. People let emotions get the best of them sometimes. Well, forget about it. I mean, when I'm, you know, when I'm on TV and I, especially live, our show is live and I'm on TV and, and, you know, I think about, cause I was taught that from an early age. I think about what I have to say, no matter if it's stuff in my brain or it's, or, or I, I know what I'm going to say, but I think about what I have to say ahead of time because my father had no filter in the way you talk, but I do. And it was something that I learned from my mother, God rest her soul. Well, the book sounds like it just filled with great life lessons too, Pete. So it's a lot you can learn from you. Yeah. It's a, a lot of people say to me, why'd you write the book too? And I said to him, so my great, great, great, great grandchildren will know what it was when, when a man came from Italy and his son went from a peddler's son to being on, on a, on TV and to, to see hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of people, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that book will be in, you know, in Washington DC in the library of Congress and if for, you know, for decades. So, you know, it was something really nice. That's amazing. And a lot of things you talked about in the book included are the recipes, a couple of your personal favorites are in there. Oh yeah. Besides my memoirs in there, there's a lot about food, cherish family recipes, the best recipes that we picked out of my new, my old book, plus a lot of new recipes that we have. And also my favorite fruits and vegetables and how to, and how to pick them. You know, I've always, you know, that's, that's always been my thing since I started. You know, when I first started on, on NBC, you know, it was, here's an orange, how do you pick it? Then it was, you stretch it, here's an orange, how do you pick it? What do you do with it? Then here's an orange, how do you pick it? Here's a recipe. And then, which got to be the most popular part of the whole thing was the stories. We started with the stories and then here's an orange, how do you pick it? And all the stories got to be the most popular part. I would love to just go for a walk with you, like around at Donaldson Farms and just pick out all the stuff. Like Pete, what should I look for here? What should I look for there? Well, I mean. That would be so much fun. You know, one thing my father did teach me is to, when the farms are gone, you know, they're gone. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Support your local farmer. That's the most important thing. Support these guys, support their hardworking people. And Jersey was a garden state at one time. I mean, it's still a garden state, but don't forget a lot of the farms have gone, you know, by the wayside. So just, I've always been like that. Support your local farms. My father taught me one thing and one thing that once a farm's gone, you're out of business and you know, that's what it is. Yeah. 908-852-1234. You want to say hello to somebody, Produce Pete, on the phone? Sure. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Yeah, sure. Hi, good morning. It's R.N.J. You're on with Produce Pete this morning. Yeah, Pete. My father also was an immigrant, but he died when I was 19. He was 57. I guess my question is, because you talk about your dad, what caused your relationship to go bad with your dad? I think that's really more important than even the produce because you're teaching people how to live. Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, he was, my father was the 20th of 20 children. There were 17 boys and three girls. He came here from Italy. He had his old ways about him. You know, the next generation was modern, like me. You know what I mean? We were, you know, we were schooled. We were a little bit more modern. He had the way he was, I mean, and it was a terrible situation. I am not proud of it. I didn't do it with my children because of what happened. You know, sometimes, you know, when you grow up with somebody and you follow what their father did or their footsteps, well, I didn't do it. And he had his old ways about him. You know what I mean? You know, the wall was white, but he said it's black and he said, you're supposed to say it's black. Well, you know, I was an educated, you know, high school, but I still was an educated person and I knew that the wall was still white. So, I mean, that's what I read, but in the long run, at the end, I still, I put it to my mind that I wasn't going to let this affect me. I forgave him for everything that I thought that he did wrong with me. And you know what? I lived a much better, since then, I've lived a much better life. So, you know, he was, he was, my mother used to say that he was, you know, a hard man to live with, but it was well worth it. And she stayed with him for, you know, until she passed away. And he was, like I said, he taught me an awful lot. I wouldn't be sitting here and I wouldn't be talking to you if it wasn't for him. Every night, I dream about him and, you know, it's funny, my wife says, was it a nightmare? I said, no, I mean, it's what it was and I let it go. And that's the most important thing. And I recommend that to anybody out there. If you have a, you know, a problem with somebody or something, it's only going to eat you up in the inside. Let it go. That's all. Everybody's got different ways and that's the whole thing. That's a great question. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. a good question. But Pete, maybe the most important recipe in your book is a recipe for happiness and a recipe for building good relationships. Hey, listen, I mean, you know, I was lucky, you know, I met the woman that, you know, my wife, when she was 14 and I was 16, we, you know, in June, we're going to be celebrating 56 years of marriage. Listen, I have two wonderful kids, seven grandchildren and, you know, I mean, I'm to be perfectly honest with you, even though my childhood was completely different, I am the luckiest guy in the world. Couple minutes still to go with my special in-studio guests who are here. Produce Pete, of course, will give you some dates and some information about where you can pick up the new book and say hello to Produce Pete as well. But spend a couple minutes with the co-author and I'm so jealous of her incredible writing style and Produce Pete summed it up perfectly. No one better than Susan Bloom to work with on this project here, so Susan, good to see you again. Great to be here. Thanks for being here. And Bert, as always, flattery will get you everywhere. I'm good at that. You know I'm so good at that. What was this experience like for you? I know you and Pete had a long work history together, but to finally have this happen. This was really a labor of love because Pete and I have worked together for a very long time. I know him well. I know his family. And you know he is a Jersey boy from the get-go, but I really believed I saw in him a truly American story and I felt this was a great story to share. So we are so excited. This actually took three years to pull together and we could not be prouder of this book or more excited to share his story with the world. He's got a very interesting and inspiring story that I think people will really enjoy. It will resonate, yeah. Absolutely. So congratulations again to the both of you. So I know that you guys are going to be going out doing some signings, some appearances, Donaldson Farms, I'm sure there are going to be a couple of Pete sightings over the course of spring and summer. Absolutely. Absolutely. But talk about you got a couple of you want to invite people to now? Yes. Well, first of all, people can get this book. It's called They Call Me Produce Pete. You can get this book anywhere books are sold, online bookstores. It's also available on Produce Pete's website, which is ProducePete.com and if you buy it through the website, he will autograph it for you. So nice little perk there, a little personalization there if you do it that way. We are kind of doing a tour now all over New Jersey and all of these locations and dates are listed on Pete's website, ProducePete.com. But one of note in this area will be in Hackettstown, Donaldson's Farm. Katie was so lovely and gracious. She participated in this book and we can't wait to be there to sign books and that will be on June 30th, Friday night at the farm starting at 6 o'clock. We will be there and can't wait to meet everyone and we're going to be all over the state, the shore, North Jersey, you name it. So can't wait to get out and meet people and share this book with them. You're going to be racking up the miles driving around Jersey with the book, that's great. But Donaldson's, those Friday night on the farm events are so much fun. We hope to see you there, they are legendary, we can't wait. That's great. Well Susan, congratulations to you of course. Thank you so, so much. And yeah, good luck with everything and Pete, a quick farewell from you and again, thank you so much for coming on and it's always great to have you guys here. So again, congrats on the book and thank you for coming on in today. Well thank you very much, it's my pleasure and to everyone out there, wish you a happy Easter, happy Passover and enjoy the holidays and remember, enjoy the family and most important, please support your local farm.