Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Belle da Costa Greene became a fixture in New York society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world.

But she hid a secret.

Greene was forced to hide her identity as she helped J.P. Morgan create the most fabulous library in America.

Let's meet my guest, Rebecca Espinosa Kubacki, who will help uncover the life of this brilliant woman.

While making a dinner to thrill even the most upper class donor in the personal library and by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

Welcome back.

Thank you very much.

I'm so happy to be here.

And I love the book that we're talking about.

Oh, I did, too.

You know, you introduce me to this book and now I'm seeing it everywhere.

Another book about fabulous woman, women, a particular woman.

And they had to hide their identities.

And most of them didn't have the opportunity to have a job like this.

And what's interesting about Belle is she was hiding two identities, which we all get into.

Yes.

That the secret that she lived with her whole life and the life that she was forced to live of.

Though it's an interesting book.

It truly is.

And the more you read about her, I before we start cooking, I just want to mention that I found her name in the book about the Frick collection in New York, a fabulous library, and she's mentioned as a consultant to Henry Frick while he's building his art house, his library collection and his house collection.

So that is a substantiation of her position in the New York society.

And you're making a fabulous dinner.

I am, Filet Bourguignon.

And if you remember Bella, because she lived two lives, lived in high society where she would have beef bourguignon, but then at home she would have chicken.

And it was just the contrast in her life on an everyday basis.

She lived just two totally different lives and I think she struggled with that.

I think she did.

But she also knew that she could handle it, and she just kept on moving.

You know, she passed as white and she wished people would ask her what her background was.

And she said, I'm Portuguese.

Exactly.

And and so her name sort of is reflective.

It's da Costa Greene.

And so she she lived this very intriguing life.

And she was brilliant.

And J.P. Morgan kind of he just couldn't believe how lucky he was to have her collecting things for him.

In the interesting thing about Belle, that she was challenged by social issues, the role of the woman, but also the fact that she was white, black, trying to pass as white, and that her mother felt that that was a gift, that they were light skinned, so they would have opportunities that other African-Americans would not have had.

And it was a tug of war for her because she gave up her identity and and giving up her identity.

She was giving up her father's identity.

Who was African-American.

Looked African-American.

And it was a struggle for her.

It really was.

I don't know how she worked that out in her mind, but she did work for Morgans for I think she was it was almost 40.

Years she worked.

In.

Even after he died, J.P. Morgan died.

And there were problems in the family in the sense the father, one did not want them to pass as white.

You think he wanted them to be true to their nature.

Exactly.

But Belle was able to support her entire family with this job.

Yes.

And she did that her whole life.

And it's incredible what she accomplished.

Well, the the pressure, again, Belle had so many pressures on her life.

And the other one was that she became the sole breadwinner for the entire family.

The mother, the sisters, the brother in law.

And it was she kept that secret because she knew if that secret were to come out, she would lose her job and and the income for the family and they all relied on that.

And it was again, she struggled.

She struggled her whole life with who she really was.

But I'm going to tell you what I'm doing here.

Yes.

Tell us.

I'm cooking the beef and you just salt and pepper the beef and you just make sure you brown it.

You still want it medium rare.

And then you just set it aside and then we'll reassemble it later.

But for now, we're just cooking the beef.

And this is a nice way ina garden, but does it with filets.

Right.

When I do it, I do it with little chunks of meat that has to cook over time.

And I find this fascinating.

Well, and I think I chose filets because I thought that's how she lived.

She would lived in ran in very upper crust circles.

Yes.

Where they had the best of everything, the best champagne, the best foods, just everything in general.

And so I thought it was appropriate to honor Belle and cook filet.

And I am making a classic 1920s Waldorf salad, which has really been part of our diet and our salad itinerary, or I should say collection for years.

But it developed in the gilded Age at this time, and I would use this as the first course, and then we would have the Beef Bourguignon and it can be served on potatoes or rice.

Yeah.

And that's other the thing is this has everything.

It has your vegetables, mushrooms, onions, carrots.

So it's like a one dish meal that is hearty and very elegant.

It's oh, it's all of that.

It definitely is.

So, you know, here she is.

She is she is expected to know how to do everything and she picks up things very fast.

She was smart.

She was brilliant, as a matter of fact.

And her father was brilliant.

Yes.

Educated at Harvard, was a professor until there was this anti African-American situation when the civil rights Act was overturned.

In 1870.

Court and all of a sudden they didn't want him any longer as a professor.

This is after that he had.

No protection because they overturned that that ruling and just think what our country would have been like had they not overturned that ruling in 1875, I think we would have had a stronger basic society.

But again, you know, fear is a difficult thing.

And I think that the Civil Rights Act was was overturned because of fear that, yes, the culture was going to change and not everybody wanted the court didn't.

Want that done.

All along those lines, Gail, the we saw that Gail's mother wanted the children to be brought up as white because they could they were very light skinned.

But it was the father who reminded them that they were light skinned because of the horrible things that happened to their ancestors.

Yes.

By the landowner.

So it was a very difficult it's just a very difficult life for Belle And she carried that weight not just for herself, but for her whole family and the division between her father and the mother.

And, you know, having to choose how she was going to live her life, she felt that she had turned her back on her own father.

Well, they did reconnect later on.

They do.

And it is a fascinating experience.

And I think a lot of people lived through that kind of experience.

We just haven't heard their stories.

And like you mentioned, these are stories coming out about women, more and more women who did fabulous things but were never mentioned.

And now she is considered really a wonderful and a very professional curator of this library.

And she she was very good at what she did for two reasons.

One, because she worked for J.P. Morgan, but because of the fact that she was a woman and it was a male dominated culture, she had to know more.

She had she just had to be better than everybody else because that was the only way she was going to establish credibility in a male dominated field.

Well, and that was that was the life of most women working.

They worked twice as fast and and really accomplished a lot.

And she worked at being the best.

And she.

Did.

Took this very seriously.

She studied all the time, learned different languages.

She knew what she had to do to be extremely successful and worked very hard at it.

And the evenings that she would have to herself were used to studying to the point where the mother would say, You've got to keep studying because if you lose your job, we lose our income.

How's that for Pressure.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm just going to let those rest right now.

So you've cooked them 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

3 minutes on each side.

Then we will assemble all of this again and put those into the broth that we're making.

So and I'm going to get started with that.

All right.

I just wanted to mention, too, that his family reacted very well to her.

She was included in the Morgan holiday parties.

But there was a daughter of J.P. Morgan that just kind of looked at her like, oh, who is this woman?

And she never really addressed that with her directly.

I don't think.

So.

I think the the difficulty that the daughter had with Belle was she was so respected by J.P. Morgan for how smart she was and what she could do and the daughter.

I didn't think felt that she had that same respect from her own father.

And I think that's what caused the tension.

And I think she suspected that Belle was living a lie.

Living is passing as white and was going to use that.

Against.

Against her.

Belle had a secret herself about the daughter.

Yes.

So I think they had this mutual understanding that.

Don't tread on me.

You keep mine.

You keep mine.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that's how that survived for time.

We are going to take a short break and we're going to show you the menu for our program today.

And when we come back, you're going to see Rebecca make this terrific sauce with red wine and flour.

She's going to cook the carrots and we're going to have quite a meal here.

So we'll just take a little break.

Don't go away.

Stay right there and we'll see you soon.

And Rebecca Espinosa Kubacki is at it here in the kitchen with her Beef Bourguignon tell us what you did in the interim.

Okay.

What I did is I'm de-glazing the pan with garlic and you just cook that for a few minutes and then you add the red wine and it's a cup and have a red wine.

And then I'm going to add beef broth to this and I'm going to let this boil and put the vegetables in the carrots and the onions and let them cook for about 15, 20 minutes just to soften them.

And then I will make a roux that will, you know, thicken, and then we add the beef and let it all cook together.

So I'm going.

To mushroom that.

Carrots.

Onions?

Yes.

We add the mushrooms at the last minute.

Yes, we can.

Already been cooked, but we want to.

They've been cooked in butter.

Everything is butter in this.

And that's what makes it so good.

And one can do that occasionally.

Right.

Just in.

The nice thing about this recipe, Gail, is you can make that you can make this dish ahead of time, refrigerate it, and then you just bring it out.

When you're ready to serve, you heat it up for about 15, 20 minutes and then you're done.

I'm just like, this.

Is wonderful.

Here.

I'm going to.

I'm still working on this Waldorf salad.

Invented it around, I believe, 1919.

And as a first course or the ladies might have it at a luncheon.

And as you said, you know, the ladies went out for lunch sometimes and they might study some topic.

But I was reading about the women of the Frick family and they got very involved in the art world buying and suggesting artwork to their father, Henry Clay Frick.

And but we don't see the women in this book getting involved.

They they might we may not just know that, but it's basically Belle is the authority, isn't she?

I think there was a cutting edge of this because she knew that J.P. Morgan wanted the best at any cost, at any price.

And so she was really sort of the the first one to competitively bid with other other men for manuscripts and books and that sort of thing.

And she knew that she had the upper upper hand because she had no limit of what she could spend.

And that's the ultimate was the best of everything for the library.

Exactly.

So Fragonard Well, and what was interesting, too, about the bidding process was how competitive it was and how they were.

They were all had these little trade secrets and how could we outbid this person and what do we need to do to get that?

And it was always undermining.

And she was just smart enough to know, you can do all you want.

I have the bucks I.

Have the.

Markups.

And I have the man to back me up.

Exactly.

Exactly.

She didn't let him down.

He didn't let her down.

We kind of think they had a sort of a relationship.

They had a stronger relationship.

We're not sure if they were ever in love with each other.

Well, I think they were.

I think everybody can decide, you know, when they read the book.

But there was such mutual respect for each other.

He respected Belle.

She she was.

On a level with him.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I think they just developed that relationship that, of course, you knew would never say it and you would never admitted to each other.

But I think they both had a deep feeling for each other, but knew their places in society.

They knew she knew her place, he knew his place.

And they just sort of left it at that.

Well, he had four mistresses.

Exactly.

So he was.

Busy.

Wasn't he?

You remember when it finally when it came to there was a disagreement between J.P. Morgan and Belle, and he said, Remember, I own you.

Oh, I made you who you are.

And that was when she really, I think, came to real struggles in her life, because she said nobody owns me, not even J.P. Morgan, not even you and I think that was her father's influence, father's influence coming through saying, you know, be true to who you are.

To who you are.

And she's has her mother on the other end.

Behave.

Keep this job going.

Don't do anything to embarrass us.

Exactly.

She was invited to wonderful parties and she said, oh, the champagne is great.

But she had to always know that my behavior.

Yes, is very important.

Her behavior, her look, her speech.

The way she dresses.

Everything was always she knew that was who she had to be to become successful and earn the money that she needed to earn to take care of her family.

She she felt that responsibility very deeply and did whatever she could at the expense of her own personal life.

Well, yes, she did.

I think she fell in love with it.

Was it Berry Berenson?

Oh, yes.

He was Bernard.

Bernard.

And he was Jewish.

And she he didn't know if she was black or not.

They didn't seem to care about what their backgrounds were.

They were very good friends.

She wanted it to go a step further.

And I think the reason they developed such a relationship, a loving relationship, was because they both felt that they were outsiders.

Yes, he was Jewish and never really fit in, but ran in those circles.

She was black but never fit in and ran in those circles, and I think that brought them together.

Unfortunately, it was more one sided relationship.

Yes.

She she was just absolutely in love with him.

And he did adore her.

But he had a family.

Yes.

And and and I think.

Are you getting high enough flame on that?

No, I'm getting it there.

Is that you want a higher flame.

No, this will be fine.

Well, just let that go.

Because, you know, we dance around here and we get the right thing, sometimes it's low and It never.

Gets hotter.

Well, I think we're just going to let that sort of simmer.

I think she did have this carte blanche to spend, but she knew how to spend it, and people were amazed at the way she would hold up her bidding card and and bid against these millionaires and billionaires for art pieces.

And he had a son, I believe was named Juventus.

It was sort of based on a Latin name.

And they kind of stayed apart.

They didn't really mingle too much.

And and the father didn't really respect his son because he.

No, but this he this Juventus is also mentioned in the book building, the Frick Collection.

And this is a wonderful museum in New York and he's mentioned in here.

So I really my eyes kind of popped out when I saw her listed as an expert, a of authority on books and art.

Books and art.

So now you've got this heating up.

Heat up, and then I will assemble it, and then we will serve it.

Oh, now do you want to cover on that?

So.

Well, I uncovered it because I think I want to see it.

You want to see it happen?

Yeah, right.

Okay.

That's good.

And I am finishing my salad here and normally in a Waldorf salad, you add walnuts.

Well, I have them someplace, but I do believe they're at home in a jar.

Count it out.

A fourth of a cup of chopped walnuts.

And you add that and actually you can add slivers of chicken, little chunks of chicken, and make this even a fuller kind of like a lunch and salad with chicken.

I decided not to because we have this wonderful beef bourguignon.

And I'm also going to make a tray of nice little desserts to serve afterwards.

Oh, let's get our little bottle of champagne.

Of course, she always had champagne.

Where is it?

It's in the refridgerator.

Let me go get it.

Yes.

You know, that was another thing, the lifestyle that she was able to lead.

Oh, my.

You know, hobnobbing with the Vanderbilts and in highest of New York society, because she could pass as white and.

She was smart.

She didn't she didn't embarrass herself.

She didn't.

You know, stumble with her vocabulary.

What I found really interesting, too, is when she would go to these high society parties, the help was always black, and her mother would always say, Don't acknowledge them, don't because they might realize that you're black, may.

Pick up on something.

Yes, exactly.

And so she learned to just sort of nod and was deathly afraid of giving herself away that, you know.

You know what I think?

I think I used twist let me see if I can help you do that.

I would let you try that.

Oh, there you are.

Perfection.

I drink alot of these, oh they're perfect.

Yes.

Let me get my two champagne glasses and let's have a little toast to Belle.

And I just think she's amazing.

I can't imagine how she was so steadfast, how she protected herself.

In the too I think when we talk about how she was always in conflict, she did end up reuniting with her father.

Yes.

At the end.

Yes, at the end of the book and probably at the end of his life.

And I want to mention, too, that the authors are now working on a book about, oh, gosh, what is her name, Bethune McLeod and and her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt.

So they like working on these joint projects, a white woman and a black woman.

And this book, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

We're going to set our table.

We're going to have some nice desserts.

And how about a final toast as we of this segment?

Yes.

To you, Rebecca.

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing this book to our attention.

Oh, you're welcome.

And to Belle.

And to Belle.

Did she was a pioneer.

Wasn't she?

So take a break.

Don't go away.

Stay right there and come to our dinner.

We will entertain you elegantly.

And this will be all put together beautifully.

And it smells wonderful.

We'll be right back.

Do they?

Today my guest is Rebecca Espinosa Kubacki and her book was The Personal Librarian.

And you have made wonderful dish.

Tell us about.

It.

This is what Belle would have eaten because she ran a high society.

This is a filet of Beef Bourguignon.

It's your beef, carrots, mushrooms, onions.

All in one dish.

In one dish and a little bit of thyme Red wine and lots of butter.

Oh, can you imagine how that's going to taste?

And I made a Waldorf salad, and I have a little dish of desserts that we probably would serve, maybe a portion of it on a little plate with something else with it.

And that would be our dessert.

Of course, there would be hors d'oeuvre to pass.

Somebody would come along and actually, I loved this book.

I did, too, and what I loved.

And it was an inspiring book in the sense that you here you had Belle who was challenged her whole life living as being white, even though she was African-American, but also being a woman in a dominant field dominated by men and she succeeded through hard work and she was not going to give up and set her standards very high.

And she was a success story.

She was back in the 19 tens, all the way up to the twenties.

And after when J.P. Morgan died, his son took over and she got along with him pretty well, too.

And J.P. Morgan left her a substantial amount of money.

He did, and that helped her with her family.

And so it's a it's a great book.

The food is great.

You're great.

Thank you.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers to all of you.

Well, I just I love the book and I. I am amazed at her brilliance, her tenacity.

And she made it look like, of course I'm here.

This is.

I belong.

Here.

Yes.

Yes.

And young women should know that.

It doesn't mean you walk in sassy with no background.

You come in prepared and you enjoy your work and you know, you'll you can succeed.

Yes.

And so we've had another toast.

And we're going to wrap it up here.

Thanks for joining us.

Read the book and make some of this Beef Bourguignon.

In the meantime, good food, good friends, good books.

Good bœuf make for a very good life.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT Local production has been made.

Possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice.

Martin and her love of good food and good friends.