Mel Brooks, an icon of the great American experience, the Jewish immigrant raised in Williamsburg, branded in the Catskills, who grazed on Los Angeles' bounty with bff Carl Reiner. His defiant, cultish humor has netted him a Grammy, an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony, anecdotes to be spun tomorrow night as the latest protagonist of PBS' American Masters (The New Yorker's Richard Brody uploaded a teaser).
That hilarious Jewish kid from Brooklyn who has a penchant for treif (bacon and shellfish, staples of his Manhattan clam chowder that he cooked for his late wife, Anne Bancroft, stunning, waify perfection in the late 1970s The Turning Point) shares his love of opera (and yogurt) with Bon Appetit Magazine:
What other food is always in your house?
Brooks: Yogurt. I use zero percent fat, Greek or Bulgarian. I like the little extra sour taste. An hour or so before I go to bed, I have yogurt and maybe some blueberries while I'm watching Arts, A-R-T-S. It's on my local Santa Monica station, KCET, out here. It's little videos--sometimes Pavarotti is singing "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot or Lenny Bernstein conducting his own piece of Candide. Someone singing or some little symphonic band. It's soothing. It comes on around midnight. I'm always up at midnight.