CHICAGO — Andy Murray freely admits that he does not know how to type but has nevertheless written a spectacular book. “Eat, Drink and Be Murray” masquerades as a very good cookbook but it is so much more, a story of family and love and fun, and, yes and understandably, a bit of golf.
“Since my childhood, I’ve always been around golf courses,” he said. “And kitchens.”
We were sitting one recent afternoon in Dublins Bar & Grill on the Near North Side. It has a small kitchen which is able to produce an astonishingly large variety of meals and Murray was especially impressed by, of all afternoon snacks, oysters Rockefeller, which we shared and he deemed “really, really good and from that tiny kitchen.”
He knows food, having spent most of his life in kitchens, from the day he was four and his mother said, “Andy, it’s time for you to learn to make bacon.”
He learned that and began working as a busser at age 11. He was also caddying at the Indian Hill Club, where all of his brothers toted golf bags.
“I fell in love with restaurants that first day,” he said. “They gave me food. And that beat the hot dogs and drinks we had to pay for ourselves at the golf course.”
He flirted with college, sold life insurance for a short time, attended the New York Restaurant School and, after a fortuitous encounter backstage at “Saturday Night Live,” worked at La Terrace on Shelter Island in New York. He later spent some lively years at Mortimer’s in Manhattan, a place that attracted such hungry society folks and stars as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Frank Sinatra, about whom Murray writes in the book, along with a recipe, “He so loved the Dover sole we served him that he grandly tipped the entire staff.”
For the last two decades he has overseen the Murray Bros. Caddyshack restaurants he owns and operates in partnership with his brothers. The first opened in 2001 in St Augustine, Florida, where he lives most of the year, and the other has been in Rosemont, Illinois, since 2018.
He is an affable, funny and upbeat guy, traits he shares with the other members of his large family. A couple of his brothers are also writers, though better known for what they do as actors. Older brother Brian has written much for television and film, most famously the screenplay for “Caddyshack” along with Harold Ramis and Doug Kenney. His brother Bill, who starred in that movie and many others, has written a lively foreword to Andy’s book. He also wrote a 1999 anecdote-filled book called “Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf,” written in collaboration with George Peper, editor-in-chief of Golf Digest.
When that book was published, he told me while sitting in the Billy Goat, “People have been asking me to write a book for some time. But there are all these comedians who’ve written books about their lives. I didn’t want to do an ‘I’m so wonderful’ kind of book. I didn’t want an ‘as told to’ book because they are too wafer-thin. The idea of a book about golf appealed to me.”
In Andy’s book, Bill writes, “Andy’s my little brother. Not the littlest, but littler. So many lovely, lovable brothers and sisters, and if you’re littler — some special you, must raise its voice to be heard above the din. And by the stove, in the shadow of our mother, is where little Andy learned to love.”
These three brothers grew up with six other siblings — Edward, Nancy, Peggy, Laura, Johnny and Joel — in a small house in Wilmette, Illinois. In one early story about Bill in the Washington Post, the writer fell for his description of Wilmette as “a small mining town north of Chicago.”
Andy writes: “With so many of us kids, there was a boys’ room, a girls’ room and, as the family grew, a baby in a crib with my parents. My love of food — and family — came from my mother. Lucille was the greatest. Everybody felt at home when they sat at her table. Whether it was a celebrity like John Belushi or the neighbor next door, Mom made everybody feel special.”
He loved his father Edward too, writing, “There was always a contest to get my dad to laugh at dinner. If you could get dad to laugh, it was a big deal.”
The laughter stopped for a time after Dec. 29, 1967 when his father died from complications from diabetes that shadowed his entire life. He was 46.
“We’re all going to have to stick together,” Lucille said.
And they did, pursuing various roads (Nancy became a nun) but remaining close, even after she died in 1988. “We are still very tight,” said Andy. “If we aren’t talking on the phone we are texting each other and we frequently get together.”
This book was born three years ago when Andy was cooking a Thanksgiving dinner at Bill’s house in South Carolina. A woman named Karen Duffy sat watching him and in time said, “You should write a book.” She introduced him to her agent, who liked the idea and Andy began, haltingly he admits, to think about it. Then COVID came and Andy had some time on his hands and started to work.
The book became a family affair, with his siblings (eldest brother Ed died late in 2020) contributing, whether in sharing recipes, stories, quips, and dozens of charmingly evocative photos of the Murray family through the years.
He credits his friend, former Tribune reporter, television and radio personality and author Jenniffer Weigel, “without whose constant help and encouragement, none of this would have been possible,” he writes.
Full disclosure: I don’t cook. But this book is a flat out delight and I actually think I could make many of the meals on its pages.
“That was the idea, simple recipes,” Andy says. “This is all about comfort food.”
You’ll find recipes for such things as French toast, chicken hash, short ribs, chili, pea soup, tomato pie, pork roast, lasagna, meat loaf, fried chicken and dozens of others. There are some unique items (most notably, a ”Peanut Butter, Lettuce, And Mayo Sandwich,” and “Caddyshack Golf Balls,” a deep fried creation. There are salads, sandwiches and desserts. And, since most of the Murray clan is fond of libations, a number of cocktail concoctions.
The book’s recipes are spiced, so to speak, with delightful stories that help to create what is both a personal memoir and a family saga. The Murrays are a generally private bunch and they remain so here, though you will learn plenty about them.
“I am proud of the book,” Andy said.
We ordered another drink. He told me about a two week golfing trip to Ireland with his brothers, some pals, including former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins, and Andy’s son Drew, “by far the best golfer in the family,” Andy said proudly. He talked about his recent and successful battle with throat cancer, saying, “I spent time here with my sister and we went after it aggressively. I told the doctors, ‘Don’t mess with the vocal cords’.” We talked about the Cubs. He told me he had visited the grave sites of his parents and other family members. He looked happy and was happy to be back in Chicago for a while.
“Am I a celebrity chef?” he asked. “God, I hope not. I always have been and always will be a working chef. We’ve got enough celebrities in the family.”
