Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: Just the two of us.
Speaker 3: Rathie, I know so nice. We should actually tell everyone
Speaker 3: that we're sadly for me very far apart. I think
Speaker 3: I looked it up the other day. While we three thousand, ninety.
Speaker 2: Three, two hundred and something is miles miles.
Speaker 3: You're in Ottawa and I'm in London. Mark is the
Speaker 3: United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action, the UK Prime
Speaker 3: Minister's Climate Finance advisor, and the former Governor of the
Speaker 3: Bank of England. Is also a really good cook.
Speaker 2: Okay, can you just give me the go command when
Speaker 2: you're ready and then I'll start.
Speaker 3: Okay and a one and a two and three go.
Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Mark Carney and i'd like to read. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm going to start again, Ruthie, sure, because I don't
Speaker 2: want to read. I want to tell you about how
Speaker 2: to make torte dicapri. The ingredients start with three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty grams of blanched white whole almonds. Ideally, if
Speaker 2: you're Ruthy from Andalusia, a sustainable farm, there three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty grams of dark chocolate at least eighty five
Speaker 2: percent cocoa solids, two hundred and fifty grams of unsalted
Speaker 2: butter and make sure it's soft. Two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: grams of castor sugar, something we didn't have when I
Speaker 2: was growing up. And five eggs and make sure you
Speaker 2: separate them normally. It takes me a few goes to
Speaker 2: do that. Preheat the oven to one hundred and fifty degrees,
Speaker 2: so this is going to be a slow bake butter
Speaker 2: around a twenty centimeter cake tin. Line the base with
Speaker 2: greaseproof paper and something I often forget. Then you need
Speaker 2: to separate the almonds into halves. Finally, grind half of
Speaker 2: them in a food processor, put that into a bowl,
Speaker 2: and then coarsely grind the other half and include the
Speaker 2: chocolate with that, cream the butter and sugar till it's pale.
Speaker 2: At the egg yolks one by one, and then add
Speaker 2: all of the ground nuts and chocolate in a separate bowl.
Speaker 2: Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Fold
Speaker 2: half of those egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen,
Speaker 2: and then the remaining egg whites, and then you're pretty
Speaker 2: much ready. Now you'll notice that there's no flour in
Speaker 2: this cake. One of the unique aspects of Tortie dicapri,
Speaker 2: but it's part of its genius. Baked for forty five
Speaker 2: minutes or intel set Tortia dicapri by Ruthie Rogers.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, Mark. Interesting as I was listening to
Speaker 3: you read sound so much like a cook and explaining
Speaker 3: it so clearly, I think I think about the torture dicapri.
Speaker 3: Which is also interesting, is that you do use very
Speaker 3: bitter chocolate, don't you. It's kind of it is a
Speaker 3: very dark chocolate. I mean sometimes I think when we
Speaker 3: used to make it in the very beginning, we even
Speaker 3: made it with one hundred percent unsweetened chocolate.
Speaker 2: I think you did because one of your books you
Speaker 2: have a handwritten note and you used to have to
Speaker 2: source it from used to have to source it from
Speaker 2: America Baker's.
Speaker 3: Unsweet and chocolate. Did you ever have that in Canada? Baker's.
Speaker 2: Well, that's you know interesting. Yes, my mother used to
Speaker 2: use Baker's on sweetened chocolate and she used to melt it,
Speaker 2: you know, boil the water and put a cup with
Speaker 2: the bakers in the cup and then it would melt
Speaker 2: in the in the cup and it would be added
Speaker 2: to the to the baking.
Speaker 3: That's interesting because I was talking to your brother Sean
Speaker 3: last night and we were talking about your mother. He
Speaker 3: said that she grew up in a town that you
Speaker 3: couldn't get to by road, and that you'd have to
Speaker 3: wait for the boat to come in with supplies, and
Speaker 3: that she was really passionate and really good baker.
Speaker 2: What did she make No, that's right, I mean she
Speaker 2: to go back to the start. She grew up in
Speaker 2: a town called Britannia Beach, which is a spectacular location
Speaker 2: on what's called how Sound. So if anyone listening has
Speaker 2: ever gone to Whistler, oh yeah, there's now a highway
Speaker 2: that goes through Britannia Beach. It's an abandoned mining town,
Speaker 2: but at the time it was isolated, as you say,
Speaker 2: there was a boat that would come once a week,
Speaker 2: but just a beautiful, beautiful spot. And then moved to
Speaker 2: the Northwest Territories with my father and that's where I
Speaker 2: was born. So that's in effectively the Arctic of Canada.
Speaker 2: And a great cook and a great baker, as you suggest,
Speaker 2: as my brother obviously told you, and just a huge
Speaker 2: variety of baking, from cakes to pies, to cookies as
Speaker 2: we would call them, you know, wide range of biscuits.
Speaker 2: And I was when I was younger, I was an
Speaker 2: enthusiastic baker, inspired by my mother. So maybe that's partly
Speaker 2: why I gravitated to the Georgia DiCaprio. My baking muscles
Speaker 2: have atrophied a bit, so I had to go to
Speaker 2: the simpler. But there was one thing. I'll tell you,
Speaker 2: there's one thing about what's not really baking, but there's
Speaker 2: one Almost all the baking was comfort food. I found
Speaker 2: it tremendously comforting and enjoyable. Except there would be mornings
Speaker 2: in Edmonton where I grew up and I'd come upstairs.
Speaker 2: My room is in the basement, and I'd come upstairs,
Speaker 2: and if my mother was making that was that was
Speaker 2: a bad sign. I had a sort of Pavlovian response
Speaker 2: to that, because it meant it meant that it was
Speaker 2: at least minus thirty zero. That's when she that's when
Speaker 2: she would make oatmeal. And so I've now overcome my
Speaker 2: aversion to oatmeal, but it took it took decades.
Speaker 3: So did you grow up with good food apart from.
Speaker 2: Baking pretty traditional sort of variants of meat to veg
Speaker 2: I remember growing up. I mean, it's it's not why
Speaker 2: I became a central bank Maybe it is why I
Speaker 2: became a central bank correction. But there being a period
Speaker 2: of time during you know, the inflation years of the
Speaker 2: mid seventies, where there were a lot of casse roles
Speaker 2: in my life and sort of combinations of things which
Speaker 2: are probably not recipes that are still used today for
Speaker 2: a good reason, but they managed to stretch you know,
Speaker 2: ground beef or other things a little farther which made
Speaker 2: sense at the time.
Speaker 3: Your house in London, I think it's be safe to
Speaker 3: say that the largest room in the house was a kitchen. Yes,
Speaker 3: And I'd walk into your house there would be either
Speaker 3: one of your four children or you or all of
Speaker 3: your four children, or somebody in the kitchen, and there
Speaker 3: was a sense that the kitchen was the place to be.
Speaker 2: Yes, that ability if you can manage it to have
Speaker 2: a kitchen and space in the kitchen for others to
Speaker 2: be there, and whether they're reading a book or answering
Speaker 2: emails or I remember when two of our girls were younger,
Speaker 2: one of their favorite things actually right up until last
Speaker 2: year was they had the thing that they would do.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. They would do it immediately after
Speaker 2: dinner called airplane, which is you know, one of them
Speaker 2: would lie on the ground and put her feet up
Speaker 2: and the other would balance on that and they'd either
Speaker 2: do that or immediately after very large meal, go out
Speaker 2: and bounce on the trampoline, which is the kind of
Speaker 2: thing you can do when you're twelve. But you know,
Speaker 2: not the wrong side of forty and was.
Speaker 3: It very different than your work life in terms of
Speaker 3: being the governor of the Bank of the meals become
Speaker 3: very formal.
Speaker 2: You know, that bit has changed a fair bit over
Speaker 2: the years. So there is a formal dining room at
Speaker 2: the bank and you know, when August visitors are there
Speaker 2: either you can have a formal lunch or a dinner.
Speaker 2: When you have conferences, you know, a dinner in the
Speaker 2: what's called the courtroom, which is an absolutely spectacular room,
Speaker 2: Sir John Sowne, the inspired Room, and that brings the
Speaker 2: full majesty of the Bank and the history of the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom to bear and it's you know, particularly if
Speaker 2: there's a G seven meeting or something like that, have
Speaker 2: it there. So that's great you know, there is a
Speaker 2: very good cafeteria at the bank on the sixth floor
Speaker 2: of Threadneedle Street, which most people eat in the old
Speaker 2: and the new. I guess which for many institutions in
Speaker 2: the UK is is the right way to do it.
Speaker 2: You want to keep, I think, and certainly it's an outsider.
Speaker 2: I wanted to keep some of the traditions. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't the case of, you know, going for lunch every
Speaker 2: day in the state rooms and you know, finish it
Speaker 2: off with port, although there were many days which I
Speaker 2: wish I had.
Speaker 3: Sneak down there. It's also interesting point of people about
Speaker 3: working and food. You know. One of my favorite stories
Speaker 3: about you was when one of my granddaughter's friends asked
Speaker 3: you who was the most important person you'd ever met,
Speaker 3: and you said the Pope. And you said that you'd
Speaker 3: had lunch with the Pope, and I was wondering. I
Speaker 3: never asked you, do you remember what you ate? What
Speaker 3: would the Pope have for lunch?
Speaker 2: Well, we were in the heart of Rome. I think
Speaker 2: it's interesting the question. I don't know the answer to this.
Speaker 2: I suspect what the pope has for lunch, or at
Speaker 2: least this pope has for lunch is much simpler than
Speaker 2: what the Pope or the Vaticans served at the lunch
Speaker 2: that I attended, because he wasn't originally scheduled to come
Speaker 2: to this lunch, and it was the day before the
Speaker 2: World Cup final between Argentina and Germany, so it would
Speaker 2: have been twenty fourteen, I guess. And of course he's Argentinian,
Speaker 2: and the previous pope is who's still alive, is German.
Speaker 2: So that was, you know, and he showed up. The
Speaker 2: Pope showed up at the lunch, and you know a
Speaker 2: bit of the conversation about that. But it was an
Speaker 2: elaborate lunch. You know, several courses and there was a
Speaker 2: pasta course and I think a fish course is the main,
Speaker 2: then cheese and dessert. But he told he told this
Speaker 2: parable at the at the start of the lunch, the
Speaker 2: Pope says that, look, we're going to have a nice
Speaker 2: meal together. It's very important sharing, and we're going to
Speaker 2: start the meal with wine. And wine is many things.
Speaker 2: It has a bouquet, a color, taste that compliments the
Speaker 2: food and alcohol which enlivens our senses, and it enlivens
Speaker 2: all our senses effectively. But we will finish the meal
Speaker 2: with and grap is alcohol and it's wine distilled. And
Speaker 2: I think this is an interesting analogy. But then he
Speaker 2: makes the analogy which says, and humanity. People are many things.
Speaker 2: They're rational, they're passionate, they're curious, they're altruistic, they're self interested.
Speaker 2: The market is one thing, so he means the market economy.
Speaker 2: It's one thing. It's self interested. Your job and then
Speaker 2: he points to everyone who I was at a conference
Speaker 2: with a very wide range of people from business and finance,
Speaker 2: and he points to all of us, sixty odd people
Speaker 2: who were at this lunch, and he says, your job
Speaker 2: is to turn the grappa back into wine, to turn
Speaker 2: the market back into humanity, and he sits down.
Speaker 3: When we met in Tuscany, there would be times of
Speaker 3: the day where we just couldn't find you because you
Speaker 3: were running, and you would disappear for hours. I remember
Speaker 3: one part of the beginning of your day, which was
Speaker 3: drinking a whole leader of water, which I still tried
Speaker 3: to do because you know, you told me that. I
Speaker 3: think that it was Jeff Bezos who.
Speaker 2: Told you the other way around. Ruthy, it was nothing,
Speaker 2: It was nothing until I told him. I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: It was my friend Nikolai Arens who told me this,
Speaker 2: and he's a chemist, very accomplished guy, and he told
Speaker 2: me the most important thing for cognitive functioning is to
Speaker 2: drink a lead of water, you know, first thing in
Speaker 2: the morning, because whatever whatever you've eaten or drank the
Speaker 2: night before, your brain dehydrates overnight. So this helps. And
Speaker 2: I began doing this. I happened to I'm not like
Speaker 2: super close to Jeff Bezos, but I mentioned it to
Speaker 2: him when I saw I was on a hike with him.
Speaker 3: Where was that.
Speaker 2: It was in Switzerland. Actually, I mentioned it to him,
Speaker 2: and then I saw him about ten years later, and
Speaker 2: he said remarkably, he said, the guy's got to get
Speaker 2: memory said, he said, Mark, I think of you every
Speaker 2: morning when I drink water, which is fair because I
Speaker 2: do think of Nikolai every morning. And now I think
Speaker 2: of you, Ruthie, and I wonder if you're I think
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 3: And now everyone listening to this that we're all going
Speaker 3: to be super cognitive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I'm going to all.
Speaker 3: Things of each other. So well, there's quite a lot
Speaker 3: of time to think when you're drinking that much water.
Speaker 3: Is it that so you're still starting your day with water,
Speaker 3: and then do you have do you start writing right away?
Speaker 3: I was thinking about whether you could describe your working
Speaker 3: day when you were writing this extraordinary book value building
Speaker 3: a better world for all.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm most productive, as I suspect many people are,
Speaker 2: in writing in the morning and a real premium on
Speaker 2: getting up. Ideally and most mornings, certainly during the lockdown,
Speaker 2: meditate for fifteen twenty minutes, water right for a couple
Speaker 2: of hours before eating, and ideally I left when I
Speaker 2: finished writing the day before the work in mid thought
Speaker 2: if you will almost mid paragraphs so you have something
Speaker 2: to pick up when you start writing. Yeah, it's slightly
Speaker 2: I found it tough if you finished a chapter and
Speaker 2: then a blank page issue as opposed to restart my
Speaker 2: mind on it?
Speaker 3: Is that something unique to you or a lot of it?
Speaker 3: I never that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm slightly embarrassed to call myself a writer,
Speaker 2: and I guess I do.
Speaker 3: I've written a book.
Speaker 2: I've graduated. You quickly moved me on from being baker
Speaker 2: in this conversation.
Speaker 3: We'll go back to the baking for sure. By that time,
Speaker 3: is everybody out and about and you have breakfast by
Speaker 3: yourself or do you make it yoursel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would tend to make myself a granola some
Speaker 2: fruit cappuccino.
Speaker 3: You are talking all the time about values, values and
Speaker 3: food and climate, how we're going to feed everyone and
Speaker 3: still be sustainable. Is that part of your concern right now?
Speaker 2: In terms, I think there's a few things that come
Speaker 2: out of that. One is, you know, I've always found
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the provenance of all food at
Speaker 2: the River Cafe, and you've researched it and in most
Speaker 2: cases visited you know, whether it's your example of the almonds,
Speaker 2: and I know we've had long conversations about the you know,
Speaker 2: the olive oil and the tomatoes, and I mean and
Speaker 2: on and on and on. And that's important because the connection,
Speaker 2: the connection that comes with that, and the understanding that
Speaker 2: comes with that, and the and in many cases the
Speaker 2: history that comes with the methods of productions and the
Speaker 2: values that come from the people. So there's that. Then
Speaker 2: the big issue which you're alluding to, which is on climate,
Speaker 2: which is that around twenty percent or so of greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas emissions come from from agriculture and land use, and
Speaker 2: a substantial proportion of that is you know, could be
Speaker 2: reduced through regenerative agriculture, through reforestation, through different methods, different
Speaker 2: foods as well. And the reality with climate change is
Speaker 2: there's there's no one simple solution to climate change. There's
Speaker 2: no one silver bullet, and there's many things that do
Speaker 2: need to change, and part of it is to ensure
Speaker 2: that we have sustainable agriculture, that we have sustainable methods,
Speaker 2: and that the that as the world, you know, we hope,
Speaker 2: as the world becomes more equal and people progress around
Speaker 2: the world, that we can not just feed everybody, but
Speaker 2: we can feed everybody in a sustainable way into a
Speaker 2: high standard. And that requires knowing where the food comes from,
Speaker 2: how it's prepared, sourcing locally as much as possible, obviously,
Speaker 2: and having the balance. And you know, we have a
Speaker 2: long way to go on that, but a much greater
Speaker 2: awareness and certainly you find I know with your with
Speaker 2: your grandchildren. I find with my children and their friends
Speaker 2: in acute awareness of these issues and a passionate about
Speaker 2: them that you know gives one hope for change and
Speaker 2: an important journey that we're all going to be on.
Speaker 3: What do you look for in a restaurant? Do you
Speaker 3: love restaurants? What do you love?
Speaker 2: You look for a variety of things. I like simple.
Speaker 2: I like simple and open as a restaurant, so I
Speaker 2: don't like sort of dark and you know creviced restaurants
Speaker 2: so much. I like simple and open. I think influenced
Speaker 2: a bit. I spent a year in Japan, so that,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of reinforce some of this. And I
Speaker 2: do like when even I can tell the quality of
Speaker 2: the ingredients and the preparation, the sort of slow cooking
Speaker 2: that you know, brings out the intensity of the flavors.
Speaker 2: I like vibrancy in a restaurant. I like hearing the
Speaker 2: sort of yeah buzz if you will of a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Was there a time when you would go into a
Speaker 3: restaurant here people would stop you what people want to
Speaker 3: ask you about? Or would they interrupt your meal? And
Speaker 3: you would they ask you about when all that was
Speaker 3: going on? Did you feel that it wasn't private that
Speaker 3: you did you sort of grass yourself for people? I mean,
Speaker 3: I saw what happened, and the reason I do is
Speaker 3: I remember walking down a restaurant with you, and people
Speaker 3: definitely wanted to reach out.
Speaker 2: People would trip me as I was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they know they were they were excited, but people
Speaker 3: eating the River Cafe were never want to trip you.
Speaker 2: That was one of the unusual things I think during
Speaker 2: the period that he Look, it's never a good when
Speaker 2: central bankers are more prominent, because it means that there's
Speaker 2: deep problems in the financial system or the economy. But
Speaker 2: given that circumstance, I mean, I yes, I was recognized
Speaker 2: virtually everywhere I went and quite often stopped. And that
Speaker 2: was that took a fair bit of getting used to
Speaker 2: and you know, accepted, and.
Speaker 3: You were able to eat. I think we try and
Speaker 3: we try and protect you know, as much as possible
Speaker 3: because you are I mean, you know, there is the
Speaker 3: public nature of a restaurant and then the very private
Speaker 3: nature of the table. So you just go to a
Speaker 3: restaurant for the comfort and the connection. And I think
Speaker 3: that comfort with your mother's cooking and connection with you know,
Speaker 3: the times you and I have spent in places and
Speaker 3: all different types of cooking and making zucchini flowers and
Speaker 3: on the grill with Luigi and the Fiorentinas, and the
Speaker 3: fact that you're so far away from me now and
Speaker 3: we're connected by a conversation about food ingredients and eating
Speaker 3: and then the comfort of that, you know, the comfort
Speaker 3: of being able to see you on my screen and
Speaker 3: to talk to you about food and the memories that
Speaker 3: we have. And so I was thinking in terms of
Speaker 3: comfort is talking about food, comfort is eating food. And
Speaker 3: I was wondering for my last question to ask you,
Speaker 3: what would your comfort food be?
Speaker 2: Comfort food? Okay, can I just say one thing before
Speaker 2: I say that? Which is that? So I mentioned my
Speaker 2: Pavlovian response to oatmeal, which was negative, my Pavlovian response
Speaker 2: to if you're at Diezuka, you know zucchini flowers and yeah,
Speaker 2: Luigi's fioran tina, this amazing thick state is absolutely the opposite.
Speaker 2: I think, I think absolutely heaven and that whole ritual
Speaker 2: around both of those is an extraordinary thing and a
Speaker 2: connection comfort food. I say my comfort food is pasta palmodoro,
Speaker 2: and not just because I'm on your podcast, but the
Speaker 2: way you make it, because it combines exactly what I like.
Speaker 2: It is a simple recipe, very few ingredients. It takes,
Speaker 2: what does it take? It probably takes two hours to
Speaker 2: prepare the sauce. You have to cook the onions for
Speaker 2: a long time till they dissolve in the olive oil,
Speaker 2: and then you add the tomatoes and then cook it
Speaker 2: and reduce it down to so it's both things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: got garlic, and then it's combined with the pasta, and
Speaker 2: it's so good. And you know that every time I
Speaker 2: come into your restaurant, I look at the venue and
Speaker 2: I you know, I pick out a mane and I
Speaker 2: pick out you know, it's something for the dessert, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and then I say, can I have the pasta palmondorow
Speaker 2: And the answer is yes.
Speaker 3: The answers always is.
Speaker 2: That is totally comforting and just a final thing which
Speaker 2: if I may, to bring it all full circle, which
Speaker 2: is the other day you and I had a lovely.
Speaker 3: Zoomah to celebrate the publication of your book and the friendship.
Speaker 2: And I seem to recall that some of the guests
Speaker 2: took comfort in the gronies. But our two daughters, Cleo
Speaker 2: and Tess, who are the two home with us now,
Speaker 2: they made that's right, River Cafe, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: they were going to do this, but they made River
Speaker 2: Cafe pasta palmodoro, including the homemade pasta, which it was
Speaker 2: a perfect comfort combination. So yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Well, there we are connection, comfort and a guest Thank
Speaker 3: you Mark, Thank you Ruth. To visit the online shop
Speaker 3: of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot co
Speaker 3: dot UK.
Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
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