Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: The last time I saw Allison Leerness, I had just
Speaker 2: arrived in New York. It was November, right before the election.
Speaker 2: Walking down Madison Avenue, I heard Ruthie, you're here. It
Speaker 2: was Alison. She immediately whisked me into her best friend's
Speaker 2: jewelry store, Sydney Garber, told me in detail about the
Speaker 2: Peter Doig show at Cogozi and Gallery, and took me
Speaker 2: for a coffee at our favorite sant Ambrose. Just like that,
Speaker 2: I was swept immediately back into the best of New
Speaker 2: York City. Alison and I have much in common. Were
Speaker 2: two American women living abroad. We both adore the small
Speaker 2: seaside towns of Liguria, and we share a favorite bookstore,
Speaker 2: Haywood Hill and Mayfair. Alison grew up in Manhattan with
Speaker 2: a mother who was a passionate cook, and she discovered
Speaker 2: the joy of food and fashion early on, licking brownie
Speaker 2: spoons next to her mom and elegantly accessorizing her school uniform.
Speaker 2: She channeled this ambition into a dynamic career spanning Sachi
Speaker 2: and Sauchi, Disney, LVMH and now Netta Porte. Today, Allison
Speaker 2: and I are here at table four to talk about
Speaker 2: food and fashion, leadership and womanhood, balancing work and family,
Speaker 2: and of course we're going to plan our next trip
Speaker 2: to New York City.
Speaker 3: What could be better?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: So here we are. It's so good to see. I
Speaker 2: had to Swiss has been on the cards for a while.
Speaker 2: Hasn't it your schedule? My schedule?
Speaker 1: I know, I'm up and down, But here we are.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to let you go.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to leave.
Speaker 3: No, I'm going Where have you been most recently? So?
Speaker 3: I just got back.
Speaker 4: From New York and prior to that, I was in Providence,
Speaker 4: Rhode Island. Oh yes, visiting my alma mater with the
Speaker 4: next generation, with my son who's going to be starting
Speaker 4: in the fall semester.
Speaker 1: So with they had an open day. So we just
Speaker 1: did that.
Speaker 2: You feel very connected to Brown, very I mean saying
Speaker 2: that I haven't there do?
Speaker 1: I think?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I felt just a really you know, the first time
Speaker 4: I step foot back on campus after the last time
Speaker 4: I was there, I started crying, you know, joyful tears.
Speaker 3: How much time was it?
Speaker 4: It had been probably ten years or so, not since
Speaker 4: I graduated, sadly, but since I had last since I
Speaker 4: had last been. And actually this is this is actually
Speaker 4: very relevant to our discussion today because Brown for me
Speaker 4: has many men and memories, but also quite a few
Speaker 4: food memories.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you, yeah, tell me what
Speaker 3: they are well.
Speaker 4: Because Providence is such an interesting place. There were lots
Speaker 4: of Portuguese, lots of Italian Americans, and then of course
Speaker 4: there's Johnson and Wales, which is you know, incredibly famous,
Speaker 4: has turned out lots of chefs. So the restaurant's seen,
Speaker 4: at least in my you know, during my time, was
Speaker 4: always very vibrant, very sort of ahead of its time.
Speaker 4: And there was one restaurant which you will know in particular,
Speaker 4: which everyone begged to be taken to by your parents
Speaker 4: or your friend's parents called Alfno.
Speaker 3: I know, I remember when they opened.
Speaker 1: It was a thing.
Speaker 2: I think it might have been around the time that
Speaker 2: we opened the River Cafe. I think I might have
Speaker 2: been there, like maybe early in ninety yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: It would oven right and made wood oven.
Speaker 4: And they were known for pizzas and it was the
Speaker 4: kind of thing that you dreamed about. And I hadn't
Speaker 4: been for years, and so I thought, you know what,
Speaker 4: let me take my son. And I went, both with
Speaker 4: excitement and a bit of trepidation because sometimes your memory
Speaker 4: doesn't anyway, it was as good as ever.
Speaker 3: Did you eat out a lot when you were colored?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: God, no, I mean no, only when you could get someone,
Speaker 4: you know, someone's to take generous parents to take it.
Speaker 4: And then we would go to some you know, really
Speaker 4: gross place which was cheap and you could bring your
Speaker 4: own wine basically, so no.
Speaker 3: Did you kind of cook when you were there? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean we thought we would do dinners at our
Speaker 4: house once we moved off campus, I think after our
Speaker 4: after my sophomore year I had off campus, and so
Speaker 4: we cooked, and then we would take turns as housemates.
Speaker 4: And I mean I remember thinking I was terribly sophisticated
Speaker 4: because I made couscous, which was probably really sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Totally flavorless and gross.
Speaker 4: And then I remember having a guy over for a
Speaker 4: date and being, you know, having no time whatsoever, and
Speaker 4: buying will be outraged, buying Newman's own tomato sauce, yes,
Speaker 4: and pretend pretending I made it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, fine, and that's fine. A lot of people
Speaker 2: can remember doing all these podcasts. The meal they cooked
Speaker 2: for somebody they wanted to sort of impress in a date,
Speaker 2: and there's that great do you ever see the fcraft smile?
Speaker 2: One of the great scenes in the movies Michael Caine
Speaker 2: cooking a meal as as an active seduction.
Speaker 1: This definitely was not that evidenced by the jar.
Speaker 2: So we have a little drill here, which is to
Speaker 2: read a recipe, and you chose the Bandukada. You also
Speaker 2: brought in a recipe for a meat loaf, so we
Speaker 2: can read the recipe for the Bandcada. But I definitely
Speaker 2: want to discuss the meat loaf because it's interesting people.
Speaker 2: Edward Shape brought in a recipe for his chili and
Speaker 2: with a chefs with Eric Repair, he read a recipe
Speaker 2: from his book, and so did well Wolfgang.
Speaker 3: We had a recipe of his.
Speaker 2: So I like the idea that you brought in your
Speaker 2: meat loaf recipes, so we'll go through that.
Speaker 3: Tell do you want to tell me about that first?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was just basically thinking about early
Speaker 4: memories of food and I just remember my mom making
Speaker 4: this meat loaf, which is.
Speaker 1: By the way, super.
Speaker 4: Dated, and you know, the greens, everything I think it
Speaker 4: came out of like a sixties cookbook, and you know,
Speaker 4: there's catch up, there's all kinds of things in it,
Speaker 4: but it's just one of those because I remember I
Speaker 4: remember asking her years ago and saying, can you just
Speaker 4: unearth that recipe for me?
Speaker 1: It was just the one thing I remember here.
Speaker 2: It is barbecue style with hunts tomato sauce, nineteen sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there you go, beef bread crumbsy, I'm reading it out.
Speaker 2: I can read it out. An egg salt, pet seasoning,
Speaker 2: hunts tomato sauce.
Speaker 3: Do you know what that was?
Speaker 2: Two cans and then water, water, vinegar, brown sugar. So
Speaker 2: it's a little sweet mustard and worcesterd she put it.
Speaker 2: All sounds delicious.
Speaker 3: Do you make it now?
Speaker 4: Years ago made it and it's not anything actually want
Speaker 4: to make or necessarily eat, but it just brought memory.
Speaker 4: I just have this memory of it sitting in a tin,
Speaker 4: baking tin and just and having it. And sometimes it
Speaker 4: was good, sometimes it was a little bit dry. And
Speaker 4: Funnily enough, when I found it, I showed her to
Speaker 4: this young woman who works with me, she goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: my mom used to make that ti.
Speaker 3: My mother made me love. So it's of an era.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's an English thing. I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't not very No.
Speaker 1: I tried to explain it to my husband and you didn't.
Speaker 1: I think you found the recip your revolting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Tell me about growing up in the Limo's household in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: First of all, it's really glad that you grew up
Speaker 2: in Manhattan as child.
Speaker 3: Tell me what what that was like.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in Manhattan.
Speaker 4: And it's so funny because anytime, you know, I would
Speaker 4: meet people who weren't from me had to be like,
Speaker 4: what was it like?
Speaker 1: Did you live in one of those buildings? Yes? And
Speaker 1: they said, well, what was that like? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I don't know. I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything else. I was in a building.
Speaker 4: So, Yes, grew up in Manhattan with my parents and
Speaker 4: my younger sister. Both of my parents worked, although saying
Speaker 4: that my mom had been a teacher, and when she
Speaker 4: had me she stopped working, and then she had my
Speaker 4: sister and she was looking after us. And I remember
Speaker 4: it was one summer and she was out in the
Speaker 4: island and we were at camp or doing something, and
Speaker 4: she was just super bored, and she ran into a
Speaker 4: guy she had gone to high school with, who said, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, I've just started this advertising agency.
Speaker 1: Do you want to come and do some work?
Speaker 4: And lo and behold she did, and that she's, you know,
Speaker 4: launched this incredible career in advertising.
Speaker 1: She was a really great.
Speaker 4: Cook, and I remember sort of her being very pretty
Speaker 4: sophisticated in a few ways. One I think in the
Speaker 4: recipes that she chose. My parents loved to travel, and
Speaker 4: they would come back and share with us, you know.
Speaker 1: Their experiences, bring us little treats.
Speaker 4: And also I'll never forget they went to Morocco and
Speaker 4: they came back and they said that they'd eaten pigeon pie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just kid, you know, I came back from
Speaker 3: Rocca two days and then.
Speaker 1: But I remember, as a kid living in New York
Speaker 1: in the building, you know.
Speaker 4: I was like, I was like, that sounds absolutely party.
Speaker 4: But so they used to travel, so I think their exposure.
Speaker 4: My mom always loved friends, and she would experiment with
Speaker 4: all these different things, and they used to have these
Speaker 4: dinner parties.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you about entertaining.
Speaker 4: I remember, like some of my earliest memories of my
Speaker 4: mom cooking.
Speaker 1: It's probably even before she went to seventies.
Speaker 4: Seventies and my mom, I remember what have they'd have
Speaker 4: these dinner parties and she'd make all these super what
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 1: Were elegant starters or little sort of what do you
Speaker 1: call it? Yes, it canopies.
Speaker 4: And so there was one that she used to make
Speaker 4: there was almost like a little spinach souflet, and she
Speaker 4: did it in like a muffin tin, and then there
Speaker 4: were always these dips and lots of crud de tay.
Speaker 4: And then she used to make something which was like
Speaker 4: a pita bread with paprika, and anyway, I just remember
Speaker 4: it all being hearing clinking glasses and thinking it was all.
Speaker 3: Used to sitting on the steps of sitting in the.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly coming and asking for like assaulted, not yes
Speaker 4: exactly and begging for stuff.
Speaker 3: Did she have help? Would you have people to No?
Speaker 4: I remember once, you know, if she did a big party,
Speaker 4: but by and large it was just her doing it.
Speaker 4: And so at the weekends, yeah, she would do the
Speaker 4: cooking again when she went back to work. And I
Speaker 4: remember us we went to Long Island every weekend, and
Speaker 4: I remember having lots of sort of seasonal and locally
Speaker 4: sourced stuff. I remember bay scallops and corn when it
Speaker 4: came into season, and when the tomatoes came into season,
Speaker 4: and just there's being really sort of hallmarks of end
Speaker 4: of school and summer and just having The other thing
Speaker 4: is my parents got curious about quote unquote health food
Speaker 4: really early on.
Speaker 1: So I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: We used to have whole wheat pancakes and they would exactly,
Speaker 4: they would.
Speaker 1: Never buy white bread.
Speaker 4: All I wanted in life with white bread, and like
Speaker 4: I would have these brown bread. I remember listening to
Speaker 4: one of your previous guests talking about brown bread.
Speaker 3: We always had the.
Speaker 1: Precisely we would have like brown bread.
Speaker 4: And I'll never forget having a sleepover at my friend's
Speaker 4: house and we were going to summer camp together in
Speaker 4: the next day, and so her mom made me lunch
Speaker 4: and I came home and I was like, Mom, I
Speaker 4: just had the best lunch ever. It was like I said,
Speaker 4: I had a baloney a bologney sandwich with white bread,
Speaker 4: and then I had like twinkies like you know kids,
Speaker 4: and my mom being totally horrified. I mean, we were
Speaker 4: allowed treats, we were allowed a little you know, but
Speaker 4: so It's not like we couldn't have sugar or anything
Speaker 4: like that. But I just remember thinking all white bread
Speaker 4: and bologney was really where it's at.
Speaker 3: What did your life?
Speaker 4: So my dad worked in the fragrance business when I
Speaker 4: was really really little. He ran the salariant fragrance and
Speaker 4: beauty business in the US. And I remember seeing these
Speaker 4: photos of him being in Paris and like, I don't
Speaker 4: know why they needed him on a shoot, but like
Speaker 4: him on location and seeing this incredibly beautiful model and
Speaker 4: they were shooting the ad campaign for this very you know,
Speaker 4: famous a theme called.
Speaker 1: Reeve Ghosh, which is.
Speaker 3: I remember the bottle, the blue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then here, you know, he remained
Speaker 4: in the beauty business. And so I think it's funny.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, somehow I didn't think of myself
Speaker 4: as following my parents from a career standpoint, but obviously
Speaker 4: their their interest in business resonated in some way. And
Speaker 4: while my mom was the sort of key to food,
Speaker 4: if you will, I also experienced food through my dad
Speaker 4: in a slightly different way. One My dad has always
Speaker 4: been He's the he would pretend to cook, I mean,
Speaker 4: the dishes that he made for us, He made a
Speaker 4: good milkshake, peach milkshakes, so he would get the local
Speaker 4: peaches with ice cream and like run them through the thing,
Speaker 4: which is delicious. And then his specialty, which I tease
Speaker 4: him about to this day, which he tried to conn
Speaker 4: my sister and I and thinking was a good thing,
Speaker 4: was karaokey eggs.
Speaker 1: What's that exactly?
Speaker 4: It's scrambled eggs with cherryo akisaws drivels on that, which
Speaker 4: is repulsive. So you don't need anyway, But he always
Speaker 4: loves about the good things. He loved to eat, and
Speaker 4: so what he would do is he had this file
Speaker 4: in his office of you know, tears from newspapers and
Speaker 4: magazines of restaurants he wanted to go to, and that
Speaker 4: informed a lot of the travel he and my mom
Speaker 4: would do. They'd go to the middle of nowhere in
Speaker 4: Italy because they had he had seen this place. But
Speaker 4: then also he introduced me to Japanese food. My school
Speaker 4: finished early on a Friday, and so every Friday I
Speaker 4: would go after school and meet him in his office.
Speaker 4: And he was really into art, as was I. So
Speaker 4: he would go to a museum. So let's say we'd
Speaker 4: go to the met or we'd go to Mama, and
Speaker 4: then he'd take me out to lunch, either before or after,
Speaker 4: and I'll never forget one day he was like, I'm
Speaker 4: going to have you try sushi, and I was like,
Speaker 4: what sushi? And gosh, probably like eleven or so, and there's.
Speaker 1: This whole world opened up.
Speaker 4: So I remember, say, for my dad has always been
Speaker 4: around sort of curiosity, and he was a very willing
Speaker 4: consumer of food.
Speaker 1: He's a big eater, but not a cook.
Speaker 2: So restaurants in New York was part of your would
Speaker 2: you go out well that routine, which is very touching.
Speaker 2: My father used to take me when I was a child.
Speaker 2: We lived in the country two hours north of Woodstock
Speaker 2: of New York, and our thing was not every week,
Speaker 2: but to go take me in the car to New York.
Speaker 2: We'd go past the big ships, you know, this is
Speaker 2: probably in the late fifties, early sixties, the big boats
Speaker 2: and see the SS France and the Queen Elizabeth. Then
Speaker 2: we would go to have lunch, to take me to
Speaker 2: the Russian tea room.
Speaker 3: That was a great.
Speaker 2: Place, and then we would go see musical And so
Speaker 2: we would always go see a musical of the day,
Speaker 2: which we're you know, we Side Story or My Fair Lady,
Speaker 2: and then we would go to sam Goodies you know
Speaker 2: the record my car and buy the record and then
Speaker 2: go back up and then just play the record, which
Speaker 2: means that I can remember every show tune from you know,
Speaker 2: every musical. And I think those those rituals with your dud.
Speaker 2: Have you had done any of that with your children?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely we did.
Speaker 4: We would do the same thing sort of you know, amuseum,
Speaker 4: I think they are less willing attendees, but museum and
Speaker 4: then food. Yeah, it was that food or like a light,
Speaker 4: nice long walk and food. Yeah, there's always there's sort
Speaker 4: of always that at the end, but I just remember, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was just this incredible time. And actually all these
Speaker 4: interests sort of were peaked off the back of that,
Speaker 4: you know, an interest in art, history, interested in food,
Speaker 4: this idea also that you don't have to spend ten
Speaker 4: hours in a gallery to make it interesting. You can
Speaker 4: And that's something I actually learned with my children. You know,
Speaker 4: sometimes a little bit less as a little bit less
Speaker 4: is more.
Speaker 2: Tell me about grandmothers in your life. Yeah, did you
Speaker 2: have grandparents living? Yeah, so I had.
Speaker 4: I grew up with my My maternal grandfather had died
Speaker 4: when I was really young, so I grew up with
Speaker 4: basically two grandmothers and grandfather. My dad's parents house to
Speaker 4: me was like food central. My grandmother. They lived in Westchester,
Speaker 4: and my grandmother was a really good cook, and she
Speaker 4: had sort of you know, traditional sort of old world staples,
Speaker 4: a stuffed cabbage thing, but she made a phenomenal lisag.
Speaker 4: It was all very delicious food, and she always I
Speaker 4: remember she had these cookie jars in her house with
Speaker 4: various like keebler and off the shelf things. I'll never
Speaker 4: forget shed these cookies, Vienna fingers, which I thought were
Speaker 4: like the best single in the world.
Speaker 1: But I just remember going to her house. She always
Speaker 1: had an apron on.
Speaker 4: She had unbelievably retro menus, so as a starter, you
Speaker 4: were either offered a glass of tomato juice.
Speaker 1: Or half a grapefruit half a grape right.
Speaker 4: She used to keep My grandfather would come home from
Speaker 4: work and he had a glass beer mug and she
Speaker 4: would keep it in the freezer. So then I remember
Speaker 4: he would have it like nice frosty beer. And I
Speaker 4: think because she was really so house proud, she didn't
Speaker 4: let the men in the house go near the kitchen,
Speaker 4: which might explain why my dad is not exactly a chef,
Speaker 4: but that really I remember she was just the coziest grandmother.
Speaker 2: When you were growing up in New York, was here
Speaker 2: memory that you have of going to a shop or
Speaker 2: a restaurant or a place that you associate with your
Speaker 2: childhood in New York?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say the Chinese restaurant nearby always and having
Speaker 4: very Americanized Chinese food, and Shirley Temples to drink completely
Speaker 4: Zay Bars, which was just about so Za Bars, which
Speaker 4: is this I think they call themselves a gourmet store,
Speaker 4: which sounds so dated.
Speaker 1: On the Upper West Side where we.
Speaker 4: Would just go actually we'd go there to get bread,
Speaker 4: I think largely. And then there was a place across
Speaker 4: the street called H and H Bagels, which was like
Speaker 4: the most famous bagel place in New York. And I
Speaker 4: just have really strong memories of going to both of
Speaker 4: those and just having warm, this sort of feeling of
Speaker 4: warm bagels in a waxy paper bag and eating them
Speaker 4: before you could even get home.
Speaker 2: An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as
Speaker 2: chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in
Speaker 2: the restaurant sharing how we cook their food, where the
Speaker 2: ingredients come from, as well as hints and advice for
Speaker 2: cooking the recipes in the books. And now we're bringing
Speaker 2: that same ethos to our podcast, a question and answer
Speaker 2: episode with me and our two executive chefs, Sean Winnow
Speaker 2: and Joseph Travelli. All we need is to hear from
Speaker 2: you about what you would like to know. Send a
Speaker 2: voice note with your question to Questions at Rivercafe dot
Speaker 2: co dot uk and you might just be our next
Speaker 2: great guest on.
Speaker 3: Ruthie's Table four.
Speaker 2: You grew up with a mother who was a passionate
Speaker 2: cook and entertained and saw food and sharing and friends,
Speaker 2: and then your father who did this beautiful time with
Speaker 2: you to eat out and then even at Brown. You
Speaker 2: talk about the name of the restaurant you went to
Speaker 2: to the outside world when you left Brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you have your own apartment, did you? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So I lived at home for a couple of years,
Speaker 4: and then I had my own place where you were working.
Speaker 1: So I was working. So my first job was in advertising.
Speaker 3: An advertising yet your mom's place.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: I worked at Yes and no. I worked at Sauchi
Speaker 4: and Sachi Oh did you. I did in New York,
Speaker 4: so where was the building was three story?
Speaker 1: I have Hudson. You know, it's funny. I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a Manhattan thing.
Speaker 4: So you basically you're at college, you can't really afford
Speaker 4: to go out to eat much, and if you do,
Speaker 4: it's like a really easy local place. You then get
Speaker 4: your first job. And I mean I was not making
Speaker 4: much money at all yet somehow nobody cooked. And I
Speaker 4: think partly because you know, you lived in these tiny
Speaker 4: apartments which barely had a kitchen, but you could cook in.
Speaker 1: Those kitchens, but no, no one cooked. So it was
Speaker 1: basically takeout.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is SACI and Sachi.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like well, actually then I was still living
Speaker 4: at home for at least the first part of it,
Speaker 4: and then I moved into my tiny little apartment and
Speaker 4: I did take out the whole time. I mean I
Speaker 4: didn't have enough money to get my shirt drag clean,
Speaker 4: so I don't know how I was doing.
Speaker 2: My son went to Columby and claimed that it was
Speaker 2: cheaper to you know, you look at home. I never
Speaker 2: got the economics of that, but.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, A friend of mine, a friend of mine,
Speaker 4: I remember I used to keep sweaters in his oven.
Speaker 4: I'll never get He's very chic. He worked for Ralph
Speaker 4: Lauren and then he worked for our money, and he
Speaker 4: had this great taste.
Speaker 1: And I remember going to his apartment.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is super and he's like he's
Speaker 4: from the South and he's like, honey, I keep I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, show me, that's such a nice what's going to name? Honey?
Speaker 1: I keep my sweaters in the oven.
Speaker 2: On his first line and her podcast with me was moothies.
Speaker 2: You know what my mom kept in her oven? And
Speaker 2: I went, you know, I don't know what she said,
Speaker 2: filing cabinet. How she mused to oven filing Cavin.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. Okay, yes, so it's a very variation on
Speaker 1: a theme.
Speaker 4: However, the spirit did move me to start cooking a
Speaker 4: bit when I was on my own.
Speaker 1: I love the movies. I've always always loved the movies,
Speaker 1: and to.
Speaker 4: Me, the Oscars were like watching the Academy Awards on TV,
Speaker 4: like it couldn't be more exciting. I mean, I felt
Speaker 4: like every year I was up for an award, That's
Speaker 4: how excited I got.
Speaker 1: So we're in the nineties, we're in like mid early mid.
Speaker 4: Nineties, and I would have friends over and I would
Speaker 4: have these oscar parties and it was so.
Speaker 1: Late, I guess it wouldn't be no, it was civilized.
Speaker 4: It started at like, you know seven, I think, because
Speaker 4: on the West Coast it's really early. And I remember
Speaker 4: and I would go and I'd make I remember doing
Speaker 4: like some chicken breast. My mom had this like dijon
Speaker 4: chicken breast marinate thing. I remember doing that in making
Speaker 4: a you know what I used to use a lot
Speaker 4: was the Barefoot Contested cookbook, The Barefoot Contestia, and I
Speaker 4: remember making the kind of couscouse like a couscous salad,
Speaker 4: or making or Zo's or various p LOFs and things.
Speaker 4: So I remember cooking at that moment in time. And
Speaker 4: then when I really started cooking more actually is when
Speaker 4: I moved to London. And I'll never forget I moved here.
Speaker 4: It was during the May Bank holiday weekend of two
Speaker 4: thousand and one, so just before nine to eleven, and
Speaker 4: I was really excited about coming. I was coming for
Speaker 4: a short stant for a job. I was allowed to
Speaker 4: come and work out of our London office for six months.
Speaker 4: Moved over and moved into this corporate flat, and I
Speaker 4: realized that the weekend I was going to arrive was
Speaker 4: a bank holiday, and that maybe people wouldn't be around,
Speaker 4: so I might be all on my own. And I
Speaker 4: remember thinking, gosh, I'm going to be so lonely here.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do? And I thought I
Speaker 1: did two things.
Speaker 4: One I wrote a little notebook the name of everyone
Speaker 4: I knew in London, just so I could remind myself
Speaker 4: that I wasn't alone, even if they weren't in town.
Speaker 1: And then the second thing is I'm just going to cook.
Speaker 4: And I remember going to the grocery store and going
Speaker 4: to Waitros, which was like a revelation because it was
Speaker 4: so much nicer than any grocery store I'd ever seen
Speaker 4: in New York. And of course when I moved here,
Speaker 4: I don't think London was even you know, it was
Speaker 4: not nearly where it is now in terms of its
Speaker 4: reputation in terms of food, and I remember all these
Speaker 4: Americans would be like, oh my god, you're not gonna
Speaker 4: be able to eat anything. And by the way, they
Speaker 4: don't refrigerate their eggs.
Speaker 3: That was amaz have that.
Speaker 1: I was like, I think it's going to be Okay,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: It's in the supermarket. Yeah, that's right, they don't it,
Speaker 3: doesn't you remember.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, thank you please, no, thank you please? Okay,
Speaker 1: fathe don't thank you.
Speaker 4: I've said this just so many people over the years,
Speaker 4: the number of dinners I've been to by delicious, yummy,
Speaker 4: cozy dinners at home seasoned hosts, and I would sit
Speaker 4: there and I'd reach for the thing to.
Speaker 1: Put on my and then when your napkin. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm not a weirdo. Okay, that makes me feel so
Speaker 1: much better.
Speaker 3: Than the napkin thing was, like, yeah, shocking. I think
Speaker 3: it's changed now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it seems too.
Speaker 3: That's what I can't say. Even if I have, like
Speaker 3: a piece of bread, I always have to have.
Speaker 4: Of course, Yes, I mean even if I'm meeting someone
Speaker 4: for a drink and there's a napkin on the table.
Speaker 1: Napkin.
Speaker 3: I love napkins. Yeah, and for hours about napkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Has anyone ever ask you here for a black napkin?
Speaker 3: Oh? No.
Speaker 1: I discovered this in New York. It's such a New
Speaker 1: York thing.
Speaker 4: I was having dinner with a friend who's wearing black
Speaker 4: and your napkins actually don't shed, but there's a number,
Speaker 4: you know, some of those really lineny napkins you're wearing black.
Speaker 4: And a friend of mine was called the waiter over
Speaker 4: and said, may I please have a black napkin?
Speaker 3: Oh wow?
Speaker 4: And I was like, what's the black nap gin? And
Speaker 4: she goes, they have black napkins. They don't get on
Speaker 4: your stuff.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine worked at Soho House in New York.
Speaker 2: One of our chefs went to open Soho House in LA.
Speaker 2: They had square plates. I think it was fashionable at
Speaker 2: the time. Eddie said there were clients who just would
Speaker 2: only eat on a round plate, you know, so they go, you.
Speaker 3: Can only have a black name plate, any Eddie.
Speaker 1: I digress.
Speaker 4: And you know it's funny because I love trying different
Speaker 4: foods and different dishes.
Speaker 1: But however, I'm very happy.
Speaker 4: Once I like something, I'm happy to stick with it
Speaker 4: for a long period of time. And my friends have
Speaker 4: always made fun of me. I mean I would literally
Speaker 4: remember in New York, this was this one place we
Speaker 4: used to go and I used to order the same thing,
Speaker 4: and I probably ordered the same thing for two years
Speaker 4: and then I'm done.
Speaker 3: So you know what the equivalent of that.
Speaker 1: Is wearing the same clothes everything.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 2: I mean there was a period when my husband was
Speaker 2: very sick, and here there were all these things that
Speaker 2: were going and I realized that that I could just
Speaker 2: wear the same denim skirt every single day.
Speaker 3: As a matter of.
Speaker 2: Fact, the denim skirt was stolen not long ago in
Speaker 2: my suitcase which they put out on the street, and
Speaker 2: the person forgot to put it in the boot. So
Speaker 2: the suitcase is still and I came back until Charles,
Speaker 2: our manager, I said, you know, and then the suitcase
Speaker 2: was still, and then my denim skirt was in it.
Speaker 3: He said, well, every cloud has a silver life.
Speaker 1: It was only one of the skirts, or did you
Speaker 1: have a few?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the choice.
Speaker 2: What I realized is that you know, decision, decision, decision,
Speaker 2: like you in a restaurant that somehow just knowing that
Speaker 2: every day, O care, I just put on the denimsk
Speaker 2: uniform though, and whatever it is, So maybe there is
Speaker 2: you probably would never ever think about wearing the same
Speaker 2: thing the way you chose the same Yeah, it was true,
Speaker 2: so you could eat and I don't think i'd go
Speaker 2: to a restaurant have the same So there's no fashion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's really a fashion food thing.
Speaker 4: I mean I was thinking about it a lot in
Speaker 4: the sort of run up to today and just in general.
Speaker 4: And I mean, everyone has to eat, but there are
Speaker 4: people that have very transactional relationships with food. You know,
Speaker 4: they just look at the Ar'm just gonna eat, and
Speaker 4: you know, it's fuel similar to sort of clothes in
Speaker 4: that you know, everyone has to get dressed, and you
Speaker 4: can either just treat it as Okay, I need to
Speaker 4: cover my body to go out, but for me in
Speaker 4: the same way, it's such a source of creativity and joy.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've been asked a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: why do you why do you love clothes? Why do
Speaker 1: the fashion?
Speaker 4: I always assumed it's because my mom was really into
Speaker 4: fashion and I threw us most successa aw the joy
Speaker 4: that it brought her. But I think also, you know,
Speaker 4: I went to a school where we had a very
Speaker 4: strict uniform.
Speaker 3: Tell me about what was the school.
Speaker 4: It was called Shape in in New York, and I
Speaker 4: don't know it's prime less strict now, but we had
Speaker 4: you know, for lower school, you had to wear a
Speaker 4: little either yellow seersucker or green tunic. And in the
Speaker 4: winter months there was this like polyester version, and then
Speaker 4: you were white blouse and you would to wear green
Speaker 4: or yellow sox and brown hard shoes.
Speaker 1: Later on you could wear it like boat shoes and things.
Speaker 4: And then for the upper school you'd wear kilt and
Speaker 4: you had to have a collar and specific colors. But
Speaker 4: it was quite you know, it was strict. When we
Speaker 4: would have a field day, a sports day, I would
Speaker 4: lie in thinking like, oh my gosh, what am I
Speaker 4: going to wear it? Not what am I going to
Speaker 4: wear it to like wow, anyone, but just I get
Speaker 4: to choose, I get to che I would drive my
Speaker 4: mom insane. Do you think I could wear anyway? And
Speaker 4: so I realized that to me, fashion is self expression.
Speaker 4: It's freedom, and it's the same thing being able to choose,
Speaker 4: you know, to have the privilege to choose what you eat,
Speaker 4: where you eat it, putting things together, experimenting, and it's
Speaker 4: choice and it's just having that, the freedom to choose.
Speaker 4: And actually it's really funny. I was thinking, sorry, this
Speaker 4: is a bit of attention, but about choice, and I
Speaker 4: was we used to do. There was this candy store
Speaker 4: out in Watermill called the Penny Candy Store that was
Speaker 4: around for years. It was like the equivalent of like
Speaker 4: a little news agent here that sold candy. And when
Speaker 4: we would have this tradition with my dad where he
Speaker 4: would take us to the penny candy store and we
Speaker 4: each would have I remember at first was a dollar
Speaker 4: and then it was two dollars and you could choose
Speaker 4: what you wanted, and the people in the store were
Speaker 4: super strict, so literally like if you went over by
Speaker 4: a cent, you had to put something back. But I
Speaker 4: remember there was this thing around I don't know what
Speaker 4: made me think of this just now, but there's this
Speaker 4: thing around choice. And I always knew exactly what I
Speaker 4: wanted from that penny candy thing, and might go to
Speaker 4: my sister and she would take like an hour, and
Speaker 4: the question was do you want one big thing? Do
Speaker 4: you want lots of little things? And how do you
Speaker 4: sort of like your grandmother that can I have two lunch? Like,
Speaker 4: how do I get the most out of this.
Speaker 2: Little The thing is that it's also about I certainly
Speaker 2: think about it and food, and I know you think
Speaker 2: about it and clothes. The other issues, the issues of
Speaker 2: food poverty, of the fact that there are people who
Speaker 2: don't have a choice because there are no well, first
Speaker 2: of all, we know that in the Bronx where you
Speaker 2: and I know very well that there are no vegetable
Speaker 2: shops and if you want to buy a carrot, there
Speaker 2: aren't any. And then people who can't afford to give
Speaker 2: their children a home cooked meal because they're working at
Speaker 2: Amazon and they have to be there for the night shift.
Speaker 2: Or maybe there's a mother who'd rather do homework with
Speaker 2: her kid than cook for kids, so they order out
Speaker 2: or they go to you know, fast food places, or
Speaker 2: and we know that there are no choices, as we
Speaker 2: know also with fashion, and you know what we can
Speaker 2: wear and what we can afford to wear, and what
Speaker 2: people can express their identity. And there's vintage clothes and
Speaker 2: there's used clothes, and there's difficult times for that. But
Speaker 2: I know it's a concern of yours very much. So
Speaker 2: I mean, and I think that'd be interesting to discuss.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I've always felt, or we've always felt
Speaker 4: such a huge responsibility to give back from a business
Speaker 4: respective to give back to the communities that we serve
Speaker 4: so really great you know. Example is for nott A Porte,
Speaker 4: we have these vans where we do a same day
Speaker 4: delivery in certain cities around the world, and the dream
Speaker 4: was always Okay, we're delivering beautiful clothes to discerning, wonderful customers.
Speaker 4: But then the vans come back empty, right, and could
Speaker 4: there be a way that we could use those vans
Speaker 4: for the greater good?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: So we've done all kinds of things. So, for example,
Speaker 4: we worked with a Good Plass Foundation in New York
Speaker 4: where we were collecting from customers lightly used or unused
Speaker 4: children's clothing, toys, you know, accessories the parents might need.
Speaker 4: Call it a baby carrier or things like that. So
Speaker 4: when you get your delivery from the van, and then
Speaker 4: you might say, well, guess what, my kid has just
Speaker 4: outgrown their toddler bed or what have you. And then
Speaker 4: we would collect that in our vans and then bring
Speaker 4: it back to bring it back to the charity, which
Speaker 4: really was great. And during COVID, you know, we were
Speaker 4: able to use, you know, the deepest, darkest moments of
Speaker 4: lockdown to use some of our vehicles for food delivery,
Speaker 4: things that nature.
Speaker 1: I think with clothes, and I.
Speaker 4: Think the awareness is so much greater now, and I
Speaker 4: see this wonderfully in my kids and their generation, this
Speaker 4: notion of clothing not just having a second life, but
Speaker 4: a third life. And so on the one hand, there's
Speaker 4: an industry around that. Okay, you can rent things, you
Speaker 4: can buy things secondhand. If you want something designer, you
Speaker 4: can't afford it, okay, great, and it democratizes fashion. But
Speaker 4: I think the other thing that's that's wonderful is you know,
Speaker 4: there's so much it's not wonderful that there's so much access,
Speaker 4: but the access can be put to good use. You know,
Speaker 4: these wonderful organizations like Dress for Success which work with women,
Speaker 4: right and.
Speaker 1: It's just it's fabulous.
Speaker 3: So tell us about well, we've worked.
Speaker 4: With them in the past where you know, they're bringing
Speaker 4: women back into the workforce and so they're women who
Speaker 4: have either come out of very hard domestic situations, women
Speaker 4: who've come out of prison, and they come and they're
Speaker 4: doing these interviews and they're trying to get back into
Speaker 4: sciding and they don't have anything to wear. They don't
Speaker 4: have a pair of shoes that are decent, they have
Speaker 4: an old pair of sneakers, and so it's Dressed for Success.
Speaker 4: It's you know, they have these outposts where essentially you
Speaker 4: could go in, you're given interview training, but also how
Speaker 4: do you show up what's the appropriate thing to wear,
Speaker 4: and then there's a wardrobe that you can choose from
Speaker 4: and it really sets you up. And so I think
Speaker 4: there's so many ways that one can get involved. And
Speaker 4: you know, in London there's so many friends who are
Speaker 4: doing great car boot sales and things in this nature,
Speaker 4: just as a way, you know, because if you're in
Speaker 4: a private position where you have not only enough, but
Speaker 4: you've got too much, what can you do with it
Speaker 4: to help someone else or to sort of help, you know,
Speaker 4: even in a small way, try and tackle these gargantuan problems.
Speaker 3: And tell me more about Netaporte. When did you start working?
Speaker 4: So I started almost well eighteen years ago and we
Speaker 4: were it wasn't gosh, it wasn't a start at.
Speaker 3: Start, did it. It's going to be twenty five seven
Speaker 3: years into seven.
Speaker 4: Years in a remarkable business, a remarkable founder, a remarkable team.
Speaker 1: And I remember, I mean I had been there.
Speaker 4: But was a newsletter that was that had launched in
Speaker 4: the nineties called Daily Candy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 4: Of this, and I remember, and it was all things
Speaker 4: sort of what's going on in fashion and what's going
Speaker 4: on with the restaurants, go in the culture. And I
Speaker 4: remember seeing I was in New York and seeing this
Speaker 4: email saying there's this website that's going to be selling fashion,
Speaker 4: and I remember signing up immediately thinking, God, what could
Speaker 4: be better? I always loved fashion. This idea could you
Speaker 4: get stuff delivered? I remember the very first thing that
Speaker 4: I bought, which I still have, which is this Chloe
Speaker 4: satin dropwat dress.
Speaker 1: I haven't worn it probably for a long time, but
Speaker 1: it still sits there. It's this wonderful memento. And you know,
Speaker 1: the mission was really to make.
Speaker 4: This fashion consumer's life easier and to also inspire her.
Speaker 4: And so what we've seen firsthand and where I feel
Speaker 4: so privileged is not just to work with super teams
Speaker 4: and really amazing individuals, but really just to see the
Speaker 4: joy that fashion can bring. Again, you're not solving the
Speaker 4: world's problems, but it really can put a spring in
Speaker 4: your step. Just like you see here every second of
Speaker 4: the day, people sit down and whatever troubles they had
Speaker 4: or whatever they've got going on, they take a bite
Speaker 4: and you see the shoulders come down and this spark
Speaker 4: in their eyes and it's.
Speaker 3: That celebratory, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so you started working there, and then what
Speaker 2: was a trajectory for being.
Speaker 1: So I stayed? So I started.
Speaker 4: So I started working there running sales and marketing, and
Speaker 4: then I started running Netta Protein in its entirety. We
Speaker 4: then launched a number of other businesses, is the Outnet,
Speaker 4: which is a discount business, Mister Porter, which was a
Speaker 4: men's business, and over the eighteen years was involved in
Speaker 4: those launches with great teams. And then I started running
Speaker 4: Netaportein and mister Porter. And then I ran Netaportein, Mister
Speaker 4: Porter and the Outnet, and then we merged with an
Speaker 4: Italian business called Yuks, and then I ran all four.
Speaker 3: Stores how many people? And then well, you.
Speaker 4: Well, when I joined, we were probably about one hundred,
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty people, and today we're twenty five
Speaker 4: hundred and change. And there's been different ownership and everything
Speaker 4: along the way. So I feel like I've worn lots
Speaker 4: of different hats under the same.
Speaker 2: What does it feel like to be a woman who
Speaker 2: is in this position? Is it something that you are
Speaker 2: thinking about other women? Are you thinking about your own kids?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Is it thinking about the future now, what we've achieved,
Speaker 2: what we have to do?
Speaker 3: I mean, especially in this.
Speaker 2: World right now that we're here, where there seems to
Speaker 2: be so much back going on rather than yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know it's I think I had a couple
Speaker 4: of great role models.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: My mom, as I said, was you know, a work
Speaker 4: She's not just a working woman. But I think she
Speaker 4: really taught me indirectly that being a mom and being
Speaker 4: a working woman and having a successful career are not
Speaker 4: mutually exclusive. I also had at my school in New York,
Speaker 4: this phenomenal headmistress named Mildred Berenson who would stand at
Speaker 4: a podium.
Speaker 1: She was amazing.
Speaker 4: She would stand at a podium our little lectern when
Speaker 4: we had our assemblies, and she was always immaculately dressed,
Speaker 4: and she wore these little pumps.
Speaker 1: I think they must have.
Speaker 4: Been those Ferragama pumps with the bows. And she had
Speaker 4: this habit of just sort of clicking her heels together,
Speaker 4: and I remember she would be sort of immaculate, clicking
Speaker 4: her Pharamagama pumps. And she'd say because it was a
Speaker 4: girls school I went to, and she'd say, girls can
Speaker 4: do anything. One day a woman will be president. And
Speaker 4: as a kid, I mean I barely was paying attention
Speaker 4: I'm sure just I thought it was washing over me.
Speaker 4: But it was interesting because when I eventually went to
Speaker 4: a co ed school, I never for a second thought
Speaker 4: I would lesser of anything by being a girl.
Speaker 1: So I think it did kind of sink in.
Speaker 4: And then as I, you know, started a career and
Speaker 4: advanced in a career, the question that I gat from
Speaker 4: younger women all the time is, you know, how do
Speaker 4: you how do you not even like, how do you
Speaker 4: do it? Because you're so great, but how do you
Speaker 4: do all these things?
Speaker 1: How can you do all these things?
Speaker 4: And I remember reading something and one of the supplements
Speaker 4: here and I can't remember it might have been Nigella
Speaker 4: Lawson who said it, which was around just it was
Speaker 4: something around prioritization, and I think that piece had said,
Speaker 4: you know, you can have an active social life, you
Speaker 4: can have out, you can have all these things. You
Speaker 4: can't necessarily have them all on full volume at the
Speaker 4: same time. But what I took away was this priority piece,
Speaker 4: and the thing that I believe in so strongly is
Speaker 4: just you need to know what.
Speaker 1: Your priorities are.
Speaker 4: You don't have to justify them to anybody, but know
Speaker 4: what they are, and then your answer will always sit
Speaker 4: comfortably with you, you know. So for me, I always
Speaker 4: knew it with my family. For someone else it might
Speaker 4: be their career. That's that's their choice. But then you know, okay,
Speaker 4: it's this thing and it's that thing, and so you
Speaker 4: have to okay, sometimes you have no choice, right but
Speaker 4: in the instances where you can make it. And I
Speaker 4: think the other piece of advice I would always give
Speaker 4: is just set your stall out early on. If you're
Speaker 4: meaning you're starting a job. Let's say I'm coming to
Speaker 4: work for you and I've just had a lucky me.
Speaker 4: If I were and I'm kind of work for you
Speaker 4: and i've just had a baby, yeah, and I have
Speaker 4: there are only certain hours I can do instead of
Speaker 4: or I need to make sure i'm out of you.
Speaker 4: In a Restaurant's probably not the best example, but I'm running,
Speaker 4: I'm running the shop, and these are Instead of being
Speaker 4: embarrassed about it, instead of looking at my watch and
Speaker 4: stressing out, I would say to you, hey, Ruthy, I'd
Speaker 4: really love to come and you know, work with you,
Speaker 4: but every day I need to make sure that my
Speaker 4: bag is packed at six pm because I have a chut.
Speaker 1: And then you can choose whether you hire me or not.
Speaker 4: But just lay it out, just lay out the ways
Speaker 4: in which you work and sort of what works.
Speaker 1: Anyway, and just being upfront about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that also is the responsibility of all of
Speaker 2: us who hire people. When I did my first book,
Speaker 2: cal Reebuck was head of Random House, and she would
Speaker 2: not let a meeting be scheduled after five o'clock. There
Speaker 2: are just no meetings that you could have where women.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about her kids being picked up from school.
Speaker 3: You know, men could stumble home like seven and was late.
Speaker 2: At the office, and so there was a whole initiative.
Speaker 2: But I think for us, for me, I think about
Speaker 2: the people who have no choice, you know, the people
Speaker 2: who are packing shelves, yeah, supermarkets, are taxi tab driver
Speaker 2: or working. You know that the responsibility is on us
Speaker 2: to provide workspaces that for the person who's washing the
Speaker 2: dishes or coming in one day a week.
Speaker 3: How we do that?
Speaker 2: And I think women helping women, women I'm directing, is
Speaker 2: so crucial.
Speaker 1: You know, women in leadership too.
Speaker 4: I mean, luckily were far more evolved than we were
Speaker 4: as a society years and years ago. But still, you know,
Speaker 4: I look at my industry and way less than a third.
Speaker 4: Leadership roles are held by women. You always in fashion,
Speaker 4: there's lots of women working in fashion. When you look
Speaker 4: at leadership, it's same thing. Architecture schools are full. I
Speaker 4: think it's something like sixty percent women forty percent men.
Speaker 4: And then partnerships. You know, the boards are really low.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of work to do. And by
Speaker 4: the way, do we think that we will have a
Speaker 4: woman president?
Speaker 1: Yes, we will.
Speaker 4: It's been drilled into me from parents and rest in
Speaker 4: Peace knew what she was talking about.
Speaker 2: Imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for
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Speaker 3: Co dot uk to place your order.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: So you chose the recipeta, which is really a great thing,
Speaker 2: So tell me why you chose it. All the recipes
Speaker 2: and all the River Cafe so you chose the bandicada.
Speaker 4: First of all, it's very hard to choose. I think
Speaker 4: in the case of Banicouda one, I'm a savory person.
Speaker 4: I love Anthoon's and it's got a real umamminus to it.
Speaker 4: I feel like the bandicotta sauce. Interestingly, we've never had
Speaker 4: it in Italy. We've only ever had it either here
Speaker 4: or at home.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been to the north north of Italy, Yes,
Speaker 2: because that's where it comes from, like the mountainous region
Speaker 2: of Piedmonte.
Speaker 4: And it's so you know, it's been a tradition in
Speaker 4: our house for years where we always used to have it.
Speaker 4: My husband's a phenomenal cook, and we always used to
Speaker 4: have it on New Year's Day and it'll be one
Speaker 4: of those things where you'd kind of wake up a
Speaker 4: little bit tired. Yeah, yeah, and it was just it
Speaker 4: sort of hit all the spots that you needed it too.
Speaker 4: So we would always have binding count and that was
Speaker 4: our thing. And so we do it with cooked vegetables
Speaker 4: and you know, winter months, but we also do it
Speaker 4: with fresh crud de tay.
Speaker 1: In the summer time. I'll say, you dip it and
Speaker 1: use it as a dip as opposed to a dressing.
Speaker 1: I mean I could drink it. I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it too.
Speaker 2: I love the as you say, the saltiness, and then
Speaker 2: as you say, the seasonality of it in the winter.
Speaker 2: Will the recipe that you have we kind of. I
Speaker 2: think it had carrots, it had charred, and it had
Speaker 2: fennel and had something else, a nauto choke. It's really
Speaker 2: nice with a nauto choke because visually to see a
Speaker 2: whole auto choke.
Speaker 4: Okay, so batya kouto with prosecco, serve six people. You
Speaker 4: will need seven hundred and sixty mili of prosecco, three
Speaker 4: garlic cloves peeled, three hundred grams of Swiss chart two
Speaker 4: fennel bulbs cut into six wedges, three celery hearts quartered,
Speaker 4: twelve salted anchovies cleaned and filled it, two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty grams of unsalted butter, and fifty.
Speaker 1: Mil of olive oil. Yum.
Speaker 4: You put the prosecco into a saucepan, add the garlic
Speaker 4: and boil it until the prosecco has reduced and the
Speaker 4: garlic is soft. Remove from the heat, blanch the Swiss charred,
Speaker 4: remove and then boil fennel and celery until soft.
Speaker 1: Drain.
Speaker 4: Return the saucepan with the reduced prosecco and soften garlic
Speaker 4: to the heat and add the anchovy filets. Allow them
Speaker 4: to melt into the mixture. Gently whisk in the soften butter.
Speaker 4: Remove the pan from the heat. After the first edition
Speaker 4: of butter. When all the butter has been incorporated, add
Speaker 4: the olive oil and black pepper. Arrange the warm vegetables
Speaker 4: on a serving plate, pour over the sauce, and serve immediately.
Speaker 2: Yum, yeah, you're you're just saying that Al's a really
Speaker 2: good cook.
Speaker 1: Owl's a very good cook.
Speaker 3: Tell me about his cookbait.
Speaker 4: So he is the second of three boys, and growing
Speaker 4: they spent a lot of time in Wales, and my
Speaker 4: father in law was a way a lot for work,
Speaker 4: and so my mother in law very wise, they thought,
Speaker 4: oh wait, I'm spending this time in Wales. I'm at
Speaker 4: the top of this hill. The weather's horrendous, and I've
Speaker 4: got these three boys. I'm going to teach them to
Speaker 4: cook or I'm going to become a short order Cook's
Speaker 4: lo and behold you these three men who became great cooks.
Speaker 4: And my husband trained actually as a chef, so he
Speaker 4: always worked in restaurants and things during his gap year
Speaker 4: and right after I think it was just finishing university.
Speaker 4: You know, he was trained by the Rue Brothers, and
Speaker 4: he has this just incredible I think curiosity, but also.
Speaker 1: Imagination and creativity.
Speaker 4: I mean he can open a cupboard and see all
Speaker 4: these desperate ingredients and see a dish and I I
Speaker 4: always laugh because to me, I just see desperate ingredients.
Speaker 4: So I think my fashion corollary is I can up
Speaker 4: up a closet and I can see lots of different
Speaker 4: ways of wearing things.
Speaker 1: But I do not have his skills in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: But I think it's been touching from a great conversation,
Speaker 2: is that how many of your memories, whether it's going
Speaker 2: to brown, whether it's meeting your father and Friday afternoons,
Speaker 2: whether it was your mother's cooking or her work, or
Speaker 2: coming to London and making a notebook of friends to call,
Speaker 2: which I shared as well, or right now trying to
Speaker 2: you know, deciding what to eat with your husband is
Speaker 2: about food and memories and memories and food and how
Speaker 2: if food is alleviating hunger, and food is sharing, food
Speaker 2: is entertaining, food is creating a framework for your children
Speaker 2: of adventure.
Speaker 3: It's also comfort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you do need comfort, if you feel like
Speaker 2: something that will just give you comfort.
Speaker 3: Is there something that you would go to? Chicken service, chicken.
Speaker 1: Chickens your pants down.
Speaker 4: Just from a really young age, soup was always the
Speaker 4: thing that I was given to make you feel better.
Speaker 4: But unlike things, let's say, like ginger ale, which you
Speaker 4: were given when you felt sick, and anytime I even
Speaker 4: smell it now I feel sick because of sensation, chicken
Speaker 4: soup was one of those things where immediately you would
Speaker 4: feel better. And I remember my grandmother, my maternal grandmother,
Speaker 4: who was not a sensational cook, made a great chicken soup,
Speaker 4: lots of dill. She had matza balls in them that
Speaker 4: my father described as hockey pucks. But I loved them,
Speaker 4: and it.
Speaker 1: Was always my thing.
Speaker 4: And there was this place in New York that closed
Speaker 4: down years ago, but when I was having take out
Speaker 4: all the time called the International Poultry Company, and I
Speaker 4: remember ordering like quarts of mats of ball soup. And
Speaker 4: so that's always been my thing, and I go to
Speaker 4: and I remember I wasn't married to my husband yet
Speaker 4: I think we weren't even engaged.
Speaker 1: And I had come back from China and I got
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 4: Incredibly sick, like six six sick, and I wasn't able
Speaker 4: to eat anything for about ten days.
Speaker 1: And my mother in law, who's phenomenal, came over with this.
Speaker 4: Pot of chicken soup, and I just remember it was
Speaker 4: the first thing that I could eat, and it was
Speaker 4: like it was like putting water on a wilting flower.
Speaker 4: And so always to me, it's chicken soup. And I've
Speaker 4: you know, idealing my husband's chicken soup. There's a place
Speaker 4: in New York called Butterfield Market, these two sort of
Speaker 4: food stores on that bree side, and they do a
Speaker 4: great chicken soup. So when I'm in New York, I mean,
Speaker 4: it could be a thousand degrees outside and I'm eating
Speaker 4: chicken soup.
Speaker 3: Okay, well we'll have that.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you for having me. Thank you, Yes,
Speaker 2: stay forever. What are we going to do when we
Speaker 2: go to New York together? We're gonna go where We're
Speaker 2: gonna go.
Speaker 4: Back to that brookstore, Sanding Garbor. We're gonna go to eat.
Speaker 4: We'll have a two inch sandwich and from the met Okay,
Speaker 4: come on Let's do It.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, Thank
Speaker 4: You for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with
Speaker 4: Montclair