Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: I'm often asked if it's intimidating cooking for celebrities who
Speaker 2: come to the River Cafe. My response is that the
Speaker 2: guests who really worry me are other chefs. It's a
Speaker 2: bit like that today, as I'm about to interview the
Speaker 2: interviewer mary Ella Frostrop, especially since I was watched the
Speaker 2: subject for the Guardian's Lunch with mary Ella, Mariella wrote,
Speaker 2: despite such eloquence that Ruthie is a disaster of an interview.
Speaker 2: My questions get longer as her answers get shorter and
Speaker 2: inevitably end with a question for me. She's all, don't
Speaker 2: you think? And do you find? And have you noticed?
Speaker 2: But I'm reminding myself that I'm not here with Marielle
Speaker 2: the journalist, but Mariella, my good friend. When Mariella books
Speaker 2: a table in the River Cafe, it's most often for two,
Speaker 2: usually with her husband, human rights lawyer Jason mccute. Watching
Speaker 2: her is watching someone who's diverted only by what she
Speaker 2: is eating and drinking, as she's entirely focused to the
Speaker 2: person she's with, sitting close, talking, smiling, laughing and listening.
Speaker 2: Her daughter Molly, who's working here as a bar back,
Speaker 2: told me about growing up with her mother, cooking together,
Speaker 2: eating together, traveling together to Norway, to Greece, all over
Speaker 2: the world. Now, Mary Elle and I will do the same. Intimidated,
Speaker 2: why would I be? Don't you think? Do you find?
Speaker 2: Do you notice?
Speaker 3: Oh, Ruthie, that's the best introduction I've ever had, ever,
Speaker 3: ever in my entire life. Don't you think? How would
Speaker 3: you like to be described? Ruth I'm sorry I said that,
Speaker 3: but it is true.
Speaker 2: That's true, said, it is really sweeter, he said, you
Speaker 2: just kept turning the questions back coming. So today I'm
Speaker 2: just going to listen to you and not tell you,
Speaker 2: don't you think? But before we do, first of all,
Speaker 2: I'm so happy you're here. I love having Molly here.
Speaker 2: She's just fantastic.
Speaker 3: I think she feels like she's at a West End
Speaker 3: show every night of her life because.
Speaker 4: She's a bar back. So she's behind the candy.
Speaker 2: Who did the cooking? When you were in your house, well.
Speaker 5: In our house, it's very it was very fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: Do you have Sunday lunches? Was the one meal that
Speaker 2: you would have.
Speaker 5: That would be we would have Sunday lunches, and I'd
Speaker 5: say the most important thing of our Sunday lunch was
Speaker 5: probably the Yorchhire puddings. My dad was obsessed with them.
Speaker 5: He'd have like fifty.
Speaker 2: At least your mom grew up in Norway. Do you
Speaker 2: have a connection food connection to Norway?
Speaker 5: So we go to Norway sometimes on holiday because I mean,
Speaker 5: it's so beautiful and obviously, like mum likes the fact
Speaker 5: that we all get to see we sort of web.
Speaker 2: We're from and stuff.
Speaker 5: But I wouldn't really say that that was a sort
Speaker 5: of dish. But that's this sort of cheese that Mum's
Speaker 5: obsessed with, but none of us.
Speaker 4: Like so much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's something it's like and it's a very brown color,
Speaker 5: and it's very smelly and sweet and weird.
Speaker 2: It's not for me.
Speaker 3: I can't understand none of my family of conversion to
Speaker 3: all with them. I think it's probably heavily processed and
Speaker 3: not necessarily good for you. But it is a taste
Speaker 3: of childhood. It's called ya toast and it's a goats cheese.
Speaker 3: But it's I'm going to make it sound disgusting. It
Speaker 3: looks sort of caramel color.
Speaker 2: It's a caramel.
Speaker 3: Broone cheese. Because the thing about Norwegian is that it's
Speaker 3: very literal. You know, if you pass a lake and
Speaker 3: it's got brown water, it'll be called Brune Lake. You know,
Speaker 3: if you pass a house and it's the first one
Speaker 3: in the road, it'll be called Who's one, And so
Speaker 3: Brune cheese cheese called okay.
Speaker 2: This gives us a chance to start at the beginning,
Speaker 2: at the very beginning, Norway. You were born now.
Speaker 3: Where born in Oslo in nineteen sixty two, where my
Speaker 3: dad had moved back. He and my mother met at Edinburgh.
Speaker 3: She was a very young art student. She was sixteen
Speaker 3: when they first met. She started Dark College two years early.
Speaker 3: She was an incredible talent, but this was the end
Speaker 3: of the nineteen fifties. He was studying English at Edinburgh University,
Speaker 3: as a lot of Scandinavians so they still do. But
Speaker 3: a lot of Norwegians particularly go to Edinburgh. So they
Speaker 3: met there and when she was eighteen she gave up
Speaker 3: Art college and went back with him to Norway, where
Speaker 3: I was born, and then my brother and then my
Speaker 3: sister in fairly quick succession.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the food that you ate when you
Speaker 2: were in Norway. What age did you live?
Speaker 4: Six?
Speaker 2: Oh, so you might not remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, there's a really weird thing I
Speaker 3: think that happens. I mean, firstly, my main food memory
Speaker 3: of Norway is actually because at that time, in the
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties, they really didn't have many ingredients at all.
Speaker 3: You know, there wasn't this sort of globalization of food,
Speaker 3: and you know, you'd get strawberries, but only in midsummer.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of pickling fish and vegetables, salt cord,
Speaker 3: which I didn't like at all, but I do remember,
Speaker 3: and I still love it. There's an arctic charred Arctic
Speaker 3: chard that they did. That's just I mean, I think,
Speaker 3: one of the most delicious pieces of fish or fishes
Speaker 3: in the world. But because of that, I think most
Speaker 3: I do remember things like cheese. We would always have
Speaker 3: cheese at breakfast. And strawberry jam wasn't like strawberry jam
Speaker 3: that you get here in jars and things. It would
Speaker 3: be fresh made strawberry jam. They'd make it and then
Speaker 3: it would last until the next summer, and so you
Speaker 3: would have a saucer full of it and you would
Speaker 3: just spoon it onto your cheese, on your crackers, or
Speaker 3: on your rye bread.
Speaker 4: And I remember things like that.
Speaker 3: But the thing I remember most was I think it
Speaker 3: was difficult times, and I think it was difficult with
Speaker 3: my parents, and they weren't very happy in Norway, very young,
Speaker 3: and my mom had sort of given up all of
Speaker 3: her artistic expression to go there, and suddenly she had
Speaker 3: three children. And it was the nineteen fifties and Norway
Speaker 3: was very very conservative then, and my father used to
Speaker 3: travel a lot because heat of his work. He was
Speaker 3: a journalist. And he came back from Tanzania, a trip
Speaker 3: to Tanzania, and he arrived back and this will show
Speaker 3: you how long ago it was, with a box full
Speaker 3: of fruit. It had things we'd never seen before. It
Speaker 3: had mangoes and these extraordinary melons and then breadfruit and
Speaker 3: just all of these things, and it was like a miracle.
Speaker 3: It was like sunshine had just it was like all
Speaker 3: the windows had opened and sunshine just blazed into our apartment.
Speaker 3: And I'll never forget it, you know. It was a
Speaker 3: really really strong and striking memory from a period of
Speaker 3: time where I don't have.
Speaker 4: That many memories.
Speaker 3: But what I was going to say about sense memory
Speaker 3: to do with food is I don't remember much about
Speaker 3: the food there, but when I go back, I'm like
Speaker 3: the you know, the woman in the tin drum in
Speaker 3: the film, I'm like her, the one who can't stop
Speaker 3: eating fish. I'm sat there with jars of herrings. I
Speaker 3: can't get enough sourcial. You know, I can't pickle everything,
Speaker 3: pickled gerkins, everything.
Speaker 2: And did your father miss it? Do you think did
Speaker 2: you have any of it in Ireland?
Speaker 3: Or oh, we used to get suits, We would get
Speaker 3: pickled fish and jars because you couldn't get that in Ireland.
Speaker 3: Then I'm not sure that he missed it. He was
Speaker 3: never much of a food man, my father. He was
Speaker 3: more of a drink man, okay, so his interest in
Speaker 3: food was sort of minimal.
Speaker 2: Can you remember sitting down at nels with them? And
Speaker 2: as a child, and was for dinners and lunches.
Speaker 3: It was the nineteen seventies, really, and I don't think
Speaker 3: we did a lot of sitting down for meals, And
Speaker 3: also because it was always complicated, they split up when
Speaker 3: I was eight, so I think those sort of family
Speaker 3: moments were very few and far between, which is probably
Speaker 3: why Jason and I have been so kind of committed
Speaker 3: to creating them to appoint where my children are like.
Speaker 4: Oh no, not Sunday lunch please.
Speaker 2: But as you grew up in Ireland, so what was
Speaker 2: it like growing up? You were quite poor? You said
Speaker 2: that you had very little money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so food.
Speaker 3: You know, in terms of, you know, defining childhood food memories,
Speaker 3: they tend to be not very.
Speaker 4: Not very warm and cozy ones.
Speaker 3: I mean the awful, awful memory ones when we really
Speaker 3: had run out of food. And my brother, who was
Speaker 3: always the one who tried to beat emmolient, he is
Speaker 3: still the kindest man you'll meet, and he was trying
Speaker 3: to make light of the fact that there literally was
Speaker 3: nothing in the cupboard, and he was like, look, look
Speaker 3: I've got spaghetti and I've got golden syrup.
Speaker 4: It'll be delicious.
Speaker 2: So you wouldn't have he wasn't going to have the
Speaker 2: golden syrup. After the spaghetti he made it for us
Speaker 2: with the golden syrup.
Speaker 3: Was one of the most disgusting combinations I've ever come across.
Speaker 3: Did you say that at the time, No, No, we
Speaker 3: grained him and yeah, this is good lovely sugar, sugar
Speaker 3: and starch I can have.
Speaker 2: It's like rice pudding. I suppose how long did you
Speaker 2: live in Ireland.
Speaker 4: For till I was sixteen?
Speaker 2: So your father died?
Speaker 3: He died when I was fifteen, he was forty six.
Speaker 3: He had a heart attack for years seventy eight, and
Speaker 3: then I moved to London in seventy nine.
Speaker 2: So when you came to after the tragedy of your
Speaker 2: father's death, is that when you moved from Ireland right
Speaker 2: after that? The whole all three of you and your mom?
Speaker 4: No, no me?
Speaker 2: What by yourself? Yeah? How old were you?
Speaker 3: Well, I'd already left home. I left home when I
Speaker 3: was fifteen. I lived with my mom for quite a while,
Speaker 3: but my stepfather and I didn't get on and he
Speaker 3: was not nice, okay, And so then I went to
Speaker 3: live with my father, but that was very difficult because
Speaker 3: he was by then a sort of fully fledged alcoholic,
Speaker 3: and when my stepmother left him with the two children
Speaker 3: that they'd had, and I ended up living with him
Speaker 3: on my own and trying to go to school and
Speaker 3: kind of manage what was really a fast deteriorating situation.
Speaker 3: And he and I were living in some rented house
Speaker 3: in the far reaches of Dublin, and i'd get home
Speaker 3: from school and there would just be stuff piled in
Speaker 3: the in the kitchen and everything, and so I decided
Speaker 3: I had to leave. But going back to my mother's
Speaker 3: wasn't really an option. So a very nice pair of
Speaker 3: lesbian sisters, not a couple, but they said I could
Speaker 3: rent a room from them. I'd met them working in
Speaker 3: a restaurant in Dublin called the Blackboard where I used
Speaker 3: to work at weekends.
Speaker 2: And there as.
Speaker 3: A waitress, yeah, and or a waiter as we say now,
Speaker 3: And that was for too, A lovely gay couple called
Speaker 3: Peter and Melvin, who really looked after me very well,
Speaker 3: because I mean, what kind of a state I must
Speaker 3: have been in? No idea, but apparently I was a
Speaker 3: very good waitress, I can imagine.
Speaker 4: I loved it. It was my favorite jodea.
Speaker 2: What did you love about it?
Speaker 3: I loved the interaction, and I loved that it made
Speaker 3: me feel quite efficient, and I loved the whole I
Speaker 3: think the theater Robert actually really drama. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: just used to love get But I think maybe I
Speaker 3: also just loved getting to work because it was it was.
Speaker 2: Spike, you were still going to school but working.
Speaker 3: When I first started working there, and then I worked
Speaker 3: there full time for about four months, and then a
Speaker 3: friend of mine gave me a job in his recording
Speaker 3: studio and so I did that until I left for London.
Speaker 3: In Dublin, yeah, that's when I met, you know, all
Speaker 3: of the people that we have in common. I recorded
Speaker 3: U two's first demo tapes when I was, yeah, fifteen
Speaker 3: and he was seventeen.
Speaker 4: He hates it when I remind him that he's older.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that was all when I was working at
Speaker 3: Keystone Studios. But after my father died, Dublin started feeling
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think my father got off at
Speaker 3: a job at the Sunday Times, probably about four years
Speaker 3: before he died, and I think in my head that
Speaker 3: lodged as that would have been the moment that he
Speaker 3: could have changed his life. That was the pivotal moment
Speaker 3: where things could have changed for the better, and he
Speaker 3: didn't take the job. And I think he didn't take
Speaker 3: the job because he was afraid and because he was
Speaker 3: an alcoholic, and so I think for me that always
Speaker 3: represented this sort of golden light that you could you
Speaker 3: could fly towards. And so after he died, I became
Speaker 3: quite resolute about getting out, So I took the ferry
Speaker 3: from dune Leary with my friend.
Speaker 2: Oh you had another friend.
Speaker 4: She didn't know. She just had an address for us.
Speaker 3: There was a she had some Irish friends who were
Speaker 3: living in a squat or friends of friends who were
Speaker 3: living in a squat in Stoneleigh Street in West London,
Speaker 3: actually not very far from here, off Latimer Road. And
Speaker 3: we arrived there on a bright summer sunny morning and
Speaker 3: were greeted at the door by just this crowd of
Speaker 3: Irish men mostly, And I was like, married, what was
Speaker 3: the point in coming all the way here if we're
Speaker 3: just going to live with the whole house full of
Speaker 3: Irish people. But they were incredible to us and made
Speaker 3: they were so hospitable. Sixteen sixteen, she's eighteen, and they
Speaker 3: gave us a room that there was already two of
Speaker 3: them living in, but we were allowed to share it.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were.
Speaker 3: Amazing days, you know, I think it was It was
Speaker 3: a really great time to be young. You know, there
Speaker 3: was huge adversity, but at the same time life just
Speaker 3: felt full of possibility and you could afford to rent
Speaker 3: places for cheap. You know. We were only in the
Speaker 3: squad for about three months, and then I got a
Speaker 3: job at Blushes on the King's Road. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's still There was a wine bar and it
Speaker 3: used to be so amazing on a Saturday. Then you
Speaker 3: know Bob Geldof and Paula because they live right around
Speaker 3: the corner from and they used to arrive on a
Speaker 3: Saturday morning at about eleven o'clock at the tube station
Speaker 3: on the King's Road and then they would promenade up
Speaker 3: the King's Road and they would be followed by this
Speaker 3: sort of retinue of It was like a medieval you know.
Speaker 3: It was like Henry the Eighth that arrived and all
Speaker 3: these people would following along in their wake. And again
Speaker 3: it was like theater watching, you know, and it was
Speaker 3: punk and it was just incredible and exciting.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what you ate at the time? Would
Speaker 2: you would you go to restaurants or would you cook
Speaker 2: at home? Or would you I'd cook at home.
Speaker 4: I'd cook at home.
Speaker 3: Food wasn't great in London then, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 3: and I didn't really care so much. I mean, I
Speaker 3: was so obsessed with just survival and getting on, survival
Speaker 3: and getting on. I mean, it was the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 3: it was quite a bit of sort of beef Burgignon
Speaker 3: and you know, black Forest ghetto, nothing to write home about.
Speaker 3: Everyone was eating spaghetti bolonnaise because that was very exotic
Speaker 3: and Italian, but not.
Speaker 4: Baudelais Nouver. That was always quite exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember that through the eighties, but not so
Speaker 3: much the food really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're you're a sixteen year old in London,
Speaker 2: You're working in blushes, you're living in the Irish house,
Speaker 2: You're father has just died, and and you have a vision.
Speaker 2: Did you know what you did? You know you wanted
Speaker 2: to be the writer or the journalist or did you
Speaker 2: did you go back to school? So you left school
Speaker 2: at fifteen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, I did my you know, the equivalent of
Speaker 3: GCSEs And then yeah, it just wasn't possible. And for
Speaker 3: a while I thought I'll go back to school, and
Speaker 3: then I just realized that that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 3: And then I didn't really have a dream, you know,
Speaker 3: because it was very much about survival really, and it
Speaker 3: was day to day and I think I was just
Speaker 3: very lucky, you know, I had lots.
Speaker 2: I think you probably must have been fantastic kid. Just
Speaker 2: to have that courage and to you know that.
Speaker 3: They had courage when you're that age, don't you. I
Speaker 3: think maybe because you don't know you know, now I
Speaker 3: think I'm much less brave than I was when I
Speaker 3: was sixteen years old or eighteen years old, because now
Speaker 3: you have the benefit of or not of having, mean
Speaker 3: what the world can do risk for risk and the
Speaker 3: risk and the jeopardy, whereas then it's just about you know, possibility,
Speaker 3: isn't it. And I felt possibility in London, you know
Speaker 3: that energized me and just kept me going, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean it was it wasn't of course, it wasn't easy,
Speaker 3: you know. And I missed my dad so badly, you know,
Speaker 3: because I think as a daughter, when you lose your
Speaker 3: father at that age, you kind of deify them, and
Speaker 3: so I'd elevated him to this impossible.
Speaker 4: Kind of Olympian height.
Speaker 3: And so I spent an awful lot of my late
Speaker 3: teens in early twenties, you know, finding really broken men
Speaker 3: and trying to fix them because I felt guilty that
Speaker 3: I hadn't fixed my dad. And I really think it
Speaker 3: took me till my thirties really to escape from the
Speaker 3: kind of tyranny of his perfection, which you know and
Speaker 3: realize who he was, you know, which doesn't make me
Speaker 3: love him any less, but it certainly helped to create
Speaker 3: a more functional life for myself.
Speaker 2: And did you drink? It was the fact that he
Speaker 2: died of sort of alcohol?
Speaker 4: No, I think I drank, but I don't think.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've never I'm not a very addictive apart
Speaker 3: from cigarettes, which I was hopelessly addicted to for sort
Speaker 3: of all of my twenties and early thirties, which is
Speaker 3: mad because my father died of a heart attack and
Speaker 3: was chainsmoker. But drink, I mean, you know, it was
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties. I was in the music business. I
Speaker 3: had a lot of fun then, Yes, because the next
Speaker 3: thing I did was get a job at a record
Speaker 3: company because of the studio that I'd worked in in Ireland.
Speaker 3: You know, it was always people who you'd met who
Speaker 3: then would introduce you to somebody else, and you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you'd get a little chink of an opportunity and
Speaker 3: you would grab that and then you would and the
Speaker 3: journalism and the television only happened again just by accident,
Speaker 3: you know, I worked for this record company, worked with
Speaker 3: Bob Geldof. I worked on band aid and live Aid,
Speaker 3: and he stole my desk to sort out band Aid
Speaker 3: from and you know, I was there on the day
Speaker 3: when we all went to that studio in West London
Speaker 3: and all of those people. It was a kind of amazing,
Speaker 3: magical time. Then I set up my own little PR company.
Speaker 3: But at the same time they were looking for a
Speaker 3: TV presenter for a music program that Channel four were making,
Speaker 3: and it was going to be all world music. And
Speaker 3: that was what was really exciting about it to me
Speaker 3: because it was my father always used to bring back
Speaker 3: amazing records from Africa, Miriam mckeeba and just incredible music,
Speaker 3: and so I was really excited to get involved in it,
Speaker 3: and they gave me the job.
Speaker 4: I was appalling.
Speaker 3: I mean, someone sent me like a YouTube clip the
Speaker 3: other day, you know how everything lives on.
Speaker 4: YouTube of me presenting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was called Big World and I spoke in
Speaker 3: a monotone like that, and I was clear, just shit scared,
Speaker 3: really self to do that. But but so I did
Speaker 3: that recovery years and then it.
Speaker 2: Just did you have a domestic life as well? Did
Speaker 2: you live with anybody and have to think about a
Speaker 2: kitchen or food or bringing shopping home or did you
Speaker 2: just basically food was smoked and.
Speaker 4: Smoked and drag.
Speaker 3: But I did get married when I was eighteen to
Speaker 3: another lost soul who's a wonderful and old friend of
Speaker 3: mine now called Richard Jobson, who was the lead singer
Speaker 3: in this punk band called the Skids.
Speaker 2: Yeah Skids, great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, into the valley working for the Yankee dollar, come on.
Speaker 2: Anywhere.
Speaker 3: But Richard was a really interesting and unusual character. He
Speaker 3: was another lost kid. He's left home at sixteen. He had,
Speaker 3: you know, huge intellectual aspirations, many of which he went
Speaker 3: on to realize a huge determination. And I think we
Speaker 3: sort of fell together out of loneliness and we tried,
Speaker 3: you know, we gave it our best shot for two kids,
Speaker 3: and we stayed together till I was twenty one.
Speaker 2: Wow, so young.
Speaker 3: So we had a domestic life then and very rudimentary.
Speaker 3: I used to make things like grilled pork chops with
Speaker 3: mustard on them, and a lot of potatoes, spaghetti, bolinnaise.
Speaker 2: Cookbooks do you remember using.
Speaker 3: I had the Constant Spry cookbook that my mum had
Speaker 3: given me because that was sort of her bible. So
Speaker 3: she did yeah, she used to bake more than cook.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I think about food that my mum made,
Speaker 3: she used to make incredible gingerbread. She did make a
Speaker 3: mean spaghetti. Bolonnaise she used to make. She made really
Speaker 3: good normal food. You know, she'd make a great shepherds.
Speaker 2: Part did she come from. She came from an English family.
Speaker 3: She's half Scottish, half English Scottish. She was Scottish really,
Speaker 3: but she learned, you know, we used to.
Speaker 4: She used to.
Speaker 3: She taught me how to make love scass, which is
Speaker 3: a it's a very rudimentary Norwegian stew, which is beef
Speaker 3: and potatoes but cubed very small and cooked in their
Speaker 3: own broth for quite a long period of time. And
Speaker 3: she used to make these things called milkering, which are
Speaker 3: that's sort of yogurts basically that Norwegians used to make.
Speaker 3: And it was very weird because both she and my
Speaker 3: stepmother used to make these yogurts. Once I left her
Speaker 3: house and went went to live with my dad, every
Speaker 3: cupboard you opened would have yogurt. You know.
Speaker 2: Breeding was your father's second wife.
Speaker 4: She wasn't.
Speaker 3: They weren't married, but I mean, no, she was Irish,
Speaker 3: but I think had an influence.
Speaker 4: No, they all wanted to impress them.
Speaker 3: He had this thing, you know, which clearly worked for
Speaker 3: every woman in his life. And I don't think my
Speaker 3: mum and my stepmother were the only ones either.
Speaker 4: So yeah, he has a thing of.
Speaker 2: Cooking for you know, seduction as well, something that people
Speaker 2: can remember. She can you remember meal where you wanted
Speaker 2: to impress somebody and you cooked.
Speaker 4: I've never cooked when I wanted to impress.
Speaker 2: Well, you're joined by Judy Dad, she said the same thing.
Speaker 2: He might be came down and he said something to
Speaker 2: her like you know. She said, this agent is coming,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to make him the best omelet. She
Speaker 2: tried to figure out how to make the best omelet
Speaker 2: and he ate it and she was looking and he said,
Speaker 2: I think you should stick to acting or something like that.
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm going to ask you your shares of
Speaker 2: all the recipes that we have in all our books.
Speaker 2: You said that you wanted to make spaghetti bongolay, So
Speaker 2: would you like to read the recipe for spaghetti vongolai.
Speaker 3: I will read the recipe for you. Four tablespoons of
Speaker 3: extra virgin olive oil, four clothes of garlic finally chopped,
Speaker 3: three dried red chilies crumbled, three kilos of small clams,
Speaker 3: a bunch of flat leaf parsley finally chopped, and then
Speaker 3: brackets divided. Talk about organization, sea salt and freshly ground
Speaker 3: black pepper. Four hundred grams of spaghetti, one lemon quartered
Speaker 3: fairly precise. I think only listeners will realize that serves four.
Speaker 3: You heat the oil in a large frying pan over
Speaker 3: a medium heat, Add the garlic, and fry over a
Speaker 3: medium heat for one minute until just beginning to brown.
Speaker 4: That's where I go wrong. Often did you just.
Speaker 2: Have bigger pieces of garlic and then you can take
Speaker 2: them out or just cook it slowly? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Maybe add the crumbled chilies, clams, and two tablespoons of water.
Speaker 3: Cover and fry over a high heat for about five
Speaker 3: minutes until all the clams open, discarding any that don't.
Speaker 3: Add half the parsley to the clams. Season with salt
Speaker 3: and pepper. Drain the spaghetti and add to the clams.
Speaker 3: Serve with the remaining parsley and the lemon quarters.
Speaker 2: And invade it with Carlota. Hi, I'm carloying with shap
Speaker 2: at the River Cafe.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to start sweating off the garlic with
Speaker 3: Passley sports, so it's sweating rather than frying. I think
Speaker 3: that's the important thing exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Now a bit of chili, now, flick of chili.
Speaker 3: Dried chili, dry chili, yes, always dried chili. So that's
Speaker 3: starting to cry off.
Speaker 4: And at this stage I'm going to add the clams.
Speaker 3: You so you've scrubbed that, you've done all the hard
Speaker 3: work with them, because that is the boring thing, isn't it?
Speaker 3: And these clams are from where because the tastiest clams
Speaker 3: I think comes from the Bay of Naples, and I
Speaker 3: think it's far.
Speaker 4: It's a bit rubby, are they sorry?
Speaker 2: So this.
Speaker 3: This point we just want to get a little bit
Speaker 3: more heaty to the plan and then I'm going to
Speaker 3: so usually here we use.
Speaker 4: Savee to put the bongola in.
Speaker 3: Nice to sort of drink it and deleting the dish
Speaker 3: as well. It's multi purpose. You can overcook the clams
Speaker 3: as well, can't you. So what's too long?
Speaker 4: You want to catch them just as they're opening up?
Speaker 3: And will they if you stop the heat when they're
Speaker 3: opening up? Will they keep opening up the way you
Speaker 3: want them to?
Speaker 4: So they say they're starting to oisten up.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to finish and the start you wore
Speaker 2: to the wine and the oils are going to come
Speaker 2: together and sticking the saws.
Speaker 3: So listening, I bet you can. She's got a brilliant
Speaker 3: hand tipping technique.
Speaker 2: You need to finish it with parsley freshness.
Speaker 4: So there we have it. Oh my god, the most
Speaker 4: spectacular thing. And now I feel confident my love it.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Related well, first of all, why did you choose us?
Speaker 3: It's entirely my favorite dish, mussels and clams. And there
Speaker 3: was a period in my childhood when we lived on
Speaker 3: the west coast of Ireland in Connemara, and it was
Speaker 3: on one of my mother's kind of escapes from realities,
Speaker 3: which used to happen quite often, and we went to
Speaker 3: live there for six months and we were very poor,
Speaker 3: and for about a three month period we just ate
Speaker 3: potatoes that we could dig up and mussels which we
Speaker 3: picked from the rocks. And you'd think that actually that
Speaker 3: would have kind of knocked any desire to eat them
Speaker 3: ever again out of me. But I think there was
Speaker 3: a sort of four or five year hiatus, maybe a
Speaker 3: bit longer. I think probably till I first came to London,
Speaker 3: and then I re embraced them. And then I used
Speaker 3: to go to Naples with my best friend and we
Speaker 3: used to have spaghetti with Cottsen Fassolaris from the Bay
Speaker 3: of Naples, and I mean ever since then. And then
Speaker 3: Molly weirdly, my daughter, from when she was a toddler,
Speaker 3: her absolute favorite thing was muscles and clams, and it's
Speaker 3: quite odd to see a little toddler there kind of
Speaker 3: throwing the shells over a children and digging into a
Speaker 3: plate of seafood. So I think many influencers have combined
Speaker 3: to make it my favorite, but I think it's really
Speaker 3: difficult to make because it's so simple.
Speaker 2: There's no hiding.
Speaker 3: It is there, there's no hiding, and I really loved that.
Speaker 3: I love food like that. I don't really like very
Speaker 3: complicated food, you know, sort of very French high end.
Speaker 4: Never really enjoyed it much much.
Speaker 3: Prefer you know, really great fresh ingredients and a simple recipe,
Speaker 3: which is probably why I've been found here for the
Speaker 3: last you know, I used to see. I first came
Speaker 3: to the River Cafe when you first opened virtually in
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nineteen eighty seven reopened and when we were only
Speaker 2: opened for lunch. Do you remember we.
Speaker 4: Were only opened for lunch.
Speaker 3: I think when I first started coming and used to
Speaker 3: have a wine from Antsi of Venice called I obviously
Speaker 3: wasn't paying the bills then that was the beginning of
Speaker 3: my career. But I used to come with a friend
Speaker 3: and we used to have this wine called Where Dreams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that label wasn't it.
Speaker 3: It was amazing And even then this felt like the
Speaker 3: most glamorous place on earth because it felt decadent in
Speaker 3: all the best ways. And actually here was one of
Speaker 3: the first places, and I know it's on a different
Speaker 3: level from the pub on Grafton Street or whatever, it
Speaker 3: was one of the first places where I really felt
Speaker 3: that sort of bubble of excitement and conversation that you
Speaker 3: get on a Friday night in a pub in Dublin
Speaker 3: to be passionate about something, and food is something you
Speaker 3: can be really passionate about. And I mean with my
Speaker 3: I was not a great sort of domestic but actually
Speaker 3: to go through a long period where I had a
Speaker 3: house in Sussex that I used to rent with this
Speaker 3: couple friends of mine, Nicola and Helena.
Speaker 4: They're still my friends and we used to cook together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were some of the happiest years of
Speaker 3: my life, you know, cooking together every weekend. And I
Speaker 3: actually learned a lot that Nikola was a particularly good
Speaker 3: cold cook, and they were very precise, even things like
Speaker 3: a I remember teaching me to make a basil omelet.
Speaker 3: But it's a bit like the wonga lay. It's only
Speaker 3: about the ingredients because it's so yeah yeah, and you
Speaker 3: have to you know, and that I think I just
Speaker 3: loved the sort of satisfaction that comes from that.
Speaker 4: But then when you have kids, Yeah, so what was
Speaker 4: that like? Well, I loved cooking.
Speaker 2: Going back to marrying Jason. Did he grow up on
Speaker 2: a domestic house where meal and like yours or was
Speaker 2: it the same?
Speaker 4: No, very unlike mine.
Speaker 3: His mum did everything and she was in she's a
Speaker 3: really good cook. She still is, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: very English, quite sort of nineteen seventies. She had one
Speaker 3: of those trolleys that's hot that keeps things hot, and
Speaker 3: she would wheel it in, sit by the table and
Speaker 3: you know, the plate to be in they're warming and
Speaker 3: the food lots of sort of castle roles and pop
Speaker 3: ghosts and things like that. But she's a really good
Speaker 3: cook and it always looks perfect. She's a good baker
Speaker 3: as well. And Jason is probably the better cook in
Speaker 3: our house. He loves, absolutely loves cooking, and I feel
Speaker 3: like I loved it during those years in Sussex, and
Speaker 3: I loved the early days of cooking for my kids.
Speaker 3: But then something happened when they just make faces about
Speaker 3: the food you cooked and never like it, and it
Speaker 3: became such a negotiation in the house that I kind
Speaker 3: of lost the heart of it. I mean, now I'm back,
Speaker 3: but Jason sort of took over in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But do you eat really healthy? It's not consciously, it's
Speaker 2: like the food that you like.
Speaker 3: It's the food that I like. I love fresh things,
Speaker 3: I love, you know. One of the things that gives
Speaker 3: me huge satisfaction is we've got a garden which during
Speaker 3: the spring period of the year is just absolutely wall
Speaker 3: to all wild garlic. It can almost be noxious the smell,
Speaker 3: and I just love to gather it. And I make
Speaker 3: pesto in industrial quantities.
Speaker 2: Good. Oh, I have to. And when you go when
Speaker 2: you go to Greece, do you cook there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we go to Greece a lot.
Speaker 3: I get like a craving for I used to go
Speaker 3: to Greece from the age of sixteen, and so you know,
Speaker 3: Greek islands, you get there, the smell, the pine, the
Speaker 3: Greek salad.
Speaker 4: Again, it's everything simple. I just love it. I just
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 3: And so actually, you know there, we tend to eat
Speaker 3: out quite a lot, but we'll make, you know, a
Speaker 3: big lunch with Greek saladin. We'll make some dips and things,
Speaker 3: and you know, we might get some.
Speaker 4: Fish and grill it. You know, we keep it very simple, but.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of friends over it. You do, like,
Speaker 2: do you prefer going to people's houses or having them
Speaker 2: come to you or do you like them?
Speaker 3: I prefer going to people's houses because then I don't
Speaker 3: have to clear up. Jason prefers having people over because
Speaker 3: I clear up after him and he loves cooking. But no,
Speaker 3: we do have people over a lot, and there's nothing there.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything nicer than a table full
Speaker 3: of people and they're all eating and talking. And you know,
Speaker 3: I tend to make big stews and things that I
Speaker 3: don't have to do a lot of cook Our kitchen
Speaker 3: is all open, like yeah, of yours. And when people
Speaker 3: talk to me when I'm cooking, I can't cope with it.
Speaker 3: I can't concentrate. So I have to make things that
Speaker 3: are already and I love slow cook things and osubuko
Speaker 3: and things like that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so how do you combine working with cooking?
Speaker 2: You know, the chad or how did you bring up children?
Speaker 2: And for through your career and you know, I have
Speaker 2: a home life. Did you brush from one thing to another?
Speaker 2: Did you have was it hard? Did you just do it?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 3: I think same as every woman just you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's so much every woman's experience these days, isn't it.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of the bit that wasn't factored into
Speaker 3: our great desire for you know, equality and independence. So
Speaker 3: I think it's really hard. You know, it was less
Speaker 3: hard for me because I had, you know, enough money
Speaker 3: to have help. But I think it's a really difficult thing.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, for most women, it's a
Speaker 3: burden of responsibility that you just you perform it because
Speaker 3: you don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: You feel a kind of choice, you know, it is
Speaker 2: really terry. I think also, as you say, it's economic,
Speaker 2: you know, so when people say, oh, you know, there
Speaker 2: are all these kids who are growing up on Peter McDonald's.
Speaker 2: But the fact is that if you have a night
Speaker 2: job and you have a choice, I often think I
Speaker 2: like to think that maybe the mother has a choice
Speaker 2: of doing homework with her kids or cooking a fresh
Speaker 2: meal for them, maybe cut you know, And I think that's.
Speaker 3: I think if you've done a pretty hard graph job
Speaker 3: that isn't based on your passion or any of the
Speaker 3: luxuries that that you know, some of us have. If
Speaker 3: you've done a hard graph job all day and then
Speaker 3: you get home and you've got hungry, grumpy kids, I
Speaker 3: don't think you want to sit down and start creating
Speaker 3: a meal. I mean, for all the sense of you know,
Speaker 3: holistic happiness it might offer, I don't think you're in
Speaker 3: a place to actually think about or do that.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, you know we saw in lockdown when
Speaker 2: kids didn't go for you know, the school, they didn't
Speaker 2: have their one meal the day. And I was, you know,
Speaker 2: talking to Jamie the other day about you know, the
Speaker 2: goal now is to make lunches so nutritious, because you know,
Speaker 2: that's the only meal the kid's going to have.
Speaker 3: But we should have free school meals, I mean universally
Speaker 3: across the nation, you know, And one of the first
Speaker 3: things we need to do is recognize that there's real
Speaker 3: hunger in this country and address it. And the idea
Speaker 3: that you know, we can sit around and have our
Speaker 3: amazing meals and somewhere else, just down the road, there's
Speaker 3: a kid who isn't getting separate. It makes me feel
Speaker 3: physically sick, and I just don't understand why we can't
Speaker 3: address it, you know. I mean, I spent my whole
Speaker 3: childhood worried about things like food, and I know, you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of know the smell of poverty, and I'm
Speaker 3: frightened to death of it, you know. And I've run
Speaker 3: so far in the opposite director, but I'm still, you know,
Speaker 3: rubbish at kind of handling it because it's a fear.
Speaker 3: It's a deep, deep rooted fear, and we're bringing up,
Speaker 3: you know, a whole generation of kids, so experiencing that.
Speaker 2: When you're working your column, when you're writing on your campaigns,
Speaker 2: on your books.
Speaker 4: Do you eat well?
Speaker 3: You Since I started my radio show at the times,
Speaker 3: I've lost a lot of weight. I mean not a lot,
Speaker 3: but I've definitely got thinner, not intentionally, but because it's
Speaker 3: a lunchtime show, and lunch is my favorite meal. Like
Speaker 3: I can eat like a horse at lunchtime.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I can still sleep at night, you know, because once
Speaker 3: your menopausal and postmenopause, sleep can become a bit of
Speaker 3: a challenge. And so lunch is my favorite meal. And
Speaker 3: four days a week I can't have lunch, and I
Speaker 3: just don't eat until after I finished my show, so
Speaker 3: I end up having maybe one and a half meals
Speaker 3: a day. You know, I have supper, but I have
Speaker 3: a breakfast tea to you know, kids high tea suffer.
Speaker 3: I always eat about six thirty or seven. I don't
Speaker 3: really like breakfast very At weekends, I have breakfast. I
Speaker 3: make breakfast for the kids at the weekend. I love
Speaker 3: doing that. You know, it makes you feel. There's so
Speaker 3: few moments as a parent, I think where you feel
Speaker 3: I've got this, yeah, you know, and making them breakfast
Speaker 3: is one of them, you know, whether it's banana pancakes
Speaker 3: or scrambled eggs and bacon or whatever avocado on toast.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's ridiculous. My children in are seventeen and eighteen,
Speaker 3: and they still at the weekends will come in and
Speaker 3: kind of go, what's for breakfast?
Speaker 2: Mum? Yeah, but that will never stop.
Speaker 4: I hope it doesn't because it makes me feel useful.
Speaker 2: I think going home and being fed, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, we all grew up with kind of role models.
Speaker 2: I certainly, you know, did, and I see myself sort
Speaker 2: of acting. My mother was incredibly child oriented. You know,
Speaker 2: she never blamed a child, never told off a child.
Speaker 2: The child was always right, oh my. You know, we
Speaker 2: had a lot of way that we kind of grew up.
Speaker 2: But I think for somebody who didn't grow up with
Speaker 2: that and then to be the way they are, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's so inspiring to me because it's you know,
Speaker 2: so that you've come from. Maybe you know, your father's
Speaker 2: but you had love.
Speaker 4: You know, I had love, you know what.
Speaker 3: And I always think about this because you know, they
Speaker 3: say that basically we shape our children by the time
Speaker 3: they're five or six. And I think I was really
Speaker 3: lucky because the one thing that they were really good
Speaker 3: at was they made me feel very loved. And once
Speaker 3: you have that, it gives you a confidence to step
Speaker 3: out into the world and you know, stick your toe
Speaker 3: in the water and see what's out there, and I think,
Speaker 3: you know, without that, that's when the real damage sets in.
Speaker 3: And so all of the other things were pretty survivable.
Speaker 3: But I think without that early love and we were definitely,
Speaker 3: you know, my mum was in a amazing particularly when
Speaker 3: we were little before things got difficult.
Speaker 4: But I'm very injured.
Speaker 3: I have to ask you one question, which is were
Speaker 3: you interested in food even when you were a teenager
Speaker 3: and in your twenties or was it your mother in
Speaker 3: law that inspired you really with food?
Speaker 2: I would say that my mother was here, we go,
Speaker 2: see what was it? Don't you think? Don't you find there?
Speaker 2: We go? Yeah, the stories that my father was a
Speaker 2: doctor and my mother was a librarian, and I think
Speaker 2: they both came they were immigrants, their families were. They
Speaker 2: were born in the Lower East Side and then you
Speaker 2: know Jewish immigrants who came Ellis Island all that, and
Speaker 2: I think that for them the whole thing was education,
Speaker 2: whereas there my grandparents were very focused on food. I
Speaker 2: think both my mother was trying to get it. She
Speaker 2: went back to college when we were like five or
Speaker 2: six to be a librarian, and my father was, you know,
Speaker 2: trying to make it as a doctor. And I think
Speaker 2: that we always ate fresh food. We always ate well,
Speaker 2: we sat around you know that thing I was sitting
Speaker 2: around the table. But probably I romanticize it. Probably the
Speaker 2: food we had my sister is much more scathing. But
Speaker 2: I sort of I think that the conversation was more
Speaker 2: important than than what we ate.
Speaker 4: But we ate well.
Speaker 2: We never had dilvered or package. No, no, we didn't
Speaker 2: have to get syrup for me. It all opened up
Speaker 2: when I did come to Europe, going to Italy and
Speaker 2: then living in Paris as we did. That was the
Speaker 2: kind of food, you know, inspiration.
Speaker 3: But I think there's something about Italian food though as well,
Speaker 3: because most of it, maybe you know, some of it's complicated,
Speaker 3: but most of it is about fresh ingredients and simplicity,
Speaker 3: and it's very seductive. You know. I became interested in food,
Speaker 3: as I said to you, when when I used to
Speaker 3: go and stay with with my friend Natalie, you know,
Speaker 3: because this was amazing food, Natalie from Naples. It was
Speaker 3: performance food. It was just amazingly good food. And you know,
Speaker 3: they wouldn't have beans on toast at four o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, as I said, they would make a pasta. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, and actually you know, a lot of Italian
Speaker 3: men can cook as well, which you know, still find
Speaker 3: really impressive. You know, I'm lucky because I married a
Speaker 3: man who can cook. But the number of my friends
Speaker 3: who sort of look at Jason wistfully and go oh, yesh,
Speaker 3: mine could do that exactly.
Speaker 2: So we've talked about the work, we've talked about the children,
Speaker 2: we've talked about you know, the husband who cooks. Maybe
Speaker 2: we should wind up on the comfort food and ask
Speaker 2: you if food is is sharing and love and memories.
Speaker 2: Certainly memories. Your memories are about food.
Speaker 4: It's about food and memory.
Speaker 3: And I also think that our emotional lives are often
Speaker 3: channeled through food. So when food isn't good, I mean
Speaker 3: it is a bit like like water for chocolate or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, when when food isn't good, it's because other
Speaker 3: things aren't good. And that's why, you know, the bad
Speaker 3: meals are as almost defining memories as the good meals,
Speaker 3: you know. And for me sitting down at the table
Speaker 3: and having something simple and delicious with my kids sitting
Speaker 3: opposite me and my husband sitting at the table, it
Speaker 3: does feel in some ways, not to be too saccharin
Speaker 3: about it, but like a sort of dream come true,
Speaker 3: and and the table is the place where that theater
Speaker 3: of it plays out. And I look around and think, gosh,
Speaker 3: you know, un lucky I got this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we are. And do you have a comfort
Speaker 2: food that you go to when you that's what you needed?
Speaker 3: Well, all the way through my twenties, I used to
Speaker 3: go and stay with my best friend Natalie in Maples.
Speaker 2: I'm getting I'm getting friend jealous in here.
Speaker 3: I've got two best friends. Okay, that's best friends, but
Speaker 3: that's really you know. I've known them since I was
Speaker 3: eighteen years and we used to cook and we used
Speaker 3: to cook it at four o'clock in the morning when
Speaker 3: we came back from the nightclub.
Speaker 4: In Carpery where we used to go.
Speaker 3: We used to cook it in the middle of the
Speaker 3: afternoon if we got peckish. We used to cook it
Speaker 3: if one of us was sobbing, you know. And so
Speaker 3: in many ways that still is my sort of go
Speaker 3: to comfort food. But the other thing I've learned to
Speaker 3: cook quite recently is this delicious I call it porridge bread.
Speaker 3: It is an Irish recipe and it is very much
Speaker 3: porridge bread because it's just made with oats and seeds,
Speaker 3: and live yogurt and a spoon of baking powder, and
Speaker 3: it's incredibly easy to make, foolproof, no yeast, no flour,
Speaker 3: and no flour, and it's so delicious. Bread well, it's
Speaker 3: like soda bread. It's like the wheat and bread. It's
Speaker 3: very like that, which is also another sort of comfort food.
Speaker 3: So you take all these grains and the oats and
Speaker 3: the yogurt and the baking powder, and you just put
Speaker 3: it all in a bowl, mix it all together, put
Speaker 3: it into a loaf tin in in baking paper, you know,
Speaker 3: and you have to cook it for about fifty minutes altogether,
Speaker 3: called forty minutes one side, and then tip it over.
Speaker 3: It's rock hard on the outside. It's absolutely moist and
Speaker 3: delicious on the inside. And that with a thick layer
Speaker 3: of butter.
Speaker 2: Okay, I love butter, Yeah, I love butter. I love butter.
Speaker 2: Richard Richard's mother used to say that butter was the
Speaker 2: best cheese, and she was a Northern Italian. But if
Speaker 2: you think about butter like a cheese, then you can
Speaker 2: have that thick piece with a little thin bit of bread,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you just want the car for the butter,
Speaker 3: isn't it I think that's and that's very irish as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. True. And we're going to go right now into
Speaker 2: the River Cafe and you're going to meet a friend
Speaker 2: and have dinner, aren't you. I am.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: So's nice. Who are you having dinner with tonight? Then
Speaker 2: go on, I can allow to ask that question, you can.
Speaker 3: It's not my husband, for change, I have a gentleman guest. No,
Speaker 3: I'm having dinner with your friend and mine. Danny his
Speaker 3: timeh fabulous and he's about to do my podcast Books
Speaker 3: to Live By, And I'm so excited to talk to
Speaker 3: him because you know he's going to pick his the
Speaker 3: five books that have shaped his life in many ways.
Speaker 4: Books, it's the literary companion to this one.
Speaker 2: And food and reading. Yes see, Danny, And.
Speaker 3: Thank you Mary, thank you, pleasure, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having me.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
Speaker 1: It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
Speaker 1: from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
Speaker 1: delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
Speaker 1: River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe lookbook recipes for cooks of all ages.
Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adami Studios.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,