WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Tracey Emin 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.320 Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.720 Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Artists coming together in 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.360 the restaurant, you know, and the casso drawn on the 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.200 table cloth and all that kind of thing. It's really 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.040 known throughout history, but it is to do with the 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.320 solitary nous of being in the studio and the solitariness 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.880 of being an artist, being very much alone. So this 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.480 idea of coming together to eat is such a nice thing. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:34.000 Here we are and unseasonably wet and cold Saturday in London, 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.720 but I feel warmed, as I always am, by being 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.400 with my friend Tracy Emmon. She's a great friend and 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:47.760 a great artist. Tracy, over to you, okay, so I'm 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.720 My favorite thing to eat here is the grilled squid 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:56.640 with shred, chili and rocket. Eight medium squid no bigger 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:02.280 than your hand. Six large fresh red chilies, seeded and 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:07.480 very finely chopped, a hundred and fifty meal, extra virgin oil, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:15.160 two DRAMs of rocket, four tablespoons of oil, and lemon dressing. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:21.280 One lemon cut into quarters to make the sauce. Put 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.960 the chopped chilies in a bowl and cover with extra 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.959 virgin olive oil, season heat a grill until very hot. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.399 Place the squid, including the tentacles, scored side down on 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.480 the grill. Season and grill for two minutes. Turn a 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.560 squid pieces over. They will immediately curl up and by 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.319 which time they will be cooked. Toss the rocket in 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.600 the dressing. Arranged two squid bodies with tentacles on each 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.840 plate with the rocket. Put a little of the chili 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.720 sauce over the squid, and serve with lemon. I'm so 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:03.360 happy that you chose such a class typically representative of 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.720 the river cafe recipe, and I was wondering why you 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.679 chose squid chilian rocket. When I go to a restaurant, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.440 I always like to choose food that I wouldn't cook myself, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.800 but god, it's so easy to cook, so maybe I 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.960 should do it. But then, and also, I'm Mediterranean, so 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.799 um squeet is such a Mediterranean food, and I always 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.560 have this sort of light in a primal thing that 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.120 if I can eat Mediterranean, eat part of my ancestral 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.760 food as much as possible, it makes me feel really 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.120 good when I eat it, So that's why I chose it. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.160 When you say that you're Mediterranean, tell me about being Mediterranean. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:50.359 Because I thought you were a market. Well Margaret is yeah, 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.120 Margaret Mediterranean market. And well I'm Turkish Cypriot. My dad's 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.840 Turkish Cypriot and my great grandfather was from the Sudan 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.000 and he was a slave in the Ottoman Empire and 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.120 around eighteen, I don't know, about nineteen hundred he was 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.880 given his freedom in Cyprus with fifty sheep. So we're 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.280 known as the there's a thing called like the Black Turks, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.520 and they actually came from the slaves from the Ottoman Empire, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:23.160 and my family on Mediterranean side is from that background, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:30.480 so um, there's your Mediterranean. My dad was really fantastic cook, 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.880 like amazing cook. Grew all his own vegetables. We actually 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:35.800 grew all our ound. Me and my dad grew all 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.440 up all my vegetables on my studio roof back in 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:45.560 the nineties. Everything everything from cucumbers, grigettes, ob jeans, potatoes, tomatoes, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.680 heritage tomatoes, beans, green beans, everything, and then my dad 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.560 would cook so and my mom was a terrible cook. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.040 I hate saying it, both it's true. And the kind 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:57.920 of food I grew up on was a kind of 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.280 strange mixture of like this sort of really amazing food 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.600 that my dad could cook, and this really terrible food 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.120 that my mom could cook that I really loved, and 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:15.120 what you loved mother's food, egg and chips. My mom 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.440 was completely against me cooking, and when we were cooking 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.800 at school, my mom would actually wrote me letters saying, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.839 my daughter will not learn to cook. My daughter is 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.279 not going to be a slave to any man. But 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.800 the truth was we didn't actually have the money for 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.640 the cooking ingredients, so my mom. But even so it 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.480 worked out kind of badly and kind of good. I 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.080 didn't learn to cook at school. Cooking at school was 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.400 pretty awful. And um, I only learned to cook when 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.839 I was much older, when I was sort of a 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.720 look around eighteen or nineteen, And even now I'm not 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:54.120 a very good cook, but I really like nice food. Yeah, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.480 and what I cook, I cook well. So, yeah, that's 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.320 so interesting that she she did not want you to 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.720 be stuck in the kitchen as a slave or anyone 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.720 to cook for her for a man. That's normal, yeah, 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.799 but in a way for that time, back in the seventies, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.240 it was pretty radical as well. It's kind of like 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.039 a strange psychotomy because there's my father being a good cook, 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.240 and there's my mom being a bad cook, telling me 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.039 not to be a slave to any man. She was. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.480 She ambitious for you and everywhere apart from keeping you 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.560 from cookie did she have very strong ambitions for you. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.720 She put me on the pill when I was fourteen 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.120 to make sure I didn't get pregnant. That's pretty ambitious. 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.760 She's considered the idea of me having children to be 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.400 a complete failure and not a positive thing. So she 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.760 did everything to stop me from being a single mother 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.800 and a young single mother. But that's right or wrong, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.000 it doesn't matter. It seemed to have worked in my 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.760 favorite Yeah and yeah, she's when I think about it, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.360 she was really not. My mom was very cozy herson, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.200 but she wasn't home based. Really wasn't her strong point. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.920 Do you think she wanted to do something else for herself? Absolutely? 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.640 My mom was brilliant dancer, and when she was sort 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.680 of around fifteen, she had in an interview audition in 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.320 a theater to for dancing, and her dad wouldn't let 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.360 her go when you left her? And how old were 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.800 you when you actually left your father's cooking? The deliciousness 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.039 of growing vegetables, and how how old were you. Actually, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.359 my dad never lived at home. My dad only spent 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.560 My dad left us when we were about seven, and 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.400 my mom left us when we were twelve for quite 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.839 long periods of time. So me and my twin brother 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.320 when we grew up, it was very different from other 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.440 people's backgrounds, and it was very impoverished. Were incredibly poor. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:58.320 Were It's strange we had were very wealthy when we 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.000 had that growing up in we were seven and then 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.680 my dad lost everything and my dad was married, so 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.200 my dad spent three days with his wife, three days 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.760 with my mom. We would say, one day somewhere else. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.760 So um, and so when my dad was around, the 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:21.080 cooking or anything my dad did was like a big tree. 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.880 My dad came here in on a ten pound ticket 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.000 from Cyprus, and then my mom's a gypsy, so it's 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.600 really quite exotic actually, you know. I was brought up 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:41.440 on pomgranites and watermelon and with with my dad and well, 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.880 my dad was at home, and then when I was older, Um, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.320 I started traveling to Turkey with him as soon as 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.480 we could go back to Cyprus. When I was I 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.640 think I was twenty when the war finished, my dad 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.360 took me to Cyprus and baby, we're going home. And 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.600 that was the first trip to turken Sight for since 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.800 I was a baby, and and it was like amazing 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.880 m to be with my dad, to be living with 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.440 my dad. They're cooking everything, and and my mom was 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.520 kind of a bit piste off because all that she'd 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.240 done for me. And then suddenly I'm like, but I'm 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.600 you know, on my my father's when you started out 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.880 by saying you're Mediterranean, and so to actually probably go 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.320 and see the Mediterraneans and have the food. But when 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.280 we when we were up until we were about six, 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.600 we would go to Turkey regularly once a year, and 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.880 we spent when we were really tiny, we spent two 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.240 periods of six months there. Once when I was about 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.800 three or four, and then another time when I was six, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.240 we spent six months there and and all that time 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.679 it would have been Mediterranean food and Mediterranean cooking. And 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.280 we used to drive to Turkey, and this is really cool. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.120 We used to have in the back of the our car. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.000 We had a Zodiac. We had these little tiny wooden chairs, 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:05.320 you know, with the rapportive seats, and my dad just 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.640 with a brand new Zodio and my dad just stuck 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.120 a hole through the roof through the you know the bits, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.920 and then got bongee plastic things around the chairs and 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.320 then just sat us in the back of the car 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.120 bouncing up and we're twins bouncing up and down on 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.400 these chairs with those little knotty dogs, and we drive 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.600 to Turkey, and we'd stop on the way all the time, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.920 and my dad would get the calor gas stove out 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.120 and fry eggs and cook and everything, and we'd go 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.640 go to fields and take watermelons and things. So it 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.800 was really exciting and like adventurous these drives. And I'm 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:46.160 being I'm romanticizing about it now because it is romantic, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.760 and it was different and it was different from everybody 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.880 else's upbringing that I knew. And so we went from 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:56.040 that to this, like to squatting in a cottage and 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.680 my mom working in a hotel as a waitress and 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.120 aimper made and so it was like from high to 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.520 like really fast, a reversal of fortune when you were 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.840 having to cook for yourself. Did you what did you read? 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.280 What did you do? There was so my mom was 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.440 out a lot most of the time, working leading, and 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:19.360 at weekends as well, she'd be out to three in 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.480 the morning, so we were on our own and often 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.640 my mom would leave our sandwiches and whatever. But my 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.720 big thing was just like orange, just orange squash and 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.200 just tons of orange squash and sitting up at night 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.160 crosier in bed and we and also for example, like Christmas, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.720 Like you said about this, a lot of this podcast 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.160 is about people sitting around the table and remembering it. Oh, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.920 there was no sitting around the table for me. It 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.600 was sitting and watching the Telly with a tray with 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.280 egg and chips. You know, when my mom came home 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.480 and Christmas was not Christmas. We didn't have Christmas because 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.720 my mom was always working. Our Christmas was like a 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.360 week after and kind of cobbled together, but it was 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.000 never going to feel the same as the real Christmas. 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.080 And one I remember we had Salvation Army one year, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.720 you know, coming around with food and presents because we 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.200 didn't have anything. My mom, if she didn't work, we 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:19.360 had nothing. And that is a very different upbringing to 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.320 a lot of people I know, And it's not a 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.079 thing to feel sorry for. I'm just staying the difference. 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.240 And also it's pretty shocking to go from this wealthy 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.600 thing of being quite spoiled as well in lots of 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.000 ways up until I was seven and then nothing. Do 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.920 you remember being hungry? Yeah, and I think my mom 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.880 remembers asked, my mom's dead now? But you know, my 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.320 mom this, this is one of the most shameful things 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.000 that I have to say, But in a way, I'm 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.800 sort of proud of her. When that the hotel was 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.560 derelict behind, my mom went climbing on the roof and 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.559 took lead off the roofs to sell it so as 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.240 we had something to eat. And that is on another level, 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.079 complete different level. And so much of this is down 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.400 to education and so much and it's like the cooking 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:15.520 thing and education and food. There is really better ways 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.560 to do this. But when you actually have nothing, and 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.320 you're here about these people women shoplifting to get their 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.640 babies food, and it seems unimaginable, but it's not when 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.320 you've been that poor, that's not. And it's happening now 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.880 because we know that it's happening today, and we know that. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.480 You know, when children couldn't get to school because of 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.440 the lockdown, they were missing the only meal they had 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.000 for the whole day. You know, very many children only 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.600 have lunch and that's it. I'm a big supporter of 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.600 the Salvation Army or mentioned earlier, and the Salvation Army 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:54.400 will feed sixty thou people a day a day and 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.920 it's more now and and all of these support of 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.520 food banking, margate or whatever. It is a really really 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:06.760 bad level. So um, yeah, And when you left, when 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.520 you left? When did did you? Did you London at thirteen? 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.760 Left school at thirteen, and I had to go back 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:19.000 to school by law for lost four months from Christmas 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.640 till May. Otherwise my mom social services would have been 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.559 involved or whatever. And my mom my mom didn't mind 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:26.960 if we didn't go to school. And I was brought 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.920 up with absolutely no rules and I guess this might 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.320 be slightly the gypsy side and things no rules whatsoever. 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.040 We made our own rules up. If I didn't want 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:36.360 to go to school, I didn't go to school. I 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:37.960 don't want to brush my teeth, I didn't want to brush. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.480 I wouldn't have sex, have sex as long as I 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.240 was not going to get pregnant. All of these from 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:48.320 the age of about thirteen fourteen, and and not going 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:53.040 to school was because school was so depressing. It was like, oh, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.400 my god, I'll get there and they chat at me, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.920 or this would happen. All that would happen. I wasn't 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.920 doing what I wanted to do, So the last few 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.120 months when I went back, I just did art for 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.600 four months more or less three days a week, and 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.560 then left when I was fifteen, and then came to 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.079 London the day I could leave school, that the first 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.480 of May, I think it was. I just came straight 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.800 to London with a bag to David Bowie albums and 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:24.280 some clothes and stare. I stayed in all different places. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.840 I stayed in a school in Warren Street which was 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.280 pretty educational, with quite a lot of well known they're 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.760 quite well known people now, very successful people lived there, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.440 and I stayed with different friends different floors. Stayed in 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.720 a cupboard in Clapham for quite some time. And and 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.080 it's a real mystery how I never really got into 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.840 trouble or but I was kind of sassy and sort 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.400 of streetwise, so that saved me quite a bit. So 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.160 I learned a lot and I grew up. But I 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.440 was always a lot more mature from my age. I 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.680 don't know why. I just grew up very quickly. I 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:05.040 had too and but I don't really have such big 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.240 regrets over that because it wasn't it wasn't my fault, 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.760 it wasn't my doing. Do you have memories of food 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.920 in that poverty at that time in London when you 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.880 first came, it's okay. So this is my only Scott 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.680 memory of food at Warren Street. I was only fifteen 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.800 or sixteen and I turned up and they were in 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.760 the basement cooking there. A lot of them went to 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.000 St Martin's in the Royal College of Art whatever, so 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.440 it was a good influence in lots of ways. And 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.440 I was so hungry and they said, you're hungry tracers. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.600 So I probably haven't eaten for about two days, wasn't it. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:42.840 And then they told me they were cooking dog and 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.840 I believe them, so I wouldn't eat it. And that 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:47.840 was one of my And when I bring this up 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.920 but in a step, when I see any of them, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.720 they always yeah, it's not a good story. But that's 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.640 my only real big story about food. I think parvary 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.720 parvarty and food youth and food loneliness and food being 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.840 the first into world. But you don't know where you're sleeping, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.320 what you're eating, you know, the lack of being taken 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.800 care of is would make it. It's true because now 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.680 I have this thing that i'll i'll work on, my 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.600 war covered, and I have one in France and my 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.280 house there and one in London, and my war cover 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.200 is just full of like literally, if there was like 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.200 a war, I've got enough food to keep me going 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.360 in tins and tins of saldines and all kinds of 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.080 stuff and everything. And it just gives me a sense 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.440 of security. And I really love going shopping for really 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.000 nice food and putting it in the fridge and looking 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.600 at it, and it makes me feel so safe and 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.360 cozy and secure. And it's taken me a long time 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.240 to realize that I had to hang up about it. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:53.880 I think probably only in the last few years that 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.320 I realized how much it meant to me to that 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.880 food makes you feel secure and come portable. And for 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:02.720 a long time I didn't eat. I used to be 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.919 so thin and everything and whatnot. I didn't care about it. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.119 I didn't care about food at all. For years and 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.439 years and years. I was very um, sort of not 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.359 anti food, but it just wasn't on my list of 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.960 things as a priority for living. But now now it 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.360 really is because because I understand about my strange relationship 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:27.520 with it and food and art and food and creating, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.840 and you know, the the solitariness. I was thinking of 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.760 an artist, you know, in the studio working and then 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.840 um going out at night and partying and having food, drinking, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.359 being together with other artists. When you were in art school, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.560 was that something that you sort of where you exposed 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.280 to the idea that you all were painting and working together. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.800 There was that hole? What was it like being now? 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.720 When I when I was at art school, I worked. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.840 I used to get in wors getting late in the morning, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.240 getting about quarter to eleven, which I was. I went 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.600 to Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.200 Did painting at the Royal College of Art. When I 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:07.760 was at the Royal College of Art, I get in 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.160 about quarter to eleven in the morning, and I'd stayed 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.720 at ten o'clock every night, and I'd work at the 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.520 weekends as well. I had no social life when I 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:18.520 was at the Royal College of Art, none at all. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.520 Just worked every single day. So and but the thing 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.920 about artists and restaurants is brilliant because then after I 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.280 left art school years later when when I m I 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.359 think one of the first things I did as soon 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:38.440 as I started having got money was oysters, and I 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.640 just I love oysters, and I all of my excess 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:48.120 income was spent on oysters. Absolutely. However, anywhere everywhere I'd go, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.120 well like, I actually liked I actually really like rock oysters. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.760 So that was quite easy in Witstable in those days, 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.120 and you get you get free oysters for seventy five 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.639 or something. It was amazing. And um, I used to 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.000 just try all different restaurants or different oysters, work out 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.200 what I like, what I don't like. And I think 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.639 my my biggest moment was I was on about a 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.560 hundred a week oysters, hundred oysters, and I used to 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.879 cycle everywhere, and I was so fit and I was 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.280 just lean on, sort of like a ballerine. I just 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.439 sind youw muscle and just like oyster diet, I was 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:33.359 just like on fire. It was fantastic. Do you have 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.800 a house in the south of France? What is what 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.919 is eating like there? Did you choose it? Also because 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.360 it was on the Mediterranean, I chose it by default, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.439 but yes, it is on the Mediterranean, and I'm on 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.920 the top of a hill. On top of a hill, 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.640 looking at I have a sort of two hundred and 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.520 maybe two hundred and sixty degree of the sea. It's 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.320 just behind me that I can't see the sea, and 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.600 it is really beautiful. And it's in the middle of 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.680 a nate you reserve. I don't have any neighbors, and 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.960 it's a sort of twenty five minute drive to the 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.320 little town to buy food and everything. So what I 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.639 tend to do is do one shop in a week 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.360 and that's it. And then I have my war cupboard. 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.439 And my favorite cooking is when I get down and 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.040 I've got a vegetable garden as well, really Britute vegetable garden, 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.240 and I get down to the real nitty gritty and 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.440 I have to be really inventive with what I cook. 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.080 I really love it and it's exciting and it's funny 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.560 with what I come up with and everything. And and 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.760 I just cook for myself there as well, because there's 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.720 no there's no restaurants whenywhere to eat near me, and 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.680 I love to produce there do you go and you 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.119 go around vegetables. I don't know if you if you 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.040 do want to talk about this, but we've had quite 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:50.840 a to multuous time, but probably nobody, certainly in this room, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.879 certainly that mean more than you with your illness. And 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.040 I think your illness must have affected the way you 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.000 eat because it was to do with your digestive system, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.080 isn't it? And so did you did you have to 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.840 start eating when you were ill? Or because actually it's 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.920 not my digestive system, it's my bladder, okay, so different bag. 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:16.800 And and yes, it has affected the way that I 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.639 eat because I can't have I still can't couldn't have 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.600 I can't have a full bow. I can't be because 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:29.840 it affects the stormer and everything. And my diets completely 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.400 changed since I was ill, which is quite quite strange. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.280 It's like totally, I mean totally changed. To tell me, 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:42.440 what do you I am vast amounts of fish, vast 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:47.920 amounts of apples, vast amounts of fruit all day long. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.440 I am a lot of which is not supposed to 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:53.399 be good for me. By eat a lot of cold food, 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.879 and I don't know why, much more than hot food. 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:01.119 I am a lot more lemon all the time because 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.880 they alkaline. I am my diet and it's not conscious 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.240 thing either. It's really sub I haven't even tried. I'm 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.760 not even thinking about it. It's just what's happened. It's strange. 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.200 So you haven't been directed by doctors of what you can. 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.200 I eat quite healthily. So they when you're when you're 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.560 coming out of hospitals that you see nutritions and they 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.160 tell you this, and they tell you that. But I'm 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.280 kind of quite forward thinking on good food. So when 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.280 I eat something bad, it's because I really want to. 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.120 And when you there are so many reasons we eat. 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.560 There isn't There are reasons we eat because we're hungry, 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:40.359 or eat because we're in a beautiful place and we 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:45.120 want to celebrate, or we eat because we are feeling 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.480 a certain way. We need comfort. If you needed food, 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.760 if you needed it for comfort, is there a food 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:59.399 that you might reach for and be totally apples? Apples, apples. 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:05.200 I eat probably about six D eight apples a day 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:11.840 a day, apples. I couldn't live without apples. What kind 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:14.879 I like? I've forgotten what they called it. Those pink 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:19.440 ones and they're kind of sweet, pink lady. Yes, I 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.639 absolutely loved them. I washed them, put them on the 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.480 bread board, and I get the knife and I don't 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:29.560 cut them equally. I just slice all bits off till 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:31.919 I gets the course. So it's all different shapes. And 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:33.760 maybe I take three of them, and I'm like a 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:38.600 big pile on a very beautiful blue Delf plate. And 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.600