Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: There is a well known cartoon in the New Yorker
Speaker 1: magazine depicting President Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt in his pajamas on
Speaker 1: his knees next to his bed, saying a prayer for
Speaker 1: his wife, the most active first lady in history. Dear Lord,
Speaker 1: please make Eleanor tired tomorrow. I can imagine the friends
Speaker 1: and family of Stephen Frye saying the same prayer. For
Speaker 1: there is very little Stephen doesn't do. Actor, comedian, television host, director,
Speaker 1: prolific writer with four novels, three autobiographies, and countless columns
Speaker 1: in national papers. But should you ask, as I've been doing,
Speaker 1: the people who know him really well, what Stephen is
Speaker 1: best at, they will answer being a friend. As for me,
Speaker 1: I love this man, all he stands for, and quite
Speaker 1: say who he is, and I would change FDR's prayer.
Speaker 1: I would say, Dear Lord, we all need Stephen fry
Speaker 1: Please do not make him tired tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Ruth, I don't know what to say. You're going to
Speaker 2: have to tiptoe out of the room now. I can't
Speaker 2: possibly live up to such an introduction.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting here in the River Cafe in our
Speaker 1: New Sylvia's dining room. So shall we read the recipe
Speaker 1: for the polenta and almond cake.
Speaker 2: So here is the recipe or receipt, as upper class
Speaker 2: people used to say, we have torta di manoli mandole.
Speaker 2: Of course he's also you know those pictures that the
Speaker 2: Renaissance artists did of a face in a in a
Speaker 2: frame that has a point at the top and a
Speaker 2: point at the bottom. I sort of point. They call
Speaker 2: that a mandola because it's the shape of an almond. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: tooni polenta almond and lemon cake. This serves ten or right,
Speaker 2: So have you got your pencils out and you're licking them?
Speaker 2: These first three dry ingredients are grapes, the same quantity
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter. That's not
Speaker 2: a dry ingredient, stephen softened. So remember in the morning,
Speaker 2: first thing, take the butter out of the fridge. Four
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty grams of casta sugar, four hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty grams of ground almonds, six of your finest eggs,
Speaker 2: the zest of four lemons, and the juice of one lemon,
Speaker 2: then two hundred and twenty grams of polent of flour,
Speaker 2: one teaspoonful of baking powder. I never really know the
Speaker 2: difference between baking powder and by carbonate of soda. There
Speaker 2: is a huge difference. I'm being told in my ear
Speaker 2: by my expert. So it's baking powder. Don't substitute with
Speaker 2: anything else, baking soda or anything. So one teaspoonful of
Speaker 2: baking powder, quarter a teaspoonful of salt. You will have
Speaker 2: preheated the oven at this point two one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty degrees centigrade, I would say one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: or fifty fan. Then butter and flour, a thirty centimeter
Speaker 2: cake tin, which I hope you have lying handily around.
Speaker 2: Beat the butter and sugar together until it becomes pale
Speaker 2: and light, and that really does happen. The butter is
Speaker 2: good British butter, yellow to start with. But it's amazing
Speaker 2: how as it beats and beats and the sugar gets
Speaker 2: released into it, it does become notably lighter. And that's
Speaker 2: your signal to add the ground almonds. Then you stir
Speaker 2: to combine them, and then you add the eggs one
Speaker 2: at a time, and beat the mixture through. Fold in
Speaker 2: the lemon zest, the lemon juice. The smell will rise
Speaker 2: up into your nostrils. Then the polenta, which gives the
Speaker 2: cake its major name, of course, the baking powder, and
Speaker 2: the salt spoon. The mixture that then is now nice
Speaker 2: and smooth into your prepared tin, and you bake in
Speaker 2: the preheated oven for forty five to fifty minutes or
Speaker 2: until set. I guess the old toothpick taste test will do,
Speaker 2: and the cake will be deep brown on top. That
Speaker 2: that's a cue. It's delicious on its own, as I
Speaker 2: can absolutely testify. With a cappuccino perhaps, or a glass
Speaker 2: of vincanto. And when in season here at this place
Speaker 2: of joy, the River Cafe, it says we caramelize blood oranges.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine what you're doing this morning, Darning, I'm
Speaker 2: caramelizing some blood oranges. It reminds me of wonderful Les Dawson,
Speaker 2: the Northern comedian. Well, I can't stop chapping. I've got
Speaker 2: a cape on to baste, I've got sausages to prick
Speaker 2: and so on. Anyway, I've I've got blood oranges to
Speaker 2: caramelize and you serve that with the cake, and you
Speaker 2: just couldn't do better. It's one of the great great recipes.
Speaker 1: I think that if I, even in the last four minutes,
Speaker 1: I have now understood that you are a great cook.
Speaker 1: You're a great eater. But you are you know, are
Speaker 1: you a passionate cook? Would you describe yourself? Tell me
Speaker 1: about cooking?
Speaker 2: I was. I had a strange shout, and which was
Speaker 2: in it sounds if I said, it sounds like it's
Speaker 2: I don't know, Downton Abby or something that it really wasn't.
Speaker 2: But my parents did have a cook, and we had gardeners,
Speaker 2: and we had an old fashioned Victorian kitchen garden, and
Speaker 2: so I was used to the fact that every day
Speaker 2: the gardeners would come to the back door and missus Risebro,
Speaker 2: the cook, would select some of the vegetables or tell
Speaker 2: them to go off and get something else, depending on
Speaker 2: what she was cooking. And I would hang around, age
Speaker 2: five or something watching her. I'd see her do things
Speaker 2: like I mean, she was what used to be called
Speaker 2: a good English plane cook. So she didn't do anything
Speaker 2: terribly fancy, but everything she did was just right. Pies
Speaker 2: and tarts and things like that. She was very good
Speaker 2: at and she would take her thumb and put little
Speaker 2: squares of pastry on it and pull them back to
Speaker 2: make a rose that would go in the center of
Speaker 2: pies and things. So touches. Yeah, and she made pork pies.
Speaker 2: She made, oh yeah, basically anything but you could make
Speaker 2: she made. We had a game larder and a things
Speaker 2: and so we'd have birds hung and things like that.
Speaker 1: Sounds good, missus Er.
Speaker 2: She was one.
Speaker 1: Would they entertain?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they were, and they were very social. Yes,
Speaker 2: my mother would do dinner parties and when I was young,
Speaker 2: and up until I was about twelve fourteen, maybe that
Speaker 2: the there would be dinner jackets and black tie and
Speaker 2: the men would be left alone by the women in
Speaker 2: the dining room. So that's you know, that tradition that's
Speaker 2: still going the women.
Speaker 1: The men's stayed the women withdrew.
Speaker 2: And I remember my mother saying. My mother read history.
Speaker 2: She was was she was a history graduates and she
Speaker 2: taught it occasionally. And I would say to her white,
Speaker 2: the men's stay behind. And I think someone had said
Speaker 2: to me, so they can tell dirty jokes that women
Speaker 2: don't hear. My mother said, no, you know what it
Speaker 2: is really, she said. The Victorians, the women did not
Speaker 2: like drawing attention to the fact that they had to
Speaker 2: use lavatries. So if they all went in one go,
Speaker 2: they would go up to the lavoratries, use avatures together
Speaker 2: and then get down into the drawing room and they'd
Speaker 2: be sitting there. But if everybody went into the drawing
Speaker 2: room together after the meal and the women said I'm
Speaker 2: going to go now, everyone go, oh, she's off for
Speaker 2: a piss. And so it was just a discreet way
Speaker 2: of women having that chance to do that without being noticed,
Speaker 2: as it were.
Speaker 1: And so you have your memories are of home and
Speaker 1: good food and a care for food.
Speaker 2: Because my mother had food. I went say issues, but
Speaker 2: she would drive the gardener's mad because she'd go out
Speaker 2: when the peas were ready and she would just eat
Speaker 2: the entire crop of peas out of the pod. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember one sitting on a railway train and we're
Speaker 1: going from one small town in Italy to another, and
Speaker 1: we'd go into the market and bought some peas, and
Speaker 1: we had children with us, and we were all eating
Speaker 1: the raw peas on the train carriage. Italians went mad.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea of eating a raw piece. Those
Speaker 1: people were sitting at it, and we could have taken
Speaker 1: off all our clothes and had more respect than giving
Speaker 1: our children raw pies out of it. But what's more delicious?
Speaker 1: Raw pie? And we make a salad? Do you ever have?
Speaker 1: You know, you can make a salad with delicious.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is that it was natural because
Speaker 2: of the kitchen garden was everything was in season, so
Speaker 2: you know, and there were fruit trees, you know, trained
Speaker 2: against the outbuildings, plum trees and things like that. And
Speaker 2: there were goosberry bushes and raspberry and black currants, and
Speaker 2: four fantastic asparagus beds raised asparagus beds Belgian asparagus, quite
Speaker 2: small and delicate asparagus. And my mother had constant war
Speaker 2: with the gardeners because well, she had this theory and
Speaker 2: that you shouldn't eat asparagus after ascot mid June something
Speaker 2: like that. I don't know anyway, she'd heard that somewhere
Speaker 2: or been told that, and she of course was desperate
Speaker 2: to get hold of Once the asperance was getting all
Speaker 2: the ferns would come up, and she loved it for
Speaker 2: flower rangings.
Speaker 1: She sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: She is sounds like she's still here, she's ninety two.
Speaker 1: Because that I do think that inner knowledge and passion
Speaker 1: for the garden, for the ferns, for the seasonality of saying.
Speaker 1: And there is a very short season for good asparagus saska.
Speaker 1: It is there isn't you know? In Paris one minute
Speaker 1: you'd go down to the market and you know, there
Speaker 1: were white asparagus and green asparagus and thin aspects, and
Speaker 1: then they were gone, and we're just gone. And I
Speaker 1: think it's here as well. And they do come from Norfolk.
Speaker 2: Yes they do. But the criminal thing now, I think
Speaker 2: in some ways is people don't understand that you can
Speaker 2: store fresh fruit and vegetables. We had outhouses and there
Speaker 2: would be newspaper and potatoes, and when we lifted all
Speaker 2: the potatoes and there there'd be and they'd last all
Speaker 2: the way through as long as it was dark and cool,
Speaker 2: which naturally would be being an outhouse. And the same
Speaker 2: with apples and pears. They lost forever.
Speaker 1: Your parents were interested in food come from their cultural.
Speaker 2: My mother, yes, my father lesson. My father just did
Speaker 2: everything that was put in front of him, and his
Speaker 2: mind was on his work. He was a scientist. But
Speaker 2: my mother was from a Jewish family, and Jews always
Speaker 2: compared to the British in those days less so now
Speaker 2: were obsessed with food, partly because in some cases they
Speaker 2: knew poverty between the walls when things were really short
Speaker 2: in Vienna and in Hungary, where my grandparents came from.
Speaker 2: My grandfather was a good cook, and I remember, yeah,
Speaker 2: he made the most beautiful sort of dill and cucumber
Speaker 2: salads and things, and I really got a taste for
Speaker 2: that kind of Central European flavor from him, things like
Speaker 2: cucumbers and so on, which are very Central European polition,
Speaker 2: hungering and other such things. And spicy, spicy, but not
Speaker 2: in not like Indian or Mexican food spicy, but in
Speaker 2: that sort of paprika spiciness, which I'm very fond of.
Speaker 1: My grandparents were Hungarian. One side were Russian Jews who
Speaker 1: left Russia, and the other were Hungarian Jews that left Hungary.
Speaker 1: They came to the United States as part of the
Speaker 1: Ellis Island in Flux in nineteen probably fifteen, right really early.
Speaker 1: They got it early. So growing up in this household,
Speaker 1: going to you then went away to school at age seven,
Speaker 1: and was that a food shark as well as a
Speaker 1: home shop.
Speaker 2: It was. We grew up in Norfolk and obviously my
Speaker 2: mother wouldn't force me to eat anything I hated. And
Speaker 2: they arrived at this prep school age seven, which is
Speaker 2: in Gloucestershire, two hundred miles right year was this, This
Speaker 2: is in nineteen sixty four, and there are things like
Speaker 2: semolina and tapioca hot milk puddings. Something about milk that's
Speaker 2: been boiled makes me actually kick, makes me a dry heave.
Speaker 2: And I saw these and I said, no, no, I can't,
Speaker 2: I can't. And they forced it, literally holding my nose
Speaker 2: like like a hunger strike thing. It was cruel in
Speaker 2: those days, but of course you know it happened to
Speaker 2: other boys, so you just think this is this is life.
Speaker 2: But I really and I forced myself to throw up
Speaker 2: at the table so that they stopped doing it. And
Speaker 2: and it forced yourself. And it was written down Stephen
Speaker 2: Fry or Fry s probably or Fry Junior because my
Speaker 2: brother was there, allergic to hot milk.
Speaker 1: Clever to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was I mean, it was all I
Speaker 2: would say to Kensian. But it was a world of
Speaker 2: chill blains and constipation and cold, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: the way they heated a dormitory was just to have
Speaker 2: a hot pipe running along the bottom, you know, no
Speaker 2: radiators or anything. And so it wasn't ju desperately, I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: very much. So what it does I've spoken about this before,
Speaker 2: and what it does is you start to obsess about sweets.
Speaker 2: There's a touch shop in the school. We are called
Speaker 2: the touch shop. Tuck is the school slang for goodies
Speaker 2: for confectionery. And you start to get really obsessed with
Speaker 2: when the touch shop can to be opened and how
Speaker 2: much pocket money you've got to buy these things. And
Speaker 2: this was the golden age of confectionery. Cabri was producing
Speaker 2: new things like curly whirleyon and Aztec bars, and there
Speaker 2: were these amazing you know, foam shrimps and flying sauces
Speaker 2: made of rice paper and fruit salads four for a
Speaker 2: penny and black jacks four for a penny. And I
Speaker 2: became so obsessed that I would start breaking out of
Speaker 2: school bunds and going to the village shop. And it
Speaker 2: was in Gloucestershire, a little village called Yuli, and I
Speaker 2: would spend whatever money I had on getting those sweets,
Speaker 2: and it became a kind of obsession that my teeth
Speaker 2: suffered by. You know, by the time I was twelve,
Speaker 2: I was having huge amounts of fillings and even having
Speaker 2: teeth out. But also interesting and this is you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not using an excuse, but a lot of it
Speaker 2: was preparation for smoking. There were these coconut shredded brown
Speaker 2: fake tobaccos in a little wax paper with a Spanish
Speaker 2: galleon on it, which was like rolling tobacco. There were
Speaker 2: these candy cigarettes that you would have licorice, Yes, that's it.
Speaker 2: They were, and in sort of fake Chesterfield packs softly
Speaker 2: looked exactly like Chesterfield or something, or camel and licorice pipes,
Speaker 2: and so they were getting you ready, well like pipe
Speaker 2: smoker's pipe made out of a licorice. Yeah, and even
Speaker 2: more sort of weirdly, the glamour of the white powder Sherbert,
Speaker 2: so you'd suck it up through a licorice straw and
Speaker 2: a Sherbert fountain. So it was preparing you for a
Speaker 2: life to come. Yeah. So you then go from the
Speaker 2: you know, when you were fourteen or fifteen, you go
Speaker 2: for the real cigarettes and smoking, and then when you're
Speaker 2: a little bit older than that, the real white power.
Speaker 2: It's a terrible thought. I'm not excusing it or saying
Speaker 2: that it was the school's fault that I, in later
Speaker 2: life did become something of an addict.
Speaker 1: I was even not to interrupt your story, but I
Speaker 1: was going to say that culturally, if your parents were
Speaker 1: Hungarian Jews background of that, did going to boarding school
Speaker 1: come easier to them?
Speaker 2: So my parents are both bought it all their time
Speaker 2: as children, so there was no Yeah, there was nothing.
Speaker 2: And you have to remember, if you're thinking how coral
Speaker 2: to send a child away at the age of seven,
Speaker 2: if that seven year old child has other friends as
Speaker 2: I did in the Norfolk countryside, they were all boys
Speaker 2: who were also going to go to school. And then
Speaker 2: when you get to the prep school, obviously everyone's in
Speaker 2: the same boat. So you just think this is what
Speaker 2: life is like. You don't think this is so unfair.
Speaker 2: There are people who are not going to boarding schools.
Speaker 2: You just think you might.
Speaker 1: Not, well, this is another discussion. You might not think it,
Speaker 1: the child might not think it, but the parents might
Speaker 1: think yes.
Speaker 2: And I was aware that because because we would go
Speaker 2: my mother and I from Norwich by train and breakfast
Speaker 2: on the train.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was so good because they had these silver they
Speaker 2: did silver service. They had stewards in short white little tops, tunics, whatever,
Speaker 2: and they would you know, the silver service in the
Speaker 2: sense they would use a spoon and a fork in
Speaker 2: the same hand, and they could definitely put the bacon
Speaker 2: on a train, egg on a train exactly. And we
Speaker 2: got to know them. Then they would recognize us and say, oh,
Speaker 2: school again, young man, is it and all that, you know,
Speaker 2: we would get the train and then we'd spend a
Speaker 2: day in London. Sometimes we'd have lunch with my grandfather
Speaker 2: at the walled Doff or the hotel. Yeah, that's sort
Speaker 2: of Verre. He liked the yeah, the big.
Speaker 1: Yeah there you go in there. That's what you got
Speaker 1: their dances.
Speaker 2: So that's a nice hotel. And and then go to
Speaker 2: Paddington and that's where my heart wouldtart to sink and
Speaker 2: flutter a bit because you'd see at the end of
Speaker 2: the platform on boys in these straw hats that we
Speaker 2: call boaters, and that was the school compartment. But then
Speaker 2: you'd notice, or I'd noticed that my mother was crying.
Speaker 2: She was trying not to so touchy it's making me
Speaker 2: move now because you know, everyone thinking how cruel of parents,
Speaker 2: but they don't want to lose their child, but they
Speaker 2: just feel that's the right thing for them.
Speaker 1: You stayed in school till.
Speaker 2: Oh ah, well, now we don't have enough time to
Speaker 2: cover the chapters of disaster, do we. I went from
Speaker 2: prep school. Prep school in England is age seven, which
Speaker 2: is the youngest, and two thirteen, and then you would
Speaker 2: take what was called a common entrance exam, which was
Speaker 2: for public schools. I private schools, and so I went
Speaker 2: to private school called Oppingham and my behavior was dreadful.
Speaker 2: And then worst of all, I fell in love with
Speaker 2: a boy. And I was so confused by this, so
Speaker 2: absolutely astonished by the power of the emotion, the sheer
Speaker 2: power that you could be obsessed for twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day and of nothing else and change your walking habits.
Speaker 2: So you would bump into this person and knowing just
Speaker 2: phenomenal obsession, not really sexual even I was, you know,
Speaker 2: just something overwhelming. Was it reciprocated eventually there was a
Speaker 2: nice moment, but yeah, yeah, it threw me completely and
Speaker 2: certainly threw my concentration away. But the actual casus bellies
Speaker 2: I think well, and should say the cause of the war,
Speaker 2: the originating disaster was. I was a member, the youngest
Speaker 2: member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and I
Speaker 2: got permissioned from my housemaster to go to a meeting
Speaker 2: of the Society in London in some grand club, and
Speaker 2: I read a paper, I delivered a paper, and the
Speaker 2: idea was that the next I was staying overnight at
Speaker 2: the club and the next morning I would take a
Speaker 2: train back to school. Well, the next morning I went
Speaker 2: to a cinema and in those days, cinemas would sort
Speaker 2: of start a program at ten in the morning or something,
Speaker 2: and then just you could stay in the same cinema
Speaker 2: and what the same film again and again. And the
Speaker 2: film was Cabaret, and I was completely obsessed with it.
Speaker 2: I just never seen anything like it. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: And then chose it, yeah, I mean almost randomly, not
Speaker 2: knowing what it was or anything about it, not naying
Speaker 2: you know about Christi Riischerwood or Eliza Beanelly or any
Speaker 2: of the sort of background to it. And then I
Speaker 2: wandered in the days to another cinema and there was
Speaker 2: a clock work orange was on and unfortunately I was
Speaker 2: although I was fourteen and a half, I could pass
Speaker 2: as X, which was eighteen, I guess, and because being tall,
Speaker 2: I suppose. And so there were there were three or
Speaker 2: four films, I think The Godfather as well, and Fritz
Speaker 2: the Cat, which was a sort of pornographic cartoon. Mem
Speaker 2: do you remember so four days past?
Speaker 1: You stayed four days?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: And was anybody out searching?
Speaker 2: Yes? And there were terrified and they didn't know what
Speaker 2: had happened to me, and they'd run away. What's going on?
Speaker 2: And then I kind of came to in a sort
Speaker 2: of days and went back to the school. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of folded arms and tapping of feet on
Speaker 2: the carpet.
Speaker 1: And will anybody call the police?
Speaker 2: Well they had done, Yes, they reported me as missing
Speaker 2: after three days. I think whatever it was, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just a disaster. And I remember getting in
Speaker 2: the car with my parents because I was expelled from
Speaker 2: the school, and my father saying the words, we will
Speaker 2: talk about this sorry incident when we get home. Sorry,
Speaker 2: sorry incident. It was a sorry incident.
Speaker 1: Did you know? The River Cafe has a shop. It's
Speaker 1: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
Speaker 1: and linen Napkins kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures,
Speaker 1: glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
Speaker 1: right next door to the River Cafe in London or
Speaker 1: online at shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: When you went to Cambridge, what was the food like there?
Speaker 1: Then you were away from both the boarding school and
Speaker 1: you were away from your parents. Could you create your
Speaker 1: own food world more?
Speaker 2: Yes, there were some students got friendly with who really
Speaker 2: understood food.
Speaker 1: Did you cook for yourself at Cambridge? Or was that hard?
Speaker 2: If you were in college, you had your rooms and
Speaker 2: you had what was called a jip room, which was
Speaker 2: like a little kitchen, but it didn't really have a
Speaker 2: proper oven or anything, so you couldn't do much there.
Speaker 2: But because of the acting, I would, in particular after
Speaker 2: the May term, which is like the summer term at Cambridge,
Speaker 2: when it was over, I would stay on to rehearse
Speaker 2: with friends all the plays we were taking up to Edinburgh.
Speaker 2: And then one might stay at totally different places, and
Speaker 2: I stayed with it rather than in your college, because
Speaker 2: your college would be given ever to conferences and things
Speaker 2: like that, and they wouldn't let you stay there. So
Speaker 2: I remember staying with friends, and one of these friends, Ben,
Speaker 2: who was really good. He taught me the mill pois
Speaker 2: that the preparation for almost anything, you know, the carrots,
Speaker 2: the celery and chopping them up, and.
Speaker 1: Called the Italian cooking Sofrito.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, and he's the basis of everything from Bologniers upwards,
Speaker 2: as it were. And so I really enjoyed learning that
Speaker 2: and seeing how all that worked. And he showed me
Speaker 2: as well what I now know is called deglazing. You
Speaker 2: know how you had I say, everything's stuck, and he goes, no,
Speaker 2: just just take a glass of wine and just throw
Speaker 2: it on, and I'm getting what are you doing? And
Speaker 2: then it would all just come into life, and you know,
Speaker 2: he had that confidence.
Speaker 1: So was he really the first person to do he.
Speaker 2: Kind of was. Yeah. He taught me not to be
Speaker 2: afraid and not to have to follow every syllable on
Speaker 2: a page, because once you knew the principle of certain
Speaker 2: kinds of cooking, you could just then do very Oh
Speaker 2: we haven't got any that with his fish instead, but
Speaker 2: it says it's for Lamb's just that's all right, you know,
Speaker 2: and you just sort of take that.
Speaker 1: I was saying cooking is a bit like poetry. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to know the real poetry to go to
Speaker 1: free verse.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, once you know the fourteen line Sonnet, you
Speaker 2: can then exactly escape the prison of the form. But
Speaker 2: it was really when I left Cambridge I was so
Speaker 2: fortunate because you know, our comedy stuff I was doing
Speaker 2: with Hugh Lori and Emma Thompson. One prize comedy, what
Speaker 2: it was, Camebridge this club called the Footlights, which is
Speaker 2: well over one hundred years old and it sort of
Speaker 2: specializes in comedy. I say it is whoever the undergraduates
Speaker 2: are at the time who happened to be members of
Speaker 2: the club. But it famously had Peter Cook and John
Speaker 2: Clees and Eric Idle and Grifflies Jones and Douglas Adams
Speaker 2: and Clive James and all kind of Baron Margerleyes, Yes,
Speaker 2: Stephen and then Stephen Frown, Hugh Luri and Emma Thompson.
Speaker 2: We were all one bunch and we went to Edinburgh
Speaker 2: and we won this new prize called the Perrier Award
Speaker 2: for Comedy, and this involved going to Australia. Well sort
Speaker 2: of it didn't. The prize didn't, but because we won.
Speaker 2: It's an Australian entrepreneur called Michael Edgeley saw our show
Speaker 2: and then said, you guys want to come out to Australia.
Speaker 2: And that's where I learned to eat because it was
Speaker 2: an absolute revelation. This is nineteen eighty one, starting in Sydney.
Speaker 2: Doyle's of course, the amazing seafood place. You walk along
Speaker 2: the dunes and come to this beautiful shack where the
Speaker 2: food is well, things you've never heard of, like Barry
Speaker 2: Mundy and Morton Bay bugs and all these extraordinary seafood things.
Speaker 2: But also oysters. I mean, oyster is so plentiful and
Speaker 2: not oh my goodness, I'm having oysters. I must be
Speaker 2: in Bentley's or in you know some posh you know
Speaker 2: London restaurant that does oysters. But it was, yeah, I
Speaker 2: have some oysters, mane I mind Rockefeller or Killpatrick, you
Speaker 2: know these different ways of preparing them, kill Patrick Acrosse
Speaker 2: the mind because it involved was the source. Yes, So
Speaker 2: I became really obsessed with oysters and would have and
Speaker 2: they were cheap sometimes you could that's the point. I
Speaker 2: have some plump, half a dozen plump specific oysters not cooked,
Speaker 2: and then half a dozen cooked more neat Rockefeller and
Speaker 2: Kilpatrick with the one with bacon to kill Patrick. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and there were cheapest, cheapest chips, as people say so.
Speaker 2: And wine was the other thing I finally moved off
Speaker 2: the lampres.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about, yeah, because they.
Speaker 2: Had things like Grange Hermitage, which at the time was
Speaker 2: good but nothing like as expensive as it is now.
Speaker 2: Three or four hundred pound a bottle at least, isn't it.
Speaker 2: But they you know this, They had this way of
Speaker 2: categorizing wines which is so ridiculously obvious but was unheard
Speaker 2: of by grape Vatal. So they would say this is
Speaker 2: a Sheers, you know, and and this is you know,
Speaker 2: Kevin I Servignon, and this is a Semion or whatever,
Speaker 2: and they'd tell you about the grape and you go, oh,
Speaker 2: I see. Then you get back to England and every
Speaker 2: restaurant just a shadowed nerve to this shadow that and
Speaker 2: you get what does that mean? But when I got
Speaker 2: back to England, we were like for two months and
Speaker 2: traveling everywhere all the big cities, in some of the
Speaker 2: crazy little towns like Albury, Wodonga, eating fabulous food, cheaply
Speaker 2: and happily and the whole day really was around the
Speaker 2: fact we'd finished the show and what restaurant we're going
Speaker 2: to And but when I got back to England, I
Speaker 2: was wandering around. So we were doing a TV show
Speaker 2: and I was feeling lucky and flushed with cash relatively
Speaker 2: compared to being a student, but not very rich. And
Speaker 2: I was wondering, to say, when I was getting lost,
Speaker 2: as you do, and before you understand that, what's the
Speaker 2: cross street? And you know? And so I was going
Speaker 2: down this street called Greek Street and I saw on
Speaker 2: attractive looking restaurant and the restaurant was called Let's Gargo
Speaker 2: the Snail, and I wandered in and this fabulous woman
Speaker 2: about three foot tall came up to me and said hello, dear,
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, it was obviously very nervous. She
Speaker 2: said you come with me, and she sat me down.
Speaker 2: You'll know who I'm talking about, Ellen Salvatina, this amazing woman, phenomenal,
Speaker 2: and she sat me down and I said, I'm not
Speaker 2: and she chose for me, somehow brilliantly, things that were
Speaker 2: just cheap enough for me to be able to afford.
Speaker 2: And so from then on, the richer I got the
Speaker 2: luckier I got I would go there, and this was
Speaker 2: in the high days of Let's Cargo. We know Princess Diana,
Speaker 2: we'd go and all these people. But most importantly again
Speaker 2: it was Chancey's Robinson's husband Lander, his name was Nick Lander,
Speaker 2: who ran Let's Go Go and Jancey's Robinson's great Wine
Speaker 2: created great the first woman to be made of Master
Speaker 2: of Wine, fabulous person and she made the wine list varietal.
Speaker 2: So it was the first, I think probably in London
Speaker 2: to be like that where it was, and gosh, I
Speaker 2: had some marvelous times there, absolutely amazingly recognized someone. We
Speaker 2: became very good friends. She then moved to Lettual in
Speaker 2: Charlotte Street, and her husband Aldo was a fat fascinating
Speaker 2: man as well, because they lived in Noel Road in
Speaker 2: Islington in the nineteen sixties year and their neighbor their
Speaker 2: neighbors were a gay couple called Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton,
Speaker 2: and it was Aldo who there was a they'd heard
Speaker 2: some shouting and then the next day they were worried
Speaker 2: and and and Eleanor had said, how's what's what's up
Speaker 2: with Joe and Aldo? And she looked through the keyhole
Speaker 2: and saw him dead, and Alder had to break down
Speaker 2: the door, and of course Kenneth Halliwell had killed his
Speaker 2: lover and then himself, so she never forgot that. But
Speaker 2: I remember once, for example, I was having dinner there
Speaker 2: with Ron Atkins and my friend Rowan, the wonderful Great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go and go upstairs. And Rowan is the most
Speaker 2: wonderful person in the world. But he's not a late
Speaker 2: night figure at all in those days, I quite was.
Speaker 2: So we'd had dinner and it was like halp us
Speaker 2: nine and said, right, well, I'm I'll get a cab
Speaker 2: and go home. And I thought, oh, well, I'll do
Speaker 2: the same. So I ordered a cab. His cab came first,
Speaker 2: and I was just about to leave it, and I said,
Speaker 2: could you go and cheer up John Hurt. He's just
Speaker 2: left his wife and he's was all very unhappy and
Speaker 2: he needs a bit of cheering up. So I sat
Speaker 2: down and there was John had, you know, sit down,
Speaker 2: and every now and again Ee said, your CAB's still here.
Speaker 2: I said, oh, tell him, I'll be five minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's five minutes. We were getting home, and the cab
Speaker 2: bill was two hundred and twenty pounds and I saw
Speaker 2: John about a week later and said, I have told
Speaker 2: everyone I got hurt on Thursday night, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I told everyone I got fried. I got to know
Speaker 2: him even better later because he moved to Norfolk.
Speaker 1: Was Europe at all an influence? Did you travel to
Speaker 1: France or Italy or did you do Greece? Was there
Speaker 1: any food experience from being in Europe?
Speaker 2: Just as I was really beginning to love food, I
Speaker 2: went with Rowan, whom I mentioned ron Atkinson had bought
Speaker 2: a new Western Martin and he said, I really think
Speaker 2: we should try this out. And so we booked ourselves
Speaker 2: an amazing holiday, going all the way down France through
Speaker 2: basically through as many three star, three Michelin star restaurants,
Speaker 2: so mioneise in outside Leon and Chappelle's restaurant thing, and
Speaker 2: then down to the Moujen restaurants outside Cannes, you know
Speaker 2: in the column door, which is not through star, but
Speaker 2: it's one of the greatest restaurants in the world.
Speaker 1: Oh that menu.
Speaker 2: People who don't know it's up from up from cann
Speaker 2: in the hills and it's this beautiful, beautiful place. It's
Speaker 2: like your ideal image of a promo soul house with
Speaker 2: the tiles and everything else. But it has added to
Speaker 2: it these extraordinary pieces on the walls by Matisse and
Speaker 2: others and mirror and yeah, that's right, these extraordinary paintings
Speaker 2: because the original patron and his wife would allow the
Speaker 2: artists to give pictures instead of paying the bills. And
Speaker 2: it has since become, you know, one of the great
Speaker 2: restaurants of the world. Really it's it's atmosphere and for
Speaker 2: all its fame and uh, you know, they're not necessarily
Speaker 2: easy to get a table, especially during the Canned Film
Speaker 2: Festival or something. It is the friendliest, warmest place. It's really,
Speaker 2: you know, like all these good places there, you might
Speaker 2: think they're going to be frightened the river. Under the river,
Speaker 2: you won't find people looking snooterly at you at all.
Speaker 2: It's the opposite of good restaurant to have snootiness, isn't it.
Speaker 1: When I boat you couple of months ago, you were
Speaker 1: talking about your schedule and a lot of it was
Speaker 1: around being in London or being in Los Angeles. And
Speaker 1: I think that California is so interesting in terms of
Speaker 1: going back to Alice Walters and food farm to table
Speaker 1: and restaurants like Wolfgang Pugs, Mamaison becoming Spago where he
Speaker 1: made pizzas, and now the very kind of healthy eating
Speaker 1: of California. And I think if we're talking about a
Speaker 1: kind of food culture, would you say that in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles you're finding a certain type of food culture unquestionably.
Speaker 2: And one of the interesting things is people picture Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and they think of smart movie people. And obviously
Speaker 2: there are a lot of movie people, but the food
Speaker 2: culture is driven from below, and the smart movie people
Speaker 2: follow it. And over the last ten years, the major
Speaker 2: thing has been street food food trucks, which a lot
Speaker 2: of British people. When you would say to them, oh,
Speaker 2: look there's a fish taco truck. Let's going to have
Speaker 2: that lunch, I'll go crazy. Is it hygieniic? You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's sort of weird British idea that a
Speaker 2: food truck couldn't live up to a restaurant. And very
Speaker 2: often the que is the indication. You'll see a big
Speaker 2: line and you'll know that's a good one and you
Speaker 2: make a note in your head next time I'm driving
Speaker 2: down here, I'll go and try try what they've got
Speaker 2: and they and there's that side of things. Of course,
Speaker 2: there's the glamorous side of places. The movie people go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Polo Lounge and it's like Craigs. Now you'll always
Speaker 2: see a Kardashian in there if you want to. And again,
Speaker 2: you know, because they're the paparazzi outside and what in
Speaker 2: America they call videographers who are called TMZ the this
Speaker 2: kind of news channel, gossip news channel. But the quality
Speaker 2: of food is good for you know, good for vegans
Speaker 2: and vegetarians, and so it's a good place to say, oh,
Speaker 2: I'll go, I'll go vegan for a week, you know,
Speaker 2: just just out of fun really, because there's so many options.
Speaker 1: Do you only eat out?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. No, I'd love to cook really
Speaker 2: good kitchen in the house in La So I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. Well, it's open. It's this long, long run
Speaker 2: because the house used to be an art gallery when
Speaker 2: it was built in nineteen twenty three. It's I give
Speaker 2: too much of a detail, but it's the under the
Speaker 2: Hollywood side Beechwood Canyon, and there's an art It was
Speaker 2: an art gallery. So there's this very long room in
Speaker 2: this upper upper room which used to be where the
Speaker 2: pictures were. One end of it is the kitchen and
Speaker 2: it's open to the you know, the dining room part
Speaker 2: of it and the other parts of it, so you're
Speaker 2: kind of when you're cooking, you're cooking, you're chatting to
Speaker 2: everybody who might be there, and there's plenty of room.
Speaker 2: It's really there's good surfaces, you know how somehow surfaces
Speaker 2: disappear when you cook put it.
Speaker 1: Did you cook there more than you would cook it? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do, yeah, and I love it. And
Speaker 2: my husband's are good, you know, a good customer. He
Speaker 2: seems to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 1: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Hi. I'm Sean and I'm making Lemon almond and Palenticate.
Speaker 1: With Stephen Fry.
Speaker 2: I am a convicted lemon Plenticate user and I was
Speaker 2: on the road to recovery, but now that's all been
Speaker 2: set back. I'm afraid, so shall I make this? You
Speaker 2: tell me what I need to do and.
Speaker 3: Think we doo apart from we've got that better here.
Speaker 2: So that's just someften on its own took.
Speaker 3: The liberty of giving it a bit before you arrived,
Speaker 3: because I thought, we don't need to watch that. But
Speaker 3: as it goes from the yellow color to the pale color,
Speaker 3: it's to your point of knowing that it's been beaten.
Speaker 3: And then you've got your four hundred and fifty grams
Speaker 3: of cups of sugar, and then this is going to
Speaker 3: get beaten until the sugar dissolves.
Speaker 2: Right and again, I mean, it's one of the loveliest
Speaker 2: tastes in the world, and there's a child butter and
Speaker 2: sugar to get that's just covered enough.
Speaker 3: Exactly be in the noise of it.
Speaker 2: We can talk about to yourself.
Speaker 3: It's a very high tech Okay, then you know some
Speaker 3: people will put a bit of egg and a bit
Speaker 3: of flowering alternately, but I'm just gonna brazen it out
Speaker 3: quite frankly.
Speaker 2: I think it all ends up in the same in
Speaker 2: the end. Yeah, lovely, lovely, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, just and then this is the plent of flower
Speaker 3: and the ground almonds.
Speaker 1: So I'll just get that in.
Speaker 3: Let it get around the slowly, so don't get covered.
Speaker 2: You made this one quite recently. It's still warm, yeah.
Speaker 3: So that that's actually can have gone the menu for lunch.
Speaker 3: Now do you want to have a piece of that?
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: Do you want to cut yourself?
Speaker 2: sEH, so soft? So I'm gonna have to say the
Speaker 2: word moist, no escaping?
Speaker 3: Is we just do you want to find you before?
Speaker 2: I'm quite happy to just frankly drop my head into
Speaker 2: it and go like that. But probably that's.
Speaker 3: Got cup of tea written all over it.
Speaker 2: Espresso.
Speaker 3: It's got espresso written all over, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Hmm, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: You can have that while you talk to Ruthy.
Speaker 2: That is so good, honestly brilliant.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 1: You've just made a palantic cake with Sean. Tell me
Speaker 1: what that was like.
Speaker 2: It was a tremendous experience. It's so simple on the
Speaker 2: one hand, but like all great dishes, it can be
Speaker 2: made better by people who are confident. It's my theory
Speaker 2: about food is that certain ingredients know when you're scared.
Speaker 1: You know when you're scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love making mayonnaise, but it's a mood thing.
Speaker 2: Some If you're not quite confident enough, it knows, and
Speaker 2: it will split. If you're too confident, it will split.
Speaker 2: You have to just sort of come up to it
Speaker 2: and show that you are master, but that you respect it.
Speaker 2: And I think that's true of a lot of ingredients.
Speaker 2: And polenticate no less so to get that gritty moisture
Speaker 2: and that sweetness and that's citrus, all in the right proportion,
Speaker 2: it's a simply joyous thing to eat.
Speaker 1: I was going to also ask you about work and
Speaker 1: creating and food. So when you are writing, when you're directing,
Speaker 1: when you're doing your beautiful voice audio.
Speaker 2: Books, I can't. I find it very hard to eat anything,
Speaker 2: eat anything before a performance of any kind. That that's
Speaker 2: as if your nerves sort of shrink you up and
Speaker 2: you and your metabolism is fast, which tends to reduce appetite.
Speaker 2: Anything that makes your metabolism go quick reduces appetite, doesn't it,
Speaker 2: Like again, for example speed, But those drugs are are
Speaker 2: appetite suppressants as opposed to the slowly down ones that
Speaker 2: can you know that famously cannabis gives you the munchies,
Speaker 2: you know, and so on. So aside from external forces
Speaker 2: and chemistry, the actual act of being nervous before a show,
Speaker 2: I find has that thing that I just couldn't eat.
Speaker 2: But afterwards, yes, and that's everyone tells you you shouldn't eat,
Speaker 2: you know, two hours before bed or whatever, because you know, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if they say that anymore.
Speaker 2: Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
Speaker 1: We always look for that study that you want to
Speaker 1: read which says that actually you gain no more weight.
Speaker 1: Am I eating before you go to bed than you
Speaker 1: would if you had it at six o'clock?
Speaker 2: Well, that's because I am a bit obsessed about my weight.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know I'd be fitter. I would snow
Speaker 2: less and and and puff less at the top of
Speaker 2: the steps if I if I lost her.
Speaker 1: We don't want any less.
Speaker 2: I tried that zempic. I'm the earlier docter of these things,
Speaker 2: and I happened to be in America and I'd read
Speaker 2: about it, and I asked them, my doctor in America
Speaker 2: and my physician as they like to call them, and
Speaker 2: he said, I can get you some, and he tried
Speaker 2: me on it. And first week or so, I was thinking,
Speaker 2: this is astonishing. Not only do I know want to eat,
Speaker 2: I don't even want to I don't want alcohol of
Speaker 2: any kind. This is going to be brilliant. And then
Speaker 2: I started feeling sick. And then I started feeling sicker
Speaker 2: and sicker, and sucker, and I was literally throwing up
Speaker 2: four or five times a day, and I thought, I
Speaker 2: can't do this. So that's that's it. And the new
Speaker 2: variant to zeppeedeie manduras it's called it makes it even
Speaker 2: worse parent if you have those side effects. So as
Speaker 2: he's probably good.
Speaker 1: I think you look great, you are you are eating
Speaker 1: and so food and work.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I do. I love. I love to
Speaker 2: work on an empty stomach as well when if it's right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then writing mode at the moment. Well, it's the
Speaker 2: fourth in a series of books I've done on Greek mythology,
Speaker 2: and it's the final one. The first was the kind
Speaker 2: of birth of the gods and the creation of humankind
Speaker 2: and the kind of gods and the humans interacting and interbreeding.
Speaker 2: And the second one is called Heroes and is like
Speaker 2: Hercules and Perseus and Theseus and Jason and Atlanta and
Speaker 2: these you know, the heroic race. And then the third
Speaker 2: one was the Trojan War with Achilles and Helen and
Speaker 2: all that. And this fourth one is the all Coming Home.
Speaker 2: Agamemnon has to come home to be murdered, and Helen
Speaker 2: and menelais her husband, have to go home. I picture
Speaker 2: that voyage home as had a lot of folded arms,
Speaker 2: and it didn't try very hard to escape from Troy,
Speaker 2: did you, darling. And then of course the Odyssey, which
Speaker 2: is the main story of it.
Speaker 1: Do you think the gods eight eight they did and
Speaker 1: what did they drink?
Speaker 2: The gods drank nectar nectar nectar nectar, which is not
Speaker 2: quite the juice of you know, the hollyhock or the flower,
Speaker 2: but a sort of honey and alcohol kind of thing
Speaker 2: that was good for gods. And they ate ambrosia. It
Speaker 2: was called ambrosia. No one's quite sure what ambrosia was,
Speaker 2: but it was. It was the food of the gods
Speaker 2: rather than the drink of the gods. And this is
Speaker 2: what an ambrosia kept their blood in a silvery form.
Speaker 2: The gods had silvery blood rather than red or blue
Speaker 2: or green, and it was called kor. And if humans
Speaker 2: had or if they tasted kora, it was on them
Speaker 2: it would kill them straight away.
Speaker 1: So it was.
Speaker 2: For the gods. Yeah, but it's a nice that one
Speaker 2: of one of the best words in the English language
Speaker 2: language is petrich or petrik or pet Petross is rock
Speaker 2: in Greek, as in petrol and petrify and all those things.
Speaker 2: Petroleum and kore is that blood, that strange silvery liquid.
Speaker 2: And petricore is the word for that smell that rises
Speaker 2: up from the earth after rain, which is not lovely.
Speaker 2: That there's a word for it, and that's what it is,
Speaker 2: this kind of holy, holy, sacred smell rising.
Speaker 1: Up from the earth, and that note of smell and
Speaker 1: comfort we were talking. I think I suppose we were
Speaker 1: talking a lot about comfort that you derived from your
Speaker 1: life in going to school and needing comfort in sweets
Speaker 1: or going up later, and the memories of seeking comfort
Speaker 1: as well. Before we go to lunch. What would be
Speaker 1: a food that you would go for comfort.
Speaker 2: It's a small silvery fish in a tin, not a sardine,
Speaker 2: although I like sardines. It's called skipper. You see them
Speaker 2: in supermarkets. At first you go, oh, there's obviously skip jack,
Speaker 2: do you know, which is a different but but skippers
Speaker 2: are little I don't know if there's another name for them,
Speaker 2: but they are kind of bonelets who you have them whole,
Speaker 2: and they're sort of soften, spread on toast and on toast.
Speaker 2: They are absolutely.
Speaker 1: Comfort.
Speaker 2: I think I think my mother used to get them,
Speaker 2: and that's probably what it is. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: terrible admission, isn't.
Speaker 1: It a terrible admssion answer this question will say something
Speaker 1: from their memory of sharing their mother, their father, their grandmother,
Speaker 1: the culture they came from. Thank you, what a great question. Pleasure, Thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 2: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 2: Nigel Appleton.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 2: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator
Speaker 2: is Bella Cellini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean
Speaker 2: Wynn Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe
Speaker 2: for your help in making this episode.