Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: When Greta, Gerwig and Noah Boundback wrote to say they
Speaker 2: were moving to London for a year, we decided to
Speaker 2: meet for Sunday lunch in the River Cafe. After that
Speaker 2: first lunch we made a date for the following Sunday,
Speaker 2: and after the second one, we agreed to meet for
Speaker 2: the one after that. On the third Sunday, Harold, their
Speaker 2: five year old son, turned to me and said, Ruthie,
Speaker 2: is this the meaning of tradition? And from that moment
Speaker 2: on our Sunday lunches became known between the four of
Speaker 2: us as tradition, as in, what time are we meeting
Speaker 2: for tradition? Will you be here next week?
Speaker 3: For tradition?
Speaker 2: And even that was a delicious tradition. This Sunday, Noah,
Speaker 2: Greta and I are here in the River Cafe to
Speaker 2: talk about food and live food and friendship, beautiful movies
Speaker 2: they've made for all of us. And when we're done,
Speaker 2: Harold will join us and I will have lunch. Three
Speaker 2: people I love and adore with all my heart. Now
Speaker 2: that's tradition. Oh, that was beautiful When we chose the
Speaker 2: recipe future, and then are all these complicated recipes of
Speaker 2: pastas and risottos and desserts. And I thought that Noah's
Speaker 2: thing is to order steak steak to share. Right, stay
Speaker 2: for the steak for the table, and then I put
Speaker 2: in the horse spratish because I know we always order
Speaker 2: extra horsetratish.
Speaker 3: I love horse. Yeah, so we do that.
Speaker 4: One hundred grams fresh horse radish.
Speaker 5: One tablespoon white wine vinegar, half a lemon, two hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty mililters crem fresh.
Speaker 4: Peel and great the horse radish on the fine part
Speaker 4: of the cheese grater.
Speaker 5: Then add the vinegar and lemon juice, season with salt
Speaker 5: and pepper, and gently stir in the crim fresh.
Speaker 6: Add one more thing.
Speaker 4: Make more of it than you think you'll need, because
Speaker 4: you'll want more. Or if you're me, you will steak
Speaker 4: four hundred RIBI steak about six centimeters thick, Sea.
Speaker 1: Salt, extra virgin olive oil.
Speaker 4: The trick is to have the confidence to leave the
Speaker 4: steaks on the grill for the full cooking time.
Speaker 1: It means they will get those dramatic griddle markings.
Speaker 4: It is vital to rest your meat, which makes it
Speaker 4: juicier and more full of flavor.
Speaker 5: About thirty minutes before cooking, remove the steak from the
Speaker 5: refrigerator uncovered and let it come to room temperature.
Speaker 4: Preheat a barbecue or a grill to a high heat.
Speaker 1: Season the steak on both sides with salt and pepper.
Speaker 4: Grill the steak on one side for twelve minutes. Turn
Speaker 4: over the steak with tongs and grill for another twelve
Speaker 4: minutes on the other side.
Speaker 1: Put the steak on a warm plate, drizzle with oil,
Speaker 1: and rest for twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: Slice the steak thickly on the diagonal and serve.
Speaker 1: Like rest for twenty minute. Sounds like you take it.
Speaker 5: You take a rest, yeah, but both of you could
Speaker 5: rest for twenty ran the steak.
Speaker 4: One thing we talk about, it's the Nora Ephron one
Speaker 4: for the table. When she died, the New York Times
Speaker 4: for her obituary had there was like a list and
Speaker 4: it was things I'll miss and things I won't miss,
Speaker 4: and you realize it's things all miss from the world.
Speaker 4: But one of the things is one for the table.
Speaker 4: When you're ordering and you say, and just one for
Speaker 4: the table. One to the table, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I will miss one for the table.
Speaker 6: That's such a nice concept.
Speaker 2: We'll get it, you know, maybe, yeah, the other world
Speaker 2: will have another.
Speaker 6: One, another one for the table.
Speaker 4: My hope is that it's all the vibe of the
Speaker 4: next one is just one for the table.
Speaker 1: That's the well, that's the thing. And was it defending
Speaker 1: defending her life?
Speaker 5: The Albert Brooks movie, you know, where they it's like
Speaker 5: they're in a kind of limbo where they're they're judging. Essentially,
Speaker 5: it's like to figure out where you're going to go,
Speaker 5: if you're going to go up or down, and they
Speaker 5: sort of go to court in a way and have
Speaker 5: to defend their lives. But while there it's him, it's
Speaker 5: our Brooks and Meryl Streep. And and while they're there
Speaker 5: they can eat anything they want because there's no consequences.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of good eating in that one
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: In cinema, I was trying to think of the great
Speaker 2: scenes of movies about you know, there's obviously The Godfather
Speaker 2: where he's making good fellows who when they're in prison,
Speaker 2: and you probably my time, there was Tom Jones, which
Speaker 2: was Albert and Suside York and do you remember they
Speaker 2: were just eating. It was sex and seduction. And I
Speaker 2: was like.
Speaker 1: Eryl Flynn in robin Hood. He comes into the Kings
Speaker 1: and he thinks, and he takes that.
Speaker 5: Big or whatever their leg of something and and he
Speaker 5: sits back in the chair and he eats.
Speaker 1: It really confidently.
Speaker 5: But I remember thinking, I mean, I loved that movie,
Speaker 5: and I loved Robinhood, but I really thought that looked delicious.
Speaker 5: That the oh yeah, and then because then he kicked
Speaker 5: goes back in the chair when they anyway, it's really good.
Speaker 4: When I made Little Women, my producer of Noah's producer
Speaker 4: Amy and Pascal, she loves food in movies like it's
Speaker 4: a thing. We did all this research of the kind
Speaker 4: of food at the time. We had like American cookbooks
Speaker 4: from the nineteenth century. And food was actually a big
Speaker 4: part of the Alcotts life because their father, he was
Speaker 4: one of the first vegans, and he moved them to
Speaker 4: a vegan commune called fruit Lands in Massachusetts. And it
Speaker 4: went fine in the eighteen fifties. And it was fine
Speaker 4: in the summer because things grew, and then they basically
Speaker 4: starved in the winter because there was no I mean,
Speaker 4: it was like root vegetables and what they could store,
Speaker 4: but it was terrible. Food was a big thing, and
Speaker 4: I just this is one of the movie that I
Speaker 4: was pregnant on. The woman who did all of the
Speaker 4: food styling and made all the things. She would she
Speaker 4: would make all this sample of like this would be
Speaker 4: the kind of breads that were around, and this would
Speaker 4: have a nice family, or they'd have like this kind
Speaker 4: of cake. So there's a scene where the Lawrences send
Speaker 4: Christmas to them and the ice cream and the pepper
Speaker 4: and ice cream and anyway. She would make cakes and
Speaker 4: different things for me, ostensibly just to look at to
Speaker 4: say oh, yes or no. And then she realized I
Speaker 4: was just so hungry, and she would start giving me cakes.
Speaker 4: And then I'd have nineteenth century cakes that I would
Speaker 4: eat all weekend. And I was just gradually getting bigger
Speaker 4: and bigger, and I just wore these big coats, and
Speaker 4: no one knew I was pregnant. They thought I just
Speaker 4: liked the cakes.
Speaker 2: Do you think about it when you make a movie
Speaker 2: where you're going to be and what that will be
Speaker 2: like most of your movies have been shot in California.
Speaker 4: Well, no, it was a California, London and Massachusetts. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I like having cast and crew dinners before we start,
Speaker 4: like long dinners, big dinners. I think one of the
Speaker 4: reasons I love making movies is because it's these communities
Speaker 4: that spring up and there's like a common purpose and
Speaker 4: this it's all kind of impossible, and the idea of
Speaker 4: like eating with your community, your makeshift temporary group of
Speaker 4: mary band, is so great, and you're all doing something
Speaker 4: kind of outrageously vulnerable together and it's like, let's all
Speaker 4: have a meal, let's all eat together.
Speaker 3: I when you're filming, do you resent having to stop
Speaker 3: for lunch?
Speaker 6: Yes, he resents, I don't mind because.
Speaker 1: I hear I didn't have to.
Speaker 5: It's hard to come back equally strong.
Speaker 4: The one version that works, I think, and I got
Speaker 4: this from David Lynch, if you meditate during lunch, it
Speaker 4: gives you a second morning. If you just take twenty
Speaker 4: minutes and you meditate during lunch. She says, that's that
Speaker 4: was his.
Speaker 3: Would you tell that to the crew We're not going
Speaker 3: to have lunch.
Speaker 6: Could you imagine?
Speaker 4: No, I'll go meditate. But actually it's funny if you
Speaker 4: say I'm going to go meditate for twenty minutes. Actually
Speaker 4: it kind of I think. I mean David Lynch says this,
Speaker 4: but people kind of say, oh, in a way, they're like, well,
Speaker 4: maybe I should do that, Like just or whether it's
Speaker 4: formal meditation or not, but like almost a chance to
Speaker 4: recharge a little bit and to allow yourself to go
Speaker 4: inside before you have to keep making decisions. But I
Speaker 4: think on film sets, when you're making decisions, when it's
Speaker 4: all going well, it doesn't feel like decisions. It feels
Speaker 4: like it's all kind of coming together, and it's just
Speaker 4: you're not torn between two things. You're like, well, obviously
Speaker 4: it's the red hat. When when it's going badly, you're like,
Speaker 4: I don't know what hat it is. But when it's
Speaker 4: going well, it's like everything kind of just follows.
Speaker 5: There's a great story of Tom's Stoppard and Mike Nichols
Speaker 5: on the set of the I mean on the They
Speaker 5: were doing the play The Real Thing in the eighties,
Speaker 5: and Stoppard visited the rehearsals and while they were talking,
Speaker 5: somebody held up to chairs to Mike, and Mike just offhanded,
Speaker 5: just looked quickly and pointed at one and then just
Speaker 5: kept talking. And then Stoppard said, I see, I could
Speaker 5: never do what you do because I look they look
Speaker 5: almost exactly the same to me, like you knew exactly
Speaker 5: which one you wanted, And Mike said, I had no
Speaker 5: idea which chair. I just have to look decisive, so
Speaker 5: they think I'm in charge. He's like, I can always
Speaker 5: change my mind later, which is also directing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's directing, that's you know, yeah, I think it's
Speaker 7: But I also find on movies sets I revert to
Speaker 7: really juvenile food habits.
Speaker 4: I eat Cheetos in sort of like astonishing quantities Cheetos
Speaker 4: and diet coat. But I think mine connects to childhood,
Speaker 4: and there's some part of in a way dioretic movies
Speaker 4: out of childhood.
Speaker 6: So you want things, I.
Speaker 1: Think it puts it well.
Speaker 5: I do think what I do do is put things
Speaker 5: of mine in the movie. So I have a relationship
Speaker 5: with I mean some movies. It's even the squid in
Speaker 5: the Whale might he you know, Jeff was wearing my
Speaker 5: dad's clothes, but that that was very direct.
Speaker 4: Even on something like Barbie, which is like, well Barbie existed,
Speaker 4: is like even the version of because Barbie Barbie's been
Speaker 4: around since nineteen fifty nine, that logo has gone through
Speaker 4: a few different versions and now Barbie is a corporation
Speaker 4: is back around to the original nineteen fifty nine script version.
Speaker 4: But the Barbie from my childhood, which was the Barbie
Speaker 4: from is like the big bubble letters bubbleloaters, and I
Speaker 4: just I remember there was like a moment when I
Speaker 4: had to decide, what is the barbie I want to do?
Speaker 4: And I'm going to ask mattl if we can use
Speaker 4: this barbie for the movie. I was like, I want
Speaker 4: the one that meant something to me, the one that
Speaker 4: when I went to Toys r Us and looked at
Speaker 4: the barbies it was and it's personal to me. I
Speaker 4: also think it's a good logo, that big bubble letter one.
Speaker 4: But I also was like, it's nothing if not, if
Speaker 4: it's not personal, what does it matter. It could be
Speaker 4: made by anyone. It was like, this was mine. I
Speaker 4: was born in eighty three. These were the barbies I saw.
Speaker 4: This is what I'm interested in.
Speaker 2: Imagine Estate bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the
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Speaker 2: for them with the gift. Visit our website shop the
Speaker 2: Rivercafe dot co UK to place your order. Now, Oh,
Speaker 2: here's our pizza. This is a good tradition.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have lots for everybody. There's lots of pizza here.
Speaker 6: Oh my godness, looks so good. My dad was the
Speaker 6: cook in our family. He's still a good cook.
Speaker 4: He actually comes to one tradition we still have as
Speaker 4: my parents come to New York Everythan's Giving and they
Speaker 4: cook the whole thing, and it's very stressful for them,
Speaker 4: but they do it, and we gather the ingredients and
Speaker 4: he makes this stuffing once a year, which is the
Speaker 4: Julia Child stuffing, and it's really good and it has
Speaker 4: olives in it and it's delicious.
Speaker 2: Did your dad cooked? Is that seene and squid in
Speaker 2: the wild? Then he says, but I cooked and.
Speaker 5: Hamburgers, hamburger one time when you were sick.
Speaker 3: When you were.
Speaker 1: He well, he more post divorce.
Speaker 5: He had a few things that he felt he could handle.
Speaker 5: He made blueberry pancakes with his big He was very
Speaker 5: proud of those and he would do like a real cutlet,
Speaker 5: and he would do the pamburgers.
Speaker 1: Certainly, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Because I had talked to Matthew Parson. I think he
Speaker 2: met him, did you was the ambassador here, and he
Speaker 2: was saying that his father never cooked until they were divorced,
Speaker 2: and his cure that forced you, but also in a
Speaker 2: nice way, he wanted to reassure his son that things
Speaker 2: were still kind of oh they weren't the same because
Speaker 2: he cooked, but that there was a safety, you know,
Speaker 2: and there was love that he was showing him that
Speaker 2: he could cook for them and that was his way
Speaker 2: of taking care of them.
Speaker 5: Or a friend of mine keeps threatening to do a
Speaker 5: Divorced Dad cookbook, which I think is a good idea.
Speaker 4: A meal it was, it's called he called it special meal,
Speaker 4: special meal.
Speaker 1: Special put that marriage story. Actually the special.
Speaker 6: Meal, special meal.
Speaker 4: It's ground it's a potato. It's like a potatoes, ground beef,
Speaker 4: onions and peas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like all ground up together, and it would be
Speaker 1: like Dad, which I recreated.
Speaker 5: Actually that in the marriage story. I recreated that special meal.
Speaker 4: But I remember eating like we we were with this
Speaker 4: friend said, when there was a hurricane in New York
Speaker 4: and we ended up walking to Brooklyn because we didn't
Speaker 4: have any power, and he made special meal for all
Speaker 4: of us and we like loved it.
Speaker 8: We ate so much special meal. It was like but
Speaker 8: it was like, it's it's definitely it would be good.
Speaker 8: It would be a featured item in the cookbook.
Speaker 3: I wanted to. There was a point and my life.
Speaker 2: I kept going to magazines when then magazines they were
Speaker 2: all these brides magazines, wedding magazines, and I thought, everybody
Speaker 2: I know is getting divorced. So friend of mine and
Speaker 2: I would do a a magazine called Divorce. And you
Speaker 2: could have like the car column, you know when you
Speaker 2: had to buy a car for you know, sort of
Speaker 2: that let few children, the dating column, the taking your
Speaker 2: kids out to lunch column, the cooking column.
Speaker 3: You know, it could be a sort of nobody ever know.
Speaker 5: You could do it with like link links now to
Speaker 5: and you know, like and also like things maybe they're
Speaker 5: selling off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also if you knew you were going to
Speaker 2: be on the cover of divorce, you might not be
Speaker 2: so sad about divorced. Oh. He wanted to call it
Speaker 2: goodbye as opposed to Hello, we have We had this
Speaker 2: whole plan, but you know, it was down to one
Speaker 2: of those projects that never never got se But so eating,
Speaker 2: so you're both your father's cook before we have memories.
Speaker 1: My dad was more.
Speaker 3: And your mother.
Speaker 6: My mother was more of like a sush.
Speaker 4: She would prepare, she would chomp and prepare everything, and
Speaker 4: my dad would cook.
Speaker 1: She would clean up while you're still eating.
Speaker 4: Well my mom, yeah, no, my mom is like you
Speaker 4: put a glass down and you're like, oh, it's just
Speaker 4: it's been washed.
Speaker 6: It's like it's done.
Speaker 4: She was like a very like a prep and clean
Speaker 4: up person, and she would do breakfast. But my dad
Speaker 4: was better at like making omelets, like you'd do the
Speaker 4: flip and everything.
Speaker 3: So it's like men and barbecues.
Speaker 2: I always think that that is the kind of thing,
Speaker 2: but I think it's probably changed now. But it's a
Speaker 2: lot of work feeding. How many were you and your family?
Speaker 4: Well, it kind of like expanded and contracted because I
Speaker 4: have a brother and sister who were older, so at
Speaker 4: times it was just me, but then at times it
Speaker 4: was all of us plus their friends, and there was
Speaker 4: always some extra person living with us, Like we had
Speaker 4: a woman who was dancing in the Sacramento Ballet who
Speaker 4: lived with us for a while, another woman who was
Speaker 4: a teacher at the college who lived with us for
Speaker 4: a while. So my memory of childhood was always it
Speaker 4: wasn't just immediate family, It was always like more and
Speaker 4: so there was a lot of.
Speaker 6: Cooking for volume.
Speaker 4: My mom always had me eat eggs. She was concerned
Speaker 4: that no one was getting enough protein.
Speaker 6: And all I wanted.
Speaker 4: For breakfast when I was growing up was dry cereal
Speaker 4: with milk, and I wasn't allowed to have it.
Speaker 3: What about moosley?
Speaker 6: Were you allowed at if I put it on yogurt
Speaker 6: with fruit?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: I see the protein thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but she was like, you have protein, so and
Speaker 4: I just all I wanted was like a bowl of
Speaker 4: plain cheerios with milk.
Speaker 6: And then when I finally got to.
Speaker 4: College, that's all I ate for a solid year was
Speaker 4: just plain cheerios with milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Speaker 6: And I got very ill, like it was bad for me.
Speaker 2: So what was it like in your house? Did your
Speaker 2: mother shop and cook and she all sat down? How
Speaker 2: many of you were there in your family?
Speaker 3: Brother?
Speaker 5: Well? Yeah, my brother was five and a half years
Speaker 5: younger than me, but we would we would generally all
Speaker 5: sit for dinner the day, talk about the day, and.
Speaker 3: Did your mom work? Did she have a career?
Speaker 5: Well, she was, she taught and then she was a writer,
Speaker 5: but she was not she didn't have a mostly did
Speaker 5: not have a like a job that.
Speaker 3: Took Yeah, so she could kind of plan the dinner.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: She's still a good cook.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cook right.
Speaker 5: And I was always a little bit self conscious about
Speaker 5: her cooking because I had friends who I'd go over
Speaker 5: there and it was like you'd eat very basic things
Speaker 5: that I craved because we didn't we didn't do.
Speaker 3: That at home.
Speaker 5: But like macaronians, Yeah, like macaroni and cheese, and like
Speaker 5: a sandwich that had like a double decker or something,
Speaker 5: you know, like there'd be those those things that you'd
Speaker 5: see pictures and magazines.
Speaker 1: I would I would always would be was like a
Speaker 1: whole wheat.
Speaker 5: And yeah and some kind of like something. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: So I would go to other places to like people are.
Speaker 2: Always usually always better enough. Once called me up, he
Speaker 2: went to the American school. I never keep a lot
Speaker 2: in my fridge. I don't know if you had fridges
Speaker 2: for you, but I've never had any. Once called me
Speaker 2: up and he said, can you just come to my
Speaker 2: friend's house around the corner and why and he said, well,
Speaker 2: they were American, you know, they'd moved here from whatever,
Speaker 2: and that is I just like to show you what
Speaker 2: a good mother's fridge looks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you have a fridge packed with food?
Speaker 6: We didn't have. We had a lot of Oh god,
Speaker 6: I just keep eating pizza.
Speaker 4: But okay, I knew I was going to well also
Speaker 4: know and I would say, we have no ability.
Speaker 6: We're eaters more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we eat.
Speaker 1: Voracious, voracious.
Speaker 3: Did you have grandmothers in your lives?
Speaker 4: My grandparents both were in southern California during the Depression
Speaker 4: and grew up really poor, and that kind of the
Speaker 4: cuisine of that was very much in what they were.
Speaker 4: But my grandfather there were like walnut farms, almond farms,
Speaker 4: and he'd come and he'd just bring always these big
Speaker 4: bags of just nutsy you'd have to crack open, and
Speaker 4: you'd sit with him and you would just play cards.
Speaker 4: This is what I think when he was divorced, and
Speaker 4: you just sit with Grandpa Ralph play cards and crack
Speaker 4: nuts for hours. And he was great. And the agricultural
Speaker 4: valley was such a thing. Farmers just sold stuff on Sundays.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't like a fancy farmers market. It was
Speaker 4: just trucks that came in and they were selling stuff
Speaker 4: because everything grew.
Speaker 3: Did you go to restaurants.
Speaker 1: Before we do restaurants?
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, well, I just was thinking that
Speaker 5: my friend I got from my grandfather, my mom's dad,
Speaker 5: who would have a big salad for dinner the painter.
Speaker 1: No, this is my mom's dad.
Speaker 4: Who volunteered for World War he.
Speaker 5: Can listed in World War two and he was decorated.
Speaker 5: He but I my mom found it, so I do
Speaker 5: this now I do.
Speaker 4: He has a big salad.
Speaker 5: When I'm not eating everything on the menu here I
Speaker 5: come at home, I have I have a big salad.
Speaker 4: And my mom found a telegram from his grand from
Speaker 4: my grandfather coming back from the war, and it says,
Speaker 4: you know, there's one telegram which is sort of like.
Speaker 5: Leaving this I should be back sometime around late July.
Speaker 5: And then the next telegram is like he'd arrived in
Speaker 5: America but it wasn't there yet.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'll be there Thursday. Can you make me
Speaker 1: a big salad? By the word yeah, yeah, yeah. But
Speaker 1: I had sort of always liked that he did that.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe When You Said Lunch is now running
Speaker 2: from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www. River
Speaker 2: Cafe dot co dot uk or give us a call.
Speaker 2: And when you two met, did you fall in love
Speaker 2: knowing that you both love food? Would have been impossible
Speaker 2: if you had somebody to you liked but they didn't
Speaker 2: care about food.
Speaker 1: That would you get together to.
Speaker 3: Care about food? Yeah?
Speaker 5: You get together to have food and talk about music
Speaker 5: and movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I like there's like a point in most when I
Speaker 5: see most plays where I'm sort of, even if I'm
Speaker 5: really loving the play, where I will sort of enjoy
Speaker 5: just taking a moment to think about what I'm going
Speaker 5: to get it.
Speaker 1: Or so well, there was a lot of.
Speaker 3: The whole of the last act.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly, This sort of like do I is
Speaker 5: it late for a burger?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: No, but it's it's even part of the play for me.
Speaker 4: You told me because I read it, because you loved
Speaker 4: that Andrea.
Speaker 6: Augusty book open.
Speaker 1: There's a thing, There's there's.
Speaker 4: And I read it and then you were like, I
Speaker 4: relate to something in this.
Speaker 5: But did he say, well, he's like there's a point
Speaker 5: in the book he's serving. He's serving in the middle
Speaker 5: of a serving, the middle of a set at the
Speaker 5: US Open, and he's just thinking about what he's going
Speaker 5: to have for dinner afterward at this restaurant. And they
Speaker 5: are going to this place in the village, and you know,
Speaker 5: and an Italian restaurant in the village. And I often
Speaker 5: do that. I mean I do that when I'm directing
Speaker 5: a movie. Sometimes I'm thinking, like, not not at the
Speaker 5: expense of what I'm doing, but I will, I will,
Speaker 5: I'll stay to get the scene. But if I can
Speaker 5: get the scene and also have a great dinner, that
Speaker 5: would be yeah, amazing that there's sometimes just sort of thinking, like,
Speaker 5: you know, what we want tonight.
Speaker 2: A lot of people see success, their own success and
Speaker 2: being able to order what you want. Did you feel
Speaker 2: that financially.
Speaker 9: I'm absolutely able to not to, like, I mean, having
Speaker 9: spent my entire childhood like watching my father burrowed brow
Speaker 9: looking at the check for about five minutes, you know, after.
Speaker 5: Every and to not look at it and worry about
Speaker 5: you know, who ordered the pecan.
Speaker 3: Are allowed to have two courses?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, can we have two courses? I think
Speaker 1: I know you don't need that.
Speaker 5: That's enough. It's a very they're very big, so we'll
Speaker 5: just have one for the like that kind of ordering.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've rebelled against.
Speaker 4: I felt that in the grocery store because when I
Speaker 4: was in college and then in my twenties, food is expensive,
Speaker 4: and good food is expensive. And when you bought like
Speaker 4: nice vegetables or nice good fruit, good even like the
Speaker 4: more expense slightly more expensive beans, and not be like, well,
Speaker 4: these beans are on sale when wassa I think, honestly,
Speaker 4: for me, not until I was like twenty eight, Like,
Speaker 4: when you stop measuring out how many dollars a day
Speaker 4: do you need to eat to keep going?
Speaker 6: That's a big thing.
Speaker 3: What about the movie that we just made in Italy?
Speaker 1: In Italy?
Speaker 2: Tell us about filming in Italy because you were in Tuscany.
Speaker 3: Weren't you right?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And how did that enter into the film?
Speaker 5: It did? I'm trying to think about how food entered
Speaker 5: into it, because it's this is the movie I just
Speaker 5: made with Ruthie Rogers and George Clooney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and lord during several people, several wonderful.
Speaker 3: Don't really care about food, don't they?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 1: And it was sort of reverse engineered in some way.
Speaker 5: Its like I want to film in Italy to have
Speaker 5: to have something happen, And it definitely did. I mean
Speaker 5: certainly for the story. It adds this whole other element,
Speaker 5: but there was I loved it.
Speaker 2: So food is community if you're sharing, food is love,
Speaker 2: Food is family and remembering and feeling that you're liberated
Speaker 2: from growing up and you can make your own decisions.
Speaker 2: Also comfort, Is there a food that you would go
Speaker 2: to for comfort?
Speaker 5: Well, I would say my funny answer, but my salad
Speaker 5: is like a comfort dinner for me, Like I know,
Speaker 5: because I don't have to make a decision.
Speaker 1: I know what it is, and.
Speaker 6: That is a comfort for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like I look forward to it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's so Noah.
Speaker 10: The fact that your comfort is salad everything, it's like
Speaker 10: you're the most he really is the most effortlessly disciplined
Speaker 10: person I know.
Speaker 4: And it's just so annoying not.
Speaker 3: To take the said a rigor we could call it.
Speaker 3: I like the word vigorous.
Speaker 4: I know what is yours a macaroni and she's cast role.
Speaker 4: It's also my friend Sarah because she she makes a
Speaker 4: great macaroni, and she's cast role and she makes it
Speaker 4: just perfect. And my birthday is in August, and she
Speaker 4: has we used to in our early twenties. We all
Speaker 4: together in this tiny apartment that had no air conditioning,
Speaker 4: and she made me a macaroni and she's castrole for
Speaker 4: my birthday in August in the heat, and I was like,
Speaker 4: she loves me. She loves me because who does that
Speaker 4: makes a roue and.
Speaker 6: Does all this stuff and gets the crust just right.
Speaker 4: And then in the pandemic, she made one for my
Speaker 4: birthday and got it to me, Like I feel like
Speaker 4: that if it's the food itself is comforting, and also
Speaker 4: like the fact that she made it.
Speaker 6: It's like it I think that's my food.
Speaker 1: I would also say the steak here I look forward to.
Speaker 3: Let's go have something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, great, yay.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair