Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: Everyone, Welcome to the River Cafe. I can't think of
Speaker 3: a nicer place to be on the sunny spring morning
Speaker 3: than here. We have a live audience for this very
Speaker 3: special episode that features Sarah Jessica Parker, hosted by Pause
Speaker 3: Lucy Rogers. Enjoy the interview and we'll be taking questions later.
Speaker 1: The first time that Sarah Jessica Parker and I spoke,
Speaker 1: the tables returned. She was on the phone in the
Speaker 1: River Cafe kitchen and I was on a beach in Mexico.
Speaker 1: It was really hard to hear her with the noise
Speaker 1: of pots and pants, the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 1: but her dazzling warmth travel the six thousand miles. If
Speaker 1: the phone connection was poor, the friendship connection instant. Last Sunday,
Speaker 1: she was in the River Cafe with her family and
Speaker 1: I was there with mine. They were sitting on Table one,
Speaker 1: just a few feet from the pink wood oven, close
Speaker 1: to the drama of the kitchen, and there she was
Speaker 1: dazzling and warm. How does all this work, Ruthie, How
Speaker 1: do you make sure that Matthew's ravioli comes out at
Speaker 1: the same time as my asparagus.
Speaker 4: Banya Kouten.
Speaker 1: This kitchen, she said, feels like the inside of a
Speaker 1: pinball machine, with energy bouncing between the different stations. How
Speaker 1: do you all have the energy to do both lunch
Speaker 1: and dinner? Now? I suppose if I went backstage to
Speaker 1: Plaza Suite, the play that Sarah is doing here with
Speaker 1: her husband, Matthew Broderick, I would have similar questions. How
Speaker 1: does this work, Sarah? What do you do if someone
Speaker 1: forgets their lines? And how do you all have the
Speaker 1: energy to do a matinee and an evening performance?
Speaker 4: Today?
Speaker 1: We're here, not miles apart, inches apart, two friends together,
Speaker 1: surrounded by all of you great people.
Speaker 4: What a connection?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 4: So here we are. Did you ever work in a restaurant?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: But I say this knowing how hard it is. I
Speaker 5: think I would really love to be a server.
Speaker 2: Like I really think that at this summer she is,
Speaker 2: and you're I.
Speaker 5: Was, we were really admiring your service the day because
Speaker 5: I said to the girls, I was like, I'm not
Speaker 5: sure that I've seen servers move this fast a long time.
Speaker 5: Because Sunday is a very busy day for you guys, right,
Speaker 5: like a specially.
Speaker 4: That day was a really busy day.
Speaker 5: And I was saying to somebody and I said, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't get to come to the River Cafe very often.
Speaker 5: I don't live in London, and to myself, to Matthew,
Speaker 5: it's like a very it's a it's like a special thing.
Speaker 5: It's like something you earn or maybe you work toward
Speaker 5: or you pine about, and then you visit it and
Speaker 5: you're not sure if you made it all up, like
Speaker 5: is it possible that you joined a sort of cult,
Speaker 5: like a kind of thinking about it?
Speaker 2: Can it be?
Speaker 5: And then you come here? My hand got it is?
Speaker 5: And the kitchen really is. It's extraordinary to watch. It
Speaker 5: is like a pinball machine, but it's like there's such
Speaker 5: precision about it.
Speaker 2: And I love watching the.
Speaker 5: Chefs talk to each other quickly and passing or actually
Speaker 5: come together to speak.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's amazing and it's it's glorious. We were thrilled to
Speaker 5: be here, really well.
Speaker 4: We're thrilled to have you and I.
Speaker 1: When we first did the completely open kitchen, you will
Speaker 1: remember after the fire, Richard Air, who's a director of
Speaker 1: theater came in and I said, Richard, isn't it just
Speaker 1: like theater watching everyone around?
Speaker 4: And he said, actually, with me, it isn't.
Speaker 1: It's like ballet m and he said because watching people everybody.
Speaker 4: You can't shout in an open kitchen.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes raise your voice, but basically you're moving
Speaker 1: around to speak to people about if you need to.
Speaker 1: Usually there's a kind of communication.
Speaker 5: And this time I had the ravioli with the spinach
Speaker 5: and the ricotta and those tiny gorgeous porcini mushrooms that
Speaker 5: are like a surprise.
Speaker 2: They don't talk about that as much.
Speaker 5: And we ordered two and I was like, my daughter said,
Speaker 5: do you think we can order another one?
Speaker 2: James Welk said, can we order another one? Which just
Speaker 2: seems so like.
Speaker 5: Gluttonous and decadent and greedy. And then I was like,
Speaker 5: you know what, yes, And if anybody says anything, I'll
Speaker 5: just say we'll take it like I'm sorry that we're
Speaker 5: being so like real like animals about this, but it's
Speaker 5: a kind of it's good to think of it as
Speaker 5: this kind of once in a lifetime.
Speaker 2: It's just incredible.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think that you'll probably everyone
Speaker 1: in this room would think about was that in Sex
Speaker 1: and the City and the way you talk about food
Speaker 1: the joy So many conversations were over food, and it
Speaker 1: was the pleasure of food. It was enjoying food as
Speaker 1: a way of communicating and being together, which we you know,
Speaker 1: we all feel here that we a restaurant is a
Speaker 1: place where you share, you know, food you're sitting down
Speaker 1: at the table or at home with your children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so how is that working in Sex and the
Speaker 1: City and doing was that from you?
Speaker 2: I always love food scenes.
Speaker 5: I think it initially it was initially in place I
Speaker 5: think probably from either Candice's original source material or Darren
Speaker 5: Starr wrote that first coffee shop scene, which I think
Speaker 5: was just a great meeting place to sort of talk
Speaker 5: about the themes of the of each episode, like get
Speaker 5: the headline out, and then each person, those kind of
Speaker 5: archetypal characters would share points of view, so we knew
Speaker 5: where where everybody stood, and it allowed for controversial conversation
Speaker 5: or titillating conversation. But I will say this that Cynthia Nixon,
Speaker 5: who is a dear friend of mine and we've been
Speaker 5: working together since we were little girls. We've known each other,
Speaker 5: so we were eleven or ten. She was a child
Speaker 5: actor also and we would always audition together. She often
Speaker 5: got the part. But we played siblings when I was
Speaker 5: very young. We played sisters on records. They used to
Speaker 5: do records of stories, and we played Laura and Mary Ingalls,
Speaker 5: and then we played siblings of We played children of
Speaker 5: Vanessa Redgrave in a movie.
Speaker 2: But Cynthia and I in those coffee shop scenes, we
Speaker 2: always eat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we always eat, and we always need to like
Speaker 5: reprop our plate, and then when we finally wrap, they'll
Speaker 5: always they always said to Cynthia, me and Cynthia, do
Speaker 5: you guys want to take.
Speaker 2: It to go again today? Yes, we do.
Speaker 5: So we really like those scenes, and we very much
Speaker 5: go back and forth about what you could they'll send
Speaker 5: the menu in advance now now that we all have
Speaker 5: the phones and things, and because they want you to
Speaker 5: order an advance for props to have everything ready and
Speaker 5: multiplee you know, multiples of it.
Speaker 2: So we'll go back and forth. Would you order are
Speaker 2: you going to order? The all order that? So you
Speaker 2: ordered that and we can share. So the food is
Speaker 2: the lines are blurred.
Speaker 4: The joy of food.
Speaker 1: Yes, eating, Yes, was something that we are all thinking about.
Speaker 1: How we combine, you know, food, and I think it's
Speaker 1: it's changed. You find that your daughters are different now
Speaker 1: in terms of their attitude.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I I never was very disciplined about it.
Speaker 2: I just wasn't.
Speaker 5: I think I'm not really good at like denying myself something.
Speaker 5: And I think also I was a dancer for so
Speaker 5: long and running around, so it was I was able
Speaker 5: to be that way. It's certainly not the same now.
Speaker 5: But I also just I had girls. I just was
Speaker 5: so I didn't want them to have a relationship with
Speaker 5: food that was antagonistic or they felt like this was
Speaker 5: their enemy and that they were going to have to
Speaker 5: sort of like stake out a position with food.
Speaker 2: So when I was growing.
Speaker 5: Up, we weren't allowed sugar in the house, and we
Speaker 5: were allowed to cookies, and we weren't allowed the chocolate.
Speaker 5: And of course all we did the minute we moved
Speaker 5: out was buy Entimate's cakes and cookies, and you know,
Speaker 5: and I didn't want that. So in our house, we
Speaker 5: have cookies, we have cake, we have everything. And I
Speaker 5: think as a result, you kind of have a healthier
Speaker 5: relationship and my daughters will have the figures they have
Speaker 5: and hopefully they'll be healthy in their athletes and they
Speaker 5: enjoy food, and they have different palettes, and you can't
Speaker 5: make someone like something they don't like or want.
Speaker 2: And I hope that they.
Speaker 5: I hope that they can maintain their affection for the
Speaker 5: experience and their delight in taste and find their own
Speaker 5: ways to have that be healthy for them.
Speaker 4: And your son. For food, it was fantastic to beat.
Speaker 1: All three of them are just you know, involved in
Speaker 1: the food and talking about the food and asking questions
Speaker 1: about food.
Speaker 2: On Sunday, Matthew cooks.
Speaker 5: We both cook every single day, every day, every single day.
Speaker 2: Every day. We probably eat dinner as a family every night.
Speaker 5: If I'm shooting or he's doing to play, obviously that
Speaker 5: shifts around.
Speaker 2: We always have dinner Sunday night.
Speaker 5: But one of us, if we're home, cooks every single day,
Speaker 5: and we love to cook.
Speaker 2: And it's boring to keep saying to each other what are.
Speaker 5: We gonna eat? What are we gonna eat? Are you
Speaker 5: going to go to the grocery store? Am I going
Speaker 5: to go to the market. But it's kind of just.
Speaker 2: What we do.
Speaker 5: Yesterday, I what did you last night? Last night, we
Speaker 5: went to a restaurant in Chinatown.
Speaker 2: Really quickly after the show.
Speaker 5: But I had made during the day, I made lamb
Speaker 5: stew and Matthew made a white bean soup, so we
Speaker 5: knew we have that. I'd actually was bringing some to
Speaker 5: my son, but I like to have it in the
Speaker 5: fridge for matinee days. And but we cook every night
Speaker 5: because I don't know why we never we never understood order.
Speaker 5: We didn't get ordering in in time, and now we're
Speaker 5: too old to under We.
Speaker 2: Don't have I don't know how to use a a thing.
Speaker 5: And every now and then we're really beat more say
Speaker 5: should we you know?
Speaker 2: But I'll still call.
Speaker 5: A restaurant order, we pick it up or they deliver it.
Speaker 5: But but we love cooking.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's part of the drama. Do you
Speaker 1: think it's part of theater, part of being an actor
Speaker 1: that it's separate from what you do?
Speaker 4: Is it a time?
Speaker 1: I know that when I was working, I would always
Speaker 1: come home and everybody says, sit down and relax. And
Speaker 1: I found the most kind of relaxing thing to do
Speaker 1: is to cook, to.
Speaker 2: Be in the kitchen. It is.
Speaker 5: It's we always wonder about the post meal part, like
Speaker 5: we're always like, wow, now we have to do all this,
Speaker 5: you know, all the cleaning and stuff, so that that
Speaker 5: kind of punctures some of the kind of healium of it.
Speaker 5: But I don't know if it's so much relaxing as it.
Speaker 5: It's just kind of what we do. It's like what's expected,
Speaker 5: what else? What else is the family going to do
Speaker 5: if we don't get in the kitchen. And in New York,
Speaker 5: like here in London, you can run out at the
Speaker 5: last minute.
Speaker 2: You can make a meal quickly.
Speaker 5: It's not as like it doesn't seem as such a
Speaker 5: big effort in a way, and often things just taste
Speaker 5: better than if you're ordering it. In our opinion, we
Speaker 5: I mean not that we don't think of ourselves highly
Speaker 5: as like chefs or anything like that, But I don't know.
Speaker 5: Our children always, I will say, they always say like, wow,
Speaker 5: we're really lucky. We get to eat have dinner every night.
Speaker 1: When you're in a play, do you eat before you
Speaker 1: before the performance?
Speaker 4: Are after?
Speaker 2: I enchurge?
Speaker 4: So is it? Did you go on stage hungry?
Speaker 2: I mean a little bit.
Speaker 5: I'll have yogurt, bananas. There's these eggs here that I'm
Speaker 5: in love with that I go mad for the ones
Speaker 5: I want to put my suitcase, but I know I'm
Speaker 5: not allowed.
Speaker 2: They're called burfer.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: They have those orange yolks that are just oh my god,
Speaker 5: oh my god.
Speaker 2: So we go through a lot of those. I eat
Speaker 2: those bananas.
Speaker 5: I'll have some lamp stew or barley and some meat.
Speaker 2: I love your rashers. Here, your bacon, streaky bacon and kofta.
Speaker 5: From our local butcher is really nice.
Speaker 1: I think it's time for our first question from our audience,
Speaker 1: which said is going to read.
Speaker 3: I used to work at the River Cafe and every
Speaker 3: night I felt like customers had a different collective character.
Speaker 3: Saturday night was different from Tuesday night, and it was
Speaker 3: not the same every Saturday night, but it would become
Speaker 3: a kind of dominant vibe. And then I started working
Speaker 3: in theater and in my mind it was exactly the same.
Speaker 3: And I wondered what your experience of London audiences has
Speaker 3: been and are the different to American audiences.
Speaker 5: Well, you've described it so beautifully, whether it's in America,
Speaker 5: in New York City or here. This sort of I
Speaker 5: always say, like what time did they all get together
Speaker 5: and decide who they were going to be tonight? Like
Speaker 5: it's a conspiracy that they work so beautifully together. And
Speaker 5: it is a range and a Saturday night can be
Speaker 5: boisterous and civilized or boisterous and out of control and
Speaker 5: sort of behaving I'm going to say poorly in quotes,
Speaker 5: but not really but just more talkative.
Speaker 4: And but.
Speaker 2: Generally speaking, the audiences here have been really, really lovely
Speaker 2: and very hospitable.
Speaker 5: And we weren't sure because this is a very American
Speaker 5: play by a real American playwright writing about kind of
Speaker 5: cultural familiarity to Americans, especially New Yorkers, but they've been
Speaker 5: absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 2: I think they've They've proven.
Speaker 5: To be really great listeners, like sincerely great listeners, but
Speaker 5: they do seem to have psychically agreed upon something and
Speaker 5: I don't understand it, Like these people probably couldn't agree
Speaker 5: about anything else. If you remove them from the theater,
Speaker 5: like as a whole, maybe they could.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: But it is unique, and that is in a restaurant.
Speaker 1: Don't you think that we can say, Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: sort of put the same food at the same time,
Speaker 1: the same with the same team. Yeah, you can go
Speaker 1: home at ten o'clock and think I'm a failure, you know,
Speaker 1: because it did you really think this was one of.
Speaker 4: The greatest nights in my life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is so hard to it is, and it's
Speaker 5: I think the human part of all of this is
Speaker 5: the thing that's just hard to pin down. Like you
Speaker 5: can't do the same show. You have a good show
Speaker 5: and you're trying to sort of always mimic that, or
Speaker 5: in the kitchen you'll have a great and you're always
Speaker 5: trying to but it is human, So it's never going
Speaker 5: to be the same.
Speaker 2: It's never going to last as long.
Speaker 5: The pause isn't going to get a laugh or maybe
Speaker 5: it will or And I think that's what makes it
Speaker 5: so exciting for a diner or hopefully for an audience.
Speaker 2: Is they are very much.
Speaker 5: A part of it. They are a significant fifty percent
Speaker 5: of the relationship. Is the diner to your chefs and
Speaker 5: your servers and you and us with our audience, our playwright,
Speaker 5: our words, our director, and this audience like they have
Speaker 5: to be our partner for the night, and they show
Speaker 5: that in various ways.
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, Linen, Napkins,
Speaker 1: kitchen ware, Toad bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
Speaker 1: chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
Speaker 1: to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Speaker 1: Therivercafe dot co dot uk. So, Sarah, you've just made
Speaker 1: punterourel lmada with Sean.
Speaker 5: There is something to me about Puntaurel salad that it
Speaker 5: really it blows my mind. And it's very hard to
Speaker 5: get in New York. For anybody who lives in New York.
Speaker 5: Puntrell is like contraband, like apparently it's not allowed or
Speaker 5: and when it is, there's like you have like four
Speaker 5: days to enjoy it. And to have it here sort
Speaker 5: of like at your whim to meet is such decadence.
Speaker 2: This is the print role.
Speaker 5: But I've never seen it in its natural state to
Speaker 5: be smaller.
Speaker 6: Because we went you in last week were were they
Speaker 6: were huge.
Speaker 2: Massive heads of it.
Speaker 4: It's actually checorea, you know what.
Speaker 6: It's like a checorea plant, and so you can either
Speaker 6: use the outside leaves and just chopp them up and
Speaker 6: boil them as a vegetable and then this is like
Speaker 6: the bulb in the middle.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it's interesting. Wow, the whole plant, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: inside it is.
Speaker 6: These things are live fingers, so what you generally do,
Speaker 6: it's just well you can.
Speaker 4: Cut them off or pull them off.
Speaker 2: Do you have to soak them or anything?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's all in the soaking, right. This goes
Speaker 6: in ice water, and it goes in ice water for
Speaker 6: about an hour and then it turns into bear.
Speaker 4: With me, call that. No you're okay, Oh you're here.
Speaker 4: It's kind of will crunch you like this and.
Speaker 2: See I see you cut it.
Speaker 4: Just put it in nice water.
Speaker 2: So the dressing, I'll make the dressing for one.
Speaker 5: I'll put a tiny bit whatever you want, don't don't,
Speaker 5: don't change anything on my account.
Speaker 2: What is that beautiful chili? Chili?
Speaker 4: Gorgeous fine chili, like a tiny bit.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 4: These anchovies are really.
Speaker 2: Chovies are so beautiful.
Speaker 4: A bit more peppering.
Speaker 5: I'll just touched my.
Speaker 6: Hands probably about that much olive.
Speaker 4: This is actually making it's going to be super well dressed.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is just your dressing.
Speaker 2: Oh so gorgeous.
Speaker 4: And it is literally simple.
Speaker 2: Now how dry? Did I get them dry enough? In
Speaker 2: your estimation?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 6: But I mean, heavens you like as much vinegar as
Speaker 6: you like.
Speaker 7: Really, yeah, So Sarah read the recipe and I just
Speaker 7: tell you that it's absolutely divine.
Speaker 5: And it was on Sunday. Two heads of puntarell. Am
Speaker 5: I saying it correctly? Puntarell, five salted anchovies cleaned, and
Speaker 5: your wonderful chef used Spanish anchovies, two tablespoons of red
Speaker 5: wine vinegar. One garlic clove chopped. And then she did
Speaker 5: this gorgeous thing with her knife where she sort of
Speaker 5: Smearede's right, Sean, I'm sorry, Sean. She sort of took
Speaker 5: her knife and mashed it and made it a wonderful
Speaker 5: kind of misery. One garlic chrove chopped as I've had,
Speaker 5: two dried chilis, one teaspoon of black pepper, four tablespoons
Speaker 5: of extra virgin olive oil. And then to prepare the puntarell,
Speaker 5: fill a bowl with ice cold water, adding a few
Speaker 5: ice cubes. Pull the hollow buds from the puntarel heads.
Speaker 5: I guess once they're out of that and nice and
Speaker 5: clean and crisp, slice the buds very thinly lengthwise and
Speaker 5: place in the water to crisp until they curl up.
Speaker 2: This will take about an hour.
Speaker 5: Add the garlic to the anchovies with the crumbled chilis
Speaker 5: and the pepper at the olive oil. Spin dry the
Speaker 5: punterrell and place in a bowl and mix with the
Speaker 5: anchovy sauce.
Speaker 2: Per perfection, per perfection.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about when you first had pontourel that purel
Speaker 1: was Cincinnati.
Speaker 5: In Cincinnati and no, well, I moved to New York
Speaker 5: when I was a very little girl. But we can
Speaker 5: talk about the vegetables that were available in Cincinnati. But
Speaker 5: the first time we had it, there was a wonderful
Speaker 5: little restaurant that didn't last very long, and it was
Speaker 5: on McDougall, and I can't remember the cross Street, right
Speaker 5: off of sixth Avenue, and it was on the menu,
Speaker 5: and I just Matthew and I actually just read the
Speaker 5: ingredients or the description and we thought, well, of.
Speaker 2: Course we'll try it.
Speaker 5: And it was absolutely beautiful, and so then we sort
Speaker 5: of like we're chasing it.
Speaker 2: I guess a wee bit like truffles, like waiting for
Speaker 2: that moment you know, yeah, that is Italian food.
Speaker 4: You have it, then you say goodbye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what makes it so especial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But going back to Cincinnati, tell us about eight children.
Speaker 5: I'm one of eight, yes, and in Cincinnati at that
Speaker 5: point we had only six. My mother was pregnant with
Speaker 5: the baby girl when we moved to New York City.
Speaker 5: We moved to New York City in nineteen on January
Speaker 5: first of nineteen seventy seven, so I've lived there most
Speaker 5: of my life. My real father is from Brooklyn, born
Speaker 5: and raised, so we spent some time before that in
Speaker 5: Brooklyn visiting and visiting my grandparents on my father's side.
Speaker 5: But food was for a lot of my siblings. We
Speaker 5: think and talk and share feelings, thoughts, experiences with food.
Speaker 5: I would say in some way, it dominates our relationship,
Speaker 5: like it's the it's the thing that we I would say,
Speaker 5: maybe with books as well, but food probably even more so.
Speaker 5: And we all have a different relationship with it. Some
Speaker 5: of us cook, some of us don't. Some of us
Speaker 5: have money to explore restaurants that would be more rarefied,
Speaker 5: and some don't.
Speaker 2: But food is.
Speaker 5: And always has been in my memory, this destination and
Speaker 5: I always want to.
Speaker 2: Have something I've never had.
Speaker 1: Always, But did your mother did she cook? What were
Speaker 1: meal times like?
Speaker 2: And she cooked? We had dinner every single night, we
Speaker 2: all seven eventually all eight.
Speaker 5: My mother would probably say that she really didn't care.
Speaker 5: She didn't enjoy cooking. She didn't come from a family
Speaker 5: that enjoyed food, and I think with eight kids, yeah,
Speaker 5: it was it was work versus joy. But simultaneously she
Speaker 5: loved food. And she, as a young woman, went off
Speaker 5: to New York City as an employee of Procter and Gamble,
Speaker 5: which is a big company in Cincinnati, Ohio. You know,
Speaker 5: like a lot of girls straight out of college, got
Speaker 5: a job at Procter and Gamble and was sent to
Speaker 5: New York to be a salesperson. And her first stop
Speaker 5: was always Chinatown, Always Chinatown.
Speaker 2: She loved Chinatown. She loved Chinese food, She loved anything
Speaker 2: that was different.
Speaker 5: And there was a place in the sixties, this would
Speaker 5: be in the fifth fifties, yeah, late fifties, mid to
Speaker 5: late fifties, and there was a place called Dave's Lunchonette
Speaker 5: that was a very famous place you just stopped by
Speaker 5: and had an egg cream after having Chinese food. And
Speaker 5: so she, of course she grew up reading The New Yorker.
Speaker 5: The librarians from the time she was a little girl
Speaker 5: would save her the weekly New Yorker. So she would
Speaker 5: read about food, and she would read about Chinatown, and
Speaker 5: she would read about places in the outer boroughs. And
Speaker 5: so for her, food was this thing that was part
Speaker 5: of another life that she hoped to give all of us.
Speaker 5: And so even though she didn't like cooking, and she cooked,
Speaker 5: you know, three meals a day, we all helped with breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 5: and breakfast and dinner lunch in the summers.
Speaker 4: Did your mother work?
Speaker 1: Did she manage to feed seven and eight children every
Speaker 1: day and work or did?
Speaker 4: She was a school.
Speaker 5: Teacher up until a few months after I was born,
Speaker 5: and then I think that was her last year.
Speaker 2: She taught second grade.
Speaker 5: At the time, we lived in a very little city
Speaker 5: in southeastern Ohio.
Speaker 2: This was before Cincinnati.
Speaker 5: It was in the foothills of Appalachia actually, And so
Speaker 5: she taught second grade, but her students could be anywhere
Speaker 5: from seven to fourteen years old, depending upon how much
Speaker 5: time they've been afforded to be in school. And so
Speaker 5: she stopped teaching for many many years, and just not
Speaker 5: just she was a which she consumed all our time.
Speaker 5: And then she started her own preschool. For many many years,
Speaker 5: she had her own school in New Jersey. It was
Speaker 5: a sort of Montessori. She's a progressive educator and she
Speaker 5: retired from that about ten years ago, and she just
Speaker 5: came to London to visit. My father passed away a
Speaker 5: year ago, so she's newly.
Speaker 4: Was there anybody helping her? Did your father ever go
Speaker 4: and your stepfather ever go in the kitchen? And did
Speaker 4: everybody help?
Speaker 2: Everybody?
Speaker 1: It was our job school, do your homework and then
Speaker 1: help get the dinner.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, we came home from school, we did some
Speaker 5: homework sort of, and then we wed ballet classes and
Speaker 5: so we'd come home from ballet then we'd all jump
Speaker 5: in and help in the kitchen. We all had jobs
Speaker 5: before and after dinner that wasn't necessarily connected to cooking.
Speaker 5: It was cleaning, putting things away, sweeping, loading the dishwa
Speaker 5: unloading the dishwasher, helping with laundry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but even though.
Speaker 5: It was labor, we all came out of that house
Speaker 5: for the most part, really loving food and willing to
Speaker 5: try anything. And if I travel sometimes I say I'm
Speaker 5: only going to try, like I'll take a job. I think, well,
Speaker 5: I'm really taking this just so I can go eat this.
Speaker 5: And you know, if you are on a holiday and
Speaker 5: you go trying to find restaurants, and I do endless months.
Speaker 2: Of research, like where where, where, where where?
Speaker 5: And then you get to your destination and you'll try
Speaker 5: to ask people and they'll send you the place that
Speaker 5: everybody else in the hotel is going, or everybody else,
Speaker 5: and I'll say, no, no, no, no, please, where do you eat,
Speaker 5: mister concierge, Miss concierge, where do you eat?
Speaker 2: Where do you eat?
Speaker 5: And they won't tell me because they think we want
Speaker 5: this stacked food fancy, you know, And so I'll just
Speaker 5: follow the employees home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I literally follow them home.
Speaker 5: And then I see where they live and their communities
Speaker 5: and their restaurants, and that's where I go, and that's
Speaker 5: where I shop hardware stores.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe you could just stay with the employees.
Speaker 5: But that's where so many tobs and just yeah, because
Speaker 5: you know, what, does that make sense?
Speaker 1: If used to always go to bookstores. You get into
Speaker 1: Verona or it's a little town in the south of
Speaker 1: Spain or Italy, and he'd always, for some reason, he
Speaker 1: would always think that people who worked in bookstores would
Speaker 1: know would know where to eat, right and probably where
Speaker 1: they like to do those places.
Speaker 5: That means it's I think finding that local experience, it
Speaker 5: completes the experience in a way that sometimes you can't
Speaker 5: have if you don't know. You know, like when a
Speaker 5: local person gives you directions and you realize, oh, they're
Speaker 5: giving me directions without realizing how little I know. You
Speaker 5: describe to someone how to get on bleaker, you'd have
Speaker 5: to say, listen, bleaker.
Speaker 2: Is going to go left and right and up and down.
Speaker 5: You have to give them those So when you get
Speaker 5: to local, you're like having their experience.
Speaker 1: I asked quite a few actors whether when they took
Speaker 1: a part, whether they would not so much choose the
Speaker 1: part that's kind of extreme.
Speaker 4: It's the restaurants.
Speaker 1: Were there, but they quite a few of them did
Speaker 1: research before going to shoot a film in Budapest or
Speaker 1: Venice or wherever they were before they went to find out,
Speaker 1: you know, where to eat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's important, isn't it.
Speaker 1: When I think it maybe a movie to feel part
Speaker 1: of the community.
Speaker 5: Yeah, wherever you can market I think, wherever you get
Speaker 5: to travel for whatever reason, if you can somehow try
Speaker 5: to embed a little bit in the local flavor of
Speaker 5: a community.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Sometimes I'll I've been.
Speaker 5: You know, for work, you have to travel a lot,
Speaker 5: and you do like these things like press junkets, you know,
Speaker 5: and especially in the old days, they do these big
Speaker 5: grand world tours and you'd be given a guide, which
Speaker 5: was all wonderful and I was super grateful. But then
Speaker 5: I would just say to the guy like, no, stop
Speaker 5: the van, now, stop the van.
Speaker 2: Now, I want to get out here.
Speaker 5: They're like, well, there's just houses here, and I was like, yes, exactly,
Speaker 5: I just want to see the houses.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I don't know, you feel like you're seeing something versus
Speaker 5: the same boulevard with the fancy shops and the fancy restaurants.
Speaker 4: Time for our question from our audience.
Speaker 3: What happens on an airplane you have a long distance flight,
Speaker 3: because I cannot imagine the cuisine exciting you do you
Speaker 3: bring your own food?
Speaker 5: Depends on the airline, Like I think a lot of
Speaker 5: the Asian airlines.
Speaker 2: Have really, really really good food.
Speaker 5: Air lingis I love their food, but I will bring
Speaker 5: I always have snacks in my bag. I always have
Speaker 5: meat sticks that I love.
Speaker 2: Like you know, healthy, No not.
Speaker 5: I'll bring stuff that I think will get me through
Speaker 5: a flight that might have that I might there might
Speaker 5: be dubious.
Speaker 2: I might have some feelings and concerns. I might.
Speaker 5: I can't bear the idea of being hungry. I just
Speaker 5: like meaning, let me rephrase that. If I can help
Speaker 5: that not be true, I will. I will keep up
Speaker 5: my end, you know what I mean. So, but I
Speaker 5: don't mind trying anything on an airline. I was, you know,
Speaker 5: in the old days, what I was telling when we
Speaker 5: used to do these big press junkets. We were always
Speaker 5: flying to Japan, and I will say that food on
Speaker 5: Japan airline was like what I'm.
Speaker 2: Just stay up just to eat. They're like, would you
Speaker 2: like to rest?
Speaker 5: And I was like, absolutely not, I would like to eat,
Speaker 5: and they just and then start the next offering, like
Speaker 5: what else is on this menu?
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, o, wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, we all went to restaurants
Speaker 1: for a special occasion, you know, a birthday and anniversary
Speaker 1: and my mother just being possibly too tired to cook.
Speaker 1: But it was a rare occasion that we went. And
Speaker 1: here in the river cafe. We see people coming in
Speaker 1: for Saturday lunch, Sunday lunch, early dinners, late dinners, and
Speaker 1: kids are ordering and there is a breadth of children
Speaker 1: and young people eating out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that they're more used to it than I
Speaker 5: ever was. I mean, it was such a big deal
Speaker 5: to eat out for us growing up, and we certainly
Speaker 5: get to and we get to travel in a way
Speaker 5: that my family didn't take vacations. We didn't go on
Speaker 5: a holiday, not until much later. And then it was
Speaker 5: you know, you're sharing a house with another family and you're.
Speaker 2: Still cooking all your meals. You wouldn't, you know.
Speaker 5: We would go to the outer Banks of North Carolina.
Speaker 5: This was forty years ago more oh more, and it
Speaker 5: was this sort of very pristine, not very popular destination.
Speaker 5: And so the big deal for us was that we
Speaker 5: would get crab and throw down newspaper and you know,
Speaker 5: and that was a big deal.
Speaker 2: That was like eating out.
Speaker 5: But but my children when we when they came to
Speaker 5: London to visit, we went out the first night and
Speaker 5: they're like, oh my gosh, we haven't been to a restaurant.
Speaker 2: In so long. It's so exciting to be at a restaurant.
Speaker 5: So it's still exciting, but it's something they're definitely more
Speaker 5: familiar with it than I ever was, and.
Speaker 4: You a child.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one of another sumaries that we
Speaker 1: both like our neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: You know that we like a neighborhood. Ye I liked neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I love neighbors and.
Speaker 1: You know when we when we moved, it's not where
Speaker 1: I live is in quite the West Village, but it
Speaker 1: in the sense it doesn't have a perhaps a lot
Speaker 1: of the character that you have, but it is a
Speaker 1: place that you want to be involved in. So they
Speaker 1: call up, you know, we called the local theater and
Speaker 1: said we're.
Speaker 2: Here, Yeah, what can we do?
Speaker 4: Or you I know, you do that with your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your neighborhood, being the West Village is probably
Speaker 1: full of restaurants.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 4: Do you go to the same place over and over?
Speaker 2: We do? And especially.
Speaker 5: You know, after the pandemic, we were really concerned. There
Speaker 5: were a lot of small businesses and restaurants included in
Speaker 5: that that were not part of larger consortiums that were
Speaker 5: really really struggling.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you all had it here as.
Speaker 5: Well, and it was so easy to be supportive because
Speaker 5: there are neighbors and we know their family stories or
Speaker 5: the stories of the restaurants, and we knew, you know,
Speaker 5: the collateral damage, Like if something closes, it's not just that,
Speaker 5: it's everything around it that kind of lives and breathes
Speaker 5: off of it. And so it's it's very easy to
Speaker 5: do it, not just out of you know, desire to
Speaker 5: be a good citizen in a neighbor, but because it's one.
Speaker 2: They're wonderful restaurants.
Speaker 5: They're wonderful restaurants, and some are old and not inventive
Speaker 5: at all, you know, they're not like rethinking or deconstructing
Speaker 5: Italian food, but they've been in business since nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 5: you know. And then there's newer chefs that are doing
Speaker 5: really exciting things. And then you've got your local little
Speaker 5: delis and bodegas and everything in between. And it's a
Speaker 5: real privilege to live among them and to say that
Speaker 5: we are patrons and that we mean it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much to talk about. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us about the wine? Yes?
Speaker 5: So I was asked now six years ago, seven years
Speaker 5: ago by these two young gentlemen in New Zealand producing
Speaker 5: savinyon Blanc out of the Marlboro region, which is not
Speaker 5: that surprising if I would like to work with them
Speaker 5: a partners them when I was absolutely confounded because I
Speaker 5: didn't know anything about the wine business except that one
Speaker 5: of the reasons my husband and.
Speaker 2: I like to travel is to taste local wine.
Speaker 5: I thought, like most of us, that you have to
Speaker 5: come from generations of wine families, and the language I
Speaker 5: thought I would never understand, and I thought it was
Speaker 5: really only for.
Speaker 2: The rarefied few.
Speaker 5: But they said no, and I said, well, if you'll
Speaker 5: let me really learn and really be as informed as possible,
Speaker 5: that we can start talking about it. And of course
Speaker 5: they did, and it's been an amazing, an amazing experience.
Speaker 5: We're in our six vintage on our Savenye Bloc. It's
Speaker 5: been picked in the top one hundred wines in the
Speaker 5: world for the second time, and it's won all sorts
Speaker 5: of awards. Like I don't say this about my acting
Speaker 5: work ever, Like I wouldn't say like I've won it,
Speaker 5: because I know how you haven't. But but I'm so
Speaker 5: proud of this because we worked really hard and it's
Speaker 5: been The Savenyon Blanc has been so beautifully received and
Speaker 5: our Rose has been beautifully received and we've never I
Speaker 5: think done below a ninety three and wine spectator, which
Speaker 5: is a big deal in oursiness. And we're about to
Speaker 5: launch our Pinon Noir, which is, oh, it's so gorgeous.
Speaker 5: So it's been amazing and I really love them and
Speaker 5: I love the wine. So yeah, we just keep working
Speaker 5: really hard and I do all the blendings, and it's
Speaker 5: been incredible.
Speaker 2: It's been a great education.
Speaker 1: If we were to say in this conversation that food
Speaker 1: is fun and it's exciting, and it sustains us, and
Speaker 1: we share it and we cook for our children as
Speaker 1: an expression of love, it's also comfort if you do
Speaker 1: need comfort.
Speaker 4: Is there a food that you would turn to? Sarah
Speaker 4: Jessica far.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would say that.
Speaker 5: Pork chops, and I would just describe them more specifically
Speaker 5: as saying, thin cut pork chops on the bone, not fancy,
Speaker 5: not from your most special butcher, but from Christiiti's like simple,
Speaker 5: put them in the pan with.
Speaker 2: All oiled salt and pepper, and.
Speaker 5: Heavens, I just I don't know why I love it.
Speaker 5: My brother loves them too, But bringing up a very
Speaker 5: close competitor is probably lamb chops, which I make probably
Speaker 5: two or three times a week. I make pork chops
Speaker 5: at least twice a week, and we here, I've made lamb.
Speaker 4: How do you make your lamb chops.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of embarrassed because it's not but we use.
Speaker 5: I use because I do the lamb chops. We use
Speaker 5: carry gold butter. I an'tone know carry gold butter. There's
Speaker 5: so much unsalted butter in London, it's kind of hard
Speaker 5: to find the salted. So I use carry gold butter
Speaker 5: and just a touch of olive oil so the butter
Speaker 5: doesn't burn. And I salt and pepper the baby lamb
Speaker 5: chops and I throw them in and that's it. And
Speaker 5: they are just that. You can taste all the fat.
Speaker 5: You can smell the fat when it's cooking. And we
Speaker 5: eat a lot of lamb in Ireland, and I've buy
Speaker 5: bought lamb here from.
Speaker 2: Our local butcher. You go two or three times a week.
Speaker 1: You have a house in Ireland, Yeah, it tell us
Speaker 1: just about.
Speaker 5: It's way up in County Donegall, so it's way up
Speaker 5: northwest and my husband's been going there since he was
Speaker 5: a little boy, and I've been going there since we
Speaker 5: were together, which was thirty years, and we finally bought
Speaker 5: our own little house because he shares his family home
Speaker 5: with his siblings and they have all grown children and
Speaker 5: they have children, and so yeah, we go there a lot.
Speaker 2: What is food like the best potatoes?
Speaker 5: It really is like a cliche, but it's true, the greatest, greatest,
Speaker 5: greatest potatoes ever, especially if you're there for the new
Speaker 5: potato season is seven carry gold butter.
Speaker 2: York cabbage.
Speaker 5: I don't know what it is about a York cabbage
Speaker 5: that blows my mind.
Speaker 2: Lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb.
Speaker 5: The eggs, the rashers, any root stuff there is really good.
Speaker 5: We don't We're not there enough to take care of
Speaker 5: it and really earn it, you know, someday, someday.
Speaker 2: But yeah, white toast, white toast, baby batch. Anyone know
Speaker 2: what a baby batch is?
Speaker 5: No, it would be forbidden in my house growing up,
Speaker 5: Like we were not allowed to have white bread growing up.
Speaker 5: It's just bread slices like the kids like it. You
Speaker 5: make sandwiches for when company comes over. But there's a
Speaker 5: beautiful brown soda bread there that you just get it
Speaker 5: in the Oh my gosh, that we eat crazy and
Speaker 5: that we can get in the States.
Speaker 2: We can get a bunch of the food in the States.
Speaker 5: Now I'm going to get carry go butter Grease is
Speaker 5: my Grease is my favorite place outside of any place else.
Speaker 5: It's maybe the food, and I think there's nothing better
Speaker 5: than a Greek salad in grease and lamb chops, But
Speaker 5: I just think the people, the history, the culture, the art,
Speaker 5: the way it looks. Just seeing Grease for the first
Speaker 5: time and seen white against blue, against sky against the sea.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's probably a place that I would spend many many
Speaker 5: months a year if I could, like everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have been part of so many award winning
Speaker 3: productions over the years, whether it's film or television or theater.
Speaker 3: I would love to hear about one of your favorite
Speaker 3: celebratory meals.
Speaker 5: Well, it happened to be my brother's birthday, but that
Speaker 5: was coincidental. But he's my oldest brother and he's kind
Speaker 5: of very important figure in our lives growing up. And
Speaker 5: I had been like researching for a really long time
Speaker 5: Georgian and Russian restaurants in Brooklyn, but like the real stuff,
Speaker 5: like because there's a massive Georgian and Russian community, as
Speaker 5: you guys probably know in Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 2: It's way way, way, way way out, like.
Speaker 5: You know, could be thirty stops on the train, but
Speaker 5: you make like a pilgrim.
Speaker 2: It's like a big deal.
Speaker 5: Well it was for me, and I had been researching
Speaker 5: and researching and then this day appeared and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, this is the day I'm going to do it.
Speaker 5: So I called my brother Pippin because he's one of
Speaker 5: the siblings that goes crazy for the food like me,
Speaker 5: and I said in Matthew, like, let's just do it.
Speaker 5: And so we went out on this long train ride,
Speaker 5: which was fantastic because you're under and over and we
Speaker 5: had Georgian.
Speaker 2: Food, deep deep, deep deep Brooklyn.
Speaker 5: And it was my brother's birthday, so it was really great.
Speaker 5: And he had to go around the corner and buy
Speaker 5: you know, spirits or wine or something. But that was
Speaker 5: an unbelievable meal. Unbelievable meal. Yeah, it was everything. That's
Speaker 5: what I could think of.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to ask about the joy of going
Speaker 3: to a restaurant that's comforting, like jeans, jeans.
Speaker 2: Did you say jeans? Who is that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 4: Jeans As a restaurant.
Speaker 5: Yeah Jeans is a wonderful restaurant on Eleventh Street in
Speaker 5: the West Village, very near Sunny and Country.
Speaker 2: Seemingly a little bit like not fancy room.
Speaker 5: It's this beautiful room, terribly low ceiling, one of the
Speaker 5: prettiest bars you'll ever see in New York City.
Speaker 2: It's got marble steps.
Speaker 5: You walk down to it, and this gorgeous bar greets
Speaker 5: you that's been around for however long this is through
Speaker 5: the math, I can't do it famously good bartender. Locals
Speaker 5: sit there and eat and the food is like veal, scallipini,
Speaker 5: you know, tomatoes, sauce. But they are one of those
Speaker 5: places that number when you did the thing with Danny
Speaker 5: Meyer and he talked about how these restaurants in New
Speaker 5: York put out the stain in the steel platter with
Speaker 5: the cold vegetables on the ice cubes. So you get
Speaker 5: to your table and it's got big radishes and carrot
Speaker 5: sticks and cellar hearts of celery and fennel.
Speaker 2: Is gorgeous.
Speaker 5: It's like easy, wonderful, and everybody in there is an
Speaker 5: older group and they're so lovely, but all say, you know,
Speaker 5: we're going to go see your show. You know, we
Speaker 5: read about the book or you know, they're very community
Speaker 5: oriented and it's a wonderful place and we go there
Speaker 5: a lot on Sunday nights, like if we're meeting other people,
Speaker 5: if we're not going to invite people to our house
Speaker 5: for dinner.
Speaker 2: We'll go to Jean's. Okay, we have to go to
Speaker 2: Jean's beautiful cocktails.
Speaker 4: Shall we eat? Okay? Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: 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 5: 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.
Speaker 5: This episode had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen.
Speaker 4: Thank you to everyone at the River Cafe for your
Speaker 4: help in making this episode.