Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: and Adami's Studios. I would like to remember exactly when
Speaker 1: I met Sam Taylor Johnson. Was it at the Tate
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight when she was awarded the Turner Prize,
Speaker 1: Or the day she entered the River Cafe a beautiful
Speaker 1: young woman with her first baby, Angelica in her arms.
Speaker 1: Was it when she came to see Richard with a
Speaker 1: book of her astonishing photographs. Were we just invited to
Speaker 1: a wild and glamorous party in her home that was
Speaker 1: part of, as Sam says, the blur of what London
Speaker 1: was in the late nineties. And when was the last
Speaker 1: time I sat with Sam? Was it in a bar
Speaker 1: with the love of her life, Aaron, or recently when
Speaker 1: they missed a flight to Sicily and joined a lunch.
Speaker 1: And how often have I asked where is Sam in London?
Speaker 1: Preparing to director Amy Winehouse, trekking in Nepal, in the
Speaker 1: south of France with Elton, or looking for a school
Speaker 1: in Somerset for her young daughters. The one thing I
Speaker 1: can always know is that wherever she is, whatever she
Speaker 1: is creating, Sam is an extraordinary woman. I love her.
Speaker 2: Oh, how do I go into that without tears streaming?
Speaker 1: Well, we go into it with food. We can start
Speaker 1: off with a recipe that you chose, which is.
Speaker 2: Risotto with puccini and girols. One kilogram of mixed fresh
Speaker 2: puccini and giroles, cleaned and chopped, extra virgin olive oil,
Speaker 2: one garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped, one teaspoon of
Speaker 2: fresh thyme, one liter of chicken stock, one hundred grams
Speaker 2: of unsalted butter, one medium red onion, finely chopped, three
Speaker 2: hundred grams of risotto rice, two hundred and fifty milli
Speaker 2: liters of extra dryvermooth. Now that's the thing that sends
Speaker 2: me running around the house when I'm about ten minutes
Speaker 2: into cooking it, just like, do we have the mooth?
Speaker 1: Do we read a recipe twice?
Speaker 2: Two hundred grams of parmesan, freshly grated. I actually cooked
Speaker 2: this last night. I thought I practiced, just to remind
Speaker 2: myself what happened about five minutes in Aaron Aaron's here?
Speaker 1: What did what happened?
Speaker 3: The mood do we have? I can't make this without
Speaker 3: the mooth?
Speaker 1: I'm going to go.
Speaker 2: And everyone was running around trying to find the but
Speaker 2: it's what makes it. In a frying pan, heat three
Speaker 2: tablespoons of olive oil, Add the mushrooms with the chopped
Speaker 2: garlic and thyme, season and fry for a couple of
Speaker 2: minutes until any liquid has evaporated. In a saucepan, heat
Speaker 2: the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion,
Speaker 2: and cook until the onion is soft. Add the rice
Speaker 2: and stuff. Now, what's so great about this recipe is
Speaker 2: it's really good if you want to have people around
Speaker 2: for dinner but not necessarily engage with them the entire time.
Speaker 1: Yes, I cared you you at the latest movie. I'm
Speaker 1: stirring a resulta.
Speaker 2: Exactly, I'm stirring a result. But it sort of also
Speaker 2: gives you something to do, so you're you know, you're
Speaker 2: active if you're not sure what to talk about. It's
Speaker 2: sort of a perfectly sociable, unsociable meal to cook. Pour
Speaker 2: in the vermouth and cook until it's been absorbed, stirring
Speaker 2: all the while, then adding the hot stock ladle by Ladel.
Speaker 2: Continue to cook until the rice is identity. Add the
Speaker 2: wild mushrooms, the remaining butter, the parmesan and the chopped parsley,
Speaker 2: and well, the best rosotto ever good.
Speaker 1: It's comforting resulta.
Speaker 2: But this was the first thing I ever cooked from
Speaker 2: your cookbook, which is why I think it was in
Speaker 2: one of the earlier ones. Yeah, I'm going to be
Speaker 2: brave and attempt to resott it. Did you cook when
Speaker 2: you were a kid? Did you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Not at all.
Speaker 2: I didn't grow up in an environment where cooking was celebrated.
Speaker 2: Food was made to eat to live. Frozen pizzas, margarine,
Speaker 2: you know that that was to put in when you
Speaker 2: come home from school, make for yourself and eat just a.
Speaker 1: Make for yourself. So would you sit down to a
Speaker 1: family meal or everybody taken care of that?
Speaker 2: I almost can't remember family meals. So I think that's
Speaker 2: again why I feel so excited about a kitchen very alive,
Speaker 2: with food being cooked and bread being baked, and aromas
Speaker 2: and activity, because as was definitely not not that environment.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I talk to people who grew up with the
Speaker 1: romantic idea of the family sitting down to a family
Speaker 1: supperer and sitting and talking about the day, and some
Speaker 1: people described having a mother that worked the night shift,
Speaker 1: or a mother or father who came home from work
Speaker 1: and were exhausted, or they came home from work and
Speaker 1: they would prefer to do homework with you then cook.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are many reasons why the image of
Speaker 1: the family perhaps is somewhat romanticized, but it is important
Speaker 1: something that, as you say, we try and create for
Speaker 1: our kids. But you didn't have a role model for that,
Speaker 1: so you had the reverse, but you changed it for
Speaker 1: your own family.
Speaker 3: I did have the rest.
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes, especially doing something like this, you
Speaker 2: sort of look back and try and find that memory.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I definitely remember my mom made a dish that she
Speaker 2: would be proud of, which was a rabbit dish with mustard,
Speaker 2: I think, but that was something that was that would
Speaker 2: come out. I don't know it would be a big thing.
Speaker 2: But the rest of the time, it was moral survival.
Speaker 1: What was she doing or your father doing? Was your
Speaker 1: father there?
Speaker 3: It was my stepfather?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 2: Who who my sort of that part of my life
Speaker 2: is more of a memory.
Speaker 1: And so do you think they were doing other things
Speaker 1: rather than cook or did they just not?
Speaker 2: It's a complicated history and it's hard to go into
Speaker 2: not because not because it is sort of full of
Speaker 2: sort of trauma and pain, but it's more that I
Speaker 2: actually have this sort of almost blackout of I don't
Speaker 2: actually have that much memory from that.
Speaker 3: Time in my life.
Speaker 2: And also if I do go into it or I
Speaker 2: talk about it, I sort of feel a hope that
Speaker 2: I've evolved to a place where I don't I don't
Speaker 2: want to sort of talk about it with malice. It's
Speaker 2: not that they were working. I think it was more
Speaker 2: struggle survival and mental health, to be honest, and a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of just difficult scenarios.
Speaker 1: Did you have coparts?
Speaker 2: But they died when I was quite young, so I
Speaker 2: don't really have a memory of them in terms of,
Speaker 2: you know, I had sort of I had a great
Speaker 2: Auntie Gladys, and a great uncle Les, who I felt
Speaker 2: very close to, who lived in Shepherd's Bush. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of time around their house in Shepherd's Bush,
Speaker 2: and they were very much sort of meet and too
Speaker 2: veg and I remember going home one day and saying
Speaker 2: to my auntie Gladays, I'd say, I can't have roast chicken.
Speaker 2: I'm a vegetarian, and she said, what chicken is not
Speaker 2: really an animal?
Speaker 3: Of course you can eat it.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 3: But but that was the sort of stability.
Speaker 2: For me, they were this, you know, the stable hold,
Speaker 2: the home where I would go to as a student
Speaker 2: to know that I could be fed.
Speaker 1: Did you struggle with food? Did you enjoy it? Did you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I have school lunch when.
Speaker 2: I did, but I was a free school dinner's kid,
Speaker 2: so I was in the opposite queue.
Speaker 3: To my friends.
Speaker 1: Well, they had different queues.
Speaker 3: They had different.
Speaker 1: Cues, disgusting.
Speaker 3: There was the queue on the left, which was the
Speaker 3: regular queue.
Speaker 2: Of Dickens, and then there was the free school dinner's line.
Speaker 2: And and I wasn't always in the free school dinner's line.
Speaker 2: There were moments where I was in it, and there
Speaker 2: are moments where I could bounce over to the other side,
Speaker 2: and I just always remember the dread of today I
Speaker 2: have to go in the free school dinner's line, and
Speaker 2: that fear of just like you know, feeling separate from
Speaker 2: all your friends and just that sort of feeling a
Speaker 2: little bit of shame that comes with.
Speaker 1: Him or maybe a lot. So you had school lunches
Speaker 1: and then.
Speaker 2: School lunches and then home. Yeah, mostly yeahs and pizzas.
Speaker 2: Where did you go out? Firstly in London until I
Speaker 2: was eleven in stratum and then after that we moved
Speaker 2: to the countryside to Sussex. But that was a big shock.
Speaker 2: I was terrified of trees. It was so funny because
Speaker 2: I was such an urban girl until then, and then
Speaker 2: the idea that I had to walk down these country
Speaker 2: lanes with trees.
Speaker 3: It was quite funny.
Speaker 1: Interesting because a lot of the people that I've talked
Speaker 1: to think about the way they struggled in their youth,
Speaker 1: whether they were from another country, whether their parents were
Speaker 1: uncomfortable in being in England, whether they or in the
Speaker 1: United States, wherever they were, people who struggled with money,
Speaker 1: with divorce and all this is to do, you know,
Speaker 1: with food and how those memories above and also I
Speaker 1: don't know if you feel, but they measure and I
Speaker 1: don't know if you do, measure their almost their success
Speaker 1: by being able to order something delicious on the menu.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, the able to order a good glass of
Speaker 1: wine was something away that they measured their their own
Speaker 1: success totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, we never ate out, so eating out really
Speaker 2: came to me in adult life. And I think that
Speaker 2: the first time I realized food was for pleasure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: was actually a college trip to Rome or post college.
Speaker 2: I can't really remember, but we went to a small
Speaker 2: little restaurant and I ordered something because I had absolutely
Speaker 2: no idea what to expect, tabulatary with lemon lemon pasta,
Speaker 2: and I remember eating it and just having this sort
Speaker 2: of total, you know, explosion of flavor and thoughts and
Speaker 2: feelings about is this what food can be? And that
Speaker 2: feeling of tasting something which just kind of completely opens
Speaker 2: your mind to potential. I guess that, and that you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't expensive, it was affordable, and that I could
Speaker 2: eat this amazing food and not frozen pizzas. It was
Speaker 2: a revelation, Yeah, and probably in my sort of probably
Speaker 2: when I was about nineteen, I think then I went
Speaker 2: to art school in Hastings, which was like a massive
Speaker 2: turning point of excitement in my life, and then after
Speaker 2: that into London for art school.
Speaker 1: I always think it's another conversation about artists that creating
Speaker 1: art is very solitary. Yeah, activity that you are in
Speaker 1: your studio and your paint and everybody sort of had
Speaker 1: these kind of wild nights of eating and drinking together
Speaker 1: because it was so solitary during the day. Did you
Speaker 1: find that.
Speaker 3: Or was it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think art school for me was like a
Speaker 2: huge door had opened into a world of so much
Speaker 2: possibility and excitement. And I feel like for the first
Speaker 2: two years when I was at Hastings, I was just
Speaker 2: sort of wide eyed and in sort of slight shock
Speaker 2: that I was in this environment and just kept very quiet.
Speaker 2: And then I went to Northeast London Polytechnic, which was
Speaker 2: a very robust sort of shipbuilding yard feeling because I
Speaker 2: was in the sculpture department. And then I left there
Speaker 2: after the first year and went to Goldsmith, which by
Speaker 2: comparison felt like a sort of Swiss finishing school because
Speaker 2: people were very elegant and they were talking about ideas,
Speaker 2: and I, again I felt very like I was sort
Speaker 2: of sitting on the outside, watching and feeling this environment
Speaker 2: being so alien.
Speaker 1: Was that the days of Michael Craig Martin and Damian
Speaker 1: Land and it was and.
Speaker 2: That freeze had just happened, So there was a lot
Speaker 2: of debate around this huge exhibition that had sort of
Speaker 2: thrown all these young artists that were still at art
Speaker 2: school onto the map, and there was a sort of
Speaker 2: freeze and an anti freeze, and I just sort of
Speaker 2: sat again and sort of listened and felt the debates
Speaker 2: between everything and everyone, but sort of also knew I
Speaker 2: was in the eye of a storm, and I of
Speaker 2: a very exciting transitional moment in the art world because
Speaker 2: these artists like Damien had a studio outside of art
Speaker 2: school and was already you know, functioning as an artist
Speaker 2: and selling and having exhibitions, and Gary Hume and Sarah
Speaker 2: Luca you know, it all was just this sort of
Speaker 2: bubbling energy that I felt but didn't quite know how
Speaker 2: to access because I was still sort of feeling a
Speaker 2: bit quiet on the outside. It really took going to
Speaker 2: Tracy Emmen and Sarah Lucas had a little shop in
Speaker 2: the East End, just off of Brick Lane, and it
Speaker 2: really took going to that little shop to feel that
Speaker 2: anything was possible, that anything they made was art, and
Speaker 2: they were artists and they were allowing themselves to be that.
Speaker 2: And it was that moment for me that was quite
Speaker 2: pivotal in understanding I could allow myself to be an artist,
Speaker 2: that I could actually sort of say it out loud
Speaker 2: and actually be creative. And I think up until then,
Speaker 2: you know, you sort of feel like you're in the
Speaker 2: wrong place at the wrong time, and you're not meant
Speaker 2: to be there feeling.
Speaker 1: Were you as adventurous in your I guess development as
Speaker 1: an artist as maybe in food? Did you go to
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants or Indian restaurants? Did you Indian restaurants or
Speaker 1: drink whiskeys?
Speaker 2: No, Indian restaurants was absolutely where we all went because
Speaker 2: once I kind of, once I, you know, became friends
Speaker 2: with Tracy, we all would you know, sort of be
Speaker 2: in that neighborhood and we'd all, you know, go in
Speaker 2: and out of all the different Indian restaurants around that
Speaker 2: area and find our favorites, and that's where we would gather.
Speaker 3: I felt like.
Speaker 2: Exactly how you said earlier about McCartney saying it was
Speaker 2: a measure of success. I'm growing into my own person
Speaker 2: because I understand food. I'm growing into my own person
Speaker 2: because I can take myself to a restaurant and I
Speaker 2: can actually order something that's completely different to anything I've
Speaker 2: ever tried before. And I think it is it's a
Speaker 2: feeling of one, you're sort of stepping into being an adult,
Speaker 2: but also you're stepping into sort of a feeling of
Speaker 2: new success, not necessarily you know, huge financial success, but
Speaker 2: beginning to be able to take yourself places. My first
Speaker 2: job as a waiter would have been when I was
Speaker 2: at school. I worked in a local beefeater steakhouse and
Speaker 2: used to have to wear a beefe to Little Apron
Speaker 2: and then Vic Naylor's and Clarkhall. Do you remember Vic
Speaker 2: Naylor's and Clarkwork. It was a great restaurant and I
Speaker 2: I mean it was just fun, fun, fun, but it
Speaker 2: was also terrible because I used to we all used
Speaker 2: to get absolutely trashed. And I remember going to a
Speaker 2: table and someone said do you have any bread? And
Speaker 2: I said yes, let me go and get it. And
Speaker 2: then it was just up the road from Saint John,
Speaker 2: and I said, quick, where's the bread. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we don't have any. Can you run to get some
Speaker 2: from Saint John. Absolutely I ran to Saint John and
Speaker 2: then my then manager was.
Speaker 3: Sat at the bar. I come, I have a drink
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 2: So I sat down and had a drink which turned
Speaker 2: into two, and I was the bread. I quickly got
Speaker 2: the bread from Saint John and ran back. I've got
Speaker 2: you some bread about an hour ago. This place is terrible.
Speaker 2: Let me see the manager. Let me go and get
Speaker 2: him rundown Saint John. Pull him out the bar, and
Speaker 2: the whole story is that. He then went up and said,
Speaker 2: you asked to see me. Yes, the service is terrible.
Speaker 2: He said, yes, I agree, Now you should leave.
Speaker 1: What year was there?
Speaker 3: That was right after I left art school?
Speaker 1: So lit.
Speaker 3: Nine?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Maybe yeah, times have changed. I think you think
Speaker 1: maybe there's still those places, but we've all become much more.
Speaker 1: Do you know the story about Damien.
Speaker 3: And which one?
Speaker 1: Which one? The one at the grad Show club where
Speaker 1: he and aunt completely trashed. I had just I banned
Speaker 1: somebody from the River Cafe for being rude to one
Speaker 1: of my waiters, and I was telling the story I
Speaker 1: was telling out and he said, well, Damien, I went
Speaker 1: and we got completely you know, trash, and we were
Speaker 1: They closed the doors and we were kicked out, and
Speaker 1: we went on the street and then we found a
Speaker 1: ladder and we climbed up and we broke a window.
Speaker 1: We came in and then we got sick over the
Speaker 1: pool table, and then we went and got some alcohol
Speaker 1: out of the out of the fridge and we drank that.
Speaker 1: Then we you know, we took something and we crashed
Speaker 1: out on the sofa. Was Mary Anne, the manager came
Speaker 1: in the next daye said, you know, I could call
Speaker 1: the police. You broke and new enter, you damage my property,
Speaker 1: and you stole stuff, you know, but instead of calling
Speaker 1: the police, I am going to ban you for twenty
Speaker 1: four hours.
Speaker 5: Twenty four hours, brilliant are the days I had a
Speaker 5: customer who just was slightly rude to somebody, and I said,
Speaker 5: you could never come back again.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the difference.
Speaker 3: It is a measure of a person.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why it's good to I think people date
Speaker 1: people in restaurants, you know, you go on a date
Speaker 1: and see how they are to the waiter, or you
Speaker 1: interview lots of people. Have you ever interviewed anybody for
Speaker 1: a job in a restaurant?
Speaker 3: Totally? Yeah, yeah I did you Before I came here,
Speaker 3: I met someone was.
Speaker 2: Higher for the movie actually yeah, perfect, perfect, perfect and
Speaker 2: brilliant O.
Speaker 1: Good good good. And so from from being an art
Speaker 1: school and then being an artist, what was it like
Speaker 1: in the once you were all working and I hate
Speaker 1: to use the word successful, but successful when you and
Speaker 1: Jay lived in that house and parties? Was food? Did
Speaker 1: you care about food then? Did you think that you
Speaker 1: all wanted it?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 1: It was hard.
Speaker 2: It's hard to sort of cast my mind to that era,
Speaker 2: because it's that thing I think Koko Chanel said it,
Speaker 2: it's you know, I'm six people away from the person
Speaker 2: I once was. I think, yeah, I sometimes feel like that.
Speaker 2: And so when I think back to those times, I
Speaker 2: think of myself as a very different person, and so
Speaker 2: so much sort of shift and change within myself happened
Speaker 2: during that period. I was suddenly sort of living in
Speaker 2: this very sort of grand house and living a very
Speaker 2: different life, and and it was all sort of fast
Speaker 2: rolling and high octane, and fast rolling and high octane
Speaker 2: is fun, and then you can't. It's so hard to maintain.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't maintain it. And I definitely sort of
Speaker 2: felt like, you know, throw these parties and then I
Speaker 2: would disappear off at about ten o'clock.
Speaker 1: I remember the part that you didn't talk about. What
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about in terms of food and being
Speaker 1: an artist, and in that lifetime was when you were ill, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the diet that you then, and I remember very
Speaker 1: well your rigor in dealing with your illness, in the
Speaker 1: way you ate, and I think it was really before
Speaker 1: a lot of us thought about food and health, and
Speaker 1: you were unhealthy and you use food to think about health.
Speaker 1: And you also took you know, you went the scientific route,
Speaker 1: so you went for the medicine and for the but
Speaker 1: it wasn't alternative. You did it. But you did do
Speaker 1: a diet. I remember you very clearly talked no dairy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I have.
Speaker 2: To sort of almost step out I sided myself to
Speaker 2: talk about it. But yeah, nineteen ninety seven, six months
Speaker 2: after I had Angelico's, my oddest of four daughters, I
Speaker 2: got diagnosed with colon cancer. And of course it was,
Speaker 2: you know, a shock, but there was such an urgency
Speaker 2: in my mind to be well and to get back
Speaker 2: home and be a mother and be present that I
Speaker 2: just sort of, you know, almost jumped out of the
Speaker 2: hospital bed and I'm back, I'm fine. And then three
Speaker 2: years later I got diagnosed with breast cancer. And then
Speaker 2: I didn't leap out of bed, and I didn't say
Speaker 2: I'm back, I'm fine. I got sort of quietly retreated
Speaker 2: into myself, I think, and I went to a very
Speaker 2: sort of almost a totally different personality to somebody I
Speaker 2: knew myself as in a way in order to figure
Speaker 2: out a way to get through it.
Speaker 3: And it's it's a.
Speaker 2: Trauma, and in that trauma, you have to sort of
Speaker 2: figure out what are my options, what are my options
Speaker 2: of survival? And obviously when you're in it, you're not
Speaker 2: thinking clearly in that way. But you know, it was
Speaker 2: very much the first time I didn't take it seriously.
Speaker 2: Almost second time, I'm going to take this very seriously.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to live.
Speaker 2: I want to be a mom and be around and
Speaker 2: that was my you know, that was the thing I
Speaker 2: had Angelica as my purpose and goal to survive for.
Speaker 2: You know, it was chemotherapy, mastec to me and everything
Speaker 2: medical that I could.
Speaker 3: But at the.
Speaker 2: Same time, I knew that I had to support that
Speaker 2: for myself with I had acupuncture. I gave up I
Speaker 2: gave up drinking and the party life, and I gave up,
Speaker 2: you know, anything that I felt was detrimental to my health. Sugar,
Speaker 2: I gave up dairy and pretty much set still.
Speaker 1: Do you still not.
Speaker 2: Have Yeah, okay, let's not be too puritan sugar. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's every so often, but I'm conscious about eating and
Speaker 2: I'm conscious about if things have you know, very strict
Speaker 2: about milk, very strict about cheese, butter, I'll allow it then,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm not going to be too because
Speaker 2: there's also a point where you just have to you know,
Speaker 2: you have to function in the world. And you know,
Speaker 2: there was probably at least five years where I was
Speaker 2: absolutely I would read every ingredient and nothing could be
Speaker 2: because I was frightened, you know, and fear is a
Speaker 2: very good reason to make sacrifices and changes in your life.
Speaker 2: I just shifted into a completely different person in a way.
Speaker 1: Would you tell somebody who came to see that if
Speaker 1: they had cancer and any form, would you say to
Speaker 1: them to try to do.
Speaker 3: This because you don't.
Speaker 2: It's difficult because also you know, there's varying. You know,
Speaker 2: your case is different to the next person. It's the
Speaker 2: next person to what level you have it or you know,
Speaker 2: it's hard to advise people in that way we talked
Speaker 2: about to people who are in it, I try to
Speaker 2: be you know, get up in the morning, put on
Speaker 2: a great song, move around, care people when you're feeling down.
Speaker 2: I try to sort of keep it, you know, let's
Speaker 2: keep it in a place where we're going to get
Speaker 2: through this.
Speaker 3: It's a job.
Speaker 2: It's a job, and you know it's also you can't
Speaker 2: people say, well, you're so brave to have gotten through it.
Speaker 2: But it's not bravery that gets you through it, because
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that people who haven't survived aren't brave.
Speaker 2: Getting through it is you know, an amount of medical intervention,
Speaker 2: amount of luck in terms of diagnosis and what you
Speaker 2: can then do to support all of that.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about the energy or the you know,
Speaker 1: the getting up and doing that has shown that actually
Speaker 1: a kind of activity with any illness, with grief. You know,
Speaker 1: you say that, having been through grief in my life,
Speaker 1: that I sort of know the drill, you know, which
Speaker 1: is you get out of bed or I mean you
Speaker 1: can stay in bed and cry all day too, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but the you know, the activity, and.
Speaker 3: He's in the support of you know, friendships.
Speaker 2: When I was, when I would have chema, i'd have
Speaker 2: Gary Hume and Georgie and Johnny Shankid and friends would
Speaker 2: you know, bring the food and sit around and sort
Speaker 2: of laugh and sit with me for a few hours
Speaker 2: and you know, you sort of feel, you know, the
Speaker 2: chema going through your veins. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: you could be eating some strawberries and chatting with friends
Speaker 2: and watching watching everyone just you know support you in
Speaker 2: that way, and I think and yeah, and that's also
Speaker 2: you know, that was definitely sort of food related in
Speaker 2: the sense that you know, chema can taste bad in
Speaker 2: your mouth. It's sort of metallicy. And my friends had
Speaker 2: researched that a little bit. I've heard if you have
Speaker 2: you know, some boiled sweets, or if you have this,
Speaker 2: or and then another friend mango.
Speaker 3: Mango is really good.
Speaker 1: Because Rose Gray, you started the cafe with and had
Speaker 1: breast cancer, just found that. I always say that she
Speaker 1: ate her way through chemo, you know, just ate everything.
Speaker 1: But she she was careful, yeah, as she was before
Speaker 1: she got sick, but she loved having mangoes.
Speaker 2: Serotonin I think it's good for but I think it's
Speaker 2: also I mean still now really education around nutrition and
Speaker 2: what's you know, what's good for you to live, Like
Speaker 2: I said, as a keep the machine at optimum level,
Speaker 2: you know, and maintenance. We maintain our cars sometimes better
Speaker 2: than our bodies.
Speaker 6: And hi there, My name is Hamish. I am one
Speaker 6: of the chefs here at the River Cafe. One of
Speaker 6: the sauces or dishes that I think is very special
Speaker 6: to us, and it's coming back onto the venue a
Speaker 6: bit more often. Is our Banya Kouder. We make this
Speaker 6: sauce by reducing down a bottle of Italian red wine
Speaker 6: or champagne or prosecco, and then we melt in about
Speaker 6: twelve to fifteen cloves of garlic anchovies and this creates
Speaker 6: a really ten salty, amazing base to a sauce. Then
Speaker 6: copious amounts of butter to make it extremely smooth, silky
Speaker 6: and just rich and delicious.
Speaker 3: Is my favorite an sourdi bread.
Speaker 1: This is the saltiness of the anto.
Speaker 2: But I think growing up what it equates to, so
Speaker 2: that would be my I'm successful and knowledgeable and I
Speaker 2: can eat anchovies on toast.
Speaker 3: It comes from growing up with Marma on toast.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's one of.
Speaker 2: Those, and Mama on toast for me has been a
Speaker 2: constant constant from child all the way through my student life,
Speaker 2: artist life.
Speaker 1: So I was trying about the solitariness of being an artist.
Speaker 1: But what about as I go back to the to
Speaker 1: the cinema when you directed Noaby or when you do
Speaker 1: directed Fifty Shades of Gray, do you do you think
Speaker 1: about how you feed the people on the set. Is
Speaker 1: that important to you? The way you start for food?
Speaker 1: Break was Anderson that he hates a lunch hour because
Speaker 1: it makes everybody stop, and then you have to get tired,
Speaker 1: and then but you know, he tried to give everybody soup,
Speaker 1: but then the crew wanted meals.
Speaker 3: How do you deal with It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I feel absolutely with West in that way that I
Speaker 2: don't like when everyone stops for lunch. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I do like the communal break of everyone
Speaker 2: sitting and sort of literally digesting what we've done and
Speaker 2: talking around food. And I always try to make sure
Speaker 2: we have reasonably good caterers so that everyone's just sort
Speaker 2: of enjoying that time rather than just complaining this is disgusting.
Speaker 1: Was there a difference in doing nowhere By and fifty
Speaker 1: Shades of Gray from.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was. I can't remember. It's own trauma.
Speaker 2: But but we Aaron and I made a movie in
Speaker 2: twenty one days. We didn't We made a million little
Speaker 2: pieces and it was the smallest, smallest, smallest.
Speaker 3: Budget, but we had the best, best food.
Speaker 1: There's a food touch to feel very different from Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: We've moved from l A to English, the English country.
Speaker 1: I mean, what about food and that feel different?
Speaker 2: This particle shift not in our house because we cook
Speaker 2: the same things, but definitely a different culture of Well.
Speaker 4: The difference is avocados. There's certain things that grow differently
Speaker 4: so Africa. You know, when you're were West coast, if
Speaker 4: you had these sort of you know, anything California or
Speaker 4: from Mexico. The avocados a difference to Guacamole's like amazing
Speaker 4: have avocados here. They're sort of imported from Spain and
Speaker 4: they're hard and there there's just no point.
Speaker 1: There's no point.
Speaker 4: There's no point in avocado and you just don't eat that.
Speaker 1: I really respect that you said, because it is to
Speaker 1: do with the ingredient.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: What about do you go to fewer restaurants here? Did
Speaker 1: you eat out more in La.
Speaker 3: We did, probably, I think, but we are in the middle.
Speaker 1: Of the urban there too, probably, yeah, And there was
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was a different I had a
Speaker 1: sort of different routine I think there for food, you know,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: Really into and I'll have a shake and yes, could
Speaker 2: you put some racio mushroom and a little bit of
Speaker 2: this and a little bit of that, and there everyone
Speaker 2: seems so knowledgeable about what about what each ingredient of
Speaker 2: this certain mushroom is going to give you. You know, this
Speaker 2: one's for the brain and cognitive function, and this one's
Speaker 2: for memory, and this one's for your liver, and this
Speaker 2: one's for you know. I was getting quite good at
Speaker 2: all of that and understanding how it was going to
Speaker 2: benefit me, and then you know, I got here. I
Speaker 2: was like, where am I going to get my charger?
Speaker 3: Do you drink coffee?
Speaker 1: Do I drink coffee?
Speaker 3: New to coffee?
Speaker 4: Very new to coffee, Like the American coffee was just
Speaker 4: the sort of the diner coffee, the all day for
Speaker 4: filted coffee.
Speaker 3: It's just sort of, Yeah, tell.
Speaker 1: Me about food in your house? Well, how many children? Four?
Speaker 2: I mean for this weekend, they're all four at home.
Speaker 2: I mean my specialty is the pancakes. I'd like to
Speaker 2: say I'm the pancakes person Tenesca. I have my dishes,
Speaker 2: but the pancakes are in the mornings. I can make creps,
Speaker 2: I can make big fluffy pancakes as they're called, or
Speaker 2: I can do the green pancakes, which are roamy. My
Speaker 2: youngest one absolutely loves. She's very What is that how
Speaker 2: they made? It's they're basically one egg, one banana, gluten
Speaker 2: free flour, a handful of spinach and cinnamon and vanilla,
Speaker 2: and and and a cup of almond milk blitzed, and
Speaker 2: then and then Friday coking up oil and they puff
Speaker 2: up and then absolutely up do they puff up with
Speaker 2: a little bit of baking powder in there, and and
Speaker 2: then Yeah, Aaron's good at cooking, literally sort of seven
Speaker 2: seven weeks, so many dishes.
Speaker 3: Are on the table when he cooks.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, that's so nice. I can't bake.
Speaker 2: When Aaron ever goes into the kitchen to bake, we
Speaker 2: all are literally waiting for a blood splattering because.
Speaker 3: We're always with the blender.
Speaker 1: The cherry that.
Speaker 4: He put his finger in it, well, I was trying
Speaker 4: to take what was left over dough off around the
Speaker 4: thing my fingers, but my hand was obviously gripping the
Speaker 4: top of the button, so it went, it went, blits
Speaker 4: the top of my I don't have much of a.
Speaker 1: Nail on that finger off. So what do you do
Speaker 1: for desserts? Do you have dessert?
Speaker 4: And Roamy? Our youngest is a bit of a baker, actually,
Speaker 4: so we recently got really rumble a gorgeous apple orchard
Speaker 4: in Somerset, and with a mixture of cooking apples and
Speaker 4: cider apples, and could eat blackberries everywhere right now at
Speaker 4: the moment, there's tons of blackberries. So recently it was
Speaker 4: a BlackBerry an apple crumble.
Speaker 1: My last questions to you Aaron and to you Sam
Speaker 1: would be if you need food for comfort, is there
Speaker 1: a food that you would reach for?
Speaker 2: Marmite and a jacket potato is probably actually a could
Speaker 2: trump the avie on, but marmite butter jacket potato.
Speaker 3: That is my comfort food. I know I'm looking at you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you will be You're my comfort. Thank you, Sam,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: This was a joy.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. The River Cafe look Book is
Speaker 1: on sale. One hundred pages of beautiful photographs that will
Speaker 1: inspire you to cook. It's a look book, It's a cookbook.
Speaker 1: Order one now. Ruthie's Table four is a production of
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