Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here in La with Dexter and ed Arusha.
Speaker 2: Edvarusche is the artist and Dexter is the dog, and
Speaker 2: I hope we're going to hear from them both in
Speaker 2: the next half hour. Did you bring the cactus on it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeahay.
Speaker 2: There's a small work of art by my bed that
Speaker 2: I say hello to every morning and say good night
Speaker 2: to every night. I think of the day it arrived
Speaker 2: in the River Cafe from Los Angeles, wrapped in layers
Speaker 2: of bubble wrap. I knew then unwrapping it that this
Speaker 2: was one I would never let out of my sight.
Speaker 2: The artist was ed Rusche, and the word in bright red,
Speaker 2: says Yum. I've known ed Risha's work since the early seventies.
Speaker 2: I followed admired his work through his career, and in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, in twenty twenty heat shows at the National
Speaker 2: Gallery and Tape Modern and it was then that we
Speaker 2: got to know each other well. Dinners at the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: breakfast at clarriages, and we became friends. First I fell
Speaker 2: in love with the art, and then I fell in
Speaker 2: love with the artist. Would you like to read a recipe?
Speaker 3: Shall I read your recipe, but I'd.
Speaker 2: Like to hear yours. You'll be the first person to
Speaker 2: read a recipe that is not a river cafe recipe,
Speaker 2: And I think that's good.
Speaker 3: What is that cactus omelet which I make occasionally? Do
Speaker 3: you have to get Nopolito's little cactus pads that they
Speaker 3: slice into little bits? And so? Says utensils omelet pan
Speaker 3: are similar type pan with rounded bottom, mixing bowl, wire,
Speaker 3: whisk or fork. Instructions. Break two eggs in bowls slightly
Speaker 3: under mix with whisk or fork. Heat butter in pan
Speaker 3: and ntil it bubbles and begins to turn brown. Add
Speaker 3: the eggs and let them sit in the pan until
Speaker 3: the bottom begins to harden. As soon as this sets,
Speaker 3: but while the top is still moist, add salt and pepper,
Speaker 3: cottage cheese, sprinkle celery on top, followed by the nopoleitos let.
Speaker 3: The omelet set for about one minute over a low
Speaker 3: fire roll omelet out of pan and onto plate.
Speaker 2: Where does this recipe come from?
Speaker 3: I sort of made it up, yeah, And I always
Speaker 3: like the taste of they're kind of slimy of cactus,
Speaker 3: you know, nopoletos, but they have a flavor all their own,
Speaker 3: and I've always liked them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, where we live, we don't get
Speaker 2: cactus cacti. So was it when you came out here
Speaker 2: to you at it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You go in the desert?
Speaker 3: Uh, well, Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I've talked to artists. I've interviewed Damien and Tracy, but
Speaker 2: I haven't had an artist or painted about We talk
Speaker 2: about food and how food in their life and food
Speaker 2: in their art. But you actually painted with food, use
Speaker 2: egg yolk, and you usedn't you. Is that a certain
Speaker 2: period that you started painting with with actually food.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I was frustrated with art materials or it
Speaker 3: felt like I had reached a apex or a stopping
Speaker 3: off point. And then I thought about why you can
Speaker 3: make marks on paper or on canvas with any number
Speaker 3: of things. Why does it have to be pigments? And
Speaker 3: so then I started using these things like axle, grease
Speaker 3: and caviar, and well, it's of course egg, and it's
Speaker 3: pretty stable and and it hardens and it's proven to
Speaker 3: be pretty pretty stable over the years.
Speaker 2: Also, the paintings that you did with caviar. Still yeah,
Speaker 2: still still there.
Speaker 3: They've yellowed a little bit. But yeah, that's what do
Speaker 3: we call that entropy or something?
Speaker 2: But you don't do anymore.
Speaker 3: No, I haven't done that for a while. Maybe we should,
Speaker 3: but don't give me any idea.
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to give you an idea. When
Speaker 2: I came to a studio, you have an orchard in
Speaker 2: the back, and I was wondering, you know, what what
Speaker 2: does that mean to you to have fruit growing in
Speaker 2: behind your studio.
Speaker 3: Well, fortunately I got this building that had a large
Speaker 3: backyard I had no real use for, so I sort
Speaker 3: of divided the backyard in half and I thought, well,
Speaker 3: I'll just put an orchard in here. And I've always
Speaker 3: wanted to gross interest and other things too, figs, pomegranates, cherries.
Speaker 3: And then I've got some raised beds there that that
Speaker 3: I grow. I was growing the world's hottest pepper the
Speaker 3: boot you're Lochia. It's like an Indian called ghost pepper.
Speaker 3: It measures out to be the hottest pepper in the world. Well,
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you eat it? That's a nobody
Speaker 3: ever has the answer to that. That's too powerful, I guess,
Speaker 3: so and make it so fine, grind it so fine,
Speaker 3: and I think there are people that are still working
Speaker 3: on it to get the get the Blue Ribbon for
Speaker 3: the hottest pepper that so.
Speaker 2: That it judges that competition. But you cook a lot,
Speaker 2: don't you. That recipe for an omelet is a really
Speaker 2: interesting recipe because it's using an ingredient that is so local.
Speaker 2: You know, you go into great depth to tell how
Speaker 2: you fry the eggs, you season it, the heat of
Speaker 2: the pan. That's a chef's recipe.
Speaker 3: Well it's sort of hit and miss, you know, And
Speaker 3: so that's fine. Since I'm usually cooking for myself, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. But only other thing I really cook is chili,
Speaker 3: and I like to make chili. I make it without onions,
Speaker 3: without beans, and without tomatoes. That's fun to make, and
Speaker 3: that takes a few hours to do that, but it's
Speaker 3: worth it.
Speaker 2: When you're painting, how do you eat and paint generally?
Speaker 3: And I don't even eat lunch. I mean I will
Speaker 3: maybe have a banana or a piece of fruit, and
Speaker 3: that's my lunch. I don't eat three meals a day
Speaker 3: like I used to. But I know it's in our
Speaker 3: artistic tradition. It's always been a ceremony with artists to
Speaker 3: stop working at eleven forty five and sit on and
Speaker 3: I don't drink wine. Yeah, so, and then you know,
Speaker 3: it's also a tradition to have wine with lunch.
Speaker 2: But in New York in the kind of sixties seventies,
Speaker 2: wasn't there the whole thing where artists would be in
Speaker 2: their studios all day, very solitary, and then go to
Speaker 2: Max's or to you know, to the culture of kind
Speaker 2: of being alone and then going out every night. And
Speaker 2: were you ever part of that culture or was it lle.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's the pandemonium of crowds of people in
Speaker 3: a place like Max's, Kansas City or any of those
Speaker 3: kind of places, and it was almost ceremonial. You know,
Speaker 3: you'd go and have great fun and drink, and uh,
Speaker 3: that was part of life.
Speaker 2: I guess you live in New York.
Speaker 3: Did You never did live in New York. No. It
Speaker 3: was always too complicated or too expensive for me to
Speaker 3: live there. And uh, just the idea of trying to
Speaker 3: take a two by four across town was such an
Speaker 3: issue that made California impossibly convenient.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we saw Frank Gary yesterday and we talked about
Speaker 2: the camaraderie between for him, many more artists and architects.
Speaker 2: He just loved the feeling of the la kind of
Speaker 2: artists being together here. Was that part of your world
Speaker 2: as well?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. Did he tell you that his favorite
Speaker 3: restaurant was the Pacific Dining? Yes, he did, and they
Speaker 3: closed it.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, he loved that place. Did you ever
Speaker 2: go there?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I went there with him too, and.
Speaker 2: Mister Chow Tina Chow, and yeah, oh yeah, he's a
Speaker 2: great man.
Speaker 3: I went here one time and I with a friend
Speaker 3: and he said can I bring a friend along? And
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, who is it? And he said Graucho
Speaker 3: Marx No. And so we met at Chow's here and
Speaker 3: Graucho comes in and we all sit down and have
Speaker 3: a good time. But then the food comes, and Graucho
Speaker 3: has his food sent in from Nate and Al's delicatessen.
Speaker 3: He didn't even have the He said, I've heard about
Speaker 3: this place. I've heard about this place, And so he
Speaker 3: dined at Chow's restaurant without having its foods.
Speaker 2: I've heard of people, you know. Of course, people bring
Speaker 2: their own wine at the River Caffine. People like to
Speaker 2: bring their own wine and once somebody bought their own truffle.
Speaker 2: They've been to Italy and they brought a white truffle
Speaker 2: and asked us if we would grade it for them
Speaker 2: over their pasta. But I never actually have heard of
Speaker 2: anybody actually ordering their own food. But I suppose if
Speaker 2: you're Grouch and Marx. Yeah, but did you go to
Speaker 2: chows a lot? Who would go there with you? Oh?
Speaker 3: Lots of different people. I mean used to go there
Speaker 3: with Tim Leary and his wife and they were regulars
Speaker 3: there for a good while. And it's so good and
Speaker 3: so traditional. I mean they opened I nineteen seventy five
Speaker 3: or something like that, and they established a menu that
Speaker 3: they really didn't vary from in London.
Speaker 2: They used to have the kind of cart that you
Speaker 2: could actually make the noodles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they do that here too.
Speaker 2: Yeah we should all. Okay, are you going out much?
Speaker 2: Are you trying to stay quiet?
Speaker 3: I'm happy to you know. I love loud Hollywood parties,
Speaker 3: but I don't miss them one iota.
Speaker 2: I I just been there and done that. Why did
Speaker 2: you go to the desert?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I go to the desert.
Speaker 2: What do you eat there? You hunt?
Speaker 3: I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3: And I have a lot of quail out there and
Speaker 3: there there, oh it's out north of it's east of
Speaker 3: Big Bear Lake. It's not the kind of desert that
Speaker 3: is like palm Springs with palm trees. No palm trees
Speaker 3: up there. They have Joshua trees. If you know what
Speaker 3: those crazy things look like. Beautiful. They're very spiky, spik spiky,
Speaker 3: and they look They got called Joshua trees because the
Speaker 3: pioneers thought they looked like silhouettes of biblical figures. So
Speaker 3: they call them Joshua trees. And that grows out there.
Speaker 3: They're almost endangered because of the global warming. But then
Speaker 3: I got pinion pines there and I harvest some of
Speaker 3: the nuts. If you've got time to do that, well,
Speaker 3: just get the pine cones off the trees and very
Speaker 3: carefully take all the little seeds out of it, but
Speaker 3: usually the squirrels get them before you do. In order
Speaker 3: to get a little handful of pine nuts, it takes
Speaker 3: you about an hour, and then you have to get
Speaker 3: the sap off your hands, wash your hands in gasoline.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but they're extremely delicious. Yeah, they're far
Speaker 3: more delicious than the ones you actually buy in the market.
Speaker 2: Where you've kind of been through hell in this country
Speaker 2: with our previous president and the wars and everything. And
Speaker 2: I have a beautiful poster that you sent me, which
Speaker 2: is a treasure. That was enough. Oh h can you
Speaker 2: tell me the story of enough.
Speaker 3: I don't know where that came from. It's just well,
Speaker 3: Norman Lear asked me if I would do something, and
Speaker 3: so that was just some incentive to make some statement
Speaker 3: about the condition of America, and you know where people
Speaker 3: sit on the subject, and so expressing myself in that
Speaker 3: way in a poster was fun to do. You know.
Speaker 3: It was like, enough of this kind of politics. We've
Speaker 3: got to move on from this to something better, and
Speaker 3: luckily it moved that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it'd be nice to talk about from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Tell me about where you grew up.
Speaker 3: I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, very center of the
Speaker 3: United States, and then we moved to Oklahoma when I
Speaker 3: was like five years old. So then I grew up
Speaker 3: from there, and it was kind of a cultural wasteland
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways. Food especially, I mean, there
Speaker 3: was no such thing as an artichoke or an avocado,
Speaker 3: barely no such thing as sushi there is there now,
Speaker 3: of course, because it's multi dimensional. But I remember growing
Speaker 3: up there and having these kind of foods, like about
Speaker 3: their early nineteen fifties is when pizza came to fashion.
Speaker 3: And we didn't call it just pizza. We call it
Speaker 3: pizza pie, pizza pie, pizza pie, pizza. Yeah, because you
Speaker 3: originally came from Chicago.
Speaker 2: Or what state, New York state New and we had
Speaker 2: real Southern Italian foods.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought Italian food was meat boles and spaghetti and
Speaker 2: eggplant parmesana and pizza pie until I went to Italy
Speaker 2: thirty years later. Yeah, But go back to the pizza pie.
Speaker 2: When did that come?
Speaker 3: Well, that started coming when around the time I was
Speaker 3: in high school, and it became a popular go to
Speaker 3: type of food, kind of novel and unique. And there
Speaker 3: were half a dozen places in Oklahoma City that actually
Speaker 3: served pizza pie, and one place was called Sussy's. That
Speaker 3: was the place you'd always go to.
Speaker 2: Who would cook in your house? Was it your mother?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Did your father mom cooked? No, father didn't really
Speaker 3: cook so much, but Mom tossed everything together and you know,
Speaker 3: it was a really it was all meat and potatoes.
Speaker 3: I like her pies particularly, and she made a cherry
Speaker 3: pie that I always liked. Also she made rhubarb pie,
Speaker 3: which was another thing, And so that was big.
Speaker 2: Do you think the cherries were fresh or did she
Speaker 2: get them from the cans?
Speaker 3: She'd get them from a can or sometimes when they
Speaker 3: were there, she would get them fresh. Yeah, And the
Speaker 3: effort was not so much into absolutely fresh food back then. No,
Speaker 3: canned food was very big and exciting. Yeah, And then
Speaker 3: came frozen food after that, and there's you know, there's
Speaker 3: a big debate over those nutritional value of those foods.
Speaker 2: Did your mom work? So she would work all day
Speaker 2: and then come home.
Speaker 3: She was a housekeeper and prepared food for us, And no,
Speaker 3: she didn't have a job. And so I grew up
Speaker 3: in the Bible Belt there and we were Catholics, so
Speaker 3: we were called mackerel snappers is what people would call us,
Speaker 3: meaning you don't eat meat on Friday, you eat fish
Speaker 3: on Friday. So mackerel snappers. But the kind of food
Speaker 3: that they served there, the only international food was called
Speaker 3: Chinese food, and every Chinese restaurant would always say on
Speaker 3: the outside of the building Chinese and American food.
Speaker 2: To alleviate the fear of working Chinese restaurants, and.
Speaker 3: So you could get Chinese. Yes, you could get chop
Speaker 3: suey things like that, and then you could also get
Speaker 3: a hamburger. So they were gonna offer you Chinese food,
Speaker 3: but also just in case, please come anyway because we
Speaker 3: can make a hamburger for you.
Speaker 2: Familiar. Yeah, but did you go to restaurants, I mean,
Speaker 2: would your parents take you out for a meal and
Speaker 2: a time.
Speaker 3: Occasionally we'd go to barbecue and that was popular. Then
Speaker 3: the one food that was really hit it big was
Speaker 3: okra Friday okra and they grow, yeah, they grow it
Speaker 3: in a big way there, and so there's lots of
Speaker 3: corn that you're giving almost every day. Yeah. Also during
Speaker 3: the war we had a victory garden. It was sort
Speaker 3: of pick yourself up by your booststraps by growing your
Speaker 3: own food and participating in the war effort World War two.
Speaker 3: So it was an extension of that that sort of
Speaker 3: went to your dinner table and other people would save
Speaker 3: metal and that sort of thing to recycle into the
Speaker 3: war effort. And so victory garden was it was a
Speaker 3: very popular thing then. Just we'd grow tomatoes and corn
Speaker 3: and celery and various vegetables, and that was kind of
Speaker 3: a unified attitude at the time, to have victory gardens
Speaker 3: in your backyard. I had a paper route in Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: and I deliver my papers at like four in the
Speaker 3: morning and then come back and drink almost a half
Speaker 3: a gallon of milk and then eight oh about twelve fourteen,
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said that, You said once said that you
Speaker 2: thought that Oklahoma was like a black and white movie.
Speaker 2: Do you think that? Do you think back on those days?
Speaker 3: I still do when I think back on it, But
Speaker 3: as I go back there occasionally I see that it's
Speaker 3: more progressive than I allow my mind to make it be. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know, it's caught up with the rest of
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: What's happened to your house there? Do you still have?
Speaker 3: It still stands? Yeah?
Speaker 2: When was the first time you went to Europe?
Speaker 3: About nineteen sixty one? And I went there with my
Speaker 3: mother and brother and we bought a little Citron two
Speaker 3: CV automobile in Paris and drove it around Europe and
Speaker 3: then came. Yeah, it was her first time too. So
Speaker 3: what was that like?
Speaker 2: What was it like? Food wise?
Speaker 3: Well, food wise, well, we we were kind of on
Speaker 3: a budget, So there wasn't nothing particularly fancy, but just
Speaker 3: the idea of having you know, stumbling onto wild strawberry
Speaker 3: which I'd never had before, those tiny little wild strawberries
Speaker 3: was great. That was in France. We drove all over
Speaker 3: Europe and for about four or five months, four or
Speaker 3: five months, yeah, yeah, we went as far south. We
Speaker 3: went to Yugoslavia, went to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, France,
Speaker 3: British Isles, went to Ireland try to find my mother's heritage,
Speaker 3: and never we struck out there, we couldn't find you.
Speaker 2: Did you paint or draw?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I took a little homemade kit a package that
Speaker 3: I would carry around and you know, allow me to
Speaker 3: do something on about eight x ten format, and brought
Speaker 3: paints along with me and worked like that. And my
Speaker 3: mother came back to the States after about two months,
Speaker 3: and then I stayed over there by myself for a while.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I think is very moving
Speaker 2: about your studio, part from the garden and the trees
Speaker 2: and of the fruit, is there seems to be a
Speaker 2: very strong community there and that when you come to
Speaker 2: London for your shows. When we went out to dinner afterwards,
Speaker 2: I think It probably was the Tait and then there
Speaker 2: was a dinner at the National Gallery. Because you had
Speaker 2: two shows, you were the first artists, contemporary artists to
Speaker 2: show singularly in the National Gallery.
Speaker 3: I was told that. I found it hard to believe,
Speaker 3: but it's true. Yeah, and then I think virget Riley
Speaker 3: maybe had something yeah recently there. Yeah. Do you bring
Speaker 3: everybody with you pretty much?
Speaker 2: That's so nice.
Speaker 3: People that work with me, Yeah, travel with me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's good.
Speaker 2: You're animals, they're dogs. How many do you have any
Speaker 2: idea of how many dogs?
Speaker 3: Uh? Dana has five other dogs besides Dexter, so you
Speaker 3: know she's got her handful. I mean she's got she
Speaker 3: needs a kennel license.
Speaker 2: Do you when you travel do you take a dog?
Speaker 3: He goes with me every.
Speaker 2: So you have a painting called Dexter.
Speaker 3: Again, don't give me any ideas.
Speaker 2: Can I just tell the story about I've had such
Speaker 2: a kind of passion for the Ruby painting. No Ruby
Speaker 2: meant to me. It filled me with kind of imagination,
Speaker 2: and I kept thinking, who is Ruby? So I just
Speaker 2: dreamt about who Ruby could be. I thought she might
Speaker 2: be a woman that you were in love with when
Speaker 2: you were a teenager in Alcoholma. I thought she'd might
Speaker 2: be your mother's name. I thought she could be a disappointment,
Speaker 2: somebody who left you, and I thought she could be
Speaker 2: a tragedy of someone who died. And I just kept
Speaker 2: thinking about because the way you wrote the ruby on
Speaker 2: the painting just means so much to me. And I've
Speaker 2: been trying to find a ruby painting. But when we
Speaker 2: spent that time together in London, over days and nights,
Speaker 2: I tried to I wanted to find a moment that
Speaker 2: was quiet where I could ask you who she was
Speaker 2: and what she meant to you, and I Dana was there,
Speaker 2: and I thought maybe I should wait, and we were
Speaker 2: to party, I should wait. But as I was saying
Speaker 2: goodbye to you that night, I said to you, Ed,
Speaker 2: can I just ask you one question? Who was she?
Speaker 2: Who was this ruby? Who was the inspiration for these beautiful,
Speaker 2: beautiful paintings? And you said ruby was a dog.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, But it was not the inspiration
Speaker 3: for that painting or that work. It wasn't. The ruby
Speaker 3: I did came long before the dog. Actually, yeah, And
Speaker 3: so I don't I'm not really sure where that a
Speaker 3: name came from. It didn't come from a person in
Speaker 3: my life. I didn't know, but I liked ruby as
Speaker 3: a feminine name, and it's just got a really good
Speaker 3: sound to it. And also it has a double meaning
Speaker 3: too with the gem ruby, and so it just meant
Speaker 3: that to me and kind of was an excuse to
Speaker 3: make a work.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful work. It's a beautiful, beautiful work. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I have one last question. So you've described food as
Speaker 2: a journey across Oklahoma to California. You've described it as
Speaker 2: an explosion of Rold's strawberries in France. You've used it
Speaker 2: in your work, used to actually paint made out of food.
Speaker 2: But if you were feeling that you needed food is comfort?
Speaker 2: Would you say there's a food you turned to in comfort?
Speaker 3: I would say that some kind of soup might be
Speaker 3: the answer. It's kind of traditionally of healing kind of food,
Speaker 3: so soup of almost any kind.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're chili, would your chili could.
Speaker 3: Be although chili might make you hop up and down, yeah,
Speaker 3: they may not be so RESTful, but comfort food might
Speaker 3: be in the form of some kind of vegetable soup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got that good. So are you staying here
Speaker 2: for a bit, you're going.
Speaker 3: Actually, I am going to the desert. Yeah today. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I hope I'll see you soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
Speaker 1: It has over one hundred recipes beautifully illustrated with photographs
Speaker 1: from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
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Speaker 1: Ruthie's Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios.
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