Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's table for in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Imagine going to a close friend's birthday months after the
Speaker 1: death of your son. Imagine realizing it was too soon
Speaker 1: and telling the man you're talking to, who you hardly know,
Speaker 1: why you need to leave. He takes your arm and
Speaker 1: he insists on seeing you to the lift. Then he
Speaker 1: goes down with you until you get to the street.
Speaker 1: This becomes a ten minute walk to the car park,
Speaker 1: a climb up the stairs, him holding your hand tightly,
Speaker 1: until you find your car, driving off. You see him
Speaker 1: in the rear view mirror, waving good bye. I was
Speaker 1: this woman, and Tom Hollander was this man, and his
Speaker 1: act of tenderness and compassion has stayed with me for
Speaker 1: thirteen years. There are many stories about Tom Hollander. The
Speaker 1: best ones are told by him, not least his life
Speaker 1: in the Day for the Sunday Times, the best in
Speaker 1: a great ever written. He is a fantastic actor White
Speaker 1: Lotus Patriots, most recently captivating audiences as Truman Capote in
Speaker 1: Feud Capote versus the Swans. He sings beautiful songs to
Speaker 1: a six month old son. He's passionate about what he
Speaker 1: cooks and what he eats. Yesterday he sent me a
Speaker 1: photograph with no caption, of fran Hickman with a large
Speaker 1: stainless steel saucepan obscuring her face, drinking the contents. Imagine
Speaker 1: being me in the River Cafe with Tom Hollander on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday afternoon, talking about memories of food, memories of friendship,
Speaker 1: family and all he is doing. Then imagine how special
Speaker 1: this feels. And it's true, I remember that, and it
Speaker 1: is something that stayed with me for years. But what
Speaker 1: is really staying with me is spaghetti with peas and pascutto.
Speaker 2: So ingredients untagrams of butter, one small red onion, chopped,
Speaker 2: three hundred grams of peas, sea salt and ground pepper.
Speaker 2: One loaf of garlic, thinly sliced, two tablespoons of chopped
Speaker 2: flat leaf parsley, three tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty grounds producto slices torn into pieces, three
Speaker 2: hundred grounds of spaghetti, fifty grounds of freshly grated parmesan.
Speaker 2: Heat the butter in a heavy frying pan over a
Speaker 2: medium heat, Add the onion and fry until soft. Add
Speaker 2: the peas, and salt and pepper, reduce the heat low
Speaker 2: and cook for five minutes. So that's the thing about peas,
Speaker 2: I know quite sure. Mostly we cook frozen peas, don't we,
Speaker 2: And you can pretty much just sort of put them
Speaker 2: in water for about a minute and then they're ready.
Speaker 2: But these peas fresh, so you cook for longer. That's
Speaker 2: why they they take five minutes of cooking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends really what part of the season you're in.
Speaker 1: When you have the very very small pieas, you hardly
Speaker 1: have to cook them at all, I see. And then
Speaker 1: you know, the tougher they get and the larger they get,
Speaker 1: you might not use them in a pasta sauce because
Speaker 1: you want them to be cooked down and really part
Speaker 1: of the softness of the pasta.
Speaker 2: But so these were new seas, fresh fresh peas. So
Speaker 2: you've added the peas and the salt in the pepper,
Speaker 2: and you reduce the heat to low and you cook
Speaker 2: it for five minutes, and then you add the garlic, parsley,
Speaker 2: produter and olive oil. You cover and cook over a
Speaker 2: low heat for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan
Speaker 2: of salted water to the boil, add the spaghetti and
Speaker 2: cook until al dente. Add the spaghetti to the pe mixture,
Speaker 2: stir well with a spoon. Stir in the pasta water,
Speaker 2: and top with parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.
Speaker 1: So you've just made this in the River cafe. What
Speaker 1: was that like?
Speaker 2: I watched Joseph. It was thrilling because I haven't ever
Speaker 2: seen somebody who knows really what they're doing that close up.
Speaker 2: It was also delicious and made me want to go
Speaker 2: and cook. It's good to watch, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's good to actually see something being made rather than
Speaker 1: always reading.
Speaker 2: Yes yes, and to see his hands move someone who's
Speaker 2: done it for years, so it becomes like a dance.
Speaker 1: Have we ever cooked on stage?
Speaker 2: I don't. Oh, I feel like I did. When I
Speaker 2: was a child actor. We did sausages. We had sausages
Speaker 2: in It was called Captain Styrick and it was one
Speaker 2: of the greatest shows that the Children's Music Theater, which
Speaker 2: is I think now called the National Youth Music Theater
Speaker 2: National Youth Music Theater created. It was a brilliant dark
Speaker 2: ballad opera. It was called and we were all ragged Children,
Speaker 2: Dickenzie and Beggar children in Bartholomew Fair, and there was
Speaker 2: a and Captain Styrick was the young It was the
Speaker 2: young kid who was our leader. There was it wasn't
Speaker 2: fake in like, it wasn't Oliver Twist. It was actually darker.
Speaker 2: And Captain Syrih went mad, Julian Sylvester. He was called,
Speaker 2: if you're out there, Julians Soversity, you were unforgettable. Anyway,
Speaker 2: maybe he's listening, maybe he is. I hope he is somewhere.
Speaker 2: And we oh thirteen fourteen, and we did it on
Speaker 2: the stage of the National Theater in what was then
Speaker 2: called the Cottaslow Theater. And we had sausages which we
Speaker 2: cooked on a we I mean, I don't think we
Speaker 2: really cooked them, but we were as if cooking them.
Speaker 2: And then we got to eat them, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was quite fun to have something to eat halfway
Speaker 2: through the second half. I remember that, yeah, And I
Speaker 2: sing a song from that was it? I sing that
Speaker 2: kit our son. I've seen it to him. Now, many
Speaker 2: a man has left this land on a boat that's
Speaker 2: bound for Botany. Why should he grieve? He could be
Speaker 2: leaving a life of meal and not any you'll boast
Speaker 2: and brag of the deed he's done to avoid the
Speaker 2: nag of the hungry sun. But he's been undone at
Speaker 2: the feast of fun and it's botany Bay for him.
Speaker 2: So do you.
Speaker 1: When you're on stage, does your schedule for eating change?
Speaker 2: I try to eat in the day before the biggest
Speaker 2: meals in the afternoon before the show because it's quite athletic.
Speaker 1: So what time would that be if the place starts
Speaker 1: at seven.
Speaker 2: Then three or fours? Yeah, you two or three or
Speaker 2: four and then go to sleep, yeah, and then do
Speaker 2: the show. And then if there are people in then
Speaker 2: you and you find out you're going out to dinner.
Speaker 2: Then you have to have fish and vegetables and try
Speaker 2: not to eat all the chips and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it and that nose Masnez the last play, I
Speaker 2: would have a fanaffel salad in the dressing room without
Speaker 2: leaving between shows, because that you just need carbohydrate and
Speaker 2: fuel and then go and you'd try to eat a
Speaker 2: bigish breakfast on a mass in a day, but that
Speaker 2: in between showday I would buy it before I'd take
Speaker 2: it in, put in my fridge, eat it, go to sleep.
Speaker 2: That was a ritual that was very good.
Speaker 1: Would you drink. Would you have alcohol if you are
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 2: Stage between shows? Yeah? No, never, no, though everyone No,
Speaker 2: I tried to. I tried all of those things in
Speaker 2: my twenties, and they it's a mess. It affects your
Speaker 2: timing and your memory and your speed and your reactivity.
Speaker 2: Don't you can't. It ruins it. But in the olden days.
Speaker 2: I remember Oliver Cotton telling me that he remember it
Speaker 2: was very strange in the mid eighties at the National
Speaker 2: everyone stopped drinking during the show, and he said, if
Speaker 2: you were on stage with Paul Schofield and you were
Speaker 2: downstage center, you would expect to smell whiskey on his breath.
Speaker 2: So they were just they were just used to it.
Speaker 2: I think it didn't They would drink so much more
Speaker 2: in those days that it just didn't affect them in
Speaker 2: the same way. But obviously alcohol, a small amount of
Speaker 2: alcohol or a small amount of any intoxicant allows releases
Speaker 2: your imaginative stuff and makes you relax. When I played
Speaker 2: the violin at school, I would always find concerts very
Speaker 2: tense making, and I discovered that having half a half
Speaker 2: of a glass of beer allowed me to play better
Speaker 2: in a concert situation, just because I was so racked
Speaker 2: with nerves otherwise. But the association between, you know, being
Speaker 2: artistically brilliant and being intoxicated has got an awful lot
Speaker 2: of people into terrible trouble over the years, not least
Speaker 2: of whom Truman Coupoti.
Speaker 1: We could talk about Capoti and women and food because
Speaker 1: those women a lot of so many scenes in restauran. Right,
Speaker 1: they went to lunch every day.
Speaker 2: You're right, But I wonder if they skin he was
Speaker 2: their job. Yeah, they drank. I think they drank and smoked.
Speaker 2: They drank and smoked and and sort of died young. Yeah,
Speaker 2: perhaps they were celebrating being in the inn crowd and
Speaker 2: being at the table, the best table in the best restaurant.
Speaker 2: And yes, they were restraining themselves. He couldn't stop, he
Speaker 2: couldn't control his appetite. And he loved cooking. He loved
Speaker 2: he loved his own kitchen. Yeah, in the South was yes, yes.
Speaker 2: And the black and white ball they served his, you know,
Speaker 2: the black and white ball sort of apotheos. The black
Speaker 2: and white ball was a ball that Truman Capoti threw
Speaker 2: in I can't remember when the very early sixties, on
Speaker 2: the back of In Cold Blood, which had made him
Speaker 2: hugely famous, and his obsession with sort of high society
Speaker 2: and his own celebrity came together in one glorious moment,
Speaker 2: and he created the guest list to beat all guest
Speaker 2: lists that have ever existed, so much so that people
Speaker 2: knew about him were fighting to get on it. And
Speaker 2: aristocrats flew from Europe. All the film stars, you know,
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, the Anneli's the probably Mick Jagger,
Speaker 2: we can ask him. They all turned up to the
Speaker 2: plaza and he gave them corn beef hash, which he
Speaker 2: remembered fondly from Monroeville, Alabama, where he'd grown up. But
Speaker 2: they all complained about the budget of the catering that
Speaker 2: it was very small. For him, it was about getting
Speaker 2: them in. They were the decoration, They were the party,
Speaker 2: their dresses, their masks, but there was nothing there. There
Speaker 2: were some balloons and some rather dodgy food that neither wanted,
Speaker 2: and I think the party ended relatively early, and a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of them went gambling.
Speaker 1: Was it like filming that scene? Did you do it?
Speaker 2: They recreated it in the place, and Zach Posen had
Speaker 2: done the dresses for the ladies. It was amazing that was,
Speaker 2: and there was there's a sequence in it if people
Speaker 2: he did it emotionally for his mother, we think, we
Speaker 2: think those of us who made that show because his
Speaker 2: mother wanted to Truman's mother, who'd abandoned him when he
Speaker 2: was four, then married a man called Joe Capoti, who
Speaker 2: gave him his name, Truman his name, but who was
Speaker 2: a He was a sort of he was dodgy, his
Speaker 2: finances were dodgy, and she nearly made it herself into
Speaker 2: Upper east Side society. And then Joe Caboti was revealed
Speaker 2: as being sort of bankrupt and hopeless. It all fell
Speaker 2: apart and she killed herself, and then Truman had this
Speaker 2: ball to kind of to go, look, Mum, I've done it.
Speaker 2: I've done it for us. Every noone wants to be here.
Speaker 2: They've all got to be here. And in our version
Speaker 2: of it, episode three of Feud Capodi and the Women.
Speaker 2: In our version of it, his mother comes to him
Speaker 2: as a ghost in the ball, and what Lee Radswell
Speaker 2: sees is Truman dancing drunkenly on his own and Lee
Speaker 2: Radswell looks across looks across the room, Callista f Lockhart
Speaker 2: looking at him sadly going look at the Paul sod.
Speaker 2: He's just a drunk. And then the final scene of
Speaker 2: the episode is in color and he's not dancing on
Speaker 2: his hand, he's dancing with his mum.
Speaker 1: Did he he did?
Speaker 2: Loves cooking. Yeah, he was addictive and compulsive. So he
Speaker 2: goes up and down. You see. We in our version
Speaker 2: we pretty much do fat Trooman because I couldn't in
Speaker 2: a TV schedule go up and down as much as
Speaker 2: I needed to, so we went with fat. Ryan Murphy said,
Speaker 2: you need to you need to put some weight, so
Speaker 2: I did, which was very enjoyable. Obviously less enjoyable trying
Speaker 2: to lose it again. How do you get weight? I've
Speaker 2: done this a couple of times. I did it, and
Speaker 2: it basically you have to just eat all the things,
Speaker 2: the obvious things like pizza and ice cream and cornish
Speaker 2: pasties and chips, and then you get fat very quickly.
Speaker 1: How does it make you feel?
Speaker 2: And then it's marvelous in the moment, And then and
Speaker 2: I started to find it hard to put my socks on,
Speaker 2: and I got breathless doing sensible things I thought, easy usual,
Speaker 2: I mean ordinary things. That was that was distressing. So
Speaker 2: and also I'm a bit old to be messing around
Speaker 2: with my weight like that. And furthermore, I've I have
Speaker 2: a little bit of a compulsion to overeat myself, and
Speaker 2: have spent all of my most of my professional life
Speaker 2: slightly going slightly slightly up in between jobs and then
Speaker 2: having a diet before a job, and going up and
Speaker 2: going down, and going up and going down, and trying
Speaker 2: to stay disciplined, trying to be like my father, who
Speaker 2: weighs himself every day and if he ever goes over
Speaker 2: eleven stone, he has a look at breakfast, he says,
Speaker 2: I work. I know whether I can have a heavy
Speaker 2: or like retors, depending on what the scales it on
Speaker 2: every day? Does that which sounds like, you know, one
Speaker 2: of the Swans with its level of obsession, but he's
Speaker 2: he's eighty eight and still going strong.
Speaker 1: You're saying before that putting it on was one thing,
Speaker 1: but you haven't told us about how you take it off.
Speaker 2: So I went to a clinic, about half of it
Speaker 2: came off in an Austrian clinic, and then I really
Speaker 2: only lost. And then I went and did the play
Speaker 2: in which I was playing someone who needed to actually
Speaker 2: be a bit heavier than me. So I took me
Speaker 2: that was Patriots playing Berezovsky, who was quite portly. So
Speaker 2: I kept it on for that and that worked and
Speaker 2: then I only I only got it off about three
Speaker 2: months ago with the fear of doing the American breast junk.
Speaker 3: It.
Speaker 2: That motivated me enough to cut down on everything for
Speaker 2: a few weeks and it came off. And so I'm
Speaker 2: always trying to to, you know, discipline myself. But I
Speaker 2: do have a tendency to I love eating, but I
Speaker 2: also eat my feelings, you know, which which people do,
Speaker 2: and if you do it too much, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: not good for you. So I tried to do other
Speaker 2: things with my feelings.
Speaker 1: Friend of mine, I was at a dinner recently where
Speaker 1: they were talking about a zempec. Oh yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: they were saying that, and it was kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to her. She said, really, what it's done for me,
Speaker 1: It's taken the noise of food away. It's taken all
Speaker 1: that noise. Should I shouldn't? I how much? When? And
Speaker 1: actually I understand that a lot, But I also think
Speaker 1: it's a kind of noise we do want in our
Speaker 1: life as well. We like the noise of food, don't
Speaker 1: we we like the kind of thought of going to
Speaker 1: bed at night and thinking what am I going to
Speaker 1: have tomorrow for lunch or then?
Speaker 2: And actually it's the noise of being alive, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's the desire then, the fulfillment of the desire, that
Speaker 2: the creative process, the gathering of ingredients, the construction, the destruction,
Speaker 2: the kind of the clearing up afterwards, everything from the
Speaker 2: preparation to the end of it. It's all it's And
Speaker 2: it's a sort of I mean, you could, I could
Speaker 2: become pretentious if I'd say, but you know, it's a
Speaker 2: cycle of life, isn't it. But yes, But but to
Speaker 2: be at war with food, which you can be, is
Speaker 2: not good. And I have I do have a sense
Speaker 2: of that because being you know, an actor, where you
Speaker 2: become inevitably obsessed with your appearance, you know, it has
Speaker 2: an a tendency to make you think, I mustn't need,
Speaker 2: I mustn't need, I mustn't eat, so I'm beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's never really made any difference. I met her. I
Speaker 2: met her an actor once in Italy who'd long retired.
Speaker 2: He'd been a famous sixties heart throw quite famous. And
Speaker 2: I'm not going to name him, partly because it would
Speaker 2: be the wrong thing to do, and also because I
Speaker 2: can't remember his name. But he said I had to
Speaker 2: retire because I was sick of being thin and I
Speaker 2: wanted to eat. And he lived in the Italian hills
Speaker 2: near Cordona, and he loved food and he ate it.
Speaker 2: And he's probably no longer with us, but he was
Speaker 2: living the life of a you know, a bonne viver.
Speaker 2: And I did sometimes think I'll get to a certain
Speaker 2: age and then I'll give up trying to not be fat,
Speaker 2: and then I'll just become a fat actor. Because fat
Speaker 2: actors they never stopped working. They're always there's always rumber,
Speaker 2: a fat actor in everything. Anyway, I can't do that.
Speaker 2: Orson Welles Well exactly, Dear Richard Griffiths, or you know,
Speaker 2: you sort of think they're they're loved. But I don't
Speaker 2: want to do that because I think I want to.
Speaker 2: I now need to live as long as I can.
Speaker 1: For sure, we certainly shall, because you have a son
Speaker 1: I do. Did you know the River Cafe has a shop.
Speaker 1: It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have
Speaker 1: cookbooks and then a Napkins kitchen ware toad bags with
Speaker 1: our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can
Speaker 1: find us right next door to the River Cafe in
Speaker 1: London or online at shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: What meals like in your house? Did you all sit
Speaker 1: down for dinner every night? Your sister and your sister.
Speaker 2: Us, your cook and mom would cook and did you cook?
Speaker 2: His dad didn't cook then, but he did. He didn't
Speaker 2: cook when we were children, really, but he learned to
Speaker 2: cook once we left home and he loves cooking now.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that's maybe that's changed. I wonder whether
Speaker 2: this was true. I was thinking about it, just that
Speaker 2: when I grew up it felt like, you know, mothers
Speaker 2: did the cooking, fathers did the eating, but that we've
Speaker 2: lived through a period where that's changed, right as sorry,
Speaker 2: mothers are working, mothers are working, so fathers are cooking,
Speaker 2: and then people like Jamie Oliver, scion of the River
Speaker 2: Cafe have taught everyone how that they can do it too, right.
Speaker 2: So but I have image of my father learning to cook,
Speaker 2: and then I am sort of learning to cook actually
Speaker 2: the same sort of age, which is great. That's a
Speaker 2: that's a great development isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yes, when you were growing up in your parents' house,
Speaker 1: your grandparents were nearby.
Speaker 2: Were they they were in Devon? No, we were in Oxford,
Speaker 2: but they We used to go to them on the
Speaker 2: way to Cornwall every spring and every summer, and sometimes
Speaker 2: on the way back. And then towards the end of
Speaker 2: my grandparents' life he was living with us in Oxford.
Speaker 1: Your grandfather who came from Germany with your father background, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Czechoovcia checkless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen thirty nine he came with my dad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And how old was your father three? Oh? I see,
Speaker 1: so your father came very early. Yeah, so the grandmother,
Speaker 1: grandfather and your.
Speaker 2: Father nineteen thirty nine. Yeah, they made this epic journey
Speaker 2: across Central Europe and landed it marriage I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they had sort of twenty five suitcases at the
Speaker 2: beginning of the journey, and they were thrown off one
Speaker 2: I won, reduced to about three by the time they
Speaker 2: got to the end. Any money they had left was
Speaker 2: there in my father's shoe, the toddler's shoe, and then
Speaker 2: they but they knew some people. My grandfather was ran
Speaker 2: a radio station in Czechoslovakia. The music was in charge
Speaker 2: of the music, the classical music part of it, and
Speaker 2: a BBC producer had sent him this letter inviting him
Speaker 2: to come to give a talk about Yanichek as my
Speaker 2: father knew Yanichek and had written about Yanicheck and promoted
Speaker 2: Yanischeck and was a friend of his, and please bring
Speaker 2: us your some expertise about Yanicheck. And that was what
Speaker 2: allowed them to get through because they had German accents,
Speaker 2: so people they were immediately people were suspicious of them.
Speaker 1: Did they speak English at all?
Speaker 2: My grandmother spoke quite good English, and my grandfather had
Speaker 2: to learn English. But they were you know, he was
Speaker 2: forty two or something forty He was born in eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine, So yeah.
Speaker 1: They And as is your grandparents, did they cook for you?
Speaker 2: They did a bit. I think my parents used to
Speaker 2: take over pretty much doing all the domestic things when
Speaker 2: they got there. We used to say it was Bohemian
Speaker 2: their life on it was technically Moravian. Happy food situations
Speaker 2: were in our home. I have very happy memories of
Speaker 2: our family suppers in which the day would be downloaded
Speaker 2: and we'd all share our experience of school. My parents
Speaker 2: were teachers, so we would all be talking about ask
Speaker 2: what had happened at school. They would be as well,
Speaker 2: and I did miss that. That is that's one of
Speaker 2: the principal memories of growing up, is that moment of
Speaker 2: the day for sure.
Speaker 1: So let's look at this point.
Speaker 2: So this is a book that my mother made me
Speaker 2: when I was a student and sent me off to
Speaker 2: be a student with and put in a few of
Speaker 2: the favorite things that we'd eat and that she'd cooked us,
Speaker 2: and it was just sort of start us off. So
Speaker 2: this is when you went to Cambridge. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five. She would have made this for one
Speaker 2: So I was looking at a book. So she's written
Speaker 2: bon epitty and then she sectioned it into soup, fish, meat, miscellaneous.
Speaker 2: Under miscellaneous is tomato chutney.
Speaker 1: And your mother grew up in Britain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, she grew up in Africa until
Speaker 2: she was six and then she then she was in England.
Speaker 2: But they're to rollo cross there. That's the sort of
Speaker 2: thing that we used to eat children. So well, it's
Speaker 2: Central Europe. It's Tyrilian. Actually it's Czech Austrian because they
Speaker 2: were so we did eat and dad, what's fascinating about
Speaker 2: because dad does not really that is that is an
Speaker 2: Englishman now, but when we go it's food. Food reveals
Speaker 2: about your origin. So he loves venishntsel, and he loves
Speaker 2: apple strudle, which he now makes. He makes very good.
Speaker 2: And so Mum used to cook things o goulash we
Speaker 2: had we used to eat regularly, which I've recently learned
Speaker 2: how to make, which is I'm thrilled about because it's
Speaker 2: what meat do you use? Well, actually, mushrooms the last time,
Speaker 2: no meat. A vegetarian goulash because Fran is vegetarian. And
Speaker 2: then I secretly sometimes make it if Fran's not at home.
Speaker 2: I made it with venison. We live in a bit
Speaker 2: of the country which is infested with deer, and people
Speaker 2: are always giving each other piles of venison out the
Speaker 2: deep freeze. So delicious. But terrolla crosl is torolla crosal
Speaker 2: is a sort of is a kind of peasant Alpine dish.
Speaker 1: Cooked potatoes, potato and sausage. You have the cooked potatoes
Speaker 1: and then you're earning slammy ham and sausage.
Speaker 2: Those are those are sort of oars either garlic sausage,
Speaker 2: just the classic okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Then you add the guy. Then the potatoes fry, add
Speaker 1: the meat to the ingredients, and cook for another ten minutes.
Speaker 1: That seems like a cook recipe for a college student,
Speaker 1: doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And then it was then it was a bad
Speaker 2: recipe for an out of work young actor who didn't
Speaker 2: have enough to do and would go, well, I can
Speaker 2: fill the second half of the day with lunch and
Speaker 2: the consequences of lunch. I can fill it with the
Speaker 2: buying of the ingredients, the cooking of lunch, the over eating,
Speaker 2: and then the falling asleep. And that'll get me till
Speaker 2: that'll get me to PM program that would get me
Speaker 2: to five o'clock. No, but I remember making to roller
Speaker 2: Cross Limpeca.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is beautiful. If you liked listening to Ruthie's
Speaker 1: Table four, would you please make sure to rape and
Speaker 1: review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. You were
Speaker 1: doing theater ever since you were in the play in
Speaker 1: the National Youth Theater and new auditioned for this from
Speaker 1: the Dragon School.
Speaker 3: Is that No?
Speaker 2: No, it was at the next school. It was called
Speaker 2: Abingdon School. And yeah, this company used to go around
Speaker 2: schools and work in the school with the drama department
Speaker 2: for a term and create a show and then take
Speaker 2: it to the Edinburgh Festival. And we were all incredibly lucky.
Speaker 2: And from that I got They did one called Well
Speaker 2: Captain Syrick was the first one, which I think they'd
Speaker 2: started at Haberdasher's Asks. All sounds very embarrassingly privileged, which
Speaker 2: it was because they were all I think independent schools.
Speaker 2: Tiffins it started at, which is I think a sort
Speaker 2: of grammar school at that point, but it was actually
Speaker 2: that children Yeah, that National Youth Music Theater thing that
Speaker 2: I got picked up for a TV film a BBC
Speaker 2: Tikenzie and drama for children's theater in nineen eighty one
Speaker 2: called John Diamond, which was an adaptation of a Leon
Speaker 2: Garfield book, and that was so exciting to be picked up.
Speaker 2: I had a term off school. I was driven around
Speaker 2: in a car and I got given money and got
Speaker 2: to stay in a hotel on my own and eat.
Speaker 2: I remember eating duck a la range on my age
Speaker 2: fourteen in a hotel in Tetbury and thinking Wow, this
Speaker 2: is the life. And that rather rewired my brain in
Speaker 2: a way that is either helpful or helpful because it
Speaker 2: meant sort of the end of ambition, or at least
Speaker 2: it meant the end of imagination. So I then thought, well,
Speaker 2: I must repeat this for the rest of my life
Speaker 2: and become an actor. So that was when I was fourteen,
Speaker 2: and then I went back school, went to university, and
Speaker 2: then yes, was always waiting to start acting.
Speaker 1: Anyway, this is a report recently. Have you seen that
Speaker 1: the percentage of actors who've been to private schools is
Speaker 1: getting I think maybe, and so maybe this will change
Speaker 1: with their new government. But the investment in state schools
Speaker 1: to culture where we could get political, but it is
Speaker 1: true that you know it is it is part of
Speaker 1: education and part of a miniority of a society to
Speaker 1: find the kids who.
Speaker 2: Have all the sixties heroes, all those actors that Albert Finney's.
Speaker 1: And Michael Caine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were all the Terrence Stamps and the petro'tools.
Speaker 2: They weren't privately educatd.
Speaker 1: But Michael Caine said that he was not allowed he
Speaker 1: was Yeah, I think he was not allowed or he
Speaker 1: it was a real triumph when he was able to
Speaker 1: play a military man with a Cockney accent, because.
Speaker 2: That was not I see, I see, yeah, no, but
Speaker 2: that that was of course exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that's another theme that has gone through. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about Grandmother's cookie, but we also talked about people,
Speaker 1: particularly in the arts they see, being able to eat
Speaker 1: the food that they want drink the wine that they
Speaker 1: would like to have as a measure of their success,
Speaker 1: you know, discovering that food, what food could be? Did
Speaker 1: you have that or did you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did?
Speaker 1: And when was that?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: Will you describe him?
Speaker 2: In a hotel fourteen?
Speaker 1: So still that was all the memories you have, choosing
Speaker 1: the eating one.
Speaker 2: You're right, I did, I repeatedly did it that the
Speaker 2: twenty or thirty? Is that I in which I mean?
Speaker 2: It came to a head when my accountant said that
Speaker 2: when I went for that meeting that you have with
Speaker 2: your accountant at the end of the year where they
Speaker 2: they tally everything up, he said, you as you eat
Speaker 2: every single night in a restaurant, And I said, do
Speaker 2: I am sure it can't be true, and you know
Speaker 2: you do pretty much five out of seven men, you
Speaker 2: know you're doing that to you? And no, But I
Speaker 2: think I was definitely experiencing that thing of going I
Speaker 2: can I can celebrate the fact that at least it's
Speaker 2: working out sufficiently to allow me to do this. And
Speaker 2: and yes, regularly celebrating the fact that it's it's okay
Speaker 2: by ordering something slightly more than you ought to.
Speaker 1: Is that where you put so? Is that where you spent?
Speaker 1: He's noticed that. Did he also say you've bought too
Speaker 1: many clothes, You've got so many taxis?
Speaker 2: No, I would say it was food. It was that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's restaurants.
Speaker 1: We did that when Richard and I lived in Paris.
Speaker 1: It was when the days when you had check books
Speaker 1: and checkbook stubs. Yes, and you know, we flow through it,
Speaker 1: you flick through it, and every stub was the name
Speaker 1: of a restaurant or a food chop. It was it
Speaker 1: went to the food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, at this moment, in this conversation, it feels
Speaker 2: like a wonderful thing to have done. I sometimes think, ooh, ouch,
Speaker 2: maybe I could have just now I'm in a phase.
Speaker 2: Now we're in this sort of the world has changed
Speaker 2: and that's not the way I live anymore. And also
Speaker 2: now we have a child, and so the family dinner
Speaker 2: thing is suddenly becoming exciting, you know, And so that
Speaker 2: that little vignette that we were just talking about the
Speaker 2: family supper that's suddenly becoming the kitchen table, the home
Speaker 2: cooked food thing that's all suddenly becoming the new aspiration. Also,
Speaker 2: the world has changed, and so swaning about jumping out
Speaker 2: of cars going into flashy restaurants doesn't feel quite right anymore.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking forward to, you know, cooking our child,
Speaker 2: fish fingers and peas, that joy and catch up. I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to all of that.
Speaker 1: Food is about your father and your grandfather coming from Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 1: Food is about sitting at the table and your mother's
Speaker 1: book that you know, this beautiful book that your mother
Speaker 1: gave you as a gift to tell you what to
Speaker 1: cook and what to eat, is almost like she was
Speaker 1: coming with you. It also is comfort. So to finish
Speaker 1: what has been a glorious, imagine day, I would ask you,
Speaker 1: Tom Hollander, to tell me if you need comfort, if
Speaker 1: you have to go to food for comfort, is there
Speaker 1: a food that you would choose.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm in a sort of desert island, dissy way.
Speaker 2: If I had to reduce it, if I had to take,
Speaker 2: if I was allowed the one food to comfort me,
Speaker 2: I would take my mother's actually grandmother's chutney recipe.
Speaker 1: Do you want to read it?
Speaker 2: Sure? Three pounds of tomatoes, one pound of onions, half
Speaker 2: a pint of vinegar, malt very important. I try to
Speaker 2: make it with refined more viger. The other they didn't work.
Speaker 2: One tablespoonful of curry powder, one tablespoonful of dry mustard,
Speaker 2: one and a half tablespoonfuls of cornflour, a pound of sugar,
Speaker 2: seven dried chilies. But the chilies you can put far
Speaker 2: more in. Some people like it very hot, some people don't.
Speaker 2: Corner of teaspoonful of cayne pepper salt, two tablespoonfuls of salt,
Speaker 2: and you cut up the tomatoes and the onions, and
Speaker 2: you sprinkle the salt, and you leave them overnight. That's
Speaker 2: the long bit, and you let them do some chemical
Speaker 2: thing and it smells very strong the next morning, that mixture.
Speaker 2: And then you pour in the vinegar and you add
Speaker 2: the sugar and the chilies and the cane. You boil
Speaker 2: for half an hour. You mix the curry powder of
Speaker 2: the mustard and the corn flowers, and you get a
Speaker 2: paste and a little vinegar. You add it to the
Speaker 2: rest slowly and you stir it in, stir it in
Speaker 2: bit by bit boil for five minutes, stirring all the time,
Speaker 2: and then you put into bottle and seal and you
Speaker 2: take the chilies out before bottling if you don't want
Speaker 2: it too well. And it's absolutely the most delicious jompney
Speaker 2: I've ever had. And and you can you know, have
Speaker 2: it with cheese. Obviously you can also stir it into risotto.
Speaker 2: It's you could probably put a blob on. You can
Speaker 2: put it on anything. I love it.
Speaker 1: What would you bring me one next time?
Speaker 2: Okay, I will, I will, I should have done that,
Speaker 2: I will bring.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, thank you, beautiful time.
Speaker 2: Thank you. How many a man has left this land
Speaker 2: on a boat that's bound for Botany? Why should he grieve?
Speaker 2: He could be leaving a life of me, not any.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair.
Speaker 3: Ruthie's The Table four is produced by Atame Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 3: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 3: Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and zad Rogers.
Speaker 3: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
Speaker 3: is Bella Cellini. Thank you to everyone at The River
Speaker 3: Cafe for your help in making this episode.