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Speaker 1: store in Marlevin, which opens on the twenty ninth of October. Well,
Speaker 1: hello everyone, it's Christmas and it's a time forgiving, and
Speaker 1: so as a present to all of you are giving
Speaker 1: you a Christmas Special. And the Christmas Special is to
Speaker 1: have Sean win Owen and Joseph Travelli, the executive chefs,
Speaker 1: as high as you can get in the River Cafe
Speaker 1: here with me to talk about cooking and Christmas. And
Speaker 1: we've also had questions, so we're going to just see
Speaker 1: how this rolls. I'm just gonna ask you, what do
Speaker 1: you feel about the River Cafe at Christmas?
Speaker 2: I always think that Christmas at the River Cafe is
Speaker 2: when I can pull out the true headonist in me.
Speaker 3: It's a chef which I think is.
Speaker 1: Like which we never see any other time.
Speaker 2: But you can pull out all the stops, and I
Speaker 2: think you can go for like food that's so rich
Speaker 2: and so over the top, it can never be too much.
Speaker 2: And the lead up to Christmas, when everyone is just
Speaker 2: out for their sort of Christmas meal. You can use
Speaker 2: caviat you can use white truffles. I mean, I do
Speaker 2: like the idea of gold leaf, but I've never said.
Speaker 3: That to you.
Speaker 2: I mean, we haven't used gold leaf for you. But
Speaker 2: you can pull out all the stops. You can cook
Speaker 2: with champagne. You can make risottos with champagne. You can
Speaker 2: cook veal with rolo, you can cook game, you can
Speaker 2: do anything you want. There's no holes barred, and it's
Speaker 2: just decadence all the way.
Speaker 3: And I just love that you.
Speaker 1: Take it in celebration. People here, you come in today,
Speaker 1: have come in and it's five o'clock and there are
Speaker 1: people still having lunch, you know, and they have all
Speaker 1: the time. If I see one more espresso martini, have
Speaker 1: you ever had one? I've never had an espresso.
Speaker 4: I could order you one now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What do you feel about cooking and Christmas?
Speaker 5: I really like the fact that everyone's in, you know,
Speaker 5: really up for it, and I think that's what I
Speaker 5: like the most.
Speaker 4: You know, of course, I like love all the food.
Speaker 5: I love the fact that we're making Billito Misto and
Speaker 5: the cottaquinas have just arrived from Parma, and I really readiship.
Speaker 2: Do you remember, like in the cafe, I was thinking
Speaker 2: about the bagpipe, the guy who brings.
Speaker 4: Of course he'll be coming any day.
Speaker 3: Because we have because we buy our He's Scottish, but
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 2: Actually the grabs come from the South Coast, but the
Speaker 2: man that delivers them is Scottish. So suddenly it will
Speaker 2: be the restaurant will be packed with about, you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty people, all having a rowdy Christmas lunch,
Speaker 2: and suddenly in the from the back of the kitchen
Speaker 2: you hear the harm of the bagpiper and it's like
Speaker 2: is that him?
Speaker 3: And then he comes in.
Speaker 2: He's obviously had a few whiskeys on the way round
Speaker 2: London playing the bagpipes, and then he walks up through
Speaker 2: the river Cafo playing something like mullufkin tire on the
Speaker 2: on the bagpipes, and then everyone claps in cheers and
Speaker 2: him and he gets another brandy or whiskey and it goes.
Speaker 3: This is really fun.
Speaker 4: It's really good fun.
Speaker 1: Do you have a special recipe for someone listening away
Speaker 1: a technique or a hint resting a turkey?
Speaker 5: Well, we're really lucky because of your Thanksgiving celebration.
Speaker 4: We we have a kind of run through.
Speaker 5: We've already had a run through, so I can assure
Speaker 5: you that all the whole kitchen is very keen on
Speaker 5: dry brining turkey at the moment, much more then chaking it.
Speaker 4: Dry browning is so dry.
Speaker 5: Brining just means sorting the turkey, you know, maybe like
Speaker 5: even three days in advance, and then you know, eventually
Speaker 5: roasting it however you want to do that. But the
Speaker 5: other very common popular thing is to brin it in
Speaker 5: a wet Brian you know, maybe with water and salt,
Speaker 5: and I think the flesh gets rather wet. But the
Speaker 5: dryway it is really succulent and it really works a
Speaker 5: treat do you have.
Speaker 2: I think what I do at home is because I
Speaker 2: like to have lunch, maybe two or three I put
Speaker 2: the turkey and at midnight go to bed. I do,
Speaker 2: and I don't have to say. I like, it's quite
Speaker 2: nice to get up on Christmas morning and smell like
Speaker 2: your lunch already, and obviously stuff it both ends and
Speaker 2: then put it on low. You're not too low, it's
Speaker 2: always a bit of a guestimate low, and then crank
Speaker 2: the oven up to color at the end.
Speaker 1: What about the stuff?
Speaker 5: Is the nicest stuffing I ever had, Shah made, hands down.
Speaker 5: Once you made the stuffing with fennel and chestnuts and
Speaker 5: not sausage. I think it was panchetta and bread that
Speaker 5: had been soaked in milk.
Speaker 4: And it was like, it's really I mean stuffing.
Speaker 5: The word delicate and stuffing don't but it was really nice.
Speaker 4: It was so good.
Speaker 2: It was nice inside because it has juice in it,
Speaker 2: doesn't it as well? And obviously don't be afraid of
Speaker 2: butter because it's still December, so you can still eat
Speaker 2: rich until January and then then worry about it.
Speaker 3: That's what I do.
Speaker 1: There's another question, which is if you were too. This
Speaker 1: is from somebody called fe and she's written what is
Speaker 1: your favorite alternative to a traditional turkey?
Speaker 3: Which is what about a nice lobster thermidore?
Speaker 1: Well, that's what you know, that's what I have. I
Speaker 1: don't do thermidora, but we always have lobsters because traditionally
Speaker 1: our family always went away at Christmas, so we had
Speaker 1: the whole family over and as I knew they were
Speaker 1: all going to have turkey, the minute we went on
Speaker 1: to Mexico, we would have lobsters.
Speaker 5: Do you have I would, Well, one of my aunts
Speaker 5: in Palma, she used to always boil a capon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a really big, really really big chicken.
Speaker 5: And stuffing inside no, not that I remember, no, And
Speaker 5: then you'd have that. She'd use the broth first of all,
Speaker 5: with the little pasta, and then afterwards you'd eat this
Speaker 5: boiled bird, do you know, with whatever?
Speaker 4: Really, but that was quite nice.
Speaker 5: It was a bit different, but still, you know, a
Speaker 5: great big poultry thing.
Speaker 1: I've heard of that, but I think Richards mommed again
Speaker 1: back to her and stuffed it and then boiled it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Most unusual one I've had is in Portugal with the
Speaker 2: in laws, which is probably not one for your Christmas
Speaker 2: Day listening. But it's a really famous Portuguese dish, which
Speaker 2: is chicken cooked in blood.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you Portuguese dish chicken.
Speaker 4: Blood the chicken blood really.
Speaker 3: And I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 2: You go to the house, you'll have the chicken ready
Speaker 2: to go, like an avym bottle that the butcher will
Speaker 2: give you full of blood. Then they cooked the chicken
Speaker 2: in it. I thought it was cocover. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: this is exciting, and then it was you get rid
Speaker 2: of the kind of richness of it. If you think
Speaker 2: livery flavors with vinegar. It's a really proper celebration. But
Speaker 2: it's quite a punchy dish, not for the fainthearted.
Speaker 1: Have you had it, You've had it? Did you like it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I tasted like you know, if you eat chicken livers
Speaker 2: and all those rich chickeny flavored things just taste the same.
Speaker 4: This is a kind of an obvious, I suppose thing.
Speaker 4: But goose.
Speaker 5: You know, I remember when you're having goose, and I
Speaker 5: didn't really know what to do with it. And I
Speaker 5: asked Rose like and you know how something that she
Speaker 5: was very specific. She was like, you cook it with tomatoes,
Speaker 5: on the top in brandy, very specific and oh my god,
Speaker 5: it was so Joyce Marna.
Speaker 1: It was real. I think again Rose really loved Joyce Marna,
Speaker 1: and she made it think about just so little meat
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 5: Ross asks every this will make you love Brussels sprouts
Speaker 5: recipe I see involves bacon. Should we just admit that
Speaker 5: sprouts are terrible and the only way to eat them
Speaker 5: is to disguise them with something better.
Speaker 2: I think that's doing sprouts of disservice. People cook funny
Speaker 2: things that they undercook. But I think if you cook
Speaker 2: it like how you'd cook a green vegetable the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: where you cook it long enough that it's sort of
Speaker 2: soft enough and with seasoned water, and then you don't
Speaker 2: have to cut it with knife. You could almost just
Speaker 2: cut it with a fork, so and then then it's perfect.
Speaker 2: And if you happen to be lucky enough to have
Speaker 2: any new season Sextra Virgin knocking around from a subscription,
Speaker 2: perfect little touch. But it's got the cabbage fle that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like sprout. I have no problem.
Speaker 5: I think that the more the thing that I mean, Okay,
Speaker 5: it's fine with bacon or whatever, but I think garlic
Speaker 5: and olive oil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the thing. You can't say that a cabbage,
Speaker 4: cabbage and garlic, you don't like it.
Speaker 1: Something with flavor, Joseph, Why would you ever put flavor
Speaker 1: in Christmas life?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Delicious, chacious, that's almost the same as cutting them.
Speaker 4: Finally, what raw I'd rather?
Speaker 5: I think I'd rather have a raw savoy cabbage than
Speaker 5: a raw Brussels sprout, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: What do you think about sprout?
Speaker 2: Ruby?
Speaker 1: I like them, actually, you know, I like everything about them,
Speaker 1: and I like you. I like them cooked a long
Speaker 1: time and then just slightly mashed. I like not having
Speaker 1: I don't really like any vegetable with a knife and fork.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a disaster Christmas? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 5: What was so one year I ordered all the I
Speaker 5: was going to do a roster myster actually, so I
Speaker 5: ordered some pigeon and some rabbits and probably ham and
Speaker 5: I took them back to my flat and I was
Speaker 5: I was renting a flat at the time, and it
Speaker 5: was this fridge was really small and it was freezing outside.
Speaker 5: So I just left them outside, thinking that they would
Speaker 5: be fine. But the fox obviously got them. Oh, so
Speaker 5: we didn't have We just had to have the pastor
Speaker 5: not the not the arosto.
Speaker 4: That year, it was really stupid.
Speaker 1: What time do you have Christmas?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Kids open the presents first.
Speaker 5: Or you know what, we don't have a we don't
Speaker 5: have a routine. We do it differently every year. I
Speaker 5: wish that we did it on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: My Italian family's always Christmas Eve. He went to Mass,
Speaker 1: you know, then you went to midnight Mass and you
Speaker 1: had the dinner first. Do look back at Christmas as
Speaker 1: a kind of happy memories around in your family? Was
Speaker 1: that the day? That was?
Speaker 2: Because my mom was obviously she was such a great cook,
Speaker 2: and she used to do really cook like a victim
Speaker 2: or in Christmas. I'm convinced that I was like really
Speaker 2: lucky to have had that as part of my culinary tradition.
Speaker 2: So she would make mince meat, she made a Christmas pudding,
Speaker 2: she made the Christmas cake, and she would be start
Speaker 2: gearing up for it in October, so making the minsmits
Speaker 2: go in the cupboards. She'd phone us even when we're
Speaker 2: in university and say do you want to stir the
Speaker 2: Christmas pudding?
Speaker 3: I'm doing it on the phone. You can have a.
Speaker 1: Wish when she started preparing like a month four with this,
Speaker 1: not the.
Speaker 3: Vegetables or things, but.
Speaker 2: And like to dress a house and put you know,
Speaker 2: holly over all the pictures.
Speaker 1: You see her mother did that with her probably, I
Speaker 1: think so, so do you do it with your children?
Speaker 3: I like the idea of it. I wish I was
Speaker 3: that the woman my mother was, but I unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Live in London in twenty four somehow cut a few
Speaker 2: more corners and you might want to, don't you think?
Speaker 1: Somehow we have a questioned here. I went from somebody
Speaker 1: called Delan, what is your favorite Christmas dessert? And do
Speaker 1: you have any tips from making it?
Speaker 2: I think I can't answer that because I'd be like Stilton.
Speaker 3: That would be that's perfect desert for me.
Speaker 2: We get the amazing stilton from nil Chard here and
Speaker 2: they are literally insanely good.
Speaker 1: Do you just want to I love it.
Speaker 2: I've got this massive from Stilton dome in my house
Speaker 2: that my dad bought in the about seventies and it
Speaker 2: fits a whole Stilton.
Speaker 4: Under it, a Stilton dome just for still.
Speaker 2: Made out of bone china, and it goes it's like
Speaker 2: a bell that goes over a whole Stilton.
Speaker 3: And when I was a child. My dad used to
Speaker 3: take the lid off it and.
Speaker 2: Put my head inside it so I could get used
Speaker 2: to the smell of the stilton.
Speaker 1: Do you have one of your favorite Christmas dessert and
Speaker 1: a tip from making it?
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm really predictable. I like Christmas pudding, plum pudding.
Speaker 5: I don't have any tip for making. I like making everything,
Speaker 5: and I'm awful, you know, like trying to cook with
Speaker 5: the kids. I'm like, move over, kids, and I might
Speaker 5: want to do it. But actually this is one thing
Speaker 5: that I really like other people to make. And my
Speaker 5: grandmother used to always make it, my English grandmother. And
Speaker 5: actually Christmas pudding is one of those, you know, obviously
Speaker 5: incredibly British things that Italians love. I've given it to
Speaker 5: Italian people so often, you know, and they don't expect it.
Speaker 4: You could see.
Speaker 5: It relates to people that like panforte and those kind
Speaker 5: of things that they might actually be quite partial to.
Speaker 4: Plum pudding.
Speaker 3: What about you, Ruthie?
Speaker 1: Oh, for me, I would always wanton. I think I
Speaker 1: really liked the idea of azone. We make it an
Speaker 1: ice cream, don't we. My mother in law data always
Speaker 1: made that with the Christmas cake current the Daughta's Christmas cake.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing you making that. I've seen you do
Speaker 2: a masterclass in that in the kitchen, showing a young
Speaker 2: chef how to make it with the love.
Speaker 4: Ruthie's maybe cape a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Hid every year with data she would. I think she
Speaker 1: started out as an Italian in London, making it traditionally
Speaker 1: the English way, and then she just decided as she
Speaker 1: got older, less fruit, more chocolate. She put more chocolate
Speaker 1: and more nuts and more chocol She'd say, this year,
Speaker 1: I've even done less of that candy fruit and more
Speaker 1: more of the nuts, you know, the autends and the chocolate,
Speaker 1: and that the top of it being the marzipan. We
Speaker 1: have one last question, which is we've talked about food
Speaker 1: and people and tradition, but we haven't talked about what
Speaker 1: we would drink at Christmas? Would you have drinks before
Speaker 1: you sit down? Would you have at the table wine?
Speaker 1: Would you have a glass of champagne before or do
Speaker 1: you have a grappa? Would it just alcohol that you
Speaker 1: associate or a cocktail or drink with Christmas? I'd have
Speaker 1: a good KNTI I wouldn't have white wine at Christmas. No,
Speaker 1: I was having the lobsters. But I like the idea
Speaker 1: of a glass of good yeah, you know, Floucianello.
Speaker 2: I quite like after Christmas lunch. I always have Christmas supper,
Speaker 2: you see, so if you have lunch, you can get
Speaker 2: another meal in and so often in the evening I
Speaker 2: always order a side of smoked salmon, So about ten
Speaker 2: o'clock at night, sit down and just having smoked salmon
Speaker 2: and a bottle of really beautiful cold Sunset or something
Speaker 2: like that, and it's just it's kind of helps you digest.
Speaker 2: For Christmas lunch, have another meal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd love to have a nice, particularly nice bottle
Speaker 5: of wine that I'm saving just for that occasion. So
Speaker 5: then you're really looking forward to having it. But the
Speaker 5: other thing that I put aside like that is probably
Speaker 5: some vincanto.
Speaker 4: I really like vincanto.
Speaker 1: Okay, is there a present you're wishing for this Christmas?
Speaker 5: I'm a you know, a bit of a square who
Speaker 5: found the right job. So I look forward to my
Speaker 5: olive oil at Christmas. I'm going to get a present,
Speaker 5: you know, for sure from my father.
Speaker 1: Of olive oil. And I just you know, would get
Speaker 1: a present.
Speaker 4: Of because he makes olive oil.
Speaker 5: And you know his big passion is to try and
Speaker 5: supply the family the years olive oil. Where does he
Speaker 5: make He makes alive in Tuscany, in central Italy where
Speaker 5: olives are really nice.
Speaker 4: So that's a special present.
Speaker 1: Okay. So as I started out by saying, this is
Speaker 1: our River Cafe present to you for Happy Christmas. So
Speaker 1: from Sean, from Joseph and from me, Happy Christmas, Christmas,
Speaker 1: christ Christmas.