Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Around forty years ago, when a Rogers my stepson was twelve,
Speaker 1: he asked of a school friend his best friend could
Speaker 1: join us for lunch. I know you're going to love him.
Speaker 1: And three hours later we were in the company of
Speaker 1: one of the greatest kids ever, cheeky, funny, bright.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name's Guy Richie. I am a chef and
Speaker 2: that's my day job, and my second job is a
Speaker 2: film director. And here we are. We've been cooking outside
Speaker 2: on the Gentleman's table, the Wild table, a rather thick
Speaker 2: realvi steak.
Speaker 1: Now, when you ask Guy Richie to do a podcast,
Speaker 1: you don't just get Guy Today. He's been in the
Speaker 1: garden at the River Cafe with the chefs, setting up
Speaker 1: his wild kitchen to cook a ribby steak for us
Speaker 1: all to try.
Speaker 2: We just bring us with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one does exactly go.
Speaker 2: Around to this is great. It's fabulous. Now if you want,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have the whole thing like that. But I
Speaker 2: would I would just let that nibble away a bit
Speaker 2: at its center. Now, the next time it comes off,
Speaker 2: I think you'll be done.
Speaker 1: I've been in contact over the years, with Guy in
Speaker 1: and out, eating in his pub The Lord of the Land,
Speaker 1: drinking the beer from his brewery, the Gritchy Company, having
Speaker 1: him and Jackie, his children and his friends and his
Speaker 1: family in the River Cafe, and most of all, watching
Speaker 1: his movies from lock Stock to Smoking Barrels and his
Speaker 1: most recent The Covenant with two friends and actually guests
Speaker 1: of the podcast, Jake Chill and All and Josh Bruger.
Speaker 2: Now you've already got se it on. But because it's
Speaker 2: such a thick piece of me, right, we got hack
Speaker 2: through that. You hack through it because I've got to
Speaker 2: get on with its beautiful. It's got to go. It's
Speaker 2: got to go. We got the rest of it to go.
Speaker 2: Here we go, here comes.
Speaker 1: So, Guy, do you want to talk about before we
Speaker 1: go into your movies and food and food and life?
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about grilling a steak? What
Speaker 1: do you like about a ribby?
Speaker 2: I like the fat and I like the crispiness of
Speaker 2: the fat. It seems to be the right ratio of
Speaker 2: fat and meat for me. But that's that's usually what
Speaker 2: I eat is a ribbi five or six days a week.
Speaker 2: And I'll play with other things. But in the end,
Speaker 2: it's it's easy for me to cook, and I don't
Speaker 2: really want anything on it other than salt and recently pepper,
Speaker 2: But I have a feeling pepper's a crush and it
Speaker 2: won't last for very long and I'll just creep back
Speaker 2: into salt.
Speaker 1: And you and I like it the same way, which
Speaker 1: I I hate going to a restaurant and telling the
Speaker 1: way to how I like something cooked, and so I
Speaker 1: rarely do that. But when I have a steak, or
Speaker 1: if I have a piece of the only other thing
Speaker 1: is salmon, is I like a really dark crust and
Speaker 1: then a quite medium rare inside rare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm with you on that. To me, everything's
Speaker 2: about the patina of the meat. So and you can
Speaker 2: only really get that patina if you've got the fat.
Speaker 2: That's I think you and I are probably an agreement
Speaker 2: on this. I want the combination of that fat just
Speaker 2: before it's become completely incinerated, but I want it to
Speaker 2: be crispy and then I'm in heaven and it never
Speaker 2: gets never gets boring.
Speaker 1: Okay, So going from the beginning, at the beginning, we
Speaker 1: would talk about growing up in the Richie house before
Speaker 1: you went to boarding school. Well you at home was
Speaker 1: your your parents. Your father was a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, John somerl And they said he loved
Speaker 1: food and wine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my father liked wine more than
Speaker 2: you like food. But yes, he was a good friend.
Speaker 2: And John Summer used to live on the same street,
Speaker 2: so he was about five dolls now, but they were Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was a big foodie. We were like the only
Speaker 2: middle class family and apart from John in the streets.
Speaker 2: So when we moved in, it was an old fashioned
Speaker 2: in theory. It wasn't a sort of Cottney community, but
Speaker 2: it was an old fashioned English community there. So this
Speaker 2: is in sixty They bought that house in sixty in
Speaker 2: Fulham and they were like foodies and boozies then, which
Speaker 2: is quite early doors and that house then in sixty
Speaker 2: nine was eight pounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. So you grew up in the
Speaker 1: house that loved food.
Speaker 2: And then my mum was very go cook.
Speaker 1: Where did she cook?
Speaker 2: My favorite was watercress soup. Really it was quite exotic,
Speaker 2: so Rabert carriers an idea, but she was a very
Speaker 2: good cook. I used to like baked eggs and watercrest
Speaker 2: soup and.
Speaker 1: Would you sit down to dinner like most nights as
Speaker 1: a fam Who's in your family, your.
Speaker 2: Brothers and one sister, a sister and a.
Speaker 1: Mother, and so would you sit down to me with
Speaker 1: the kind of family supper.
Speaker 2: I heard something earlier on that I'm not can't remember
Speaker 2: which generation we are, but we are still the sort
Speaker 2: of the I suppose maybe the last generation that lived
Speaker 2: more outdoors than we did indoors. So I knew all
Speaker 2: the other kids in the street, so you were never indoors.
Speaker 2: You were always out with your mates. And we were
Speaker 2: on bicycles. I remember used to cycle to quite far
Speaker 2: Afield and we were on biscles when we were six.
Speaker 1: So I went to local school.
Speaker 2: Local, I went to thirteen school. I went thirteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, local school or no school could cope with
Speaker 1: no educating.
Speaker 2: Cool school could cope. And I sort of picked up
Speaker 2: the reputation that it was because I was naughty, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't because I was naughty. It was it was
Speaker 2: just I was remarkably slow in understanding what they were
Speaker 2: trying to translate, and I had no ability to translate it.
Speaker 2: So very probiscuous for schools. And I went to about
Speaker 2: five local schools and then gradually, I mean even the
Speaker 2: one I went to school with Abe that was which
Speaker 2: is subsequently shut down. Most of the schools I went
Speaker 2: to subsequently shut there because they were all learning disability schools,
Speaker 2: and they did well. They sort of fumbled around as
Speaker 2: best they could, and I'm sort of grateful for their efforts.
Speaker 2: But there was only one person I met that was
Speaker 2: more dyslexic than me, and that was Abe.
Speaker 1: I've been to my kids' schools, you know, there was
Speaker 1: Abe or it was you know, my children, And I
Speaker 1: remember saying the only I don't care if they learned
Speaker 1: to read when they're eight or six or ten or
Speaker 1: twelve or fourteen. What you do never want your child
Speaker 1: to do is to feel stupid, you know, because I said,
Speaker 1: those are the people that come into the River Cafe,
Speaker 1: and they was coming and they say, I don't want
Speaker 1: to sit here. I don't want that, I don't want this,
Speaker 1: And I almost want to say, did you have a
Speaker 1: hard time in school? You know, because it's.
Speaker 2: I'm going to challenge you lenge. I'm going to challenge
Speaker 2: you that I from the best roses, come from the
Speaker 2: worst menure. So I think a certain amount of adversity
Speaker 2: is rather essential, and I don't think it did me
Speaker 2: much harm being told. You never told you were stupid,
Speaker 2: it was implicit. Well, you were clear, it was clear
Speaker 2: that you couldn't follow right, and you were clear that
Speaker 2: kids that weren't that quick were following quicker than you
Speaker 2: could follow. So you knew there was an issue, but
Speaker 2: no one was actually cruel enough to explicitly say you're stupid.
Speaker 2: But you found after you were on school ten that
Speaker 2: there was an issue. And then you kept meeting experts
Speaker 2: that would sort of have men in white coats that
Speaker 2: would give you sort of blocks to play with and
Speaker 2: boxes to tick. And then it quickly, you see their
Speaker 2: eyes eyebrows were raised by the time you'd finished, and
Speaker 2: you could quickly rejuice that you were not firing on
Speaker 2: the cylinders that they want you to fire. But fair
Speaker 2: play to everyone. They never actually called me stupid. It
Speaker 2: was just implicit. And then but I would argue though,
Speaker 2: that that gave me a sort of a myriad of
Speaker 2: skills that otherwise I would never have developed. And feeling
Speaker 2: like you're an outside of some description, and feeling diminished
Speaker 2: at some point in the end, I just don't think
Speaker 2: that did me any harm?
Speaker 1: You and A became and Richard, my husband, became stronger
Speaker 1: because of it. But there might be a lot of
Speaker 1: people around gave up, you know, who didn't fight back.
Speaker 1: They just made me. It's about I agree with you
Speaker 1: about a lot of that. I mean, I agree with
Speaker 1: self esteem. I used to think self esteem was the
Speaker 1: most important thing. Now I think maybe not. It was
Speaker 1: a paradox that, Yeah, that's a paradix. Okay, Well, going
Speaker 1: back then thirteen schools, do you remember any of those
Speaker 1: thirteen schools having good food?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll be surprised what kind of food I can enjoy? Yeah,
Speaker 2: tell me everything. My mum wasn't fussy, and I've never
Speaker 2: been fussy. The only thing I couldn't eat was rhubarb,
Speaker 2: and even that I can eat now, and I was.
Speaker 2: I'm quite interested and enjoy industrial quantities of food that's
Speaker 2: not necessarily to consume, but there's a sort of it
Speaker 2: takes on certain qualities they used to do, like school, Lasanya,
Speaker 2: when you're cooking for a few hundred kids, it takes
Speaker 2: on complex characteristics that are impossible to derive if you're
Speaker 2: if you're using quality product. So, yeah, I liked school food.
Speaker 1: Out of thirteen schools, which one did you? Did you
Speaker 1: do something like graduating from school or did you just
Speaker 1: leave school?
Speaker 2: It just left fifteen and it was anticlimactic sort of.
Speaker 2: I left and then they said, don't bother coming back.
Speaker 1: That was at Stanbridge.
Speaker 2: That was at stanbridg Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah. And did your parents were they Were they
Speaker 1: worried about you? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, because I I had no qualifications at all.
Speaker 2: I could barely spell my name, but I was. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was working by the time I was fifteen, not
Speaker 2: far from here. Actually it some Peter Square in amismthre Yeah.
Speaker 2: I worked in the island records, which I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's still there, but I worked as a two
Speaker 2: boy in records.
Speaker 1: Were you living at home? Did your mom still cook
Speaker 1: for you? Who?
Speaker 2: No? I left home early door. So I was from
Speaker 2: fifteen onwards. I was in and out.
Speaker 1: And what were you changed? You remember?
Speaker 2: No? There's the answer that no, because then it was
Speaker 2: it was all work from fifteen to now. It's really
Speaker 2: all been work, although it has been sort of messy
Speaker 2: periods along that way. I've been working pretty much since
Speaker 2: I was fifteen.
Speaker 1: We talked about your mother, but what about your father.
Speaker 1: He was he more into wine? As you said, did
Speaker 1: he teach you about wine?
Speaker 2: I didn't like why until I was forty forty?
Speaker 1: How old are you now?
Speaker 2: I am fifty four?
Speaker 1: Okay? And what changed all that?
Speaker 2: Lot?
Speaker 1: What didn't you like about wine?
Speaker 2: It just meant nothing to me. And you could see
Speaker 2: the price disparity, and that had no impact on me.
Speaker 2: I was what, you know, I was happy on two
Speaker 2: pound fifty as other people were on two hundred and fifty,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't I did. The nuance was wasted on me.
Speaker 2: And then at forty a light bulb went off off.
Speaker 1: Do you remember where you were?
Speaker 2: You know, you think it's your friend Josh Berger had
Speaker 2: something to do, and I think it was like a
Speaker 2: weekend away somewhere and someone brought out the big guns
Speaker 2: and like on the third bottle where I was sort
Speaker 2: of taking the mick, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: something happened. And once it happened, then I lost a
Speaker 2: decade to enjoying file mines. And then I did the
Speaker 2: wine tours.
Speaker 1: Where did you go?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a Bordeaux man that's recently recently drifted into Burgundy.
Speaker 2: I'm on terra firma with the Bordeaus. So the classic
Speaker 2: obvious ones, which it's boring because they're cliches, but Latour
Speaker 2: will be my go to if I was going to
Speaker 2: go for an event of some description. So I'll go
Speaker 2: over all the obvious, the Moutons, Lafitte, Margo, Lynch Bash,
Speaker 2: you know, all the well known ones and what about it,
Speaker 2: super touscans, manisetto and so on.
Speaker 1: But do you like them? Do I do? Do you
Speaker 1: have a wine cellar?
Speaker 2: Then I do?
Speaker 1: And you go, Do you go down and say that
Speaker 1: tonight we're going to have this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I'm essentially French, right, So I am
Speaker 2: prejudiced towards the French in the sense that I think
Speaker 2: both food wise and wine wise, they're the layers of
Speaker 2: sophistication that the French developed over however long. I my
Speaker 2: first love of real food was French, and I was
Speaker 2: tremendous slee impressed by the layering.
Speaker 1: You call layering, you mean the way.
Speaker 2: That I felt as though there was every nuance was investigated.
Speaker 2: There was a place on Pimlico Road that was run
Speaker 2: by those brothers. Yeah, it was next to the Blipot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's when I was there.
Speaker 2: Was a little supermarket. There was next door a little
Speaker 2: shop and a little French shop, not much bigger than
Speaker 2: this room. And when I was a van driver, I
Speaker 2: used to go in there and it was absurdly expensive,
Speaker 2: but the quality was mind blowing. You've run a career
Speaker 2: off the quality of your ingredients, though, Avenue.
Speaker 1: I would say that about French food and Italian food.
Speaker 1: You know that I saw nothing I love more than
Speaker 1: a piece of fish, both blanc and spinach on the bottom,
Speaker 1: as you say, almost layering the way. But there's something
Speaker 1: also when you go to Italy and then you have
Speaker 1: a piece of sea bass and nothing, you know, you
Speaker 1: just get this bass and maybe, if you're lucky, a
Speaker 1: bit of sALS of earlier lemon. And so if you're
Speaker 1: going to have only two ingredients, a lemon and a
Speaker 1: sea bass, or sea bass and a bit of wilderegona,
Speaker 1: the wild diregona has to be wild and the sea
Speaker 1: bass has to be incredibly fit, you know, fresh, because
Speaker 1: there's no masking of it. You're not looking at the
Speaker 1: Hollandais or the Burnet's or the other stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think we are the River Cafe definitely is
Speaker 1: very ingredient based. Yeah, we are.
Speaker 2: I went fishing for sea bass this week actually as
Speaker 2: you were Portland anyway. So I caught four very healthy baths.
Speaker 2: We're actually called fourteen. We returned ten of them. Wet
Speaker 2: fishing with my ten year old is obsessed and English bass.
Speaker 1: We get it is we get all our fish off
Speaker 1: the coast. We don't bring any two now or anything in.
Speaker 1: We once had one of my was we had the
Speaker 1: we you know, we call it the end of service,
Speaker 1: So at eleven o'clock at night, we know how much
Speaker 1: bass we've sold, how much you know, turbot we've sold,
Speaker 1: and we know that the next day we're going to
Speaker 1: change to the menu. So we never have the menu.
Speaker 1: It just depends what there is in the fridge and
Speaker 1: what there is in the sea. And then we got
Speaker 1: a call from the boat and he said, I'm just
Speaker 1: reeled in a turbot and it's so big that either
Speaker 1: the river cafe takes it or we put it back
Speaker 1: in the sea.
Speaker 2: What do you want? And we took it. How big
Speaker 2: was it?
Speaker 1: I can't remember, maybe I having no eight kill.
Speaker 2: And I came back. I came past here one evening
Speaker 2: with Josh and I had your turbot.
Speaker 1: Ye, did you like it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: We do it on the trunch, so you have this
Speaker 1: thick bone and then you have the thick turbot, and
Speaker 1: so we put you know, it depends what the chef
Speaker 1: wants to do. I think last night we did it
Speaker 1: with zucchuini and zucchini flowers, and today we might do
Speaker 1: with capers and you know, black olives.
Speaker 2: It was a real winner. It was a real winner.
Speaker 2: Would you buy your nature go sea vass or turbot?
Speaker 1: Oh? It depends probably pass. I love pass. But if
Speaker 1: I have the turbot in the wood oven, it's a
Speaker 1: very rich fish. It's I love. Yeah. The thing about
Speaker 1: fish for me is I love it on the bone.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I always think I know that you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: And so it's really nice to have a whole agreed.
Speaker 1: So what happened to the fish that you reeled in?
Speaker 1: Where are those best? Now?
Speaker 2: I et them, all of them? Ye? Yeah. My son's
Speaker 2: very insistent on eating them as quickly as possible. You've
Speaker 2: got to wait we find it. We have to wait
Speaker 2: twenty four hours because you get over the rigging mortis. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The idea that you can eat fish that she doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I know, I know they just that her, but it's
Speaker 1: the same thing, even dover sold it. I mean so
Speaker 1: and I kind of what you would think, but the idea.
Speaker 2: Took so last forever too. I'll show you passed me that.
Speaker 2: I'll show you this because my son is now obsessed
Speaker 2: with fishing, and that means I'm now get all well,
Speaker 2: this is all on the shore.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see you're not on a boat's.
Speaker 2: So I don't have the picture of the bass. But
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. Look at the signs of this brown
Speaker 2: trout that you caught.
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow, look at that.
Speaker 2: Wow is amazing. I mean, that's how much of that
Speaker 2: thing when six and a half pounds? But that will lie.
Speaker 2: That will feed you know you don't feed feed ten.
Speaker 2: But most of the photographs they are fish. That's rafa.
Speaker 1: That's great. Did you know The River Cafe has a shop.
Speaker 1: It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Speaker 1: linen napkins, kitchen were toad bags with our signatures, glasses
Speaker 1: from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right
Speaker 1: next door to the River Cafe in London or online
Speaker 1: at shop Therivercafe dot co dot UK.
Speaker 2: I'm always in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You always in the kah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I'm not in the kitchen. I mean I'm
Speaker 2: outside in the kitchen, but the internal kitchen is. I
Speaker 2: was just explaining to your chefs. I've become increasingly frustrated
Speaker 2: with because I've got quite nice knives, and people have
Speaker 2: bought me good knives, and subsequently no one wants to
Speaker 2: sharpen them because they're frighting of sharpening and they don't
Speaker 2: want to mess them up. And what I quite like
Speaker 2: is a cheap knife with a brutal sharpener, and I
Speaker 2: want it accessible. So I'll you buy a Knight good
Speaker 2: knife for a fine knife for twelve quid sharpen every couple.
Speaker 2: I have a brutal sharp what is it? I buy
Speaker 2: my sharpness for two quid two and a half euros
Speaker 2: and I drag them through that nasty thing and I
Speaker 2: do that. That's too posh. I find that you do
Speaker 2: the brutal one and it shaves off quite a capacious
Speaker 2: amount of steel, and your knife done off but a year,
Speaker 2: and it costs twelve quid.
Speaker 1: We had we had, I remember we used to have
Speaker 1: somebody just to come and sharpen the knives. We had
Speaker 1: bel sized grove when it was growing up. So that
Speaker 1: must have been when I first came to London. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine this American girl. I didn't know what anything
Speaker 1: was and they delivered bottles of milk and you didn't
Speaker 1: lock your door and they and the man came to
Speaker 1: sharpen the knives and sell onions. They used to sell
Speaker 1: onions like on the back of their bicycle. This must
Speaker 1: have been in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it was the seventies. Used to get We
Speaker 2: used to have a rag and bone man, any old
Speaker 2: iron they used to see as they were. By then
Speaker 2: you had the knife man.
Speaker 1: The knife man, I definitely remember by the.
Speaker 2: Way it's consist of the knife man.
Speaker 1: Actually, I know, why do we still and I remember
Speaker 1: to bring back knife many knife.
Speaker 2: Man worked and you had the milk.
Speaker 1: The milk definitely, you didn't have that like creamy stuff
Speaker 1: at the top.
Speaker 2: You could have like a when you used to sell everything. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you used to have everything on there and then he
Speaker 2: just went from selling everything to not existing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So when we're going to talk about work and food,
Speaker 1: so when you go to is a set in Spain
Speaker 1: with you and Jake and Josh and all your people.
Speaker 1: Do you worry about what they're eating?
Speaker 2: Not really, No, no, because everyone's If no one complains,
Speaker 2: then I don't stick my nose into it. And they
Speaker 2: don't really complain, so they're sort of happy. You'll find
Speaker 2: out at some point or another of the caterers aren't winning,
Speaker 2: but recently doesn't need to be too much complaints. I
Speaker 2: barbecue every day. I've got I've got a sort of
Speaker 2: old wooden trailer that we reside in and where we
Speaker 2: have communal meals. I play mother and I usually do
Speaker 2: a We've got a stove in there, and I cook
Speaker 2: in there, and we'll cook in a very similar fashion
Speaker 2: to just how we cook in there. I'll donok abbit,
Speaker 2: I'll put it in, take slices off the side, put
Speaker 2: it back in again, and we'll do that five days
Speaker 2: a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just invite various people.
Speaker 2: There's usually usually ten people in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Jake's a good eater, isn't he.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: He really cares.
Speaker 2: About and carries no weight, carries no weight, doesn't drink much,
Speaker 2: so he's in good nick. He really cares, but he
Speaker 2: cares about his food, and he rather sadly sends me
Speaker 2: pictures and I send him pictures of that.
Speaker 1: But what about other actors you've worked with?
Speaker 2: Had to come acros someone that's not interested in Almost
Speaker 2: no one I know is not interested in food. But
Speaker 2: in order sometimes you have to switch off and see,
Speaker 2: food is fuel, and as soon as food is fuel,
Speaker 2: you tend to lose weight.
Speaker 1: And when you go to is a set like you
Speaker 1: were in Spain for the Covertant being Afghanistan, do you
Speaker 1: think about where you're going and the food they're having
Speaker 1: and what that will be like or do you think
Speaker 1: wherever you are you're kind of eating what.
Speaker 2: You Yeah, I mean, I'll go local. We spent we
Speaker 2: spent quite a lot of time last two movies I've done,
Speaker 2: or outside of The Covenant, which is in Spain, we
Speaker 2: did in Turkey.
Speaker 1: I remember that, what was that?
Speaker 2: I like Turkey?
Speaker 1: What did you like?
Speaker 2: I like the Turks? And I can't believe that's the
Speaker 2: country as large as that that people don't talk about much.
Speaker 2: And we were just very impressed with it. We love
Speaker 2: the people and we love the food.
Speaker 1: And I was in this temple three weeks ago and
Speaker 1: I hadn't been there before, and I was blown away
Speaker 1: for us sitting there. And then the food. We went
Speaker 1: to all these different restaurants once, some on the pass,
Speaker 1: for some in the little town, some in the I
Speaker 1: thought it was a fantastic food culture.
Speaker 2: It is, but everything in that part of the world
Speaker 2: is do you think I do? I mean, you're still
Speaker 2: sort of you. You're tethered to the med so I
Speaker 2: don't know. If you've done tel Aviv, You've done tele Aviv.
Speaker 2: The food culture in Israel is insane. We spent quite
Speaker 2: a lot of time in the Middle East. We like
Speaker 2: the Middle We got mates in Bahrain, so we go
Speaker 2: over a year for the race, a little bit in Saudi,
Speaker 2: quite a lot in Israel.
Speaker 1: And the food wise, do you have one place that
Speaker 1: you're actually in the Middle Eastern food?
Speaker 2: Well, it's Israel's sort of nicking it at the moment.
Speaker 2: But then Dubai. I don't know if you spend any
Speaker 2: time by the Dubai, I mean, it's it's a cliche,
Speaker 2: and it is for a reason, because it's pretty brilliant.
Speaker 1: A lot of of our you know, I've been asked
Speaker 1: top restaurant in Park. I think there must be. I
Speaker 1: think there's no, But there are quite a lot of
Speaker 1: Western restaurants here.
Speaker 2: I've been with lots of people that have been talking
Speaker 2: to you about opening places over the years, and you
Speaker 2: never seen anywhere else.
Speaker 1: So I went to look at a site the other
Speaker 1: day with our friend who does all the architecture for us,
Speaker 1: you know, and he said, I was sitting in this
Speaker 1: place near Grove the Square, and I heard this guy
Speaker 1: going and with you, you know, look at the space.
Speaker 1: You can have your kitchen here, and you could do this,
Speaker 1: and you could do that. And he said, I want
Speaker 1: to say, listen, you know she's not going to do it,
Speaker 1: but that's not true. I go, I would do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's interesting. I think we just haven't
Speaker 1: found the right site.
Speaker 2: You spent spent some time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we went to La But the fact is that
Speaker 1: it's it's a long answer to a short question. Why
Speaker 1: don't I do it? I think I still would do it.
Speaker 1: We could just do another restaurant in London. We don't
Speaker 1: have to go abroad.
Speaker 2: Although you know what will be quite interesting is it
Speaker 2: would break or break a cliche. You'll I know you're
Speaker 2: not gonna go to Dubai, which I would quite like
Speaker 2: you to do, just because it's unpredictable, and I think
Speaker 2: it's important to be unpredictable, and I think it's important
Speaker 2: to prove yourself wrong. I'm constantly I'm constantly doing things
Speaker 2: which against my better judgment, I do because I have
Speaker 2: to or unforced into a corner or whatever. And then
Speaker 2: subsequently I'm very grateful that I did, and thought, wold on,
Speaker 2: I probably should have started doing this a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Just do things that are really that's not on your tuitive.
Speaker 2: It's counter intuitive, it's not on yours.
Speaker 1: Also, somebody said they were suggesting I, you know, I
Speaker 1: had this idea for doing sort of fast food kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and then he said, you know, but I
Speaker 1: said that I don't think I want to do it
Speaker 1: because it could fail. And they said, really, everybody's failing
Speaker 1: these days. This is what you do in silicon value.
Speaker 1: You start a startup, you start a business, and it fails.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I always think failure is like a big deal, but
Speaker 1: apparently it's not the biggest.
Speaker 2: It's not what it was. Failures not well, this is
Speaker 2: the upside.
Speaker 1: It's the new success.
Speaker 2: Well, and people don't seem to notice like they used to. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and subsequently go, well, I mean that didn't
Speaker 2: work very well. But guess what no one's talking about.
Speaker 1: You had a movie that failed.
Speaker 2: Now, oh yeah, I've had movies that have not works.
Speaker 2: Let's put it. Let's put it that way. And it's
Speaker 2: not the same anymore. And you go. Because the thing is,
Speaker 2: it's hard to calibrate success. It used to be very easy.
Speaker 2: Used to open up on a by on a Thursday
Speaker 2: evening that used to know whether you're it was going
Speaker 2: to work right within two or three hours, they can
Speaker 2: pretty much predict what your box office will be at
Speaker 2: the end of the weekend. And you're it's a roulette wheel, right,
Speaker 2: so you you know, you're you're you're playing with hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars and you let that bead go
Speaker 2: around the roulette table and you're waiting for that phone
Speaker 2: call on a Thursday night and is it going to
Speaker 2: be and you'll be able to predict whether your movie
Speaker 2: is more or less going to make a billion dollars
Speaker 2: or it's going to make fifty million dollars or it's
Speaker 2: going to make less. Right now, that's a big bead, right,
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure what other what other trades do that.
Speaker 2: It's that bigger swing, right, and and you find that
Speaker 2: all out in two three hours fortunately those days and.
Speaker 1: At lasts, so they can tell that. So well.
Speaker 2: Now it's complicated because now is.
Speaker 1: A movie that you find, you know, do you have
Speaker 1: one or does it?
Speaker 2: How were going to calibrate success?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm going to say, the one that
Speaker 1: you like.
Speaker 2: No, I like all of them equally, but you know it's.
Speaker 1: It doesn't This is something question saying which is your favorite?
Speaker 1: It is? Will always say to me, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you like best to cook? Or what do you
Speaker 1: like the wind? And you know it depends on the day,
Speaker 1: the weather.
Speaker 2: I forget about my work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Richard uced to say, you know that when you
Speaker 1: finished the building, it was kind of done, and you're
Speaker 1: you know, you're now it's done and it's there and you.
Speaker 2: And then you kind of oddly discover you rediscover your
Speaker 2: films because you go to someone's house to know watching
Speaker 2: it and you sit down and halfway through and then
Speaker 2: you sort of drift in and drift out your hold
Speaker 2: on and it feels oddly reminiscent. But you can't remember
Speaker 2: going through the process, although you were so intimate with
Speaker 2: the process, you's just forgotten and you go through the process,
Speaker 2: and I just become the viewer and I'm sitting there
Speaker 2: and go, oh, that's fun or that's not fun, And
Speaker 2: why did he make that decision? Why didn't I? And
Speaker 2: I'm completely surprised. I completely forget the plot although I've
Speaker 2: written them all, and I become a complete voyeur in
Speaker 2: the equation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot SI. But Crystal the artist did
Speaker 1: a fence through southern California. He wanted to get the
Speaker 1: people of the town to permit it, and they didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it because they didn't think it was
Speaker 1: art because it was temporary. You know, Crystal, everything he
Speaker 1: did just lasted a little while, whether it was a
Speaker 1: fence or whether it was sheets or umbrellas in central part.
Speaker 1: And so the argument was, it's not art because it's temporary.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I realized that, you know, I make
Speaker 1: a cake and that's temporary, or I grill a piece
Speaker 1: of beef for this temporary, isn't it. You just get
Speaker 1: eaten right away. Your movies last forever, buildings last forever,
Speaker 1: but food sort of you eat it and then you're
Speaker 1: criticized for it's either well to cooked or undercooked.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of things that are ephemeral. I
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time thinking about what is creativity
Speaker 2: and what is art, and it being ephemeral is neither
Speaker 2: here nor there. Art seems about the expression of that
Speaker 2: which is concealed finds an interesting conduit to become revealed.
Speaker 2: It's kind of irrelevant what the format is as long
Speaker 2: as you can see that that which is revealed is
Speaker 2: secondary and subservient to that which is concealed. You know,
Speaker 2: the number of the conversation, or the nub of any
Speaker 2: interesting conversation is just is understanding essence and concealed essence
Speaker 2: and the unseen engine that drives creativity and all the
Speaker 2: different conduits and man festations of creativity. I find that
Speaker 2: in itself the most inspiring of conversations.
Speaker 1: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 1: please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Thank you. So, when you're working, somebody you
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and what do you have
Speaker 1: for breakfast?
Speaker 2: I'm not a breakfast man, so.
Speaker 1: You're not a breakfast man, not a lunchment. What do
Speaker 1: you okay?
Speaker 2: So try and I've lost a stone, which I'll quite
Speaker 2: smug about. I've done quite well in the last six weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm that drug.
Speaker 2: You No, I'm not in the drug. So what's your
Speaker 2: It's because I late. So I'll have lunch. I'll get
Speaker 2: a bit pinchy, quite like coffee. So I'll go on
Speaker 2: Ice Americanos at about one and then I'll have a
Speaker 2: little nibble of something and then they do these like
Speaker 2: sort of healthy bars, which they they do on the front.
Speaker 2: It's like dates, cashew nuts and something else. But anyway,
Speaker 2: they've got just enough naughtiness in them to keep you entertained,
Speaker 2: but not enough to get you in trouble. So I'll
Speaker 2: get and there are a couple of hundred canaries, so
Speaker 2: they keep me ticking over. I mean, I'm on contracting
Speaker 2: mode at the moment rather than expanding mode. Right. I
Speaker 2: spent most of my life expanding, So every now and
Speaker 2: then when I'm in contraction, I'm trying. And this is
Speaker 2: the first bed I've had in a while. Actually, you've
Speaker 2: corrupted me.
Speaker 1: There is a little round hill, so we're going to
Speaker 1: be in expanding.
Speaker 2: Now, well, I'm going to be quite good at this,
Speaker 2: but I've got quite a lunch coming up tomorrows. How
Speaker 2: I can tell someone's birthday tomorrows, I can tell I
Speaker 2: might as well warm. Yeah, so yeah, so I eat late,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 1: You know in Mexico we used to when I lived
Speaker 1: in Mexico City when Richard was not well. The ideas
Speaker 1: that Mexicans have a good breakfast at about eleven and
Speaker 1: then ten.
Speaker 2: Eleven's good. I think eleven's good.
Speaker 1: Then they eat lunch about five four, but you have
Speaker 1: like a two hour lunch and then that's it.
Speaker 2: On there.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Eleven o'clocks for me is quite a good time and
Speaker 2: you have a little something just to keep you going.
Speaker 2: And then if you can press on through and you
Speaker 2: get a bit pinched, and then three four five if
Speaker 2: you get stuck in, and then that's your life.
Speaker 1: You've lost weight. That's since when actually.
Speaker 2: I've rather proudly got the photograph on there, so about
Speaker 2: six weeks.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And by the way, struggling, it's not being a struggle.
Speaker 1: And I with your kids, do you have would you
Speaker 1: sit down for dinner with your kids? So yeah, they're
Speaker 1: all quite quite early with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you're watching out eating the kids, as
Speaker 2: everyone knows, because you soon fall into a bowl of
Speaker 2: spaghetti and it's hard to get out of it, and
Speaker 2: they fish fingers. You forget how good they are until
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a problem with kids food. Kids food's good,
Speaker 2: and you just don't want to go near the gravitational
Speaker 2: puol of kids food because once you do, it's hard
Speaker 2: to get out of it. So we try not sit
Speaker 2: with the kids for that reason, and then I'll end
Speaker 2: up eating their food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course you do. And when but they're going
Speaker 1: back because when I thought when you were in Spain,
Speaker 1: you did did you eat cookies?
Speaker 2: We were very good to begin with and then yeah,
Speaker 2: we were on about a thousand calories and we were
Speaker 2: very good. And then Josh took me to a Spanish
Speaker 2: gaff where we fell off a cliff and we spectacular.
Speaker 1: What did you have? Do you remember?
Speaker 2: I actuallygot the pictures. I'm one of those people that
Speaker 2: rather sadly takes pictures of interesting meals.
Speaker 1: Then was just in where you're making.
Speaker 2: The movie, it was it was like hole in the wall.
Speaker 1: What city were you're near?
Speaker 2: You were near we were near Alicante, now I'm sure anyway, whatever,
Speaker 2: then we fell off a cliff because then we ended
Speaker 2: up in the Spanish wine world, and I remember sobbing
Speaker 2: by the time we came to the second meal because
Speaker 2: of the impact of not having drunk or eaten too
Speaker 2: much in six weeks. I think we're being very good girls.
Speaker 2: And then that was it, and then we were very
Speaker 2: naughty for the remainder of the for the shoot everything
Speaker 2: I'd lost in the first half and then quickly found
Speaker 2: for the remainder. But it was just brilliant. And I'm
Speaker 2: perfectly happy to go up and down in wait, yeah
Speaker 2: you are, Yeah, I can't see your.
Speaker 1: Cot say contract and expand and.
Speaker 2: I'm happy with that. My biggest challenge in life is
Speaker 2: not eating too much, and I will become I will
Speaker 2: expand to the point of danger if I let my
Speaker 2: nature loose. So really it's the battle that I suppose
Speaker 2: everyone has. You've done very well to remain the whippet
Speaker 2: that you.
Speaker 1: Oh I am not kidding, No, you're a whippit.
Speaker 2: Now, how hard is it for everyone? I'm shocked that
Speaker 2: anyone north of forty is not four hundred pounds because
Speaker 2: the amount of resistance that you need, a restriction, you
Speaker 2: need in order not to endlessly expand is really kind
Speaker 2: of admirable.
Speaker 1: And it's so delicious, isn't it. So it's such a pleasure.
Speaker 2: It's such a pleasure. It's a dilemma. It's a dilemma
Speaker 2: that we all face it two or three times a day,
Speaker 2: and everyone does so in proportion to the blessing, as
Speaker 2: they say, is in proportion to the curse. So food
Speaker 2: is that thing, right, So as much pleasure it gives
Speaker 2: you is as much trouble as it can give you.
Speaker 2: And so I live in this world of desperately trying
Speaker 2: to create and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose,
Speaker 2: trying to find balance with food and booz.
Speaker 1: Actually, also when you hold back on food, have you
Speaker 1: been to when you know that? And I know that
Speaker 1: because I've had it, is that when you sort of
Speaker 1: sit down and then you know I'm not going to
Speaker 1: have you know, something fattening or something too much or
Speaker 1: you know, sugar, you kind of hold back in every
Speaker 1: way do.
Speaker 2: You think you do? But subsequently I can't like it?
Speaker 2: Subsequently at the time I don't, and then subsequently, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: When we talk about food and this is always you know.
Speaker 1: My last question, is there food that you would turn.
Speaker 2: To for comfort comfort food? It will be either marmite
Speaker 2: on toast. And I'm actually quite snotty about my toast,
Speaker 2: so I do like a good sowdough.
Speaker 1: Do you have butter or just moremy but also quite
Speaker 1: like posh buttter too. I like posh.
Speaker 2: Bread and posh butter. That's anything that the closer it
Speaker 2: came from a cow, the poshare it is, as far
Speaker 2: as I'm concerned. And I went to place called the
Speaker 2: New in Somerset the other day.
Speaker 1: Do you know I haven't been there, but.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway did They did a sour though there and
Speaker 2: a big wedge of local butter, and it's just no
Speaker 2: point in anything else. So it will probably be I do
Speaker 2: like Marmie. I do like marmalade. By the way, I
Speaker 2: can talk about marmalade for sometime now. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to fall down into the that's episode two. So although
Speaker 2: my nature is not bread driven, arm I when I
Speaker 2: do taste good bread and good butter hard to trumpet
Speaker 2: and like anchovies on toast to anchovies on toast. But actually,
Speaker 2: if you get enough of the olive oil in the anchovies.
Speaker 2: Then I don't find I don't need the butter.
Speaker 1: But is really nice with anchivies. You know, even Italians
Speaker 1: have butter and anchovies. Is there something about as salted.
Speaker 2: ANCHI yeah, you do a lot of anchovies. You're very well,
Speaker 2: you're big on anchovies. But hold on, I'm feeling as though,
Speaker 2: and then I do they're all going to be It's
Speaker 2: it's okay. Bread.
Speaker 1: Bread is comforting.
Speaker 2: The question was about what's comforting, so yeah, so it
Speaker 2: will They're all bread related. I do like pigeon, I know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love pigeon. I'm giving you lots of answers.
Speaker 1: So I'll be like it. This is well, there's a
Speaker 1: difference between liking and something you might turn to when
Speaker 1: you really thought, you know.
Speaker 2: What, where'd your cheddar? Where did you che branson pickle?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Own bread?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, big on that.
Speaker 1: So we've had comfort, we've had creativity, we've had and
Speaker 1: we've had a great piece of meat, didn't we That
Speaker 1: was a rebby to remember. That was delicious. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not very many people that you interview who bring
Speaker 1: their own who bring their own grills. So we have
Speaker 1: a lot more to do more talking, more, cooking, more
Speaker 1: eating together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fabulous.
Speaker 1: That was the little boy that I met when he
Speaker 1: was twelve years old. You've come a long way. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 2: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 2: Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 2: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator
Speaker 2: is Bella Selini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean
Speaker 2: Wynn Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe
Speaker 2: for your help in making this episode.