Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair,
Speaker 1: like knowing.
Speaker 2: Where you were when you heard a song you love,
Speaker 2: where you were when you shared a meal with one
Speaker 2: of your children, or where you were when you discovered
Speaker 2: a painting that stayed with you forever. I know where
Speaker 2: I was when I saw Blade Runner London, Thelma and
Speaker 2: Louise Harris, and Napoleon a few months ago in l A.
Speaker 2: I also know that I was in this room in
Speaker 2: the River Cafe three years ago, writing to Ridley Scott
Speaker 2: and asking him to be my first guest for this
Speaker 2: idea I had for a podcast about food and memories.
Speaker 2: Ridley wrote back, saying, yes, Ruthie, but I'm directing Gucci.
Speaker 2: A year later, Yes, Ruthie, but I'm directing Napoleon. A
Speaker 2: year later, Yes Ruthie, but I'm directing the bee Gees.
Speaker 2: Then a few days ago, sitting in the River Cafe
Speaker 2: garden with his family celebrating the night Grand Cross he'd
Speaker 2: been awarded at Windsor Castle, he drew a beautiful drawing
Speaker 2: on the wine list with the words Ruthie, how about
Speaker 2: next Tuesday. In preparation, his son Jake and I met
Speaker 2: to talk about his father, how he exposed him to
Speaker 2: every food possible, cheese with maggots and sardinia, steps in
Speaker 2: the door, doin on the set of Duellists, and the
Speaker 2: magical experience of producing wine at their vineyard, Mars Day
Speaker 2: and Fermiere. Like knowing where you were when you saw
Speaker 2: a movie. I know that in years to come I'll
Speaker 2: remember exactly where I was Hammersmith when I sat with
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott talking about food and memory, food and family,
Speaker 2: food and wine, food and love.
Speaker 1: Yes, Ridley, thank you, and answer that I'm honored.
Speaker 2: We would love you to read The recipe for.
Speaker 1: Asparagus an anchovy buttered with parmesan rynch dry and roughly chopped.
Speaker 1: The anchovies in a bowl, Mixed together the answes with
Speaker 1: lemon juice and black pepper, and with the fork mixed
Speaker 1: the butter. Boil the esparats in salted water until tender.
Speaker 1: Drain season and drizzle with olive oil. Place the asparagus
Speaker 1: on warm plates, Spoon over the anchovy butter and scattered
Speaker 1: with parmesan shavings, and my jaw is dripping the salagra.
Speaker 1: You know I used to come by here the famous
Speaker 1: Italian dish, which is the funny little piece the.
Speaker 2: Farinata.
Speaker 1: No, no, it's like a soup.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the task of bean soup, cannellini bean soup.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I got so taken with it now every
Speaker 1: time I drive past her pop in for lunch and
Speaker 1: the guy said, I know what you want. You want
Speaker 1: to yes, please? And then eventually the chef, because I
Speaker 1: had two bowls and the chef said, you really like
Speaker 1: this stuff? I said, yeah. I said, what's the secret?
Speaker 1: Because I wish I was a cook. You said, it's
Speaker 1: pretty simple to bring out to the boil said, he said,
Speaker 1: and I take one carrot, chop the carrot, drop it
Speaker 1: into that. Don't overcook it. I said. One of the
Speaker 1: black pieces, He said, that is the secret. Is that
Speaker 1: as a bit of black cabbage cavalodera. He says, there
Speaker 1: you got it. I said, to kind of have another bowl.
Speaker 2: It's a very simple look says everything about Tuscany. It says,
Speaker 2: you know, beans, olive oil and the cabbage and that's it.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm from the North of England and it
Speaker 1: took a long time for me to discover my mother
Speaker 1: was a good cook. But we were as a child,
Speaker 1: we were on rationing warriors. So my mother made the
Speaker 1: most of what she could. And the thing I used
Speaker 1: to love most was mince and dumplings in the mince, Okay,
Speaker 1: I love that. Or she made something what she called
Speaker 1: beef olives. It was cheap beef slender bead which she'd
Speaker 1: roll into into it. Something in the middle was magic.
Speaker 1: So my mom always bread and us always good food,
Speaker 1: but very plain. Then I'm at college, and at college
Speaker 1: you can't afford very much. At also there was no
Speaker 1: restaurants and near the world comes you were. And I
Speaker 1: then became known pretty fast. I got to advertising, and
Speaker 1: I went off like a bolt of lightning, and suddenly
Speaker 1: I had money to spend because of good restaurants, and
Speaker 1: like other places in the world, can be expensive, right,
Speaker 1: And so at that time there was this big, fashionable,
Speaker 1: small restaurant in Kings were called Alvaro, and right there,
Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, had tested what
Speaker 1: it was called kim at the heading of Italian Tarazza
Speaker 1: food and Alvara, did you have a messing?
Speaker 2: I think he came here right when we opened in
Speaker 2: the ages.
Speaker 1: And then Alvara then evolved really fast and became very faster.
Speaker 2: With like white tiles, and they not in the.
Speaker 1: Place was tiny, and he moved so quickly, evolved so quickly.
Speaker 1: He owned a club, discotheque and restaurant just across the road,
Speaker 1: down the street, and in there would be the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, even Warren Beatty. I started eating there regularly
Speaker 1: because I could afford to it. That's where I came
Speaker 1: across Protruter and things and the magic of Pastor. The
Speaker 1: story is he got so successful the mafia approaching them
Speaker 1: wanted a piece. They scared him off. He stopped completely
Speaker 1: and then open years later in a restaurant at World's
Speaker 1: End in Chelsea, San Lorenzo. I'm known for years and
Speaker 1: years and years Mora and Mara. They were Sardinian and
Speaker 1: so on their advice, I had one of the best holidays.
Speaker 1: I went up the coast to a small village that
Speaker 1: some Italian prints had built, like a fake fishing village,
Speaker 1: and we enjoyed the sud Indian food like.
Speaker 2: That where Jake told me that you bought the cheese
Speaker 2: and you took it home and it had maggots in it,
Speaker 2: that's right. And then you took it back and the
Speaker 2: man said, that's what it's supposed to.
Speaker 1: Yes, but I but I also love the sud Indian wine.
Speaker 1: I kind of like the food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the food. I like the food from
Speaker 2: do you have Potargah? You have that fish roll? Every
Speaker 2: and every everything may.
Speaker 1: But then the evolution into America, I tend to lean
Speaker 1: towards Italian cuisine always. I don't know why it's the most.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's simple. If you like that bean soup it
Speaker 2: has three ingredients, you know, simple.
Speaker 1: And I don't like hamburger. I tend I tend to
Speaker 1: know as as i've got older, towards being nearly vegan.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but I like curries. When I was at college,
Speaker 1: the cheapest restaurant near me was Indian, and i'd go
Speaker 1: in there there. I discovered that they're very careful about
Speaker 1: what meat they have, the vegetable use it, and the
Speaker 1: food was great.
Speaker 2: Because let's go back to your parents. Your mother and
Speaker 2: her cooking.
Speaker 1: I always remember cooking was really excellent.
Speaker 2: And would your brothers Tony and Frank and you would
Speaker 2: meal times be very important, would you?
Speaker 1: Well? He liked her food, and she liked the fact
Speaker 1: that we liked her food, and it tended to be
Speaker 1: Stew's whatever.
Speaker 2: You lived in Germany as well? Do you remember that
Speaker 2: at all? Living in Germany and eating Germany?
Speaker 1: Nineteen forty seven, ninety fifty two, my dad became important
Speaker 1: in Germany. So my dad the end wasn't acting brigadier general,
Speaker 1: and he was there for the Marshall Plan, and he
Speaker 1: was initially involved in D Day and designing something called
Speaker 1: Maulberry Harbor, which is how we got all the truths
Speaker 1: in the Normandy landing. So when forty seven came around,
Speaker 1: he said the war ends. September forty five, he said,
Speaker 1: we're going to Germany. And I was ten, and I
Speaker 1: love the idea of that. And we went to Hamburg first.
Speaker 1: Hamburg was as if we dropped the hydrogen box.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it was it completely.
Speaker 1: It was like we dropped an h BOM. And then
Speaker 1: we worked there. He worked there briefly and said, I'm
Speaker 1: now going to south to Frankfurt and Mainz and'll be
Speaker 1: working in Eisenhower's office at the Eager Farm building.
Speaker 2: Do you remember food there? Did you remember?
Speaker 1: You know? Here's where it comes. He said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to show you something going to like He took me
Speaker 1: and my frank Tony was about to be born, and
Speaker 1: he took me to the American p X, which of
Speaker 1: course is a supermarket. I didn't know what that was,
Speaker 1: and i'd been on rationing. He said, this thing is
Speaker 1: called a soda fountain, he said, and the guy the
Speaker 1: hat that he's the soda jerk, he said, I advised
Speaker 1: that you have a Raspbey milkshake. He said, Oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, do try that coca cola. How well were
Speaker 1: you ten? So I got hooked on coca cola when
Speaker 1: it was in the glass bottle, on the small glass bottle,
Speaker 1: and I'd do six bottles a day. To me, I
Speaker 1: still got one. And so in there was Hamburger, and
Speaker 1: it was the American food in the American way of life.
Speaker 2: So there was no immersion into Germany.
Speaker 1: No. I loved what I saw because everything is shiny
Speaker 1: and large, and the supermarket apples that are redder than
Speaker 1: in snow white, right, and they eat him their.
Speaker 2: Tasteless just bigger.
Speaker 1: That's bigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the taste doesn't matter, but.
Speaker 1: You know, we got I didn't get over that for
Speaker 1: a while because I was very impressed by the American
Speaker 1: way of life.
Speaker 2: And then you came back to England. In England and
Speaker 2: then and then we settled down, it was rationing, still going.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, that was over then, but my dad had
Speaker 1: to Suddenly the war is over and all these guys
Speaker 1: who enjoyed the high ranking positions suddenly joined the real
Speaker 1: world and get a job. So my dad ended up
Speaker 1: getting a job in soccer on Tees north of England,
Speaker 1: and we were there for the next eighteen years.
Speaker 2: Were they excited that you were going to the Royal College?
Speaker 2: Were they you're there to be artist? Where they were?
Speaker 1: No? Because I traveled so much with my father as
Speaker 1: a army officer, growing to become a high ranking person.
Speaker 1: I did ten schools, so I was academically inept in
Speaker 1: those days. Parents would say you'll catch up. Of course
Speaker 1: we never did because you moved foot one school to
Speaker 1: the other. Teachers don't care, and teachers that time in
Speaker 1: my generation hated the pupils and the pupils hated the teacher.
Speaker 2: But you knew you could draw.
Speaker 1: I did nothing but draw three years old. I will
Speaker 1: draw you in three seconds. Okay, all right, okay, and
Speaker 1: there you got.
Speaker 2: It, Ruthie, Oh pick up, thank you.
Speaker 1: And so what happened was when I came to this decision,
Speaker 1: what do I do University of what my dad said,
Speaker 1: go to art school. He did. He said, you go
Speaker 1: to our school. Do what you'd love to do. Draw
Speaker 1: He said, you'll probably be an art teacher. Be an
Speaker 1: art teacher.
Speaker 2: You were thrust into the world of London as you
Speaker 2: were describing the world of artists and art and Indian
Speaker 2: food and different cultures and abilities.
Speaker 1: But the Royal College eventually really opened me up because
Speaker 1: I'm on You're on your own.
Speaker 2: Did you have money?
Speaker 1: No, there was no grants. So I'd work taskin I'd
Speaker 1: lay runways out concrete. I'd work in ICI Imperial Chemical Industries,
Speaker 1: where I'd packed night shift dry cold it drives from
Speaker 1: the ammonia plants. And I'd do post office work every.
Speaker 2: Christmas and then go to school every day.
Speaker 1: And then that they were the holidays. Now save that money.
Speaker 1: It would enable me to then my dad at that
Speaker 1: time would be on the magic salary of twenty five
Speaker 1: pounds a week. People can't believe that, and the magic
Speaker 1: salary of twelve hundred pounds a year. When I started BBC,
Speaker 1: I started on a salary should take more than my
Speaker 1: father earned his lifetime. So I started BBC as a
Speaker 1: designer Tormentazia twelve hundred. Yeah, and believe it, you breakfast, so.
Speaker 2: That food again, going back to that culture, if you
Speaker 2: couldn't afford to eat out, but you could eat it.
Speaker 2: You discovered Indian restaurants and probably Greek.
Speaker 1: And I was good with bad cook yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would, so you knew what good food was
Speaker 2: and you wanted to eat it.
Speaker 1: I think if I want to, I'd be a good
Speaker 1: chef because it's about being precise. It's also having a
Speaker 1: good sense of taste.
Speaker 2: Just say, if you want to eat well and you
Speaker 2: can't afford it, you have to learn to cook.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so even when I was in West Horleypool
Speaker 1: Arts School, there would be the day and then i'd
Speaker 1: have night school. There'd be a two hour gap. So
Speaker 1: instead of getting fish and chips and go to the
Speaker 1: local shop and buy good cheese, some good bread and
Speaker 1: go and have half a pint of cider, that's a meal.
Speaker 1: But it was selective, selective, Yeah, and I never ate badly.
Speaker 1: As students, you didn't know. I mean a mom made
Speaker 1: sure of that. She said do this, do that, and
Speaker 1: make sure you don't and she did. You don't eat
Speaker 1: wonder loafs and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: That's it. What did you educate your children that way
Speaker 2: as well?
Speaker 1: Do you think I didn't have to do? There? All
Speaker 1: great they are. The Jake is almost professional cook. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When he came to see me the other day, we
Speaker 2: sat and he was he just bought red mullet, and
Speaker 2: so we had a long conversation of how he was
Speaker 2: going to cook the red mullet, whether to grill it,
Speaker 2: whether to do it.
Speaker 1: He's really good and.
Speaker 2: He was serious cook.
Speaker 1: And his daughter and look is a serious cook.
Speaker 2: And your granddaughter she Cuba apparently, is going to come
Speaker 2: and cook with me here.
Speaker 1: You'll be in shock. She's so clever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you so. And the women that you married,
Speaker 2: did you? Did you?
Speaker 1: My first wife was mother Austrian, and that's why when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen I was wooing my wife would be
Speaker 1: my first wife. Eighteen nineteen twenty I went to the
Speaker 1: Royal College and I'd go up. She lived in this
Speaker 1: town called peter Lee in the north of England, just
Speaker 1: north of Holeypool. Her mom was Austrian. It's the first
Speaker 1: time I tasted garlic and I thought, God, the garlic
Speaker 1: is wonderful, and I go home. My mom said, what's
Speaker 1: that terrible smell? Are you even garlic? And that's how
Speaker 1: it was introduced to garlic.
Speaker 2: So she cooked and then she was a.
Speaker 1: Very good girl. And I didn't say that. My mom
Speaker 1: actually better, may be married well, and Felicity could always cook.
Speaker 1: So Felicity was the mother of Jacob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said.
Speaker 1: From that she the all evolved. They could both call.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe, cafe, steps away from our restaurant, is
Speaker 2: now open in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,
Speaker 2: chiambella and cristada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon,
Speaker 2: ice cream coops and River Cafe classic desserts. Come in
Speaker 2: the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar.
Speaker 2: No need to book see you here. In advertising, you
Speaker 2: were making building a company. So was were you like
Speaker 2: in mad Men? With you the sort of Don Draper
Speaker 2: of lon Did you have long martini lunches and no
Speaker 2: bar infice?
Speaker 1: We opened the office in London and it took off,
Speaker 1: and then I opened an office in Paris and it
Speaker 1: took off.
Speaker 2: Did you eat well in Paris? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love preferred Then I don't know what happened to Paris. Now, Yes,
Speaker 1: Paris then there were a lot of brasseries, either because
Speaker 1: it was fresh and new to me because I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the French cuisine at that point. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I enjoy it as much now.
Speaker 2: There's still a very strong culture of food in France.
Speaker 2: You know, you can get into a taxi cab and
Speaker 2: the guy will tell you how to cook a sea bass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think there is.
Speaker 2: It's probably changing, but I think there is.
Speaker 1: But didn't things kind of slightly modernize and I noticed
Speaker 1: that the modernization of the French food is better than
Speaker 1: the becomes more interesting when it's done properly, when they
Speaker 1: lose all the saurces like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the world. We were just talking about the.
Speaker 1: Three ingredients a lot.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of and you have to you know,
Speaker 2: if you're going to have three ingredients, they have to
Speaker 2: be really good, don't they. You know? Yeah, So you're
Speaker 2: with Alan Parker and David Putnam.
Speaker 1: We were so competitive, we weren't friends. It was highly competitive.
Speaker 1: And there used to be this thing called Monday Morning
Speaker 1: Newcomers and I'd sit there with a cup of teena
Speaker 1: cigarette and say, who did that? Adrian and I damn,
Speaker 1: who did that? Alan Parker? Damn? In reality at that
Speaker 1: moment that the Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne and me, then
Speaker 1: we were the leader of the pack. We all had
Speaker 1: our own production company, were separate, absolutely in competition, and
Speaker 1: so in the English advertising and they called the English
Speaker 1: lights got leaked into France and leaked into America, so
Speaker 1: that I shipped out Freaquent shooters commercials in America. And
Speaker 1: that's to when I then opened an office in America.
Speaker 1: Agencies would come to you and say, yeah, they look
Speaker 1: at the real what was it like?
Speaker 2: If we can, we can talk about one ad which
Speaker 2: was about Brett Food, so well, tell me about Hovis.
Speaker 1: Hovas was the companies said, we have a campaign a
Speaker 1: series and look, I would look. I think I'm blessed
Speaker 1: with a good eye. I have a very good eye.
Speaker 1: And while doing commercials, I discovered it's better to be
Speaker 1: in a kitchen the chef can stir his own concoction.
Speaker 1: To me, it was better to operate. So I'm a
Speaker 1: very good camera operator. So I did camera operated on
Speaker 1: two and a half thousand commercials, everything handheld, the whole
Speaker 1: goddamn nineer. So then when I do the duelist, that's
Speaker 1: me on one camera. When I do Alien, that's me
Speaker 1: on one camera. Later under me. So all this evolved
Speaker 1: into the exercise and art of that, and photographing and
Speaker 1: in advertising. We were so successful. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: very good over the top lunches where we'd have it
Speaker 1: and lunch bloody Mary followed by a bottle of wine
Speaker 1: and go back to work, which is not a good idea.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Do you do that now? No, you said that you
Speaker 2: made an advertisement like a feature film.
Speaker 1: The thirty second commercial I regard as a film, and
Speaker 1: you could tell a big story in thirty seconds if
Speaker 1: you don't what you're doing. I did Steve Job's first commercial.
Speaker 2: I know the Matt.
Speaker 1: I met the agency. They came into the chair of paper.
Speaker 1: I said, George orwell at the end, he said, we're
Speaker 1: going to show you how nineteen eighty four ain't going
Speaker 1: to be like nineteen eighty four. I said, what is this?
Speaker 1: Is it? What's the fau? They said, well, it's a computer.
Speaker 1: So we don't talk about a computer. You don't show
Speaker 1: a computer.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I said, well, who's this girl running down a corner? Well,
Speaker 1: that's freedom. She's being pursued by o'wellian threatening people. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's George, okay, for what's it for? Computer? For what
Speaker 1: domestic computer? I said to this was and Steve I said,
Speaker 1: what you need a computer? Right? Shopping list? What's the
Speaker 1: matter of the pattern pencil? It just laughed.
Speaker 2: I was on a film set the other day and
Speaker 2: George Clooney was there and Adam Sandler and they did,
Speaker 2: you know, take after ten I've never been on it.
Speaker 2: Gave me a little part. Hint, hint, he gave me
Speaker 2: a part in movie. So Ridley Ridley, Yeah, he gave
Speaker 2: me a little part in his movie. So next time, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a little Ruthie Rogers cameo. I said, not one word.
Speaker 2: But it was really interesting to see.
Speaker 1: I do two takes. Think about it. I'm casting a
Speaker 1: good actor and he's got a script. He's had the
Speaker 1: script for a month or two. He is, she has
Speaker 1: prepared what she's going to do. There's nothing worse in
Speaker 1: the morning. Then they walk in and the director starts
Speaker 1: to talk about the meaning of life. They want to
Speaker 1: just get on.
Speaker 2: With it, and how are you on set? Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it fun to be on a Ridley Scott movie?
Speaker 1: I think I think they keep coming back.
Speaker 2: I'd like to talk about food in movies. So we
Speaker 2: can remember Blade Runner and the noodles. They can remember Alien, well.
Speaker 1: That was yeah, grain drive food.
Speaker 2: So would you talk to me about movies and films?
Speaker 1: Well, in making a movie is all to do with research,
Speaker 1: and I have a great team, and so I've worked
Speaker 1: with my costume designer, Janty since the first Gladiator, but
Speaker 1: before that there were other costumes. Arthur Max I've worked
Speaker 1: for he's the production designer since just after the timber Luiz.
Speaker 1: I've worked with different people and over the years it's
Speaker 1: simply easier to take up rains of the people, you know,
Speaker 1: because we are so fast. As I finish, I'm already
Speaker 1: prepping the next one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're prepping Begs now.
Speaker 1: Now yeah, I haven't quite delivered the Gladiators. So that's
Speaker 1: for me's normal, but the means I mean, no, it's practical.
Speaker 1: I hold onto the team, letting it go they're gone
Speaker 1: and I need the team. Keeping my team makes me
Speaker 1: more efficient and they like it because they never stopped working.
Speaker 2: And so when you're thinking about when you let's take
Speaker 2: one movie. Take a movie and talk to me about
Speaker 2: the food in one of your movies.
Speaker 1: Oh, alien would be one of people to eat in space.
Speaker 1: It would have to be dried food. It would have
Speaker 1: to be water that somehow you generate from condensation in
Speaker 1: the ship? Is there conversation in the ship? There is now,
Speaker 1: because Harry Dean Stanton died in a landing leg group
Speaker 1: was dripping with water. So I made that up to
Speaker 1: that was old bullsher. You'll say, what is a conversation
Speaker 1: from what you said? Well, you know, And I also
Speaker 1: by then you've learned to absorb your chemeras from your
Speaker 1: own body, which would be turned in reconsumption. Now in space,
Speaker 1: that packaging is edible. So all the packaging is light,
Speaker 1: but it's there to be cooked. And actually, Martian to
Speaker 1: me is one of my favorite recent films in a
Speaker 1: way because it's a comedy in a way because Fox accommodis, yes,
Speaker 1: a comedy. Why well, anybody survives by eating their own ship,
Speaker 1: it's got to be good. You're right, okay, So, but
Speaker 1: I think it was such a blow by blow logical
Speaker 1: piece of science, and yet it was amusing. I thought
Speaker 1: it worked perfectly. It's good, good form, he said to me.
Speaker 1: Squeeze Matt Matt Damon, you said with tomato ketchup, I
Speaker 1: love tamato ketcher. You just said, you said, should have
Speaker 1: borded more ketchup because he was living on potatoes, so
Speaker 1: you had to eke out the ketchup the potatoes and ketcher.
Speaker 1: Why is why are potatoes so marvelous?
Speaker 2: I will let you answer that question.
Speaker 1: Well, there can be chips, cream potatoes, bad potatoes. It's
Speaker 1: no one is a marvelous staple. It's a great food,
Speaker 1: isn't it?
Speaker 2: And the food is Gladiator? What did they eat?
Speaker 1: Eggs, chicken, grain? But if you are upper class, it's
Speaker 1: another story. You have what you want eating everything from probably,
Speaker 1: and I think probably the challenges were healthier than the bread.
Speaker 1: Who would eat hung meat, which is rotting without vegetables
Speaker 1: because they didn't like vegetables.
Speaker 2: Do you think about food when you wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning, and do you think about what you're going
Speaker 2: to eat that day?
Speaker 1: Plan? It's I got blueberries, cherries, breakfast with Greek yogurts, expresso,
Speaker 1: that's it. And lunch lunchtime protein with salad. Evening only
Speaker 1: vegetables and vegetables cooked in some clever way. I like
Speaker 1: curried vegetables.
Speaker 2: How long have you been on this regime? Ten years?
Speaker 2: And it works?
Speaker 1: It's good you're still here. I do drink after dinner.
Speaker 1: I don't drink with dinner.
Speaker 2: But when you go to a restaurant, do you break
Speaker 2: the rules?
Speaker 1: No? No, I tend to stick with the rule book. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And when you try, well, do you think about that
Speaker 2: right now? Where are you shooting? The beaches?
Speaker 1: Oh? Probably the beach A lot of time in England.
Speaker 1: I've got to do Miami.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite beg song?
Speaker 1: Massachusetts?
Speaker 3: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you
Speaker 3: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 3: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 3: your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ridley. Most people with the success you've had
Speaker 2: might have bought penthouse, apartment in Central Park, a fabulous yacht,
Speaker 2: but you bought a chateau. And I'm making award winning wine.
Speaker 2: So I just thought, before Christophe and Melina come in,
Speaker 2: both some ayas from the river cafe, you could tell
Speaker 2: me why did you do this?
Speaker 1: My gluten for punishment and I liked to evolve, and
Speaker 1: I bought I had a farm in the Costle years ago,
Speaker 1: and I loved it to death for ten years, but
Speaker 1: it always rained, so the kids got bored and wouldn't
Speaker 1: go down, and I got into horses in a big way.
Speaker 1: I had sheep, so we sold it, and I always
Speaker 1: missed that farm. And then I then did a film,
Speaker 1: The Duelists. I experienced the door done, and I loved
Speaker 1: that part of France, and I thought, but the door
Speaker 1: Durne rains as well. Then I really missed it. And
Speaker 1: so eventually twenty thirty two years ago, I decided I'm
Speaker 1: going look for sun for sunshine, and I started looking
Speaker 1: anywhere beneath Leon and I made fun of the trip,
Speaker 1: and somebody was looking for me, and then took about
Speaker 1: six months. Is one day I was in the camp
Speaker 1: Film Festival and it calls it. I think I've got it,
Speaker 1: So I drove the two and fifty kilometers there and
Speaker 1: I bought it by lunchtime. And because I've known by now,
Speaker 1: I've had big houses and medium sized houses, big houses
Speaker 1: of pin and that you do not need twelve bedrooms.
Speaker 1: And so this is a man which is a smaller sized.
Speaker 1: It's not a chateau.
Speaker 2: How many acres of vineyard do you have well.
Speaker 1: He had actually eleven hectors, and I discovered later years
Speaker 1: that it belonged to General Robert of the Napoleon Army,
Speaker 1: and that was his house and his vineyard. I was
Speaker 1: buying his eleven hector. And when I was buying it,
Speaker 1: the people when you're looking for house, people who usually
Speaker 1: died or they getting divorced. The couple getting divorced, they've
Speaker 1: done quite good things to what is already a bit
Speaker 1: of a gem, like stone floors and double glazing, but
Speaker 1: matching the windows the way they should be. So I
Speaker 1: bought it, and from that I did know what to
Speaker 1: do with the eleven hectors. So I got a local
Speaker 1: calf to say, we'll take it out as long as
Speaker 1: you keep the venue on neat. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do wine, as long as it looks chronically neat, and
Speaker 1: I drive in and looks like a garden. Good. And
Speaker 1: so they did a good job until after four years
Speaker 1: they caught and said, we've just got a gold in
Speaker 1: a Paris following you. He said, we've got to gold
Speaker 1: and a silver on this for the wine in Paris.
Speaker 1: And so the guy who was kind of giving me
Speaker 1: advice to that moment, my lovely Uncle Denny Long said,
Speaker 1: you know, suddenly we should and your grape is way
Speaker 1: better than you and imagined he said, I think we
Speaker 1: should try and take it back. So we took it
Speaker 1: back and there we have the reverse of where we
Speaker 1: went to. So suddenly I had to get involved in
Speaker 1: this science of making wine. And I love it.
Speaker 2: And what is the science of making wine?
Speaker 1: It's precision. Everything's precision, and everything's taste, and so it
Speaker 1: is personal. I think it's personal. So in the funny
Speaker 1: kind of way, wine making is as creative as making
Speaker 1: a movie. All right.
Speaker 2: So we're here in the River Cafe dining room and
Speaker 2: we're doing a wine tasting of Ridley Scott's wine. I
Speaker 2: think we should start by the white wine. We try
Speaker 2: the wine just before, just to open the wine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's they are very fresh. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of freshness on the wine. Yeah, very elegant, yes, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's lovely. I stole a great vintner from
Speaker 1: a very elevated car in France. I want to say where.
Speaker 1: And he now, he is the man who puts all
Speaker 1: this stuff that crystal barrel, and he puts all the
Speaker 1: he blends everything right, and so he said, describe the
Speaker 1: kind of white we're looking for, And I said, I
Speaker 1: tend to always drink for a quick kind of knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction, and say, what do you want to say?
Speaker 1: A Pinot grisio or salt because in the funny kind
Speaker 1: of way, the simple wine, simple white wine, I find
Speaker 1: the French red white can get shabbies can get heavy,
Speaker 1: the show can get heavy, and I don't like heavy wine.
Speaker 1: That was that.
Speaker 2: I think that's one point meant love drinkability.
Speaker 4: Straight away, What do you say the wine? You get
Speaker 4: this lovely freshness and then you get this beautiful like
Speaker 4: lime flower notes, you know her base show's nose almost
Speaker 4: like asparagus. You know it just it just feels like summer.
Speaker 4: You like, yes, I love it works perfectly. It's in fact,
Speaker 4: aspargus is a very difficult dish to pair with wine,
Speaker 4: and it's like so many a nightmare like such things
Speaker 4: like also to pair with art chalks as well, it's
Speaker 4: quite difficult. And I agree with Chris said, the acidity
Speaker 4: is lovely. You have this freshness, so it's not you know, crashing,
Speaker 4: crushing the dish. So I think it's really a good compliment.
Speaker 2: And shall we move on to the Yeah.
Speaker 1: The roses is one of our biggest outputs. It's retracted
Speaker 1: a bit. Why is that because there's too many bad roses?
Speaker 1: Just the first time teaching the rose it's very proven,
Speaker 1: very pale.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think you know the roses, especially because you know,
Speaker 4: like it's a great and a perry tip glass of wine.
Speaker 4: But I can see prepairing so many kinds of dishes
Speaker 4: like car patches style of food, or like lobster salad
Speaker 4: or anything that's fresh and seafoody.
Speaker 2: I just think it's delightful. We talk about food as
Speaker 2: creating a movie. We talk about food is growing grapes
Speaker 2: for wine. We talk about food is your children. In Sarginia,
Speaker 2: we also talk about food is comfort. So when you
Speaker 2: need comfort, even within the plan that you have, is
Speaker 2: there something cheese?
Speaker 1: I don't take chocolate, I don't have sweets.
Speaker 2: I love cheese, okay, any particular type.
Speaker 1: All of it. But you know, the king would be
Speaker 1: probably still did you grow up with that good cheese?
Speaker 1: Will always assumed and the Americans both struck Turbot boadshow
Speaker 1: don't quite understand cheese. And but in Beverly Hills right now,
Speaker 1: there's a very good cheese.
Speaker 2: There's a good well, I remember there was one on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's moved to as Evolved two Little Santa Monica.
Speaker 1: It's really good. But I do love cheese cheese.
Speaker 2: All right, well let's go have some cheese. We have
Speaker 2: some cheese before you.
Speaker 1: Go French, Have you got the French?
Speaker 2: And we have some very good Italian.
Speaker 1: Cheese.
Speaker 2: Very with your wine.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ridley Scott, thank you, thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair