Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. If food and life
Speaker 1: have a close connection, then so does Lily Allen and
Speaker 1: The River Cafe. Both born and raised in Hammersmith, West London,
Speaker 1: Lily in May nineteen eighty five and The River Cafe
Speaker 1: eighteen months later in September nineteen eighty seven. We both
Speaker 1: have had our shares of ups and downs as we
Speaker 1: came of age, but as creatives, I like to think
Speaker 1: that we both share a common commitment to being honest
Speaker 1: and straight about what we believe in and the values
Speaker 1: we hold. Lily really does tell it as it is,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're going to do to day. Talk
Speaker 1: about food, food and memories, food and family, food and love. Hi,
Speaker 1: Hi Danny, would you like to read your recipe? I'd
Speaker 1: love to. I have chosen fig and cannellini salad. You'll
Speaker 1: need twelve ripe figs, two hundred miles of extra virgin
Speaker 1: olive oil, one bunch of fresh green basil, one bunch
Speaker 1: of fresh purple basil, one bunch of fresh mint, a
Speaker 1: selection of salad leaves, including rockets of cooked cannellini beans,
Speaker 1: and the juice of one lemon. Slice the figs and
Speaker 1: spread out on a large plate. Season and drizzle over
Speaker 1: half of the extra virgin olive oil. Warm the cannellini
Speaker 1: beans in their cooking liquid. Drain and season in a
Speaker 1: large bowl. Combine the figs and warm cannellini beans, stirring well.
Speaker 1: Gently toss through the herbs and leaves. Add lemon juice
Speaker 1: and extra virgin olive oil. Why did you choose, of
Speaker 1: all the recipes of the River Cafe books, this this recipe.
Speaker 1: I love a bean salad, and figs are possibly my
Speaker 1: favorite fruit. Usually I have figs with sort of cheese
Speaker 1: or something else about both the things that delicious. And
Speaker 1: you're very good at putting delicious things together. And we'll
Speaker 1: do it tonight because you're staying out for dinner. We'll
Speaker 1: make this for you tonight. But you do cook. I
Speaker 1: was really into cooking when I was a teenager. That's
Speaker 1: sort of thirteen. I actually went and did a called
Speaker 1: on Blur of course in Marlabone, remember asking for like
Speaker 1: a set of Sabatia nights my thirteenth birthday. It's funny
Speaker 1: because it's really one of those things that you have
Speaker 1: to keep up in order to, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: like muscle memory. And I definitely have, you know, like
Speaker 1: a handful of recipes that have sort of stuck with me.
Speaker 1: But I remember when I when at the beginning of
Speaker 1: my career, when I'd go off on tour for sort
Speaker 1: of two years at a time, I'd come back and
Speaker 1: I'd forget how to make a spaghetti bolonnaise, and it
Speaker 1: would really freak me out. Actually, you know, because when
Speaker 1: you're on tour, you just don't have access to a kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know, you're in a tour bus or in hotel rooms,
Speaker 1: so there's just no way that you would ever be
Speaker 1: able to get anywhere nearer chopping board and fresh vegetables.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love cooking and you love eating. I
Speaker 1: love eating. I've never been times when you know that
Speaker 1: your music describes when you've been on the edge, you're down.
Speaker 1: Do you find that when you're kind of emotionally vulnerable
Speaker 1: that you don't need or you know, I'm an eater
Speaker 1: when I when I'm sad. Yeah, yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: you know, I have one in my family is emotional eaters.
Speaker 1: We all sort of reach for, usually carbohydrates feeling low.
Speaker 1: There's this thing that my mom makes, which you will
Speaker 1: think is horrendous, but it's like the thing that I
Speaker 1: want her to come over and drop off of my
Speaker 1: house when I'm feeling really depressed. Which is called cheese pie,
Speaker 1: and it's but it's used to make it when she
Speaker 1: was living in her student accommodation when I was a baby.
Speaker 1: But it's a casserole dish with two tins of tin
Speaker 1: spaghetti within the tomato sauce, with a layer of cheesy
Speaker 1: mashed potato on top and then put in the oven.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what you were going to say, but
Speaker 1: I really didn't think you were going to say getting
Speaker 1: covered by vershed potatoes. It's really really gross, but I
Speaker 1: love it it, just like, yeah, it makes me feel
Speaker 1: really really protected and comported by my mom's sort of
Speaker 1: stodgy eighties cooking. And so tell me about growing up
Speaker 1: in the Allen household. What was the food like? Did
Speaker 1: you Yeah, did your mom cook her your dad or
Speaker 1: my mom cooked a lot? Yeah, she was. She kind
Speaker 1: of cooked, you know, kids like stodgy food. And then
Speaker 1: I guess, as well, Yeah, we've got a little bit older,
Speaker 1: we had sort of more variation. There's always lots of
Speaker 1: entertaining going on on the weekends and Sunday roasts and yeah,
Speaker 1: dinner party. I imagine it's where I sort of it
Speaker 1: learn a lot about food, seeing your parents entertaining and
Speaker 1: seeing the food quite different hearing the voices the adult conversation.
Speaker 1: So when you would go downstairs and sit at the table,
Speaker 1: always sit when someone's that, what what was it like?
Speaker 1: What did that feel like? I was always like, you know,
Speaker 1: fascinated by growing ups. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: didn't really have that many friends my own age, and
Speaker 1: I just was desperate to be an adult from quite
Speaker 1: an early age. So I just remember sort of, yeah,
Speaker 1: sitting on you know, my godmother's laugh, you know, pretending
Speaker 1: that I liked olives, which I really didn't. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: sort of soaking up all of the conversation, pretending that
Speaker 1: you understand what's what's going on, but not really you know,
Speaker 1: probably concentrating so hard on trying to blend in that
Speaker 1: you're not really doing much with it. The day that
Speaker 1: you stay with many sense of time, we get a
Speaker 1: bed with it. No, my parents, definitely we're not strict
Speaker 1: in that in essence, Tell about your mother and father.
Speaker 1: What did tell me about their lives. Well. First of all,
Speaker 1: you know, my parents were divorced by the time I
Speaker 1: was four, so I don't really have many memories of
Speaker 1: them together, although actually I do remember one party that
Speaker 1: they had at our flat in Bloomsbury. I think it
Speaker 1: must have been around Christmas or New Year, and me
Speaker 1: and my brother made bagels, toasted bagels and cream cheese,
Speaker 1: and then we had like one of those sort of
Speaker 1: drinks trolleys that you could push around in our flat,
Speaker 1: and me and my brother were pushing most made like
Speaker 1: piles what seemed like piles at the time, but we
Speaker 1: were very small, Um yeah, pushing them around the living
Speaker 1: room and trying to charge people for a bagel with
Speaker 1: cream cheese. I don't know if we've got many takers.
Speaker 1: I don't know if people are. That sounds pretty good
Speaker 1: to me, and baggers and cream chees anywhere. I mean. Actually,
Speaker 1: my my mom, my brother went to boarding school and
Speaker 1: he was eight, and my sister, you know, had a
Speaker 1: quite colorful social life from the age of sort of
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen, so she wasn't really around much, so
Speaker 1: I was. There would be quite a lot of times
Speaker 1: when it was just me and my mom and my
Speaker 1: stepdad in our house in Promote Hill, and I remember
Speaker 1: getting taken to dinner parties at other people's houses quite
Speaker 1: a lot um in the week. I remember like I
Speaker 1: would be tired and I get to school the next
Speaker 1: day and people would be like, are you okay? And
Speaker 1: out of clocking the morning listening to grown ups rubbit
Speaker 1: on about nothing. What about when you saw your father
Speaker 1: did he cook for you or did he Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was like a little bit more rustic my dad with
Speaker 1: his food. Like we did a lot of camping and
Speaker 1: going to festivals and stuff, so there was always quite
Speaker 1: a lot of like cooking on open fires with him,
Speaker 1: and he used to do like this digging hole and
Speaker 1: making like sort of baking meat or barbecuing it like
Speaker 1: in a hole for you know, slow cooking stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was sort of more more his vibe. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I had, you know, sort of fabulous social
Speaker 1: parents and was taken along for the ride. And so
Speaker 1: if you grew up with the food, when did you
Speaker 1: start discovering that they were start discovering food For myself?
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, going to sort of like social
Speaker 1: gatherings with my mom and her friends. My best friend Mikita.
Speaker 1: Her mom is Antiguan and so she was always I've
Speaker 1: always been really interested in like world food, and she
Speaker 1: you know, introduced me to sort of Caribbean food and
Speaker 1: I loved all of that growing up. I thought it
Speaker 1: was just the most delicious, you know, sort of baked
Speaker 1: chicken and all of the spices with the rice and
Speaker 1: the peas. And also growing up in West London as well,
Speaker 1: there was always sort of portsbellter market market store food.
Speaker 1: My dad had this friend called Vicky who had a
Speaker 1: stalled down in Camden Market where we would go and
Speaker 1: have sort of for laffles every weekend. So I was
Speaker 1: always really interested in trying foods from different parts of
Speaker 1: the world. And then when I started touring as a
Speaker 1: recording artist, I just became obsessed with local food from
Speaker 1: wherever it was that we were. Whatever is it like,
Speaker 1: going on tour and discovering culture through the food, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the sort of habit of mine, which
Speaker 1: is that when I get off stage, I've taken all
Speaker 1: my makeup off, I get on the bus or you know,
Speaker 1: however it is that we're traveling, I'll get my phone
Speaker 1: out and look at the city that we're driving into
Speaker 1: the next morning, and I plan each meal. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: first thing I would look for in the morning was
Speaker 1: the best place for coffee and pastries. And then if
Speaker 1: we were in Mexico, then I want to find out
Speaker 1: where the best tackos were for lunch and etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was I will always plan my day
Speaker 1: or around food. There's all. You're not the only I mean,
Speaker 1: when I was talking to Jake chillen A, he said
Speaker 1: that no matter where he's going on location, wherever he's
Speaker 1: going for a movie, wherever in the world, he spends
Speaker 1: days before deciding where he's going to eat. And what
Speaker 1: is it like touring? What is it like when you
Speaker 1: go on It really hard actually do well. I mean
Speaker 1: it's because most places where they're you know, we'll pull
Speaker 1: up outside you know the venue, and that's where we'll
Speaker 1: be based for the day. So and most venues are
Speaker 1: in you know, parts of town where there's no residential
Speaker 1: it's you know, where you can make noise. So yeah,
Speaker 1: people don't usually live there and so therefore there's not
Speaker 1: places to eat. So yeah, it's difficult. It's difficult to
Speaker 1: meet and you're obviously relying on what the venue have
Speaker 1: got in for you a lot of the time, So
Speaker 1: you're going to the dressing room and there'll be some
Speaker 1: sort of like plate with cheeses and ham have been
Speaker 1: in the sort of sweating it's not the isis and
Speaker 1: then crisps and sweets and things like that, maybe fruit sometimes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's what I I sort of like have
Speaker 1: my sort of routine, which is our order and uber
Speaker 1: and go into town and find somewhere to have coffee
Speaker 1: and then sit and decide what it is I'm going
Speaker 1: to do with the rest of my day. You ever
Speaker 1: to spend the day there before the concert at night,
Speaker 1: it depends how far away is from the venue that
Speaker 1: you come from the last night. But if you're in
Speaker 1: America and you've got like, you know, fourteen hour drive
Speaker 1: before in between shows, then you don't have that much time.
Speaker 1: But if you you know, just a couple of miles
Speaker 1: up the road, then yeah, you might have the whole
Speaker 1: day and you can get a couple of good meals.
Speaker 1: In do you eat before a show, after a show,
Speaker 1: or during a show? Probably I'll eat like a a
Speaker 1: bigger breakfast, I won't have lunch, and then I'll have
Speaker 1: a dinner afterwards. I don't want to really go on
Speaker 1: stage on a full stomach. Not not good idea about
Speaker 1: tell me about the player and tell us about the place.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a play called two, which is a sort
Speaker 1: of dinner party play. So what does a dinner party play.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is set over one evening around a table,
Speaker 1: and it's all about usually quite small cast like Who's
Speaker 1: afraid of Virginia Wolf and like you know plays. It's
Speaker 1: it's definitely a thing um And that's that's what there's
Speaker 1: plans is the food on the table. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to make an asparagus risotto because so tell me about
Speaker 1: that that because we want to bring everything back to
Speaker 1: the food. But what is it? What is it? What
Speaker 1: is it? Like, Oh my gosh, you're going to hate
Speaker 1: it because well it's not actually resorted. They were kind
Speaker 1: of like have already made as matti rice and then
Speaker 1: I kind of like add stock to it as we're
Speaker 1: you know, doing the first sort of fifteen or twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, don't I chopped up asparagus and chuck
Speaker 1: the asparagus in and then I dish it out and
Speaker 1: you're talking, well, and my characters, women called Jenny, who's
Speaker 1: a primary school teacher married to a guy called Sam. We're,
Speaker 1: you know, having friends over for dinner. Are mid renovation
Speaker 1: house and Jenny my character, is convinced that the house
Speaker 1: is being haunted by a ghost, and so she asks
Speaker 1: that the other guests stay up until two two, which
Speaker 1: is when the time of night when the ghost comes
Speaker 1: along to witness and give their thoughts on what's happening.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, it's sort of it's a it's an
Speaker 1: interesting play. If ghosts exist, why aren't there absolutely loads
Speaker 1: of them? How do you mean, why aren't they flooding
Speaker 1: it into our world in their thousands. A minute later,
Speaker 1: it came walking round and round, turned on the light
Speaker 1: and the room was empty. It was a dream. I
Speaker 1: wasn't asleep. Don't you believe I should have been here.
Speaker 1: We've spoken about tables, the tables that you grew up
Speaker 1: with as a child, coming down and we can close
Speaker 1: their eyes right now, I can and see this child
Speaker 1: coming down to the grown up dinner party, or the
Speaker 1: tables that kind of even prepared for yourself in the
Speaker 1: face of not being able to have to cook, to
Speaker 1: have a pearthy meal, finding a table in a town
Speaker 1: where you could have a cappuccino. And so the thought
Speaker 1: that you're in a play right now that is centered
Speaker 1: around a table, this is something that you think, that's
Speaker 1: a table, the theme of a table in your life,
Speaker 1: and the table is very central to our play. I
Speaker 1: can't go too much into it because it is it's
Speaker 1: part of the twist. But yeah, I guess kitchen table
Speaker 1: is central to the sort of family ideal, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And I guess maybe I put a lot of focus
Speaker 1: onto it because I don't feel like that table featured
Speaker 1: enough in my childhood. But it's definitely something that is
Speaker 1: important to me. In fact, David and my husband and
Speaker 1: I are building a house in New York together at
Speaker 1: the moment, and I'm always talking about this table that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist yet, which is you know, very very central
Speaker 1: to the to the whole running of the house. I
Speaker 1: don't want it to be just a place where food
Speaker 1: is prepared. I want it to be where the kids
Speaker 1: coming from school and they dump their bags on that
Speaker 1: table and they want to be doing their homework while
Speaker 1: I'm cooking their food. And it feeling like the engine
Speaker 1: room of our lives really and where we communicate and
Speaker 1: share ideas together and emotions, talk about what's happened with
Speaker 1: our day and unpack what how we're experiencing the world.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I guess there there is a little
Speaker 1: bit of that in the play that I'm doing, which
Speaker 1: is set around a table in a kitchen. Well, in
Speaker 1: a few minutes, you're going to be sitting around a
Speaker 1: table in the River Cafe. And I always associate you
Speaker 1: actually with Table leven, which is a table closest to
Speaker 1: the past. I don't know. I just always used to
Speaker 1: see you there and would come with him with big
Speaker 1: groups of people. Do you know you're coming with David?
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like my sort of little secret treat.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe because it's not in town. It always
Speaker 1: feels like a special treat coming to the River Cafe.
Speaker 1: And I live mostly in West London, so it's not
Speaker 1: never that far, but it's it's not um although I
Speaker 1: did have one birthday party here. Yeah, it's a very
Speaker 1: messy affair. Sorry, I think I behaved quite badly that night.
Speaker 1: What happened, But there was a table, that's a table,
Speaker 1: that's a very big table. That room actually just practically
Speaker 1: is a table. Tell me what was that like? That.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that we were asked never,
Speaker 1: maybe not me or maybe some of my guests. When
Speaker 1: I had my kids and lived in the countryside, food
Speaker 1: and entertaining was massive for me. You know, we had
Speaker 1: like a few bedrooms, bare bedrooms, and people would come
Speaker 1: down from London every weekend and I would do, you know,
Speaker 1: massive meals on our big long table in the dining
Speaker 1: room and yeah, so that's a lot. So you did,
Speaker 1: you know I did. Yeah. We had a house in Gloucestershire,
Speaker 1: just outside of Stroud, and you know, there's a farmer's
Speaker 1: market there, so I would go to the farmers market
Speaker 1: and buy all of the produce and um, yeah, and
Speaker 1: people would come down and it was all very seasonal fair.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love cooking. I'm doing this play here
Speaker 1: at the moment, and I'm actually living at friend's house.
Speaker 1: My kids are spending the summer with their dad and
Speaker 1: my mom's. But when things are a little bit more
Speaker 1: normal and we're all living together under one roof, then
Speaker 1: it's I'd make them every weekend without fail. I'd do
Speaker 1: a Sunday boast on a Sunday. It's just my mom always,
Speaker 1: you know, she she wasn't quite as militant about it
Speaker 1: as I am. But I I just love a Sunday rost.
Speaker 1: I love the ritual of it. I love getting up
Speaker 1: early on a Sunday morning and peeling all my potatoes
Speaker 1: and putting them in the fridge to dry out, and
Speaker 1: the goose bat and I just love all of the
Speaker 1: different bits. And I just love, you know, so usually
Speaker 1: using the seasonal vegetables and you know, the root vegs
Speaker 1: in the winter and more salads in the summer. And
Speaker 1: and also I just think it's really important for my kids.
Speaker 1: I'm slightly manipulative as well, because I think that they
Speaker 1: will always come back to me on the weekends, because
Speaker 1: if they know that that roast dinner is always going
Speaker 1: to be there at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 1: they'll always come home. They were the memories of, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're remembering your mother's I think the memory of a
Speaker 1: tradition of a Friday night dinner Shabbat or Sunday lunch,
Speaker 1: and that is, you know, the tradition. You know, I say,
Speaker 1: in an irregular world, we need regular things. You know
Speaker 1: that that Sunday election you always look the same meat?
Speaker 1: Is it always We do quite a lot of chicken,
Speaker 1: but you know, I do ribs of beef. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: do like a pork belly. But I did a twenty
Speaker 1: four hour um pork shoulder as well, which is very
Speaker 1: popular in our house. Is that sort of more like
Speaker 1: in sort of Chinese spices and stuff starn ese and cinnamon, sugar, curklear,
Speaker 1: the allen you are, you know, it's a ventpicious and
Speaker 1: sid and picky. But yeah, what you're describing is and
Speaker 1: also you know the little thing you said, and he said,
Speaker 1: goose fat. So tell me about the goose fat. What
Speaker 1: do we do with a goose fat? Well, my roast potatoes.
Speaker 1: I peel them, boil them for about six or seven minutes,
Speaker 1: and then I chucked them in the fridge and let
Speaker 1: the air come out of them. Goose fat, a little
Speaker 1: bit of oil into a roasting van until it starts smoking.
Speaker 1: And then I coaked my potatoes in and chuck them
Speaker 1: in for for an hour. Well, the rest of the stuff.
Speaker 1: My mom said, actually that one of the funniest memories
Speaker 1: that she has with me is this is my emotional
Speaker 1: connection to roast inn It's that when I went traveling
Speaker 1: around Asia and I must have been eighteen or nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I came back and she'd obviously made a roast
Speaker 1: inn because that's why I said that I wanted to
Speaker 1: come back for. And we sat around the tables as
Speaker 1: a family, and once we'd finished, my sister went, thanks, Mama,
Speaker 1: was delicious, gravy was amazing, and I just burst into
Speaker 1: tears because I had forgotten to put the gravy on.
Speaker 1: So the rose tradition is something that goes back from
Speaker 1: your childhood to yours and then to your children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think even my mom's childhood as well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think she was sort of raised on roast inners.
Speaker 1: And I mean maybe it's because in my family, just
Speaker 1: the way that things have worked out and my mom being,
Speaker 1: you know, a single working mother, and that was possibly
Speaker 1: the one time a week that we all did come
Speaker 1: together around a table. You know, there wasn't there wasn't
Speaker 1: much of that. I don't really have memories of sitting
Speaker 1: around the table as a family, but I do on Sundays.
Speaker 1: I always asked what is your comfort food? And it
Speaker 1: is very often food that was cooked for as a child.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who I said it was a
Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly sandwich because that's what he had
Speaker 1: with his mother when he came home from school every day,
Speaker 1: and she died when he was twenty, and that's what
Speaker 1: he wants to eat. So I think there, I think
Speaker 1: roast chicken is quite central to everything. It's the center
Speaker 1: of my world. Looks like a roast chicken. I think.
Speaker 1: So your table is waiting, and I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing Thank you. We have
Speaker 1: to share a table very soon. Kay. To visit the
Speaker 1: online shop of The River Cafe, go to shop the
Speaker 1: River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table for
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios.
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