Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, I was invited to a gala
Speaker 1: dinner at the National Theater. The host of My Table,
Speaker 1: Yan Appeal, said she was sitting me next to a
Speaker 1: young filmmaker who had recently won a BAFTA. Then I
Speaker 1: met an artist whose work had just been exhibited at
Speaker 1: hauserin Worth Gallery in Los Angeles and is about to
Speaker 1: be shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Speaker 1: Then I met a champion volleyball player who, aged eighteen,
Speaker 1: represented Britain in the twenty twelve London Olympics. To day
Speaker 1: in the River Cafe, I'm about to talk with all three,
Speaker 1: as Savannah Leaf incredibly is them all? The London born,
Speaker 1: California raised athlete turned artist who still only thirty, has
Speaker 1: just won the baft Of for Best British Debut Director
Speaker 1: for her powerful film Earth Mamma. Executive chef of the
Speaker 1: River Cafe, Sean Owen is joining us. Now we are
Speaker 1: five cook, an artist, a director, an athlete and me
Speaker 1: women rule. I love that. Yeah, we're good.
Speaker 2: So it was.
Speaker 1: It was an amazing dinner, wasn't it It?
Speaker 2: Was really nice.
Speaker 1: You never know who you're going to sit next to you,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know me too, next to each other,
Speaker 1: and it was it was a pretty amazing night. Was
Speaker 1: because it was a gala supporting the National Theater and
Speaker 1: it was really created by the actors and the director.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you really felt like the theater experience while also
Speaker 3: going to a galla with food and you know, an
Speaker 3: auction and all of it. But it was really nice
Speaker 3: to just be seated next to you and and talking
Speaker 3: to you about everything architecture, food.
Speaker 1: Films, covered volleybool, volleyball, volleyball, and I think what you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you very often meet people who
Speaker 1: do different things. You know that they can be well,
Speaker 1: they could be a chef, they could be a writer,
Speaker 1: they could be an actor and a mother. They could
Speaker 1: be an actor and a director and love to swim.
Speaker 1: There are people who do combine different parts of life together.
Speaker 1: And then there are people who do one thing you know,
Speaker 1: so that's fine too. Or some people do nothing and
Speaker 1: that's fine too. But you know, so from interesting to meet,
Speaker 1: I've ever met anyone who was an Olympic, much less
Speaker 1: a volleyball player in the Olympics. So I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting how you have taken those parallel lives and put
Speaker 1: them together. There's lots to talk about food, and lots
Speaker 1: to talk about how you got where you are and
Speaker 1: what you want to do, But how does the combination
Speaker 1: of being an athlete and being an artist, what has
Speaker 1: that taught you.
Speaker 2: At this point?
Speaker 3: It's it sounds really weird saying that I played in
Speaker 3: the Olympics and you know, have made a film and
Speaker 3: do video art, and it sounds like not like a
Speaker 3: typical kind of narrative. But when I look back on it,
Speaker 3: I really feel there's a lot of parallels, you know,
Speaker 3: and the transition doesn't feel as crazy because because when
Speaker 3: I was an athlete, I was working in a team environment.
Speaker 3: You're very good under pressure a lot of the times,
Speaker 3: and you're kind of looking at all your teammates around
Speaker 3: you and you're seeing what their strengths are and then
Speaker 3: you're trying to pull that out of them, and you're
Speaker 3: also seeing their weaknesses and where you can kind of
Speaker 3: fill in or help them in spaces that they're struggling with.
Speaker 3: And it's all about this kind of movement towards a
Speaker 3: common goal, you know, and at the time also when
Speaker 3: I played in the Olympics, I was also going to
Speaker 3: university in Miami and I was playing Division one volleyball there.
Speaker 3: And while I was at that university, I studied psychology
Speaker 3: and human and social development. So I was already thinking
Speaker 3: about kind of how we interacted our societies and what
Speaker 3: individuals struggle within their own kind of mental health.
Speaker 2: And so I.
Speaker 3: Was thinking about kind of like society and how we
Speaker 3: can help one another or kind of focus on individuals stories.
Speaker 3: And then I was also in this team environment. So
Speaker 3: in a way, like film is kind of a combination
Speaker 3: of all of that, because you have to kind of
Speaker 3: work in a similar setting. You have this like clock
Speaker 3: while you're on set, and you have this kind of
Speaker 3: the day is, you know, moving quickly and you have
Speaker 3: to get to this common goal and you have to
Speaker 3: make quick decisions, and there's like an intuition there that
Speaker 3: I think is kind of very common in a lot
Speaker 3: of these artistic scenarios. And then you also have this
Speaker 3: kind of study on the character and the human development
Speaker 3: and society. And then you have artistic expression, which is
Speaker 3: something I felt like I was lacking in sports, you know,
Speaker 3: like I didn't get to share my mind or what
Speaker 3: was going on in terms of my worldview.
Speaker 2: And so there was a.
Speaker 3: Point in sports where I was like, I need to
Speaker 3: share my voice. I have all these stories inside of me,
Speaker 3: but I haven't been able to show them because all
Speaker 3: I'm doing is expressing.
Speaker 2: Things with my body.
Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, I could start expressing things
Speaker 3: with my mind and that that was very liberating for me.
Speaker 1: I want to you then segued from volleyball to film.
Speaker 1: Did you start out as an actor in a film?
Speaker 1: Did you just play small films? Well?
Speaker 3: My first well, I think like ever since I was
Speaker 3: a kid, I was like painting or drawing or doing
Speaker 3: you know, different variations of art. And then I got
Speaker 3: injured playing in Puerto Rico. Because I was playing professionally
Speaker 3: in Puerto Rico at the time.
Speaker 1: What is Andreie, you would suffer in volleybale.
Speaker 3: So I had stress fractures in both of my legs.
Speaker 3: And at the time they were telling me, which actually
Speaker 3: relates to food in a funny way, I had transitioned.
Speaker 3: When I was in TMGB, I was like eating everything
Speaker 3: and then I started becoming like a pescatarian. Then I
Speaker 3: became a vegan because I realized, like I was eating
Speaker 3: kind of everything and anything like Burger King McDonald's. Literally
Speaker 3: every day was just like downing as much food as possible,
Speaker 3: like six eggs for breakfast, just excessive.
Speaker 2: Amount of food.
Speaker 3: And then when I got to the Olympics and I
Speaker 3: started getting a nutritionist, they were kind of like, ah,
Speaker 3: you're a little bit you're like not eating very healthy.
Speaker 3: You're kind of a little bit heavier than you should be,
Speaker 3: and you need to kind of like be thinking about
Speaker 3: what you're eating and the kind of energy you're preserving,
Speaker 3: and you know how you can kind of utilize that energy.
Speaker 3: And so it kind of started to get me thinking
Speaker 3: about food a little bit more. But when I went
Speaker 3: back to I decided to just like go full throttle
Speaker 3: like vegan, and so I just cut everything. But I
Speaker 3: didn't really know how to like balance that vegan diet.
Speaker 1: So I was just.
Speaker 3: Kind of eating like an insane amount of like bananas
Speaker 3: and bruccoli and like but not really thinking about what
Speaker 3: is what is that food?
Speaker 1: Were you having enough protein? Then?
Speaker 3: So exactly that, So when I went and played in
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico like a few years later, I had such
Speaker 3: a strict diet, but I got these stress fractors in
Speaker 3: my bones and my shins and my bones were becoming
Speaker 3: really frail, and I don't know, maybe it's just the overworking.
Speaker 3: I was working like all through the year, both for
Speaker 3: Team GB and England and then also professionally. I was
Speaker 3: literally taking no time off and a lot of times
Speaker 3: you're jumping in a gym with like just cement beneath
Speaker 3: your legs, and so you're just completely over overworking yourself.
Speaker 3: But then when I went to the doctors, they were saying, oh,
Speaker 3: like it could be because you're not getting enough vitamin
Speaker 3: D and you're not getting enough nutrients for your bones
Speaker 3: to kind of maintain while you're overworking them. Basically, they
Speaker 3: told me I had to either put rods in my
Speaker 3: legs or I would have to take at.
Speaker 2: Least a year off, if not more.
Speaker 3: And they said during that time, if I take that
Speaker 3: time off, I can't walk much. I have to just
Speaker 3: like be as still as possible, don't do exercises any
Speaker 3: If you do any exercise, ass be in the pool.
Speaker 3: And so it really forced me to like sit and
Speaker 3: think about kind of what my life was at that
Speaker 3: kind of young age and how long I wanted to
Speaker 3: do this for and like, at what age do you retire?
Speaker 2: Can I go back to this?
Speaker 3: And so? And am I happy doing what I'm doing?
Speaker 3: And I started thinking about what else could I be? Like?
Speaker 2: What else?
Speaker 3: I've always been known as this athlete because you see
Speaker 3: me when I walk in, I'm like very tall, athletic looking.
Speaker 3: It's like instantly what people think of when they see me.
Speaker 3: And so I started kind of thinking of myself as
Speaker 3: more than an athlete. And that was like very liberating.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe is excited. We're opening the River Cafe. Cafe.
Speaker 1: Come from a morning Briosian cappuccino, a plate of seasonal
Speaker 1: antipasty on the terrace, or an ice cream or a
Speaker 1: paratibo in the sun. We can't wait to open, and
Speaker 1: we cannot wait to welcome you. In your family growing
Speaker 1: up as a child, what was food like in your family?
Speaker 1: Did your mother cook? Did you sit around the table
Speaker 1: being a child in the household? You had a single
Speaker 1: parent and you grew up in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Well, so I grew up half my life here in
Speaker 3: a in Vauxhall, and I grew up with just my
Speaker 3: mom when I was little, and uh, it was you know,
Speaker 3: she's working long hours, and so sometimes it was neighbors
Speaker 3: that are I'm eating dinner with, or sometimes it's my mom,
Speaker 3: and so it would be a mixture of things.
Speaker 1: And we were an only child.
Speaker 3: I was an only child until I was sixteen, and
Speaker 3: then my mom had my sister.
Speaker 1: Growing up though, growing up the all So would she
Speaker 1: come back from home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes it would be late, sometimes it'd be late,
Speaker 3: And I think like as I got older, there was
Speaker 3: a lot of like you know, microwaveable meals or whatever
Speaker 3: you could have, especially like when you're also thinking about
Speaker 3: I would then go to sports practice.
Speaker 2: I'd go to volleyball practice or basketball practice.
Speaker 1: What day should you stop playing volleyball?
Speaker 3: I think I was like nine, maybe, Yeah, a lot
Speaker 3: of times, like my mom would be riving home and
Speaker 3: I'd be going to practice or something like that, so
Speaker 3: I would have to eat before she came home. But
Speaker 3: then also, like I think there was different stages sometimes,
Speaker 3: you know, there was also times where my mom would
Speaker 3: make something on a Sunday and then there would be
Speaker 3: leftover so I could eat it for the next couple
Speaker 3: of days.
Speaker 1: You have grandparents around, no, because.
Speaker 3: I grew up with only my mom, and then we
Speaker 3: moved to the Bay Area in California, and my grandma
Speaker 3: lives in Yorkshire, Weatherby.
Speaker 2: Do you know where that is?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, so my grandma lives in Weatherby, and so she
Speaker 3: wasn't really around. We would sometimes go for Christmas or
Speaker 3: something like that. But my grandma had this like really
Speaker 3: simple pasta and I remember just like asking my mom
Speaker 3: for it all the time, and it was the most
Speaker 3: simple thing. It was literally like penne pasta with like
Speaker 3: a tin red sauce and then cheese on top and
Speaker 3: you put it in the oven. But for some reason
Speaker 3: it like had this kind of I don't know. I
Speaker 3: would just ask my mom for it like all the time,
Speaker 3: and I think even now we call it like Grandma's
Speaker 3: famous famous pos even though very simple.
Speaker 1: San Francisco. What was that like for you to move?
Speaker 1: How old are you then?
Speaker 2: I was eight years old when I moved.
Speaker 1: So did you start playing volleyball?
Speaker 2: When I got there?
Speaker 3: And I started seeing because volleyball is not really like
Speaker 3: a big thing in the UK at all. I think,
Speaker 3: like in the London twenty twelve Olympics is when people realize,
Speaker 3: you know, what kind of sport it was? But when
Speaker 3: I moved to the Bay Area, volleyball and basketball were huge.
Speaker 2: And for what was when I saw women?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for women, for young girls, and I mean I
Speaker 3: think basketball I was more excited about at the time.
Speaker 3: But I was like, I've always been a kid that
Speaker 3: hung around a lot of guys, and so I would
Speaker 3: There was like this basketball hoop kind of close to
Speaker 3: my house where all the guys would play and they
Speaker 3: would ask me if I wanted to join it, and
Speaker 3: so I would join in. But you went for volleyball
Speaker 3: over basketball, Yeah, because I was better at volleyball. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I was stronger at it, and I was starting
Speaker 3: to people were noticing me for volleyball, and like I
Speaker 3: was getting a lot of offers to play in university,
Speaker 3: and the more offers I got, I realized, like, let's
Speaker 3: lean into that, you know, let's lean into the where
Speaker 3: I naturally am like better.
Speaker 1: What does your mother think?
Speaker 3: I think she was just like excited to see me
Speaker 3: finding something I was good at. Also, it was something
Speaker 3: like I could go and play in university and have
Speaker 3: everything paid for and have like this whole trajectory in
Speaker 3: my life, and so she was excited to watch that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, It's very moving to me. The way you
Speaker 1: spoke about about being in a team, in the space
Speaker 1: into another space to help someone, having someone move into
Speaker 1: your space, the the collaboration. That reminded me of what
Speaker 1: we do here. Yeah, you know, probably and in many
Speaker 1: many offices, many fields, there are people who, as I say,
Speaker 1: like to work at home by themselves in a room
Speaker 1: with the typewriter, or the people who really seek out
Speaker 1: kind of feel. And I think cinema, I was on
Speaker 1: a set the other day and it really struck me
Speaker 1: how similar probably or in the National theater, how many,
Speaker 1: how many similarities they are I thought at the time
Speaker 1: between a restaurant and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see it even now, like just looking
Speaker 3: into the kitchen and seeing everyone kind of knows their position,
Speaker 3: but then also can help each other out if they
Speaker 3: need to. But yeah, that's it's something that I think
Speaker 3: about a lot when I get when I'm like in
Speaker 3: the hiring position, you know, as a director you're thinking
Speaker 3: about who can I hire and balance out on a
Speaker 3: set because I need Sometimes I I want to hire
Speaker 3: some that's never done this role before, but I like
Speaker 3: them for their kind of general vision, you know. For
Speaker 3: my film Earth mamac I hired this costume designer who
Speaker 3: had never done a film before, but she just had
Speaker 3: such a great taste for it, and so it's like
Speaker 3: a matter of hiring her and then hiring someone that's
Speaker 3: very experienced that can work with her, you know, as
Speaker 3: a kind of under her to help kind of manage everything.
Speaker 3: And so I like that idea of hiring and kind
Speaker 3: of thinking, how can we find people from different places
Speaker 3: to help this vision be progressive and challenge the way
Speaker 3: cinema is made. But then I also kind of have
Speaker 3: the experience of some of these people that have done
Speaker 3: it time and time again.
Speaker 1: You know, during this period when you became interested in
Speaker 1: doing film working and then you say how you started,
Speaker 1: and then when you were in a situation of being
Speaker 1: actually a director, yeah, and you could create your own
Speaker 1: work world? Was that very well? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I didn't take long.
Speaker 3: I started working for a company and then I like
Speaker 3: left maybe four months in or something and kind of
Speaker 3: saved up money and made.
Speaker 2: My first little short.
Speaker 1: What was that?
Speaker 2: It was called f Word.
Speaker 3: It was kind of about a girl who's coping with
Speaker 3: not knowing her father. At a biographical yes, it is,
Speaker 3: but it's also you fictionalize it a little bit to
Speaker 3: have a bit of distance to it.
Speaker 1: How long ago was that?
Speaker 2: That was twenty fifteen?
Speaker 3: I think I was twenty one and then actually it's
Speaker 3: interesting you thinking about, like, you know, shifting your career
Speaker 3: finding ways because then you know, eight years later, I
Speaker 3: guess Earth Mama was released in twenty three last year,
Speaker 3: which is my first feature film, which feels like a
Speaker 3: big shift from them from doing your first, you know,
Speaker 3: little short film to doing your first feature film, and
Speaker 3: then last year also releasing like a piece of video
Speaker 3: art and like moving into the video arts space and
Speaker 3: the art world.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think you get to a point in your career
Speaker 3: where you've been doing it for almost ten years and
Speaker 3: then you feel like how can I challenge myself in
Speaker 3: a whole other space or like keep evolving? And I
Speaker 3: think for myself, I hope that I'm always like that
Speaker 3: throughout my whole life, is like always not afraid to
Speaker 3: take that kind of jump into a new space, because
Speaker 3: the idea of having one job for all of your
Speaker 3: life doesn't excite me. Like for me, I need to
Speaker 3: have those shifts, you know.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about the movie?
Speaker 3: Earth Mama is about a young woman who has two
Speaker 3: children in foster care and one child on the way,
Speaker 3: and it's all set in the Bay Area, and she
Speaker 3: is trying to figure out what she's going to do
Speaker 3: with her unborn child, whether she's going to give her
Speaker 3: child up for adoption or try to keep it. And
Speaker 3: so there's kind of this dilemma there of whether or
Speaker 3: not as well whether the system is going to allow
Speaker 3: her to keep her child or not. So it kind
Speaker 3: of goes through her final days of her pregnancy and
Speaker 3: how she maneuvers those those obstacles.
Speaker 1: When we talk about adoption, yeah, and I'm a mother
Speaker 1: of an adopted child, A lot of it is about love.
Speaker 1: As a mother, I had one child that was I
Speaker 1: would say, handed to me on my breast after giving birth,
Speaker 1: and another child who was handed to me in a
Speaker 1: hotel lobby, you know, in Philadelphia, and then I remember
Speaker 1: going up on the elevator and thinking I could no
Speaker 1: sooner give this baby away, yeah, you know, than the
Speaker 1: one that I was I gave birth to. And I think,
Speaker 1: and it is about what is what is love? What
Speaker 1: is protection? What is taken care of? And so I
Speaker 1: think that and you experienced that with yeah, your own sisters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, the film is like roughly based
Speaker 3: on my relationship to my own sister. My sister was
Speaker 3: adopted when I was sixteen. It was a really pivotal
Speaker 3: moment in my life, which is why I wanted to
Speaker 3: make this film because for me as a sixteen year
Speaker 3: old meeting her birth mother and like sitting across from
Speaker 3: her and just thinking about this kind of selfless act
Speaker 3: that she was going to do, but also the pressures
Speaker 3: in her life at that time and how she was
Speaker 3: going to have to make that decision. And she told
Speaker 3: me at the time, she said, I want you to
Speaker 3: be the role model that I can't be in her life.
Speaker 3: And I remember like that shifting something within me because
Speaker 3: it just all of us. When you're an only child,
Speaker 3: you don't have that same sort of responsibility as you
Speaker 3: have as you know, an older sister or a parent,
Speaker 3: and at that age, being sixteen, I almost felt like
Speaker 3: a second parent, you know, to my siblings.
Speaker 1: Did you cook for her?
Speaker 3: She was so young, she was like, I was giving
Speaker 3: her the bottle, so I was, I was doing that,
Speaker 3: but she I left the house before she really started
Speaker 3: eating foods.
Speaker 1: You have a scene in the movie which takes place
Speaker 1: in a restaurant. Yeah, and it's a very emotional scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you describe the scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's this moment which is actually, you know,
Speaker 3: in the first draft of the script, I wrote it,
Speaker 3: and there was one scene that's stuck through that whole
Speaker 3: first draft, which was the scene that you're talking about,
Speaker 3: which is the middle point of the film, which is
Speaker 3: where the birth mother meets the adoptive family for the
Speaker 3: first time and they meet over food over in a restaurant,
Speaker 3: and it's kind of playing with this the uncomfortability, but
Speaker 3: also the intrigue and the questions you have all these
Speaker 3: feelings that arise when you're sitting across the table from
Speaker 3: someone who who's potentially going to be giving her child
Speaker 3: to you, and you kind of anticipating that child, whether
Speaker 3: you couldn't have children before that, or what that anticipation
Speaker 3: is like. And also as a sister, what it was
Speaker 3: like to sit across from this person that you're kind
Speaker 3: of know nothing about, but they're potentially changing your whole life.
Speaker 3: So it was such an important scene in the film,
Speaker 3: and it started in the first draft and maintained throughout
Speaker 3: the whole film. But I think it's also been one
Speaker 3: of the things that people take home or take with
Speaker 3: them the most.
Speaker 1: In the movie, it's interesting in the see the detailed
Speaker 1: ordering of the food. And also I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that you're doing a very very personal, very probably
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a more compellingly personal emotional scene between
Speaker 1: people than talking about, you know, the loss of a
Speaker 1: baby and giving a baby away to parents. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: set in a restaurant. You think you might do that
Speaker 1: in somebody's house, in a in a living room, or
Speaker 1: in an office that you that you put it in
Speaker 1: at a restaurant is interesting because again I say over
Speaker 1: and over that people do very private things in a
Speaker 1: very public space. Yeah, people do gravitate. If you go
Speaker 1: to the tables looking out here in the garden, you know,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what they're talking about. They might
Speaker 1: be just talking about their day or what their plans are,
Speaker 1: or how much fun they're having in London, or they
Speaker 1: might be discussing very life changing issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think actually, like some of my most key moments
Speaker 3: in life have been in like restaurant, you know, like
Speaker 3: meeting my sister's birth mother for the first time, or
Speaker 3: meeting with someone that you had a relationship with before
Speaker 3: and then you're just having a meeting again, and that
Speaker 3: there is this like kind of comforting space because you
Speaker 3: can always eat to fill the silence.
Speaker 2: So if you need to and.
Speaker 1: You're being looked after by a waiter, you don't have
Speaker 1: to get up and get the salt from the coupboard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like something about that. The fact that it's
Speaker 3: in a public space and you're sharing this personal moment
Speaker 3: in a public space is like very vulnerable and it
Speaker 3: kind of can bring all these emotions out or you're
Speaker 3: having to hide emotions as well, And so I think
Speaker 3: in scenes in films, there's something really profound about setting
Speaker 3: these like private moments in a public space.
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, o, wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Thank you. As we're reading the recipe for
Speaker 1: far and out her a Sean executive share for the
Speaker 1: River Cafe is just coming in with farinata food. You
Speaker 1: just share have you ever heard of before?
Speaker 2: I actually have no idea what farinata is. So this
Speaker 2: is exciting.
Speaker 4: So this is actually a pancake made out of chickpea flour,
Speaker 4: so it's super it's actually vegan and gluten free.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you have any diet trees. I do.
Speaker 2: I'm pescatarian, so you're going to take all boxes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a kind of street food from Genoa and
Speaker 4: it's just made with chickpea flour and olive oil, fennel seeds,
Speaker 4: rosemary and just cooked in the wood oven. But you
Speaker 4: don't need a wood oven to make it at home.
Speaker 4: You could just in an ou in case you don't
Speaker 4: have a wood oven. It's really nice if you want
Speaker 4: to try it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things about farinata's very very regional, goes
Speaker 1: at the coast of Laguria up until France, in which
Speaker 1: it then becomes a nice when you have it. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much the same recipe, but it has a different name,
Speaker 1: and so it is a street food, but it also
Speaker 1: is quite sophisticated. It's also really good to have before
Speaker 1: you have a meal.
Speaker 2: So very often do you put it with anything.
Speaker 4: We find in the restaurant that instead of if people
Speaker 4: don't want to have brisketta, Fretty will send it out
Speaker 4: like that. But it's also really nice with something else,
Speaker 4: like some pretty rutto or mozzarella or even crab, so
Speaker 4: it can be an accompaniment or just a nibble.
Speaker 1: If you're making fairinata at home, what would be your
Speaker 1: advice when you're cooking it? Because it is so simple,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to make it good farinata? Really, don't
Speaker 1: you think? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think you need to do it like any pancake.
Speaker 4: You need to make sure the pan is really hot
Speaker 4: before you put the oil in, and then let the
Speaker 4: oil be hot before you put the chippea mixture in it,
Speaker 4: and then because otherwise it can stick, can't it. I
Speaker 4: mean that was one of the things that whenever I'm
Speaker 4: cooking for Ruthie, you always like, do you want to
Speaker 4: make farrilata?
Speaker 1: No? No, because it sticks. The more the more experienced
Speaker 1: the chef in the River Cafe, the higher up there
Speaker 1: are on the on, the harder they find. And it's
Speaker 1: also such a performance you judged immediately like how fair
Speaker 1: and half their it is. You know, how thick it is,
Speaker 1: how creamy it is, how dry and so.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of a bit of all of that,
Speaker 3: like it's crispy and it has the like softness inside.
Speaker 4: And it's one of those things if you're working next
Speaker 4: when one's freshly made and it comes out of the oven,
Speaker 4: you don't want to be working too near it because
Speaker 4: you end up eating like half a.
Speaker 3: Fowl at night, like one slice is actually really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you were making it at home, would
Speaker 1: you would you make the better the day before?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: What? What do you feel about making the better? How
Speaker 1: long do you let it rest? Probably you let it.
Speaker 4: It says in the recipe to leave it rest for
Speaker 4: about two hours, But if you leave it overnight, I
Speaker 4: think you get a better, better end result.
Speaker 1: There's also telling about the para nada pan. What is
Speaker 1: a paranada pan.
Speaker 4: It's like a kind of massive big skillet, a couple
Speaker 4: of about twenty inches. It's got like a pitted the
Speaker 4: bottom of the It's not just flat, is it. It's
Speaker 4: got kind of like slightly grooves in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't really know what the grooves do apart from textually.
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 1: I think it does give a texture and it probably
Speaker 1: also helps perhaps with the separation. Yeah, when it eats ups,
Speaker 1: so you have a copper pan and it has a
Speaker 1: little hook, so you can hang it, and you can,
Speaker 1: and then it has a tin base, so the tin
Speaker 1: the inside is tin. It's a very beautiful thing to
Speaker 1: look at. I remember that when I wanted to buy one,
Speaker 1: I could not find one in the liquoria. I went
Speaker 1: to a place called the Spezzia. I couldn't find one
Speaker 1: in any shop. And then I made a meeting for
Speaker 1: a cousin of a friend of a friend who met
Speaker 1: me in the parking lot at pizza station. And he
Speaker 1: took out of the of his car, not drugs, not something.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, at seven o'clock he took
Speaker 1: out a far night. I gave him the cash, and
Speaker 1: it is. And then but then you can get them,
Speaker 1: you sell them, and I shop, you know, shop the
Speaker 1: River Cafe, and it is. You know, it's something that
Speaker 1: I really loved as a thing, as you say, something
Speaker 1: to have before with a NEGRONI with that sounds nice.
Speaker 1: Any other tips for making it? How do you know
Speaker 1: when it's done it will.
Speaker 4: Look set on top, it won't be runny. That's really
Speaker 4: hard to get out if it's running.
Speaker 1: I don't think you.
Speaker 4: Can really overcook it. I can definitely undercook it.
Speaker 2: Like you don't mind if it's burnt a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably it's more forgiving in going the underway and
Speaker 4: then trying to scoop it out, which.
Speaker 1: Yeah, looks like a real mess. Farinata. Wow, now that
Speaker 1: you've eaten it and you've learned how to make it,
Speaker 1: would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 3: Farinata chickpea and fennel Farinata serves four people. Two cups
Speaker 3: of warm water, three quarter cups of Italian chickpea flour,
Speaker 3: four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, one tablespoon fennel seeds,
Speaker 3: chopped fresh stage or rosemary, and some salt. First, you're
Speaker 3: gonna put the water in a large bowl and sift
Speaker 3: in flour. You're gonna whisk to combine. Then add the
Speaker 3: extra virgin olive oil and salt. Cover and leave in
Speaker 3: a warm place for two hours and preheat the oven
Speaker 3: to two hundred and fifty degrees celsius. Pour enough olive
Speaker 3: oil into a farinata pan to coat to the bottom.
Speaker 3: Pour in the batter it should be about one to
Speaker 3: two centimeters deep. Top with the fennel seeds or herbs
Speaker 3: and black pepper. Bake for twenty to thirty minutes until
Speaker 3: the surface has bubbled and become crisp.
Speaker 1: So you're about to embark on an exhibition sf MoMA,
Speaker 1: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Incredible city, a city
Speaker 1: that also you know, yeah, and I have so many
Speaker 1: friends who lived there. There's such an energy for new art,
Speaker 1: new design. Tell us about what you're planned to do
Speaker 1: with sf MoMA.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited because last year we were able to
Speaker 3: show a piece that kind of delved into my sports
Speaker 3: backgrounds and was almost like a self portrait, and it
Speaker 3: showed at Hauser and Worth Gallery and a group show
Speaker 3: with other women artists in LA And then this year
Speaker 3: we're going to be kind of part of another group show,
Speaker 3: but this group show is also about sports in a
Speaker 3: year you know, where there's the Olympics happening, and so
Speaker 3: it's going to be kind of another way to show
Speaker 3: this kind of sports story combining with my art and
Speaker 3: film work in a place like essef moment, so kind
Speaker 3: of bringing it back to where I grew up half
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: So I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 3: When will that be it opens I believe October nineteenth.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll all be there.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So in your life. You have been an athletes, We
Speaker 1: have a filmmaker, we have artists. Is there a Savannah
Speaker 1: leaf that we've been thinking might be doing we put
Speaker 1: out an album.
Speaker 3: It's funny you should say that. I mean, actually over
Speaker 3: the pandemic. My partner and I learned ableton and making music,
Speaker 3: and I think kind of learning different crafts is something
Speaker 3: that really excites us and excites me a lot because
Speaker 3: making music is such something so interesting because it helps
Speaker 3: me in the filmmaking world. It helps me edit films,
Speaker 3: it helps me write films. So I don't know what's
Speaker 3: next for me, but who knows, maybe you'll come.
Speaker 1: You know how to cook parano exactly right there, And
Speaker 1: if we were going to ask you for your last question,
Speaker 1: very very lovely talk. Yeah, if you need food for
Speaker 1: comfort and all the roles you've been as in sport
Speaker 1: and film, is there a food that you would actually
Speaker 1: go back to that in your past or something you'd
Speaker 1: like to eat or that you.
Speaker 3: Grave Recently, in the past few years, my partner and
Speaker 3: I have had like a tradition of going to this
Speaker 3: place called the Wedding Patisserie, which is in Vauxhall, which
Speaker 3: is like a Portuguese bakery and they have like little
Speaker 3: questants and it's like a warm quaest on. It's just
Speaker 3: a simple thing. And I have like a questlong with
Speaker 3: an orange juice, like a freshly squeezed orange juice in
Speaker 3: the morning and we go there kind of like almost
Speaker 3: every morning to have it. And it kind of that
Speaker 3: walk along to little Portugal and Vauxhail is like something
Speaker 3: I used to do as a kid because we would
Speaker 3: go to all the little Portuguese restaurants over there. So
Speaker 3: there's something nostalgic and comforting about that, but it's also
Speaker 3: a nice like routine to have when you're waking up
Speaker 3: early in the morning.
Speaker 2: So that's what I have been doing to start the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for that, and we have
Speaker 1: many more dinners to share it together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in
Speaker 4: partnership with Montclair