WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Tracey Emin 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.519 Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:08.920 Radio and adamize studios artists coming together in the restaurant. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.680 You know, Picasso drawn on the tablecloth and all that 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.520 kind of thing. It's really known throughout history. But it 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.119 is to do with the solitary nous of being in 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.600 the studio and the solitariness of being an artist being 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.720 very much alone. So this idea of coming together to 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:30.479 eat is such a nice thing. Here we are and 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:36.159 unseasonably wet and cold Saturday in London, but I feel warmed, 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.000 as I always am, by being with my friend Tracy Emmon. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:45.120 She's a great friend and a great artist. Tracy, over 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.680 to you, okay, so I'm My favorite thing to eat 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.240 here is the grilled squid with shred, chili and rocket. 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.960 Eight medium squid no bigger than your hand. Six large 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.520 fresh red chilies, seeded and very finely chopped, a hundred 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:11.480 and fifty meal, extra virgin oil, two DRAMs of rocket, 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:17.559 four tablespoons of oil, and lemon dressing. One lemon cut 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.520 into quarters to make the sauce. Put the chopped chilies 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.480 in a bowl and cover with extra virgin olive oil, 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.600 season heat a grill until very hot. Place the squid, 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:36.440 including the tentacles, scored side down on the grill, season 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.000 and grill for two minutes. Turn a squid pieces over. 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.760 They will immediately curl up and by which time they 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:48.120 will be cooked. Toss the rocket in the dressing. Arranged 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.480 two squid bodies with tentacles on each plate with the rocket. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.560 Put a little of the chili sauce over the squid, 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.320 and serve with lemon. I'm so happy that you chose 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:05.520 such classic typically a representative of the River cafe recipe, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.639 and I was wondering why you chose squid chilian rocket. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.000 When I go to a restaurant, I always like to 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.480 choose food that I wouldn't cook myself, but god, it's 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.799 so easy to cook, so maybe I should do it. 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:25.600 But then, and also I'm Mediterranean, so um squeeties such 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.920 a Mediterranean food, And I always have this sort of 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.840 light in a primal thing that if I can eat Mediterranean, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.399 eat part of my ancestral food as much as possible, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.240 it makes me feel really good when I eat it, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.680 So that's why I chose it. When you say that 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.240 you're Mediterranean, tell me about being Mediterranean, because I thought 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:53.280 you were a market. Well Margat is yeah, Margaret Mediterranean market. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.400 And well I'm Turkish Cypriot. My dad's Turkish Cypriot and 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.240 my great grandfather was from this Dan and he was 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.919 a slave in the Ottoman Empire and around eighteen, I 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.520 don't know, about nineteen hundred he was given his freedom 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:13.640 in Cyprus with fifty sheep. So we're known as the 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.200 there's a thing called like the black Turks, and they 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.560 actually came from the slaves from the Ottoman Empire, and 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:25.919 my family on Mediterranean side is from that background, so um, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:31.360 there's your Mediterranean. My dad was really fantastic cook, like 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.600 amazing cook. Grew all his own vegetables. We actually grew 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:36.440 all our ound. Me and my dad grew all up 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.600 all my vegetables on my studio roof back in the nineties. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:47.640 Everything everything from cucumbers, grigettes, ob jeans, potatoes, tomatoes, heritage tomatoes, beans, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.320 green beans, everything, and then my dad would cook so 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.160 and my mom was a terrible cook. I hate saying it, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.480 both's true. And the kind of food I grew up 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.000 on was a kind of strange mixture of this sort 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.520 of really amazing food that my dad could cook. I'm 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.960 this really terrible food that my mom could cook that 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.040 I really loved, and what you loved mother's food, egg 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:18.760 and chips. My mom was completely against me cooking, and 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.799 when we were cooking at school, my mom would actually 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.400 wrote me letters saying, my daughter will not learn to cook. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.359 My daughter is not going to be a slave to 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.719 any man. But the truth was we didn't actually have 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.040 the money for the cooking ingredients, so my mom. But 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.240 even so it worked out kind of badly and kind 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.920 of good. I didn't learn to cook at school. Cooking 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.360 at school was pretty awful. And um, I only learned 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.880 to cook when I was much older, when I was 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:49.520 sort of a look around eighteen or nineteen, and even now, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.680 I'm not a very good cook, but I really like 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:57.559 nice food. Yeah, and what I cook, I cook well. So, yeah, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.400 that's so interesting that she she didn't. I don't want 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.599 you to be stuck in the kitchen as a slave 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:10.200 or anyone to cook for her for a man, that's normal, yeah, 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.240 but in a way for that time, back in the seventies, 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.680 it was pretty radical as well. It's kind of like 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.479 a strange psychotomy because there's my father being a good cook, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.680 and there's my mom being a bad cook, telling me 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.479 not to be a slave to any man. Girl, she was. 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.880 She ambitious for you and everywhere apart from keeping you 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.000 from cookie did she have very strong ambitions for you. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.160 She put me on the pill when I was fourteen 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.000 to make sure I didn't get pregnant. That's pretty ambitious. 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.200 She's considered the idea of me having children to be 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.800 a complete failure and not a positive thing. So she 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.200 did everything to stop me from being a single mother 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.240 and a young single mother. But that's right or wrong, 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.440 it doesn't matter. It seemed to have worked in my 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:56.200 favorite Yeah, and yeah, she's when I think about it, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.760 she was really not. My mom was very co the person, 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.640 but she wasn't home based. Really wasn't her strong point. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.320 Do you think she wanted to do something else for herself? Absolutely? 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.080 My mom was brilliant dancer and when she was sort 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.120 of around fifteen, she had in an interview audition in 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.760 a theater to for dancing, and her dad wouldn't let 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.760 her go when you left her? And how old were 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.159 we when you actually left your father's cooking? The deliciousness 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.479 of growing vegetables and what how how old were you. Actually, 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.799 my dad never lived at home. My dad only spent 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.000 My dad left us when we were about seven, and 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.839 my mom left us when we were twelve for quite 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.279 long periods of time. So me and my twin brother 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:49.760 when we grew up, it was very different from other 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.880 people's backgrounds, and it was very impoverished. Were incredibly poor 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.360 were It's strange we had it. We were very wealthy 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.119 when we had that grow up until we were seven, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.800 and then my dad lost everything and my dad was married, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.320 so my dad spent three days with his wife, three 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.200 days with my mom. We would say, one day somewhere else. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.200 So um, and so when my dad was around, the 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:21.480 cooking or anything my dad did was like a big tree. 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.320 My dad came here in on a ten pound ticket 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.440 from Cyprus, and then my mom's a gypsy, so it's 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.040 really quite exotic actually, you know. I was brought up 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.880 on pomgranites and watermelon and with with my dad and well, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.120 my dad was at home, and then when I was older, 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.760 I started traveling to Turkey with him as soon as 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.840 we could go back to Cyprus. When I was I 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.040 think I was twenty when the war finished, my dad 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.800 took me to Cyprus and baby, we're going home. And 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.160 that was the first trips Turkey site for since I 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:06.440 was a baby. And and it was like amazing m 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.680 to be with my dad, to be living with my dad. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.200 They're cooking everything, and and my mom was kind of 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.440 a bit piste off because all that she'd done for me. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.320 And then suddenly I'm like, but I'm you know, on 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.360 my my father's when you started out by saying you're Mediterranean, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.200 and so to actually probably go and see the Mediterraneans 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.720 and have the food. But when we when we were 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.520 up until we were about six, we would go to 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.760 Turkey regularly once a year, and we spent when we 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.720 were really tiny, we spent two periods of six months there. 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:40.880 Once when I was about three or four, and then 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.560 another time when I was six, we spent six months 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.880 there and and all that time it would have been 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.880 Mediterranean food and Mediterranean cooking. And we used to drive 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:55.200 to Turkey, and this is really cool. We used to 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.840 have in the back of the our car. We had 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.160 a Zodiac. We had these little tiny wooden chairs, you know, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:06.200 with the rapportive seats, and my dad just with a 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.440 brand new Zodio and my dad just stuck a hole 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.000 through the roof through the you know the bits, and 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.559 then got bongee plastic things around the chairs and then 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.480 just sat us in the back of the car bouncing 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.800 up and we're twins bouncing up and down on these 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.400 chairs with those little knotty dogs, and we drive to Turkey, 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.360 and we'd stop on the way all the time, and 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.640 my dad would get the calor gas stove out and 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.679 fry eggs and cook and everything, and we'd go go 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.080 to fields and take watermelons and and things. So it 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.240 was really exciting and like adventurous these drives. And I'm 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.599 being I'm romanticizing about it now because it is romantic, 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.200 and it was different and it was different from everybody 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.320 else's upbringing that I knew. And so we went from 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.480 that to this, like to squatting in a cottage and 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.199 my mom working in a hotel as a waitress send 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.439 a chamber maid, and so it was like from high 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.800 to like really fast, a reversal of fortune when you 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.920 were having to cook for yourself. Did you what did 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.160 you read? What did you do? There was so my 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.840 mom was out a lot most of the time, working 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.439 leading and at weekends as well, she'd be out to 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.120 three in the morning, so we were on our own 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.520 and often my mom would leave our sandwiches and whatever. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.640 But my big thing was just like orange, just orange 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:33.320 squash and just tons of orange squash and sitting up 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.120 at night crocher and in bed and we and also 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.240 for example, like Christmas, like you said about this, a 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.600 lot of this podcast is about people sitting around the 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.760 table and remembering it. Oh there was no sitting around 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.839 the table for me. It was sitting and watching, to 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.640 tell you, with a tray with egg and chips. You know, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.080 when my mom came home and Christmas was not Christmas. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.120 We didn't have Christmas because my mom was always working. 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.480 Our Christmas was like a week after and kind of 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.680 cobbled together, but it was never going to feel the 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:07.120 same as the real Christmas. And one remember we had 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.320 Salvation Army one year, you know, coming around with food 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.360 and presents because we didn't have anything. My mom, if 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.640 she didn't work, we had nothing. And that is a 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.199 very different upbringing to a lot of people, I know, 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.040 And it's not a thing to feel sorry for. I'm 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.600 just staying the difference. And also it's pretty shocking to 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:32.320 go from this wealthy thing of being quite spoiled as 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.760 well in lots of ways up until I was seven 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:41.520 and then nothing. Do you remember being hungry? Yeah, and 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.360 I think my mom remembers asked, my mom's dead now? 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.520 But you know, my mom this, this is one of 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.720 the most shameful things that I have to say, But 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.080 in a way, I'm sort of proud of her. When 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.240 that the hotel was derelict behind, my mom went climbing 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.880 on the roof and took lead off the roofs to 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.480 sell it so we had something to eat. And that 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.840 is on another level, complete different level. And so much 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.960 of this is down to education and so much and 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.640 it's like the cooking thing and education and food. There 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.640 is really better ways to do this. But when you 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.120 actually have nothing, and you're hear about these people women 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:26.720 shoplifting to get their babies food, and it seems unimaginable, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.520 but it's not when you've been that poor, that's not. 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.600 And it's happening now because we know that it's happening today, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.760 and we know that. You know, when children couldn't get 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.960 to school because of the lockdown, they were missing the 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:40.960 only meal they had for the whole day. You know, 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.160 very many children only have lunch and that's it. I'm 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.560 a big supporter of the Salvation Army or sort mentioned earlier. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:54.560 And the Salvation Army feed sixty people a day a day, 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.280 and it's more now and and all of these support 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.720 of food banking, margate or whatever. It is a really 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:06.959 really bad level. So um, yeah, And when you left, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.280 when you left? When did did you? Did you London 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.680 at thirteen? Left school at thirteen, and I had to 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:18.199 go back to school by law for lost four months 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.920 from Christmas till May. Otherwise my mom social services would 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.520 have been involved or whatever. And my mom my mom 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.640 didn't mind if we didn't go to school. And I 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.920 was brought up with absolutely no rules. And I guess 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.800 this might be slightly the gypsy side and things no 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.079 rules whatsoever. We made our own rules up. If I 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:36.720 didn't want to go to school, I didn't go to school. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.080 I didn't want to bush my teeth, I didn't want 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.320 to brush me. I wouldn't have sex, have sex as 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.760 long as I was not going to get pregnant. All 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:48.080 of these from the age of about thirteen fourteen, and 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.360 and not going to school was because school was so depressing. 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.040 It was like, oh my god, I'll get there and 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.120 they chaut at me, or this would happen, all that 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.559 would happen. I wasn't doing what I wanted to do, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.360 So the last few months when I went back, I 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.880 just did art for four months more or less three 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.480 days a week, and then left when I was fifteen, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.400 and then came to London the day I could leave school, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.080 that the first of May, I think it was. I 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.320 just came straight to London with a bag to David 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.400 Bowie albums and some clothes and stare. I stayed in 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.400 all different places. I stayed in a school in Warren 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.960 Street which was pretty educational, with quite a lot of 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.280 well known they're quite well known people now, very successful 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:38.320 people lived there, and I stayed with different friends different floors. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.200 Stayed in a cupboard in Clapham for quite some time. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.080 And and it's a real mystery how I never really 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.880 got into trouble or but I was kind of sassy 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.000 and sort of streetwise, so that saved me quite a bit. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.440 So I learned a lot and I grew up, but 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.560 I was always a lot more mature from my age. 0:14:57.800 --> 0:14:59.960 I don't know why. I just grew up very quickly. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:05.160 I had to, and but I don't really have such 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.680 big regrets over that because it wasn't It wasn't my fault, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.200 it wasn't my doing. Do you have memories of food 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.360 in that poverty at that time in London when you 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:19.320 first came, it's okay. So this is my only Scott 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:23.120 memory of food at Warren Street. I was only fifteen 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.200 or sixteen and I turned up and they were in 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.200 the basement cooking there. A lot of them went to 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.440 St Martin's and the Royal College of Art whatever, so 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.000 it was a good influence in lots ways. And I 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.880 was so hungry and they said, you're hungry, traced us, 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.040 So I probably haven't eaten for about two days, wasn't it. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.280 And then they told me they were cooking dog and 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.280 I believe them, so I wouldn't eat it. And that 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.280 was one of my And when I bring this up 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.360 but in a STOTEP, when I see any of them, 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.160 they always, yeah, it's not a good story. But that's 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.080 my only real big story about food. I think Parvarty, 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:00.120 you know, Parvarty and food youth and food lonely this 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.280 and food being the first into world but you don't 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.800 know where you're sleeping, what you're eating, you know, the 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:14.000 lack of being taken care of is It's true because 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.120 now I have this thing that I've work on, my 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.840 war cupboard, and I have one in in France and 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.320 my house there and one in London, and my war 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.400 cover is just full of like literally, if there was 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.320 like a war, I've got enough food to keep me 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.680 going in tins and tins of sardines and all kinds 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.200 of stuff and everything. And it just gives me a 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.360 sense of security. And I really love going shopping for 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.080 really nice food and putting it in the fridge and 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.920 looking at it, and it makes me feel so safe 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.520 and cozy and secure. And it's taken me a long 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.680 time to realize that I had to hang up about it. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.320 I think probably only in the last few years that 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.720 I realized how much it meant to me to that 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.640 food makes you feel secure, uncomfortable. And for a long 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.880 time I didn't eat. I used to be so thin 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.359 and every day and whatnot. I didn't care about it. 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:08.560 I didn't care about food at all. For years and 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.840 years and years. I was very um, sort of not 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.800 anti food, but it just wasn't on my list of 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.399 things as a priority for living. But now now it 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.800 really is because because I understand about my strange relationship 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.960 with it and food and art and food and creating, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:32.280 and you know, the the solitariness. I was thinking of 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.160 an artist, you know, in the studio working and then 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.280 um going out at night and partying and having food, drinking, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.800 being together with other artists when you were in art school, 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.960 was that something that you sort of where you exposed 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.719 to the idea that you all were painting and working together. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.240 There was that whole What was it like being now? 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.160 When I when I was at art school, i worked. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:58.800 I used to get in a ways, getting late in 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.159 the morning, getting about quarter to eleven, which I was. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.440 I went to Maidstone College of Art and the Royal 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.439 College of Art. Did painting at the Royal College of Art. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.120 When I was at Royal College of Art, I get 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.320 in about quarter to eleven in the morning and I'd 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.119 stayed at ten o'clock every night, and I'd work at 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.880 the weekends as well. I had no social life when 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:18.960 I was at the Royal College of Art, none at all. 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.960 Just worked every single day. So and but the thing 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:28.359 about artists and restaurants is brilliant because then after I 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.719 left art school years later when when I m I 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.800 think one of the first things I did as soon 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:38.879 as I started having got money was oysters, and I 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.080 just I love oysters, and I all of my excess 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:48.520 income was spent on oysters. Absolutely. However, anywhere everywhere I'd go, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.560 well like, I actually liked I actually really like rock oysters. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.200 So that was quite easy in Witstable in those days, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.560 and you get you get free oysters for seventy five 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.080 or something. It was using and um, I used to 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.440 just try all different restaurants or different oysters, work out 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.640 what I like, what I don't like. And I think 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.080 my my biggest moment was I was on about a 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:15.000 hundred a week oysters, hundred oysters, and I used to 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.320 cycle everywhere, and I was so fit and I was 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:21.720 just lean on, sort of like a ballerine. I just 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.879 sind you muscle and just like oyster diet, I was 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:33.800 just like on fire. It was fantastic. Do you have 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.240 a house in the south of France? What is what 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.359 is eating like there? Did you choose it? Also because 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.760 it was on the Mediterranean, I chose it by default, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.879 but yes, it is on the Mediterranean and I'm on 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.359 the top of a hill, on top of a hill 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.040 looking at I have a sort of two hundred and 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.960 maybe two hundred and sixty degree of the sea. It's 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.760 just behind me that I can't see the sea, and 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.040 it is really beautiful, and it's in the middle of 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.480 the nature reserve. I don't have any neighbors, and it's 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.000 a sort of twenty five minute drive to the little 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.000 town to buy food and everything. So what I tend 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.119 to do is do one shop in the week and 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.000 that's it. And then I have my war cupboard. And 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.000 my favorite cooking is when I get down and I've 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.520 got a vegetable garden as well, really Britute vegetable garden, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.679 and I get down to the real nitty gritty and 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:25.840 I have to be really inventive with what I cook. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.520 I really love it and it's exciting and it's funny 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.119 with what I come up with everything. And and I 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.320 just cook for myself there as well, because there's no 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.720 there's no restaurants anywhere to eat near me, and I 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.400 love to produce there. Do you go and you going 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.720 around vegetables. I don't know if you if you do 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.560 want to talk about this, but we've had quite a 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.800 tumultuous time. But probably nobody, certainly in this room, certainly 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.479 not mean more than you with your illness. And I 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.840 think your illness must have affected the way you eat 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.959 because it was to do with your digestive system, isn't it? 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.240 And so did you did you have to start eating 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.520 when you were ill? Or because actually it's not my 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:15.600 digestive system, it's my bladder, okay, so different bag. And 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.480 and yes, it has affected the way that I eat 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.320 because I can't have I still can't couldn't have. I 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.080 can't have a full bow. I can't be because it 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:30.800 affects the stormer and everything. And my diets completely changed 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.760 since I was ill, which is quite strange. It's like totally, 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.239 I mean totally changed. To tell me, what do you 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:43.800 I am vast amounts of fish, vast amounts of apples, 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:49.879 vast amounts of fruit all day long. I am a 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.399 lot of which is not supposed to be good for me. 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.440 By eat a lot of cold food, and I don't 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.919 know why, much more than hot food. I am a 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.720 lot more lemon all the time because they alkaline. I 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.080 am my diet and it's not conscious thing either. It's 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.320 really subc I haven't even tried. I'm not even thinking 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.919 about it. It's just what's happened. It's strange. So you 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.560 haven't been directed by doctors of what you can. I 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.880 eat quite healthily, So they when you're when you're coming 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.200 out of hospitals that you see nutritions and they tell 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:23.920 you this, and they tell you that. But I'm kind 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.800 of quite forward thinking on good food. So when I 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.239 eat something bad, it's because I really want to. And 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.000 when you there are so many reasons we eat, isn't 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.320 There are reasons we eat because we're hungry, eat because 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.200 we're in a beautiful place and we want to celebrate, 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.320 or we eat because we are feeling a certain way. 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.760 We need comfort. If you needed food, if you needed 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.600 it for comfort, is there a food that you might 0:22:53.640 --> 0:23:00.359 reach for and be totally apples? Apples, apples. I eat 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:08.760 probably about six to eight apples a day a day. Apples. 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.439 I couldn't live without apples. What kind I like? I've 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.000 forgotten what they called it. Those pink ones and they're 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:21.520 kind of sweet, pink lady. Yes, I absolutely love them. 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:24.199 I washed them, put them on the bread board, and 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:28.000 I get the knife and I don't cut them equally. 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:30.879 I just slice all bits off until I get the course, 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.200 so it's all different shapes. And maybe I take three 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.439 of them and I'm like a big pile on a 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:40.920 very beautiful blue Delf plate. And then I sit anywhere 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:43.800 and just slowly eat three apples at a time that 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:46.960