Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: People always ask me who my dream guest would be
Speaker 2: on Ruthie's Table four. Kate Blanchett has always been top
Speaker 2: of that list, an actor, director, and a vocal activist
Speaker 2: for values and ideas close to my heart. A few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took me to
Speaker 2: see Kate and Thomas Ostermeier's radical new version of The
Speaker 2: Seagull at the Barbican Theater. After a stunning performance, we
Speaker 2: all went for small supper next door, talking about check
Speaker 2: off her rollin Tar and the Serpentine Party that she's
Speaker 2: co hosting this summer and is always family. Kate lives
Speaker 2: with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees,
Speaker 2: growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally. Here
Speaker 2: we are at the River Cafe on the beautiful first
Speaker 2: day of summer. The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking,
Speaker 2: and the garden flowering. Kate and I are going to
Speaker 2: talk about our shared love of food, artists, children, and
Speaker 2: a lot more. A dream come true.
Speaker 3: Indeed, Ah, I'm glad I got out of bed this morning,
Speaker 3: I'm glad to do looking at it right, a little
Speaker 3: piece of sunshine?
Speaker 2: Has this come on to the thro that was such
Speaker 2: an incredible like how do you feel postsecuel? Are you?
Speaker 2: What does it feel like? What you did it for?
Speaker 2: How many weeks?
Speaker 3: It was so short? We were at the Barbecane, so
Speaker 3: it was six weeks. And I must I mean, I've
Speaker 3: known Thomas Ostermaier for years and years and years. You know,
Speaker 3: he's running the Shower Booner and my husband and I
Speaker 3: were running the Sydney Theater Company, so our paths continually crisscrossed,
Speaker 3: but we never actually worked together. And I think the
Speaker 3: thing maybe it's a little bit like a dinner party
Speaker 3: when you do check off. It's all about the ensemble
Speaker 3: and the alchemy that happens or doesn't between the actors.
Speaker 3: And I've always done check off with a loose ensemble
Speaker 3: of actors, whereas Thomas was assembling all of us. Some
Speaker 3: a few people had worked together before, or I'd work
Speaker 3: with Tom Burke on Soderberg's Black Bag relatively recently before
Speaker 3: the production started, but a lot of it didn't know
Speaker 3: one another, and he was able to bring us all
Speaker 3: together all from totally wildly different approaches. And the thing
Speaker 3: I miss most is the people. I love them all
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: People here, yeah, like my family. You know, we work together,
Speaker 2: we go out, or we celebrate or sometimes we just
Speaker 2: also just work. But it is a very strong attachment
Speaker 2: when you're working together and creating something here, it's every day.
Speaker 2: You know, in a way, they're parallels. The curtain goes
Speaker 2: up at twelve thirty, and the curtain goes up with
Speaker 2: you at seven thirty. Don't you think there's an anticipation.
Speaker 2: You're very dependent on each other.
Speaker 3: And also I think you're part of something that And
Speaker 3: this is what maybe the patrons don't realize, what an
Speaker 3: audience doesn't realize, is that whatever happens in the kitchen
Speaker 3: will be totally influenced by the people who come through that,
Speaker 3: who through your front door. And so the evening is
Speaker 3: I think, you know, you know what's on the menu,
Speaker 3: but you don't know how it's going to unfold. You
Speaker 3: don't know what people are going to order, and so
Speaker 3: it's it's fresh every time. And I you know, being
Speaker 3: quite shy, I mean I don't know if you are,
Speaker 3: but yeah, you get to know people by doing something together.
Speaker 2: Collaborating. Yeah, together, but we see actors on stage singing
Speaker 2: or the incredible gift that is given to us as
Speaker 2: an audience to be able to have that, and Britain
Speaker 2: has always been known for that. Exactly do you feel
Speaker 2: that this is something that is threatened now that we
Speaker 2: that the priority of culture in this country is being lessened.
Speaker 2: There was a time when there was money for the arts.
Speaker 2: You know, there was money for building a theater. And
Speaker 2: I know that you are an activist. I know that
Speaker 2: you're engaged in political life. And what are you feeling
Speaker 2: about right now in terms of.
Speaker 4: I mean people talk about activism.
Speaker 3: You know that it's political, but I think it's engaging
Speaker 3: in things that have been politicized. And it always is
Speaker 3: strange to me when we talk about the arts, this
Speaker 3: word elite is used. And if you think about an
Speaker 3: elite sports person, that term means that they are they
Speaker 3: have spent many many years perfecting their ability, that they
Speaker 3: are at the top of their game, and that when
Speaker 3: we talk about the arts, yes, they are elite in
Speaker 3: the sense that those people who put those shows on
Speaker 3: are exceptional at what they do. It's not for an elite.
Speaker 3: I think the elite these days are the people who
Speaker 3: don't pay tax. And if they did pay tax, then
Speaker 3: all of these wonderful offerings cultural offerings. The Churchill said,
Speaker 3: what are we fighting for if we're not fighting for
Speaker 3: culture and the access to it is that then they
Speaker 3: would be more accessible to people.
Speaker 4: And so there's this.
Speaker 3: I think it's a linguistic language division that's often created
Speaker 3: between people and culture. And I think that you I mean,
Speaker 3: that's the joy of touring a play is that you
Speaker 3: will tour to a regional area, you'll do it in
Speaker 3: a major city, you'll do it in one country, in
Speaker 3: another country, And I think that the reaction that people
Speaker 3: have in various different locations will feed the work, and hopefully.
Speaker 4: Those people will be fed by the work.
Speaker 3: The first time I went to a gallery and saw,
Speaker 3: you know, a major work of portraiture, it changed the way,
Speaker 3: you know, at my little state primary school, the way
Speaker 3: I thought about the world.
Speaker 4: And dance does that, music does that.
Speaker 3: But we're told that it's only for a certain set
Speaker 3: of people, and I think that's because access is not
Speaker 3: afforded them.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the early days of being in your family.
Speaker 2: Did you you have sisters and brothers?
Speaker 3: Yes, I have an older brother and a younger sister,
Speaker 3: and my father was from Texas, so I was born
Speaker 3: in Melbourne in Australia. Yeah, we were going to move
Speaker 3: to the States really early on, and they decided, I
Speaker 3: think for our education, that they wanted us to be
Speaker 3: in Australia, so we stayed there.
Speaker 2: But why did he come from Australia, from Texas to Asta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was in the He.
Speaker 3: Was the child of two alcoholic parents and so he
Speaker 3: grew up I think, killing birds in a park and
Speaker 3: it would never happen now, but you know, a gentleman
Speaker 3: saw him and took him off the streets and educated
Speaker 3: him and put him through high school.
Speaker 4: And the minute he could, he wanted to.
Speaker 3: Get out, so he lied about his age, joined the Navy,
Speaker 3: and he went to the Antarctic, and I think he
Speaker 3: decided to become a Unitarian minister. And my mother, who
Speaker 3: was at Teachers College in Melbourne, he well, his ship
Speaker 3: broke down leaving the Antarctics, so they had to dock
Speaker 3: in Melbourne and there was a teachers dance and they
Speaker 3: didn't have enough men, so they went down to the
Speaker 3: port and then my father came and my mother and
Speaker 3: he danced all night, and then he left three weeks later,
Speaker 3: and they corresponded for two years, and then he decided
Speaker 3: to come out. It was quite old fashioned. It was
Speaker 3: a little bit like this wonderful Patrick White novel called Voss,
Speaker 3: where there's Uh an explorer and I can't remember what
Speaker 3: she did. I think she might have also been a teacher.
Speaker 3: They fell in love but didn't consummate it or to
Speaker 3: claim it to one another, and then they corresponded to letters,
Speaker 3: and that's sort of what my mother and father did.
Speaker 3: And then they decided he'd come out and get married.
Speaker 2: And that's a story of adventure and chance and yeahs
Speaker 2: pursuing an idea and the idea of the harbor and
Speaker 2: the meeting and the dancing all night.
Speaker 3: We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. So I grew up with
Speaker 3: pumpkin pie and can.
Speaker 4: Park did mom?
Speaker 3: Yeah, make them both and yeah, and so he Yeah,
Speaker 3: we grew up with quite a lot of American black
Speaker 3: eyed peas, all of those things.
Speaker 2: So did you ever go back to Texas? Yes?
Speaker 3: Sadly, he died when he was forty and we had
Speaker 3: planned a trip back to back to Texas and he
Speaker 3: died in the January and we were going in May,
Speaker 3: and so we made the trip anyway and went and
Speaker 3: met his sort of of his family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so growing up there was a sense of the
Speaker 2: American influence. There was Australian influence as well. Yeah.
Speaker 3: My grandmother was I think a Scottish grandmother. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: lived with you, Yeah she did. She lived, made the sandwiches,
Speaker 3: made the sandwiches. I think she was a Scottish descent.
Speaker 3: So everything was boiled within an inch of its life.
Speaker 3: And at that point in Australia, avocados were, you know,
Speaker 3: incredibly exotic mangoes.
Speaker 4: Because are we talking about We're talking about.
Speaker 3: A long time ago, in the eighties, in the eighties,
Speaker 3: and so because of the fruitfly, there were quite strong
Speaker 3: demarcations between what was grown in Queensland what was grown
Speaker 3: in New South Wales. Nothing ever came over from Western
Speaker 3: Australia to Victoria.
Speaker 4: If you had fruit.
Speaker 3: And you were crossing between Victoria and New South Wales,
Speaker 3: you had to leave the fruit the vegetables at the border.
Speaker 3: So there was no tropical fruit that even came down.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have the utmost respect for farmers, I
Speaker 3: mean in any country, but in Australia it's really, it's
Speaker 3: very hard. It's such an ancient land, and I think
Speaker 3: because for so long we have marginalized indigenous understandings.
Speaker 4: Of the way way to grow and collect food.
Speaker 2: Actually, tell me about the indigenous experience.
Speaker 3: Of well, I mean, there were so many hundreds of
Speaker 3: language groups and cultures that have been wiped out through
Speaker 3: you know, a white invasion. I mean, you can't call
Speaker 3: it any other name in any other way, but I
Speaker 3: think we've not grown as a white culture through that
Speaker 3: wisdom and understanding of the land. And so the food
Speaker 3: ball in so many parts of Australia is actually in
Speaker 3: the wrong place. Water is a scarce commodity. I mean
Speaker 3: brand Australia when I was growing up was multiculturalism. And
Speaker 3: so once we you know, really embraced the wave of
Speaker 3: Vietnamese and Lebanese and Greek and Italian immigrants and refugees,
Speaker 3: our cuisine became extraordinary. And now it's been exported to
Speaker 3: the world as Pan Pacific or Asia Pacific and so
Speaker 3: it's But at the time when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: my mother was an excellent cross.
Speaker 2: So tell me about So your mother was left with
Speaker 2: three children. Ye, well, she was what.
Speaker 3: She was thirty nine and my brother was eleven I
Speaker 3: was ten. Well, she had to go back to work
Speaker 3: as a teacher and so she taught home economics. So
Speaker 3: our kitchen was fantastic. Yeah, a lot of a lot
Speaker 3: of Italian cooking and a lot of fresh seafood and salads.
Speaker 3: And that was not what people were eating at the time.
Speaker 3: But I think the thing when there was a lot
Speaker 3: of grief in my house, So the meals were delicious,
Speaker 3: but they were silent and and and that's been one
Speaker 3: of the great joys I think from my side of
Speaker 3: the family, but also for me is my husband came
Speaker 3: from this enormous Catholic family, so the food may not
Speaker 3: have been Yeah, I know he's Australian, but they had
Speaker 3: massively noisy, loud, raucous meals.
Speaker 4: And my husband's an excellent cook.
Speaker 3: And actually the first time I met my brother in
Speaker 3: law was at Christmas and he there was I came
Speaker 3: towards the house and there was people were screaming with
Speaker 3: laughter and I don't know what the what the meal is,
Speaker 3: but it's a medieval recipe where you stuff a goose.
Speaker 4: With a pigeon.
Speaker 3: I know that quail, that's right, And what had happened
Speaker 3: was he'd open oven and the thing shot out. The
Speaker 3: telescope telescoped out.
Speaker 4: Onto the wall.
Speaker 3: So there goes Christmas lunch. Yeah, so they were madly
Speaker 3: trying to stuff it back in.
Speaker 2: I know that recipe. I mean I've never done it myself,
Speaker 2: but I know that's dangerous. Have you ever done that?
Speaker 2: Do you know that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Dangerous.
Speaker 2: That's so funny because they probably asked their cooking. They expand, expand,
Speaker 2: and then therefore, yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: So they're wildly adventurous with the call. When you met him,
Speaker 3: my husband and I got to we've been married. God,
Speaker 3: we got married very quickly actually in ninety seven. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a shotgun wedding. We didn't have children for quite
Speaker 3: some time. But I think we're twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you were embraced by this family. But going
Speaker 2: back to yours, So you grew up with you know,
Speaker 2: your father in the beginning cooking, and I assume that
Speaker 2: your mother cooked, and you meals and keep cues and people,
Speaker 2: and then it became a kind of sadness.
Speaker 4: And then did the silent Yeah.
Speaker 2: And did that change? Did you? Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about it, maybe because I was
Speaker 3: coming to speak to you. But then I've always loved
Speaker 3: the dinner party. And so what I would do is
Speaker 3: I wouldn't go to a lot of parties as a teenager.
Speaker 3: I would have dinner parties. Yeah, so I would where
Speaker 3: everyone would dress up. My girlfriends would all dress up
Speaker 3: and we'd know it would all cook something and we'd
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Who we were trying to ape or what we were
Speaker 4: trying to ape.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of sorbet inside orange cups, and
Speaker 3: I don't know. And I grew up with this Salvador
Speaker 3: Daly cookbook, you know, the one that he'd done and
Speaker 3: he'd done the illustrations and yes, yes, and I cooked
Speaker 3: from that.
Speaker 4: It's crazy to admit that I didn't. That was where
Speaker 4: I cooked my first.
Speaker 2: Surrealist cookbook, a surrealist recipe.
Speaker 4: But it was hard in Melbourne at the time to
Speaker 4: find a pheasant. You try, I tried.
Speaker 3: So I cooked and tried to decorate that the dishes
Speaker 3: from the salvad Or Daly cookbook.
Speaker 4: What age was it, This is probably about thirteen.
Speaker 2: So that's yeah. Because I often talked to people who
Speaker 2: when I say, okay, so you grew up in this
Speaker 2: nurturing home with a grandmother and a mother and cooking,
Speaker 2: and then what happened when you left home? And very
Speaker 2: often people say, then when I had my own flat
Speaker 2: and I started buying local ingredients and I started cooking.
Speaker 2: But thirteen is an early age that to do and
Speaker 2: to entertain.
Speaker 4: And I think it's because it was my father's book.
Speaker 3: He worked in advertising, and it was must have been
Speaker 3: a gift that he was given one year and yeah,
Speaker 3: so it was sort of trying the sal Yeah, not
Speaker 3: that I can remember him ever cooking from it, but
Speaker 3: it was just it was something of his that maybe
Speaker 3: I gravitated towards that.
Speaker 4: And also.
Speaker 3: The Surrealism seemed to make sense to me. I had
Speaker 3: very vivid nightmares and dreams as a child, and so
Speaker 3: his work and the surrealism movements as a whole kind
Speaker 3: of really unlocked something for me.
Speaker 2: An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as
Speaker 2: chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in
Speaker 2: the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos to
Speaker 2: our podcast, a question and answer episode with me and
Speaker 2: our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with your
Speaker 2: question to questions at Rivercafe dot co dot uk, and
Speaker 2: you might just be our next great guest on Ruthie's
Speaker 2: Table four. Tell me about cooking the dover soul. What
Speaker 2: was that?
Speaker 3: Well, I'd actually deboned a soul in Alfonso Quaran's disclaimer,
Speaker 3: and I don't know whether he thought my deboning was
Speaker 3: too good or that the scene was too static or whatever,
Speaker 3: but he then threw a cat onto the bench. So
Speaker 3: I was trying to debone and cook the soul with
Speaker 3: a cat on the bench, which was what did the
Speaker 3: cat do?
Speaker 4: Tried to read?
Speaker 2: So, having having cooked the billeted the dover soul, would
Speaker 2: you like to tell everyone listening how to make come
Speaker 2: to the river. And also, you know, you can change
Speaker 2: it in any way you want. People read it and
Speaker 2: add their own advice or okay, let's just or you
Speaker 2: can just read it whatever you write.
Speaker 3: You know, there's something I was thinking too about the
Speaker 3: way you cook. Someone said this, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: phrase it so badly that Chopin apparently said that the
Speaker 3: great reward of have been played many many notes over
Speaker 3: many many years is simplicity. And I think that is
Speaker 3: something extraordinary about the way you cook. And maybe it's
Speaker 3: with this recipe. So the more dover souls you cook,
Speaker 3: the better you'll cook them. Dover soul with capers and
Speaker 3: marjarine two tablespoons salted capers, extra virgin olive oil. But
Speaker 3: put that on the fish before you put it in
Speaker 3: the pan. That's what I learned today. A bunch of
Speaker 3: fresh marjoram leaves, four whole dover sole weighing three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty to four hundred grams each, scaled and cleaned
Speaker 3: by someone at the riff of cafe. One lemon, cut
Speaker 3: in half and put in the pan. Eventually put the
Speaker 3: capers on.
Speaker 4: This is the method.
Speaker 3: Put the capers in a sieve and rinse under cold
Speaker 3: running water. Leave to soak in cold water for forty minutes,
Speaker 3: then rinse again. Preheat the oven two hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: degrees celsius. Brush a large flat oven tray with extra
Speaker 3: virgin olive oil. Scatter half of the marjoram leaves over
Speaker 3: the tray. Season, place the fish on top, side by
Speaker 3: side little buddies who are about to be eaten. Season
Speaker 3: Then scatter the remaining mardrum and the capers over with
Speaker 3: olive oil. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Test with
Speaker 3: the point of a sharp knife or a fork inserted
Speaker 3: in the thickest part of the sole. If cooked, the
Speaker 3: flesh should come away from the bone. Don't eat it yet,
Speaker 3: Squeeze the lemon over the fish, and serve with any
Speaker 3: juices from the pan.
Speaker 2: Delicious So simple, isn't it?
Speaker 3: I know, but I didn't realize if you oil the
Speaker 3: fish first, of course, it doesn't stick to the pan.
Speaker 3: I know, and marjoramn't. I would have put parsley, which
Speaker 3: is a bit more the Margroom's just so flavor something.
Speaker 2: Now it's very perfume. But then again, we do it
Speaker 2: with rosemary. Sometimes you put a whole branch of rosemary
Speaker 2: under the sole when we cook it. We do it,
Speaker 2: but we do parsley and then the caper. Is the
Speaker 2: saltiness of the caper that was delicious. Or maybe I'll
Speaker 2: just do an anchovy, one anchovy over it.
Speaker 3: I love anchovy much maligned. I think it's probably one
Speaker 3: of my favorite fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we an Italian cookie. It's they are like a herb.
Speaker 2: They're like this seasoning. So we make right now we're
Speaker 2: doing white asparagus and or green and we make an
Speaker 2: anchovy butter and it kind of melts.
Speaker 4: I love asparagus. Yes, I haven't been.
Speaker 2: Are you getting it now?
Speaker 4: Yeah? They started, we're changing. We had a really tiny
Speaker 4: little garden.
Speaker 3: We used to have pigs, and then the pigs went
Speaker 3: because we weren't realized we weren't pig farmers and they're
Speaker 3: too intelligent. And there was something just I thought that,
Speaker 3: and yeah, and actually it was my machiavellian plan to
Speaker 3: turn my family vegetarian. I thought, if we get pigs,
Speaker 3: then the children will realize that the sausages they eat,
Speaker 3: the ham they eat, the bacon, it all comes from
Speaker 3: these pigs. And my now seventeen year old called himself
Speaker 3: the pig whisper, and he used to go up and
Speaker 3: he used to hug the pigs and.
Speaker 4: Stroke the pigs.
Speaker 3: And of course then when they got turned into sausages
Speaker 3: and you know, ethically and as humanly as.
Speaker 4: You can, I was sitting there. It was a little
Speaker 4: bit cruel.
Speaker 3: They were sitting down putting the ketchup on their sausages,
Speaker 3: and I said, you know, this used to be Benson
Speaker 3: and hedges. My husband called them Benson and Hedges because
Speaker 3: he said they're going to be smoked.
Speaker 4: It was a little bit a bit off, but.
Speaker 3: Anyway, and they said this is Benton and hedges and
Speaker 3: my my now seventeen year old, said delicious.
Speaker 4: So it didn't work. So then the pigs went and
Speaker 4: so then we think, I.
Speaker 2: Want to be on a lifeboat with that boy.
Speaker 3: No, he's actually incredibly kind and sweet, but he's a sensualist,
Speaker 3: so he's very in the moment. And so then that
Speaker 3: little vegetable garden where we're growing asparagus and we had raspberries,
Speaker 3: we had a whole host hotch potch. We then decided
Speaker 3: to build a walled garden, so that has gone to fallow.
Speaker 3: So the asparagus has kind of now gone.
Speaker 4: To see so you get grape fish from the car.
Speaker 3: Yes, in Forest Row there's a fantastic fishmonga Vis's, so we, yeah,
Speaker 3: we get our fish from there. And we used to
Speaker 3: live in Brighton. You know my shepeas, That's what I telled,
Speaker 3: I love a pee, I love my sheepee's. There was
Speaker 3: one fish and chip shop on the tram stop near
Speaker 3: my school, my high school, and I discovered us going
Speaker 3: out with a skinhead at the time, and he took
Speaker 3: me there and I had my first mushy peas and chips.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're not Those don't need to be like
Speaker 2: freshly picked peas do.
Speaker 3: They can be better if they are, let's face it.
Speaker 3: But the one of the first ones I had were
Speaker 3: not did you.
Speaker 2: Enjoy going out to eat? Was that something in your
Speaker 2: culture that you'd go to eat for a special occasion.
Speaker 3: We did when my father was alive. We went to
Speaker 3: I had a lot of a lot of Asian restaurants
Speaker 3: and my father and I never really got to speak
Speaker 3: to him about this as an adult, but he had
Speaker 3: a lot of Japanese lithographs and books of haiku poetry,
Speaker 3: and I think he must have traveled through Japan quite
Speaker 3: a lot. So there weren't very many Japanese restaurants when
Speaker 3: I was growing up, but I remember going to several
Speaker 3: with him and eating a lot of Chinese food, and
Speaker 3: the first time I had fried ice cream it was
Speaker 3: just miraculous. So the first time I had raw fish
Speaker 3: was amazing, and I just loved the beauty and precision
Speaker 3: of the Japanese culture, and so I remember those experiences.
Speaker 3: And when I went to drama school, I didn't have
Speaker 3: a penny, but a girl who was in the directing course.
Speaker 3: Was married to a Qcourne in Sydney at the National Institute,
Speaker 3: and we used to sneak away and go and have
Speaker 3: sake and a little bit of sashimi at lunchtime and
Speaker 3: that seemed so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so chic and you know, extravagant.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when you started acting how that married
Speaker 2: with your wife? How did that affect your food? I mean,
Speaker 2: did you meet a different way? Did you go out
Speaker 2: to more restaurants?
Speaker 3: I mean my first job, actually out of drama school,
Speaker 3: I worked in the catering truck on a television show
Speaker 3: because I wasn't working as an actor, and it was
Speaker 3: my first entry into the film world, so I didn't
Speaker 3: It was like this distraction that was happening that was
Speaker 3: so frustrating, being in the catering truck trying to get
Speaker 3: breakfast out and lunch out, and you know, in the
Speaker 3: afternoon whatever it was called that we had to keep
Speaker 3: stopping because they were doing this annoying thing called filming,
Speaker 3: but they kept turning over. It was like, guys, how
Speaker 3: are we going to get the cheese cake ready? And
Speaker 3: then and then eventually I ended up on the other side.
Speaker 3: But I had a real love and respect for the
Speaker 3: difficulty of working in the you know, the catering van
Speaker 3: and how you know it can be thankless.
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Speaker 3: Now, when I came here, we'd always wanted to have
Speaker 3: a garden, We'd always wanted to grow things. I've got
Speaker 3: brown thumbs. My mother and my grandmother had very very
Speaker 3: green thumbs. And now my mother lives with us.
Speaker 2: And I was saying, a brown thumb as well, green being.
Speaker 3: Big, grow well, and I touched something and it just goes.
Speaker 3: I know it is, but this is changing slowly, and
Speaker 3: so it's been so fantastic. I think too, because I
Speaker 3: grew up with my grandmother. Now that my mother is
Speaker 3: living with us, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: They lived with us.
Speaker 4: Oh really, it's great. It's great having a multi generational household.
Speaker 4: That's great, saying.
Speaker 2: There's always my little My son when he was little
Speaker 2: used to try and wake us up. It's a bog,
Speaker 2: you know, going back to sleep. And then we'd hear
Speaker 2: him go downstairs. He'd say to his brother, can you
Speaker 2: wake up? And you say, I'll go back to sleep.
Speaker 2: And then we hear go all the way down to
Speaker 2: my mom and she'd opened the door and say, hi, bo,
Speaker 2: I want to make a cake.
Speaker 4: You know in the morning, what every child wants to.
Speaker 3: But it's I know from you probably know this with
Speaker 3: your grandmother, is that you talk so differently to your
Speaker 3: grandparents than you do to your parents, and and that
Speaker 3: that you can't tell everything to one person sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: we are different things with different people. But anyway, so
Speaker 3: I'm having my mum in that house has been great, sod.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she does.
Speaker 3: She's got her own garden, but also together where we've
Speaker 3: just reinstated a walled garden that used to be there.
Speaker 3: Because the house we're living in was derelict for many,
Speaker 3: many years, and so when we part in Lockdown, we
Speaker 3: realized that under a lot of rubble and mud, there
Speaker 3: was a greenhouse. So we we restored it and then
Speaker 3: we saw an aerial shot of the house or the
Speaker 3: block of land in the forties, and so we've rebuilt
Speaker 3: along the lines of where the war garden used to be.
Speaker 4: And it's a learning curve. It keeps you humble. You
Speaker 4: must humility because patient you don't have control over it.
Speaker 3: There, yes, and weather, yeah, and also I mean I
Speaker 3: think it's just that thing of knowing that the certain
Speaker 3: moths are going to come. And so we're not having
Speaker 3: a lot of luck with broccoli and cauliflower, but Brussels
Speaker 3: sprouts are okay, And so you cook with what you've
Speaker 3: what you gather that day.
Speaker 2: So when you said we were, when you said we
Speaker 2: were going to do this today, I thought, well, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll come and we'll have a conversation ali saki tasting.
Speaker 2: So how did saki come? How did this happen?
Speaker 3: Well, it's sort of it started a long time ago,
Speaker 3: I think. I mean, you know, my mother and father
Speaker 3: drank sak when we went out to Japanese restaurants, and
Speaker 3: that was you know, to have to have a drink
Speaker 3: in a tiny little cup. I mean, I found all
Speaker 3: of the elements, so beautiful. And I've always loved ceramics
Speaker 3: since I was with the ecouchement around it. And then
Speaker 3: I worked with the Japanese skincare company This is years ago,
Speaker 3: for about fifteen years, and we would go to Japan
Speaker 3: a lot, and the active ingredients in the skincare was
Speaker 3: found when during the rice polishing process, you know, because
Speaker 3: obviously and this one is a junm daginjo, which is
Speaker 3: a highly polished rice, and that made the people who
Speaker 3: were working with the rice their hands were just like
Speaker 3: infant's hands.
Speaker 4: The skin was amazing. But as a result, I went.
Speaker 3: To a lot of breweries and I got really fascinated
Speaker 3: with the fermentation process and the fact that sake is
Speaker 3: brewed like a beer but drunk like a wine. And
Speaker 3: I thought, well, I often drink it when I'm having
Speaker 3: Italian food because there's a purity and simplicity to you know,
Speaker 3: particularly to the way you serve it up that also
Speaker 3: is quite twinned to the purity and simplicity of Japanese food,
Speaker 3: and I thought I would love to be part of
Speaker 3: trying to bring that to to Western cuisine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have to pour for you.
Speaker 2: What is the ritual? Is there it's at the right temperature.
Speaker 2: You don't drink it hot. With the first Japanese restaurant,
Speaker 2: let's say, do you want it hard or do you
Speaker 2: want it? Oh? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well the first time I had it was it
Speaker 4: was hot.
Speaker 3: But because this is such a when the more highly
Speaker 3: polished it is, and this is really highly polished.
Speaker 4: It's polished to thirty five percent. For what that's worth.
Speaker 4: It has such a refined.
Speaker 3: Flavor that you don't you don't want to heat it
Speaker 3: because it would take all that that complication away.
Speaker 4: Beautiful. Well, yeah, I've always drunk drunk it in.
Speaker 3: A like in a little vessel, the ceramic, but there's
Speaker 3: something about you can you can smell it better, I think,
Speaker 3: And it doesn't feel so much like a spirit.
Speaker 2: That's nice to you that you're here. It's more saki together.
Speaker 2: And do you go to Japan? You go where they
Speaker 2: make it? Have you been?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been amazing actually being part of the the
Speaker 3: process of of seeing it made and and it's it's
Speaker 3: aged in a very cold environment too, so it's really good.
Speaker 2: How would you describe it?
Speaker 4: I think it's fruity, but it's not too sweet.
Speaker 2: It isn't I think you described the saki in very
Speaker 2: visual terms as well as taste terms.
Speaker 4: I always wanted to to to paint like I always
Speaker 4: wanted to dance.
Speaker 2: And by the way, can I just interrupt you for
Speaker 2: a minute and say, those splits.
Speaker 4: Sea girl, I'm still suffering.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: Know.
Speaker 2: I had. The whole performance was kind of the revelation
Speaker 2: of what you could. It was hard to take it.
Speaker 2: But when you came and did those splits.
Speaker 4: A joke, that was as.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm quite I make more sense in movement.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it's taken me a long time
Speaker 3: to get used to being sort of in a two
Speaker 3: dimensional medium or being photographed is always I have to
Speaker 3: sort of trick myself into feeling comfortable. But yeah, it
Speaker 3: ended up being quite quite physical.
Speaker 2: And conducting is physical, Yeah, dancing actually dancing your arms,
Speaker 2: your legs.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's an amazing choreographer who also dances called
Speaker 3: Xavier le Roi. He watched Simon Rattle conduct The Right
Speaker 3: of Spring, and when he can, i mean, every every
Speaker 3: strand of hair is flying. He's such an incredible creature
Speaker 3: when he conducts. And he took that that he's active
Speaker 3: conducting and turned it into a piece of choreography. And actually,
Speaker 3: when I was playing tar in Toddfields.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 3: I watched that piece of that dance and it was
Speaker 3: totally free, and so I saw it the conducting as
Speaker 3: a kinetic response like dances to music auto silence, you know,
Speaker 3: and so that I found it quite liberating.
Speaker 2: When we think about food, we think about food as
Speaker 2: you talked about your father and the memory of him
Speaker 2: in Australia entertaining me as a thirteen year old and
Speaker 2: then tasting a delicious tomato, and then we've just said,
Speaker 2: right now, food is all that, but it's also comfort.
Speaker 2: And so I was wondering if you could just tell
Speaker 2: me before you say goodbye, what if you need comfort,
Speaker 2: If you do want food as comfort, is there something
Speaker 2: that you would reach for or cook or buy.
Speaker 3: I think in the end it would be it would
Speaker 3: be a soup. It would be a soup. And I
Speaker 3: think really good soups often take time to make. So
Speaker 3: you have you first of all, you have to do
Speaker 3: the onions and the garlic, and then you have to
Speaker 3: you know, put certain vegetables root vegetables in first, and
Speaker 3: you have to let it simmer, and I'm quite impatient,
Speaker 3: which is why I'm really relishing Starting a Garden, because
Speaker 3: it's teaching me humility and patience. But there's something about
Speaker 3: making a soup that you just have to let it
Speaker 3: sit and you have to let it rest. And there's
Speaker 3: one soup I talk about food waste I can't which
Speaker 3: I can't stand. I get ribbed a lot about it
Speaker 3: by my boys. But you know that that two or
Speaker 3: three day old bread that is otherwise going to go
Speaker 3: into the bins, you chop it up and you make
Speaker 3: that fantastic soup with tomatoes and onions, and it makes
Speaker 3: the bread go quite cheesy.
Speaker 2: The cat they called Papa Pomora.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love it, and I made it. I made
Speaker 3: it over the weekend because we had a lot of
Speaker 3: white bread.
Speaker 2: That was some they did and fantastically in the summer
Speaker 2: when the tomatoes are very ripe, and then in the
Speaker 2: winter they actually caught ribolita, which means a kind of
Speaker 2: basic minestrone. Very often it just has cavalo narrow, which
Speaker 2: is a kind of and beans and then you add
Speaker 2: the bread and then it expands and then it's called rebelita.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite we have cool. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Kate, thank you
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair