WEBVTT - Rachel Eliza Griffiths 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:05.000 Adamized Studios. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.119 There is nothing better than a friend you love, falling 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.200 in love with someone you love. When my friend Salmon 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.919 Rushdie brought Eliza Griffiths into our lives, we were happy 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.480 for them and happy for us too. Eliza's smart, she's funny, 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.280 and she's kind. She's a beautiful poet. A photographer whose 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:32.560 black and white images evoked for me. Drothia Lang promises 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.559 her work of fiction just published, the Story of a Family, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.239 the story of the Civil Rights movement, a story of 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.239 food at the table and food in the kitchen. For 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.080 food is important to Eliza, and today in the River Cafe, 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.720 we will talk together about friendship, memory, writing and love. 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:52.879 So thank you for being here, So. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.320 Good to see you, So. 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:56.920 Thank you for having me. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:57.960 Yeah, that's great. 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:02.280 And you've just been in the River Cafe kitchen and 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:03.600 what were you making? 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.240 I was making this wonderful dish with broad beans and 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.400 pasto and garlic bread and it was heaven. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:12.680 It was so delicious. 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:14.720 I just want to go back to the kitchen and eat. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.959 It looks so yummy right now. That's the color is so. 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:23.280 Pretty, really bright. 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.199 I love the green. It's good. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:27.800 That should be enough. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.520 Would you like to taste some at this point? 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:44.240 Absolutely, I'm not shy about tasting anything. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.280 It's a dish that we make when the broadbeans are 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:48.760 in season. 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.840 You can't really do it when they're kind of older 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:52.080 and more floury. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:53.840 I like cooking by season. 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.520 There's something very special about what's available and what you 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:58.760 get to look forward to. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:01:59.840 When the time comes. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.360 And I'm used to cooking for like six people or 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.440 more in my family, so I love making, you know, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.040 large pots of things and a lot of food. And 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.720 even now sometimes my husband is like, don't make so much. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.160 We're going to eat this for five or six days. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:16.240 Just cook for two. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:19.680 Is that true? Someone? 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:25.120 Yeah, When when Eliza cooks dinner, when everybody's finished eating 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.160 a lot, it looks it looks like it hasn't been touched, 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.440 and then we have it for the next week. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.079 Do you ever do you ever cook together? 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:36.919 I'm the eater. 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.200 Yeah, the eater. Yeah, he's a good eater. 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:44.480 God yeah, yeah, yeah, you need a good eater. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.639 Yeah, but yeah, she When when Eliza decides to cook, 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.000 which isn't always, but when she decides to do it, 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.000 it's always a treaty. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.560 I imagine, do you go to market? 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.359 I used to go to markets more frequently. I used 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.400 to walk down to Union Square and go to the market, 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.880 and you know, walk to different places to get specific things. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.080 And growing up with my mother, she had you know, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.120 the butcher we went to, and then she went to 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.360 a different place for her flowers. And sometimes we go 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.640 as far as Philadelphia just for a certain spice sharp 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.880 to get spices. I have a lot of very vivid 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.200 memories of you know, you just don't go into one place. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.799 You know, she would have neighbors who would bake bread, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.240 and so she would put in her bread order or something. 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:31.240 So where was this? 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:32.520 Where did you grow up? 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:38.080 I I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, between Wilmington, Delaware 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:39.040 and Washington, d C. 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:41.640 So in Washington, d C. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.240 Of course, there's just so much culture and so many 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.560 kinds of food. You know, Ethiopian food, and you know 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.920 French and Italian. It's I mean, all of these different things. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.240 And you know my mother's kitchen, she would really experiment 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.000 with cooking different types of food. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:02.800 So tell me about her. Was she born in the 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:03.560 United States? 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.360 She was born in Washington, d C. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:11.880 And she when she married my father, they moved to Wilmington, 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.720 and my mother I think, you know, one of her 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:17.640 her gifts as an artist was cooking. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:18.839 I mean she. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:22.920 You know, it was a classroom to be in her 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.000 you know kitchen, that would be the place. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.159 Where so many things would happen. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:32.000 But she would experiment with food, she would find recipes. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.760 She actually did classes for cooking. She had a whole 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.960 chef's uniform she would put on, and she had some 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.039 really wonderful her bread pudding recipes. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.480 She won prizes for. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.359 You know what it was. What did she put in 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:48.040 the bread pudding? 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.520 She put a special ingredient that only myself and my 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.080 three siblings can ever tell. So it was kind of lockdown. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.360 Although I can't bear to eat bread pudding now because 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:01.320 in makes me think of her too much. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.640 I've been spoiled by her bread. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:07.039 Pudding, and so whenever I see it on the menu, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.480 I just immediately see her face the saying no one's 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.640 bread pudding is as good as mine, and her pretty 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:14.680 much being right about that. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.359 That's just so interesting that she had. I love the 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.640 idea that she had a chef's outfitted home. She did 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.160 because you know, when you put on a chef's out, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:24.040 when you change. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:25.760 We all change for work every day. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.200 We come in here in our clothes and before we 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.479 write the menu, because we write the menu every day. 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.839 Even just sitting down and writing the menu. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.200 You need to be wearing the clothes of cooking, you know, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:37.920 and puts you into that world. 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:38.680 And she did that. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:45.360 She was very meticulous about it and her her equipment 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:51.400 and materials and things that she began to acquire. Cooking 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.920 was very serious business for her. And yet it was 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.560 the place where, you know, you learned a lot of lessons, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.520 but your hands are always And I loved that. I mean, 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.120 I felt like she was a real artist with color 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.480 and how the dishes would look in the flowers, and 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.880 it was just a whole kind of event, even if 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.040 you were making like a grilled cheese, like how is 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.159 this grilled cheese so amazing? You know? 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:18.599 And did she entertain? 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:19.240 Did you have? 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:19.560 She? 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:20.120 Did? 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:21.080 She did? 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:22.039 Growing up? 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.320 I mean, our home was a place where people in 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.160 our community, you know, if they knew that my mother 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.080 was cooking, they were not declining that invitation. And it 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.280 would just be a whole thing. And I remember I'd 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.440 have to like iron and starch the tablecloths and help 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.120 with the flowers and you know, polish the silver. And 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.960 it was just this whole kind of stage that she set, 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.000 even down to the music that might be on, and 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.120 it just there was so much joy about it. She 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.680 would keep, you know, trying different things, and she would 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.800 have her tasting spoon, and she wouldn't give up on 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.839 a recipe until she really got it, until she didn't 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:06.400 have to look at the book anymore. 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.600 And I think I think some of that. 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.560 Is probably involved in my process as a writer, Like 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.520 you can fail at your sentences, but you keep pushing 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.720 language until it gives and you think I hear it, 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:24.080 now I can see it. But my mother food is 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.560 one of the greatest gifts that she gave our family, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.200 and certainly to me being the eldest daughter. You know, 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.440 I would I would be sous chef quite a bit 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.920 and it's made me a better person. And I love 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.440 cooking for my friends and my husband and my family. 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.480 Did you think that she was Did you have a career, 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:49.560 Did you have a job. 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:54.880 No, she mostly was at home. She had four children. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.040 I'm the eldest, and we were young, and so she 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.960 was more of a homemaker. When she was older, she 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.480 went back to school and got a degree. She did 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.320 a lot of kind of things where I would kind 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.280 of call her like a kind of business woman of 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:14.320 her own, where she sometimes did real estate or she 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.080 would you know, literally be selling things that she cooked 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:23.440 to people in the community. Sometimes she actually would cater things. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.000 And growing up, maybe when I was eleven or twelve, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:34.439 she got diagnosed with kidney failure, and so her ability 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:39.560 to work maybe a more traditional job changed because she 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.559 was trying to raise for children, and then she had 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.360 this kind of chronic illness. And one of the most 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.360 beautiful things about her cooking was when she was in 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.120 the kitchen, it was like that was the cure. 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.360 Like she would kind of dance around. 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:57.360 She put on like Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross and 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.800 the Supremes, and she suddenly wasn't a sick mother. She 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:07.600 was making things and being a creator, and you know, 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.000 having to kind of balance the day being in bed 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:10.920 on medications. 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.120 But then she would she. 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.120 Would rally and want to be in the kitchen and 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.360 make things for her children and her family and for 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:18.120 her friends. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.920 It's interesting that you draw the parallel of the artists, 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:26.360 because there was a great film about Christo building a 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:31.400 fence in California, and the whole objection by the ranchers 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.440 was that it wasn't art because it was temporary. And 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.200 a woman who actually was in favor of the fence 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.640 got up and said, you know, I make a cake 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.439 every night for my family, and I really think that 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:45.679 that cake is a work of art. 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:46.960 And then it gets heated. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.640 You know, you think about that it is temper and 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.040 that your mother doing or you know, what she did, 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.760 and creating, as you said, like an artist, and then 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.679 feeding people she loved, is a part of the whole circle, 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:03.040 isn't it. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.480 I think it feels so special because you know you 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.240 have in that moment, whoever is there, whoever is present, 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.280 they have this kind of feast and then you can't be. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.400 Precious about it. It's to be devoured. 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.480 It's to be savored, it's memorized, and you know, then 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.680 you go and boast and brag to other people. You 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.360 need to taste this, but then it will never be 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.000 the same, so you get a whole new experience. You know. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.079 It's also so if it's art, it's also a performance 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.520 because absolutely, you know, we have an open kitchen in 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.960 the River Cafe, and I have an open kitchen at home, 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.840 and so you put the food down, and then you 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.320 want to see people's response, you know, and you see 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.640 I often look at the table and see if they're sharing, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.000 if they're tasting, if. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:50.840 They're shaking their head no, or shaking their. 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.520 Head yes, because it's an immediate response to what you've 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.439 just made, and you know they may be they may 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:58.520 be right if it isn't. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.960 It isn't always of the open kitchen here, it's kind 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.280 of like that's where the excitement is kind. 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:05.880 Of look drama, and. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.000 Everyone's excited, everyone's pleased, because you know, there's just something 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:15.320 about cooking. It's beyond the food. It's the whole kind 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.280 of sensation and experience of it. You're there with the 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.680 people you're with and whatever you might be talking about 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.600 and sharing stories or just how you feel your moods, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.240 and then you're looking at the kitchen, you're watching the waiters, 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.360 you're looking at all the details. And I think too, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.200 when you're on the page, it's different, but you as 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.880 the writer, bring attention to the details for your readers 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:44.560 of what you want them to look at in a 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.720 way which is a little bit similar with also being 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.320 a photographer. Here's what I want you to see, the light, 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.000 the atmosphere. Can I draw you into this, you know, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.360 flat photograph, But in the kitchen everything's alive and it's 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:01.560 all connected with people. 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.400 When you left home, when you left this incredible home 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:21.240 of food and your mother expressing her love through food 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.280 and feeding her children and teaching her children and handing over, 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.440 handing over the reins to her children. And then you left, 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.280 you know what, eighteen years of every day having your 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:33.679 mother do this. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:34.960 Where did you go? 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.240 What was your next step? 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:37.800 Well? 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:40.640 After going to college, I moved in. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.120 Where did you go to college? 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.320 I went to the University of Delaware, And for graduate school, 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.520 I went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.520 You did you cook when you were in college? 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:51.360 What did you do? 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:52.880 Did you go in college? 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.440 I was the person doing the parties, big pots of 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.960 pasta and garlic bread, and I would drape scarves over 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:06.120 like the awful fluorescent academic you know, dorm dormitory lights. 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.160 And I would have candles everywhere and people will kind 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.680 of feel like, well, this is like home away from home. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.080 I do not like doing the dishes so people would 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:17.200 volunteer that part. 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.880 But where did you find this kitchen in college that 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.760 you could cook and ever your own apartment or did 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:24.199 you know? 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.400 I was in the dormitory, but I would just take 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:27.400 the kitchen. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.439 You cooked for everyone. And then when you graduated, did 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.000 you live a domestic life where. 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:33.400 You can you know? 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.280 When I'm in two thousand and three, when I moved 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.000 to New York, I kind of it was that moment. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.480 I think many writers have them and have many moments 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.400 where I just thought, I need to live in New York. 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:44.199 I'm a writer. 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.000 I want to see what I'm made of. Can I 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.480 make it? And you know, reading so many books about 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.600 you know, the writers and the poets, and you know 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.960 they're in the village and they're all over Manhattan, and 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.680 I thought, well that that should be a good place 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.400 for me to go and see if I'm like cut 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.400 out for this life. And you know, I worked every 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.720 kind of job and then I finally thought, you know, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.160 I'm going to go back to grad school and just 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.520 so I'll be able to feed myself if the writing 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:19.680 doesn't work out. And during those years I taught at college. 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:21.480 I was a nanny. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.000 At one point I was a waitress for about an hour. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:26.600 Did you have to cook for the children? 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.000 No, it was a very small baby, so you know, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.800 we spent a lot of time with me reading bad 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.720 poetry to the baby in Central Park. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.360 But I got to. 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.880 Kind of get into the rhythm of the city. 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.240 Because you read out, you discover restaurants. 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.040 Yes, I loved finding little places, and you know, New 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:53.440 York is such a feast of little places and well 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.080 known places, and it was just wonderful to kind of 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.320 have these discoveries of things and also to go to 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.600 restaurants that you'd read about. You know, as you're wanting 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.600 to become a writer, suddenly you're going to. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:08.920 A restaurants where they do. 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.040 You remember I loved Cafe Dante in the West Village 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:18.680 and you know little places or the Romanian pastry shop 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:25.240 up in Columbia that's just divine. And then you know, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:32.440 going to you know, No host Star or I feel 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.800 like the diner situation was really great for me to 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.200 just sit in a diner and write and write and write. 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:39.160 So do you write? 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.840 How do you combine working and writing and doing your 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.760 work with food? Do you I often ask actors if 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.400 they eat before the play or after the play, or 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.000 artists who feel that, you know, they live such a 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.760 solitary life that they only want to go out to parties, 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.520 and film directors who basically don't want to stop for 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.640 lunch because it ruins the rhythm. 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.400 What is your writing and food day? 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.560 Like, I won't really have that much food in the morning. 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.880 I'm someone who with wellness things I'll have like my 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.760 green Mucky drink, which is delicious, or I'll have just 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.160 some poached eggs or something like that, which I like 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.720 with a little spinach. And it depends what I'm doing. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.280 If I'm out in the field working on photographs, then 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.200 I probably don't eat. I'll just have like some fresh 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.760 squeeze juice and then I'm out because I need to. 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:31.600 Follow the light very carefully. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.240 If I'm writing, I can write for long periods of 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.080 time and a lot of tea. In New York, you know, 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.960 going to friends homes to eat is a thing that 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.520 we enjoy, and going out to really lovely restaurants. We 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.560 both my husband and I both have an appreciation for 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.880 wonderful cooking and food and kind of the imagination. So 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.200 we'll kind of work all day and then perhaps we'll 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.560 go out to a restaurant to meet a friend, or 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:06.639 we'll just go together. These days were more inside. We 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.000 love to have, you know, Indian food delivered. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.280 Have you thought, Eliza more about Indian food, because I 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.359 know that you are passionate and grew up with it, 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.439 and we talked about Indian food. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.080 Well, New York used to be not good at. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.320 Indian food, unlike Britain. 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.120 Yeah, yeah, it's getting much better. You know. They now 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:31.399 are like half a dozen really good Indian places in 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.439 New York. So that that feels great because it felt 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:36.320 like a real you know, in this city which has 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.360 every kind of cuisine. Indian food was a kind of absence. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.920 But now why do you think that is not many? 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.439 I think Americans hadn't discovered India, yeah somehow, but now 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.520 they have. And you know, my view about eating and 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.040 working is that I've always thought work hungry. 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.400 You work hungry, you do eat later. 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:58.360 Yeah. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:17:59.160 Interesting? 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.639 Are you as a writer, are you attempted to get 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:03.560 to get up and down? You get up and go 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:05.360 look in the fridge and then close the door. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.119 Will you go into the kitchen? I think one of 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.840 the important things about writing is to stay. Sitting down. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:17.240 Helps New York. I always think that it is interesting. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.320 This is a diversion that Britain British food, which is 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:26.439 so I could say, quite bland and you know, unadventurous, and. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.560 People cook the traditional food they grew up with. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.919 But except for when I came to London, I couldn't 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.800 believe it how Indian culture had. You know, everybody can 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.679 make a curry, you know, or you know whether it's 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:40.720 a good curry or not. But then you'd go to 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.760 a small town outside of Britain will be an Indian restaurant. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.159 You know, there would be people selling all sorts of 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:49.320 chilis in the market. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.040 Now it's it's so interesting, but we. 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.600 Know why to do with an empire? 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:54.360 Just to do with an. 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.960 Not a very hard question to answer, but it was 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.760 to do with an empire. Then coming back I guess 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.280 and saying this is I had this fabulous food and 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:06.960 we have to learn. 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.160 Things I love to do when we come to London 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:17.320 is to sit at Salmon's sisters table Samine. Her cookbook 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.920 is amazing, but it's such a treat that she usually 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:26.560 cooks when we come to visit, and so everything she 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.439 makes is so delicious, and she'll have the chutney, and 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.640 she'll have the sauce and the somosas, or she's oh, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.000 I just put something together and it's like the best 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.199 thing you've ever tasted, and it's so good. And so 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.520 when I've kind of flipped through her her cookbook and 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.119 I look at the spices and things, I kind of 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.520 just feel so overwhelmed. But I know sooner or later 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.520 I need to be able to kind of get a 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.040 proper curry in my skill set. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:54.320 Yeah, I feel the same way. 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.320 Yeah. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.760 And then can we talk about the food in your 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:04.480 book and how you integrated and brought food in to 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:06.639 tell a story, a complex story? 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:07.399 Sure? 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.960 So, you know, one of the things I've always loved 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.879 when reading novels is food and how it's kind of 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.840 you know, how it's introduced to the reader and the 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.720 presence of it, Or novels where no one's eating you 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.719 kind of noticed, well, what were they eating? What exactly 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.840 are they drinking? Where are they what's in season? I think, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.439 I promise the two Black sisters who are the central 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:37.080 characters of the novel their coming of age in nineteen 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:41.840 fifty seven in a remote sea village in Maine, and 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.880 in that space which is very spare and bleak and 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:52.080 suddenly kind of hostile to them. The shelter of their 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:57.400 home and the relationship that their mother as a nurturer 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.480 has provided for them one of the things that is 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.120