Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's table for in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: One of Zoe Saldania's mantras in life is feel the
Speaker 2: fear and do it anyway. And what hasn't she done?
Speaker 2: She dances, she acts, she sings, she speaks several languages,
Speaker 2: and I think she loves to cook. Imagine my surprise
Speaker 2: couple of months ago in October, standing outside my office
Speaker 2: laptop and cook books in hand, with a large sign
Speaker 2: on the door saying do not disturb. And the reason
Speaker 2: for this wasn't a meeting with accountants or a broken radiator,
Speaker 2: but the fact that Zoe Saldania was changing into her
Speaker 2: dress for a lunch downstairs to celebrate the release of
Speaker 2: her brilliant new movie, Amelia Perez. After lunch, I took
Speaker 2: her hand and walked her to her car, talking about
Speaker 2: how to make the perfect rice. A few minutes later,
Speaker 2: we'd agreed to do a podcast together. And since then,
Speaker 2: it's been quite a time for Zoe. I've seen her
Speaker 2: everywhere on screen and newspapers, magazines and posters, and I'm
Speaker 2: thrilled that last month she won a Golden Globe and
Speaker 2: in February March she's this contender for both abaft add
Speaker 2: an Oscar. A lot has happened, and a lot is
Speaker 2: going to happen. But right now, what's happening is that
Speaker 2: Zoe is here with me on a Saturday morning in
Speaker 2: the River Cafe. It's our chance to sit down and
Speaker 2: talk about food, food and memories, food and family, no fear,
Speaker 2: just happiness and love.
Speaker 3: That was so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Well, it's true. It was such a quick meeting. It
Speaker 2: was you were here, it was Netflix was giving you lunch.
Speaker 2: Do you remember it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, And you just reminded me. We were talking
Speaker 3: about rice, about making rice, and we should have cooked
Speaker 3: rice today.
Speaker 2: We did. We cooked Go to the perfect race.
Speaker 3: Tell me it's very simple. We saw tr rice before
Speaker 3: we put the water in. So you put your pot
Speaker 3: on the stove. You wait for it to get nice
Speaker 3: and warm. You add the oil. Sometimes you can add
Speaker 3: the salt over the oil, or you can just wait
Speaker 3: until you put the rice, the washed rice rinsed. You
Speaker 3: put your rinsed rice in it. You saute it for
Speaker 3: at least two to three minutes, make sure that that
Speaker 3: it's just you know, it cooks a little bit, and
Speaker 3: then you put the water. So you wait for all
Speaker 3: that water to almost evaporate on very high heat. And
Speaker 3: then when it evaporates, then that's when you close your pot.
Speaker 3: And you then put the fire on simmer for twenty
Speaker 3: eight No lid in there, No, because the water has
Speaker 3: already it's already the rice has already soaked up all
Speaker 3: the water. The rice has expanded.
Speaker 2: And it's nice and kind.
Speaker 3: Of fluffy, but it's still very very odd. And then
Speaker 3: you cover it and you allow its own steam to
Speaker 3: cook it all the way into its you know, its
Speaker 3: cellular sort of you know component, and then you can
Speaker 3: you can have your rice.
Speaker 2: It's a certain type of rice, so long rain, long grain.
Speaker 3: Long grain. We don't necessarily cook with avodio unless we're
Speaker 3: making a soup that carries rice like a porridge in it,
Speaker 3: and we do. In the Caribbean. We make a lot
Speaker 3: of soups. Every island has.
Speaker 2: So dest from the from the rice to the soups.
Speaker 3: Well, you we make soups with provisions, which are those
Speaker 3: root vegetables from yucca, yeah me jaotia, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't know the names in English, so please forgive me.
Speaker 3: And then also with the plantains, some of them can
Speaker 3: have plantains and potatoes, and you either choose what kind
Speaker 3: of meat. Either it can be beef or pork or chicken.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you can also do a fish stew or a
Speaker 3: shrimp stewice a hardshell stew, and you cook all of
Speaker 3: those things down with really important greens that add so
Speaker 3: much flavor. And I think you guys use it a
Speaker 3: lot here in England, the koulantro, it's a coriander, I
Speaker 3: believe it's which in Spanish we call it because the
Speaker 3: cilantro that they use in Central and South America is
Speaker 3: the small leaf one that looks really like a four
Speaker 3: leaf clover, and but the ones that we use in
Speaker 3: the Caribbean is the really long leaf that when you
Speaker 3: slap it and you sort of make, you know, you
Speaker 3: open up all of it's like pores, and you put
Speaker 3: it into water or your tea or or broth. It's
Speaker 3: the most pungent, you know, smell and fragrance and taste.
Speaker 3: Suff So that's how I grew up, just making stews
Speaker 3: of all type soups.
Speaker 2: But but they vary from the winter soups to the
Speaker 2: summer soups.
Speaker 3: We'll make soup on the hottest day of summer, and
Speaker 3: it's always summer in the Caribbean, and but it's it
Speaker 3: cools you off as you're having something that's really hot
Speaker 3: or sometimes spicy. And the Medican Republic we're not really
Speaker 3: known for eating spicy spicy food. You can, but it's
Speaker 3: not something that is in name in our culture like
Speaker 3: it would be, for instance, in Mexico. But we do
Speaker 3: a lot of soups, and when you're having your soup
Speaker 3: on a very hot day, it just compels you to
Speaker 3: cool off, you know. It's like having a hot team
Speaker 3: and I just love it.
Speaker 2: So it must have been quite in many ways your
Speaker 2: early childhood, which you were born in.
Speaker 3: I was born New Jersey, Pa Sake, New Jersey, and
Speaker 3: I lived in New York because my family has been
Speaker 3: in New York since nineteen since the nineteen sixties, and
Speaker 3: I lived there until I was ten, and then when
Speaker 3: my father unexpectedly just tragically died in a car accident
Speaker 3: at he's thirty eight, it was still a kid. Then
Speaker 3: we all fly and we move to you know, where
Speaker 3: they're from in Dominican Republic, which is where I'm from,
Speaker 3: you know, at the root of my origin. And it
Speaker 3: was beautiful Dominican Republic and the Caribbean. Puerto Rico and
Speaker 3: Dominican Republic used to be places that we used to
Speaker 3: go to during the Christmas holiday summers. Of course we did, yes,
Speaker 3: we and we spoke Spanish at the house. But you
Speaker 3: speak English already at school, so you're I'm very much
Speaker 3: a one generation child in New York where you coach
Speaker 3: switch automatically and you don't even know what that means,
Speaker 3: and you eat rice and beans with your grandparents today.
Speaker 2: Did your grandparents live with you it is New York? Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: both sets?
Speaker 3: Or yes both sets?
Speaker 2: Did they go back with you when you when you
Speaker 2: went back? Yes, we used to.
Speaker 3: Well, growing up, I used to travel mainly with my grandparents.
Speaker 3: And that's you know, in our culture. I guess that
Speaker 3: was their version of giving, like my parents a break.
Speaker 3: So for two weeks, you know, they would fly with
Speaker 3: us ahead, you know, two weeks in advance, we would
Speaker 3: sort of take take it all in from from the
Speaker 3: gaze of your grandparents, of your no nos, your your abuelos,
Speaker 3: and then your parents would arrive with a great tan.
Speaker 3: They probably would go somewhere and reconnect, and and two
Speaker 3: weeks later that we were all together. We would spend
Speaker 3: the whole summer in Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2: A lot of people that I talked to from especially
Speaker 2: from different cultures, different family groups, talk a lot about
Speaker 2: their grandparents, almost more about their grandparents cooking than their parents.
Speaker 2: And as a mother, and now I'm a grandparent, I
Speaker 2: was saying last night at dinner that I really noticed
Speaker 2: the difference in the way that I cook for my
Speaker 2: children and the way I cook for my grandchildren. When
Speaker 2: you're cooking for your children, very often you're just trying
Speaker 2: to get food on the table because you've worked all day,
Speaker 2: or you know you're going out that night, or you
Speaker 2: want to see them. But they are more important things
Speaker 2: to do than to perhaps spend hours cooking for them.
Speaker 2: But when you're a grandchild, there's so much you just
Speaker 2: want to bring, the culture. You want to cook the
Speaker 2: food that they'll remember. It's part of the memory.
Speaker 3: Did you feel that with your Oh my god, absolutely,
Speaker 3: what you're saying just makes me want to cry. I
Speaker 3: just there is just so much love that my grandmother
Speaker 3: put in every dish that she was made. My grandmother
Speaker 3: was born in Dominican Republic in nineteen thirty five under
Speaker 3: the dictatorship of Trujillo dictator that that was in power
Speaker 3: for over thirty years. She was born and she was
Speaker 3: raised under this dictatorship, got married, had her daughter, my mom,
Speaker 3: and then in nineteen sixty one, after the assassination of
Speaker 3: this tyrant, they were granting passages, visas, work visas to Dominicans,
Speaker 3: and my grandmother was, I guess, in the first or
Speaker 3: a couple of waves of Dominicans that arrived in New
Speaker 3: York in the night in nineteen sixty one and would
Speaker 3: later then, you know, populate that uptown region of Manhattan
Speaker 3: that would which is now known as Washington Heights, which
Speaker 3: is basically you know, it's all very much the biggest
Speaker 3: Dominican diaspora outside of the Dominican Republic is in Washington
Speaker 3: Heights in Manhattan. And my grandmother was one of those
Speaker 3: I would say, first arrivors, you know, and worked. She
Speaker 3: was a seamstress and she worked for in factories and
Speaker 3: for some fashion houses throughout you know, those first two
Speaker 3: decades of her life there. My mother must have been
Speaker 3: my mom was born in fifty six, so she must
Speaker 3: have been five when my grandmother arrived in New York.
Speaker 3: But my mother stayed behind with her grandparents with my
Speaker 3: grandmother's parents in Santo Domingo, and then in the summer
Speaker 3: she would go to New York and spend it with
Speaker 3: my grandmother until she was fourteen, And at that age
Speaker 3: that's when my grandmother then moved my mom and her
Speaker 3: parents to New York. By the time I was born
Speaker 3: and we were living in New York, my great grandparents
Speaker 3: had already sort of flown and moved back and retired
Speaker 3: in the Dominican Republic. But they would always visit. So
Speaker 3: I remember every time they would visit, like every three months.
Speaker 3: We were a family that was always on a plane
Speaker 3: and still today, I've always been on a plane and
Speaker 3: they would open up the suitcases and they would bring
Speaker 3: Dominican Republic like their plantains and their their cheese. It's
Speaker 3: like we have a version of like a hallum cheese
Speaker 3: that you fry. That is the most delicious thing. Why
Speaker 3: that cheese, It's just it's just called you know, and
Speaker 3: they call it Kisofrito. I don't know if it's called
Speaker 3: something else, but they would bring it the blocks of it,
Speaker 3: and the moment she would open that suitcase and that
Speaker 3: cheese would pop out, she was immediately slicing it and
Speaker 3: throwing it in a hot, sizzling pan. And and then
Speaker 3: the salami you know, there was there was this this company,
Speaker 3: and Dominican Republic is still there. It's one of the
Speaker 3: biggest salami companies. We eat a lot of salami, but
Speaker 3: we fry our salami. We don't really we don't really
Speaker 3: eat it, like as I said, charcouterie, like you know,
Speaker 3: cold and stuff, we can, but not this particular salami.
Speaker 3: This one is free. This one is fried, and and
Speaker 3: we would just eat that as a snack. And then
Speaker 3: the plantains, where you know, I think I think we've
Speaker 3: inherited the eating of plantains from our Africans of origins.
Speaker 3: And you boil the plantains and you mash them with
Speaker 3: butter and salt, and and you eat them and they
Speaker 3: make it into like a paste. And it's called like
Speaker 3: a mangoo, which I know that in Africa and certain
Speaker 3: countries they call it like a fou fool, right, but
Speaker 3: we call it mangool. And you put them the fried
Speaker 3: salami and the fried cheese, and you grill some pic
Speaker 3: is over it, and we just all the smell ine.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: But the smell of that and our kitchen meant that that,
Speaker 3: you know, Abulita from Dominican Republic was in town. And
Speaker 3: we would for the whole two weeks that she was
Speaker 3: visiting with us, my great grandmother, we knew that we
Speaker 3: were going to eat well. And she would sometimes go
Speaker 3: to the markets, certain markets in Queens or she would
Speaker 3: she would venture out and sometimes go out there down
Speaker 3: downtown to Manhattan or go to Brooklyn, and she would
Speaker 3: buy the coconuts, like really good coconuts that they would
Speaker 3: bring from the Caribbean. What would she do with coconut desserts, desserts,
Speaker 3: all types of macaroons, and she would make like these
Speaker 3: biscuits that we call cocon and she would make those,
Speaker 3: or she would grab a spoon, a very big spoon
Speaker 3: on My grandmother, my great grandmother, was a you know,
Speaker 3: she was just like a like a very simple woman
Speaker 3: and there was nothing she could do that, you know,
Speaker 3: and she would scrape the coconut sort of meat out
Speaker 3: of the coconut and it would it would kind of
Speaker 3: curl up. She would scrape it and she would curl
Speaker 3: it up, and then she she would put it on
Speaker 3: a pan with sugar and baking soda and vanilla, and
Speaker 3: she would let that cook down and then it would
Speaker 3: dry up, and then she would divide in these little
Speaker 3: like rolls that it was ours so.
Speaker 2: Here here.
Speaker 3: And she was a feisty lady. By the time I
Speaker 3: was born, she was already great grandma. So she was
Speaker 3: just like very feisty, like a really really gritty woman,
Speaker 3: you know, and she would grab everything with her hand
Speaker 3: like she would she would. There was one story though,
Speaker 3: that the biggest your shock for us, you know, when
Speaker 3: we moved to a Dominican republic was just yeah, was
Speaker 3: just how closely we lived with nature. You know, Like
Speaker 3: she had her garden in the back, so she would
Speaker 3: get all her herbs and fruits and everything from her
Speaker 3: backyard and she would come in and this was It's
Speaker 3: kind of like when you gave me the tour in
Speaker 3: your kitchen, there wasn't a written menu. She would make
Speaker 3: the meatballs from scratch, you know. She would grind the meat.
Speaker 3: She had her grinder. I remember, like, oh, the grinder's out,
Speaker 3: and she would like it was like a transformer. It
Speaker 3: came like a lego piece. She would like put it
Speaker 3: all together, screw it up her and just put the
Speaker 3: salami and the meat. She would the rabbi by by
Speaker 3: the cheese and she would just grind that. And then
Speaker 3: I would sit there and she would come on rush
Speaker 3: your hands and she would put like oil on my hands.
Speaker 3: And then we would make meatballs. And I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. And then you try these meatballs and
Speaker 3: they were just I haven't had a meatball like like hers.
Speaker 2: You should make it. Yeah, well, you remember, is I
Speaker 2: have a different I have a Hungarian grandmother. The story
Speaker 2: is that she traveled with her rolling pin. That whatever
Speaker 2: she came to visit, she'd come out just one hundred
Speaker 2: miles from New York and she'd bring the rolling pin.
Speaker 2: And the famous story in our family was that she
Speaker 2: came to see her first grandson. My mother's my older brother,
Speaker 2: and she came. It's quite a long trip and she
Speaker 2: got to the door and they said, would you like
Speaker 2: to come and see your grandson? And she said, let's
Speaker 2: eat first, priorities. But what we're talking really about is,
Speaker 2: you know, to see your face light up, to see
Speaker 2: your memories, to feel and hear you. Is that food
Speaker 2: is so important?
Speaker 3: You know? Is that we're going to ask her to
Speaker 3: make this? Yeah, that salted codfish.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: She would also meant like like a curd melk dessert
Speaker 3: that was so good. And I think that the moment
Speaker 3: my great grandmother passed away, I stopped eating dessert because
Speaker 3: the only I don't I have a savory tooth. I
Speaker 3: don't have a sweet tooth, as you know, but only
Speaker 3: for hers, I would eat any any desserts that she
Speaker 3: would make. And then she got sick with Alzheimer's when
Speaker 3: I was sixteen, and she sort of slipped away from
Speaker 3: us mentally quite quite rapidly. And then we took care
Speaker 3: of her for eleven years. And I just remember looking
Speaker 3: at her, like when I was like nineteen or twenty,
Speaker 3: It's like, I'm never going to try anything your hands
Speaker 3: ever made. And that was I remember. I cried a
Speaker 3: lot when that sort of like realizes that. And she's
Speaker 3: right in front of me, and I was just painting
Speaker 3: her nails, you know, just a distractor, and I just
Speaker 3: looked at her and I was like, it's over.
Speaker 2: But she was an artist, you know. She was what
Speaker 2: you're talking about is an illusionist, like Moses creativity going
Speaker 2: in there, you know. And now probably maybe if she'd
Speaker 2: been at a different time, she might have been a chef,
Speaker 2: you know, she might given the pleasure that she came
Speaker 2: to you as a grandmother, as you know, one of
Speaker 2: the women in the kitchen right now. I had no
Speaker 2: option to say, well, actually, this is what I love
Speaker 2: in my work, and I'm like, this is what I'm
Speaker 2: going to create. I always think that cooking is a
Speaker 2: bit like art, you know, except art last forever.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: Somebody eats that lemon tart you've worked hours over and
Speaker 2: it's gone. You know it's they're your.
Speaker 3: Grandmother, my great grandmother, your great grandmother hand make You
Speaker 3: can make those memories last forever. You have to pass
Speaker 3: it down. I have a picture of my grandmother in
Speaker 3: my kitchen. She's the first person I see and the
Speaker 3: last I say. Good not too And by keeping her
Speaker 3: picture of her, we are keeping her alive. Because my
Speaker 3: sons they won't have the experience that I had with
Speaker 3: my grandmother and my great grandmother. They lost their great
Speaker 3: grandmother really young. So it's in the stories I do
Speaker 3: tell them.
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Speaker 2: shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk to place your order. Now,
Speaker 2: going back to going to the Dominican Republic at an
Speaker 2: early age, you discovered the food. You burn it in
Speaker 2: a place you knew, but in a different place, a
Speaker 2: different school. And was it also that you found that
Speaker 2: by eating and discovering food, but also by dancing that
Speaker 2: you were able to yea, you know, the tragedy of
Speaker 2: your father's life, the difficulty of living in a foreign country.
Speaker 2: How did dance affect you?
Speaker 3: Well, the foreign aspect of Dominican Republic sort of dissipated
Speaker 3: within the first couple of years because we are innately
Speaker 3: where our families come from. That's just undeniable. Dance became
Speaker 3: on a really important time in my life because trying
Speaker 3: to fit in and find my placement right when you're
Speaker 3: going into your early teenage years in terms of who
Speaker 3: am I, what am I? Why am I? And so
Speaker 3: going through all of that when it comes to discovering
Speaker 3: your identity while mourning the death of a very big
Speaker 3: figure in your life. The biggest figure in your life
Speaker 3: was your ten Oh, my dad was My dad was incredible.
Speaker 3: He played the guitar, he played the accordion. He was
Speaker 3: a very naturally curious person, very smart for business, danced
Speaker 3: very well. He and my mom they could have been arguing,
Speaker 3: but they would just get up and kind of like
Speaker 3: not face each other and still like like dance at
Speaker 3: all the birthday parties. And You're like, how could they
Speaker 3: do that? Like we're like sitting under a table just
Speaker 3: like marveling at just the polar you know, opposites of
Speaker 3: emotions that are being displayed in this beautiful, passionate dance
Speaker 3: that they're doing, which is mad anger salsa, and and
Speaker 3: they're just not looking at each other. And she would
Speaker 3: be like by by his left shoulder, like smoking her cigarette,
Speaker 3: like do do do do do dude, and he if
Speaker 3: he would turn to face her, she would do do
Speaker 3: do do do do do do? And you now I
Speaker 3: know that I'm like that night must have been banging
Speaker 3: for them, because you know that they were making love
Speaker 3: while they were Dad saying still and my dad. My
Speaker 3: dad was the was the one that taught my mom
Speaker 3: how to cook. Because my mom growing up as a
Speaker 3: single child with her grandparents while her mom was working
Speaker 3: in New York. My mom had everything made for her.
Speaker 3: She was spoiled by her grandparents. They gave her everything.
Speaker 3: She wore the best little outfits because my great grandmother,
Speaker 3: my mother and my grandmother were both seamstresses, so they
Speaker 3: would make everything from scratch, and she just had the
Speaker 3: best little outfits. So by the time she met my dad,
Speaker 3: she couldn't even boil an egg. And my dad was
Speaker 3: this could have been a chef. Oh my god. He
Speaker 3: would make just he would grill fish, he would grill meats,
Speaker 3: he would make the best beans, the best desserts. He knew.
Speaker 3: He was a baker, like just like a very self
Speaker 3: made kind of guy, you know. And even though they
Speaker 3: had different upbringings, my dad was just a lot more
Speaker 3: self sufficient and more independent than my mom. And my
Speaker 3: mom then you know, he taught her. So everything, everything
Speaker 3: that she does for us, it always comes with the
Speaker 3: memory of like, no, your dad used to make this
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night when I was pregnant
Speaker 3: with you guys, and blah blah blah blah blah. And
Speaker 3: so I at least I lived with the memories that
Speaker 3: she has been able to share with us, you know,
Speaker 3: because when you're ten, you remember just ten years. You
Speaker 3: documented ten years, and that's enough to me for me
Speaker 3: to last a lifetime. He was really on top of
Speaker 3: just hygiene and preparation, and with his Serio Valente jeans
Speaker 3: and his Calvin Klin like sweater. And my mom still
Speaker 3: remembers that. So I know I wasn't making it up,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't making this all fantastical, like she was like, No,
Speaker 3: that's the man that smelled the best I've ever met.
Speaker 2: Anybody dance with him.
Speaker 3: I was down on his feet. I come from a family,
Speaker 3: and I do know this that it is a cultural thing.
Speaker 3: We dance. We dance at funerals, We dance, had births.
Speaker 3: We dance. If you fail to test, we danced if
Speaker 3: you passed it. You know what I mean. It's you
Speaker 3: just dance, and you dance adding and you dance Alsa
Speaker 3: and neighbors all they can be doctors or architects, but
Speaker 3: they know how to play the gonghas, and they know
Speaker 3: how to play the drums and they'll come with a trumpet,
Speaker 3: and everybody sits in someone's backyard and you can see it.
Speaker 3: Even Puerto Rico is the same, Goolay is the same.
Speaker 3: Dominican Republic is very much that way. So I grew
Speaker 3: up just and and there's always everything is always a
Speaker 3: reason to have a party. It's somebody's it's somebody's baptism,
Speaker 3: and you sort of go, why are we having this parade? Like, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's a baptism, And you're like, but he's four. You're like,
Speaker 3: it's the biggest party, can last sixteen hours. And so
Speaker 3: I grew up always seeing great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins,
Speaker 3: teenagers dancing, everybody always dancing. So we dance.
Speaker 2: We did as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but that transition into dance was very different
Speaker 3: from what you do at home. Right. It was therapy.
Speaker 3: It was medicine for my soul. Yes, because I was
Speaker 3: I wasn't really acclimating enough.
Speaker 2: I just wasn't a Dominican Republic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mom says that we were, but I think
Speaker 3: it was just grieving. We were just you were grieving.
Speaker 3: It was something that happened to us was very traumatic.
Speaker 3: In children don't really describe trauma. They don't really say
Speaker 3: I am going through something right now. They either shut
Speaker 3: down or they overreact. They just whatever it is, they're
Speaker 3: just not themselves. And that's the sign. That's the indication
Speaker 3: that they've experienced trauma and they're still like in a
Speaker 3: state of shock and ballet. Ballet became my outlet, my place,
Speaker 3: my safe haven I would go to after school. It
Speaker 3: was an environment that I can go and test myself
Speaker 3: and challenge myself and learn something new. So when you're
Speaker 3: learning something new, that takes a lot of your attention
Speaker 3: and your time, and that's what I needed. I needed
Speaker 3: a lot to put all of my attention, all of
Speaker 3: my time into something that was going to give me
Speaker 3: some kind of release and relief, and Ballet did that.
Speaker 3: It almost became an obsession. I was very blessed in
Speaker 3: the sense that throughout my life I had really great
Speaker 3: role models that took my mom, my, sisters, and I
Speaker 3: in and either cooking a meal or teaching us yeah something,
Speaker 3: you know. We were taken in and we were told
Speaker 3: that we can believe in ourselves, that we can believe
Speaker 3: in love again, that we can believe in life again,
Speaker 3: that we can do this, and we began our healing process,
Speaker 3: but it didn't come that quickly.
Speaker 2: It's a kind of rigor, isn't that that when you're
Speaker 2: following a recipe or you're learning how to do first
Speaker 2: position sex position, That rigor of a discipline of doing
Speaker 2: something allows you then to come be free. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it gave me a confidence that I was
Speaker 3: beginning to lose. Studies show that children when they enter
Speaker 3: middle school, which is what you know, we were kind
Speaker 3: of about. We were still not out of elementary school
Speaker 3: when he passed away, but when the first couple of
Speaker 3: years after he was gone, we were entering middle school.
Speaker 3: That's around the time when children start losing their confidence.
Speaker 3: And I'm just happy that that ballet didn't allow me
Speaker 3: to lose it completely.
Speaker 2: And you went to New York. You went back to me.
Speaker 3: When I was seventeen, So from ten to seventeen, I
Speaker 3: was in Dominican Republic. By the time we were fourteen
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, we were beach heads. We were just
Speaker 3: like surfing. We were you you have a bad day,
Speaker 3: go to the beach. Yah. Yeah, you break your boyfriend
Speaker 3: breaks up with you, you go to the beach. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean? And and so we were always at
Speaker 3: the beach, we were always dancing, We were always at school, ballet,
Speaker 3: learning languages that sort of, you know. And then my
Speaker 3: mom found love again also when we were in Dominican Republic,
Speaker 3: by reconnecting with a childhood friend, and that began to
Speaker 3: also she began to kind of step out of her
Speaker 3: spell because my mom was in a really bad depression
Speaker 3: after my dad passed away for I would say like
Speaker 3: two to four years after he passed, and then she
Speaker 3: found love and they're still together, still married.
Speaker 2: Huh was that good for you? Yes?
Speaker 3: I was. I was fourteen. I think when they when
Speaker 3: they reconnected and they're still together, and he became he
Speaker 3: became my father. Yeah he is. He's a really good
Speaker 3: father and a really great husband, and he's funny and
Speaker 3: he's geeky, and yeah, he dances really great. So to
Speaker 3: see that my mom also was able to regain, you know,
Speaker 3: a good dancing partner, because dancing is really a part
Speaker 3: of who we are, alive, of our bank.
Speaker 2: You that into a profession for yourself when you came back,
Speaker 2: did you go to Julie did you?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, no no. I danced in like a
Speaker 3: little Academy in Queens that I had to take a
Speaker 3: train and two buses for every day after school. It
Speaker 3: wasn't the same. I still kept at it, you know,
Speaker 3: for I would say two more years. By the time
Speaker 3: I was like to eighteen, about to be nineteen, I
Speaker 3: had already kind of started meddling with acting.
Speaker 2: So you went to auditions, tell us about just.
Speaker 3: One thing led to another. I had. I knew nothing
Speaker 3: about that way anything. I just knew that I was
Speaker 3: going to dance. And I guess, once I graduate high school,
Speaker 3: maybe I'll go to Sunny Purchase if I'm lucky enough
Speaker 3: and I really want to pursue this all, go to
Speaker 3: Yale and master in some kind of dance or psychology.
Speaker 3: And so I was starting to already think about that
Speaker 3: and working with the dean and your in your high
Speaker 3: school and everything. But deep, deep down, I had no
Speaker 3: desire of doing any of those things because I realized
Speaker 3: I had reached my glass ceiling in ballet ballet, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to shatter it. I just I didn't
Speaker 3: have the feet, and I was getting really tired of
Speaker 3: just punishing myself for not being good enough. And I
Speaker 3: had too much hunger in me that just being in
Speaker 3: the core of a company wasn't going to cut it
Speaker 3: for me if it cuts it for other people. I
Speaker 3: wished I was more like other people at that time,
Speaker 3: other dancers, but I wasn't, and I would pass by
Speaker 3: all these little theaters. When I was in Manhattan. My
Speaker 3: mom would only let me go with my sister to Kapezio,
Speaker 3: to the store in fifty seven and Columbus to go
Speaker 3: buy my shoes and go buy some leotards. Whenever I
Speaker 3: was like running out and it was like you come
Speaker 3: straight back. I hop on the train and comes straight
Speaker 3: back to Queens. But there was they were holding these auditions,
Speaker 3: and there was this little sign, yeah, like on the
Speaker 3: basement of like this brownstone uptown and it said New
Speaker 3: York Youth Theater holding auditions for the Wiz. And I
Speaker 3: looked at my sister, who at the time she was
Speaker 3: smoking cigarettes and she wasn't supposed to, so obviously she
Speaker 3: brings me into the city. She's like buys her pack
Speaker 3: a cigarettes and she's just smoking away as she's being
Speaker 3: like my chaperone, and I'm like, Marie, can I go
Speaker 3: check this out really quickly? And then we take the
Speaker 3: train and home and she's like looking look like her
Speaker 3: cigarette and kind of goes for yeah, sure and then
Speaker 3: puts it out. We go inside, we audition and no, no, no,
Speaker 3: she just she was there, signs me up and everything,
Speaker 3: and you know, but mind she's only a year older.
Speaker 3: It's not like she's much older than I am. But
Speaker 3: we were always partners and crying. My sisters and I.
Speaker 3: I auditioned for it, and I get called back for
Speaker 3: the Whiz. Yes, but it was like a small off
Speaker 3: off off that way.
Speaker 2: The other tribes of this story, these probably guys and actors,
Speaker 2: standing that this little girl, she's walked off the street,
Speaker 2: she wants to audition. Okay, you know, we'll do it.
Speaker 2: We have to do it, and it's you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they were so nice they called me back.
Speaker 3: I remember waiting for that phone call. Every time the
Speaker 3: phone in my house would would ring, I'd be like,
Speaker 3: I got it, I got it, hello, you know. And
Speaker 3: finally it was them, and I think my sister took
Speaker 3: the call and she said, they're calling you back, so
Speaker 3: now we have to tell our parents. So I remember
Speaker 3: we did. I waited for my mom to come home
Speaker 3: from work and and I was like, well, don't be upset.
Speaker 3: But we I did audition for this place and I
Speaker 3: got called back, and she was just like, okay, what
Speaker 3: about ballet. I'm like, I don't know. I just they're
Speaker 3: just calling me for it's a call back. It's like,
Speaker 3: what's a call back. I don't even know what a
Speaker 3: callback was. What's a call back? I guess it's just
Speaker 3: the second round. It's not like I got it, it's
Speaker 3: just the second round. I'm so sorry. And then at
Speaker 3: this point, my mom takes off from work and she
Speaker 3: takes me with my sister for the callbacks, and I
Speaker 3: remember there was I'm reading for the role of the scarecrow.
Speaker 2: Guys. I sucked so bad.
Speaker 3: I hate my lines, but I can dance, I can
Speaker 3: do whatever. And my mom leans over to my sister
Speaker 3: and says, oh, boy, I guess that's what she wants
Speaker 3: to do, because I guess I was really bad at
Speaker 3: the audition because they're watching it. They're sitting in the
Speaker 3: theater and they're allowing the parents to watch the children
Speaker 3: because we're all miners. I was seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen,
Speaker 3: and my mom was like, oh, oh, am on, okay,
Speaker 3: this is what she wants to do. So then we
Speaker 3: all went back to the house. When I booked it,
Speaker 3: I didn't book the role of the scarecrow, but I
Speaker 3: booked to be like in the core. We go back
Speaker 3: and it's the news. Now we've told my grandmother, my stepdad,
Speaker 3: and my younger sister, Oh my god. But we're looking
Speaker 3: at the schedule with if I take off from work,
Speaker 3: then you can take Zoe, then maybe I'll pick her up.
Speaker 3: So at this point we're all We've always been a team.
Speaker 3: But we realized that with all my ballet commitments and
Speaker 3: I had to recital, there was just no way that
Speaker 3: I could do it without failing this academy, which I'd
Speaker 3: granted me a scholarship to dance.
Speaker 2: So happened.
Speaker 3: I called them up and I said, I can't do it,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I realized that my commitments with
Speaker 3: ballet are far greater and I just can't really do
Speaker 3: what but my younger sister can. And they were like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm like, she looks just like me. People things were
Speaker 3: twins and she used to dance, and at that time,
Speaker 3: my sister was going through like a really hard time,
Speaker 3: just sixteen years old. Can't fit in theater, just gave
Speaker 3: her what ballet had given me in my early years,
Speaker 3: so I say it for the poor. They did, and
Speaker 3: she started doing you know, she did the Whiz and
Speaker 3: she did Bye Bye Birdie. Then she did Jesus Christ Superstar,
Speaker 3: and she did a whole bunch of productions with this
Speaker 3: theater company for I would say like five six years.
Speaker 3: So all into like her, like twenty until she was
Speaker 3: like twenty years old or twenty one. I joined at once.
Speaker 3: I stopped dancing. Then I joined this other theater group
Speaker 3: in Brooklyn, and then they hired me. I did it
Speaker 3: through like an internship program from school, and then after
Speaker 3: I graduated high school, then they gave me a job
Speaker 3: with full coverage. I was eighteen, So I'm in this
Speaker 3: theater group in Brooklyn. My sister's the one in Broadway
Speaker 3: in Manhattan. So she's the one with all jazz hands
Speaker 3: and Bye Bye Bertie. And I'm writing skits about urban
Speaker 3: life and domestic violence and drug addiction with a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of kids and this other and we're performing in hospitals,
Speaker 3: in high schools and jails. Like I went to sing,
Speaker 3: sing to perform, you know, with this theater troupe, and
Speaker 3: I loved it because it was raw. It was awesome,
Speaker 3: but it was just dangerous. My mom just didn't want
Speaker 3: me going to Brooklyn. So one day she tells, my
Speaker 3: sister just convinced her, because I was also dating a
Speaker 3: guy that didn't want me dating whatever, just convinced her
Speaker 3: to audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat
Speaker 3: at your theater and then we'll get her out of Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: I was I think, I was like I was nineteen.
Speaker 3: It all happened really fast. This was nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: So I auditioned and I booked the role of missus Potiphar,
Speaker 3: and I really had fun, and I decided to stay
Speaker 3: with the production and with my sister, well at that
Speaker 3: point was doing more production work than being on stage
Speaker 3: because she's always had a good eye. And there was
Speaker 3: a manager in the room and signed signed me and
Speaker 3: started sending me out immediately for soap operas and shows
Speaker 3: like episodics and commercials, and and I started booking things
Speaker 3: left and right.
Speaker 2: It left home by then. Or are you living still
Speaker 2: at home?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, no, no, oh my god, no, we're
Speaker 3: such a I'm still living with my parents.
Speaker 2: So you were still being cooked for I'm getting to
Speaker 2: the food.
Speaker 3: That yes, oh, my grandmother this point, my grandmother was
Speaker 3: always with us and and her husband and they lived.
Speaker 3: You know, my mom and my grandmother always lived within
Speaker 3: a block from each other or in the next building
Speaker 3: of each other. And that's how we grew up in
Speaker 3: Queens where I would open the window of my bedroom
Speaker 3: and go aha, and she would open her window gay
Speaker 3: and you would go in the jon. And this is
Speaker 3: how you greet all of your elders. You say bless me,
Speaker 3: and then they always respond, May God bless you. That's
Speaker 3: how you greet them. And that's how you say good night.
Speaker 3: In Spain you do it as well. And benizion and
Speaker 3: then she would literally come over from her apartment and
Speaker 3: her pjs and and come inside our apartment. What do
Speaker 3: you want? It's like Papa Mango, so beata.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe when you said lunch is now running
Speaker 2: from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking a www. Rivercafe
Speaker 2: dot co dot uk or give us a call. Did
Speaker 2: you ever have an apartment by yourself or did you did?
Speaker 3: I learned to cook. I remember I started doing pepper steak.
Speaker 3: I would make pepper steak all the time, like what
Speaker 3: is it with pepper steak? Like I would just make
Speaker 3: pepper steak pepper steak. And my mom is like, okay, great,
Speaker 3: So now why don't you learn to make beans? And
Speaker 3: I remember I called hi. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: are you sitting down. I figured out a way to
Speaker 3: make beans that I don't think you've ever done before.
Speaker 3: And she's like, let's hear it, you know, and she's well,
Speaker 3: I'm like, mom, I do the sofrito on the side
Speaker 3: and then I put it into the beans. And she
Speaker 3: was just like, Zoe, that's great, baby, that is so awesome.
Speaker 3: I'm so proud of you. If I remember, I'm like.
Speaker 2: So you can remember this when you were appearing on
Speaker 2: stage and you're doing the pride came also in the cooking.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, because even though I was I was living
Speaker 3: in Tribecca, so a little far from Queens. I was
Speaker 3: getting like home set.
Speaker 2: Were you dating a lot? We were going out with
Speaker 2: people I was.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: The next question is connected.
Speaker 3: I was a serial monogamer and I should have been
Speaker 3: more wild, you know, but I was always in relasion.
Speaker 2: Would you ever date somebody who didn't care about food?
Speaker 2: Could you imagine being in love with somebody who wasn't No, yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I. I always would fall for the guys that
Speaker 3: were homebodies, that were close to their families, that were
Speaker 3: very you know, they liked to be home and cozy.
Speaker 3: I didn't like the party.
Speaker 2: Finally fell for your husband to he's Italian.
Speaker 3: Yes, and he's a single child. So and he's Italian.
Speaker 3: So the sun rises and set some modical bayre Goo
Speaker 3: and he looks like the Catholics version of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: For a reason. He is sensitive and super just kind.
Speaker 3: He's a really he's the kindest person I've ever met
Speaker 3: in my life. And he cooks.
Speaker 2: And he grew up in Coma and.
Speaker 3: His family they owned a little restaurant and the cafe,
Speaker 3: and at one point they owned a bar. And it's no,
Speaker 3: they're they're in La with us. They're in the States.
Speaker 3: Because he's an only child. So for me, for me,
Speaker 3: it just made sense that I just want I wanted
Speaker 3: my kids to grow up with their grandparents from both
Speaker 3: sides the way that I grew up with mine, because
Speaker 3: I honestly feel that more than half of who I
Speaker 3: am was defined by the love that I received the unconditional,
Speaker 3: you know, love that I received by my grandparents and
Speaker 3: great grandparents.
Speaker 2: And so you tell us about your cooking world with him.
Speaker 2: You have two sons, three three boys.
Speaker 3: But Madigo was definitely an Italian, you know, dandy chat
Speaker 3: mean pirate. When I met him, you know, and I
Speaker 3: just I remember he was always like got am bah
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I'm from Queens, New York. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: come on, where's your voice going here? Because he was
Speaker 3: always a kid. He's an artist, well, I disciplinary is
Speaker 3: a sculptor and a painter and a conceptual artist. And
Speaker 3: now he's a director. But he does everything manco just
Speaker 3: lives in the part and that's really he creates exactly.
Speaker 3: And I just remember when we met, I was always
Speaker 3: so hard and he was like, I want to take
Speaker 3: you to go and I want you to try the
Speaker 3: best pizza in the world. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: The best pizza on Prince Street. You know, I was,
Speaker 3: come on, kid, what are you talking about? And I
Speaker 3: just remember we we go to Napoli, we do the
Speaker 3: whole thing, We eat the pizza Brita. It's amazing. And
Speaker 3: then cut to you, like a week later, we're on
Speaker 3: some sidewalk in New York and we're having a slice
Speaker 3: of pizza and he looks at me. He goes, see,
Speaker 3: without a doubt, a New York slice is the best
Speaker 3: in the world. And I'm like, Pappy, I told you,
Speaker 3: come on, come on, man. I know you got Italy,
Speaker 3: but I got New York.
Speaker 2: Baby. My friend who has a group of friends and
Speaker 2: they go out every once a month finding the best
Speaker 2: pizza place in New York. They've come up with one
Speaker 2: in Jersey they love they have.
Speaker 3: Oh there's one in Jersey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'll find out.
Speaker 3: You gotta tell me.
Speaker 2: I will well, because another friend of mine did it
Speaker 2: as well. He went, they kind of like this place.
Speaker 2: I think it's in Jersey City. Do you like Italy?
Speaker 2: Do I love that?
Speaker 3: Now? It's it's home for me. It's it's it's half
Speaker 3: of who I am.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Where do you go?
Speaker 3: My favorite region is Liuia. There's something really beautiful about
Speaker 3: the Italian Riviera.
Speaker 2: Do you go to the chic Utera.
Speaker 3: We rented a house one time in sestri Levand there
Speaker 3: in the middle of summer, just to see all these
Speaker 3: Italian families come from all over Italy to vacation in
Speaker 3: sestri Lelande, which is you know, it's close to Chincoda,
Speaker 3: it's just forty minutes, but it's like a melting pot
Speaker 3: of this beautiful social your economic you know, communities and
Speaker 3: so very working class, very upper class, but they're all
Speaker 3: together and the beach, taking their kids to the fair.
Speaker 3: So we love doing that. We definitely always go to
Speaker 3: Lago de Gadada to visit the family who's still there,
Speaker 3: and in other towns that are neighboring to Lago de Gadada.
Speaker 3: Milan is always a place where we we we're just there.
Speaker 3: We land in Milan and from there we drive everywhere.
Speaker 3: We've been in Florence, all through Tuscany, Rome. I need
Speaker 3: to explore Rome more because I'm a little now that
Speaker 3: my husband is from the north, I'm a little Northerner now.
Speaker 3: I'm always like, it's those vals. I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: like it's no and so hot and be there's too anything,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah. B Marco loves Rome and there's
Speaker 3: something really beautiful about the Italian culture that you can
Speaker 3: you can ask a little four year old, Yeah, but
Speaker 3: why do you how does your nor not make your
Speaker 3: boss La Basila nola blah blah blah blah, and they
Speaker 3: tell you all the ingredients. I'm like, how good a
Speaker 3: four year old little boy know how to make this pasta?
Speaker 3: And it's like thirty thousand days with four simple ingredients,
Speaker 3: and they just they're so versatile and so the Italian
Speaker 3: cuisine and its simplicity. For me, it's one of the
Speaker 3: best cuisines in the world. It's just so beautiful and
Speaker 3: there's so much love in it. There's just so much love,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I just think.
Speaker 2: That, well, it made sense to have lunch. But before
Speaker 2: we do, Amelia Paris, we should talk about them. That's
Speaker 2: how we met. Yes, we met over a movie and
Speaker 2: you are deeply involved in the season for the prizes,
Speaker 2: but making of it, it would be interesting to feel
Speaker 2: just being on that movie what it meant to you.
Speaker 3: I was so excited. It is not the first time
Speaker 3: I've worked in Paris. I did. I did parts of
Speaker 3: a film that I was in called Colombiana years before
Speaker 3: in Paris, and the sound sound stages, same sound stages
Speaker 3: that I did. I did. Yeah, there are like forty
Speaker 3: minutes outside of the center of Paris. I'm super great.
Speaker 3: The French hours are very much like Italian hours. They
Speaker 3: don't like to overwork, so it's not like the English
Speaker 3: and the South Americans. We're like, fourteen hours not enough,
Speaker 3: let's keep shooting, and you're like, wait, wait, we've done eight.
Speaker 3: It's enough.
Speaker 2: Because I always hear French hours big the way you
Speaker 2: eat as well that this is it called French howers
Speaker 2: when you don't have lunch.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I don't know where that comes from, because
Speaker 3: the French are very much like Boom. They're like, okay,
Speaker 3: let me put this down, let's go eat. They sit down.
Speaker 3: Back in the day when I was shooting Caulomena, they
Speaker 3: would have some bottles of wine on the table. Now
Speaker 3: you don't, but that's okay. But you eat so well.
Speaker 3: Nobody gives you a styrofoam plate and with plastic things
Speaker 3: like we do in other parts of the world where
Speaker 3: we shoot. Everybody has, you know, silverware and a plate.
Speaker 3: And you sit down and we all talk and and
Speaker 3: everybody takes a break and we really eat, and then
Speaker 3: everybody goes smokes the cigarette drinks. They're shot of us,
Speaker 3: but so and then we go work. But you do
Speaker 3: your eight to ten hours and then everybody goes home.
Speaker 3: You come home and I'm I'm shooting in Paris. You're
Speaker 3: having a baguette and a bottle of wine. You know,
Speaker 3: you're debriefing with Selena, with Edgar, with Godla. You know,
Speaker 3: you're talking about what you're doing and why is this
Speaker 3: special for you and how it impacted your life. Godless
Speaker 3: teaching us about the trans experience by just sharing anecdotes
Speaker 3: of her life that no matter how painful, dark or bright,
Speaker 3: they've shaped her identity. And I'm learning from Selena. I'm
Speaker 3: getting to work up close and personal with this pop star.
Speaker 3: On paper, she's a pop star, when in reality she's
Speaker 3: a decent and an incredible human being, so talented, with
Speaker 3: such great taste. Boss Lady, Edgar's just sexy. Edgar's so classy,
Speaker 3: so worldly. You know, he grew up he was born
Speaker 3: in Europe, and he grew up partially in South America
Speaker 3: and Europe and speaks like five languages. And so and
Speaker 3: we're all here and Adriana. Adriana comes as this Queen
Speaker 3: of Mexico with so much recognition, awards, such great body
Speaker 3: of work, and we're all excited to be here with
Speaker 3: Jack you know who who has been at some point
Speaker 3: in our lives and in our careers just an icon
Speaker 3: and a giant in his own right, and our hearts
Speaker 3: were open.
Speaker 2: Did you discover the restaurants so that you ate a
Speaker 2: lot in the eleventh at those new restaurants are so interesting?
Speaker 3: Are they are? They are a lot.
Speaker 2: Of young cooks were doing different wines, different food.
Speaker 3: Well. And to realize too that as city folks in Paris,
Speaker 3: like they have their version of Asian food that is
Speaker 3: like their everyday food and its numbs. It's Vietnam Vietnamese food.
Speaker 3: And I just remember having like the best Vietnamese food
Speaker 3: in Paris. And and but I know, but always always
Speaker 3: going back to my default of es cargo, a bottle
Speaker 3: of Saint Emilion and maybe some a duck com feet.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just what I m go to. But
Speaker 3: every now and then I always yearned for Asian flavors
Speaker 3: or for most cultures. There's great Argentine restaurants there, there's
Speaker 3: great Italian. There's the sushi scene. I haven't really tapped
Speaker 3: into the Japanese scene, but everybody loves sushi in Paris.
Speaker 3: But I'm just so busy having real typical French food
Speaker 3: and having Italian and Argentine food. It's like it's I
Speaker 3: just you know, everybody loves you, but nah, that's in
Speaker 3: all these things.
Speaker 2: And how did the film? We should talk about more
Speaker 2: about film? Are you here to do work for the
Speaker 2: movie now at all?
Speaker 3: It's so, you know, we have we have seventeen we
Speaker 3: have what nineteen more days before the voting. Voting opens
Speaker 3: on the eleventh of February, and then they close, I
Speaker 3: believe on the nineteen. So I guess this is very
Speaker 3: new territory for me, and I've enjoyed, you know, the
Speaker 3: whole process. And to me, the everything that was being
Speaker 3: put together was all in favor of complementing these four
Speaker 3: women's journey, and their journeys were not you know, they
Speaker 3: weren't great to say that, but they were so real
Speaker 3: and they were so human, and they were so diverse
Speaker 3: in their own right. You know, with a trans woman
Speaker 3: with a young woman that was the you know, the
Speaker 3: wife of a crime lord, with a lawyer, with a
Speaker 3: battered woman that was trying to run away from a
Speaker 3: domestic sort of abusive situation. And they're all just in
Speaker 3: a way interconnected and looking for their most authentic selves
Speaker 3: and that is what drew me.
Speaker 2: And we're all in all of the movie and all
Speaker 2: of what you. Thank you. And so I think that
Speaker 2: you've described life of happiness, of struggle, of loss, of grief,
Speaker 2: of joy, children finding love. And there have been times
Speaker 2: when obviously you've found comfort in dance. You'd say you've
Speaker 2: found comfort in your family. And there is also times
Speaker 2: when we seafood is not staving off hunger or expressing something,
Speaker 2: but it is pure come for. My last question to
Speaker 2: you is to say, if you needed comfort, and I
Speaker 2: hope you don't, but if you did, is there a
Speaker 2: food that you would turn to?
Speaker 3: Any Dominican stew cures me, heals me. And now that
Speaker 3: my husband has been in my life, an he's such
Speaker 3: a big part of who we are and the same
Speaker 3: way I am a big part of who he is.
Speaker 3: Any Italian stew as well, Tenny Lisoto, I will take.
Speaker 3: And I do have to say that the older I get,
Speaker 3: the more I am connecting with my mother's through food,
Speaker 3: the farm to table, the growing something and making something
Speaker 3: with your bare hands has been an event that just
Speaker 3: keeps growing, an act, a process that keeps growing in me,
Speaker 3: and it's just bigger and bigger, and I just I
Speaker 3: bake the bread for my boys, even though I'm here
Speaker 3: promoting a movie. Right before I left, I baked their bread.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start making their yogurt. I just all
Speaker 3: the things that they actively eat. And I know that
Speaker 3: the pasta eventually I will have to make it on
Speaker 3: my own, because the more and more I'm educating myself
Speaker 3: about the kind of food that is out there today,
Speaker 3: which is very different to the food that I ate
Speaker 3: as a child. A lot of our ailments come from food,
Speaker 3: and I just want my children to always become particular
Speaker 3: eaters and always yearn for things that are fresh and
Speaker 3: well made and properly handled versus whatever is in that
Speaker 3: I can throw in this instant thing and it can
Speaker 3: give me something super back, give me something back quickly.
Speaker 3: So we make everything from scratch. I make their bone
Speaker 3: broth from scratch. I bake their you know, their their
Speaker 3: banana bread, and I put a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 3: in it, you know, in their meatballs. I put all
Speaker 3: the veggies that I can process, you know, I can,
Speaker 3: I can you know, blend in it. And that way
Speaker 3: they creating a palate that is just inflexible for bad food.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, because it's it's the way
Speaker 3: that I was raised. I'm still the kind of person
Speaker 3: that because I was raised on such great flavors and
Speaker 3: such organic ways of eating, I can't just go anywhere
Speaker 3: to eat. I will refuse and I will kindly pass
Speaker 3: and drink tea, you know, until my next sob where
Speaker 3: I can eat something fresh. And my husband is the
Speaker 3: same way, so we want our kids to sort of
Speaker 3: grow up that way.
Speaker 2: Well, you're a woman of values. It's strong and strong
Speaker 2: and no fear.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair