WEBVTT - Linda Evangelista 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.600 Johnny, I've pulled me over at a dinner recently in London. Ruthie, 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:09.560 come and meet my great friend Linda Evangelista. Well, I 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.840 thought there'd be lots of topics to discuss, what it's 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.480 like to be in her profession, what it's like to 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.639 have worked with the world's greatest photographers, and to have 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.959 done so much work in fashion. But Linda greeted me 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:29.480 with so much enthusiasm. Ruthie Rogers the River Cafe. Wow. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.520 All she really wanted to do was talk about food, 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.680 where to eat, what she cooks for her son, how 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:40.120 a restaurant kitchen works. Linda's the opposite of cool. She's warm, 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:44.640 She's engaging and curious. I realize we're pretty much the same. 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.320 She loves being home, I love being home. She adores 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.840 her son, I adore mine. I'm not a model, she's 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.600 not a chef. But we shared an immediate intimacy, so 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.680 we thought, let's continue this conversation on table four. And 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.680 here we are today in New York with my newest 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.080 and loveliest, warmest, most wonderful friend, Linda Evangelista. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:10.520 Thank you so much. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:13.560 So it is true that's how we met, You know, 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.400 we met over food. We then saw each other again 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.800 over food, and here we are. I love podcasts, which 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.880 is really talking about memories and how we cook and 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.200 what we grew up with. So we have heard one 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.880 of the things we love to eat is nyoki, and 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.640 so we have a recipe for you to read, which 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.160 is knochi with slow cooked tomato sauce. You would like 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.760 to read the recipe, and when you read it, you 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.520 can change it, you can question it, you can add 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:44.959 to it or take away. But that's the recipe that 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.360 was in our most recent cookbook. It's a book for children, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.360 so it's quite a kind of simplification of how to 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.000 make yaki. But we can talk more about that after 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:55.440 you read the recipe. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.320 Okay, this is great to see something in writing, because 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.040 I learned to make yocchi with my grandmother, but it 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.840 was never written down. And it was a little bit 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.360 of this and this, many eggs depending how big they are, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.840 and some potatoes. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.880 Yeah, and some potatoes. That's how we learned to I mean, 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.560 that's a beautiful way to learn. She did she ever 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:19.520 write anything down? 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.640 She couldn't write. Yeah, she didn't know how to write. 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.280 She didn't know how to write. English. She didn't write all. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.440 She didn't know how to write it. Also as a peasant. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.840 She was born in Italy, as was my father and 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:32.639 my mother and all my grandparents. 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:33.960 And do you speak Italian? 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.560 Very badly? I speak it, and my family speaks dialect. 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.639 I know you're friend and proper Italian, but at home 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.480 they speak dialect. My parents spoke English to us growing up, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.960 and only when they were arguing did they speak to 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.880 each other in Italian. So I can tell you where 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.079 to go in Italian, but I can't ask you are 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:56.760 you having a nice day? 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:03.240 Or kind words? It's been Richard Dad's father had Italian 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.240 parents and he had the same thing that he heard 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.600 Italian spoken again, a very similar story when there was 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.639 an argument, I think, and then when he did learn Italian, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:13.720 a lot of it came back because he had kind 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:14.760 of grown up for it. Right. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.639 So this grandmother, she never did learn him to speak English. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:24.160 And in our neighborhood it was quite Polish, some Ukrainians 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.000 and Italians. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:25.600 Where was it? 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.359 Where was the name Saint Catharine's, Ontario, Canada, across the 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.600 lake from Toronto in Niagara Region, right near the border 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.200 of the United States, And my grandmother went to Italian mass, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.000 shopped at the Italian store, worked picking fruit on the 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.280 farm with the Italian ladies, so she didn't really need 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.840 to speak English. I remember how excited they all got 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.960 that generation when Canada went metric. I was about ten 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.720 years old or so, I approximately, and then they ender stood, oh, 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.400 this is how many grams of meat I'm buying? And 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.200 so they were very happy when that happened. 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.520 When did they leave. The family comes from between Naples 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:11.560 and Rome. 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.520 Yes, it's a town called Pinatado Interamna, which is near 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.800 Casino and Monte Casino, where the big battle of World 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:27.240 War two took place. And my father would have come over, 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.000 and he was born in nineteen forty and I think 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.240 he came over nineteen fifty six. And my mother was 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.160 born in forty three inch came over in nineteen fifty. 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.320 And the grandmother that you were describing was that your 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:39.920 mother's mother. 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.719 That was my father's mother, but my mother's mother's kind 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:44.239 of the same. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.400 And they all came, they all eventually, they were all yes. 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.000 And they came with the few belongings that they had. 0:04:52.960 --> 0:05:00.359 And I have the two handmade hammered copper pop that 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.720 my one grandmother came over with and she would make 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.279 her Sunday you know, tomato sauce in and I have them. 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:13.400 They're like there are precious belongings. There's no painting, there's 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.760 no paintings. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.599 Yes, sauce fam is a memory and it is what 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.560 she cooked with, so bring that with her was part 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.039 of her. Why did they leave? 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.680 You know, they left in search of a better life. 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:33.000 They had lost everything. Well, they didn't have anything much. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.720 They worked their land, so it's not like they had 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:42.679 vocations and they just went in search of a better 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.719 life for their children. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.680 In Canada rather than the United States. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.840 Well, they were heading to the United States, but at 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.320 the time they closed their doors and then they were 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.960 not receiving any more immigrants. And somebody in the United 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.040 States found a sponsor for my grandfather in Canada, and 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.719 the other one similar story. So, yeah, one grandfather was 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.160 a prisoner of war. They were both in the war. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.360 My grandfathers My mom was born during the war forty. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.600 Three and she spoke Italian. 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.559 She speaks proper and dialect. She speaks both. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.120 When you say dialect, do you mean the dialect of 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.600 that region between Yeah, and. 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.799 It gets even worse because then you know, it takes 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.120 on a life of its own in Canada, not quite 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.880 like the way the Americans. They like totally butchered the language. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:34.880 And I don't like the way they cut off the 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.120 ends of the words when they say mozzarella. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.800 When they say mozzarell, I know that's Tony Soprano. Do 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.560 you remember Tony's in watching the Sopranos, they would always call 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:50.800 it mozzarell. Yeah. Yeahs. And so your mother also, your 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.880 mother had both her mother and her mother in law 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.520 correct with her. Yeah. And did they all cook together? Yeah? 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.159 I think early on they did. And you know my 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:07.400 mother is because she came over quite young, she got 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.560 quite americanized, and you know she she you know, she 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:16.720 has an education and she cooks with recipes she but 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.480 she also has all the recipes in her head, like 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:21.960 what she grew up making. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:23.840 Who is the best cook of all of them? Do 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.600 you think me? You good? Okay, we're gonna get to that. 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.160 I like your answer. Okay, So do you want to 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.520 read the recipe TOI with Tomato sauce Ganaki? 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:40.120 I'm joking, okay. Yaki with tomato sauce served six in 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:45.800 my family, three one yeah, okay, two tablespoons of extra 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:52.560 virgin olive oil. Two clothes of garlic finally sliced. I 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.240 would say a little, you can add more? 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:55.800 Yeah, okay, good? 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:01.920 Eight hundred grams of ten peeled plum tomatoes. One kilogram 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.160 of white floury potatoes. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.320 Your grandma will be happy that this is in grams. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.840 Wouldn't yet she would one hundred and thirty grams of 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:16.720 double zero flour, one large egg, lightly beaten, and ten 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.800 basal leaves interesting. Heat the olive oil in a large 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.320 frying pan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:30.679 cook until soft. Add the tomatoes, breaking them up, season well, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.400 and cook for thirty minutes on low heat. Bring a 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.280 large saucepan of salted water to a boil and add 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.480 the potatoes and cook until they are easily pierced with 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.600 a fork. Drain and peel when they are cool enough 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:50.000 to handle. Immediately. Put the potatoes through a food milk 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.840 and then sift the flour over them, making a well 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.360 in the center. Add the beaten egg, using your hands, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.480 quickly mixed to form a smooth, soft dough. Do not 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.000 overwork the dough or you will make the nyoki too heavy. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.320 Divide the dough into four using your hands. Roll the 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.800 dough into a sausage and then cut into pieces. Cook 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.599 the yoki until they rise to the surface. Remove the 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.920 yaki with a slotted spoon, and then stir into the 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:28.079 tomato sauce. Add the basil, and if you like, grated partamigiano. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:33.040 Now we ran our yoki along a fork toge to 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:33.800 get the ridges. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.600 You can do that. We sometimes do ridges and sometimes 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.760 we don't. I prefer without, Yeah, you prefer without. We 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.600 were also talking today about yaki. I was talking to 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.280 Joseph Trevelli, one of my chefs. He was saying, do 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.760 you remember Ruthie, how the cook in our house in 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:53.480 Italy called Giovanna made yaki and she said to us, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.040 when you form them, the was like you're doing a book, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.640 Like you're making a book of the flower and the mixture, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:01.920 because if you it is really true that if you 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.640 handle them too much, they do get tough, and so 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.480 you want to touch the flower gets it gets overdeveloped, 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:10.880 and the idea that you want to make them as 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.600 light and actually I also used to say that what 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.360 we do is we make the potatoes and add a 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.560 little bit of flour and then put one in and 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:21.640 then they'd fall apart. And then you would add a 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.880 little bit of flour, and you would do it so 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.600 gradually that then you would know that you need that 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.760 amount of flour for them not to fall apart, but 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.480 the least amount makes them as light as you can. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.120 And then once you've done them so many times, you just. 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.640 Know, yeah, and do you do them? 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.640 You know. I have to tell you the one thing 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.000 in the kitchen that intimidates me, well, there's two things, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:55.480 is flower like pizza does and pasta does, and pastry 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.160 I don't even I get so intimidated by it, and 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.160 I make a mess and I'm never successful with it. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.640 And we should do it when you come. When you 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.240 come to London next time, we'll go into the cafe 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.680 because you heard her say it, because actually the young 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.880 chef we teach how to make it. And I really 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.400 relate to what you're saying. I'm not a pastry chef person. 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:22.880 You know. I'm never good with it. I can do 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.320 the science of cakes, but i'd always the measuring. 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.520 The measuring is it has to be so precise, and 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.120 I like to venture off. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:31.640 A little bit. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.960 I have to tell you about a recipe of yours 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:35.560 that I tried to venture off with. 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:36.679 Oh what was that? 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.320 You're olive oil cake with polenta? The polenta cake, I 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.160 tried to do it with olive oil, and then I 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.200 tried I tried to do it with a little ricota. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.559 Yeah that's okay, yeah matter. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:58.079 And then I would love to get to the olive oil, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.640 almond flour and ricotta. 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.480 Yeah, we could do that. Pastry chefs really enjoyed cooking 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.560 with olive oil now as opposed to butter. But I 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.760 do think butter is so good and butter and cakes 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.480 so delicious. And there's something about that polenta cake which is, 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.280 you know, there's just polenta, there's almonds, there's butter and 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.360 sugar and you put it all in that. 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.200 But yeah, once I've made it a couple of times, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:29.240 though I want it just you know, change things. But 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.000 this was during the pandemic and I had plenty of 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.280 time to you know, like play with it. But it didn't. 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.240 You never made bread though, right If you don't like that, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:40.680 I'm not a bread nose. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.560 You can buy beautiful bread from great artisans and bakeries, 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.839 and I did with my friend a couple of times. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.000 But I made such a mess in the kitchen, and yeah, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.640 I get it, it just wasn't worth it. What what 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.839 what did you do in the pandemic? What did you cook? 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:57.640 Oh? 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.440 I lived in the same house as my brother, but 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.120 on different floors in New York. In Canada. I wanted 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:09.560 to be able to go outside, and I'm very immunocompromised. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.959 I have a disease that affects my lungs, and living 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.439 in New York you have to you know, in a 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.200 tall building. It's difficult. But I wanted to be with 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.000 my family. So we did a lot of barbecuing and 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.680 smoking and cooked a lot outside. Even made pizzas outside. 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.240 Did make pizzas? Did your brother make the dough? No? 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.880 I had a friend come over to re teach me 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.480 a dough. But it's like a three day ordeal, and 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:40.760 I'm like, I'm not I guess, like really sour dough. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.920 You know, I did different doughs, but I'm not good 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:45.360 at dough. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.400 I don't know what it doesn't have to be. 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.240 It baffles me because I'm really good at other things. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.480 So what do you mostly liked? But what if you 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.719 if I come for dinner or lunch, what would you 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.120 What would you want to make. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.240 Depends what I would find out the market. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.640 Good answer. Yeah. We always say, don't go to the 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.719 market with a shopping list in your head. No that thing. 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:09.520 Do you remember when I started cooking, I would be 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.440 running all over London trying to find the ingredient, some ingredient, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.520 and then you realize it's just when I lived in 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.960 Paris for four years. That was one of the lessons 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.160 I took away, which was it we lived over market 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.960 and you go downstairs and then you see what's there 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:24.760 and then you cook. And that's what we do in 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.240 the River Cafe. You know, we change the menu for 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.480 every meal because we come in like a domestic cook 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.160 and see what's in the fridge, see what's been ordered, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.320 see what we have, and then we start to cook. 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.000 That is the hardest menu to choose from. 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.680 Oh really wait, it's not a very long menu. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.160 No, but you want everything. It's like really difficult to 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:47.440 choose from that menu. 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.440 I love being there that night. I love we were 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.360 at separate tables, which Johnny just said that was annoying. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.960 It was just to see your enthusiasm and your happiness 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.280 for being there. Do go out to restaurants a lot, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.200 I do, I do. What do you look for in 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:01.880 a restaurant? 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.760 It can't I don't want like inferior food. If I'm 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.960 going to eat pasta, that's like an indulgence for me. 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.840 It has to be because it's cars well, because I. 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.560 Just try and watch my weight and healthy and I 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.160 always have. But if I'm going to eat pasta, it 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.840 has to be great pasta. If I'm going to eat 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.600 a steak, I mean I eat everything. I don't want 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.120 to eat a crappy steak. It has to be like 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.120 the best steak. Otherwise I'll eat at home, you know. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.200 So I can get disappointed sometimes at certain restaurants. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.440 Do you go back to the saved on silver? And 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.400 I again, I do. Does the mood of the restaurant 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.400 matter to you? How the waiters are, how the absolutely 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.520 when you walk in, you want to feel welcome and 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.680 taken care of. And yeah, you live downtown. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:56.080 My place is in Chelsea. 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.440 Yeah, oh that's a good areas. That good air for 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:04.800 food you've got, No, it's okay. Shopping art galleries, art galleries, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.000 art galleries. That's good to have, isn't it. My son 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.640 lived on Nineteenth Street, you know the building by Jean Novelle. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.600 Its opposite that Frank Carey building. Yeah right there, Yeah, 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:23.160 that is beautiful. It's around the corner. Yeah. The River 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.560 Cafe is excited to announce the return of our Italian 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:31.200 Christmas gift boxes, our alternative to the traditional hamper. We 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.440 bring you all of our favorites from the River Cafe, kitchen, 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:40.200 vineyards and the designers from all over Italy. They're available 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.720 to pre order now on shop the River Cafe dot 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:52.080 co dot uk. So let's go back to the beginning. 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.000 You grew up with an Italian grandmothers two two, two 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.640 grandfathers two your parents. What was food like growing up 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:02.440 in the Evangelista household? 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:11.879 Well, I complained a lot because we always ate homemade 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:19.880 food and I wanted to have TV dinners or frozen 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.240 meals or something out of a can. 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.440 I wanted to close from Cyr's roebook. I was really Oh, 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:30.160 my clothes were from Cyrus. I didn't think to my mother, 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:31.880 not that we had money, but why can't we buy 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:33.000 clothes out of a catalog? 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.159 That sounds so my clothes were from CERs and Woolworth. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.679 So yeah, So it was a lot of homemade food 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.719 and I appreciate that now, but like growing up, you know, 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.199 I wanted the TV dinners with the compartments, you know, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.720 and the little apple pie in the corner. And but yeah, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:58.280 my father took us out for dinner every Friday because 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.879 my mother worked late. She was where in retail. But 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.400 my father let us choose the restaurant. And by restaurant, 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:11.080 I mean McDonald's or Denny's or the pizzeria or A 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:15.359 and W, you know, fast food. And so that was 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:17.920 a big deal because we were very spoiled with that. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.399 Yeah, and fresh. 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:27.560 We had homemade pasta Wednesdays and Sundays. We had roast 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.680 beef once a week. We would have steak or barbecue 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:36.760 once a week. My father really spent a lot of money, 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.600 I think on food because he didn't have much growing up. 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.359 They ate like a chicken or a rabbit once a week. 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.280 This is what until he was sixteen, until came to America. Yeah, 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:49.560 until he got. 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.400 A good job at General Motors. And the food went 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.000 on the table family style. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.000 How many of you were there, you me. 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.920 And two brothers, two brothers, and he would serve us 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.720 and he would put like this mound on your plate 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.120 and you had to eat it all. And for him, 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.479 the most important thing was you weren't hungry, that you 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.720 were nourished, that you ate. He also didn't want a 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.560 lot to talk at the table because where he worked 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:20.120 was so noisy, so there wasn't a lot of conversation. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.439 It was sort of like dive into your food and 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.520 finish it because you're not leaving the table too. 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.600 Did you dread dinners or did you No? 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.639 I didn't dread it. A couple times I did. I 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:32.720 wouldn't eat the liver. 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:34.840 And what would he do? And you say, you have 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:36.800 to do it? Would you understand if you really couldn't. 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:39.280 They gave up trying to make me the liver. 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.320 I have a friend who had an amazing posture. She 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.520 would just sit. I once said, you had, you know, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:46.760 very new. How is it that you sit so well? 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.560 She said, well, because at the meal at the table, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.359 my father and mother said we had to always sit straight. 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.760 It was just the thing. And she said, as a result, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.840 I hated every meal. She said, I just couldn't bear going. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.840 You know, she had great pasture, but it came from, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.480 you know, just this feeling of just dreading a family dinner. 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.720 And it's interesting about not having to finish your plate 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:10.760 when you don't want to. 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.200 No, in general, I was like, OK food, Yeah, And 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:16.760 maybe because we had to eat what was put in 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.800 front of us, we weren't there weren't cooking different meals 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.400 for us, like we all ate the same. And it's 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.240 crazy because like today, I love dandelion and I used 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.280 to go with my father in the country where no 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.400 person or dog had walked. There was lots of farmlands 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:39.520 and we would pick the little baby tender. Yeah, like 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.000 I grew up on broccoli rub. Everybody had a garden 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.960 and what they produced in these gardens was unbelievable. Tell 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:54.359 me about everything like tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.920 different like ridico and and then there were the fruit 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.000 trees and then there was like basil, all the earth, 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.119 you name it, onions and it was just all there. 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.640 And so you had your own garden full of. 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.120 Everybody had the whole backyard was a garden, but shared 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.800 what the other one didn't have. And it's not like 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.720 we had a swimming pool or we didn't play in 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.400 our backyards. We played on the street or parking lot. 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.560 Did they bring the seeds? Do you think for Italy? 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.320 I get the seeds are a whole thing. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.080 The seeds was like a network and whoever had like 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.200 the best tomatoes that year would do the seeds and 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.880 hand them out. And it's so funny. Now you see 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.239 all these heirloom tomatoes and I'm like, but those are 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.120 the tomatoes I grew up with, Like none of them 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.520 were nice little round tomatoes. And then the fruit trees 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.119 and my father he had a green thumb and he 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:52.360 would graft. He would do these sensational things like the 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.000 apricot tree had plums on it and the red apple 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.520 tree had a branch with yellow apples, and he would 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.720 graft and it would be it would just be incredible, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:05.760 and then he would make his gropas. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:07.480 So do you think that then he would go work 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:09.960 at general motives? Do you think that in his real 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:11.960 passion would have been to have been a farmer or 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.240 to have done this whole day? Absolutely? Yeah. 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.000 Well, he grew up. He didn't get an education because 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.639 he had to work the land. And I know he 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.960 had a donkey and whenever he referred to Italy he 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.440 referred to it as the good old days. I think 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:30.959 that would have been what he would have loved to 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.560 have done because he was so good at it. We 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.199 also had it was so embarrassing at the time. We 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:41.400 had some chickens and some rabbits, but we didn't live 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.520