Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with
Speaker 1: Montclair thinking about.
Speaker 2: Laura Dern coming here to day. I found myself scrolling
Speaker 2: through three years of text messages. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: story about making plans to meet our excitement at the
Speaker 2: thought of seeing each other in La or London, choosing
Speaker 2: restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of a
Speaker 2: fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most of
Speaker 2: ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.
Speaker 2: Laura is loved by me and many others. She's fond,
Speaker 2: she's curious, she's smart, she hangs with a crew on set,
Speaker 2: passionate about her children, Jaya and Ellery. She has strong
Speaker 2: memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes.
Speaker 2: Laura fights for human rights, social values. It is a
Speaker 2: bold and brave spokesperson for women in the film industry.
Speaker 2: Directors and writers consider her first when making a movie.
Speaker 2: Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion
Speaker 2: Pictures in La remembers that as a trustee, she was
Speaker 2: a rigorous and remarkable client. He asked me to give
Speaker 2: her a hug. Laura Dern loves to eat, and she
Speaker 2: cares about food and the politics of feeding people safely
Speaker 2: and sustainably. Today we're here in the River Cafe to
Speaker 2: talk about all this and more. And after I give
Speaker 2: her the hug from Lorenzo and another one for me,
Speaker 2: that's what we're going to do. So tell me about
Speaker 2: your cooking with Sean.
Speaker 3: First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible,
Speaker 3: and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the
Speaker 3: last probably seven years of making movies here in London,
Speaker 3: My memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here
Speaker 3: at the River Cafe.
Speaker 1: This is where we plot.
Speaker 3: And create an vent and over the course of a
Speaker 3: meal that's always remembered. So then I was on set
Speaker 3: with Noah bound back this week, and we'd had dinner
Speaker 3: here together, the two of us, talking about what it's
Speaker 3: feeling like and how it feels different for him than
Speaker 3: the last movies in his life. And as we're describing it,
Speaker 3: we're describing like, my God, wasn't that wine incredible? Can
Speaker 3: you believe that salad was?
Speaker 1: What was the art of show? How did she make
Speaker 1: that art to show?
Speaker 3: And we're just you know, it becomes this organic part
Speaker 3: of memory, food and art, and you've created this sustainable,
Speaker 3: inventive place for art and artists that is forever seeped
Speaker 3: in my memory so already.
Speaker 1: It's such a gift and it means so much.
Speaker 3: And now our friendship which is growing and evolving, and
Speaker 3: we're getting finally getting time together, but also being in
Speaker 3: the kitchen and watching a great chef's kitchen and it
Speaker 3: feels rigorous and stressful. I walk away from it saying,
Speaker 3: that's such a terrifying space, and there's something even.
Speaker 1: Cold about it.
Speaker 3: And the minute you walk in, first of all, the
Speaker 3: warmth of the kitchen as part of the room, that
Speaker 3: the chef is not separate from the client, that we're
Speaker 3: all eating and creating and inventing this day together. That's
Speaker 3: what's so beautiful about the space you've created. And then
Speaker 3: Sean's energy is so beautiful, and that she wants to
Speaker 3: teach as much as she loves to cook is so amazing.
Speaker 3: And my son we were sharing ellery has really, through
Speaker 3: the pandemic, discovered his love of cooking. And he always
Speaker 3: had that innate instinct even as a little boy, you know,
Speaker 3: putting something together. He knew how to kind of close
Speaker 3: his eyes and pick the right flavors or something.
Speaker 1: But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever
Speaker 3: experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.
Speaker 1: And to make a.
Speaker 3: Meal alongside other people is like when you're collaborating in
Speaker 3: the studio. You don't know what's going to happen or
Speaker 3: how we're going to invent together to create this same goal,
Speaker 3: this piece of art. But everyone has their unique rhythm.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm John and I'm making a potatoes alborno with
Speaker 4: sage with lord. The potatoes are done in the wood open,
Speaker 4: but you don't need to have a wood open in.
Speaker 1: Your house time. Okay, good, you might have one. No,
Speaker 1: I don't, I will don't.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, So this is your recipe that you've chosen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so.
Speaker 4: It's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then they've been
Speaker 4: tossed with garlic and sage and covered and cooked for
Speaker 4: about forty five minutes, and then the group in another
Speaker 4: it's really.
Speaker 1: A traditional oven. What would you do? You just put
Speaker 1: it in forty five minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So when you read the recipe you'll see to
Speaker 4: slice of potatoes, scarlet sage cover it and then you
Speaker 4: uncover it and brown it and it will turn out
Speaker 4: like that, I promise you.
Speaker 3: And you'd only use the fresh sage leaves, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you can use anything is fine. Roastry. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's really nice with fish or meat, anything another beautiful.
Speaker 3: This is my son's obsession also with there's a beauty
Speaker 3: to the irregularity, and there's a beauty to the shaving.
Speaker 1: And like he was like, when you have a true
Speaker 1: cratata in Spain.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when he's like America, try to make it and
Speaker 5: it's you never get the texture of it, right, there's
Speaker 5: still like a density like aldento and pasta, yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: And I wonder whether it's something to do with the
Speaker 4: potato because it's actually like a waxy potato. By the
Speaker 4: end of today, you'll know how to make that. You
Speaker 4: can impress your son and you know what you're where
Speaker 4: you're going with it?
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.
Speaker 4: I think like when you get really good at cooking,
Speaker 4: I think you don't need to cook with your eyes.
Speaker 4: You cook it with other senses. I reckon you can
Speaker 4: cook with your ears because you can hear how it's cooking,
Speaker 4: aren't you, and then you can obviously smell and she
Speaker 4: just got it like somewhere in your intuition. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: wonder what your son thinks. I love it.
Speaker 1: I have to ask them.
Speaker 2: Need your eyes.
Speaker 4: You know, when you're like frying garlic or something, and
Speaker 4: when it goes into oil, it's sort of making alloise.
Speaker 4: But as it browns, it starts to change in the sound.
Speaker 4: I reckon you can tell when when it's brown.
Speaker 2: Just buying the sound.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really into I'm really without your eyes.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, again, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm not got that.
Speaker 4: Well, if he wants to come and have a look,
Speaker 4: I have a kitchen any time.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I have to bring in it a
Speaker 1: day with those Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, oh my god, that would be We talk
Speaker 2: about him. Should we read the recipe first? Why don't
Speaker 2: you read the recipe?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: So the recipe is potato alfoo, four tablespoons of olive oil,
Speaker 3: four garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced, twenty sage leaves.
Speaker 3: We spoke a lot about the sage because the sage
Speaker 3: is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty gram's Rosevale or similar yellow waxy potatoes, peeled sea salt,
Speaker 3: and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the oven to one
Speaker 3: ninety degrees. You heat the oil and a frying pan.
Speaker 3: Stir in the garlic. Slice each potato lengthway is down
Speaker 3: the middle, so that you are left with two thick slices.
Speaker 3: Place in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper,
Speaker 3: tossed together with olive oil and sage. Put in a
Speaker 3: baking dish, cover with foil, and you cook in the
Speaker 3: oven for forty minutes. About twenty minutes before the end
Speaker 3: of cooking, remove the foil so that the surface of
Speaker 3: the potatoes become brown. Now the sage looked so fresh,
Speaker 3: which I think is a key. And she was saying,
Speaker 3: these amazing waxy potatoes are from Italy, and I don't
Speaker 3: even know how I find those waxy potatoes in California
Speaker 3: or what they translate as.
Speaker 2: I can't answer that, But we can find them. You
Speaker 2: can find great potatoes. I mean, the stream for potatoes
Speaker 2: is when I went to perof you just see all
Speaker 2: these you know, different different different potatoes. But I bet
Speaker 2: if we went to a market in La we can
Speaker 2: find the potatoes so that they'll give you a Rosevelt potato.
Speaker 2: Show it to the amazing, amazing potatoes.
Speaker 3: But I also was so touched, especially because I said,
Speaker 3: I want to make it for ellery by not only
Speaker 3: the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't
Speaker 3: like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like
Speaker 3: in filmmaking something being off center.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 3: There's something so beautiful about the way it looks. And
Speaker 3: I was really touched by that. And he always comments
Speaker 3: on that, like when we've been in Spain and you
Speaker 3: have a frittata and the potatoes the density, like he
Speaker 3: was comparing it to al dente and pasta, like you
Speaker 3: have it.
Speaker 1: There's a little bite to them, and.
Speaker 3: They can be very potatoes can be very mushy.
Speaker 2: Well that's why I think there when she said waxy,
Speaker 2: they're not flowering. You know, you have a baked potato
Speaker 2: with sour cream or whatever you have with it, you
Speaker 2: want it to be quite flowery. And we have mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1: You want them not to be waxy.
Speaker 2: But these hold their shape and they kind of a
Speaker 2: defined and always sounds better and better. What where is he?
Speaker 1: I know, we got to get him over here.
Speaker 2: If he's concerned about the way that potatoes just lie
Speaker 2: and I want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.
Speaker 3: He's a musician, yes he did, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and
Speaker 3: now he's just started producing his first record for an
Speaker 3: amazing artist, a female singer songwriter. And so I think
Speaker 3: sound and instinct is everything. You know, it's really Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: But over food, talking over food, food and sharing a
Speaker 2: meal and creating also really happens together, doesn't it so much?
Speaker 1: I was just saying to a girlfriend.
Speaker 3: She was like, what is the thing that makes you know?
Speaker 3: And I said, if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, million percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that
Speaker 2: people are really nice.
Speaker 3: And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York.
Speaker 3: I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are
Speaker 3: often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians,
Speaker 3: and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.
Speaker 1: I was taught that.
Speaker 3: You know, you not only the focus and regard, but
Speaker 3: actually honoring their performance of the specials as high art.
Speaker 3: And so the performance of specials was given deep.
Speaker 1: In high regard for.
Speaker 2: A long time. The friend of mine had their two
Speaker 2: children who were like eight and ten. We were all
Speaker 2: having their journalists. We were all having lunch in a restaurant,
Speaker 2: and the little daughter turned him and said blue, daddy,
Speaker 2: and then the sun later on said brown. And I said,
Speaker 2: what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught them
Speaker 2: to learn the color of the eyes the person who's
Speaker 2: waiting on their table, so that they look at them.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was really a nice way of
Speaker 2: doing it, that they just met the you know somebody. Yeah,
Speaker 2: since a brown blue, blue brow, that's amazing, it's nice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go back, Okay, because we've talked about your son,
Speaker 2: we haven't talked about your daughter yet, but about it
Speaker 2: does she is? She interested in food.
Speaker 3: She is like me, We love food and we appreciate food.
Speaker 3: And she is a fierce young activist. So she definitely
Speaker 3: cares deeply about sustainability and the.
Speaker 1: Politics of food, particularly.
Speaker 3: In the US, and so we have a lot of
Speaker 3: conversations about where the food is coming from, carbon emissions,
Speaker 3: how to support it, regenerative farming, the soil itself.
Speaker 1: And she was a.
Speaker 3: Really beautiful supporter of a series of films, and I've
Speaker 3: been a producer on the most recent, which has Kissed
Speaker 3: the Ground, and now a film made Common Ground.
Speaker 1: Which is sort of the sequel to that.
Speaker 3: About regenerative farming. And so she's learned a lot about
Speaker 3: the question of over tilling and pesticides and big food
Speaker 3: the industry of it, and obviously the laws in the
Speaker 3: UK and EU are very different than in the US,
Speaker 3: in which chemicals are somehow god in the US, which
Speaker 3: is tragic and hopefully changing more and more with independent farmers,
Speaker 3: and so she is deeply interested in it, which is
Speaker 3: really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's
Speaker 2: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Speaker 2: Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toadbags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
Speaker 2: chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
Speaker 2: to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Speaker 2: Therivercafe dot co dot K. I'm a grandmother now and
Speaker 2: I think there is something about wanting to cook for
Speaker 2: your grandchildren in a way that you were, maybe as
Speaker 2: a working mother, not able to do or to do
Speaker 2: enough and tell me about the role that your grandmother
Speaker 2: played in your childhood.
Speaker 3: My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced
Speaker 3: and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
Speaker 3: me when she was gone working, so a majority of
Speaker 3: my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama,
Speaker 3: and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And
Speaker 3: so the roots of my family are so tied to
Speaker 3: food and tradition in the South.
Speaker 2: Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When we think
Speaker 2: about France in Italy and Britain having you know, the
Speaker 2: north of France has a very different cuisine from the
Speaker 2: south of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine
Speaker 2: from Sicily. And then you think about American food and
Speaker 2: you think, well, there's a food of Vermont really different
Speaker 2: from the food of Ohio or but the food actually
Speaker 2: of the South has such a strong identity.
Speaker 3: So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the
Speaker 3: DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just
Speaker 3: like in the Great Lakes, you know, a very Scandinavian
Speaker 3: focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly in
Speaker 3: New Orleans obviously, there's so much French influence, but there's
Speaker 3: also the influence of the American farmer. And what was
Speaker 3: incredible was in lower income families, the food was simpler
Speaker 3: and from the land that you had. But my grandmother
Speaker 3: was getting what she could from her fellow friends and
Speaker 3: and farms locally.
Speaker 2: So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh she didn't. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
Speaker 3: collared greens, rice, and you know, that.
Speaker 1: Was sort of the staple of your meal.
Speaker 3: But when she was in the South, especially when they
Speaker 3: were on the farm, the major meal of the day
Speaker 3: was breakfast, which was so wild. They would have like
Speaker 3: really like an early morning breakfast and then go out
Speaker 3: and work in the fields and then come back and
Speaker 3: have this huge breakfast at like ten in the morning
Speaker 3: because they'd already been working since four am. And I
Speaker 3: remember as a little girl when I would go visit
Speaker 3: my grandfather in Mississippi, and at ten am, it was
Speaker 3: corn bread and eggs and bacon and grits and collars and.
Speaker 1: A coconut cake. The cake or a cake for breakfast
Speaker 1: with your coffee.
Speaker 2: You know. Would this be weekdays as well?
Speaker 1: Every day for them, every day, you know.
Speaker 3: But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was
Speaker 3: like a big.
Speaker 2: Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?
Speaker 3: Never, although my mom just told me that when they
Speaker 3: were first together in New York, he would cook on
Speaker 3: Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do
Speaker 3: like a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops
Speaker 3: or some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the
Speaker 3: other actors, and whoever was working would feed everybody. My
Speaker 3: father was raised in Chicago with a very influential and
Speaker 3: wealthy family of aristocratic family.
Speaker 2: See the husband of your grandmother who came to look
Speaker 2: after or a different no.
Speaker 3: Side, Yeah, yeah, the Durn McLeish side, and it was
Speaker 3: Secretary of War under FDR.
Speaker 1: Poet Laureate of the US.
Speaker 2: That Archibald Yeah no, yeah, Now how are you related
Speaker 2: to Archibal?
Speaker 1: That's my dad's uncle.
Speaker 3: Archibald McLeish was the Poet Laureate under FDR. While his
Speaker 3: grandfather on his father's side, George Dern, was Secretary of
Speaker 3: War under FDR.
Speaker 2: So Warnora Roosevelt.
Speaker 3: His godmother Eleanor I mean I've lost an that one,
Speaker 3: my dad's godmother.
Speaker 2: Brewster's godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 3: But in that family, no one go you have someone cooking,
Speaker 3: and so he didn't grow up with it at all,
Speaker 3: but he loved it.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, if you don't have any money, then
Speaker 2: probably you have to learn to cook if you want
Speaker 2: to eat well exact But if you do, then you know,
Speaker 2: there are probably quite a lot of men and women
Speaker 2: who never went into a kitchen.
Speaker 3: And also, my mom tells so many stories of like
Speaker 3: literally hungry actors in New York City. My mom came
Speaker 3: to New York with twenty two dollars in her pocket
Speaker 3: and a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from
Speaker 3: a tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said,
Speaker 3: you know, you used to go in and if you
Speaker 3: ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a
Speaker 3: beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would
Speaker 3: give them bread and butter.
Speaker 2: But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked
Speaker 2: for you, where your mother cared about food, your father
Speaker 2: came from a food culture, was there a time when
Speaker 2: you went off on your own and suddenly there was
Speaker 2: not that comfort food or a.
Speaker 3: Million percent I mean I started acting at eleven and
Speaker 3: I was on location by myself at sixteen on and
Speaker 3: working on movies meant eating on the run and eating
Speaker 3: poorly and eating in small towns everywhere, and so it
Speaker 3: became what is provided to small town America, which was
Speaker 3: fast food, eating tragic.
Speaker 1: This isn't what you're starting in.
Speaker 3: The late seventies and I only discovered the gift of
Speaker 3: the connection between eating beautifully and food becoming a part
Speaker 3: of my artistic experience in the last decade because of
Speaker 3: heroes like you.
Speaker 2: But do you think that you could work or act
Speaker 2: or do what you do better if you actually had
Speaker 2: healthy food on a film set, or do you think
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter?
Speaker 3: Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
Speaker 3: in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie
Speaker 3: Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
Speaker 3: how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
Speaker 3: there is a new model that a lot of incredible
Speaker 3: companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
Speaker 3: sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out on film production how to do that
Speaker 3: more and more. Kate Blanchette care so deeply about this
Speaker 3: as well. We've been having conversations about, you know, making
Speaker 3: sure there is a model that production follows more and more.
Speaker 2: I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did
Speaker 2: a podcast and his dream and there are a few
Speaker 2: directors who would say, would not stop at all, you
Speaker 2: know that sitting down to a meal, Let's do that
Speaker 2: at the end, we'll all go out to dinner. We'll
Speaker 2: do this. But he tried it. He tried giving everyone soup,
Speaker 2: and of course there was a rebellion, especially months of
Speaker 2: crew saying we can't do the lighting of this or
Speaker 2: that out of bowl of soup.
Speaker 3: And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and
Speaker 3: I've seen it done in Italy. When I've worked and
Speaker 3: you're you're not taking a lunch so as people are free,
Speaker 3: you're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break,
Speaker 3: when the actors are taking a break, so that you
Speaker 3: have a shorter day, so that everybody has the.
Speaker 1: Time to be with their family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you have time for a meal with
Speaker 3: your family or your collaborators, which I think works beautifully.
Speaker 3: I mean I've worked on a couple of productions now
Speaker 3: where there's.
Speaker 1: A certain amount of meat and it's on order.
Speaker 3: So the day before, if you're someone who wants meet
Speaker 3: a meal that involves meat, you're pre ordering so you're
Speaker 3: not wasting that day of food. And then also working
Speaker 3: with local communities so that you're taking the food and
Speaker 3: giving it to the community and there's no waste, because
Speaker 3: the waste is shocking.
Speaker 2: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you
Speaker 2: please make sure to and review the podcast on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Thank you. What was it like with David Lynch? Because
Speaker 2: you talk about him a lot and you've worked with
Speaker 2: him a lot. What was foodise? What was David's is
Speaker 2: what matters?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it matters to him and sharing a meal matters
Speaker 3: to him. And from the first time I worked with him,
Speaker 3: which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen, and those
Speaker 3: meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you
Speaker 3: know at night we go and we eat together. You know,
Speaker 3: we go to we find a couple of chefs in
Speaker 3: that town that become friends. They know what we love
Speaker 3: and we learn what they make and at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 2: What about food and movies when you do a food scene,
Speaker 2: their food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this
Speaker 3: experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
Speaker 3: movie literally just the two of us, and we shot
Speaker 3: several days.
Speaker 1: In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think
Speaker 3: it's more of a meditation than a linear film, and
Speaker 3: it was an amazing experience. We shot over almost three years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he wanted to make a film so that everyone
Speaker 3: could be inspired to make a movie. He's like, if
Speaker 3: you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona, and
Speaker 3: you've got your grandparents sony camcorder, you pick that up
Speaker 3: and you make a movie, and now you can do
Speaker 3: it with your iPhone. But we did a scene in
Speaker 3: a hotel room in Paris and it was this very
Speaker 3: long monologue me on a phone call and we'd sit
Speaker 3: down for our cafe ole and he wanted his Penishoko
Speaker 3: law and he would write on a legal pad and
Speaker 3: I would sit there and he would look at me
Speaker 3: like a painter and just be writing this monologue and
Speaker 3: then he'd give it to me and he's like, now
Speaker 3: while I have my Panasha cola, you learn your monologue.
Speaker 3: And it's like seven pages, and so I'm like, you
Speaker 3: better eat slow, buddy. So then i'd try to learn
Speaker 3: it and do a probably poor job.
Speaker 1: But attempt.
Speaker 3: And then we'd go to the hotel room and he
Speaker 3: would do my makeup or I would do my makeup,
Speaker 3: or we'd work on it together, and then he would
Speaker 3: set up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And
Speaker 3: we shot this monologue and he was happy with it,
Speaker 3: and I was so exciting.
Speaker 1: He was like, we got it. And so then I
Speaker 1: went and I sat next to the bed.
Speaker 3: There was this little chair and the side table and
Speaker 3: there were two perfect ladree maqueron which that hotel would have,
Speaker 3: and there was a pistachio one. It was so the
Speaker 3: green was so beautiful and he bit into it. It was
Speaker 3: so fresh. And then he said, okay, now we'll do
Speaker 3: the close up and he set up the shine and
Speaker 3: he goes, where's the macaron?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what do you mean? I ate it? He goes,
Speaker 1: you ate my props.
Speaker 5: So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
Speaker 5: David in a movie.
Speaker 3: I ate the prop and he was like, you have
Speaker 3: to go now to Landerie.
Speaker 1: And get a pistachio macaron I was.
Speaker 2: I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
Speaker 2: I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
Speaker 2: of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
Speaker 2: ate the crudyte that was in the middle of the table.
Speaker 2: And the waiter came up and said, you just ate
Speaker 2: our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten some.
Speaker 1: He said, I need the floral arrangement.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Then guess what happened my whole mouth Vietnam. It was
Speaker 2: part of that floral arrangement was some weird plant, and
Speaker 2: I thought, okay.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die.
Speaker 2: I'm going to die in this lunch with the mayor
Speaker 2: in Mexico because I ate the flower flower plant, but
Speaker 2: they've got no called flowers something. Do you think about
Speaker 2: food a lot? Do you think what you're going to
Speaker 2: eat the next day? Or do you go to bed thinking, well,
Speaker 2: well I have when I wake up, or do you
Speaker 2: wake up and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 1: My son started cooking.
Speaker 3: We've started having conversations that we never had before, and
Speaker 3: challenging ourselves, you know, like how do we really make
Speaker 3: truly a great Cajun style red beans and rice? Because
Speaker 3: we talk about my grandmother and how i'd have red beans.
Speaker 1: Didn't you know as a baby only? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?
Speaker 3: Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a
Speaker 3: book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine
Speaker 3: and the book it's a book.
Speaker 2: Did you publish it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And and in the sort of subtitle we reference banana
Speaker 3: pudding and there are a few of her recipes for
Speaker 3: chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and cobbler and
Speaker 3: chicken and dumplings is such an interesting thing because it's
Speaker 3: what is ch It's fascinating because it's like the main
Speaker 3: stay meal that can be made no matter what family
Speaker 3: you come from and where you are in life. And
Speaker 3: it's a big part of Southern culture. And I think
Speaker 3: in communities who are struggling, like my mom's family, you
Speaker 3: need flour, you need starch, and you know, and chicken
Speaker 3: and that's it.
Speaker 1: And so but the dumplings are.
Speaker 3: Radically different, and it's interesting like in the UK, like
Speaker 3: a chicken pie, the idea of flour and in a
Speaker 3: way a dumpling or a potato being used within it.
Speaker 3: There's a similarity in it, just like cobblers.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: So in California, being in LA, you have such a
Speaker 2: fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do
Speaker 2: you think we do?
Speaker 3: But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California.
Speaker 3: So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative farming.
Speaker 3: And you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets,
Speaker 3: health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not
Speaker 3: illegalized the use of glycasates and roundup in California, which
Speaker 3: is illegal in many farming states throughout the US now,
Speaker 3: which I find tragedy.
Speaker 1: There are so many small.
Speaker 3: Farms and there are some amazing companies and corporations, even
Speaker 3: like general mills that are starting to you put money
Speaker 3: into supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat.
Speaker 3: That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.
Speaker 2: What about what about the wellness industry? Because I know
Speaker 2: that you've also done a lot of investigation into what
Speaker 2: is wellness? What is you.
Speaker 3: Know it starts with food and my mom and I's
Speaker 3: book seemingly is two actresses talking her mother and daughter
Speaker 3: about things we've never spoken about before. But the auspices,
Speaker 3: the reason for its existence, and the hope was to
Speaker 3: promote the fact that my mother moved to a beautiful town, Ohi, California,
Speaker 3: which is gorgeous for produce and farming, to get away
Speaker 3: from la and the smog, and moved into a beautiful
Speaker 3: home surrounded by orange groves, which were those were then
Speaker 3: bought by sun Kiss, therefore Monsanto, and they were spraying
Speaker 3: without notification, and my mom was exposed to glyc estates over.
Speaker 1: Five years and ended up with a lung disease. And
Speaker 1: so Hi.
Speaker 3: She's struggling still but doing amazing, And the only protocol
Speaker 3: that was given was eating healthfully and to get her walking.
Speaker 3: And so our book is me getting her walking on
Speaker 3: oxygen a few steps and every day we walked, and
Speaker 3: I knew to get her walking, I had to get
Speaker 3: her telling stories, and then I recorded the stories.
Speaker 1: So it unfolded.
Speaker 3: But it also gave us an opportunity to do press,
Speaker 3: to talk about pesticides, and to talk about healthy eating
Speaker 3: and wellness and breathing fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.
Speaker 2: Well that's what we're doing today, you know the story
Speaker 2: of food, of memory and.
Speaker 3: Passing down recipes and stories of our grandparents and great
Speaker 3: grandparents and not children.
Speaker 2: Do you go out to eat lunch? I go to
Speaker 2: where do you What kind of restaurants do you look
Speaker 2: for when you go?
Speaker 3: Well, hero restaurants like yours that provide local and healthy
Speaker 3: food that put art and love into it is my favorite.
Speaker 3: But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies,
Speaker 3: I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the
Speaker 3: food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so I'll,
Speaker 3: you know, unless I'm in London and I get, you know,
Speaker 3: a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's
Speaker 3: rare so around the world. You can also often find
Speaker 3: restaurants that don't mess it up by you know, smothering food,
Speaker 3: which is a very Southern tradition.
Speaker 1: You just smother everything with every possible.
Speaker 3: Spice and yeah, it's just crazy that you can't taste
Speaker 3: the food anymore. And now that the hobby, I think
Speaker 3: thanks to my son, has been getting to understand the
Speaker 3: food differently and want to understand how to cook well.
Speaker 2: We want to have him here. We want to definitely
Speaker 2: have more of you and this has been such an
Speaker 2: incredible time and just to talk about food is love,
Speaker 2: and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food
Speaker 2: is a legacy. It's also comfort, yea. And one of
Speaker 2: the questions that we do ask is there food that
Speaker 2: you would go to for comfort.
Speaker 1: It always was cobbler growing up.
Speaker 2: As certain fruit or just any cobbler.
Speaker 1: Maybe peaches pieces.
Speaker 3: That would be, you know, because of remembering my grandmother's
Speaker 3: love of it and her taste, the taste of peaches
Speaker 3: and like that idea of summer and the scent of them.
Speaker 3: And but I think for me now, comfort is.
Speaker 1: Community.
Speaker 2: Let's go eat, eat all right, Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 3: with Montclair