Speaker 1: Welcome to Rivercafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adami Studios.
Speaker 2: My favorite line in this conversation is when Austin Butler
Speaker 2: refers to his and my relationship as family. Austin arrived
Speaker 2: here from filming Baz Luhrmann's movie Elvis, playing Elvis himself.
Speaker 2: London was just out of COVID lockdown and leading an
Speaker 2: immediate tradition. We decided to have dinner at my home
Speaker 2: every Sunday night with the same small group of friends.
Speaker 2: Austin would turn up early and cook with me, and
Speaker 2: this is what we did every Sunday for thirty nine weeks.
Speaker 2: Austin is a brilliant actor, a beautiful singer, a poet,
Speaker 2: and a true friend. And Austin is my family. So Austin,
Speaker 2: you and I are here in the River Cafe to
Speaker 2: talk about food, our memories, travel and a lot more.
Speaker 2: But maybe we should just start with Australia.
Speaker 3: I was in Australia for a year and a half
Speaker 3: film I was making Elvis with Basil Hrman.
Speaker 2: Did he have food on set? Did you sit down
Speaker 2: to meals?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well we did this thing.
Speaker 3: It's I'm realizing it's a very European sort of thing
Speaker 3: where you have these rolling lunches, which basically means you
Speaker 3: don't have a lunch break. You eat while you're filming.
Speaker 3: And I actually kind of like it because it keeps
Speaker 3: the momentum of filming. And so while we were filming
Speaker 3: a lot of times it was just I was eating
Speaker 3: for it was like gasoline was eating for for energy.
Speaker 4: I just galloped making the most of this thing black hand.
Speaker 3: And then when we wrapped, Bas and I were at
Speaker 3: his house and there was a small group of us,
Speaker 3: and it was the night that we wrapped, it was
Speaker 3: it was the first time that he and I both
Speaker 3: sort of were able to.
Speaker 4: Go, ah, we did it.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been working on this for I've been
Speaker 3: attach for about two and a half years at that point,
Speaker 3: maybe three years. He'd been doing this for long or
Speaker 3: five or eight years or something. And we we just
Speaker 3: we danced until the sun came up. We just yeah,
Speaker 3: well we had a little group there, but we we
Speaker 3: just put on vinyl records and we just danced and
Speaker 3: we ate oysters and.
Speaker 4: We just we just lived life.
Speaker 3: It was like this feeling of letting our hair down
Speaker 3: and and then the sun started to come up and uh,
Speaker 3: and Bas looked out and he lived across the street
Speaker 3: from the sea, and he said, should we go swim
Speaker 3: in the ocean right now? And this is the night
Speaker 3: that we wrapped the film, and so we both we
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, let's do it. So we ran across
Speaker 3: the street and we jumped in the ocean and it's
Speaker 3: like five in the morning now, and we swam in
Speaker 3: the ocean, and so the sun's rising and I was
Speaker 3: gonna not go that night as well, and I said,
Speaker 3: I said, pass, I can't believe I was gonna go
Speaker 3: to sleep tonight. And he started singing nessa dorma and
Speaker 3: he goes, no sleep tonight, No sleep tonight, and he
Speaker 3: starts singing this opera and I hadn't really heard that song,
Speaker 3: and he was telling me the story of the opera
Speaker 3: and then he said, I'll play it for you when
Speaker 3: we get back to the shore. And he went back
Speaker 3: to the shore, and I kind of took a second
Speaker 3: from myself in the ocean where it's just me. I
Speaker 3: just watched the sun rise and I sort of processed
Speaker 3: all that we had done. And you don't know the
Speaker 3: final outcome of a film. You hope that you did
Speaker 3: everything you possibly could, and you gave every bit of
Speaker 3: your soul, but you don't know how it's going to
Speaker 3: be received. But at that moment, I just kind of
Speaker 3: processed all that you had, the work that we had done,
Speaker 3: and the joy and the love that we put into.
Speaker 4: It, and I sort of had that moment.
Speaker 3: And then as I sort of slowly walked back to shore,
Speaker 3: I look at Baz and he's holding a speaker above
Speaker 3: his head like John Cusack can say anything, and he's
Speaker 3: playing Nessador, the Pavaroti version, and it's blaring at like
Speaker 3: five point thirty in the morning now on the beaches
Speaker 3: of the Gold Coast. It was so magical and cinematic.
Speaker 3: And then we made breakfast.
Speaker 4: What was that we made?
Speaker 3: We looked in the refrigerator and thought, okay, what can
Speaker 3: we make? Because he and I both had been working
Speaker 3: so hard. And there's this thing about filming where you're
Speaker 3: there's so many responsibilities that other people end up almost
Speaker 3: treating you like you're a child. In many areas, they
Speaker 3: walk you to the bathroom. You know, if I said
Speaker 3: i'm when I go to the trailer, they walk me
Speaker 3: there and to make sure I don't get lost, they
Speaker 3: treat you like you can't do anything, and they bring
Speaker 3: you your food, and so you're very spoiled in many ways.
Speaker 3: But there's something so relieving about that moment when you
Speaker 3: were finally able to do something for yourself. And so
Speaker 3: he and I that was our moment. We opened the
Speaker 3: refrigerator and we saw that, okay, we got eggs, we
Speaker 3: got asparagus, we got some spinach there, we got some tomatoes,
Speaker 3: we got some parmesan cheese.
Speaker 4: What can we do? And so we kind of just
Speaker 4: made this breakfast.
Speaker 3: And there's this loaf of bread, and so we cut
Speaker 3: off bits of this bread and we toasted it and
Speaker 3: just made this delicious meal. And that's one of the
Speaker 3: most glorious memories of my life. Was like after we
Speaker 3: finished this thing that was so terrifying and daunting, and
Speaker 3: that we gave it everything we could and then then
Speaker 3: we just sat there and as the morning sun sort
Speaker 3: of laid down on us and ate that breakfast and
Speaker 3: it was so glorious.
Speaker 2: It's it's about memory, isn't it. It's about the time.
Speaker 2: And what about Tarantina? He was he interested in food?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, remember one night we were we were doing
Speaker 3: night shoots and it was about three in the morning.
Speaker 3: He had this amazing crepe maker come and make crapes
Speaker 3: and we were eating these amazing crepes and he said,
Speaker 3: he said, Austin, you know, my thing is I want
Speaker 3: to give everybody such a good experience on this job
Speaker 3: that their next job sucks.
Speaker 4: And it was such a wonderful thing.
Speaker 3: So every every night there would be some new food
Speaker 3: thing that he would he would organize, so you just
Speaker 3: had this thing to look forward to. And and the
Speaker 3: other thing that he did was after every hundred rolls
Speaker 3: of film, which I believe it or not, this was
Speaker 3: the first time I had shot anything on film, because
Speaker 3: everything since I grew up was on digital essentially with
Speaker 3: every person that I had worked with, and so that
Speaker 3: was really special just hearing the sound of the film
Speaker 3: going through the camera when you're sitting in the car.
Speaker 3: But everye hundred rolls of film, you'd throw a party
Speaker 3: and it would have a theme. So he'd have, you know,
Speaker 3: Groppo would come out and so everybody and they'd be
Speaker 3: singing these songs, and or Margarita's would come out and
Speaker 3: need to have a mariachi band or so every hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: whether it be ten in the morning or you know,
Speaker 3: three in the morning.
Speaker 4: It was something to look forward to.
Speaker 2: I think that does actually give people a kind of
Speaker 2: commitment to the person you're working for. You know that
Speaker 2: they're taking care of you, know, they're thinking about you,
Speaker 2: They're recognizing that you're working hard and that you want
Speaker 2: to give them something back. It's a lot, doesn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when you lived by yourself, you once told me that
Speaker 2: you chose a house in Los Angeles because it had
Speaker 2: a pizza oven.
Speaker 4: Oh that was Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's this beautiful house that had belonged to Gary Oldman
Speaker 3: before and he had built a pizza oven. And I
Speaker 3: became obsessed with learning how to make the perfect fire
Speaker 3: and this pizza oven, the specific type of wood and
Speaker 3: exactly how to lay it. And I got one of
Speaker 3: those laser temperature gauges so I could make it a
Speaker 3: thousand degrees and learn how to make the pizza sauce
Speaker 3: and the dough and everything. And it was actually Christmas
Speaker 3: that I made the most pizzas I think, And the
Speaker 3: first couple kind of came out rough and then and
Speaker 3: then started to get really into the zone of it.
Speaker 4: And it was amazing to me how you how fast.
Speaker 4: You could cook a pizza.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in that heat thirty seconds. For forty five seconds,
Speaker 3: you can cook a whole pizza.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I cooked pizzas for my whole family, and such
Speaker 3: a great experience just getting to feed them and the
Speaker 3: special thing of all kind of being around the fire.
Speaker 4: And we had this table out there and.
Speaker 3: It sort of looked like the Secret Garden as well
Speaker 3: in this backyard. And cooked all these pizzas, and then
Speaker 3: I started getting into other things.
Speaker 4: I thought, what else can I cook it this fire?
Speaker 3: And there's a restaurant in la called Pace that is
Speaker 3: in Laurel Canyon that makes this salmon on a cedar plank,
Speaker 3: and so I thought, I want to learn how to
Speaker 3: make that. And so I ended up getting these cedar
Speaker 3: planks and soaking them in water and putting the salmon
Speaker 3: on top and seasoning it and sticking it in the.
Speaker 4: Wood fire or whatever. It came out so incredibly.
Speaker 2: This is something solitary. When I talked to Michael Caine,
Speaker 2: he said that he'd love to write a book ye
Speaker 2: back to Garden. And he liked to cook because doing
Speaker 2: a movie, you are surrounded by hundreds of people surrounded
Speaker 2: whatever you're doing you just describe being walked to the
Speaker 2: bathroom or trying to find your trail. There's always someone around.
Speaker 2: And then he chose three solitary things that you can
Speaker 2: do on your own. Yea, So it sounds like maybe
Speaker 2: that cooking was something that you could do without.
Speaker 4: Absolutely it makes you feel so.
Speaker 2: Sufficient, Yeah, and also giving giving back that you want
Speaker 2: to feed.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it becomes my love language in a way. I
Speaker 3: cook so much for the people around me. I'll look
Speaker 3: into their eyes when they're eating it and try to
Speaker 3: see if they love it as much as they say they.
Speaker 4: Do, and I'll try to figure out ways of making
Speaker 4: it better.
Speaker 2: And it sounds the way you're talking about it like
Speaker 2: a performance.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you think there are parallels between acting or performing
Speaker 2: or singing and cooking looking into people's eyes and seeing
Speaker 2: how they are responding to your performance.
Speaker 3: Absolutely grilled white peaches with amoretto. Serve six six ripe
Speaker 3: white peaches, one vanilla pod, two tablespoons cast of sugar,
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty milli liters amoretto, preheat of into
Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety degrees celsius heat a grilled pan
Speaker 3: until very hot. Cut each peach in half and remove
Speaker 3: the stone. Place the peach halves cut side down on
Speaker 3: the hot pan and grill until slightly charred. Remove from
Speaker 3: the pan and place face up on an oven proof dish.
Speaker 3: Slice the vanilla pod odd lengthways and put with the
Speaker 3: sugar into a mortar pound until the vanilla pod is
Speaker 3: broken up and combined with the sugar. Scatter the vanilla
Speaker 3: sugar over the peaches and pour over half of the amaretto.
Speaker 3: Bake for ten minutes or until the peaches are soft.
Speaker 3: Add the remaining amaretto, and serve hot or cold with
Speaker 3: a spoonful of crim fresh.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That sounds delicious.
Speaker 2: Austin amaretto and Italian liqueur peaches grilled. Is that anything
Speaker 2: to do with any food you grew up with in California?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I was born in Anaheim, right near Disneyland,
Speaker 3: and we used to have these. We used to have
Speaker 3: trees in the backyard that it wasn't We didn't have peaches,
Speaker 3: but we had grapefruit trees, and we had an orange
Speaker 3: tree in the backyard. And so like the smell of
Speaker 3: fresh fruit. I remember my picking it and us having
Speaker 3: this fresh fruit, and the kitchen and these lemons and grapefruit,
Speaker 3: and so that's that's sort of what that made me think.
Speaker 2: Of, did your mom? Was she a good cook?
Speaker 3: She was a great cook, and especially as the years
Speaker 3: went on, I remember eating a lot of fish sticks
Speaker 3: and you know, the things that you'd get in the
Speaker 3: freezer aisle, and little corn dogs that she would make,
Speaker 3: because when I was born, she wanted to be a
Speaker 3: stay at home mom, and she was a dental high
Speaker 3: genist at the time, and then she ended up starting
Speaker 3: daycare out of the house, and so she would watch
Speaker 3: the children of the mothers who taught at the school
Speaker 3: right right around the corner that I eventually went to
Speaker 3: elementary school there, and so so we always had little
Speaker 3: children in the house, and so she had to make
Speaker 3: these meals that were really quick and easy. So as
Speaker 3: a kid, I just remember eating those and tuna fish
Speaker 3: sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sand and so nothing
Speaker 3: really gourmet at all. And then as the years went on,
Speaker 3: she became vegetarian, and then she became vegan, and then
Speaker 3: she got really into making special things with portobello mushrooms
Speaker 3: and bell peppers.
Speaker 4: Stuffed with gooscous or other things like that.
Speaker 3: So she got a little bit more into it later on,
Speaker 3: But when I was growing up, it wasn't extremely healthy
Speaker 3: in the house. It was it was kind of efficient meals.
Speaker 2: And she's probably working so hard.
Speaker 4: She was working so much.
Speaker 3: And I mean there was twelve kids in the house
Speaker 3: sometimes and yeah, all different ages. And when I was
Speaker 3: when I started going to elementary school, we lived around
Speaker 3: the corner from that same school, and I would walk
Speaker 3: home every lunch and she'd have a peanut butter and
Speaker 3: jelly sandwich waiting for me. And we watched this home
Speaker 3: decorating show called Surprise by Design, and then we would
Speaker 3: we would come up with things that we were going
Speaker 3: to do around the house, and so we we'd lay
Speaker 3: a brick path in the backyard or plant little flowers,
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. We'd get inspired by this show,
Speaker 3: and I just remember how excited I was to walk
Speaker 3: home every day and just eat the sandwich that she
Speaker 3: made for me, and how specially that was.
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful memory. Is that of your mother making
Speaker 2: something for you and going home for lunch. That's that's
Speaker 2: Would you have dinner as well? Would you all sit
Speaker 2: down to dinner or was.
Speaker 3: That Well, my parents divorced when I was seven, and
Speaker 3: a lot of my memories go back to that time
Speaker 3: because it was when sort of the stability of family
Speaker 3: split up and my dad moved into this this person
Speaker 3: that he worked with, and he moved into their garage
Speaker 3: and they had sort of a converted garage and we
Speaker 3: had a tiny, little miniature fridge and that was that
Speaker 3: was where we kept all our groceries. And we had
Speaker 3: air mattresses that we slept on and we put them
Speaker 3: down at night and then we'd put them up and
Speaker 3: we'd put down a table during the day.
Speaker 4: And so it.
Speaker 3: Was this one room that was our entire house, and
Speaker 3: it was just this old garage, and there was a
Speaker 3: treadmill in the corner that was their old treadmill, and
Speaker 3: we would we would make food there, and so we
Speaker 3: shared their kitchen. Better than that, we had sort of
Speaker 3: just this one room. And I started cooking as a
Speaker 3: kid because with my dad had he had work and
Speaker 3: so he would say, hey, I'll pay you two dollars
Speaker 3: if you'd cook dinner tonight. And so as a way
Speaker 3: that I could stock up money as a kid was
Speaker 3: cooking dinner.
Speaker 4: And there was three staple.
Speaker 3: Things, maybe and one of the main ones that I
Speaker 3: remember is burritos. We'd make Dennison's chili bean burritos, which
Speaker 3: this can of beans with some sour cream and cheese,
Speaker 3: and I haven't eaten one of those in years, but
Speaker 3: we used to eat that every night. And then a
Speaker 3: special occasion would be getting a five dollars pizza from
Speaker 3: down the road or something like that. So those were
Speaker 3: that was like the idea of a fancy meal was
Speaker 3: ordering a pizza out when I was a kid, which
Speaker 3: I think then years later coming to a place like
Speaker 3: like your restaurant here, going to French laundry for the
Speaker 3: first time or something like that was was so felt.
Speaker 3: I felt so out of my element in a way
Speaker 3: when I first started going to really nice restaurants, because
Speaker 3: you know, five dollars sounded like a lot for a
Speaker 3: meal when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: Would you do the shopping or would he order out?
Speaker 2: Would you?
Speaker 4: We would always we'd usually get a costco.
Speaker 3: As a kid, yeah and yeah, we'd get food and
Speaker 3: bulk and then and make meals out of that. And
Speaker 3: then at a certain point, I think when I moved
Speaker 3: I moved out when I was seventeen, and I started
Speaker 3: wanted to learn how to make food and wanted to
Speaker 3: know how flavors fit together. And I started making some money,
Speaker 3: and so I started trying restaurants in LA and then
Speaker 3: I worked in New York for the first time, and
Speaker 3: that was really eye opening because just getting to try
Speaker 3: great little Italian restaurants. And I remember going to Roberta's
Speaker 3: for the first time, which is this restaurant in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: Had a friend of mine who owned all these restaurants
Speaker 3: in LA. He said, this is the restaurant that made
Speaker 3: me want to open a restaurant. And so going to
Speaker 3: Roberta's and and trying there and it feels a lot
Speaker 3: like here, where you feel like you're home, you know
Speaker 3: you're entering. I realized I have a lot of instability
Speaker 3: in my life. There hasn't been a lot of continuity
Speaker 3: in many areas of my life since I was young,
Speaker 3: just because I travel a lot. And even the nature
Speaker 3: of doing a film or a TV show, you you
Speaker 3: sort of make a family of the entire crew and
Speaker 3: then it splits up.
Speaker 4: And through therapy, I.
Speaker 3: Sort of realized that that was that I was almost
Speaker 3: like reliving my childhood of my parents getting divorced. For
Speaker 3: you know, many years of making a family, and then
Speaker 3: it splits up, and you make a family and it
Speaker 3: splits up. And so I'd seek out ways of having
Speaker 3: stability and consistency and most of that for me while
Speaker 3: on location, whether I was Vancouver, New Zealand, or Australia,
Speaker 3: here in London, or wherever I was, I would I
Speaker 3: would find restaurants that became my second home, and I'd
Speaker 3: get to the point where I'd go there every day
Speaker 3: and the staff then knew me and I knew them,
Speaker 3: and suddenly it felt like there was there was this
Speaker 3: thing that was separate from my work, that felt like home.
Speaker 3: Even if I've woken up with anxiety, or if i
Speaker 3: feel sad or I feel overwhelmed, I go to a restaurant,
Speaker 3: I think what you've created here is so beautiful because
Speaker 3: I feel it here as well. I'll come here with
Speaker 3: a book and you know, and I get to see you,
Speaker 3: and I get to read, and I know the people
Speaker 3: who work here, and that goes even deeper because you
Speaker 3: and I have a family relationship.
Speaker 2: Beyond that, I think I always say that in an
Speaker 2: irregular world, we do need regular things. And I think
Speaker 2: even if we have, you know your life, you know
Speaker 2: the way you describe. It is very moving and very
Speaker 2: honest and a revelation of who you are. But I
Speaker 2: think that even if you have a consistency and you
Speaker 2: have those foundations and you have that life, it's still
Speaker 2: we seek out. You know. You talk to people about
Speaker 2: the Sunday lunch, people going home for Sunday lunch, or
Speaker 2: Friday night supper or Christmas. The Christmas lunch has to
Speaker 2: be the same every year. And so food does mean that,
Speaker 2: doesn't It gives you a sense of stability. And I
Speaker 2: always wanted a restaurant to feel like home, you know,
Speaker 2: that is a place. I'm always amazed that people will
Speaker 2: come to a restaurant even if they've had a really
Speaker 2: bad day, you know, or something bad has happened.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we need it on those days the most, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that you come.
Speaker 3: This morning, I could hardly leave the house. I just
Speaker 3: felt anxious for some reason. And then I got myself.
Speaker 3: I just said, you know, I just got to get
Speaker 3: to the cafe. And once you get there, then suddenly
Speaker 3: there's life around you and it sort of buzzes and
Speaker 3: you feel humanity wash over you, and things that are
Speaker 3: happening outside of your own experience. And then and then
Speaker 3: you eat delicious food and that really helps.
Speaker 2: Did you eat pizzas in Italy when you went on
Speaker 2: that trip? You tell me that you took a road trip.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a lot of pizza there.
Speaker 2: Where did you start?
Speaker 4: We took this.
Speaker 3: One of the best trips I've ever taken was this.
Speaker 3: Spent a month just road tripping through Italy. That was
Speaker 3: probably four years ago, or was before I was. And
Speaker 3: we started in Milan, drove from Milan to the coast
Speaker 3: and went to Porto Fino first, and I'd only ever
Speaker 3: spent maybe a week in Italy before this, and that
Speaker 3: was incredible. And then drove down and went to Chinquitere
Speaker 3: and hiked between the little villages and when through the
Speaker 3: vineyards there had pasta, Oh my gosh, the best pesta
Speaker 3: pasta besides yours.
Speaker 2: Yea, they can make a better one. I'm not competitive.
Speaker 4: It was incredible.
Speaker 3: And then drove down through Tuscany, drove to Florence and
Speaker 3: did that for a couple of days, and drove out
Speaker 3: to this little bed and breakfast in Tuscany. It was
Speaker 3: run by this beautiful Italian woman and her husband, and
Speaker 3: they had two daughters and one of the daughters would
Speaker 3: play piano in the afternoon and you'd hear it reverberating
Speaker 3: through the vineyard.
Speaker 4: And so it's just us and this family.
Speaker 3: And she'd bring for catcha up and you'd eat it
Speaker 3: around the pool in the afternoon, and then and then
Speaker 3: at night, her husband would would One night, he caught
Speaker 3: a wild boar, and so then she made this wild
Speaker 3: boar and it was just absolutely divine. And one of
Speaker 3: their daughters was dating a young man who was eighteen
Speaker 3: years old that he was half Israelian half Italian. And
Speaker 3: he told me, he said, you know, I am a pilot.
Speaker 3: And I said, oh, you're a pilot. That's that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: And he said and he said, do you know I
Speaker 3: can fly you if you want me to.
Speaker 4: And I said, wow, yeah, I mean that would be cool.
Speaker 3: But I thought, I'm not trusting our lives in this
Speaker 3: eighteen year old kids' hands.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: And then the next night his mom came to dinner.
Speaker 3: She was in the Israeli Air Force. She said, you know,
Speaker 3: he's actually a very good pilot. I said, you know what,
Speaker 3: you only live once. I mean, where can we go?
Speaker 3: And he said, you know, I can fly you to
Speaker 3: Elba it's when, and I thought, well, last where Napoleon
Speaker 3: was exiled, and he could go to that little island
Speaker 3: and that'd be really cool. And I said, you know what,
Speaker 3: let's do it. I'll pay for guys, I'll pay for
Speaker 3: the plane whatever we need. And so we end up
Speaker 3: end up getting in the car and he couldn't drive
Speaker 3: a car, but he could fly a plane.
Speaker 4: And so I drive us all it's.
Speaker 3: Me and my girlfriend at the time, and him and
Speaker 3: his girlfriend, and we drive up the floor Lawrence, and
Speaker 3: we end up getting to the little like separate private
Speaker 3: area of the airport and we go through security, and
Speaker 3: then he ends up going to a little garage and
Speaker 3: by hand pulling out a little four seat or cessna,
Speaker 3: see you pictured this skinny little Italian. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: he pulls this thing out by hand. I'm thinking, oh
Speaker 3: my god, what are we doing here. It felt like
Speaker 3: riding in a go kart or something. And we get
Speaker 3: into the plane and go through all the pre flight
Speaker 3: checks and then we take off and he and then
Speaker 3: I can't hear him at all. It's static in the headphones,
Speaker 3: and I see panic over his face. And we're in
Speaker 3: the air now and we're flying I'm thinking, he's the
Speaker 3: only person that can land this plane, and there's panic
Speaker 3: on his face, and I can't hear him, and it's static.
Speaker 3: And then I realized that he just couldn't figure out
Speaker 3: how to switch a certain switch, and so we couldn't
Speaker 3: hear each other. And once he figured that out, then
Speaker 3: peace came upon the airplane.
Speaker 4: And then he told me it's a.
Speaker 3: Very dangerous landing place in Elba because you have to
Speaker 3: fly in this zig zag shape, and.
Speaker 2: So that's that I'm going to God.
Speaker 3: We trusted this eighteen and we ended up zigzagging through
Speaker 3: the mountains of Elba and landing and we got there safely, thankfully,
Speaker 3: and then we clearly and then we ate Pasta with
Speaker 3: him and his girlfriend that day for lunch, and they
Speaker 3: flew back and we stayed and rode around on Vespers
Speaker 3: and ate pasta all these different beaches on Elba and
Speaker 3: went to the vineyards that Napoleon used to go to.
Speaker 3: And then he came back three days later and picked
Speaker 3: us up on the plane and we flew back to Florence.
Speaker 4: And that was it was magic.
Speaker 2: So the adventure of travel, the adventure of eating.
Speaker 4: It's like over dinner, you create these adventures.
Speaker 2: You know, the culture of a country is so taken
Speaker 2: through its food. And very often, as you know, we
Speaker 2: meet somebody who comes back from a country and we
Speaker 2: don't ask what museum they went to or you know,
Speaker 2: what gallery they saw?
Speaker 4: What church?
Speaker 2: Will we do? But you know this also tells you
Speaker 2: so much by the saying, as you've just described the
Speaker 2: food that they ate and the culture of the dinners,
Speaker 2: or the shooting a boar or catching a fish, or
Speaker 2: it's as exciting as getting on a plane crazily, I
Speaker 2: might say, am I somebody who don't know? You know,
Speaker 2: it's all about curiosity and exploring and opening ourselves up.
Speaker 2: And so if we think about you know, we've talked
Speaker 2: about food as memory of the food that you've found
Speaker 2: had sets and traveling and working, and the food that
Speaker 2: connects us all. I suppose it connects our memories, it
Speaker 2: connects each other as a sense of excitement. But it's
Speaker 2: also sex of comfort. What would be the food you
Speaker 2: would probably go to for comfort.
Speaker 3: I've been away from home for a long time, and
Speaker 3: as well as the fact that my mother's no longer here.
Speaker 4: She passed away when I was twenty.
Speaker 3: Three, and I almost hadn't put it into conscious thought,
Speaker 3: but I often will. After a big week or if
Speaker 3: I'm feeling really overwhelmed, I'll make a peanut butter and
Speaker 3: jelly sandwich and that becomes my thing. I made one
Speaker 3: the other day and it's just that that comforting sensation. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that that's one of my go to comfort foods
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: I'll see you for cards on Sunday night, partner, I'll
Speaker 2: see that. Thank you. To visit the online shop of
Speaker 2: The River Cafe, go to shop The Rivercafe dot co
Speaker 2: dot uk.
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