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Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.

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Speaker 2: When people talk about food, they talk about memories, the

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Speaker 2: meals of their childhood, unforgettable parties they went to, comfort eating,

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Speaker 2: and their grandmother's kitchen. Forty four guests have joined me

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Speaker 2: at Table four this season, Chefs, actors, tennis champions, football heroes.

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Speaker 2: As part of the podcast, many have cooked with our

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Speaker 2: chefs in the River Cafe kitchen. As the season comes

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Speaker 2: to a close, we're sharing some of these conversations with

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Speaker 2: you in this episode Wycliffe, Seawan, Carrie Mulligan, Tom Hollander,

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Speaker 2: and Guy Ritchie. Let's begin with Sarah Jessica Parker, who

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Speaker 2: brought her family to the River Cafe, learned how to

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Speaker 2: make Puntaurel in the kitchen, and join me for a

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Speaker 2: lunchtime event with an invited audience.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, good cooling here.

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Speaker 2: So here we are. Did you ever work in a restaurant?

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Speaker 1: No?

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Speaker 4: But I say this, knowing how hard it is. I

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Speaker 4: think I would really love to be a server.

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Speaker 3: Like I really think that.

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Speaker 4: This summer is and you I was, we were really

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Speaker 4: admiring your service the day because I said to the girls,

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Speaker 4: I was like I'm not sure that I've seen servers

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Speaker 4: move this fast a long time, because Sunday is a

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Speaker 4: very busy day for you guys, right, Like especially was

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Speaker 4: a really busy day and I was saying to somebody

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Speaker 4: and I said, you know, I don't get to come

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Speaker 4: to the River Cafe very often. I don't live in London,

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Speaker 4: and to myself, to Matthew, it's like a very it's

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Speaker 4: a it's like a special thing. It's like something you

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Speaker 4: earn or maybe you work toward or you pine about,

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Speaker 4: and then you visit it and you're not sure if

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Speaker 4: you made it all up, like is it possible that

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Speaker 4: you joined a sort of cult, like a kind of

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Speaker 4: thinking about it?

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Speaker 3: Can it be?

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Speaker 4: And then you come here? My hand got it is?

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Speaker 4: And the kitchen really is. It's extraordinary to watch. It

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Speaker 4: is like a pinball machine, but it's like there's such

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Speaker 4: precision about it. And I love watching the chefs talk

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Speaker 4: to each other quickly and passing or actually come together

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Speaker 4: to speak. I don't know, it's amazing and it's glorious.

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Speaker 3: We were thrilled to be here, really.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're thrilled to have you and I. When we

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Speaker 2: first did the completely open kitchen. You will remember after

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Speaker 2: the fire, Richard Ayir, who's a director of theater, came

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Speaker 2: in and I said, Richard, isn't it just like theater

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Speaker 2: watching everyone around? And he said, actually, Ry, it isn't.

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Speaker 2: It's like ballet. And he said, because watching people everybody,

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Speaker 2: you can't shout in an open kitchen. I mean, sometimes

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Speaker 2: raise your voice, but basically you're moving around to speak

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Speaker 2: to people about if you need to. Usually there's a

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Speaker 2: kind of communication.

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Speaker 4: And this time I had the ravioli with the spinach

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Speaker 4: and the ricotta and those tiny gorgeous porcini mushrooms that

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Speaker 4: are like a surprise.

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Speaker 3: They don't talk about that as much.

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Speaker 4: And we ordered two and I was like, my daughter said,

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Speaker 4: do you think we can order another one?

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Speaker 3: James said, can we order another one? Which just seems so.

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Speaker 4: Like gluttonous and decadent and greedy, and and I was like,

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Speaker 4: you know what, yes, And if anybody says anything, I'll

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Speaker 4: just say we'll take it, like I'm sorry that we're

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Speaker 4: being so like like animals about this, but it's a

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Speaker 4: kind of it's good to think of it as this

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Speaker 4: kind of once in a lifetime.

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Speaker 3: It's just incredible.

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Speaker 2: One of the things I think that we all, probably

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Speaker 2: everyone in this moom would think about. Was that in

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Speaker 2: Sex and the City and the way you talk about

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Speaker 2: food the joy. So many conversations were over food, and

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Speaker 2: it was the pleasure of food. It was enjoying food

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Speaker 2: as a way of communicating and being together, which we

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Speaker 2: you know, we all feel here that we a restaurant

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Speaker 2: is a place where you share Yeah, you know food

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Speaker 2: you're sitting down at the table or at home with

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Speaker 2: your children. Yeah, And so how is that working in

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Speaker 2: Sex and the City and doing was that from you?

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Speaker 3: I always loved food scenes.

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Speaker 4: I think it initially it was initially in place I

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Speaker 4: think probably from either Candace's original source material or Darren

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Speaker 4: Starr wrote that first coffee shop scene, which I think

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Speaker 4: was just a great meeting place to sort of talk

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Speaker 4: about the themes of the of each episode, like get

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Speaker 4: the headline out, and then each person, those kind of

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Speaker 4: archetypal characters would share points of view, so we knew

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Speaker 4: where where everybody stood, and it allowed for controversial conversation

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Speaker 4: or titillating conversation. But I will say this that Cynthia Nixon,

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Speaker 4: who is a dear friend of mine and we've been

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Speaker 4: working together since we were little girls.

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Speaker 3: We've known each other, so we were eleven or ten.

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Speaker 4: She was a child actor also, and we would all

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Speaker 4: auditioned together. She often got the part. And but we

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Speaker 4: played siblings when I was very young. We played sisters

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Speaker 4: on records. They used to do records of stories, and

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Speaker 4: we played Laura and Mary Ingalls, and then we played

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Speaker 4: siblings of we played children of Vanessa Redgrave in a movie.

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Speaker 4: But Cynthia and I in those coffee shop scenes, we

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Speaker 4: always eat. Yeah, we always eat, and we always need

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Speaker 4: to like reprop our plate. And then when we finally wrap,

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Speaker 4: they'll always they always said to Cynthia, Me and Cynthia,

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Speaker 4: do you guys want to take it.

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Speaker 3: To go again today? Yes, we do.

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Speaker 4: So we really like those scenes, and we very much

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Speaker 4: go back and forth about what you could they'll send

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Speaker 4: the menu in advance now now that we all have

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Speaker 4: the phones and things, and because they want you to

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Speaker 4: order an advance for props to have everything ready and multiple,

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Speaker 4: you know, multiples of it.

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Speaker 3: So we'll go back and forth. Would you order You're

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Speaker 3: going to order the all or that? So you ordered

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Speaker 3: that and we can share. So the food is the lines.

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Speaker 5: Are blurred yes, women eating you know, yes was something

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Speaker 5: that we are all thinking about how we combine you know, food,

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Speaker 5: and I think it it's changed.

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Speaker 2: You find that your daughters are different now in terms

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Speaker 2: of their attitude.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I I never was very disciplined about it.

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Speaker 3: I just wasn't.

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Speaker 4: I think I'm not really good at like denying myself something.

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Speaker 4: And I think also I was a dancer for so

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Speaker 4: long and running around, so it was I was able

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Speaker 4: to be that way. It's certainly not the same now.

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Speaker 4: But I also just I had girls. It just was

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Speaker 4: so I didn't want them to have a relationship with

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Speaker 4: food that was antagonistic or they felt like this was

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Speaker 4: their enemy and that they were going to have to

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Speaker 4: sort of like stake out a position with food. So

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Speaker 4: when I was growing up, we weren't allowed sugar in

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Speaker 4: the house, and we were allowed to cookies, and we

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Speaker 4: weren't allowed the chocolate. And of course all we did

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Speaker 4: the minute we moved out was buy Entimate's cakes and cookies,

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Speaker 4: and you know, and I didn't want that. So in

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Speaker 4: our house we have cookies, we have cake, we have everything.

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Speaker 4: And I think as a result, you kind of have

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Speaker 4: a healthier relationship and my daughters will have the figures

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Speaker 4: they have and hopefully they'll be healthy in their athletes

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Speaker 4: and they enjoy food, and they have different palettes, and

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Speaker 4: you can't make someone like something they don't like or want.

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Speaker 4: And I hope that they I hope that they can

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Speaker 4: maintain their affection for the experience and their delight in

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Speaker 4: taste and find their own ways to have that be

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Speaker 4: healthy for them.

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Speaker 2: And your son mad for food. It was fantastic to

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Speaker 2: be all three of them are just you know, involved

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Speaker 2: in the food and talking about the food and asking

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Speaker 2: questions about yea on Sunday, I know.

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Speaker 3: Math Matthew cooks.

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Speaker 4: We both cook every single day, every day, every single day.

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Speaker 3: Every day. We probably eat dinner as a family every night.

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Speaker 4: If I'm shooting or he's going to play, obviously that

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Speaker 4: shifts around. We always have dinner Sunday night, but one

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Speaker 4: of us, if we're home, cooks every single day.

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Speaker 2: The film director Guy Ritchie loves food and he loves

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Speaker 2: wine and has his own unique way of doing things.

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Speaker 2: When he came to the River Cafe, he didn't go

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Speaker 2: into the kitchen. He set up his own outdoor kitchen

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Speaker 2: in the garden and cooked a steak for our chefs.

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Speaker 2: But that's not the only reason I like guy. He's

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Speaker 2: a childhood friend of my step Sunabe and I've known

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Speaker 2: him for decades. We began this conversation talking about his

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Speaker 2: early food memories growing up with his family in London.

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Speaker 6: When we moved in, it was an old old fashion.

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Speaker 7: In theory.

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Speaker 6: It wasn't a sort of Cottney community, but it was

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Speaker 6: an old fashioned English community there. So this is in

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Speaker 6: sixty They bought that house in Fulham and they were

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Speaker 6: like foodies and boozies then, which is quite early doors.

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Speaker 2: So you grew up in the house that loved food.

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Speaker 6: And then my mum was very a cook.

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Speaker 2: Where did she cook?

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Speaker 6: My favorite was watercress soup. Really it was quite exotic

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Speaker 6: rabert carriers idea, but she was a very goa cook.

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Speaker 6: I used to like baked eggs and watercrest soup.

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Speaker 2: And would you sit down to dinner like most nights

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Speaker 2: as a fa who's in your family?

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Speaker 6: Your brothers and one sister, a sister and a mother, and.

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Speaker 2: So would you sit down to me with the family supper?

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Speaker 6: I heard something earlier on that I'm not can't remember

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Speaker 6: which generation we are, but we are still the sort

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Speaker 6: of the I suppose maybe the LA generation that lived

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Speaker 6: more outdoors than we did indoors, so I knew all

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Speaker 6: the other kids in the street, so you were never indoors.

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Speaker 6: You were always out with your mates. And we were

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Speaker 6: on bicycles. I remember used to cycle to quite far

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Speaker 6: Afield and we were on bicycles when we were six.

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Speaker 6: So I went to local school, local, I went to

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Speaker 6: thirteen school. I went thirteen thirteen. Okay, yeah, local school

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Speaker 6: or no school could cope with no educating local school

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Speaker 6: could cope. And I sort of picked up the reputation

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Speaker 6: that it was because I was naughty, and it wasn't

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Speaker 6: because I was naughty. It was it was just I

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Speaker 6: was remarkably slow in understanding what they were trying to translate,

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Speaker 6: and I had no ability to translate it. So yeah,

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Speaker 6: very probiscuous for schools. And I went to about five

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Speaker 6: local schools and then gradually, I mean even the one

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Speaker 6: I went to school with ab that was which is

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Speaker 6: subsequently shut down. Most of the schools I went to

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Speaker 6: subsequently because they were all learning disability schools, and they

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Speaker 6: did well. They sort of fumbled around as best they could,

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Speaker 6: and I'm sort of grateful for their efforts. But there

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Speaker 6: was only one person I met that was more dyslexic

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Speaker 6: than me, and that was Abe.

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Speaker 2: I've been to my kids' schools, you know, whether it

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Speaker 2: was Abe or it was you know, my children, and

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Speaker 2: I remember saying the only I don't care if they

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Speaker 2: learned to read when they're eight or six or ten

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Speaker 2: or twelve or fourteen. What you do never want your

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Speaker 2: child to do is to feel stupid. You know, because

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Speaker 2: I said, those are the people that come into the

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Speaker 2: River Cafe, and they was coming and they say, I

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Speaker 2: don't want to sit here. I don't want that, I

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Speaker 2: don't want this, And I almost want to say, did

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Speaker 2: you have a hard time in school? You know, because.

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Speaker 6: It's I'm going to challenge you. I'm going to challenge

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Speaker 6: you that from the best roses come from the worstman you. Okay,

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Speaker 6: So I think a certain amount of adversity is rather essential.

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Speaker 6: And I don't think it did me much harm being told.

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Speaker 6: You never told you're stupid, It was implicit feel that

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Speaker 6: you were where you were clear, it was clear that

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Speaker 6: you couldn't follow right, and you were clear that kids

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Speaker 6: that weren't that quick were following quicker than you. Could follow,

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Speaker 6: so you could you knew there was an issue. I

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Speaker 6: would argue though, that that gave me a sort of

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Speaker 6: a myriad of skills that otherwise I would never have developed.

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Speaker 6: And feeling like you were an outside of some description

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Speaker 6: and feeling diminished as a point in the end, I

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Speaker 6: just don't think that did me any harm.

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Speaker 2: I agree with you about a lot of that. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I agree with self esteem. I used to think self

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Speaker 2: esteem was the most important thing. Now I think maybe not.

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Speaker 6: It was a paradox that. Yeah, there's a paradox.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, going back then thirteen schools, do you remember

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Speaker 2: any of those searteen schools having good food?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, you'll be surprised what kind of food I can enjoy? Yeah,

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Speaker 6: tell me everything. My mum wasn't fussy, and I've never

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Speaker 6: been fussy. The only thing I couldn't eat was rhubarb,

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Speaker 6: and even that I can eat now, and I was.

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Speaker 6: I'm quite interested and enjoy industrial quantities of food that's

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Speaker 6: not necessarily to consume. But there's a sort of it

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Speaker 6: takes on certain qualities they used to do, like school, Lasanya,

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Speaker 6: when you're cooking for a few hundred kids, it takes

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Speaker 6: on complex characteristics that are impossible to derive if you're

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Speaker 6: using quality product. So yeah, I liked school food.

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Speaker 2: Out of thirteen schools, which one did you? Did you

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Speaker 2: do something like graduating from school? Or did you just

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Speaker 2: leave school?

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Speaker 6: It just left fifteen, and it was anticlimactic sort of.

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Speaker 6: I left and then they said, don't bother coming back?

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Speaker 2: And did your parents were they? Were they worried about you?

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Speaker 4: Yes?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, because I had no qualifications at all. I

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Speaker 6: can barely spell my name, but I was. I mean,

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Speaker 6: I was working by the time I was fifteen, not

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Speaker 6: far from here, actually some Peter Square in amazonhere.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: I worked in the Island Records, which I don't know

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Speaker 6: if it's still there, but I worked as a twoboy

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Speaker 6: in records.

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Speaker 2: Were you living at home? Did your mom still cook

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Speaker 2: for you?

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Speaker 8: Who?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 6: I left home early door, So I was from fifteen onwards.

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Speaker 6: I was in and out And.

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Speaker 2: What were you eating? Do you remember?

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Speaker 9: Ummm no is.

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Speaker 6: The answer that no be goes. Then it was it

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Speaker 6: was all work from fifteen to now. It's really all

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Speaker 6: been work, although it's been sort of messy periods along

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Speaker 6: that way. I've been working pretty much since I was fifteen.

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Speaker 6: My first love of real food was French and I

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Speaker 6: was tremendously impressed by the layering.

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Speaker 2: M call layering, you mean the way.

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Speaker 6: That I felt as though there was every nuance was investigated.

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Speaker 6: There was a place on Pimlico Road that was run

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Speaker 6: by those brothers.

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Speaker 2: Remember, yeah, it was next to the pot Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: that's when I.

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Speaker 6: There was a little supermarket. There was next door a

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Speaker 6: little shop and a little French shop, not much bigger

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Speaker 6: than this room. And when I was a van driver,

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Speaker 6: I used to go in there and it was absurdly expensive,

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Speaker 6: but the quality was mind blowing. You've run a career

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Speaker 6: off the quality of your ingredients, Avenue.

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Speaker 2: I would say that about French food and Italian food.

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Speaker 2: You know that I see nothing I love more than

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Speaker 2: a piece of fish, both blanc and spinach on the bottom.

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Speaker 2: As you say, almost layering the way. But there's something

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Speaker 2: also when you go to Italy and then you have

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Speaker 2: a piece of sea bass and nothing. You know, you

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Speaker 2: just get this bass and maybe, if you're lucky, a

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Speaker 2: bit of salsa verdi or lemon, and so if you're

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Speaker 2: going to have only two ingredients of lemon and a

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Speaker 2: sea bass or sea bass and a bit of wild diregular.

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Speaker 2: The wild diregua has to be wild, and the sea

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Speaker 2: bass has to be incredibly fit, you know, fresh, because

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Speaker 2: there's no masking of it. You're not looking at the

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Speaker 2: hollandaise or the burnets or the other stuff, you know.

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Speaker 2: So I think we are with the river Cafe definitely

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Speaker 2: is very ingredient based. Yeah, we are.

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Speaker 6: I went fishing for sea bass this week, actually Portland anyway,

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Speaker 6: So I caught four very healthy bats. We're actually caught fourteen.

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Speaker 6: We returned ten of them. Wet fishing with my ten

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Speaker 6: year old is obsessed and English bass.

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Speaker 2: We get it is. We get all our fish off

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Speaker 2: the coast. We don't bring any two now or anything in.

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Speaker 2: We once had one of my was we had the

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Speaker 2: we you know, we call it the end of service.

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Speaker 2: So at eleven o'clock at night, we know how much

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Speaker 2: bass we've sold, how much you know turbot we've sold,

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Speaker 2: and we know that the next day we're going to

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Speaker 2: change the menu. So we never have the menu. It

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Speaker 2: just depends what there is in the fridge and what

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Speaker 2: there is in the sea. And then we got a

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Speaker 2: call from the boat and he said, I we have

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Speaker 2: just reeled in a turbot and it's so big that

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Speaker 2: either the River Cafe takes it or we put it

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Speaker 2: back in the sea.

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Speaker 6: Do you want and we took it? How big was it?

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Speaker 6: I can't remember?

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Speaker 2: Maybe I have no eight kills. The River Cafe Cafe,

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Speaker 2: our all day space and just steps away from the restaurant,

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Speaker 2: is now open. In the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,

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Speaker 2: ciambella and crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon,

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Speaker 2: ice creamed coups and River Cafe classic desserts. We have

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Speaker 2: sharing plates Salumi, misti, mozzarella, brusqueto, red and yellow peppers,

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Speaker 2: Vitello tonado and more. Come in the evening for cocktails

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Speaker 2: with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book,

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Speaker 2: see you here. When Michael Jean came to Table four,

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Speaker 2: he had memories to share and songs to sing, But

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Speaker 2: the moment that stays with me most was this story

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Speaker 2: about his childhood. As a young boy, Wycliffe was left

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Speaker 2: with his grandmother in Haiti while his parents tried to

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Speaker 2: make a new life for the family in America, and

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Speaker 2: then one day an immigration officer came looking for them.

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Speaker 1: The immigration unit goes to my mama the apartment that

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Speaker 1: they staying in. So while my dad's running, this is

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Speaker 1: a big raid like dayDay about them. Yes, this is

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Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Now immigration officer gets to my mama apartment. Immigration,

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Speaker 1: open up the door now, man, and my mom is

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Speaker 1: so scared. The immigration officer has a translator with him

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Speaker 1: that speaks French and crayle. So the immigration officer says,

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Speaker 1: I had a knocked on this door for a time.

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Speaker 1: They ain't open and I know somebody in there. I

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Speaker 1: need you to say it in cray all, in French

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Speaker 1: whatever language that is. Tell them to open that door.

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Speaker 1: And the translator says to my mother and cray all

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Speaker 1: fair softly, man, I was butler translation, do you not

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Speaker 1: open that door right now? Now? The reason why I

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Speaker 1: say this right is, at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: people get caught up in these situations, and we the

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Speaker 1: United States of America, like there was a time where

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Speaker 1: we would take keyed to this, and we would take

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Speaker 1: like cause to this, and we would be so sensitive

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Speaker 1: to that, like where we could say, we'll give you

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Speaker 1: a pass because we know what you're doing here. You're

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Speaker 1: not breaking the law. You just had a bad day.

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Speaker 1: And these days do not exist.

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Speaker 2: No. Also, you know you're making the country better, you know,

360
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Speaker 2: by coming from another country. And I was just given

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Speaker 2: a prize in America. It asked to be in the academy.

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Speaker 2: I was made a member of this Academy of Arts

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Speaker 2: and Letters. And I wrote the letter and I said,

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Speaker 2: my grandparents came from Russia and I came in nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 2: You know, they were part of that Ellis Island. I

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Speaker 2: was just thinking, two generations. How you know if your

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Speaker 2: grandparents were here watching you they did your grandparents know

368
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Speaker 2: the measure of your success? Did they see?

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Speaker 4: No?

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Speaker 1: My grandparents, my grandma knew my musical abilities at a

371
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Speaker 1: very young age because I would just like make songs up.

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Speaker 1: There was these women in the village every Sunday that

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Speaker 1: would sing these church hymns and I would just get

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Speaker 1: I would just be part of remember one. Yeah, I

375
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Speaker 1: remember a few of them.

376
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Speaker 7: She sat fair, Not do you wan pair?

377
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Speaker 8: When Bennie and corner Shop? She shuck fair? Oh what

378
00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 8: do you want pair? Oh Bennie when Bennie?

379
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Speaker 7: Yeah? And more corner Poco Damn the.

380
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Speaker 8: Lulja bo Ben Dick Show, Wha.

381
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 10: Wha Poco men, The Louija Bo Ben Dick show Whoa.

382
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Speaker 10: So that was that was you know, you could just

383
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Speaker 10: feel it.

384
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Speaker 1: But the the the the him is saying we're blessed

385
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Speaker 1: and we should acknowledge that like basically every day of

386
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Speaker 1: our life. So again that was some of the I

387
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: would hear these these these uh, these amazing women like

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Speaker 1: and and then so the heymns would just channel through me.

389
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Speaker 2: And after church, would you would that be food? Would

390
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Speaker 2: that be a meal? Would you go home?

391
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Speaker 1: And hence we call it lucky Sunday. You get that

392
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Speaker 1: lucky Sunday. Everything come out on that Lucky Sunday. But

393
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Speaker 1: it doesn't happen often. Lucky Sunday happens on Easter.

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Speaker 9: The meal is big.

395
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Speaker 1: The meal is big. The meal is a lot of meat,

396
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Speaker 1: goat goat goat cooked very interesting. It's called tasu. It's

397
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Speaker 1: fried traditionally in Haiti. If you see how they cook,

398
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: they used the chabon charcoal, so it's caught with the

399
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Speaker 1: charcoal because you know, the food gonna taste different, and

400
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: then they put the big aluminum pan and so the

401
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: gold is fried. They would make a uh poisson. The

402
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: poisson gorsel is the white fish a little saltea like codfish.

403
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 1: At times, it.

404
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 2: Sounds like you're saying gross sell large salt, doesn't.

405
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: It yeah, yeah, yes, yes so. And in crele the

406
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 1: word means big yeah so yeah, and then phonetically yes

407
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: so because crayle in French at times the words do

408
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 1: mean the same thing else.

409
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 2: And so when you your father around and your mother

410
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 2: didn't open the door, so were they safe in the

411
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 2: United States for you to come?

412
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: They were safe. My parents came and got me and

413
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 1: my brother. Now they get on the plane. The immigration

414
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:01,639
Speaker 1: laws work. They come and get us from Haiti. So

415
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: me and my brother going to see my parents for

416
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,719
Speaker 1: the first time. Left for me now yeah. So now

417
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: I'm like eight nine and now my parents are come

418
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: in to get me, and I've never seen them. For them,

419
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: so my grandma gets us dressed, she takes our bags,

420
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 1: she brings us to the airport. I ain't never seen

421
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: an airport before. So when the airplane is landing, you

422
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: can imagine what that looks like to me, the UFOE.

423
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:34,120
Speaker 1: So the airplane lands, and I'll never forget. My mother

424
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: had a yellow outfit. She looked like Jackie Yo. She

425
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: had the glasses on, you know, she looked like Miss America.

426
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, that's my mama right there.

427
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Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.

428
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Speaker 1: My dad had the long bed looking like he moses.

429
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: You know, he comes and they come and they hold

430
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 1: me and my brother in that hog. I could still

431
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: feel that hog.

432
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen you for how long I haven't seen us?

433
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: Since we were born?

434
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 2: Did they continue cooking the food of Haiti? In Brooklyn?

435
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: My mama had a thing you only can eat in

436
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: the house. I didn't even know what it was like

437
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 1: to go to a fast food restaurant. A lot of

438
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: what was cooked in Brooklyn was something called ligan. Ligan, Yes,

439
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: ligan is similar to a gumbo, right, but all in vegetables,

440
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: so eggplants, water cress, this was like part of it.

441
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: Also a lot of yam, sweet potatoes and this is natural.

442
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: A lot of fish in the morning. It was very,

443
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: very important that you had breakfast. My father, who was

444
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: also an amazing cook, he used to cook liver for iron, right,

445
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: so again like it would be all, but he would

446
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: like cook the liver with egg whites.

447
00:25:58,000 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 2: They dipped the liver in the.

448
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, they beat the batter, yeah, And they batter the

449
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: liver so it's very it's not rough, so everything is

450
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: very tender. So we naturally grew up in an environment

451
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: where the food wasn't processed like they literally, Oh you

452
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: know what, she used to do chicken, So from the chicken.

453
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: She would always go to the butcher, like they would

454
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: not if the meat wasn't from the butcher, they would

455
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: there's no such thing about she go to the supermarket

456
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: and get chicken. So everything is from the butcher. And

457
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: it was called pool gee. And I gotta tell you,

458
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: just thinking about that chicken right now and how they

459
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 1: seasoned it and cooked it was pretty amazing.

460
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 2: Did you ever go in the kitchen and cook with

461
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 2: your mom?

462
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: My mother? She was like, you gotta be real successful.

463
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: I said, why because she said every time we cook,

464
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 1: and all you do is you come in the kitchen

465
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: and sing, and you sing, and you stay here and

466
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: you wait. So you the first one with the first

467
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: meal out right. My mom when she would cook rice,

468
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: she would had me work with the seasons with her.

469
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: There's a seasoning called Maggie. You've ever heard of it?

470
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 2: I think I have.

471
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: It's like amazing because it's like a mixed season and

472
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: it was something like she can't. It literally works in everything,

473
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: like literally is like a little cube, yes, yeah, yeah,

474
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: like a yellow okay.

475
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's like a cube of vegetables.

476
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: And they put Maggie in.

477
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.

478
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: So that was one of the things. She was like,

479
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: give me the two Maggie's so the rice game is crazy,

480
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: and Haiti and and and then the the the kitchen.

481
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: So she'd be like, okay, put this amount of water

482
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: right in the pot. And she put the water. She says, okay,

483
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: put this amount of oil right. And one of the

484
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: things she used to have me you do was wash

485
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: the rice. Cleaning was very very important to her how

486
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: she actually cooked the food. So I'd be like, but

487
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 1: the rice is already in the park just but no,

488
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: she says, you got to put the rice in the water.

489
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 9: Got it.

490
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: So literally for five minutes she has me cleaning this

491
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: rice out. And I remember, like now I would sit

492
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: back and watch the water boil. And while the water

493
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: was boiling, I was singing my mother's favorite French song,

494
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: Jacques Bell, which.

495
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 7: One my l.

496
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: Says, quite and Mary unfaithful and faithful? Did it sting?

497
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 9: Did it?

498
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 7: I have a version of it?

499
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you go, yes, that's right. Yeah, Now you

500
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: got to hear they clap version.

501
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 2: So you sang it in Creole, No.

502
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: I sang it in English. But I put the hip

503
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: hop to it. I was like, yeah, yeah, you know,

504
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: I put the hipness to it. I put that sauce,

505
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, I put the maggi in it.

506
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 2: Did you live in an enclave of Haitian culture?

507
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: So we we grew up in Marlborough projects, one of

508
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: the roughest projects in Coney Island in Brooklyn. So yeah,

509
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: so I we got there from Haiti. We grew up

510
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: in Coney Island. As far as me and my brother

511
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: was concerned. We came from a hut and so we're

512
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: in the building. So we were rich. We like the Jeffersons.

513
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: We moved on up on the east side.

514
00:29:58,800 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 2: Did you what was schooler?

515
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: We went to school in Brooklyn. But this is what

516
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: was amazing about Coney Island. We lived in this big project,

517
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous projects. But when we go

518
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: on the roof, we could see the entire amusement park

519
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: in the beach in Coney Island. And then so we

520
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: was like living on up because me and my brother

521
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. So literally we could go

522
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: from the projects and then like walk to the beach,

523
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: which was pretty amazing and the reason why we identified

524
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: with the beach again. In Haiti and a village, we

525
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: played in the cemetery, so our Walt Disney and our

526
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: playground was this big cemetery. So and I had we

527
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: watched the transformation go from the cemetery to this amazing

528
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: amusement park. Again, what that did for us was, you know,

529
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: we are in the land of opportunity, and we was like,

530
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: there's nothing now that's going to set us back. So

531
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: the Eagle gave us that opportunity. America has given us

532
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: this opportunity. And I don't say that just for me.

533
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: I say that for many of my friends, my peers

534
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,959
Speaker 1: that ended up being super successful.

535
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 2: While many people visit hotels or work in hotels, Carrie

536
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 2: Mulligan's experience is more unique. She grew up in hotels.

537
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 2: When Carrie joined Maybe we talked about food and films.

538
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: Her performance is Felicia Bernstein in Maestro and her very

539
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 2: unusual childhood.

540
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 11: My father was a hotel manager for Continental for my

541
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 11: whole childhood until I was sort of eighteen, so we

542
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 11: I was born. I think we were at the Brittannia

543
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 11: when I was born. My dad was running the Brittannia hotel,

544
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 11: and then in London, yeah and then they yeah, yeah, yeah,

545
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 11: so there and then the Mayfair. And then we moved

546
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 11: to Germany to Hanover and Dustledorf and he ran hotels there,

547
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 11: and then we moved back to London. He ran I

548
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 11: can't remember in the hotel. He then was at the

549
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 11: Churchill in Portman Square, so he moved around those and

550
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 11: he also ran hotels in Vienna and Frankfurt.

551
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 2: Yeah did you but you actually lived in the hotel.

552
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 11: We lived in the hotel till I was eight.

553
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 2: Were you were a bit like Elowise? Do you remember

554
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 2: that book? Alowis? Did you ever know that growing up

555
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: in the plaza? Would you run around the hotels? Yeah? Fine?

556
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 7: What was that like?

557
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: Living in a hotel?

558
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 11: It was amazing. I mean it was you know, it's

559
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 11: kind of all we knew. But I look back and

560
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 11: I think, oh wow, that was kind of an extraordinary

561
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 11: way to grow up. And my brother and I were

562
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 11: certainly we know, we would sort of roll around with

563
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 11: the the maids, you know, going into people's rooms after

564
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 11: they checked out and sort of you know, I remember

565
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 11: sort of sitting in the basket with all the sheets,

566
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 11: you know, with my hands holding on, rolling around the

567
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 11: corridor and you know, sitting on with my whole body

568
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 11: wrap around a hoover, you know, going up and down

569
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 11: the hallways.

570
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 2: We were ordering room service. Did you have we had?

571
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 11: It was like that, you know, they'll have a they'll

572
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 11: have a little I mean in the place at the hotels.

573
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 11: And we lived in the sort of an apartment in

574
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 11: the top floor for the manager. So we lived in

575
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 11: a yeah, Mum talks about I mean, we had our

576
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 11: own little mini kitchen and stuff, but it was more Yeah,

577
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 11: we didn't do room service, but we did have our

578
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 11: linen change. The only thing I remember about the kitchen

579
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 11: because we were, you know, nowhere near the kitchen that

580
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 11: was not And I was saying earlier, my dad, you know,

581
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 11: I think briefly worked in kitchens on his way. He

582
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 11: worked his way up from kind of collect in glasses

583
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 11: in a restaurant to being the manager. Yeah, and he

584
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 11: so whenever he cooks, generally I exit the building because

585
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 11: it's just not what is it like? He just likes

586
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 11: things ordered and the way that they and you know,

587
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 11: for us to sort of come in and sort of

588
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 11: casually start munching on something. His heart was not part

589
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 11: of it, so that yeah, it's but my memory of

590
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 11: one of my birthday parties when I was little was

591
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 11: at the hotel in Disseldorf, and you know, the pastry

592
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 11: chef made a bunch of dough. We were all making

593
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 11: little dollies out of dough, and then they took them

594
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 11: off and cooked them in the kitchen and brought them back.

595
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 11: And the birthday cakes, you know, when we lived in

596
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 11: hotels were always you know, those very elaborate kind of

597
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 11: I feel like they always had liquor in them.

598
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 2: They always had like a.

599
00:34:54,880 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 11: Bit of booze in it, properly kiddie birthday and they

600
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 11: had like very beautiful writing in icing and all that

601
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 11: kind of stuff. There was always such a sense of

602
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 11: occasion in hotels. It's always like there's a big display

603
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 11: for Christmas or there's a big you know. It was

604
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,839
Speaker 11: like there was always some sort of sense of there's

605
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 11: a sort of event happening. But I always felt, really

606
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 11: I like being nomadic. I don't mind, you know, I

607
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 11: like being in hotel tells I'm not someone who I

608
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 11: don't need to bring you know, some people sort of

609
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 11: need to bring stuff with them to make wherever.

610
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 2: They feel like home. Carries with her.

611
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 11: Do you know the only time I ate lunch here

612
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 11: was with Tracy Ty.

613
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 2: She described, you know that she I think she's ever

614
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 2: ordered room service. She would always, you know, I'd go

615
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 2: out and find something and take her food on the

616
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 2: plane or take an object. And as you say, I

617
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 2: love hotels so much that I actually don't like when

618
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 2: I'm upgraded to a suite because it reminds me too

619
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 2: much of home. Yeah, yeah, I like the confines of

620
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,439
Speaker 2: a hotel them. You can find everything, you know, where

621
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 2: your boocket as you know where everything is. I always

622
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 2: thought that maybe I'd be one of those women who age,

623
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 2: you know, Richard would be a stay at Clarages for

624
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 2: the rest of, you know, our days. I had said

625
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 2: to him, if we saw our house, how many nights

626
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 2: do you think we'd get in Clarges. He's like, probably six.

627
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 2: And do you think there was a performance that you

628
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 2: had to behave in a certain way with strangers?

629
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 3: I think so.

630
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, we had you know, we met people who

631
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 11: were staying at the hotel sometimes and there was a

632
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 11: real kind of day. It felt like being a bit

633
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 11: of a like a diplomat stater or something. You know,

634
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 11: someone would come and stay at the hotel and you

635
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 11: would greet them.

636
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: You know, what was German food like? Do you have

637
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 2: a memory of it or did you.

638
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 11: Yeah, lots of quite meat, meat based food. I mean

639
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 11: we you know, we were amongst kind of lots of

640
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 11: bricks as well. So but we spent We were amazingly lucky.

641
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 11: We got to go skiing in Austria in our holidays

642
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 11: and things, we you know, spent lots of We had

643
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 11: lots of Asia Kaza, spetzel and you know venus ntzel

644
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 11: and delicious like warm brothy things to be able to

645
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 11: warm up. But yeah, I think we you know, because

646
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 11: it was also an international hotel. It was you know,

647
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 11: it wasn't we were if I was eating stuff from

648
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,800
Speaker 11: it wasn't necessarily German cuisine or anything.

649
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 2: I usually asked people about their families and growing up,

650
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:26,479
Speaker 2: and restaurants were restaurants, But in your case, I often

651
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 2: asked if restaurants were a special occasion, which was the

652
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 2: touth In my family, we went out to restaurants for

653
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 2: somebody's birthday and somebody's anniversary or something great had happened,

654
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 2: and you'd celebrate a restaurant. Here we see people just

655
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 2: coming out for dinner with their kids all the time,

656
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 2: and maybe it was just more for you. That was

657
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 2: that something that was just.

658
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 11: I suppose that I don't really remember going to restaurants

659
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 11: at all. I don't remember going to nice, you know,

660
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 11: white tabletop restaurants.

661
00:37:58,480 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 6: Ever.

662
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 11: With my we would go to there was a pizza

663
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 11: place in Dussledorf that we would go to, but like

664
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 11: really a hole on the wall kind of pizza place,

665
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 11: and that was sort of a treat that we would

666
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 11: go there. I don't think we went to I remember

667
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 11: what for the Millennium my dad was running the Intercontinental

668
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 11: in Vienna, and there was a big Millennium meal there

669
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 11: and I was fourteen and fourteen fifteen, I think, yeah, fourteen,

670
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 11: and my best friend came with me and we bought dresses,

671
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 11: you know, for millennium and we sat and it was

672
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 11: a proper white tablecloth, seven course meal thing, and that

673
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:37,919
Speaker 11: was that was a big, big deal. So I don't

674
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 11: think we did necessarily, although when I was when we

675
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 11: moved home and we were living in you know, Buckinghamshire.

676
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 11: We used to go if there was anything to celebrate,

677
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 11: we'd go to Mister Poone's the Chinese restaurant and go

678
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 11: and have big Chinese and we did that kind.

679
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 3: Of for years.

680
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 11: Your parents cook for you, yeah, I mean Mum's always

681
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,320
Speaker 11: you know, she couldn't turn her hand to anything. She

682
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 11: was never a sort of passionate cook, I think because

683
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 11: Dad was the cook. So if there was meals that

684
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 11: were cooked, it would be Dad, you know. And Mum,

685
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 11: my grandmother was a was a wonderful bay loved baking.

686
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

687
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 2: So where did she live?

688
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 11: So she was my mother's Welsh So she was in Carmarthenshire.

689
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 11: So and every time I went to her for any

690
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:25,760
Speaker 11: kind of length of time, we were just bake and bacon, baked,

691
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,240
Speaker 11: oh well everything. Welsh cakes, famously delicious Welsh cakes.

692
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 2: Welshcakes, that's don't tell Sean, I asked you this because

693
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:34,959
Speaker 2: I've lived in this country.

694
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 7: For well.

695
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 3: If you weren't it.

696
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 11: But they're like their little mini sort of flat cake

697
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 11: with raisins in and like a scone, yeah, like a

698
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 11: sort of flatter scone. But she'd make amazing Welsh cakes,

699
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 11: a cherry almond cake, a delicious cherry almond cake that

700
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,359
Speaker 11: just got better the longer you left it in the tin.

701
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 6: You know.

702
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 11: It was that kind of thing.

703
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 2: When Tom Hollander came to Table for here, just finished

704
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 2: filming the series Feud, Capoti Versus the Swans. The Swans

705
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 2: were Babe Paley, Slim Keith, and the other wealthy socialites

706
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 2: who world nineteen sixties Manhattan. Tom played Truman Capoti, their

707
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,439
Speaker 2: unlikely friend and writer host of The Black and White Ball.

708
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 2: We could talk about Capoti and women in food because

709
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 2: those women, there are a lot of so many scenes

710
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 2: in restaurants. Right, they went to lunch every day.

711
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 9: You're right, But I wonder if they skinny? Was the

712
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:34,399
Speaker 9: their job?

713
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 6: Right?

714
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 7: Yeah?

715
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 9: They drank. I think they drank and smoked. They drank

716
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 9: and smoked and sort of died young. Yeah. Perhaps they

717
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 9: were celebrating being in the inn crowd and being at

718
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 9: the table, the best table in the best restaurant. And yes,

719
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 9: they were restraining themselves. He couldn't stop, he couldn't control

720
00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 9: his appetite. And he loved cooking. He loved his own kitchen. Yeah.

721
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 9: So in the South was yes, yes, and the Black

722
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 9: and White Ball they served his You know, the black

723
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 9: and White ball, that sort of apotheos The black and

724
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 9: White ball was a ball at Truman Capoti threw in.

725
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 9: I can't remember when, the very early sixties, on the

726
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 9: back of In Cold Blood, which had made him hugely famous,

727
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 9: and his obsession with sort of high society and his

728
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 9: own celebrity came together in one glorious moment, and he

729
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 9: created the guest list to beat all guest lists that

730
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:36,959
Speaker 9: have ever existed, so much so that people knew about

731
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 9: him were fighting to get on it. And aristocrats flew

732
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 9: from Europe. All the film stars, you know, Frank Sinatra,

733
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 9: Mia Farrow, the Aniellies, the probably Mick Jagger, we can

734
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 9: ask him. They all turned up to the plaza and

735
00:41:54,360 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 9: he he gave them corn beef hash, which he remember

736
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 9: fondly from Monroeville, Alabama, where he'd grown up. But they

737
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 9: they all complained about the budget of the catering, that

738
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 9: it was very small. For him, it was about getting

739
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 9: them in. They were the decoration, They were the they

740
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:17,799
Speaker 9: were the party, their their dresses, their masks. But there

741
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 9: was nothing there. There were some balloons and some some

742
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 9: some rather dodgy food that neither wanted, and I think

743
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 9: the party ended relatively early, and a whole bunch of them.

744
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:28,800
Speaker 2: Went gambling, what was it like filming that scene?

745
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 4: Did you do it?

746
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 9: They recreated it in the place and Zach Posen had

747
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 9: done the dressers for the ladies. It was amazing.

748
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 2: Did he eat?

749
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 9: He did cooking. Yeah. He was addictive and compulsive, so

750
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 9: he goes up and down. You see, we in our

751
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 9: version we pretty much do fat Troomen because I couldn't

752
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 9: in a TV schedule go up and down as much

753
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 9: as I needed to, So we went with Ryan Murphy

754
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 9: said you need to you need to put on some weight.

755
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 9: So I did, which was very enjoyable. And then it's

756
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 9: marvelous in the moment. And then and I started to

757
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 9: find it hard to put my socks on, and I

758
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 9: got breathless doing sensible things I thought of easy, usual,

759
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 9: I mean, ordinary things. That was that was distressing. So

760
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 9: and also I'm a bit old to be messing around

761
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 9: with my weight like that. And furthermore, I've I have

762
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 9: a little bit of a compulsion to overeat myself and

763
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 9: have spent all of my most of my professional life

764
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 9: slightly going slightly slightly up in between jobs and then

765
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 9: having a diet before a job, and going up and

766
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 9: going down, and going up and going down, and trying

767
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 9: to stay disciplined, trying to be like my father who

768
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 9: weighs himself every day and if he ever goes over

769
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 9: eleven stone, he he has a look at breakfast. He says,

770
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,839
Speaker 9: I were I know whether I can have a heavy

771
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 9: or light retters, depending on what the scales are on

772
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 9: every day? Does that which sounds like, you know, one

773
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,359
Speaker 9: of the Swans with its level of obsession, But he's

774
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 9: he's eighty eight and still going strong.

775
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: You're saying before that putting it on was one thing,

776
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 2: but you haven't told us about how you take it off.

777
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,800
Speaker 9: So I went to a clinic. About half of it

778
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 9: came off in an Austrian clinic, and then I went

779
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 9: and did the play in which I was playing someone

780
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 9: who needed to actually be a bit heavier than me,

781
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:35,320
Speaker 9: so I took patriots playing Berezovsky, who was quite portly.

782
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 9: So I kept it on for that and that worked,

783
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 9: and then I only I only got it off about

784
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,760
Speaker 9: three months ago, with the fear of doing the American

785
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 9: press junk it. But I I do have a tendency

786
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 9: to I love eating, but I also eat my feelings,

787
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 9: you know, which which people do, and if you do

788
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 9: it too much, it's it's not good for you. So

789
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 9: I tried to do other things with my feelings.

790
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, a friend of mine I was at a dinner

791
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: recently where they were talking about a zempec yes, yes,

792
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 2: and they were saying that, and it was kind of

793
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 2: interesting to her. She said, really, what it's done for me.

794
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 2: It's taken the noise of food away. It's taken all

795
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 2: that noise. Should I shouldn't? I? How much? When? And

796
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 2: actually I understand that a lot, But I also think

797
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 2: it's a kind of noise we do want in our

798
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 2: life as well. We like the noise of food, don't we.

799
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:38,839
Speaker 2: We liked the kind of thought of going to bed

800
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 2: at night and thinking what am I going to have

801
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 2: tomorrow for lunch or then?

802
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 9: And actually it's the noise of being alive, isn't it.

803
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 9: It's the desire, then, the fulfillment of the desire, the

804
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 9: creative process, the gathering of ingredients, the construction, the destruction,

805
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 9: the kind of leering up afterwards, everything from the preparation

806
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 9: to the end of it. It's all and it's a

807
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 9: sort of I mean, you could I could become pretentious

808
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 9: if I'd say, but you know, it's a cycle of life,

809
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,280
Speaker 9: isn't it. But yet, but to be at war with food,

810
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 9: which you can be, is not good. And I have,

811
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 9: I do have a sense of that because being you know,

812
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 9: an actor, where you become inevitably obsessed with your appearance,

813
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 9: you know, it has an a tendency to make you think,

814
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 9: I mustn't need, I mustn't deed, I mustn't eat, so

815
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 9: I'm beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It's never really made any difference.

816
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 9: I met her. I met her an actor once in

817
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 9: Italy who'd long retired. He'd been a famous sixties heart throw.

818
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 9: He said, I had to retire because I was sick

819
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 9: of being thin and I wanted to eat. And he

820
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,240
Speaker 9: lived in the Italian hills near Cordona, and he loved

821
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:03,919
Speaker 9: food and he ate it. And he's probably no longer

822
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 9: with us, but he was living the life of a

823
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 9: you know, a bonne viver. And I did sometimes think

824
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 9: I'll get to a certain age and then I'll give

825
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 9: up trying to not be fat, and then I'll I'll

826
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 9: just become a fat actor. Because fat actors they never

827
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,919
Speaker 9: stopped working. They're always there's always Rumber, a fat actor

828
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 9: and everything. Anyway, I can't do that wells right, well exactly,

829
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 9: or the dear Richard Griffiths or you know you sort

830
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 9: of think they're they're loved. But I don't want to

831
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 9: do that because I want to I now need to

832
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 9: live as long as I can.

833
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,439
Speaker 2: For sure if we're certainly shad because you have a son.

834
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: I do thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for

835
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair

836
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 6: Es