Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: Imagine walking into your hotel in Mexico City during a
Speaker 2: family crisis and finding one hundred to Molly's delivered to
Speaker 2: your room, then for the following three years receiving concerned texts,
Speaker 2: uplifting emails, and bouquets of flowers which could hardly get
Speaker 2: through the front door. Imagine a friend who makes a
Speaker 2: lightsaber with your name engraved on it while directing Star
Speaker 2: Wars with a cast and crew of thousands, and designing
Speaker 2: a lego digital model of the River Cafe for your birthday,
Speaker 2: confessing later more challenging than directing a movie, and what
Speaker 2: movies they are? Brilliant, beautiful movies we wait for and require.
Speaker 2: A friend who makes you laugh so much through dinners
Speaker 2: at your restaurant, the staff look on and wonder, this
Speaker 2: is jj Abrams, who I am here with today to
Speaker 2: talk about food and family and friendship. Imagine how happy
Speaker 2: I am to be with someone I love.
Speaker 3: I mean, seriously, I can't follow that at all.
Speaker 4: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: I got chills four times when you're reading that. I mean, seriously,
Speaker 3: that's impossible.
Speaker 2: It's really possible. You know, it's true every word, so
Speaker 2: I can imagine.
Speaker 3: I thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, We're done.
Speaker 3: That was it? That was it. There's nothing better than that. Seriously,
Speaker 3: we should quit that.
Speaker 2: Well we can't because we have to find a recipe?
Speaker 2: Which one showd you that? Would you carbonaro? Or chocolate cake?
Speaker 3: You carbon arts? You kidding me?
Speaker 2: Nice room? Did you ever work in Row? Have you ever.
Speaker 3: Lived in the first day of shooting on Mission II?
Speaker 3: Was in Rome?
Speaker 2: Was it? How long did you stay?
Speaker 3: We were there for a few weeks. It was really fun.
Speaker 2: I think it's the most beautiful city in the world.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. So do you want to just read it?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 3: All right? And is it? Is it Penny Regatta?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, I competed in the Penny Regatta once reat is? Seriously,
Speaker 3: I'm so stupid. Okay, here we go, all right, Penny
Speaker 3: I like carbonaro? Here we go for us. The two
Speaker 3: most important ingredients are excellent, free range eggs and panchetta stessa.
Speaker 3: This serves six. You start with two hundred grams seven
Speaker 3: ounces of panchetta cut into match sticks, one tablespoon olive oil,
Speaker 3: six egg yolks, one hundred and twenty million liters four
Speaker 3: fluid ounces of double cream, one hundred fifty grams five
Speaker 3: ounces parmesan freshly grated, two hundred fifty grams nine ounces
Speaker 3: of penny regatta. Fry the panchetta and the olive oil
Speaker 3: slowly so that it releases its own fat before becoming crisp.
Speaker 3: Add some black pepper, Beat the egg yolks with a
Speaker 3: cream and season with salt and pepper. Add half the parmesan. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: cook the penne in a generous amount of boiling salted water,
Speaker 3: then drain thoroughly. Combine immediately with the hot panchetta and
Speaker 3: the oil, and then pour in the cream mixture. Stir
Speaker 3: to coat each pasta piece. The heat from the pasta
Speaker 3: will cook the eggs slightly. Finally at the remaining palmesan
Speaker 3: and surf beautiful.
Speaker 2: So what was food like when you were growing up?
Speaker 2: Did so? Your mother would say cook she was a cook,
Speaker 2: or she was.
Speaker 3: A cook, and she would make you know, traditional like brisket,
Speaker 3: Jewish sort of food she would, but she would also
Speaker 3: make you know she made an amazing caesar salad. For
Speaker 3: some reason her said.
Speaker 2: It was fantastic.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was. It was great, and
Speaker 3: she was always always about what we were eating, and
Speaker 3: to a point where it was insane, Like I would
Speaker 3: I we'd be sitting at a lunch that she would
Speaker 3: have made, and the conversation she wanted to have would
Speaker 3: be about dinner the next and it'd be like, I'm trying,
Speaker 3: you know, we're just eating. But weirdly now I do
Speaker 3: tend to look forward to food in a way that
Speaker 3: is probably not right sized, probably vaguely. It's not like
Speaker 3: an obsession, but it's like it's super important.
Speaker 2: And is that at home? Do you think at home
Speaker 2: with your kids or just now you're thinking about what
Speaker 2: you're gonna eat.
Speaker 3: In general, I think it's food is such a It's
Speaker 3: something that like, I know this is gonna sound insane,
Speaker 3: but I literally get sad when I'm like halfway through
Speaker 3: a meal, so like wait a minute, yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be oversuit And it's a very and I do think
Speaker 3: there's probably some strong analogy to life in that that
Speaker 3: there's something about it that you just feel like, oh no,
Speaker 3: you know this is you don't want this to go away.
Speaker 3: She was always concerned that you weren't eating enough while
Speaker 3: you were eating. Also, it's interesting because she liked myself.
Speaker 3: She always talked about herself and felt that she was fat,
Speaker 3: and she was incredibly not fat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're not fat.
Speaker 3: But like whatever the body dysmorphia thing, yeah, but like
Speaker 3: but and yet both she and I like it's not
Speaker 3: like we then shy away from food. It's the opposite.
Speaker 3: Like it's like I'm I I love you know. And
Speaker 3: as a kid when I was young, I definitely was
Speaker 3: a chubby kid, but I was never like athletic, So
Speaker 3: I sort of probably conflated that feeling of being chubby
Speaker 3: as a kid and then not a very good athlete
Speaker 3: with somehow just being a bit of a fat slot.
Speaker 3: But I love food. I member as a kid, I
Speaker 3: was always you know, I was always making things.
Speaker 2: Did you know you cooked as a kid with her
Speaker 2: by yourself both, Yeah, what would you cook?
Speaker 3: Well, whatever she was making, she would like be doing,
Speaker 3: you know, all sorts of things. And it was also
Speaker 3: like La in the seventies, so it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: like stuffed zucchini thing, just things that were just like
Speaker 3: very much of that era. She would cook. But the
Speaker 3: thing that I was most beyond her just being to
Speaker 3: a fault probably loving. I mean, she was so loving
Speaker 3: that it was like I remember thinking, I know, it's
Speaker 3: not as good as you think it is, whatever it
Speaker 3: is I've done. But the thing that I really take
Speaker 3: away the most was that switching up what you do
Speaker 3: and how you define yourself and who you are is
Speaker 3: part of living, that not being defined by a label
Speaker 3: or any one thing. And she was someone who when
Speaker 3: we moved to Los Angeles and I was only five,
Speaker 3: we moved from New York. She's early on started being
Speaker 3: a real estate agent, and then she you know, she
Speaker 3: was interested in art and started doing classes and became
Speaker 3: a painter. But then she was going to be forty,
Speaker 3: and she thought, you know, she wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 3: And she was asking around, is it crazy to start
Speaker 3: law school, you know, when you're thirty, And she asked someone,
Speaker 3: and I remember their response to her was, you know, in
Speaker 3: two years going to be forty either way, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: And then she went to law school and graduated top
Speaker 3: of her class, and then she became a law professor
Speaker 3: and she was doing that for a while, and then
Speaker 3: she wanted to go into producing and she did that.
Speaker 3: You know, She's just was someone who is constantly creating
Speaker 3: but also shape shifting.
Speaker 2: Would you sit down to dinner?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Every night?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we would sit whatever you were doing. We would
Speaker 3: sit at the table most every night, although obviously at
Speaker 3: a certain point and it might not be. Frankly, as
Speaker 3: I say this, I'm sure that if my sister's listening
Speaker 3: to this, she's probably like laughing and saying, what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? Every night? You know, my guess is
Speaker 3: it's probably far less frequently than my memory suggests. But
Speaker 3: I have, you know, I have a real sense of
Speaker 3: and memory of sitting together with the family. But it
Speaker 3: was also, I have to say, because it was that era,
Speaker 3: and I think being in Los Angeles in the seventies,
Speaker 3: there was a bit of like carelessness. And I know
Speaker 3: that I'm comparing it to some of the more kind
Speaker 3: of helicopter parenty crap that happens today, which is not
Speaker 3: healthy at all either. But there was a bit of
Speaker 3: a kind of benign neglect and maybe not even benign
Speaker 3: sometimes that would happen with parents, and I certainly feel
Speaker 3: like I was safe. I never felt like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: my parents are like crazy. They were not like druggy
Speaker 3: nutty out of their minds. You know, but there were
Speaker 3: in that era, and whether it was like various you know,
Speaker 3: cults that were around, whether it was like this kind
Speaker 3: of culture was such a kind of free wheeling, odd
Speaker 3: sort of place to grow up that I remember seeing
Speaker 3: a lot of friends whose parents were kind of off
Speaker 3: the rails as parents. But I will say that I
Speaker 3: do have a sense that there were times when I
Speaker 3: think my sister and I were a little bit on
Speaker 3: our own too, in terms of like not really being
Speaker 3: supervised the way you'd think kids should be.
Speaker 2: But you came out, you know that. I look at
Speaker 2: my kids and I you know, when you are a grandparent,
Speaker 2: you'll see that you kind of it's great having grandchildren.
Speaker 2: But the really interesting thing is to see the parents
Speaker 2: as parents, your children as parents. It's very revealing. And
Speaker 2: I think I look back and you know, Richard and myself,
Speaker 2: and we certainly were not as attentive as they are.
Speaker 3: No, but I'm really sorry, sad, but I do think
Speaker 3: we were. I do think that you, you know, you're
Speaker 3: constantly learning lessons. I'm fascinated with what you're talking about
Speaker 3: because I think there's a there's obviously this sort of
Speaker 3: seismic shift that happens when what was your primary family
Speaker 3: shifts into it slightly into a different you know, the
Speaker 3: not the rear view, but a very different station, and
Speaker 3: your primary family becomes the family you choose to make.
Speaker 3: But then there's another shift that happens again, when then
Speaker 3: your kids shift and you're suddenly the one that's being shifted.
Speaker 3: It's not your choice, and you're sort of the and
Speaker 3: And so I think that we're probably constantly learning about
Speaker 3: kind of where we stand based on kind of how
Speaker 3: we define ourselves given the relationships with the people we
Speaker 3: love the most. And when you start to see people
Speaker 3: that you raised that you you know, in some cases,
Speaker 3: gave birth to and you raised that, you you witness
Speaker 3: something that sometimes you realize, oh wow, I don't know
Speaker 3: where the hell they got that or how they know that,
Speaker 3: but certainly not from me. And the other times you think,
Speaker 3: oh my god, they actually did absorb that thing that
Speaker 3: I did not think they were aware of. And it's
Speaker 3: just fascinating.
Speaker 2: You talk about your mother, what about the men in
Speaker 2: your family? Did they cook? Does your father? He came
Speaker 2: right up to the past. You remember when you brought
Speaker 2: your father to the cafe and he was so interested
Speaker 2: in the food he was with me. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he was interested in cooking or eating.
Speaker 3: But he loves food. He would cook something sometimes it
Speaker 3: was sort of usually fairly simple stuff. He was a
Speaker 3: soft boiled egg. That's so, what's it called like when
Speaker 3: it's like yeah, stf well, which I never in my
Speaker 3: life will understand. But he loved them. And he had
Speaker 3: that little like egg cup and he would tap the
Speaker 3: thing in British.
Speaker 2: Because that's how the English they call them soldiers, and
Speaker 2: you kind of a little and you dip it into
Speaker 2: a very running egg.
Speaker 3: No thank you. So I have no interest. But my dad,
Speaker 3: I think if you said to him, you could have
Speaker 3: this giant pile of gold or some eggs. He loves
Speaker 3: eggs in a way I don't. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: healthy and not not like unhealthy cholesterol like I think
Speaker 3: mentally is insane.
Speaker 2: He has them all day or just for.
Speaker 3: He'll just if you ever want him to say yes
Speaker 3: to you, say do you want some eggs? Because that's
Speaker 3: the He'll never say none of that.
Speaker 4: I'd love to see him.
Speaker 3: I was obsessed for some reason with omelets. I don't
Speaker 3: know what, why, where that came from. But you know,
Speaker 3: it looks so easy, but like, once you start getting
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 2: How do you make it?
Speaker 3: It is deceptively difficult. It really is, well because you think,
Speaker 3: come on, what egg a pa like? First of all,
Speaker 3: one of the key things about anomenal I think is
Speaker 3: just not keeping it on the fire because when I forever,
Speaker 3: I would just sort of keep the pan there and
Speaker 3: keep the eggs there, and you have to actually take
Speaker 3: them off when I think as soon as it start
Speaker 3: to congeal, and then I don't like flipping it before
Speaker 3: you fill it. And then you know, I think you
Speaker 3: want to sort of do it.
Speaker 2: But start from the beginning. Do you put water in them?
Speaker 2: Or do you put milk?
Speaker 3: Nothing, I'll put in milk sometimes, but we I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'll usually just do eggs, then some salt. I have
Speaker 3: very I have very stupid simple like I like a
Speaker 3: little bit of like sauteed onions in it, and maybe
Speaker 3: some tomato dice up, but not filling things like I
Speaker 3: don't like bell peppers and Western omelets and any of
Speaker 3: that stuff.
Speaker 2: That's what I like about brunch in New York because
Speaker 2: it's they always give you these huge omelets, don't they
Speaker 2: like spinish and everything.
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated watching because it's the truth is like until
Speaker 3: there was cooking shows and things, and have you seen
Speaker 3: the Julia Child things? Not yet she cooks an omelet
Speaker 3: in the very first episode and in a way on
Speaker 3: live TV, and it's it's very charming. And before they're
Speaker 3: all the cooking shows. When you go to any kind
Speaker 3: of whether you're at a hotel or you know, like
Speaker 3: a buffet, when they would have someone cooking the you know,
Speaker 3: I'm always fascinated to watching someone. Yeah they do that, well,
Speaker 3: who makes anyone who makes like ten thousand omelets a
Speaker 3: day or whatever? It is like it's fascinating to watch
Speaker 3: someone and then the way they flip the thing over
Speaker 3: and you just think, or at least I think, I'm
Speaker 3: never gonna be able to do Do you flip things
Speaker 3: like that?
Speaker 2: In pan I don't flip. I'm not very good at flipping.
Speaker 2: But they are the chefs. They flip pastas you know,
Speaker 2: they know they make the penny and then they go
Speaker 2: like that. I'm kind of standing.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: It's it's a little bit like watching like an Olympic jumper.
Speaker 3: It scares the hell out of me. How do they
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 2: I know they kind of. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: it's necessary that I think it's out all the pasta.
Speaker 2: It is probably I like shaking a pan. I'm quite
Speaker 2: good like shaky. I like getting potatoes out of the oven,
Speaker 2: burning my hand, you know, shaky. I always say to
Speaker 2: the chefs, shake a pad, And.
Speaker 3: Have you ever reached into the album without putting a
Speaker 3: mid on?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Have you ever reached the other for something without putting
Speaker 3: a handle mint on them?
Speaker 2: Because from the beginning when I because you know, he's
Speaker 2: never trained, So we rose and I just opened the
Speaker 2: River Cafe, and so you were never trained to do.
Speaker 3: No, I took some don't tell yeah, ruin because okay,
Speaker 3: So I went.
Speaker 2: To cooking school when I was fourteen. No, we just
Speaker 2: you know, we were family cooks, both of us. She
Speaker 2: went to live in Italy and my mother in law
Speaker 2: was Italian and told me to cook. But we started
Speaker 2: so small. The River Cafe was nothing. It was teeny tiny,
Speaker 2: and so I would say we learned. Well, we made
Speaker 2: small movies, didn't you? How did you did you train
Speaker 2: to be a film.
Speaker 3: I didn't, but I just want to. The first movie
Speaker 3: I directed was Mission Impossible three because Tom Cruise asked
Speaker 3: me if I wanted to do it, and I you
Speaker 3: know why did he?
Speaker 2: Response was yes, yeah did he just he just knew,
Speaker 2: uh smart, he knew.
Speaker 3: Look, all I know is that is that he he
Speaker 3: and I got to know each other a little bit,
Speaker 3: and he had watched some of this TV series I
Speaker 3: had done called Alias. It was about the spy, so
Speaker 3: he'd seen I would be interested in doing Mission Possible three.
Speaker 3: So that was crazy. I started as a writer and
Speaker 3: then I got into doing TV and then ended up
Speaker 3: doing doing Mission first. But wait a minute, you were saying.
Speaker 2: So I was just saying that I don't shake you man,
Speaker 2: and I didn't reaching into the thing she used to
Speaker 2: because to come back with with burns, you know, that
Speaker 2: was the thing.
Speaker 3: I hate that always scares hell.
Speaker 2: Say do you would you rather have a cut or
Speaker 2: a burn? What's worse? You know? I hate burns. I
Speaker 2: really hate burns. Cuts you can kind of burns are,
Speaker 2: but a burn is upsetting.
Speaker 3: But because that's always what I think when I see
Speaker 3: people in kitchens working, as you know you do, I'm
Speaker 3: always the thing that I'm always and it's a bit
Speaker 3: also talking about my mom. It's a bit like here's
Speaker 3: the one thing I say. She was always so careful
Speaker 3: about everything, like she like and wanted us to be
Speaker 3: so careful. And to see where that came from. Her father,
Speaker 3: who was Harry Calvin, who was one of my favorite people,
Speaker 3: and he was an incredible influence on me because he
Speaker 3: he worked. He had this electronics company called Calvin Electronics,
Speaker 3: which is still around, and Calvin Electronics was a place
Speaker 3: that would he started after the Second War and he
Speaker 3: was he sold surplus electronics as kits to.
Speaker 2: Schools, and he's lessons in how things work exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here was a guy who was aware of
Speaker 3: how certain things radios and TVs and telephones and things worked.
Speaker 3: So as a young kid, he would take things apart
Speaker 3: and show me how a phone worked, or how a
Speaker 3: TV worked, or why this happened. And then we would
Speaker 3: do these little projects together where we'd have a little
Speaker 3: plank of wood and we would put a motor on it,
Speaker 3: and we would put little brackets to you know, screw
Speaker 3: it in place, and then a little battery and then
Speaker 3: a switch and he would show me how the circuit works.
Speaker 3: And he was always demystifying things and how they work.
Speaker 3: So that was always something. But he was also apparently
Speaker 3: like petrified of his grandchildren ever getting hurt. But you
Speaker 3: saw how he lived. He was a bit paranoid, and
Speaker 3: he would have every corner in his house, whether it
Speaker 3: was a table, a counter, anything, he would take tissue
Speaker 3: and roll it up and then put like electrical tape
Speaker 3: on it and everything was padded. So it was a
Speaker 3: little bit like they ridiculous, like you'd run through the
Speaker 3: house and everything was padded. So that was kind of
Speaker 3: where my mom. By the way, one thing about my grandfather,
Speaker 3: which was vaguely funny, so his company, Coven Electronics. He
Speaker 3: had some really cool designs for some of his catalogs
Speaker 3: and one of them was the circuit that looked like
Speaker 3: a K and I always sort of loved it. And
Speaker 3: I loved my grandfather. Now he was a great grandfather,
Speaker 3: but I know as a father he was a bit
Speaker 3: tough and my mother's sister and I think that, like
Speaker 3: my mom would say, I think that he was bipolar.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, But to me, he was just a great
Speaker 3: grandfather And I didn't get any of that. There was
Speaker 3: a little bit of the you know, anger here and there,
Speaker 3: but like I never had the issues as yet anyway,
Speaker 3: So the k design was really cool, and we were
Speaker 3: doing a little in house the U effects company that
Speaker 3: we were calling Calvin Optical. So I had this graphic
Speaker 3: designer who was working on a logo, and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: why don't we just use the logo that he used
Speaker 3: to use, which is the case. So she looked at
Speaker 3: it and she did some researcher. You came back and
Speaker 3: she she said to me, oh, this is this is
Speaker 3: an actual circuit that exists. I'm like, oh, really, yes,
Speaker 3: and she's like, it's called a bipolar circuit. Now, my
Speaker 3: mom had passed away at that point, so I couldn't
Speaker 3: call her to say, you're not going to believe this,
Speaker 3: but his logo was bipolar anyway. But my mother was
Speaker 3: always like, you know, nervous about things and how things happened.
Speaker 3: And for whatever reason, when I look at a kitchen
Speaker 3: and see how crazy it is, I feel like it's
Speaker 3: sort of that kind of like nervousness that she used
Speaker 3: to have. And I think, dear God, please put an
Speaker 3: oven mid on, because the idea of reaching into and
Speaker 3: grabbing a mozzarella marin ara pan bare handed is a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Heavy. Yeah, I think that fear. People sometimes say can
Speaker 2: we come and cook in the kitchen? Or can I
Speaker 2: spend the day with you in the kitchen, And sometimes
Speaker 2: it says, but you know, it is a dangerous place.
Speaker 2: So that's my you know, if you come in a kitchen,
Speaker 2: you know, and the chef's the way they move and
Speaker 2: they carry hot pans and they're always saying. And in
Speaker 2: the River Cafe, you know, we have an open kitchen,
Speaker 2: so you can't shout, you know, hot behind you or
Speaker 2: move or whatever. Everybody's kind of navigating it between between
Speaker 2: hot plates. And if you are a chef and you
Speaker 2: leave something hot and you burn one of your colleagues,
Speaker 2: it's very upsetting.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 2: So the kitchen is you know, but it's a dangerous place.
Speaker 2: And a film sets a David place, isn't it.
Speaker 3: A film set can be really dangerous and in ways
Speaker 3: that you cannot predict sometimes. I mean I have friends
Speaker 3: who have been injured by falling lights or planks of
Speaker 3: wood or things that you know, and there are all
Speaker 3: sorts of protections that you know, sort of procedures that
Speaker 3: are in place, but like a kitchen, yeah, but when
Speaker 3: you have that many people moving parts, that many people
Speaker 3: that the lights are incredibly hot, and the there are
Speaker 3: cables everywhere, and a lot of times, like in the
Speaker 3: case of the accident that we had, there was, you know,
Speaker 3: this hydraulic door that was being triggered by someone and
Speaker 3: it just went down at the wrong moment in the
Speaker 3: wrong way, and it luckily didn't kill anyone, but certainly
Speaker 3: could have.
Speaker 2: But talking about restaurant kitchens, what about restaurants? Did your
Speaker 2: parents take you to restaurants? Was that a kind of
Speaker 2: abras or you celebrate in a restaurant?
Speaker 3: Sure, but you know, growing up again in La like
Speaker 3: going to the Sizzler was a big deal. What's that
Speaker 3: the Sizzler? Oh, my god, steak steaksy food salad. It's
Speaker 3: a chain here American.
Speaker 4: I should know that.
Speaker 3: You should. No, No, I know what embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Davidson talked about that this favorite But what Pete Davison,
Speaker 2: He's saying that his favorite meal was just.
Speaker 3: A couple of noodles?
Speaker 2: Was it a couple of noodles?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, I have been a way too long. But so
Speaker 2: what was you tell me about Sizzler?
Speaker 3: Schizler? Was I mean, look, there were a handful of
Speaker 3: very seventies and early eighties restaurants that were on at
Speaker 3: least on the West Coaster in California. One of them
Speaker 3: was Hamburger Hamlet. Yeah, I know that one, so I
Speaker 3: would go there. It was good. There was a place
Speaker 3: in west Would called the Chatham that was like a
Speaker 3: little sort of fancy I don't know. My mom would
Speaker 3: take me there. Like there were just there were certain
Speaker 3: places we would go at the time growing up Westwood,
Speaker 3: which is where UCLA is. It was a great area
Speaker 3: and it was fun and there were just tons of
Speaker 3: restaurants and great stores. It was an amazing kind of
Speaker 3: destination which has now changed dramatically and is sadly not
Speaker 3: what it used to be in you know, hopefully you
Speaker 3: can recapture some of its former glory. But there were
Speaker 3: just a ton of places there.
Speaker 2: So you read out quite often or very often, but but.
Speaker 3: Enough that, like, I have a lot of memories of
Speaker 3: going to these places and what I would order.
Speaker 2: I haven't been to very many commencement addresses, but I
Speaker 2: did listen to your address's lawrence, and it's something I
Speaker 2: often quote, because you were talking to these kids who
Speaker 2: were about to go out into the world, and you
Speaker 2: were kind of there giving them guidance and advice at
Speaker 2: a commencement speech. But what moved me enormously was when
Speaker 2: you talked about kindness and the value of kindness, and
Speaker 2: you asked the question, have you ever been in a
Speaker 2: restaurant where food was served to you and you were
Speaker 2: with somebody who didn't look up at the waiter and
Speaker 2: say thank you? And I thought, that is something that
Speaker 2: I say all the time because I work with waiters
Speaker 2: and they again so value and so moving to them
Speaker 2: when somebody says thank you. Why did you say that
Speaker 2: in a commencement speech.
Speaker 3: I don't remember anything I said in that speech, but
Speaker 3: and I'm so glad you said it, because I was like,
Speaker 3: what are you quoting?
Speaker 2: What do I say?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: My God, should listen to it. It's wautiful speech.
Speaker 3: You're very sweet. But I to that. I would just
Speaker 3: say part of it is the peeve of it, But
Speaker 3: it's deeper than that, because anyone who's worked in any
Speaker 3: kind of service industry, and I, while I was never
Speaker 3: I did. I was a host at this Mexican restaurant
Speaker 3: here in LA but I worked it like a you know,
Speaker 3: an ice cream store, and you know, I'm at different
Speaker 3: stores growing up and that feeling that you have of
Speaker 3: of doing well by someone and doing your job and
Speaker 3: being helpful and getting not even an acknowledgment or a
Speaker 3: look or not. And look, I'm sure that this happens
Speaker 3: all the time to everyone, but it's a different thing
Speaker 3: when you have the job and you know what it's
Speaker 3: like to be dehumanized and disregarded, and you know, and
Speaker 3: and yet that experience for me, and part of it
Speaker 3: is because I remember as a young kid not being athletic.
Speaker 3: The value you have socially as a kid is often
Speaker 3: connected to sort of how well you play sports or
Speaker 3: how well what your grades are if you're you know,
Speaker 3: my grades were never particularly great, and I was never
Speaker 3: any good at sports, so weirdly I had no I
Speaker 3: had nothing of value as a kid, and I remember,
Speaker 3: I remember that feeling of oh, I'm not seen as
Speaker 3: anything of either note or importance or you know, anything special.
Speaker 3: It was just I remember that feeling. And so in
Speaker 3: a way one of the reasons why in terms of
Speaker 3: stories like I tend to love underdogs and I'm look,
Speaker 3: no one is crying for the little white boy who,
Speaker 3: you know, felt like he couldn't throw a ball. But
Speaker 3: it's like the fact that you, you know, you grow
Speaker 3: up in some ways. We all have insecurities and experiences
Speaker 3: that shape us. And I remember feeling like, you know,
Speaker 3: growing up, and then in these jobs, it's so easy
Speaker 3: to be unseen or overlooked or treated badly. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think people sometimes go out in order to break
Speaker 3: people and treat people badly because it makes them feel better,
Speaker 3: and use people as punching bags. And a waiter is
Speaker 3: like the prime example of someone who is who is
Speaker 3: doing you, you know, this sort of beautiful service. And
Speaker 3: even if the waiters not particularly great, they're still serving you.
Speaker 3: They're a server like on that level. To not acknowledge
Speaker 3: that person and have gratitude for them says so much
Speaker 3: more about who that person is. So I don't know
Speaker 3: quite what the context of that comment was, but my
Speaker 3: guess it was like, don't be a friend with, don't
Speaker 3: continue to relationship with the person. Treat someone, she said,
Speaker 3: And the wait is that we have.
Speaker 2: You know, you see a lot in a restaurant. You
Speaker 2: see people crying, You see people coming to a restaurant
Speaker 2: for very private things in a public space. They get fired,
Speaker 2: they admit affairs, they get divorced, they get married, they
Speaker 2: get proposed to, And do you take people to a restaurant? Sometimes?
Speaker 2: Would you before hiring somebody take them to a restaurant
Speaker 2: and kind of see before.
Speaker 3: They I have. I mean I've had all sorts of
Speaker 3: meetings like that with people before working on something or
Speaker 3: committing to something. Sure, But I also I go to
Speaker 3: restaurants to work all the time.
Speaker 4: Like I.
Speaker 3: Write most of what I write at restaurants because the
Speaker 3: energy of the space, the noise of it, what you
Speaker 3: were just describing, it's like when you're at a restaurant,
Speaker 3: it's like it modulates between the most extreme dramatic breakup
Speaker 3: that might be happening at the table, you know, two
Speaker 3: tables over to that first date between people, to you know,
Speaker 3: a parent, and like there's everywhere you look there is
Speaker 3: a window into a drama that is probably its own story.
Speaker 3: So the inspiration that comes from just sitting in a
Speaker 3: restaurant and a coffee shop too, but restaurants are my preference.
Speaker 3: I just feel like it kind of fuels me in
Speaker 3: a way that when I'm in a room alone, I
Speaker 3: can do that too, and I don't mind it, and
Speaker 3: I'll put headphones on listen to music. They like, but
Speaker 3: there's something about being in a restaurant that is hugely
Speaker 3: inspiring and it helps me.
Speaker 2: Do you do it now? You still all the rest?
Speaker 3: Really all time?
Speaker 2: Do you write Longhand on a laptop?
Speaker 3: What do you do long hand? When I first start
Speaker 3: working on something until it starts to become something that
Speaker 3: is starting to become more congealed and solid like an
Speaker 3: omelind and then I will go and start to do
Speaker 3: it on the laptop.
Speaker 2: Instead of talking this case that we're going to finish now.
Speaker 2: But comfort, So if we have food, like your mother
Speaker 2: to express love or your father to grandfather about fear
Speaker 2: or hungry, you know, or where in the pandemic and
Speaker 2: we want to cook, we also go to food for comfort.
Speaker 2: So if you need comfort, jj Abrams, is there a
Speaker 2: food that you would go to for comfort? Is there
Speaker 2: a food.
Speaker 3: There isn't?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 3: Like, I mean, it's funny. I just took my dad
Speaker 3: to dinner at the Dantana the other night in West Hollywood,
Speaker 3: and we were talking about how it was such comfort food.
Speaker 3: And usually comfort food feels like it's got a bit
Speaker 3: of an Italian like there's something about a pasta that
Speaker 3: is just so comforting and feels so good, and you know,
Speaker 3: so there's that kind of thing, and it's usually like
Speaker 3: I guess it might be like the carby starchy thing
Speaker 3: that does it. That's funny because as you were asking,
Speaker 3: I was like thinking, it's hard to imagine like a
Speaker 3: food that on some level doesn't provide some kind of
Speaker 3: like you know, a really great sushi dinner or a
Speaker 3: wonderful you know, like a great pizza or something that
Speaker 3: you know, of course there's bad versions of everything, but
Speaker 3: food in general is just is such a comfort.
Speaker 2: You like that ice cream, I know, almond ice cream,
Speaker 2: you know, the toasted almond ice cream.
Speaker 3: There is that a question?
Speaker 4: What do you have?
Speaker 3: I mean my ordering multiple dishes of it indicate that
Speaker 3: you might.
Speaker 2: Be part of it.
Speaker 4: Can be fine, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: I'm claiming it all right?
Speaker 2: Oh hi, can you give me a really quick favor.
Speaker 3: You're looking for the recipe itself.
Speaker 2: See if there's a recipe there for almond ice cream.
Speaker 2: You're so kind? Do you want to hold on if
Speaker 2: you find I'm gonna hold on.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
Speaker 1: It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
Speaker 1: from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
Speaker 1: delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
Speaker 1: River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks of all ages.
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