Speaker 1: When Will Ferrell said he'd be my guest on Ruthie's
Speaker 1: Table four, I expected some laughs, some great stories, but
Speaker 1: not happy birthday In Swedish.
Speaker 2: Yah more healeva inte who roto yaviska haaleva javiska haalevva
Speaker 2: javiska hileeva inteh.
Speaker 3: Hurrah, Hurrah, hurrah hurrah. You have to say hooray four times.
Speaker 1: When I tell people that I'm doing a podcast with Will,
Speaker 1: their faces light up. Everyone seems to love him when
Speaker 1: they remember working with him, or, of course watching him
Speaker 1: on screen in those classic comedies Elf and Anchorman and
Speaker 1: many more. We do have a mutual friend, Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live creator and producer Lauren Michaels, but we first met
Speaker 1: last spring when I was invited to a lunch Now
Speaker 1: walking into a lunch party late can be awkward. Conversations,
Speaker 1: stop chairs are adjusted, introductions made. But there I us
Speaker 1: heated next to Will, and all was right with the world.
Speaker 1: He was here in London filming Barbie and I was
Speaker 1: just off to New York. But we promised to continue
Speaker 1: the conversation.
Speaker 3: Are you oh great? How are you doing well?
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to go to the river cafe anymore
Speaker 1: without me being there.
Speaker 3: I know, so frustrating, keeping missing each other.
Speaker 1: All right, where are you, by the way, are you
Speaker 1: in your house?
Speaker 3: No, we're in one of the studios here. Oh Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Well would you like to read? Do you have it? There?
Speaker 1: The recipe for.
Speaker 3: I do so. This is a recipe for white truffle tagliarini,
Speaker 3: not to be confused with tagliatelli.
Speaker 1: Correct correct finer noodle.
Speaker 3: It serves four and you need at least one ten
Speaker 3: gram fresh white ruffle. I guess you could have more
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty grams of dried Italian made taglierini
Speaker 3: or fresh rich egg, pasta, sea salt and freshly ground
Speaker 3: black pepper, and twenty grams of unsalted butter. So what
Speaker 3: you're gonna do is you're gonna start by You're going
Speaker 3: to clean the truffle. You don't want a dirty truffle,
Speaker 3: trust me. Brushing the surface to remove any sand that
Speaker 3: may be stuck in the crevices. You cool the tagle
Speaker 3: arena until al dente.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think you cook it rather than cool it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you cook it. That makes no sense. See
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, yeah, you cook that's fine. Cook the
Speaker 3: tagle arena in boiling salted water until al dente. Now
Speaker 3: in a in a pan large enough to hold the pasta,
Speaker 3: gently heat the butter until just soft, adding a pinch
Speaker 3: of nutmeg and black pepper, and a few shavings of truffle.
Speaker 3: And now after that you add the pasta to the
Speaker 3: warm butter mixture and toss again and again to coat
Speaker 3: each strand. And then once you've done that, you place
Speaker 3: into hot plates and grate the truffle generously over each portion.
Speaker 1: Sounds good, easy, Yeah, So tell me why did you
Speaker 1: choose this recipe of all the recipes.
Speaker 3: I chose it. I chose it because it seems relatively accomplishable,
Speaker 3: doesn't seem too overwhelming. And I love a good truffle.
Speaker 3: I love that flavor. I love black pepper. And it's
Speaker 3: also just it's very comforting.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's comforting. And it's also it's such a luxury,
Speaker 1: isn't I mean? The idea of having white truffle. It's
Speaker 1: a very special. It's very short season you have it.
Speaker 1: Can you get them? I guess you must be able
Speaker 1: to get them in California? Of course they must send
Speaker 1: them over from Italy. But did you live in Italy?
Speaker 1: Did you have you ever spent any time there where
Speaker 1: you would have white?
Speaker 3: You know, I've I've worked there once, which was great.
Speaker 1: What were you doing?
Speaker 3: I was working on Zoolander two. I was working there
Speaker 3: for five weeks, but I didn't have to work every day.
Speaker 3: It was kind of perfect. So I'd get some time
Speaker 3: off to go and explore and you know, have a
Speaker 3: good meal.
Speaker 1: And where were you were?
Speaker 3: Just in Rome? Yeah, and that that's such a luxury
Speaker 3: to get to do that, and it was. It was
Speaker 3: up until that point i'd had I had had a
Speaker 3: career of where you're always talking to everyone else who's
Speaker 3: gotten to film in exotic places. And the most exotic
Speaker 3: place I would get to film is you know, the
Speaker 3: San Fernando v uh Or. And so finally this was
Speaker 3: this was after after decades, I was finally shooting a
Speaker 3: movie in Europe and it was so much fun. It
Speaker 3: was great.
Speaker 1: I did an interview with John McEnroe recently, and he
Speaker 1: was saying that when he was playing tennis, or when
Speaker 1: he was even performing at evand there was no time
Speaker 1: to eat. You were just working, working, working, So you
Speaker 1: know you're being able to go.
Speaker 3: That's usually Yeah, that's and that's usually the case. You're
Speaker 3: you're a movie schedules in tens, there's long days and
Speaker 3: you maybe have you know, you're catching up on your
Speaker 3: rest on the weekend, so maybe have one night a
Speaker 3: week ago. But this I had enough time off to
Speaker 3: where I could kind of explore. But there was there
Speaker 3: was also a really fun group of actors who uh
Speaker 3: Christen Wigg was working at the time, and she would
Speaker 3: organize these fun dinner parties and so that's that's another
Speaker 3: when you can kind of combine great food with great company.
Speaker 3: There's nothing better.
Speaker 1: Do you think about a location that you're going to
Speaker 1: be filming and wonder what the food will be like?
Speaker 3: No, it's I always am envious of people who've able
Speaker 3: have been able to like write something specifically, you know,
Speaker 3: like Mike White who did White Lotus as a genius.
Speaker 3: His locations have been Hawaii, they've been you know, the
Speaker 3: last one was Sicily, and then I think they're doing
Speaker 3: a third one and it's going to be in some
Speaker 3: beautiful location in Southeast Asia. So he's a smart he's smart,
Speaker 3: smart guy.
Speaker 1: So going right back, tell me about your family, Tell
Speaker 1: about your mother and father and what food was what
Speaker 1: meals times were like in your house.
Speaker 3: Well, my folks divorced at an early age, so while
Speaker 3: my dad did made a really good effort of still
Speaker 3: being involved, my brother and I pretty much grew up
Speaker 3: in a single parent household. Of course, my mom had
Speaker 3: to work, and what did she do. She did a
Speaker 3: number of various jobs, from landscaper to we used to
Speaker 3: call her a plant lady at one point, which meant
Speaker 3: she was worked for a company that took care of
Speaker 3: plants in office buildings, so she'd go from office building
Speaker 3: to office building and maintain the plants. And she was
Speaker 3: kind of doing all these odd jobs while she finally
Speaker 3: figured out she needed to go back to school and
Speaker 3: get her master's degree and later went on to have
Speaker 3: a great career in adult education teaching English as a
Speaker 3: second language. But it's kind of remarkable to think about
Speaker 3: now having been a parent myself, you know, being involved
Speaker 3: with my wife and we we've always been able to
Speaker 3: help each other, and we've always had help around the house.
Speaker 3: But to think of the idea of just doing it
Speaker 3: by herself, and the fact that she always got home
Speaker 3: in time for dinner and made dinner, and she both
Speaker 3: my folks are from North Carolina, so she she was
Speaker 3: an amazing cook. Every night there would there would you know.
Speaker 3: It's the reason why I still I like liver and onions.
Speaker 3: It's because my mom would cook. Yeah. She would make
Speaker 3: this amazing livered onions where she'd kind of see it
Speaker 3: and grill, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: When she cook the onions right down, yeah, and very
Speaker 1: soft onions.
Speaker 3: But she just kind of she'd just do it all
Speaker 3: by feel, and she would make or she'd make great
Speaker 3: kind of stews in a crock pot, or she'd one
Speaker 3: of her great things that we would request that didn't
Speaker 3: have and all the time were she'd make a fantastic
Speaker 3: fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes that she did herself,
Speaker 3: and green beans and sometimes and would make homemade biscuits
Speaker 3: and things like that. So and I look back at that,
Speaker 3: and my cooking skills are negligible at best. And I
Speaker 3: was like, Mom, how did you do that? And She's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you just didn't think about it. And I
Speaker 3: was raised to learn how to cook, and I just
Speaker 3: wanted to make sure you guys at least had that
Speaker 3: one meal every night. And it was it was our
Speaker 3: time to kind of uh to kind of sit down
Speaker 3: and check in, which I'm sure is a common story
Speaker 3: you probably have heard, where you get to check in
Speaker 3: about how the day was and how your lives are
Speaker 3: going and et cetera.
Speaker 1: When you think about what that memory for you of
Speaker 1: sitting down at the table and that she provided that
Speaker 1: and did that with you know, and maybe maybe also
Speaker 1: cooking was a great pleasure for her also after I
Speaker 1: used to come home after work and start cooking and
Speaker 1: everybody would say, relax, stop cooking, And actually I found
Speaker 1: it quite Do you find that that sometimes just the
Speaker 1: thing of cooking is kind.
Speaker 3: Of oh yeah, that the times we're kind of find ourselves.
Speaker 3: I think cooking a lot more in the summertime, and
Speaker 3: it really can be I'm kind of more of the
Speaker 3: Soux chef to Vivoca to my wife. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: tell me what, tell me what to do now? Okay,
Speaker 3: let me shop this, Okay, what do I do?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Watch that? Yeah, and you get in a rhythm and
Speaker 3: you put the baseball game on and you pour a
Speaker 3: glass of wine and it's really nice. It's nice. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it matters.
Speaker 1: And when you would see your dad, would he cook
Speaker 1: for you? Would you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Dad would we'd kind of see our dad. And
Speaker 3: then Dad started getting into cooking and he he was
Speaker 3: he loved kind of you know, I feel like he
Speaker 3: was always grilling a breast of chicken. Yeah, like that
Speaker 3: was the main and or he'd there was a local
Speaker 3: market with like a really good butcher section and he
Speaker 3: would get like sweet Italian sausages and make some pasta
Speaker 3: with sausages. And then of course there's the one infamous
Speaker 3: time where we were eating something. We're like, Dad, what
Speaker 3: is this? He's like, just try it, and he had
Speaker 3: cooked us rabbit. The only problem was he just didn't
Speaker 3: connect the dots that at that time, my brother had
Speaker 3: a pet rabbit and we were like, Dad, what why
Speaker 3: are you serving rabbit? And I think he got mad
Speaker 3: at us for not trying the rabbit, but mad at
Speaker 3: himself for not thinking that that would feel weird to us.
Speaker 3: But that was a that was an emotional evening and.
Speaker 1: We had that. We had that in Tuscany this summer
Speaker 1: because we have always get rabbits for the little kids,
Speaker 1: and they had them in occasion. Then night, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a rabbit, you know, and that that wasn't
Speaker 1: too good. But do you think that he kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to cook or do you think he wanted to
Speaker 1: show you that he was taking care of you as
Speaker 1: a as a parent.
Speaker 3: He I think it was both. I think he learned
Speaker 3: to enjoy it and he became pretty good at it.
Speaker 3: And there was a stretch over the holidays. We still
Speaker 3: laugh about it today where and he would listen to
Speaker 3: the local cooking show on like AM radio and KBC
Speaker 3: out here in Los Angeles, and it was and he
Speaker 3: was like, you know what I want. I want to
Speaker 3: cook a Christmas.
Speaker 1: Goose at Christmas at Christmas.
Speaker 3: And he worked so hard and we we and it
Speaker 3: was just as tough as like leather.
Speaker 1: It was just goose is challenge, really hard.
Speaker 3: It was so bum like, yeah, it's okay, it's okay,
Speaker 3: you tried your best.
Speaker 1: We'll just yeah.
Speaker 3: We'll order a pizza. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's that sort of thing of cooking as
Speaker 1: a performance. Yeah. I feel that in the restaurant because
Speaker 1: we have an open kitchen and I serve something and
Speaker 1: then I always look to see the expression of something. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure when they were eating it.
Speaker 3: And I would think you are genuinely seeing a positive expression. Yeah, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: It's kind of nice when they say, you know, try this,
Speaker 1: and then you see them, you know, sharing it. And
Speaker 1: sometimes people send things back now they don't like it,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, right, you know, you just redo it
Speaker 1: or cook it differently or whatever. But it is it
Speaker 1: is a bit of a before. I always feel a
Speaker 1: bit sorry for somebody's cooking for a dinner party and
Speaker 1: bringing it out and they've been working all day trying
Speaker 1: to get it right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, he my dad would get very perfectionistic
Speaker 3: about timing things out and has to go in at
Speaker 3: a certain time. And yeah, but but I I've seen,
Speaker 3: like we spend our summers in Sweden. My wife was
Speaker 3: born there and we we over the years, we we've
Speaker 3: always gone every summer and and we have a place
Speaker 3: out there that's way out in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 3: along in this collective of little summer cottages next to her. No,
Speaker 3: it's actually, yeah, we're not anywhere near the ocean. We're
Speaker 3: we're we're kind of in the woods, and we have
Speaker 3: a couple of beautiful lakes around us and that sort
Speaker 3: of thing. But it's I know, that pressure that my
Speaker 3: debt because and we tend to grill a lot, and
Speaker 3: the Swedes are all the Swedes are annoyingly good at
Speaker 3: everything with and they don't really try, and they're they're
Speaker 3: good bakers and and uh, my wife's cousins will come
Speaker 3: and you know that pressure of someone watching over your
Speaker 3: shoulder while you grill something, and they'll they'll be like,
Speaker 3: you might want to take that off. I'm like, really, okay.
Speaker 3: And I always listen to them and they they they'll
Speaker 3: just walk right up and go like, no, I do
Speaker 3: two minutes longer, okay, wow. And they don't use thermometers
Speaker 3: or timers or anything. And sure enough, every time I
Speaker 3: listen to them, it's delicious, and it was it was
Speaker 3: the right it was the right temperature and the right time.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of what
Speaker 1: sweets maybe can they do comedy? Are they funny? I
Speaker 1: think if Igmar Bergmann and all those kind of they
Speaker 1: weren't exactly a lot.
Speaker 3: Of they're not considered culturally funny, but I think they're
Speaker 3: like a little little, you know, sneaker upper type there.
Speaker 3: They're very dry with their humor, very sarcastic, and they're
Speaker 3: they're very clever, and they love to they love to
Speaker 3: tease in a very gentle way, and so I find
Speaker 3: them really kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to lose my Swedish listeners.
Speaker 3: So right, Stockholm.
Speaker 1: I've been to Stockholm and we ate really really well
Speaker 1: in Stockholm. There's a real food culture now in Sweden,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're all foraging and it's a very
Speaker 1: foody place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're always trying to if we hear of a
Speaker 3: new restaurant, we'll go, try to go a couple of
Speaker 3: nights into the city and explore. There's an amazing hotel
Speaker 3: we've stayed at a couple of times called at Hem,
Speaker 3: and their restaurant there is as good as any I've
Speaker 3: ever been. They have an excellent group of chefs there
Speaker 3: and it's a very cozy place. It's like sitting in
Speaker 3: someone's living room.
Speaker 1: Do you eat Swedish at home? Does Vivica cook well Swedish?
Speaker 3: It's funny because Swedes, for the most part, their day
Speaker 3: to day kind of menu or died is fairly just continental. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the only time you really eat specific quote unquote
Speaker 3: Swedish food is usually around the holidays. So we always
Speaker 3: host a big Swedish Christmas party, which is called a
Speaker 3: yule Fest. And we have found this lovely couple, Mark
Speaker 3: and Lena who have a restaurant out here in La
Speaker 3: called open Face, which is all these types of open
Speaker 3: face sandwiches and it's a small kind of pop up place,
Speaker 3: but the main part of their business is catering. And
Speaker 3: she's Danish, I believe, but we found her years ago
Speaker 3: and she knows how to cook all the Swedish food.
Speaker 3: So that's our big night where you have all the
Speaker 3: herrings and they cook a ham and Swedish meatballs with
Speaker 3: the lingenberries and all the cheeses and the kaneki bread.
Speaker 3: So that's like our big night to have Swedish food,
Speaker 3: and we invite it's a party for eighty people, so
Speaker 3: all of our friends. We've been doing it for over
Speaker 3: a decade now and everyone. In fact, there was one well,
Speaker 3: there was one year we couldn't do it. I think
Speaker 3: we were out of town and people were people were
Speaker 3: upset and thought we'd left them off the list, so
Speaker 3: created quite an outrage. But no, that's that's our big
Speaker 3: night to eat Swedish food. And then the other big
Speaker 3: kind of Swedish meal is is what's called a creft weaver,
Speaker 3: which is in August, and that's when you eat crayfish.
Speaker 3: And that's really fun too, you know, you just boil
Speaker 3: all these crayfish with the cheese. And of course it's
Speaker 3: all done with aquavit and songs.
Speaker 1: And yeah, sing me a Swedish song.
Speaker 3: I can sing you happy birthday in Swedish.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yah more.
Speaker 2: Yoh more yah moreva into yaviskav javiska. I live Javiskava. Hurrah, Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.
Speaker 3: You have to say hooray four times.
Speaker 1: I never expected to have a different too. I thought
Speaker 1: that sounds like a kind of marching salt of us.
Speaker 3: It's the funniest. The funniest lyrics in English is like
Speaker 3: I hope you live. I hope you live. I hope
Speaker 3: you live for a hundred years, but if you don't,
Speaker 3: but if you don't, we'll still drink to you. It's
Speaker 3: something like that. Yeah, so it's this very The sweets
Speaker 3: are so funny with how they accept life and death.
Speaker 3: It's just like, I hope you live, but if you don't,
Speaker 3: don't worry, We'll still think you don't.
Speaker 1: You'll be okay, all right, but on your birthday it's
Speaker 1: your birthday. But let's just you know, maybe it's not
Speaker 1: going to be forever.
Speaker 3: It could be, but maybe it's not. And but anyway,
Speaker 3: the point is we're here and let's have a drink.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd Swedish accent. Did you know The River Cafe
Speaker 1: has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs.
Speaker 1: We have cookbooks, linen, napkins, kitchen were tote bags with
Speaker 1: our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can
Speaker 1: find us right next door to the River Cafe in
Speaker 1: London or online at Shopthrivercafe dot co dot uk. When
Speaker 1: you left your home and you had all those meals
Speaker 1: together with your brother and your mother and then your
Speaker 1: father and then did you go to college? Did you
Speaker 1: eat out or did you eat in the dorm? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think was it a rude awakening?
Speaker 4: No, it was.
Speaker 3: It was pretty good dorm food. I was just happy
Speaker 3: to have three square meals, but probably not by freshman
Speaker 3: sob As I moved out of the dorms into more
Speaker 3: of an apartment situation, That's where it was a little
Speaker 3: more bleak.
Speaker 1: That's what it changed.
Speaker 3: That's where it changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And was that in college.
Speaker 3: I was in college and then and then later after college.
Speaker 3: You know that those are some pathetic moments in my
Speaker 3: food life where I was like, you know, the struggling
Speaker 3: actor and I working in a desk job that doesn't
Speaker 3: pay a lot, where literally have twenty bucks that has
Speaker 3: to last me the rest of the week. I remember
Speaker 3: my my roommate at the time, who had a better
Speaker 3: job and a little more money. I was literally sitting down.
Speaker 3: I think my dinner one night was was pasta with
Speaker 3: and the only thing I had was some mustard, and
Speaker 3: I put the mustard on.
Speaker 1: That's I don't think that is a far cry from
Speaker 1: pasta with white truffles.
Speaker 3: And my friend Chare Jerry was like, you can borrow
Speaker 3: some of my tomato sauce. I'm like, oh no, I
Speaker 3: like I prefer them. Yeah, yeah, but anyway, and.
Speaker 1: Then you went to New York? Did you move to
Speaker 1: New York?
Speaker 3: Moved to New York when I was hired for Stay
Speaker 3: Night Live, And I know I told.
Speaker 1: I told Lauren that we were doing this, and he
Speaker 1: was usually Lauren self saying how much he loved to sea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's such a you spend so much
Speaker 3: time in that studio and then those offices, and at
Speaker 3: that show, you're not really sitting down in your apartment
Speaker 3: for a meal. But that was getting to kind of
Speaker 3: go to some of these New York restaurants. That was
Speaker 3: That was seven years of getting to explore. In fact,
Speaker 3: there was a there was a great place down in
Speaker 3: the village on Commerce and Barrow, and I don't think
Speaker 3: it's there anymore. It's called Grange Hall, and we had
Speaker 3: so many meals there where my my folks would fly
Speaker 3: in that week to come see the show and we go,
Speaker 3: like on a Thursday night to go eat at Grange
Speaker 3: Hall and it was like the amazing, very cozy, neighborhoody
Speaker 3: place where they I just remember always ordering the Hangar steak,
Speaker 3: which was like cooked really well and great atmosphere and
Speaker 3: just a very I was like, oh, this is the
Speaker 3: typical New York place, which Lauren would always point out.
Speaker 3: It's funny, he would always he made a great observation.
Speaker 3: He was like, you can tell like restaurants it's all
Speaker 3: about lighting. And I was like, you're right, yeah, if
Speaker 3: the lighting works, it's inviting and you want to sit down.
Speaker 3: And I also had a really funny meal once with
Speaker 3: Lauren at pastise at the old Pastise before he moved
Speaker 3: and where Lauren kept saying that that Mic Jagger may
Speaker 3: stop by, and I was like, uh huh, yeah sure,
Speaker 3: and the meal was almost done, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, Lauren was like, oh, he's here, and then
Speaker 3: we were both I don't see Lauren get nervous very much.
Speaker 3: And then we both were incredibly nervous, and he was like,
Speaker 3: will you sit there? Wait, no, hold on, I'll have
Speaker 3: him sit here, and then you sit across from here,
Speaker 3: and then okay, oh, hello, Mick.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: And then and there I was, you know, sitting next
Speaker 3: to Mick. I didn't contribute to the conversation at all
Speaker 3: because I just sat there. And but Mick Jager couldn't
Speaker 3: have been nicer to me and kept he kept pulling
Speaker 3: me in and everything like that, but I was too
Speaker 3: scared to say anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was in the restaurant here two ya and
Speaker 1: he was and he said, Ruthie, how are you? And
Speaker 1: I said, I am so excited because David Letterman is here.
Speaker 1: And then I realized I was not the thing you
Speaker 1: say to the Jagger I was. I was really excited
Speaker 1: that David. And then he's a guy. He's a nice person.
Speaker 3: That's so funny.
Speaker 1: Do you think that getting to eat in good restaurants
Speaker 1: almost was a measure of your success when you when
Speaker 1: you were able to go to a good restaurant or
Speaker 1: be taken to a good restaurant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think to some extent. I mean definitely, you're
Speaker 3: definitely all of a sudden in this this new category.
Speaker 3: And Lauren, part of the ritual and the schedule of
Speaker 3: the show is his big Tuesday night dinners where he
Speaker 3: has the host and he invites members of the cast.
Speaker 3: So that would either be at Orso or Latanzi or
Speaker 3: all the you know sometimes occasionally Joe Allen's and all
Speaker 3: these kind of venerable New York restaurants, And that was
Speaker 3: really eye opening to be Yeah, you kind of felt like,
Speaker 3: you know, country mouse in the big city all of
Speaker 3: a sudden that hadn't been so uh my folk. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say we grew up. You know, we were very
Speaker 3: very much lower middle class. We didn't have a lot.
Speaker 3: They still would splurge on occasion and take us to
Speaker 3: the interesting restaurant that had just opened up, you know
Speaker 3: where we lived, and so they still gave us an
Speaker 3: appreciation for I wouldn't say fine, but like, what is
Speaker 3: kind of different in terms of culinary thing experiences and
Speaker 3: force us to try different types of foods and this,
Speaker 3: that and the other. So I definitely had a little
Speaker 3: bit of that in my kind of dining background.
Speaker 1: Did you ever work in a restaurant? Were you ever
Speaker 1: a waiter?
Speaker 2: I never did.
Speaker 3: I avoided that because I knew I would be fired,
Speaker 3: yeah immediately, I'm.
Speaker 1: Not why would they fire? Oh yeah, carry plates?
Speaker 3: Or I would have been the one that how many
Speaker 3: tables does a waiter usually handle? What? Four to five tables?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Maybe because maybe we don't well, we don't like
Speaker 1: to have we share it around. So every waiter has
Speaker 1: a section which is about three or four tables, and
Speaker 1: then everybody helps, you know, we all you know, you
Speaker 1: see managers changing the table class right, everybody does everything.
Speaker 3: So you guys have a real team effort. But you know,
Speaker 3: if I just I would watch waiters and I'd be like,
Speaker 3: I could never keep track of everything. I need. I
Speaker 3: need a long I need a long grace period. I
Speaker 3: would eventually get it down. So I knew that wasn't
Speaker 3: an area that would be a strong suit for me.
Speaker 1: It's a really hard job, you know, you send food out,
Speaker 1: and the way all these young you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: get impatient at somebody on the grill to say, where
Speaker 1: is that sea bass? Where is that? And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was their age, I couldn't cross
Speaker 1: the street, you know, and they're they're amazing the way
Speaker 1: they can, you know, send out food. And the mind.
Speaker 3: When waiters just memorize it the order and they don't
Speaker 3: write it down.
Speaker 1: We write everything down, okay.
Speaker 3: Because when you go to a restaurant and the waiters like, yes,
Speaker 3: go ahead, and I'm like, I get stressed out for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you memorize lines, right, you can do that
Speaker 1: or not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you obviously. So maybe that's a muscle you
Speaker 3: develop if you're.
Speaker 1: But you would be good, probably because you could be
Speaker 1: really nice to people. I think you can get away
Speaker 1: with a hell of a lot, you know, if you
Speaker 1: are kind of nice, if you're not going to get
Speaker 1: annoyed with people, then if you basically like people, then
Speaker 1: it's okay.
Speaker 3: You know. Well, some of the jobs I worked and
Speaker 3: I did survive with with charm and with with confronting
Speaker 3: my mistakes in such an open way that it was
Speaker 3: almost disarming. And when they when they said, you never
Speaker 3: finished this one thing, and I would say, you are
Speaker 3: absolutely right. I didn't and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: And I worked as I worked as a waitress one
Speaker 1: summer and I promise you my last day there, I'd
Speaker 1: worked there for two months. I was still telling people
Speaker 1: it was my first day. It's just like, I'm really sorry,
Speaker 1: I forgot that. But I just started this sporting, you know,
Speaker 1: so if you get people on your side, you walk
Speaker 1: into that room and you're serving people, it's like an audience,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Bartending is the one thing I thought maybe I could
Speaker 3: handle because it's all kind of yeah right there in
Speaker 3: front of you. Yeah, And I thought maybe I could
Speaker 3: do that. But anyway, yeah, I somehow avoided that.
Speaker 1: You're not but you like going to and you go, well,
Speaker 1: you come to the River Cafe and you like going out.
Speaker 1: Have your kids ever worked? Have they worked yet in
Speaker 1: a restaurant?
Speaker 3: They haven't? They should? Yeah, that would be a nice
Speaker 3: wake up call.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad it's not a bad job for
Speaker 1: kids because it's so collaborative.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I always say if you do something, if you don't
Speaker 1: do your job, then it's not your boss that gets upset.
Speaker 1: It's your you know, the person who's depending on the
Speaker 1: carpet being swept or the parsley being chopped. It's it's
Speaker 1: not a bad idea. If you like listening to Ruthie's
Speaker 1: Table for would you please make sure to rate and
Speaker 1: review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Should I
Speaker 1: ask you your favorite food scene in the movie that
Speaker 1: you've been in. Is there one?
Speaker 3: The one that's kind of sweet that I'm asked about
Speaker 3: the most, probably is eating the spaghetti and maple syrup
Speaker 3: and in elf. Yeah, because that we didn't really plan
Speaker 3: out what. They just put a bunch of stuff in
Speaker 3: front of me and I just kind of improvised that
Speaker 3: and then ate as much as I could. And so
Speaker 3: hundreds of kids every year ask me, what does that
Speaker 3: taste like? Uh, that's the one that stands out probably.
Speaker 1: The most great movie, great scene. What are you working
Speaker 1: on now? What's what's happening now?
Speaker 3: Still kind of on a holding pattern?
Speaker 1: Is that with the strike? After the strike? Because did
Speaker 1: you eat more when the strike was going on? Did
Speaker 1: you have time to be at home cooking.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we're still We just were. I mean we
Speaker 3: were just out last night at an amazing place in
Speaker 3: La called The japan House, which is two chefs who
Speaker 3: were formerly the chefs for the the Japanese Ambassador to
Speaker 3: the US. They've started this restaurant and it's yeah, really extraordinary.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I've been at home more and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of waiting for the next thing to kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, happen.
Speaker 1: When did you start cooking? When did you actually cook?
Speaker 1: Or don't you really cook?
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't lie and say that I'm that's okay,
Speaker 3: really cook that much?
Speaker 1: Your boys? Three boys? Do they cook?
Speaker 3: The boys? Yeah, the boys. Our oldest is a sophomore
Speaker 3: in college, so I think he's he'll he'll cook a
Speaker 3: little bit. It's a really our middle son, who is
Speaker 3: the big he's the big foodie of the three. He
Speaker 3: really will love to get in there. And he's like, Dad,
Speaker 3: should I make smash burgers? I'm like, do it?
Speaker 1: And what's a smash burger?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That's where you take the patty and you you
Speaker 3: smash it down on the skillet. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 3: don't leave it on too long. Then you flip it
Speaker 3: and smash it. So they're they're really kind of thin
Speaker 3: and kind of you have a nice char on the outside.
Speaker 3: And then but he's he's he's the one who's like,
Speaker 3: if we are traveling, he'll look up, Yeah, he'll look
Speaker 3: up like restaurants we should go to and he just
Speaker 3: loves all those experiences and through through food and and
Speaker 3: he'll just occasionally I think he also finds it really comforting.
Speaker 3: Our youngest boy likes it. He's like, Mom, should we
Speaker 3: should we bake a cake?
Speaker 2: Let's do it, And.
Speaker 3: They'll just want to spend the couple hours, you know,
Speaker 3: doing something like that.
Speaker 1: I think you should just demand that your next movie's
Speaker 1: made in London. We can sit in the river cafe garden,
Speaker 1: or we can take a walk, or we can have
Speaker 1: food at home, or we can love and maybe I'll
Speaker 1: see you in New York. So the last question, and
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking so much time, is if
Speaker 1: you had a food that you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 1: Is was it the liver and onions your mother made
Speaker 1: or is it something that you cook or a Swedish
Speaker 1: birthday celebration gake? What would be your comfort food?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's such a good question. Yeah, I mean, we've
Speaker 3: touched on some of them, but the other one that
Speaker 3: pops to my mind is I guess it's connected to
Speaker 3: we have a chicken coop at our house, and there's
Speaker 3: nothing more satisfying than going and getting the fresh eggs.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if scrambling up eggs is the
Speaker 3: hardest thing to do from a cooking standpoint, Probably not,
Speaker 3: but it is. That's one of those connective moments of
Speaker 3: when you know, if one of my boys we have
Speaker 3: to get them up early on the weekend because they've
Speaker 3: got a soccer game or a basketball game, that to
Speaker 3: go ahead and grab some of those eggs and just
Speaker 3: kind of gently scramble them and maybe put a little
Speaker 3: parmesan cheese on the top, and toast a couple pieces
Speaker 3: of bread and just sit and kind of talk as
Speaker 3: we have Breakfast's that's very special to me, and so
Speaker 3: I love the connection of all of that together.
Speaker 1: Food and love. Well, thank you, and I hope that
Speaker 1: we can see each other soon. Yeah, somewhere in London,
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 3: That would be great. I would love it. Ruthie, thanks
Speaker 3: coming on.
Speaker 1: We miss you, Sean and I are here. So Will
Speaker 1: Ferrell chose for his recipe Tagulerini with butter and white truffles.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's such a luxury ingredient. Really. All the
Speaker 4: chefs get really excited when the tuffle season begins and
Speaker 4: you slice your first truffle and smell it and they're like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, that's amazing. When a lot of people
Speaker 4: are having truffles in the River Cafe and the air
Speaker 4: is filled with smell, it's really intoxicating.
Speaker 1: People feel like people maybe.
Speaker 4: Getting high on the smell.
Speaker 1: There's also the I think, well, there's there's a choosing
Speaker 1: them as well when you have that. You know, they
Speaker 1: bring in the white truffles and they sit at the
Speaker 1: table and you look at them for their shape and
Speaker 1: their firmness and how they how many holes there are
Speaker 1: and where the cracks are, and how they will be
Speaker 1: to clean and how they will be to shave. But
Speaker 1: it is that sort of smell, you know. We always
Speaker 1: just sort of worry that maybe they put truffle oil
Speaker 1: on the box to make sure that they could smell
Speaker 1: that strong. But that's why we're really careful if we
Speaker 1: buy them from.
Speaker 4: Because it's such a sort of high value ingredient. It's
Speaker 4: open to people. When I was a younger chef. Maybe
Speaker 4: not quite so much now, but people used to bring
Speaker 4: them around London in their sort of wheelie cases and
Speaker 4: then two judge dodgy guys would arrive at the back
Speaker 4: door of a restaurant and ask if you want to
Speaker 4: see what's in their suitcase and you'd be like, what
Speaker 4: we let the guess alve in for? And then you'd
Speaker 4: have to sift through, you know that We had one
Speaker 4: man turned up with something that literally, I think was
Speaker 4: a potato filled with truffle oil, and we were like,
Speaker 4: we can't buy that.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing about truffle is that because
Speaker 1: it's such a luxury, it's so expensive, so you're careful.
Speaker 1: People try to be very very careful. You measure, you
Speaker 1: sell it by the gram, so you sell you know,
Speaker 1: two grams or five grams or ten grams. And then
Speaker 1: there's you know, you have to weigh them. We weigh
Speaker 1: them when we get them, we weigh them, have to service,
Speaker 1: we make sure that we have it. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, when you're actually doing it, you just want
Speaker 1: to give more and more and more, don't you. I'm
Speaker 1: really the worst person because that thing of having to
Speaker 1: judge it do you judge it or do you weigh
Speaker 1: it when you're I freestyle.
Speaker 4: Actually, I shouldn't really say that. I've never I've never
Speaker 4: undercut people. No, I just always probably go a bit over.
Speaker 4: But it's the only time you see a little tiny
Speaker 4: scales on the past.
Speaker 3: What's that for.
Speaker 4: I got one of the biggest bollockings of my career
Speaker 4: when I was a young chef. God, I thought I
Speaker 4: was going to get sacked. Literally, I got taken to
Speaker 4: the chef's office and I was literally like torn down
Speaker 4: the strip. But it was really like because often you
Speaker 4: wrap the truffle in the tissue, don't need to stop
Speaker 4: it from getting whatever. And he left the truffle in
Speaker 4: the tissue on the front pass and so I was
Speaker 4: obviously cleaning down was soapy water, and he was like,
Speaker 4: where's the truffle And I was like, oh God, I
Speaker 4: haven't seen it. And then I realized I looked on
Speaker 4: the floor where all the water and all the guys
Speaker 4: were cleaning.
Speaker 1: The floor ands with trodden on it in the water.
Speaker 1: It's really cool that Will Ferrell chose that living in California,
Speaker 1: and but he just said that he just loved that
Speaker 1: was white trefles.
Speaker 3: Ruthie's Table For is produced by Atami Studio for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 3: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 3: Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 2: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator
Speaker 2: is Bella Cellini.
Speaker 3: This episode had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen. Thank
Speaker 3: you to everyone at The River Cafe for your help
Speaker 3: in making this episode