WEBVTT - Ab Rogers, Designer 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.920 Ruthie's Table four is now a book. Paul McCartney, Michael Caine, 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.720 Kamala Harris, David Beckham, Tina fey Elton John and many more. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.680 It's full of stories, beautifully designed, and a celebration of 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:18.040 the way food connects us all. It's available now wherever 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:25.040 you buy your books. Ruthie's Table four brought to you 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.800 by Sky and Montclair. There was a time that I 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.400 think it was you that was had been going every 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.400 single day down to the harbor to try fish and 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.640 catch a fish. And every day we had this little 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.800 fishing rod, I think it was maybe it was true 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.680 with you, and would stand there for hours. And one 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.560 day we just thought we can't go on any longer. 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.479 So we bought a fish, a little fish in the 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.720 fishing market, and then you drove down underneath the fishing 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.800 and attached it to the fishing rod, and he pulled 0:00:53.840 --> 0:01:01.840 it up swimming. So they hatched it to the rod 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:03.800 and he pulled it up. Of course, what he did 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:11.399 really cut onto is that it was a dead fish. 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.680 There are many many things I admire about abe Rogers. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.280 He is the founder of Abe Rogers Architects, an international 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:26.120 practice where he breaks boundaries, creating beautiful buildings, challenging exhibitions, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.840 and dynamic interiors. As a parent, he is patient, exuberant, 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.560 and as a stepson, well, he and I have been 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.160 side by side with many, many stories to tell. Today, 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.200 we're going to talk about Abe as a cook, the inventive, inspiring, 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.840 and brave way he brings ingredients together, creating some of 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.920 the most delicious food I've eaten in my life. I 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.080 think I know Abe very well. Today I'm going to 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.960 know him even better and we'll share with you what 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.880 he does, what he thinks, and what he makes. What 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.320 a privilege we're going to talk an't we we have known? 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.360 I don't think i've known apart from maybe I would rather. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.280 I don't think i've known any person I've interviewed as 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:10.640 long as I've known you have. 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.240 I think I'm one of the apart from the only 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.400 people that have eaten your food all their all. 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:16.200 Their their lives. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.200 And I think that's quite a privilege. And I even 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.880 make your food kind of before it was this, when 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:22.120 it was we were. 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.280 Making the other day, I went up to Ruse and 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.239 he said, I want you to cook something that used 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:27.760 to cook. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.760 Yeah, So I was thinking about soufles is like bicycled 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:31.200 over here. 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.440 Yeah, he said, he said, let's make something that you 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.920 know you used to make, and so I said, soufle 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.160 And I used to make cheese, one cheese to and 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.639 one finish, and then. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:44.919 I remember the whole theater, then looking through the oven 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:45.600 and then rising. 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.239 You remember the time we were skiing, Yeah, we were skiing. 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.840 You know how everybody makes you feel like souffles. You 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.520 can't open the oven door, nobody can make a noise, 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.160 you can't play music. And we were in a shallow 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:03.359 in some apartment house and some humor, and we made 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.240 a cheese to play and a spinach shoe flay, and 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.720 the oven kind of broke or something happened, and we 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.400 took both soufles out of the oven as they were rising, 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.800 went down the hall, turned on the other oven, which 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.200 was like a very low temperature, and put the soufles 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:23.799 in and slammed the door. And they were the best 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.080 soufles I've ever had. So is not always right, No, 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.280 exactly where the mythology of a tradition. We're going to 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.799 ask you to read a recipe that you've chosen. I 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.880 thought it was interesting that of all the recipes that 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.840 you've chosen, it's a dish that I absolutely adore with 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.240 a fish that I think worked so well in this recipe. 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:44.560 Why don't you read it first? 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.480 And why discuss going to say prior to reading this 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.280 is what when in the last years with that we'd 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.760 had these kind of emotional conversations and he was very 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.760 soft and he said, your super power is your fearlessness, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.640 and that is you know, that's what. But actually the 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.320 one thing makes me fearful is reading out louds So 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.320 I walk endeavor to read, especially dyslexia. Yeah, and this 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.560 is very beautifully printed in LUNs writing for me. Acropats 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.960 is an extraordinary dish because a little bit like my mete, 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.160 the Spanish dish is kind of made by the fisherman 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:15.920 to be kind of eaten on the boat almost. And 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.400 so this idea of using the local seaweed and this 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.719 kind of strange curdle, a multiplication that comes with a 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.920 fish protein and the olive oil and the garlic the 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.400 coming together so for kind of crazy water acropats. So 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.080 we need three pielt garlics. We need four tablespoons of 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:37.440 chopped fresh flat parsley, two fresh or tinned plum tomatoes, 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.320 true crushed dried chilis. One whole red mullet. I mean, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.400 I love the red mullet. I think it's exceptional. Fish 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.320 white wine optional, all necessary. I would say four scallops 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.279 of longesteed, two slices of sheap batter, bread, one lemon 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.760 hard in a pan large enough to hold the fish 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.840 in one layer. Five water with garlic, pastia, tomates, and chili. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.200 Season weal and boil for five minutes. Add the mullet 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.880 and splash of wine and cover for six minutes. Then 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.000 carefully turn the fish over. Add the shell fish. Cook 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.000 for six more minutes. Carefully turn the fish over, cook 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.320 for further six minutes, seasoned, drizzle olive oil. Toast the bread, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.800 rub garlic on one side, and place on a plate. 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.600 Add the fish, spooning over tomatoes and broth. Be on 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:22.320 a rocky boat. 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.160 And why did you choose this recipe? 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.919 Because I think it represents the simplicity of kind of 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.280 Italian food, of food that that you know, that that 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.480 you cook and bringing these ingredients together, and the idea 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.520 that it's cooked by the by the fishermen. 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.039 That's why it's called crazy water. Because the myth or 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.080 the reality that if you drink salt water of the sea, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.200 you will become insane, you'll be crazy. And so the 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:52.719 aqua patza means pazza is you know, means crazy in Italian. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.200 So I think I think it's a beautiful name for 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.200 a recipe and the mythology of it. As you tell 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:00.240 me more about aqua, parts of what do you when 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.280 you make it? What do you do well? 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.120 I mean for me, it's just coming together of these 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.280 different ingredients, and you have you know that you'll see 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.880 the shellfish and meeting with the red mullet, and they 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:11.400 can make. 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.600 It without like it without and I just like a mullet. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.040 Just a mullet. Yeah, I mean clans I think you know, 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.800 I wouldn't nessary, but it's scallops. But I think it's 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.479 it's a celebration of pure ingredients, which all you're cooking 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:25.360 is a bat. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.359 The other appeal of this dish for me is that 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.960 it's a whole fish. Yeah, I don't want to make 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:32.640 it with a filet. You would never make it with 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:33.840 a filet if. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.640 I can avoid. I like to cook everything, whole everything 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.320 point I would only cook vegetables whole as well. I mean, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.520 now I've kind of got more. But I quite like 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.760 going through these conceptual moments of kind of defining the 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:46.440 food by the. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.719 Way you doing it. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.560 Because then it's as it arrives and it cooks inside 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.280 it itself. And I try not to add water to things, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.800 so I kind of like this idea of concentration and 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.560 trying to get the water from the vegetable, and if 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.719 it's not cut, then it sits inside and kind of 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:03.159 cooks in its own self. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.840 And also when you see a fill it of sea 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:10.280 bass or a turbot, whatever you are very often putting 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.360 on the grill, it kind of shrinks and gets all 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:14.640 sort of angry and tight. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.160 The juice kind of escapes, and you need the bones, and. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.280 You need the bones. That's you know. I don't think 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:21.840 I ever ate a fill of a fish. When I 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.960 lived in Paris, we'd either get you know, sea bass 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.200 big enough for every everyone to share, and taking it 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.120 off the bone is part of the whole process, and. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.040 Then the bone becomes the stock. And I had some 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.920 friends for dinner last night, did you cook? I cooked 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.800 a turbots, but I sput it on the wire frame 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:43.640 of the shelf and the vegetables underneath it. So the 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.800 kind of the enzymes drop and you do a kind 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:50.320 of salt and olive oil and vinegar massage into it 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.920 and releases the proteins. It's the kind of bass thing 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.160 and everything drops out. And I was cooking for Lynn 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:57.960 Harris to perfume, and it was very interesting to be 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.440 talking about food with someone who's just obsessed with the smell, 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.320 smell and the kind of whole taste and smell and 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:02.960 that inter. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.480 I get that, you know, I always say that very 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.440 often you want to make something up because of what 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.440 it will taste like, but what it will smell like. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.000 And how your house will smell when people enter the. 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.800 Ways. Yeah, sometimes you don't wantever you do one I 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.640 don't have. I don't have extraction in my house. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:23.520 I think I learned that from you. I have. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.840 Open window. Yeah, what are your early memories of the kitchen? 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.880 When I was bically him thinking about this conversation, I 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.240 realized that most of my early memories are about food, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:36.800 and when I talked to that, his memories are very different. 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.760 I think it's very interesting early on what we take 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.880 from our memories and our past. So yeah, definitely. I 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.040 mean we were five that we'd all sit down together. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.160 Chicken would kind of be devoured in minutes with such 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.080 a with five kids and two adults and two great danes, 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.120 and soon would make packed lunches for all of us 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.000 every morning and be at the kind of five making 0:08:58.280 --> 0:08:59.960 homemade bread. I mean, it was quite in this kind 0:08:59.960 --> 0:09:01.960 of conveyor belt and we go off my little plastic 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.240 bags with the sandwiches and the carrots. Where they eat 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.520 with you most nights every night, or my bedroom is 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.640 next to the kitchen because I was the youngest, and 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.520 so I'm going to go to bed as they were cooking. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:13.920 I mean, lot of people would see that I was 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:15.600 in the cupboard in the basement, but it was. But 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:17.160 it was actually a real kind of generous things that 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.880 kept me very close. She was always in the kitchen. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.760 But I grew up, you know, with this incredible privilege 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.240 of these I know, kind of five four amazing cooks. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.480 You know, you're you know you cooking, and we'd go 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.480 every week to Bell Sized Grow And there was a 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.440 period when Dad was supposed to cook every Tuesday. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.079 Do you remember that. I, you know, Richard who really. 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.600 Food was important respective. 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.040 Everything was about. He would literally go to bed at 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:45.400 night and think what we were going to eat the 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.680 next day, or he would, you know, after a meal, 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.240 talk about what he you know, had eaten that lunch. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.840 There was a conversation about food. There was this. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.320 Love of very natural food. He wanted he wanted the 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.600 livers and the kidneys, and he wanted in fact, and 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.320 he wanted you know, the substance. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.760 Yeah. So going, so you had the Tuesdays whenever we 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:06.360 did one of the. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.800 Tuesdays when he could and he couldn't cook. He didn't 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.400 know how to cook. He liked the idea, but he 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.120 you know, so I would cook with you. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.440 So you were saying that your memories of your childhood 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.040 really centered around food. Yeah. Yeah. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.400 And then of course Dada Dada who was who was 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.559 my grandmother? I think quite inspiration had totally who kind 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.160 of was the first Italian cook. I mean obviously the first, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.120 but was kind of And you would go to her 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.520 house and she would skate around with cloths attached to 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:37.679 her feet and you know, she would slowly cook these 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.160 carrots and she's had. 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.160 The clothes on her feet now for cooking but cleaning. Yeah, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.160 so we should tell everyone about data who was born 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.079 in Trieste. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:53.680 Early century, women who survived the wars, who kind of 0:10:53.720 --> 0:11:00.120 fled Italy in thirty nine, who kind of arrived in 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.439 England the beginning of the war at a moment kind 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.560 of great nationalism in a way. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.080 And she had a very privileged childhood. So she was 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:14.240 brought up with I think cooks in the kitchen and 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.560 cleaners in the bedrooms, and a little private train that 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:19.920 took her to the top of her house. 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.160 And James, James Joyce. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.800 That's always my question, who do you think Richard's mother 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.160 to speak English? And there was James Joyce who was 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:29.400 living in Triesta. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.400 And I think when they had the flu in eighteen eighteen, 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.199 nineteen eighteen, she didn't need the house free, you know, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.760 and people would bring the through to the kind of 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:37.600 doorstep of the house. 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.520 There were two things she wanted to have in London, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.760 many things, probably, but coming from this privileged life to 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.440 a wartime Britain was one not being able to have 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.360 a view. Because she grew up in Florence where there 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.040 were the hills and she could walk up there and 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.640 see the view of a Florence. And so she said 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.520 to me once and she used to walk around London 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.840 all day trying to find a view. And the other 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.200 one was to have the kind of food that she'd 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.200 grown up with, the trisque. Her father, even though it 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:13.599 was wartime Britain and rationing, would send her candy chestnuts 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.240 and candied fruit. She often told me about getting these packages. 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:18.760 I don't know how he got them out of Italy 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.880 and to Britain, but for her having the candied fruit. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.600 But you can imagine coming from parmesan cheese and olive 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.200 oil and anchovies and garlic to a country where there 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.640 was just a very, very different level of type of cooking. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.959 But she had this amazing house that Dad had designed 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.040 her as kind of super experimental house, his first kind 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:40.640 of real vision of the future of his eye. 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:42.280 That wasn't until sixty eight, sixty eight. 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.840 Yeah, this kind of yellow box where she would cook 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.800 her childhood food and with this incredible generosity and precision 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.120 in how she would cook. And for me, I always 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.400 wouldly remember the carrots, and the carrots would take four 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.840 hours and she would kind of turn them over each 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.000 one individual. She almost knew them by name slice by 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:02.599 the end of the kind of carrot cooking, and he 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.679 would have this orange all of oil that had been 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.559 kind of touched by this very very slow cooking. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:13.240 Italian vegetables are never undercooked. Everything in Italy is, you know, 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.319 the prety rules. Even though yeah you can have raw 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.000 you do. But I think that the whole the difference 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:26.400 between you know, a blanched vegetable and French cooking or 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.560 you know, other cooking, and then the Italians which just 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.440 cooked them for a very long time, they do it 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:34.480 because of the olive oil. I think they get away 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.800 with it. So tell me more about the influences in 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:37.280 your cooking. 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.200 And then so you know, I grew up, you know, 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.400 with Rose and her kids, we were all very much that. 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.320 Would be Rose Grades, my co founder of the River. 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.240 Capitol was you know who moved to Florence in when 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.960 I was like fourteen, twelve thirteen, and we would go 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.120 out there and all that they would do there was 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.520 cook and she kind of demanded everybody in the house 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:00.520 to be cooking. I don't know how you could make 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.679 it too much. I saur so collaborative, and she always 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:04.640 wanted to push and like you were saying in my introduction, 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:06.920 she always really wanted to push the baund and she 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:08.360 was going to use chili. She wants to make you 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.880 cry from the heat, you know. She kind of she 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.520 was she was experimental, not when she was hit in 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.000 those kind of periods and interesting things, so bohemian in 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:19.840 a way. Kind of going there as a teenager was 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.080 like anything could happen, and food was the absolute glue 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:24.840 that operated around that. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.440 And she was taught to cook by daughter. She always 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.520 said that. You know, there were about five friends of 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:38.320 Richard who lived in South London, Wimbledon, she that area, 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:40.760 and they were friends of Richard, and then what they 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.600 really loved was being taught by Richard's mother daughter, your grandmother, 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.920 how to cook. And so there was and actually if 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.920 you went to Rose's house or sus or you know, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.600 Georgie Walton's house or Wendy Foster's, there was you could 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.120 tell that they'd been taught by Dadda. There was a consistency. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.360 Because her food was about approach to exactly me dishes. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.200 But the way that you learned you could apply it 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.320 to anything. As you say, you talk about the vegetables, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.520 or we talk about it, the salad, the ice creams, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.000 you know, which extortedly we're all still trying to recreate 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.720 many years later, or the Christmas cake that you make 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.160 every year. But in a way, the really interesting thing 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.120 for me is this is the kind of creation is 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.840 quite humble food that you make so exquisitely. And something 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.040 I find fascinating in your cooking is the more noble 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.560 your guests, the more humble the food that you serve them. 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.040 So you have the American Ambassador for lunch and you 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.400 give them which is, you know, kind of the peasants food, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.200 but you make it so perfectly, you know, I think, 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.680 and it changes all the time, whether you're using parmesan 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.120 or you're not using parmesan, that if tomates you're using 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.840 the time of years, but it's always, you know, it's 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.040 it's yeah. Eva Drittna says in design that three materials 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:50.920 make a palette, and I think, you know, that's quite 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:52.880 true in a lot of these dishes. I just ate 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.200 the targa with tomatoes outside, and that's two ingredients. Maybe 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.640 we add salt three, but it's just it's this kind 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.080 of poetry in your in your mouth, the kind of 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.560 fish to the field, which is fabulous. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.000 And also when you have few ingredients, if you just 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:10.080 have two ingredients. They'd better be good. There's no masking them, 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:15.000 you know that. Butka has to be great a certain way. 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:17.720 A ribbon, Yeah, you like the ribbon. 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:18.680 I quite like it greater. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.040 We'll go have a comparison. 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:20.360 Okay. 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:22.600 So you had Sue, you had you had me, you 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:30.600 had daughter, you had Cheer and then your cousin she's 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.440 married to the Cheerman. 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.840 Was married to Richard's first cousin. And she was this 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:40.040 kind of extraordinary, short, completely energetic cook who would spend 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.800 no money, but she would barter with the local farmers 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:44.680 and she would drive off in the morning for forty 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.800 minutes to get this very fresh paccarino they just had 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.320 just kind of been been set and she would drive 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.480 back across and you would have that, and she'd be 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.000 so excited to bring you this and this and this bread. 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.320 And she would have huge fights with the other chefs 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.120 in Florence because their food was being too comp lo 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:01.800 caterd and it well, you know, it was always trying 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.320 to be there was a real activist. I remember this 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.600 meal where she had given the farmers free ducks, and 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.600 she'd given them the and she specified their diet. 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.560 These three ducks, she gave them as us to be. 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.720 Fair, and then for six months they fed them and 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.840 grew them, and then she came and picked them up 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:22.920 and she did this whole meal devoted to the duck. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.120 So you start with duck soup, then you have duck bravioli, 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.160 then you have rosed duck. So how you can take 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.159 one animal and it influenced the whole meal. And I 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.200 kind of love that linear story that starts to be 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.840 told and how we can use, you know, food to 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:39.920 really tell stories. And it almost has kind of conceptual 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.000 art in some ways that he's sow in these other narratives. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.399 So there are five women in the sense that you 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.720 grew up with is you know the importance and no 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.199 wonder your memory is so strong a food. You know 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.960 that you had these very different views in the way 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.280 people cook, but a kind of quality and also a 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.920 sense of that food was a way of bringing a 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.880 we want together. Do you remember going to restaurants? Yeah? 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.359 I remember going to Chinese, going to mister choosing to 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.639 go to Chinese restaurants, Pizza Express, Yeah, a lot of 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.840 that definitely with you and Richard are going to restaurants 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.200 in Paris. Yeah, I also remember those holids days where 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.160 we would live in a boat house and you would 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.680 cook you know, sardine. I mean it was a very 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.080 it was. It was not a lavish exist. 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.200 That was of Coudie, wasn't it. We had the keys 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.080 to the house, we had a map to take us 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.159 to the house. We had three children, I was pregnant, 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:35.240 it was. And we stayed there for three weeks and 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.720 we never found the house where. 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:38.800 The houses never have found the house. 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.359 We stayed in this room which we thought we could 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.480 go to be one night and ended up being sort 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.040 of three weeks. But I think we did eat. You know, 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.320 we ate from the sea. We ate, and so I 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.120 think that probably part of your childhood and growing up. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:55.640 I mean, which you couldn't cook, but he would gather. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.000 We'd go to the sea urchins, we would get brickly pears, 0:18:58.640 --> 0:18:59.960 we'd be covered in splinters. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:01.720 Yeah, there was a time that I think it was 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.760 you that was had been going every single day down 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.679 to the harbor to try and fish and catch a fish. 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.240 And every day we had this little fishing rod. I 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.800 think it was maybe it was Rue you and would 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.840 stand there for hours and one day we just thought 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.400 we can't go on any longer. So we bought a fish, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.960 a little fish in the fishing market, and then drove 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.040 down underneath the fishing and attached it to the fishing 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:26.000 rod and. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:26.600 He pulled it up. 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:29.400