Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: There is no such thing as a simple phone call
Speaker 2: with my beautiful friend Christian Amanpour. Asking, as I did yesterday,
Speaker 2: where she's been, she answers Ukraine. Asking where she's going,
Speaker 2: she says, Afghanistan. This is what it is like having
Speaker 2: a fearless friend you love, who puts yourself in danger,
Speaker 2: reporting facts, holding people to account, and telling the truth
Speaker 2: from wherever she is and whoever she is talking to.
Speaker 2: Christian goes on hiking trips, biking trips, retreats to her
Speaker 2: house in the Eeldarray, flies to New York to see
Speaker 2: her son Darius. The food of Persia is her passion.
Speaker 2: Today I'm going to interview the most brilliant interviewer there is,
Speaker 2: and today I think I'm the fearless one. I ask
Speaker 2: everyone to read a recipe from one of our cookbooks,
Speaker 2: and you said to me, Actually, what I'd like to
Speaker 2: do is talk about at the box sets, because yeah,
Speaker 2: and what do you read the menu for the box
Speaker 2: set that you've chosen?
Speaker 3: I will, so, of course River Cafe for cutua fabulous.
Speaker 3: Then a zucchini the Dattarini tomatoes, broad beans, slow cook
Speaker 3: summer peas never had those were great, Cannellini beans, an
Speaker 3: Italian spirit. It all sounds simple, but it's delicious. The
Speaker 3: other thing I really love is the spatchcock chicken against
Speaker 3: deceptive because it looks like it's only for a few people,
Speaker 3: but it's for feeding the five thousand, basically. And the
Speaker 3: other thing I love is the pistachio cake. Oh my goodness. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I'm originally Persian, Iranian and English and anything pistachio I love,
Speaker 3: and that is literally the best pistachio cake ever is
Speaker 3: so good. So Ruthie, I chose a box set because,
Speaker 3: to be Frank, I don't cook, and so to read
Speaker 3: a recipe sounded a little bit inauthentic for me, no
Speaker 3: matter how much I love eating your food at the
Speaker 3: River Cafe. And I have been incredibly spoiled during COVID
Speaker 3: and the last two years. Great friends people like Laura
Speaker 3: and Eric Felner, Laura Bailey and Eric Feller who come
Speaker 3: here a lot, spoiled me a lot with your box set,
Speaker 3: and it was really something that was not just a
Speaker 3: luxury but a massive comfort. And I'd gone through a
Speaker 3: bit of an illness last year, and they really really
Speaker 3: sustained me, especially when people came to my house. You know,
Speaker 3: I was able to offer them things without myself having
Speaker 3: to cook.
Speaker 2: I don't mind if you don't make because you're you
Speaker 2: know what what what we really? I mean, whether you
Speaker 2: cook or you eat. And you do cook, and you
Speaker 2: love food, and I think that you want to eat well.
Speaker 2: But what we need Christian amanpour for and I need
Speaker 2: you from my friend, but we all the world needs
Speaker 2: you for the as I said, the fearless. Do you
Speaker 2: like being all fearless? You know people say I'm fearless
Speaker 2: because I ski down mountains.
Speaker 3: No, I think fearless to be frank, I will give
Speaker 3: you my definition. I said once that I've lived most
Speaker 3: of my professional life in a state of repressed fear.
Speaker 3: Because you'd really be dumb if you said you weren't
Speaker 3: afraid of going to all these very terrifying places where
Speaker 3: you are in the crosshairs. And you're also a target,
Speaker 3: not just randomly injured or killed like so many of
Speaker 3: us have been, because we're deliberately targeted.
Speaker 2: So they know, they know who you are, and they
Speaker 2: know where you are, and they know your retournalists and.
Speaker 3: Me and anybody else is there with the words press
Speaker 3: on their fronts or on their vehicles. Yeah, and they
Speaker 3: do it because they don't want the truth out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that they would be give me some example.
Speaker 3: Well, let's say in the Bosnia War, it was the
Speaker 3: Bosnian Serb militants who were attacking the civilians in Sarajevo.
Speaker 3: That was their battle plan, much like what Putin has
Speaker 3: been doing in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Christian what was it like living under siege in Sarajevo.
Speaker 3: Well, it became the longest siege in modern history. It
Speaker 3: was nearly three years long, which meant that the Bosnian Serbs,
Speaker 3: backed by Serbia, who were also backed then by Russia,
Speaker 3: were besieging a city of ordinary civilians in the most
Speaker 3: medieval way. And it meant that food wasn't coming in.
Speaker 3: It meant that, you know, they cut off heat, electricity, water,
Speaker 3: and they were bombarding. What then happened was that the
Speaker 3: United Nations got an agreement to have an airlift into
Speaker 3: the Sarajevo airport and only those people the UN was
Speaker 3: able to use it, and they would bring in pallets
Speaker 3: of humanitarian aids, so big palettes came in by military
Speaker 3: cargo planes, and they were your basics, what flower, oil, beans, cans,
Speaker 3: stuff that was nonperishable that people could use. But the
Speaker 3: motif in terms of food was severe food poverty the
Speaker 3: very very first winter under siege. And it sounds like
Speaker 3: a cliche, and I didn't even believe it till I
Speaker 3: saw it, but literally, people were foraging, honestly, trying to
Speaker 3: get dandelion leaves and grasses and things like that that
Speaker 3: they might be able to boil up into something. Some
Speaker 3: of them may have had little vegetable gardens with lettuce
Speaker 3: or spinach or whatever it was, but there was no
Speaker 3: real protein. They could make bread because flower was coming
Speaker 3: in eventually by the UN, but it was basic. And
Speaker 3: you know, I just remember living in the holiday in
Speaker 3: with all the press there. I didn't realize until afterwards.
Speaker 3: The managers had to pretty much bribe the besiegers and
Speaker 3: some of the UN peacekeeping forces who came in to
Speaker 3: get things like eggs and to get things like, I
Speaker 3: don't know whatever. We didn't need much. We really didn't
Speaker 3: to do with not much. It was nothing very tasty,
Speaker 3: But I will never forget what an effort they made
Speaker 3: to keep us fed. There was some breakfast. Again, bread
Speaker 3: featured a lot. Sometimes we had some of the local
Speaker 3: fetter cheesy kind of stuff, which was like you know
Speaker 3: that they could easily sort of get or bribe or
Speaker 3: you know. I just don't remember much. There wasn't potatoes
Speaker 3: or tomatoes or or anything.
Speaker 2: Because all the farming or the the just like now
Speaker 2: in Ukraine when it's bombed all the time and there's
Speaker 2: a scorched earth policy, you can't actually grow.
Speaker 3: And remember again this was an urban center, so anyway,
Speaker 3: there wasn't much farming going on in the city of Sarajevo,
Speaker 3: and it was it was a terrible situation. And I
Speaker 3: remember when the seeds started to be slowly lifted, one
Speaker 3: of my one of my friends went across the lines
Speaker 3: and came back with a bag of I think it
Speaker 3: was tomatoes, that's my memory, and it was the first
Speaker 3: fresh tomatoes we'd seen. How long we've been there for years.
Speaker 3: But of course I went in and out in a
Speaker 3: military plane, which was the only way to get out
Speaker 3: if you could. But I did spend most of the
Speaker 3: of those three years of the nineties in Bosnia.
Speaker 2: And when you would return on the plane from Sarajeva
Speaker 2: going to Paris. Are you thinking about what you're going
Speaker 2: to eat?
Speaker 3: Are you thinking no, first time, thinking of leaving those
Speaker 3: people behind and feeling very guilty.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about the kindness of strangers,
Speaker 2: you know, being in these very tough situations. Is the
Speaker 2: connections Are they very firmly established.
Speaker 3: Very firmly established, because to be frank, apart from anything else,
Speaker 3: your life depends on having good relations with your competitors
Speaker 3: and your colleagues, you know.
Speaker 2: And the people of the city.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they were mostly grateful for us to tell
Speaker 3: their story, but and I have to say it is important,
Speaker 3: they did begin to get angry. I remember them saying,
Speaker 3: you know, turn your cameras away from us. This isn't
Speaker 3: the Sarajevo Safari. You keep telling our stories and the
Speaker 3: world doesn't intervene, doesn't help us. And those were very
Speaker 3: painful moments because you did realize that they were telling
Speaker 3: the truth, that yeah, we could go to them, talk
Speaker 3: to them, get their experiences. See what they were trying
Speaker 3: to cook for their families, which was pretty much nothing
Speaker 3: in their little kitchens, and trying to survive this war
Speaker 3: and nothing was happening. To help them, so then they
Speaker 3: would take it out on us because we were the
Speaker 3: closest for them. Yeah, and it was painful. That was painful.
Speaker 3: So I have no illusion that we are well comes
Speaker 3: with open arms and we're the great saviors at all.
Speaker 3: At all. We do a job. We if we're lucky,
Speaker 3: we tell the truth and the truth gets out. And
Speaker 3: if we're very, very lucky, it causes intervention. So it
Speaker 3: didn't in Sarajevo until the Cerebnitza massacre, which was nearly
Speaker 3: three years well three years after the war started. Of course,
Speaker 3: in Ukraine it was totally different, and it's great that
Speaker 3: the West did intervene to help Ukraine defend itself when
Speaker 3: it was illegally occupied, invaded, and the Russians went to
Speaker 3: war against them. So the difference in the world's reaction
Speaker 3: is remarkable.
Speaker 2: It shall we talk about it around? Yes, what did
Speaker 2: your father and mother did?
Speaker 3: My father was he worked in a travel agency, and
Speaker 3: my mom was, you know, what do you call it?
Speaker 3: A homemaker? And she looked after us. We're four girls.
Speaker 3: I'm the oldest of my mother English Catholic, my father
Speaker 3: Iranian Moslim. So I grew up in a very mixed
Speaker 3: ethnic and you know household that I think served me
Speaker 3: very well in my career because I then understood that
Speaker 3: actually you can get past identity. You can actually always
Speaker 3: find the commonality in people. And you know, the idea
Speaker 3: of mixed ethnicities or religions or nationalities means nothing to me.
Speaker 3: It's just normal, normal, normal, normal. Also, my mum was
Speaker 3: a very strong woman and really did run the household
Speaker 3: and was very influential on us and let's say our
Speaker 3: moral and spiritual education. I'm quite a strict Catholic and
Speaker 3: was my father allowed it, never said I'm the man
Speaker 3: and I'm Muslim and you have to bring up in Iran,
Speaker 3: you know, the kids as Muslims. None of that. He
Speaker 3: absolutely agreed to my mother's demands. But it was a
Speaker 3: very I just remember a very very happy household that
Speaker 3: actually revolved around my mother's cooking.
Speaker 2: Oh that's what I was going to ask. So your
Speaker 2: mother was British?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Did your mother bring British film?
Speaker 3: Really? You see, I don't even think, well, yes and no.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether my mother was a particularly accomplished
Speaker 3: cook before she got married. I think she learned on
Speaker 3: the job, so to speak, and she did become excellent,
Speaker 3: and we were the only ones really that in my
Speaker 3: group of friends that were serving more sort of Western food.
Speaker 3: So my friends would come to my house for my
Speaker 3: mother's pizza, for her chocolate cake, which was I think
Speaker 3: kind of like a flowerless chocolate cake before I even
Speaker 3: knew that that was the case, but a very rich
Speaker 3: chocolate cake that was beautifully iced and was delicious, and
Speaker 3: everybody loved it. And chocolate moose. I mean, I have
Speaker 3: such great memories of my mum making these things and
Speaker 3: that I would be sitting at the table just trying
Speaker 3: to grab the spoon like all kids do, you know,
Speaker 3: and lick the spoon and just love it. An angel cake.
Speaker 3: So we had the chocolate cake and then the angel
Speaker 3: cake and it. It just was sort of a theme
Speaker 3: of my childhood that my friends loved it and were
Speaker 3: always anxious to come to my house.
Speaker 2: And what about the Persian.
Speaker 3: Well, the Persian food was mostly when we went out
Speaker 3: to friends' houses or to families houses, but also on
Speaker 3: a Friday, which is sort of the Sunday in the
Speaker 3: Middle East. It's like the Sabbath Friday. Everybody's the holiday
Speaker 3: of the weekend, and the traditional Persian rural meal is
Speaker 3: called cello kabab. Cello is the rice. Cello cabab is
Speaker 3: the rice. So it's this pile of steaming white rice
Speaker 3: with saffron on the top and a crust underneath, which
Speaker 3: is very and it's very difficult to cheap. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: really tough to make. I do Actually I did it well.
Speaker 3: First of all, you have to boil the rice al
Speaker 3: dente as if you were doing pasta. Then you take
Speaker 3: it out. You've already washed it, got rid of all
Speaker 3: the extrain, your starch. You take it out, and then
Speaker 3: you have this very substantial iron pot, and you probably
Speaker 3: melt a little butter in the bottom and let that
Speaker 3: go all over the bottom. Then you take a layer
Speaker 3: of the rice and you pack it down very hard.
Speaker 3: Then you put the rest of the rice in. Remembering
Speaker 3: Irun you cook for lots of people, so this is
Speaker 3: a big pot. So you put a thin layer, yes,
Speaker 3: and pack it down now, yes, and then you put
Speaker 3: the other pyramid on. You put holes with the you know,
Speaker 3: with the handle of a spoon. You pour in copious
Speaker 3: amounts of melted butter, and then you put a top
Speaker 3: covered by a dish towel. And that then steams. You
Speaker 3: put the heat on quite high for about ten minutes
Speaker 3: to give the crispiness. Then you immediately turn it down
Speaker 3: and the rest is about thirty to forty minutes of
Speaker 3: steaming this rice, so you have a very light but
Speaker 3: buttery rice saffron. Then you pour on afterwards when you've
Speaker 3: dished it up. And if you've done it right, and
Speaker 3: you've got the high heat low heat done just right,
Speaker 3: you get this wonderful crust called taddig.
Speaker 2: And this is from who says she doesn't like to cook.
Speaker 3: I like to remember.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I like.
Speaker 3: To remember, and I like to eat exactly.
Speaker 2: But can I just ask you in that maybe I
Speaker 2: got it wrong. But the rice was cooked before you pressed.
Speaker 3: It down, cooked, so it's still very fluffy. You don't
Speaker 3: overcook it.
Speaker 2: You don't worrying about cooking and then cook.
Speaker 3: That's why you have to make it aldente. It's not
Speaker 3: like you put a bunch of rice on us and
Speaker 3: then let all the water absorb. Okay, And it's really delicious.
Speaker 3: And then the thing that went with it is called
Speaker 3: is the cab of the meat. So it's either boneless
Speaker 3: chicken or chicken on the bone or it's minced lamb
Speaker 3: with other stuff that you put in it. Don't ask
Speaker 3: me because I haven't done it. Or it's more of
Speaker 3: a file steak like the pile, a very tender and
Speaker 3: that you put on the bus. I like it all.
Speaker 3: I don't not so keen on the mince. I find
Speaker 3: that somewhat sometimes a little indigestible. But you know, before
Speaker 3: the age of salmonella and all the rest of it,
Speaker 3: instead of when you served the rice, you would get
Speaker 3: a raw egg. Crack the egg, separate the white from
Speaker 3: the yolk, and then you put the yolk in the
Speaker 3: rice and mix that up. Instead of butter, because you've
Speaker 3: already got a lot of butter.
Speaker 2: If there are even yeah, I think if you heat once,
Speaker 2: you eat it up. But going back to Tehran, your
Speaker 2: father was version and did you have grandparents?
Speaker 3: Yes, you see, my father was nineteen years older than
Speaker 3: my mother and he was the youngest of five boys.
Speaker 3: So just imagine how old My grandmother was, very very old,
Speaker 3: And all I remember was this very old lady who
Speaker 3: was quite terrifying, quite strict. But we did visit her
Speaker 3: on Fridays. I remember again, that's the holiday. And all
Speaker 3: I remember is that we would come in. She would
Speaker 3: be sat at the end of the room in what
Speaker 3: looked like an armchair throwne and then all of us
Speaker 3: would be arranged, you know, around the sides of the
Speaker 3: room and in front of us with these little tiny
Speaker 3: side table on which were very carefully peeled oranges, I remember,
Speaker 3: And so we'd eat the oranges and have some pistachio nuts,
Speaker 3: and it was quite formal. We'd have to go and
Speaker 3: kiss each cheek and then honestly we couldn't wait to leave.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure she was fabulous, and to be frank,
Speaker 3: I wish I'd known more about my granda. Maybe she
Speaker 3: was tired, for sure, I mean the mother.
Speaker 2: And I think I'm going to try, you know, giving
Speaker 2: my children nuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because it is, and it's an interesting history.
Speaker 3: You remember her, she definitely remember her.
Speaker 2: Being nineteen.
Speaker 3: My father's father had died, so I never met him,
Speaker 3: and my father barely knew him. One thing I do
Speaker 3: remember about tomatoes though, My dad said that when he
Speaker 3: was the youngest of these five strapping boys, they used
Speaker 3: to bully him and jump on top of him and
Speaker 3: get this stuff his mouth with tomatoes, which he hated.
Speaker 2: Funny, I remember that story of memory. And he didn't
Speaker 2: cook at all.
Speaker 3: No, but he did do a mean vinigrette. And to
Speaker 3: this day that's my vinaigrette, and I teach it to whoever.
Speaker 2: Comes in my.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell me yet. No the rest,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell you. I don't want to
Speaker 4: tell the world no secret.
Speaker 2: Oh that's you know. There's some people the thing I
Speaker 2: know sometimes they always say that restaurants, will you know,
Speaker 2: give a recipe and then leave something out or you know, but.
Speaker 3: Then it would be no good if I gave it
Speaker 3: and then left something out.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 4: It's the only thing I know. It's the only secret
Speaker 4: I have a good vinagrette. It is hard to me,
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: And my dad. I always remember my dad, you know,
Speaker 3: he died in twenty sixteen, and I always remember that
Speaker 3: when ever I have the vinaigrette.
Speaker 2: And have you told it to Daris?
Speaker 3: Yes, and to whoever comes into my orbit and you know,
Speaker 3: needs to make some vinaigrette.
Speaker 2: Do you remember going to markets in Tehran?
Speaker 3: Not markets? Well, actually no I did. They're called bazaars. Obviously,
Speaker 3: It's not like the French or Italian or British markets,
Speaker 3: but bazaars which were I guess almost even more magnificent,
Speaker 3: because I mean, if anybody's been to the Great Bazaar
Speaker 3: in Istanbul, imagine that in all the other Middle Eastern countries.
Speaker 3: And we used to go. I do remember my mother
Speaker 3: would do the shopping. Obviously, I would just be amazed
Speaker 3: by the color and the vibrancy and that I want
Speaker 3: this and I want that, even if I didn't know
Speaker 3: what it was. I'm afraid that the men at that
Speaker 3: time were very cheeky and quite intrusive. So I used
Speaker 3: to go, not knowing any better, in my shorts or
Speaker 3: my short skirt or whatever and get my bum pinched.
Speaker 3: That was quite dirry ger in those days. My mom
Speaker 3: told me from now on I had to bring a
Speaker 3: flip flop, you know, sandal, hold it behind my bum
Speaker 3: and if anybody dared boo, you know, bang them. It
Speaker 3: really worked.
Speaker 2: When I went to Syria with Richard, we went to
Speaker 2: Damascus and we went to the bazaar again. The food
Speaker 2: it was very different from the market you would see
Speaker 2: in France or Italy, and was even more compelling because
Speaker 2: there was the sanctions. There was no Coca Cola sign.
Speaker 2: There was not you know, any Hamburgers or anything Western
Speaker 2: at all, and was growing up in the Shahs. Was
Speaker 2: that more American? Was it because there was a good relationship, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it was, it was.
Speaker 3: It was. It was more friendly to the West, for sure.
Speaker 3: But remember it was only a minority of people who
Speaker 3: were able to benefit from that. Although he did bring
Speaker 3: in you know, education rights for women all of that.
Speaker 3: But in the end, you know, there was this religious
Speaker 3: revolution in nineteen seventy nine, theocracy, and to be honest, weirdly,
Speaker 3: the Iranian Revolution propelled me into my career because that's
Speaker 3: when I realized, a I needed to make it on
Speaker 3: my own. I could not rely on my lovely parents
Speaker 3: and my idyllic childhood and whatever they thought I might
Speaker 3: do with the rest of my life, and I needed
Speaker 3: to make my way.
Speaker 5: In the world.
Speaker 3: The Iranian Revolution was a first hand experienced historical earthquake
Speaker 3: that clearly still has reverberations to this day, and I
Speaker 3: realized that I actually want to tell those kind of stories.
Speaker 2: So you were actually there when Harmony.
Speaker 3: My father sent me out about two weeks if I
Speaker 3: remember before for many came back. Yeah, he came back
Speaker 3: around the first of February and I was sent out
Speaker 3: in the mid middle January nineteen seventy nine, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad well first to England, where my English grandmother was,
Speaker 3: and then on to America to go to university. I
Speaker 3: decided that's where I needed to make my way in
Speaker 3: the world, to go to university be a journalist.
Speaker 2: Did you have experience of the United States and Britain?
Speaker 2: It wasn't like being lifted from Iran.
Speaker 3: I had no experience with the United States. I'd visited
Speaker 3: once as a teenager, but that's it. But I obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, every summer I would go and stay with
Speaker 3: my mother's family. We would all go to England for
Speaker 3: the summer holiday.
Speaker 2: And you didn't have pistasia nuts.
Speaker 3: We didn't. My grandmother was a very very simple cook,
Speaker 3: but great you know, crem caramel, roast, pork and crackling.
Speaker 3: Those were the things fish fingers and when.
Speaker 2: You were living with your grandmother alone your parents were
Speaker 2: still in Tehran.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't really live with her really much. I mean,
Speaker 3: we were in boarding school for a period of time
Speaker 3: during the seventies, my sister and I and we went,
Speaker 3: you know, for half terms and weekends because the parents
Speaker 3: were living in Iran. That's where our home was, but
Speaker 3: we'd go back for the major holidays and then.
Speaker 2: You were on your own. So tell the story of
Speaker 2: what happened and when you went to the United States,
Speaker 2: so you.
Speaker 3: Know us kind of easy. My first year was you know,
Speaker 3: refertory food or whatever you call it, canteen food, disaware
Speaker 3: and gusting.
Speaker 2: Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 3: The university in the US. My first year I was
Speaker 3: at the University of Rhode Island, which I loved. It
Speaker 3: was in Kingston, Rhode Island. After about a year, I
Speaker 3: then lived off campus with friends and that's where I
Speaker 3: first learned to cook.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's fact.
Speaker 3: I have brought a little prop because this, for me
Speaker 3: is a comfort blanket. It's a tiny, slim tome. It's
Speaker 3: called in a Persian kitchen. It's got a illustration of
Speaker 3: a Persian dancer and a woman holding a basket of fruit.
Speaker 3: And it's very very well thumbed and dirty. As you
Speaker 3: can see, it's had a lot of you know stuff.
Speaker 3: I set up a rota so we were five. We
Speaker 3: each had a day of the week where we'd go
Speaker 3: to the supermarket and shop for the week. Each week,
Speaker 3: one different person did it, and each night of the
Speaker 3: week a different person would cook and that was fab
Speaker 3: And so I would cook out of this Persian cookbook
Speaker 3: and it was great. And that's where I first learned
Speaker 3: about tofu. One of my roommates was vegetarian, another one
Speaker 3: did trout, another one did hamburgers or steak. It was
Speaker 3: really amazing. But what was really great was that we
Speaker 3: ate well every night at home, and we had we
Speaker 3: would invite friends. It became like the River Cafe, a
Speaker 3: hot ticket roof people wanted to to our.
Speaker 2: We are the only non American in my group. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: did you cook? Yes?
Speaker 3: I did, And if I could get the taddi right,
Speaker 3: the crust I was in very popular that night. If not,
Speaker 3: there was some complaints. But it was cool because you know,
Speaker 3: it was the eighties. We talked about the campaign for
Speaker 3: nuclear disarmament, anti apartheid, and to this day I have
Speaker 3: family lunches and group dinners.
Speaker 2: And usually go Sundays Sunday Sundays, and I often ask you,
Speaker 2: if you want to do something on a Sunday you're
Speaker 2: with your family, what about cooking for your son?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean my son to be Frank is a
Speaker 3: better cook than I am, and I'm so grateful that
Speaker 3: he's a great cook and he likes it. He likes it,
Speaker 3: he loves it. I did do stuff, but I'm not brilliant.
Speaker 3: His dad taught him how to do pancakes and things
Speaker 3: like that. It's very good breakfast cook there is his dad.
Speaker 3: But you know I did some stuff. I can do
Speaker 3: a roast chicken, Ruthie.
Speaker 2: The Global Central Kitchen in Ukraine, did you get involved
Speaker 2: in to do?
Speaker 3: Jose Chef Jose Andress, who is an amazing man, as
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, and he's got this amazing operation called
Speaker 3: World Central Kitchen, which he takes I think, if I'm
Speaker 3: not mistaken, he first started in Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria,
Speaker 3: and what he did was quite simple. It's not again,
Speaker 3: it's not like just hand out. He comes, he scopes
Speaker 3: the situation. He looks at all the local restaurants or
Speaker 3: bars or whatever and mobilizes them to be able to
Speaker 3: cook and helps them if he has to bring in
Speaker 3: supplies and things like that to feed their communities. So
Speaker 3: it starts small ish in terms of how many meals
Speaker 3: per day they're able to deliver, and then it gathers momentum,
Speaker 3: and they have a very very good social media platform
Speaker 3: now and they've got a lot of help. But what
Speaker 3: they do is is quite revolutionary because in wartime or
Speaker 3: in crisis, they do what others can't do and it
Speaker 3: has a huge impact.
Speaker 2: And they worked with other with restaurants I didn't understand, yes,
Speaker 2: carrying boxes from restaurants to people.
Speaker 3: Train stations, to hospitals, to refugee centers to places like that.
Speaker 3: And they even had to, you know, try to get
Speaker 3: the train lines, the railway lines to help move things
Speaker 3: from one city to another. It was quite an operation.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really something yeah, logistical.
Speaker 2: And what was it like for you being there? Was
Speaker 2: it very different from Sarajevo? Was there?
Speaker 3: It was somewhat different, but it was I was there
Speaker 3: during a turning point which was really interesting, and that's
Speaker 3: when the Ukrainians pushed the Russians back from Kiev. So
Speaker 3: I was in Kiev at that period and I could
Speaker 3: see with my own eyes, you know, how the momentum
Speaker 3: on the ground was shifting, and how the incredible support
Speaker 3: of NATO led by the United States and many other
Speaker 3: European countries and their neighboring countries was really making a difference.
Speaker 3: And yeah, well Ukraine food there entity there is. I
Speaker 3: would I don't want to overtalk it because I didn't
Speaker 3: get to experience much of that in restaurants. But you know,
Speaker 3: soups what they call dumplings obviously their version aborched, yes,
Speaker 3: which they are very clear. It's not like the Russia.
Speaker 3: A lot of meat, a lot of potatoes. As you know,
Speaker 3: Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe, so it's going
Speaker 3: to be very difficult. Yeah, yeah, and Africa and even
Speaker 3: Russia is the fertilizer central for the world. So this
Speaker 3: war is going to and people are very concerned and
Speaker 3: international leaders are very concerned that it will not only exacerbate,
Speaker 3: you know, food poverty around the world, it could lead
Speaker 3: to famines and depending on how long it goes on,
Speaker 3: it could lead to unrest. Remember the Arab Springs started
Speaker 3: in Tunisia because of the high price of food and
Speaker 3: food poverty.
Speaker 2: So we're looking at a real crisis.
Speaker 3: It's a huge crisis. And Uin has shown the world
Speaker 3: that when they try to react just gently like they
Speaker 3: did in twenty fourteen, he just rolls right over the
Speaker 3: rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Have you ever interviewed him.
Speaker 3: No, I'd like to interviewed Zelenski just before the invasion.
Speaker 3: It was just amazing. He was incredible, really incredible, and
Speaker 3: he came with a warning to the West. It was
Speaker 3: in Munich what's called the Music Security Conference. It was nineteenth.
Speaker 3: The invasion was on the twenty fourth. He actually came
Speaker 3: out of his country. And you're like this because it's
Speaker 3: about food. I said to him, mister President, most people
Speaker 3: here didn't expect you to be here. You've got the
Speaker 3: threat of an invasion the United States. Your biggest backers
Speaker 3: have suggested you don't leave at this precise moment. And
Speaker 3: he said, I had breakfast in Kiev. I'm having lunch
Speaker 3: in Munich to tell you our story and what we need,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to have dinner in Kiev tonight.
Speaker 2: Now is there any city that really means something to
Speaker 2: you for food? I mean that you think I'm going
Speaker 2: to this city. I know where I wanted, I know
Speaker 2: what I wanted to eat. And now.
Speaker 3: Paris and Elderay, which is not a city, has lovely,
Speaker 3: lovely restaurants, very simple, really also delicious, London, New York.
Speaker 3: I mean to be honest with you, I am very
Speaker 3: ecumenical about all of that, because they're great restaurants all
Speaker 3: over the world and in the most unlikely places. One
Speaker 3: of the great things that Anthony Bourdain did for the world,
Speaker 3: God rest his soul, was show the world that in
Speaker 3: the most unlikely corners, in the most unlikely places, as
Speaker 3: well as in the obvious places, the idea of food
Speaker 3: was always there, and the greatest food and the greatest
Speaker 3: experience and atmospheres. And I think, actually, what you're doing
Speaker 3: and what he did, there's no doubt that you bring
Speaker 3: people together over food in every single way, whether in
Speaker 3: joy and grief and friendship and family, whatever it.
Speaker 2: Is, and comfort and comfort. So that's my last question
Speaker 2: to you is if you need comfort, whether you are
Speaker 2: probably when you're in a place where you can get
Speaker 2: the food of your choice, is there a food that
Speaker 2: you would turn to. I think I might know the answer.
Speaker 3: Yes, you probably do know the answer.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It really is Persian food, and it's the white rise.
Speaker 3: It's the usually the boneless chicken arm that goes with it,
Speaker 3: and a grilled tomato that comes with it as well.
Speaker 3: And if I'm feeling okay, I'll crack that egg yolk
Speaker 3: in it. Yeah, and that will be it'll be rich,
Speaker 3: but it'll also be very very comforting.
Speaker 2: Be careful in Afghanistan, I will the.
Speaker 3: Women there who've been so terribly, terribly marginalized again after
Speaker 3: twenty years of promise and activity and showing how phenomenal
Speaker 3: they are, they've been so marginalized. And by the way,
Speaker 3: the dramatic food poverty in Afghanistan right now because of
Speaker 3: the sanctions that have been put on the Taliban. It's
Speaker 3: a tragedy, an absolute tragedy.
Speaker 2: Come back.
Speaker 3: I'm well, Chris, Thank you, Ruth.
Speaker 2: River.
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