Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four. In partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: Gwyneth Paltrow worked for a day in the River Cafe kitchen.
Speaker 2: She arrived early, dressed in professional chef whites, ready to cook.
Speaker 2: Gwyneth is the only chef ever to have vast, clean
Speaker 2: and cook fresh anchovies, and for three hours she did.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot that day. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: just when you're a home cook, you don't think about
Speaker 1: precision and like repetitively turning out something that's perfect and
Speaker 1: exactly the same over a course of many hours.
Speaker 2: Didn't Jamie Oliver come in when you were there? I think,
Speaker 2: you know, what is Gwynneth? Quite a few people say,
Speaker 2: what is Gwyneth Paltrow doing in your kitchen? We said,
Speaker 2: she's frying anchovies. So it was This memory speaks to
Speaker 2: how professional Gwyneth is. An Oscar winning actor, she built
Speaker 2: Coop from a simple newsletter her into an influential and
Speaker 2: uplifting business with energy, elegance and strong values. Another memory
Speaker 2: ten years ago, just after the death of our son BeO,
Speaker 2: I asked Gwyneth if she might surprise the River Cafe
Speaker 2: team and sing one song for them at our Christmas
Speaker 2: party to thank them for their care and concern for me.
Speaker 2: Gwyneth not only said yes, she sang four songs, danced
Speaker 2: with everyone, and stayed to the very end. In the
Speaker 2: River Cafe history, we still talk about the time Gwyneth
Speaker 2: Paltrow came to sing. I admire Gwyneth for being a brave,
Speaker 2: smart entrepreneur. I respect Gwyneth as a writer of recipes.
Speaker 2: Most of all, I love Gwyneth for being there with
Speaker 2: me that night and here with me today.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I wasn't expecting that. That was so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Gwyneth. Would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 1: I would love to one of my favorites from the
Speaker 1: River Cafe. Zucchini free tea five hundred gram zucchini, one
Speaker 1: liter sunflower oil for the batter, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: grams of plain flour, three tablespoons extra virgin olive oil,
Speaker 1: three tablespoons warm water, three egg whites organic. Cut the
Speaker 1: zucchini into five millimeter thick ovals, then cut them into
Speaker 1: thick matchsticks. For the batter. See the flour into a bowl,
Speaker 1: make a well in the center, pour in the olive oil,
Speaker 1: and stir to combine lusinetting enough warm water to make
Speaker 1: a batter the consistency of double cream. Heat the oil
Speaker 1: in a high sided pan to one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold
Speaker 1: into the batter. Dip the zucchini in the batter. Fry
Speaker 1: in batches in the hot oil until golden and crisp.
Speaker 1: Serve immediately.
Speaker 2: So when you make do you make zucchini do fry?
Speaker 2: Do you do zucchini free tea.
Speaker 1: All the time? Yeah, it's Apple's. One of Apple's favorite
Speaker 1: foods is zucchini free tea. And they're so good, especially
Speaker 1: when the one thing also you can do with zucchini.
Speaker 1: They're slightly larger, I think because the way we do
Speaker 1: it of cutting it into rounds and then cutting into
Speaker 1: strips may make it easier.
Speaker 2: Do you grow them here?
Speaker 1: No, we're getting back east on Long Island in the summer.
Speaker 1: We have tomatoes and zucchini for days and days and
Speaker 1: days and flowers. They're so delicious. Except I have to say,
Speaker 1: and I'm probably this is probably really unpopular, but I
Speaker 1: like mozzarella in them more than ricotta in them.
Speaker 2: I don't put any cheese in them. No, I'm never have.
Speaker 2: I just love having them absolutely, just the flower and
Speaker 2: the kids fry them and then you hold them by
Speaker 2: the stem and you just eat them. So, if we
Speaker 2: were going to start at the beginning, what is the beginning?
Speaker 2: Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: I was born here in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. We
Speaker 1: kind of went back and forth between New York City
Speaker 1: and Santa Monica a lot. I did a lot of
Speaker 1: preschool in New York City, and I did first and
Speaker 1: third grades in New York City while my mother was
Speaker 1: on Broadway, and then the bulk of the rest of
Speaker 1: elementary school here and then moved permanently to New York
Speaker 1: City when I was eleven. Can you remember?
Speaker 2: The kitchens were perfect food could described the kitchen, but
Speaker 2: they're very different.
Speaker 1: The LA house and the kitchens were very different. So
Speaker 1: our kitchen and in Los Angeles here had a brick floor,
Speaker 1: red brick floor and a tile counter, sort of like
Speaker 1: very country kitchen. Lots of windows and you could see
Speaker 1: the backyard and the pool, and we were in there
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, I think with every house you're
Speaker 1: in the kitchen more than anywhere. Our New York kitchen
Speaker 1: was on the ground floor. We grew up in a townhouse,
Speaker 1: almost no windows, but we had a big fireplace in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, which was really nice, and it was more
Speaker 1: of a modern kitchen. It had been done by a
Speaker 1: Swedish architects. It was kind of minimal.
Speaker 2: And who cooked.
Speaker 1: Well. When I was little, I remember, I mean my
Speaker 1: mom cooked. My dad started cooking a lot, but that
Speaker 1: was later. He got very into cooking kind of when
Speaker 1: we were older teenagers. But we had we had a
Speaker 1: no pair that would cook. My mom would cook. It
Speaker 1: was kind of like a group effort in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: But my mom was always like, she loves food, but
Speaker 1: she would get sort of stressed cooking, you know, whereas
Speaker 1: my dad was like thought it was really fun. My mom,
Speaker 1: I don't think she found it so relaxing.
Speaker 2: And also you just mentioned that she was in theater nice,
Speaker 2: so what was that luck?
Speaker 1: So she would come home late after the theater, which
Speaker 1: when I was older was really nice. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in high school and she would finish a
Speaker 1: plane come home and I would still be awake and
Speaker 1: we would kind of have a chat, which was some
Speaker 1: of my favorite memories of growing up in New York.
Speaker 1: And or she was doing Shakespeare in the Park and
Speaker 1: I would walk down Central Park to go visit her
Speaker 1: and watch her. So it was really a wonderful thing
Speaker 1: having a mother so steeped in the arts in New
Speaker 1: York and with all of the friends and you know,
Speaker 1: the artists singing around the piano, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was really a great way to check it. Would he
Speaker 1: have eaten?
Speaker 2: Do you think? I often ask actors who are acting
Speaker 2: in a play. Do they eat before the play? Do
Speaker 2: they eat after the play?
Speaker 1: Do they ding?
Speaker 2: And everyone varies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she would generally eat before unless she
Speaker 1: had friends coming. It's sort of an occupational hazard to
Speaker 1: eat after. I did a play in London, I think
Speaker 1: in maybe two thousand and two, and I ate every
Speaker 1: night after the play, and I gained about fifteen.
Speaker 2: There is also that thing when you go to see
Speaker 2: somebody in a play and then they go, you know
Speaker 2: Ray Fines does it. It's always dinner afterwards, and you
Speaker 2: do see the kind of fatigue and then letting go
Speaker 2: and probably eating too much late at night, but then
Speaker 2: eating before you might go on. Did you feel stuffed
Speaker 2: when you went on to them?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I couldn't. I couldn't eat before. I was too
Speaker 1: nervous to eat before, so I would always end up
Speaker 1: eating after and go to Jay Chiky and he have
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine and French fries and some kind
Speaker 1: of oyster.
Speaker 2: And back to New York and back to growing up
Speaker 2: with a mother who was acting, And what was your
Speaker 2: father doing?
Speaker 1: He was making TV shows, So he was making shows
Speaker 1: here in New York and doing a lot of traveling
Speaker 1: back and forth, and then and then kind of settled
Speaker 1: in New York. And that was great when he was
Speaker 1: with us all the time, And but I don't remember
Speaker 1: him really being in the kitchen until he had kind
Speaker 1: of slowed down how prolifically he was making TV shows.
Speaker 1: And when he kind of slowed turned everything down a
Speaker 1: notch is when he really got into cooking.
Speaker 2: And would you have meals around the table together with
Speaker 2: you and Jake? Oh, my parents sit down?
Speaker 1: What were they like? They were really nice, I mean,
Speaker 1: and it was I think we felt special being included
Speaker 1: at the dinner table, even though it was a nightly event.
Speaker 1: It felt, you know, like if they had friends over.
Speaker 1: We sat with them at the table and had long conversations.
Speaker 1: It's something that I've carried on with my kids as well.
Speaker 1: You know, we always have dinner all together as a family,
Speaker 1: no phones allowed at the table, and you get into
Speaker 1: great discourse with them and hear what they think about things.
Speaker 1: And I think my father made me feel that I
Speaker 1: was valuable during those dinners because he really elicited our opinion.
Speaker 1: He asked questions, and my brother and I were very
Speaker 1: much a part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: That was his background.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting, you know because touching on what you
Speaker 1: were saying, before he grew up without money. He grew
Speaker 1: up on Long Island, and they were you know, they
Speaker 1: were kind of a working class moving trying moving up
Speaker 1: into middle class Jewish family, but they didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of disposable income, and they didn't they didn't go
Speaker 1: out to eat. So and my father finally made it,
Speaker 1: you know, like his and he loved food and all
Speaker 1: the beautiful things in life. You know, he loved beautiful
Speaker 1: fabrics and paintings, and you know, he would take me
Speaker 1: to every museum in the world and we would walk
Speaker 1: for hours. And I think food for him was really
Speaker 1: an expression of life's beauty and our blessings and good
Speaker 1: fortune to be able to eat something that was fresh
Speaker 1: and delicious and really well conceived and thought about. And
Speaker 1: he was so proud that, you know, we ate oysters
Speaker 1: and you know, things that he hadn't come across until
Speaker 1: really later in his life. And I always remember, and
Speaker 1: I wrote about this in my first book, that when
Speaker 1: we would get into the car to go out to dinner, like,
Speaker 1: no matter how many times we had gone it like,
Speaker 1: he was so excited. It was like the greatest thing
Speaker 1: of all time that we were going out to dinner.
Speaker 2: I think that it's interesting because people that I've talked to,
Speaker 2: many of them measure their success in the ability to
Speaker 2: eat well. It's fascinating that people, you know, when they
Speaker 2: were able to go to restaurants and choose something that
Speaker 2: they weren't worried about how much it costs, or you
Speaker 2: know Paul McCartney saying that he always thought wine was
Speaker 2: terrible because he only had really really cheap wine. And
Speaker 2: then when he was able to go to a restaurants
Speaker 2: somebody bought him a fabulous bottle of wine, he kind
Speaker 2: of understood what it had meant to work hard and
Speaker 2: what he could do and even just going to restaurants,
Speaker 2: so that going back to your dad, what were his
Speaker 2: parents like?
Speaker 1: They were New Yorkers. They had so my grandfather's grandfather
Speaker 1: had come from Poland. They were from a long line
Speaker 1: of rabbis, and they were all Ashkenazi Jews from Poland
Speaker 1: and Russia kind of Belarusian, and they were, you know,
Speaker 1: had grown up. My grandfather had grown up in a
Speaker 1: tenement on the Lower East Side and fought his way
Speaker 1: into military school so he could, you know, have three
Speaker 1: square meals a day and learn. He craved discipline and order,
Speaker 1: and so he was very proud of himself that he
Speaker 1: had put himself, you know, had gotten himself in that position.
Speaker 1: And they were great. And my grandmother, my dad's mom,
Speaker 1: was a great I mean I loved eating at her house.
Speaker 2: Grandmother's are really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Food, I mean she made brisket and that it
Speaker 1: was like the best brisket in the world. And then
Speaker 1: she also let us have junk food, which we were
Speaker 1: not allowed from my mother. So you know, we would
Speaker 1: go to stay with them and there would be fruit
Speaker 1: loops and I would be out of my mind, you know,
Speaker 1: Jake and I would be eating wonderbread with frenches mustard
Speaker 1: and a slice of tomato and lettuce, and we thought
Speaker 1: it was the most delicious thing of all time.
Speaker 2: So we have a recipe for brisket I do. And
Speaker 2: what about your mother's mother.
Speaker 1: My mother's mother was a fantastic cook and entertainer. She
Speaker 1: a really scary person, but she made the best food.
Speaker 1: She I'll never forget the things that, you know, really
Speaker 1: sort of like fifties food that she made all throughout
Speaker 1: the eighties, you know. So her the best deviled eggs
Speaker 1: in the whole world, the best Christmas dinners, her stuffing
Speaker 1: in her and her spreads would be this whole table
Speaker 1: full of the most delicious food. And it was only her,
Speaker 1: you know, on her own chopping and cooking, and her
Speaker 1: food was amazing. She was a great, a really great cook.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe Cafe, our all day space and just
Speaker 2: steps away from the restaurant, is now open in the
Speaker 2: morning and Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and cristada from
Speaker 2: our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice creamed coops and
Speaker 2: River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Salumi, misti, mozzarella, briusquetta,
Speaker 2: red and yellow peppers, Vitello tonado and more. Come in
Speaker 2: the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar.
Speaker 2: No need to book. See you here. You grew up
Speaker 2: in this house where your father loved to take you
Speaker 2: to restaurants and to eat, and your mother cared for
Speaker 2: you and came home after theater stories and then you
Speaker 2: left home. And did you cook after you left home
Speaker 2: for yourself or did you go home to eat.
Speaker 1: Or I that's when I really started to learn how
Speaker 1: to cook. I went I graduated from school in New
Speaker 1: York City, and I went to UC Santa Barbara, all
Speaker 1: the way across the country, and my father was in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica a lot, and I would come home for
Speaker 1: weekends or you know, for some good food, and we
Speaker 1: would cook together a lot. And that's when we both
Speaker 1: really started cooking. And that's when the Food Network was
Speaker 1: just amazing and really instructional and tactical. And we would
Speaker 1: watch you know, the food the Food Network and learn
Speaker 1: things and try them out, and or we would go
Speaker 1: out to there was a restaurant in Venice that was
Speaker 1: kind of legendary called seventy two Market Street, and we
Speaker 1: would go there, and or sheen Wah on Maine, which
Speaker 1: is a Wolfgang Puck French fusion Chinese restaurant that I
Speaker 1: still love to this day. So there's like a couple
Speaker 1: places that he would that he loved that we would
Speaker 1: go to. But we also cooked a lot.
Speaker 2: And so do you do that with your children? Do
Speaker 2: you cook with them?
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 2: I love both of them.
Speaker 1: Are I cook for both? I cook? You know, Apple's
Speaker 1: really interesting because now she's kind of very independent and
Speaker 1: she likes to cook for herself a lot so, and
Speaker 1: she's vegetarian, and she has like really specific food ideas
Speaker 1: which is so great and I love. I would say
Speaker 1: what she asked me to make still for her the
Speaker 1: most is lemon pasta. She went through a real like fetichini,
Speaker 1: alfredo face and breakfast potatoes. She asked, that's probably what
Speaker 1: she asked me to make the most these days. And
Speaker 1: then moses, you know, during the week, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't have time to cook very much. But I cook
Speaker 1: kind of all weekend long, and I really love it,
Speaker 1: especially Friday nights. It's like how I transition from my
Speaker 1: week to being like a woman in a body.
Speaker 2: And did they cook with you or do they?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do?
Speaker 2: They cook for them.
Speaker 1: I mean, Apple will definitely cook with me. Moses will help, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mostly cook for them. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: they like being especially because when we were living in
Speaker 1: London and I was before I started Goop, I cooked
Speaker 1: all the meals and so they really they have nostalgia
Speaker 1: around me cooking them all the meals, and so I
Speaker 1: think there's I think especially Moses. Sometimes she's like, why
Speaker 1: are you making me food?
Speaker 2: You just love? Do you think that you're interested in
Speaker 2: cooking for them? Does come from your own childhood or
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 1: Because it was such an unabashed expression of my father's
Speaker 1: love for us, like there was no denying it. And
Speaker 1: when someone is so excited about like the seer on
Speaker 1: their baby back ribs, you know, and like look at this,
Speaker 1: Look what I did. You know, it's so imbued with
Speaker 1: love that you can't It's undeniable, and so you learn
Speaker 1: it as a love language. I just had this weegind
Speaker 1: I at a house full of people at our house
Speaker 1: in Santa Barbara, and I was making all these different
Speaker 1: breakfasts and you know, my friends are like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we feel so terrible, and I was like, no, you
Speaker 1: don't understand, Like this is my love language. Like I'm
Speaker 1: so happy doing this.
Speaker 2: Did you travel with your parents, Did you go to
Speaker 2: Italy or Spain or.
Speaker 1: We never went to Italy until you know, the first
Speaker 1: time I ever went to Italy with my father he
Speaker 1: was when he died. He died in Florence, he died,
Speaker 1: he died in Rome, and we were doing our first
Speaker 1: kind of road trip after my thirtieth birthday. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of died on me, which complicated the trip.
Speaker 2: Does it complicate Italy for you?
Speaker 1: It did complicate Italy for me for a long time.
Speaker 1: I didn't go back for ten years. And when we
Speaker 1: were on our road trip and I found out that
Speaker 1: he was sick and he had been coughing up blood,
Speaker 1: and I said, we have to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1: You know, he'd been hiding it for me because he
Speaker 1: didn't want He really wanted to finish our trip. And
Speaker 1: I was like, this is so, we're going to the hospital.
Speaker 1: And he was like, no, we got to get to
Speaker 1: the Splendido. He really was trying, and I was like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to the like, we're going to the hospital.
Speaker 1: And he ended up dying. And then I had a
Speaker 1: real aversion to Italy for a long time. And then
Speaker 1: very sweetly Chris Martin, my first husband, on my fortieth
Speaker 1: birthday ten years later, and I was having a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety about it anyway, because I think turning forty.
Speaker 1: I I'm about to turn fifty and I kind of
Speaker 1: don't give a but forty I was like, really had
Speaker 1: so much anxiety about it. And he by that point,
Speaker 1: I had the two kids, and we got on a
Speaker 1: plane and I didn't know where we were going, and
Speaker 1: we all of a sudden, I realized we were landing
Speaker 1: in Genoa and that we were going to the Splendido,
Speaker 1: which was so sweet. It was such a nice surprise.
Speaker 1: So it was like a completion, but it was. But
Speaker 1: Jake was with me, and my two best friends Mary
Speaker 1: and Julia, who've been my best friend since one since
Speaker 1: I was four and one since I was eleven. They
Speaker 1: were with me, and they my father was like a
Speaker 1: father to them too, So it was it ended up
Speaker 1: being a really beautiful experience that we all got to
Speaker 1: be there and kind of come full circle. And now
Speaker 1: I'm you know, we bought a little farmhouse in Umbria,
Speaker 1: so just south of the Tuscan border. Great food, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Black tuffles in the fall. You have lentils, some you know, boar,
Speaker 2: it's great. I know, it's really it's a really special place.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited to spend more time there and to
Speaker 2: learn some Italian. But what about Spain of.
Speaker 1: France, Spain so France. Well I kind of told this
Speaker 1: like now now it's kind of a famous story about
Speaker 1: my dad taking me. My mom was doing a filming
Speaker 1: something in London when I was ten. We still lived
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and we all made the trip over
Speaker 1: to visit her, and then my dad took me to
Speaker 1: Paris for the weekend and just he and I, and
Speaker 1: we stayed at the Ritz and we went to the
Speaker 1: Pompey Dou, We went to the Louver, we went to
Speaker 1: all museums, and my main thing was that I wanted
Speaker 1: to eat French fries, like actual French fries. So that
Speaker 1: was the first thing we did when we checked into
Speaker 1: the hotel, is that I ordered French fries. And he
Speaker 1: took me all around, you know, we were eating all
Speaker 1: kinds of things. And on the way back to London,
Speaker 1: he said, do you know why I took you to Paris,
Speaker 1: just you and I? And I said no, and he said,
Speaker 1: because I wanted you to see Paris for the first
Speaker 1: time with a man who will always love you no
Speaker 1: matter what.
Speaker 2: So sweet. I mean, what you've been talking about is
Speaker 2: memories of a man who loved food, loved you, wanted
Speaker 2: to take you and indulge in new experiences to do
Speaker 2: with eating and cooking and spending time with you. And
Speaker 2: I think that you know, that is about what we do.
Speaker 2: Food is memory and food is love. You know, it's
Speaker 2: really and that's what you're doing with your children and
Speaker 2: what we keep doing. And your grandmother. So many people
Speaker 2: I've talked to really talk about their grandmothers, you know,
Speaker 2: because I think, again, I do it with my grandchildren.
Speaker 2: I know that you know, if you're working mother, you're
Speaker 2: trying to get through the day or it's like a struggle,
Speaker 2: and the can mother is a place you want them
Speaker 2: to remember your food. You want them to you want
Speaker 2: to spoil them and give them loops fruit loops and
Speaker 2: also a recipe that they'll cook they're gone.
Speaker 1: It's true. I often think about that, think about the
Speaker 1: food legacy of a family and what dishes go from
Speaker 1: generation to generation. And there's also seems to be such
Speaker 1: a specific flavor profile. You know, It's like if I
Speaker 1: cook something. You know, my kids like the way I
Speaker 1: cook something as opposed to anybody else, even if it's
Speaker 1: you know, like there were all following the same recipe.
Speaker 2: Of course, should we just talk about the food that
Speaker 2: you're cooking with Google that you want a soul because
Speaker 2: you have had such an influence on the way we eat,
Speaker 2: the way we live, the way we buy, the way
Speaker 2: we collect, the way we treat ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's been probably the steepest learning curve
Speaker 1: of my life. And it's also a marathon. You know,
Speaker 1: it's been years of building a business and not having
Speaker 1: any idea what I was doing, not knowing how to
Speaker 1: monetize a business, and you know, been through so many
Speaker 1: highs and lows and learnings and incredibly painful mistakes and
Speaker 1: real triumphs that you know are little but meaningful to us.
Speaker 1: And so but I do think that the cultural impact
Speaker 1: is it's an important thing to contribute, right if you
Speaker 1: feel whatever you're trying to do in the world, that
Speaker 1: you authentically are trying to, you know, connect somebody to
Speaker 1: something good or that will be beautiful or uplifting, it's
Speaker 1: very fulfilling job in a lot of ways to have
Speaker 1: and So it's really fun right now because we're we
Speaker 1: kind of in this last year launched something called Goop Kitchen,
Speaker 1: which is I'm only still here in Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: I think we're going to expand quickly, which is not
Speaker 1: a restaurant, it's just being able to deliver on those
Speaker 1: brand values of getting really high quality, organic, local, seasonal
Speaker 1: food to people's plates, because the quickest road to feeling
Speaker 1: better is just watching the quality of the food that
Speaker 1: you're eating, like is it nutrient dense? Is it minimally processed?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that's why you're such a big
Speaker 1: inspiration to me, is everything you make is so ingredient
Speaker 1: driven and so delicious. I remember when I first started
Speaker 1: coming to the restaurant so many years ago, gosh, twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago, I mean so long ago, and just thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, there's you can see everything, like the
Speaker 1: beauty of you know that dish, I forget the name
Speaker 1: of it, but you have the sort of fava beans
Speaker 1: and art of chokes, and it's like yes, Roman, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh my gosh, it's all so visible
Speaker 1: and you just you see it in your mind coming
Speaker 1: straight from the garden right onto the plate and just
Speaker 1: enhancing all of the beautiful aspects of nature and great
Speaker 1: olive oil and there you go.
Speaker 2: You know, I always think that if you cook with
Speaker 2: few ingredients that we do, and I think in Italy
Speaker 2: you do. I love going to Paris and having a
Speaker 2: bourb block over a piece of turbot with spinach and
Speaker 2: morale mushrooms. But there's something about going to Italy and
Speaker 2: having a grilled piece of fish with three herbs and
Speaker 2: a bit of olive oil, or as you say, the
Speaker 2: vegetables which just depend on themselves. You can't mask it.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was it like for you to open
Speaker 1: the River Cafe in London at that time where you
Speaker 1: know it wasn't like that. I mean, there wasn't an
Speaker 1: ingredient forward food culture.
Speaker 2: And when Mose and I started, she had lived in
Speaker 2: Luca for five years. And Richard's mother was a cook
Speaker 2: from Trieste who then went to Florence and then came
Speaker 2: to London probably thirty nine. And we always say that
Speaker 2: she's wander around London coming from Florence looking for a view.
Speaker 2: She was always trying to find the Piazza Michelangelos somewhere
Speaker 2: in London. She's a woman who said to me once
Speaker 2: on her deathbed, she said, Ruthie, I want you to
Speaker 2: put She had amazing skin, and she said, I want
Speaker 2: you to put more cream on your face and less
Speaker 2: herbs on your fish. You know, that was her her
Speaker 2: last year.
Speaker 3: And every time I put herbs on my fish, I
Speaker 3: was like, not too many, and every night I put
Speaker 3: more cream. But the I think that that rose and
Speaker 3: I thought, why can't we have the kind of food
Speaker 3: that we cooked and ate in Italy but in London
Speaker 3: and it was challenging. You know, if we served a
Speaker 3: Papa pomodoro and it had tomatoes and bread and basil,
Speaker 3: and that was it. And somebody would say in those
Speaker 3: days of by paying four pounds fifty for a bit
Speaker 3: of bread and tomato. But now I always put you know,
Speaker 3: the travel people traveled more and more to Europe, and
Speaker 3: you know, Freddy Laker with his planes where you could
Speaker 3: go cheaply or whatever they were.
Speaker 2: Opened up Europe. Unfortunately, right now, because if you want
Speaker 2: me to be political, Brexit is closing the doors. But
Speaker 2: in those days we're all going and opening the doors
Speaker 2: and seeing what food was like. And so I think
Speaker 2: that really changed things.
Speaker 1: So it was quite iconoclastic, that kind of simplicity of Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think other people were doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, Rollie Lee and Kensington Place did a more
Speaker 1: French version of it, and Alisterlittle and people also changed restaurants.
Speaker 2: I think everywhere I think give credit to Wolfgang Pok,
Speaker 2: you know, going from Mammy's on to making pieces at Spargo.
Speaker 2: It's like you could either dress up and go to
Speaker 2: a restaurant and be terrified, or you could but eat
Speaker 2: very well, or you could go to the local Greek
Speaker 2: or treachery and not eat very well but have a
Speaker 2: great time. We thought, why can't you come and have
Speaker 2: a great time and eat well, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people were doing that. So we
Speaker 2: learned what we started knowing nothing, So you know, we
Speaker 2: learned as we grew. There's a lot to do with food.
Speaker 2: It's love, it's history, it's memories, it's politics, but it's
Speaker 2: also comfort.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so if I were to ask you for our
Speaker 2: last question in this beautiful room, on this beautiful day,
Speaker 2: what Gwyneth, would be your comfort food?
Speaker 1: Pasta?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: I love pasta and I love that it can be
Speaker 1: the most laborious, you know, hand rolling out and stuffing
Speaker 1: something that you are pureting like most intense all day episode,
Speaker 1: or it can literally be a sauce that you make
Speaker 1: in the time it takes for the water to boil
Speaker 1: and cook the pasta, which are my favorite with some garlic, anchovy,
Speaker 1: you know, chili oil's oil, but it always has the
Speaker 1: same result, which is just tastes delicious and it makes
Speaker 1: you feel so good. It makes you feel full. But also,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's also an elegance to pasta, and
Speaker 1: I find it really just the perfect meal pasta and
Speaker 1: a glass of red wine.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm waiting for you in London. Okay, you don't
Speaker 2: have to fry on Chewes fustig, but.
Speaker 1: I want to get back behind that briar.
Speaker 2: Aren't you back in the kitchen, Come back in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: We miss you though.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair