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Speaker 1: Our latest book, Squeezed Me, with artwork by Ed Rushe,

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Speaker 1: recipes from the River Cafe, words by Heather Ive and

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Speaker 1: designed by Johnny Ive and love from was published in October.

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Speaker 1: Ed and I met in Los Angeles on the stage

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Speaker 1: of the Gloria Kaufman Performing Arts Center and were interviewed

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Speaker 1: by Loreene Powell. Jobs Ed and I spoke about the

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Speaker 1: creation of the images, what he thought about lemons, and

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Speaker 1: how we chose the fifty lemon recipes from the River Cafe.

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Speaker 1: In this bonus episode, you'll hear our stories and how

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Speaker 1: we collaborated four close friends to create this book.

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Speaker 2: We're honored to have two extraordinary icons with US artists

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Speaker 2: Ed Rusche and chef Ruthie Rogers. Although these two amazing

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Speaker 2: creators come from different worlds, wealth have shaped culture through

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Speaker 2: a deep attention to the every day and their commitment

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Speaker 2: to craft and lifelong devotion to beauty. Ruthie Rogers is

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Speaker 2: the co founder and chef of London's beloved River Cafe,

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Speaker 2: where she's defined Italian cooking with elegance and soul for

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Speaker 2: over three decades. She's nurtured a generation of chefs and

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Speaker 2: has shaped global food culture. Her work reminds us that

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Speaker 2: food is more than sustenance, its expression, generosity, and of

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Speaker 2: course love. For over sixty years La Zone, Ed Ruschet

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Speaker 2: has shaped the way we see the American landscape through painting, photography, drawing,

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Speaker 2: and printmaking.

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Speaker 3: His work captures the humor, grit, and poetry of everyday life.

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Speaker 2: Ed is an artist of precision and wit, revealing what

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Speaker 2: is often overlooked. So this afternoon, our conversation will cover create, activity, materiality, humor,

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Speaker 2: and the ways that art and food help us to

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Speaker 2: understand our lives. Ruthie and Ed welcome. So the two

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Speaker 2: of you plus Heather and Ive and Johnny. I've what

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Speaker 2: a dream team the four of you together. How did

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Speaker 2: this happen? How did this come together? How did you

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Speaker 2: all decide that this is what you were going to

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Speaker 2: do a book project together?

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Speaker 1: First of all, thank you, Loreene, Thank you all for coming.

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Speaker 1: It's half coming home, coming to a new place. It's

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Speaker 1: here to talk about on a Sunday afternoon, lemons, friendship

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Speaker 1: and a book, And thank you for being here. Loreen.

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Speaker 1: We how did the book begin? My books were cookbooks.

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Speaker 1: We thought there would be books about in the very beginning.

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Speaker 1: How we started the river cafe handbooks. A book is

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Speaker 1: I would say, a recipe is part poetry and part

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Speaker 1: science and part of course communication telling people how to

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Speaker 1: do something, to make something. This book was different. This

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Speaker 1: book was really born out of huge admiration for Ed

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Speaker 1: Miche as an artist and a huge love for him

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Speaker 1: as a friend. And I've been asking Ed every time

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Speaker 1: I saw him, was like, Ed, could we do a book,

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Speaker 1: because I think a book for Ed is part of

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Speaker 1: his art. It's not an artist who does books. It's

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Speaker 1: an artist, so right, who does books with his art

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Speaker 1: with very combined and so he kept saying, I'm doing

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Speaker 1: a show in New York. Oh, Ruth you I'm doing

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Speaker 1: a retrospective and you need modern art. But finally he said,

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Speaker 1: he said, yeah, we'll think about it. I think you

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Speaker 1: said on two conditions. What is that it's one ingredient.

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Speaker 4: I think you were at my studio where I have

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Speaker 4: a lime and a lemon tree and other trees, and

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Speaker 4: I think you've got smitten with the lemons, and that

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Speaker 4: started it off. Yeah, yeah, And I guess that's that

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Speaker 4: was a little.

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Speaker 5: Trigger for this book.

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Speaker 1: You had, I think, going to Edge Studio in Culver City,

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Speaker 1: which is not a place you'd expect maybe to see

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Speaker 1: a garden rove of lemon tree. We went outside and

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Speaker 1: we said lemons. So that's how it started. And you

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Speaker 1: like lemons, don't you.

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Speaker 4: I guess I don't have a special attachment to them,

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Speaker 4: but you have one in you. I have a yes,

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Speaker 4: I do.

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Speaker 5: You gave me one?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know we wanted to all be armed today.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think you were there.

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Speaker 4: Were you there when this little girl, Frankie Copelsen was there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No I wasn't, but you tell the story.

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Speaker 4: She was there with her father, will Kopeleman, and we

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Speaker 4: were out in the garden and I turned around and

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Speaker 4: looked and she had a giant lemon in her head

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Speaker 4: and she had eaten half of it and with rind

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Speaker 4: and seeds and all. And I said, whoa boy, you

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Speaker 4: really like lemons, don't you?

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Speaker 5: And she said don't you?

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Speaker 4: And I said, yeah, I liked lemonade.

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Speaker 5: And she's and that was we even made that part

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Speaker 5: of this book.

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Speaker 4: We thought that'd be she has the last picture.

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Speaker 2: And then you wroped in John and Heather and so

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Speaker 2: I'm just really curious, though, how decisions got made for

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Speaker 2: this book. Was there between the four of you one

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Speaker 2: decision maker. Did you share images or did you just

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Speaker 2: trust each of you that you would deliver on the

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Speaker 2: words from Heather and the imagery and the art from

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Speaker 2: Ed and the recipes from you, and then it got assembled.

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Speaker 3: How did this happen?

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Speaker 1: I've done quite a few books, and they're fun to make.

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Speaker 1: They're so good, aren't though? Yeah, what do you love

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Speaker 1: about making a book?

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Speaker 5: Oh?

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Speaker 4: I probably won't be doing another one on Lemons now,

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Speaker 4: but I hope we nailed it down with this one.

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Speaker 1: I've cookbooks. When we do books, they're really collaborative. So

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Speaker 1: we always have a photographer, we have the designer, we

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Speaker 1: have the chefs, and we start thinking about it very

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Speaker 1: early on. We don't just bring in a designer at

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Speaker 1: the end, but we make the recipe, We write down

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Speaker 1: what we just cooked, and then we photographed it with

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Speaker 1: very little styling or lighting, or we just show the food.

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Speaker 1: As I said, it's almost a textbook, and what you

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Speaker 1: want to inspire as well in the book. You want

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Speaker 1: people to read it and want to cook it. This

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Speaker 1: book was different because we started out with the idea

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Speaker 1: of doing the art in its studio, and we started

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Speaker 1: in the River Cafe kitchen, thinking of all the recipes

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Speaker 1: that we've done with lemons, and that was pretty It

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Speaker 1: was pretty easy because we've got Italian cooking a lemon

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Speaker 1: is crucial. It's always whether it's a squeeze at the

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Speaker 1: end or the beginning of a sauce, or we put

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Speaker 1: it in pastaves as we use in the River Cafe.

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Speaker 1: I think we used. I think we use three hundred

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Speaker 1: lemons a day. We're not a very big restaurant.

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Speaker 3: I've read that is that an enormous amount? It sounds

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Speaker 3: like an enormous amount.

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Speaker 1: No, well, I don't think that. We probably have three

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Speaker 1: hundred people more sometimes coming a day. So lemon when

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Speaker 1: he gets half a lemon and we put lemon in

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Speaker 1: the drinks and in the martinis and lemonade, it's always yeah,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, I think it seems normal to us three

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Speaker 1: hundred lemons. And it depends on the season as well.

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Speaker 1: Hanging to eat a lemon. Starting to get in the

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Speaker 1: recipes for this, and then ed wanted words. He wrote

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Speaker 1: to me, and you said, okay, you thee I have

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Speaker 1: words that I want to use. And some ads are

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Speaker 1: the funny ones in the book our ads.

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Speaker 4: I thought there must be some great things, said in

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Speaker 4: the world about lemons, and it was actually wrong. And

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Speaker 4: I thought, maybe I'll start first, this is obvious. I'll

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Speaker 4: start first with the ancients, with the philosophers like Plato

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Speaker 4: and Aristotle, Socrates and all that they'll have great things

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Speaker 4: to say about lemons. No they didn't. It didn't even

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Speaker 4: have lemons, and it didn't know about them. They had

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Speaker 4: this one little plant called a citron, which was an

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Speaker 4: ornamental tree that rich people had in their gardens, but

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Speaker 4: they never even thought about using the fruit to cook with.

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Speaker 4: So they didn't really cook with lemons for another four

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Speaker 4: or five hundred years. And we had to scrape around

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Speaker 4: to find statements to work with the pictures.

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Speaker 5: And I have a fondness for people like W. C.

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Speaker 4: Fields, who he said in here, when life gives you lemons,

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Speaker 4: make whiskey sours.

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Speaker 5: So Ruthie here made a.

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Speaker 4: Recipe for whiskey sours.

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Speaker 5: And then as we get towards the end of the book,

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Speaker 5: I thought, I like WC.

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Speaker 4: Field so well that I'm going to slip one in

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Speaker 4: and not let Ruthie know about it. And it's where

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Speaker 4: he said it was a woman who drove me to drink,

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Speaker 4: and I didn't have the decency to write her and

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Speaker 4: thank her for it. Then I missed the deadline, so

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Speaker 4: I didn't get that one in there.

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Speaker 5: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 4: I was going to say, I pretended.

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Speaker 1: It's a really good one. And then Heather I've who

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Speaker 1: is a poet, wrote a lot of these as well.

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Speaker 1: Lemon is not a fruit, it's a mood. So the

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Speaker 1: idea of this book was that you could read it

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Speaker 1: for the humor, you could look at it, and also

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Speaker 1: you might be inspired then to say that you wanted

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Speaker 1: to cook something as well.

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Speaker 2: Is this the first cookbook that you've made that doesn't

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Speaker 2: have any images of the finished product?

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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I actually so. Yeah, there aren't very our books, especially,

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Speaker 1: there are books that are just tied that tell stories.

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Speaker 1: Alice walters that the first Shapanese cookbook didn't have photographs,

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Speaker 1: and we always have and our books really made a

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Speaker 1: big deal of the finished dish. But this one one

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Speaker 1: of the things I think that Johnny did, I Love

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Speaker 1: From and Chris Wilson did was to do the recipes

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Speaker 1: are almost captions to the art. Oh would you take

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Speaker 1: this book into the kitchen? Yes? Would you leave it

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Speaker 1: on the table in your living room? Yes? Would you

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Speaker 1: put it next to your bed. Yes, so I think

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Speaker 1: it is a book that is all of that without

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Speaker 1: the finished product. If you read it anyway, you can

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Speaker 1: make it. The recipes are quite simple, really, do.

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Speaker 2: You in given that you go through four hundred lemons

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Speaker 2: a day, you had to parse through a lot of

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Speaker 2: recipes that you left behind. So how did you choose

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Speaker 2: the ones other than to fit a caption that you have?

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Speaker 2: And do you have specific favorites of the book that

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Speaker 2: you made sure were there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Definitely. As I said, in Italian food, the lemon

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Speaker 1: is crucial. It isn't many choosines. In Morocco they preserve lemons,

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Speaker 1: and France they make book block with lemon. It's the

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Speaker 1: acid of that in the sweetness of a lemon. And

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Speaker 1: for us finding recipes that had so it had lemons

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Speaker 1: in them was pretty simple. But then we chose ones

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Speaker 1: that we really thought were representative the way we cook.

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Speaker 1: And we also used recipes where you know, the interest

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Speaker 1: about a lemon is that used, unlike an apple or

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Speaker 1: a pear or many other fruits and vegetables, use the whole.

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Speaker 1: You can use every bit of a lemon. When we

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Speaker 1: used you can break the skin, you peel the spin.

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Speaker 1: There are recipes for the pith. There are chead row

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Speaker 1: lemons which have a very thick pith, and you could

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Speaker 1: just make a salad out of that. And again in

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Speaker 1: this book. In most cookbooks you would have antiposity, pasta,

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Speaker 1: main choices, desserts. This one you can have a lemon

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Speaker 1: ice cream in the beginning next to a chili and

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Speaker 1: lemon sauce. Because it's short, so there's no point in

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Speaker 1: having three recipes for each section of four or five.

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Speaker 1: And in a way that was very liberating to be

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Speaker 1: able to choose which recipe you wanted next to which

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Speaker 1: image or how the tone went.

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Speaker 2: So it random and fahany and lemon made it to

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Speaker 2: the book.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we did that recipe. I think one of the

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Speaker 1: fears of cooking with lemon is that if you add

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Speaker 1: it to a sauce, especially to milk or cream, curdles,

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Speaker 1: so you spend your whole time making sure that it

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Speaker 1: doesn't curdle. And there's a recipe in here, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if it's very la which is to have pork

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Speaker 1: brooked in milk, which is a very Italian, Northern Italian recipe,

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Speaker 1: and the actual lemon juice you squeeze into the milk.

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Speaker 1: You want it to curdle, so it becomes almost a

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Speaker 1: nutty brown. And when you cook it with the meat,

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Speaker 1: the juices of the meat, and you can do it

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Speaker 1: with chicken, you can do it with veal, you can

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Speaker 1: do it with other meats. And my mother in law,

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Speaker 1: who says, I said from tries always squeezed a lemon

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Speaker 1: into whatever the issue is making at the end, and

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Speaker 1: a bit of milk to make it rain. So I

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Speaker 1: like that recipe. And yeah, there's lots.

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Speaker 3: So I'd like.

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Speaker 6: To talk to both of you about your creative practice,

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Speaker 6: just how you come up with ideas and how you

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Speaker 6: set the conditions in London or in la wherever you're

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Speaker 6: doing the work so that.

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Speaker 3: You do your best work.

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Speaker 2: So I wonder if you can talk each of you

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Speaker 2: about any rituals or routines that you have in the

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Speaker 2: studio or in the kitchen that allow for this the

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Speaker 2: type of creativity that you're both known for.

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Speaker 4: I just have a regular routine that is no different

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Speaker 4: than almost anyone else's.

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Speaker 5: You jump from one subject.

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Speaker 4: To the other and try to tackle it and make

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Speaker 4: it fun for yourself. Maybe it's automatic, maybe you have

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Speaker 4: to invent it, but that's the way things work.

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Speaker 1: What about the other food you did?

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Speaker 4: The chocolate room, that's something else. That was a walk

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Speaker 4: in experience where I printed on sheets of paper chocolate

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Speaker 4: and they were hung like shingles on the all four

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Speaker 4: walls of the room that you walk into. So that's

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Speaker 4: just like a one off idea of mine.

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Speaker 2: You used a lot of other food items like egg

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Speaker 2: yolk and blueberry or hot sauce room barb.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I got a little limited by the conventional art materials,

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Speaker 4: so I thought, what about things that make stains and

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Speaker 4: can they be used to make art? I've always felt

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Speaker 4: like they could.

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Speaker 1: When we think about your idea of question about how

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Speaker 1: you progress, I would say that it has nothing for me,

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Speaker 1: and I think, actually Richard used to say this about architecture,

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Speaker 1: it has very little to do with ideas. We don't

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Speaker 1: ever come in and say I have an idea for recipe.

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Speaker 1: So it doesn't work that way. So how did you

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Speaker 1: come for you? It works from one day we might

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Speaker 1: do an almond tart with pairs, and then we'll think summer, now,

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Speaker 1: should we just put that almonard away? But Metz, we

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Speaker 1: could try it with strawberries, and if we do with strawberries,

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Speaker 1: then we might want to put sugar in the strawberries

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Speaker 1: and marinate them first, or we might want to But

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Speaker 1: it's the same thing with cooking a vegetable that you're

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Speaker 1: thinking about how you can take an artichoke and cut it,

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Speaker 1: maybe you cut it differently. So I think for us,

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Speaker 1: it's much more about about thinking about the ingredient, thinking

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Speaker 1: what you did last time, and then building on that.

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Speaker 2: And then you But you also work in a team, undoubtedly,

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Speaker 2: so you have a lot of collaborators.

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Speaker 3: Do you each build on each other's ideas.

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Speaker 1: But very slowly, really slowly. It doesn't change much if

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Speaker 1: you look at the menus. I think that we did

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Speaker 1: years ago with some of the same things that we've done,

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Speaker 1: and then some other changes slightly, and when new chefs

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Speaker 1: come in, we just work with them. We all work. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've worked together. But I always think that art, the

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Speaker 1: art that you do last forever. In the art that

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Speaker 1: I do gets eaten up. So I think that had

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Speaker 1: a really good cake and now it's gone. But I

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Speaker 1: guess we just worked.

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Speaker 4: You're the mixed master, No, you're the mixed mistress.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean?

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Speaker 5: You know how to mix things up?

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Speaker 1: Do you.

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Speaker 4: I guess I do in my own way, but it's

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Speaker 4: nothing like a cuisine. I can't really cook that well, so.

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Speaker 1: Can so Ed. I do a podcast podcast and when

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Speaker 1: I interviewed Ed, he came with his own recipe. You're

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Speaker 1: supposed to read a recipe from one of my books,

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Speaker 1: he said, I want to read my own recipe. What

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Speaker 1: was it?

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Speaker 3: Was that?

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Speaker 5: A cactus or.

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Speaker 6: Not?

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Speaker 1: An ingredient? And find very often in London. That's all right?

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Speaker 3: Where were we?

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Speaker 2: I think we were talking about, obviously how you use

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Speaker 2: ingredients as collaborators. But as you were talking about your menu,

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Speaker 2: I was thinking how beautifully handwritten your menus are. And

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Speaker 2: part of that is the experience of eating in the

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Speaker 2: River Cafe as well, and for both of you, obviously

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Speaker 2: it's shown in the book the importance of language, and

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Speaker 2: of course Ed also uses words and language as he

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Speaker 2: distills a piece down to a word, and you find

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Speaker 2: the visual of it and the meaning of it to

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Speaker 2: be shifted as a result when you distill like that.

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Speaker 2: So I just wanted to hear from both of you

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Speaker 2: how you think about words and language in your art.

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Speaker 1: We use words and r R to just communicate me

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Speaker 1: think a lot about the way you read. And then

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Speaker 1: when you sit down for meal and you're starving and

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Speaker 1: you want to eat, do you really want to read

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Speaker 1: where that piece of jaquoria came from or do you

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Speaker 1: want to just know how it's cooked. How much explanation

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Speaker 1: do you put on a menu, how long do you

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Speaker 1: make it, how do you word it, how do you

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Speaker 1: describe something that you're about to experience, And so we

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Speaker 1: always do that in the River Cafe. We work on

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Speaker 1: a basis we write a menu for every meal. So

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Speaker 1: the chef comes in at nine in the morning or

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Speaker 1: eight thirty scenes I can do it. Oh sees what's

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Speaker 1: in the fridge, sees what's been delivered, and sees what's

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Speaker 1: left over, and then creates a menu which is always

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Speaker 1: in the language of what the food is. It's not

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Speaker 1: a new surprise. It's based on what you do. But

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Speaker 1: that time to actually use words and to write down

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Speaker 1: what you're going to cook takes some time in the morning,

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Speaker 1: and again we do it in the afternoon. So creating

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Speaker 1: the menu is very important to us as a part

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Speaker 1: of the experience of eating in the River Cafe.

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Speaker 4: Can you write out a recipe and then follow that

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Speaker 4: recipe and make the food or do you make.

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Speaker 3: The food and then.

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Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, you developed how to write a recipe, and

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Speaker 1: so we would basically, I think we would cook it

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Speaker 1: and then write it down. Yeah, we would make something

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Speaker 1: and then write the recipe, unless you're stealing somebody else's

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Speaker 1: and then you just read their recipe and then you

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Speaker 1: make it and then you change it. It's a whole process.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that for us, certainly with the

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Speaker 1: other books, we would make something and then have a

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Speaker 1: pen and paper there and write it and then make

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Speaker 1: it again and then make it again. But I think

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Speaker 1: the first books it was a learning curve to see

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Speaker 1: how you communicate.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and now then you've been doing it for thirty

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Speaker 2: years or so, how do how have things changed?

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Speaker 3: Do you do things differently?

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Speaker 2: Are you still finding that freshness every single day of

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Speaker 2: trying something brand new?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? We don't try and invent things every day, but

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Speaker 1: we know we're ladies. Sometimes you're writing to work and

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Speaker 1: we think what would I want to eat? What would

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Speaker 1: I want launch? And is it raining? Is it am

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Speaker 1: I tired? Am I feeling good? We look at the

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Speaker 1: team of people who are trying to cook, who's working

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Speaker 1: for you that day? What they can do. So it's

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Speaker 1: I think it changes probably.

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Speaker 2: And what's remain unchanged in the love of the work.

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Speaker 1: What's remained unchanged. I think the way we work with

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Speaker 1: the people we work with. I think that's the value

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Speaker 1: that we've had since the first day that most people

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Speaker 1: in the River cafe, we all participate. So the kitchen

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Speaker 1: porter who's washing the dishes, cleans the scallops, and the

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Speaker 1: waiters all prep the parsley or chop the chilis or

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Speaker 1: peel the garlic, and everybody's involved in that sense. Maybe

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Speaker 1: less so nobody speak as our numbers are greater. And

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Speaker 1: then we don't let people work crazy hours. We have

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Speaker 1: two days all a week. We teach people, we take

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Speaker 1: time for the people. Those values I think have kept

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Speaker 1: with us. I hope so. And then the way we

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Speaker 1: cooking at food has changed. I think as people travel more,

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Speaker 1: they experience food from other countries and they've been to Italy,

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Speaker 1: so they know what to order them more demanding them

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Speaker 1: more knowledgeable, which is exciting. And then suppliers are much

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Speaker 1: more in contact with us. We phone the fish people

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Speaker 1: on we've phone the boats every night, not that we

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Speaker 1: often phone people on the boats. Oh, wow. We once

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Speaker 1: had a call from a fisherman and said, I have

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Speaker 1: a huge turbot here and if you don't want it,

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Speaker 1: I'm throwing it back in the sea. So there is

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Speaker 1: that contact which is very important to us.

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Speaker 5: You ever teach people.

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Speaker 1: Now, people from outside classes? No, not really. We have

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Speaker 1: an open kitchen, so people sometimes come up and say,

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Speaker 1: you know, we teach the people who work with us.

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Speaker 1: To the people who work with us teach us. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of people come in your studio.

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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I invite people over, sure, but I don't.

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Speaker 5: I don't lecture teach people anything.

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Speaker 1: You ever.

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Speaker 4: I did one year at UCLA, and I regretted the

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Speaker 4: time I had to stay out in my own studio,

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Speaker 4: so I didn't like it.

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Speaker 5: And all the students that were.

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Speaker 4: Skeptical of what I had to say.

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Speaker 5: Were all the ones that making the good art. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 5: I don't know why that was.

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Speaker 2: And when you're in your studio lately, what are you

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Speaker 2: finding fascinating?

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Speaker 3: What are you thinking about?

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Speaker 4: Sometimes I'm not even fascinated, but I just jumped from

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Speaker 4: one thing to another, and I don't know where it's

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Speaker 4: going to take me. And I think it's the best

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Speaker 4: kind of plateau to be on is to not really

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Speaker 4: know what you're doing. That sounds counterintuitive or sounds kind

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Speaker 4: of lame, but it's not. It's good to approach things

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Speaker 4: with an open mind.

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Speaker 5: And I think that you're the.

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Speaker 4: Total master of everything that's facing you.

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Speaker 1: I asked it when we were signing books in London.

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Speaker 1: I said, ed, what about doing another book anyway? Not really, Ruthie,

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Speaker 1: but what you think? And I said, we could do Basil,

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Speaker 1: we could do Chili's, we could do I named about

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Speaker 1: four different ingredients I thought would be a best seller,

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Speaker 1: and then we just kept signing books and there was silence,

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Speaker 1: and then he just yelled across the room. Ruthie said, yes,

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Speaker 1: he said water. That's an artist. That's what I know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's critical how much water you have to add

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Speaker 4: to each recipe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of water in cooking.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to us about how you end your podcast.

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Speaker 3: You always ask people what's your favorite comfort?

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Speaker 1: The question that I'm always asked is what would be

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Speaker 1: your last meal? And I hate that question. I changed

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Speaker 1: to comfort. And it's really interesting to hear people's reaction

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Speaker 1: to what is comfort. Very often it's a memory from

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Speaker 1: their childhood. It's a memory of somebody, a recipe somebody

441
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: gave them before they died, a recipe that they had

442
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: in a very happy moment. So it's what comfort is.

443
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: Mine would definitely be something with tomato sauce, probably positive, Yeah,

444
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 1: positive tomato. What's yours if?

445
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 2: I it's hard to it's hard to say anything other

446
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 2: than possible. That's not that, it's exactly that that steaming

447
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 2: bowl in front of you. It's the most comforting.

448
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 3: What about you?

449
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: Ed?

450
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 5: Tomato soup and crackers.

451
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 6: I.

452
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:51,200
Speaker 1: Mean like those saltine things. Yeah, those are good.

453
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 3: At some audience questions.

454
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 7: Leslie asks, I'd like for add and Ruthie to ponder

455
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 7: the word beautiful and beauty for a moment. What comes

456
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 7: to mind ed when you think of beauty and a

457
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 7: work of art.

458
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 5: Oh, I want to run from it, hurt. We're all

459
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 5: in search of in search for it, but we can't

460
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 5: grab it. It's very elusive. It's like mercury.

461
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 4: So what it is, it's very hard to describe and

462
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 4: even harder to.

463
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 5: Achieve it.

464
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 7: Carlos asks, I find baking is very much like the symphony.

465
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 7: It's very precise and specific, and other cooking is more

466
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 7: like jazz where you can add lib your way through

467
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 7: the kitchen. I'd like to hear what music influences both

468
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 7: of you.

469
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,360
Speaker 4: Oh music, I sometimes listen to music. Sometimes I love

470
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 4: total silence. That's hard to be but on music I do,

471
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 4: and I'm I'm attached to music I grew up with,

472
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 4: which was from the nineteen five fifties, and do wop

473
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 4: music in jazz, and I even shook off country in

474
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 4: Western music for a while.

475
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 7: Sylvia asks lemon versus Meyer lemons.

476
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: I'd said, Meyer lemons are very local to California, and

477
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: I loved the first recipe and the recipe that's still

478
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: on the River Cafe every day is a lemon tart

479
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: which came from Alice Walter. It's called the Meyer lemon tart.

480
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: And I think Meyer lemons are sweeter, are they? They

481
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: have some more sweeter? They have very thin skin. Yeah,

482
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: we don't. We have them in our ingredients. We use

483
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: the lemons from Sicily and from Naples. All our lemons

484
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: come from only Italy, and again they have very their

485
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: winter fruit. Really, lemons have a season, and when we

486
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: get the Sicilian lemons with the fake the chedro lemons,

487
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: then we really go to Town.

488
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 7: Another question for Ruthie from Kevin. He asks, are there

489
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,399
Speaker 7: any two ingredients or foods that just should not go together?

490
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 7: I think of hummus and punk pumpkin spice, which some

491
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 7: retailers force upon us.

492
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: That's a hard question myself. I don't use a lot

493
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: of fruit when I'm cooking meat or fish. And the

494
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: only thing that I don't eat and I wouldn't eat

495
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody should eat is truffle oil because

496
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: it's horrible.

497
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 3: It just is.

498
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: It's totally artificial. And so when I go to a

499
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: restaurant they ask if I have an allergy, I always

500
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: say truffle oil.

501
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 7: Another question for Ruthie, what is the purpose of acids

502
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 7: in a recipe?

503
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: To take the richness out of a dish? And add

504
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: that we why we use three hundred lemons a day.

505
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: We always squeeze a bit of acid into the almost

506
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 1: whatever we're making, whether it's over vegetables or fish or

507
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: meat or panacotta. We make it very creamy panacotta, but

508
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: we always put a peel of a lemon in the bottom.

509
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: I think it just gives you that extra flavor, makes

510
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: something much let's rich.

511
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 7: Sharon asks, I love food. I love great restaurants, and

512
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 7: I have a fabulous kitchen, but I just don't have

513
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 7: the confidence to cook. Any advice for me.

514
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: I started with a book called Mastering the Art of

515
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: French Cooking, and it was by Julia Child and Beto

516
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: were told. What that book gave me was confidence because

517
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: she was so precise. You had a quarter of a

518
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,959
Speaker 1: gram of sugar into a bowl that was a certain size,

519
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: exactly how deep and what with and as if you

520
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: followed those recipes and they weren't. They didn't say take

521
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: the juiciest tomato and squeeze it. They took it. She

522
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: told you exactly what size and what to do with it.

523
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: Now they got it. You didn't have failure. You succeeded.

524
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: And if you don't, I think one of the problems

525
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: with one of the things that stop people from cooking

526
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: is the sense of failure, especially if you're cooking for

527
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: somebody else and you bring a dish out and it

528
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 1: didn't work, it's horrible. So I think if you can

529
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: cook and learn the technique and learn the discipline first,

530
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: then you can take off. But I think having that

531
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: knowledge really to always succeed is really helped me.

532
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 6: If you were to attribute characteristics of the lemon to

533
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 6: your own personality, is what would feel the most kindred?

534
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: Yellow? Are you jucy? He's very juicy? Would you have

535
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: a characteristic that you think because with being a lemon.

536
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: I think of you as meyer lemon because you have

537
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 2: the sweetening, you have the perfect balance.

538
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 3: I'm sweet and cutting straight through to what's important.

539
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: Thank you sweet. Hi.

540
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 8: So you both make art in your own way and

541
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 8: as you go through the creative process, I was wondering,

542
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 8: do you first think about creating the art or the

543
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 8: dish for yourself or are you thinking about pleasing other

544
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 8: people first?

545
00:29:58,960 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 5: No, I don't think.

546
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 4: I I don't know who my audience is, and so

547
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 4: I'm not speaking to any particular person. So I am

548
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 4: making things and producing things is solitary and it's difficult

549
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 4: to concentrate on communication making things understood.

550
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 5: So I like things that are not so understood.

551
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: And you, Ruthie, I think we just we cook what

552
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: we think we would want to eat and what we

553
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: think is but we want what we understand what we

554
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: do and then if nobody orders it and nobody likes it,

555
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: then well we'll have an effect. We will think about

556
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: that Mostly it derives to the people who I care about,

557
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: are the people eating the restaurant, but also who's cooking

558
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: the food work. We are collaborator, so we're always tasting

559
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: each other's food and trying different things, and then we

560
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: stand by and we change it and we work together

561
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: to make it the quality that we want.

562
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 5: How did you too become such close friends?

563
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: I think we met in London, didn't we remember? We

564
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: were at that dinner at the National Gallery. Oh, that's right,

565
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: and you were the first I think you were the

566
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: first contemporary artists to have a room at both the

567
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: Take and the National Gallery, so that was probably about Yeah,

568
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: it's amazing.

569
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's when we met you.

570
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 3: Hi. I'd like to understand how Lareene got involved in

571
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 3: all of this. Obviously you admire both of them, but

572
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 3: what's your connection.

573
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 2: My connection is to Ruthie, and we had loved it

574
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 2: first sight, and we became fast friends. We did the

575
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,959
Speaker 2: last many years, so it was serendipity that we were

576
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 2: all here today.

577
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 5: Ruthie, this relationship. Is it altered your art?

578
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's changed my work, but this

579
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: has been the greatest experience that I've had for a

580
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: very long time. I feel so privileged and so honored

581
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: and motivated and excited by having this. Just say to

582
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: people that I just did a book with Edrew Shea.

583
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: That's it. You know, what can I say? I don't

584
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 1: have to do anything else