Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Last night, Emily Mortimer came to Thanksgiving dinner with her
Speaker 1: family at our home, and as is a tradition, at
Speaker 1: the end of the meal, we all sang you Are
Speaker 1: My Sunshine, our favorite family song. Looking down at the
Speaker 1: table of forty people, our eyes met and stayed there
Speaker 1: for all four verses. In those moments, memories flooded back
Speaker 1: with the girl I knew since she was six, the
Speaker 1: time he spent with her father, John playwright and barrister,
Speaker 1: and her mother Penny Fly fisher and tennis player who
Speaker 1: managed the no small feat of smoking while playing the game.
Speaker 1: What Emily does now is impressive. She's an actor, a writer, director,
Speaker 1: Nodding Hill, The Pursuit of Love, Newsroom, Match Point, The
Speaker 1: New Look, and Apple Show with Juliet Binoch and Paddington III.
Speaker 1: When I see Emily, our conversation is mostly about what
Speaker 1: she did other than what she's doing for. She was
Speaker 1: one of the first employees of the River Cafe in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, when being seventeen and totally inexperienced was
Speaker 1: no obstacle.
Speaker 2: To be a waiter here.
Speaker 1: In the River Cafe. Today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: food and memories. For she is my family and most
Speaker 1: of all, Emily Mortimer, you are my sunshine. Oh oh
Speaker 1: my goodness.
Speaker 3: Begin it was so nice to see Funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your bully, we're going to get you back in here.
Speaker 4: But do you remember what I felt like or what
Speaker 4: it was like?
Speaker 2: Yes? I do. It was it was just the same.
Speaker 2: It was just smaller. I mean it was like half
Speaker 2: the size of men there.
Speaker 5: It was the kitchen.
Speaker 1: We had the bar going across here.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, the barn there. Definitely that bar was
Speaker 2: a wall. I can remember that very clearly.
Speaker 6: But there were tables outside sometimes in the summer. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and we all do do you do you still get
Speaker 6: them to the waitresses and the waiters to the pres Yeah.
Speaker 2: That was the most amazing. We really kept iron. And
Speaker 2: that really is what taught me to cook.
Speaker 6: I think is coming here and having to like grape
Speaker 6: parmesan and sweat the peppers and oh yeah yeah, peel
Speaker 6: the peel the peppers, you know, and get the food
Speaker 6: ready and then you kind of a part of it,
Speaker 6: which is just such a cool thing.
Speaker 1: So we'll start with the recipe that you chose, which
Speaker 1: was a pair almon tarde.
Speaker 6: Pear and almond tart serves ten to twelve six ripe
Speaker 6: commas pears, three hundred and fifty grams of blanched whole almonds,
Speaker 6: three hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter softened, three
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty grams of caster sugar, three eggs. Peel
Speaker 6: half and core the pears. Place the pear halfs face
Speaker 6: down and in one layer in a pre baked sweet
Speaker 6: pastry base. Put the almonds in a food processor and
Speaker 6: chop until fine. Cream together the butter and sugar with
Speaker 6: an electric mixer until pale and light.
Speaker 2: Add the almonds, then the eggs. One by one. Pour
Speaker 2: this almond.
Speaker 6: Mixture over the pears, bake for forty minutes or until
Speaker 6: the filling is golden brown, and set. Leave to cool
Speaker 6: and serve with a dollop of crem fresh.
Speaker 1: We do a version of the pair and almond tart
Speaker 1: all year. So in the summer when we make a
Speaker 1: tart with raspberries with the almond frownchipant dolt, we o
Speaker 1: the strawberries or but I do think for me the
Speaker 1: best is pear combinations.
Speaker 6: The classic Yeah, well, I just love it because it's
Speaker 6: the sort of most amazing bang for your buck of
Speaker 6: a pudding, because you just people can't believe that a
Speaker 6: human mortal made it and you didn't just buy it
Speaker 6: in a.
Speaker 2: Sort of yeah, you know, bou lingerie or something.
Speaker 6: It really does and it's so simple and easy as
Speaker 6: all your recipes are, but it just is so sort
Speaker 6: of delicious and really impressive.
Speaker 2: People are always just like, did you really make this?
Speaker 2: Did you make the pastry? Shan, what did you do
Speaker 2: the pastry?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: The pastry is three hundred and seventy five grams of
Speaker 5: plain flour, two hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter,
Speaker 5: which you pulse in a robocoop or magic mixed kind
Speaker 5: of machine. Then add one hundred grams of icing sugar,
Speaker 5: give that a little pulse, then bind it together with
Speaker 5: three egg yolks, and it will make a firm dough
Speaker 5: that you need to refrigerate for a couple of hours.
Speaker 5: And then the secret of the almond tart is that
Speaker 5: we actually grate the dough into the using a thick
Speaker 5: cheese graye to cheese grater, isn't it, and then greate
Speaker 5: that into the pastry. Tin and press it out. Don't
Speaker 5: try and roll it because you'll probably never have a Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: The secrets of our recipes. Press it into place.
Speaker 5: You can make it as thick as soon as you like,
Speaker 5: but as long as you pre bake it before you
Speaker 5: put the almonds in, isn't it. Yeah, you might put
Speaker 5: the cake mixture in. It's probably one of the desserts.
Speaker 5: It's been on since you's, you know, for thirty five years.
Speaker 2: Now, that's six or.
Speaker 6: Thirty five years. I can't believe that I hadn't actually
Speaker 6: done the math.
Speaker 1: So let's carry on back to those early early days
Speaker 1: and to being a waiter here. What you were seventeen? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really amazing. Yeah, and do you remember the story
Speaker 1: of why you came or what happened?
Speaker 6: I just was trying to make a bit of money
Speaker 6: on my summer after well, yes, it was the beginning
Speaker 6: of my gap year, and it was really the beginning
Speaker 6: of my life because I was a very very shy
Speaker 6: believe or not child, and still am as a person.
Speaker 6: And actually cooking I have found in my life has
Speaker 6: been something there's been the greatest sort of way of
Speaker 6: counter acting being shy because you can.
Speaker 2: Sort of have people over and.
Speaker 6: Have parties and friends, but you can sort of also
Speaker 6: be hiding behind this thing. And I think coming and
Speaker 6: being a waitress was really the first time that I
Speaker 6: had sort of been in life, like I knew I
Speaker 6: was going to go to university, and I knew I
Speaker 6: was going to go to Russia before I went to university,
Speaker 6: having never really kissed a boy hardly, having never really
Speaker 6: kind of hardly got drunk, having really lived a very
Speaker 6: secluded life, and this was my sort of gateway to
Speaker 6: the beginning of my life coming here. And I think
Speaker 6: my parents had just said, you need to make a
Speaker 6: bit of money, and why don't you be a waitress,
Speaker 6: And they probably just asked you, and you very kindly
Speaker 6: had agreed to have this completely callow, sort of just demented.
Speaker 1: To have this absolute, fabulously beautiful, charming open.
Speaker 2: I had, you know.
Speaker 1: I think shyness is a really interesting conversation because I
Speaker 1: was at a dinner the other night and I said
Speaker 1: to somebody that I stood outside the door. I hadn't
Speaker 1: been to like a big dinner party for a long time,
Speaker 1: and it was for Graydon Carter, and I said, I
Speaker 1: kind of stood outside, really not wanting to ring that
Speaker 1: doorbell go into a room of.
Speaker 2: A whole lot of people.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, I was at that doorstep too,
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to go into a room.
Speaker 2: And there are people who you just they just.
Speaker 1: Assume that you're not shy when that things don't bother you,
Speaker 1: when in fact there is that that terror. And I
Speaker 1: sometimes do that of heading into the kitchen to safe
Speaker 1: because I think Ruthie Rogers is here, so I'm really interested.
Speaker 1: But you just feel safe when you're in.
Speaker 6: The kitchen and you can hide behind the business of
Speaker 6: getting something ready and you don't actually have to sort
Speaker 6: of properly being with the sort of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Of talking trying to tell me that when she has
Speaker 1: a dinner, you keep your apron aunts. You don't have
Speaker 1: to talk to.
Speaker 2: Thanks divulging that.
Speaker 5: I find that if I got my chef's outfit, I'm
Speaker 5: more confident if I was in my normal clothes. And
Speaker 5: when I was trying to buy my car, I was
Speaker 5: I was doing the deal with my chef's outfit because
Speaker 5: I was much more like, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 2: In the role I can totally imagine.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, we don't need psychiatrists.
Speaker 2: Psycht I just said, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think we just marrier chefs Out'll give you mine to
Speaker 1: take home today.
Speaker 5: It's a natural barrier, like if I have to talk
Speaker 5: to people, if I'm like people come to my house,
Speaker 5: I keep my apron on it because.
Speaker 2: It keeps me in the persona like really nervy. Well
Speaker 2: it's funny though.
Speaker 6: Also I was thinking about last night and coming to
Speaker 6: your incredible dinner and just thinking it's it's and as
Speaker 6: is coming to your restaurants. It's like you're entering this world.
Speaker 6: And in a funny way, it feels like because people
Speaker 6: think as an actor you're not shy because you're performing
Speaker 6: all the time and you're putting yourself out there.
Speaker 2: But as I said, that's really the only way you can't.
Speaker 2: I can exist is by forcing myself into this. But
Speaker 2: it's like.
Speaker 6: Putting on a show in a way like having a
Speaker 6: dinner or or having it's putting it's it's you know,
Speaker 6: having having a restaurant or whatever, but even having people
Speaker 6: for dinner.
Speaker 2: In your own home.
Speaker 6: I always feel like that it's you make it look
Speaker 6: nice and you sort of put the music on them,
Speaker 6: and you sort of light the fire and you can
Speaker 6: create this kind of world that people set a stage set,
Speaker 6: but it is all a kind of illusion and really
Speaker 6: the sort of behind the scenes shouting at everybody to
Speaker 6: tell you their bedrooms and anyway. So I feel very
Speaker 6: I think coming to as a young Yeah, so that's
Speaker 6: call to this magical place. It felt like it felt
Speaker 6: the best way of sort of forcing myself into life
Speaker 6: because it was you and your family in Rose and
Speaker 6: just it was a family.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty nine. We opened in September eighty seven. Do
Speaker 1: we teach you anything?
Speaker 2: Yes, And you taught me basically taught me how to cook.
Speaker 2: You taught me, but we opened the restaurants. Seventeen year
Speaker 2: old was in the kitchen cooking. Yeah, no you didn't.
Speaker 6: I wasn't cooking, but I was greating you as you
Speaker 6: as a fact you were saying, they still do that here.
Speaker 6: That the waiters that you you really become very familiar
Speaker 6: with the food and you're making it, and you have
Speaker 6: to get in earlier than most waiters would come to
Speaker 6: do a job in a restaurant. So you get in
Speaker 6: a few hours before and you create the parmesan or
Speaker 6: a lot of the time was chopping up the basil
Speaker 6: and the Parsley and things like that and just sort
Speaker 6: of becoming. And I can always remember you saying, and
Speaker 6: my mom says that to me. Ruthie always says, and
Speaker 6: I said, I can remember it. Just get a good
Speaker 6: smell going, you know. And that's true. I always think
Speaker 6: of that as I'm cooking.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: It's just like, you know, it's going to be okay,
Speaker 6: You've just got this good smell going.
Speaker 1: And then I got about being a waiter who taught
Speaker 1: you how to wait no one, and I still training.
Speaker 2: That's the training of the river surf. I mean, it
Speaker 2: really was.
Speaker 1: I really sorry about Nemesis. When what was that story
Speaker 1: about the Nemesis and the glass? I said, you broke
Speaker 1: a glass over a Nemesis, a whole Nemesis.
Speaker 6: I'm sure I did. I mean, I broke everything over
Speaker 6: everything I was.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 6: I just remember the dry cleaning bills that you guys
Speaker 6: were having to pay on my.
Speaker 2: Bar, so people that had red wine dropped in their lapse.
Speaker 6: And I think that I think I've come to the
Speaker 6: conclusion that actually being a waiter is a very difficult job,
Speaker 6: and people don't really don't really.
Speaker 2: Be nicer to waiters.
Speaker 6: There's so much going on in your head at one
Speaker 6: time where you really are having to try to remember,
Speaker 6: and you could generally you can get from starter to
Speaker 6: main course. That's okay, you can remember because you can
Speaker 6: see you've take taken their plates away, but then you
Speaker 6: take the main course plates away, and then you just
Speaker 6: forget about them for hours because you just forget totally
Speaker 6: to bring them there putting menus.
Speaker 2: And then once they've had their pudding. I was just like,
Speaker 2: you totally forget to have to pay a bill.
Speaker 6: No, no, don't worry about the bill. That was always
Speaker 6: the bit that un did me. I was remembering. But
Speaker 6: then I was remembering the other day there was this
Speaker 6: awful thing where I still feel guilty about this. This
Speaker 6: man called I mean, I don't I think his name
Speaker 6: was Dougal McDougall, and he was he was eating his
Speaker 6: lunch here and there was a big Christmas lunch and
Speaker 6: everybody was going bananas getting ready for you know, this service,
Speaker 6: and then this lunch full of people and it was
Speaker 6: a Christmas thing, and so all the people from all
Speaker 6: the offices were having their Christmas lunches and and the
Speaker 6: phone was going off the hook bananas. This phone kept
Speaker 6: ringing and no one had time to pick it up.
Speaker 1: The phone in the restaurant, and people picked it up
Speaker 1: and took a reserve.
Speaker 6: And I remember finally picking it up and thinking, because
Speaker 6: I thought, maybe this is something you know, I needed,
Speaker 6: you know, somebody needs to deal with this phone. And
Speaker 6: I picked it up and I said hello, and the
Speaker 6: woman said, oh, hello. You know you've got a mister
Speaker 6: dougall McDougall dining with you today and he's urgently required
Speaker 6: to the telephone. And I said, oh, yes, absolutely, I'll
Speaker 6: find it for you. And I put the phone down,
Speaker 6: and I thought, how do I find Google McDougall and
Speaker 6: all these people?
Speaker 2: And then I looked.
Speaker 6: Around and I saw this man and I just thought,
Speaker 6: I think you're Google mdog.
Speaker 1: And he.
Speaker 6: Had a sort of he was so sweet looking. He
Speaker 6: had a sort of mullet hair and then a suit
Speaker 6: that was slightly ill fitting, but you looked really lovely.
Speaker 6: And anyway, I just thought, you're Google McDougal. I think
Speaker 6: you are. And I went over and I said, are
Speaker 6: you buy any chance, mister Doogle McDougall, And man said yes.
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 6: And I was so victorious, and I went to the
Speaker 6: phone and I picked up them, and I said, he's
Speaker 6: just coming, and he went and he and all lunch
Speaker 6: long and he had his phone, goll and it was
Speaker 6: all good.
Speaker 2: All lunchlong.
Speaker 6: I was just so happy and laughing about this story
Speaker 6: to myself, and it got me through the lunch. And
Speaker 6: then at the end of lunch, I started telling all
Speaker 6: the other staff and the waitresses and the chefs and
Speaker 6: all about it, and everybody was laughing up roariously, and
Speaker 6: I said, and I saw this man, and I just
Speaker 6: knew out of everybody in this restaurant lot of people,
Speaker 6: that had to be Doggle McDougall. Sure enough it was,
Speaker 6: and I described as mullets and his badly fitting suits.
Speaker 6: And then this little voice went, I'm still here, you know,
Speaker 6: and it was Google McDougall, and he'd gone to the
Speaker 6: loo while I was telling the story and.
Speaker 2: Come out and heard me.
Speaker 6: And I still to this daste wake up in the night,
Speaker 6: just feeling bad for Doogle Mcdoggle.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this, I have a big apology
Speaker 2: to make. I really feel bad.
Speaker 1: The other nights when you heard, somebody came up to me.
Speaker 1: This man came up with the felt and he said,
Speaker 1: my wife is dying to beat you. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: So I went over and I went listen, I hear
Speaker 1: you're dying to meet me.
Speaker 2: And it was the wrong table.
Speaker 1: Dying.
Speaker 2: We just tried to my table, and so you're dying
Speaker 2: to me. So things, you know.
Speaker 1: It was thirty five years later, it's still still.
Speaker 2: But I do remember.
Speaker 6: The Other thing I remember was that cell phones had
Speaker 6: only just started, and people were they had phones in
Speaker 6: their cars, and they were some of these men, these
Speaker 6: sort of guys that were trying to show off and
Speaker 6: be fancy, would go to the car park and phone
Speaker 6: in there, putting orders from the car park to show
Speaker 6: off about their phones.
Speaker 1: We once had somebody when we had somebody was using
Speaker 1: their cell phone outside and a wader went up and
Speaker 1: for some reason said, you know, we'd prefer you not
Speaker 1: to use your cell phone disturbing other people. She said, well,
Speaker 1: I was trying to get the attention of a waiter.
Speaker 1: She was actually calling reception to ask a waiter to.
Speaker 2: Come to her tail. So yeah, I mean, big waiter.
Speaker 2: It's hard, really, it really is hard. It really is hard.
Speaker 6: It requires an awful lots of concentration and your brain
Speaker 6: has to be in about twenty five places.
Speaker 2: Do you ever work anywhere else? No, of course not.
Speaker 6: I mean I was just I mean I was unemployab
Speaker 6: all those waits.
Speaker 2: It would be good to try at one more. I
Speaker 2: should do one.
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you happy to do it? Did you know?
Speaker 1: The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our
Speaker 1: favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks and then in
Speaker 1: Napkins kitchen were toat bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
Speaker 1: chocolates from Durin. You can find us right next door
Speaker 1: to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Speaker 1: Therivercafe dot co dot uk. Going back before you were seventeen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about growing up in the Mortimer household and food.
Speaker 1: What were meals like at your well?
Speaker 6: Yeah, dad was Dad could really cook and loved food,
Speaker 6: but he was his He always said his favorite His
Speaker 6: idea of good food is food you don't really need
Speaker 6: teeth to eat, like no, like sort of mashed potato
Speaker 6: or kedgeree was his favorite thing as sort of comfort food.
Speaker 6: And I remember as a little little girl, my dad
Speaker 6: always cooked me boiled eggs and toast soldiers.
Speaker 2: That was the thing I was.
Speaker 6: I used to say, get my eggs, you bugger gone
Speaker 6: down in the morning, and send them back if they
Speaker 6: weren't I mean.
Speaker 2: I wasn't very dead. She said that I was a very.
Speaker 6: Shy child, but I was not shy with my dad,
Speaker 6: and so I would, Yeah, I would send back the
Speaker 6: eggs if they went exactly cooked to my you know,
Speaker 6: certain specificity, and if the toa soldiers went perfectly lightly blonded.
Speaker 2: I was very annoyed.
Speaker 6: But food, I mean, our family was such a sort
Speaker 6: of place of love and also as all families, quite
Speaker 6: dysfunctional in lots of wonderful ways. But the one thing
Speaker 6: that they really always got right my mom and dad
Speaker 6: was was meals, Like we always I can't remember not having.
Speaker 6: I mean, we just always ate together where whether it
Speaker 6: was at you know, dinner at home with mom Mum
Speaker 6: normally cooking, or sometimes Dad, or in a restaurant, and
Speaker 6: restaurants we just from our dad. Both me and Rosie,
Speaker 6: my sister inherited just a love of restaurants, and his
Speaker 6: attitude to restaurants was that it was just sort of
Speaker 6: that there was no problem so great or sort of
Speaker 6: heart so broken that it couldn't be slightly made better
Speaker 6: by and delicious meal in a restaurant with a white
Speaker 6: tablecloth and preferably a glass or three of champagne, and
Speaker 6: that that you know, you that there was something so
Speaker 6: cheering about going out for lunch or dinner in a
Speaker 6: nice restaurant. And I think Rosie and I just still
Speaker 6: have that. We're addicted to restaurants. Yeah, I just it
Speaker 6: just feels like such a treat. It never stops being
Speaker 6: a treat. And just sort of that feeling of being
Speaker 6: cozy and with people you love in this kind of
Speaker 6: special place. And and again another thing of that of
Speaker 6: wherever you are in the world, finding a little key
Speaker 6: into it. It's a way of getting to know people
Speaker 6: and getting to know the place you're in and and
Speaker 6: and finding some sort of, you know, place that feels
Speaker 6: authentic to where you are and being there generally you're
Speaker 6: with people you really like, eating good food and.
Speaker 1: Tells you about the culture and take the place you are.
Speaker 1: Did you Because I always think of your parents as
Speaker 1: being incredibly social as well. Father was his playwright and
Speaker 1: his you know, voyage around my father and he was
Speaker 1: defending Oz Magnet was it was he was a Oz
Speaker 1: trial and and the sex It's really radical lawyer who
Speaker 1: was you know, on the forefront of every case that
Speaker 1: was happening, with everything that was contentiously there was John
Speaker 1: Mortimer and yet such a gentle and gorgeous man and Penny.
Speaker 1: I say, the first time I met Penny, she was
Speaker 1: sitting on his lap. You know. It was just they
Speaker 1: were such a kind of important people in our lives,
Speaker 1: and so they were able to have this life of
Speaker 1: going out or people entertaining, and you still felt very
Speaker 1: part of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very much part of it.
Speaker 6: And yeah, we were always I mean Dad loved young
Speaker 6: people and children and he just thought children were sort of,
Speaker 6: you know, the best type of people that that, and
Speaker 6: he was always so sympathetic about being a young person.
Speaker 6: He said, it's just like this life will never be
Speaker 6: as hard as it is when you're young, and school
Speaker 6: is awful, and it's just like these terrible hours unpaid labor.
Speaker 2: And you know, given terrible food at lunchtime.
Speaker 6: And he was very just completely sympathetic to the plight
Speaker 6: and the loneliness of childhood. So he was very inclusive
Speaker 6: and lunches and dinners or whatever it was. It was
Speaker 6: always like we were never sort of expected not to
Speaker 6: be part of it. And so I really think, no
Speaker 6: matter sort of how much life is falling apart at
Speaker 6: the seams, which it always is, of course, like if
Speaker 6: you can manage to kind of corral you know, the
Speaker 6: people that you love and together for lunch or dinner
Speaker 6: or whatever it is, it just does make a difference,
Speaker 6: it feels, and so it feels it just feels really
Speaker 6: comforting to me to be sitting around a table with people,
Speaker 6: and because that was the part of life that I
Speaker 6: think really was functioning. You know, when I was little,
Speaker 6: it was really nice.
Speaker 1: And when you left this joyous home of being sitting
Speaker 1: around the table and you left we went to Oxford.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh you know, you went to Russia first. I
Speaker 2: went to Russia on my gap.
Speaker 1: And did you manage to find a home that was
Speaker 1: like that in Russia or are you sort of in
Speaker 1: the I.
Speaker 6: Was in Moscow and I do remember eating there a lot.
Speaker 6: I can remember the food very well, and there was
Speaker 6: always I mean, I love Russian food because probably I
Speaker 6: associated with that time, but I that's quite sort of stodgy,
Speaker 6: like sort of pelmeny little dumplings with cream, but also
Speaker 6: lots of dill. They put dill on everything, and I
Speaker 6: still cook lots with dill somehow that that really kind
Speaker 6: of brings me back to being there. And then I
Speaker 6: remember I cooked my first and last goose in Moscow.
Speaker 2: I went to a market to buce.
Speaker 6: I was going to try and cook a roast chicken,
Speaker 6: and then I went to the market and they didn't
Speaker 6: have any chicken, but they did have a goose.
Speaker 2: So I called up my mum.
Speaker 6: It was very difficult to get through. You couldn't really
Speaker 6: make phone calls back and forth to England.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 6: Nine nineties, so it's probably ninety then, and I had
Speaker 6: to go to this hotel and pay with a credit
Speaker 6: card for my phone call. That cost about sort of
Speaker 6: fifty pounds to sort of have a five minute phone
Speaker 6: call back to England. And I remember Mum looking up
Speaker 6: the recipe for it, because you get saying a goose
Speaker 6: is very different from a chicken darling. Anyway, I remember
Speaker 6: spending just all day long with this goose, and I
Speaker 6: finally I remember put taking it out, putting it into
Speaker 6: the oven, and because it was like you had to
Speaker 6: take the wings off and the breasts off and then
Speaker 6: prick it and primp it. And I don't really remember,
Speaker 6: but I can remember putting the goose in the oven
Speaker 6: saying I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've really got.
Speaker 6: To know you so well over this time.
Speaker 2: I feel terrible about because I inter it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cooking, and then you went to Oxford. Did you
Speaker 1: care about that you didn't eat well in Oxford? Or
Speaker 1: did you eat well in Oxford? How did your parents
Speaker 1: rescue you from.
Speaker 6: I can't really I went to Lincoln College, which was
Speaker 6: famous for its food, but I don't really remember eating much.
Speaker 6: I think I just went to lots of parties and
Speaker 6: slept and didn't do anything apart from plays. I didn't
Speaker 6: really cook their No I did. I just I just yes,
Speaker 6: as I.
Speaker 2: Said, go home for family meals.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I go home because it was I could drive
Speaker 6: back home. It was about a forty five minute drive
Speaker 6: back home. And so I go home at the weekends
Speaker 6: and things and take my washing and get good Sunday lunch.
Speaker 6: And yeah, Sunday lunch is something I really sort of
Speaker 6: remember from that time of my life, because I mean,
Speaker 6: and then when I was in my late twenties, I
Speaker 6: moved to America, where they don't really have Sunday lunch,
Speaker 6: but the sort of smell of Sunday lunch cooking and
Speaker 6: my dad listening to the radio and radio four and
Speaker 6: the sort of the smell of something delicious sort of cooking,
Speaker 6: you know, is something that I really miss and coming
Speaker 6: back here when it happens, I'm just sort of immediately
Speaker 6: just feel full of sort of nostalgia and happiness.
Speaker 2: But now that your mother of two, do replicate any
Speaker 2: of those, yeah, I do. I do try to do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 6: I mean, I do like a sort of raise whatever
Speaker 6: you do have Sunday, n Yes, I do. But it's
Speaker 6: hard to keep up that tradition when when the culture
Speaker 6: isn't doing it.
Speaker 2: Brun so they have, yeah, brunch.
Speaker 6: Yeah, runch is a whole thing which I never really
Speaker 6: know what to do for brunch. If you had to
Speaker 6: cook a brunch, what would you do?
Speaker 1: I think probably I'd go and get bagels and cream
Speaker 1: tees and that they Yeah, I find I find that
Speaker 1: going out to lunch in New York on a Sunday
Speaker 1: is really challenging because you can't have lunch. It's a
Speaker 1: much Yeah, so it's kind of by that time it's
Speaker 1: twelve and maybe.
Speaker 2: Have had something in the breakfast and then it's breakfast
Speaker 2: all over again.
Speaker 1: I think they say it's lunch, but it is really
Speaker 1: pretty breakfast.
Speaker 2: To yeah, it's basically glorified practice.
Speaker 6: And then I panic because I feel like I've got
Speaker 6: to I don't really know how to do a brunch,
Speaker 6: so I sort of I go really over the top
Speaker 6: and then it's like sort of brunch at the Four
Speaker 6: Seasons and something likeiches and it's just too much. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I know Sunday lunches, but you have to if you
Speaker 6: do a Sunday lunch in America, you have to sort
Speaker 6: of make a thing of it. And because people don't
Speaker 6: really carve out that time on a Sunday to just
Speaker 6: sit around doing nothing.
Speaker 1: And like, do you think it is a really different
Speaker 1: culture of eating in Brooklyn and London in terms of
Speaker 1: going most of you people go.
Speaker 2: Out to people go out much. Well, yeah, I'm starting
Speaker 2: here too now.
Speaker 1: I think you know, I think they're do you go
Speaker 1: out to people's houses for meals or do you mostly
Speaker 1: go to restaurants.
Speaker 2: I'd go to people's houses.
Speaker 5: Yeah, probably more now I'm older than I used to.
Speaker 5: I think we was talking about it with one of
Speaker 5: the young chefs today and he was saying he'd gone
Speaker 5: to eat in another one of the chef's house, and
Speaker 5: they felt really grown up because he was saying, most
Speaker 5: of the times you'd go to the pub or go
Speaker 5: out to a restaurant, as now they're starting to go
Speaker 5: to people's houses because then people are starting to get houses, right,
Speaker 5: you know, I think maybe it's kind of times in
Speaker 5: with when you have property or something or somewhere big
Speaker 5: enough to host.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, I like, I mean, I always like a home,
Speaker 1: you know. I love when I go to foreign city
Speaker 1: and you need it home. Yeah, you know, because as
Speaker 1: you say that kind of what you're saying for a restaurant,
Speaker 1: but it does tell you about the culture, yes, about
Speaker 1: how people are, and you sit around it's nice.
Speaker 6: There's so much in a cooked meal from somebody that
Speaker 6: you know that the at home because their whole their
Speaker 6: whole history and all their culture and all their everything
Speaker 6: is baked into whatever it is you're eating. In the
Speaker 6: most kind of it's so specific, like it's just like
Speaker 6: it's like somebody's handwriting or something that you know, it's
Speaker 6: like everything about their history and the history of their
Speaker 6: lives and culture and everything is somehow.
Speaker 2: In whatever this dish is and it's just so nice
Speaker 2: and just yeah.
Speaker 1: We had that we were I've told us before a party,
Speaker 1: but we were proud and Richard had an honorary degree.
Speaker 1: And we're walking around we couldn't find a restaurant and
Speaker 1: we just stopped somebody and said, can you tell us,
Speaker 1: you know where would be a good restaurant to eat?
Speaker 1: And then she taught and then she'd been to Richard selecture.
Speaker 1: So she invited us to her house the next day
Speaker 1: and we went on the way there. I was going,
Speaker 1: We're we're going to somebody's that we don't know, and
Speaker 1: it was so touching because they've gotten out all the
Speaker 1: family linen and she made all these check you know, specialties,
Speaker 1: and it's something that's really stuck in my mind about
Speaker 1: how nice it was.
Speaker 2: Too.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, that always happened in Russia. Actually in Moscow.
Speaker 6: You know, you would go to people's houses and they'd
Speaker 6: invite you for dinner and it would be this whole
Speaker 6: thing that would last a whole day long. And they'd
Speaker 6: generally living in tiny apartments, you know, on the outskirts
Speaker 6: of the city, but they would put like they'd make
Speaker 6: a table out of sort of a bit of you know,
Speaker 6: wood and put some chairs together and make this table
Speaker 6: in the middle of the only sort of living space,
Speaker 6: and it would be just this feast and all these
Speaker 6: crazy mismatched things, but just like dish upon dish upon
Speaker 6: dish and sort of just so special and you feel
Speaker 6: so you know, it's such an act of love in
Speaker 6: that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would
Speaker 1: you please make sure to rate and review the podcast
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Thank you, we mentioned all the work
Speaker 1: you are doing now that you did tell us about
Speaker 1: how you either write, direct or act with food.
Speaker 2: I mean so yeah, so food is so.
Speaker 6: I mean, food really is something that I just find
Speaker 6: to be one of the things that cheers me up
Speaker 6: most in life. So even if it's bad food, I
Speaker 6: don't mind what it is. So I get on a
Speaker 6: film that you generally get very bad food, but even that,
Speaker 6: I just look forward to it so much.
Speaker 2: Lunch, you know, you can't I still can't quite believe.
Speaker 6: I'm being given a free lunch, free lunch, free hot lunch,
Speaker 6: you know, And it just is that little and generally
Speaker 6: what's happened now, which I hate is that they've got
Speaker 6: much more into these continuous days is where you just
Speaker 6: sort of eat on the run. You know, you're given
Speaker 6: ten minutes to sort of do it, and it means
Speaker 6: it does mean that everybody goes home earlier, so instead
Speaker 6: of a twelve earrel so.
Speaker 1: Called the French style or something, somebody said there was
Speaker 1: a sort of French method way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you keep working and working, you keep.
Speaker 6: Working through I really miss that thing of just been
Speaker 6: because again, it's like the food bit of the day.
Speaker 6: The lunch is a time to kind of recover, you know,
Speaker 6: just it's.
Speaker 2: Like a rest you're acting.
Speaker 6: When you're acting and you need I really think you
Speaker 6: need an hour to just sit there and eat your
Speaker 6: sort of generally not very good sort of cabbage and
Speaker 6: I don't know whatever sausage just like but but just
Speaker 6: it's still a treat and you kind of just feel like, oh,
Speaker 6: I've just got this little moment to sit and think
Speaker 6: about what happened this morning and or just sewn out
Speaker 6: and then just kind of then gradually get ready for
Speaker 6: the for the next half of the day. And I
Speaker 6: do feel like that little the little breaks in life,
Speaker 6: it's like little holidays from life that meals can give you.
Speaker 6: And on a film set that's just definitely true, and
Speaker 6: it's part of the social life of being on set,
Speaker 6: and as such is really an important focus for the day.
Speaker 6: So I really love I love catering, whether as I said,
Speaker 6: whether or not it's good or bad. I just love
Speaker 6: the fact of it on film sets. And then when
Speaker 6: I's a director, and as a director, that's harder because
Speaker 6: you are so overwhelmed with all these different millions of
Speaker 6: things that you've plated, You've got spinning and questions you've
Speaker 6: got to answer that you can't really afford the time
Speaker 6: to sit and sort of chat and have your lunch.
Speaker 2: So I didn't.
Speaker 6: That wasn't really a big part of the day for
Speaker 6: me when I was directing. And then writing is such
Speaker 6: a solitary thing. But I've found that I can only
Speaker 6: really now write. I think I must have some kind
Speaker 6: of sort of undiagnosedism where I can't I can't write
Speaker 6: unless I'm in a very loud busy like I would
Speaker 6: be able to write brilliantly in the river cafe, but
Speaker 6: I have to consid there's a cafe on the end
Speaker 6: of my block, A kind of restaurant that's open all
Speaker 6: day long in Brooklyn, and I go there and I
Speaker 6: sit there literally for hours at a time, and I
Speaker 6: it's quite good because I generally a lot of I
Speaker 6: think I like the kind of buzz of noise, and
Speaker 6: I kind of feel like that's the only way I
Speaker 6: can sort of do it, whereas if I sit at home,
Speaker 6: I just get very sleepy and fall asleep.
Speaker 2: And do you eat though? At the cafe and.
Speaker 6: Then I eat, and then I have my little sort
Speaker 6: of salads or a little bowl of pasta at long time,
Speaker 6: and that's my break, you know.
Speaker 2: Christopher Hampton, I think it was.
Speaker 1: It might have been lis On Dogerus, I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but certainly when we opened, I think he was a
Speaker 1: friend of Rose and he would come with I don't
Speaker 1: even think of our computers in nineteen eighty nine, so
Speaker 1: he probably just came with a pad and hand wrote
Speaker 1: it and he would sit there and ride.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's just there are people who come and work rough
Speaker 1: my son. He really likes to work in a cafe.
Speaker 1: And Richard used to like work. We had a countless
Speaker 1: studies in the house or places where he could be
Speaker 1: quiet and work and he would always choose the kitchen
Speaker 1: table or kids the noisiest having It's.
Speaker 2: Interesting about how different people work.
Speaker 1: Do you think about what you're going to eat the
Speaker 1: next day when you're going to bed?
Speaker 2: Do you sometimes think what we'll I have for lunch tomorrow?
Speaker 2: Or do you think about it when you wake up?
Speaker 6: And I sometimes sort of not really. I mean I
Speaker 6: guess I think about what I might buy to cook
Speaker 6: for people. But no, my dad was a great one
Speaker 6: for that. Like we had to basically have decided what
Speaker 6: we were eating in the car on the way to
Speaker 6: any restaurant. I think because it was so funny. He
Speaker 6: definitely had lots of UNDIAGNOSISMS. It was like lots of
Speaker 6: sort of.
Speaker 2: Anxiety so around.
Speaker 6: He loved restaurants, but we had to be in and
Speaker 6: out and when he got very irritated if anyone ordered pudding,
Speaker 6: but he and we all had to have worked out
Speaker 6: what we were going to have before we sat down,
Speaker 6: you know. So, yeah, so you would go back to
Speaker 6: the same restaurant, Yeah, yeah, what was it? He loved
Speaker 6: the Walls place, Oh here, and so he knew the men.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I did that. Yeah, But Richard, I was
Speaker 2: just as you said Richard.
Speaker 6: I just do feel like there was just that memory
Speaker 6: of him with that kind of beaming grin in here,
Speaker 6: and no matter how many glasses of nebuola I was
Speaker 6: spilling or so I was sort of being mean to,
Speaker 6: there was just this feeling and there's just kind sort
Speaker 6: of chesta cat there that just made everything it didn't matter,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 1: But you were I will not have it said that
Speaker 1: you were the worst. Sometimes everybody says I'm the worst waitress,
Speaker 1: and somebody said was the worst. I'd say you were
Speaker 1: right up there, the top, top top right that all
Speaker 1: the qualities she's talking about, something we'd look for.
Speaker 6: And wait, I do remember just feeling. So it was
Speaker 6: just so sort of I know, glamorous probably isn't the
Speaker 6: right word, but that's what I don't know, just sort
Speaker 6: of full of sort of magic, and you felt all
Speaker 6: these magical people would come, like do you remember, of
Speaker 6: course you remember, but Adam Alvarez's used to come with
Speaker 6: the truffles and the just the most handsome man on earth,
Speaker 6: just like this truffle man who had come with having
Speaker 6: got all these truffles from wherever was it alber or
Speaker 6: I don't know, in Italy and you're.
Speaker 2: Just like, oh my gosh, who are these people?
Speaker 6: Collection of amazing characters that are attracted to you and
Speaker 6: your world and are part of it all, and it
Speaker 6: just was it felt a little bit like sort of
Speaker 6: Alison falling down the rabbit hole, just ending up in this.
Speaker 2: It really is, you know, magic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell us what you're working on now, Well, Rogers,
Speaker 1: I am making.
Speaker 6: I came to do Paddington three and I shot that
Speaker 6: here in London, and I was so happy to come
Speaker 6: back and be here for a long period and work
Speaker 6: on that incredible franchise.
Speaker 2: It's a great, it's really amazing, and especially now in
Speaker 2: these times.
Speaker 6: Yes, there's something about like please look after this bear
Speaker 6: feels even more important than it ever did. And I
Speaker 6: felt so grateful to be part of that and to
Speaker 6: be able to bring my family, my little American family
Speaker 6: here for a while and be in London.
Speaker 2: And then more and more.
Speaker 6: I've seen to find myself writing and directing and being
Speaker 6: more less in front of the camera and more behind it,
Speaker 6: which I'm really enjoying.
Speaker 2: I love it so much.
Speaker 6: And I guess part of it is being this shy person,
Speaker 6: but that you I always sort of I both sort
Speaker 6: of wanted to have attention on me and perform and
Speaker 6: everything in a way, and then also just was sort
Speaker 6: of terrified and horrified by it, and it made me
Speaker 6: quite sort of neurotic. And and I find writing and
Speaker 6: directing much less. So it's just all about telling a story,
Speaker 6: which acting is too, and when its best acting isn't
Speaker 6: about how pretty you are, how clever you are, how
Speaker 6: funny you are, all these silly things that don't mean anything.
Speaker 6: But you do get quite distracted by all that.
Speaker 2: So what is you do? Oh?
Speaker 6: So I have written this film with Noah baum Beck,
Speaker 6: who is also a great fan of the River Cafe
Speaker 6: and of yours, and that's being shot here in the spring,
Speaker 6: and that was amazing and I learned so much from
Speaker 6: him obviously, And then I'm writing a film of my
Speaker 6: own to direct, hopefully about my time in Russia actually
Speaker 6: and yeah, so I feel I'm enjoying this bit of
Speaker 6: my creative life in a way that is different from
Speaker 6: how it was before. It feels it feels just fun good.
Speaker 2: And going back to the food, you're right shoot in Italy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so Noah's movie, We're definitely she's in half in
Speaker 6: London and half in Italy.
Speaker 1: When you make a film in another country, to think
Speaker 1: about the food of that country totally.
Speaker 2: I mean it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 6: I mean it will be because he's a real food
Speaker 6: and he loves Italian food too, and so there's no
Speaker 6: doubt that food on that film will be amazing. No,
Speaker 6: that'll be so nice. You've got to come. I think
Speaker 6: you've got to be in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he wants you to be in it.
Speaker 2: I think he's convinced you.
Speaker 5: Be a cameo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The last couple of it I heard was over food
Speaker 1: in New York. I had dinner with this couple and
Speaker 1: apparently they had such a good time they went back
Speaker 1: to California. They're both screenwriters and actors or whatever, and
Speaker 1: they they.
Speaker 2: Bought a dog and named it after me. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: that's the highest. So I could either be in a
Speaker 2: film or I could have a dog named what kind
Speaker 2: of something? A huge person?
Speaker 1: So funny, you said, oh you don't. I thought maybe
Speaker 1: something like that was coming. They're going to put you
Speaker 1: in a.
Speaker 2: Movie, right, They liked you so much they named your dog.
Speaker 1: So our very very last question, which we do is
Speaker 1: to say if food is love, and food is you know, traveling,
Speaker 1: and food is your memories of your parents.
Speaker 2: And I remember those Sunday lunches at.
Speaker 1: Turvill Heath where there was cricket and food and sitting
Speaker 1: and children running around, and I remember all the meals
Speaker 1: I had with your your family, and a great meal
Speaker 1: I had with you last week and back to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: So food is all that.
Speaker 1: It also is comfort, and so as I say, I
Speaker 1: hope you don't need comfort very often. If you do
Speaker 1: call me, But if you don't want to call, what
Speaker 1: is there a food that you would go to for
Speaker 1: for comfort?
Speaker 2: Well, for some reason, it's so weird. It's ravili.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 6: I get it the most comforting food. And whenever I'm
Speaker 6: asked what my favorite food is, I always say ravioli.
Speaker 6: And is always saying, but you never have reve I'm like,
Speaker 6: that's my daughter said, that's such a lie. You don't
Speaker 6: have ravioli, And I'm like, I know, but I love reveoli.
Speaker 6: And if I were to feel really like I wanted
Speaker 6: to treat myself while I was feeling really sad, I'd
Speaker 6: order a plate of ravioli and it would make me
Speaker 6: feel I don't think you could feel. And it's quite
Speaker 6: hard to make bad Raveo.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course it is.
Speaker 6: I guess it's quite easy, probably, But I just think
Speaker 6: is delicious something choosing out Chara the most amazing.
Speaker 2: I hope we have.
Speaker 1: Do we have every early other menu today? If we do, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have.
Speaker 5: They are They've got a mixture of greens in today
Speaker 5: and racotta and pecorino.
Speaker 2: Then I think, oh god, I'm definitely going to get that.
Speaker 2: Even though you don't need to come for it. It
Speaker 2: goes back to if it goes back to my dad food,
Speaker 2: you don't really need teeth to eat, so it's probably
Speaker 2: the best car. Okay, let's go have lun Thank.
Speaker 1: You so nice, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 4: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 4: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 4: Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 4: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
Speaker 4: is Bella Selini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean
Speaker 4: win Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe
Speaker 4: for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 6: Seven