Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows Tracy Ullman as a brilliant woman who acts, sings,
Speaker 2: makes us laugh, produces and directs work which makes us
Speaker 2: think differently about the world we live in. I'm lucky
Speaker 2: enough to know Tracy is all of the above, but
Speaker 2: also as a friend, a mother, and quite simply the
Speaker 2: sweetest person ever in a time of doubt and in decision.
Speaker 2: One of the best yesses I've ever had was when
Speaker 2: Tracy agreed to sing our love is here to Stay
Speaker 2: at the River Cafe thirtieth birthday party.
Speaker 3: Our love is here to stay together.
Speaker 4: Weird going along long way in time.
Speaker 5: I think I'm Rose mclooney.
Speaker 4: The Rockies may crumble, just brought to may tumble. They're
Speaker 4: only made of clay. But I sang, I love is
Speaker 4: here to stay.
Speaker 3: I love the River calthy.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen one thy five hundred people cry?
Speaker 2: As my guest, Tracy and I will talk about food
Speaker 2: and memories, life, work, family and friendship. Two women, two
Speaker 2: friends whose love is for sure definitely here to stay.
Speaker 2: Ruth seeing likewise, very very nice to be with you
Speaker 2: and you're going to read your favorite recipe, which is
Speaker 2: so interesting that you chose that recipe because not everybody
Speaker 2: knows it, many people haven't had it, and you chose
Speaker 2: it as yours. So would you like to read the
Speaker 2: recipe for a garetti with tomato and pan grattato.
Speaker 5: Okay, so I tell you why I chose it? Shall
Speaker 5: I read recipe? I really love this and I've only
Speaker 5: ever had a gretty at your restaurant. And then when
Speaker 5: I said I was going to read this, and I
Speaker 5: didn't know where a gretti was from, and I wish
Speaker 5: I could find it as I was talking to you. Literally,
Speaker 5: I walked into a shot and found So it's like
Speaker 5: samphire a little bit, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's like a asparagus a river its it has that
Speaker 2: grassy and you always you know you have it.
Speaker 5: So it's very simple. But I like vegetables and I
Speaker 5: like Italian vegetables, and this is just a very very
Speaker 5: simple thing. But it's just so you and I love it.
Speaker 5: Agretti with tomato and pan grettato Serve six to eight
Speaker 5: or if I'm around, serves me six hundred grams of agretti.
Speaker 5: One stale chibbata loaf, olive oil, slow cooked tomato sauce.
Speaker 5: Snap off the bottom stalks from the agrette just below
Speaker 5: the long leafy tops. Pulse chop the bread into bread crumbs.
Speaker 5: Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and shallow
Speaker 5: fry the bread crumbs until they are golden. Lift out
Speaker 5: with a slotted spoon, and drain well on kitchen paper.
Speaker 5: Warm the tomato sauce. Blanch the aggrette in a pan
Speaker 5: of rapidly boiling salted water for three minutes or until tender.
Speaker 5: Drain and dry on kitchen paper to remove all the
Speaker 5: excess water. Put the aggrette on a plate and spoon
Speaker 5: over the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs, and
Speaker 5: serve while warm.
Speaker 2: Delicious, delicious. Interesting that you tell this, and you said
Speaker 2: you found it in your local sharp you know, and
Speaker 2: there it was, And how food has changed? But did
Speaker 2: you grow up with Italian food?
Speaker 5: My father, who sadly died when I was six, was Polish,
Speaker 5: and so he liked lots of pickled things and soured creams,
Speaker 5: and he was always putting things under the sink, and
Speaker 5: you know, fermenting things and goose at Christmas and very
Speaker 5: complex sort of chocolate coffee nut trts at Christmas. There
Speaker 5: was that sort of food he liked. And my mother
Speaker 5: was a South London lady who was very simple food.
Speaker 5: Always grew her own vegetables, and I grew my own
Speaker 5: vegetables and I wasn't allowed sugar or fast food and
Speaker 5: I didn't like it. And I would just run home
Speaker 5: from school and pick the spinach that we planted, and radishes,
Speaker 5: and I like greens. And she was a simple cook,
Speaker 5: but very good because she was like, you know, wartime
Speaker 5: kid and dig for victory, you know, sort of worked
Speaker 5: on the land. And she just really liked good, simple food,
Speaker 5: my mother.
Speaker 2: But your father died when you were six, which is
Speaker 2: very young, but you have a strong memory of him,
Speaker 2: as you say, pickles, and he's had a strong association
Speaker 2: for you of your father with food.
Speaker 5: And he's cooking, yes, because it was unusual food, and
Speaker 5: when you're fermenting things under the kitchen sink, it's kind
Speaker 5: of strange when your friends come home, you know. And
Speaker 5: he liked you know, cucumber and dill and lemon, and
Speaker 5: I always remember big goose. He would make big goose
Speaker 5: and a kind of polish sausage dish. It took ages
Speaker 5: to make. Everything in Poland takes days to make. It's
Speaker 5: very complex. Slow cooked stuff was skis, plat skis, you know,
Speaker 5: all sorts of He was born in Poland. He came
Speaker 5: over during the war. He was at Dunkirk with the
Speaker 5: Free Polish Army and the soldiers that was rescued and
Speaker 5: brought to England and he never went back. And then
Speaker 5: he was a lawyer and an interpreter and he had
Speaker 5: a business in Slough in in England and near London,
Speaker 5: and he was very successful and worked too hard and
Speaker 5: sadly died very early. But yeah, he was quite a guy.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting how I think people who have immigrated
Speaker 2: from other cultures, from countries, they remember those smells and
Speaker 2: the food of their family, bringing their culture to this country.
Speaker 2: And how much richer we are because of it. Rye
Speaker 2: bread and of course caveats. It was cheaper back then,
Speaker 2: you could yeah wow.
Speaker 5: And when I first had a bit of money just spent,
Speaker 5: I would buy caviar and I never did drugs or
Speaker 5: drink girls. I was a caviart. I had had like
Speaker 5: a five hundred dollars a week addiction. And now it's
Speaker 5: so expensive. Back in the eighties, you could still get
Speaker 5: Iranian caviar, and I love cavia caviar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And did your mother would she cook with you?
Speaker 2: Did you cook with her?
Speaker 5: She was just as I say, she wasn't fancy cooked,
Speaker 5: just very simple, very pleas we would like for her
Speaker 5: and me, I'm still like this today. A meal for
Speaker 5: me is I'll buy mushrooms, watercress, radishes, a piece of
Speaker 5: mozzarella and some strawberries, and that's a meal to me.
Speaker 2: Did you go to restaurants whatever?
Speaker 5: No, I couldn't afford it. You know, we'ld have nice
Speaker 5: picnics in the park and just fresh things and growing
Speaker 5: our vegetables. And no, we never ate out.
Speaker 2: And then do you remember your first when that kind
Speaker 2: of changed for you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was sixteen. I left school at sixteen and
Speaker 5: I went to Berlin as a dancer with a big
Speaker 5: group of wonderful fun people, and we used to eat
Speaker 5: out because we lived in I lived in a room
Speaker 5: with to other girls, and for some reason we used
Speaker 5: to go to an Italian restaurant in Berlin. And I
Speaker 5: remember that you have pizza Funghi a spaghetti cabinaras it
Speaker 5: was very very good, and that was glamorous to me.
Speaker 5: And have always have a bottle of leave for a
Speaker 5: milch with Italian food. But I remember that starting to
Speaker 5: eat out that way.
Speaker 2: And as a dancer, did you find there's a discipline
Speaker 2: that you had to have to eating? Did you find
Speaker 2: that you could perform if you'd had a night out
Speaker 2: the night before or that you know, no.
Speaker 5: Could We didn't eat till like two in the morning.
Speaker 5: This was crazy. We were like we used to go
Speaker 5: out after the show and come get inter ten in
Speaker 5: the morning. Oh yeah, we were pretty wild. But we
Speaker 5: had a wonderful girl with us, a dancer called Sarah
Speaker 5: Brown who went on to become a professional chef. I
Speaker 5: think she wrote books and had her own television programs
Speaker 5: here and she used to cook for us. So we
Speaker 5: had this amazing woman cooking for us.
Speaker 2: How did you live there?
Speaker 5: About four months?
Speaker 2: Five months? And was that your first real trip away?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: From how Yeah?
Speaker 5: I loved it. Yeah, did you Berlin in the seventies.
Speaker 5: It was so sexy and fun and crazy and decadent,
Speaker 5: and I loved it.
Speaker 2: Leaving home. Do you remember your routine of sort of
Speaker 2: how you would work and then eat and cook.
Speaker 5: Or I never really lived on my own. I met
Speaker 5: somebody I was engaged when I was quite young. But
Speaker 5: if I did eat on my own, which I did
Speaker 5: because I liked this strange stuff as I keep going
Speaker 5: back to watercress, almonds, blueberries even then, just really simple
Speaker 5: sliced mushrooms, avocados, and it was hard getting avocados even
Speaker 5: I see to say with my friend in the East End,
Speaker 5: and you'd say to the green grows, so they're hello,
Speaker 5: do you have an avocado?
Speaker 6: Not walk it?
Speaker 5: When I was a Christmas love, not much call from
Speaker 5: some nice leaks. I was looking for an avocado. Really,
Speaker 5: no leaks, no avocados. Why one weakness that everybody always
Speaker 5: sold in England and they still do. It's bird's eyed
Speaker 5: chicken pie. I think they're about a pound ruthie and
Speaker 5: they're just it's something about the short cross pastry people.
Speaker 5: I know, famous chefs, English chefs talk about these bird's
Speaker 5: eyed chicken pies and they're delicious. There's nothing like one
Speaker 5: of those with some gravy on it and some Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 5: When you're cold in November and you come and I
Speaker 5: still like a bird's eye chicken pie and that's the
Speaker 5: sort of gosh, that's the craziest thing I eat normally
Speaker 5: simple organic. I guess my life started when I met
Speaker 5: my husband Alan, who you knew, and he really took
Speaker 5: me to fantastic He's took me to the Royal Crescent
Speaker 5: and bath, you know, and we had lobsters and we
Speaker 5: still have the caprice. That room was wonderful. There's photographs,
Speaker 5: some great food, interesting food places like the Horn of
Speaker 5: Plenty in Devon. There was always like people that had
Speaker 5: rest yeah, yes, yeah, And you'd go there and there'd
Speaker 5: be this wonderful old country house and a cat having
Speaker 5: kittens in the in the sort of front hallway who
Speaker 5: come in and they'd say that would find places where
Speaker 5: they'd say things like death needs a little nervous of
Speaker 5: her custards. You know, Yes, she's been terrible nervous about
Speaker 5: custards today. And you'd say the custard's marvelous, daf and
Speaker 5: you should say, oh, is it really? Yes, it is.
Speaker 5: And then I went to live in La with Alan.
Speaker 5: I really had lived in America for thirty years and
Speaker 5: Los Angeles was terrible for food. It was terrible. It's
Speaker 5: iceberg lettuce and burghers, and you know, just now it's wonderful.
Speaker 5: There's all sorts of organic markets and you know, farmers' markets.
Speaker 5: But in the ages it was terrible. It was like
Speaker 5: Vegas food and New York too. Yeah, it was like
Speaker 5: they'd have Italian ford, you wine red, you want white sauce,
Speaker 5: you want clams, you like egg plant? Why do you
Speaker 5: want darland? You want an egg plant?
Speaker 2: Poor?
Speaker 5: I'm a john. But now, of course, yeah, you know
Speaker 5: that food is wonderful. But yeah, it was all very like,
Speaker 5: you know, heavy sauces.
Speaker 2: But when you went to La were you working? What
Speaker 2: were you doing?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yes, I was pregnant and I had my daughter Mabel
Speaker 5: in eighty six, and then I did a television shows
Speaker 5: for a long time, and I would always spend the
Speaker 5: summers here and couldn't wait to get to We's got
Speaker 5: a sudy here a lot when the kids were small,
Speaker 5: because the Italians just love children.
Speaker 2: What about when you go to a restaurant with somebody,
Speaker 2: What do you look for in a restaurant? What do
Speaker 2: you like about a restaurant?
Speaker 5: I don't eat out a lot. Really. My daughter is
Speaker 5: a wonderful cook, and her and her husband Harry make
Speaker 5: wonderful things. They're all sorts. He'll make the best dispatcho
Speaker 5: in the world. It'll take him hours and there'll only
Speaker 5: be two cups, and you go, Harry, I could just
Speaker 5: eat this forever. My daughter's neighbor is Simon Hopkinson. And
Speaker 5: to have Simon Hoppey knock on your door and give
Speaker 5: you some salmon pattae and some gaspacho and some rhubarb crumble,
Speaker 5: we get very spoilt by him.
Speaker 2: You are very loved in the River Cafe because your
Speaker 2: foreign relationships. I've seen you. I've seen the way you are,
Speaker 2: you know, with the way to the way you have.
Speaker 2: You don't need to be their friend, but you are
Speaker 2: respectful on your kind.
Speaker 5: But there's some You've got some wonderful stuff that I've
Speaker 5: known over the years. And I like Bassam. I like
Speaker 5: teasing him about his trousers because he wears pink trousers.
Speaker 5: He wears yellow trousers, and I always say, you wear
Speaker 5: raspberry trousers. Pon, you know, Gilae start jumping around to
Speaker 5: Coldplay records and get a slap, you know, and we
Speaker 5: just do silly things. And you know, you know, I
Speaker 5: knew Rose a wonderful late great partner. I met Rose
Speaker 5: Gray in New York in the eighties and I remember
Speaker 5: going to Nell's Campbell, who's friend of mine, Australian knock
Speaker 5: at her nightclub and about three in the morning, she said, Darling,
Speaker 5: Litsky Row, are you hungry? And you think three in
Speaker 5: the morning, but yes, of course I am. Now, litzkit
Speaker 5: this is wonderful. Lady's going to make us something to eat.
Speaker 5: And Rose was so quiet, and she started bringing out
Speaker 5: these little samples of things that were so divine. I'm like, wow, Rose, amazing,
Speaker 5: and we just all sat and talked and you know,
Speaker 5: were saying those things like you should have your own
Speaker 5: restaurant here. You're brilliant.
Speaker 2: Think that's how it all started. She was with nellan
Speaker 2: it Nelts in New York, and then when Roe's decided
Speaker 2: to come back, that's when we started the River Cafe.
Speaker 2: I called her up and said, I think there's this
Speaker 2: little site in the middle of nowhere. She would go
Speaker 2: have a look, and we did, and the rest is
Speaker 2: kind of history. So we did that. She was just brilliant.
Speaker 5: There's been a lot of egos in the food business.
Speaker 2: I think that when I came into this profession, people
Speaker 2: warned me that it would be competitive, that people would
Speaker 2: be other chefs would be resentful that we were two
Speaker 2: women who didn't know very much, that we started from scratch,
Speaker 2: as it were, and I found it so kind and inclusive.
Speaker 2: And the people, I think the people who were starting then,
Speaker 2: the Jeremy Kings, the Sally Clark's, the Earlie Lee's, that
Speaker 2: Simon Hopkinson's were of a different We wanted to say
Speaker 2: we can do great food, we can do great atmosphere,
Speaker 2: and we can be respectful. You know. The idea of
Speaker 2: the old fashioned chef was something we did not want
Speaker 2: to be. And then when Rose died in two thousand
Speaker 2: and ten, it was staggering to see the support that
Speaker 2: I had. You know that suddenly a chef would arrive
Speaker 2: and you know, I say do you have time for
Speaker 2: a coffee, or a manager would come and say let's
Speaker 2: sit outside of a drink and somebody's accounts managers say
Speaker 2: do you need some help? Or Georgia looker, Telly, Jeremy
Speaker 2: King say do you need a recipe? I mean, it
Speaker 2: was very very supportive. So I think it hasn't been
Speaker 2: my experience of ego, you know, I'm sure it's there.
Speaker 2: But if you surround yourself, I'm sure it's the same
Speaker 2: thing in the theater. It's who you become friends with.
Speaker 2: Tell me about what you're working on, what is your.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 5: I've had some nice things to do the last few years.
Speaker 5: I did Missus and mar A Come with Cape Blanchette
Speaker 5: that was on FX. Since that was all about I
Speaker 5: played Betty for a Dan, which is a wonderful person
Speaker 5: to get to be as sort of iconic American feminist,
Speaker 5: and I loved doing that. I was in Canada for
Speaker 5: like ten months. Doing that was a long shoot, so
Speaker 5: I spent a long time there and then well then
Speaker 5: this whole lockdown thing happened. I've done not doing my
Speaker 5: shows at the moment. I'm sixty one now, you know.
Speaker 5: I just not that I'm old or anything. I just
Speaker 5: want to do stuff that I want to do. I
Speaker 5: always see what comes up, you know. I love being
Speaker 5: in London, more near my daughter and my grandchildren. And
Speaker 5: I had a long marriage. I was married thirty years.
Speaker 5: My husband died seven years ago now, and that was
Speaker 5: really hard to become someone I'm you know, I didn't
Speaker 5: want to become really, I mean, I like the version
Speaker 5: I could be of myself with him. You saw him
Speaker 5: many times, Alan, and we had a wonderful life together,
Speaker 5: and we were together, and I've had to really adjust
Speaker 5: to being another version of myself. But I'm doing good.
Speaker 5: You're doing good, and I'm happy, and he'd be happy.
Speaker 5: He loved his food, Alan, I remember, I remember.
Speaker 2: I can close my eyes and see him right now.
Speaker 5: Yes, he loved it here. And we you know, we
Speaker 5: came here with the children when they were tiny, and
Speaker 5: they used to roll around while we were eating our food.
Speaker 5: It was always so great to bring the kids here.
Speaker 5: Maybeor had her thirtieth birthday here, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think back to that birthday when you sang.
Speaker 2: And there are two things we can do. I would
Speaker 2: love you to tell me about your comfort food when
Speaker 2: you think of Alan, or you feel somehow less than
Speaker 2: hungry when sometimes just knew that bit of comfort. Is
Speaker 2: there a food that you would turn.
Speaker 5: To, well, I do like my chicken pie, my bird's
Speaker 5: eye chicken. I haven't had one of those in a while.
Speaker 2: What's my comfort food?
Speaker 5: I love chocolate. I love really good percent chocolate, but
Speaker 5: it has to be in the freezer. I put my
Speaker 5: chocolate in the freezer, and I break off one square
Speaker 5: every day, and I think it's very good for female brains.
Speaker 5: And I can eat a piece of dark chocolate and
Speaker 5: then I can write and write.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's it.
Speaker 5: That's beautiful answer Why I love chocolate Nemesis.
Speaker 2: The chocolate Nemesis, so you can get the word is
Speaker 2: so funny.
Speaker 5: Maybe always goes Nemesis Nemesis, and everything goes like Marston's
Speaker 5: Gorse film, you know, when they're taking drugs and goodfellas Nemesis.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous, Thank you, Jasey. The other thing we could
Speaker 2: do before we say goodbye and go have a piece
Speaker 2: of chocolate Nemesis is to sing a song. And would
Speaker 2: you like to sing your song?
Speaker 5: I think our listeners should now. I had a very
Speaker 5: very brief career as a pop singer in the early eighties.
Speaker 5: I had a wonderful song called they Don't Know About Us,
Speaker 5: written by the late great Kirsty McColl. So I sing
Speaker 5: sort of like Mini Mouse, You've taken Helius. I know
Speaker 5: you were so sweet and you rang me on and
Speaker 5: you said for your thirtieth And I said, would I sing?
Speaker 5: I thought, why would Ruth ask me to sing? I
Speaker 5: was so flattered, and I said, watched I sing, and
Speaker 5: you went, do you know the song I liked? You
Speaker 5: were on the phone, you went, It's very clear our
Speaker 5: love is here to stay, not for you.
Speaker 3: Whatever, and the day, the radio and the telephone and
Speaker 3: the movies that we know may just be passing fancies,
Speaker 3: and in time may go. But oh, my dear, our
Speaker 3: love is here to stay together.
Speaker 4: Weird going a.
Speaker 3: Long long way in time.
Speaker 4: Hi, rockies may crumble.
Speaker 5: You brought him tumble. They're only made of clay.
Speaker 3: But oh is here to stay.
Speaker 6: I love the River cathe and we love you. Tersay allman,
Speaker 6: thank you.
Speaker 5: Very much, so lovey to do this in path.
Speaker 2: This holiday season. If you can't come to the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: the River Cafe will come to you. Our beautiful gift
Speaker 2: boxes are full of ingredients we cook with and design
Speaker 2: objects we have in our homes. River Cafe olive oil,
Speaker 2: Tuscan chocolates, Venetian glasses of Florentine, Christmas cake made in
Speaker 2: our pastry kitchen and more. We ship them everywhere. To
Speaker 2: find out more or to play us your order, visit
Speaker 2: shop Therivercafe dot co dot Ukka.
Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.