Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2: I can honestly say that I've had breakfast, I've had lunch,
Speaker 2: and I've had dinner with Mary McCartney. The last time
Speaker 2: was breakfast. Mary brought her own porridge, Ruthie, You're gonna
Speaker 2: love it. It has vanilla, it has almonds, it has pecans,
Speaker 2: and it has poached maple syrup plums. How could I
Speaker 2: possibly disagree? She also brought her camera to take a
Speaker 2: picture of us for her newest book, Feeding Creativity. My
Speaker 2: friend Mary is a filmmaker, she's a photographer, she's a writer,
Speaker 2: and she's a chef. She comes from a family of
Speaker 2: creatives who are passionate eaters, and she has continued the
Speaker 2: beautiful legacy of her mother, Linda, who taught her the importance,
Speaker 2: meaning and beauty of food and.
Speaker 3: Cooking for people you love.
Speaker 2: I can't think of anything nicer than being with this
Speaker 2: incredible woman on a sunny Friday afternoon in June talking together. Wow,
Speaker 2: I'm just never leaving. I know I'm going to stay
Speaker 2: for breakfast, undry dinner. We've done lunch, but now we're
Speaker 2: going to have dinner. But that was the only time
Speaker 2: I've fed you is when I brought you breakfast. Okay,
Speaker 2: well the tables are turned. Now I'm coming over for dinner, lunch,
Speaker 2: and breakfast. I'll bring what would I bring you for breakfast?
Speaker 2: I have to think that everyone needs to know. Whenever
Speaker 2: we have any big celebration, I always phone you and
Speaker 2: I'm like, Ruthie, can you send me some of your tomatoes?
Speaker 3: And I do so.
Speaker 2: Mary, you know the drill. So what we're going to
Speaker 2: do is we're going to start with the recipe that
Speaker 2: you chose and you had for lunch, and it is
Speaker 2: risotto with zucchini flowers. And may I say it was
Speaker 2: absolutely delicious. Good risotto with zucchini flowers. Eighteen male zucchini flowers,
Speaker 2: six small zucchini, four tablespoons of olive oil, one medium
Speaker 2: red onion, finely chopped, three hundred grams of risotto rice,
Speaker 2: seventy five milli liters of Pino bianco, and a handful
Speaker 2: of fresh basil leaves. Remove the stamens of spiky sepals
Speaker 2: and tear each flour vertically into four strands. Slice the
Speaker 2: zucchini into very fine discs as thin as the flour strands.
Speaker 2: Heat the olive oil in a large pan and fry
Speaker 2: the onion until soft. Add the rice and stir until
Speaker 2: the grains are coated with the oil. Add the white
Speaker 2: wine and stir. Add two ladles of vegetable stock and simmer,
Speaker 2: stirring until the rice has absorbed nearly all of the liquid.
Speaker 2: Continue to add more liquid in the same way. After
Speaker 2: about twenty minutes of cooking, add the zucchini and then
Speaker 2: the flower strands. When the resorto was ready, the zucchini
Speaker 2: should still have a little bite, the flowers will have disappeared,
Speaker 2: and the rice will have a creamy coating. Add the
Speaker 2: basil leaves. Serve immediately.
Speaker 4: My name is Chelmnowen and I'm the executive chef at
Speaker 4: the River Cabot and I think she's brilliant. Thank you.
Speaker 2: So shall we talk about resort So I just had
Speaker 2: in this beautiful summer's day of the Ribber Cafe sitting outside,
Speaker 2: I just had the most beautiful corgett zucchini resorta, which
Speaker 2: was actually a part based one. Yes, and for lunch
Speaker 2: it was super fresh.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, what I loved is here you're not shy of
Speaker 2: extra virginal oil, and I literally it was so like
Speaker 2: the olive oil in it made it really glossy and
Speaker 2: really delicious and moorish.
Speaker 4: What we're doing that more is finding that some of
Speaker 4: the rosotto's that we would have made for previously in
Speaker 4: the last twenty years of my career or twenty three years,
Speaker 4: we always made resulta with only chicken.
Speaker 5: Stock or fish stock. We never ever made fatiable stock.
Speaker 5: But now it's like this. You know, vegans, vegetarians want
Speaker 5: to eat risotto.
Speaker 4: It's a previous food.
Speaker 5: It was just no, no, you can't have it. It
Speaker 5: seems strange, doesn't it. We used to fold suphiny flower
Speaker 5: even though like the stamen.
Speaker 2: Just give you more get it, which guy had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a different flavor, which was good and surprising. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a little bit more bitter in a really
Speaker 2: interesting way. It's probably a bit sweeter, yeah, and I
Speaker 2: fully approved.
Speaker 4: And also when you have this time of year now
Speaker 4: or some people not everyone might have the odd zucchini
Speaker 4: flower growing in their garden because we're coming into corjette
Speaker 4: season now, are we. It's really you know, July August, September,
Speaker 4: because it's exactly peak peak season.
Speaker 2: But as I say, I didn't realize that had white wine.
Speaker 2: That elevates it as well.
Speaker 3: And also that olive oil.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the oil is good, but it all makes everything
Speaker 5: taste good. Secret ingredient and it's really good for you.
Speaker 2: If I had to pick one ingredient, it would be
Speaker 2: a extra virgin olive oil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the average chef in the River Catholic
Speaker 4: Kitchen's probably.
Speaker 2: Actually it was delicious. I want to eat it all
Speaker 2: over again. And vegan, not only vegetarian, but vegan. Are
Speaker 2: you thinking more vegan? I am. I'm not fully vegan,
Speaker 2: but the book that I'm doing is, for instance, there's
Speaker 2: a bur less blanc sauce in the recipe book.
Speaker 3: Can tell me that well exactly.
Speaker 2: I was watching Rick Stein's Cornwall series and he made
Speaker 2: this amazing bur blanc sauce and I thought, I wonder
Speaker 2: if I use olive oil instead of butter, and I
Speaker 2: used plant based cream instead of cream, and I used
Speaker 2: a little bit of cornstarch to just make it glossy,
Speaker 2: and then the mustard and the white wine and it
Speaker 2: was incredible.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: So it's sort of this thing of experimenting, and the
Speaker 2: more and more I'm doing it, the more surprised I
Speaker 2: am with how simple and delicious it can be. So
Speaker 2: that's why I'm exploring more and more plant based. It's
Speaker 2: interesting also, and we will come back to this because
Speaker 2: I want to really talk about growing up. But what
Speaker 2: you're talking about is replacement, isn't it. It's saying, can
Speaker 2: I do this instead of that? Can I this instead
Speaker 2: of that? Can I think about where did this come from?
Speaker 2: And can I find another place? And I think it's
Speaker 2: a way of cooking with the kind of rigor which
Speaker 2: it says, you know, I'm going to really think about
Speaker 2: what I'm doing. But my big challenge and also excitement
Speaker 2: of what I've grown into doing is this thing of
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it for other vegetarians or vegans. I'm
Speaker 2: doing it for people that are wanting to eat more.
Speaker 2: You reduce their intake of meat, So it's more like
Speaker 2: trying to win people over. What I like to devise
Speaker 2: recipe wise is that you would almost eat it if
Speaker 2: you're a meat eater. If I get it right, you
Speaker 2: would eat it and then be like, wow, I had
Speaker 2: no idea. We had such a great time with your
Speaker 2: dad when we did the podcast with him, and it
Speaker 2: was one of the earlier ones, and he told us
Speaker 2: a story about making a turkey out of macaroni and cheese,
Speaker 2: and I just thought that was hilarious and so touching.
Speaker 2: And tell me what it was like growing up in
Speaker 2: a house that cared so much about where food came from,
Speaker 2: about the ethics, about the lambs that they saw on
Speaker 2: the hill. Was it always vegetarian? Mum and dad came
Speaker 2: I remember them saying, let's sit down and want to
Speaker 2: talk to you. And they said, look, we've decided we
Speaker 2: don't want to eat meat anymore. So they were like,
Speaker 2: we're not going to We're not going to cook it anymore.
Speaker 2: But they were always like, it's your choice. But at home,
Speaker 2: this isn't going to happen. And we were so young,
Speaker 2: we were like, you know, I don't know, like young,
Speaker 2: like five or six, but I remember it and it
Speaker 2: wasn't a problem because it was more of a problem
Speaker 2: eating out. But at home, my mum was a great cook,
Speaker 2: and you talking about the macaroni turkey she did. The
Speaker 2: big thing is we always would talk about it. So
Speaker 2: we'd sit down and we would talk about food. So
Speaker 2: my dad was very clever. He was like, well, look
Speaker 2: if we're not going to eat a turkey, what are
Speaker 2: we going to eat? Because we want to slice something
Speaker 2: and we want something at the center of the plate.
Speaker 2: So Mom and Dad would big debate. They'd be like,
Speaker 2: what are we going to have? And Mom was like, well,
Speaker 2: I could do this this macaroni thing, and then we
Speaker 2: could slice it, and then we could still So it
Speaker 2: all sounds a bit crazy, but that was the beginning
Speaker 2: of how it carries on even to this day, like
Speaker 2: I'll do it with my husband or my family. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I still want to eat that. I don't want to
Speaker 2: ever feel like I'm missing out on Like I don't
Speaker 2: want to be apologetic for you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to go to a restaurant and be like, oh, someone
Speaker 2: to look at me and go, oh, I'm sorry you
Speaker 2: have to eat that. I want it to be like
Speaker 2: if we get it right, If we get it right,
Speaker 2: somebody stuns, like, oh I wish I'd ordered that, and
Speaker 2: I have to eat this steak, and I'm like, but also,
Speaker 2: I'm not very judgy about it. I understand I have
Speaker 2: tasted meat, and I understand the like of I would
Speaker 2: like the taste of it. I just think because I've
Speaker 2: grown up this certain way. I've never considered it a food.
Speaker 2: I don't consider it a food, but I know that's unusual,
Speaker 2: although I didn't realize it was unusual till we kind
Speaker 2: of started promoting meat free Monday. And that's the only
Speaker 2: reason I got into to share recipes and then doing
Speaker 2: the cookbooks and the cooking show.
Speaker 3: Because about meat fruit Monday.
Speaker 2: Meat free Monday is a movement, and it's great because
Speaker 2: all it is is word of mouth.
Speaker 3: It's like, do you.
Speaker 2: Want to for any reason you want reduce you know,
Speaker 2: we often think we can't do anything for the planet,
Speaker 2: and it's like quite overwhelming.
Speaker 3: And so what I love about the idea.
Speaker 2: For meat meat free Monday is like you can have
Speaker 2: one day where you don't eat meat or fish and
Speaker 2: then you're not giving into that industry. So you can
Speaker 2: be like, I'm reducing you know, the amount of water
Speaker 2: it takes to grow beef and all of those kind
Speaker 2: of things. So it's sort of like a really easy
Speaker 2: way of reducing your carbon footprint or you know, being
Speaker 2: kinder to animals if you want to. And I think
Speaker 2: when people start doing it, what I found is people
Speaker 2: suddenly it sort of grows into your lifestyle. And also
Speaker 2: it makes us consider what we're eating a bit more
Speaker 2: because sometimes we just eat without thinking about it. So
Speaker 2: basically that's what happened. We launched meat Free Monday, and
Speaker 2: I kind of like, la, la la, We've just done this,
Speaker 2: and you know if people want to do it or not.
Speaker 2: And then I did at work, had people come up
Speaker 2: to me if I'm in a photo shoot and be like,
Speaker 2: I love meat Free Monday and we're trying to do
Speaker 2: it with our family, but I really don't know what
Speaker 2: to cook. And that really surprised me because I've grown
Speaker 2: up talking about food and like, what are we going
Speaker 2: to have on that gap on the plate if you're
Speaker 2: not having meat and fish? So then I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: I can share these recipes. And that's what mom did.
Speaker 2: That's why she did the cookbooks, because when people would
Speaker 2: come to our house, they'd be like, I would eat
Speaker 2: this way, of course, and she was like, here's a book. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: First of all, the influence that you've had and that
Speaker 2: your family has had on not eating meat has been enormous,
Speaker 2: and I think now there are so many reasons why
Speaker 2: we don't and why people don't to do with witness
Speaker 2: a hurricane in Florida, witness the climate, witness animals who
Speaker 2: are fed hormone. There's so many witnesses. But I think
Speaker 2: what you did, what your family did, was to say
Speaker 2: that actually, it could be delicious, it can be fun,
Speaker 2: it can be ethical, and it can be quite sexy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, starting out at the very beginning.
Speaker 2: So you grew up with a mother who was a
Speaker 2: passionate cook, and there were four of you were children,
Speaker 2: And what were meals like in the McCartney household when
Speaker 2: you were growing up, Well, they were homemade. Mum would
Speaker 2: really do the cooking. Like growing up, Mom would do
Speaker 2: the cooking. Dad would help, like he's a good sort
Speaker 2: of if you give him a job, like can you
Speaker 2: chop this? You know, he'd do it meticulously. But Mum
Speaker 2: was kind of very much. She would describe herself as
Speaker 2: a peasant cook. It's like, go to the cupboard, find
Speaker 2: what's in there, and make something delicious with it. Did
Speaker 2: she grew She grew up in America, like East Coast,
Speaker 2: New York and Scarsdale, and she grew up watching people cooking.
Speaker 2: They like had a cook in the house and she
Speaker 2: would gravitate towards the kitchen, but it was very much
Speaker 2: meat loafs and you know, very fifties and Barrican cooking,
Speaker 2: so in a way that kind of went into her
Speaker 2: vegetarian cooking. It was she often would say it's like
Speaker 2: meat as often like how you flavor it? So it
Speaker 2: sort of stemmed from that, and so I would cook
Speaker 2: with Mum a lot. Then it sort of grew into
Speaker 2: us kids sort of helping her, and then in a
Speaker 2: weird way, in the end, we sort of took over
Speaker 2: a lot of the cooking and would say like, what
Speaker 2: do you want to request? And you know, she'd love
Speaker 2: a fresh pesto or we had a lot of pasta
Speaker 2: and stuff. So then it's sort of like we would
Speaker 2: we carried on the cooking. Was it all of you
Speaker 2: or were you the kid that cooked? No, it was
Speaker 2: all It felt like it was a group effort. And
Speaker 2: then when I left home, I kind of had this
Speaker 2: choice to sort of you know, suddenly I'd grown up
Speaker 2: in this family where I had great food. We talked
Speaker 2: about vegetarian cooking all the time and this sort of joy,
Speaker 2: joy of celebration of cooking. And then I went to
Speaker 2: work in London. I was like oh, I wonder as
Speaker 2: a photographer, and I was like, I need to pick
Speaker 2: my own food. So I sort of had like a
Speaker 2: tuna salad sandwich in my lunch hour, and I loved
Speaker 2: the taste of it. But then all I could think
Speaker 2: about was like, I know how to cook differently, I
Speaker 2: don't need to eat this, and I was just thinking
Speaker 2: about that lovely tuna swimming in the ocean being plucked out.
Speaker 2: So it's like, unfortunately my brain doesn't work, or fortunately,
Speaker 2: what about your grandpa? I love it. My grandparents, well,
Speaker 2: we had I always considered myself half Liver Pudley and
Speaker 2: half American growing up, so my accent was this sort
Speaker 2: of odd mixture. So in Liverpool it was all like
Speaker 2: going to the chip shop and chip butties, real comfort food,
Speaker 2: very simple food. And then you know, the more New
Speaker 2: York deli sandwiches, pizza. The minute we would get to
Speaker 2: New York to visit our grandparents, it would be like
Speaker 2: straight to get pizza.
Speaker 3: Did they cook? To do grandparents cook?
Speaker 2: My grandparents were like when we grew up, we didn't.
Speaker 2: My step grandmother cooked a lot. So my mom's mom
Speaker 2: died in a plane crash in the early sixties like
Speaker 2: the first big sort of Pan American. So then my
Speaker 2: grandfather remarried I quite we thought of her as quite
Speaker 2: strict French American woman. But what she did was my
Speaker 2: mom taught me all my more peasant instinctive cooking. And
Speaker 2: then Monique. Growing up, she was a little bit it
Speaker 2: felt like children should be seen or not heard. But
Speaker 2: then when I became a teenager, we kind of bonded
Speaker 2: a bit more over her teaching me how. She taught
Speaker 2: me how to make pastry. She taught me how to
Speaker 2: make a soufle. She taught me how to make a
Speaker 2: partisserie apple tart, and so all of those things in
Speaker 2: my cooking now I kind of use. So like in
Speaker 2: the new cookbook, I take Dame Judy Dench my apple tart,
Speaker 2: but it's four ingredients, so I'm not making the it's
Speaker 2: a ready roll pastry. Then they slice apples brushed with
Speaker 2: olive oil and then glazed with apricot jam. Back to
Speaker 2: the growing up, So your mother would cook, would you
Speaker 2: have common to cook?
Speaker 3: No, we didn't.
Speaker 2: We sit down at a table because we go to
Speaker 2: school every day to come home and then you would
Speaker 2: sit down all together or would people eat at different
Speaker 2: times we would kind of have the home cooked meal.
Speaker 2: Maybe during school time. We'd eat slightly different times, but
Speaker 2: generally holidays and like summer holidays, we would be in
Speaker 2: Scotland and this kind of beautiful but remote farm. Or
Speaker 2: we'd go to Arizona in where mum sort of went
Speaker 2: to UFA and then became a photographer there. So we
Speaker 2: would go to these places where it was just us,
Speaker 2: so it was sort of all of us cooking and
Speaker 2: we would sit down and eat. We didn't have like
Speaker 2: housekeepers and chefs and chauffas and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: which I really value now because I know how to
Speaker 2: cook and I was sitting literally with my family under
Speaker 2: table talking endlessly about food and flavors.
Speaker 3: Have you carried that on with your own children?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And what I like to do is because kids
Speaker 2: can be a little bit unsatisfying to cook from, don't
Speaker 2: you think They can be a bit like how many
Speaker 2: bites do I have to have? And then when you
Speaker 2: cook for friends the same they're like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: so thank you. But I found once I started getting
Speaker 2: the kids involved, then they're really much more excited to
Speaker 2: eat it because they'll chop things the size they like it,
Speaker 2: or they'll kind of put in ingredients. So I think
Speaker 2: it's important because when I left home to become a photographer,
Speaker 2: I remember making a stew thinking it was exactly how
Speaker 2: my mum had cooked it, and it was really didn't
Speaker 2: have like the flavor. And I phoned her and I
Speaker 2: was like, Mum, this is just not working. And she
Speaker 2: was like, you need to have you put celery and cabbage,
Speaker 2: two ingredients I would never buy. And celery like is
Speaker 2: always the base of anything like arosoto a stew, so
Speaker 2: just those tiny little bits. She would make this amazing kiche,
Speaker 2: but it was like a souflekiche. And when I made it,
Speaker 2: I was like, Mum, this is not this showstopper that
Speaker 2: you pull out, and she was like, it's the oven temperature.
Speaker 2: It needs to be higher. And I was like, does
Speaker 2: these tiny little I think that it's of advice.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: People who I've talked to, so many of them have
Speaker 2: little books from either their grandmother or their mother, and
Speaker 2: I think, you know, they could get some of the
Speaker 2: recipes in a cookbook, but having that those handwritten recipe
Speaker 2: cards or being able, as you say, to phone up
Speaker 2: and get the hint or it's a connection. It's a
Speaker 2: connection you have when you're eating it. It's a connection
Speaker 2: you have when you're cooking it and talking to somebody
Speaker 2: about how they made it.
Speaker 3: Is so revealing.
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to mythbust this that plant based off vegetaran.
Speaker 2: Cooking is more ingredients, takes longer, So all of the
Speaker 2: recipes I develop, I try to sort of use the
Speaker 2: fewest ingredients and make it the quickest and the most easy,
Speaker 2: but also pleasurable, so it's not too many, you know,
Speaker 2: It's quite simple and enjoyable to make. Sometimes I question
Speaker 2: some of the recipes are too simple, but I love
Speaker 2: a shortcut and I love make ahead, like prepper head. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: because you want to enjoy the people that you're with,
Speaker 2: especially if you're having a dinner party, you can sort
Speaker 2: of make all of it, have it ready, or even
Speaker 2: make it the night before and then put it in
Speaker 2: to cook.
Speaker 3: Is your kitchen connected to your dining room? Is there
Speaker 3: a dining room in your hand I.
Speaker 2: Have a dining table which I also work at, and
Speaker 2: in your kitchen. It's quite important to me because growing
Speaker 2: up at home, my mum was clever that we would
Speaker 2: always gravitate towards a kitchen, because if you're cooking nice
Speaker 2: things and you smell them, where you're going to go.
Speaker 2: And we would have we had a nice like I
Speaker 2: have a table in the kitchen that people can sit
Speaker 2: around so they can be doing homework or chatting, or
Speaker 2: friends come over. Friends come over. We don't often move
Speaker 2: to another room. We always just stay in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Nice to be in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Also, when you're cooking by yourself, it's quite isolating. Comes
Speaker 2: much more of a performance, you know. I'm saying to
Speaker 2: one of our kids that the that one of my
Speaker 2: sons made it really took a long time to make
Speaker 2: a zucchini pasta, and his brothers were there with their
Speaker 2: wives and he brought it out and they just ate it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He said, wait a minute, guys, you.
Speaker 2: Know, what did you think of my pasta? And one
Speaker 2: of the girls said, what is it with you? Rogers
Speaker 2: and praise? But the thing is that, you know, it
Speaker 2: is a response. Whatever we do, it's a performance. It's
Speaker 2: something we care about and we do want to know
Speaker 2: how people feel. You know, I actually think it's more
Speaker 2: I think you're doing yourself a disservice. It's not wanting
Speaker 2: a response. It's like when you cook for someone, it's
Speaker 2: a real you're really putting yourself on the line.
Speaker 3: Like doing this, it's very exposing.
Speaker 2: It's very I feel every day when we cook in
Speaker 2: the River Cafe, you know, I has to say to Richard,
Speaker 2: you do a building and it's there for like hundreds
Speaker 2: of years and people drive past it and like it.
Speaker 2: I put a piece of fish on the table, and
Speaker 2: because we have an open kitchet, I can see the
Speaker 2: way people are looking and they go no, or they
Speaker 2: go yes, or they take a photograph or they don't,
Speaker 2: and you can see the response and you're as good
Speaker 2: as your last meal. I have photographed my rosotto today.
Speaker 2: Oh and I had like a beautiful What I like
Speaker 2: to do here as well is get all of those
Speaker 2: beautiful I had the roasted red pepper and the bloody gens. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the vegetables, which is nice because my husband always jokes
Speaker 2: I'm the vegetarian who doesn't really love vegetables because I
Speaker 2: will never be found eating like a piece of steam broccoli.
Speaker 2: It's like I like a dressing like it and a soup.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's all about a little favor.
Speaker 3: To cook, you know, to put.
Speaker 2: I say, if you're thinking about it dinner, because the
Speaker 2: way that I do most of the meals in our
Speaker 2: house now, I'm done with sort of second courses. So
Speaker 2: we have a pasta, a risotto or a Papa pomodoro,
Speaker 2: and then I just bring out the vegetables. You know,
Speaker 2: we have a lot of beans, We have spinach, we
Speaker 2: have peppers. We do have mozzarella, and sometimes I put
Speaker 2: you know, put a plate of pisciutto.
Speaker 3: But it's a lot of work vegetables.
Speaker 2: You know. I do think if you take a piece
Speaker 2: of fish, and you take a piece of meat, you
Speaker 2: put it on the grill or you put in the oven,
Speaker 2: you're kind of done with maybe some vegetables. If you
Speaker 2: decide to have a meal with vegetables, it is time consuming,
Speaker 2: you know, I love the time that it is much
Speaker 2: more time consuming. I understand what you're saying, but I
Speaker 2: would actually it's interesting this book that I've done the recipes.
Speaker 2: I've been really in drawing making the recipes because they're
Speaker 2: really quite simple, and I really think I'm always surprised,
Speaker 2: like I've done this caesar salad dressing, and I've these
Speaker 2: torn sour dough creutons, and when I put them the
Speaker 2: creuton into the caesar salad dressing, I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I can't believe I've made such delicious dressing.
Speaker 2: And my mouth died watering and I was like, this
Speaker 2: took me like thirty seconds to make. That's what I
Speaker 2: think about all the time, and how can I make
Speaker 2: something really easy? Like I'll pick an ingredient. I often
Speaker 2: start with the name of a recipe and then I'm like, now,
Speaker 2: how would I make that? Yeah, anyway, you can tell
Speaker 2: that I'm obsessed with food. We are when you left home,
Speaker 2: so you left your mom cooking for you, sitting around
Speaker 2: the table, and then you left home.
Speaker 3: What was it like? Did you have your own apartment,
Speaker 3: in your own kitchen? Did you eat out in restaurants?
Speaker 3: Did you tell me about leaving me the comfort of you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, move to London. I got a job around photography,
Speaker 2: and it was about I had an apartment and I
Speaker 2: would cook, so I would cook. But it was all
Speaker 2: much more like pasta and you know, just sort of
Speaker 2: not very simple kind of early twenties. It's more about
Speaker 2: going out and having fun than having people over for
Speaker 2: dinner parties. And then I think when I really really
Speaker 2: got into food and cooking, as I said, was around
Speaker 2: meat Free Monday, because then I was like, wow, I
Speaker 2: need to share recipes with people. And before I did
Speaker 2: it in my mom style, I would just have my
Speaker 2: like things in my cupboard and I would make it
Speaker 2: into something, whereas this was like, I'm actually going to
Speaker 2: write down this recipe and consider it. And that's when,
Speaker 2: And going back to what was saying about this, it's
Speaker 2: sort of you really put your heart on the line
Speaker 2: because you're sort of cooking for somebody and you kind
Speaker 2: of want to please them. So when you know you
Speaker 2: want something, as you say you want to, like you
Speaker 2: can see when some takes that first bite, if they
Speaker 2: light up, it's just like an electric shock of joy.
Speaker 2: But that's why The Great British Bake Off is one
Speaker 2: of my favorite because it's the drama. It's like, if
Speaker 2: you the cake can look beautiful, but if you bake
Speaker 2: it over bake it for like two minutes, it can
Speaker 2: be dry and like a chore to eat, and it's
Speaker 2: just like the pleasure of feeding people, I think is
Speaker 2: my main motivation.
Speaker 3: Are you a pastry ship? Do you cook cloths? I do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can I do, although, as I say,
Speaker 2: it was my step grandmother that sort of got me
Speaker 2: into that, and I like it because it's something I
Speaker 2: didn't grow up with at all. We would have, like
Speaker 2: my mum would make brownies, which was very exotic growing
Speaker 2: up in London eating brownies because that was before brownies
Speaker 2: were everywhere. But other than that, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 2: of baking. So one of the best ever bits of
Speaker 2: advice I was given was to get an oven thermometer,
Speaker 2: and then baking became a joy because otherwise before that
Speaker 2: would be like not cooking at the right temperature. And
Speaker 2: it's like the oven tells you the truth. The oven
Speaker 2: thermometer tells you the truth. I think that those you know,
Speaker 2: the recipes are both poetry and science, and the uncertainty
Speaker 2: of when something's done, the uncertainty of how long to
Speaker 2: cook it for. As you say, if you have a thermometer,
Speaker 2: you learn sometimes you know, you see, especially in these
Speaker 2: restaurant kitchens with the chefs that you know, we touch it,
Speaker 2: we can tell. But Rose had this great thing of
Speaker 2: taking a skewer and putting it into the middle of
Speaker 2: the fish and then seeing how hot it was. And
Speaker 2: we all work out our times. I have a skewer
Speaker 2: special one for like cakes that I love, but I
Speaker 2: have to keep it hidden away because I have four boys.
Speaker 2: I can't let them play with those things. I'm like
Speaker 2: somebody's gonna stab something. They cook, They do cook, and
Speaker 2: they love me baking like they love it. I don't
Speaker 2: bake a lot because I feel like I'm always cooking
Speaker 2: for people, like you need to cook a dinner or
Speaker 2: a lunch for a breakfast. But baking is like an
Speaker 2: extra treat, and also I love it. I've got these
Speaker 2: little glass sort of jars where it's like I put
Speaker 2: cookies in, or I'll make a loaf cake. But then
Speaker 2: I find that I'm the one going constantly like I'm
Speaker 2: a real picker. I love snacking something like I break
Speaker 2: a little bit of this cookie off and suddenly I've
Speaker 2: eaten the whole the whole thing. So baking is more,
Speaker 2: you know, a special treat. What do you have breakfast?
Speaker 2: Apart from I love peanut butter jelly, that's my American side.
Speaker 2: I like making pancakes, but usually it's toad toast porridge.
Speaker 2: I love porridge, and I love I've been making I mean,
Speaker 2: I love it. The consistency. I like, I've got this
Speaker 2: new chai pudding chai seeds with coconut milk and then
Speaker 2: a bit of vanilla and a bit of maple syrup,
Speaker 2: and then I chuck some pumpkin seeds in because it's
Speaker 2: sort of extra texture and so it's super healthy. But
Speaker 2: you put it into a little container and then in
Speaker 2: the morning it's turned into a beautiful coconut pudding and
Speaker 2: you can put all chopped mango or berries and nuts
Speaker 2: and so sort of My thing is I like to eat.
Speaker 2: Back when I left home, I am surprised by how
Speaker 2: I used to eat. It wasn't that nutritious. But now
Speaker 2: I'm about trying to eat. Everything I do is I
Speaker 2: want it to be, whether it's vegetabing or plant based.
Speaker 2: I want somebody else to eat it and go, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I can't believe how healthy that is, and
Speaker 2: it's really satisfying. Do you have feedback from the media industry. No,
Speaker 2: I don't believe you on that. Well they do, I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's interesting. I hadn't realized. I
Speaker 2: realized it because I work on my mum's the Linda
Speaker 2: McCartney food brand, and I was there, launched it with her,
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize that the meat industry has millions
Speaker 2: and millions and pounds promoting it and like that obviously
Speaker 2: vegetarian has zero. So you know what, I don't, I
Speaker 2: really do, honestly want to not judge things because I
Speaker 2: don't think honestly that from the research I've done into it,
Speaker 2: I don't think people forcibly made the industry, the food industry,
Speaker 2: the mess that it is now. And I really believe
Speaker 2: that it is a broken food system at the moment.
Speaker 2: And so what I like to do and what I'm
Speaker 2: actually pleased about is it feels like growing up, people
Speaker 2: like you're vegetarian.
Speaker 3: Do those shoes leather? Did you do that?
Speaker 2: Like trying to beat me up? I'm like, I know
Speaker 2: I'm not perfect, and I'm not saying that I am.
Speaker 2: But now what's good is like we it seems like
Speaker 2: we can have more of a conversation. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily agree with you, you don't necessarily agree
Speaker 2: with me, but let's have a conversation and try and
Speaker 2: openly discuss how we can sort of maybe all help
Speaker 2: this broken food system. When you say broken food system,
Speaker 2: the industry. What is broken about it? Well, like, the
Speaker 2: cattle industry in America is not even farming, it's sort
Speaker 2: of they have like a central unit somewhere in Middle
Speaker 2: America that has cameras just all different places, and the
Speaker 2: cows are up to their knees in waste, and they're
Speaker 2: not fed what they normally would be fed, and the
Speaker 2: meat's becoming contaminated. And when it's contaminated, instead of going, oh,
Speaker 2: let's feed them grass and give them more space, let's
Speaker 2: bleach the meat. You know, there's all these pretty horrifying
Speaker 2: But what I do is I don't delve too much
Speaker 2: into that. I feel like my purpose is to be like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to make your mouth water,
Speaker 2: I'm going to cook you something interesting. I'm going to
Speaker 2: be like, let's have something yeah, because other people are
Speaker 2: doing that. There's a really great documentary I love called
Speaker 2: Kiss the Ground, which I found really interesting because it's
Speaker 2: so positive and I like things that give me a
Speaker 2: bit of a solution and don't make me too freaked
Speaker 2: out about the future. And it was just very much
Speaker 2: about soil health and what we grow actually on. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very sort of simple message, so I'm like, let's simplify,
Speaker 2: try to create recipes with as guilt free as possible.
Speaker 2: I don't like guilt. We don't like guilt. Guilt as
Speaker 2: a useless emotions.
Speaker 3: It doesn't get.
Speaker 2: And so in terms of restaurants, when you were growing up,
Speaker 2: would you go to restaurants? Would your parents take you
Speaker 2: to eat, you know, Indian food or Greek food? And
Speaker 2: would you go to cities where perhaps your father was performing,
Speaker 2: and you know, suddenly be in a place and think,
Speaker 2: where are we going to eat tonight?
Speaker 3: Where was what? Did you discover? The Median restaurants?
Speaker 2: We would eat out Because we were growing up. Mum
Speaker 2: and Dad kept us all together as a family, so
Speaker 2: when they went on tour, we would go with them,
Speaker 2: which is why we all grow up so close together.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't sort of be left at home with other people,
Speaker 2: so we would explore. And what I love is this,
Speaker 2: I think it makes you more open minded, like you know,
Speaker 2: trying Japanese food at quite a young age. I remember
Speaker 2: in Japan in Japan, well, actually one of my earliest
Speaker 2: memories of Japanese was in England in London, and we
Speaker 2: went from my sister Heather's birthday and we were used to.
Speaker 2: We had a lot of sort of Chinese or Italian
Speaker 2: when we would go out usually, and this was like
Speaker 2: a Japanese restaurant, and we ordered the seaweed salad thinking
Speaker 2: it was going to be like the crispy Chinese, which
Speaker 2: is actually even seaweed, I feel, and it was literally
Speaker 2: like you that seaweed from We were like, eh, this
Speaker 2: is literally but it was. You know, it's great. It
Speaker 2: really opens your mind. It wasn't the most delicious meal,
Speaker 2: but I was like, wow, did I really.
Speaker 3: In a restaurant? Did you ever work?
Speaker 2: I didn't. I would have loved to because we were
Speaker 2: always traveling, all were away in the holidays, so I
Speaker 2: wasn't answer. But my friends would be like working in
Speaker 2: a pub or a restaurant, and I always kind of,
Speaker 2: I think you're someone who loves people. Yeah, and also
Speaker 2: you're like feeding people, and so well, maybe you'll have
Speaker 2: to come and have a job here for a bit.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I had that beautiful morning where you I write you
Speaker 2: and I say can I come and watch the you know,
Speaker 2: the prep before service and inviting me in. I felt
Speaker 2: so honored to be here, and I got to see
Speaker 2: why I think that's why you and I connect because
Speaker 2: I could see that it makes sense because when I
Speaker 2: come here, it's like as a family atmosphere. And when
Speaker 2: I sort of say to my kids when to have
Speaker 2: a special occasion, like for my mum, what would be
Speaker 2: my mum's birthday? I'm like, where do you want to go?
Speaker 2: Let's go celebrate her on her birthday? They will always
Speaker 2: say River Cafe and they behave when September twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: and they always behave impeccably when they're here. They don't
Speaker 2: do otherwise.
Speaker 3: So too.
Speaker 2: But it's this the way that you have everybody that
Speaker 2: in the restaurant, whether they're front of house, in the kitchen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they all kind of help prep the ingredients, talk about
Speaker 2: the menu. So there's this real and it actually, as
Speaker 2: we talk about it reminds me of my childhood. It's
Speaker 2: you talk about food, you're around food, and do.
Speaker 3: That with your children. Yeah, do you remember what it was?
Speaker 2: I think during lockdown you said that your son was
Speaker 2: with your dad for his twenty bus and they were
Speaker 2: in Sussex, and you said, can we send them some
Speaker 2: tomato sauce and some fasta And then they sent me
Speaker 2: a photograph. It's one of my favorite pictures of the
Speaker 2: two of them, so proud. Well you made his birthday
Speaker 2: because it was lockdown and he and dabbed together, and
Speaker 2: I was like, Ruthie, literally, yeah, they need some of
Speaker 2: your cooking.
Speaker 3: Well, food as we talk about it.
Speaker 2: We talk about food being as you've recollected memories of
Speaker 2: your beautiful mother and experiences with your father, and experiences
Speaker 2: with your children, and you know, cooking when you feel
Speaker 2: that you want to celebrate or you want to give
Speaker 2: or share, but it also is comfort. So I suppose
Speaker 2: I'm as beautiful Friday afternoon, and having talked about the
Speaker 2: resoto you had, I was wondering, if you have the
Speaker 2: food that you kind of reach for when you do
Speaker 2: need some comfort, what would that be. I am big
Speaker 2: into comfort eating, I really am. And there's one that
Speaker 2: hands down comfort food for me, and it's my mom's
Speaker 2: cream of tomato soup.
Speaker 3: Let us tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I actually asked her to teach me how to make it,
Speaker 2: and it was all sort of like it was actually
Speaker 2: inspired by a lobster beask. It's sort of this tomatoes
Speaker 2: and onions and celery and she would cook it all
Speaker 2: down and then she'd put it through one of those
Speaker 2: what is it? And then she would put cream and
Speaker 2: herbs in it. So I've kind of adapted and grown
Speaker 2: that recipe over the years, and I actually made it
Speaker 2: last night. When I have that, if I'm a little
Speaker 2: flat or down and I have that soup, it just
Speaker 2: brings me joy and it makes me happy. And I
Speaker 2: had this moment years ago where I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: food really does do that. I remember being in a
Speaker 2: bit of a bad mood and having like tomato soup
Speaker 2: and fries and then ice cream, and then I was
Speaker 2: happy and I was like, isn't that weird? But it's
Speaker 2: really jibbio. That soup is miss my sunshine.
Speaker 3: Well, you're my sunshine.
Speaker 2: I would have loved to have met your mother, because
Speaker 2: she comes through as a person who who just gave
Speaker 2: so much and created you. And I want to thank
Speaker 2: you for coming and you were my sunshine.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Look Book is now available in bookshops
Speaker 1: and online. It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated
Speaker 1: with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book
Speaker 1: has fifty delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a
Speaker 1: host of River cafe classics that have been specially adapted
Speaker 1: for new cooks. The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks
Speaker 1: of all ages. Ruthie's Table four is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.