Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here in the River Cafe garden with David Beckham.
Speaker 2: He has just cooked an exquisite tagatelly with fresher rolls,
Speaker 2: butter and parmesan. It's a bit much, really, as I
Speaker 2: don't go around scoring free kicks. I know David has
Speaker 2: a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues, and certainly
Speaker 2: a lot of fans, but when he comes to the
Speaker 2: River Cafe, it's with his family, Victoria and their four children,
Speaker 2: always sitting at table one, basking and family, love, sharing
Speaker 2: food and always having his favorite wine, Sassakia.
Speaker 3: Thank you, David, You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 2: You were describing cooking as one of the great pleasures
Speaker 2: the other night.
Speaker 3: It's one of my biggest passions, you know, along with wine. Now.
Speaker 3: I love to cook and I was in the kitchen
Speaker 3: the other day cooking for the kids and Victoria was like,
Speaker 3: can I help? What can I do? And I was like, honestly,
Speaker 3: sit down, have a vogron tonic, relax, be with the kids.
Speaker 3: This is what I love to do.
Speaker 2: And I really relate to that because you kind of
Speaker 2: far there's a method, isn't there. But it's also creative,
Speaker 2: and it's also you're doing it for your kids who
Speaker 2: you haven't seen all day, and there's the anticipation, and
Speaker 2: I think that is something why you probably like to
Speaker 2: cook and I like to cook.
Speaker 3: It's just one of the main reasons why I love
Speaker 3: to cook, because it's why I love lego also, you know,
Speaker 3: because it relaxes me, you know, and I'm forty seven
Speaker 3: years older and I'll still sit there with you on
Speaker 3: my own actually till two, three, four in the morning
Speaker 3: doing lego because actually it relaxes me. And it's the
Speaker 3: same cooking for the kids. I love to cook for
Speaker 3: my parents. I love to cook for my friends. And
Speaker 3: I think that it's obviously come from, you know, my upbringing.
Speaker 2: What was your mother a cook? Cooking?
Speaker 3: My mum cooked for me and my sisters every single night,
Speaker 3: and I had hard working parents, working class parents. When
Speaker 3: my dad was out from six in the morning till
Speaker 3: seven in the evening. My mom was a hairdresser and
Speaker 3: still is a hairdresser. She used to spend her evenings
Speaker 3: obviously cooking for me and my sisters, and then at
Speaker 3: about eight or nine, o'clock in the evening. Some old
Speaker 3: ladies would arrive and she'd be doing their hair too,
Speaker 3: eleven twelve at night. So yes, my mom used to
Speaker 3: cook for us every evening, every Sunday lunch. And my
Speaker 3: grandma was exactly the same as well. So that's really
Speaker 3: my childhood with my grandparents. And my granddad was Jewish,
Speaker 3: so every Saturday when we turn up, my grand would
Speaker 3: have this most amazing chicken noodle soup with the motsameal dumplings.
Speaker 3: So I was brought up That's what I was brought
Speaker 3: up on. And the jelly deals. One of the delights
Speaker 3: of been from the East End of London was pie
Speaker 3: mash and jelly deals and liquor. That was what I
Speaker 3: was really brought up on. It was the one treat
Speaker 3: that I used to go with my nan my grandad.
Speaker 3: We used to go down to Chapel Market. There was
Speaker 3: the most amazing pie and mash shop there and we
Speaker 3: used to sit in there, sawdust on the floor, sat
Speaker 3: on wooden seats and eating our pie mash and jelly deals.
Speaker 3: What was in the pie Actually, it's just mince meat.
Speaker 3: It's just mince meat. The pis are the most amazing pastry,
Speaker 3: and I always get them to turn them upside down
Speaker 3: on my plate. And then it's a big dollop of mash.
Speaker 3: And the mash is literally there's no there's hardly any
Speaker 3: butter in it. It's just salt and the potatoes. And
Speaker 3: then the liquor is this most amazing green sauce. It's
Speaker 3: made with parsley and stewed eels, and then I put
Speaker 3: some spicy vinegar over the top, with some a little
Speaker 3: bit of salt and lots of pepper. But the jelly
Speaker 3: deals are the thing that not many people that I
Speaker 3: know love the jelly deals. My grand used to like
Speaker 3: them stewed. I literally like them in the jellatine. So
Speaker 3: they come up in slices, so the earls are cut up,
Speaker 3: and they come in this this plastic pot and I
Speaker 3: just pour vinegar and pepper on it, and I have
Speaker 3: it at least once a week. Now.
Speaker 2: Many people that I talked to talk about the food
Speaker 2: of their parents, but the memory of their grandparents is
Speaker 2: really important to them.
Speaker 3: We used to go there every weekend because my dad's
Speaker 3: parents actually had passed away before we had all grown up,
Speaker 3: so we always used to spend weekends at my man
Speaker 3: and grandad's house. So my mom's mom and dad and
Speaker 3: we used to turn up at their at their flats
Speaker 3: in London, and the first thing that I would do
Speaker 3: and I walked through the door in my grand's flat
Speaker 3: would open, I'd open the fridge and there she'd have
Speaker 3: fresh strawberries. Every Saturday morning that we turned up, she'd
Speaker 3: have fresh strawberries and a big pot of sugar.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you talk about that because my husband,
Speaker 2: Richard designed house which was a very strong route from
Speaker 2: the park through the garden, through the courtyard into the
Speaker 2: house and into a garden. But my route, I always
Speaker 2: used to say, was from the courtyard into the house
Speaker 2: and into the fridge. You know, my first stop was
Speaker 2: always at the fridge because again his mother always had
Speaker 2: food for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, they had a very They had a very
Speaker 3: small flat. So as you walk in, literally the toilet
Speaker 3: was on your left and just slight a foot fervor
Speaker 3: was the fridge. So you open the fridge and there
Speaker 3: there was, you know, the most amazing fresh strawberries every
Speaker 3: Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning. Because my grandfather used to
Speaker 3: go to work at about eleven o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: So what we'd do is we'd arrive really early, like
Speaker 3: nine o'clock. My grand would have this thick, freshly cut bread.
Speaker 3: She'd make the most amazing sandwich. I'd sit and watch
Speaker 3: like the football on a Saturday morning before my grand
Speaker 3: had left, and then he'd go to work and then
Speaker 3: go and watch Spurs play. He was in the print,
Speaker 3: so he was in the print, and he worked up
Speaker 3: until he was eighty eighty one eighty two, he still
Speaker 3: went to work. And yeah, he's an amazing man. And
Speaker 3: he was a Tottenham fan. So he used to go
Speaker 3: and watch Tottenham in the afternoons. And that's where my
Speaker 3: gran and my mom used to take me down to
Speaker 3: Chapel Market and we used to go and have piemash.
Speaker 2: How old would you have been?
Speaker 3: Oh my god. We went there from as long as
Speaker 3: I can remember, I mean two three years old and
Speaker 3: up until up until they passed away.
Speaker 2: So there's your mother. That's interesting that she worked all
Speaker 2: day and she cooked for you at night, so you
Speaker 2: sat at the table and then worked again. Would she
Speaker 2: have done a weekly shop or would you stop at
Speaker 2: the market or how would she do all that?
Speaker 3: Do you think I mean she'd do. She'd probably do
Speaker 3: a weekly shop shop, I'd say, But you know, my mom,
Speaker 3: like I said, she'd drop us to school in the mornings.
Speaker 3: Then you know, you do hairdressing throughout the day, pick
Speaker 3: us up from school, bring us home, cook us, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever we were going to eat that evening, which was
Speaker 3: either she used to make the most amazing gammon and chips,
Speaker 3: which again it's one of those things that I still
Speaker 3: have now. It was amazing gammon, fried egg, pineapple from
Speaker 3: a tin, coleslaw and chips, and it was one of
Speaker 3: my favorite meals and she still cooks that for me now.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was one of the things that I
Speaker 3: used to love.
Speaker 2: When you left home and you were no longer had
Speaker 2: your mother to cook, but you also you had such
Speaker 2: a love for food and an understanding of the connection
Speaker 2: of food and the importance of sitting at the table.
Speaker 2: What was that like when you left that?
Speaker 3: I was actually quite excited because I left home when
Speaker 3: I was fifteen years old to move up to Manchester
Speaker 3: when I was fifteen, and then I was in lodgings.
Speaker 3: So I was in lodgings for about four years and
Speaker 3: then I bought my first house and actually I was
Speaker 3: quite excited about it, because, in all honesty, I spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time in the kitchen with my mum,
Speaker 3: you know, helping her with the dinners, and then when
Speaker 3: she would do her hair dressing in the evenings, I
Speaker 3: used to make the cups of tea and bring the
Speaker 3: biscuits or the cake for all my mum's ladies that
Speaker 3: she was doing their hair. So I used to love
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. So get in my own house
Speaker 3: having to cook for myself, actually, I was very excited about.
Speaker 2: Did you entertain what did you cook for?
Speaker 3: I would entertain I'd have a few friends around, you know.
Speaker 3: I did like to go out for dinner, but my
Speaker 3: favorite evenings were and still are, you know, cooking for
Speaker 3: the kids, cooking for friends, you know, and especially when
Speaker 3: I have when I have like a lot of time,
Speaker 3: you know. Pretty recently, I was in isolation actually for
Speaker 3: five days because I've just been to Italy. So I
Speaker 3: came back and on one of the last days, Victoria's
Speaker 3: parents had a party and I couldn't actually go to it,
Speaker 3: so everyone was out of the house, and I actually
Speaker 3: secretly loved it. So I literally had two most amazing
Speaker 3: cuts of meat and one was a t bone and
Speaker 3: I had some English wagou. I poured one glass of
Speaker 3: the most amazing red wine that I treated myself too,
Speaker 3: because I was on my own, feeling sorry for myself,
Speaker 3: looking forward to watching the football in the afternoon. On
Speaker 3: my own, I set the barbecue up, and I think
Speaker 3: there's nothing better than when you have time to get
Speaker 3: everything right you have, you know, I had a nice
Speaker 3: tomato and onion or shot salad, and I literally had
Speaker 3: the meat and a glass of wine, and it was
Speaker 3: the most amazing meal that I'd had for a long time.
Speaker 3: So those are my perfect afternoons. Even it was actually
Speaker 3: quite thick. I don't like to brag, but absolute perfection,
Speaker 3: that's your idea of perfect. Well, I've been watching Chef's
Speaker 3: Table that morning and it gave me the idea of
Speaker 3: obviously doing you know, the barbecue in the afternoon. So
Speaker 3: I've been watching the butcher. There was a there's an
Speaker 3: Italian butcher on the chef's table. So I put it
Speaker 3: on the grill, cooked it for six or seven minutes
Speaker 3: either side, and it was quite a thick piece, a
Speaker 3: bit of salt, bit of pepper, and I like I
Speaker 3: like my meat. I like it rare medium, a push,
Speaker 3: but rare, more rare, and it was it came out perfect,
Speaker 3: and it was only me in the house, so I
Speaker 3: ate it.
Speaker 2: I like it when it's when if it's thick enough,
Speaker 2: then you can get it really black on the outside.
Speaker 2: So there's that contrast.
Speaker 3: You think of the the So that's what it was
Speaker 3: like that day. So that was the perfect day. And
Speaker 3: I had a bottle of Italian massetto, so I had
Speaker 3: Cora vand it and poured a cup of glasses for myself.
Speaker 2: Tell me, we've been talking about food, what do you
Speaker 2: feel about wine?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm at the end of the dawn from
Speaker 3: the East end of London, so really I only saw
Speaker 3: my mom and dad drinking either you know, blue nuana
Speaker 3: or lambriusco, and that was as good as it really got.
Speaker 3: So then when me and Victoria actually first started dating,
Speaker 3: we used to go to this restaurant in the Midland
Speaker 3: Hotel in Manchester called the French Restaurant, and it was
Speaker 3: very fancy and we used to go in there and
Speaker 3: we used to sit in the corner and we used
Speaker 3: to order the most expensive bottle of champagne and the
Speaker 3: most expensive bottle of wine, not knowing what we were drinking.
Speaker 3: We were just wanting to have a nice night out
Speaker 3: and know that we were drinking something great, even though
Speaker 3: we had no idea what we were drinking. And I
Speaker 3: think that was my first introduction into tasting a grape wine.
Speaker 3: One of the first things, remember, I want to say,
Speaker 3: it was either a sixty two or sixty seven Lautour,
Speaker 3: And that was my first introduction into tasting something that
Speaker 3: I thought was great. Even though I had no idea
Speaker 3: whether it was great or not, I knew that I
Speaker 3: was tasting something special. So at that point, obviously I
Speaker 3: was still, you know, a professional player, so I never
Speaker 3: really I was never a big drinker. I used to
Speaker 3: have a glass of wine or you know, every now
Speaker 3: and again, but I never really drank throughout my career.
Speaker 3: But then I really started loving wine when we first
Speaker 3: moved to la and we used to go to Napa
Speaker 3: Valley a lot, and I used to sit with people
Speaker 3: like Bill Harlan or An Colgan, and I think that
Speaker 3: there's nothing better than actually sitting at a table with
Speaker 3: someone that knows what they're talking about and what they're drinking,
Speaker 3: and what they're smelling and what they're tasting annoyingly. Victoria
Speaker 3: is very good on that. It is annoying.
Speaker 2: Actually she has she can say this wine tastes of
Speaker 2: cigarette smoke. Yes, and that's exactly what.
Speaker 3: She can say. And I'm like, yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't taste that, but no, but annoyingly,
Speaker 3: she's very good at that, and she'll never admit it.
Speaker 3: She'll always say, well, David's the expert. Then then you know,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden she'll come out with all that
Speaker 3: smell that tastes a little bit smoky, and you know, so, yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know, I love wine.
Speaker 2: Does it matter to you if you order a wine
Speaker 2: that you might not be happy?
Speaker 3: You know what I have? How does it make me feel? Actually?
Speaker 3: I think it can make or break an evening in
Speaker 3: my opinion. I really do think it does. Even though
Speaker 3: you know that you're going to get great food in
Speaker 3: the restaurant wherever you are. For me, if I have
Speaker 3: picked the wrong wine, wrong glass of wine, or the
Speaker 3: wrong bottle of wine, I wouldn't say it ruins my evening,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it does ruin my evening. And I get
Speaker 3: quite emotional about food and wine, you know, when I'm
Speaker 3: eating something great. I want everyone to try it, you know,
Speaker 3: And that's unfortunately I'm married to someone that has eaten
Speaker 3: the same thing for the last twenty five years since
Speaker 3: since I've met Victoria. She only eats you know, grilled fish, steam, vegetables.
Speaker 3: She will very rarely deviate away from there. The only
Speaker 3: time that she's ever probably shared something that's been on
Speaker 3: my plate was actually when she was pregnant with Harber
Speaker 3: do you remember, And it was the most amazing thing.
Speaker 3: It was one of my favorite evenings. I can't remember
Speaker 3: what it was, but I know that she's not eating
Speaker 3: it since. To be honest, I've been so lucky because
Speaker 3: in a way, when I left Manchester and I had
Speaker 3: to leave Manchester United, I was obviously devastated at the time,
Speaker 3: but it's really really educated me in living in different countries,
Speaker 3: eating different foods, trying different things. And when I was
Speaker 3: playing in Italy for eleven months, i was on loan
Speaker 3: at AC Milan, so i'd train in the morning and
Speaker 3: in the afternoon. I decided to take a culinary course
Speaker 3: in Italian cuisine and I absolutely loved it. So I
Speaker 3: did that lesson or as I had a few private
Speaker 3: lessons and then it was in a class, but everybody
Speaker 3: was very focused on what they were all doing, so
Speaker 3: they weren't even bothered that I was. Obviously at the time,
Speaker 3: it's a big deal to be playing for an Italian team.
Speaker 3: So I did the culinary course because my kid's favorite
Speaker 3: food is Italian. So I wanted to perfect making the
Speaker 3: perfect ragu. I wanted to perfect doing the perfect risotto.
Speaker 3: I always had it in my head that doing a risotto.
Speaker 3: Making a risotto was difficult. Actually it turns out not
Speaker 3: to be that difficult. So why did they teach you
Speaker 3: about making Obviously the stock is really most important, and
Speaker 3: literally you're stood there for twenty minutes kind of making
Speaker 3: sure that you're keeping an eye and everything that's not
Speaker 3: going too dry, that it's not going it's not got
Speaker 3: too much liquid in it. And then obviously the ending
Speaker 3: is the part where everything comes together with the parmesan,
Speaker 3: you know. So that I just loved that time because
Speaker 3: I got to perfect the perfect well, I think it's
Speaker 3: the perfect ragu, making fresh pasta from scratch, and obviously
Speaker 3: the risotto. So that was one of the things that
Speaker 3: I loved about living in Italy, you know, And it's
Speaker 3: the one thing that I love about Italians and the
Speaker 3: Italian food and the culture because for a start, it's
Speaker 3: all about family. It's all about food and the wine,
Speaker 3: of course, but whether you go into a small cafe
Speaker 3: on the side of the street or you're in the
Speaker 3: middle of Tuscany with an old Italian mama making the
Speaker 3: most amazing pasta, everything that I ate and I have
Speaker 3: always eaten in Italy has always been astonishing.
Speaker 2: Everything I would say when you say that it's family,
Speaker 2: I always tell the story that I was once in
Speaker 2: a room in a house with Richard with his family
Speaker 2: in Tuscany, and I heard this huge argument going on
Speaker 2: downstairs in Italian and I thought, oh, no, you know
Speaker 2: what's going on. So I kind of made my way
Speaker 2: downstairs and there were two sisters and they were in
Speaker 2: the kitchen and they were having this unbelievable argument about
Speaker 2: whether or not with a papa pomodoro, which is a
Speaker 2: bread soup of just bread and tomatoes. One wanted to
Speaker 2: add a bit of water at the end and the
Speaker 2: other one didn't. And you know, so it's not even
Speaker 2: village to village, family to family, region to region. It
Speaker 2: can be sister to sister. You know that there's the
Speaker 2: right way to do it, and they care so.
Speaker 3: Much, so much, and even when they're not arguing, it
Speaker 3: sounds like they're arguing. They're so passionate about it.
Speaker 2: I hope we'll cook together more. And they loved having
Speaker 2: you in the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Kitchen that well, Thank you, David, wonderful, Thank you for
Speaker 3: having me. You're welcome, Love you too.
Speaker 2: In the next episode, you can hear David cooking Apasta
Speaker 2: in the River Cafe kitchen. Then we'll continue our conversation
Speaker 2: about football, family and food. To visit the online shop
Speaker 2: of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot co
Speaker 2: dot uk.
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,
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