0:00

Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a

0:02

production of iHeartRadio and Adamized

0:04

Studios.

0:10

I'm often asked if it's intimidating cooking

0:12

for celebrities who come to the River Cafe.

0:15

My response is that the guests who really worry

0:17

me are other chefs. It's

0:19

a bit like that today, as I'm about to interview

0:21

the interviewer mary Ella Frostrop,

0:24

especially since I was watched the subject

0:26

for the Guardian's Lunch with mary Ella, Mariella

0:29

wrote, despite such eloquence

0:31

that Ruthie is a disaster of an interview.

0:35

My questions get longer as her answers

0:37

get shorter and inevitably end

0:39

with a question for me. She's all, don't

0:41

you think? And do you find? And have you noticed?

0:44

But I'm reminding myself that I'm not here

0:46

with Marielle the journalist, but Mariella, my

0:49

good friend. When Mariella books a

0:51

table in the River Cafe, it's most often

0:53

for two, usually with her husband,

0:55

human rights lawyer Jason mccute. Watching

0:58

her is watching someone who's diverted

1:00

only by what she is eating and drinking, as

1:03

she's entirely focused to the person

1:05

she's with, sitting close, talking,

1:08

smiling, laughing and listening.

1:10

Her daughter Molly, who's working here

1:12

as a bar back, told me about growing up with

1:14

her mother, cooking together, eating

1:17

together, traveling together

1:19

to Norway, to Greece, all over the world.

1:21

Now, Mary Elle and I will do the same. Intimidated,

1:25

why would I be? Don't you think? Do

1:28

you find? Do you notice?

1:31

Oh, Ruthie, that's the best introduction

1:33

I've ever had, ever, ever in

1:35

my entire life. Don't you think? How

1:38

would you like to be described? Ruth I'm

1:43

sorry I said that, but it is true.

1:45

That's true, said, it is really sweeter, he

1:47

said, you just kept turning the questions back coming.

1:50

So today I'm just going to listen to you and

1:52

not tell you, don't you think? But before we

1:54

do, first of all, I'm so happy you're here. I

1:56

love having Molly here. She's just

1:58

fantastic.

1:59

I think she feels like she's at a West

2:01

End show every night of her

2:03

life because.

2:05

She's a bar back. So she's behind the

2:07

candy.

2:08

Who did the cooking? When you were in

2:10

your house, well.

2:11

In our house, it's very it was very fifty

2:13

to fifty.

2:14

Do you have Sunday lunches? Was the one

2:16

meal that you would have.

2:17

That would be we would have Sunday lunches, and

2:20

I'd say the most important thing of our Sunday

2:22

lunch was probably the Yorchhire puddings. My

2:24

dad was obsessed with them. He'd have like fifty.

2:27

At least your mom grew up in Norway. Do you

2:29

have a connection food connection to Norway?

2:31

So we go to Norway sometimes on

2:33

holiday because I mean, it's so beautiful and

2:35

obviously, like mum likes the fact that we

2:37

all get to see we sort of web.

2:39

We're from and stuff.

2:41

But I wouldn't really say that

2:43

that was a sort of dish. But

2:45

that's this sort of cheese that Mum's obsessed

2:47

with, but none of us.

2:48

Like so much.

2:50

Yeah, it's something it's like and it's a very brown

2:53

color, and it's very smelly and sweet

2:55

and weird.

2:56

It's not for me.

2:57

I can't understand none of my family of conversion

3:00

to all with them. I think it's probably

3:02

heavily processed and not necessarily

3:04

good for you. But it is a taste of childhood.

3:07

It's called ya toast and it's

3:09

a goats cheese. But it's

3:12

I'm going to make it sound disgusting. It looks

3:14

sort of caramel color.

3:15

It's a caramel.

3:18

Broone cheese. Because the thing about Norwegian

3:20

is that it's very literal. You know, if you pass a lake

3:22

and it's got brown water, it'll be called Brune Lake.

3:25

You know, if you pass a house and it's the first one in the road,

3:27

it'll be called Who's one, And

3:29

so Brune cheese cheese

3:32

called okay.

3:33

This gives us a chance to start at the beginning,

3:35

at the very beginning, Norway. You

3:37

were born now.

3:39

Where born in Oslo in

3:41

nineteen sixty two, where

3:44

my dad had moved

3:46

back. He and my mother met at Edinburgh.

3:48

She was a very young art

3:51

student. She was sixteen when they first

3:53

met. She started Dark College

3:55

two years early. She was an incredible talent,

3:58

but this was the end of the nineteen

4:01

fifties. He was studying English

4:03

at Edinburgh University, as a lot of Scandinavians

4:05

so they still do. But a lot of Norwegians

4:07

particularly go to Edinburgh. So

4:09

they met there and when she was eighteen

4:11

she gave up Art college and went back with

4:14

him to Norway, where

4:16

I was born, and then my brother

4:18

and then my sister in fairly quick

4:20

succession.

4:21

Do you remember the food that you ate when you were

4:23

in Norway. What age did you live?

4:26

Six?

4:26

Oh, so you might not remember.

4:28

Yeah, but you know, there's a really weird thing I think

4:30

that happens. I mean, firstly, my

4:32

main food memory of Norway

4:34

is actually because at that time, in the nineteen

4:37

sixties, they really didn't have many ingredients

4:39

at all. You know, there wasn't this sort of globalization

4:42

of food, and you know, you'd get strawberries,

4:44

but only in midsummer. There

4:47

was a lot of pickling fish and

4:49

vegetables, salt

4:51

cord, which I didn't like at all, but

4:54

I do remember, and I still love it. There's an

4:56

arctic charred Arctic chard that

4:58

they did. That's just I mean, I think, one of

5:00

the most delicious pieces of

5:02

fish or fishes in

5:05

the world. But because of that,

5:07

I think most I do remember things

5:09

like cheese. We would always have cheese

5:12

at breakfast. And strawberry

5:14

jam wasn't like strawberry jam that you get here

5:16

in jars and things. It would be fresh made

5:19

strawberry jam. They'd make it and then it

5:21

would last until the next summer, and

5:23

so you would have a saucer full

5:25

of it and you would just spoon

5:27

it onto your cheese, on

5:30

your crackers, or on your rye

5:32

bread.

5:33

And I remember things like that.

5:35

But the thing I remember most was I

5:38

think it was difficult times, and I think it was difficult

5:41

with my parents, and they weren't very happy

5:43

in Norway, very young, and my mom

5:46

had sort of given up all of her artistic

5:48

expression to go there, and suddenly she had three

5:50

children. And it was the nineteen fifties and Norway

5:53

was very very conservative then,

5:56

and my father used to travel

5:59

a lot because heat of his work.

6:01

He was a journalist. And he came

6:03

back from Tanzania,

6:05

a trip to Tanzania, and he arrived

6:08

back and this will show you how long ago it was, with

6:10

a box full of fruit. It

6:12

had things we'd never seen before.

6:15

It had mangoes and these

6:19

extraordinary melons and then breadfruit

6:21

and just all of these things, and

6:23

it was like a miracle. It was like sunshine

6:26

had just it was like all the windows had opened

6:28

and sunshine just blazed into

6:31

our apartment. And I'll never forget it, you

6:33

know. It was a really really strong and striking

6:36

memory from a period of time where I don't

6:38

have.

6:38

That many memories.

6:40

But what I was going to say about sense memory to do

6:43

with food is I don't remember much about the food

6:45

there, but when I go back, I'm like

6:47

the you know, the woman in the tin drum in the

6:49

film, I'm like her, the one who can't

6:51

stop eating fish. I'm sat there with

6:53

jars of herrings. I can't get enough

6:55

sourcial. You know, I can't pickle everything,

6:59

pickled gerkins, everything.

7:01

And did your father miss it? Do you think did you

7:03

have any of it in Ireland?

7:05

Or oh, we used to get suits, We would get pickled

7:08

fish and jars because you couldn't get that in Ireland.

7:11

Then I'm not sure that he

7:13

missed it. He was never much of a food man,

7:15

my father. He was more of a drink man, okay,

7:18

so his interest in food

7:20

was sort of minimal.

7:22

Can you remember sitting down at nels

7:24

with them? And as a child, and

7:26

was for dinners and lunches.

7:28

It was the nineteen seventies, really, and

7:31

I don't think we did a lot of sitting down for

7:33

meals, And also because it was always

7:35

complicated, they split up when I was eight, so

7:39

I think those sort of family moments

7:42

were very few and far between,

7:44

which is probably why Jason and

7:46

I have been so kind of committed to creating

7:48

them to appoint where my children are like.

7:50

Oh no, not Sunday lunch

7:52

please.

7:53

But as you grew up in Ireland, so what was

7:56

it like growing up? You were quite poor?

7:58

You said that you had very little money.

8:00

Yeah, and so food.

8:01

You know, in terms of, you

8:04

know, defining childhood food memories,

8:06

they tend to be not very.

8:10

Not very warm and cozy ones.

8:12

I mean the awful, awful memory

8:15

ones when we really had run out of food. And

8:18

my brother, who was always the one who tried

8:20

to beat emmolient, he is still

8:23

the kindest man you'll

8:25

meet, and he was trying to make light of

8:27

the fact that there literally was nothing in the cupboard,

8:29

and he was like, look, look I've got

8:31

spaghetti and I've got golden

8:34

syrup.

8:35

It'll be delicious.

8:36

So you wouldn't have he wasn't going

8:38

to have the golden syrup. After the spaghetti

8:41

he made it for us with the golden

8:43

syrup.

8:44

Was one of the most disgusting combinations

8:46

I've ever come across. Did you say that at

8:48

the time, No,

8:50

No, we grained him and yeah, this is good lovely

8:53

sugar, sugar and starch I

8:55

can have.

8:56

It's like rice pudding. I suppose how long

8:58

did you live in Ireland.

8:59

For till I was sixteen?

9:01

So your father died?

9:03

He died when I was fifteen, he

9:06

was forty six. He had a heart attack

9:08

for years seventy

9:11

eight, and then I moved to London

9:13

in seventy nine.

9:14

So when you came to after the

9:16

tragedy of your father's death, is that when you moved

9:18

from Ireland right after that? The

9:21

whole all three of you and your mom?

9:23

No, no me?

9:24

What by yourself? Yeah? How old were you?

9:27

Well, I'd already left home. I

9:30

left home when I was fifteen. I

9:32

lived with my mom for quite a while, but my

9:35

stepfather and I didn't get on and he was not nice,

9:37

okay, And so then I went to live with my

9:39

father, but that was very difficult because

9:41

he was by then a sort of fully fledged alcoholic,

9:45

and when my stepmother left

9:47

him with the

9:49

two children that they'd had, and

9:52

I ended up living with him

9:55

on my own and trying to go to school and

9:57

kind of manage what was really

9:59

a fast deteriorating situation.

10:03

And he and I were living in some rented house

10:05

in the far reaches of Dublin,

10:07

and i'd get home from school and there would just be

10:10

stuff piled in the in

10:12

the kitchen and everything, and so I

10:15

decided I had to leave. But going

10:17

back to my mother's wasn't really an

10:19

option. So a very nice

10:22

pair of lesbian sisters, not

10:25

a couple, but they said I could rent

10:27

a room from them. I'd met them

10:29

working in a restaurant in Dublin called the Blackboard

10:32

where I used to work at weekends.

10:34

And there as.

10:35

A waitress, yeah, and or

10:37

a waiter as we say now, And

10:40

that was for too, A lovely gay couple called

10:42

Peter and Melvin, who really looked after me very

10:45

well, because I mean, what kind of a state

10:47

I must have been in? No idea, but apparently

10:49

I was a very good waitress, I can imagine.

10:51

I loved it. It was my favorite jodea.

10:52

What did you love about it?

10:54

I loved the interaction, and I

10:56

loved that it made me feel quite efficient, and

11:00

I loved the whole I think

11:02

the theater Robert actually really

11:06

drama. Yeah, And I just used

11:08

to love get But I think maybe I also just loved getting

11:10

to work because it was it was.

11:12

Spike, you were still going to school but working.

11:14

When I first started working there, and then

11:17

I worked there full time for about four

11:19

months, and then a friend of mine gave me a job

11:21

in his recording studio and

11:23

so I did that until I left for London.

11:25

In Dublin, yeah, that's when I met,

11:28

you know, all of the people that we have in common.

11:32

I recorded U two's first demo

11:34

tapes when I was, yeah, fifteen

11:36

and he was seventeen.

11:38

He hates it when I remind him that

11:40

he's older.

11:43

But yeah, that was all when I was working at Keystone

11:45

Studios. But after my father died,

11:47

Dublin started feeling I don't know. I think

11:50

my father got off at a job at the Sunday Times,

11:52

probably about four years

11:54

before he died, and I think in

11:56

my head that lodged as that would

11:59

have been the moment that he could have changed

12:01

his life. That was the pivotal moment

12:04

where things could have changed for the better,

12:06

and he didn't take the job. And I think he didn't take the

12:09

job because he was afraid and because he was

12:11

an alcoholic, and so

12:14

I think for me that always represented

12:17

this sort of golden light that you could you

12:19

could fly towards. And

12:22

so after he died, I became quite

12:24

resolute about getting out, So I

12:26

took the ferry from dune Leary with my friend.

12:29

Oh you had another friend.

12:31

She didn't know. She just had an address

12:33

for us.

12:35

There was a she had some Irish friends

12:37

who were living in a squat or

12:39

friends of friends who were living in a squat in

12:42

Stoneleigh Street in West London, actually not

12:44

very far from here, off Latimer Road.

12:46

And we arrived there on a bright summer

12:49

sunny morning and were greeted at

12:51

the door by just this crowd of Irish

12:54

men mostly, And I was like, married,

12:56

what was the point in coming all the way here if

12:58

we're just going to live with the whole house full of Irish

13:00

people. But they were incredible to us

13:02

and made they were so hospitable. Sixteen

13:05

sixteen, she's eighteen,

13:08

and they gave us a

13:10

room that there was already two of them living in, but

13:12

we were allowed to share it.

13:13

I mean, there were.

13:14

Amazing days, you know, I think it was It

13:16

was a really great time to be young. You

13:18

know, there was huge adversity, but

13:21

at the same time life just felt full

13:24

of possibility and you could afford to rent places

13:26

for cheap. You know. We were only in the squad for about

13:28

three months, and then I got a job

13:31

at Blushes on the King's Road.

13:33

I don't know if it's still There was a wine bar and

13:36

it used to be so amazing on a Saturday. Then

13:38

you know Bob Geldof and Paula

13:40

because they live right around the corner from and they used

13:42

to arrive on a Saturday

13:45

morning at about eleven o'clock

13:47

at the tube station on the King's Road

13:49

and then they would promenade up

13:51

the King's Road and they would be followed by this

13:53

sort of retinue of It

13:56

was like a medieval you know. It was like Henry

13:58

the Eighth that arrived and all these people would following

14:00

along in their wake. And again it

14:02

was like theater watching, you know, and it was punk

14:05

and it was just incredible and exciting.

14:07

Do you remember what you ate at the time? Would

14:10

you would you go to restaurants or would you cook

14:12

at home? Or would you I'd

14:14

cook at home.

14:15

I'd cook at home.

14:16

Food wasn't great in London then, you know, it

14:18

wasn't and I didn't really

14:21

care so much. I mean, I was so

14:23

obsessed with just survival and getting

14:25

on, survival and getting on.

14:27

I mean, it was the nineteen seventies, it was quite

14:29

a bit of sort of beef Burgignon and you

14:32

know, black Forest ghetto, nothing

14:34

to write home about. Everyone was eating

14:36

spaghetti bolonnaise because that was very exotic

14:39

and Italian, but not.

14:43

Baudelais Nouver. That

14:46

was always quite exciting.

14:47

Yeah, I remember that

14:49

through the eighties, but not so

14:51

much the food really.

14:53

Yeah, so you're you're a sixteen year old

14:55

in London, You're working in blushes, you're living

14:58

in the Irish house, You're father

15:00

has just died, and

15:03

and you have a vision. Did you know what you

15:05

did? You know you wanted to be the writer

15:08

or the journalist or did you

15:11

did you go back to school? So you

15:13

left school at fifteen?

15:14

Yeah, wow, I did my you know, the

15:16

equivalent of GCSEs

15:19

And then yeah,

15:22

it just wasn't possible. And

15:25

for a while I thought I'll go back to school,

15:27

and then I just realized that that wasn't going

15:29

to happen. And then I didn't really have

15:32

a dream, you know, because it

15:34

was very much about survival really, and it

15:37

was day to day and I think

15:39

I was just very lucky, you know, I had lots.

15:41

I think you probably must have been fantastic kid. Just

15:44

to have that courage and to you

15:46

know that.

15:46

They had courage when you're that age, don't you.

15:48

I think maybe because you don't know you

15:51

know, now I think I'm much less brave than I was

15:53

when I was sixteen years old or

15:55

eighteen years old, because now you have

15:57

the benefit of or not of

15:59

having, mean what the world can do

16:02

risk for risk and the risk

16:04

and the jeopardy, whereas then it's

16:07

just about you know, possibility, isn't

16:09

it. And I felt possibility in London,

16:11

you know that

16:14

energized me and just kept

16:16

me going, you know, I mean it

16:19

was it wasn't of course, it wasn't easy,

16:21

you know. And I missed my dad so badly,

16:23

you know, because I think as a daughter,

16:25

when you lose your father at that age,

16:29

you kind of deify them, and

16:32

so I'd elevated him to this impossible.

16:34

Kind of Olympian

16:37

height.

16:39

And so I spent an awful

16:41

lot of my late teens

16:43

in early twenties, you know, finding really

16:46

broken men and trying

16:48

to fix them because I felt guilty

16:51

that I hadn't fixed my dad. And I really think

16:53

it took me till my thirties really

16:55

to escape from the kind of tyranny of

16:57

his perfection, which you

17:00

know and realize who he was, you

17:02

know, which doesn't make me love him

17:04

any less, but it certainly helped

17:07

to create a more functional

17:10

life for myself.

17:11

And did you drink? It was the fact that

17:13

he died of sort of alcohol?

17:15

No, I think I drank, but I don't think.

17:17

I mean, I've never I'm not a very addictive

17:19

apart from cigarettes, which I was hopelessly

17:21

addicted to for sort of all of my twenties

17:24

and early thirties, which

17:26

is mad because my father died of a heart

17:28

attack and was chainsmoker. But drink,

17:31

I mean, you know, it was the nineteen eighties. I

17:33

was in the music business. I had a lot

17:35

of fun then, Yes, because the next thing

17:37

I did was get a job at a record company because

17:40

of the studio that I'd worked in in Ireland.

17:42

You know, it was always people who

17:44

you'd met who then would introduce you to somebody

17:47

else, and you know, sometimes

17:49

you'd get a little chink of an opportunity

17:51

and you would grab that and then you would

17:53

and the journalism and the television

17:56

only happened again just by accident,

17:58

you know, I worked for this record company, worked

18:00

with Bob Geldof. I worked

18:02

on band aid and live Aid, and

18:05

he stole my desk to sort

18:07

out band Aid from and you know, I was

18:09

there on the day when we all went to that

18:12

studio in West London and all of those people.

18:14

It was a kind of amazing, magical time. Then

18:17

I set up my own little PR company. But at

18:19

the same time they were looking for a

18:22

TV presenter for

18:24

a music program that Channel four were making, and

18:26

it was going to be all world music. And that was

18:29

what was really exciting about it to me because it

18:31

was my father always used

18:33

to bring back amazing records from

18:35

Africa, Miriam mckeeba and

18:37

just incredible music,

18:41

and so I was really excited to get

18:43

involved in it, and they gave me the job.

18:45

I was appalling.

18:47

I mean, someone sent me like a YouTube

18:49

clip the other day, you know how everything lives

18:51

on.

18:51

YouTube of me presenting.

18:53

Yeah, it was called Big World and I

18:56

spoke in a monotone

18:58

like that, and I was clear, just shit scared,

19:02

really self to do

19:04

that. But but so I

19:07

did that recovery years and then it.

19:08

Just did you have a domestic life as

19:10

well? Did you live with anybody and have to think about

19:13

a kitchen or food or bringing shopping

19:15

home or did you just basically food

19:17

was smoked and.

19:21

Smoked and drag.

19:23

But I did get married when I was eighteen to

19:26

another lost soul who's a wonderful

19:28

and old friend of mine now called Richard

19:30

Jobson, who was the lead singer in this

19:33

punk band called the Skids.

19:37

Yeah Skids, great.

19:38

Yeah, into the valley

19:40

working for the Yankee dollar, come on.

19:44

Anywhere.

19:46

But Richard was a really interesting

19:48

and unusual character. He was another lost

19:52

kid. He's left home at sixteen. He

19:54

had, you know, huge intellectual

19:56

aspirations, many of which he went on to

19:58

realize a huge determination. And I

20:00

think we sort of fell together out

20:03

of loneliness and we tried, you know, we gave

20:05

it our best shot for two kids,

20:07

and we stayed together till I was twenty one.

20:10

Wow, so young.

20:12

So we had a domestic life then

20:15

and very rudimentary. I used to

20:17

make things like grilled pork chops

20:19

with mustard on them, and

20:22

a lot of potatoes, spaghetti, bolinnaise.

20:25

Cookbooks do you remember using.

20:28

I had the Constant Spry cookbook

20:31

that my mum had given me because

20:33

that was sort of her bible. So she did

20:36

yeah, she used to bake more than cook.

20:38

I mean, when I think about food that my mum

20:40

made, she used to make incredible gingerbread.

20:44

She did make a mean spaghetti. Bolonnaise

20:46

she used to make. She made really good

20:50

normal food. You know, she'd make

20:52

a great shepherds.

20:52

Part did she come from.

20:55

She came from an English family.

20:56

She's half Scottish,

20:58

half English Scottish. She was Scottish

21:00

really, but she learned, you know, we used to.

21:02

She used to.

21:02

She taught me how to make love scass, which is a

21:06

it's a very rudimentary Norwegian stew,

21:08

which is beef and potatoes but

21:10

cubed very small and

21:13

cooked in their own broth for

21:15

quite a long period of time. And she used

21:17

to make these things called

21:19

milkering, which are that's

21:22

sort of yogurts basically that

21:25

Norwegians used to make. And it was very weird because

21:28

both she and my stepmother used

21:30

to make these yogurts. Once I left

21:33

her house and went went to live with my dad, every

21:35

cupboard you opened would have yogurt.

21:38

You know.

21:38

Breeding was your father's second

21:40

wife.

21:41

She wasn't.

21:42

They weren't married, but I mean,

21:44

no, she was Irish, but I think had

21:47

an influence.

21:48

No, they all wanted to impress them.

21:50

He had this thing, you know, which

21:53

clearly worked for every woman in

21:55

his life. And I don't think my

21:57

mum and my stepmother were the only ones

21:59

either.

22:00

So yeah, he has

22:02

a thing of.

22:02

Cooking for you know, seduction

22:05

as well, something that people can remember.

22:07

She can you remember meal where you wanted to impress

22:09

somebody and you cooked.

22:11

I've never cooked when I wanted to impress.

22:14

Well, you're joined by Judy Dad, she said the same

22:16

thing. He might be came down and he said something to

22:18

her like you know. She said, this agent is

22:20

coming, so I'm going to make him the best omelet. She

22:22

tried to figure out how to make the best omelet

22:25

and he ate it and she was

22:27

looking and he said, I think you should stick to acting or

22:29

something like that. Right

22:41

now, I'm going to ask you your shares

22:43

of all the recipes that we have in all our

22:45

books. You said that you wanted to make spaghetti

22:48

bongolay, So would you like to read the recipe

22:50

for spaghetti vongolai.

22:52

I will read the recipe for you.

22:55

Four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil,

22:57

four clothes of garlic finally chopped,

23:00

three dried red chilies crumbled,

23:03

three kilos of small clams,

23:05

a bunch of flat leaf parsley finally

23:08

chopped, and then brackets divided.

23:10

Talk about organization, sea

23:12

salt and freshly ground black pepper.

23:14

Four hundred grams of spaghetti, one

23:17

lemon quartered fairly precise.

23:19

I think only listeners will realize

23:23

that serves four. You heat the oil

23:25

in a large frying pan over a medium

23:27

heat, Add the garlic, and fry

23:29

over a medium heat for one minute until

23:32

just beginning to brown.

23:33

That's where I go wrong. Often did

23:36

you just.

23:36

Have bigger pieces of garlic and then you can take

23:38

them out or just cook it slowly? Yeah?

23:40

Maybe add

23:43

the crumbled chilies, clams, and two

23:45

tablespoons of water. Cover

23:47

and fry over a high heat for about five minutes

23:50

until all the clams open, discarding

23:52

any that don't. Add half

23:54

the parsley to the clams. Season

23:56

with salt and pepper. Drain the spaghetti

23:58

and add to the clams. Serve

24:01

with the remaining parsley and the lemon

24:03

quarters.

24:04

And invade it with Carlota. Hi,

24:08

I'm carloying with shap at the River Cafe.

24:10

So I'm going to start sweating off the garlic with

24:13

Passley sports, so it's sweating rather

24:15

than frying. I think that's the important thing exactly.

24:18

Yeah. Now a bit of chili, now,

24:20

flick of chili.

24:22

Dried chili, dry chili, yes, always

24:24

dried chili. So that's starting

24:26

to cry off.

24:27

And at this stage I'm going to add the clams.

24:29

You so you've scrubbed that, you've done all the hard

24:31

work with them, because that is the boring thing,

24:33

isn't it? And these

24:36

clams are from where because the tastiest

24:38

clams I think comes from the Bay of Naples,

24:40

and I think it's far.

24:42

It's a bit rubby, are

24:44

they sorry?

24:46

So this.

24:48

This point we just want to get a little bit more heaty to the

24:50

plan and then I'm going to so usually

24:52

here we use.

24:53

Savee to put the bongola in.

24:57

Nice to sort of drink it and deleting

25:00

the dish as well. It's multi purpose. You

25:03

can overcook the clams as well,

25:06

can't you. So what's too long?

25:09

You want to catch them just as they're opening

25:11

up?

25:13

And will they if you stop the heat when

25:15

they're opening up? Will they keep opening up the

25:17

way you want them to?

25:22

So they say they're starting to oisten up.

25:24

So I'm going to finish and

25:28

the start you wore to the wine and the oils are

25:30

going to come together and sticking the

25:32

saws.

25:33

So listening, I

25:36

bet you can. She's

25:39

got a brilliant hand tipping technique.

25:44

You need to finish it with parsley

25:48

freshness.

25:50

So there we have it. Oh my god, the

25:53

most spectacular thing. And now I feel

25:56

confident my

25:58

love it. Thank you very much.

26:00

Related well,

26:05

first of all, why did you choose us?

26:06

It's entirely my favorite dish,

26:09

mussels and clams. And there was a period

26:11

in my childhood when we lived on

26:13

the west coast of Ireland in Connemara, and

26:16

it was on one of my mother's kind of escapes

26:19

from realities, which used to happen

26:21

quite often, and we went to live there for six

26:24

months and we were very poor, and

26:27

for about a three month period we

26:29

just ate potatoes that we could dig

26:31

up and mussels which we picked from the

26:34

rocks. And you'd think that actually that would have kind

26:36

of knocked any desire to eat them ever

26:38

again out of me. But I think there was a

26:40

sort of four or five year hiatus,

26:43

maybe a bit longer. I think probably till I

26:45

first came to London, and then I re embraced

26:47

them. And then I used to go

26:50

to Naples with my best friend and we used

26:52

to have spaghetti with

26:54

Cottsen Fassolaris from

26:56

the Bay of Naples, and I mean

26:59

ever since then. And then Molly weirdly,

27:01

my daughter, from

27:03

when she was a toddler, her absolute

27:06

favorite thing was muscles and clams,

27:08

and it's quite odd to see a little

27:10

toddler there kind of throwing the shells

27:12

over a children and digging into a plate

27:14

of seafood. So I think many

27:17

influencers have combined to make it my favorite,

27:19

but I think it's really difficult

27:21

to make because it's so simple.

27:24

There's no hiding.

27:25

It is there, there's no hiding, and I really loved

27:27

that. I love food like that. I don't really like very

27:29

complicated food, you know, sort

27:32

of very French high end.

27:34

Never really enjoyed it much much.

27:36

Prefer you know, really great fresh ingredients

27:39

and a simple recipe,

27:42

which is probably why I've been found here for

27:44

the last you know, I used to see.

27:46

I first came to the River Cafe when you first

27:49

opened virtually in the nineteen eighties.

27:50

Yeah, nineteen eighty seven reopened and

27:52

when we were only opened for lunch. Do you remember we.

27:54

Were only opened for lunch.

27:55

I think when I first started coming and used

27:57

to have a wine from Antsi of

28:00

Venice called I

28:02

obviously wasn't paying the bills then that was the beginning

28:04

of my career. But I used to come with a

28:06

friend and we used to have this

28:08

wine called Where Dreams.

28:12

Yeah, that label wasn't it.

28:14

It was amazing And

28:16

even then this felt like the most

28:18

glamorous place on earth because it felt

28:20

decadent in all the best

28:23

ways. And actually here

28:26

was one of the first places, and

28:28

I know it's on a different level from the pub

28:30

on Grafton Street or whatever, it

28:32

was one of the first places where I really felt

28:34

that sort of bubble of excitement and

28:37

conversation that you get on a Friday

28:39

night in a pub in Dublin to be passionate

28:41

about something, and food is something you can be really

28:43

passionate about. And

28:46

I mean with my I was

28:48

not a great sort of domestic but

28:50

actually to go through a long period where I had a house

28:52

in Sussex that I used to rent with this couple

28:55

friends of mine, Nicola and Helena.

28:57

They're still my friends and we used to cook

29:00

together.

29:00

Yeah, and they were some of the happiest years of my life,

29:03

you know, cooking together every weekend.

29:05

And I actually learned a lot that Nikola was a

29:07

particularly good cold cook, and they were

29:10

very precise, even things like a I

29:12

remember teaching me to make a basil

29:15

omelet. But it's a bit like the

29:17

wonga lay. It's only about the

29:19

ingredients because it's so yeah

29:22

yeah, and you have to you know, and that I think

29:24

I just loved the sort of satisfaction that

29:27

comes from that.

29:28

But then when you have kids, Yeah, so what was

29:30

that like? Well, I loved cooking.

29:32

Going back to marrying Jason. Did he grow

29:34

up on a domestic house where meal

29:37

and like yours or was it the same?

29:39

No, very unlike mine.

29:40

His mum did everything and she was in she's

29:43

a really good cook. She still is, you know, I mean,

29:45

very English, quite sort of nineteen

29:47

seventies. She had one of those trolleys

29:49

that's hot that keeps things hot, and she would

29:52

wheel it in, sit by the table

29:54

and you know, the plate to be in they're warming and the

29:57

food lots of sort of castle roles

29:59

and pop ghosts and things like that.

30:01

But she's a really good cook and it always

30:04

looks perfect. She's a good baker as

30:06

well. And Jason is probably

30:09

the better cook in our house. He

30:11

loves, absolutely loves cooking, and

30:14

I feel like I loved it during those years

30:16

in Sussex, and I loved the early

30:18

days of cooking for my kids. But

30:20

then something happened when they

30:22

just make faces about

30:25

the food you cooked and never like it,

30:27

and it became such a negotiation

30:29

in the house that I kind of lost the

30:31

heart of it. I mean, now I'm back, but

30:34

Jason sort of took over in a

30:36

lot of ways.

30:37

But do you eat really healthy? It's not

30:39

consciously, it's like the food that you like.

30:41

It's the food that I like. I love fresh

30:43

things, I love, you know. One of the things that

30:46

gives me huge satisfaction is we've got a garden

30:48

which during the spring period of the year

30:50

is just absolutely wall to all wild garlic.

30:52

It can almost be noxious the smell,

30:55

and I just love to gather it. And I make

30:58

pesto in industrial quantities.

31:00

Good. Oh, I have to. And when you go when

31:02

you go to Greece, do you cook there?

31:04

Yeah, we go to Greece a lot.

31:06

I get like a craving for I used

31:08

to go to Greece from the age of sixteen, and

31:10

so you know, Greek islands,

31:13

you get there, the smell, the pine,

31:16

the Greek salad.

31:17

Again, it's everything simple. I

31:20

just love it. I just love it.

31:22

And so actually, you know there, we tend to

31:24

eat out quite a lot, but we'll make, you know,

31:26

a big lunch with Greek saladin. We'll make some dips

31:28

and things, and you know, we might get

31:31

some.

31:31

Fish and grill it. You know, we keep it very simple,

31:33

but.

31:33

You have a lot of friends over it. You do, like,

31:36

do you prefer going to people's houses or having

31:38

them come to you or do you like them?

31:41

I prefer going to people's houses because

31:44

then I don't have to clear up. Jason

31:46

prefers having people over because I

31:48

clear up after him and he loves

31:50

cooking. But no, we do have people over

31:52

a lot, and there's nothing there. I

31:55

don't think there's anything nicer than a table full

31:57

of people and they're all eating and talking. And

31:59

you know, I tend to make big stews

32:02

and things that I don't have to

32:04

do a lot of cook Our kitchen

32:07

is all open, like yeah, of yours. And when people

32:09

talk to me when I'm cooking, I can't cope

32:11

with it. I can't concentrate. So

32:13

I have to make things that are already

32:16

and I love slow cook things and osubuko

32:18

and things like that.

32:19

And yeah, so how do you combine

32:22

working with cooking? You know, the chad

32:24

or how did you bring up children? And

32:27

for through your career and you

32:29

know, I have a home life. Did you brush

32:31

from one thing to another? Did you have was

32:34

it hard? Did you just do it? Do you think?

32:36

I think same as every woman just you know,

32:38

I mean, it's so much every woman's

32:40

experience these days, isn't it. And it's kind of

32:42

the bit that wasn't factored into

32:45

our great desire for you

32:47

know, equality and independence. So

32:50

I think it's really hard. You know, it

32:53

was less hard for me because I had, you

32:55

know, enough money to have help.

32:57

But I think it's a really difficult

32:59

thing. And I think, you know, for most women, it's

33:02

a burden of responsibility that you just

33:05

you perform it because you

33:08

don't have a choice.

33:09

You feel a kind of choice, you know, it is really

33:11

terry. I think also, as you say, it's economic,

33:13

you know, so when people say, oh, you

33:16

know, there are all these kids who are growing up on Peter

33:19

McDonald's. But the fact is that if you have a night

33:21

job and you have a choice, I often think

33:23

I like to think that maybe the mother has a choice

33:25

of doing homework with her kids or cooking a

33:28

fresh meal for them, maybe cut you

33:30

know, And I think that's.

33:31

I think if you've done a pretty

33:33

hard graph job that isn't based on your

33:35

passion or any of the luxuries that that

33:38

you know, some of us have. If you've done a

33:40

hard graph job all day and then you get home

33:42

and you've got hungry, grumpy kids,

33:45

I don't think you want to sit down and start creating

33:47

a meal. I mean, for all the sense

33:49

of you know, holistic happiness

33:52

it might offer, I don't think you're in a place

33:54

to actually think about

33:57

or do that.

33:58

You know. Yeah, you know we saw

34:00

in lockdown when kids didn't go for you

34:02

know, the school, they didn't have their one meal

34:05

the day. And I was, you know, talking to Jamie

34:08

the other day about you know, the goal now

34:10

is to make lunches so nutritious,

34:13

because you know, that's the only meal the kid's

34:15

going to have.

34:15

But we should have free school meals, I

34:17

mean universally across the nation,

34:20

you know, And one of the first things we need to do

34:22

is recognize that there's real hunger in this country

34:24

and address it. And the idea that

34:27

you know, we can sit around

34:29

and have our amazing meals

34:32

and somewhere else, just down the road, there's a

34:34

kid who isn't getting separate. It

34:36

makes me feel physically

34:39

sick, and I just don't understand why

34:42

we can't address it, you know. I

34:44

mean, I spent my whole childhood worried

34:47

about things like food, and

34:50

I know, you know, I kind of

34:52

know the smell of poverty, and I'm frightened

34:54

to death of it, you know. And I've run so

34:57

far in the opposite

34:59

director, but I'm still, you

35:01

know, rubbish at kind of handling it because

35:04

it's a fear. It's a deep, deep rooted

35:06

fear, and we're bringing

35:08

up, you know, a whole generation of kids, so experiencing

35:11

that.

35:22

When you're working your column,

35:25

when you're writing on your campaigns, on

35:27

your books.

35:28

Do you eat well?

35:30

You Since I started my

35:32

radio show at the times, I've lost a

35:34

lot of weight. I mean not a lot, but I've

35:36

definitely got thinner, not

35:38

intentionally, but because it's a lunchtime

35:41

show, and lunch is my favorite meal.

35:43

Like I can eat like a horse at lunchtime.

35:46

I love it.

35:47

I can still sleep at night, you know, because once your

35:49

menopausal and postmenopause, sleep can

35:51

become a bit of a challenge.

35:54

And so lunch is my favorite meal. And four

35:56

days a week I can't have lunch, and

35:59

I just don't eat until after I finished

36:01

my show, so I end up having maybe

36:04

one and a half meals a day. You know, I have supper,

36:07

but I have a breakfast tea to you know, kids

36:09

high tea suffer. I always eat about

36:11

six thirty or seven. I don't really like

36:13

breakfast very At weekends, I have breakfast.

36:15

I make breakfast for the kids at

36:18

the weekend. I love doing that. You know, it makes

36:20

you feel. There's so few moments as a parent,

36:22

I think where you feel I've got

36:25

this, yeah, you know, and making them breakfast

36:27

is one of them, you know, whether it's banana

36:29

pancakes or scrambled eggs and bacon

36:31

or whatever avocado on toast. I

36:33

mean, it's ridiculous. My children

36:35

in are seventeen and eighteen, and they still at the

36:37

weekends will come in and kind of go, what's

36:40

for breakfast?

36:40

Mum? Yeah, but that will never stop.

36:43

I hope it doesn't because it makes me feel

36:45

useful.

36:46

I think going home and being fed, and I

36:49

think, you know, we all grew

36:51

up with kind of role models. I certainly, you

36:54

know, did, and I see myself sort of acting.

36:56

My mother was incredibly child oriented.

36:59

You know, she never blamed a child, never told

37:01

off a child. The child was always right, oh

37:03

my. You know, we had a lot of

37:06

way that we kind of grew up. But I think

37:08

for somebody who didn't grow up with

37:10

that and then to be the way

37:13

they are, it's like, you know, it's so inspiring

37:15

to me because it's you know, so that you've come

37:18

from. Maybe you know, your father's

37:20

but you had love.

37:22

You know, I had love, you know what.

37:23

And I always think about this because you

37:25

know, they say that basically we shape

37:28

our children by the time they're five or six.

37:31

And I think I was really lucky because

37:33

the one thing that they were really

37:35

good at was they made me feel

37:37

very loved. And once you

37:39

have that, it gives you a confidence

37:42

to step out into the world and you

37:44

know, stick your toe in the water and see

37:46

what's out there, and I think, you know, without

37:48

that, that's when the real damage sets

37:51

in. And so all of the other things were pretty

37:53

survivable. But I think without

37:55

that early love and

37:58

we were definitely, you know, my mum was in a amazing

38:00

particularly when we were little before things got

38:03

difficult.

38:04

But I'm very injured.

38:05

I have to ask you one question, which is were

38:08

you interested in food even when you were

38:10

a teenager and in your twenties or

38:12

was it your mother in law that inspired you

38:14

really with food?

38:16

I would say that my mother was here,

38:18

we go, see what was it? Don't

38:23

you think? Don't

38:25

you find there?

38:27

We go? Yeah, the stories

38:29

that my father was a doctor and my mother was a

38:31

librarian, and I think they both came

38:33

they were immigrants, their families were. They were born

38:36

in the Lower East Side and then you

38:38

know Jewish immigrants who came Ellis

38:41

Island all that, and I think that for

38:43

them the whole thing was education, whereas

38:45

there my grandparents were

38:48

very focused on food. I think both my

38:50

mother was trying to get it. She went back to college

38:52

when we were like five or six to be

38:54

a librarian, and my father was,

38:57

you know, trying to make it as a doctor. And I think that

38:59

we always ate fresh food. We always

39:02

ate well, we sat around you know that

39:04

thing I was sitting around the table. But probably

39:06

I romanticize it. Probably the food we had

39:09

my sister is much more scathing. But

39:12

I sort of I think

39:15

that the conversation was

39:17

more important than than what

39:19

we ate.

39:19

But we ate well.

39:20

We never had dilvered or package.

39:24

No, no, we didn't have to get syrup

39:26

for me. It all opened up when I did come to

39:28

Europe, going to Italy and then living

39:30

in Paris as we did. That was the kind of

39:33

food, you know, inspiration.

39:35

But I think there's something about Italian

39:37

food though as well, because most of

39:39

it, maybe you know, some

39:41

of it's complicated, but most of it is

39:43

about fresh ingredients and simplicity,

39:46

and it's very seductive. You know. I

39:48

became interested in food, as

39:50

I said to you, when when I used to go and stay

39:52

with with my friend Natalie, you

39:55

know, because this was amazing food,

39:58

Natalie from Naples. It was performance

40:00

food. It was just amazingly good

40:02

food. And you know, they wouldn't have beans

40:05

on toast at four o'clock in the morning, as I said, they

40:07

would make a pasta. Yeah, you know, and

40:09

actually you know, a lot of Italian men can

40:11

cook as well, which you know, still

40:13

find really impressive. You know, I'm lucky because

40:15

I married a man who can cook. But the number of my friends

40:17

who sort of look at Jason wistfully and go

40:20

oh, yesh, mine could do that exactly.

40:23

So we've talked about the work, we've talked

40:25

about the children, we've talked about

40:29

you know, the husband who cooks. Maybe

40:31

we should wind up on the comfort food and ask

40:33

you if food is is

40:36

sharing and love and memories. Certainly memories.

40:38

Your memories are about food.

40:40

It's about food and memory.

40:42

And I also think that our emotional lives

40:44

are often channeled through food. So when

40:46

food isn't good, I mean it is a bit

40:48

like like water for chocolate or whatever. You

40:50

know, when when food isn't good, it's because

40:52

other things aren't good. And that's why,

40:55

you know, the bad meals are

40:57

as almost defining memories as

41:00

the good meals, you know. And for

41:02

me sitting down at the

41:04

table and having something simple

41:06

and delicious with my kids

41:09

sitting opposite me and my husband sitting

41:11

at the table, it does feel in

41:13

some ways, not to be too saccharin about

41:15

it, but like a sort of dream come

41:18

true, and and the table

41:20

is the place where that

41:23

theater of it plays out. And I

41:25

look around and think, gosh, you know, un

41:27

lucky I got this.

41:29

Yeah, and we are. And do

41:31

you have a comfort food that you go to when

41:33

you that's what you needed?

41:36

Well, all the way through my

41:38

twenties, I used to go and stay with my best friend

41:40

Natalie in Maples.

41:43

I'm getting I'm getting friend jealous

41:45

in here.

41:46

I've got two best

41:48

friends. Okay, that's best

41:50

friends, but that's really you know. I've known

41:52

them since I was eighteen years and

41:56

we used to cook and

42:01

we used to cook it at four o'clock in the morning when

42:03

we came back from the nightclub.

42:04

In Carpery where we used to go.

42:06

We used to cook it in the middle of the afternoon

42:08

if we got peckish. We used

42:11

to cook it if one of us was sobbing, you

42:13

know. And so in many ways that still

42:16

is my sort of go to comfort

42:18

food. But the other thing I've learned to cook quite

42:20

recently is this delicious I call it

42:22

porridge bread. It is an Irish recipe

42:25

and it is very much porridge bread because it's

42:27

just made with oats and seeds, and

42:30

live yogurt and a

42:32

spoon of baking powder, and

42:34

it's incredibly easy to make, foolproof,

42:37

no yeast, no flour, and no flour,

42:40

and it's so delicious. Bread

42:43

well, it's like soda bread. It's like the wheat and bread.

42:46

It's very like that, which is also another sort

42:48

of comfort food. So you take all these grains

42:50

and the oats

42:53

and the yogurt and the baking powder, and

42:55

you just put it all in a bowl, mix it all

42:57

together, put it into a loaf tin in

43:00

in baking paper, you know, and

43:03

you have to cook it for about fifty

43:06

minutes altogether, called forty minutes one side,

43:08

and then tip it over. It's rock

43:10

hard on the outside. It's absolutely

43:12

moist and delicious on the inside. And that

43:14

with a thick layer of butter.

43:16

Okay, I love butter, Yeah, I love butter.

43:18

I love butter. Richard Richard's mother

43:20

used to say that butter was the best cheese, and she

43:23

was a Northern Italian. But if you think about

43:25

butter like a cheese, then you can have that thick

43:27

piece with a little thin bit

43:29

of bread, you know.

43:30

Yeah, yeah, you just want the car for

43:33

the butter, isn't it I think that's and

43:35

that's very irish as well.

43:37

Yeah. True. And we're going to go

43:39

right now into the River Cafe and you're going to meet

43:41

a friend and have dinner, aren't you. I am.

43:43

I'm so excited.

43:44

So's nice. Who are you having dinner with tonight?

43:46

Then go on, I can allow to ask that question,

43:50

you can.

43:50

It's not my husband, for change, I

43:53

have a gentleman guest. No,

43:56

I'm having dinner with your

43:58

friend and mine. Danny his timeh fabulous

44:01

and he's about to do my podcast

44:03

Books to Live By, And I'm so excited

44:05

to talk to him because you know he's going to

44:07

pick his the five books that have shaped

44:10

his life in many ways.

44:12

Books, it's the literary companion to

44:14

this one.

44:15

And food and reading. Yes see, Danny,

44:17

And.

44:18

Thank you Mary, thank you, pleasure, thank you

44:20

so much for having me.

44:26

The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in

44:28

bookshops and online. It has

44:31

over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated

44:33

with photographs from the renowned photographer

44:36

Matthew Donaldson. The book has

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fifty delicious and easy to prepare

44:40

recipes, including a host of River

44:42

Cafe classics that have been specially

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River Cafe lookbook recipes

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for cooks of all ages. Ruthie's

44:56

Table four is a production of iHeartRadio

44:58

and Adami Studios. For

45:00

more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

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the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,