0:00

You're listening to Ruthie's table for in

0:02

Partnership with Montclair. Imagine

0:06

going to a close friend's birthday

0:09

months after the death of your son.

0:12

Imagine realizing it was too

0:14

soon and telling the man you're talking

0:16

to, who you hardly know, why

0:19

you need to leave. He takes

0:21

your arm and he insists on seeing

0:23

you to the lift. Then he goes down

0:25

with you until you get to the street.

0:28

This becomes a ten minute walk to the car

0:30

park, a climb up the stairs,

0:33

him holding your hand tightly, until

0:35

you find your car, driving

0:37

off. You see him in the rear view mirror,

0:40

waving good bye. I was

0:42

this woman, and Tom Hollander

0:44

was this man, and his act of tenderness

0:47

and compassion has stayed with me for thirteen

0:49

years. There are many stories

0:51

about Tom Hollander. The best ones

0:54

are told by him, not least his

0:56

life in the Day for the Sunday Times, the

0:58

best in a great ever

1:01

written. He is a fantastic

1:03

actor White Lotus Patriots,

1:06

most recently captivating audiences

1:08

as Truman Capote in Feud

1:11

Capote versus the Swans. He

1:13

sings beautiful songs to a six month

1:15

old son. He's passionate about what

1:18

he cooks and what he eats. Yesterday

1:21

he sent me a photograph with no caption,

1:23

of fran Hickman with a large stainless

1:25

steel saucepan obscuring her

1:28

face, drinking the contents. Imagine

1:32

being me in the River Cafe with Tom

1:34

Hollander on a Tuesday afternoon,

1:36

talking about memories of food, memories

1:39

of friendship, family and all

1:41

he is doing. Then imagine

1:43

how special this feels. And it's

1:46

true, I remember that, and it is something

1:48

that stayed with me for years. But what is

1:50

really staying with me is spaghetti

1:53

with peas and pascutto.

1:56

So ingredients

1:59

untagrams of butter, one small

2:01

red onion, chopped, three hundred

2:03

grams of peas, sea salt

2:05

and ground pepper. One loaf

2:07

of garlic, thinly sliced, two tablespoons

2:10

of chopped flat leaf parsley, three tablespoons extra

2:12

virgin olive oil, one hundred and fifty grounds producto

2:15

slices torn into pieces, three

2:17

hundred grounds of spaghetti, fifty grounds of freshly

2:19

grated parmesan. Heat

2:22

the butter in a heavy frying pan over a medium

2:24

heat, Add the onion and fry until soft.

2:26

Add the peas, and salt and pepper,

2:30

reduce the heat low and cook

2:32

for five minutes. So that's

2:34

the thing about peas, I know quite sure.

2:37

Mostly we cook frozen peas, don't

2:39

we, And you can pretty much just sort of put them in

2:41

water for about a minute and then they're

2:43

ready. But these peas

2:46

fresh, so you cook for longer. That's

2:48

why they take five minutes

2:50

of cooking.

2:51

Yeah, it depends really what

2:53

part of the season you're in. When you have the very

2:55

very small pieas, you hardly have to cook them

2:57

at all, I see. And then you know, the

3:00

tougher they get and the larger they get, you might not

3:02

use them in a pasta sauce because you

3:05

want them to be cooked down and really

3:07

part of the softness of the pasta.

3:10

So these were new seas,

3:12

fresh fresh peas. So

3:15

you've added the peas and the salt in the pepper, and you

3:18

reduce the heat to low and you cook it for five

3:20

minutes, and then you add the

3:22

garlic, parsley, produta and olive oil. You

3:26

cover and cook over a low heat for fifteen

3:28

minutes. Meanwhile,

3:30

bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil,

3:33

add the spaghetti and cook until al dente.

3:36

Add the spaghetti to the pa mixture, stir

3:38

well with a spoon, Stir in the

3:40

pasta water, and top with parmesan

3:42

cheese. Serve immediately.

3:45

So you've just made this in the River cafe. What

3:48

was that like?

3:49

I watched Joseph. It was thrilling because I

3:52

haven't ever seen somebody who knows really

3:54

what they're doing that close up. It

3:57

was also delicious and made

3:59

me want to go and cook.

4:00

It's good to watch, isn't it. It's good to

4:02

actually see something being made

4:04

rather than always reading.

4:06

Yes yes, and to see

4:08

his hands move someone who's

4:10

done it for years, so it becomes like

4:13

a dance.

4:14

Have we ever cooked on stage?

4:19

I don't. Oh,

4:22

I feel like I did. When

4:24

I was a child actor. We did sausages.

4:26

We had sausages in It

4:30

was called Captain Styrick and it was one

4:32

of the greatest shows

4:34

that the Children's Music Theater, which is I think

4:36

now called the National Youth Music Theater

4:39

National Youth Music Theater created.

4:41

It was a brilliant dark ballad

4:44

opera. It was called and we were all ragged

4:47

children, Dickenzie and beggar children

4:49

in Bartholomew fair, and

4:52

there was a and Captain Styrick was

4:54

the young It was the young

4:56

kid who was our leader. There was

4:58

it wasn't fake in like, it wasn't Oliver

5:00

Twist. It was actually darker. And

5:03

Captain Syrih went mad. Julian

5:06

Sylvester. He was called, if you're out there, Julian

5:08

Saversity, you were unforgettable.

5:10

Anyway, maybe he's listening, Maybe

5:13

he is. I hope he is somewhere. And

5:16

we oh thirteen

5:19

fourteen, and we did it on the stage of the National

5:21

Theater in what was then called the Cottaslow

5:23

Theater. And we

5:26

had sausages which we cooked on a

5:29

we I mean, I don't think we really cooked them, but

5:31

we were as if cooking them. And then we got

5:33

to eat them, and

5:35

you know, it was quite fun to have something to eat halfway

5:37

through the second half. I

5:40

remember that, yeah,

5:43

And I sing a song from

5:45

that.

5:45

What was it?

5:46

I sing that kit our Son.

5:50

I've seen it to him. Now

5:52

many a man has left this land

5:54

on a boat that's bound for Botany.

5:58

Why should he grieve? He could be leaving

6:00

a life of meal and not any

6:03

you'll boast and brag of the deed he's

6:05

done to avoid the nag of the

6:07

hungry sun. But

6:09

he's been undone at the feast of fun

6:12

and it's botany bay for him.

6:14

So do you

6:16

when you're on stage? Does

6:19

your schedule for eating change?

6:22

I try to eat in the day before

6:25

the biggest meals in the afternoon before the show

6:27

because it's quite athletic.

6:29

So what time would that be if the place starts

6:31

at seven.

6:32

Then three or fours? Yeah, you have two

6:34

or three or four and then go to sleep, yeah, and then

6:36

do the show. And then if there are people in and then you and

6:39

you find out you're going

6:41

out to dinner, then you have to have fish and

6:43

vegetables and try not to eat all the chips

6:45

and all the rest of it and that nose Masnez

6:50

the last play, I would have a falaffel

6:52

salad in the dressing room without leaving between

6:55

shows, because that you

6:57

just need carbohydrate and fuel and then go

7:01

and you'd try to eat a Biggish breakfast

7:03

on a mass in a day, but that in

7:05

between show day I would buy it before I'd

7:07

take it in, put in my fridge, eat

7:09

it, go to sleep. That was a ritual that was

7:12

very good.

7:13

Would you drink would you have alcohol if

7:15

you are going on.

7:16

Stage between shows?

7:17

Yeah?

7:18

No, never, no, though everyone

7:20

no, I tried to. I tried

7:23

all of those things in my twenties, and they

7:25

it's a mess. It affects

7:27

your timing and your memory, and your speed

7:30

and your reactivity. I don't, you can't.

7:33

It ruins it. But in the

7:36

olden days. I remember

7:38

Oliver Cotton telling me that he remember

7:40

it was very strange in the mid eighties

7:42

at the National everyone stopped drinking

7:45

during the show, and

7:48

he said, if you were on stage with Paul

7:50

Schofield and you were downstage center,

7:52

you would expect to smell

7:55

whiskey on his breath. So

7:58

they were just they were just used

8:00

to it. I think it didn't They would drink so much

8:03

more in those days that it just didn't

8:05

affect them in the same way. But

8:07

obviously alcohol, a

8:10

small amount of alcohol, or a small amount

8:12

of any intoxican allows releases

8:15

your imaginative stuff and

8:17

makes you relax. When

8:20

I played the violin at school, I

8:23

would always find concerts very tense

8:26

making, and I discovered that having

8:28

half a half of a

8:30

glass of beer allowed me to

8:33

play better in a concert situation,

8:35

just because I was so racked with nerves otherwise. But

8:38

the association between, you

8:41

know, being artistically brilliant

8:43

and being intoxicated has got an

8:45

awful lot of people into terrible trouble

8:47

over the years, not least

8:50

of whom Truman Coupoti.

8:52

We could talk about Capoti and

8:55

women and food because those women

8:57

a lot of so many scenes in restauran.

9:00

They went to lunch every day. You're right,

9:02

But I wonder if they.

9:04

Skinny was their job?

9:07

Yeah, they drank. I think they

9:10

drank and smoked. They

9:12

drank and smoked and and sort of died

9:14

young. Yeah, perhaps they were

9:16

celebrating being in the inn crowd and being

9:18

at the table, the best table in the best

9:20

restaurant. And yes, they were restraining

9:23

themselves. He

9:26

couldn't stop, he couldn't control

9:28

his appetite. And he loved

9:30

cooking. He loved he loved

9:32

his own kitchen. Yeah, in the South was

9:35

yes, yes. And

9:37

the black and white ball they served his,

9:40

you know, the black and white ball, the sort of apotheos.

9:43

The black and white ball was a ball that Truman Capoti

9:46

threw in I can't remember when the very

9:48

early sixties, on

9:52

the back of In Cold Blood, which had made

9:54

him hugely famous, and his obsession

9:57

with sort of high society and his own celebrity

9:59

came together in one glorious moment, and

10:02

he created the guest

10:04

list to beat all guest

10:06

lists that have ever existed, so much so that people

10:09

knew about him were fighting to get on it. And

10:12

aristocrats flew from Europe. All

10:15

the film stars, you know, Frank Sinatra,

10:17

Mia Farrow, the Anneli's

10:20

the probably Mick Jagger, we

10:22

can ask him. They all turned up

10:25

to the plaza and he gave

10:28

them corn beef hash,

10:31

which he remembered fondly from

10:34

Monroeville, Alabama, where he'd grown up.

10:36

But they all complained about

10:39

the budget of the catering that it was

10:41

very small. For him, it was about getting

10:43

them in. They were the decoration. They

10:45

were the party, their

10:48

their dresses, their masks, but there was nothing

10:50

there. There were some balloons and

10:52

some rather

10:54

dodgy food that neither wanted, and I think the

10:56

party ended relatively early, and a whole bunch

10:58

of them went gambling.

11:00

Was it like filming that scene? Did

11:03

you do it?

11:03

They recreated it in the place, and

11:07

Zach Posen had done the dresses for

11:09

the ladies. It

11:12

was amazing that was, and

11:14

there was there's a sequence in

11:16

it if people he

11:18

did it emotionally for his

11:20

mother, we think, we think those

11:22

of us who made that show because his mother

11:25

wanted to Truman's

11:28

mother, who'd abandoned him when he was four, then

11:31

married a man called Joe Capoti, who gave

11:33

him his name, Truman his name,

11:35

but who was a He was a sort of he

11:38

was dodgy, his finances were dodgy, and

11:41

she nearly made it herself into Upper

11:43

east Side society. And then Joe Caboti

11:45

was revealed as being sort of bankrupt and hopeless.

11:47

It all fell apart and she killed herself, and

11:51

then Truman had this ball

11:54

to kind of to go, look, Mum, I've

11:57

done it. I've done it for us. Every

12:00

noone wants to be here. They've all got to be

12:02

here. And in

12:04

our version of it, episode three of

12:07

Feud Capodi and the Women. In

12:09

our version of it, his mother comes to him

12:11

as a ghost in the ball, and

12:14

what Lee Radswell sees is Truman dancing

12:17

drunkenly on his own and

12:19

Lee Radswell looks across looks across

12:21

the room, Callista f Lockhart looking at him

12:23

sadly going look at the Paul sod.

12:26

He's just a drunk. And then

12:28

the final scene of the episode is in

12:31

color and he's not dancing

12:33

on his hand, he's dancing with his mum.

12:36

Did he he did?

12:38

He loves cooking. Yeah, he

12:40

was addictive and compulsive. So

12:44

he goes up and down. You see, we in

12:46

our version we pretty much do fat

12:49

Trooman because I couldn't

12:52

in a TV schedule go up and down as

12:54

much as I needed to, so we went

12:56

with fat. Ryan Murphy said, you

12:58

need to you need to put some weight, so

13:01

I did, which was very enjoyable.

13:04

Obviously less enjoyable trying to lose

13:07

it again.

13:07

How do you get weight?

13:09

I've done this a couple of times. I did it, and

13:12

you basically you have to just eat all the things, the

13:15

obvious things like pizza and

13:17

ice cream and cornish pasties

13:20

and chips, and then you get fat

13:22

very quickly.

13:23

How does it make you feel?

13:24

And then it's marvelous in the moment,

13:26

And then and I started to find it hard to put my

13:28

socks on, and I got breathless

13:31

doing sensible things I thought, easy

13:34

usual, I mean ordinary things. That

13:37

was that was distressing. So

13:39

and also I'm a bit old to be messing around

13:41

with my weight like that. And

13:44

furthermore, I've I

13:47

have a little bit of a compulsion to overeat

13:50

myself, and have spent all

13:53

of my most of my professional life slightly

13:55

going slightly slightly

13:57

up in between jobs

14:00

and then having a diet before a job,

14:02

and going up and going down, and going up

14:04

and going down, and trying to stay disciplined,

14:07

trying to be like my father, who weighs himself

14:09

every day and if

14:11

he ever goes over eleven stone, he has

14:15

a look at breakfast, he says, I work out. I know whether

14:18

I can have a heavy or light records, depending on what the

14:20

scales it on every day does that which

14:22

sounds like, you know, one of the Swans

14:24

with its level of obsession, but he's he's

14:27

eighty eight and still going strong.

14:29

You're saying before that putting it on was one

14:32

thing, but you haven't told us about how you take

14:34

it off.

14:35

So I went to a clinic, about

14:38

half of it came off in an Austrian clinic,

14:42

and then I really only lost. And then

14:44

I went and did the play in which I was playing someone

14:46

who needed to actually be a bit heavier

14:49

than me, so.

14:49

I took me that was Patriots.

14:53

Playing Berezovsky, who was quite portly.

14:55

So I kept it on for that and

14:57

that worked and then I only

15:00

I only got it off about

15:02

three months ago with the fear of doing

15:05

the American breast junk.

15:06

It.

15:07

That motivated me enough to cut

15:11

down on everything for a few weeks

15:13

and it came off. And

15:16

so I'm always trying to

15:19

to, you know, discipline myself. But I

15:22

do have a tendency to I

15:25

love eating, but I also eat my feelings,

15:28

you know, which which

15:31

people do, and if you do it too much, it's it's

15:34

it's not good for you. So I tried to do

15:36

other things with my feelings.

15:38

A friend of mine, I was at

15:40

a dinner recently where they were talking about

15:44

a zimpec. Oh yes, yes,

15:46

and they were saying that, and

15:48

it was kind of interesting to her. She said, really,

15:50

what it's done for me, It's taken

15:53

the noise of food away. It's

15:55

taken all that noise. Should I shouldn't? I

15:59

how much? When? And

16:01

actually I understand

16:03

that a lot, But I also think it's

16:06

a kind of noise we do want in our life as

16:08

well. We like the noise of food. Don't we.

16:10

We like the kind of thought of going

16:12

to bed at night and thinking what am I going to have tomorrow

16:14

for lunch or then?

16:17

And actually it's the noise of being alive,

16:19

isn't it. It's the desire

16:23

then, the fulfillment

16:25

of the desire, the creative

16:28

process, the gathering of ingredients, the

16:30

construction, the destruction, the

16:32

kind of the clearing up afterwards,

16:35

everything from the preparation to the end of it.

16:37

It's all it's And it's a sort

16:39

of I mean, you could, I could become pretentious

16:41

if I'd say, but you know,

16:43

it's a cycle of life, isn't it. But

16:46

yes, But but to be at war with food,

16:49

which you can be, is

16:51

not good. And I have I do have a sense

16:53

of that because being you

16:55

know, an actor, where you become inevitably obsessed

16:57

with your appearance, you

17:01

know, it has an a tendency

17:03

to make you think, I mustn't need, I mustn't need, I mustn't

17:05

eat, so I'm beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It's

17:09

never really made any difference. I

17:11

met her. I met her an

17:14

actor once in Italy who'd

17:16

long retired. He'd been

17:19

a famous sixties heart throw,

17:22

quite famous and

17:25

I'm not going to name him, partly because it would

17:27

be the wrong thing to do, and also because I can't remember

17:29

his name. But he said

17:34

I had to retire because I was sick of

17:36

being thin and I wanted

17:38

to eat. And he lived in the Italian hills

17:40

near Cordona, and he loved

17:43

food and he ate it. And he's probably

17:45

no longer with us, but he was living

17:47

the life of a you know, a bonne

17:49

viver. And I

17:52

did sometimes think I'll get to a certain

17:55

age and then I'll give up trying

17:57

to not be fat, and then I'll

17:59

just become a fat actor.

18:02

Because fat actors they never stopped working.

18:04

They're always there's always rumber, a fat

18:06

actor in everything. Anyway, I can't

18:08

do that.

18:08

Orson Welles Well exactly.

18:12

Dear Richard Griffiths, or you know, you sort

18:14

of think they're they're

18:17

loved. But I don't want to do that because I

18:19

think I want to. I now need to live

18:21

as long as I can.

18:22

For sure, we certainly shall, because you have

18:24

a son I do. Did

18:32

you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's

18:34

full of our favorite foods and designs.

18:37

We have cookbooks and then a Napkins kitchen

18:39

ware, toad bags with our signatures,

18:42

glasses from Venice, chocolates from

18:44

Turin. You can find us right next

18:46

door to The River Cafe in London or

18:48

online at shop Therivercafe

18:51

dot co dot uk. What

19:00

meals like in your house? Did you all sit down

19:02

for dinner every night? Your sister and

19:04

your sister us,

19:06

your cook.

19:07

And mom would cook and cook.

19:10

His dad didn't cook then, but he did.

19:12

He didn't cook when we were children, really, but he learned

19:14

to cook once we left home, and

19:16

he loves cooking now. That's

19:19

one thing that's maybe that's changed. I

19:21

wonder whether this was true. I was thinking about it, just

19:23

that when I grew up it felt like, you

19:26

know, mothers

19:28

did the cooking, fathers did

19:30

the eating, but that we've lived

19:32

through a period where that's changed,

19:35

right as sorry, mothers are working, mothers

19:37

are working, so fathers are cooking, and then people

19:39

like Jamie Oliver, scion

19:42

of the River Cafe have taught

19:44

everyone how that they can do it too,

19:47

right. So but I have image

19:50

of my father learning to cook, and then I am

19:52

sort of learning to cook actually the same sort

19:54

of age, which is great. That's

19:57

a that's a great development. Isn't

19:59

it.

19:59

Yes, when you were

20:01

growing up in your parents' house,

20:04

your grandparents were nearby.

20:06

Were they they were in Devon? No, we were in Oxford,

20:08

but they We used to go to them on

20:11

the way to Cornwall every spring

20:13

and every summer, and sometimes

20:15

on the way back. And then towards

20:18

the end of my grandparents' life he

20:20

was living with us in Oxford.

20:22

Your grandfather who came from

20:25

Germany with your father background,

20:28

Yeah, Czechoovcia checkless.

20:31

Yeah, in nineteen thirty nine he came with

20:33

my dad. Yeah.

20:34

And how old was your father three? Oh?

20:36

I see, so your father came very early.

20:38

Yeah, so the grandmother, grandfather

20:41

and your.

20:41

Father nineteen thirty nine. Yeah, they

20:44

made this epic journey across

20:47

Central Europe and

20:49

landed it marriage

20:51

I think. Yeah.

20:54

And they had sort of twenty five suitcases

20:56

at the beginning of the journey, and they were

20:59

thrown off one I won, reduced to about

21:01

three by the time they got to the end. The

21:03

any money they had left was in the in

21:06

my father's shoe,

21:10

the toddler's shoe, and

21:12

then they but they knew some people. My

21:15

grandfather was ran a radio

21:17

station in Czecho Lovakia, the music

21:20

was in charge of the music, the classical music part

21:22

of it, and a

21:24

BBC producer had sent him this letter

21:26

inviting him to come to give a

21:29

talk about Yanichek as my father knew

21:31

Yanichek and had written about Yanicheck

21:34

and promoted Yanischeck and was a friend of his, and

21:37

please bring us your some expertise about

21:39

Yanicheck. And that was what allowed them to get

21:41

through because they had German accents,

21:44

so people they were immediately people

21:46

were suspicious of them.

21:48

Did they speak English at all?

21:49

My grandmother spoke quite

21:53

good English, and my

21:56

grandfather had to learn English. But they were

21:58

you know, he was forty two or something forty

22:01

He was born in eighteen ninety nine, so

22:04

yeah.

22:04

They And as your grandparents,

22:07

did they cook for you?

22:09

They did a bit.

22:12

I think my parents used to take over pretty

22:14

much doing all the domestic things. When they

22:16

got there. We used to say it was Bohemian

22:20

their life on it was

22:22

technically Moravian. Happy

22:25

food situations were in our

22:29

home. I have very happy

22:31

memories of our family suppers

22:34

in which the day would be downloaded and we'd

22:36

all share our experience of school. My parents were

22:38

teachers, so we would all be talking about

22:40

ask what had happened at school. They would be

22:42

as well, And I did miss

22:45

that. That is that's one

22:47

of the principal memories of growing up, is

22:49

that moment of the day for sure.

22:51

So let's look at this point.

22:53

So this is a book that my mother made

22:56

me when I was a student and sent me off to

22:58

be a student with and put in a few of

23:00

the favorite things that we'd eat and

23:02

that she'd cooked us, and it was just sort of start

23:04

us off. So this

23:06

is when you went to Cambridge. Yeah, yeah, so nineteen

23:09

eighty five.

23:10

She would have made this for one So I was looking at a

23:12

book.

23:12

So she's written bon epitity and then she sectioned

23:15

it into soup, fish, meat,

23:18

miscellaneous. Under

23:21

miscellaneous is tomato chutney.

23:23

And your mother grew up in Britain.

23:25

Yeah, yeah, well yeah, she grew up in Africa

23:28

until she was six and then she then she was

23:30

in England. But

23:33

they're to rollo cross there.

23:35

That's the sort of thing that we used to eat

23:38

children. So well, it's Central Europe.

23:41

It's Tyrilian. Actually it's Czech Austrian

23:43

because they were so we did

23:45

eat and dad, what's fascinating

23:47

about because Dad does not really that

23:50

is that is an

23:53

Englishman now, but when

23:55

we go it's food. Food

23:58

reveals about your origin. So he loves

24:01

venishntsel, and he loves apple

24:03

strudle, which he now makes. He

24:08

makes very good. And so

24:11

Mum used to cook things o goulash

24:14

we had we used to eat regularly, which

24:17

I've recently learned how to make, which is I'm

24:20

thrilled about because it's what meat

24:23

do you use? Well, actually,

24:26

mushrooms the last time, no meat.

24:28

A vegetarian goulash because Fran is vegetarian.

24:31

And then I secretly sometimes make

24:33

it if Fran's not at home. I made

24:36

it with venison.

24:39

We live in a bit of the country

24:42

which is infested with deer, and people

24:44

are always giving each other piles of venison

24:46

out the deep freeze. So delicious.

24:49

But terrolla crosl is torolla

24:52

crosal is a sort of is a kind

24:54

of peasant Alpine

24:56

dish.

24:58

Cooked potatoes, potato and sausage.

25:01

You have the cooked potatoes and then

25:03

you're earning slammy ham and

25:05

sausage.

25:06

Those are those are sort of oars either

25:09

garlic sausage, just the classic okay, yeah,

25:12

and.

25:12

Then you add the guy, then the potatoes, fry,

25:14

add the meat to the ingredients, and cook for another

25:17

ten minutes. That seems like a cook recipe

25:19

for a college student, doesn't it.

25:21

Yes, And then it was then it was a bad

25:24

recipe for an out of work young

25:27

actor who didn't have enough to do and

25:29

would go, well, I can fill the

25:32

second half of the day with lunch and the

25:34

consequences of lunch. I can fill

25:36

it with the buying of the ingredients,

25:38

the cooking of lunch, the over eating,

25:40

and then the falling asleep. And that'll get

25:42

me till that'll get me to PM program

25:45

that would get me to five o'clock. No,

25:48

but I remember making to roller Cross Limpeca.

25:51

Yeah, this

25:53

is beautiful. If

26:04

you liked listening to Ruthie's Table four,

26:07

would you please make sure to

26:09

rape and review the podcast on

26:11

the iHeartRadio app, Apple

26:13

Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever

26:16

you get your podcasts. Thank

26:18

you. You

26:25

were doing theater ever since you were in the play

26:27

in the National Youth Theater and new auditioned

26:30

for this from the Dragon School.

26:31

Is that No?

26:32

No, it was at the next

26:35

school. It was called Abingdon School.

26:37

And yeah, this company used

26:39

to go around schools

26:42

and work in the school

26:44

with the drama department for a term and create

26:46

a show and then take it to the Edinburgh Festival. And we

26:48

were all incredibly lucky. And

26:51

from that I got They

26:54

did one called Well Captain Syrick was the

26:56

first one, which I think they'd started at Haberdasher's

26:58

Asks. All sounds very

27:01

embarrassingly privileged, which it was because

27:03

they were all I think independent schools. Tiffins

27:06

it started at, which is I

27:08

think a sort of grammar school at that point, but it

27:12

was actually that children Yeah, that National

27:15

Youth Music Theater thing that I

27:17

got picked up for a TV

27:20

film a BBC Tikenzie and drama

27:23

for children's theater in nineen eighty one called

27:25

John Diamond, which was an adaptation of

27:27

a Leon Garfield book, and that

27:30

was so exciting to be picked up. I had

27:32

a term off school. I was driven around in

27:35

a car and I got given money and got

27:38

to stay in a hotel on

27:40

my own and eat.

27:43

I remember eating duck a la range

27:45

on my age fourteen in

27:48

a hotel in Tetbury and

27:51

thinking Wow, this is the life. And that

27:54

rather rewired my brain in a way that is

27:57

either helpful or helpful because it meant

27:59

sort of the end of ambition, or

28:01

at least it meant the end of imagination.

28:04

So I then thought, well, I must repeat

28:06

this for the rest of my life and become an actor. So

28:09

that was when I was fourteen, and then I went back

28:12

school, went to university, and then yes,

28:14

was always waiting to start acting.

28:16

Anyway, this is a report

28:19

recently. Have you seen that the

28:21

percentage of actors

28:23

who have been to private schools is getting

28:26

I think maybe, and so maybe

28:28

this will change with their new government. But the

28:30

investment in state schools

28:33

to culture where we could get political, but it is

28:35

true that you know it is it

28:39

is part of education and part of a

28:41

miniority of a society to find the

28:43

kids who.

28:46

Have all the sixties heroes,

28:50

all those actors that Albert

28:52

Finney's.

28:53

And Michael Caine.

28:54

Yeah, they were all the Terrence Stamps

28:56

and the petro'tools. They

28:58

weren't privately educatd.

29:00

But Michael Kaine said that he was not

29:02

allowed he was Yeah,

29:05

I think he was not allowed or he it was

29:07

a real triumph when he was able to play a

29:09

military man with a Cockney accent, because

29:13

that was.

29:13

Not I see. I see, yeah, no,

29:15

but that that was of course exactly.

29:18

I think that's another theme that has

29:20

gone through. You know, we talked about

29:22

Grandmother's cookie, but we also talked with people,

29:25

particularly in the arts, they see

29:29

being able to eat the food that they want

29:32

drink the wine that they would like to have as

29:35

a measure of their success,

29:38

you know, discovering that food, what food

29:40

could be? Did you have that

29:42

or did you know?

29:43

Yeah? I did?

29:45

And when was that? That? Will? You describing him in

29:48

a hotel fourteen? So still

29:51

that was all the memories

29:53

you have, choosing the eating one.

29:55

You're right, I did, I repeatedly

29:58

did it that the twenty or thirty? Is

30:00

that I in which I mean? It came to a head

30:02

when my accountant said that when

30:05

I went for that meeting that you have with your accountant

30:07

at the end of the year where they they tally everything

30:09

up, he said, you as you eat every single night

30:11

in a restaurant, And

30:14

I said, do I am sure it can't be true,

30:16

and you know you do pretty much five out

30:18

of seven men, you know you're doing that to you? And

30:20

no, but I think I

30:24

was definitely experiencing that thing of going I

30:26

can I can celebrate the fact

30:28

that at least it's working out sufficiently

30:30

to allow me to do this. And

30:35

and yes, regularly celebrating

30:38

the fact that it's it's okay by

30:41

ordering something slightly

30:43

more than you ought to.

30:44

Is that where you put so?

30:45

Is that where you spent?

30:47

He's noticed that. Did he also say you've

30:49

bought too many clothes, You've got many taxis?

30:52

No, I would say it was food.

30:54

It was that.

30:54

Yeah, yeah, it's restaurants.

30:56

We did that when Richard and I lived in Paris. It

30:58

was when the days when you had check books and checkbook

31:01

stubs. Yes, and you know, we flow

31:03

through it, you flick through it, and every stub was

31:05

the name of a restaurant or a food

31:07

chop. It was it went to the food.

31:09

Yeah. Well, at this moment, in this conversation,

31:12

it feels like a wonderful thing to have done. I

31:14

sometimes think, ooh, ouch, maybe

31:16

I could have just now I'm in a phase. Now

31:19

we're in this sort of the world has changed

31:22

and that's not the way I live anymore.

31:24

And also now we

31:26

have a child, and so the

31:28

family dinner thing is suddenly becoming

31:31

exciting, you know, And so that

31:33

that little vignette that we were just talking

31:36

about the family supper that's suddenly

31:38

becoming the kitchen table, the home cooked

31:40

food thing that's all suddenly becoming the

31:43

new aspiration. Also, the world

31:45

has changed, and so swaning about

31:48

jumping out of cars going into flashy restaurants

31:50

doesn't feel quite

31:53

right anymore. But I'm

31:55

looking forward to, you

31:58

know, cooking our

32:00

child, fish fingers and peas, that

32:04

joy and catch up. I'm

32:07

looking forward to all of that.

32:09

Food is about your father and

32:11

your grandfather coming from Czechoslovakia.

32:14

Food is about sitting at the table and

32:16

your mother's book that you

32:18

know, this beautiful book that your mother gave you

32:20

as a gift to tell you what to

32:22

cook and what to eat, is almost like she was coming

32:24

with you. It also is comfort.

32:27

So to.

32:29

Finish what has been a glorious,

32:31

imagine day, I would ask

32:34

you, Tom Hollander, to tell me if

32:36

you need comfort, if you have

32:39

to go to food for comfort, is

32:41

there a food that you would choose.

32:44

Well, I'm in

32:46

a sort of desert island,

32:48

dissy way. If I had to reduce it, if I had

32:51

to take, if I was allowed the one food to

32:53

comfort me, I would take my mother's

32:56

Actually grandmother's chutney recipe.

32:59

Do you want to read it?

33:00

Sure? Three pounds of tomatoes, one

33:03

pound of onions, half a pint of

33:05

vinegar, malt very important. I try

33:07

to make it with refined more viger

33:09

the other day didn't work. One tablespoonful

33:12

of curry powder, one tablespoonful of dry mustard,

33:14

one and a half tablespoonfuls of cornflour,

33:17

a pound of sugar, seven dried

33:19

chilies. But the chilies you can put far more in. Some

33:21

people like it very hot, some people don't. Corner

33:24

of teaspoonful of cayne pepper, salt,

33:26

two tablespoonfuls of salt, and

33:29

you cut up the tomatoes and the onions, and you sprinkle

33:31

the salt, and you leave them overnight. That's the

33:34

long bit, and you let

33:36

them do some chemical

33:39

thing and it smells

33:41

very strong the next morning, that mixture. And then you pour

33:44

in the vinegar and you add the sugar and the chilies and the cane.

33:46

You boil for half an hour. You

33:48

mix the curry powder of the mustard and the corn flowers,

33:51

and you get a paste and a little vinegar.

33:53

You add it to the rest slowly and you

33:55

stir it in, stir it in bit by bit boil

33:57

for five minutes, stirring all the time, and then you put into

33:59

bottle and seal and you take the

34:01

chilies out before bottling if you don't want it too well. And

34:04

it's absolutely the most delicious

34:06

jompney I've ever had. And

34:10

and you can you know, have it with

34:12

cheese. Obviously you can also stir it into

34:14

risotto. It's you could probably

34:17

put a blob on. You can put it on anything. I

34:20

love it.

34:20

What would you bring me one next time?

34:22

Okay?

34:22

I will, I will.

34:23

I should have done that, I

34:26

will bring.

34:27

Okay, thank you, thank

34:29

you, beautiful time.

34:30

Thank you. How many a man has left

34:32

this land on a boat that's bound for

34:34

Botany? Why

34:37

should he grieve? He could be leaving

34:39

a life of me, not any.

34:46

Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for

34:49

in partnership with Montclair.

34:59

Ruthie's The Table four is produced by Atame

35:01

Studios for iHeartRadio. It's

35:03

hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced

35:06

by William Lensky. This episode

35:08

was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed

35:10

by Nigel Appleton. Our executive

35:13

producers are Fay Stewart and zad

35:15

Rogers. Our production manager is

35:17

Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator

35:20

is Bella Cellini. Thank you to

35:22

everyone at The River Cafe for your help

35:24

in making this episode.