November 23, 2021 • 21 mins
Ruthie is here with Edward Enninful, and he is the Editor in Chief of British Vogue, they are looking at the Thames, at the blue sky, and most of all, looking at people who’ve been unable to come to a restaurant for five months. Eating, talking, and having a wonderful time, and that’s what we are going to have – a wonderful time.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie's Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/
Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Come with me into the River Cafe. You see the
pink wood oven in the distance, the yellow kitchen cocktails
are being made, proshutto is being sliced, and there's the
quiet buzz for the beginning of an evening food and
friends in a beautiful space. Welcome to River Cafe Table
(00:30):
four with me, Ruthie Rogers. I'm sitting here with Edward
nfl and you're the editor of Vogue.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
We're looking at the Thames, we're looking at the blue sky,
and most of all, we're looking at people who've been
not able to come to a restaurant for five months, eating,
talking and having a wonderful time. And that's what we're
going to have.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Edward.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We had your party, welcoming party to London at the
River Cafe to welcome you here. It was a very
beautiful party. I remember something about that night, which was
we were talking about whether we could do ravioli as
a premi and there was a conversation saying, well, you know,
fashion people don't eat carbs, they won't eat pasta. Nobody's
(01:23):
going to eat the ravioli. Not only did they eat it,
they had seconds, gongs, and thirds and put on more
ravioli on the plate.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It was a really magical even one of my really
much cool evenings of my life because remember the issue
came out.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Tell Us about that, tell Us about the first issue.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It was a love story really to Great Britain, the
country that sort of took my family in and took
me in. And we celebrated everybody from Naomi Campbell to
Steve McQueen to Cake Moss and we had Adua on
the cover.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It was a beautiful night. And I think people, you know, again,
over food, over find the food. You wanted to be
sharing plates, You wanted people to have antipacity.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
People, there's a misconception of fashion people don't eat, But
that's not true.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
That's not true, And so what do you feel about
food and fashion? Is the idea that in order to
look good and clothes, you have to be thin, or
you have to look elegant, you have to be a
certain look or models have to look a certain way,
and that would mean denial of food. It would say,
in order to look that way, don't eat. Yeah, what's
that strong?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Historically, you know, to be fashionable should eat When you
look at at least my Vogue anyway, it's everybody's welcome,
you know, all shapes, all sizes or colors. And what
I love now is three years later when you look
in all the other magazines, everybody's also welcoming in all
(02:56):
the other magazines. That that strict thing of being able
to be a certain size, being sized zero is the
perfect that doesn't exist anymore. Even the idea of being
a model's changed. How you can be short, you can
be covey, you can be you know, you can be disabled. Literally,
(03:17):
to watch that industry change, for me, it's one of
the great things about you know, doing my job.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, do your job, but you made that. You did
it out of empathy and sympathy and knowledge of yourself,
and so I think that you have to take the
credit for that, you know, in a beautiful way. But
has it been a struggle to get you make it
sound rather seamless that this is what's happened another mate,
But it has it been a struggle for stores or
for designers?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean designers now know that they've missed out
on a whole market from size forteen to sixty they've
missed out. Why would you want to miss out on
a section of a population that can make your business
even better. So now designers have really sort of like,
oh my god, they've wisened up. Okay, I just knew
(04:08):
that the world we lived in just wasn't that just
wasn't that world anymore? You know, you have you have
to be a certain size or or a certain color
or yeah, and I love the new generation.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I mean you're aren't they the new generator? Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, you know, so welcoming and so so open. So
you know, the industry's changed, and it's not perfect, but
at least they're now you know what happened last summer,
you know, black lives matter, and so now you know,
companies are now realizing because they have to hire people
from diverse backgrounds behind the scenes and not just so
(04:50):
to watch. It's changed slowly. It's quite great. You know,
conversations about have been had now never would have been
had ten years ago. We deal with sort of topics
that real women are passionate about.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Because you grew up in Ghana, So tell me about
the food of Ghana.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What do you spent my first sort of eleven twelve
twelve years in Ghana, and I remember everything being spicy.
I remember everything being peppery. I remember, you know, lots
of sort of carbohydrates and lots of soups, lots of garne.
(05:31):
Soups are very different because you need actual meat in them,
so like a chicken soup or a lamb soup. You know,
I remember just literally cheering through bones and skin, and
that's really comforting for me.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, I think food. You know, we always talk about
food being a connection, food being delicious, food being adventurous
and exciting, but it is comfort and it's and the
memories that you have. Who would your mother, would your
mother cook for you?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
My mother didn't cook so much what my grandmother did,
so growing up in Ghana, my grandmother would always cook,
and she would always cook in these huge I think
that's why I love going to restaurants. She would always
cook in these huge pots, and she'd never cook for
just a family. It would be aunts popping in, uncle's
popping in. There's something about Ghana the minute food is
(06:27):
ready to go, all of a sudden, your aunts and
uncles are pet out of nowhere. So food for me
became sort of a way of socializing as a very
very shy kid. And to this day, you know, going
out coming to the river cafe just just fills me
with I don't know, happiness.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Really, did your grandmother live with you?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
She lived with us, and then we moved to England.
She didn't live with us when we moved to England,
but when we got to England, my brother took over
cooking duties. And again, you know, it was always sort
of fairy meatium.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And your mother didn't cook.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
She was a seamstress. She was busy working, just busy
making club. I mean, pretty much what I do now.
She just worked all the time. My brother would cook
sometimes and my sisters would take time.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
What about your father never cooked?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I never. I don't cook either. Somehow I missed the
cooking Jean. But I can really eat.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I was. If you have the eating Jean very often,
if you have the eating Gean, then you do need
to learn to cook, because sometimes if you don't have
somebody to cook for you, you're in restaurants. You do, Yeah,
that's why you love restaurants.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Food is love and love is food.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Did you grow up in the city.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I grew up in love with Grove West London.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, what about Gona.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We grew up in the military base called Burma Camp.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Was your father in the military, So it.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Was really weird growing up in Africa but not really
living in the city, but living in a military base
because my dad was in the army. So it was
kind of a surreal kind of upbringing. Yeah, and then
we moved to London and we lived first we lived
in sort of Victoria for a few months or was
(08:23):
it the Chelsea Barracks. Then we moved to Lubwick Grove
and that's when life really begun. Oh my god, Jamaican
food rise and peace check in.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I mean, so that exposure, it's very It's interesting how
people leave there. You know, we've talked to lots of
people in these conversations who say that they had the
home cooking for the first you know, the student years
are growing up, their memories of their parents and then
and then there was a kind of explosion of food
and adventure and trying, trying. But did you before we
(08:57):
leave Ghana, did you bring Ghanian food with you? What
was that the food that you still ate when you
came with you to a foreign country. How old were
you when your game twelve. Oh you were twelve, But.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I remember I always say I felt as if I
lived in two countries. I mean, if anybody who's been
an immigrant will let you know, we'll attest to this.
You're literally you're at home and you're eating the flavors
of Ghana and you're having things like fool food and
what it's like a dough gana. It's sort of made
(09:29):
out of a lot of pop so like you know,
corn start into pup with soups, so you're having that,
and then the many you leave your house, you're in
England where you have sausage road and you have chips
and you have pork pie. So I just love this duality.
(09:51):
Is really the person I am today is made from
that duality in every aspect of mine. And it started
with food gone I felt, you know, at home, I
was eating garate food. I felt garner, you know, parents
speaking Ghanaian. And then the midune I left the house,
I would be in England with food that I loved,
(10:11):
comfort food. So yeah, my life's just been like that.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And would you bring friends home to experience?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Bring friends home? But Garan food is quite specific. You
either take to it or you don't and friends will
coming to They always love jello rice. I don't if
you know what jelo of rice is. It's this famous.
It's almost like a tomato rice. And there's a competition
between Garnians and Nigerians. It's for thee wars who makes
(10:39):
the best. So friends will come and they don't eat that.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But it's so it's rice with tomato, did you say.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
With tomatoes and spices and so in the colors sort
of orange like an orange color. But it's very famous.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And what's the Nigerian version.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Nigerians think this tastes better than ghani, especially whole war's
going on about it. I would have said that.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And I have to have a little rice off.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And I remember a lot of ockry and everything, and
I never had I never ate salads growing up. Every
kind of you know, ganem vegetable was always cooked, you know,
cooked and stirred and beaten to an end of his life.
So eating salads was always.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
But would you go to the market, would there be markets?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Would you get your mother every Saturday? Will take me
to Brixton Market. They had a sort of big African. Yeah,
you could buy meat, you could buy you know, fish,
you could buy clothes, and every weekend was spent with
my mom. We were very close in Brixton, and I
remember just Bob Marley, the music of Bob Marley and
(11:50):
Peter Touch that really made up my early teenage years.
But and then my mom will be looking through the meats,
essentially trying to find the best cuts and the best.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I think that, as you say, every immigrant. My family
came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States,
to New York, and they cooked the food of their country.
And food is culture. It's it tells you the story.
When you arrive in a country and you go to
the market, it tells you about the culture. Welcome back
(12:28):
to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my guest
reads a recipe they've chosen from one of our cookbooks.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I'm going to read the recipe for the veal shin
slow cooked with birollo and sage. Serves eight people. You
need two veal shins, extra virgin olive oil, a bunch
of fresh sage, four bay leaves, four garlic clothes peeled,
(13:00):
one bottle of burrollo, three hundred and fifty grams peeled
plump tomatoes drained of their juices very important. The longer
this cooks, the better. You need to preheat your oven
to two hundred degrees centigrade. Heat an oven proof pot.
(13:23):
Then you season the shins with sea salt and black pepper.
Add five tablespoons of olive oil and the chintz to
the pot and fry until brown, all over, turning the
shins every few minutes. Add the sage bay and garlic.
Pour in the wine. Put the shins in facing down,
(13:48):
Add the tomatoes and cover with greaseproof paper. Transfer the
pot to the oven. After one hour, turn the shins
over and reduce the temperature to one hundred and fifty
degrees centigrade. Cover and cook for a further two hours,
based in the shins a couple of times to keep
(14:09):
the meat moist. The veal shins are ready when the
meat falls away from the bone, serve with the marrow
from the bone.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Ah, thank you beautifully read. If all you know the
recipes that you've cooked from the River of Cafe book,
and that you've eaten in the River Cafe, I think
you have had feel a lot. You do have it
when you come in. But was there something? Was it?
The comfort? What was it that made you choose this
recipe amongst all the others.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, I find feel very comforting anyway, Like I
love comfort food, you know, whether it's veal, I'm definitely
a carnival but it reminds me great memories of my
grandmother and my mother sort of, you know, cooking always meats.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I think that, as you say, every immigrant my family
came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States,
to New York, and they cooked the food of their country.
And I think that you bring It's interesting that you
said it, because you do bring. The food is cultures.
It tells you the story when you arrive in a
country and you go to the market. It tells you
(15:25):
about the culture. And you know, as an immigrant, maybe
particularly first generation, we'll bring it with them.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
We never went to restaurants. There were so many, there
were six of us. So I remember the first time
I went to a restaurant. I think it must have
been about sixteen, when I started modeling, and I remember thinking,
oh my god, this is what'd you do here? Being
quite frightened.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But was a restaurant do you remember? Do you remember
the restaurant?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It was in Lubrick Grove definitely. It was a Chinese restaurant.
It had two seats. It was next to the next
to the chief stage group to station. I can't remember
the name. It was really famous. It was then about
thirty years Yeah, and you know, you get a little
take when you sat. It wasn't probably a proper restaurant,
but you set, you have three tables and you sit
there and it felt so glamorous. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I think that it's interesting if we look out side
here and we see the ease at which you know,
people are sitting in a restaurant where they bring their children.
And for me as well, it was a special occasion
going to a restaurant. I lived in Upstate New York.
You went for somebody's birthday anniversary. And I think it's
been such a radical change for you know, for for
(16:33):
us that you see the way restaurants are used, and
so after that first experience in a restaurant and you
love it, and that what happened.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I mean I was a modeling so then I thought,
you know, sort of traveling and sort of having new
friends and you know, living with Judy Blame and so
my whole life changed. But I remember those first few
sort of times that I ate up my house.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Did you travel to when you were modeling? Where did
you get? Paris?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And the first place I went to was New York
sort of burgers and yeah, oh my god, New York
is so milkshakes and those huge steaks that they have steaks.
And then I've got to Paris and French cuisine was incredible.
(17:25):
I always found for cuisine was delicious, but a little
too what's the word for me?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Too heavy?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And I loved Italian food. When I discovered Milan mind
loved Italian food. I loved everything about it. I love
Italian food.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Do you see restaurants as places where you work? Do
you work over food?
Speaker 3 (17:43):
You? No?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Okay, I like that.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Never for me to put those two together. Root it
for me? For me workers work, and when I'm in
a restaurant, I just need to have fun, enjoy myself,
not have to worry. So, you know, even going out
to a restaurants very special for me. I always dress up.
I'm never walking to a restaurant and not dressed up.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Look you look at you? Look at you dressed up?
So what was that?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Growing up a dad was like to get on a plane,
you have to dress up. To go to a restaurant,
you have to dress up, so you never see me
in the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's nice, that's nice. I mean, I don't mind what
people wear when they come and and either they can
come in a pair of you know, jeans and a
T shirt. But there there are people who and you see,
especially in the evenings, you do see people. And I
sometimes say that to the waiters. I say, you know,
people put a lot of effort sometimes to look really
beautiful here, and so we also have to, you know,
(18:43):
the effort that we make.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So what do you do when you're on a shoot
or you're working, you know, you just say, okay, guys,
we'll see you in a couple of hours.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Do you take a little Yeah, you sit and you
eat and then you go back to I don't I
don't eat and look at pictures or anything like that.
I need that moment to It's one of the few
times in the day that I have to enjoy myself.
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Do you find that you can go out to lunch
and to dinner, you might go. You just love it.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
When I lived in New York, I lived in New
York for a while, I would be out lunch, sometimes
breakfast too. I just love the whole experience of love.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I really love it. And I love sit looking at people,
seeing what people are wearing, seeing just people having fun
and enjoying themselves. It's almost like therapy for me. It's therapeutic.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What did you do during lockdown? And we couldn't go
to the restaurants the.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
First few weeks. Alec my partner cooked and he's very healthy,
sort of sort of salads and sort of meats, and
that was great. And then we discovered banana bread.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Oh for me, about banana bread.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Went out of the blue. Alex learned how to make
banana bread and it was such a novelty. We ate
it every single day for a month and now I
can never look at it ever again. I'm done. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, you started with the comfort of your grandmother cooking
for you. And so if I were to ask you
the question that I asked at the end of every interview,
which is what is your comfort food? If you were
feeling like life is tough, I've had a bad day,
I've had I need I need to eat something. Is
(20:29):
there a typical food that you would go to that
would you just know if I have this it would
make me feel better? So many Yeah, they can tell
us a few of that. It doesn't have to be one.
It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Something raci of rice and beans and chicken or something
very just really comfort because my grandmother would make whenever
I wasn't feeling well.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
She loved you through probably many ways, but through food.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Food, My memories about just cooking. Yeah, that's all I remember.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's wonderful to visit the online shop of the River Cafe.
Go to Shoptharrivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Come with me into the River Cafe. You see the
pink wood oven in the distance, the yellow kitchen cocktails
are being made, proshutto is being sliced, and there's the
quiet buzz for the beginning of an evening food and
friends in a beautiful space. Welcome to River Cafe Table
(00:30):
four with me, Ruthie Rogers. I'm sitting here with Edward
nfl and you're the editor of Vogue.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
We're looking at the Thames, we're looking at the blue sky,
and most of all, we're looking at people who've been
not able to come to a restaurant for five months, eating,
talking and having a wonderful time. And that's what we're
going to have.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Edward.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We had your party, welcoming party to London at the
River Cafe to welcome you here. It was a very
beautiful party. I remember something about that night, which was
we were talking about whether we could do ravioli as
a premi and there was a conversation saying, well, you know,
fashion people don't eat carbs, they won't eat pasta. Nobody's
(01:23):
going to eat the ravioli. Not only did they eat it,
they had seconds, gongs, and thirds and put on more
ravioli on the plate.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It was a really magical even one of my really
much cool evenings of my life because remember the issue
came out.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Tell Us about that, tell Us about the first issue.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It was a love story really to Great Britain, the
country that sort of took my family in and took
me in. And we celebrated everybody from Naomi Campbell to
Steve McQueen to Cake Moss and we had Adua on
the cover.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It was a beautiful night. And I think people, you know, again,
over food, over find the food. You wanted to be
sharing plates, You wanted people to have antipacity.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
People, there's a misconception of fashion people don't eat, But
that's not true.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
That's not true, And so what do you feel about
food and fashion? Is the idea that in order to
look good and clothes, you have to be thin, or
you have to look elegant, you have to be a
certain look or models have to look a certain way,
and that would mean denial of food. It would say,
in order to look that way, don't eat. Yeah, what's
that strong?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Historically, you know, to be fashionable should eat When you
look at at least my Vogue anyway, it's everybody's welcome,
you know, all shapes, all sizes or colors. And what
I love now is three years later when you look
in all the other magazines, everybody's also welcoming in all
(02:56):
the other magazines. That that strict thing of being able
to be a certain size, being sized zero is the
perfect that doesn't exist anymore. Even the idea of being
a model's changed. How you can be short, you can
be covey, you can be you know, you can be disabled. Literally,
(03:17):
to watch that industry change, for me, it's one of
the great things about you know, doing my job.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, do your job, but you made that. You did
it out of empathy and sympathy and knowledge of yourself,
and so I think that you have to take the
credit for that, you know, in a beautiful way. But
has it been a struggle to get you make it
sound rather seamless that this is what's happened another mate,
But it has it been a struggle for stores or
for designers?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean designers now know that they've missed out
on a whole market from size forteen to sixty they've
missed out. Why would you want to miss out on
a section of a population that can make your business
even better. So now designers have really sort of like,
oh my god, they've wisened up. Okay, I just knew
(04:08):
that the world we lived in just wasn't that just
wasn't that world anymore? You know, you have you have
to be a certain size or or a certain color
or yeah, and I love the new generation.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I mean you're aren't they the new generator? Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, you know, so welcoming and so so open. So
you know, the industry's changed, and it's not perfect, but
at least they're now you know what happened last summer,
you know, black lives matter, and so now you know,
companies are now realizing because they have to hire people
from diverse backgrounds behind the scenes and not just so
(04:50):
to watch. It's changed slowly. It's quite great. You know,
conversations about have been had now never would have been
had ten years ago. We deal with sort of topics
that real women are passionate about.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Because you grew up in Ghana, So tell me about
the food of Ghana.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What do you spent my first sort of eleven twelve
twelve years in Ghana, and I remember everything being spicy.
I remember everything being peppery. I remember, you know, lots
of sort of carbohydrates and lots of soups, lots of garne.
(05:31):
Soups are very different because you need actual meat in them,
so like a chicken soup or a lamb soup. You know,
I remember just literally cheering through bones and skin, and
that's really comforting for me.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, I think food. You know, we always talk about
food being a connection, food being delicious, food being adventurous
and exciting, but it is comfort and it's and the
memories that you have. Who would your mother, would your
mother cook for you?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
My mother didn't cook so much what my grandmother did,
so growing up in Ghana, my grandmother would always cook,
and she would always cook in these huge I think
that's why I love going to restaurants. She would always
cook in these huge pots, and she'd never cook for
just a family. It would be aunts popping in, uncle's
popping in. There's something about Ghana the minute food is
(06:27):
ready to go, all of a sudden, your aunts and
uncles are pet out of nowhere. So food for me
became sort of a way of socializing as a very
very shy kid. And to this day, you know, going
out coming to the river cafe just just fills me
with I don't know, happiness.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Really, did your grandmother live with you?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
She lived with us, and then we moved to England.
She didn't live with us when we moved to England,
but when we got to England, my brother took over
cooking duties. And again, you know, it was always sort
of fairy meatium.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And your mother didn't cook.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
She was a seamstress. She was busy working, just busy
making club. I mean, pretty much what I do now.
She just worked all the time. My brother would cook
sometimes and my sisters would take time.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
What about your father never cooked?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I never. I don't cook either. Somehow I missed the
cooking Jean. But I can really eat.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I was. If you have the eating Jean very often,
if you have the eating Gean, then you do need
to learn to cook, because sometimes if you don't have
somebody to cook for you, you're in restaurants. You do, Yeah,
that's why you love restaurants.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Food is love and love is food.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Did you grow up in the city.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I grew up in love with Grove West London.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, what about Gona.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We grew up in the military base called Burma Camp.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Was your father in the military, So it.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Was really weird growing up in Africa but not really
living in the city, but living in a military base
because my dad was in the army. So it was
kind of a surreal kind of upbringing. Yeah, and then
we moved to London and we lived first we lived
in sort of Victoria for a few months or was
(08:23):
it the Chelsea Barracks. Then we moved to Lubwick Grove
and that's when life really begun. Oh my god, Jamaican
food rise and peace check in.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I mean, so that exposure, it's very It's interesting how
people leave there. You know, we've talked to lots of
people in these conversations who say that they had the
home cooking for the first you know, the student years
are growing up, their memories of their parents and then
and then there was a kind of explosion of food
and adventure and trying, trying. But did you before we
(08:57):
leave Ghana, did you bring Ghanian food with you? What
was that the food that you still ate when you
came with you to a foreign country. How old were
you when your game twelve. Oh you were twelve, But.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I remember I always say I felt as if I
lived in two countries. I mean, if anybody who's been
an immigrant will let you know, we'll attest to this.
You're literally you're at home and you're eating the flavors
of Ghana and you're having things like fool food and
what it's like a dough gana. It's sort of made
(09:29):
out of a lot of pop so like you know,
corn start into pup with soups, so you're having that,
and then the many you leave your house, you're in
England where you have sausage road and you have chips
and you have pork pie. So I just love this duality.
(09:51):
Is really the person I am today is made from
that duality in every aspect of mine. And it started
with food gone I felt, you know, at home, I
was eating garate food. I felt garner, you know, parents
speaking Ghanaian. And then the midune I left the house,
I would be in England with food that I loved,
(10:11):
comfort food. So yeah, my life's just been like that.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And would you bring friends home to experience?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Bring friends home? But Garan food is quite specific. You
either take to it or you don't and friends will
coming to They always love jello rice. I don't if
you know what jelo of rice is. It's this famous.
It's almost like a tomato rice. And there's a competition
between Garnians and Nigerians. It's for thee wars who makes
(10:39):
the best. So friends will come and they don't eat that.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But it's so it's rice with tomato, did you say.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
With tomatoes and spices and so in the colors sort
of orange like an orange color. But it's very famous.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And what's the Nigerian version.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Nigerians think this tastes better than ghani, especially whole war's
going on about it. I would have said that.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And I have to have a little rice off.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And I remember a lot of ockry and everything, and
I never had I never ate salads growing up. Every
kind of you know, ganem vegetable was always cooked, you know,
cooked and stirred and beaten to an end of his life.
So eating salads was always.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
But would you go to the market, would there be markets?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Would you get your mother every Saturday? Will take me
to Brixton Market. They had a sort of big African. Yeah,
you could buy meat, you could buy you know, fish,
you could buy clothes, and every weekend was spent with
my mom. We were very close in Brixton, and I
remember just Bob Marley, the music of Bob Marley and
(11:50):
Peter Touch that really made up my early teenage years.
But and then my mom will be looking through the meats,
essentially trying to find the best cuts and the best.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I think that, as you say, every immigrant. My family
came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States,
to New York, and they cooked the food of their country.
And food is culture. It's it tells you the story.
When you arrive in a country and you go to
the market, it tells you about the culture. Welcome back
(12:28):
to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my guest
reads a recipe they've chosen from one of our cookbooks.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
I'm going to read the recipe for the veal shin
slow cooked with birollo and sage. Serves eight people. You
need two veal shins, extra virgin olive oil, a bunch
of fresh sage, four bay leaves, four garlic clothes peeled,
(13:00):
one bottle of burrollo, three hundred and fifty grams peeled
plump tomatoes drained of their juices very important. The longer
this cooks, the better. You need to preheat your oven
to two hundred degrees centigrade. Heat an oven proof pot.
(13:23):
Then you season the shins with sea salt and black pepper.
Add five tablespoons of olive oil and the chintz to
the pot and fry until brown, all over, turning the
shins every few minutes. Add the sage bay and garlic.
Pour in the wine. Put the shins in facing down,
(13:48):
Add the tomatoes and cover with greaseproof paper. Transfer the
pot to the oven. After one hour, turn the shins
over and reduce the temperature to one hundred and fifty
degrees centigrade. Cover and cook for a further two hours,
based in the shins a couple of times to keep
(14:09):
the meat moist. The veal shins are ready when the
meat falls away from the bone, serve with the marrow
from the bone.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Ah, thank you beautifully read. If all you know the
recipes that you've cooked from the River of Cafe book,
and that you've eaten in the River Cafe, I think
you have had feel a lot. You do have it
when you come in. But was there something? Was it?
The comfort? What was it that made you choose this
recipe amongst all the others.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, I find feel very comforting anyway, Like I
love comfort food, you know, whether it's veal, I'm definitely
a carnival but it reminds me great memories of my
grandmother and my mother sort of, you know, cooking always meats.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I think that, as you say, every immigrant my family
came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States,
to New York, and they cooked the food of their country.
And I think that you bring It's interesting that you
said it, because you do bring. The food is cultures.
It tells you the story when you arrive in a
country and you go to the market. It tells you
(15:25):
about the culture. And you know, as an immigrant, maybe
particularly first generation, we'll bring it with them.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
We never went to restaurants. There were so many, there
were six of us. So I remember the first time
I went to a restaurant. I think it must have
been about sixteen, when I started modeling, and I remember thinking,
oh my god, this is what'd you do here? Being
quite frightened.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But was a restaurant do you remember? Do you remember
the restaurant?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It was in Lubrick Grove definitely. It was a Chinese restaurant.
It had two seats. It was next to the next
to the chief stage group to station. I can't remember
the name. It was really famous. It was then about
thirty years Yeah, and you know, you get a little
take when you sat. It wasn't probably a proper restaurant,
but you set, you have three tables and you sit
there and it felt so glamorous. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I think that it's interesting if we look out side
here and we see the ease at which you know,
people are sitting in a restaurant where they bring their children.
And for me as well, it was a special occasion
going to a restaurant. I lived in Upstate New York.
You went for somebody's birthday anniversary. And I think it's
been such a radical change for you know, for for
(16:33):
us that you see the way restaurants are used, and
so after that first experience in a restaurant and you
love it, and that what happened.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I mean I was a modeling so then I thought,
you know, sort of traveling and sort of having new
friends and you know, living with Judy Blame and so
my whole life changed. But I remember those first few
sort of times that I ate up my house.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Did you travel to when you were modeling? Where did
you get? Paris?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
And the first place I went to was New York
sort of burgers and yeah, oh my god, New York
is so milkshakes and those huge steaks that they have steaks.
And then I've got to Paris and French cuisine was incredible.
(17:25):
I always found for cuisine was delicious, but a little
too what's the word for me?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Too heavy?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And I loved Italian food. When I discovered Milan mind
loved Italian food. I loved everything about it. I love
Italian food.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Do you see restaurants as places where you work? Do
you work over food?
Speaker 3 (17:43):
You? No?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Okay, I like that.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Never for me to put those two together. Root it
for me? For me workers work, and when I'm in
a restaurant, I just need to have fun, enjoy myself,
not have to worry. So, you know, even going out
to a restaurants very special for me. I always dress up.
I'm never walking to a restaurant and not dressed up.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Look you look at you? Look at you dressed up?
So what was that?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Growing up a dad was like to get on a plane,
you have to dress up. To go to a restaurant,
you have to dress up, so you never see me
in the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's nice, that's nice. I mean, I don't mind what
people wear when they come and and either they can
come in a pair of you know, jeans and a
T shirt. But there there are people who and you see,
especially in the evenings, you do see people. And I
sometimes say that to the waiters. I say, you know,
people put a lot of effort sometimes to look really
beautiful here, and so we also have to, you know,
(18:43):
the effort that we make.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So what do you do when you're on a shoot
or you're working, you know, you just say, okay, guys,
we'll see you in a couple of hours.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Do you take a little Yeah, you sit and you
eat and then you go back to I don't I
don't eat and look at pictures or anything like that.
I need that moment to It's one of the few
times in the day that I have to enjoy myself.
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Do you find that you can go out to lunch
and to dinner, you might go. You just love it.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
When I lived in New York, I lived in New
York for a while, I would be out lunch, sometimes
breakfast too. I just love the whole experience of love.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I really love it. And I love sit looking at people,
seeing what people are wearing, seeing just people having fun
and enjoying themselves. It's almost like therapy for me. It's therapeutic.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What did you do during lockdown? And we couldn't go
to the restaurants the.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
First few weeks. Alec my partner cooked and he's very healthy,
sort of sort of salads and sort of meats, and
that was great. And then we discovered banana bread.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Oh for me, about banana bread.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Went out of the blue. Alex learned how to make
banana bread and it was such a novelty. We ate
it every single day for a month and now I
can never look at it ever again. I'm done. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, you started with the comfort of your grandmother cooking
for you. And so if I were to ask you
the question that I asked at the end of every interview,
which is what is your comfort food? If you were
feeling like life is tough, I've had a bad day,
I've had I need I need to eat something. Is
(20:29):
there a typical food that you would go to that
would you just know if I have this it would
make me feel better? So many Yeah, they can tell
us a few of that. It doesn't have to be one.
It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Something raci of rice and beans and chicken or something
very just really comfort because my grandmother would make whenever
I wasn't feeling well.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
She loved you through probably many ways, but through food.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Food, My memories about just cooking. Yeah, that's all I remember.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's wonderful to visit the online shop of the River Cafe.
Go to Shoptharrivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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