February 14, 2023 • 19 mins
If food is love, and love is food, for Valentine's Day we are dedicating this episode of Ruthie's Table 4, by talking to the chefs, managers, waiters, bartenders, gardeners, shop staff and a few of our previous guests to the role food plays in celebrating love.
Thank you to: Olivia, Nick, Stephen, Christophe, Kitty, David Beckham, Joseph, Ricci, Lily, Tabby, Alex, Imogen, Tate, Gwynth Paltrow, Jacqui, Bob, Sylwia, Aleks, Jake Gyllenhaal, Otto, Sofia, Nancy Pelosi, Jess, Sian, Yban, Rosie, Ceci, Shula, Hebe, Jemi and everyone else from the River Café community who shared their stories with us.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
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/
Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4
Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adamized Studios. The Food is Love and Love
is food. For Valentine's Day today, we thought we should
dedicate this episode of Ruthie's Table four talking to the chefs,
the managers, the waiters, bartender's gardeners, and some of our
(00:21):
previous kists who spoke about the importance of food and
celebrating love. Can I have a second to think about it? Loves?
Food is love. That's a very tricky question. It could
be so tailored to any particular individual. Have you done
(00:42):
this day? M yet He's friends, you can wake it out.
Food is love, Food's love. Wine is love. Probably nice
bottle of rosa champagne, that's love. I think they're very
closely linked to food, and because I think the way
(01:04):
to a lot of people's heart lists. Food is about love.
It's about protection, it's about generosity and consciousness, memories, memories, memories,
and it's also about comfort. We want to give other
people comforts, so we feed them, and there's times when
we need comforts, so we feed ourselves. You were describing
(01:33):
cooking was one of the great pleasures the other night
It's one of my biggest passions, you know, along with wine. Now,
I love to cook, you know. I was in the
kitchen the other day cooking for the kids, and Victoria
was like, can I help, what can I do? And
I was like, honestly, sit down, have a Voglan tonic, relax,
be with the kids. This is what I love to do.
(01:53):
And I really relate to that because you kind of father.
There's a method, isn't there. But it's also creative, and
it's also you're doing it for your kids who you
haven't seen all day, and there's the anticipation, and I
think that is something why you'd probably like to cook,
and I'd like to cook. It's just one of the
main reasons why I love to cook, because it's why
I love lego. Also because it relaxes me, you know,
(02:16):
and I'm forty seven years older, and I'll still sit
there with you on my own actually till two, three
four in the morning doing Lego because actually it relaxes me.
And it's the same cooking for the kids. I love
to cook for my parents. I love to cook for
my friends. And I think that it's obviously come from,
you know, my upbringing. And I tried to do the
(02:36):
same with Victoria tries to do the same with the
kids as well. You know, we want them to be happy,
we want them to be healthy. Did they cook with you?
They do? Cooking is my wife, straightforward as that, you know,
like that's my favorite thing to do, full stop. I
have cooked to press many people for the years, with
(02:59):
you know, various levels ofs. Sometimes I think the message
was so deeply embedded in the like you know, lent
to broth that didn't necessarily come across, but you know,
eventually it worked. And I think it's something that people
do say quite often, you know, like, oh, you hear
it a lot in the kitchen. You know, put some
love into this was love. But when you actually put
(03:21):
genuine love into making something for someone you love, I
think it's it's it's it's elevated. Love is a secret
ingredient to a great dish. I always like to think
if I'm cooking for someone, I always try to imagine
that and cooking for my girlfriends because then I know
I'm going to put extra love into it, and you
can taste the love every bite, you know. Listen, my
(03:42):
favorite meal at the moment is lasagna. Lasagna is a
dish made out of love and hard work, so many
different layers. You have to make the beautiful besha Mel,
you have to make the beautiful source, you know, you
have to make the beautiful pasta, and everything has to
be perfect. So that's my favorite thing to do at
the moment, the lasagna. Do you know what, I don't
have a girlfriend at the moment. You're breaking my heart
reminding me. But hopefully I'll meet someone by then and
(04:04):
I have something to kick you know. I love cooking.
I'm doing this play here at the moment, and I'm
actually living at friend's house. My kids are spending the
summer with their dad and my mom's. But when things
are a little bit more normal and we're all living
together under one roof, then it's I'd make them every
weekend without fail. I'd do a Sunday roast on a Sunday.
(04:27):
My mom said, Actually, one of the funniest memories that
she has with me is this is my emotional connection
to roast. Inn It's that when I went traveling around
Asia and I must have been eighteen or nineteen, and
I came back and she'd obviously made a roast inn
because that's why I said that I wanted to come
back for And we sat around the tables as a family,
(04:49):
and once we'd finished, my sister went, thanks, Mama, was delicious,
gravy was amazing, and I just burst into tears because
I had forgotten to put gravy on. So the rose
(05:10):
tradition is something that goes back from your childhood to
yours and then to your children. Yeah, but I think
even my mom's childhood as well. You know, I think
she was sort of raised on roast inners. I mean,
I mean, maybe it's because in my family just the
way that things have worked out and my mom being,
you know, a single working mother, and that was possibly
(05:33):
the one time a week that we all did come
together around a table. You know, there wasn't there wasn't
much of that. I don't really have memories of sitting
around the table as a family, but I do on Sundays.
I think I'm quite good at roast, but I mean
there's something like your mom's cooking is there, So I
can never quite get that element in there that she
seems together. But I think it's just a lot of
stock that she says, So I could just be that
(05:55):
I love to cook. My dad was a coke I
used to watch in the whole time. It's something I
do here as well. I just kind of watch people cooking,
and that's my favorite thing too, particularly when you work
on the pass if you ever spare a moment, I
just watch people and you pick up so many things.
Food and love. Gosh, food is love, isn't it. I
mean I cook for my husband every single day, and
(06:15):
that is like my way of showing love for him.
That's my love language for him. Food His love language
is definitely i'd say words of affirmation. Yeah, um, it's
definitely not food. He definitely doesn't cook for me. I
don't really cook. I don't think my love language probably
being cooked for eating the food. Food is the way
(06:36):
to my art. Just yeah, if someone puts in a
lot of time and effort to cook a nice meal,
I think that says a lot and it's a nice
little thank And so do you do that with your children?
Do you cook with that idea? Do you think that
you're interested in cooking for them? Does come from your
own childhood or because it was such an unabashed expression
(06:59):
of my father's for us, like there was no denying it.
And when someone is so excited about like the sear
on their baby back ribs, you know, and like look
at this, Look what I did. You know, it's so
imbued with love that you can't It's undeniable, and so
you learn it as a love language. I just had
this is the beginning at a house full of people
in our house in Santa Barbara, and I was making
(07:22):
all these different breakfasts, and you know, my friends are like,
oh my god, we feel so terrible, and I was like, no,
you don't understand, Like this is my love language, Like
I'm so happy doing this. A few years ago, I
was living in Peru in a van and it was
my girlfriend's birthday. She's from Australian and she had been missing,
you know, food from her home, and so I decided
(07:42):
I was going to make her sausage roles, which is
easy here but not easy in Peru because you can't
get the puff pastry or even the sausage meat, like
needs to be fresh mints and stuff. So I went
around town all day looking for all of the ingredients.
Never made puff paste before. I made it myself, but
didn't have a rolling pin, so use a little wine bottle,
(08:05):
you know, went to the butcher there and this lady
in full Peruvian get up is there with a machete,
you know, hacking up the meat for me. I didn't
even have an oven, so I had to borrow an
oven and it was taken forever, took hours. But it
was a surprise, so she had no idea what was happening.
She just knew that I was cooking up a storm.
And it took like two days because of the puff
praistry having to chill. But they were the most amazing
(08:28):
sausage rolls I've ever had, and I don't think I'll
ever beat it. She was blown away, and yeah, she
almost cried. I suppose if you ever to try and
do something romantic or think about, your first thought would
always be to use food as the gateway to enhance
that situation. And then your memories of a robantic scenario
has always been intrinsically linked to food. So I guess
(08:51):
that's what it brings up for all of us. I fell,
I fell in love with my wife over again. Did
you tell me about it? But that's the story. We
had run into one another at an event in New
York and through a variety of complicated circumstances. It took
us eighteen months to have the first dinner. Eighteen months,
which is extraordinary. That's a lot of patients, yeah, but
(09:15):
for both of us. And there I was thinking about
this woman that I had met eighteen months ago, trying
to figure out where to take her to dinner. And
we went to a restaurant called Allison on Dominic. Dominic
as a street in downtown New York, which was not
only a really good food but quite romantic. And that
was our first official day, June thirteenth. We still sell
(09:40):
we celebrate the anniversary of that date more than we
celebrate our wedding anniversary. And I mean she claimed that
she knew that night over a good meal at Allison
on Dominic. I think I probably did too. But it
was the beginning of a great romance. And and now
twenty five years of marriage, the restaurants still there. No,
(10:01):
the restaurant is not there, but we've carried on a
tradition of having dates, uh since then. I think one
of the one of the nicest parts of my life,
and there are many, is just being able to go
out to dinner alone with my wife. If I know
that I'm doing that. I look forward to it all weeks.
(10:21):
It's one of the things I missed the most out
of from the pandemic. So when we reopened off the COVID,
what I found absolutely incredible. It was this sort of
mentality of everyone just wanting to be together and just
be so respectful and so happy and kind of Oh.
What I remember when I think about it is those
big coats and blankets and the big scuffs, and everyone
(10:43):
was just so happy to sit outside. There were evenings
where it was freezing. It was so cold and we
were standing outside in our big jump as. But it
was just something so magical about it, about society coming
together again after being a part and being in such
at times, and um, I just yeah, I kind of
(11:04):
remember the opening. Of course I remember the feast and
everything else, but it just felt such a joyous time
and everyone was so happy and yeah, everyone was wearing
pig jacket. That's all I remember, but I remember that's
a very it's a very happy memory when we reopened again.
And it's just in addition to Sylvia's baggy jackets and
people sitting outside being happy, I'll never forget the bride
(11:26):
sitting outside on table three oh one in November and
it was raining and she was sitting there. She was
just there. She was like, I'm having my wedding and
it was amazing and she and they had a great time.
And I also remember one of um when we there
was the first time when we came back, because there
(11:47):
were obviously quite a few closures, and every time it
was like not again. And one of our um a
very regular customer, Susi Ard, and remember when she first
time she came back, she just she stood in the
door and she had just stuck tears coming down. She
was she just said like, oh guys, I'm just so
(12:07):
happy to see you. I'm just so happy that you
are okay. It was just so sweet and we were
like it was very emotional. I would probably say if
(12:38):
you were to ask people closest to me, I'm not
always the most fun to be with in the kitchen
um because I was. I did have my stenting kitchens,
you know, and I learned from professionals, and it's a
very tough place to kitchen, you know. It's it requires
a particular type of focus and a sense of geography,
you know, like small all spaces and moving hot things,
(13:02):
and I think I might take it all a bit
too seriously. It's a general note for myself, but I
think that my sister likes it when I cook for her.
My nieces like it when I cook for them. I
love cooking from my nieces. I love asking them what
it is that everything that they want. That to me
is like, what is your favorite? What do you want
(13:23):
me coming over? I'm gonna bring you anything that you want.
We're gonna cook it, you know, And just the satisfaction
of that is there's nothing like that too. I always
think if you're trying to woo someone, getting them involved
in the process of making something that's very important. So
I would kind of like here we make lovely like
(13:44):
rather early from scratch and and we make pasta, and
it's a brilliant skill to learn. So I think I would,
you know, have the dough and the filling and everything else,
like the thought if you're going to do it, ready
to go, and then I have my past machine set
up at home and and get them involved in the
process of you know, making portalone or or different types
of pasta shapes and kind of you know, you can
(14:04):
show off a little bit and make something together and
then and then cook it together and eat it, and
you put everything together, which I think is quite romantic.
Food is love conjures up for me tocolate Mason stick
to top. Tell me about your love for chocolate. My
earliest memories are about loving chocolate. I remember once, when
(14:26):
I was a very little girl, my big brother who
was a teenager. My parents said, you can have the
car if you bring Nancy home some ice cream. First,
he brought vanilla ice cream home. I put it under
the bed, never ate it because it wasn't chocolate. Why
would he bring me vanilla ice cream? But I've always
(14:48):
loved it, and as time has gone by, I've loved
it darker and darker and darker. Yeah, what about ice cream?
Because I did read that you have ice cream for breakfast?
Or is that an urban myth? No, it's not an
urban myth. It's convenient. It's right there, it has long
(15:09):
shelf life. I don't have to worry about it. It's
right there. And but I have it for breakfast. It's
a great way to start the day. I don't have
it every day, but I have it often. And when
I was younger, I used to have it before I
went to sleep a point device chocolate ice cream. But
as time has gone by, the later the chocolate, the
(15:31):
less sleep I have. If I make a Valentine's meal,
I would probably make a truffle taglerini. I think traffle
is amazing. I would make tagli really with caviar, taglia
really lightly, you know, tossed with butter and a tiny
little bit of lemon and then a massive spooky caviar
(15:53):
on top, beautiful glass of champagne. Yeah, I love it.
My love fool is well. My instant thought is like
a big warm pie. It sounds horrible when I say
like that, but like pies hold a very special place
in my heart. Being from the North, so I just
(16:15):
feel like it's a big hug in a place, big pie.
That's what i'd say. I'm half Italian, so I think
it would definitely be Italian reeve for me. I think probably,
like from the expression like labor of love. Things that
take a long time to prepare and cook for me
like really special because they've taken so much like care
to do so, Like just a simple baked pumpkin, you
(16:36):
have to like peel it, and the preparation of it
is really long. So yeah, the longer and the more
care into it for me means more loves being put
into it. The meal I most enjoy eating with my
part is toast, so yeah, it can be really anything
as long as it's with a person that you love
as much as I love cooking by other people. I
think being cooked for, especially as a chef, is like
(16:57):
the nicest thing anyone could do. But everyone always gets
like quite nervous. I think cooking for you when you
do that as a job. But I literally couldn't care
less what anyone gave me. I would honestly just love anything. Yeah,
oh no, this is terrible. The first thing that came
to my mind was a McDonald's. But yeah, I don't know,
(17:17):
food is love. I don't know if it's boring answer,
but I'd probably just go a bottle of champagne. I
would say freshness, seasonal, comfortable, cozy and warm, something like that.
At a moment in the world, you know, wearing bananas
and you look in nature and just you know, there's
(17:38):
last thing is happening and it feels kind of hopeful.
That's you know, life carries on that sure, I mean
trying to think I should go for like a typical.
My name is Olivia and I work in the offesting
a bit of everything really might have sticking on a bartender.
My name is Stephen Hampston and I'm one of the
(18:00):
Strom managers. My name is Christoff. I'm the head Somebody.
I'm Kitty and I'm Ruthie's po My name's Joseph Travilli
and I'm the co executive chef of the River Cafe.
My name is Ricky and I'm one of the most
charming chefs at the River Cafe Cavy. I worked in
the shop. My name is Max. I'm a Headway to
Cafe Imagant. I'm shop operations manager. I would say. My
(18:22):
name is Jackie and I'm a chef. My name is
Sylvia A. Zevska and i am a reservations manager at
the River Cafe. My name is Alexpidick. Mo'm my floor
manager Woman Cafe. I'm Otto Um and I'm a chef
in the kitchen. My name is Sophia and I'm a
chef at the River Cafe. I am Jess and I'm
a chef the River Cafe. My name is Sean Winnowen
(18:45):
and I am the executive chef at the River Cafe.
My name is I'm Rosie and I'm a pastry chef.
I am pauled Cecy and I am a cook at
the River Cafe. I'm Sheila. I'm marketing an equal mist manager.
I'm hBee and I am a that's driver cafaign. Hi.
My name is Jamie ville Herner and I'm the gardener
at the River Cafe. H. Happy Valentine's Day.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adamized Studios. The Food is Love and Love
is food. For Valentine's Day today, we thought we should
dedicate this episode of Ruthie's Table four talking to the chefs,
the managers, the waiters, bartender's gardeners, and some of our
(00:21):
previous kists who spoke about the importance of food and
celebrating love. Can I have a second to think about it? Loves?
Food is love. That's a very tricky question. It could
be so tailored to any particular individual. Have you done
(00:42):
this day? M yet He's friends, you can wake it out.
Food is love, Food's love. Wine is love. Probably nice
bottle of rosa champagne, that's love. I think they're very
closely linked to food, and because I think the way
(01:04):
to a lot of people's heart lists. Food is about love.
It's about protection, it's about generosity and consciousness, memories, memories, memories,
and it's also about comfort. We want to give other
people comforts, so we feed them, and there's times when
we need comforts, so we feed ourselves. You were describing
(01:33):
cooking was one of the great pleasures the other night
It's one of my biggest passions, you know, along with wine. Now,
I love to cook, you know. I was in the
kitchen the other day cooking for the kids, and Victoria
was like, can I help, what can I do? And
I was like, honestly, sit down, have a Voglan tonic, relax,
be with the kids. This is what I love to do.
(01:53):
And I really relate to that because you kind of father.
There's a method, isn't there. But it's also creative, and
it's also you're doing it for your kids who you
haven't seen all day, and there's the anticipation, and I
think that is something why you'd probably like to cook,
and I'd like to cook. It's just one of the
main reasons why I love to cook, because it's why
I love lego. Also because it relaxes me, you know,
(02:16):
and I'm forty seven years older, and I'll still sit
there with you on my own actually till two, three
four in the morning doing Lego because actually it relaxes me.
And it's the same cooking for the kids. I love
to cook for my parents. I love to cook for
my friends. And I think that it's obviously come from,
you know, my upbringing. And I tried to do the
(02:36):
same with Victoria tries to do the same with the
kids as well. You know, we want them to be happy,
we want them to be healthy. Did they cook with you?
They do? Cooking is my wife, straightforward as that, you know,
like that's my favorite thing to do, full stop. I
have cooked to press many people for the years, with
(02:59):
you know, various levels ofs. Sometimes I think the message
was so deeply embedded in the like you know, lent
to broth that didn't necessarily come across, but you know,
eventually it worked. And I think it's something that people
do say quite often, you know, like, oh, you hear
it a lot in the kitchen. You know, put some
love into this was love. But when you actually put
(03:21):
genuine love into making something for someone you love, I
think it's it's it's it's elevated. Love is a secret
ingredient to a great dish. I always like to think
if I'm cooking for someone, I always try to imagine
that and cooking for my girlfriends because then I know
I'm going to put extra love into it, and you
can taste the love every bite, you know. Listen, my
(03:42):
favorite meal at the moment is lasagna. Lasagna is a
dish made out of love and hard work, so many
different layers. You have to make the beautiful besha Mel,
you have to make the beautiful source, you know, you
have to make the beautiful pasta, and everything has to
be perfect. So that's my favorite thing to do at
the moment, the lasagna. Do you know what, I don't
have a girlfriend at the moment. You're breaking my heart
reminding me. But hopefully I'll meet someone by then and
(04:04):
I have something to kick you know. I love cooking.
I'm doing this play here at the moment, and I'm
actually living at friend's house. My kids are spending the
summer with their dad and my mom's. But when things
are a little bit more normal and we're all living
together under one roof, then it's I'd make them every
weekend without fail. I'd do a Sunday roast on a Sunday.
(04:27):
My mom said, Actually, one of the funniest memories that
she has with me is this is my emotional connection
to roast. Inn It's that when I went traveling around
Asia and I must have been eighteen or nineteen, and
I came back and she'd obviously made a roast inn
because that's why I said that I wanted to come
back for And we sat around the tables as a family,
(04:49):
and once we'd finished, my sister went, thanks, Mama, was delicious,
gravy was amazing, and I just burst into tears because
I had forgotten to put gravy on. So the rose
(05:10):
tradition is something that goes back from your childhood to
yours and then to your children. Yeah, but I think
even my mom's childhood as well. You know, I think
she was sort of raised on roast inners. I mean,
I mean, maybe it's because in my family just the
way that things have worked out and my mom being,
you know, a single working mother, and that was possibly
(05:33):
the one time a week that we all did come
together around a table. You know, there wasn't there wasn't
much of that. I don't really have memories of sitting
around the table as a family, but I do on Sundays.
I think I'm quite good at roast, but I mean
there's something like your mom's cooking is there, So I
can never quite get that element in there that she
seems together. But I think it's just a lot of
stock that she says, So I could just be that
(05:55):
I love to cook. My dad was a coke I
used to watch in the whole time. It's something I
do here as well. I just kind of watch people cooking,
and that's my favorite thing too, particularly when you work
on the pass if you ever spare a moment, I
just watch people and you pick up so many things.
Food and love. Gosh, food is love, isn't it. I
mean I cook for my husband every single day, and
(06:15):
that is like my way of showing love for him.
That's my love language for him. Food His love language
is definitely i'd say words of affirmation. Yeah, um, it's
definitely not food. He definitely doesn't cook for me. I
don't really cook. I don't think my love language probably
being cooked for eating the food. Food is the way
(06:36):
to my art. Just yeah, if someone puts in a
lot of time and effort to cook a nice meal,
I think that says a lot and it's a nice
little thank And so do you do that with your children?
Do you cook with that idea? Do you think that
you're interested in cooking for them? Does come from your
own childhood or because it was such an unabashed expression
(06:59):
of my father's for us, like there was no denying it.
And when someone is so excited about like the sear
on their baby back ribs, you know, and like look
at this, Look what I did. You know, it's so
imbued with love that you can't It's undeniable, and so
you learn it as a love language. I just had
this is the beginning at a house full of people
in our house in Santa Barbara, and I was making
(07:22):
all these different breakfasts, and you know, my friends are like,
oh my god, we feel so terrible, and I was like, no,
you don't understand, Like this is my love language, Like
I'm so happy doing this. A few years ago, I
was living in Peru in a van and it was
my girlfriend's birthday. She's from Australian and she had been missing,
you know, food from her home, and so I decided
(07:42):
I was going to make her sausage roles, which is
easy here but not easy in Peru because you can't
get the puff pastry or even the sausage meat, like
needs to be fresh mints and stuff. So I went
around town all day looking for all of the ingredients.
Never made puff paste before. I made it myself, but
didn't have a rolling pin, so use a little wine bottle,
(08:05):
you know, went to the butcher there and this lady
in full Peruvian get up is there with a machete,
you know, hacking up the meat for me. I didn't
even have an oven, so I had to borrow an
oven and it was taken forever, took hours. But it
was a surprise, so she had no idea what was happening.
She just knew that I was cooking up a storm.
And it took like two days because of the puff
praistry having to chill. But they were the most amazing
(08:28):
sausage rolls I've ever had, and I don't think I'll
ever beat it. She was blown away, and yeah, she
almost cried. I suppose if you ever to try and
do something romantic or think about, your first thought would
always be to use food as the gateway to enhance
that situation. And then your memories of a robantic scenario
has always been intrinsically linked to food. So I guess
(08:51):
that's what it brings up for all of us. I fell,
I fell in love with my wife over again. Did
you tell me about it? But that's the story. We
had run into one another at an event in New
York and through a variety of complicated circumstances. It took
us eighteen months to have the first dinner. Eighteen months,
which is extraordinary. That's a lot of patients, yeah, but
(09:15):
for both of us. And there I was thinking about
this woman that I had met eighteen months ago, trying
to figure out where to take her to dinner. And
we went to a restaurant called Allison on Dominic. Dominic
as a street in downtown New York, which was not
only a really good food but quite romantic. And that
was our first official day, June thirteenth. We still sell
(09:40):
we celebrate the anniversary of that date more than we
celebrate our wedding anniversary. And I mean she claimed that
she knew that night over a good meal at Allison
on Dominic. I think I probably did too. But it
was the beginning of a great romance. And and now
twenty five years of marriage, the restaurants still there. No,
(10:01):
the restaurant is not there, but we've carried on a
tradition of having dates, uh since then. I think one
of the one of the nicest parts of my life,
and there are many, is just being able to go
out to dinner alone with my wife. If I know
that I'm doing that. I look forward to it all weeks.
(10:21):
It's one of the things I missed the most out
of from the pandemic. So when we reopened off the COVID,
what I found absolutely incredible. It was this sort of
mentality of everyone just wanting to be together and just
be so respectful and so happy and kind of Oh.
What I remember when I think about it is those
big coats and blankets and the big scuffs, and everyone
(10:43):
was just so happy to sit outside. There were evenings
where it was freezing. It was so cold and we
were standing outside in our big jump as. But it
was just something so magical about it, about society coming
together again after being a part and being in such
at times, and um, I just yeah, I kind of
(11:04):
remember the opening. Of course I remember the feast and
everything else, but it just felt such a joyous time
and everyone was so happy and yeah, everyone was wearing
pig jacket. That's all I remember, but I remember that's
a very it's a very happy memory when we reopened again.
And it's just in addition to Sylvia's baggy jackets and
people sitting outside being happy, I'll never forget the bride
(11:26):
sitting outside on table three oh one in November and
it was raining and she was sitting there. She was
just there. She was like, I'm having my wedding and
it was amazing and she and they had a great time.
And I also remember one of um when we there
was the first time when we came back, because there
(11:47):
were obviously quite a few closures, and every time it
was like not again. And one of our um a
very regular customer, Susi Ard, and remember when she first
time she came back, she just she stood in the
door and she had just stuck tears coming down. She
was she just said like, oh guys, I'm just so
(12:07):
happy to see you. I'm just so happy that you
are okay. It was just so sweet and we were
like it was very emotional. I would probably say if
(12:38):
you were to ask people closest to me, I'm not
always the most fun to be with in the kitchen
um because I was. I did have my stenting kitchens,
you know, and I learned from professionals, and it's a
very tough place to kitchen, you know. It's it requires
a particular type of focus and a sense of geography,
you know, like small all spaces and moving hot things,
(13:02):
and I think I might take it all a bit
too seriously. It's a general note for myself, but I
think that my sister likes it when I cook for her.
My nieces like it when I cook for them. I
love cooking from my nieces. I love asking them what
it is that everything that they want. That to me
is like, what is your favorite? What do you want
(13:23):
me coming over? I'm gonna bring you anything that you want.
We're gonna cook it, you know, And just the satisfaction
of that is there's nothing like that too. I always
think if you're trying to woo someone, getting them involved
in the process of making something that's very important. So
I would kind of like here we make lovely like
(13:44):
rather early from scratch and and we make pasta, and
it's a brilliant skill to learn. So I think I would,
you know, have the dough and the filling and everything else,
like the thought if you're going to do it, ready
to go, and then I have my past machine set
up at home and and get them involved in the
process of you know, making portalone or or different types
of pasta shapes and kind of you know, you can
(14:04):
show off a little bit and make something together and
then and then cook it together and eat it, and
you put everything together, which I think is quite romantic.
Food is love conjures up for me tocolate Mason stick
to top. Tell me about your love for chocolate. My
earliest memories are about loving chocolate. I remember once, when
(14:26):
I was a very little girl, my big brother who
was a teenager. My parents said, you can have the
car if you bring Nancy home some ice cream. First,
he brought vanilla ice cream home. I put it under
the bed, never ate it because it wasn't chocolate. Why
would he bring me vanilla ice cream? But I've always
(14:48):
loved it, and as time has gone by, I've loved
it darker and darker and darker. Yeah, what about ice cream?
Because I did read that you have ice cream for breakfast?
Or is that an urban myth? No, it's not an
urban myth. It's convenient. It's right there, it has long
(15:09):
shelf life. I don't have to worry about it. It's
right there. And but I have it for breakfast. It's
a great way to start the day. I don't have
it every day, but I have it often. And when
I was younger, I used to have it before I
went to sleep a point device chocolate ice cream. But
as time has gone by, the later the chocolate, the
(15:31):
less sleep I have. If I make a Valentine's meal,
I would probably make a truffle taglerini. I think traffle
is amazing. I would make tagli really with caviar, taglia
really lightly, you know, tossed with butter and a tiny
little bit of lemon and then a massive spooky caviar
(15:53):
on top, beautiful glass of champagne. Yeah, I love it.
My love fool is well. My instant thought is like
a big warm pie. It sounds horrible when I say
like that, but like pies hold a very special place
in my heart. Being from the North, so I just
(16:15):
feel like it's a big hug in a place, big pie.
That's what i'd say. I'm half Italian, so I think
it would definitely be Italian reeve for me. I think probably,
like from the expression like labor of love. Things that
take a long time to prepare and cook for me
like really special because they've taken so much like care
to do so, Like just a simple baked pumpkin, you
(16:36):
have to like peel it, and the preparation of it
is really long. So yeah, the longer and the more
care into it for me means more loves being put
into it. The meal I most enjoy eating with my
part is toast, so yeah, it can be really anything
as long as it's with a person that you love
as much as I love cooking by other people. I
think being cooked for, especially as a chef, is like
(16:57):
the nicest thing anyone could do. But everyone always gets
like quite nervous. I think cooking for you when you
do that as a job. But I literally couldn't care
less what anyone gave me. I would honestly just love anything. Yeah,
oh no, this is terrible. The first thing that came
to my mind was a McDonald's. But yeah, I don't know,
(17:17):
food is love. I don't know if it's boring answer,
but I'd probably just go a bottle of champagne. I
would say freshness, seasonal, comfortable, cozy and warm, something like that.
At a moment in the world, you know, wearing bananas
and you look in nature and just you know, there's
(17:38):
last thing is happening and it feels kind of hopeful.
That's you know, life carries on that sure, I mean
trying to think I should go for like a typical.
My name is Olivia and I work in the offesting
a bit of everything really might have sticking on a bartender.
My name is Stephen Hampston and I'm one of the
(18:00):
Strom managers. My name is Christoff. I'm the head Somebody.
I'm Kitty and I'm Ruthie's po My name's Joseph Travilli
and I'm the co executive chef of the River Cafe.
My name is Ricky and I'm one of the most
charming chefs at the River Cafe Cavy. I worked in
the shop. My name is Max. I'm a Headway to
Cafe Imagant. I'm shop operations manager. I would say. My
(18:22):
name is Jackie and I'm a chef. My name is
Sylvia A. Zevska and i am a reservations manager at
the River Cafe. My name is Alexpidick. Mo'm my floor
manager Woman Cafe. I'm Otto Um and I'm a chef
in the kitchen. My name is Sophia and I'm a
chef at the River Cafe. I am Jess and I'm
a chef the River Cafe. My name is Sean Winnowen
(18:45):
and I am the executive chef at the River Cafe.
My name is I'm Rosie and I'm a pastry chef.
I am pauled Cecy and I am a cook at
the River Cafe. I'm Sheila. I'm marketing an equal mist manager.
I'm hBee and I am a that's driver cafaign. Hi.
My name is Jamie ville Herner and I'm the gardener
at the River Cafe. H. Happy Valentine's Day.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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