December 26, 2022 • 29 mins
Imagine for a moment, you are Martha Stewart. It is 1992 and you are the most important woman in the world of food. You say your best quality is your curiosity. So, maybe it was that curiosity which made you drive 25 minutes to a small restaurant in a warehouse on the Thames, which had opened just a few years before, run by two women whose only experience was cooking for their families.
In this special live episode of the podcast, Ruthie sits with Martha in front of a live audience celebrating the launch of The River Cafe Look Book in New York - talking about books, and about each other.
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/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 Adami's Studios. Hello everyone, and welcome to an
evening with Ruthie Rogers and Martha Stewart on The River Cafe.
Look book for Ruthie's Table for a podcast. Award winning
chef and best selling cookbook author Ruthie Rogers launched The
(00:22):
River Cafe in London in a week ago. Today I
was in New York with Martha Stewart doing a live podcast.
Martha Stewart is the founder of the first multi channel
lifestyle about cooking, about magazines, about books about each other
(00:44):
like careers and food. Reaching more than one million devoted
fans on a monthly basis. Through her magazines, television shows,
books and products for the home, Martha is a go
to source for the homemaker. Please join me in welcoming
Ruthie and Martha. Imagine for a moment, you are Martha Stewart.
(01:11):
It is two and you're the most important woman in
the world of food. You are beautiful, you're funny, and
you say yourself that your best quality is your curiosity.
So maybe it was that curiosity which made you drive
twenty five minutes from your hotel in London to a
small restaurant in a warehouse on the Thames, which had
(01:34):
opened just a few years before, run by two women
whose only culinary experience was cooking for their families. Now
imagine how these women, Rose Gray and Ruthie Rogers felt
when Martha Stewart booked a table for lunch. They were anxious, excited,
and probably a bit overwhelmed. Today, being here together on
(02:00):
this autumn day in New York means more to me
than I can possibly say. This is a long time ago.
What nineteen When did I first? It seems like yesterday,
but it's actually was a long time ago. And I
was a divorcee and my first big trip to London
after I got divorced and started my own company. Um,
(02:21):
I met men, really nice men, and I read and
I read in your book. I read in your book
who You're, Who You're, and some of them are in
that list, and it's really fun to see that. Uh
well or all I I looked online, you know, but
um yeah, people, you're grateful too. But like I did,
I did not have an affair with Michael Caine, but
(02:42):
I did have affair. But I did have an affair
with one of his best friends and Terry O'Neil, the photographer,
remember him. He was great and he started to introduced
me to the nice crowd in London and we had
that Michael is I've said, Michael's amazing. Oh. I went
to Michael Caine's house for the weekend. I had so
(03:05):
much fun. It was a big house party, you know,
and I think about those days. I can't even believe
that was me, because it was. It was, but it
was so much fun. But we but we ate at
that We ate at this restaurant that was so exquisite
because there's two ladies dressed in their stiff white chef's
(03:25):
jackets and they looked really great and they spoke really
nicely to everyone, and and the food was just delicious
and really well presented. I just loved it. I loved
it for the first moment that I walked into the
restaurant to come on your two Yes I did. We
must post that segment tomorrow. Of course. It's it's film,
(03:49):
your film, all that stuff. Okay, I'm still looking for
the bab. We have a big library I tried to find.
It's so funny because I'm working in my hundreds of book.
And I get this book in the mail called The
(04:09):
River Cafe Look Book, and I opened it up and
I say, oh ship, she beat me to it, and uh,
and what I had already discussed with my editor what
I wanted to do, and I wanted to I wanted
to make the food in the book it's my hundred
favorite recipes. I wanted to make the food look like art.
(04:30):
And you've done it, so I can't do it now.
I have to think of a whole new idea for
the photographer. No, but I really love the pictures so much.
We took all the photographs of the finished dishes, and
trying to do it step by step was patronizing, boring,
and we just weren't very good at it. So we thought,
you know, what would be a book that might inspire
(04:52):
people to cook, and not necessarily just children, without intimidating them,
but inspiring them to cook. And um, it has a
kind of backstory, this book, which is to do with
someone bought me these books for people who have had
brain damage or autism or anything connected with neurology, and
(05:12):
it's it's I'll just show you very quickly. It's about
pairing images and so we thought what we would do
is do a book in which you just had images
next to each other. So why is looking at a
vase of wilting tulips something that connects you with spaghetti
vangel as with red chilis? And why would have you
(05:33):
know burnt matches somehow means something to you. With lamb chops,
there's something that stops you. And so what we did
was we had the photographer do all the food photographs,
Matthew Donaldson, and then we didn't commission these photographs. We
went through his archives and so we went through the
archives and we found photographs that we thought we could
(05:54):
possibly match with UM with the cooked food, and then
we put the recipes at the back and UM with
kind of very Martha Stewart like instructions, which is advice,
which is to begin by reading a recipe twice, ending
by now put on your apron and wash your hands. Anyway,
(06:14):
this is what we did and this is our book.
It was very nice production. I said to UM, someone
who helps me, I said, can you go and get
a book by Martha? Not one of the new ones,
but just go and try and find a book. And
they came back with Housekeeping six things to do when
you wake up in the morning. Do you know what
they are? I know, wake your bed, get rid of
(06:37):
the clutter. Uh. This is this dates it because it
says sort your mail, which I thought it just I
just ordered my mail this afternoon. Email letter mail, really
mail every day you I haven't had a letter of
If anybody wants to write fan mail, really, I'd love
to sort it. Then I could have something to sort.
(06:59):
And I have to sort through all that mail I've
story to. Stephanie gets all the like the fan mail.
We get a lot of fan mail. I mean, it's
it's amazing where they where it comes from. And then
and then my the guy who who pays all the bills,
he gets all the bills. Don't you get bills? Oh geez,
you're lucky. I think that Housekeeping have Aby. You've seen it.
(07:21):
It is when we've been reading it every night where
Bay comes to the house. It's about that homekeeping handbook.
I love it. It is the best tells you there's
you know, And I thought you know. And I was
talking to a yet very young friend of mine, and
I was telling him that that a lot of us
whose mother's perhaps really became involved in feminism right in
(07:41):
the maybe the sixties really didn't want to teach us
how to sew a button, you know, or cleanness spill
when it's fresh. Well, we know that, you know, it's easier.
But I think that what Martha really did teach us
that it's okay to do what we want to do,
but also know how to do something domestic. And I
(08:01):
think it's very important. Like my friends don't know to
use a squeegee in their showers. They don't know that,
and you get into their shower and it's all grungy,
you know, and the glass looks all cloudy if only
you use a squeegee. My grandchildren used squeeges just to
see them. Then they're beautiful. Showers are cleaning them everything.
(08:22):
You know, since they were one, they were using squeegee.
But that book is great. The Homekeeping Handbook is great.
And a decorators Michael Smith, who's the fanciest fanciest decorator
on earth. He gives that book to his clients and
they sit down and they read it so they can
learn how to take care of those fancy houses that
he designs for them. I wish I could read my
(08:44):
first Twitter recipes because um, I was a really big
fan of Twitter when it came out. I still have
the original stock. I think I think I've gotten paid
fifty four dollars to share, but I'm not sure. I
haven't gotten any money yet from Elon. Let's let's see
if he pays, if he pays those debts. But my
I had so much fun writing those recipes. Try to
(09:05):
do a recipe in eighty characters, it was really hard.
So Martha, can you tell me about your family? Can
you tell me about growing up in a household? Well, mother,
(09:27):
I grew up with mom and dad, both in Nutley,
New Jersey. Mother was a school teacher. She taught sixth
grade at at the Washington School in Nutley, New Jersey,
and she went back to teaching when she had her
sixth child. Right when that sixth child, Laura was old
enough to go to kindergarten, my mother started teaching again.
She took off, like I think, eighteen years to have
(09:49):
six kids, but she substituted during that time because she
she didn't like staying home that much. Dad was a
pharmaceutical salesman. Like I said once, he was a drug salesman.
And it's not exactly the right thing. But but mother
cooked every meal. How did she do that? She she
was organized. And and Martha, I was the oldest daughter,
(10:11):
so I was there was a brother, a daughter, as
a boy girl, boy girl all the way down. And
I learned how to cook at her side, and I
would help, of course. But the kitchen was the hub
of our home. And it was a really ugly kitchen.
My father he renovated the kitchen himself, and and he
put down pink linolium squares on the floor pink. And
(10:33):
he put a bathroom, a little sink and toilet right
off the breakfast nook. We had a nook where we
all sat with a big picture window looking out at
the garden. And um. And then he put birch cabinets
which were they were okay, except that he put very
ugly hardware on them, and then pink for mica countertops,
which which was not nice. And um. And that's all
(10:55):
one side of the kitchen and one little oven, one
with a royal or in it. You know, this is
for eight people here that well, I guess that was
the nineteen fifties. That was the renovation of fifties kitchen.
It looked like we had it and it's still there.
I haven't been. I haven't been inside the house. I'm
(11:16):
going to visit the house since we my mother sold it.
But um, but I'm sure it's still there. It was,
it was well built, but they must have put new
counters in because that pink was heart was hideous. But um,
you know it's just before we go back to your
mom is. I did a podcast with Alfonso Quaren, the
film director to Roma, and it's very interesting because he
talked about the difference between the American culture of the
(11:41):
kind of middle class wealth of growth, and the Mexican
And it also reminded meed Italy that he said that
in America, if you had more money, you had bigger kitchens,
you had a huge fridge, you have two ovens, you'd
have walk in this and you know, that's how you
showed your wealth. In Mexico, and I think probably in
(12:01):
Italy you could go to quite grand houses and have
a very simple kitchen, really really small, but you had
more help. That was the help. You just had more domestics.
So his whole well, if you've seen Roma, it is about,
you know, the life of the domestic. Whereas I think
you had no to your mother had no help nothing.
So when was she shot? How she worked? Well, we
(12:22):
went shopping it was Friday morning, Friday, Friday morning with
Mr Mouse from next door, this German baker from next door,
and and he had a big use and he was
he and his wife would take us, would drive us
because we only had one car and I took the
car to work. So they would take us to the
(12:42):
co op that's where we shopped and uh and load
up the car with a week's supply of groceries. And
we also had a large garden and so that that
was only you know, during the warm weather though, it
was the garden and my mother did a lot of
canning and preserving. We had a large freezer in the basement,
a great big freezer, and we also had a large
refrigerator in the basement where overflow was kept. Yeah. And
(13:06):
when my brother wasn't skinning muskrats in the in the
laundry sink, he was a trapper. He put himself through
college on his on the for the fur that he trapped.
Can't you imagine? I and I was the best skinner,
so I did a lot of the skinning that I
skinned muskrats. They were dead by the time I got them,
thank god. And I didn't have to let you learn
(13:28):
how to skin and muskrats? Do you learn that for life?
Is that something you do never forget. I'm really good.
I'm really good at killing the chickens and the geese
and all of that stuff. So you grew up in
this house, so it's not a surprise that you taught
everybody had to change the light bulb and how to
I did all that stuff. I did all that stuff.
I'm still not very good at plumbing and I'm not
very good at electricity, but I can do all the
(13:50):
other stuff. So tell me more about growing up in them.
And well, the house was, it was. It was a
fun house, you know because you you um like the
old Polish joke where what's a what's a Polish vacation?
Do you know what that is? And and please don't
take this badly, I'm not big at h it. I
have Polish on it's sitting on your neighbors stoop and
(14:11):
that's a vacation. And that's what we We sat next
door on the Italian stoop, where we sat next door
on the Irish stoop, and we had we ate everybody's food.
We were. It was a very nice neighborhood. And I
learned a lot. I learned how to roast the potato
the best way, you know that was that was important
to know how to do that. And I also learned
how to make beautiful, beautiful yeaest spreads from Mr Mouse
(14:33):
and his basement. He had a big bakery down in
his basement. And I still have his bread making bowl,
the big yellow ware bowl in which I which I
made all my dough. And for Thanksgiving, I'm giving my
whole staff. I'm giving them all pandatoni, which is which
is a recipe that I learned from Mr Mouse a
long time ago, and it's good. So if you had
(14:54):
all that background, which does really explain a lot, I
didn't know that because there are a lot of people
grew up without any of that knowledge. We fished. We
went fishing and would bring home a hundred bluefish and um,
and we would freeze those bluefish and we could eat
bluefish for a lot, a lot of blue fish. I
like bluefish actually, And we would also we had farmer
(15:15):
farmer relatives in southern New Jersey that had cows and
grew corn really good corn being pulled. A Polish background,
you learn a lot about agriculture, and you learn a
lot about cooking and preserving. And every night, all of us, yes,
and with dinner was important and conversation at the dinner
was important. What would that be like? Oh, everything from
(15:38):
current events to what was on the Shadow Knows too.
That's a radio program. We had a radio, but not
a television. We were the last family on the street
to get a television. We would have to sneak out
and visit our neighbors to watch TV. When I interviewed Nancy,
she said she'd never sat down to a meal without
(15:59):
a tablecloth. Oh, well, we sat down to a pink
for my could table in the nook of the of
the kitchen nook. It was called the breakfast nook, but
it was a large enough table for eight people. And
who did the dishes afternoon? And yes, I did the dishes,
and the homework was at the kitchen table right and
(16:20):
Mom would sit there with her one cigarette. She was
so sexy. She sat there and after dinner, after everybody
was in bed except for Martha who was cleaning up.
And I was also sewing a lot too, because I
made my own clothes. Uh, mom would sit It's true,
asked my sisters, and my mother would sit there with
(16:41):
one cigarette, her Chesterfield cigarette in her fingers. And I
loved how she looked. I thought it was the greatest.
I never smoked, No, but that was only one a day.
Did your father cook? Dad made breakfasts, but he would,
you know, he would make eggs with smiley faces made
out of marsh cherries and green peppers, lips, you know,
(17:03):
to Laura's down to the kitchen. And he had an
intercom in the house. If you ever read Cheaper by
the Dozen, it was a fabulous book about a father
who had twelve children. Um, and it was written in
like Montclair, New Jersey. Dad would would make believe he
was that father. And uh, what about the intercond rise
and shine? I still remember that. I'm not allowed to
(17:27):
say that in my house at all in China. So
then the early year, I'm getting silly. This is very
silly because it is, but it is a childhood based
on real I mean, we were brought up on fresh,
good food. Yeah, yes, this was life in the in
the house and the suburbs. And what was your name
for what was it? Martha? Kastira. But do you think
(17:51):
they were. Did you have a grandmother? Oh yeah, two grandmothers,
just one of the other. Thing was she important? Well, Grandma,
Grandma Helen lived down the street, so she was. And
she made the best gifilter fish. She would bring home
the giant carp that would sit in the bathtub. Of course,
(18:12):
most delicious moose, the moose of carp that was turned
out to be the gafilter fish with a wonderful sauce.
She was. She was great. And the other grandmother, Grandma
Grandma Roskoski, lived in Buffalo, New York, and she lived
next door to a slaughterhouse, so I got to see
(18:32):
how animals were slaughtered. Early on. We would peek through
the wooden fence and see the cows coming in and
all of that. Um, but I learned. I learned a
lot about how to treat animals and how not to
treat animals. And also she was She would go to
the farms up in New York State near Buffalo and
and bring home the most beautiful golden cherries. And she
(18:54):
would do all canning because they didn't have freezers, but
they did. She did amazing. Oh yeah, it was incredible.
I learned how to be a good can or from
her how good can well, the preparation and the sterilization
of the jars and the and making sure everything is
impeccable and so that we won't get sick eating you know,
changent food. And that was impressed on us a lot.
(19:17):
About how your grandparents born in Poland, yes, all of them,
so they brought that with them. So that was what
it was growing up in that household. And then when
you left, did you miss that? Was that? Not at all?
Not at all? Because I got married when I was nineteen.
I fell in love at eighteen and got married as
quickly as I could possibly get married and get out
(19:39):
of the house and start my own house. It was fun.
It was a lot of fun. And I cooked everything
all the time. YEA dinner parties cool? Did you did
your husband cold? No, he didn't, but he liked to eat.
(20:00):
With a large family and the kind of life you had,
I think I might know the answer to this question.
But did you go to restaurants? No? No, no, we
had no money to go to restaurants. Six kids, all
preparing to go to college. Um, there was no time.
My big treat for my dad. My dad loved good
(20:21):
food and he went to restaurants because he would take
his doctors out that he was selling drugs to whatever. Um,
So he got to experiment and visit my restaurants in
New York City. But he would bring me home like
a pomegranate from China Town. And so when did you
start going to restaurants day? Well, as soon as I
(20:42):
could get to work, I went. I went to work seriously,
probably when I was around thirteen. I started to model
in New York City. A girl across the street was
a model in a ballerina in New York and she said, Martha,
you should really come see my agent. She'd love you.
So I went to see on this lady. I leaned
(21:03):
forward and she accepted me as a as a kind
of a yeah, part time models. So I would I
would work after school and on Saturdays I would work
maybe modeling live at Bond would teller. Um. It was fun,
and you know it was like instead of fifty cents
an hour, I was making more like twenty an hour
(21:23):
in New York and that's that was a lot of money.
And then I got some TV commercials and that's what
really paid. Um. It paid for my entire college education.
The residuals. In those days, it was very lucrative. So
I did that until I went to Barnard College. When
you started eating out, oh yes, and boyfriends you know,
would take me out to dinner. We would have nice
(21:43):
dinners different places I remember going. Was it like New York? Well, Um,
one of my boyfriend's, the guy I actually married, lived
in the Ritz Tower, and the Ritz Tower on Park
Avenue in Street had the pavillon downstairs that was his
lunch room and a this was sent up to his
apartment and dinner if you wanted to. But we ate
(22:03):
in the pavion. That was very nice. And uh there
were other lovely French restaurants to eat at. There was
only one Japanese restaurant that I remember downtown on like
fifty six street, but I ate it. A Japanese restaurant
uptown on in Amsterdam called Ackey that was very good.
So I started to experiment with all different cuisines early on.
(22:26):
As soon as I could, I started to eat unusual foods.
I think that that also is when you can pay
for your own meal, when you can go out to
a restaurant, is it kind of almost a measure of
your success, isn't it that you know that you know?
But it was? But it is very different now, right?
What did you take your children out to restaurants? The
(22:49):
restaurants they love fine food, yes, especially Japanese food. They
have very very good taste. Do you ever order in?
I have never ordered I just don't do that. And
I think it's during COVID. I think there was a
pizza one night that somebody ordered in. But I I
(23:11):
cooked for the first hundred days of COVID. I cooked
for I kept three people in my house with me.
I kept my guarden, my head gardener, Ryan, Um, he's
not bad to have around. And I kept my driver, Carlos,
and I kept my housekeeper, Elvira, and I cooked. I
cooked for them all meals and we actually had a
(23:33):
lovely time. And I don't think it's bad when I
say I don't order in, I don't subjudge it because
I see my kids. Do my kids do when I
go into a restaurant, can see the take out that's
lined up on the counter. Maybe I just thought my
habit or neither. But I think that your your mother
probably hasn't Has she have any of your mother's. Do
(23:53):
you think it might be really generational, because it is,
but it goes back to your mother. It is really
hard to work cold day or as many people you
know work the night shift or have to go to work.
You know the image that we all have that everybody
should sit down and eat a home cooked You know,
it's really hard. It is really hard, and I think
judging who don't do it isn't fair the people who
(24:15):
do go home and put a good meal on the table,
and also respect the ones who can't. I do you know,
because I think maybe you'd prefer to do homework with
your kids then cook a meal, or maybe, as I said,
you have to leave it five to go work at Amazon,
or you know that it's a tough world that is
about going back. And so you went to Barnard, you
get married, and then when did the thought of actually
(24:39):
all the knowledge that you had from your mother and
from your your past and your experience, when did that
come into the idea of actually do that full time?
Oh that took a while because I took some detours,
like to Wall Street. I learned how to learn how
to be a kind of stockbroker, and I traveled a lot,
and tasted foods all over the world and fell in
(25:01):
love with different cuisines and tried to learn how to
how to make those things. That was all more hobby
than than proficient. And then I then I guess. Let
me see, I was already forty when I wrote my
first book, So yeah, I was old by the time
I wrote my first book. I was thirty eight when
I started really Cafe. Yeah, yeah, so we were there
late bloomers when when we're going to colleges would call
(25:23):
you a late bloom I think they called the late
blue but probably when I was eighteen anyway, said it
was like fourteen. But I think that it is interesting
how the two of us, you know, we didn't go
I didn't go to cooking school, and I certainly didn't
have the background that you had. I have been maligned
for not having gone to cooking school, and I had
been maligned for not knowing how to do this or
(25:44):
do that. But my best team hasn't been mind like crazy.
But well, you know, giving advice to not having just
because I didn't have an I didn't have a culinary education.
I didn't a very male at that time, it was
very male, but I don't want to get into that
because that's I don't hold any grudges us. Yes, um,
(26:05):
it is a fact. Yeah, it was kind of crazy
because I learned from watching. I'm a really good observer
and I have had the opportunity in my career with
with the TV shows to have the finest chefs in
the world cooking with me. And Nobu even gave me
a sushi jacket because I he thought I did very
(26:27):
well with a sushi knife and and the fish. He
let me cut sushi behind his bar on fifty seventh Street.
That's pretty high praise. But that's the kind of thing
I like to learn from from watching and learning with
the finest of the you know, the finest chefs in
the in the world. So what happened when you were forty?
What was the act? Well, I decided I would write
(26:48):
a book and I wrote I was catering. I was
doing a lot of catering. Yeah, so yeah, when did
that start? That started in my mid thirties. You just
had it that start that I retired from Wall Street
and I had to do something. So I started a
catering business, which probably I should have stayed in Wall Street.
And you know, run General Electric or something, but just
(27:13):
just in retrospect, it would be in sort of fun.
But our move to Silicon BacT Catering is the worst
job on earth. And it's sort of like being a stockbroker.
All you're doing is paying attention to an individual at
a specific time and uh, and it's all it's all
about money and getting this stuff done on time. And
(27:34):
it was It was a pretty horrible business. But you're
building a restaurant every night and tearing it down at
the end of the evening and loading it into the car.
And I knew my marriage was over the night I
drove back into the driveway on Turkey Hill Road and
nobody came out to help. That was I knew it
was over. But that's what That's what happened because I
(27:56):
was devoted to the work. And then that's when I
started thinking, what can I do to make something that
my children, my grandchildren and grandchildren might know their know
their grandma for And that was to write a book
Entertaining Entertaining that nice book is a really nice book.
So that was published in two It's forty years old
(28:17):
this year, forty years old. Food is alleviating hunger food
is political, it's also comfort. And so my last question
to you, my darling woman, is when you need comfort,
is there food you turn to? Probably the bowl of
(28:40):
eggs in my kitchen. How would they? Well, I raise
my own chickens and might raise my own eggs, and
the eggs are so delicious and no matter how you
cook them, they're good. Well, see you today as a comfort,
Martha Stewart. Thank you so great to see you after.
(29:07):
The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
(29:28):
The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for cooks of all ages.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
and Adam I Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adami's Studios. Hello everyone, and welcome to an
evening with Ruthie Rogers and Martha Stewart on The River Cafe.
Look book for Ruthie's Table for a podcast. Award winning
chef and best selling cookbook author Ruthie Rogers launched The
(00:22):
River Cafe in London in a week ago. Today I
was in New York with Martha Stewart doing a live podcast.
Martha Stewart is the founder of the first multi channel
lifestyle about cooking, about magazines, about books about each other
(00:44):
like careers and food. Reaching more than one million devoted
fans on a monthly basis. Through her magazines, television shows,
books and products for the home, Martha is a go
to source for the homemaker. Please join me in welcoming
Ruthie and Martha. Imagine for a moment, you are Martha Stewart.
(01:11):
It is two and you're the most important woman in
the world of food. You are beautiful, you're funny, and
you say yourself that your best quality is your curiosity.
So maybe it was that curiosity which made you drive
twenty five minutes from your hotel in London to a
small restaurant in a warehouse on the Thames, which had
(01:34):
opened just a few years before, run by two women
whose only culinary experience was cooking for their families. Now
imagine how these women, Rose Gray and Ruthie Rogers felt
when Martha Stewart booked a table for lunch. They were anxious, excited,
and probably a bit overwhelmed. Today, being here together on
(02:00):
this autumn day in New York means more to me
than I can possibly say. This is a long time ago.
What nineteen When did I first? It seems like yesterday,
but it's actually was a long time ago. And I
was a divorcee and my first big trip to London
after I got divorced and started my own company. Um,
(02:21):
I met men, really nice men, and I read and
I read in your book. I read in your book
who You're, Who You're, and some of them are in
that list, and it's really fun to see that. Uh
well or all I I looked online, you know, but
um yeah, people, you're grateful too. But like I did,
I did not have an affair with Michael Caine, but
(02:42):
I did have affair. But I did have an affair
with one of his best friends and Terry O'Neil, the photographer,
remember him. He was great and he started to introduced
me to the nice crowd in London and we had
that Michael is I've said, Michael's amazing. Oh. I went
to Michael Caine's house for the weekend. I had so
(03:05):
much fun. It was a big house party, you know,
and I think about those days. I can't even believe
that was me, because it was. It was, but it
was so much fun. But we but we ate at
that We ate at this restaurant that was so exquisite
because there's two ladies dressed in their stiff white chef's
(03:25):
jackets and they looked really great and they spoke really
nicely to everyone, and and the food was just delicious
and really well presented. I just loved it. I loved
it for the first moment that I walked into the
restaurant to come on your two Yes I did. We
must post that segment tomorrow. Of course. It's it's film,
(03:49):
your film, all that stuff. Okay, I'm still looking for
the bab. We have a big library I tried to find.
It's so funny because I'm working in my hundreds of book.
And I get this book in the mail called The
(04:09):
River Cafe Look Book, and I opened it up and
I say, oh ship, she beat me to it, and uh,
and what I had already discussed with my editor what
I wanted to do, and I wanted to I wanted
to make the food in the book it's my hundred
favorite recipes. I wanted to make the food look like art.
(04:30):
And you've done it, so I can't do it now.
I have to think of a whole new idea for
the photographer. No, but I really love the pictures so much.
We took all the photographs of the finished dishes, and
trying to do it step by step was patronizing, boring,
and we just weren't very good at it. So we thought,
you know, what would be a book that might inspire
(04:52):
people to cook, and not necessarily just children, without intimidating them,
but inspiring them to cook. And um, it has a
kind of backstory, this book, which is to do with
someone bought me these books for people who have had
brain damage or autism or anything connected with neurology, and
(05:12):
it's it's I'll just show you very quickly. It's about
pairing images and so we thought what we would do
is do a book in which you just had images
next to each other. So why is looking at a
vase of wilting tulips something that connects you with spaghetti
vangel as with red chilis? And why would have you
(05:33):
know burnt matches somehow means something to you. With lamb chops,
there's something that stops you. And so what we did
was we had the photographer do all the food photographs,
Matthew Donaldson, and then we didn't commission these photographs. We
went through his archives and so we went through the
archives and we found photographs that we thought we could
(05:54):
possibly match with UM with the cooked food, and then
we put the recipes at the back and UM with
kind of very Martha Stewart like instructions, which is advice,
which is to begin by reading a recipe twice, ending
by now put on your apron and wash your hands. Anyway,
(06:14):
this is what we did and this is our book.
It was very nice production. I said to UM, someone
who helps me, I said, can you go and get
a book by Martha? Not one of the new ones,
but just go and try and find a book. And
they came back with Housekeeping six things to do when
you wake up in the morning. Do you know what
they are? I know, wake your bed, get rid of
(06:37):
the clutter. Uh. This is this dates it because it
says sort your mail, which I thought it just I
just ordered my mail this afternoon. Email letter mail, really
mail every day you I haven't had a letter of
If anybody wants to write fan mail, really, I'd love
to sort it. Then I could have something to sort.
(06:59):
And I have to sort through all that mail I've
story to. Stephanie gets all the like the fan mail.
We get a lot of fan mail. I mean, it's
it's amazing where they where it comes from. And then
and then my the guy who who pays all the bills,
he gets all the bills. Don't you get bills? Oh geez,
you're lucky. I think that Housekeeping have Aby. You've seen it.
(07:21):
It is when we've been reading it every night where
Bay comes to the house. It's about that homekeeping handbook.
I love it. It is the best tells you there's
you know, And I thought you know. And I was
talking to a yet very young friend of mine, and
I was telling him that that a lot of us
whose mother's perhaps really became involved in feminism right in
(07:41):
the maybe the sixties really didn't want to teach us
how to sew a button, you know, or cleanness spill
when it's fresh. Well, we know that, you know, it's easier.
But I think that what Martha really did teach us
that it's okay to do what we want to do,
but also know how to do something domestic. And I
(08:01):
think it's very important. Like my friends don't know to
use a squeegee in their showers. They don't know that,
and you get into their shower and it's all grungy,
you know, and the glass looks all cloudy if only
you use a squeegee. My grandchildren used squeeges just to
see them. Then they're beautiful. Showers are cleaning them everything.
(08:22):
You know, since they were one, they were using squeegee.
But that book is great. The Homekeeping Handbook is great.
And a decorators Michael Smith, who's the fanciest fanciest decorator
on earth. He gives that book to his clients and
they sit down and they read it so they can
learn how to take care of those fancy houses that
he designs for them. I wish I could read my
(08:44):
first Twitter recipes because um, I was a really big
fan of Twitter when it came out. I still have
the original stock. I think I think I've gotten paid
fifty four dollars to share, but I'm not sure. I
haven't gotten any money yet from Elon. Let's let's see
if he pays, if he pays those debts. But my
I had so much fun writing those recipes. Try to
(09:05):
do a recipe in eighty characters, it was really hard.
So Martha, can you tell me about your family? Can
you tell me about growing up in a household? Well, mother,
(09:27):
I grew up with mom and dad, both in Nutley,
New Jersey. Mother was a school teacher. She taught sixth
grade at at the Washington School in Nutley, New Jersey,
and she went back to teaching when she had her
sixth child. Right when that sixth child, Laura was old
enough to go to kindergarten, my mother started teaching again.
She took off, like I think, eighteen years to have
(09:49):
six kids, but she substituted during that time because she
she didn't like staying home that much. Dad was a
pharmaceutical salesman. Like I said once, he was a drug salesman.
And it's not exactly the right thing. But but mother
cooked every meal. How did she do that? She she
was organized. And and Martha, I was the oldest daughter,
(10:11):
so I was there was a brother, a daughter, as
a boy girl, boy girl all the way down. And
I learned how to cook at her side, and I
would help, of course. But the kitchen was the hub
of our home. And it was a really ugly kitchen.
My father he renovated the kitchen himself, and and he
put down pink linolium squares on the floor pink. And
(10:33):
he put a bathroom, a little sink and toilet right
off the breakfast nook. We had a nook where we
all sat with a big picture window looking out at
the garden. And um. And then he put birch cabinets
which were they were okay, except that he put very
ugly hardware on them, and then pink for mica countertops,
which which was not nice. And um. And that's all
(10:55):
one side of the kitchen and one little oven, one
with a royal or in it. You know, this is
for eight people here that well, I guess that was
the nineteen fifties. That was the renovation of fifties kitchen.
It looked like we had it and it's still there.
I haven't been. I haven't been inside the house. I'm
(11:16):
going to visit the house since we my mother sold it.
But um, but I'm sure it's still there. It was,
it was well built, but they must have put new
counters in because that pink was heart was hideous. But um,
you know it's just before we go back to your
mom is. I did a podcast with Alfonso Quaren, the
film director to Roma, and it's very interesting because he
talked about the difference between the American culture of the
(11:41):
kind of middle class wealth of growth, and the Mexican
And it also reminded meed Italy that he said that
in America, if you had more money, you had bigger kitchens,
you had a huge fridge, you have two ovens, you'd
have walk in this and you know, that's how you
showed your wealth. In Mexico, and I think probably in
(12:01):
Italy you could go to quite grand houses and have
a very simple kitchen, really really small, but you had
more help. That was the help. You just had more domestics.
So his whole well, if you've seen Roma, it is about,
you know, the life of the domestic. Whereas I think
you had no to your mother had no help nothing.
So when was she shot? How she worked? Well, we
(12:22):
went shopping it was Friday morning, Friday, Friday morning with
Mr Mouse from next door, this German baker from next door,
and and he had a big use and he was
he and his wife would take us, would drive us
because we only had one car and I took the
car to work. So they would take us to the
(12:42):
co op that's where we shopped and uh and load
up the car with a week's supply of groceries. And
we also had a large garden and so that that
was only you know, during the warm weather though, it
was the garden and my mother did a lot of
canning and preserving. We had a large freezer in the basement,
a great big freezer, and we also had a large
refrigerator in the basement where overflow was kept. Yeah. And
(13:06):
when my brother wasn't skinning muskrats in the in the
laundry sink, he was a trapper. He put himself through
college on his on the for the fur that he trapped.
Can't you imagine? I and I was the best skinner,
so I did a lot of the skinning that I
skinned muskrats. They were dead by the time I got them,
thank god. And I didn't have to let you learn
(13:28):
how to skin and muskrats? Do you learn that for life?
Is that something you do never forget. I'm really good.
I'm really good at killing the chickens and the geese
and all of that stuff. So you grew up in
this house, so it's not a surprise that you taught
everybody had to change the light bulb and how to
I did all that stuff. I did all that stuff.
I'm still not very good at plumbing and I'm not
very good at electricity, but I can do all the
(13:50):
other stuff. So tell me more about growing up in them.
And well, the house was, it was. It was a
fun house, you know because you you um like the
old Polish joke where what's a what's a Polish vacation?
Do you know what that is? And and please don't
take this badly, I'm not big at h it. I
have Polish on it's sitting on your neighbors stoop and
(14:11):
that's a vacation. And that's what we We sat next
door on the Italian stoop, where we sat next door
on the Irish stoop, and we had we ate everybody's food.
We were. It was a very nice neighborhood. And I
learned a lot. I learned how to roast the potato
the best way, you know that was that was important
to know how to do that. And I also learned
how to make beautiful, beautiful yeaest spreads from Mr Mouse
(14:33):
and his basement. He had a big bakery down in
his basement. And I still have his bread making bowl,
the big yellow ware bowl in which I which I
made all my dough. And for Thanksgiving, I'm giving my
whole staff. I'm giving them all pandatoni, which is which
is a recipe that I learned from Mr Mouse a
long time ago, and it's good. So if you had
(14:54):
all that background, which does really explain a lot, I
didn't know that because there are a lot of people
grew up without any of that knowledge. We fished. We
went fishing and would bring home a hundred bluefish and um,
and we would freeze those bluefish and we could eat
bluefish for a lot, a lot of blue fish. I
like bluefish actually, And we would also we had farmer
(15:15):
farmer relatives in southern New Jersey that had cows and
grew corn really good corn being pulled. A Polish background,
you learn a lot about agriculture, and you learn a
lot about cooking and preserving. And every night, all of us, yes,
and with dinner was important and conversation at the dinner
was important. What would that be like? Oh, everything from
(15:38):
current events to what was on the Shadow Knows too.
That's a radio program. We had a radio, but not
a television. We were the last family on the street
to get a television. We would have to sneak out
and visit our neighbors to watch TV. When I interviewed Nancy,
she said she'd never sat down to a meal without
(15:59):
a tablecloth. Oh, well, we sat down to a pink
for my could table in the nook of the of
the kitchen nook. It was called the breakfast nook, but
it was a large enough table for eight people. And
who did the dishes afternoon? And yes, I did the dishes,
and the homework was at the kitchen table right and
(16:20):
Mom would sit there with her one cigarette. She was
so sexy. She sat there and after dinner, after everybody
was in bed except for Martha who was cleaning up.
And I was also sewing a lot too, because I
made my own clothes. Uh, mom would sit It's true,
asked my sisters, and my mother would sit there with
(16:41):
one cigarette, her Chesterfield cigarette in her fingers. And I
loved how she looked. I thought it was the greatest.
I never smoked, No, but that was only one a day.
Did your father cook? Dad made breakfasts, but he would,
you know, he would make eggs with smiley faces made
out of marsh cherries and green peppers, lips, you know,
(17:03):
to Laura's down to the kitchen. And he had an
intercom in the house. If you ever read Cheaper by
the Dozen, it was a fabulous book about a father
who had twelve children. Um, and it was written in
like Montclair, New Jersey. Dad would would make believe he
was that father. And uh, what about the intercond rise
and shine? I still remember that. I'm not allowed to
(17:27):
say that in my house at all in China. So
then the early year, I'm getting silly. This is very
silly because it is, but it is a childhood based
on real I mean, we were brought up on fresh,
good food. Yeah, yes, this was life in the in
the house and the suburbs. And what was your name
for what was it? Martha? Kastira. But do you think
(17:51):
they were. Did you have a grandmother? Oh yeah, two grandmothers,
just one of the other. Thing was she important? Well, Grandma,
Grandma Helen lived down the street, so she was. And
she made the best gifilter fish. She would bring home
the giant carp that would sit in the bathtub. Of course,
(18:12):
most delicious moose, the moose of carp that was turned
out to be the gafilter fish with a wonderful sauce.
She was. She was great. And the other grandmother, Grandma
Grandma Roskoski, lived in Buffalo, New York, and she lived
next door to a slaughterhouse, so I got to see
(18:32):
how animals were slaughtered. Early on. We would peek through
the wooden fence and see the cows coming in and
all of that. Um, but I learned. I learned a
lot about how to treat animals and how not to
treat animals. And also she was She would go to
the farms up in New York State near Buffalo and
and bring home the most beautiful golden cherries. And she
(18:54):
would do all canning because they didn't have freezers, but
they did. She did amazing. Oh yeah, it was incredible.
I learned how to be a good can or from
her how good can well, the preparation and the sterilization
of the jars and the and making sure everything is
impeccable and so that we won't get sick eating you know,
changent food. And that was impressed on us a lot.
(19:17):
About how your grandparents born in Poland, yes, all of them,
so they brought that with them. So that was what
it was growing up in that household. And then when
you left, did you miss that? Was that? Not at all?
Not at all? Because I got married when I was nineteen.
I fell in love at eighteen and got married as
quickly as I could possibly get married and get out
(19:39):
of the house and start my own house. It was fun.
It was a lot of fun. And I cooked everything
all the time. YEA dinner parties cool? Did you did
your husband cold? No, he didn't, but he liked to eat.
(20:00):
With a large family and the kind of life you had,
I think I might know the answer to this question.
But did you go to restaurants? No? No, no, we
had no money to go to restaurants. Six kids, all
preparing to go to college. Um, there was no time.
My big treat for my dad. My dad loved good
(20:21):
food and he went to restaurants because he would take
his doctors out that he was selling drugs to whatever. Um,
So he got to experiment and visit my restaurants in
New York City. But he would bring me home like
a pomegranate from China Town. And so when did you
start going to restaurants day? Well, as soon as I
(20:42):
could get to work, I went. I went to work seriously,
probably when I was around thirteen. I started to model
in New York City. A girl across the street was
a model in a ballerina in New York and she said, Martha,
you should really come see my agent. She'd love you.
So I went to see on this lady. I leaned
(21:03):
forward and she accepted me as a as a kind
of a yeah, part time models. So I would I
would work after school and on Saturdays I would work
maybe modeling live at Bond would teller. Um. It was fun,
and you know it was like instead of fifty cents
an hour, I was making more like twenty an hour
(21:23):
in New York and that's that was a lot of money.
And then I got some TV commercials and that's what
really paid. Um. It paid for my entire college education.
The residuals. In those days, it was very lucrative. So
I did that until I went to Barnard College. When
you started eating out, oh yes, and boyfriends you know,
would take me out to dinner. We would have nice
(21:43):
dinners different places I remember going. Was it like New York? Well, Um,
one of my boyfriend's, the guy I actually married, lived
in the Ritz Tower, and the Ritz Tower on Park
Avenue in Street had the pavillon downstairs that was his
lunch room and a this was sent up to his
apartment and dinner if you wanted to. But we ate
(22:03):
in the pavion. That was very nice. And uh there
were other lovely French restaurants to eat at. There was
only one Japanese restaurant that I remember downtown on like
fifty six street, but I ate it. A Japanese restaurant
uptown on in Amsterdam called Ackey that was very good.
So I started to experiment with all different cuisines early on.
(22:26):
As soon as I could, I started to eat unusual foods.
I think that that also is when you can pay
for your own meal, when you can go out to
a restaurant, is it kind of almost a measure of
your success, isn't it that you know that you know?
But it was? But it is very different now, right?
What did you take your children out to restaurants? The
(22:49):
restaurants they love fine food, yes, especially Japanese food. They
have very very good taste. Do you ever order in?
I have never ordered I just don't do that. And
I think it's during COVID. I think there was a
pizza one night that somebody ordered in. But I I
(23:11):
cooked for the first hundred days of COVID. I cooked
for I kept three people in my house with me.
I kept my guarden, my head gardener, Ryan, Um, he's
not bad to have around. And I kept my driver, Carlos,
and I kept my housekeeper, Elvira, and I cooked. I
cooked for them all meals and we actually had a
(23:33):
lovely time. And I don't think it's bad when I
say I don't order in, I don't subjudge it because
I see my kids. Do my kids do when I
go into a restaurant, can see the take out that's
lined up on the counter. Maybe I just thought my
habit or neither. But I think that your your mother
probably hasn't Has she have any of your mother's. Do
(23:53):
you think it might be really generational, because it is,
but it goes back to your mother. It is really
hard to work cold day or as many people you
know work the night shift or have to go to work.
You know the image that we all have that everybody
should sit down and eat a home cooked You know,
it's really hard. It is really hard, and I think
judging who don't do it isn't fair the people who
(24:15):
do go home and put a good meal on the table,
and also respect the ones who can't. I do you know,
because I think maybe you'd prefer to do homework with
your kids then cook a meal, or maybe, as I said,
you have to leave it five to go work at Amazon,
or you know that it's a tough world that is
about going back. And so you went to Barnard, you
get married, and then when did the thought of actually
(24:39):
all the knowledge that you had from your mother and
from your your past and your experience, when did that
come into the idea of actually do that full time?
Oh that took a while because I took some detours,
like to Wall Street. I learned how to learn how
to be a kind of stockbroker, and I traveled a lot,
and tasted foods all over the world and fell in
(25:01):
love with different cuisines and tried to learn how to
how to make those things. That was all more hobby
than than proficient. And then I then I guess. Let
me see, I was already forty when I wrote my
first book, So yeah, I was old by the time
I wrote my first book. I was thirty eight when
I started really Cafe. Yeah, yeah, so we were there
late bloomers when when we're going to colleges would call
(25:23):
you a late bloom I think they called the late
blue but probably when I was eighteen anyway, said it
was like fourteen. But I think that it is interesting
how the two of us, you know, we didn't go
I didn't go to cooking school, and I certainly didn't
have the background that you had. I have been maligned
for not having gone to cooking school, and I had
been maligned for not knowing how to do this or
(25:44):
do that. But my best team hasn't been mind like crazy.
But well, you know, giving advice to not having just
because I didn't have an I didn't have a culinary education.
I didn't a very male at that time, it was
very male, but I don't want to get into that
because that's I don't hold any grudges us. Yes, um,
(26:05):
it is a fact. Yeah, it was kind of crazy
because I learned from watching. I'm a really good observer
and I have had the opportunity in my career with
with the TV shows to have the finest chefs in
the world cooking with me. And Nobu even gave me
a sushi jacket because I he thought I did very
(26:27):
well with a sushi knife and and the fish. He
let me cut sushi behind his bar on fifty seventh Street.
That's pretty high praise. But that's the kind of thing
I like to learn from from watching and learning with
the finest of the you know, the finest chefs in
the in the world. So what happened when you were forty?
What was the act? Well, I decided I would write
(26:48):
a book and I wrote I was catering. I was
doing a lot of catering. Yeah, so yeah, when did
that start? That started in my mid thirties. You just
had it that start that I retired from Wall Street
and I had to do something. So I started a
catering business, which probably I should have stayed in Wall Street.
And you know, run General Electric or something, but just
(27:13):
just in retrospect, it would be in sort of fun.
But our move to Silicon BacT Catering is the worst
job on earth. And it's sort of like being a stockbroker.
All you're doing is paying attention to an individual at
a specific time and uh, and it's all it's all
about money and getting this stuff done on time. And
(27:34):
it was It was a pretty horrible business. But you're
building a restaurant every night and tearing it down at
the end of the evening and loading it into the car.
And I knew my marriage was over the night I
drove back into the driveway on Turkey Hill Road and
nobody came out to help. That was I knew it
was over. But that's what That's what happened because I
(27:56):
was devoted to the work. And then that's when I
started thinking, what can I do to make something that
my children, my grandchildren and grandchildren might know their know
their grandma for And that was to write a book
Entertaining Entertaining that nice book is a really nice book.
So that was published in two It's forty years old
(28:17):
this year, forty years old. Food is alleviating hunger food
is political, it's also comfort. And so my last question
to you, my darling woman, is when you need comfort,
is there food you turn to? Probably the bowl of
(28:40):
eggs in my kitchen. How would they? Well, I raise
my own chickens and might raise my own eggs, and
the eggs are so delicious and no matter how you
cook them, they're good. Well, see you today as a comfort,
Martha Stewart. Thank you so great to see you after.
(29:07):
The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
(29:28):
The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for cooks of all ages.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
and Adam I Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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