February 6, 2023 • 41 mins
'Millions of us have shared food with Tina Fey over the years.
In 30 Rock, which she wrote and starred in, even her name, Liz Lemon, was food related. In SNL there was Brownie husband and who could forget the cafeteria scene in Mean Girls.
Tina came to the River Cafe a few weeks ago and after she put on her Chef’s Whites to make tomato pasta in the kitchen, we sat down together to discuss the food she grew up with, the restaurants she goes to, what her family likes to eat, and a ‘very special’ and very funny, sandwich.'
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
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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 four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A few months ago, my good friend Lorne Michaels texted
me to say that Tina Fay was coming to London
to star in the New Barrow movie. He knew I
would love her from the first meeting. It became a
friendship formed with food. Tina arrived at our house with
a beautiful box of chocolates for me, as brought up
to do by her mother, and I brought home a
(00:29):
River Cafe lemon tart for her. The first dinner, I
made slow cooked tomato pasta. She ate two portions, and.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Then we played cards. Dare you are dipped?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think if baby, it was three, I'm actually, you know,
being polite. Tina was there for the Rogers family traditional
Thanksgiving Italian style with Puntarell New olive oil and cavalonero
and turkey. There was a tea time visit when four
of us ate pretty much a whole panetoni and wrote
a song for the River Cafe Christmas party. Best of
(01:00):
all was a dinner in the River Cafe when her family, Jeff,
Alice and Penelope came for the holidays, and we ordered
every dessert on the menu. Of course, millions of us
have shared food with Tina Fey in thirty Rock, which
he wrote and starred in, and even her name Liz Lemon,
was food related. Sandwich is never to be shared, hard
(01:21):
cheese eaten at midnight. Advice given to John McEnroe on
where to buy the best cupcakes in New York City.
Her obsession with hot dogs resulting in a food warning
from the street vendor on SNL. A brandy husband devouring
a cake while discussing Bryant's and weekend update, and who
could forget the cafeteria scene in the movie. She wrote,
mean girls.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Okay, I'm Sean Winowen and I'm the executed chef at
the River Cafe. Today we're making tomato tellier renni with
Tina Fey. So we're going to make a tegler renni
with the slow cup tomato, sauce and butter, which is
probably one of Ruthie's secret is adding the butter to it.
It's gonna cook the master. In boiling salted water, they
(02:06):
always say that you should cook past there in water.
That's the saltiest sea salt.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, I was just gonna say that's true. The thing
that you taste like you sea. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I think having the competent to see.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Some water that march is the men a bit bold.
I'm not afraid of spots. You know, I have low
blood pressure, so I can have as much stuff as
I want. You're one of the luckiest, I tell myself.
I shuld I had this giant past the boiling station
in my head.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Say this is what you want?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
I mean, aha, now we know that's about a half
pop of butter, you know, one person portion. Oh, it's
not good. It's not a play Yeah, only because we
can't pour it right into my mouth here at the station.
This being an audio format is not doing this fastive justice.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Have it in a nice high pile.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
And yeah, gorgeously, Mike, wuld marry a non human entity.
I would marry this past.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
This is like one of griefy house classics.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Yes, I had this. I had the deep privilege of
I went to Ruthie's house onceoever, and she served us
at her house. And then then somehow we figured out
that we could be jerks and come here in order
it off anywhere.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Exactly all you always have it.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
We can just have it for yeah, any days the
special occasion of you try hard and I'm thank you much, tell,
thank you yah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Tina is leaving London tomorrow. Words I can hardly bear
to say. And her last day in London is here
in the River Cafe. She's made of tomatoes sauce in
the kitchen with Sean and the chefs, and is now
in the recording studio with me, and she's.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Already told us what she wants to eat for lunch.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
A friendship formed of food indeed, And Lauren was right.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I do love her.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Oh thank you, that's such a nice introduction.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Good well, you've just been in the River Cafe kitchen.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
What was it like?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Oh my god, it's the most beautiful dance happening in
the kitchen, everyone working so perfectly together. And also Sean
was saying, today's the first day back after Christmas break,
and so everyone you would never know it. Things are
flowing perfectly and everything looks delicious.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And what was it like making the pasta? What did
you do?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well?
Speaker 5 (04:31):
I did learn that one secret to the pasta because
I was wondering what was so extra about this beautiful,
simple tomato pasta? And I think The answer is that
it's a buffalo milk butter, A sizeable A sizable portion
gets dropped on this pasta right at the end and
melt it into it, and it's very good.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's time when people come to our house and I'm
making it, I often say would you would you like
to go? Because it's an open kitchen, I would like
to go sit down to That feels such a trader
for using butter in the pasta when everybody thinks that
tom apasta is olive oil and pasta and tomato and
that's delicious. You know, tomato pasta without butter is delicious,
(05:11):
But there's something about the butter which kind of holds
it together and makes it.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
It's devery good. And I have to say I did
I think I gasped out loud when I saw she
showed me how much she drops on top, and I was.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Like, oh, I know, it's that money reaching it. How
is it?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Let's talk about your life in comedy for a second.
It all started in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
What were you doing there?
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I went there to study improv and comedy and worked
at a place called the Second City and another place
called the Improve Olympic, and that's where I met my husband.
Where I met Jeff was the piano player for the
impro Olympic and also worked at the Second City eventually,
and that's where I met my dear friend Amy Poehler,
so many of my good friends.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So in those days, would you do improvo day and
then say let's go and eat?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We would again. It was a diner culture. We would
go to this Oh gosh, no, what was the name
of that y? There actually was an NPR piece about
this amazing waitress who worked at that diner. Oh my god,
what was the name of the diner. I'll have to
think about it and give them okay. But we would
go because we would go. It's crazy that I can't
mamember because we would go at least once a day,
oftentimes twice a day. We'd go, you know, have something
before the show and then go back at one am.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Do you like to eat before you perform again?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
At the time, I was not treating my body like
the beautiful instrument that so yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I would eat before.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
I would eat like like Boston Market before and then
and then in the middle of the show, I'm going
to get sick. The Boston Market was a god willing
now defunct chain that sold like rotisserie, chickens and turkey.
I used to say, I would get I would get
food at Boston Market, and you'd start to get sick
before you left, right, So then it was like you
(06:46):
never even ate.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It was perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
But then we'd go and have usually after the shows
we'd do two shirt shows on a Friday and Saturday
and go and have like a giant breakfast of like
eggs and a waffle.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
At breakfast one am to so the show fish then you, yeah,
there is with friends of mine who are often in plays,
that there is a thing of we'll go out to
eat after.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Yes, because you're adrenaline so high, it's too it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, it's a bit like in the chef world as well.
There's a whole not so much anymore now that everybody's
you know, stopped doing and all that stuff. But when
after after a performance in a way and what you
described for chalet or having an audience there the curtain
going up, there's a lot of I always think the
reason probably a lot of actors like to work in
restaurants is there is a similarity. You know, there's a
(07:35):
drama that takes place and everything else. But in the
old days, when Rose and I first started, and I
don't know what happens now, I don't think so much.
People would go out after a service. I'd go out
at ten, go clubbing or to eat something, because you know,
I know that adrenaline that hits.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, and at the end of your theater, yes it is.
It's the end of your work day, so you want
to go out and have your evening, and your evening
just happens to be at one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
The one thing I used to love with it's Saturdaynight Live.
Saturday was the most fun day because it's the day
where it's finally all happening and you can spend a
lot of time being worried, and then Saturday you just
have to kind of go down the slide, you know.
And we would have these crew lunch dinner I guess
we'd sort of rehearse from one pm till about five
thirty pm, and you'd go down to the NBC cafeteria
(08:22):
and have lunch with everybody or dinner with everybody. That's
one of my favorite memories of working there. Actually on
a film set or on television. It seems there are
different attitudes. I had a conversation for with miss.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Anderson, who really his dream would be not to have
any lunch, to shoot off, just to shoot a day
and not stop because in another director said the same
that they just found having to stop and then go
back and then do that. But the crew it wasn't
so happy with that. You know. His idea was, he
said to try and have a soup and then everybody
just go back and then have a big meal at
(08:54):
the end of the day. But the crew wanted wanted
to They want a break. Yeah, and you need that
break and need that. When you're producing a film or
a theater, do you think about what people are going
to eat?
Speaker 5 (09:05):
I mean I always if I'm producing something, I want
the food to be good and to be ample. And oftentimes,
if you want to reward the cast and crew, you
send more food. We send like food trucks, like pizza truck,
coffee truck. Yeah, the food is in my I believe
food is the only reward in life. In life good
I like that, sure money, sure food. Yeah. We still
(09:27):
have a wonderful lady who's no longer with us. From
an angel who was in charge of what's called craft
services on thirty Rock, which is you have your meals,
you get in like there's a truck, there's catering does
breakfast and lunch, but all the food that you just
eat in between that all day there would just be
a table in the hallway with food. And Angel had
so much passion about her job, and she was Italian
(09:47):
American from Staten Island and she would show up with
these things. Would be like, Angel, what is this what?
And Alec Baldwin, who loves to eat, he was in
love with her and everything about her because she would
just bring him these beautiful like whatever, like balls of matsarell,
these crazy breads. What was that like? Rolled up art
of choke bread and all this stuff. It was so
much more than what you would normally get, like a
(10:09):
bowl of apples and some candy. And this episode of
thirty Rock, there's a whole storyline about the perfect sandwich.
And there's this thing where I'm chasing a guy that
I love through the airport but.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They want.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
You don't go through, they want me to take my
sandwich on it take no way.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, But the first you have to describe that scene
I'm not going to do it because I think it
is one of the great scenes and food.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Thank you, I will say. I think as an actor,
perhaps my only specialty is on camera eating. I commit
to it. I'm looking great at it. And so this
is a scene where Liz lemon Is, she's chasing her
love interest, who is played by Jason Sadaikis, who you
all may know is Ted Lasso, and I'm chasing through
the airport and I've been also the other part of
(10:54):
the stories. I've been trying to get the team stirs,
the union drivers to tell me where they get these
great sandwiches. So I've got my special sandwich and the
security guard at the airport says, you have to leave
the sandwich behind, you can't take it through, and I
say no, I believe women can have it all. And
I'm going to eat this sandwich in one bite before
I go through security. And I'm still going to catch
the man. And so it came down to Angel, this
(11:17):
woman who did our craft service us at Angel, this
is a special assignment for you. I need you to
make me the perfect sandwich. Normally it would have been
the props department, but I said, Angel, you're going to
make the sandwich, and I need it to be I
need to be able to eat it in one bite.
So she went to these bakers that she knew in
Staten Island and had them custom make. I don't know
what was the softest bread when I tell you that sandwich.
(11:41):
I can remember to this day. That sandwich was so delicious.
It was an Italian sub so it had like some
salami and some what I would call gabagoul some cheese.
It wasn't a fake sandwich. And I ate it in
one take. And I remember saying they were like, we
got it, and I was like, did we? Because if
(12:02):
you need me to do it again, I am will
because it was so good. But the credit goes to
Angel because the bread like melted in my mouth.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I love that scene.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I just love that scene because it was like, what's
important here right now? And also you have left out
one thing about that sandwich was there was a dipping sauce.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
There was a dipping sauce too that I had to
dip it in. Yeah, to lubricate.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That's righting not only eat the sandwich security, but I'm
gonna dip it. Doesn't She say something about this is
a cliche.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Or yeah that I think it was that Johnny May.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The actresses, I think I might bet she's so funny,
she's like really yeah, So eating on camera is yes,
Is it hard to do?
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Yeah? It can be because you when you film something,
you film it a million times. And so if you
this is something fun you can look at. When you
watch movies now, you will notice that the actors and
dinner scenes almost never put food in their mouth because
if you were to do it, you would do it,
the camera would be far away, you would do it,
and then they now that you'd have to eat like
ten plates of food, and so actors are usually pretty
(13:07):
adept at not doing it. Not me, I get in there.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah right the only time.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Also the one on Son Now when you're eating the cake,
when you're talking about I mean it is it is
a work of art to see the way you I
didn't mint it.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I thought I was going to be sick. Did you
just do? But you did that one?
Speaker 5 (13:23):
I did it well. I did it twice because we
have a dress rehearsal, and I thought to myself, you
know what, I better really do it in dress rehearsal.
Because it was live TV. And I was a little
worried that I would choke, and I thought, I was
worried you were going to choke it. I was worried
I was going to choke. And that cake, I will say,
the only disappointment with that one was that I love
them dearly. But that was the SNL Props apartment and
(13:44):
that cake was not tasty. I was trying to run
a scam. I was like, can you get this cake
from my favorite bakery and they were like no. I
wanted them to get it from a place called make
My Cake and Harlem that makes the best cake.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
What do they think?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
They make all kinds of cakes, but I just get
like yellow cake, white white.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, come on, I get it.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, I know. We once we were in Mexico once.
It was a friend of mine's birthday and we went
to we just couldn't find any cake. We were in
the beach and we went to that place where they
put them in the fridges and you see them. We thought, okay,
and we apologized for it, and we said this is
all we could get and then we you know, lit
the candle, blow it out and literally it was one
of the.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Great great cakes.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, I should say that as a river because it
probably but there's something about that kind of white cake.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, you know, yellow us day.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, going back to the beginning, what was food like
in your household when you were growing up as a kid.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
I grew up outside Philadelphia in a very Greek neighborhood.
I'm half Greek, and where I first lived, it was
the neighborhood was very Greek.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
You my mom's Greek.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah, my mom's Greek, and so we had a mix
of Philly food and sort of seventies food and American
food and Greek food. But you know, I grew up
watching her make Spana coopita and we'd go every year
to like the church festival down the street was the
only time you could get Lucu Mathese St. Demetrius Greek Church,
(15:27):
which when I came to live here, they're like, you're
staying on Saint Dioni's road. I was like, oh, that
seems right to me. You'd get Luca Matha's you know
what those are? They're Oh my gosh, they're the like
fried deep fried dough balls that get you get hot
honey and cinnamon port on them. They're like kind of
the best.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
They puff up, they puff up.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yeah, they're like puffy hot balls of dough with yeah
and you only they're a real pain in the butt
to make.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Did your mother make them?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
No? You only get them at like the church festival
once a year. And anytime I've ever gone into a
Greek restaurant in New York that sometimes there's a place
in New York that I won't name her, they often
have them on the menu and if you order them,
they're like, we don't have them tonight because they're a
real pain. I think they're pain and yeah, so we
grew up eating that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
Was your mother born in Greece or was she born
My mother was, I believe conceived in the US, born
in Greece and brought back as an infant, like I
think her mom went to be around her mother when
she delivered and then came back.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And did your grandmother come back too, Yes? Did she
cook more Greek food for you than perhaps your mother?
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Well, my grandmother had passed away when I was still
quite small. So my brother's eight years older than me,
he probably remembers my grandmother. I don't have first hand
memories of any of my grandparents, but for sure certain
foods like the Avgo lemono soup, which is the Greek
chicken soup with lemon and with orzo instead of rice.
I think it's probably similar to the way Italian food
(16:51):
versus sort of Italian American food, Like it's the real
stuff is lighter and fresher than that you might know.
You know, it's not like some heavy, cheese laden mussakaua.
The other thing my mom would always make for us
on special occasions is like for our birthday or some things.
She would make bastiicio. That was our favorite. That's kind
of their version of lasagna. It's just like a beccamel
(17:13):
brown beef and tomato. We pasta with a beccamel baked
on top. And as a kid, you know, it's like
all you ever want.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I think that the image is you were saying going
back to that of food when you're in America, same
as you say with Italian.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I grew up in.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Upstate New York. The idea that was that, you know,
Italian food was egg plant, parmesan or meat balls and
spaghetti and very.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Kind of heavy food.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And then you go to Italy and this piece of
grilled fish with herbs and olive oil or you know,
very light pasta.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I went to Greece.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
As you can see, I don't know much about Greek food,
and I haven't spent enough time in Greece. But when
we went there, we went to Hedra, and the food
was so gorgeous.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
And so well. I mentioned, it's a little bit like,
I know, you love Mexico and it's sort of the
same thing. You're like, well, here we're by the sea,
cook what we caught today. Like that kind of life
is interesting how that translates them. Why is it that
when you know immigrants then came to the United.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
States that they guess I guess it was just the
idea of giving abundance or giving a lot of food,
or making people feel that, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Right, feed and things that need to be that keep
them a refrigerator. And it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I think for you saying first generation still cooks the
food from the country, doesn't it from the home country,
and the second generation is trying to adapt, and then
the third generation is probably completely forgotten about it.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Apparently my grandmother who's from Hungary, never went anywhere without
her rolling pin. Oh wow, Yeah, she just didn't trust
anybody to roll out the strudle or whatever she was making,
you know, But then my mother never cared and made
anything like that. Did your father cook?
Speaker 5 (18:48):
No, My mom did the cooking, and I think she was,
you know, cooked by just the virtue of the fact
that that was what was expected of her. I don't
think she she did well. She had worked for like
a brokerage firm in her youth, and I think she
definitely once I was in high school she went back
to work. I think she was a woman who liked
to work, and sort of the norm at the time
was you don't work when you have kids, So she
didn't work until I was She didn't work until I
(19:10):
was a little bit older. She cooked in that kind
of seventies rotation of like okay, one night is hot
dogs and beans, and that it's shrimp peeloft. And I
do remember it was that part of the seventies where
like the American economy was not great, and I remember
that there were certain things. It'd be like every two
weeks there'd be like a steak that we all shared,
and then you'd take the like grocery store white bread
(19:31):
and get to soak up all the like a one
sauce on the plate, you know, and then we'd go
to have hamburgers on Payday once a month. So it
was that very like nineteen seventy seven seventy eight. There
wasn't a lot of money to go to restaurants.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It was, but it still feels like there was a
focus on food.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
For sure, and events were all very you know, if
it was Christmas time or birthday part like back when
we were kids, especially like so many kind of Greek specialties.
It'd be like getting ready for the holiyes to'd be
like making.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
Back lava and she made she would make baklava, she
would make gurulaikya, and her friends would come over and
it was like, okay, we got a hustle on this
because all those things with the puff pastriore, they're labor intensive.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, so a lot I love that. That's sweet. It
was ultra sweet, so spy.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah yeah. And then the kurulaikya are the ones that
are like little twists. They look like the aids ribbon
and they're not very sweet. They're like closest to like
a not a biscottie, but that you would have them
with coffee, and.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
That's interesting We grew up with such a culture of
food that you did as part of your identity would
be that eating Greek food, but you were in the
community of people eat Greek food.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh for sure, for sure. I still love to cook.
In the spring in New York, I love to cook
dandelion grease. And my mom's aunt came to visit from
Greece and she kept saying to my mom, like in Greek,
which I can't speak, but like she wanted to pick
the dandelion greens out of like the cracked sidewalk where
she lived. And my Mom's like, no, no, no, you
(21:00):
can't eat those. Like she'd be like cats pee on
those get because in her mind like, oh there's there's dandelions,
we should cook them.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That again goes back to the culture of Yeah, Richardsville,
Ships and Florence used to go out in the fields
and you know, it wasn't even cold forging, it wasn't
called something very special. You just pick it, and especially
things like as you say, dandelion.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
My husband Jeff, when he was originally from West Virginia
and then his family moved to Ohio, they would go
out into the woods behind their house and pick ramps
in the spring, which are these very garlic eats, some
across between strong garlic and a scallion, and use them
to just cook potatoes. And he was blown away. One
day a couple years ago, we were at some New
(21:39):
York City spring farmer's market and there was a bundle
of ramps for like sixteen dollars for a bunch, and
he took a picture and send it to his mother
and she was like, couldn't stop laughing. Yeah, this po folks.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
They were remember I was supposed to do to dinner
with Alice Walters and I Rose and I were doing
it for an Edible school Yard, which is a foundation,
and I said, let's call it Alice. As we were
thinking can we get the fish from Maine? And can
we get this from here? And what are you going
to get? And I said, what are you going to
do Alice?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
For food?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
She went, Oh, We're going to forge in Central Park
And I was like.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
How do you compete with that?
Speaker 9 (22:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
You know she was going to go and find her greed.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
She found a complete sandwich in a trash can.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Maybe speaking of sandwiches, we'll get onto that. But what
about did you go to restaurants?
Speaker 5 (22:26):
A lot of times we would go to restaurants that
either Greek family friends owned, like little kind of coffee
shop dinery restaurants. I also had my godparents their son
owned for a long time a huge diner in Wildwood,
New Jersey, called the Vegas Diner. I don't know if
you know that Jersey Shore area, but it's these gorgeous
nineteen fifties diners. There's a lot of them are landmark now.
(22:47):
It was those kind of places where the menu is
like fourteen pages long and you can either get like
shrimp scampy or an omelet or whatever. But when those
places are good, they're so good.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I grew up with diners, not so much in upstate
New York is maybe on the New Jersey Shore. And
then when I married an Italian, I loved really good
food and we lived in Paris. People would always say
to me, where did you eat New York And I'd say, oh,
we've got that diner. Because Richard all he wanted to
eat was either pastrami sandwiches or diner food. And actually,
if you analyze it, probably diner food is when it's
(23:19):
good because it's all cooked fresh, is it.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Then there's a diner in my neighborhood in New York
that does they just roast guests. I don't know how many,
but they roast turkeys every day. So when you get
a turkey sandwich from the diner, it's like, yeah, it's
the day after Thanksgiving. It's the most delicious fresh turkey.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah. Are they still around diners? And are they Are
they thriving?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Do you think they are in New York? I think
they've managed to survive the pandemic. I think one thing
that the city did that was probably smart was when
everyone could only do delivery during the pandemic, they allowed
people to deliver alcohol also, so every delivery menu would
they would lead on the app. They'd be like, do
you want it's four glasses of wine? Do you want
a cosmo? Also grilled cheese also, so I think that
(24:00):
helped them stay afloat financially. The other thing that I
have a really fond memory of was Saturdays, and I
think this is kind of a Philadelphia thing. Would get up,
I'd go run the morning Saturday morning errands with my dad,
which always included going to the good Italian deli near
our house and getting like fresh We would call it
lunch meat. But really it was pretty legit stuff because
(24:23):
it was like slice provolone mortadella in Philly what they
would call gaba ghoul, which I think is like capri cola,
like we would call it gaba goola, but like all
these proper Italian lunch meats and really fresh rolls and stuff,
and come home and then that would be like the
reward would be you'd make a big ass sandwich.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
With that stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
That's just so so good. And that's growing up with
that real Italian stuff. I can't when I went to
college in Virginia and it was like regular, like Bolognians,
This is felvida, is not it?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Growing up in this house that were you nurtured and exposed,
wonderful you did. Then go to the University of Virginia.
Was that traumatic not to have that anymore?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I remember being at the University of Virginia. Within the
first couple of weeks I was there, going to the
cafeteria and picking up what I thought was a breaded
chicken cutlet and biting into a chicken fried steak and
being like, what the hell is this?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
In the ground, they take a steak and bread it
and deep fried like chicken, and it is gross. But
then you know, believe me, wherever you put me, I
will find what there is to eat with the other
I forget, I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like, okay.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
The way to play it in Virginia was to go
to a chain called Morrison's Cafeteria and just get the
vegetarian plate, which was like biscuits, black eyed peas, collared greens. Yeah,
grits with butter and salt. These were all foods I
had never had before.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Did you ever have yourn apartment when you were at Uva?
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I did eventually, But I'll tell you exactly what I
used to eat. I know you can imagine what I
look like from that. I didn't cook properly. I used
to get a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and
make it and then add to it a drained can
of tuna fish and some lightly cooked frozen peas. Stir
that together and eat all of it, and then eat
a pine of ice cream.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Did that cause you to gain weight?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I mean I was. I was, honestly, like, it's a
it's a miracle. I didn't gain more weight because I
would do that often. Yeah, yeah, but also probably I
probably also had a side of apple sauce for nutrition.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah, did your mom ever teach you to cook? Did
she ever try to teach?
Speaker 5 (26:23):
She has taught me. I've since gotten her to show
me how to do this the spanic copita. She yeah, No,
I think the few things I've learned to cook, I've
learned some moves more, I would say more. I've learned
more in the last five years than I did growing up.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
When you when you're in college and you're doing that,
probably food. There was somebody and who did. I talk
to a friend and Brian Chesky, and he said that
when he was at the Rhode Island School of Design,
it was almost was an arts school and it was
almost competitive as well.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
You could cook in.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
This interesting expression, go and eat and and then every
night somebody had to make a different dish and they
were all involved in cooking. But I think it's more unusual.
I think most people when they go to college have
left home and then they're just you know, on the
male plant or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
And also economically.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But the macaroni cheese, is that the last time you
had that tuna macaroni cheese?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
What was the other ingredient.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Piece, O piece. I've tried to convince I tried to make.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
A actually to deconstruct that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
No, come like.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
I assembled that. Oh I see, Okay, I think I've
tried to sell my kids on just old seventies tuna
castle because that was like and they were like, no,
this is.
Speaker 9 (27:40):
Terrible created these monsters? I know, can we have yellowtail sish?
And what about when you became domestic, when you did
start having kids? And yes, I did have a husband.
And Jeff Cooks is a natural cook. My husband is
a fantastic cook. He is someone who did learn from
his grandmother. His grandma Perlein taught him all these things.
(28:03):
His previous generations of his family were coal miners in
West Virginia, and in the coal camps they were kind
of Irish, e englishy families, and then there were a
lot of Italians and they would cook together. The women
of the col camps would all go and cook together.
And so Jeff's grandma would make what she referred to
as two fingers. She's like, well, we're gonna make two
fingers and it's nilki and they just called the yeah,
(28:23):
so they called too.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
So he knew how to cook and he some people
are just natural, right, Like I'm the kind of person
if I cook and have to read it a hundred
times and I measure and then and whenever there's anything
that's instinct related, like is the steak done? Like, my
instincts are terrible, so and his instincts are good. I'm
getting better. I can cook a steak from myself, but
I had to really learn. And he's just a natural.
(28:46):
He can kind of cook anything. He does most of
the cooking in our house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, And what's that like? Are you able to have
dinner with your kids on the weekday?
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, we try to, and we try to. We've really
been committed to doing a big Sunday dinner with some
friends every week.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Over the sun. Then I didners are nice, aren't they?
Speaker 5 (29:03):
It's really nice.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
We had one together that night.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
We played It's the kind of day where you're getting
ready for Monday and say goodbye to the weekend.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It's nice.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, So you have lunch with your kids or Sunday
night dinner.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
We have Sunday dinner with your friends with us friends,
different friends come over and Jeff cooks that and it's
usually like roast chicken or you know, cut a beef
or sometimes it's sometimes we'll do pasta.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And how often do you go out as a family.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, it's interesting, you know, we're just in New York.
I think we were just starting to go back to
places in person in the last six months, so we
were ordering in a lot before then because I didn't
want the restaurants to close. And then, you know, when
Jeff is busy, then I get excited to be like, oh,
I'll do the family weeknight dinner. And I'm always trying things.
(29:49):
And I don't know if your family was the same way,
but when kids are younger, I can never find something
that both of them like. I know, so I'll be like,
let's try chicken vinegar. One likes it, Well, let's try.
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I see with my grandchildren that there's just a very
different way of approaching food, which is basically, you know
what one will have like this, and like you say, chicken,
and one doesn't. One's vegetarian and one's not eating gluten,
and one doesn't like fish at all. Nobody likes fish.
I guess there was a time in life maybe if
we're all sitting here when you ate what you were
(30:23):
maybe given.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Yes, which we've tried to sort of explain to them.
But you know, Lauren said this to me once, and
I think is smart and like, you can't make them
have your childhood. You can't explain to like you they
don't have your.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Child and now it's done.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yes, that's over. So there is a and maybe having
all that choice makes for a happier not for the
person who's cooking it. I had a friend who had
a girlfriend of one of my sons had the best,
most amazing pasture.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
She was French.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
She just was amazing and we all said, Vernie, how
did you get that? She said, well, every time we
sat down to dinner, my father would just make sure
that we sat up straight and we just sat like that,
you know, and we all have fantastic pasture, but we
hate family dinners. Oh interesting, she said, I might have
this posture, but you know, never do I want to
sit down to a meal with family because they were tortured,
(31:08):
because that's all it's too rigid. That's probably a heavy medium.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
And you do go out, but you now go out, Yes,
we're back to going out.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And where do they eat?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well? Now, my older daughter likes to go meet up
with her friends and they just go to like a
Mexican place in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
But Penelope is she's quite smart about food. Help is
a good eater. And also both of them were I
have to say that night we had dinner at the
River Cafe. They were really sophisticated in a choice.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Yeah, Milby has the bomber of she has a treenut allergy,
so that's like, but beyond that, she's the one. She'll
eat vegetables, she'll eat. Yeah, she'll eat like a braized
cavalon narrow She'll sit there and eat it. She'll eat
She and Jeff do I think that Timmy is insane
where the two of them both like to take sardines
and put them on like a saltine cracker with a
yellow mustard and eat it. I can relate to that,
(31:54):
which I will not eat that, but I love it
when she eats it because it's not the healthiest thing
you could eat. Is that pure fish oil?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:00):
And then Alice is a bit more picky, but.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
They were good eaters. I was talking to again, Ivy,
one of my granddaughters. We're talking about loving food. She said,
she goes to bed at night and thinks what she's
going to have breakfast the next day, and then she
gets up in the morning and she thinks, oh, now
that she's working in this way, she has early lunch
at twelve, but she likes that because it means she
could have another lunch at three. And if you were
asking some of the chefs here, they when they're biking
(32:24):
to work, they're thinking about what they're going to cook,
and they're thinking and talking to you. The character that
we see is very you know, you love food. I'm
thirty rock and you're queuing up for the hot dogs
and you're getting throwing something because they ate your sandwich
and everything. But it is a certain kind of food.
It isn't the foodie food, is it? Because we don't
(32:44):
want to watch somebody eating us who flay Grandmagnier every.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Morning, you know that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So what is that?
Speaker 3 (32:50):
What is the food you dream of?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
You really do the food I do efect, I do think.
I do like simpler food. I don't like anything with
two sort of saucy or you know, like like French food.
I don't really I think, I just I think. And
also the like that growing up with that Greek food
where everything's just like olive oil and some lemon and salt.
You know, I think when I'm here by myself, which
(33:14):
I've been here for myself, I'm almost a vegetarian, you know.
I want to cook just like vegetables and pasta yea,
and bread and cheese.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You're here doing.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
Acting in a movie called a Haunting in Venice, directed
by Sir Kenneth Branna. It's when Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery.
And it's been very fun to be here shooting in
an ensemble with some really great actors Michelle Yoh and
Jamie Dornan and Kamilka Tan and Kelly Riley. And it's
just been fun to be basically on the Haunted Mansion
(33:54):
ride at Disney World. I've just been inside that ride
for three months because we're on this set that's like
a spooky old Venetian palazzo in the dark all day
every day for three months.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Is the culture of filming in Britain in Europe in
London very different? And back to food, is it a
different food culture that is a little different.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Our lunch is, our hours are very civilized here. We
stopped every day at six on the dot, which at home,
depending on who you're working for, you could drift into
eight o'clock, ten o'clock, one am, you could work really late. Yeah,
we s done. Our lunch is very short. It's only
half an hour, which was sort of we weren't used
to it at first, but none I grew to really
like it because then you don't kind of lose momentum.
(34:36):
Usually you come back from Americans that you come back
from lunch a little sleepy and you have to get
a coffee. But this was a half hour lunch and
then back in and just everyone offering you tea, constantly
drinking so much tea, which is nice tea and digestive.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Is there a food scene in it?
Speaker 5 (34:54):
I didn't get to do any on camera eating.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh that's shame.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
There was a nice thing on set, which was again
because food is the only way to communicate with people.
Because the cast were all from different places, we started
kind of sharing our favorite unique snacks from our countries,
which started because somehow it was Halloween when I first
got here, and I was talking about candy corn, and
(35:19):
of course no one here knew what that was, and
so I had a friend bring me a couple bags
of candy corn to share and we started taking a poll.
We'd give it to the Brits and film their reactions,
and people thought it was disgusting, which I respect. I
love it, but it was a great conversation starter when
we were all new to each other and we were
like kind of an icebreaker. And then other people started
bringing in. A woman, Wakana Yoshihara is head of our
(35:43):
hair and makeup department and she's Japanese and so she
sort of bringing in Japanese candy and we were trying
like and some were great, some were disgusting. So she
had these plump candy that looked like a children's vitamin.
I apologize to anyone loves these, but she was so
amused to film each of us trying them. It's so
funny that something could be a complete comfort treat to
her that to my palette was horrible, and same with
(36:06):
the candy corn. And then some of the Brits started
bringing It was getting closer to Christmas and Kelly Riley
brought in She said, this is the cheap chocolate that
we grew up with, was quality street mix of chocolates.
And then Emma Laird was bringing different kinds of crisps,
and then we kept asking Camille Catan, who's French, like
you know what's unique? What kind of weird candy can
you bring? And she was like I don't know what
(36:26):
I can bring. And then she brought by the way,
why might imitating her like she's saw my hyap like
and uh. And then she Camille showed up with gorgeous
cheese from France for the whole crew. She's like, we
don't eat garbage. Yeah, so she brought this like gorgeous,
gorgeous cheese.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
What is a movie called?
Speaker 5 (36:43):
It's called A Haunting in Venice.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
A Haunting in Venice. So you actually are going to
go to Venice. Now we go to Venice tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Have you been there before?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I have never been there.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Okay, so what are you thinking about Venice and food?
Friend of mine took their kid to Venice. I'll just
tell you and the kids. It was a big big
deal for them to go. They didn't have much money.
They flew from New York. They went to Venice and
they said, how do you like Venice? After three days
he said, I thought there would be more canals.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Canals. There are a lot of canals. Wanted more. When
you're thinking about Venice.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Weirdly, the one thing I'm most excited for about Venice
is not a food thing, which is I'm excited to
film outside. I'm excited to a little bit of chaos
because I am used to shooting outside in New York
City and we've been on this lovely contained set for
a while, and I kind of like the idea that,
like something could go a little wrong. I'm a little
bit convinced that I'm going to fall in the canal,
(37:36):
but I don't think I will, but maybe it will.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
If you do.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It's okay because the water is put cleaner than it
was and it used to be because of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
There are no cruise ships.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Oh that's probab Yeah, those Christians are too big together.
So and I haven't even had a chance to really
think about what we're going to eat or where, So
I need you to tell me where to.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Eat this great food in Venice. You know, there's the Cepionaro.
They have these black squid with the ink. And a
friend of mine who grew up outside event It said
that she only really had pasta when she was thirteen.
Because everybody ate risotto. Oh you're gonna have a wonderful time.
I'm exciting as you now in this podcast as we
ask the guest to read a recipe. And so you
(38:17):
did say to me when I tried to persuade you
to do various other recipes that you really wanted to
do so cooked tomato sauce, And how could I possibly
ever say no to teamay? And the only other person
who really bagged it was Jake chillin all and he said,
I'm only doing this, Ruthie, if I can read tomato pasta.
So we said yesterday, but that was not with so
much butter, and it was a year and a half ago.
(38:38):
So here you go, here's okay, recipe that you could
read for tomato.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
Poskay, I'm going to say tomato though, tomato.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I know I've been here, you know how many years?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Forty years?
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I think you come say tomato.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I say tomato.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Okay, okay, slow cooked tomato sauce. It serves six to
eight or in my case, two three tablespoons olive oil,
two garlic clothes peeled and cut into slivers, two one
kilogram jars peeled plum tomatoes drained of their juices. One
hundred and fifty grams on salted butter cut into cubes,
which I would say visually to me was about a
(39:13):
third to a half a cup of butter. Heat the
olive oil in a large sauce pan. Fry the garlic
until lightly browned. Now add the tomatoes and stir to
break them up. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Cooked slowly, stirring occasionally for at least an hour. When
the sauce is ready, it will be extremely thick, no
juice at all. Cook taglerini in boiling salted water for
(39:33):
two minutes, Drain and add to tomato sauce, Stir in
the butter, Toss well and serve.
Speaker 9 (39:39):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So when you go back to New York, oh yeah,
I need this's your dish. So if we were talking
about comfort, you're talking about comfort, and you're talking about snacks,
and you're talking about you know, nationalities, what their views
are of comfort. And we think about cooking as being
a way of expressing love and something that alleviates hunger
and something that we want to share or keep to ourselves.
(40:01):
We also think of food as comfort. And so my
last question to you in this January day, the first
day back in the river cafe after Christmas, and as
I said, tragically for me the day that you and
George are leaving as sad. What Tina fe is your
comfort food?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I have so many, Well you can name a few.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
You don't have to have.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Two come top of list, but there are so a
pasta like this. Obviously this tomato pasta would be top
of the list. I also think back to New York
diner food, sort of a grilled cheese with tomato with
the big sort of steak fries that you get at
a diner and then open the grilled cheese and put
a few fries into the sandwich with a fountain coke,
(40:46):
not pepsi. Okay, that would be one.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Is there another one?
Speaker 5 (40:49):
And the other one would be yellow cake with white eyes?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So these both comfort you. So when I come to
New York in February March, can we have that together?
I'll make you know. Oh no, I'll get the cake
from Make my Cake.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Okay, and we'll get them and then we'll go to
the Vande Diner.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Okay. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Thank you too, Thank you for the book.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
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.
(41:33):
The River Cafe Lookbook recipes for cooks of all ages.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A few months ago, my good friend Lorne Michaels texted
me to say that Tina Fay was coming to London
to star in the New Barrow movie. He knew I
would love her from the first meeting. It became a
friendship formed with food. Tina arrived at our house with
a beautiful box of chocolates for me, as brought up
to do by her mother, and I brought home a
(00:29):
River Cafe lemon tart for her. The first dinner, I
made slow cooked tomato pasta. She ate two portions, and.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Then we played cards. Dare you are dipped?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think if baby, it was three, I'm actually, you know,
being polite. Tina was there for the Rogers family traditional
Thanksgiving Italian style with Puntarell New olive oil and cavalonero
and turkey. There was a tea time visit when four
of us ate pretty much a whole panetoni and wrote
a song for the River Cafe Christmas party. Best of
(01:00):
all was a dinner in the River Cafe when her family, Jeff,
Alice and Penelope came for the holidays, and we ordered
every dessert on the menu. Of course, millions of us
have shared food with Tina Fey in thirty Rock, which
he wrote and starred in, and even her name Liz Lemon,
was food related. Sandwich is never to be shared, hard
(01:21):
cheese eaten at midnight. Advice given to John McEnroe on
where to buy the best cupcakes in New York City.
Her obsession with hot dogs resulting in a food warning
from the street vendor on SNL. A brandy husband devouring
a cake while discussing Bryant's and weekend update, and who
could forget the cafeteria scene in the movie. She wrote,
mean girls.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Okay, I'm Sean Winowen and I'm the executed chef at
the River Cafe. Today we're making tomato tellier renni with
Tina Fey. So we're going to make a tegler renni
with the slow cup tomato, sauce and butter, which is
probably one of Ruthie's secret is adding the butter to it.
It's gonna cook the master. In boiling salted water, they
(02:06):
always say that you should cook past there in water.
That's the saltiest sea salt.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, I was just gonna say that's true. The thing
that you taste like you sea. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I think having the competent to see.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Some water that march is the men a bit bold.
I'm not afraid of spots. You know, I have low
blood pressure, so I can have as much stuff as
I want. You're one of the luckiest, I tell myself.
I shuld I had this giant past the boiling station
in my head.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Say this is what you want?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
I mean, aha, now we know that's about a half
pop of butter, you know, one person portion. Oh, it's
not good. It's not a play Yeah, only because we
can't pour it right into my mouth here at the station.
This being an audio format is not doing this fastive justice.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Have it in a nice high pile.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
And yeah, gorgeously, Mike, wuld marry a non human entity.
I would marry this past.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
This is like one of griefy house classics.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Yes, I had this. I had the deep privilege of
I went to Ruthie's house onceoever, and she served us
at her house. And then then somehow we figured out
that we could be jerks and come here in order
it off anywhere.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Exactly all you always have it.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
We can just have it for yeah, any days the
special occasion of you try hard and I'm thank you much, tell,
thank you yah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Tina is leaving London tomorrow. Words I can hardly bear
to say. And her last day in London is here
in the River Cafe. She's made of tomatoes sauce in
the kitchen with Sean and the chefs, and is now
in the recording studio with me, and she's.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Already told us what she wants to eat for lunch.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
A friendship formed of food indeed, And Lauren was right.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I do love her.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Oh thank you, that's such a nice introduction.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Good well, you've just been in the River Cafe kitchen.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
What was it like?
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Oh my god, it's the most beautiful dance happening in
the kitchen, everyone working so perfectly together. And also Sean
was saying, today's the first day back after Christmas break,
and so everyone you would never know it. Things are
flowing perfectly and everything looks delicious.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And what was it like making the pasta? What did
you do?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well?
Speaker 5 (04:31):
I did learn that one secret to the pasta because
I was wondering what was so extra about this beautiful,
simple tomato pasta? And I think The answer is that
it's a buffalo milk butter, A sizeable A sizable portion
gets dropped on this pasta right at the end and
melt it into it, and it's very good.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's time when people come to our house and I'm
making it, I often say would you would you like
to go? Because it's an open kitchen, I would like
to go sit down to That feels such a trader
for using butter in the pasta when everybody thinks that
tom apasta is olive oil and pasta and tomato and
that's delicious. You know, tomato pasta without butter is delicious,
(05:11):
But there's something about the butter which kind of holds
it together and makes it.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
It's devery good. And I have to say I did
I think I gasped out loud when I saw she
showed me how much she drops on top, and I was.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Like, oh, I know, it's that money reaching it. How
is it?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Let's talk about your life in comedy for a second.
It all started in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
What were you doing there?
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I went there to study improv and comedy and worked
at a place called the Second City and another place
called the Improve Olympic, and that's where I met my husband.
Where I met Jeff was the piano player for the
impro Olympic and also worked at the Second City eventually,
and that's where I met my dear friend Amy Poehler,
so many of my good friends.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So in those days, would you do improvo day and
then say let's go and eat?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We would again. It was a diner culture. We would
go to this Oh gosh, no, what was the name
of that y? There actually was an NPR piece about
this amazing waitress who worked at that diner. Oh my god,
what was the name of the diner. I'll have to
think about it and give them okay. But we would
go because we would go. It's crazy that I can't
mamember because we would go at least once a day,
oftentimes twice a day. We'd go, you know, have something
before the show and then go back at one am.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Do you like to eat before you perform again?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
At the time, I was not treating my body like
the beautiful instrument that so yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I would eat before.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
I would eat like like Boston Market before and then
and then in the middle of the show, I'm going
to get sick. The Boston Market was a god willing
now defunct chain that sold like rotisserie, chickens and turkey.
I used to say, I would get I would get
food at Boston Market, and you'd start to get sick
before you left, right, So then it was like you
(06:46):
never even ate.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It was perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
But then we'd go and have usually after the shows
we'd do two shirt shows on a Friday and Saturday
and go and have like a giant breakfast of like
eggs and a waffle.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
At breakfast one am to so the show fish then you, yeah,
there is with friends of mine who are often in plays,
that there is a thing of we'll go out to
eat after.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Yes, because you're adrenaline so high, it's too it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, it's a bit like in the chef world as well.
There's a whole not so much anymore now that everybody's
you know, stopped doing and all that stuff. But when
after after a performance in a way and what you
described for chalet or having an audience there the curtain
going up, there's a lot of I always think the
reason probably a lot of actors like to work in
restaurants is there is a similarity. You know, there's a
(07:35):
drama that takes place and everything else. But in the
old days, when Rose and I first started, and I
don't know what happens now, I don't think so much.
People would go out after a service. I'd go out
at ten, go clubbing or to eat something, because you know,
I know that adrenaline that hits.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, and at the end of your theater, yes it is.
It's the end of your work day, so you want
to go out and have your evening, and your evening
just happens to be at one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
The one thing I used to love with it's Saturdaynight Live.
Saturday was the most fun day because it's the day
where it's finally all happening and you can spend a
lot of time being worried, and then Saturday you just
have to kind of go down the slide, you know.
And we would have these crew lunch dinner I guess
we'd sort of rehearse from one pm till about five
thirty pm, and you'd go down to the NBC cafeteria
(08:22):
and have lunch with everybody or dinner with everybody. That's
one of my favorite memories of working there. Actually on
a film set or on television. It seems there are
different attitudes. I had a conversation for with miss.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Anderson, who really his dream would be not to have
any lunch, to shoot off, just to shoot a day
and not stop because in another director said the same
that they just found having to stop and then go
back and then do that. But the crew it wasn't
so happy with that. You know. His idea was, he
said to try and have a soup and then everybody
just go back and then have a big meal at
(08:54):
the end of the day. But the crew wanted wanted
to They want a break. Yeah, and you need that
break and need that. When you're producing a film or
a theater, do you think about what people are going
to eat?
Speaker 5 (09:05):
I mean I always if I'm producing something, I want
the food to be good and to be ample. And oftentimes,
if you want to reward the cast and crew, you
send more food. We send like food trucks, like pizza truck,
coffee truck. Yeah, the food is in my I believe
food is the only reward in life. In life good
I like that, sure money, sure food. Yeah. We still
(09:27):
have a wonderful lady who's no longer with us. From
an angel who was in charge of what's called craft
services on thirty Rock, which is you have your meals,
you get in like there's a truck, there's catering does
breakfast and lunch, but all the food that you just
eat in between that all day there would just be
a table in the hallway with food. And Angel had
so much passion about her job, and she was Italian
(09:47):
American from Staten Island and she would show up with
these things. Would be like, Angel, what is this what?
And Alec Baldwin, who loves to eat, he was in
love with her and everything about her because she would
just bring him these beautiful like whatever, like balls of matsarell,
these crazy breads. What was that like? Rolled up art
of choke bread and all this stuff. It was so
much more than what you would normally get, like a
(10:09):
bowl of apples and some candy. And this episode of
thirty Rock, there's a whole storyline about the perfect sandwich.
And there's this thing where I'm chasing a guy that
I love through the airport but.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
They want.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
You don't go through, they want me to take my
sandwich on it take no way.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, But the first you have to describe that scene
I'm not going to do it because I think it
is one of the great scenes and food.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Thank you, I will say. I think as an actor,
perhaps my only specialty is on camera eating. I commit
to it. I'm looking great at it. And so this
is a scene where Liz lemon Is, she's chasing her
love interest, who is played by Jason Sadaikis, who you
all may know is Ted Lasso, and I'm chasing through
the airport and I've been also the other part of
(10:54):
the stories. I've been trying to get the team stirs,
the union drivers to tell me where they get these
great sandwiches. So I've got my special sandwich and the
security guard at the airport says, you have to leave
the sandwich behind, you can't take it through, and I
say no, I believe women can have it all. And
I'm going to eat this sandwich in one bite before
I go through security. And I'm still going to catch
the man. And so it came down to Angel, this
(11:17):
woman who did our craft service us at Angel, this
is a special assignment for you. I need you to
make me the perfect sandwich. Normally it would have been
the props department, but I said, Angel, you're going to
make the sandwich, and I need it to be I
need to be able to eat it in one bite.
So she went to these bakers that she knew in
Staten Island and had them custom make. I don't know
what was the softest bread when I tell you that sandwich.
(11:41):
I can remember to this day. That sandwich was so delicious.
It was an Italian sub so it had like some
salami and some what I would call gabagoul some cheese.
It wasn't a fake sandwich. And I ate it in
one take. And I remember saying they were like, we
got it, and I was like, did we? Because if
(12:02):
you need me to do it again, I am will
because it was so good. But the credit goes to
Angel because the bread like melted in my mouth.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I love that scene.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I just love that scene because it was like, what's
important here right now? And also you have left out
one thing about that sandwich was there was a dipping sauce.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
There was a dipping sauce too that I had to
dip it in. Yeah, to lubricate.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That's righting not only eat the sandwich security, but I'm
gonna dip it. Doesn't She say something about this is
a cliche.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Or yeah that I think it was that Johnny May.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The actresses, I think I might bet she's so funny,
she's like really yeah, So eating on camera is yes,
Is it hard to do?
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Yeah? It can be because you when you film something,
you film it a million times. And so if you
this is something fun you can look at. When you
watch movies now, you will notice that the actors and
dinner scenes almost never put food in their mouth because
if you were to do it, you would do it,
the camera would be far away, you would do it,
and then they now that you'd have to eat like
ten plates of food, and so actors are usually pretty
(13:07):
adept at not doing it. Not me, I get in there.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah right the only time.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Also the one on Son Now when you're eating the cake,
when you're talking about I mean it is it is
a work of art to see the way you I
didn't mint it.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I thought I was going to be sick. Did you
just do? But you did that one?
Speaker 5 (13:23):
I did it well. I did it twice because we
have a dress rehearsal, and I thought to myself, you
know what, I better really do it in dress rehearsal.
Because it was live TV. And I was a little
worried that I would choke, and I thought, I was
worried you were going to choke it. I was worried
I was going to choke. And that cake, I will say,
the only disappointment with that one was that I love
them dearly. But that was the SNL Props apartment and
(13:44):
that cake was not tasty. I was trying to run
a scam. I was like, can you get this cake
from my favorite bakery and they were like no. I
wanted them to get it from a place called make
My Cake and Harlem that makes the best cake.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
What do they think?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
They make all kinds of cakes, but I just get
like yellow cake, white white.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, come on, I get it.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, I know. We once we were in Mexico once.
It was a friend of mine's birthday and we went
to we just couldn't find any cake. We were in
the beach and we went to that place where they
put them in the fridges and you see them. We thought, okay,
and we apologized for it, and we said this is
all we could get and then we you know, lit
the candle, blow it out and literally it was one
of the.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Great great cakes.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, I should say that as a river because it
probably but there's something about that kind of white cake.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, you know, yellow us day.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, going back to the beginning, what was food like
in your household when you were growing up as a kid.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
I grew up outside Philadelphia in a very Greek neighborhood.
I'm half Greek, and where I first lived, it was
the neighborhood was very Greek.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
You my mom's Greek.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah, my mom's Greek, and so we had a mix
of Philly food and sort of seventies food and American
food and Greek food. But you know, I grew up
watching her make Spana coopita and we'd go every year
to like the church festival down the street was the
only time you could get Lucu Mathese St. Demetrius Greek Church,
(15:27):
which when I came to live here, they're like, you're
staying on Saint Dioni's road. I was like, oh, that
seems right to me. You'd get Luca Matha's you know
what those are? They're Oh my gosh, they're the like
fried deep fried dough balls that get you get hot
honey and cinnamon port on them. They're like kind of
the best.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
They puff up, they puff up.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yeah, they're like puffy hot balls of dough with yeah
and you only they're a real pain in the butt
to make.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Did your mother make them?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
No? You only get them at like the church festival
once a year. And anytime I've ever gone into a
Greek restaurant in New York that sometimes there's a place
in New York that I won't name her, they often
have them on the menu and if you order them,
they're like, we don't have them tonight because they're a
real pain. I think they're pain and yeah, so we
grew up eating that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
Was your mother born in Greece or was she born
My mother was, I believe conceived in the US, born
in Greece and brought back as an infant, like I
think her mom went to be around her mother when
she delivered and then came back.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And did your grandmother come back too, Yes? Did she
cook more Greek food for you than perhaps your mother?
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Well, my grandmother had passed away when I was still
quite small. So my brother's eight years older than me,
he probably remembers my grandmother. I don't have first hand
memories of any of my grandparents, but for sure certain
foods like the Avgo lemono soup, which is the Greek
chicken soup with lemon and with orzo instead of rice.
I think it's probably similar to the way Italian food
(16:51):
versus sort of Italian American food, Like it's the real
stuff is lighter and fresher than that you might know.
You know, it's not like some heavy, cheese laden mussakaua.
The other thing my mom would always make for us
on special occasions is like for our birthday or some things.
She would make bastiicio. That was our favorite. That's kind
of their version of lasagna. It's just like a beccamel
(17:13):
brown beef and tomato. We pasta with a beccamel baked
on top. And as a kid, you know, it's like
all you ever want.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I think that the image is you were saying going
back to that of food when you're in America, same
as you say with Italian.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I grew up in.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Upstate New York. The idea that was that, you know,
Italian food was egg plant, parmesan or meat balls and
spaghetti and very.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Kind of heavy food.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And then you go to Italy and this piece of
grilled fish with herbs and olive oil or you know,
very light pasta.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I went to Greece.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
As you can see, I don't know much about Greek food,
and I haven't spent enough time in Greece. But when
we went there, we went to Hedra, and the food
was so gorgeous.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
And so well. I mentioned, it's a little bit like,
I know, you love Mexico and it's sort of the
same thing. You're like, well, here we're by the sea,
cook what we caught today. Like that kind of life
is interesting how that translates them. Why is it that
when you know immigrants then came to the United.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
States that they guess I guess it was just the
idea of giving abundance or giving a lot of food,
or making people feel that, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Right, feed and things that need to be that keep
them a refrigerator. And it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I think for you saying first generation still cooks the
food from the country, doesn't it from the home country,
and the second generation is trying to adapt, and then
the third generation is probably completely forgotten about it.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Apparently my grandmother who's from Hungary, never went anywhere without
her rolling pin. Oh wow, Yeah, she just didn't trust
anybody to roll out the strudle or whatever she was making,
you know, But then my mother never cared and made
anything like that. Did your father cook?
Speaker 5 (18:48):
No, My mom did the cooking, and I think she was,
you know, cooked by just the virtue of the fact
that that was what was expected of her. I don't
think she she did well. She had worked for like
a brokerage firm in her youth, and I think she
definitely once I was in high school she went back
to work. I think she was a woman who liked
to work, and sort of the norm at the time
was you don't work when you have kids, So she
didn't work until I was She didn't work until I
(19:10):
was a little bit older. She cooked in that kind
of seventies rotation of like okay, one night is hot
dogs and beans, and that it's shrimp peeloft. And I
do remember it was that part of the seventies where
like the American economy was not great, and I remember
that there were certain things. It'd be like every two
weeks there'd be like a steak that we all shared,
and then you'd take the like grocery store white bread
(19:31):
and get to soak up all the like a one
sauce on the plate, you know, and then we'd go
to have hamburgers on Payday once a month. So it
was that very like nineteen seventy seven seventy eight. There
wasn't a lot of money to go to restaurants.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It was, but it still feels like there was a
focus on food.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
For sure, and events were all very you know, if
it was Christmas time or birthday part like back when
we were kids, especially like so many kind of Greek specialties.
It'd be like getting ready for the holiyes to'd be
like making.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
Back lava and she made she would make baklava, she
would make gurulaikya, and her friends would come over and
it was like, okay, we got a hustle on this
because all those things with the puff pastriore, they're labor intensive.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, so a lot I love that. That's sweet. It
was ultra sweet, so spy.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah yeah. And then the kurulaikya are the ones that
are like little twists. They look like the aids ribbon
and they're not very sweet. They're like closest to like
a not a biscottie, but that you would have them
with coffee, and.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
That's interesting We grew up with such a culture of
food that you did as part of your identity would
be that eating Greek food, but you were in the
community of people eat Greek food.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Oh for sure, for sure. I still love to cook.
In the spring in New York, I love to cook
dandelion grease. And my mom's aunt came to visit from
Greece and she kept saying to my mom, like in Greek,
which I can't speak, but like she wanted to pick
the dandelion greens out of like the cracked sidewalk where
she lived. And my Mom's like, no, no, no, you
(21:00):
can't eat those. Like she'd be like cats pee on
those get because in her mind like, oh there's there's dandelions,
we should cook them.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That again goes back to the culture of Yeah, Richardsville,
Ships and Florence used to go out in the fields
and you know, it wasn't even cold forging, it wasn't
called something very special. You just pick it, and especially
things like as you say, dandelion.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
My husband Jeff, when he was originally from West Virginia
and then his family moved to Ohio, they would go
out into the woods behind their house and pick ramps
in the spring, which are these very garlic eats, some
across between strong garlic and a scallion, and use them
to just cook potatoes. And he was blown away. One
day a couple years ago, we were at some New
(21:39):
York City spring farmer's market and there was a bundle
of ramps for like sixteen dollars for a bunch, and
he took a picture and send it to his mother
and she was like, couldn't stop laughing. Yeah, this po folks.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
They were remember I was supposed to do to dinner
with Alice Walters and I Rose and I were doing
it for an Edible school Yard, which is a foundation,
and I said, let's call it Alice. As we were
thinking can we get the fish from Maine? And can
we get this from here? And what are you going
to get? And I said, what are you going to
do Alice?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
For food?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
She went, Oh, We're going to forge in Central Park
And I was like.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
How do you compete with that?
Speaker 9 (22:15):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
You know she was going to go and find her greed.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
She found a complete sandwich in a trash can.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Maybe speaking of sandwiches, we'll get onto that. But what
about did you go to restaurants?
Speaker 5 (22:26):
A lot of times we would go to restaurants that
either Greek family friends owned, like little kind of coffee
shop dinery restaurants. I also had my godparents their son
owned for a long time a huge diner in Wildwood,
New Jersey, called the Vegas Diner. I don't know if
you know that Jersey Shore area, but it's these gorgeous
nineteen fifties diners. There's a lot of them are landmark now.
(22:47):
It was those kind of places where the menu is
like fourteen pages long and you can either get like
shrimp scampy or an omelet or whatever. But when those
places are good, they're so good.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I grew up with diners, not so much in upstate
New York is maybe on the New Jersey Shore. And
then when I married an Italian, I loved really good
food and we lived in Paris. People would always say
to me, where did you eat New York And I'd say, oh,
we've got that diner. Because Richard all he wanted to
eat was either pastrami sandwiches or diner food. And actually,
if you analyze it, probably diner food is when it's
(23:19):
good because it's all cooked fresh, is it.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Then there's a diner in my neighborhood in New York
that does they just roast guests. I don't know how many,
but they roast turkeys every day. So when you get
a turkey sandwich from the diner, it's like, yeah, it's
the day after Thanksgiving. It's the most delicious fresh turkey.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah. Are they still around diners? And are they Are
they thriving?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Do you think they are in New York? I think
they've managed to survive the pandemic. I think one thing
that the city did that was probably smart was when
everyone could only do delivery during the pandemic, they allowed
people to deliver alcohol also, so every delivery menu would
they would lead on the app. They'd be like, do
you want it's four glasses of wine? Do you want
a cosmo? Also grilled cheese also, so I think that
(24:00):
helped them stay afloat financially. The other thing that I
have a really fond memory of was Saturdays, and I
think this is kind of a Philadelphia thing. Would get up,
I'd go run the morning Saturday morning errands with my dad,
which always included going to the good Italian deli near
our house and getting like fresh We would call it
lunch meat. But really it was pretty legit stuff because
(24:23):
it was like slice provolone mortadella in Philly what they
would call gaba ghoul, which I think is like capri cola,
like we would call it gaba goola, but like all
these proper Italian lunch meats and really fresh rolls and stuff,
and come home and then that would be like the
reward would be you'd make a big ass sandwich.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
With that stuff.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
That's just so so good. And that's growing up with
that real Italian stuff. I can't when I went to
college in Virginia and it was like regular, like Bolognians,
This is felvida, is not it?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Growing up in this house that were you nurtured and exposed,
wonderful you did. Then go to the University of Virginia.
Was that traumatic not to have that anymore?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I remember being at the University of Virginia. Within the
first couple of weeks I was there, going to the
cafeteria and picking up what I thought was a breaded
chicken cutlet and biting into a chicken fried steak and
being like, what the hell is this?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
In the ground, they take a steak and bread it
and deep fried like chicken, and it is gross. But
then you know, believe me, wherever you put me, I
will find what there is to eat with the other
I forget, I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like, okay.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
The way to play it in Virginia was to go
to a chain called Morrison's Cafeteria and just get the
vegetarian plate, which was like biscuits, black eyed peas, collared greens. Yeah,
grits with butter and salt. These were all foods I
had never had before.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Did you ever have yourn apartment when you were at Uva?
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I did eventually, But I'll tell you exactly what I
used to eat. I know you can imagine what I
look like from that. I didn't cook properly. I used
to get a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and
make it and then add to it a drained can
of tuna fish and some lightly cooked frozen peas. Stir
that together and eat all of it, and then eat
a pine of ice cream.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Did that cause you to gain weight?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I mean I was. I was, honestly, like, it's a
it's a miracle. I didn't gain more weight because I
would do that often. Yeah, yeah, but also probably I
probably also had a side of apple sauce for nutrition.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah, did your mom ever teach you to cook? Did
she ever try to teach?
Speaker 5 (26:23):
She has taught me. I've since gotten her to show
me how to do this the spanic copita. She yeah, No,
I think the few things I've learned to cook, I've
learned some moves more, I would say more. I've learned
more in the last five years than I did growing up.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
When you when you're in college and you're doing that,
probably food. There was somebody and who did. I talk
to a friend and Brian Chesky, and he said that
when he was at the Rhode Island School of Design,
it was almost was an arts school and it was
almost competitive as well.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
You could cook in.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
This interesting expression, go and eat and and then every
night somebody had to make a different dish and they
were all involved in cooking. But I think it's more unusual.
I think most people when they go to college have
left home and then they're just you know, on the
male plant or whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
And also economically.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But the macaroni cheese, is that the last time you
had that tuna macaroni cheese?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
What was the other ingredient.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Piece, O piece. I've tried to convince I tried to make.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
A actually to deconstruct that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
No, come like.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
I assembled that. Oh I see, Okay, I think I've
tried to sell my kids on just old seventies tuna
castle because that was like and they were like, no,
this is.
Speaker 9 (27:40):
Terrible created these monsters? I know, can we have yellowtail sish?
And what about when you became domestic, when you did
start having kids? And yes, I did have a husband.
And Jeff Cooks is a natural cook. My husband is
a fantastic cook. He is someone who did learn from
his grandmother. His grandma Perlein taught him all these things.
(28:03):
His previous generations of his family were coal miners in
West Virginia, and in the coal camps they were kind
of Irish, e englishy families, and then there were a
lot of Italians and they would cook together. The women
of the col camps would all go and cook together.
And so Jeff's grandma would make what she referred to
as two fingers. She's like, well, we're gonna make two
fingers and it's nilki and they just called the yeah,
(28:23):
so they called too.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
So he knew how to cook and he some people
are just natural, right, Like I'm the kind of person
if I cook and have to read it a hundred
times and I measure and then and whenever there's anything
that's instinct related, like is the steak done? Like, my
instincts are terrible, so and his instincts are good. I'm
getting better. I can cook a steak from myself, but
I had to really learn. And he's just a natural.
(28:46):
He can kind of cook anything. He does most of
the cooking in our house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, And what's that like? Are you able to have
dinner with your kids on the weekday?
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, we try to, and we try to. We've really
been committed to doing a big Sunday dinner with some
friends every week.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Over the sun. Then I didners are nice, aren't they?
Speaker 5 (29:03):
It's really nice.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
We had one together that night.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
We played It's the kind of day where you're getting
ready for Monday and say goodbye to the weekend.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It's nice.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, So you have lunch with your kids or Sunday
night dinner.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
We have Sunday dinner with your friends with us friends,
different friends come over and Jeff cooks that and it's
usually like roast chicken or you know, cut a beef
or sometimes it's sometimes we'll do pasta.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And how often do you go out as a family.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, it's interesting, you know, we're just in New York.
I think we were just starting to go back to
places in person in the last six months, so we
were ordering in a lot before then because I didn't
want the restaurants to close. And then, you know, when
Jeff is busy, then I get excited to be like, oh,
I'll do the family weeknight dinner. And I'm always trying things.
(29:49):
And I don't know if your family was the same way,
but when kids are younger, I can never find something
that both of them like. I know, so I'll be like,
let's try chicken vinegar. One likes it, Well, let's try.
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I see with my grandchildren that there's just a very
different way of approaching food, which is basically, you know
what one will have like this, and like you say, chicken,
and one doesn't. One's vegetarian and one's not eating gluten,
and one doesn't like fish at all. Nobody likes fish.
I guess there was a time in life maybe if
we're all sitting here when you ate what you were
(30:23):
maybe given.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Yes, which we've tried to sort of explain to them.
But you know, Lauren said this to me once, and
I think is smart and like, you can't make them
have your childhood. You can't explain to like you they
don't have your.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Child and now it's done.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yes, that's over. So there is a and maybe having
all that choice makes for a happier not for the
person who's cooking it. I had a friend who had
a girlfriend of one of my sons had the best,
most amazing pasture.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
She was French.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
She just was amazing and we all said, Vernie, how
did you get that? She said, well, every time we
sat down to dinner, my father would just make sure
that we sat up straight and we just sat like that,
you know, and we all have fantastic pasture, but we
hate family dinners. Oh interesting, she said, I might have
this posture, but you know, never do I want to
sit down to a meal with family because they were tortured,
(31:08):
because that's all it's too rigid. That's probably a heavy medium.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
And you do go out, but you now go out, Yes,
we're back to going out.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And where do they eat?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well? Now, my older daughter likes to go meet up
with her friends and they just go to like a
Mexican place in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
But Penelope is she's quite smart about food. Help is
a good eater. And also both of them were I
have to say that night we had dinner at the
River Cafe. They were really sophisticated in a choice.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Yeah, Milby has the bomber of she has a treenut allergy,
so that's like, but beyond that, she's the one. She'll
eat vegetables, she'll eat. Yeah, she'll eat like a braized
cavalon narrow She'll sit there and eat it. She'll eat
She and Jeff do I think that Timmy is insane
where the two of them both like to take sardines
and put them on like a saltine cracker with a
yellow mustard and eat it. I can relate to that,
(31:54):
which I will not eat that, but I love it
when she eats it because it's not the healthiest thing
you could eat. Is that pure fish oil?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:00):
And then Alice is a bit more picky, but.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
They were good eaters. I was talking to again, Ivy,
one of my granddaughters. We're talking about loving food. She said,
she goes to bed at night and thinks what she's
going to have breakfast the next day, and then she
gets up in the morning and she thinks, oh, now
that she's working in this way, she has early lunch
at twelve, but she likes that because it means she
could have another lunch at three. And if you were
asking some of the chefs here, they when they're biking
(32:24):
to work, they're thinking about what they're going to cook,
and they're thinking and talking to you. The character that
we see is very you know, you love food. I'm
thirty rock and you're queuing up for the hot dogs
and you're getting throwing something because they ate your sandwich
and everything. But it is a certain kind of food.
It isn't the foodie food, is it? Because we don't
(32:44):
want to watch somebody eating us who flay Grandmagnier every.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Morning, you know that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So what is that?
Speaker 3 (32:50):
What is the food you dream of?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
You really do the food I do efect, I do think.
I do like simpler food. I don't like anything with
two sort of saucy or you know, like like French food.
I don't really I think, I just I think. And
also the like that growing up with that Greek food
where everything's just like olive oil and some lemon and salt.
You know, I think when I'm here by myself, which
(33:14):
I've been here for myself, I'm almost a vegetarian, you know.
I want to cook just like vegetables and pasta yea,
and bread and cheese.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You're here doing.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
Acting in a movie called a Haunting in Venice, directed
by Sir Kenneth Branna. It's when Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery.
And it's been very fun to be here shooting in
an ensemble with some really great actors Michelle Yoh and
Jamie Dornan and Kamilka Tan and Kelly Riley. And it's
just been fun to be basically on the Haunted Mansion
(33:54):
ride at Disney World. I've just been inside that ride
for three months because we're on this set that's like
a spooky old Venetian palazzo in the dark all day
every day for three months.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Is the culture of filming in Britain in Europe in
London very different? And back to food, is it a
different food culture that is a little different.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Our lunch is, our hours are very civilized here. We
stopped every day at six on the dot, which at home,
depending on who you're working for, you could drift into
eight o'clock, ten o'clock, one am, you could work really late. Yeah,
we s done. Our lunch is very short. It's only
half an hour, which was sort of we weren't used
to it at first, but none I grew to really
like it because then you don't kind of lose momentum.
(34:36):
Usually you come back from Americans that you come back
from lunch a little sleepy and you have to get
a coffee. But this was a half hour lunch and
then back in and just everyone offering you tea, constantly
drinking so much tea, which is nice tea and digestive.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Is there a food scene in it?
Speaker 5 (34:54):
I didn't get to do any on camera eating.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh that's shame.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
There was a nice thing on set, which was again
because food is the only way to communicate with people.
Because the cast were all from different places, we started
kind of sharing our favorite unique snacks from our countries,
which started because somehow it was Halloween when I first
got here, and I was talking about candy corn, and
(35:19):
of course no one here knew what that was, and
so I had a friend bring me a couple bags
of candy corn to share and we started taking a poll.
We'd give it to the Brits and film their reactions,
and people thought it was disgusting, which I respect. I
love it, but it was a great conversation starter when
we were all new to each other and we were
like kind of an icebreaker. And then other people started
bringing in. A woman, Wakana Yoshihara is head of our
(35:43):
hair and makeup department and she's Japanese and so she
sort of bringing in Japanese candy and we were trying
like and some were great, some were disgusting. So she
had these plump candy that looked like a children's vitamin.
I apologize to anyone loves these, but she was so
amused to film each of us trying them. It's so
funny that something could be a complete comfort treat to
her that to my palette was horrible, and same with
(36:06):
the candy corn. And then some of the Brits started
bringing It was getting closer to Christmas and Kelly Riley
brought in She said, this is the cheap chocolate that
we grew up with, was quality street mix of chocolates.
And then Emma Laird was bringing different kinds of crisps,
and then we kept asking Camille Catan, who's French, like
you know what's unique? What kind of weird candy can
you bring? And she was like I don't know what
(36:26):
I can bring. And then she brought by the way,
why might imitating her like she's saw my hyap like
and uh. And then she Camille showed up with gorgeous
cheese from France for the whole crew. She's like, we
don't eat garbage. Yeah, so she brought this like gorgeous,
gorgeous cheese.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
What is a movie called?
Speaker 5 (36:43):
It's called A Haunting in Venice.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
A Haunting in Venice. So you actually are going to
go to Venice. Now we go to Venice tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Have you been there before?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I have never been there.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Okay, so what are you thinking about Venice and food?
Friend of mine took their kid to Venice. I'll just
tell you and the kids. It was a big big
deal for them to go. They didn't have much money.
They flew from New York. They went to Venice and
they said, how do you like Venice? After three days
he said, I thought there would be more canals.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Canals. There are a lot of canals. Wanted more. When
you're thinking about Venice.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Weirdly, the one thing I'm most excited for about Venice
is not a food thing, which is I'm excited to
film outside. I'm excited to a little bit of chaos
because I am used to shooting outside in New York
City and we've been on this lovely contained set for
a while, and I kind of like the idea that,
like something could go a little wrong. I'm a little
bit convinced that I'm going to fall in the canal,
(37:36):
but I don't think I will, but maybe it will.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
If you do.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It's okay because the water is put cleaner than it
was and it used to be because of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
There are no cruise ships.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Oh that's probab Yeah, those Christians are too big together.
So and I haven't even had a chance to really
think about what we're going to eat or where, So
I need you to tell me where to.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Eat this great food in Venice. You know, there's the Cepionaro.
They have these black squid with the ink. And a
friend of mine who grew up outside event It said
that she only really had pasta when she was thirteen.
Because everybody ate risotto. Oh you're gonna have a wonderful time.
I'm exciting as you now in this podcast as we
ask the guest to read a recipe. And so you
(38:17):
did say to me when I tried to persuade you
to do various other recipes that you really wanted to
do so cooked tomato sauce, And how could I possibly
ever say no to teamay? And the only other person
who really bagged it was Jake chillin all and he said,
I'm only doing this, Ruthie, if I can read tomato pasta.
So we said yesterday, but that was not with so
much butter, and it was a year and a half ago.
(38:38):
So here you go, here's okay, recipe that you could
read for tomato.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
Poskay, I'm going to say tomato though, tomato.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I know I've been here, you know how many years?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Forty years?
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I think you come say tomato.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I say tomato.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Okay, okay, slow cooked tomato sauce. It serves six to
eight or in my case, two three tablespoons olive oil,
two garlic clothes peeled and cut into slivers, two one
kilogram jars peeled plum tomatoes drained of their juices. One
hundred and fifty grams on salted butter cut into cubes,
which I would say visually to me was about a
(39:13):
third to a half a cup of butter. Heat the
olive oil in a large sauce pan. Fry the garlic
until lightly browned. Now add the tomatoes and stir to
break them up. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Cooked slowly, stirring occasionally for at least an hour. When
the sauce is ready, it will be extremely thick, no
juice at all. Cook taglerini in boiling salted water for
(39:33):
two minutes, Drain and add to tomato sauce, Stir in
the butter, Toss well and serve.
Speaker 9 (39:39):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So when you go back to New York, oh yeah,
I need this's your dish. So if we were talking
about comfort, you're talking about comfort, and you're talking about snacks,
and you're talking about you know, nationalities, what their views
are of comfort. And we think about cooking as being
a way of expressing love and something that alleviates hunger
and something that we want to share or keep to ourselves.
(40:01):
We also think of food as comfort. And so my
last question to you in this January day, the first
day back in the river cafe after Christmas, and as
I said, tragically for me the day that you and
George are leaving as sad. What Tina fe is your
comfort food?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I have so many, Well you can name a few.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
You don't have to have.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Two come top of list, but there are so a
pasta like this. Obviously this tomato pasta would be top
of the list. I also think back to New York
diner food, sort of a grilled cheese with tomato with
the big sort of steak fries that you get at
a diner and then open the grilled cheese and put
a few fries into the sandwich with a fountain coke,
(40:46):
not pepsi. Okay, that would be one.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Is there another one?
Speaker 5 (40:49):
And the other one would be yellow cake with white eyes?
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So these both comfort you. So when I come to
New York in February March, can we have that together?
I'll make you know. Oh no, I'll get the cake
from Make my Cake.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Okay, and we'll get them and then we'll go to
the Vande Diner.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Okay. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Thank you too, Thank you for the book.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
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.
(41:33):
The River Cafe Lookbook recipes for cooks of all ages.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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