February 27, 2024 • 42 mins
I’ve known Emily Mortimer since she was six. Her parents were close friends—John, a playwright and barrister, and Penny, a fly fisher and tennis player, who managed the no small feat of smoking while playing the game.
What Emily does now is impressive—she's an actor, a writer, and director, known for such films as Notting Hill, The Pursuit of Love, Newsroom, Match Point, and Apple TV’s latest, The New Look, with Juliette Binoche.
Not that she has only worked onscreen. Emily was one of the first employees of the River Cafe, back in 1989 when being 17 and totally inexperienced was no obstacle to being a waiter.
Together in The River Cafe today we're going to talk about food, memories and cooking a goose while studying in Russia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Last night, Emily Mortimer came to Thanksgiving dinner with her
family at our home, and as is a tradition, at
the end of the meal, we all sang you Are
My Sunshine, our favorite family song. Looking down at the
(00:21):
table of forty people, our eyes met and stayed there
for all four verses. In those moments, memories flooded back
with the girl I knew since she was six, the
time he spent with her father, John playwright and barrister,
and her mother Penny Fly fisher and tennis player who
managed the no small feat of smoking while playing the game.
(00:41):
What Emily does now is impressive. She's an actor, a writer, director,
Nodding Hill, The Pursuit of Love, Newsroom, Match Point, The
New Look, and Apple Show with Juliet Binoch and Paddington III.
When I see Emily, our conversation is mostly about what
she did other than what she's doing for. She was
(01:02):
one of the first employees of the River Cafe in
nineteen eighty nine, when being seventeen and totally inexperienced was
no obstacle to be a waiter here. In the River Cafe.
Today we're going to talk about food and memories. For
she is my family and most of all, Emily Mortimer,
you are my sunshine. Oh oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Begin it was so nice to see. Yeah, you're bully,
we're going to get you back in here. But do
you remember what I felt like or what it was like? Yes?
(01:45):
I do. It was it was just the same. It
was just smaller. I mean it was like half the
size of men there.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It was the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We had the bar going across here. Yes, that's right,
the barb there. Definitely that bar was a wall. I
can remember that very clearly. But there were tables outside
sometimes in the summer. Yeah, and we all do do
you do you still get them to the waitresses and
the waiters do the pres Yeah, that was the most amazing.
We really kept iron. And that really is what taught
(02:15):
me to cook. I think is coming here and having
to like grape parmesan and sweat the peppers and oh yeah, yeah,
peel the peel the peppers, you know, and get the
food ready and then you kind of a part of it,
which is just such a cool thing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So we'll start with the recipe that you chose, which
was a pair almon tarde.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Pear and almond tart serves ten to twelve six ripe
commas pears, three hundred and fifty grams of blanched whole almonds,
three hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter softened, three
hundred and fifty grams of caster sugar, three eggs. Peel
(03:02):
half and core the pears. Place the pear halfs face
down and in one layer in a pre baked sweet
pastry base. Put the almonds in a food processor and
chop until fine. Cream together the butter and sugar with
an electric mixer until pale and light. Add the almonds,
(03:22):
then the eggs. One by one. Pour this almond mixture
over the pears, bake for forty minutes or until the
filling is golden brown, and set. Leave to cool and
serve with a dollop of crem fresh.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
We do a version of the pair and almond tart
all year, so in the summer when we make a
tart with raspberries with the almond franchipan deltio the strawberries.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But I do think for me the best is pear combinations.
The classic. Yeah, well, I just love it because it's
the sort of most amazing bang for your buck of
a pudding, because you just people can't believe that a
human mortal made it and you didn't just buy it
in a sort of yeah, you know, bou lingerie or something.
It really does and it's so simple and easy as
(04:09):
all your recipes are, but it just is so sort
of delicious and really impressive. People are always just like,
did you really make this? Did you make the pastry? Shan,
what did you do the pastry?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, the pastry is three hundred and seventy five grams
of plain flour, two hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter,
which you pulse in a robocoop or magic mixed kind
of machine. Then add one hundred grams of icing sugar,
give that a little pulse, then bind it together with
three egg yolks, and it will make a firm dough
(04:42):
that you need to refrigerate for a couple of hours.
And then the secret of the almond tart is that
we actually grate the dough into the using a thick
cheese graye to cheese grater, isn't it, and then grate
that into the pastry tin and press it out. Don't
try and roll it because you'll probably never have. Yeah,
(05:03):
exactly the secrets of our recipes. Press it into place.
You can make it as thick as soon as you like,
but as long as you pre bake it before you
put the almonds in, isn't it. Yeah, you might put
the cake mixture in. It's probably one of the desserts.
It's been on since you's, you know, for thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Now, that's six or thirty five years. I can't believe
that I hadn't actually done the math.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So let's carry on back to those early early days
and to being a waiter here. What you were seventeen? Yeah,
that's really amazing. Yeah, and do you remember the story
of why you came or what happened?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I just was trying to make a bit of money
on my summer after well, yes, it was the beginning
of my gap year, and it was really the beginning
of my life because I was a very very shy
believe or not, child and still am as a person.
And actually cooking I have found in my life has
(06:08):
been something there's been the greatest sort of way of
counter acting being shy because you can sort of have
people over and have parties and friends, but you can
sort of also be hiding behind this thing. And I
think coming and being a waitress was really the first
time that I had sort of been in life, like
(06:28):
I knew I was going to go to university, and
I knew I was going to go to Russia before
I went to university, having never really kissed a boy hardly,
having never really kind of hardly got drunk, having really
lived a very secluded life, and this was my sort
of gateway to the beginning of my life coming here.
And I think my parents had just said, you need
(06:50):
to make a bit of money, and why don't you
be a waitress, And they probably just asked you, and
you very kindly had agreed to have this completely callow,
sort of just demented.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
To have this absolute, fabulously beautiful, charming open.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I had, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I think shyness is a really interesting conversation because I
was at a dinner the other night and I said
to somebody that I stood outside the door. I hadn't
been to like a big dinner party for a long time,
and it was for Graydon Carter, and I said I
kind of stood outside, really not wanting to ring that
doorbell go into a room of.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
A whole lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And he said, well, I was at that doorstep too,
because I didn't want to go into a room. And
there are people who you just they just assume.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
That you're not shy when that things.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Don't bother you, when in fact there is that that terror.
And I sometimes do that of heading into the kitchen
to safe because I think Ruthie Rogers is here, so
I'm really interested. But you just feel safe when you're
in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And you can hide behind the business of getting something
ready and you don't actually have to sort of properly
being with the sort of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Of talking trying to tell me that when she has
a dinner, you keep your apron aunts. You don't have
to talk to.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Thanks divulging that.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I find that if I got my chef's outfit, I'm
more confident if I was in my normal clothes, and
when I was trying to buy my car, I was
I was doing the deal with my chef's outfit because
I was much more like, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In the role I can totally imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I think, yeah, we don't read psychiatrists.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Psychists. I just said, yeah, I think we just marrier
chefs out. We'll give you mine to take home today.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
It's a natural barrier, Like if I have to talk
to people, if I'm like people come to my house,
I keep my apron on it because it keeps me
in the persona like really nervy.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well it's funny though. Also I was thinking about last
night and coming to your incredible dinner and just thinking
it's it's and as is coming to your restaurants. It's
like you're entering this world. And in a funny way,
it feels like because people think as an actor you're
not shy because you're performing all the time and you're
putting yourself out there. But as I said, that's really
(09:11):
the only way you can't. I can exist is by
forcing myself into this. But it's like putting on a
show in a way like having a dinner or or
having it's putting it's it's you know, having having a
restaurant or whatever, but even having people for dinner in
your own home. I always feel like that it's you
make it look nice and you sort of put the
(09:32):
music on them, and you sort of light the fire
and you can create this kind of world that people
set a stage set, but it is all a kind
of illusion and really the sort of behind the scenes
shouting at everybody to tell you their bedrooms and anyway.
So I feel very I think coming to as a
(09:54):
young Yeah, so that's call to this magical place. It
felt like it felt the best way of sort of
forcing myself into life because it was you and your
family in Rose and just it was a family.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Nineteen eighty nine. We opened in September eighty seven. Do
we teach you anything?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yes, And you taught me basically taught me how to cook.
You taught me, but.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We opened the restaurants, seventeen year old was in the
kitchen cooking.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, no you didn't. I wasn't cooking, but I was
greating you as you as a fact you were saying,
they still do that here. That the waiters that you
you really become very familiar with the food and you're
making it, and you have to get in earlier than
most waiters would come to do a job in a restaurant.
So you get in a few hours before and you
create the parmesan or a lot of the time was
(10:48):
chopping up the basil and the parsley and things like
that and just sort of becoming. And I can always
remember you saying, and my mom says that to me.
Ruthie always says, and I said, I can remember it.
Just get a good smell going, you know. And that's true.
I always think of that as I'm cooking.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's just like, you know, it's going to be okay,
You've just got this good smell going.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And then I got about being a waiter who taught
you how to wait no one, and I still training.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
That's the training of the river surf. I mean, it
really was.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I really sorry about Nemesis. When what was that story
about the Nemesis and the glass? I said, you broke
a glass over a Nemesis, a whole Nemesis.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I'm sure I did. I mean, I broke everything over
everything I was. I was. I just remember the dry
cleaning bills that you guys were having to pay on
my bar, so people that had red wine dropped in
their lapse. And I think that I think I've come
to the conclusion that actually being a waiter is a
very difficult job, and people don't really don't really be
(11:48):
nicer to waiters. There's so much going on in your
head at one time where you really are having to
try to remember, and you could generally you can get
from starter to main course. That's okay, you can remember
because you can see you've take taken their plates away,
but then you take the main course plates away, and
then you just forget about them for hours because you
(12:11):
just forget totally to bring them there putting menus, and
then once they've had their pudding. I was just like,
you totally forget to have to pay a bill. No, no,
don't worry about the bill. That was always the bit
that un did me. I was remembering. But then I
was remembering the other day there was this awful thing
where I still feel guilty about this. This man called
(12:31):
I mean, I don't I think his name was Dougal McDougall,
and he was he was eating his lunch here and
there was a big Christmas lunch and everybody was going bananas,
getting ready for you know, this service, and then this
lunch full of people and it was a Christmas thing,
and so all the people from all the offices were
having their Christmas lunches and and the phone was going
(12:52):
off the hook bananas. This phone kept ringing, and no
one had time to pick it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Up the phone in the restaurant, and people picked it
up and took a reserve.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And I remember finally picking it up and thinking, because
I thought, maybe this is something you know, I needed,
you know, somebody needs to deal with this phone. And
I picked it up and I said hello, and the
woman said, oh, hello. You know you've got a mister
Dougall McDougall dining with you today and he's urgently required
to the telephone. And I said, oh, yes, absolutely, I'll
find it for you. And I put the phone down,
(13:21):
and I thought, how do I find Google McDougall and
all these people? And then I looked around and I
saw this man and I just thought, I think you're
Google mdog.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And he.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Had a sort of he was so sweet looking. He
had a sort of mullet hair and then a suit
that was slightly ill fitting, but you looked really lovely.
And anyway, I just thought, you're Google McDougal. I think
you are. And I went over and I said, are
you buy any chance, mister Doogle McDougall, and men said yes,
I am. And I was so victorious, and I went
to the phone and I picked up them and I
(13:54):
said he's just coming and he went and he and
all lunch long and he had his phone call, and
it was all good. All lunchlong. I was just so
happy and laughing about this story to myself, and it
got me through the lunch. And then at the end
of lunch, I started telling all the other staff and
the waitresses and the chefs and all about it, and
everybody was laughing up roariously, and I said, and I
(14:14):
saw this man, and I just knew out of everybody
in this restaurant lot of people, that had to be
Doggle McDougall. Sure enough it was. And I described as
mullets and his badly fitting suits. And then this little
voice went, I'm still here, you know, And it was
Google McDougall. And he'd gone to the loo while I
was telling the story and come out and heard me.
And I still to this daste wake up in the night,
(14:37):
just feeling bad for Doogle mcdougle. If you're listening to this,
I have a big apology to make I really feel bad.
The other nights when you heard, somebody came up to me.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
This man came up with the felt and he said,
my wife is dying to beat you, I said, okay,
So I went over and I went listen, I hear
you're dying to meet me.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And it was the wrong table. I not dying to me.
We just tried to my table, and so you're dying.
So things, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It was thirty five years later. It's still still but
I do remember.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
The other thing I remember was that cell phones had
only just started, and people were they had phones in
their cars, and they were some of these men, these
sort of guys that were trying to show off and
be fancy, would go to the car park and phone
in there, putting orders from the car park to show
(15:33):
off about their phones.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
We once had somebody when we had somebody was using
their cell phone outside and a wader went up and
for some reason said, you know, we'd prefer you not
to use your cell phone disturbing other people. She said, well,
I was trying to get the attention of a waiter.
She was actually calling reception to ask a waiter to
(15:55):
come to her tail. So yeah, I mean, big waiter.
It's hardly. It really is hard. It really is hard.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It requires an awful lots of concentration and your brain
has to be in about twenty five places we Do
you ever work anywhere else? No, of course not. I
mean I was just I mean I was unemployab all
those waites. It would be good to try at one more.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I should do one here?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, yeah, you happy to do it? Did you know?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our
favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks and then in
Napkins kitchen were toat bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Durin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot uk. Going back before you were seventeen, yeah,
(16:55):
let's talk about growing up in the Mortimer household and food.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
What were meals like at your well? Yeah, dad was
Dad could really cook and loved food, but he was
his He always said his favorite His idea of good
food is food you don't really need teeth to eat,
like no, like sort of mashed potato or kedgeree was
his favorite thing as sort of comfort food. And I
remember as a little little girl, my dad always cooked
(17:21):
me boiled eggs and toast soldiers. That was the thing
I was. I used to say, get my eggs, you
bugger gone down in the morning and send them back
if they weren't I mean, I wasn't very dead. She
said that I was a very shy child, but I
was not shy with my dad, and so I would, Yeah,
I would send back the eggs if they went exactly
cooked to my you know, certain specificity, and if the
(17:44):
toa soldiers went perfectly lightly blonded, I was very annoyed.
But food, I mean, our family was such a sort
of place of love and also as all families, quite
dysfunctional in lots of wonderful ways. But the one thing
that they really always got right my mom and dad
was was meals, Like we always I can't remember not having.
(18:09):
I mean, we just always ate together where whether it
was at you know, dinner at home with mom Mum
normally cooking, or sometimes Dad, or in a restaurant, and
restaurants we just from our dad, both me and Rosie,
my sister inherited just a love of restaurants, and his
attitude to restaurants was that it was just sort of
(18:29):
that there was no problem so great or sort of
heart so broken that it couldn't be slightly made better
by and delicious meal in a restaurant with a white
tablecloth and preferably a glass or three of champagne, and
that that you know, you that there was something so
cheering about going out for lunch or dinner in a
nice restaurant. And I think Rosie and I just still
(18:52):
have that. We're addicted to restaurants. Yeah, I just it
just feels like such a treat. It never stops being
a treat. And just sort of that feeling of being
cozy and with people you love in this kind of
special place. And and again another thing of that of
wherever you are in the world, finding a little key
into it. It's a way of getting to know people
(19:14):
and getting to know the place you're in and and
and finding some sort of, you know, place that feels
authentic to where you are and being there generally you're
with people you really like, eating good food and.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Tells you about the culture and take the place you are.
Did you Because I always think of your parents as
being incredibly.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Social as well.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Father was his playwright and his you know, voyage around
my father and he was defending Oz Magnet was it
was he was a Oz trial and and the sex
it's really radical lawyer who was, you know, on the
forefront of every case that was happening, with everything that
was contentious. There was John Mortimer and yet such a
(19:57):
gentle and gorgeous man and Penny. I say, the first
time I met Penny, she was sitting on his lap.
You know. It was just they were such a kind
of important people in our lives, and so they were
able to have this life of going out or people entertaining,
and you still felt very part of that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, it's very much part of it. And yeah, we
were always I mean Dad loved young people and children
and he just thought children were sort of, you know,
the best type of people that that, and he was
always so sympathetic about being a young person. He said,
it's just like this life will never be as hard
as it is when you're young, and school is awful,
(20:38):
and it's just like these terrible hours unpaid labor and
you know, given terrible food at lunchtime. And he was
very just completely sympathetic to the plight and the loneliness
of childhood. So he was very inclusive and lunches and
dinners or whatever it was. It was always like we
were never sort of expected not to be part of it.
(21:00):
And so I really think, no matter sort of how
much life is falling apart at the seams, which it
always is, of course, like if you can manage to
kind of corral you know, the people that you love
and together for lunch or dinner or whatever it is,
it just does make a difference, it feels, and so
it feels it just feels really comforting to me to
(21:22):
be sitting around a table with people, and because that
was the part of life that I think really was functioning.
You know, when I was little, it was really nice.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And when you left this joyous home of being sitting
around the table and you left we went to Oxford.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, oh, you know you went to Russia first. I
went to Russia on my gap.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And did you manage to find a home that was
like that in Russia or are you sort of in
the I.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Was in Moscow and I do remember eating there a lot.
I can remember the food very well, and there was
always I mean, I love Russian food because probably I
associated with that time, but I that's quite sort of stodgy,
like sort of pelmeny little dumplings with cream, but also
lots of dill. They put dill on everything, and I
(22:08):
still cook lots with dill. Somehow, that really kind of
brings me back to being there. And then I remember
I cooked my first and last goose in Moscow. I
went to a market to buce I was going to
try and cook a roast chicken, and then I went
to the market and they didn't have any chicken, but
(22:30):
they did have a goose. So I called up my mum.
It was very difficult to get through. You couldn't really
make phone calls back and forth to England. I was
nine nineties, so it's probably ninety then, and I had
to go to this hotel and pay with a credit
card for my phone call. That cost about sort of
fifty pounds to sort of have a five minute phone
(22:52):
call back to England. And I remember Mum looking up
the recipe for it, because you get saying a goose
is very different from a chicken darling. Anyway, I remember
spending just all day long with this goose, and I
finally I remember put taking it out, putting it into
the oven, and because it was like you had to
take the wings off and the breasts off and then
prick it and primp it. And I don't really remember,
(23:14):
but I can remember putting the goose in the oven,
saying I'm so sorry. I feel like I've really got
to know you so well over this time. I feel
terrible about because I inter it.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, cooking, and then you went to Oxford? Did you
care about that you didn't eat well in Oxford? Or
did you eat well in Oxford? Where did your parents
rescue you from?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I can't really I went to Lincoln College, which was
famous for its food, but I don't really remember eating much.
I think I just went to lots of parties and
slept and didn't do anything apart from plays. I didn't
really cook their No I did. I just I just yes,
as I said, go home for family meals. Yeah, I
go home because it was I could drive back home.
(23:56):
It was about a forty five minute drive back home.
And so I go home at the weekends and things
and take my washing and get good Sunday lunch. And yeah,
Sunday lunch is something I really sort of remember from
that time of my life, because I mean, and then
when I was in my late twenties, I moved to America,
where they don't really have Sunday lunch, but the sort
(24:18):
of smell of Sunday lunch cooking and my dad listening
to the radio and radio four and the sort of
the smell of something delicious sort of cooking, you know,
is something that I really miss and coming back here
when it happens, I'm just sort of immediately just feel
full of sort of nostalgia and happiness. But now that
your mother of two, do replicate any of those, yeah,
(24:42):
I do? I do try to do. I do. I mean,
I do like a sort of raise whatever you do
have Sunday don Yes, I do. But it's hard to
keep up that tradition when when the culture isn't doing it.
Brun so they have yeah, brunch, Yeah, runch is a
whole thing which I never really know what to do
for brunch. If you had to cook a brunch, what
would you do?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I think probably I'd go and get bagels and cream tees.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And isn't that what they Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I find I find that going out to lunch in
New York on a Sunday is really challenging because you
can't have lunch. It's a much Yeah, so it's kind
of by that time it's twelve and maybe.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Have had something in the breakfast and then it's breakfast
all over again. I think they say it's lunch, but
it is really pretty breakfast to yeah, it's basically glorified practice.
And then I panic because I feel like I've got
to I don't really know how to do a brunch,
so I sort of I go really over the top
and then it's like sort of brunch at the Four
Seasons and something likeiches and it's just too much. But yeah,
(25:43):
I know Sunday lunches, but you have to if you
do a Sunday lunch in America, you have to sort
of make a thing of it. And because people don't
really carve out that time on a Sunday to just
sit around doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And like, do you think it is a really different
culture of eating in Brooklyn and London in terms of
going most of you people go.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Out to people go out much. Well, yeah, I'm starting
here too now.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I think you know, I think they're do you go
out to people's houses for meals or do you mostly
go to restaurants.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I'd go to people's houses.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, probably more now I'm older than I used to.
I think we was talking about it with one of
the young chefs today and he was saying he'd gone
to eat in another one of the chef's house, and
they felt really grown up because he was saying, most
of the times you'd go to the pub or go
out to a restaurant, as now they're starting to go
to people's houses because then people are starting to get houses, right,
(26:38):
you know, I think maybe it's kind of times in
with when you have.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Property or something or somewhere big enough to host. Yeah, maybe,
I like, I mean, I always like a home, you know.
I love when I go to foreign city and you
need it home.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, you know because as you say that kind of
what you're saying for a restaurant, but it does tell
you about the culture, yes, totally about how people are
and you sit around it's nice.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
There's so much in a cooked meal from somebody that
you know that the at home because their whole their
whole history and all their culture and all their everything
is baked into whatever it is you're eating in the
in the most kind of it's so specific, like it's
just like it's like somebody's handwriting or something that you know,
it's like everything about their history and the history of
(27:26):
their lives and culture and everything is somehow in whatever
this dish is and it's just so nice and just yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We had that we were I've told us before a party,
but we were proud and Richard had an honorary degree
and we're walking around we couldn't find a restaurant and
we just stopped somebody and said, can you tell us,
you know where would be a good restaurant to eat?
And then she taught and then she'd been to Richard selecture.
So she invited us to her house the next day
(27:56):
and we went on the way there. I was going,
We're we're going to somebody's that we don't know, and
it was so touching because they've gotten out all the
family linen and she made all these check you know, specialties,
and it's something that's really stuck in my mind about
how nice it was.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Too. Well, yeah, that always happened in Russia. Actually in Moscow.
You know, you would go to people's houses and they'd
invite you for dinner and it would be this whole
thing that would last a whole day long. And they'd
generally living in tiny apartments, you know, on the outskirts
of the city, but they would put like they'd make
a table out of sort of a bit of you know, wood,
(28:35):
and put some chairs together and make this table in
the middle of the only sort of living space, and
it would be just this feast and all these crazy
mismatched things, but just like dish upon dish upon dish
and sort of just so special and you feel so
you know, it's such an act of love in that way.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, if you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would
you please make sure to rate and review the podcast
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
We mentioned all the work you are doing now that
you did tell us about how you either write, direct
or act with food.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I mean so yeah, so food is so I mean,
food really is something that I just find to be
one of the things that cheers me up most in life.
So even if it's bad food, I don't mind what
it is. So I get on a film that you
generally get very bad food, but even that, I just
look forward to it so much. Lunch, you know, you
can't I still can't quite believe I'm being given a
(29:47):
free lunch, free lunch, free hot lunch, you know, And
it just is that little and generally what's happened now,
which I hate is that they've got much more into
these continuous days is where you just sort of eat
on the run. You know, you're given ten minutes to
sort of do it, and it means it does mean
that everybody goes home earlier, so instead of a twelve
(30:09):
earrel so.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Called the French style or something, somebody said there was
a sort of French method way.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, you know, you keep working and working, you keep
working through I really miss that thing of just been
because again it's like the food bit of the day.
The lunch is a time to kind of recover, you know,
just it's like a rest you're acting, when you're acting
and you need I really think you need an hour
to just sit there and eat your sort of generally
not very good sort of cabbage and I don't know
(30:35):
whatever sausage just like but but just it's still a
treat and you kind of just feel like, oh, I've
just got this little moment to sit and think about
what happened this morning and or just sewn out and
then just kind of then gradually get ready for the
for the next half of the day. And I do
feel like that little the little breaks in life, it's
(30:56):
like little holidays from life that meals can give you.
And on a film set that's just definitely true, and
it's part of the social life of being on set,
and as such is really an important focus for the day.
So I really love I love catering, whether as I said,
whether or not it's good or bad. I just love
(31:16):
the fact of it on film sets. And then when
I'm a director, and as a director that's harder because
you are so overwhelmed with all these different millions of
things that you've plated, You've got spinning and questions you've
got to answer that you can't really afford the time
to sit and sort of chat and have your lunch.
(31:38):
So I didn't. That wasn't really a big part of
the day for me when I was directing. And then
writing is such a solitary thing. But I've found that
I can only really now write. I think I must
have some kind of sort of undiagnosedism where I can't
I can't write unless I'm in a very loud busy
like I would be able to write brilliantly in the
(32:00):
river cafe, but I have to consid there's a cafe
on the end of my block. A kind of restaurant
that's open all day long in Brooklyn, and I go
there and I sit there literally for hours at a time,
and I it's quite good because I generally a lot
of I think I like the kind of buzz of noise,
and I kind of feel like that's the only way
(32:20):
I can sort of do it, whereas if I sit
at home, I just get very sleepy and fall asleep.
And do you eat though at the cafe and then
I eat, and then I have my little sort of
salads or a little bowl of pasta at the time,
and that's my break, you know. Christopher Hampton, I think
it was.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It might have been a lis On Dogerus, I can't remember,
but certainly when we opened, I think he was a
friend of Rose and he would come with I don't
even think of our computers in nineteen eighty nine, so
he probably just came with a pad and hand wrote
it and he would sit there and ride.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It's just there are people who come and work rough
my son. He really likes to work in a cafe.
And Richard used to like work. We had a countless
studies in the house or places where he could be
quiet and work, and he would always choose the kitchen
table or kids the noisiest having It's.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Interesting about how different people work.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do you think about what you're going to eat the
next day when you're going to bed? Do you sometimes
think what we'll I have for lunch tomorrow? Or do
you think about it when you wake up?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I sometimes sort of not really. I mean I
guess I think about what I might buy to cook
for people. But no, my dad was a great one
for that. Like we had to basically have decided what
we were eating in the car on the way to
any restaurant. I think because it was so funny. He
definitely had lots of UNDIAGNOSISMS. It was like lots of
sort of anxiety so around. He loved restaurants, but we
(33:44):
had to be in and out and when he got
very irritated if anyone ordered pudding, But he and we
all had to have worked out what we were going
to have before we sat down, you know. So, yeah,
so you would go back to the same restaurant, Yeah, yeah,
what was it? He loved the Walls place, Oh here,
and so he knew for the men, Yeah, yeah, I
(34:06):
did that. Yeah, But Richard, I was just as you said, Richard,
I just do feel like there was just that memory
of him with that kind of beaming grin in here.
And no matter how many glasses of nebuola I was
spilling or so I was sort of being mean to,
there was just this feeling and there's just kind sort
(34:29):
of chesha cat there that just made everything it didn't matter,
you know.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
But you were I will not have it said that
you were the worst. Sometimes everybody says I'm the worst waitress,
or somebody said was the worst. I'd say you were
right up there, the top, top top right, all the
qualities she's talking about something we'd look for and wait.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I do remember just feeling. So it was just so
sort of I know, glamorous probably isn't the right word,
but that's what I don't know, just sort of full
of sort of magic, and you felt all these magical
people would come, like do you remember, of course you remember,
but Adam Alvarez's used to come with the truffles and
the just the most handsome man on earth, just like
(35:13):
this truffle man who would come with having got all
these truffles from wherever was it, alber or I don't
know in Italy and you're just like, oh my gosh,
who are these people? Collection of amazing characters that are
attracted to you and your world and are part of
it all, and it just was It felt a little
bit like sort of Alison falling down the rabbit hole,
(35:36):
just ending up in this It really is, you know, magic.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, So tell us what you're working on now.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, Rogers, I am making. I came to do Paddington
three and I shot that here in London, and I
was so happy to come back and be here for
a long period and work on that incredible franchise. It's
a great it's really amazing, and especially now in these times, yes,
(36:04):
there's something about like please look after this bear feels
even more important than it ever did. And I felt
so grateful to be part of that and to be
able to bring my family, my little American family here
for a while and be in London. And then more
and more I've seen to find myself writing and directing
and being more less in front of the camera and
(36:26):
more behind it, which I'm really enjoying. I love it
so much. And I guess part of it is being
this shy person, but that you I always sort of
I both sort of wanted to have attention on me
and perform and everything in a way, and then also
just was sort of terrified and horrified by it, and
it made me quite sort of neurotic. And and I
(36:48):
find writing and directing much less. So it's just all
about telling a story, which acting is too, and when
its best acting isn't about how pretty you are, how
clever you are, how funny you are, all these silly
things that don't mean anything. But you do get quite
distracted by all that. So what is you do? Oh?
(37:10):
So I have written this film with Noah baum Beck,
who is also a great fan of the River Cafe
and of yours, and that's being shot here in the spring,
and that was amazing and I learned so much from him, obviously,
And then I'm writing a film of my own to direct,
hopefully about my time in Russia actually and yeah, so
(37:32):
I feel I'm enjoying this bit of my creative life
in a way that is different from how it was before.
It feels it feels just fun good. And going back
to the food, you're right shoot in Italy. Yeah, so
Noah's movie, We're definitely She's half in London and half
in Italy.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
When you make a film in another country, to think
about the food of that country totally.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I mean it's going to be amazing. I mean it
will be because he's a real food and he loves
Italian food too, and so there's no doubt that food
on that film will be amazing. No, that'll be so nice.
You've got to come. I think you've got to be
in it. Yeah. I think he wants you to be
in it. I think he's convinced you.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Be a cameo.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
The last couple of it I heard was over food
in New York. I had dinner with this couple and
apparently they had such a good time they went back
to California. They're both screenwriters and actors or whatever, and
they they.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Bought a dog and named it after me. Oh my goodness,
that's the highest. So I could either be in a
film or I could have a dog named what kind
of something? A huge person. It was so funny, you said,
Oh you don't. I thought maybe something like that was coming.
(39:06):
They're going to put you in a movie, right. They
liked you so much they named your dog act.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
So our very very last question which we do is
to say, if food is love, and food is you know, traveling,
and food is your memories of your parents. And I
remember those Sunday lunches at Turvill Heath where there was
cricket and food and sitting and children running around, and
I remember all the meals I had with your your family,
(39:32):
and a great meal I had with you last week
and back to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So food is all that.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It also is comfort, and so as I say, I
hope you don't need comfort very often if you do
call me, But if you don't want to call, what
is there a food that you would go to for
for comfort?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Well, for some reason, it's so weird. It's ravili.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Good.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I get it the most comforting food. And whenever I'm
asked what my favorite food is, I always say ravioli.
And is always saying, but you never have reve I'm like,
that's my daughter said, that's such a lie. You don't
have ravioli, And I'm like, I know, but I love reveoli.
And if I were to feel really like I wanted
to treat myself while I was feeling really sad, I'd
order a plate of ravioli and it would make me
(40:20):
feel I don't think you could feel. And it's quite
hard to make bad ravioli. I mean, of course it is.
I guess it's quite easy, probably, But I just think
is delicious something choosing out Charna the most amazing. I
hope we have. Do we have every ear the other
menu today? If we do, yeah, I'm going.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
To have.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
They are They've got a mixture of greens in today
and racotta and pepcerino.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I think, oh god, I'm definitely going to get that,
even though you don't need to come for it. Well,
it goes back to if it goes back to my
dad food, you don't really need teeth to eat, so
it's probably the best car. Okay, let's go have lunch.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Thank you so nice, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad
Rogers Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production
coordinator is Bella Selini. This episode had additional contributions by
(41:51):
Sean win Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River
Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Seven
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Last night, Emily Mortimer came to Thanksgiving dinner with her
family at our home, and as is a tradition, at
the end of the meal, we all sang you Are
My Sunshine, our favorite family song. Looking down at the
(00:21):
table of forty people, our eyes met and stayed there
for all four verses. In those moments, memories flooded back
with the girl I knew since she was six, the
time he spent with her father, John playwright and barrister,
and her mother Penny Fly fisher and tennis player who
managed the no small feat of smoking while playing the game.
(00:41):
What Emily does now is impressive. She's an actor, a writer, director,
Nodding Hill, The Pursuit of Love, Newsroom, Match Point, The
New Look, and Apple Show with Juliet Binoch and Paddington III.
When I see Emily, our conversation is mostly about what
she did other than what she's doing for. She was
(01:02):
one of the first employees of the River Cafe in
nineteen eighty nine, when being seventeen and totally inexperienced was
no obstacle to be a waiter here. In the River Cafe.
Today we're going to talk about food and memories. For
she is my family and most of all, Emily Mortimer,
you are my sunshine. Oh oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Begin it was so nice to see. Yeah, you're bully,
we're going to get you back in here. But do
you remember what I felt like or what it was like? Yes?
(01:45):
I do. It was it was just the same. It
was just smaller. I mean it was like half the
size of men there.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It was the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We had the bar going across here. Yes, that's right,
the barb there. Definitely that bar was a wall. I
can remember that very clearly. But there were tables outside
sometimes in the summer. Yeah, and we all do do
you do you still get them to the waitresses and
the waiters do the pres Yeah, that was the most amazing.
We really kept iron. And that really is what taught
(02:15):
me to cook. I think is coming here and having
to like grape parmesan and sweat the peppers and oh yeah, yeah,
peel the peel the peppers, you know, and get the
food ready and then you kind of a part of it,
which is just such a cool thing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So we'll start with the recipe that you chose, which
was a pair almon tarde.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Pear and almond tart serves ten to twelve six ripe
commas pears, three hundred and fifty grams of blanched whole almonds,
three hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter softened, three
hundred and fifty grams of caster sugar, three eggs. Peel
(03:02):
half and core the pears. Place the pear halfs face
down and in one layer in a pre baked sweet
pastry base. Put the almonds in a food processor and
chop until fine. Cream together the butter and sugar with
an electric mixer until pale and light. Add the almonds,
(03:22):
then the eggs. One by one. Pour this almond mixture
over the pears, bake for forty minutes or until the
filling is golden brown, and set. Leave to cool and
serve with a dollop of crem fresh.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
We do a version of the pair and almond tart
all year, so in the summer when we make a
tart with raspberries with the almond franchipan deltio the strawberries.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But I do think for me the best is pear combinations.
The classic. Yeah, well, I just love it because it's
the sort of most amazing bang for your buck of
a pudding, because you just people can't believe that a
human mortal made it and you didn't just buy it
in a sort of yeah, you know, bou lingerie or something.
It really does and it's so simple and easy as
(04:09):
all your recipes are, but it just is so sort
of delicious and really impressive. People are always just like,
did you really make this? Did you make the pastry? Shan,
what did you do the pastry?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, the pastry is three hundred and seventy five grams
of plain flour, two hundred and fifty grams of unsalted butter,
which you pulse in a robocoop or magic mixed kind
of machine. Then add one hundred grams of icing sugar,
give that a little pulse, then bind it together with
three egg yolks, and it will make a firm dough
(04:42):
that you need to refrigerate for a couple of hours.
And then the secret of the almond tart is that
we actually grate the dough into the using a thick
cheese graye to cheese grater, isn't it, and then grate
that into the pastry tin and press it out. Don't
try and roll it because you'll probably never have. Yeah,
(05:03):
exactly the secrets of our recipes. Press it into place.
You can make it as thick as soon as you like,
but as long as you pre bake it before you
put the almonds in, isn't it. Yeah, you might put
the cake mixture in. It's probably one of the desserts.
It's been on since you's, you know, for thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Now, that's six or thirty five years. I can't believe
that I hadn't actually done the math.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So let's carry on back to those early early days
and to being a waiter here. What you were seventeen? Yeah,
that's really amazing. Yeah, and do you remember the story
of why you came or what happened?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I just was trying to make a bit of money
on my summer after well, yes, it was the beginning
of my gap year, and it was really the beginning
of my life because I was a very very shy
believe or not, child and still am as a person.
And actually cooking I have found in my life has
(06:08):
been something there's been the greatest sort of way of
counter acting being shy because you can sort of have
people over and have parties and friends, but you can
sort of also be hiding behind this thing. And I
think coming and being a waitress was really the first
time that I had sort of been in life, like
(06:28):
I knew I was going to go to university, and
I knew I was going to go to Russia before
I went to university, having never really kissed a boy hardly,
having never really kind of hardly got drunk, having really
lived a very secluded life, and this was my sort
of gateway to the beginning of my life coming here.
And I think my parents had just said, you need
(06:50):
to make a bit of money, and why don't you
be a waitress, And they probably just asked you, and
you very kindly had agreed to have this completely callow,
sort of just demented.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
To have this absolute, fabulously beautiful, charming open.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I had, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I think shyness is a really interesting conversation because I
was at a dinner the other night and I said
to somebody that I stood outside the door. I hadn't
been to like a big dinner party for a long time,
and it was for Graydon Carter, and I said I
kind of stood outside, really not wanting to ring that
doorbell go into a room of.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
A whole lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And he said, well, I was at that doorstep too,
because I didn't want to go into a room. And
there are people who you just they just assume.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
That you're not shy when that things.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Don't bother you, when in fact there is that that terror.
And I sometimes do that of heading into the kitchen
to safe because I think Ruthie Rogers is here, so
I'm really interested. But you just feel safe when you're
in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And you can hide behind the business of getting something
ready and you don't actually have to sort of properly
being with the sort of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Of talking trying to tell me that when she has
a dinner, you keep your apron aunts. You don't have
to talk to.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Thanks divulging that.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I find that if I got my chef's outfit, I'm
more confident if I was in my normal clothes, and
when I was trying to buy my car, I was
I was doing the deal with my chef's outfit because
I was much more like, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In the role I can totally imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I think, yeah, we don't read psychiatrists.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Psychists. I just said, yeah, I think we just marrier
chefs out. We'll give you mine to take home today.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
It's a natural barrier, Like if I have to talk
to people, if I'm like people come to my house,
I keep my apron on it because it keeps me
in the persona like really nervy.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well it's funny though. Also I was thinking about last
night and coming to your incredible dinner and just thinking
it's it's and as is coming to your restaurants. It's
like you're entering this world. And in a funny way,
it feels like because people think as an actor you're
not shy because you're performing all the time and you're
putting yourself out there. But as I said, that's really
(09:11):
the only way you can't. I can exist is by
forcing myself into this. But it's like putting on a
show in a way like having a dinner or or
having it's putting it's it's you know, having having a
restaurant or whatever, but even having people for dinner in
your own home. I always feel like that it's you
make it look nice and you sort of put the
(09:32):
music on them, and you sort of light the fire
and you can create this kind of world that people
set a stage set, but it is all a kind
of illusion and really the sort of behind the scenes
shouting at everybody to tell you their bedrooms and anyway.
So I feel very I think coming to as a
(09:54):
young Yeah, so that's call to this magical place. It
felt like it felt the best way of sort of
forcing myself into life because it was you and your
family in Rose and just it was a family.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Nineteen eighty nine. We opened in September eighty seven. Do
we teach you anything?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yes, And you taught me basically taught me how to cook.
You taught me, but.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We opened the restaurants, seventeen year old was in the
kitchen cooking.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, no you didn't. I wasn't cooking, but I was
greating you as you as a fact you were saying,
they still do that here. That the waiters that you
you really become very familiar with the food and you're
making it, and you have to get in earlier than
most waiters would come to do a job in a restaurant.
So you get in a few hours before and you
create the parmesan or a lot of the time was
(10:48):
chopping up the basil and the parsley and things like
that and just sort of becoming. And I can always
remember you saying, and my mom says that to me.
Ruthie always says, and I said, I can remember it.
Just get a good smell going, you know. And that's true.
I always think of that as I'm cooking.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's just like, you know, it's going to be okay,
You've just got this good smell going.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And then I got about being a waiter who taught
you how to wait no one, and I still training.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
That's the training of the river surf. I mean, it
really was.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I really sorry about Nemesis. When what was that story
about the Nemesis and the glass? I said, you broke
a glass over a Nemesis, a whole Nemesis.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I'm sure I did. I mean, I broke everything over
everything I was. I was. I just remember the dry
cleaning bills that you guys were having to pay on
my bar, so people that had red wine dropped in
their lapse. And I think that I think I've come
to the conclusion that actually being a waiter is a
very difficult job, and people don't really don't really be
(11:48):
nicer to waiters. There's so much going on in your
head at one time where you really are having to
try to remember, and you could generally you can get
from starter to main course. That's okay, you can remember
because you can see you've take taken their plates away,
but then you take the main course plates away, and
then you just forget about them for hours because you
(12:11):
just forget totally to bring them there putting menus, and
then once they've had their pudding. I was just like,
you totally forget to have to pay a bill. No, no,
don't worry about the bill. That was always the bit
that un did me. I was remembering. But then I
was remembering the other day there was this awful thing
where I still feel guilty about this. This man called
(12:31):
I mean, I don't I think his name was Dougal McDougall,
and he was he was eating his lunch here and
there was a big Christmas lunch and everybody was going bananas,
getting ready for you know, this service, and then this
lunch full of people and it was a Christmas thing,
and so all the people from all the offices were
having their Christmas lunches and and the phone was going
(12:52):
off the hook bananas. This phone kept ringing, and no
one had time to pick it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Up the phone in the restaurant, and people picked it
up and took a reserve.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And I remember finally picking it up and thinking, because
I thought, maybe this is something you know, I needed,
you know, somebody needs to deal with this phone. And
I picked it up and I said hello, and the
woman said, oh, hello. You know you've got a mister
Dougall McDougall dining with you today and he's urgently required
to the telephone. And I said, oh, yes, absolutely, I'll
find it for you. And I put the phone down,
(13:21):
and I thought, how do I find Google McDougall and
all these people? And then I looked around and I
saw this man and I just thought, I think you're
Google mdog.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And he.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Had a sort of he was so sweet looking. He
had a sort of mullet hair and then a suit
that was slightly ill fitting, but you looked really lovely.
And anyway, I just thought, you're Google McDougal. I think
you are. And I went over and I said, are
you buy any chance, mister Doogle McDougall, and men said yes,
I am. And I was so victorious, and I went
to the phone and I picked up them and I
(13:54):
said he's just coming and he went and he and
all lunch long and he had his phone call, and
it was all good. All lunchlong. I was just so
happy and laughing about this story to myself, and it
got me through the lunch. And then at the end
of lunch, I started telling all the other staff and
the waitresses and the chefs and all about it, and
everybody was laughing up roariously, and I said, and I
(14:14):
saw this man, and I just knew out of everybody
in this restaurant lot of people, that had to be
Doggle McDougall. Sure enough it was. And I described as
mullets and his badly fitting suits. And then this little
voice went, I'm still here, you know, And it was
Google McDougall. And he'd gone to the loo while I
was telling the story and come out and heard me.
And I still to this daste wake up in the night,
(14:37):
just feeling bad for Doogle mcdougle. If you're listening to this,
I have a big apology to make I really feel bad.
The other nights when you heard, somebody came up to me.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
This man came up with the felt and he said,
my wife is dying to beat you, I said, okay,
So I went over and I went listen, I hear
you're dying to meet me.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And it was the wrong table. I not dying to me.
We just tried to my table, and so you're dying.
So things, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It was thirty five years later. It's still still but
I do remember.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
The other thing I remember was that cell phones had
only just started, and people were they had phones in
their cars, and they were some of these men, these
sort of guys that were trying to show off and
be fancy, would go to the car park and phone
in there, putting orders from the car park to show
(15:33):
off about their phones.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
We once had somebody when we had somebody was using
their cell phone outside and a wader went up and
for some reason said, you know, we'd prefer you not
to use your cell phone disturbing other people. She said, well,
I was trying to get the attention of a waiter.
She was actually calling reception to ask a waiter to
(15:55):
come to her tail. So yeah, I mean, big waiter.
It's hardly. It really is hard. It really is hard.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It requires an awful lots of concentration and your brain
has to be in about twenty five places we Do
you ever work anywhere else? No, of course not. I
mean I was just I mean I was unemployab all
those waites. It would be good to try at one more.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I should do one here?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, yeah, you happy to do it? Did you know?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our
favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks and then in
Napkins kitchen were toat bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Durin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot uk. Going back before you were seventeen, yeah,
(16:55):
let's talk about growing up in the Mortimer household and food.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
What were meals like at your well? Yeah, dad was
Dad could really cook and loved food, but he was
his He always said his favorite His idea of good
food is food you don't really need teeth to eat,
like no, like sort of mashed potato or kedgeree was
his favorite thing as sort of comfort food. And I
remember as a little little girl, my dad always cooked
(17:21):
me boiled eggs and toast soldiers. That was the thing
I was. I used to say, get my eggs, you
bugger gone down in the morning and send them back
if they weren't I mean, I wasn't very dead. She
said that I was a very shy child, but I
was not shy with my dad, and so I would, Yeah,
I would send back the eggs if they went exactly
cooked to my you know, certain specificity, and if the
(17:44):
toa soldiers went perfectly lightly blonded, I was very annoyed.
But food, I mean, our family was such a sort
of place of love and also as all families, quite
dysfunctional in lots of wonderful ways. But the one thing
that they really always got right my mom and dad
was was meals, Like we always I can't remember not having.
(18:09):
I mean, we just always ate together where whether it
was at you know, dinner at home with mom Mum
normally cooking, or sometimes Dad, or in a restaurant, and
restaurants we just from our dad, both me and Rosie,
my sister inherited just a love of restaurants, and his
attitude to restaurants was that it was just sort of
(18:29):
that there was no problem so great or sort of
heart so broken that it couldn't be slightly made better
by and delicious meal in a restaurant with a white
tablecloth and preferably a glass or three of champagne, and
that that you know, you that there was something so
cheering about going out for lunch or dinner in a
nice restaurant. And I think Rosie and I just still
(18:52):
have that. We're addicted to restaurants. Yeah, I just it
just feels like such a treat. It never stops being
a treat. And just sort of that feeling of being
cozy and with people you love in this kind of
special place. And and again another thing of that of
wherever you are in the world, finding a little key
into it. It's a way of getting to know people
(19:14):
and getting to know the place you're in and and
and finding some sort of, you know, place that feels
authentic to where you are and being there generally you're
with people you really like, eating good food and.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Tells you about the culture and take the place you are.
Did you Because I always think of your parents as
being incredibly.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Social as well.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Father was his playwright and his you know, voyage around
my father and he was defending Oz Magnet was it
was he was a Oz trial and and the sex
it's really radical lawyer who was, you know, on the
forefront of every case that was happening, with everything that
was contentious. There was John Mortimer and yet such a
(19:57):
gentle and gorgeous man and Penny. I say, the first
time I met Penny, she was sitting on his lap.
You know. It was just they were such a kind
of important people in our lives, and so they were
able to have this life of going out or people entertaining,
and you still felt very part of that.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, it's very much part of it. And yeah, we
were always I mean Dad loved young people and children
and he just thought children were sort of, you know,
the best type of people that that, and he was
always so sympathetic about being a young person. He said,
it's just like this life will never be as hard
as it is when you're young, and school is awful,
(20:38):
and it's just like these terrible hours unpaid labor and
you know, given terrible food at lunchtime. And he was
very just completely sympathetic to the plight and the loneliness
of childhood. So he was very inclusive and lunches and
dinners or whatever it was. It was always like we
were never sort of expected not to be part of it.
(21:00):
And so I really think, no matter sort of how
much life is falling apart at the seams, which it
always is, of course, like if you can manage to
kind of corral you know, the people that you love
and together for lunch or dinner or whatever it is,
it just does make a difference, it feels, and so
it feels it just feels really comforting to me to
(21:22):
be sitting around a table with people, and because that
was the part of life that I think really was functioning.
You know, when I was little, it was really nice.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And when you left this joyous home of being sitting
around the table and you left we went to Oxford.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, oh, you know you went to Russia first. I
went to Russia on my gap.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And did you manage to find a home that was
like that in Russia or are you sort of in
the I.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Was in Moscow and I do remember eating there a lot.
I can remember the food very well, and there was
always I mean, I love Russian food because probably I
associated with that time, but I that's quite sort of stodgy,
like sort of pelmeny little dumplings with cream, but also
lots of dill. They put dill on everything, and I
(22:08):
still cook lots with dill. Somehow, that really kind of
brings me back to being there. And then I remember
I cooked my first and last goose in Moscow. I
went to a market to buce I was going to
try and cook a roast chicken, and then I went
to the market and they didn't have any chicken, but
(22:30):
they did have a goose. So I called up my mum.
It was very difficult to get through. You couldn't really
make phone calls back and forth to England. I was
nine nineties, so it's probably ninety then, and I had
to go to this hotel and pay with a credit
card for my phone call. That cost about sort of
fifty pounds to sort of have a five minute phone
(22:52):
call back to England. And I remember Mum looking up
the recipe for it, because you get saying a goose
is very different from a chicken darling. Anyway, I remember
spending just all day long with this goose, and I
finally I remember put taking it out, putting it into
the oven, and because it was like you had to
take the wings off and the breasts off and then
prick it and primp it. And I don't really remember,
(23:14):
but I can remember putting the goose in the oven,
saying I'm so sorry. I feel like I've really got
to know you so well over this time. I feel
terrible about because I inter it.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, cooking, and then you went to Oxford? Did you
care about that you didn't eat well in Oxford? Or
did you eat well in Oxford? Where did your parents
rescue you from?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I can't really I went to Lincoln College, which was
famous for its food, but I don't really remember eating much.
I think I just went to lots of parties and
slept and didn't do anything apart from plays. I didn't
really cook their No I did. I just I just yes,
as I said, go home for family meals. Yeah, I
go home because it was I could drive back home.
(23:56):
It was about a forty five minute drive back home.
And so I go home at the weekends and things
and take my washing and get good Sunday lunch. And yeah,
Sunday lunch is something I really sort of remember from
that time of my life, because I mean, and then
when I was in my late twenties, I moved to America,
where they don't really have Sunday lunch, but the sort
(24:18):
of smell of Sunday lunch cooking and my dad listening
to the radio and radio four and the sort of
the smell of something delicious sort of cooking, you know,
is something that I really miss and coming back here
when it happens, I'm just sort of immediately just feel
full of sort of nostalgia and happiness. But now that
your mother of two, do replicate any of those, yeah,
(24:42):
I do? I do try to do. I do. I mean,
I do like a sort of raise whatever you do
have Sunday don Yes, I do. But it's hard to
keep up that tradition when when the culture isn't doing it.
Brun so they have yeah, brunch, Yeah, runch is a
whole thing which I never really know what to do
for brunch. If you had to cook a brunch, what
would you do?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I think probably I'd go and get bagels and cream tees.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And isn't that what they Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I find I find that going out to lunch in
New York on a Sunday is really challenging because you
can't have lunch. It's a much Yeah, so it's kind
of by that time it's twelve and maybe.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Have had something in the breakfast and then it's breakfast
all over again. I think they say it's lunch, but
it is really pretty breakfast to yeah, it's basically glorified practice.
And then I panic because I feel like I've got
to I don't really know how to do a brunch,
so I sort of I go really over the top
and then it's like sort of brunch at the Four
Seasons and something likeiches and it's just too much. But yeah,
(25:43):
I know Sunday lunches, but you have to if you
do a Sunday lunch in America, you have to sort
of make a thing of it. And because people don't
really carve out that time on a Sunday to just
sit around doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And like, do you think it is a really different
culture of eating in Brooklyn and London in terms of
going most of you people go.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Out to people go out much. Well, yeah, I'm starting
here too now.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I think you know, I think they're do you go
out to people's houses for meals or do you mostly
go to restaurants.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I'd go to people's houses.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, probably more now I'm older than I used to.
I think we was talking about it with one of
the young chefs today and he was saying he'd gone
to eat in another one of the chef's house, and
they felt really grown up because he was saying, most
of the times you'd go to the pub or go
out to a restaurant, as now they're starting to go
to people's houses because then people are starting to get houses, right,
(26:38):
you know, I think maybe it's kind of times in
with when you have.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Property or something or somewhere big enough to host. Yeah, maybe,
I like, I mean, I always like a home, you know.
I love when I go to foreign city and you
need it home.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, you know because as you say that kind of
what you're saying for a restaurant, but it does tell
you about the culture, yes, totally about how people are
and you sit around it's nice.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
There's so much in a cooked meal from somebody that
you know that the at home because their whole their
whole history and all their culture and all their everything
is baked into whatever it is you're eating in the
in the most kind of it's so specific, like it's
just like it's like somebody's handwriting or something that you know,
it's like everything about their history and the history of
(27:26):
their lives and culture and everything is somehow in whatever
this dish is and it's just so nice and just yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We had that we were I've told us before a party,
but we were proud and Richard had an honorary degree
and we're walking around we couldn't find a restaurant and
we just stopped somebody and said, can you tell us,
you know where would be a good restaurant to eat?
And then she taught and then she'd been to Richard selecture.
So she invited us to her house the next day
(27:56):
and we went on the way there. I was going,
We're we're going to somebody's that we don't know, and
it was so touching because they've gotten out all the
family linen and she made all these check you know, specialties,
and it's something that's really stuck in my mind about
how nice it was.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Too. Well, yeah, that always happened in Russia. Actually in Moscow.
You know, you would go to people's houses and they'd
invite you for dinner and it would be this whole
thing that would last a whole day long. And they'd
generally living in tiny apartments, you know, on the outskirts
of the city, but they would put like they'd make
a table out of sort of a bit of you know, wood,
(28:35):
and put some chairs together and make this table in
the middle of the only sort of living space, and
it would be just this feast and all these crazy
mismatched things, but just like dish upon dish upon dish
and sort of just so special and you feel so
you know, it's such an act of love in that way.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, if you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would
you please make sure to rate and review the podcast
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
We mentioned all the work you are doing now that
you did tell us about how you either write, direct
or act with food.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I mean so yeah, so food is so I mean,
food really is something that I just find to be
one of the things that cheers me up most in life.
So even if it's bad food, I don't mind what
it is. So I get on a film that you
generally get very bad food, but even that, I just
look forward to it so much. Lunch, you know, you
can't I still can't quite believe I'm being given a
(29:47):
free lunch, free lunch, free hot lunch, you know, And
it just is that little and generally what's happened now,
which I hate is that they've got much more into
these continuous days is where you just sort of eat
on the run. You know, you're given ten minutes to
sort of do it, and it means it does mean
that everybody goes home earlier, so instead of a twelve
(30:09):
earrel so.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Called the French style or something, somebody said there was
a sort of French method way.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, you know, you keep working and working, you keep
working through I really miss that thing of just been
because again it's like the food bit of the day.
The lunch is a time to kind of recover, you know,
just it's like a rest you're acting, when you're acting
and you need I really think you need an hour
to just sit there and eat your sort of generally
not very good sort of cabbage and I don't know
(30:35):
whatever sausage just like but but just it's still a
treat and you kind of just feel like, oh, I've
just got this little moment to sit and think about
what happened this morning and or just sewn out and
then just kind of then gradually get ready for the
for the next half of the day. And I do
feel like that little the little breaks in life, it's
(30:56):
like little holidays from life that meals can give you.
And on a film set that's just definitely true, and
it's part of the social life of being on set,
and as such is really an important focus for the day.
So I really love I love catering, whether as I said,
whether or not it's good or bad. I just love
(31:16):
the fact of it on film sets. And then when
I'm a director, and as a director that's harder because
you are so overwhelmed with all these different millions of
things that you've plated, You've got spinning and questions you've
got to answer that you can't really afford the time
to sit and sort of chat and have your lunch.
(31:38):
So I didn't. That wasn't really a big part of
the day for me when I was directing. And then
writing is such a solitary thing. But I've found that
I can only really now write. I think I must
have some kind of sort of undiagnosedism where I can't
I can't write unless I'm in a very loud busy
like I would be able to write brilliantly in the
(32:00):
river cafe, but I have to consid there's a cafe
on the end of my block. A kind of restaurant
that's open all day long in Brooklyn, and I go
there and I sit there literally for hours at a time,
and I it's quite good because I generally a lot
of I think I like the kind of buzz of noise,
and I kind of feel like that's the only way
(32:20):
I can sort of do it, whereas if I sit
at home, I just get very sleepy and fall asleep.
And do you eat though at the cafe and then
I eat, and then I have my little sort of
salads or a little bowl of pasta at the time,
and that's my break, you know. Christopher Hampton, I think
it was.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
It might have been a lis On Dogerus, I can't remember,
but certainly when we opened, I think he was a
friend of Rose and he would come with I don't
even think of our computers in nineteen eighty nine, so
he probably just came with a pad and hand wrote
it and he would sit there and ride.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It's just there are people who come and work rough
my son. He really likes to work in a cafe.
And Richard used to like work. We had a countless
studies in the house or places where he could be
quiet and work, and he would always choose the kitchen
table or kids the noisiest having It's.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Interesting about how different people work.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do you think about what you're going to eat the
next day when you're going to bed? Do you sometimes
think what we'll I have for lunch tomorrow? Or do
you think about it when you wake up?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I sometimes sort of not really. I mean I
guess I think about what I might buy to cook
for people. But no, my dad was a great one
for that. Like we had to basically have decided what
we were eating in the car on the way to
any restaurant. I think because it was so funny. He
definitely had lots of UNDIAGNOSISMS. It was like lots of
sort of anxiety so around. He loved restaurants, but we
(33:44):
had to be in and out and when he got
very irritated if anyone ordered pudding, But he and we
all had to have worked out what we were going
to have before we sat down, you know. So, yeah,
so you would go back to the same restaurant, Yeah, yeah,
what was it? He loved the Walls place, Oh here,
and so he knew for the men, Yeah, yeah, I
(34:06):
did that. Yeah, But Richard, I was just as you said, Richard,
I just do feel like there was just that memory
of him with that kind of beaming grin in here.
And no matter how many glasses of nebuola I was
spilling or so I was sort of being mean to,
there was just this feeling and there's just kind sort
(34:29):
of chesha cat there that just made everything it didn't matter,
you know.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
But you were I will not have it said that
you were the worst. Sometimes everybody says I'm the worst waitress,
or somebody said was the worst. I'd say you were
right up there, the top, top top right, all the
qualities she's talking about something we'd look for and wait.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
I do remember just feeling. So it was just so
sort of I know, glamorous probably isn't the right word,
but that's what I don't know, just sort of full
of sort of magic, and you felt all these magical
people would come, like do you remember, of course you remember,
but Adam Alvarez's used to come with the truffles and
the just the most handsome man on earth, just like
(35:13):
this truffle man who would come with having got all
these truffles from wherever was it, alber or I don't
know in Italy and you're just like, oh my gosh,
who are these people? Collection of amazing characters that are
attracted to you and your world and are part of
it all, and it just was It felt a little
bit like sort of Alison falling down the rabbit hole,
(35:36):
just ending up in this It really is, you know, magic.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, So tell us what you're working on now.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, Rogers, I am making. I came to do Paddington
three and I shot that here in London, and I
was so happy to come back and be here for
a long period and work on that incredible franchise. It's
a great it's really amazing, and especially now in these times, yes,
(36:04):
there's something about like please look after this bear feels
even more important than it ever did. And I felt
so grateful to be part of that and to be
able to bring my family, my little American family here
for a while and be in London. And then more
and more I've seen to find myself writing and directing
and being more less in front of the camera and
(36:26):
more behind it, which I'm really enjoying. I love it
so much. And I guess part of it is being
this shy person, but that you I always sort of
I both sort of wanted to have attention on me
and perform and everything in a way, and then also
just was sort of terrified and horrified by it, and
it made me quite sort of neurotic. And and I
(36:48):
find writing and directing much less. So it's just all
about telling a story, which acting is too, and when
its best acting isn't about how pretty you are, how
clever you are, how funny you are, all these silly
things that don't mean anything. But you do get quite
distracted by all that. So what is you do? Oh?
(37:10):
So I have written this film with Noah baum Beck,
who is also a great fan of the River Cafe
and of yours, and that's being shot here in the spring,
and that was amazing and I learned so much from him, obviously,
And then I'm writing a film of my own to direct,
hopefully about my time in Russia actually and yeah, so
(37:32):
I feel I'm enjoying this bit of my creative life
in a way that is different from how it was before.
It feels it feels just fun good. And going back
to the food, you're right shoot in Italy. Yeah, so
Noah's movie, We're definitely She's half in London and half
in Italy.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
When you make a film in another country, to think
about the food of that country totally.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I mean it's going to be amazing. I mean it
will be because he's a real food and he loves
Italian food too, and so there's no doubt that food
on that film will be amazing. No, that'll be so nice.
You've got to come. I think you've got to be
in it. Yeah. I think he wants you to be
in it. I think he's convinced you.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Be a cameo.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
The last couple of it I heard was over food
in New York. I had dinner with this couple and
apparently they had such a good time they went back
to California. They're both screenwriters and actors or whatever, and
they they.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Bought a dog and named it after me. Oh my goodness,
that's the highest. So I could either be in a
film or I could have a dog named what kind
of something? A huge person. It was so funny, you said,
Oh you don't. I thought maybe something like that was coming.
(39:06):
They're going to put you in a movie, right. They
liked you so much they named your dog act.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
So our very very last question which we do is
to say, if food is love, and food is you know, traveling,
and food is your memories of your parents. And I
remember those Sunday lunches at Turvill Heath where there was
cricket and food and sitting and children running around, and
I remember all the meals I had with your your family,
(39:32):
and a great meal I had with you last week
and back to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So food is all that.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It also is comfort, and so as I say, I
hope you don't need comfort very often if you do
call me, But if you don't want to call, what
is there a food that you would go to for
for comfort?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Well, for some reason, it's so weird. It's ravili.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Good.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
I get it the most comforting food. And whenever I'm
asked what my favorite food is, I always say ravioli.
And is always saying, but you never have reve I'm like,
that's my daughter said, that's such a lie. You don't
have ravioli, And I'm like, I know, but I love reveoli.
And if I were to feel really like I wanted
to treat myself while I was feeling really sad, I'd
order a plate of ravioli and it would make me
(40:20):
feel I don't think you could feel. And it's quite
hard to make bad ravioli. I mean, of course it is.
I guess it's quite easy, probably, But I just think
is delicious something choosing out Charna the most amazing. I
hope we have. Do we have every ear the other
menu today? If we do, yeah, I'm going.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
To have.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
They are They've got a mixture of greens in today
and racotta and pepcerino.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I think, oh god, I'm definitely going to get that,
even though you don't need to come for it. Well,
it goes back to if it goes back to my
dad food, you don't really need teeth to eat, so
it's probably the best car. Okay, let's go have lunch.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Thank you so nice, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad
Rogers Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production
coordinator is Bella Selini. This episode had additional contributions by
(41:51):
Sean win Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River
Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Seven
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