July 7, 2025 • 41 mins
Alexandra Mousavizadeh is my friend, and yet I have little idea how to describe what she does. This I do know: she’s an economist, an expert in game theory, and co-founded Evident in 2022 to benchmark companies on their AI performance.
In Alexandra's house, the place I love most is her kitchen and the smell of an extraordinary Persian dish about to be served. Alexandra and I are here together to talk about food, technology, the future, friends, family, and not being afraid. You'll learn about this remarkable friend of mine and I will learn what in fact she does.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I have friends who are writers, friends who are artists,
friends who are chefs, and it's easy for me to.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Describe what they do.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Alexander Muzaviza Day, however, is my closest friend, and I
have little idea how to describe what she does.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
It's complex, it's interesting, and so far a new world.
This I do know.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alexander is an economist, an expert in game theory and AI,
and in twenty twenty two co founded Evident with Annabel Isles,
two women creating an index at Benchmark companies on their
AI performance. But if it's challenging to tell you about
her in professional terms, I can tell you what she's
like as a friend. Alexander is warm, she's empathetic, she's energetic, she's.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Brave, and she's resilient.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I know this as a fact, as I speak to
her most evenings before sleeping at Moe's mornings immediately after waking.
Early on in our friendship, I got a glimpse into
her character that has stayed with me ever since. Rescuing
one of her children's football she fell off a roof
and her wedding ring caught on the slats of a fence.
It was only when she heard its clink that she'd
(01:15):
realized she'd lost a finger. She picked it up, went
to the hospital, and the next morning was at her
desk at work.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No complaints, no self pity. That is true.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It wasn't the clinking of the We can do a
fact check if don't about it. It was basically never
let facts real. A good story, but it was a
clinking of the of the wedding ring.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
It was oddly enough, I didn't feel the finger being
ripped out of my hand, but I only noticed it
when I saw the wedding ring and my finger on
the floor. And then I couldn't get an ambulance. Called
the ambulance and they said, sorry, only bit's a major
major injury, two figures, maybe one finger.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sorry we're British.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
That was not considered major. But I think, you know,
one of my biggest memories from that moment, and I
had just moved to London from New York, was what
happened right after was a knock on the hospital door
and in came a tray from you, Ruthy with sea
bass slow cook piece a bottle of wine. A bottle
of wine, a pink napkin or orange, a knife and fork,
(02:18):
and a piece of chocolate nemesis. And I think that
was why I could skip home the next day from
the hospital.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The NHS doesn't necessarily provide that kind of cure.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
That was all due to you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Has nothing to do with the food is due to
do to you. That was and that just is an
incredible memory.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, and you just were in New York, weren't you.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I was an Aspen Aspen Ideas festival life. It was fantastic.
It is the the great Aspen Ideas festival that has
been I think going for more than twenty years, and.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So it was just it was the world in the
place we were away.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, the world.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yes, it was right a week after Iran.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, yes, yeah, So there's a lot of discussion.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Was that AI as well?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
I think it was more convention, It was more sort
of traditional warfare, but of course AI plays a huge
role in warfare today and autonomous drones and the weaponry
that's built in the presition that we can we can
point the weapons at today. But yeah, it came right
after obviously, right at the sort of the heels of
the bombing of Iran, and so a lot of the
(03:23):
conversation was about the Middle East and what might happen.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You and I were a lunch at the River Cafe
two years ago, I think, and the host of the lunch,
Matthew Barton, asked a question to the table, which was
is there something an idea thought that the world is
afraid of that people are afraid of but you're not.
And when it came to you, you said that you
(03:49):
were not afraid of AI. But it always interested me
that the word fear came up so much and still
does when you talk about AI.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's a question I get a lot, and I do
think it's a shame that the debate is where the
debate is today, because it is very dominated by a
fear around this technology and the way it's covered in
the press, but also by a lot of academics talking about,
(04:21):
you know, what is the non zero risk of things
can going wrong? And I think that it's getting too
much coverage in the sense that, of course we need
to talk about the risks, but we should also really
focus on all of the opportunities and what it will
do to our society, us as individuals, the businesses that
we're running, our education, our children. AI has a really
(04:45):
important and positive role to play in all of this.
And I'm not saying there isn't a risk out there
on the horizon, but that risk, I think is very
much overplayed, and I think it's underplayed what the opportunities
are and when I'm looking at, you know, just every
day day today, the way we use it, the way
that the businesses that we're working with use it, and
how that is helping and it's augmenting the way we
(05:07):
optimize our supply chains and that we can get you know,
things at a bit better and cheaper rate to our
tables is all AI driven. The way that we even
just interact with what we have in our fridge. Tell
me about that, well, you know, there are tools now
where you can take a photograph of your fridge and
optimize what you're cooking, simple as that, what do I
(05:29):
do with these ingredients or how do I optimize for
you know, shopping in a sustainable way. When I'm looking
at what the ingredients are in my kitchen, when should
I when should I make sure to eat this before
it goes off? So I don't open the fridge and
then suddenly it's gone off. And so there's lots of
these apps and ways to optimize reducing waste, is making
(05:50):
it as which is a good thing, which is making
it easier for families to cook, which is a good thing.
And at the sort of supply chain and sort of
the sort of industrial agriculture side, you know, you've got
the breakthroughs of AI that are helping to optimize the
way we plant things and the way we are growing
things in new and innovative ways. AI lies at the
heart of that as well.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
So the future is right, yes, it is, no, it
is absolutely think in medicine and yeah, and we do
struggle with food poverty, food in prisons, food and the
way we feed our children, the way we feed our sick,
the way we don't have accessibility in poor neighborhoods for.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Fresh vegetables, the way we grow our vegetables, and as
you say, really.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Struck was waste. Do you know people who are working in
this field? Very Have you met any people? I do?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Tangentially yes, And we should come in and make sure
AI is at the heart of the River Cafe as well.
Optimizing no waste and all of that but there's a
lot of big organizations that are in the sort of
food industry where they are hiring heads of AI, heads
of technology working out how they can just do what
(07:03):
they do but better with less waste. And so it's
definitely absolutely being implemented in the food and agricultural industry already.
There's an amazing story about John Deere. You know, they
do farmed and equipment and it's completely AI driven. They
use they draw down from satellites that can predict the weather.
(07:25):
They have sensors in the soil they are now planting with,
you know, sort of optimizing for sort of being much
more precise, and so their yields are much higher. I mean,
it's an absolutely incredible story. Every part and side and
top and bottom of these John Deere machinery is AI
equipment and it is It is fantastic to see how
(07:46):
they've been able to transform the agricultural space.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We started with Aspen, And what did you come away
from Aspen with When you're listening to you, yeah, people,
but what did you feel when you came away from this?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I felt that it was there was a lot more optimism.
Maybe that's my you know, my prism to see things through.
But I thought that there was a lot of optimism.
We're talking about fear before. There's still a lot of
fear what Trump can do to the world, and I
think everyone's still holding their breath, but I also think
that everyone's a bit more prepared and therefore was so
(08:23):
a bit more optimistic that, you know, Europe is going
to be strengthened, the tariffs might not be crashing the
world economy as we feared on April tewcond when he
at first announced it. So there was a bit more
hope and optimism about economic growth, about employment. But there's
still a lot of concern about what these next couple
(08:43):
of years will look like with him at the HELM.
A lot of you know, talks from CEOs as well,
which I think one of the issues that we may
be underestimate is is just how difficult it is to
be a CEO today and the things that they've got
to navigate. Also on the AI front, but so that
was also very much on the agenda and so as
well as arts and culture and music. So but the
(09:06):
optimism definitely came through.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And also people you know, as you say, traveling to
a place slightly out of the world to talk, just
to have that, you know, shared communication, which you can
do over online. You can do it over computer, do
it over phone, do it over zoom.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
But we actually have that. Did you eat well? What
was the food like?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
The food was restaurants, good restaurants.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
The food restaurants in Aspens in Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
It was very fresh in the and the walking in
the mountains is very special. Beautiful light and the smell
of the woods and there, and it's yeah, it was.
It was very special. So going on a lot of
hikes and bike rides. But the food was really good too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, you know, you went to school twenty miles from Aspen.
I spent my teenage years in a school called the
Colorado Rocky Mountain School, and it's in Carbondale, And this
is in you know, nineteen sixty eight, and and we
went to Asmen was a small town. You know, it
was still very beautiful. I mean it was the early days.
(10:09):
It didn't have the glamour of yet that it has
now or the as you say, the they.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Had the Assmen Center.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I think there was because I remember going to see
a warhole show there very early on. And it had
a it always had a kind of cultural emphasis as
as well as being a ski village in a mountain
village and beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But I love that area. Yeah, it's beautiful and.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It's a big There's the Anderson Institute there now, yeah,
which is a big art art institute and they have
taken a lot of artists and spend the summers and
winters there working. It was Yeah, it still has that
and very much you know, art, arts and culture scene. Yeah.
But with you, I've we've talked all the time, and
I didn't know you had went to school done more things.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Tell me about the early early years of of your
life or your parents' cooks.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So I was born in Copenhagen in nineteen seventy and
food back then Copenhagen was very different from the vibrant
food scene today. Why was and it was just still
slightly removed from the world, aside from Denmark having a
really big footprint in terms of furniture Hans Wagner Berg
(11:23):
Morgensen from the nineteen fifties and sixties. It was quite removed.
My family was a slightly odd one because my mother's English.
They met and that's a funny story. We can get
into how they met but they met in London in
fifty six. They met because they were introduced to each
(11:45):
other as being direct descendants of men who had destroyed
or sunk the Danish fleet. And that was an unusual
background to have.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
On my mother's side, I was going to say, because
the day wouldn't necessarily want to sank the Danish.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
No.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
So on my father's side, his father had was at
head of the navy, so he was an admiral in
the navy during the Second World War, and when it
became known that the Germans wanted to put their hands
on the Danish fleet to get to the Baltics and
to get to the UK, he got word early and
jumped on his bicycle and rode out to the harbor
(12:23):
where all of the Danish fleet was waiting, and said,
you know, pull the plugs, pull the plugs, and destroyed
and sank the entire Danish fleet. And was a hero
on account of that, because it would have been a disaster.
It could have been a different, not necessarily a different
outcome of the war, but it would not have been
good if the Germans had got hold of a quite
(12:46):
strong Danish navy, and they could have done a lot
of damage with that, so he sunk the Danish fleet.
And on my mother's side, being a direct descendant of
Lord Nelson, had bombed Copenhagen in eighteen oh one and
sunk the Danish fleet. So they were introduced to each
other in fifty six at some cocktail party in London
(13:06):
and said, here's the You know, two people who both
you know, have have sunk the Danish fleet, so combined
they're quite dangerous. So they met and they married. My
mother was nineteen and she moved to Copenhagen in fifty
seven and it was, yeah, I think it was difficult
for her to live in Copenhagen. It was, you know,
(13:26):
London was changing so much and music and you know,
arts and years before all of that and the swinging sixties,
and you came to Copenhagen in fifty seven and it
was it was a bit bleak. It was still sort
of post war, a lot of restrictions on what you
could cook with and what came into the country, and
she refused to learn Danish. So I grew up in
(13:47):
a household where it was my very Danish father and
my very English mother and it was complete mayhem at
the dinner table. Because we were always speaking both languages.
But in terms of cooking shed she was very brilliant
and skipped four grades at school and had a very
high IQ. But was her big dream was to become
(14:08):
a doctor or a scientist. And then her parents said
it wasn't done for girls at the time to go
and get that kind of education, and of course she
shouldn't have listened, and she should have just have done it,
but they sent her to finishing school in Paris, and
then she met my father. So she was a really
good cook, but she was also really disorganized. So when
(14:31):
she was cooking, it would be Martini's and cooking, and
dinner would be on the table and it would be amazing,
but it would be eleven PM or would be midnight.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
How many of you were there sailing?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So were I was the youngest and I had two
older brothers. So anyway, my father ended up doing all
the cooking and did and did what was his career.
So he actually was ran the well. He was in
the navy early on, and then he entered the Royal
Copenhagen with the beautiful plate and he was number two
(15:01):
there and sort of co ran the business for many
many years. So I grew up with all of the
Royal Copenhagen Portlain, lots of artists and potters that came
in to test out new lines. So our house was
always filled with Danish writers and artists, and my father
loved that job very much. But yeah, he ended up.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
So he would come home from work and cook.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
He would often be the one who would cook, or
we would always eat at eleven PM or twelve, so when.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You finished your homework and then and then eight.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yes, I was very unsupervised, but yes, my brothers would
usually if there was any homework done, it would be
under the supervision of my older brothers, and they always
thought it was fun to experiment on how young, at
a young how younger age can you learn mathematics. So
that was my early sort of learnings of math. Probably
led to the love of mathematics later on. Did you cook, Yes,
(15:55):
I actually did. I think it's inevitable you you, especially
if it's going to take eight hours to cook, you
end up sitting in the kitchen and watching and then
there was the stirring and there.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Would be like it was something you wanted to do
because you were one of the best cooks I know but.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
It's terrifying to cook for you with you, It really is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
But I got over that.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
But yes, I really cooking for me. I connected with conversation.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I always said that about my family, is that it
was a very Jewish family, not religiously, but just in
the sense that it was the talking was more important
than the food. And a lot of people that we
talked to talk about the meals around the table, which
sometimes I feel is over romanticized that idea we all
sat around the table, because you also talk to a
(16:41):
lot of kids who found it slightly torturous, you know,
having to sit at a meal at night with your
parents discussing something or not or silence.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But as you say, you know it sticks.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
With you, does, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
An open kitchen and the river means we as chefs
are able to talk to our guests dining in the restaurant,
and now we're bringing that same ethos to our podcast,
a question and answer episode with me and our two
executive chefs. Send a voice note with your question to
Questions at Rivercafe dot co dot uk and you might
(17:19):
just be our next great guest. On Ruthie's Table four,
we left this beautiful city, your family and you went
to New York And was that a kind of shock
or was it just did you just smeld right into it?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Did it feel very different? What was it like?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
It was fantastic. It was nineteen ninety five, yeah, or
ninety four actually end of ninety four.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We begin to university and yeah, just finish university. And
I had you been before to New York or was
it did you get off the plane and say, wow,
these buildings are.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I was a bit like that. I had been there
as a child because as working at the role Copenhagen,
my father also opened up the US branch of that.
So I did spend a little time as a child
in New York. But you know from you know, six seven,
eight years old. So when I arrived there, I was,
you know, twenty four.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And what we were doing, we were working.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
I was well, I moved because my now ex husband
was said, I am going to be in New York.
Come with me, come join me. And I was like absolutely,
and that sounds like a great idea. And had finished
my degree and came over with this degree in economics
math and I'd really focus on this on game theory,
(18:44):
which today is actually really helpful, but back then it
was a slightly esoteric thing to study.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Maybe you should be.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
At this point tell us what game theory is.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Yeah, so, well, game theory is. We actually use it
today more than we realize. Game theory is the sort
of the mathematical calculation of how sort of multiple actors
you know, strategize it for poor particular outcome. That's a
bit technical, but what it means is, for example, the
way you use it every day is when you get
(19:14):
on your ways app that is trying to optimize your
you know, your fastest route, but then it also takes
into consideration other drivers and so it then recalculates and
it says, well, every if every driver is going to
go to you know, find the fastest route, then everyone's
going to be on that route, so it's going to
recalculate and take you to another route. In a sense,
that sort of game theory is at the at the
(19:35):
base of that. So it's trying to figure out what's
the outcome when you've got a lot of different people
or you know, or decisions that are being made at
the same time. And that's actually at the base of
a lot of the AI today.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
What are you working on this.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
So I said that in from ninety two to ninety two.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, so that with those the really early days it
was fail you.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Was when, Yeah, well I picked it because I loved
mathematics and I also was toying. My brothers were both
engineers and did physics and and one went on to
do quantum physics and went to Zurin and Zurich to
split atoms, and so you know, I had I had
always thought that I might go in and study physics,
but then I decided to do economics math and focus
(20:22):
on game theory because I really enjoyed the mathematical base
of it, and it ended up being being a great
choice for me. I'm so happy I did that. So
that was a that was in the early time.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Many women in the was it male?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Was like maybe two percent women in the whole in
the whole sort of group starting every year, it was
very few women. I wasn't retaken seriously though, was it?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Did you find any issues with nothing? Never a man's world? Never?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I mean growing up with brothers who are giving you
a hard time all the time? Lotistics, liss, that's peanuts.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
What do you do?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Go in and choose something where there a lot of
you know, where it's very male dominated, and to this day,
and I've always been in areas in my career and
also now in sort of very you know, something you
would consider very male dominated, and I don't even think
about it. It's not something I think about. But it
was interesting because back in the nineties was sort of
a is what you sort of call the AI winter.
(21:17):
AI had sort of you know, there's been a lot
of progress in the fifties and sixties and seventies, and
then it sort of stood still for a bit for
a number of reasons. So picking Game three, it was
not sort of linked to AI. Back then, it was
just sort of I enjoyed the thinking of it. And
now it's certainly have had a resurgence, so that is
so just yeah, so that was sort of a lucky choice,
(21:38):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So you were introduced to New York, to New York
and the world of being in America, the world of
science and starting something new. But then with your with
your relationship you were thrust into. Were you thrust into
a kind of Iranian culture as well? Or was that
was that sort of slightly in the background.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah, So I came to New York with the degree,
and I was thinking, I was like, what should I
you know, how can I use this? And I spoke
to a friend of mine who had the same degree,
and he said, there's sort a couple of options, but
there is Moody's Sovereign team that has a legendary economists
called David Levy, and I would send him an application
(22:18):
because it would fit exactly what you have. It's very
you know, it's building these methodologies and rankings and it's
you know, very mathematical, but it's also really interesting. And
I thought that sounds great, and so I sent her
application in on Monday, and David Levy called me up
on Friday and said, do you want to cover Russia?
And I said absolutely, And so I started the following Monday.
(22:41):
But that year was when that was nineteen ninety five,
and then in terms of the Iranian culture going on
in Russia right well back then it was the big
privatization moment and the you know, it had opened up
and the big privatization moment in ninety two, there was
an enormous amount of excitement of you know, opening up
(23:05):
and diversifying from oil and set you know, opening up
all of these big, big assets that the country had
and the population that was so brilliantly educated but needed
to you know, this turnaround of an economy that had
been completely close to the outside world and then opened up.
And it wasn't easy because obviously there was a big,
(23:26):
you know, disruption to the economy and a lot of
safe jobs and you know, suddenly you had inflation and
you had opening to the outside world and things that
were guaranteed the Russian population were no longer guaranteed. So
it was a bit of a it was a bit
of a you know, tricky time also, and I always
remember every time I went and I ended up covering
Russia for seventeen years among you know, other nations in
(23:49):
Central Asia and Middle East from New York, which was
you know interesting, but always went to see Gorbachev. And
he wasn't revered back in Russia then because he was
very much blamed for the sort of the complications in
the economy. But he had a think tank just outside
of outside of Moscow, and we always made a point,
me in my colleague to go and see him every
(24:10):
time to talk about life and Russia and how he's
seen it in the past and the future and it
was a real treat. And it was also interesting to
see the inside workings of a of an economy going
through a transition and and sort of the corruption that
was was very much there, and sort of seeing the
rise of put In and sort of bringing us to today. Yeah,
(24:30):
it was, it was, but it was, it was, it was.
It was a really interesting time. I was very grateful
for that. So not only just getting to you know,
to help build these these rankings for nations on their
sort of growth capacity, which essentially is a is what
a credit reading is, and a sort of capacity to
pay back debt is all basically a benchmark putting all
(24:53):
this all of these data points together and figuring out
what's the likelihood. It's sort of a probability calculation, what
is it likelihood that a country will will default? But
being able to do that, alongside traveling to to Moscow
and to you know, to Kazakhstan and Kykistan and all
of these places that were just emerging, was as an
economist such a treat.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, as an economist was a traveler, as I as
a historian to be in that that time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Do you remember the food and I bring it down
to the field. Do you remember what you ate?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
The food was was well. I went with a colleague
who knew Moscow very well, and he said, let's go
to the Georgian restaurants.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, so that was and of course there was your
you know, so you know, it was a mix of things.
But you've got your borsched and you've got your Georgian wine,
and you've got it was such a it was It
was so exciting, I have to say, being you know,
in Moscow through those years where there was the Russian
food and the Georgian food and the wine coming in
from various places, and and sort of sitting and breaking
(25:54):
bread with and and hearing the stories of everyone, in
addition to sort of quite tense meetings Russian. I know,
I did a little bit. My colleagues spoke Russian. And
the interesting thing was that up you know, the first
years in Moscow, everyone, especially when we had meetings with
the government and so on, it was all done in
Russian with translators. And right after they defaulted in ninety eight,
(26:16):
it switched to English when we came after that, so
there was a big change there and then obviously a
big change, but.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
We went, we went and I think when Richard was
Chairman of the Tate and early eighties, I think it
was and you know it was.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
It was spartan, it was.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
There was little, but there we you know, people say
you'll you'll eat really badly, they won't be for we
ate so well, I remember it wasn't there wasn't a
lot of it, but people made the effort to cook
for us. So we were in people's homes and there
was kind of pride and concern and interest and as
(26:52):
you said, and I think it's delicious food, don't you.
I think it is the you know the little I
kept with those little ones filled with.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Spinach, yes, exactly. I remember the boiled meats, yes, deliciously. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's beautiful, beautiful culture. What about Iran? So when you
were in when did you get married?
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Ninety seven?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So at that time were his family there? Did you
feel that you were taken into this Iranian culture?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
His mother was Danish actually, and she was she was
born in Denmark and was very adventurous. This is my
former mother in law that her mother was Danish. They
were all they were all Danish and in sort of
late fifties or was it nineteen sixty, she decides to
(27:41):
move to Tehran by herself because there was a job there.
There was a connection between Iran and Denmark because a
lot of the engineers that built the infrastructure were Danish
engineers and architects, so there was sort of a link there.
And at a very young age, she goes to Iran
and and very blonde, beautiful, you know, blue eyed, young girl.
(28:03):
And she goes and works for this company and meets
you know, her husband, and they get married and she
lives there for almost twenty years. And so the revolution
is in nineteen seventy nine, but in seventy seven they leave,
and so left they left before the revolution, and she
was the one who didn't want to leave. She was
(28:25):
so happy in Tehran and she loved living there, and
it was was her resisting the leaving of Iran. And
then they came to Denmark and split their time between
the US and Denmark. But she's the one who taught
me to cook. And it was hours and hours sitting
patiently watching her.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Cooking the food of Iran. What do you call it?
Persian food?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Persian food?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Version food?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And did you sit there because you felt you wanted
to learn it? Did you feel sad that this is
what you did when you were with your mother in law?
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I certainly learned to cook my mother in law, but it's.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Joy of also sharing again and sort of doing something together.
And it was also frankly because it was the most
delicious food I've ever tasted. Unbelievable. It's the most sensual, careful,
beautiful food I've ever like the rice and the saffron
and the herbs. It's not spicy, So I thought, I
(29:25):
have to learn this. I have to just have to
know how to cook this food.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Is it very much based on rice?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I mean I always think Persian food and rice, and
what tells about the rice.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
The rice in itself takes days to make. The rice
is the core, the anchor of the Persian cuisine. But
it is with so much care that you cook this rice.
So you take long grain basmati rice and it has
to soak for a day or even two in a
lot of water. You've got to rinse it over and
(29:55):
over again and let it soak again with salt, and
that is to clean it up, but it also gives
it that special lovely aroma.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
How do you put it in a large quantity of water.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It is large. You don't have to have a lot
of water for this.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yes, no, she said, no rice cooker. Do not cook
in a rice cooker. And it has to be a
big iron pot that is thick, and you fill it
with water and you put your rice in the salt
and it has to just be cooked to the point
where it's just, you know, not too cooked, but just
just a bit sort of a bite in it.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Did she have to taste the rice? So? Did she
know when it was?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
I think at the end she'd do, but she always
tasted it. And then it has to be then put
back in the pot to make the famous tadique, which
is the crispy rice on the bottom of the pot.
I think, I swear. I think it must have taken
me ten years to figure that out, and I did
a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Of You have a hint for anyone planning to make
this characrice what to do?
Speaker 4 (30:49):
I think it's just you've got to keep going at it.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
It is very difficult, sick, right, but you don't want
it to work because you have to lift.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, how do you get it out?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yes, you've got to mix it with saffron and yogurt,
and then it's the it's the delicate balance of enough
heat but not too much for the first twenty minutes,
and then you let it steam for an hour. But
in the first I mean I must have. I cannot
tell you how many parts I had to throw out
and how many times I got burned. But it is
(31:18):
when it comes to cooking today, it's the Persian food.
I go back to that so often.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is yeah, and dear children, they love it because
you have three sons, three magnificent sons. And one of them,
look I know very well because he is a They're
all good cooks. I know that, but Luka is particularly
and interested in cooking.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is he interested in Persian food?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Or they're all try They are all big. The cooking
is what they enjoy doing together. Actually, even when I'm
not home, they will close themselves into the kitchen and
prepare for hours and hours, and that's where they really
talk and and share things in their lives. And it'sul
(32:00):
to see them cook together. But yes, the youngest Lucas
is the one that really took it upon himself not
just to cook normal things, but to really experiment. And
he's interned in kitchen since he was fourteen because he
just wanted to learn the craft. So but he's particularly
interested in it.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
That's why he cooks for you.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
He always cooks for me in the last three four
years when I start After I started the business and
I just didn't have time, I would come home and
instead of me cooking for him, he cooked for me.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Imagine estate bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the
River Cafe, arriving at your door every month. Our subscription
is available for six or twelve months, with each oil
chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with each delivery.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
It's a perfect way to bring.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Some River Cafe flavor into your home or to show
someone you really care for them with the gift. Visit
our website shop the Rivercafe dot co uk to place
your order. Now of all the recipes that you've chose.
When and I asked you last night, what are you
(33:12):
going to before I went to bed? What are you
going to read? And I was both surprised and not
surprised to hear that you chose grilled squid. There was
a recipe that Rose came with. I think we all
brought those early days some of our own recipes. So
you chose grilled squid with chilian rocket, and would you
like to read it, and would you like to change
(33:33):
anything you want to change on it, or read it
the way you would cook it, or you'd like to
eat it?
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Well, I have, Actually I've got to admit I've never
cooked it myself. Okay, but there has never been in
that How many years have I come to the River
Cafe thirty at least? I have never once been here
without ordering the squirt, never once. I So, of all
of the many that you have sold, Alexandra, I think
(34:00):
I have. I am the consumer of many, many of them.
So grill squid, fresh red chili and rocket. Eight medium squid,
six large fresh red chilies, one hundred and fifty milliliters
of virgin olive oil, two hundred and twenty five grams
of rocket, four tablespoons of oil, and lemon dressing. One
lemon cut into squares for the chili sauce. Put the
(34:22):
chopped chilies in a bowl and cover with the extra
virgin olive oil. Season Heat a grill until hot. Place
the squid scored side down on the grill, season and
grill for one to two minutes. Turn the squid pieces
over they'll immediately curl up, by which time they'll be cooked.
Toss the rocket and the dressing. Arrange two squid bodies
(34:42):
with tentacles on each plate with some of the rocket.
Put a little of the chili sauce on the squid,
and serve them with lemon the perfect dish.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Tell me about starting the business.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yes, well it was.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
It was rather I wouldn't say accidental, but it was.
It was a moment where you realize that you have
to go and set up business because there's a real
need for what you're doing. And so this was in
twenty two, so it's just three years ago.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And what did you feel the need was?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I spent my entire career building rankings, indices, you know, benchmarking.
I love just I think organizing the world through a
benchmark is my idea of heaven because you're using you know,
your data points to come up with a clear, comparable
analysis on what's up and what's down. So the combination
(35:40):
of building an index and doing it on AI, it
was something no one else had had done before. So
building these this ranking for businesses on their AI capabilities
didn't exist, and so set up evident with my co
founder Annabelle Ales, three years ago now and we've grown
very rare pridly sense because it is something that's in
(36:02):
a lot of demand and again sort of being the
only one ones out there measuring and tracking AI adoption
has meant that we've grown really really fast, and that's difficult,
but I'm very fortunate to have a co founder like Annabelle.
We perfectly complement each other. My weaknesses are her strengths
and vice versa. So together we execute and move really fast.
(36:25):
And I think that when you know, part of the
secret I think of building a business is of course
that the idea has to be there. There has to
be a demand for what you do, whatever it is,
whether it is food or in our case, you know,
a benchmark And the other half of the equation is
execution and so so having the idea but is great.
But if you can't, if it's not, if you're not
(36:47):
executing the business to run on rails, to move that pace,
to build the product, to you know, build efficiencies, to
to you know, go out and make sure that you're
constantly iterating it. That requires a lot of things. King
on the process side, and she's absolutely brilliant at that
and I don't think we would be moving at the
pace that we're moving if it wasn't for combined combined capabilities.
(37:11):
And then building a team is as you know, it's
all about people. We're all pulling in the same direction.
And we're now going to be somewhere between eighty and
one hundred people by the end of this year already,
So it is something that's growing at pace, and so
you've got to hire with care and communicate a lot
with your team and make sure that everyone is happy
and feel that they're progressing and learning. But we're all
(37:36):
got our north star and that's what we set Annabella
and I.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
You have huge respect.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I've met your investors because sometimes you bring them here
for dinner. I've met them in other situations. Would you
say to other women who want to do what you've
done in other fields?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
What did you encourage them?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Do you think that being a woman and again starting
something that you're looked on in a different way, do
you find that people are as enlightened as you need?
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I think it's a man or women. It's a fantastic
area to be in and starting a business. I think
I think men and women do go at it in
a slightly different way, but I do think so. But
I think the statistics are particular, you know, you know,
are not good on sort of you know, when you
look at how many female founders there are, and when
you look at VC funding for women is very low.
(38:25):
I think it's only six percent of VC funding that
go to female founders. I don't think it's because they're
female founders. I just think that that minimal risk taking.
I think there are a lot of other reasons that
are driving those figures. But I do think we do
lead in slightly different ways. I think, I mean, I'm
generalizing hugely here, but I think that men do tend
to shoot from the hip a bit and I think
(38:46):
women are a bit more deliberate. I also think we
bring in some other layers. I think we as women,
you know, have a million plates spinning in the air
or one time. We are the ones who deal with
the kids and the family and the relationships and social
things and so on. So I do think that we
do that in addition to being you know, business builders
(39:07):
and founders and CEOs, And I think that's a good thing.
You bring that in. I think you're also a bit
more careful. We did our as you know, we did
our series A recently and we were really careful about it.
We wanted to be at a certain point. We didn't
do it too soon. As I said, I think we
women are a bit more deliberate.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
We always try to end with a kind of question
which I think you've listened to and you knew was coming,
which should be if you know, if you needed food
for comfort, and there's times and you must be working
all day, and you've heard people asking you a hundred
times a day as I do, what is how scary
is AI? And we feel I can't take this question
(39:50):
anymore because I'm not scared of AI. I'm scared of
the questions, not that knowing you're not scared of anything.
But if you were to think that you just did
need some comfort, or one of your kids was there
to cook for you, or you're going to cook for yourself,
or just maybe buy something on your hair home. Is
there a food from your Danish, Iranian, American, British or
(40:14):
just playing you food that you might go for.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
What would that be?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
I would come straight here, I would call you. If
the kitchen is closed, can I please knock on the
door and come to your food, I think, and that's
honest you My comfort food is is I like so
many others, it's chicken soup. It's chicken soup, and yours
is a particularly good And is there a Danish one?
(40:39):
I think chicken soup is. There is no chicken soup.
There is no person, not to my knowledge, I might be.
But comfort food, if i'm is often Persian. Interestingly, being
a day, it is often Persian. There's something about the
time it takes and the gathering around the table and
(41:00):
around the Persian rice and beautiful stews. Is just is
this very special?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Do you eat out Persian food and London? We've never
been to a Persian as always at your house.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
It is difficult, and restaurants are Persian. Restaurants are difficult.
It is always always better at home. There are some
good ones in London, but it will never never be
the same as cooking it at home in your iron pot.
I have never been. I would love to go one
day after this. We should go after this.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I always wanted to go to tan and Isfahan and
eat the food there and travel and be together.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Thank you, my darling, thank you for listening to Ruthie's
Table four in partnership with Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I have friends who are writers, friends who are artists,
friends who are chefs, and it's easy for me to.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Describe what they do.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Alexander Muzaviza Day, however, is my closest friend, and I
have little idea how to describe what she does.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
It's complex, it's interesting, and so far a new world.
This I do know.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alexander is an economist, an expert in game theory and AI,
and in twenty twenty two co founded Evident with Annabel Isles,
two women creating an index at Benchmark companies on their
AI performance. But if it's challenging to tell you about
her in professional terms, I can tell you what she's
like as a friend. Alexander is warm, she's empathetic, she's energetic, she's.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Brave, and she's resilient.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I know this as a fact, as I speak to
her most evenings before sleeping at Moe's mornings immediately after waking.
Early on in our friendship, I got a glimpse into
her character that has stayed with me ever since. Rescuing
one of her children's football she fell off a roof
and her wedding ring caught on the slats of a fence.
It was only when she heard its clink that she'd
(01:15):
realized she'd lost a finger. She picked it up, went
to the hospital, and the next morning was at her
desk at work.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
No complaints, no self pity. That is true.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It wasn't the clinking of the We can do a
fact check if don't about it. It was basically never
let facts real. A good story, but it was a
clinking of the of the wedding ring.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
It was oddly enough, I didn't feel the finger being
ripped out of my hand, but I only noticed it
when I saw the wedding ring and my finger on
the floor. And then I couldn't get an ambulance. Called
the ambulance and they said, sorry, only bit's a major
major injury, two figures, maybe one finger.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sorry we're British.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
That was not considered major. But I think, you know,
one of my biggest memories from that moment, and I
had just moved to London from New York, was what
happened right after was a knock on the hospital door
and in came a tray from you, Ruthy with sea
bass slow cook piece a bottle of wine. A bottle
of wine, a pink napkin or orange, a knife and fork,
(02:18):
and a piece of chocolate nemesis. And I think that
was why I could skip home the next day from
the hospital.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The NHS doesn't necessarily provide that kind of cure.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
That was all due to you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Has nothing to do with the food is due to
do to you. That was and that just is an
incredible memory.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, and you just were in New York, weren't you.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I was an Aspen Aspen Ideas festival life. It was fantastic.
It is the the great Aspen Ideas festival that has
been I think going for more than twenty years, and.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So it was just it was the world in the
place we were away.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, the world.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yes, it was right a week after Iran.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, yes, yeah, So there's a lot of discussion.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Was that AI as well?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
I think it was more convention, It was more sort
of traditional warfare, but of course AI plays a huge
role in warfare today and autonomous drones and the weaponry
that's built in the presition that we can we can
point the weapons at today. But yeah, it came right
after obviously, right at the sort of the heels of
the bombing of Iran, and so a lot of the
(03:23):
conversation was about the Middle East and what might happen.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You and I were a lunch at the River Cafe
two years ago, I think, and the host of the lunch,
Matthew Barton, asked a question to the table, which was
is there something an idea thought that the world is
afraid of that people are afraid of but you're not.
And when it came to you, you said that you
(03:49):
were not afraid of AI. But it always interested me
that the word fear came up so much and still
does when you talk about AI.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
It's a question I get a lot, and I do
think it's a shame that the debate is where the
debate is today, because it is very dominated by a
fear around this technology and the way it's covered in
the press, but also by a lot of academics talking about,
(04:21):
you know, what is the non zero risk of things
can going wrong? And I think that it's getting too
much coverage in the sense that, of course we need
to talk about the risks, but we should also really
focus on all of the opportunities and what it will
do to our society, us as individuals, the businesses that
we're running, our education, our children. AI has a really
(04:45):
important and positive role to play in all of this.
And I'm not saying there isn't a risk out there
on the horizon, but that risk, I think is very
much overplayed, and I think it's underplayed what the opportunities
are and when I'm looking at, you know, just every
day day today, the way we use it, the way
that the businesses that we're working with use it, and
how that is helping and it's augmenting the way we
(05:07):
optimize our supply chains and that we can get you know,
things at a bit better and cheaper rate to our
tables is all AI driven. The way that we even
just interact with what we have in our fridge. Tell
me about that, well, you know, there are tools now
where you can take a photograph of your fridge and
optimize what you're cooking, simple as that, what do I
(05:29):
do with these ingredients or how do I optimize for
you know, shopping in a sustainable way. When I'm looking
at what the ingredients are in my kitchen, when should
I when should I make sure to eat this before
it goes off? So I don't open the fridge and
then suddenly it's gone off. And so there's lots of
these apps and ways to optimize reducing waste, is making
(05:50):
it as which is a good thing, which is making
it easier for families to cook, which is a good thing.
And at the sort of supply chain and sort of
the sort of industrial agriculture side, you know, you've got
the breakthroughs of AI that are helping to optimize the
way we plant things and the way we are growing
things in new and innovative ways. AI lies at the
heart of that as well.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
So the future is right, yes, it is, no, it
is absolutely think in medicine and yeah, and we do
struggle with food poverty, food in prisons, food and the
way we feed our children, the way we feed our sick,
the way we don't have accessibility in poor neighborhoods for.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Fresh vegetables, the way we grow our vegetables, and as
you say, really.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Struck was waste. Do you know people who are working in
this field? Very Have you met any people? I do?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Tangentially yes, And we should come in and make sure
AI is at the heart of the River Cafe as well.
Optimizing no waste and all of that but there's a
lot of big organizations that are in the sort of
food industry where they are hiring heads of AI, heads
of technology working out how they can just do what
(07:03):
they do but better with less waste. And so it's
definitely absolutely being implemented in the food and agricultural industry already.
There's an amazing story about John Deere. You know, they
do farmed and equipment and it's completely AI driven. They
use they draw down from satellites that can predict the weather.
(07:25):
They have sensors in the soil they are now planting with,
you know, sort of optimizing for sort of being much
more precise, and so their yields are much higher. I mean,
it's an absolutely incredible story. Every part and side and
top and bottom of these John Deere machinery is AI
equipment and it is It is fantastic to see how
(07:46):
they've been able to transform the agricultural space.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We started with Aspen, And what did you come away
from Aspen with When you're listening to you, yeah, people,
but what did you feel when you came away from this?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I felt that it was there was a lot more optimism.
Maybe that's my you know, my prism to see things through.
But I thought that there was a lot of optimism.
We're talking about fear before. There's still a lot of
fear what Trump can do to the world, and I
think everyone's still holding their breath, but I also think
that everyone's a bit more prepared and therefore was so
(08:23):
a bit more optimistic that, you know, Europe is going
to be strengthened, the tariffs might not be crashing the
world economy as we feared on April tewcond when he
at first announced it. So there was a bit more
hope and optimism about economic growth, about employment. But there's
still a lot of concern about what these next couple
(08:43):
of years will look like with him at the HELM.
A lot of you know, talks from CEOs as well,
which I think one of the issues that we may
be underestimate is is just how difficult it is to
be a CEO today and the things that they've got
to navigate. Also on the AI front, but so that
was also very much on the agenda and so as
well as arts and culture and music. So but the
(09:06):
optimism definitely came through.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And also people you know, as you say, traveling to
a place slightly out of the world to talk, just
to have that, you know, shared communication, which you can
do over online. You can do it over computer, do
it over phone, do it over zoom.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
But we actually have that. Did you eat well? What
was the food like?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
The food was restaurants, good restaurants.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
The food restaurants in Aspens in Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
It was very fresh in the and the walking in
the mountains is very special. Beautiful light and the smell
of the woods and there, and it's yeah, it was.
It was very special. So going on a lot of
hikes and bike rides. But the food was really good too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, you know, you went to school twenty miles from Aspen.
I spent my teenage years in a school called the
Colorado Rocky Mountain School, and it's in Carbondale, And this
is in you know, nineteen sixty eight, and and we
went to Asmen was a small town. You know, it
was still very beautiful. I mean it was the early days.
(10:09):
It didn't have the glamour of yet that it has
now or the as you say, the they.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Had the Assmen Center.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I think there was because I remember going to see
a warhole show there very early on. And it had
a it always had a kind of cultural emphasis as
as well as being a ski village in a mountain
village and beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But I love that area. Yeah, it's beautiful and.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It's a big There's the Anderson Institute there now, yeah,
which is a big art art institute and they have
taken a lot of artists and spend the summers and
winters there working. It was Yeah, it still has that
and very much you know, art, arts and culture scene. Yeah.
But with you, I've we've talked all the time, and
I didn't know you had went to school done more things.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Tell me about the early early years of of your
life or your parents' cooks.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So I was born in Copenhagen in nineteen seventy and
food back then Copenhagen was very different from the vibrant
food scene today. Why was and it was just still
slightly removed from the world, aside from Denmark having a
really big footprint in terms of furniture Hans Wagner Berg
(11:23):
Morgensen from the nineteen fifties and sixties. It was quite removed.
My family was a slightly odd one because my mother's English.
They met and that's a funny story. We can get
into how they met but they met in London in
fifty six. They met because they were introduced to each
(11:45):
other as being direct descendants of men who had destroyed
or sunk the Danish fleet. And that was an unusual
background to have.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
On my mother's side, I was going to say, because
the day wouldn't necessarily want to sank the Danish.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
No.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
So on my father's side, his father had was at
head of the navy, so he was an admiral in
the navy during the Second World War, and when it
became known that the Germans wanted to put their hands
on the Danish fleet to get to the Baltics and
to get to the UK, he got word early and
jumped on his bicycle and rode out to the harbor
(12:23):
where all of the Danish fleet was waiting, and said,
you know, pull the plugs, pull the plugs, and destroyed
and sank the entire Danish fleet. And was a hero
on account of that, because it would have been a disaster.
It could have been a different, not necessarily a different
outcome of the war, but it would not have been
good if the Germans had got hold of a quite
(12:46):
strong Danish navy, and they could have done a lot
of damage with that, so he sunk the Danish fleet.
And on my mother's side, being a direct descendant of
Lord Nelson, had bombed Copenhagen in eighteen oh one and
sunk the Danish fleet. So they were introduced to each
other in fifty six at some cocktail party in London
(13:06):
and said, here's the You know, two people who both
you know, have have sunk the Danish fleet, so combined
they're quite dangerous. So they met and they married. My
mother was nineteen and she moved to Copenhagen in fifty
seven and it was, yeah, I think it was difficult
for her to live in Copenhagen. It was, you know,
(13:26):
London was changing so much and music and you know,
arts and years before all of that and the swinging sixties,
and you came to Copenhagen in fifty seven and it
was it was a bit bleak. It was still sort
of post war, a lot of restrictions on what you
could cook with and what came into the country, and
she refused to learn Danish. So I grew up in
(13:47):
a household where it was my very Danish father and
my very English mother and it was complete mayhem at
the dinner table. Because we were always speaking both languages.
But in terms of cooking shed she was very brilliant
and skipped four grades at school and had a very
high IQ. But was her big dream was to become
(14:08):
a doctor or a scientist. And then her parents said
it wasn't done for girls at the time to go
and get that kind of education, and of course she
shouldn't have listened, and she should have just have done it,
but they sent her to finishing school in Paris, and
then she met my father. So she was a really
good cook, but she was also really disorganized. So when
(14:31):
she was cooking, it would be Martini's and cooking, and
dinner would be on the table and it would be amazing,
but it would be eleven PM or would be midnight.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
How many of you were there sailing?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So were I was the youngest and I had two
older brothers. So anyway, my father ended up doing all
the cooking and did and did what was his career.
So he actually was ran the well. He was in
the navy early on, and then he entered the Royal
Copenhagen with the beautiful plate and he was number two
(15:01):
there and sort of co ran the business for many
many years. So I grew up with all of the
Royal Copenhagen Portlain, lots of artists and potters that came
in to test out new lines. So our house was
always filled with Danish writers and artists, and my father
loved that job very much. But yeah, he ended up.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
So he would come home from work and cook.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
He would often be the one who would cook, or
we would always eat at eleven PM or twelve, so when.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You finished your homework and then and then eight.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yes, I was very unsupervised, but yes, my brothers would
usually if there was any homework done, it would be
under the supervision of my older brothers, and they always
thought it was fun to experiment on how young, at
a young how younger age can you learn mathematics. So
that was my early sort of learnings of math. Probably
led to the love of mathematics later on. Did you cook, Yes,
(15:55):
I actually did. I think it's inevitable you you, especially
if it's going to take eight hours to cook, you
end up sitting in the kitchen and watching and then
there was the stirring and there.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Would be like it was something you wanted to do
because you were one of the best cooks I know but.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
It's terrifying to cook for you with you, It really is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
But I got over that.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
But yes, I really cooking for me. I connected with conversation.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I always said that about my family, is that it
was a very Jewish family, not religiously, but just in
the sense that it was the talking was more important
than the food. And a lot of people that we
talked to talk about the meals around the table, which
sometimes I feel is over romanticized that idea we all
sat around the table, because you also talk to a
(16:41):
lot of kids who found it slightly torturous, you know,
having to sit at a meal at night with your
parents discussing something or not or silence.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But as you say, you know it sticks.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
With you, does, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
An open kitchen and the river means we as chefs
are able to talk to our guests dining in the restaurant,
and now we're bringing that same ethos to our podcast,
a question and answer episode with me and our two
executive chefs. Send a voice note with your question to
Questions at Rivercafe dot co dot uk and you might
(17:19):
just be our next great guest. On Ruthie's Table four,
we left this beautiful city, your family and you went
to New York And was that a kind of shock
or was it just did you just smeld right into it?
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Did it feel very different? What was it like?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
It was fantastic. It was nineteen ninety five, yeah, or
ninety four actually end of ninety four.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We begin to university and yeah, just finish university. And
I had you been before to New York or was
it did you get off the plane and say, wow,
these buildings are.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I was a bit like that. I had been there
as a child because as working at the role Copenhagen,
my father also opened up the US branch of that.
So I did spend a little time as a child
in New York. But you know from you know, six seven,
eight years old. So when I arrived there, I was,
you know, twenty four.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And what we were doing, we were working.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
I was well, I moved because my now ex husband
was said, I am going to be in New York.
Come with me, come join me. And I was like absolutely,
and that sounds like a great idea. And had finished
my degree and came over with this degree in economics
math and I'd really focus on this on game theory,
(18:44):
which today is actually really helpful, but back then it
was a slightly esoteric thing to study.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Maybe you should be.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
At this point tell us what game theory is.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Yeah, so, well, game theory is. We actually use it
today more than we realize. Game theory is the sort
of the mathematical calculation of how sort of multiple actors
you know, strategize it for poor particular outcome. That's a
bit technical, but what it means is, for example, the
way you use it every day is when you get
(19:14):
on your ways app that is trying to optimize your
you know, your fastest route, but then it also takes
into consideration other drivers and so it then recalculates and
it says, well, every if every driver is going to
go to you know, find the fastest route, then everyone's
going to be on that route, so it's going to
recalculate and take you to another route. In a sense,
that sort of game theory is at the at the
(19:35):
base of that. So it's trying to figure out what's
the outcome when you've got a lot of different people
or you know, or decisions that are being made at
the same time. And that's actually at the base of
a lot of the AI today.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
What are you working on this.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
So I said that in from ninety two to ninety two.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, so that with those the really early days it
was fail you.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Was when, Yeah, well I picked it because I loved
mathematics and I also was toying. My brothers were both
engineers and did physics and and one went on to
do quantum physics and went to Zurin and Zurich to
split atoms, and so you know, I had I had
always thought that I might go in and study physics,
but then I decided to do economics math and focus
(20:22):
on game theory because I really enjoyed the mathematical base
of it, and it ended up being being a great
choice for me. I'm so happy I did that. So
that was a that was in the early time.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Many women in the was it male?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Was like maybe two percent women in the whole in
the whole sort of group starting every year, it was
very few women. I wasn't retaken seriously though, was it?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Did you find any issues with nothing? Never a man's world? Never?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I mean growing up with brothers who are giving you
a hard time all the time? Lotistics, liss, that's peanuts.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
What do you do?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Go in and choose something where there a lot of
you know, where it's very male dominated, and to this day,
and I've always been in areas in my career and
also now in sort of very you know, something you
would consider very male dominated, and I don't even think
about it. It's not something I think about. But it
was interesting because back in the nineties was sort of
a is what you sort of call the AI winter.
(21:17):
AI had sort of you know, there's been a lot
of progress in the fifties and sixties and seventies, and
then it sort of stood still for a bit for
a number of reasons. So picking Game three, it was
not sort of linked to AI. Back then, it was
just sort of I enjoyed the thinking of it. And
now it's certainly have had a resurgence, so that is
so just yeah, so that was sort of a lucky choice,
(21:38):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So you were introduced to New York, to New York
and the world of being in America, the world of
science and starting something new. But then with your with
your relationship you were thrust into. Were you thrust into
a kind of Iranian culture as well? Or was that
was that sort of slightly in the background.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah, So I came to New York with the degree,
and I was thinking, I was like, what should I
you know, how can I use this? And I spoke
to a friend of mine who had the same degree,
and he said, there's sort a couple of options, but
there is Moody's Sovereign team that has a legendary economists
called David Levy, and I would send him an application
(22:18):
because it would fit exactly what you have. It's very
you know, it's building these methodologies and rankings and it's
you know, very mathematical, but it's also really interesting. And
I thought that sounds great, and so I sent her
application in on Monday, and David Levy called me up
on Friday and said, do you want to cover Russia?
And I said absolutely, And so I started the following Monday.
(22:41):
But that year was when that was nineteen ninety five,
and then in terms of the Iranian culture going on
in Russia right well back then it was the big
privatization moment and the you know, it had opened up
and the big privatization moment in ninety two, there was
an enormous amount of excitement of you know, opening up
(23:05):
and diversifying from oil and set you know, opening up
all of these big, big assets that the country had
and the population that was so brilliantly educated but needed
to you know, this turnaround of an economy that had
been completely close to the outside world and then opened up.
And it wasn't easy because obviously there was a big,
(23:26):
you know, disruption to the economy and a lot of
safe jobs and you know, suddenly you had inflation and
you had opening to the outside world and things that
were guaranteed the Russian population were no longer guaranteed. So
it was a bit of a it was a bit
of a you know, tricky time also, and I always
remember every time I went and I ended up covering
Russia for seventeen years among you know, other nations in
(23:49):
Central Asia and Middle East from New York, which was
you know interesting, but always went to see Gorbachev. And
he wasn't revered back in Russia then because he was
very much blamed for the sort of the complications in
the economy. But he had a think tank just outside
of outside of Moscow, and we always made a point,
me in my colleague to go and see him every
(24:10):
time to talk about life and Russia and how he's
seen it in the past and the future and it
was a real treat. And it was also interesting to
see the inside workings of a of an economy going
through a transition and and sort of the corruption that
was was very much there, and sort of seeing the
rise of put In and sort of bringing us to today. Yeah,
(24:30):
it was, it was, but it was, it was, it was.
It was a really interesting time. I was very grateful
for that. So not only just getting to you know,
to help build these these rankings for nations on their
sort of growth capacity, which essentially is a is what
a credit reading is, and a sort of capacity to
pay back debt is all basically a benchmark putting all
(24:53):
this all of these data points together and figuring out
what's the likelihood. It's sort of a probability calculation, what
is it likelihood that a country will will default? But
being able to do that, alongside traveling to to Moscow
and to you know, to Kazakhstan and Kykistan and all
of these places that were just emerging, was as an
economist such a treat.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, as an economist was a traveler, as I as
a historian to be in that that time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Do you remember the food and I bring it down
to the field. Do you remember what you ate?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
The food was was well. I went with a colleague
who knew Moscow very well, and he said, let's go
to the Georgian restaurants.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, so that was and of course there was your
you know, so you know, it was a mix of things.
But you've got your borsched and you've got your Georgian wine,
and you've got it was such a it was It
was so exciting, I have to say, being you know,
in Moscow through those years where there was the Russian
food and the Georgian food and the wine coming in
from various places, and and sort of sitting and breaking
(25:54):
bread with and and hearing the stories of everyone, in
addition to sort of quite tense meetings Russian. I know,
I did a little bit. My colleagues spoke Russian. And
the interesting thing was that up you know, the first
years in Moscow, everyone, especially when we had meetings with
the government and so on, it was all done in
Russian with translators. And right after they defaulted in ninety eight,
(26:16):
it switched to English when we came after that, so
there was a big change there and then obviously a
big change, but.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
We went, we went and I think when Richard was
Chairman of the Tate and early eighties, I think it
was and you know it was.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
It was spartan, it was.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
There was little, but there we you know, people say
you'll you'll eat really badly, they won't be for we
ate so well, I remember it wasn't there wasn't a
lot of it, but people made the effort to cook
for us. So we were in people's homes and there
was kind of pride and concern and interest and as
(26:52):
you said, and I think it's delicious food, don't you.
I think it is the you know the little I
kept with those little ones filled with.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Spinach, yes, exactly. I remember the boiled meats, yes, deliciously. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's beautiful, beautiful culture. What about Iran? So when you
were in when did you get married?
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Ninety seven?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So at that time were his family there? Did you
feel that you were taken into this Iranian culture?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
His mother was Danish actually, and she was she was
born in Denmark and was very adventurous. This is my
former mother in law that her mother was Danish. They
were all they were all Danish and in sort of
late fifties or was it nineteen sixty, she decides to
(27:41):
move to Tehran by herself because there was a job there.
There was a connection between Iran and Denmark because a
lot of the engineers that built the infrastructure were Danish
engineers and architects, so there was sort of a link there.
And at a very young age, she goes to Iran
and and very blonde, beautiful, you know, blue eyed, young girl.
(28:03):
And she goes and works for this company and meets
you know, her husband, and they get married and she
lives there for almost twenty years. And so the revolution
is in nineteen seventy nine, but in seventy seven they leave,
and so left they left before the revolution, and she
was the one who didn't want to leave. She was
(28:25):
so happy in Tehran and she loved living there, and
it was was her resisting the leaving of Iran. And
then they came to Denmark and split their time between
the US and Denmark. But she's the one who taught
me to cook. And it was hours and hours sitting
patiently watching her.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Cooking the food of Iran. What do you call it?
Persian food?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Persian food?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Version food?
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And did you sit there because you felt you wanted
to learn it? Did you feel sad that this is
what you did when you were with your mother in law?
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I certainly learned to cook my mother in law, but it's.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Joy of also sharing again and sort of doing something together.
And it was also frankly because it was the most
delicious food I've ever tasted. Unbelievable. It's the most sensual, careful,
beautiful food I've ever like the rice and the saffron
and the herbs. It's not spicy, So I thought, I
(29:25):
have to learn this. I have to just have to
know how to cook this food.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Is it very much based on rice?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I mean I always think Persian food and rice, and
what tells about the rice.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
The rice in itself takes days to make. The rice
is the core, the anchor of the Persian cuisine. But
it is with so much care that you cook this rice.
So you take long grain basmati rice and it has
to soak for a day or even two in a
lot of water. You've got to rinse it over and
(29:55):
over again and let it soak again with salt, and
that is to clean it up, but it also gives
it that special lovely aroma.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
How do you put it in a large quantity of water.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
It is large. You don't have to have a lot
of water for this.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yes, no, she said, no rice cooker. Do not cook
in a rice cooker. And it has to be a
big iron pot that is thick, and you fill it
with water and you put your rice in the salt
and it has to just be cooked to the point
where it's just, you know, not too cooked, but just
just a bit sort of a bite in it.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Did she have to taste the rice? So? Did she
know when it was?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
I think at the end she'd do, but she always
tasted it. And then it has to be then put
back in the pot to make the famous tadique, which
is the crispy rice on the bottom of the pot.
I think, I swear. I think it must have taken
me ten years to figure that out, and I did
a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Of You have a hint for anyone planning to make
this characrice what to do?
Speaker 4 (30:49):
I think it's just you've got to keep going at it.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
It is very difficult, sick, right, but you don't want
it to work because you have to lift.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, how do you get it out?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yes, you've got to mix it with saffron and yogurt,
and then it's the it's the delicate balance of enough
heat but not too much for the first twenty minutes,
and then you let it steam for an hour. But
in the first I mean I must have. I cannot
tell you how many parts I had to throw out
and how many times I got burned. But it is
(31:18):
when it comes to cooking today, it's the Persian food.
I go back to that so often.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is yeah, and dear children, they love it because
you have three sons, three magnificent sons. And one of them,
look I know very well because he is a They're
all good cooks. I know that, but Luka is particularly
and interested in cooking.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is he interested in Persian food?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Or they're all try They are all big. The cooking
is what they enjoy doing together. Actually, even when I'm
not home, they will close themselves into the kitchen and
prepare for hours and hours, and that's where they really
talk and and share things in their lives. And it'sul
(32:00):
to see them cook together. But yes, the youngest Lucas
is the one that really took it upon himself not
just to cook normal things, but to really experiment. And
he's interned in kitchen since he was fourteen because he
just wanted to learn the craft. So but he's particularly
interested in it.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
That's why he cooks for you.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
He always cooks for me in the last three four
years when I start After I started the business and
I just didn't have time, I would come home and
instead of me cooking for him, he cooked for me.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Imagine estate bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for the
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chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with each delivery.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
It's a perfect way to bring.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Some River Cafe flavor into your home or to show
someone you really care for them with the gift. Visit
our website shop the Rivercafe dot co uk to place
your order. Now of all the recipes that you've chose.
When and I asked you last night, what are you
(33:12):
going to before I went to bed? What are you
going to read? And I was both surprised and not
surprised to hear that you chose grilled squid. There was
a recipe that Rose came with. I think we all
brought those early days some of our own recipes. So
you chose grilled squid with chilian rocket, and would you
like to read it, and would you like to change
(33:33):
anything you want to change on it, or read it
the way you would cook it, or you'd like to
eat it?
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Well, I have, Actually I've got to admit I've never
cooked it myself. Okay, but there has never been in
that How many years have I come to the River
Cafe thirty at least? I have never once been here
without ordering the squirt, never once. I So, of all
of the many that you have sold, Alexandra, I think
(34:00):
I have. I am the consumer of many, many of them.
So grill squid, fresh red chili and rocket. Eight medium squid,
six large fresh red chilies, one hundred and fifty milliliters
of virgin olive oil, two hundred and twenty five grams
of rocket, four tablespoons of oil, and lemon dressing. One
lemon cut into squares for the chili sauce. Put the
(34:22):
chopped chilies in a bowl and cover with the extra
virgin olive oil. Season Heat a grill until hot. Place
the squid scored side down on the grill, season and
grill for one to two minutes. Turn the squid pieces
over they'll immediately curl up, by which time they'll be cooked.
Toss the rocket and the dressing. Arrange two squid bodies
(34:42):
with tentacles on each plate with some of the rocket.
Put a little of the chili sauce on the squid,
and serve them with lemon the perfect dish.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Tell me about starting the business.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yes, well it was.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
It was rather I wouldn't say accidental, but it was.
It was a moment where you realize that you have
to go and set up business because there's a real
need for what you're doing. And so this was in
twenty two, so it's just three years ago.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And what did you feel the need was?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I spent my entire career building rankings, indices, you know, benchmarking.
I love just I think organizing the world through a
benchmark is my idea of heaven because you're using you know,
your data points to come up with a clear, comparable
analysis on what's up and what's down. So the combination
(35:40):
of building an index and doing it on AI, it
was something no one else had had done before. So
building these this ranking for businesses on their AI capabilities
didn't exist, and so set up evident with my co
founder Annabelle Ales, three years ago now and we've grown
very rare pridly sense because it is something that's in
(36:02):
a lot of demand and again sort of being the
only one ones out there measuring and tracking AI adoption
has meant that we've grown really really fast, and that's difficult,
but I'm very fortunate to have a co founder like Annabelle.
We perfectly complement each other. My weaknesses are her strengths
and vice versa. So together we execute and move really fast.
(36:25):
And I think that when you know, part of the
secret I think of building a business is of course
that the idea has to be there. There has to
be a demand for what you do, whatever it is,
whether it is food or in our case, you know,
a benchmark And the other half of the equation is
execution and so so having the idea but is great.
But if you can't, if it's not, if you're not
(36:47):
executing the business to run on rails, to move that pace,
to build the product, to you know, build efficiencies, to
to you know, go out and make sure that you're
constantly iterating it. That requires a lot of things. King
on the process side, and she's absolutely brilliant at that
and I don't think we would be moving at the
pace that we're moving if it wasn't for combined combined capabilities.
(37:11):
And then building a team is as you know, it's
all about people. We're all pulling in the same direction.
And we're now going to be somewhere between eighty and
one hundred people by the end of this year already,
So it is something that's growing at pace, and so
you've got to hire with care and communicate a lot
with your team and make sure that everyone is happy
and feel that they're progressing and learning. But we're all
(37:36):
got our north star and that's what we set Annabella
and I.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
You have huge respect.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I've met your investors because sometimes you bring them here
for dinner. I've met them in other situations. Would you
say to other women who want to do what you've
done in other fields?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
What did you encourage them?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Do you think that being a woman and again starting
something that you're looked on in a different way, do
you find that people are as enlightened as you need?
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I think it's a man or women. It's a fantastic
area to be in and starting a business. I think
I think men and women do go at it in
a slightly different way, but I do think so. But
I think the statistics are particular, you know, you know,
are not good on sort of you know, when you
look at how many female founders there are, and when
you look at VC funding for women is very low.
(38:25):
I think it's only six percent of VC funding that
go to female founders. I don't think it's because they're
female founders. I just think that that minimal risk taking.
I think there are a lot of other reasons that
are driving those figures. But I do think we do
lead in slightly different ways. I think, I mean, I'm
generalizing hugely here, but I think that men do tend
to shoot from the hip a bit and I think
(38:46):
women are a bit more deliberate. I also think we
bring in some other layers. I think we as women,
you know, have a million plates spinning in the air
or one time. We are the ones who deal with
the kids and the family and the relationships and social
things and so on. So I do think that we
do that in addition to being you know, business builders
(39:07):
and founders and CEOs, And I think that's a good thing.
You bring that in. I think you're also a bit
more careful. We did our as you know, we did
our series A recently and we were really careful about it.
We wanted to be at a certain point. We didn't
do it too soon. As I said, I think we
women are a bit more deliberate.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
We always try to end with a kind of question
which I think you've listened to and you knew was coming,
which should be if you know, if you needed food
for comfort, and there's times and you must be working
all day, and you've heard people asking you a hundred
times a day as I do, what is how scary
is AI? And we feel I can't take this question
(39:50):
anymore because I'm not scared of AI. I'm scared of
the questions, not that knowing you're not scared of anything.
But if you were to think that you just did
need some comfort, or one of your kids was there
to cook for you, or you're going to cook for yourself,
or just maybe buy something on your hair home. Is
there a food from your Danish, Iranian, American, British or
(40:14):
just playing you food that you might go for.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
What would that be?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
I would come straight here, I would call you. If
the kitchen is closed, can I please knock on the
door and come to your food, I think, and that's
honest you My comfort food is is I like so
many others, it's chicken soup. It's chicken soup, and yours
is a particularly good And is there a Danish one?
(40:39):
I think chicken soup is. There is no chicken soup.
There is no person, not to my knowledge, I might be.
But comfort food, if i'm is often Persian. Interestingly, being
a day, it is often Persian. There's something about the
time it takes and the gathering around the table and
(41:00):
around the Persian rice and beautiful stews. Is just is
this very special?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Do you eat out Persian food and London? We've never
been to a Persian as always at your house.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
It is difficult, and restaurants are Persian. Restaurants are difficult.
It is always always better at home. There are some
good ones in London, but it will never never be
the same as cooking it at home in your iron pot.
I have never been. I would love to go one
day after this. We should go after this.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I always wanted to go to tan and Isfahan and
eat the food there and travel and be together.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Thank you, my darling, thank you for listening to Ruthie's
Table four in partnership with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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