August 19, 2024 • 49 mins
In our second ‘Best Of,’ and final episode for this season, we’re revisiting some memorable conversations with Linda Evangelista, Eric Ripert, Stephen Fry, Gary Lineker, and Laura Dern—it’s been a great series.
Please remember to keep sending your suggestions for Season 4.
Back in October.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Food Unlock so many memories, the kitchen you grew up in,
the first meal you cooked, celebrations with friends and family.
More than forty guests have joined me at Table four
this season, sharing recipes, cooking together and talking about the
importance of food in all of our lives. In this episode,
we will share some of those conversations, hearing from the
(00:27):
actors Stephen Fry and Laura Dern, former footballer Gary Lineker,
and the three star Michelin chef Eric Repair. But first
Linda Vangelista talking about her memories of working as a
model in the eighties, her love of cooking, and life
in Canada with her Italian family. We began with our
recipe for nyoki with slow cooked tomato sauce.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's great to see something in writing, because I learned
to make nyoki with my grandmother, but it was never
written down, and it was a little bit of this
and this, many eggs depending how big they are, and
some potatoes.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, and some potatoes. That's how we learned to I mean,
that's a beautiful way to learn. She did she ever
write anything down? She couldn't write. Yeah, she didn't know
how to write. She didn't know how to write English.
She didn't know how to write it all. She didn't
know how to write it all. She was a peasant.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
She was born in Italy, as was my father and
my mother and all my grandparents.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And do you speak Italian?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Very badly? I speak it, and my family speaks dialect.
I know you're friend and proper Italian, but at home
they speak dialect. My parents spoke English to us growing up,
and only when they were arguing did they speak to
each other in Italian. So I can tell you where
to go in Italian, but I can't ask you are
(01:49):
you having a nice.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Day or kind words. My husband, Richard and Zad's father
had Italian parents, and he had the same thing that
he heard spoken, a very similar story when there was
an argument, I think. And then when he did learn Italian,
a lot of it came back because he had kind
of grown up for it.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So this grandmother, she never did learn him to speak English.
And in our neighborhood it was quite Polish, some Ukrainians
and Italians.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Where was it? Where was then?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
In Saint Catharine's, Ontario, Canada across the lake from Toronto
in Niagara Region, right near the border of the United States,
and my grandmother went to Italian mass shopped at the
Italian store, worked picking fruit on the farm with the
Italian ladies, so she didn't really need to speak English.
(02:43):
I remember how excited they all got that generation when
Canada went metric. I was about ten years old or so,
I approximately, and then they understood, oh, this is how
many grams of meat I'm buying, and so they were
very happy when that happened.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
When did they leave. The family comes from between Naples
and Rome.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yes, it's a town called Pinatado in Taramna which is
near Casino and Monte Casino, where the big battle World
War two took place. And my father would have come over.
And he was born in nineteen forty and I think
he came over nineteen fifty six. And my mother was
(03:28):
born in forty three and she came over in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And the grandmother that you were describing was that your
mother's mother.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That was my father's mother, but my mother's mother's kind
of the same.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And they all came they all eventually they were all.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yes, and they came with the few belongings that they had.
And I have the two handmade hammered copper pots that
my one grandmother came over with and she would make
her Sunday you know, to mao sauce in and I
(04:02):
have them. They're like, there are precious belongings. There's no painting,
there's no paintings.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes, saw Sam is a memory and it is what
she cooked with, so bringing that with her was part
of her Why did they leave, you.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Know, they left in search of a better life. They
had lost everything. Well, they didn't have anything much. They
worked their land, so it's not like they had vocations and.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
They just.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Went in search of a better life for their children.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
In Canada rather than the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, they were heading to the United States, but at
the time they closed their doors and then they were
not receiving any more immigrants. And somebody in the United
States found a sponsor for my grandfather in Canada and
the other one similar story. So yeah, one grandfather was
a prisoner of war. They were in the war. My
grandfather's My mom was born during the war forty three.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And she spoke Italian.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
She speaks proper and dialect.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
She speaks both when do you say dialect, you mean
the dialect of that region.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, And it gets even worse because then, you know,
it takes on a life of its own in Canada,
not quite like the way the Americans, they like totally
butchered the language. And I don't like the way they
cut off the ends of the words when they say mozzarella.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
When they say mozzarell, that's Tony Soprano, remember Tony's in
watching the Sopranos. They would always call it mozzarell. Yeah,
yeahs And so your mother also, your mother had both
her mother and her mother in law correct with her. Yeah.
And did they all cook together?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I think early on they did. And you know, my
mother is because she came over young, she got quite americanized,
and you know she she you know, she has an
education and she cooks with recipes she but she also
has all the recipes in her head like what she
(06:15):
grew up making.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Who is the best cook of all of them? Do
you think me? You good? Okay, We're gonna get to that.
I like your answer, Okay, So do you want to
read the recipe with tomato sauce ganaki?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I'm joking, Okay, yoki with tomato sauce, served six in
my family.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Three one, yeah, okay?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Two clothes of
garlic finally sliced. I would say a little, you can
add more?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, okay? Good?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Eight hundred grams of ten peeled plum tomatoes. One kilogram
of white flowery potatoes.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Imma will be happy that this is in grams, wouldn't she? Yes,
she would.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
One hundred and thirty grams of double zero flour, one
large egg, lightly beaten, and ten basil leaves interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Heat the olive.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat.
Add the garlic and cook until soft. Add the tomatoes,
breaking them up, season well, and cook for thirty minutes
on low heat. Bring a large saucepan of salted water
to a boil and add the potatoes and cook until
they are easily pierced with a fork. Drain and peel
(07:38):
when they are cool enough to handle. Immediately put the
potatoes through a food milk and then sift the flour
over them, making a well in the center. Add the
beaten egg using your hands, quickly mixed to form a smooth,
soft dough. Do not overwork the dough or you will
(07:59):
make the nyoki too heavy. Divide the dough into four
using your hands, Roll the dough into a sausage and
then cut into pieces. Cook the yoki until they rise
to the surface. Remove the yaki with a slotted spoon,
and then stir into the tomato sauce. Add the basil,
(08:19):
and if you like grated potamigiano. Now we ran our
yoki along.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
A four to get the ridges. You can do that.
We sometimes do ridges and sometimes we don't. I prefer without, Yeah,
you prefer without. We were also talking today about yaki.
I was talking to Joseph Trevelli, one of my chefs.
He was saying, do you remember Ruthy how the cook
in our house in Italy called Giovanna made yaki and
(08:47):
she said to us, when you form them them was
like you're doing a book, Like you're making a book
of the flower and the mixture. Because if you it
is really true that if you handle them too much,
they do get tough, and so you want to touch
the flower gets old, it gets overdeveloped, and the idea
that you want to make them as light and actually
I also used to say that what we do is
(09:09):
we'd make the potatoes and add a little bit of
flower and then put one in and then they'd fall apart.
And then you would add a little bit of flower,
and you would do it so gradually that then you
would know that you need that amount of flower for
them not to fall apart, but the least amount makes
them as light as you can.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
And then once you've done them so many times, you
just know.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So let's go back to the beginning. You grew up
with an Italian grandmother's, two, two grandfathers, two your parents.
What was food like growing up in the Evangelista household.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, I complained a lot because we always ate homemade
food and I wanted to have TV dinner or frozen
meals or something out of a can.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I wanted to close from Sears roebook. I was really oh,
my clothes were from Cyrus. I did a thing to
my mother, not that we had money, but why can't
we buy clothes out of a catalog?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
That sounds so my clothes were from Sears and Woolworth.
So yeah, So it was a lot of homemade food,
and I appreciate that now, but like growing up, you know,
I wanted the TV dinners with the compartments, you know,
and the little apple pie in the corner. And but yeah,
my father took us out for dinner every Friday because
(10:40):
my mother worked late. She was working in retail. But
my father let us choose the restaurant. And by restaurant,
I mean McDonald's or Denny's or the pizzeria or A
and W you know, fast food. And so that was
a big deal because we were very spoiled with that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and fresh.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
We had homemade pasta Wednesdays and Sundays. We had roast
beef once a week. We would have steak or barbecue
once a week. My father really spent a lot of money,
I think on food because he didn't have much growing up.
(11:22):
They ate like a chicken or a rabbit once a week.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is what until he was sixteen, until came to America. Yeah,
until he got.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
A good job at General Motors. And the food went
on the table family style.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How many if you were there, you me and two brothers,
two brothers.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And he would serve us and he would put like
this mound on your plate and you had to eat
it all. And for him, the most important thing was
you weren't hungry, that you were nourished.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That you ate.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Everybody had a garden, and what they produced in these
gardens was unbelievable. Tell me about everything like tomatoes and
cucumbers and peppers and different like ridico and and then
there were the fruit trees, and then there was like basil,
all the herbs, you name it, onions, and it was
(12:14):
just all there.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And so you had your own garden full of.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Everybody had the whole backyard was a garden, but shared
what the other one didn't have. And it's not like
we had a swimming pool or we didn't play in
our backyards. We played on the street or parking lot.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Did they bring the seeds? Do you think for Italy?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I have?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
The seeds are a whole thing.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The seeds was like a network and whoever had like
the best tomatoes that year would do the seeds and
hand them out. And it's so funny. Now you see
all these heirloom tomatoes and I'm like, but those are
the tomatoes I grew up with, Like none of them
were nice little round tomatoes. And then the fruit trees.
And my father he had a green thumb and he
(12:58):
would graft.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
He would do these.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Sensational things like the apricot tree had plums on it
and the red.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Apple tree had a branch with yellow apples, and he
would graft and it would be it would just be incredible,
and then he would make his gropas.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So do you think that then he would go work
at general motives? Do you think that in his real
passion would have been to have been a farmer or
to have done this whole day? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Well, he grew up. He didn't get an education because
he had to work the land. And I know he
had a donkey and whenever he referred to Italy he
referred to.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It as the good old days.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think that would have been what he would have
loved to have done, because he was so good at it.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
When you left, because you went to work quite at
an early age, I was eighteen almost nine, Oh you
were What was that like, leaving this culture of food?
What did you do? How did you eat? I think
I ate really simple.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I was in New York for about a month or so,
and then they shipped me off off to Paris, who
shipped you off the agency because I wasn't doing so
well in New York. They said, maybe you'll be more
successful at nineteen and I was first in the Hotel
sant Andre DA's Art, but I got bed bugs there,
(14:16):
so I went to the Hotel La Louisia and.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
My mom Louisiana. My mom found out our hotel, our
hotel room in the Louisiana was being used during the day.
I'm not kidding, what yea any once came home and
they would rent it out during the day. Oh my god. Yeah,
so we left.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That was an upgrade for me. It was ten dollars
more a night, and my mom had to approve that.
And so I would go to the market Mru La Boussi,
and I would like get a baguet and a piece
of breeze and a piece of fruit, and that's how
I would eat on a budget.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, we moved into the hotel Descend. You remember that
one that was next door to a big step up. Yeah,
what year was that, Well, it was in seventy twenty three,
maybe seventy two there in like eighty forty, Yeah, so
that was later, so I'm sure, but I remember I
said it was a pretty rough person. The best story
I have about the hotel we stayed in, Renzo Piano
(15:18):
came to visit me Richard and his partner. They were
doing the Pompany Center. I was sick, so I was
in bed. Sorenzo came up and talked to me until
Richard came back. He was at dinner and we were
just talking and you know, sneezing, and then the phone
rang and it was a concierge and he said, madam,
your husband is on the way up. And I thought
that was so cool. At the hotel, they were mourning
(15:42):
me because they thought that I was in bed with
my lover. That's good. I thought that was in a
cheap hotel. That was a pretty good service if I
needed it, very good service. The River Cafe Cafe, our
(16:08):
all day space and just steps away from the restaurant,
is now open. In the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,
ciambella and crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon,
ice creamed coops and River Cafe classic desserts. We have
sharing plates Salumi misti, mozzarella, brusquetto red and yellow peppers, Vitello,
(16:29):
tonado and more. Come in the evening for cocktails with
our resident pianist.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
In the bar.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
No need to book. See you here, Laverna Down is
one of the great restaurants of the world, and Eric
Repair is one of the most admired chefs in the world.
We sat down together in New York to talk about
(16:56):
his culinary education and his food memories of his child
in the south of France.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
My two grandmothers inspired me a lot, and my mother
was an amazing, amazing chef.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I tell me because it was interesting. I always say
that in all these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 7 (17:13):
The grandmother, the Italian one, was cooking very Italian soul food.
She was cooking like great Italian, northern Italian food, and
I loved it. And then my grandmother from Provence was
doing the same with proven sal food as well, which
is a little bit similar than Northern Italian, but as
(17:34):
some sort of differences.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I did the drive quite recently from Santa Margarita to
Genoa to Nice and suddenly you were in Italy and
now you're in France, and you know, the farinata which
they do in Italy is the Italian version of the
socca so yeah, which is in Nice. And what else
(17:58):
do they cook?
Speaker 7 (17:59):
Like my grandmother in province, she was from the region
of Avignon, so in Avignon, they're not close to the sea,
they are obviously in land, and she would do like
a baby leg of lamb roasted. And then my grandmother,
the Italian grandmother, wouldn't do that, but.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
She would do.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
She would do alsobuco, for instance, my grandmother in Provence
would do a cocoverain. My grandmother in Italy didn't know
what cocoveraine was. And those were subtle differences, but they
were important. My mother was obsessed with the chefs from
nouvelle cuisine at the time, so the Michelle Gerard, the
(18:43):
Paul Booquez, that generation. And at home she was cooking
lunch and dinner, those elaborate meals with appetizer, main course
cheese which she didn't cook, and dessert that were different
from lunch to dinner, on a different pattern of tablecloth,
different china. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Who would she be cooking for.
Speaker 7 (19:07):
She was cooking for myself, stepfather, and my sister when
she was old enough to be.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
At the table with us, because she's much younger than me.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She did this every day, every day.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
She would well, she was a business lady, so she
was in fashion industry. She was importing the brand Courage Spain,
Spain and Undergra yes, and so she was very busy
with the business. But she would wake up at five
am to prepare the meal and then she would finish
(19:42):
whatever needs to be finished, all the little details during lunchtime,
and then same thing at night. And sometimes after the
dinner she would start to cook for the like the desserts,
like if she was doing I don't know about room,
she would start to let the do you know rise
(20:04):
and so on.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
Yes, I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But do you think she would have liked to have
done that as a career.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
No, No, she was.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
She wanted to do it because for the art of
doing it, for the love of doing it, and she
wanted to feed the family.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
So you had this incredible life of having food that
was cared you know, it was a priority in her
day and your stepfather.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
And different styles too.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Did you ever cook with her with my mom.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Later in life, because on the beginning, they allow me
to watch and eat anything I wanted, but they really
didn't want me to touch anything. They were like, you're
going to mess up the kitchen, don't touch it. So
I was eating and just before I went to culinary school.
My mom started to allow me to help her in
the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
She sounds amazing, and she's still cooking.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
She cooks for herself, and she sent me pictures sometimes
and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like
the other day she did the dog comfee and then
you know she has I don't know, you call it
those little for the for the bone, those little.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
White white things, yeah, yeah, white, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
So she still has those kind of details and I'm like,
oh my god, how can you do that?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
How do you look back at the food of the
nevelle cuisine? What do you think when you when you
think of that food.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
Well, as you know, nouvelle cuisine at one point became
really a bad world, and it became a caricature of.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Big plates and food, and.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
I always have this image of like three string beans
parallel to each other. But novelle cuisine on the beginning
was a revolution. We were coming out of the era
of escoffi. It was a different mindset where the sauce
was not hiding anymore the flavors, but the sauce was
enhancing the star of the plate, which was were protein
(22:01):
mostly or vegetable.
Speaker 6 (22:02):
You decide.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
And also it was the first time that chefs were
playing their food. Until then, the food was on platters
and the wails were serving the food or the clients
were serving themselves from the platter. But the first chef
to say I'm planning my food in my plate was
(22:25):
the Drug Row.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So you grew up in a house where food was
a priority, where your mother cooked, your grandmother's cooked. Tell
us when about your journey to becoming a chef, from
being a child that wasn't allowed in the kitchen to
being I think a fifteen year old that started cooking.
What happened at fifteen when you decided to be well?
Speaker 7 (22:47):
At fifteen, I cannot go to school any longer because
my grades are so bad. So I ended up in
the principal office with mom and is explaining to her
that I have to find out what they call a vocational.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
School or a career year.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
Was this that's nineteen eighty and I look sad, but
I'm really happy because I want to go to culinary
school and my grades were great on the first year.
On the second year, same thing. I at my exam,
which was after two years, I had to do a
(23:28):
gulash and the rice pillaff with Langostin's in a source
nine two yer and I did a good job because
I graduated with honors. And then I was like, this
is the beginning. So at seventeen years old, I write
a letter to the eighteen three star Michelin restaurants in
(23:50):
Friends because I was eighteen at a time, and nobody
answered nobody. So then at one point I go back
and I write to the two stars, and then Maxims
sent me a letter saying we don't have a spot
for you, and that's my only letter. And then three
months later I received a letter from Latino Darjon and
(24:13):
at the.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Time they were three stars.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Yeah, of course, and they were celebrating in nineteen eighty
two their four hundred year anniversary. Anyway, I ended up
at seventeen years old in Lato Arjon in Paris.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Where did you stay?
Speaker 7 (24:28):
In a tiny hotel? And then I find finally a place.
It took a couple of months to find a place.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
That was very very challenge. Seventeen in a kitchen like that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you know, I was the culture of the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What was it like?
Speaker 7 (24:44):
Very old fashioned, a lot of abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse,
and that was the culture in those kitchens at that time.
And also I have to say I was the youngest
in the kitchen and I was not necessarily the best.
And they were patient, but at the same time they
were very abusive and and as you probably know in France,
(25:08):
it was a philosophy behind it. First of all, it
made no sense to me, but they wanted to break
you psychologically and rebuild you as a champion, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
More an excuse to let the chef be abusive. And
I have those tantrums and big aggressive and someone who's
angry is it's not someone who's It's not a quality
to be angry. Let's put it this way.
Speaker 6 (25:37):
So I learned. I learned the hard way.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Do you think of giving up?
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Ever, No, I never thought of giving up.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
I was obviously at times down and not happy, but
my vision of becoming the chef that I became was
never compromised.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, patient kept you, kept you going.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
It was, yes, But the ambition was not about being
number one, being radied, or being The ambition was to
cook great food and create an amazing experience. And it
has always been my vision all my life.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Stephen fry A memorable guest endured years of plan boarding
school food craving sweets and treats. At Cambridge University, he
joined the Footlights Student Review and was part of an
acclaimed generation of actors including Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie and
Emma Thompson. After university, new opportunities opened up, acting, traveling
(26:41):
and eating exciting food in foreign places.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
We went to Edinburgh. We won this new prize called
the Perrier Award for Comedy, and this involved going to Australia.
Well sort of it didn't. The prize didn't, but because
we won it, an Australian entrepreneur called Michael Edgeley saw
our show and that said, you guys want to come
out to Australia. And that's where I learned to eat,
because it was an absolute revelation. This is nineteen eighty one,
(27:08):
starting in Sydney. Doyles, of course, the amazing seafood place.
You walk along the dunes and come to this beautiful
shack where the food is, where things you've never heard
of like barrel mundy and Morton bay bugs and all
these extraordinary seafood things.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But also oysters.
Speaker 8 (27:26):
I mean, oyster is so plentiful and not oh my goodness,
I'm having oysters. I must be in Bentley's or in
you know some posh you know London restaurant that does oysters.
But it was, yeah, I have some oysters, mane, I
have mind Rockefeller or Killpatrick, you know, these different ways
of preparing them. Kill Patrick across a favored of mine
because it involved was the saurce.
Speaker 6 (27:47):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (27:48):
So I became really obsessed with oysters and would have
and they were cheap sometimes you could That's the point.
I have some plump, half a dozen plump Pacific oysters
not cooked, and then half a dozen cooked Mornay Rockefeller
and Kilpatrick with the bacon to kill Patrick. Yeah, and
there were cheapest, cheapest chips. As people say we were,
(28:11):
we were like for two months and traveling everywhere all
the big cities, in some of the crazy little towns
like Albury, Wodonga, eating fabulous food, cheaply and happily. And
the whole day really was around the fact we'd finished
the show and what restaurant we're going to and but
when I got by doing them, I was wandering around.
(28:31):
So we were doing a TV show and I was
feeling lucky and flushed with cash relatively compared to being
a student, but not very rich. And I was wondering
to say, when I was getting lost, as you do,
and before you understand that, what's the cross street?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And you know?
Speaker 8 (28:46):
And so I was going down this street called Greek Street,
and I saw an attractive looking restaurant and the restaurant
was called Les Gargo the Snail. And I wandered in
and this fabulous woman about three foot tall came up
to me and said hello, dear. I said, oh, it
was obviously very nervous. She said, you come with me,
and she sat me down. You'll know who I'm talking about,
(29:06):
Ellen Salvatina, this amazing woman, phenomenal, and she sat me
down and I said, I'm not and she chose for me,
somehow brilliantly, things that were just cheap enough for me
to be able to afford. And so from then on,
the richer I got, the luckier I got, I would
go there, and this was in the high days of
Let's Cargo. We know Princess Diana would go and all
(29:28):
these people. But I remember once, for example, I was
having dinner there with Ronakins and my friend Rowan is
the wonderful comic great and Rowan is the most wonderful
person in the world. But he's not a late night
figure at all. In those days, I quite was. So
we'd had dinner and it was like half Ust nine
and Ron said, right, well, i'm I'll get a cab
(29:49):
and go home. And I thought, oh, well, I'll do
the same. So I ordered a cab. His cab came first,
and I was just about to leave and Ellen said,
could you go and cheer up up John hurt? He's
just left his wife, and he said it was all
very unhappy and he needs a bit of cheering up.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
He was eating alone.
Speaker 8 (30:07):
I sat down and there was John had you know
I had to sit down and every now and again,
then said your CAB's still here. I said, oh, tell him,
I'll be five minutes.
Speaker 9 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
We were getting home and the cab bill was two
hundred and twenty pounds. And I saw John about a
week later and said, I have told everyone I got
hurt on Thursday night, and he said, well, I told
everyone I got fried. I got to know him even
better later because he moved to Norfolk.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Was Europe at all an influence? Did you travel to
France or Italy? Or did you do Greece? Was there
any food experience from being in Europe?
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Just as I was really beginning to love food, I
went with Rowan, whom I mentioned Ron Atkinson had bought
a new Western Martin and said, I really think we
should try this out, and so we booked ourselves an
amazing holiday, going all the way down France through basically
through as many three star, three Mechlin Star restaurants, so
(31:15):
Mionaise and outside Leon and Chappelle's restaurant, and then down
to the MoU restaurants outside. Can you know in the
column door which is not through Star but it is
one of the greatest restaurants in the world, men, heavenly
people who don't know. It's up from up from Cannes
in the hills and it's this beautiful, beautiful place. It's
(31:36):
like your ideal image of a promonceal house with the
tiles and everything else. But it has added to it
these extraordinary pieces on the walls by Matisse and others
and mirror and yeah, that's right, these extraordinary paintings because
the original patron and his wife would allow the artists
(31:58):
to give pictures instead of paying the bills, and it
has since become, you know, one of the great restaurants
of the world. Really it's atmosphere and for all its
fame and uh, you know, they're not necessarily easy to
get a table, especially during the Canned Film Festival or something.
It is the friendliest, warmest place. It's really, you.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Know, like all these good places there.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
You might think they're going to be frightening the river
under the River Cafe, you won't find people looking snooterly
at you at all. It's the opposite of good restaurant
to have snootiness, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Gary Lineker is many things, an acclaimed sports broadcaster, one
of the great heroes of football. One of his great
joys is cooking for his family. Here he is talking
about the culture of food within football.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
It's one of the great changes in football is the
nutrition side of things absolute.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I think it's a gradual change.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
I think understanding of what feeds the body, and more
professional outlets to it, more money coming into the game
so they could afford you know, clubs now that the
staff around football clubs are extraordinary. When I played, you'd
get you'd have a coach, a manager, a coach, maybe
another one other coach goalkeeping coach. Possibly you'll have a
(33:21):
physio and they some clubs love a doctor.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And that was about it.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Now like there's there's there probably are five people just
do a nutrition alone. They'll have cooks every day cooking
them food after training, in all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's it's changed dramatically.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
When I was like, what you're doing for lunch, Well,
we're going down the pub for a pint and a
pie before a game.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah well no, not before a game, after.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Train although al those some players maybe some players maybe.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Do you know what what what would be I mean
for you as an athlete if you knew we had
a game, what would you have for breakfast and what
would you have lunch?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Well, you wouldn't have lunch and breakfast.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Probably a few playing at three o'clock, so you probably
basically have like a brunch at eleven o'clock or stuff.
I don't actually know what they do pretty much now
because it used to be what you said, right, you
need some carbs in you for the energy and stuff
like that. But I think most of their diets is
very healthy. If you look at football as they're all
ripped now, like you know, all these abs everywhere. When
(34:19):
I first started playing, we were told, whatever you do,
don't don't do any upper body weight work because you're
completely you know, you'll be all stiff and wooding on
the pitch and you won't be as agile, absolute poppy,
complete nonsense. So you never saw players particularly kind of
ripped and muscular in my day that you do now,
because that's that was the thinking.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I rarely talk about alcohol, you know, because this is
mostly about food. But I was wondering about how do
you combine discipline with pleasure? Because we've seen people like
George Best. How do you combine being a twenty four
year old with being somebody wanted to party, wanted to socialize,
very handsome with being they are, and how do you
(35:04):
combine that figure with pleasure.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I wasn't there. I was never a big drinker. I
didn't drink, I didn't go down.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I wasn't one of those that went down the pub
after training, unlike some. So I kind of looked after myself.
I was very driven, very motivated, very ambitious to do better.
So I tried to give myself the best chance. Yes,
I'd like to night out with it with the best
of them, but It's like most players, the vast majority.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Of players understood that.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Even then, you know, it's not really a great combination
drinking loads of pipes and then playing in a couple
of days time I didn't. Manager called John Wallace, so
I was so terrified of that. He kind of stopped
me doing any of that nonsense.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And what about when you went to Barcelona?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Arsona was fabulous. It was a great experience, a wonderful
place to live.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Was it the first experience in a foreign city or
had you I'd.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
Been on holidays. I've been lots of holidays, but it
was the first. You know, I didn't really contemplate going
to live abroad, but then the opportunity came.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You go by yourself. Got married just before we went.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
So I played the World Cup in eighty six in Mexico,
came back, got married, went on honeymoon, went straight to
Barcelona from.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
There three years? How did that affect your food and
eating and all?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I mean, I love the food there.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Why did you love?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I loved the fresh fish that was always available.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
I mean, it's obviously you know you're living in a
port there and some great restaurants. I loved tapas, I
love Pia the beach. I mean, we had an amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
We get up.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
I'd get up in the morning about nine something, go
to the ground. We'd train for a you know, a
couple of hours. By lunchtime you had done. I come home.
We jump in the car, go to the beach club
Castels at Fells. We'd have like a.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Seafood and a pie here on the beach.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
We leave about five, get home about six o'clock, have
a yester for two or three hours, and then go
out for dinner, which you couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
A restaurant ten eleven.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Twelve o'clock at night, because if you went to a
restaurant in Barcelona back then, it's changed a bit. Now
it's still late, but nothing like as nat as it
used to be. If you went to a restaurant before
ten o'clock, they'd either be empty or closed. But actually
they what they do is they break up their sleep,
so you then go home at one two o'clock in
(37:33):
the morning and sleep for five six hours, and then.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It's totally different.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
It was.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
It was totally different, but it was. It didn't take
a long getting.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Used to it didn't. It really does, did you have
kids at the time. No even better, good said, we interested,
And I once gave a party in London. We invited
the mayor of Barcelona. He was in town and he said,
I can't come for the part. I'll come a little
bit later. And so he didn't show up by you know,
(38:04):
eleven o'clock, and so we thought, okay, it's not coming
and went to bed. At two thirty in the morning,
the doorbell rang and he was like, expecting the party,
I'm here.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I ran downstairs. So they just left.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You know, it's a party, just it's a totally.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Different It's like living with on a different time. Yeah,
and it's only an hour different.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
But say, did you do it? What a game night?
Speaker 8 (38:28):
Then?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
So when you were when you were well.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Sometimes the games sometimes you play kickoff will be like
nine o'clock at night quite often, you know. And Sundays
you used play at five o'clock. That was that was
kind of their Saturday at three. So they often play
on Sundays at five.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Laura Dearn is a great actor and a great friend.
She's a bold and brave spokesperson for women in the
film industry. She cares about food and the politics of
feeding people safely and sustainable. When Laura came to the
River Cafe earlier this year, we talked about food and movies,
working with the director David Lynch, and the Southern food
(39:09):
that her grandmother cooked for her.
Speaker 9 (39:12):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, So a majority of
my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama,
and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi, and
(39:34):
so the roots of my family are so tied to
food and tradition in the South.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Southern cooking is the region when we think about France
and Italy and Britain having you know, the north of
France has a very different cuisine from the South of France,
and Piermonte has a very different cuisine from Sicily. And
then you think about American food, do you think, well,
there's a food of Vermont really different from the food
of Ohio or but the food actually of the South
(40:07):
has such a strong identity.
Speaker 9 (40:09):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watched the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just
like in the Great Lakes. You know, this a very
Scandinavian focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly
in New Orleans. Obviously there's so much French influence, but
there's also the influence of the American farmer. And what
(40:32):
was incredible was in lower income families, the food was
simpler and from the land that you had. But my
grandmother was getting what she could from her fellow friends
and farms locally.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So it's did she move to LA to take care
of you? Yeah? Oh she did. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (40:54):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know that was sort of
the staple of your meal. But when she was in
the South, especially when they were on the farm, the
major meal of the day was breakfast, which was so wild.
(41:17):
They would have like really like an early morning breakfast
and then go out and work in the fields and
then come back and have this huge breakfast at like
ten in the morning because they'd already been working since
four am. And I remember as a little girl when
I would go visit my grandfather in Mississippi, and at
(41:39):
ten am, it was corn bread and eggs and bacon
and grits and collars and a coconut cake and a
cake over a cake for breakfast with your coffee.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
You know, would this be weekdays as well? Every day
for them? Every day, you know?
Speaker 9 (41:57):
But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was
like a big.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never? Never?
Speaker 9 (42:05):
Although my mom just told me that when they were
first together in New York, he would cook on Sundays
for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do like
a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops or
some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the other actors,
(42:25):
and whoever was working would feed everybody. My mom came
to New York with twenty dollars in her pocket and
a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from a
tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said,
you know, you used to go in and if you
ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a
beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would
(42:47):
give them bread and butter.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, was there
a time when you went off on your own and
suddenly there was not that comfort food.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Or a million percent.
Speaker 9 (43:03):
I mean I started acting at eleven, and I was
on location by myself at sixteen on and working on
movies meant eating on the run and eating poorly and
eating in small towns everywhere, And so it became what
(43:26):
is provided to small town America, which was fast food,
eating tragic.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
This isn't what y're starting in the late seventies.
Speaker 9 (43:36):
And I only discovered the gift of the connection between
eating beautifully and food becoming a part of my artistic
experience in the last decade because of heroes like you.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Would you think that you could work or act or
do what you do better if you actually had healthy
food on a film set, or do you think it
doesn't matter?
Speaker 9 (44:06):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(44:28):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production, how to do that
more and more?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
What was it like with David Lynch, Because you talk
about him a lot and you've worked with him a lot.
Speaker 9 (44:46):
Food wise, it matters to him and sharing a meal
matters to him. And from the first time I worked
with him, which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen,
and those meals are some of my favorite memories, which was,
you know, at night we go and we eat together.
We find a couple of chefs in that town that
(45:06):
become friends. They know what we love and we learn
what they make, and at the end of the day
we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
What about food in movies when you do a food scene?
Ow other food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 9 (45:19):
Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 9 (45:32):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. But we
did a scene in a hotel room in Paris and
it was this very long monologue me on a phone
call and we'd sit down for our cafe olet and
he wanted his Penischokola and he would write on a
(45:56):
legal pad and I would sit there and he would
look at me like a painter and just be writing
this monologue. And then he'd give it to me and
he's like, now while I have my Panasha cola, you
learn your monologue. And it's like seven pages, and so
I'm like, you better eat slow, buddy.
Speaker 10 (46:14):
So then i'd try to learn it and do a
probably poor job.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
But attempt.
Speaker 9 (46:20):
And then we'd go to the hotel room and he
would do my makeup or I would do my makeup,
or we'd work on it together, and then he would
set up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And
we shot this monologue and he was happy with it,
and I was so exciting.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
He was like, we got it.
Speaker 9 (46:38):
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side
table and there were two perfect ladree maquaron which that
hotel would have provided, and there was a pistachio one.
So the green was so beautiful and they bit into
it. It was so fresh. And then he said, okay, now
(47:02):
we'll do the close up, and he set up the
shine and he goes, where's the macaron. I'm like, what
do you mean I ate it.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
He goes, you ate my props.
Speaker 10 (47:10):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie. I ate the prop and he
was like, you have to go now to laderie and
get a pistachio macaron I was.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudy tey that was in the middle of
the table. And the waiter came up and said, you
just ate our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten somehow. I said,
I need the floral arrangement, I think, and then guess
(47:45):
what happened. My whole mouth went nam. It was part
of that floral arrangement was some weird plant. And I thought, okay,
I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die in this lunch with
the mayor of Mexico because I ate the flower flower
plant no called flat something. Do you think about food
a lot? Do you think what you're going to eat
the next day, or do you go to bed thinking, well,
(48:06):
well I have when I wake up, or do you
wake up and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 9 (48:10):
My son started cooking. We've started having conversations that we
never had before and challenging ourselves, you know, like how
do we really make truly a great Cajun style red
beans and rice? Because we talk about my grandmother and
how I'd have red beans didn't you know as a
(48:32):
baby only Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Is there a food that you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 9 (48:37):
It always was cobbler growing up.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
A certain fruit or just any cobbler.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Maybe peaches pieces.
Speaker 9 (48:44):
That would be, you know, because of remembering my grandmother's
love of it and her taste, the taste of peaches
and like that idea of summer and the scent of them.
But I think for me now, comfort is community.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Let's go eat, eat all right? Thank you, thank.
Speaker 9 (49:08):
You, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
That's all for this season of Ruthie's Table four. We
will be back in the autumn with new conversations, new recipes,
and memories to share. Until then, have a wonderful summer.
Speaker 8 (49:33):
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 (00:05):
Food Unlock so many memories, the kitchen you grew up in,
the first meal you cooked, celebrations with friends and family.
More than forty guests have joined me at Table four
this season, sharing recipes, cooking together and talking about the
importance of food in all of our lives. In this episode,
we will share some of those conversations, hearing from the
(00:27):
actors Stephen Fry and Laura Dern, former footballer Gary Lineker,
and the three star Michelin chef Eric Repair. But first
Linda Vangelista talking about her memories of working as a
model in the eighties, her love of cooking, and life
in Canada with her Italian family. We began with our
recipe for nyoki with slow cooked tomato sauce.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's great to see something in writing, because I learned
to make nyoki with my grandmother, but it was never
written down, and it was a little bit of this
and this, many eggs depending how big they are, and
some potatoes.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, and some potatoes. That's how we learned to I mean,
that's a beautiful way to learn. She did she ever
write anything down? She couldn't write. Yeah, she didn't know
how to write. She didn't know how to write English.
She didn't know how to write it all. She didn't
know how to write it all. She was a peasant.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
She was born in Italy, as was my father and
my mother and all my grandparents.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And do you speak Italian?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Very badly? I speak it, and my family speaks dialect.
I know you're friend and proper Italian, but at home
they speak dialect. My parents spoke English to us growing up,
and only when they were arguing did they speak to
each other in Italian. So I can tell you where
to go in Italian, but I can't ask you are
(01:49):
you having a nice.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Day or kind words. My husband, Richard and Zad's father
had Italian parents, and he had the same thing that
he heard spoken, a very similar story when there was
an argument, I think. And then when he did learn Italian,
a lot of it came back because he had kind
of grown up for it.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So this grandmother, she never did learn him to speak English.
And in our neighborhood it was quite Polish, some Ukrainians
and Italians.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Where was it? Where was then?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
In Saint Catharine's, Ontario, Canada across the lake from Toronto
in Niagara Region, right near the border of the United States,
and my grandmother went to Italian mass shopped at the
Italian store, worked picking fruit on the farm with the
Italian ladies, so she didn't really need to speak English.
(02:43):
I remember how excited they all got that generation when
Canada went metric. I was about ten years old or so,
I approximately, and then they understood, oh, this is how
many grams of meat I'm buying, and so they were
very happy when that happened.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
When did they leave. The family comes from between Naples
and Rome.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yes, it's a town called Pinatado in Taramna which is
near Casino and Monte Casino, where the big battle World
War two took place. And my father would have come over.
And he was born in nineteen forty and I think
he came over nineteen fifty six. And my mother was
(03:28):
born in forty three and she came over in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And the grandmother that you were describing was that your
mother's mother.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That was my father's mother, but my mother's mother's kind
of the same.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And they all came they all eventually they were all.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yes, and they came with the few belongings that they had.
And I have the two handmade hammered copper pots that
my one grandmother came over with and she would make
her Sunday you know, to mao sauce in and I
(04:02):
have them. They're like, there are precious belongings. There's no painting,
there's no paintings.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes, saw Sam is a memory and it is what
she cooked with, so bringing that with her was part
of her Why did they leave, you.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Know, they left in search of a better life. They
had lost everything. Well, they didn't have anything much. They
worked their land, so it's not like they had vocations and.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
They just.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Went in search of a better life for their children.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
In Canada rather than the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Well, they were heading to the United States, but at
the time they closed their doors and then they were
not receiving any more immigrants. And somebody in the United
States found a sponsor for my grandfather in Canada and
the other one similar story. So yeah, one grandfather was
a prisoner of war. They were in the war. My
grandfather's My mom was born during the war forty three.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And she spoke Italian.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
She speaks proper and dialect.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
She speaks both when do you say dialect, you mean
the dialect of that region.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, And it gets even worse because then, you know,
it takes on a life of its own in Canada,
not quite like the way the Americans, they like totally
butchered the language. And I don't like the way they
cut off the ends of the words when they say mozzarella.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
When they say mozzarell, that's Tony Soprano, remember Tony's in
watching the Sopranos. They would always call it mozzarell. Yeah,
yeahs And so your mother also, your mother had both
her mother and her mother in law correct with her. Yeah.
And did they all cook together?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I think early on they did. And you know, my
mother is because she came over young, she got quite americanized,
and you know she she you know, she has an
education and she cooks with recipes she but she also
has all the recipes in her head like what she
(06:15):
grew up making.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Who is the best cook of all of them? Do
you think me? You good? Okay, We're gonna get to that.
I like your answer, Okay, So do you want to
read the recipe with tomato sauce ganaki?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I'm joking, Okay, yoki with tomato sauce, served six in
my family.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Three one, yeah, okay?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Two clothes of
garlic finally sliced. I would say a little, you can
add more?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, okay? Good?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Eight hundred grams of ten peeled plum tomatoes. One kilogram
of white flowery potatoes.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Imma will be happy that this is in grams, wouldn't she? Yes,
she would.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
One hundred and thirty grams of double zero flour, one
large egg, lightly beaten, and ten basil leaves interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Heat the olive.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat.
Add the garlic and cook until soft. Add the tomatoes,
breaking them up, season well, and cook for thirty minutes
on low heat. Bring a large saucepan of salted water
to a boil and add the potatoes and cook until
they are easily pierced with a fork. Drain and peel
(07:38):
when they are cool enough to handle. Immediately put the
potatoes through a food milk and then sift the flour
over them, making a well in the center. Add the
beaten egg using your hands, quickly mixed to form a smooth,
soft dough. Do not overwork the dough or you will
(07:59):
make the nyoki too heavy. Divide the dough into four
using your hands, Roll the dough into a sausage and
then cut into pieces. Cook the yoki until they rise
to the surface. Remove the yaki with a slotted spoon,
and then stir into the tomato sauce. Add the basil,
(08:19):
and if you like grated potamigiano. Now we ran our
yoki along.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
A four to get the ridges. You can do that.
We sometimes do ridges and sometimes we don't. I prefer without, Yeah,
you prefer without. We were also talking today about yaki.
I was talking to Joseph Trevelli, one of my chefs.
He was saying, do you remember Ruthy how the cook
in our house in Italy called Giovanna made yaki and
(08:47):
she said to us, when you form them them was
like you're doing a book, Like you're making a book
of the flower and the mixture. Because if you it
is really true that if you handle them too much,
they do get tough, and so you want to touch
the flower gets old, it gets overdeveloped, and the idea
that you want to make them as light and actually
I also used to say that what we do is
(09:09):
we'd make the potatoes and add a little bit of
flower and then put one in and then they'd fall apart.
And then you would add a little bit of flower,
and you would do it so gradually that then you
would know that you need that amount of flower for
them not to fall apart, but the least amount makes
them as light as you can.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
And then once you've done them so many times, you
just know.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So let's go back to the beginning. You grew up
with an Italian grandmother's, two, two grandfathers, two your parents.
What was food like growing up in the Evangelista household.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, I complained a lot because we always ate homemade
food and I wanted to have TV dinner or frozen
meals or something out of a can.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I wanted to close from Sears roebook. I was really oh,
my clothes were from Cyrus. I did a thing to
my mother, not that we had money, but why can't
we buy clothes out of a catalog?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
That sounds so my clothes were from Sears and Woolworth.
So yeah, So it was a lot of homemade food,
and I appreciate that now, but like growing up, you know,
I wanted the TV dinners with the compartments, you know,
and the little apple pie in the corner. And but yeah,
my father took us out for dinner every Friday because
(10:40):
my mother worked late. She was working in retail. But
my father let us choose the restaurant. And by restaurant,
I mean McDonald's or Denny's or the pizzeria or A
and W you know, fast food. And so that was
a big deal because we were very spoiled with that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and fresh.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
We had homemade pasta Wednesdays and Sundays. We had roast
beef once a week. We would have steak or barbecue
once a week. My father really spent a lot of money,
I think on food because he didn't have much growing up.
(11:22):
They ate like a chicken or a rabbit once a week.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is what until he was sixteen, until came to America. Yeah,
until he got.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
A good job at General Motors. And the food went
on the table family style.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How many if you were there, you me and two brothers,
two brothers.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And he would serve us and he would put like
this mound on your plate and you had to eat
it all. And for him, the most important thing was
you weren't hungry, that you were nourished.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That you ate.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Everybody had a garden, and what they produced in these
gardens was unbelievable. Tell me about everything like tomatoes and
cucumbers and peppers and different like ridico and and then
there were the fruit trees, and then there was like basil,
all the herbs, you name it, onions, and it was
(12:14):
just all there.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And so you had your own garden full of.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Everybody had the whole backyard was a garden, but shared
what the other one didn't have. And it's not like
we had a swimming pool or we didn't play in
our backyards. We played on the street or parking lot.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Did they bring the seeds? Do you think for Italy?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I have?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
The seeds are a whole thing.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The seeds was like a network and whoever had like
the best tomatoes that year would do the seeds and
hand them out. And it's so funny. Now you see
all these heirloom tomatoes and I'm like, but those are
the tomatoes I grew up with, Like none of them
were nice little round tomatoes. And then the fruit trees.
And my father he had a green thumb and he
(12:58):
would graft.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
He would do these.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Sensational things like the apricot tree had plums on it
and the red.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Apple tree had a branch with yellow apples, and he
would graft and it would be it would just be incredible,
and then he would make his gropas.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So do you think that then he would go work
at general motives? Do you think that in his real
passion would have been to have been a farmer or
to have done this whole day? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Well, he grew up. He didn't get an education because
he had to work the land. And I know he
had a donkey and whenever he referred to Italy he
referred to.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It as the good old days.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I think that would have been what he would have
loved to have done, because he was so good at it.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
When you left, because you went to work quite at
an early age, I was eighteen almost nine, Oh you
were What was that like, leaving this culture of food?
What did you do? How did you eat? I think
I ate really simple.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I was in New York for about a month or so,
and then they shipped me off off to Paris, who
shipped you off the agency because I wasn't doing so
well in New York. They said, maybe you'll be more
successful at nineteen and I was first in the Hotel
sant Andre DA's Art, but I got bed bugs there,
(14:16):
so I went to the Hotel La Louisia and.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
My mom Louisiana. My mom found out our hotel, our
hotel room in the Louisiana was being used during the day.
I'm not kidding, what yea any once came home and
they would rent it out during the day. Oh my god. Yeah,
so we left.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
That was an upgrade for me. It was ten dollars
more a night, and my mom had to approve that.
And so I would go to the market Mru La Boussi,
and I would like get a baguet and a piece
of breeze and a piece of fruit, and that's how
I would eat on a budget.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, we moved into the hotel Descend. You remember that
one that was next door to a big step up. Yeah,
what year was that, Well, it was in seventy twenty three,
maybe seventy two there in like eighty forty, Yeah, so
that was later, so I'm sure, but I remember I
said it was a pretty rough person. The best story
I have about the hotel we stayed in, Renzo Piano
(15:18):
came to visit me Richard and his partner. They were
doing the Pompany Center. I was sick, so I was
in bed. Sorenzo came up and talked to me until
Richard came back. He was at dinner and we were
just talking and you know, sneezing, and then the phone
rang and it was a concierge and he said, madam,
your husband is on the way up. And I thought
that was so cool. At the hotel, they were mourning
(15:42):
me because they thought that I was in bed with
my lover. That's good. I thought that was in a
cheap hotel. That was a pretty good service if I
needed it, very good service. The River Cafe Cafe, our
(16:08):
all day space and just steps away from the restaurant,
is now open. In the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,
ciambella and crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon,
ice creamed coops and River Cafe classic desserts. We have
sharing plates Salumi misti, mozzarella, brusquetto red and yellow peppers, Vitello,
(16:29):
tonado and more. Come in the evening for cocktails with
our resident pianist.
Speaker 6 (16:34):
In the bar.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
No need to book. See you here, Laverna Down is
one of the great restaurants of the world, and Eric
Repair is one of the most admired chefs in the world.
We sat down together in New York to talk about
(16:56):
his culinary education and his food memories of his child
in the south of France.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
My two grandmothers inspired me a lot, and my mother
was an amazing, amazing chef.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I tell me because it was interesting. I always say
that in all these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 7 (17:13):
The grandmother, the Italian one, was cooking very Italian soul food.
She was cooking like great Italian, northern Italian food, and
I loved it. And then my grandmother from Provence was
doing the same with proven sal food as well, which
is a little bit similar than Northern Italian, but as
(17:34):
some sort of differences.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I did the drive quite recently from Santa Margarita to
Genoa to Nice and suddenly you were in Italy and
now you're in France, and you know, the farinata which
they do in Italy is the Italian version of the
socca so yeah, which is in Nice. And what else
(17:58):
do they cook?
Speaker 7 (17:59):
Like my grandmother in province, she was from the region
of Avignon, so in Avignon, they're not close to the sea,
they are obviously in land, and she would do like
a baby leg of lamb roasted. And then my grandmother,
the Italian grandmother, wouldn't do that, but.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
She would do.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
She would do alsobuco, for instance, my grandmother in Provence
would do a cocoverain. My grandmother in Italy didn't know
what cocoveraine was. And those were subtle differences, but they
were important. My mother was obsessed with the chefs from
nouvelle cuisine at the time, so the Michelle Gerard, the
(18:43):
Paul Booquez, that generation. And at home she was cooking
lunch and dinner, those elaborate meals with appetizer, main course
cheese which she didn't cook, and dessert that were different
from lunch to dinner, on a different pattern of tablecloth,
different china. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Who would she be cooking for.
Speaker 7 (19:07):
She was cooking for myself, stepfather, and my sister when
she was old enough to be.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
At the table with us, because she's much younger than me.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She did this every day, every day.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
She would well, she was a business lady, so she
was in fashion industry. She was importing the brand Courage Spain,
Spain and Undergra yes, and so she was very busy
with the business. But she would wake up at five
am to prepare the meal and then she would finish
(19:42):
whatever needs to be finished, all the little details during lunchtime,
and then same thing at night. And sometimes after the
dinner she would start to cook for the like the desserts,
like if she was doing I don't know about room,
she would start to let the do you know rise
(20:04):
and so on.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
Yes, I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But do you think she would have liked to have
done that as a career.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
No, No, she was.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
She wanted to do it because for the art of
doing it, for the love of doing it, and she
wanted to feed the family.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
So you had this incredible life of having food that
was cared you know, it was a priority in her
day and your stepfather.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
And different styles too.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Did you ever cook with her with my mom.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Later in life, because on the beginning, they allow me
to watch and eat anything I wanted, but they really
didn't want me to touch anything. They were like, you're
going to mess up the kitchen, don't touch it. So
I was eating and just before I went to culinary school.
My mom started to allow me to help her in
the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
She sounds amazing, and she's still cooking.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
She cooks for herself, and she sent me pictures sometimes
and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like
the other day she did the dog comfee and then
you know she has I don't know, you call it
those little for the for the bone, those little.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
White white things, yeah, yeah, white, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
So she still has those kind of details and I'm like,
oh my god, how can you do that?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
How do you look back at the food of the
nevelle cuisine? What do you think when you when you
think of that food.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
Well, as you know, nouvelle cuisine at one point became
really a bad world, and it became a caricature of.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Big plates and food, and.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
I always have this image of like three string beans
parallel to each other. But novelle cuisine on the beginning
was a revolution. We were coming out of the era
of escoffi. It was a different mindset where the sauce
was not hiding anymore the flavors, but the sauce was
enhancing the star of the plate, which was were protein
(22:01):
mostly or vegetable.
Speaker 6 (22:02):
You decide.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
And also it was the first time that chefs were
playing their food. Until then, the food was on platters
and the wails were serving the food or the clients
were serving themselves from the platter. But the first chef
to say I'm planning my food in my plate was
(22:25):
the Drug Row.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So you grew up in a house where food was
a priority, where your mother cooked, your grandmother's cooked. Tell
us when about your journey to becoming a chef, from
being a child that wasn't allowed in the kitchen to
being I think a fifteen year old that started cooking.
What happened at fifteen when you decided to be well?
Speaker 7 (22:47):
At fifteen, I cannot go to school any longer because
my grades are so bad. So I ended up in
the principal office with mom and is explaining to her
that I have to find out what they call a vocational.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
School or a career year.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
Was this that's nineteen eighty and I look sad, but
I'm really happy because I want to go to culinary
school and my grades were great on the first year.
On the second year, same thing. I at my exam,
which was after two years, I had to do a
(23:28):
gulash and the rice pillaff with Langostin's in a source
nine two yer and I did a good job because
I graduated with honors. And then I was like, this
is the beginning. So at seventeen years old, I write
a letter to the eighteen three star Michelin restaurants in
(23:50):
Friends because I was eighteen at a time, and nobody
answered nobody. So then at one point I go back
and I write to the two stars, and then Maxims
sent me a letter saying we don't have a spot
for you, and that's my only letter. And then three
months later I received a letter from Latino Darjon and
(24:13):
at the.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
Time they were three stars.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
Yeah, of course, and they were celebrating in nineteen eighty
two their four hundred year anniversary. Anyway, I ended up
at seventeen years old in Lato Arjon in Paris.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Where did you stay?
Speaker 7 (24:28):
In a tiny hotel? And then I find finally a place.
It took a couple of months to find a place.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
That was very very challenge. Seventeen in a kitchen like that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you know, I was the culture of the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What was it like?
Speaker 7 (24:44):
Very old fashioned, a lot of abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse,
and that was the culture in those kitchens at that time.
And also I have to say I was the youngest
in the kitchen and I was not necessarily the best.
And they were patient, but at the same time they
were very abusive and and as you probably know in France,
(25:08):
it was a philosophy behind it. First of all, it
made no sense to me, but they wanted to break
you psychologically and rebuild you as a champion, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (25:20):
More an excuse to let the chef be abusive. And
I have those tantrums and big aggressive and someone who's
angry is it's not someone who's It's not a quality
to be angry. Let's put it this way.
Speaker 6 (25:37):
So I learned. I learned the hard way.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Do you think of giving up?
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Ever, No, I never thought of giving up.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
I was obviously at times down and not happy, but
my vision of becoming the chef that I became was
never compromised.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, patient kept you, kept you going.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
It was, yes, But the ambition was not about being
number one, being radied, or being The ambition was to
cook great food and create an amazing experience. And it
has always been my vision all my life.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Stephen fry A memorable guest endured years of plan boarding
school food craving sweets and treats. At Cambridge University, he
joined the Footlights Student Review and was part of an
acclaimed generation of actors including Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie and
Emma Thompson. After university, new opportunities opened up, acting, traveling
(26:41):
and eating exciting food in foreign places.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
We went to Edinburgh. We won this new prize called
the Perrier Award for Comedy, and this involved going to Australia.
Well sort of it didn't. The prize didn't, but because
we won it, an Australian entrepreneur called Michael Edgeley saw
our show and that said, you guys want to come
out to Australia. And that's where I learned to eat,
because it was an absolute revelation. This is nineteen eighty one,
(27:08):
starting in Sydney. Doyles, of course, the amazing seafood place.
You walk along the dunes and come to this beautiful
shack where the food is, where things you've never heard
of like barrel mundy and Morton bay bugs and all
these extraordinary seafood things.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
But also oysters.
Speaker 8 (27:26):
I mean, oyster is so plentiful and not oh my goodness,
I'm having oysters. I must be in Bentley's or in
you know some posh you know London restaurant that does oysters.
But it was, yeah, I have some oysters, mane, I
have mind Rockefeller or Killpatrick, you know, these different ways
of preparing them. Kill Patrick across a favored of mine
because it involved was the saurce.
Speaker 6 (27:47):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (27:48):
So I became really obsessed with oysters and would have
and they were cheap sometimes you could That's the point.
I have some plump, half a dozen plump Pacific oysters
not cooked, and then half a dozen cooked Mornay Rockefeller
and Kilpatrick with the bacon to kill Patrick. Yeah, and
there were cheapest, cheapest chips. As people say we were,
(28:11):
we were like for two months and traveling everywhere all
the big cities, in some of the crazy little towns
like Albury, Wodonga, eating fabulous food, cheaply and happily. And
the whole day really was around the fact we'd finished
the show and what restaurant we're going to and but
when I got by doing them, I was wandering around.
(28:31):
So we were doing a TV show and I was
feeling lucky and flushed with cash relatively compared to being
a student, but not very rich. And I was wondering
to say, when I was getting lost, as you do,
and before you understand that, what's the cross street?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And you know?
Speaker 8 (28:46):
And so I was going down this street called Greek Street,
and I saw an attractive looking restaurant and the restaurant
was called Les Gargo the Snail. And I wandered in
and this fabulous woman about three foot tall came up
to me and said hello, dear. I said, oh, it
was obviously very nervous. She said, you come with me,
and she sat me down. You'll know who I'm talking about,
(29:06):
Ellen Salvatina, this amazing woman, phenomenal, and she sat me
down and I said, I'm not and she chose for me,
somehow brilliantly, things that were just cheap enough for me
to be able to afford. And so from then on,
the richer I got, the luckier I got, I would
go there, and this was in the high days of
Let's Cargo. We know Princess Diana would go and all
(29:28):
these people. But I remember once, for example, I was
having dinner there with Ronakins and my friend Rowan is
the wonderful comic great and Rowan is the most wonderful
person in the world. But he's not a late night
figure at all. In those days, I quite was. So
we'd had dinner and it was like half Ust nine
and Ron said, right, well, i'm I'll get a cab
(29:49):
and go home. And I thought, oh, well, I'll do
the same. So I ordered a cab. His cab came first,
and I was just about to leave and Ellen said,
could you go and cheer up up John hurt? He's
just left his wife, and he said it was all
very unhappy and he needs a bit of cheering up.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
He was eating alone.
Speaker 8 (30:07):
I sat down and there was John had you know
I had to sit down and every now and again,
then said your CAB's still here. I said, oh, tell him,
I'll be five minutes.
Speaker 9 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
We were getting home and the cab bill was two
hundred and twenty pounds. And I saw John about a
week later and said, I have told everyone I got
hurt on Thursday night, and he said, well, I told
everyone I got fried. I got to know him even
better later because he moved to Norfolk.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Was Europe at all an influence? Did you travel to
France or Italy? Or did you do Greece? Was there
any food experience from being in Europe?
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Just as I was really beginning to love food, I
went with Rowan, whom I mentioned Ron Atkinson had bought
a new Western Martin and said, I really think we
should try this out, and so we booked ourselves an
amazing holiday, going all the way down France through basically
through as many three star, three Mechlin Star restaurants, so
(31:15):
Mionaise and outside Leon and Chappelle's restaurant, and then down
to the MoU restaurants outside. Can you know in the
column door which is not through Star but it is
one of the greatest restaurants in the world, men, heavenly
people who don't know. It's up from up from Cannes
in the hills and it's this beautiful, beautiful place. It's
(31:36):
like your ideal image of a promonceal house with the
tiles and everything else. But it has added to it
these extraordinary pieces on the walls by Matisse and others
and mirror and yeah, that's right, these extraordinary paintings because
the original patron and his wife would allow the artists
(31:58):
to give pictures instead of paying the bills, and it
has since become, you know, one of the great restaurants
of the world. Really it's atmosphere and for all its
fame and uh, you know, they're not necessarily easy to
get a table, especially during the Canned Film Festival or something.
It is the friendliest, warmest place. It's really, you.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Know, like all these good places there.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
You might think they're going to be frightening the river
under the River Cafe, you won't find people looking snooterly
at you at all. It's the opposite of good restaurant
to have snootiness, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Gary Lineker is many things, an acclaimed sports broadcaster, one
of the great heroes of football. One of his great
joys is cooking for his family. Here he is talking
about the culture of food within football.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
It's one of the great changes in football is the
nutrition side of things absolute.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I think it's a gradual change.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
I think understanding of what feeds the body, and more
professional outlets to it, more money coming into the game
so they could afford you know, clubs now that the
staff around football clubs are extraordinary. When I played, you'd
get you'd have a coach, a manager, a coach, maybe
another one other coach goalkeeping coach. Possibly you'll have a
(33:21):
physio and they some clubs love a doctor.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And that was about it.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Now like there's there's there probably are five people just
do a nutrition alone. They'll have cooks every day cooking
them food after training, in all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It's it's changed dramatically.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
When I was like, what you're doing for lunch, Well,
we're going down the pub for a pint and a
pie before a game.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah well no, not before a game, after.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Train although al those some players maybe some players maybe.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Do you know what what what would be I mean
for you as an athlete if you knew we had
a game, what would you have for breakfast and what
would you have lunch?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Well, you wouldn't have lunch and breakfast.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Probably a few playing at three o'clock, so you probably
basically have like a brunch at eleven o'clock or stuff.
I don't actually know what they do pretty much now
because it used to be what you said, right, you
need some carbs in you for the energy and stuff
like that. But I think most of their diets is
very healthy. If you look at football as they're all
ripped now, like you know, all these abs everywhere. When
(34:19):
I first started playing, we were told, whatever you do,
don't don't do any upper body weight work because you're
completely you know, you'll be all stiff and wooding on
the pitch and you won't be as agile, absolute poppy,
complete nonsense. So you never saw players particularly kind of
ripped and muscular in my day that you do now,
because that's that was the thinking.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I rarely talk about alcohol, you know, because this is
mostly about food. But I was wondering about how do
you combine discipline with pleasure? Because we've seen people like
George Best. How do you combine being a twenty four
year old with being somebody wanted to party, wanted to socialize,
very handsome with being they are, and how do you
(35:04):
combine that figure with pleasure.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I wasn't there. I was never a big drinker. I
didn't drink, I didn't go down.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I wasn't one of those that went down the pub
after training, unlike some. So I kind of looked after myself.
I was very driven, very motivated, very ambitious to do better.
So I tried to give myself the best chance. Yes,
I'd like to night out with it with the best
of them, but It's like most players, the vast majority.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Of players understood that.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Even then, you know, it's not really a great combination
drinking loads of pipes and then playing in a couple
of days time I didn't. Manager called John Wallace, so
I was so terrified of that. He kind of stopped
me doing any of that nonsense.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And what about when you went to Barcelona?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Arsona was fabulous. It was a great experience, a wonderful
place to live.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Was it the first experience in a foreign city or
had you I'd.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
Been on holidays. I've been lots of holidays, but it
was the first. You know, I didn't really contemplate going
to live abroad, but then the opportunity came.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You go by yourself. Got married just before we went.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
So I played the World Cup in eighty six in Mexico,
came back, got married, went on honeymoon, went straight to
Barcelona from.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
There three years? How did that affect your food and
eating and all?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I mean, I love the food there.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Why did you love?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I loved the fresh fish that was always available.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
I mean, it's obviously you know you're living in a
port there and some great restaurants. I loved tapas, I
love Pia the beach. I mean, we had an amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
We get up.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
I'd get up in the morning about nine something, go
to the ground. We'd train for a you know, a
couple of hours. By lunchtime you had done. I come home.
We jump in the car, go to the beach club
Castels at Fells. We'd have like a.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Seafood and a pie here on the beach.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
We leave about five, get home about six o'clock, have
a yester for two or three hours, and then go
out for dinner, which you couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
A restaurant ten eleven.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Twelve o'clock at night, because if you went to a
restaurant in Barcelona back then, it's changed a bit. Now
it's still late, but nothing like as nat as it
used to be. If you went to a restaurant before
ten o'clock, they'd either be empty or closed. But actually
they what they do is they break up their sleep,
so you then go home at one two o'clock in
(37:33):
the morning and sleep for five six hours, and then.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It's totally different.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
It was.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
It was totally different, but it was. It didn't take
a long getting.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Used to it didn't. It really does, did you have
kids at the time. No even better, good said, we interested,
And I once gave a party in London. We invited
the mayor of Barcelona. He was in town and he said,
I can't come for the part. I'll come a little
bit later. And so he didn't show up by you know,
(38:04):
eleven o'clock, and so we thought, okay, it's not coming
and went to bed. At two thirty in the morning,
the doorbell rang and he was like, expecting the party,
I'm here.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I ran downstairs. So they just left.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You know, it's a party, just it's a totally.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Different It's like living with on a different time. Yeah,
and it's only an hour different.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
But say, did you do it? What a game night?
Speaker 8 (38:28):
Then?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
So when you were when you were well.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Sometimes the games sometimes you play kickoff will be like
nine o'clock at night quite often, you know. And Sundays
you used play at five o'clock. That was that was
kind of their Saturday at three. So they often play
on Sundays at five.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Laura Dearn is a great actor and a great friend.
She's a bold and brave spokesperson for women in the
film industry. She cares about food and the politics of
feeding people safely and sustainable. When Laura came to the
River Cafe earlier this year, we talked about food and movies,
working with the director David Lynch, and the Southern food
(39:09):
that her grandmother cooked for her.
Speaker 9 (39:12):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, So a majority of
my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama,
and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi, and
(39:34):
so the roots of my family are so tied to
food and tradition in the South.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Southern cooking is the region when we think about France
and Italy and Britain having you know, the north of
France has a very different cuisine from the South of France,
and Piermonte has a very different cuisine from Sicily. And
then you think about American food, do you think, well,
there's a food of Vermont really different from the food
of Ohio or but the food actually of the South
(40:07):
has such a strong identity.
Speaker 9 (40:09):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watched the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just
like in the Great Lakes. You know, this a very
Scandinavian focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly
in New Orleans. Obviously there's so much French influence, but
there's also the influence of the American farmer. And what
(40:32):
was incredible was in lower income families, the food was
simpler and from the land that you had. But my
grandmother was getting what she could from her fellow friends
and farms locally.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So it's did she move to LA to take care
of you? Yeah? Oh she did. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (40:54):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know that was sort of
the staple of your meal. But when she was in
the South, especially when they were on the farm, the
major meal of the day was breakfast, which was so wild.
(41:17):
They would have like really like an early morning breakfast
and then go out and work in the fields and
then come back and have this huge breakfast at like
ten in the morning because they'd already been working since
four am. And I remember as a little girl when
I would go visit my grandfather in Mississippi, and at
(41:39):
ten am, it was corn bread and eggs and bacon
and grits and collars and a coconut cake and a
cake over a cake for breakfast with your coffee.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
You know, would this be weekdays as well? Every day
for them? Every day, you know?
Speaker 9 (41:57):
But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was
like a big.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never? Never?
Speaker 9 (42:05):
Although my mom just told me that when they were
first together in New York, he would cook on Sundays
for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do like
a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops or
some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the other actors,
(42:25):
and whoever was working would feed everybody. My mom came
to New York with twenty dollars in her pocket and
a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from a
tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said,
you know, you used to go in and if you
ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a
beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would
(42:47):
give them bread and butter.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, was there
a time when you went off on your own and
suddenly there was not that comfort food.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Or a million percent.
Speaker 9 (43:03):
I mean I started acting at eleven, and I was
on location by myself at sixteen on and working on
movies meant eating on the run and eating poorly and
eating in small towns everywhere, And so it became what
(43:26):
is provided to small town America, which was fast food,
eating tragic.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
This isn't what y're starting in the late seventies.
Speaker 9 (43:36):
And I only discovered the gift of the connection between
eating beautifully and food becoming a part of my artistic
experience in the last decade because of heroes like you.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Would you think that you could work or act or
do what you do better if you actually had healthy
food on a film set, or do you think it
doesn't matter?
Speaker 9 (44:06):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(44:28):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production, how to do that
more and more?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
What was it like with David Lynch, Because you talk
about him a lot and you've worked with him a lot.
Speaker 9 (44:46):
Food wise, it matters to him and sharing a meal
matters to him. And from the first time I worked
with him, which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen,
and those meals are some of my favorite memories, which was,
you know, at night we go and we eat together.
We find a couple of chefs in that town that
(45:06):
become friends. They know what we love and we learn
what they make, and at the end of the day
we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
What about food in movies when you do a food scene?
Ow other food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 9 (45:19):
Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 9 (45:32):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. But we
did a scene in a hotel room in Paris and
it was this very long monologue me on a phone
call and we'd sit down for our cafe olet and
he wanted his Penischokola and he would write on a
(45:56):
legal pad and I would sit there and he would
look at me like a painter and just be writing
this monologue. And then he'd give it to me and
he's like, now while I have my Panasha cola, you
learn your monologue. And it's like seven pages, and so
I'm like, you better eat slow, buddy.
Speaker 10 (46:14):
So then i'd try to learn it and do a
probably poor job.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
But attempt.
Speaker 9 (46:20):
And then we'd go to the hotel room and he
would do my makeup or I would do my makeup,
or we'd work on it together, and then he would
set up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And
we shot this monologue and he was happy with it,
and I was so exciting.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
He was like, we got it.
Speaker 9 (46:38):
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side
table and there were two perfect ladree maquaron which that
hotel would have provided, and there was a pistachio one.
So the green was so beautiful and they bit into
it. It was so fresh. And then he said, okay, now
(47:02):
we'll do the close up, and he set up the
shine and he goes, where's the macaron. I'm like, what
do you mean I ate it.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
He goes, you ate my props.
Speaker 10 (47:10):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie. I ate the prop and he
was like, you have to go now to laderie and
get a pistachio macaron I was.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudy tey that was in the middle of
the table. And the waiter came up and said, you
just ate our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten somehow. I said,
I need the floral arrangement, I think, and then guess
(47:45):
what happened. My whole mouth went nam. It was part
of that floral arrangement was some weird plant. And I thought, okay,
I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die in this lunch with
the mayor of Mexico because I ate the flower flower
plant no called flat something. Do you think about food
a lot? Do you think what you're going to eat
the next day, or do you go to bed thinking, well,
(48:06):
well I have when I wake up, or do you
wake up and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 9 (48:10):
My son started cooking. We've started having conversations that we
never had before and challenging ourselves, you know, like how
do we really make truly a great Cajun style red
beans and rice? Because we talk about my grandmother and
how I'd have red beans didn't you know as a
(48:32):
baby only Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Is there a food that you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 9 (48:37):
It always was cobbler growing up.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
A certain fruit or just any cobbler.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Maybe peaches pieces.
Speaker 9 (48:44):
That would be, you know, because of remembering my grandmother's
love of it and her taste, the taste of peaches
and like that idea of summer and the scent of them.
But I think for me now, comfort is community.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Let's go eat, eat all right? Thank you, thank.
Speaker 9 (49:08):
You, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
That's all for this season of Ruthie's Table four. We
will be back in the autumn with new conversations, new recipes,
and memories to share. Until then, have a wonderful summer.
Speaker 8 (49:33):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
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