January 29, 2024 • 44 mins
Last Wednesday, 24 hours after being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in ‘Maestro’, Carey Mulligan arrived at The River Cafe. She joined chef Sian Owen in the kitchen to cook scallops, and sat down with Ruthie to discuss her celebrated career and the foods she loves.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Ask Gray Findes about Carrie Mulligan and he will tell
you she is a brilliant actor and was a uniquely
brilliant partner in their movie The Dick. Ask Lord Michaels
about her hosting Saturday Night Live, and he will say
(00:20):
she was one of the best in almost fifty years.
Ask David Hare, the writer and Robert Fox, the producer
of their place, Starlight, and they will talk about her
killer ambition for authenticity and excellence and her kindness to
everyone involved. To day, twenty four hours after being nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Actress in the movie Maestro,
(00:43):
she is here in the River Cafe kitchen cooking scallops
and sage with River Cafe executive chef Shawn Owen. And
I know that when this morning is over and all
of you ask me about Carrie Mulligan, absolutely and for
sure the answer will be I love her so nice.
(01:05):
So kay you just we're cooking the recipe which I
would love you to read for scallops, and then we'll
talk about everything.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Eight medium scallops olive oil, sea salt.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And freshly ground pepper.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
One tablespoon salted capers prepared, half a bunch of sage
leave stalks removed, one lemon. Brush a frying pan with
a little oil and place over high heat. When smoking,
add the scallops. Season with a little salt and pepper
and cook for two minutes on one side. Turn the
scallops over and immediately add the capers and sage leaves,
plus a little extra olive oil so the sage leaves fry.
(01:48):
Cook for a further two minutes, shaking the pan constantly,
Squeeze the juice of the lemon and serve.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Get the pan really hot.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, put the scollops around the and see.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Them, and then let's check in a turning minute more.
I'm trying to think about a scolet and thinking about
what's delicious about a scolp?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Is it a texture as it because it's.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
A very delicate sweetness.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think it's a sweetness because I'm funny with texture
some things. And yeah, I think it's the sweetness of something. Yeah,
and usually a pretty good thought, right, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How long is this? Then? I reckon two or three minutes?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And then that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, then sweeze a bit of lemon in now good
old generous amounts of olive oil, isn't there?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah? I love that. Well, we're on pips of it here. Yeah,
but it's very good.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, easy, easy.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It's about getting the right amount of color on and
letting them sit. And then you know you can put
instead of lemon juice, you can put vinegar. Yeah, instead
of capers, you can put actuvies. Instead of saved you
can put that as all.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
That's delicious, cool, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So much so having cooked it? What was that like? Oh,
it's so well.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's one of those things that I would have. I'd
love to do at home, but I feel like you
need to do it when people are already there because
you want to give it, you know, to people straight away.
I wouldn't have the confidence with that, but I think
I would have a good at now good. I think
it's about having really good scollops. And I always love
when you actually are in a kitchen you see how
(03:38):
much olive oil goes and everything A little bit of olive.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oil, a lot of oil. Yeah, And so when you
say that you would like to do it for dinner,
for people coming to dinner. But then there is that separation,
isn't there where you're cooking and they're there. Do you
like to cook around people or do you like our
house we have.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's like a farmhouse kitchen. So we have a big
we don't have like a cooking isle or separate. It's
sort of a one big room, sort of a big table.
It was an old chemistry lab table and that's in
the middle of the room. And then so everything kind
of you cook around My husband is more. He does
it more than like he does all the big event
cooking like Christmases and you know, Sunday races and things
(04:22):
like that. I'll do if we've got you know, ten people,
I'll do like a big stew or a big.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Castrole or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
But he's he's good at knocking stuff up, like we
have barely anything in the fridge, and he can make
something out of that, whereas I need a very clear.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And yeah, you have cooked on stage? Was it? That's
just it? No, it was west End? What was it
a first room west End?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It was first in the west End.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, David was telling me this morning about cooking spaghetti
bollonnaise on stage. And he was saying that Stephen Dawdry
being Stephen Daldry, insisted on having a chef come from
somewhere who was one of the great chefs to tell
me about cooking. Answer. Was it the first time you'd
ever had to cook on stage? Yeah? Eating onstage? Really?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, because I would I would cook it in the
first half and I would eat it in the second half.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was very basic, but there was a musicality to
the way. So much of it was cooking. It was
one thing, but also fitting it in because she's cooking
in what turns into an enormous row, and so much
of the physicality of the cooking was in the sort
of smashing of garlic and chopping, and you know, so
(05:45):
I had to be cooking but also furious, but also
controlled that I didn't cut my finger off whilest I
was furious. So and there was a lot of kind
of comedy to you know, the way that Bill would
come over and sort of aunts and judge the way
that it was being cooked. And you know, putting the
oil in first or not putting the oil in. That
(06:06):
was one of the little gags. But yeah, and the
theater would fill with the smell of cooking, And so
I used to say to anyone who was coming to
see it, particularly my dad, you have to eat before
you come, because if you come and you watch a
play that I mean, it's like for two and a
half three hours long, you know, and you're hungry, you're
going to hate it, And that's so unfair of us.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Was it for real or was it mostly theater? Was
it it was totally edible.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I mean, it probably wasn't great, but it was you know,
I ate it and it was tasted fine to me.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I about eating on stage.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
When I did it in New York, I was pregnant,
and I did go through a phase of feeling incredibly
unwell and nothing was good to eat.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So for a while it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I was taking very small nibbles in the second half,
but no, generally I kind of loved it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And in film there are also scenes of you eating, yes,
and drive in the diner and not eating, and so
most recently in Maestrow, which I saw at the opening
night in your phenomenal great movie and very compelling. You know,
I grew up with the Bernstein's, you know, I didn't
(07:14):
know them, but I mean as as major figures in
our lives from not just West Side Story and his concerts,
but their their involvement in social politics, for which they
were hugely maligned, which was unfair by Tom Wolfe for
the radical chic because and especially your character Felicia was
(07:36):
really involved in the civil rights struggle in the Vietnam War.
And as a character, I thought that it wasn't so what,
it wasn't really that much in the film. But she
was formidable.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
She was, and it was at one point a whole
radical chic scene. Yeah. Yeah, but I think you know
the thing, the script evolved David five years. But yeah,
and she wasn't actually when I went to I went
to Chile and I met her family there and they
talked about you know, she was active from a young age,
(08:10):
from when she was a teenager in Santiago. She waschet.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I wonder whether he was then and Chile had that
been before I think before.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, But she was very but she was a real homemaker,
you know, she she didn't cook. I don't think I
think she had Julia Vega. She had people in her
life that were but she everything was. They called her
the living the dining room, at the apartment of the Dakota,
the French restaurant, because every time anyone came, it was
(08:43):
beautifully kind of table every tablescape was unbelievable, the flowers
that were brought in, and I think every kind of
environment where she was a host was very kind of
beautifully put on. And she talks about being responsible for
the kitchen of life, and that everything was you know,
it was ordering the best produced and ordering the best
(09:06):
flowers and ordering you know, that was a big part
of her life, particularly in New York, also upstate, I think,
but in New York that was a big part of
her kind of she loved fostering this kind of beautiful environment.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
What was the filming like, what was the experience of
doing that movie?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It was amazing, I mean it was. It was the
closest I think to a part that I had played.
I always sort of felt like I had played you know,
Nina and the Seagull and you know, Kira and Skylight
and doing this monologue of girls and boys. I had
these kind of kind of epic roles on stage, and
(09:47):
I felt when I read Felicia that she had that breadth.
So she had that kind of you know it felt
like a kind of Chekhov all. It felt like she's
got this huge journey and she starts and she actually
not dissimilar to Nina in some ways, because she does
start as this actress with this burning ambition and as
disillusioned and you know, driven to you know too well
(10:15):
in my opinion, not madness, but driven to sort of
to a completely different place by the end of the
story and having.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Become a completely different person.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And I feel like Felicia really has that huge you know,
she came to New York, you know, bright as a
button and full of hope and ambition, and you really
do get a sense of her being worn down by
her experience. So just the character on its own was amazing.
The way that Bradley works is so unique and so
(10:47):
and I loved completely different experience, nothing like I'd ever
done before, completely, you know, and I think because he's
in it as well. But you know, the most amazing
set where you don't feel like you're in a film set,
feel like you're walking on stage.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And that was right. Where where did we shot.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We shot in Tanglewood for the first week, which was amazing.
Then we shot in New York and then We were
on a sound stage in Brooklyn for a minute, and
then we had a break and then we shot Ely
Cathedral and we shot in a sound stage in London
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, and I in terms of again about eating, in
food and nourishment, this is a character who wastes away,
who starts disappearing, and the way you conveyed her fragility
and his emotions, dealing with you know, her husband's the effect, well,
(11:46):
dealing with the effect and the family. And so to
see this strong woman in the beginning that you played
and then how was that for you when when having
to show someone dying a terrible disease is Yeah, it
was I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
We we shot her younger stuff right at the beginning
of the shoot, and then we jumped straight to a
scene after she's diagnosed with cancer. And it was the
first time I think I played anyone over a span
of so many years. So she was the first week
it was sort of a younger wig in black and white,
and then the following Monday I had prosthetics on and
(12:26):
I think.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Actually, I thought that there would be a lot more.
I'd have to like map it a lot more but
it was interesting once I was in the prosthetics and
the costume of that point in her life. It's funny
what it does looking at yourself in the mirror when
you know, we did the makeup for when she's right
at the end of her life. Took about four and
a half hours and was prosthetics and lots of painting
(12:51):
in and these incredible contact lenses that took out the
sort of white around my eyes. And when I had
the head scarf on, and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
You know, you look in the mirror and you do
feel different.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It is an odd thing to look at Also, because
we weren't trying to make her look I wasn't trying
to look like Felicia, because Felicia isn't a well known
face in the way that Bradley needed to look like Lenny.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
We I just looked like myself.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And so, you know, I remember saying to Duncan, who
was doing my prosthetics and Sean Gregg makeup artist, I said,
is this basically a time machine, like you know, without
the illness before the illness? Is this essentially you know?
And I do look.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Exactly like my mom.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, in the palm court, you know, I look exactly
how my mom does, and so it was it kind
of interesting. Yeah, the whole thing was very interesting, But
when it came to the six stuff, it was a
lot of it was based on Bradley's experience of his
father who had cancer and pastway accounts, so and I
knew that, you know, some of the detail that had
(13:51):
been written in folding up the napkins was something that
Bradley's dad did, and lots of it was so lots
of I've felt constantly aware of him. And then also
when people would see me in the makeup, and I think,
you know, if you've had anyone in your life who's
been through an illness that has affected them like that
(14:13):
physically and visibly, you know. I remember an ad sort
of like bursting into tears because she just sort of
it reminded her too much of someone that she loved,
and so I felt just really determined to not to
get it right, but also that if there was something
about the sort of general sense of everybody. By that point,
(14:35):
we just had the most incredible crew. There was so amazing.
It really felt like that it didn't when you walked
on set. It wasn't like this actor has this hard
thing to do. It was like, oh, this person's not well.
And that was an incredible kind of feeling. And that's
how the set felt that whole week when we showed
you No, who didn't it?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I mean I ate at home and I ate, but
when I was at work now, I just yeah, because
there was you know, and I remember the physical the
way that she remember Mot Bridges, our costume designer, brought
this little shawl that goes over her shoulders when she's
receiving visitors, and it's so it was my grandmother. My my
grandmother had dementia. She didn't but she did lose lots
(15:16):
of weight and she did get you know, as she
was unable to feed herself, you know, she it was
you know, it was constantly trying to get her to
intake nutrition. But I remember the way her shoulders kind
of came forward and it was so highlighted by this
this shawl that was over her. And so when he
(15:36):
brought that shawl, that sense of fragility and it was
just so it just I felt it, you know, just
it was so kind of eerie. How you know that
physicality is just so familiar.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Did you know the river cafe has a sharp It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
and then in napkins kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures,
glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
right next door to the River Cafe in London or
online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK. Growing up,
(16:25):
you grew up in a hotel, is that right? For
the first we grew up in Yeah, we lived in hotels.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I was almost eight. My father was a hotel manager
for Intercontinental for my whole childhood until I was sort
of eighteen, so I was born. I think we were
at the.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Brittannia when I was born.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
My dad was running the Brittannia hotel, and then in London, Yeah,
and then the Yeah yeah, yeah so there and then
the Mayfair. And then we moved to Germany to Hanover
and Dusseldorf and he ran hotels there, and then we
moved back to London. He ran I can't remember in
the hotel he then he was at the Churchill in
(17:04):
Portman Square, so he moved around those and he also
ran hotels in Vienna and Frankfurt.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah did you but you actually lived in the hotel.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
We lived in the hotel till I was eight.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
When you were a bit like Elowise. Do you remember
that book Allowas? Did you even know that growing up
in the plaza? Would you run around the hotels?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Fine, what was that like living in a hotel?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was amazing. I mean it was you know, it's
kind of all we knew. But I look back and
I think, oh wow, that was kind of an extraordinary
way to grow up. And my brother and I were
certainly you know, we would sort of roll around with
the the maids, you know, going into people's rooms after
they checked out, and sort of you know, I remember
(17:46):
sort of sitting in the basket with all the sheets,
you know, with my hands holding on, rolling around the
corridor and you know, sitting on with my whole body
wrapped around a hoover, you know, going up and down
the hallways.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
We were ordering room service.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Did we had It was like that, you know, they'll
have a they'll have a little I mean in the
place at the hotels that we lived in the sort
of an apartment in the top floor for the manager.
So we lived in a Yeah, Mum talks about I mean,
we had our own little mini kitchen and stuff, but
it was more. Yeah, we didn't do room service, but
we did have our linen changed. I'm pretty sure someone
(18:22):
always says that was a massive bonus and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Has been living at the arm the job and being
the manager and living there. Yeah, I mean great for
the hotel to have the manager there. Yeah. Are you
one of many? Are you?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
No? Just me and my brother?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
But we were bilingual because we moved to Germany when
I was three, and we went to you know, we
learned German. We went to I went to a German kindergarten,
Rudolph Stein in kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And then I went to school in Hanover.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
We were with a lot of X you know, with
military kids, and and then we were in distledor for
in international school, and then we moved home. So we
were there. We was the only thing I remember about
the kitchen because we were, you know, nowhere near the kitchen.
That was not And I was saying earlier, my dad,
you know, I think briefly worked in kitchens on his way.
He worked his way up from kind of collecting glasses
(19:11):
in a restaurant to being the manager. Yeah, and he
so whenever he cooks. Generally I exit the building because
it's just not what is it like, he just likes
things ordered and the way that they and you know,
for us to sort of come in and sort of
(19:31):
casually start munching on something, his heart was not not
part of it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So that, yeah, it's but my.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Memory of one of my birthday parties when I was
little was at the hotel in Disseldorf, and you know,
the pastry chef made a bunch of dough. We were
all making little dollies out of dough, and then they
took them off and cooked them in the kitchen and
brought them back. And the birthday cakes, you know, when
(20:00):
we lived in hotels were always you know, those very
elaborate kind of I feel like they always had liquor
in them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
They always had like.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
A bit of booze. It like properly kiddie birthday cakes,
and they had like very beautiful writing in icing and
all that kind of stuff. There was always such a
sense of occasion in hotels. It's always like there's a
big display for Christmas or there's a big you know,
it was like there was always this sort of sense
of there's a sort of event happening. But I always felt,
(20:28):
really I like being nomadic. I don't mind, you know,
I like being in hotel tells I'm not someone who
I don't need to bring. You know, some people sort
of need to bring stuff with them to make wherever
they are feel like home.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Carries with her.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Do you know the only time I ate lunch here
was with Tracy.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Tracy she described, you know that she I think she's
ever ordered room service. She would always, you know, I'd
go out and find something and take her food on
the plane or take an object. And as you say,
I love hotels so much that I actually don't like
when I'm upgraded to a suite because it reminds me
too much of home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like the
(21:06):
confines of a hotel whom you can find everything. You know,
where your book is, you know where everything is. I
always thought that maybe I'd be one of those women
who age, you know, Richard be in a state at
Clarages for the rest of, you know, of our days.
I had said to him, if we saw our house,
how many nights do you think we'd get in claritges.
He's like probably six. And do you think there was
(21:28):
a performance that you had to behave in a certain
way with strangers.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think so, yeah, yeah, we had you know, we
met people who were staying at the hotel sometimes and
there was a real kind of day. It felt like
being a bit of a like a diplomat's stater or something.
You know, someone would come and stay at the hotel
and you would greet them.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You know, did that prepare you, do you think for
acting in a certain way? I think yeah, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I think also moving around constantly, kind of being the
new kid and meetings. The time I was eight, we
had moved. You know, I'd been at a I think
three places in Germany, three four schools, no three so
nursery and then two schools and then home to a
convent school in Buckinghamshire. And then when I was eleven
(22:15):
I moved again, and then when I was thirteen I
moved again. So we were so I think I was
always kind of used to being new and having to
introduce myself adapt to people, and you know that sort
of thing.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
What was Cherman food like, do you have a memory
of it or did you?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, lots of quite meat meat based food. I mean
we you know, we were amongst kind of lots of
Brits as well, so but we spent we were amazingly lucky.
We got to go skiing in Austria in our holidays
and things, we you know, spent lots of We had
lots of casia, keaza, spetzel and you know venus nitzel
(22:53):
and delicious like warm, brothy things to be able to
warm up. But yeah, I think we you know, because
it was also an international hotel. It was you know,
it wasn't we were if I was eating stuff from
it wasn't necessarily German cuisine or anything.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
I usually asked people about their families and growing up,
and restaurants were restaurants, But in your case, I often
asked if restaurants were a special occasion, which was the tooth.
In my family, we went out to restaurants for somebody's
birthday and somebody's anniversary or something great had happened and
you'd celebrate a restaurant. Here we see people just coming
(23:32):
out for dinner with their kids all the time, and
maybe it was just more for you, that was that
something that.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Was just.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I suppose that I don't really remember going to restaurants
at all. I don't remember going to nice you know,
white tablecloth restaurants. Ever, with my we would go to
there was a pizza place in Duszledorf that we would
go to, but like really a hole on the wall
kind of pizza place, and that was sort of a
treat that we would go there. I don't think we
went to I remember what for the Millennium my dad
(24:03):
was running the Intercontinental in Vienna and there was a
big Millennium meal there and I was fourteen and fourteen
fifteen I think, yeah, fourteen, and my best friend came
with me and we bought dresses, you know, for millennium
and we sat and it was a proper white tablecloth,
seven course meal thing, and that was very That was
(24:26):
a big, big deal. So I don't think we did necessarily.
Although when I was when we moved home and we
were living in you know, Buckinghamshire, we used to go
if there was anything to celebrate, we'd go to Mister
Poone's the Chinese restaurant and go and have big Chinese
and we did that kind of for years.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Your parents cook for you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I mean Mum's always you know, she couldn't turn her
hand to anything. She was never a sort of passionate cook,
I think because Dad was the cook. So if there
was meals that were cooked, it would be Dad, you know.
And Mum, my grandmother was a was a wonderful Yeah.
I loved baking. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So where did she live?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So she was my mother's Welsh So she was in Carmarthenshire.
So and every time I went to her for any
kind of length of time, we were just bake and bacon, bake.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh well everything.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Welsh cakes, famously delicious Welsh cakes.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Welsh cakes, that's don't tell Sean, I asked you this
because I've lived in this country for.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well if you weren't it. But they're like their little
mini sort of flat cake with raisins in and like
a scone. Yeah, like a sort of flatter scone. But
she'd make amazing Welsh cakes. A cherry almond cake, a
delicious cherry almond cake that just got better the longer
you left it in the tin. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It was that kind of thing. I know that you're
you're from going from school. You knew that acting was
going to be an essential part of your life. Yeah,
can you tell me how that happened? It was all
I wanted to do. From a young age, but I
didn't think of it really as a career until I
(26:07):
was probably twelve. You know, maybe I wanted to do
musical theater. That was the big you know. That's my
mum and I went to go and see every musical.
Every time we could go into London, we'd go and
see musical. We went to New York together, just the
two of us, and went saw did you Cabaret? Was
the original? There's some Mendes Studio fifty four. We saw that.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I told this to him the other day, but I
saw Kevin Bacon in a one man show at the
Walterkerr Theater. I forget the name of it. But I
then later years later went and did The Seagull at
the Walter curR and it was a really crazy kind
of full circle thing. So I was I was sort
of wanted to do musical theater. Then was slowly sort
of realizing that that was quite a big job in
(26:52):
terms of dance and song. And I wasn't a dancer,
and I kind of was a choir singer, but not
a singer singer. Was not enormously interested in film so much.
I mean I loved movies. I loved you know, my
favorite all of my favorite films like Indiana Jones, Last Crusade,
and you know, I liked sort of Spielberg like proper movies.
(27:16):
And then I slowly realized that it was more kind
of theater that I was probably just straight theater just
in place. So it was when I was at I
auditioned for a bunch of drama schools basically and didn't
get into any of them. But that was my first
sort of big, sort of attempt to do to kind
of make it a job, which didn't get very well.
(27:39):
But then I found another kind of way in luckily
actually right around the cord from me here, to go
to Riverside Studios to do Young Blood Theater Workshop, which
was an amazing I don't know if it still happens,
but it was an incredible experience. It was once a week,
I did it for months, where you would come together
with a bunch of other actors of a similar age.
(27:59):
But I'd ever acted really with boys before, you know,
because I've been in an all girls school and for
people from all different walks of life. And it was
a lot of improvisation, a lot of just you would
just be sitting all in the circle on the floor
and then you would suddenly have to be in the
middle of the room doing a scene about something and
it was just a real I loved it and made
(28:19):
really good friends and we did I think one or
two little productions there, and then an audition for a
new version of Pride and Prejudice and that was my
first job.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So that so I knew we were working in pubs. Did
you did you have to have a job that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, I left school and that was you know, I
had not gone to rom school, so I was taking
a gap year and it was in that year that
I worked in the pubs.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, I remember the food and it was like proper
just pubs.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I mean I worked on a barge, like a restaurant
sort of barge in Marlowe, but I was serving, I
was never making. And then I worked in two pubs
at the same time, just picking up shifts in the
in whichever one. But I'd liked I liked the sort
of kind of energy of it. I think I also
(29:04):
quite like being in charge of giving people drinks. That
I was behind this bar and I was eighteen, I
probably looked about fifteen, and yet I was sort of
pulling pints for you know, big burly men, and it
felt kind of like quite a powerful position to be
And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, it's a performance, isn't it an acting and cooking?
You know? I think the reason I always say that
a lot of actors like to work, of course it
suits them, you know, to work part time in a
restaurant if they're trying to pursue their career, is that
there is a lot of drama in a restaurant. Yeah,
and the energy. Do you remember what you ate in
(29:44):
those years? When I talked to Emily Blunt, it was,
you know, hamburger after hamburger after hamburger, and eating and
eating and eating. She ate, so she would describe, even
when she had small parts, that she would have two
hamburgers before going on stage. Ye wouldn't be in school.
But do you remember when you were away from or
did you live with your parents when.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
You were I didn't. I'm pride and prejudice. I moved
out for that job, and I do remember that we
were all in corsets, and I remember for the first
and it was a very lovely production. It actually set
me up for disappointment future productions because it was so
we stayed in such nice hotels and the catering were
so lovely, and I remember for the first month or
(30:24):
so we had like really delicious like snacks, but you know,
yummy cakes and biscuits and like delicious granolla y things
that we could nibble on. And after a while they
had to take out our costumes because we'd all and
our courses had to get sort of loosen to because
we'd all've.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Been having a lovely time.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
And then I moved into a flat with two boys
in Highgate and I think I ate you know, literally
pot noodles. Whilst I did theater. I also got into
a habit of having to have a double espresso before
I did a show. I didn't eat really before the
play I did. I did a play at the Royal
Court straight after which it was called forty Winks. It
(31:04):
was a Kevin Elliott play. It was a real shock
for me because it went, you know, it was briden Bridges,
was a summer of you know, real kind of sort
of basically massive party and the best time and I
and I and I was delighted. It was Royal Court
is my favorite theater in the world, hands down. Ten
million times. But I was playing a narcolepts, a girl
(31:25):
with narcolepsy who also might have been a victim of rape.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I mean it was.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It was really kind of harrowing and and in a
very kind of surrounded by real heavy weight, incredible actors,
and I suddenly thought, oh my gosh, this is not
what I don't know how to do this at all,
but it was. I was in real kind of just yeah,
just theater.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Have an espresso. The espresso started then before yeah, before
the place.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I did that for years through theater until probably
until I did Girls and Boys, and I stopped.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well to talk about because that the Royal Court is
actually our local theater hand car as we live further
down the keys. What makes you love a theater?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I mean, I think that was my first theater, so
that was special. Then I went back there and did
The Seagull when I was twenty one Christopher Hampton Ian Rickson,
and and that was just completely I just that that role,
everything about it, I just and I feel like I
(32:31):
kind of I don't know, there was something about the
pre show thing. I would go underneath the I'd go
down all the way down to the bottom of the
stairs all the way back up again. I'd run around
like a mad woman before so because when Nina comes on,
she's really out of breath, and I wanted to be
genuinely out of breath. So I would run around, and
then I would sort of burst onto stage at the
(32:52):
last minute. And the smell of it, I don't know,
there was just so much about that theater. Every time
I step in there, I just feel, oh, I just
love it it.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, And so you would have your espresso before the play,
and then and then afterwards, would you do that thing
of going out to dinner with a bunch of friends,
people who had seen the play.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And sometimes I mean, Mason, what I also love about
the Royal Court is the downstairs. I'd always just go
down there afterwards and we all would you know. I
don't remember eating. I remember I remember eating corner sans
a little corners and a glass of red wine and corn,
you know, just loads of little corner shechans back then.
(33:32):
But I don't remember going out for food much. I
just sort of think I'd probably just go home and
eat whata bits or something at the end of the night.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You know, there's money an issue, Yeah, at that time.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, it was, you know, it's it was the minimum
wage theater, so it was. And I was spending money
on living in a highgate living and you know, paying
rent up there, so it wasn't Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I was.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I ate quite a lot of cereal.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Do you remember when food became a kind of measure
of your success that you could say, I can afford
to eat well now because I'm I'm earning more money. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I think I got really into sushi when I lived
in New York.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I was living in New York.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Probably what was I doing. I was doing theater there,
but I was also doing a bit of film. I
did the film Steph McQueen called Shame and and I
remember I remember.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Sitting down with.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know, my with a financial advisor sort of figuring
out working in America and working. And he looked at
my bank's name as he said, oh, you seem to
have spent lots of money on rent and sushi.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
I was like, that was pretty good. That's what we did.
We lived in Paris. It was the same thing those days.
You had check books, and we used to look at
our checkbook at the end of the mother stubs and
basically it was all restaurants. When we weren't working, we
were just eating out, exploring, because you do learn about
a culture through the food.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Don't you.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah. Yeah. If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for
would you please make sure to rate and review the
podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thank you for a moment. I'd
(35:31):
like to talk about war child, and I think that
we see the effects of war, and we're seeing it
right now, aren't we We're seeing it every day. And
I was wondering what you feel about how that, how
warchild affected your your views of children in poverty, children
in danger, and food insecurity.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So I was doing Skylight and I was I would
I had this sort of you know, I have a
little routine that I largely stick to, is I go
into a theater at sort of five, eat, then have
a nap for twenty minutes twenty five minutes poundnap, and
then I wake up and I have my coffee and
(36:14):
I get.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Ready for the show.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
But I would listen to the six o'clock news every night,
and that summer of two thousand and fourteen was was
terrible for children in conflict, and that a lot of
the news was about what's happened.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
In twenty fourteen, it.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Was when the U D's were escaping Isis, and there
were there was a lot of coverage and lots of
images on the news. I remember seeing on the news
as well, all the u ZD refugees were on Sinjo
Mountain and they were being evacuated, and I remember seeing
images of you know, mums and dads with their babies
flinging them into the helicopter to try and get, you know,
(36:55):
someone to take the baby. And I didn't have kids then,
but I but I remember thinking, I cannot imagine what
it takes for you to think in this moment, I'm
just going to hurl my baby into someone as strange as.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
You know, and hope that they are even caught.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
And what must that take to be in that And
I was just thinking about a lot, as everyone was.
And my brother had been in Afghanistan and he had
encountered this girl's school that had been shut down by
the Taliban and he'd raised on his own lots of
money to help this school reopen so the girls could
(37:34):
get back to school. And he had written to a
bunch of different endos asking for help kind of facilitating this,
and War Child were the only ones that had written
back and made it very easy and so we'll take
and we don't need a commission, and we'll just we'd
love to do this and help. And so he had
come back from Afghanistan saying, like, this charity is really
interesting and really cool. So I went to the Democratic
(37:55):
Republic of Congo that October and we went around and
saw the projects that they were doing, met the children
they worked with, and at the end of that week,
I said, I'd really love to kind of focus on this,
and so they asked me to be an ambassador. I
went to the Ukraine with them in two thousand and
twenty two at the end of that year.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Did you feel that children were Yeah, we're hungry.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's so different in country to countries.
So in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the thing that
I noticed was how I mean one of the camps
that we went to was an IDP camp internally displaced people,
and they were I mean, it was one of the
worst places I've ever It was a really, really awful,
awful camp and two children there the week that we
(38:44):
visited had died of malnutrition of you know, had starved
to death. Basically, it's definitely a huge issue in some
countries and some you know, I remember we were in
when we were in Budapest, we met some Roma refugee
toi ildren who were living in a in a homeless shelter.
They had fled the Ukraine. Their homes had been destroyed
(39:06):
and they were now living in this sort of homeless
shelter in Budapest. And there it was you know, they
were having food provided, but it was food that they
had no connection to. They had no so the children
wouldn't eat. You know that you can't make a child
eat something they've grown up their entire life having the
And these women who were in the shelter, they said,
all we want is a kitchen. We just want to
(39:27):
be able to make food. And their little three year
olds are just rejecting because they're just first of all traumatized,
but secondly they've got no So there was there was
food available, but it was packaged bought in kind of
you know, for them to be able to make food
that was familiar and comfortable and inexpensive, but something that
just for them to be able to provide their own
(39:48):
and also for these women who are also suffering for
their own trauma, for the ritual of cooking together as
a family, for that to be something that they could
do community wise, I think, you know, would have been
such a powerful kind of healer for them.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Times and a communicator.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
When we were in Ukraine, we cooked with these women
in the in the shelter, and you know, I couldn't
speak any you know, we were completely you know, we
had an interpreter, but really it was just peeling potatoes together,
and you know, it's a wonderful way to communicate with them.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
That story you told of the woman throwing her child
into the helicopter, I remember, Richard and I were living
in Paris in the seventies. So you met someone whose
grandmother had knew that the you know, the Nazis coming
to take them away from the Jewish ghetto in Paris.
And she said that she her grandmother and her mother
were on one side of the barricade caving on a
(40:46):
train to towards Auschwitz. And they then nanny came rushing
for them to see because she'd come home and so
and they threw her. They just threw her physical I mean,
throwing a child is quite a big thing. And then
nanny and she never saw our parents again. So we
think about, you know, the lack of food being denial
(41:08):
for children and the lack of food being hunger, food
being a sign of illness or when your illness that
you're cutting yourself off from food and whatever you know,
and a sign of frailty. It's also it can work
the other way, which your food is joyous when we
cook for our children. It's fun when you cook with
(41:28):
a hope, a chef. It's fun when your family and
your husband are there in their farm wanting to eat.
Maybe you've grown or maybe you've shopped for It also
is in times it's comfort. It's comfort from an it's
emotional eating that we don't always eat when we're hungry.
We eat when we feel something. So my last question
(41:48):
to you on this beautiful day and being here with
you and thank you for coming, is to say, Carrie Mulligan,
if you need comfort, which I hope you don't. I
hope life is just one joyous experience. But if you
need comfort, is there a food that you would reach for? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
My husband makes well. So when I had my first child.
We have a friend who lives near us who's sort
of a baby guru called Rachel Wadelove. She's amazing and
she basically taught us how to look after babies. Well
me at least, was work good at already. And she said,
when your breastfeeding, must have, you know, a slice of cake,
(42:27):
you know all the time. But also this, she had
this recipe for this chicken casserole and it was just
really simple. But the crust on the top was wheatabix
and cheddar cheese.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Yeah, and so Marcus makes this delicious Marcus, and it's
so yummy and it's just chicken and bention whatever. But
the crust is whetavix mushed up with a bit of
salt and cheddar cheese and it melts and it's heaven.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And whenever I'm feeling like.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
A little bit depleted or done in, he'll make that
and will He'll make a big old thing of it,
and we'll start with like fairly conservative portions.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
And I think that's perfect. Okay, Well, thank you very much.
It's a great, great time I'm with you. And now
you're going to go have scalps or whatever there is
in the River cop I do more together. Thank you,
thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
(43:27):
in partnership with Montclair. Ruthie's Table four is produced by
Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers and
it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by
(43:48):
Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers
are Faye Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is
Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bellas. This episode
had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen. Thank you to
everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making
this episode
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Ask Gray Findes about Carrie Mulligan and he will tell
you she is a brilliant actor and was a uniquely
brilliant partner in their movie The Dick. Ask Lord Michaels
about her hosting Saturday Night Live, and he will say
(00:20):
she was one of the best in almost fifty years.
Ask David Hare, the writer and Robert Fox, the producer
of their place, Starlight, and they will talk about her
killer ambition for authenticity and excellence and her kindness to
everyone involved. To day, twenty four hours after being nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Actress in the movie Maestro,
(00:43):
she is here in the River Cafe kitchen cooking scallops
and sage with River Cafe executive chef Shawn Owen. And
I know that when this morning is over and all
of you ask me about Carrie Mulligan, absolutely and for
sure the answer will be I love her so nice.
(01:05):
So kay you just we're cooking the recipe which I
would love you to read for scallops, and then we'll
talk about everything.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Eight medium scallops olive oil, sea salt.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And freshly ground pepper.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
One tablespoon salted capers prepared, half a bunch of sage
leave stalks removed, one lemon. Brush a frying pan with
a little oil and place over high heat. When smoking,
add the scallops. Season with a little salt and pepper
and cook for two minutes on one side. Turn the
scallops over and immediately add the capers and sage leaves,
plus a little extra olive oil so the sage leaves fry.
(01:48):
Cook for a further two minutes, shaking the pan constantly,
Squeeze the juice of the lemon and serve.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Get the pan really hot.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, put the scollops around the and see.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Them, and then let's check in a turning minute more.
I'm trying to think about a scolet and thinking about
what's delicious about a scolp?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Is it a texture as it because it's.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
A very delicate sweetness.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think it's a sweetness because I'm funny with texture
some things. And yeah, I think it's the sweetness of something. Yeah,
and usually a pretty good thought, right, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How long is this? Then? I reckon two or three minutes?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And then that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, then sweeze a bit of lemon in now good
old generous amounts of olive oil, isn't there?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah? I love that. Well, we're on pips of it here. Yeah,
but it's very good.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, easy, easy.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It's about getting the right amount of color on and
letting them sit. And then you know you can put
instead of lemon juice, you can put vinegar. Yeah, instead
of capers, you can put actuvies. Instead of saved you
can put that as all.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
That's delicious, cool, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So much so having cooked it? What was that like? Oh,
it's so well.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's one of those things that I would have. I'd
love to do at home, but I feel like you
need to do it when people are already there because
you want to give it, you know, to people straight away.
I wouldn't have the confidence with that, but I think
I would have a good at now good. I think
it's about having really good scollops. And I always love
when you actually are in a kitchen you see how
(03:38):
much olive oil goes and everything A little bit of olive.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oil, a lot of oil. Yeah, And so when you
say that you would like to do it for dinner,
for people coming to dinner. But then there is that separation,
isn't there where you're cooking and they're there. Do you
like to cook around people or do you like our
house we have.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's like a farmhouse kitchen. So we have a big
we don't have like a cooking isle or separate. It's
sort of a one big room, sort of a big table.
It was an old chemistry lab table and that's in
the middle of the room. And then so everything kind
of you cook around My husband is more. He does
it more than like he does all the big event
cooking like Christmases and you know, Sunday races and things
(04:22):
like that. I'll do if we've got you know, ten people,
I'll do like a big stew or a big.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Castrole or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
But he's he's good at knocking stuff up, like we
have barely anything in the fridge, and he can make
something out of that, whereas I need a very clear.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And yeah, you have cooked on stage? Was it? That's
just it? No, it was west End? What was it
a first room west End?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It was first in the west End.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, David was telling me this morning about cooking spaghetti
bollonnaise on stage. And he was saying that Stephen Dawdry
being Stephen Daldry, insisted on having a chef come from
somewhere who was one of the great chefs to tell
me about cooking. Answer. Was it the first time you'd
ever had to cook on stage? Yeah? Eating onstage? Really?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, because I would I would cook it in the
first half and I would eat it in the second half.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was very basic, but there was a musicality to
the way. So much of it was cooking. It was
one thing, but also fitting it in because she's cooking
in what turns into an enormous row, and so much
of the physicality of the cooking was in the sort
of smashing of garlic and chopping, and you know, so
(05:45):
I had to be cooking but also furious, but also
controlled that I didn't cut my finger off whilest I
was furious. So and there was a lot of kind
of comedy to you know, the way that Bill would
come over and sort of aunts and judge the way
that it was being cooked. And you know, putting the
oil in first or not putting the oil in. That
(06:06):
was one of the little gags. But yeah, and the
theater would fill with the smell of cooking, And so
I used to say to anyone who was coming to
see it, particularly my dad, you have to eat before
you come, because if you come and you watch a
play that I mean, it's like for two and a
half three hours long, you know, and you're hungry, you're
going to hate it, And that's so unfair of us.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Was it for real or was it mostly theater? Was
it it was totally edible.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I mean, it probably wasn't great, but it was you know,
I ate it and it was tasted fine to me.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I about eating on stage.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
When I did it in New York, I was pregnant,
and I did go through a phase of feeling incredibly
unwell and nothing was good to eat.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So for a while it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I was taking very small nibbles in the second half,
but no, generally I kind of loved it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And in film there are also scenes of you eating, yes,
and drive in the diner and not eating, and so
most recently in Maestrow, which I saw at the opening
night in your phenomenal great movie and very compelling. You know,
I grew up with the Bernstein's, you know, I didn't
(07:14):
know them, but I mean as as major figures in
our lives from not just West Side Story and his concerts,
but their their involvement in social politics, for which they
were hugely maligned, which was unfair by Tom Wolfe for
the radical chic because and especially your character Felicia was
(07:36):
really involved in the civil rights struggle in the Vietnam War.
And as a character, I thought that it wasn't so what,
it wasn't really that much in the film. But she
was formidable.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
She was, and it was at one point a whole
radical chic scene. Yeah. Yeah, but I think you know
the thing, the script evolved David five years. But yeah,
and she wasn't actually when I went to I went
to Chile and I met her family there and they
talked about you know, she was active from a young age,
(08:10):
from when she was a teenager in Santiago. She waschet.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I wonder whether he was then and Chile had that
been before I think before.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, But she was very but she was a real homemaker,
you know, she she didn't cook. I don't think I
think she had Julia Vega. She had people in her
life that were but she everything was. They called her
the living the dining room, at the apartment of the Dakota,
the French restaurant, because every time anyone came, it was
(08:43):
beautifully kind of table every tablescape was unbelievable, the flowers
that were brought in, and I think every kind of
environment where she was a host was very kind of
beautifully put on. And she talks about being responsible for
the kitchen of life, and that everything was you know,
it was ordering the best produced and ordering the best
(09:06):
flowers and ordering you know, that was a big part
of her life, particularly in New York, also upstate, I think,
but in New York that was a big part of
her kind of she loved fostering this kind of beautiful environment.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
What was the filming like, what was the experience of
doing that movie?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It was amazing, I mean it was. It was the
closest I think to a part that I had played.
I always sort of felt like I had played you know,
Nina and the Seagull and you know, Kira and Skylight
and doing this monologue of girls and boys. I had
these kind of kind of epic roles on stage, and
(09:47):
I felt when I read Felicia that she had that breadth.
So she had that kind of you know it felt
like a kind of Chekhov all. It felt like she's
got this huge journey and she starts and she actually
not dissimilar to Nina in some ways, because she does
start as this actress with this burning ambition and as
disillusioned and you know, driven to you know too well
(10:15):
in my opinion, not madness, but driven to sort of
to a completely different place by the end of the
story and having.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Become a completely different person.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And I feel like Felicia really has that huge you know,
she came to New York, you know, bright as a
button and full of hope and ambition, and you really
do get a sense of her being worn down by
her experience. So just the character on its own was amazing.
The way that Bradley works is so unique and so
(10:47):
and I loved completely different experience, nothing like I'd ever
done before, completely, you know, and I think because he's
in it as well. But you know, the most amazing
set where you don't feel like you're in a film set,
feel like you're walking on stage.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And that was right. Where where did we shot.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We shot in Tanglewood for the first week, which was amazing.
Then we shot in New York and then We were
on a sound stage in Brooklyn for a minute, and
then we had a break and then we shot Ely
Cathedral and we shot in a sound stage in London
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, and I in terms of again about eating, in
food and nourishment, this is a character who wastes away,
who starts disappearing, and the way you conveyed her fragility
and his emotions, dealing with you know, her husband's the effect, well,
(11:46):
dealing with the effect and the family. And so to
see this strong woman in the beginning that you played
and then how was that for you when when having
to show someone dying a terrible disease is Yeah, it
was I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
We we shot her younger stuff right at the beginning
of the shoot, and then we jumped straight to a
scene after she's diagnosed with cancer. And it was the
first time I think I played anyone over a span
of so many years. So she was the first week
it was sort of a younger wig in black and white,
and then the following Monday I had prosthetics on and
(12:26):
I think.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Actually, I thought that there would be a lot more.
I'd have to like map it a lot more but
it was interesting once I was in the prosthetics and
the costume of that point in her life. It's funny
what it does looking at yourself in the mirror when
you know, we did the makeup for when she's right
at the end of her life. Took about four and
a half hours and was prosthetics and lots of painting
(12:51):
in and these incredible contact lenses that took out the
sort of white around my eyes. And when I had
the head scarf on, and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
You know, you look in the mirror and you do
feel different.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It is an odd thing to look at Also, because
we weren't trying to make her look I wasn't trying
to look like Felicia, because Felicia isn't a well known
face in the way that Bradley needed to look like Lenny.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
We I just looked like myself.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And so, you know, I remember saying to Duncan, who
was doing my prosthetics and Sean Gregg makeup artist, I said,
is this basically a time machine, like you know, without
the illness before the illness? Is this essentially you know?
And I do look.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Exactly like my mom.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, in the palm court, you know, I look exactly
how my mom does, and so it was it kind
of interesting. Yeah, the whole thing was very interesting, But
when it came to the six stuff, it was a
lot of it was based on Bradley's experience of his
father who had cancer and pastway accounts, so and I
knew that, you know, some of the detail that had
(13:51):
been written in folding up the napkins was something that
Bradley's dad did, and lots of it was so lots
of I've felt constantly aware of him. And then also
when people would see me in the makeup, and I think,
you know, if you've had anyone in your life who's
been through an illness that has affected them like that
(14:13):
physically and visibly, you know. I remember an ad sort
of like bursting into tears because she just sort of
it reminded her too much of someone that she loved,
and so I felt just really determined to not to
get it right, but also that if there was something
about the sort of general sense of everybody. By that point,
(14:35):
we just had the most incredible crew. There was so amazing.
It really felt like that it didn't when you walked
on set. It wasn't like this actor has this hard
thing to do. It was like, oh, this person's not well.
And that was an incredible kind of feeling. And that's
how the set felt that whole week when we showed
you No, who didn't it?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I mean I ate at home and I ate, but
when I was at work now, I just yeah, because
there was you know, and I remember the physical the
way that she remember Mot Bridges, our costume designer, brought
this little shawl that goes over her shoulders when she's
receiving visitors, and it's so it was my grandmother. My my
grandmother had dementia. She didn't but she did lose lots
(15:16):
of weight and she did get you know, as she
was unable to feed herself, you know, she it was
you know, it was constantly trying to get her to
intake nutrition. But I remember the way her shoulders kind
of came forward and it was so highlighted by this
this shawl that was over her. And so when he
(15:36):
brought that shawl, that sense of fragility and it was
just so it just I felt it, you know, just
it was so kind of eerie. How you know that
physicality is just so familiar.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Did you know the river cafe has a sharp It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
and then in napkins kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures,
glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
right next door to the River Cafe in London or
online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK. Growing up,
(16:25):
you grew up in a hotel, is that right? For
the first we grew up in Yeah, we lived in hotels.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I was almost eight. My father was a hotel manager
for Intercontinental for my whole childhood until I was sort
of eighteen, so I was born. I think we were
at the.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Brittannia when I was born.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
My dad was running the Brittannia hotel, and then in London, Yeah,
and then the Yeah yeah, yeah so there and then
the Mayfair. And then we moved to Germany to Hanover
and Dusseldorf and he ran hotels there, and then we
moved back to London. He ran I can't remember in
the hotel he then he was at the Churchill in
(17:04):
Portman Square, so he moved around those and he also
ran hotels in Vienna and Frankfurt.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah did you but you actually lived in the hotel.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
We lived in the hotel till I was eight.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
When you were a bit like Elowise. Do you remember
that book Allowas? Did you even know that growing up
in the plaza? Would you run around the hotels?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Fine, what was that like living in a hotel?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was amazing. I mean it was you know, it's
kind of all we knew. But I look back and
I think, oh wow, that was kind of an extraordinary
way to grow up. And my brother and I were
certainly you know, we would sort of roll around with
the the maids, you know, going into people's rooms after
they checked out, and sort of you know, I remember
(17:46):
sort of sitting in the basket with all the sheets,
you know, with my hands holding on, rolling around the
corridor and you know, sitting on with my whole body
wrapped around a hoover, you know, going up and down
the hallways.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
We were ordering room service.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Did we had It was like that, you know, they'll
have a they'll have a little I mean in the
place at the hotels that we lived in the sort
of an apartment in the top floor for the manager.
So we lived in a Yeah, Mum talks about I mean,
we had our own little mini kitchen and stuff, but
it was more. Yeah, we didn't do room service, but
we did have our linen changed. I'm pretty sure someone
(18:22):
always says that was a massive bonus and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Has been living at the arm the job and being
the manager and living there. Yeah, I mean great for
the hotel to have the manager there. Yeah. Are you
one of many? Are you?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
No? Just me and my brother?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
But we were bilingual because we moved to Germany when
I was three, and we went to you know, we
learned German. We went to I went to a German kindergarten,
Rudolph Stein in kindergarten.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And then I went to school in Hanover.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
We were with a lot of X you know, with
military kids, and and then we were in distledor for
in international school, and then we moved home. So we
were there. We was the only thing I remember about
the kitchen because we were, you know, nowhere near the kitchen.
That was not And I was saying earlier, my dad,
you know, I think briefly worked in kitchens on his way.
He worked his way up from kind of collecting glasses
(19:11):
in a restaurant to being the manager. Yeah, and he
so whenever he cooks. Generally I exit the building because
it's just not what is it like, he just likes
things ordered and the way that they and you know,
for us to sort of come in and sort of
(19:31):
casually start munching on something, his heart was not not
part of it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So that, yeah, it's but my.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Memory of one of my birthday parties when I was
little was at the hotel in Disseldorf, and you know,
the pastry chef made a bunch of dough. We were
all making little dollies out of dough, and then they
took them off and cooked them in the kitchen and
brought them back. And the birthday cakes, you know, when
(20:00):
we lived in hotels were always you know, those very
elaborate kind of I feel like they always had liquor
in them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
They always had like.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
A bit of booze. It like properly kiddie birthday cakes,
and they had like very beautiful writing in icing and
all that kind of stuff. There was always such a
sense of occasion in hotels. It's always like there's a
big display for Christmas or there's a big you know,
it was like there was always this sort of sense
of there's a sort of event happening. But I always felt,
(20:28):
really I like being nomadic. I don't mind, you know,
I like being in hotel tells I'm not someone who
I don't need to bring. You know, some people sort
of need to bring stuff with them to make wherever
they are feel like home.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Carries with her.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Do you know the only time I ate lunch here
was with Tracy.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Tracy she described, you know that she I think she's
ever ordered room service. She would always, you know, I'd
go out and find something and take her food on
the plane or take an object. And as you say,
I love hotels so much that I actually don't like
when I'm upgraded to a suite because it reminds me
too much of home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like the
(21:06):
confines of a hotel whom you can find everything. You know,
where your book is, you know where everything is. I
always thought that maybe I'd be one of those women
who age, you know, Richard be in a state at
Clarages for the rest of, you know, of our days.
I had said to him, if we saw our house,
how many nights do you think we'd get in claritges.
He's like probably six. And do you think there was
(21:28):
a performance that you had to behave in a certain
way with strangers.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think so, yeah, yeah, we had you know, we
met people who were staying at the hotel sometimes and
there was a real kind of day. It felt like
being a bit of a like a diplomat's stater or something.
You know, someone would come and stay at the hotel
and you would greet them.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You know, did that prepare you, do you think for
acting in a certain way? I think yeah, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I think also moving around constantly, kind of being the
new kid and meetings. The time I was eight, we
had moved. You know, I'd been at a I think
three places in Germany, three four schools, no three so
nursery and then two schools and then home to a
convent school in Buckinghamshire. And then when I was eleven
(22:15):
I moved again, and then when I was thirteen I
moved again. So we were so I think I was
always kind of used to being new and having to
introduce myself adapt to people, and you know that sort
of thing.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
What was Cherman food like, do you have a memory
of it or did you?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, lots of quite meat meat based food. I mean
we you know, we were amongst kind of lots of
Brits as well, so but we spent we were amazingly lucky.
We got to go skiing in Austria in our holidays
and things, we you know, spent lots of We had
lots of casia, keaza, spetzel and you know venus nitzel
(22:53):
and delicious like warm, brothy things to be able to
warm up. But yeah, I think we you know, because
it was also an international hotel. It was you know,
it wasn't we were if I was eating stuff from
it wasn't necessarily German cuisine or anything.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
I usually asked people about their families and growing up,
and restaurants were restaurants, But in your case, I often
asked if restaurants were a special occasion, which was the tooth.
In my family, we went out to restaurants for somebody's
birthday and somebody's anniversary or something great had happened and
you'd celebrate a restaurant. Here we see people just coming
(23:32):
out for dinner with their kids all the time, and
maybe it was just more for you, that was that
something that.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Was just.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I suppose that I don't really remember going to restaurants
at all. I don't remember going to nice you know,
white tablecloth restaurants. Ever, with my we would go to
there was a pizza place in Duszledorf that we would
go to, but like really a hole on the wall
kind of pizza place, and that was sort of a
treat that we would go there. I don't think we
went to I remember what for the Millennium my dad
(24:03):
was running the Intercontinental in Vienna and there was a
big Millennium meal there and I was fourteen and fourteen
fifteen I think, yeah, fourteen, and my best friend came
with me and we bought dresses, you know, for millennium
and we sat and it was a proper white tablecloth,
seven course meal thing, and that was very That was
(24:26):
a big, big deal. So I don't think we did necessarily.
Although when I was when we moved home and we
were living in you know, Buckinghamshire, we used to go
if there was anything to celebrate, we'd go to Mister
Poone's the Chinese restaurant and go and have big Chinese
and we did that kind of for years.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Your parents cook for you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I mean Mum's always you know, she couldn't turn her
hand to anything. She was never a sort of passionate cook,
I think because Dad was the cook. So if there
was meals that were cooked, it would be Dad, you know.
And Mum, my grandmother was a was a wonderful Yeah.
I loved baking. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So where did she live?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So she was my mother's Welsh So she was in Carmarthenshire.
So and every time I went to her for any
kind of length of time, we were just bake and bacon, bake.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh well everything.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Welsh cakes, famously delicious Welsh cakes.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Welsh cakes, that's don't tell Sean, I asked you this
because I've lived in this country for.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well if you weren't it. But they're like their little
mini sort of flat cake with raisins in and like
a scone. Yeah, like a sort of flatter scone. But
she'd make amazing Welsh cakes. A cherry almond cake, a
delicious cherry almond cake that just got better the longer
you left it in the tin. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
It was that kind of thing. I know that you're
you're from going from school. You knew that acting was
going to be an essential part of your life. Yeah,
can you tell me how that happened? It was all
I wanted to do. From a young age, but I
didn't think of it really as a career until I
(26:07):
was probably twelve. You know, maybe I wanted to do
musical theater. That was the big you know. That's my
mum and I went to go and see every musical.
Every time we could go into London, we'd go and
see musical. We went to New York together, just the
two of us, and went saw did you Cabaret? Was
the original? There's some Mendes Studio fifty four. We saw that.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I told this to him the other day, but I
saw Kevin Bacon in a one man show at the
Walterkerr Theater. I forget the name of it. But I
then later years later went and did The Seagull at
the Walter curR and it was a really crazy kind
of full circle thing. So I was I was sort
of wanted to do musical theater. Then was slowly sort
of realizing that that was quite a big job in
(26:52):
terms of dance and song. And I wasn't a dancer,
and I kind of was a choir singer, but not
a singer singer. Was not enormously interested in film so much.
I mean I loved movies. I loved you know, my
favorite all of my favorite films like Indiana Jones, Last Crusade,
and you know, I liked sort of Spielberg like proper movies.
(27:16):
And then I slowly realized that it was more kind
of theater that I was probably just straight theater just
in place. So it was when I was at I
auditioned for a bunch of drama schools basically and didn't
get into any of them. But that was my first
sort of big, sort of attempt to do to kind
of make it a job, which didn't get very well.
(27:39):
But then I found another kind of way in luckily
actually right around the cord from me here, to go
to Riverside Studios to do Young Blood Theater Workshop, which
was an amazing I don't know if it still happens,
but it was an incredible experience. It was once a week,
I did it for months, where you would come together
with a bunch of other actors of a similar age.
(27:59):
But I'd ever acted really with boys before, you know,
because I've been in an all girls school and for
people from all different walks of life. And it was
a lot of improvisation, a lot of just you would
just be sitting all in the circle on the floor
and then you would suddenly have to be in the
middle of the room doing a scene about something and
it was just a real I loved it and made
(28:19):
really good friends and we did I think one or
two little productions there, and then an audition for a
new version of Pride and Prejudice and that was my
first job.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
So that so I knew we were working in pubs. Did
you did you have to have a job that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, I left school and that was you know, I
had not gone to rom school, so I was taking
a gap year and it was in that year that
I worked in the pubs.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, I remember the food and it was like proper
just pubs.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I mean I worked on a barge, like a restaurant
sort of barge in Marlowe, but I was serving, I
was never making. And then I worked in two pubs
at the same time, just picking up shifts in the
in whichever one. But I'd liked I liked the sort
of kind of energy of it. I think I also
(29:04):
quite like being in charge of giving people drinks. That
I was behind this bar and I was eighteen, I
probably looked about fifteen, and yet I was sort of
pulling pints for you know, big burly men, and it
felt kind of like quite a powerful position to be
And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, it's a performance, isn't it an acting and cooking?
You know? I think the reason I always say that
a lot of actors like to work, of course it
suits them, you know, to work part time in a
restaurant if they're trying to pursue their career, is that
there is a lot of drama in a restaurant. Yeah,
and the energy. Do you remember what you ate in
(29:44):
those years? When I talked to Emily Blunt, it was,
you know, hamburger after hamburger after hamburger, and eating and
eating and eating. She ate, so she would describe, even
when she had small parts, that she would have two
hamburgers before going on stage. Ye wouldn't be in school.
But do you remember when you were away from or
did you live with your parents when.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
You were I didn't. I'm pride and prejudice. I moved
out for that job, and I do remember that we
were all in corsets, and I remember for the first
and it was a very lovely production. It actually set
me up for disappointment future productions because it was so
we stayed in such nice hotels and the catering were
so lovely, and I remember for the first month or
(30:24):
so we had like really delicious like snacks, but you know,
yummy cakes and biscuits and like delicious granolla y things
that we could nibble on. And after a while they
had to take out our costumes because we'd all and
our courses had to get sort of loosen to because
we'd all've.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Been having a lovely time.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
And then I moved into a flat with two boys
in Highgate and I think I ate you know, literally
pot noodles. Whilst I did theater. I also got into
a habit of having to have a double espresso before
I did a show. I didn't eat really before the
play I did. I did a play at the Royal
Court straight after which it was called forty Winks. It
(31:04):
was a Kevin Elliott play. It was a real shock
for me because it went, you know, it was briden Bridges,
was a summer of you know, real kind of sort
of basically massive party and the best time and I
and I and I was delighted. It was Royal Court
is my favorite theater in the world, hands down. Ten
million times. But I was playing a narcolepts, a girl
(31:25):
with narcolepsy who also might have been a victim of rape.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I mean it was.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It was really kind of harrowing and and in a
very kind of surrounded by real heavy weight, incredible actors,
and I suddenly thought, oh my gosh, this is not
what I don't know how to do this at all,
but it was. I was in real kind of just yeah,
just theater.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Have an espresso. The espresso started then before yeah, before
the place.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I did that for years through theater until probably
until I did Girls and Boys, and I stopped.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well to talk about because that the Royal Court is
actually our local theater hand car as we live further
down the keys. What makes you love a theater?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I mean, I think that was my first theater, so
that was special. Then I went back there and did
The Seagull when I was twenty one Christopher Hampton Ian Rickson,
and and that was just completely I just that that role,
everything about it, I just and I feel like I
(32:31):
kind of I don't know, there was something about the
pre show thing. I would go underneath the I'd go
down all the way down to the bottom of the
stairs all the way back up again. I'd run around
like a mad woman before so because when Nina comes on,
she's really out of breath, and I wanted to be
genuinely out of breath. So I would run around, and
then I would sort of burst onto stage at the
(32:52):
last minute. And the smell of it, I don't know,
there was just so much about that theater. Every time
I step in there, I just feel, oh, I just
love it it.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, And so you would have your espresso before the play,
and then and then afterwards, would you do that thing
of going out to dinner with a bunch of friends,
people who had seen the play.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And sometimes I mean, Mason, what I also love about
the Royal Court is the downstairs. I'd always just go
down there afterwards and we all would you know. I
don't remember eating. I remember I remember eating corner sans
a little corners and a glass of red wine and corn,
you know, just loads of little corner shechans back then.
(33:32):
But I don't remember going out for food much. I
just sort of think I'd probably just go home and
eat whata bits or something at the end of the night.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You know, there's money an issue, Yeah, at that time.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, it was, you know, it's it was the minimum
wage theater, so it was. And I was spending money
on living in a highgate living and you know, paying
rent up there, so it wasn't Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I was.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I ate quite a lot of cereal.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Do you remember when food became a kind of measure
of your success that you could say, I can afford
to eat well now because I'm I'm earning more money. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I think I got really into sushi when I lived
in New York.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I was living in New York.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Probably what was I doing. I was doing theater there,
but I was also doing a bit of film. I
did the film Steph McQueen called Shame and and I
remember I remember.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Sitting down with.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know, my with a financial advisor sort of figuring
out working in America and working. And he looked at
my bank's name as he said, oh, you seem to
have spent lots of money on rent and sushi.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
I was like, that was pretty good. That's what we did.
We lived in Paris. It was the same thing those days.
You had check books, and we used to look at
our checkbook at the end of the mother stubs and
basically it was all restaurants. When we weren't working, we
were just eating out, exploring, because you do learn about
a culture through the food.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Don't you.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah. Yeah. If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for
would you please make sure to rate and review the
podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thank you for a moment. I'd
(35:31):
like to talk about war child, and I think that
we see the effects of war, and we're seeing it
right now, aren't we We're seeing it every day. And
I was wondering what you feel about how that, how
warchild affected your your views of children in poverty, children
in danger, and food insecurity.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So I was doing Skylight and I was I would
I had this sort of you know, I have a
little routine that I largely stick to, is I go
into a theater at sort of five, eat, then have
a nap for twenty minutes twenty five minutes poundnap, and
then I wake up and I have my coffee and
(36:14):
I get.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Ready for the show.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
But I would listen to the six o'clock news every night,
and that summer of two thousand and fourteen was was
terrible for children in conflict, and that a lot of
the news was about what's happened.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
In twenty fourteen, it.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Was when the U D's were escaping Isis, and there
were there was a lot of coverage and lots of
images on the news. I remember seeing on the news
as well, all the u ZD refugees were on Sinjo
Mountain and they were being evacuated, and I remember seeing
images of you know, mums and dads with their babies
flinging them into the helicopter to try and get, you know,
(36:55):
someone to take the baby. And I didn't have kids then,
but I but I remember thinking, I cannot imagine what
it takes for you to think in this moment, I'm
just going to hurl my baby into someone as strange as.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
You know, and hope that they are even caught.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
And what must that take to be in that And
I was just thinking about a lot, as everyone was.
And my brother had been in Afghanistan and he had
encountered this girl's school that had been shut down by
the Taliban and he'd raised on his own lots of
money to help this school reopen so the girls could
(37:34):
get back to school. And he had written to a
bunch of different endos asking for help kind of facilitating this,
and War Child were the only ones that had written
back and made it very easy and so we'll take
and we don't need a commission, and we'll just we'd
love to do this and help. And so he had
come back from Afghanistan saying, like, this charity is really
interesting and really cool. So I went to the Democratic
(37:55):
Republic of Congo that October and we went around and
saw the projects that they were doing, met the children
they worked with, and at the end of that week,
I said, I'd really love to kind of focus on this,
and so they asked me to be an ambassador. I
went to the Ukraine with them in two thousand and
twenty two at the end of that year.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Did you feel that children were Yeah, we're hungry.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's so different in country to countries.
So in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the thing that
I noticed was how I mean one of the camps
that we went to was an IDP camp internally displaced people,
and they were I mean, it was one of the
worst places I've ever It was a really, really awful,
awful camp and two children there the week that we
(38:44):
visited had died of malnutrition of you know, had starved
to death. Basically, it's definitely a huge issue in some
countries and some you know, I remember we were in
when we were in Budapest, we met some Roma refugee
toi ildren who were living in a in a homeless shelter.
They had fled the Ukraine. Their homes had been destroyed
(39:06):
and they were now living in this sort of homeless
shelter in Budapest. And there it was you know, they
were having food provided, but it was food that they
had no connection to. They had no so the children
wouldn't eat. You know that you can't make a child
eat something they've grown up their entire life having the
And these women who were in the shelter, they said,
all we want is a kitchen. We just want to
(39:27):
be able to make food. And their little three year
olds are just rejecting because they're just first of all traumatized,
but secondly they've got no So there was there was
food available, but it was packaged bought in kind of
you know, for them to be able to make food
that was familiar and comfortable and inexpensive, but something that
just for them to be able to provide their own
(39:48):
and also for these women who are also suffering for
their own trauma, for the ritual of cooking together as
a family, for that to be something that they could
do community wise, I think, you know, would have been
such a powerful kind of healer for them.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Times and a communicator.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
When we were in Ukraine, we cooked with these women
in the in the shelter, and you know, I couldn't
speak any you know, we were completely you know, we
had an interpreter, but really it was just peeling potatoes together,
and you know, it's a wonderful way to communicate with them.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
That story you told of the woman throwing her child
into the helicopter, I remember, Richard and I were living
in Paris in the seventies. So you met someone whose
grandmother had knew that the you know, the Nazis coming
to take them away from the Jewish ghetto in Paris.
And she said that she her grandmother and her mother
were on one side of the barricade caving on a
(40:46):
train to towards Auschwitz. And they then nanny came rushing
for them to see because she'd come home and so
and they threw her. They just threw her physical I mean,
throwing a child is quite a big thing. And then
nanny and she never saw our parents again. So we
think about, you know, the lack of food being denial
(41:08):
for children and the lack of food being hunger, food
being a sign of illness or when your illness that
you're cutting yourself off from food and whatever you know,
and a sign of frailty. It's also it can work
the other way, which your food is joyous when we
cook for our children. It's fun when you cook with
(41:28):
a hope, a chef. It's fun when your family and
your husband are there in their farm wanting to eat.
Maybe you've grown or maybe you've shopped for It also
is in times it's comfort. It's comfort from an it's
emotional eating that we don't always eat when we're hungry.
We eat when we feel something. So my last question
(41:48):
to you on this beautiful day and being here with
you and thank you for coming, is to say, Carrie Mulligan,
if you need comfort, which I hope you don't. I
hope life is just one joyous experience. But if you
need comfort, is there a food that you would reach for? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
My husband makes well. So when I had my first child.
We have a friend who lives near us who's sort
of a baby guru called Rachel Wadelove. She's amazing and
she basically taught us how to look after babies. Well
me at least, was work good at already. And she said,
when your breastfeeding, must have, you know, a slice of cake,
(42:27):
you know all the time. But also this, she had
this recipe for this chicken casserole and it was just
really simple. But the crust on the top was wheatabix
and cheddar cheese.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Yeah, and so Marcus makes this delicious Marcus, and it's
so yummy and it's just chicken and bention whatever. But
the crust is whetavix mushed up with a bit of
salt and cheddar cheese and it melts and it's heaven.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And whenever I'm feeling like.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
A little bit depleted or done in, he'll make that
and will He'll make a big old thing of it,
and we'll start with like fairly conservative portions.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
And I think that's perfect. Okay, Well, thank you very much.
It's a great, great time I'm with you. And now
you're going to go have scalps or whatever there is
in the River cop I do more together. Thank you,
thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
(43:27):
in partnership with Montclair. Ruthie's Table four is produced by
Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers and
it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by
(43:48):
Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers
are Faye Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is
Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bellas. This episode
had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen. Thank you to
everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making
this episode
Host
Ruth Rogers
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