People ask me who my dream guest would be on Ruthie‘s Table 4. Cate Blanchett has always been top of the list - an actor, director and vocal activist for values and ideas close to my heart.
Cate lives with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees, growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally.
Here we are at The River Cafe on the beautiful first day of summer weather. The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking and the garden is flowering. Cate and I are going to talk about our shared love of food, family and art. As a special treat, I even asked her to bring a bottle of Toku, the saké brand for whom she is creative director, and get to sample what makes it so special. A dream come true indeed.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
People always ask me who my dream guest would be
on Ruthie's Table four. Kate Blanchett has always been top
of that list, an actor, director, and a vocal activist
for values and ideas close to my heart. A few
weeks ago, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took me to
see Kate and Thomas Ostermeier's radical new version of The
(00:27):
Seagull at the Barbican Theater. After a stunning performance, we
all went for small supper next door, talking about check
off her rollin Tar and the Serpentine Party that she's
co hosting this summer and is always family. Kate lives
with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees,
(00:48):
growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally. Here
we are at the River Cafe on the beautiful first
day of summer. The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking,
and the garden flowering. Kate and I are going to
talk about our shared love of food, artists, children, and
a lot more. A dream come true.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Indeed, Ah, I'm glad I got out of bed this morning,
I'm glad to do looking at it right, a little
piece of sunshine?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Has this come on to the thro that was such
an incredible like how do you feel postsecuel? Are you?
What does it feel like? What you did it for?
How many weeks?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It was so short? We were at the Barbecane, so
it was six weeks. And I must I mean, I've
known Thomas Ostermaier for years and years and years. You know,
he's running the Shower Booner and my husband and I
were running the Sydney Theater Company, so our paths continually crisscrossed,
but we never actually worked together. And I think the
thing maybe it's a little bit like a dinner party
when you do check off. It's all about the ensemble
(01:47):
and the alchemy that happens or doesn't between the actors.
And I've always done check off with a loose ensemble
of actors, whereas Thomas was assembling all of us. Some
a few people had worked together before, or I'd work
with Tom Burke on Soderberg's Black Bag relatively recently before
the production started, but a lot of it didn't know
(02:09):
one another, and he was able to bring us all
together all from totally wildly different approaches. And the thing
I miss most is the people. I love them all
so much.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
People here, yeah, like my family. You know, we work together,
we go out, or we celebrate or sometimes we just
also just work. But it is a very strong attachment
when you're working together and creating something here, it's every day.
You know, in a way, they're parallels. The curtain goes
up at twelve thirty, and the curtain goes up with
(02:43):
you at seven thirty. Don't you think there's an anticipation.
You're very dependent on each other.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And also I think you're part of something that And
this is what maybe the patrons don't realize, what an
audience doesn't realize, is that whatever happens in the kitchen
will be totally influenced by the people who come through that,
who through your front door. And so the evening is
I think, you know, you know what's on the menu,
but you don't know how it's going to unfold. You
(03:10):
don't know what people are going to order, and so
it's it's fresh every time. And I you know, being
quite shy, I mean I don't know if you are,
but yeah, you get to know people by doing something together.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Collaborating. Yeah, together, but we see actors on stage singing
or the incredible gift that is given to us as
an audience to be able to have that, and Britain
has always been known for that. Exactly do you feel
that this is something that is threatened now that we
that the priority of culture in this country is being lessened.
(03:46):
There was a time when there was money for the arts.
You know, there was money for building a theater. And
I know that you are an activist. I know that
you're engaged in political life. And what are you feeling
about right now in terms of.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I mean people talk about activism.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You know that it's political, but I think it's engaging
in things that have been politicized. And it always is
strange to me when we talk about the arts, this
word elite is used. And if you think about an
elite sports person, that term means that they are they
have spent many many years perfecting their ability, that they
(04:26):
are at the top of their game, and that when
we talk about the arts, yes, they are elite in
the sense that those people who put those shows on
are exceptional at what they do. It's not for an elite.
I think the elite these days are the people who
don't pay tax. And if they did pay tax, then
all of these wonderful offerings cultural offerings. The Churchill said,
(04:49):
what are we fighting for if we're not fighting for
culture and the access to it is that then they
would be more accessible to people.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And so there's this.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think it's a linguistic language division that's often created
between people and culture. And I think that you I mean,
that's the joy of touring a play is that you
will tour to a regional area, you'll do it in
a major city, you'll do it in one country, in
another country, And I think that the reaction that people
(05:21):
have in various different locations will feed the work, and hopefully.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Those people will be fed by the work.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
The first time I went to a gallery and saw,
you know, a major work of portraiture, it changed the way,
you know, at my little state primary school, the way
I thought about the world.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
And dance does that, music does that.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But we're told that it's only for a certain set
of people, and I think that's because access is not
afforded them.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Tell me about the early days of being in your family.
Did you you have sisters and brothers?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yes, I have an older brother and a younger sister,
and my father was from Texas, so I was born
in Melbourne in Australia. Yeah, we were going to move
to the States really early on, and they decided, I
think for our education, that they wanted us to be
in Australia, so we stayed there.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But why did he come from Australia, from Texas to Asta.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, he was in the He.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Was the child of two alcoholic parents and so he
grew up I think, killing birds in a park and
it would never happen now, but you know, a gentleman
saw him and took him off the streets and educated
him and put him through high school.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And the minute he could, he wanted to.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Get out, so he lied about his age, joined the Navy,
and he went to the Antarctic, and I think he
decided to become a Unitarian minister. And my mother, who
was at Teachers College in Melbourne, he well, his ship
broke down leaving the Antarctics, so they had to dock
in Melbourne and there was a teachers dance and they
(07:03):
didn't have enough men, so they went down to the
port and then my father came and my mother and
he danced all night, and then he left three weeks later,
and they corresponded for two years, and then he decided
to come out. It was quite old fashioned. It was
a little bit like this wonderful Patrick White novel called Voss,
where there's Uh an explorer and I can't remember what
(07:26):
she did. I think she might have also been a teacher.
They fell in love but didn't consummate it or to
claim it to one another, and then they corresponded to letters,
and that's sort of what my mother and father did.
And then they decided he'd come out and get married.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
And that's a story of adventure and chance and yeahs
pursuing an idea and the idea of the harbor and
the meeting and the dancing all night.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. So I grew up with
pumpkin pie and can.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Park did mom?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, make them both and yeah, and so he Yeah,
we grew up with quite a lot of American black
eyed peas, all of those things.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So did you ever go back to Texas? Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Sadly, he died when he was forty and we had
planned a trip back to back to Texas and he
died in the January and we were going in May,
and so we made the trip anyway and went and
met his sort of of his family.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, so growing up there was a sense of the
American influence. There was Australian influence as well. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
My grandmother was I think a Scottish grandmother. Yeah, I
lived with you, Yeah she did. She lived, made the sandwiches,
made the sandwiches. I think she was a Scottish descent.
So everything was boiled within an inch of its life.
And at that point in Australia, avocados were, you know,
incredibly exotic mangoes.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Because are we talking about We're talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
A long time ago, in the eighties, in the eighties,
and so because of the fruitfly, there were quite strong
demarcations between what was grown in Queensland what was grown
in New South Wales. Nothing ever came over from Western
Australia to Victoria.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
If you had fruit.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And you were crossing between Victoria and New South Wales,
you had to leave the fruit the vegetables at the border.
So there was no tropical fruit that even came down.
I mean, I have the utmost respect for farmers, I
mean in any country, but in Australia it's really, it's
very hard. It's such an ancient land, and I think
(09:41):
because for so long we have marginalized indigenous understandings.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Of the way way to grow and collect food.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Actually, tell me about the indigenous experience.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Of well, I mean, there were so many hundreds of
language groups and cultures that have been wiped out through
you know, a white invasion. I mean, you can't call
it any other name in any other way, but I
think we've not grown as a white culture through that
wisdom and understanding of the land. And so the food
ball in so many parts of Australia is actually in
(10:15):
the wrong place. Water is a scarce commodity. I mean
brand Australia when I was growing up was multiculturalism. And
so once we you know, really embraced the wave of
Vietnamese and Lebanese and Greek and Italian immigrants and refugees,
our cuisine became extraordinary. And now it's been exported to
(10:36):
the world as Pan Pacific or Asia Pacific and so
it's But at the time when I was growing up,
my mother was an excellent cross.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So tell me about So your mother was left with
three children. Ye, well, she was what.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
She was thirty nine and my brother was eleven I
was ten. Well, she had to go back to work
as a teacher and so she taught home economics. So
our kitchen was fantastic. Yeah, a lot of a lot
of Italian cooking and a lot of fresh seafood and salads.
(11:10):
And that was not what people were eating at the time.
But I think the thing when there was a lot
of grief in my house, So the meals were delicious,
but they were silent and and and that's been one
of the great joys I think from my side of
the family, but also for me is my husband came
from this enormous Catholic family, so the food may not
(11:34):
have been Yeah, I know he's Australian, but they had
massively noisy, loud, raucous meals.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And my husband's an excellent cook.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And actually the first time I met my brother in
law was at Christmas and he there was I came
towards the house and there was people were screaming with
laughter and I don't know what the what the meal is,
but it's a medieval recipe where you stuff a goose.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
With a pigeon.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I know that quail, that's right, And what had happened
was he'd open oven and the thing shot out. The
telescope telescoped out.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Onto the wall.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So there goes Christmas lunch. Yeah, so they were madly
trying to stuff it back in.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I know that recipe. I mean I've never done it myself,
but I know that's dangerous. Have you ever done that?
Do you know that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Dangerous.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's so funny because they probably asked their cooking. They expand, expand,
and then therefore, yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So they're wildly adventurous with the call. When you met him,
my husband and I got to we've been married. God,
we got married very quickly actually in ninety seven. It
wasn't a shotgun wedding. We didn't have children for quite
some time. But I think we're twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, so you were embraced by this family. But going
back to yours, So you grew up with you know,
your father in the beginning cooking, and I assume that
your mother cooked, and you meals and keep cues and people,
and then it became a kind of sadness.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
And then did the silent Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And did that change? Did you? Well?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, I was thinking about it, maybe because I was
coming to speak to you. But then I've always loved
the dinner party. And so what I would do is
I wouldn't go to a lot of parties as a teenager.
I would have dinner parties. Yeah, so I would where
everyone would dress up. My girlfriends would all dress up
and we'd know it would all cook something and we'd
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Who we were trying to ape or what we were
trying to ape.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
There was a lot of sorbet inside orange cups, and
I don't know. And I grew up with this Salvador
Daly cookbook, you know, the one that he'd done and
he'd done the illustrations and yes, yes, and I cooked
from that.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's crazy to admit that I didn't. That was where
I cooked my first.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Surrealist cookbook, a surrealist recipe.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
But it was hard in Melbourne at the time to
find a pheasant. You try, I tried.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So I cooked and tried to decorate that the dishes
from the salvad Or Daly cookbook.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
What age was it, This is probably about thirteen.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So that's yeah. Because I often talked to people who
when I say, okay, so you grew up in this
nurturing home with a grandmother and a mother and cooking,
and then what happened when you left home? And very
often people say, then when I had my own flat
and I started buying local ingredients and I started cooking.
But thirteen is an early age that to do and
to entertain.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
And I think it's because it was my father's book.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
He worked in advertising, and it was must have been
a gift that he was given one year and yeah,
so it was sort of trying the sal Yeah, not
that I can remember him ever cooking from it, but
it was just it was something of his that maybe
I gravitated towards that.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And also.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The Surrealism seemed to make sense to me. I had
very vivid nightmares and dreams as a child, and so
his work and the surrealism movements as a whole kind
of really unlocked something for me.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as
chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in
the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos to
our podcast, a question and answer episode with me and
our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with your
question to questions at Rivercafe dot co dot uk, and
(15:28):
you might just be our next great guest on Ruthie's
Table four. Tell me about cooking the dover soul. What
was that?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Well, I'd actually deboned a soul in Alfonso Quaran's disclaimer,
and I don't know whether he thought my deboning was
too good or that the scene was too static or whatever,
but he then threw a cat onto the bench. So
I was trying to debone and cook the soul with
(16:03):
a cat on the bench, which was what did the
cat do?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Tried to read?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So, having having cooked the billeted the dover soul, would
you like to tell everyone listening how to make come
to the river. And also, you know, you can change
it in any way you want. People read it and
add their own advice or okay, let's just or you
(16:30):
can just read it whatever you write.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You know, there's something I was thinking too about the
way you cook. Someone said this, and I'm going to
phrase it so badly that Chopin apparently said that the
great reward of have been played many many notes over
many many years is simplicity. And I think that is
something extraordinary about the way you cook. And maybe it's
(16:53):
with this recipe. So the more dover souls you cook,
the better you'll cook them. Dover soul with capers and
marjarine two tablespoons salted capers, extra virgin olive oil. But
put that on the fish before you put it in
the pan. That's what I learned today. A bunch of
fresh marjoram leaves, four whole dover sole weighing three hundred
(17:15):
and fifty to four hundred grams each, scaled and cleaned
by someone at the riff of cafe. One lemon, cut
in half and put in the pan. Eventually put the
capers on.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
This is the method.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Put the capers in a sieve and rinse under cold
running water. Leave to soak in cold water for forty minutes,
then rinse again. Preheat the oven two hundred and thirty
degrees celsius. Brush a large flat oven tray with extra
virgin olive oil. Scatter half of the marjoram leaves over
the tray. Season, place the fish on top, side by
(17:52):
side little buddies who are about to be eaten. Season
Then scatter the remaining mardrum and the capers over with
olive oil. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Test with
the point of a sharp knife or a fork inserted
in the thickest part of the sole. If cooked, the
flesh should come away from the bone. Don't eat it yet,
(18:14):
Squeeze the lemon over the fish, and serve with any
juices from the pan.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Delicious So simple, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I know, but I didn't realize if you oil the
fish first, of course, it doesn't stick to the pan.
I know, and marjoramn't. I would have put parsley, which
is a bit more the Margroom's just so flavor something.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Now it's very perfume. But then again, we do it
with rosemary. Sometimes you put a whole branch of rosemary
under the sole when we cook it. We do it,
but we do parsley and then the caper. Is the
saltiness of the caper that was delicious. Or maybe I'll
just do an anchovy, one anchovy over it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I love anchovy much maligned. I think it's probably one
of my favorite fish.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, we an Italian cookie. It's they are like a herb.
They're like this seasoning. So we make right now we're
doing white asparagus and or green and we make an
anchovy butter and it kind of melts.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I love asparagus. Yes, I haven't been.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Are you getting it now?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah? They started, we're changing. We had a really tiny
little garden.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
We used to have pigs, and then the pigs went
because we weren't realized we weren't pig farmers and they're
too intelligent. And there was something just I thought that,
and yeah, and actually it was my machiavellian plan to
turn my family vegetarian. I thought, if we get pigs,
then the children will realize that the sausages they eat,
(19:44):
the ham they eat, the bacon, it all comes from
these pigs. And my now seventeen year old called himself
the pig whisper, and he used to go up and
he used to hug the pigs and.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Stroke the pigs.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And of course then when they got turned into sausages
and you know, ethically and as humanly as.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
You can, I was sitting there. It was a little
bit cruel.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
They were sitting down putting the ketchup on their sausages,
and I said, you know, this used to be Benson
and hedges. My husband called them Benson and Hedges because
he said they're going to be smoked.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
It was a little bit a bit off, but.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Anyway, and they said this is Benton and hedges and
my my now seventeen year old, said delicious.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So it didn't work. So then the pigs went and
so then we think, I.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Want to be on a lifeboat with that boy.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
No, he's actually incredibly kind and sweet, but he's a sensualist,
so he's very in the moment. And so then that
little vegetable garden where we're growing asparagus and we had raspberries,
we had a whole host hotch potch. We then decided
to build a walled garden, so that has gone to fallow.
So the asparagus has kind of now gone.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
To see so you get grape fish from the car.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yes, in Forest Row there's a fantastic fishmonga Vis's, so we, yeah,
we get our fish from there. And we used to
live in Brighton. You know my shepeas, That's what I telled,
I love a pee, I love my sheepee's. There was
one fish and chip shop on the tram stop near
(21:10):
my school, my high school, and I discovered us going
out with a skinhead at the time, and he took
me there and I had my first mushy peas and chips.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, and they're not Those don't need to be like
freshly picked peas do.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
They can be better if they are, let's face it.
But the one of the first ones I had were
not did you.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Enjoy going out to eat? Was that something in your
culture that you'd go to eat for a special occasion.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We did when my father was alive. We went to
I had a lot of a lot of Asian restaurants
and my father and I never really got to speak
to him about this as an adult, but he had
a lot of Japanese lithographs and books of haiku poetry,
and I think he must have traveled through Japan quite
a lot. So there weren't very many Japanese restaurants when
(21:59):
I was growing up, but I remember going to several
with him and eating a lot of Chinese food, and
the first time I had fried ice cream it was
just miraculous. So the first time I had raw fish
was amazing, and I just loved the beauty and precision
of the Japanese culture, and so I remember those experiences.
And when I went to drama school, I didn't have
(22:21):
a penny, but a girl who was in the directing course.
Was married to a Qcourne in Sydney at the National Institute,
and we used to sneak away and go and have
sake and a little bit of sashimi at lunchtime and
that seemed so.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, so chic and you know, extravagant.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Do you remember when you started acting how that married
with your wife? How did that affect your food? I mean,
did you meet a different way? Did you go out
to more restaurants?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I mean my first job, actually out of drama school,
I worked in the catering truck on a television show
because I wasn't working as an actor, and it was
my first entry into the film world, so I didn't
It was like this distraction that was happening that was
so frustrating, being in the catering truck trying to get
breakfast out and lunch out, and you know, in the
(23:14):
afternoon whatever it was called that we had to keep
stopping because they were doing this annoying thing called filming,
but they kept turning over. It was like, guys, how
are we going to get the cheese cake ready? And
then and then eventually I ended up on the other side.
But I had a real love and respect for the
difficulty of working in the you know, the catering van
(23:36):
and how you know it can be thankless.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
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(24:04):
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Speaker 3 (24:11):
Now, when I came here, we'd always wanted to have
a garden, We'd always wanted to grow things. I've got
brown thumbs. My mother and my grandmother had very very
green thumbs. And now my mother lives with us.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And I was saying, a brown thumb as well, green being.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Big, grow well, and I touched something and it just goes.
I know it is, but this is changing slowly, and
so it's been so fantastic. I think too, because I
grew up with my grandmother. Now that my mother is
living with us, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
They lived with us.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Oh really, it's great. It's great having a multi generational household.
That's great, saying.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
There's always my little My son when he was little
used to try and wake us up. It's a bog,
you know, going back to sleep. And then we'd hear
him go downstairs. He'd say to his brother, can you
wake up? And you say, I'll go back to sleep.
And then we hear go all the way down to
my mom and she'd opened the door and say, hi, bo,
I want to make a cake.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
You know in the morning, what every child wants to.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
But it's I know from you probably know this with
your grandmother, is that you talk so differently to your
grandparents than you do to your parents, and and that
that you can't tell everything to one person sometimes, you know,
we are different things with different people. But anyway, so
I'm having my mum in that house has been great, sod.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, she does.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
She's got her own garden, but also together where we've
just reinstated a walled garden that used to be there.
Because the house we're living in was derelict for many,
many years, and so when we part in Lockdown, we
realized that under a lot of rubble and mud, there
was a greenhouse. So we we restored it and then
we saw an aerial shot of the house or the
(25:58):
block of land in the forties, and so we've rebuilt
along the lines of where the war garden used to be.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And it's a learning curve. It keeps you humble. You
must humility because patient you don't have control over it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There, yes, and weather, yeah, and also I mean I
think it's just that thing of knowing that the certain
moths are going to come. And so we're not having
a lot of luck with broccoli and cauliflower, but Brussels
sprouts are okay, And so you cook with what you've
what you gather that day.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So when you said we were, when you said we
were going to do this today, I thought, well, okay,
we'll come and we'll have a conversation ali saki tasting.
So how did saki come? How did this happen?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Well, it's sort of it started a long time ago,
I think. I mean, you know, my mother and father
drank sak when we went out to Japanese restaurants, and
that was you know, to have to have a drink
in a tiny little cup. I mean, I found all
of the elements, so beautiful. And I've always loved ceramics
since I was with the ecouchement around it. And then
(27:03):
I worked with the Japanese skincare company This is years ago,
for about fifteen years, and we would go to Japan
a lot, and the active ingredients in the skincare was
found when during the rice polishing process, you know, because
obviously and this one is a junm daginjo, which is
a highly polished rice, and that made the people who
(27:27):
were working with the rice their hands were just like
infant's hands.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
The skin was amazing. But as a result, I went.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
To a lot of breweries and I got really fascinated
with the fermentation process and the fact that sake is
brewed like a beer but drunk like a wine. And
I thought, well, I often drink it when I'm having
Italian food because there's a purity and simplicity to you know,
particularly to the way you serve it up that also
is quite twinned to the purity and simplicity of Japanese food,
(27:58):
and I thought I would love to be part of
trying to bring that to to Western cuisine.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah, I have to pour for you.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
What is the ritual? Is there it's at the right temperature.
You don't drink it hot. With the first Japanese restaurant,
let's say, do you want it hard or do you
want it? Oh? Right?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah, Well the first time I had it was it
was hot.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
But because this is such a when the more highly
polished it is, and this is really highly polished.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
It's polished to thirty five percent. For what that's worth.
It has such a refined.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Flavor that you don't you don't want to heat it
because it would take all that that complication away.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Beautiful. Well, yeah, I've always drunk drunk it in.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
A like in a little vessel, the ceramic, but there's
something about you can you can smell it better, I think,
And it doesn't feel so much like a spirit.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's nice to you that you're here. It's more saki together.
And do you go to Japan? You go where they
make it? Have you been?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, it's been amazing actually being part of the the
process of of seeing it made and and it's it's
aged in a very cold environment too, so it's really good.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
How would you describe it?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I think it's fruity, but it's not too sweet.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
It isn't I think you described the saki in very
visual terms as well as taste terms.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I always wanted to to to paint like I always
wanted to dance.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And by the way, can I just interrupt you for
a minute and say, those splits.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Sea girl, I'm still suffering.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Know.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I had. The whole performance was kind of the revelation
of what you could. It was hard to take it.
But when you came and did those splits.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
A joke, that was as.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, I think I'm quite I make more sense in movement.
I think, you know, it's taken me a long time
to get used to being sort of in a two
dimensional medium or being photographed is always I have to
sort of trick myself into feeling comfortable. But yeah, it
ended up being quite quite physical.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And conducting is physical, Yeah, dancing actually dancing your arms,
your legs.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I mean, there's an amazing choreographer who also dances called
Xavier le Roi. He watched Simon Rattle conduct The Right
of Spring, and when he can, i mean, every every
strand of hair is flying. He's such an incredible creature
when he conducts. And he took that that he's active
(30:57):
conducting and turned it into a piece of choreography. And actually,
when I was playing tar in Toddfields.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I watched that piece of that dance and it was
totally free, and so I saw it the conducting as
a kinetic response like dances to music auto silence, you know,
and so that I found it quite liberating.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
When we think about food, we think about food as
you talked about your father and the memory of him
in Australia entertaining me as a thirteen year old and
then tasting a delicious tomato, and then we've just said,
right now, food is all that, but it's also comfort.
And so I was wondering if you could just tell
me before you say goodbye, what if you need comfort,
(31:41):
If you do want food as comfort, is there something
that you would reach for or cook or buy.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I think in the end it would be it would
be a soup. It would be a soup. And I
think really good soups often take time to make. So
you have you first of all, you have to do
the onions and the garlic, and then you have to
you know, put certain vegetables root vegetables in first, and
you have to let it simmer, and I'm quite impatient,
(32:12):
which is why I'm really relishing Starting a Garden, because
it's teaching me humility and patience. But there's something about
making a soup that you just have to let it
sit and you have to let it rest. And there's
one soup I talk about food waste I can't which
I can't stand. I get ribbed a lot about it
by my boys. But you know that that two or
(32:35):
three day old bread that is otherwise going to go
into the bins, you chop it up and you make
that fantastic soup with tomatoes and onions, and it makes
the bread go quite cheesy.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
The cat they called Papa Pomora.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yes, I love it, and I made it. I made
it over the weekend because we had a lot of
white bread.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That was some they did and fantastically in the summer
when the tomatoes are very ripe, and then in the
winter they actually caught ribolita, which means a kind of
basic minestrone. Very often it just has cavalo narrow, which
is a kind of and beans and then you add
the bread and then it expands and then it's called rebelita.
(33:15):
It's one of my favorite we have cool. Yeah, it's good.
Thank you, Kate, thank you
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
with Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
People always ask me who my dream guest would be
on Ruthie's Table four. Kate Blanchett has always been top
of that list, an actor, director, and a vocal activist
for values and ideas close to my heart. A few
weeks ago, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took me to
see Kate and Thomas Ostermeier's radical new version of The
(00:27):
Seagull at the Barbican Theater. After a stunning performance, we
all went for small supper next door, talking about check
off her rollin Tar and the Serpentine Party that she's
co hosting this summer and is always family. Kate lives
with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees,
(00:48):
growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally. Here
we are at the River Cafe on the beautiful first
day of summer. The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking,
and the garden flowering. Kate and I are going to
talk about our shared love of food, artists, children, and
a lot more. A dream come true.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Indeed, Ah, I'm glad I got out of bed this morning,
I'm glad to do looking at it right, a little
piece of sunshine?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Has this come on to the thro that was such
an incredible like how do you feel postsecuel? Are you?
What does it feel like? What you did it for?
How many weeks?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It was so short? We were at the Barbecane, so
it was six weeks. And I must I mean, I've
known Thomas Ostermaier for years and years and years. You know,
he's running the Shower Booner and my husband and I
were running the Sydney Theater Company, so our paths continually crisscrossed,
but we never actually worked together. And I think the
thing maybe it's a little bit like a dinner party
when you do check off. It's all about the ensemble
(01:47):
and the alchemy that happens or doesn't between the actors.
And I've always done check off with a loose ensemble
of actors, whereas Thomas was assembling all of us. Some
a few people had worked together before, or I'd work
with Tom Burke on Soderberg's Black Bag relatively recently before
the production started, but a lot of it didn't know
(02:09):
one another, and he was able to bring us all
together all from totally wildly different approaches. And the thing
I miss most is the people. I love them all
so much.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
People here, yeah, like my family. You know, we work together,
we go out, or we celebrate or sometimes we just
also just work. But it is a very strong attachment
when you're working together and creating something here, it's every day.
You know, in a way, they're parallels. The curtain goes
up at twelve thirty, and the curtain goes up with
(02:43):
you at seven thirty. Don't you think there's an anticipation.
You're very dependent on each other.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And also I think you're part of something that And
this is what maybe the patrons don't realize, what an
audience doesn't realize, is that whatever happens in the kitchen
will be totally influenced by the people who come through that,
who through your front door. And so the evening is
I think, you know, you know what's on the menu,
but you don't know how it's going to unfold. You
(03:10):
don't know what people are going to order, and so
it's it's fresh every time. And I you know, being
quite shy, I mean I don't know if you are,
but yeah, you get to know people by doing something together.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Collaborating. Yeah, together, but we see actors on stage singing
or the incredible gift that is given to us as
an audience to be able to have that, and Britain
has always been known for that. Exactly do you feel
that this is something that is threatened now that we
that the priority of culture in this country is being lessened.
(03:46):
There was a time when there was money for the arts.
You know, there was money for building a theater. And
I know that you are an activist. I know that
you're engaged in political life. And what are you feeling
about right now in terms of.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I mean people talk about activism.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
You know that it's political, but I think it's engaging
in things that have been politicized. And it always is
strange to me when we talk about the arts, this
word elite is used. And if you think about an
elite sports person, that term means that they are they
have spent many many years perfecting their ability, that they
(04:26):
are at the top of their game, and that when
we talk about the arts, yes, they are elite in
the sense that those people who put those shows on
are exceptional at what they do. It's not for an elite.
I think the elite these days are the people who
don't pay tax. And if they did pay tax, then
all of these wonderful offerings cultural offerings. The Churchill said,
(04:49):
what are we fighting for if we're not fighting for
culture and the access to it is that then they
would be more accessible to people.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And so there's this.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I think it's a linguistic language division that's often created
between people and culture. And I think that you I mean,
that's the joy of touring a play is that you
will tour to a regional area, you'll do it in
a major city, you'll do it in one country, in
another country, And I think that the reaction that people
(05:21):
have in various different locations will feed the work, and hopefully.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Those people will be fed by the work.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
The first time I went to a gallery and saw,
you know, a major work of portraiture, it changed the way,
you know, at my little state primary school, the way
I thought about the world.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
And dance does that, music does that.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But we're told that it's only for a certain set
of people, and I think that's because access is not
afforded them.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Tell me about the early days of being in your family.
Did you you have sisters and brothers?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yes, I have an older brother and a younger sister,
and my father was from Texas, so I was born
in Melbourne in Australia. Yeah, we were going to move
to the States really early on, and they decided, I
think for our education, that they wanted us to be
in Australia, so we stayed there.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But why did he come from Australia, from Texas to Asta.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, he was in the He.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Was the child of two alcoholic parents and so he
grew up I think, killing birds in a park and
it would never happen now, but you know, a gentleman
saw him and took him off the streets and educated
him and put him through high school.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And the minute he could, he wanted to.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Get out, so he lied about his age, joined the Navy,
and he went to the Antarctic, and I think he
decided to become a Unitarian minister. And my mother, who
was at Teachers College in Melbourne, he well, his ship
broke down leaving the Antarctics, so they had to dock
in Melbourne and there was a teachers dance and they
(07:03):
didn't have enough men, so they went down to the
port and then my father came and my mother and
he danced all night, and then he left three weeks later,
and they corresponded for two years, and then he decided
to come out. It was quite old fashioned. It was
a little bit like this wonderful Patrick White novel called Voss,
where there's Uh an explorer and I can't remember what
(07:26):
she did. I think she might have also been a teacher.
They fell in love but didn't consummate it or to
claim it to one another, and then they corresponded to letters,
and that's sort of what my mother and father did.
And then they decided he'd come out and get married.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
And that's a story of adventure and chance and yeahs
pursuing an idea and the idea of the harbor and
the meeting and the dancing all night.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. So I grew up with
pumpkin pie and can.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Park did mom?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, make them both and yeah, and so he Yeah,
we grew up with quite a lot of American black
eyed peas, all of those things.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So did you ever go back to Texas? Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Sadly, he died when he was forty and we had
planned a trip back to back to Texas and he
died in the January and we were going in May,
and so we made the trip anyway and went and
met his sort of of his family.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, so growing up there was a sense of the
American influence. There was Australian influence as well. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
My grandmother was I think a Scottish grandmother. Yeah, I
lived with you, Yeah she did. She lived, made the sandwiches,
made the sandwiches. I think she was a Scottish descent.
So everything was boiled within an inch of its life.
And at that point in Australia, avocados were, you know,
incredibly exotic mangoes.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Because are we talking about We're talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
A long time ago, in the eighties, in the eighties,
and so because of the fruitfly, there were quite strong
demarcations between what was grown in Queensland what was grown
in New South Wales. Nothing ever came over from Western
Australia to Victoria.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
If you had fruit.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And you were crossing between Victoria and New South Wales,
you had to leave the fruit the vegetables at the border.
So there was no tropical fruit that even came down.
I mean, I have the utmost respect for farmers, I
mean in any country, but in Australia it's really, it's
very hard. It's such an ancient land, and I think
(09:41):
because for so long we have marginalized indigenous understandings.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Of the way way to grow and collect food.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Actually, tell me about the indigenous experience.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Of well, I mean, there were so many hundreds of
language groups and cultures that have been wiped out through
you know, a white invasion. I mean, you can't call
it any other name in any other way, but I
think we've not grown as a white culture through that
wisdom and understanding of the land. And so the food
ball in so many parts of Australia is actually in
(10:15):
the wrong place. Water is a scarce commodity. I mean
brand Australia when I was growing up was multiculturalism. And
so once we you know, really embraced the wave of
Vietnamese and Lebanese and Greek and Italian immigrants and refugees,
our cuisine became extraordinary. And now it's been exported to
(10:36):
the world as Pan Pacific or Asia Pacific and so
it's But at the time when I was growing up,
my mother was an excellent cross.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So tell me about So your mother was left with
three children. Ye, well, she was what.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
She was thirty nine and my brother was eleven I
was ten. Well, she had to go back to work
as a teacher and so she taught home economics. So
our kitchen was fantastic. Yeah, a lot of a lot
of Italian cooking and a lot of fresh seafood and salads.
(11:10):
And that was not what people were eating at the time.
But I think the thing when there was a lot
of grief in my house, So the meals were delicious,
but they were silent and and and that's been one
of the great joys I think from my side of
the family, but also for me is my husband came
from this enormous Catholic family, so the food may not
(11:34):
have been Yeah, I know he's Australian, but they had
massively noisy, loud, raucous meals.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And my husband's an excellent cook.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And actually the first time I met my brother in
law was at Christmas and he there was I came
towards the house and there was people were screaming with
laughter and I don't know what the what the meal is,
but it's a medieval recipe where you stuff a goose.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
With a pigeon.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I know that quail, that's right, And what had happened
was he'd open oven and the thing shot out. The
telescope telescoped out.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Onto the wall.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So there goes Christmas lunch. Yeah, so they were madly
trying to stuff it back in.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I know that recipe. I mean I've never done it myself,
but I know that's dangerous. Have you ever done that?
Do you know that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Dangerous.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's so funny because they probably asked their cooking. They expand, expand,
and then therefore, yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So they're wildly adventurous with the call. When you met him,
my husband and I got to we've been married. God,
we got married very quickly actually in ninety seven. It
wasn't a shotgun wedding. We didn't have children for quite
some time. But I think we're twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, so you were embraced by this family. But going
back to yours, So you grew up with you know,
your father in the beginning cooking, and I assume that
your mother cooked, and you meals and keep cues and people,
and then it became a kind of sadness.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
And then did the silent Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And did that change? Did you? Well?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, I was thinking about it, maybe because I was
coming to speak to you. But then I've always loved
the dinner party. And so what I would do is
I wouldn't go to a lot of parties as a teenager.
I would have dinner parties. Yeah, so I would where
everyone would dress up. My girlfriends would all dress up
and we'd know it would all cook something and we'd
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Who we were trying to ape or what we were
trying to ape.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
There was a lot of sorbet inside orange cups, and
I don't know. And I grew up with this Salvador
Daly cookbook, you know, the one that he'd done and
he'd done the illustrations and yes, yes, and I cooked
from that.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
It's crazy to admit that I didn't. That was where
I cooked my first.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Surrealist cookbook, a surrealist recipe.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
But it was hard in Melbourne at the time to
find a pheasant. You try, I tried.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So I cooked and tried to decorate that the dishes
from the salvad Or Daly cookbook.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
What age was it, This is probably about thirteen.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So that's yeah. Because I often talked to people who
when I say, okay, so you grew up in this
nurturing home with a grandmother and a mother and cooking,
and then what happened when you left home? And very
often people say, then when I had my own flat
and I started buying local ingredients and I started cooking.
But thirteen is an early age that to do and
to entertain.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
And I think it's because it was my father's book.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
He worked in advertising, and it was must have been
a gift that he was given one year and yeah,
so it was sort of trying the sal Yeah, not
that I can remember him ever cooking from it, but
it was just it was something of his that maybe
I gravitated towards that.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And also.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The Surrealism seemed to make sense to me. I had
very vivid nightmares and dreams as a child, and so
his work and the surrealism movements as a whole kind
of really unlocked something for me.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
An open kitchen in the River Cafe means we as
chefs are able to talk to our guests dining in
the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos to
our podcast, a question and answer episode with me and
our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with your
question to questions at Rivercafe dot co dot uk, and
(15:28):
you might just be our next great guest on Ruthie's
Table four. Tell me about cooking the dover soul. What
was that?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Well, I'd actually deboned a soul in Alfonso Quaran's disclaimer,
and I don't know whether he thought my deboning was
too good or that the scene was too static or whatever,
but he then threw a cat onto the bench. So
I was trying to debone and cook the soul with
(16:03):
a cat on the bench, which was what did the
cat do?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Tried to read?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So, having having cooked the billeted the dover soul, would
you like to tell everyone listening how to make come
to the river. And also, you know, you can change
it in any way you want. People read it and
add their own advice or okay, let's just or you
(16:30):
can just read it whatever you write.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You know, there's something I was thinking too about the
way you cook. Someone said this, and I'm going to
phrase it so badly that Chopin apparently said that the
great reward of have been played many many notes over
many many years is simplicity. And I think that is
something extraordinary about the way you cook. And maybe it's
(16:53):
with this recipe. So the more dover souls you cook,
the better you'll cook them. Dover soul with capers and
marjarine two tablespoons salted capers, extra virgin olive oil. But
put that on the fish before you put it in
the pan. That's what I learned today. A bunch of
fresh marjoram leaves, four whole dover sole weighing three hundred
(17:15):
and fifty to four hundred grams each, scaled and cleaned
by someone at the riff of cafe. One lemon, cut
in half and put in the pan. Eventually put the
capers on.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
This is the method.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Put the capers in a sieve and rinse under cold
running water. Leave to soak in cold water for forty minutes,
then rinse again. Preheat the oven two hundred and thirty
degrees celsius. Brush a large flat oven tray with extra
virgin olive oil. Scatter half of the marjoram leaves over
the tray. Season, place the fish on top, side by
(17:52):
side little buddies who are about to be eaten. Season
Then scatter the remaining mardrum and the capers over with
olive oil. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Test with
the point of a sharp knife or a fork inserted
in the thickest part of the sole. If cooked, the
flesh should come away from the bone. Don't eat it yet,
(18:14):
Squeeze the lemon over the fish, and serve with any
juices from the pan.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Delicious So simple, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I know, but I didn't realize if you oil the
fish first, of course, it doesn't stick to the pan.
I know, and marjoramn't. I would have put parsley, which
is a bit more the Margroom's just so flavor something.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Now it's very perfume. But then again, we do it
with rosemary. Sometimes you put a whole branch of rosemary
under the sole when we cook it. We do it,
but we do parsley and then the caper. Is the
saltiness of the caper that was delicious. Or maybe I'll
just do an anchovy, one anchovy over it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I love anchovy much maligned. I think it's probably one
of my favorite fish.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, we an Italian cookie. It's they are like a herb.
They're like this seasoning. So we make right now we're
doing white asparagus and or green and we make an
anchovy butter and it kind of melts.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I love asparagus. Yes, I haven't been.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Are you getting it now?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah? They started, we're changing. We had a really tiny
little garden.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
We used to have pigs, and then the pigs went
because we weren't realized we weren't pig farmers and they're
too intelligent. And there was something just I thought that,
and yeah, and actually it was my machiavellian plan to
turn my family vegetarian. I thought, if we get pigs,
then the children will realize that the sausages they eat,
(19:44):
the ham they eat, the bacon, it all comes from
these pigs. And my now seventeen year old called himself
the pig whisper, and he used to go up and
he used to hug the pigs and.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Stroke the pigs.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And of course then when they got turned into sausages
and you know, ethically and as humanly as.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
You can, I was sitting there. It was a little
bit cruel.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
They were sitting down putting the ketchup on their sausages,
and I said, you know, this used to be Benson
and hedges. My husband called them Benson and Hedges because
he said they're going to be smoked.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
It was a little bit a bit off, but.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Anyway, and they said this is Benton and hedges and
my my now seventeen year old, said delicious.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So it didn't work. So then the pigs went and
so then we think, I.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Want to be on a lifeboat with that boy.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
No, he's actually incredibly kind and sweet, but he's a sensualist,
so he's very in the moment. And so then that
little vegetable garden where we're growing asparagus and we had raspberries,
we had a whole host hotch potch. We then decided
to build a walled garden, so that has gone to fallow.
So the asparagus has kind of now gone.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
To see so you get grape fish from the car.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yes, in Forest Row there's a fantastic fishmonga Vis's, so we, yeah,
we get our fish from there. And we used to
live in Brighton. You know my shepeas, That's what I telled,
I love a pee, I love my sheepee's. There was
one fish and chip shop on the tram stop near
(21:10):
my school, my high school, and I discovered us going
out with a skinhead at the time, and he took
me there and I had my first mushy peas and chips.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, and they're not Those don't need to be like
freshly picked peas do.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
They can be better if they are, let's face it.
But the one of the first ones I had were
not did you.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Enjoy going out to eat? Was that something in your
culture that you'd go to eat for a special occasion.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We did when my father was alive. We went to
I had a lot of a lot of Asian restaurants
and my father and I never really got to speak
to him about this as an adult, but he had
a lot of Japanese lithographs and books of haiku poetry,
and I think he must have traveled through Japan quite
a lot. So there weren't very many Japanese restaurants when
(21:59):
I was growing up, but I remember going to several
with him and eating a lot of Chinese food, and
the first time I had fried ice cream it was
just miraculous. So the first time I had raw fish
was amazing, and I just loved the beauty and precision
of the Japanese culture, and so I remember those experiences.
And when I went to drama school, I didn't have
(22:21):
a penny, but a girl who was in the directing course.
Was married to a Qcourne in Sydney at the National Institute,
and we used to sneak away and go and have
sake and a little bit of sashimi at lunchtime and
that seemed so.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, so chic and you know, extravagant.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Do you remember when you started acting how that married
with your wife? How did that affect your food? I mean,
did you meet a different way? Did you go out
to more restaurants?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I mean my first job, actually out of drama school,
I worked in the catering truck on a television show
because I wasn't working as an actor, and it was
my first entry into the film world, so I didn't
It was like this distraction that was happening that was
so frustrating, being in the catering truck trying to get
breakfast out and lunch out, and you know, in the
(23:14):
afternoon whatever it was called that we had to keep
stopping because they were doing this annoying thing called filming,
but they kept turning over. It was like, guys, how
are we going to get the cheese cake ready? And
then and then eventually I ended up on the other side.
But I had a real love and respect for the
difficulty of working in the you know, the catering van
(23:36):
and how you know it can be thankless.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
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(24:04):
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Speaker 3 (24:11):
Now, when I came here, we'd always wanted to have
a garden, We'd always wanted to grow things. I've got
brown thumbs. My mother and my grandmother had very very
green thumbs. And now my mother lives with us.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And I was saying, a brown thumb as well, green being.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Big, grow well, and I touched something and it just goes.
I know it is, but this is changing slowly, and
so it's been so fantastic. I think too, because I
grew up with my grandmother. Now that my mother is
living with us, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
They lived with us.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Oh really, it's great. It's great having a multi generational household.
That's great, saying.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
There's always my little My son when he was little
used to try and wake us up. It's a bog,
you know, going back to sleep. And then we'd hear
him go downstairs. He'd say to his brother, can you
wake up? And you say, I'll go back to sleep.
And then we hear go all the way down to
my mom and she'd opened the door and say, hi, bo,
I want to make a cake.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
You know in the morning, what every child wants to.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
But it's I know from you probably know this with
your grandmother, is that you talk so differently to your
grandparents than you do to your parents, and and that
that you can't tell everything to one person sometimes, you know,
we are different things with different people. But anyway, so
I'm having my mum in that house has been great, sod.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, she does.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
She's got her own garden, but also together where we've
just reinstated a walled garden that used to be there.
Because the house we're living in was derelict for many,
many years, and so when we part in Lockdown, we
realized that under a lot of rubble and mud, there
was a greenhouse. So we we restored it and then
we saw an aerial shot of the house or the
(25:58):
block of land in the forties, and so we've rebuilt
along the lines of where the war garden used to be.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And it's a learning curve. It keeps you humble. You
must humility because patient you don't have control over it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There, yes, and weather, yeah, and also I mean I
think it's just that thing of knowing that the certain
moths are going to come. And so we're not having
a lot of luck with broccoli and cauliflower, but Brussels
sprouts are okay, And so you cook with what you've
what you gather that day.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So when you said we were, when you said we
were going to do this today, I thought, well, okay,
we'll come and we'll have a conversation ali saki tasting.
So how did saki come? How did this happen?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Well, it's sort of it started a long time ago,
I think. I mean, you know, my mother and father
drank sak when we went out to Japanese restaurants, and
that was you know, to have to have a drink
in a tiny little cup. I mean, I found all
of the elements, so beautiful. And I've always loved ceramics
since I was with the ecouchement around it. And then
(27:03):
I worked with the Japanese skincare company This is years ago,
for about fifteen years, and we would go to Japan
a lot, and the active ingredients in the skincare was
found when during the rice polishing process, you know, because
obviously and this one is a junm daginjo, which is
a highly polished rice, and that made the people who
(27:27):
were working with the rice their hands were just like
infant's hands.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
The skin was amazing. But as a result, I went.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
To a lot of breweries and I got really fascinated
with the fermentation process and the fact that sake is
brewed like a beer but drunk like a wine. And
I thought, well, I often drink it when I'm having
Italian food because there's a purity and simplicity to you know,
particularly to the way you serve it up that also
is quite twinned to the purity and simplicity of Japanese food,
(27:58):
and I thought I would love to be part of
trying to bring that to to Western cuisine.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah, I have to pour for you.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
What is the ritual? Is there it's at the right temperature.
You don't drink it hot. With the first Japanese restaurant,
let's say, do you want it hard or do you
want it? Oh? Right?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah, Well the first time I had it was it
was hot.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
But because this is such a when the more highly
polished it is, and this is really highly polished.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
It's polished to thirty five percent. For what that's worth.
It has such a refined.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Flavor that you don't you don't want to heat it
because it would take all that that complication away.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
Beautiful. Well, yeah, I've always drunk drunk it in.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
A like in a little vessel, the ceramic, but there's
something about you can you can smell it better, I think,
And it doesn't feel so much like a spirit.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's nice to you that you're here. It's more saki together.
And do you go to Japan? You go where they
make it? Have you been?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, it's been amazing actually being part of the the
process of of seeing it made and and it's it's
aged in a very cold environment too, so it's really good.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
How would you describe it?
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I think it's fruity, but it's not too sweet.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
It isn't I think you described the saki in very
visual terms as well as taste terms.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I always wanted to to to paint like I always
wanted to dance.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And by the way, can I just interrupt you for
a minute and say, those splits.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Sea girl, I'm still suffering.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Know.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I had. The whole performance was kind of the revelation
of what you could. It was hard to take it.
But when you came and did those splits.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
A joke, that was as.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, I think I'm quite I make more sense in movement.
I think, you know, it's taken me a long time
to get used to being sort of in a two
dimensional medium or being photographed is always I have to
sort of trick myself into feeling comfortable. But yeah, it
ended up being quite quite physical.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And conducting is physical, Yeah, dancing actually dancing your arms,
your legs.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I mean, there's an amazing choreographer who also dances called
Xavier le Roi. He watched Simon Rattle conduct The Right
of Spring, and when he can, i mean, every every
strand of hair is flying. He's such an incredible creature
when he conducts. And he took that that he's active
(30:57):
conducting and turned it into a piece of choreography. And actually,
when I was playing tar in Toddfields.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I watched that piece of that dance and it was
totally free, and so I saw it the conducting as
a kinetic response like dances to music auto silence, you know,
and so that I found it quite liberating.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
When we think about food, we think about food as
you talked about your father and the memory of him
in Australia entertaining me as a thirteen year old and
then tasting a delicious tomato, and then we've just said,
right now, food is all that, but it's also comfort.
And so I was wondering if you could just tell
me before you say goodbye, what if you need comfort,
(31:41):
If you do want food as comfort, is there something
that you would reach for or cook or buy.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I think in the end it would be it would
be a soup. It would be a soup. And I
think really good soups often take time to make. So
you have you first of all, you have to do
the onions and the garlic, and then you have to
you know, put certain vegetables root vegetables in first, and
you have to let it simmer, and I'm quite impatient,
(32:12):
which is why I'm really relishing Starting a Garden, because
it's teaching me humility and patience. But there's something about
making a soup that you just have to let it
sit and you have to let it rest. And there's
one soup I talk about food waste I can't which
I can't stand. I get ribbed a lot about it
by my boys. But you know that that two or
(32:35):
three day old bread that is otherwise going to go
into the bins, you chop it up and you make
that fantastic soup with tomatoes and onions, and it makes
the bread go quite cheesy.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
The cat they called Papa Pomora.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yes, I love it, and I made it. I made
it over the weekend because we had a lot of
white bread.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That was some they did and fantastically in the summer
when the tomatoes are very ripe, and then in the
winter they actually caught ribolita, which means a kind of
basic minestrone. Very often it just has cavalo narrow, which
is a kind of and beans and then you add
the bread and then it expands and then it's called rebelita.
(33:15):
It's one of my favorite we have cool. Yeah, it's good.
Thank you, Kate, thank you
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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