February 1, 2022 • 19 mins
David Beckham loves family, loves football, and loves cooking.
On Episode 20 of The Ruthie's Table 4, he discusses it all with Ruthie Rogers—telling her how he learned to make a traditional risotto while playing for AC Milan, explaining why his idea of a perfect night is cooking dinner for his children, and recalling in detail the jellied eels, pie and mash, gammon and chips he ate as a child in the East End of London.
David has a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues, and certainly a lot of fans, but when he comes to The River Cafe, it’s with Victoria and their four children—always sitting at the table closest to the kitchen, sharing food and always enjoying a bottle of Sassicia, his favourite wine.
Listen to David Beckham, as you’ve never heard him before, on Episode 20 of Ruthie's Table 4.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie's Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/
Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm sitting here in the River Cafe garden with David Beckham.
He has just cooked an exquisite tagatelly with fresher rolls,
butter and parmesan. It's a bit much, really, as I
don't go around scoring free kicks. I know David has
a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues, and certainly
(00:29):
a lot of fans, but when he comes to the
River Cafe, it's with his family, Victoria and their four children,
always sitting at table one, basking and family, love, sharing
food and always having his favorite wine, Sassakia.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you, David, You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You were describing cooking as one of the great pleasures
the other night.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's one of my biggest passions, you know, along with wine. Now.
I love to cook and I was in the kitchen
the other day cooking for the kids and Victoria was like,
can I help? What can I do? And I was like, honestly,
sit down, have a vogron tonic, relax, be with the kids.
This is what I love to do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And I really relate to that because you kind of
far there's a method, isn't there. But it's also creative,
and it's also you're doing it for your kids who
you haven't seen all day, and there's the anticipation, and
I think that is something why you probably like to
cook and I like to cook.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's just one of the main reasons why I love
to cook, because it's why I love lego also, you know,
because it relaxes me, you know, and I'm forty seven
years older and I'll still sit there with you on
my own actually till two, three, four in the morning
doing lego because actually it relaxes me. And it's the
same cooking for the kids. I love to cook for
my parents. I love to cook for my friends. And
(01:48):
I think that it's obviously come from, you know, my upbringing.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What was your mother a cook? Cooking?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
My mum cooked for me and my sisters every single night,
and I had hard working parents, working class parents. When
my dad was out from six in the morning till
seven in the evening. My mom was a hairdresser and
still is a hairdresser. She used to spend her evenings
obviously cooking for me and my sisters, and then at
about eight or nine, o'clock in the evening. Some old
(02:15):
ladies would arrive and she'd be doing their hair too,
eleven twelve at night. So yes, my mom used to
cook for us every evening, every Sunday lunch. And my
grandma was exactly the same as well. So that's really
my childhood with my grandparents. And my granddad was Jewish,
so every Saturday when we turn up, my grand would
(02:37):
have this most amazing chicken noodle soup with the motsameal dumplings.
So I was brought up That's what I was brought
up on. And the jelly deals. One of the delights
of been from the East End of London was pie
mash and jelly deals and liquor. That was what I
was really brought up on. It was the one treat
(02:58):
that I used to go with my nan my grandad.
We used to go down to Chapel Market. There was
the most amazing pie and mash shop there and we
used to sit in there, sawdust on the floor, sat
on wooden seats and eating our pie mash and jelly deals.
What was in the pie Actually, it's just mince meat.
(03:18):
It's just mince meat. The pis are the most amazing pastry,
and I always get them to turn them upside down
on my plate. And then it's a big dollop of mash.
And the mash is literally there's no there's hardly any
butter in it. It's just salt and the potatoes. And
then the liquor is this most amazing green sauce. It's
(03:38):
made with parsley and stewed eels, and then I put
some spicy vinegar over the top, with some a little
bit of salt and lots of pepper. But the jelly
deals are the thing that not many people that I
know love the jelly deals. My grand used to like
them stewed. I literally like them in the jellatine. So
they come up in slices, so the earls are cut up,
(04:03):
and they come in this this plastic pot and I
just pour vinegar and pepper on it, and I have
it at least once a week. Now.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Many people that I talked to talk about the food
of their parents, but the memory of their grandparents is
really important to them.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
We used to go there every weekend because my dad's
parents actually had passed away before we had all grown up,
so we always used to spend weekends at my man
and grandad's house. So my mom's mom and dad and
we used to turn up at their at their flats
in London, and the first thing that I would do
(04:42):
and I walked through the door in my grand's flat
would open, I'd open the fridge and there she'd have
fresh strawberries. Every Saturday morning that we turned up, she'd
have fresh strawberries and a big pot of sugar.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
It's interesting that you talk about that because my husband,
Richard designed house which was a very strong route from
the park through the garden, through the courtyard into the
house and into a garden. But my route, I always
used to say, was from the courtyard into the house
and into the fridge. You know, my first stop was
always at the fridge because again his mother always had
(05:17):
food for us.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah. Well, they had a very They had a very
small flat. So as you walk in, literally the toilet
was on your left and just slight a foot fervor
was the fridge. So you open the fridge and there
there was, you know, the most amazing fresh strawberries every
Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning. Because my grandfather used to
go to work at about eleven o'clock in the morning.
(05:40):
So what we'd do is we'd arrive really early, like
nine o'clock. My grand would have this thick, freshly cut bread.
She'd make the most amazing sandwich. I'd sit and watch
like the football on a Saturday morning before my grand
had left, and then he'd go to work and then
go and watch Spurs play. He was in the print,
(06:02):
so he was in the print, and he worked up
until he was eighty eighty one eighty two, he still
went to work. And yeah, he's an amazing man. And
he was a Tottenham fan. So he used to go
and watch Tottenham in the afternoons. And that's where my
gran and my mom used to take me down to
Chapel Market and we used to go and have piemash.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How old would you have been?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Oh my god. We went there from as long as
I can remember, I mean two three years old and
up until up until they passed away.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So there's your mother. That's interesting that she worked all
day and she cooked for you at night, so you
sat at the table and then worked again. Would she
have done a weekly shop or would you stop at
the market or how would she do all that?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Do you think I mean she'd do. She'd probably do
a weekly shop shop, I'd say, But you know, my mom,
like I said, she'd drop us to school in the mornings.
Then you know, you do hairdressing throughout the day, pick
us up from school, bring us home, cook us, you know,
whatever we were going to eat that evening, which was
either she used to make the most amazing gammon and chips,
(07:12):
which again it's one of those things that I still
have now. It was amazing gammon, fried egg, pineapple from
a tin, coleslaw and chips, and it was one of
my favorite meals and she still cooks that for me now.
So yeah, that was one of the things that I
used to love.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
When you left home and you were no longer had
your mother to cook, but you also you had such
a love for food and an understanding of the connection
of food and the importance of sitting at the table.
What was that like when you left that?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I was actually quite excited because I left home when
I was fifteen years old to move up to Manchester
when I was fifteen, and then I was in lodgings.
So I was in lodgings for about four years and
then I bought my first house and actually I was
quite excited about it, because, in all honesty, I spent
a lot of time in the kitchen with my mum,
(08:20):
you know, helping her with the dinners, and then when
she would do her hair dressing in the evenings, I
used to make the cups of tea and bring the
biscuits or the cake for all my mum's ladies that
she was doing their hair. So I used to love
that kind of thing. So get in my own house
having to cook for myself, actually, I was very excited about.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Did you entertain what did you cook for?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I would entertain I'd have a few friends around, you know.
I did like to go out for dinner, but my
favorite evenings were and still are, you know, cooking for
the kids, cooking for friends, you know, and especially when
I have when I have like a lot of time,
you know. Pretty recently, I was in isolation actually for
five days because I've just been to Italy. So I
(09:07):
came back and on one of the last days, Victoria's
parents had a party and I couldn't actually go to it,
so everyone was out of the house, and I actually
secretly loved it. So I literally had two most amazing
cuts of meat and one was a t bone and
(09:28):
I had some English wagou. I poured one glass of
the most amazing red wine that I treated myself too,
because I was on my own, feeling sorry for myself,
looking forward to watching the football in the afternoon. On
my own, I set the barbecue up, and I think
there's nothing better than when you have time to get
everything right you have, you know, I had a nice
(09:50):
tomato and onion or shot salad, and I literally had
the meat and a glass of wine, and it was
the most amazing meal that I'd had for a long time.
So those are my perfect afternoons. Even it was actually
quite thick. I don't like to brag, but absolute perfection,
that's your idea of perfect. Well, I've been watching Chef's
(10:13):
Table that morning and it gave me the idea of
obviously doing you know, the barbecue in the afternoon. So
I've been watching the butcher. There was a there's an
Italian butcher on the chef's table. So I put it
on the grill, cooked it for six or seven minutes
either side, and it was quite a thick piece, a
(10:33):
bit of salt, bit of pepper, and I like I
like my meat. I like it rare medium, a push,
but rare, more rare, and it was it came out perfect,
and it was only me in the house, so I
ate it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I like it when it's when if it's thick enough,
then you can get it really black on the outside.
So there's that contrast.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You think of the the So that's what it was
like that day. So that was the perfect day. And
I had a bottle of Italian massetto, so I had
Cora vand it and poured a cup of glasses for myself.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Tell me, we've been talking about food, what do you
feel about wine?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You know, I'm at the end of the dawn from
the East end of London, so really I only saw
my mom and dad drinking either you know, blue nuana
or lambriusco, and that was as good as it really got.
So then when me and Victoria actually first started dating,
we used to go to this restaurant in the Midland
(11:35):
Hotel in Manchester called the French Restaurant, and it was
very fancy and we used to go in there and
we used to sit in the corner and we used
to order the most expensive bottle of champagne and the
most expensive bottle of wine, not knowing what we were drinking.
We were just wanting to have a nice night out
and know that we were drinking something great, even though
(11:55):
we had no idea what we were drinking. And I
think that was my first introduction into tasting a grape wine.
One of the first things, remember, I want to say,
it was either a sixty two or sixty seven Lautour,
And that was my first introduction into tasting something that
(12:18):
I thought was great. Even though I had no idea
whether it was great or not, I knew that I
was tasting something special. So at that point, obviously I
was still, you know, a professional player, so I never
really I was never a big drinker. I used to
have a glass of wine or you know, every now
and again, but I never really drank throughout my career.
(12:38):
But then I really started loving wine when we first
moved to la and we used to go to Napa
Valley a lot, and I used to sit with people
like Bill Harlan or An Colgan, and I think that
there's nothing better than actually sitting at a table with
someone that knows what they're talking about and what they're drinking,
(12:59):
and what they're smelling and what they're tasting annoyingly. Victoria
is very good on that. It is annoying.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Actually she has she can say this wine tastes of
cigarette smoke. Yes, and that's exactly what.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
She can say. And I'm like, yeah, it really does.
And I'm like, I don't taste that, but no, but annoyingly,
she's very good at that, and she'll never admit it.
She'll always say, well, David's the expert. Then then you know,
all of a sudden she'll come out with all that
smell that tastes a little bit smoky, and you know, so, yeah,
but you know, I love wine.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Does it matter to you if you order a wine
that you might not be happy?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You know what I have? How does it make me feel? Actually?
I think it can make or break an evening in
my opinion. I really do think it does. Even though
you know that you're going to get great food in
the restaurant wherever you are. For me, if I have
picked the wrong wine, wrong glass of wine, or the
(14:02):
wrong bottle of wine, I wouldn't say it ruins my evening,
but yeah, it does ruin my evening. And I get
quite emotional about food and wine, you know, when I'm
eating something great. I want everyone to try it, you know,
And that's unfortunately I'm married to someone that has eaten
the same thing for the last twenty five years since
(14:24):
since I've met Victoria. She only eats you know, grilled fish, steam, vegetables.
She will very rarely deviate away from there. The only
time that she's ever probably shared something that's been on
my plate was actually when she was pregnant with Harber
do you remember, And it was the most amazing thing.
(14:44):
It was one of my favorite evenings. I can't remember
what it was, but I know that she's not eating
it since. To be honest, I've been so lucky because
(15:05):
in a way, when I left Manchester and I had
to leave Manchester United, I was obviously devastated at the time,
but it's really really educated me in living in different countries,
eating different foods, trying different things. And when I was
playing in Italy for eleven months, i was on loan
(15:25):
at AC Milan, so i'd train in the morning and
in the afternoon. I decided to take a culinary course
in Italian cuisine and I absolutely loved it. So I
did that lesson or as I had a few private
lessons and then it was in a class, but everybody
was very focused on what they were all doing, so
(15:46):
they weren't even bothered that I was. Obviously at the time,
it's a big deal to be playing for an Italian team.
So I did the culinary course because my kid's favorite
food is Italian. So I wanted to perfect making the
perfect ragu. I wanted to perfect doing the perfect risotto.
(16:08):
I always had it in my head that doing a risotto.
Making a risotto was difficult. Actually it turns out not
to be that difficult. So why did they teach you
about making Obviously the stock is really most important, and
literally you're stood there for twenty minutes kind of making
sure that you're keeping an eye and everything that's not
(16:29):
going too dry, that it's not going it's not got
too much liquid in it. And then obviously the ending
is the part where everything comes together with the parmesan,
you know. So that I just loved that time because
I got to perfect the perfect well, I think it's
the perfect ragu, making fresh pasta from scratch, and obviously
(16:49):
the risotto. So that was one of the things that
I loved about living in Italy, you know, And it's
the one thing that I love about Italians and the
Italian food and the culture because for a start, it's
all about family. It's all about food and the wine,
of course, but whether you go into a small cafe
on the side of the street or you're in the
(17:12):
middle of Tuscany with an old Italian mama making the
most amazing pasta, everything that I ate and I have
always eaten in Italy has always been astonishing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Everything I would say when you say that it's family,
I always tell the story that I was once in
a room in a house with Richard with his family
in Tuscany, and I heard this huge argument going on
downstairs in Italian and I thought, oh, no, you know
what's going on. So I kind of made my way
downstairs and there were two sisters and they were in
(17:46):
the kitchen and they were having this unbelievable argument about
whether or not with a papa pomodoro, which is a
bread soup of just bread and tomatoes. One wanted to
add a bit of water at the end and the
other one didn't. And you know, so it's not even
village to village, family to family, region to region. It
can be sister to sister. You know that there's the
(18:07):
right way to do it, and they care so.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Much, so much, and even when they're not arguing, it
sounds like they're arguing. They're so passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I hope we'll cook together more. And they loved having
you in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Kitchen that well, Thank you, David, wonderful, Thank you for
having me. You're welcome, Love you too.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
In the next episode, you can hear David cooking Apasta
in the River Cafe kitchen. Then we'll continue our conversation
about football, family and food. To visit the online shop
of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot co
dot uk.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm sitting here in the River Cafe garden with David Beckham.
He has just cooked an exquisite tagatelly with fresher rolls,
butter and parmesan. It's a bit much, really, as I
don't go around scoring free kicks. I know David has
a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues, and certainly
(00:29):
a lot of fans, but when he comes to the
River Cafe, it's with his family, Victoria and their four children,
always sitting at table one, basking and family, love, sharing
food and always having his favorite wine, Sassakia.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you, David, You're welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You were describing cooking as one of the great pleasures
the other night.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's one of my biggest passions, you know, along with wine. Now.
I love to cook and I was in the kitchen
the other day cooking for the kids and Victoria was like,
can I help? What can I do? And I was like, honestly,
sit down, have a vogron tonic, relax, be with the kids.
This is what I love to do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And I really relate to that because you kind of
far there's a method, isn't there. But it's also creative,
and it's also you're doing it for your kids who
you haven't seen all day, and there's the anticipation, and
I think that is something why you probably like to
cook and I like to cook.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's just one of the main reasons why I love
to cook, because it's why I love lego also, you know,
because it relaxes me, you know, and I'm forty seven
years older and I'll still sit there with you on
my own actually till two, three, four in the morning
doing lego because actually it relaxes me. And it's the
same cooking for the kids. I love to cook for
my parents. I love to cook for my friends. And
(01:48):
I think that it's obviously come from, you know, my upbringing.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What was your mother a cook? Cooking?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
My mum cooked for me and my sisters every single night,
and I had hard working parents, working class parents. When
my dad was out from six in the morning till
seven in the evening. My mom was a hairdresser and
still is a hairdresser. She used to spend her evenings
obviously cooking for me and my sisters, and then at
about eight or nine, o'clock in the evening. Some old
(02:15):
ladies would arrive and she'd be doing their hair too,
eleven twelve at night. So yes, my mom used to
cook for us every evening, every Sunday lunch. And my
grandma was exactly the same as well. So that's really
my childhood with my grandparents. And my granddad was Jewish,
so every Saturday when we turn up, my grand would
(02:37):
have this most amazing chicken noodle soup with the motsameal dumplings.
So I was brought up That's what I was brought
up on. And the jelly deals. One of the delights
of been from the East End of London was pie
mash and jelly deals and liquor. That was what I
was really brought up on. It was the one treat
(02:58):
that I used to go with my nan my grandad.
We used to go down to Chapel Market. There was
the most amazing pie and mash shop there and we
used to sit in there, sawdust on the floor, sat
on wooden seats and eating our pie mash and jelly deals.
What was in the pie Actually, it's just mince meat.
(03:18):
It's just mince meat. The pis are the most amazing pastry,
and I always get them to turn them upside down
on my plate. And then it's a big dollop of mash.
And the mash is literally there's no there's hardly any
butter in it. It's just salt and the potatoes. And
then the liquor is this most amazing green sauce. It's
(03:38):
made with parsley and stewed eels, and then I put
some spicy vinegar over the top, with some a little
bit of salt and lots of pepper. But the jelly
deals are the thing that not many people that I
know love the jelly deals. My grand used to like
them stewed. I literally like them in the jellatine. So
they come up in slices, so the earls are cut up,
(04:03):
and they come in this this plastic pot and I
just pour vinegar and pepper on it, and I have
it at least once a week. Now.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Many people that I talked to talk about the food
of their parents, but the memory of their grandparents is
really important to them.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
We used to go there every weekend because my dad's
parents actually had passed away before we had all grown up,
so we always used to spend weekends at my man
and grandad's house. So my mom's mom and dad and
we used to turn up at their at their flats
in London, and the first thing that I would do
(04:42):
and I walked through the door in my grand's flat
would open, I'd open the fridge and there she'd have
fresh strawberries. Every Saturday morning that we turned up, she'd
have fresh strawberries and a big pot of sugar.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
It's interesting that you talk about that because my husband,
Richard designed house which was a very strong route from
the park through the garden, through the courtyard into the
house and into a garden. But my route, I always
used to say, was from the courtyard into the house
and into the fridge. You know, my first stop was
always at the fridge because again his mother always had
(05:17):
food for us.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah. Well, they had a very They had a very
small flat. So as you walk in, literally the toilet
was on your left and just slight a foot fervor
was the fridge. So you open the fridge and there
there was, you know, the most amazing fresh strawberries every
Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning. Because my grandfather used to
go to work at about eleven o'clock in the morning.
(05:40):
So what we'd do is we'd arrive really early, like
nine o'clock. My grand would have this thick, freshly cut bread.
She'd make the most amazing sandwich. I'd sit and watch
like the football on a Saturday morning before my grand
had left, and then he'd go to work and then
go and watch Spurs play. He was in the print,
(06:02):
so he was in the print, and he worked up
until he was eighty eighty one eighty two, he still
went to work. And yeah, he's an amazing man. And
he was a Tottenham fan. So he used to go
and watch Tottenham in the afternoons. And that's where my
gran and my mom used to take me down to
Chapel Market and we used to go and have piemash.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How old would you have been?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Oh my god. We went there from as long as
I can remember, I mean two three years old and
up until up until they passed away.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So there's your mother. That's interesting that she worked all
day and she cooked for you at night, so you
sat at the table and then worked again. Would she
have done a weekly shop or would you stop at
the market or how would she do all that?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Do you think I mean she'd do. She'd probably do
a weekly shop shop, I'd say, But you know, my mom,
like I said, she'd drop us to school in the mornings.
Then you know, you do hairdressing throughout the day, pick
us up from school, bring us home, cook us, you know,
whatever we were going to eat that evening, which was
either she used to make the most amazing gammon and chips,
(07:12):
which again it's one of those things that I still
have now. It was amazing gammon, fried egg, pineapple from
a tin, coleslaw and chips, and it was one of
my favorite meals and she still cooks that for me now.
So yeah, that was one of the things that I
used to love.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
When you left home and you were no longer had
your mother to cook, but you also you had such
a love for food and an understanding of the connection
of food and the importance of sitting at the table.
What was that like when you left that?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I was actually quite excited because I left home when
I was fifteen years old to move up to Manchester
when I was fifteen, and then I was in lodgings.
So I was in lodgings for about four years and
then I bought my first house and actually I was
quite excited about it, because, in all honesty, I spent
a lot of time in the kitchen with my mum,
(08:20):
you know, helping her with the dinners, and then when
she would do her hair dressing in the evenings, I
used to make the cups of tea and bring the
biscuits or the cake for all my mum's ladies that
she was doing their hair. So I used to love
that kind of thing. So get in my own house
having to cook for myself, actually, I was very excited about.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Did you entertain what did you cook for?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I would entertain I'd have a few friends around, you know.
I did like to go out for dinner, but my
favorite evenings were and still are, you know, cooking for
the kids, cooking for friends, you know, and especially when
I have when I have like a lot of time,
you know. Pretty recently, I was in isolation actually for
five days because I've just been to Italy. So I
(09:07):
came back and on one of the last days, Victoria's
parents had a party and I couldn't actually go to it,
so everyone was out of the house, and I actually
secretly loved it. So I literally had two most amazing
cuts of meat and one was a t bone and
(09:28):
I had some English wagou. I poured one glass of
the most amazing red wine that I treated myself too,
because I was on my own, feeling sorry for myself,
looking forward to watching the football in the afternoon. On
my own, I set the barbecue up, and I think
there's nothing better than when you have time to get
everything right you have, you know, I had a nice
(09:50):
tomato and onion or shot salad, and I literally had
the meat and a glass of wine, and it was
the most amazing meal that I'd had for a long time.
So those are my perfect afternoons. Even it was actually
quite thick. I don't like to brag, but absolute perfection,
that's your idea of perfect. Well, I've been watching Chef's
(10:13):
Table that morning and it gave me the idea of
obviously doing you know, the barbecue in the afternoon. So
I've been watching the butcher. There was a there's an
Italian butcher on the chef's table. So I put it
on the grill, cooked it for six or seven minutes
either side, and it was quite a thick piece, a
(10:33):
bit of salt, bit of pepper, and I like I
like my meat. I like it rare medium, a push,
but rare, more rare, and it was it came out perfect,
and it was only me in the house, so I
ate it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I like it when it's when if it's thick enough,
then you can get it really black on the outside.
So there's that contrast.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You think of the the So that's what it was
like that day. So that was the perfect day. And
I had a bottle of Italian massetto, so I had
Cora vand it and poured a cup of glasses for myself.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Tell me, we've been talking about food, what do you
feel about wine?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You know, I'm at the end of the dawn from
the East end of London, so really I only saw
my mom and dad drinking either you know, blue nuana
or lambriusco, and that was as good as it really got.
So then when me and Victoria actually first started dating,
we used to go to this restaurant in the Midland
(11:35):
Hotel in Manchester called the French Restaurant, and it was
very fancy and we used to go in there and
we used to sit in the corner and we used
to order the most expensive bottle of champagne and the
most expensive bottle of wine, not knowing what we were drinking.
We were just wanting to have a nice night out
and know that we were drinking something great, even though
(11:55):
we had no idea what we were drinking. And I
think that was my first introduction into tasting a grape wine.
One of the first things, remember, I want to say,
it was either a sixty two or sixty seven Lautour,
And that was my first introduction into tasting something that
(12:18):
I thought was great. Even though I had no idea
whether it was great or not, I knew that I
was tasting something special. So at that point, obviously I
was still, you know, a professional player, so I never
really I was never a big drinker. I used to
have a glass of wine or you know, every now
and again, but I never really drank throughout my career.
(12:38):
But then I really started loving wine when we first
moved to la and we used to go to Napa
Valley a lot, and I used to sit with people
like Bill Harlan or An Colgan, and I think that
there's nothing better than actually sitting at a table with
someone that knows what they're talking about and what they're drinking,
(12:59):
and what they're smelling and what they're tasting annoyingly. Victoria
is very good on that. It is annoying.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Actually she has she can say this wine tastes of
cigarette smoke. Yes, and that's exactly what.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
She can say. And I'm like, yeah, it really does.
And I'm like, I don't taste that, but no, but annoyingly,
she's very good at that, and she'll never admit it.
She'll always say, well, David's the expert. Then then you know,
all of a sudden she'll come out with all that
smell that tastes a little bit smoky, and you know, so, yeah,
but you know, I love wine.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Does it matter to you if you order a wine
that you might not be happy?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You know what I have? How does it make me feel? Actually?
I think it can make or break an evening in
my opinion. I really do think it does. Even though
you know that you're going to get great food in
the restaurant wherever you are. For me, if I have
picked the wrong wine, wrong glass of wine, or the
(14:02):
wrong bottle of wine, I wouldn't say it ruins my evening,
but yeah, it does ruin my evening. And I get
quite emotional about food and wine, you know, when I'm
eating something great. I want everyone to try it, you know,
And that's unfortunately I'm married to someone that has eaten
the same thing for the last twenty five years since
(14:24):
since I've met Victoria. She only eats you know, grilled fish, steam, vegetables.
She will very rarely deviate away from there. The only
time that she's ever probably shared something that's been on
my plate was actually when she was pregnant with Harber
do you remember, And it was the most amazing thing.
(14:44):
It was one of my favorite evenings. I can't remember
what it was, but I know that she's not eating
it since. To be honest, I've been so lucky because
(15:05):
in a way, when I left Manchester and I had
to leave Manchester United, I was obviously devastated at the time,
but it's really really educated me in living in different countries,
eating different foods, trying different things. And when I was
playing in Italy for eleven months, i was on loan
(15:25):
at AC Milan, so i'd train in the morning and
in the afternoon. I decided to take a culinary course
in Italian cuisine and I absolutely loved it. So I
did that lesson or as I had a few private
lessons and then it was in a class, but everybody
was very focused on what they were all doing, so
(15:46):
they weren't even bothered that I was. Obviously at the time,
it's a big deal to be playing for an Italian team.
So I did the culinary course because my kid's favorite
food is Italian. So I wanted to perfect making the
perfect ragu. I wanted to perfect doing the perfect risotto.
(16:08):
I always had it in my head that doing a risotto.
Making a risotto was difficult. Actually it turns out not
to be that difficult. So why did they teach you
about making Obviously the stock is really most important, and
literally you're stood there for twenty minutes kind of making
sure that you're keeping an eye and everything that's not
(16:29):
going too dry, that it's not going it's not got
too much liquid in it. And then obviously the ending
is the part where everything comes together with the parmesan,
you know. So that I just loved that time because
I got to perfect the perfect well, I think it's
the perfect ragu, making fresh pasta from scratch, and obviously
(16:49):
the risotto. So that was one of the things that
I loved about living in Italy, you know, And it's
the one thing that I love about Italians and the
Italian food and the culture because for a start, it's
all about family. It's all about food and the wine,
of course, but whether you go into a small cafe
on the side of the street or you're in the
(17:12):
middle of Tuscany with an old Italian mama making the
most amazing pasta, everything that I ate and I have
always eaten in Italy has always been astonishing.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Everything I would say when you say that it's family,
I always tell the story that I was once in
a room in a house with Richard with his family
in Tuscany, and I heard this huge argument going on
downstairs in Italian and I thought, oh, no, you know
what's going on. So I kind of made my way
downstairs and there were two sisters and they were in
(17:46):
the kitchen and they were having this unbelievable argument about
whether or not with a papa pomodoro, which is a
bread soup of just bread and tomatoes. One wanted to
add a bit of water at the end and the
other one didn't. And you know, so it's not even
village to village, family to family, region to region. It
can be sister to sister. You know that there's the
(18:07):
right way to do it, and they care so.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Much, so much, and even when they're not arguing, it
sounds like they're arguing. They're so passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I hope we'll cook together more. And they loved having
you in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Kitchen that well, Thank you, David, wonderful, Thank you for
having me. You're welcome, Love you too.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
In the next episode, you can hear David cooking Apasta
in the River Cafe kitchen. Then we'll continue our conversation
about football, family and food. To visit the online shop
of the River Cafe, go to shop Therivercafe dot co
dot uk.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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