September 1, 2025 • 34 mins
...on accidentally eating movie props, how food on film sets has changed, her passion for regenerative farming, and writing a book with her mother. Originally recorded in 2024.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube,
where you'll find full episodes, clips, and some of my
favorite moments from the series. Guests like Kate Blanchett, Francis
Ford Coppolo, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, and many many more.
To watch. Go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol
(00:23):
Ruthie's Table four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Thinking about Laura Dern coming here today. I found myself
scrolling through three years of text messages. It's kind of
a story about making plans to meet our excitement at
the thought of seeing each other in la or London,
choosing restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of
a fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most
(00:55):
of our ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.
Laura is loved by me and many others. She's fun,
she's curious, she's smart, she hangs with a crew on set,
passionate about her children, Jaya and Ellery. She has strong
memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes.
(01:18):
Laura fights for human rights, social values. It is a
bold and brave spokesperson for women in the film industry.
Directors and writers consider her first when making a movie.
Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion
Pictures in la remembers that as a trustee, she was
a rigorous and remarkable client. He asked me to give
(01:40):
her a hug. Laura Dern loves to eat, and she
cares about food and the politics of feeding people safely
and sustainably. To day, we're here in the River Cafe
to talk about all this and more. And after I
give her the hug from Rerenzo and another one for me,
that's what we're going to do. So tell me about
(02:03):
your cooking with Sean.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible,
and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the
last probably seven years of making movies here in London,
my memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here
at the River Cafe. This is where we plot and
(02:29):
create and invent, and over the course of a meal
that's always remembered. So then I was on set with
Noah boundback this week and we'd had dinner here together,
the two of us, talking about what it's feeling like
and how it feels different for him than the last
movies in his life. And as we're describing it, we're
(02:51):
describing like, oh, my god, wasn't that wine incredible?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Can you believe that salad was? What was the art
of show? How did she make that art of chow?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And we're just you know, it becomes this organic part
of memory, food and art, and you've created this sustainable,
inventive place for art and artists that is forever seeped
in my memory. So already it's such a gift and
it means so much. And now our friendship which is
(03:24):
growing and evolving, and we're getting finally getting time together,
but also being in the kitchen and watching a great
chef's kitchen and it feels rigorous and stressful. I walk
away from it saying, that's such a terrifying space and
there's something even cold about it. And the minute you
(03:46):
walk in, first of all, the warmth of the kitchen
as part of the room, that the chef is not
separate from the client, that we're all eating and creating
and inventing this day together. That's what's so beautiful about
the space you've created. And then Sean's energy is so beautiful,
(04:06):
and that she wants to teach as much as she
loves to cook is so amazing. And my son, we
were sharing, Ellery has really, through the pandemic, discovered his
love of cooking. And he always had that innate instinct
even as a little boy, you know, putting something together.
(04:28):
He knew how to kind of close his eyes and
pick the right flavors or something.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever
experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And to make a meal.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Alongside other people is like when you're collaborating in the studio.
You don't know what's going to happen or how we're
going to invent together to create this same goal, this
piece of art. But everyone has their unique rhythm.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Hi, I'm John and I'm making a potatoes are Porno
with sage with Laura. Then the potatoes are done in
the wood oven. But you don't need to have a
wood oven in your house time Okay, good, you might
have one, No, I don't know what. Oh, yeah, so
this is your recipe that you've chosen, I pay.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And so it's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then
they've been tossed with garlic and sage and covered and
cooked for about forty five minutes and then the brow
up in an oven.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
It's really traditional oven.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
What would you do? You just put it in forty
five minutes.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, So when you read the recipe you'll see just
slice the potatoes, scarlet, sage, cover it and then you
uncover it and brown it and it will turn out
like that, I promise you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And you'd only.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Use the fresh stage leaves, right, Yeah, well you can
use anything is fine.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Roast, Yeah, it's really nice with fish or meat.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Anything not beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This is my son's obsession also with.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
There's a beauty to the irregularity, and there's a beauty
to the shaving.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And like he was like, when you have a true
tritata in Spain.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, when he's like, Americans try to make it and
it's you.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Never get the texture of it, right.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So there's still like a density like aldente and pasta, yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And I wonder whether it's something to do with the
potato because it's actually like a waxy potato. By the
end of today, you'll know how to make that. You
can impress your son. Okay, you know what you're where
you're going with it now?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I think like when you get really good at cooking, Yeah,
I think you don't need to cook with your eyes.
You cook it with other senses. Can you can cook
with your ears because you can hear how it's cooking,
cut you and then you can obviously smell. And she
just got it like somewhere in your intuition.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, I wonder what you're somethink I love it.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I'll have to ask him because I need for eyes.
You know, when you're like buying garlic or something. Yeah,
and when it goes into oil, it's sort of making
a noise. But as it browns, it starts to change
in the sound. I reckon, you can tell when when
it's brown, just buying the sound.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Oh that's so bad.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Yeah, I'm really into I'm really interesting. Can you cook
without your eyes? Yes, I reckon you can.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's amazing. I'm not there.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
If he wants to come and have a look I
have a kitchen anytime.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh my god, I have to bring in a day
with us. Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, Oh my god, that would be We can talk.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
About should we read the recipe first? Why don't you
heed the recipe?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
So the recipe is potato alfaro, four tablespoons of olive oil,
four garlic clothes, peeled and finely sliced, twenty sage leaves.
We spoke a lot about the sage, because the sage
is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight hundred and
fifty grams rose vale or similar yellow waxy potatoes, peeled,
(08:17):
sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the oven
to one ninety degrees. You heat the oil in a
frying pan, stir in the garlic. Slice each potato lengthways
down the middle, so that you are left with two
thick slices. Place in a large bowl, season with salt
(08:37):
and pepper, tossed together with olive oil and sage. Put
in a baking dish. Cover with foil, and you cook
in the oven for forty minutes. About twenty minutes before
the end of cooking, remove the foil so that the
surface of the potatoes become brown. Now the sage looked
(08:59):
so fresh, which I think is a key. And she
was saying, these amazing waxy potatoes are from Italy. And
I don't even know what how I find those waxy
potatoes in California or what they translate as.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
I can't answer that, but we can find them. You
can find great potatoes. I mean the extreme for potatoes
is when I went to perof you just see all these,
you know, different different, different potatoes. But I bet if
we went to a market in La we can find
the potatoes so that they'll give you a rose potatoes
and you can show it to the person.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Amazing, amazing potatoes.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But I also was so touched, especially because I said,
I want to make it for ellery by not only
the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't
like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like
in filmmaking something being off center, you know it, there's
(10:01):
something so beautiful about the way it looks. And I
was really touched by that. And he always comments on that,
like when we've been in Spain and you have a
frittata and the potatoes the density, like he was comparing
it to al dente and pasta like you have it.
There's a little bite to them, and they can be
very potatoes can be very mushy.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well that's why I think the usl when she said waxy,
like they're not flowery. You know, you have a baked
potato with sour cream or whatever you have with it,
you want it to be quite flowery. And we have
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You want them not to be waxy.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But these hold their shape and they kind of defined
and always sounds better and better. Where is he?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I know, we got to get him over here if.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
He's concerned about the way that potatoes alice, and I
want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
He's a musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and now he's just
started producing his first record for an amazing artist, a
female singer songwriter. And so I think sound and instinct
is everything. You know, it's really Yeah, it's beautiful, but.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Over food, talking over food, food and sharing a meal
and creating also really happens together, doesn't.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It so much? I was just saying to a girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
She was like, what is the thing that makes you know?
And I said, if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal.
Oh yeah, yeah, million percent.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that people
really nice.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are
often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians,
and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was taught that, you know, you not.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Only the focus and regard, but actually honoring their performance
of the specials as high art. And so the performance
of Specials was given deep in high regard.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
For a long time. The friend of mine had their
two children who were like eight and ten. We were
all having their journalists with we're all having lunch in
a restaurant, and his daughter turned him and said blue, daddy,
and then the son later on said brown, And I
said what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught
them to learn the color of the eyes of the
(12:30):
person who's waiting on their table so that they look
at them. And I thought that was really a nice
way of doing it, that they just met the you
know somebody. Yeah, since brown, blue, blue brow, that's amazing nice. Yeah,
let's go back, okay, because we've talked about your son,
we haven't talked about your daughter, but about it is
(12:52):
she is she interested in food.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
She is like me.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
We love food and we appreciate food. And she is
a fierce young activists. So she definitely cares deeply about
sustainability and the politics of food, particularly in the US,
and so we have a lot of conversations about where
the food is coming from, carbon emissions, how to support it,
(13:17):
regenerative farming, the soil itself.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And she was a.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Really beautiful supporter of a series of films and I've
been a producer on the most recent, which has Kissed
the Ground, and now a film we made Common Ground,
which is sort of the sequel to that about regenerative farming.
And so she's learned a lot about the question of
overtilling and pesticides and big food, the industry of it,
(13:44):
and obviously the laws in the UK and EU are
very different than in the US, in which chemicals are
somehow god in the US, which is tragic and hopefully
changing more and more with independent farmers. And so she
is deeply interested in it, which is really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures, glasses
from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right
next door to the River Cafe in London or online
at Shopthrivercafe dot co dot UK. I'm a grandmother now
(14:38):
and I think there is something about wanting to cook
for your grandchildren in a way that you were, maybe
as a working mother, not able to do or to
do enough. And tell me about the role that your
grandmother played in your childhood.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced,
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, So majority of my
time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama and
she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And so
(15:16):
the roots of my family are so tied to food
and tradition in the South.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When you think
about France and Italy and Britain having you know, the
north of France has a very different cuisine from the
South of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine
from Sicily. And then you think about American food and
you think, well, it is a food of Vermont, really
different from the food of Ohio or but the food
(15:48):
actually of the South has such a strong identity.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just
like in the Great Lakes. You know, this a very
Scandinavian focused American cuisine. And the South, I mean, particularly
in New Orleans. Obviously there's so much French influence, but
there's also the influence of the American farmer. And what
(16:14):
was incredible was in lower income families the food was
simpler and from the land that you had. But my
grandmother was getting what she could from her fellow friends
and farms locally.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah,
oh she did.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
That was sort of the staple of your meal.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
But when she was in the South, especially when they
were on the farm, the major meal of the day
was breakfast, which was so wild. They would have of
like really like an early morning breakfast and then go
out and work in the fields and then come back
and have this huge breakfast at like ten in the
(17:11):
morning because they'd already been working since four am. And
I remember as a little girl when I would go
visit my grandfather in Mississippi and at ten am it
was corn bread and eggs and bacon and grits and
collars and a coconut cake and a cake cover a
(17:32):
cake for breakfast with your coffee. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Would this be weekdays as well?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Every day for them? Every day, you know?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was
like a big.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Never, although my mom just told me that when they
were first together in New York, he would cook on
Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do
like a big pastas meatballs or lamb chops or some
kind of Sunday meal to help feed the other actors
(18:07):
and whoever was working would feed everybody. My father was
raised in Chicago with a very influential and wealthy family
of aristocratic family.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
See the husband of your grandmother who came to look
after or a different.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
No side, Yeah, yeah, the Dern McLeish side. And it
was secretary of War under FDR. Poet Laureate of the US.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, yeah, now how are you related to?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
That's my dad's uncle, Archibald MacLeish was the Poet Laureate
under FDR. While his grandfather on his father's side, George Dern,
was Secretary of War under Fdr.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Warnor Roosevelt. His godmother Eleanor. I mean I've lost my
dad's godmother.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
But in that family, no one growing whether you have
someone cooking, and so he didn't grow up with it
at all, but he loved it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I was saying, if you don't have any money, then
probably you have to learn to cook if you want
to eat well exactly. But if you do, then you know,
there are probably quite a lot of men and women
who never went into a kitchen.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And also, my mom tells so many stories of like
literally hungry actors.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
In New York City.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
My mom came to New York with twenty dollars in
her pocket and a little cardboard suitcase to become an
actress from a tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one.
And she said, you know, you used to go in
and if you ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know,
order a beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the
bartender would give them bread and butter.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
But coming out of this family, where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, your father
came from a food culture, was there a time when
you went off on your own and suddenly there was
not that comfort food or a million percent?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I mean I started acting at eleven, and I was
on location by myself at sixteen on and working on
movies meant eating on the run and eating poorly and
eating in small towns everywhere, and so it became what
(20:27):
is provided to small town America, which was fast food,
eating tragic.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
This isn't what y're starting in the late.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Seventies, and I only discovered the gift of the connection
between eating beautifully and food becoming a part of my
artistic experience in the last decade because of heroes like you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But do you think that you could work or act
or do what you do better if you actually had
healthy food on a film set or do you think
it doesn't matter?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music. I am so impressed. Thanks to Maggie, Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(21:30):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production how to do that
more and more. Kate Blanchett care so deeply about this
as well. We've been having conversations about, you know, making
sure there is a model that production follows more and more.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did
a podcast and his dream and there are a few
directors who would say not to stop at all. You know,
that's sitting down to a meal. Let's do that at
the end, we'll all go out to dinner.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
We'll do this.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
But he tried it. He tried giving everyone soup, and
of course there was a rebellion, especially months of crew
saying we can't do the lighting of this or that
out a bowl of soup.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and
i've seen it done in Italy when I've worked and
you're not taking a lunch, so as people are free.
You're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break,
when the actors are taking a break, so that you
(22:39):
have a shorter day, so that everybody has the time
to be with their family, and then you have time
for a meal with your family or your collaborators, which
I think works beautifully. I mean, I've worked on a
couple of productions now where there's a certain amount of
meat and it's on order.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the day before, if you're someone.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Who wants meet a meal that involves meat, you're pre
ordering so you're not wasting that day of food. And
then also working with local communities so that you're taking
the food and giving it to the community and there's
no waste, because the waste is shocking.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What was it like with David Lynch, Because you talk
about him a lot and you've worked with him a lot.
What was food was? What was David's? Is that matters
to him?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, it matters to him, and sharing a meal matters
to him. And from the first time I worked with him,
which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen and those
meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you know,
at night we go and we eat together. You know,
we go to we find a couple of chefs in
(24:00):
that town that become friends. They know what we love
and we learn what they make, and at the end
of the day we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
What about food in movies? When you do a food scene,
now they're food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah. The one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think
it's more of a meditation than a linear film, and
it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
We shot over almost three years.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, and he wanted to make a film so that
everyone could be inspired to make a movie. He's like,
if you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona,
and you've got your grandparents, Sony Camcord, you pick that
up and you make a movie, and now you can
do it with your I phone. But we did a
scene in a hotel room in Paris and it was
(25:05):
this very long monologue me on a phone call and
we'd sit down for our cafe ole, and he wanted
his pinashokla and he would write on a legal pad
and I would sit there and he would look at
me like a painter and just be writing this monologue.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
And then he'd give it to me and he's like.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Now while I have my panasha cola, you learn your monologue.
And it's like seven pages, and so I'm like, you.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Better eat slow, buddy.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
So then i'd try to learn it and do a
probably poor job, but attempt. And then we'd go to
the hotel room and he would do my makeup or
I would do my makeup, or we'd work on it together,
and then he would set up the shot and we'd
shoot the scene. And we shot this monologue and he
(25:56):
was happy with it, and I was so exciting.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
He was like, we got it.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side table,
and there were two perfect ladree macaron which that hotel
would have provided, and there was a pistachio one. So
the green was so beautiful and they bit into it. It
was so fresh.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Said, okay, now we'll do the close up, and he
set up the shine and he goes where's the macaron.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I'm like, what do you mean? I ate it? He goes,
you ate my props.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I ate the prop and he was like, you have
to go now to.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Laderie and get a pistachio macaron.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudite that was in the middle of the table.
And the waiter came up and said, you just ate
our floral arrangement.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And I'd eaten somehow I need the floral arrangement.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Then guess what happened my whole mouth Vietnam because part
of that floral arrangement was some weird plant. And I thought, okay,
I'm gonna die. I'm going to die in this lunch
with the mayor in Mexico because I ate the flower
flower plant called flower or something. Do you think about
food a lot? Do you think what you're going to
eat the next day, or do you go to bed thinking, well,
(27:27):
well I have when I wake up, or do you
wake up and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
My son started cooking.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
We've started having conversations that we never had before and
challenging ourselves, you know, like how do we really make
truly a great Cajun style red beans and rice? Because
we talk about my grandmother and how i'd have red beans?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Did you know.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
As a baby only?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah? Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a
book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And the book it's a book and publish it.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, And in it in the sort of subtitle, we
reference banana pudding and there are a few of her
recipes for chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and
cobbler and chicken and dumplings.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Is such an interesting thing because it's what.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It's fascinating because it's like the mainstay meal that can
be made no matter what family you come from and
where you are in life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And it's a big part of Southern culture.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
And I think in communities who are struggling, like my
mom's family, you need flour, you need starch, and you know,
and chicken and that's it. And so but the dumplings
are radically different and it's interesting like in the UK,
(29:06):
like a chicken pie, the idea of flour and in
a way a dumpling or a potato being used within it,
there's a similarity in it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Just like cobblers. I think.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So in California, being in LA, you have such a
fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do
you think we do?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California.
So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative
farming and you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets,
health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not
(29:52):
illegalized the use of glyphosates and round up in California,
which is illegal in many farming states out the US now,
which I find tragedy.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
There are so many small.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Farms, and there are some amazing companies and corporations even
like General mills, that are starting to put money into
supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat.
That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What about what about the whole the wellness industry? Because
I know that you've also done a lot of investigation
into what is wellness, what is what you know?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
It starts with food and my mom and I's book
seemingly is two actresses talking are mother and daughter about
things we've never spoken about before.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But the auspices the.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Reason for its existence and the hope was to promote
the fact that my mother moved to a beautiful town, Ohi, California,
which is gorgeous for produce and farming, to get away
from la and the smog and moved into a beautiful
(31:09):
home surrounded by orange groves which were those were then
bought by sun Kiss, therefore Monsanto, and they were spraying
without notification, and my mom was exposed to glyc estates
over five years and ended up with a lung disease.
And so Hi, she's struggling still but doing amazing, and
(31:34):
the only protocol that was given was eating healthfully and
to get her walking. And so our book is me
getting her walking on oxygen a few steps and every
day we walked, and I knew to get her walking,
I had to get her telling stories, and then I
recorded the stories.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So it unfolded.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
But it also gave us an opportunity to do press
to talk about pesticides and to talk about healthy eating
and wellness and breathing fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Well that's what we're doing today, you know, the stories
of food of memory and passing down recipes.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
And stories of our grandparents and great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
And our children. Do you go out to eat lunch?
I go to where do you What kind of restaurants
do you look for when you go?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Well, hero restaurants like yours that provide local and healthy
food that put art and love into it is my favorite.
But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies,
I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the
(32:49):
food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so i'll,
you know, unless I'm in London and I get, you know,
a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's
rare so around the world. You can also often find
restaurants that don't mess it up by you know, smothering food,
(33:13):
which is a very Southern tradition. You just smother.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Everything with every possible.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Spice and yeah, it's just crazy that you can't taste
the food anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
And now that.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
The hobby, I think thanks to my son has been
getting to understand the food differently and want to understand
how to cook well.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
We want to have him here. We want to definitely
have more of you. And this has been such an
incredible time and just to talk about food is love,
and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food
is a legacy. It's also comfort. Yeah, And one of
the questions that we do ask is there a food
that you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It always was cobbler growing.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Up, certain fruit or just any color.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Maybe peaches pieces that would be, you know, because of
remembering my grandmother's love of it and her taste, the
taste of peaches and like that idea of summer and
the scent of them. And but I think for me now,
comfort is.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Community.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Let's go eat, Let's go eat, all right.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Thank you, thank you, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube,
where you'll find full episodes, clips, and some of my
favorite moments from the series. Guests like Kate Blanchett, Francis
Ford Coppolo, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, and many many more.
To watch. Go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol
(00:23):
Ruthie's Table four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Thinking about Laura Dern coming here today. I found myself
scrolling through three years of text messages. It's kind of
a story about making plans to meet our excitement at
the thought of seeing each other in la or London,
choosing restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of
a fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most
(00:55):
of our ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.
Laura is loved by me and many others. She's fun,
she's curious, she's smart, she hangs with a crew on set,
passionate about her children, Jaya and Ellery. She has strong
memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes.
(01:18):
Laura fights for human rights, social values. It is a
bold and brave spokesperson for women in the film industry.
Directors and writers consider her first when making a movie.
Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion
Pictures in la remembers that as a trustee, she was
a rigorous and remarkable client. He asked me to give
(01:40):
her a hug. Laura Dern loves to eat, and she
cares about food and the politics of feeding people safely
and sustainably. To day, we're here in the River Cafe
to talk about all this and more. And after I
give her the hug from Rerenzo and another one for me,
that's what we're going to do. So tell me about
(02:03):
your cooking with Sean.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible,
and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the
last probably seven years of making movies here in London,
my memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here
at the River Cafe. This is where we plot and
(02:29):
create and invent, and over the course of a meal
that's always remembered. So then I was on set with
Noah boundback this week and we'd had dinner here together,
the two of us, talking about what it's feeling like
and how it feels different for him than the last
movies in his life. And as we're describing it, we're
(02:51):
describing like, oh, my god, wasn't that wine incredible?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Can you believe that salad was? What was the art
of show? How did she make that art of chow?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And we're just you know, it becomes this organic part
of memory, food and art, and you've created this sustainable,
inventive place for art and artists that is forever seeped
in my memory. So already it's such a gift and
it means so much. And now our friendship which is
(03:24):
growing and evolving, and we're getting finally getting time together,
but also being in the kitchen and watching a great
chef's kitchen and it feels rigorous and stressful. I walk
away from it saying, that's such a terrifying space and
there's something even cold about it. And the minute you
(03:46):
walk in, first of all, the warmth of the kitchen
as part of the room, that the chef is not
separate from the client, that we're all eating and creating
and inventing this day together. That's what's so beautiful about
the space you've created. And then Sean's energy is so beautiful,
(04:06):
and that she wants to teach as much as she
loves to cook is so amazing. And my son, we
were sharing, Ellery has really, through the pandemic, discovered his
love of cooking. And he always had that innate instinct
even as a little boy, you know, putting something together.
(04:28):
He knew how to kind of close his eyes and
pick the right flavors or something.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever
experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And to make a meal.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Alongside other people is like when you're collaborating in the studio.
You don't know what's going to happen or how we're
going to invent together to create this same goal, this
piece of art. But everyone has their unique rhythm.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Hi, I'm John and I'm making a potatoes are Porno
with sage with Laura. Then the potatoes are done in
the wood oven. But you don't need to have a
wood oven in your house time Okay, good, you might
have one, No, I don't know what. Oh, yeah, so
this is your recipe that you've chosen, I pay.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And so it's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then
they've been tossed with garlic and sage and covered and
cooked for about forty five minutes and then the brow
up in an oven.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
It's really traditional oven.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
What would you do? You just put it in forty
five minutes.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, So when you read the recipe you'll see just
slice the potatoes, scarlet, sage, cover it and then you
uncover it and brown it and it will turn out
like that, I promise you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And you'd only.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Use the fresh stage leaves, right, Yeah, well you can
use anything is fine.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Roast, Yeah, it's really nice with fish or meat.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Anything not beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This is my son's obsession also with.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
There's a beauty to the irregularity, and there's a beauty
to the shaving.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And like he was like, when you have a true
tritata in Spain.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, when he's like, Americans try to make it and
it's you.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Never get the texture of it, right.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So there's still like a density like aldente and pasta, yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And I wonder whether it's something to do with the
potato because it's actually like a waxy potato. By the
end of today, you'll know how to make that. You
can impress your son. Okay, you know what you're where
you're going with it now?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I think like when you get really good at cooking, Yeah,
I think you don't need to cook with your eyes.
You cook it with other senses. Can you can cook
with your ears because you can hear how it's cooking,
cut you and then you can obviously smell. And she
just got it like somewhere in your intuition.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, I wonder what you're somethink I love it.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I'll have to ask him because I need for eyes.
You know, when you're like buying garlic or something. Yeah,
and when it goes into oil, it's sort of making
a noise. But as it browns, it starts to change
in the sound. I reckon, you can tell when when
it's brown, just buying the sound.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Oh that's so bad.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Yeah, I'm really into I'm really interesting. Can you cook
without your eyes? Yes, I reckon you can.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
That's amazing. I'm not there.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
If he wants to come and have a look I
have a kitchen anytime.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh my god, I have to bring in a day
with us. Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, Oh my god, that would be We can talk.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
About should we read the recipe first? Why don't you
heed the recipe?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
So the recipe is potato alfaro, four tablespoons of olive oil,
four garlic clothes, peeled and finely sliced, twenty sage leaves.
We spoke a lot about the sage, because the sage
is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight hundred and
fifty grams rose vale or similar yellow waxy potatoes, peeled,
(08:17):
sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the oven
to one ninety degrees. You heat the oil in a
frying pan, stir in the garlic. Slice each potato lengthways
down the middle, so that you are left with two
thick slices. Place in a large bowl, season with salt
(08:37):
and pepper, tossed together with olive oil and sage. Put
in a baking dish. Cover with foil, and you cook
in the oven for forty minutes. About twenty minutes before
the end of cooking, remove the foil so that the
surface of the potatoes become brown. Now the sage looked
(08:59):
so fresh, which I think is a key. And she
was saying, these amazing waxy potatoes are from Italy. And
I don't even know what how I find those waxy
potatoes in California or what they translate as.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
I can't answer that, but we can find them. You
can find great potatoes. I mean the extreme for potatoes
is when I went to perof you just see all these,
you know, different different, different potatoes. But I bet if
we went to a market in La we can find
the potatoes so that they'll give you a rose potatoes
and you can show it to the person.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Amazing, amazing potatoes.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But I also was so touched, especially because I said,
I want to make it for ellery by not only
the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't
like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like
in filmmaking something being off center, you know it, there's
(10:01):
something so beautiful about the way it looks. And I
was really touched by that. And he always comments on that,
like when we've been in Spain and you have a
frittata and the potatoes the density, like he was comparing
it to al dente and pasta like you have it.
There's a little bite to them, and they can be
very potatoes can be very mushy.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well that's why I think the usl when she said waxy,
like they're not flowery. You know, you have a baked
potato with sour cream or whatever you have with it,
you want it to be quite flowery. And we have
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You want them not to be waxy.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But these hold their shape and they kind of defined
and always sounds better and better. Where is he?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I know, we got to get him over here if.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
He's concerned about the way that potatoes alice, and I
want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
He's a musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and now he's just
started producing his first record for an amazing artist, a
female singer songwriter. And so I think sound and instinct
is everything. You know, it's really Yeah, it's beautiful, but.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Over food, talking over food, food and sharing a meal
and creating also really happens together, doesn't.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It so much? I was just saying to a girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
She was like, what is the thing that makes you know?
And I said, if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal.
Oh yeah, yeah, million percent.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that people
really nice.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are
often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians,
and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was taught that, you know, you not.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Only the focus and regard, but actually honoring their performance
of the specials as high art. And so the performance
of Specials was given deep in high regard.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
For a long time. The friend of mine had their
two children who were like eight and ten. We were
all having their journalists with we're all having lunch in
a restaurant, and his daughter turned him and said blue, daddy,
and then the son later on said brown, And I
said what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught
them to learn the color of the eyes of the
(12:30):
person who's waiting on their table so that they look
at them. And I thought that was really a nice
way of doing it, that they just met the you
know somebody. Yeah, since brown, blue, blue brow, that's amazing nice. Yeah,
let's go back, okay, because we've talked about your son,
we haven't talked about your daughter, but about it is
(12:52):
she is she interested in food.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
She is like me.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
We love food and we appreciate food. And she is
a fierce young activists. So she definitely cares deeply about
sustainability and the politics of food, particularly in the US,
and so we have a lot of conversations about where
the food is coming from, carbon emissions, how to support it,
(13:17):
regenerative farming, the soil itself.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And she was a.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Really beautiful supporter of a series of films and I've
been a producer on the most recent, which has Kissed
the Ground, and now a film we made Common Ground,
which is sort of the sequel to that about regenerative farming.
And so she's learned a lot about the question of
overtilling and pesticides and big food, the industry of it,
(13:44):
and obviously the laws in the UK and EU are
very different than in the US, in which chemicals are
somehow god in the US, which is tragic and hopefully
changing more and more with independent farmers. And so she
is deeply interested in it, which is really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures, glasses
from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right
next door to the River Cafe in London or online
at Shopthrivercafe dot co dot UK. I'm a grandmother now
(14:38):
and I think there is something about wanting to cook
for your grandchildren in a way that you were, maybe
as a working mother, not able to do or to
do enough. And tell me about the role that your
grandmother played in your childhood.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced,
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, So majority of my
time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama and
she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And so
(15:16):
the roots of my family are so tied to food
and tradition in the South.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When you think
about France and Italy and Britain having you know, the
north of France has a very different cuisine from the
South of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine
from Sicily. And then you think about American food and
you think, well, it is a food of Vermont, really
different from the food of Ohio or but the food
(15:48):
actually of the South has such a strong identity.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just
like in the Great Lakes. You know, this a very
Scandinavian focused American cuisine. And the South, I mean, particularly
in New Orleans. Obviously there's so much French influence, but
there's also the influence of the American farmer. And what
(16:14):
was incredible was in lower income families the food was
simpler and from the land that you had. But my
grandmother was getting what she could from her fellow friends
and farms locally.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah,
oh she did.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
That was sort of the staple of your meal.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
But when she was in the South, especially when they
were on the farm, the major meal of the day
was breakfast, which was so wild. They would have of
like really like an early morning breakfast and then go
out and work in the fields and then come back
and have this huge breakfast at like ten in the
(17:11):
morning because they'd already been working since four am. And
I remember as a little girl when I would go
visit my grandfather in Mississippi and at ten am it
was corn bread and eggs and bacon and grits and
collars and a coconut cake and a cake cover a
(17:32):
cake for breakfast with your coffee. You know.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Would this be weekdays as well?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Every day for them? Every day, you know?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was
like a big.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Never, although my mom just told me that when they
were first together in New York, he would cook on
Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do
like a big pastas meatballs or lamb chops or some
kind of Sunday meal to help feed the other actors
(18:07):
and whoever was working would feed everybody. My father was
raised in Chicago with a very influential and wealthy family
of aristocratic family.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
See the husband of your grandmother who came to look
after or a different.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
No side, Yeah, yeah, the Dern McLeish side. And it
was secretary of War under FDR. Poet Laureate of the US.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, yeah, now how are you related to?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
That's my dad's uncle, Archibald MacLeish was the Poet Laureate
under FDR. While his grandfather on his father's side, George Dern,
was Secretary of War under Fdr.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Warnor Roosevelt. His godmother Eleanor. I mean I've lost my
dad's godmother.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
But in that family, no one growing whether you have
someone cooking, and so he didn't grow up with it
at all, but he loved it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I was saying, if you don't have any money, then
probably you have to learn to cook if you want
to eat well exactly. But if you do, then you know,
there are probably quite a lot of men and women
who never went into a kitchen.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And also, my mom tells so many stories of like
literally hungry actors.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
In New York City.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
My mom came to New York with twenty dollars in
her pocket and a little cardboard suitcase to become an
actress from a tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one.
And she said, you know, you used to go in
and if you ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know,
order a beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the
bartender would give them bread and butter.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
But coming out of this family, where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, your father
came from a food culture, was there a time when
you went off on your own and suddenly there was
not that comfort food or a million percent?
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I mean I started acting at eleven, and I was
on location by myself at sixteen on and working on
movies meant eating on the run and eating poorly and
eating in small towns everywhere, and so it became what
(20:27):
is provided to small town America, which was fast food,
eating tragic.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
This isn't what y're starting in the late.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Seventies, and I only discovered the gift of the connection
between eating beautifully and food becoming a part of my
artistic experience in the last decade because of heroes like you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But do you think that you could work or act
or do what you do better if you actually had
healthy food on a film set or do you think
it doesn't matter?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music. I am so impressed. Thanks to Maggie, Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(21:30):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production how to do that
more and more. Kate Blanchett care so deeply about this
as well. We've been having conversations about, you know, making
sure there is a model that production follows more and more.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did
a podcast and his dream and there are a few
directors who would say not to stop at all. You know,
that's sitting down to a meal. Let's do that at
the end, we'll all go out to dinner.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
We'll do this.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
But he tried it. He tried giving everyone soup, and
of course there was a rebellion, especially months of crew
saying we can't do the lighting of this or that
out a bowl of soup.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and
i've seen it done in Italy when I've worked and
you're not taking a lunch, so as people are free.
You're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break,
when the actors are taking a break, so that you
(22:39):
have a shorter day, so that everybody has the time
to be with their family, and then you have time
for a meal with your family or your collaborators, which
I think works beautifully. I mean, I've worked on a
couple of productions now where there's a certain amount of
meat and it's on order.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the day before, if you're someone.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Who wants meet a meal that involves meat, you're pre
ordering so you're not wasting that day of food. And
then also working with local communities so that you're taking
the food and giving it to the community and there's
no waste, because the waste is shocking.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What was it like with David Lynch, Because you talk
about him a lot and you've worked with him a lot.
What was food was? What was David's? Is that matters
to him?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, it matters to him, and sharing a meal matters
to him. And from the first time I worked with him,
which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen and those
meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you know,
at night we go and we eat together. You know,
we go to we find a couple of chefs in
(24:00):
that town that become friends. They know what we love
and we learn what they make, and at the end
of the day we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
What about food in movies? When you do a food scene,
now they're food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah. The one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think
it's more of a meditation than a linear film, and
it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
We shot over almost three years.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, and he wanted to make a film so that
everyone could be inspired to make a movie. He's like,
if you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona,
and you've got your grandparents, Sony Camcord, you pick that
up and you make a movie, and now you can
do it with your I phone. But we did a
scene in a hotel room in Paris and it was
(25:05):
this very long monologue me on a phone call and
we'd sit down for our cafe ole, and he wanted
his pinashokla and he would write on a legal pad
and I would sit there and he would look at
me like a painter and just be writing this monologue.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
And then he'd give it to me and he's like.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Now while I have my panasha cola, you learn your monologue.
And it's like seven pages, and so I'm like, you.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Better eat slow, buddy.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
So then i'd try to learn it and do a
probably poor job, but attempt. And then we'd go to
the hotel room and he would do my makeup or
I would do my makeup, or we'd work on it together,
and then he would set up the shot and we'd
shoot the scene. And we shot this monologue and he
(25:56):
was happy with it, and I was so exciting.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
He was like, we got it.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side table,
and there were two perfect ladree macaron which that hotel
would have provided, and there was a pistachio one. So
the green was so beautiful and they bit into it. It
was so fresh.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Said, okay, now we'll do the close up, and he
set up the shine and he goes where's the macaron.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I'm like, what do you mean? I ate it? He goes,
you ate my props.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I ate the prop and he was like, you have
to go now to.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Laderie and get a pistachio macaron.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudite that was in the middle of the table.
And the waiter came up and said, you just ate
our floral arrangement.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And I'd eaten somehow I need the floral arrangement.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Then guess what happened my whole mouth Vietnam because part
of that floral arrangement was some weird plant. And I thought, okay,
I'm gonna die. I'm going to die in this lunch
with the mayor in Mexico because I ate the flower
flower plant called flower or something. Do you think about
food a lot? Do you think what you're going to
eat the next day, or do you go to bed thinking, well,
(27:27):
well I have when I wake up, or do you
wake up and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
My son started cooking.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
We've started having conversations that we never had before and
challenging ourselves, you know, like how do we really make
truly a great Cajun style red beans and rice? Because
we talk about my grandmother and how i'd have red beans?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Did you know.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
As a baby only?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah? Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a
book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And the book it's a book and publish it.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, And in it in the sort of subtitle, we
reference banana pudding and there are a few of her
recipes for chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and
cobbler and chicken and dumplings.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Is such an interesting thing because it's what.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It's fascinating because it's like the mainstay meal that can
be made no matter what family you come from and
where you are in life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And it's a big part of Southern culture.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
And I think in communities who are struggling, like my
mom's family, you need flour, you need starch, and you know,
and chicken and that's it. And so but the dumplings
are radically different and it's interesting like in the UK,
(29:06):
like a chicken pie, the idea of flour and in
a way a dumpling or a potato being used within it,
there's a similarity in it.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Just like cobblers. I think.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So in California, being in LA, you have such a
fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do
you think we do?
Speaker 3 (29:29):
But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California.
So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative
farming and you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets,
health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not
(29:52):
illegalized the use of glyphosates and round up in California,
which is illegal in many farming states out the US now,
which I find tragedy.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
There are so many small.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Farms, and there are some amazing companies and corporations even
like General mills, that are starting to put money into
supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat.
That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What about what about the whole the wellness industry? Because
I know that you've also done a lot of investigation
into what is wellness, what is what you know?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
It starts with food and my mom and I's book
seemingly is two actresses talking are mother and daughter about
things we've never spoken about before.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But the auspices the.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Reason for its existence and the hope was to promote
the fact that my mother moved to a beautiful town, Ohi, California,
which is gorgeous for produce and farming, to get away
from la and the smog and moved into a beautiful
(31:09):
home surrounded by orange groves which were those were then
bought by sun Kiss, therefore Monsanto, and they were spraying
without notification, and my mom was exposed to glyc estates
over five years and ended up with a lung disease.
And so Hi, she's struggling still but doing amazing, and
(31:34):
the only protocol that was given was eating healthfully and
to get her walking. And so our book is me
getting her walking on oxygen a few steps and every
day we walked, and I knew to get her walking,
I had to get her telling stories, and then I
recorded the stories.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So it unfolded.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
But it also gave us an opportunity to do press
to talk about pesticides and to talk about healthy eating
and wellness and breathing fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Well that's what we're doing today, you know, the stories
of food of memory and passing down recipes.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
And stories of our grandparents and great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
And our children. Do you go out to eat lunch?
I go to where do you What kind of restaurants
do you look for when you go?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Well, hero restaurants like yours that provide local and healthy
food that put art and love into it is my favorite.
But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies,
I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the
(32:49):
food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so i'll,
you know, unless I'm in London and I get, you know,
a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's
rare so around the world. You can also often find
restaurants that don't mess it up by you know, smothering food,
(33:13):
which is a very Southern tradition. You just smother.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Everything with every possible.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Spice and yeah, it's just crazy that you can't taste
the food anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
And now that.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
The hobby, I think thanks to my son has been
getting to understand the food differently and want to understand
how to cook well.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
We want to have him here. We want to definitely
have more of you. And this has been such an
incredible time and just to talk about food is love,
and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food
is a legacy. It's also comfort. Yeah, And one of
the questions that we do ask is there a food
that you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It always was cobbler growing.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Up, certain fruit or just any color.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Maybe peaches pieces that would be, you know, because of
remembering my grandmother's love of it and her taste, the
taste of peaches and like that idea of summer and
the scent of them. And but I think for me now,
comfort is.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Community.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Let's go eat, Let's go eat, all right.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Thank you, thank you, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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