August 18, 2025 • 21 mins
Nigella Lawson reminisces with her close friend Ruthie about cooking with her mother, working as a chambermaid in Florence, the joy of room-temperature meals and what 'comfort food' means to her. Originally recorded in 2021.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube.
Well you'll find full episodes, clips, and some of my
favorite moments from the series. Guests like Kate Blanchett, Francis
Ford Coppola, Sienna Miller, so Is Saldana, and many many more.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
To watch.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol Ruthie's Table
four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to Rivercafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm going to read a recipe of yours, the Summer Ministrony,
and it serves ten, well might serve ten for some
meats anyway, finish it off.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
My guests all love food, but Nigel Yella Lawson does
more than love food. Apart from her extraordinary children with
John Diamond, Bruno and Cosima, food is the true focus
of her life. I cannot remember the day I met
Nigella because that would be like remembering the day I
(01:18):
met my sister or my cousin. For Nigella is family together.
We've been through sadness and happiness and celebrations of both.
Nigella and I might go for months without seeing each other,
but I know for a fact that she would be
the first person on my bed and I would be
the first person on hers. In a crisis. We would
(01:39):
lay in each other's arms, and then we would go
in the kitchen and eat. Quite simply, she's close to
my heart, and quite simply, I love her.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I love you all so moving, Ruthie. Right, and now
I'm going to read the Summer MINISTRONI so two garlic cloves,
one small head of celery chopped, three small red onions chopped,
four tablespoons olive oil, one kilo of thin asparagus, six
(02:13):
hundred grams of fresh peas, six hundred grams of fresh
young broad beans, four hundred and fifty grams of young
green beans, trimmed and chopped, one liter of chicken stock,
half a bunch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped, three
hundred mills of double cream in a saucepan. Fry the garlic, celery,
(02:35):
and onions gently in the olive oil until soft. Divide
the asparagus, peas, broad beans and green beans between two bowls.
Add one bowlful to the onion mixture, and cook, stirring
to coate with oil for five minutes. Season cover with
the chicken stock and bring to the boils. Simmer for
(02:57):
fifteen minutes. Add the maining vegetables and cook for a
further ten minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in
the basil and cream cool to room temperature. Then served
with parmesan and pesto.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Thank you so yeah, So of all the recipes, you
say it reminds you of the River Cafe. Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Feel choosing any recipe is a source of anguish because
there's so many I could choose, And I think I
remember having this. I don't know when. It would have
been the eighties, yep, late eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Might have even been on our first menu. Yes, I
think it was really one of the first.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And it was like it was both like nothing else
I'd ever eaten and yet so familiar. There's something as well,
I think it says so many interesting things about food
and eating that the eating at room temperature. I think
so many people eat food too hot and too cold,
and room temperature is something the Italians really get allows
(04:03):
you to taste flavors so vibrantly. Maybe it's maybe there's
something about it that reminds me of child and not
that I ate this, but that although it's Italian. Those
the sweet starchiness of the peas somehow reminds me of
an English summer as well.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And I think that a lot of our favorite food
does go back to very often the food that we
did have as a child, or that has a memory.
And did you grow up with? Is your mother cooked? Yes,
she was a good Tell me about your mother.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
My mother was a rather fascinating but I was saying
difficulty is not a very compassionate way of describing it.
She married very young, she was nineteen nineteen and had
to have her child at twenties. You know, my old brother.
(05:01):
She felt things very deeply but didn't always express it,
so would erupt quite a bit. And you know, she
was fantastically impatient. And one of the jobs we had
to do, my sister Thomasina, we used to have to
make mayonnaise together and one of us would whisk and
(05:24):
one would pour the oil. And whoever was whisking, you know,
you weren't whisking fast enough, and whoever was poor, and
you weren't to sing slowly, you weren't. And the tension,
you know, So it's so difficult because I remember what
I learned, and I remember being in the kitchen with
fondness and gratitude. And yet it would be so unfaithful
(05:46):
to the truth if I didn't say it was also
a source of great tension. I mean, it was frightening,
but I think that. But I think I did learn
a lot. And she was a very spontaneous cook.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But imagine being ninety and twenty and having to embrace
motherhood and domestic life and cook.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Do you think she liked cooking?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Did she like he?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Didn't? I associate my mother with food, and yet she
had a very troubled relationship and had eating disorders, which
I didn't really think. I didn't really take on board
until I was in my teens, I think, and I
don't know when it started. And it was difficult because
it it was really a repudiation of something that gave
(06:33):
her pleasure. And the heartbreaking thing is, you know, she
died when she was forty eight, and she hit pretty
quickly because she got diagnosed, well, she didn't get diagnosed.
I was told by the doctor three weeks before she died.
I didn't tell her until two weeks because I was
waiting a bit just to get it for you know,
(06:54):
more tests and things and she said it was the
first time being ill, was the first time she could
eat without anxiety or guilt. I mean, that's that's and
I think that so on the one hand, you know,
I've learnt everything about what cooking is from her, not
(07:15):
everything I've learned from you. I've learned from Anadeale Conte.
I've learned from Claudia Rodin. But I also learned what
path I didn't want to go down, and it wasn't
that one was your father? Did you ever cook? No?
He didn't. Occasionally later on he would make his own
breakfast breakfast, which I think is quite an old fashioned
(07:36):
male thing to do that somehow they don't feel, you know,
cooking eggs is too much of a dent to their dignity.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Because he you know, we talk a lot about, you know,
the generational men in the kitchen, men coming in the
kitchen ment. Very often Americans will say their father never cooked,
but did the barbecue, yes, or that's somehow grilling me.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But even so, I think he would only make his
break I don't know, but we know what about your brother?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Did your mother concentrate on teaching him.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Or no, he didn't get taught, although I did teach
him how to make you know, home days, which he loves.
But he's a wonderful eater, and I sometimes think, you know,
not everyone can be a cook, but good eaters are
are valuable.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The other night you were here with Bruno, and I've
seen you here with children and family and little kids
and big heads and students come here and have just
one pasta or whatever. But was it more of a
special occasion for your birthdays.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Birthdays or occasionally for a treat. There was a Chinese
restaurant in King's Row called Choys Oh Choice, Yeah, you know,
and I remember that, But it was I was. I
found meals difficult. It's an odd thing, or family meals.
You know. I was clumsy and I'd always not something over,
and I found myself slightly inhibited within a family group.
(08:59):
I came into my own later, and I think as well,
I didn't really enjoy eating. Well, I didn't enjoy meals
a lot until I had a bit more control so
I can decide what I wanted to eat. And for
that reason, you know, a tasting menu is my idea
of hell. Also, you went to Italy, didn't I didn't.
(09:25):
It made it such an impression on me well more
than that. It really altered my life in so many
ways before. So what happened was I did the in
the olden days, you did an entrance exam to go
to Oxford. I thought I would like to do German
and Italian, so I thought. I pretended at the interview
(09:47):
that I was going to go to school there, but
I didn't in Italy, you know, in the year between
the gap year. But I didn't, And I just turned
up with a school friend and and I got a job.
We got we had a job share, so we had
one room in a pen in Florence, and we were chambermaids.
(10:07):
And all I would say is if anyone ever stays
in a hotel and wonders whether people try on your
clothes and put your center on, yes we do.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And because they live that, you don't leave your clothes
on the floor. Yeah, so you're seventeen, No, I was
by then.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I was nineteen, I think, just on the cars, just
about eighteen nineteen. I couldn't say anything. I could say,
you know, missus Green has a brown hat or something,
and oh, I don't know. It was just terrible, and
I was meant to be the one getting us somewhere,
and I had no idea, and I couldn't understand when
they answered. So there was It was a penzione run
(10:44):
by a married couple who came from Arezzo, and they
had a son called Leonardo, and they had his mother, Lana,
living there, and every now and then they go to
their farm and she would be left there and we
weren't allowed in the kitchen. But the minute they gone,
(11:05):
you know, I'd be allowed in the kitchen because she
wanted a company, you know, and she was wanted to
chat and so so I watched her cook, and there
was something she used to do that. The thing I
remember most is that wonderful Italian with ros beef, which
is almost sort of pot roast, do you knows. And
I would see a bit of the oil, put the garlic in,
(11:26):
and move the garlic when it was brown. In the
north of Italy, the idea of leaving lots of garlic
was sort of odd and very small amount of meat,
which then you know, it was called roz aladdin when
you round something sit around that and you know rosmar
eating a bit of wine like that and sort of
(11:47):
cook it so it was not quite not fried, but
not poached really and there's something so enormously different. Again
served at room temperature, and she made prey mashed potatoes
with I always feel like saying, whenever people go Italians
don't use butter. I felt like you should have seen
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And I think, but again, when you were mentioning about
the beef being room temperature, I often think that the
only thing that Italians really like temperature is ice cream
very cold and pasta very hard. I mean, I think
that's the otherwise, as you're saying, roastbyeffish, I always let
(12:29):
my ice cream stay out.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, and I love that. But I think that being
in Italy, we didn't have an awful lot of money
to spend. And there was a bar I went to,
and you could sit at the bar and have a
campari soda and you could have a selection of I
suppose it was I suppose they were still crostini, not
(12:52):
blue to getter, but with you could choose different soft cheeses,
whether it it was mozzare la urata And I'm trying
to think which is the other one was. Now it
will come to me there was another one. No, it
was creamier and you had it with stripe of anchovy
on term so wonderful and I could keep you going,
(13:14):
do you know that would really keep And again I
could go to a bar and have a comparty. You
know that's the difference, isn't it That you considered a
bar and have a drink something to eat. Was going
back to Oxford a rude awakening then when you could
only go to a pub and I didn't really want to,
I didn't want to be. What I was going to
say about Italy is that I'd been very shy, and
(13:37):
I mean not at home more than at home or
in the adult world a bit. And when I had
to speak Italian, because I was speaking a different language,
I had to be a different person. I was more voluble,
I was less shy, and so I found my voice
and that doesn't matter where you find it. I felt
that I felt you, both in the food, food and
(14:01):
a way of being and being with other people, because
I think one of the things that's quite difficult when
you're adolescent is that people on the whole. This is
different now and there's Facebook and Instagram, but then people
knew you just in the context of your family. And
I'm not talking about having a well known father, and
I'm talking about everyone, so they know your so and so, sister,
(14:25):
Oh I know your cousin or didn't I see you there?
And that's fine. But somehow to go into a place
and not be, not have all those connections is freeing,
being completely independent, earning your own living, fending for yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I can imagine they loved you. I can see you
in Italy. I can close my eyes and see you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was. It was if It's as if I had
decided at a young age I wanted to be Italian,
and then I sort of proceeded.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And then did you bring that food backward?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I did? It may be shocked differently, but you know,
it's so different because I think it's hard not to
love itly without without being romantic about it. And one
shouldn't be because like any country, it has its issues
and it's a bit. Nevertheless, I think one is allowed
to have places which in reality and symbolically mean a
(15:16):
lot in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I have such strong memories. I mean I have memories.
I said, you know, I don't remember when we met
because I just remember just you being in my life
and this magnificent woman who you know, combined all the
food and energy and writing and restaurants and and love
and love for John, and you know, and I think
(15:48):
I might have met John the first time, maybe in
the ivy. And he was so funny, you know, he
was just so funny and so attractive.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Not a great and I don't mean he was, but
you know, he tell me, no, he was a greade eater.
But he just didn't like an awful lot. He was
picky and he I remember the first time I cooked
for him. I think it was in my flat in
chester to Roads. No, it wasn't really, and I think
(16:22):
I don't. I think we were just friends at that stage.
But I thought I would cook something and I think
it was based on a Claudia Roidin recipe. And there
was a sort of corsettes with saffron and some sort
of sauce and and then you made the sauce new
for the the chopsychini around the chicken. And John took
(16:43):
one look at it and he said, no gravy for.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Me, please.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And that's so I know, And you know he I
still think of him that, you know, he his idea.
He adored tinned potatoes. I've I know their new potatoes.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
In tins, so their whole little cooked, Yes, cooked.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And his idea of a real treat too was tin
fruit salad with evaporated milk vapp I mean, but he did.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
He had a sweet chet. I guess. He loved talking.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
He loved talking.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Endless meals and remember that big table, the.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Big odal table, and there was yes, so there was
always people, people and eating. And I don't do children's
food and non children's food, but obviously there is certain
things that I would I make that were easier and
people liked, and also that thing of sometimes it would
just be like an indoor picnic. You know, you can
get you know, bread, cheese, hams, salami, tomatoes, and it
(17:52):
just really depends that. You know, there's so many pleasures
around food. And what about the kids eating? Were they?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Did they cook with you? Did you cook with Yes?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I always did because I was completely And I remember
once going to shave my brother when Bruno was very little,
when I was cooking and he put his hand, I
said careful and he put his hand, yes, And I
felt like the most awful person. But actually coming to
(18:21):
lunch was a child psychologist, I think, and he went nonsense,
the best way to learn about danger is in a
safe environment. I felt much better, he said. He went
put his hand in a sauceman again.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I wanted to ask you also about restaurants. Do you
love restaurants?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So do I love some? I love some because you
were a critic for what I was, and well, I
didn't do lots like people do now. I didn't want
to fortnight, and I always felt I was representing the reader.
So I really wanted to, in a way evoke just
when I read a recipe, I'm trying to evoke the
(18:58):
feeling of cooking something. I wanted to devote the experience
of being in the restaurant, not you know, it's not
about how chummy you are with the chefs or what
you know about a place. It's are you going to
have a wonderful time? And the theater of the room
and the space, and that wonderful always of a clink
(19:19):
of glasses. And I feel I have less of a
restaurant going life than I used to do, and that's partly.
Sometimes I don't I don't want to be looked at
instead at and I feel like I'm a bit on show.
Not always, but sometimes it depends on how vulnerable or
otherwise I might be feeling at any time. I love
(19:41):
going to places I feel at home in and I
love seeing you know, people who work there, and that
makes because it's about exchange, human connection.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
As we've said over and over that food is a
connection to our history, to our children now, to our lives,
to our friends. It also is a comfort. And so
I guess my last question to you, as I ask everyone,
is it food is a comfort? Is there a food
that you go to if you need if you're hungry,
not if you want to impress, but if you need comfort.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
It's so difficult because I feel like for me, all
food is comfort. That's a good answer.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So I do that.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, I don't know. I guess you know my mother's
way of cooking chicken, which is a bit like chicken soup.
You know, so anything chicken eat brothy is a comfort
rice in some I think that generally, I guess, like
a lot of people, I think of comfort food as
being something sort of carby. Yeah, I mean bread always,
but I think in different moods, all food is a comfort,
(20:44):
And I think it's it's just there is such beauty
in just the ingredients, and sometimes when you've peeled an onion.
The way the skin looks on the shopping board, it's
just wonderful. Or I thinks, smell as you great lemon
zest and that changes the air. So I feel it
(21:05):
reminds you. You know, you're alive and you're taking pleasure,
and to be grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well, I'm grateful for you. And we're going to go
and take comfort and have some lunch in the River Cafe.
Comfort and connection and love.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I love you, Nanja, I love you, Darnie.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
River Cafe Table four as 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.
We have good news. Ruthie's Table four is launching on YouTube.
Well you'll find full episodes, clips, and some of my
favorite moments from the series. Guests like Kate Blanchett, Francis
Ford Coppola, Sienna Miller, so Is Saldana, and many many more.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
To watch.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Go to YouTube dot com slash hat symbol Ruthie's Table
four pod. I can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to Rivercafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm going to read a recipe of yours, the Summer Ministrony,
and it serves ten, well might serve ten for some
meats anyway, finish it off.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
My guests all love food, but Nigel Yella Lawson does
more than love food. Apart from her extraordinary children with
John Diamond, Bruno and Cosima, food is the true focus
of her life. I cannot remember the day I met
Nigella because that would be like remembering the day I
(01:18):
met my sister or my cousin. For Nigella is family together.
We've been through sadness and happiness and celebrations of both.
Nigella and I might go for months without seeing each other,
but I know for a fact that she would be
the first person on my bed and I would be
the first person on hers. In a crisis. We would
(01:39):
lay in each other's arms, and then we would go
in the kitchen and eat. Quite simply, she's close to
my heart, and quite simply, I love her.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I love you all so moving, Ruthie. Right, and now
I'm going to read the Summer MINISTRONI so two garlic cloves,
one small head of celery chopped, three small red onions chopped,
four tablespoons olive oil, one kilo of thin asparagus, six
(02:13):
hundred grams of fresh peas, six hundred grams of fresh
young broad beans, four hundred and fifty grams of young
green beans, trimmed and chopped, one liter of chicken stock,
half a bunch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped, three
hundred mills of double cream in a saucepan. Fry the garlic, celery,
(02:35):
and onions gently in the olive oil until soft. Divide
the asparagus, peas, broad beans and green beans between two bowls.
Add one bowlful to the onion mixture, and cook, stirring
to coate with oil for five minutes. Season cover with
the chicken stock and bring to the boils. Simmer for
(02:57):
fifteen minutes. Add the maining vegetables and cook for a
further ten minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in
the basil and cream cool to room temperature. Then served
with parmesan and pesto.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Thank you so yeah, So of all the recipes, you
say it reminds you of the River Cafe. Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Feel choosing any recipe is a source of anguish because
there's so many I could choose, And I think I
remember having this. I don't know when. It would have
been the eighties, yep, late eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Might have even been on our first menu. Yes, I
think it was really one of the first.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And it was like it was both like nothing else
I'd ever eaten and yet so familiar. There's something as well,
I think it says so many interesting things about food
and eating that the eating at room temperature. I think
so many people eat food too hot and too cold,
and room temperature is something the Italians really get allows
(04:03):
you to taste flavors so vibrantly. Maybe it's maybe there's
something about it that reminds me of child and not
that I ate this, but that although it's Italian. Those
the sweet starchiness of the peas somehow reminds me of
an English summer as well.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And I think that a lot of our favorite food
does go back to very often the food that we
did have as a child, or that has a memory.
And did you grow up with? Is your mother cooked? Yes,
she was a good Tell me about your mother.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
My mother was a rather fascinating but I was saying
difficulty is not a very compassionate way of describing it.
She married very young, she was nineteen nineteen and had
to have her child at twenties. You know, my old brother.
(05:01):
She felt things very deeply but didn't always express it,
so would erupt quite a bit. And you know, she
was fantastically impatient. And one of the jobs we had
to do, my sister Thomasina, we used to have to
make mayonnaise together and one of us would whisk and
(05:24):
one would pour the oil. And whoever was whisking, you know,
you weren't whisking fast enough, and whoever was poor, and
you weren't to sing slowly, you weren't. And the tension,
you know, So it's so difficult because I remember what
I learned, and I remember being in the kitchen with
fondness and gratitude. And yet it would be so unfaithful
(05:46):
to the truth if I didn't say it was also
a source of great tension. I mean, it was frightening,
but I think that. But I think I did learn
a lot. And she was a very spontaneous cook.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But imagine being ninety and twenty and having to embrace
motherhood and domestic life and cook.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Do you think she liked cooking?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Did she like he?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Didn't? I associate my mother with food, and yet she
had a very troubled relationship and had eating disorders, which
I didn't really think. I didn't really take on board
until I was in my teens, I think, and I
don't know when it started. And it was difficult because
it it was really a repudiation of something that gave
(06:33):
her pleasure. And the heartbreaking thing is, you know, she
died when she was forty eight, and she hit pretty
quickly because she got diagnosed, well, she didn't get diagnosed.
I was told by the doctor three weeks before she died.
I didn't tell her until two weeks because I was
waiting a bit just to get it for you know,
(06:54):
more tests and things and she said it was the
first time being ill, was the first time she could
eat without anxiety or guilt. I mean, that's that's and
I think that so on the one hand, you know,
I've learnt everything about what cooking is from her, not
(07:15):
everything I've learned from you. I've learned from Anadeale Conte.
I've learned from Claudia Rodin. But I also learned what
path I didn't want to go down, and it wasn't
that one was your father? Did you ever cook? No?
He didn't. Occasionally later on he would make his own
breakfast breakfast, which I think is quite an old fashioned
(07:36):
male thing to do that somehow they don't feel, you know,
cooking eggs is too much of a dent to their dignity.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Because he you know, we talk a lot about, you know,
the generational men in the kitchen, men coming in the
kitchen ment. Very often Americans will say their father never cooked,
but did the barbecue, yes, or that's somehow grilling me.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But even so, I think he would only make his
break I don't know, but we know what about your brother?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Did your mother concentrate on teaching him.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Or no, he didn't get taught, although I did teach
him how to make you know, home days, which he loves.
But he's a wonderful eater, and I sometimes think, you know,
not everyone can be a cook, but good eaters are
are valuable.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The other night you were here with Bruno, and I've
seen you here with children and family and little kids
and big heads and students come here and have just
one pasta or whatever. But was it more of a
special occasion for your birthdays.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Birthdays or occasionally for a treat. There was a Chinese
restaurant in King's Row called Choys Oh Choice, Yeah, you know,
and I remember that, But it was I was. I
found meals difficult. It's an odd thing, or family meals.
You know. I was clumsy and I'd always not something over,
and I found myself slightly inhibited within a family group.
(08:59):
I came into my own later, and I think as well,
I didn't really enjoy eating. Well, I didn't enjoy meals
a lot until I had a bit more control so
I can decide what I wanted to eat. And for
that reason, you know, a tasting menu is my idea
of hell. Also, you went to Italy, didn't I didn't.
(09:25):
It made it such an impression on me well more
than that. It really altered my life in so many
ways before. So what happened was I did the in
the olden days, you did an entrance exam to go
to Oxford. I thought I would like to do German
and Italian, so I thought. I pretended at the interview
(09:47):
that I was going to go to school there, but
I didn't in Italy, you know, in the year between
the gap year. But I didn't, And I just turned
up with a school friend and and I got a job.
We got we had a job share, so we had
one room in a pen in Florence, and we were chambermaids.
(10:07):
And all I would say is if anyone ever stays
in a hotel and wonders whether people try on your
clothes and put your center on, yes we do.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And because they live that, you don't leave your clothes
on the floor. Yeah, so you're seventeen, No, I was
by then.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I was nineteen, I think, just on the cars, just
about eighteen nineteen. I couldn't say anything. I could say,
you know, missus Green has a brown hat or something,
and oh, I don't know. It was just terrible, and
I was meant to be the one getting us somewhere,
and I had no idea, and I couldn't understand when
they answered. So there was It was a penzione run
(10:44):
by a married couple who came from Arezzo, and they
had a son called Leonardo, and they had his mother, Lana,
living there, and every now and then they go to
their farm and she would be left there and we
weren't allowed in the kitchen. But the minute they gone,
(11:05):
you know, I'd be allowed in the kitchen because she
wanted a company, you know, and she was wanted to
chat and so so I watched her cook, and there
was something she used to do that. The thing I
remember most is that wonderful Italian with ros beef, which
is almost sort of pot roast, do you knows. And
I would see a bit of the oil, put the garlic in,
(11:26):
and move the garlic when it was brown. In the
north of Italy, the idea of leaving lots of garlic
was sort of odd and very small amount of meat,
which then you know, it was called roz aladdin when
you round something sit around that and you know rosmar
eating a bit of wine like that and sort of
(11:47):
cook it so it was not quite not fried, but
not poached really and there's something so enormously different. Again
served at room temperature, and she made prey mashed potatoes
with I always feel like saying, whenever people go Italians
don't use butter. I felt like you should have seen
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And I think, but again, when you were mentioning about
the beef being room temperature, I often think that the
only thing that Italians really like temperature is ice cream
very cold and pasta very hard. I mean, I think
that's the otherwise, as you're saying, roastbyeffish, I always let
(12:29):
my ice cream stay out.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, and I love that. But I think that being
in Italy, we didn't have an awful lot of money
to spend. And there was a bar I went to,
and you could sit at the bar and have a
campari soda and you could have a selection of I
suppose it was I suppose they were still crostini, not
(12:52):
blue to getter, but with you could choose different soft cheeses,
whether it it was mozzare la urata And I'm trying
to think which is the other one was. Now it
will come to me there was another one. No, it
was creamier and you had it with stripe of anchovy
on term so wonderful and I could keep you going,
(13:14):
do you know that would really keep And again I
could go to a bar and have a comparty. You
know that's the difference, isn't it That you considered a
bar and have a drink something to eat. Was going
back to Oxford a rude awakening then when you could
only go to a pub and I didn't really want to,
I didn't want to be. What I was going to
say about Italy is that I'd been very shy, and
(13:37):
I mean not at home more than at home or
in the adult world a bit. And when I had
to speak Italian, because I was speaking a different language,
I had to be a different person. I was more voluble,
I was less shy, and so I found my voice
and that doesn't matter where you find it. I felt
that I felt you, both in the food, food and
(14:01):
a way of being and being with other people, because
I think one of the things that's quite difficult when
you're adolescent is that people on the whole. This is
different now and there's Facebook and Instagram, but then people
knew you just in the context of your family. And
I'm not talking about having a well known father, and
I'm talking about everyone, so they know your so and so, sister,
(14:25):
Oh I know your cousin or didn't I see you there?
And that's fine. But somehow to go into a place
and not be, not have all those connections is freeing,
being completely independent, earning your own living, fending for yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I can imagine they loved you. I can see you
in Italy. I can close my eyes and see you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was. It was if It's as if I had
decided at a young age I wanted to be Italian,
and then I sort of proceeded.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And then did you bring that food backward?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I did? It may be shocked differently, but you know,
it's so different because I think it's hard not to
love itly without without being romantic about it. And one
shouldn't be because like any country, it has its issues
and it's a bit. Nevertheless, I think one is allowed
to have places which in reality and symbolically mean a
(15:16):
lot in your life.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I have such strong memories. I mean I have memories.
I said, you know, I don't remember when we met
because I just remember just you being in my life
and this magnificent woman who you know, combined all the
food and energy and writing and restaurants and and love
and love for John, and you know, and I think
(15:48):
I might have met John the first time, maybe in
the ivy. And he was so funny, you know, he
was just so funny and so attractive.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Not a great and I don't mean he was, but
you know, he tell me, no, he was a greade eater.
But he just didn't like an awful lot. He was
picky and he I remember the first time I cooked
for him. I think it was in my flat in
chester to Roads. No, it wasn't really, and I think
(16:22):
I don't. I think we were just friends at that stage.
But I thought I would cook something and I think
it was based on a Claudia Roidin recipe. And there
was a sort of corsettes with saffron and some sort
of sauce and and then you made the sauce new
for the the chopsychini around the chicken. And John took
(16:43):
one look at it and he said, no gravy for.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Me, please.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And that's so I know, And you know he I
still think of him that, you know, he his idea.
He adored tinned potatoes. I've I know their new potatoes.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
In tins, so their whole little cooked, Yes, cooked.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And his idea of a real treat too was tin
fruit salad with evaporated milk vapp I mean, but he did.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
He had a sweet chet. I guess. He loved talking.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
He loved talking.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Endless meals and remember that big table, the.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Big odal table, and there was yes, so there was
always people, people and eating. And I don't do children's
food and non children's food, but obviously there is certain
things that I would I make that were easier and
people liked, and also that thing of sometimes it would
just be like an indoor picnic. You know, you can
get you know, bread, cheese, hams, salami, tomatoes, and it
(17:52):
just really depends that. You know, there's so many pleasures
around food. And what about the kids eating? Were they?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Did they cook with you? Did you cook with Yes?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I always did because I was completely And I remember
once going to shave my brother when Bruno was very little,
when I was cooking and he put his hand, I
said careful and he put his hand, yes, And I
felt like the most awful person. But actually coming to
(18:21):
lunch was a child psychologist, I think, and he went nonsense,
the best way to learn about danger is in a
safe environment. I felt much better, he said. He went
put his hand in a sauceman again.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I wanted to ask you also about restaurants. Do you
love restaurants?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So do I love some? I love some because you
were a critic for what I was, and well, I
didn't do lots like people do now. I didn't want
to fortnight, and I always felt I was representing the reader.
So I really wanted to, in a way evoke just
when I read a recipe, I'm trying to evoke the
(18:58):
feeling of cooking something. I wanted to devote the experience
of being in the restaurant, not you know, it's not
about how chummy you are with the chefs or what
you know about a place. It's are you going to
have a wonderful time? And the theater of the room
and the space, and that wonderful always of a clink
(19:19):
of glasses. And I feel I have less of a
restaurant going life than I used to do, and that's partly.
Sometimes I don't I don't want to be looked at
instead at and I feel like I'm a bit on show.
Not always, but sometimes it depends on how vulnerable or
otherwise I might be feeling at any time. I love
(19:41):
going to places I feel at home in and I
love seeing you know, people who work there, and that
makes because it's about exchange, human connection.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
As we've said over and over that food is a
connection to our history, to our children now, to our lives,
to our friends. It also is a comfort. And so
I guess my last question to you, as I ask everyone,
is it food is a comfort? Is there a food
that you go to if you need if you're hungry,
not if you want to impress, but if you need comfort.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
It's so difficult because I feel like for me, all
food is comfort. That's a good answer.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So I do that.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, I don't know. I guess you know my mother's
way of cooking chicken, which is a bit like chicken soup.
You know, so anything chicken eat brothy is a comfort
rice in some I think that generally, I guess, like
a lot of people, I think of comfort food as
being something sort of carby. Yeah, I mean bread always,
but I think in different moods, all food is a comfort,
(20:44):
And I think it's it's just there is such beauty
in just the ingredients, and sometimes when you've peeled an onion.
The way the skin looks on the shopping board, it's
just wonderful. Or I thinks, smell as you great lemon
zest and that changes the air. So I feel it
(21:05):
reminds you. You know, you're alive and you're taking pleasure,
and to be grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well, I'm grateful for you. And we're going to go
and take comfort and have some lunch in the River Cafe.
Comfort and connection and love.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I love you, Nanja, I love you, Darnie.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
River Cafe Table four as 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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