June 30, 2025 • 36 mins
John Lithgow has played a cardinal, serial killer, prime minister, alien and president. But the role I know him best in is as a great friend.
John is currently living in London, playing Roald Dahl in Giant to rave reviews. I’ve seen it three times.
We met at The River Cafe on Father’s Day, to talk about acting and food, theatre and food, film and food, family and food. And of course, friendship and food.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Neither John Lithgow nor I remember how we met. I
think it was about twenty years ago. He thinks more.
I think it was a roommate from Harvard who introduced us.
He thinks a friend from New York. In fact, it
doesn't really matter. What matters is that John is living
in London performing in Giant, de rave reviews, playing Roles
(00:27):
Doll and He and his wife, Mary Yager's house is
around the corner from mine. On Sunday nights, the one
day he's not on stage, they've come to supper. Our
friends love them, my children love them, and I love them.
John has played an alien, a cardinal, a serial killer,
a prime minister, presidents, and though I've seen Giant three times,
(00:50):
the role I know best is John as a friend.
He is quite simply the nicest man I know. John
and I share a belief in the joy of song,
and right now in this world we are looking everywhere
for joy. His albums for Children, Singing in the Bathtub,
Farkl and Friends, and The Sunny Side of the Street
(01:12):
are beautiful. I've been listening to him singing everybody eats
when they come to my house very relevant and my
favorite getting to know You both particularly relevant today. Right now,
we're at the River Cafe on Father's Day to talk
about acting and food, theater and food, film and food,
(01:33):
family and food.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Who cares? How we bet? We're together? Now? Should we sing?
Getting to know you.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And getting to know you, getting to know.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You, getting to like.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
You, and getting to hold you like me.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
To Suddenly I'm right.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
And easy because of the.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Things I'm learning about you.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Day by.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Day. When have you begun an interview like that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I will confess that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Richard Y Grant was here about a few months ago,
and in the middle of it we started talking about
My Fair Lady and he played Henry Higgins, and so
he said to me, what's your favorite song for my
Fair Lady? I said, that is so easy because for me,
I've grown accustomed to her face, and so he sang it.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Do you know that I.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Did play that part?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did you play Henry?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Once?
Speaker 5 (02:49):
At the Hollywood Bowl there was a full production put
together for one evening, and because I had grown up
listening to the original cast.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Album as you clearly did.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Performed it with ten days rehearsal. It was fully costumed,
with the entire Los Angeles Philharmonic up on stage with us,
and oh my god, Roger Daltrey played.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Doolittle and packed Lighthead played.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Pickering, all these Rosemary Harris played Missus Higgins.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Remember that was Melissa Era.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Yeah, and I think we performed it for about nineteen
thousand people at the Hollywood Bowl. And you know, the
the magnified, the amplified voices on stage, they sort of
hit like two seconds later way up at the back,
and so you would tell a joke and the laughter
(03:49):
would roll up the hill. It was the most amazing experience. Oh,
it was fantastic. I always wished that they would ask
me to do it again for a run somewhere because
it is the perfect music.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know that for me, Well, you'll have all different ones,
but for me My Fair Lady and Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I love the music from Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But we're talking about it the other day with Greta
and No and actually with Richard was saying, could you
do My Fair Lady now? Because it is pretty misogynist,
it does have a and they were saying, yes, why
not have a play about a man who doesn't understand
and his own.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It was equally controversially back in those days. But Higgins
is a George avatar and very kind of challenging, dangerous wit.
I mean, it's kind of like playing role doll. You're
(04:48):
startled by his savage. Well, it's just it's a savage wit.
It's a willingness to be cruel.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I can't a woman be more like a man?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Yeah, exactly. I mean you have to consider the source.
It's wonderful to play a part that's all in. That's
that's how I always felt about playing Dick Solomon on
Third Rock from the Sun. Just nothing but impulse, completely unedited,
because he knew nothing about the proprieties of being a
human being.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah, it's very.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, watching you in the theater and being in the
theater and having seen Giant? How does food enter your
work day when you're thinking about if you're doing a matinee,
do you start thinking about in the morning, are you
going to have a breakfast?
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Or it's a catastrophe doing a play, especially a really
demanding play like Giant, it's thrown everything off. I never
know when to have a good meal because if you
wait too late, you've got too full of stomach. When
the show is over and you come home, you don't
want to eat too much then because you've got to sleep.
(05:59):
It's very confusing. I'm counting on Sundays. That's why I
keep gravitating to the River Cafe.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
We're going to go and have lunch very soon. But
if what you eat so like tomorrow, you're in on
performance tomorrow night, do.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
You think you'll got a horrendous day tomorrow? Don't?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I have entered into a sort of ven Diagram period
of my schedule where I'm running Giant but doing prep
work for Harry Potter and tomorrow Tomorrow I have wardrobe fittings,
and Tuesday I have hair and makeup, and this is
Dumbledore we're talking about, and then I have to race
back into town to do the show both nights. Then
(06:39):
I have two on Wednesday, so I don't know when
I'm going to eat.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I better go have a good lunch. And when you're filming,
do you think about when you did you know movies?
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Movies are a luxury because you know they feed you
well midday every day, and you're usually on. You're frequently
on location where you're God, I did two months in
Rome on it.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I wanted to hear about that because I've heard from Stanley. Stanley,
you and Sally did a tour of Tuscany, did you
or not?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well?
Speaker 5 (07:10):
I went by myself around Tuscany, but following Rafe's itinerary.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, he laid out where.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I should go.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Yeah, and uh, I mean doing doing a film in
Rome with Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini and Ray Fines.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It was just tell me what would you do that
would you film? And then go out to eat?
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And yeah, we ate at night and trust Everey we
had were an amazing, funky hotel across the Tiber from
trust every eating and drinking at the end of a
long day of working. It was great, much much better
than doing theater.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well maybe you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Should think about that, you know, when you when you
choose what films is going to do.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
One of the first big roles I played in movies
was obsession for Brian to Holm where we shot in
Florence and New Orleans. And I asked him, Brian, did
you did you pick the cities before you made up
the story, and he said, yes, Where do you want
to be on it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Where do you want to be Yeah, exactly, Well you're
going to be in London, which is going to be great.
Sow When do you start doing the Harry Potter We
haven't right as.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Soon as this, but I don't expect to be working
as hard on that as I do on this.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
What does it feel like at the end of it?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
It's really exhausting.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
I mean, you're related by it, but it's completely exhausting.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Have you ever done a play we had to eat
on stage?
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yes, Uh?
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Actually I made a great discovery when I played King
Lear in New York at the Public Theater. The scene
where he he sort of crashes his daughter's castle with
his entire troop of knights, the director wanted me to
sit down and eat, eat hard after the hunt, and
the prop man came up with this ingenious device for
(09:06):
eating on stage. He made these chunks of watermelon covered
with food coloring. Looked exactly like a big slab of beef,
and I would just pop gigantic square inches of watermelon
into my mouth and they disappear instantly. So not only
(09:26):
can you can you eat and speak Shakespeare at the
same time, but you're also hydrating.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
And that's what we do in Giant. Don't tell anybody.
They serve us salad sUAS well. That's thinly sliced watermelon.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
And I always I can always get everything down my
gullet on que. There's about ten moments when I'm munching
and it's all gone straight down, just in time.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I think it was It wasn't Carrien Mulligan.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It was someone maybe it was that had to cook
and eat something made a pasta.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
I think it was maybe for her Pin to play.
That was it was David Hare, David Hare.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think it was Skylight, the Skylight where they cook
a pasta on stage. Yeah, and she described having to
actually cook it and then then eat it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It's always wonderful when that happens on the stage.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, smell it you.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
But I'm basically cheating up there on stage.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, we can cut that from this and we can
tell them nobody's gonna like it.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Ahead and share it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I just like to think about the early days your
Your father was born in the Dominican Republican, Is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So what was that like? Did they?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Well, it's a it's a kind of curiosity about of
his history and mind. He was descended from two or
three generations of Scott's. My nice Lithgo is a Scottish
name who lived in the Dominican Republic. His father and
his grandfather were both vice consuls of and he was
(11:10):
born in Santa Domingo and grew up in Porta Plata,
but only grew up until he was four and then
he and then he went straight to Boston. And that's
my real So.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Your grandparents, yes, whom I never knew.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
I knew my grandmother, but not my grandfather. He died
when my dad was four. So it's really just a
curiosity of my biography.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Did your mother cook food that maybe came from there
or did she bring any Caribean food or.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I would say the food in my household was very
much Boston seafood. That was my father's absolute favorite food
New England lobsters and clams and scollops.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And my mother, she was from Rochester.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I and my siblings had a crazy upbringing because my
father was a regional theater artistic director and we lived
in about eight different places, so he directed, he was
he created and ran Shakespeare festivals in Ohio. I mean,
another curiosity of my biography It's what has turned me
(12:21):
into this peculiar hybrid between an American and an Englishman.
And my mother just kept the house, kept the family
together as we moved from place to place, and just
was a very reliable kind of Fanny farmer cook. Yeah,
(12:43):
I remember her cooking very well. I remember one of
our my real hometown up until I was about twelve
years old was Yellow Springs, Ohio. We lived in a
house on Dayton Street, and it was full of fruit
trees and an entire line of rhubarb along the along one.
(13:08):
I don't know whether they inherited it. Certainly they inherited
all the fruit trees, but were there was peach trees,
cherry trees, apple trees. And she used to make the
most incredible rhubarb pies.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
What was it like?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It was all rub none of this strawberry rhubarb.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Stuff, and just one of my favorite things growing up.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Would you go pick the rubarbi?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
She picked the rubarb for her, and and it was
I just remember family meals.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Did you do all sit down at night?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
How many brothers and I had?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I have two sisters and a brother.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
A lot of work I was cooking for four Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And they were they let's see about a fifteen year
span between the first and the last.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
What about your dad was then? How much was he
he was?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, he was always home, but always in the theater.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
I just that's how I remember him.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And he had a crazy career that veered between the
theater profession and the teaching profession, because it was just
you know, if you're if you're in the theater, you
have a crazy life. Sometimes you're employed, sometimes you're not.
Sometimes you have to choose other work. Sometimes it's going great,
(14:30):
and sometimes it's a catastrophe.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
He started this idea of doing because that's very different
from being an actor, to have a business or a
career going setting up a theater, doing Shakespeare, going from
town to town, finding the theater.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Well it came out most of his theaters were university connected.
He did a great Shakespeare festival that lasted eight years
at Antioch College.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Yeah, and he taught there and I see that's it. Yeah,
And he.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Actually college because it's quite.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Very funky in the middle of Ohio. It's certainly the
most lefty radical place in Ohio and it hasn't changed out.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
In the States. It always had of being very.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Liberally, tremendously exciting place, and that was our hometown. And
a lot of my friends were professor's children, and a.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Lot of them were on the blacklist. You know.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
It was a greatness, was in the early nineteen fifties
mcarthy era, and it was a badge of honor to
have your father a blacklisted professor.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
My dad was in that world as well. Yeah, I
love Do you know Howard Koch was Howard Koch as well?
The writers we wrote Casablanca, And we lived in a
small town upstate New York, Woodstock, and we were on
a street literally our next door neighbor. Actually, that's one
of the reasons I came to London is that Howard.
I wanted to take time off and Howard, because so
many writers at the time who are blacklisted came to England.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Carl Foreman, Carl.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Rice, maybe two. I think they were quite a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Ring Lardner Jr. Was quite a gang.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
A gang.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So did you know that being in the world of theater,
of your father setting up theaters, was this an influence of.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Well, I was much more interested in being an artist
when I was a kid, genuinely interested, and that was
everybody assumed that was what I would do. But you know,
we were very involved in the theater, Me and my siblings.
We all performed, performed in the plays, and watched rehearsals
day in and day out. Knew the whole Shakespearean cannon
(16:37):
because he produced every single one of Shakespeare's plays, including
Henry the Eighth and Timon of Athens.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
He must have been a great guy.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
He was a very genial, sweet, wonderful man.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, but his parents supportive of him.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
He was a black sheep and my mom was a
black sheep.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
When you went from theater to theater, town to town,
you said you did, even though there were universities. Was
it having to adapt to a new vice.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
It's kind of like being a service brat, except I
didn't go to a service brat school. I was the
new kid in public schools all over Ohio and Massachusetts
and graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey,
where my dad ran the MacArthur Theater. It was a
crazy pretty much, starting in about fourth grade.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I kept we just moved.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And moved, moved, and did you keep painting?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
I kept painting.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
I mean, I was really serious, right, up until I
went off to college, at which point I was the
campus star. Like within the first week I was an
experienced actor.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Tell me about Harvard and going to university. First of all,
do you remember the food? Can we talk about food
in Harvard?
Speaker 5 (17:54):
They were all the cooks in all the dorms, were
these wonderful Irish women who just slopped out the food.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Did you walk around Cambridge and discover what it was
like to have Greek food or other kinds.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Of When I most vividly remember about food at Harvard
was Elsie's, the sandwich shop in Harvard Square, and the
Fresher's Special and the.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Big fat roast beef sandwiches.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
When I went to Bennington and so we had a
turn off and I got a job at the Harvard
Law School doing I don't know what I did. You know,
I took books down from the shelves and kind of
read a few reports.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But I sold pretzels. You remember that pretzels stand in
Harvard Square? Yes, yeah, I worked there.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Maybe I sold you I bet you probably did. We're
almost contemporary.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Nobody knows that about my life.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Pretzels, But I saw pretzels in Harvard Square.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Ye, well I was supposed to do. I like doing
that more than working in the Harvard Law School.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, but I did get it.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
But it was very is a great atmosphere, and Harvard
is very heroic these.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Days, it is. Yeah, we could have a moment on
that DEI.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
They'd be protecting our universities and standing up for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, were you active politically in those days?
Speaker 4 (19:13):
You know?
Speaker 5 (19:13):
I graduated in nineteen sixty seven and came off to
London to study at Lambda, which pretty much separated me
from all the political turmoil. I left the country just
when everything flew apart.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Here I was in London in nineteen sixty eight, which
until now was the most catastrophic here in America in
recent American history. And ironically, at both moments here I
was in England, reading all the news from back home
and thinking, what is going on at the minute I leave?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
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at the end of sixty eight sixty nine, and I
(20:33):
came with a you know, a group of friends, you know,
boyfriends and friends who just escaping the draft.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I always say that, you know, I'd.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Probably agree that Vietnam was a class war because I
you know, poor farmers, poor people from who couldn't didn't
know how to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You know, we're drafted. I don't know anybody.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I know somebody who went to Vietnam, for people from
Williams or Dartmouth, but I don't know anybody who died there,
and I hardly know anybody who went.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Yeah, it's a real third rail of American society from
that era. People were so burned by that board. Or
whether they participated or whether they resisted, it's just this
subject of deep confusion. And you're right. I was here
in London at exactly that time. So many expaths and resisters,
(21:30):
so many who were just confused, what do I do?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
What do I do next? I'm not going to participate
in this.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
The people going to Sweden, trying to get to Canada,
trying to go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
And I remember, well Al Gore was one of them.
Another one was Donald Graham, who who led Washington Post
for so many years. They went to Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, John Kerry, John Carrey.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Wonderful man.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And and we thought, what is what's gone wrong with
Donnie Graham? Because he he reoped for a second tour
of duty? What has happened to him? And then he
came back and joined the Washington, d c. Police Force.
We thought he would you know, basically he was what
he considered his duty as an American citizen. And we
(22:23):
all thought it was an aberration. I mean, that's how
crazy it was that period of time.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
It was a crazy time. So then you came back
following your life you were with Lambda. Yeah, and was
that a discovery?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Oh? It was great?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
It was what did you discover?
Speaker 5 (22:36):
The first it was the first time I've been to England.
I'd been to France, but I'd never been to England,
even though I'd grown up in a total anglophile family,
and I had studied English history and literature at Harvard,
and I always said, within the first two weeks in London,
(22:57):
I'd learned more about English history than I ever knew before.
And you suddenly I knew. Never even occurred to me
to look at a map and see where all these
Shakespearean characters came from. Suddenly there was Kent and Northumberland,
and Salisbury and Rochester.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
All of these.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Gloucester a part that I'd played in king Lear. I
never bothered to look at where Gloucester was, you know.
So No, it was a wonderful time, and it was
a great time in English theater.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, Peters was going on.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Peter Brook was doing his greatest work, Peter Hall, who
was the head of the RSC. Trevor Nunn took over
from him at age twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Did you meet Kenneth Tynan?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I never met.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Kenneth Tynan, but I met a lot of other remarkable people.
Met John Gielgood and his dress.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Later.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
She was working a way out in the east in Stratford.
Of course, the gravitational center has shifted east, but back
then that was like working.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
You have money, well, I was on a.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Full could you eat out? I keep going back to
we ate a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
I was in my first marriage, a very youthful marriage,
and we ate a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Of Indian food.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Yeah, I've never tasted better Indian food.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Good. Do you still eat it?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It's interesting how the I always think, well, we know,
because of colonialism, how the British is.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I hope I don't insult any of you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But there is a palette of British food which is
quite sort of h what would be saying don't and
then to go for all cuisines. You know, in every
small town all over Britain there's Indian restaurants, you know,
and that I agree.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
But I also remember, you know, the cliche was that
England had absolutely awful food, but it.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Wasn't true at all.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
There were so many wonderful, innovative restaurants. I think it
was a little legacy of rationing because England had had
to make do with only half the ingredients that we
cook with now. But I remember finding great restaurants The
Hungry Horse, Remember the Hungry Horse?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I do was that in full? Something like that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And peoples and also if you ate in people's homes,
their mothers cooked really good Sunday lunches and great meats
and great you know, so it was an exploring time
for you to be.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Did you travel to Europe?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, quite a lot.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Oh we went to Salzburg and Vienna and Amsterdam and Italy.
Uh yeah, I mean you seize the day. If you've
grown up in America and you're living in London. Every
time I had a little five day break, I would
sprint to Europe, to Paris for the first time.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
It's great.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Do you remember Paris? The feeling of Paris?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah, like everything you ate was good.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
What did you remember what you ate? I read?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Oh God.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
One of my great memories actually from before then, that
summer that I spent in traveling around with a traveling
around France with a youth group. I remember a crape
stand in an artichoke field in Brittany and having this
fellow make crapes on a big circular black grill and
(26:25):
scrape it off when it was paper thin, and fold
it up and sprinkle it with sugar, and remembered thinking,
this is the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in
my life. That's what happens to you when you go
to other countries.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, an open kitchen in the River Cafe means we
as chefs are able to talk to our guests dining
in the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos
to our podcast, a Question an Answer episode with me
and our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with
your question to Questions at River Cafe dot co dot
(27:01):
uk and you might just be our next great guest
on Ruthie's Table four. The recipe that we thought you
could read would be the recipe that you just because
you were in the pastry's kitchen.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Tell me what you thought about that.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Oh, that was wonderful, very welcoming listening. Every every square foot.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Of this place is welcoming, and that goes for the
pastry cook kitchen too.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
They were they were wonderful. Tell me their names again.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And Alice, Yeah, just delightful. They were thrilled to have you.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Because it's also that contact you have with somebody who yeah,
both you and Mary.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Mary came in there with me and she is my
my tutor. Yeah she is a professor, but in the
case of pastry cooking, she was my professor.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
But how did that start?
Speaker 5 (27:55):
From the very just always she was always a great
great baker and by bit like Tom Sawyer and his
white picket fence. She taught me how to do some
of this stuff and then abandon it herself, so I
became the baker.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
In the house.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
You find it relaxing to bake.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Not entirely, but it's there.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
You're feeling elated when something comes out of the oven, right,
and you look forward to that moment. Yeah, it's and
now it is sort of shorthand. Mary's from Montana. We
have a little cabin on a lake in Montana, and
there's a one single cherry tree in the woods, left
(28:36):
over from when there used to be a cherry orchard.
And one of our favorite things is to ride a
horse to the cherry tree, gather cherries at exactly the
right time in the summer, bring them back to the house,
wash them, pit them, and make a cherry pie and
eat the cherry pie with tea.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I mean it's like a three hour long to cherry better.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh my god, the idea that you get around a
horse and.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I become very good at the lattice crust.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I'd like to have that. Can I make one for
me one time?
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I might not be We have a church outside. I'll
show you after this, and we have a lot of
cherries on it. Yeah, I mean they're not quite there yet,
but there's nothing better than a good Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
So would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
You can read it any way you want, Okay, River,
you that Whyeliff Sean did it and wrap some ta
face sang it.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Oh my god. But you can just read it out
if you like anyway you like.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Well, I will, I guess I'll read it in my
best uh an adequate English accent.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
My roll doll, pretend I'm rolled. All. Yeah, there we
go with the same attitude.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Roll doll. Like food. We know about his Oh.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yeah, he was quite a he did cook cookbooks, yeah, with.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
His wife Lizzie. Yeah, and of course a big wine.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You're sort of in a kitchen in the play.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
It's a it's a house under renovation, but we sell
set up for a luncheon River Cafe. Pastry three hundred
and fifty grams that is twelve ounces plain flower, a
pinch of salt, one hundred and seventy five grams, which
is eight ounces unsalted cold butter cut into cubes one
(30:32):
hundred grams that is four ounces icing sugar. Three egg
yolks for the sweet pastry. Pulse the flower, salt and
butter and a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Add the sugar and then the egg yolks and pulse.
(30:55):
The mixture will immediately combine and leave the sides of
the bowl. Remove, wrap in cling film and chill for
at least an hour. Preheat the oven to one hundred
and eighty degrees centigrade that is three hundred and fifty
degrees fahrenheight gas four. Cause the great bass tree into
(31:20):
a thirty centimeter that is a twelve inch loose bottomed,
fluted flantin. Then press it evenly on the sides and base.
Bake blind for twenty minutes until very light, brown and cool.
(31:42):
How is that coach was not listening?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
We like, there's something about a recipe which is very nice.
Isn't it nice to listen to?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I think, what a great idea to have dramatic reading.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, we had period and we gave a performance in
our house and we would invite a hundred people and
then that money would go to eddy charity or foundation
that the actor wanted to give. And so we had
ray fines did a Beckett soliloquy, and Judy Dench did
a whole night and we had John Williams played the guitar,
(32:21):
and then Ian McKellen did his night and he ended
it and he sang songs and he told stories and
he read poetry and he ended up reading a recipe
from one I didn't know, and it was very compelling.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
He read a recipe for a soup and.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
It was.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
In honor of his host, my co star, Elliott Levy, giant.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Of those.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
He did, Well, we should do another one because you
know that space.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
The acoustics are good, and yeah, we'll do We'll do
something when when you're done with the play.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
That's so excited. Though I don't like the idea you're
going to Hampstead. It's quite far. But I also thought
being you and knowing your political spectrum and how you
and I both give you a lot through the lens
of society, through the lens of poverty, through the lens
of struggle. And I think you know we are aware,
aren't we that right now in this world there are
(33:20):
so many people struggling and feeling that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Do you feel, Oh.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Gosh, it's very hard not to be not to be
extremely gloomy these days.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
But there is there's heroism.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
I mean, there's that magnificent chef who created that, Yes.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Exactly what these people died in Gaza.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yes, for every for every little hopeful sign, there's there's
another source of despair. These days, it's very, very hard,
and all you can do is cling to the belief
that this too will pass, it will and and fight
for it.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think it's a combination of the fighting and the
optimism that we will fight and win. And then we
also think about food. As we think about food, as
I just said political, we think of it as an
indicator of someone's success that they can afford.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
To buy food.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
We think of it how we feed our children, how
the government feeds our people in hospital or in prison,
and the responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
And we also think of food is comfort.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So my very last question to you, John Lithke, who
I love Anadorea, is when.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
You need comfort, is there food that you might reach for?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Well?
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I think the very best pasta is probably it. I
don't know, it's you know, Ruth, you're interviewing me, and
you are, in my opinion, the paragon of making people
feel taken care of you're the most welcome I mean person.
(35:01):
It's no coincidence that you've created this incredible institution because it's.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
The same in your household.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
You just feel every you put everyone at ease, make
them feel so welcome.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
And food is a part of that process, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
I believe there's a wonderful quote from MFK. Fisher, who's
a fiction writer but also a food writer, from about
thirty years ago, and she was asked, since you write fiction,
and that's your great passion, why do you also write
about food? And she said, well, it's very simple, as
(35:39):
far as she's concerned, there are two things that human
beings can't do without. One is food and one is love.
And to her, they're very, very closely connected with each other.
I always thought that was a beautiful definition, and you, sir, represent.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
That to me.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
So do you still okay?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
in partnership with Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Neither John Lithgow nor I remember how we met. I
think it was about twenty years ago. He thinks more.
I think it was a roommate from Harvard who introduced us.
He thinks a friend from New York. In fact, it
doesn't really matter. What matters is that John is living
in London performing in Giant, de rave reviews, playing Roles
(00:27):
Doll and He and his wife, Mary Yager's house is
around the corner from mine. On Sunday nights, the one
day he's not on stage, they've come to supper. Our
friends love them, my children love them, and I love them.
John has played an alien, a cardinal, a serial killer,
a prime minister, presidents, and though I've seen Giant three times,
(00:50):
the role I know best is John as a friend.
He is quite simply the nicest man I know. John
and I share a belief in the joy of song,
and right now in this world we are looking everywhere
for joy. His albums for Children, Singing in the Bathtub,
Farkl and Friends, and The Sunny Side of the Street
(01:12):
are beautiful. I've been listening to him singing everybody eats
when they come to my house very relevant and my
favorite getting to know You both particularly relevant today. Right now,
we're at the River Cafe on Father's Day to talk
about acting and food, theater and food, film and food,
(01:33):
family and food.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Who cares? How we bet? We're together? Now? Should we sing?
Getting to know you.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And getting to know you, getting to know.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You, getting to like.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
You, and getting to hold you like me.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
To Suddenly I'm right.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
And easy because of the.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Things I'm learning about you.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Day by.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Day. When have you begun an interview like that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I will confess that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Richard Y Grant was here about a few months ago,
and in the middle of it we started talking about
My Fair Lady and he played Henry Higgins, and so
he said to me, what's your favorite song for my
Fair Lady? I said, that is so easy because for me,
I've grown accustomed to her face, and so he sang it.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Do you know that I.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Did play that part?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did you play Henry?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Once?
Speaker 5 (02:49):
At the Hollywood Bowl there was a full production put
together for one evening, and because I had grown up
listening to the original cast.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Album as you clearly did.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Performed it with ten days rehearsal. It was fully costumed,
with the entire Los Angeles Philharmonic up on stage with us,
and oh my god, Roger Daltrey played.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Doolittle and packed Lighthead played.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Pickering, all these Rosemary Harris played Missus Higgins.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Remember that was Melissa Era.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Yeah, and I think we performed it for about nineteen
thousand people at the Hollywood Bowl. And you know, the
the magnified, the amplified voices on stage, they sort of
hit like two seconds later way up at the back,
and so you would tell a joke and the laughter
(03:49):
would roll up the hill. It was the most amazing experience. Oh,
it was fantastic. I always wished that they would ask
me to do it again for a run somewhere because
it is the perfect music.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know that for me, Well, you'll have all different ones,
but for me My Fair Lady and Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I love the music from Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But we're talking about it the other day with Greta
and No and actually with Richard was saying, could you
do My Fair Lady now? Because it is pretty misogynist,
it does have a and they were saying, yes, why
not have a play about a man who doesn't understand
and his own.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It was equally controversially back in those days. But Higgins
is a George avatar and very kind of challenging, dangerous wit.
I mean, it's kind of like playing role doll. You're
(04:48):
startled by his savage. Well, it's just it's a savage wit.
It's a willingness to be cruel.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I can't a woman be more like a man?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Yeah, exactly. I mean you have to consider the source.
It's wonderful to play a part that's all in. That's
that's how I always felt about playing Dick Solomon on
Third Rock from the Sun. Just nothing but impulse, completely unedited,
because he knew nothing about the proprieties of being a
human being.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah, it's very.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, watching you in the theater and being in the
theater and having seen Giant? How does food enter your
work day when you're thinking about if you're doing a matinee,
do you start thinking about in the morning, are you
going to have a breakfast?
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Or it's a catastrophe doing a play, especially a really
demanding play like Giant, it's thrown everything off. I never
know when to have a good meal because if you
wait too late, you've got too full of stomach. When
the show is over and you come home, you don't
want to eat too much then because you've got to sleep.
(05:59):
It's very confusing. I'm counting on Sundays. That's why I
keep gravitating to the River Cafe.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
We're going to go and have lunch very soon. But
if what you eat so like tomorrow, you're in on
performance tomorrow night, do.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
You think you'll got a horrendous day tomorrow? Don't?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I have entered into a sort of ven Diagram period
of my schedule where I'm running Giant but doing prep
work for Harry Potter and tomorrow Tomorrow I have wardrobe fittings,
and Tuesday I have hair and makeup, and this is
Dumbledore we're talking about, and then I have to race
back into town to do the show both nights. Then
(06:39):
I have two on Wednesday, so I don't know when
I'm going to eat.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I better go have a good lunch. And when you're filming,
do you think about when you did you know movies?
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Movies are a luxury because you know they feed you
well midday every day, and you're usually on. You're frequently
on location where you're God, I did two months in
Rome on it.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I wanted to hear about that because I've heard from Stanley. Stanley,
you and Sally did a tour of Tuscany, did you
or not?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well?
Speaker 5 (07:10):
I went by myself around Tuscany, but following Rafe's itinerary.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yeah, he laid out where.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I should go.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Yeah, and uh, I mean doing doing a film in
Rome with Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini and Ray Fines.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It was just tell me what would you do that
would you film? And then go out to eat?
Speaker 5 (07:31):
And yeah, we ate at night and trust Everey we
had were an amazing, funky hotel across the Tiber from
trust every eating and drinking at the end of a
long day of working. It was great, much much better
than doing theater.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Well maybe you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Should think about that, you know, when you when you
choose what films is going to do.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
One of the first big roles I played in movies
was obsession for Brian to Holm where we shot in
Florence and New Orleans. And I asked him, Brian, did
you did you pick the cities before you made up
the story, and he said, yes, Where do you want
to be on it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Where do you want to be Yeah, exactly, Well you're
going to be in London, which is going to be great.
Sow When do you start doing the Harry Potter We
haven't right as.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Soon as this, but I don't expect to be working
as hard on that as I do on this.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
What does it feel like at the end of it?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
It's really exhausting.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
I mean, you're related by it, but it's completely exhausting.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Have you ever done a play we had to eat
on stage?
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yes, Uh?
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Actually I made a great discovery when I played King
Lear in New York at the Public Theater. The scene
where he he sort of crashes his daughter's castle with
his entire troop of knights, the director wanted me to
sit down and eat, eat hard after the hunt, and
the prop man came up with this ingenious device for
(09:06):
eating on stage. He made these chunks of watermelon covered
with food coloring. Looked exactly like a big slab of beef,
and I would just pop gigantic square inches of watermelon
into my mouth and they disappear instantly. So not only
(09:26):
can you can you eat and speak Shakespeare at the
same time, but you're also hydrating.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
And that's what we do in Giant. Don't tell anybody.
They serve us salad sUAS well. That's thinly sliced watermelon.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
And I always I can always get everything down my
gullet on que. There's about ten moments when I'm munching
and it's all gone straight down, just in time.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I think it was It wasn't Carrien Mulligan.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It was someone maybe it was that had to cook
and eat something made a pasta.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
I think it was maybe for her Pin to play.
That was it was David Hare, David Hare.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think it was Skylight, the Skylight where they cook
a pasta on stage. Yeah, and she described having to
actually cook it and then then eat it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It's always wonderful when that happens on the stage.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, smell it you.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
But I'm basically cheating up there on stage.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, we can cut that from this and we can
tell them nobody's gonna like it.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Ahead and share it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I just like to think about the early days your
Your father was born in the Dominican Republican, Is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So what was that like? Did they?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Well, it's a it's a kind of curiosity about of
his history and mind. He was descended from two or
three generations of Scott's. My nice Lithgo is a Scottish
name who lived in the Dominican Republic. His father and
his grandfather were both vice consuls of and he was
(11:10):
born in Santa Domingo and grew up in Porta Plata,
but only grew up until he was four and then
he and then he went straight to Boston. And that's
my real So.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Your grandparents, yes, whom I never knew.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
I knew my grandmother, but not my grandfather. He died
when my dad was four. So it's really just a
curiosity of my biography.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Did your mother cook food that maybe came from there
or did she bring any Caribean food or.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I would say the food in my household was very
much Boston seafood. That was my father's absolute favorite food
New England lobsters and clams and scollops.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And my mother, she was from Rochester.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I and my siblings had a crazy upbringing because my
father was a regional theater artistic director and we lived
in about eight different places, so he directed, he was
he created and ran Shakespeare festivals in Ohio. I mean,
another curiosity of my biography It's what has turned me
(12:21):
into this peculiar hybrid between an American and an Englishman.
And my mother just kept the house, kept the family
together as we moved from place to place, and just
was a very reliable kind of Fanny farmer cook. Yeah,
(12:43):
I remember her cooking very well. I remember one of
our my real hometown up until I was about twelve
years old was Yellow Springs, Ohio. We lived in a
house on Dayton Street, and it was full of fruit
trees and an entire line of rhubarb along the along one.
(13:08):
I don't know whether they inherited it. Certainly they inherited
all the fruit trees, but were there was peach trees,
cherry trees, apple trees. And she used to make the
most incredible rhubarb pies.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
What was it like?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It was all rub none of this strawberry rhubarb.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Stuff, and just one of my favorite things growing up.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Would you go pick the rubarbi?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
She picked the rubarb for her, and and it was
I just remember family meals.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Did you do all sit down at night?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
How many brothers and I had?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I have two sisters and a brother.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
A lot of work I was cooking for four Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
And they were they let's see about a fifteen year
span between the first and the last.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
What about your dad was then? How much was he
he was?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, he was always home, but always in the theater.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
I just that's how I remember him.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And he had a crazy career that veered between the
theater profession and the teaching profession, because it was just
you know, if you're if you're in the theater, you
have a crazy life. Sometimes you're employed, sometimes you're not.
Sometimes you have to choose other work. Sometimes it's going great,
(14:30):
and sometimes it's a catastrophe.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
He started this idea of doing because that's very different
from being an actor, to have a business or a
career going setting up a theater, doing Shakespeare, going from
town to town, finding the theater.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Well it came out most of his theaters were university connected.
He did a great Shakespeare festival that lasted eight years
at Antioch College.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Yeah, and he taught there and I see that's it. Yeah,
And he.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Actually college because it's quite.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Very funky in the middle of Ohio. It's certainly the
most lefty radical place in Ohio and it hasn't changed out.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
In the States. It always had of being very.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Liberally, tremendously exciting place, and that was our hometown. And
a lot of my friends were professor's children, and a.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Lot of them were on the blacklist. You know.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
It was a greatness, was in the early nineteen fifties
mcarthy era, and it was a badge of honor to
have your father a blacklisted professor.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
My dad was in that world as well. Yeah, I
love Do you know Howard Koch was Howard Koch as well?
The writers we wrote Casablanca, And we lived in a
small town upstate New York, Woodstock, and we were on
a street literally our next door neighbor. Actually, that's one
of the reasons I came to London is that Howard.
I wanted to take time off and Howard, because so
many writers at the time who are blacklisted came to England.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Carl Foreman, Carl.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Rice, maybe two. I think they were quite a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Ring Lardner Jr. Was quite a gang.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
A gang.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So did you know that being in the world of theater,
of your father setting up theaters, was this an influence of.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Well, I was much more interested in being an artist
when I was a kid, genuinely interested, and that was
everybody assumed that was what I would do. But you know,
we were very involved in the theater, Me and my siblings.
We all performed, performed in the plays, and watched rehearsals
day in and day out. Knew the whole Shakespearean cannon
(16:37):
because he produced every single one of Shakespeare's plays, including
Henry the Eighth and Timon of Athens.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
He must have been a great guy.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
He was a very genial, sweet, wonderful man.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, but his parents supportive of him.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
He was a black sheep and my mom was a
black sheep.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
When you went from theater to theater, town to town,
you said you did, even though there were universities. Was
it having to adapt to a new vice.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
It's kind of like being a service brat, except I
didn't go to a service brat school. I was the
new kid in public schools all over Ohio and Massachusetts
and graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey,
where my dad ran the MacArthur Theater. It was a
crazy pretty much, starting in about fourth grade.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I kept we just moved.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And moved, moved, and did you keep painting?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
I kept painting.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
I mean, I was really serious, right, up until I
went off to college, at which point I was the
campus star. Like within the first week I was an
experienced actor.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Tell me about Harvard and going to university. First of all,
do you remember the food? Can we talk about food
in Harvard?
Speaker 5 (17:54):
They were all the cooks in all the dorms, were
these wonderful Irish women who just slopped out the food.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Did you walk around Cambridge and discover what it was
like to have Greek food or other kinds.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Of When I most vividly remember about food at Harvard
was Elsie's, the sandwich shop in Harvard Square, and the
Fresher's Special and the.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Big fat roast beef sandwiches.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
When I went to Bennington and so we had a
turn off and I got a job at the Harvard
Law School doing I don't know what I did. You know,
I took books down from the shelves and kind of
read a few reports.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But I sold pretzels. You remember that pretzels stand in
Harvard Square? Yes, yeah, I worked there.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Maybe I sold you I bet you probably did. We're
almost contemporary.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Nobody knows that about my life.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Pretzels, But I saw pretzels in Harvard Square.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Ye, well I was supposed to do. I like doing
that more than working in the Harvard Law School.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, but I did get it.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
But it was very is a great atmosphere, and Harvard
is very heroic these.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Days, it is. Yeah, we could have a moment on
that DEI.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
They'd be protecting our universities and standing up for Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, were you active politically in those days?
Speaker 4 (19:13):
You know?
Speaker 5 (19:13):
I graduated in nineteen sixty seven and came off to
London to study at Lambda, which pretty much separated me
from all the political turmoil. I left the country just
when everything flew apart.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Here I was in London in nineteen sixty eight, which
until now was the most catastrophic here in America in
recent American history. And ironically, at both moments here I
was in England, reading all the news from back home
and thinking, what is going on at the minute I leave?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You know. Imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and
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(20:12):
River Cafe flavor into your home or to show someone
you really care for them with the gift. Visit our
website shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk to place
your order now. I came here in early sixty nine,
at the end of sixty eight sixty nine, and I
(20:33):
came with a you know, a group of friends, you know,
boyfriends and friends who just escaping the draft.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I always say that, you know, I'd.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Probably agree that Vietnam was a class war because I
you know, poor farmers, poor people from who couldn't didn't
know how to get out of it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
You know, we're drafted. I don't know anybody.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I know somebody who went to Vietnam, for people from
Williams or Dartmouth, but I don't know anybody who died there,
and I hardly know anybody who went.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Yeah, it's a real third rail of American society from
that era. People were so burned by that board. Or
whether they participated or whether they resisted, it's just this
subject of deep confusion. And you're right. I was here
in London at exactly that time. So many expaths and resisters,
(21:30):
so many who were just confused, what do I do?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
What do I do next? I'm not going to participate
in this.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
The people going to Sweden, trying to get to Canada,
trying to go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
And I remember, well Al Gore was one of them.
Another one was Donald Graham, who who led Washington Post
for so many years. They went to Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, John Kerry, John Carrey.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Wonderful man.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And and we thought, what is what's gone wrong with
Donnie Graham? Because he he reoped for a second tour
of duty? What has happened to him? And then he
came back and joined the Washington, d c. Police Force.
We thought he would you know, basically he was what
he considered his duty as an American citizen. And we
(22:23):
all thought it was an aberration. I mean, that's how
crazy it was that period of time.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
It was a crazy time. So then you came back
following your life you were with Lambda. Yeah, and was
that a discovery?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Oh? It was great?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
It was what did you discover?
Speaker 5 (22:36):
The first it was the first time I've been to England.
I'd been to France, but I'd never been to England,
even though I'd grown up in a total anglophile family,
and I had studied English history and literature at Harvard,
and I always said, within the first two weeks in London,
(22:57):
I'd learned more about English history than I ever knew before.
And you suddenly I knew. Never even occurred to me
to look at a map and see where all these
Shakespearean characters came from. Suddenly there was Kent and Northumberland,
and Salisbury and Rochester.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
All of these.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Gloucester a part that I'd played in king Lear. I
never bothered to look at where Gloucester was, you know.
So No, it was a wonderful time, and it was
a great time in English theater.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, Peters was going on.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Peter Brook was doing his greatest work, Peter Hall, who
was the head of the RSC. Trevor Nunn took over
from him at age twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Did you meet Kenneth Tynan?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I never met.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Kenneth Tynan, but I met a lot of other remarkable people.
Met John Gielgood and his dress.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Later.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
She was working a way out in the east in Stratford.
Of course, the gravitational center has shifted east, but back
then that was like working.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
You have money, well, I was on a.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Full could you eat out? I keep going back to
we ate a lot.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
I was in my first marriage, a very youthful marriage,
and we ate a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Of Indian food.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Yeah, I've never tasted better Indian food.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Good. Do you still eat it?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It's interesting how the I always think, well, we know,
because of colonialism, how the British is.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I hope I don't insult any of you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But there is a palette of British food which is
quite sort of h what would be saying don't and
then to go for all cuisines. You know, in every
small town all over Britain there's Indian restaurants, you know,
and that I agree.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
But I also remember, you know, the cliche was that
England had absolutely awful food, but it.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Wasn't true at all.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
There were so many wonderful, innovative restaurants. I think it
was a little legacy of rationing because England had had
to make do with only half the ingredients that we
cook with now. But I remember finding great restaurants The
Hungry Horse, Remember the Hungry Horse?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I do was that in full? Something like that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And peoples and also if you ate in people's homes,
their mothers cooked really good Sunday lunches and great meats
and great you know, so it was an exploring time
for you to be.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Did you travel to Europe?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, quite a lot.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Oh we went to Salzburg and Vienna and Amsterdam and Italy.
Uh yeah, I mean you seize the day. If you've
grown up in America and you're living in London. Every
time I had a little five day break, I would
sprint to Europe, to Paris for the first time.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
It's great.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Do you remember Paris? The feeling of Paris?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah, like everything you ate was good.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
What did you remember what you ate? I read?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Oh God.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
One of my great memories actually from before then, that
summer that I spent in traveling around with a traveling
around France with a youth group. I remember a crape
stand in an artichoke field in Brittany and having this
fellow make crapes on a big circular black grill and
(26:25):
scrape it off when it was paper thin, and fold
it up and sprinkle it with sugar, and remembered thinking,
this is the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in
my life. That's what happens to you when you go
to other countries.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, an open kitchen in the River Cafe means we
as chefs are able to talk to our guests dining
in the restaurant. And now we're bringing that same ethos
to our podcast, a Question an Answer episode with me
and our two executive chefs. Send a voice note with
your question to Questions at River Cafe dot co dot
(27:01):
uk and you might just be our next great guest
on Ruthie's Table four. The recipe that we thought you
could read would be the recipe that you just because
you were in the pastry's kitchen.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Tell me what you thought about that.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Oh, that was wonderful, very welcoming listening. Every every square foot.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Of this place is welcoming, and that goes for the
pastry cook kitchen too.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
They were they were wonderful. Tell me their names again.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And Alice, Yeah, just delightful. They were thrilled to have you.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Because it's also that contact you have with somebody who yeah,
both you and Mary.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
Mary came in there with me and she is my
my tutor. Yeah she is a professor, but in the
case of pastry cooking, she was my professor.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
But how did that start?
Speaker 5 (27:55):
From the very just always she was always a great
great baker and by bit like Tom Sawyer and his
white picket fence. She taught me how to do some
of this stuff and then abandon it herself, so I
became the baker.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
In the house.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
You find it relaxing to bake.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Not entirely, but it's there.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
You're feeling elated when something comes out of the oven, right,
and you look forward to that moment. Yeah, it's and
now it is sort of shorthand. Mary's from Montana. We
have a little cabin on a lake in Montana, and
there's a one single cherry tree in the woods, left
(28:36):
over from when there used to be a cherry orchard.
And one of our favorite things is to ride a
horse to the cherry tree, gather cherries at exactly the
right time in the summer, bring them back to the house,
wash them, pit them, and make a cherry pie and
eat the cherry pie with tea.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I mean it's like a three hour long to cherry better.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh my god, the idea that you get around a
horse and.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I become very good at the lattice crust.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I'd like to have that. Can I make one for
me one time?
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I might not be We have a church outside. I'll
show you after this, and we have a lot of
cherries on it. Yeah, I mean they're not quite there yet,
but there's nothing better than a good Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
So would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
You can read it any way you want, Okay, River,
you that Whyeliff Sean did it and wrap some ta
face sang it.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Oh my god. But you can just read it out
if you like anyway you like.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Well, I will, I guess I'll read it in my
best uh an adequate English accent.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
My roll doll, pretend I'm rolled. All. Yeah, there we
go with the same attitude.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Roll doll. Like food. We know about his Oh.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yeah, he was quite a he did cook cookbooks, yeah, with.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
His wife Lizzie. Yeah, and of course a big wine.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You're sort of in a kitchen in the play.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
It's a it's a house under renovation, but we sell
set up for a luncheon River Cafe. Pastry three hundred
and fifty grams that is twelve ounces plain flower, a
pinch of salt, one hundred and seventy five grams, which
is eight ounces unsalted cold butter cut into cubes one
(30:32):
hundred grams that is four ounces icing sugar. Three egg
yolks for the sweet pastry. Pulse the flower, salt and
butter and a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Add the sugar and then the egg yolks and pulse.
(30:55):
The mixture will immediately combine and leave the sides of
the bowl. Remove, wrap in cling film and chill for
at least an hour. Preheat the oven to one hundred
and eighty degrees centigrade that is three hundred and fifty
degrees fahrenheight gas four. Cause the great bass tree into
(31:20):
a thirty centimeter that is a twelve inch loose bottomed,
fluted flantin. Then press it evenly on the sides and base.
Bake blind for twenty minutes until very light, brown and cool.
(31:42):
How is that coach was not listening?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
We like, there's something about a recipe which is very nice.
Isn't it nice to listen to?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I think, what a great idea to have dramatic reading.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, we had period and we gave a performance in
our house and we would invite a hundred people and
then that money would go to eddy charity or foundation
that the actor wanted to give. And so we had
ray fines did a Beckett soliloquy, and Judy Dench did
a whole night and we had John Williams played the guitar,
(32:21):
and then Ian McKellen did his night and he ended
it and he sang songs and he told stories and
he read poetry and he ended up reading a recipe
from one I didn't know, and it was very compelling.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
He read a recipe for a soup and.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
It was.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
In honor of his host, my co star, Elliott Levy, giant.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Of those.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
He did, Well, we should do another one because you
know that space.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
The acoustics are good, and yeah, we'll do We'll do
something when when you're done with the play.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
That's so excited. Though I don't like the idea you're
going to Hampstead. It's quite far. But I also thought
being you and knowing your political spectrum and how you
and I both give you a lot through the lens
of society, through the lens of poverty, through the lens
of struggle. And I think you know we are aware,
aren't we that right now in this world there are
(33:20):
so many people struggling and feeling that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Do you feel, Oh.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Gosh, it's very hard not to be not to be
extremely gloomy these days.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
But there is there's heroism.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
I mean, there's that magnificent chef who created that, Yes.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Exactly what these people died in Gaza.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yes, for every for every little hopeful sign, there's there's
another source of despair. These days, it's very, very hard,
and all you can do is cling to the belief
that this too will pass, it will and and fight
for it.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think it's a combination of the fighting and the
optimism that we will fight and win. And then we
also think about food. As we think about food, as
I just said political, we think of it as an
indicator of someone's success that they can afford.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
To buy food.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
We think of it how we feed our children, how
the government feeds our people in hospital or in prison,
and the responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
And we also think of food is comfort.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So my very last question to you, John Lithke, who
I love Anadorea, is when.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
You need comfort, is there food that you might reach for?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Well?
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I think the very best pasta is probably it. I
don't know, it's you know, Ruth, you're interviewing me, and
you are, in my opinion, the paragon of making people
feel taken care of you're the most welcome I mean person.
(35:01):
It's no coincidence that you've created this incredible institution because it's.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
The same in your household.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
You just feel every you put everyone at ease, make
them feel so welcome.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
And food is a part of that process, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
I believe there's a wonderful quote from MFK. Fisher, who's
a fiction writer but also a food writer, from about
thirty years ago, and she was asked, since you write fiction,
and that's your great passion, why do you also write
about food? And she said, well, it's very simple, as
(35:39):
far as she's concerned, there are two things that human
beings can't do without. One is food and one is love.
And to her, they're very, very closely connected with each other.
I always thought that was a beautiful definition, and you, sir, represent.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
That to me.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
So do you still okay?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
in partnership with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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