February 27, 2023 • 34 mins
Over the years in The River Cafe, I’ve witnessed the spell-binding effect an athlete can have. None of us are able to do what they do, and we all know it. There are many, many images of John McEnroe on the tennis court, but the one I recall is not athletic, but artistic. It's a photograph of John, in fact, almost cradling a painting by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my father and mother.
It was moving to see a strong, powerful athlete I admire carrying something so fragile. Today in New York City, John has walked across Central Park from his home and, in the fading autumn light, we will talk about the food we eat, the art we love, and the friendship the we, the tennis player and a cook, have begun.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie’s Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Summer in London has ripe strawberries, green grass in the
parks and skies that are at last blue. The city
fills up with visitors, many here for Wimbledon. Last July,
I went to a dinner with people well known in
the world of theater, politics, movies, art and television. At
around ten thirty the doorbell rang and John McEnroe entered
(00:30):
the room. Everyone stopped talking. Over the years, I've witnessed
in the River Cafe the spell binding effect an athlete
can have. None of us can do what they do,
and we all know it. There are many many images
of John McEnroe on the tennis court, but the one
that I recall is not athletic, but artistic. It's a
(00:50):
photograph of John carry in fact, almost cradling a painting
by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my
father and mother. It was moving to see a strong,
powerful athlete I admired carrying something so fragile. Today, in
New York City, John has walked across Central Park from
his home, and in the fading autumn light, we will
(01:11):
talk about the food we eat, the art we love,
and the friendship we a tennis player and a cook
have begun.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really very nice intro.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Thank you, thank you for coming. It'd be nice if
you begin to read a recipe.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I do love Italian food, so I'm gonna try it. Yeah,
that's my favorite food.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Pantala amatrianae is the dish that I'm going to read
to tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, two hundred and
fifty grams nine ounces of pancetta, two dried red chilies,
Get a little spice, one red onion, two tablespoons eight
hundred grams of tin tomatoes, tin plum tomatoes, three hundred
(02:00):
grams of penney, one hundred grams of freshly grated pecorino pecorino. Okay,
heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, Add
the pancetta and fry until it becomes crisp. Add the chilies, onion,
and rosemary to the pan and sweat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It's as sweat. Okay, sweat, I know what that means.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It is, yes, sweat well. It means that you don't
want it to brown, you want it to soften.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Add the tomato, stir well. Simmer for thirty minutes until
the sauce is very thick. Bring a large saucepan of
salted water to the boil. Cook the penne until cook
but still firm, which is known in Italian as aldente.
Drain the penney and add to the sauce. Mix well,
(02:52):
and serve with the pecorino. You know, I don't remember
that much about my childhood, mainly because what's happened to
me from eighteen to now I'm sixty three years old
has been so incredible in a lot of ways that
I'm sort of like, you know, I had a nice,
(03:14):
okay upbringing. I had a commuter now each way from Queens,
New York into the city to go to high school.
Sports kept me, helped me get friendships because I was
a bit of an introvert, shy kid.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I know I'm not really now, but I was then.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I don't have a lot of great memories in my childhood,
but that doesn't mean it was bad. It means that
there was a loving family, a mom who took care
of me. God wrest her soul. My dad as well,
that always believed in me.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Did your mother cook?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
My mother did cook.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Here's the thing, She wouldn't allow us to leave the
table till everything was eaten. She grew up during the Depression,
so didn't have a whole lot, but she wasn't super poor,
but she felt that we needed to finish what was
on our plate. We had to have liver once a
week our month because we were Catholic, and we had
to have fish, which I hated, and liver, which was
(04:14):
even worse. I felt like I was going to throw
up two younger brothers. But the good news was is
that I didn't know that dessert was an option until
I went to college because my mom would always have
a you know, chocolate cake with you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You have to finish this. You're a kid, You're like, really,
I have to finish this.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Do you think maybe it's because maybe she's you have
to finish your to finish the dessert, you have to finish.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
So, you know, I was a bit. They used to
have four sizes when I grew up. There was small, medium, husky,
and large. I was husky. I was a bit husky.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I remember husky.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
So it dawned on me when I went to college that, oh,
I could sort of eat whenever I want and I
don't have have to eat what I don't want.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So were they miserable meals around the table? Did you've
always dread?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
No, I didn't have miserable meals.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Great meal, but the experience because just.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Once once a month, you know, or once a week,
it was it was tough. We didn't get the type
of fish and chips that you got in England. Say
that would have been more bearable, heavily fried with a
lot of ketchup.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah. So did she work during the day?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know, she was a nurse, an operating room nurse
when I became probably around twelve. I think she retired
from that because she had she I had two younger brothers,
we had three kids. My dad was a lawyer, so
she sort of took care of us at home and
we didn't have anyone cooking for us except her.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's hard work.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It is hard work, you know.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I wish I had been more appreciative at the times
get fit food.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Did you all do the dishes afterwards? Do you think
did you all have to do?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
See, my mom was like the very clean house, so
we didn't really have to do the dishes. I mean
we probably just stuck him in the sink and we
didn't have to make our bed, which is sort of
maybe that's why I got spoiled so young.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
One of the reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, so Bill times at the macrone House. They were fun.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Generally it was a loud dinner table. You know, my
parents are very loud, so, you know, it was definitely
a shock going to London when I was eighteen because
people were very polite and you know, we had to
be a certain way, and beer was very hot and
it was in a you know, a wood barrel or
something like what the hell is wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
With this is that when you were playing when you when.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You first time I went to London was I was eighteen,
so it was sort of these in seventy seven, so
that was like the punk sort of revolution, you know.
So I was walking down the King's Road for the fro,
I'm like, oh my god, these people are crazy. But
then I started realizing that they were sort of like
we were both. They started calling me a punk for tennis.
(07:02):
I'm like, wait a minute, I'm you know, have you
seen the ex Pistols? So I guess in tennis terms,
I was sort of a punk, but compared to the
real ones, I had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Work to do. But you know, some of what they
were espousing was.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Not all that different than what I was thinking, you know,
sort of rebelling against that felt unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I thought, you know, can I raise my hand and say,
you rebuild against what was unfair?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
That's what I believe, That's what I'll tell them. Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I'll admit I went over the line on a couple
of occasions, maybe a couple of hundred.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But at the same time, it was.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Because I believed that our sport should be viewed differently
than it was and even is now. You know in
this you know, upper class have to behave a certain way.
I think that's a bunch of bologney. I never believed
that I wanted to be thought of. It was the
same way that they look at what you call football.
Well you're American also, but you've been there since seventy
(08:03):
in the seventies, I believe.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
But we call soccer, they call football.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I thought, you know, in the rugby field, they're not
saying hello, how are you out there? And our football
field or whatever sport it is. So that's always been
an uphill battle. So I take pride in trying to
change the sport. What I believe was for the better,
but some people may differ with that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And you refused to play in South Africa? Didn't you?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Thank you for saying? That was my probably the proudest
decision I ever made, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And I think I just remember being with our friends
and saying, this kid, you know in Wimbledon is talking
about what's not right, but his political values, his social
values are so correct, and there weren't many players who
were doing that. Did you ever play? Did you ever
go to Soethwies you?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
No? I did, only when they ended on apartheid. And
I believe that the reason that I ended up meeting
Nelson Manll on my first trip, where he rudely he said,
I wish I would have given a million dollars if
we had a tape of this.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But he said to.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Me when I walked into his house that he lived in,
it's an honor to meet you.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And I'm like, he's not.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Talking to me, because that's about what I was going
to say to him. Yeah, and he was the most
beautiful man I ever met. Well, just his hand it
felt like I was shaking hands with an angel. There
was this feeling that I can't explain and I brought
a racket. I gave him the racket that I used
(09:38):
it wimbled in the old wooden racket. I said, this
is for you, and he held it and he said
to me, I listened to your match when you played
Born in nineteen eighty. And I realized that he was
saying that he was listening to me while he was
at Robin's Island, where he spent twenty seven years of
(10:01):
his life. And I'm sitting there complaining about a goddamn
line call like this is the world's coming and went
in and this guy didn't have a bone of bitterness.
It felt like in his body. How in God's name
could anyone ever have that this? So, you know, I
really felt like he was one of the most beautiful
people in history.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He said it was an honor to meet you, and
then he said that he'd listened to you at Wimbledon.
Maybe that that was the connection, you know that he
was also saying, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Well it was fair, yeah like that. I just you
just could picture that and then me going.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Homely you think he ever played tennis.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
From the way he was swinging the racket, I believe
he did play. He did.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
He did.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I thought he played. I can't swear to that. I
look like he knew how to play.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, my brother told me that he was once in Hollywood.
My father was in the movie, said that he was
in Hollywood and Mandela was there, and there was this
huge audience, and Spielberg was there, and Geffen was there,
and Tom Hanks, every every movie starred, Harrison for there
and then Nelson Dell was talking and he just looked
out and he just stopped and he came down to
(11:06):
the audience. He walked through to the one important person
in the room, and it was Muhammad al A, you know.
And that's going back again to the athlete, to the
person who had dignity, the person who Yeah, and that's
that's what we you know.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Well, I met Ali a few times and he had
a pretty profound effect too, but he was already suffering
from from the effects of Parkinson's and it was tough
to see this, you know, incredible human being.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And you know how many athletes do you know?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Or they would give up three years of their prime, Yeah,
and refused to fight because they're on principal.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So I think pretty much nobody, honestly.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
When did you start playing tennis.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I was eight years old.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did your tennis coach think about what you should be eating?
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I ate cereal that had tons of sugar. I'd have
a bacon sandwich for breakfast, cinnamon toast with butter and
cinnamon on it. My mother never said a word. Yeah,
it didn't matter. Just eat when you're a kid. I mean,
I just totally disagree. I see these kids at my
(12:31):
academy and they've got these portions.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I'm like, you're twelve, go burn it, run around a little.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
What about when they when they're sitting there there drinking
the water and sweat, you know, sweating and so would
you ever think of having anything at all to eat? No,
you wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
You mean during the match, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You'd have some nuts or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Nothing, I mean bananas.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
That board match went on for how long?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Four hours?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Were you hungry at all? Yeah, you were hungry, but.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I mean also yourself jacked up.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
I think if people ever saw me play, they could
probably agree that they saw some a lot of energy
being thrown out. You're actually running a lot, so it's
not a good thing to have a big steak an
hour or two before you play.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I mean, I remember beorn Borg.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
My buddy would have a steak two hours before every
match and it didn't affect him at all.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He was fine.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
He was probably one of the greatest and not the
greatest athletes they saw in a court. Murray, for example,
Andy Murray, I saw him eating a turkey sandwich about
a half hour before he played.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He goes, that doesn't affect me at all.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, before he played, like you know, Wimbledon or something
or usa U because you can eat that right. Oh no,
it doesn't bother you know. So some people have different metabolisms.
I couldn't do that. Some people are even worse. You know,
they'll go the whole day and not eat at all.
But you know then that's why it could be why
(13:53):
they're a little more irritable. I felt like I didn't
digest as quickly. Needed a little bit more time.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It wasn't a big brad, not a big break. Depending
to mending.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
When I played, I would have a bigger meal, probably
three hours before I played. That would be something like chicken,
some type of pasta, some type of blandish potato, some
type of vegetable.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Maybe it's possibly a soup. Not really too long.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I eat three hours before they have a two hour
break before you actually run the court.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Two to three hours.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Yeah, later matches was preferable because I don't really like
breakfast that much and I don't like to have to
eat early, but sometimes you have to do it, you know.
So it's in my day there was more emphasis on carbs.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I was going to ask you, if it's changed changed
quite a bit, what year did you start?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I started in seventy seven, and so what.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Was nutrition light? I asked this to Becam the other
day about when did that feeling of you know, what
we ate affect our health?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I'd say the early to mid eighties there was more
talk about what.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Would be most beneficial.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You know, when you're eighteen, I think you can pretty
much run through anything, and the first couple of years
after that you can burn. You're burning so many calories
it almost doesn't matter, or so you thought, because it's
sort of mind over matter, But it because I think
it's people are more aware of it than ever.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think they've gone a little bit too far.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
The other way do you in my opinion, But I
think they just you know, every little you know, they
regulate everything and they've got to do what it's such
a time and eat such an amount and I think
it's such a bunch of bs personally.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And now you're going to come back to onelon the summer,
you will be that.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know, I've been there probably forty seventy seven I'd
say forty three of the last forty five years. Yeah,
when my first child was born, I miss one. The
pandemic was canceled, but pretty much everyone I've been there,
either as a player as a commentator.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, So it sort of come full circle because.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
When they wanted to get rid of me for a
while and throw me out, and now all of a sudden,
you know, I'm working for BBC of all places, and
they're telling me to do exactly what I want, you know.
So I find that to be very commendable, I must say,
because you know, there's sort of we thought like, hey,
they're a bunch of stuff shirts the way they talk
(16:33):
and the way they deal with the event. But when
they hired me, they were like, look, we want something different,
you know, we want you to be you. And I
think that's the key to hopefully my success, if you
know people want to call it that is because I'd
recognize that you need to be yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Obviously for you. And I can't imagine what it's like
being booed out of court. I can't imagine who would do.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That, well, you know, but people did.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I know, and I think that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
How did you feel when you got booed?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
When you walked on the court for the nineteen eighty
and eighty one Wimbledon final against.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Pork didn't feel that great?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
But I could always do what Trump did, which was,
you know, I sat next to him once and we
were at a hockey game. Coincidence that we were sitting
next to each other, and they would introduce quote unquote
celebrities and they you know, I'm hoping like they don't boom.
You know, Ladies and gentlemen, John McEnroe, three time Wimbledon
(17:35):
Jim you know, luckily I'm in New Yorker. I've been
in New York in my whole nice applause. A half
hour later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, entrepreneur, real estate
icon and apprentice.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is two years before he ran ars, two years
before he.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Ran fifteen thousand of the seventeen thousand people boot him.
He sat down and he looked at me, and he says, John,
they still love me.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And I thought, for the first time, I thought maybe
he could be a politician. He is of all things.
The guy became the president of the United.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
States, you know, and you would have thought he would
have actually like said, oh my god, how in God's
name did I do this. We've been around him about
two hundred and fifty years. I would say that was
probably the craziest thing that ever happened. And we've had
civil wars. This guy, you know, never ran for anything
(18:36):
in his life.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Now.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
See, you can't do something with Trump though, because he
doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He eats terrible food, right, he.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Doesn't sleep, and he never works out, and he's you
know something, that guy's got more energy than I've ever
seen anywhere in my entire life.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
It is crazy. I mean it's weird.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Are you an emotional when you would lose a game?
Would you not want?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Really?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Nothing like that or.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
That would be alcohol, would or other things?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
But not food?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I mean food might It's not like I, you know,
go in and eat a bag of you know, potato
chips because I.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Was pasted it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
What's your plan? You don't go out, you don't party,
you don't go out in the evening.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
You I was not able to do much in the
way of partying during Wimbledon, of all things.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
You'd hate to sort of blame it on that anybody,
not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
No, I mean I think that in the older days
a few of us tried to do it a little bit,
but not you know, you'd be a fool to do
it at Wimbledon. You could do it at a period
of time where you're not you know, it's an exhibition
or a smaller event, or it's not much on the line,
but if you willing to do it Van and then
(19:54):
to me is sort of like you're not taking it
seriously enough. Sometimes, you know, you may not want to
be particularly social if you're more wound up, maybe before
close to a match, especially me.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm sad I missed you in London because it was
crazy the last time you were there and I was here.
Do you remember you were just arriving.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I came over for a cup, an event called the
Labor Cup, which is a team tennis event where Roger
Feeder ended up retiring, so it was a big deal
for the sport.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, how did you feel we felt.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I felt that it was a beautiful night and moment incredible.
We also won as a team for the first time,
which was even more incredible. No offense to Roger, and
so the weekend of the week I was there turned
out to be awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Did you ever go to your friends because it's very
international tennis, you're talking about playing with Borg and playing Fetter.
Do you go to their house? Have you been to Switzerland?
Never get a fund?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Do you think, damn guy won't invite me the Orange
house I've been at?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You know, it's that you know the sweets, you know,
they're great, spotty hat up in the on the water
and loves to entertain.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
One of the best friends you could ever have. Never
eats much.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
He doesn't eat, not a big eater.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I don't know how the guy never has been tired
in his life.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Uh, phenomenal athlete. I don't know. It's constitution, you know,
whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It's him because he'll he eats because he has to eat.
I eat because I like to eat. We do just
a difference.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What about your kids, So having six kids, that's a
kind of food responsibility. Did you take that on in
terms of I took it on.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
But sometimes I think, you know, we we we should
have just let it go and let him do what
they want pretty much, let him learn on their own.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, you could recommend.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Stuff, but if you sort of no, that's not good,
that desert because you're putting on You know, girls are
four girls and two boys. Every human being is different.
All my kids are different, so you got to sort
of know how to treat them. My son, one of
my sons, he would eat so slowly. Everyone would be
(22:19):
finished at the table. He'd still be cutting the saladch
saning to eat your goddamn salad, you know, and he'd
sit there absolutely perfect body. Though I don't know why
he you know, he chewed everything twenty times.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
So the way I never said that, if.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You will sit down to dinner when you had the
kids to the family, you had dinner every night together.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Somebody they called me Larry the lecturer is what I
became known as because I try to give him a
little bit of life's lesson and then, oh god, here
he goes again.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
About food, about life, about anything.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Sometimes it was food, sometimes there's about tennis. Sometimes it
was about life. Sometimes there's about cool work. Sometimes it
was about nothing in particular, and then I started pontificating
and that rubbed them the wrong way. And sometimes I
overdid it, and then I dig in and they go Dad, everyone.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Disagrees with the other table.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
There's seven seven to one, including Patty and I go
I'm still right.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I love Italian food.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Have lived in Italy.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I've never lived there.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I've been there, you know, probably fifty to seventy five times. Yeah, playing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
But yeah, where did you go?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Oh? Every city you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
The first rock and roll tour that I ever participated
in as a band, allegedly I was the most traveled
unsigned band in history.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh is that a fact?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I would bet money on that.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
But we did a two week tour of Italy in
the summer of nineteen ninety four, ninety four. I was
thirty five. Yeah, I had stopped.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Playing from a well, I.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Was more of a sort of a passion and I
don't want to say hobby, but something that was trying
to sort of find that find out where I was headed,
because you know, when you stop playing, it's not always
on the terms you want. I was going through a
divorce at the time at the end of my career,
which I didn't anticipate.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I had three kids, so I.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Was you know, then the next couple of years you're
going through it.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
It's not fun.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
So I needed a little bit of levity and so
I was able to start to do something that I
love to do. It made me appreciate my friends who
did it for a living more. But it was a
fun trip, I must.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Say, and vitally.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
My agent at the time was Italian and so he
sort of set this whole thing up. We played with
Frank Sinatra plant I forgot forte dem.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But we played some.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Nice locales, but we we didn't knock them dead. Now,
we didn't get to eat the food that you know,
you're normally able to get pretty easily just because of
scheduling and stuff. But I mean, you can stop by
a highway, which is a lot better than.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
The apostat those little sandwiches that they fought. When you
segued from that that photograph that I describe, which I
can imagine in my head of you carrying the painting,
how we segued from from music to art from tis.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Well, I always loved art because I relate to artists
big time. Because there is close to tennis players as
almost anyone else, because they're sort of on their own island.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
They've got to represent.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
They go to a gallery opening, people could be there
and it sucks, you know, and the person could.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Be right there and well, yeah, they couldn't. He couldn't
give those paintings away.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
He got so frustrated with the art world that he
sort of walked away from it.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So it's like sort of like if I walked.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Into the center court of Wimbledon and you know, I
lose six to zero, you know, and I'm down to
zero and people are booing, and you feel like, you know,
you want to hide. It's the worst feeling in the world.
So I think it takes guts to put yourself in
a position there's a great reward if it goes well,
but there's also a definite downside, So it takes I
(26:46):
think it takes emotional strength to do that. And so
I think it's the same as for an artist or
like a comedian that does stand up. You know, I've
seen many a comedian's bomb And I would never criticize
a player on a court if I see them giving
one hundred percent and they're laying an egg. That's not
(27:07):
what I have a problem. I have a problem with
the people that go out in the court and don't
try and give their best. That's the part I have
a problem. Because you've been put in this position where
you could do something that would be truly memorable at
a you know, a truly memorable site, say at Wimbledon
in the US Open, you don't want to go out
there in half asset. So that's why I've always related.
(27:27):
I always loved Guston. He was one of my favorite artists.
I'm not sure why that started. I loved, like, I
think because they're so political. All through his career, you know,
and even when he was in his twenties, not his twenties,
in the twenties and thirties, he was painting hooded figures
and you know, clan people railing against that.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And then he went through different.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Periods, which I love to see artists doing different things.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And then he went almost you know, abstract express this.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
You know, you're like, that's a huge change, and then
back to these like cartoonist figures, which I thought were incredible.
So I just thought this guy just had a you
know that would be like the type of artists that
if I was an artist, I'd be trying to emulate,
you know, so and he stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
But he really was so And when you were talking about,
you know, saying, somebody is just criticizing them in such
a damaging way, you know, Hilton Kramer of the New
York Times, when Gustin had his first show at Marlborough
and he showed the hooded figures and he showed the
clan just wrote on the front page of the New
York Times Arts sets, you hit this guy should give
up and go home. And you know, he got on
(28:41):
a boat to Rome. He was I said, he was
a friend of my father's who was also very political,
and it was so damaging, you know, and it was
so cruel and it was fearful.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I find it, you know, difficult to respect these I mean,
I respect someone who gives some destructive criticism or who
would admit I don't get this and I'm not sure
why this person did it, but I've got to sort
of let this, let me digest this, or some half
(29:13):
assed that goes on. You know, some tennis guy you
know who writes tennis who did make it because he
wasn't good enough and then he's going to sit there
and criticize me. I go, you better know what you're
talking about before you start laying it out. Some people
that went around the tennis circuit for a handful of
years I respected, I respected their opinion. I would, you know,
(29:35):
take the heart what they would say. At least I'd
give it, you know, the legitimacy deserved. A lot of
other people would come in to show up one or
two weeks a year because they were local beat writers
for the hockey teams or basketball, and they'd roll in
when we went to Philly or these other places and
they'd start, you know, lambassing the tennis players.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And then I was like, you don't know a damn thing.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
About what we're doing, and was frustrating, and it's hard
to respect that. So I could certainly see where a
guy who you know, put his heart into soul into something,
you know, either way, like in my case, I was
lucky because even I didn't like it. But sometimes negative
(30:20):
attention can still people still want you. You know, they'll
offer you money to come because they think that you know.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
The car crash.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
If you're an artist and someone completely shits on you
and you know you don't sell anything. You're not making
any money, so you could, you know, head down a
really bad path, and I think a lot of artists
have done that as well as comedians.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
The upside is.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
If you're able to stick with it and believe it that,
you know, the turnaround could be all the more sweet. Unfortunately,
it doesn't seem to happen that often with artists that
are alive and nowadays to me, a successful artist at
least financially, they're like businessmen. They're not even like, you know,
the best artists to me anymore, they're just the smart.
(31:07):
They're extremely smart people, and they manipulate the system in
a brilliant way. I mean, I must say, and that's
part of what I like about sports ultimately, because you
can't really do that in sports.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
I mean ultimately you got to go out there.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
You can talk all you want, but you know, you
get out in the court or you got to step up.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
So that part I like that.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Ultimately, the best will the cream will rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
I think that you know your honesty and your you
know what you say about whether it's you know the
world or Trump or the booing or the art or
the solitariness. It is a solitary thing, is it? Play?
You know, being an artist in your.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Studient very solitary, especially and your sport.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
That's why I love the musician Devils.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
And I also love playing for my country because you're
with the team for that brief period of time.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I think you you know, as I said, from
the very beginning, we were on your side. We thought
you are. You know, your anger was fine, your unfairness
was respected. Your politics, you know, your politics were amazing.
Ow are And I think as a model that's what counts,
you know, and as a player, And.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I think you're I do.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I think you're really nice. I think you're nice to
walk across the park. I think you are. So if
we think that food, you're gonna have food which makes
you feel healthier, food which makes you feel better performance.
You could have food that pleases your mother because you've
eaten it. You could have food that you want your
children to eat. Food can be all that, but can
(32:47):
also be comfort. If you needed comfort, what food would
you reach for?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Big ball of ice cream?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Ice cream? I'm sure I do too.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I love ice cream, cookies and cream coffee, you know,
mixture of things.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Do you always keep it in the house if you Yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
But that's not you know, we shouldn't do that. I
love you know. I love a beer and Pratzels late
at night. It's comforting.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah. Is there a food that reminds you of your childhood?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Pancakes? Are some? Did great?
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Thank you thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
The River Cafe Look Book is now available in bookshops
and online. It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated
with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book
has fifty delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a
host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted
for new cooks. The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks
(33:57):
of all ages. Ruthie's Table four is a production of
iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Summer in London has ripe strawberries, green grass in the
parks and skies that are at last blue. The city
fills up with visitors, many here for Wimbledon. Last July,
I went to a dinner with people well known in
the world of theater, politics, movies, art and television. At
around ten thirty the doorbell rang and John McEnroe entered
(00:30):
the room. Everyone stopped talking. Over the years, I've witnessed
in the River Cafe the spell binding effect an athlete
can have. None of us can do what they do,
and we all know it. There are many many images
of John McEnroe on the tennis court, but the one
that I recall is not athletic, but artistic. It's a
(00:50):
photograph of John carry in fact, almost cradling a painting
by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my
father and mother. It was moving to see a strong,
powerful athlete I admired carrying something so fragile. Today, in
New York City, John has walked across Central Park from
his home, and in the fading autumn light, we will
(01:11):
talk about the food we eat, the art we love,
and the friendship we a tennis player and a cook
have begun.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really very nice intro.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Thank you, thank you for coming. It'd be nice if
you begin to read a recipe.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I do love Italian food, so I'm gonna try it. Yeah,
that's my favorite food.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Pantala amatrianae is the dish that I'm going to read
to tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, two hundred and
fifty grams nine ounces of pancetta, two dried red chilies,
Get a little spice, one red onion, two tablespoons eight
hundred grams of tin tomatoes, tin plum tomatoes, three hundred
(02:00):
grams of penney, one hundred grams of freshly grated pecorino pecorino. Okay,
heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, Add
the pancetta and fry until it becomes crisp. Add the chilies, onion,
and rosemary to the pan and sweat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It's as sweat. Okay, sweat, I know what that means.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It is, yes, sweat well. It means that you don't
want it to brown, you want it to soften.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Add the tomato, stir well. Simmer for thirty minutes until
the sauce is very thick. Bring a large saucepan of
salted water to the boil. Cook the penne until cook
but still firm, which is known in Italian as aldente.
Drain the penney and add to the sauce. Mix well,
(02:52):
and serve with the pecorino. You know, I don't remember
that much about my childhood, mainly because what's happened to
me from eighteen to now I'm sixty three years old
has been so incredible in a lot of ways that
I'm sort of like, you know, I had a nice,
(03:14):
okay upbringing. I had a commuter now each way from Queens,
New York into the city to go to high school.
Sports kept me, helped me get friendships because I was
a bit of an introvert, shy kid.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I know I'm not really now, but I was then.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I don't have a lot of great memories in my childhood,
but that doesn't mean it was bad. It means that
there was a loving family, a mom who took care
of me. God wrest her soul. My dad as well,
that always believed in me.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Did your mother cook?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
My mother did cook.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Here's the thing, She wouldn't allow us to leave the
table till everything was eaten. She grew up during the Depression,
so didn't have a whole lot, but she wasn't super poor,
but she felt that we needed to finish what was
on our plate. We had to have liver once a
week our month because we were Catholic, and we had
to have fish, which I hated, and liver, which was
(04:14):
even worse. I felt like I was going to throw
up two younger brothers. But the good news was is
that I didn't know that dessert was an option until
I went to college because my mom would always have
a you know, chocolate cake with you.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You have to finish this. You're a kid, You're like, really,
I have to finish this.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Do you think maybe it's because maybe she's you have
to finish your to finish the dessert, you have to finish.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
So, you know, I was a bit. They used to
have four sizes when I grew up. There was small, medium, husky,
and large. I was husky. I was a bit husky.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I remember husky.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
So it dawned on me when I went to college that, oh,
I could sort of eat whenever I want and I
don't have have to eat what I don't want.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So were they miserable meals around the table? Did you've
always dread?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
No, I didn't have miserable meals.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Great meal, but the experience because just.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Once once a month, you know, or once a week,
it was it was tough. We didn't get the type
of fish and chips that you got in England. Say
that would have been more bearable, heavily fried with a
lot of ketchup.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah. So did she work during the day?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know, she was a nurse, an operating room nurse
when I became probably around twelve. I think she retired
from that because she had she I had two younger brothers,
we had three kids. My dad was a lawyer, so
she sort of took care of us at home and
we didn't have anyone cooking for us except her.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's hard work.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
It is hard work, you know.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
I wish I had been more appreciative at the times
get fit food.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Did you all do the dishes afterwards? Do you think
did you all have to do?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
See, my mom was like the very clean house, so
we didn't really have to do the dishes. I mean
we probably just stuck him in the sink and we
didn't have to make our bed, which is sort of
maybe that's why I got spoiled so young.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
One of the reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, so Bill times at the macrone House. They were fun.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Generally it was a loud dinner table. You know, my
parents are very loud, so, you know, it was definitely
a shock going to London when I was eighteen because
people were very polite and you know, we had to
be a certain way, and beer was very hot and
it was in a you know, a wood barrel or
something like what the hell is wrong.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
With this is that when you were playing when you when.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You first time I went to London was I was eighteen,
so it was sort of these in seventy seven, so
that was like the punk sort of revolution, you know.
So I was walking down the King's Road for the fro,
I'm like, oh my god, these people are crazy. But
then I started realizing that they were sort of like
we were both. They started calling me a punk for tennis.
(07:02):
I'm like, wait a minute, I'm you know, have you
seen the ex Pistols? So I guess in tennis terms,
I was sort of a punk, but compared to the
real ones, I had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Work to do. But you know, some of what they
were espousing was.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Not all that different than what I was thinking, you know,
sort of rebelling against that felt unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I thought, you know, can I raise my hand and say,
you rebuild against what was unfair?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
That's what I believe, That's what I'll tell them. Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I'll admit I went over the line on a couple
of occasions, maybe a couple of hundred.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But at the same time, it was.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Because I believed that our sport should be viewed differently
than it was and even is now. You know in
this you know, upper class have to behave a certain way.
I think that's a bunch of bologney. I never believed
that I wanted to be thought of. It was the
same way that they look at what you call football.
Well you're American also, but you've been there since seventy
(08:03):
in the seventies, I believe.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
But we call soccer, they call football.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I thought, you know, in the rugby field, they're not
saying hello, how are you out there? And our football
field or whatever sport it is. So that's always been
an uphill battle. So I take pride in trying to
change the sport. What I believe was for the better,
but some people may differ with that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And you refused to play in South Africa? Didn't you?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Thank you for saying? That was my probably the proudest
decision I ever made, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And I think I just remember being with our friends
and saying, this kid, you know in Wimbledon is talking
about what's not right, but his political values, his social
values are so correct, and there weren't many players who
were doing that. Did you ever play? Did you ever
go to Soethwies you?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
No? I did, only when they ended on apartheid. And
I believe that the reason that I ended up meeting
Nelson Manll on my first trip, where he rudely he said,
I wish I would have given a million dollars if
we had a tape of this.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But he said to.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Me when I walked into his house that he lived in,
it's an honor to meet you.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And I'm like, he's not.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Talking to me, because that's about what I was going
to say to him. Yeah, and he was the most
beautiful man I ever met. Well, just his hand it
felt like I was shaking hands with an angel. There
was this feeling that I can't explain and I brought
a racket. I gave him the racket that I used
(09:38):
it wimbled in the old wooden racket. I said, this
is for you, and he held it and he said
to me, I listened to your match when you played
Born in nineteen eighty. And I realized that he was
saying that he was listening to me while he was
at Robin's Island, where he spent twenty seven years of
(10:01):
his life. And I'm sitting there complaining about a goddamn
line call like this is the world's coming and went
in and this guy didn't have a bone of bitterness.
It felt like in his body. How in God's name
could anyone ever have that this? So, you know, I
really felt like he was one of the most beautiful
people in history.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He said it was an honor to meet you, and
then he said that he'd listened to you at Wimbledon.
Maybe that that was the connection, you know that he
was also saying, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Well it was fair, yeah like that. I just you
just could picture that and then me going.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Homely you think he ever played tennis.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
From the way he was swinging the racket, I believe
he did play. He did.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
He did.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I thought he played. I can't swear to that. I
look like he knew how to play.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, my brother told me that he was once in Hollywood.
My father was in the movie, said that he was
in Hollywood and Mandela was there, and there was this
huge audience, and Spielberg was there, and Geffen was there,
and Tom Hanks, every every movie starred, Harrison for there
and then Nelson Dell was talking and he just looked
out and he just stopped and he came down to
(11:06):
the audience. He walked through to the one important person
in the room, and it was Muhammad al A, you know.
And that's going back again to the athlete, to the
person who had dignity, the person who Yeah, and that's
that's what we you know.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Well, I met Ali a few times and he had
a pretty profound effect too, but he was already suffering
from from the effects of Parkinson's and it was tough
to see this, you know, incredible human being.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
And you know how many athletes do you know?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Or they would give up three years of their prime, Yeah,
and refused to fight because they're on principal.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So I think pretty much nobody, honestly.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
When did you start playing tennis.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I was eight years old.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did your tennis coach think about what you should be eating?
You know?
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I ate cereal that had tons of sugar. I'd have
a bacon sandwich for breakfast, cinnamon toast with butter and
cinnamon on it. My mother never said a word. Yeah,
it didn't matter. Just eat when you're a kid. I mean,
I just totally disagree. I see these kids at my
(12:31):
academy and they've got these portions.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I'm like, you're twelve, go burn it, run around a little.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
What about when they when they're sitting there there drinking
the water and sweat, you know, sweating and so would
you ever think of having anything at all to eat? No,
you wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
You mean during the match, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You'd have some nuts or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Nothing, I mean bananas.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
That board match went on for how long?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Four hours?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Were you hungry at all? Yeah, you were hungry, but.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I mean also yourself jacked up.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
I think if people ever saw me play, they could
probably agree that they saw some a lot of energy
being thrown out. You're actually running a lot, so it's
not a good thing to have a big steak an
hour or two before you play.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I mean, I remember beorn Borg.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
My buddy would have a steak two hours before every
match and it didn't affect him at all.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He was fine.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
He was probably one of the greatest and not the
greatest athletes they saw in a court. Murray, for example,
Andy Murray, I saw him eating a turkey sandwich about
a half hour before he played.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He goes, that doesn't affect me at all.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, before he played, like you know, Wimbledon or something
or usa U because you can eat that right. Oh no,
it doesn't bother you know. So some people have different metabolisms.
I couldn't do that. Some people are even worse. You know,
they'll go the whole day and not eat at all.
But you know then that's why it could be why
(13:53):
they're a little more irritable. I felt like I didn't
digest as quickly. Needed a little bit more time.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It wasn't a big brad, not a big break. Depending
to mending.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
When I played, I would have a bigger meal, probably
three hours before I played. That would be something like chicken,
some type of pasta, some type of blandish potato, some
type of vegetable.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Maybe it's possibly a soup. Not really too long.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I eat three hours before they have a two hour
break before you actually run the court.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Two to three hours.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Yeah, later matches was preferable because I don't really like
breakfast that much and I don't like to have to
eat early, but sometimes you have to do it, you know.
So it's in my day there was more emphasis on carbs.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I was going to ask you, if it's changed changed
quite a bit, what year did you start?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I started in seventy seven, and so what.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Was nutrition light? I asked this to Becam the other
day about when did that feeling of you know, what
we ate affect our health?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I'd say the early to mid eighties there was more
talk about what.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Would be most beneficial.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You know, when you're eighteen, I think you can pretty
much run through anything, and the first couple of years
after that you can burn. You're burning so many calories
it almost doesn't matter, or so you thought, because it's
sort of mind over matter, But it because I think
it's people are more aware of it than ever.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think they've gone a little bit too far.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
The other way do you in my opinion, But I
think they just you know, every little you know, they
regulate everything and they've got to do what it's such
a time and eat such an amount and I think
it's such a bunch of bs personally.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And now you're going to come back to onelon the summer,
you will be that.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know, I've been there probably forty seventy seven I'd
say forty three of the last forty five years. Yeah,
when my first child was born, I miss one. The
pandemic was canceled, but pretty much everyone I've been there,
either as a player as a commentator.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, So it sort of come full circle because.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
When they wanted to get rid of me for a
while and throw me out, and now all of a sudden,
you know, I'm working for BBC of all places, and
they're telling me to do exactly what I want, you know.
So I find that to be very commendable, I must say,
because you know, there's sort of we thought like, hey,
they're a bunch of stuff shirts the way they talk
(16:33):
and the way they deal with the event. But when
they hired me, they were like, look, we want something different,
you know, we want you to be you. And I
think that's the key to hopefully my success, if you
know people want to call it that is because I'd
recognize that you need to be yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Obviously for you. And I can't imagine what it's like
being booed out of court. I can't imagine who would do.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
That, well, you know, but people did.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I know, and I think that.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
How did you feel when you got booed?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
When you walked on the court for the nineteen eighty
and eighty one Wimbledon final against.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Pork didn't feel that great?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
But I could always do what Trump did, which was,
you know, I sat next to him once and we
were at a hockey game. Coincidence that we were sitting
next to each other, and they would introduce quote unquote
celebrities and they you know, I'm hoping like they don't boom.
You know, Ladies and gentlemen, John McEnroe, three time Wimbledon
(17:35):
Jim you know, luckily I'm in New Yorker. I've been
in New York in my whole nice applause. A half
hour later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, entrepreneur, real estate
icon and apprentice.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
This is two years before he ran ars, two years
before he.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Ran fifteen thousand of the seventeen thousand people boot him.
He sat down and he looked at me, and he says, John,
they still love me.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And I thought, for the first time, I thought maybe
he could be a politician. He is of all things.
The guy became the president of the United.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
States, you know, and you would have thought he would
have actually like said, oh my god, how in God's
name did I do this. We've been around him about
two hundred and fifty years. I would say that was
probably the craziest thing that ever happened. And we've had
civil wars. This guy, you know, never ran for anything
(18:36):
in his life.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Now.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
See, you can't do something with Trump though, because he
doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He eats terrible food, right, he.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Doesn't sleep, and he never works out, and he's you
know something, that guy's got more energy than I've ever
seen anywhere in my entire life.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
It is crazy. I mean it's weird.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Are you an emotional when you would lose a game?
Would you not want?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Really?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Nothing like that or.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
That would be alcohol, would or other things?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
But not food?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I mean food might It's not like I, you know,
go in and eat a bag of you know, potato
chips because I.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Was pasted it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
What's your plan? You don't go out, you don't party,
you don't go out in the evening.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
You I was not able to do much in the
way of partying during Wimbledon, of all things.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
You'd hate to sort of blame it on that anybody,
not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
No, I mean I think that in the older days
a few of us tried to do it a little bit,
but not you know, you'd be a fool to do
it at Wimbledon. You could do it at a period
of time where you're not you know, it's an exhibition
or a smaller event, or it's not much on the line,
but if you willing to do it Van and then
(19:54):
to me is sort of like you're not taking it
seriously enough. Sometimes, you know, you may not want to
be particularly social if you're more wound up, maybe before
close to a match, especially me.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm sad I missed you in London because it was
crazy the last time you were there and I was here.
Do you remember you were just arriving.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I came over for a cup, an event called the
Labor Cup, which is a team tennis event where Roger
Feeder ended up retiring, so it was a big deal
for the sport.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, how did you feel we felt.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I felt that it was a beautiful night and moment incredible.
We also won as a team for the first time,
which was even more incredible. No offense to Roger, and
so the weekend of the week I was there turned
out to be awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Did you ever go to your friends because it's very
international tennis, you're talking about playing with Borg and playing Fetter.
Do you go to their house? Have you been to Switzerland?
Never get a fund?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Do you think, damn guy won't invite me the Orange
house I've been at?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You know, it's that you know the sweets, you know,
they're great, spotty hat up in the on the water
and loves to entertain.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
One of the best friends you could ever have. Never
eats much.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
He doesn't eat, not a big eater.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I don't know how the guy never has been tired
in his life.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Uh, phenomenal athlete. I don't know. It's constitution, you know,
whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It's him because he'll he eats because he has to eat.
I eat because I like to eat. We do just
a difference.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What about your kids, So having six kids, that's a
kind of food responsibility. Did you take that on in
terms of I took it on.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
But sometimes I think, you know, we we we should
have just let it go and let him do what
they want pretty much, let him learn on their own.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, you could recommend.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Stuff, but if you sort of no, that's not good,
that desert because you're putting on You know, girls are
four girls and two boys. Every human being is different.
All my kids are different, so you got to sort
of know how to treat them. My son, one of
my sons, he would eat so slowly. Everyone would be
(22:19):
finished at the table. He'd still be cutting the saladch
saning to eat your goddamn salad, you know, and he'd
sit there absolutely perfect body. Though I don't know why
he you know, he chewed everything twenty times.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
So the way I never said that, if.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You will sit down to dinner when you had the
kids to the family, you had dinner every night together.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Somebody they called me Larry the lecturer is what I
became known as because I try to give him a
little bit of life's lesson and then, oh god, here
he goes again.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
About food, about life, about anything.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Sometimes it was food, sometimes there's about tennis. Sometimes it
was about life. Sometimes there's about cool work. Sometimes it
was about nothing in particular, and then I started pontificating
and that rubbed them the wrong way. And sometimes I
overdid it, and then I dig in and they go Dad, everyone.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Disagrees with the other table.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
There's seven seven to one, including Patty and I go
I'm still right.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I love Italian food.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Have lived in Italy.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I've never lived there.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I've been there, you know, probably fifty to seventy five times. Yeah, playing,
you know.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
But yeah, where did you go?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Oh? Every city you can imagine.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
The first rock and roll tour that I ever participated
in as a band, allegedly I was the most traveled
unsigned band in history.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh is that a fact?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I would bet money on that.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
But we did a two week tour of Italy in
the summer of nineteen ninety four, ninety four. I was
thirty five. Yeah, I had stopped.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Playing from a well, I.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Was more of a sort of a passion and I
don't want to say hobby, but something that was trying
to sort of find that find out where I was headed,
because you know, when you stop playing, it's not always
on the terms you want. I was going through a
divorce at the time at the end of my career,
which I didn't anticipate.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I had three kids, so I.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Was you know, then the next couple of years you're
going through it.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
It's not fun.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
So I needed a little bit of levity and so
I was able to start to do something that I
love to do. It made me appreciate my friends who
did it for a living more. But it was a
fun trip, I must.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Say, and vitally.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
My agent at the time was Italian and so he
sort of set this whole thing up. We played with
Frank Sinatra plant I forgot forte dem.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But we played some.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Nice locales, but we we didn't knock them dead. Now,
we didn't get to eat the food that you know,
you're normally able to get pretty easily just because of
scheduling and stuff. But I mean, you can stop by
a highway, which is a lot better than.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
The apostat those little sandwiches that they fought. When you
segued from that that photograph that I describe, which I
can imagine in my head of you carrying the painting,
how we segued from from music to art from tis.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Well, I always loved art because I relate to artists
big time. Because there is close to tennis players as
almost anyone else, because they're sort of on their own island.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
They've got to represent.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
They go to a gallery opening, people could be there
and it sucks, you know, and the person could.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Be right there and well, yeah, they couldn't. He couldn't
give those paintings away.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
He got so frustrated with the art world that he
sort of walked away from it.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So it's like sort of like if I walked.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Into the center court of Wimbledon and you know, I
lose six to zero, you know, and I'm down to
zero and people are booing, and you feel like, you know,
you want to hide. It's the worst feeling in the world.
So I think it takes guts to put yourself in
a position there's a great reward if it goes well,
but there's also a definite downside, So it takes I
(26:46):
think it takes emotional strength to do that. And so
I think it's the same as for an artist or
like a comedian that does stand up. You know, I've
seen many a comedian's bomb And I would never criticize
a player on a court if I see them giving
one hundred percent and they're laying an egg. That's not
(27:07):
what I have a problem. I have a problem with
the people that go out in the court and don't
try and give their best. That's the part I have
a problem. Because you've been put in this position where
you could do something that would be truly memorable at
a you know, a truly memorable site, say at Wimbledon
in the US Open, you don't want to go out
there in half asset. So that's why I've always related.
(27:27):
I always loved Guston. He was one of my favorite artists.
I'm not sure why that started. I loved, like, I
think because they're so political. All through his career, you know,
and even when he was in his twenties, not his twenties,
in the twenties and thirties, he was painting hooded figures
and you know, clan people railing against that.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And then he went through different.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Periods, which I love to see artists doing different things.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And then he went almost you know, abstract express this.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
You know, you're like, that's a huge change, and then
back to these like cartoonist figures, which I thought were incredible.
So I just thought this guy just had a you
know that would be like the type of artists that
if I was an artist, I'd be trying to emulate,
you know, so and he stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
But he really was so And when you were talking about,
you know, saying, somebody is just criticizing them in such
a damaging way, you know, Hilton Kramer of the New
York Times, when Gustin had his first show at Marlborough
and he showed the hooded figures and he showed the
clan just wrote on the front page of the New
York Times Arts sets, you hit this guy should give
up and go home. And you know, he got on
(28:41):
a boat to Rome. He was I said, he was
a friend of my father's who was also very political,
and it was so damaging, you know, and it was
so cruel and it was fearful.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I find it, you know, difficult to respect these I mean,
I respect someone who gives some destructive criticism or who
would admit I don't get this and I'm not sure
why this person did it, but I've got to sort
of let this, let me digest this, or some half
(29:13):
assed that goes on. You know, some tennis guy you
know who writes tennis who did make it because he
wasn't good enough and then he's going to sit there
and criticize me. I go, you better know what you're
talking about before you start laying it out. Some people
that went around the tennis circuit for a handful of
years I respected, I respected their opinion. I would, you know,
(29:35):
take the heart what they would say. At least I'd
give it, you know, the legitimacy deserved. A lot of
other people would come in to show up one or
two weeks a year because they were local beat writers
for the hockey teams or basketball, and they'd roll in
when we went to Philly or these other places and
they'd start, you know, lambassing the tennis players.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And then I was like, you don't know a damn thing.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
About what we're doing, and was frustrating, and it's hard
to respect that. So I could certainly see where a
guy who you know, put his heart into soul into something,
you know, either way, like in my case, I was
lucky because even I didn't like it. But sometimes negative
(30:20):
attention can still people still want you. You know, they'll
offer you money to come because they think that you know.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
The car crash.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
If you're an artist and someone completely shits on you
and you know you don't sell anything. You're not making
any money, so you could, you know, head down a
really bad path, and I think a lot of artists
have done that as well as comedians.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
The upside is.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
If you're able to stick with it and believe it that,
you know, the turnaround could be all the more sweet. Unfortunately,
it doesn't seem to happen that often with artists that
are alive and nowadays to me, a successful artist at
least financially, they're like businessmen. They're not even like, you know,
the best artists to me anymore, they're just the smart.
(31:07):
They're extremely smart people, and they manipulate the system in
a brilliant way. I mean, I must say, and that's
part of what I like about sports ultimately, because you
can't really do that in sports.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
I mean ultimately you got to go out there.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
You can talk all you want, but you know, you
get out in the court or you got to step up.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
So that part I like that.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Ultimately, the best will the cream will rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
I think that you know your honesty and your you
know what you say about whether it's you know the
world or Trump or the booing or the art or
the solitariness. It is a solitary thing, is it? Play?
You know, being an artist in your.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Studient very solitary, especially and your sport.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
That's why I love the musician Devils.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
And I also love playing for my country because you're
with the team for that brief period of time.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I think you you know, as I said, from
the very beginning, we were on your side. We thought
you are. You know, your anger was fine, your unfairness
was respected. Your politics, you know, your politics were amazing.
Ow are And I think as a model that's what counts,
you know, and as a player, And.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I think you're I do.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I think you're really nice. I think you're nice to
walk across the park. I think you are. So if
we think that food, you're gonna have food which makes
you feel healthier, food which makes you feel better performance.
You could have food that pleases your mother because you've
eaten it. You could have food that you want your
children to eat. Food can be all that, but can
(32:47):
also be comfort. If you needed comfort, what food would
you reach for?
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Big ball of ice cream?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Ice cream? I'm sure I do too.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I love ice cream, cookies and cream coffee, you know,
mixture of things.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Do you always keep it in the house if you Yeah,
I do.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
But that's not you know, we shouldn't do that. I
love you know. I love a beer and Pratzels late
at night. It's comforting.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah. Is there a food that reminds you of your childhood?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Pancakes? Are some? Did great?
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Thank you thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
The River Cafe Look Book is now available in bookshops
and online. It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated
with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book
has fifty delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a
host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted
for new cooks. The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks
(33:57):
of all ages. Ruthie's Table four is a production of
iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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