January 6, 2025 • 40 mins
The first time I met Josh Brolin was here at The River Cafe, and there was an instant connection between us. Josh is a storyteller, and I sat there listening as he described what it was like to be a 14-year-old chef in an Italian restaurant, and acting in No Country for Old Men, Milk, and most recently Knives Out.
Josh is back in The River Cafe today to talk about his beautiful memoir, From Under the Truck, memories of a vivid childhood, and the way food and love for his family sustains him.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Arriving home yesterday after a busy night, a book was
waiting on the table. The book was a memoir from
Under the Truck, and the author was my friend, Josh Brolin.
I say friend, but for full disclosure, Josh and I
have only met once, when Glenn Close called me to
say she was bringing him to the River Cafe and
would I be able to stop cooking for a bit
(00:26):
and join them. I did, and right away there was
a connection between us. Josh is a story teller, and
I sat there listening as he described what it was
like to be a fourteen year old chef in an
Italian restaurant and the way food and love for his
family sustains him to day. He also told me about
(00:46):
filming with Glenn in London and Knives Out, working with
the Cone Brothers on No Country for Old Men, and
making Gus Vansan's movie Milk with Sean Penn. Josh was
leaving for la the next day, but before he did,
a text arrived on my phone, Ruthie, let's do a podcast.
I think we'll have fun, or at least it will
(01:07):
be beautifully revealing, very nice. I thought it was very
moving on the last pages of your book, last chapter
really that you end with a recipe of your mother's
with Oreo cookies, which I brought. But you also wrote
a very moving paragraph which I thought perhaps you could read.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I loved her, let's see, but the one thing she
could do without any hassle was cook She'd leave food
on people's fence posts at the start of their driveways,
and they'd waive at us the next day as she
was taking me to school. She'd help start small local
restaurants in the area, then talk about starting her own.
(01:50):
How she even filled the fridge with six dessert dishes
the night she died. Three days later, when we had
the gathering at the ranch to honor her, that's where
everyone ate her sweet creations, the only sweet she could muster.
She moved inside my mother even when she was dead.
And from these strewn scraps of recipe ingredients comes a history. Wow.
(02:16):
I haven't read that for a while. It's funny because
I thought of this on the way over here, which
I never do. I never prep for interviews or podcasts
or any of it. And on the way over here,
I started to write on my phone different foods and
different things that I kind of have a history with
or that resonate within me. And then that moment of banafi.
(02:41):
That's what she made the night before banafi and key
lime pie and these rectangular glass trays and there were
six of them, and that those were the desserts for
the gathering.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Food and music bring back memories. You hear a song
and you know where you were when you heard it.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
You know. It's one of those things with books that
I'll say that it's like the one thing that I've
heard compliment about the writing is that it's very vivid.
And my mother lived very vivid, And you go, so,
what is it about that? With music? What you just
said with food? There's been these things in my life
that have been extremely vivid.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So tell me about the early days when you remember
her in terms of the way she fed you, the
way you ate, or the way where you grew up.
You grew up on a ranch.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I grew up on a ranch. My mother's from Corpus Christi, Texas.
She ran away from home when she was nineteen. She
came to Hollywood and the first people she met were
Clinton Maggie Eastwood, and that's who took her under their wing.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Did she run away from home because.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, I don't know. No, I don't think so, because
she always talked of her parents fondly, you know. And
then I just found out. I just did a book
reading and somebody came up to me and kind of
handed me six pages that were stapled together, and they said,
I went to school with your grandfather, my mother's dad.
And I said wow, and I started looking through. This
(04:09):
is very my mother. I started looking through the pages
before I went on stage, and it turns out that
my mother was married before she left Texas. I never
knew that. I just found that out something I guess
for a week.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Wow. But she hasn't run away to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I just think, you know, it was one of those
innate things that she just felt like she needed more.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think she ran away from her husband.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I don't know. I just think she needed more vivid,
she needed more music, she needed more food, she needed
more something. So when she came to La I think
that it was what she was looking for. But I
also think it was overwhelming. So she started, I think
sleeping with a bunch of married guys, and she was
(04:57):
you know, religious, and she'd been you know, to go
to church all the time. And so then she came
to La. She starts getting into this Hollywood thing and
then she ended up taking some pills and driving into
park cars and she got kind of hauled off to
Camerio State Hospital, which was the local funny farm.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
She wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No, animals were always her thing, so she started a
wildlife waystation. She met my dad. She was assistant casting
the series of her Batman, and my dad did an
episode of Batman, so that's when they met. But they
got married twelve days after they met. My dad was
(05:39):
more of a subservient type and my mother was not.
My mother just made things happen. She was always making
things happen, whether it was food, whether it was whatever
she was involved with was had a high octane gasoline involved.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So you describe josh Livigana Ranch early age, your mother
taking you out of an urban existence and into the wild,
and that includes animals and her passion for animals or
protection of animals. Can you tell me a bit about
what that was like.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Itved out of La to a place called past Robos California,
which is about two hundred miles north of Los Angeles.
I think I was five at the time. And she
always had animals. Before that, she had cages, and so
she had she ran a wildlife way station. She would
take animals who had illegally been taken out of the
wild and she would have those people jailed and she
(06:37):
would nurse those animals back to health. If they'd been
defanged or declawed. She would find the most habitable zoo.
You know, she would find those lyon country safari type places.
But you know, there were a lot of There were wolves.
My brother got sixty stitches in his leg from a wolf.
We cleaned the cages. There were mountain lions. I have
a picture right here. I mean, you want me to
(06:59):
show you the picture. I have a picture of an
adolescent mountain lion in my crib.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
In my crib, Oh, my gosh, is that you? Is
that you?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's a mountain lion? God, I mean, that's me. If
you if you look at every single picture of me
as a kid, if you swipe has my face looks
like it's the attempt to eat it off has been had.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It makes me kind of crazy to think of that. No, Yeah,
I'm sorry, this makes me crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh it's insane. Yeah, it's insane. That's nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And there was no protection for you. There was never
anybody around.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He said, this case, I would and I don't victimize
in my book. When you read my book, I don't
victimize myself and I don't feel victimized. But there is
an indictment. I was talking to Howard Stern about man.
They said, you don't indict your parents, sy said, I do.
The reality. Yes, they're incredible, irresponsible because that was the
least of it. We had to clean those cages. You
(08:05):
go in there at eight years old and you have
a rake and you're looking at a wolf in the eye.
But if you look down too much, it's going to
see you as prey and weak. But if you if
you confront too much, it's going to see it as
a confrontation and attack.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Do you remember domestic life? Do Would you sit down
to meals with every food.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Always on the table? Oh? Yeah, always? That was the
one thing. It's the one through line that I remember
in my childhood, because you know, I'd wake up sometimes
my brother and I would wake up three o'clock in
the morning with my mother shaking us and saying, I
want a waterburger, and then would drive, you know, fifteen
hundred miles with us in the car, even though we
(08:47):
had school and fifteen hundred oh yeah, fifteen hundred miles.
My mother didn't fly. She had she had been a stewardest.
What is a water waterburger? Texan burger that started in
Corpus CHRISTI is. It's like r in an out burger
in America.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Also, it was the name of a brand, and she
had a craving for it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
That you'd get in the car and you'd be in
the car for four or five days.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
What would that feel like?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It was? It was good. There was something that was
great about the adventure of it, which I think is
still in me my brother. It's interesting because my brother
didn't have it was my dad describes the fight in
him that that I had. So my brother was much
more quiet, you know, and so his life is very simple.
(09:33):
It's quite the opposite me. I was just writing about
it on the on the way over here, not in
thought of coming over here, but I was like, I love,
I'm ready to go home right now. I've been traveling.
I've been doing this book thing but I was like,
I started describing the light and this and that, and
the constant adventure is great because it's like being born
(09:54):
again and again and again and again. You're like a child,
you know, where everything became new discovery. You're like, what's that? Wow,
look at the way that's hitting that. The English light
is different than the Italian light, which is different than
the Middle Eastern light or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So she would with waking up at three in the morning,
or having the animals that you describe so vividly in
your book, or the ranch, there was a kind of
structure of that. We would always sit down to a
meal or.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Always Yeah, that's why I say, that's the only kind
of domestic reality within our family. My dad was constantly
traveling because he was working. My mom was always looking
for something to do and something to kind of mix up,
and then there would be her cooking.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So describe her kitchen in the house.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
The house was just put up for sale. So I
was able to see an actual picture because the ranch
is three miles from the ranch that we're on now. Okay,
so where I grew up is three miles away from
where our ranch is. Now. Where is that Pastor Roobos, California.
Where is that central California?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
How far from.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Four hours north of La three and a half hours
south of San Francisco. Yeah, Selina's valley close to Steinbeck
Country and all that. But so I could see what
my memory was. But it's a very Spanish type, you know,
Spanish tiles all handpicked by her. Yeah, and the stove
(11:23):
was always I always remember the flames, high flames in
the stove, and then I would get up. I don't
know why I started doing this. I'm thinking about it now.
I would get up on Saturdays usually and I would
cook breakfast for my whole family.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And you still make a flame by the flame and
the eggs over medium, over easy.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I had the toast, I had the bacon, I had
biscuits sometimes. But I don't know why. I don't know
what it was about. There was some meditating, obviously, I
wanted to please them. I loved the Maybe that was
just me trying to extend that thing, like you stay in,
I'm going to take it together. Yeah, I'm going to
(12:04):
take care of you. It's funny. I haven't thought of that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And so do you think you used recipes or did
you just instinctively.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
No, it was instinctive. It was always instinctive. And in
my kids, my older kids who are thirty six and
thirty one now will tell you that I made either
the greatest food or the worst food that I would eat,
because if we were out at the ranch and it
was like, look, this is what we have, Like I
didn't go to the grocery store today. This is what
we have. So you have to experiment with what you have.
(12:31):
And sometimes that kind of experimenting would turn out brilliant,
and sometimes it would turn out like regurgitation. I remember
my daughter crying and saying, it tastes so bad. I'd go,
you have to eat it. Yeah, And I think that
was the kind of connective tissue I had of my
mother because the one time that my family was a
(12:51):
family family, the kind of family that you see and
leave it to beaver, even though it was as far
from leave it to beaver as you can imagine. Gin
was dinner and my mother always cooked. My My mother
cooked every day. Cooking was her thing, Cooking was her art,
Cooking was her canvas reading.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Your book last night. And the amount of times that
telephones were slammed down or noise was made, or people
running away, or the anger of the fury, or the
that looking back on that, you know, and then sitting
down to dinner with dinners calm though, which you kind
of want the food eating properly or would they also
(13:33):
be a nice for dramatic interest.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
No, it wasn't. No. Even the thing that you're that
you're referencing is the phone being slammed down and her
throwing cups through a window at my dad and all that,
which was immediately followed by a breakfast. Immediately, I say,
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Even pick up why it didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It was just we just went literally right back to
this default to the semblance of normal, some normalcy. There
was nothing normal about it. Yeah, but when you look
around and everybody's kind of got this kind of gorgeous
morning smile, like like we were outside and vitamin D
(14:18):
getting ready for the day, and it's like, do you
remember what we were doing, just like for the last
four hours, which was total insanity. And I think that's
why when I went out into the when I went
out into the world, it was that was the shock.
The shock wasn't what I was experiencing because I didn't
know any different. And then I got older and went
(14:39):
out into the world and started dealing with people on
the level that I had gotten used to. And then
you see people reacting. I think that's why I like
being in Italy, because I think people are just less
they're more animated. Yeah, it seems to vibe with how
I was raised, without the chaos, without the.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, my husband came for a very Italian family and
he they were you could, you could stay out till
five in the morning, He could do everything that he
wanted to. He didn't have to dress in a certain way.
He had to be home for meal times.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
That was us, you know, that was.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The structure, you know. And Jake Jilanov said he opened
up his podcast saying that food was the only functional
thing in a dysfunctional family, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And I know him and his parents and his.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Sharents and you know, but he said it, as can
I say that. And he talked about going to the
market and I don't know Westwood of Pacific Palisades with
his father and seeing seeing the food and what about
your mother's dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Her dinners were there was a lot of Mexican food,
there was a lot of Italian food, there was a
lot of southern food.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Did she read? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So? My mother she learned at our ranch. Now we
have an entire, very large bookshelf of just her cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I would love to see those sometimes. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I mean they're all original cookbooks from decades, you know,
different decades out hers that she cut out. She would
do these collages. There's handwritten I mean that's only one.
That's just one that I think. I actually called my
daughter and said, send me a couple of handwritten recipes.
There's literally hundreds, if not thousands of recipes that she copied.
(16:25):
You know, I have in the book too. Let me
see if I can find it. There's a thing that
in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
She said that she introduced herself as in restaurants. She
would go into.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Restaurants, she would always end up in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That she would end up in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Always, yeah, always. I think that. Let's say dusty fires.
She made it. And the cook in the back, a
lanky twenty eight year old who didn't know that he
was her prey for the evening. She showed him how
to better stir the sauce. She made him hold his
hand over hers as they flipped a dish in a pan.
She asked him who his favorite country Western singers were
(17:03):
and if he had ever been to a proper rodeo.
He was toast. As far as I was concerned, I
knew it was going to be a long night, and
that I might as well go back out into that
parking lot and see what I could find in the
desert beyond it. Parents of the bones we cut our
teeth on, but they never talk about the parents' own teeth.
They never talk about the bite you learned to see coming.
I dreamed about her last night, and I awoke happy
(17:25):
but sweating, because every moment with her was exciting. You
couldn't just go have a meal in a restaurant. She
had to take over the entire restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Did you find it exciting or sometimes embarrassing? Both?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think both, because why wouldn't it be
embarrassing as a child, you know, like, don't bring attention
to us. But then at the same time I could
tell I mean, it was like living with Salvado'dlly. It
was like I remember hearing my dad saying I saw
Salvador Dolly running down the street. It was like running
(18:02):
down Lexington Avenue with a pork chopped capon. It's like,
there's just those people. Why him, Why did he do that?
Why did she do that? Why did he dress that way?
Why were they? You know, somebody wears jeans and a
black T shirt every day, and somebody dresses in the
nicest dresses. They can get versauce in this and that.
My mom just acted the way she was, unapologetically herself,
(18:26):
and there's light growing up on the ranch. When you
have to feed forty eight horses or fifty eight horses
every morning, when you're doing it, it sucks. It's horrible.
It's just labor. But when you look back on it,
you go, thank God for that upbringing. Thank God I
had to get up and get out into the elements
(18:46):
every single morning before I went to school. It made
me who I am. Pastor Robles is considered wine country now,
you know, so it's a very famous wine country. And
(19:09):
when I was growing up there there were two wineries,
so it wasn't known for its wine. Napo was known
for its wineries, but you know, people would it was.
It was a farming community and a horse community, so
people would take their kids out of school for two
or three weeks when the farming happened, when the harvesting happened,
and all that school was not a priority.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
What year was.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Seventy six, Yeah, seventy seven, seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So what was it like? Well, first of all, before
you left home, you worked age fourteen as a chef
is cooking?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It wasn't a chef, no, but you were in the kitchen, right,
I was in the kitchen. Told the story of that
very similarly, is Wolfgang cook?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Because he was like but that was economic. They just said, okay,
you're living in Austria, we don't like you very much.
You're going to go peel potatoes in a suicide.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It's in order to earn Yeah, he worked there.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
He found it. He must try to jump off a bridge.
But for you, how did it actually be a fourteen
year old at home one minute and then working in
a restaurant or twelve? You were twelve?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was twelve, wow, And there was we knew the
owner of the restaurant. It was called Rocky Galenti's. It
was an Italian restaurant. And I started literally I did
I start doing dishes in the back or just like
picking just crap off the walls or whatever I was doing.
And then I started getting into it. And then I
(20:33):
started doing salads, and I started doing chopp salads, and
then like drum rolls, oh yeah, at twelve, no, and
that was like thirteen. By the time I had hit thirteen,
but I was already smoking cigarettes in the back and
taking breaks and you know, little SIPs off glasses of
wine that were left on tables and big restaurants.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Small restaurant.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
No, it was a fairly small restaurant. It felt like
when I think of Italian restaurants now, like authentic Italian restaurants,
they're small. They're all small, small tables. And there was
a guy who would go from table to table and
sing arias. There was a guy who was hired and
he would sing these arias right. And then there was
somebody else who would do caricatures on the wall, kind
(21:15):
of drunken, awful caricatures on the wall that you'd pay him,
and then you were forever stamped onto the Italian restaurant.
Rocky Glend Santa Barbara, Lower State Street and Lower State
Street now is a nice place. Lower State Street then
was not a nice place.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Were they kind in the kitchen to you.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
They were very kind to me. They liked me because
I was also, you know, some version of misfit. All
the cooks were misfits, you know, men and women alike.
There was no gender in there. Oh, yes, yes, there
was a It was like being around because I grew
up around drag racing and racing because my dad, so
(21:55):
we were on a lot of tracks. It reminded me
of that. It reminded me of people who went three
hundred miles an hour. The stress of working in the
restaurant business.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I loved, did you Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And I think it's the only thing that with acting.
It was like, do I love acting? I don't know.
Sometimes do I like the idea of having to live
up to something? Yes? Do I like the fact that,
you know, back in the days before digital there was
film and before that that last bit of film went
(22:28):
in the magazine. You only had that much time, You
only had that take left before the sun went down.
It's a lot of pressure, you know. But I think
having grown up in a kitchen, not only my mother's kitchen,
but that restaurant's kitchen, there was something about that pressure
that I fed off of.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I like, you know, and then at the end of it,
I know it is.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's a lot of yelling, a lot of it was great.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That's the thing about having the you know, when the
open kitchen is you can't it's more like a ballet. Yeah,
you move around to talk to somebody rather than that's
right shot, because you know, kitchens, old fashioned kitchens are
cruel and there. But these young people do you knowsh
they won't take it anymore. They don't want to work.
They won't they don't want to work in a place
where they're bullied or they're you know what, they to feel.
(23:16):
They're just not going to put up with it. What
was it like leaving home? And how did you eat?
Did you cook for yourself?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Did you did? I cooked them up for myself all
the time. I was a teenager and I left because
I left, I was sixteen, so you've seventeen. I had
finished school early. I did the goonies during this I
was going to.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Ask you about So how old were you when did
you well?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I was kicked out of my house in Santa Barbara
and by my mother. She did and I went down
and I think it was very temporary. I think both
of us didn't think it would last. But then I
because you know, i'd been to jail a couple of
times already, and it was you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Know, before you were sixteen. Mm hmm, yeah, the food
in jail.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Do I remember the food in jail? I do very well. Actually,
I think.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
You're the first person I've asked that question to the
one hundred and forty people. Have we had it? I
don't think you've.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Had it because you have a different echelon of people.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I come from echeon, but just an experience. So what
was the food like?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
In food was always stale, always one hundred percent of
the time. There was rice crispies, There was warm milk,
There was a piece of white bread.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
We're talking about breakfast.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
That's when you wake you always wake up in jail.
We can talk about the rest of it, which is
when you stay in line and you get the slop.
There's cafeteria slop.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So let's go back to the right. That would be
your breakfast in your cell.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That would be your breakfast in your cell, which is
put on a tray and that's a little opening that
you have in your door, and on that tray is
usually what you did and why you're in in jail
in case you were in a blackout while you did it,
so you look at what you've done. You'd take out
this arrest sheet and look at it and say, oh,
I'm in here for whatever whatever I was in there
(25:13):
for at the time. The jail a few times. It
was a few times after sixteen. There's a general rule
which is actually not but jail. You spent up to
one year in prison. You spend more than one year.
So I was in jail. I was never in prison,
but I was in jail nine times. But yeah, jail.
There was one point where I was looking at fourteen
(25:35):
years in prisons that would be prison, but that got
knocked down too.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I did a few months as long as you stayed.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It was a few months.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
A few months. And the food again, because I'm sure so.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Much had a great show. Who went on because to
work with Wolfgang Puck and they collaborated in a restaurant.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Called Clank Spago Click.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
But the.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
No, I just went to a dinner, charity dinner and
they talked about food in prisons.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Did they Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Is it kind of and how good they are?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Or how do you know what.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
We spend in Britain? I think a day for three
meals a day is something like one pound twenty on prisoner,
so you're giving them there's no sense of rehabilitation, right.
It was a meeting of chefs and we just say,
how do you reckon if? Prison obviously is punishment, but
it also is the idea that you're going to make
somebody better, worse or worse. We're making them worse by
(26:41):
saying we're only going to spend one pound twenty and
feed you the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
How I'm not still in prison, but listen for me.
I mean, you're a parent, and you know I've been
a parents since I was twenty years old, nineteen when
she was pregnant, and I was looking at that jail
time when she was pregnant. So I was going from
(27:07):
once I got out of jail, I was living in
a half way house and I was going on a
Harley Davidson motorcycle going from a halfway house to birthing class,
you know, breathe one, two, three, three. I mean it
was chaotic, but it was, which is the suggestion of
the book is like that was normal. That's the only
(27:28):
type of living I knew how to do. And I
was very lucky because I had books which had a
massive impact on me. I had a guy named Anthony
Zerbe who's an actor. He's eighty seven. He's still my
best friend. And he would come and just like literally,
I would open my door. We did a series together
(27:48):
in Tucson, Arizona, when I was like twenty twenty one.
I would open the door and there'd be eight books
just standing there at six in the morning. You know,
was never read this, and this is how you should.
He'd just be a stack, and then a month later
there'd be another stack, and then there'd be another stack.
And then we ended up doing plays together. And I
heard him and roscal Lee Brown do it hour and
(28:10):
a half of the most amazing hour and a half
of poetry spoken poetry, which I can't think of anything
more boring as a concept. It's like, go watch people
speak poetry for an hour and a half. It's like it.
But they were so dynamic and they understood the music
of language and it was its own food. And I
(28:34):
sat there watching that at twenty years old, and I
just said, that's what I want. That's couldn't get enough
of it.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
If you like listening to Ruthie's table Flour Would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Thank you so, Josh. Would you read the recipe that
you chose for today and that we cooked for today,
Rigatoni with cavalo narrow and the new olive oil.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Would you like me to read it in Italian or English?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You can read it in any language you like.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Rigatoni with Cavola naro and new olive oil serves six
one kilogram cavolo narrow leaves, two garlic cloves peeled, two
hundred and fifty militers extra virgin olive oil, five hundred
grams rigatoni freshly grated parmesan. This pasta is a celebration
(29:45):
of two ingredients that arrive at the same moment in
the year, Covola naro and the first pressed peppery, extra
virgin olive oil. Remove the stalks from the covolon naro leaves,
but keep the leaves hole. Blanch them in boiling salted
water along with the garlic cloves for five minutes. Drain.
(30:08):
Put the blanched cavolonaro and garlic into a food processor
and pulse chop to a puree. In the last couple
of seconds, pour in about two hundred millilters of the
extra virgin olive oil. This will make fairly liquid, dark
green pure season well. Cook the Rigatonian boiling salted water.
(30:29):
Then drain, put the pasta into a bowl, add the sauce,
and stir until each piece is thickly coated. Pour over
the remaining extra virgin olive oil, and serve with parmigiano.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
There you go. Thank you. Oh and here's Joseph who's
going to come and talk about cavaloneero pure with RIGATONI.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Thank you for this.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
That's okay, beautiful.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
So the important thing about this plated pasta is the
olive oil, which is barely three weeks.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Old at this point, barely three weeks old.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Good, yeah, the same.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
This is the same.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely to.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Get this olive oil.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
To get this olive oil, where did you go? We're
in Tuscany, So we go around Tuscany.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
This particular olive oil is from not far from Florence.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Florence.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Just you know, okay, I was just I wasn't sure.
And it's so nice to go and then try the
olive oil. And that's one thing. That's amazing.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
But then when you put them in food, it's it
transforms again.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And I think this is really.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
Nice with the sweet pasta.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Makes me hungry.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Try try so good.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So what do they do? They soak it in the pepper.
No no, no, no no, this is this is from the.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Tree. They bring it into the press. Next year we go.
You should come with us, because it's an amazing You
go to these farmers. You know, they're the people works
you who also produce the wine. Right, so they produce wine,
and they produce the olives, right and for these guys
who are making you know, every dish they can with
olive oil. Then to see the process. But also this
is new. You would never heat this up. So we're
(32:23):
using the twenty three oil right now to cook with.
And then this is this you would never have except
on a piece of toast or yeah, i'll give you
some to take home. So this is liquid gold right now,
it's very we haven't had the whole process.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
So when you open it, how long can it keep for?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We can keep because you just keep sealing it. And
if you just close it, it's fine. It's fine. I mean
here we you know, we use we use seven thousand
bottles of olive oil year.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Sure, it's amazing. I think if I didn't have young kids,
I would be in Italy.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
But you bring them, you know, there are schools you
can know, you know somebody who's living, you know, living.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
In We just moved usual a place that's as close
to Europe as I think we can get in California,
and we're very happy there.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
In Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara. I was at the
San Sidro Ranch like millions of years, very close, millions
of years the rich and I went there. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Is nice?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Do you like? Yeah? I did? I did like we
walked and except there was one thing I did. I
really I am not happy with that. Snakes.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Snakes.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I feel pretty strongly about snakes, and I understand that.
Do you get it when I go to places I
now have found out that I say to people, do
you have snakes here? Because I really like them? Yeah?
Because you tell them you're scared, They tell you there
are no snakes. Say I'd really like to see some snakes.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Do you have? Then they go yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Then I go by out of there like.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
You manipulated thirty seconds. So there was really smart. Actually,
I love snakes. Do you guys have any really love them?
We have a ton of rattle snakes in the hills.
If you go in the hills, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah. Then you know, it's like telling your account and
you're spending too much money before they tell you you do?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I do.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right now? You love them?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
We all love them. We all picked them up. And
we like about spiders. Steel like spiders.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Fine, anything, fine, anything, anything anything. I could take a spider,
I could take a mouse.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
You don't like.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's just a snake that I don't like. So we
were swimming in one of those pools at the San
is Sidro and I was really happy. I was just
swimming and Richard I just heard this voice saying, Ruthie,
don't look to your right, look to your left and
just swim. And I was going, are you telling that
there's a snake? No, I'm just telling you to get out.
And then we got out and they were like all
(34:49):
over the place.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
They were the snake in the pool.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, in the pool, not in the swimming pool, but
like we were hiking and we just decided to go
in the pond.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I wouldn't like that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I don't like it. But I liked Santa Barbara and
I like that place. And there's a great Mexican isn't
there like a street Mexican place that sells tacos that's.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Kind of like street tacos, like small tacos.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, really really good area.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Do you ever travel around looking for new recipes?
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Many recipes ideas.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I'm Richard. My husband's an architect, used to say that
it's just a progression, isn't it. So one day you're
making an almond tart with raspberries in the summer, and
then you'll say, you know, this would be good with
pears in the winter. Or you'd say, maybe this time,
you know, with the sea bass that we cook in salt,
maybe we'll take a turbot and do it in salt,
(35:39):
and he'll do it cold, and we'll put instead of salsaveritia,
we'll put basalamon vinegar on it. And it's a kind
of it isn't like for me anyway. It isn't like, Oh,
I have an idea, let's make a pasta with blueberries
and parmesan. You know, it isn't like an item. It's
a kind of constant drip by, drip by drip that.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
Is exact, it's exactly right. I think that you might
come in and you think, today, I'm going to make
this risotto and it's you know, with pheasant like we
are today, and then but then through lunch we're talking
about how we could make it better, and.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Tomorrow we'll do it again and it'll just be a
little bit different, a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You know, the dish is the same, but every person
is getting something different.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Is that parallel and acting or writing your book?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
I think when you're doing a play, I think it's
like that. If you're willing to experiment. I can't imagine
doing I'm sure like you can't imagine doing a dish
for a year and a half the same dish. Do
you do that? Do you always have the same menu? No?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, no, we change every every meal. Every Yeah, so
Joseph at the menu this morning, and then today's Sean
will come in at three thirty and she'll write the
menu for tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
That's how I feel about theaters sometimes, because you can
do it roll and then you can you learn different
idiots and crowd it kind of I don't know behaviors
in that role to better tell that story, to better
get into that character. But then there's a point for
me where I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, what else can
(37:12):
we do? Or maybe I'll mix up the blocking, I'll
walk in a different direction. And you have other actors
that go, no, you can't do that because they rely
on the repetitiveness of it. But I like being off camber.
That's why I think I loved cooking. That's why I
think I love painting. That's why I think I love writing.
It's why I think I love photography because there is
(37:34):
no mastering it. You know. I don't think you can
ever mask it. This canvas that is getting bigger faster
than you can figure it out. Then you can fill it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I'm gone right, thanks, Okay. If you were feeling that
you needed a comfort from food, yeah, is there a
food that you would go to a time? And what
would it be? What could the diction?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Something that makes me comfortable, something that makes me happy
would be would be a pasta. It would have mushrooms
in it, it would have I like mushrooms for some reason,
I really like mushrooms. Yeah, and Banafi Banafi's a comfortab
(38:23):
Is Banafi' is my most What.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Is it tell me about?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
What itffe' it's toffee, bananas, homemade cream, dulcea de leche,
which what is doulcea de leche? Sugar and milk, condensed milk.
It can be condensed milk, or it's sugar and milk
melted down in a pan. You know, it's been thirty
(38:48):
years since she's died. But anytime that I'm anywhere, especially Europe,
and they serve Banaffi, like, oh my god, look damn Binoffi.
I love you, Mama. Yeah, you eat something great. It's
just like getting a big hug inside. It's like, oh,
I love you, Josh. You know what I mean. So
(39:09):
if I eat banaffi, I'm not just eating Banaffi. I'm
eating an experience that I've had that I not only
appreciate and love looking back on, but feel like I'm reliving.
My mother was very into key lime pie too, And
I don't base everything just off my mother, but but
key lime pie. When I ask if the key lime
(39:30):
is real, that's the thing, is Li'm real? Is it white?
It's all these things that I grew up with that
felt like the knowledge, Like she had the knowledge she
was going to call you out if it was fake.
You know, and I loved that there was something this
kind of demand for the organic. Yeah, integrity, yes, but
(39:55):
demand for the organic, Like, are you giving me McDonald's
or you giving me the real deal? Did you? Did
you put your soul into this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I wish i'd met her.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah, me too. You guys would have loved each other.
You know, there's some people that I go, people go, oh,
I wish you know I would have met her. I go, No,
you don't. Nope, No, she would have buried you. But yes,
I think you guys would have adored each other.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Well, she has a great son.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1 (40:24):
You, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in
partnership with Montclair
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Arriving home yesterday after a busy night, a book was
waiting on the table. The book was a memoir from
Under the Truck, and the author was my friend, Josh Brolin.
I say friend, but for full disclosure, Josh and I
have only met once, when Glenn Close called me to
say she was bringing him to the River Cafe and
would I be able to stop cooking for a bit
(00:26):
and join them. I did, and right away there was
a connection between us. Josh is a story teller, and
I sat there listening as he described what it was
like to be a fourteen year old chef in an
Italian restaurant and the way food and love for his
family sustains him to day. He also told me about
(00:46):
filming with Glenn in London and Knives Out, working with
the Cone Brothers on No Country for Old Men, and
making Gus Vansan's movie Milk with Sean Penn. Josh was
leaving for la the next day, but before he did,
a text arrived on my phone, Ruthie, let's do a podcast.
I think we'll have fun, or at least it will
(01:07):
be beautifully revealing, very nice. I thought it was very
moving on the last pages of your book, last chapter
really that you end with a recipe of your mother's
with Oreo cookies, which I brought. But you also wrote
a very moving paragraph which I thought perhaps you could read.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I loved her, let's see, but the one thing she
could do without any hassle was cook She'd leave food
on people's fence posts at the start of their driveways,
and they'd waive at us the next day as she
was taking me to school. She'd help start small local
restaurants in the area, then talk about starting her own.
(01:50):
How she even filled the fridge with six dessert dishes
the night she died. Three days later, when we had
the gathering at the ranch to honor her, that's where
everyone ate her sweet creations, the only sweet she could muster.
She moved inside my mother even when she was dead.
And from these strewn scraps of recipe ingredients comes a history. Wow.
(02:16):
I haven't read that for a while. It's funny because
I thought of this on the way over here, which
I never do. I never prep for interviews or podcasts
or any of it. And on the way over here,
I started to write on my phone different foods and
different things that I kind of have a history with
or that resonate within me. And then that moment of banafi.
(02:41):
That's what she made the night before banafi and key
lime pie and these rectangular glass trays and there were
six of them, and that those were the desserts for
the gathering.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Food and music bring back memories. You hear a song
and you know where you were when you heard it.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
You know. It's one of those things with books that
I'll say that it's like the one thing that I've
heard compliment about the writing is that it's very vivid.
And my mother lived very vivid, And you go, so,
what is it about that? With music? What you just
said with food? There's been these things in my life
that have been extremely vivid.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So tell me about the early days when you remember
her in terms of the way she fed you, the
way you ate, or the way where you grew up.
You grew up on a ranch.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I grew up on a ranch. My mother's from Corpus Christi, Texas.
She ran away from home when she was nineteen. She
came to Hollywood and the first people she met were
Clinton Maggie Eastwood, and that's who took her under their wing.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Did she run away from home because.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, I don't know. No, I don't think so, because
she always talked of her parents fondly, you know. And
then I just found out. I just did a book
reading and somebody came up to me and kind of
handed me six pages that were stapled together, and they said,
I went to school with your grandfather, my mother's dad.
And I said wow, and I started looking through. This
(04:09):
is very my mother. I started looking through the pages
before I went on stage, and it turns out that
my mother was married before she left Texas. I never
knew that. I just found that out something I guess
for a week.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Wow. But she hasn't run away to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I just think, you know, it was one of those
innate things that she just felt like she needed more.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think she ran away from her husband.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I don't know. I just think she needed more vivid,
she needed more music, she needed more food, she needed
more something. So when she came to La I think
that it was what she was looking for. But I
also think it was overwhelming. So she started, I think
sleeping with a bunch of married guys, and she was
(04:57):
you know, religious, and she'd been you know, to go
to church all the time. And so then she came
to La. She starts getting into this Hollywood thing and
then she ended up taking some pills and driving into
park cars and she got kind of hauled off to
Camerio State Hospital, which was the local funny farm.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
She wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No, animals were always her thing, so she started a
wildlife waystation. She met my dad. She was assistant casting
the series of her Batman, and my dad did an
episode of Batman, so that's when they met. But they
got married twelve days after they met. My dad was
(05:39):
more of a subservient type and my mother was not.
My mother just made things happen. She was always making
things happen, whether it was food, whether it was whatever
she was involved with was had a high octane gasoline involved.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So you describe josh Livigana Ranch early age, your mother
taking you out of an urban existence and into the wild,
and that includes animals and her passion for animals or
protection of animals. Can you tell me a bit about
what that was like.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Itved out of La to a place called past Robos California,
which is about two hundred miles north of Los Angeles.
I think I was five at the time. And she
always had animals. Before that, she had cages, and so
she had she ran a wildlife way station. She would
take animals who had illegally been taken out of the
wild and she would have those people jailed and she
(06:37):
would nurse those animals back to health. If they'd been
defanged or declawed. She would find the most habitable zoo.
You know, she would find those lyon country safari type places.
But you know, there were a lot of There were wolves.
My brother got sixty stitches in his leg from a wolf.
We cleaned the cages. There were mountain lions. I have
a picture right here. I mean, you want me to
(06:59):
show you the picture. I have a picture of an
adolescent mountain lion in my crib.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
In my crib, Oh, my gosh, is that you? Is
that you?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's a mountain lion? God, I mean, that's me. If
you if you look at every single picture of me
as a kid, if you swipe has my face looks
like it's the attempt to eat it off has been had.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
It makes me kind of crazy to think of that. No, Yeah,
I'm sorry, this makes me crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh it's insane. Yeah, it's insane. That's nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And there was no protection for you. There was never
anybody around.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
He said, this case, I would and I don't victimize
in my book. When you read my book, I don't
victimize myself and I don't feel victimized. But there is
an indictment. I was talking to Howard Stern about man.
They said, you don't indict your parents, sy said, I do.
The reality. Yes, they're incredible, irresponsible because that was the
least of it. We had to clean those cages. You
(08:05):
go in there at eight years old and you have
a rake and you're looking at a wolf in the eye.
But if you look down too much, it's going to
see you as prey and weak. But if you if
you confront too much, it's going to see it as
a confrontation and attack.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Do you remember domestic life? Do Would you sit down
to meals with every food.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Always on the table? Oh? Yeah, always? That was the
one thing. It's the one through line that I remember
in my childhood, because you know, I'd wake up sometimes
my brother and I would wake up three o'clock in
the morning with my mother shaking us and saying, I
want a waterburger, and then would drive, you know, fifteen
hundred miles with us in the car, even though we
(08:47):
had school and fifteen hundred oh yeah, fifteen hundred miles.
My mother didn't fly. She had she had been a stewardest.
What is a water waterburger? Texan burger that started in
Corpus CHRISTI is. It's like r in an out burger
in America.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Also, it was the name of a brand, and she
had a craving for it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
That you'd get in the car and you'd be in
the car for four or five days.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
What would that feel like?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It was? It was good. There was something that was
great about the adventure of it, which I think is
still in me my brother. It's interesting because my brother
didn't have it was my dad describes the fight in
him that that I had. So my brother was much
more quiet, you know, and so his life is very simple.
(09:33):
It's quite the opposite me. I was just writing about
it on the on the way over here, not in
thought of coming over here, but I was like, I love,
I'm ready to go home right now. I've been traveling.
I've been doing this book thing but I was like,
I started describing the light and this and that, and
the constant adventure is great because it's like being born
(09:54):
again and again and again and again. You're like a child,
you know, where everything became new discovery. You're like, what's that? Wow,
look at the way that's hitting that. The English light
is different than the Italian light, which is different than
the Middle Eastern light or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So she would with waking up at three in the morning,
or having the animals that you describe so vividly in
your book, or the ranch, there was a kind of
structure of that. We would always sit down to a
meal or.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Always Yeah, that's why I say, that's the only kind
of domestic reality within our family. My dad was constantly
traveling because he was working. My mom was always looking
for something to do and something to kind of mix up,
and then there would be her cooking.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So describe her kitchen in the house.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
The house was just put up for sale. So I
was able to see an actual picture because the ranch
is three miles from the ranch that we're on now. Okay,
so where I grew up is three miles away from
where our ranch is. Now. Where is that Pastor Roobos, California.
Where is that central California?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
How far from.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Four hours north of La three and a half hours
south of San Francisco. Yeah, Selina's valley close to Steinbeck
Country and all that. But so I could see what
my memory was. But it's a very Spanish type, you know,
Spanish tiles all handpicked by her. Yeah, and the stove
(11:23):
was always I always remember the flames, high flames in
the stove, and then I would get up. I don't
know why I started doing this. I'm thinking about it now.
I would get up on Saturdays usually and I would
cook breakfast for my whole family.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And you still make a flame by the flame and
the eggs over medium, over easy.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I had the toast, I had the bacon, I had
biscuits sometimes. But I don't know why. I don't know
what it was about. There was some meditating, obviously, I
wanted to please them. I loved the Maybe that was
just me trying to extend that thing, like you stay in,
I'm going to take it together. Yeah, I'm going to
(12:04):
take care of you. It's funny. I haven't thought of that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And so do you think you used recipes or did
you just instinctively.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
No, it was instinctive. It was always instinctive. And in
my kids, my older kids who are thirty six and
thirty one now will tell you that I made either
the greatest food or the worst food that I would eat,
because if we were out at the ranch and it
was like, look, this is what we have, Like I
didn't go to the grocery store today. This is what
we have. So you have to experiment with what you have.
(12:31):
And sometimes that kind of experimenting would turn out brilliant,
and sometimes it would turn out like regurgitation. I remember
my daughter crying and saying, it tastes so bad. I'd go,
you have to eat it. Yeah, And I think that
was the kind of connective tissue I had of my
mother because the one time that my family was a
(12:51):
family family, the kind of family that you see and
leave it to beaver, even though it was as far
from leave it to beaver as you can imagine. Gin
was dinner and my mother always cooked. My My mother
cooked every day. Cooking was her thing, Cooking was her art,
Cooking was her canvas reading.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Your book last night. And the amount of times that
telephones were slammed down or noise was made, or people
running away, or the anger of the fury, or the
that looking back on that, you know, and then sitting
down to dinner with dinners calm though, which you kind
of want the food eating properly or would they also
(13:33):
be a nice for dramatic interest.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
No, it wasn't. No. Even the thing that you're that
you're referencing is the phone being slammed down and her
throwing cups through a window at my dad and all that,
which was immediately followed by a breakfast. Immediately, I say,
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Even pick up why it didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It was just we just went literally right back to
this default to the semblance of normal, some normalcy. There
was nothing normal about it. Yeah, but when you look
around and everybody's kind of got this kind of gorgeous
morning smile, like like we were outside and vitamin D
(14:18):
getting ready for the day, and it's like, do you
remember what we were doing, just like for the last
four hours, which was total insanity. And I think that's
why when I went out into the when I went
out into the world, it was that was the shock.
The shock wasn't what I was experiencing because I didn't
know any different. And then I got older and went
(14:39):
out into the world and started dealing with people on
the level that I had gotten used to. And then
you see people reacting. I think that's why I like
being in Italy, because I think people are just less
they're more animated. Yeah, it seems to vibe with how
I was raised, without the chaos, without the.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, my husband came for a very Italian family and
he they were you could, you could stay out till
five in the morning, He could do everything that he
wanted to. He didn't have to dress in a certain way.
He had to be home for meal times.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
That was us, you know, that was.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The structure, you know. And Jake Jilanov said he opened
up his podcast saying that food was the only functional
thing in a dysfunctional family, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And I know him and his parents and his.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Sharents and you know, but he said it, as can
I say that. And he talked about going to the
market and I don't know Westwood of Pacific Palisades with
his father and seeing seeing the food and what about
your mother's dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Her dinners were there was a lot of Mexican food,
there was a lot of Italian food, there was a
lot of southern food.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Did she read? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So? My mother she learned at our ranch. Now we
have an entire, very large bookshelf of just her cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I would love to see those sometimes. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I mean they're all original cookbooks from decades, you know,
different decades out hers that she cut out. She would
do these collages. There's handwritten I mean that's only one.
That's just one that I think. I actually called my
daughter and said, send me a couple of handwritten recipes.
There's literally hundreds, if not thousands of recipes that she copied.
(16:25):
You know, I have in the book too. Let me
see if I can find it. There's a thing that
in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
She said that she introduced herself as in restaurants. She
would go into.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Restaurants, she would always end up in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That she would end up in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Always, yeah, always. I think that. Let's say dusty fires.
She made it. And the cook in the back, a
lanky twenty eight year old who didn't know that he
was her prey for the evening. She showed him how
to better stir the sauce. She made him hold his
hand over hers as they flipped a dish in a pan.
She asked him who his favorite country Western singers were
(17:03):
and if he had ever been to a proper rodeo.
He was toast. As far as I was concerned, I
knew it was going to be a long night, and
that I might as well go back out into that
parking lot and see what I could find in the
desert beyond it. Parents of the bones we cut our
teeth on, but they never talk about the parents' own teeth.
They never talk about the bite you learned to see coming.
I dreamed about her last night, and I awoke happy
(17:25):
but sweating, because every moment with her was exciting. You
couldn't just go have a meal in a restaurant. She
had to take over the entire restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Did you find it exciting or sometimes embarrassing? Both?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think both, because why wouldn't it be
embarrassing as a child, you know, like, don't bring attention
to us. But then at the same time I could
tell I mean, it was like living with Salvado'dlly. It
was like I remember hearing my dad saying I saw
Salvador Dolly running down the street. It was like running
(18:02):
down Lexington Avenue with a pork chopped capon. It's like,
there's just those people. Why him, Why did he do that?
Why did she do that? Why did he dress that way?
Why were they? You know, somebody wears jeans and a
black T shirt every day, and somebody dresses in the
nicest dresses. They can get versauce in this and that.
My mom just acted the way she was, unapologetically herself,
(18:26):
and there's light growing up on the ranch. When you
have to feed forty eight horses or fifty eight horses
every morning, when you're doing it, it sucks. It's horrible.
It's just labor. But when you look back on it,
you go, thank God for that upbringing. Thank God I
had to get up and get out into the elements
(18:46):
every single morning before I went to school. It made
me who I am. Pastor Robles is considered wine country now,
you know, so it's a very famous wine country. And
(19:09):
when I was growing up there there were two wineries,
so it wasn't known for its wine. Napo was known
for its wineries, but you know, people would it was.
It was a farming community and a horse community, so
people would take their kids out of school for two
or three weeks when the farming happened, when the harvesting happened,
and all that school was not a priority.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
What year was.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Seventy six, Yeah, seventy seven, seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So what was it like? Well, first of all, before
you left home, you worked age fourteen as a chef
is cooking?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It wasn't a chef, no, but you were in the kitchen, right,
I was in the kitchen. Told the story of that
very similarly, is Wolfgang cook?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Because he was like but that was economic. They just said, okay,
you're living in Austria, we don't like you very much.
You're going to go peel potatoes in a suicide.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It's in order to earn Yeah, he worked there.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
He found it. He must try to jump off a bridge.
But for you, how did it actually be a fourteen
year old at home one minute and then working in
a restaurant or twelve? You were twelve?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was twelve, wow, And there was we knew the
owner of the restaurant. It was called Rocky Galenti's. It
was an Italian restaurant. And I started literally I did
I start doing dishes in the back or just like
picking just crap off the walls or whatever I was doing.
And then I started getting into it. And then I
(20:33):
started doing salads, and I started doing chopp salads, and
then like drum rolls, oh yeah, at twelve, no, and
that was like thirteen. By the time I had hit thirteen,
but I was already smoking cigarettes in the back and
taking breaks and you know, little SIPs off glasses of
wine that were left on tables and big restaurants.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Small restaurant.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
No, it was a fairly small restaurant. It felt like
when I think of Italian restaurants now, like authentic Italian restaurants,
they're small. They're all small, small tables. And there was
a guy who would go from table to table and
sing arias. There was a guy who was hired and
he would sing these arias right. And then there was
somebody else who would do caricatures on the wall, kind
(21:15):
of drunken, awful caricatures on the wall that you'd pay him,
and then you were forever stamped onto the Italian restaurant.
Rocky Glend Santa Barbara, Lower State Street and Lower State
Street now is a nice place. Lower State Street then
was not a nice place.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Were they kind in the kitchen to you.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
They were very kind to me. They liked me because
I was also, you know, some version of misfit. All
the cooks were misfits, you know, men and women alike.
There was no gender in there. Oh, yes, yes, there
was a It was like being around because I grew
up around drag racing and racing because my dad, so
(21:55):
we were on a lot of tracks. It reminded me
of that. It reminded me of people who went three
hundred miles an hour. The stress of working in the
restaurant business.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I loved, did you Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And I think it's the only thing that with acting.
It was like, do I love acting? I don't know.
Sometimes do I like the idea of having to live
up to something? Yes? Do I like the fact that,
you know, back in the days before digital there was
film and before that that last bit of film went
(22:28):
in the magazine. You only had that much time, You
only had that take left before the sun went down.
It's a lot of pressure, you know. But I think
having grown up in a kitchen, not only my mother's kitchen,
but that restaurant's kitchen, there was something about that pressure
that I fed off of.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I like, you know, and then at the end of it,
I know it is.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's a lot of yelling, a lot of it was great.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That's the thing about having the you know, when the
open kitchen is you can't it's more like a ballet. Yeah,
you move around to talk to somebody rather than that's
right shot, because you know, kitchens, old fashioned kitchens are
cruel and there. But these young people do you knowsh
they won't take it anymore. They don't want to work.
They won't they don't want to work in a place
where they're bullied or they're you know what, they to feel.
(23:16):
They're just not going to put up with it. What
was it like leaving home? And how did you eat?
Did you cook for yourself?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Did you did? I cooked them up for myself all
the time. I was a teenager and I left because
I left, I was sixteen, so you've seventeen. I had
finished school early. I did the goonies during this I
was going to.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Ask you about So how old were you when did
you well?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I was kicked out of my house in Santa Barbara
and by my mother. She did and I went down
and I think it was very temporary. I think both
of us didn't think it would last. But then I
because you know, i'd been to jail a couple of
times already, and it was you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Know, before you were sixteen. Mm hmm, yeah, the food
in jail.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Do I remember the food in jail? I do very well. Actually,
I think.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
You're the first person I've asked that question to the
one hundred and forty people. Have we had it? I
don't think you've.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Had it because you have a different echelon of people.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I come from echeon, but just an experience. So what
was the food like?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
In food was always stale, always one hundred percent of
the time. There was rice crispies, There was warm milk,
There was a piece of white bread.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
We're talking about breakfast.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
That's when you wake you always wake up in jail.
We can talk about the rest of it, which is
when you stay in line and you get the slop.
There's cafeteria slop.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So let's go back to the right. That would be
your breakfast in your cell.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
That would be your breakfast in your cell, which is
put on a tray and that's a little opening that
you have in your door, and on that tray is
usually what you did and why you're in in jail
in case you were in a blackout while you did it,
so you look at what you've done. You'd take out
this arrest sheet and look at it and say, oh,
I'm in here for whatever whatever I was in there
(25:13):
for at the time. The jail a few times. It
was a few times after sixteen. There's a general rule
which is actually not but jail. You spent up to
one year in prison. You spend more than one year.
So I was in jail. I was never in prison,
but I was in jail nine times. But yeah, jail.
There was one point where I was looking at fourteen
(25:35):
years in prisons that would be prison, but that got
knocked down too.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I did a few months as long as you stayed.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It was a few months.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
A few months. And the food again, because I'm sure so.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Much had a great show. Who went on because to
work with Wolfgang Puck and they collaborated in a restaurant.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Called Clank Spago Click.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
But the.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
No, I just went to a dinner, charity dinner and
they talked about food in prisons.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Did they Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Is it kind of and how good they are?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Or how do you know what.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
We spend in Britain? I think a day for three
meals a day is something like one pound twenty on prisoner,
so you're giving them there's no sense of rehabilitation, right.
It was a meeting of chefs and we just say,
how do you reckon if? Prison obviously is punishment, but
it also is the idea that you're going to make
somebody better, worse or worse. We're making them worse by
(26:41):
saying we're only going to spend one pound twenty and
feed you the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
How I'm not still in prison, but listen for me.
I mean, you're a parent, and you know I've been
a parents since I was twenty years old, nineteen when
she was pregnant, and I was looking at that jail
time when she was pregnant. So I was going from
(27:07):
once I got out of jail, I was living in
a half way house and I was going on a
Harley Davidson motorcycle going from a halfway house to birthing class,
you know, breathe one, two, three, three. I mean it
was chaotic, but it was, which is the suggestion of
the book is like that was normal. That's the only
(27:28):
type of living I knew how to do. And I
was very lucky because I had books which had a
massive impact on me. I had a guy named Anthony
Zerbe who's an actor. He's eighty seven. He's still my
best friend. And he would come and just like literally,
I would open my door. We did a series together
(27:48):
in Tucson, Arizona, when I was like twenty twenty one.
I would open the door and there'd be eight books
just standing there at six in the morning. You know,
was never read this, and this is how you should.
He'd just be a stack, and then a month later
there'd be another stack, and then there'd be another stack.
And then we ended up doing plays together. And I
heard him and roscal Lee Brown do it hour and
(28:10):
a half of the most amazing hour and a half
of poetry spoken poetry, which I can't think of anything
more boring as a concept. It's like, go watch people
speak poetry for an hour and a half. It's like it.
But they were so dynamic and they understood the music
of language and it was its own food. And I
(28:34):
sat there watching that at twenty years old, and I
just said, that's what I want. That's couldn't get enough
of it.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
If you like listening to Ruthie's table Flour Would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Thank you so, Josh. Would you read the recipe that
you chose for today and that we cooked for today,
Rigatoni with cavalo narrow and the new olive oil.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Would you like me to read it in Italian or English?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You can read it in any language you like.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Rigatoni with Cavola naro and new olive oil serves six
one kilogram cavolo narrow leaves, two garlic cloves peeled, two
hundred and fifty militers extra virgin olive oil, five hundred
grams rigatoni freshly grated parmesan. This pasta is a celebration
(29:45):
of two ingredients that arrive at the same moment in
the year, Covola naro and the first pressed peppery, extra
virgin olive oil. Remove the stalks from the covolon naro leaves,
but keep the leaves hole. Blanch them in boiling salted
water along with the garlic cloves for five minutes. Drain.
(30:08):
Put the blanched cavolonaro and garlic into a food processor
and pulse chop to a puree. In the last couple
of seconds, pour in about two hundred millilters of the
extra virgin olive oil. This will make fairly liquid, dark
green pure season well. Cook the Rigatonian boiling salted water.
(30:29):
Then drain, put the pasta into a bowl, add the sauce,
and stir until each piece is thickly coated. Pour over
the remaining extra virgin olive oil, and serve with parmigiano.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
There you go. Thank you. Oh and here's Joseph who's
going to come and talk about cavaloneero pure with RIGATONI.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Thank you for this.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
That's okay, beautiful.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
So the important thing about this plated pasta is the
olive oil, which is barely three weeks.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Old at this point, barely three weeks old.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Good, yeah, the same.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
This is the same.
Speaker 6 (31:12):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely to.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Get this olive oil.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
To get this olive oil, where did you go? We're
in Tuscany, So we go around Tuscany.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
This particular olive oil is from not far from Florence.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Florence.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Just you know, okay, I was just I wasn't sure.
And it's so nice to go and then try the
olive oil. And that's one thing. That's amazing.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
But then when you put them in food, it's it
transforms again.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
And I think this is really.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
Nice with the sweet pasta.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Makes me hungry.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Try try so good.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So what do they do? They soak it in the pepper.
No no, no, no no, this is this is from the.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Tree. They bring it into the press. Next year we go.
You should come with us, because it's an amazing You
go to these farmers. You know, they're the people works
you who also produce the wine. Right, so they produce wine,
and they produce the olives, right and for these guys
who are making you know, every dish they can with
olive oil. Then to see the process. But also this
is new. You would never heat this up. So we're
(32:23):
using the twenty three oil right now to cook with.
And then this is this you would never have except
on a piece of toast or yeah, i'll give you
some to take home. So this is liquid gold right now,
it's very we haven't had the whole process.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
So when you open it, how long can it keep for?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
We can keep because you just keep sealing it. And
if you just close it, it's fine. It's fine. I mean
here we you know, we use we use seven thousand
bottles of olive oil year.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Sure, it's amazing. I think if I didn't have young kids,
I would be in Italy.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
But you bring them, you know, there are schools you
can know, you know somebody who's living, you know, living.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
In We just moved usual a place that's as close
to Europe as I think we can get in California,
and we're very happy there.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
In Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara. I was at the
San Sidro Ranch like millions of years, very close, millions
of years the rich and I went there. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Is nice?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Do you like? Yeah? I did? I did like we
walked and except there was one thing I did. I
really I am not happy with that. Snakes.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Snakes.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I feel pretty strongly about snakes, and I understand that.
Do you get it when I go to places I
now have found out that I say to people, do
you have snakes here? Because I really like them? Yeah?
Because you tell them you're scared, They tell you there
are no snakes. Say I'd really like to see some snakes.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Do you have? Then they go yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Then I go by out of there like.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
You manipulated thirty seconds. So there was really smart. Actually,
I love snakes. Do you guys have any really love them?
We have a ton of rattle snakes in the hills.
If you go in the hills, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah. Then you know, it's like telling your account and
you're spending too much money before they tell you you do?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I do.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right now? You love them?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
We all love them. We all picked them up. And
we like about spiders. Steel like spiders.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Fine, anything, fine, anything, anything anything. I could take a spider,
I could take a mouse.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
You don't like.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's just a snake that I don't like. So we
were swimming in one of those pools at the San
is Sidro and I was really happy. I was just
swimming and Richard I just heard this voice saying, Ruthie,
don't look to your right, look to your left and
just swim. And I was going, are you telling that
there's a snake? No, I'm just telling you to get out.
And then we got out and they were like all
(34:49):
over the place.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
They were the snake in the pool.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, in the pool, not in the swimming pool, but
like we were hiking and we just decided to go
in the pond.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I wouldn't like that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I don't like it. But I liked Santa Barbara and
I like that place. And there's a great Mexican isn't
there like a street Mexican place that sells tacos that's.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Kind of like street tacos, like small tacos.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, really really good area.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Do you ever travel around looking for new recipes?
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Many recipes ideas.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I'm Richard. My husband's an architect, used to say that
it's just a progression, isn't it. So one day you're
making an almond tart with raspberries in the summer, and
then you'll say, you know, this would be good with
pears in the winter. Or you'd say, maybe this time,
you know, with the sea bass that we cook in salt,
maybe we'll take a turbot and do it in salt,
(35:39):
and he'll do it cold, and we'll put instead of salsaveritia,
we'll put basalamon vinegar on it. And it's a kind
of it isn't like for me anyway. It isn't like, Oh,
I have an idea, let's make a pasta with blueberries
and parmesan. You know, it isn't like an item. It's
a kind of constant drip by, drip by drip that.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
Is exact, it's exactly right. I think that you might
come in and you think, today, I'm going to make
this risotto and it's you know, with pheasant like we
are today, and then but then through lunch we're talking
about how we could make it better, and.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Tomorrow we'll do it again and it'll just be a
little bit different, a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You know, the dish is the same, but every person
is getting something different.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Is that parallel and acting or writing your book?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
I think when you're doing a play, I think it's
like that. If you're willing to experiment. I can't imagine
doing I'm sure like you can't imagine doing a dish
for a year and a half the same dish. Do
you do that? Do you always have the same menu? No?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
No, no, we change every every meal. Every Yeah, so
Joseph at the menu this morning, and then today's Sean
will come in at three thirty and she'll write the
menu for tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
That's how I feel about theaters sometimes, because you can
do it roll and then you can you learn different
idiots and crowd it kind of I don't know behaviors
in that role to better tell that story, to better
get into that character. But then there's a point for
me where I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, what else can
(37:12):
we do? Or maybe I'll mix up the blocking, I'll
walk in a different direction. And you have other actors
that go, no, you can't do that because they rely
on the repetitiveness of it. But I like being off camber.
That's why I think I loved cooking. That's why I
think I love painting. That's why I think I love writing.
It's why I think I love photography because there is
(37:34):
no mastering it. You know. I don't think you can
ever mask it. This canvas that is getting bigger faster
than you can figure it out. Then you can fill it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I'm gone right, thanks, Okay. If you were feeling that
you needed a comfort from food, yeah, is there a
food that you would go to a time? And what
would it be? What could the diction?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Something that makes me comfortable, something that makes me happy
would be would be a pasta. It would have mushrooms
in it, it would have I like mushrooms for some reason,
I really like mushrooms. Yeah, and Banafi Banafi's a comfortab
(38:23):
Is Banafi' is my most What.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Is it tell me about?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
What itffe' it's toffee, bananas, homemade cream, dulcea de leche,
which what is doulcea de leche? Sugar and milk, condensed milk.
It can be condensed milk, or it's sugar and milk
melted down in a pan. You know, it's been thirty
(38:48):
years since she's died. But anytime that I'm anywhere, especially Europe,
and they serve Banaffi, like, oh my god, look damn Binoffi.
I love you, Mama. Yeah, you eat something great. It's
just like getting a big hug inside. It's like, oh,
I love you, Josh. You know what I mean. So
(39:09):
if I eat banaffi, I'm not just eating Banaffi. I'm
eating an experience that I've had that I not only
appreciate and love looking back on, but feel like I'm reliving.
My mother was very into key lime pie too, And
I don't base everything just off my mother, but but
key lime pie. When I ask if the key lime
(39:30):
is real, that's the thing, is Li'm real? Is it white?
It's all these things that I grew up with that
felt like the knowledge, Like she had the knowledge she
was going to call you out if it was fake.
You know, and I loved that there was something this
kind of demand for the organic. Yeah, integrity, yes, but
(39:55):
demand for the organic, Like, are you giving me McDonald's
or you giving me the real deal? Did you? Did
you put your soul into this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I wish i'd met her.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah, me too. You guys would have loved each other.
You know, there's some people that I go, people go, oh,
I wish you know I would have met her. I go, No,
you don't. Nope, No, she would have buried you. But yes,
I think you guys would have adored each other.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Well, she has a great son.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Thank you, thank you, thank
Speaker 1 (40:24):
You, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in
partnership with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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