May 6, 2024 • 34 mins
Thinking about Laura Dern coming here today, I scrolled through three years of text messages. It's a story about making plans and choosing restaurants to go to.
As usual, most of our ideas were aspirational, adapting around our families, movies, cooking and travel. Laura is fun, curious and smart, hanging with the crew on set.
She has memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes. She is a bold spokesperson for women in the film.
Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A., remembers that as a trustee, she was a rigorous and remarkable client.
Today, we're here in the River cafe to talk about all this and more.
Listen to Ruthie’s Table 4: Laura Dern made in partnership with Moncler – out now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with
Montclair thinking about.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Laura Dern coming here to day. I found myself scrolling
through three years of text messages. It's kind of a
story about making plans to meet our excitement at the
thought of seeing each other in La or London, choosing
restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of a
fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most of
(00:25):
ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.
Laura is loved by me and many others. She's fond,
she's curious, she's smart, she hangs with a crew on set,
passionate about her children, Jaya and Ellery. She has strong
memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes.
(00:48):
Laura fights for human rights, social values. It is a
bold and brave spokesperson for women in the film industry.
Directors and writers consider her first when making a movie.
Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion
Pictures in La remembers that as a trustee, she was
a rigorous and remarkable client. He asked me to give
(01:10):
her a hug. Laura Dern loves to eat, and she
cares about food and the politics of feeding people safely
and sustainably. Today we're here in the River Cafe to
talk about all this and more. And after I give
her the hug from Lorenzo and another one for me,
that's what we're going to do. So tell me about
(01:33):
your cooking with Sean.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible,
and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the
last probably seven years of making movies here in London,
My memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here
at the River Cafe. This is where we plot and
(01:59):
create an vent and over the course of a meal
that's always remembered. So then I was on set with
Noah bound back this week, and we'd had dinner here together,
the two of us, talking about what it's feeling like
and how it feels different for him than the last
movies in his life. And as we're describing it, we're
(02:21):
describing like, my God, wasn't that wine incredible? Can you
believe that salad was? What was the art of show?
How did she make that art to show? And we're
just you know, it becomes this organic part of memory,
food and art, and you've created this sustainable, inventive place
(02:43):
for art and artists that is forever seeped in my
memory so already. It's such a gift and it means
so much. And now our friendship which is growing and evolving,
and we're getting finally getting time together, but also being
in the kitchen and watching a great chef's kitchen and
(03:04):
it feels rigorous and stressful. I walk away from it saying,
that's such a terrifying space, and there's something even cold
about it. And the minute you walk in, first of all,
the warmth of the kitchen as part of the room,
that the chef is not separate from the client, that
(03:27):
we're all eating and creating and inventing this day together.
That's what's so beautiful about the space you've created. And
then Sean's energy is so beautiful, and that she wants
to teach as much as she loves to cook is
so amazing. And my son we were sharing ellery has really,
(03:48):
through the pandemic, discovered his love of cooking. And he
always had that innate instinct even as a little boy,
you know, putting something together. He knew how to kind
of close his eyes and pick the right flavors or something.
But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.
He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever
(04:11):
experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.
And to make a meal alongside other people is like
when you're collaborating in the studio. You don't know what's
going to happen or how we're going to invent together
to create this same goal, this piece of art. But
everyone has their unique rhythm.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Hi, I'm done, and I'm making a potatoes alborno with
sage with lord. The potatoes are done in the wood open,
but you don't need to have a wood open in
your house time.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Okay, good, you might have one. No, he don't, I
will don't.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Oh yeah, so this is your recipe that you've chosen.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, And so.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then they've been
tossed with garlic and sage and covered and cooked for
about forty five minutes and then just sprout in another
it's really.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
A traditional oven. What would you do? You just put
it in forty five minutes.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, So when you read the recipe. You'll see to
slice of potatoes, scarlet sage cover it and then you
uncover it and brown it and it will turn out
like that, I promise you.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And you'd only use the fresh sage leaves, right.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, well you can use anything is fine. Roast, Yeah,
it's really nice with fish or meat, anything another beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
This is my son's obsession also with there's the beauty
to the irregularity, and there's a beauty to the shaving.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And like he was like, when you have a.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
True critata in Spain.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, when he's like America, try to make it and
it's you never get the texture of it, right, there's like.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A density like aldento and pasta.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yes, exactly. And I wonder whether it's something to do
with the potato because it's actually like a waxy potato.
By the end of today, you'll know how to make that.
You can impress your son and you know what you're
where you're going with it?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Now, Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think like when you get really good at cooking,
I think you don't need to cook with your eyes.
You cook it with other senses. I reckon you can
cook with your ears. Because you can hear how it's cooking,
aren't you, and then you can obviously smell and she
just got it like somewhere in your intuition.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, I wonder what your son thinks.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I have to ask them.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Need your eyes.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know, when you're like frying garlic or something, and
when it goes into oil, it's sort of making a noise.
But as it browns, it starts to change in the sound.
I reckon you can tell when when it's brown.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Just buying the sound.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Oh that's so yeah, I'm really into I'm really put
without your eyes?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yes, all right, you got that's amazing. I'm not got that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, if he wants to come and have a look,
I have a kitchen any time.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh my god, I have to bring in it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
A day with them.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Are you kidding? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, oh my god, that would be wo talk about him?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Should we read the recipe first? Why don't you read
the recipe?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay? So the recipe is potato alfoo, four tablespoons of
olive oil, four garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced, twenty
sage leaves. We spoke a lot about the sage because
the sage is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight
hundred and fifty gram's Rosevale or similar yellow waxy potatoes,
(07:45):
peeled sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the
oven to one ninety degrees. You heat the oil and
a frying pan. Stir in the garlic. Slice each potato
lengthway is down the middle, so that you are left
with two thick slices. Place in a large bowl, season
(08:07):
with salt and pepper, tossed together with olive oil and sage.
Put in a baking dish, cover with foil, and you
cook in the oven for forty minutes. About twenty minutes
before the end of cooking, remove the foil so that
the surface of the potatoes become brown. Now the sage
(08:28):
looked so fresh, which I think is a key. And
she was saying, these amazing waxy potatoes are from Italy,
and I don't even know how I find those waxy
potatoes in California or what they translate as.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I can't answer that, But we can find them. You
can find great potatoes. I mean, the stream for potatoes
is when I went to perof you just seeing all
these you know, different different, different potatoes. But I bet
if we went to a market in La we can
find the potatoes so that they'll give you a Rosevelt potato.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Show it to the amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Amazing potatoes.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But I also was so touched, especially because I said,
I want to make it for ellery by not only
the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't
like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like
in filmmaking something being off center. You know that there's
(09:30):
something so beautiful about the way it looks. And I
was really touched by that. And he always comments on that,
like when we've been in Spain and you have a
frittata and the potatoes the density, like he was comparing
it to al dente and pasta, like you have it.
There's a little bite to them, and they can be
very potatoes can be very mushy.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well that's why I think there when she said waxy,
they're not flowering. You know, you have a baked potato
with sour cream or whatever you have with it, you
want it to be quite flowery. And we have mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You want them not to be waxy.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But these hold their shape and they kind of a
defined and always sounds better and better, what where is he?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I know, we got to get him over here.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
If he's concerned about the way that potatoes just lie
and I want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
He's a musician, yes he did guitarist, singer songwriter, and
now he's just started producing his first record for an
amazing artist, a female singer songwriter. And so I think
sound and instinct is everything. You know, it's really Yeah,
it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
But over food, talking over food, food and sharing a
meal and creating also really happens together, doesn't it so much?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I was just saying to a girlfriend. She was like,
what is the thing that makes you know? And I said,
if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal, oh yeah, yeah,
million percent.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, you know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that
people are really nice.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York.
I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are
often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians,
and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.
I was taught that, you know, you not only the
(11:25):
focus and regard, but actually honoring their performance of the
specials as high art and so the performance of specials
was given deep in high regard for.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
A long time. The friend of mine had their two
children who were like eight and ten. We were all
having their journalists. We were all having lunch in a restaurant,
and the little daughter turned him and said blue, daddy,
and then the sun later on said brown. And I said,
what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught them
(11:58):
to learn the color of the eyes the person who's
waiting on their table, so that they look at them.
And I thought that was really a nice way of
doing it, that they just met the you know somebody. Yeah,
since a brown blue, blue brow.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That's amazing, it's nice.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, let's go back, Okay, because we've talked about your son,
we haven't talked about your daughter yet, but about it
does she is? She interested in food.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She is like me, We love food and we appreciate food.
And she is a fierce young activist. So she definitely
cares deeply about sustainability and the politics of food, particularly
in the US, and so we have a lot of
conversations about where the food is coming from, carbon emissions,
(12:46):
how to support it, regenerative farming, the soil itself, and
she was a really beautiful supporter of a series of films,
and I've been a producer on the most recent, which
has Kissed the Ground, and now a film made Common Ground,
which is sort of the sequel to that about regenerative farming.
And so she's learned a lot about the question of
(13:08):
over tilling and pesticides and big food the industry of it,
and obviously the laws in the UK and EU are
very different than in the US, in which chemicals are
somehow god in the US, which is tragic and hopefully
changing more and more with independent farmers, and so she
(13:30):
is deeply interested in it, which is really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toadbags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot K. I'm a grandmother now and
(14:09):
I think there is something about wanting to cook for
your grandchildren in a way that you were, maybe as
a working mother, not able to do or to do
enough and tell me about the role that your grandmother
played in your childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, so a majority of
my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama,
and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And
(14:45):
so the roots of my family are so tied to
food and tradition in the South.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When we think
about France in Italy and Britain having you know, the
north of France has a very different cuisine from the
south of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine
from Sicily. And then you think about American food and
you think, well, there's a food of Vermont really different
from the food of Ohio or but the food actually
(15:18):
of the South has such a strong identity.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from. Just
like in the Great Lakes, you know, a very Scandinavian
focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly in
New Orleans obviously, there's so much French influence, but there's
(15:41):
also the influence of the American farmer. And what was
incredible was in lower income families, the food was simpler
and from the land that you had. But my grandmother
was getting what she could from her fellow friends and
and farms locally.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah,
oh she did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know, that was sort of
the staple of your meal. But when she was in
the South, especially when they were on the farm, the
major meal of the day was breakfast, which was so wild.
(16:29):
They would have like really like an early morning breakfast
and then go out and work in the fields and
then come back and have this huge breakfast at like
ten in the morning because they'd already been working since
four am. And I remember as a little girl when
I would go visit my grandfather in Mississippi, and at
(16:51):
ten am, it was corn bread and eggs and bacon
and grits and collars and a coconut cake. The cake
or a cake for breakfast with your coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You know. Would this be weekdays as well?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Every day for them, every day you know, but the
Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was like a big.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Never, although my mom just told me that when they
were first together in New York, he would cook on
Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do
like a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops
or some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the
other actors, and whoever was working would feed everybody. My
(17:41):
father was raised in Chicago with a very influential and
wealthy family, grabing aristocratic family.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
See the husband of your grandmother who came to look
after or a different no.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Side, Yeah, yeah, the Durn McLeish side, and it was
Secretary of War under FDR. Poet Laureate of the US
that chi yeah, no, yeah, Now.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
How are you related to Archibal?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
That's my dad's uncle. Archibald McLeish was the Poet Laureate
under FDR. While his grandfather on his father's side, George Dern,
was Secretary of War under FDR.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So Warnora Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
His godmother, who was eleanor I mean I've lost that one,
was my dad's godmother.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Brewster's godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But in that family, no one you have someone cooking,
and so he didn't grow up with it at all,
but he loved it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I was sinking. If you don't have any money, then
probably you have to learn to cook if you want
to eat well exactly. But if you do, then you know,
there are probably quite a lot of men and women
who never went into a kitchen.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And also, my mom tells so many stories of like
literally hungry actors in New York City. My mom came
to New York with twenty dollars in her pocket and
a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from a
tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said,
you know, you used to go in and if you
ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a
(19:13):
beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would
give them bread and butter.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, your father
came from a food culture, was there a time when
you went off on your own and suddenly there was
not that comfort food or a.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Million percent I mean I started acting at eleven and
I was on location by myself at sixteen on and
working on movies meant eating on the run and eating
poorly and eating in small towns everywhere, and so it
(19:55):
became what is provided to small town America, which was
fast food, eating tragic. This isn't what y're starting in
the late seventies, and I only discovered the gift of
the connection between eating beautifully and food becoming a part
(20:20):
of my artistic experience in the last decade because of
heroes like you.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
But do you think that you could work or act
or do what you do better if you actually had
healthy food on a film set, or do you think
it doesn't matter?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(21:00):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production how to do that
more and more. Kate Blanchette care so deeply about this
as well. We've been having conversations about, you know, making
sure there is a model that production follows more and more.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did
a podcast and his dream and there are a few
directors who would say, would not to stop at all,
you know that sitting down to a meal, Let's do
that at the end, we'll all go out to dinner.
We'll do this. But he tried it. He tried giving
everyone soup, and of course there was a rebellion, especially
months of crew saying we can't do the lighting of
(21:46):
this or that out a bowl of soup.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and
I've seen it done in Italy. When I've worked and
you're you're not taking a lunch so as people are free,
you're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break,
when the actors are taking a break, so that you
(22:09):
have a shorter day, so that everybody has the time
to be with their family. Yeah, and then you have
time for a meal with your family or your collaborators,
which I think works beautifully. I mean I've worked on
a couple of productions now where there's a certain amount
of meat and it's on order. So the day before,
if you're someone who wants meet a meal that involves meat,
(22:32):
you're pre ordering so you're not wasting that day of food.
And then also working with local communities so that you're
taking the food and giving it to the community and
there's no waste, because the waste is shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you
please make sure to and review the podcast on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you. What was it like with David Lynch, Because
(23:18):
you talk about him a lot and you've worked with
him a lot. What was foodise? What was David's is?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, it matters to him and sharing a meal matters
to him. And from the first time I worked with him,
which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen, and those
meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you know,
at night, we go and we eat together. You know,
we go to we find a couple of chefs in
(23:47):
that town that become friends. They know what we love
and we learn what they make and at the end
of the day, we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
What about food and movies when you do a food scene,
their food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally, just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think
it's more of a meditation than a linear film. And
it was an amazing experience. We shot over almost three years. Yeah,
and he wanted to make a film so that everyone
(24:37):
could be inspired to make a movie. He's like, if
you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona, and
you've got your grandparents sony camcorder, you pick that up
and you make a movie, and now you can do
it with your iPhone. But we did a scene in
a hotel room in Paris, and it was this very
long monologue me on a phone call and we'd sit
down for our cafe ole, and he wanted his Penishoko
(25:02):
law and he would write on a legal pad and
I would sit there and he would look at me
like a painter and just be writing this monologue. And
then he'd give it to me, and he's like, now
while I have my Panasha cola, you learn your monologue
and it's like seven pages, and so I'm like, you
better eat slow, buddy. So then i'd try to learn
(25:24):
it and do a probably poor job, but attempt, and
then we'd go to the hotel room and he would
do my makeup or I would do my makeup, or
we'd work on it together, and then he would set
up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And we
shot this monologue and he was happy with it, and
(25:44):
I was so exciting. He was like, we got it.
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side
table and there were two perfect ladree maqueron which that
hotel would have, and there was a pistachio one. It
was so the green was so beautiful and he bit
(26:06):
into it was so fresh, and then he said, okay,
now we'll do the close up and he set up
the shine and he goes, where's the macaron? I'm like,
what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I ate it?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
He goes, you ate my props.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie. I ate the prop and he
was like, you have to go now to Landerie and
get a pistachio macaron I was.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudyte that was in the middle of the table.
And the waiter came up and said, you just ate
our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten somehow. He said, I
need the floral arrangement.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I think had then guess.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
What happened my whole mouth Vietnam. It was part of
that floral arrangement was some weird plant and I thought, Okay.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm gonna die.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I'm going to die in this lunch with the mayor
in Mexico because I ate the flower flower plant but
no called flowers something. Do you think about food a lot?
Do you think what you're going to eat the next day?
Or do you go to bed thinking, well, well I
have when I wake up, or do you wake up
and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
My son started cooking. We've started having conversations that we
never had before and challenging ourselves, you know, like how
do we really make truly a great Cajun style red
beans and rice? Because we talk about my grandmother and
how i'd have red beans, didn't you know as a
(27:40):
baby only? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a
book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine
and the book it's a book.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Did you publish it?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah? And and in the sort of subtitle we reference
banana pudding and there are a few of her recipes
for chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and cobbler
and chicken and dumplings is such an interesting thing because
it's what is. It's fascinating because it's like the mainstay
(28:21):
meal that can be made no matter what family you
come from and where you are in life. And it's
a big part of Southern culture. And I think in
communities who are struggling, like my mom's family, you need flour,
you need starch, and you know, and chicken and that's it.
(28:44):
And so but the dumplings are radically different, and it's
interesting like in the UK, like a chicken pie, the
idea of flour and in a way a dumpling or
a potato being used within it. There's a similarity in it,
(29:04):
just like cobblers. I think.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So in California, being in LA, you have such a
fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do
you think we do?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California.
So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative farming.
And you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets,
health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not
(29:39):
illegalized the use of glycasates and roundup in California, which
is illegal in many farming states throughout the US, now,
which I find tragedy. There are so many small farms,
and there are some amazing companies and corporations even like
general mills that are starting to you put money into
(30:02):
supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat.
That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
What about what about the wellness industry? Because I know
that you've also done a lot of investigation into what
is wellness? What is you.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Know it starts with food and my mom and I's
book seemingly is two actresses talking her mother and daughter
about things we've never spoken about before. But the auspices,
the reason for its existence, and the hope was to
promote the fact that my mother moved to a beautiful town, Ohi, California,
(30:46):
which is gorgeous for produce and farming, to get away
from la and the smog and moved into a beautiful
home surrounded by orange groves which were those were then
bought by sun Kiss, therefore Monsanto, and they were spraying
(31:06):
without notification, and my mom was exposed to glyc estates
over five years and ended up with a lung disease.
And so Hi, she's struggling still but doing amazing. And
the only protocol that was given was eating healthfully and
(31:27):
to get her walking. And so our book is me
getting her walking on oxygen a few steps and every
day we walked, and I knew to get her walking,
I had to get her telling stories, and then I
recorded the stories, so it unfolded. But it also gave
us an opportunity to do press, to talk about pesticides,
(31:49):
and to talk about healthy eating and wellness and breathing
fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well that's what we're doing today. You know the story
of food, of memory and.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Passing down recipes and stories of our grandparents and great
grandparents and our children.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Do you go out to eat lunch? Do you I
go to? Where? Do you? What kind of restaurants do
you look for when you go?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, hero restaurants like yours, that provide local and healthy
food that put art and love into it is my favorite.
But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies,
I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the
(32:36):
food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so i'll,
you know, unless I'm in London and I get you know,
a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's
rare so around the world. You can also often find
restaurants that don't mess it up by you know, smothering food,
(33:00):
which is a very Southern tradition. You just smother everything
with every possible spice and yeah, it's just crazy that
you can't taste the food anymore. And now that the hobby,
I think thanks to my son, has been getting to
understand the food differently and want to understand how to cook.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well. We want to have him here, We want to
definitely have more of you. And this has been such
an incredible time and just to talk about food is love,
and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food
is a legacy. It's also comfort, yea. And one of
the questions that we do ask is there food that
you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It always was cobbler growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
As certain fruit or just any cobbler.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Maybe peaches pieces that would be, you know, because of
remembering my grandmother's love of it and her taste, the
taste of peaches and like that idea of summer and
the scent of them. And but I think for me now,
comfort is community.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Let's go eat, eat all right.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you, thank you, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with
Montclair thinking about.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Laura Dern coming here to day. I found myself scrolling
through three years of text messages. It's kind of a
story about making plans to meet our excitement at the
thought of seeing each other in La or London, choosing
restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of a
fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most of
(00:25):
ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.
Laura is loved by me and many others. She's fond,
she's curious, she's smart, she hangs with a crew on set,
passionate about her children, Jaya and Ellery. She has strong
memories of her grandmother and describes her parents as heroes.
(00:48):
Laura fights for human rights, social values. It is a
bold and brave spokesperson for women in the film industry.
Directors and writers consider her first when making a movie.
Renzo Piano, the architect for the Academy Museum of Motion
Pictures in La remembers that as a trustee, she was
a rigorous and remarkable client. He asked me to give
(01:10):
her a hug. Laura Dern loves to eat, and she
cares about food and the politics of feeding people safely
and sustainably. Today we're here in the River Cafe to
talk about all this and more. And after I give
her the hug from Lorenzo and another one for me,
that's what we're going to do. So tell me about
(01:33):
your cooking with Sean.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible,
and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the
last probably seven years of making movies here in London,
My memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here
at the River Cafe. This is where we plot and
(01:59):
create an vent and over the course of a meal
that's always remembered. So then I was on set with
Noah bound back this week, and we'd had dinner here together,
the two of us, talking about what it's feeling like
and how it feels different for him than the last
movies in his life. And as we're describing it, we're
(02:21):
describing like, my God, wasn't that wine incredible? Can you
believe that salad was? What was the art of show?
How did she make that art to show? And we're
just you know, it becomes this organic part of memory,
food and art, and you've created this sustainable, inventive place
(02:43):
for art and artists that is forever seeped in my
memory so already. It's such a gift and it means
so much. And now our friendship which is growing and evolving,
and we're getting finally getting time together, but also being
in the kitchen and watching a great chef's kitchen and
(03:04):
it feels rigorous and stressful. I walk away from it saying,
that's such a terrifying space, and there's something even cold
about it. And the minute you walk in, first of all,
the warmth of the kitchen as part of the room,
that the chef is not separate from the client, that
(03:27):
we're all eating and creating and inventing this day together.
That's what's so beautiful about the space you've created. And
then Sean's energy is so beautiful, and that she wants
to teach as much as she loves to cook is
so amazing. And my son we were sharing ellery has really,
(03:48):
through the pandemic, discovered his love of cooking. And he
always had that innate instinct even as a little boy,
you know, putting something together. He knew how to kind
of close his eyes and pick the right flavors or something.
But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.
He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever
(04:11):
experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.
And to make a meal alongside other people is like
when you're collaborating in the studio. You don't know what's
going to happen or how we're going to invent together
to create this same goal, this piece of art. But
everyone has their unique rhythm.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Hi, I'm done, and I'm making a potatoes alborno with
sage with lord. The potatoes are done in the wood open,
but you don't need to have a wood open in
your house time.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Okay, good, you might have one. No, he don't, I
will don't.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Oh yeah, so this is your recipe that you've chosen.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, And so.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then they've been
tossed with garlic and sage and covered and cooked for
about forty five minutes and then just sprout in another
it's really.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
A traditional oven. What would you do? You just put
it in forty five minutes.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, So when you read the recipe. You'll see to
slice of potatoes, scarlet sage cover it and then you
uncover it and brown it and it will turn out
like that, I promise you.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And you'd only use the fresh sage leaves, right.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, well you can use anything is fine. Roast, Yeah,
it's really nice with fish or meat, anything another beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
This is my son's obsession also with there's the beauty
to the irregularity, and there's a beauty to the shaving.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And like he was like, when you have a.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
True critata in Spain.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, when he's like America, try to make it and
it's you never get the texture of it, right, there's like.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A density like aldento and pasta.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yes, exactly. And I wonder whether it's something to do
with the potato because it's actually like a waxy potato.
By the end of today, you'll know how to make that.
You can impress your son and you know what you're
where you're going with it?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Now, Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think like when you get really good at cooking,
I think you don't need to cook with your eyes.
You cook it with other senses. I reckon you can
cook with your ears. Because you can hear how it's cooking,
aren't you, and then you can obviously smell and she
just got it like somewhere in your intuition.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, I wonder what your son thinks.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I have to ask them.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Need your eyes.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know, when you're like frying garlic or something, and
when it goes into oil, it's sort of making a noise.
But as it browns, it starts to change in the sound.
I reckon you can tell when when it's brown.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Just buying the sound.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Oh that's so yeah, I'm really into I'm really put
without your eyes?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yes, all right, you got that's amazing. I'm not got that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, if he wants to come and have a look,
I have a kitchen any time.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh my god, I have to bring in it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
A day with them.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Are you kidding? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, oh my god, that would be wo talk about him?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Should we read the recipe first? Why don't you read
the recipe?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay? So the recipe is potato alfoo, four tablespoons of
olive oil, four garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced, twenty
sage leaves. We spoke a lot about the sage because
the sage is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight
hundred and fifty gram's Rosevale or similar yellow waxy potatoes,
(07:45):
peeled sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the
oven to one ninety degrees. You heat the oil and
a frying pan. Stir in the garlic. Slice each potato
lengthway is down the middle, so that you are left
with two thick slices. Place in a large bowl, season
(08:07):
with salt and pepper, tossed together with olive oil and sage.
Put in a baking dish, cover with foil, and you
cook in the oven for forty minutes. About twenty minutes
before the end of cooking, remove the foil so that
the surface of the potatoes become brown. Now the sage
(08:28):
looked so fresh, which I think is a key. And
she was saying, these amazing waxy potatoes are from Italy,
and I don't even know how I find those waxy
potatoes in California or what they translate as.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I can't answer that, But we can find them. You
can find great potatoes. I mean, the stream for potatoes
is when I went to perof you just seeing all
these you know, different different, different potatoes. But I bet
if we went to a market in La we can
find the potatoes so that they'll give you a Rosevelt potato.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Show it to the amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Amazing potatoes.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But I also was so touched, especially because I said,
I want to make it for ellery by not only
the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't
like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like
in filmmaking something being off center. You know that there's
(09:30):
something so beautiful about the way it looks. And I
was really touched by that. And he always comments on that,
like when we've been in Spain and you have a
frittata and the potatoes the density, like he was comparing
it to al dente and pasta, like you have it.
There's a little bite to them, and they can be
very potatoes can be very mushy.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well that's why I think there when she said waxy,
they're not flowering. You know, you have a baked potato
with sour cream or whatever you have with it, you
want it to be quite flowery. And we have mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You want them not to be waxy.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But these hold their shape and they kind of a
defined and always sounds better and better, what where is he?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I know, we got to get him over here.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
If he's concerned about the way that potatoes just lie
and I want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
He's a musician, yes he did guitarist, singer songwriter, and
now he's just started producing his first record for an
amazing artist, a female singer songwriter. And so I think
sound and instinct is everything. You know, it's really Yeah,
it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
But over food, talking over food, food and sharing a
meal and creating also really happens together, doesn't it so much?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I was just saying to a girlfriend. She was like,
what is the thing that makes you know? And I said,
if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal, oh yeah, yeah,
million percent.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, you know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that
people are really nice.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York.
I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are
often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians,
and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.
I was taught that, you know, you not only the
(11:25):
focus and regard, but actually honoring their performance of the
specials as high art and so the performance of specials
was given deep in high regard for.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
A long time. The friend of mine had their two
children who were like eight and ten. We were all
having their journalists. We were all having lunch in a restaurant,
and the little daughter turned him and said blue, daddy,
and then the sun later on said brown. And I said,
what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught them
(11:58):
to learn the color of the eyes the person who's
waiting on their table, so that they look at them.
And I thought that was really a nice way of
doing it, that they just met the you know somebody. Yeah,
since a brown blue, blue brow.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That's amazing, it's nice.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, let's go back, Okay, because we've talked about your son,
we haven't talked about your daughter yet, but about it
does she is? She interested in food.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
She is like me, We love food and we appreciate food.
And she is a fierce young activist. So she definitely
cares deeply about sustainability and the politics of food, particularly
in the US, and so we have a lot of
conversations about where the food is coming from, carbon emissions,
(12:46):
how to support it, regenerative farming, the soil itself, and
she was a really beautiful supporter of a series of films,
and I've been a producer on the most recent, which
has Kissed the Ground, and now a film made Common Ground,
which is sort of the sequel to that about regenerative farming.
And so she's learned a lot about the question of
(13:08):
over tilling and pesticides and big food the industry of it,
and obviously the laws in the UK and EU are
very different than in the US, in which chemicals are
somehow god in the US, which is tragic and hopefully
changing more and more with independent farmers, and so she
(13:30):
is deeply interested in it, which is really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toadbags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot K. I'm a grandmother now and
(14:09):
I think there is something about wanting to cook for
your grandchildren in a way that you were, maybe as
a working mother, not able to do or to do
enough and tell me about the role that your grandmother
played in your childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced
and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised
me when she was gone working, so a majority of
my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama,
and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And
(14:45):
so the roots of my family are so tied to
food and tradition in the South.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When we think
about France in Italy and Britain having you know, the
north of France has a very different cuisine from the
south of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine
from Sicily. And then you think about American food and
you think, well, there's a food of Vermont really different
from the food of Ohio or but the food actually
(15:18):
of the South has such a strong identity.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the
DNA of those traditions and where they came from. Just
like in the Great Lakes, you know, a very Scandinavian
focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly in
New Orleans obviously, there's so much French influence, but there's
(15:41):
also the influence of the American farmer. And what was
incredible was in lower income families, the food was simpler
and from the land that you had. But my grandmother
was getting what she could from her fellow friends and
and farms locally.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah,
oh she did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra,
collared greens, rice, and you know, that was sort of
the staple of your meal. But when she was in
the South, especially when they were on the farm, the
major meal of the day was breakfast, which was so wild.
(16:29):
They would have like really like an early morning breakfast
and then go out and work in the fields and
then come back and have this huge breakfast at like
ten in the morning because they'd already been working since
four am. And I remember as a little girl when
I would go visit my grandfather in Mississippi, and at
(16:51):
ten am, it was corn bread and eggs and bacon
and grits and collars and a coconut cake. The cake
or a cake for breakfast with your coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
You know. Would this be weekdays as well?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Every day for them, every day you know, but the
Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was like a big.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Never, although my mom just told me that when they
were first together in New York, he would cook on
Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do
like a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops
or some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the
other actors, and whoever was working would feed everybody. My
(17:41):
father was raised in Chicago with a very influential and
wealthy family, grabing aristocratic family.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
See the husband of your grandmother who came to look
after or a different no.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Side, Yeah, yeah, the Durn McLeish side, and it was
Secretary of War under FDR. Poet Laureate of the US
that chi yeah, no, yeah, Now.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
How are you related to Archibal?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
That's my dad's uncle. Archibald McLeish was the Poet Laureate
under FDR. While his grandfather on his father's side, George Dern,
was Secretary of War under FDR.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So Warnora Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
His godmother, who was eleanor I mean I've lost that one,
was my dad's godmother.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Brewster's godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But in that family, no one you have someone cooking,
and so he didn't grow up with it at all,
but he loved it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I was sinking. If you don't have any money, then
probably you have to learn to cook if you want
to eat well exactly. But if you do, then you know,
there are probably quite a lot of men and women
who never went into a kitchen.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And also, my mom tells so many stories of like
literally hungry actors in New York City. My mom came
to New York with twenty dollars in her pocket and
a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from a
tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said,
you know, you used to go in and if you
ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a
(19:13):
beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would
give them bread and butter.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked
for you, where your mother cared about food, your father
came from a food culture, was there a time when
you went off on your own and suddenly there was
not that comfort food or a.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Million percent I mean I started acting at eleven and
I was on location by myself at sixteen on and
working on movies meant eating on the run and eating
poorly and eating in small towns everywhere, and so it
(19:55):
became what is provided to small town America, which was
fast food, eating tragic. This isn't what y're starting in
the late seventies, and I only discovered the gift of
the connection between eating beautifully and food becoming a part
(20:20):
of my artistic experience in the last decade because of
heroes like you.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
But do you think that you could work or act
or do what you do better if you actually had
healthy food on a film set, or do you think
it doesn't matter?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean
in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie
Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of
how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And
there is a new model that a lot of incredible
(21:00):
companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at
sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying
to figure out on film production how to do that
more and more. Kate Blanchette care so deeply about this
as well. We've been having conversations about, you know, making
sure there is a model that production follows more and more.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did
a podcast and his dream and there are a few
directors who would say, would not to stop at all,
you know that sitting down to a meal, Let's do
that at the end, we'll all go out to dinner.
We'll do this. But he tried it. He tried giving
everyone soup, and of course there was a rebellion, especially
months of crew saying we can't do the lighting of
(21:46):
this or that out a bowl of soup.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and
I've seen it done in Italy. When I've worked and
you're you're not taking a lunch so as people are free,
you're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break,
when the actors are taking a break, so that you
(22:09):
have a shorter day, so that everybody has the time
to be with their family. Yeah, and then you have
time for a meal with your family or your collaborators,
which I think works beautifully. I mean I've worked on
a couple of productions now where there's a certain amount
of meat and it's on order. So the day before,
if you're someone who wants meet a meal that involves meat,
(22:32):
you're pre ordering so you're not wasting that day of food.
And then also working with local communities so that you're
taking the food and giving it to the community and
there's no waste, because the waste is shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you
please make sure to and review the podcast on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you. What was it like with David Lynch, Because
(23:18):
you talk about him a lot and you've worked with
him a lot. What was foodise? What was David's is?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, it matters to him and sharing a meal matters
to him. And from the first time I worked with him,
which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen, and those
meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you know,
at night, we go and we eat together. You know,
we go to we find a couple of chefs in
(23:47):
that town that become friends. They know what we love
and we learn what they make and at the end
of the day, we'd always have a meal together.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
What about food and movies when you do a food scene,
their food scenes that you remember.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this
experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that
movie literally, just the two of us, and we shot
several days.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
In Paris, you and David Lynch.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think
it's more of a meditation than a linear film. And
it was an amazing experience. We shot over almost three years. Yeah,
and he wanted to make a film so that everyone
(24:37):
could be inspired to make a movie. He's like, if
you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona, and
you've got your grandparents sony camcorder, you pick that up
and you make a movie, and now you can do
it with your iPhone. But we did a scene in
a hotel room in Paris, and it was this very
long monologue me on a phone call and we'd sit
down for our cafe ole, and he wanted his Penishoko
(25:02):
law and he would write on a legal pad and
I would sit there and he would look at me
like a painter and just be writing this monologue. And
then he'd give it to me, and he's like, now
while I have my Panasha cola, you learn your monologue
and it's like seven pages, and so I'm like, you
better eat slow, buddy. So then i'd try to learn
(25:24):
it and do a probably poor job, but attempt, and
then we'd go to the hotel room and he would
do my makeup or I would do my makeup, or
we'd work on it together, and then he would set
up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And we
shot this monologue and he was happy with it, and
(25:44):
I was so exciting. He was like, we got it.
And so then I went and I sat next to
the bed. There was this little chair and the side
table and there were two perfect ladree maqueron which that
hotel would have, and there was a pistachio one. It
was so the green was so beautiful and he bit
(26:06):
into it was so fresh, and then he said, okay,
now we'll do the close up and he set up
the shine and he goes, where's the macaron? I'm like,
what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I ate it?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
He goes, you ate my props.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So that's my biggest memory of food and working with
David in a movie. I ate the prop and he
was like, you have to go now to Landerie and
get a pistachio macaron I was.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I was once in Mexico and I sat down and
I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor
of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I
ate the crudyte that was in the middle of the table.
And the waiter came up and said, you just ate
our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten somehow. He said, I
need the floral arrangement.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I think had then guess.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
What happened my whole mouth Vietnam. It was part of
that floral arrangement was some weird plant and I thought, Okay.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I'm gonna die.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I'm going to die in this lunch with the mayor
in Mexico because I ate the flower flower plant but
no called flowers something. Do you think about food a lot?
Do you think what you're going to eat the next day?
Or do you go to bed thinking, well, well I
have when I wake up, or do you wake up
and think what am I going to see?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
My son started cooking. We've started having conversations that we
never had before and challenging ourselves, you know, like how
do we really make truly a great Cajun style red
beans and rice? Because we talk about my grandmother and
how i'd have red beans, didn't you know as a
(27:40):
baby only? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a
book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine
and the book it's a book.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Did you publish it?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah? And and in the sort of subtitle we reference
banana pudding and there are a few of her recipes
for chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and cobbler
and chicken and dumplings is such an interesting thing because
it's what is. It's fascinating because it's like the mainstay
(28:21):
meal that can be made no matter what family you
come from and where you are in life. And it's
a big part of Southern culture. And I think in
communities who are struggling, like my mom's family, you need flour,
you need starch, and you know, and chicken and that's it.
(28:44):
And so but the dumplings are radically different, and it's
interesting like in the UK, like a chicken pie, the
idea of flour and in a way a dumpling or
a potato being used within it. There's a similarity in it,
(29:04):
just like cobblers. I think.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So in California, being in LA, you have such a
fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do
you think we do?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California.
So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative farming.
And you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets,
health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not
(29:39):
illegalized the use of glycasates and roundup in California, which
is illegal in many farming states throughout the US, now,
which I find tragedy. There are so many small farms,
and there are some amazing companies and corporations even like
general mills that are starting to you put money into
(30:02):
supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat.
That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
What about what about the wellness industry? Because I know
that you've also done a lot of investigation into what
is wellness? What is you.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Know it starts with food and my mom and I's
book seemingly is two actresses talking her mother and daughter
about things we've never spoken about before. But the auspices,
the reason for its existence, and the hope was to
promote the fact that my mother moved to a beautiful town, Ohi, California,
(30:46):
which is gorgeous for produce and farming, to get away
from la and the smog and moved into a beautiful
home surrounded by orange groves which were those were then
bought by sun Kiss, therefore Monsanto, and they were spraying
(31:06):
without notification, and my mom was exposed to glyc estates
over five years and ended up with a lung disease.
And so Hi, she's struggling still but doing amazing. And
the only protocol that was given was eating healthfully and
(31:27):
to get her walking. And so our book is me
getting her walking on oxygen a few steps and every
day we walked, and I knew to get her walking,
I had to get her telling stories, and then I
recorded the stories, so it unfolded. But it also gave
us an opportunity to do press, to talk about pesticides,
(31:49):
and to talk about healthy eating and wellness and breathing
fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well that's what we're doing today. You know the story
of food, of memory and.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Passing down recipes and stories of our grandparents and great
grandparents and our children.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Do you go out to eat lunch? Do you I
go to? Where? Do you? What kind of restaurants do
you look for when you go?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, hero restaurants like yours, that provide local and healthy
food that put art and love into it is my favorite.
But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies,
I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the
(32:36):
food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so i'll,
you know, unless I'm in London and I get you know,
a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's
rare so around the world. You can also often find
restaurants that don't mess it up by you know, smothering food,
(33:00):
which is a very Southern tradition. You just smother everything
with every possible spice and yeah, it's just crazy that
you can't taste the food anymore. And now that the hobby,
I think thanks to my son, has been getting to
understand the food differently and want to understand how to cook.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well. We want to have him here, We want to
definitely have more of you. And this has been such
an incredible time and just to talk about food is love,
and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food
is a legacy. It's also comfort, yea. And one of
the questions that we do ask is there food that
you would go to for comfort?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It always was cobbler growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
As certain fruit or just any cobbler.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Maybe peaches pieces that would be, you know, because of
remembering my grandmother's love of it and her taste, the
taste of peaches and like that idea of summer and
the scent of them. And but I think for me now,
comfort is community.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Let's go eat, eat all right.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you, thank you, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair
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