December 23, 2025 • 46 mins
Actor, writer and producer Rashida Jones joins Ruthie to discuss her childhood mealtimes in a house with six siblings, her mother’s love of chicken liver and matzo ball soup, and the joy of eating while living in Japan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ruthie's Table four is now on YouTube. To watch this
episode and others, just visit Ruthie's Table four dot com
forward slash YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me
and em Intelligence Style for Busy Women. A few weeks ago,
I received a letter, Ruthie, my great friend Rashida Jones
is having dinner at the River Cafe tonight. You really
should meet her. I know you'll love her and you
(00:29):
will take care of her. Rushida treats life like an adventure.
She makes everyone feel cool, even though we all know
she's the coolest. I'm so happy she's here to talk
about family and food, creativity and all she does. Afterwards,
we'll have lunch together with her friends James and Catherine.
I haven't had to take care of Rashida, but like
(00:50):
them and everyone else, I love her.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Oh, Ruthy, so here we are and you've chosen a recipe.
I was so side about the recipe that you chosen
to read, which is because from Rome particularly, when did
you first have it?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Do you remember? Or is it just something you love
to eat?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I think, Oh, when did I first have it? Ever? Yeah,
to be honest, I think here, oh yeah, yeah, okay,
that's nice because sometimes or maybe I had it before
and I didn't know that I had it because I
it wasn't a remarkable recipe. Here's where I had it,
and I remembered and I thought I could eat this
every single day.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What do you like about it?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I love the texture, the crunchy. I love how acidic
it is, salt saltya. It's the perfect thing to have
when you're about to have meat and pasta or whatever,
because it like cuts through everything. It's so fresh. It
feels like it feels like a perfect kind of way
(01:54):
to set the scene for any palette, any meal. You know,
I feel like you got you got it done first,
like it's it's healthy and tasty, and now we could
go and now we can get get involved in the creaky.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It is a great way to start a meal. I
always say that when I have it. And also it's
quite seasonal, so you know when it arrives. You know,
sometimes it carries on till January, February, maybe March, but
generally we know that at one point it's going to go.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
It starts them all right, starting right.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now, yeah, right now, this minute, so would you like
to read the recipe? And then we have and then
like Pinterrell, we will get into the.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Rich things afterwards.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You can read it any way you want. I always
say that Wes Anderson, you know, he did it with
his daughter Freya and she kept correcting him. And Luca
told me that his ana told me I was doing
it all wrong. So that was one which it turned
out I wasn't. But you can read it any way
(02:55):
you want. You can read it just the way it.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Is, okay. So I have wanted to know for so
long because I know I have Italian friends who they
drop the E on things.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What is that? Now, that's really funny. That's I think
that's Tony soprano.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Maybe they're just copying.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think it's pintarella, and I think it's mozzarella. But
the one that I never get is the risotto, okay,
because here we call it risotto, and then in the
United States where I come from, it's risotto risotto. Yes,
we love a hard longo. Can we have a risotto? Okay?
So you can call it anything you gones too, s scone,
(03:37):
scones different, and we say cookies, you know they say
that we say cookies instead of biscuits. I think George
Bernard Shaw said that, you know, America and Britain were
separated by a common language. You know, so the percipective
the most, the most thing is when you have a baby.
That's the real one, because diapers are nappies, and dummies
(03:59):
are past the fires and prams or strollers and like
there's no word in baby language. Is that, you know?
Kind of w I was going in And then of
course the one I always like is when I went
in and asked for an egg plant when I first
came here, and he brought out a dozen eggs, and
then I said no, I said an egg plant, and
he brought out a plant and I went, no, you know,
(04:19):
an egg plant.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
So and then he thought, oh, lady, eggs don't grow
on plants.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Exactly what are you doing in aroser? Okay, so gonna
be okay, But.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Here's the recipe anyway you want. This is my This
is truly, this is not just my favorite River Cafe recipe.
This is one of my favorite things to eat. And
I'm not being hyperbolic just because I'm on your podcast.
I promise you I dream about this. And then I
rew the moment, it's not in season. Like if I
come here and it's not in season, I'm sad because
it's not you can't be off menu.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So but today we're happy because we're going to go
and have some.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Because we're gonna have this.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Have you actually made it yourself? No?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Because I know it's okay, we're going to show you.
I would because it's very hard to do that tool.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, no, we just use it. We use a knife. Okay, Yeah,
I'm going to show you.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Okay, can't wait, us cannot wait. Okay, here we go,
a la romana. How's my pronunciation? Okay, okay, puntarella heads,
two salted anchovy filets. The birds say philets. Five red
wine vinegar, two tablespoons dried chili's two black pepper, one tablespoon,
(05:30):
No tea spoon, one teaspoon. Don't get that wrong. That
would be bad.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah. That Actually we don't even have to put it
in a teaspoon. You can just just make sure that
pinch it. It has enough pepper on top of that.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah, an extra virgin olive oil, which that is important.
The amount is left open. I feel like that's to taste,
to desireus the cook, Trust the cook. Trust the cook.
To prepare the puntarella. Fill a large bowl with ice
water and pull the buds from the puntarella heads. Use
a small knife, slice them very thinly lengthways. Place in
(06:03):
the water to crisp and curl up. Cut the anchovy
filets into small pieces and place in a bowl. Cover
with vinegar and stir to allow the anchovy to dissolve them.
Add the crumpled chili pepper and four tablespoons olive oil.
Spin dry the puntarella as you would for salad leaves.
(06:25):
Place in a bowl and spoon over the anchovy sauce.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I'm so exciting.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I'm hungry. Now get some No, No, let's do this
and then no. This is good. It's like a delayed gratification.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
When you finish this podcast, you will get some puncharelle. Okay,
it's an incentive to keep going. So you probably did
not have when you were growing up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, so what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
What was food like? And they tell me about your family,
Tell me about the kitchen, tell me about the house.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
My parents loved food. My dad especially love the food,
and he loved food from kind of every culture. Anytime
I traveled with my dad, it was like a sojourn
to get something amazing, like you know, he loves like
Shay Lamie Louis Louis.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, it does it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Loved love, love love. He's the first person who exposed
me to sol Monier or you know, he just loved food.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Because that probably that again, was it not out of
his background?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
No, you know, No, he was something he did and
he traveled a lot in his twenties to Europe and
to the Middle East. He worked for the State Department.
He was in the State Department band was Dizzy Gillespie
and so he what years was it in the nineteen fifties,
early nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Isn't it great? There was a State Department band. Wonder
if that exists anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I doubt it.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. But
he traveled everywhere and he for him it was language,
food and it's kind of beauty of being out of
the United States.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So I think your grandparents fed him, were they interested?
Do you remember your grandparents?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
I do, and I didn't know my grandfather. I knew
my grandmother, And no, it wasn't like I think his
relationship with food was probably came from an absence of
food in his own childhood. He was my dad was
such a lover of life and culture and food, and
you know, he just loved beautiful, delicious things. So I
(08:27):
think that came from not having that very much, from
not having that.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And so he had traveled and then encouraged you to know. Yes,
I believe very firmly that when you get to a city,
you go, you know, to the market or see how
people's self is, see how people buy yes, and then
you you know, the greatest For me, I think the
greatest honor in this new city is to be able
to eat in someone's house.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
You know, it's the best, and you get a sense
of a city. Wee quicker that way than anything on
a tourist list, you know, like it is really like
I remember, I spent a little bit of time in
India when I was a teenager, and I remember going
to I lived in a little tiny village that was
like two hours from Mumbai, and we went to a
family's house and ate there and it was like the
(09:14):
coolest thing that's ever happened to me, because and also
the food was insane. It was so good. Remember it
was like a doll and a rice and a vegetable
and japatties. And they had this like cool little snack
called tudah, which is just like a bunch of like
dried like nuts and rice and spices. And I've just like,
(09:36):
you know, gobbled it. It was just delicious. It was totally
delicious and so different from anything I'd ever experienced as
a kid. So, you know, in that way, I think
I'm I'm definitely my father's child.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But what was food like at Hoell? So because your
parents your mother was Jewish and my.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Mom was Jewish, and my dad loved soul food. He
also loved his favorite dish it was is so weird
because it's like German, I think, was chicken potatoes and
sour krap. So we had that at least once a week.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, And who cooked that.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
My dad would sometimes cook it, and sometimes, like you know,
we had somebody lived with us, Anna, who was amazing.
She would cook it. She was also from El Salvador.
So there was a lot of papoosas, which I love
papoosa's like it's made of corn of masa, corn massa
and it's like it's kind of like somewhere between a
Cassadia and like uh Banada. So it's like a flat thing.
(10:32):
It's enclosed and then it's filled with whatever you want
to fill it with, whether it's like cheese or green
peppers or meat or whatever. You know, it's just like
it's the it's the the facilitating of the of the
thing inside.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So many that they even yes, you know in India
with the somosas and the dumplings, in Taiwanese cooking, and
in this country and you know one well they call pasties.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
I love love cornish past You.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Don't need a play. You would put it everything. It
was for my nose very often they'd put everything in
it and then you eat it.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Crip similar similar thing. And so she cooked for she
cooked press Anna.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Do you have sisters and brothers?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I have six sisters and brothers, but we have a
very large age range. So we kind of grew up
in a house with four of us. Okay, I was
one of four. Meals were really important to us.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
We did.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
We ate all of our dinners together as a family.
We had My parents would often have people over, like
a lot of friends over Sunday night and my dad
had this, would have this chef come. She was a
Brazilian chef. Her name was Remy, and she would just
make the most delicious like greens and beans with like
(11:53):
you know, bacon, and I don't sorry, I don't remember
any of the Brazilian names, and I do not want
to butcher it, but like, and everybody'd come over and
we'd sit outside. We'd have all like lots of little tables,
and that was like a really it's a very strong
memory about the coziness of my childhood or those Sunday
night dinners.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
When you when you were born, when you were growing up,
was had your father known success then? Was he was
he passed the struggling he did?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yes, he did. No success he's had he had so
many lives in so many careers. So by the time
I was born, you know, nineteen seventy six, he had
had plenty of success as a jazz musician, and he'd
worked with Frank Sinatra, and he had worked at Mercury
Records and produced Leslie Gore.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
When you say he produced them, what would that mean
that would be well, he.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Would it's it's it's a long story. Production but you know,
I'm sure, I'm sure there's an analogue in the kitchen there.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a nice like being a chef does being a chef, so,
I know produces a film, and I know produces different
than producers.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
It's more like a directure of a film, I would say,
where it's you, just you. You kind of take every
single element. You have your eye on the biggest, biggest picture,
the end result. And within that, you work on the orchestrations,
you work on the vocals, specifically, you work on the
background vocals. You work on, you know, basically building a
(13:21):
track so that it sounds exactly the way you want
it to sound. And sometimes you take things away and
sometimes you mix it differently, and sometimes you have to edit,
and sometimes you have to bring on you know. And
then you also you're casting the characters all musicians, and
you're mentoring. You're bringing the best out of your you know,
main singer or your you know, vocalist or your instrumentalist.
(13:42):
It's like, you know, you're the you're the maestro, and
so is.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Your house full of people filled with musicians?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah? Filled with musicians?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Really? And what was that like for you?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
So great? I feel like my sister and I talk
about this all the time. We feel so lucky that
we our house was filled with music and are and
and people who value that obviously, but also like for
you know, for for our assessment. And I think, like
empirically like the best music. I feel like, you know,
(14:12):
my dad, my dad's taste, my dad's fact sophistication. You know,
even though he made Thriller, which is the biggest album
that ever sold ever in the world, when he was
fifty and so he didn't like he was he was,
you know, successful, but he wasn't famous. He wasn't world
(14:33):
renowned in the same way that he was by the
time I was eight. So that kind of happened when
I was a kid. That was like happening, which is,
you know, changes things. But but the point is that
he brought all of the richness and sophistication of his
early jazz days into his like pop world or into
(14:53):
our our pop world, which is like a real gift
for the world.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
The gift, a huge gift. And being a child in
that atmosphere, were you so you weren't shy, you weren't
waiting on the stairs, you know for them to get home.
You were would you be involved. I was there. Everybody
was engaged.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You were totally social and relaxed. Because my parents were
very relaxed, everybody felt invited and warm. I was actually
talking to a family friend the other day who was
like a little younger than my parents, and he was
just saying how much he loved coming to their house
because it was like, Oh, this is what you can
have as a family. You can invite all your friends
(15:31):
and it's not stiff, it's not formal. You just come.
You relax and you laugh a lot, and the kids
are welcome and all the different generations are welcome. And
you have always loved that, which is, by the way,
why I love what you do, because that's that is
the kind of that's the mandate. Is everybody come and
feel relaxed and at home and welcome all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
At the dinner you came to, you know, there was
there was a two seventeen year olds, and there was
you know, someone who it was hardly able to walk
up the stairs, and then there was you know, there
were This is No and Greta's film dinner. And I
just thought that mix of people and people staying late,
people coming late and it's just you want to have
(16:14):
a home where you have that.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And you also you made people sing, which I thought
was one of the most beautiful things ever because I like,
you would never do that naturally anymore. But it is
sort of like our right to sing, and it's to
sing with other people is one of the most It's
not just bonding, it's like good for our nervous system,
(16:36):
you know, it's like it's something that actually creates community,
and it's kind of unforgettable moment and it's not something
that you're going to just do naturally so anymore. You know,
Like I think people used to do that, but we
don't anymore. So it's so nice that you had us
do that. Really, it was very warm, very special moment.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And was it with the musicians play with they mostly
city times.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, I would go and like, you know, just do
a little thing on the piano or sing. It wasn't
like performative though.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It was very relaxed and it was kind of conversational.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
But but you know, my dad did have a studio
at her house and so we would go in there.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And because she brought a lot to the tables, don't
meet food to the table. But I read about her
and I've thought about her, and I think that she
must have been a remarkable woman.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
She was. She just was the most loving. Yeah. Sorry,
she was just a very she was a very warm person.
She was a deep, warm, sensitive person. And so she
was the kind of person. Like you're at a party
and you meet my mom, You're like, oh, I love Peggy.
I had the best conversation. We got in so deep,
(17:48):
so fast. Like my parents, like both of them did
not suffer fools. They like they wanted to get in
the deep end quickly. And everybody has a story to tell.
Everybody has a depth to them, and I don't know,
they just wanted to get there fast. And I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Everybody has a story to tell.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
I say that about the River Cafe when you walk
in and you see all these tables.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
I feel lucky too that, Like, you know, I grew
up with people who encouraged me to just kind of
be present. You know that it wasn't about errors, it
wasn't about trying to make somebody feel any way about you.
And my dad would talk to everybody. He would be
in the deepest conversation for four hours with somebody. He
didn't meet, and people come up to me still and say,
(18:37):
I had the best night with your dad. He just
saw me, and he gave me so much time, and
he was so patient and he listened, and it's true.
He just treated everybody the same, and he really really
believed in the kind of the fundamental beauty of being alive,
you know, and.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Your mother being Jewish. And I wouldn't necessarily remark on
somebody's religion, but it comes up. Did she bring us
certain kind of food as well?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yes, liver, liver, She love liver. She loved chicken liver
and much more. Soup, Yeah, my favorite, the filter fish love.
I know that's I know that's a controversial stance, but
I love it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, And we had you know, we we were observant,
like yeah, yeah, we were like casualoid, you know, but
we were observant. We spent you know, did pass Over
Sadar and both her parents were Jewish, and she was like,
you know, grew up in Long Island. So at the time,
I think like she was confirmed. She didn't have a
but mitzvah. I wasn't butt mitzvah. But I did go
(19:41):
to Sunday School. I spent a little time in Hebrew school,
and yeah, we we the cultural part of it, like
the getting together and the sitting and you know, the
reading of the Hagada, and like, you know, the tradition
part of it, the hiding the matsa. We love the
hiding the matza and finding the matsa that kind of stuff.
But yeah, the food. I had a great aunt, Pearl,
(20:03):
who was born in Ireland and grew up in Scotland
because they had emigrated from Latvia. Her family, so.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
They got off the boat there.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
They got off the boat there, and then she came
to America when she was like fourteen. Because people used
to send their kids, you know, with relatives.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
She came by herself. She came by herself.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, and then her sister came later. But they but
they you know, were Scottish and they kind of spoke
Yiddish and a little bit with like a brogue and
like you know, it was they just had a really
cool they had a cool relationship and but they always
you know, she would make the best not sible soup.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Do you have any recipes, have any recipes from your
mother or any.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I have recipes. I have my dad's recipes for Yeah,
I do for his chicken and sauerkraut and.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Potatoes, remember how he made them.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I have to look. I have to look because I
have yet too. I think I've been like, yeah, sentimental,
I haven't gone to make it. Yeah, but I haven't
sitting there and waiting for me to make it. And
then we used to have a stuffing recipe that was
like an old recipe from like Adam Clayton Powell.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Oh really, his.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Family recipe for gravy and stuffing was the one we
used forever.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
And it's the best.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I've had him Clayton Powell. Yeah, he was a conversation. Yeah,
I mean I'd have to remember that too. But so
it sounds like you grew up in this incredible house
and family meals and people coming in and you know,
getting them to know what it meant like to open
your house and to be also protected and to feel
(21:40):
safe there. What was it like when you left, because
then you went to university in Boston Harvard? Yeah? Was
that a big Had you go on to summer camps
or any separation?
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I really had? I really wanted to. I was desperate
to go and experience something new. I was like an
adult in training that I always wanted to get out.
I remember, I like applied to boarding school by myself
without my parents knowing.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's so funny, I did too, did you Yeah, I
did exactly that. I went for the summer and I
went to a summer camp they sent me to in Colorado,
which was a kind of a camp during the summer
of the school. And I loved it so much that
I went to the head of it and I said,
can I come back in September? And they said, well,
(22:28):
you know, and then it was so kind of I
don't even know why they accepted me, but they did.
And then I, you know, I said, okay, I'm coming.
And then my father always say, Ruthie went to you know,
she applied to boarding school. She got accepted. She told
him she was coming, and then she came home and
asked us, you know, and they I was the first
kid of my family ever to go to any private school.
(22:48):
But that's funny, did you get did They said? She
won't go back. And it was the happiest two years
ever because I didn't learn much. I was on a
I was on a branch and that's you. Yeah, no,
and I did learn Yeah, no, great school great.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I didn'too, so you applied me. I applied that I didn't go.
I think my mom was very protective of me. My
sister was like kind of wild and doing her thing,
and so I think I was the one who is not, yeah,
doing that. But it's fine because you know, by the
time I went to college when I was seventeen, so
it wasn't like I but yeah, I mean, food was
(23:24):
that lie. Food was not a it's not great, it
was it was cool. I mean I think I had
a little culture shock. You know, I was a California girl.
All of a sudden, I'm like in the dead of
Boston winters, which are no joke, like waiting for the shuttle,
and my hair's like frozen into my face because it's
like in the middle of the ice dorm. That my
(23:45):
idea was that that was ninety three. I went to college,
and it took me a minute to kind of find
my footing and find my people. I was like a
little depressed. My sophomore year was pretty depressed. I got
I got like randomized into a dorm really far from campus,
and that was bad. And then I found my people
like I started doing theater and a cappella and worked
(24:09):
on the Hasty Pudding and like you know, I started
making music and acting and singing and that was great
for me.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
That like changed to ask you, but when all the
family stuff was going on home, did your parents ever
take you to restaurants? Would you go to would it
be for special cases or did you go.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Out every Sunday restaurants in La Yes, I remember like
after the Remy era every Sunday night, I think maybe
even when no, Yeah, must have been like yeah, nine
ten maybe earlier we went to this little sushi restaurant
called Hana Sushi So Delicious in Beverly Hill in Westwood,
west On, Wilshire. And then we go to Hagendas for dessert.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah. And then because it was sixist probably like the
four of us.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
And then yeah, when my brother and sister came and
moved in with us because they lived in Sweden and
then they lived in with us. Later they would come
with us for sure, and then we'd go to a
restaurant called Old World, and then we went to what's
the Hamburger.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Hamlet, Hamberg, Hammeleber Hamber, the Hamlet.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
On like Doheny that was a big one for us.
And then La Scala.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, my Gret tell me about this. That's Italian. I've
never been.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Oh, it's a classic. It's a classic restaurant. There's one
in Beverly Hills. There used to be one in Malibu
and my grandfather, my mom's dad was a part owner
and that restaurant and you know, it's still there.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It is.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
It is like you know Jugernaut. Yeah, they have this
chop salad that people go crazy for and I still
like I It's it's something I dream about, like alongside
the Punterarelli. The Lascala chop salad is something I crave
and when michaels it's same thing. It's like crisp and
acidic and crunchy and like the perfect thing to go
(25:59):
along side anything like a pasta or like a you know,
like a meat or whatever. It's it's the dressing is
like perfect, It's the perfect mix of vinegar and oil
and salt pepper.
Speaker 7 (26:11):
Let's go, yeah, let's go, Yeah, let's go for sure
together for sure, so many and so so you grew
up with restaurants, you grew up with food, and then
so Harvard again when you started being on your own.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Did you and your friends have more ethnic type food,
because you know at in Cambridge, Boston.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
That's the first one. The restaurant I think it was
in Porters Restaurant, an Ethiopian restaurant.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Pretty good food.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
It was delicious, so good. Yeah, and we would go
to like there was a Moroccan place, remember nothing in
Harvard Square that we went to all the time called Casablanca.
We'll have to ask James.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
You know. I went to Bennington College. Yeah, and they
had a term where you had to work. And do
you know what my job was. I was working at
the Harvard Law School doing research.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
But my money making job.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Was selling pretzels in Harvard Square. No way that close. No,
we had to find a little flat. I had a
little apartment there Cambridge. I only did it for four
or five weeks. Well, they just give you the term off,
So I had the term to work. To work, you
had to go and do a job. It was again
part of the kind of liberal arts education at Bennington
(27:27):
which was a bit radicalized, and so we had to
go and do something. And so my job was doing
research at Harvard Law School on civil liberties. You know,
I was that kind of but then I sold pretzels
in Harvard Square, which was very cold. But I think
that I'm going, you know, the experience of being away
(27:47):
from home with their parents come and visit you to
go home.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
They were coming to me. I was actually just talking yesterday.
I was saying to Ezrael, like there was this restaurant,
Henrietta's Table, that was at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square,
where like you would be so psyched when your parents
came because they would take you to Henry take you
to like the nice restaurant, like you could have like
a real meal. But I have to say food in
(28:14):
Boston for me, like I don't love like a nut
or like a dried fruit and a salad, and they
love that there. Oh yeah, well maybe just in the nineties. Yeah,
maybe not my vibe. I don't like, I don't like
a dried fruit and a salad like save it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I want you with these actors, so you were acting
at Harvard and that that became more and more of
a yeah it is there at the time, was their
actors their actors there.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I was just talking about this because because weirdly, Greta
and Ezra were in the same class at Columbia. Yeah,
they weren't friends, but they knew each other a little bit.
But but but like I think most of my friends
in my year I actually ended up working with later,
but as writers like Yeah, Mike Sure who created Parks
(29:01):
re Creation we met doing a play sophomore year and
called Love Sex and the I R S. And then
Dan Gore who also a great writer who created Brooklyn
nine nine with Mike. We also met during doing a
play sophomore year. So art like, I think it was
a lot of writers. I don't know if any actors
(29:21):
were there at the same time as me.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But that was that became your life. That was what
you wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
I did not want to be. I did not want
to be in the entertainment business. ID no, no, no,
it was absolutely not. I wanted to be a lawyer.
I wanted to be a judge. I wanted to go
to law school. I want to go to Harvard Law School.
I wanted to do like legitimate academic things. That was
that was kind of like I wanted to use my brain.
(29:51):
I did not want to I don't know, just like
be I don't know, like creative. But for some reason,
I you know, I guess you have to rebel somehow.
And by the way, so grateful for my childhood. But
like it was, you know, it was heaven. It was
like California in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Did you do drama at Harvard? I mean you just
said you did, Hasty, I did it.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I did place it at Harvard. But actually I came
to Rata for the summer one year. Yeah, and that
was when I kind of fell in love with London.
London and and did like a Shakespeare course over the summer.
And that's that's when I was like, oh, I really
love this, I love the I love acting. At that point,
I didn't realize what auditioning was and how different that
(30:34):
was from acting.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Okay, which is you know because most of the yea, no,
you just get to do these incredible I know Shakespeare.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
You know, scenes and monologues, which like you never get
to do when you're auditioning.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Oh so I was going to say that my experience
of acting were going for auditions and coming back without
a part. You know. The cruelty of that, the cruelty
of the rejection, the incredible power of saying, you know,
I'm going to keep I have a friend who keeps
every letter of rejection from a publisher on his desk.
You know, so this this goes on and it's you know,
(31:08):
I have we all have it. And what you do?
How did you, Candle.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Decide I wanted to have a life of rejection of rejection? Yeah,
good question, good question. I probably know. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Not everybody has much of horse.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
They do, everybody? Yes, I mean very rarely somebody jumps
out into the scene and everybody's anointed them the one. Yeah,
that's gonna that's going to be the horse that they're
they're backing. It's very rare that that happens. And by
the way, I don't necessarily think it's very good for
your character when it does happen, because you lose perspective
(31:43):
very quickly. So no, I so much rejection, Yeah, totally.
I didn't know. I was too naive to know at
the time, because I had these wonderful experiences actually acting
that when I got moved to New York that I
would spend most of my time like on a subway
going to an audition and waiting for an hour and
a half and then then being like thank you so much,
(32:04):
and then not getting the job like that was.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
The most of it was really movingly about. It was Zoe. Yes,
that was so done and when she came here and
we did a really really lovely conversation, and a lot
of it was about her mother taking her to every
audition and coming out of the audition going back for
another audition. But you did have it. So what was
the audition that that kind of was there one that
(32:26):
kind of won that the mold was there?
Speaker 4 (32:28):
I would say, well, there was two. One was my
first job in New York. I got like a it
was like a guest spot on a pilot. Don't even
remember the name of it. It didn't go. It was
a good not go pilot, but it was I was
so proud because I got this job. I can't remember
the name, it doesn't matter. And it was the same
(32:49):
casting directors as Law and Order, and I had gone
in first for Law and Order, which, by the way,
I still haven't done a Law and Order. And that's
like a real source of pride. If you live in
New York and you don't do a Law and Order,
something wrong with you. Oh she's on it, She's on it,
like lot, No, this is I just mean a guest star,
guest star, like you have to guest star on Law
and Order and I didn't, but the cast and directing
(33:10):
something on there's still time, There's still time.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I would love to do it.
Speaker 8 (33:15):
You hear that listeners ever it is, But anyway, I
would say when I moved to LA after a couple
of years in New York, because it just seemed like
that's where I had to audition, and I auditioned for Freaks.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
And Geeks and that that was a game changer for
me for so many reasons, because when I read it,
I was like, I want to be on the show.
This is like exactly my sensibility. It was funny, it
was dark. It felt like it really sort of understood
and and valued like young people in a way that
(33:50):
you don't see on TV that often. There's like, you
know a handful of things here and there my so
called life or you know, but you just don't see
that often. And then I remember thinking, oh, it was
just a guest star. It was just one episode. I
was like, oh, but I want to be like on
the show. I want to be a recurring And I thought, Okay,
well it doesn't matter. I just want to be on
the show. So I took the job, and I'm so
glad I did because that show famously only went one
(34:12):
season and the episode I was on never aired on
Network TV because it was too dark. It was written
by Mike White, who it was also in the episode
Now White Lotus Success, And it just kind of introduced
me to this whole group of people. And I became
friends with all these people on Freaks and Geeks who
(34:33):
were like writers because they had writers who were like
nineteen twenty twenty one. And it opened up a whole
new community for me.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
It was parks and recreation next I wish RUTHI.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
We had a solid fifteen to twenty years. It was
twenty three when I got it.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I don't think there was a time when there was
oh yeah, no, that was that was two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
But I, you know, I struggled to get jobs. I
waited around eating that were you home?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Back home?
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I spent a lot of time at my mom's house. Yeah,
and so we would we would hang together all the time,
have dinner together all the time. And yeah, we spent
a lot of a lot of time together, a lot
of salad.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A lot of California, you know, I love a salad.
So then so so working in La.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Yeah, like not working, like trying to work.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And not a domestic life because you were living at home.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
I was no, I was living on my I was
living with friends like duplex and yeah, I had parties
who remember had like a.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Did you carry your parents of having people.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
I loved game nights, so I would do a lot
of game nights, like running charades and celebrity and like
murder mystery nights, and like we would just like order pizza,
like you know, take out. I love this Chinese restaurant
Mandarette in La We'd order like crispy noodles from Mandarett.
It was like a very thing. We did a lot.
(36:00):
And there's like there was I spent a lot of
time that there's this like Macrobiotic restaurant.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I remember macro Remember.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Macrobiotics eighties and lots of fish delicious. There was a
place called Naka on the Brea that was there forever
and I loved it so much and now it's not
there anymore, but like that was my to go place,
like I would go sit there. It's very casual, it is, yes,
but you could sit there, you could take out it
(36:29):
was always the quality was so good, so so yummy.
I miss it all the.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Time you read on set when you were Yeah, does
that is that important to you?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Very important, because I've talked.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
To so many again, you know, people who are either
actors or directors, directors who don't want to stop because
they love the French hour idea. I've learned all about
French French hours and how how you know Wes would
love to just keep filming and then have a soup
at the end of the day with everybody who works
with or Ridley's scart who didn't want to eat but
(37:01):
then had to sit down with everyone in the crew
or Noah. You know, it's just so interesting to hear
Greta who's snacks all day? Have people well, how people
combined work and food?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
How you do that in a creative way? Do you
have a way that you like to work?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, It's evolved over time, but I would say in
my thirties I was really all about a big breakfast
and when I got the office, which was a very
big break for me because I almost quit acting before that.
But anyway, I'd have to be there really early because
I was twenty two on the call sheet and everybody
had to be ready at seven, so I'd get there
at four thirty.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Wow, I would for thirty in the morning.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Is everybody up with your dad? Right?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Exactly, Good night dad, I'm leaving. I think there was
some time actually when I called him a couple times
on the way to work. But i'd get to work,
i'd put in my order, i'd get my hair and
makeup done, I'd take a little nap, and then i'd
have my breakfast and then we'd go rehearse at six
thirty or seven. But my breakfast was so important to me,
and in fact, it's so important that's still to this day.
(38:06):
The caterers call it the rashida.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, oh, it's very nice that. What was it?
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Black beans, Yeah, avocado, two scrambled eggs, turkey, bacon, a
sight of salsa and tortilla.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Sounds kind of Mexicanish, it is.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Yeah, Yeah, I love Mexicano.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I lived in Mexico for six months, and I love
the Mexican way of eating because you know, you have
a very late breakfast and it's quite big, and then
you don't eat again until about four four point thirty
and then you have this huge kind of lunch which
goes into dinner, and that's kind of it. And then
you have an apple at about and go to bed.
(38:46):
And I really loved that. We sketch. Yeah, I really
like that. But I just loved that late lunch. Yes,
I love a late dinner. Yeah, And then it just
turned Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
It's great because I sometimes with dinner, especially if I'm alone,
I just get bored and I just want soup and
I just want to go to bed. If I'm here,
I'm excited, like about River Cafe if I'm with great friends,
and I know it's going to be great food. But
otherwise I'm like, do I have to leave my house
to eat? And do you have to eat it?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Eat Richal, Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I'd rather snack. So I'm kind of like a little
bit like that where I loved I love snacks. I
love a really good, thoughtful snack, like the elements all
work together. And I do like to snack a little
bit through the day. I don't like to stop for
like a meal and then get really tired, yeah, and
then have to gear.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Back ups and then yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Actually on parks and recreation we would have lunch and
literally as a practice, after lunch, because you know it
takes seventy percent of your body to digest your food,
we would get touch ups and we'd have a dance
party for lunch to get our spirits back.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
But tell me about your life now, because you have
a child, you have a home. How does what's if
I come and stay with you? What is the kind
of domestic kind of cooking? Do you sit down to meals?
Do you all grab what you grab?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
A different schedule. We're we're not like breakfast people, like
none of us are. Actually we just kind of grab
whatever yogurt, cereal, coffee, like just quick breakfast lunch. Usually
I like to sit and make people eat a lunch.
And again I'm California. I love salad. I love salad dressings,
(40:25):
and I love the kind of like throwing everything into
one like fresh big pot so like I love to
go to the farmer's market and just figure out what
seasonal vegetable wise, what can be eaten raw and whatever
that is goes into the salad. And I like to
chop it up really small, big ups to la scala
because I do love a chop salad, like I know
(40:45):
it's like baby food, but I like it's easier to
digest instead of like a big plate of leafy things
that are like it's also it's hard to talk to
people when you're like shoving giant things of food into
your mouth, like a chop. Salad just makes easier to talk.
So usually make a giant salad and then maybe I'll
(41:05):
like bake some fish or you know, do something like
simple for like a protein, and then I like, I
like a like a yummy fancy coffee with like a
little bit of milk or something. It's almost like the
dessert portion at the end of a meal, you know,
instead of a dessert or like some berries or dark chocolate.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Much about feeding a little boy.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
He's a really good eater. He's very adventurous. Like when
we were living in Japan, I was doing a show
there and he would like love dried squid. That really
changed my style of cooking. We were there for six months.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Like I love I love Dashie, and I love like Tomago,
and I love like you know, I love sushi. I
love temple. I could never make that stuff, but like
I love the kind of I love the hot pot
cooking in Japan, Like I love oudon and I love
you know, soba, and I love the kind of warm
warmth of like putting a bunch of vegetables into a
(42:01):
donabe and like putting a dashi and like just that's
like my favorite meal.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I just love that you love food so much. You
know that you love food. Yeah, I think that, And
it does immerse you in the culture.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It does. It does, And like you said, I mean
living there and like having a little grocery store and
going there to get my food out. It's a very
different way to understand Japanese culture total, you.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Know, totally. I felt that in Mexico and still you know,
we try actually right now in the River cafe we
have back today, but we last three days. We took
twelve chefs and probably four or five from the front
of house. We do it every year. We've done it
every year since we've started to taste the new olive
oil in Tuscany, because you know, this is the harvest
(42:48):
and to and the wine. But it also what it
does is you realize talking to you, talking to my children,
talking to your children towards your family, is that so
much of our life has been about exposure you know
that we've been exposed to other countries, exposed to other cultures.
And there are many people in the River Cafe who
(43:08):
know how to make the thinnest, most beautiful ravioli, but
they've never been to Italy, and so to take them
on this trip and to and that. Of course, the
people we buy a wine from, we buy our olive
oil from, and they, you know, they're very proud and
they cook and it's a very important part of learning
what a culture is sure understanding.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
And also like food, when you think about tolerance, the
word tolerance, like food creates tolerance because it expands your
understanding of what can taste good. And so I feel
like when you give somebody the gift of like something
delicious and it's something that you've never had before, all
of a sudden, it's like, you know, all of your
(43:49):
synapses fire and it just expands your your understanding, like
you know, that's that's I feel like there's so much
beauty in that, Like there's that and it brings people
together in that way.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
You know. So if we think of food, as you've
gone through the whole thing through, you know, the excitement
of the culture of food, the excitement of the curiosity
and the excitement of the taste, and the different versions
of it, whether it's Mexican for breakfast or Japanese as
(44:21):
a memory, or going to have the best chop salad
and malibu, or way of expressing love and as we
do have to go have that Puntarel and your great
friends are waiting for you. I will end with the
question I always end a podcast on, which is if
you need food for comfort, something that will actually make
(44:42):
you feel better. Because we are all going through life
and many changes in many places, with many challenges. Is
there something that you might reach for or cook or
want cook for you that would actually give you comfort.
Mashida Jones.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Definitely, something warm, Definitely with a big piece of like fresh,
lightly toasted sour dough bread on the side, and probably
something like there's a really beautiful Mexican soup that I
can't remember the name of, but it's like it's like
tomatoes and onions and then you kind of sprinkle a
(45:24):
little tortilla soup, not tortio soup, but that would absolutely
do it, like a chicken doodle soup, a tortilla soup.
I have to remember the name of the soup. But
it's like it's so warm, it's so tasty, it's got
a little bit of spice to it. So a warm
soup that has lots of vegetables in it, so I
know that it's nourished. It's actually nourishing me. Just that
(45:47):
first bite where you like, do you dip bread with
butter on it into the soup and you take that
first bite like that is the most the coziest thing
in the world to me. Immediately happy.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
You have some usually in your house if you need it.
Always have super, Always have super, Always have super in
my house. Yeah, thank you. That's beautiful, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bell and Zad
Rogers with Susanna Hislop, Robbie Hamilton, Andrew Sang, Daniel Naranjo Rodriguez,
and Bella Selini. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with Me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women
Ruthie's Table four is now on YouTube. To watch this
episode and others, just visit Ruthie's Table four dot com
forward slash YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with me
and em Intelligence Style for Busy Women. A few weeks ago,
I received a letter, Ruthie, my great friend Rashida Jones
is having dinner at the River Cafe tonight. You really
should meet her. I know you'll love her and you
(00:29):
will take care of her. Rushida treats life like an adventure.
She makes everyone feel cool, even though we all know
she's the coolest. I'm so happy she's here to talk
about family and food, creativity and all she does. Afterwards,
we'll have lunch together with her friends James and Catherine.
I haven't had to take care of Rashida, but like
(00:50):
them and everyone else, I love her.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Oh, Ruthy, so here we are and you've chosen a recipe.
I was so side about the recipe that you chosen
to read, which is because from Rome particularly, when did
you first have it?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Do you remember? Or is it just something you love
to eat?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I think, Oh, when did I first have it? Ever? Yeah,
to be honest, I think here, oh yeah, yeah, okay,
that's nice because sometimes or maybe I had it before
and I didn't know that I had it because I
it wasn't a remarkable recipe. Here's where I had it,
and I remembered and I thought I could eat this
every single day.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What do you like about it?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I love the texture, the crunchy. I love how acidic
it is, salt saltya. It's the perfect thing to have
when you're about to have meat and pasta or whatever,
because it like cuts through everything. It's so fresh. It
feels like it feels like a perfect kind of way
(01:54):
to set the scene for any palette, any meal. You know,
I feel like you got you got it done first,
like it's it's healthy and tasty, and now we could
go and now we can get get involved in the creaky.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It is a great way to start a meal. I
always say that when I have it. And also it's
quite seasonal, so you know when it arrives. You know,
sometimes it carries on till January, February, maybe March, but
generally we know that at one point it's going to go.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
It starts them all right, starting right.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now, yeah, right now, this minute, so would you like
to read the recipe? And then we have and then
like Pinterrell, we will get into the.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Rich things afterwards.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You can read it any way you want. I always
say that Wes Anderson, you know, he did it with
his daughter Freya and she kept correcting him. And Luca
told me that his ana told me I was doing
it all wrong. So that was one which it turned
out I wasn't. But you can read it any way
(02:55):
you want. You can read it just the way it.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Is, okay. So I have wanted to know for so
long because I know I have Italian friends who they
drop the E on things.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What is that? Now, that's really funny. That's I think
that's Tony soprano.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Maybe they're just copying.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think it's pintarella, and I think it's mozzarella. But
the one that I never get is the risotto, okay,
because here we call it risotto, and then in the
United States where I come from, it's risotto risotto. Yes,
we love a hard longo. Can we have a risotto? Okay?
So you can call it anything you gones too, s scone,
(03:37):
scones different, and we say cookies, you know they say
that we say cookies instead of biscuits. I think George
Bernard Shaw said that, you know, America and Britain were
separated by a common language. You know, so the percipective
the most, the most thing is when you have a baby.
That's the real one, because diapers are nappies, and dummies
(03:59):
are past the fires and prams or strollers and like
there's no word in baby language. Is that, you know?
Kind of w I was going in And then of
course the one I always like is when I went
in and asked for an egg plant when I first
came here, and he brought out a dozen eggs, and
then I said no, I said an egg plant, and
he brought out a plant and I went, no, you know,
(04:19):
an egg plant.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
So and then he thought, oh, lady, eggs don't grow
on plants.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Exactly what are you doing in aroser? Okay, so gonna
be okay, But.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Here's the recipe anyway you want. This is my This
is truly, this is not just my favorite River Cafe recipe.
This is one of my favorite things to eat. And
I'm not being hyperbolic just because I'm on your podcast.
I promise you I dream about this. And then I
rew the moment, it's not in season. Like if I
come here and it's not in season, I'm sad because
it's not you can't be off menu.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So but today we're happy because we're going to go
and have some.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Because we're gonna have this.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Have you actually made it yourself? No?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Because I know it's okay, we're going to show you.
I would because it's very hard to do that tool.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, no, we just use it. We use a knife. Okay, Yeah,
I'm going to show you.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Okay, can't wait, us cannot wait. Okay, here we go,
a la romana. How's my pronunciation? Okay, okay, puntarella heads,
two salted anchovy filets. The birds say philets. Five red
wine vinegar, two tablespoons dried chili's two black pepper, one tablespoon,
(05:30):
No tea spoon, one teaspoon. Don't get that wrong. That
would be bad.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah. That Actually we don't even have to put it
in a teaspoon. You can just just make sure that
pinch it. It has enough pepper on top of that.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah, an extra virgin olive oil, which that is important.
The amount is left open. I feel like that's to taste,
to desireus the cook, Trust the cook. Trust the cook.
To prepare the puntarella. Fill a large bowl with ice
water and pull the buds from the puntarella heads. Use
a small knife, slice them very thinly lengthways. Place in
(06:03):
the water to crisp and curl up. Cut the anchovy
filets into small pieces and place in a bowl. Cover
with vinegar and stir to allow the anchovy to dissolve them.
Add the crumpled chili pepper and four tablespoons olive oil.
Spin dry the puntarella as you would for salad leaves.
(06:25):
Place in a bowl and spoon over the anchovy sauce.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, I'm so exciting.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I'm hungry. Now get some No, No, let's do this
and then no. This is good. It's like a delayed gratification.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
When you finish this podcast, you will get some puncharelle. Okay,
it's an incentive to keep going. So you probably did
not have when you were growing up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, so what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
What was food like? And they tell me about your family,
Tell me about the kitchen, tell me about the house.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
My parents loved food. My dad especially love the food,
and he loved food from kind of every culture. Anytime
I traveled with my dad, it was like a sojourn
to get something amazing, like you know, he loves like
Shay Lamie Louis Louis.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, it does it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Loved love, love love. He's the first person who exposed
me to sol Monier or you know, he just loved food.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Because that probably that again, was it not out of
his background?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
No, you know, No, he was something he did and
he traveled a lot in his twenties to Europe and
to the Middle East. He worked for the State Department.
He was in the State Department band was Dizzy Gillespie
and so he what years was it in the nineteen fifties,
early nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Isn't it great? There was a State Department band. Wonder
if that exists anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I doubt it.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. But
he traveled everywhere and he for him it was language,
food and it's kind of beauty of being out of
the United States.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So I think your grandparents fed him, were they interested?
Do you remember your grandparents?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
I do, and I didn't know my grandfather. I knew
my grandmother, And no, it wasn't like I think his
relationship with food was probably came from an absence of
food in his own childhood. He was my dad was
such a lover of life and culture and food, and
you know, he just loved beautiful, delicious things. So I
(08:27):
think that came from not having that very much, from
not having that.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And so he had traveled and then encouraged you to know. Yes,
I believe very firmly that when you get to a city,
you go, you know, to the market or see how
people's self is, see how people buy yes, and then
you you know, the greatest For me, I think the
greatest honor in this new city is to be able
to eat in someone's house.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
You know, it's the best, and you get a sense
of a city. Wee quicker that way than anything on
a tourist list, you know, like it is really like
I remember, I spent a little bit of time in
India when I was a teenager, and I remember going
to I lived in a little tiny village that was
like two hours from Mumbai, and we went to a
family's house and ate there and it was like the
(09:14):
coolest thing that's ever happened to me, because and also
the food was insane. It was so good. Remember it
was like a doll and a rice and a vegetable
and japatties. And they had this like cool little snack
called tudah, which is just like a bunch of like
dried like nuts and rice and spices. And I've just like,
(09:36):
you know, gobbled it. It was just delicious. It was totally
delicious and so different from anything I'd ever experienced as
a kid. So, you know, in that way, I think
I'm I'm definitely my father's child.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But what was food like at Hoell? So because your
parents your mother was Jewish and my.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Mom was Jewish, and my dad loved soul food. He
also loved his favorite dish it was is so weird
because it's like German, I think, was chicken potatoes and
sour krap. So we had that at least once a week.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, And who cooked that.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
My dad would sometimes cook it, and sometimes, like you know,
we had somebody lived with us, Anna, who was amazing.
She would cook it. She was also from El Salvador.
So there was a lot of papoosas, which I love
papoosa's like it's made of corn of masa, corn massa
and it's like it's kind of like somewhere between a
Cassadia and like uh Banada. So it's like a flat thing.
(10:32):
It's enclosed and then it's filled with whatever you want
to fill it with, whether it's like cheese or green
peppers or meat or whatever. You know, it's just like
it's the it's the the facilitating of the of the
thing inside.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So many that they even yes, you know in India
with the somosas and the dumplings, in Taiwanese cooking, and
in this country and you know one well they call pasties.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
I love love cornish past You.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Don't need a play. You would put it everything. It
was for my nose very often they'd put everything in
it and then you eat it.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Crip similar similar thing. And so she cooked for she
cooked press Anna.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Do you have sisters and brothers?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I have six sisters and brothers, but we have a
very large age range. So we kind of grew up
in a house with four of us. Okay, I was
one of four. Meals were really important to us.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
We did.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
We ate all of our dinners together as a family.
We had My parents would often have people over, like
a lot of friends over Sunday night and my dad
had this, would have this chef come. She was a
Brazilian chef. Her name was Remy, and she would just
make the most delicious like greens and beans with like
(11:53):
you know, bacon, and I don't sorry, I don't remember
any of the Brazilian names, and I do not want
to butcher it, but like, and everybody'd come over and
we'd sit outside. We'd have all like lots of little tables,
and that was like a really it's a very strong
memory about the coziness of my childhood or those Sunday
night dinners.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
When you when you were born, when you were growing up,
was had your father known success then? Was he was
he passed the struggling he did?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yes, he did. No success he's had he had so
many lives in so many careers. So by the time
I was born, you know, nineteen seventy six, he had
had plenty of success as a jazz musician, and he'd
worked with Frank Sinatra, and he had worked at Mercury
Records and produced Leslie Gore.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
When you say he produced them, what would that mean
that would be well, he.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Would it's it's it's a long story. Production but you know,
I'm sure, I'm sure there's an analogue in the kitchen there.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a nice like being a chef does being a chef, so,
I know produces a film, and I know produces different
than producers.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
It's more like a directure of a film, I would say,
where it's you, just you. You kind of take every
single element. You have your eye on the biggest, biggest picture,
the end result. And within that, you work on the orchestrations,
you work on the vocals, specifically, you work on the
background vocals. You work on, you know, basically building a
(13:21):
track so that it sounds exactly the way you want
it to sound. And sometimes you take things away and
sometimes you mix it differently, and sometimes you have to edit,
and sometimes you have to bring on you know. And
then you also you're casting the characters all musicians, and
you're mentoring. You're bringing the best out of your you know,
main singer or your you know, vocalist or your instrumentalist.
(13:42):
It's like, you know, you're the you're the maestro, and
so is.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Your house full of people filled with musicians?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah? Filled with musicians?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Really? And what was that like for you?
Speaker 4 (13:52):
So great? I feel like my sister and I talk
about this all the time. We feel so lucky that
we our house was filled with music and are and
and people who value that obviously, but also like for
you know, for for our assessment. And I think, like
empirically like the best music. I feel like, you know,
(14:12):
my dad, my dad's taste, my dad's fact sophistication. You know,
even though he made Thriller, which is the biggest album
that ever sold ever in the world, when he was
fifty and so he didn't like he was he was,
you know, successful, but he wasn't famous. He wasn't world
(14:33):
renowned in the same way that he was by the
time I was eight. So that kind of happened when
I was a kid. That was like happening, which is,
you know, changes things. But but the point is that
he brought all of the richness and sophistication of his
early jazz days into his like pop world or into
(14:53):
our our pop world, which is like a real gift
for the world.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
The gift, a huge gift. And being a child in
that atmosphere, were you so you weren't shy, you weren't
waiting on the stairs, you know for them to get home.
You were would you be involved. I was there. Everybody
was engaged.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You were totally social and relaxed. Because my parents were
very relaxed, everybody felt invited and warm. I was actually
talking to a family friend the other day who was
like a little younger than my parents, and he was
just saying how much he loved coming to their house
because it was like, Oh, this is what you can
have as a family. You can invite all your friends
(15:31):
and it's not stiff, it's not formal. You just come.
You relax and you laugh a lot, and the kids
are welcome and all the different generations are welcome. And
you have always loved that, which is, by the way,
why I love what you do, because that's that is
the kind of that's the mandate. Is everybody come and
feel relaxed and at home and welcome all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
At the dinner you came to, you know, there was
there was a two seventeen year olds, and there was
you know, someone who it was hardly able to walk
up the stairs, and then there was you know, there
were This is No and Greta's film dinner. And I
just thought that mix of people and people staying late,
people coming late and it's just you want to have
(16:14):
a home where you have that.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And you also you made people sing, which I thought
was one of the most beautiful things ever because I like,
you would never do that naturally anymore. But it is
sort of like our right to sing, and it's to
sing with other people is one of the most It's
not just bonding, it's like good for our nervous system,
(16:36):
you know, it's like it's something that actually creates community,
and it's kind of unforgettable moment and it's not something
that you're going to just do naturally so anymore. You know,
Like I think people used to do that, but we
don't anymore. So it's so nice that you had us
do that. Really, it was very warm, very special moment.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And was it with the musicians play with they mostly
city times.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, I would go and like, you know, just do
a little thing on the piano or sing. It wasn't
like performative though.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It was very relaxed and it was kind of conversational.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
But but you know, my dad did have a studio
at her house and so we would go in there.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And because she brought a lot to the tables, don't
meet food to the table. But I read about her
and I've thought about her, and I think that she
must have been a remarkable woman.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
She was. She just was the most loving. Yeah. Sorry,
she was just a very she was a very warm person.
She was a deep, warm, sensitive person. And so she
was the kind of person. Like you're at a party
and you meet my mom, You're like, oh, I love Peggy.
I had the best conversation. We got in so deep,
(17:48):
so fast. Like my parents, like both of them did
not suffer fools. They like they wanted to get in
the deep end quickly. And everybody has a story to tell.
Everybody has a depth to them, and I don't know,
they just wanted to get there fast. And I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Everybody has a story to tell.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
I say that about the River Cafe when you walk
in and you see all these tables.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
I feel lucky too that, Like, you know, I grew
up with people who encouraged me to just kind of
be present. You know that it wasn't about errors, it
wasn't about trying to make somebody feel any way about you.
And my dad would talk to everybody. He would be
in the deepest conversation for four hours with somebody. He
didn't meet, and people come up to me still and say,
(18:37):
I had the best night with your dad. He just
saw me, and he gave me so much time, and
he was so patient and he listened, and it's true.
He just treated everybody the same, and he really really
believed in the kind of the fundamental beauty of being alive,
you know, and.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Your mother being Jewish. And I wouldn't necessarily remark on
somebody's religion, but it comes up. Did she bring us
certain kind of food as well?
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yes, liver, liver, She love liver. She loved chicken liver
and much more. Soup, Yeah, my favorite, the filter fish love.
I know that's I know that's a controversial stance, but
I love it.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, And we had you know, we we were observant,
like yeah, yeah, we were like casualoid, you know, but
we were observant. We spent you know, did pass Over
Sadar and both her parents were Jewish, and she was like,
you know, grew up in Long Island. So at the time,
I think like she was confirmed. She didn't have a
but mitzvah. I wasn't butt mitzvah. But I did go
(19:41):
to Sunday School. I spent a little time in Hebrew school,
and yeah, we we the cultural part of it, like
the getting together and the sitting and you know, the
reading of the Hagada, and like, you know, the tradition
part of it, the hiding the matsa. We love the
hiding the matza and finding the matsa that kind of stuff.
But yeah, the food. I had a great aunt, Pearl,
(20:03):
who was born in Ireland and grew up in Scotland
because they had emigrated from Latvia. Her family, so.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
They got off the boat there.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
They got off the boat there, and then she came
to America when she was like fourteen. Because people used
to send their kids, you know, with relatives.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
She came by herself. She came by herself.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, and then her sister came later. But they but
they you know, were Scottish and they kind of spoke
Yiddish and a little bit with like a brogue and
like you know, it was they just had a really
cool they had a cool relationship and but they always
you know, she would make the best not sible soup.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Do you have any recipes, have any recipes from your
mother or any.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I have recipes. I have my dad's recipes for Yeah,
I do for his chicken and sauerkraut and.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Potatoes, remember how he made them.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I have to look. I have to look because I
have yet too. I think I've been like, yeah, sentimental,
I haven't gone to make it. Yeah, but I haven't
sitting there and waiting for me to make it. And
then we used to have a stuffing recipe that was
like an old recipe from like Adam Clayton Powell.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Oh really, his.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Family recipe for gravy and stuffing was the one we
used forever.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
And it's the best.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I've had him Clayton Powell. Yeah, he was a conversation. Yeah,
I mean I'd have to remember that too. But so
it sounds like you grew up in this incredible house
and family meals and people coming in and you know,
getting them to know what it meant like to open
your house and to be also protected and to feel
(21:40):
safe there. What was it like when you left, because
then you went to university in Boston Harvard? Yeah? Was
that a big Had you go on to summer camps
or any separation?
Speaker 4 (21:52):
I really had? I really wanted to. I was desperate
to go and experience something new. I was like an
adult in training that I always wanted to get out.
I remember, I like applied to boarding school by myself
without my parents knowing.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That's so funny, I did too, did you Yeah, I
did exactly that. I went for the summer and I
went to a summer camp they sent me to in Colorado,
which was a kind of a camp during the summer
of the school. And I loved it so much that
I went to the head of it and I said,
can I come back in September? And they said, well,
(22:28):
you know, and then it was so kind of I
don't even know why they accepted me, but they did.
And then I, you know, I said, okay, I'm coming.
And then my father always say, Ruthie went to you know,
she applied to boarding school. She got accepted. She told
him she was coming, and then she came home and
asked us, you know, and they I was the first
kid of my family ever to go to any private school.
(22:48):
But that's funny, did you get did They said? She
won't go back. And it was the happiest two years
ever because I didn't learn much. I was on a
I was on a branch and that's you. Yeah, no,
and I did learn Yeah, no, great school great.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I didn'too, so you applied me. I applied that I didn't go.
I think my mom was very protective of me. My
sister was like kind of wild and doing her thing,
and so I think I was the one who is not, yeah,
doing that. But it's fine because you know, by the
time I went to college when I was seventeen, so
it wasn't like I but yeah, I mean, food was
(23:24):
that lie. Food was not a it's not great, it
was it was cool. I mean I think I had
a little culture shock. You know, I was a California girl.
All of a sudden, I'm like in the dead of
Boston winters, which are no joke, like waiting for the shuttle,
and my hair's like frozen into my face because it's
like in the middle of the ice dorm. That my
(23:45):
idea was that that was ninety three. I went to college,
and it took me a minute to kind of find
my footing and find my people. I was like a
little depressed. My sophomore year was pretty depressed. I got
I got like randomized into a dorm really far from campus,
and that was bad. And then I found my people
like I started doing theater and a cappella and worked
(24:09):
on the Hasty Pudding and like you know, I started
making music and acting and singing and that was great
for me.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
That like changed to ask you, but when all the
family stuff was going on home, did your parents ever
take you to restaurants? Would you go to would it
be for special cases or did you go.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Out every Sunday restaurants in La Yes, I remember like
after the Remy era every Sunday night, I think maybe
even when no, Yeah, must have been like yeah, nine
ten maybe earlier we went to this little sushi restaurant
called Hana Sushi So Delicious in Beverly Hill in Westwood,
west On, Wilshire. And then we go to Hagendas for dessert.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah. And then because it was sixist probably like the
four of us.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
And then yeah, when my brother and sister came and
moved in with us because they lived in Sweden and
then they lived in with us. Later they would come
with us for sure, and then we'd go to a
restaurant called Old World, and then we went to what's
the Hamburger.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Hamlet, Hamberg, Hammeleber Hamber, the Hamlet.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
On like Doheny that was a big one for us.
And then La Scala.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, my Gret tell me about this. That's Italian. I've
never been.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Oh, it's a classic. It's a classic restaurant. There's one
in Beverly Hills. There used to be one in Malibu
and my grandfather, my mom's dad was a part owner
and that restaurant and you know, it's still there.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It is.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
It is like you know Jugernaut. Yeah, they have this
chop salad that people go crazy for and I still
like I It's it's something I dream about, like alongside
the Punterarelli. The Lascala chop salad is something I crave
and when michaels it's same thing. It's like crisp and
acidic and crunchy and like the perfect thing to go
(25:59):
along side anything like a pasta or like a you know,
like a meat or whatever. It's it's the dressing is
like perfect, It's the perfect mix of vinegar and oil
and salt pepper.
Speaker 7 (26:11):
Let's go, yeah, let's go, Yeah, let's go for sure
together for sure, so many and so so you grew
up with restaurants, you grew up with food, and then
so Harvard again when you started being on your own.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Did you and your friends have more ethnic type food,
because you know at in Cambridge, Boston.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
That's the first one. The restaurant I think it was
in Porters Restaurant, an Ethiopian restaurant.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Pretty good food.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
It was delicious, so good. Yeah, and we would go
to like there was a Moroccan place, remember nothing in
Harvard Square that we went to all the time called Casablanca.
We'll have to ask James.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
You know. I went to Bennington College. Yeah, and they
had a term where you had to work. And do
you know what my job was. I was working at
the Harvard Law School doing research.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
But my money making job.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Was selling pretzels in Harvard Square. No way that close. No,
we had to find a little flat. I had a
little apartment there Cambridge. I only did it for four
or five weeks. Well, they just give you the term off,
So I had the term to work. To work, you
had to go and do a job. It was again
part of the kind of liberal arts education at Bennington
(27:27):
which was a bit radicalized, and so we had to
go and do something. And so my job was doing
research at Harvard Law School on civil liberties. You know,
I was that kind of but then I sold pretzels
in Harvard Square, which was very cold. But I think
that I'm going, you know, the experience of being away
(27:47):
from home with their parents come and visit you to
go home.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
They were coming to me. I was actually just talking yesterday.
I was saying to Ezrael, like there was this restaurant,
Henrietta's Table, that was at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square,
where like you would be so psyched when your parents
came because they would take you to Henry take you
to like the nice restaurant, like you could have like
a real meal. But I have to say food in
(28:14):
Boston for me, like I don't love like a nut
or like a dried fruit and a salad, and they
love that there. Oh yeah, well maybe just in the nineties. Yeah,
maybe not my vibe. I don't like, I don't like
a dried fruit and a salad like save it.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I want you with these actors, so you were acting
at Harvard and that that became more and more of
a yeah it is there at the time, was their
actors their actors there.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I was just talking about this because because weirdly, Greta
and Ezra were in the same class at Columbia. Yeah,
they weren't friends, but they knew each other a little bit.
But but but like I think most of my friends
in my year I actually ended up working with later,
but as writers like Yeah, Mike Sure who created Parks
(29:01):
re Creation we met doing a play sophomore year and
called Love Sex and the I R S. And then
Dan Gore who also a great writer who created Brooklyn
nine nine with Mike. We also met during doing a
play sophomore year. So art like, I think it was
a lot of writers. I don't know if any actors
(29:21):
were there at the same time as me.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But that was that became your life. That was what
you wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
I did not want to be. I did not want
to be in the entertainment business. ID no, no, no,
it was absolutely not. I wanted to be a lawyer.
I wanted to be a judge. I wanted to go
to law school. I want to go to Harvard Law School.
I wanted to do like legitimate academic things. That was
that was kind of like I wanted to use my brain.
(29:51):
I did not want to I don't know, just like
be I don't know, like creative. But for some reason,
I you know, I guess you have to rebel somehow.
And by the way, so grateful for my childhood. But
like it was, you know, it was heaven. It was
like California in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Did you do drama at Harvard? I mean you just
said you did, Hasty, I did it.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I did place it at Harvard. But actually I came
to Rata for the summer one year. Yeah, and that
was when I kind of fell in love with London.
London and and did like a Shakespeare course over the summer.
And that's that's when I was like, oh, I really
love this, I love the I love acting. At that point,
I didn't realize what auditioning was and how different that
(30:34):
was from acting.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Okay, which is you know because most of the yea, no,
you just get to do these incredible I know Shakespeare.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
You know, scenes and monologues, which like you never get
to do when you're auditioning.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Oh so I was going to say that my experience
of acting were going for auditions and coming back without
a part. You know. The cruelty of that, the cruelty
of the rejection, the incredible power of saying, you know,
I'm going to keep I have a friend who keeps
every letter of rejection from a publisher on his desk.
You know, so this this goes on and it's you know,
(31:08):
I have we all have it. And what you do?
How did you, Candle.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Decide I wanted to have a life of rejection of rejection? Yeah,
good question, good question. I probably know. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Not everybody has much of horse.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
They do, everybody? Yes, I mean very rarely somebody jumps
out into the scene and everybody's anointed them the one. Yeah,
that's gonna that's going to be the horse that they're
they're backing. It's very rare that that happens. And by
the way, I don't necessarily think it's very good for
your character when it does happen, because you lose perspective
(31:43):
very quickly. So no, I so much rejection, Yeah, totally.
I didn't know. I was too naive to know at
the time, because I had these wonderful experiences actually acting
that when I got moved to New York that I
would spend most of my time like on a subway
going to an audition and waiting for an hour and
a half and then then being like thank you so much,
(32:04):
and then not getting the job like that was.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
The most of it was really movingly about. It was Zoe. Yes,
that was so done and when she came here and
we did a really really lovely conversation, and a lot
of it was about her mother taking her to every
audition and coming out of the audition going back for
another audition. But you did have it. So what was
the audition that that kind of was there one that
(32:26):
kind of won that the mold was there?
Speaker 4 (32:28):
I would say, well, there was two. One was my
first job in New York. I got like a it
was like a guest spot on a pilot. Don't even
remember the name of it. It didn't go. It was
a good not go pilot, but it was I was
so proud because I got this job. I can't remember
the name, it doesn't matter. And it was the same
(32:49):
casting directors as Law and Order, and I had gone
in first for Law and Order, which, by the way,
I still haven't done a Law and Order. And that's
like a real source of pride. If you live in
New York and you don't do a Law and Order,
something wrong with you. Oh she's on it, She's on it,
like lot, No, this is I just mean a guest star,
guest star, like you have to guest star on Law
and Order and I didn't, but the cast and directing
(33:10):
something on there's still time, There's still time.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I would love to do it.
Speaker 8 (33:15):
You hear that listeners ever it is, But anyway, I
would say when I moved to LA after a couple
of years in New York, because it just seemed like
that's where I had to audition, and I auditioned for Freaks.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
And Geeks and that that was a game changer for
me for so many reasons, because when I read it,
I was like, I want to be on the show.
This is like exactly my sensibility. It was funny, it
was dark. It felt like it really sort of understood
and and valued like young people in a way that
(33:50):
you don't see on TV that often. There's like, you
know a handful of things here and there my so
called life or you know, but you just don't see
that often. And then I remember thinking, oh, it was
just a guest star. It was just one episode. I
was like, oh, but I want to be like on
the show. I want to be a recurring And I thought, Okay,
well it doesn't matter. I just want to be on
the show. So I took the job, and I'm so
glad I did because that show famously only went one
(34:12):
season and the episode I was on never aired on
Network TV because it was too dark. It was written
by Mike White, who it was also in the episode
Now White Lotus Success, And it just kind of introduced
me to this whole group of people. And I became
friends with all these people on Freaks and Geeks who
(34:33):
were like writers because they had writers who were like
nineteen twenty twenty one. And it opened up a whole
new community for me.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
It was parks and recreation next I wish RUTHI.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
We had a solid fifteen to twenty years. It was
twenty three when I got it.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I don't think there was a time when there was
oh yeah, no, that was that was two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
But I, you know, I struggled to get jobs. I
waited around eating that were you home?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Back home?
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I spent a lot of time at my mom's house. Yeah,
and so we would we would hang together all the time,
have dinner together all the time. And yeah, we spent
a lot of a lot of time together, a lot
of salad.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A lot of California, you know, I love a salad.
So then so so working in La.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Yeah, like not working, like trying to work.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And not a domestic life because you were living at home.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
I was no, I was living on my I was
living with friends like duplex and yeah, I had parties
who remember had like a.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Did you carry your parents of having people.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
I loved game nights, so I would do a lot
of game nights, like running charades and celebrity and like
murder mystery nights, and like we would just like order pizza,
like you know, take out. I love this Chinese restaurant
Mandarette in La We'd order like crispy noodles from Mandarett.
It was like a very thing. We did a lot.
(36:00):
And there's like there was I spent a lot of
time that there's this like Macrobiotic restaurant.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I remember macro Remember.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Macrobiotics eighties and lots of fish delicious. There was a
place called Naka on the Brea that was there forever
and I loved it so much and now it's not
there anymore, but like that was my to go place,
like I would go sit there. It's very casual, it is, yes,
but you could sit there, you could take out it
(36:29):
was always the quality was so good, so so yummy.
I miss it all the.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Time you read on set when you were Yeah, does
that is that important to you?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Very important, because I've talked.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
To so many again, you know, people who are either
actors or directors, directors who don't want to stop because
they love the French hour idea. I've learned all about
French French hours and how how you know Wes would
love to just keep filming and then have a soup
at the end of the day with everybody who works
with or Ridley's scart who didn't want to eat but
(37:01):
then had to sit down with everyone in the crew
or Noah. You know, it's just so interesting to hear
Greta who's snacks all day? Have people well, how people
combined work and food?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
How you do that in a creative way? Do you
have a way that you like to work?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, It's evolved over time, but I would say in
my thirties I was really all about a big breakfast
and when I got the office, which was a very
big break for me because I almost quit acting before that.
But anyway, I'd have to be there really early because
I was twenty two on the call sheet and everybody
had to be ready at seven, so I'd get there
at four thirty.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Wow, I would for thirty in the morning.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Is everybody up with your dad? Right?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Exactly, Good night dad, I'm leaving. I think there was
some time actually when I called him a couple times
on the way to work. But i'd get to work,
i'd put in my order, i'd get my hair and
makeup done, I'd take a little nap, and then i'd
have my breakfast and then we'd go rehearse at six
thirty or seven. But my breakfast was so important to me,
and in fact, it's so important that's still to this day.
(38:06):
The caterers call it the rashida.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, oh, it's very nice that. What was it?
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Black beans, Yeah, avocado, two scrambled eggs, turkey, bacon, a
sight of salsa and tortilla.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Sounds kind of Mexicanish, it is.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Yeah, Yeah, I love Mexicano.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I lived in Mexico for six months, and I love
the Mexican way of eating because you know, you have
a very late breakfast and it's quite big, and then
you don't eat again until about four four point thirty
and then you have this huge kind of lunch which
goes into dinner, and that's kind of it. And then
you have an apple at about and go to bed.
(38:46):
And I really loved that. We sketch. Yeah, I really
like that. But I just loved that late lunch. Yes,
I love a late dinner. Yeah, And then it just
turned Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
It's great because I sometimes with dinner, especially if I'm alone,
I just get bored and I just want soup and
I just want to go to bed. If I'm here,
I'm excited, like about River Cafe if I'm with great friends,
and I know it's going to be great food. But
otherwise I'm like, do I have to leave my house
to eat? And do you have to eat it?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Eat Richal, Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I'd rather snack. So I'm kind of like a little
bit like that where I loved I love snacks. I
love a really good, thoughtful snack, like the elements all
work together. And I do like to snack a little
bit through the day. I don't like to stop for
like a meal and then get really tired, yeah, and
then have to gear.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Back ups and then yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Actually on parks and recreation we would have lunch and
literally as a practice, after lunch, because you know it
takes seventy percent of your body to digest your food,
we would get touch ups and we'd have a dance
party for lunch to get our spirits back.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
But tell me about your life now, because you have
a child, you have a home. How does what's if
I come and stay with you? What is the kind
of domestic kind of cooking? Do you sit down to meals?
Do you all grab what you grab?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
A different schedule. We're we're not like breakfast people, like
none of us are. Actually we just kind of grab
whatever yogurt, cereal, coffee, like just quick breakfast lunch. Usually
I like to sit and make people eat a lunch.
And again I'm California. I love salad. I love salad dressings,
(40:25):
and I love the kind of like throwing everything into
one like fresh big pot so like I love to
go to the farmer's market and just figure out what
seasonal vegetable wise, what can be eaten raw and whatever
that is goes into the salad. And I like to
chop it up really small, big ups to la scala
because I do love a chop salad, like I know
(40:45):
it's like baby food, but I like it's easier to
digest instead of like a big plate of leafy things
that are like it's also it's hard to talk to
people when you're like shoving giant things of food into
your mouth, like a chop. Salad just makes easier to talk.
So usually make a giant salad and then maybe I'll
(41:05):
like bake some fish or you know, do something like
simple for like a protein, and then I like, I
like a like a yummy fancy coffee with like a
little bit of milk or something. It's almost like the
dessert portion at the end of a meal, you know,
instead of a dessert or like some berries or dark chocolate.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Much about feeding a little boy.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
He's a really good eater. He's very adventurous. Like when
we were living in Japan, I was doing a show
there and he would like love dried squid. That really
changed my style of cooking. We were there for six months.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Like I love I love Dashie, and I love like Tomago,
and I love like you know, I love sushi. I
love temple. I could never make that stuff, but like
I love the kind of I love the hot pot
cooking in Japan, Like I love oudon and I love
you know, soba, and I love the kind of warm
warmth of like putting a bunch of vegetables into a
(42:01):
donabe and like putting a dashi and like just that's
like my favorite meal.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I just love that you love food so much. You
know that you love food. Yeah, I think that, And
it does immerse you in the culture.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It does. It does, And like you said, I mean
living there and like having a little grocery store and
going there to get my food out. It's a very
different way to understand Japanese culture total, you.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Know, totally. I felt that in Mexico and still you know,
we try actually right now in the River cafe we
have back today, but we last three days. We took
twelve chefs and probably four or five from the front
of house. We do it every year. We've done it
every year since we've started to taste the new olive
oil in Tuscany, because you know, this is the harvest
(42:48):
and to and the wine. But it also what it
does is you realize talking to you, talking to my children,
talking to your children towards your family, is that so
much of our life has been about exposure you know
that we've been exposed to other countries, exposed to other cultures.
And there are many people in the River Cafe who
(43:08):
know how to make the thinnest, most beautiful ravioli, but
they've never been to Italy, and so to take them
on this trip and to and that. Of course, the
people we buy a wine from, we buy our olive
oil from, and they, you know, they're very proud and
they cook and it's a very important part of learning
what a culture is sure understanding.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
And also like food, when you think about tolerance, the
word tolerance, like food creates tolerance because it expands your
understanding of what can taste good. And so I feel
like when you give somebody the gift of like something
delicious and it's something that you've never had before, all
of a sudden, it's like, you know, all of your
(43:49):
synapses fire and it just expands your your understanding, like
you know, that's that's I feel like there's so much
beauty in that, Like there's that and it brings people
together in that way.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
You know. So if we think of food, as you've
gone through the whole thing through, you know, the excitement
of the culture of food, the excitement of the curiosity
and the excitement of the taste, and the different versions
of it, whether it's Mexican for breakfast or Japanese as
(44:21):
a memory, or going to have the best chop salad
and malibu, or way of expressing love and as we
do have to go have that Puntarel and your great
friends are waiting for you. I will end with the
question I always end a podcast on, which is if
you need food for comfort, something that will actually make
(44:42):
you feel better. Because we are all going through life
and many changes in many places, with many challenges. Is
there something that you might reach for or cook or
want cook for you that would actually give you comfort.
Mashida Jones.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Definitely, something warm, Definitely with a big piece of like fresh,
lightly toasted sour dough bread on the side, and probably
something like there's a really beautiful Mexican soup that I
can't remember the name of, but it's like it's like
tomatoes and onions and then you kind of sprinkle a
(45:24):
little tortilla soup, not tortio soup, but that would absolutely
do it, like a chicken doodle soup, a tortilla soup.
I have to remember the name of the soup. But
it's like it's so warm, it's so tasty, it's got
a little bit of spice to it. So a warm
soup that has lots of vegetables in it, so I
know that it's nourished. It's actually nourishing me. Just that
(45:47):
first bite where you like, do you dip bread with
butter on it into the soup and you take that
first bite like that is the most the coziest thing
in the world to me. Immediately happy.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
You have some usually in your house if you need it.
Always have super, Always have super, Always have super in
my house. Yeah, thank you. That's beautiful, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bell and Zad
Rogers with Susanna Hislop, Robbie Hamilton, Andrew Sang, Daniel Naranjo Rodriguez,
and Bella Selini. This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Ruthie's Table four in collaboration with Me and m Intelligence
Style for Busy Women
Host
Ruth Rogers
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