June 21, 2022 • 19 mins
When Congressman Adam Schiff came to London, giving a dinner for him in our home was a great honour. On Episode 40 of Ruthie's Table 4, Ruthie and Adam talk about the food he grew up with, the food he cooks for his family, and the food he finds personally comforting.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie’s Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. As an American living
in Britain, a visit to London by Congressman Adam Schiff
is a big deal. That we gave dinner for him
and our house was a great honor. Adam was on
the way back from Ukraine meeting with Zu Lanski and
(00:20):
over pasta and winter vegetables, he talked to us about
world we are living in, food shortages, child poverty, and
food insecurity. Today will continue, but also talk about the
food he grew up with, the food he cooks for
his family, the food he personally finds comforting. Adam, will
you begin by reading a recipe you've chosen from River
(00:44):
Cafe Cookbook thirty. So I've got a wonderful recipe for spaghetti.
I have the lave pasa and my favorite is spaghetti
or angel hair. So this is a perfect recipe for
me to share with you. Spaghetti, rots, tomato and arugula,
or as you you would say in Britain, rocket spaghetti, grams,
(01:09):
plum tomatoes. You'll need four of those. You'll need two
garlic clothes, dried chili, just one dried ChIL unless you
like it really spicy. Capers, two tablespoons, black olives three tablespoons.
Now I'm a huge olive fan, but it does work
great in spaghetti arugula. You'll have three leaves and three
(01:32):
tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. So you will cut
the tomatoes in half, squeeze out the excess juice and seeds,
and chop the flesh course. Then peel the garlic can
squash with one teaspoon of sea salt. Then you'll crumble
the chili, rinse the capers and stone the olives. Then
(01:54):
you'll roughly chop the arugula. Finally, combine the tomatoes with
all the ingredients except for the rugula, seasoned generously, add
the olive oil, and put aside for thirty minutes. You
cooked the spaghetti and boiling salted water until all dante.
Then drain and stir the pasta into the tomatoes. Add
(02:14):
the rugula and tossed the coat each strand season with
black pepper, Serve with olive oil, and delicious. Beautifully read.
I always think your recipe is half science and half poetry,
So there you go. You read it as a poem.
It is beautiful. Thank you glad I didn't read it
(02:34):
as a scientist. Beautiful. One of the things that I
really love about you is that I think you're a
really good eater. I issue it was not good eater,
but I do love food. Yeah, that's what I mean.
I meet people from time to time that can kind
of take or leave eating. I don't understand them. I
think there, I think they're from another planet. Tell me
(02:55):
about growing up in the Chift household. What was it
like food? Why? I think this is why I love
to go out to eat, because when I was a kid,
it was such a rarity. And I always like to
claim to my wife, because you know, only a husband
can make this claim that I'm the ideal husband because
I don't want to home cooked meal. I really love
(03:17):
going out. You're not distracted by the phone ringing, You're
not distracted by the TV or this kid wants to
run off to do homework instead of finishing the meal,
and so you're you're at a table. You're just focused
on each other and the food. But I think it
part of it is that it was a rarity when
I was growing up. My mother was a good cook
(03:40):
but didn't like to cook, but nonetheless, we ate at
home all the time, and my father was traveling salesman
in the shmata business, and it was a big deal
when when we could go out and to one of
our favorite restaurants. I think that it's changed so much
because I also grew up where you went out to
(04:00):
dinner if somebody graduated from high school or there was
a birthday or an anniversary. Now having a restaurant, I
just see people eating all the time. They come with
their children, they come on a Friday night with their
their parents. They use a restaurant in a very different
way than we did. I think. I think that's right.
(04:21):
And because my mother didn't like to cook, um, a
lot of our meals were very kind of standard fair
tell me about them. What did she cook? You know,
a lot of canned food, to be honest. But my
favorite meal that my mother used to make was something
that she she made using these little boneless chicken pieces
(04:44):
that she breaded. You made it with a sign of
spaghetti and they were breaded with cheese on them, so
it was kind of like a mini chicken parmisan with spaghetti.
But I guess my strongest memories in childhood of food
were of the high holidays when we get together my
grandparents and they would make a great big meal. Were
(05:06):
they born in the United States? Were they immigrants from
another country? My father was an immigrant from London. His
parents immigrated from Eastern Europe. My other grandparents were born
in the United States, but their parents, my great grandparents,
all came from Eastern Europe. But when we get together
for the holidays, it would be a lot of mats
(05:28):
of b a soup and holly bread and brisket, and
it was quite a feast that I didn't want to
go near. Like chop lever. Yeah, there is an eternal
debate in Jewish households about whether matsi boll should be
light and fluffy or should be the kind that when
(05:50):
you drop them, they go through the floor. I just
want to state, unequivocally, without hesitation, they need to be
the kind that that fall through the floor. That suspense
was killing me as you were telling this guy's going
to think, what is he going to go for falling
through the floor or light and fluffy. I did think
you might choose light and fluffy, but I will it
(06:11):
has to be that really heavy, sinking feeling. Yeah, as
the politician was, sometimes we have to make difficult decisions. Yes,
I know, and I am fairly firmly in the camp
of the very little, very heavy months of all that.
You know, when you've eaten it and uh and it
doesn't get lost in the broth. You interested in eating?
(06:32):
Were you interested in cooking? When I did cook, it
was frankly as a kid and through adulthood at the barbecue. Ah,
that's very male, that's very that's kind of always think
when men feel that they can cook because the barbecue, Yes, barbecue.
Well did you do you know? My cooking pre pandemic
(06:54):
was pretty basic, fair, And what happened in the pandemic, well,
you know, we we're not going out to eat, and
it was a huge lifestyle change about other things. So
I got myself a few gadgets. You know, I think
this is also a male thing. You'd like to cook
with gadgets? Yeah, we love a gadget. Yeah. I got
an air fryer, and I got a pressure cooker. I
(07:17):
started making a curry tofu and the pressure cooker with
vegetables and potatoes and it it seemed to be a
pretty failsafe device in terms of coming out well, and
likewise the air fryer. I have to tell you a
funny story. I has had a political event in Los
(07:38):
Angeles and I gave my speech and then a brand
new assembly member went up to the microphone, real sharp
up and comer. He was saying some nice things about me,
and then he said, and I got some of the
most important advice from Cargo smanth shift when I was
getting started, the most important advice I've evergotten. And I
(08:00):
was waiting to hear what what sage political advice I'd
given him? And he said, he told me to get
an air fryer. You've just come back from Ukraine. Did
you experience the food shortage and challenges we did. We
(08:22):
discussed this with the President Zelinski when we sat down
with him. This was a congressional delegation that Speaker Pelosi led,
as it turned out, the first congressional delegation to Ukraine
since the war. And one of the things that was
apparent to us before we left, but became much more
apparent as we discussed the issue is that when the
Russians blockaded Odessa, they were not only trying to cripple
(08:45):
Ukraine's economy, but as Ukraine has been the bread basket
of Europe and a lot of the grain to Africa
and other places as well. The Russians were also blockading
food that a lot of people will need it to survive,
and because not only a great increase in food prices,
(09:07):
but also risks starvation in many places that really have
relied on Ukraine for their grain. And so part of
the appeal that Zelinsky was making for the weapons that
he needs to sink of that Black Sea fleet and
the equipment he needs to do demning was this is
important to Ukraine, it's important to to our economy, but
(09:30):
it's also important to the rest of the world because
the real food shortage issue, Well do you think it
will be that in Egypt and North Africa? What is
going to happen when they can't get their food? You know,
it's certainly risks great instability, and just in its own right,
of course, it risks starvation. And I think it's one
(09:54):
of the reasons we have to do everything we can
to try to bring this war in Ukraine to an end.
You know, sadly it's hard to see that path. I
think it does require us to give Ukraine what needs
to defend itself to increase the costs on Russia, so
the Russian people see the folly of what their dictator
(10:15):
has done. But this tragic war has had a lot
of repercussions, and one of those I think the world
at least understands is the impact it has on people's
ability to get enough to eat in many parts of
the world. What do we do now? What are your
major concerns in terms of poverty inequality? You know, I
(10:38):
think that we have experienced the revolution in the economy
and the global economy as a function of globalization but
also automation, and the result is that millions of people
in the million in the middle class or at risk
of falling out. A lot of working families have to
work harder than ever to try to get in the
middle class. Uh. At the same time, of these structural
(11:01):
changes in the economy have produced a very great concentrated wealth.
So while we have students in our colleges who can't
get enough to eat, we have captains of entry literally
flying into space on tourist strips. You are very vocal
and very concerned and very politically engaged in food inequality.
(11:25):
When I think it's seventeen million of our children in
the United States are faced with hunger every day. It
really is extraordinary. And I had a meeting some years ago,
this before the pandemic, with a group of community college
students from my district and they were talking to me
about and it came up in a common, offhanded way
(11:47):
about the food banks they had on campus for students,
and I was astonished at each of them, and they
were going to three different community colleges all had food
banks on campus. US this was still before the pandemic.
So the economy was strong, far stronger than during the
recession and fully recovered, and yet the hunger was greater
(12:10):
than ever. And it really pointed to me of some
strong structural problems in the economy that even when it
was doing well, it wasn't doing well for millions and
millions of people, to the point that, uh, college kids,
you know, not only a community college, but the state
colleges of the private universities were going hungry. So I
(12:32):
um introduced a bill to try to expand the free
and reduced lunch program that we have in K twelve
up through community college, and that was the genesis of
the Food for Thought Act. And we've been working to
get that past ever since, and and trying to address
broader issues of hunger and homelessness as well. In Britain
(12:56):
in the pandemic, what became very clear was that when
schools were they were enormous a number of children who
are not having lunch and therefore had depended on lunch
as their meal for the day. Did you find that
in the United States as well? Absolutely, And what we
discovered is that schools, these kindergarten through high schools, we're
(13:19):
one of the major providers of food, as it turned out,
to low income families. And when those schools closed and
people went to remote learning, suddenly these families didn't have meals,
didn't have meals. So what a lot of our schools did,
and I visited so many of these sites in my
own district and participated is they would prepare meals and
(13:41):
families would drive up in their car. We would ask
how many kids do they have, and we would give
them the number of meals for the kids and their
family that they would have had if they were in school.
Tell me about the road from being a barbecue of
(14:03):
meat and fish to being vegan. What is your vegan story, Well,
my cholesterol has been high and I tried medication like Satin's,
but they didn't said well with me. I couldn't tolerate
them very well. So my wife, was a very healthy eater,
suggest that I tried being vegan. And I've been vegan
for about three days when I was in my district
(14:25):
and I was at an event, and of course at
any event in Los Angeles, you talked about food. I
was talking about a great restaurant i've been too, called Crossroads,
and the person I was talking to recognize it was
a vegan restaurant, and she said to me, can I
tell people here your vegan? Uh? And I thought that
was kind of a strange question. Why would people be
(14:46):
interested in that? And then I realized where I was.
I was in West Hollywood at an animal welfare event.
Oh yes, I guess that is a big deal. At
an animal wealthfare event. And I said, I've only been
vegan and to be honest for three days, and if
you tell people, I'm going to be pretty locked in.
But you know I need the incentive go ahead and
(15:06):
tell people. So that was six years ago, and you know,
I do allow myself to cheat from time to time
the truth be told. When you cheat, what do you
go for? Usually cheat when I'm traveling because it's hard
for me to always find vegan food, so I try
not to be too tough on myself. I also cheat
during Thanksgiving because I had my first Thanksgiving as a
(15:30):
vegan and it was just an awful experience. You had
just cranberry sauce and vegetables and no turkey. We were
actually out at a place in Pennsylvania, nice little place
for the weekend. Our kids were with us, and we
had ordered in advanced to vegan meals and then two
traditional turkey dinners. You know, our family is kind of
(15:51):
isolated in DC. We don't have other family there, so
we often have Thanksgiving out or at friends. And they
brought these two beautiful plates for our kids, and then
they our own plates, and it looked like someone had
opened the Gerber's baby food jar and poured it on
the plate, and it was not at all satisfying. And
(16:14):
so I thought, Okay, I'm Thanksgiving. I'm gonna make an exception.
Do you know when I talked to Paul McCartney who
about being a vegetarian when he and Linda as my
wife became vegetarians. They said that the first Christmas they had,
they made a macaroni and cheese, but they shaped it
into a turkey and carved. I have a ballenge for
(16:37):
your listeners if I can on behalf of vegans the
world over, and that is how to make a good
vegan pizza. I really have yet to find one that
I really like because most of the places should go
to use a kind of a diet cheese which is
made of coconut oil. It doesn't taste anything like the
(16:57):
real thing. So I put this up there with hurt
long machine. If somebody can invent pizza, we do just
you know, cooked tomato sauce with a pizza. You don't
have to have a cheesy pizza. I don't know how
you substitute cheese, which is I think substitutes are tricky.
One of the things about this restaurant is we're really
(17:18):
good for vegetarians and for vegans because the Italian diet
that we serve as so vegetable based. So when you
come in there are big huge plates of you know,
braised artichokes or charred or pumpkins, whatever the season is.
And so if somebody says I'm vegan. It's actually that
sounds wonderful. So we'll do that. And so I suppose
(17:41):
my last question to you is that if food is
is love, and food is sharing, and food is alleviating hunger,
it also is comfort. What would be your comfort food?
I think my comfort food to to go back where
we started with the original recipe. Yes, pasta pasta. I
think pasta is hard to be I have so many
(18:06):
fond memories of it as a kid, through adulthood, having pasta.
When I travel, there's nothing more comfortable than a great
Italian meal, uh with with some wine and some bread
and and worrying about the carbs tomorrow. Okay, And so
when you come to London in September, we'll have pasta together.
(18:29):
Lots of love to you, Thank you, Adam, thank you,
lots of love. But tell me about what an air fryars,
because actually I don't I'm not sure I know this gadget. Well,
an air fryar has a pot that circulates air. The
(18:52):
device circulates air around the basket or the pot, and
it's like deep frying, but you're using air, so there's
know what. So it's kind of a healthy version of fry.
To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go
to shop the River Cafe dot co dot UK. River
(19:20):
Cafe Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
and Adam I Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. As an American living
in Britain, a visit to London by Congressman Adam Schiff
is a big deal. That we gave dinner for him
and our house was a great honor. Adam was on
the way back from Ukraine meeting with Zu Lanski and
(00:20):
over pasta and winter vegetables, he talked to us about
world we are living in, food shortages, child poverty, and
food insecurity. Today will continue, but also talk about the
food he grew up with, the food he cooks for
his family, the food he personally finds comforting. Adam, will
you begin by reading a recipe you've chosen from River
(00:44):
Cafe Cookbook thirty. So I've got a wonderful recipe for spaghetti.
I have the lave pasa and my favorite is spaghetti
or angel hair. So this is a perfect recipe for
me to share with you. Spaghetti, rots, tomato and arugula,
or as you you would say in Britain, rocket spaghetti, grams,
(01:09):
plum tomatoes. You'll need four of those. You'll need two
garlic clothes, dried chili, just one dried ChIL unless you
like it really spicy. Capers, two tablespoons, black olives three tablespoons.
Now I'm a huge olive fan, but it does work
great in spaghetti arugula. You'll have three leaves and three
(01:32):
tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. So you will cut
the tomatoes in half, squeeze out the excess juice and seeds,
and chop the flesh course. Then peel the garlic can
squash with one teaspoon of sea salt. Then you'll crumble
the chili, rinse the capers and stone the olives. Then
(01:54):
you'll roughly chop the arugula. Finally, combine the tomatoes with
all the ingredients except for the rugula, seasoned generously, add
the olive oil, and put aside for thirty minutes. You
cooked the spaghetti and boiling salted water until all dante.
Then drain and stir the pasta into the tomatoes. Add
(02:14):
the rugula and tossed the coat each strand season with
black pepper, Serve with olive oil, and delicious. Beautifully read.
I always think your recipe is half science and half poetry,
So there you go. You read it as a poem.
It is beautiful. Thank you glad I didn't read it
(02:34):
as a scientist. Beautiful. One of the things that I
really love about you is that I think you're a
really good eater. I issue it was not good eater,
but I do love food. Yeah, that's what I mean.
I meet people from time to time that can kind
of take or leave eating. I don't understand them. I
think there, I think they're from another planet. Tell me
(02:55):
about growing up in the Chift household. What was it
like food? Why? I think this is why I love
to go out to eat, because when I was a kid,
it was such a rarity. And I always like to
claim to my wife, because you know, only a husband
can make this claim that I'm the ideal husband because
I don't want to home cooked meal. I really love
(03:17):
going out. You're not distracted by the phone ringing, You're
not distracted by the TV or this kid wants to
run off to do homework instead of finishing the meal,
and so you're you're at a table. You're just focused
on each other and the food. But I think it
part of it is that it was a rarity when
I was growing up. My mother was a good cook
(03:40):
but didn't like to cook, but nonetheless, we ate at
home all the time, and my father was traveling salesman
in the shmata business, and it was a big deal
when when we could go out and to one of
our favorite restaurants. I think that it's changed so much
because I also grew up where you went out to
(04:00):
dinner if somebody graduated from high school or there was
a birthday or an anniversary. Now having a restaurant, I
just see people eating all the time. They come with
their children, they come on a Friday night with their
their parents. They use a restaurant in a very different
way than we did. I think. I think that's right.
(04:21):
And because my mother didn't like to cook, um, a
lot of our meals were very kind of standard fair
tell me about them. What did she cook? You know,
a lot of canned food, to be honest. But my
favorite meal that my mother used to make was something
that she she made using these little boneless chicken pieces
(04:44):
that she breaded. You made it with a sign of
spaghetti and they were breaded with cheese on them, so
it was kind of like a mini chicken parmisan with spaghetti.
But I guess my strongest memories in childhood of food
were of the high holidays when we get together my
grandparents and they would make a great big meal. Were
(05:06):
they born in the United States? Were they immigrants from
another country? My father was an immigrant from London. His
parents immigrated from Eastern Europe. My other grandparents were born
in the United States, but their parents, my great grandparents,
all came from Eastern Europe. But when we get together
for the holidays, it would be a lot of mats
(05:28):
of b a soup and holly bread and brisket, and
it was quite a feast that I didn't want to
go near. Like chop lever. Yeah, there is an eternal
debate in Jewish households about whether matsi boll should be
light and fluffy or should be the kind that when
(05:50):
you drop them, they go through the floor. I just
want to state, unequivocally, without hesitation, they need to be
the kind that that fall through the floor. That suspense
was killing me as you were telling this guy's going
to think, what is he going to go for falling
through the floor or light and fluffy. I did think
you might choose light and fluffy, but I will it
(06:11):
has to be that really heavy, sinking feeling. Yeah, as
the politician was, sometimes we have to make difficult decisions. Yes,
I know, and I am fairly firmly in the camp
of the very little, very heavy months of all that.
You know, when you've eaten it and uh and it
doesn't get lost in the broth. You interested in eating?
(06:32):
Were you interested in cooking? When I did cook, it
was frankly as a kid and through adulthood at the barbecue. Ah,
that's very male, that's very that's kind of always think
when men feel that they can cook because the barbecue, Yes, barbecue.
Well did you do you know? My cooking pre pandemic
(06:54):
was pretty basic, fair, And what happened in the pandemic, well,
you know, we we're not going out to eat, and
it was a huge lifestyle change about other things. So
I got myself a few gadgets. You know, I think
this is also a male thing. You'd like to cook
with gadgets? Yeah, we love a gadget. Yeah. I got
an air fryer, and I got a pressure cooker. I
(07:17):
started making a curry tofu and the pressure cooker with
vegetables and potatoes and it it seemed to be a
pretty failsafe device in terms of coming out well, and
likewise the air fryer. I have to tell you a
funny story. I has had a political event in Los
(07:38):
Angeles and I gave my speech and then a brand
new assembly member went up to the microphone, real sharp
up and comer. He was saying some nice things about me,
and then he said, and I got some of the
most important advice from Cargo smanth shift when I was
getting started, the most important advice I've evergotten. And I
(08:00):
was waiting to hear what what sage political advice I'd
given him? And he said, he told me to get
an air fryer. You've just come back from Ukraine. Did
you experience the food shortage and challenges we did. We
(08:22):
discussed this with the President Zelinski when we sat down
with him. This was a congressional delegation that Speaker Pelosi led,
as it turned out, the first congressional delegation to Ukraine
since the war. And one of the things that was
apparent to us before we left, but became much more
apparent as we discussed the issue is that when the
Russians blockaded Odessa, they were not only trying to cripple
(08:45):
Ukraine's economy, but as Ukraine has been the bread basket
of Europe and a lot of the grain to Africa
and other places as well. The Russians were also blockading
food that a lot of people will need it to survive,
and because not only a great increase in food prices,
(09:07):
but also risks starvation in many places that really have
relied on Ukraine for their grain. And so part of
the appeal that Zelinsky was making for the weapons that
he needs to sink of that Black Sea fleet and
the equipment he needs to do demning was this is
important to Ukraine, it's important to to our economy, but
(09:30):
it's also important to the rest of the world because
the real food shortage issue, Well do you think it
will be that in Egypt and North Africa? What is
going to happen when they can't get their food? You know,
it's certainly risks great instability, and just in its own right,
of course, it risks starvation. And I think it's one
(09:54):
of the reasons we have to do everything we can
to try to bring this war in Ukraine to an end.
You know, sadly it's hard to see that path. I
think it does require us to give Ukraine what needs
to defend itself to increase the costs on Russia, so
the Russian people see the folly of what their dictator
(10:15):
has done. But this tragic war has had a lot
of repercussions, and one of those I think the world
at least understands is the impact it has on people's
ability to get enough to eat in many parts of
the world. What do we do now? What are your
major concerns in terms of poverty inequality? You know, I
(10:38):
think that we have experienced the revolution in the economy
and the global economy as a function of globalization but
also automation, and the result is that millions of people
in the million in the middle class or at risk
of falling out. A lot of working families have to
work harder than ever to try to get in the
middle class. Uh. At the same time, of these structural
(11:01):
changes in the economy have produced a very great concentrated wealth.
So while we have students in our colleges who can't
get enough to eat, we have captains of entry literally
flying into space on tourist strips. You are very vocal
and very concerned and very politically engaged in food inequality.
(11:25):
When I think it's seventeen million of our children in
the United States are faced with hunger every day. It
really is extraordinary. And I had a meeting some years ago,
this before the pandemic, with a group of community college
students from my district and they were talking to me
about and it came up in a common, offhanded way
(11:47):
about the food banks they had on campus for students,
and I was astonished at each of them, and they
were going to three different community colleges all had food
banks on campus. US this was still before the pandemic.
So the economy was strong, far stronger than during the
recession and fully recovered, and yet the hunger was greater
(12:10):
than ever. And it really pointed to me of some
strong structural problems in the economy that even when it
was doing well, it wasn't doing well for millions and
millions of people, to the point that, uh, college kids,
you know, not only a community college, but the state
colleges of the private universities were going hungry. So I
(12:32):
um introduced a bill to try to expand the free
and reduced lunch program that we have in K twelve
up through community college, and that was the genesis of
the Food for Thought Act. And we've been working to
get that past ever since, and and trying to address
broader issues of hunger and homelessness as well. In Britain
(12:56):
in the pandemic, what became very clear was that when
schools were they were enormous a number of children who
are not having lunch and therefore had depended on lunch
as their meal for the day. Did you find that
in the United States as well? Absolutely, And what we
discovered is that schools, these kindergarten through high schools, we're
(13:19):
one of the major providers of food, as it turned out,
to low income families. And when those schools closed and
people went to remote learning, suddenly these families didn't have meals,
didn't have meals. So what a lot of our schools did,
and I visited so many of these sites in my
own district and participated is they would prepare meals and
(13:41):
families would drive up in their car. We would ask
how many kids do they have, and we would give
them the number of meals for the kids and their
family that they would have had if they were in school.
Tell me about the road from being a barbecue of
(14:03):
meat and fish to being vegan. What is your vegan story, Well,
my cholesterol has been high and I tried medication like Satin's,
but they didn't said well with me. I couldn't tolerate
them very well. So my wife, was a very healthy eater,
suggest that I tried being vegan. And I've been vegan
for about three days when I was in my district
(14:25):
and I was at an event, and of course at
any event in Los Angeles, you talked about food. I
was talking about a great restaurant i've been too, called Crossroads,
and the person I was talking to recognize it was
a vegan restaurant, and she said to me, can I
tell people here your vegan? Uh? And I thought that
was kind of a strange question. Why would people be
(14:46):
interested in that? And then I realized where I was.
I was in West Hollywood at an animal welfare event.
Oh yes, I guess that is a big deal. At
an animal wealthfare event. And I said, I've only been
vegan and to be honest for three days, and if
you tell people, I'm going to be pretty locked in.
But you know I need the incentive go ahead and
(15:06):
tell people. So that was six years ago, and you know,
I do allow myself to cheat from time to time
the truth be told. When you cheat, what do you
go for? Usually cheat when I'm traveling because it's hard
for me to always find vegan food, so I try
not to be too tough on myself. I also cheat
during Thanksgiving because I had my first Thanksgiving as a
(15:30):
vegan and it was just an awful experience. You had
just cranberry sauce and vegetables and no turkey. We were
actually out at a place in Pennsylvania, nice little place
for the weekend. Our kids were with us, and we
had ordered in advanced to vegan meals and then two
traditional turkey dinners. You know, our family is kind of
(15:51):
isolated in DC. We don't have other family there, so
we often have Thanksgiving out or at friends. And they
brought these two beautiful plates for our kids, and then
they our own plates, and it looked like someone had
opened the Gerber's baby food jar and poured it on
the plate, and it was not at all satisfying. And
(16:14):
so I thought, Okay, I'm Thanksgiving. I'm gonna make an exception.
Do you know when I talked to Paul McCartney who
about being a vegetarian when he and Linda as my
wife became vegetarians. They said that the first Christmas they had,
they made a macaroni and cheese, but they shaped it
into a turkey and carved. I have a ballenge for
(16:37):
your listeners if I can on behalf of vegans the
world over, and that is how to make a good
vegan pizza. I really have yet to find one that
I really like because most of the places should go
to use a kind of a diet cheese which is
made of coconut oil. It doesn't taste anything like the
(16:57):
real thing. So I put this up there with hurt
long machine. If somebody can invent pizza, we do just
you know, cooked tomato sauce with a pizza. You don't
have to have a cheesy pizza. I don't know how
you substitute cheese, which is I think substitutes are tricky.
One of the things about this restaurant is we're really
(17:18):
good for vegetarians and for vegans because the Italian diet
that we serve as so vegetable based. So when you
come in there are big huge plates of you know,
braised artichokes or charred or pumpkins, whatever the season is.
And so if somebody says I'm vegan. It's actually that
sounds wonderful. So we'll do that. And so I suppose
(17:41):
my last question to you is that if food is
is love, and food is sharing, and food is alleviating hunger,
it also is comfort. What would be your comfort food?
I think my comfort food to to go back where
we started with the original recipe. Yes, pasta pasta. I
think pasta is hard to be I have so many
(18:06):
fond memories of it as a kid, through adulthood, having pasta.
When I travel, there's nothing more comfortable than a great
Italian meal, uh with with some wine and some bread
and and worrying about the carbs tomorrow. Okay, And so
when you come to London in September, we'll have pasta together.
(18:29):
Lots of love to you, Thank you, Adam, thank you,
lots of love. But tell me about what an air fryars,
because actually I don't I'm not sure I know this gadget. Well,
an air fryar has a pot that circulates air. The
(18:52):
device circulates air around the basket or the pot, and
it's like deep frying, but you're using air, so there's
know what. So it's kind of a healthy version of fry.
To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go
to shop the River Cafe dot co dot UK. River
(19:20):
Cafe Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
and Adam I Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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