April 5, 2022 • 22 mins
Iwan Wirth - Swiss gallerist and co-founder of Hauser and Wirth - and Ruthie Rogers met through a mutual admiration and love for the artist Philip Guston.
On episode 29 of Ruthie's Table 4, he and Ruthie discuss what it’s like to have 15 galleries four restaurants, two farms, three hotels, and large family to cook for.
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/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/
Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
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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 Adami Studios. My good friend Ivan Worth,
the Swiss galerist co founder of Hauser and Worth, and
I met through a mutual admiration and love for the
artist Philip Guston. I grew up in Woodstock, New York,
(00:20):
with Philip and his wife Muzenmeyer were close friends of
my parents. When some years ago the Gustin estate Chosehauserenworth
to represent them, Ivan and his wife Manuela came to tea.
We began talking that day about art and food and
family and we really haven't stopped since. Having one restaurant,
(00:42):
I personally cannot imagine having a gallery. But not only
does Ivan have fifteen galleries all over the world, he
has four restaurants, a farm, a farm shop, two hotels
and soon a bar and a restaurant in the center
of London. How does he do it all? Honestly, I
don't know that. Maybe after this conversation about family and food,
(01:06):
I will Let's begin with grass. Thank you, Ruthie. Well,
I'm going to read to you one of my favorite recipes,
roast grouse with County Classical. It serves four, so you
need four grouse, eight plum tomatoes peeled, four thick slices
(01:30):
of sour dough, two tablespoons sage leaves, eight sprigs of time,
two undergra unsalted butter half a liter County Classical. You
have to preheat the oven to two and twenty degrees.
Stuff each of these birds with sage, time and butter
(01:53):
season well. Put the grouse in a buttered pan, breast
side down. Roast for five it's turn them over. Add
the wine, tomatoes and cook for fifteen minutes based adding
the bread to soak up some of the juices. Roast
for another ten minutes. Then remove the grouse, tomatoes and
(02:17):
bread from the pan. Add the butter, wine, and over
high heat reduce. Serve each bird on the tomatoes petta
with the sauce poured over. Thank you, Ivan, and I
was so thrilled that you wanted to have grass as
(02:37):
your recipe. Why is that? It's something that I actually
discovered in Britain and it comes from larger from Scotland
now or Yorkshire. It's seasonal, so it's not like fish
or you know, it's it's very it's seasonal. It's the
winter at the fall, the winter a bit like marshroom.
(02:59):
I fell in love with the taste. I love the
food of autumn, don't you, Because it's kind of people
always say summer food. It's a perfect itself. But I
think for cooks, the actual experience of autumn when it
comes to white truffles, for cheeny, the grouse, the game,
you know, it all comes together. Do you remember where
you had it the first time? Was it in a
restaurant with someone's home? No? Actually I headed at somebody's
(03:22):
house and it was interesting because half the guests didn't
want to touch it, and they were they were not
reged there and they said no, thank you, and they
got chicken. There's something fantastic about eating a whole bird.
It's something that when you get the bird on your plate,
with the bones and the and the experience of having,
(03:42):
you know, serving somebody on their plate, and you work
for your food and you really have to biting of
the bone. We started very young with your first glory,
didn't you, Right? Yeah, I started to sale art, and
what really I realized very quickly was that to share
(04:08):
the bread with an artist or with a client both. Yeah,
it's the way to people's hearts, you know, really the
most important critical moments in my life in that that
were good. The positives one, we're usually about having a meal,
sharing a meal, and would that be in a would
that be in a restaurant? And that would that is you? Well,
(04:30):
it was early on it was and and now of
course it's been. Sometimes it's in studios and we share,
but it's a bad food and break the bread with someone, eat,
have lunch, dinner, pick whatever, and you have a glass
of wine. You people speak from their heart and it
tells you so much. We're talking about how very often
(04:51):
people will want to take a date if they meet somebody,
they'd like to go to a restaurant, because sitting at
a table or at home the way somebody tells you
a lot about the person. My passion for eating and
food and drink was something that I discovered in the
artists I liked. And it can be very different, you know,
it really ever is about Michelin type of food. It's not.
(05:14):
Some are more passionate about what they all share. Is
this intimacy, which is a controlled intimacy because we sit
on the table with someone they love that. But I
coming from Switzerland, working with some of the Swiss artists,
the food was integral part of their being, even the work.
You know, one of my heroes was is the Row
(05:37):
and he made from the sixties on, Aren't out of food? Yeah? Also,
do you think that there's something about working in your
studio all day, that solitariness of working? As you know,
I know that in New York a lot of the
abstracted specialists and a lot of the young painters of
the seventies when they went to Max's or to the bars,
you know, and they congregated there and there was a
(05:59):
lot of drinking and a lot of food. Do you
think that that's part of that? Also getting together and
sharing and being around the table and talking as well.
Being an artist is largely a lonely and only per
solitary profession, and particularly I find that painters are more
lonely or solitary than than sculptors or other other because
(06:22):
you work in the you have a team. And so
I think the reason some of the great painters today
have people that that are around them is of course
to help them, because it's complicated. You've got to you've
gotta be you know, it's not just making the work.
Now that's the world's gotten more complicated the shows all
(06:43):
over the world. There's logistical reasons, but there's also about solitude,
being lonely being and some artists have have and I've
seen some beautiful kitchens in studios. Yeah, yeah, it really
is phenomenal. When I go to Mark Bradford's studio, he
has say, well, he has an extreme he has an
interesting relationship to food. I wouldn't say he's not he
(07:06):
doesn't cook. He's really a la He orders or he
goes to or he has some of my favorite meals.
There is when his when the Lopez family that worked
with him assistances, and it's an entire clown the family
when the father comes and he cooks a Mexican lunch
(07:28):
and it's the grill and it's the sources, and it's like,
oh god, so but he also has a kitchen. And
then or was Fisher, who has as a passionate about food,
has published cookbooks of other people. It's quite the common nominee.
And our mutual friend Philip Gustin is to come. They
(07:49):
had a teeny tiny little kitchen, I remember that, but
they ate beautifully. When he went there, there was always
a very simple way of eating that he loved food,
and he came. They came to my parents house a
lot to eat. They would call up in the afternoon
and Philip and say, Sylvia, I'm coming for supper. And
you know, but he was our link and that's how
(08:10):
we first met. Was when you came coming to see
the Augustine's. As I was saying the relationship between art
and food, and I have to say, your galleries and food,
and so is there anyone else who has a gallery
in Los Angeles? And opened up Manuela's, which is a
fantastic restaurant downtown l A great compliment, great compliment to
(08:35):
you talk about art and food. Who else would for
their fiftieth birthday have a cookbook? A cookbook as a present,
which I think all your friends in every city. Manuela
really orchestrated this. I was lucky enough to be asked
to participate. And it's one of my favorite cookbooks because
(08:57):
it does actually combine, you know, food and love. It
doesn't it Every page is a recipe, but every page
is about a relationship that you have with food and
with your friends. And so how do you feel when
you look at this book and see, oh, I was
crying when I got it. So I got secretly started
(09:18):
two years before my fiftieth birthday, which was last year.
The concept of this was she might and you were
one of them, very kindly beautiful, to contribute to this
cookbook a recipe that was meaningful to them. She then
organized thinners in the places we were. They cooked one
of the recipes. So this community that we that we
(09:38):
built up a love thirty years together, came together and
the book shows pictures from me. It chose the recipes.
It's it's it's very touching. I have goose bumps everything
and then everybody. For some people it was the last
meal they had together. That was so when people got
the book during COVID, I sent it out to you
(10:01):
and everybody that they said they were they were they
felt the same, and so you see how important for
everyone it really is. Tell me about early childhood in Switzerland. Well,
I I grew up in the mountains near the mountains,
the sort of pre Alps and the talking Burg particular area.
(10:26):
My father is from Appenzel, which is a mountainous area
and Switzerland it's where cheese comes from. And you know
the bitch of burger ads. It's always the up and
zel and the folk art. And my mother is Italian,
half Italian and family Italian family is from the Alps,
from the Dolomites, from North Italy, so the mountains and wilderness,
(10:54):
if you like, played a big part in my life.
There was taking a big thing in your house. What
did they cook in Switzerland? You you you go home
over for lunch. It has it's it has both sides.
I mean, he keeps the mothers at home. But it
was of course also everybody got together three times a day,
(11:15):
so we came home for lunch, breakfast, We came home
for lunch and come home from dinner. So it's not
a day school. And that meant that there was always cooking.
My mother would be she would work and cook and
and they'll all happened at the same time. She was working.
She was a teacher, so she would come home from teaching,
or she would work enough time or she's been going
(11:37):
through She was a passionate teacher all her life. She
in the end taught refugees kids German, but no cooking
and food. And my grandfather, I mean, I mean, my
grandfather is one of the earliest memories really that generation
of Italian immigrants in Switzerland. Didn't want to be Italian.
The only thing he would would still do is the cooking.
(11:59):
Is was a lot of Italian and the swearing. But
you wouldn't speak Italian. You wouln't speak Italian to anyone.
So I only remember him swearing Italian. But they came before,
you know, they came just before the First War, so
turn of century came. So they cooked the food of
the Dollarmite and so he could well. I remember him
doing risotto in the alto in the kitchen. Yeah. And
(12:20):
so I have more memories, interestingly of cooking and food
in a way about my grandparents than about home. His
home was just part of life. But my my grandfather's
home there was you know, there was also a great tradition.
Friday was apple tart with the soap or fish, and
then you had it was a ceremonial cooper. Your grandfather
(12:44):
was in the kitchen cooking causette. Yes, that's unusual, isn't
it for an Italian man? Only on the weekend. He
was from a family of Stonemasons and so he had
a constructive smokes construction company. But the weekend it was
a ritual and we lived from the moment we lived
in his town again we were living elsewhin Swisson when
(13:06):
we came back. We went there regularly, you know, on
the weekends, and that was that was just a and
one of the smell of the ta the smell and
him doing the result was that memories that the same?
And what about the Swiss side? What would do if
you would have results and Italian food? What did you
(13:26):
have from the Swiss part? My father was a mountaineer.
He was an architect and still is my mother, the
father still alive. But he was a very you know,
a mountaineer. He is. He was a member, early member
of the Alpine Club. He was then a president for
many years of the Eastern section of the Alpine Club.
(13:47):
Retired this year last year. So we it's the food
of the mountain huts and what is that? So it's
the food of the mountains. We were the the Alpine Club.
His hundreds of huts, I don't know how many, but
all over the Alps, and as a member you can
stay and eat and it's cooked by dedicated people that
(14:09):
live there for a season, and it's very basic food.
So one of my favorite dishes of all time is
this barley soup. That is the guests and soup. That's
how I grew up. It's just barley. Can't well, it
has dried meat in it. Yeah, so it's barley. It's
got some herbs. It is a broth and the dry
(14:34):
meat comes in in the end. It's a very rich
and a bit of milk or cream cream. Yeah, so
it's very rich. One of the most delicious soup. I mean,
I grew up on on these types of soups. And
when you arrive in your hut, you well, you have
a sandwich on the mountaintop, but then you go back
to the hut and that's the soup is because they
(14:56):
can prepare it and heat it up a few times.
So it was it's amazing. That's a kind of amazing
image to think of. Would you have the soup out
of the mountains as well, would you have it, would
you have it when you weren't hiking for the last
twelve hours, and would you sit down to a soup
like that? You know, we'd still do. I mean, if
I go back to Switzerland now and we go to
(15:17):
the mountains and you you arrive and you want to
have a lunch orn or something small something just something basic.
I would have a guest and soup. So it's like
a great plate of it's a bit like a pasta
like you know, it's it's it's it's not well, it's
not that easy to make it good. It's very basic.
(15:37):
But you've got to be precise. That's what we know,
isn't it the few ingredients you have, You've never attempted it? No, no, no,
I wouldn't. I couldn't do. No. It's some dishes that
are so connected with the place you would not go
near it. So often you come here with your children
(16:06):
for dinner. You come to my house with your children.
Tell me about cooking as a family. So the kitchen
is the heart of our house. So we Manuela being
a cooking instructor. But before she joined the gallery, she
is just she's the master of ceremonies. I didn't know that.
(16:26):
Oh yeah she could. I mean she cooks this extraordinary
chef and so she would orchestrate all five of us.
Everybody can can contribute to what is cooked today. That's
the first question in the morning, this is what are
we cooking for for supper? So no extraordinary important, it's
(16:47):
where everything is being discussed very old fashioned. I mean
that's Manriela. She lost her father young her Ursla worked
so and he had two siblings and Orlin didn't come
home for lunch like my mother because she worked and
Mariela cooked. There's great pictures of Mariella standing a little
stand cooking for the siblings. And so it's a critical
(17:12):
integral part of the well being of our family and
what we do now. It is very strange. We so
if if twice a week or as we feel, two
kids are not they're studying America, the oldest two in America.
So we would when we are doing dinner, we face
times and they said, and we put them on on
(17:33):
the guard and they are there. Scotland. The kitchen is
is this marvelous, marvelous big room and it's big, got
a big table where we eat and another big table
where we cook in an open fire and and so
we love, we love doing that. And one of the
highlights of my early life childhood was actually going to
(17:54):
the woods and I was a boy scout. Mariela was
a boy scout too, by the way, so we were
camp and we would cook on the fire. And so
that's still to me an absolute highlight. And the sausage
to wheal sausage for the several of which is a
pork sausage. We would when I'm in Switzerland take them
over and we love the English sausages and we have
(18:15):
occasionally them. But you can't stick them on a You
can't put them on a stick. They follow you need
a grill. The Swiss sauces you can really put on
a on a stick. So we would go down in
the woods in Somerset and do once a week if
weather allows, and during COVID it was three times a week.
We do barbecue in the woods. And then the kids
grew up and to this day they do it. They
(18:36):
do this the snake bread. Manuela in fact is her
grandfather and grandmother were bakers. Say the bakery. So I mean,
it's it's been a family, so it's baking. It's I
don't like baking so much and I really don't like
making Christmas cookies. But the kids are crazy, so they
(18:57):
are I think again, you know, they can connection doing
something together, the family being together, eating together, the process
and the idea that you sit down to dinner and
your FaceTime, you know, because of the it's it's so beautiful.
We have and we show the food and we share
the pictures and we send pictures of each other. Both
(19:18):
they make spets lye alias Is does loves doing spetsly.
How did you find being and lockdown? You had your
children with you. We were lucky. We were in Somerset
on the farm and our our lockdown project was when
we last dream of a farm shop that we opened.
Now tell me about the farm shop. So it's almost
(19:43):
a social practice. So it's an entrepreneurial approach. We invite
small businesses from the area two come up with ideas
of for products or they have products and we sell
them there in addition to our own. It's a community
farm show. Yeah, and we sell a lot of produce
from pharmacs as well and produces small local producers. Then
(20:08):
we have some Swiss essentials like we do have some
we have to Swiss jesus um so one from where
we are from and another one from New York. Start
so beautiful. The idea that you go to a city,
you go to, you go to the country, you go
to you know, to the wilds of Scotland, and you
create you create a link through food and so food
(20:32):
is connection food is memory of your time and Switzerland
and your grandparents. And of course it's also a comfort,
isn't it. And so my last question to you is
what is your comfort food? My comfort food is a dish.
I'm afraid it's a Swiste. I think it's a very
Swiss issue. It's called Bacomusly, So it's amusely. Yes, I
(20:55):
need comfort food, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes a lunch or
sometimes and it's one of the few dishes that you
can really eat any hour of the day, you can,
you know. And and the Peninsula in La used to
have so it's chef and it was always the best
boost Muslian in America. And I got there and I
had it literally any time of the day. But it's
(21:17):
hard to make, to make it right. It's a bit
like the Barsley soup, and it's it's it lasts all day. Yeah,
it's for me and Alma. Actually my daughter, our daughter
put it in here as in our cookbook, in the
fift year cookbook, so it's the mostly the Swiss book Comusly,
And that would be my comfort foot. I'd love to
(21:38):
share it with you, and I would be happy to
to try try and make one for you. I can
do it. Actually, I can do it. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you so much. To visit the online
shop of the River Cafe, go to shop the River
(21:59):
Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe table for is
a production of I Heart Radio and Atomize Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
(22:22):
favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adami Studios. My good friend Ivan Worth,
the Swiss galerist co founder of Hauser and Worth, and
I met through a mutual admiration and love for the
artist Philip Guston. I grew up in Woodstock, New York,
(00:20):
with Philip and his wife Muzenmeyer were close friends of
my parents. When some years ago the Gustin estate Chosehauserenworth
to represent them, Ivan and his wife Manuela came to tea.
We began talking that day about art and food and
family and we really haven't stopped since. Having one restaurant,
(00:42):
I personally cannot imagine having a gallery. But not only
does Ivan have fifteen galleries all over the world, he
has four restaurants, a farm, a farm shop, two hotels
and soon a bar and a restaurant in the center
of London. How does he do it all? Honestly, I
don't know that. Maybe after this conversation about family and food,
(01:06):
I will Let's begin with grass. Thank you, Ruthie. Well,
I'm going to read to you one of my favorite recipes,
roast grouse with County Classical. It serves four, so you
need four grouse, eight plum tomatoes peeled, four thick slices
(01:30):
of sour dough, two tablespoons sage leaves, eight sprigs of time,
two undergra unsalted butter half a liter County Classical. You
have to preheat the oven to two and twenty degrees.
Stuff each of these birds with sage, time and butter
(01:53):
season well. Put the grouse in a buttered pan, breast
side down. Roast for five it's turn them over. Add
the wine, tomatoes and cook for fifteen minutes based adding
the bread to soak up some of the juices. Roast
for another ten minutes. Then remove the grouse, tomatoes and
(02:17):
bread from the pan. Add the butter, wine, and over
high heat reduce. Serve each bird on the tomatoes petta
with the sauce poured over. Thank you, Ivan, and I
was so thrilled that you wanted to have grass as
(02:37):
your recipe. Why is that? It's something that I actually
discovered in Britain and it comes from larger from Scotland
now or Yorkshire. It's seasonal, so it's not like fish
or you know, it's it's very it's seasonal. It's the
winter at the fall, the winter a bit like marshroom.
(02:59):
I fell in love with the taste. I love the
food of autumn, don't you, Because it's kind of people
always say summer food. It's a perfect itself. But I
think for cooks, the actual experience of autumn when it
comes to white truffles, for cheeny, the grouse, the game,
you know, it all comes together. Do you remember where
you had it the first time? Was it in a
restaurant with someone's home? No? Actually I headed at somebody's
(03:22):
house and it was interesting because half the guests didn't
want to touch it, and they were they were not
reged there and they said no, thank you, and they
got chicken. There's something fantastic about eating a whole bird.
It's something that when you get the bird on your plate,
with the bones and the and the experience of having,
(03:42):
you know, serving somebody on their plate, and you work
for your food and you really have to biting of
the bone. We started very young with your first glory,
didn't you, Right? Yeah, I started to sale art, and
what really I realized very quickly was that to share
(04:08):
the bread with an artist or with a client both. Yeah,
it's the way to people's hearts, you know, really the
most important critical moments in my life in that that
were good. The positives one, we're usually about having a meal,
sharing a meal, and would that be in a would
that be in a restaurant? And that would that is you? Well,
(04:30):
it was early on it was and and now of
course it's been. Sometimes it's in studios and we share,
but it's a bad food and break the bread with someone, eat,
have lunch, dinner, pick whatever, and you have a glass
of wine. You people speak from their heart and it
tells you so much. We're talking about how very often
(04:51):
people will want to take a date if they meet somebody,
they'd like to go to a restaurant, because sitting at
a table or at home the way somebody tells you
a lot about the person. My passion for eating and
food and drink was something that I discovered in the
artists I liked. And it can be very different, you know,
it really ever is about Michelin type of food. It's not.
(05:14):
Some are more passionate about what they all share. Is
this intimacy, which is a controlled intimacy because we sit
on the table with someone they love that. But I
coming from Switzerland, working with some of the Swiss artists,
the food was integral part of their being, even the work.
You know, one of my heroes was is the Row
(05:37):
and he made from the sixties on, Aren't out of food? Yeah? Also,
do you think that there's something about working in your
studio all day, that solitariness of working? As you know,
I know that in New York a lot of the
abstracted specialists and a lot of the young painters of
the seventies when they went to Max's or to the bars,
you know, and they congregated there and there was a
(05:59):
lot of drinking and a lot of food. Do you
think that that's part of that? Also getting together and
sharing and being around the table and talking as well.
Being an artist is largely a lonely and only per
solitary profession, and particularly I find that painters are more
lonely or solitary than than sculptors or other other because
(06:22):
you work in the you have a team. And so
I think the reason some of the great painters today
have people that that are around them is of course
to help them, because it's complicated. You've got to you've
gotta be you know, it's not just making the work.
Now that's the world's gotten more complicated the shows all
(06:43):
over the world. There's logistical reasons, but there's also about solitude,
being lonely being and some artists have have and I've
seen some beautiful kitchens in studios. Yeah, yeah, it really
is phenomenal. When I go to Mark Bradford's studio, he
has say, well, he has an extreme he has an
interesting relationship to food. I wouldn't say he's not he
(07:06):
doesn't cook. He's really a la He orders or he
goes to or he has some of my favorite meals.
There is when his when the Lopez family that worked
with him assistances, and it's an entire clown the family
when the father comes and he cooks a Mexican lunch
(07:28):
and it's the grill and it's the sources, and it's like,
oh god, so but he also has a kitchen. And
then or was Fisher, who has as a passionate about food,
has published cookbooks of other people. It's quite the common nominee.
And our mutual friend Philip Gustin is to come. They
(07:49):
had a teeny tiny little kitchen, I remember that, but
they ate beautifully. When he went there, there was always
a very simple way of eating that he loved food,
and he came. They came to my parents house a
lot to eat. They would call up in the afternoon
and Philip and say, Sylvia, I'm coming for supper. And
you know, but he was our link and that's how
(08:10):
we first met. Was when you came coming to see
the Augustine's. As I was saying the relationship between art
and food, and I have to say, your galleries and food,
and so is there anyone else who has a gallery
in Los Angeles? And opened up Manuela's, which is a
fantastic restaurant downtown l A great compliment, great compliment to
(08:35):
you talk about art and food. Who else would for
their fiftieth birthday have a cookbook? A cookbook as a present,
which I think all your friends in every city. Manuela
really orchestrated this. I was lucky enough to be asked
to participate. And it's one of my favorite cookbooks because
(08:57):
it does actually combine, you know, food and love. It
doesn't it Every page is a recipe, but every page
is about a relationship that you have with food and
with your friends. And so how do you feel when
you look at this book and see, oh, I was
crying when I got it. So I got secretly started
(09:18):
two years before my fiftieth birthday, which was last year.
The concept of this was she might and you were
one of them, very kindly beautiful, to contribute to this
cookbook a recipe that was meaningful to them. She then
organized thinners in the places we were. They cooked one
of the recipes. So this community that we that we
(09:38):
built up a love thirty years together, came together and
the book shows pictures from me. It chose the recipes.
It's it's it's very touching. I have goose bumps everything
and then everybody. For some people it was the last
meal they had together. That was so when people got
the book during COVID, I sent it out to you
(10:01):
and everybody that they said they were they were they
felt the same, and so you see how important for
everyone it really is. Tell me about early childhood in Switzerland. Well,
I I grew up in the mountains near the mountains,
the sort of pre Alps and the talking Burg particular area.
(10:26):
My father is from Appenzel, which is a mountainous area
and Switzerland it's where cheese comes from. And you know
the bitch of burger ads. It's always the up and
zel and the folk art. And my mother is Italian,
half Italian and family Italian family is from the Alps,
from the Dolomites, from North Italy, so the mountains and wilderness,
(10:54):
if you like, played a big part in my life.
There was taking a big thing in your house. What
did they cook in Switzerland? You you you go home
over for lunch. It has it's it has both sides.
I mean, he keeps the mothers at home. But it
was of course also everybody got together three times a day,
(11:15):
so we came home for lunch, breakfast, We came home
for lunch and come home from dinner. So it's not
a day school. And that meant that there was always cooking.
My mother would be she would work and cook and
and they'll all happened at the same time. She was working.
She was a teacher, so she would come home from teaching,
or she would work enough time or she's been going
(11:37):
through She was a passionate teacher all her life. She
in the end taught refugees kids German, but no cooking
and food. And my grandfather, I mean, I mean, my
grandfather is one of the earliest memories really that generation
of Italian immigrants in Switzerland. Didn't want to be Italian.
The only thing he would would still do is the cooking.
(11:59):
Is was a lot of Italian and the swearing. But
you wouldn't speak Italian. You wouln't speak Italian to anyone.
So I only remember him swearing Italian. But they came before,
you know, they came just before the First War, so
turn of century came. So they cooked the food of
the Dollarmite and so he could well. I remember him
doing risotto in the alto in the kitchen. Yeah. And
(12:20):
so I have more memories, interestingly of cooking and food
in a way about my grandparents than about home. His
home was just part of life. But my my grandfather's
home there was you know, there was also a great tradition.
Friday was apple tart with the soap or fish, and
then you had it was a ceremonial cooper. Your grandfather
(12:44):
was in the kitchen cooking causette. Yes, that's unusual, isn't
it for an Italian man? Only on the weekend. He
was from a family of Stonemasons and so he had
a constructive smokes construction company. But the weekend it was
a ritual and we lived from the moment we lived
in his town again we were living elsewhin Swisson when
(13:06):
we came back. We went there regularly, you know, on
the weekends, and that was that was just a and
one of the smell of the ta the smell and
him doing the result was that memories that the same?
And what about the Swiss side? What would do if
you would have results and Italian food? What did you
(13:26):
have from the Swiss part? My father was a mountaineer.
He was an architect and still is my mother, the
father still alive. But he was a very you know,
a mountaineer. He is. He was a member, early member
of the Alpine Club. He was then a president for
many years of the Eastern section of the Alpine Club.
(13:47):
Retired this year last year. So we it's the food
of the mountain huts and what is that? So it's
the food of the mountains. We were the the Alpine Club.
His hundreds of huts, I don't know how many, but
all over the Alps, and as a member you can
stay and eat and it's cooked by dedicated people that
(14:09):
live there for a season, and it's very basic food.
So one of my favorite dishes of all time is
this barley soup. That is the guests and soup. That's
how I grew up. It's just barley. Can't well, it
has dried meat in it. Yeah, so it's barley. It's
got some herbs. It is a broth and the dry
(14:34):
meat comes in in the end. It's a very rich
and a bit of milk or cream cream. Yeah, so
it's very rich. One of the most delicious soup. I mean,
I grew up on on these types of soups. And
when you arrive in your hut, you well, you have
a sandwich on the mountaintop, but then you go back
to the hut and that's the soup is because they
(14:56):
can prepare it and heat it up a few times.
So it was it's amazing. That's a kind of amazing
image to think of. Would you have the soup out
of the mountains as well, would you have it, would
you have it when you weren't hiking for the last
twelve hours, and would you sit down to a soup
like that? You know, we'd still do. I mean, if
I go back to Switzerland now and we go to
(15:17):
the mountains and you you arrive and you want to
have a lunch orn or something small something just something basic.
I would have a guest and soup. So it's like
a great plate of it's a bit like a pasta
like you know, it's it's it's it's not well, it's
not that easy to make it good. It's very basic.
(15:37):
But you've got to be precise. That's what we know,
isn't it the few ingredients you have, You've never attempted it? No, no, no,
I wouldn't. I couldn't do. No. It's some dishes that
are so connected with the place you would not go
near it. So often you come here with your children
(16:06):
for dinner. You come to my house with your children.
Tell me about cooking as a family. So the kitchen
is the heart of our house. So we Manuela being
a cooking instructor. But before she joined the gallery, she
is just she's the master of ceremonies. I didn't know that.
(16:26):
Oh yeah she could. I mean she cooks this extraordinary
chef and so she would orchestrate all five of us.
Everybody can can contribute to what is cooked today. That's
the first question in the morning, this is what are
we cooking for for supper? So no extraordinary important, it's
(16:47):
where everything is being discussed very old fashioned. I mean
that's Manriela. She lost her father young her Ursla worked
so and he had two siblings and Orlin didn't come
home for lunch like my mother because she worked and
Mariela cooked. There's great pictures of Mariella standing a little
stand cooking for the siblings. And so it's a critical
(17:12):
integral part of the well being of our family and
what we do now. It is very strange. We so
if if twice a week or as we feel, two
kids are not they're studying America, the oldest two in America.
So we would when we are doing dinner, we face
times and they said, and we put them on on
(17:33):
the guard and they are there. Scotland. The kitchen is
is this marvelous, marvelous big room and it's big, got
a big table where we eat and another big table
where we cook in an open fire and and so
we love, we love doing that. And one of the
highlights of my early life childhood was actually going to
(17:54):
the woods and I was a boy scout. Mariela was
a boy scout too, by the way, so we were
camp and we would cook on the fire. And so
that's still to me an absolute highlight. And the sausage
to wheal sausage for the several of which is a
pork sausage. We would when I'm in Switzerland take them
over and we love the English sausages and we have
(18:15):
occasionally them. But you can't stick them on a You
can't put them on a stick. They follow you need
a grill. The Swiss sauces you can really put on
a on a stick. So we would go down in
the woods in Somerset and do once a week if
weather allows, and during COVID it was three times a week.
We do barbecue in the woods. And then the kids
grew up and to this day they do it. They
(18:36):
do this the snake bread. Manuela in fact is her
grandfather and grandmother were bakers. Say the bakery. So I mean,
it's it's been a family, so it's baking. It's I
don't like baking so much and I really don't like
making Christmas cookies. But the kids are crazy, so they
(18:57):
are I think again, you know, they can connection doing
something together, the family being together, eating together, the process
and the idea that you sit down to dinner and
your FaceTime, you know, because of the it's it's so beautiful.
We have and we show the food and we share
the pictures and we send pictures of each other. Both
(19:18):
they make spets lye alias Is does loves doing spetsly.
How did you find being and lockdown? You had your
children with you. We were lucky. We were in Somerset
on the farm and our our lockdown project was when
we last dream of a farm shop that we opened.
Now tell me about the farm shop. So it's almost
(19:43):
a social practice. So it's an entrepreneurial approach. We invite
small businesses from the area two come up with ideas
of for products or they have products and we sell
them there in addition to our own. It's a community
farm show. Yeah, and we sell a lot of produce
from pharmacs as well and produces small local producers. Then
(20:08):
we have some Swiss essentials like we do have some
we have to Swiss jesus um so one from where
we are from and another one from New York. Start
so beautiful. The idea that you go to a city,
you go to, you go to the country, you go
to you know, to the wilds of Scotland, and you
create you create a link through food and so food
(20:32):
is connection food is memory of your time and Switzerland
and your grandparents. And of course it's also a comfort,
isn't it. And so my last question to you is
what is your comfort food? My comfort food is a dish.
I'm afraid it's a Swiste. I think it's a very
Swiss issue. It's called Bacomusly, So it's amusely. Yes, I
(20:55):
need comfort food, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes a lunch or
sometimes and it's one of the few dishes that you
can really eat any hour of the day, you can,
you know. And and the Peninsula in La used to
have so it's chef and it was always the best
boost Muslian in America. And I got there and I
had it literally any time of the day. But it's
(21:17):
hard to make, to make it right. It's a bit
like the Barsley soup, and it's it's it lasts all day. Yeah,
it's for me and Alma. Actually my daughter, our daughter
put it in here as in our cookbook, in the
fift year cookbook, so it's the mostly the Swiss book Comusly,
And that would be my comfort foot. I'd love to
(21:38):
share it with you, and I would be happy to
to try try and make one for you. I can
do it. Actually, I can do it. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you so much. To visit the online
shop of the River Cafe, go to shop the River
(21:59):
Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe table for is
a production of I Heart Radio and Atomize Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
(22:22):
favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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