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/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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 iHeartRadio
and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
My good friend Ivanworth, the Swiss gallerist co founder of Hauserenworth,
and I met through a mutual admiration and love for
the artist Philip Guston. I grew up in Woodstock, New York,
where Philip and his wife Musea Meyer were close friends
of my parents. When some years ago the Gustin estate
(00:28):
chose Hauserenworth 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, I personally cannot imagine having a gallery.
But not only does Ivan have fifteen galleries all over
(00:49):
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, but maybe after this conversation about family
and food, I will. Let's begin with grouse.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
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 of sour though two tablespoon
(01:32):
sage leaves, eight sprigs of thyme, two hundergram unsalted butter
half a liter County classical. You have to preheat the
oven to two hundred and twenty degrees. Stuff each of
these birds with sage, thyme, and butter season well. Put
(01:55):
the grouse in a buttered pan, breastside down, roast for
five minus its. 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 bread from the pan,
(02:19):
add the butter and wine, and over high heat reduce.
Serve each bird on the tomato porschetta with the sauce
poured over.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Thank you, Ivan, and I was so thrilled that you
wanted to have grass as your recipe. Why is that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
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 very
it's seasonal. It's the winter at the fall the winter
a bit like marshroom. I fell in love with the taste.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love the food of autumn, don't you, Because it's
kind of people always say summer food, it's so perfect
and so but I think for cooks, the actual experience
of autumn when it comes to white truffles, for chini,
the grouse, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It all comes together.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Do you remember where you had it the first time?
Was it in a restaurant or someone's home?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
No? Actually I headed at somebody's house and it was
interesting because half the guests didn't want to touch it,
and they were not rigid there and they said no,
thank you, and they got chicken.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There's something fantastic about eating a whole bird, isn't it
something that when you get the bird on your plate,
with the bones and the and the experience of having,
you know, serving somebody on their plate.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And you work for your food, and you really have
to be biting the.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We started very young with your first gallery, didn't you.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, eighty six. I started to sell art, and what
really I realized very quickly was that to share the
bread with an artist or with a client both. Yeah,
it's the way to people's hearts, you know, really the
(04:15):
most important critical moments in my life in that that
were good. The positives one were usually about having a meal,
sharing a meal, and would that.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Would that be in a restaurant or.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That would that is you? Well, it was early on
it was, and now of course it's been. Sometimes it's
in studios and we share, but it's bad food. Yeah,
and break the bread with someone, eat, have lunch, dinner,
pick whatever, and you have a glass of wine. You
people speak from their.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Heart, I agree, and it tells you so much. We're
talking about how very often people will want to take
a date or 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.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
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 rarely ever, is
about micheline type of food. It's not. Some are more
passionate about what they all share. Is this intimacy, which
is a controlled intimacy because you sit on a table
(05:23):
with someone they love that. But I coming from Switzerland
working with some of the Swiss artists. The food was
integral part of there, but even the work. You know,
one of my heroes was is did the Wrath and
he made from the sixties on art that of food.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
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
abstract Expressionists and a lot of the young painters of
the seventies where they went to Max's or to the bars,
you know, and they congregated there and there was a
lot of drink and a lot of food. Do you
think that that's part of that? Also getting together and
(06:04):
sharing and being around the table and talking as well.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Being an artist is largely a lonely, a lonely pro
solitary profession, and particularly I find that painters are more
lonely or solitary than than sculptors or other because you
work in you have a team, and so I think
the reason some of the great painters today have people
(06:32):
that are around them, yeah, is of course to help them,
because it's complicated. You've got to you've got to be
you know, it's not just making the work. Now, there's
they said the world's gotten more complicated. The shows all
over the world. There's logistical reasons, but there's also about solitude,
being lonely being and and some artists have have and
I've seen some beautiful kitchens in studios. Yeah, yeah, it
(06:55):
really is phenomenal. When I go to Mark Bradford studio,
he has say, well, he has an he has an
interesting relationship to food. I wouldn't say he's he's not.
He doesn't cook. He's really la he orders, or he
goes to mexic or he has some of my favorite meals.
There is when his when the Lopez family that worked
(07:19):
with him assistances, and it's an entire clan, the family
when the father comes and he cooks a Mexican lunch
and it's the grill and it's the sauces, and it's like,
oh god, so but he also has a kitchen. And
then or was Fisher, who has as is a passionate
about food, has published cookbooks of other people. It's quite
(07:44):
the common nomination.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And our mutual friend Philip Gustin is to come. They
had a teeny tiny little kitchen, I remember that, but
they beautifully. When he went there, there was always a
very simple way of eating. But he loved food and
he can They came to my parents' house a lot
to eat. If they would call up in the afternoon
and Philip would say, Sylvia, I'm coming for supper. And
(08:07):
you know, but he was our link. And that's how
we first met, was when you came coming to see
the Gustines. 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 has a gallery in
Los Angeles and opened up Manuela's, which is a fantastic
(08:29):
restaurant downtown LA Great great compliment the art, great compliment
to 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
(08:53):
asked to participate. And it's one of my favorite cookbooks
because it does actually combine, you know, food and love,
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.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Oh, I was crying when I got it. So I
got Manila secretly started two years before my fiftieth birthday,
which was last year. The concept of this was she
invited and you were one of them, very kindly beautiful
to contribute to this cookbook a recipe that was meaningful
to them. She then organized in us in the places
(09:33):
we were, they cooked one of the recipes. So this
community that we built up with love thirty years together
came together and the book shows pictures from it. It
chose the recipes. It's very touching. I have goosebumps every time,
and then everybody. For some people it was the last
(09:53):
meal they had together. That was so when people got
the book during COVID, I sent it out to you
and everybody that came they said they were, they were,
they felt the same, and so you see how important
for everyone it really is.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Tell me about early childhood in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Well, I I grew up in the mountains near the mountains,
the sort of pre Alps and the Tockenburg particular area.
My father is from uppen Zel, which is a mountainous
area in Switzerland. That's where cheese comes from. And you
know the Bishop Burger ads always the up and cel
and the folk art. And my mother is Italian. Half
(10:42):
Italian family. Italian family is from the Alps, from the Dolomites,
from so the mountains and wilderness, if you like, played
a big part in my life.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
There was stoking, a big thing in your house.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
What did they cook in Switzerland? You you go home
over for lunch. It has its it has both sides.
I mean, it keeps the mothers at home. But it
was of course also everybody got together three times a day,
so we came home for lunch with breakfast. We came
home for lunch and come home from dinner. So it's
not the day school. And that meant that there was
(11:22):
always cooking. My mother would be she would work and
cook and it all happened at the same time. So
she was working with She was a teacher.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So she would come home from teaching.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Or she would work half time, or she's been going
through She was a passionate teacher all the 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.
(11:55):
The only thing he would still do is the cooking.
Is was a lot of Italian and the swearing. But
he couldn't speak Italian. He couldn'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.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So they cooked the food of the Dolomites.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
And well I remember him doing risotto in the in
the kitchen. Yeah, And 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 like
but my grandfather from there was the you know, there
(12:34):
was also a great tradition. Friday was apple tart with
the soup or fish, and then you had was a
ceremonial cooking.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Your grandfather was in the kitchen cooking. That's unusual, it
isn't it for an Italian man.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Well, only on the weekend.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He was from a family of stovemasons, and so he
had a constructive smoke construction company. But the weekend it
was a ritual and we lived from the moment we
lived in his town. Again we were living elsewhere when
we came back, we went there regularly, you know, on
the weekends. And that was that was just an and
(13:13):
one of the smell, the take the smell and him
doing the risotto.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Was that's a memories that we're saying. And what about
the Swiss side? What would you if you would have
resortas and Italian food? What did you have from the Swiss?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
My father was a mountaineer. He was an architect and
still is my mother and 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. Retired this year last year.
(13:51):
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 has 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 live there for a
season and it's very basic food. So one of my
(14:13):
favorite dishes of all time is this barley barley soup
that is the guests and soup. That's how I grew up.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It's just barley.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well it has dried meat in it. Yeah, so it's barley,
It's got some herbs. It is a broth and the
dried meat comes in in the end. It's very rich
and a bit of milk or cream cream. So it's
a very rich soup. One of the most delicious soup.
I mean, I grew up on these type of soups.
(14:47):
And when you arrive in your hot you well, you
have a sandwich on the mountainop, but then you go
back to the hut and that's the soup. It's because
they can prepare it and heat it up a few times.
So it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's a kind of an amazing image to think that 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?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Oh no, we'd still do. I mean, if I go
back to Switzerland now and we go to the mountains
and you arrive and you want to have a lungourin
or something small and something just something basic. I would
have a guest and some bit. So it's like a
great plate of it's a bit like a pasta, like
a spaghetti. You know, it's it's it's it's not. Well,
(15:33):
it's not that easy to make it good. Very basic,
but you've got to be precise.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's what we know. Isn't it the few ingredients you have,
you've never attempted it?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
No? Oh 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.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So often you come here with your children for dinner.
You come to my house with your children. Tell me
about cooking as a family.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh yeah she could. I mean she cooks. This is
an 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 is what are
we cooking for supper? So no, it's extraordinly important. It's
(16:47):
where everything's being discussed very old fashioned. I mean that's Manreela.
She lost her father young her Urslo worked so and
he had two siblings and Orcelan didn't come for lunch.
I like my mother because she worked and Manreela cooked.
There's great pictures of Mariella standing and they'll stand cooking
(17:07):
for the siblings. And so it's a critical integral part
of the well being of our family and what we
do now with very strange. So if if twice a
week or as we feel, two kids are not there
studying America, the oldest two in America, so we would
(17:28):
when we are doing dinner, we FaceTime them and they
sit and we put them on 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, and an open fire
and so we love, we love doing that. And one
(17:50):
of the highlights of my early life childhood was actually
going to the woods and I was a boy scout.
Manrela was a boy scout too, by the way, so
we word camp and we would cook on the fire.
And so that's still to me an absolute highlight. And
the sausage, the wheal sausage, which is a pork sausage.
We would when I'm in Switzerland take them over and
(18:12):
we I love the English sausages and we have occasionally them,
but you can't stick them on a you can't put
them on a stick. They follow, so you need a grill.
The Swiss sausage 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
(18:34):
up and to this day they do it. They do
this the snake bread. And Manuela, in fact is her
grandfather and grandmother were bakers. They're a 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.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So they 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 in your FaceTime, you know, because of the gab.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It's so beautiful we have and we show the food
and we share the pictures and we send pictures of
each other boat they make spetsley. Eliass does loves doing spetsley.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
How did you find being in lockdown? You had your
children with you.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
We were lucky. We were in Somerset on the farm
and our Lockdown project was Manuela's dream of a farm
shop that we opened. Now tell me about the farm show.
So it's almost a social practice. So it's an entrepreneurial approach.
We invite small businesses from the area to come up
(19:52):
with ideas 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 farmers as well and produces small local producers.
Then we have some Swiss essentials like we do have
some We have two Swiss jeeses, so one from where
(20:16):
we are from and another one from Niyakstad.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
So frutiful. 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
is connection. Food is memory of your time in Switzerland
and your grandparents. And of course it's also a comfort
(20:40):
isn't it. And so my last question to you is
what is your comfort food.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
My comfort food is a dish. I'm afraid it's a swete.
I think it's a very sweet ish. It's called Bierka musli.
So it's amuse. Yes, I need comfort food, sometimes for breakfast,
sometimes at lunch, or sometimes for dinner. And it's one
of the few dishes that you can really eat any
hour of the day, you can, you know. And and
(21:06):
the peninsula in La used to have a Swiss chef
and there was always the best boot muslin in America.
And I got there and I had it literally any
time of the day. But it's hard to make, to
make it right. It's a bit like the Barsley soup,
and it's it's it lasts all day. It's for me
and Alma. Actually my daughter, our daughter put it in
(21:28):
here as in our cookbook, the fifty Year Cookbook. So
it's the musli, the Swiss burgermusi. And that would be
my comfort phot I'd love to share it with you
one day. I'd be happy to try try and make
one for you. I can do it. Actually, I can
do it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I'll be there. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I love you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Rivercafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
My good friend Ivanworth, the Swiss gallerist co founder of Hauserenworth,
and I met through a mutual admiration and love for
the artist Philip Guston. I grew up in Woodstock, New York,
where Philip and his wife Musea Meyer were close friends
of my parents. When some years ago the Gustin estate
(00:28):
chose Hauserenworth 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, I personally cannot imagine having a gallery.
But not only does Ivan have fifteen galleries all over
(00:49):
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, but maybe after this conversation about family
and food, I will. Let's begin with grouse.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
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 of sour though two tablespoon
(01:32):
sage leaves, eight sprigs of thyme, two hundergram unsalted butter
half a liter County classical. You have to preheat the
oven to two hundred and twenty degrees. Stuff each of
these birds with sage, thyme, and butter season well. Put
(01:55):
the grouse in a buttered pan, breastside down, roast for
five minus its. 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 bread from the pan,
(02:19):
add the butter and wine, and over high heat reduce.
Serve each bird on the tomato porschetta with the sauce
poured over.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Thank you, Ivan, and I was so thrilled that you
wanted to have grass as your recipe. Why is that?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
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 very
it's seasonal. It's the winter at the fall the winter
a bit like marshroom. I fell in love with the taste.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love the food of autumn, don't you, Because it's
kind of people always say summer food, it's so perfect
and so but I think for cooks, the actual experience
of autumn when it comes to white truffles, for chini,
the grouse, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
It all comes together.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Do you remember where you had it the first time?
Was it in a restaurant or someone's home?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
No? Actually I headed at somebody's house and it was
interesting because half the guests didn't want to touch it,
and they were not rigid there and they said no,
thank you, and they got chicken.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There's something fantastic about eating a whole bird, isn't it
something that when you get the bird on your plate,
with the bones and the and the experience of having,
you know, serving somebody on their plate.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And you work for your food, and you really have
to be biting the.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We started very young with your first gallery, didn't you.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, eighty six. I started to sell art, and what
really I realized very quickly was that to share the
bread with an artist or with a client both. Yeah,
it's the way to people's hearts, you know, really the
(04:15):
most important critical moments in my life in that that
were good. The positives one were usually about having a meal,
sharing a meal, and would that.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Would that be in a restaurant or.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That would that is you? Well, it was early on
it was, and now of course it's been. Sometimes it's
in studios and we share, but it's bad food. Yeah,
and break the bread with someone, eat, have lunch, dinner,
pick whatever, and you have a glass of wine. You
people speak from their.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Heart, I agree, and it tells you so much. We're
talking about how very often people will want to take
a date or 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.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
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 rarely ever, is
about micheline type of food. It's not. Some are more
passionate about what they all share. Is this intimacy, which
is a controlled intimacy because you sit on a table
(05:23):
with someone they love that. But I coming from Switzerland
working with some of the Swiss artists. The food was
integral part of there, but even the work. You know,
one of my heroes was is did the Wrath and
he made from the sixties on art that of food.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
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
abstract Expressionists and a lot of the young painters of
the seventies where they went to Max's or to the bars,
you know, and they congregated there and there was a
lot of drink and a lot of food. Do you
think that that's part of that? Also getting together and
(06:04):
sharing and being around the table and talking as well.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Being an artist is largely a lonely, a lonely pro
solitary profession, and particularly I find that painters are more
lonely or solitary than than sculptors or other because you
work in you have a team, and so I think
the reason some of the great painters today have people
(06:32):
that are around them, yeah, is of course to help them,
because it's complicated. You've got to you've got to be
you know, it's not just making the work. Now, there's
they said the world's gotten more complicated. The shows all
over the world. There's logistical reasons, but there's also about solitude,
being lonely being and and some artists have have and
I've seen some beautiful kitchens in studios. Yeah, yeah, it
(06:55):
really is phenomenal. When I go to Mark Bradford studio,
he has say, well, he has an he has an
interesting relationship to food. I wouldn't say he's he's not.
He doesn't cook. He's really la he orders, or he
goes to mexic or he has some of my favorite meals.
There is when his when the Lopez family that worked
(07:19):
with him assistances, and it's an entire clan, the family
when the father comes and he cooks a Mexican lunch
and it's the grill and it's the sauces, and it's like,
oh god, so but he also has a kitchen. And
then or was Fisher, who has as is a passionate
about food, has published cookbooks of other people. It's quite
(07:44):
the common nomination.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And our mutual friend Philip Gustin is to come. They
had a teeny tiny little kitchen, I remember that, but
they beautifully. When he went there, there was always a
very simple way of eating. But he loved food and
he can They came to my parents' house a lot
to eat. If they would call up in the afternoon
and Philip would say, Sylvia, I'm coming for supper. And
(08:07):
you know, but he was our link. And that's how
we first met, was when you came coming to see
the Gustines. 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 has a gallery in
Los Angeles and opened up Manuela's, which is a fantastic
(08:29):
restaurant downtown LA Great great compliment the art, great compliment
to 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
(08:53):
asked to participate. And it's one of my favorite cookbooks
because it does actually combine, you know, food and love,
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.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Oh, I was crying when I got it. So I
got Manila secretly started two years before my fiftieth birthday,
which was last year. The concept of this was she
invited and you were one of them, very kindly beautiful
to contribute to this cookbook a recipe that was meaningful
to them. She then organized in us in the places
(09:33):
we were, they cooked one of the recipes. So this
community that we built up with love thirty years together
came together and the book shows pictures from it. It
chose the recipes. It's very touching. I have goosebumps every time,
and then everybody. For some people it was the last
(09:53):
meal they had together. That was so when people got
the book during COVID, I sent it out to you
and everybody that came they said they were, they were,
they felt the same, and so you see how important
for everyone it really is.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Tell me about early childhood in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Well, I I grew up in the mountains near the mountains,
the sort of pre Alps and the Tockenburg particular area.
My father is from uppen Zel, which is a mountainous
area in Switzerland. That's where cheese comes from. And you
know the Bishop Burger ads always the up and cel
and the folk art. And my mother is Italian. Half
(10:42):
Italian family. Italian family is from the Alps, from the Dolomites,
from so the mountains and wilderness, if you like, played
a big part in my life.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
There was stoking, a big thing in your house.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
What did they cook in Switzerland? You you go home
over for lunch. It has its it has both sides.
I mean, it keeps the mothers at home. But it
was of course also everybody got together three times a day,
so we came home for lunch with breakfast. We came
home for lunch and come home from dinner. So it's
not the day school. And that meant that there was
(11:22):
always cooking. My mother would be she would work and
cook and it all happened at the same time. So
she was working with She was a teacher.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So she would come home from teaching.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Or she would work half time, or she's been going
through She was a passionate teacher all the 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.
(11:55):
The only thing he would still do is the cooking.
Is was a lot of Italian and the swearing. But
he couldn't speak Italian. He couldn'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.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So they cooked the food of the Dolomites.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
And well I remember him doing risotto in the in
the kitchen. Yeah, And 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 like
but my grandfather from there was the you know, there
(12:34):
was also a great tradition. Friday was apple tart with
the soup or fish, and then you had was a
ceremonial cooking.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Your grandfather was in the kitchen cooking. That's unusual, it
isn't it for an Italian man.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Well, only on the weekend.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
He was from a family of stovemasons, and so he
had a constructive smoke construction company. But the weekend it
was a ritual and we lived from the moment we
lived in his town. Again we were living elsewhere when
we came back, we went there regularly, you know, on
the weekends. And that was that was just an and
(13:13):
one of the smell, the take the smell and him
doing the risotto.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Was that's a memories that we're saying. And what about
the Swiss side? What would you if you would have
resortas and Italian food? What did you have from the Swiss?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
My father was a mountaineer. He was an architect and
still is my mother and 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. Retired this year last year.
(13:51):
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 has 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 live there for a
season and it's very basic food. So one of my
(14:13):
favorite dishes of all time is this barley barley soup
that is the guests and soup. That's how I grew up.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It's just barley.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well it has dried meat in it. Yeah, so it's barley,
It's got some herbs. It is a broth and the
dried meat comes in in the end. It's very rich
and a bit of milk or cream cream. So it's
a very rich soup. One of the most delicious soup.
I mean, I grew up on these type of soups.
(14:47):
And when you arrive in your hot you well, you
have a sandwich on the mountainop, but then you go
back to the hut and that's the soup. It's because
they can prepare it and heat it up a few times.
So it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's a kind of an amazing image to think that 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?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Oh no, we'd still do. I mean, if I go
back to Switzerland now and we go to the mountains
and you arrive and you want to have a lungourin
or something small and something just something basic. I would
have a guest and some bit. So it's like a
great plate of it's a bit like a pasta, like
a spaghetti. You know, it's it's it's it's not. Well,
(15:33):
it's not that easy to make it good. Very basic,
but you've got to be precise.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's what we know. Isn't it the few ingredients you have,
you've never attempted it?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
No? Oh 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.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So often you come here with your children for dinner.
You come to my house with your children. Tell me
about cooking as a family.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh yeah she could. I mean she cooks. This is
an 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 is what are
we cooking for supper? So no, it's extraordinly important. It's
(16:47):
where everything's being discussed very old fashioned. I mean that's Manreela.
She lost her father young her Urslo worked so and
he had two siblings and Orcelan didn't come for lunch.
I like my mother because she worked and Manreela cooked.
There's great pictures of Mariella standing and they'll stand cooking
(17:07):
for the siblings. And so it's a critical integral part
of the well being of our family and what we
do now with very strange. So if if twice a
week or as we feel, two kids are not there
studying America, the oldest two in America, so we would
(17:28):
when we are doing dinner, we FaceTime them and they
sit and we put them on 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, and an open fire
and so we love, we love doing that. And one
(17:50):
of the highlights of my early life childhood was actually
going to the woods and I was a boy scout.
Manrela was a boy scout too, by the way, so
we word camp and we would cook on the fire.
And so that's still to me an absolute highlight. And
the sausage, the wheal sausage, which is a pork sausage.
We would when I'm in Switzerland take them over and
(18:12):
we I love the English sausages and we have occasionally them,
but you can't stick them on a you can't put
them on a stick. They follow, so you need a grill.
The Swiss sausage 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
(18:34):
up and to this day they do it. They do
this the snake bread. And Manuela, in fact is her
grandfather and grandmother were bakers. They're a 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.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So they 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 in your FaceTime, you know, because of the gab.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It's so beautiful we have and we show the food
and we share the pictures and we send pictures of
each other boat they make spetsley. Eliass does loves doing spetsley.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
How did you find being in lockdown? You had your
children with you.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
We were lucky. We were in Somerset on the farm
and our Lockdown project was Manuela's dream of a farm
shop that we opened. Now tell me about the farm show.
So it's almost a social practice. So it's an entrepreneurial approach.
We invite small businesses from the area to come up
(19:52):
with ideas 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 farmers as well and produces small local producers.
Then we have some Swiss essentials like we do have
some We have two Swiss jeeses, so one from where
(20:16):
we are from and another one from Niyakstad.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
So frutiful. 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
is connection. Food is memory of your time in Switzerland
and your grandparents. And of course it's also a comfort
(20:40):
isn't it. And so my last question to you is
what is your comfort food.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
My comfort food is a dish. I'm afraid it's a swete.
I think it's a very sweet ish. It's called Bierka musli.
So it's amuse. Yes, I need comfort food, sometimes for breakfast,
sometimes at lunch, or sometimes for dinner. And it's one
of the few dishes that you can really eat any
hour of the day, you can, you know. And and
(21:06):
the peninsula in La used to have a Swiss chef
and there was always the best boot muslin in America.
And I got there and I had it literally any
time of the day. But it's hard to make, to
make it right. It's a bit like the Barsley soup,
and it's it's it lasts all day. It's for me
and Alma. Actually my daughter, our daughter put it in
(21:28):
here as in our cookbook, the fifty Year Cookbook. So
it's the musli, the Swiss burgermusi. And that would be
my comfort phot I'd love to share it with you
one day. I'd be happy to try try and make
one for you. I can do it. Actually, I can
do it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I'll be there. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I love you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Rivercafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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