May 8, 2023 • 34 mins
I first met Olivia over food one night in the river Cafe, she was with Maggie Gyllenhaal, and they had just wrapped filming for their movie the Lost Daughter in Greece. It is not an exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything on the menu. We immediately got into talking about feeding our kids, cooking, and inflicted distance from family when working. This was a conversation that could have lasted for hours, but I had to go back to the kitchen and she needed to finish her lemon pasta before it cooled down.
Today we are here in the River Café and she is the one cooking the lemon pasta - we are going to pick up where we left off a conversation with a woman, I admire respect and adore. Lucky me.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The films of Olivia Coleman have the power to move
us to tears, make us laugh, and inspire us to
try something new. They can also make us feel really,
really hungry. In the Favorite playing Queen Anne, Olivia Coleman
conveys her authority by insisting on a cup of over
rich hot chocolate, and there are tables laden with roasted venison,
(00:30):
lamb cakes, desserts, the symbols of wealth and privilege. None
to the Queen. What what you cannot have hot chocolate?
Your stomach sugar inflames? It I begat having that cup?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Do not?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm sorry, I do not know what to do. Oh fine,
give it her and you can get a bucket in
a mop for the aftermath. I met Olivia over food
one night in the River Cafe. She was with my
friend Maggie gillinol and they just wrap filming for their
movie The Lost Daughter in Greece. It is not an
exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything on the menu.
(01:06):
We immediately got into talking about feeding our kids, cooking,
and inflicted distance from family when working this was a
conversation that could have lasted for hours, but I had
to go back to the kitchen and she needed to
finish your lemon pasta before it cooled down. Today we're
here in the River Cafe and she is the one
who's been cooking the lemon pasta. Now we're going to
(01:28):
pick up where we left off. Conversation with a woman
I admire, I respect, and I adore lucky me. Oh,
that was the best introduction. Thanks, that's true. It's true.
So you're in the River Cafe kitchen with Alex, who's
on the section called Hots two, which does pasta. So
what was it like? What did you just say? Lovely,
(01:49):
you chose for your recipe tag you Telly with lemon,
cream and parsley, and I wonder if you would like
to read it.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Four hundred grams taglete, mold and salt and coarsely ground
black pepper, three hundred miles double cream, one hundred and
twenty grams unsalted butter, softened zest and juice of four
juicy lemons. Six tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, one
hundred and fifty grams of grated parmitan.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
This is the one you chose. Sure, yeah, I mean
it it is absolutely lovely and classic and I think
sort of as you start being this time of year,
is you know, it's like start a bit more light
in summary that still on its slightly miserable.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well have I picked that too easy? You?
Speaker 4 (02:37):
No, No, this is great, it's fantastic. What we want
to do is we basically just get everything in in
the path that we need. So we're going to have
a bit of butter, of bit of cream.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
In a large, thick bottomed saucepan. Gently heat the cream.
When warm, add the butter, lemon juice, and zest, stir
briefly together.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Then remove from the heat.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Cook the taglitarian a generous amount of boiling salted water
until al dente, and then drain, stir into the warm
cream and season. Add half the parsley and tossed together.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Do you want to like toss it?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Can? I? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I feel like, sorry, that's a
bit you know, we've still got a bit of you know,
we just give it a good old.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Serve immediately on warm plates with the remainder of the
parsley and the parmesan as it cools.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It will sort of thicken up a little bit and
then a little bit of parmesan on top, and that's
sort of what we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Looks pretty Oh.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What did you observe? Yeah, just amazing. He said you
cooked it? You actually did well. I think you definitely.
It's not easy to go into it. Let me do that.
I did the tossing. Yeah, did you catch it? Yeah?
Well I did make a bit of a mess of
your floor. Sorry, Oh dear, okay, wanted no, we didn't
(04:15):
want to do. Do you see food and your ability
to eat, well, it's a kind of measure of your success.
People very often see that that we've talked to would
say as their success increased, they measured it by being
able to go to a good restaurant, better bottle of wine,
(04:36):
even not have to look at the right hand side
for the prices before they looked at what they wanted
to eat. Yeah. The difference is, so is that how
is that measured in your career?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I remember, we've got a close group of active friends
that we all were drama school together and we've all
stayed very close. But when we first left drama school,
sometimes we'd go to you know, a pub for someone's
birthday to eat, and it was very much sort of
how about should we share that all of us were?
You know, really there wasn't much lots of money going
(05:08):
around and renting terrible places and trying to share something
between us. Or if we clubbed together and buy one
bottle and then we could always get something from the
offfee on the way home and have more to drink
because it's cheaper at home. And then cut to you know,
years later, I could say, let's walk out with dinner
my shout, or you know, what.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Did you eat after we had the ark? Was that
celebrated with food? No?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I think that was entirely booze.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
You could do another program called you know.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I think I was so out of it sort of
I couldn't believe what had happened.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You did seem very sharp, yes, And why why were
you so surprised? I didn't think i'd get it, you know,
the first time I'd been nominated, and we were so
proud of the film and everything, but I just thought
that that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
That's well, it makes you emotional. It was such a
ridiculous thing to have happened.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
In a way.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, I can't believe it. Still can't quite believe that happened.
I did afterwards.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah. Do you are you an emotional eater? Do you
eat when you're happy or sad? Do you both? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, I do love you know, the comfort foods or
hot buttered toast butter place.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I love butter. Toast is basically just a vehicle for butter. Agree.
My mother in law used to say that butter is
the best cheese, you know. She treated it like cheese.
You just have a piece of slab butter until she
decided that it was would kill you, so that I
was never allowed to cook with butter after that. But
it is really Yeah, I like it. And when you
(06:52):
make a film like, for instance, going to Greece, when
you made The Lost Order, what.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
With Maggie too, Yeah, all of the casts were in
the same hotel. Maggie had a little house separately because
she had to do grown up things think about the
next day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And we were all quite badly behaved.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Who you were so me Jesse Dakota, Dakacha Johnson, Jesse Buckley,
to Coach Johnson, Paul Meskill, Ollie Jackson, Cohen, Dagmara demin
chic who else?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I feel awful if I'm missing anyone else out.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
But we were all together and quite badly behaved and eating.
We knew exactly the menu because we'd all been the
same hotel for I think six weeks, so we knew
the menu back to front. And they were very sweet
and would do very But I remember they had a
deconstructed fetter, you know Greek salad, so it was a
really different fetter, not a solid one, but quite a
(07:46):
soft one, laid out sort of prettily rather than you
know what. But I remember from a childhood holidays degrees
which is great big chunks of everything in a bomb
or I have you even got pictures of the food,
and they did a savice something with mango and mm,
lovely things. This is when Greece in Greece, sorry, in
(08:07):
the hotel in the Posidonian and your parents as well, Yes,
we did go to Greece as it as yeah, as kids,
and I remember then eating octopus. I couldn't eat octopus
now because i've you know, the multipus teacher and learning
so much about how clever they are. I can't do
it but to eat it straight out of the sea
(08:28):
so fresh and squid.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And so did your parents travel with you when you
were a kid, did you know?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
No, they weren't really travelers. But my dad's best friend
moved to Naples when I was twelve. I don't think
they'd ever been to Italy, and we decided to go
and we stayed with them.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
In the summer.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yes, in the summer, we went to Ischia in the
Bay of Naples and just had because they lived there
and he married an Italian woman.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
We had incredible food.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
We went to amazing restaurants, and we didn't know what
we were doing, so he would trust me and he
would order something of everything and try these beautiful things.
We went to little restaurants in people's houses in the hills.
Oh yeah, is it when I was twelve? I was
born in seventy four and I can't do maths.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, so that's eighty two, well done, No twelve, No maths,
it's either seventy four eighty eighty six. How long did
it take us to add twelve to seventy four eighty
that's the year before we started here. And it's interesting
that you know your first introduction to Italian cucoo was
(09:36):
southern you know so regional. Isn't it that the different
said you go on to Venice, you would have had
completely different food. Yeah. And I love the food of
southern Italy. I did that last year. I went sailing
in that area and it's lemons and basil. Yeah, you know,
fish fresh, yeah, fresh, really good. So let's go back
to the beginnings. Yes, born in Norfolk, Yes, not really.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Family of food. Food was always love. We'd always sit
together and we had dinner. Yeah, I mean a lot
of My mum was a nurse. Often she'd come in.
It would be quick. We might sit on the sofa
watch Telly with food on our laps and you know,
doctor who. But when people came around, it was an
(10:20):
excuse for my dad to open a bottle of wine
and entertain.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And who did the cooking? Then? Would he ever cook?
My mum did the cooking. She never really loved cooking.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And her mum, I remember my granny sort of dreaded
people coming around, and we'd always have slightly overcooked salmon,
new potatoes and green beans.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I think that was it.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Every time I went to my granny's house, and then
my mum whenever anyone came for a dinner party.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I can just remember cold Morney that's with cheese and
kind of crepes and spinach I think, yeah, yeah, and
new potatoes, as simple as possible.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
She really didn't want to spend much time after that
trip to Italy. My dad decided he wanted to get
involved and started to particularly pastors.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And things, and that's what did you do.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
He was a surveyor, chilter surveyor, but he quite liked
the glass of wine feeding everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
He wasn't great, but he was enthusiastic. I think it
is hard for a woman who was a nurse, you know,
to think about did she work nights?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
By the time I came along, she wasn't doing nights
because she wasn't working in the hospital. She was working
on the district, so I can't even remember. She must
have been on call if someone needed her at night time.
But she worked Christmas Day, you know. She always took
the shifts that she knew other people didn't really want
to do.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
I think.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And your grandmother lived near you, often i'd go and
stay there. If Mum and Dad were very busy, I'd
go and stay with my granny. And she always had
orange club biscuits in her.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So, what are your memories of your grandmother?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
My grand orange club biscuits, Rabina hilariously bed so that's
sugar all night.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Probably they didn't think about that. No, no, not at all,
and look pretty okay, So the memories. What about your
father's mother. She was an amazing baker girl. We found
someone in the what did she make?
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Just there was always she had a little larder and
she'd always go we have a little look in the cupboard.
There go on and there was always been at a
little bit of cake and made you a little bit
something or shortbreads, fruitcake which I'd ever liked. So she'd
always make me a little chocolate cake. And yeah, just
we were always allowed to go in and help ourselves.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So growing up Norfrika's see only place incredible secret.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
We used to also our holidays were also camping in Norfolk,
just a few miles away from where we actually lived
on the coast, and we'd camp in a campsite and
picked Sanfa.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We in Norfolk we call it Sanfa.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And when I first it written down on our menu
in London it said Samphire, I have no idea what
that was, So I.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thought it was pronounced.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I thought it was spelled as a kid s a
n f e r sanfa. But I think that's just
the Northern way of saying it. But the way we
ate it as well was so shake off the mud
in the seawater and it's sort of blanched, but it's
still so you keep the rooting, yeah, and just dip
it in butter and put it like that. You get
(13:27):
the meat off the meat, you know. Yeah, Yeah, And
we'd always just have it like that. You'd never have
it with something else.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You eat it. That's how we ate it. We take
that little twig off at the barroom and then we blanched,
but we put it with a fishert and yeah, sea burst.
It's great. It's a short season though, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I think you're not allowed to pick it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
We used to really go and pick it, just go
to the beach, pick it off the marshes and fish
and fish. Yes, we used to go cockling as well.
And muscles. I have always loved muscles. Oh that creamy,
garlicy dunk bread in it. Yeah. I did my first
(14:16):
school play when I was sixteen, and suddenly i'd always
been so rubbish at everything at school and then suddenly
did a play and went a light went on.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I wonder if I could do this, but I didn't
know anyone who did it. I assumed you had to
come from that place in order to do it, so
sort of had a secret yearning that never said it.
And then I went to Homerton, which I think still
is a teacher training college in Cambridge, but I left
(14:46):
after a term or so, so I never They call
it matriculation when you become part of the university, but
I never did that, so I was never part of
the university. And I left because I just couldn't do it.
And then went off to the town of Cambridge and
ended up working as a cleaner there for years.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And I had a bicycle.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I had the same major, so everyone else nobody questioned me,
and I went cycled around, went to lectures of people.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So I went to an.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Architecture lecture, went to an EU law lecture with when
I was totally in desperate in love with Ed and
just trying to you.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Were being an actor. Nigella Lars and a friend of mine,
you know, she worked as a cleaner in hotels and
Florence and she said it was the most revealing you
could have, particularly in the hotel the way people left
their rooms or so you did that for how long?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, a couple of years, and then did a secretarial course.
That was my mum's suggestion that if you're going to
be an actor, you need something for it. So you
knew then that by then, Yeah, I had done in Cambridge.
There's about thirty drama societies and I would just cycle
around all that. I did my shift and auditioning for things.
(16:02):
Don't play his learning lines, going back, cleaning all the
loose and chasing head around.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, it was your husband to be was a student Cambridge.
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
He's proper clever and he was there doing it properly.
What does he do He was doing law then, but
he's a writer.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
And then we went off to Bristol lol VIC Drama
School together and then we sort of you know, the
food is love thing. We went to Thai restaurants and
discovered new food together and there's a Thai restaurant in
Cambridge and it was so delicious we took it back
with us. We asked, it's first of a time I've
asked for a doggie bag, and I didn't want to
(16:41):
leave any of it, and we left it on his window,
still outside, putting arms out the window and.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Going, oh my god, it's amazing. The lemon grass and
the coconut Milcolm so Cambridge. And then you started acting
more and more and you went to Bristol. Yeah, and
when you actually then started working in the theater, that
must have solutely changed your way of eating. Did it
give you a routine or did it give you restrictions
(17:05):
some what you could have?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
And well, once we left Bristol and we were working,
you know, trying to earn our keep as actors. I
did my first few plays and things. I think I
ate quite late after the show because you was sort
of on a high, certainly wanted to have a drink afterwards.
When I worked at the Noel Coward Theater right next
to Siky's with Amy Morgan and Phoebe Wallerbridge, the three
(17:30):
of us would sort of go to Cheeky's afterwards and
sit outside and I think we all smoked then and
we would order the little croquettes and the Scarlett Burgers.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh, and that was a true and just drink. This
would have been.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
After Iron Lady Excep's when I first met Phoebe, which
was Meryl Street playing Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So a couple of you after that, three is after that.
I don't know, I'm so bad with but you can
remember what you ate, you can always yes, Yeah, loves food,
she does. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And it's really annoying that she's so tall and lean
and she loves eating.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's annoying. It's annoying. I will, I will. But sure
you were eating out, so when you because it's you know, picnics.
Would you eat before if you were in a martine
would you We'd sometimes have a picnic on the floor
of one of our dressing rooms, so go to you know,
get sort of little little cheeses and meats and pretend
(18:36):
you we're having a normal life and not going back
on stage. And there are men involved as well. Was
it most of the female It was mostly just the
three of our girls, and we'd have a kip.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
We'd sort of put we had some roll out mattresses
that we could put on the floor and we'd have
a snooze and eat nice food and then do the matinee.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Do you think that it binds you together? Food? When
you when you go on a set and you know
that you're medi you know. I don't know if the
all the other actors were friends of yours before, but
does it something that holds you all?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Before COVID happened, everyone would eat together on the dining
bus and I loved that you're eating with the crew
and what did you go for? What you go for,
and having a lovely time together, so social, and then
time to sort of all be equal and to let
your head down. And then now the dining bus hasn't
really come back, and so people sort of eat separately,
(19:27):
and that's such a shame, and you sort of sit
on your own in your little van. And I missed
that very much and hopefully we'll come back. But also sometimes,
you know, some actors are having to have a particularly
strict diet because they've got to look a certain way,
and that's sort of awful. You try and hide the
pudding option that you went for.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
How is weight and physical appearance with food? How does
it affect your work? I was just talking to someone
who's coming to London to be in a movie, and
his assistant said to me that he has a nutritionist
and a trainer because he's on a very special diet
for the film, and I thought that'd be interesting. I'd
like to know about that, because maybe I could go
(20:11):
on that without the nutritionist. And it turned out that
he was actually eating eight thousand calories a day because
I had to gain so much weight. It was completely
and I just was wondering how that, you know, when
you were a princess, when you or when you're okay queen,
and I had to put on weight. You had to
put on about two stone, did you? And how did
(20:32):
you do that? I mean, that's easy. Yeah, you didn't
need a nutritionist in my feet.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
But you know, and Rachel and and Emily Emma are
very healthy, clean eaters anyway, they love food, but it's
sort of clean food, so well, they had their healthy options.
I would say, I have one of everything and all
of the puddings, and if you don't want that, I'll
have that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yah.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It started actually to be a little bit quite quite gloomy.
I thought it, God, what fun being told to put
on weight. But I can put all my quite quickly,
and so it starts to feel, oh, yeah, I don't know,
you want another pizza? Yeah, or another I'm going to
have to take it all off at the end, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
How did you take it off?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Just see old fashioned eating a lot less and trying
to move more. But it was boring and hard, and
she loved to eat, wasn't Yeah she was?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I mean she did. Was it fifteen pregnancies she'd had seventeen?
Or maybe when I watched the film against and she lost,
she'd lost seventeen babies, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, her eldest one had lasted to had got to
ten years old, so they had varying degrees of ages.
But I think food for her was she was apparently
clinically obese, and and yeah, comfort food.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And what about playing the Queen and the green? Was
she very different now?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And she was tiny, so I did have to She
had a tiny waist and I don't have a tiny waiste,
so I did.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They were very sweet.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
They got me a trainer before I started, and then
thankfully by my second season she was a bit older
and didn't have such tiny waste, so I was about it.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
But did she go a little bit? Did you feel
playing her and the research into the live post war
so completely restrictive and different from what the voluptuous nurse
and the time. Yes, So what was that, like, what
was your sense of food in the palace and food
in the monarchy and food for being queen.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, I think when they had I mean, this is
you know, only stuff, but I remember from what we did.
But whenever there was there were people coming to visit
sort of big must entertain the heads of state things,
it was all beautiful, lovely food. But because she'd remembered
rations and everything. Yeah, she was never irresponsible about too
much food. She ate quite sort of ah circumspect frugally,
(23:07):
and she did maintain and she was very healthy and outdoorsy,
and she maintained a sort of neat little figure which
doesn't come from copies amounts of food. So I think
she was quite conservative about pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I mean, yeah, it's interesting that you know what you
wonder what pleasure there was in Yeah, you know you
can see the kings of France and the childs and
wonder whether the British aristocracy had I could probably probably
did you know those country houses? Then yeah, you just
wonder about the palace, whether eating and food was fun
(23:41):
I hope, So, yeah, I hope they enjoy it how
they enjoy it now, I think with King Charles. I
think that that family probably is more interested in food,
because yes, the lovely organic vegetables, and yeah, for Miller's son,
Tom Barker Bowles is right about food. Go to cook book,
(24:02):
hopefully they have. I wonder if they go to restaurants. So,
I don't know. I think that's probably quite hard thing
to do, isn't it. Maybe do you cook at home?
Is this passion for food telling that you love to eat?
(24:22):
But yeah, that's fair enough. I'm a very good guest.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
When I first left home, my mom gave me a
Delia Smith sort of complete, which was amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
And I think she's good, really, I do. She was
in the restaurant that long ago, really, and I thought
she really taught a generation to cook.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
All those lovely sort of staples. I learned that from
from her recipe book. So your mom gave you this book?
And yeah, and so I loved cooking for my two flatmates,
Debbie and Olivia, and that was the only cookbook we had,
and we would I loved. Also, I started to really
enjoy going to the shop and going to buy because
(25:04):
we want such a tight budget, we'd picture meals and
buy for the meals, not just you know, anything off
the shelf, fancy that.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And I enjoyed and sometimes it was just a jacket
potato with loads of butter and cheese. But I really
enjoyed the us all eating together and you know, feeding
each other.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So you have three children as you work, and sometimes
you don't. Yeah, it can be home or you have
do have to shop. So what is like? You told
us what food was like in your parents and your grandparents.
If I were to knock on the door, what is
food like if you were to knock on the door that, Yeah,
you should, because now we have.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I still struggle with saying because I feel a bit
it's sort of embarrassed. But we have a really lovely
nanny now I know because we certainly both started working
much more.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
She's an incredible cook. Okay, so definitely coming there. Yeah
you should. And you all sit down to dinner. We
always sit together and eat.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, when we sometimes the kids are doing late things
at school and we have we do a Sunday roast
every Sunday.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
We're so boring. And do you take them on holidays
and food holidays?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, we took the kids to sort of holiday of
a lifetime to Sri Lanka just before lockdown and just
ate the most incredible food three times a day.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Curry three times a day. Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Because we traveled around with the kids, and our two
eldest are really adventurous.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
They've always we've we've always.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Included them with all the food we have, and when
we have curry, we always make one that's slightly less spicy,
and they sort of they love it now and the
boys love spice. And so when we were traveling around,
our little one really wasn't wasn't thrilled, but she was
only four at the time. So she ate plain pasta
wherever we were plane rise and we would have egg
(27:03):
hoppers and the string hoppers for breakfast, and the dolls
and the coconuts, sambal and all these beautiful things we
would eat and they loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It does tell you about a country, doesn't It tells
you what's growing.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And yeah, our middle boy, he's he became obsessed with
Japan when he was very little and he did a
sushi course and he makes beautiful sushi and ramen.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
He does three day ramen.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
It does take, yeah, days, it makes days yeah, And
actually Ed is taking the two boys for a cookery
course when they before our eldest goes to university. So
they're doing a little week together, little boys week doing
learning to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Do you feel when you're away and you're working, do
you feel that your work takes you away from some
people you love? And well, you know, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Ed and I've been together third years, and up until COVID,
I'd only ever been away. The longest I've been away
was two weeks because I just don't take jobs away
from home.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Okay, let's stuck there. So then you think about accepting
a movie or a player, something that will keep you
away from home.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, I just I get terribly homesick. I never used
to be able to sleep very well if ED wasn't there,
And now I think we're probably you know, I'm at
an age where sleep is harder anyway, so actually it's
quite you go a night away, I'll I'll get a
great night sleep. But I also I missed the kids,
you know, I wanted to be there, and so I
(28:38):
was very lucky that I had the option of great
work in the UK and I didn't have to go away.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And then well, lost daughter. I was going to say
it was that six weeks.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Six weeks, so Sunny went from the six sixth way,
which is I think why we all behave so badly
because we all adored each other, got on so well,
got hey, we're here, We're in a beautiful place. Did
the kids come out, No, because weren't allowed to because
if they came, they'd have to quarantine before point.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So we'd all meet up.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
We were each other's family, and I know dag Mara
was really missing her family, and I really understood that feeling.
So I said, you'll be back on the school run
before you know it. And they don't know that you're
miserable or happy, so just go for happy.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And men aren't who are in the same actors feel
that way as well. Do you think they know that
their wife is home with all the kids, and.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
It's all I've always struggled with this male female thing.
I think ideally, if you're all brought up the same,
you are the same. It's only conditioning that makes sisting
male female. So all the men I know and love
struggle with being away from home when they miss you know,
the ones I'm not that impressed by have a ball.
(29:48):
But I think that's the same with some women as well,
you know, love being away. It's I don't think it's
a gender thing. I think it's a conditioning thing. But
people get shot down by different No.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
No, people ask me if women chefs cooked differently from
male chefs, and I always try and avoid that. They
really want you to say that women cook with more
care or more sensitivity and men are a bit more
and it's not true.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And it's not fair to the men that we all
know love and I know plenty of really uncaring women
and plenty of incredibly emotional, you know kind men.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And now you're doing a movie about chocolate. Is that right?
Oh god, yeah, I had to talk about that will
they won't get and the chocolate? So what was that
like in terms of chocolate?
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And they had a chocolate here, but when I went
to have for fittings and things, they said, can't look
at what this chocolate has made for us. And these
chocolates were exquisite, and he said you can eat them all.
I mean, often, if it's going to be a prop
why bother maker, But that he was so such a master.
He insisted that it had to taste beautiful, what sort
(30:54):
of caramel?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Incredible?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And they were brightly colored and amazing shapes, and every
one of them you could have eaten and it would
have been incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I wish the audience could see your smile, because every
time you talk about food, your face lights up, and
you know, you sort of remember things that you ate,
places that you've eaten.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
And the first time I had truffle, Yeah, a white truffle. Oh,
just any truffle, any true? And now we have we
have a little job with truffle, and every now and then, yeah,
overscrumbled eagle, yeah, on a Russian pasta.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah. You know, food is love, and food is alleviating hunger,
and food is curiosity or traveling or discovering. Food is
also comfort. And I was wondering if there's a food
that you would turn to, something you'd either make or buy.
Olivia Coleman, wonderful person that you are, and I hope
(31:47):
you don't need comfort very often because you give such joy.
I mean when you came in the restaurant today, We've
had all sorts of people come in and they're great.
They're politicians or you know, actors or writers or doctors
or whatever, and you just I could just see everybody
look up and be so happy you were there, really
happy that you were there. It was really great to see.
(32:10):
And of course I joined them and saying thank you
so much. So would you come back again? Yeah? Yeah, okay,
we'll do it more. And meanwhile, will you tell me?
And tell I was ever listening what would be the
comfort food you turn to?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
My comfort food is sort of a one spoon thing
and it's tarcodile.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I could eat that all day, every day. Okay, tarcodile?
Tell me? Can you just tell people who might not
know what it is?
Speaker 3 (32:38):
So it's a lentils which are soft, and there's garlic,
and I think the tadca is the tempered thing on
the top. I've never made it, ok but I am
a connoisseur of eating it. Yeah, and it is my
favorite thing I always order. If we have a takeaway
or delivery, I order much more tacodile than we need,
(33:01):
so I can have it cold for breakfast, I'll have
it reheat it again for lunch next day.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I just love it. I could eat it. I'm going
to try that you love it. I was surprised because
I'm sure you're going to say toast and butter, I'm sorry,
don't be sorry, but I will come and have that
tacodile knock on your door. Yes, and thank you so God,
thank you for having me. And now you're going to
go and have food, have lunch and you can eat
(33:28):
and need to eat. Oh, thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
(33:57):
The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for cook of All Ages.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adami Studios.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The films of Olivia Coleman have the power to move
us to tears, make us laugh, and inspire us to
try something new. They can also make us feel really,
really hungry. In the Favorite playing Queen Anne, Olivia Coleman
conveys her authority by insisting on a cup of over
rich hot chocolate, and there are tables laden with roasted venison,
(00:30):
lamb cakes, desserts, the symbols of wealth and privilege. None
to the Queen. What what you cannot have hot chocolate?
Your stomach sugar inflames? It I begat having that cup?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Do not?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm sorry, I do not know what to do. Oh fine,
give it her and you can get a bucket in
a mop for the aftermath. I met Olivia over food
one night in the River Cafe. She was with my
friend Maggie gillinol and they just wrap filming for their
movie The Lost Daughter in Greece. It is not an
exaggeration to say they pretty much ordered everything on the menu.
(01:06):
We immediately got into talking about feeding our kids, cooking,
and inflicted distance from family when working this was a
conversation that could have lasted for hours, but I had
to go back to the kitchen and she needed to
finish your lemon pasta before it cooled down. Today we're
here in the River Cafe and she is the one
who's been cooking the lemon pasta. Now we're going to
(01:28):
pick up where we left off. Conversation with a woman
I admire, I respect, and I adore lucky me. Oh,
that was the best introduction. Thanks, that's true. It's true.
So you're in the River Cafe kitchen with Alex, who's
on the section called Hots two, which does pasta. So
what was it like? What did you just say? Lovely,
(01:49):
you chose for your recipe tag you Telly with lemon,
cream and parsley, and I wonder if you would like
to read it.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Four hundred grams taglete, mold and salt and coarsely ground
black pepper, three hundred miles double cream, one hundred and
twenty grams unsalted butter, softened zest and juice of four
juicy lemons. Six tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, one
hundred and fifty grams of grated parmitan.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
This is the one you chose. Sure, yeah, I mean
it it is absolutely lovely and classic and I think
sort of as you start being this time of year,
is you know, it's like start a bit more light
in summary that still on its slightly miserable.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well have I picked that too easy? You?
Speaker 4 (02:37):
No, No, this is great, it's fantastic. What we want
to do is we basically just get everything in in
the path that we need. So we're going to have
a bit of butter, of bit of cream.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
In a large, thick bottomed saucepan. Gently heat the cream.
When warm, add the butter, lemon juice, and zest, stir
briefly together.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Then remove from the heat.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Cook the taglitarian a generous amount of boiling salted water
until al dente, and then drain, stir into the warm
cream and season. Add half the parsley and tossed together.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Do you want to like toss it?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Can? I? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I feel like, sorry, that's a
bit you know, we've still got a bit of you know,
we just give it a good old.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Serve immediately on warm plates with the remainder of the
parsley and the parmesan as it cools.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It will sort of thicken up a little bit and
then a little bit of parmesan on top, and that's
sort of what we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Looks pretty Oh.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
What did you observe? Yeah, just amazing. He said you
cooked it? You actually did well. I think you definitely.
It's not easy to go into it. Let me do that.
I did the tossing. Yeah, did you catch it? Yeah?
Well I did make a bit of a mess of
your floor. Sorry, Oh dear, okay, wanted no, we didn't
(04:15):
want to do. Do you see food and your ability
to eat, well, it's a kind of measure of your success.
People very often see that that we've talked to would
say as their success increased, they measured it by being
able to go to a good restaurant, better bottle of wine,
(04:36):
even not have to look at the right hand side
for the prices before they looked at what they wanted
to eat. Yeah. The difference is, so is that how
is that measured in your career?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I remember, we've got a close group of active friends
that we all were drama school together and we've all
stayed very close. But when we first left drama school,
sometimes we'd go to you know, a pub for someone's
birthday to eat, and it was very much sort of
how about should we share that all of us were?
You know, really there wasn't much lots of money going
(05:08):
around and renting terrible places and trying to share something
between us. Or if we clubbed together and buy one
bottle and then we could always get something from the
offfee on the way home and have more to drink
because it's cheaper at home. And then cut to you know,
years later, I could say, let's walk out with dinner
my shout, or you know, what.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Did you eat after we had the ark? Was that
celebrated with food? No?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I think that was entirely booze.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
You could do another program called you know.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I think I was so out of it sort of
I couldn't believe what had happened.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You did seem very sharp, yes, And why why were
you so surprised? I didn't think i'd get it, you know,
the first time I'd been nominated, and we were so
proud of the film and everything, but I just thought
that that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
That's well, it makes you emotional. It was such a
ridiculous thing to have happened.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
In a way.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, I can't believe it. Still can't quite believe that happened.
I did afterwards.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah. Do you are you an emotional eater? Do you
eat when you're happy or sad? Do you both? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, I do love you know, the comfort foods or
hot buttered toast butter place.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I love butter. Toast is basically just a vehicle for butter. Agree.
My mother in law used to say that butter is
the best cheese, you know. She treated it like cheese.
You just have a piece of slab butter until she
decided that it was would kill you, so that I
was never allowed to cook with butter after that. But
it is really Yeah, I like it. And when you
(06:52):
make a film like, for instance, going to Greece, when
you made The Lost Order, what.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
With Maggie too, Yeah, all of the casts were in
the same hotel. Maggie had a little house separately because
she had to do grown up things think about the
next day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And we were all quite badly behaved.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Who you were so me Jesse Dakota, Dakacha Johnson, Jesse Buckley,
to Coach Johnson, Paul Meskill, Ollie Jackson, Cohen, Dagmara demin
chic who else?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I feel awful if I'm missing anyone else out.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
But we were all together and quite badly behaved and eating.
We knew exactly the menu because we'd all been the
same hotel for I think six weeks, so we knew
the menu back to front. And they were very sweet
and would do very But I remember they had a
deconstructed fetter, you know Greek salad, so it was a
really different fetter, not a solid one, but quite a
(07:46):
soft one, laid out sort of prettily rather than you
know what. But I remember from a childhood holidays degrees
which is great big chunks of everything in a bomb
or I have you even got pictures of the food,
and they did a savice something with mango and mm,
lovely things. This is when Greece in Greece, sorry, in
(08:07):
the hotel in the Posidonian and your parents as well, Yes,
we did go to Greece as it as yeah, as kids,
and I remember then eating octopus. I couldn't eat octopus
now because i've you know, the multipus teacher and learning
so much about how clever they are. I can't do
it but to eat it straight out of the sea
(08:28):
so fresh and squid.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And so did your parents travel with you when you
were a kid, did you know?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
No, they weren't really travelers. But my dad's best friend
moved to Naples when I was twelve. I don't think
they'd ever been to Italy, and we decided to go
and we stayed with them.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
In the summer.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yes, in the summer, we went to Ischia in the
Bay of Naples and just had because they lived there
and he married an Italian woman.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
We had incredible food.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
We went to amazing restaurants, and we didn't know what
we were doing, so he would trust me and he
would order something of everything and try these beautiful things.
We went to little restaurants in people's houses in the hills.
Oh yeah, is it when I was twelve? I was
born in seventy four and I can't do maths.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, so that's eighty two, well done, No twelve, No maths,
it's either seventy four eighty eighty six. How long did
it take us to add twelve to seventy four eighty
that's the year before we started here. And it's interesting
that you know your first introduction to Italian cucoo was
(09:36):
southern you know so regional. Isn't it that the different
said you go on to Venice, you would have had
completely different food. Yeah. And I love the food of
southern Italy. I did that last year. I went sailing
in that area and it's lemons and basil. Yeah, you know,
fish fresh, yeah, fresh, really good. So let's go back
to the beginnings. Yes, born in Norfolk, Yes, not really.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Family of food. Food was always love. We'd always sit
together and we had dinner. Yeah, I mean a lot
of My mum was a nurse. Often she'd come in.
It would be quick. We might sit on the sofa
watch Telly with food on our laps and you know,
doctor who. But when people came around, it was an
(10:20):
excuse for my dad to open a bottle of wine
and entertain.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And who did the cooking? Then? Would he ever cook?
My mum did the cooking. She never really loved cooking.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And her mum, I remember my granny sort of dreaded
people coming around, and we'd always have slightly overcooked salmon,
new potatoes and green beans.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I think that was it.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Every time I went to my granny's house, and then
my mum whenever anyone came for a dinner party.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I can just remember cold Morney that's with cheese and
kind of crepes and spinach I think, yeah, yeah, and
new potatoes, as simple as possible.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
She really didn't want to spend much time after that
trip to Italy. My dad decided he wanted to get
involved and started to particularly pastors.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And things, and that's what did you do.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
He was a surveyor, chilter surveyor, but he quite liked
the glass of wine feeding everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
He wasn't great, but he was enthusiastic. I think it
is hard for a woman who was a nurse, you know,
to think about did she work nights?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
By the time I came along, she wasn't doing nights
because she wasn't working in the hospital. She was working
on the district, so I can't even remember. She must
have been on call if someone needed her at night time.
But she worked Christmas Day, you know. She always took
the shifts that she knew other people didn't really want
to do.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
I think.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And your grandmother lived near you, often i'd go and
stay there. If Mum and Dad were very busy, I'd
go and stay with my granny. And she always had
orange club biscuits in her.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So, what are your memories of your grandmother?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
My grand orange club biscuits, Rabina hilariously bed so that's
sugar all night.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Probably they didn't think about that. No, no, not at all,
and look pretty okay, So the memories. What about your
father's mother. She was an amazing baker girl. We found
someone in the what did she make?
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Just there was always she had a little larder and
she'd always go we have a little look in the cupboard.
There go on and there was always been at a
little bit of cake and made you a little bit
something or shortbreads, fruitcake which I'd ever liked. So she'd
always make me a little chocolate cake. And yeah, just
we were always allowed to go in and help ourselves.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So growing up Norfrika's see only place incredible secret.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
We used to also our holidays were also camping in Norfolk,
just a few miles away from where we actually lived
on the coast, and we'd camp in a campsite and
picked Sanfa.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We in Norfolk we call it Sanfa.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And when I first it written down on our menu
in London it said Samphire, I have no idea what
that was, So I.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thought it was pronounced.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I thought it was spelled as a kid s a
n f e r sanfa. But I think that's just
the Northern way of saying it. But the way we
ate it as well was so shake off the mud
in the seawater and it's sort of blanched, but it's
still so you keep the rooting, yeah, and just dip
it in butter and put it like that. You get
(13:27):
the meat off the meat, you know. Yeah, Yeah, And
we'd always just have it like that. You'd never have
it with something else.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You eat it. That's how we ate it. We take
that little twig off at the barroom and then we blanched,
but we put it with a fishert and yeah, sea burst.
It's great. It's a short season though, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I think you're not allowed to pick it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
We used to really go and pick it, just go
to the beach, pick it off the marshes and fish
and fish. Yes, we used to go cockling as well.
And muscles. I have always loved muscles. Oh that creamy,
garlicy dunk bread in it. Yeah. I did my first
(14:16):
school play when I was sixteen, and suddenly i'd always
been so rubbish at everything at school and then suddenly
did a play and went a light went on.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I wonder if I could do this, but I didn't
know anyone who did it. I assumed you had to
come from that place in order to do it, so
sort of had a secret yearning that never said it.
And then I went to Homerton, which I think still
is a teacher training college in Cambridge, but I left
(14:46):
after a term or so, so I never They call
it matriculation when you become part of the university, but
I never did that, so I was never part of
the university. And I left because I just couldn't do it.
And then went off to the town of Cambridge and
ended up working as a cleaner there for years.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And I had a bicycle.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I had the same major, so everyone else nobody questioned me,
and I went cycled around, went to lectures of people.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So I went to an.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Architecture lecture, went to an EU law lecture with when
I was totally in desperate in love with Ed and
just trying to you.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Were being an actor. Nigella Lars and a friend of mine,
you know, she worked as a cleaner in hotels and
Florence and she said it was the most revealing you
could have, particularly in the hotel the way people left
their rooms or so you did that for how long?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, a couple of years, and then did a secretarial course.
That was my mum's suggestion that if you're going to
be an actor, you need something for it. So you
knew then that by then, Yeah, I had done in Cambridge.
There's about thirty drama societies and I would just cycle
around all that. I did my shift and auditioning for things.
(16:02):
Don't play his learning lines, going back, cleaning all the
loose and chasing head around.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, it was your husband to be was a student Cambridge.
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
He's proper clever and he was there doing it properly.
What does he do He was doing law then, but
he's a writer.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
And then we went off to Bristol lol VIC Drama
School together and then we sort of you know, the
food is love thing. We went to Thai restaurants and
discovered new food together and there's a Thai restaurant in
Cambridge and it was so delicious we took it back
with us. We asked, it's first of a time I've
asked for a doggie bag, and I didn't want to
(16:41):
leave any of it, and we left it on his window,
still outside, putting arms out the window and.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Going, oh my god, it's amazing. The lemon grass and
the coconut Milcolm so Cambridge. And then you started acting
more and more and you went to Bristol. Yeah, and
when you actually then started working in the theater, that
must have solutely changed your way of eating. Did it
give you a routine or did it give you restrictions
(17:05):
some what you could have?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
And well, once we left Bristol and we were working,
you know, trying to earn our keep as actors. I
did my first few plays and things. I think I
ate quite late after the show because you was sort
of on a high, certainly wanted to have a drink afterwards.
When I worked at the Noel Coward Theater right next
to Siky's with Amy Morgan and Phoebe Wallerbridge, the three
(17:30):
of us would sort of go to Cheeky's afterwards and
sit outside and I think we all smoked then and
we would order the little croquettes and the Scarlett Burgers.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh, and that was a true and just drink. This
would have been.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
After Iron Lady Excep's when I first met Phoebe, which
was Meryl Street playing Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So a couple of you after that, three is after that.
I don't know, I'm so bad with but you can
remember what you ate, you can always yes, Yeah, loves food,
she does. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And it's really annoying that she's so tall and lean
and she loves eating.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's annoying. It's annoying. I will, I will. But sure
you were eating out, so when you because it's you know, picnics.
Would you eat before if you were in a martine
would you We'd sometimes have a picnic on the floor
of one of our dressing rooms, so go to you know,
get sort of little little cheeses and meats and pretend
(18:36):
you we're having a normal life and not going back
on stage. And there are men involved as well. Was
it most of the female It was mostly just the
three of our girls, and we'd have a kip.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
We'd sort of put we had some roll out mattresses
that we could put on the floor and we'd have
a snooze and eat nice food and then do the matinee.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Do you think that it binds you together? Food? When
you when you go on a set and you know
that you're medi you know. I don't know if the
all the other actors were friends of yours before, but
does it something that holds you all?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Before COVID happened, everyone would eat together on the dining
bus and I loved that you're eating with the crew
and what did you go for? What you go for,
and having a lovely time together, so social, and then
time to sort of all be equal and to let
your head down. And then now the dining bus hasn't
really come back, and so people sort of eat separately,
(19:27):
and that's such a shame, and you sort of sit
on your own in your little van. And I missed
that very much and hopefully we'll come back. But also sometimes,
you know, some actors are having to have a particularly
strict diet because they've got to look a certain way,
and that's sort of awful. You try and hide the
pudding option that you went for.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
How is weight and physical appearance with food? How does
it affect your work? I was just talking to someone
who's coming to London to be in a movie, and
his assistant said to me that he has a nutritionist
and a trainer because he's on a very special diet
for the film, and I thought that'd be interesting. I'd
like to know about that, because maybe I could go
(20:11):
on that without the nutritionist. And it turned out that
he was actually eating eight thousand calories a day because
I had to gain so much weight. It was completely
and I just was wondering how that, you know, when
you were a princess, when you or when you're okay queen,
and I had to put on weight. You had to
put on about two stone, did you? And how did
(20:32):
you do that? I mean, that's easy. Yeah, you didn't
need a nutritionist in my feet.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
But you know, and Rachel and and Emily Emma are
very healthy, clean eaters anyway, they love food, but it's
sort of clean food, so well, they had their healthy options.
I would say, I have one of everything and all
of the puddings, and if you don't want that, I'll
have that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yah.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It started actually to be a little bit quite quite gloomy.
I thought it, God, what fun being told to put
on weight. But I can put all my quite quickly,
and so it starts to feel, oh, yeah, I don't know,
you want another pizza? Yeah, or another I'm going to
have to take it all off at the end, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
How did you take it off?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Just see old fashioned eating a lot less and trying
to move more. But it was boring and hard, and
she loved to eat, wasn't Yeah she was?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I mean she did. Was it fifteen pregnancies she'd had seventeen?
Or maybe when I watched the film against and she lost,
she'd lost seventeen babies, that's right.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, her eldest one had lasted to had got to
ten years old, so they had varying degrees of ages.
But I think food for her was she was apparently
clinically obese, and and yeah, comfort food.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And what about playing the Queen and the green? Was
she very different now?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And she was tiny, so I did have to She
had a tiny waist and I don't have a tiny waiste,
so I did.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They were very sweet.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
They got me a trainer before I started, and then
thankfully by my second season she was a bit older
and didn't have such tiny waste, so I was about it.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
But did she go a little bit? Did you feel
playing her and the research into the live post war
so completely restrictive and different from what the voluptuous nurse
and the time. Yes, So what was that, like, what
was your sense of food in the palace and food
in the monarchy and food for being queen.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, I think when they had I mean, this is
you know, only stuff, but I remember from what we did.
But whenever there was there were people coming to visit
sort of big must entertain the heads of state things,
it was all beautiful, lovely food. But because she'd remembered
rations and everything. Yeah, she was never irresponsible about too
much food. She ate quite sort of ah circumspect frugally,
(23:07):
and she did maintain and she was very healthy and outdoorsy,
and she maintained a sort of neat little figure which
doesn't come from copies amounts of food. So I think
she was quite conservative about pleasure.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I mean, yeah, it's interesting that you know what you
wonder what pleasure there was in Yeah, you know you
can see the kings of France and the childs and
wonder whether the British aristocracy had I could probably probably
did you know those country houses? Then yeah, you just
wonder about the palace, whether eating and food was fun
(23:41):
I hope, So, yeah, I hope they enjoy it how
they enjoy it now, I think with King Charles. I
think that that family probably is more interested in food,
because yes, the lovely organic vegetables, and yeah, for Miller's son,
Tom Barker Bowles is right about food. Go to cook book,
(24:02):
hopefully they have. I wonder if they go to restaurants. So,
I don't know. I think that's probably quite hard thing
to do, isn't it. Maybe do you cook at home?
Is this passion for food telling that you love to eat?
(24:22):
But yeah, that's fair enough. I'm a very good guest.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
When I first left home, my mom gave me a
Delia Smith sort of complete, which was amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
And I think she's good, really, I do. She was
in the restaurant that long ago, really, and I thought
she really taught a generation to cook.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
All those lovely sort of staples. I learned that from
from her recipe book. So your mom gave you this book?
And yeah, and so I loved cooking for my two flatmates,
Debbie and Olivia, and that was the only cookbook we had,
and we would I loved. Also, I started to really
enjoy going to the shop and going to buy because
(25:04):
we want such a tight budget, we'd picture meals and
buy for the meals, not just you know, anything off
the shelf, fancy that.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And I enjoyed and sometimes it was just a jacket
potato with loads of butter and cheese. But I really
enjoyed the us all eating together and you know, feeding
each other.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So you have three children as you work, and sometimes
you don't. Yeah, it can be home or you have
do have to shop. So what is like? You told
us what food was like in your parents and your grandparents.
If I were to knock on the door, what is
food like if you were to knock on the door that, Yeah,
you should, because now we have.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I still struggle with saying because I feel a bit
it's sort of embarrassed. But we have a really lovely
nanny now I know because we certainly both started working
much more.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
She's an incredible cook. Okay, so definitely coming there. Yeah
you should. And you all sit down to dinner. We
always sit together and eat.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, when we sometimes the kids are doing late things
at school and we have we do a Sunday roast
every Sunday.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
We're so boring. And do you take them on holidays
and food holidays?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, we took the kids to sort of holiday of
a lifetime to Sri Lanka just before lockdown and just
ate the most incredible food three times a day.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Curry three times a day. Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Because we traveled around with the kids, and our two
eldest are really adventurous.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
They've always we've we've always.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Included them with all the food we have, and when
we have curry, we always make one that's slightly less spicy,
and they sort of they love it now and the
boys love spice. And so when we were traveling around,
our little one really wasn't wasn't thrilled, but she was
only four at the time. So she ate plain pasta
wherever we were plane rise and we would have egg
(27:03):
hoppers and the string hoppers for breakfast, and the dolls
and the coconuts, sambal and all these beautiful things we
would eat and they loved it as well.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It does tell you about a country, doesn't It tells
you what's growing.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And yeah, our middle boy, he's he became obsessed with
Japan when he was very little and he did a
sushi course and he makes beautiful sushi and ramen.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
He does three day ramen.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
It does take, yeah, days, it makes days yeah, And
actually Ed is taking the two boys for a cookery
course when they before our eldest goes to university. So
they're doing a little week together, little boys week doing
learning to cook.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Do you feel when you're away and you're working, do
you feel that your work takes you away from some
people you love? And well, you know, how does that work?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Ed and I've been together third years, and up until COVID,
I'd only ever been away. The longest I've been away
was two weeks because I just don't take jobs away
from home.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Okay, let's stuck there. So then you think about accepting
a movie or a player, something that will keep you
away from home.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, I just I get terribly homesick. I never used
to be able to sleep very well if ED wasn't there,
And now I think we're probably you know, I'm at
an age where sleep is harder anyway, so actually it's
quite you go a night away, I'll I'll get a
great night sleep. But I also I missed the kids,
you know, I wanted to be there, and so I
(28:38):
was very lucky that I had the option of great
work in the UK and I didn't have to go away.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And then well, lost daughter. I was going to say
it was that six weeks.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Six weeks, so Sunny went from the six sixth way,
which is I think why we all behave so badly
because we all adored each other, got on so well,
got hey, we're here, We're in a beautiful place. Did
the kids come out, No, because weren't allowed to because
if they came, they'd have to quarantine before point.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So we'd all meet up.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
We were each other's family, and I know dag Mara
was really missing her family, and I really understood that feeling.
So I said, you'll be back on the school run
before you know it. And they don't know that you're
miserable or happy, so just go for happy.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And men aren't who are in the same actors feel
that way as well. Do you think they know that
their wife is home with all the kids, and.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
It's all I've always struggled with this male female thing.
I think ideally, if you're all brought up the same,
you are the same. It's only conditioning that makes sisting
male female. So all the men I know and love
struggle with being away from home when they miss you know,
the ones I'm not that impressed by have a ball.
(29:48):
But I think that's the same with some women as well,
you know, love being away. It's I don't think it's
a gender thing. I think it's a conditioning thing. But
people get shot down by different No.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
No, people ask me if women chefs cooked differently from
male chefs, and I always try and avoid that. They
really want you to say that women cook with more
care or more sensitivity and men are a bit more
and it's not true.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And it's not fair to the men that we all
know love and I know plenty of really uncaring women
and plenty of incredibly emotional, you know kind men.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And now you're doing a movie about chocolate. Is that right?
Oh god, yeah, I had to talk about that will
they won't get and the chocolate? So what was that
like in terms of chocolate?
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And they had a chocolate here, but when I went
to have for fittings and things, they said, can't look
at what this chocolate has made for us. And these
chocolates were exquisite, and he said you can eat them all.
I mean, often, if it's going to be a prop
why bother maker, But that he was so such a master.
He insisted that it had to taste beautiful, what sort
(30:54):
of caramel?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Incredible?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And they were brightly colored and amazing shapes, and every
one of them you could have eaten and it would
have been incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I wish the audience could see your smile, because every
time you talk about food, your face lights up, and
you know, you sort of remember things that you ate,
places that you've eaten.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
And the first time I had truffle, Yeah, a white truffle. Oh,
just any truffle, any true? And now we have we
have a little job with truffle, and every now and then, yeah,
overscrumbled eagle, yeah, on a Russian pasta.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah. You know, food is love, and food is alleviating hunger,
and food is curiosity or traveling or discovering. Food is
also comfort. And I was wondering if there's a food
that you would turn to, something you'd either make or buy.
Olivia Coleman, wonderful person that you are, and I hope
(31:47):
you don't need comfort very often because you give such joy.
I mean when you came in the restaurant today, We've
had all sorts of people come in and they're great.
They're politicians or you know, actors or writers or doctors
or whatever, and you just I could just see everybody
look up and be so happy you were there, really
happy that you were there. It was really great to see.
(32:10):
And of course I joined them and saying thank you
so much. So would you come back again? Yeah? Yeah, okay,
we'll do it more. And meanwhile, will you tell me?
And tell I was ever listening what would be the
comfort food you turn to?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
My comfort food is sort of a one spoon thing
and it's tarcodile.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I could eat that all day, every day. Okay, tarcodile?
Tell me? Can you just tell people who might not
know what it is?
Speaker 3 (32:38):
So it's a lentils which are soft, and there's garlic,
and I think the tadca is the tempered thing on
the top. I've never made it, ok but I am
a connoisseur of eating it. Yeah, and it is my
favorite thing I always order. If we have a takeaway
or delivery, I order much more tacodile than we need,
(33:01):
so I can have it cold for breakfast, I'll have
it reheat it again for lunch next day.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I just love it. I could eat it. I'm going
to try that you love it. I was surprised because
I'm sure you're going to say toast and butter, I'm sorry,
don't be sorry, but I will come and have that
tacodile knock on your door. Yes, and thank you so God,
thank you for having me. And now you're going to
go and have food, have lunch and you can eat
(33:28):
and need to eat. Oh, thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online.
It has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs
from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty
delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of
River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
(33:57):
The River Cafe Lookbook Recipes for cook of All Ages.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adami 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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