November 16, 2021 • 26 mins
Pete Davison is funny.
In River Cafe Table 4 he makes Ruthie Rogers laugh a lot - describing his life as a waiter in Staten Island, giving his recipe for Cup a Soup Noodles and recalling his stand up in a bowling alley to an audience of three.
Listen and Pete will make you laugh too.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie's Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. My phone's going up
to and take it. Okay, so it's funny, I said,
Is it my mom? Maybe it's your mom? Should we
call your mom? What call you jever number? Oh god, no,
I would never, should never get off. Oh let's have it.
(00:21):
Let me tell you about Peter, So tell me about
the restaurant you've worked in. This might be embarrassing to admit,
but as a kid, one of my favorite songs was
getting to Know You from the musical The King and
I and I guess getting to know you is what
(00:42):
my River Cafe Conversation guests today. Pete Davidson will be
for We've only met once, but sometimes, pretty rarely you
meet someone and you know they are going to be
a friend. We met over food. Lauren Michael's introduced us
at a dinner in the River Cafe, and then he
came back with his friends mass Saturday. You probably share
(01:03):
a lot of attitudes and values on politics, hypocrisy, humor,
and other subjects. Usually I have a list of questions,
but today I might throw them in the bin and
we'll just talk. Getting to know you pete. Indeed, hello everybody,
thank you for having met our bloody Mary's. So would
(01:24):
you like to read the recipe? Yes, okay. This is
the recipe for zucchini and Connelli soup. It says it
serves six four hundred grams of zucchini, tin cannelli beans,
one head of celery, finally chopped, one garlic clove, one
bunch parsley leaves, extra virgin olive oil. And then you
(01:49):
roughly cut the zucchini into small pieces, and then peel
and finally chopped the garlic and chopped the parsley. You
drain and rinse the cannelli beans, heat one tablespoon of
all of oil in a thick bottomed pan and fry
the celery and parsley until soft. And then you add
the garlic and zucchini and cook for ten minutes. You
(02:11):
add five tablespoons of water and scrape up to combine.
Then add the beans, stirring for a further five minutes.
Mashed together, and drizzle with extra virginal oil. This is
best served at room temperature. Thank you, that was gorgeous.
You did that beautifully, Thank you very much. The first
(02:32):
time reading a recipe It's kind of a recipe I
always say, is partly prose and partly science. You know,
it's kind of combinations and it gives you the measurements,
but it also gives you the poetry of the of
what you might be cooking. Do you cook? I do not,
do not. I'm awful at cooking. I could only cook eggs,
but that's like a pretty standard. I feel like everybody
(02:54):
could cook agg Maybe eggs aren't that easy? What are
your coach? Scrambled on? Yeah, what's your tech? Egg? I
just put them in the pan and then mush them
around you scramble after, do you yes? Scramble them in
the pan? Yes? Interesting? Yes? I could also add hot
water to ramen noodles, do you yes? Adding water is
(03:15):
a talent as well. Definitely the right guest to have
on this food discussion. I can make a mean cup
of noodles. You can. How do you do that? Well? First,
I don't know what cup of noodles is. I go
to Costco, Yes, and I get the pre made ramen noodles.
And then I go home and since I don't know
(03:37):
how to boil water because I'm dumb, I go to
the Cure egg and I hit the hot water button
and the cure egg. I don't know what that is.
Cure egg is a little coffee translator. Okay, this is
a new one. You know, the little coffee machine that
you could put these little coffee pods in Caresso, yes, yeah,
so I usually get I use the hot water from that,
(03:58):
and then I dump it the couple of noodles, and
then I stirred for about four to five minutes over
the heat. You mean you don't you just the hot
water cooks the hot water. Yeah, at least I hope so.
And then I eat very hard noodles. So that is.
That is about as far as my cooking ghost. So
(04:20):
tell me about food when you were growing up. What
was it like in the Davison household. Oh? My mom
she was single parents, so she worked and she was
a nurse and when she got home, she didn't really
have time to cook, so we would usually order Chinese
food or Italian food. But when she did cook, she's
really good at cooking. One thing, chicken cutlets. She's really
(04:44):
great breaded chicken cutlets. I still have yet to have
a better chicken cutlet anywhere else. Um, do you know
what she did I know, Well, I know if I
have ever watched, there's usually like there's the raw chicken
and then there's like this plate with yellow stuff in it,
(05:04):
which she was an egg. Yeah, and then there's another
plate with like breaded like the that stuff. Right, yeah,
there we go, and then she would you know, like
season it yeah, okay, um, and then dump it in
the gotta make a cook out of you. I would
love to learn how to cook at least just like
(05:24):
one thing so I could like observe that. But that's impressive. That.
So she she dipped the a into the egg and
then into the bread comes, so she dip it back
into the egg again. Do you think she did after
the two times? Yeah? Two dipper tier um and then yeah,
and then like maybe thirty five minutes later, we would
(05:45):
have a chicken color and I would she would put
them on these paper towels and then I would never
I never really ate at the dinner table. I would
just like walk by and take each chicken cutlet as
soon as it was done being me because because it
was so good and that's like the best time to
eat it as when it's like super super fresh. So um.
(06:06):
That was my mom's specialty. Would you have it often?
Would she make it like once in at least once
a week, once a week. Yeah, we would all look
forward to it. Usually it was a weekend thing. It
was always a treat when my mom cooked. Did she
have days off? Not really, not until like I became
a teenager, she got a school nursing job, so then
her schedule was like the same as me and my sister's.
(06:27):
So but at first she was working in the er
in the hospital, so her hours were super random and
h I was either watching my sister or we would
have a babysitter. So I mean the respect that you
have I have for your mother, you know, being able
to work all day have two kids. It's a struggle,
(06:50):
you know, it's um it's hard. Yeah, it's hard, and
it's hard because you know, nobody's ever really on the
same schedule. But that also makes the time when everybody
is on the same schedule super memorable and special, like,
um that that once a week where we would all
get to And holidays were always very big. What would
they tell me about them? So Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Halloween,
(07:15):
even just because we have a very big family. I
have six aunts and uncles and like forty something cousins.
So the holidays are all, you know, not like an excuse,
but we all just get together and u was their
food the Halloween or Thanksgiving, Well Halloween it's pretty lame.
(07:36):
But like Thanksgiving, everybody usually has an assignment because there's
six ants and uncles, and my grandma would take care
of either the turkey and the stuffing, and then my
mom would bring like the sweet potatoes or someone else
would bring mashed potatoes. It's just the asparagus and the
(07:57):
dinner roles. So everybody had a different assignment. And usually
we have it at my aunt's house in Jersey, and
everybody would show up with like a big tin and
everybody puts it on the island and then we spread
everything out and it's I guess it's probably the easiest
way to do Thanksgiving because everybody does a little bit.
(08:17):
Tell me about your grandmother though, did she cook? She's
great at cooking, she always cooks both grandma's. I'm lucky
I have two grandma's. Um, did they live near your house?
Was an expedition to go to your grandmother's My mom's
parents live in Jersey, and then my dad's parents live
in State Island, which was really close to me. So, yeah,
(08:39):
so you and your sister could go over there and
have dinner. Would you ever do that? Yeah? Absolutely? And
then like they would watch us sometimes and cook for us,
and we would stay over their house if my mom
had a work late, but they always had a cooked
meal for us. Did you what was Staten Island like
food wise? Food wise? It's pretty It's pretty just Italian,
(08:59):
was it. It's pretty much just Italian food and like
Chinese takeout. But there's so many Italian restaurants. It's like
it's almost comical how many there are, Like there's like
three every block. So one of my dad's friends owns
an Italian restaurant that I actually used to work at
for a bit I was a bus boy. It's a
very Italian and um, very old school, is what I
(09:23):
would say. Like you would if you go to Staten
Island now, you would feel like you're walking into like
a nineties movie. You know, dudes with their shirts open
and chest have flowing out and smoking cigarettes and just
being like what it's it's very You're like, oh wow,
nothing has changed here, which is kind of what I
(09:43):
like about it. A little bit is nobody there gives
nobody ever bothers me there. They don't care. Yeah, and
it's it's not like New York. It is part of
New York, but it's more part of the Jersey, I
would say, because it's just suburb Like when when I
grew up, going to the city was like an event,
(10:05):
like we're gonna go see the Christmas tree, or like
we're gonna go to that giant toy store where Tom
Hanks jumped on the piano. It wasn't a regular thing,
which is crazy because it's a half hour away. I
grew up in upstate New York, a hundred miles north
(10:26):
of New York and on near Woodstock. The kind of
country restaurants. We only went out for special occasions, you know,
we went to a restaurant when it was somebody's birthday
or some you know, some sort of anniversary or something
to celebrate. An Italian food was really heavy. It was
spaghetti and meatballs and eggplant parmijani. And it was such
(10:47):
a revelation. I don't know if you've ever been to Italy.
When you get to Italy and then you realize, rather
like the food in the river cafe that inspired us.
It was as cleaning and simple as a grilled piece
of fish with maybe some herbs. It's impostable with a
little bit of sauce. It's um fish with again, you know,
just lemon. And it was such a difference from the
(11:08):
kind of food that I thought of as Italian food.
Is that am I describing that? Yeah? I've only been
to Italy once, but when I went there, I expected
everybody to have curly mustaches and be like, well, but
they're they're they're not. It's very it's very chill and
laid back and uh, we've can only speak for where
(11:29):
I live, but I feel like I have adapted this
sense of what we think it's like over there over here,
but when you get over there, it's it's really not
from what I've a little I've experienced, it's not like
that at all. It's very chilled and uh like um simple, Yeah,
why did you go? And tell me about your trip
(11:50):
to Italy? Which Venice? I want to go to the
film festival and I went for like four or five days.
I never experienced anything like that, where like everything's on
water and but but what's crazy is everybody there is
just like, enjoy it, it's not gonna be around, and
you're like, oh my god, that's terrible. It's pretty amazing
(12:11):
that your first experience of Italy would be Venice, because
Venice just I've been there a lot of times and
I almost can't remember the first time I went, because
I think my parents took me when I was quite young.
But I always thought how great it would be to
see Venice for the first time, you know, that it
would be your first time to see Venice and to
be because I still, after going there so many times
and being so used to it, I'm still shocked every
(12:34):
time I go, you know, to see, as you say,
the water everywhere. It was a really fun experience. Did
you go to restaurants there? Yeah, I don't remember any
of them, but they were all there. You couldn't pick
a bad one, you know, anywhere you went. It was
really great and uh yeah, I had a really great time.
But also, food takes you somewhere, doesn't it when you
(12:54):
have the food of a different culture. Have you triy
apart from Venice? Have you been to any other countries? Here?
In Venice are the only two places I've ever traveled
really outside of the United States? What about within the
United States? Have You've been doing your work pretty much everywhere?
And I think I've hit all fifty states almost, have you? Yeah,
tell me about that? What's that like? I love the South?
(13:16):
I love the South. What do you love about it?
The food? And you just told me love. He's so sweet.
He's just like, hello, Peter, it's Al Gore. How are you.
It's like, like, I don't know it's you. Yeah. He
always introduced himself Peter. It's like, yeah, I know, I'm
(13:37):
well aware. Um, but what's it like traveling in the
South and eating in the South? Do you like the food?
That love the food? I just love the I love
the fried chicken and the hardy meals and the grits
and like we don't have I didn't grow up with
grits or even know what it was. Had to be
introduced to it. They just like they know how to
(14:00):
really slap on some stuff onto food. It's really I mean,
you can't eat it every day because you die. But um,
if you're like in the mood for like a really
hardy like and also everybody there is so upbeat and
very just like hello, Like they're just like so warm
and yeah, I'm I'm a sucker for like a southern
(14:23):
like atmosphere. I think it's so much fun. So I
like the food down there a lot. And when you're working,
when you're traveling, when you're performing, do you eat before
you're on stage or after or during? How do you
do your work and eat? I started eating before the
shows because I would always eat after the shows that
(14:44):
I would usually base my eating off whether I had
a good show or not. And then if the show
doesn't go well, usually I don't want to eat. So
there would be like days when I just didn't eat.
So now I eat before the show. That way, if
even if it doesn't go well, you've had something that's
emotional all and that that is emotional eating. That's saying that,
you know my mood, my performance affects how I feel,
(15:07):
and therefore it affects how I eat. Some people might
say after a bad show, I feel so crap. I
just want to eat or drink or forget it. But
you go the other way. Yeah, yeah, And if if
something doesn't go well, I become very like I don't
want anything. But what is not going well? Mean? For
stand up, it's like, you know, you're trying a bunch
(15:29):
of jokes or like material and the crowd is just
not digging it, and there's not a lot of laughs.
You know, the excitement of you being there has worn off,
and now it's just like, where is your jokes and
where's your material? And we're here to see a show,
and you know, when it doesn't go well, there's no
more instant of a feeling than stand up comedy. It's
(15:52):
like you're either flying high and crushing or it's like
not great, so um, you know, when you're not doing well.
You you know, it's very, very different. But being a
chef and having an open kitchen, you know, so I
can watch people when the plate is taken to them
and they kind of put this spoon to their mouth
(16:13):
and they'll look at the person and go like no, no,
or they can smile and share it, or you can.
It's that kind of It's so different from many ways,
but there is that audience and that sense of either
success or failure, you know. And sometimes I can cook
the same food and have almost the same menu in
the restaurant can be full, and yet I know at
(16:35):
the end of it it was a bad night. I
just know you just come home and you think, Okay,
it's time for me to quit because I was so
it just wasn't it didn't work in other nights, you
feel so elated. And I think that's kind of why
a lot of actors like to work in a restaurant,
because there is quite a lot of drama going on
in a restaurant. Do you think, Yeah, absolutely. I mean
when I worked in a restaurant, it was for like
(16:55):
three or four years, but the bus boys hated the waiters,
and the waiters hated the bus foys. I mean like
afterwards hated the chefs. Yeah, but after work everything was fine.
Everybody was like cool. But during work it was like
we're gonna be in each other's faces all day, you know.
But my favorite thing was always sneaking off in the
(17:17):
back and eating whatever somebody didn't need, really off somebody's plate.
Yeah I didn't. I didn't give other people like you're gross,
and I'd be like, it's chicken palm. So tell me
about the restaurant you've worked in. Was called New Cheese
South since that an island. It's right under the bridge.
(17:38):
My dad's good friend runs it. Uh, It's it's like
pretty well known on the island and well respected, and
they serve classic Italian food and you know, they have
a playlist of sixties songs on a loop and it's
all Frank Sinantra, Yeah all day? Can you sing some more?
I burned it out of my brain. I used to
(18:00):
be able to tell what time it was in the
restaurant by what song was playing. But what songs they
say playlist, I mean, um, just like fly Me to
the Moon. Yeah, fly Me to the Moon, just like
every yeah, And I would hear that every six hours,
So like if I fly Me to the Moon came back,
I wouldn't know we were halfway through with the day
(18:21):
because they used to take my phone because I would
be on it all day, did they Yeah, I'll be
writing bits are like watching comedy or like sneaking off
and because you know, nobody wants to work, so um yeah.
I used to be able to tell what time it
was by what awful music was playing. That's very funny.
So you were sixteen working in a restaurant using your
(18:43):
phone to write comedy. When did that start? Uh? I
started writing comedy when I was like fourteen, in like school. Uh.
Instead of paying attention I was just like enamored with
Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey. Those three were just
like the everything to me, all their movies, their stand
(19:04):
up and there's nothing I ever thought I would do.
It was just something I was always really interested in.
And then when I was sixteen, I don't know, I
told the buddy of mine. I was like, I really
love stand up. I would like to try it, and
he's like, you should and I was like nah, and
he was like, what's the worst that could happen. It's
(19:24):
like it doesn't doesn't get it's like it doesn't go well,
and then you don't ever do it again. And I
was like, yeah, I guess. I guess that's fine. And
then I I tried it and it went okay enough
that I felt like I could try it again. It
was in Staten Island. Um. This club doesn't exist anymore,
but it was called the Looney Bin Comedy Club and
(19:46):
it was inside of a bowling alley next to an
l A Fitness which is a gym, and Wendy's. So
it was the craziest group of people. It would be
like families coming in the bowl, bunch of people that
didn't have enough time to eat dinner, so they're just
going to Wendy's. And then all of these like Staten
(20:07):
Island jacked muscle head dudes going in and nobody going
to see comedy. Like it was just it would be
so funny. I'd be standing outside the comedy club and
I'd be like, maybe they're coming their good Oh maybe Wendy's.
It was crazy when I was on stage when your
jokes weren't going well, you could hear people bowling, so
(20:28):
like you you tell a joke and it would be
super quiet, and then you hear like spare and it
would be like so disheartening, and it was, but it
was I had the most fun there, and it was
the smallest audience you've ever had. I think the first
time I perform, there's like three people, and two of
them my friends. When you write, do you how do
(21:00):
you write? We'll tell us first how you write? Be
and my buddy we just usually sit in the room
and we hang out for a while and then we
just have like a pad out and then like we'll
start to we never like go for me, it's never
worked where you're like I'm writing at four o'clock tomorrow
it's like I can't. I can't do that. So uh,
usually just vibe with my writing partner and we hang
(21:20):
out and we'll write a couple of things down and then.
But we always hang out first and ease into it
as opposed to like, Okay, you're here, let's start. I've
just never been good at uh like be funny, like
it usually just has to come and yeah, usually we order.
Sushi's usually our go to write. It's very easy to
(21:44):
eat and it's very like you could have, you know,
just like it's almost like a cigarette because you just
have like one thing and you put it down for
a sack and you come to But sushi's our go to.
What about dates? Do you go on dates with women
to a restaurant to see what they're like? Could that
tell you about her? Well? Yeah, it's also just like
(22:05):
if you go to a great restaurant, Like even if
I'm a date, it's like at least the food was great. Yeah,
so like she could go home and be like, you know,
could not. Yeah, I cannot believe that you could be um,
but yeah, it's I've always found it to be that.
(22:27):
Or a movie is so easy because the movie don't
even have to talk. You could just be like, explosion,
is that explosion? You know? Or you could just laugh
at the same thing and look at each other for
a second. But also restaurants can tell you. I suppose
if you went to a restaurant and your date was
rude to the waiter or was you know, then that
would be over, wouldn't it? Would you ever? Immediately would
(22:50):
in my head, I'd be like, Okay, never is it?
Has that ever happened to you? Where you was somebody
who was unkind too? Yeah, I don't like the excuse me?
It's like wait for the I'd walked by and then
just lightly be like I think that. Also, people who
have worked in a restaurant, it teaches you something, doesn't it.
The best lessons I've learned have been from working in
that restaurant, like learning how to work with people, learning
(23:12):
how to act around certain people that don't like you,
whether it's your first job or if it's your job,
Like you know, those dudes were like waiters at my
restaurant were like superstars, Like they were so cool because
they would like pull up and have cool cars and
they would know all the specials and like I was
(23:33):
a bus boy so long. People that were a bus
boy with me got promoted to waiter while I was
still a bus boy because it was just so hard.
I couldn't remember the specials. I couldn't do. It's it's
a difficult. It's really hard, yeah, especially really have other
stuff going on in your life in your mind and
you still have to be like hello, everybody, you know so.
And also the having to remember which table had that
(23:55):
and what table numbers, and and also being nice to
people you don't want to be nice too. It's it.
That's what again. Why I think maybe actors like to
to work in a restaurant because they have to act
nice even if they're not feeling nice that day, because
the people are coming here to have service, I suppose.
And as you said, I was touched by what you
said about the waiters and the bus boys and the
bus boys and the chefs and the chefs and the
(24:17):
other chefs. There's a lot of that going on, but
there is there is something really collaborative as well about
working in a restaurant. You know that you are dependent
on the bus boy doing his job, and the waiter
doing his job, and the you know, the chef doing
her job. There must be a bit like being in
a movie or theater. If somebody doesn't know their lines,
(24:37):
it's it's one person can mess up the whole train.
Everybody kind of needs to be on board. If we
think of food as something we eat when we're hungry,
something we might cook if it's scrambled eggs when we
in a hurry, or something we might just pour boiling
water over like ramen. Or when you're working feeling emotional,
(24:58):
you want to eat or you don't want eat. Food
can be memories, it can be funny, it can be
so many things. But it also can be kind of comfort.
And so the question that I ask everybody, if you
are looking for food as comfort, is there a food
that you would go to? Yes? Always. Uh, this is
(25:20):
the answer to my if you were stuck on an
island and only you could eat one thing forever, if
there's one thing you can eat forever, it's always gonna
be pasta. Yeah. I find it really I don't know
how to make it, even though I've watched it being
made tons of times, but it can be made in
like thirty minutes. It's very filling, it's tasty, whether you
(25:44):
have it with sauce, or with butter, or with just
with salt, or if it's just dry, you could eat it.
Sometimes it's fun to just have a bowl of you know,
like pay like dry and you just you know, pick
it out one by one. But it's also just the
most filling in, like easy kind of meal for me,
So it would always be pasta. Well, let's go and
(26:07):
have some pasta. Thank you, Thank you for having to
visit the online shop of the River Cafe. Go to
shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe
(26:30):
table for is a production of I Heart Radio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
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listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. My phone's going up
to and take it. Okay, so it's funny, I said,
Is it my mom? Maybe it's your mom? Should we
call your mom? What call you jever number? Oh god, no,
I would never, should never get off. Oh let's have it.
(00:21):
Let me tell you about Peter, So tell me about
the restaurant you've worked in. This might be embarrassing to admit,
but as a kid, one of my favorite songs was
getting to Know You from the musical The King and
I and I guess getting to know you is what
(00:42):
my River Cafe Conversation guests today. Pete Davidson will be
for We've only met once, but sometimes, pretty rarely you
meet someone and you know they are going to be
a friend. We met over food. Lauren Michael's introduced us
at a dinner in the River Cafe, and then he
came back with his friends mass Saturday. You probably share
(01:03):
a lot of attitudes and values on politics, hypocrisy, humor,
and other subjects. Usually I have a list of questions,
but today I might throw them in the bin and
we'll just talk. Getting to know you pete. Indeed, hello everybody,
thank you for having met our bloody Mary's. So would
(01:24):
you like to read the recipe? Yes, okay. This is
the recipe for zucchini and Connelli soup. It says it
serves six four hundred grams of zucchini, tin cannelli beans,
one head of celery, finally chopped, one garlic clove, one
bunch parsley leaves, extra virgin olive oil. And then you
(01:49):
roughly cut the zucchini into small pieces, and then peel
and finally chopped the garlic and chopped the parsley. You
drain and rinse the cannelli beans, heat one tablespoon of
all of oil in a thick bottomed pan and fry
the celery and parsley until soft. And then you add
the garlic and zucchini and cook for ten minutes. You
(02:11):
add five tablespoons of water and scrape up to combine.
Then add the beans, stirring for a further five minutes.
Mashed together, and drizzle with extra virginal oil. This is
best served at room temperature. Thank you, that was gorgeous.
You did that beautifully, Thank you very much. The first
(02:32):
time reading a recipe It's kind of a recipe I
always say, is partly prose and partly science. You know,
it's kind of combinations and it gives you the measurements,
but it also gives you the poetry of the of
what you might be cooking. Do you cook? I do not,
do not. I'm awful at cooking. I could only cook eggs,
but that's like a pretty standard. I feel like everybody
(02:54):
could cook agg Maybe eggs aren't that easy? What are
your coach? Scrambled on? Yeah, what's your tech? Egg? I
just put them in the pan and then mush them
around you scramble after, do you yes? Scramble them in
the pan? Yes? Interesting? Yes? I could also add hot
water to ramen noodles, do you yes? Adding water is
(03:15):
a talent as well. Definitely the right guest to have
on this food discussion. I can make a mean cup
of noodles. You can. How do you do that? Well? First,
I don't know what cup of noodles is. I go
to Costco, Yes, and I get the pre made ramen noodles.
And then I go home and since I don't know
(03:37):
how to boil water because I'm dumb, I go to
the Cure egg and I hit the hot water button
and the cure egg. I don't know what that is.
Cure egg is a little coffee translator. Okay, this is
a new one. You know, the little coffee machine that
you could put these little coffee pods in Caresso, yes, yeah,
so I usually get I use the hot water from that,
(03:58):
and then I dump it the couple of noodles, and
then I stirred for about four to five minutes over
the heat. You mean you don't you just the hot
water cooks the hot water. Yeah, at least I hope so.
And then I eat very hard noodles. So that is.
That is about as far as my cooking ghost. So
(04:20):
tell me about food when you were growing up. What
was it like in the Davison household. Oh? My mom
she was single parents, so she worked and she was
a nurse and when she got home, she didn't really
have time to cook, so we would usually order Chinese
food or Italian food. But when she did cook, she's
really good at cooking. One thing, chicken cutlets. She's really
(04:44):
great breaded chicken cutlets. I still have yet to have
a better chicken cutlet anywhere else. Um, do you know
what she did I know, Well, I know if I
have ever watched, there's usually like there's the raw chicken
and then there's like this plate with yellow stuff in it,
(05:04):
which she was an egg. Yeah, and then there's another
plate with like breaded like the that stuff. Right, yeah,
there we go, and then she would you know, like
season it yeah, okay, um, and then dump it in
the gotta make a cook out of you. I would
love to learn how to cook at least just like
(05:24):
one thing so I could like observe that. But that's impressive. That.
So she she dipped the a into the egg and
then into the bread comes, so she dip it back
into the egg again. Do you think she did after
the two times? Yeah? Two dipper tier um and then yeah,
and then like maybe thirty five minutes later, we would
(05:45):
have a chicken color and I would she would put
them on these paper towels and then I would never
I never really ate at the dinner table. I would
just like walk by and take each chicken cutlet as
soon as it was done being me because because it
was so good and that's like the best time to
eat it as when it's like super super fresh. So um.
(06:06):
That was my mom's specialty. Would you have it often?
Would she make it like once in at least once
a week, once a week. Yeah, we would all look
forward to it. Usually it was a weekend thing. It
was always a treat when my mom cooked. Did she
have days off? Not really, not until like I became
a teenager, she got a school nursing job, so then
her schedule was like the same as me and my sister's.
(06:27):
So but at first she was working in the er
in the hospital, so her hours were super random and
h I was either watching my sister or we would
have a babysitter. So I mean the respect that you
have I have for your mother, you know, being able
to work all day have two kids. It's a struggle,
(06:50):
you know, it's um it's hard. Yeah, it's hard, and
it's hard because you know, nobody's ever really on the
same schedule. But that also makes the time when everybody
is on the same schedule super memorable and special, like,
um that that once a week where we would all
get to And holidays were always very big. What would
they tell me about them? So Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Halloween,
(07:15):
even just because we have a very big family. I
have six aunts and uncles and like forty something cousins.
So the holidays are all, you know, not like an excuse,
but we all just get together and u was their
food the Halloween or Thanksgiving, Well Halloween it's pretty lame.
(07:36):
But like Thanksgiving, everybody usually has an assignment because there's
six ants and uncles, and my grandma would take care
of either the turkey and the stuffing, and then my
mom would bring like the sweet potatoes or someone else
would bring mashed potatoes. It's just the asparagus and the
(07:57):
dinner roles. So everybody had a different assignment. And usually
we have it at my aunt's house in Jersey, and
everybody would show up with like a big tin and
everybody puts it on the island and then we spread
everything out and it's I guess it's probably the easiest
way to do Thanksgiving because everybody does a little bit.
(08:17):
Tell me about your grandmother though, did she cook? She's
great at cooking, she always cooks both grandma's. I'm lucky
I have two grandma's. Um, did they live near your house?
Was an expedition to go to your grandmother's My mom's
parents live in Jersey, and then my dad's parents live
in State Island, which was really close to me. So, yeah,
(08:39):
so you and your sister could go over there and
have dinner. Would you ever do that? Yeah? Absolutely? And
then like they would watch us sometimes and cook for us,
and we would stay over their house if my mom
had a work late, but they always had a cooked
meal for us. Did you what was Staten Island like
food wise? Food wise? It's pretty It's pretty just Italian,
(08:59):
was it. It's pretty much just Italian food and like
Chinese takeout. But there's so many Italian restaurants. It's like
it's almost comical how many there are, Like there's like
three every block. So one of my dad's friends owns
an Italian restaurant that I actually used to work at
for a bit I was a bus boy. It's a
very Italian and um, very old school, is what I
(09:23):
would say. Like you would if you go to Staten
Island now, you would feel like you're walking into like
a nineties movie. You know, dudes with their shirts open
and chest have flowing out and smoking cigarettes and just
being like what it's it's very You're like, oh wow,
nothing has changed here, which is kind of what I
(09:43):
like about it. A little bit is nobody there gives
nobody ever bothers me there. They don't care. Yeah, and
it's it's not like New York. It is part of
New York, but it's more part of the Jersey, I
would say, because it's just suburb Like when when I
grew up, going to the city was like an event,
(10:05):
like we're gonna go see the Christmas tree, or like
we're gonna go to that giant toy store where Tom
Hanks jumped on the piano. It wasn't a regular thing,
which is crazy because it's a half hour away. I
grew up in upstate New York, a hundred miles north
(10:26):
of New York and on near Woodstock. The kind of
country restaurants. We only went out for special occasions, you know,
we went to a restaurant when it was somebody's birthday
or some you know, some sort of anniversary or something
to celebrate. An Italian food was really heavy. It was
spaghetti and meatballs and eggplant parmijani. And it was such
(10:47):
a revelation. I don't know if you've ever been to Italy.
When you get to Italy and then you realize, rather
like the food in the river cafe that inspired us.
It was as cleaning and simple as a grilled piece
of fish with maybe some herbs. It's impostable with a
little bit of sauce. It's um fish with again, you know,
just lemon. And it was such a difference from the
(11:08):
kind of food that I thought of as Italian food.
Is that am I describing that? Yeah? I've only been
to Italy once, but when I went there, I expected
everybody to have curly mustaches and be like, well, but
they're they're they're not. It's very it's very chill and
laid back and uh, we've can only speak for where
(11:29):
I live, but I feel like I have adapted this
sense of what we think it's like over there over here,
but when you get over there, it's it's really not
from what I've a little I've experienced, it's not like
that at all. It's very chilled and uh like um simple, Yeah,
why did you go? And tell me about your trip
(11:50):
to Italy? Which Venice? I want to go to the
film festival and I went for like four or five days.
I never experienced anything like that, where like everything's on
water and but but what's crazy is everybody there is
just like, enjoy it, it's not gonna be around, and
you're like, oh my god, that's terrible. It's pretty amazing
(12:11):
that your first experience of Italy would be Venice, because
Venice just I've been there a lot of times and
I almost can't remember the first time I went, because
I think my parents took me when I was quite young.
But I always thought how great it would be to
see Venice for the first time, you know, that it
would be your first time to see Venice and to
be because I still, after going there so many times
and being so used to it, I'm still shocked every
(12:34):
time I go, you know, to see, as you say,
the water everywhere. It was a really fun experience. Did
you go to restaurants there? Yeah, I don't remember any
of them, but they were all there. You couldn't pick
a bad one, you know, anywhere you went. It was
really great and uh yeah, I had a really great time.
But also, food takes you somewhere, doesn't it when you
(12:54):
have the food of a different culture. Have you triy
apart from Venice? Have you been to any other countries? Here?
In Venice are the only two places I've ever traveled
really outside of the United States? What about within the
United States? Have You've been doing your work pretty much everywhere?
And I think I've hit all fifty states almost, have you? Yeah,
tell me about that? What's that like? I love the South?
(13:16):
I love the South. What do you love about it?
The food? And you just told me love. He's so sweet.
He's just like, hello, Peter, it's Al Gore. How are you.
It's like, like, I don't know it's you. Yeah. He
always introduced himself Peter. It's like, yeah, I know, I'm
(13:37):
well aware. Um, but what's it like traveling in the
South and eating in the South? Do you like the food?
That love the food? I just love the I love
the fried chicken and the hardy meals and the grits
and like we don't have I didn't grow up with
grits or even know what it was. Had to be
introduced to it. They just like they know how to
(14:00):
really slap on some stuff onto food. It's really I mean,
you can't eat it every day because you die. But um,
if you're like in the mood for like a really
hardy like and also everybody there is so upbeat and
very just like hello, Like they're just like so warm
and yeah, I'm I'm a sucker for like a southern
(14:23):
like atmosphere. I think it's so much fun. So I
like the food down there a lot. And when you're working,
when you're traveling, when you're performing, do you eat before
you're on stage or after or during? How do you
do your work and eat? I started eating before the
shows because I would always eat after the shows that
(14:44):
I would usually base my eating off whether I had
a good show or not. And then if the show
doesn't go well, usually I don't want to eat. So
there would be like days when I just didn't eat.
So now I eat before the show. That way, if
even if it doesn't go well, you've had something that's
emotional all and that that is emotional eating. That's saying that,
you know my mood, my performance affects how I feel,
(15:07):
and therefore it affects how I eat. Some people might
say after a bad show, I feel so crap. I
just want to eat or drink or forget it. But
you go the other way. Yeah, yeah, And if if
something doesn't go well, I become very like I don't
want anything. But what is not going well? Mean? For
stand up, it's like, you know, you're trying a bunch
(15:29):
of jokes or like material and the crowd is just
not digging it, and there's not a lot of laughs.
You know, the excitement of you being there has worn off,
and now it's just like, where is your jokes and
where's your material? And we're here to see a show,
and you know, when it doesn't go well, there's no
more instant of a feeling than stand up comedy. It's
(15:52):
like you're either flying high and crushing or it's like
not great, so um, you know, when you're not doing well.
You you know, it's very, very different. But being a
chef and having an open kitchen, you know, so I
can watch people when the plate is taken to them
and they kind of put this spoon to their mouth
(16:13):
and they'll look at the person and go like no, no,
or they can smile and share it, or you can.
It's that kind of It's so different from many ways,
but there is that audience and that sense of either
success or failure, you know. And sometimes I can cook
the same food and have almost the same menu in
the restaurant can be full, and yet I know at
(16:35):
the end of it it was a bad night. I
just know you just come home and you think, Okay,
it's time for me to quit because I was so
it just wasn't it didn't work in other nights, you
feel so elated. And I think that's kind of why
a lot of actors like to work in a restaurant,
because there is quite a lot of drama going on
in a restaurant. Do you think, Yeah, absolutely. I mean
when I worked in a restaurant, it was for like
(16:55):
three or four years, but the bus boys hated the waiters,
and the waiters hated the bus foys. I mean like
afterwards hated the chefs. Yeah, but after work everything was fine.
Everybody was like cool. But during work it was like
we're gonna be in each other's faces all day, you know.
But my favorite thing was always sneaking off in the
(17:17):
back and eating whatever somebody didn't need, really off somebody's plate.
Yeah I didn't. I didn't give other people like you're gross,
and I'd be like, it's chicken palm. So tell me
about the restaurant you've worked in. Was called New Cheese
South since that an island. It's right under the bridge.
(17:38):
My dad's good friend runs it. Uh, It's it's like
pretty well known on the island and well respected, and
they serve classic Italian food and you know, they have
a playlist of sixties songs on a loop and it's
all Frank Sinantra, Yeah all day? Can you sing some more?
I burned it out of my brain. I used to
(18:00):
be able to tell what time it was in the
restaurant by what song was playing. But what songs they
say playlist, I mean, um, just like fly Me to
the Moon. Yeah, fly Me to the Moon, just like
every yeah, And I would hear that every six hours,
So like if I fly Me to the Moon came back,
I wouldn't know we were halfway through with the day
(18:21):
because they used to take my phone because I would
be on it all day, did they Yeah, I'll be
writing bits are like watching comedy or like sneaking off
and because you know, nobody wants to work, so um yeah.
I used to be able to tell what time it
was by what awful music was playing. That's very funny.
So you were sixteen working in a restaurant using your
(18:43):
phone to write comedy. When did that start? Uh? I
started writing comedy when I was like fourteen, in like school. Uh.
Instead of paying attention I was just like enamored with
Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey. Those three were just
like the everything to me, all their movies, their stand
(19:04):
up and there's nothing I ever thought I would do.
It was just something I was always really interested in.
And then when I was sixteen, I don't know, I
told the buddy of mine. I was like, I really
love stand up. I would like to try it, and
he's like, you should and I was like nah, and
he was like, what's the worst that could happen. It's
(19:24):
like it doesn't doesn't get it's like it doesn't go well,
and then you don't ever do it again. And I
was like, yeah, I guess. I guess that's fine. And
then I I tried it and it went okay enough
that I felt like I could try it again. It
was in Staten Island. Um. This club doesn't exist anymore,
but it was called the Looney Bin Comedy Club and
(19:46):
it was inside of a bowling alley next to an
l A Fitness which is a gym, and Wendy's. So
it was the craziest group of people. It would be
like families coming in the bowl, bunch of people that
didn't have enough time to eat dinner, so they're just
going to Wendy's. And then all of these like Staten
(20:07):
Island jacked muscle head dudes going in and nobody going
to see comedy. Like it was just it would be
so funny. I'd be standing outside the comedy club and
I'd be like, maybe they're coming their good Oh maybe Wendy's.
It was crazy when I was on stage when your
jokes weren't going well, you could hear people bowling, so
(20:28):
like you you tell a joke and it would be
super quiet, and then you hear like spare and it
would be like so disheartening, and it was, but it
was I had the most fun there, and it was
the smallest audience you've ever had. I think the first
time I perform, there's like three people, and two of
them my friends. When you write, do you how do
(21:00):
you write? We'll tell us first how you write? Be
and my buddy we just usually sit in the room
and we hang out for a while and then we
just have like a pad out and then like we'll
start to we never like go for me, it's never
worked where you're like I'm writing at four o'clock tomorrow
it's like I can't. I can't do that. So uh,
usually just vibe with my writing partner and we hang
(21:20):
out and we'll write a couple of things down and then.
But we always hang out first and ease into it
as opposed to like, Okay, you're here, let's start. I've
just never been good at uh like be funny, like
it usually just has to come and yeah, usually we order.
Sushi's usually our go to write. It's very easy to
(21:44):
eat and it's very like you could have, you know,
just like it's almost like a cigarette because you just
have like one thing and you put it down for
a sack and you come to But sushi's our go to.
What about dates? Do you go on dates with women
to a restaurant to see what they're like? Could that
tell you about her? Well? Yeah, it's also just like
(22:05):
if you go to a great restaurant, Like even if
I'm a date, it's like at least the food was great. Yeah,
so like she could go home and be like, you know,
could not. Yeah, I cannot believe that you could be um,
but yeah, it's I've always found it to be that.
(22:27):
Or a movie is so easy because the movie don't
even have to talk. You could just be like, explosion,
is that explosion? You know? Or you could just laugh
at the same thing and look at each other for
a second. But also restaurants can tell you. I suppose
if you went to a restaurant and your date was
rude to the waiter or was you know, then that
would be over, wouldn't it? Would you ever? Immediately would
(22:50):
in my head, I'd be like, Okay, never is it?
Has that ever happened to you? Where you was somebody
who was unkind too? Yeah, I don't like the excuse me?
It's like wait for the I'd walked by and then
just lightly be like I think that. Also, people who
have worked in a restaurant, it teaches you something, doesn't it.
The best lessons I've learned have been from working in
that restaurant, like learning how to work with people, learning
(23:12):
how to act around certain people that don't like you,
whether it's your first job or if it's your job,
Like you know, those dudes were like waiters at my
restaurant were like superstars, Like they were so cool because
they would like pull up and have cool cars and
they would know all the specials and like I was
(23:33):
a bus boy so long. People that were a bus
boy with me got promoted to waiter while I was
still a bus boy because it was just so hard.
I couldn't remember the specials. I couldn't do. It's it's
a difficult. It's really hard, yeah, especially really have other
stuff going on in your life in your mind and
you still have to be like hello, everybody, you know so.
And also the having to remember which table had that
(23:55):
and what table numbers, and and also being nice to
people you don't want to be nice too. It's it.
That's what again. Why I think maybe actors like to
to work in a restaurant because they have to act
nice even if they're not feeling nice that day, because
the people are coming here to have service, I suppose.
And as you said, I was touched by what you
said about the waiters and the bus boys and the
bus boys and the chefs and the chefs and the
(24:17):
other chefs. There's a lot of that going on, but
there is there is something really collaborative as well about
working in a restaurant. You know that you are dependent
on the bus boy doing his job, and the waiter
doing his job, and the you know, the chef doing
her job. There must be a bit like being in
a movie or theater. If somebody doesn't know their lines,
(24:37):
it's it's one person can mess up the whole train.
Everybody kind of needs to be on board. If we
think of food as something we eat when we're hungry,
something we might cook if it's scrambled eggs when we
in a hurry, or something we might just pour boiling
water over like ramen. Or when you're working feeling emotional,
(24:58):
you want to eat or you don't want eat. Food
can be memories, it can be funny, it can be
so many things. But it also can be kind of comfort.
And so the question that I ask everybody, if you
are looking for food as comfort, is there a food
that you would go to? Yes? Always. Uh, this is
(25:20):
the answer to my if you were stuck on an
island and only you could eat one thing forever, if
there's one thing you can eat forever, it's always gonna
be pasta. Yeah. I find it really I don't know
how to make it, even though I've watched it being
made tons of times, but it can be made in
like thirty minutes. It's very filling, it's tasty, whether you
(25:44):
have it with sauce, or with butter, or with just
with salt, or if it's just dry, you could eat it.
Sometimes it's fun to just have a bowl of you know,
like pay like dry and you just you know, pick
it out one by one. But it's also just the
most filling in, like easy kind of meal for me,
So it would always be pasta. Well, let's go and
(26:07):
have some pasta. Thank you, Thank you for having to
visit the online shop of the River Cafe. Go to
shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe
(26:30):
table for is a production of I Heart Radio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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