October 11, 2022 • 33 mins
Sam Taylor-Johnson is an artist, photographer, and film-director - and she has been a friend of Ruthie’s since the day they met at the Tate gallery in 1998 when Sam was awarded the Turner Prize.
Listen to their memories of children, food, music and art as part of Ruthie's Table 4's artist series.
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 Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adami's Studios. I would like to remember exactly
when I met Sam Taylor Johnson. Was it at the
Tate in ninety eight when she was awarded the Turner Prize,
Or the day she entered the River Cafe a beautiful
(00:21):
young woman with her first baby, Angelica in her arms.
Was it when she came to see Richard with a
book of her astonishing photographs. Were we just invited to
a wild and glamorous party in her home that was
part of, as Sam says, the blur of what London
was in the late nineties. And when was the last
(00:43):
time I sat with Sam? Was it in a bar
with the love of her life, Aaron, or recently when
they missed a flight to Sicily and joined a lunch.
And how often have I asked where is Sam in London?
Preparing to director Amy Winehouse, vi chekking in Nepal, in
the south of France with Elton, or looking for a
(01:05):
school in Somerset for her young daughters. The one thing
I can always know is that wherever she is, whatever
she is creating, Sam is an extraordinary woman. I love
her Oh, how do I get into that without tears streaming? Well,
(01:27):
we go into it with food. We can start off
with a recipe that you chose, which is risotto with
puccini and jarrolds. One kilogram of mixed fresh puccini and jarols,
cleaned and chopped, extra virgin olive oil, one garlic cloth,
peeled and finally chopped, one teaspoon of fresh time, one
(01:48):
liter of chicken stock, one grams of unsalted butter, one
medium red onion, finally chopped, three grams of risotto rice,
two hundred and fifty million liters of extra driver mooth.
Now that's the thing that sends me running around the
house when I'm about ten minutes into cooking it, just like,
do we have the move? Do we haven't read a recipe? Twice?
Two of parmesan freshly grated um. I actually cooked this
(02:12):
last night, it though I practiced just to remind myself
what happened about five minutes in aeron Erin's here, What
did happened? We haven't. I can't make this without the move.
I'm going to Everyone was running around trying to find um.
But it's what makes it. In a frying pan, heat
(02:32):
three tablespoons of olive oil. Add the mushrooms with the
chopped garlican thyme, season and fry for a couple of
minutes until any liquid has evaporated. In a saucepan. Heat
the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion,
and cook until the onion is soft. Add the rice
and stuff. Now, what's so great about this recipe is
it's really good if you want to have people around
(02:54):
for dinner, but not necessarily engaged with them the entire
time you have had the latest movie. I'm stirring a
resulto exactly, I'm stirring a result of It sort of
also gives you something to do, so you're you know,
you're active if you're not sure what to talk about.
But it's sort of a perfectly sociable, unsociable meal to cook.
(03:14):
Pour in the vermouth and cook until it's been absorbed,
stirring all the while, then adding the hot stock ladle
by ladle. Continue to cook until the rice is our dente.
Add the wild mushrooms, the remaining butter, the parmesan, and
the chopped parsley, and the best rosutto Ever, it's comforting
resulto but this was the first thing I ever cooked
from your cookboo, which is why I think it was
(03:35):
in one of the earlier ones. I'm going to be
brave and attempt a risotto. Did you cook when you
were a kid? Did you were you know, not at all.
I didn't grow up in an environment where cooking was celebrated.
Food was made to eat, to live, Um, frozen pizzas, margarine,
(03:59):
you know that was that was to put in when
you come home from school, make for yourself and and
eat just a make for yourself. So would you sit
down to a family meal or is everybody taking care
of that? I almost can't remember family meals. So I
think that's again why I feel so excited about a
(04:21):
kitchen very alive, with food being cooked and bread being baked,
and aromas and activity, because I was definitely not not
that environment. Sometimes I talked to people who grew up
with the romantic idea of the family sitting down to
a family suffer and sitting and talking about the day.
(04:41):
And some some people described having a mother that worked
the night shift, or mother or father who came home
from work and were exhausted, or they came home from
work and they would prefer to do homework with you
then cook. I mean, there are many reasons why the
image of the family IL perhaps is somewhat romanticized, but
(05:03):
it is important something that, as you say, we try
to create for our kids. But you didn't have a
role model for that, so you had the reverse, but
you changed it for your own family. I did have
the reverse. And and you know, sometimes, especially doing something
like this, you've you sort of look back and try
and find that memory. Now, I definitely remember my mom
(05:24):
made a dish that she would be proud of, which
was a rabbit dish with mustard, I think. But that
was something that was there would come out, I don't
know it would be a big thing, um. But the
rest of the time it was moral survival. What was
she doing or your father doing? Was your father there?
(05:45):
It was my stepfather? Really who I can who? My
sort of that part of my life is more of
a memory. And so do you think they were doing
other things rather than Kirk or did they just not?
It's a complicated history and it's hard to go into
not because is not because it is sort of full
of sort of trauma and pain. But it's more that
(06:06):
I actually have this sort of almost blackout of I
don't actually have that much memory from that time in
my life. And also if I do go into it
or I talk about it, I sort of feel, I
hope that I've evolved to a place where I don't
I don't want to sort of talk about with malice.
It's not that they were working. I think it was
more struggle survival and mental health, to be honest, and
(06:29):
a lot of a lot of just um, difficult scenarios
did you have? But they died when I was quite young,
so I don't really have a memory of them in
terms of, you know, I had sort of I had
a great Auntie Gladys, and a great uncle Les, who
I felt very close to, who lived in Shepherd's Bush.
(06:50):
There was a lot of time around their house in
Shepherd's Bush, and they were very much the sort of
meat and two veg and I remember going home one
day and saying to my Auntie Gladys, I'd say, I've
won't I can't have roast chicken. I'm a vegetarian. And
she said, well, chickens not really an animal, really an animal,
of course you can eat it. I can't. But but
(07:12):
that was a sort of stability. For me, they were
the you know, the stable hold, the home where I
would go to as a student to know that I
could be fed. Did you struggle with food? Did you
enjoy it? Did you? Yeah? And I didn't have school
lunch anyway, I did, But I was a free school
dinners kid, so I was in the opposite que to
(07:33):
my friends where they had different cues. I had different
cues disgusting. It was the queue on the left, which
was the regular cue out of Dickens, and then there
was the free school Dinners line. And and I wasn't
always in the free school Dinners line. There were moments
where I was in it, and then moments where I
could bounce over to the other side. And I just
(07:53):
always remember the dread of today I have to go
in the free school Dinners line, and and that fear
link of just like you know, feeling separate from all
your friends and and just that sort of feeling a
little bit of shame that comes with or maybe a lot.
So you had school lunches and then lunches and then
(08:14):
home mostly yeah, Frisen pizzas. Where did you go out?
Firstly in London until I was eleven in stratum and
then after that we moved to the countryside to Sussex.
But that was a big shock. I'm terrified of trees.
It was so funny because I was such an urban
girl until then, and then the idea that I had
(08:34):
to walk down these country lanes with trees. It's quite
funny because a lot of the people that I've talked
to think about the way they struggled in their youth,
whether they were from another country, whether their parents were
uncomfortable in being in England, whether they or in the
United States, wherever they were. People struggled with money, with divorce,
(08:58):
and and all this is to do, you know, with
food and how those memories um evolve. And also I
don't know if you feel, but they measure and I
don't know if you do measure there unless their success
by being able to order something delicious on the menu,
Paul McCartney, they able to order a good glass of
(09:19):
wine was something away that they measured their their own
success totally. I mean, we never ate out, so eating
out really came to me in adult life. And I
think that the first time I realized food was for
pleasure was actually are a college trip to Rome or
(09:43):
post college. I can't really remember, but we went to
a small little restaurant and I ordered something because I
had absolutely no idea what to expect, tackleton with lemon
lemon pasta. I remember eating it and just having this
sort of total, you know, explosion of flavor and thoughts
and feelings about is this what food can can be?
(10:07):
And that feeling of tasting something which just kind of
completely opens your your mind too potential, I guess, and
that and that you know it wasn't expensive, it was affordable,
and that I could eat this amazing food and not
frozen pizzas revelation and probably in my sort of probably
(10:29):
when I was about nineteen, I think then I went
to art school and Hastings, which was like a massive
turning point of excitement in my life, and then after
that into London for art school. I always think it's
another conversation about artists that creating art is very solitary activity,
that you are in your studio and your paint and
(10:49):
everybody sort of had this kind of wild nights of
eating and drinking together because there was so solitary during
the day. Did you find that or was it was?
I think I think art school for me was like
a huge door had opened into a world of so
much possibility and excitement. And I feel like for the
(11:10):
first two years when I was at Hastings, I was
just sort of wide eyed and in sort of slight
shock that I was in this environment and just kept
very quiet. And then I went to Northeast London Polytechnic,
which was a very robust sort of shipbuilding yard feeling
because I was in the sculpture department. And then I
(11:32):
I left there after the first year and went to Goldsmith's,
which by comparison felt like a sort of Swiss finishing
school because people were very elegant and they were talking
about ideas and I and I again I felt very
like I was sort of sitting on the outside, watching
and feeling this environment being so alien. Was that the
(11:52):
days of Michael Craig Martin and Damien and Tracy it was,
And and that freeze had just happened. There was a
lot of debate around this huge exhibition that had sort
of thrown all these young artists that were still an
art school onto the map, and there was a sort
of freeze and an anti freeze, and and I just
sort of sat again and sort of listened and felt
the debate between everything and everyone, but sort of also
(12:15):
knew I was in the eye of a storm. And
I have a of a very exciting transitional moment in
the art world because these artists like Damien had a
studio outside of art school and was already you know,
functioning as an artist and selling and having exhibitions, and
Gary Human, Sarah Lucas, you know, it all was just
(12:35):
this sort of bubbling energy that I felt but didn't
quite know how to access because I was still sort
of feeling a bit quiet on the outside. It really
took going to tracymin and Sarah Lucas had a little
shop in the East End, just off of Brick Lane,
and it really took going to that little shop to
feel that anything was possible, that anything they made was art,
(13:00):
and they were artists and they were allowing themselves to
be that. And it was that moment for me that
was quite pivotal in understanding I could allow myself to
be an artist, that I could actually sort of say
it out loud and actually be creative. And I think
up until then, you know, you sort of feel like
you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
(13:20):
you're not meant to be there feeling. Were you as
adventurous in your I guess development as an artist as
maybe in food? Did you go to Chinese restaurants or
Indian restaurants? Did you Indian restaurants drink whiskey? Indian restaurants
was absolutely where we all went because once I, once I,
(13:43):
you know, became friends with Tracy, we all would you know,
sort of be in that neighborhood and we'd all know
going in and out of all the different Indian restaurants
around that area and find our favorites, and and that's
where we would gather. I felt like, um, exactly how
(14:03):
you said earlier about McCartney, saying it was a measure
of success. I'm growing into my own person because I
understand food. I'm growing into my own person because I
can take myself to a restaurant and I can actually
order something that's completely different to anything I've ever tried before.
And I think it is it's a feeling of one,
you're sort of stepping into being an adult, but also
(14:24):
you're stepping into um, sort of a feeling of new success.
Not necessarily you know, a huge financially success, but beginning
to be able to take yourself places. My first job
as a waiter world have been when I was at school.
(14:47):
I worked in a local beefy to steakhouse and used
to have to wear a beefy to use a little apron.
And then vick Naela's and Clark will remember vick Naela's
and Clark Well, it was a great staurant and I
I mean it was just fun, fun, fun, but it
was also terrible because I used to we all used
to get absolutely trashed. And I remember going to a
(15:10):
table and someone said do you have any bread? And
I said yes, let me go and get it. And
then it was just up the road from Saint John
and I said, quick, where's the bread. They're like, oh,
we don't have any. Can you run to get some
from St. John? Absolutely I ran to St John and
then my then manager was sat at the bar. Con
never drink with me, so I sat down and had
a drink which turned into two and that was the bread.
(15:33):
Quickly got the bread from St John and ran back.
I was like, I've got you some bread ago, this
place is terrible. Let me see the manager. Let me
go and get him. Run down to St John pulled
him out the bar, and the whole story is that
he then went up and said, you asked to see me, Yes,
the service is terrible. Said yes, I agree, Now you
(15:54):
should leave what ye was that? That was right after
I left art school. So maybe now times have changed,
I think, do you think maybe there's still those places,
but they've all become much more. Do you know the
story about Damien and which one? Which one? The one
(16:18):
at the grad Show club where he he and asolutely
trashed and I had just I banned somebody from the
River Cafe for being rude to one of my wingers,
and I was telling the story I was telling out
and he said, well, Damian and I went and we
got completely trashed, and we were They closed the doors
and we were kicked out, and we went on the
(16:40):
street and then we found a ladder and we climbed
up and we broke a window. We came in and
then we got sick over the pool table, and then
we went and got some alcohol out of the out
of the fridge and we drank that. Then we you know,
we took something and we crashed out on the self.
As Marianne, the manager came in the next stage, said,
you know, I could call the police. You broke a
(17:02):
new enter, you damage my property, and you stole stuff,
you know, but instead of calling the police, I am
going to ban you for twenty four hours. Twenty four
hours does for the days. And I had a customer
which just was slightly rude to somebody, and I said,
(17:23):
you could never come back again. That's a difference. Well,
that's why it's good too. I think people date people
in restaurants, you know, you go on a date and
see how they are to the waiter, or you interview
lots of people. Have you ever interviewed anybody for a
job in a restaurant? Totally? Yeah? Yeah, I had on this,
did you before I came here? Someone was to hire
(17:45):
for the movie? Actually? Yeah, perfect, perfect, brilliant, good, good good.
And so from from being an art school and then
being an artist, what was it in the once you
were all working and I hate to use the word successful,
(18:05):
but successful when you and Jay lived in that house
and parties? Was food? Did you care about food then?
Did you think that you'll wanted or was it was hard?
It's hard to sort of cast my mind to that
era because it's that thing I think Coko Chanel said
it it's you know, I'm six people away from the
person I once was. I think, ye, I sometimes feel
like that. And so when I think back to those times,
(18:27):
I think of myself as a very different person um
and and so so much sort of shift and change
within myself happened during that period. I was suddenly sort
of living in this very sort of grand house and
living a very different life, and and it was all
sort of fast rolling and high octane, and fast rolling
(18:50):
and high octane is fun. And then you can't it's
so hard to maintain and and I couldn't maintain it.
And I definitely sort of felt like, you know, throw
these parties and then I would disappear off at about
ten o'clock. Remember remember the part that you didn't talk about.
What we haven't talked about in terms of food and
(19:11):
being an artist, and in that lifetime was when you
were ill. Yeah, and and the diet that you then
and I remember very well your your rigor in dealing
with your illness, in in the way you ate, and
I think it was really before a lot of us
(19:33):
thought about food and health, and you were unhealthy, and
you use food to think about health. And um, you
also took you know, you went the scientific roots, so
you went for the medicine and the but it was
an alternative. You did it, but you did do a diet.
(19:53):
I remember you very clearly talking no dairy. Yeah. I
mean I have sort of almost step out side of
himself to talk about it. But ye, six months after
I had Angelico is my oldest of four daughters, UM,
I got diagnosed with colon cancer. And of course it
was you know, a shock, but there was such an
(20:14):
urgency in my mind to be well and to get
back home and be a mother and be present that
I just sort of you know, almost jumped out of
the hospital bed and I'm back, I'm fine. And and
then three years later I got diagnosed with breast cancer,
and uh, and then I didn't leap out of bed,
and I didn't say I'm back, I'm fine. I got
(20:37):
sort of quietly retreated into myself, I think, and I
went to a very sort of almost a totally different
personality to somebody I knew myself as in a way
in order to figure out our way to get through it.
And it's it's a trauma, and in that trauma, you
(20:59):
have to sort of figure are out, what are my options?
What are my options of survival? And obviously when you're
in it, you're not thinking clearly in that way. But
you know, it was very much the first time I
didn't take it seriously. Almost the second time, I'm going
to take this very seriously. You know, I want to live.
I want to be a mom and be around and
(21:21):
that was my you know, that was the thing I
had Angelica as my purpose and goal to survive for.
You know, it was chemotherapy, massed ectomy and everything medical
that I could. But at the same time, I knew
that I had to support that for myself with I
had acupuncture. I gave up I gave up drinking and
(21:43):
the party life, and I gave up anything that I
felt was detrimental to my health. Sugar. I gave up
dairy pretty much. That still do you still have? Yeah, okay,
that's not be too purity, I sugar. Yes, there's every
so often, but it's unconscious about eating and unconscious about
if things have you know, very strict about milk, very
(22:05):
strict about cheese, butter, I'll allow it, and then you know,
and I'm not going to be too because there's also
a point where you just have to you know, you
have to function in the world. And you know, there
was probably at least five years where I was absolutely
I would read every ingredient and nothing could be because
I was frightened, you know, and fear is a very
(22:25):
good reason to make sacrifices and changes in your life.
I just shifted into a completely different person in a way.
Would you tell somebody who came to see that if
they had cancer in any form, would you would you
say to them to try to do this because you don't.
It's difficult because also you know there's varying. You know,
(22:46):
your case is different to the next person's, the next
person to what level you have it or you know,
it's hard to advise people in that way. We talked
about end to people who are in it. I try
to be you know, get up in the morning, put
on a great song, move around cool people. When you're
feeling down. I try to sort of keep it, you know,
let's keep it in a in a place where we're
(23:08):
gonna get through this. It's a job. It's a job,
and you know it's also you can't people say, well,
you're so brave to have gone through it, but it's
not bravery that gets you through it, because it doesn't
mean that people who haven't survived aren't brave. It's getting
through it is you know, an amount of medical intervention,
amount of luck in terms of diagnosis and what you
(23:28):
can then do to support all of that. But when
you talk about the energy of the you know, the
getting up and doing that has shown that actually a
kind of activity with any illness, with grief. You know,
you say that, having been through grief in my life
that I sort of know the drill, you know, which
is you get out of bed or you I mean,
(23:50):
you can stay there and cry all day too, that's fine,
But the from you know, the activity, and as in
the support of friendships when I was when I would
have chemo, I'd have like Gary Hume and Georgie and
Johnny Shankid and friends. Would you know, they bring the
food and sit around and sort of laugh and sit
with me for a few hours, and you know, you
you sort of feel, you know, the chema going through
(24:13):
your veins. But on the other hand, you could be
eating some strawberries and chatting with friends, watching watching everyone
just you know support you in that way, And I
think and yeah, and that's also you know, that was
definitely sort of food related in the sense that you know,
chemo can taste bad in your mouth. It's sort of
Metallurchy and my friends had researched that a little bit.
And I've heard if you have you know, some boiled sweets,
(24:36):
or if you have this, or and then another friend
mango mangoes really good mango. Yeah, because Rose Gray and
we started the cafe with and and had breast cancer.
Just found that. I always say that she ate her
way through chemo, you know, just ate everything. But she
she was careful and as she was before she got sick,
(24:57):
but she loved having mangoes serotonin, I think. But I
think it's also I mean still now really education around
nutrition and what's you know, what's good for you to live,
like I said, as a keep the machine at optimum level,
you know, and and maintenance. We maintain our cars sometimes
(25:17):
better than our bodies. And Hi there, My name is Hamish.
I am one of the chef's here at the River Cafe.
One of the sources or dishes that I think is
very special to us and is coming back onto the
(25:39):
venue a bit more often is our banner calder M.
We make this source by reducing down a bottle of
Italian red wine or champagne or prosecco, and then we
melt in about twelve to fifteen cloves of garlic anchovies
and this creates a really in hen salty, amazing base
(26:02):
to a sauce. Then copious amounts of butter to make
it extremely smooth, silky and just rich and delicious. It's
my favorite anthes on sourad o bread. This is a a
saltiness of the but but I think growing up what
(26:27):
it equates to see that would be my I'm successful
and knowledgeable and I can eat anchovies on toast. It
comes from growing up with Mama on toast. It's one
of those and Mama altoast for me has been a
constant constant from child all the way through my student life.
(26:48):
Artists life. So I was talking about the solitary noness
of being an artist, But what about as I go
back to the to the cinema, when you directed Noah Boy,
or when you do directed fifties Shades of Grade, do
you do you think about how you feed the people
on the set. Is that important to you? The way
you start for food, break wass andres. He hates a
(27:11):
lunch hour because it makes everybody stop, and then you
have to get tired, and then but you know, he
tried to give everybody soup. Then the crew wanted meals.
How do you deal with It's interesting. I feel absolutely
with West in that way that I don't like when
everyone starts for lunch. But at the same time, I
do like the communal break of everyone's sitting and sort
(27:34):
of literally digesting what we've done and talking around food.
And I always try to make sure we have reasonably
good caterers so that everyone's just sort of enjoying that
time rather than just complaining it. This is disgusting. Was
there a difference in doing nowhere By in fifty Shades
of Gray from I'm sure there was. I can't remember
member shade its own trauma. But but we we aer
(27:58):
and I've made a movie in twin one day is
We didn't. We made a million little pieces and it
was the smallest, smallest, smallest budget, but we had the best,
best food. There's a flood touch of feel very different
from Los Angeles. We've moved from l A to English,
the English country side. I mean, what about food? I mean,
(28:20):
is that feel different. It's particle shift. Not in our
house because we cook the same things, but definitely a
different culture of um. Well, the difference avocados, there's there's
con certain things that grow differently, so you know when
you're West coast, so if you had anything Californian or
(28:42):
from Mexico, the avocado is a difference to guacamole is
like amazing. Have avocados here. They're sort of imported from
Spain and they're hard and they're there. There's just no point.
There's no point. There's no point in avocado in terms that.
I really respect that you said, because it is is
to do with the ingredients. Absolutely. What about you go
(29:02):
to fewer restaurants here? Did you eat out more? No?
We did, probably, I think, but we are in the
middle of it. Yeah, and there was I don't know,
it was a different I had a sort of different
routine I think there for food, you know, I was
really into and I'll have a shake and yes, but
could you put some ratio mushroom and a little bit
of this and a little bit of that and there.
(29:24):
Everyone seems so knowledgeable about what about what each ingredient
of this certain mushroom is going to give you, you know,
this one's for the brain and cognitive function, and this
one's for memory, and this one's for your liver, and
this one's for you know. So I was getting quite
good at all of that and understanding how it was
going to benefit me, and then you know, I got here.
(29:47):
I was like, where am I going to get my charger?
Do you drink coffee? To coffee? Very new to coffee,
like the American coffee. It was just the sort of
the diner coffee, yea, the all day filtered coffee where
it's just sort of yeah, tell me about food in
(30:07):
your house, but well to how many children are for
I mean for this weekend, they're all four at home.
I mean my specialty is the pancakes. I'd like to
say I'm the pancakes persontanesca. I have my dishes, but
the pancakes are in the mornings. I can make creps,
(30:28):
I can make big fluffy pancakes as they're cord or
I can do the green pancakes, which are roomy. My
youngest one absolutely loves. She's very m What is how
are they It's they're basically one egg, one banana, gluten
free flour, handful of spinach and cinnamon and vanilla, and
(30:54):
and and a cup of almond milk blitzed. And then
and then Friday coking up oil and they puff up
and then absolutely puff up. They puff up with a
little bit of baking powder in there, and and then
with something on the type. Yeah, Aaron's good at cooking,
literally sort of seven seven many dishes are on the
(31:17):
table when he cooks, like, I'm just like, that's so nice.
I can't bake. When Aaron ever goes into the kitchen
to bake, we all are literally waiting for a blood
splattering because all wants to get off with the blender
in the cherry pie. What was the blender thing that
you blender put his finger in it? Well, I was
trying to take what was left over dough off around
(31:39):
the fingers, but my hand was obviously gripping the top
of the button, so it went, it went blitz the
top of my din't have much of a nail on
that one finger. So what do you do for desserts?
Do you have dessert? And Roy are youngest is a
bit of a baker actually, so we recently we got
a really eat for rumble. Yeah, a gorgeous apple orchard
(32:03):
in Somerset and with a mixture of cooking apples and
cider apples and everywhere. Right now at the moment there's
tons of blackberries, so recently it was a BlackBerry and
an apple crumble. My last questions to you Aaron and
you Sam would be if you need food for comfort,
is there a food that you would reach for it?
(32:26):
Marmite and a jacket potato is probably actually coud trump
the ante on tost but marmite butter jacket potato. That
is my comfort food. I know I'm looking at you.
Thank you well be We're my comfort. Thank you so
thank you, thank you, thank you so much. The River
(32:52):
Cafe look Book is on sale. A hundred pages of
beautiful photographs that will inspire you to cook. It's a
look book, a cookbook. Order one now. Ruthie's Table for
is a production of I Heart Radio Anatomy Studios. For
(33:12):
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adami's Studios. I would like to remember exactly
when I met Sam Taylor Johnson. Was it at the
Tate in ninety eight when she was awarded the Turner Prize,
Or the day she entered the River Cafe a beautiful
(00:21):
young woman with her first baby, Angelica in her arms.
Was it when she came to see Richard with a
book of her astonishing photographs. Were we just invited to
a wild and glamorous party in her home that was
part of, as Sam says, the blur of what London
was in the late nineties. And when was the last
(00:43):
time I sat with Sam? Was it in a bar
with the love of her life, Aaron, or recently when
they missed a flight to Sicily and joined a lunch.
And how often have I asked where is Sam in London?
Preparing to director Amy Winehouse, vi chekking in Nepal, in
the south of France with Elton, or looking for a
(01:05):
school in Somerset for her young daughters. The one thing
I can always know is that wherever she is, whatever
she is creating, Sam is an extraordinary woman. I love
her Oh, how do I get into that without tears streaming? Well,
(01:27):
we go into it with food. We can start off
with a recipe that you chose, which is risotto with
puccini and jarrolds. One kilogram of mixed fresh puccini and jarols,
cleaned and chopped, extra virgin olive oil, one garlic cloth,
peeled and finally chopped, one teaspoon of fresh time, one
(01:48):
liter of chicken stock, one grams of unsalted butter, one
medium red onion, finally chopped, three grams of risotto rice,
two hundred and fifty million liters of extra driver mooth.
Now that's the thing that sends me running around the
house when I'm about ten minutes into cooking it, just like,
do we have the move? Do we haven't read a recipe? Twice?
Two of parmesan freshly grated um. I actually cooked this
(02:12):
last night, it though I practiced just to remind myself
what happened about five minutes in aeron Erin's here, What
did happened? We haven't. I can't make this without the move.
I'm going to Everyone was running around trying to find um.
But it's what makes it. In a frying pan, heat
(02:32):
three tablespoons of olive oil. Add the mushrooms with the
chopped garlican thyme, season and fry for a couple of
minutes until any liquid has evaporated. In a saucepan. Heat
the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion,
and cook until the onion is soft. Add the rice
and stuff. Now, what's so great about this recipe is
it's really good if you want to have people around
(02:54):
for dinner, but not necessarily engaged with them the entire
time you have had the latest movie. I'm stirring a
resulto exactly, I'm stirring a result of It sort of
also gives you something to do, so you're you know,
you're active if you're not sure what to talk about.
But it's sort of a perfectly sociable, unsociable meal to cook.
(03:14):
Pour in the vermouth and cook until it's been absorbed,
stirring all the while, then adding the hot stock ladle
by ladle. Continue to cook until the rice is our dente.
Add the wild mushrooms, the remaining butter, the parmesan, and
the chopped parsley, and the best rosutto Ever, it's comforting
resulto but this was the first thing I ever cooked
from your cookboo, which is why I think it was
(03:35):
in one of the earlier ones. I'm going to be
brave and attempt a risotto. Did you cook when you
were a kid? Did you were you know, not at all.
I didn't grow up in an environment where cooking was celebrated.
Food was made to eat, to live, Um, frozen pizzas, margarine,
(03:59):
you know that was that was to put in when
you come home from school, make for yourself and and
eat just a make for yourself. So would you sit
down to a family meal or is everybody taking care
of that? I almost can't remember family meals. So I
think that's again why I feel so excited about a
(04:21):
kitchen very alive, with food being cooked and bread being baked,
and aromas and activity, because I was definitely not not
that environment. Sometimes I talked to people who grew up
with the romantic idea of the family sitting down to
a family suffer and sitting and talking about the day.
(04:41):
And some some people described having a mother that worked
the night shift, or mother or father who came home
from work and were exhausted, or they came home from
work and they would prefer to do homework with you
then cook. I mean, there are many reasons why the
image of the family IL perhaps is somewhat romanticized, but
(05:03):
it is important something that, as you say, we try
to create for our kids. But you didn't have a
role model for that, so you had the reverse, but
you changed it for your own family. I did have
the reverse. And and you know, sometimes, especially doing something
like this, you've you sort of look back and try
and find that memory. Now, I definitely remember my mom
(05:24):
made a dish that she would be proud of, which
was a rabbit dish with mustard, I think. But that
was something that was there would come out, I don't
know it would be a big thing, um. But the
rest of the time it was moral survival. What was
she doing or your father doing? Was your father there?
(05:45):
It was my stepfather? Really who I can who? My
sort of that part of my life is more of
a memory. And so do you think they were doing
other things rather than Kirk or did they just not?
It's a complicated history and it's hard to go into
not because is not because it is sort of full
of sort of trauma and pain. But it's more that
(06:06):
I actually have this sort of almost blackout of I
don't actually have that much memory from that time in
my life. And also if I do go into it
or I talk about it, I sort of feel, I
hope that I've evolved to a place where I don't
I don't want to sort of talk about with malice.
It's not that they were working. I think it was
more struggle survival and mental health, to be honest, and
(06:29):
a lot of a lot of just um, difficult scenarios
did you have? But they died when I was quite young,
so I don't really have a memory of them in
terms of, you know, I had sort of I had
a great Auntie Gladys, and a great uncle Les, who
I felt very close to, who lived in Shepherd's Bush.
(06:50):
There was a lot of time around their house in
Shepherd's Bush, and they were very much the sort of
meat and two veg and I remember going home one
day and saying to my Auntie Gladys, I'd say, I've
won't I can't have roast chicken. I'm a vegetarian. And
she said, well, chickens not really an animal, really an animal,
of course you can eat it. I can't. But but
(07:12):
that was a sort of stability. For me, they were
the you know, the stable hold, the home where I
would go to as a student to know that I
could be fed. Did you struggle with food? Did you
enjoy it? Did you? Yeah? And I didn't have school
lunch anyway, I did, But I was a free school
dinners kid, so I was in the opposite que to
(07:33):
my friends where they had different cues. I had different
cues disgusting. It was the queue on the left, which
was the regular cue out of Dickens, and then there
was the free school Dinners line. And and I wasn't
always in the free school Dinners line. There were moments
where I was in it, and then moments where I
could bounce over to the other side. And I just
(07:53):
always remember the dread of today I have to go
in the free school Dinners line, and and that fear
link of just like you know, feeling separate from all
your friends and and just that sort of feeling a
little bit of shame that comes with or maybe a lot.
So you had school lunches and then lunches and then
(08:14):
home mostly yeah, Frisen pizzas. Where did you go out?
Firstly in London until I was eleven in stratum and
then after that we moved to the countryside to Sussex.
But that was a big shock. I'm terrified of trees.
It was so funny because I was such an urban
girl until then, and then the idea that I had
(08:34):
to walk down these country lanes with trees. It's quite
funny because a lot of the people that I've talked
to think about the way they struggled in their youth,
whether they were from another country, whether their parents were
uncomfortable in being in England, whether they or in the
United States, wherever they were. People struggled with money, with divorce,
(08:58):
and and all this is to do, you know, with
food and how those memories um evolve. And also I
don't know if you feel, but they measure and I
don't know if you do measure there unless their success
by being able to order something delicious on the menu,
Paul McCartney, they able to order a good glass of
(09:19):
wine was something away that they measured their their own
success totally. I mean, we never ate out, so eating
out really came to me in adult life. And I
think that the first time I realized food was for
pleasure was actually are a college trip to Rome or
(09:43):
post college. I can't really remember, but we went to
a small little restaurant and I ordered something because I
had absolutely no idea what to expect, tackleton with lemon
lemon pasta. I remember eating it and just having this
sort of total, you know, explosion of flavor and thoughts
and feelings about is this what food can can be?
(10:07):
And that feeling of tasting something which just kind of
completely opens your your mind too potential, I guess, and
that and that you know it wasn't expensive, it was affordable,
and that I could eat this amazing food and not
frozen pizzas revelation and probably in my sort of probably
(10:29):
when I was about nineteen, I think then I went
to art school and Hastings, which was like a massive
turning point of excitement in my life, and then after
that into London for art school. I always think it's
another conversation about artists that creating art is very solitary activity,
that you are in your studio and your paint and
(10:49):
everybody sort of had this kind of wild nights of
eating and drinking together because there was so solitary during
the day. Did you find that or was it was?
I think I think art school for me was like
a huge door had opened into a world of so
much possibility and excitement. And I feel like for the
(11:10):
first two years when I was at Hastings, I was
just sort of wide eyed and in sort of slight
shock that I was in this environment and just kept
very quiet. And then I went to Northeast London Polytechnic,
which was a very robust sort of shipbuilding yard feeling
because I was in the sculpture department. And then I
(11:32):
I left there after the first year and went to Goldsmith's,
which by comparison felt like a sort of Swiss finishing
school because people were very elegant and they were talking
about ideas and I and I again I felt very
like I was sort of sitting on the outside, watching
and feeling this environment being so alien. Was that the
(11:52):
days of Michael Craig Martin and Damien and Tracy it was,
And and that freeze had just happened. There was a
lot of debate around this huge exhibition that had sort
of thrown all these young artists that were still an
art school onto the map, and there was a sort
of freeze and an anti freeze, and and I just
sort of sat again and sort of listened and felt
the debate between everything and everyone, but sort of also
(12:15):
knew I was in the eye of a storm. And
I have a of a very exciting transitional moment in
the art world because these artists like Damien had a
studio outside of art school and was already you know,
functioning as an artist and selling and having exhibitions, and
Gary Human, Sarah Lucas, you know, it all was just
(12:35):
this sort of bubbling energy that I felt but didn't
quite know how to access because I was still sort
of feeling a bit quiet on the outside. It really
took going to tracymin and Sarah Lucas had a little
shop in the East End, just off of Brick Lane,
and it really took going to that little shop to
feel that anything was possible, that anything they made was art,
(13:00):
and they were artists and they were allowing themselves to
be that. And it was that moment for me that
was quite pivotal in understanding I could allow myself to
be an artist, that I could actually sort of say
it out loud and actually be creative. And I think
up until then, you know, you sort of feel like
you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
(13:20):
you're not meant to be there feeling. Were you as
adventurous in your I guess development as an artist as
maybe in food? Did you go to Chinese restaurants or
Indian restaurants? Did you Indian restaurants drink whiskey? Indian restaurants
was absolutely where we all went because once I, once I,
(13:43):
you know, became friends with Tracy, we all would you know,
sort of be in that neighborhood and we'd all know
going in and out of all the different Indian restaurants
around that area and find our favorites, and and that's
where we would gather. I felt like, um, exactly how
(14:03):
you said earlier about McCartney, saying it was a measure
of success. I'm growing into my own person because I
understand food. I'm growing into my own person because I
can take myself to a restaurant and I can actually
order something that's completely different to anything I've ever tried before.
And I think it is it's a feeling of one,
you're sort of stepping into being an adult, but also
(14:24):
you're stepping into um, sort of a feeling of new success.
Not necessarily you know, a huge financially success, but beginning
to be able to take yourself places. My first job
as a waiter world have been when I was at school.
(14:47):
I worked in a local beefy to steakhouse and used
to have to wear a beefy to use a little apron.
And then vick Naela's and Clark will remember vick Naela's
and Clark Well, it was a great staurant and I
I mean it was just fun, fun, fun, but it
was also terrible because I used to we all used
to get absolutely trashed. And I remember going to a
(15:10):
table and someone said do you have any bread? And
I said yes, let me go and get it. And
then it was just up the road from Saint John
and I said, quick, where's the bread. They're like, oh,
we don't have any. Can you run to get some
from St. John? Absolutely I ran to St John and
then my then manager was sat at the bar. Con
never drink with me, so I sat down and had
a drink which turned into two and that was the bread.
(15:33):
Quickly got the bread from St John and ran back.
I was like, I've got you some bread ago, this
place is terrible. Let me see the manager. Let me
go and get him. Run down to St John pulled
him out the bar, and the whole story is that
he then went up and said, you asked to see me, Yes,
the service is terrible. Said yes, I agree, Now you
(15:54):
should leave what ye was that? That was right after
I left art school. So maybe now times have changed,
I think, do you think maybe there's still those places,
but they've all become much more. Do you know the
story about Damien and which one? Which one? The one
(16:18):
at the grad Show club where he he and asolutely
trashed and I had just I banned somebody from the
River Cafe for being rude to one of my wingers,
and I was telling the story I was telling out
and he said, well, Damian and I went and we
got completely trashed, and we were They closed the doors
and we were kicked out, and we went on the
(16:40):
street and then we found a ladder and we climbed
up and we broke a window. We came in and
then we got sick over the pool table, and then
we went and got some alcohol out of the out
of the fridge and we drank that. Then we you know,
we took something and we crashed out on the self.
As Marianne, the manager came in the next stage, said,
you know, I could call the police. You broke a
(17:02):
new enter, you damage my property, and you stole stuff,
you know, but instead of calling the police, I am
going to ban you for twenty four hours. Twenty four
hours does for the days. And I had a customer
which just was slightly rude to somebody, and I said,
(17:23):
you could never come back again. That's a difference. Well,
that's why it's good too. I think people date people
in restaurants, you know, you go on a date and
see how they are to the waiter, or you interview
lots of people. Have you ever interviewed anybody for a
job in a restaurant? Totally? Yeah? Yeah, I had on this,
did you before I came here? Someone was to hire
(17:45):
for the movie? Actually? Yeah, perfect, perfect, brilliant, good, good good.
And so from from being an art school and then
being an artist, what was it in the once you
were all working and I hate to use the word successful,
(18:05):
but successful when you and Jay lived in that house
and parties? Was food? Did you care about food then?
Did you think that you'll wanted or was it was hard?
It's hard to sort of cast my mind to that
era because it's that thing I think Coko Chanel said
it it's you know, I'm six people away from the
person I once was. I think, ye, I sometimes feel
like that. And so when I think back to those times,
(18:27):
I think of myself as a very different person um
and and so so much sort of shift and change
within myself happened during that period. I was suddenly sort
of living in this very sort of grand house and
living a very different life, and and it was all
sort of fast rolling and high octane, and fast rolling
(18:50):
and high octane is fun. And then you can't it's
so hard to maintain and and I couldn't maintain it.
And I definitely sort of felt like, you know, throw
these parties and then I would disappear off at about
ten o'clock. Remember remember the part that you didn't talk about.
What we haven't talked about in terms of food and
(19:11):
being an artist, and in that lifetime was when you
were ill. Yeah, and and the diet that you then
and I remember very well your your rigor in dealing
with your illness, in in the way you ate, and
I think it was really before a lot of us
(19:33):
thought about food and health, and you were unhealthy, and
you use food to think about health. And um, you
also took you know, you went the scientific roots, so
you went for the medicine and the but it was
an alternative. You did it, but you did do a diet.
(19:53):
I remember you very clearly talking no dairy. Yeah. I
mean I have sort of almost step out side of
himself to talk about it. But ye, six months after
I had Angelico is my oldest of four daughters, UM,
I got diagnosed with colon cancer. And of course it
was you know, a shock, but there was such an
(20:14):
urgency in my mind to be well and to get
back home and be a mother and be present that
I just sort of you know, almost jumped out of
the hospital bed and I'm back, I'm fine. And and
then three years later I got diagnosed with breast cancer,
and uh, and then I didn't leap out of bed,
and I didn't say I'm back, I'm fine. I got
(20:37):
sort of quietly retreated into myself, I think, and I
went to a very sort of almost a totally different
personality to somebody I knew myself as in a way
in order to figure out our way to get through it.
And it's it's a trauma, and in that trauma, you
(20:59):
have to sort of figure are out, what are my options?
What are my options of survival? And obviously when you're
in it, you're not thinking clearly in that way. But
you know, it was very much the first time I
didn't take it seriously. Almost the second time, I'm going
to take this very seriously. You know, I want to live.
I want to be a mom and be around and
(21:21):
that was my you know, that was the thing I
had Angelica as my purpose and goal to survive for.
You know, it was chemotherapy, massed ectomy and everything medical
that I could. But at the same time, I knew
that I had to support that for myself with I
had acupuncture. I gave up I gave up drinking and
(21:43):
the party life, and I gave up anything that I
felt was detrimental to my health. Sugar. I gave up
dairy pretty much. That still do you still have? Yeah, okay,
that's not be too purity, I sugar. Yes, there's every
so often, but it's unconscious about eating and unconscious about
if things have you know, very strict about milk, very
(22:05):
strict about cheese, butter, I'll allow it, and then you know,
and I'm not going to be too because there's also
a point where you just have to you know, you
have to function in the world. And you know, there
was probably at least five years where I was absolutely
I would read every ingredient and nothing could be because
I was frightened, you know, and fear is a very
(22:25):
good reason to make sacrifices and changes in your life.
I just shifted into a completely different person in a way.
Would you tell somebody who came to see that if
they had cancer in any form, would you would you
say to them to try to do this because you don't.
It's difficult because also you know there's varying. You know,
(22:46):
your case is different to the next person's, the next
person to what level you have it or you know,
it's hard to advise people in that way. We talked
about end to people who are in it. I try
to be you know, get up in the morning, put
on a great song, move around cool people. When you're
feeling down. I try to sort of keep it, you know,
let's keep it in a in a place where we're
(23:08):
gonna get through this. It's a job. It's a job,
and you know it's also you can't people say, well,
you're so brave to have gone through it, but it's
not bravery that gets you through it, because it doesn't
mean that people who haven't survived aren't brave. It's getting
through it is you know, an amount of medical intervention,
amount of luck in terms of diagnosis and what you
(23:28):
can then do to support all of that. But when
you talk about the energy of the you know, the
getting up and doing that has shown that actually a
kind of activity with any illness, with grief. You know,
you say that, having been through grief in my life
that I sort of know the drill, you know, which
is you get out of bed or you I mean,
(23:50):
you can stay there and cry all day too, that's fine,
But the from you know, the activity, and as in
the support of friendships when I was when I would
have chemo, I'd have like Gary Hume and Georgie and
Johnny Shankid and friends. Would you know, they bring the
food and sit around and sort of laugh and sit
with me for a few hours, and you know, you
you sort of feel, you know, the chema going through
(24:13):
your veins. But on the other hand, you could be
eating some strawberries and chatting with friends, watching watching everyone
just you know support you in that way, And I
think and yeah, and that's also you know, that was
definitely sort of food related in the sense that you know,
chemo can taste bad in your mouth. It's sort of
Metallurchy and my friends had researched that a little bit.
And I've heard if you have you know, some boiled sweets,
(24:36):
or if you have this, or and then another friend
mango mangoes really good mango. Yeah, because Rose Gray and
we started the cafe with and and had breast cancer.
Just found that. I always say that she ate her
way through chemo, you know, just ate everything. But she
she was careful and as she was before she got sick,
(24:57):
but she loved having mangoes serotonin, I think. But I
think it's also I mean still now really education around
nutrition and what's you know, what's good for you to live,
like I said, as a keep the machine at optimum level,
you know, and and maintenance. We maintain our cars sometimes
(25:17):
better than our bodies. And Hi there, My name is Hamish.
I am one of the chef's here at the River Cafe.
One of the sources or dishes that I think is
very special to us and is coming back onto the
(25:39):
venue a bit more often is our banner calder M.
We make this source by reducing down a bottle of
Italian red wine or champagne or prosecco, and then we
melt in about twelve to fifteen cloves of garlic anchovies
and this creates a really in hen salty, amazing base
(26:02):
to a sauce. Then copious amounts of butter to make
it extremely smooth, silky and just rich and delicious. It's
my favorite anthes on sourad o bread. This is a a
saltiness of the but but I think growing up what
(26:27):
it equates to see that would be my I'm successful
and knowledgeable and I can eat anchovies on toast. It
comes from growing up with Mama on toast. It's one
of those and Mama altoast for me has been a
constant constant from child all the way through my student life.
(26:48):
Artists life. So I was talking about the solitary noness
of being an artist, But what about as I go
back to the to the cinema, when you directed Noah Boy,
or when you do directed fifties Shades of Grade, do
you do you think about how you feed the people
on the set. Is that important to you? The way
you start for food, break wass andres. He hates a
(27:11):
lunch hour because it makes everybody stop, and then you
have to get tired, and then but you know, he
tried to give everybody soup. Then the crew wanted meals.
How do you deal with It's interesting. I feel absolutely
with West in that way that I don't like when
everyone starts for lunch. But at the same time, I
do like the communal break of everyone's sitting and sort
(27:34):
of literally digesting what we've done and talking around food.
And I always try to make sure we have reasonably
good caterers so that everyone's just sort of enjoying that
time rather than just complaining it. This is disgusting. Was
there a difference in doing nowhere By in fifty Shades
of Gray from I'm sure there was. I can't remember
member shade its own trauma. But but we we aer
(27:58):
and I've made a movie in twin one day is
We didn't. We made a million little pieces and it
was the smallest, smallest, smallest budget, but we had the best,
best food. There's a flood touch of feel very different
from Los Angeles. We've moved from l A to English,
the English country side. I mean, what about food? I mean,
(28:20):
is that feel different. It's particle shift. Not in our
house because we cook the same things, but definitely a
different culture of um. Well, the difference avocados, there's there's
con certain things that grow differently, so you know when
you're West coast, so if you had anything Californian or
(28:42):
from Mexico, the avocado is a difference to guacamole is
like amazing. Have avocados here. They're sort of imported from
Spain and they're hard and they're there. There's just no point.
There's no point. There's no point in avocado in terms that.
I really respect that you said, because it is is
to do with the ingredients. Absolutely. What about you go
(29:02):
to fewer restaurants here? Did you eat out more? No?
We did, probably, I think, but we are in the
middle of it. Yeah, and there was I don't know,
it was a different I had a sort of different
routine I think there for food, you know, I was
really into and I'll have a shake and yes, but
could you put some ratio mushroom and a little bit
of this and a little bit of that and there.
(29:24):
Everyone seems so knowledgeable about what about what each ingredient
of this certain mushroom is going to give you, you know,
this one's for the brain and cognitive function, and this
one's for memory, and this one's for your liver, and
this one's for you know. So I was getting quite
good at all of that and understanding how it was
going to benefit me, and then you know, I got here.
(29:47):
I was like, where am I going to get my charger?
Do you drink coffee? To coffee? Very new to coffee,
like the American coffee. It was just the sort of
the diner coffee, yea, the all day filtered coffee where
it's just sort of yeah, tell me about food in
(30:07):
your house, but well to how many children are for
I mean for this weekend, they're all four at home.
I mean my specialty is the pancakes. I'd like to
say I'm the pancakes persontanesca. I have my dishes, but
the pancakes are in the mornings. I can make creps,
(30:28):
I can make big fluffy pancakes as they're cord or
I can do the green pancakes, which are roomy. My
youngest one absolutely loves. She's very m What is how
are they It's they're basically one egg, one banana, gluten
free flour, handful of spinach and cinnamon and vanilla, and
(30:54):
and and a cup of almond milk blitzed. And then
and then Friday coking up oil and they puff up
and then absolutely puff up. They puff up with a
little bit of baking powder in there, and and then
with something on the type. Yeah, Aaron's good at cooking,
literally sort of seven seven many dishes are on the
(31:17):
table when he cooks, like, I'm just like, that's so nice.
I can't bake. When Aaron ever goes into the kitchen
to bake, we all are literally waiting for a blood
splattering because all wants to get off with the blender
in the cherry pie. What was the blender thing that
you blender put his finger in it? Well, I was
trying to take what was left over dough off around
(31:39):
the fingers, but my hand was obviously gripping the top
of the button, so it went, it went blitz the
top of my din't have much of a nail on
that one finger. So what do you do for desserts?
Do you have dessert? And Roy are youngest is a
bit of a baker actually, so we recently we got
a really eat for rumble. Yeah, a gorgeous apple orchard
(32:03):
in Somerset and with a mixture of cooking apples and
cider apples and everywhere. Right now at the moment there's
tons of blackberries, so recently it was a BlackBerry and
an apple crumble. My last questions to you Aaron and
you Sam would be if you need food for comfort,
is there a food that you would reach for it?
(32:26):
Marmite and a jacket potato is probably actually coud trump
the ante on tost but marmite butter jacket potato. That
is my comfort food. I know I'm looking at you.
Thank you well be We're my comfort. Thank you so
thank you, thank you, thank you so much. The River
(32:52):
Cafe look Book is on sale. A hundred pages of
beautiful photographs that will inspire you to cook. It's a
look book, a cookbook. Order one now. Ruthie's Table for
is a production of I Heart Radio Anatomy Studios. For
(33:12):
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
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Host
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