February 6, 2023 • 41 mins
'Millions of us have shared food with Tina Fey over the years.
In 30 Rock, which she wrote and starred in, even her name, Liz Lemon, was food related. In SNL there was Brownie husband and who could forget the cafeteria scene in Mean Girls.
Tina came to the River Cafe a few weeks ago and after she put on her Chef’s Whites to make tomato pasta in the kitchen, we sat down together to discuss the food she grew up with, the restaurants she goes to, what her family likes to eat, and a ‘very special’ and very funny, sandwich.'
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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Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4
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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 four, a production of I Heart
Radio and Adam I's Studios. A few months ago, my
good friend Lauren Michaels texted me to say that Tina
Fey was coming to London to star in the new
Barro movie. He knew I would love her from the
first meeting. It became a friendship formed with food. Tina
(00:23):
arrived at our house with a beautiful box of chocolates
for me, as brought up to do by her mother,
and I brought home a River Cafe lemon tart for her.
The first dinner, I made slow cooked tomato pasta. She
ate two portions and then we played cards. I think three.
I'm actually you know, being collite. Tina was there for
(00:44):
the Rogers family traditional Thanksgiving Italian style with puntarell Knew
olive oil and cavalon naro and turkey. There was a
teatime visit when four of us say pretty much a
whole panatoni and wrote a song for the River Cafe
Christmas party. Best of all was a dinner in the
River Cafe when her family, Jeff, Alice and Penelope came
(01:05):
for the holidays and we ordered every dessert on the menu.
Of course, millions of us have shared food with Tina
fe in thirty Rock, which she wrote and starred in,
and were even her name. This lemon was food related.
Sandwich is never to be shared. Hard cheese eaten at midnight.
Advice given to John McEnroe unwhere to buy the best
(01:26):
cupcakes in New York City. Her obsession with hot dogs
resulting in a food warning from the street vendor on
s n L. A brandy husband devouring a cake while
discussing grants and weekend update, and who could forget the
cafeteria scene in the movie She wrote, mean girls. Okay,
I'm Sean win Owen and I'm the axcexy chef at
(01:48):
the River Cafe. Today. We're making a smarte Telli really
with Tina Fey, because we're gonna make a tacky really
with slow coup tomato, sauce and butter. Which is probably
one of Reple's secrets is adding the butter to it
and it cook the master in boiling salted water. They
would say that you should cook pastor in water that's
a salty sea. So yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, true.
(02:10):
The thing about to taste like Yeah, that's what I think.
Having the competent to see some water that much is
a man bold. I'm not afraid of salt. You know,
I have low blood pressure, so I can have as
much stuff I want. You wanted the lucky, I tell myself, Mush,
I had this giant pasta boiling station in my hands.
This is what you want? I mean, uhha. Now we
(02:34):
know that it does about a half a cup of butter,
you know, one person portion? Oh smell yeah, only because
we can't pour it right into my mouth here at
the station. This being an audio format is not doing
this coast of justice having a nice high pile, and
(02:56):
it's pretty gorgeous. If I could marry a non human entity,
I would marry this post. This is like one of
Grief's house classics. Yes, I had this. I had the
deep privilege of I went to Ruthie's house once, my
friend she served this at her house. And then um,
then somehow we figured out that we could be jerks
(03:18):
and comm here in order and offenya exactly open you
is ubl just have it for yeah, any day, the
special occasion if you try hard enough. Um, thank you
Joy for that. Thank you. Yes, Tina is leaving London
tomorrow words I can hardly bear to say. And her
(03:42):
last day in London is here in the River Cafe.
She's made as tomato sauce in the kitchen with Sean
and the chefs, and is now in the recording studio
with me, and she's already told us what she wants
to eat for lunch. A friendship formed with food, indeed,
and Lauren was right. I do love her. Thank you
real fas nice introduction. Good, Well, you've just been in
(04:10):
the River Cafe kitchen. What was it like? Oh my god,
it's the most beautiful dance happening in the kitchen, everyone
working so perfectly together. And also Sean was saying, today's
the first day back after Christmas break, and so everyone
you would never know it. Things are are flowing perfectly
and everything looks delicious. And what was it like making
the pasta? What did you do? Well? I did learn
(04:31):
that one secret to the pasta because I was wondering
what was so extra about this beautiful, simple tomato pasta.
And I think the answer is that it's a buffalo
milk butter. A sizeable portion gets dropped on this pasta
right at the end and melted into it. And it's
very good time. When people come to our house and
I'm making it, I often say, would you, um, would
(04:54):
you like to go? Because it's an open kitchen, I
would you actually go? Sit down about it? Feels such
a trader for using butter in the pasta when everybody
thinks that tom de pasta is olive oil impasta tomato
and that's delicious. You know, tomato pasta without butter is delicious.
But there's something about the butter which kind of holds
it together and makes it straight. And I definitely say
(05:16):
I did. I think I gasped out loud when I
saw she showed me how much she drops on top,
and I was like, I know that when you're meeting it,
how is it? It's wonderful. Let's talk about your life
in comedy for a second. It all started in Chicago.
What were you doing there? I went there to study
improv and comedy and worked at a place called the
(05:37):
Second City and another place called the Improv Olympic, and
that's where I met my Husband's where I'm at. Jeff
was the piano player for the Improv Olympic and also
worked at the Second city eventually, and that's where I
met my dear friend Amy Poehler, so many of my
good friends. So in those days, would you do improv
all day and then say let's go and eat. We
would again. It was a diner culture. We would go
(05:58):
to this question what was the name of that? There
actually was an NPR piece about this amazing waitress who
worked at that dinner. Oh my god, what was the
name of the diner? I'll have to think about it.
But we would go because we would go. It's crazy
that I can remember, because we would go at least
once a day, oftentimes twice a day. We'd go, you know,
have something before the show, and then go back at
one am. Do you like to eat before you perform again?
(06:18):
At the time, I was not treating my body like
the beautiful instrument, So yeah, I would eat before. I
would eat, like like Boston Market four and then and
then in the middle of the we're going to get
the Boston Market was a god willing now defunct chain
that sold like rotisserie, chickens and turkey. And I used
(06:40):
to say, I would get I would get food of
Boston Market, and you start to get sick before you
left so then it was like you never even ate.
It was perfect. But then we'd go and have usually
after the shows we do two short shows on a
Friday and Saturday and go and have like a giant
breakfast of like eggs and a waffle. One am two
how I see, So the show finish, then you'd get out. Yeah,
(07:03):
there seems with friends of mine who are often in place,
that there is a thing of we'll go out to
eat afterward because you're adrenaline. It's too It's yeah, it's
a bit like in the chef world as well. There's
a whole not so much anymore now that everybody's you know,
stopped and all that stuff. But when after after a
performance in away and what you described, or having an
(07:26):
audience there the curtain going up, there's a lot of
I always think the reason probably a lot of actors
like to work in restaurants is there is a similarity.
You know, there's a drama that takes place and everything else.
But in the old days, and Rose and I first started,
and I don't know what happens now, I don't think
so much people would go out after a service. I
go out at ten clubbing or to eat something because
(07:48):
you know, I know that adrenaline that hits and at
the end of theater, Yes it is. It's the end
of your work day, so you want to go out
and have your evening, and your evening just happens to
be at one o'clock in the morning. Yeah. The one
thing I used to love with it Saturday Night Live.
Saturday it was the most fun day because it's the
day where it's finally all happening and you can spend
a lot of time being worried, and then Saturday you
(08:09):
just have to kind of go down the slide, you know.
And we would have these crew lunch dinner. I guess
we'd were sort of rehearse from one pm untill about
five thirty pm, and you'd go down to the NBC
cafeteria and have lunch with everybody or dinner with everybody.
That's one of my favorite memories of working there. Actually
on a film set or on television, seems there are
(08:31):
different attitudes. I had a conversation before with Wess Anderson,
who really his dream would be not to have any lunch,
just to shoot all day and not stop because and
another director said the same that they just found having
to stop and then go back and then do that.
But am but the crew it wasn't so happy with that.
You know. His idea was he said to try and
have his soup and then everybody just go back and
(08:53):
then have a big meal at the end of the day.
But the crew wanted wanted to They want to break
and you need that break and need that. When you're
producing a film or a theater, do you think about
what people are going to eat? I mean, I always
if I'm producing something, I want the food to be
good and to be ample. And oftentimes if you want
to reward the cast and crew, you send more food.
(09:14):
We send like food trucks, like pizza truck, coffee truck.
The food is in my I believe food is the
only reward in life, in life because I like that.
Sure money, sure yeah, we still have it. A wonderful
lady who's no longer with us, whom an angel, who
was in charge of what's called craft services on thirty Rock,
which is you have your meals, you get in like
(09:36):
there's a truck. There's catering does breakfast and lunch, but
all the food that you just eat in between that
all day, there would just be a table in the
hallway with food. And Angel had so much passion about
her job and she was Italian American from Staten Island
and she would show up with these things. Would be
like Angel, what is this what? And and Alec Baldwin,
who loves to eat, he was in love with her
(09:57):
and everything about her because she would just bring him
these beautiful like whatever like balls and mazza rel these
crazy bread was that like rolled up art to choke
bread and all this stuff. It was so much more
than what you would normally get, like a bowl of
apples and some candy. And this episode of Dirty Rock,
there's a whole storyline about the perfect sandwich. And there's
this thing where, um, I'm chasing a guy that I
(10:19):
love through the airport, but when you don't go through,
they want me to take my sandwich. And yeah, but
the first you have to describe that. I'm not going
to do it because I think it is one of
the great scenes in food. Thank you. I I will say,
I think as an actor, perhaps my only specialty is
on camera eating. I commit to it. I'm great at it.
(10:42):
And so so this is a scene where Liz lemon
is she's chasing her love interest, who is played by
Jason Sadakis, who you all may know as Ted Lasso.
And I'm chasing through the airport and I've been also
the other part of the stories. I've been trying to
get the teamsters, the union drivers to tell me where
they get these great sandwiches. So I've got my special sandwich.
And the security guard at the airport says, you have
to leave the sandwich behind, you can't take it through,
(11:04):
and I I say no, I believe women can have
it all. And I'm gonna eat this sandwich in one
bite before I go through security. And I'm still going
to catch the man. And so it came down to Angel,
this woman who did our craft services said, Angel, this
is a special assignment for you. I need you to
make me the perfect sandwich. Normally it would have been
the props department, but I said, Angel, you're gonna make
(11:26):
the sandwich and and I need it to be I
need to be able to eat it in one bite.
So she went to these bakers that she knew in
Staten Island and had them custom make I don't know
what it was the softest. When I tell you that sandwich,
I can remember to this day. That sandwich was so delicious.
(11:46):
It was an Italian sub so it had like some
salami and some what I would call gobba gooul, some cheese.
It wasn't a fake sandwich. And I ate it in
one take and I remember saying they were like, we
got it, and I was like, did me? Because if
you need me to do it again, I am willing
because it was so good. But the credit goes to
(12:07):
Angel because the bread like melted in my mouth. I
love that scene. I just love that scene because it
was like, what's important here right now? And also that
you have left out. One thing about that sandwich was
there was a dipping sung There was a dipping sauce
too that I had to dip it in, Yeah, to lubricate.
Was that's the writing not only job. I'm going to
(12:28):
eat the sandwich security, but I'm gonna dip it. Doesn't
she say something about this is a cliche or yeah,
something that was. I think it was that Johnny May
the actresses. I think I might bet she's so funny.
She's like really, yeah, So eating on camera is it
hard to do? Yeah? It can be because you when
you film something, you film it a million times and
(12:49):
so if you this is something fun you can look
at when you watch movies now, you will notice that
the actors and dinner scenes almost never put food in
their mouth because if you were to do it, you
would do it. The camera will be far away, you
would do it. And then they now that you'd have
to eat like ten plates of food. And so actors
are usually pretty adept at not doing it. Not me.
(13:10):
I get in there the only time, the one on
and now when you're eating the cake, when you're talking
about I mean it is. It is a work of
art to see the way you at a minute now,
I thought I was going to be sick. Did you
just do? But you did that one? I didn't. Well,
I did it twice because we have a dress rehearsal,
and I thought to myself, you know what, I better
really do it in dress rehearsal because it was live TV.
(13:32):
And I was a little worried that I would choke,
and I thought I was worried were going to choke.
I was worried I was going to choke. And that cake,
I will say, the only disappointment with that one was
that I love them dearly. But that was the SML
Props department and that cake was not tasty. I was
trying to run a scam. I was like, can you
get this cake from my favorite bakery and they were
like no. I wanted them to get it from a
(13:54):
place called make My Cake and Harlem that makes the
best cake. But what do they think? They make all
kinds of cakes, but I just get like yellow cake,
white Yeah, come on, I get it. Yeah, I know.
We once we were in Mexico once. It was a
friend of mine's birthday and we went to we just
couldn't find any cake. We were in the beach and
we went to that place where they put them in
(14:15):
the fridges and you see them. We thought, okay, and
we apologized for it, and we said this is all
we could get, and then we you know, lit the
candle blew it out, and literally it was one of
the great Yeah. I should say that as a because
it probably, but there's something about that kind of white cake,
you know, yellow frost day. Going back to the beginning,
(14:48):
what was food like in your household when you were
growing up as a kid. I grew up outside Philadelphia
in a very Greek neighborhood. I'm half Greek, and where
I first lived it was the neighborhood was very Greek. Mother.
My mom's Greek. Yeah, my mom's Greek, and so we
had a mix of Philly food and sort of seventies
(15:09):
food and American food and Greek food. But you know,
I grew up watching her make spuna capita and we'd
go every year to like the church festival down the
street was the only time you could get Lukoma's St.
Demetrius Greek Church, which one I came to live here.
They're like, you're staying on Stone's Road. I was like, oh,
(15:31):
that seems right to me. Um, you'd get Luca Mada's.
You know what those are there? Oh my gosh. They're
the like fried deep fried dough balls that get you
get hot honey and cinnamon poured on them. They're like
kind of the best. They puff up. Yeah, they're like
puffy hot balls of dough with yeah, and you only
they are real pain in the butt to make. Did
your mother make them? No? You only get them at
(15:51):
like the church festival once year. And anytime I've ever
gone into a Greek restaurant in New York that sometimes
there's a place in New York that I won't name where.
They often have them on the menu, and if you
order them, they're like, well, we don't have them tonight
because they're I think they're okay. And yes, so we
grew up eating that kind of stuff. Was your mother
born in Greece? And was she born my mother was
I believe conceived in the US, born in Greece and
(16:15):
brought back as an infant, like I think her mom
went to be around her mother when she delivered and
then came back. And did your grandmother come back to yes,
did she cook more Greek food for you than perhaps
your mother? Well, my grandmother had passed away when I
was still quite small, so my brother's eight years older
than me, he probably remembers my grandmother. I don't have
firsthand memories of any of my grandparents, but for sure
(16:39):
certain foods like the Avgo lemonal soup, which is the
Greek chicken soup with lemon and with or zo instead
of rice. I think it's probably similar to the way
Italian food versus sort of Italian American food, Like it's
the real stuff is lighter and fresher than that you
might know. You know, it's not like some heavy cheese
(17:00):
laden lusaka or the other thing my mom would always
make for us on special occasions is like for our
birthday or somethings, she would make bastizio. That was our favorite.
That's kind of their version of lasagna. It's just like
a becamel brown beef and tomato, a pasta with a
becamel baked on top. And as a kid, you know,
it's like all you ever want. I think that the
(17:21):
images you're saying going back to that of food when
you're in america's same as you say with Italian. I
grew up in Upstate New York. The idea that was that,
you know, Italian food was eggplant parmesan or meatballs and
spaghetti and very kind of heavy food. And then you
go to Italy and this piece of grilled fish with
herbs and olive oil, or you know, very light pasta.
I went to Grease. As you can see, I don't
(17:42):
know much about Greek food, and I've spent enough time
in Grease, but when we went there, we went to
Hdra and food was so gorgeous, so well. I mentioned,
it's a little bit like I know, you love Mexico
and it's sort of the same thing you're like we're here,
we're by the sea, cook what we caught today, Like
that kind of life is interesting how that translates. Then
(18:02):
why is it that when you know, immigrants then come
came to the United States, And I guess, I guess
it was just the idea of giving abundance, of giving
a lot of food or making people feel that, you know,
and things that need to be that keep them the refrigerator.
It's not the same I think for you saying first
generation still cooks the food from the country, doesn't it
(18:25):
from the home country, and the second generation is trying
to adapt, and then the third generation is probably completely
forgotten about it. You know. Apparently my grandmother was from Hungary,
never went anywhere without her rolling pin. Yeah, she just
didn't trust anybody to roll out the strudal or whatever
she was making, you know. But then my mother never
cared and made anything like that. Did your father cook? No,
(18:48):
My mom did the cooking, and I think she was,
you know, cooked by just the virtue of the fact
that that was what was expected. If her I don't
think she she did well. She had worked for like
a brokerage firm in her youth, and I she definitely
once I was in high school, she went back to work.
I think she was a woman who liked to work,
and the sort of the norm at the time was
you don't work when you have kids, So she didn't
work until I was She didn't work until I was
(19:10):
a little bit older. She cooked in that kind of
seventies rotation of like, okay, one night is hot dogs
and beans, and then it's shrimp peel off. And I
do remember it was that part of the seventies where
like the American economy was not great, and I remember
that there were certain things would be like every two
weeks there'd be like a stake that we all shared
and then you take the like grocery store white bread
(19:31):
and get to soak up all the like a one
sauce on the plate, you know, and then we'd go
to have hamburgers on pay Day once a month. So
it was that very like nineteen seventies seven seventy eight.
There wasn't a lot of money to go to restaurants.
It was it still feels like there was a focus
on food for sure, and events were all very you know,
if it was Christmas time or birthday part like back
(19:53):
when your kids, especially like so many kind of Greek
specialties that would be like getting ready for the Hollies
would be like making back lava and she she would
make baklava, she would make ka and her friends would
come over and it was like, Okay, we gotta pustle
on this because all those things with the puff pastry
are they're labor intensive. Yeah, so that's I love that.
That's sweet. It was ultra sweet, so step yeah. And
(20:16):
then the kuruleikia are the ones that are like little twists.
Look they look like the aids ribbon and they're not
very sweet. They're like closest to like a not a biscotti,
but that you would have them with coffee. And that's interesting.
We grew up with such a culture of food that
you did up as part of your identity would be
that eating Greek food, but you were in the community
(20:37):
of people Greek food. And for sure, for sure, I
still love to cook. In the spring in New York,
I love to cook dandelion. And my mom's aunt came
to visit from Greece and she kept saying to my mom,
like in Greek, which I can't speak, but like she
wanted to pick the dandelion greens out of like the
cracked sidewalk where she lived in and I was like, no, no, no,
(20:59):
the you can't eat those like she'd be like cats
pe on those you get because in her mind just like,
oh there's there's dandelions, we should cook them. That again
because back to the culture of richards, rilla chiefs and
Florence used to go out in the fields and you know,
it wasn't even cold forging. It wasn't called something very special.
You just pick, and especially things like as you say, dandelion.
My husband Jeff, when he was originally from West Virginia
(21:21):
and then his family moved to Ohio, they would go
out into the woods behind their house and pick ramps
in the spring, which are these very garlic eat some
across between strong garlic and a scallion, and use them
to just cook potatoes. And he was blown away. One
day a couple of years ago, we were at some
New York City spring farmers market and there was a
(21:41):
bundle of ramps for like sixteen dollars for a bunch,
And he took a picture and sent it to his
mother and she was like, couldn't stop laughing this pop
folks yeah, I was supposed to do with dinner with
Alice Wolter and I Rose and I were doing it
for an Edible Schoolyard, which is a foundation, and as
I said, let's call up Alice. As we were thinking
(22:03):
can we get the fish from Maine? And can we
get this from here? And what we're gonna get? And
I said, what are you gonna do Alice? For food?
She's went, We're going to Farge in Central Park. And
it was like, how do you compete with that? She
was going to go and find her green. She found
a complete sandwich in a trash can. Maybe, So speaking
of sandwiches, we'll get onto that. But what about did
(22:25):
you go to restaurants? A lot of times we would
go to restaurants that either Greek family friends owned, like
little kind of coffee shop, dinery restaurants. I also had
my godparents their son owned for a long time a
huge diner in Wildwood, New Jersey called the Vegas Diner.
I don't know if you know that Jersey Shore area,
but it's these gorgeous nineteen fifties diners. There's a lot
(22:46):
of them. Are landmark now. It was those kind of
places where the menu is like fourteen pages long, and
you can either get like shrimp scampy or an omelet
or whatever. But when those places are good, they're so good.
I grew up with diners, not so much in upstate
New York is maybe on the New Jersey shore. And
then when I married an Italian, I loved really good
(23:06):
food and we lived in Paris. People would always say
to me, where did you eat New York? And I'd say,
we've We've got to that diner. Because Richard all he
wanted was either a strawmy sandwiches or diner food. And actually,
if you analyze it, probably diner food is when it's
good because it's all cooked fresh right then. And there's
a diner in my neighborhood in New York that does
they just roast guests. I don't know how many, but
(23:29):
they roast turkeys every day. So when you get a
turkey sandwich from the diner, it's like, yeah, the day
after Thanksgiving, it's the most delicious fresh turkey. Yeah. Are
they still around diners? And are they Are they thriving?
Do you think they are in New York? I think
they've managed to survive the pandemic. I think um. One
thing that the city did that was probably smart was
when everyone could only do delivery during the pandemic, they
(23:49):
allowed people to deliver alcohol also, so every delivery menu
would they would lead on the app. They'd be like,
do you want it's four glasses of wine? Do you
want a cosmo? Also grilled cheese also like that. I
think that helped them stay afloat financially. The other thing
that I have a really fond memory of was Saturdays,
and I think this is kind of a Philadelphia thing.
We'll get up. I'd go run the morning Saturday morning
(24:11):
errands with my dad, which always included going to the
good Italian deli near our house and getting like fresh
we would call lunch meat, but really it was pretty
legit stuff because it was like slice provolone, mordetella, what
went in Philly, what they would call gobba gul, which
I think is like capri cola, Like we were called
a Gobba cola, but like all these proper Italian lunch
(24:34):
meats and really fresh rolls and stuff, and come home
and then that would be like the reward would be
make a big gass sandwich with that stuff that's just
so so good. And that's growing up with that real
Italian stuff. I can't when I when I went to
college in Virginia and it was like regular, like Bolognan,
that is not it? Growing up in this house that
(24:55):
were you and nurtured and exposed, wonderful you did then
go to the University of Virginia. Was that traumatic not
to have? I remember being at the University of Virginia.
Within the first couple of weeks I was there going
to the cafeteria and picking up what I thought was
a breaded chicken cutlet and biting into a chicken fried
steak and be like, what the hell is this? I
(25:17):
don't know what. They take a steak and bread it
and deep fed like chicken, and it is gross. But
then you know, believe me, wherever you put me, I
will find what there is to eat with the other
I figured out, like, okay, the way to play it
in Virginia was to go to a chain called Morrison's
Cafeteria and just get the vegetarian plate, which was like biscuits,
(25:38):
black eyed peas, collared greens, yeah, grits with butter and salt.
These were all foods I had never had before. Did
you ever have your own apartment when I did eventually.
But I'll tell you exactly what I used to eat,
and then you can imagine what I looked like from that.
I didn't cook properly. I used to get a box
of Kraft macaroni and cheese and make it and then
add to it a drained can of tuna fish and
(25:59):
some lightly cooked frozen peace. Stir that together and eat
all of it, and then eat a pine of ice cream?
Did that cause you to gain weight? I mean I was.
I was, honestly, like it's a it's a miracle. I
didn't gain more weight because I would do that often. Yeah,
what also? Probably I probably also had a side of
apple sauce for nutrition. Ye did your mom ever teacher?
(26:22):
Did she ever trying to teacher? She has taught me.
I've since gotten her to show me how to do
this the Spanna copa. She Yeah, no, I think the
few things I've learned to cook, I've learned some moves more.
I would say, well, I've learned more in the last
five years than I did growing up. When you stud
when you're in college and you're doing that, probably food.
(26:42):
There was some somebody and who did I talked to
our friend and Brian, and he said that when he
was at the Rhode Old School of Design, it was
almost as an art school and it was almost competitive
as well. You could cook and this is interesting an
expression and eat and and then every night somebody had
to make a different dish and they were all involved
(27:03):
in cooking. But I think it's more unusual. I think
most people when they go to college, I left home
and then they're just you know, on the meal plan
or whatever. And also economically, but the macaroni cheese, is
that the last time you had that tuna macaroni cheese?
What was the other ingredient piece. I've tried to convince
I tried to make a actually to deconstruct that come
(27:24):
like I assembled that, assembled that okay. I think I've
tried to sell my kids on just old seventies tuna
castrole because that was like and they were like, no,
this is terrible. Created these monsters. I know, They're like,
can we have yellow tail sish? And what about when
(27:48):
you became domestic, when you did start having kids and
you did have a husband and did Jeff Cooks is
a natural cook. My husband is a fantastic cook. He's
someone who did learn from his grandmother. His grandma per
Lean taught him all these things. His previous generations of
his family were coal miners in West Virginia, and in
the coal camps they were kind of Irish English families,
(28:09):
and then there were a lot of Italians and they
would cook together. The women of the Coalkimes would all
go and cook together. And so Jeff grandma would make
what she referred to as two fingers. She's like, well,
we're gonna make two fingers and it's yulki and they ya,
so they called. So he knew how to cook, and
he some people are just natural, right, Like I'm the
kind of person if I cook and have to read
(28:29):
it a hundred times and I measure and then and
whenever there's anything that's instinct related, like is the steak done? Like,
my instincts are terrible. So in his instincts are good.
I'm I'm getting better. You can cook a steak from myself,
but I had to really learn. And he's just a natural.
He can kind of cook anything. He does most of
(28:50):
the cooking in our house. Yeah, And what's that? Like?
Are you able to have dinner with your kids on
the weekday? Yeah, we tried to, and we tried. We've
really been committed to doing a big Sunday dinner with
some friends every week over and then I did nice.
It's really nice. We had one together that night. We
pa it's a kind of day where you're getting ready
for Monday and thank goodbye to the weekend. It's it's
(29:11):
it's a good night. Yeah. So you have lunch with
your kids, or Sunday night dinner. We have Sunday dinner
with friends with friends come different friends come over and
Jeff cooks that and it's usually like roast chicken or
you know, could a beef or sometimes it's sometimes he'll
do pasta or how often do you go out as
a family. Well, it's interesting. You know, we're just in
New York. I think we were just starting to go
(29:34):
back to places in person in the last six points.
So we were ordering in a lot before then because
I didn't want the restaurants to close. And then you know,
when Jeff is busy, then I get excited to be like, oh,
I'll do the family weeknight dinner. And I'm always trying
things and it's I don't know if your family was
the same way, but when kids are younger, I can
never find something that both of them like. So I'll like,
(29:57):
let's try chicken vinegar. One likes it, Well, let's try.
You know, I see with my grandchildren that there's just
a very different way of approaching food, which is basically,
you know what, one will have like this, and like
you said, chicken, and one doesn't. One's vegetarian and one's
not eating gluten. No, one doesn't like fish at all.
Nobody likes fish. I guess there was a time in
(30:20):
life maybe if we're all sitting here when you ate
what you were maybe given yes, which we've tried to
sort of explain to me. But you know, Lauren said
this to me once, and I think as smart as
like you can't make them have your childhood. You can't
explain to like you, they don't have your child Now
it's done. Yes, that's over. So there is and maybe
having all that choice makes for a happier not for
(30:42):
the person who's cooking at I had a friend who
had a girlfriend of one of my sons had the
best most amazing posture. She was French. She just was
amazing and we all said, very ney, how did you
get that? She said, well, every time we sat down
to dinner, my father which just make sure that we
sat up straight, and we just sat like that, you know,
and we all have fantastic posture, but we hate family dinners. Interesting,
(31:02):
she said, I might have this posture, but you know,
never do I want to sit down to a meal
with family because they were tortured, Because that's all. It's
too rigid. There's probably a heavy medium, and you do
go out, but you now go out, Yes, we're back
to going out. And where do they eat when now
my older daughter likes to go meet up with her
friends and they just go to like a Mexican place
in the neighborhood. But Penelopes, which is quite smart about food,
(31:25):
is a good eater. And also both of them were
I have to say that night we had dinner at
the River Cafe. They were really sophisticated and a choice.
Malpi has the bummer of she has a tree not allergy,
so that's like. But but beyond that, she she's the one.
She'll eat vegetables, she'll eat, She'll eat like a braised
cavalon narrow. She'll sit there and she'll eat. She and
Jeff do a thing that Timmy is insane where the
(31:45):
two of them both like to take sardines and put
them on like a saltine cracker with a yellow mustard
and eat it. I can realize that which I will
not eat that, but I love it when she eats
it because it's about the healthiest thing you could eat,
is that pure fish oil? Yeah, and then Alice is
a bit more picky, but they were good eaters. I
was talking to again Ivy, one of my granddaughters, and
(32:06):
we're talking about loving food. She said, she goes to
bed at night and thinks what she's going to have
to breakfast the next day, and then she gets up
in the morning and she thinks, oh, now that she's
working in this way, she has early lunch at twelve,
but she likes that because it means she could have
another lunch at three. And you know, and if you
were asking some of the chefs here, they when they're
biking to work, they're thinking about what they're going to cook,
(32:27):
and they're thinking and talking to you. The character that
we see is very you know, you love food on
thirty Rock and you're queuing up for the hot dogs
and you're getting throwing something because they ate your sandwich
and everything. But it is a certain kind of food.
It isn't the foodie food, is it? Because we don't
want to watch somebody eating us who play Grandmagnier every
(32:47):
you know that? So what is that? What is the
food you dream of? You really do the food? I
do think. I do like simpler food. I don't like
anything with two sort of saucy or you know, like
Fike French food. I don't really, but I think. I
just I think, and also like that growing up with
(33:08):
that Greek fool where everything is just like olive oil
and some lemon and salt. You know, I think when
I'm here by myself, which I've been here for things
to myself almost a vegetarian, you know, I want to
cook just like vegetables and pasta and bread and cheese.
(33:31):
You're here doing acting in a movie called Haunting in Venice,
directed by Sir Kenneth Branda. It's when Agatha Christie inspired
murder mystery. And it's been very fun to be here
shooting in an ensemble with some really great actors Michelle
Yo and Jamie Dornan and Camilica Tan and Kelly Riley,
and it's just been fun to be basically on the
(33:54):
Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. I've just been inside
that ride for three months because we're on this set
that's like a spooky old Venetian palazzo in the dark
all day, every day for three months. Is the culture
of filming in Britain, in Europe and London very different?
And back to food, is it a different food culture
that it is a little different? We are lunch is
(34:16):
our hours are very civilized here. We stopped every day
at six on the dot, which at home, depending on
who you're working for, you could drift into eight o'clock,
ten o'clock, one am, you could work really late. Yeah,
we start our lunch is very short. It's only half
an hour, which was sort of we weren't used to
it at first, but none I grew to really like
it because then you don't kind of lose momentum. Usually
(34:36):
come back for Americans that you come back from lunch
a little sleepy and you have to get a coffee.
But this was a half hour lunch and then back
in and um and just everyone offering you tea. Constantly
drinking so much tea, which is nice tea and digestive.
Is there a food scene in it. I didn't get
to do any on camera eating, that's shame. There was
(34:59):
a nice thing on set, which was again because food
is the only way to communicate with people. Because the
cast were all from different places, we started um kind
of sharing our favorite unique snacks from our countries, which
started because somehow I was it was it was Halloween
when I first got here, and I was talking about
candy corn, and of course no one here knew what
(35:20):
that was, and so I had a friend bringing me
a couple of bags of candy corn to share, and
we started taking a poll. We'd give it to the
Brits and and film their reactions. UM and people thought
it was disgusting, which I respect. I love it, but
it was a great conversation starter when we were all
new to each other and we were like kind of
an icebreaker. And then other people started bringing in a
woman walking A Yoshihara is our head of our hair
(35:43):
and makeup department, and she's Japanese, and so she started
bringing in Japanese candy and we're trying, like and some
were great, some were disgusting. You have these plum candy
that looks like a children's vitamin I apologize to anyone
loves these, but she was so amused to film each
of us trying them. It's so funny that something could
be a complete comfort treat to her that to my
(36:04):
palate was horrible. And same with the candy corn. And
then some of the Brits started bringing it was getting
closer to Christmas and Kelly Riley brought in. She said,
this is a cheap chocolate that we grew up with,
this quality street mixed chocolates. And then uh, Emma Laird
was bringing different kinds of crisps. And then we kept
asking Camille Catan, who's French, like what you know, what's unique?
(36:24):
What kind of weird candy can you bring? And she
was like I don't know what I can bring. And
then she by the way, why might imitating her like
she saw my high like um and uh. And then
she Camille showed up with gorgeous cheese from France for
the whole crew. She's like, we don't eat garbage. Yeah,
so she brought this like gorgeous, gorgeous cheese. What is
the movie called. It's called a Haunting in Venice. Haunting
(36:45):
in Venice, So you actually are going to go to Venice.
Now we go to Venice tomorrow. Have you been there before?
I have never been there. Okay, so what are you
thinking about Venice? And food? Friend of mine took their
kid to Venice. I'll just tell you and the kid
it was a ten. It was a big, big deal
for them together. They have much money. They flew from
New York. They went to Venice and they said, how
do you like Venice? After three days? Said I thought
(37:05):
there would be more canals. There are a lot of
canal What are you thinking about Venice? Weirdly, the one
thing I'm most excited for about Venice is not a
food thing, which is I'm excited to film outside. I'm
excited to a little bit of chaos because I am
used to shooting outside in New York City and we've
(37:28):
been on this lovely contained set for a while, and
I kind of like the idea that, like something could
go a little wrong. I'm a little bit convinced that
I'm going to fall in the canal, but I don't
think I will, but maybe I will if you do.
It's okay because the water is much cleaner than it
was when it used to be the pandemic. There are
no cruise ships. That's probably those cruisials. Those crustians are
(37:48):
too big together. So and I haven't even had a
chance to really think about what we're going to eat
or wear. So I need you to tell me where
to eat. There's great food in Venice. You know, there's
the Sepia Narrow. They have these black squid with the ink.
And a friend of mine who grew up outside of
Venice said that she only really had pasta when she
was thirteen. Because everybody ate risotto, You're gonna have a
(38:10):
wonderful time. I'm excited, exciting because you know, and this
is podcast as we ask the guests to read a recipe.
And so you did say to me when I tried
to persuade you to do various other recipes, that you
really wanted to do slow cooked tomato sauce. And how
could I possibly ever say no to team? The only
other person who really bagged it was Jake Chilnel, and
(38:30):
he said, I'm only doing this, Ruthie, if I can
read tomato pasta. So he said yesterday, but that was
not with so much butter, and it was a year
and a half ago. So here you go here, okay,
recipe that you could read for tomato. Pay, I'm going
to say tomato, though, tomato. I know I've been here,
you know how many years? For years? I think you
come say tomato, okay, okay. Slow cooked tomato sauce serves
(38:55):
six to eight or in my case two three tablespoons
olive oil to garlic. Clothes was peeled and cut into
slivers to one kom jars peeled plum tomatoes drained of
their juices, d and fifty grams un salted butter cut
into cubes, which I would say visually to me it
was about a third or a half a cup of butter.
(39:16):
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Fry the
garlic until lightly browned. Now add the tomatoes and stir
to break them up. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Cook slowly, stirring occasionally for at least an hour. When
the sauce is ready, it will be extremely thick, no
juice at all. Cook taglarini in boiling salted water for
two minutes. Drain and add tomato sauce. Stir in the butter,
(39:37):
Toss well and serve. There you go. So when you
go back to New York, oh yeah, I need there's
your dish. So if we were talking about comfort, you're
talking about comfort, and you're talking about snacks, and you're
talking about you know, nationalities and what their views are
of comfort. And we think about cooking as being a
way of expressing love and something that alleviates hunger and
(39:58):
something that we want to share or keep to ourselves.
We also think of food as comfort. And so my
last question to you in this January day, the first
day back in the River Cafe after Christmas, and as
I said tragically for me, the day that you and
George are leaving as sad, what Tina fe is your
(40:20):
comfort food? Well? I have so many. You can name
a few. You don't have to have to to come
top of list, but there are so I mean, apasta
like this. Obviously this tomato pasta would be top of
the list. I also think back to New York diner food,
sort of a grilled cheese with tomato with the big
sort of steak fries that you get at a diner
(40:41):
and then open the grilled cheese and put a few
fries into the sandwich with a fountain coke not pepsi. Okay,
that would be one is there another one? And the
other one would be yellow cake with white eyes. Okay.
So so these both come from her. So when I
come to New York in February March, can we have
that together. I'll make the cake, you know, I'll no,
(41:01):
I'll get the cake from make my cake, okay, and
we'll get the little we'll go to the Van Diner. Okay.
I can't wait. Thank you, Thank you, Repo. The River
Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online. It
has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs from
the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty delicious
(41:25):
and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of River
Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
The River Cafe Lookbook recipes for cooks of all ages. Yeah,
Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of I Heart
Radio and Adam I's Studios. A few months ago, my
good friend Lauren Michaels texted me to say that Tina
Fey was coming to London to star in the new
Barro movie. He knew I would love her from the
first meeting. It became a friendship formed with food. Tina
(00:23):
arrived at our house with a beautiful box of chocolates
for me, as brought up to do by her mother,
and I brought home a River Cafe lemon tart for her.
The first dinner, I made slow cooked tomato pasta. She
ate two portions and then we played cards. I think three.
I'm actually you know, being collite. Tina was there for
(00:44):
the Rogers family traditional Thanksgiving Italian style with puntarell Knew
olive oil and cavalon naro and turkey. There was a
teatime visit when four of us say pretty much a
whole panatoni and wrote a song for the River Cafe
Christmas party. Best of all was a dinner in the
River Cafe when her family, Jeff, Alice and Penelope came
(01:05):
for the holidays and we ordered every dessert on the menu.
Of course, millions of us have shared food with Tina
fe in thirty Rock, which she wrote and starred in,
and were even her name. This lemon was food related.
Sandwich is never to be shared. Hard cheese eaten at midnight.
Advice given to John McEnroe unwhere to buy the best
(01:26):
cupcakes in New York City. Her obsession with hot dogs
resulting in a food warning from the street vendor on
s n L. A brandy husband devouring a cake while
discussing grants and weekend update, and who could forget the
cafeteria scene in the movie She wrote, mean girls. Okay,
I'm Sean win Owen and I'm the axcexy chef at
(01:48):
the River Cafe. Today. We're making a smarte Telli really
with Tina Fey, because we're gonna make a tacky really
with slow coup tomato, sauce and butter. Which is probably
one of Reple's secrets is adding the butter to it
and it cook the master in boiling salted water. They
would say that you should cook pastor in water that's
a salty sea. So yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, true.
(02:10):
The thing about to taste like Yeah, that's what I think.
Having the competent to see some water that much is
a man bold. I'm not afraid of salt. You know,
I have low blood pressure, so I can have as
much stuff I want. You wanted the lucky, I tell myself, Mush,
I had this giant pasta boiling station in my hands.
This is what you want? I mean, uhha. Now we
(02:34):
know that it does about a half a cup of butter,
you know, one person portion? Oh smell yeah, only because
we can't pour it right into my mouth here at
the station. This being an audio format is not doing
this coast of justice having a nice high pile, and
(02:56):
it's pretty gorgeous. If I could marry a non human entity,
I would marry this post. This is like one of
Grief's house classics. Yes, I had this. I had the
deep privilege of I went to Ruthie's house once, my
friend she served this at her house. And then um,
then somehow we figured out that we could be jerks
(03:18):
and comm here in order and offenya exactly open you
is ubl just have it for yeah, any day, the
special occasion if you try hard enough. Um, thank you
Joy for that. Thank you. Yes, Tina is leaving London
tomorrow words I can hardly bear to say. And her
(03:42):
last day in London is here in the River Cafe.
She's made as tomato sauce in the kitchen with Sean
and the chefs, and is now in the recording studio
with me, and she's already told us what she wants
to eat for lunch. A friendship formed with food, indeed,
and Lauren was right. I do love her. Thank you
real fas nice introduction. Good, Well, you've just been in
(04:10):
the River Cafe kitchen. What was it like? Oh my god,
it's the most beautiful dance happening in the kitchen, everyone
working so perfectly together. And also Sean was saying, today's
the first day back after Christmas break, and so everyone
you would never know it. Things are are flowing perfectly
and everything looks delicious. And what was it like making
the pasta? What did you do? Well? I did learn
(04:31):
that one secret to the pasta because I was wondering
what was so extra about this beautiful, simple tomato pasta.
And I think the answer is that it's a buffalo
milk butter. A sizeable portion gets dropped on this pasta
right at the end and melted into it. And it's
very good time. When people come to our house and
I'm making it, I often say, would you, um, would
(04:54):
you like to go? Because it's an open kitchen, I
would you actually go? Sit down about it? Feels such
a trader for using butter in the pasta when everybody
thinks that tom de pasta is olive oil impasta tomato
and that's delicious. You know, tomato pasta without butter is delicious.
But there's something about the butter which kind of holds
it together and makes it straight. And I definitely say
(05:16):
I did. I think I gasped out loud when I
saw she showed me how much she drops on top,
and I was like, I know that when you're meeting it,
how is it? It's wonderful. Let's talk about your life
in comedy for a second. It all started in Chicago.
What were you doing there? I went there to study
improv and comedy and worked at a place called the
(05:37):
Second City and another place called the Improv Olympic, and
that's where I met my Husband's where I'm at. Jeff
was the piano player for the Improv Olympic and also
worked at the Second city eventually, and that's where I
met my dear friend Amy Poehler, so many of my
good friends. So in those days, would you do improv
all day and then say let's go and eat. We
would again. It was a diner culture. We would go
(05:58):
to this question what was the name of that? There
actually was an NPR piece about this amazing waitress who
worked at that dinner. Oh my god, what was the
name of the diner? I'll have to think about it.
But we would go because we would go. It's crazy
that I can remember, because we would go at least
once a day, oftentimes twice a day. We'd go, you know,
have something before the show, and then go back at
one am. Do you like to eat before you perform again?
(06:18):
At the time, I was not treating my body like
the beautiful instrument, So yeah, I would eat before. I
would eat, like like Boston Market four and then and
then in the middle of the we're going to get
the Boston Market was a god willing now defunct chain
that sold like rotisserie, chickens and turkey. And I used
(06:40):
to say, I would get I would get food of
Boston Market, and you start to get sick before you
left so then it was like you never even ate.
It was perfect. But then we'd go and have usually
after the shows we do two short shows on a
Friday and Saturday and go and have like a giant
breakfast of like eggs and a waffle. One am two
how I see, So the show finish, then you'd get out. Yeah,
(07:03):
there seems with friends of mine who are often in place,
that there is a thing of we'll go out to
eat afterward because you're adrenaline. It's too It's yeah, it's
a bit like in the chef world as well. There's
a whole not so much anymore now that everybody's you know,
stopped and all that stuff. But when after after a
performance in away and what you described, or having an
(07:26):
audience there the curtain going up, there's a lot of
I always think the reason probably a lot of actors
like to work in restaurants is there is a similarity.
You know, there's a drama that takes place and everything else.
But in the old days, and Rose and I first started,
and I don't know what happens now, I don't think
so much people would go out after a service. I
go out at ten clubbing or to eat something because
(07:48):
you know, I know that adrenaline that hits and at
the end of theater, Yes it is. It's the end
of your work day, so you want to go out
and have your evening, and your evening just happens to
be at one o'clock in the morning. Yeah. The one
thing I used to love with it Saturday Night Live.
Saturday it was the most fun day because it's the
day where it's finally all happening and you can spend
a lot of time being worried, and then Saturday you
(08:09):
just have to kind of go down the slide, you know.
And we would have these crew lunch dinner. I guess
we'd were sort of rehearse from one pm untill about
five thirty pm, and you'd go down to the NBC
cafeteria and have lunch with everybody or dinner with everybody.
That's one of my favorite memories of working there. Actually
on a film set or on television, seems there are
(08:31):
different attitudes. I had a conversation before with Wess Anderson,
who really his dream would be not to have any lunch,
just to shoot all day and not stop because and
another director said the same that they just found having
to stop and then go back and then do that.
But am but the crew it wasn't so happy with that.
You know. His idea was he said to try and
have his soup and then everybody just go back and
(08:53):
then have a big meal at the end of the day.
But the crew wanted wanted to They want to break
and you need that break and need that. When you're
producing a film or a theater, do you think about
what people are going to eat? I mean, I always
if I'm producing something, I want the food to be
good and to be ample. And oftentimes if you want
to reward the cast and crew, you send more food.
(09:14):
We send like food trucks, like pizza truck, coffee truck.
The food is in my I believe food is the
only reward in life, in life because I like that.
Sure money, sure yeah, we still have it. A wonderful
lady who's no longer with us, whom an angel, who
was in charge of what's called craft services on thirty Rock,
which is you have your meals, you get in like
(09:36):
there's a truck. There's catering does breakfast and lunch, but
all the food that you just eat in between that
all day, there would just be a table in the
hallway with food. And Angel had so much passion about
her job and she was Italian American from Staten Island
and she would show up with these things. Would be
like Angel, what is this what? And and Alec Baldwin,
who loves to eat, he was in love with her
(09:57):
and everything about her because she would just bring him
these beautiful like whatever like balls and mazza rel these
crazy bread was that like rolled up art to choke
bread and all this stuff. It was so much more
than what you would normally get, like a bowl of
apples and some candy. And this episode of Dirty Rock,
there's a whole storyline about the perfect sandwich. And there's
this thing where, um, I'm chasing a guy that I
(10:19):
love through the airport, but when you don't go through,
they want me to take my sandwich. And yeah, but
the first you have to describe that. I'm not going
to do it because I think it is one of
the great scenes in food. Thank you. I I will say,
I think as an actor, perhaps my only specialty is
on camera eating. I commit to it. I'm great at it.
(10:42):
And so so this is a scene where Liz lemon
is she's chasing her love interest, who is played by
Jason Sadakis, who you all may know as Ted Lasso.
And I'm chasing through the airport and I've been also
the other part of the stories. I've been trying to
get the teamsters, the union drivers to tell me where
they get these great sandwiches. So I've got my special sandwich.
And the security guard at the airport says, you have
to leave the sandwich behind, you can't take it through,
(11:04):
and I I say no, I believe women can have
it all. And I'm gonna eat this sandwich in one
bite before I go through security. And I'm still going
to catch the man. And so it came down to Angel,
this woman who did our craft services said, Angel, this
is a special assignment for you. I need you to
make me the perfect sandwich. Normally it would have been
the props department, but I said, Angel, you're gonna make
(11:26):
the sandwich and and I need it to be I
need to be able to eat it in one bite.
So she went to these bakers that she knew in
Staten Island and had them custom make I don't know
what it was the softest. When I tell you that sandwich,
I can remember to this day. That sandwich was so delicious.
(11:46):
It was an Italian sub so it had like some
salami and some what I would call gobba gooul, some cheese.
It wasn't a fake sandwich. And I ate it in
one take and I remember saying they were like, we
got it, and I was like, did me? Because if
you need me to do it again, I am willing
because it was so good. But the credit goes to
(12:07):
Angel because the bread like melted in my mouth. I
love that scene. I just love that scene because it
was like, what's important here right now? And also that
you have left out. One thing about that sandwich was
there was a dipping sung There was a dipping sauce
too that I had to dip it in, Yeah, to lubricate.
Was that's the writing not only job. I'm going to
(12:28):
eat the sandwich security, but I'm gonna dip it. Doesn't
she say something about this is a cliche or yeah,
something that was. I think it was that Johnny May
the actresses. I think I might bet she's so funny.
She's like really, yeah, So eating on camera is it
hard to do? Yeah? It can be because you when
you film something, you film it a million times and
(12:49):
so if you this is something fun you can look
at when you watch movies now, you will notice that
the actors and dinner scenes almost never put food in
their mouth because if you were to do it, you
would do it. The camera will be far away, you
would do it. And then they now that you'd have
to eat like ten plates of food. And so actors
are usually pretty adept at not doing it. Not me.
(13:10):
I get in there the only time, the one on
and now when you're eating the cake, when you're talking
about I mean it is. It is a work of
art to see the way you at a minute now,
I thought I was going to be sick. Did you
just do? But you did that one? I didn't. Well,
I did it twice because we have a dress rehearsal,
and I thought to myself, you know what, I better
really do it in dress rehearsal because it was live TV.
(13:32):
And I was a little worried that I would choke,
and I thought I was worried were going to choke.
I was worried I was going to choke. And that cake,
I will say, the only disappointment with that one was
that I love them dearly. But that was the SML
Props department and that cake was not tasty. I was
trying to run a scam. I was like, can you
get this cake from my favorite bakery and they were
like no. I wanted them to get it from a
(13:54):
place called make My Cake and Harlem that makes the
best cake. But what do they think? They make all
kinds of cakes, but I just get like yellow cake,
white Yeah, come on, I get it. Yeah, I know.
We once we were in Mexico once. It was a
friend of mine's birthday and we went to we just
couldn't find any cake. We were in the beach and
we went to that place where they put them in
(14:15):
the fridges and you see them. We thought, okay, and
we apologized for it, and we said this is all
we could get, and then we you know, lit the
candle blew it out, and literally it was one of
the great Yeah. I should say that as a because
it probably, but there's something about that kind of white cake,
you know, yellow frost day. Going back to the beginning,
(14:48):
what was food like in your household when you were
growing up as a kid. I grew up outside Philadelphia
in a very Greek neighborhood. I'm half Greek, and where
I first lived it was the neighborhood was very Greek. Mother.
My mom's Greek. Yeah, my mom's Greek, and so we
had a mix of Philly food and sort of seventies
(15:09):
food and American food and Greek food. But you know,
I grew up watching her make spuna capita and we'd
go every year to like the church festival down the
street was the only time you could get Lukoma's St.
Demetrius Greek Church, which one I came to live here.
They're like, you're staying on Stone's Road. I was like, oh,
(15:31):
that seems right to me. Um, you'd get Luca Mada's.
You know what those are there? Oh my gosh. They're
the like fried deep fried dough balls that get you
get hot honey and cinnamon poured on them. They're like
kind of the best. They puff up. Yeah, they're like
puffy hot balls of dough with yeah, and you only
they are real pain in the butt to make. Did
your mother make them? No? You only get them at
(15:51):
like the church festival once year. And anytime I've ever
gone into a Greek restaurant in New York that sometimes
there's a place in New York that I won't name where.
They often have them on the menu, and if you
order them, they're like, well, we don't have them tonight
because they're I think they're okay. And yes, so we
grew up eating that kind of stuff. Was your mother
born in Greece? And was she born my mother was
I believe conceived in the US, born in Greece and
(16:15):
brought back as an infant, like I think her mom
went to be around her mother when she delivered and
then came back. And did your grandmother come back to yes,
did she cook more Greek food for you than perhaps
your mother? Well, my grandmother had passed away when I
was still quite small, so my brother's eight years older
than me, he probably remembers my grandmother. I don't have
firsthand memories of any of my grandparents, but for sure
(16:39):
certain foods like the Avgo lemonal soup, which is the
Greek chicken soup with lemon and with or zo instead
of rice. I think it's probably similar to the way
Italian food versus sort of Italian American food, Like it's
the real stuff is lighter and fresher than that you
might know. You know, it's not like some heavy cheese
(17:00):
laden lusaka or the other thing my mom would always
make for us on special occasions is like for our
birthday or somethings, she would make bastizio. That was our favorite.
That's kind of their version of lasagna. It's just like
a becamel brown beef and tomato, a pasta with a
becamel baked on top. And as a kid, you know,
it's like all you ever want. I think that the
(17:21):
images you're saying going back to that of food when
you're in america's same as you say with Italian. I
grew up in Upstate New York. The idea that was that,
you know, Italian food was eggplant parmesan or meatballs and
spaghetti and very kind of heavy food. And then you
go to Italy and this piece of grilled fish with
herbs and olive oil, or you know, very light pasta.
I went to Grease. As you can see, I don't
(17:42):
know much about Greek food, and I've spent enough time
in Grease, but when we went there, we went to
Hdra and food was so gorgeous, so well. I mentioned,
it's a little bit like I know, you love Mexico
and it's sort of the same thing you're like we're here,
we're by the sea, cook what we caught today, Like
that kind of life is interesting how that translates. Then
(18:02):
why is it that when you know, immigrants then come
came to the United States, And I guess, I guess
it was just the idea of giving abundance, of giving
a lot of food or making people feel that, you know,
and things that need to be that keep them the refrigerator.
It's not the same I think for you saying first
generation still cooks the food from the country, doesn't it
(18:25):
from the home country, and the second generation is trying
to adapt, and then the third generation is probably completely
forgotten about it. You know. Apparently my grandmother was from Hungary,
never went anywhere without her rolling pin. Yeah, she just
didn't trust anybody to roll out the strudal or whatever
she was making, you know. But then my mother never
cared and made anything like that. Did your father cook? No,
(18:48):
My mom did the cooking, and I think she was,
you know, cooked by just the virtue of the fact
that that was what was expected. If her I don't
think she she did well. She had worked for like
a brokerage firm in her youth, and I she definitely
once I was in high school, she went back to work.
I think she was a woman who liked to work,
and the sort of the norm at the time was
you don't work when you have kids, So she didn't
work until I was She didn't work until I was
(19:10):
a little bit older. She cooked in that kind of
seventies rotation of like, okay, one night is hot dogs
and beans, and then it's shrimp peel off. And I
do remember it was that part of the seventies where
like the American economy was not great, and I remember
that there were certain things would be like every two
weeks there'd be like a stake that we all shared
and then you take the like grocery store white bread
(19:31):
and get to soak up all the like a one
sauce on the plate, you know, and then we'd go
to have hamburgers on pay Day once a month. So
it was that very like nineteen seventies seven seventy eight.
There wasn't a lot of money to go to restaurants.
It was it still feels like there was a focus
on food for sure, and events were all very you know,
if it was Christmas time or birthday part like back
(19:53):
when your kids, especially like so many kind of Greek
specialties that would be like getting ready for the Hollies
would be like making back lava and she she would
make baklava, she would make ka and her friends would
come over and it was like, Okay, we gotta pustle
on this because all those things with the puff pastry
are they're labor intensive. Yeah, so that's I love that.
That's sweet. It was ultra sweet, so step yeah. And
(20:16):
then the kuruleikia are the ones that are like little twists.
Look they look like the aids ribbon and they're not
very sweet. They're like closest to like a not a biscotti,
but that you would have them with coffee. And that's interesting.
We grew up with such a culture of food that
you did up as part of your identity would be
that eating Greek food, but you were in the community
(20:37):
of people Greek food. And for sure, for sure, I
still love to cook. In the spring in New York,
I love to cook dandelion. And my mom's aunt came
to visit from Greece and she kept saying to my mom,
like in Greek, which I can't speak, but like she
wanted to pick the dandelion greens out of like the
cracked sidewalk where she lived in and I was like, no, no, no,
(20:59):
the you can't eat those like she'd be like cats
pe on those you get because in her mind just like,
oh there's there's dandelions, we should cook them. That again
because back to the culture of richards, rilla chiefs and
Florence used to go out in the fields and you know,
it wasn't even cold forging. It wasn't called something very special.
You just pick, and especially things like as you say, dandelion.
My husband Jeff, when he was originally from West Virginia
(21:21):
and then his family moved to Ohio, they would go
out into the woods behind their house and pick ramps
in the spring, which are these very garlic eat some
across between strong garlic and a scallion, and use them
to just cook potatoes. And he was blown away. One
day a couple of years ago, we were at some
New York City spring farmers market and there was a
(21:41):
bundle of ramps for like sixteen dollars for a bunch,
And he took a picture and sent it to his
mother and she was like, couldn't stop laughing this pop
folks yeah, I was supposed to do with dinner with
Alice Wolter and I Rose and I were doing it
for an Edible Schoolyard, which is a foundation, and as
I said, let's call up Alice. As we were thinking
(22:03):
can we get the fish from Maine? And can we
get this from here? And what we're gonna get? And
I said, what are you gonna do Alice? For food?
She's went, We're going to Farge in Central Park. And
it was like, how do you compete with that? She
was going to go and find her green. She found
a complete sandwich in a trash can. Maybe, So speaking
of sandwiches, we'll get onto that. But what about did
(22:25):
you go to restaurants? A lot of times we would
go to restaurants that either Greek family friends owned, like
little kind of coffee shop, dinery restaurants. I also had
my godparents their son owned for a long time a
huge diner in Wildwood, New Jersey called the Vegas Diner.
I don't know if you know that Jersey Shore area,
but it's these gorgeous nineteen fifties diners. There's a lot
(22:46):
of them. Are landmark now. It was those kind of
places where the menu is like fourteen pages long, and
you can either get like shrimp scampy or an omelet
or whatever. But when those places are good, they're so good.
I grew up with diners, not so much in upstate
New York is maybe on the New Jersey shore. And
then when I married an Italian, I loved really good
(23:06):
food and we lived in Paris. People would always say
to me, where did you eat New York? And I'd say,
we've We've got to that diner. Because Richard all he
wanted was either a strawmy sandwiches or diner food. And actually,
if you analyze it, probably diner food is when it's
good because it's all cooked fresh right then. And there's
a diner in my neighborhood in New York that does
they just roast guests. I don't know how many, but
(23:29):
they roast turkeys every day. So when you get a
turkey sandwich from the diner, it's like, yeah, the day
after Thanksgiving, it's the most delicious fresh turkey. Yeah. Are
they still around diners? And are they Are they thriving?
Do you think they are in New York? I think
they've managed to survive the pandemic. I think um. One
thing that the city did that was probably smart was
when everyone could only do delivery during the pandemic, they
(23:49):
allowed people to deliver alcohol also, so every delivery menu
would they would lead on the app. They'd be like,
do you want it's four glasses of wine? Do you
want a cosmo? Also grilled cheese also like that. I
think that helped them stay afloat financially. The other thing
that I have a really fond memory of was Saturdays,
and I think this is kind of a Philadelphia thing.
We'll get up. I'd go run the morning Saturday morning
(24:11):
errands with my dad, which always included going to the
good Italian deli near our house and getting like fresh
we would call lunch meat, but really it was pretty
legit stuff because it was like slice provolone, mordetella, what
went in Philly, what they would call gobba gul, which
I think is like capri cola, Like we were called
a Gobba cola, but like all these proper Italian lunch
(24:34):
meats and really fresh rolls and stuff, and come home
and then that would be like the reward would be
make a big gass sandwich with that stuff that's just
so so good. And that's growing up with that real
Italian stuff. I can't when I when I went to
college in Virginia and it was like regular, like Bolognan,
that is not it? Growing up in this house that
(24:55):
were you and nurtured and exposed, wonderful you did then
go to the University of Virginia. Was that traumatic not
to have? I remember being at the University of Virginia.
Within the first couple of weeks I was there going
to the cafeteria and picking up what I thought was
a breaded chicken cutlet and biting into a chicken fried
steak and be like, what the hell is this? I
(25:17):
don't know what. They take a steak and bread it
and deep fed like chicken, and it is gross. But
then you know, believe me, wherever you put me, I
will find what there is to eat with the other
I figured out, like, okay, the way to play it
in Virginia was to go to a chain called Morrison's
Cafeteria and just get the vegetarian plate, which was like biscuits,
(25:38):
black eyed peas, collared greens, yeah, grits with butter and salt.
These were all foods I had never had before. Did
you ever have your own apartment when I did eventually.
But I'll tell you exactly what I used to eat,
and then you can imagine what I looked like from that.
I didn't cook properly. I used to get a box
of Kraft macaroni and cheese and make it and then
add to it a drained can of tuna fish and
(25:59):
some lightly cooked frozen peace. Stir that together and eat
all of it, and then eat a pine of ice cream?
Did that cause you to gain weight? I mean I was.
I was, honestly, like it's a it's a miracle. I
didn't gain more weight because I would do that often. Yeah,
what also? Probably I probably also had a side of
apple sauce for nutrition. Ye did your mom ever teacher?
(26:22):
Did she ever trying to teacher? She has taught me.
I've since gotten her to show me how to do
this the Spanna copa. She Yeah, no, I think the
few things I've learned to cook, I've learned some moves more.
I would say, well, I've learned more in the last
five years than I did growing up. When you stud
when you're in college and you're doing that, probably food.
(26:42):
There was some somebody and who did I talked to
our friend and Brian, and he said that when he
was at the Rhode Old School of Design, it was
almost as an art school and it was almost competitive
as well. You could cook and this is interesting an
expression and eat and and then every night somebody had
to make a different dish and they were all involved
(27:03):
in cooking. But I think it's more unusual. I think
most people when they go to college, I left home
and then they're just you know, on the meal plan
or whatever. And also economically, but the macaroni cheese, is
that the last time you had that tuna macaroni cheese?
What was the other ingredient piece. I've tried to convince
I tried to make a actually to deconstruct that come
(27:24):
like I assembled that, assembled that okay. I think I've
tried to sell my kids on just old seventies tuna
castrole because that was like and they were like, no,
this is terrible. Created these monsters. I know, They're like,
can we have yellow tail sish? And what about when
(27:48):
you became domestic, when you did start having kids and
you did have a husband and did Jeff Cooks is
a natural cook. My husband is a fantastic cook. He's
someone who did learn from his grandmother. His grandma per
Lean taught him all these things. His previous generations of
his family were coal miners in West Virginia, and in
the coal camps they were kind of Irish English families,
(28:09):
and then there were a lot of Italians and they
would cook together. The women of the Coalkimes would all
go and cook together. And so Jeff grandma would make
what she referred to as two fingers. She's like, well,
we're gonna make two fingers and it's yulki and they ya,
so they called. So he knew how to cook, and
he some people are just natural, right, Like I'm the
kind of person if I cook and have to read
(28:29):
it a hundred times and I measure and then and
whenever there's anything that's instinct related, like is the steak done? Like,
my instincts are terrible. So in his instincts are good.
I'm I'm getting better. You can cook a steak from myself,
but I had to really learn. And he's just a natural.
He can kind of cook anything. He does most of
(28:50):
the cooking in our house. Yeah, And what's that? Like?
Are you able to have dinner with your kids on
the weekday? Yeah, we tried to, and we tried. We've
really been committed to doing a big Sunday dinner with
some friends every week over and then I did nice.
It's really nice. We had one together that night. We
pa it's a kind of day where you're getting ready
for Monday and thank goodbye to the weekend. It's it's
(29:11):
it's a good night. Yeah. So you have lunch with
your kids, or Sunday night dinner. We have Sunday dinner
with friends with friends come different friends come over and
Jeff cooks that and it's usually like roast chicken or
you know, could a beef or sometimes it's sometimes he'll
do pasta or how often do you go out as
a family. Well, it's interesting. You know, we're just in
New York. I think we were just starting to go
(29:34):
back to places in person in the last six points.
So we were ordering in a lot before then because
I didn't want the restaurants to close. And then you know,
when Jeff is busy, then I get excited to be like, oh,
I'll do the family weeknight dinner. And I'm always trying
things and it's I don't know if your family was
the same way, but when kids are younger, I can
never find something that both of them like. So I'll like,
(29:57):
let's try chicken vinegar. One likes it, Well, let's try.
You know, I see with my grandchildren that there's just
a very different way of approaching food, which is basically,
you know what, one will have like this, and like
you said, chicken, and one doesn't. One's vegetarian and one's
not eating gluten. No, one doesn't like fish at all.
Nobody likes fish. I guess there was a time in
(30:20):
life maybe if we're all sitting here when you ate
what you were maybe given yes, which we've tried to
sort of explain to me. But you know, Lauren said
this to me once, and I think as smart as
like you can't make them have your childhood. You can't
explain to like you, they don't have your child Now
it's done. Yes, that's over. So there is and maybe
having all that choice makes for a happier not for
(30:42):
the person who's cooking at I had a friend who
had a girlfriend of one of my sons had the
best most amazing posture. She was French. She just was
amazing and we all said, very ney, how did you
get that? She said, well, every time we sat down
to dinner, my father which just make sure that we
sat up straight, and we just sat like that, you know,
and we all have fantastic posture, but we hate family dinners. Interesting,
(31:02):
she said, I might have this posture, but you know,
never do I want to sit down to a meal
with family because they were tortured, Because that's all. It's
too rigid. There's probably a heavy medium, and you do
go out, but you now go out, Yes, we're back
to going out. And where do they eat when now
my older daughter likes to go meet up with her
friends and they just go to like a Mexican place
in the neighborhood. But Penelopes, which is quite smart about food,
(31:25):
is a good eater. And also both of them were
I have to say that night we had dinner at
the River Cafe. They were really sophisticated and a choice.
Malpi has the bummer of she has a tree not allergy,
so that's like. But but beyond that, she she's the one.
She'll eat vegetables, she'll eat, She'll eat like a braised
cavalon narrow. She'll sit there and she'll eat. She and
Jeff do a thing that Timmy is insane where the
(31:45):
two of them both like to take sardines and put
them on like a saltine cracker with a yellow mustard
and eat it. I can realize that which I will
not eat that, but I love it when she eats
it because it's about the healthiest thing you could eat,
is that pure fish oil? Yeah, and then Alice is
a bit more picky, but they were good eaters. I
was talking to again Ivy, one of my granddaughters, and
(32:06):
we're talking about loving food. She said, she goes to
bed at night and thinks what she's going to have
to breakfast the next day, and then she gets up
in the morning and she thinks, oh, now that she's
working in this way, she has early lunch at twelve,
but she likes that because it means she could have
another lunch at three. And you know, and if you
were asking some of the chefs here, they when they're
biking to work, they're thinking about what they're going to cook,
(32:27):
and they're thinking and talking to you. The character that
we see is very you know, you love food on
thirty Rock and you're queuing up for the hot dogs
and you're getting throwing something because they ate your sandwich
and everything. But it is a certain kind of food.
It isn't the foodie food, is it? Because we don't
want to watch somebody eating us who play Grandmagnier every
(32:47):
you know that? So what is that? What is the
food you dream of? You really do the food? I
do think. I do like simpler food. I don't like
anything with two sort of saucy or you know, like
Fike French food. I don't really, but I think. I
just I think, and also like that growing up with
(33:08):
that Greek fool where everything is just like olive oil
and some lemon and salt. You know, I think when
I'm here by myself, which I've been here for things
to myself almost a vegetarian, you know, I want to
cook just like vegetables and pasta and bread and cheese.
(33:31):
You're here doing acting in a movie called Haunting in Venice,
directed by Sir Kenneth Branda. It's when Agatha Christie inspired
murder mystery. And it's been very fun to be here
shooting in an ensemble with some really great actors Michelle
Yo and Jamie Dornan and Camilica Tan and Kelly Riley,
and it's just been fun to be basically on the
(33:54):
Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. I've just been inside
that ride for three months because we're on this set
that's like a spooky old Venetian palazzo in the dark
all day, every day for three months. Is the culture
of filming in Britain, in Europe and London very different?
And back to food, is it a different food culture
that it is a little different? We are lunch is
(34:16):
our hours are very civilized here. We stopped every day
at six on the dot, which at home, depending on
who you're working for, you could drift into eight o'clock,
ten o'clock, one am, you could work really late. Yeah,
we start our lunch is very short. It's only half
an hour, which was sort of we weren't used to
it at first, but none I grew to really like
it because then you don't kind of lose momentum. Usually
(34:36):
come back for Americans that you come back from lunch
a little sleepy and you have to get a coffee.
But this was a half hour lunch and then back
in and um and just everyone offering you tea. Constantly
drinking so much tea, which is nice tea and digestive.
Is there a food scene in it. I didn't get
to do any on camera eating, that's shame. There was
(34:59):
a nice thing on set, which was again because food
is the only way to communicate with people. Because the
cast were all from different places, we started um kind
of sharing our favorite unique snacks from our countries, which
started because somehow I was it was it was Halloween
when I first got here, and I was talking about
candy corn, and of course no one here knew what
(35:20):
that was, and so I had a friend bringing me
a couple of bags of candy corn to share, and
we started taking a poll. We'd give it to the
Brits and and film their reactions. UM and people thought
it was disgusting, which I respect. I love it, but
it was a great conversation starter when we were all
new to each other and we were like kind of
an icebreaker. And then other people started bringing in a
woman walking A Yoshihara is our head of our hair
(35:43):
and makeup department, and she's Japanese, and so she started
bringing in Japanese candy and we're trying, like and some
were great, some were disgusting. You have these plum candy
that looks like a children's vitamin I apologize to anyone
loves these, but she was so amused to film each
of us trying them. It's so funny that something could
be a complete comfort treat to her that to my
(36:04):
palate was horrible. And same with the candy corn. And
then some of the Brits started bringing it was getting
closer to Christmas and Kelly Riley brought in. She said,
this is a cheap chocolate that we grew up with,
this quality street mixed chocolates. And then uh, Emma Laird
was bringing different kinds of crisps. And then we kept
asking Camille Catan, who's French, like what you know, what's unique?
(36:24):
What kind of weird candy can you bring? And she
was like I don't know what I can bring. And
then she by the way, why might imitating her like
she saw my high like um and uh. And then
she Camille showed up with gorgeous cheese from France for
the whole crew. She's like, we don't eat garbage. Yeah,
so she brought this like gorgeous, gorgeous cheese. What is
the movie called. It's called a Haunting in Venice. Haunting
(36:45):
in Venice, So you actually are going to go to Venice.
Now we go to Venice tomorrow. Have you been there before?
I have never been there. Okay, so what are you
thinking about Venice? And food? Friend of mine took their
kid to Venice. I'll just tell you and the kid
it was a ten. It was a big, big deal
for them together. They have much money. They flew from
New York. They went to Venice and they said, how
do you like Venice? After three days? Said I thought
(37:05):
there would be more canals. There are a lot of
canal What are you thinking about Venice? Weirdly, the one
thing I'm most excited for about Venice is not a
food thing, which is I'm excited to film outside. I'm
excited to a little bit of chaos because I am
used to shooting outside in New York City and we've
(37:28):
been on this lovely contained set for a while, and
I kind of like the idea that, like something could
go a little wrong. I'm a little bit convinced that
I'm going to fall in the canal, but I don't
think I will, but maybe I will if you do.
It's okay because the water is much cleaner than it
was when it used to be the pandemic. There are
no cruise ships. That's probably those cruisials. Those crustians are
(37:48):
too big together. So and I haven't even had a
chance to really think about what we're going to eat
or wear. So I need you to tell me where
to eat. There's great food in Venice. You know, there's
the Sepia Narrow. They have these black squid with the ink.
And a friend of mine who grew up outside of
Venice said that she only really had pasta when she
was thirteen. Because everybody ate risotto, You're gonna have a
(38:10):
wonderful time. I'm excited, exciting because you know, and this
is podcast as we ask the guests to read a recipe.
And so you did say to me when I tried
to persuade you to do various other recipes, that you
really wanted to do slow cooked tomato sauce. And how
could I possibly ever say no to team? The only
other person who really bagged it was Jake Chilnel, and
(38:30):
he said, I'm only doing this, Ruthie, if I can
read tomato pasta. So he said yesterday, but that was
not with so much butter, and it was a year
and a half ago. So here you go here, okay,
recipe that you could read for tomato. Pay, I'm going
to say tomato, though, tomato. I know I've been here,
you know how many years? For years? I think you
come say tomato, okay, okay. Slow cooked tomato sauce serves
(38:55):
six to eight or in my case two three tablespoons
olive oil to garlic. Clothes was peeled and cut into
slivers to one kom jars peeled plum tomatoes drained of
their juices, d and fifty grams un salted butter cut
into cubes, which I would say visually to me it
was about a third or a half a cup of butter.
(39:16):
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Fry the
garlic until lightly browned. Now add the tomatoes and stir
to break them up. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Cook slowly, stirring occasionally for at least an hour. When
the sauce is ready, it will be extremely thick, no
juice at all. Cook taglarini in boiling salted water for
two minutes. Drain and add tomato sauce. Stir in the butter,
(39:37):
Toss well and serve. There you go. So when you
go back to New York, oh yeah, I need there's
your dish. So if we were talking about comfort, you're
talking about comfort, and you're talking about snacks, and you're
talking about you know, nationalities and what their views are
of comfort. And we think about cooking as being a
way of expressing love and something that alleviates hunger and
(39:58):
something that we want to share or keep to ourselves.
We also think of food as comfort. And so my
last question to you in this January day, the first
day back in the River Cafe after Christmas, and as
I said tragically for me, the day that you and
George are leaving as sad, what Tina fe is your
(40:20):
comfort food? Well? I have so many. You can name
a few. You don't have to have to to come
top of list, but there are so I mean, apasta
like this. Obviously this tomato pasta would be top of
the list. I also think back to New York diner food,
sort of a grilled cheese with tomato with the big
sort of steak fries that you get at a diner
(40:41):
and then open the grilled cheese and put a few
fries into the sandwich with a fountain coke not pepsi. Okay,
that would be one is there another one? And the
other one would be yellow cake with white eyes. Okay.
So so these both come from her. So when I
come to New York in February March, can we have
that together. I'll make the cake, you know, I'll no,
(41:01):
I'll get the cake from make my cake, okay, and
we'll get the little we'll go to the Van Diner. Okay.
I can't wait. Thank you, Thank you, Repo. The River
Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online. It
has over one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs from
the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty delicious
(41:25):
and easy to prepare recipes, including a host of River
Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks.
The River Cafe Lookbook recipes for cooks of all ages. Yeah,
Host
Ruth Rogers
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