April 1, 2024 • 44 mins
The first time that Sarah Jessica Parker and I spoke, the tables were turned. She was on the phone in The River Cafe kitchen, and I was on a beach in Mexico. It was really hard to hear her with the noise of pots and pans, the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. But her dazzling warmth travelled the 6000 miles. If the phone connection was poor, the friendship connection was instant.
Last month, she was in The River Cafe with her family, and I was there with mine. They were sitting on table one, just a few feet from the pink wood oven close to the drama of the kitchen. And there she was, dazzling and warm. ‘How does all this work, Ruthie? How do you make sure that Matthew's ravioli comes out the same time as my asparagus bagna cauda.’ ‘This kitchen’, she said, ‘feels like the inside of a pinball machine with energy bouncing between the different stations. How do you all have the energy to do both lunch and dinner?’
Now, I suppose if I went backstage to Plaza Suite, the play that Sarah is doing here with her husband, Matthew Broderick, I would have similar questions. ‘How does this work, Sarah? What do you do if someone forgets their lines? And how do you all have the energy to do a matinee and an evening performance?’ Today we're here not miles apart, inches apart. Two friends together, surrounded by all of you great people. What a connection.
Listen to Ruthie’s Table 4: Sarah Jessica Parker in partnership with Moncler.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Everyone, Welcome to the River Cafe. I can't think of
a nicer place to be on the sunny spring morning
than here. We have a live audience for this very
special episode that features Sarah Jessica Parker, hosted by Pause
Lucy Rogers. Enjoy the interview and we'll be taking questions later.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The first time that Sarah Jessica Parker and I spoke,
the tables returned. She was on the phone in the
River Cafe kitchen and I was on a beach in Mexico.
It was really hard to hear her with the noise
of pots and pants, the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean,
but her dazzling warmth travel the six thousand miles. If
(00:56):
the phone connection was poor, the friendship connection instant. Last Sunday,
she was in the River Cafe with her family and
I was there with mine. They were sitting on Table one,
just a few feet from the pink wood oven, close
to the drama of the kitchen, and there she was
dazzling and warm. How does all this work, Ruthie, How
(01:17):
do you make sure that Matthew's ravioli comes out at
the same time as my asparagus. Banya Kouten. This kitchen,
she said, feels like the inside of a pinball machine,
with energy bouncing between the different stations. How do you
all have the energy to do both lunch and dinner? Now?
(01:39):
I suppose if I went backstage to Plaza Suite, the
play that Sarah is doing here with her husband, Matthew Broderick,
I would have similar questions. How does this work, Sarah?
What do you do if someone forgets their lines? And
how do you all have the energy to do a
matinee and an evening performance? Today? We're here, not miles apart,
(02:03):
inches apart, two friends together, surrounded by all of you
great people. What a connection?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So here we are. Did you ever work in a restaurant? No?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
But I say this knowing how hard it is. I
think I would really love to be a server.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Like I really think that this summer she is, and
you I.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Was, we were really admiring your service to the day
because I said to the girls, I was like, I'm
not sure that I've seen servers move this fast a
long time. Because Sunday is a very busy day for
you guys, right, like a specially.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That day was a really busy day.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And I was saying to somebody and I said, you know,
I don't get to come to the River Cafe very often.
I don't live in London, and to myself, to Matthew, it's.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Like a very it's a it's like a special thing.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
It's like something you earn or maybe you work toward
or you pine about, and then you visit it and
you're not sure if you made it all up, like
is it possible that you joined a sort of cult,
like a kind of thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can it be?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And then you come here, My hand gout it is
and the kitchen really is. It's extraordinary to watch. It
is like a pinball machine, but it's like there's such
precision about it.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
And I love watching the.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Chefs talk to each other quickly and passing or actually
come together to speak. I don't know, it's amazing and
it's it's glorious. We were thrilled to be here, really well.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
We're thrilled to have you and I. When we first
did the completely open kitchen, you will remember after the fire,
Richard Air, who's a director of theater came in and
I said, Richard, isn't it just like theater watching everyone around?
And he said, actually, with me, it isn't. It's like
ballet m and he said because watching people everybody. You
(04:03):
can't shout in an open kitchen. I mean, sometimes raise
your voice, but basically you're moving around to speak to
people about if you need to. Usually there's a kind
of communication.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
And this time I had the ravioli with the spinach
and the ricotta and those tiny gorgeous porcini mushrooms that
are like a surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
They don't talk about that as much.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And we ordered two and I was like, my daughter said,
do you think we can order another one?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
James Welk said, can we order another one? Which just
seems so like.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Gluttonous and decadent and greedy. And then I was like,
you know what, yes, And if anybody says anything, I'll
just say we'll take it like I'm sorry that we're
being so like real like animals about this, but it's
a kind of it's good to think of it as
(04:54):
this kind of once in a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
It's just incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One of the things I think that you'll probably everyone
in this room would think about, was that in Sex
and the City and the way you talk about food
the joy So many conversations were over food, and it
was the pleasure of food. It was enjoying food as
a way of communicating and being together, which we you know,
we all feel here that we a restaurant is a
(05:20):
place where you share, you know, food you're sitting down
at the table or at home with your children. Yeah,
and so how is that working in Sex and the
City and doing was that from you?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I always love food scenes.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
I think it initially it was initially in place I
think probably from either Candice's original source material or Darren
Starr wrote that first coffee shop scene, which I think
was just a great meeting place to sort of talk
about the themes of the of each episode, like get
the headline out, and then each person those kind of
(05:54):
archetypal characters would share points of view, so we knew
where where everybody stood, and it allowed for controversial conversation
or titillating conversation. But I will say this that Cynthia Nixon,
who is a dear friend of mine, and we've been
working together since we were little girls. We've known each other,
(06:15):
so we.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Were eleven or ten.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
She was a child actor also, and we would always
audition together. She often got the part. But we played
siblings when I was very young. We played sisters on records.
They used to do records of stories, and we played
Laura and Mary Ingalls, and then we played siblings of
We played children of Vanessa Redgrave in a movie. But
(06:42):
Cynthia and I in those coffee shop scenes, we always eat. Yeah,
we always eat, and we always need to like reprop
our plate, and then when we finally wrap, they'll always
they always said to Cynthia, me and Cynthia, do you
guys want to take.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It to go again today? Yes, we do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So we really like those scenes, and we very much
go back and forth about what you can they'll send
the menu in advance now now that we all have
the phones and things, and because they want you to
order an advance for props to have everything ready and multitude,
you know, multiples of it. So we'll go back and forth.
Would you order are you going to order? They all
order that, So you ordered that and we can share.
(07:24):
So the food is the lines are blurred.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
The joy of food. Yes, yes, was something that we
are all thinking about. How we combine, you know, food,
and I think it's it's changed. You find that your
daughters are different now in terms of their attitude.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean I I never was very disciplined about it.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I just wasn't.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
I think I'm not really good at like denying myself something.
And I think also I was a dancer for so
long and running around, so it was I was able
to be that way. It's certainly not the same now.
But I also just I had girls. I just was
so I didn't want them to have a relationship with
(08:12):
food that was antagonistic or they felt like this was
their enemy and that they were going to have to
sort of like stake out a position with food. So
when I was growing up, we weren't allowed sugar in
the house, and we were allowed to cookies, and we
weren't allowed the chocolate. And of course all we did
the minute we moved out was buy Entimate's cakes and cookies,
(08:33):
and you know, and I didn't want that. So in
our house, we have cookies, we have cake, we have everything.
And I think as a result, you kind of have
a healthier relationship and my daughters will have the figures
they have and hopefully they'll be healthy in their athletes
and they enjoy food, and they have different palettes, and
you can't make someone like something they don't like or want.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
And I hope that they.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I hope that they can maintain their affection for the
experience and their delight in taste and find their own
ways to have that be healthy for them.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And your son. For food, it was fantastic to beat.
All three of them are just you know, involved in
the food and talking about the food and asking questions
about food.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
On Sunday, Matthew cooks.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
We both cook every single day, every day, every single day.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Every day. We probably eat dinner as a family every night.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
If I'm shooting or he's doing to play, obviously that
shifts around. We always have dinner Sunday night. But one
of us, if we're home, cooks every single day, and
we love to cook. And it's boring to keep saying
to each other what are we gonna eat? What are
we gonna eat? Are you going to go to the
grocery store? Am I going to go to the market.
But it's kind of just.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What we do.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Yesterday, I what did you last night? Last night, we
went to a restaurant in Chinatown.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Really quickly after the show.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
But I had made during the day, I made lamb
stew and Matthew made a white bean soup, so we knew.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
We have that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
I'd actually was bringing some to my son, but I
like to have it in the fridge for matinee days.
And but we cook every night because I don't know
why we never we never understood order. We didn't get
ordering in in time, and now we're too old to under.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We don't have I don't know how to use.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
A a thing, and every now and then we're really beat.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, say should we you know?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
But I'll still call a restaurant order, we pick it
up or they deliver it. But but we love cooking.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Do you think that's part of the drama. Do you
think it's part of theater, part of being an actor
that it's separate from what you do? Is it a time?
I know that when I was working, I would always
come home and everybody says, sit down and relax. And
I found the most kind of relaxing thing to do
is to cook, to.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Be in the kitchen. It is.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It's we always wonder about the post meal part, like
we're always like, wow, now we have to do all this,
you know, all the cleaning and stuff, so that that
kind of punctures some of the kind of healium of it.
But I don't know if it's so much relaxing as it.
It's just kind of what we do. It's like what's expected,
(11:31):
what else? What else is the family going to do
if we don't get in the kitchen. And in New York,
like here in London, you can run out at the
last minute.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You can make a meal quickly.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
It's not as like it doesn't seem as such a
big effort in a way, and often things just taste
better than if you're ordering it. In our opinion, we
I mean not that we don't think of ourselves highly
as like chefs or anything like that, But I don't know.
Our children always, I will say, they always say like, wow,
(12:05):
we're really lucky. We get to eat have dinner every night.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
When you're in a play, do you eat before you
before the performance? Are after?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I enchurgef so is it?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Did you go on stage hungry?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I mean a little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I'll have yogurt bananas. There's these eggs here that I'm
in love with that I go mad for the ones
I want to put my suitcase, but I know I'm
not allowed.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They're called burfer.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
They have those orange yolks that are just oh my god,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So we go through a lot of those.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I eat those bananas. I'll have some lamp stew or
barley and some meat.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I love your rashers. Here, your bacon, streaky bacon and kofta.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
From our local butcher is really nice.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I think it's time for our first question from our audience,
which said is going to read.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I used to work at the River Cafe and every
night I felt like customers had a different collective character.
Saturday night was different from Tuesday night, and it was
not the same every Saturday night, but it would become
a kind of dominant vibe. And then I started working
in theater and in my mind it was exactly the same.
And I wondered what your experience of London audiences has
(13:22):
been and are the different to American audiences.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Well, you've described it so beautifully, whether it's in America,
in New York City or here. This sort of I
always say, like, what time did they all get together
and decide who they were going to be tonight? Like
it's a conspiracy that they work so beautifully together. And
it is a range and a Saturday night can be
boisterous and civilized or boisterous and out of control and
(13:48):
sort of behaving I'm going to say poorly in quotes,
but not really but just more talkative.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And but.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Generally speaking, the audiences here have been really, really lovely
and very hospitable.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And we weren't sure because this is a very American
play by a real American playwright writing about kind of
cultural familiarity to Americans, especially New Yorkers, But they've been
absolutely wonderful. I think they've they've proven to be really
great listeners, like sincerely great listeners, but they do seem
(14:24):
to have psychically agreed upon something, and I don't understand it,
Like these people probably couldn't agree about anything else. If
you remove them from the theater, like as a whole,
maybe they could.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
But it is unique, and that is in a restaurant.
Don't you think that we can say, Yeah, you can
sort of put the same food at the same time,
the same with the same team. Yeah you can go
home at ten o'clock and think I'm a failure. You
know because it did. You really think this was one
of the greatest nights in my life.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah, this is so hard to it is, and it's
I think the human part of all of this is
the thing that's just hard to pin down. Like you
can't do the same show. You have a good show
and you're trying to sort of always mimic that, or
in the kitchen you'll have a great and you're always
(15:17):
trying to but it is human, So it's never going
to be the same.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's never going to last as long.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
The pause isn't going to get a laugh or maybe
it will or And I think that's what makes it
so exciting for a diner or hopefully for an audience.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Is they are very much a part of it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
They are a significant fifty percent of the relationship. Is
the diner to your chefs and your servers and you
and us with our audience, our playwright, our words, our director,
and this audience like they have to be our partner
for the night, and they show that in various ways.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen, napkins,
kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot uk. So, Sarah, you've just made
(16:38):
punturel lromado with Sean.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
There is something to me about Puntaurel salad that it
really it blows my mind. And it's very hard to
get in New York. For anybody who lives in New York.
Puntorella is like contraband, like apparently it's not allowed or
and when it is, there's like you have like four
days to enjoy it. And to have it here sort
(17:00):
of like at your whim to meet is such decadence.
This is a print role but I've never seen it
in its natural state to.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Be smaller, because we went in last week we were
and they were huge.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Massive heads of it. It's actually checorea, you know what.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
It's like a checorea plant, and so you can either
use the outside leaves and just chopp them up and
boil them as a vegetable and then this is like
the bulb in the middle.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Oh wow, it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Wow, the whole plant. Oh, my god, inside it is.
These things are like fingers.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
So what you generally do is just well you can
cut them off or pull them off.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Do you have to soak them or anything?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Yeah, the soaks all in the soaking, right, this goes
in ice water, and it goes in ice water for
about an hour and then it turns into bear with me, coller.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
No, you're okay, Oh you're here.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It's kind of will crunch you like this and.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
See I see you cut it, just put it in
nice water. So the dressing, I'll make.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
The dressing for one.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I'll put a tiny bit but whatever you want, don't
don't don't change anything on my account.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
What is that beautiful chili? Chili?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Gorgeous fine chili, like a tiny bit.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And then.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
These anchovies are really.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Chevies are so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
A bit more peppering.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I'll just touched my.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Hands probably about that much olive. This is actually making
it's going to be super well dressed.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Oh my god, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, this is just your dressing.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Oh so gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And it is literally simple.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now how dry? Did I get them dry enough? In
your estimation?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (18:47):
But I mean heaven as you like as much vinegar
as you like.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
Really, yeah, So Sarah read the recipe and I just
tell you that it's absolutely divine.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And it was on Sunday. Two heads of puntarell. Am
I saying it correctly? Puntarell, five salted anchovies cleaned, and
your wonderful chef used Spanish anchovies, two tablespoons of red
wine vinegar. One garlic clove chopped. And then she did
this gorgeous thing with her knife where she sort of
smeared Sean's right, Sean. I'm sorry, Sean. She sort of
(19:27):
took her knife and mashed it and made it a
wonderful kind of misery. One garlic chove chopped as I've had,
two dried chilis, one teaspoon of black pepper, four tablespoons
of extra virgin olive oil. And then to prepare the puntarell,
fill a bowl with ice cold water, adding a few
ice cubes. Pull the hollow buds from the puntarel heads.
(19:49):
I guess once they're out of that and nice and
clean and crisp, slice the buds very thinly lengthwise and
place in the water to crisp until they curl up.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
This will take about.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
An hour, Add the garlic to the anchovies with the
crumbled chilis and the pepper at the olive oil. Spin
dry the punterrell and place in a bowl and mix
with the anchovy sauce.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Per perfection, per perfection. I'm curious about when you first
had pontourel. That purel was Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
In Cincinnati and no, well, I moved to New York
when I was a very little girl. But we can
talk about the vegetables that were available in Cincinnati. But
the first time we had it, there was a wonderful
little restaurant that didn't last very long, and it was
on McDougall, and I can't remember the cross Street, right
(20:43):
off of sixth Avenue, and it was on the menu
and I just Matthew and I actually just read the
ingredients or the description and we thought, well, of course
we'll try it. And it was absolutely beautiful, and so
then we sort of like we're chasing it. I guess
a wee bit like truffles, like waiting for that moment you.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Know, yeah, that is Italian food. You have it, then
you say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, that's what makes it so especial.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, But going back to Cincinnati, tell us about eight children.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I'm one of eight, yes, and in Cincinnati at that
point we had only six. My mother was pregnant with
the baby girl when we moved to New York City.
We moved to New York City in nineteen on January
first of nineteen seventy seven, so I've lived there most
of my life. My real father is from Brooklyn, born
and raised, so we spent some time before that in
(21:37):
Brooklyn visiting and visiting my grandparents on my father's side.
But food was for a lot of my siblings. We
think and talk and share feelings, thoughts, experiences with food.
(21:58):
I would say in some way it dominates our relationship,
like it's the it's the thing that we I would say,
maybe with books as well, but food probably even more so.
And we all have a different relationship with it. Some
of us cook, some of us don't. Some of us
have money to explore restaurants that would be more rarefied,
(22:18):
and some don't.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
But food is.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
And always has been in my memory, this destination and
I always want to.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Have something I've never had.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Always, But did your mother did she cook? What were
meal times like?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And she cooked? We had dinner every single night. We
all seven, eventually all eight.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
My mother would probably say that she really didn't care.
She didn't enjoy cooking. She didn't come from a family
that enjoyed food. And I think with eight kids, yeah,
it was it was work versus joy. But simultaneously she
loved food. And she, as a young woman, went off
(23:09):
to New York City as an employee of Procter and Gamble,
which is a big company in Cincinnati, Ohio. You know,
like a lot of girls straight out of college, got
a job at Procter and Gamble and was sent to
New York to be a salesperson. And her first stop
was always Chinatown, Always Chinatown. She loved Chinatown. She loved
Chinese food. She loved anything that was different. And there
was a place in the sixties, this would be in
(23:30):
the fifth fifties, yeah, late fifties, mid to late fifties,
and there was a place called Dave's Lunchonette that was
a very famous place you just stopped by and had
an egg cream after having Chinese food. And so she
of course she grew up reading The New Yorker. The
librarians from the time she was a little girl would
(23:51):
save her the weekly New Yorker. So she would read
about food, and she would read about Chinatown, and she
would read about places in the outer boroughs. And so
for her, food was this thing that was part of
another life that she hoped to give all of us.
And so even though she didn't like cooking, and she cooked,
(24:12):
you know, three meals a day, we all helped with breakfast, lunch,
and breakfast and dinner lunch in the summers.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Did your mother work? Did she manage to feed seven
and eight children every day and work or did? She
was a school.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Teacher up until a few months after I was born,
and then I think that was her last year. She
taught second grade. At the time, we lived in a
very little city in southeastern Ohio. This was before Cincinnati.
It was in the foothills of Appalachia actually, And so
she taught second grade, but her students could be anywhere
(24:47):
from seven to fourteen years old, depending upon how much
time they've been afforded to be in school. And so
she stopped teaching for many many years, and just not
just she was a which she consumed all our time.
And then she started her own preschool. For many many years,
she had her own school in New Jersey. It was
(25:08):
a sort of Montessori. She's a progressive educator and she
retired from that about ten years ago, and she just
came to London to visit. My father passed away a
year ago, so she's newly.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Was there anybody helping her? Did your father ever go
and your stepfather ever go in the kitchen? And did
everybody help?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Everybody?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
It was our job school, do your homework and then
help get the dinner.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Yes, well, we came home from school, we did some
homework sort of, and then we wed ballet classes, and
so we'd come home from ballet, then we'd all jump
in and help in the kitchen. We all had jobs
before and after dinner that wasn't necessarily connected to cooking.
It was cleaning, putting things away, sweeping, loading the dishwa
(26:00):
unloading the dishwasher, helping with laundry.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, but even though.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
It was labor, we all came out of that house
for the most part, really loving food and willing to
try anything. And if I travel sometimes I say I'm
only going to try, like I'll take a job. I think, well,
I'm really taking this just so I can go eat this.
(26:27):
And you know, if you are on a holiday and
you go trying to find restaurants, and I do endless months.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Of research like where where, where, where where?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
And then you get to your destination and you'll try
to ask people and they'll send you the place that
everybody else in the hotel is going or everybody else,
and I'll say, no, no, no, no, please, where do you eat,
mister concierge, Miss concierge, where do you eat?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Where do you eat?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And they won't tell me because they think we want
this stacked food fancy, you know, And so I'll just
follow the employees home. Yeah, I literally follow them home,
and then I see where they live and their communities
and their restaurants, and that's where I go, and that's
where I shop hardware stores.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
You know, maybe you could just stay with the employees.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
But that's where so many tos and just yeah, because
you know, what, does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
If used to always go to bookstores. You get into
Verona or it's a little town in the south of
Spain or Italy, and he'd always, for some reason, he
would always think that people who worked in bookstores would
know would know where to eat, right, and probably where
they like to do. Those places that means it's.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think finding that local experience.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
It completes the experience in a way that sometimes you
can't have if you don't know. You know, like when
a local person gives you directions and you realize, oh,
they're giving me directions without realizing how little I know.
You describe to someone how to get on bleaker, you'd
have to say, listen, bleaker.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Is going to go left and right and up and down.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You have to give them those So when you get
to local, you're like having their experience.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I asked quite a few actors whether when they took
a part, whether they would not so much choose the
part that's kind of extreme. It's the restaurants were there.
But they quite a few of them did research before
going to shoot a film in Budapest or Venice or
wherever they were before they went to find out, you know,
(28:23):
where to eat. Yeah, because it's important, isn't it. When
I think it maybe a movie to feel part of
the community.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, wherever you can market I think, wherever you get
to travel for whatever reason, if you can somehow try
to embed a little bit in the local flavor of
a community.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
I don't know. Sometimes I'll I've been.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
You know, for work, you have to travel a lot,
and you do like these things like press junkets, you know,
and especially in the old days, they do these big
grand world tours and you'd be given a guide, which
was all wonderful and I was super grateful, But then
I would just say to the guide like, no, stop
the van, now, stop the van.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Now, I want to get out here.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
They're like, well, there's just houses here, and I was like, yes, exactly,
I just want to see the houses, you know, I
don't know, you feel like you're seeing something versus the
same boulevard with the fancy shops and the fancy restaurants.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Time for our question from our audience.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
What happens on an airplane you have a long distance flight,
because I cannot imagine the cuisine exciting you. Do you
bring your own food?
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Depends on the airline. Like I think a lot of
the Asian airlines have really, really really good food air lingis.
I love their food, but I will bring I always
have snacks in my bag. I always have meat sticks
that I love.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Like you know, healthy, no not.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I'll bring stuff that I think will get me through
a flight that might have that I might there might
be dubious.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I might have some feelings and concerns.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I might.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I can't bear the idea of being hungry. I just
like meaning, let me rephrase that. If I can help
that not be true, I will. I will keep up
my end, you know what I mean. So, but I
don't mind trying anything on an airline. I was, you know,
in the old days, what I was telling when we
used to do these big press junkets. We were always
(30:27):
flying to Japan, and I will say that food on
Japan airline was like what, I'm.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Just stay up just to eat. They're like, would you
like to rest?
Speaker 4 (30:36):
And I was like, absolutely not, I would like to eat,
and they just and then start the next offering, like
what else is on this menu?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you. When I was growing up, we
(31:07):
all went to restaurants for a special occasion, you know,
a birthday and anniversary and my mother just being possibly
too tired to cook. But it was a rare occasion
that we went and here in the River Cafe. We
see people coming in for Saturday lunch, Sunday lunch, early dinners,
late dinners, and kids are ordering and there is a
breadth of children and young people eating out.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Yeah, and that they're more used to it than I
ever was. I mean, it was such a big deal
to eat out for us growing up, and we certainly
get to and we get to travel in a way
that my family didn't take vacations. We didn't go on
a holiday, not until much later. And then it was
you know, you're sharing a house with another family and
you're still cooking all your meals. You wouldn't you know.
(31:50):
We would go to the outer Banks of North Carolina.
This was forty years ago more oh more, and it
was this sort of very pristine, not very popular destination.
And so the big deal for us was that we
would get crab and throw down newspaper and you know,
(32:10):
and that was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That was like eating out.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
But but my children when we when they came to
London to visit, we went out the first night and
they're like, oh my gosh, we'ven't been to a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
In so long.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
It's so exciting to be at a restaurant, so it's
still exciting, but it's something they're definitely more familiar with
it than I ever was.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And you a child.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I mean, I think one of another sumaries that we
both like our neighborhoods. You know that we like a neighborhood.
Ye I liked neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I love neighbors And.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know when we when we moved, it's not where
I live is in quite the West Village, but it
in the sense it doesn't have a perhaps a lot
of the character that you have, but it is a
place that you want to be involved in. So they
call up, you know, we called the local theater and
said we're.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Here, Yeah, what can we do?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Or you I know, you do that with your neighborhood. Yeah,
and your neighborhood, being the West Village, is probably full
of restaurants.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
We do.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Do you go to the same place over and over?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
We do? And especially.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
You know, after the pandemic, we were really concerned. There
were a lot of small businesses and restaurants included in
that that were not part of larger consortiums that were
really really struggling.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm sure you all had it here as.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Well, and it was so easy to be supportive because
there are neighbors and we know their family stories or
the stories of the restaurants, and we knew, you know,
the collateral damage, Like if something closes, it's not just that,
it's everything around it that kind of lives and breathes
(33:43):
off of it. And so it's it's very easy to
do it, not just out of you know, desire to
be a good citizen in a neighbor, but because it's one.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
They're wonderful restaurants.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
They're wonderful restaurants, and some are old and not inventive
at all, you know, they're not like rethinking or deconstructing
Italian food, but they've been in business since nineteen seventy eight,
you know. And then there's newer chefs that are doing
really exciting things. And then you've got your local little
delis and bodegas and everything in between. And it's a
(34:20):
real privilege to live among them and to say that
we are patrons and that we mean it.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know, there's so much to talk about. Can you
tell us about the wine?
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (34:32):
So I was asked now six years ago, seven years
ago by these two young gentlemen in New Zealand, producing
Savinyar Blanc out of the Marlboro region, which is not
that surprising if I would like to work with them
a partners them when I was absolutely confounded because I
didn't know anything about the wine business except that one
(34:54):
of the reasons my husband and.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I like to travel is to taste local wine.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I thought, like most of us, that you have to
come from generations of wine families, and the language I
thought I would never understand, and I thought it was
really only.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
For the rarefied few.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
But they said no, and I said, well, if you'll
let me really learn and really be as informed as possible,
that we can start talking about it. And of course
they did, and it's been an amazing, an amazing experience.
We're in our six vintage on our Savenye Bloc. It's
been picked in the top one hundred wines in the
world for the second time. It's won all sorts of awards,
(35:37):
Like I don't say this about my acting work ever,
Like I wouldn't say like I've won it, because I
know how you haven't. But but I'm so proud of
this because we worked really hard and it's been The
Savenyon Blanc has been so beautifully received, and our rose
has been beautifully received, and we've never I think done
below a ninety three and wine spectator, which is a
(35:58):
big deal in our business. And we're about to launch
our Pinon Noir, which is oh, it's so gorgeous. So
it's been amazing and I really love them and I
love the wine. So yeah, we just keep working really
hard and I do all the blendings and it's been incredible.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It's been a great education.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
If we were to say in this conversation that food
is fun and it's exciting, and it sustains us, and
we share it and we cook for our children as
an expression of love. It's also comfort if you do
need comfort. Is there a food that you would turn to, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Jessica far Yes, I would say that.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Pork chops, And I would just describe them more specifically
as saying, thin cut pork chops on the bone, not fancy,
not from your most special butcher, but from Christiiti's like simple,
(37:02):
put them in the pan with.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
All oiled salt and pepper and.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Heavens.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I just I don't know why I love it. My
brother loves them too.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But bringing up a very close competitor is probably lamb chops,
which I make probably two or three times a week.
I make pork chops at least twice a week, and
we here, I've made lamb.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
How do you make your lamb chops?
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I'm kind of embarrassed because it's not but we use.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
I use because I do the lamb chops. We use
carry gold butter, an'yone know carry gold butter. There's so
much unsalted butter in London. It's kind of hard to
find the salted. So I use carry gold butter and
just a touch of olive oil so the butter doesn't burn.
And I salt and pepper the baby lamb chops and
(37:51):
I throw them in and that's it. And they are
just that. You can taste all the fat. You can
smell the fat when it's cooking. And we eat a
lot of lamb in Ireland, and I've buy bought lamb here.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
From our local butcher. You go two or three times
a week.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You have a house in Ireland, yeah, it tell us
just about.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
It's way up in County Doneygall, so it's way up
northwest and my husband's been going there since he was
a little boy and I've been going there since we
were together, which was thirty years, and we finally bought
our own little house because he shares his family home
with his siblings and they have all grown children and
(38:29):
they have children, and so yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Go there a lot. What is the food, like, the
best potatoes?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
It really is like a cliche, but it's true, the greatest, greatest,
greatest potatoes ever, especially if you're there for the new
potato season is seven carry gold butter.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
York cabbage.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I don't know what it is about a York cabbage
that blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
The eggs, the rashers, any root stuff there is really good.
We don't We're not there enough to take care of
it and really earn it, you know, someday, someday.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
But yeah, white toast, white toast, baby batch. Anyone know
what a baby batch is?
Speaker 4 (39:13):
No, it would be forbidden in my house growing up,
Like we were not allowed to have white bread growing up.
It's just bread slices, like the kids like it. You
make sandwiches for when company comes over. But there's a
beautiful brown soda bread there that you just get it
in the Oh my gosh, that we eat crazy and
that we can get in the States.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
We can get a bunch of the food in the States.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Now I'm going to get carry go butter Grease is
my Grease is my favorite place outside of any place else.
It's maybe the food, and I think there's nothing better
than a Greek salad in grease and lamb chops, But
I just think the people, the history, the culture, the art,
(39:54):
the way it looks. Just seeing Grease for the first
time and seen white against blue, against sky against the sea.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I don't know. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
It's probably a place that I would spend many many
months a year if I could, like everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah, you have been part of so many award winning
productions over the years, whether it's film or television or theater.
I would love to hear about one of your favorite
celebratory meals.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Well, it happened to be my brother's birthday, but that
was coincidental. But he's my oldest brother and he's kind
of very important figure in our lives growing up. And
I had been like researching for a really long time
Georgian and Russian restaurants in Brooklyn. But like the real stuff,
like because there's a massive Georgian and Russian community, as
(40:51):
you guys probably know in Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
It's way way, way, way way out, like.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
You know, could be thirty stops on the train, but
you make like a pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
It's like a big deal.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Well it was for me, and I had been researching
and researching, and then this day appeared and I was like,
this is the day I'm going to do it. So
I called my brother Pippin because he's one of the
siblings that goes crazy for the food like me, and
I said in Matthew, like, let's just do it. And
so we went out on this long train ride, which
was fantastic because you're under and over and we had Georgian.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Food, deep deep, deep deep Brooklyn.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
And it was my brother's birthday, so it was really great.
And he had to go around the corner and buy
you know, spirits or wine or something. But that was
an unbelievable meal. Unbelievable meal. Yeah, it was everything. That's
what I could think of.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I just wanted to ask about the joy of going
to a restaurant that's comforting, like jeans jeans.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Did you say jeans? Who is that oh, hi, Jeans.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
As in a restaurant.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Yeah, Jeans is a wonderful restaurant on Eleventh Street in
the West Village, very near Sunny and Country, seemingly.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
A little bit like not fancy room.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It's this beautiful room, terribly low ceiling, one of the
prettiest bars you'll ever see in New York City. It's
got marble steps. You walk down to it, and this
gorgeous bar greets you. That's been around for however long
this is due the math, I can't do it famously
good bartender. Locals sit there and eat and the food
is like veal, scallipini, you know, tomatoes, sauce. But they
(42:36):
are one of those places that remember when you did
the thing with Danny Meyer and he talked about how
these restaurants in New York put out the stained the
steel platter with the cold vegetables on the ice cubes.
So you get to your table and it's got big
radishes and carrot sticks and cellar hearts of celery and fennel.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Is gorgeous.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
It's like easy, wonderful, and everybody in there is an
older group and they're so lovely, but all say.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
You know, we're going to go see your show.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
You know, we read about the book or you know,
they're very community oriented and it's a wonderful place and
we go there a lot on Sunday nights, like if
we're meeting other people, if we're not going to invite
people to our house for dinner, we'll go to Jean's.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Okay, we have to go to Jean's beautiful cocktails.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Shall we eat? Okay? Thank you, thank you so much,
thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for
in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator
is Bella Cellini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean
(44:13):
Wynn Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe
for your help in making this episode.
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Everyone, Welcome to the River Cafe. I can't think of
a nicer place to be on the sunny spring morning
than here. We have a live audience for this very
special episode that features Sarah Jessica Parker, hosted by Pause
Lucy Rogers. Enjoy the interview and we'll be taking questions later.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The first time that Sarah Jessica Parker and I spoke,
the tables returned. She was on the phone in the
River Cafe kitchen and I was on a beach in Mexico.
It was really hard to hear her with the noise
of pots and pants, the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean,
but her dazzling warmth travel the six thousand miles. If
(00:56):
the phone connection was poor, the friendship connection instant. Last Sunday,
she was in the River Cafe with her family and
I was there with mine. They were sitting on Table one,
just a few feet from the pink wood oven, close
to the drama of the kitchen, and there she was
dazzling and warm. How does all this work, Ruthie, How
(01:17):
do you make sure that Matthew's ravioli comes out at
the same time as my asparagus. Banya Kouten. This kitchen,
she said, feels like the inside of a pinball machine,
with energy bouncing between the different stations. How do you
all have the energy to do both lunch and dinner? Now?
(01:39):
I suppose if I went backstage to Plaza Suite, the
play that Sarah is doing here with her husband, Matthew Broderick,
I would have similar questions. How does this work, Sarah?
What do you do if someone forgets their lines? And
how do you all have the energy to do a
matinee and an evening performance? Today? We're here, not miles apart,
(02:03):
inches apart, two friends together, surrounded by all of you
great people. What a connection?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So here we are. Did you ever work in a restaurant? No?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
But I say this knowing how hard it is. I
think I would really love to be a server.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Like I really think that this summer she is, and
you I.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Was, we were really admiring your service to the day
because I said to the girls, I was like, I'm
not sure that I've seen servers move this fast a
long time. Because Sunday is a very busy day for
you guys, right, like a specially.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
That day was a really busy day.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And I was saying to somebody and I said, you know,
I don't get to come to the River Cafe very often.
I don't live in London, and to myself, to Matthew, it's.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Like a very it's a it's like a special thing.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
It's like something you earn or maybe you work toward
or you pine about, and then you visit it and
you're not sure if you made it all up, like
is it possible that you joined a sort of cult,
like a kind of thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can it be?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And then you come here, My hand gout it is
and the kitchen really is. It's extraordinary to watch. It
is like a pinball machine, but it's like there's such
precision about it.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
And I love watching the.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Chefs talk to each other quickly and passing or actually
come together to speak. I don't know, it's amazing and
it's it's glorious. We were thrilled to be here, really well.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
We're thrilled to have you and I. When we first
did the completely open kitchen, you will remember after the fire,
Richard Air, who's a director of theater came in and
I said, Richard, isn't it just like theater watching everyone around?
And he said, actually, with me, it isn't. It's like
ballet m and he said because watching people everybody. You
(04:03):
can't shout in an open kitchen. I mean, sometimes raise
your voice, but basically you're moving around to speak to
people about if you need to. Usually there's a kind
of communication.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
And this time I had the ravioli with the spinach
and the ricotta and those tiny gorgeous porcini mushrooms that
are like a surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
They don't talk about that as much.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And we ordered two and I was like, my daughter said,
do you think we can order another one?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
James Welk said, can we order another one? Which just
seems so like.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Gluttonous and decadent and greedy. And then I was like,
you know what, yes, And if anybody says anything, I'll
just say we'll take it like I'm sorry that we're
being so like real like animals about this, but it's
a kind of it's good to think of it as
(04:54):
this kind of once in a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
It's just incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
One of the things I think that you'll probably everyone
in this room would think about, was that in Sex
and the City and the way you talk about food
the joy So many conversations were over food, and it
was the pleasure of food. It was enjoying food as
a way of communicating and being together, which we you know,
we all feel here that we a restaurant is a
(05:20):
place where you share, you know, food you're sitting down
at the table or at home with your children. Yeah,
and so how is that working in Sex and the
City and doing was that from you?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I always love food scenes.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
I think it initially it was initially in place I
think probably from either Candice's original source material or Darren
Starr wrote that first coffee shop scene, which I think
was just a great meeting place to sort of talk
about the themes of the of each episode, like get
the headline out, and then each person those kind of
(05:54):
archetypal characters would share points of view, so we knew
where where everybody stood, and it allowed for controversial conversation
or titillating conversation. But I will say this that Cynthia Nixon,
who is a dear friend of mine, and we've been
working together since we were little girls. We've known each other,
(06:15):
so we.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Were eleven or ten.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
She was a child actor also, and we would always
audition together. She often got the part. But we played
siblings when I was very young. We played sisters on records.
They used to do records of stories, and we played
Laura and Mary Ingalls, and then we played siblings of
We played children of Vanessa Redgrave in a movie. But
(06:42):
Cynthia and I in those coffee shop scenes, we always eat. Yeah,
we always eat, and we always need to like reprop
our plate, and then when we finally wrap, they'll always
they always said to Cynthia, me and Cynthia, do you
guys want to take.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It to go again today? Yes, we do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So we really like those scenes, and we very much
go back and forth about what you can they'll send
the menu in advance now now that we all have
the phones and things, and because they want you to
order an advance for props to have everything ready and multitude,
you know, multiples of it. So we'll go back and forth.
Would you order are you going to order? They all
order that, So you ordered that and we can share.
(07:24):
So the food is the lines are blurred.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
The joy of food. Yes, yes, was something that we
are all thinking about. How we combine, you know, food,
and I think it's it's changed. You find that your
daughters are different now in terms of their attitude.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean I I never was very disciplined about it.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I just wasn't.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
I think I'm not really good at like denying myself something.
And I think also I was a dancer for so
long and running around, so it was I was able
to be that way. It's certainly not the same now.
But I also just I had girls. I just was
so I didn't want them to have a relationship with
(08:12):
food that was antagonistic or they felt like this was
their enemy and that they were going to have to
sort of like stake out a position with food. So
when I was growing up, we weren't allowed sugar in
the house, and we were allowed to cookies, and we
weren't allowed the chocolate. And of course all we did
the minute we moved out was buy Entimate's cakes and cookies,
(08:33):
and you know, and I didn't want that. So in
our house, we have cookies, we have cake, we have everything.
And I think as a result, you kind of have
a healthier relationship and my daughters will have the figures
they have and hopefully they'll be healthy in their athletes
and they enjoy food, and they have different palettes, and
you can't make someone like something they don't like or want.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
And I hope that they.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I hope that they can maintain their affection for the
experience and their delight in taste and find their own
ways to have that be healthy for them.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And your son. For food, it was fantastic to beat.
All three of them are just you know, involved in
the food and talking about the food and asking questions
about food.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
On Sunday, Matthew cooks.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
We both cook every single day, every day, every single day.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Every day. We probably eat dinner as a family every night.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
If I'm shooting or he's doing to play, obviously that
shifts around. We always have dinner Sunday night. But one
of us, if we're home, cooks every single day, and
we love to cook. And it's boring to keep saying
to each other what are we gonna eat? What are
we gonna eat? Are you going to go to the
grocery store? Am I going to go to the market.
But it's kind of just.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What we do.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Yesterday, I what did you last night? Last night, we
went to a restaurant in Chinatown.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Really quickly after the show.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
But I had made during the day, I made lamb
stew and Matthew made a white bean soup, so we knew.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
We have that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
I'd actually was bringing some to my son, but I
like to have it in the fridge for matinee days.
And but we cook every night because I don't know
why we never we never understood order. We didn't get
ordering in in time, and now we're too old to under.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
We don't have I don't know how to use.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
A a thing, and every now and then we're really beat.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, say should we you know?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
But I'll still call a restaurant order, we pick it
up or they deliver it. But but we love cooking.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Do you think that's part of the drama. Do you
think it's part of theater, part of being an actor
that it's separate from what you do? Is it a time?
I know that when I was working, I would always
come home and everybody says, sit down and relax. And
I found the most kind of relaxing thing to do
is to cook, to.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Be in the kitchen. It is.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It's we always wonder about the post meal part, like
we're always like, wow, now we have to do all this,
you know, all the cleaning and stuff, so that that
kind of punctures some of the kind of healium of it.
But I don't know if it's so much relaxing as it.
It's just kind of what we do. It's like what's expected,
(11:31):
what else? What else is the family going to do
if we don't get in the kitchen. And in New York,
like here in London, you can run out at the
last minute.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You can make a meal quickly.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
It's not as like it doesn't seem as such a
big effort in a way, and often things just taste
better than if you're ordering it. In our opinion, we
I mean not that we don't think of ourselves highly
as like chefs or anything like that, But I don't know.
Our children always, I will say, they always say like, wow,
(12:05):
we're really lucky. We get to eat have dinner every night.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
When you're in a play, do you eat before you
before the performance? Are after?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I enchurgef so is it?
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Did you go on stage hungry?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I mean a little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I'll have yogurt bananas. There's these eggs here that I'm
in love with that I go mad for the ones
I want to put my suitcase, but I know I'm
not allowed.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They're called burfer.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
They have those orange yolks that are just oh my god,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So we go through a lot of those.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I eat those bananas. I'll have some lamp stew or
barley and some meat.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I love your rashers. Here, your bacon, streaky bacon and kofta.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
From our local butcher is really nice.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I think it's time for our first question from our audience,
which said is going to read.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I used to work at the River Cafe and every
night I felt like customers had a different collective character.
Saturday night was different from Tuesday night, and it was
not the same every Saturday night, but it would become
a kind of dominant vibe. And then I started working
in theater and in my mind it was exactly the same.
And I wondered what your experience of London audiences has
(13:22):
been and are the different to American audiences.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Well, you've described it so beautifully, whether it's in America,
in New York City or here. This sort of I
always say, like, what time did they all get together
and decide who they were going to be tonight? Like
it's a conspiracy that they work so beautifully together. And
it is a range and a Saturday night can be
boisterous and civilized or boisterous and out of control and
(13:48):
sort of behaving I'm going to say poorly in quotes,
but not really but just more talkative.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And but.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Generally speaking, the audiences here have been really, really lovely
and very hospitable.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And we weren't sure because this is a very American
play by a real American playwright writing about kind of
cultural familiarity to Americans, especially New Yorkers, But they've been
absolutely wonderful. I think they've they've proven to be really
great listeners, like sincerely great listeners, but they do seem
(14:24):
to have psychically agreed upon something, and I don't understand it,
Like these people probably couldn't agree about anything else. If
you remove them from the theater, like as a whole,
maybe they could.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
But it is unique, and that is in a restaurant.
Don't you think that we can say, Yeah, you can
sort of put the same food at the same time,
the same with the same team. Yeah you can go
home at ten o'clock and think I'm a failure. You
know because it did. You really think this was one
of the greatest nights in my life.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah, this is so hard to it is, and it's
I think the human part of all of this is
the thing that's just hard to pin down. Like you
can't do the same show. You have a good show
and you're trying to sort of always mimic that, or
in the kitchen you'll have a great and you're always
(15:17):
trying to but it is human, So it's never going
to be the same.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's never going to last as long.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
The pause isn't going to get a laugh or maybe
it will or And I think that's what makes it
so exciting for a diner or hopefully for an audience.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Is they are very much a part of it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
They are a significant fifty percent of the relationship. Is
the diner to your chefs and your servers and you
and us with our audience, our playwright, our words, our director,
and this audience like they have to be our partner
for the night, and they show that in various ways.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen, napkins,
kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,
chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door
to the River Cafe in London or online at shop
Therivercafe dot co dot uk. So, Sarah, you've just made
(16:38):
punturel lromado with Sean.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
There is something to me about Puntaurel salad that it
really it blows my mind. And it's very hard to
get in New York. For anybody who lives in New York.
Puntorella is like contraband, like apparently it's not allowed or
and when it is, there's like you have like four
days to enjoy it. And to have it here sort
(17:00):
of like at your whim to meet is such decadence.
This is a print role but I've never seen it
in its natural state to.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Be smaller, because we went in last week we were
and they were huge.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Massive heads of it. It's actually checorea, you know what.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
It's like a checorea plant, and so you can either
use the outside leaves and just chopp them up and
boil them as a vegetable and then this is like
the bulb in the middle.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Oh wow, it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Wow, the whole plant. Oh, my god, inside it is.
These things are like fingers.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
So what you generally do is just well you can
cut them off or pull them off.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Do you have to soak them or anything?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Yeah, the soaks all in the soaking, right, this goes
in ice water, and it goes in ice water for
about an hour and then it turns into bear with me, coller.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
No, you're okay, Oh you're here.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It's kind of will crunch you like this and.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
See I see you cut it, just put it in
nice water. So the dressing, I'll make.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
The dressing for one.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I'll put a tiny bit but whatever you want, don't
don't don't change anything on my account.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
What is that beautiful chili? Chili?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Gorgeous fine chili, like a tiny bit.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And then.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
These anchovies are really.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Chevies are so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
A bit more peppering.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I'll just touched my.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Hands probably about that much olive. This is actually making
it's going to be super well dressed.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Oh my god, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, this is just your dressing.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Oh so gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And it is literally simple.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now how dry? Did I get them dry enough? In
your estimation?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (18:47):
But I mean heaven as you like as much vinegar
as you like.
Speaker 6 (18:51):
Really, yeah, So Sarah read the recipe and I just
tell you that it's absolutely divine.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And it was on Sunday. Two heads of puntarell. Am
I saying it correctly? Puntarell, five salted anchovies cleaned, and
your wonderful chef used Spanish anchovies, two tablespoons of red
wine vinegar. One garlic clove chopped. And then she did
this gorgeous thing with her knife where she sort of
smeared Sean's right, Sean. I'm sorry, Sean. She sort of
(19:27):
took her knife and mashed it and made it a
wonderful kind of misery. One garlic chove chopped as I've had,
two dried chilis, one teaspoon of black pepper, four tablespoons
of extra virgin olive oil. And then to prepare the puntarell,
fill a bowl with ice cold water, adding a few
ice cubes. Pull the hollow buds from the puntarel heads.
(19:49):
I guess once they're out of that and nice and
clean and crisp, slice the buds very thinly lengthwise and
place in the water to crisp until they curl up.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
This will take about.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
An hour, Add the garlic to the anchovies with the
crumbled chilis and the pepper at the olive oil. Spin
dry the punterrell and place in a bowl and mix
with the anchovy sauce.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Per perfection, per perfection. I'm curious about when you first
had pontourel. That purel was Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
In Cincinnati and no, well, I moved to New York
when I was a very little girl. But we can
talk about the vegetables that were available in Cincinnati. But
the first time we had it, there was a wonderful
little restaurant that didn't last very long, and it was
on McDougall, and I can't remember the cross Street, right
(20:43):
off of sixth Avenue, and it was on the menu
and I just Matthew and I actually just read the
ingredients or the description and we thought, well, of course
we'll try it. And it was absolutely beautiful, and so
then we sort of like we're chasing it. I guess
a wee bit like truffles, like waiting for that moment you.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Know, yeah, that is Italian food. You have it, then
you say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, that's what makes it so especial.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, But going back to Cincinnati, tell us about eight children.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I'm one of eight, yes, and in Cincinnati at that
point we had only six. My mother was pregnant with
the baby girl when we moved to New York City.
We moved to New York City in nineteen on January
first of nineteen seventy seven, so I've lived there most
of my life. My real father is from Brooklyn, born
and raised, so we spent some time before that in
(21:37):
Brooklyn visiting and visiting my grandparents on my father's side.
But food was for a lot of my siblings. We
think and talk and share feelings, thoughts, experiences with food.
(21:58):
I would say in some way it dominates our relationship,
like it's the it's the thing that we I would say,
maybe with books as well, but food probably even more so.
And we all have a different relationship with it. Some
of us cook, some of us don't. Some of us
have money to explore restaurants that would be more rarefied,
(22:18):
and some don't.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
But food is.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
And always has been in my memory, this destination and
I always want to.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Have something I've never had.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Always, But did your mother did she cook? What were
meal times like?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And she cooked? We had dinner every single night. We
all seven, eventually all eight.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
My mother would probably say that she really didn't care.
She didn't enjoy cooking. She didn't come from a family
that enjoyed food. And I think with eight kids, yeah,
it was it was work versus joy. But simultaneously she
loved food. And she, as a young woman, went off
(23:09):
to New York City as an employee of Procter and Gamble,
which is a big company in Cincinnati, Ohio. You know,
like a lot of girls straight out of college, got
a job at Procter and Gamble and was sent to
New York to be a salesperson. And her first stop
was always Chinatown, Always Chinatown. She loved Chinatown. She loved
Chinese food. She loved anything that was different. And there
was a place in the sixties, this would be in
(23:30):
the fifth fifties, yeah, late fifties, mid to late fifties,
and there was a place called Dave's Lunchonette that was
a very famous place you just stopped by and had
an egg cream after having Chinese food. And so she
of course she grew up reading The New Yorker. The
librarians from the time she was a little girl would
(23:51):
save her the weekly New Yorker. So she would read
about food, and she would read about Chinatown, and she
would read about places in the outer boroughs. And so
for her, food was this thing that was part of
another life that she hoped to give all of us.
And so even though she didn't like cooking, and she cooked,
(24:12):
you know, three meals a day, we all helped with breakfast, lunch,
and breakfast and dinner lunch in the summers.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Did your mother work? Did she manage to feed seven
and eight children every day and work or did? She
was a school.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Teacher up until a few months after I was born,
and then I think that was her last year. She
taught second grade. At the time, we lived in a
very little city in southeastern Ohio. This was before Cincinnati.
It was in the foothills of Appalachia actually, And so
she taught second grade, but her students could be anywhere
(24:47):
from seven to fourteen years old, depending upon how much
time they've been afforded to be in school. And so
she stopped teaching for many many years, and just not
just she was a which she consumed all our time.
And then she started her own preschool. For many many years,
she had her own school in New Jersey. It was
(25:08):
a sort of Montessori. She's a progressive educator and she
retired from that about ten years ago, and she just
came to London to visit. My father passed away a
year ago, so she's newly.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Was there anybody helping her? Did your father ever go
and your stepfather ever go in the kitchen? And did
everybody help?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Everybody?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
It was our job school, do your homework and then
help get the dinner.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Yes, well, we came home from school, we did some
homework sort of, and then we wed ballet classes, and
so we'd come home from ballet, then we'd all jump
in and help in the kitchen. We all had jobs
before and after dinner that wasn't necessarily connected to cooking.
It was cleaning, putting things away, sweeping, loading the dishwa
(26:00):
unloading the dishwasher, helping with laundry.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, but even though.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
It was labor, we all came out of that house
for the most part, really loving food and willing to
try anything. And if I travel sometimes I say I'm
only going to try, like I'll take a job. I think, well,
I'm really taking this just so I can go eat this.
(26:27):
And you know, if you are on a holiday and
you go trying to find restaurants, and I do endless months.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Of research like where where, where, where where?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
And then you get to your destination and you'll try
to ask people and they'll send you the place that
everybody else in the hotel is going or everybody else,
and I'll say, no, no, no, no, please, where do you eat,
mister concierge, Miss concierge, where do you eat?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Where do you eat?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And they won't tell me because they think we want
this stacked food fancy, you know, And so I'll just
follow the employees home. Yeah, I literally follow them home,
and then I see where they live and their communities
and their restaurants, and that's where I go, and that's
where I shop hardware stores.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
You know, maybe you could just stay with the employees.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
But that's where so many tos and just yeah, because
you know, what, does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
If used to always go to bookstores. You get into
Verona or it's a little town in the south of
Spain or Italy, and he'd always, for some reason, he
would always think that people who worked in bookstores would
know would know where to eat, right, and probably where
they like to do. Those places that means it's.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think finding that local experience.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
It completes the experience in a way that sometimes you
can't have if you don't know. You know, like when
a local person gives you directions and you realize, oh,
they're giving me directions without realizing how little I know.
You describe to someone how to get on bleaker, you'd
have to say, listen, bleaker.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Is going to go left and right and up and down.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You have to give them those So when you get
to local, you're like having their experience.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I asked quite a few actors whether when they took
a part, whether they would not so much choose the
part that's kind of extreme. It's the restaurants were there.
But they quite a few of them did research before
going to shoot a film in Budapest or Venice or
wherever they were before they went to find out, you know,
(28:23):
where to eat. Yeah, because it's important, isn't it. When
I think it maybe a movie to feel part of
the community.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, wherever you can market I think, wherever you get
to travel for whatever reason, if you can somehow try
to embed a little bit in the local flavor of
a community.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
I don't know. Sometimes I'll I've been.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
You know, for work, you have to travel a lot,
and you do like these things like press junkets, you know,
and especially in the old days, they do these big
grand world tours and you'd be given a guide, which
was all wonderful and I was super grateful, But then
I would just say to the guide like, no, stop
the van, now, stop the van.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Now, I want to get out here.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
They're like, well, there's just houses here, and I was like, yes, exactly,
I just want to see the houses, you know, I
don't know, you feel like you're seeing something versus the
same boulevard with the fancy shops and the fancy restaurants.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Time for our question from our audience.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
What happens on an airplane you have a long distance flight,
because I cannot imagine the cuisine exciting you. Do you
bring your own food?
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Depends on the airline. Like I think a lot of
the Asian airlines have really, really really good food air lingis.
I love their food, but I will bring I always
have snacks in my bag. I always have meat sticks
that I love.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Like you know, healthy, no not.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I'll bring stuff that I think will get me through
a flight that might have that I might there might
be dubious.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I might have some feelings and concerns.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I might.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I can't bear the idea of being hungry. I just
like meaning, let me rephrase that. If I can help
that not be true, I will. I will keep up
my end, you know what I mean. So, but I
don't mind trying anything on an airline. I was, you know,
in the old days, what I was telling when we
used to do these big press junkets. We were always
(30:27):
flying to Japan, and I will say that food on
Japan airline was like what, I'm.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Just stay up just to eat. They're like, would you
like to rest?
Speaker 4 (30:36):
And I was like, absolutely not, I would like to eat,
and they just and then start the next offering, like
what else is on this menu?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you. When I was growing up, we
(31:07):
all went to restaurants for a special occasion, you know,
a birthday and anniversary and my mother just being possibly
too tired to cook. But it was a rare occasion
that we went and here in the River Cafe. We
see people coming in for Saturday lunch, Sunday lunch, early dinners,
late dinners, and kids are ordering and there is a
breadth of children and young people eating out.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Yeah, and that they're more used to it than I
ever was. I mean, it was such a big deal
to eat out for us growing up, and we certainly
get to and we get to travel in a way
that my family didn't take vacations. We didn't go on
a holiday, not until much later. And then it was
you know, you're sharing a house with another family and
you're still cooking all your meals. You wouldn't you know.
(31:50):
We would go to the outer Banks of North Carolina.
This was forty years ago more oh more, and it
was this sort of very pristine, not very popular destination.
And so the big deal for us was that we
would get crab and throw down newspaper and you know,
(32:10):
and that was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That was like eating out.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
But but my children when we when they came to
London to visit, we went out the first night and
they're like, oh my gosh, we'ven't been to a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
In so long.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
It's so exciting to be at a restaurant, so it's
still exciting, but it's something they're definitely more familiar with
it than I ever was.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And you a child.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I mean, I think one of another sumaries that we
both like our neighborhoods. You know that we like a neighborhood.
Ye I liked neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I love neighbors And.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know when we when we moved, it's not where
I live is in quite the West Village, but it
in the sense it doesn't have a perhaps a lot
of the character that you have, but it is a
place that you want to be involved in. So they
call up, you know, we called the local theater and
said we're.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Here, Yeah, what can we do?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Or you I know, you do that with your neighborhood. Yeah,
and your neighborhood, being the West Village, is probably full
of restaurants.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
We do.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Do you go to the same place over and over?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
We do? And especially.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
You know, after the pandemic, we were really concerned. There
were a lot of small businesses and restaurants included in
that that were not part of larger consortiums that were
really really struggling.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm sure you all had it here as.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Well, and it was so easy to be supportive because
there are neighbors and we know their family stories or
the stories of the restaurants, and we knew, you know,
the collateral damage, Like if something closes, it's not just that,
it's everything around it that kind of lives and breathes
(33:43):
off of it. And so it's it's very easy to
do it, not just out of you know, desire to
be a good citizen in a neighbor, but because it's one.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
They're wonderful restaurants.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
They're wonderful restaurants, and some are old and not inventive
at all, you know, they're not like rethinking or deconstructing
Italian food, but they've been in business since nineteen seventy eight,
you know. And then there's newer chefs that are doing
really exciting things. And then you've got your local little
delis and bodegas and everything in between. And it's a
(34:20):
real privilege to live among them and to say that
we are patrons and that we mean it.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know, there's so much to talk about. Can you
tell us about the wine?
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (34:32):
So I was asked now six years ago, seven years
ago by these two young gentlemen in New Zealand, producing
Savinyar Blanc out of the Marlboro region, which is not
that surprising if I would like to work with them
a partners them when I was absolutely confounded because I
didn't know anything about the wine business except that one
(34:54):
of the reasons my husband and.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
I like to travel is to taste local wine.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
I thought, like most of us, that you have to
come from generations of wine families, and the language I
thought I would never understand, and I thought it was
really only.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
For the rarefied few.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
But they said no, and I said, well, if you'll
let me really learn and really be as informed as possible,
that we can start talking about it. And of course
they did, and it's been an amazing, an amazing experience.
We're in our six vintage on our Savenye Bloc. It's
been picked in the top one hundred wines in the
world for the second time. It's won all sorts of awards,
(35:37):
Like I don't say this about my acting work ever,
Like I wouldn't say like I've won it, because I
know how you haven't. But but I'm so proud of
this because we worked really hard and it's been The
Savenyon Blanc has been so beautifully received, and our rose
has been beautifully received, and we've never I think done
below a ninety three and wine spectator, which is a
(35:58):
big deal in our business. And we're about to launch
our Pinon Noir, which is oh, it's so gorgeous. So
it's been amazing and I really love them and I
love the wine. So yeah, we just keep working really
hard and I do all the blendings and it's been incredible.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It's been a great education.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
If we were to say in this conversation that food
is fun and it's exciting, and it sustains us, and
we share it and we cook for our children as
an expression of love. It's also comfort if you do
need comfort. Is there a food that you would turn to, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Jessica far Yes, I would say that.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Pork chops, And I would just describe them more specifically
as saying, thin cut pork chops on the bone, not fancy,
not from your most special butcher, but from Christiiti's like simple,
(37:02):
put them in the pan with.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
All oiled salt and pepper and.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Heavens.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I just I don't know why I love it. My
brother loves them too.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But bringing up a very close competitor is probably lamb chops,
which I make probably two or three times a week.
I make pork chops at least twice a week, and
we here, I've made lamb.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
How do you make your lamb chops?
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I'm kind of embarrassed because it's not but we use.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
I use because I do the lamb chops. We use
carry gold butter, an'yone know carry gold butter. There's so
much unsalted butter in London. It's kind of hard to
find the salted. So I use carry gold butter and
just a touch of olive oil so the butter doesn't burn.
And I salt and pepper the baby lamb chops and
(37:51):
I throw them in and that's it. And they are
just that. You can taste all the fat. You can
smell the fat when it's cooking. And we eat a
lot of lamb in Ireland, and I've buy bought lamb here.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
From our local butcher. You go two or three times
a week.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You have a house in Ireland, yeah, it tell us
just about.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
It's way up in County Doneygall, so it's way up
northwest and my husband's been going there since he was
a little boy and I've been going there since we
were together, which was thirty years, and we finally bought
our own little house because he shares his family home
with his siblings and they have all grown children and
(38:29):
they have children, and so yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Go there a lot. What is the food, like, the
best potatoes?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
It really is like a cliche, but it's true, the greatest, greatest,
greatest potatoes ever, especially if you're there for the new
potato season is seven carry gold butter.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
York cabbage.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I don't know what it is about a York cabbage
that blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb lamb.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
The eggs, the rashers, any root stuff there is really good.
We don't We're not there enough to take care of
it and really earn it, you know, someday, someday.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
But yeah, white toast, white toast, baby batch. Anyone know
what a baby batch is?
Speaker 4 (39:13):
No, it would be forbidden in my house growing up,
Like we were not allowed to have white bread growing up.
It's just bread slices, like the kids like it. You
make sandwiches for when company comes over. But there's a
beautiful brown soda bread there that you just get it
in the Oh my gosh, that we eat crazy and
that we can get in the States.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
We can get a bunch of the food in the States.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Now I'm going to get carry go butter Grease is
my Grease is my favorite place outside of any place else.
It's maybe the food, and I think there's nothing better
than a Greek salad in grease and lamb chops, But
I just think the people, the history, the culture, the art,
(39:54):
the way it looks. Just seeing Grease for the first
time and seen white against blue, against sky against the sea.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I don't know. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
It's probably a place that I would spend many many
months a year if I could, like everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Yeah, you have been part of so many award winning
productions over the years, whether it's film or television or theater.
I would love to hear about one of your favorite
celebratory meals.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Well, it happened to be my brother's birthday, but that
was coincidental. But he's my oldest brother and he's kind
of very important figure in our lives growing up. And
I had been like researching for a really long time
Georgian and Russian restaurants in Brooklyn. But like the real stuff,
like because there's a massive Georgian and Russian community, as
(40:51):
you guys probably know in Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
It's way way, way, way way out, like.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
You know, could be thirty stops on the train, but
you make like a pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
It's like a big deal.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Well it was for me, and I had been researching
and researching, and then this day appeared and I was like,
this is the day I'm going to do it. So
I called my brother Pippin because he's one of the
siblings that goes crazy for the food like me, and
I said in Matthew, like, let's just do it. And
so we went out on this long train ride, which
was fantastic because you're under and over and we had Georgian.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Food, deep deep, deep deep Brooklyn.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
And it was my brother's birthday, so it was really great.
And he had to go around the corner and buy
you know, spirits or wine or something. But that was
an unbelievable meal. Unbelievable meal. Yeah, it was everything. That's
what I could think of.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I just wanted to ask about the joy of going
to a restaurant that's comforting, like jeans jeans.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Did you say jeans? Who is that oh, hi, Jeans.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
As in a restaurant.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
Yeah, Jeans is a wonderful restaurant on Eleventh Street in
the West Village, very near Sunny and Country, seemingly.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
A little bit like not fancy room.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It's this beautiful room, terribly low ceiling, one of the
prettiest bars you'll ever see in New York City. It's
got marble steps. You walk down to it, and this
gorgeous bar greets you. That's been around for however long
this is due the math, I can't do it famously
good bartender. Locals sit there and eat and the food
is like veal, scallipini, you know, tomatoes, sauce. But they
(42:36):
are one of those places that remember when you did
the thing with Danny Meyer and he talked about how
these restaurants in New York put out the stained the
steel platter with the cold vegetables on the ice cubes.
So you get to your table and it's got big
radishes and carrot sticks and cellar hearts of celery and fennel.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Is gorgeous.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
It's like easy, wonderful, and everybody in there is an
older group and they're so lovely, but all say.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
You know, we're going to go see your show.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
You know, we read about the book or you know,
they're very community oriented and it's a wonderful place and
we go there a lot on Sunday nights, like if
we're meeting other people, if we're not going to invite
people to our house for dinner, we'll go to Jean's.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Okay, we have to go to Jean's beautiful cocktails.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Shall we eat? Okay? Thank you, thank you so much,
thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for
in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator
is Bella Cellini. This episode had additional contributions by Sean
(44:13):
Wynn Owen. Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe
for your help in making this episode.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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