February 3, 2025 • 49 mins
A couple of months ago I discovered a sign on the door to my office, saying ‘Do not disturb.’ Zoe Saldana was inside, changing into her dress for lunch downstairs to celebrate the release of her new movie, Emilia Pérez. Afterwards I walked her to her car, talking about how to make the perfect rice. A few minutes later, we'd agreed to do a podcast together.
Since then, I've seen her everywhere, on screens and newspapers, magazines and posters. Last month she won a Golden Globe, and in February and March she’s a contender for both a BAFTA and an Oscar. Now, Zoe is back here with me on a Saturday morning in The River Cafe, to talk about food, family, and happiness.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's table for in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
One of Zoe Saldania's mantras in life is feel the
fear and do it anyway. And what hasn't she done?
She dances, she acts, she sings, she speaks several languages,
and I think she loves to cook. Imagine my surprise
couple of months ago in October, standing outside my office
(00:25):
laptop and cook books in hand, with a large sign
on the door saying do not disturb. And the reason
for this wasn't a meeting with accountants or a broken radiator,
but the fact that Zoe Saldania was changing into her
dress for a lunch downstairs to celebrate the release of
her brilliant new movie, Amelia Perez. After lunch, I took
(00:46):
her hand and walked her to her car, talking about
how to make the perfect rice. A few minutes later,
we'd agreed to do a podcast together. And since then,
it's been quite a time for Zoe. I've seen her
everywhere on screen and newspapers, magazines and posters, and I'm
thrilled that last month she won a Golden Globe and
(01:06):
in February March she's this contender for both abaft add
an Oscar. A lot has happened, and a lot is
going to happen. But right now, what's happening is that
Zoe is here with me on a Saturday morning in
the River Cafe. It's our chance to sit down and
talk about food, food and memories, food and family, no fear,
(01:26):
just happiness and love.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That was so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, it's true. It was such a quick meeting. It
was you were here, it was Netflix was giving you lunch.
Do you remember it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah? Yeah, And you just reminded me. We were talking
about rice, about making rice, and we should have cooked
rice today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
We did. We cooked Go to the perfect race.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Tell me it's very simple. We saw tr rice before
we put the water in. So you put your pot
on the stove. You wait for it to get nice
and warm. You add the oil. Sometimes you can add
the salt over the oil, or you can just wait
until you put the rice, the washed rice rinsed. You
put your rinsed rice in it. You saute it for
(02:14):
at least two to three minutes, make sure that that
it's just you know, it cooks a little bit, and
then you put the water. So you wait for all
that water to almost evaporate on very high heat. And
then when it evaporates, then that's when you close your pot.
And you then put the fire on simmer for twenty
(02:35):
eight No lid in there, No, because the water has
already it's already the rice has already soaked up all
the water. The rice has expanded.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And it's nice and kind.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Of fluffy, but it's still very very odd. And then
you cover it and you allow its own steam to
cook it all the way into its you know, its
cellular sort of you know component, and then you can
you can have your rice.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's a certain type of rice, so long rain, long grain.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Long grain. We don't necessarily cook with avodio unless we're
making a soup that carries rice like a porridge in it,
and we do. In the Caribbean. We make a lot
of soups. Every island has.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So dest from the from the rice to the soups.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Well, you we make soups with provisions, which are those
root vegetables from yucca, yeah me jaotia, I don't I
don't know the names in English, so please forgive me.
And then also with the plantains, some of them can
have plantains and potatoes, and you either choose what kind
of meat. Either it can be beef or pork or chicken.
(03:43):
Sometimes you can also do a fish stew or a
shrimp stewice a hardshell stew, and you cook all of
those things down with really important greens that add so
much flavor. And I think you guys use it a
lot here in England, the koulantro, it's a coriander, I
believe it's which in Spanish we call it because the
(04:06):
cilantro that they use in Central and South America is
the small leaf one that looks really like a four
leaf clover, and but the ones that we use in
the Caribbean is the really long leaf that when you
slap it and you sort of make, you know, you
open up all of it's like pores, and you put
it into water or your tea or or broth. It's
(04:27):
the most pungent, you know, smell and fragrance and taste.
Suff So that's how I grew up, just making stews
of all type soups.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But but they vary from the winter soups to the
summer soups.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
We'll make soup on the hottest day of summer, and
it's always summer in the Caribbean, and but it's it
cools you off as you're having something that's really hot
or sometimes spicy. And the Medican Republic we're not really
known for eating spicy spicy food. You can, but it's
not something that is in name in our culture like
it would be, for instance, in Mexico. But we do
(05:05):
a lot of soups, and when you're having your soup
on a very hot day, it just compels you to
cool off, you know. It's like having a hot team
and I just love it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So it must have been quite in many ways your
early childhood, which you were born in.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I was born New Jersey, Pa Sake, New Jersey, and
I lived in New York because my family has been
in New York since nineteen since the nineteen sixties, and
I lived there until I was ten, and then when
my father unexpectedly just tragically died in a car accident
at he's thirty eight, it was still a kid. Then
we all fly and we move to you know, where
(05:44):
they're from in Dominican Republic, which is where I'm from,
you know, at the root of my origin. And it
was beautiful Dominican Republic and the Caribbean. Puerto Rico and
Dominican Republic used to be places that we used to
go to during the Christmas holiday summers. Of course we did, yes,
we and we spoke Spanish at the house. But you
(06:05):
speak English already at school, so you're I'm very much
a one generation child in New York where you coach
switch automatically and you don't even know what that means,
and you eat rice and beans with your grandparents today.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Did your grandparents live with you it is New York? Yes, yes,
both sets?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Or yes both sets?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Did they go back with you when you when you
went back? Yes, we used to.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Well, growing up, I used to travel mainly with my grandparents.
And that's you know, in our culture. I guess that
was their version of giving, like my parents a break.
So for two weeks, you know, they would fly with
us ahead, you know, two weeks in advance, we would
sort of take take it all in from from the
gaze of your grandparents, of your no nos, your your abuelos,
(06:52):
and then your parents would arrive with a great tan.
They probably would go somewhere and reconnect, and and two
weeks later that we were all together. We would spend
the whole summer in Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
A lot of people that I talked to from especially
from different cultures, different family groups, talk a lot about
their grandparents, almost more about their grandparents cooking than their parents.
And as a mother, and now I'm a grandparent, I
was saying last night at dinner that I really noticed
the difference in the way that I cook for my
children and the way I cook for my grandchildren. When
(07:27):
you're cooking for your children, very often you're just trying
to get food on the table because you've worked all day,
or you know you're going out that night, or you
want to see them. But they are more important things
to do than to perhaps spend hours cooking for them.
But when you're a grandchild, there's so much you just
want to bring, the culture. You want to cook the
food that they'll remember. It's part of the memory.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Did you feel that with your Oh my god, absolutely,
what you're saying just makes me want to cry. I
just there is just so much love that my grandmother
put in every dish that she was made. My grandmother
was born in Dominican Republic in nineteen thirty five under
the dictatorship of Trujillo dictator that that was in power
(08:09):
for over thirty years. She was born and she was
raised under this dictatorship, got married, had her daughter, my mom,
and then in nineteen sixty one, after the assassination of
this tyrant, they were granting passages, visas, work visas to Dominicans,
and my grandmother was, I guess, in the first or
(08:30):
a couple of waves of Dominicans that arrived in New
York in the night in nineteen sixty one and would
later then, you know, populate that uptown region of Manhattan
that would which is now known as Washington Heights, which
is basically you know, it's all very much the biggest
(08:50):
Dominican diaspora outside of the Dominican Republic is in Washington
Heights in Manhattan. And my grandmother was one of those
I would say, first arrivors, you know, and worked. She
was a seamstress and she worked for in factories and
for some fashion houses throughout you know, those first two
(09:11):
decades of her life there. My mother must have been
my mom was born in fifty six, so she must
have been five when my grandmother arrived in New York.
But my mother stayed behind with her grandparents with my
grandmother's parents in Santo Domingo, and then in the summer
she would go to New York and spend it with
(09:31):
my grandmother until she was fourteen, And at that age
that's when my grandmother then moved my mom and her
parents to New York. By the time I was born
and we were living in New York, my great grandparents
had already sort of flown and moved back and retired
in the Dominican Republic. But they would always visit. So
I remember every time they would visit, like every three months.
(09:52):
We were a family that was always on a plane
and still today, I've always been on a plane and
they would open up the suitcases and they would bring
Dominican Republic like their plantains and their their cheese. It's
like we have a version of like a hallum cheese
that you fry. That is the most delicious thing. Why
that cheese, It's just it's just called you know, and
(10:15):
they call it Kisofrito. I don't know if it's called
something else, but they would bring it the blocks of it,
and the moment she would open that suitcase and that
cheese would pop out, she was immediately slicing it and
throwing it in a hot, sizzling pan. And and then
the salami you know, there was there was this this company,
and Dominican Republic is still there. It's one of the
biggest salami companies. We eat a lot of salami, but
(10:39):
we fry our salami. We don't really we don't really
eat it, like as I said, charcouterie, like you know,
cold and stuff, we can, but not this particular salami.
This one is free. This one is fried, and and
we would just eat that as a snack. And then
the plantains, where you know, I think I think we've
inherited the eating of plantains from our Africans of origins.
(11:02):
And you boil the plantains and you mash them with
butter and salt, and and you eat them and they
make it into like a paste. And it's called like
a mangoo, which I know that in Africa and certain
countries they call it like a fou fool, right, but
we call it mangool. And you put them the fried
salami and the fried cheese, and you grill some pic
is over it, and we just all the smell ine.
(11:26):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
But the smell of that and our kitchen meant that that,
you know, Abulita from Dominican Republic was in town. And
we would for the whole two weeks that she was
visiting with us, my great grandmother, we knew that we
were going to eat well. And she would sometimes go
to the markets, certain markets in Queens or she would
she would venture out and sometimes go out there down
(11:50):
downtown to Manhattan or go to Brooklyn, and she would
buy the coconuts, like really good coconuts that they would
bring from the Caribbean. What would she do with coconut desserts, desserts,
all types of macaroons, and she would make like these
biscuits that we call cocon and she would make those,
or she would grab a spoon, a very big spoon
on My grandmother, my great grandmother, was a you know,
(12:13):
she was just like a like a very simple woman
and there was nothing she could do that, you know,
and she would scrape the coconut sort of meat out
of the coconut and it would it would kind of
curl up. She would scrape it and she would curl
it up, and then she she would put it on
a pan with sugar and baking soda and vanilla, and
(12:33):
she would let that cook down and then it would
dry up, and then she would divide in these little
like rolls that it was ours so.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Here here.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And she was a feisty lady. By the time I
was born, she was already great grandma. So she was
just like very feisty, like a really really gritty woman,
you know, and she would grab everything with her hand
like she would she would. There was one story though,
that the biggest your shock for us, you know, when
we moved to a Dominican republic was just yeah, was
(13:08):
just how closely we lived with nature. You know, Like
she had her garden in the back, so she would
get all her herbs and fruits and everything from her
backyard and she would come in and this was It's
kind of like when you gave me the tour in
your kitchen, there wasn't a written menu. She would make
the meatballs from scratch, you know. She would grind the meat.
She had her grinder. I remember, like, oh, the grinder's out,
(13:30):
and she would like it was like a transformer. It
came like a lego piece. She would like put it
all together, screw it up her and just put the
salami and the meat. She would the rabbi by by
the cheese and she would just grind that. And then
I would sit there and she would come on rush
your hands and she would put like oil on my hands.
And then we would make meatballs. And I was like,
(13:50):
oh my god. And then you try these meatballs and
they were just I haven't had a meatball like like hers.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You should make it. Yeah, well, you remember, is I
have a different I have a Hungarian grandmother. The story
is that she traveled with her rolling pin. That whatever
she came to visit, she'd come out just one hundred
miles from New York and she'd bring the rolling pin.
And the famous story in our family was that she
came to see her first grandson. My mother's my older brother,
(14:19):
and she came. It's quite a long trip and she
got to the door and they said, would you like
to come and see your grandson? And she said, let's
eat first, priorities. But what we're talking really about is,
you know, to see your face light up, to see
your memories, to feel and hear you. Is that food
(14:39):
is so important?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You know? Is that we're going to ask her to
make this? Yeah, that salted codfish.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
She would also meant like like a curd melk dessert
that was so good. And I think that the moment
my great grandmother passed away, I stopped eating dessert because
the only I don't I have a savory tooth. I
don't have a sweet tooth, as you know, but only
for hers, I would eat any any desserts that she
(15:08):
would make. And then she got sick with Alzheimer's when
I was sixteen, and she sort of slipped away from
us mentally quite quite rapidly. And then we took care
of her for eleven years. And I just remember looking
at her, like when I was like nineteen or twenty,
It's like, I'm never going to try anything your hands
(15:31):
ever made. And that was I remember. I cried a
lot when that sort of like realizes that. And she's
right in front of me, and I was just painting
her nails, you know, just a distractor, and I just
looked at her and I was like, it's over.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
But she was an artist, you know. She was what
you're talking about is an illusionist, like Moses creativity going
in there, you know. And now probably maybe if she'd
been at a different time, she might have been a chef,
you know, she might given the pleasure that she came
to you as a grandmother, as you know, one of
the women in the kitchen right now. I had no
(16:05):
option to say, well, actually, this is what I love
in my work, and I'm like, this is what I'm
going to create. I always think that cooking is a
bit like art, you know, except art last forever.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
It does.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Somebody eats that lemon tart you've worked hours over and
it's gone. You know it's they're your.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Grandmother, my great grandmother, your great grandmother hand make You
can make those memories last forever. You have to pass
it down. I have a picture of my grandmother in
my kitchen. She's the first person I see and the
last I say. Good not too And by keeping her
picture of her, we are keeping her alive. Because my
(16:42):
sons they won't have the experience that I had with
my grandmother and my great grandmother. They lost their great
grandmother really young. So it's in the stories I do
tell them.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
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(17:21):
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going back to going to the Dominican Republic at an
early age, you discovered the food. You burn it in
a place you knew, but in a different place, a
(17:42):
different school. And was it also that you found that
by eating and discovering food, but also by dancing that
you were able to yea, you know, the tragedy of
your father's life, the difficulty of living in a foreign country.
How did dance affect you?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Well, the foreign aspect of Dominican Republic sort of dissipated
within the first couple of years because we are innately
where our families come from. That's just undeniable. Dance became
on a really important time in my life because trying
(18:21):
to fit in and find my placement right when you're
going into your early teenage years in terms of who
am I, what am I? Why am I? And so
going through all of that when it comes to discovering
your identity while mourning the death of a very big
figure in your life. The biggest figure in your life
(18:43):
was your ten Oh, my dad was My dad was incredible.
He played the guitar, he played the accordion. He was
a very naturally curious person, very smart for business, danced
very well. He and my mom they could have been arguing,
but they would just get up and kind of like
not face each other and still like like dance at
(19:06):
all the birthday parties. And You're like, how could they
do that? Like we're like sitting under a table just
like marveling at just the polar you know, opposites of
emotions that are being displayed in this beautiful, passionate dance
that they're doing, which is mad anger salsa, and and
they're just not looking at each other. And she would
(19:28):
be like by by his left shoulder, like smoking her cigarette,
like do do do do do dude, and he if
he would turn to face her, she would do do
do do do do do do? And you now I
know that I'm like that night must have been banging
for them, because you know that they were making love
while they were Dad saying still and my dad. My
(19:48):
dad was the was the one that taught my mom
how to cook. Because my mom growing up as a
single child with her grandparents while her mom was working
in New York. My mom had everything made for her.
She was spoiled by her grandparents. They gave her everything.
She wore the best little outfits because my great grandmother,
my mother and my grandmother were both seamstresses, so they
(20:09):
would make everything from scratch, and she just had the
best little outfits. So by the time she met my dad,
she couldn't even boil an egg. And my dad was
this could have been a chef. Oh my god. He
would make just he would grill fish, he would grill meats,
he would make the best beans, the best desserts. He knew.
He was a baker, like just like a very self
(20:32):
made kind of guy, you know. And even though they
had different upbringings, my dad was just a lot more
self sufficient and more independent than my mom. And my
mom then you know, he taught her. So everything, everything
that she does for us, it always comes with the
memory of like, no, your dad used to make this
(20:53):
in the middle of the night when I was pregnant
with you guys, and blah blah blah blah blah. And
so I at least I lived with the memories that
she has been able to share with us, you know,
because when you're ten, you remember just ten years. You
documented ten years, and that's enough to me for me
to last a lifetime. He was really on top of
(21:13):
just hygiene and preparation, and with his Serio Valente jeans
and his Calvin Klin like sweater. And my mom still
remembers that. So I know I wasn't making it up,
and I wasn't making this all fantastical, like she was like, No,
that's the man that smelled the best I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Anybody dance with him.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I was down on his feet. I come from a family,
and I do know this that it is a cultural thing.
We dance. We dance at funerals, We dance, had births.
We dance. If you fail to test, we danced if
you passed it. You know what I mean. It's you
just dance, and you dance adding and you dance Alsa
and neighbors all they can be doctors or architects, but
(21:53):
they know how to play the gonghas, and they know
how to play the drums and they'll come with a trumpet,
and everybody sits in someone's backyard and you can see it.
Even Puerto Rico is the same, Goolay is the same.
Dominican Republic is very much that way. So I grew
up just and and there's always everything is always a
reason to have a party. It's somebody's it's somebody's baptism,
(22:13):
and you sort of go, why are we having this parade? Like, no, no,
it's a baptism, And you're like, but he's four. You're like,
it's the biggest party, can last sixteen hours. And so
I grew up always seeing great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins,
teenagers dancing, everybody always dancing. So we dance.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We did as well.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yes, yes, but that transition into dance was very different
from what you do at home. Right. It was therapy.
It was medicine for my soul. Yes, because I was
I wasn't really acclimating enough.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I just wasn't a Dominican Republic.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, my mom says that we were, but I think
it was just grieving. We were just you were grieving.
It was something that happened to us was very traumatic.
In children don't really describe trauma. They don't really say
I am going through something right now. They either shut
down or they overreact. They just whatever it is, they're
(23:11):
just not themselves. And that's the sign. That's the indication
that they've experienced trauma and they're still like in a
state of shock and ballet. Ballet became my outlet, my place,
my safe haven I would go to after school. It
was an environment that I can go and test myself
and challenge myself and learn something new. So when you're
(23:32):
learning something new, that takes a lot of your attention
and your time, and that's what I needed. I needed
a lot to put all of my attention, all of
my time into something that was going to give me
some kind of release and relief, and Ballet did that.
It almost became an obsession. I was very blessed in
the sense that throughout my life I had really great
(23:55):
role models that took my mom, my, sisters, and I
in and either cooking a meal or teaching us yeah something,
you know. We were taken in and we were told
that we can believe in ourselves, that we can believe
in love again, that we can believe in life again,
that we can do this, and we began our healing process,
but it didn't come that quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's a kind of rigor, isn't that that when you're
following a recipe or you're learning how to do first
position sex position, That rigor of a discipline of doing
something allows you then to come be free. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Absolutely, And it gave me a confidence that I was
beginning to lose. Studies show that children when they enter
middle school, which is what you know, we were kind
of about. We were still not out of elementary school
when he passed away, but when the first couple of
years after he was gone, we were entering middle school.
That's around the time when children start losing their confidence.
And I'm just happy that that ballet didn't allow me
(24:52):
to lose it completely.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And you went to New York. You went back to me.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
When I was seventeen, So from ten to seventeen, I
was in Dominican Republic. By the time we were fourteen
fifteen years old, we were beach heads. We were just
like surfing. We were you you have a bad day,
go to the beach. Yah. Yeah, you break your boyfriend
breaks up with you, you go to the beach. You know
what I mean? And and so we were always at
the beach, we were always dancing, We were always at school, ballet,
(25:19):
learning languages that sort of, you know. And then my
mom found love again also when we were in Dominican Republic,
by reconnecting with a childhood friend, and that began to
also she began to kind of step out of her
spell because my mom was in a really bad depression
after my dad passed away for I would say like
(25:41):
two to four years after he passed, and then she
found love and they're still together, still married.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Huh was that good for you? Yes?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I was. I was fourteen. I think when they when
they reconnected and they're still together, and he became he
became my father. Yeah he is. He's a really good
father and a really great husband, and he's funny and
he's geeky, and yeah, he dances really great. So to
see that my mom also was able to regain, you know,
(26:11):
a good dancing partner, because dancing is really a part
of who we are, alive, of our bank.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You that into a profession for yourself when you came back,
did you go to Julie did you?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
No? No, no, no no. I danced in like a
little Academy in Queens that I had to take a
train and two buses for every day after school. It
wasn't the same. I still kept at it, you know,
for I would say two more years. By the time
I was like to eighteen, about to be nineteen, I
had already kind of started meddling with acting.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So you went to auditions, tell us about just.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
One thing led to another. I had. I knew nothing
about that way anything. I just knew that I was
going to dance. And I guess, once I graduate high school,
maybe I'll go to Sunny Purchase if I'm lucky enough
and I really want to pursue this all, go to
Yale and master in some kind of dance or psychology.
And so I was starting to already think about that
(27:08):
and working with the dean and your in your high
school and everything. But deep, deep down, I had no
desire of doing any of those things because I realized
I had reached my glass ceiling in ballet ballet, and
I wasn't able to shatter it. I just I didn't
have the feet, and I was getting really tired of
just punishing myself for not being good enough. And I
(27:32):
had too much hunger in me that just being in
the core of a company wasn't going to cut it
for me if it cuts it for other people. I
wished I was more like other people at that time,
other dancers, but I wasn't, and I would pass by
all these little theaters. When I was in Manhattan. My
mom would only let me go with my sister to Kapezio,
to the store in fifty seven and Columbus to go
(27:55):
buy my shoes and go buy some leotards. Whenever I
was like running out and it was like you come
straight back. I hop on the train and comes straight
back to Queens. But there was they were holding these auditions,
and there was this little sign, yeah, like on the
basement of like this brownstone uptown and it said New
York Youth Theater holding auditions for the Wiz. And I
(28:16):
looked at my sister, who at the time she was
smoking cigarettes and she wasn't supposed to, so obviously she
brings me into the city. She's like buys her pack
a cigarettes and she's just smoking away as she's being
like my chaperone, and I'm like, Marie, can I go
check this out really quickly? And then we take the
train and home and she's like looking look like her
(28:37):
cigarette and kind of goes for yeah, sure and then
puts it out. We go inside, we audition and no, no, no,
she just she was there, signs me up and everything,
and you know, but mind she's only a year older.
It's not like she's much older than I am. But
we were always partners and crying. My sisters and I.
I auditioned for it, and I get called back for
the Whiz. Yes, but it was like a small off
(29:00):
off off that way.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
The other tribes of this story, these probably guys and actors,
standing that this little girl, she's walked off the street,
she wants to audition. Okay, you know, we'll do it.
We have to do it, and it's you.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Oh yeah, and they were so nice they called me back.
I remember waiting for that phone call. Every time the
phone in my house would would ring, I'd be like,
I got it, I got it, hello, you know. And
finally it was them, and I think my sister took
the call and she said, they're calling you back, so
now we have to tell our parents. So I remember
(29:38):
we did. I waited for my mom to come home
from work and and I was like, well, don't be upset.
But we I did audition for this place and I
got called back, and she was just like, okay, what
about ballet. I'm like, I don't know. I just they're
just calling me for it's a call back. It's like,
what's a call back. I don't even know what a
callback was. What's a call back? I guess it's just
(29:58):
the second round. It's not like I got it, it's
just the second round. I'm so sorry. And then at
this point, my mom takes off from work and she
takes me with my sister for the callbacks, and I
remember there was I'm reading for the role of the scarecrow.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Guys. I sucked so bad.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I hate my lines, but I can dance, I can
do whatever. And my mom leans over to my sister
and says, oh, boy, I guess that's what she wants
to do, because I guess I was really bad at
the audition because they're watching it. They're sitting in the
theater and they're allowing the parents to watch the children
because we're all miners. I was seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen,
(30:35):
and my mom was like, oh, oh, am on, okay,
this is what she wants to do. So then we
all went back to the house. When I booked it,
I didn't book the role of the scarecrow, but I
booked to be like in the core. We go back
and it's the news. Now we've told my grandmother, my stepdad,
and my younger sister, Oh my god. But we're looking
at the schedule with if I take off from work,
(30:56):
then you can take Zoe, then maybe I'll pick her up.
So at this point we're all We've always been a team.
But we realized that with all my ballet commitments and
I had to recital, there was just no way that
I could do it without failing this academy, which I'd
granted me a scholarship to dance.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So happened.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I called them up and I said, I can't do it,
Thank you so much. I realized that my commitments with
ballet are far greater and I just can't really do
what but my younger sister can. And they were like, well,
I'm like, she looks just like me. People things were
twins and she used to dance, and at that time,
my sister was going through like a really hard time,
just sixteen years old. Can't fit in theater, just gave
(31:38):
her what ballet had given me in my early years,
so I say it for the poor. They did, and
she started doing you know, she did the Whiz and
she did Bye Bye Birdie. Then she did Jesus Christ Superstar,
and she did a whole bunch of productions with this
theater company for I would say like five six years.
So all into like her, like twenty until she was
like twenty years old or twenty one. I joined at once.
(32:01):
I stopped dancing. Then I joined this other theater group
in Brooklyn, and then they hired me. I did it
through like an internship program from school, and then after
I graduated high school, then they gave me a job
with full coverage. I was eighteen, So I'm in this
theater group in Brooklyn. My sister's the one in Broadway
(32:22):
in Manhattan. So she's the one with all jazz hands
and Bye Bye Bertie. And I'm writing skits about urban
life and domestic violence and drug addiction with a whole
bunch of kids and this other and we're performing in hospitals,
in high schools and jails. Like I went to sing,
sing to perform, you know, with this theater troupe, and
(32:43):
I loved it because it was raw. It was awesome,
but it was just dangerous. My mom just didn't want
me going to Brooklyn. So one day she tells, my
sister just convinced her, because I was also dating a
guy that didn't want me dating whatever, just convinced her
to audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat
at your theater and then we'll get her out of Brooklyn.
(33:05):
I was I think, I was like I was nineteen.
It all happened really fast. This was nineteen ninety seven.
So I auditioned and I booked the role of missus Potiphar,
and I really had fun, and I decided to stay
with the production and with my sister, well at that
point was doing more production work than being on stage
(33:27):
because she's always had a good eye. And there was
a manager in the room and signed signed me and
started sending me out immediately for soap operas and shows
like episodics and commercials, and and I started booking things
left and right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
It left home by then. Or are you living still
at home?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
No? No, no, no, no, oh my god, no, we're
such a I'm still living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So you were still being cooked for I'm getting to
the food.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
That yes, oh, my grandmother this point, my grandmother was
always with us and and her husband and they lived.
You know, my mom and my grandmother always lived within
a block from each other or in the next building
of each other. And that's how we grew up in
Queens where I would open the window of my bedroom
and go aha, and she would open her window gay
(34:23):
and you would go in the jon. And this is
how you greet all of your elders. You say bless me,
and then they always respond, May God bless you. That's
how you greet them. And that's how you say good night.
In Spain you do it as well. And benizion and
(34:45):
then she would literally come over from her apartment and
her pjs and and come inside our apartment. What do
you want? It's like Papa Mango, so beata.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
The River Cafe when you said lunch is now running
from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking a www. Rivercafe
dot co dot uk or give us a call. Did
you ever have an apartment by yourself or did you did?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I learned to cook. I remember I started doing pepper steak.
I would make pepper steak all the time, like what
is it with pepper steak? Like I would just make
pepper steak pepper steak. And my mom is like, okay, great,
So now why don't you learn to make beans? And
I remember I called hi. I'm like, oh my god,
are you sitting down. I figured out a way to
make beans that I don't think you've ever done before.
(35:42):
And she's like, let's hear it, you know, and she's well,
I'm like, mom, I do the sofrito on the side
and then I put it into the beans. And she
was just like, Zoe, that's great, baby, that is so awesome.
I'm so proud of you. If I remember, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So you can remember this when you were appearing on
stage and you're doing the pride came also in the cooking.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yes, yes, because even though I was I was living
in Tribecca, so a little far from Queens. I was
getting like home set.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Were you dating a lot? We were going out with
people I was.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I was.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
The next question is connected.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I was a serial monogamer and I should have been
more wild, you know, but I was always in relasion.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Would you ever date somebody who didn't care about food?
Could you imagine being in love with somebody who wasn't No, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
No, I. I always would fall for the guys that
were homebodies, that were close to their families, that were
very you know, they liked to be home and cozy.
I didn't like the party.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Finally fell for your husband to he's Italian.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yes, and he's a single child. So and he's Italian.
So the sun rises and set some modical bayre Goo
and he looks like the Catholics version of Jesus Christ.
For a reason. He is sensitive and super just kind.
He's a really he's the kindest person I've ever met
in my life. And he cooks.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And he grew up in Coma and.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
His family they owned a little restaurant and the cafe,
and at one point they owned a bar. And it's no,
they're they're in La with us. They're in the States.
Because he's an only child. So for me, for me,
it just made sense that I just want I wanted
my kids to grow up with their grandparents from both
sides the way that I grew up with mine, because
(37:36):
I honestly feel that more than half of who I
am was defined by the love that I received the unconditional,
you know, love that I received by my grandparents and
great grandparents.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And so you tell us about your cooking world with him.
You have two sons, three three boys.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
But Madigo was definitely an Italian, you know, dandy chat
mean pirate. When I met him, you know, and I
just I remember he was always like got am bah
and I'm like, I'm from Queens, New York. I'm just like,
come on, where's your voice going here? Because he was
always a kid. He's an artist, well, I disciplinary is
a sculptor and a painter and a conceptual artist. And
(38:19):
now he's a director. But he does everything manco just
lives in the part and that's really he creates exactly.
And I just remember when we met, I was always
so hard and he was like, I want to take
you to go and I want you to try the
best pizza in the world. I'm like, are you kidding me?
The best pizza on Prince Street. You know, I was,
come on, kid, what are you talking about? And I
(38:39):
just remember we we go to Napoli, we do the
whole thing, We eat the pizza Brita. It's amazing. And
then cut to you, like a week later, we're on
some sidewalk in New York and we're having a slice
of pizza and he looks at me. He goes, see,
without a doubt, a New York slice is the best
in the world. And I'm like, Pappy, I told you,
come on, come on, man. I know you got Italy,
(39:00):
but I got New York.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Baby. My friend who has a group of friends and
they go out every once a month finding the best
pizza place in New York. They've come up with one
in Jersey they love they have.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Oh there's one in Jersey.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, yeah, I'll find out.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
You gotta tell me.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I will well, because another friend of mine did it
as well. He went, they kind of like this place.
I think it's in Jersey City. Do you like Italy?
Do I love that?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Now? It's it's home for me. It's it's it's half
of who I am.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah. Where do you go?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
My favorite region is Liuia. There's something really beautiful about
the Italian Riviera.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Do you go to the chic Utera.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
We rented a house one time in sestri Levand there
in the middle of summer, just to see all these
Italian families come from all over Italy to vacation in
sestri Lelande, which is you know, it's close to Chincoda,
it's just forty minutes, but it's like a melting pot
of this beautiful social your economic you know, communities and
(40:04):
so very working class, very upper class, but they're all
together and the beach, taking their kids to the fair.
So we love doing that. We definitely always go to
Lago de Gadada to visit the family who's still there,
and in other towns that are neighboring to Lago de Gadada.
Milan is always a place where we we we're just there.
We land in Milan and from there we drive everywhere.
(40:24):
We've been in Florence, all through Tuscany, Rome. I need
to explore Rome more because I'm a little now that
my husband is from the north, I'm a little Northerner now.
I'm always like, it's those vals. I don't know, it's
like it's no and so hot and be there's too anything,
blah blah blah blah. B Marco loves Rome and there's
something really beautiful about the Italian culture that you can
(40:44):
you can ask a little four year old, Yeah, but
why do you how does your nor not make your
boss La Basila nola blah blah blah blah, and they
tell you all the ingredients. I'm like, how good a
four year old little boy know how to make this pasta?
And it's like thirty thousand days with four simple ingredients,
and they just they're so versatile and so the Italian
(41:07):
cuisine and its simplicity. For me, it's one of the
best cuisines in the world. It's just so beautiful and
there's so much love in it. There's just so much love,
and I don't know, I just think.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
That, well, it made sense to have lunch. But before
we do, Amelia Paris, we should talk about them. That's
how we met. Yes, we met over a movie and
you are deeply involved in the season for the prizes,
but making of it, it would be interesting to feel
just being on that movie what it meant to you.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I was so excited. It is not the first time
I've worked in Paris. I did. I did parts of
a film that I was in called Colombiana years before
in Paris, and the sound sound stages, same sound stages
that I did. I did. Yeah, there are like forty
minutes outside of the center of Paris. I'm super great.
(41:59):
The French hours are very much like Italian hours. They
don't like to overwork, so it's not like the English
and the South Americans. We're like, fourteen hours not enough,
let's keep shooting, and you're like, wait, wait, we've done eight.
It's enough.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Because I always hear French hours big the way you
eat as well that this is it called French howers
when you don't have lunch.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yes, but I don't know where that comes from, because
the French are very much like Boom. They're like, okay,
let me put this down, let's go eat. They sit down.
Back in the day when I was shooting Caulomena, they
would have some bottles of wine on the table. Now
you don't, but that's okay. But you eat so well.
Nobody gives you a styrofoam plate and with plastic things
(42:38):
like we do in other parts of the world where
we shoot. Everybody has, you know, silverware and a plate.
And you sit down and we all talk and and
everybody takes a break and we really eat, and then
everybody goes smokes the cigarette drinks. They're shot of us,
but so and then we go work. But you do
your eight to ten hours and then everybody goes home.
(42:58):
You come home and I'm I'm shooting in Paris. You're
having a baguette and a bottle of wine. You know,
you're debriefing with Selena, with Edgar, with Godla. You know,
you're talking about what you're doing and why is this
special for you and how it impacted your life. Godless
teaching us about the trans experience by just sharing anecdotes
of her life that no matter how painful, dark or bright,
(43:24):
they've shaped her identity. And I'm learning from Selena. I'm
getting to work up close and personal with this pop star.
On paper, she's a pop star, when in reality she's
a decent and an incredible human being, so talented, with
such great taste. Boss Lady, Edgar's just sexy. Edgar's so classy,
so worldly. You know, he grew up he was born
(43:46):
in Europe, and he grew up partially in South America
and Europe and speaks like five languages. And so and
we're all here and Adriana. Adriana comes as this Queen
of Mexico with so much recognition, awards, such great body
of work, and we're all excited to be here with
Jack you know who who has been at some point
(44:09):
in our lives and in our careers just an icon
and a giant in his own right, and our hearts
were open.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Did you discover the restaurants so that you ate a
lot in the eleventh at those new restaurants are so interesting?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Are they are? They are a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Of young cooks were doing different wines, different food.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Well. And to realize too that as city folks in Paris,
like they have their version of Asian food that is
like their everyday food and its numbs. It's Vietnam Vietnamese food.
And I just remember having like the best Vietnamese food
in Paris. And and but I know, but always always
going back to my default of es cargo, a bottle
of Saint Emilion and maybe some a duck com feet.
(44:53):
It's just it's just what I m go to. But
every now and then I always yearned for Asian flavors
or for most cultures. There's great Argentine restaurants there, there's
great Italian. There's the sushi scene. I haven't really tapped
into the Japanese scene, but everybody loves sushi in Paris.
But I'm just so busy having real typical French food
(45:14):
and having Italian and Argentine food. It's like it's I
just you know, everybody loves you, but nah, that's in
all these things.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And how did the film? We should talk about more
about film? Are you here to do work for the
movie now at all?
Speaker 3 (45:28):
It's so, you know, we have we have seventeen we
have what nineteen more days before the voting. Voting opens
on the eleventh of February, and then they close, I
believe on the nineteen. So I guess this is very
new territory for me, and I've enjoyed, you know, the
whole process. And to me, the everything that was being
put together was all in favor of complementing these four
(45:52):
women's journey, and their journeys were not you know, they
weren't great to say that, but they were so real
and they were so human, and they were so diverse
in their own right. You know, with a trans woman
with a young woman that was the you know, the
wife of a crime lord, with a lawyer, with a
(46:14):
battered woman that was trying to run away from a
domestic sort of abusive situation. And they're all just in
a way interconnected and looking for their most authentic selves
and that is what drew me.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
And we're all in all of the movie and all
of what you. Thank you. And so I think that
you've described life of happiness, of struggle, of loss, of grief,
of joy, children finding love. And there have been times
when obviously you've found comfort in dance. You'd say you've
(46:49):
found comfort in your family. And there is also times
when we seafood is not staving off hunger or expressing something,
but it is pure come for. My last question to
you is to say, if you needed comfort, and I
hope you don't, but if you did, is there a
food that you would turn to?
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Any Dominican stew cures me, heals me. And now that
my husband has been in my life, an he's such
a big part of who we are and the same
way I am a big part of who he is.
Any Italian stew as well, Tenny Lisoto, I will take.
(47:30):
And I do have to say that the older I get,
the more I am connecting with my mother's through food,
the farm to table, the growing something and making something
with your bare hands has been an event that just
keeps growing, an act, a process that keeps growing in me,
(47:52):
and it's just bigger and bigger, and I just I
bake the bread for my boys, even though I'm here
promoting a movie. Right before I left, I baked their bread.
I'm going to start making their yogurt. I just all
the things that they actively eat. And I know that
the pasta eventually I will have to make it on
my own, because the more and more I'm educating myself
about the kind of food that is out there today,
(48:14):
which is very different to the food that I ate
as a child. A lot of our ailments come from food,
and I just want my children to always become particular
eaters and always yearn for things that are fresh and
well made and properly handled versus whatever is in that
I can throw in this instant thing and it can
(48:35):
give me something super back, give me something back quickly.
So we make everything from scratch. I make their bone
broth from scratch. I bake their you know, their their
banana bread, and I put a whole bunch of stuff
in it, you know, in their meatballs. I put all
the veggies that I can process, you know, I can,
I can you know, blend in it. And that way
(48:57):
they creating a palate that is just inflexible for bad food.
You know what I mean, because it's it's the way
that I was raised. I'm still the kind of person
that because I was raised on such great flavors and
such organic ways of eating, I can't just go anywhere
to eat. I will refuse and I will kindly pass
(49:18):
and drink tea, you know, until my next sob where
I can eat something fresh. And my husband is the
same way, so we want our kids to sort of
grow up that way.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, you're a woman of values. It's strong and strong
and no fear.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you for listening
to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
You were listening to Ruthie's table for in Partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
One of Zoe Saldania's mantras in life is feel the
fear and do it anyway. And what hasn't she done?
She dances, she acts, she sings, she speaks several languages,
and I think she loves to cook. Imagine my surprise
couple of months ago in October, standing outside my office
(00:25):
laptop and cook books in hand, with a large sign
on the door saying do not disturb. And the reason
for this wasn't a meeting with accountants or a broken radiator,
but the fact that Zoe Saldania was changing into her
dress for a lunch downstairs to celebrate the release of
her brilliant new movie, Amelia Perez. After lunch, I took
(00:46):
her hand and walked her to her car, talking about
how to make the perfect rice. A few minutes later,
we'd agreed to do a podcast together. And since then,
it's been quite a time for Zoe. I've seen her
everywhere on screen and newspapers, magazines and posters, and I'm
thrilled that last month she won a Golden Globe and
(01:06):
in February March she's this contender for both abaft add
an Oscar. A lot has happened, and a lot is
going to happen. But right now, what's happening is that
Zoe is here with me on a Saturday morning in
the River Cafe. It's our chance to sit down and
talk about food, food and memories, food and family, no fear,
(01:26):
just happiness and love.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That was so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, it's true. It was such a quick meeting. It
was you were here, it was Netflix was giving you lunch.
Do you remember it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah? Yeah, And you just reminded me. We were talking
about rice, about making rice, and we should have cooked
rice today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
We did. We cooked Go to the perfect race.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Tell me it's very simple. We saw tr rice before
we put the water in. So you put your pot
on the stove. You wait for it to get nice
and warm. You add the oil. Sometimes you can add
the salt over the oil, or you can just wait
until you put the rice, the washed rice rinsed. You
put your rinsed rice in it. You saute it for
(02:14):
at least two to three minutes, make sure that that
it's just you know, it cooks a little bit, and
then you put the water. So you wait for all
that water to almost evaporate on very high heat. And
then when it evaporates, then that's when you close your pot.
And you then put the fire on simmer for twenty
(02:35):
eight No lid in there, No, because the water has
already it's already the rice has already soaked up all
the water. The rice has expanded.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And it's nice and kind.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Of fluffy, but it's still very very odd. And then
you cover it and you allow its own steam to
cook it all the way into its you know, its
cellular sort of you know component, and then you can
you can have your rice.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's a certain type of rice, so long rain, long grain.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Long grain. We don't necessarily cook with avodio unless we're
making a soup that carries rice like a porridge in it,
and we do. In the Caribbean. We make a lot
of soups. Every island has.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So dest from the from the rice to the soups.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Well, you we make soups with provisions, which are those
root vegetables from yucca, yeah me jaotia, I don't I
don't know the names in English, so please forgive me.
And then also with the plantains, some of them can
have plantains and potatoes, and you either choose what kind
of meat. Either it can be beef or pork or chicken.
(03:43):
Sometimes you can also do a fish stew or a
shrimp stewice a hardshell stew, and you cook all of
those things down with really important greens that add so
much flavor. And I think you guys use it a
lot here in England, the koulantro, it's a coriander, I
believe it's which in Spanish we call it because the
(04:06):
cilantro that they use in Central and South America is
the small leaf one that looks really like a four
leaf clover, and but the ones that we use in
the Caribbean is the really long leaf that when you
slap it and you sort of make, you know, you
open up all of it's like pores, and you put
it into water or your tea or or broth. It's
(04:27):
the most pungent, you know, smell and fragrance and taste.
Suff So that's how I grew up, just making stews
of all type soups.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But but they vary from the winter soups to the
summer soups.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
We'll make soup on the hottest day of summer, and
it's always summer in the Caribbean, and but it's it
cools you off as you're having something that's really hot
or sometimes spicy. And the Medican Republic we're not really
known for eating spicy spicy food. You can, but it's
not something that is in name in our culture like
it would be, for instance, in Mexico. But we do
(05:05):
a lot of soups, and when you're having your soup
on a very hot day, it just compels you to
cool off, you know. It's like having a hot team
and I just love it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So it must have been quite in many ways your
early childhood, which you were born in.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I was born New Jersey, Pa Sake, New Jersey, and
I lived in New York because my family has been
in New York since nineteen since the nineteen sixties, and
I lived there until I was ten, and then when
my father unexpectedly just tragically died in a car accident
at he's thirty eight, it was still a kid. Then
we all fly and we move to you know, where
(05:44):
they're from in Dominican Republic, which is where I'm from,
you know, at the root of my origin. And it
was beautiful Dominican Republic and the Caribbean. Puerto Rico and
Dominican Republic used to be places that we used to
go to during the Christmas holiday summers. Of course we did, yes,
we and we spoke Spanish at the house. But you
(06:05):
speak English already at school, so you're I'm very much
a one generation child in New York where you coach
switch automatically and you don't even know what that means,
and you eat rice and beans with your grandparents today.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Did your grandparents live with you it is New York? Yes, yes,
both sets?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Or yes both sets?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Did they go back with you when you when you
went back? Yes, we used to.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Well, growing up, I used to travel mainly with my grandparents.
And that's you know, in our culture. I guess that
was their version of giving, like my parents a break.
So for two weeks, you know, they would fly with
us ahead, you know, two weeks in advance, we would
sort of take take it all in from from the
gaze of your grandparents, of your no nos, your your abuelos,
(06:52):
and then your parents would arrive with a great tan.
They probably would go somewhere and reconnect, and and two
weeks later that we were all together. We would spend
the whole summer in Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
A lot of people that I talked to from especially
from different cultures, different family groups, talk a lot about
their grandparents, almost more about their grandparents cooking than their parents.
And as a mother, and now I'm a grandparent, I
was saying last night at dinner that I really noticed
the difference in the way that I cook for my
children and the way I cook for my grandchildren. When
(07:27):
you're cooking for your children, very often you're just trying
to get food on the table because you've worked all day,
or you know you're going out that night, or you
want to see them. But they are more important things
to do than to perhaps spend hours cooking for them.
But when you're a grandchild, there's so much you just
want to bring, the culture. You want to cook the
food that they'll remember. It's part of the memory.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Did you feel that with your Oh my god, absolutely,
what you're saying just makes me want to cry. I
just there is just so much love that my grandmother
put in every dish that she was made. My grandmother
was born in Dominican Republic in nineteen thirty five under
the dictatorship of Trujillo dictator that that was in power
(08:09):
for over thirty years. She was born and she was
raised under this dictatorship, got married, had her daughter, my mom,
and then in nineteen sixty one, after the assassination of
this tyrant, they were granting passages, visas, work visas to Dominicans,
and my grandmother was, I guess, in the first or
(08:30):
a couple of waves of Dominicans that arrived in New
York in the night in nineteen sixty one and would
later then, you know, populate that uptown region of Manhattan
that would which is now known as Washington Heights, which
is basically you know, it's all very much the biggest
(08:50):
Dominican diaspora outside of the Dominican Republic is in Washington
Heights in Manhattan. And my grandmother was one of those
I would say, first arrivors, you know, and worked. She
was a seamstress and she worked for in factories and
for some fashion houses throughout you know, those first two
(09:11):
decades of her life there. My mother must have been
my mom was born in fifty six, so she must
have been five when my grandmother arrived in New York.
But my mother stayed behind with her grandparents with my
grandmother's parents in Santo Domingo, and then in the summer
she would go to New York and spend it with
(09:31):
my grandmother until she was fourteen, And at that age
that's when my grandmother then moved my mom and her
parents to New York. By the time I was born
and we were living in New York, my great grandparents
had already sort of flown and moved back and retired
in the Dominican Republic. But they would always visit. So
I remember every time they would visit, like every three months.
(09:52):
We were a family that was always on a plane
and still today, I've always been on a plane and
they would open up the suitcases and they would bring
Dominican Republic like their plantains and their their cheese. It's
like we have a version of like a hallum cheese
that you fry. That is the most delicious thing. Why
that cheese, It's just it's just called you know, and
(10:15):
they call it Kisofrito. I don't know if it's called
something else, but they would bring it the blocks of it,
and the moment she would open that suitcase and that
cheese would pop out, she was immediately slicing it and
throwing it in a hot, sizzling pan. And and then
the salami you know, there was there was this this company,
and Dominican Republic is still there. It's one of the
biggest salami companies. We eat a lot of salami, but
(10:39):
we fry our salami. We don't really we don't really
eat it, like as I said, charcouterie, like you know,
cold and stuff, we can, but not this particular salami.
This one is free. This one is fried, and and
we would just eat that as a snack. And then
the plantains, where you know, I think I think we've
inherited the eating of plantains from our Africans of origins.
(11:02):
And you boil the plantains and you mash them with
butter and salt, and and you eat them and they
make it into like a paste. And it's called like
a mangoo, which I know that in Africa and certain
countries they call it like a fou fool, right, but
we call it mangool. And you put them the fried
salami and the fried cheese, and you grill some pic
is over it, and we just all the smell ine.
(11:26):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
But the smell of that and our kitchen meant that that,
you know, Abulita from Dominican Republic was in town. And
we would for the whole two weeks that she was
visiting with us, my great grandmother, we knew that we
were going to eat well. And she would sometimes go
to the markets, certain markets in Queens or she would
she would venture out and sometimes go out there down
(11:50):
downtown to Manhattan or go to Brooklyn, and she would
buy the coconuts, like really good coconuts that they would
bring from the Caribbean. What would she do with coconut desserts, desserts,
all types of macaroons, and she would make like these
biscuits that we call cocon and she would make those,
or she would grab a spoon, a very big spoon
on My grandmother, my great grandmother, was a you know,
(12:13):
she was just like a like a very simple woman
and there was nothing she could do that, you know,
and she would scrape the coconut sort of meat out
of the coconut and it would it would kind of
curl up. She would scrape it and she would curl
it up, and then she she would put it on
a pan with sugar and baking soda and vanilla, and
(12:33):
she would let that cook down and then it would
dry up, and then she would divide in these little
like rolls that it was ours so.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Here here.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And she was a feisty lady. By the time I
was born, she was already great grandma. So she was
just like very feisty, like a really really gritty woman,
you know, and she would grab everything with her hand
like she would she would. There was one story though,
that the biggest your shock for us, you know, when
we moved to a Dominican republic was just yeah, was
(13:08):
just how closely we lived with nature. You know, Like
she had her garden in the back, so she would
get all her herbs and fruits and everything from her
backyard and she would come in and this was It's
kind of like when you gave me the tour in
your kitchen, there wasn't a written menu. She would make
the meatballs from scratch, you know. She would grind the meat.
She had her grinder. I remember, like, oh, the grinder's out,
(13:30):
and she would like it was like a transformer. It
came like a lego piece. She would like put it
all together, screw it up her and just put the
salami and the meat. She would the rabbi by by
the cheese and she would just grind that. And then
I would sit there and she would come on rush
your hands and she would put like oil on my hands.
And then we would make meatballs. And I was like,
(13:50):
oh my god. And then you try these meatballs and
they were just I haven't had a meatball like like hers.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You should make it. Yeah, well, you remember, is I
have a different I have a Hungarian grandmother. The story
is that she traveled with her rolling pin. That whatever
she came to visit, she'd come out just one hundred
miles from New York and she'd bring the rolling pin.
And the famous story in our family was that she
came to see her first grandson. My mother's my older brother,
(14:19):
and she came. It's quite a long trip and she
got to the door and they said, would you like
to come and see your grandson? And she said, let's
eat first, priorities. But what we're talking really about is,
you know, to see your face light up, to see
your memories, to feel and hear you. Is that food
(14:39):
is so important?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You know? Is that we're going to ask her to
make this? Yeah, that salted codfish.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
She would also meant like like a curd melk dessert
that was so good. And I think that the moment
my great grandmother passed away, I stopped eating dessert because
the only I don't I have a savory tooth. I
don't have a sweet tooth, as you know, but only
for hers, I would eat any any desserts that she
(15:08):
would make. And then she got sick with Alzheimer's when
I was sixteen, and she sort of slipped away from
us mentally quite quite rapidly. And then we took care
of her for eleven years. And I just remember looking
at her, like when I was like nineteen or twenty,
It's like, I'm never going to try anything your hands
(15:31):
ever made. And that was I remember. I cried a
lot when that sort of like realizes that. And she's
right in front of me, and I was just painting
her nails, you know, just a distractor, and I just
looked at her and I was like, it's over.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
But she was an artist, you know. She was what
you're talking about is an illusionist, like Moses creativity going
in there, you know. And now probably maybe if she'd
been at a different time, she might have been a chef,
you know, she might given the pleasure that she came
to you as a grandmother, as you know, one of
the women in the kitchen right now. I had no
(16:05):
option to say, well, actually, this is what I love
in my work, and I'm like, this is what I'm
going to create. I always think that cooking is a
bit like art, you know, except art last forever.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
It does.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Somebody eats that lemon tart you've worked hours over and
it's gone. You know it's they're your.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Grandmother, my great grandmother, your great grandmother hand make You
can make those memories last forever. You have to pass
it down. I have a picture of my grandmother in
my kitchen. She's the first person I see and the
last I say. Good not too And by keeping her
picture of her, we are keeping her alive. Because my
(16:42):
sons they won't have the experience that I had with
my grandmother and my great grandmother. They lost their great
grandmother really young. So it's in the stories I do
tell them.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
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(17:21):
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going back to going to the Dominican Republic at an
early age, you discovered the food. You burn it in
a place you knew, but in a different place, a
(17:42):
different school. And was it also that you found that
by eating and discovering food, but also by dancing that
you were able to yea, you know, the tragedy of
your father's life, the difficulty of living in a foreign country.
How did dance affect you?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Well, the foreign aspect of Dominican Republic sort of dissipated
within the first couple of years because we are innately
where our families come from. That's just undeniable. Dance became
on a really important time in my life because trying
(18:21):
to fit in and find my placement right when you're
going into your early teenage years in terms of who
am I, what am I? Why am I? And so
going through all of that when it comes to discovering
your identity while mourning the death of a very big
figure in your life. The biggest figure in your life
(18:43):
was your ten Oh, my dad was My dad was incredible.
He played the guitar, he played the accordion. He was
a very naturally curious person, very smart for business, danced
very well. He and my mom they could have been arguing,
but they would just get up and kind of like
not face each other and still like like dance at
(19:06):
all the birthday parties. And You're like, how could they
do that? Like we're like sitting under a table just
like marveling at just the polar you know, opposites of
emotions that are being displayed in this beautiful, passionate dance
that they're doing, which is mad anger salsa, and and
they're just not looking at each other. And she would
(19:28):
be like by by his left shoulder, like smoking her cigarette,
like do do do do do dude, and he if
he would turn to face her, she would do do
do do do do do do? And you now I
know that I'm like that night must have been banging
for them, because you know that they were making love
while they were Dad saying still and my dad. My
(19:48):
dad was the was the one that taught my mom
how to cook. Because my mom growing up as a
single child with her grandparents while her mom was working
in New York. My mom had everything made for her.
She was spoiled by her grandparents. They gave her everything.
She wore the best little outfits because my great grandmother,
my mother and my grandmother were both seamstresses, so they
(20:09):
would make everything from scratch, and she just had the
best little outfits. So by the time she met my dad,
she couldn't even boil an egg. And my dad was
this could have been a chef. Oh my god. He
would make just he would grill fish, he would grill meats,
he would make the best beans, the best desserts. He knew.
He was a baker, like just like a very self
(20:32):
made kind of guy, you know. And even though they
had different upbringings, my dad was just a lot more
self sufficient and more independent than my mom. And my
mom then you know, he taught her. So everything, everything
that she does for us, it always comes with the
memory of like, no, your dad used to make this
(20:53):
in the middle of the night when I was pregnant
with you guys, and blah blah blah blah blah. And
so I at least I lived with the memories that
she has been able to share with us, you know,
because when you're ten, you remember just ten years. You
documented ten years, and that's enough to me for me
to last a lifetime. He was really on top of
(21:13):
just hygiene and preparation, and with his Serio Valente jeans
and his Calvin Klin like sweater. And my mom still
remembers that. So I know I wasn't making it up,
and I wasn't making this all fantastical, like she was like, No,
that's the man that smelled the best I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Anybody dance with him.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I was down on his feet. I come from a family,
and I do know this that it is a cultural thing.
We dance. We dance at funerals, We dance, had births.
We dance. If you fail to test, we danced if
you passed it. You know what I mean. It's you
just dance, and you dance adding and you dance Alsa
and neighbors all they can be doctors or architects, but
(21:53):
they know how to play the gonghas, and they know
how to play the drums and they'll come with a trumpet,
and everybody sits in someone's backyard and you can see it.
Even Puerto Rico is the same, Goolay is the same.
Dominican Republic is very much that way. So I grew
up just and and there's always everything is always a
reason to have a party. It's somebody's it's somebody's baptism,
(22:13):
and you sort of go, why are we having this parade? Like, no, no,
it's a baptism, And you're like, but he's four. You're like,
it's the biggest party, can last sixteen hours. And so
I grew up always seeing great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins,
teenagers dancing, everybody always dancing. So we dance.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We did as well.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yes, yes, but that transition into dance was very different
from what you do at home. Right. It was therapy.
It was medicine for my soul. Yes, because I was
I wasn't really acclimating enough.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I just wasn't a Dominican Republic.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, my mom says that we were, but I think
it was just grieving. We were just you were grieving.
It was something that happened to us was very traumatic.
In children don't really describe trauma. They don't really say
I am going through something right now. They either shut
down or they overreact. They just whatever it is, they're
(23:11):
just not themselves. And that's the sign. That's the indication
that they've experienced trauma and they're still like in a
state of shock and ballet. Ballet became my outlet, my place,
my safe haven I would go to after school. It
was an environment that I can go and test myself
and challenge myself and learn something new. So when you're
(23:32):
learning something new, that takes a lot of your attention
and your time, and that's what I needed. I needed
a lot to put all of my attention, all of
my time into something that was going to give me
some kind of release and relief, and Ballet did that.
It almost became an obsession. I was very blessed in
the sense that throughout my life I had really great
(23:55):
role models that took my mom, my, sisters, and I
in and either cooking a meal or teaching us yeah something,
you know. We were taken in and we were told
that we can believe in ourselves, that we can believe
in love again, that we can believe in life again,
that we can do this, and we began our healing process,
but it didn't come that quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's a kind of rigor, isn't that that when you're
following a recipe or you're learning how to do first
position sex position, That rigor of a discipline of doing
something allows you then to come be free. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Absolutely, And it gave me a confidence that I was
beginning to lose. Studies show that children when they enter
middle school, which is what you know, we were kind
of about. We were still not out of elementary school
when he passed away, but when the first couple of
years after he was gone, we were entering middle school.
That's around the time when children start losing their confidence.
And I'm just happy that that ballet didn't allow me
(24:52):
to lose it completely.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And you went to New York. You went back to me.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
When I was seventeen, So from ten to seventeen, I
was in Dominican Republic. By the time we were fourteen
fifteen years old, we were beach heads. We were just
like surfing. We were you you have a bad day,
go to the beach. Yah. Yeah, you break your boyfriend
breaks up with you, you go to the beach. You know
what I mean? And and so we were always at
the beach, we were always dancing, We were always at school, ballet,
(25:19):
learning languages that sort of, you know. And then my
mom found love again also when we were in Dominican Republic,
by reconnecting with a childhood friend, and that began to
also she began to kind of step out of her
spell because my mom was in a really bad depression
after my dad passed away for I would say like
(25:41):
two to four years after he passed, and then she
found love and they're still together, still married.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Huh was that good for you? Yes?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I was. I was fourteen. I think when they when
they reconnected and they're still together, and he became he
became my father. Yeah he is. He's a really good
father and a really great husband, and he's funny and
he's geeky, and yeah, he dances really great. So to
see that my mom also was able to regain, you know,
(26:11):
a good dancing partner, because dancing is really a part
of who we are, alive, of our bank.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You that into a profession for yourself when you came back,
did you go to Julie did you?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
No? No, no, no no. I danced in like a
little Academy in Queens that I had to take a
train and two buses for every day after school. It
wasn't the same. I still kept at it, you know,
for I would say two more years. By the time
I was like to eighteen, about to be nineteen, I
had already kind of started meddling with acting.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So you went to auditions, tell us about just.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
One thing led to another. I had. I knew nothing
about that way anything. I just knew that I was
going to dance. And I guess, once I graduate high school,
maybe I'll go to Sunny Purchase if I'm lucky enough
and I really want to pursue this all, go to
Yale and master in some kind of dance or psychology.
And so I was starting to already think about that
(27:08):
and working with the dean and your in your high
school and everything. But deep, deep down, I had no
desire of doing any of those things because I realized
I had reached my glass ceiling in ballet ballet, and
I wasn't able to shatter it. I just I didn't
have the feet, and I was getting really tired of
just punishing myself for not being good enough. And I
(27:32):
had too much hunger in me that just being in
the core of a company wasn't going to cut it
for me if it cuts it for other people. I
wished I was more like other people at that time,
other dancers, but I wasn't, and I would pass by
all these little theaters. When I was in Manhattan. My
mom would only let me go with my sister to Kapezio,
to the store in fifty seven and Columbus to go
(27:55):
buy my shoes and go buy some leotards. Whenever I
was like running out and it was like you come
straight back. I hop on the train and comes straight
back to Queens. But there was they were holding these auditions,
and there was this little sign, yeah, like on the
basement of like this brownstone uptown and it said New
York Youth Theater holding auditions for the Wiz. And I
(28:16):
looked at my sister, who at the time she was
smoking cigarettes and she wasn't supposed to, so obviously she
brings me into the city. She's like buys her pack
a cigarettes and she's just smoking away as she's being
like my chaperone, and I'm like, Marie, can I go
check this out really quickly? And then we take the
train and home and she's like looking look like her
(28:37):
cigarette and kind of goes for yeah, sure and then
puts it out. We go inside, we audition and no, no, no,
she just she was there, signs me up and everything,
and you know, but mind she's only a year older.
It's not like she's much older than I am. But
we were always partners and crying. My sisters and I.
I auditioned for it, and I get called back for
the Whiz. Yes, but it was like a small off
(29:00):
off off that way.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
The other tribes of this story, these probably guys and actors,
standing that this little girl, she's walked off the street,
she wants to audition. Okay, you know, we'll do it.
We have to do it, and it's you.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Oh yeah, and they were so nice they called me back.
I remember waiting for that phone call. Every time the
phone in my house would would ring, I'd be like,
I got it, I got it, hello, you know. And
finally it was them, and I think my sister took
the call and she said, they're calling you back, so
now we have to tell our parents. So I remember
(29:38):
we did. I waited for my mom to come home
from work and and I was like, well, don't be upset.
But we I did audition for this place and I
got called back, and she was just like, okay, what
about ballet. I'm like, I don't know. I just they're
just calling me for it's a call back. It's like,
what's a call back. I don't even know what a
callback was. What's a call back? I guess it's just
(29:58):
the second round. It's not like I got it, it's
just the second round. I'm so sorry. And then at
this point, my mom takes off from work and she
takes me with my sister for the callbacks, and I
remember there was I'm reading for the role of the scarecrow.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Guys. I sucked so bad.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I hate my lines, but I can dance, I can
do whatever. And my mom leans over to my sister
and says, oh, boy, I guess that's what she wants
to do, because I guess I was really bad at
the audition because they're watching it. They're sitting in the
theater and they're allowing the parents to watch the children
because we're all miners. I was seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen,
(30:35):
and my mom was like, oh, oh, am on, okay,
this is what she wants to do. So then we
all went back to the house. When I booked it,
I didn't book the role of the scarecrow, but I
booked to be like in the core. We go back
and it's the news. Now we've told my grandmother, my stepdad,
and my younger sister, Oh my god. But we're looking
at the schedule with if I take off from work,
(30:56):
then you can take Zoe, then maybe I'll pick her up.
So at this point we're all We've always been a team.
But we realized that with all my ballet commitments and
I had to recital, there was just no way that
I could do it without failing this academy, which I'd
granted me a scholarship to dance.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So happened.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I called them up and I said, I can't do it,
Thank you so much. I realized that my commitments with
ballet are far greater and I just can't really do
what but my younger sister can. And they were like, well,
I'm like, she looks just like me. People things were
twins and she used to dance, and at that time,
my sister was going through like a really hard time,
just sixteen years old. Can't fit in theater, just gave
(31:38):
her what ballet had given me in my early years,
so I say it for the poor. They did, and
she started doing you know, she did the Whiz and
she did Bye Bye Birdie. Then she did Jesus Christ Superstar,
and she did a whole bunch of productions with this
theater company for I would say like five six years.
So all into like her, like twenty until she was
like twenty years old or twenty one. I joined at once.
(32:01):
I stopped dancing. Then I joined this other theater group
in Brooklyn, and then they hired me. I did it
through like an internship program from school, and then after
I graduated high school, then they gave me a job
with full coverage. I was eighteen, So I'm in this
theater group in Brooklyn. My sister's the one in Broadway
(32:22):
in Manhattan. So she's the one with all jazz hands
and Bye Bye Bertie. And I'm writing skits about urban
life and domestic violence and drug addiction with a whole
bunch of kids and this other and we're performing in hospitals,
in high schools and jails. Like I went to sing,
sing to perform, you know, with this theater troupe, and
(32:43):
I loved it because it was raw. It was awesome,
but it was just dangerous. My mom just didn't want
me going to Brooklyn. So one day she tells, my
sister just convinced her, because I was also dating a
guy that didn't want me dating whatever, just convinced her
to audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat
at your theater and then we'll get her out of Brooklyn.
(33:05):
I was I think, I was like I was nineteen.
It all happened really fast. This was nineteen ninety seven.
So I auditioned and I booked the role of missus Potiphar,
and I really had fun, and I decided to stay
with the production and with my sister, well at that
point was doing more production work than being on stage
(33:27):
because she's always had a good eye. And there was
a manager in the room and signed signed me and
started sending me out immediately for soap operas and shows
like episodics and commercials, and and I started booking things
left and right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
It left home by then. Or are you living still
at home?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
No? No, no, no, no, oh my god, no, we're
such a I'm still living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So you were still being cooked for I'm getting to
the food.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
That yes, oh, my grandmother this point, my grandmother was
always with us and and her husband and they lived.
You know, my mom and my grandmother always lived within
a block from each other or in the next building
of each other. And that's how we grew up in
Queens where I would open the window of my bedroom
and go aha, and she would open her window gay
(34:23):
and you would go in the jon. And this is
how you greet all of your elders. You say bless me,
and then they always respond, May God bless you. That's
how you greet them. And that's how you say good night.
In Spain you do it as well. And benizion and
(34:45):
then she would literally come over from her apartment and
her pjs and and come inside our apartment. What do
you want? It's like Papa Mango, so beata.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
The River Cafe when you said lunch is now running
from Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking a www. Rivercafe
dot co dot uk or give us a call. Did
you ever have an apartment by yourself or did you did?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I learned to cook. I remember I started doing pepper steak.
I would make pepper steak all the time, like what
is it with pepper steak? Like I would just make
pepper steak pepper steak. And my mom is like, okay, great,
So now why don't you learn to make beans? And
I remember I called hi. I'm like, oh my god,
are you sitting down. I figured out a way to
make beans that I don't think you've ever done before.
(35:42):
And she's like, let's hear it, you know, and she's well,
I'm like, mom, I do the sofrito on the side
and then I put it into the beans. And she
was just like, Zoe, that's great, baby, that is so awesome.
I'm so proud of you. If I remember, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So you can remember this when you were appearing on
stage and you're doing the pride came also in the cooking.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yes, yes, because even though I was I was living
in Tribecca, so a little far from Queens. I was
getting like home set.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Were you dating a lot? We were going out with
people I was.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I was.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
The next question is connected.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I was a serial monogamer and I should have been
more wild, you know, but I was always in relasion.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Would you ever date somebody who didn't care about food?
Could you imagine being in love with somebody who wasn't No, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
No, I. I always would fall for the guys that
were homebodies, that were close to their families, that were
very you know, they liked to be home and cozy.
I didn't like the party.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Finally fell for your husband to he's Italian.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yes, and he's a single child. So and he's Italian.
So the sun rises and set some modical bayre Goo
and he looks like the Catholics version of Jesus Christ.
For a reason. He is sensitive and super just kind.
He's a really he's the kindest person I've ever met
in my life. And he cooks.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And he grew up in Coma and.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
His family they owned a little restaurant and the cafe,
and at one point they owned a bar. And it's no,
they're they're in La with us. They're in the States.
Because he's an only child. So for me, for me,
it just made sense that I just want I wanted
my kids to grow up with their grandparents from both
sides the way that I grew up with mine, because
(37:36):
I honestly feel that more than half of who I
am was defined by the love that I received the unconditional,
you know, love that I received by my grandparents and
great grandparents.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And so you tell us about your cooking world with him.
You have two sons, three three boys.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
But Madigo was definitely an Italian, you know, dandy chat
mean pirate. When I met him, you know, and I
just I remember he was always like got am bah
and I'm like, I'm from Queens, New York. I'm just like,
come on, where's your voice going here? Because he was
always a kid. He's an artist, well, I disciplinary is
a sculptor and a painter and a conceptual artist. And
(38:19):
now he's a director. But he does everything manco just
lives in the part and that's really he creates exactly.
And I just remember when we met, I was always
so hard and he was like, I want to take
you to go and I want you to try the
best pizza in the world. I'm like, are you kidding me?
The best pizza on Prince Street. You know, I was,
come on, kid, what are you talking about? And I
(38:39):
just remember we we go to Napoli, we do the
whole thing, We eat the pizza Brita. It's amazing. And
then cut to you, like a week later, we're on
some sidewalk in New York and we're having a slice
of pizza and he looks at me. He goes, see,
without a doubt, a New York slice is the best
in the world. And I'm like, Pappy, I told you,
come on, come on, man. I know you got Italy,
(39:00):
but I got New York.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Baby. My friend who has a group of friends and
they go out every once a month finding the best
pizza place in New York. They've come up with one
in Jersey they love they have.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Oh there's one in Jersey.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, yeah, I'll find out.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
You gotta tell me.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I will well, because another friend of mine did it
as well. He went, they kind of like this place.
I think it's in Jersey City. Do you like Italy?
Do I love that?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Now? It's it's home for me. It's it's it's half
of who I am.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah. Where do you go?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
My favorite region is Liuia. There's something really beautiful about
the Italian Riviera.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Do you go to the chic Utera.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
We rented a house one time in sestri Levand there
in the middle of summer, just to see all these
Italian families come from all over Italy to vacation in
sestri Lelande, which is you know, it's close to Chincoda,
it's just forty minutes, but it's like a melting pot
of this beautiful social your economic you know, communities and
(40:04):
so very working class, very upper class, but they're all
together and the beach, taking their kids to the fair.
So we love doing that. We definitely always go to
Lago de Gadada to visit the family who's still there,
and in other towns that are neighboring to Lago de Gadada.
Milan is always a place where we we we're just there.
We land in Milan and from there we drive everywhere.
(40:24):
We've been in Florence, all through Tuscany, Rome. I need
to explore Rome more because I'm a little now that
my husband is from the north, I'm a little Northerner now.
I'm always like, it's those vals. I don't know, it's
like it's no and so hot and be there's too anything,
blah blah blah blah. B Marco loves Rome and there's
something really beautiful about the Italian culture that you can
(40:44):
you can ask a little four year old, Yeah, but
why do you how does your nor not make your
boss La Basila nola blah blah blah blah, and they
tell you all the ingredients. I'm like, how good a
four year old little boy know how to make this pasta?
And it's like thirty thousand days with four simple ingredients,
and they just they're so versatile and so the Italian
(41:07):
cuisine and its simplicity. For me, it's one of the
best cuisines in the world. It's just so beautiful and
there's so much love in it. There's just so much love,
and I don't know, I just think.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
That, well, it made sense to have lunch. But before
we do, Amelia Paris, we should talk about them. That's
how we met. Yes, we met over a movie and
you are deeply involved in the season for the prizes,
but making of it, it would be interesting to feel
just being on that movie what it meant to you.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
I was so excited. It is not the first time
I've worked in Paris. I did. I did parts of
a film that I was in called Colombiana years before
in Paris, and the sound sound stages, same sound stages
that I did. I did. Yeah, there are like forty
minutes outside of the center of Paris. I'm super great.
(41:59):
The French hours are very much like Italian hours. They
don't like to overwork, so it's not like the English
and the South Americans. We're like, fourteen hours not enough,
let's keep shooting, and you're like, wait, wait, we've done eight.
It's enough.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Because I always hear French hours big the way you
eat as well that this is it called French howers
when you don't have lunch.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Yes, but I don't know where that comes from, because
the French are very much like Boom. They're like, okay,
let me put this down, let's go eat. They sit down.
Back in the day when I was shooting Caulomena, they
would have some bottles of wine on the table. Now
you don't, but that's okay. But you eat so well.
Nobody gives you a styrofoam plate and with plastic things
(42:38):
like we do in other parts of the world where
we shoot. Everybody has, you know, silverware and a plate.
And you sit down and we all talk and and
everybody takes a break and we really eat, and then
everybody goes smokes the cigarette drinks. They're shot of us,
but so and then we go work. But you do
your eight to ten hours and then everybody goes home.
(42:58):
You come home and I'm I'm shooting in Paris. You're
having a baguette and a bottle of wine. You know,
you're debriefing with Selena, with Edgar, with Godla. You know,
you're talking about what you're doing and why is this
special for you and how it impacted your life. Godless
teaching us about the trans experience by just sharing anecdotes
of her life that no matter how painful, dark or bright,
(43:24):
they've shaped her identity. And I'm learning from Selena. I'm
getting to work up close and personal with this pop star.
On paper, she's a pop star, when in reality she's
a decent and an incredible human being, so talented, with
such great taste. Boss Lady, Edgar's just sexy. Edgar's so classy,
so worldly. You know, he grew up he was born
(43:46):
in Europe, and he grew up partially in South America
and Europe and speaks like five languages. And so and
we're all here and Adriana. Adriana comes as this Queen
of Mexico with so much recognition, awards, such great body
of work, and we're all excited to be here with
Jack you know who who has been at some point
(44:09):
in our lives and in our careers just an icon
and a giant in his own right, and our hearts
were open.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Did you discover the restaurants so that you ate a
lot in the eleventh at those new restaurants are so interesting?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Are they are? They are a lot.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Of young cooks were doing different wines, different food.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Well. And to realize too that as city folks in Paris,
like they have their version of Asian food that is
like their everyday food and its numbs. It's Vietnam Vietnamese food.
And I just remember having like the best Vietnamese food
in Paris. And and but I know, but always always
going back to my default of es cargo, a bottle
of Saint Emilion and maybe some a duck com feet.
(44:53):
It's just it's just what I m go to. But
every now and then I always yearned for Asian flavors
or for most cultures. There's great Argentine restaurants there, there's
great Italian. There's the sushi scene. I haven't really tapped
into the Japanese scene, but everybody loves sushi in Paris.
But I'm just so busy having real typical French food
(45:14):
and having Italian and Argentine food. It's like it's I
just you know, everybody loves you, but nah, that's in
all these things.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And how did the film? We should talk about more
about film? Are you here to do work for the
movie now at all?
Speaker 3 (45:28):
It's so, you know, we have we have seventeen we
have what nineteen more days before the voting. Voting opens
on the eleventh of February, and then they close, I
believe on the nineteen. So I guess this is very
new territory for me, and I've enjoyed, you know, the
whole process. And to me, the everything that was being
put together was all in favor of complementing these four
(45:52):
women's journey, and their journeys were not you know, they
weren't great to say that, but they were so real
and they were so human, and they were so diverse
in their own right. You know, with a trans woman
with a young woman that was the you know, the
wife of a crime lord, with a lawyer, with a
(46:14):
battered woman that was trying to run away from a
domestic sort of abusive situation. And they're all just in
a way interconnected and looking for their most authentic selves
and that is what drew me.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
And we're all in all of the movie and all
of what you. Thank you. And so I think that
you've described life of happiness, of struggle, of loss, of grief,
of joy, children finding love. And there have been times
when obviously you've found comfort in dance. You'd say you've
(46:49):
found comfort in your family. And there is also times
when we seafood is not staving off hunger or expressing something,
but it is pure come for. My last question to
you is to say, if you needed comfort, and I
hope you don't, but if you did, is there a
food that you would turn to?
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Any Dominican stew cures me, heals me. And now that
my husband has been in my life, an he's such
a big part of who we are and the same
way I am a big part of who he is.
Any Italian stew as well, Tenny Lisoto, I will take.
(47:30):
And I do have to say that the older I get,
the more I am connecting with my mother's through food,
the farm to table, the growing something and making something
with your bare hands has been an event that just
keeps growing, an act, a process that keeps growing in me,
(47:52):
and it's just bigger and bigger, and I just I
bake the bread for my boys, even though I'm here
promoting a movie. Right before I left, I baked their bread.
I'm going to start making their yogurt. I just all
the things that they actively eat. And I know that
the pasta eventually I will have to make it on
my own, because the more and more I'm educating myself
about the kind of food that is out there today,
(48:14):
which is very different to the food that I ate
as a child. A lot of our ailments come from food,
and I just want my children to always become particular
eaters and always yearn for things that are fresh and
well made and properly handled versus whatever is in that
I can throw in this instant thing and it can
(48:35):
give me something super back, give me something back quickly.
So we make everything from scratch. I make their bone
broth from scratch. I bake their you know, their their
banana bread, and I put a whole bunch of stuff
in it, you know, in their meatballs. I put all
the veggies that I can process, you know, I can,
I can you know, blend in it. And that way
(48:57):
they creating a palate that is just inflexible for bad food.
You know what I mean, because it's it's the way
that I was raised. I'm still the kind of person
that because I was raised on such great flavors and
such organic ways of eating, I can't just go anywhere
to eat. I will refuse and I will kindly pass
(49:18):
and drink tea, you know, until my next sob where
I can eat something fresh. And my husband is the
same way, so we want our kids to sort of
grow up that way.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Well, you're a woman of values. It's strong and strong
and no fear.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you for listening
to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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