0:00

You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in

0:02

partnership with Montclair.

0:09

There is a well known cartoon in the

0:11

New Yorker magazine depicting

0:13

President Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt

0:15

in his pajamas on his knees

0:18

next to his bed, saying a prayer for

0:20

his wife, the most active first

0:22

lady in history. Dear Lord,

0:25

please make Eleanor tired tomorrow.

0:28

I can imagine the friends

0:30

and family of Stephen Frye saying the

0:32

same prayer. For there is very

0:34

little Stephen doesn't do. Actor,

0:37

comedian, television host, director,

0:39

prolific writer with four novels,

0:41

three autobiographies, and countless

0:44

columns in national papers. But should

0:46

you ask, as I've been doing, the people

0:48

who know him really well, what

0:50

Stephen is best at, they will

0:53

answer being a friend. As

0:55

for me, I love this man, all

0:58

he stands for, and quite say who

1:00

he is, and I would change FDR's

1:03

prayer. I would say, Dear

1:05

Lord, we all need Stephen

1:07

fry Please do not make

1:09

him tired tomorrow.

1:12

Ruth, I don't know what to say. You're going to

1:14

have to tiptoe out of the room now. I

1:16

can't possibly live up to such an introduction.

1:21

So I'm sitting here in the River Cafe in our New

1:23

Sylvia's dining room. So

1:26

shall we read the recipe for

1:29

the polenta and almond cake.

1:31

So here is the recipe or receipt, as

1:33

upper class people used to say, we.

1:35

Have torta di manoli

1:39

mandole.

1:39

Of course he's also you know those pictures

1:42

that the Renaissance artists did of a

1:44

face in a in a frame that has a point

1:46

at the top and a point at the bottom, a

1:48

sort of point. They call that a mandola because

1:50

it's the shape of an almond. Yeah, anyway,

1:53

tooni

1:55

polenta almond and lemon cake. This

1:58

serves ten or right, So have

2:00

you got your pencils out and you're licking them?

2:04

These first three dry ingredients are grapes, the

2:06

same quantity four hundred and fifty grams of

2:08

unsalted butter. That's not a dry ingredient,

2:10

stephen softened. So remember

2:12

in the morning, first thing, take the butter out

2:15

of the fridge. Four hundred and fifty grams

2:17

of casta sugar, four hundred and fifty grounds

2:19

of ground almonds, six

2:23

of your finest eggs, the

2:25

zest of four lemons, and the juice

2:28

of one lemon, then

2:30

two hundred and twenty grams of polent of flour,

2:33

one teaspoonful of baking powder. I

2:36

never really know the difference between baking powder

2:38

and by carbonate of soda. There

2:40

is a huge difference. I'm being told in my ear by

2:42

my expert. So it's

2:44

baking powder. Don't substitute

2:47

with anything else, baking

2:49

soda or anything. So one teaspoonful

2:52

of baking powder, quarter a teaspoonful

2:54

of salt. You will

2:56

have preheated the oven at this point two

2:58

one hundred and sixty degrees centigrade, I would

3:00

say one hundred and forty or fifty fan.

3:04

Then butter and flour, a thirty

3:06

centimeter cake tin, which I hope you

3:08

have lying handily around. Beat

3:10

the butter and sugar together until it becomes

3:13

pale and light, and that really does happen. The

3:15

butter is good British butter, yellow

3:17

to start with. But it's amazing how as

3:19

it beats and beats and the sugar gets released into it,

3:21

it does become notably lighter. And

3:24

that's your signal to add the ground almonds.

3:26

Then you stir to combine them,

3:29

and then you add the eggs one at a time,

3:31

and beat the mixture through. Fold

3:34

in the lemon zest, the lemon

3:36

juice. The smell will rise up into your

3:38

nostrils. Then the polenta, which

3:40

gives the cake its major name, of course,

3:42

the baking powder, and the salt spoon.

3:45

The mixture that then is now nice and smooth

3:48

into your prepared tin, and you bake in the

3:50

preheated oven for forty five to fifty

3:52

minutes or until set. I guess the

3:54

old toothpick taste test will do, and

3:57

the cake will be deep brown on top. That that's

3:59

a cue. It's delicious

4:02

on its own, as I can absolutely

4:05

testify. With a cappuccino

4:07

perhaps, or a glass of vincanto.

4:10

And when in season here.

4:13

At this place of joy, the

4:15

River Cafe, it says we caramelize

4:18

blood oranges. Can you imagine

4:20

what you're doing this morning, Darning, I'm caramelizing

4:22

some blood oranges.

4:25

It reminds me of wonderful Les Dawson, the Northern

4:27

comedian. Well, I can't stop chapping. I've

4:29

got a cape on to baste, I've got

4:31

sausages to prick and so on. Anyway,

4:34

I've I've got blood oranges to caramelize,

4:36

and you serve that with the cake, and you just couldn't

4:39

do better. It's one of the great great

4:41

recipes.

4:42

I think that if I, even in the last

4:44

four minutes, I have now understood

4:47

that you are a great cook. You're a

4:49

great eater, but you are you know, are

4:52

your passionate cook. Would you describe yourself?

4:54

Tell me about cooking?

4:56

I was. I had a strange shout, and which

4:59

was in.

5:00

It sounds if I said, it sounds like it's

5:03

I don't know, Downton Abby or something that it really wasn't.

5:05

But my parents did have a cook, and

5:07

we had gardeners, and

5:10

we had an old fashioned Victorian kitchen

5:13

garden, and so I was used to the

5:15

fact that every day the gardeners would come to the back door

5:17

and missus Risebro, the cook, would select

5:20

some of the vegetables or tell them to go off and get something

5:22

else, depending on what she was cooking. And I

5:24

would hang around, age five

5:26

or something watching her. I'd see

5:28

her do things like I mean, she was what used

5:30

to be called a good English plane cook. So

5:33

she didn't do anything terribly fancy, but everything

5:35

she did was just right. Pies

5:38

and tarts and things like that. She

5:40

was very good at and she would

5:42

take her thumb and put little squares

5:44

of pastry on it and pull

5:46

them back to make a rose that would go in the center

5:49

of pies and things, so little

5:51

touches. Yeah, and she made pork pies she made,

5:53

oh yeah, basically anything but

5:56

you couldn't make she made.

5:58

We had a game larder and a things

6:00

and so we'd have birds hung and

6:02

things like that.

6:04

Sounds good, missus riber she was one.

6:06

Would they entertain, Oh yeah, they were, and

6:09

they were very social.

6:10

Yes, my mother would do dinner parties and when

6:12

I was young, and up until I was about twelve

6:15

fourteen, maybe that the

6:17

there would be dinner jackets and

6:20

black tie and the men would

6:22

be left alone by the women in the dining room.

6:24

So that's, you know, that tradition that's still

6:26

going the women.

6:27

The men's stayed the women withdrew.

6:30

And I remember my mother saying. My mother read history.

6:33

She was was she was a history graduates,

6:35

and she taught it occasionally. And I

6:39

would say to her, white the men stay behind,

6:41

and I think someone had said to me, so

6:44

they can tell dirty jokes that women don't hear.

6:46

My mother said, no.

6:47

You know what it is really, she said the

6:49

Victorians, the

6:52

women did not like drawing attention to the fact

6:54

that they had to use lavatries. So

6:57

if they all went in one go, they would go up

6:59

to the lavatries, use avatures together and then

7:01

get down into the drawing room and they'd be sitting

7:03

there. But if everybody went into

7:05

the drawing room together after the meal

7:08

and the women said I'm going to go now,

7:11

everyone go, oh, she's off for a piss.

7:14

And so it was just a discreet way

7:17

of women having that chance

7:19

to do that without being noticed, as it were.

7:22

And so you have your memories are of

7:24

home and good food and

7:27

a care for food.

7:29

Because my mother had food. I

7:31

won't say issues, but she would drive

7:33

the gardener's mad because she'd go out when

7:35

the peas were ready and she would just eat the

7:38

entire crop of peas.

7:39

Out of the pod. Yeah.

7:41

I remember one sitting on a railway train

7:43

and we're going from one small

7:45

town in Italy to another, and we'd

7:48

go into the market and bought some peas, and

7:50

we had children with us, and we were all eating

7:53

the raw peas on the train carriage. Italians

7:56

went mad. I mean, the idea

7:58

of eating a raw piece. Those

8:00

people were sitting at it, and we could have taken off

8:03

all our clothes and had more respect than

8:05

giving our children raw pies out of

8:07

it. But what's more delicious?

8:09

Raw pie?

8:10

And we make a salad?

8:11

Do you ever have?

8:12

You know, you can make a salad with delicious.

8:14

But the other thing is that it

8:17

was natural because of the

8:20

kitchen garden was everything

8:22

was in season, so you know, and

8:24

there were fruit trees, you know, trained against the outbuildings,

8:27

plum trees and things like that. And there were goosberry

8:29

bushes and raspberry and

8:31

black currants, and four

8:34

fantastic asparagus

8:37

beds raised asparagus beds Belgian

8:40

asparagus, quite small and delicate asparagus.

8:43

And my mother had constant war with the gardeners

8:45

because well she had this theory and

8:48

that you shouldn't eat asparagus

8:51

after ascot mid

8:55

June something like that. I don't know anyway,

8:58

she'd heard that somewhere or been told that,

9:00

and she of course was desperate to get hold

9:03

of Once the asperancy

9:05

was getting all the ferns would come up, and she

9:08

loved it for flower rangings.

9:09

She sounds amazing, She is sounds

9:12

like she's still here, she's

9:16

ninety two. Because that I

9:18

do think that inner knowledge

9:21

and passion for the garden, for the

9:23

ferns, for the seasonality of saying.

9:25

And there is a very short season for good

9:27

asparagus Taska. It

9:30

is there isn't you know? In Paris one minute you'd

9:32

go down to the market and you know, there

9:34

were white asparagus and green asparagus

9:36

and thin aspects, and then they were gone, and we're just

9:39

gone. And I think it's here as well. And they

9:41

do come from Norfolk.

9:42

Yes they do.

9:42

But the criminal thing now, I think in some

9:44

ways is people don't understand

9:47

that you can store fresh fruit

9:49

and vegetables. We

9:51

had outhouses and there would be newspaper

9:54

and potatoes, and when

9:56

we lifted all the potatoes and there there'd be and

9:58

they'd last all the way through as long as it

10:00

was dark and cool, which naturally

10:03

would be being an outhouse. And the same with apples

10:05

and pears. They lost forever.

10:07

Your parents were interested in food

10:10

come from their cultural.

10:12

My mother, yes, my father lesson. My father

10:14

just did everything that was put in front of him, and his mind

10:16

was on his work. He was a scientist.

10:19

But my mother was from a Jewish family, and Jews

10:22

always compared to the British

10:25

in those days less so now were

10:27

obsessed with food, partly because in

10:29

some cases they knew poverty between

10:31

the walls when things were really short in Vienna

10:34

and in Hungary, where my grandparents

10:36

came from. My grandfather was a good cook,

10:38

and I remember, yeah, he made the most

10:40

beautiful sort of dill

10:43

and cucumber salads and things, and I really

10:45

got a taste for that kind of Central

10:48

European flavor from him, things

10:50

like cucumbers and so on, which are very Central

10:52

European polition, hungering

10:54

and other such things. And spicy, spicy,

10:58

but not in not like Indian

11:00

or Mexican food spicy, but in that

11:02

sort of paprika spiciness,

11:04

which I'm very fond of.

11:06

My grandparents were Hungarian. One side

11:08

were Russian Jews who

11:11

left Russia, and the other were Hungarian Jews

11:13

that left Hungary. They came to the

11:15

United States as part of the Ellis Island in

11:18

Flux in nineteen

11:20

probably fifteen, right really

11:23

early. They got it early. So

11:26

growing up in this household, going to

11:28

you then went away to school at age

11:31

seven, and was that a food shark as

11:33

well as a home shock.

11:35

It was.

11:37

We grew up in Norfolk, and obviously my

11:40

mother wouldn't force me to eat anything I

11:42

hated. And they arrived at this prep

11:44

school aged seven, which is in Gloucestershire, two hundred

11:46

miles right year was this, This is in nineteen

11:49

sixty four, and there

11:52

are things like semolina and

11:54

tapioca hot milk puddings. Something

11:57

about milk that's been boiled makes

11:59

me actually kick, makes me a dry

12:02

heave. And I saw these

12:04

and I said, no, no, I can't, I can't. And they forced

12:06

it, literally holding my nose like

12:08

like a hunger strike thing. It was cruel in

12:10

those days, but of course you know it happened to other boys,

12:12

so you just think this is this is life.

12:15

But I really and I forced myself to throw

12:17

up at the table so that they stopped doing it.

12:20

And and it forced yourself.

12:22

And it was written down Stephen Fry

12:25

or Fry s probably or Fry Junior

12:27

because my brother was there, allergic

12:31

to hot milk.

12:33

Clever to

12:35

figure out what to do.

12:36

Yeah, but it was I mean, it was all I would

12:39

say to Kensian. But it was a world of chill

12:41

blains and constipation and cold,

12:44

you know.

12:44

I mean the way they heated.

12:45

A dormitory was just to have a hot pipe running

12:48

along the bottom, you know, no radiators

12:50

or anything, and so

12:52

it.

12:52

Wasn't jud desperately.

12:54

Yeah, I mean, yes,

12:57

very much. So what it does I've spoken about this before,

12:59

and what it

13:01

does is you start to obsess about

13:03

sweets. There's a touch shop in the school. We

13:06

are called the touch shop. Tuck is the school

13:08

slang for goodies for confectionery.

13:11

And you start to get really obsessed with when the touch shop

13:14

can to be opened and how much pocket money you've got to

13:16

buy these things. And this was the golden

13:18

age of confectionery. Cabri was producing

13:20

new things like curly whirleyon and Aztec

13:23

bars, and there were these amazing you

13:25

know, foam shrimps and flying

13:27

sauces made of rice paper and fruit

13:30

salads four for a penny and black jacks

13:32

four for a penny. And I became

13:34

so obsessed that I

13:37

would start breaking out of school bunds and

13:39

going to the village shop. And it was in Gloucestershire,

13:41

a little village called Yuli, and

13:45

I would spend whatever money I had on

13:47

getting those sweets, and it

13:50

became a kind of obsession that my teeth suffered

13:53

by. You know, by the time I was twelve, I was having

13:56

huge amounts of fillings and even having teeth out.

13:58

But also interesting and this

14:01

is you know, I'm not using an excuse,

14:03

but a lot of it was preparation

14:06

for smoking. There were these

14:08

coconut shredded brown fake

14:10

tobaccos in a little wax paper

14:13

with a Spanish galleon on it, which was like rolling

14:15

tobacco. There were these candy cigarettes

14:18

that you would have licorice.

14:21

Yes, that's it, liquor.

14:22

They were and in sort of fake Chesterfield

14:25

packs softly looked exactly like

14:27

Chesterfield or something, or camel

14:30

and licorice pipes, and

14:33

so they were getting you ready, well

14:35

like pipe smoker's pipe made out

14:38

of a licorice. Yeah, and even

14:40

more sort of weirdly, the

14:43

glamour of the white powder Sherbert,

14:45

so you'd suck it up through a licorice straw

14:47

and a Sherbert fountain. So it was preparing

14:50

you for a life to come.

14:51

Yeah.

14:52

So you then go from the you know, when you

14:54

were fourteen or fifteen, you go for the real cigarettes

14:57

and smoking, and then when you're a little bit

14:59

older than that, the real white power.

15:00

It's a terrible thought.

15:01

I'm not excusing it or saying that it was the

15:03

school's fault that I,

15:05

in later life did become something of an addict.

15:08

I was even not to interrupt your story, but

15:10

I was going to say that culturally,

15:12

if your parents were Hungarian Jews

15:16

background of that, did going

15:18

to boarding school come easier to them?

15:20

So my parents are both bought it all their

15:23

time as children, so there was no Yeah, there was nothing.

15:26

And you have to remember, if you're thinking how coral

15:28

to send a child away at the age of seven, if

15:30

that seven year old child has

15:33

other friends as I did in

15:35

the Norfolk countryside, they were all boys

15:37

who were also going to go to school. And

15:39

then when you get to the prep school, obviously everyone's

15:41

in the same boat. So you just think this is what

15:43

life is like. You don't think this is so unfair.

15:46

There are people who are not going to boarding

15:49

schools.

15:49

You just think you might not.

15:51

Well, this is another discussion. You might not think

15:53

it, the child might not think it, but the parents might think

15:55

yes.

15:56

And I was aware that because because we would

15:58

go my mother and I from Norwich

16:00

by train and breakfast on the train.

16:03

You know, it

16:05

was so good because they had these silver they

16:07

did silver service. They had stewards in short

16:10

white little tops,

16:12

tunics whatever, and

16:14

they would you know, the silver service in the sense they

16:16

would use a spoon and a fork in the same hand

16:19

and they could definitely put the bacon

16:21

on a train, egg on a train exactly.

16:24

And we got to know them.

16:25

Then they would recognize us and say,

16:27

oh, school again, young man, is it and all that, you

16:29

know, We would get the train and

16:31

then we'd spend a day in London. Sometimes

16:33

we'd have lunch with my grandfather.

16:35

At the walled Doff or

16:37

the hotel. Yeah, that's sort of ver. He liked

16:39

the yeah, the

16:42

big yeah there you go in there.

16:44

That's what you got their dances.

16:47

So that's

16:49

a nice hotel.

16:50

And and

16:53

then go to Paddington and that's where my

16:55

heart wouldtart to sink and flutter a bit

16:58

because you'd see at the end of the platform on boys

17:00

in these straw hats that we call boaters,

17:03

and that was the school compartment.

17:06

But then you'd notice, or I'd noticed that my mother

17:08

was crying. She was trying not to so

17:11

touchy. It's making me moove now

17:13

because you know, everyone thinking how cruel of parents, but

17:16

they don't want to lose their child, but they just feel

17:18

that's the right thing for them.

17:20

You stayed in school till.

17:22

Oh ah, well, now we don't have enough

17:24

time to cover the chapters of

17:26

disaster, do we. I went

17:29

from prep school. Prep school in England is age

17:32

seven, which is the youngest, and two

17:35

thirteen, and then you would take what was

17:37

called a common entrance exam, which.

17:38

Was for public schools.

17:40

I private schools, and

17:43

I went to private school called Oppingham and

17:45

my behavior was dreadful.

17:47

And then worst of all, I fell in love with a boy.

17:49

And I was so confused by this, so

17:51

absolutely astonished

17:53

by the power of the emotion, the sheer

17:56

power that you could be obsessed

17:58

for twenty four hours a day and of nothing else and

18:01

change your walking habits. So you would bump into

18:03

this person and knowing just

18:06

phenomenal obsession, not really

18:08

sexual even I was, you know, just

18:10

something overwhelming. Was

18:13

it reciprocated eventually

18:15

there was a nice moment, but

18:20

yeah, yeah, it threw

18:22

me completely and certainly threw

18:24

my concentration away. But the actual

18:27

casus bellies, I think well,

18:30

and should say the cause of the war, the originating

18:34

disaster was. I

18:36

was a member, the youngest member

18:38

of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and

18:42

I got permissioned from my housemaster to

18:44

go to a meeting of the Society

18:47

in London in some grand

18:49

club, and I read a paper, I

18:51

delivered a paper, and the idea was

18:54

that the next I was staying overnight

18:56

at the club and the next morning I

18:58

would take a train back to school. Well,

19:02

the next morning I went

19:04

to a cinema. In those days, cinemas would

19:06

sort of start a program at ten in the morning or something,

19:08

and then just you could stay in the same cinema and

19:10

what the same film again and again. And

19:13

the film was Cabaret, and I was completely obsessed

19:15

with it. I just never seen anything like it. It was fantastic.

19:18

And then chose it, yeah, I mean almost

19:21

randomly, not knowing what it was or anything about

19:23

it, not naying you know about Christi Riischewood

19:25

or Eliza Beannelly or any of the sort of background

19:27

to it. And then I wandered in the days to

19:29

another cinema and there was a clock whek Orange was on

19:32

and unfortunately I was although I was fourteen

19:34

and a half, I could pass as X,

19:37

which was eighteen, I guess, and

19:39

because being tall, I suppose. And

19:42

so there were there were three or four

19:44

films, I think The Godfather as well, and

19:47

Fritz the Cat, which was a sort of pornographic

19:50

cartoon.

19:50

Mem do you remember.

19:53

So four days past?

19:55

You stayed four days?

19:56

Yes?

19:57

And was anybody out searching?

19:58

Yes? And there were terrified and they didn't know what

20:00

had happened to me, and they'd run away. What's going on?

20:03

And then I kind of came to in

20:05

a sort of days and went back to the

20:07

school. There was a lot of folded

20:10

arms and tapping of feet on the carpet.

20:12

And will anybody call the police?

20:14

Well they had done, yes, they reported me as

20:16

missing after three days. I think whatever it was,

20:19

so, yeah, it was just a disaster. And I remember

20:21

getting in the car with

20:24

my parents because I was expelled from

20:26

the school, and my father saying

20:28

the words, we will talk about this sorry

20:31

incident when we get home.

20:32

Sorry, sorry incident. It

20:36

was a sorry incident.

20:42

Did you know? The River Cafe has a shop. It's

20:45

full of our favorite foods and designs.

20:47

We have cookbooks, and linen, Napkins, kitchen

20:50

ware, toad bags with our signatures,

20:52

glasses from Venice, chocolates from

20:54

Turin. You can find us right next

20:56

door to the River Cafe in London or

20:59

online at shop the River Cafe

21:01

dot co dot UK. When

21:10

you went to Cambridge, what

21:13

was the food like there? Then you were away from both the

21:15

boarding school and you were away from

21:17

your parents. Could you create your

21:19

own food world more?

21:20

Yes, there were some students

21:23

got friendly with who really understood food.

21:26

Did you cook for yourself at Cambridge?

21:28

Or was that hard?

21:29

If you were in college, you had your rooms and you had

21:31

what was called a jip room, which was like a little kitchen,

21:33

but it didn't really have a proper oven or

21:35

anything, so you couldn't do much there.

21:38

But because of the acting,

21:41

I would, in particular after the May

21:44

term, which is like the summer term at Cambridge,

21:47

when it was over, I would stay on to

21:49

rehearse with friends

21:51

all the plays we were taking up to Edinburgh.

21:53

And then one might stay at totally different places

21:56

and I stayed with it rather than in your college,

21:58

because your college would be given ever to conferences and things

22:00

like that, and they wouldn't let you stay there. So I

22:03

remember staying with friends, and one of these

22:05

friends, Ben, who was really good. He taught

22:07

me the mill pois that the preparation

22:09

for almost anything, you know, the carrots, the

22:11

celery and chopping

22:14

them up, and.

22:15

Called the Italian cooking Sofrito.

22:18

Exactly exactly, and he's the basis

22:20

of everything from Bologniers upwards,

22:22

as it were. And so I really

22:24

enjoyed learning that and seeing how all

22:27

that worked. And he showed me as well what

22:30

I now know is called deglazing, you know how

22:32

you had I say, everything's stuck, and he goes he

22:36

take a glass of wine and just throw it on, and I'm.

22:38

Getting, what are you doing?

22:39

And then it would all just come into life,

22:41

and you know, he had that confidence.

22:43

So was he really the first person to do he.

22:45

Kind of was. Yeah.

22:46

He taught me not to be afraid and

22:49

not to have to follow every syllable

22:51

on a page, because once you knew the principle

22:54

of certain kinds of cooking, you could

22:56

just then do very Oh we haven't got any

22:58

that with his fish instead, but.

23:00

It says it's for lambs. That's all right,

23:02

you know, and you just sort of take that.

23:04

I was saying cooking is a bit like poetry.

23:06

You know, you have to know the real

23:08

poetry to go to free verse.

23:10

Yes, exactly, once you know the fourteen line

23:12

Sonnet, you can then exactly escape

23:15

the prison of the form. But

23:17

it was really when I left Cambridge

23:19

I was so fortunate because you know

23:22

our comedy stuff I was doing with Hugh Lori

23:24

and Emma.

23:24

Thompson one

23:28

prize comedy.

23:29

What it was, cameridt to this club called

23:31

the Footlights which is well over

23:33

one hundred years old and

23:36

it sort of specializes in comedy. I say it is

23:39

whoever the undergraduates are at the time

23:41

who happened to be members of the club. But

23:43

it famously had Peter Cook and

23:46

John Clees and Eric Idel and the

23:48

Grifflies Jones and Douglas Adams

23:51

and Clive James and all

23:54

Baron Margerleyesyes, Stephen and

23:56

then Stephen Frown, Hi Luri and Emma Thompson.

23:58

We were all one bunch and we

24:00

went to Edinburgh and we won this new prize

24:03

called the Perrier Award for Comedy,

24:05

and this involved going to Australia. Well

24:07

sort of it didn't. The prize didn't, but

24:10

because we won. It's an Australian entrepreneur

24:12

called Michael Edgeley saw our show and then said,

24:14

you guys want to come out to Australia. And

24:17

that's where I learned to eat because it

24:19

was an absolute revelation. This

24:22

is nineteen eighty one,

24:24

starting in Sydney. Doyle's of course, the

24:26

amazing seafood place. You walk along

24:28

the dunes and come to this beautiful shack

24:30

where the food is well, things

24:33

you've never heard of, like Barry Mundy

24:35

and Morton bay bugs

24:37

and all these extraordinary seafood

24:39

things.

24:40

But also oysters.

24:42

I mean, oyster is so plentiful and not oh

24:44

my goodness, I'm having oysters. I must be in Bentley's

24:46

or in you know some posh you

24:49

know London restaurant that does

24:51

oysters.

24:51

But it was, yeah, I have some oysters, mane.

24:53

I mind Rockefeller or Killpatrick,

24:56

you know these different ways of preparing them.

24:58

Kill Patrick because of the mind, because it involved

25:00

was thesaurce.

25:03

Yes.

25:04

So I became really obsessed with oysters and would

25:06

have and they were cheap

25:09

sometimes you could.

25:10

That's the point.

25:11

I have some plump half a dozen plump

25:13

specific oysteres not cooked, and then

25:15

half a dozen cooked more neat Rockefeller

25:18

and Kilpatrick with.

25:19

The one with bacon to kill

25:22

Patrick. Yeah.

25:23

And and there were cheapest, cheapest

25:25

chips, as people say so. And wine

25:27

was the other thing I finally moved off the lampres.

25:30

We haven't talked about that, yeah, because they.

25:32

Had things like Grange Hermitage,

25:34

which at the time was good but

25:36

nothing like as expensive as it is now. Three

25:39

or four hundred pound a bottle at least, isn't it. But

25:41

they you know this, They

25:43

had this way

25:46

of categorizing wines

25:48

which is so ridiculously

25:50

obvious but was unheard of by

25:53

grape Vlatal.

25:56

So they would say this is a sheers,

25:59

you know, and and this

26:01

is you know, Kevin I Servignon, and

26:03

this is a semon whatever.

26:06

And they'd

26:09

tell you about.

26:09

The grape and you go, oh, I see.

26:11

Then you get back to England and every restaurant

26:13

just a shadowed nerve to this shadow that, and

26:15

you get what does that mean? But

26:18

when I got back to England.

26:21

We were like for two months and.

26:23

Traveling everywhere all the big cities, in some of

26:25

the crazy little towns like Albury,

26:27

Wodonga, eating

26:30

fabulous food cheaply and happily.

26:33

And the whole day.

26:33

Really was around the fact we'd finished the show and

26:36

what restaurant we're going to And but

26:38

when I got back to England, I was wandering

26:41

around. So we were doing a TV show and I

26:43

was feeling lucky and flushed

26:45

with cash relatively compared to being

26:48

a student, but not very rich.

26:50

And I was wondering, to say, when I was getting lost, as

26:52

you do, and before you understand that, what's

26:54

the cross street?

26:55

And you know?

26:56

And so I was going down this street called Greek Street

26:58

and I saw on attractive looking

27:01

restaurant and the restaurant was called Let's Gargo

27:03

the Snail, and I wandered

27:06

in and this fabulous woman about

27:08

three foot tall came up to me and said hello,

27:10

dear, and I said, oh, it

27:12

was obviously very nervous. She said you come with me and she sat

27:15

me down. You'll know who I'm talking about, Ellen

27:17

Salvatina, this amazing

27:19

woman, phenomenal, and she sat

27:21

me down and I said, I'm not and

27:23

she chose for me, somehow brilliantly,

27:25

things that were just cheap enough for me to be

27:28

able to afford. And so from then on

27:30

the richer I got the luckier I got,

27:33

I would go there. And this was in the high

27:35

days of Let's Cargo. We know Princess

27:37

Diana. We'd go and all these people. But most importantly

27:39

again.

27:41

It was.

27:44

Chancey's Robinson's husband

27:47

Lander, his name was Nick Lander,

27:49

who ran Let's Go Go and

27:51

Jancey's Robinson's Great Wine created great

27:54

the first woman to be made of Master of Wine.

27:56

Fabulous person and she

27:59

made the wine list varietal. So

28:01

it was the first, I think probably in London

28:04

to be like that where it was, and gosh,

28:06

I had some marvelous times there, absolutely amazingly

28:09

recognized someone.

28:11

We became very good friends.

28:12

She then moved to Lettual in Charlotte

28:15

Street, and her husband Aldo was a fat fascinating

28:17

man as well, because they lived

28:20

in Noel Road in Islington

28:22

in the nineteen sixties year and their

28:24

neighbor their neighbors were a gay

28:27

couple called Kenneth Halliwell

28:29

and Joe Orton, and it was

28:31

Aldo who there was a they'd

28:33

heard some shouting and then

28:35

the next day they were worried and and

28:38

and Eleanor had said, how's what's what's up

28:40

with Joe and Aldo? And she

28:42

looked through the keyhole and

28:44

saw him dead, and

28:47

Alder had to break down the door, and of course Kenneth Halliwell

28:49

had killed his lover and then himself, so

28:52

she never forgot that. But I remember

28:55

once, for example, I was having dinner

28:57

there with Ron Atkins and my friend Rowan, the wonderful

29:00

Great. Yeah, let's

29:02

go and go upstairs. And Rowan

29:05

is the most wonderful person in the world.

29:07

But he is not a late night figure

29:10

at all in those days.

29:11

I quite was.

29:12

So we'd had dinner and it was like holp Us nine

29:14

and said, right, well, I'm

29:16

I'll get a cab and go home. And

29:19

I thought, oh, well, I'll do the same. So I ordered a cab.

29:21

His cab came first, and I was just about to

29:23

leave it, and I said, could

29:26

you go and cheer up John

29:28

Hurt. He's just left his wife

29:31

and he's was all very unhappy and he needs

29:33

a bit of cheering up. So I

29:35

sat down and there was John

29:38

had you know, I sit down

29:41

and every now and again and said your

29:44

CAB's still here. I said, oh, tell him,

29:46

I'll be five minutes.

29:46

Yeah, it's five minutes.

29:49

We were getting home and the cab bill

29:51

was two hundred and twenty pounds. And

29:54

I saw John

29:56

about a week later and said, I

29:58

have told everyone I got hurt

30:01

on Thursday night, and he said, well, I told

30:03

everyone I got fried. I

30:07

got to know them even better later because he moved

30:10

to Norfolk.

30:11

Was Europe at all an influence? Did

30:13

you travel to France or Italy or did

30:15

you do Greece? Was there any

30:17

food experience from being in Europe?

30:20

Just as I was really beginning to love food,

30:23

I went with Rowan, whom I mentioned ron Atkinson

30:26

had bought a new Western Martin and

30:28

he said, I really think we should try this

30:30

out. And so we booked

30:32

ourselves an amazing holiday, going

30:35

all the way down France through

30:37

basically through as many three

30:40

star, three Michelin star restaurants,

30:43

so mioneise in outside Leon

30:45

and Chappelle's restaurant thing, and then down to the

30:48

Moujen restaurants outside

30:50

Cannes, you know in the column door, which is not through

30:52

star, but it's one of the greatest.

30:54

Restaurants in the world.

30:56

Oh that menu.

30:59

People who don't know it's up from

31:01

up from cann in the hills and it's

31:03

this beautiful, beautiful place. It's like your

31:05

ideal image of a promo soul

31:08

house with the tiles and everything else, but it has

31:10

added to it these extraordinary pieces

31:13

on the walls by Matisse and others and

31:15

mirror and

31:18

yeah, that's right, these extraordinary paintings

31:21

because the original patron

31:23

and his wife would allow

31:25

the artists to give pictures instead

31:27

of paying the bills. And it has

31:30

since become, you know, one of the great restaurants of the

31:32

world. Really it's it's atmosphere

31:34

and for all its fame and uh,

31:37

you know, they're not necessarily easy to get

31:39

a table, especially during the Canned Film Festival

31:41

or something. It is the friendliest, warmest place.

31:44

It's really, you know, like all these good places

31:46

there, you might think they're going to be frightened the

31:48

river. Under the river, you won't find

31:50

people looking snooterly at you at

31:52

all. It's the opposite of good restaurant

31:55

to have snootiness, isn't it.

31:57

When I boat you

32:00

couple of months ago, you were talking

32:02

about your schedule and a lot of it was around

32:04

being in London or being in Los

32:06

Angeles. And I think that California

32:09

is so interesting in terms of going

32:12

back to Alice Walters and food

32:14

farm to table and restaurants

32:17

like Wolfgang Pugs, Mamaison becoming

32:20

Spago where he made pizzas,

32:23

and now the very kind of healthy

32:25

eating of California. And I think if

32:27

we're talking about a kind of food culture,

32:29

would you say that in Los Angeles

32:31

you're finding a certain type of food culture

32:34

unquestionably.

32:35

And one of the interesting things is people picture

32:38

Los Angeles and they think of smart movie

32:40

people. And obviously there are a lot of movie people, but the

32:43

food culture is driven from below, and the

32:47

smart movie people follow it. And over

32:49

the last ten years, the major thing has been

32:52

street food food trucks, which

32:55

a lot of British people when you would say to

32:57

them, all, look there's a fish taco truck. Let's going to have that

33:00

lunch, I'll go crazy. Is

33:03

it hygieniic? You know? I mean, there's sort of weird

33:05

British idea that a food truck couldn't

33:07

live up to a restaurant. And very

33:09

often the que is the indication. You'll

33:12

see a big line and you'll know that's a

33:14

good one, and you make a note in your head next

33:16

time I'm driving down here, I'll go and try try

33:18

what they've got. And they and

33:20

there's that side of things. Of course, there's the

33:22

glamorous side of places.

33:27

The movie people go. Yeah, the Polo Lounge and

33:29

it's like Craigs. Now you'll always

33:31

see a Kardashian in there if you want to. And

33:35

again, you know, because they're the paparazzi

33:38

outside and what in America they

33:40

call videographers who are called

33:43

TMZ the this kind of news

33:45

channel.

33:45

Gossip news channel.

33:47

But

33:49

the quality of food

33:51

is good for you know, good

33:53

for vegans and vegetarians, and so it's a good

33:55

place to say, oh, I'll go, I'll go

33:57

vegan for a week, you know, just just out of fun

34:00

really, because there's so many options.

34:02

Do you only eat out?

34:04

No, not at all.

34:05

No, I'd love to cook really

34:07

good kitchen in the house

34:09

in La So I really enjoyed it.

34:11

Well, it's open. It's this long, long run because

34:14

the house used to be an art gallery

34:16

when it was built in nineteen

34:18

twenty three. It's I

34:21

give too much of a detail, but it's

34:24

the under the Hollywood side Beechwood

34:26

Canyon, and there's an art It

34:28

was an art gallery. So there's this very long

34:30

room in this upper upper room which used to be where the pictures

34:33

were one end of it is the kitchen and

34:35

it's open to the you know, the dining room part

34:37

of it and the other parts of it, so you're kind

34:40

of when you're cooking, you're cooking, you're chatting to everybody

34:42

who might be there, and there's plenty of room.

34:44

It's really there's good

34:47

surfaces, you know how somehow surfaces

34:49

disappear when you cook put it?

34:52

Did you cook it there more than you would

34:54

cook it?

34:55

Yes?

34:55

Yeah, yeah, I do, yeah, And I

34:57

love it. And my husband's are good,

35:00

you know, a good customer. He seems to enjoy

35:02

it.

35:07

If you like listening to Ruthie's Table

35:10

for would you please make sure

35:12

to rape and review the podcast

35:15

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

35:17

Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever

35:19

you get your podcasts. Thank

35:22

you.

35:29

Hi.

35:29

I'm Sean and I'm making Lemon

35:32

almond and Palenticate.

35:33

With Stephen Fry.

35:34

I am a convicted lemon

35:38

plenticate user and I

35:40

was on the road to recovery, but now that's

35:42

all been set back.

35:43

I'm afraid, So shall I make this?

35:46

You tell me what I need to do and.

35:48

Think we zoo apart from we've got that better.

35:50

Here, So that's

35:52

just someften on its own.

35:53

Took the liberty of giving it a bit before

35:55

you arrived, because I thought, we don't need to watch that. But

35:58

as it goes from

36:00

the yellow color to the pale color, it's to

36:02

your point of knowing that it's

36:04

been beaten.

36:05

And then you've got your.

36:06

Four hundred and fifty grams of cups of sugar,

36:11

and then this is going to get beaten until

36:13

the sugar dissolves.

36:15

Right and again, I mean, it's

36:17

one of the loveliest tastes in the world, and there's a child

36:19

butter and sugar to get that's just covered.

36:21

Enough exactly be

36:24

in the noise of it. We

36:27

can talk.

36:27

About to yourself.

36:29

It's a very high tech Okay.

36:32

Then you know some people will put a bit

36:34

of egg and a bit of flowering

36:36

alternately, but I'm just gonna brazen

36:39

it out quite frankly.

36:41

I think it all ends up in the same in the

36:43

end. Yeah, lovely, lovely.

36:47

I mean, just

36:50

and then this is the

36:53

plent of flower and the ground almonds.

36:55

So I'll just get that in. Let it

36:58

get around the slowly so it'll get covered.

37:03

You made this one quite recently. It's still warm, yeah.

37:05

So that that actually can have gone the menu for lunch.

37:08

Now, do

37:10

you want to have a piece of

37:12

that?

37:13

Why not?

37:13

Do you want to cut yourself?

37:14

sEH,

37:17

so soft? So I'm

37:19

gonna have to say the word moist, no

37:22

escaping?

37:22

Is we just do you want to

37:24

find you a fool?

37:25

I'm quite happy to just frankly

37:28

drop my head into it and go like

37:30

that.

37:31

But probably that's.

37:33

Got cup of tea written all over it.

37:35

Espresso.

37:35

It's got espresso written all over, isn't it.

37:38

Hmm, Oh my goodness.

37:40

You can have that while you talk

37:43

to Ruthy.

37:44

That is so good, honestly brilliant.

37:48

Thanks.

37:53

You've just made a palantic

37:56

cake with Sean. Tell

37:58

me what that was like.

37:59

It was a tremendous experience. It's so

38:01

simple on the one hand, but like all

38:03

great dishes, it can

38:06

be made better by people who are confident.

38:08

It's my theory about food

38:11

is that certain ingredients

38:13

know when you're scared.

38:15

You know when you're scared.

38:16

Yeah.

38:17

I love making mayonnaise, but it's

38:20

a mood thing. Some If you're not quite

38:22

confident enough, it knows,

38:24

and it will split.

38:26

If you're too confident, it will split.

38:28

You have to just sort of come up to it and

38:31

show that you are master, but that you respect it.

38:33

And I think that's true of a lot of ingredients. And

38:36

polenticate no less, so to get that gritty

38:39

moisture and that sweetness and that's

38:41

citrus, all in the right proportion,

38:44

it's a simply joyous thing

38:46

to eat.

38:46

I was going to also ask you about work

38:50

and creating and food. So when

38:52

you are writing, when you're

38:54

directing, when you're doing your

38:56

beautiful voice audio.

38:59

Books, I can't. I

39:01

find it very hard to eat anything, eat anything

39:03

before a performance of any kind. That

39:05

that's as if your nerves sort of shrink

39:08

you up, and you and your metabolism

39:10

is fast, which tends to reduce appetite.

39:12

Anything that makes your metabolism go

39:15

quick reduces appetite, doesn't it,

39:17

Like again, for example speed,

39:23

But those drugs are are appetite suppressants

39:25

as opposed to the slowly down ones that can

39:27

you know that famously cannabis gives you the munchies,

39:30

you know, and so on. So aside from

39:32

external forces and

39:34

chemistry, the actual act

39:36

of being nervous before a show, I find has

39:39

that thing that I just couldn't eat. But

39:42

afterwards, yes, and that's

39:44

everyone tells you you shouldn't eat, you know, two

39:46

hours before bed or whatever, because you

39:48

know, I.

39:50

Don't know if they say that anymore.

39:52

Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

39:53

We always look for that study that you want to read

39:56

which says that actually you gain no more

39:58

weight. Am I eating before you go to

40:00

bed than you would if you had it at six o'clock?

40:03

Because I am a bit obsessed about my weight. I mean,

40:06

I know i'd be fitter. I would

40:09

snow less and

40:11

and and puff less at the top of

40:13

the steps if I if I lost her.

40:17

We don't want any less.

40:19

I tried that zempic.

40:22

I'm the earlier doctor of these things, and

40:24

I happen to be in America and I'd read about it,

40:26

and I asked them, my doctor in

40:28

America and my physician, as they like

40:31

to call them, and he said, I can

40:33

get you some, and he tried me on

40:35

it. And first week or so, I

40:37

was thinking, this is astonishing. Not

40:39

only do I know want to eat, I don't even want to I don't

40:41

want alcohol of any kind. This is

40:43

going to be brilliant. And then I started feeling

40:45

sick. And then I started feeling sicker and sicker and sucker.

40:48

And I was.

40:48

Literally throwing up four or five times

40:50

a day, and I thought, I can't do that.

40:53

So that's that's it. And the new.

40:55

Variant to Zeppeedei manduras

40:57

it's called it makes it even worse parent

41:00

if you have those side effects. So as

41:03

he's probably good.

41:04

I think you look great, you are

41:06

you are

41:09

eating and so food and work.

41:11

Yes, I

41:13

mean I do. I love.

41:16

I love to work on an empty stomach as well when

41:19

if it's right, yeah, and then

41:22

writing mode at the moment. Well,

41:25

it's the fourth in a series of books I've done on Greek

41:28

mythology, and it's.

41:29

The final one.

41:30

The first was the kind of birth of the gods

41:33

and the creation

41:35

of humankind and

41:37

the kind of gods and the humans

41:40

interacting and interbreeding. And the

41:42

second one is called Heroes and is like

41:44

Hercules and Perseus and Theseus

41:47

and Jason and Atlanta

41:49

and these you know, the heroic race.

41:52

And then the third one was the Trojan War with Achilles

41:55

and Helen and all that. And this

41:57

fourth one is the all Coming Home. Agamemnon

42:00

has to come home to be murdered, and Helen

42:02

and menelais her husband, have to

42:05

go home. I picture that voyage home

42:07

as had a lot of folded arms, and it

42:09

didn't try very hard to escape from Troy, did

42:11

you, darling? And then

42:13

of course the Odyssey, which is the main.

42:15

Story of it. Do you think the gods eight eight

42:18

they did?

42:19

And what did they drink?

42:20

The gods drank nectar nectar.

42:22

Nectar nectar, which is not quite the juice

42:24

of you know, the hollyhock

42:27

or the flower, but a sort

42:29

of honey and alcohol kind

42:31

of thing that was good for gods.

42:33

And they ate ambrosia. It

42:36

was called ambrosia. No

42:38

one's quite.

42:39

Sure what ambrosia was, but it

42:41

was. It was the food of the gods

42:43

rather than the drink of the gods. And

42:46

this is what an ambrosia kept their

42:48

blood in a silvery form.

42:50

The gods had silvery blood rather than red

42:52

or blue or green, and it was

42:54

called kor. And if

42:58

humans had or if

43:01

they tasted kora, it was on them it would

43:03

kill them straight away. So for

43:07

the gods, yeah, but it's

43:09

a nice that one

43:11

of one of the best words

43:13

in the English language language is petrich

43:15

or petrik or petric.

43:18

Petross is rock in Greek,

43:21

as in petrol and petrify

43:23

and all those things. Petroleum

43:26

and kore is that blood that's

43:29

strange, silvery liquid. And petricore

43:32

is the word for that smell

43:34

that rises up from the earth after

43:37

rain.

43:37

Which is not lovely.

43:38

That there's a word for it, and that's what it is,

43:41

this kind of holy, holy,

43:44

sacred smell rising.

43:45

Up from the earth, and that note

43:48

of smell and comfort we were talking.

43:50

I think I suppose we were talking a lot about

43:52

comfort that you derived from

43:55

your life in going to school

43:57

and needing comfort in sweets or going

44:00

up later, and the memories

44:02

of seeking comfort as well.

44:04

Before we go to lunch. What

44:06

would be a food that you would

44:08

go for comfort.

44:10

It's a small silvery

44:13

fish in a tin, not a

44:15

sardine, although I like sardine.

44:17

It's called skipper. You see

44:19

them in supermarkets.

44:21

At first you go, oh, there's obviously skip

44:23

jack, do you know, which is a different but

44:26

but skippers are little I don't know if there's another

44:29

name for them, but they are kind

44:31

of bonelets who you have them whole, and they're

44:33

sort of soften, spread on toast and

44:35

on toast.

44:36

They are absolutely.

44:40

Comfort.

44:41

I think I think my mother used to get them and that's

44:43

probably what it is. I mean, it's a terrible admission, isn't

44:45

it a terrible admssion.

44:47

Answer this question will say something

44:50

from their memory of sharing

44:52

their mother, their father, their grandmother,

44:55

the culture they came from. Thank

44:57

you, what a great question.

44:58

Pleasure, Thanks, thank you.

45:05

Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table

45:07

four in partnership with Montclair.

45:18

Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei

45:20

Studios for iHeartRadio.

45:22

It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers, and it's produced

45:24

by William Lensky.

45:26

This episode was edited by Julia Johnson

45:28

and mixed by Nigel Appleton.

45:30

Our executive producers are Fay Stewart

45:33

and Zad Rogers.

45:35

Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore,

45:37

and our production coordinator is Bella Cellini.

45:40

This episode had additional contributions

45:42

by Sean Wynn Owen.

45:44

Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe for

45:46

your help in making this episode.